The Penn's Grove record., 1892-01-22
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BRooBLYN DIvINE's SUM
DAY SERMON
Subject: "Eohees."

At last | nave it. The Bible has in 10
n recognition of all phrases of the natural
world from the aurora OF the mldnlghp
heavens to the phosphorescence OF the tum-
bling sea. But the well knowns sound may
we call the Echo / found not until a few
days ago | discovered it in my text, The
sounding again of the mountains" That 10
the Echo. Ezekiel of the text heard 1t
again and again.
Born among mountains, and in his jour-
ney to distant exile, he had passed among
mountains, and it was natural that all
through his writings there should loom up
the mountains. Among them he had heard
the sound of cataracts and of tempests in
wrestle with oak and cedar, and the voices
of wild beast, but a man of so poetic a ma
iure as Ezekiel could not allow another
sound, viz, the Echo. to be disregarded,
and so he gives us in our text "The sound
ing again OF the mountains"
Greek mythology represented the Echo as
a nymph, the daughter of Earth and Air,
following Narcissus through forests and into
grottoes and every whittier, and so strange
and weird and startling is the Echo ! do not
wonder that the superstitious have lifted 1t,
into the supernatural. You n 1 in boy,
hood or girlhood experimental with this rel
sponsiveness of sound. Standing half way
between the house and barn, we shouted
many times to hear the reverberations, or
out among the mountains back of our home,
on some lDitR IFdUlp. we sUDppci dhu hihAo
exclamation with full lungs just to hear
what Ezekiel calls 1.-THE sounding again Of
the mountains" !
The Echo has frightened many a child and
many a man. 1t is no tame thing after you
have spoken to hear the same words repeated
by the invisible. All the silences are filled
with voices ready to answer Yet it would
not be so startling IL they said something
else, but why do those lips of the air say just
what you say? Do they mean to mock or,
mean to please? Who are you and where
are you, thou woudrous Echo2 Sometimes
its response is a reiteration. The shot of q
gun, the clapping of the hands, the beating
OF a drum. the voice of a violin are some-
times repeated many times by the Echo. |
Near CobIentz-that which is said has
seventeen Echoes. In 1776, a writer says
that near Milan, Italy. there were seventy
! such reflections OF sound to one snap of a
| pistol. Play a bugle near a lake of Killar-
| ney and the tune is played back to you as
| distinctly as when you played it. There Is
a well two hundred and ten feet deep at
| Carlsbrooke castle, in the Isle of Wight.
| Drop a pin into that well and the sound Of
its fall comes to the top OF the well distinct
~. A blast of an Alpine horn comes back
surge of reflected sound, until it seems as il
every peak had lifted and blown an Alpine
horn.
But have you noticed-and this is the rea-
| son for the present discourse -that this Echo
| in the natural world has its analogy in the
moral and religious world? Have you noticed
| the TREMENDOUS fact hat what we say and
! do comes back in recoiled gladness or dis
aster? About this resonance l preach this
\ sermon.
First-Parental teaching and example
have their Echo in the character of descend
ants. Exceptions? Oh, yes. So in the
natural world there may be no Echo, or a
l ltskArfnl En,,N Iu taaGn of macmillan 1nrny-|
imitles, but the general rule is that the char
acter of the children is the Echo of the char
acter of the parents. The general rule Is
that good parents have good children and,
bad parents have bad children. If the old
| man is a crank, his son is apt to be a crank.
and the %grandchild a crank. The tendency
is so mighty in that direction that it will get
worse and worse unless some hero or heroine
in that line shall rise and say: 'Herel BY
tie help OF God, / will stand this no longer.
against this hereditary tendency to queer
ness 1 protest" And he Or she will set up an.
altar and a magnificent life that will reverse
things, and there will be no more cranks
among that kindred.
In another family the father and mother
are consecrated people. What they do is
right. What they teach isright. The boys
may for some time be wild and the daugh-
ter worldly, but watchi Years pass on, per
haps ten years, twenty years, and you go
! DdCh " IA Ilutth WHICH tb' tdthoi dlu
mother used to be consistent members.
You have heard nothing about the family
for twenty years, and at the door of the
church you see the sexton and you ask him,
"Where is old Mr.. Websterf" 'Oh, he has
been dead many yearsF' Where is Mrs.
Websterg' 'Oh, she died fifteen years agop'
81 suppose their son Joe went to the dogsr
sob, no." says the sexton, she is up there in
the elders seat. He is one of our best and
most important members. You ought to
hear him pray and sing. He is not Joe any
longer, he is Elder Webster" well, where
is the daughter Mary? l suppose she is the
same thoughtless butterfly she used to
.she is the president of our missionary
society and tho directress in the
orphan asylum, and when she goes down
the street all the r%agamuffins take hold of her
dress and cry, 'Auntie, when are you going
to bring us some more books and shoes and
thingsY And when, in line Of revival,
there is some hard case back in a church
pew hat no one else can touch, she goes where
he is, and in one minute she has him
a-crying, and the first thing We know she IL
fetching the hardened nan up to the front
to be prayed for, and says, Here is brother
who wants to find the way into the kingdom
OF Cod And if nobody seems ready to
pray, she kneels down in the aisle beside him
and says, % Lordp with a patbos and a
power and a triumph that seem instantly to
emancipate the hardened sinner. oh, mol
you must not call her a theughtless butter
fly in our presence. You see we would not
stand it," The fact is that the son and
daughter of that family did not promise
much at the start, but they are now an
Echo, a glorious Echo, a prolonged Echc Of
parental teaching and example.
A Vermont mother, as her boy was about
to start for a life on the sea, said: Ed
ward, / have never seen the ocean, but l un-
| .larGfnpA thu FTraot tafnpfat tAu 10 sfrnnr
drink. Promise me you will never touch
t." Many years after that, telling of this
in a meeting, Edward said: II gave that
promise to mother, and have been around
the world, and at Calcutta, the ports Of
the Mediterranean, San Francisco, Cape
of Good Hope and north and south poles,
and never saw a glass OF liquor in all those
years that my mothers form did not appear
before me, and l do not know how liquor
tastes. l never have tasted it and all be-
cause of the promise l made to my mother"
This was the result Of that conversation at
the gate Of the Vermont farmhouse. The
statuary of T~horwaldsen was sent from
Italy to Germany, and the straw in which
the statues had been packed was thrown
upon the ground. The next spring beauti-
full Italian flowers sprang up where this
straw had been cast, for in it had been some
OF the seeds of Italian flowers, and, whether
conscious of it or not, we are all the time
l Nultih w out v ohu RAtiNihS v
others roses or thorns. You thought it
only straw, yet among it were nemones
But here is a siipshod home. TIT parents
are a goddess pair. They let their children
do as they please. No example fit to follow.
No lessons OF morality or religion. Sunday
no better than any other day. The Bible nc
better than any other book. The house is
sort of inn where the older and younger
people of the household stop for awhile. TIL
theory acted on, though perhaps not an
nounced, is: THE children will have to do
as | did and take their chances. Life is
lottery anyhow, and some draw prizes ant
some draw blanks, n VIZ will trust tc
luck" .
SKIP twenty years and conn back to tbs
Eneighborhood where that family used to live
You meet on the street or on the road Al
old inhabttant of that neighborhood, and
you say, Gan you tell me anything about
the Petersons who used to live hereYnT yes
says the old inhabitant; II remember then
very well. The father and mother have
been dead for years" swell, how about
the childrens What has become of themYi
The old inhabitant replies: ''They turned
out badly. You know the old man uaa
about half an infdel and the BOYS were ali
tnddala The oldest son married but got