The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-08-28

PCSI " Uc SdiIcO Jul vi ~ JuSS 90
summarily, and will go a willingly as
I came" says Robert J.. Burdette,
former Iowan, who has reached the
age OF seventy. He is well pleased
with life, thinks the Lord has treated
him with fairness and in the follow.
ing article in the Los Angeles Times,
gives us his Impressions Of approach
ing old age which must come to all
Of US If we are fortunate enough to
live that long:
When l was a little boy I heard DR..
Henry G Weston, then pastor of the
First Baptist church Of Peoria, ILL.,,
preach a sermon from that passage in
the nineteenth Psalm. And when l
was q big boy-as big as l ever grew
to bel heard Henry Ward Beecher
preach from the same text. These
.:wo ermon by two great preachers
burned into 1.-The very soul Of me.
There was nothing terrifying about
them. They were gentle; mighty in
their reassuring quality. They made
the life that now is a certain thing to
me. Whatever other problems might
remain to be insoluble mysteries the
minimum duration Of life was to me
a fixed fact. might, by the loving
wisdom of the Creator, live to be a
very old man. But If I lived any.
where near right, die before 70 1
would not. l believed in that meas
ure of life withsa boys unquestioning
belief in the Book. 1t never left me,
and it has not failed me. l W.
questioned it, and l have all my life
been an old-fashioned believer in the
Bible.
This question Of the uncertainty of
life is one that naturally enough has
often come up. l have never had but
one argument, which / pararhrased
from the disciple Philip. Watch me
and see." said 1T positively at least
more than fifty years ago. l have
said it at frequent intervals since.
And l am going out of this month
July, having leaned on that assur-
ance three score years and ten" 1
am not at all surprised. am grats-
full; lovingly, happily, joyously crate
full. But I always knew it.
l have been afraid in the face OF
threatening peril many and many a
time. have felt the human fear of
death, often enough, even when / was
confident l would not die. l have Of
ten enough been frightened by the
fear of harm-I know the extreme
dread of physical pain. 1 was a SOL
der for three years. have fought
through a score of battles. l never
went into one of them without feeling
my heart sink at the fear of a wound.
But I never prayed that I might be
kept from death. was too young to
die. knew that. But to be hurt
with the cruelty of war! To writhe
under some mangling wound; to SUI
fer all night long writhing in a pelt-
ing storm, under the throbbing lunge
of bayonet or the fierce shock of shot
or shell-this filled me with fainting
terror.
How does 1t feel to reach the off,
cial limit of life? Well there Is no
shock. You knew all the time it was
coming. You come to harbor expect
antly, don't you? AS Frederick the
Great said to his Grenadiers, recoil-
ing for the third time before the
flaming thunder of the Austrian guns
What, then, do you want to live
forever" No matter how smooth
and beautiful the sea, no matter how
pleasant the ship, you want to get to
port some time; you want to get home
some day: you don't want to sal
round and round rever There Is a
better world than this; a fairer one;
.lovelier skies and sweeter fields. This
world isn't a tread mill. It's a coun-
try through which you are journeying.
The way of your pilgrimage ead
somewhere. Don't you want to get to
where you're going. Or are you k
Booker Washington's old olored
woman-"Where you going, aunty"'
Law bless you, honey, Use done bin
whah I'm gwine."
One yery impressive feeling comes
to YOU ON the morning of your sew
entieth birthday. If you believe as
do, this is your last birthday ami
No more birthdays. Why,
If YOU look at it through my spec
tacles, you're through with time. This
is the beginning of eternity.
Some men passing on from this
point say, Now 1 am living on Dor
rowed time" Not much you are not.
There is no such thing as borrowed
time. It's the freest gift in the uni
I may live for five years yet;
or ten. If l do it will be on the same
kind of time as composed the seventy
years / have lived already. not n OF
which was borrowed. If you borrow
anything you expect to repay 1t.
Well, you can't pay back n time. IL
/ went to the only One who can give
me time, I'd as Don ask for a thous-
and years-it's only a watch in the
night to Him-as for a day. l could
repay the one as easily as 1 can the
other. Lord, let me have a couple Of