The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1892-01-20

DEOOhlyu JducrudCic. nc bPOho 1rOn
the text Ezekiel vii, 7; "The sounding
again Of the mountains"
At last ] have found It The Bible
has in it recognition of all phases Of
the natural world, from the aurora Of
the midnight heavens to the phosphor-
escence of the tumbled sea. But the
well-known sound that we call the
echo, l found not until few days ago
I discovered 1t in my text: "The sound
ing again of the mountains" That is
the echo. Ezekiel OF the text had
hoard It again and again. Born among
mountains and in his journey to distant
exile he had passed among mountains
and 1t 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 wrestls with oak and cedar, and the
voices Of the wild beasts, but man OF
30 poetic nature as Ezekiel could not
allow another sound, viz, the echo, to
be disregarded, and so he gives us in
our text "the sounding again Of the
mountains"
Greek mythology represented the
echo as nymph, the daughter OF
earth and air, following Nareissus
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 it into
the supernatural. You and in boy.
hood or girlhood experimental with
this responsiveness Of sound. Standing
halfway between the house and barn
we shouted many time to hear the
reverberations, or out among the noun
tains back of our home, or some long
tramp, we stopped and made exclama
tion with full lungs just to hear wha'
Ezekiel calls "the sounding again o.
the Mountains" The echo has fright
ened many a child and many a man.
It 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
1t would not be so startling If they sale
something else, but why do those lips OF
the air say just what you say? Do they
mean TO mock or mean to pleased Who
are you and where are you, thou won
drous echo? Sometimes its response
is reiteration. The shot of gun, the
clapping Of the hands, the beating Of 8
drum, the voice of n violin, are some
times repeated 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
snap Of pistol Play bugle near o
lake OF Killarney and the tune is played
back to you as distinctly as when you
played it There is we'll two hun.
dred and ten feet deep at Carisbrooke
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.
A blast Of an Alpine horn comes back
from the rocks Of Jungfrau in surge
after surge of reflected sound, until II
seems as II every peak had lifted and
blown an Alpine horn. But have you
noticed-and this is the reason 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 that what
we say and do comes back in recoiled
gladness or disaster? About this re.
sonance preach this sermon.
First; Parental teaching and exam
pie have their echo in the character OF
descendants. Expectations? o. yes.
So in the natural world there may be
no echo. or distorted echo, by reason
Of peculiar proximities, but the gensral
rule is that the character of the children
is the echo of the character of parents.
The general rule is that good parents
have good children and bad parents
have bad children. II the old man Is
a crank, his son Is apt to be crank
and the grandchild crank. The ten
dency is so mighty in that direction tina,
II will get worse and worse unless some
hero or heroine in that line shall rise
and say: "Herel By the help of God, ]
will stand this no longer. Against this
hereditary tendency to queerness l pro
test" And he or she will set up an
altar and magnificent life that will re.
verse things and there will be no more
,cranks among that kindred. In an
other family the father nd mother are
.consecrated people. What they do 1,
right; what they teach is right. The
boys may for some time be wild and the
daughters worldly, but watchi Years
pass on, perhaps ten years, twenty
years, and you 90 back to the church
whore the father and mother used to be
consistent members You have heard
nothing about the family for twentB
years, and at the door Of the church yor
see the sexton, and you ask him
where Is old Mr. Webster?" 20, he ha.
been dead many years" "Where is Mrs
Webster" 10, she died fifteen year.
ago" II suppose their son Jo<
went 10 the dogsP" "oh, no." says tbs
sexton. "He's up there In the elders
seat He is one Of our best and most
important members You ought tC
hear him pray and sing. He is not Joe
any longer; he is Elder Webster.
"Well, where is the daughter, Mary
suppose she is the same thoughtlesI
butterfly she used TO be?" 20, no.
says the sexton, "she is the president Of
our missionary society and the direc
tress in the orphan asylum, and wher
she goes down the sire ct all the rags
mullins take hold OF her dress and cry,
'Auntie, when are you going TO bring
us some more books and shoes anc
thingsP And when, in times Of re'