Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-01-02
BETWEEN TWO YEARS
REV. DR.. TALMAGE breaches ELo-
oUENTLY ON SHORTENED LIVES.

Longevity-The Temptations of Success.
5Compensations of Death-The Worth of
Clear Conscience.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 31.-In the forenoon
service at the Brooklyn Tabernacle to-
day, Rev,Dr. Talmage preached on the
subject of "Shortened Lives; or, A Cheer
full Goodby to 1s93." The text selected
was Isaiah lvii, /. 1.-THE righteous is taken
away from the evil to come"
We have written for the last time at
the head of our letters and business docu-
ments the figures 1893. With this day
closes the year. In January last we cele-
brated it's birth. Today we attend its
obsequies. Another 12 months have
been cut out of our earthly continuance,
and 1t is time for absorbing reflection.
WeaH spend much time in panegyric
of longevity. We consider it great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. If
any one dies in youth, we say, what
p:tyr DIR. Muhlenberg in old age said
that the hymn written in early life by
timent when it said,
would not i've AWAY.
II one be pleasantly ycircumstanced, he.
never wants to go. William Cullen Bry-
ant, the great poet, at so years of age,
standing in my house in festal group
reading "Thanatopsis" without specta-
-cles, was Just as anxious to live as when
at 18 years of age he wrote the immortal
threnody. Cato feared at so years of age
that he would not live to learn Greek.
Monaldesco at 115 years, writing the his
tory of his time, feared collapse The
ophrastus writing book at 80 years of
age was anxious to live to completed it.
Thurlow Weed at about SO 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 10 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 l some time
ago preached sermon on the blessings
of longevity, but in this, the last day of
1898, and when many are filled with sad
ness at the thought that another chapter
of their life is closing, and that they have
1865 days less to live, propose to preach
to you about the advantages of an abb
breviated earthly existence.
INDUSTRY INCULCATED.
If were an agnostic, l would say
man is blessed in proportion to the num-
Der of years he can stay ON terra frma,"
because after that he falls off the decks,
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 I thought God made man only to
last 40 or 80 or 100 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 oyershoes and life preservers and
!; bronze armor and weapons of defense
lest he fall off into nothipgness and OBJ
liberation.
But, my friends, you are not agnos-
tics. You believe in immortality and
the eternal residence of the righteous in
heaven, and thereforeI first remark that
an abbreviated earthly existence is to be
desired, and is blessing because it
makes ones life work very compact.
Some men go to business at o'clock
in the morning and return at in the
evening. Others go at o'clock and re-
turn at 10. Others go at 10 and return
at A. have friends who are ten hours a
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 return. Which po-
sition 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
quickest is the most blessed.
Now, my friends, why not carry that
good sense into the subject of transfer
ence from this world? If person die in
childhood, he gets through his work at Q
o'clock in the morning. If he die at 40
years of age, he gets through his work at
12 o'clock noon. If he die at 70 years
of age, he gets through his work at 8
o'clock in the afternoon. If he die at 90, he
has to toll all the way 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, shoulder
ing his scythe and taking his pitcher
from under tree, he makes 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 bet
ter.
Again, there is blessing in an abbre-
waited earthly existence in the fact that
moral disaster might come upon the man
if he tarried longer. A man who had
been prominent in. churches, and who
had been admired for his generosity and
kindness everywhere, for forgery was
sent to state prison for 10 years. Twen-
ty years before there was no more proba-
bility of that mans committing COM
mercial dishonesty than that you will
commit commercial dishonesty. The
number of men who fall into ruin be-
tween so and 20 years of age is simply
appalling. If they had died 80 years be-
fore IL would have been better for them