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Exeter Times, 1897-3-18, Page 2T. E EXETER TIMES P�CHS OF 1Y[AN'S LIFT REV. DR. TALMAGE DESCRIBES IT FROM CHILDHOOD TO OLD AGE:. WM l:aCh Decade Urings With, It Is Own Individual 'Lopes and Joys and As *rations — Continual 1'togress the Watclx' Vaad of a True lion's Journey Through This 'Valu of Tears, Rev. Dr. Talmage preached a strik- ing and characteristic sermon to a great audience from the text, Psalm 'waisted in vain, three persons on1Y know—God, your wife and yourself. Oh, the thirties! ,Theeph stood' before Pharaoh at thirty. David was thirty years old when he began to reign. The height of Solomon's temple was thirty cubits. Christ entered upon His active an uistry at thirty years of age. Judas send Him for thirty pieces of silver. Oh, the thirties! ..What a woad sug- gestive of triumph or disaster. Your decade its the one that will probably afford the greatest opportunity for vic- tory, because there is the greatest necessity for struggle. Read the wor.d's history and know what are the thirties for good or bad. Alex- ander, the Great ceased his career at 90, 10; "The days of our years are thirty-two. Frederick the Great made three score and ten." Europe tremble -with his armies at The lsevenLieth milestone of life is thirty-five. Cortez conquered Mexico here planted at the end of the journey. at thirty. Grant fought Shiloh and A. few go beyond it; multitudes never Dcnes.°n •when thirty eight. Raphael died at, thirty-seven• Luther ryas the reach it. The oldest person of modern hero of the Reformation aL� thirty-five times expired at one hundred and Sir Philip Sydney got through, by sixty-nine years. A Greek by the thirty-two The greatest deeds for name of Stravaride, lived to one bun- God and against. Hama were done with- in the thirties, and your greatest bat- dred and thirty-two years. An Eng- tees are now and between the time Delman, by ng your e lived one hundred he we a and fifty -t Thomas years b putting first arr, when you �the figure ' and the tune wheat you will cease expressing it Before the time of Moses, people lived by putting first the figure As' one hundred and fifty years. and if You it is the greatest tittle of the strug- go far enough back, they lived five Fee,d) adjure you in God's name and hundred years. Well, that was neves- by God's grace make it klie greatest achlevrement, My ,pgayer is far all eary, because the story of the world those in the tremendous crisis 'of the must come dowxi by tradition, and it "thirties. The fact is, that by the way needed long life safely to transmit the you decide the present decade of your history, you decide all the• following news of the past. If the generations decades. When I was in• Russia, I had been short-lived, the story would was disappointed in not seeing the bat - so often have changed lips that it taefield'of Borodino. Why was there might all have gone astray. But after fought such a battle at that small village? It was seventy miles front Moses began to write it all down, and Moscow. Why that, desperate strug- parehment told it from century to cen- g:e in which one hundred and twenty- tury, it was not necessary that people five thousand Frenchmen grabble with should live so long In order to authen- oslneogs,nhundred and sixtyththousand Read us^ thirty ticate the events of the past.. If, in our Frenchmen and fifty-two thousand time, people lived only twenty-five dead Russians were left on the field? years, that would not affect history, It was because the fate of hfoseow, the sacred ciRssi ,wadecided since it is put in print and is no long- there—decidedty seventofoy miless away er dependent on tradition. Whatever And let me tell you, people of the your age, I will to -day directly ad thirties, you are now at the Borodino, dress you and I shall speak to those whence will resound its successes or its moral disasters clear on into the who are in the twenties, the thirties, seventies, if yore live to the three score the forties, the fifties, the sixties and and ten of the text. to those who are in the seventies and Next I accost the forties. Yours is beyond. the decade of discovery. I do not mean First, then I accost those of you who the discovery of the outside, but the are in the twenties, You are full of discovery of yourself. No man knows himself until he is forty. He over - expectation. You are ambitious—that estimates or under e-tlmates himself. is. if you amount to anything—for By that time he has learned what he sem,' kind of success, commercial, or can do, or what he cannot do. He literary, or agricultural, or eocial or thought he had commercial genius g enough to become a millionaire, but moral. If I find someone in the now he is satisfied to make a corn - twenties without any sort. of ambition, fortable living, He thought he had I feel like saying, "My friend, you rhetorical power that would bring him to the United States Senate; now he have got on the wrong planet. This is is content if he can successfully argue not the world for you. You are going a common case before a petit jury. lie to be in the way. Have you made thought he had the medical skill that your choice ofpoorhouses? You will would make him a Mott or a Grosse or a Willard Parker or a Sims; now never be able to pay for your cradle. he finds his sphere is that of a family Who is going to settle for your board? physician, prescribing for the ordin- aryThere is a mistake about the fact that ailments that afflict our race. He was sailing on in a fog, and could not you were born at all." But supposing make a reckoning, but now it clears you have ambition, let me say, to all up .enough to allow him to find out his the twenties expect everything through as been al latitude limL ng,abutd lnovtheehas got to Divine manipulation and then you will the top of the hill entitle takes a long get all you want or something better. breath. Re is half way through the 're you looking for wealth? Well, re- journey at least, and he is in a posi- member that God controls the money tion to look backward or forward. He has more good sense than he ever had. markets, the harvests, the droughts, He knows human nature for be has the caterpillars, the Iocusts, the sun- been cheated often enough to see the shine, the storm, the land, the sea, bad side of it, and he has met, so many and you will get wealth. Perhaps not gracious and kindly and splendid souls P he also knows the good side of it. Now, that. which is stored up in banks, in calm yourself. Thank God for the safe deposits, in United States securi- Past, and deliberately set your com- pass ties, in houses and lands, but your aed thro another thistledown. Youhave, have clothing and board and shelter, and blown enough soap bubbles. You have that is about all you can appreciate seen the unsatisfying nature of all anylioow. You cost the Lord a great earthly things. Open a new chapter de - deal to feed and clothe and shelter with God and the world. This cade of the forties ought to eclipse all you for a lifetime requires a big sum its predecessors in worship, in useful - of money, and if you get nothing more ness and happiness. "Forty" is a great than the absolute necessities, you get word in the Bible. God's ancient peo- an enormous amount of supply. 1 ple were forty years in the wilderness, I P y Ex- Solomon and Jelisash reigned forty pert ae much as you will of any kind years. When Joseph visited his breth- of success, if you expect it from the rem he was forty years old. Oh, this Lord you are safe. Depend on any mountain top of the forties. You have nosy the character you will larobably other resource and you may be badly have for all time and all eternity. God, chagrined, but depend on God and all by His gree, sometimes changes a will be well. It is a good eating in the man after the forties, but after that crisis of life to have a man of large oahm, an nevermenand chwomangesenwho h mself.are Tellin Theo, meatus to back you up. It is a great forties, your habits of thought and life, thing to have a moneyed institution and I will tell you what will forever send behind you in your undertaking. be. I might make a mistake once in a thousand times, but not more than But it is a mightier thing to have the in that proportion. God of heaven and earth your coad- jutor, and you may have Him. I am My sermon next accosts the fifties. so glad that I meet you while you are How queer it looks when in writing in the twenties. You are laying out Your age you make the first of the your plans and all your life in this two figures a "5." This is the decade world and the next for five hundred which shows what the other decades million years of your existence will he have been. If a young man has sown affected by these plans. It is about wild oats, and he has lived to this eight o'clock in the morning of your time, he reaps the harvest of it in the life, and you are just starting out. fifties, or if by necessity be was corn - 'Which way are you going to start? pelted to over toil in honest directions, Oh, the twenties! he is called to settle up with exacting "Twenty" is a great word in the nature sometimes during the fifties. Bible, Joseph was sold for twenty Many have it so hard in 'early life that pieces of silver. Samson judged Israel thay are octogenarians at fifty. Sciati- twenty years. Solomon gave Hiram cas and rheumatism and neuralgias twenty cities. The flying roll that and vertigos and insomnias have their Zechariah saw was twenty cubits. playground in the