Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-01-15
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The New Year"

TEXT: This year thou shalt die."-Jere-
miah xviii, 10.
jeremiah, accustomed 20 saying bold
things, addressed Hananiah in these WORKS.
They proved true. In sixty days Hananiah
had departed this life.
This is the first Sabbath Of the year. It's
a time for review and for anticipation. A
man must be genius az stupidity who does
not think now. The old year died in giving
birth to the new, as the life OF Jane Sey-
mour, the English queen, departed when
that of her son, Edward vi, dawned. The
old year was queen. The new shall be q
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 confagration! 1t will laugh;
it will sing; it will groan; it will die.
Is it not a 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
VINO came for the holidays are gone in the
rail train. While we are looking forward
TO another twelve months OF intense activi-
ties the text breaks upon us like a bursting
thunderhead, This year thou shalt die"
The text will probably prove true of some
Of u.s. The probability is augmented by the
fact that all of US who are over thirty-hve
years Of age have gone beyond the average
OIL human lie. / uS lOUo IL more Lldu Oue.
1t is only by sufference that 1t IS not COL
lected. We are like a debtor who is TAX
ing the "three days grace OF the banks.
Our race started with nine hundred years
for a lifetime. We read of but one antedi-
luvian 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 is now, for men had so long time
in which to study and invent and plan.
Ii artist a philosopher has forty
years for work, he makes great achieve
1nents: but what must the artists and phil
Osophers have done who had nine hundred
Y ears before them? In the nearly two thou
sand years before the flood, considering the
longevity OF the inhabitants, there may have
been nearly as many people as there are
now. The food was not Treshet, that
washed few people off plank, but dis
aster that may have swept away a thousand
million. Ii the Atlantic Ocean by lurch
Of the earth tonight should drown this
hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean by sud-
den 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
food was.
At that time God started the race with
shorter allowance of life. The nine hum
cred years were hewn down until, in the
time OtVespasian, a 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 man who has come to one hun.
dred years OF age IS a curiosity. and we go
mics to see him. The vast majority of the
race passes 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
bell Of our life rings right merrily, but with
some of you the bell has begun to toll, and
the adaptedness OF the text to you is more
and mora probable, This year thou shalt
die"
The character of our occupations adds to
the probability. Those who are in the pro-
LESSONS are undergoing a 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 hundred observes any
moderation. There is something SO stimu-
lating in climate that if John Brown, the
essayist of Edinburgh, had lived here, he
would have broken down at thirty-ive in
stead of fiftY-fve, and Charles Dickens
would have dropped at forty. There is
predisposes to disease. 1t we be stout,
TO disorders ranging from fevers to
apopexy. II we he frau, to diseases rang
ing from consumption to paraly sis. Printers
rarely reach fifty years. Watchmakers,
in marking the time for others, shorten their
own. Chemists breathe death in their
laoOrltOrles and pOtterS absorb paralysis
Painters tall under their own brush. Foun
drymen take death in with the filings. Shoe
makers pound away their own lives on the
last. Overdriven merchants measure off
their own lives with the yardstick. Millers
grind their own lives with the grist. Masons
dig their own graves with the trowel. And
in all our occupations and professions there
are the elements of peril.
Rapid climatic changes threaten our lives.
violent a thor-
mometer, within two days we live both in
thG arctic anu the trOpic. The warm south
win finds with our furS on. The wintry
blast cuts through our thin apparel. The
hoot, the wheel, the tirearm. the assassin,
wait their chance to put upon us their
quletus. [ announce it as an impossibiIity
that three hundred and sixty-tive days should
pass and leave US all as we now are. In what
direction to shoot the arrow | know not, and
SO shoot 1t at a 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 prop
erly pasted, and your letters filed, and your
books balanced. If you have trust funds"
see that they are rightly deposited and ac-
counted for. Let no widow or orphan
scratch on your tombstone, This man
wrongei me of my Inheritance" Many a
man has died leaving q competency,
whose property has, through his own
carelessness, afterward been divided be-
tween the administrators, the surrogate
the lawyers and the sheriffs l charge you,
before many days have gone, as far pos
sible, have all your worldly matters made
straight, for ''rhis year thou shalt die" I
advise, also that you be busy In Christian
work. How many Sabbaths in the year?
Fltty-two. If the text be true of you it
does not say at what time you may go, and
therefore it is unsafe to count on all OF the