The Canton times., 1899-10-06
TO ENJOY LONG LIFE.
A Prescription Prepared by Rev.
Dr.. Talmage.
Religion VIII Offset the DissIpatIO Ons
and DeStrOyers of LIfe-The
Gospel a Chariot for
the Living.
copyrighted, 1899, by Louis Klopsch.)
Washington,

prescriptions 1Or the pTOlOnBdtoh VI
life and breaches the gospel of physical
health The text is Psalms 81, 16, with
long life will satisfy him."
Through the mistake of its friends re-
ligion has been chiefly associated with
sick beds and graveyards. The whole
subject to many people is odorous with
chlorine and carbolic acid. There are
people who cannot pronounce the word
religion without hearing in it the clip
ping chisel of the tombstone cutter. 1t
is high time that this thing were
changed and that religion, instead of
being represented as hearse to carry
out the dead, should be represented as
a chariot in which the living are to tri-
umph,
Religion, so far from subtracting
from ones vitality, is glorious addi-
ton. 1t is sanative, curative, hygienic.
1t is good for the eyes, good for the
ears, good for the spleen, good for the
digestion, good for the nerves, good for
the muscles. When David in another
part of the psalm prays that religion
may be dominant, he does not speak of
it as a mild sickness or an emaciation or
an attack of moral and spiritual cramp
He speaks of it as "the saving health of
all nations" while God in the text prom
ises longevity to the pious, saying:
"With long life will satisfy him." The
fact is that men and women die too
soon. 1t is high time that religion
joined the hand of medical science in at
tempting to improve human longevity.
Adam lived $50 years; Methuselah lived
800 years. AS late in the history Of the
world as Vespasian there were at one
time in his empire As people 1875 years
old. So far down as the sixteenth cen
tury Peter Tartan died at 1875 years of
age. do not say that religion will ever
take the race back to antediluvian lon
gevity, but do say the length Of life
will be increased.
1t is said in Isaiah: "The child shall
die hundred years DID," Now, if, ac-
cording to Scripture, the child is to be
a hundred years old, may not the men
and women reach to 300 and 400? The
fact is that we are mere dwarfs and
skeletons compared with some of the
generations that are to come. Take
the African race. They have been un-
der bondage for centuries. Give them
a chance, and they develop Frederick
Douglass or a Toussaint L'0uverture.
And, if the white race shall be brought
from under the serfdom of sin, what
shall be the body, what shall be the
soul? Religion has only just touched
our world. Give it full power for few
centuries, and who can tell what will be
the strength of man and the beauty OF
women and the longevity of all?
Ny design is TO show that practical re-
ligion is the friend of long life. prove
ii first from the fact that it makes the
care of our health positive Christian
duty. Whether we shall keep early OF
late hours, whether we shall take food
digestible or indigestible, whether there
shall be thorough or incomplete masti-
cation, are questions very often de.
ferred to the realm Of whimsicality But
the Christian man lifts this whole prob.
lem of health into the accountable and
the Divine. He says: God has given
me this body, and He has called it the
temple of the Holy Ghost, and to de
face its altars or mar its walls or crum
BILE its pillars is a God defying sacri
lege." He sees Gods caligraphy il
every page, anatomical and physiolog
ical Hesays: God has given me won
derful body for noble purposes"-that
arm with 32 curious bones-wielded 10y
46 curious muscles and all under thu
brains telegraphy, $50 pounds of BLOOD
rushing through the heart every hour
the heart in "a hours beating 1000
times, during the "a hours the lung
taking in 81 hogsheads of air, and al
this mechanism not more mighty thar
delicate and easily disturbed and de
molshed. The Christian man saws t.
himself: IF hurt my nerves, if hur
my brain, if hurt any of my physica
faculties, insult God and call for dir
retribution." Why did God tell the LIE
vites not to offer to Him in sacrifice ami
mails imperfect and diseased? He mean
to tell us in all the ages that we are t
offer to God our very best physical con
dltion, and man who through irreg
ular or gluttonous eating ruins hi
health is not offering to God such a sac
rihce. Why did Paul write for his cloaI
at Troas? Why should such a grea
man as Paul be anxious about thin
so insignificant as an overcoat? 1t wa
because he knew that with pneumoni
and rheumatism he would not be wort
half as much to God and the church q
with respiration easy and foot free.
An intelligent Christian man woul
consider 1t an absurdity to l5neel dow
at night and pray and ask Gods prote,
tion while at this same time he kept tn