The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-01-20
REV.. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The New Year"

1EAT. 1HS ycNi Ito" St"ss N
,miah xviii, l6.
Jeremiah, accustomed to saying bold
things. addressed Hananiah in these words.
They proved true. In sixty days dananlan
had departed this life.
This is the first Sabbath of the year. tits
q time for review and for anticipation. A
man must be a genius at stupidity who does
not think now. The old year died in giving
birth to the new, as the life OF Jane Sey-
mour, the English queen, departed when
that Of her SOD, Edward VI, dawned: The
old year was a queen. The new shall Do a
king. The grave of the one and the cradle
of the other are side BY side. we can naraly
guess what the child will be. 1t is only two
DAYS old, but l prophesy for it an eventful
future. Year OF mirth and madness! Year
of pageant and c~onfagration! It will laugh;
it will sing; it will groan: it will die.
Is it not a time for earnest thought? The
congratulations have been given. Inc
Christmas trees have been taken down or
nave well nigh cast their fruit. The friends
who came for the holidays are gone In the
rail train. While we are looking FORWARD
to another twelve months OF intense actlvl-
ties the text breaks upon US like a bursting
thunderhead, "rhis year thou shalt die"
The text will probably prove true OF some
of us. The probability is augmented by the
fact that all of us who are over thlrty-nve
years Of age have gone beyond the average
Of human life. The note is mora than due.
It is only by sufference that it is not col
lected. We arc like a debtor who IS tax
ing the "three days grace or the banks
Our race started with nine hundred years
for a lifetime, We read OF but one antedi,
luvian youth whose early death disappointed
the hopes of his parents by his dying at
seven hundred and s~eventy-seven years OF
age. The world then may have been ahead
Of what it IS now, for men had SO long a time
il which to study aud invent and plan.
g. II an artist or a philosopher has forty
years for work, he makes great achieve
ments; but what must the artists and phil
osophers HAYS done who had nine hundred
years before them? In the nearly two thou
sand years tsfore the flood, considering the
longevity O.; the inhabitants, there may nav
been nearly as many people as there are
now. The Hood was not q freshet, that
washed q few people off q plank, but a dis
aster that may have swept away q thousand
million. II the Atlantic Ocean by q lurch
Of the earth tonight should drown this
hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean by a sud-
den lurch Of the earth should drown the other
hemisphere, leaving about as many beingsas
could be got in one or two ocean steamers.
it would give youan idea of what the ancient
food was.
At that time God started the race with a
shorter allowance of life. The nine hun
cred years were hewn down until, in the
time of Vespasian, a census was taken and only
one hundred aud twenty-four persons were
found one hundred years old and three OF
four persons one hundred and forty years
old, Now a man who has come to one hun
dred years Of age is a curiosity. and we go
miles to see him. The vast majority Of the
race passes of before twenty years. 10 every
apple there are five blossoms that never get
to be apples. In the country church the
sexton rings the ben rapidly until almost
through and then tolls it. For awhile ths
bell of DUR 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
and more probable, "This year thou shalt
die"
The character of our occupations adds to
the probability. Those who are in the pro-
LESSONS are undergoing g. sapping or the
brain and nerve foundations. Literary
men in this country are driven with whip
and spur to their topmost speed. Not one
brain worker out Of hundred observes any
moderation. There is something so stimu.
sating in our climate that if John Brown, the
essayist of Edinburgh, had lived here, he
would have broken down at thirty.five In
stead of ffty-fve, and Charles Dickens
would have dropped at forty. There is
something in all our occupations which
predisposes to disease. II we be stout,
to disorders ranging, from fevers to
ing from consumption to paralysis. Printers
rarely reach fifty years. Watchmakers,'
in marking the time for others, shorten their.
own. Chemists breathe death in their
laboratories, aud potters absorb paralysis
Painters fall under their own brush. Foun !
drymen take death in with the filings. Shoe
makers pound away their own lives on the
last. Overdriyen merchants measure OH
their own lives with the yardstick. Millers
grind their own lives with the grist. Masons
dig their W graves with the trkwel. 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 Their
mometer, within two days we live both in
the arctic and the tropic. The warm south
wind finds us with our furs on. The wintry
blast cuts through our thin apparel. The
hoof, the wheel, the frearm, the assassin.
wait their chance to put upon u their
quietus. I announce it as a n impossibiity
that three hundred and si1ty-ive days should
direction to shootthe arrow l know not, and
SO ] shoot it at a venture. "This year thou
shalt die"
In view of this, l advise that you have
your temporal matters adjusted. Do not
leave your worldly affairs at the mercy Of
administrators. Have your receipts prop
erly pasted, and your letters filed, and your
books balanced. II you have trust funds"
see that they are rightly deposited and &C
counted for. Let no widow or orphan
scratch on your tombstone, "This man
wrongei me of my Inheritance" Many a
man has died leaving a competency,
Wh0Sa nropartv has fhrOuch hia own
carelessness, atterward been divided be-
tween the administrators the surrogate,
the lawyers and the sheriffs. I charge you,
before many days have gone, as TAR as pos
sible, have all your worldly matters made
, straight, for ''rhis year thou shalt die" I
\advise, also that you be busy in Christian
work. How many Sabbaths in the year!
Fifty-two. If the text be true Of you it
does not say at what time you may 80, and
therefore it Is unsafe to count on all OF the
ffty-two Sundays. As you are as likely to
goin the first half Of the year as in the last
halt, I think we had better divide the fifty
two into halves and calculate only twenty
six Sabbaths Come, Christian men, Chris
tan women, what can you do In twenty-slx
Sabbaths? Divide the three hundred and
sixty-fve days into two parts, what can you
do in one hundred n eighty-two days?
What, by the way Of saving your family,
the church and the world? You will not,
through all the ages Of eternity in heaven,
get over the dishonor and the outrage Of go
ing into glory, and having helped none up
to the same place. It will be found that
many a S~abbath-school teacher has taken
into heaven her whole class; that
Daniel Baker, the evangelist, took
thousands into heaven: that bod
bridge has taken in hundreds Of thousands,
THAT Paul took in a hundred millions. How
lmany will you take in? K you get into
heaven and find zone there that you sent
land that there are none to come through
lyour instrumentality, I beg Of You to craw!