Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-01-31

tnaJ nIb1eUn year! ana IL uHUSF Iue
old dispensation it was such a glad
time, under our new and more glo-
rious dispensation let all who have
come to the fifties hear the trumpet
of jubilee that I now blow. That was
the allusion made by Mr.. Toplady, the
great hymnologist, when he wrote:
"Blow we the trumpet. blow
The gladly solemn sound;
Let all the nations know,
To earths remoteSt bound,
The year of jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.
rye who have sold for naught
Your heritage above
Shall have it back unbought,
The gift of Jesus love.
The year of jubilee has come;
Return. We ransomed sinners. home"
My sermon next accosts the sixties.
The beginning of that decade is more
startling than any other. In his
journey the man rides
rather smoothly over the figures .
and and and S, but the figure
gives him big jolt. He says: cit
cannot be that 1 am 60. Let me ex-
anime the old family record. I 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 relative a
year older and another relative a
year younger, and, sure enough, the
fact is established beyond all dis
putation. Sixty! Now your great
danger is the temptation to fold up
your faculties and quit. You will feel
tendency to "Reminiscences. If you
do not look out, you will begin al
most everything with the words:
"When I was a boy" But you ought
for God and the truth than the fifties
or the forties or the thirties. You
ought to do more during the next ten
years than you did in any 80 years
of your life, because of all the expe-
rience you have had. You have COM
mitted enough mistakes in life to
make you wise above your juniors.
Now, under the accumulated light
of your past experimenting, go to
work for God as never before. When
4 man in the sixties folds up his en-
ergy 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 ac-
tive, 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 a rest for
the people of God, but it is in a
sphere beyond the reach of tele-
scopes.
Ny subject next accosts those in the
seventies and beyond. My word to
them is congratulation. You have got
nearly if not quite through. You haye
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 I 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 minis
ter of England strong at q, Haydn
composing his oratorio, "The CFea-
tion,'' at 20 years of age. Isocrates
doing some of his best work at "A.
Plato busy thinking for all succeeding
centuries at 81. Noah Webster, after
making his world renowned dictionary,
hard at work until IS years old. Rev.
Daniel Waldo praying in my pulpit t
100 years of age. Humboldt producing
the immortal Cosmos" at rs years.
William Blake at 81 learning Italian SO
as to read Dante in the original. Lord
Cockburn at 81 writing his best treat
Use. John Wesley stirring great audi
ences at IS. William c. Bryant, with
out spectacles, reading in my house
'sThanatopsis" at SO years of age.
Christian men and women in all de-
| partments serving God after becoming
septuagenarians and octogenarians
and nonagenarians prove that there
are possibilities of work for the aged
but I think you who are pa ssing the sew
| enties are near being through.
| But the most OF you will never
reach the eighties or the seventies OF
the sixties or the fifties or the forties
He who passes into the forties has
gone far beyond the average of hu
man life. Amid the uncertainties
take God through Jesus Christ as
YOUR present and eternal safety. The
longest life is only small fragment
of the great eternity. We viii all OF
| us soon be there.
Eternity. how near it rolls!
| Count the vast value of your souls.
Beware and count the awful cost
What they have gained whose souls ar
/ lost.