Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-03-08
Or. TALMAGES SERMON.
sundays DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

| Subject: what Religion Does For the
| Prolongation of Human Life-ReliGion
10 Not q Hearse-Care Of the Health q
| Positive Christian Duty.
copyright 1901
WASHINGTON, d. C.-This sermon OF DR..
Talmage presents gospel for this life as
| we'll as the next and shows what religion
does for the prolongation Of earthly exist
ence; text, Psalm xci., 16, with long life
will satisfy him."
Through the mistake OF its friends relig-
ion 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 with
out hearing In it the clipping chisel OF the
| tombstone cutter. 1t is high time that this
thing were changed and that religion, In
stead OF being represented as hearse to
carry out the dead, should be represented
as a chariot in which the living are to trl-
umph.
Religion. so far from subtracting from
ones vitality, is glorious addition. 1t is
sensitive, curative, hyglenic. It 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 sickness or an
! smaciation 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 I 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 attempting
to improve human longevity. Adam lived
$50 years; Methuselah lived 969 years. As
late in the history of the world as Vespa-
sian there were at one time In his empire
| 60 Ia r. IN yUp
as the sixteenth century Peter Tartan died
at 1856 years Of age. do not say that relig-
ion will ever take the race back to ante
diuvian longevity, but do say that the
length of human life will be greatly i'm
| proved.
It is said in Isaiah lxv., 20, "The child
shall die 100 years DID," Now, if, accord
| ing to Scripture, the child is to be 100
years old may not the men and women
| reach to 800 and 400 and 500? 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 GEN.
turtles. Give them chance, and they de-
velop a Toussaint rOuverture. And IL the
| white race shall be brought out 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 woman ana tue longevity Oh air
My design Is to show that practical re-
| Iigion Is the friend of longevity. 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 digest
able or indgestable, whether there shall be
thorough or Incomplete masticatioA, are
! questions 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
! face its affairs or mar its walls or crumble
! its pillars Is u God defylng sacrilege." He
sees Gods caligraphy in every page-ana-
tomical and physiological. He says, GOD
! has given me a wonderful body for noble
! purposes" That arm with thirty-two cur
ious bones welded by forty-slx curious
muscles, and all under the brains teleg-
raphy - $50 pounds OF blood rushing
! through the heart every hour. the heart in
! twenty-four hours beating 100, 900 times,
! during the same time the lungs taking in
! ifty-seven hogsheads OF air, and all this
| mechanism not more mighty than delicate
and easily disturbed and demolished.
! The Christian man says to himself, eff
! hurt my nerves, II hurt my brain, IL
| burt any OF my physical faculties, insult
! God and call for dire retribution." Why
, did God tell the Levites not to offer to Him
! In sacrifice animals imperfect and diseased?
He meant to tell us in all the ages that we
are to offer to God our very best physical
| con iition and man who through irregular
I or gluttonous eating ruins his health is not
/ Offering to God such a sacrifice. Why did
/ Paul write for his cloak ut Troas? Why
! should such great man as Paul be anx
| ious about thing so Insignificant as an
! overcoat? 1t waS because he knew that
| with pneum onia and rhematism he would
not be worth half rs much to God and the
church as with respiration easy and foot
| free.
| When it becomes q Christian duty to take
! care OF our health, is not the whole ten
] dency toward longevity2 If toss my
| watch about reckiessly and drop ii on the
| pavement and wind it up at any time Of
/ day or night happen to think of it, and
! often let 1t run down, while you are careful
! with your watch and never abuse it and
wind it mp just at the same hour every
| night and put it in a place where it will
not suffer from the violent changes of at
mosphere, which watch will last the
| longer? Common sense answers. Now
the human body is Gods watch. You see
| the hands Of the watch. You see the face
of the watch but the beating of the heart is
the ticking OF the watch. Oh, be careful
and do not let it run down!
| Again, l remark that practical religion
is a friend OF longevity In the fact that it
is protest against dIssipations which in
| iure and destroy the health. Bad men
| anu WOHiSu iINo u Noly Shoit ilics USil
sins kill them. know hundreds Of good
old men, but do not know half dozen
bad old men. Why? They do not get old.
Lord Byron died at Missolonghi at thirty
| six years of age, himself his own Mazeppa,
his unbridled passions the horse that
dashed with him into the desert. Edgar
| A. Poe died at Baltimore at thirty eight
! years OF age. The black raven that
| alighted on his bust above lis chamber
! door was delirium tremens.
Only this and nothing more.
Napoleon Bonaparte lived only just be-
| yond midlife, then died at st. Helena. and
one OF his doctors said that his disease was
| induced by excessive snuffing. The hero
| of Austerlitz. the man who by one stop Of
| his foot in the center OF Europe shook the
earth, killed by n snuffbox. Oh, how many
| people we have known who have not lived
| out half their days because of their dissi-
pations and indulgences. Now practical
religion is n protest against all dissipation
| OF any kind.
But" you say, professors of religion
| have fallen professors OF religion have got
| drunk nrofassors of religion have misaD-