The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-03-20
TALMAGE'S SERMON,
Weekly Discourse OF the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.

TEXT: "AH that q man hath ,piH ne gfpe
for his life,"-Job. H., 4.
That is untrue The Lord did not say IT,
but Satan said it 10 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 snote 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 diabolical experiment which
left job victor proved the falsity of the
Satanic remark" All that a man hath
will he give for his life.n Many
captain who has stood on the bridge of
the steamer till his passengers got of
and he drowned; many AN engineer who
has kept his hand ON the throttle valve
or his foot 81 the brake until the most of the
train was saved while he went down to death
through the open drawbridge; many fire
man who plunged into blazing house to get
a sleeping child out, sacrificing his life in the
attempt and thousands Of martyrs who sub
mitted to fiery stake and knife of massacre
and headsman'sax and guillotiae rather than
surrender principle, proving that in many
case my text was not true, when it says:
IAN that a man hath will he give for his
life.n
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 prolongit. Hence all sanitary
regulations all study of hygiene, all fear OF
draughts, all waterproofs, all doctors, all
medicines, 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 damaging the ship. IL was
proved against him. But when his time came
- - L u. lN...N Ill ftt.,.
the ship around and admit that it was dam
aged, but do you want to know why |
turned it? There was a man over
board and I wanted to save him, and
l did save him, and consider the life of one
sailor worth all the vessels of the British
navy" No wonder he was indicated. Life
is indeed very precious. Yea, there are
those who deem life so precious 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 prac-
teal and useful purposes, as will! appear be-
fore 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 mads so many mistakes, stumbled
into so many bluuders, said so may things
| that ought not to have been said and done so
many things that ought not to have been
done, that we can suggest at least ninety-five
| per cent. of Improvement. Now would 1T
not be grand if the good Lord would say to
you: "You can go back and try it over
again | 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 twenty-one years of
| age and Just what you were when you
| reached that point before" If the PROPOSE
| ton 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 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
| Law far out in the ocean. The great Span
ish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, fellow
| voyager with Columbus, have no doubt
| felt that if he could discover that Fountain
| of Youth he would do as much as his friend
| had done in discovering 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 thousand dollars bottle, the de-
mand would be greater than the supply, and
many man who has come through a
life of uselessness and perhaps sin, to
old age would be shaking up the po-
tent liquid, and if he were directed to
take only teaspoonful after each meal
would be so anxious to make sure work he
would take tablespoonful, and if directed to
take tablespoonful would take glasSful
But some of you would have to go back
further than to twenty-one years of age to
make fair start for there are many who
manage to get all wrong before that period.
Yea in order to get fair start some would
have so go 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 infu-
ences which started hundred years
ago. Well, if your grandfather
lived his life over again and your father
lived his life over again and you lived your
life over again, what a cluttered up place
this world would be, place filled with
miserable attempts at repairs. begin to
think that it is better for each generation to
have only one chance and then for them
to pass off and give another generation
chance.
Beside that, if we were permitted to live
life over again, it would be stale and stupid
experience The zest and spur and enthu'
siasm of life come from the fact that we nave
never been along this road before. and every
thing is new, and we are alert for what may
appear at the next turn of the road. Sup
pose you, a man in mid-ilfe or Old age, We're,
with your present feelings and large attain
ments. put back into the thirties, or the
twenties, or into the teens, what a nuisance
YOU would be to others and what an unhap-
piness to Yourself Your contemporaries
would not want YOU and you would not wan
them. Things that Ill your previous Journey
of life stirred your healthful ambition, or
gave you pleasurable surprise, or led you into
happy interrogation, would only call forth
from you disguised "Oh, pshaw" You
would be blase at thirty and a misanthropt
at forty and uncomfortable at fifty. The mos
inane and stupid thing imaginable would bt
second journey of life. 1t is amusing tt
hear people say: would like to live my life
over again, if | could take my present ex
perience and knowledge of things back with
me and begin under those improved auspices:
Why what an embarrassing boy you wouit
be with your present attachments In a child
mind No one would want sucn boy arounc
the house A philosopher at twenty, scien
fist at fifteen, an arch4ooglst at ten ana 9
domestic nuisance all the time. An oat
crowded into an acorn. A Rocky Mountain
eagle thrust back into the egg 81 ell from
which it was Matched.
Besides that, if you took life over again
YOU would have to take its deep sadnesse'
over again. Would you want to try agar
the gr1efs and the heart BREAKS and the be
reavements through which you have gone
What mercy that we shall never be called
to suffer them again, We may have other:
bad enough, but those old ones never again
Would you want to go through the process
of losing your father again or your mothe
again or your companion in life again o.
your child again? If you were permittet
to stop at tne sixtietn milestone or tn
fiftieth milestone or the fortieth mile
stone and retrace your steps to tn
twentieth, your experience would b
something like mine one day last Novembe
in Italy walked through great city with
friend and two guides, and there were in al
the city only four persons and they were thos
Of our own group. We went up and dowr
the streets, We entered the houses, tn
museums. the temples. the theatres. We eS
amIned the wonderful pictures on the walls
and the most exquisite mosaic on the floor.
In the streets were the deep worn ruts of
wagons but not a wagon in the city. On