Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-01-07

flight OF time. The opening hymn gave the key
note in the familiar words:
My days are gliding swiftly by
| And /, q pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain them as they ny,
Those hours OF toll and danger.
DR. Talmage read several passages relating
| TO Ante-diluvian longevity, making character
istic comments MS he read, and then preached
| from the ominous words, Jeremiah 2S:l0: This
| year thou shalt die"
addresses Hananiah in these words They
| prove true. In sixty days Hananiah had de-
| parted this life.
This is the first Sabbath OF the year. II is q
| time for review and for anticipation. man
| must be &C. ius at stupidity who does not
| think now. The old year died in giving birth
| TO the new, as tho life OF Jane Seymour, the
| English Queen, departed when that OF her son,
Edward VI, OWNED. The old year was o
Queen The new shall be King. The grave
OF the ono 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 II an eventful future Year OF mirth and
madness! Year of of pageant and connagra-
tiOnl 1t will laugh; 1t will sing; it will groan;
IL will die
Is 1t not time for earnest thought The
congratulat have been given. The Christ
mas trees have been taken down, or have well
nigh cast their fruit The friends who came
While we are looking forward to another
twelve months of activities, the text breaks
upon us like bursting thunderhead: This
year thou shalt diet"
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-flye years OF
age have gone beyond the average OF human
life The note is more than due 1t is only by
sufrerence that II is not collected We are like
debtor who is taking the three
days grace" OF the banks. Our race
started with nine hundred years for
lifetime. We read OF but one ante-diluvian
youth whose early death disappointed the
hopes OF his parents by his dying at ~ years
ofage 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. IL an
artist or a philosopher has forty 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
food, considering the longevity of the inhabit-
ants, there may have been nearly as many peo-
ple as there are now. The food was not
freshet, that washed few people of plank,
but q disaster that may have swept away q
thousand million. IL the Atlantic ocean, by q
lurch Of the earth tonight, should drown this
hemisphere, and the Pacific ocean, by sudden
lurch of the earth, should drown the other
hemisphere, leaving about rs many beings as
could be got In one two ocean steamers, 1t
would give you an idea Of what the ancient
food was
Al that time God started the race with q
shorter allowance of life. The 900 years were
hewn down, until, in the time Of Vespasian, a
census was taken and only 124 persons were
found 100 years old and three or four persons
| 40 years old. Now man who has come TO 100
| years of age Is a curiosity, and we go miles to
| see him. The vast majority of the race pass
| of before twenty years. To every apple there
| are rve 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 while the bell of our life rings right mer-
| rily; but with some OF you the bell has begun
to toll and the adaptedncss 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 professions
are undergoing sapping OF the brain and
nerve foundations. Literary men in this coun-
| try are driven with whip and spur TO their top
most speed. Not one brain worker out Of a
| hundred observes any moderation. There Is
| something SO stimulating in our climate that, II
| John Brown, the eSsayist OF Edinburgh, had
| lived here, he would have broken down at IS In
! stead of IS, and Charles Dickens would have
| dropped at forty. There Is something mall our
occupations which predisposes TO disease.
| II we be stout, TO disorders ranging from
feyers to apoplCxy II we be frau, to dis
| cases ranging from consumption TO paralysis.
Printers rarely reach fifty years Watch
+ makers 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 Foundry
| men take death in with their filings. Shoe
| makers pound away their own lives on the last.
! Overdrivcn merchants measure OF 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 oc
equations and professions there are the ele-
ments Of peril.
Rapid climatic changes threaten our lives.
BY reason of the violent fits of the thermome-
ter within two days we live both in the arctic
and the tropic The warm south wind finds us
WI our furs 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 impossibility that three hundred
and sixty-hve days should pass and leave
US all as we now are. In what direction to
shoot the arrow l know not, and so shoot IL at
q venture: "Thls year thou shalt die"
In Wow OF this, Iadvise that you have your
temporal matters adjusted. Do not leave your
worldly affairs at the mercy OF administrators
Have your receipts properly pasted and your
letters fled and your books balanced II you
have trust funds" see that they are rightly
deposited and accounted for. Let no widow
or orphan scratch on your tombstone, This
man wronged me OF my inheritance" Many q
| man has died, leaving n competency, whose
| property has, through his own carelessness,
| afterward been divided between the admins
traitors, the surrogate, the lawyers, and the
sherins. 1 charge you, before many days have
gone as far as possible, have all your worldly
matters made straight for "this year thou
shalt die"
advise also that you be busy in Christian
work, How many Sabbaths in the year? Fifty
two. II the text be true OF you, 1t does not say
at what time you may go, and therefore 1t Is
unsafe TO count on all Of the fifty-two Sundays.
AS you are as likely 10 go in the first half OF
the year as in the last half, think we had
| better divide the ffty-two into halves and cal
culate only twenty-six Sabbaths. Come, Chris
| tian men, Christian women, what can you do in
| twenty-six Sabbaths? Divide the 365
days into two parts; what can you do
in one hundred and 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 going 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
that Daniel Baker the evangelist, took thous-
ands into heaven; that Doddridge has taken in
/, hundreds Of thousands: that Paul took in
hundred million. How many will you
take lns III you get INTO heaven, anu Hnu
none there that you sent and that there
ore none TO come through your instrumentality,
beg OF you to crawl under some seat in the
back corner, and never come out, lest the re-
deemed get their eyes on you, and some one cry
out. "That is the man who never lifted hand or
voice for the redemption of his fellows! Look
at him, all heaveni" Better be busy. Better
put the plough in deep. Better say what you
| have to say quickly. Better cry the alarm
| Better fall on your knees Better lay hold with
| both hands. What you now leave undone for
| Christ will forever be undone. This year thou
| shalt diet"
In view OF the probabilities mentioned I'd
| wise all the men and women not ready for
| eternity TO get ready II the text be true, you
| will have no time TO talk about non-essentials,
asking why God let sin come into the world; or
| whether the book OF Jonah is inspired or who
1 Melchisedec was or what about the eternal
| DEGREES. II you are near eternity as some
OF you seem TO be, there is no time for any thing
but the question, what must l do to be
! slyedT' The drowning man, when q
plank is thrown him stops not to ask
what saw-rnill made IL, or whether
II IS oak or cedar, who threw
IL. The moment IL Is thrown he clutches II. In
this year you are to die, there is no time for
anything but Immediately laying hold on God.