Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-09-25
CHARIOT OFTRIUMPH
RELIGION REPRESENTS LIFE, NOT THE
GRAVE.
Rev. DIR. TaImaEe DiscOurses on
Physical Health and Prescribes
For the ProIOnGatiOn of Life-COr-
reefs n Common Error.
Copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1891


reefs n Common Error.
Copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1891
WASHINGTON, Sept. Pain this dis
course DR.. Talmage gives prescrip-
tions for the prolongation Of life and
breaches the gospel of physical health
The text is Psalms xci, Is, with long
life will l satisfy him."
Through the mistake of its friends
religion has been chiefly associated
with sick beds and graveyards. The
whole subject to many people is odor-
Gus with chlorine and carbolic acid
There are people who cannot pro-
nounce the word religion without hear
ing in it the clipping chisel of the
tombstone cutter. 1t is high time that
this thing were changed and that re-
Iigion, instead of being represented as
a hearse to carry out the dead, should
be represented as a chariot in which
the living are to triumph.
Religion, so far from subtractinS
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 anOth-
er part of the psalm prays that religion
may be dominant, he does not speak
of it as q mild sickness or an emacia-
ton 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 pious,
saying, with long life will l satisfy
him" The fact is that men and women
die too soon. 1t is high time that reli-
gion Joined the hand Of medical science
in attempting to improve human Ion
gevity. Adam lived $50 years. Ne
fhuseIah lived 969 years. AS late in the
history of the world as Vespasian there
were at one time in his empire 40 peo-
pie 135 years old. So far down as the
sixteenth century Peter Tartan died at
1S5 years of age. | 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 a hundred years old" Now, if, &C.
cCrding to Scripture, the child is to be
a hundred years old, may not the men
and women reach to 300 and 400 and
$50? 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 centuries.
Give them q chance, and they develop
q Frederick Douglass or a TOussaint
LOuverture. And, if the white race
shall be brought from under the serf-
dom 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?
Friend of Longevity.
MY design is to show that practical
religion 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 in
complete mastication, 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 Ghost, and to deface its affairs,
or mar it's walls, or crumble it's pillars,
is a God defying sacrilege." He sees
Gods caligraphy in every page, ana
tomical and physiological He says.
+tGod has given me a wonderful body
curious bones welded by 46 curious
muscles and all under the brains teleg-
raphy, $50 pounds of blood rushing
through the heart every hour, the heart
In "a hours beating 100000 times, dur
ing the "a hours the lungs taking in
81 hogshead of air, and all this mech
anism not more mighty than delicate
and easily disturbed and demolished.
The Christian man says to himself,
eff / hurt my nerves, if | hurt my
brain, if l 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 sac
rifice animals imperfect and diseased?
He meant to tell US in all the ages that we
are to offer to God our very best phys
ical condition, and a man who through
irregular or gluttonous eating 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 a
thing SO Insignificant as an overcoat?
1t was because 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 of the Body.
An intelligent Christian man would
GnnSidar If q ahS11rditv % knaal down