The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-01
DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
Talmase breaches a Sermon ApprO-
pirate TO the Season.


o-or,ise of Smooth Sailing in Old
Age.
17roollvn. Dec. BIN the forenoon
.,-.,ice at the Brooklyn Tabernacle to-
d.v Rev. DR.. Talmage preached on the
inject of shortened Lives; or A Cheer
Su1 Goodby to 1898" The text selected
,ros Isaiah 57:1: The righteous is taken
a,vav from the evil to come"
We have written for the last time at
,he head of our letters and business
documents the figures 1898. With this
dav closes the year. In January last we
,oiebrated its birth. To-day we attend
-. obseouies. Another twelve months
hove been cut out of our earthly contis-
nance and it is a time for absorbing re-
Fiction
We all spend much time in panegyric
Of longevity. We consider it a great
+hing IN live to be an octogenarian. If
aDv one dies in youth we say, what
nityr, DR.. Muhlenberg, in old age, said
tbat the HYMN written in early life by his
avn hand, no more expressed his senti-
meut when it said:
Iwould not live Away.
If one be pleasantly circumstanced he
pever wants to go. William Cullen Bryant,
the great poet, at eighty-two years of age
standing in my house in festal group,
reading ''Thanatopsis" without spectacles,
was lust as anxious to live as when at
eighteen wears of age he wrote the i'm
mortal thenody Cato feared at eighty
wears of age thatihe would not live TO
learn Greek. Monaldesco at lis years,
writing the history of his time, feared
collapse. Theophratus writing book at
ninety wears of age was anxious to live to
compiete it, Thurlow Weed at about
eighty-six years of age found life as great
a desirability as when he snuffed out his
first politician. Albert Barnes SO well
nrepared for the next world at seventy
said he would rather stay here. So it is
all the way down. l 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, l
sometime ago preached a sermon on the
blessings of longevity, but in this, the
last day of 1898, and when many are
filled with sadness at the thought that
another chapter of their life is closing,
and they have 1856 days less to live, l
propose to preach to you about the adj
vantages of an abbreviated earthly ex-
istence.
If 1 were an agnostic / would say man
is blessed in proportion to the number of
years he can stay on terra firma," be-
cause after that he falls of the docks and
if he is ever picked out of the depths it is
only to be set up in some morgue of the
universe to see if anybody will claim him.
If thought God made man only to last
forty or fifty or a hundred years, and
then he was to go into humiliation [
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 de-
fence lest he fall off into nothingness and
Obliteration
But, my friends, you are not agnostics.
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 a blessing because it makes
ones life work very compact.
Some men go to business at seven
o'clock in the morning and return at
seven in the evening. Others go at eight
o'clock and return at twelve Others go
at ten and return at four. l have friends
who are ten hours a 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 position do you think the
most desirable2 You say, other things
being equal, the man who is the shortest
time detained in business and who can re-
turn home the quickest is the most
blessed. Now, my friends, why not carry
that good sense into the subject of trans
ference from this world? If person die
IN childhood, he gets through his work at
nine o'clock in the morning. If he die at
iiorty-hye years of age, he gets through
ms work at twelve o'clock noon If he
die at seventy years of age. he gets
through his work at five o'clock in the
afternoon. II he die at ninety. he has to
toll all the way on up to eleven o'clock at
ulgnt. Inc sooner we get through our
N work the better The harvest all in bar
rack or barn. the farmer does not sit down
IN the stubble field, but shouldering his
Scythe ana taking his pitcher from under
Tree, he makes straight line for the
Z olu homestead. All we want to be anx-
lOus about Is to get our work done and
well done, the quicker the better.
AGAIN: There is a blessing in an alb
oreVlated earthly existence in the fact
mat moral disaster might come upon the
man II he tarried longer. A man who had
oeen prominent in churches, and who had
ueeh admired for his generosity and kind
ness everywhere, for forgery was sent to
soaue prison Tor fifteen years. Twenty
AZ i. ~ DiiCL GU w do no IlOEe
IVY OF That mans committing a CONNER
cal dishonesty than that you will commit
colnmerclaI dishonesty The number of
Men VINO TALL into ruin between fifty and
seventy years of age is simply appalling.
lhey had died thirty years before it
would nave been better for them and bet
@r Tor their families. The shorter the
'GGEage the less chance for a cyclone.
Inere Is wrong theory abroad that if
on5 youth be right his old age will be
rlg1t' You might as well say there is
tn oa. wanting for a ships safety except
@seU II 1ully launched on the Atlantic
UGedh' have sometimes asked those
"no We're schoolmates or college mates
"a some great defrauder, what kind of
10Y was he? What kind of a Young
udll was he3" and they have said, 'SWhy,
he was splendid fellow; l had no idea
ne ne could ever go into such an outrage ),
due TACT Is the great temptation of life
M old age 'ii l." i1Aio me- Vi III
oo me first time l crossed the Atlantic
Ana AM I !. ~ was as smooth as a mill pond.
Tn W. vhought the sea captains and the
sOGosers mad slandered the old ocean.
on u .. = wrote home an essay for a magazine
of.Ihe smile of the Sea- but I never
fo', inward could have written that thing.
sbal lure we got home we got terrible
he ing up The first voyage of life may
cIy5orry smooth; the last may be a euro
nr Suon. Many who start life in great