Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-06-22
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly DiscOursss of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: s'DOes Religion Pro-
long Life"

HtHL - sdlIns 1cl.t 10.
Through the mistake Of its friends religion
has been chiefly associated with sick beds and
graveyards The whole subject to many
people is odorous with chlorine and carbolic
acid. There are people who cannot pro
nounce the word religion without hearing in
IL the clipping chisel of the tombstone cut
ter. 1t is high time that this thing were
changed and that religion, instead OF being
represented as hearse to carry out the dead,
should be represented as a chariot in which
the living are to triumph.
Religion, so far from subtracting from
ones vitality, is a glorious addition. 1t is
sanative, curative, hygienic. 1t is good for
the eyes, good for the ears, 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 re-
hgion may be dominant he does not speak Of
1t as mild sickness, or an emaciation or an
attack Of moral and spiritual cramp; he
speaks of it as 'the saving health of all ma
tions;" 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. 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
i'll the history of the world as Vespasian,
five people one hundred and thirty-five years
old. So far down as the Sixteenth century,
Peter Tartan died at one hundred and eighty
five years of age. l do not say that religion
will ever take the race back to ante diluvian
longevity, but do say the length of human
life will be greatly improved
1t is said in Isaiah: "The child shall die a
hundred years old.n Now, if according to
Scripture the child is to be hundred years
old, may 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 bond
age for centuries. Give them chance and
they develop Frederick Douglass or a Tous-
saint LOuverture. And if the white race
shall be brought from under the serfdom of
sin, what shall be the body3 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 design is to show that practical re-
igion is the friend of long life. | prove it,
first, from the fact that it makes the care of
our health O positive Christian duty.
Whether we shall keep early or late hours,
whether we shall take food digest!ble or in
digestible, whether there shall be thorough or
incomplete mastication, are questions very
often deferred to the realms of whimsicalitv !;
but the Christian man lifts this whole
problem 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 its pillars is a God
defying sacrilege."
He sees God s caligraphy in every page
anatomical and physiological. He 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
under the brains telegraphy; $50 pounds of
blood rushing through the heart every hour,
the heart in twenty four hours beating 100,
600 times, during the twenty-four hours
overcoming resiStances amounting to 234,-
100000 pounds of weight, during the same
time the lungs taking in fifty-seven hogs
heads of air. and all this mechanism not
more mighty than delicate and easily dis
turbed and demolished.
The Christian man says to himself: eff
hurt my nerves, if hurt my brain, if l hurt
any of my physical faculties insult God and
call for dire retribution" Why did God tell
the Levites not to offer to him in sacrifice
animals imperfect and diseasedl He meant
to tell us in all the ages that we are to offer
to God our very best physical condition, and
man who through irregular or gluttonous
eating ruins his health is not Offering to God
such a sacrifice. Why did Paul write for his
cloak at Troas? Why should such a great
man as Paul be anxious about thing so in
significant as an overcoat? 1t 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.
An intelligent Christian man would con-
slider it an absurdity to kneel 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. He
would just 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 as you
defer this whole subject of physical health tc
the realm of whimscality or to the pastry
cook or to the butcher or to the baker or tc
the apothecary or to the clothier, you are not
acting like a Christian. Take care of all
your physical forces nervous muscular,
bone, brain cellular tissue-for all you mus
be brought to Judgment.
Smoking your nervous system into fidgets
burning out the coating of your stomach
with wine logwooded and strychnined, walk
ing with thin shoes to make your feet lool
delicate, pinched at the waist until you arr
well nigh cut in two, and neither part worth
anything, groanng about SIGH headache an
palp1tation of the heart, which you thin
came from God, when they came from you
own folly
What right has any man or woman to de
face the temple of the Holy Ghost! What i
the ears Why, it il the whispering CALLER,
of the human soul. What is the eye! 1t |
the observatory God constructed, it's tele
scope sweeping the heavens. What is tn
hand3 An instrument so wonderful tina
when the Earl of Bridgewater bequeathed il
his will $40 1000 for treatises to be written OF
Ine wisdom, power and goodness of God
Sir Charles Bell, the great English anato
mist and surgeon, found his greatest illus
tratlon in the construction of the human
hand, devoting his whole book to that sub
lect. so wonderful are these bodies thai
God names his own attributes after differen
parts OF them. His omniscience-it is GodA
eye. His omnipresence-iti is Gods ear. Hi
omnlpotence-it is Gods arm. The uphol
stery of the midnight heavens-it is the worl
OF Gods fingers. His life giving power-i
is the breath Of the Almighty. His do
minion-"the government shall be upon hi
shoulder" A body SO divinely honored and
SO diVinely constructed, let us be careful no
to abuse it.
When it becomes Christian duty to TAX,
care of our health, is not the whole tendency
toward longevity? Ii toss my watch abou
recklessly and drop it on The pavement anc
wind 1t up any time Of day or night | hap
pen to think Of it, and often let it run down
while you are careful with your watch anC
never abuse it and wind it up Just at tn,
same hour every night and put in place
:" not suffer from the violent
changes of atmosphere, which watch will las
the longer9 Common sense answers. Now
the human body is Gods watch. You Sc,
the hands Of the watch, you see the face o.
the watch, but the beating of the heart il
the ticking of the watch. Oh, be careful
and do not let it run down!
Again, remark that practical religion i,
friend OF longevity in the fact that it is O
protest against designations which injure and
destroy the health. Bad men and womer
live very short life Their sins kill them
know hundreds of good old men, but d.
not know half dozen bad old men. Why
They do not get old. Lord Byron died al