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1. My design is to show you that practical religion is the friend of long life, and I prove it first from the fact that it makes the care of our physical health a positive Christian duty. The Christian man lifts this whole problem of health into the accountable and the Divine. He says: "God has given me this body, and He has called it the temple of the Holy Ghost, and to deface its altars, or mar its walls, or crumble its pillars, is a sacrilege." The Christian man says to himself: "If I hurt my nerves, if I hurt my brain, if I hurt any of my physical faculties, I insult God and call for dire retribution." An intelligent Christian man would consider it an absurdity to kneel down at night and pray, and ask God's protection, while at the same time he kept the windows of his bedroom tight shut against fresh air. The care of all your physical forces — nervous, muscular, bone, brain, cellular, tissue — for all you must be brought to judgment.

2. Again, I remark that practical religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it is a protest against all the dissipations which injure and destroy the health. Bad men and women live a very short life; their sins kill them. Napoleon Bonaparte lived only just beyond mid-life, then died at St. Helena, and one of his doctors said that his disease was due to excessive snuffing. The hero of Austerlitz, the man who by one step of his foot in the centre of Europe shook the earth, killed by a snuff-box! Oh, how many people we have known who have not lived out half their days because of their dissipations and indulgences! Now, practical religion is a protest against all dissipation of any kind.

3. Again, religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it takes the worry out of our temporalities. It is not work that kills men; it is worry. When a man becomes a genuine Christian he makes over to God not only his affections, but his family, his business, his reputation, his body, his mind, his soul — everything. Oh, nervous and feverish people of the world, try this mighty sedative! You will live twenty-five years longer under its soothing power. It is not chloral that you want, or more time that you want; it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

4. Again, practical religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it removes all corroding care about a future existence. You have been accustomed to open the door on this side the sepulchre; this morning I open the door on the other side the sepulchre. Glory be to God for this robust, healthy religion. It will have a tendency to make you live long in this world, and in the world to come you will have eternal longevity.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

WEB: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.