The Washington weekly post. (Washington, D.C.) 1878-1916, 1899-04-25
Brief Existence Is a Blessing.
Says DR.. Talmage.
THE VOYAGE BECOMES ROUGHER
Even Our Greatest Philosophers Fear to
Go When Death Approximately Dying
Early We Merely Cease Our Toilins
Sooner; We Escape Many Bereavement
Moral Disaster Frequently Comes to
Man in the Later Years of His Life.

righteous is taken away from the evil TO
come" DR.. 7. De Witt TslmaSe yester-
day said:
we ali spend much time in panegyric
Of longevity. We consider it great thing
TO live TO be an octogenarian. IL any one
dies in youth we say What pity? Di.
Muhlenbergh, in old age, said that the
hymn written in early life by MS own
hand no more expressed his sentiment
when IL said;
would not live Away.
IF one be pleasantly circumstanced he
never wants TO go. William Cullen Bry-
ant, the great poet. at eighty-two years
of age, standing in my house in festal
group. reading 'Thanatopsis without
spectacles. was just as anxious to
live as when at eighteen years OF age
he wrote that immortal threnody. Cato
( feared at eighty years Of age that he
would not live TO learn Greek. Monal-
desco. at 115 years. writing the history OF
his time, feared a collapse. Theophrastus,
writing a book at ninety years Of age.
was anxious to live to complete 1t. Thur
low Weed at about eighty-six years of
age. found life as great desiratility as
when he snuffed out his first politician.
Albert Barnes. so well prepared for the
next world, at seventy said he would
rather stay here. So IL is all The way
down. | suppose that the last time that
Methuselah was out of doors in storm
he was afraid of getting his feet wet lest
it shorten his days. Indeed, / some time
ago preached d sermon on the blessings
of longevity but ! now propose to preach
to you about the blessings CT an abbre-
waited earthly existence. If / were an
agnostic | would say a man is blessed in
proportion 10 the number of years he can
stay on terra firna, because after that he
| falls off the docks. and If he is ever picked
out of the depths ii is only to be set up in
some morgue of the universe to see IL any
! body will claim him. If / thought God
made man only to last forty or fifty or a
hundred years, and then he was to go
into annihilation. / would say his chief
business ought to be to keep alive, and
even in good weather to be very cautious
| and to carry an umbrella and take over
shoes and life-preservers and bronze ar
NOR and weapons of defense lest he fall
Off into nothingness and obliteration.
Rest CUmes Sooner.
But you are not agnostics. You be-
lieve in immortality and the eternal resi-
dence of the righteous in heaven, and,
! therefore. 1 first remark that an abbre-
Waited earthly existence is to be desired,
| and is blessing. because it makes ones
| life-work very compact.
Some men go to business Mt o'clock
in the morning and return at in the
| evening. Other go at s o'clock and re-
| turn at u. 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 posi-
tion do you think the most desirable?
| You say, other things. being equal the
man who is the shortest time detained
| in business, and who can return home
| the quickest, is the most blessed.
Now, why not carry that good sense
| into the subject of transference from this
| worldE III person die in childhood he
| gets through his work at o'clock IN the
| morning. If he die at forty-five years of
| age, he gets through his work at y
| o'clock, noon. If he die at seventy-fiye
years of age, he gets through his work at
. o'clock in the afternoon. If he die at
ninety, he has toll all the way on I'D to
| IL o'clock at night. The sooner we get
| through our work the better. The har-
vest all in barrack or barn, the farmer
| does not sit down in the stubbe-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 well done; and the quick
er the better.
Escape Moral Disaster.
| Again: There is a blessing in an alb
l hVa lot apth "
| that moral disaster might come upon the
man if he tarried longer. Recently. a.
man who had been prominent in church
es, and who had been admired for his
| generosity and kindness everywhere. for
forgery was sent to State prison for ff
teen years. Twenty years ago there was
no mere probability of that mans COM
mitting commercial dishonesty than
that you will commit commercial disbon-
esty. The number of men who fan into
| ruin between fifty and seventy years of
age Is simply appalling. If they had died
thirty years before, it would have been
! better for them and better for their fami-
lies. The shorter the voyage, the less
chance for a cyclone.
There is wrong theory abroad. that
| If ones youth De right, his old age viii
De right. You might as weil say there is
I AANhAiAAS NUiANAAAE AOt a Elilp SAFETY GX-
cept TO get il fully launched on the Al
lantc Ocean. / have sometimes asked
| those VIE were schoolmates OF cohege-
| mates VI some great defaulter, What kind
OF boy was he7 What kind OF young
| man was he and they have said WHY
he was a splendid fellow | had 10 idea
he could ever go into such an outrage
| The fact is, the great temtstion of life
| sometimes comes tar on In midlife, or In
| old age.
Sea Grows Rough.
The first time I crossed the Atlantic
Ocean, il was as smooth as a mill pond
and / thought the sea Captains and the
V0yageT5 had slaLGeTed the cd ocean.
and l wrote home an essay for a maya
zine on The Smile of the Sea, but never
afterward could have written that thing.
for before We got home, we got q terrible
shaking UP. The first voyage of life may
be very smooth. the last may be a euroc-
lydon. Many who start life in grea,
prosperity DO not end it in prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation CONES
sometimes in this direction: At about
fcrty-five years OF age a mans nervous
/ system changes, and some one tells him
he must take stimu!ants 10 keeu him.
self up, and ne takes stimuiants 10 keeI
himself up until the stimulants keep MIN
down, or man has been going slong
for thirty or forty years in unsuccegs.
fui business, and here f. an opening Whers
by one dishonorzble action he can Ilf-
himself and lift MS family from all anan.
cial embarrassment He attempts 10 lear
the chasm, and he falls into it.
/ Then IL is IN after life that the zrea.
I temptation OF success comes II a mar
( makes a fortune before thirty Years OF
age he generally loses II before forty Ths
solid and Jpe permanent fortunes for thl
( most part do not come to their cilIaay
( until IN nidllfe or ia old age The mos
OF the bank Presidents have white hair
1 Many Of those who have been largely sue
cesaful have been flung Of arrogance OF
Wordliness or dissipation In old age. The,
Z may not have lose their integrity. bu
they have become 50 worldly and 20 self
Ish under the influence Of large success
that Il il evident 10 every body that thsli
success has been a temporal czlsrnit,
and an eternal damsg ge. Concerning mani
people Il nay be said, IL seems az I
if would have been better II they eouis
have embarked from this life al twenaS
or thirty years OF age.
stTain Too Great.
do vou know the reason why the Va a