The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-03-27
school house. the old church, the old home

fact that YOU are here conclude that though
in many respects your life may have been
unfortunate and unconscerated you have got
on so far tolerably we'll, if nothing more than
tolerable. AS for myself, though my life has
been far from being as consecrated as
would like to have had it, J. would not want
to try it over again, lest next time / would do
worse. Why, Just look at the temptations we
have all passed through and just look at the
multitudeS who have gone completely under.
Just call over the roll of your school mates
and college mates, the clerks who were with
you in the same store or bank, or the opera
tiveS in the same factory with Just as good
prospects as you, who have come to complete
mishap. Some young man that told you
that he was going to be millionaire and
own the fastest trotters on Westchester turn
pike and retire by the time he was thirty five
wears 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 q 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 and popular. But while you have these
two honorable and queenly names of wife aud
mother, she became poor waif of the street,
and went into the blackneSS of darkness for
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 al. Satan would say: ~ know him now
better than did before, and have for fifty
years been studying his weaknesses, and l
will weave a stronger web OF circumstances to
catch him next time" And Satan would
foroac IN tIic oo mon opd tho
last state of that man would be worse than
the first. My friends, our faces are in the
right direction. Better 60 forward than
backward, even if we had the choice. The
greatest disaster I can think of would
be for you to return to boyhood in 1890. Oh,
il life were smooth Luzerne or Cayuga Lake,
I would like to get into yacht and sail over
it, not once, but twice-yea, a thousand
times. But life is an uncertain sea, and
some of the ships crash on the iceberss Ct
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 treacherous sea as that
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-
ion with your friends in heaven? If 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
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 all
awful pcStponement of the time of reunion!
1t would be as though you were going to San
Francisco to great banquet, and you got to
nolyl G,ya aY,,ila cir
then came back to Roboken or Harlem to get
better start; as though you were going
to England to be crowned and having come
in sight of the mountains Of Wales
lDnou put back to Sandy Hook in order
make better voyage. The further
6n 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
we'll it turns SO fast. Three hundred and
si1ty-ive revolutions in year and for
ward, rather than three hundred and
sixty-ive revolutions in year and back
ward. But hear ye! hear ye! while tell
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 stultiies himself? He
proves that if he could go back he would do
almost the same as he has done. If a. man
eat green apples some Wednesday in cholera
time and is thrown into fearful cramps and
saws on Thursday: 'I wish had been more
prudent in my diet; oh, if l could live Wednes-
day over again." and then on Friday eats ap-
pies Just as green, he proves that it would
have been no advantage for him to live
Wednesday over again. And If we, deplor-
ing onr past life and with the idea of I'M
provement, long for an opportunity to try 1t
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 ss> a ship
captain strikes rock in the lake or sea he
reports it and 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 eH-
cuse for us il we split on the same rock
whers We split before Going along the
Awalk at night where excavations are be
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 now to he useful, and in the next
decade we ought to accomplish moro 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-
vcrted until they wero 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 GGd and now they want to rest.
Whether thai belongs to comedy or tragedy
/ say not. The man who gave one'half of his
earthly ex .stence to the world and of the re-
manning ;wo-quarters one to Christian work
and the other to rest, would not, sup
pose, yet q very brilliant reception in
hea- ell. ii there are any dried leaves
p.'iate for his garland; or if there is any
hrone with broken steps it would b, appro-
pirate for his coronation; OF any harp with
relaxed string it would be appropriate Tor
his lingering. Ny 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 go up to get your heav-
emily reward, ana warrant it will not take
the cashier OF the royal banking house
great while to count out to you all
your dues He will not ask you whether you
will have it in bills of large denomination or
small. would like to put one sentence of
my sermon in italics md have it under
scored, and three exclamation points at tho
end Of the sentence, and fat sentence ia
this: AS we cannot live our lives over again,
the nearest NE can come to auone for the past
is by redoubled holiness and industry i'll tie
future.