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ONE LIFE IS ENOUGH. A SECOND JOURNEY WOULD SURELY BE A FAILURE. pr. Talmage Shows the Importance of present Opportunities—lemon* Drawn prom Dtfterent Kinds of Idvos—Bttojs lo Mark the Kight Channel. ICopyright, UM, by American Press Asso * elation.] WASHINGTON, July 17.—This discourse of Dr. Talmage extols our present oppor tunities so that more opportunities than we enjoy in this life do not seem desirable; the Job ii, 4, “AU that a man hath will 1* give for hfa life.” That is untrue. The Lord did not say It, but satan said it to the Lord when the evil one wanted Job still more afflicted. The record is, “So went satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils.” And satan has been the author of all eruptive disease since then, arid he hopes by poisoning the blood to poison theeoul. ' But the result of the di abolical experiment which left Job victor proved, the falsity of the satanic remark, “AH that a man hath will he give for his life.” Many a captain who has stood on the bridge of the steamer till hia passen gers got oft and he drowned, many an engineer who has kept his hand on the throttle valve or his foot on the brake un til the most ot-the train was saved while be went down to death through the. open drawbridge, many a fireman who plunged into a biasing house to get a sleeping child out, the fireman sacrificing his life in the attempt, and the thousands of martyrs who submitted to flory stake and knife of massacre and headman's ax and guillotine rather than surrender prin ciple, proving that in many a case my text was not true when it says, “All that a man hath will he give for his life. ” But satan’s falsehood was built on a truth. • Life is. very precious, and if we would not give up all there are many things we would surrender rathfer than Surrender It We see how precious life is from the fact that we do everything to prolong it. Hence all sanitary regula tions, all study of hygiene, all fear of drafts, all waterproofs, all doctors, all medicines, all struggle in crisis or acci dent. Ai) admiral of the British navy was court martlaled for turning bis ship around in time of danger, and so damag * ing the ship. It was proved against him, but when his time came to be heard he said: “Gentlemen, I did turn the ship around and admit that it was damaged, but do you want to know why I turned it? There was a man overboard, and I wanted to save him, and I did save him, and I consider the life of one sailor worth all the vessels of the British navy. ” No won der he was vindicated. Life is Indeed very precious. Yea, there are those who deem life so precious they would like to repeat it They would like to try it over again. They would like to go back from 70 to 60, 'from 60 to 40, from 60 to 40, from 40 to 80 and from 80 to 30. I propose for very practical and useful purposes, as will ap pear before I get through, to discuss the question we have all asked of others and others have again and again asked of us, Would you like to live your life over again? What Is Success? The fact is that no intelligent and right feeling man is satisfied with his past life. However successful your life may have been, you are not satisfied with it What is suocess? Ask that question of a hun dred different men, and they will give a hundred different answers. One man will say, "Suocess is 11,000,000.” Another will say, "Success is worldwide publicity. ” “Another will say, "Success is gaining that which you started for. ” But as it is a free country I give my own definition and say, "Suocess is fulfilling the particu lar mission upon which you were sent, Whether to write a constitution or invent g pew style of wheelbarrow or take care of a sick child.” Do what God calls you to do, and you are a suocess, whether you leave >1,000,000 at death or are buried at public expense, whether it takes 16 pages of an encyclopedia to tell the wonderful things ydu have done or your name is never printed but once, and that in the death column. But, whatever your sucgpss has been, you are not satisfied with your life. We have all made so many mistakes, stumbled into so many blunders, said so many things that ought not to have been asld and done so many things that ought npt to have been done that we can suggest at least 95 per cent of Improvement. Now, would it not be grand if the good lord would say to you: “You can go back and try it over again. I will by a word turn your hair to black or brown or golden, and smooth all the wrinkles out of your tem ple or cheek, and take the bend out of your shoulders, and extirpate the stiffness from the joint, and the rheumatic twinge from the foot, and you shall be 81 yean of age and just what yon were when you reached that point before." If the proposi tion were made, I think many thousands would accept it. That feeling caused the ancient search for what was called the fountain of youth, the waters of which, taken, would turn the hair of the octogenarian into the purly locks hf a boy, and, however old a person who drank at that fountain, he would be young again. The island was said to belong to the group of Bahamas, but lay far out in the ocean. The great Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de - Leon, fellow voyager of Columbus, I have no doubt felt that if he could discover that fountain of youth he would do as much as his friend had done in discovering America. So he put out in 1518 from Porto Rico and cruised