The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1899-09-29
TO ENJOY LONG LIFE.
A Prescription Prepared by Rev.
DR.. Talmage.
Religion VIII onset the Dissipations
and Destroyers Of Life-The
Gospel n Chariot for
the Living.

prescriptions for the prulongauon OF
life and breaches the gospel of physical
health. The text is Psalms 81, l6, 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. IT
is high time that this thing were
changed and that religion, instead OF
being represented as n 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 adh-
ton. Ii 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
| il as mild sickness or an emaciation or
an attack of moral and spiritual Cramp.
He speaks of il as the saving health of
all nations" while God in the text prom
Uses longevity to the pious, saying:
with long life will satisfy him" The
fact is that men and women die too
soon. Ii is high time that religion
| Joined the hand of medical science in at
tempting TO improve human longevity.
Adam lived $50 years; Methuselah lived
500 years. As late in the history of the
world as Nespasian there were at one
time in his empire As people l35 years
old. So far down as the sixteenth CEN
fury Peter Tartan died at ls5 years of
age. do not say that religion will ever
take the race back TO antsdiluvian lon
gevity. but | do say the length of hfe
, will be increased. .
II is said in Isaiah: "The child shall
die a hundred years OLD" Now, IL, ac-
cording TO Scripture, the child is TO be
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 I'M
der bondage for centuries. Give them
. chance, and they develop Frederick
| Douglass or Toussaint L'Ouverture.
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. Iprove
IL first from the fact that il makes the
care of our health positive Christian
duty. Whether we shall keep early or
late hours, whether we shall take food
sigestibe 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 lie krs called it the
temple of the Holy Ghost, and to de-
face its affairs or mar its walls or crum-
bic its pillars is a God Gefying sacri-
lege." He sees Gods caligraphy in
every page, anatomical and physolog-
zeal. He says: God has given me won
derful body for noble purposes"-that
arm with 80 curious bones-wielded by
i6 curious muscles and all under the
brains telegraphy, $50 pounds of blood
rushing through the heart every hour,
the heart in "a hours beating 100000
times, during the - hours the lungs
taking in 81 hogsheads of air, and all
this mechanism not more mighty than
delicate and easily disturbed and de-
molshed. The Christian man says to
himself: IF hurt my nerves, if / hurt
my brain, if / hurt any of my physical
faculties, | insult God and call for dire
retribution." Why did God tell the Le-
vites not to offer to Him in sacrifice ami
mails imperfect and diseased? lie meant
to tell us in all the ages that we are 10
offer to God our very best physical con-
dition, and a man who through irreg-
ular or gluttonous eating ruins his
health is not offering to God such a sac
rifice. Why did Paul write for his cloak
at Troas? Why should such a great
man as Paul be anxious about "A thing
so insignificant as an overcoat? 1t was
because be knew that with pneumonia
and rheumatism he would not be worth
half as much TO God and the church as
with respiration easy and foot free.
An intelligent Christian man would
consider ii an absurdity TO kneel down
at night and pray and ask Gods protec-
ton while AT the same time he kept the
window of his bedroom tight shut
against fresh air. He would just as soon
think of going out on the bridge be-
tween New York and Brooklyn, leap
ing off and then praying TO God 20 keep
him from getting Hurt. Just as long as
you refer this who're subject of physical
health TO the realm of whimsicality
or to the pastry cook or 10 the butcher or
TO the baker or to the apothecary or TO
the clothier you are not acting like a
Christian. Take care of all your physi-
cal forces-nervous, muscular, bone,
brain, cellular tissue--for all you must
be brought to judgment. Smoking your
nervous system into fdgets, burning
out the coating Of your stomach with