Clarksville evening tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1890, 1890-03-10
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
would YOU LIKE TO LIVE YOUR
LIFE OVER AGAlNp'

That Ran Hath WIZ He Give for His
Life," Job ii, 4-Don't Look to the Past,
but Gaze Forward Into the Future.
BROOKLYN, March 9-The Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage. d. D., preached in the Academy of
Music, Brooklyn, this morning, TO an over
flowing congregation. After expounding APP
propriate passages of Scripture he announced
his subject to be: 'Would You Like to Live
Your Life Over AgainY' His text was Job
ii, A: "All that man hath will he give for
his life" He said:
That is untrue. The Lord did not say it, but
Satan said 1t to the Lord, when the evil one
wanted Job still more afflicted. The record
is: $50 went Satan forth from the presence
of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils {"
And Satan has been the author of all erup-
tive diseases since then, and he hopes by poi
soning the blood to poison the soul. But the
result of the diabolical experiment which
left Job victor proved the falsity of the Sa-
tanie remark: "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 throt-
tie valve or his foot on the brake until the
most Of the train was saved, while he went
down to death through the open drawbridge;
many fireman who plunged into a blazing
house to get sleeping child out sacrificing
his life in the attempt, and thousands of mar
tyrs who submitted to fiery stake and knife
of massacre and headsmans ak and guillo-
tine rather than surrender principle, have
proved that in many case my text was not
true, when it says: GAN that a man hath
will he give for his life."
But Satan's fasehood 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
medicines, all struggles in crisis Of accident.
An admiral of the British navy was court
martialed for turning his ship around in
time of danger and so Damaging 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 it was dam
aged; but do you want to know why | turned
itf There was a man overheard, and wanted
to save him, and / did save him, and | con-
slider the life Of one sailor worth all the yes
sells Of the British navy" No wonder he was
vindicated. Life is indeed very precious.
Yea, there are those who deem life so pre-
cious they would like to repeat it, they would
like to try it again. They would like to go
back from seventy 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 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 againl
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 blunders, said so many things
that ought not to have been said and done 80
many things that ought not to have been
done, that we can suggest at least ninety-fve
per cent. of Improvement. Now would it not
be grand if the good Lord would say to you:
"You can go back and try it over again. l
will by 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 TWEEN
tyrone years of age and just what you were
when you reached that point before" If the
proposition were made | think many tliou-
sands would accept it. That feeling caused
the ancient search for what was called
the Fountain of YOUTH the waters
of which taken would turn the hair
of the octOgenarian into the curly
locks of boy, and however old 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 Spanish explorer, Juan
Ponce do Leon, fellow voyager with Column
bus, | have no doubt felt that if he could
discover that Fountain of Youth he would
do as much as his friend had done in dscov-
ing America. So he put out in 1912 from
Porto Rico and crused 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 thou
sand dollars bottle, the demand would be
greater than the supply, and many man
who has come through life of uselesSneSs,
and perhaps SIM TO old age, would be shak-
ing up the potent liquid, and if he were di-
rected to take only a teaspOonful after each
meal would be so anxious to make sure
work he would take teaspoonful, and
il directed 10 take teaspoonful would
take gassful. 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 pe-
riod. Yea, in order TO got fair start some
would have to so back to the father and
mother 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
a hundred years ago WE'LL if your grand
father lived his life over again and your ia
Their lived his life over again and you lived
your life over again, what ClutCered up
place this world would be, place filed with
miserable attempts at repairs | begin 60
think that il is better for each generation to
have only one chanceand then for them to
pass off and give another generation a
chance.
Beside that, il we were permitted to live
life over again it would be stale and stupid
experience. The zest and spur and Ell
thusiasm 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, IA man in mid-life or old age,
were, with your present feelings aud large
attachments, put back into the thirties or the
twenties or into the teens, what a nuisance
YOU would be to others and what an unhappi-
ness to yourself Your contemporaries would
not want you and you would not want th1m,
ThingI snat in your previous journey of life
stirred your heathful amhiuous or gave you
surprise, or lei you into happy
would only call forth from you
a disguised "Oh, pshaw You would be
base at thirty and a misantarope AZ forty
and uncomfortable at fifty The most inane
and stupid thing imaginable would be a sec