The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-03-20

PIKE anu retlre Dy tne tifilo ne was tnlrt1-HNo
years OF age, you do not hear from for many
years, and know nothing about him until
some day he comes into your store and asks
for five cents TO get mug of beer. You, the
good mother of household and all your
children rising up TO call you blessed can re-
member when you were quite jealous OF the
belle of the village who was SO transcendly
fair aud popular. But while you have these
two honorable and queenly names of wife and
mother, she became poor waif OF n. street,
and went into the blackneSs of darkness for
ever. Live life over again? Why, il many
OF those who are now respectable were
permitted to experiment. the next
journey would be demolition. You
got through, as Job says, by the skin of the
teeth. Next time you might not get through
at all. Satan would say: ~ know him now
better than did before, and have for fifty
years been studying his weaknesses and
will weave stronger web of circumstances to
catch him next time" And Satan would
concenter his forces ON this one man, and the
last state of that man would be worse than
the first. My friends, our faces are in the
right direction, Better go forward than
backward, even IL we had the choice The
greatest disaster l can think of would
lie for you to return to boyhood in 1890 Oh,
il life were smooth Luzerne or Cayuga Lake
l would like to get into a yacht and sail over
it, not once, but twice-yea, thousand
times. But life is an uncertain sea, and
some of the ships crash on the icebergs of
cold indifference, and some take fire of evil
passion, and some lose their bearings and run
into the skerries. and some are never heard
OF. Surely on such a treacnerous sea as rnat
one voyage is enough
Besides all this, do you know il you could
have your wish and live life over again it
would put you so much further from reun-
f,.,o l..
in the noon of life or the evening of life You
are not very far from the golden gate at
which you are to meet your transported and
emparadised loved ones. You are now, let
us say, twenty years or ten years or one year
off from celestial conjunction. Now suppose
you went back in your earthly life thirty
years or forty years or fifty years, what an
awful postponement of the time OF reunion
1t would be as though you were going to San
Francisco to great banquet, and you got to
Oakland, four or five miles this side of it, and
then came back to Hoboken or Harlem to get
a better start; as though you were going
to England to be crowned and having come
in sight of the mountains of Wales
you put back to Sandy Hook in order
to make a better voyage. The further
on you got in life, if a Christian, the
nearer you are to the renewal OF broken
up companionship. No; the wheel of
time turns in the right direction, and it is
well it turns so fast. Three hundred and
sixty-five revolutions in a year and for
ward, rather than three hundred and
sixty-fve revolutions in year and back
ward. But hear vel hear We, while cell
you how you may practically live your life
over again and be all the better for it. You
may put into the remaining years Of
your life all you have learned of wisdom
in your past life. You may make the
FOR, tha
ing forty or fifty years. When man says
he would like to live his life over again be-
cause he would do so much better, and yet
goes right on living as he has always lived,
do you not see he stultifies himself? He
proves that if he could go back he would do
almost the same as he has done. If man
eat green apples some Wednesday in cholera
time and is thrown into fearful cramps and
SAYS on Thursday: ~ wish / had been more
prudent in my diet, oh, if l could live Wednes-
day over again" and then on Friday eats APP
Piles just as green, he proves that it would
have been no advantage for him to live
Wednesday over again. And II we, depior-
ing onr past life and with the idea of inn
provement, long for an opportunity to try it
over again, yet go on making the same mis-
takes and committing the same sins, we only
demonstrate that the repetition of our exist
ence would afford no Improvement. 1t was
green apples before and it would be
green apples over again. As soon as ship
captain strikes rock in the lake or sea he
reports it and a buoy is swung over that reef
and marines henceforth stand off from
that rock. And all our mistakes
in the past ought to be buoys warning us to
keep in the right channel. There is no ex-
cuse for us il we split on the same rock
where we split before Going along the
sidewalk at night where excavations are be-
ing made we frequently see a lantern on a
framework, and we turn aside, for that ian
tern says, keep out of this hole. And all
along the pathway of life lanterns are set as
warnings, and by the time we come to mid
life we ought to know where it is safe to walk
and where it is unsafe.
Beside that. we have all these years been
learning how to be useful, and in the next
decade we ought to accomplish more for God
and the church and the world than In any
previous four decades. The best way to
atone for past incidence or past transgres-
sion is by future assiduity. Yet You often
find Christian men who were not con-
verified until they were forty or fifty,
as old age comes on, saying: "Weli,
my work is about done and it is time for me
to rest" They gave forty years of their life
to Satan and the world, little fragment OF
their life to God, and now they want to rest.
Whether that belongs to comedy or tragedy
l say not. The man who gave one half OF his
earthly existence to the world and of the re-
naming two-quarters one to Christian work
and the other to rest, would not, | sup
pose, get a very brilliant reception il
heaven. If there are any dried leaves
in heaven they would be appro-
pirate for his garland; or if there is any
throne with broken steps it would be appro
pirate for his coronation; or any harp witt
relaxed string it would be appropriate fol
his lingering, My brother you give nine
tenths Of your life to sin and Satan and thei
get converted and then rest awhile in sancti
fed laziness and then go up to get your heav
emily reward, ana | warrant it will not taxi
the cashier OF the royal banking hous
great while to count out to you al
| your dues He will not ask you whether yo'
will have it in bills of large denomination o
small. / would like to put one sentence o
my sermon in italics, and have it under
scored, and three exclamation points at tn
end of the sentence. and that sentence
| this: As we cannot live our lives over again
the nearest We can come to atone for the pas
is by redoubled holiness and industry in th
future.
(, II this rail train of life has been detained
and switched off and is far behind the time
table, the engineer for the rest OF the way
must put on more pressure of steam and go
| mile a minute in order to arrive at the
right time and place under the approval OF
conductor and directors
As supposed it would be, there are multi
| tudes of young people listening to this sermon
on whom this subject has acted with the
force of galvanic battery. Without my
saying word to them, they have soliloquized,
saying: "As one cannot live his life over
again, and can make only one trip, must
| look out and make no mistakes; have but
one chance and must make the most of it. +"
My young friends, l am glad you
made this application Of the SER
mon yourself. When min
lister toward the close of his sermon says:
Now few words by way Of application.
people begin to look around for their hats
and get their arm through one sleeve of their
overcoats, and the sermonic application is a
failure am glad you have made your own
application and that you are resolved. like q
Quaker Of whom read years ago, who, In
| substance. said: ~ shall be along
this path of life but once and so | must dc
all the kindness l can and all the good can.
Ny hearers, the mistakes Of youth can never
be corrected. Time gone is gone forever.
An opportunity passed the thousandth part
of second has by one leap reached the
other side of a great eternity. In the
autumn when the birds migrate you look w
and see the sky black with wings and tbs
fiocks stretching out into many leagues OF
air, and so to-day / look up and see two
' 1o,-ra vVipors in full swaap TleY ART