The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1894-01-03


age, he generally loses it before forty
The solid and the permanent fortunes
for the most part do not come to their
climax until in mid-life or in old age
The most Of the bank presidents have
white hair. Many of those who have
arrogance or worldliness or dissipation
in old age They may not have 1osT
their integrity, but they have become so
worldly and selfish under the influence
of large success that il IS evident TO
everybody that their success has been
a temporal calamity and an eternal dam
age.
Concerning many people it may be said
II seems as if il would have been better
If they could have embarked from this
life at twenty or thirty years of age
DO you know why the vast majority of
people die before thirty-five2 1t is be-
cause they have not the moral endurance
for that which is beyond the thirty and
a merciful God viii not allow them TO
be put TO the fearful strain.
Again, there is a blessing in an abbre-
waited earthly existence in the fact that
As soon as one is old enough to take
care Of himself he is put on his guard.
Bolts on the door 10 keep out the rob
beTs. Freproof safes to keep off the
flames. Life insurance and fire insur
ance against accident. Receipts lest you
nave 70 pay ueDt Twice liIeDCaI
against shipwreck. Westinghouse air
brake against railroad collision. There
are many TO overreach you and take all
you have. Defense against cold, de-
Tense against heat. defense against sick
ness. defense against the worlds abuse
defense all the way down to the grave,
and even the tombstone sometimes is not
a sufficient barricade
If a 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 so
into the Kings castle? Who is the
more fortunate-the soldier who has to
stand guard twelve hours or the man
who has To stand guard six hours? We
have common sense about everything but
religion, common sense about everything
but transference from this world.
A Fortunate Escape.
Again, there is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one escapes so many bereavements
The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred. the more
chords TO be wounded or rasped or
sundered. If a man live on to seventy
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 60. grandchildren go. person
al friends outside the family circle whom
they had loved with a 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-
Now. suppose the lad goes at sixteen
years of age. He escapes fifty funerals.
fifty caskets, fifty ObSequies. fifty awful
wrenchings Of the heart 1t is hard
enough for US to bear their departure,
but is ii 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 viii
practically say. 1T is hard enough for
me TO go through this bereavement. but
how glad ] am that he will never have
TO go through it,
So I 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
mourning and inconsolable for some
time. At this distance OF time. which
do you really think was the one to be
ongratulated-the shOrt-liVed child or
the long-lived father? Had David died
as early as that child died he would, in
the first place. have escaped that par
ucular bereay ement; then ne would have
escaped the worse bereavement Of Alb
SALON., his recreant son. and the pursuit
of the Philistines. and the fatigue of his
military campaigns. and the Jealousy of
saul, and the periidy Of Ahithophel and
the curse OF Shimei and the destTuc-
tiOn of his family at Ziklag and, above
all, he would have escaped the two great
sins of uncleanness and murder. David
lived TO be Of vast use to the church
happiness was concerned does il not
seem to you that il would have been
better for him to have gone early?
Now, this, my friends. explains some
things that TO YOU have been inexpli-
cable This shows you why when God
takes little children from a household
He is very apt to take the brightest,
the most genial. the most sympathetic
the most talented. Why? 1t is because
that kind of nature suffers the most
when il does suffer and is most liable
to temptation. God saw the tempest
sweeping up from the Caribbean. and He
put the delicate craft into the first
harbOr. Taken away from the evil TO
come"
Gods FavOrite the Circle.
Again. my friends, there is a blessing
IN an abbreviated earthly existence in
the fact that it puts one sooner in the
center Of things. All astronomers. in
fdel as we'll as Christian. agree in be
ieving that the universe swings around
some great center. Anyone who has
studied the earth and studied the
heavens knows that Gods favorite figure
in geometry is a circle. When God put
forth His hand TO create the universe,
He did not strike that hand at right
angles, but He waved it in circle and
kept on waving it in a circle until sys-
TENS and consultations and galaxies and
all worlds took that motion. Our planet
swinging around the sun, other planets
swinging around other suns, but some
where a great hub around which the
great wheel Of the universe turns. Now,
that center is heaven. That is the
capital of the universe That is the
great metropolis of immensely.
Now, does not our common sense teach
us that in matters Of study it is better
for US to move out from the center to-
ward the circumference rather than to
be on the circumference, where our
world now is? We are Ike those who
study the American continent while
standing on the Atlantic beach. The