Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1899-11-03
TO ENJOY LONG LIFE.
A Prescription Prepared by Rev.
DR.. Talmage.
acliGion VIII onset the Diss. On lions
So" ana Destroyers of Life-The
Gospel II Chariot for
the Living.
copyrighted. 1899, by Louis Kopsch.)
tVnui,tpatAn

copyrighted, 1899, by Louis Klopsch.)
Washington
n Ills discourse Dr. Talmage give
prescriptions for the proongation o
life and breaches the gospel of physica
health. The text is Psalms 81, 16, witt
long life will satisfy him."
Through the mistake of its friends re
ligion has been chiefly associated will
sick beds and graveyards. The who'll
subject to many people is odorous will
chlorine and carbolic acid. There ar,
people who cannot pronounce the wore
religion" without hearing in it the clip
ping chisel of the tombstone cutter. |
is high time that this thing wer,
changed and that religion, instead o
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 subtractng
from ones vitality, is glorious add
ton. 1t is sanatye, 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
1t 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
iscs 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
969 years. AS late in the history of the
world as Nespasian there were at one
time in his empire As people 135 years
old. So far down as the sixteenth CEN
tury Peter Tartan died at 1s5 years of
age. ( do not say that religion will ever
take the race back to antedlluvian lon
gevity, but | 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
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
chance, and they develop Frederick
Douglass or n 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 a 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
ii 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 de-
ferrcd tothe realm of whimsicality. But
the Christian man lifts this whole prob
lem of health into the accountable and
the Divine. lie says: God has given
me this body, and lie has called it the
temple of the Holy Ghost, and to de-
face its altars or mar its walls or crum-
bic its pillars is God defying sacri-
lege.' He secs Gods caligraphy in
every page, anatomical and physiolog-
ical. llesays; God has given me a won
derful body for noble purposes"-
arm with 32 curious bones-wielded by
AZ curious muscles and all under the
brains telegraphy, $50 pounds of blood
through the heart every hour,
the heart in a hours beating 100000
times, during the q hours the lungs
taking i'll 81 hogsheads of air, and all
this mechanism not more mighty than
delicate and easily disturbed and de-
molished. The Christian man saws TO
IF hurt my nerves, if hurt
my brain, if | hurt any of my physical
faculties, insult God and call for dire
'etribution." Why did God tell the Le-
'ites not to offer to Him in sacrifice ami
mails imperfect and diseased? lie meant
10 tell us in all the ages that we are to
1lfer to God our very best physical con-
lltlon, and a man who through irreg-
llar or gluttonous eating ruins his
health is not offering to God such sac
'ifice. Why did Paul write for his cloak |
1t Troas? Why should such a great |
nan as Paul be anxious about a thing
20 insignificant as an overcoat? IT was
because he knew that with pneumonia
md rheumatism he would not be worth
ialf 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
It night and pray and ask Gods protec-
ION while at the same time lie kept the
of his bedroom tight shut
gainst fresh air. He would just as soon
hlnk OF going out on the bridge be-
ween New York and Brooklyn. leap
ng off and then praying to God to keep
nm from getting hurt. Just as long as
'ou refer this whole subject of physical
eaIth to the realm of whimsicality
rto the pastry cook or { o the butcher or
o the baker or to the apothecary or to
he ciothier you are not acting like
,hrstian. Take care of all your physi-
al forces--nervous, muscular, bone.
rain, cellular tissue-for all you must
e brought 10 judgment. Smoking your
eryous system into fidgets, burning
ut the coating of your stomach with
zine longwooded and strychnined,
'alking with thin shoes to make your
eet look delicnte Dinched NJ tbe ,yoi.t