Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-01-11

that thing. for before we got home we
got a terrible shaking up. The first
voyage Of life may be very smooth,
the last may be q e~uroclydon. Many
who start lift in great prosperity do
not end 1t In prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction; at
about 45 years of age a mans nervous
system changes, and some n tells
him he must take stimulants to keep
himself up, and he takes stimulants to
keep himself up, until the stlmulants
keep him down, or a man has been
going along for thirty or forty years in
unsuccessful business, and here is an
opening where 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 ii.
Then Ii Is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. If a man
make a fortune before thirty years of
age, he generally loses it before forty.
The solid and the permanent fortunes
for he most part do not come to their
climax until in mid-life or in old age.
The most of the bank prssi tents have
white hair. Many of those who have
been largely successful have been flung
of arrogance or worthless or diSsipa-
ton In old age. They may rot have lost
their integrity, hit they have become so
worldly and SO selfish under the intiu-
cnce of large success that 1t Is evident
to everybody that their success has
been a temporal calamity and an etcr-
nal damage. Concerning many people
IL may be said Ii seems as If 1t would
have been better il they could have
embarked from this life at 20 or 80
years of age. Do you know the reason
why the vast majority Of people die be-
fore 30? 1t is because they have not
the moral endurance for that which
Is beyond the 80, and a merciful God
will not allow them to be put to the
fearful strain.
Again: There is n blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence i'm the fact
that one Is the sooner taken off the de-
fe2s;ye. As o o as one Is old enough
to take care of himself he Is put on his
guard. Bolts OH 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. Westing-
house air-brake against railroad collis-
ion. There are many ready to over
reach you and take all you have. De
Tense 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 q suf-
ficient barricade. Ii q soldier who has
been on guard. shiyering and stung
with the cold, pacing up and down the
parapet with shouldered musket, is
glad when some n comes to relieve
guard and he can go inside the fort
ress, ought not that man to shout for
Joy who can put down his weapon of
earthly defense and 60 into the kings
castle? Who Is the more fortunate,
the soldier who has to stand guard
twelve honrs, or The man who has to
stand guard six hours? We have COM
mon sense about everything but relig-
ion. common sense about everything
but transference from this world.
Again: There is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that II escapes SO many b~ereavements.
The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred, the more
chords to be wounded or rasped or sun
dered. II a man live on to 20 or so
years of age, how many graves are cleft
at his feet? In that long reach of time
fathers and mothers go, brothers and
sisters 60, children go, grandchildren
go, personal friends outside the family
circle whom they had loved with Il
love like that of David and Jonathan.
Besides that, some men have Il ma
tural trepidation about dissolution, and
ever and anon during forty or fifty or
sixty years this horror of thei- dissO-
luton shudders through soul and body.
Now, suppose the lad goes at 16 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 liz 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 ourselves into
Il generosity of bereavement which will
practically say, 1T is hard for me to
go through this bereavement, but how
glad I am that he will never have to
go through it,"
So | reason with myself. and so you
will find it helpful to reason with your
selves. David lost his son. Though
David was King, he lay on the earth
mourning and i~nconsolable for some
time. At this distance Of time. which
do you really think was the one to be
congratulated, the short-lived child or
the long-liyed father? Had David died
as early as that child died he would,
in the first place. have escaped that
particular bereavement, then he would
have escaped the worst bereavement
Of Absolem. his recreant son, and the
pursuit of the Philistines. and the ia
tigues of his military campaign. and
the jealousy of Saul, and the perfidy Of
Ahithophel. and the curse of Shimei,
and the destruction of his family at Xix.
lag. and above all. he would have es-
capped the two great calamities Of his
life. the great sins of u~ncleanncss aud
II urdeT. David lived TO be of vast use
to the Church and the world, but so
far rs his own happiness was concern
e6, does 1t cot seem to you that II
would have been better for him to
have gone early?
Now, this, my friends, explains some
things that to you have been inexplica-
bic. This shows you why when God
lakes little children from a household,
he Is very apt to take the brightest, the