Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1892-01-07
ON TINE NEW YEAR.
DR.. TALtiAaE breaches A SERMON
ABOUT 1892


tho Talented Preacher.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 3.-This morning the
Tabernacle congregation, meeting for the
first Sunday service Of the new year found
the pastor disposed to serious reflections
on the flight of time. The opening hymn
gave the keynote in the familiar words;
NJ, days are gliding swiftly BY,
And |. pilgrim stranger,
Would not detein them as they fly,
Those hours OF toll and danger.
DR.. Talmage read several passages relat-
ing to antediluvan longevity, making char
acteristic comments az he read, and then
preached from the ominous words, Jere-
miah xviii, Is, This year thou shalt
die"
jeremiah, accustomed to saying bold
things, addressed Hananiah in these words.
They proved true. In sixty days Hananiah
had departed this life.
This is the first Sabbath of the year. 1t
is time for review and for anticipation.
A man must be Il genius at stupidity who
does not think now The old year died in
giving birth to the new, as the life of Jane
Seymour the English queen, departed
when that of her son, Edward VI, dawned.
The old year was queen. The new shall
be king. The grave of the one and the
cradle of the other are side by side We
can hardly guess what the child will be
1t is only two days old, but | prophesy for
it an evcnttul future Year of mrth and
madnessl Year of pageant and conlagra-
ton! 1t will laugh; it will sing; it will
grOan, 1t will die
Is it not "A time for earnest thought? The
congratulations have been given. The
Christmas trees have been taken down or
II
friends who came for the holidays are gone
in the rail train. While we are looking
forward to another twelve months of in
tense activities the text breaks upon us
like bursting thunderhead, This year
thou shalt del''
TRUE OF SOME OF U.s.
The text will probably prove true of
some of us. The probability is augmented
by the fact that all of us who are over
thirty five years of age have gone beyond
the average of human life. The note is
more than due, 1t is only by sufferance
that it is not collected. We are like Il
debtor who is taking the three days
grace Of the banks. Our race started
with nine hundred years fora lifetime We
read o! but one antediluvian youth whose
early death disappointed the hopes of his
parents by his dyu., at seven hundred and
eveuty-spvcn years of age. The world then
may have been ahead of what it is now,
for men had SO long Il time in which to
study and invent and plan
If an artist or Il philosopher has forty
years for work, he makes great achieve
ments. but what must the artists and
philosophers nave done who had nine
hundred years before them, In the nearly
two thousand years before the flood, con-
.,1,. l.,
there may have been nearly as many peo
pie MS there are now. The flood was not
ireshet, that washed IA few people Off a
plank, but disaster that may have swept
away "A thousand million. If the Atlantic
ocean by lurch Of the earth tonight
should drown this hemisphere and the Pa
rlic ocean by Il sudden lurch of the earth
should drown the other hemisphere, leav-
ing about u, many beings as could be got
in one or two ocean steamers, it would give
you an idea of what the ancient flood was
At that time God started the race with
a shorter allowance of life. The nine hum
dred years were hewn down until, in the
time of Nespasian, "a census was taken and
only one hundred and twenty-four persons
We're found one hundred years old and three
or four persons one hundred and forty years
old. Now man who has come to one hun
dred years OF age ia curiosity, and we go
miles to see him. The vast majority of the
race passes off before twenty years. Toevery
apple there are five blossoms that never get
to he apples In the country church the
sexton rings the bell rapidly until almost
through and then tolls it, For awhile the
bell of our life rings right merrly, but with
some Of you the bell has begun TO toll, and
the adaptedness of the text to you is more
and more probable, This year thou shalt
die"
OCCUPATION AND CLIMATE DRIVE Us on.
The character of our occupations adds to
the probability Those who are in the pro
LESSONS arc undergoing "A sapping of the
brain and nerve foundations. Literary
men in this country are driven with whip
md spur to their topmost speed. Not one
brain worker ont of Il hundred observes
any moderation. There is something so
stimulating in our climate that if John
Brown. the essayiSt oi Edinburgh, had
lived here he would have broken down at
thirty five Instead of fifty-lve, and Charles
Dickens would have dropped at forty.
There is something in all our occupations
which predlsposes to disease. If we be