The Monitor-register., 1897-11-05
CUT OFF IN YOUTH.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE GIVES CONSOLA-
TON TO BEREAVED PARENTS.

REV. DR.. TALMAGE GIVES CONSOLA-
TON TO BEREAvED PARENTS.
While He Admits That a Long Life Is
Pleasant In Some Cases, He Shows That
1t Is Often a Gain to Die Young.
tICopyright, 1897, by American Press Asso-
ciation.l
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31.-From an I'M
usual standpoint DR.. Talmage offers
comfort at the loss of children, and this
sermon must be a balsam for many
wounds. His text is Isaiah lvii, 1, ''The
righteous is taken away from the evil to
come"
We all spend much time in p~anegyric
of longevity. We consider it a great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. If
any dies in youth, we say, "What a
pityl' DR.. Muhlenberg, in old age,
said that the hymn written in early life
by his own hand, no more expressed his
sentiment when it said:
would not live Away.
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 a festal
group, reading "~Thanatopsis" without
sp~ectacles, 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 115
years, writing the history of his time,
feared a collapse. Theophrastus, writ
ing a book at 80 years of age, was anx-
ious to live to complete it. Thurlow
Weed at about SO years of age found life
as great a desirability as when he snuffed
out his first politician. Albert Barnes,
so well prepared for the next world at
70, said he would rather stay here. So
it is all the way down. 1 suppose that
the last time that Methuselah was out
Of doors in a storm he was afraid of get
ting his feet wet lest it shorten his
days.
Indeed l some time ago preached a
sermon on the blessings of longevity,
but I now propose to preach to you
about the blessings of an abbreviated
earthly existence. If were an agnostic,
I would say a man is blessed in proper
ton 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
beFset up in some morgue Of the uni
verse to see if anybody will claim him.
If thought God made man only to last
40 or so or 100 years and then he was
to 60 into humiliation, 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 p~reservers and
bronze armor and weapons of defense
lest he fall off into nothingness and
obliteration.
But, my friends, you are not agnos-
tics You believe in Immortality and
the eternal residence of the righteous in
heaven, and therefore I first remark
that an abbreviated earthly existence is
to be desired and is a blessing because
it makes ones life work very compact.
Some men go to business at z O'Clock
In the morning and return at 2 in the
evening. Others go at s O'Clock and re-
turn at 10. Others go at 10 and return
at 4 I 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 we'll They do their
entire work and then they return.
Which position 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 re-
turn home the quickest is the most
blessed.
The Quicker the Better.
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
. O'Clock in the morning. If he die al
40 years of age, he gets through his
work at IL O'Clock noon. If he die at 70
years OF age, he gets through his work
at b O'Clock in the afternoon. If he die
at 80, he has to toll all the way on up
to II O'Clock at night. The sooner we
get through our work the better. The
harvest all in barrack or barn, the farm
er does not sit down in the stubble field;
but, ~shouldering his scythe and taking
his pitcher from under the tree, he
makes a straight line for the old home
stead. 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 longer. Recently
q 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
Is years Twenty years ago there was
no more probability of that mans COM
uniting a commercial dishonesty than
that you will commit commercial dis
honesty. The number of men who fall
into ruin between 80 and 70 years of
age is simply appalling. If they had
died 30 years before, it would have been
better for them and better for their
families. The shorter the voyage the
less chance for a 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 schoolmates or college
mates OF some great defaulter: what
kind of a boy was he? What kind of a
young man was hep and they have
said: "Why, he was a splendid fellow.
T haA M ilno 1o oa,1l oro, 900 -
an outrage" The fact is the great temp
tation of life sometimes comes far on in
midlife or in old age.
LIES Experience.
The first time 1 crossed the Atlantic
ocean it was as smooth as a mill pond,
and ! thought the sea captains and the
voyagers had slandered the old ocean,
and I wrote home an essay for a maya
zine on "Fhe Smile of the Sea, F." but /
never afterward could have written that
thing, for before we got home we got a
terrible shaking up. The first voyage of
life may be very smooth; the last may
be a e~uroclydon. Many who start life in
great prosperity do not end it in pros
perity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction: At
about 40 years of age a mans nervous
system changes, and some one tells him
he must take stimulants to keep himself
up, and he takes stimulants to keep him
self up until the stimulants keep him
down, or q man has been going along for
80 or 40 years in unsuccessful business,
and here is an opening where by one dis
honorable action he can lift himself and
lift his family from all financial embar-
rassment. He attempts to leap the chasm,