The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-09-25
HOW 10 LIVE LONG, j. {, l..

HOW TO LIVE LONG.
THE REV. OR. r. De WITT TALMAoe's
PRESCRIPTIONS FOR LONGEVITY.
His Text Was, with Long Life win
| satisfy Hin"-Help In Practical
Religton-A Protest Against Dissi.
Dations-Destroyers of Life.
Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1891
WASHINGTON, Sept. A.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmage gives prescriptions
for the prolongation of life and breaches
the gospelef physical health. The text
is Psalms xci, 10, with long life will
satisfy him"
Through the mistake Of its friends re
lision has been chiefly associated with
sick beds and graveyards. The whols
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 repre-
scented as hearse to carry out the dead.
should be represented as chariot in
which the living are to triumph.
Religion, 30 far from subtracting from,
ones vitality, 10 q glorious addition. 1t il
sunative, 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 q mild sickness or
an cancellation OF 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 pl-
GUS, saying, with long life viii 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
080 years. As late in the history Of the
world as Vespasian there were at one
time In his empire 45 people 1856 years
old. 30 far down as the sixteenth GEN.
fury Peter Tartan died at 1856 years OF
age. do not say that religion will ever
take the race back to antediluvian lon
gevity, but do say the length of life will
be increased.
A Hundred Years Old.
It is said in Isaiah, "The child shall die
a hundred years old" Now, if, accord
ing to Scripture, the child is to be a hum
dred years old, may not the men and wo-
men reach to 900 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 Frederick Douglass or Tous-
saint L'Ouverture. And, II 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 1t 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. I prove
it first from the fact that it makes the
care Of our health positive Christian
duty. Whether we shall keep early or
late hours, whether we shall take food
digestble 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 1t the temple
of the Holy Ghost, and to deface its al
tars or mar its walls OF crumble its pill
In To I'd Jnf, nryiin y In
sees Gods caligraphy in every page,
anatomical and physiological. He says,
'God has given me wonderful body
fol noble purposes"-that arm with 80
curious bones-wielded by 46 curious
muscles and all under the brains teleg-
ruphy, $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 hogs
heads of air, and all this mechanism not
more mighty than delicate and easily dis
turbed and demolished. The Christian
man says to himself, IF I hurt my
nerves, if hurt my brain, if hurt any
Of my physical faculties, l insult God
and call for dire retribution." Why did |
God tell the Levites not to offer to him |
In sacrifice animals imperfect and dis
eased? He meant to tell lis in all the
ages that we are to offer to God our very |
best physical condition, and 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 pneu-
monia 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 protection
while Mt the same time he kept the win
dows of his bedroom tight shut against
fresh air. He would just RS 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 OF 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 tidgets. burning
out the coating OF your stomach with
wine logwooded and strychnined. 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!
What right has any man or woman to
deface the temple Of the Holy Ghost?
What Is the ear? 1t is the whispering
gallery of the soul. What is the eye? 1t
Is the observatory God constructed, its
telescope sweeping the heavens. What
is the hand7 An instrument so wonderful
that when the Earl of Bridgewater be-
queathed In his win $4,000 for treatises
to be written on the wisdom, power and
goodness of God, Sir Charles Bell, the
great English anatomist and surgeon,
found his greatest illustration in the con-
e, h. |