fifties. A. man's hair When the sailors on the ship on which begins to whiten, and although he may Paul sailed sounded the Mediterranean have worn spectacles before, now he Sea it was twenty fathoms. What asks the optician for No. 14 or No.12 mighty things have been dcie in the or No. 10. When he gets a cough and twenties. Romulus founded Rome when is almost cured he hacks and clears be was twenty. Keats finished lifeat his throat a good while afterwards. twentyfive. Lafayette was a world- Oh, ye who are in the fifties, think of renowned soldier at twenty-three. Ober- it! A. half century of blessing to be lin accomplished his chief work by thankful for, and a half century sub - twenty -seven. Bonaparte was victor tracted from an existence which, in over Italy at twenty-six. Pitt was the most marked cases of longevity, Prime Minister of England at twenty- hardly ever reaches a whole century, two. Calvin has completed his im- By this time you ought to he eminent mortal "Institutes" by the time he was for piety. You have been in so many twenty-six. Grotius was Attorney- battles, you ought to he a brave soldier. General at twenty-four. Some of the You have made so many voyages, you mightiest things for God and eternity ought to be a good sailor. So long have been done in the twenties. As protected and blessed, you ought to long as you can put the figure- "2" be- have a soul full of doxology. In Bible fore the other figure that helps describe times in Canaan every fifty years was your age I have high hopes about you. by God's command a year of jubilee. Look out for that figure "2." Watch. The people did not work that year. If Its continuance with as much earnest- property had, by misfortune, gond out Hess as you ever watched anything of one's possession, on the fiftieth year that promised you salvation or three- it came back to him, If he had fool- tened you demolition. What a critical ed it away, it was returned without time, the twenties! While they con- a farthimg to pay. If a man had been Pane youdecide your occupation and enslaved, he was in that year emend - the principles by which you will be pated. A trumpet was sounded loud guided. You make your most abiding and clear, , and ng,Tand aft was amtls friendships. You arrange your hometrumpetjubilee,Y life. You fix your habits. Lord God What a ughed, they congratulated. Almighty for Jesus Christ's sake' have time it was, that fiftieth yea mercy on all the men and women in My sermon next accounts the sixties. the twenties. Next I accost those in the thirties. You are at an age when you find what a tough thing it is to get recognized and established in your occupation' or profession. Ten years ago you thought there is some relative a year older and another relative a year younger, and sure enough the fact is established be- yond all disputation Sixty! Now, your greatest danger is the temptation to fold up your faculties and quit. You will feel a tendency to reminisce. If youo notal - most everything with the words, When I was a boy." But you ought to make the sixties more memorable to 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 thirty years of your life, because of all the experience you have had. You have committed enough mistakes in life to make you wise about your juriors. Now, under the accumulating light of your past ex- perimenting, go to work for God as never before. When a man in the sixties folds up his energy and feels he has done enough, it is the devil of indolence 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 was active, now suddenly shrivels. Men, whether they retire from secular or religious work, general- ly retire to the grave. The world was made for work. There remaineth a rest for the people of God, but it is in a sphere beyond the reach of tele- scopes. The military charge that de- cided one of the greatest battles of the ages—the battle of Waterloo was not made until eight o'clock in the even- ing, but some of you Irropose to go into camp at two o'clock in the afternoon. My subject next accosts those in the seventies and beyond. My word to them is congratulation. You have safe- ly crossed the meat 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 re- maining sin of your own heart and the sin of the worlde but I guess you re about done. There may be some work for you yet on the small or large scale. Bismarek of Germany vigorous in the eighties. The Prime Minister of Eng- land strong at 84. Hayden composing his oratorio, "The Creation," at 70 years of age. Be glad thatyou, an aged servant of God, are going to try an- other life amid better surroundings. Stop looking back and look ahead. Oh, ye in the seventies and eighties and the nineties, your best days are yet to come, your grandest associations