The southern argus., 1891-10-08


occasions as did the former doctors. In
those times. if a man had fever they
bled him, If he had consumption they
bled him, if he had rheumatism they
bled him, and if they could not make
out exactly what was the matter they
bled him. Olden time phlebotomt
was deaths coadjutor. All this has
changed. From the way I see peo-
pie skipping about at eighty years of
age, conclude that life insurance COM
panies will have to change their table
of risks and charge a man no more pre-
MUM at seventy than they used to do
when he was sixty, and no more pre-
MUM at fifty than when he was forty.
BY the advancement of medical science
and the wider acquaintance with the
laws of health, and the fact that people
know better how to take care of them
selves, human life is prolonged. But
do you realize what, after all, is the
brevity of our earthly state? In the
times when people lived seven hundred
and eight hundred years, the patriarch
Jacob said his years were few. Look
ing at the life of the youngest person
in this assembly and supposing he lived
to be nonagenarian, how short the
time and soon gone, while banked up
in front of us is an eternity so vast
that arithmetic has not figures
enough to express it's length. or
breadth, or depth, or height For
happy eternity you were born unless
you run yourself against the divine in
tentions If standing in your presence,
my eye should fall upon the feeblest
soul here as that soul will appear when
the world let's it up and Heaven en-
frances it, suppose that I should be
SO overpowered that l should drop
down as one dead. You have examined
the family Bible and explored the
family records and you may have da-
guerrotypes of some of the kindred of
previous generations, you have had
photographs taken of what you were
in boyhood or girlhood, and what you
were ten years later, and it Is very in
teresting to anyone to be able to look
back upon pictures of what he was ten,
or twenty or thirty years ago; but have
you ever had a picture taken Of what
you may be and what you will be il
you seek after God and feel the Spirits
power?
There is your soul, so pure that all
the forces of diabolism could not spot
it with an imperfection. There is your
being, so mighty and so swift that
flight from Heaven to Mercury or Mars
or Jupiter and back again to Heaven
would not weary you, and a world on
each shoulder would not crush you. An
eye that shall never shed tear. An
energy that shall never feel a fatigue.
A brow that shall never throb with
pain. You are young again, though
you died of decrepitude. You are well
again, though you coughed or shivered
yourself into the tomb. Your every
day associates are the apostles and
prophets and martyrs, and most exalt-
ed souls, masculine and feminine,
of all the centuries. The arch
angel to you no embarrassment. God
your present and everlasting
Joy. That is an instantaneous picture
of what you may be, and what | am
sure some of you will be- If you re-
alize that it is an imperfect picture, my
apology is what the apostle John said:
at doth not yet appear what we shall
be-" ITO this end was born" If |
did not think so I would be over
whelmed with melancholy.
The world does very we'll for a little
while, eighty, or 100 or $50 years, and |
think that human longevity may yet be
up to that prolongation, for
now there is so little room between
complish much, but who would want
to dwell in this world for all eternityl
Some think this earth will finally be
turned into a Heaven. Perhaps it
may, but it would have to undergo
radical repairs and thorough elimina-
tons and evolutions, and revolutions
and transformations infinite, to make
1t desirable for eternal residence.
ITO this end was | born" If each
one of US could say that we would go
with faces shining and hopes exhilar-
ant amid earth's worst misfortunes and
trials. Only little while and then the
rapture. Only little while and then
the reunion. Only a little while and
Their the TRANSPORTATION.
In the seventeenth century all Europe
was threatened with wave of Asiatic
barbarism and Vienna was especially
besieged The king and his court had
fled and nothing could save the city
from being overwhelmed unless the
king of Poland. John Sobieski to whom
they had sent for help, should with his
army come down for the relief, and
from every roof and tower the inhab-
itants of Vienna watched and waited
and hoped. Until on the morning of
Sc ptember II the rising sun threw an
unusual and unparalleled brilliancy.
1t was the reflection on the swords and
shields and helmets OF john Sobieski
and his army coming down over the
hills TO the rescue, and that day, not
only Vienna, but Europe was saved
And see you not we souls, besieged
with sin and sorrow, that light breaks
in, the swords and the shields and the
helmets of divine rescue bathed in the
rising sun Of heavenly de!iverance?
Let everything else 60 rather than let
Heaven 90. What a strange thing II