The Progress., 1894-01-06
FAREWELL TO 1893.
TALMACE breaches ON THE
DEAD YEAR
And Draws Many Interesting Words
Therefrom-The just Who Die Yonng
Perhaps Escape Impending Dangers
on the Sea of Life.

BROOKLYN, n. V, Dec. 81, 1S93.-In
the forenoon service at the Brooklyn
/ Tabernacle to-day Rev. DIR. Talmage
/ preached on the subject of shortened
/ Lives; or, A Cheerful Goodbye to
| 1898" The text selected was Isaiah
( 57:l: 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
documents the figures 1898. With this
day closes the year. In January last
we celebrated its birth. To-day we
attend its obsequies Another twelve
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 it great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. If
any one dies in youth we say, What
pity" DR. Muhlenberg in old age,
said that the hymn written in early
life by his own hand. no more eX-
pressed his sentiment when it said:
| would not live alway.
If one be pleasantly clrcumStanced
he never wants to go William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at So years of
age, standing in my house in a festal
gronp, reading 'Thanatopsis" without
<pectacles, was just as anxious to live
as when at Is years of age he wrote
the immortal threnody. Cato feared at
so years of age that he would not live
to learn Greek Monaldesco at lis
years, writing the history of his time,
feared a collapse. Theophrastus writ
ing book at 80 years of age was anx-
iouS to live to complete it. Thurlow
Weed at about So years of age found
life as great n desirability as when he
snuffed out his first politician. Albert
Barnes, so well prepared for the next
world, at 20 said he would rather stay
here. So it is all the way down.
suppose that the last time Methuselah
was out of doors in a storm he was
afraid of getting his feet wet lest it
shorten his days. Indeed, | some time
ago preached a sermon on the blessings
of 1898, and when many are filled with
sadness at the thought that another
chapter of their life is closing, and
that they have 365 days less to live, |
propose to preach to you about the
advantages of an abbreviated earthly
existence.
There is wrong theory abroad that
If ones youth be right his old age will
be right You might as well say there
is nothing wanting for ships safety
except to get it fully launched on the
Atlantic ocean. ! have sometimes
asked those who were school mates OF
college mates of some great defrauder,
What kind of boy was he? What
kind of young man was hep" and
they have said, why, he was a splen-
did fellow; had no idea he could ever
go into such an outrage" The fact is
the great temptation of life sometimes
comes far on in mid life or in old age.
The first time | crosse | the Atlantic
ocean it was as smooth as mill pond
and thought the sea captains and the
voyagers had slandered the old ocean,
and wrote home an essay for maya
zine on '"The Smile of the Sea-" but |
never afterward could have written
that thing, for before we got home we
got terrible shaking up. The first
voyage of life may be very smooth; the
last may be a euroclydon. Many who
start life in great prosperity do not end
it in prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction; at
about forty-five years of age, mans
nervous system changes, and some one
tells him he must take stimulants to
keep himself up, and he takes stimu-
lants to keep himself up, until the
stimulants keep him down; or a man
has been going along for thirty or
fortv wears in unsuccessful business,
and here Is an opening where by one
dishonorable action he can lift himself
and lift his family from all financial
embarrassment. He attempts to leap
the chasm and he falls into it.
Then it is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. If man
make fortune before thirty years of
age, he generally loses it before forty.
The solid and permanent fortunes for
the most part do not come to their eli
max until in mid life, or in old age. The
most of the bank presidents have white
hair. Many of those who have been
largely successful have been cursed by
arrogance or worldliness or dissipation
in old age, They may not have lost
their integrity, but they have become
so worldly and so selfish under the in
fluence of large success that it is evil
dent to everybody that their success
has been a temporal calamity and an
eternal damage. Concerning many
people 1t may be said it seems as if it
would have been better If they could
have embarked from this life at twenty
or thirty years of age. Do you know
the reason why the vast majority of
people die before thirty-five? 1t is be-
cause they have not the moral endur-
ance for that which is beyond the