Connecticut western news., 1894-01-04
BETWEEN TWO YEARS
REV. DR. TALMAGE BREACHES ELo- OuENTLY ON SHORTENED LIVES.

REV. DR. TALMAGE BREACHES ELo-
 ouENTLY ON SHORTENED LIVES. Too Much Time Spent In Panegyric of
 Longevity-The Temptations of Success.
 Compensations of Death-The Worth of
 Clear Conscience.
 BROOKLYN, Dec. 31.-In the forenoon service at the Brooklyn Tabernacle to- day, Rev. Dr. Talmage preached on the subject of Shortened Lives; or, A Cheer full Goodby to 1s93." The text selected was Isaiah lvii, i, "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come."
 We have written for the last time at the head of our letters and business docu- ments the figures 1893 With this day closes the year. In January last we cele- brated it's birth. Today we attend it's obsequies. Another 12 months have been cut out of our earthly continuance, and it is a time for absorbing reflection.
 We all spend much time in panegyric of longevity. We consider 1t a great thing to live to be an octogenarian. If any one dies in youth, we say, What pityr' Dr. Muhlenberg in old age said that the hymn written in early life by his own hand no more expressed his sen- timent when it said,
 would not live alway.
 If one be pleasantly circumstanced, he never wants to go. William Cullen Bry- ant, the great poet, at S2 years of age, standing in my house in a festal group reading "Thanatopsis' without specta- cles, was just as anxious to live as when at 18 years of age he wrote the immortal threnody. Cato feared at 80 years of age that he would not live to learn Greek. Monaldesco at 115 years, writing the his tory of his time, feared a collapse. The ophrastus writing a book at 90 years of age was anxious to live to complete it. Thurlow Weed at about SC years of age found life as great a desirability as when } he snuffed out his first politician.
 Albert Barnes, so we'll prepared for the next world, at 70 said he would rather stay here. So it is all the way down. suppose that the last time Methuselah was out of doors in storm he was afraid of getting his feet wet lest it shorten his days. Indeed I some time ago preached a sermon on the blessings of longevity, but in this, the last day of 1893, and when many are filled with sad ness at the thought that another chapter of their life is closing, and that they have 885 days less to live, propose to preach to you about the advantages of an ab- breviated earthly existence.
 INDUSTRY INCULCATED.
 If were an agnostic, would say a man is blessed in proportion to the num- Der of years he can stay on 'tterra firma," because after that he falls off the docks, and if he is ever picked out of the depths 1t is only to be set up in some morgue of the universe to see if any body will claim him. If thought God made man only to last 40 or 50 or 100 years, and then he was to go into annihilation, would say his chief business ought to be to keep alive and even in good weather to be very cautious, and to carry an umbrella and take overshoes and life preservers and bronze armor and weapons of defense lest he fall off into nothingness and ob- liberation.
 But, my friends, you are not agnos- tics. You believe in immortality and the eternal residence of the righteous in heaven, and therefore first remark that an abbreviated earthly existence is to be desired, and is blessing because it makes one's life work very compact.
 Some men go to business at o'clock in the morning and return at in the evening. Others go at 8 o'clock and re- turn at 12. Others go at 10 and return at 4. have friends who are ten hours day in business, others who are five hours, others who are one hour. They all do their work well-they do their entire work, and then they return. Which po- sition do you think the most desirable? You say, other things being equal, the man who is the shortest time detained in business and who can return home the quickest is the most blessed.
 Now, my friends, why not carry that good sense into the subject of transfer ence from this world? If person die in childhood, he gets through his work at 0 o'clock in the morning. If he die at 40 years of age, he gets through his work at 12 o'clock noon. If he die at 70 years of age, he gets through his work at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. If he die at 90, he has to toll all the way on up to il o'clock at night. The sooner we get through our work the better. The harvest all in barrack or barn, the farmer does not sit down in the stubble field, but, shoulder ing his scythe and taking his pitcher from under a tree, he makes straight line for the old homestead. All we want to be anxious about is to get our work done and we'll done; the quicker the bet ter.
 Again, there is blessing in an abbre- viated earthly existence in the fact that moral disaster might come upon the man if he tarried longer. A man who had been prominent in churches, and who had been admired for his generosity and kindness everywhere, for forgery was sent to state prison for 15 years. Twen- ty years before there was no more proba- bility of that mans committing a com mercial dishonesty than that you will commit commercial dishonesty. The number of men who fall into ruin be- tween 50 and 70 years of age is simply appalling. If they had died 30 years be- fore, it would have been better for them anu 0CeecA AoK LLon AhiulIcS. luo SuOTt- CT the voyage the less chance for cy- clone.
 PERILs OF SUCCESS.
 There is a wrong theory abroad that if one's youth be right, his old age will be right. You might as well say there is nothing wanting for 8 ships safety ex- ,cept to get it fully launched on the Att lantic ocean. I have sometimes asked those who were schoolmates or college mates of some great defrauder: "What kind of boy was he? What kind of a young man was he?" and they have said: Why, he was splendid fellow. I had DO idea he could ever go into such an outrage" The fact is the great tempta- ton of life sometimes comes far on in x,asd1sf, r.. l., ,ld reo