The southern argus. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Cherokee County, Kan.) 1891-1???, 1892-01-07
LIFE's CLOSE.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the IN
certainty Of Existence.
reflections at the Beginning OF the New
Year-The Necessity of Preparing For
Death-The GIories Of Heaven
Depicted.

yxyiii TO-: This year shalt thou die. :"
He said:
jeremiah, accustomed to saying bold
things addresses Hananiah in these
words They proved true. In sixty
days Hananiah had departed this life.
This is the first Sabbath Of the wear.
yti time for review and anticipation.
man must be a genius at stupidity
who does not think now. The old year
Hid in giving birth to the new, as the
life Of Jane Seymour, the English
oueen, 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 I prophesy for
it an eventful future. Year of mirth
and madness! Year of pageant and
confagration! 1t will laugh; it will
sing; it will groan; it will die.
Is it not a time for earnest thought?
The congratulations have been given.
The Christmas trees have been taken
down or have well nigh cast their
holidays are gone to the railway train.
While we are looking forward to an
other twelve months Of intense activ-
tiles, the text breaks upon us like a
bursting thunder cloud: 'sThis year
thou shalt der
The text will probably prove true Of
some Of u.s. The probability is aug
mented 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 col
leced. We are like debtor who is
taking the "three days grace" of the
banks,
Our race started with 900 years for a
lifetime. We read of but one antedi-
luvian youth whose early death disap-
pointed the hopes of his parents by his
dying at III years Of age. The world
then may have been ahead of what it
is now, for men had SO long time in
which to study, an1 invent, and to
plan. If an artist or philosopher has
forty years for work he makes great
achievements, but what must the artists
philosophers have done who had 900
years before them? In the nearly 1000
years before the flood, considering the
longevity Of the inhabitants, there may
have been nearly as many people as
there are now. The flood was not a
freshet that washed few people off a
plank, but disaster that may have
swept away thousand million.
At that time God started the race
with shorter allowance of life. The
900 years were hewn down until the
time of Vespasian, when a census was
taken, and only 124 persons were found
100 years old. Now a man who has
come to 100 years Of age is curiosity
and we go miles to see him. The vast
majority Of the race pass off before 20
years To every apple there are five
blossoms that never get to be 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 merrily, but with
some of you the bell has begun to toll,
and the adaptedness Of the text to you
is more probable: This year thou
shalt die"
The character Of our occupations adds
to the probability. Those who are ia the
professions are undergoing a sapping Of
the brain and nerve foundations. Lit
erary men in this country are driven
with whip and spur to their topmost
speed. Not one brain worker out of a
hundred observes any moderation.
There is something in all orr occupa-
tions which predisposes to disease. If
we be stout to disorders ranging from
fcvers TO apoplexy. IL we be frail, to
diseases ranging from consumption to
paralysis. Printers rarely reach fifty
years. Watchmakers, in marking the
time for others, shorten their own.
Chemists breathe death in their labora-
tories, and pottArs absorb para ysis
Painters fall under their own brush.
Foundrymen take death in with the
filings. Shoemakers pound away their
own lives on the last Overdriven mer-
chants measure off their own lives with
the yardstick Millers grind their own
lives with the grist Masons dig their
graves with the troweL And in all our
occupations and professions there are
the elements of peril.
Rapid climatic changes threaten our
lives BY reason of the violent fits of
the thermometer, within two days we
Ire both in the arctic and the tropic.
The warm south wind finds us with our
frs on. The wintry blast cuts through
our thin apparel The hoof, the wheel.
the firearms, the assassin wait their
chance to put upon us their quietus.
announce it as an impossibility that S65
days should pass and leave us as we
now are In what direction to shoot
the arrow know not. and SO shoot it
alta venture: This year thou shalt die"
In view of this, | advise that you
nave your temporal matters adjusted
DO not leave your worldly matters at
the mercy of administrators. Have
your receipts properly pasted, and your
letters filed, and your books balanced.
you have trust funds see that they
are rightly deposited aud accounted
ior Let no widow or orphan scratch
onyour tombstone. This man wronged
me Of my Inheritance" Many a man
mas died leaving competency whose
property has, through his own care
lessness, afterward been divided be-
tween the administrators, the surro-
gate, the lawyers and the sheriff.
advise also that you be busy in
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