Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-04
THE YEAR BEF0REJS.
1t Will Be the Last on Earth to Some
Who Read Talmage's Sermon.
BE READY IN EARTHLY AFFAIRS.
Spend Well the Time Left for You and Be
Prepared for Eternity.
THE BEST KIND OF LIFE INSURANCE
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO rHE p1sPArcH.l


longevity, making characteristic comments
as he read, and then preached from the
ominous words, Jeremiah xxviii:16: ''This
wear thou shalt die.
This is the first sabbath of the year. 1t is
a 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-
Iaour, the English Queen, departed when
that of her son, Edward VI, dawned. The
old year WAS queen. The new shall be a
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
eventful future. Year OF mirth and mad
ness! Year of pageant and conflagrationI
1t will laugh it will sing; it will groan; it
will die.
Is it not n time for earnest thought? 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 y months of intense activities, the
text breaks upon us like a bursting thunder
head: This year thou shalt die.''
Mans Uncertain Chances for Life.
The text will probably prove true of some
fact that all of us who are over s. years of
age have gone beyond the average of human
life. The note is more than due 1t is only
by sutferance that it is not collected. We
are like debtor who is taking the "three
DAYS grace of the banks.
Our race started with 900 years for a life
time. We read of but one antediluvian
youth whose early death disappointed the
hopes of his parents by his dying at az
wears OF age
The world then may have been ahead of
what it is now, for men had so long time
in which to study and invent and plan. If
an artist or a philosopher has 40 years for
work he makes great achievements. but
what must the artists and philosophers
have done who had 800 years before them?
In the nearly 1000 years before the flood,
considering the longevity of the inhabi-
tants, there may have been nearly as many
people there are now. The flood was
not a freshet that washed a few people
OF plank, but a disaster that
may have swept away a thousand million.
Ii the Atlantic Ocean, by lurch of the
earth tonight, should drown this hemi-
sphere, and the Pacific Ocean, by a sudden
lurch of the EARTH should drown the other
neIniyphere, leaving about many beings
as couNd be got in one or two ocean steam
ers, it would give you an idea of what the
ancient flood was.
At that time God started the race with
shorter allowance of life. The vast maj jority
of the race pass off before 20 years. To every
apple there are five blossoms that never get
10 be apples
Zach Occupation Has Its Dangers.
The character of our occupations adds to
the probability. Those who are in the pro-
fessions are undergoing 4 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 a hundred observes any mod
Grafton.
There is something in all our occupations
i'll.
stout. to disorders ranging from fevers to
apopleNy. If We be frail to diseases rang
ing from consumption TO paralysis. Print
er> rarely reach 50 years. Watchmakers, in
making the time for Others, shorten their
own. Chemists breathe death in their
laboratories and potters absorb paralysis.
Painters fall under their own brush.
Foundrymen take death in with the filings.
Shoemakers pound away their own lives on
the last. Overdriven merchants measure OFF
their own lives with the yard stick. 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 ther-
mometer, within two days we live both in
the arctic and the tropic. l announce il as
an imposs ibility that 365 days should pass
and leave Us all as we now are. In what
direction to shoot the arrow know not, and
SO shoot it at a venture: This year thou
shalt die
BE Commercially Prepared for Death.
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 pre-
perry pasted, and your letters filed and your
books balanced. Let no widow or orphan
scratch on your tombstone, This man
wronged lie of my Inheritance"
advise also that you be busy in Christian
work. How many Sabbaths in the year?
Flfty-two. Divide the 365 days into two |
parts. What can you do in ls2 days? What, |
by the way of saving your family, the |
church, and the world? You will not, |
through al the ages OF eternity in heaven, !
get over tine dishOnoy and the outrage of go
ing into glory, and having helped none up to |
the same place. 1t will be found that MANY /
sabbath school teacher has taken into |
heaven her whole Class. How many will you |
take in2
In view of the probabilities mentioned, 1 1
advise all the men and women not ready for |
eternity to get ready. If you are as near |
-t,rnlty cs some Of you seem to be- there is |
no time fox anything but the question: |
what must do to be saved?" The drown |
ing man, when a plank is thrown him, stops |
NOT to ask what sawmill made it. You say, |
4 have committed no great transgressions." |
But are You not aware that your life has |
been sinful9 |
4 Vast Accumulation of Wrong Doing
The sins of your youth and the sins of |
your manhood, and the sins of your woman |
hood may have seemed only slight inaccu- |
racies or trifing divergences from the right |
so slight that they are hardly worth men, |
tionng, but they have been piling up and |
piling up, packing together and packing to-
gether until they make mountain of sin, /
and one more step of your foot in the wrong |
direction may slide down upon you an ava
lanche of ruin and condemnation. Some one |
sin of your life summoning on all the rest,
they surround thy soul and make the night |
of thy sin terrible with the assault of their |
hInnnE bR n N 1.dn nod Nla am
orin@, Tavening, all-devouring sins of thy |
lifetime,
Let me announce that Christ the Lord,
stands ready to save any man who wants to |
be saved. He waited for you all last wear,
and all the year before, and all your life |
He has waited Tor you with blood on his |
brow and tears in his eye, and two out
stretched mangled hands of love-
wish you might know what a job Jesus |
undertook when He carried your case to
Calvary. They crowded Him to the wall.
They struck Him. They spat on Him. They
kicked Him. They cuffed Him. They
>coifed at Him. They scourged Him. They
murdered Him. Blood, Blood As He |
stoops down to lift you up the crimson
drops upon you from His brow, from Ills
side, from his hands.
Christ a Physician in a Hospital.
cur Lord Jesus looked out from heaven
and saw plague-stricken race. Sin must
be dissected. He made His will, giving
everything to His people. He comes down
His hand to the work. Under our plague
He dies-the healthy for the sick, the pure
for the polluted, the innocent for the guilty.