The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-09

the most part do not come to their cli-
max until in middle or in old age. The
most or the bank presidents have white
mar. Many Of those who have been
largely successful have been flung of
or wo~rldliness or dissipation
In old age. They may not have lost
their integrity, but they may have be-
come so worldly and SO selfish under the
influence OF large success that it is evil
dent to everybody that their success
has been a temporal calamity and an
eternal damage. Concerning many
people, 1t may be said it seems as If it
wuold have been better if they could
have embarked from this life at 20 or
80 ears of age.
Do you know the reason why the
vast majority of people die before 80?
1t is because they have not the moral
endurance for that which is beyond the
80, and a merciful God will not allow
them to be put to the fearful strain.
ON THE DEFENSIVE.
Again there is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the act
that one is the sooner taken off the de-
fensiVe. 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. Fireproof safes to keep
off the flames. Life insurance and fire
insurance against accident. Receipts
less you have to pay a debt twice. Life
boat against ~shipwreck. Westinghouse
airbrake against railroad collision, and
hundreds of hands ready to overreach
you n take all you have. Defense
against cold, defense against heat de-
Tense against worlds abuse, defense all
the way down to the grave, and even
the tombstone sometimes Is not a suf-
ficient barricade.
IF a soldier who has hoop IN Guard
shivering and stung with cold, pacing
up n down the parapet with hOuld
cred muske is glad when some one
comes to relieve guard and he a go
inside the fortress, ought not that man
shout for joy who can put down his
weapon of earthly defense and go into
the kings castle? Who is the more
fortunate, the soldier who has to stand
guard II hours or the man who has to
stand guard six hours? We have COM
mon sense about everything but relig-
ion, common sense about everything
but transfercnce from this world.
Again, there is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that n escapes so many bereave-
ments. The longer we live the more
attachments and the more inbred,
the more chords to be wounded or
rasped or sundered. If a man live on
to 70 or 80 years of age, how nan
graves are cleft at his feet. In that
long reach of time father and mother
go, brothers and sisters go, children go,
grandchildren go, personal friends out
side the family circle whom they had
loved with a love like that Of David
and Jonathan. Besides that some men
have a natural trepidation about dis
solution, and ever and anon during
40 or so or 60 years this horror of their
dissolution shudders through soul and
body. Now, suppose the lad goes at
16 years of age? He escapes
so funerals, SO caskets, so obsequies,
SO awful wrenchings of the heart. 1t
is hard enough for us to bear their de-
parture, 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 our
selves into a generosity of bereavement
but how glad / am that he will never
have to go through it?" SO I reason
with myself, and SO you will find it
helpful to reason with yourselves.
David lost his son.. Though David
was king he lay or the earth mourn
ing and inconsolable for some time.
At this distance of time, which do You
really think was the one to be congrat-
ulated, the short lived child or the long
lived father? Had David died as early
as that child he would, in the first
place, nave escaped that p%aticular be-
reavement, then he would have escap-
ed the worst bereavement Oh ADSdlOlH,
his recreant son, and the pursuit of
the Phillistines, and the fatigues Of his
military campaign, n the jealousy of
Saul, and the perfidy of A~hithophel,
and the curse of Shimei an the destruc-
ton of his family at Ziklag, and,
above ali, he would have escaped the
two great calamities of his life, the
great sins of u~ncleanness n murder.
David lived to be Of vast use to the
church and the world, but so far as
his own happiness was concerned does
it not seem to you that it would have
been better for him to have gone early
TEMPTATION.
Now, this, my friends, explains some
things that to you AVE been inexplica-
BILE. This shows you why when God
takes little children from a 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
harbor. Take away from the evil
to come"
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, inf