Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1894-01-18

,cean it was as smooth as a millpond,
and ] thought the sea captains and the
voyagers had slandered the old ocean,
and | wrote home an essay for maya
zine on THE Smile of the Sea-" but l
never afterward could have written
that thing. for before we got home we
got terrible shaking up. The first
voyage of life may be very smooth: the
last may be euroclydon. Many who
start life in great prosperity do not end
it in prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction:
At about As years of age a mans nerv-
GUS system changes, and some one tells
him he must take stimulants to keep
himself up and he takes stimulants to
keep himself up until the stimulants
keep him down, or man has been going
along for 30 or 40 years in unsuccessful
busi.ess, and here is an opening where
by one dishonorable action he can lift
himself and lift his family from all
financial embarrassment He attempts
to leap the chasm, and ne falls into 1t.
Then ii is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes If a man
make fortune before so years of age
he generally loses it before 40. The
solid and the permanent fortunes for
the most part do not come to their
climax until midlife or in old age. The
most of the bank presidents have
white hair. Many of those who have
been largely successful have been full
afgef
ton in old age. They may not have
lost their integrity, but they have be-
come so worldly and so selfish under
the influence ~ large success that it is
evident 70 everybody that their success
has been temporal calamity and an
eternal damage
Concerning many people it may be
said il seems a, if it would have been
better i they could have embarked
from this life at 90 or 30 years of age.
DO YOU know the reason why the vast
ma jurity OF people die before S5? 1t
is because tAey have not the moral
endurance or that which is beyond
the so and merciful God viii net
allow them 20 lie put to the fearful
strain.
Again there is a blessing in abbre-
waited earthly existence in the fact
that che is the sooner taken of the de-
fensiye As soon rs one IS old enough
to take care of himself. he Is put on his
Guard. Bolts on the door to keep out
the robbers. Fireproof safes to keep
off the flames. Life insurance and fire
insurance against accidents. Receipts
lest you have to pay debt twice. Life
boat against shipwreck. Westines
house air brake against railroad coli
lision. 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 a suiii-
cient barricade.
If soldier who has been on guard,
shivering and stung with the cold, pac-
ing up and down the parapet with
shouldered musket, is glad when some
one comes to relieve guard and he can go
inside the fortress, ought not that man
to shout for Joy who can put down his
weapon of earthly defense and go into
the kings castle? Who is the more
fortunate, the soldier who has to stand
guard IL hours, 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 one escapes so many bereave-
ments The longer we live the more
attachments and the more kindred. the
more chords to be wounded, or rasped.
or sundered If man live on to seven
ty or eighty years of age, how many
graves are cleft at his feet? In that
long reach of time father and mother
go brothers and sisters go. children go,
grandchildren go. personal friends out
side the family circle whom they had
loved with love like that of David
and Jonathan
Besides that, some men have a nat
ural trepidation about dissolution. and |
ever and anon during forty or fifty or
sixty years this horror of their dissolu- |
tion shudders through soul and body. |
Now. suppose the lad goes at 10 years |
of age He escapes fifty funerals, fifty |
baskets, fifty obsequies, fifty awful |
of the heart II is hard |
enough for us to bear their departure.
but is it 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 a generosity of bereavement which |
will practically say. ut is hard enough |
for me to go through this bereavement,
but how glad l am that he will never
have to go through itl'
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
and inconsolable for some
time. At this distance of time, which
10 you really think was the one to Ice
the short lived child or
The long lived father? Had David died
IS early as that child died, he would in
il, l. -. Il