The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-09-27

- n this discourse DIR. Talmsge gives
prescriptions for the prolongation Of
- life and breaches the gospel of physi-
cal health The text is Psalms xci., 16,
with long life will satisfy him."
Through the mistake of it's 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 repre-
scented as hearse to carry out the DEAD
should be represented as chariot IN
which the living are to triumph.
Religion, so far from subtractlng from
ones vitality, is glorious addition. 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 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 promises longevity to the pi-
Gus, 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
$50 years. AS late in the history of the
world as Vespasian there were at one
time in his empire forty-five people l3o
years old So far down as the sixteenth
century Peter Tartan died at 1S5 years of
age. 1 do not say that religion will ever
take the race back to antediluvian lon
gevity, but l do say the length of life will
be increased.
A Hundred Years Old.
It is said in Isaiah, 1.-The child shall die
a hundred years DID, Now, if, accord
ing to Scripture, the child is to be hum
dred years old, may not the men and
women reach to 800 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 under bondage for cen
turtles. Give them a chance, and they
develop a Frederick Douglass or Tous-
saint 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?
My design is to show that practical re-
ligion is the friend of long life. | prove
it first from the fact that it makes the
care Of our health a positive Christian
duty. Whether we shall keep early Or
late hours, whether we shall take food
digestible or indigestible, whether there
shall be thorough Or incomplete masti-
cation, are questions very often deferred
to the realm of whimsicality. But the
Christian man lifts this whole problem
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 Grost, and to deface its al
tars or mar it's walls or crumble it's pill
lars is a God defying sacrilege." he
sees Gods caligraphy in every page,
anatomical and physiological j He says,
God has given me q wonderful body
for noble purposes"-that arm with 80
curious ,bones-wielded by 46 curious
muscles and all under the brains teleg-
faphy, $50 pounds of blood rushing
through the heart every hour, the heart
in twenty-four hours beating 10000
times, during the twenty-four hours the
lungs taking in ffty-seven hogsheads Of
air, and all this mechanism not more
mighty than delicate and easily disturbed
and demolished. The Christian man SAYS
to himself. eff I hurt my nerves, if I
hurt my brain, if hurt any of my ply
steal faculties, / insult God and call for
dire retribution." Why did God tell the
Levites not to offer to him in sacrifice
animals imperfect and diseased? He
meant to tell us in all the ages that we
are to offer to God our very best ply
steal condition, and man who through
irregular or gluttonous eating ruins his
health is not offering TO God such sac
rifce. Why did Paul write for his cloak
at Troas? Why should such great man
as Paul be anxious about thing so in
significant as an overcoat? It was be-
cause he 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.
Care for Your Physical Forces.
An intelligent Christian man would
consider it an absurdity to kneel down
at night and pray and ask Gods protee-
ton while at the same time he kent tha
windows Of his bedroom tight shut
against fresh air. He would just as soon
think Of going out on the bridge between
New York and Brooklyn, leaping off and
then praying to God to keep him from
getting hurt. Just as long as you refer
this whole subject Of physical health to
the realm Of whimsicality or to the pastry
cook or to the butcher or to the baker or
to the apothecary or to the clothier you
are not acting like Christian Take
care Of all your physical forces-nervous,
muscular, bone, brain, cellular tissue
for all you must be brought to judgment
Smoking your nervous system into fdg-
cts, burning out the coating of your stom-
ach with wine logwooded and strychnin-
ed, walking with thin shoes to make your
feet look delicate. pinched at the waist
until you are nigh cut in two and neither
part worth anything, grooming about sick
headache and palpitation Of the heart,
which you think came from God, when
they came from your own folly!