The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-07

hood days. T. Dewitt Talmage tue fa- ther of a lot of babies, did not want to be T. Dewitt Talmage, the farmers boy, eating in the woods and sleeping on hard boards, Thus with us. We may put a halo about the past but the past was never as 1lright or as happy as is the present. You would not live your life oyer again if in order to do 1t you would have to surrender the blessings now at hand.
 Surrendering the Past.
 Our past lives cannot be lived with out surrendering the present; but, thank God, we can live out the future with the present and the past to a great extent combined into one. And we can combine the present and the past in the year which is to come by guarding against the most awful mistake we made in past years. We have tried to fight the battle of life alone. We have tried to conquer in our own strength rather than in the strength of the Lord God Almighty, who has always promised to sustain us if we would put our trust in him. We can now grip hold of the arm of the Almighty God if we will. And oh, my friends, if we put our trust in Christ do you not believe that with his help we could during the coming years overcome many of the mistakes of the past? We can make the past, purified of its evils. live and breathe again in the future. We cani Yes, we cani If we only enter the new year with Christs help we should be able to undo many of the wrongs of the past, besiEes taking advantage of the blessed opportu- mites of the future.
 Not only that, but still another bless ing may be ours. In Christ we may be able to live again during the years of the coming eternity with those who have made the past years for us so happy. We shall not be at that time like the old lady who lived for many years in the city of Los Angeles. She died there at S4 years of age in November, 1905 When she died 1t was found out that for the last twenty-eight years of her life she had concealed in her attic the dead body of her oldest daughter. This was the body of a young girl of 27 years, who had breathed her last in the far east, and her body had been shipped from Amherst, Mass. to the home of her mother in the far west. For nearly thirty long years this broken hearted mother had chung to the body of her child and carried it wherever she went. So some of us have been clinging to the dead bodies of our loved ones which were buried many, many years ago. But if we will only give our hearts to Christ here and now on the last Sunday of the year Christ will some day give our loved ones alive back to us. Then we will not have to choose between wife and mother or husband and father or brother and child. Then we shall have them all together again. Then the past and the present and the future shall be united into one. Then father and mother brother and sister, wife and husband, children and grandchildren shall all as- sembe together before the throne of God to forever sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Oh, my friends, will you let your past life live again in Christ?
 A Joyful Ending.
 Thus in closing this sermon on the last Sunday of the year do not feel a sense of sadness such as have often felt upon similar occasions in the past. Whenever I have attended the watch night meetings of previous New Years eyes the ringing of the bell when the clock struck F has always sounded to me like the tollng of dlrge. It has been to me a death-knell. 1t has been like the tolling of the bell when the hearse enters the cemetery. As the clock struck l, 2. 3, 4. 5. 6, r 8, g, 10, H. F. 1t seemed to call: "Dead and gonel The years of 1900 and 1901 and 1902 and 1905 and 1904 and 1905 are dead and gonel They are dead and gone foreverl Hear it, ye living. Dead and gone foreverv' But as l hear the clock striking the midnight hour tonight 1t will not be a dirge, but a promise of reunion. It will ring: ''The year of 1905 is not dead and gone forever. Thou shalt meet it with its sanctified joys and sorrows. Thou shalt meet it again smiling with the faces of those who have made thy last twelve months happy and blessed. Thou shalt meet the year 1905 coming forth to greet thee, Christian.