The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-07-20
LIVE LIFE OVER.
Many People Desire an Oppor-
tunity to Do So.
Rev. DR.. TalMage Gives His Views on the
Subject and Urges His Hearers to Do
the Best they Can During the
Remainder of their Lives.

In the following sermon, those who
think they would like another trial of
life, in order to rectify the mistakes
they have made, are shown that it
would be miserable failure and an
undesirable existence. The text is
Job 2: 4: "All that a man hath will
he give for his life"
That is untrue. The Lord did not
say it, but Satan said it to the Lord
when the evil one wanted Job still
more afflicted. The record is: $50
went Satan forth from the presence of
the Lord and smote Job with sore
boils." And Satan has been the au-
thor of all eruptive disease since then,
and he hopes by poisoning the blood
to poison the soul. But the result
of the diabolical experiment which
left Job victor proved the falsity of
the satanic remark: "All that a man
hath will he give for his life" Many
captain who has stood on the bridge
of the steamer till his passengers got
off and he drowned; many an engineer
who has kept his hand on the throttle
valve or his foot on the brake, until
the most of the train was saved, while
he went down to death through the
open draw-bridge; many fireman
who plunged into blazing house to
get sleeping child out, the fireman
sacrificing his life in the attempt, and
the thousands of martyrs who submit
ted to fiery stake and knife of massa-
ere and headman's ak and guillotine
rather than surrender principle, prov
ing that in many case my text was
not true when it says: "All that a
man hath will he give for his life"
But Satan's falsehood ~as built on
truth. Life is very precious, and, if
we would not give up all, there are
many things we would surrender
rather than surrender it. We see how
precious life is from the fact that we
do everything to prolong it. Hence
all sanitary regulations, all study of
hygiene, all fear of draughts, all wat
erproofs, all doctors, all medicines, all
struggle in crisis or accident.
An admiral of the British navy was
court-martialed for turning his ship
around in time of danger and so dam
aging the ship. 1t was proved against
him. But when his time came to be
heard he said: Gentlemen, 1 did
turn the ship around, and admit that
it was damaged, but do you want to
know why turned it? There was a
man overheard, and I wanted to save
him, and I consider the life of one
sailor worth all the vessels of the
British navy" No wonder he was vim
dicated. Life is indeed very precious.
Yea, there are those who deem life so
precious they would like to repeat it;
they would like to try it over again.
They would like to go back from
10 to 60, from 60 to 80, from so to 40,
from 40 to 30, from 80 to 20. propose
for very practical and useful purposes,
as will appear before I get through, to
discuss the question we have all asked
of others, and others have again and
again asked us, Would you like to live
your life over again?
The fact is that no intelligent and
right-feeling man is satisfied with his
past life. However successful your
life may have been, you are not salts
fed with it. What is success? Ask
that question of hundred different
men. and they will give hundred diff
ferent answers. One man will say,
Success is a million dollars;" another
will say, Success is worldwide pub
licity;" another will say, Success is
gaining that which you started for"
But as it is free country I give my
own definition, and say, Success is
fulfilling the particular mission upon
which you were sent, whether to write
a constitution, or invent a new style
of wheelbarrow, or take care of sick
child" Do what God calls you to do,
and you are success, whether you
leave a million dollars at death or are
buried at public expense, whether it
takes fifteen pages of an encyclopedia
to tell the wonderful things you have
done, or your name is never printed
but once. and that in the death col
umn. But whatever your success has
been, you are not satisfied with your
life.
We have all made so many mistakes,
stumbled into so many blunders, said
so many things that ought not to have
been said. and done so many things
that ought not to have been done, that
we can suggest at least 95 per cent of
improvement. Now, would it not be
grand if the good Lord would say to
you, "You can go back and try it over
again. will, by word, turn your
hair to black, or brown, or golden, and
smooth all the wrinkles out of your
temple or cheek, and take the bend
out of YOUR shoulders, and extirpate
the stiffness from the joint, and the
rheumatic twinge from the foot, and
you shall be 21 years of age, and Just
what you were when you reached that
point before. If the proposition were
made 1 think many thousands would
accept it.
That feeling caused the ancient
search for what was called the Foun-
tain of Youth, the waters of which,
taken, would turn the hair of the octo-
genarian into the curly locks of a boy,
and however old person who drank
at the fountain, he would be young
again. The island was said to belong
to the group of Bahamas, but lay far
out in the ocean. The great Spanish
explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon, fellow
voyager of Columbus, have no doubt,
felt that if he could discover that
fountain of youth he would do as
much as his friend had done in dis
covering America. So ne put out in
1912 from Porto Rico and cruised