are yet to be formed, your best eyesight is yet to be kindled, your best hearing is yet to be awakened, your greatest speed is yet to be traveled, your glad- dest song is yet to be sung. The most of your friends, have gone over the border and you are going, to join them very soon. They are waiting for you. They are watching the golden shore to see you land. They are watching the shining gate to see you come through. They are standing by the throne to see you mount. Do not let us depend on brain and. muscle and nerve. We want with us adivine force mightier than the waters and the temptests, and when the Lord took two steps on bestormed. Galilee putting one foot on the winds and the other on the waves, He proved Himself mightier than hurricane and billows. There are so many diseases in the world we want with us a divine physi- cian capable of combatting ailments, and our Lord when on earth showed what He could do with catalepsy and paralysis and ophthalmia and demen- tia. Oh, take this supernatural into all your, lives. -How to get it? Just as yds get anything you want. By ap- plication. If you 'want anything you apply for it. By praying apply for the supernatural. Take it into your daily business. Many a man has been able to pay only fifty cents on the dollar, who, if he had called in the superna- tural, could have paid one hundred cents on the dollar. Why do ninety- eight men out of a. hundred fail in business? Because there are not more than two men otit of a hundred who take God into their worldly affairs, "But behind the great unknown stand- eth God within the shadows, keeping watch upon His own." A man; got up in a.aesva York prayer meeting and said: "God is my partner, I did business without Him for twenty years, and failed every two or three years, I have been doing business with Him for• twenty years, and have not failed once." Oh 1 take the superna- tural into all your affairs. I bad such an evidence of the goodness of God in temperal things when I entered active life, I must testify. Called to preach at lovely Belleville in New Jersey, I entered upon my work. But there stood the empty parsonage, and not a cent had I with which to furnish it. After preaching, three of four weeks the officers of my church asked me if I did not want to take two or three weeks' vacation. I said, "Yes 1" for I had preached abohtt all I knew, but I feared, they mast be getting tired of me. When I returned to the village after the brief vacation, they handed me the key to the parsonage, and ask- ed me if I did not want to go and look at it. Not suspecting anything had happened, I pub the key into the par- sonage door and opened it, and there was the hall completely furnished with carpet and pictures and hat -rack, and I turned into the parlors and they were furnished. the softest sofas I ever sat on, and into the study, and found it furnished with book -cases, and I went to the bedrooms, and they were fur- nished. and into the pantry, and that was furnished with every culinary article, and the spice -boxes were filled, and a flour barrel stood there ready to be opened, and I went down into the dining -room, and the table was set and beautifully furnished, and into the kitchen, and the stove was full of fuel, and a match lay on the top of the stove, and all I had to do in start- ing housekeeping was 'to strike the match. God inspired the whole thing. and if I ever doubt His goodness, all up and down the world call me an ingrate. I testify that I have been in many tight places and God always gat me otit, and He will get you out of the tight place. Bat the most of this audience will never reach the eighties or the seven- ties or the sixties or the fifties or the forties. He who passes into the forties has gone far beyond the average of human life. Amid the uncertainties take God through Jesus Christ as your present and eternal safety. The long- est, life is only a small fragment of the great eternity. We will all of us soon be there. • Eternity ! haww near it rolls, Count the vast values of your souls, Beware and count the awful cost, What they have gained, where souls are lost. , ON TTI1, LARGER SCALE. beginning of that decade is more To be sure, the train -wrecker explain- Thestartlin than anyother. In his chrono- logical hrono- ed,, there is no big money in my busl- 6 to icalr . g tourney, the. man rides rather hers, but by industry and trngality, smoothly over the figures "2" end "3" I hope eventually to amass sufficient and "4" and "5," bleb ,thee figure "6" capital to enable me to wreck a whole gives him a 6h' jolt. He says: It can- railroad at a time. Yes ! sell that was „e...,.. ---,r gar success was rpt t,^ t ' t . t me'ex- gat that i am sada, Le % Qin s n ut on your shutter the ,ibn of amine the old family. record. I guess The United States House of Repres- physician or dentist, ill' attorney, or they: make a mistake. They t my of �+ci, t a. ++ entatives has passed the immigration ofb Prober, or�agent, and,, you would have But downwrong ls in the roll t bill over the President's veto by a vote Plenty of ;busyness :Bow many years But no, the: older brother or sisters of 193 0 37. one sat a :d "Waited air business, and ,,remember the time of his advent, and . 