The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1900-02-24
LIVING IN CHRIST.
DR.. Talmage Speaks of the Benefits
Of a Religious Existence.
How IL Makes Its Devotces Happier
Practical Religion the Friend
of Longevity - Gospel of
Everyday Life.
Copyright. 1860. by Louis Klopsch.)

the next and shows What rellBlon uoes
for the prolongation of earthly exist
ence: text, Psalm Xci., &c: with long
life will / satisfy him"
Through the mistake of its friends
religion has been chiefly associated
with sickbeds 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
hearing in it the clipping chisel of
the tombstone cutter. 1t is high time
that this thing were changed and that
religion instead of being represented
rs 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 Il glorious addi-
ton. 1t is sanitive, 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 Psalms, prays
that religion may be dominant, he
does not speak of it as mild sick
ness or an emancipation or an at
tack of moral and spiritual cramp.
lie speaks of il as 1.-THE saving health
of all nations" while God in the text
promises longevity to the pious, say
ing: with long life will | satisfy
him"
The fact is that men and women
die too soon. 1t is high time that re-
ligion joined the hand of medical sci
ence in attempting to improve human
longevity. Adam lived $50 years.
MethuseIah lived 900 years. As late
in the history of the world as Nespa-
sian there were at one time in his en-
pire 40 people 1875 years old. So far
down as the sixteenth century Peter
Tartan died at 1876 years of age. | do
not say that religion will ever take
the race back to antedluyian longev-
ity, but | do say that the length of hui
man life will be greatly improved.
1t is said in Isaiah Ky, 20: "rhe
child shall die n hundred years old"
Now, if, according to Scripture, the
child is to be n hundred years old,
may not the men and women reach
to 300 and 400 and 500? The fact is
that we are mere dwarfs and skele-
tons compared with some of the gen
creations that are to come. Take the
African race. They have been under
bondage for centuries. Give them
chance and they develop Toussaint
rOuvcrture. And If the white race
shall be brought out from the serf-
dom Of sin what shall be the body?
What shall be the soul? Religion has
only just touched our world Give il
full power for 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 longevity; /
prove it, first, from the fact that it
makes the care of your health n posi-
tive Christian duty. Whether we shall
keep early or late hours, whether we
shall take food digestible or indigesti-
BILE, whether there shall be thorough
or incomplete mastication, are ques-
tons very often referred 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 il the temple of the |
Holy Ghost, and to deface its affairs |
or mar its walls or crumblc its pillars |
is a God-defying sacrilegc." He sees
Gods caligraphy in every pagan
atomical and physiological. He says:
God has given me wonderful body
for noble purposes" That arm with
80 curious bones welded by 4G GU
rious muscles, and all under the
brains telegraphy-35O pounds of
blood rushing through the heart every
hour-the heart in "a hours beating
100000 times, during the same time
The lungs taking in 81 hogsheads of
air, and all this mechanism not more
mighty than delicate and easily dis
-urbed and demolished
The Christian man says to himself:
III | hurt my nerves, IL hurt my
brain, IL ] hurt any Of my physical
faculties, i insult God and call for
lire retribution." Why did God tell
lie Levites not to offer to Him in
sacrifice animals imperfect and dis
'ased? He meant to tell us in all
he ages that we are to offer to God
'ur very best physical condition, and
man who through irregular or glut-
onoas eating ruins his health, is not
'ffering to God such sacrifice. Why
lid Paul write for his cloak at Troas?
Why should such n great man as Paul
DC anxious about a thing so insignifi-
ant as an overcoat? 1t was because
lie knew that with pneumonia and
rheumatism he would not be worth
lalf as much to God and the church
IS with respiration easy and foot free.
An intelligent Christian man would
consider IL an absurdity to kneel down
{ night and pray and ask Gods pro-
ection while at the same time he kept
he windows of his bedroom tight shut
gainst fresh air. He would just as
Don think Of going to the top OF his
ouse and leaping off and then pray
ng to God to keep him from getting
lurt. Just as long as you refer this
Whole subject of physical health to
he realm Of whimsicality, or to the
'astry cook, or to the butcher, or to
he baker, or to the apothecary, or to
he clothier Won are not actinU like |