Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1868-05-06
BEECHER ON THE ANTEDILU-
VANS I-..

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in recent
sermon on the longevity of the ancients,
and the brief history given Of their car
eer in general, said:
There Is another suggestion that I
tnink we may pick out of this seeming
ly barren statement Of mere names and
monstrous ages. ale was born; he be-
gat children, and he died" What one
Of these paragraphs is more than that
That is the summation Of life as it is here
recorded. After living thousand years,
when the pen Of inspiration was seized to
record the history of that period, the on
ly things it had to say of each man was
that he was born; he liyrd hundred
and thirty years, and begat son he
went on begetting sons and daughters,
and he died Is not that a neagre record
of thousand years? What pitiful his
tory it is The great, gawky, awkward
creatures, after living nearly thousand
years each, accomplished only just this
that he was the father Of equally gaWky
and awkward creatures, each Of whom
was born, cried, procreated, and died.
That is the history. Not a thought !,
not an invention not discovery not
heroic deed; not one fash of genius; not
one single display Of heroism no light
displayed; no laurels won no nothing
he cried as a baby, and died as an old
man.
And that was the last of him So
they passed away, one after the other,
aad left only that record. Out of this
vast harvest, filled with sheayes, is there
nothing to be remembered ? Not an act.
not thought not philosophy. That
recurring ''and he diec" sounded in my
ears, as | read this chapter, like the clash
Of the ocean on a solitary shore, that day
and night ceaselessly, wearily, mournfuI-
ly breaks on the ocean and means moth
ing. The great ocean, wave after wave,
rolls on the shore, means, breaks and
flows out; so human life seems to be
beating necessarily upon the shore OF
death; and the vast population breaks
and dies, and flows backward and for
ward, meaning-next to nothing. What
pity.
Here stand these empty names. and
there stand those vast antedlluvian giants;
there stand the progenitors of the vast
armies of historical nobodies.
Has not the great body of man, ever
since, lived through the same empty rou
tine of existence :! May it not be safely
said that nine hundred and ninety-nine
out Of every thousand persons that have
lived on the globe may be described as
having been born, as having ate, slept,
and drank and died?
Would not that narrate, substantially,
the events Of their existence? To be
sure, they had furry, fever, a whirl,
strife !; but it was to get something to
eat and to drink. All their forces were
exerted merely for their existence.
They were born and taken care of for
awhile, then they struggled through
many years, their struggle meaning only:
"W hat shall [ eat and drink, and where
Wlthal shall | be clothed % Then they
died, and they were buried. There was
nothing of them to forget and nothing to
remember. They were just like rain
drops on the surface of summer ocean;
there is splash, but the next drop wipes
it out So men drop into the ocean OF
| time IN an endless succession Of the effects
that mean nothing, and result in nothing,
1t IS Iitiful to think that this has been
the flow Of human life; butewas it not
/ 500 Is it not SO still?
-''There is young man attending col
lege at Albion. Mich. whose heart is on