Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-12-09
A SHORT sERMoN ON LONG LIFE.

The fact is that men and women die
too soon. 1t is high time that religion
joined the hand of medical science in
attempting to improve human longevity.
As early in the history of the world as
Nespasion there were at one time IS his
empire forty-hve people 130 years old. So
far down as the sixteenth century Peter
Zartin died at 1S5 years of age. | do
not say that religion will ever take the
race back TO antediluvian longevity, but
l do say that the length OF human life
might be greatly improved.
My design is to show you that practi-
cal religion is the friend of long life, and
| prove it first from the fact that it
makes the care of our physical health
a positive Christian duty. Wheth-
er . we shall keep early or late
hours: whether we shall take
food digestible or indigestible; whether
there shall be thorough or incomplete
mastication are questions very often re-
ferred to the realm of whimsicality: but
the Christian man lifts this whole prob
lem of health into 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 It's
pillars is a God-defying sacrllege. He
sees Gods caligraphy in every page, an
atomical and physiological. He says:
God has given me a wonderful body for
noble purposes That arm, with thirty
two curious bones, welded by forty-siX
curious muscles, and all under the brain
telegrapby; $50 pounds OF blood rushing
through the heart every hour; the heart
in twenty-four hours beating 100, 900
times; during the twenty-four hours
overcoming resistance amounting to
124, 900 pounds weight; during the
same time the lungs taking III
fifty-seven hogsheads of air: and all this
mechanism not more mighty than deli
cate. and easily disturbed ane demolish-
ed. The Christian man says to himself:
If hurt my nerves, if | hurt my brain,
if hurt any of my physical faculties, |
insult the laws of nature, and call for
dire retribution."
An intelligent Christian man would
consider it AN absurdity to kneel down at
night to pray and ask Gods protection,
while at the same time he kept the win
dows of his bed room tight shut against
fresh air. He would just as soon think
of going out on the bridge between New
York and Brooklyn and leaping off, and
then pray to God to keep him from get
ting hurt Just as long as you defer this
whole subject of physical health to the
realm of whimsicality, or to the pastry
cook. or to the butcher, or to the caker,
or to the apothecary, or the clothler, you
are not acting like a Christian. The care
of all our physical forces-nerves, muscle,
bone, brain, cellular tissue-for all you
must be brought to judgment. Smok-
ing your nervous system into tidgets;
burning out the coating of your stom-
ach with wine log-wooded 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 anything; grooming
about sick headache and palpitation OF
the heart, which you think come from
God, when it come from your own folly.
What right has any man or any woman
to defile the temple of the Holy Ghost. .
Again | remark that practical religion IS
friend to long life in the fact that 1t Is
a protest against the designations which
iniure and destroy health. Men and
women of bad habits live very short
life Their SINS kill them-Dr Talmage.