The Yale expositor., 1899-10-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
LONGEVITY THE SUBJECT FOR
LAST SUNDAY.
From Psalms, OIL; 16. as Follows; "with
Long Life VIII L Satisfy Him"-Re-
ligion, SIck-Beds aud Grave Yards
Mistakes of ZeaIots.
Copyright 1899 by Louis Klopsch.,

with sick-beds and graVe-yards. 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 clipping chisel of the
tombstone cutter. 1t is high time that
this thing were changed, and that re-
ligion, instead of being represented as
hearse to carry out the dead, should
be represented as a chariot in which
the living are to triumph.
Religion, so far from subtracting
from ones vitality, is a 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 an
other part of the Psalm, prays that re-
ligion 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, premises lon
gevity to the pious, saying: with long
life will l 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 attempting
to improve human longevity. Adam
lived nine hundred and sixty-nine
years. Methuselah lived nine hundred
and sixty-nine years. AS late in the
history of the world as Vespasian,
there were, at one time in his empire,
forty-ive people one hundred and
thirty-five years old. So far down
as the sixteenth century, Peter Tartan
died at one hundred and eighty-tive
years of age. l do not say that re-
ligion will ever take the race back TO
antediluvian longevity, but l do say
the length of life will be increased.
1t is said in Isaiah: "The child shall
die hundred years old" Now, if ac-
cording to Scripture, the child is to be
a hundred years old, may not the men
and women reach to three hundred and
four hundred and five hundred? The
fact is that we are mere dwarfs and
skeletons compared with some of the
ECLlCIdllOuo lHdL Ire " COLllC' lohN
the African race. They have been I'M
der bondage for centuries. Give them
a chance, and they develop a Fred
erick Douglass or a Toussaint Lou
venture. 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 a few centuries, and who
can tell what will be the strength Of
man, and the beauty of woman, and
the longevity of all?
My design is to show that practical
religion is the friend of long life. l
prove it, first, from the fact that it
makes the care of our health posi-
tive Christian duty. Whether we shall
keep early or late hours, whether we
shall take food dlgestible or indigesti-
BILE, whether there shall be thorough
or incomplete mastication, are ques-
lions 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 Ghost, and to deface its affairs.
or mar its walls, or crumble its pillars,
is a God-defying sacrilege." He sees
Gods caligraphy in every page-ana-
tomical and physiological. He says:
God has gwen me wonderful body
for noble purposes" That arm with
thirty-two urious bones welded by
forty-six curious muscles, and all I'M
der the brains telegraphy; three hun
dred and fifty 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 fifty-seven
hogsheads of air, and all this mechan-
ism not more mighty than delicate
and easily disturbed and demolished.
The Christian man says to himself
IF l hurt my nerves, If l hurt my
brain, If / hurt any of my physical
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
physical condition, and a man who
through irregular or gluttonous eat
ing ruins his health is not Offering to
God such a sacrifice. Why did Paul
write for his cloak at Troas? Why
should such a great man as Paul be
anxious about thing so insignificant
as an overcoat? 1t was because he
knew that with pneumonia and rheu-
matism 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 it an absurdity to kneel down
at night and pray and ask Gods pro-
lection, while at the same time he kept
the 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 whim-
sicality or to the pastry cook, or to
the butcher mr. IN the halxpr xo,, ara