The age-herald., 1902-02-02


 scribing for the ordinary ailments that affiict our race. He was sailing on in fog and could not take reckoning, put now 1t clears up enough to allow him 10 find out his real latitude and longitude He has been clim bling. but now he mas got to the top of the hill, ana ne taxes a long breath He Is half way through the Journey at least and he Is in posi- .tion to look backward or forward. He has more good sense than he ever hao. lie knows human nature, for ne mas been cheated often enough to see the bad side of it. and he has met so many gracious and kindly and splendid souls he also knows the good side of It. Now, calm yourself. Thank God for the past and de- liberately set your compass for another voyage. You have chased enough thistle down; you have blown enough soap bub- blea; you have seen the unsatisfying na- ture of all earthly things. Open a new chapter with God and the world This de- cade of the forties ought to eclipse all It's predecessors in worship in usefulness and in happiness
 The Reaplng Age.
 My sermon next accosts the fifties. How queer 1t looks when in writing your age you make the first Of the two hgures 5. This is the decade which shows what the other decades have been. If young man has sown wild oats and he has lived to this time he reaps the harvest Of 1t in the ffties or if by necessity he was com pelled to overtoil~in honest directions he is called to settle up with exacting nature sometime during the fftles Many have 1t so hard in early life that they are oc- togenarians at fifty. Sciaticas and rheu- matisms and neuralgia and vertigos and insom nias have their playground in the fifties. A mans hair begins to whiten and, although he may have worn specta- cles before, now he asks the optician for No. IA or No. 12 or No. 10. When he gets a cough and Is almost cured, he hacks and clears his throat a good while after ward. O ye who are in the hfties, think of it. A half century of blessing to be thankful for and a half century sub tracted from an existence which, in the most marked cases of longevity, hardly ever reaches a whole century. By this time you ought to be eminent for piety. You have been in so many battles you ought to be a brave soldier. You have made so many voyages you ought to be a good sailor. So long protected and blessed, you ought to have soul full of doxolgy In Bible times in Canaan every fifty years was by Gods command a year of jubilee. The people did not work that year. If property had by mis- fortune gone out of ones possession, on the f1ftieth year 1t came back to him. If he had fooled 1t away, 1t was returned without a farthing to pay. If man had been enslaved. he was in that year eman- cipated A trumpet was sounded loud and clear and long, and 1t was the trum- pet of judilee. They shook hands. they laughed. they congratulated What a time 1t was that fftieth year! And if un- der the old dispensation 1t was such a glad time, under our new and more glori- ous dispensation let all who come to the f1fties hear the trumpet of jubilee that I now blow. That was the allusion made by MT. Toplady. the great hymnologist, when he wrote
 Blow ye the trumpet, blow
 The gladly solemn sound;
 Let all the nations know,
 To earth's remotest bound,
 The year of jubilee is some;
 Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
 Ye who have sold for nought
 Your heritage above
 Shall have 1t 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- ological journey the man rides rather smoothly over the figures 2 and and and 5, but the figure gives him a big jolt. He says: Tt cannot be that I am sixty. Let me examine the old family record. I guess they made a mistake They got my name down wrong in the roll of birth" But no, the older brother or sister remembers the time of his ad- vent, and there Is some relative a year older and another relative a year young er and sure enough, the fact Is establish ed beyond all disputation. Sixty Now your great danger is the temptation to fold up your faculties and quit. You will feel a tendency to reminiscenoe If you do not look out, you will begin almost everything with the words, When I was a boy" But you ought to make the six ties more memorable for God and the truth than the ifties or the forties or the thirties. You ought to do more dur ing the next ten years than you did in any thirty years of your life because of all the experience you have had. You have committed enough mistakes in life to make you wise above your juniors Now, under the accumulated light of your