The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1899-09-29
TO ENJOY LONG LIFE.
A Prescription Prepared by Rev.
DR.. Talmage.
Religion VIII Offset the Designations
and DestrOyers of Life-The
Gospel n Chariot for
the Living.
copyrighted, 1899, by Louis Klopsch)
L.

A1e anu pTedcnes the BOspel Oh phys
health. The text is Psalms 81, 16, with
long life will l 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. II
is high time that this thing were
changed and that religion, instead OF
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 subtracting
from ones vitality, is a glorious add
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 another
part of the psalm prays that religion
may be dominant, he does not speak of
it as mild sickness or an emaciation or
Ill dlloCh VI lllOl al anu PIllluul VI
He speaks of it as "the saving health of
all nations" while God in the text prom
ises 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.
10, 1ival a1oh 1iuoI
D69 years. AS late in the history of the
world as Vespasian there were at one
time in his empire As people 1875 years
old. So far down as the sixteenth cen
fury Peter Tartan died at 1875 years of
age. l 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.
1t is said in Isaiah: "The child shall
die hundred years DID," Now, if, ac-
cording to Scripture, the child is to be
a 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
a chance, and they develop Frederick
Douglass or a 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?
My design is to show that practical re-
Hgion 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 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 He has 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 defying sacri-
lege." He sees Gods caligraphy in
every page, anatomical and physiolog-
zeal. Hesays: God has given me a won
derful body for noble purposes"-that
arm with SO curious bones-wielded by
46 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 "a hours the lungs
taking in 81 hogsheads of air, and all
this mechanism not more mighty than
delicate and easily disturbed and de-
molished. The Christian man says to
himself: "1f hurt my nerves, if hurt
my brain, if I hurt any of my physical
faculties, l insult God and call for dire
retribution." Why did God tell the Le-
yites not to offer to Him in sacrifice ami
mails imperfect and diseased? He meant
to tell us in all the ages that we are to
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
ut 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.
An intelligent Christian man would |
consider it 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 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 CT to the apothecary or to
the clothier you are not acting like
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 fidgets, burning