Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-03-11

merchants, young farmers, young me-
chanics, young ministers The strug-
gle of the thirtics Is for honest and
helpful and remunerative recognition.
Oh. the thirties! Joseph stood before
Pharaoh at go David was 30 years old
when he began to reign. The height
of Solomon's temple was 80 cubits.
Christ entered upon his active min
istry ut 80 years of age. Ju-
das sold him for thirty pieces of
silver. Oh, the thirtiesl What q 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 ut 32. Frederick the
Great made Europe tremble with his
armies at IS. Cortes conquered Mexico
ut 80 Grant fought Shiloh and Donel-
son when 50. Raphael died at 81. Luz
ther was the hero of the Reformation at
IS. Sir Philip Sydney got through by
80. 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 figure ''2" and the time when you
cease expressing it by putting first a
figure So" AS it is the greatest time OF
the struggle, I adjure you, in Gods
name and by Gods grace, make it 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 the following de-
cades.
Next accost the forties. Yours is
the decade of discovery l do not mean
the discovery of the outside, but the
discovery of yourself No man knows
himself until he is 49, He over-esti-
mates himself BY that time he has
learned what he can do. or what he
cannot do. He thought he had COM
mercial genius enough to become mil
lionaire, but now he is satisfied to make
a comfortable living. He thought he
had rhetorical power that would bring
him into the United States senate; now
he is content if he can successfully
argue a common case before n petit
jury. He thought he had medical skill
that would make him Mott or n
Crosse or Willard Parker or n Sims;
now he finds his sphere is that Of a
family physician, prescribing for the
ordinary ailments that aiiilct our race.
He was sailing on in fog and could not
take reckoning, but now it clears up
enough to allow him to find out his
real latitude and longitude. He has
been climbing, but now he has got to
the top of the hill and he takes long
breath. He is halfway through the
journey Mt last, and he is in
"a position to look bacliwarlor forward
He has more good sense than he ever
had. He knows human nature, for he
has been cheated often enough to see
the bad side of it. and he has met so
many gracious and kindly and splen-
did souls he also knows the good side
of it. Now, calm yourself. Thank God
for the past and deliberately set Your
compass for another voyage. You have
chased enough thistiedown. You have
blown enough soap bubbles. You have
seen the unsatisfying nature OF all
earthly things. Open n new chapter
with God and The world. This decade
of the forties ought to eclipse all its
predecessors in worship, in youthful
ness and in happiness. Forty" is
great word in the Bible. Gods ancient
people were forty years in the wilder
ness. David and Solomon and Jehoash
reignei forty years. When Joseph Wis
tied lis brethren he was 40 years old
Oh, this mountain top of the forties.
You have now the character you will
probably have for all time and all eter-
nifty. God, by his grace, sometimes
changes a man after the forties, but
after that n man never changes him
self.
NV sermon next accosts the tfties.
How queer it looks when, in writing
your age, you make the first of the two
figures ''5." This is the decade which
shows what the other decades have
been. If young man has sown wild
oats, and he has lived to this time, he
reaps the harvest of it in the fifties, or
if by necessity he was compelled to
overtoil in honest directions he is called
to settle up with exacting nature some
time during the fifties. Many have it
SO hard in early life that they are octo-
genarians at so. Sciaticas and rheuma-
tisms and neuralgias and vertigos
and insomnias have their play
ground in the fifties- Oh, We
who are in the fifties think of it! A
half century of blessing to be thankful
for and half century subtracted from
an existence which, in the most marked
case of longevity, hardly ever reaches
whole century. BY this time you
oupht to be eminent for piety. You