The Yale expositor., 1898-07-22


would take a tablespoonful, and If d.
rected to take a tablespoonful, would
take a glassful.
You, the good mother Of a house
hold, and all your children rising Up
TO call you blessed, can remember when
you were quite jealous of the belle Of
the village, who was SO transcendently
fair and popular, But while you have
these two honorable and queenly names
of wife and mother, she became poor
waif of the street, and went into the
blackness of darkness forever Live
life over again? Why, If many of those
who are respectable were permitted 10
experiment, the next journey would lie
demolition. You get through, as Job
says, by the skin of your teeth. Next
time you might not get through at all.
Satan would say: 81 know him now
better than | did before, and have for
fifty years been studying his weak
nesses, and l will weave stronger
web of circumstances to catch him next
time" And Satan would concentrate
his forces on this one man, and the
last state of that man would be worse
than the first My friends, our faces
are in the right direction. Better go
forward than backward, even II we
had the choice. The greatest disaster
l can think of would be for you to re-
turn to boyhood in 1898. oh, II life
were a smooth Luzerne or Cayuga
Lake, / would like to get into yacht
and sail over it, not once, but twice
yea, a thousand times. But life is an
uncertain sea, and some Of the ships
crash on the icebergs of cold indiner-
ence, and some take fire of evil pas
sions, and some lose their bearings AID
run into the Goodwin Sands, and some
are never heard of. Surely on such
treacherous sea as that one voyage IS
enough.
Besides all this. do you know, If you
could have your wish and live life over
again, it would put you so much fur
Their from reunion with your friends
in heaven? II you are in the noon OF
life, or the evening of life, you are
not very far from the golden gate at
which you are to meet your transport
ed and emparadised loved ones. You
are now, let us say, twenty years, or ten
years, or one year off from celestial
conjunction. Now, suppose you went
back in your earthly lie 80 years, or 40
years. or fifty years, what an awful
postponement of the time of reunion!
1t would be as though you were going
to San Francisco to a great banquet,
and you got to Oakland. four or five
miles this side of it, and then came back
to Baltimore to bet better start; as
though you were going to England TO
be crowned, and having come in sight
Of the mountains of Wales you put back
TO Sandy Hook in order to make bet
ter voyage. Would you like for many
years to adjourn the songs of heaven,
TO adjourn the thrones of heaven, TO
adjourn the companionship of heaven,
to adjourn the rest of heaven, to ad-
journ the presence Of Christ in heaven?
No; the wheel of time turns in the right
direction, and 1t is we'll It turns so fast
Three hundred and sixty-flve revolu-
tons in a year and forward, rather
than 365 revolutions in a year and
backward.
But hear ye! hear We! while tel.
you how you may practically live your
life over again and be all the better for
II. You may put into remaining years
of your life all you have learned of
wisdom in your past life. You may
make the coming ten years worth the
preceding forty or fifty years. When a
man says he would like to live his
life over again because he would do
so much better, and yet goes right
on living as he has always lived, do
you not see he stultifes himself? He
proves that If he could go back he
would do almost the same as he has
done.
II man eat green apples SINE
Wednesday in cholera time and is
thrown into fearful cramps, and says
on Thursday: II wish had been more
prudent in my diet; oh. If l could live
Wednesday over again!" and then on
Friday eats apples just as green, he
proves that 1t would have been no ad-
vantage for him to live Wednesday
over again. And If we, deploring our
past life with the idea Of improvement,
long for an opportunity to try 1t over
again. yet go on making same mistakes
and committing the same sins, we only
demonstrate that the repetition of our
existence would afford no improve
ment. 1t was green apples before. and
It would be green apples over again.
AS soon as a ship captain strikes
rock in the lake or sea he reports 1t,
and buoy is swung over that reef,
and mariners henceforth stand off that
rock. And all our mistakes in the
past ought to be buoys, warning us to
keep in the right channel. There is
no excuse for us IL we split on the
same rock where we split before. Go
ing along the sidewalk at night where
excavations are being made, we fire.
quently see lantern on a framework
and we turn aside. for that lantern
says keep out of this hole. And all
along the pathway of life lanterns are
set as warnings, and by the time We
come to mid-life we ought to know
where it is safe to walk and where
q t.