Dodge City times., 1888-06-21
RELIGION AND HEALTH.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on ReliG-
ions Good Effect on Health.
Christian Health Doctrtnes-Worry and
Troubles Not In Christian LivesAGod's
Ways Always Best-The Joys
of the Future.

In late sermon on the subject: s'Ece:
Religion Probing Life:' Dr.. Talmage took
his text from Psalms xci. IS: With long Lilo
will satisfy him" He s+id:
Through the mistake of its friends reli.
gion has besn chiefly associated with sick
beds and graveyards. The whole subjeci
to many people is odorous with chlor ne
and carbolic acid. There are people who
can not pronounce the word religion with.
out hearing it in the ch pping chisel Of the
tombstone cutter. 1t is high time that this
thing were changed and that re igion, in
stead of being represented as hearsc' to
carry out the dead, should be represented
as a chariot IN which the living are to
triumph. Religion. 50 tar from subtract
ing from ones vitality, is a glorious ad-
, dilion. 1t Is sanative, curative, hygienic. 1t
is good fer the eyes, good for the ears,
good for ne spleen, good for the digestion,
good for the nerves, good for the muscles.
When David, in another part of the
Psalms, prays that religion may be DOM
inant he does not speak of it as mild sick
ness, or an emaciat;on, or au attack Of
moral and spiritual cramp; he speaks Of it
as ''the saving health Of ali nations"
while God, in the text, promises longevity
to the pious saying: with long life will
] satisfy him"
The fact is that men and women die too
soon. Itis high time that religion joined
the hand of medical science in attempting
to improve human longevity. Adam lived
$50 years. MethUselah lived 969 years.
AS late in the history OF the world as YES
pasian, there were at one time in his en-
pire forty five people 1876 years old. So far
down as the sixteenth century, Peter Ear
tan died at lS5 years Of age. l do not say
that religion will ever take the race back
to antediluvian longevity, but do say the
length Of human lif,; will be greatly in
creased
1t is said in Isaiah: "The child shall die
q hundred years od." Now, if according
to scripture the child is to be hundred
years old, NAV not the men and women
reach to three hundred and four hundred
and five hundred: The fact is that we are
mere dwarfs and skeletons compared with
some Of the generations that are to come.
Take the African race. They have been
under bondage for centuries. Give them a
chance and they develop a Frederick
Douglass or Toussaint L'Ouverture. And
il the white race shall be brought from un-
der the serfdom of sin, what shall be the
body! what shall be the soul: Religion has
only just touched our world. Give it full
power for few centuries and who can tell
what will be the strength of man and the
beauty Of woman, and the longevity OF all!
My de'ign is to show that practical
religion is the friend cf long life. Iprove
1T, first, from the fact that it makes the
care OF Cur health positive Christian
duty. Whether we shall keep early or
late hours, whether we shall take food
digestible or indigestIble, whether there
shall be thorough or incomplete mastica-
tion, are questions often deferred to the
realm OF whimsicalty; but the Christian
man lifts this whole problem of health in-
TO the accountable and the divine. He
says: 'God has given me this body, and
He has called it the temple Of the Holy
Ghost, and to deface its affairs or mar its
walls or crumble its pillars Is a God-defy-
ing sacrilege."
He sees Gods caligraphy in every page
anatomical and physiological. He says:
'God has given me a wonderful body for
noble purposes.
That arm with thirty-two curious bones
welded by fortysix curious muscles and
all under the brains telegraphy; $50
pounds OF blood rushing through the heart
every hour the heart in twenty-four hours
beating 100000 times, during the twenty
four hours overcoming reSistances amount
ing to 224, OO0, 600 pounds Of weight, during
the same time the lungs taking in fifty
seven hogsheads OF air, and all this
mechanism not more mighty than delicate
and easily disturbed and demolished.
The Christian man says to hmself: IF
hurt my nerves, il hurt my brain, if l
hurt any of my physical faculties 1 insult
God and Gail for dire retribution" Why
did God tell the Levites not to offer to Him
In sacrifice animals imperfect and dis
eased! He meant to tell us in all ages
that we are to offer to God our very best
physical condition, and man who through
irregular o. gluitonous eating ruins his
health is, iot otfering to God such sac
rifice.
Why dO PAM write for his cloak at
Troas! Why should such great man as
Paul be anxious about thing so insignifi-
cant as an ovcrcoat. II was because he
knew that with pneumonia and rheuma-
tism he would not be worth half as much
to God and the Church as with respiration
easy and foot free.
-
slider it an absurdity to kneel down ut night
and pray and ask Gods protection while at
the same time he kept the windows of his
bedroom tight shut against fresh air. He
would just as soon think of going out on
the bridge between New York aud Brook
lyn, leaping OF and then praying to God TO
keep him from getting hurt. Just as long
as you defer this whole subject of physical
health fn tho n m NJ vvb
the pastry cook or to the butcher or to the
baker or to the apothecary or to the clothier
you are not acting like Christian. Take
care of all your physical iorces-nervous.
muscular, bone. brain, cellular. tissue-for
all you must be brought to judgment
Smoking your nervous system into
fdgets, burning out the coating OF your
stomach with wine logwooded and strych-
mined, walking with thin shoes to make
your feet LOOK delicate, pinched at the
waist until you are nigh cut in two. and
neither part worth any thing, groaning
about sick headache and palpitation OF the
heart, which you think came from God.
when they came from your own folly.
What right has any man or woman to
deface the temple Of the Holy Ghost!
What is the earl Why, it is the whisper.
log gallery of the human soul. What is
The eye! 1t is the observatory God con.
structed. its telescope sweeping the
heavens. What is the hand! An iustru-
ment 50 wonderful that when the Earl OF
Bridgewater beQueatned In his will S4O,O 900
for treatises to be written on the wisdom,
power aud goodness OF God Sir Charles
Bell, the great English anatomist aud sur
geon, found his greatest illustration in the
construction OF the human hand, devot:ny
his whole book to that subject.
So wonderful are these bodies that God
names His own attributes after different
parts Of them. His somniscience-it is Gods
uie l..