Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1892-01-14

ing, but their grandparents always had to
be pulled out of bed. 1t is wrong now to
play mischevious tricks ON the unsus-
pecting, but eighty years ago at
school that now venerable man sat
down on crooked pin not acciden-
tally placed there, and purposely
drove the sleigh riding party too near the
edge of the embankment that he might see
how they would look when tumbled into
the snow. And that man who has so little
patience with childish exuberance was in
olden times up to pranks, one-half of which
If practiced by the eight-year-old of to-day
would set grandfather and grandmother
crazy. Revive your remembrance of what
you were between five and ten years of age,
and with patience capable of everything
join with the young. Put back the shadow
of tho dial not ten degrees, but fifty and
sixty and seventy degrees.
Set back your clocks also by entering on
new and absorbing Christian work. In our
desire to inspire the young we have in our
essays had much to say about what has
been accomplished by the young; of
Romulus, who founded Rome when he was
twenty years of age of Cortes, who had
conquered Mexico at thirty years; of Pitt
who was prime minister of England at
twcnty-four years; of Raphael, who died at
thirty-seven years; of Calvin, who wrote
his INSTITUTES" at twonty-siX; of Melanc-
thon, who took learned professors chair
at twenty-one years; of Luther, who had
conquered Germany for the Reformation
by the time he was thirty-iive years. And
1t is all very well for US to show how carly
In life one can do very great things for God
and the welfare of the world, but some of
the mlghtlest work for God has been done
by septua&cnarians and octogcnarians and
nonaSenarlans. Indeed, there is work
which none but such can do. They pre-
serve the equipoise of senates, of religious
denominations, OF reformatory movements
Young men for action, old men for coun-
sci. Instead OF any of you beginning to
fold up your energies, arouse anew your
energies. With the experience you have
obtained and the opportunities of observa
ton you have had during a long life, you
ought to be able to do in one year now
more than you did in ten years right after
you had passed out of your teens. Physical
power less, your spiritual power ought to
be more Up to the last hour of their lives
what power for good Old DR.. Archibald
Alexander, old DR., Woods old DR.. Hawcs,
old DR.. Minor old DR.. McIlvaine, old Dr.
Tying, old DR.. Candlish, old Or. Chalmers!
What have been Bismarck to Germany,
and Gladstone to England, and Oliver
Wendell Holmes to America in the time of
an advanced age? Let me say to those in
the afternoon of life: Don't be putting off
the harness; when God wants it off he will
take it off. Don't be frightened out of
life by the grip as many are. At the first
snceze of an influenza many give up all as
lost. No new terror has come on the earth.
The microbes as the cause of disease were
described in the Talmud seventeen hun
dred years ago as ''invisible legions of dan
gerous ones" Don't be scared out of life
by all this talk about heart failure That
trouble has always been in the world.
That is what all the people that ever
passed out of this life have died of-heart
failure. Adam had it and all Of his de-
scendants have had it or will have it. DO
not be watching for symptoms, or you will
have symptoms of everything. Some of
You will yet die of symptoms Symptoms
are often only what we sometimes soc in
the country-a dead owl nailed on barn
door to scare living owls. Put your trust
IN God, go to bed at ten O'Clock, have the
window open SIX inches to let in the fresh
ar. sleep Cd your right SIDE and fear moth
ing. The Oh maxim was right, Get thy
spindle ana ustaH ready, and God Will
sehu lhe max
I SEE THE SHADOW MOVE"
Bat while looking at this sundial Of
Ahaz ana see the shadow OF it move, no
tlce luat IL went back toward the sunrise
instead OF forward toward the sunSet-to-
ward the morning instead Of toward the
night. That thing the world is willing
now to do, and in many cases has done.
There have great many things been writ
ten and spoken about the sunset of life. !
have said some of them myself. But my
text suggests better idea, The Lord VINO
turned back that day from going toward
shutdown and started it toward sunrise is
willing to do the same thing for all of us.
The theolOgians who stick to old religious
technlcaiities until they become soporifics
would not call it anything but conversion.
! call it a change from going toward sun
down to going toward sunrise. That man
who never tries to unbuckle the clasp OF
evil habit and who keeps all the sins of the
past and the present freiohtinr him and
who ignores the one redemption made by
the only one who could redeem. if that man
will examine the sundial he will find that
the shadow il going forward and he i, on
the way to SHUTDOWN. His dav is on the