News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1897-11-03

20 not come to their climax until in mid.
fife or in old age The most of the bank
presidents have white hair Many OF those
who have been largely successful have
been flung of arrogance or wordliness or
dissipation in old age. They may not have
lost their integrity. but they have become
so worldly and so selfish under the iniiu-
ence of large success that it is evident to
everybody that their success has been a
temporal calamity and an eternal damage.
Concerning many people it may be said it
seems as if it would have been better if
they could have embarked from this life
at 20 or 30 years of age.
Do you know the reason why the vast
majority of people die before BOY 1t is be-
cause they have not the moral endurance
for that which is beyond the 80 and mer-
ciful God will not allow them to be put tc
the fearful strain.
Again, there is a blessing in an abbrevi-
ated earthly existence in the fact that one
is the sooner taken off the defensive. AS
soon as one is old enough to take care of
| himself he is put on his guard. Bolts on
the doors to keep out the robbers. Fire
proof safes to keep off the flames. Life in
| suranCe and fire insurance against acct
dent. Receipts lest you have to pay debt
| twice. Lifeboat against shipwreck Vest
/ inghouse airbrake against railroad COLI
sion and hundreds of hands ready to over
reach you and take all you have. Defense
against cold defense against heat, defense
against sickness, defense against the
worlds abuse, defense all the way down
to the grave, and even the tombstone some
times is not a sufficient barricade
IF a soldier who has hppn crl1ord
shivering and stung with the cold, pacing
up and down the parapet with shouldered
musket is glad when some one comes tc
relieve guard and he can go inside the for
tress, ought not that man to shout for Joy
who can put down his weapon of earthly
defense and go into the king castle? Who
is the more fortunate, the soldier who has
to stand guard IL hours or the man whc
has to stand guard six hours? We have
common sense about everything but re-
ligion, common sense about everything
but transference from this world.
Many Bereavements Escaped.
Again, there is blessing in an abbre.
Waited earthly existence in the fact that
one escapes so many bereavements The
longer we live the more attachments and
/
wounded or rasped or sundered If man
live on to 70 or so years of age, how many
graves are cleft at his feet In that long
reach of time father and mother go, broth
ers and sisters CO. children go, grandchil-
dren go, personal friends outside the fam
lily circle whom they had loved with love
like that of David and Jonathan, Besides
that, some men have a natural trepidation
oh II DIM
ing 40 or 80 or 90 years, this horror of
their dissolution shoulders through soul
and body Now, suppose the lad goes at
16 years of age? He escapes 80 funerals,
so caskets, 80 obsequies, 81 awful wrench
ings 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 so departures
Shall we not by the grace of God rouse
ourselves into a generosity of bereavement
which will practically say, 1T is hard
enough for me to go through this bereave-
ment, 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 yourselves. David lost his son.
Though David was king he lay on the
earth mourning and inconsolable for some
|
you really think was the one to be con-
graduated, 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 be-
reavement, then he would have escaped
the worse bereavement of Absalom his
recreant son, and the pursuit of the Phil
istines, and the fatigues of his military
| 81 - Il 4
the perfidy of Ahithophel and the curse of
Shimei, and the destruction of his family
at Ziklag, and, above all, he would have
escaped the two great calamities of his life,
the great sins of uncleanness and murder.
David lived to be of vast use to the church
and the world, but so far as his own hap
piness was concerned, does it not seem to
you that it would have been better for him
to have gone earlyH
Now, this, Gly friends, explains some
things that to you have been inexplicable.
This shows you why when God takes little
children from IA household he is very apt
to take the brightest, the most genial, the
most sympathetic, the most talented.
Why? 1t is because that kind of nature
suffers the most when it does suffer and is
most liable to temptation. God saw the
tempest sweeping up from the Caribbean
and he put the delicate craft into the first
harbUr Taken away from the evil to
come
The Center In Heaven.
Again, my friends, there is a blessing in
an abbreviated earthly existence in the
fact that it puts one sooner in the center
Of things All astronomers, infidel as well
as Christian agree in believing that the
universe swings around some great center.
Any one " no has studied the earth and
: studied the heavens knows that Gods IA
vorite figure in geometry is circle. When
God put forth his hand to create the uni
, verse, he did not strike that hand at right
; angles but he waved it in a circle, and
) kept on waving in a circle until systems
, and consultations and galaxies and all
} worlds took that motion. Our planet
, swinging around the sun, other planets
swinging around other suns, but some
where a great hub, around which the great
wheel of the universe turns Now the cen
} ter is heaven That is the capital Of the
, universe; that is the great metropolis Of
} immensity.
Docs not our common sense teach us
, that in matters of study it is better for us
to move out from the center toward the
5 circumference rather than to be on the cir
3 conference where our world now ISL We
9 nre like those who study the American
continent while standing on the Atlantic