about among the patyunqs in search of that fountain. I am glad he did not find it. There is no such fountain. But if there were, and its wa ters were bottled up and sent abroad at *I,OOO a bottle, the demand would be greater than the supply, and many a man who has Come through a life of uselessness and perhaps sin to old age would be shak ing up toe potent liquid, and if he were directed to |ako only a teaspoonful after each, meal Would be so anxious to make sure work he would take a tablespoonful, and if directed to take a tablespoonful would take a glassful. Generations Back. But some of you would have to go back further than to 81 years of age to make a fair start, for there are many who manage to get all wrong before that period. Yea, in order to get a fair start some'would have to go back to the father and mother and get them corrected—yea, to the grand father and grandmother and have their life corrected, for some of you are suffer ing from bad hereditary Influences which started 100 years ago. Well, if your grand father lived his life over again, and your father lived his life over again, and you lived your life over again, what a clutter ed up place this world would be—a place filled with miserable attempts at repairs. 1 begin to think that it is better for each gexiti&tion td 6fily one chance. an 4 then for them to pass off and give another generation a chance. Besides that, if wo wwe permitted to live life over again, it would be a stale and stupid experience. The zest and spur and enthusiasm of life come from the fact that wo have never been along thia road before, and every thing is new, and wu are alert for what may appear at the next turn of the road. Suppose you, a man of midlife ox old age, were with your present feelings and large attainments put back into the thirties or the twenties or in the teens, what a nui sance yon would bo to others and what an unhappiness to yourself! Your contem poraries would not want you, and yon would not want them. Things that in your previous journey of life stirred your healthful ambition or gave you pleasurable surprise or led you into happy interroga tion would only call forth from you a dis gusted "Oh, pshaw!” You would be blase at 80, and a misanthrope at 40, and unen durable at 60. The most inane and stupid thing imaginable would be a second jour ney of life. It is amusing to hear people spy, “I would like to live my life over again if I could take my present experi ence and knowledge of things back with me and begin under those improved aus pices.” Why, what an uninteresting boy you would be with your present attain ments in a child’s mind! No one Would want such a boy around the house—a phi losopher at 30, a scientist at 16, an arohse ologist at 10 and a domestic nuisance all the time. An oak crowded into an acorn. A Rocky mountain eagle thrust back into the eggshell from which It was hatched. Life’s Sadn'-Mes. Besides that, if you took life over again you would have to take its deep sadnesses over again. Would you want to try again the griefs, and the heartbreaks, and the bereavements through which you have gone? What a mercy that we shall never be called to suffer them again ! We may have others bad enough, but those old ones never again. Would you want to go through the process of losing your father again, or your mother again, or your oom panion in life again, or your child again! If you were permitted to stop at the six tieth milestone, or the fiftieth milestone, or the fortieth milestone and retrace you* steps to the twentieth, your experience would be/ something like mine one No vember! day in Italy. I walked through a great city with a friend and two guides, and there were in all the city only four persons, and they were those of our own group. We went up and down the streets. We entered the houses, the museums, the temples, the theaters. We examined the wonderful pictures on the walls and the most exquisite mosaic on the floor. In the streets were the deep worn ruts of wagons, but not a wagon in tMb city. On the front steps of mansions the word “Wel come” in Latin, but no human being to greet us. The only bodies of any of the citizens that we saw were petrified and in the museum at the gates. Os the 85, 000 people who once lived in those homes and worshiped in those temples and clapped in those theateas not one left! For 1,800 years that city of Pompeii had been buried before modern exploration scooped out of it the lava of. Vesuvius. Well, he who should be permitted to return on the path way of his earthly life and live it over again would find as lonely and sad a pil grimage. It would be an exploration of the dead past. The old schoolhouse, the old church, the old home, the old play ground, either gone or occupied by others, and for you more depressing than was our Pompeiian visit that November day. Besides that, would you want to risk the temptations of life over again? From the fact that you are here I conclude that, though in many respects your life may have been unfortunate and unconsecrated, you have got on so far tolerably well, If nothing more than tolerable. As for my self, though my life has been far from be ing as consecrated to God as I would like to have had It, I would not want to try it over again, lest next time I would do worse. Why, just look at the temptations we have all passed through and just look at the multitudes who have gone completely under! Just call over the roll of your schoolmates and college