The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1894-01-06

Another Twelve Months Have Been Cut
Out of Our Earthly Existence and 1t
Calls for Absorbing Reflection
"The Righteous is Takcn Away
From the Evil to Come"
In the forenoon service at the Brook
Ign Tabernacle Sunday. Rev. DR.. Tai
mage preached on the subject of
shortened Lives; or, A Cheerful Good
by to 1893" The text selected was
Isaiah lvii. l., 1.-THE righteous is taken
away from the evil to come"
We nave 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 at
tend its o~bsequics. Another twelve
months have been cut out of our earth
ly continuance, and it is time for alb
sorbing 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 moro expressed his sentiment
when it said,
would not live Away.
If M be pleasantly circumstanced,
he never wants to go. William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at 81 years of
age, standing in my house in a festal
group reading 'Thanatopsis" without
s~pectaclcs, was just as anxious to live
as when at Is years of age he wrote
the immortal ~threnody. Cato feared
ut 80 years of age hat he would not
live to learn Greek. M~onaldesco at lilo
years, writing the history of his time,
feared a collapse. Theophrastus writ
ing n book at 30 years of age was anx-
ious to live to complete it. Thurlow
Weed at SO years of G found life as
great a desirability as when he snuffed
ont 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 w down. ] suppose hat
the last time Methuselah was out Of
doors in n storm he was afraid Of get
ting his feet wet lest it shorten his
days. Indeed ] some time ago preached
n 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 olive, ! propose to preach
to you about the advantages of an
abbreviated earthly existence.
If | were an agnostic, ! would say a
man is blessed in proportion to the
number of years he can stay OF terra
firma," because after that he falls off
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. II / thought
God made man only to last forty or If
ty or one hundred years, and then he
was to go into humiliation, Il would
say his chief business ought to be to
keep alive and wen in good weather to
be very cautious, and to carry an UNI
brella and take overshoes and life pre-
servers and bronze armor and weapons
of defense lest no fall off into nothing
ness and obliteration.
But, my friends, you are nQtlo
tics You believe in imm0
the eternal residepa
in Heaven, apdSf
pal S~6hsiness Mt sew
en- morning and return
INC evening. Others go at
pck and return at twelve.
ten and return at four. 1
rs who are ten hours a day
tRess, others who are five hours,
1[hef1 No are one hour They all do
their ~>well-they do their entire
work, they return. Which
position dN tas-iaast 6esjra-.
BILE? You Nay( Ir thinIN4ing
equal, the,n1an W is the shor,sst time
turn home the quickest is the most
blessed.
Now, my friends, why not carry that
good sense into the subject of transfer
ence from this world? If a person die
in childhood, he gets through his work
at nine o'clock in the morning. If he
die at 45 years of age, he gets through
his work at twelve o'clock noon. If he
die at 30 years of age. he gets through
his work at five o'clock In the after
noon. II he die at 90, he has to toll all
the way up to eleven 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 n tree, he makes a straight line
for the old homestead. All we want to
be anxious about is to get our work
done and well done; the quicker the
better.
Again, there is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that moral disaster might come upon
the man il he tarried longer. A man
who had been prominent in churches,
and who had been admired for his gen.
erosity and kindness everywhere, for
forgery was sent to state prison for
there WAS no more probability of that
mans committing a commercial dis
honesty than that you will. The
number Of men who fall into
ruin between fifty and seventy
years Of age is simply appalling. II
they had died thirty years before, it
would have been better for them and
better for their families. The shorter
the voyage the less chance for a cy-
clone.
There is a wrong theory abroad that
II ones youth be right, his old age will
be right. You might as well say there is
nothing wanting for a ships safety ex-
cept to get it fully launched on the At
lantic ocean. | have sometimes asked
those who were schoolmates or college
mates of some great defrauder: What
kind of a boy was he? What kind ola
young man was hep" and they have
said: "Why, he was a splendid fellow.
] had no idea he could ever go into such
an outrage" Tho fact is the great
temptation Of life sometimes comes
far on In midlife or in old age.
The first time l crossed the Atlantic
ocean IL was as smooth as a millpond,
and ! thought the sea captains and the
voyagers had slandcred the old ocean,.
and ! wrote home an essay for q maya
zine on THE Smile of the Sea-" but I
never aftcrward could have written
that thing, for before we got home we
got u terrible shaking up The first