Connecticut western news., 1898-07-21

| dred and sixty-five revolutions ill a
 year and forward rather than 365 revo-
 lutions in year and backward.
 But hear ye, hear ye, while@I tell you how you may practically live your life | over again and be all the better for it. You may put into the remaining years | of your life all you have learned of wis
 dom in your past life. You may make
 the coming 10 years worth the preceding | 40 or 50 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 stulti fies himself9 He proves that if he could | go back he would do almost the same
 as he has done.
 If man eat green apples some | Wednesday in cholera time and is | thrown into fearful cramps and says on | Thursday, "I wish I had been moro ! prudent in my diet; oh, if I could live Wednesday over again." and then on
 Friday eats apples just as green, he | proves that it would have been no ad-
 vantage for him to live Wednesday over
 again. And if we, deploring our past | life, and with the idea of improvement.
 long for an opportunity to try it over | again, yet go on making the same mis- takes and committing the same sins,
 we only demonstrate that the repetition | of our existence would afford no i'm
 provement. It was green apples before,
 and it would be green apples over again. Atone For Past Indolence.
 As soon as ship captain strikes rock ill the lake or sea he reports 1t,
 and buoy is swung over that reef, and
 mariners henceforth stand off from that rock. And all our mistakes in the past
 ought to be buoys, warning us to keep in the right channel. There is no ex-
 cuse for us if we split on the same rock
 where we split before. Going along the | sidewalk at night where excavations
 are being made we frequently see q lan- tern on 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 midlife we ought to
 know where it is safe to walk and
 where it is unsafe.
 Besides that we have all these years
 been learning how to be useful, and in
 the next decade we ought to accomplish more for God and the church and the
 world than ill any previous four dec
 ades. The best way to atone for past incidence or past transgression is by fu- ture assiduity. Yet we often find Chris tian men who were not converted until they were 40 or 30, as old age comes
 on, saying, "Well, my work is about done, and it is time for me to rest. '" They gave 40 years of their life to satan
 and the world, little fragment of their
 life to God, and now they want rest. Whether that belongs to comedy or tragedy say not
 The man who gave one half of his earthly existence to the world and of the remaining two quarters one to Christian work and the other to rest would not, I suppose, get very bril- liant reception in heaven. If there are
 any dried leaves in heaven, they would be appropriate for his garland, or if there is any throne with broken steps it would be appropriate for his corona tion, or any harp with relaxed string it would be appropriate for his finger
 ing. My brother, you give nine-tenths of your life to sin and satan, and then
 get converted, and then rest awhile in sanctified laziness, and then go up to get your heavenly reward, and war rant it will not take the cashier of the royal banking house great while to count out to you all your dues. He will not ask you whether you will have it in bills of large denomination or small
 would like to put one sentence of my sermon in italics and have it under scored, and three exclamation points at the end of the sentence, and that sen- tence is this: As we cannot live our lives over again the nearest we can come to atone for the past is by redou- bled holiness and industry in the future. If this rail train of life has been de- tained and switched off and is far be- hind the time table, the engineer for the rest of the way must put on more pressure of steam and go a mile min ute in order to arrive at the right time and place, under the approval of con- ductor and directors.
 Practice Kindness.
 As supposed it would be, there are young people on whom this subject has acted with the force of galvanic bat tery. Without my saying word to them, they have soliloquized, saying: "As one cannot live his life over again, and I can make only one trip, must look out and make no mistakes. I have
 but one chance, and I must make the most of it.. My young friends, I am glad you made this application of the sermon yourself When minister, to- ward the close of his sermon, says, ''Now, a few words by way of applica- tion," people begin to look around for their hats and get their arm through one sleeve of their overcoats, and the sermonio application is failure. am glad you have made your own applica- tion and that you are resolved, like Quaker of whom read years ago, who, in substance, said, "I shall be along this path of life but once, and so I must do all the kindness can and all the good can."
 My hearers, the mistakes of youth can never be corrected. Time gone is gone forever. An opportunity passed the thousandth part of a second has by one leap reached the other side of great eternity. In the autumn when the birds migrate you look up and see the sky
 black with wings and the f1ocks stretch ing out into many leagues of air, and so today look up and see two large wings in full sweep. They are the wings of the flying year. That is followed by flock of 365, and they are the flying days. Each of the flying days is follow ed by 24, and they are the flying hours, and each of these is followed by 60, and these are the flying minutes. Where did this great flock start from? Eternity past Where are they bound? Eternity to come. You might as well go a-gun- ming for the quails that whistled last year in the meadows or the robins that