Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1895 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

A KINDLY TALK TO BEGINNERS IN LIFE’S BATTLES. The Bont, the Body, the Intellect, the Aspiration, the Goal ant a Glance Ahead —An Inspiring and Forceful Sermon to the Young. Words to Young Men. -_, Jn his audiences at the New York Academy ~bf Krrtstr~~Hrr-Talmage meets many hundreds of young men from different parts of the Union and representing almost every calling and profession in rliffc: To-them he specially addressed his. discourse last Sunday afternoon, the subject being “Words With Young Men.” Fayette, O. Reverend Sir—We, the undersigned, being earnest readers of your sermons, especially request that you nse as a ject for some one of your future sermons “Advice to Young Meh.” Yours respectfully, 11. S. Millott, F. O. Millott, J. L. Sherwood, Charles T. Rubert, M. E. Elder, S. J. Altman. Those six young men, I suppose, represent innumerable young men who are about undertaking..the battle Of life, and who have more interrogation points in their mimUthan any printer’s case ever contained, or printer’s fingers ever set up. But few people who have passed fifty; years of age are capable of giving advice to young men. Too, many begin their counsel by forgetting they ever were young men themselves. November snows do not understand May time blossom week. The cast’wind never did understand the south wind. Autumnal goldenrod makes a poor fist at lecturing about early violets. Generally after a man has rheumatism in his right foot he is not competent to discuss juvenile elasticity. Not one man out of~a hundred can enlist and keep the attention of the young after there is a bald spot on the cranium. ' I attended n largo meeting in Philadelphia, assembled to discuss how the Young Men’s Christian As.sociatiou of that city inight be made more attractive for young people, when a man arose and made some suggestions with such lugubrious tone of voice and a manner that seemed to deplore . That every thing was going t<> ru in, wlien an old friend of mine, at 75 years as young in feeling as any one at 20, arose and said: “That good brother who has just addressed you will oyenxa-mn for saying that a young man would no sooner go and spend an evening among such funereal tones of voice and funereal ideas of religion which that brother seems to have adopted than ho would go and spend the evening in Laurel Hill Cemetery.’* And yet these young men of Ohio, and all young men, have a right to ask those who have had many opportunities of studying this world and the next world to give helpful suggestion as to what theories of life one ought to adopt, and what dangers he ought to shun. Attention, young men 1 \

The First Step. < First, get your soul right. You see, that is the most valuable part of you. It —ls the most important room in your house. It is the parlor of your entire nature. Put the best pictures on its walls. Put the best music under its arches. It is important to have the kitchen right, and the dining room right, and tho cellar right, and all the other rooms of your nature -right; but.. oh, the parlor of the soul,! Be; particular a bbiit The 7guus.ts3vli<s outer it. Shut its doors in the faces of those who would despoil and pollute it. There are princes and kings who would like to come into it, while there are assassins who would like to come out from behind its curtains, and with silent foot attempt the desperate and murderous. Let the King come in. He is now at the door. Let me be usher to announce his arrival and introduce the King of this world, the King of all worlds, the King eternal, immortal, invisible. Make room. Stand back. Clear the way. Bow, kneel, worship the King. Have him once for your guest, and it does not make much difference who comes or goes. Would you have a warranty against moral disaster aniTsUTCty-trf-a-noble career ? Read at least_one._cliapter of the Bible on your knees every day of your life.

The Second. Step, Word the next: Have your body right “How rtre you?” I often say when I meet a friend of mine in Brooklyn. He is over 70, and alert and vigorous, and very prominent in the law. His answer is, “I am living on the capital of a well-spent youth." On the contrary. there are hundreds of thousands of good people who are suffering the results of early sins. The grace of God gives one a new heart, but not a new body. David, tho Psalmist, had to cry out “Remember not the sins of my youth.” Let a young maiTmakUTns body a wine closet, or a rum jug, or a whisky cask, or a beer barrel, and smoke poisoned cigarettes until his hand trembles. and he is black under the eyes, and his cheeks fall in, and then at some church seek and find religion. Yet all the praying he can do will not hinder the physical consequences of natural law fractured. Y'ou six young men, take care of your eyes, those windows of the soul. Take care of your cars and listen to nothing that depraves. Take care of your lips and see that they utter no profanities. Take care •of your nerves by enough sleep and avoiding unhealthy excitements, and by taking . outdoor exercise, whether by ball or skate or horseback, lawn tennis or exhiliarating bicycle, if you sit upright and do not join that throng of several hundred thousands who by the wheel are cultivating crooked backs and cramped chests, and deformed bodies, rapidly coming down toward all fours and the attitude of the beasts that perish. Anything that bends body, mind or soul to the earth is unhealthy. Ob, it is a grand thing to be well, but do not depend on pharmacy and the doctors to make you well. Stay well. The Third Step. Word the next: Takecarenf your intellect. Here comes the flood of novelettes, 99 out of 100 belittling to every one that opens them. Here come depraved newspapers, submerging good and elevated American journalism. Here comes a whole perdition of printed abomination, dumped on the breakfast table and tea table and parlor table. Take at least one good newspaper with able editorial and reporters’ columns mostly occupied with helpful intelligence, announcing marriages and deaths and reformatory and religious assemblages, and charities bestowed and the doings of good people, and giving but little plgce to nasty divorce cases and stories of crime, which, like cobras, sting those that touch them. Oh, for more newspapers that put virtue in what Is called great primer type and vice in nonpareil or agate! You have all seen