mates, the clerks who were with you in the same store or bank or the operatives in the same factory with just as good prospects as you, who have come to complete mishap. Some young man that told you that he was go ing to be a millionaire, and own the fast est trotteis on the turnpike, and retire by the time he was 86 years of age, you do not hear from for many years and know nothing about him until some day he cpmes into your store and asks for 6 cents to get a mug of beer. Another Life Might Be Worse. You, the good mother of a household, and all your children rising up to call you blessed, can remember when you were quite jealous of the belle of the village, who was so transcendently fair and popu lar. But while you havo these two honor able and queenly names of wife and moth er she became a poor waif of the street and went into tho blackness of darkness forever. live life over again? Why, if many of those who are respectable were permitted to experiment, the next journey would be demolition. You get through, as Job says, by the skin of your teeth. Next time you might not get through at all. Satan would say, "I know him now better than I did before and have for 60 years been studying his weaknesses, and I will weave a stronger web of clroum stanoes to catch him next time.” And satan would concentrate his forces on this one man, and the last state of that man would be worse than the first My friends, our faces are in the right direction. Bet ter go forward than backward, even if we had the choice. The greatest disaster I can think of would be for you to return to boyhood in 1898. Oh, if life were a smooth Luzerne or Cayuga lake, I would like to get into a yacht and sail over it, not once, but twice—yea, a thousand times. But life is an'uncertain sea, and some of the ships crash on the icebergs of cold indifference, and some take fire of evil passions, and some lose their bearings and run into the Goodwin sands, and some are never heard o£ Sorely on such a treacherous sea as that one voyage is enough. Besides all this, do you know, if you could have your wish and live life over again it would put you so much further from reunion with your friends in heaven? If you are in the noon of life, or the even ing of life, you are not very far from the golden gate at which you are to meet your transported and emparadised loved ones. You are now, let us say, 20 years or ten years or one year off from celestial conjunction. Now, suppose you went back in your earthly life 80 years or 40 years or 50 yean, what an awful post ponement of the time of reunion! Itwould be as though you were going to San Fran cisco to a great banquet, and you got to Oakland, four or five miles this side of it, and then camo back to Baltimore to get a better start, as though you were going to England to be crowned, and, having come . . - th tight of thd mountains bl WalM, sod put back to Sandy Hook in order to make a better voyage. Would you like for many yearn to adjourn the tonga of heaven, to adjourn the thrones of heaven, to adjourn the companionship of heaven, to adjourn the rest of heaven, to adjourn the presence of Christ in heaven? No.jhe wheel of time tufne in the right direction, and it la Well it turns ao fast. Three hundred and rixty-flve revolutions in a year and for ward rather than 866 revolutions In a year and backward. But hear ye, hear ye, while I tell you how you may practically live your Mh over again and be all the better for it You may P«t into the remaining years of your life all you have learned of wisdom In your past life. You may make the com ing ten yean worth the preceding 40 or 60 years. When a man says he would like to live his life Over again because he would do so much better and yet goes right on living as he has always lived, do you not tee ho stultifies himself? Ho proves that if he could go back he would do almost the same as he has done. If a man eat green apples some Wednes day in cholera time and is thrown into fearful cramps and says on Thursday: "I wish I had been mo*a prudent in my diet, Oh, if Loould live Wednesday over again I” and then on Friday eats apples just as green, he proves that it would have been no advantage for him to live Wednesday over again, and if we, deploring our past life and with the idea of improvement, long for an opportunity to try fit over again, yet go on making the same mistakes and committing the same sins, we only demonstrate that the repetition of our ex istence would afford no improvement. It was green apples before, and it would be green apples over again. Buoys to Mark the Bight Channel. As soon as a ship captain strikes a rock in the lake or sea he reports it, and a buoy is swung over that reef, and mariners henceforth stand off from that rock. And all our mistakes lathe past ought to be buoys, warning us to keep in the right channel. There is no excuse for us if we split on the same rock where we split fee fora. Going alohg the sidewalk at night where excavations are being made we fre quently see a lantern ona framework, and we turn aside, for that lantern says keep out of this hole. And all along the path way of life lanterns are set as warnings, and by the time we come to midlife we ought to know where it is safe to walk and where It is unsafe. Besides that we have all these years been learning how to be useful, and in the next decade we ought to accomplish more for God and the church and the world than in any previous four decades. The best