Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1892-01-23


drcn Through the Memory of Their
Piou~ Parents.
BROOKLYN. Jan. II. DR.. Talmage
gave IL new illustration in his sermon
his morning of his mastery of the
Art of drawing spiritual lessons from
common natural phenomena. His
subject was Echoes and his text
Ezekial vii. I. The sounding again
Df the mountains.
At last have found it, The Bible
has it III Il recognition of all phases of
the natural world from the aurora
Of the midnight heavens to the phos-
phor1's,ence of the tumbled sea. But
the well known sound that we call
the Echo | found not until Il few days
ago discovered it i'll my text The
sounding again of the mountains"
That is the Echo Ezekiel of the text
had heard il again and again.
Born among mountains and i'll his
journey To distant exile he had passed
among mountains, and il was natural
that all through his writings there
should loom up the mountains.
Among them he had heard the sound
Of ,9ltaracts and of tempests in
wrt.Stle with oak and cedar. and the
voices of wild beasts; but man of
80 poetic Il nature us Ezekiel could
not allow another sound viz. the
Echo. Ia be disregarded. and SO he
gives lis i'll our text The sounding
again of the mountains.
ANALOGY OF MORAL AND MATERIAL.
Greek mythology represents the
Echo ;Gs ii nymph. the daughter of
Earth and Air. following Narcissus
through forests and into gIottoes and
every whittier, and SO strange and
weird and startling is the Echo | do
not wonder that the SupeIStitious
have lifted it into the supernatural.
You and | i'll bOyhood or girlhood ex-
perimcnted with this responsiveness
Df sound Standing half way between
the house and barn, we shouted
many time 10 hear the reverbera-
tiunS; or ont among the mountains
back of our home. on some long
tramp. we stopped and made excla-
nations with full lungs just to hear
what Ezekiel calls The sounding
again of the mountains
The Echo has frightened many a
child and many Il man. 1t is no tame
thing after you have spoken to hear
the same words repeated by the in
visible All the silences are filled
with voices ready 10 answer Yet it
would not lie so startling if they said
something else, but why do those
lips of the air say just what You sayl
do they mean to mock or mean to
please Who are you and where are
you. thou wOndrous Echol Some
times its response is a reiteration.
The shot of Il gun. the clapping of the
hands. the beating of drum. the
voice of Il violin are sometimes re
pe:.ted many times by the Echo.
Near Coblentz- that which is said
has seventeen Echoes In 1866 a
writer says that near Milan. Italy.
there were seventy such reflections
Of sound To one snapOf Il pistol. Play
bugle near Il lake of Killarney and
the tune is played back to you as dis
tinctly rs when you played it, There
is well two hundred and ten feet
Ileep AT Cai'isbrooke castle in the Isle
of Wight Drop pin into that well
and the sound of its fall comes to the
top of the well distinctly
\ blast from an Alpine horn comes
back from the rocks of Jungfrau in
surge after surge of reflected sound.
until il seems as if every peak had
lifted and blown an Alpine horn.
But have you noticed this is
the reason for the present discourse
that this Echo i'll the natural world
has Its analogy i'll the moral and re-
llglous world: Have you noticed the
tremendous fact that what we say
AMI lu comes back in recoiled glad
n,~S> or disaster. About this reso.
nance ! preach this sermon.
First Parental teaching and ex-
ample have their Echo i'll the charac-
ter OF descendants. Exceptions! Oh,
yes. So in the natural world there
may be no Echo or Il distorted Echo,
by reason of peculiar proXimities but
the general rule is that the character
of the children is the Echo of the
character of parents The general
rule IL that good parents have good
children and bad parents have bad
children II the old man is Il crank,
his son Is apt to he crank and the
grandchild Il crank.
The tendency Is 50 mighty in that
direction that it will get worse and
worse unless some hero or heroine in
that line shall rise and say: Here,
BY the help of God. | will stand this
no longer Against this hereditary
tendency to queerneSs protest
And he or she will set up an altar
and magnificent life that will re-
verse things. and there will be no
more crlnks among that kindred.
In another family the father and
mOtherare conSccrated people. What
they do is right; what they teach
is right The boys may for some
time he wild and the daughters
worldly. but watch! Years pass on,
perhaps ten years. twenty years. and
you 20 back To the church where the
father and mother used to he consist
ent members.
You have heard nothing about the
family for twenty years, and at the
door of the church you see the sex
ton and you ask him, Where is old
Mr. Webster" "Oh. he has been
dead many years Where is Mrs.
Webster" "Oh. She died fifteen
years ago" Il suppose their son Joe
went To the dogs! oh. no. says
the sexton, he is up there in the
elders seat He Is one of our best
and most impDriaut members You