The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-03-11
YOUTH AND OLD AGE.
DR.. Talmage breaches to the Young,
Middle-Aged and Old.
The Plans, Disappointments, Discoveries
and Harvests of the Various Periods OF
fans Life-Old Age and It's
Many blessings.

In a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talnage took for his subject,
Prom Twenty to Seventy" The text
selected was Psalm xc. 10: 1.-THE days
OF our years are three score and ten.
The preacher said:
The SEVENTEEN milestone of life is
here planted as at the end of the journey.
A few go beyond it; multitudes never
reach it. The oldest person of modern
times expired at 1859 years. A Greek,
by the name of ~Stravaride, lived to 1872
years. An Englishman, by the name
of Thomas Parr, lived 1872 years. Be-
fore the time of Moses people lived $50
years, and if you go far enough back
they lived 500 years. Well, that was
necessary, because the story of the
world must come down by tradition,
and it needed long life safely to trans
init the news of the past. If the gen.
would so often have changed lips that
1t might have got all astray. But after
Moses began to write it down and parch-
ment told it from century to century,
it vas not necessary that people live SO
long in order to authenticate the events
of the past. If, in our time, people
lived only twenty-five years, that would
not affect history, since it is put in
print and no longer dependent on tradi-
ton.
First, then, l accost those of you who
are in the twenties. You are full of
expectation. You are ambitious-that
is, if You amount to anything-for some
kind of success, commercial, or mechan-
ical, or professional, or literary, or
agricultural, or social, or moral. If 1
any sort of ambition, 1 feel like saying:
my friend, you have got on the wrong
planet. This is not the world for you.
You are going to be in the way. Have
you made your choice of poor houses?
You will never be able to pay for your
cradle. Who is going to settle for your
board? There is a mistake about the
fact hat you were born at ALL" But
s~upposing you nave ambition, let me
say to all the twenties. expect every
thing through divine manipulation and
then you will get all you want or some
thing better. Are you looking for
wealth? Well, remember that God
controls the money markets, the har-
vests, the droughts, the caterpillars,t the
~locusts, the sunshine, the storm the
land, the sea, and you will get wealth.
PerhapssnGtsthaff7R hin6 IS stored up IN
bapIt nAate denesttA. u mixed States
ecn houses and lands, but
yddr diothing and board and shelter,
and that is about all hat you can APP
propriate anyhow. I am so glad that 1
met You while you are in the twenties-
You are laying out your plans and all
your life in this world and the next for
500, 900, 900 years of your existence will
be affected by those plans. 1t is about
8 o'clock in the morning of your life,
and you are just starting out Which
way are you going to start? Oh, the
twentiesl
Twenty is q great word in the BIZ
BILE. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces
of silver. Sampson judged Israel
twenty years. The flying roll that
Zeehariah saw was twenty cubits-
When the sailors on the ship on which
Paul sailed sounded the Mediterranean
sea it was twenty fathoms. What
mighty things have been done in the
twenties. Romulus founded Rome
when he was 90. Keats finished life
at 25. Lafayette was a world re-
nowned soldier at 90. Oberlin accom-
plished his chief work by 81. Bona
parte was victor over Italy at 20. Pitt
wa prime minister of England at "a.
Calvin had completed his immortal
'tInstitutes' by the time he wa 20.
Grotius was attor1ey@general at "a.
Some of the-nightiest things for God
and eternity~have been done in the
twenties.
Next l accost those in the thirties.
You are at an age when you find what
a tough thing it is to get recognized
and established in your occupation or
profession Ten years ago you thought
all hat was necessary FOR success was
to put on your shutter the sign of
physician or dentist or attorney or
broker or agent, and you would have
plenty of business. How many hours
you sat and waited for business and
waited in vain, three persons only
know God, your wife and yourself.
In commercial life you have not had
the promotion and increase of salary
you anticipated, or the place you ex-
pected to occupy in the firm has not
been vacated. The produce of the farm,
with which you expected to support
yourself and those depending on you,
and to pay the interest on the mort
gage, has been far less than yon antici-
pated, or the prices were down, or
special expenses for sickness made
drafts on your resources that you
could not have expected. In some re-
spects the hardest decade of life is the
| thirties, because the results are gener-
ally so far behind the anticipations.
Nine-tenths of the poetry of life has
been knocked out of you since you came
into the thirties. Men in the different
professions and occupations saw that
you were rising and they must put an
estoppel on you or you might somehow
stand in the way. They think you
must be suppressed From thirty to
forty it is an especially hard time for
young doctors, young lawyers, young
merchants, young farmers, young me-
chanics, young ministers The strug-
gle of the thirties is for honest and
helpful and remunerative recognition.
Oh, the thirtiesl Joseph stood before
Pharaoh at 80. David was 30 years old
when he began to reign. The height
of Solomon's temple was 30 cubits-
Christ entered upon his active min
istry at 80 years of age. Jul
das sold him for thirty pieces of
Silver. Oh, the thirties! What a word
suggestive of triumph or disaster. Your
decade is the one that will probably af-
ford the greatest opportunity for vic
tory, because there is the greatest ne
cessity for struggle. Read the worlds
history and know what are the thirties
for good or bad. Alexander the Great
closed his career at SO. Frederick the
Great made Europe tremble with his
armies at So. Cortes conquered Mexico
at 30. Grant fought Shiloh and Donel-
son when SO. Raphael died at 81. Lu-
Their was the hero of the Reformation at
IS. Sir Philip Sydney got through by
s2. The greatest deeds for God and
against him were done within the thir-
ties, and your greatest battles are now
and between the time when you will
cease expressing your age by putting
first q figure "2" and the time when you
expressing it by putting first a
figure 49," AS it is the greatest time of
h struggle, allure you, in Gods
name and by Gods grace, make IL the
greatest achievement. My prayer is for
all those in the tremendous crisis of the
thirties. The fact is, that by the way
You decide the present decade of your
history, you decide all thefollowing de-