Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1894-01-12
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
The Eminent Brooklyn Divins's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject: "shortened Lives"


the figures 1898 With this day closes the
year IN january last We celebrate its
birth, To-day we attend its obseduies. An:
other twelve months have been cut out oil
our earthly continuance, and Il il time
for absorbing ref sction.
We all spend much tine in pansgyric oil
longevity. We consider 1t great thing to
live to be ali octogenarian If any one dies
n youth, We say "What pityl' DIR,
Muhlenberg in old age said that the hymn
written in early life by his owr hahd no
more expressed his sentiment When it said
would not i've Away
IT one he pleasantly circumstances. he
never wants to go. William Cullen Bryant.
the great poet. at eighty-two years of age
stshdiug in my house in festal group rea1-
ing "Thanstopss" without spectacles, Was
Just as anxious to live az when At eighteen
years of age he wrote the immortal threnodv;
Cato feared at eighty years of age ,Bat he
would not live to learn Greek Monaldesco
al, lis years, writing the history of his time,
feared collapse, Theophrastus writing a
book at ninety years OF age was anxious to
live TO complete it, Thurlow Weed at about
efghty-six years of age fouu1 life as crest Il
desiiability as when he snuffed cut bic first
politician. =
Albert Barnes, 10 wei. psebafed for the
next world at seventy Bald he would rather
stay here SO It r all the way down. I sup
pose that the last time Methusslah was out
OF doors in storm he was afraid of getting
MS feet wet lest it shorten his days. Indeed
Isome time ago preached sermon on the
blessings of longevity, but In this the last
day of 1898, and when many are filled with
sadness at the thought that another chapter
OF their life is closing, and that thew have
800 days less to live, propose to preach to
you about the advantages of an abbreviated
earthly existence. .~-
II were an agnostic, would saya man
is blessed in proportion to the number of
years he can stay on terra hrma," because
after that he falls of the docks, and ii he is
ever picked out of tho depths it is only to be
set up in some morgue Of the universe to see
III anybody will claim him. II thought God
made man only to last forty or fifty or 100
years, and then he was 10 60 into annihila-
ton, would say his chief business ought TO
be to keep alive and even in good weather to
he very cautious. and to carry an umbrella
and take overshoes and life preservefs and
bronze armor and weapons of defense lest he
fall off into nothingness and oblitetation.
But, my friends, you arc not Agn0stics.
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 work
very compact
Some men go to business at o'clock i'll
the morning and return at in the evening
Others go at 8 O'CLOCK and return at 12
Others go at 10 and return at 4. I have
friends who are ten hours day in business,
others who are five hours, others who are
ono hour They all do their work we'll
they do their entire work, and then they re-
turn. Which position do you think the
most desirable2 You say, other things being
equal, the man who is the shortest time de-
tanned IN business and Who can returt hcms
the quickest is the most blessed
Now, my friends, why ret carry that good
sense into the sebj5et of transference from
this worldS If a person die in childhood he
gets through his work at o'clock in the
morning. Ii he die at forty-five years of age,
he gets through his work at II o'clock noon.
IL he die at seventy years of age; ne gets
through his work at 3 o'clock in the after
noon. If he die at ninety, he has to toll all
the way on up to II o'cleck at night The
sooner we get through our work the better.
The harvest AL 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
well done the quicker the better
/. Again, there is blessing il Gil abbreviated
earthly existence il tRB fact that moral dis
estef might COME upon the man If he tarried
longer. man who had been prominent in
churches. and who had been admired for his
generosity anil kindness everywhere, for for
gerry was sent to State prison foErfffteen years.
Twenty years before there was no more pro5z
ability of that mans committing commercial
dishonesty than that you will commit COM
mercial dishonesty The humber Of men who
fall into ruin between fifty and seventy years
of age is simply appalling. If they had died
thirty years before, it would have beer better
for them and better for their families. The
shorter tho voyage the less chance for cy-
clone.
There j5 a wrong theory abroad that if
ones youth be right, his old age will be
right. You might rs we'll say there is Moth.
ing wanting for SHIPS safety except to get
1t fully launched on the Atlantic Ocean. /
bave sometimes Srdthosa who We're school,,
mates or college mates 81 some gf6at de-,
frauder "What kin Of a boy Vas he?
What kind OF young man Was hep AM
they have said why, he was a splendid
Fellow. had no idea he could ever go into
swch an outrage" The fact is the great
temptation OF life sometimes comes far on in
nluiilc VI III Oiu dgS.
The first TINA erosss thu AtisnttcO ,e4a
It was as smooth as d miipohd, an
thought the sea captains AMI voyagers hal
Slandersd the OLD ocean, an wrote home
I'm essay for magazine on "Tne Hmiis Of
tho Sea" but | never aftef&arI could hav9
written that thing for before we got home
we got terrible shaking up Toe frst voy
age Of life may be very smooth the last may
be q euroclydon Many VINO start life in
great prosperity do not en- It iii PROSPERITY
The great pressure of temptation comes
sometimes in this difeetien At abott forty
Ave years OF are d nli1's nervous system
changes, and some one tells him lie must
take stimGlants 10 keep himself up until the
stimu.ants keep him down, or man has
been going along for thirty or forty years in
Unsuccessful business, and here is an open
ing where by one dishonored action he can
lift himself and his family from all financial
embarrassment. He attempts 10 leap the
chasn, and he falls into it.
Then it is in after life that the great temp
tation OF success comes. If man makes a
fortune before thirty years of age. he gener-
ally loses it before forty. 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 president have
white hair. Many OF those who have been
largely successful have been FULL arre-
gance or worldliness in old age, They may
not have lost their integrity, but they have
become SO worldly AMI so selfish under the
influence o. large success that it is evident
tc everybody that their success has been a
temporal calamity and eternal damage.
Concerning many people it may be said 1t
seems us if it would have been better il they
could have embarked from this lie ut twen-
ty or thirty years OF ago. Do you know the
reason why the vast majority Of people die
before thirty-hve? Ii is because they have