Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-01-27

seSSIOH, Oi4 the nIuetn year it came
back to him. If he had fooled it away,
it was returned without a farthing to
pay. If man had been enslaved, he
was in that year emancipated. A trum-
pet was sounded loud and clear and
long, and it was the trumpet Of jubilee.
They shook hands, they laughed, they
congratulated. What a time it was,
that tiftieth year! And If under the old
diSpensatiOn it was such a glad time
under our new and more glorious dis
pensation let all who have come to the
fifties hear the trumpet of jubilee that
l now blow That was the allusion
made by Mr.. Toplady, the great hymn
nolOgist, when he wrote:
Blow We the trumpet, blow
The gladly solemn sound;
Let all the nations know,
To earth's remotest bound,
The year of jubilee is come;
Return, We ranSOmed sinners home
Ye who have sold for nought
Your heritage above
Shall have it back unbought,
The gift of Jesus love.
The year of jubilee has come;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
At Threescore.
My sermon next accOsts the sixties.
The beginning of that decade is more
startling than any other. In his chron-
illogical journey the man rides rather
smoothly over the figures and and
and 5, but the figure gives him a big
jolt. He says: ut cannot be that | am
sixty. Let me examine the old family
record. l guess they made a mistake.
They got my name down wrong in the
roll of births" But, no, the older
brothers or sisters remember the time
of his advent, and there is some rela-
tive a year older and another relative
q year younger, and, sure enough, the
fact is established beyond all disputa-
ton. Sixty! Now your great danger
is the temptation to fold up your facul-
ties and quit. You will feel a tendency
to Renaissance. If you do not look
out, you will begin almost everything
with the words, When l was a boy"
But you ought to make the sixties more
memorable for God and the truth than
the tifties or the fOrties or the thirties.
You ought to do more during the next
ten years than you did in any thirty
years of your life because of all the ex-
perience you have had. You have COM
mitted enough mistakes in life to make
you wise above your juniors. Now, I'M
der the accumulated light of your past
experimenting, go to work for God
as never before. When a man in the
sixties folds up his energy and feels
he has done enough, it is the devil of
Incidence to which he is surrendering,
and God generally takes the man at his
word and lets him die right away. His
brain, that under the tension of hard
work is active, now suddenly shrivels.
Men, whether they retire from secular
or religious work, generally retire to
the grave. No we'll man has a right to
retire. The world was made to work.
There remaineth rest for the people
of God, but it is in a sphere beyond the
reach of telescopes. The military
charge that decided one of the greatest
battles of the ages-the battle of Wa
terlOo-was not made until o'clock in
the evening, but some of you propose
to go into camp at 2 o'clock in the aft
ernoon.
At the HarbOr Mouth.
My subject next accosts those in the
seventies and beyond. My word to
them is congratulation. You have got
nearly if not quite through. You have
safely crossed the sea of life and are
about to enter the harbor. You have
fought at Gettysburg, and the war is
Over-here and there a skirmish with
the remaining sin Of your own heart
and the sin of the world, but l guess
you are about done. There may be
some work for you yet on a small or
large scale. Bismarck of Germany Wig
OrOuS in the eighties. The prime min
lister of England strong at seventy-two.
Haydn composing his oratorio, "The
Creation" at seventy years Of age Isoc-
rates doing some of his best work at
seventy-four. Plato busy thinking for
all succeeding centuries at eighty-one.
Noah Webster, after making his world
renowned dictionary, hard at work I'M
til elghty-five years old. Rev. Daniel
Waldo praying in my pulpit at one
hundred years Of age. Humboldt pro-
ducing the immortal Cosmos" at sew
enty-six years. William Blake at six
ty-seven learning Italian so as to read
Dante in the original Lord Cockburn
at eightyseven writing his best trea-
tse. John Wesley stirring great audi
ences at eighty-fve. William G.. Bry-
ant, without spectacles, reading in my
house ''Thanatopsis' at eighty-three
years of age. Christian men and wo-
men in all departments serving God
after becoming septuagenarians and
octogenarians and nonagenarians prove
that there are possibilities of work for
the aged, but think you who are pass
ed the seventies are near being through.
How do you feel about it? You ought
to be jubilant, because life is a tremen-
dous struggle, and if you have got