Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-11-01
CUT OFF IN YOUTH.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE GIVES CONSOLA-
TON TO BEREAVED PARENTS.


1T Is Often Gain to Die Young.
copyright. 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 wi, 1, ''The
righteous is taken away from the evil to
come.
We all spend much time in panegyric
of longevity. We consider it great
thing to live to be an octogenarian. Ii
any one dies in youth, we say, ''What q
pity!" 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 alway.
IF one be pleasantly circumstance,
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
80 years of age that he would not live
to learn Greek Monaldesco, at 115
years, writing the history Of his time,
feared q collapse. Theophrastus, writ
ing book at 90 years Of age, was anx-
ious to live to complete it. Thurlow
Weed at about Sc years of age found life
as great desirability as when he snuffed
out his first politician. Albert Barnes,
so well prepared 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 get
ting his feet wet lest it shorten his
days.
Indeed ] some time ago preached a
sermon on the blessings Of longevity,
but | now propose to preach to you
about the blessings of an abbreviated
earthly existence. Il were an agnOstic,
I would say man is blessed IL proper
ton to the number Of years he can stay
on terra tir1na, 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 uni
verse to see if anybody Will claim him.
If ] thought God made man only to last
40 or 80 or 100 years and then he was
to go into humiliation, l would say his
chief business ought to be to keep alive
and even in good weather to be very
cautious aud to carry an umbrella and
take overshoes and life preservers 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 l first remark
that an abbreviated earthly existence is
to be desired and is q blessing because
it makes ones life work very compact.
Some men go to business at o clock
in the morning and return at Z in the
evening. Others go at s o'clock and re-
turn at 12. Others go at 10 and return
at t. l have friends who are ten hours
a day III 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
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 person die in
childhood, he gets through his work at
9 o'clock in the morning. If he die at
Is years Of age, he gets through his
y I'll 10 10
years of age, he gets through his work
at o'clock III the afternoon. If he die
at go, 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 baIrack 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 we'll 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
a 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 90 and 70 years Of
age is simply appalling. If they had
died 80 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 wrong theory abroad that
if ones youth be right his old age will