Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-05
FAREWELL TO 1893.
TALMAGE breaches ON THE
DEAD YEAR
And Draws Many Interesting Words
Therefrom-The just Who Die Young
Perhaps Escape Impending Dangers
ON the Sea OF Life.

Tabernacle to-day Rev. DIR. Talmage
preached on the subject of shortened
Lives; or, A Cheerful Goodbye to
1893" The text selected was Isaiah
57:l: 1.-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 it's birth. To-day we
attend its obsequies. Another twelve
months have been cut out of our
earthly continuance, and it is time
for absorbing reflection.
We all spend much time in panegyric
of longevity We consider it a great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. If
any one dies in youth we say, What
a 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 Away.
If one be pleasantly circumstanced
he never wants TO go. William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at SO years of
age, standing in my house in festal
group, reading "Thanatopsis' without
spectacles, 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 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 desirability as when he
snuffed out his first politician. Albert
Barnes, so " ell 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 longevity, but in this the last day
of 1898, and when many are filed 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 10 you about the
adva ntages of an abbreviated earthly
existence.
If l were an agnostic | would say a
man is blessed in proportion To the
number of years he can stay on terra
frma," because after that he falls off
the docks, and if he is ever picked out
of the depths il 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 hundred years, and then he
was TO go into humiliation, l would
say his chief business ought TO be to
keep alive and even in good weather to
be very cautious, and TO carry an UNI
brella and take overshoes, and life
preservers, and bronze armor, and
weapons of defense lest he fall off
into nothingness and obllteration.
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 a blessing because
it makes ones life-worl very compact.
Some men go to business at o'clock
in the morning and return at in
the evening Others go at o'clock
and return at l.. Others go at
10 and return at 4. 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 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 transference
from this world? If a person die in
childhood, he gets through his work
at 9 o'clock in the morning. If he die
at As years of age, he gets through his
work at 12 o'clock noon. If he die
at 20 years of age. he gets through his
work at o'clock in the afternoon.
II 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 shouldering his
scythe and taking his pitcher from
under 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
better.
Again: There is blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that moral disaster might come upon
the man if he tarried loager. 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 fifteen years. Twenty years be-
fore there was no more probability of
that mans committing a commercial
dishonesty than that you will commit
commercial dishonesty The number of
men who fall into ruin between fifty
and seventy years of age is simply APP