The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-03-27
THE RALMAGE SERMON.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE YOUR
LIFE OVER AGAIN?
Preached in the Academy of Music,
Brook!yn, New York.

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
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 man hath
will he give for his life" Many a
captain who has stood on the bridge Of
the steamer till his passengers got Oil
and he drowned; many an engineer VINO
has kept his hand on the throttle valve
ol his foot on 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
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'S AK and guillotine rather than
surrender principle, proving that IN many
case my text was not true, when 1t says:
All that man hath will he give for his
life.n
But Satan'S falsehood was built on truth.
Life is very precious, and if we would not
give No all there are many things we would
surrender rather than surrender 1t. We SEQ
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, ail waterproofS, all doctors all
medicines, all struggle in crisis of accident.
An admiral OF the British navy was court
7acrtialed for turning his ship around in time
Of danger and so damaging the ship. 1t was
proved against him. But when his time came
20 be heard he said: Gentlemen, l did turn
Ine ship around and admit that it was dam
eyed, but do you want to know why
rllrned it? There was a man over
ooard, and 1 wanted to save him, and
did save him, and l consider the life OF one
sailor worth all the vessels of the British
:,cvv." No wonder he was vindicated. Life
g indeed very precious. Yea, there are
1ncse who deem life so precious they would
ike to repeat it, they would like to try 1t
agcin. They would like to go back from
seventy to sixty, from sixty to fifty, from
!iftv to forty, from forty tc thirty, from
1hiTty to twenty. purpose for very prac-
neal and useful purposes, as will appear be-
..ore l get through, TO discuss the question
we have all asked of others and others have
again and agci2 asked Of us-would you like
20 live your life over cgain?
The fact is that no intelligent and right
earring man is satisfied with his past life. We
.lave all made so many mistakes, stumbled
into so many blunders, said so may things
that ought not to have been said and done so
many things that ought Ioo to have been
done, that we can suggest at least mnety-nVe
Der cent. of Improvement. Now would it
not be grand if tho good Lord would say to
7ou: sYou can go back and try it over
rSain. 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
he Joint and the rheumatic twinge from the
DOT, and you shall be twenty-one years of
age and just what you were when you
reached that point before" If the PROPOSE
Tion were made l 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
lay far out in the ocean. The great Span
ish explorer. Juan Ponce de Leon, fellow
voyager with Columbus, / nave 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 cnd cruised
about among the Bahamas in search of that
! fountain Il am glad he did not find it.
There is no SLcn fountain. But if there
were and its waters were bottled ur and sent
abroad at q thousand dollars bottle, the de
mand would be greater than the supply, and
many a man who has come through
life of uselessneSs, and perhaps sin, to
old age would be shaking up the -
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 glessful.
But some Of you would have to 60 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 a 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 a hundred years
ago. Well, If your grandfather
lived his life over again and your father
lived bis life over again ard you lived your
life over again, what cluttered up place
this world would be, a place filled with
miserable attempts at repairs. l 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, il would be stale and stupid
experience. The zest and spur and enthu-
siaSm Of life come from the fact that we have
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-life or old age, were,
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 want
them. Things that in 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 a disgusted "Oh, pshawm You
would be blase at thirty and a misanthrope
at forty and uncomfortable at fifty. The emoSt
inane and stupid thing imaginable would be
a second Journey Of life. 1t is amusing to
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 uninteresting boy you would
be with your present attainnentS in q chldS
mind No one would want SUCH boy around
the house: A philosopher at twenty, scien-
tist at fifteen, an orch9ologist Mt ten and q
domestic nuisance all the time. An oak
crowded into an acorn. A Rocky Mountain
eagle thrust back into the egg shell from
which it was hatched.
beSlueS UnaI, IL You toOk Ile over again,
you would have TO take its deep sadnesses
over again. Would you want to trv again
the gricfS 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 others
bad enough, but those old ones never again.
Would you want to go through the process
of losing your father again or your mother
again or your companion in life again or
your child again? If you We're permitted
to stop at the siItieth milestone or the
fifticth milestone or the fortictl mile
stone ard retrace your steps 10 tho