Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-01-04
ON THE NEW YEAR.
DR.. TALMAeE BREACHES A eERMoN
ABOUT 1892.

the 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 fight Of time The opening hymn
gave the keynote in the familiar words,
My days are gliding swiftly by
And |. a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain them as they ny,
Those hours Of toll and danger
DIR. Talmage read several passages relat.
ing TO antedlluYihn longevity, making char
acteristic comments as he read, and then
preached from the oininous words. Jere-
miah xviii, III. This year thou shalt
die"
jeremiah, accustomed to saying bold
things, addressed flananiah in these words
They proved true. In sixty days lIananiah
had departed this life
This is the first sabbath of the year. Ii
Is IA time for review and for anticipation.
a man must be genius ut 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 n queen. The new shah
he king. The grave Of the one and the
cradle of the other are side by side. We
can hardly guess what the child win be
1t is only two days old. but prophesy for.
1t an eventful future. Year of mirth and
madnessl Year OF pageant and connagrt
tionl Ii will laugh; it will sing it will
groan; it will die.
Is 1t not u time for earnest thought9 The
congratulations have been given. The
Christmas trees have been taken down or
have 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 in.
tense activities the text breaks upon us
like n bursting thunderhead, This year
thou shalt der
TRUE or SOME or Us.
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-fve years Of age have gone beyond
the average Of human life The note is
more than due 1t il only by suflerance
that it is not collected. We are like a
debtor who is taking the three days
grace" of the banks. Our race started
with nine hundred years fora lifetime We
read of but one antediluvian youth whose
early death disappointed the hopes of his
parents by his dying ut seven hundred and
seventy seven years Of age. The world then
may have been ahead of what it is now
for men had so long a time in which to
study and invent and plan.
If an artist or philosopher has forty
years for work, he makes great achieve
ments; but what must the artists and
philosophers have done who had nine
hundred years before them2 In the nearly
two thousand years before the flood, con
sidering the longevity of the inhabitants,
there may have been nearly as many PEG
pie as there are now The flood was not
freshet, that washed a few people off Il
plank but n disaster that may have swept
. away n thousand million. II the Atlantic
ocean by lurch Of the earth tonight
shonld drown this hemisphere and the Pa
ciic ocean by Il sudden hrch of the earth
should drown the other hemisphere leav
ing about us many beings as could be got
In one or two ocean steamers, it would give
you nm idea of what the ancient food was
At that time God started the race with
a shorter allowance of life The nine hun
dred years were hewn down until, in the
time of Nespasian, II census was taken and
only one hundred and twenty four persons
were found one hundred years Old and three
or four persons one hundred and forty years
old Now "A man who has come to one hun
dred years of age is u curiosity, and we go
miles to see him The vast majority of the
race passes off before twenty years Tocvery
apple there are five blossoms that ncvcrgct
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 merrly, but with
some of you the bell has begun to toll, and
the adaptedness of the tcXtto 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 are undergoing Il sapping of 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
stimulating in our climate that il John
Brown, the essayist of Edinburgh, had
lived here he would have broken down at
thirty five instead Of fifty five. and Charles
Dickens would have dropped at forty
There is something in all our occupations
which predisposcs to disease. If we be
stout, to disorders ranging from feyerS to
apopleXy If we be flslil, to diseases rang
ing from consumption TO paralysis. Print
ers rarely reach fifty years Watchmakers,
in marking the time for others, shorten
their own Chemists breathe death in their
laboratories and potters absorb paralysis
Painters fall under their own brush. Foun
drymen take death in with the tilingS
Shoemakers pound away their own lives on
the last Oyerdriven merchants measure
off their own lives with the yardStlck.
Milers grind their own lives with the grist.
Masons dig their graves with the trowel
And in all our occupations aud 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 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 ap
parel The hoof, the wheel, the iirearm
the assassin wait their chance TO put upon
us their quctus. announce it as an i'm
possibility that three hundred and sixty
five days should pass and leave us all as
we now are In what direction to shoot
the arrow know not and so | shoot it mt
venture This year thou shalt die"
WORDS OF ADVICE,
In view of this, | 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
md accounted for. Let no widow or or
phan scratch on your tombstone, This
man wronged me of my Inheritance
Many man has died, leaving a compe-