Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1896-04-13

CT , may uN happy anu NOALAOA eeAb+N. ~-'
1 have seen the tears of many widows
| dried by your consultations and minis
| tratiOns of charities have often seen
the orphans supplied with the means OF
support and education.
| consider it the imperative duty OF
every man to protect his loved ones by
insurance, whether he owns property
or not. How often does property go up
in a cloud of smoke and come down IN
! a shower of ashes. How often does
financial failures overtake even the
most shrewd and careful property own
ers. These financial disasters are often
beyond the control of weak, short
sighted man.
say it is a sin-a great sih-for any
man, knowing that he has nothing to
leave his wife and children to neglect
to provide for them by life insurance.
1t is the duty Of every man to reverence
/ God as our text puts it, and to prepare
himself spiritually for heaven by &C
/ cepting Jesus Christ the only Savior
that he can ever have. That is soul in
/ surance. But that in no wise inter-
feres with or excuses you from the God
approved duty of providing for the tenn
I pOral comforts of your dear ones while
they sOjourn in the world behind you.
1t rather emphasizes that duty, for the
Interchangeable word Of the eternal God
says: He that proyideth not for his
own, and especially those Of his own
| household, is worse than an infdel."
And who wants TO be worse than Tom
Pain, who on his dying bed said: If
the devil ever had an agent on earth,
have been that one
! tell you. friends, words can not eX-
press the pity and sadness which fills
my heart when see a woman delicate
ly brought up, and on her marriage day
| given by an indulgent father. to a man
/ to whom she is the chief joy'and pride
of life until the moment of death, and
then that same woman going out with
/ helpless little children at her back to
struggle for bread in a cold, selfish
world. l say if there is anything more
! pitiable than that in this world, l dom
know what it is. And especially if it
all could have been averted by the hus-
band carrying a life policy in some
lodge. God forbid that l should de-
tract in the least from the Importance
of spiritual preparation for death, but
on the other hand | would not lessen
, the importance of financial preparation
for the sake of wife and children. On
this point l can do no better than to
quote from that eminent Washington
City divine, DR.. T. Dewitt Talmage.
He says: The difficulty is when men
think of their death they are apt to
] fr,lr Of IN, with
their spiritual welfare, and not Of the
devastation in the household which
viii come because of their emigration
from it. 1t is meanly selfish for you
! to be so absorbed in the heaven to
/ which you are going. that you forget
what is to become of your wife and
| children after you are dead. You can
go out of this world not leaving them
a dollar, and yet die happily if you
could not provide for them; but if you
could pay your dues and neglected
them. il is a mean thing for you to go
up to heaven while they go into the
poor house. You at death move into
a mansion, and they move into two
| rooms on the fourth story of tene-
| ment house in a back street. When
they are out at the elbows and the
/ knees the thought of your splendid robe
in heaven will not keep them warm.
The minister may preach a splendid
sermon over your remains. and the
quartette may sing like four angels
alghted in the organ loft; but your
death will be a swindle, as far as pro-
viding for your family is concerned"
| You had the means to provide for the
comfort of your household when you
left it, and you wickedly neglected to
do so. The man who promises on the
| day of his marriage to provide for and
protect his bride is not true to his mar
riage vows if he leaves her after his
death to be haunted by the wolf of pow
erty, when he could have provided for
! her by insurance.
But some uninsured men may say:
you are TOO hard on US; there are rea-
sons why we do not do this" Very
WE'LL let us consider some of these rea-
sons. This is such a serious matter
and to my mind such a manifest Chris
tian duty that / believe it my duty as
minister of the Gospel to deal thor
Ougly with it while | have the subject
in hand.
I shall consider what seems to me to
be the most unreasonable objection
first 1t is objected, Il must die 10
win" therefore l will not be insured.
Now this is the essence of selfshness.
Refusing to insure will not prevent
death, nor stave it off a single day; but
it will bring a train of miseries long
enough and black enough to- make life
miserable for his fond wife and help
less children. We must all certainly
die, and certainly the protection of
loved ones will'win the applause of all
right-thinking men, it will win peace
of mind for us, and believe it will win
the approval OF Almighty God The
man who makes this OBJECTION will
never try to reach heaven, because he
must die to win heaven and his crown
of Righteousness.
But again, some man says: 81 mean
IN the next ten or twenty years to
secure property, and so l shall leave
my family very comfortable" How do
you know that you are going to live 10
or 20 years? If we could look up the
path of the future, we would see it
crossed by pneumonias and pleurisies,
and consumption, and sudden death by
accident. Besides that, the great ma
jority of men die poor. DR.. Talmage
says: Two only out of a hundred sue