way to atone for past indolence or past transgression is by future assiduity. Yet we often find Christian men who were not converted until they were 40 or 60, as old age oomeson, saying, “Well, my work is about done, and it is time for me to rest.” They gave 40 years of their life to satan and the world, a little frag ment of their life to God, and now they want rest. Whether that belongs to come dy or tragedy I say not. The man who gave one half of his early existence to the world and of the remain ing two quarters one to Christian work and the other to .rest would not, I suppose, get a very brilliant reception in heaven. If there are any dried leaves in heaven, they would be appropriate for his garland, or if there is any throne with broken steps, it would be appropriate for his coronation, or any harp with relaxed string, it would be appropriate for his fingering. My broth er, you give nine-tenths of’you* life to sin and satan, and then get converted, and then rest awhile in sanctified lasineM, and then go up to get your heavenly reward, and I warrant it will not take the cashier of the royal banking bouse a.grafit while to count out to you all yoardues. He will not ask you whether you will have it in bills of large denomination or small. I wonld like to put one sentence cf my ser mon in italics and have it underscored and three exclamation pointe at the end ot the sentence, and that sentence is this: As we cannot live our lives over again, the nearest we can come to atone for the past Is by redoubled holiness and industry in the future. If this rail train of life has been detained and switched off and is far behind the time table, the engineer for the rest of the way must put on mare pressure of steam and go a mile a minute in order to arrive at the right time and place under the approval of conductor and directors- Your Own Application. As I supposed it would be, there are young people on whom this subject has acted with the force of a galvanic battery. Without my saying a word to them, they have soliloquized, saying: “As one cannot live his life over again and I can make only one trip I must look out and make no mistakes. I have but one chance, and I must make the most es it- *’ My young friends, I am glad you made this applica tion of the sermon yourself. When a min ister toward the dose of his sermon says, “Now, a few words byway of applica tion,” people begin to took around for their hats and get their arm through one sleeve of their overcoats, and the eermonic application is a failure. I am glad you have made your own application, and that you are resolved, like a Quaker of whom I read years ago, who in substance said, “I shall be along this path of life but once, and so I must do all the kindness I can and all the good I can." My hearers, the mistakes of youth can never be corrected. Time gone is gone forever. An opportunity passed the thou sandth part of a second hrfb by one leap reached the other side of a great eternity. In the autumn when the birds migrate you look dp and see the sky black with wingsand the flocks stretchingout into many leagues of air, and so today X look up and see two largo wings in fun sweep. They are the wings of the flying year. That is followed by a flock of 865, and they are the flying days. Each pf the fly ing days is followed by 94, and they are the flying hours, and each of these is fol lowed by 60, and these are the flying min utes. Where did this great flock start from? Eternity past. Where are they bound? Eternity to come. You might as well go a-gunnlng for the quails that whistled last year in the meadows or the robins that last year caroled in the sky as to try to fetch down and bag one of the past opportunities of your life. Ito not say, “I will lounge now and make it up afterward.” Young men and boys, you can’t make it up. My observation is that those who in youth sowed wild oats to the end of their short life sowed wild oats, and that those who start sowing Genesee wheaf always sow Geneseo wheat. Reaping the Harvest. And then the reaping of the harvest is so different. There is grandfather now. Ha has lived to old age because his habits have been good. H|s eyesight for, thia world has-got somewhat dtm, but his eye sight for heaven is ntMlank His hearing is not so acute as It once was, and he must bend clear over to hear What his little grandchild says when she asks him what imii rwiiiwiiiwii"iMiim . Li r.-v- 11 11 he has brought for hetf. But he easily ‘‘“Vir mAMB Hl Tv v vTV»IvC Bim vvULUt-lfi q yoodl old mflkQ Is!** ffiovetity or EX into heaven, because those whom heluljM-d to get then wiU fill up and crowd the gates to Ml him how glad they are at his reining, until he says, “Pieces to stand back a little tUII pass through and cast Bsrown at the feet of film whom, hav not seen, I love.” Ido not know what you call that. I call it the harvest of Genesee wheat. Out yonder is a man very old at 40 years of age at a time when he ought to jsE&axai nave become worse. Ho to a man on fire, on fire with alcoholism, on fire with all evil liabita, out with tho world and the world oat With him. Down and falling deeper. His swollen hands in his thread here pockets, and bis eyes fixed oq the ground, he passes th re ugh thq street, and the'qulck step of an innocent child or the strong step of a young man or the roll of a prosperous carriage maddens him, and he curses society find he curses God. Fall en sick, with no resources, he is carried to the almshouse