Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-07-07
REV DR.. TALMAGE.
TIE BRCOLLYN DIvINE's SUNDAY
SERMON.

4
him. Psalms xci., 16
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
acd There are people who cannot pro
nounce the word relig on without hearing in
it the clipping chisel of the tombstone cut
ter. 1t is high tims that this thing were
changed and that religion, instead of being
represented as a hearse to carry out the dead,
should be represt nted as a chariot in wiki n
the living are to triumph.
Religion, SO far from subtracting from
ones vitality, is glorious addition 1t is
sanative, curative. hygenic. 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-.
lgion may be dominant he does not speak OF
it 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 l 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 i'm
prove human longevity. Adam lived nine
hundred and thirty years. Methuselah lived
nine hundred and sixty-nine years. As late
in the history Of the world as Vespasian
there were at one time in his empire forty
hyepeople 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. do not say that religion
will ever take the race back to ante diIuvian
longevity, but do say the length of human
life will be greatly improved
it is said in Isaiah: '',rhe child shall die a
hundred years old" 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 a chance and
they develop Fred rick Douglass or a Tous-
saint L0uverture. And if the white race
shall be brought from under the serfdom of
sin, what shall lie 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 design is to show that practical re-
ligion is the friend-of long life. l prove it,
first. from the fact that it makes the care of
our health positive Christian duty.
Whether we shall keep early Or late hours,
whether we shall take food digestIble or in
digestible, whether there shall be thorough or
incomplete mastlcation, are questions very
often deferred to the realms of whimsicality:
but the Christian man lifts this whole
problem of health into the accountable and
the divine He says: 'God has given me
this boiy, and He has called it the Temple of
the Holy Ghost, and to deface its affairs or
marits walls or crumble its pillars is Col
defying sacrilege"
He sees God 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,
OOO times, during the twenty four hours
overcoming resistances amounting to 234.-
OO3,OOO 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, il / hurt
any Of my physical faculties insult God and
call for dire retributionn Why did God tell
the Levites not to offer 10 him in sacrifice
animals imTerfe,t and diseased lie 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
cloak at Troas9 Why should such a great
man rs Paul be anxious about thing SO in
significant as an oyercoat! 1t was because
he knew that with pneumonia and rheuma-
tism he would not be worth half as much to
Col 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 Coils protection while at
the same time he kept the windows of his
Red 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 to
the realm Of whimsicality or to the pastry
cock or to the butcher or to the baker or to
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 must
he 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 look
delicate pinched at the waist until YOU are
wei nigh cut in two and neither part worth
unything, groaning about SIGH headache and
palpItatlon OF the heart, which You think
own folly
!. hat right has any man or woman TO de
face the temple Of the Holy Ghosts What il
the ear! Why, it is the Whispering gallery
OF the human soul What is The eyef IL L
t5e observatory God constructed. its tee
seops sweeping the heavens What is the
hand. An instrument so wonderful that
when ths Earl OF Bridgewater bedue thed in
bis VIII 00J0 for treatises to be written on
the VISION, power and goodness OF God,
Sr Charles Bell. the great English anato-
must and surgeon, found his greatest illus
iratlon ~ the construction OF the human
hanl, deyotins his whole book TO that sub
leet 40 wonderful are these bodies that
Ood imes his own attributes after different
paris Of them. His omniscience-it Il Coils
eve Ills omnpressnc3--it is God 8 ear His
onnip tance-it is Coils arm Tho uphol-
stay OF the midnight heavens lit is the work
OF ds fingers His life giving powsr-it
IS tiii breath Of the Almighty. HIS do
MN on--.the government shall be upon his
shoulder" A body so divinely honored and
- disine'y constructed, let US be careful not
10 al'rss il,
When IL becomes Christian duty TO take
care Of our health. Is not the whoIe tendency
toward sDngeyityf II toss my watch about
reekles'ly and dropit ON the pavement and
WIND y up any time OF day or night hap
pen TO think OF u, and often let it run down.
while yon are careful with your watch and
NJ er abuse it and wind u up Just at the
sane hour every night aud f,ut IN a place
W1aFe IL will fsnf go r.. f.....