The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-06-22

- ecidt to the Kansas City Times.
BROoKLYN, June 10.-At the Tabernacle Thu
morning, after expounding some passages O
Scripture in regard to the diet of Daniel anC
his abstemious habits, the Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage, d. D., gave out the hymn begin
ming:
| GLORY TO God on high,
| Let heaven and earth reply
He announced as the subject of his sermon
docs Religion Prolong Life9" and preached
from the text found in Psalm 81. V. 16: "Witt
long life will l satisfy him" Following is the
discourse in full:
Through the mistake of its friends religion
has been chiefly associated with sick beds and
graveyards. The whole subject to many PEG
pie Is Odorous with chlorine and car b0lic acid
There are people who cannot pronounce the
word religion without hearing in 1t the clip
ping chisel of the tombstone cutter. 1t is high
| time that this thing were changed and that
religion, instead of being represented as q
bearse to carry out the dead, should be rep
resented as a chariot in which the living are
to triumph.
| Religion, so far from subtracting from ones
vitalityis glorious addition. 1t is sanative,
curative, hygienic. 1t is good for the eyes,
good for the 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 dominant he does
not speak of it as mild Sickness or an ema-
| citation, or an attack of moral and
| spiritual cramp; he speaks of it as
1.-THE saving health of all nations -
while God, in the text, promises longevity TO
fho
satisfy him."
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 inn
prove human longevity. Adam lived nine
hundred and thirty years. Methuselah lived
nine hundred and sixty-nine years. AS late
III the history OF the world as NeSpasian,
there were at one time Ia his empire forty-five
people one hundred and thirty-fve years old.
so lar down as the sixteenth century, Peter
Tartan died at one hundred and eighty five
years of age do not say that religion will
ever take the race back to antediluvian lon
gevity, but do say the length of human life
will be greatly improved.
1t is said in Isaiah; 1.-The child shall die
hundred years Oid'' Now, If according to
Scripture the child is to be hundred years
Old may not the men and women reach to
three hundred aud four hundred and five hun
dreds The fact is that we are mere dwarfs
and skeletons compared with some of the
generations that are 10 come. Take the
African race. They have been under bondage
Tor centuries. Give them a chance and they
develop Frederick Douglass or a Toussaint
EOuverture. And If the white race shall be
brought from under The scrfdOm of SIM what
shall be the body! what shall be the soul?
Religion has only just touched our world.
Give 1t full power for few centuries and who
ian tell what will be the strength of man atfd
ne beauty OF woman, and the longevity of
lnl
My design is to show that practical religion
$ the friend of long life | prove It, first
rom the fact that it makes the care of
Sur health positive Christian duty
Whether we shall keep early or late
lours whether we shall take food digestble
D. indigestible, whether there shall be thor
ugh or incomplete masticatiOn, are ques-
ions very often deferred to the realm of
Vhimsicality; but the Christianman lifts this
whole problem of health into the accountable
nd the divine. He SAYS "God has given
pe this body, and He has called it the
emple OF the Holy Ghost, and 10 deface its
dtars or mar its walls or crumble its pillars
a God defying sacriege."
He sees Gods calgraphy in every page
anatomical and physiological lie SAYS: "God
has given me wonderful body for noble
purposes"
That arm with thirty-two curious bones
welded by forty-six curious muscles, and all
ander the brains telegraphy; three hundred
and fifty pounds of blood rushing through the
heart every hour, the heart in twenty-four
hours beating 100000 times, during the
twenty-four hours overcoming resisfauces
amounting to 224, Q 0,00O pounds of weight,
during the same time the lungs taking in
fftyseven hOgsheads of air, and all this
mechanism not more mighty than delicate
and easily disturbed and demolished.
The Christian man says TO himself: eff |
hurt nv nerves, if | hurt my brain, if hurt
any of my physical faculties insult God and
call for dire retributiOn." WHY did God Tell
The LcYites not to offer to H linn in sacrifice
animals imperfect and discascdi lie meant
TO tell us in all ages that we arc to offer to
GOd our very best physical condition. and a
man who through irregular or guttOnOus eat
ing ruins his health is not Offering to God
such sacrifice. Why did Paul write for his
cloak at Troasa Why should such a great
man as Paul be anxious about thing SO in
significant q an ovcrcOat! 1t was
because he knew that with pneumonia
and rheumatism he would not be worth
half as much to God and the Church as with
respiration easy and foot free.
An intelligent Christian man would consid-
er it an absurdity to kncel down at night and
pray and ask Gods protection while at the
same time he kept the windows of his bed
room tight shut against fresh air. lie would
lust as soon think of going out on the bridge
between New York and Brooklyn leaping off
and then praying to God to keep him from
getting hurt just as long rs YOU defer this
whole subject of physical health TO the realm
Of whimsicality or to the pastry cook or To
The butcher or 10 the baker or 10 til"
apothecary or to the clOthier, YOU are not act
NJ like a Christian. Take care of all your
physical forces-neryOus muscular, bone.
brain, cellular tisSue-lOr all YOU must be
brought 10 Judgment.
Smoking your nervous system into tidgets,
burning out the coating of your stomach with
vine logwoOded aud strvchnyned, walking
With thin shoes TO make your feet look deli
cate, plnchcd at the waist until YOU arc nigh
cut in two, and neither part worth anything,
gruanng about sick headache and palpitation
II the heart, which YOU think came from
GOD, hen they came from your own folly.
What right has any man or woman TO de-
face the temple of the HOLY Ghosts What Is
the earl Why it is the whispering gallery of
the human soul. What is the eves 1t Is the
Observatory God constructed, its telcsCo
sweeping the heavens What is the handl
Ap instrument SO wonderful that when the
Earl of Bridgewater bequeathed in his will
$40 600 for trea:ises to be written on the wis
tom, power and goodness Of God, Sir Charles
Fell, the great English anatomiSt and surgeon
found his greatest illustration in the
construction of the human hand de-
voting his whole book to that subject
So wonderful are these bodies that God
names his own attrihuteS after different rarts