A loathsome spectacle, he Ues lon « waiting for dissolution or in the ifight rises on his cot and fights ap paritions of what he might have been and whMlMWfti be. He started Ufa with as good • prospect as any man on the Amer ican continent, and there ho is a bloated carcass, waiting for the shovels of public charity to put him five feet under. Ho has only reaped what he sowed. Harvest of wild oats I " There is away that eeem eth right to a man, but the end thereof is death.” To others life is a masquerade ball, and as at such entertainments gentlemen and ladies put on the garb of kings and queens or mountebanks or clowns and at the dose put off the disguise, so a great many pass their whole life in a mask, taking off ths mask at death. While the masquerade ball of life goes on they trip merrily over the floor, gemmed „ hand is stretched to gemmed hand, gleaming brow bends to gleaming brow. On with the dance! Flush and rustle and laughter of immeas urable merrymaking. But after awhile the languor of death oomes on the limbs and blurs the eyesight. Lights lower. Floor hollow with sepulchral echo. Music saddened into a wail. Lights lower. Now the maskers are only seen in the dim light. Now the fragrance of the flowers is like the sickening odor that comes from gar lands that have lain long in the vaults of cemeteries. Lights lower. Misto gather in the room. Glasses shake as though quaked by sudden thunder. Sigh caught in the curtain. Scarf drops from the shoulder of beauty a shroud. Lights low er. Over the slippery boards in dance of death glide jealousies, envies, revenges, lust, despair and death, fjftenoh of lamp wicks almost extinguished. Torn garlands Will not half cover the ulcerated feet Choking damps, chilliness. Feet stilt Hands closed. Voices hushed. Eyes shut Lights out I invite you to quit all that and begin a new life. Roland went into battle. Char lemagne's army had been driven back by the three arm les of the Saracens, and Ro land almost in despair took up the trumpet and blew throe blasts in one of the moun tain passes, and under the power of those three blasts the Saracens recoiled and fled in terror. But history says that when he had blown the third blast Roland's trum pet broke. I take this trumpet of the gos pel and I blow the first blast, "Whosoever will.” I blow the second blast, "Seek ye the Lord wljlle he may be found. ” I blow the-tWrd I bltort,’. , *Xow is tho accepted timtt. ” But the trumpet does not break. It was handed down by our fathers to us, and we will hand it down to our children, that after We are dead they may blow the trumpet, telling the world that we have a pardoning God, a loving God, a sympa thetic God, and that more to him than the throne on which he site is the joy of seeing a prodigal putting his thumb on the latch of his father’s house. I remember that there were two vessels on the sea and in a storm. It was very, very dark, and the two vessels were going straight for each other, and the captains knew it not. But after awhile the man on the lookout saw the approaching ship, and he shouted, “Hard a-larboardl" and from the Other vessel the cry went up, “Harda-larboard!” and they turned just enough to glance by and passed in safety to their harbors. Some of you are in the storm of tempta tion and you are driving on and coming toward fearful collisions unless you change you* course. "Hard a-larbeardl’ Turn ye, turn ye, for, "why will ye die, oh, house of Isaei?” - Your Ufa. Young man, as you cannot live life over again, however you may long to do so, be sure to have your one life right. There is some young man who has gone away from homo, perhaps under some little spite or evil persuasion of another, and his parents know not where he is. My son, go home! Do not go to seal Don’t go tonight Where you may be tempted toga Go home! Your father will be glad to see you, and your mother—l need not tell you how she feels. How I would like to make your parents a present of their wayward boy, repentant and in his right mind. I would like to write them a letter, and you to carry the letter, saying, * ‘ By the blessing of God on my sermon I introduce to you one whom you have never seen before, for he has be come a new creature in Christ Jesus.” My boy, go home and put your tired head on the bosom that nursed you so tenderly in your childhood years. A young Scotchman was taken captive in battle by a band of Indians, and be learned their language and adopted their habits. Years passed on, but the old In dian chieftain never forgot that he had in his possession a young man who did not belong to him. Well, one day this tribe of Indians came in sight of the Scotch regi ments from whom this young man had been captured, and the old Indian chief tain said: “I lost my eon in battle, and I know how a father feels at the loss of a son. Do you think your father is yet alive?" The young man said, “I am the only, son of my father, and I hope he is still alive.” Then said the Indian chief tain: "Because of the loss of my eon this world is a desert. You go free. Return to your countrymen. Revisit your father, that he may rejoice when he sees the sun rise in the morning and the trees blossom in the spring.” So I say to you, young man, captive of waywardness and sin: Your father is waiting for you. Your mother is waiting for you. Your sisters are waiting for you. God is waiting for you. Go home! Go home! Ths Acme of Bllu. 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