4 a • t;,• r 444.. ' r•',.. .n¢:, ar 41S '4 - 'mc. e.be�.1�u-:.tg,_bTtv Ce�A.SrDCgcl)M7:1Icx,e,ricoccot.) e HERE'S YOUR OPPORTUNITY Positivelythe Greatest Bargain ain Evor Offered I � For Daily Use hi Your Home or Office And Especially to aid the Young Folks in their Studies. The ncyci odic I icti ,t: n %'s ry ISUPERB VOLUMES Over 5000 Pages magni- ficently Illustrated. Cost over $750,000 to produce. A Dictionary and Encyclopaedia Corel bined. Published by Cassell do Company, Limited, London, England. Which has been over 15 years In preparation under the editorial super- vision of DR. 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The nine verses that we study are part of Paul's great argument concern- ing himself. They are indeed in them- selves an argument, which begins with the beginning of the chapter and ends with the end of this lesson. Paul has disposed of the question which the Cor- inthian church put to him regarding meats offered in sacrifice to idols. He announces the widest Christian liberty, but is willing to sacrifice that liberty absolutely, and deny himself of every- thing in which he delighted, for the sake of narrower consciences„than his own. But there were men in the ap- ostolic Church, who denied that Paul was an apostle ; there were Christians even in Corinth who would say that he was not nearly so self-sacrificing as he seemed to be in this act of self- renunciation ; and so he begins in this chapter, to .decl'are..by a series of elo- quent questions, that he is as free as any apostle, and as much an apostle as any, and gives in verses 15-18 the true reason for foregoing his rightul claims. Our lesson begins at verse 19, where bee repeats the holy principles of per- sonal self-sacrifice for the sake of Christ. He will bow to any innocent prejudice to save a soul. By "the weak” Paul refers to Chrestians who were not Wholly free from either the trammels of Seviplo ceremonialism or of Gentile wor- ship. , Part of every saoxifi•ce offered in the heathen temples became the propoerty of the priest; part was re - tarried to the worshipers to be eaten in a feast in honor of the god, Often the priest's sharefound its way to the market for sale • sometimes friendlyndl Y heathens invited Christians to dine , with them, and served the food which they had just before offered to a false god. There was thus great danger that idolatry might in several ways be un- consciously countenanced. Paul took a strong common-sense view of the mat- ter. He felt that an idol was nothing, and the meat was neither better nor worse for having been laid on an idol altar. But the very gist of Christian- ity is self-denial for the good of " the bodies and souls of men." No one is a true follower or Jesus who does not live a life of self-restraint. PRACTICAL NOTES. Verse 19. Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all. "'Free " means independent as to means of livelihood. Read 'slave' instead of "servant." So Luther says " A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none ; a Christian man is theemost dutiful ser- vant of all, and subject to everyone." That I mi ht gain the mare. "A course which none but a man of wide sympathy and charity, clear intellect, and thorough integrity can adopt."— Marcus Dods. 20. Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that. I might gain the Jews. "When I undertook to secure the conversion of the Jews I put myself in the .place of the Jew, I patiently accommodated myself to his ways of thinking so far as I legitimately could." (1) The best way to change the wrong opinions of any person is to appreciate and to har- monize with his right opinions. Bitter- ness provokes obstinacy. You cannot remove a man's difficulties until you see them from the man's point of view, as well as from, your own; it is doubtful indeed whether you can remove dif- ficulties until you have personally felt their pressure. (2) Without true sym- pathy no soul was ever "gained," and sympathy is simply the art of seeing with other folk's eyes. To them that are under the law, as under the law. The law" of course, was the law of Moses as interpreted by the tradition of the elders. It prescribed sacrifices, many ritualistic ceremonies, fasts, stat- ed attendance on the synagogues, and attendance where