Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-03-06

age you make the first Of the two figures
ss5." This is the decade which shows
what the other decades have been. If a
young man has spwn wild oats and he
has lived to this time, he reaps the har-
vest of it in the ffties, 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 octogenarians at SO. Sciaticas
and rheumatisms and neuralgias and
vertigos and insomnias have their play
ground in the ffties. A mans hair be-
gins to whiten, and, although he may
have worn spectacles before, now he asks
the optician for No. Il or No. 10 or No.
10. When he gets cough and is almost
cured, he hacks and clears his throat
good while ;afterward. Oh, we who are
in the fifties. think of it! A half century
of blessing to be thankful for, and a half
century subtracted from an existence
which in the most marked cases of lon
gevity hardly ever reaches whole CEN
tury.
By this time you ought to be eminent
for piety You have been in so many
battles you ought to be brave soldier.
You have made so many voyages you
ought to be good sailor. So long pro-
tected and blessed you ought to have a
soul full of doxology. In Bible times in
Canaan every so years was by Gods
command year Of jubilee. The peo-
pie did not work that year. If property
had by misfortune gone out Of ones
possession, on the fftieth year it came
back to him. If he had fooled it away, it
was returned without farthing to pay.
If man had been enslaved, he was in
that year emancipated. A trumpet was
sounded loud and clear and long, and it
was the trumpet of jubilee. They shook
hands, they laughed, they congratulated.
What time it was, that fftieth year!
And if under the old dispensation it was
such glad time, under our new and more
glorious dispensation let all who have
come to the ffties hear the trumpet of
jubilee that l now blow. That was the
allusion made by Mr.. Toplady, the great
hymnologist, when he wrote:
Blow we the trumpet blow
The gladly solemn sound;
Let all the nations know,
To earth'S remOteSt bound,
The year of jubilee is come.
Return We ransomed sinners home.
We who have sold for naught
Your heritage above
Shall have it back unbought-
The gift of Jesus love.
The year of jubilee has come.
Return We ransomed sinners home.
My sermon next accosts the sixties,
The beginning of that decade is more
startling than any other. In his chrOn-
illogical journey the man rides rather
smoothly over the figures 80" and ''3''
and "4' and 49," but the figure Sc" gives
him a big jolt. He says: sit cannot be
that | am CO. Let me examine the old
family record. [ guess they made mis-
take. They got my name down wrong
in the roll of births" But, no; the older
brothers or sisters remember the time of
his advent, and there is some relative a
year older, and another relative year
younger, and, sure enough, the fact is
established beyond all disputation.
Sixty Now your great danger is the
temptation to fold up your faculties and
quit You will feel a tendency to remi-
nisce If you do not look out, you will
begin almost everything with the words,
When l was boy" But you ought to
make the sixties more memorable for
God and the truth than the ffties or the
forties, or the thirties. You ought to do
more during the next 10 years than you
did in any 80 years of your life because
of all the experience you have had. You
have committed enough mistakes in life
to make you wise above your juniors.
Now, under the accumulated light OF
your past experimenting, go to work for
God as never before
When man in the sixties folds up
his energy and feels he has done enough,
it is the devil of Incidence to which he is
surrendering, and God generally takes
the man at his word and lets him die
right away. His brain, that under the
tension of hard work was active, now
suddenly shrivels. Men, whether they
retire from secular or religious work,
generally retire to the grave No we'll
man has a right to retire. The world
was made for work There remaineth a
rest for the people of God, but it is in a
sphere beyond the reach of telescopes.
The military charge that decided one of
the greatest battles of the ages-the bat
tie of Waterloo-was not made until s
o'clock in the evening, but some of you
propose to go into camp at 2 o'clock in
the afternoon
WAITING FOR THE END.
NY subject next accosts those in the
seventies and beyond. My word to them
is congratulation. You have got nearly
if not quite through. You have safely
crossed the sea of life and are about to
enter the harbor. You have fought at
Gettysburg, and the war is over Here
and there a skirmish with the remaining
sin of your own heart and the sin of the
world. but I guess you are about done.
There may be some work for you yet
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