Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1892-01-13
OLD FATHER TINE
win swing His Sickle in Ninety
Two.
New Iicpes Bud- Like Rlushing Roses.
Hut This Year May Cloud bright
Promises aud Death Hiring
Ssduess-Dr. Taimsge's
Sermon.

from the ominous words. jeremiah
xviii. 10: This year thou shalt
Idle"
jeremiah. accustomed TO saying bold
things. addresses Hananiah in these
words They prove true. In sixty
days Hananiah had departed tins life.
This is the first Sabbath of the year
| 1t is time for review and anticipation.
A man must be a genius Mt stupidity
who does not think now. The old gear
died in giving birth to the new, as the
life of Jane Seymour. the English
queen, departed when that of herson.
Edward vi, dawned. The old year
was a 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 madness. Year of pageant and
conhagration, 1t will laugh; il will
sing: it will groan; it will die.
Is it not 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 twelve
months of intense activities. the text
breaks upon us like bursting thun-
derhead: This year thou shalt diel"
The text will probably prove true of
some OF US. The probability is aug
mented by the fact that all of us who
ave over thirty-five years of age have
gone beyond the average of human life.
The note is more than due. 1t is only
by sufferance that il is not collected.
We are like the debtor who is taking
the three days grace" of the banks.
Our race started with 300 years for
a lifetime. We read of but one ante
diluvian youth whose early death disap-
pointed the hopes of his parents by his
dying at ~ years of age. The world
then may have been ahead of what il is
now, for men had so long a time in
which TO study. and invent, and plan
IL an artist or a philosopher has forty
years for work. he makes great achieve
ments, but what must the artists and
philosophers have done who had 900
years before them? In the nearly .. 600
years before the flood. considering the
longevity of the inhabitants there NAV
have been nearly as many people as
there are now
The Hood was not freshet that
washed few people off n plank. but n
disaster that may have swept awav a
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 hcmis-
phere, leaving about as many beings as
could be got in one or two ocean steam-
ers, 1T would give you an idea of what
the ancient flood was
At that time God started the race
with shorter allowance of life. The
300 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 n man who mas come
To 100 years of age is a curiosity and we
20 miles to see him.
The vast majority of the race pass off
before twenty years. To every apple
there are five blossoms that never get
70 DE apples In the country church.
he sexton rings the bell rapidly until
bmost through, and then tolls il For
while the bell of our life rings right
merrily; but with some of you the bell
mas begun to toll. and the adaptness of
the text to you is more and more prob
able: This year thou shalt die"
The character OF our occupations
adds to the probability. Those who
are in the professions are undergoing a
sapplng OF the brain and nerve founda-
lions. Literary men in this country
are driven with whip and spur 10 their
topmost speed. Not one brain worker
out OF 100 observes any moderation.
There is something so stimulating in
our climate that, If John Brown, the
essayist of Edinburgh, had lived here.
ne would have broken down at thirty
hve instead of hfty-fve, and Charles
Dickens would have dropped ut forty.
There is something in all our occupa-
ton which predisposes to disease. IL
we be stout. 10 disorders ranging from
levers TO npoplexy. II we be frail TO
diseases ranging from consumption 20
paralysis. Printers rarely reach fifty
years Watchmakers, in marking the
time for others, shorten their own.
chemists breathe death in their labo-
ratories, and potters absorb paralysis
PAINTERS fall under their own brush.
Foundrymen take death in with thc.6l-
ings. Shoemakers pound away their
own lives on the last Overdriven mer-
chants measure off their own lives with
the yard-stick. Millers grind their own
lives with the grist Masous 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 thermometer, within two days we
live both IN the arctic and the tropic
The warm south wind finds us with
our fnrs on The .wintry blast cuts
through our thin apparel The hoof
the wheel, the firearms, the assassin,
wait their chance 90 put upon us their
quietus. ] announce IL as an impossi-
oility that 365 days should pass and
leave us all al we now are. In what
direction 20 shoot the arrow I know
not and so I shoot il at n venture:
This year thou shalt die" 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 properly pasted and
yoar letters flied and your books bal.
anced. II you have trust funds see
that they are rightly deposited and ac-