The Baptist headlight., 1894-01-18


mates or college mates OF some grea'
defrauder: .What kind of boy was
he? What kind of young man was
he?" and they have said: "Why, he
was a splendid fellow. L had no loea
he could ever oo into such an out
rage" The fact is the great tempta-
tion of life sometimes comes far on in
midlife or in old age.
The first time [ crossed the Atlantic
Ocean it was as smooth as mlllpond'
and thought the sea captains ana the
voyagers had slandered the old ocean,
and wrote home an essay for maga-
zine on THE Smile of the Sea, but |
never afterward could have written
that thing. for before we got home we
got terrible shaking up. The tlrst
voyage of life may be very smooth: the
last may be a eurOclydOn. Many VINO
start life in great prosperity do not END
it in prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction: At
about 10 years of age mans nervous
system changes, and some one tells
him he must take stimularts to keep
himself up, and he takes stimulants to
keep himself up until the stimulants
keep him down, or man has been go
ing along for 30 or 40 years in unsuc-
cessful business. and here is an open
ing where by one dishOnOrable action
he can lift himself and lift his family
from all financial mbarrassment. He
attempts to leap the chasm, and he
falls into it.
Then it is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. If a man
make fortune before 30 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 of ar
rOgance or wOrldliness or dissipation
in old age. They may have lost their
integrity, but they have become so
worldly and so selfish under the in
fuence of large success that it is evil
dent to everybody that their success
has been temporal calamity and an
eternal damage.
If a soldier who has been on guard,
shivering and stung with the cold,
pacing 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 twelve hours, or the
man who has to stand guard six hours?
We have common sense about every
thing but religion, common sense
about everything but transterence
from this world.
The Evil to Come.
Again, there is 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 a man live on to 10 or
80 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, grandchil-
dren' go, personal friends outside the
family circle whom they had loved
with love like that of David and JON
athan.
Besides that, some men have natural
trepidatiOn about dissolution, and ever
and anon during 10 or so or 60 years this
horror of their dissolution shudders
soul aud body. Now, suppose
the lad goes at l6 years of age. He es-
capes 80 funerals, so caskets, so Obse-
quies, 5Oawful wrenchings of the heart
1t 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 30 departures? Shall we
not, by the grace of God, rouse our
selves into generosity of bereave-
ment which will practically say, ''It is
hard enough for me to go through this
bereavement, but how glad | am that
he will never have to go through it,"
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
do you really think was the one to be
congratulated, 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 particular bereavement, then he
would have escaped the worse bereave-
ment of AbsalOm, his recreant son.
and the pursuit of the Philistines. and
the tatigues of his military campaign.
and the jealousy OF Saul. and the per
idv of Ahithophel, and the curse of
Shimei. and the destru ,tion of his
family at Ziklag. and, above all. he
would have escaped the two great ca
lamities of his life, the great sins of
and murder. David lived
to be of vast use to the church and the
world, but so far as his own happiness /
was concerned, does II not seem to YOU
that it would have been better for him
to have gone early:
Now, this, my friends. explains some i
things that TO you have been inexplica- /
BILE. This shows you why when Goo /
takes little children from a househo /
be l. very ant 20 take The hrirrh.o.. I