Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1888-06-11
TABERNACLE SERVICES.
REV. T. DE WITT TAlMAGE'S SUM-
DAY MORNING DISCOURSE.


Antediluvian Longevity. but VIII Greatly
Lengthen Our Lives.
BROOKLYN, June lG.-At the Tabernacle
this morning, after expounding some pas
sages of Scripture in regard to the diet of
Daniel and his abstemious habits, the Rev.
7. De Witt Talmage, D. D., gave out the
hymn beginning:
Glory to God on high,
Let heaven and earth reply
He announced as the subject of his sermon:
"Does Religion Prolong LITER and preached
from the text found in Ps. xci, l6: with
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
people is odorous with chlorine and carbolic
acid. There are people who cannot pro-
nounce the word religion without hearing in
it the clipping chisel of the tombstone cutter.
1t is high time that this thing were changed
and that religion, instead of being repre-
sented as a hearse to carry out the dead,
should be represented as chariot in which
the living are to triumph.
Religion, so far from subtracting from
ones vitality, is 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-
ligion may be dominant he does not speak Of
it as a mild sickness, or an emaciation, or an
attack of moral and spiritual cramp; he
speaks of it as "the saving health of all ma
tious;' 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 treligion 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
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 / do not say that
religion will ever take the race back to ante
diluvian longevity, but l 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
hundredi 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 L'Ouverture. And if the white race
shall be brought from under the serfdom of
sin, what shall be the bodyi What shall be
the soull 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 alli
Ny 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 indi-
gestible, whether there shall be thorough or
incomplete mastication, are questions very
often deferred to the realm 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 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 God
defying sacrilege"
He secs Gods cal;gr.nbv In avary ,oca
anatomical and nbvsioloc;cal Ha savs.
s.Gnd has piven me a wondarf,I hod,, Sor
noble purposesr y
That arm with ,h;rtv-tvo crr;o,,s horas
wie,ded nv fortv-s;x c,,r;ops muscles and sIl
under the brains teleoranbv. S,o mounds of
blood rushing through tbe heart every bonr
the heart in twenty-fopr bonrs boating Ino
600 times. during the twentv-four hours
overcoming resistances amounting tn oo4
ooo ooo Mounds of wa;,bt d,,r;no th. so,,,
time the limos TAKING in fiftv-saven bocs-
heads of air, and ali this mechanism no.
more MIGHTY tba, delicate ami aas;lv d;s.
tnrhed end demolished
Tho Christian man saws to b;rse,f. ..I,
hurt INV nerves II hurt nr brain II hurt
,r, ~ NV ,,,,ys;col t,c-,I,;as ;rs,,l, ca a,,s
c,i1 for dire re.r-;but;op ~ Wby ala Ga ,aIl
t,e J<,ri,... NOT 40 ,f,or 10 h;,, =, s.cr;t,o.
animal, imperfect and dis.ssed, He meant
10 t.sll ma I'm nlI the apes that we are N offer
70 Cod our very best nbvs;cai cond;t;o, and
a man vino ti,ro,,gb irr,.o,,Iar or glnttorons
o,tincy rr,i,a his bea,.b "a No, of,-,o- -, ca
s,,.b = s.cr;scs Wbv Ala pa,,l -. Co.. IL
cIool- n. Troes, WIN sborld snct 200,
,,,r oa ps,I IL, ,n,;o,s obo,,t a th;rc- % n
s;gn,f;c.nt os on overcoata n w.s bac.nsa
be knev tho, with ,,nsumor;a .nd ,nan,,,.
.ic,n he would NOT ta 18TH ha,f "a ,,,,,o,, ~,
CD onc tho CHURCH cs With rssn;ration ~ sosv
I'D foot frae
An ;ntelliro,s cl,r;stian ma, uou,d con.