Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-01-08
A SERMON APPROPRIATE FOR
THE OPENING OF THE NEW
YEAR. 1892.
This Year Thou Shalt DE-" Serves As
o Text For One of the Most Remark
able Sermons Ever Heard In the Tab
ernacle-Time of Reviewing.


Would not detain them as they hy
Those hours OF toll and danger.
DR.. Tamage read several passages relating
TO Ante-diluvian longevity, making character
istic comments as he read, and then preached
from the ominous words, Jeremiah 2S:l0; This
year thou shalt die"
jeremiah, accustomed to saying bold things,
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. 1t is q
time for review and for anticipation. A man
must be genius at 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 a
Queen. The new shall be O King. The grave
Of the one and the cradle OF the other are side
by side. Wecan hardly guess what the child
will be- II is only two days old but prophesy
for II an eventful future. Year OF mirth and
hadnessi Year OF OF pageant and conhagra-
toni 1t will laugh; IL will sing II will groan;
1t will die.
Is 1t not time for earnest thought The
congratulations have been given. The Christ
mas 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 activities, the text breaks
upon US like a bursting thunderhead: This
year thoa shalt dei'
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-hve years OF
age have gone beyond the average OF human
life The note is moro than due. II is only by
sufference that il 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 nnte-diluvian
youth whose early death disappointed the
hopes OF his parents by his dying at M years
of age. The world then may have been ahead OF
what IL is now, for men had so long time In
which TO study, and invent, and plan. II 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 900 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 flood was not
freshet, that washed q few people OF a plank,
but disaster that may have swept away
thousand million. II the Atlantic ocean, By
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 as many beings as
could be got in one or two ocean steamers. II
would give you an idea OF what the ancient
food was.
Al that time God started the race with
shorter allowance OF life. The 900 years were
hewn down, until, in the time OF Vespasian,
census was taken and only ia persons we're
found 100 years old and three or four persons
I40 years old. Now a 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 FIVE blossoms that never get 70 be apples.
In the country church, the sexton rings the bell
rapidly until almost through, and then tolls IL.
I a hi la no hpl Of Ol
rIly; 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 professions
are undergoing q 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
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 30 in
stead OF IS, and Charles Dickens would have
dropped at forty. There Is something In all our
occupations which predisposes 10 disease.
II we be stout, 10 disorders ranging from
fevers to apoplexy. II we be frail, 10 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 potter5 absorb paralysis.
Painters far under their own brush. Foundry
men take death in with their filings. Shoe
makers pound away their own lives on the last
Overdriven merchants measure on 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.
| I'll.
ter, within two days we live both in the arctic
and tho tropic. The warm south wind finds us
with 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. I announce
! 1t as an impossibility that three hundred
and sixty-1ve days should pass and leave
| us all as we now are In what direction to
shoot the arrow know not, and so shoot IL at
q venture: This year thou shalt de-"
In view 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 filed, 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 competency, whose
property has, through his own carelessness
afterward been divided between the admins
traitors, the surrogate, the lawyerS and the
sherifs. / charge you, before many days have
| gone as far as possible, have oil 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 II does not say
at what time you may go, and therefore IL is
unsafe to count on all Of the 6fty-two Sundays
| AS you are as likely TO 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 Sabbathsi Divide the 305
days into two parts; what can you do
| IA one hundred and eighty-two daysi
What, by the way OF saving your family the
| church and tho worldl 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 inl II you get into heaven and find
none there that you sent and that there
are none to come thro, gh your fundamentally,
beg OF you to crawl under some seat In the
back corner and never come out lest tho re-