Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1890-03-21
or Surely on such treacnerols sea as tnat
Ono Voyaua il AnOuuh

ono voyage is enough.
Besides all this, do you know il YOU could
have your wish and live life over again it
would put you ~ much further from reun-
ion with your friends in heavenI IL you are
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
emparudiSed loved ones. You are now let
us say, twenty years or ten years or one year
of from celestial con junction. 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 fve miles this side of it, and
then came back to Hoboken or Harlem to get
n 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 10 Sandy Hook In order
to make better voyage. The further
on you got in life, IL 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-hve revolutions in year and for
ward. rather than three hundred and
sixty five revolutions in year and back
ward. but hear ye! hear ye! while CciI
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
coming ten years worth the preced-
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 stultifes HIMSELF He
proves that if he could go back he would do
almost the same as he has done. IL man
eat green apples some Wednesday in cholera
time and is thrown into fearful cramps and
says on Thursday II wish had been more
prudent in my diet, Oh. IL | could live Wednes-
day over again, and then on Friday eats ap-
piles just as green. he proves that it would
have been no advantage for him to live
W ednesday over again. And il We, deplor-
ing onr past life and with the idea OF im.
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 q ship
captain strikes rock il the lake or sea he
reports il and buoy is swung over that reef
and marines henceforth stand off from
that rock. And all our mistakes
i'll the past ought 10 he buoys warning us to
keep in the right channel. There is no ex-
cuse for us II we split ON the same rock
where we split before Going along the
sidewalk at night where excavations are he-
ing made, we frequently see lantern on q
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 tn mid
life We ought to know where it is safe to walk
and where II 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 aud the world than in any
previous four decades. The bast way to
atone for past incidence or past transSres-
sion is by future assiduity. Yet you often
find Christian men who were not con-
verted until they were forty or fifty,
as old age comes on, saying: "Well,
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 10 rest
Whether that belongs to comedy or tragedy
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
AMI the other to rest, would not, | sup
pose, got a very brilliant reception in
heaven. II there are any dried leaves
IN heaven they would be appro-
pirate for his garland; or il there is any
throne with broken steps it would be appro-
pirate for his coronation, or any harp with
relaxed string it would be appropriate for
his lingering. My brother YOU give nine
tenths of your life TO sin and Satan and then
get converted and then rest awhile in sancti.
fled laziness and then 60 up to get your heav.
emily reward, ana warrant it. will not take
the cashier OF the royal banking house
great while tn count out to yuu all
your dues. He will not ask you whether YOU
will have it in bills Of large denomination or
small. would like 70 put one sentence Of
my sermon in italics, and have it unden
scored, and three exclamation points at tho
end OF tho sentence, and that sentence il
this: As we cannot live our lives over again,
the nearest We can come 70 atone for the pasi
Is by redoubled holiness and industry In tn,
future.