the photographer's negative. He took a picture from- it ten or twenty years ago. You ask him now for a picture from that same negative. He opens the great chest containing the black negative of 1883 or 1875, and he reproduces the picture. Young men, your memory is made up of the negatives of :in immortal photography. All that you- see or lwar gm?s into. your, soul to make pictures for the future. You will have with yotl day the nega fives o f all the ba<l pi ■ -tu res you have ever looked at and of all the debauched scenes you have read about. Show me the ncyvspapor you take- and- the—booksyou read, and I will tell you what are yourjprespects for well being in this life; and what will be your residence 1,000.1)00years after the star on which we now live shall have dropped out of the constellation, never.travel mi .Sunday unless it be a ease of .necessity or mercy. But last autumn I was in Irftlia in a city plague struck. By the hundreds the people were down with fearful illness. We went to thempothecary's to get some preventive of the fever, and the plaee was crowded with invalids, and we had no confidence in the preventive we purchased from the Hindoos. The mail train was to start Sabbath evening. I said, “Frank, I think the Lord will excuse us if we get out of this place with the first train,” and we took it, not feeling quite comfortable till we were hundreds of miles away. I felt we were right, i n flying from the pl ague. Well, the nir in many of our cities is struck through with a worse plague—the plague of corrupt and damnable literature.’ Get away from it as soon as possible. It has already ruined the bodies, minds and souls of a. multitude which, if stood in solid column, would reach from New York Battery to Golden Horn. The plague! The plague!

The Fourth Step.

Word the next: Never go to any- place where you would be ashamed to die. Adopt that plan, and you will never go to any evil amusement nor be found in com--pr.omising.siir roundin as. How many startling cases within the past few years of men called suddenly out of this world, and the newspapers surprised us when they mentioned the locality and the companionship. To put it on the least important ground, you ought not to go to any such forbidden place, because if you depart this life in such circumstances you pu t officiating nrinistersHir great- embarrassment. You know that some of the ministers believe that all who leave this life go straight to heaven, however they have acted in this world or whatever they have believed. To get you through from such surroundings is an appalling theological undertaking. One of the most arduous and besweating efforts of that kind that I ever knew of was at the obsequies of a man who was found dead in a snowbank with his rum jug close beside him. But the minister did the work of happy transference as well as possible, although it did seem a little inappropriate when lie read: “Blessed arethfi_dead—whcntte"in the Lord. They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” If you have no mercy upon yourself, have mercy upon the minister who may be called to officiate after your demise. Die at home, or in some place of honest business, or whore the laughter is clean, or amid companionships pure and elevating. Remember that any place wo go to may become our starting point for the next world. When we enter the harbor of heaven and the officer of light comes aboard, let us_ be able to show that our clearing papers were dated at thd'right port. The Fifth Step.

Word the next: As soon as you can. by industry and economy, have a home of your own. -What do I mean by a home? I mean two rooms and the blessing of God on both of them —one room for slumber, one for food, its preparation and the partaking thereof. Mark ( you. I would Tike you to have a home with thirty rooms, all upholstered, pictured and statuetted, but lam putting it.down at the minimum. A husband and wife who cannot be happy with a homo made up of two rooms would not be happy in heaven if they got there, lie who wins and keeps tho affection of a good practical woman has done gloriously. What do I mean by a good woman? I mean one who loved God before she loved you. I mean.one who can help yotr to earn a livingrfdr a time comes in almost every man's 1 ife when he is flung of hard misfortune, and you do not want a weakling going around the house whining and sniffling about how she had it before you married her. ' The simple reason why thousands of men never get on in the world is because they married nonentities and never got over it. The only thing that Job’s wife proposed for his boils was a warm poultice of profanity, saying, “Curse God and die.” It adds to our admiration of John Wesley the manner in which he conquered domestic happiness. His wife had slandered him all over England until, standing in his pulpit in City Road chapel, he complained to the people, saying, “1 have been charged with every crime in lhe catalogue except drunk-, enuess,” when his wife arose in the back part of the church and said. “John, you know you were drunk last night.” Then Wesley exclaimed, “Thank God, the catalogue is complete.” When a man marries, he marries for heaven or hell, rtiid it is more so when a woman marries. You six young men in Fayette, 0., had better look out.

