The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-01-15
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Thoughts Suggested by the Recur-
renee OF the New Year.
The End Must Come TO Some Daring the
Year just Begun-Is II You. and
Are You Ready TO Obey
the SummonsP

he following discourse pertinent to
the advent of the new year in the
Brooklyn tabernacle, taking for his
text:
This year shalt thou die.-Jeremiah, xviii,
jeremiah. accustomed 10 saying bold
things, addresses Hananiah in these
words They prove true. In sixty
days Hananiah had departed this life.
This is the first Sabbath of the year.
1t is the time for review and for antici-
patton. A man must be a genius a..
stupidity who does not think now. The
old year died in giving birth TO the new.
as the life of Jane Seymour, the En-
glish queen, departed when that of her
son, Edward vi, dawned. The old
year was n 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 l
prophesy for it an eventful future.
Year of mirth and madnessl Year of
pageant and conhagration. It will
laugh it viii sing; it win groan; it win
die.
Is il 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 an
other twelve months of intense activi-
ties. the text breaks upon us like a
bursting thunderhead: This year thou
shalt dfa
The text win probably prove true of
some OF MS. The probability is aug
mented BY the fact that all of MS who
are 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 it is not collected.
We are IKE. a 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
antediluvian youth whose early death
disappointed the hopes of his parents
by his dying at seven hundred and
seventy-seven years of age. The
world then may have been ahead of
what it il now. for men had so long a
time in which to study, and invent and
plan. IL an artist or philosopher has
forty years for work, he makes great
achievements; butwhat must the art
fists and philosophers have done who
had nine hundred years before them?
In the nearly two thousand years be-
fore the flood, considering the longevity
of the Inhabitants, there may have
been nearlysas many people as there
are now. The flood was not freshet,
l,ok 49, 4. .M 4
but n disaster that may have swept
away thousand million. If the At
lantic ocean, by a lurch of the earth
tonight, should drown this hemisphere,
and the Pacific ocean, by a 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, 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
nine hundred years were cut down un-
til. in the time of Vespasian, 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
hundred years of age is curiosity, and
we go miles to see him. The vast ma
jority of the race pass off before twenty
years TO every apple there are five
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 awhile the bel
of our life rings right merrily; but with
some of you the bell has begun to toll
is more and more probable: This year
chou shalt die"
The character of our occupations add.
20 the probability. Those who are In
the professions are undergoing sap
ping of the brain and nerve founda
tons Literary men in this country
are driven with whip and spur to theil
topmost speed. Not one brain-worlkel
out of n hundred observes any modera
ton. There is something so stimulat
ing in our climate that, If John Brown
the essayist of Edinburgh, had lived
here, he would have broken down a.
thirty-fve instead of fifty-five, anC
Charles Dickens would have dropped a.
forty. There is something, in all oul
occupations which predisposes to dis
ease. If we be stout, to disorder
ranging from fevers to apoplexy. i
we be frail, to diseases ranging from
consumption to paralysis Printer.
rarely reach fifty years Watch-mak
ers, in marking the time for others
shorten their own. Chemists breathe
death in their laboratories, and potter
absorb paralysis. Painters fall under
their own brush. Foundrymen take
death in with the filings. Shoemaker
pound away their own lives on the last
Over-driven merchants measure of
their own lives with the yard-sticlx
Millers grind their own lives with tn,
grist Masons dig their graves will
the troweL And in all our occupation
and professions there are the element,
of peril
Rapid climatic changes threaten ou
lives. BY reason Of the violent fits o
the thermometer, within two days W,
live both in the arctic and tropic. TIL,
warm south wind finds US with on
furs on The wintery blast cut
through our thin apparel The hoof
the wheel. the firearms, the ASSASSIN
wait their chance to put upon us thei
quietus.- / announce it as an impossi
bility that three hundred and sixty-fiy,
days should pass and leave all as w,
now are. In what direction to shoot
the arrow know not, and so I shoe
it at venture: This year thou shall
die"