Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-03-10
DIR. TALMAGES DISCOURSE.
AL THAT A MAN HATH WILL HE
GIVE FOR HIS LIFE" THE TEXT.

"A Sermon Tor the People Who Would Like
to Live Their Lives Over Aagain-False
Reason N: which Could but Result in
Disappointment.
BROOKLYN, March 9.-The Rev. T.
D. Witt Talmage, D. D., preached in
the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, this
morning. to an Overlooking congrega-
ton. After expounding appropriate
passages of Scripture he announced
his subject to be: would You Like
text was 100 ii, 4: 'All that man
hath will lie give for his life" He said:
That Is untrue The Lord did not
say it, but Satan said it to the Lord,
when the evil one wanted Job still
more afflicted. The record is: so went
Satan forth from the presence of the
Lord and smote Job with sore bOils." "
And Satan has been the author of all
eruptive disease since then, and he
hopes by poisoning the blood to poison
the soul. But the result of the diabOll-
cal experiment which left Job victor
proved the falsity of the Satanic re
mGrk-''All that a man hath will he
give for his life" Many captain
who has stood on the bridge Of the
steamer till his passengers got off and
he drowned; many an engineer who
has kept his hand on the throttle valve
or his foot on the brake until the most
Of the train was saved while he went
down to death through the open draw
bridge; many d fireman who plunged
into Il blazing house to get a sleeping
child out, sacrificing his life in the at
tempt, and thousands of martyrs who
submitted to fiery stake and knife of
massacre and headsman's ak and gull
lotine rather than surrender principle,
proving that in many a case my text
was not true, when it says: ''All that
a man hath will he give for his life"
But Satan's falsehOod was built on a
truth Life is very precious, and
if we would not give up all there are
many things we would surrender
rather than surrender it. We see how
precious life is from the fact that we
do everything to prolong it. Hence
all sanitary regulations, all study OF
hygiene. all fear of draughts, all
waterproofs, all doctors, all medi-
cines, all struggle IN crisis Of accident.
An admiral Of the British navy was
court martialed for turning his ship
around in time OF danger and so dam
aging the ship. 1t was proved against
him. But when his time came to be
heard he said: "Gentlemen, did turn
the ship around and admit that it was
damaged, but do you want know why |
turned it! There was a man over
board, and | wanted to save him, and
[ did save him, and | consider the life
of one sailor worth all the vessels of
the British navy" No wonder he was
'vindicated. Life is indeed very pre-
ciOus. Yea, there are those who deem
life 50 precious they would like to re-
peat it, they would like to try it again.
They would like to go back from sew
enty to sixty, from sixty to fifty, from
fifty to forty, from forty to thirty,
from thirty to twenty. purpose for
very practical and useful purposes, as
will appear before l get through, to
discuss the question we have all asked
of others, and others have again and
again asked of us-would you like to
live your life over again?
The fact IS that no intelligent and
right fearing man is satisfied with his
past life. We have all made SO many
mistakes, stumbled into so many blum
iers, said so many things that ought
not have been said and done so
many things that ought not to have
been done, that we can suggest at least
ninety-hve per cent. of Improvement.
Now would it not be grand if the good
Lord would say to you: You can go
back and try 1t over again. [ will by
u word turn YOUR hair to brown or
black or golden, and smooth all the
wrinkles out of your temple and
cheek, and take the bend out of your
shoulders, and eXtirpate the stiffness
from the joint and the rheumatic
tWinge from the foot and you shall be
twenty years OF age and just what
you were when you reached that point
before" If the proposition were made
| think many thousands would accept
it. That feeling caused the ancient
search for what was called the FOUn-
tain Of Youth, the waters of which
taken would turn the hair of the OctO-
@enarian into the curly locks of a boy,
and however old a person who drank
at that fountain he would be young
again. The island was said to belong
to the group of the Bahamas but lay
far out in the ocean. The great Span
ish explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon,
fellow voyager with Columbus, l have
no doubt felt that if he could discover
that Fountain Of Youth he would do
as much as his friend had done in dis
covering America. So he put out in
1912 from Porto Rico and cruised
about among the Bahamas in search Of
that fountain. | am glad he did not
find it. There IS no such fountain.
But if there were and its waters were
bottled up and sent abroad at a thou
sand dollars a bottle. the demand
would be greater than the supply, and
many a man who has come through a
e -r;,, to
old age would be shaking up the pO-
tent liquid, and if he We're directed to
take only a teaspoOnful after each
meal would be so anxious to make
sure work he would take q tablespoon
full, and if directed to take a table
spoonful would take glassful. But
some Of you would have to go back
further than to tWenty-One years
OF age to make a fair start,
for there are many who manage to get
all wrong before that period Yea, in
order to get a fair start some would
have to go back to the father and mo-
ther and get them corrected; yea, to
the grandfather and grandmother and
have their life corrected, for some Of
YOU are suffering from bad hereditary
influences which started q hundred
years ago. Well, if your grandfather
lived ms life over again and your IA
Their lived his life over again and you
lived your life over again, what a
cluttered up place this world would
be. a placed filled with miserable at
tempts at repairs. l begin to think
}s;,t it is better for each generation to
have only one chance and then for
them to pass off and give another gen
Grafton a chance.
Beside that, if we were permitted to
live life over again, it would be a stale
and stupid experience. The zest and
spur and enthusiasm of life come from
the fact that we have never been along
this road before, and everything is
new, and we are alert for what may
appear at the next turn of the road:
Suppose you. man in mid-life or old
age, were, with your present feelings
and large attachments, put back into
the thirties, or the twenties, or into
the teens, what nuisance you would
be to others and what an unhapplness
to yourself Your contemporaries
would not want you and you would
not want them. Things that IN your
OreviO11S Journey of life stirred YOUR