The Sixth Step. Word the next: Do not rate yourself too high. Better rate yourself too low. If you rate yourself too low, the world will say, "Come up.” If you rate yourself too high, the world will say, "Come down.” It is a bad thing when a man gets so exaggerated an idea of himself as did Earl of Buchan, whose speech Ballantyne, the Edinburgh printer, could not set up for publicationi because he had not enough capital I’s among his type. Remeihber that the waild got along without you nearly 6.0C0 years before you were born, and unless some meteor collides with us or some internal explosion occurs the world will probably last several thousand years after you are dead. The Seventh Step. Word the next: Do not-postpone too long doing something decided for God, humanity and yourself. The greatest things have been done before 40 years of age. Pascal at 16 years of age, Grotius at 17, Romulus at 20, Pitt at 22. "Whitefield at i}4, Bonaparte ut 27. Ignatius Loyola at 30, jlaphael at 37, had made the world feel their Jrtl'fue <j>r their vice, and the biggest strokes you will probably make for the truth or agaiust the truth will be before you reach the meridian of life. Do not wait for something to turn up. Go to work am. turn it tip. There is no such thing as good luck. No man that ever lived haw had a better time than I have had. Yet I never had any good luck. But instead thereof a kind Providence has crowded my life with mercies. You will never accomplish much as long u

yon go at your work on the minute yon are expected and stop at the first minnto it is lawful to quit. The greatly useful and successful men of the next century will be those who began half anjiour before they .were required and worked at least half an hour after they might have quit. Unless you are willing sometimes to work-t welve hours of.-the day you will remain on the low levels, and your life will be a prolonged humdrum. The Eighth Step. Word the next: Remember that it is only a small part of our life that we art to pass on earth. Ixjss than your finger nail compared with your whole body is the life on earth"when compared with the next life. I suppose there are not more than half a dozen people in this world 100 years old. But a very few people in any countryreach 80—The majority of the human race expire before 30. Now? what an equipoise in such a consideration. If things go wrong, it is only for a little while. Have you not enough moral pluck to stand the jostling, and the inj ustices, and the mishaps of the small parenthesis between tfie two eternities? It is a good thing'to get ready for the one mile, this side the marble slab, but more important to get fixed up for the interminable miles which stretch out into the distances beyond the marble slab.

The Ninth Step. p Wordjhe next: Fill yourself with biographies of men who did gloriously in the business or occupation or profession you are about to choose or have already chosen. Instead of wasting your time on dry •essays as to how to do great things, go to the biographical alcove of your village or city library and acquaint yourself with mehwho.ln The sTght of eartteand heaven and hell, did the great things. Remember the greatest things are yet to be done. If the Bible be true? or as l had better put it, since the Bible is beyond all controversy true, the greatest battle is yet to be fought, and compared with it Saragossa and Gettysburg and Sedan were child’s; pl;iy with toy pistols. ~~We even know the name of the battle, though we are not certain as to where it will be fought. I refer to Armageddon. The greatest discoveries are yet to be made. A scientist has recently discovered in the air something which will yet rival electricity. The most.of things have not yet been found out. An. explorer has recently found in the valley of the Nile a whole fleet of ships buried ages ago Where now there is no water. Only six out of the 800 grasses have been turned into food like the potato and the tomato. There are hundreds of other styles of food to be discovered. Aerial navigation will yet be made as safe as travel on the solid earth. Cancers and consumptions and leprosies are to be transferred from the catalogue of incurable disease to the curable. Medical men are now successfully experimenting with modes of transferring diseases from weak "constitutions which cannot throw-them off to stout constitutions which are able to throw theni off. Worlds like Mars and the moon will be within hailing distance, and instead of confining our knowledge to their canals and their volcanoes they will signal all styles of intelligence to us, and we will signal all styles of intelligence-to them. Coming times will class our boasted nineteenth century with the dark ages. Under the power of gospelization the world is going to be so improved that the sword and the musket of our time will be kept in museums as now we look at thumb screws find ancient instruments of torture. Oh, what opportunities you arc going to have, young men all the world over, under 30. How thankful you ought to be that you were not born any sooner! Blessed are the cradles that arc being rocked now. Blessed are the st udent s in the freshman class. Blessed those who will yet be young men when the hew century comes in in five or six years from now. This world was hardly fit to lite in in the eighteenth century. I do not see how the old folks stood it. During this nineteenth century the world has by Christianizing and educational influences been fixed up until it does very well for temporary residence.

A Look Alicad, But the tbTnTiettrTnmtirry4=-A-h r -tbaC will be the time to see great siglrts-and do great deeds’ Oh, young men. get ready for the rolling in of that mightiest'and grandest and~ most gdorrotrs cerrtury-that the world has ever seen! Only five summers more, five autumns more, five winters more, five springs more, and then the clock of time will strike the death of the old century and the birth of the new. The then more than 1.700,000,000 inhabitants of the earth will hail its birth and pray for its prosperity. Its reign will be for 100 years, and the most of your life I think will be under the sway of its scepter. Get ready foi* it.. Have your heart right; your nerves right: your brain right; your digestion right. We will hand over ta you our commerce, our mechanism, our arts and sciences, our professions, our pulpits, our inheritance. We believe in you. We trust you. We pray for you. We bless you. And though by the time you get into the thickest’of the fight for God and righteousness we may have disappeared from earthly scenes, we will not lose our interest in your struggle, and if the dear Lord will excuse us for.a little while' front the temple service and the house of many mansions we will come out on the battlements of jasper and cheer you, and perhaps if that night of this world be very quiet you may hear our voices dropping from afar as we cry, "Be thou faithful unto death, and thou shalt have a crown!”