The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-09
CUT OFF In YOUTH
DIR. TALMAGE sGIVES CONsOLA.
TON TO BEREAVED PARENTS
While He Admits hat Long Life 10 Pleas
ant in Some Cases, He Shows That 1t IL
Often q Gain to Die Young

ant in Some Cases, He Shows That 1t 10
Often a Gain to Die Young
copyrighted, 1897, by American Press
Association.)
From an unusual standpoint DR..
Talmage offers comfort at the loss Of
children and this sermon must be a
balsam for man. wounds. His text is
Isaiah Ivii. 1, The righteous is taken
away from the evil to come.
We all spend much time in~panegyric
of longevity. We consider it a great
thing to live to be an octogenarian.
If any one dies in youth, we say,
what a pity" DR.. Muhlenberg, in old
age, said hat the hymn written in
early life by his own hand, no more
expressed his sentiment when it said:
1 would not live always.
If one be pleasantly circumstanced,
Ahe never wants to go. William Cullen
Bryant, the great poet, at 80 years of
age, standing in my house in a festal
group, reading "Thanatopis' without
spectatles, was just as anxious to live
as when at Is years Of 6 he wrote
that immortal threnody. Cato feared at
80 years of age that he would not live
to learn Greek. Mona1desco, at rs
years, whirting the history of his time,
feared a collapse. T~heOphrastus, writ
ing a book at so years of age, was anx
iOus to live to complete it. Thurlow
Weed at about Sc 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
mere. 30 If jC all tho Uav 6nyUn r
suppose that the last time thai Methu-
selah was out of doors in a storm he
was afraid of getting his feet wet lest
1T shorten his days.
Indeed L sometime ago preached a
sermon on the blessing of longevity,
but, L now promise to preach to you
about the blessings of an abbreviated
earthly existence. If | were an agnOs-
tic, L would say a man is blessed in
proportion to the number of years he
can stay on terra firma, because after
he falls off the docks, and if he is
7 ever picked out of the depths it is only
ito 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 so or 100 years and then he
was to go into humiliation, 1 would
a his chief business ought to be to
keep alive and even in good weather to
be very cautious and to carry al UNI
brella and take overshoes and life pre-
servers and bronze armOr and weapons
of defense lest he fall off into nothing
ness 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 1 first remark
that an abbreviated earthly existence
is to be desired and is a blessing be-
cause it makes ones life work very
Some men go to business at 7 o'clock
in the morning and return at Z in the
evening. Others go at 8 o'clock and re-
turn at Il. Others go at 10 and return
at 4. L 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 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 has the shortest
time detained in business and who can
Areturn home the quickest is the most
blessed.
TIL 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 9 o'clock in the morning. If he die
at 45 years of age, he gets through his
work at II o'clock noon. If he die at 20
years OF age, he gets through his work
at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. If
he die at 80, he has to toll all the way
on up to IL O'Clock at night. The SOON
er we get through our work the better.
The harvest all in barrack or barn, the
farmer 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
homestead. All we want to be anxious
about is to get our work done, and the
quicker the better.
Again, there is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
the 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 every
where for forgery was sent to state
prison for Is years. Twenty years ago
there vas no more probability of that
k9an'S committing a commercial dis
honesty thar that you will commit
commercial dishonesty. The number
of men who fall into ruin between so
and 20 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 cy-
clone.
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 ask
ed those who were schoolmates or col
lege mates of some great ~defaulter:
What kind of a boy was he? What
kind of a young man was he?" and
they said: why, he was a splendid fell
low. | had no idea he could ever go
into such an outrage The fact is the
great temptation of life sometimes
comes far IN in middle life or in old
age.
LIES EXPERIENCE.
The first time l crossed the Atlantic
ocean it was as sm0othe as a mill pond,
and l thought the sea captains and the
Atoyagers had Slandered the ocean, and
Il wrote home an essay for a magazine
on The Smile of the Sea-" but I never