The Baptist headlight., 1894-01-18
Between Two Years,

| Gue forenoon Service dG Un6 brook
| lyn Tabernacle Sunday, Rev DR.. Tai
mage preached on the subject OF
"Shortened Lives: or, a Cheerful Good
by to 1898" The text selected was
Isaiah lvii, i, The righteous is taken
away from the evil to come"
| We have written for the last time at
documents the figures 1898 With this
we celebrated its birth. To-day we at
months have been cut out of our earthly
continuance and it is a time for alb
| sOrbing reflection.
We all spend much time in panegeric
| of longevity We consider it a great
thing to live to be an Octogenarian, If
any one dies in youth, we say, what
pity" DR.. Muhlenberg in old age
said that the hymn written in early
life by his own hand no more expressed
his sentiment when it said.
1 would not live always.
If one be pleasantly circumstanced.
he never wants to 90. William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at 81 years of
age, standing in my house in a 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 80 years of age that he would not
live to learn Greek. MonalGesco at
115 years, writing the history of his
time, feared a collapse. Theophrastus
writing book at 90 years of age was
anxious to live to complete it. Thur
low Weed at about S6 years of age
found life as great desirability as
when he snuffed out his first politician.
Albert Barnes, SO well prepared for
the next world, at 70 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 sermon on
the blessings of longevity, but in this.
the last day of 1893, and when many
are filled 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 to you
about the advantages of an abbreviated
earthly existence.
Industry Inculcated.
If | were an agnOstic. [ would say a
man is blessed in proportion to the
number OF years he can stay on terra
tirma," 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. If | thought
God made man only to last forty or
fifty or one hundred years, and then
he was to go into annihilatiOn, [ 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
preserver5 and bronze armor and
weapons of defense lest he fall off into
nothingness ahd obliteration.
But, my friends, you are not agnos-
tics. You believe in Immortality and
the eternal residence of the right
eOus 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 o'clock
in the morning and return at I in the
evening. Others go at o'clock and
return at Il. Others 90 at 10 and re-
turn at 1. have friends who are ten
hours 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 re-
turn. 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 quick
est 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 o'clock in the morning. If he die
at 45 years of age, he gets through his
work at II o'clock noon. If he die at
20 years of age, he gets through his
work at O'Clock in the afternoon. If
he die at 90 he has to toll all the wav
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 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 blessing in an al
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that moral disaster might come upon the
man if he tarried long. A man who
had been prominent in churches. and
who had been admired for his generos-
ity and kindness everywhere. for
forgery was sent TO State Prison for
fifteen years. Twenty years before
there was no more probability of that
mans committing a commercial dis
honesty than that YOU will commit a
commercial dishonesty. The number
of men who fall into ruin between tiftv
and seventy years of age is simply ap-
palling. If they had died thirty years
hPfnrp liz Wnnl6 hnt n haan hn++nr e..