Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-05

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 l 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 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-tive 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 man
has been going along for thirty or
forty years in unsuccessful business,
and here is an opening where by one
dishonora BILE action he can lift himself
and lift his family from all financial
embarrassment. lie attempts to leap
the chasm and he falls into it.
Then it is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. If a 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 10 everybody that their success
has been temporal calamity and an
eternal damage. Concerning many
people it may be sad 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-
anee for that which is beyond the
thirty, and merciful God will not
allow them to be put to the fearful
strain.
Again: The re is ablessiug in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one is the sooner taken off the de-
fensive. AS soon as one is old enough
to take care of himself he is put on his
guard. Bolts on the door TO keep out
the robbers. Fire-proof safes to keep
off the flames, Life insurance and
fire insurance against accident Re-
ceipts lest you have to pay a debt
| twice. Lifeboat against shipwreck.
| Westinghouse air brake against rail-
road collision. There are many ready
TO overreach you and take all you
! have. Defense against cold, defense
against heat, defense against sickness,
| defense against the worlds abuse,
defense all the way down to the grave
and even the tombstone sometimes is
not sufficient barricade. If a soldier
who has been on guard, shiverlng and
stung with the cold, pacing up and
! down the parapet with shouldered
! musket, is glad when some one comes
| TO relieve guard and he can go inside
the fortress, ought not that man to
| shout for Joy who can put down his
weapon of earthly defense and go into
the kings castle? Who is the more
| fortunate, the soldier who has to stand
! guard twelve hours, or the man who
has to stand guard six hours? We
! have common sense about everything
| but religion, common sense about
everything but transference from this
world.
Again: There is blessing in an alb
! breviated earthly existence in the fact
! that one escapes so many bereavements.
! The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred, the more
! chords to be wounded or rasped or
! sundered. If a man live on to seventy
or eighty years of age, how many
! graves are cleft at his feet! In that
long reach of time father and mother
! go, brothers and sisters go, children
| 60 grandchildren go, personal friends
outside the family circle whom they
had loved with a love like that of
David and Jonathan.
Besides that, some men have a nat
ural trepidation about dissolution, and
ever and anon, during forty or fitty or
sixty years, ohis horror of their disso-
luton shudders through soul and
body. Now, suppose the lad goes at
| 10 years of age? He escapes fifty
funerals, fifty Baskets, fifty obsequies,
fifty awful wrenchings of the heart.
1t is hard enough for us to bear their
departure, but is it not easier for us to
bear their departure than for them to
stay and bear fifty departures? Shall
we not by the grace of God rouse our
selves into generosity of bereavement
which will practically say, ut is hard
enough for me to go through this be-
reavcment, bat how glad am that he
will never have to go through it,"
So reason with myself, and so you
will find it helpful to reason with
yourselves. David lost his son. Though