The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-11-05
COMFORTING THOUGHTS.
Blessings Of an Abbreviated Earth
ly Existence.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage Presents Some
Comforting Thoughts for Those Who
Have Lost Children-A Bal
sam for Many Wounds.

| In the following sermon Rev. L. De-
Nitt Talmage offers words of consola-
ton and comfort to those who have
| been bereft of their children. The
| text is:
The righteous is taken away from the evil tc
come.-Isaiah lvii 1.
We all spend much time in panegyric
of longevity. We consider it a great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. II
anyone dies in youth we say: ''What
a pityr DIR. Muhlenbergh, in old age,
said that the hymn written in early
life by his own hand, no more ex-
pressed his sentiment when it said:
would not live alway.
If one be pleasantly circumstanced,
he never wants to go. William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at 80 years of
age, standing in my house in festal
group. reading ''Thanatopsis" without
spectacles, was just as anxious to live
as when at IS years of age he wrote
that immortal threnody. Cato feared
at so years of age that he would not
live to learn Greek. Monaldesco, at
lis years, writing the history of his
time, feared collapse. Theophrastus,
writing a book at 90 years of age,
was anxious to live to complete it.
Thurlow Weed, at about ST years of
age, found life as great desirability
as when he snuffed out his first poll
tician. Albert Barnes, SO well pre-
pared for the next world at 20, said he
would rather stay here. So it is all
the way down. l suppose that the last
time that Methuselah was out of doors
in storm he was afraid of getting his
feet wet lest it should shorten his days.
Indeed, l some time ago preached a
sermon on the blessings of lon
gevity, but 1 now propose to
preach to you about the blessings
of an abbreviated earthly exist
ence. If were an agnostlc L would
say man is blessed in proportion to
the number of years he can stay on
terra firma, because after that he falls
off the docks, 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 any body will claim him. If /
thought God made man only to last
forty or fifty or hundred years, and
then he was to go into annihilation, l
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 overshoes,
and life preservers, and bronze armor
and weapons of defense, less he fall off
into nothingness and obliteration.
But my friends, you are not agnos-
ties. You believe in Immortality and
the eternal residence of the righteous
in Heaven, and, therefore, | first re-
mark that an abbreviated earthly ex-
sience is to be desired, and is bless
ing, because it makes ones life-work
very compact.
Some men go to business at seven
o'clock in the morning and return at
seven in the evening. Others go at
eight o'clock and return at twelve.
Others go at ten and return at four. |
have friends who are ten hours 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
position do you think the most desir
able? 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 a person die
in childhood, he gets through his work
at nine o'clock in the morning. If he
die at As years of age, he gets through
his work at 12 o'clock noon. If he die
at 20 years of age, he gets through his
work at five o'clock in TIE afternoon.
If he die at 80 he has to toll all the way
up to IL o'clock at night. The sooner
we get through our work the better.
The harvest all in barracl1 or barn, the
farmer does not sit down in the stub
blefeld, but, shouldering his scythe,
and taking his pitcher from under the
tree, he makes staight line for the old
All we want to be anxious
about is to get our work done, and well
done, and the quicker the better.
Again: There is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that moral disaster might come upon
the man if he tarried long. Recently,
a man who had been prominent in
and who had been admired
for his generosity and kindness every
where, for forgery was sent to the
state prison for Is years. Twenty
years ago there was no more proba-
bility of that mans committing COM
mercial dishonesty than you will COM
nit commercial dishonesty. The
of men who fall into ruin
between so and 20 years of age is
is appalling. If they had died 80 years
them and better for their families.
The shorter the voyage, the less
chance for cyclone.
There is a wrong theory abroad,
that if ones youth be right his old
age will be right. You might as well
say there is nothing wanting for a
ships safety except to get it fully
launched on the Atlantic ocean.
have sometimes asked those who were
school-mates or college-mates of some
great defaulter: "What kind of boy
was he? What kind of young man
was hep" And they have said: why,
he was a splendid fellow; | had no idea
he could ever go into such an outrage"
The fact is, the great temptation of
life sometimes come far on in midlife,
Or in old age.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction; at
about 40 years of age mans nervous
system changes, and some one tells
lim he must take stimulants to keep
himself up. and he takes stimulants to
Keep himself up, until the stimulants
lesp him down; or man has been go
ng sleag for % OF sq years la ansHs'