possible at the great Nati net .Pau h national feasts at Jexusalem started in life a rigid Pharisee, intent on keeping this law and forcing others to do so. By his conversion and the experiences which followed it views were radically changed. ht even when he regarded it as of no account, except as a schoolmaster to teach Christ, he showed an amiable readiness to observe its requirements out of re- spect for the scruples of others, and his reverence of the seventh day, his circumcising of Timothy, his abstaining from blood, his participation in the vow of the men at Jerusalem, all are in- stances of his loving accommodation of himself to the scruples of others for 21. To them that are without law, as 2.1 To them that are without law, as without law. When with those who had been brought up in Greece. to whom no meats were unclean, who had no rev- erence for the law of Moses, and who regarded Jewish customs as fetters, he freely acted as they did, " and yet with- out sin." He adopted their innocent customs, he called no meats unclean, and is, place of quoting Moses and the prophets he quoted common sense, con- science, and Greek poets. Not without law to God, but under the law to Christ. " To God's outlaws, I behaved as an outlaw, not being, as .I well knew, an outlaw of God, but an inlaw of Christ." —Can on Evans. 22. To the weak became .( as weak. The petty spirits ,in the modern Church -the little -minded, finicky, querulous, critical people who are forever finding harm - in practises that seem to others perfectly harmless—how ' would Paul have acted toward them? ,•Some men who reverence Paul and quote him think that such people are right in their views other men who reverence Paul and quote him seem to think it thein duty to stamp out such "legalism, and are riot always very charitable in do- ing so. What would Paul have done? He would have lived out the doctrine of this chapter. He would have held as the correct standard of propriety, " That which you can do in the name of the Lord Jesus." For therewas no pettiness in Paul. But at the same time, recognizing the weakness of these good people, he, would have acted in his own habits as though he was as sveak as they and because of his love for their souls would have cheerfully done without the things which they thought wicked, even ,.if he. thought them innocent. For P ill's adls ect was not to have a good tim ei -tociall y or spiritually, but to B statist I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means gain some. Yet Paul was not loose in his doctrines, while always ready to accommodate himself to the practices of others where those practices did not touch the essen- tials of morality and faith. He held very definite opinions on the chief articles of the Christian creed. Goodness inlife is certainly better than, goodness in creed, for the only value of the lat- ter is as a means to the attainment of the former. (3). But while charity is the cu'owning virtue on which the benedictions of God and men are per- ennially pronounced, there is no credit in laxity or vagueness of thought. (4) - it is easy to have a correct creed and a bad life; it is poseible, but not easy, to have a good life with a bad creed. 23. This I do for the Gospel's sake. Paul was dead to all other considera tioms. The life that he now lived he lived by faith in the Son of God. Beyond the Gospel he had no motives or hopes. That I might be a partaker thereof with you. " That he might be himself a partaker of the benefits he preach- ed." He was an apostle; we think him chief of apostles; but he had to work out his own salvation like any other poor soul. " A baker is not fed by selling bread ; a physician is not cur- edby administering medicine ; a preach- er is not saved by proclaiming the Gos- pel." -Dods. (5) Each of us have a life to live, a charge to keep, a duty to dis- charge, a God to glorify, a soul to save; and Paul sees that he can be saved simply by living for the salvation of others. 24. They which run in a racerun all, but, one reeeiveth the prize. The Isth- mian games were renowned through- out Europe. Every Corinthian had seen: them. To them Paul, naturally turns for a rhetorical figure to point his mo- ral. All the runners run ; one only is rewarded. "Paul does not mean that salvation goes by competition; but he meatOthat as in a race not all who run run so as to obtain the prize for which they run, so in the Christian life, not all who enter it put out sufficient strength to bring them to a - happy is- sue."—Dods: So run; that ye may ob- tain:. If for the racers there had been offered not merely one prize but as Many prizes as there were racers, still some so ran that they would not 'ob- tain any . prize. G O Let no Chr?stian hm , a failure,