The Dickinson press., 1892-01-30

IN, though pernapsnot announced is:
The children will have to do as l did
and take their chances. Life is a lot
terry anyhow, and some draw prizes
and some draw blanks, and We will
trust to luck" Skip 20 years and
come back to the neighborhood where
that family used to live. You meet
on the street or on the road an old
of that neighborhood, and
you say: "Can you tell me anything
about the Petersons who used to live
eyes," says the old inhabi-
tant, I remember them very we'll. The
father and mother have been dead for
years." "Well, how about the chill
.ren? What has become of them?"
The old inhabitant replies: They
turned out badly. You know the old
man was about halfan infidel and the
boys were all intidels. The Oldest son
married, but got into drinking habits,
and in a few years his wife was not
able to live with him any longer and
his children were taken by relatives,
and he died of delirium tremens on
Blackwell's Island. His other son
forged the name OF his employer and
fled to Canada. One OF the daughters
of the old folks married an inebriate
with the idea OF reforming him, and
you know how that always ends-in
the ruin OF both the experimenter and
the one experimental with. The other
daughter disappeared m~ysteriously,
and has not been heard OF. There
was Il young woman picked cut of the
East river and put in themorgue, and
some thought it was her, but %lcannot
say" as it possible?" you cry out.
eyes, it is possible. The family is a
complete wreck" My hearers, that is
just what might have been expected:
All this is only the. echo, the dismal
echo, the awful echo, the dreadful
echo OF parental obliquity and up-
faithfulness.
So, also, the Judgment day will be
an echo of all IL other days. The
universe needs such u day for there
are so many things in the world that
need to be fixed up and explained. II
God had not appointed such u day all
the nations would cry out: ooh, God,
give us a Judgment day" But we are
apt to think about it and speak
about it as q day away off in the
future, having no special connection
with this day or any other day. The
fact is that we are nov making up its
voices, its trumpets will only sound
back again to us what we o say
and do. That is the meaning OF all
that scripture which says that Christ
will on that day address the soul,
saying: 81 was naked and We clothed
me, Twas sick andin prison and We Wis.,
tied me-" All thefootstepsin that pris-
ON corridor as the Christian reformer
walks to the wicket of the i~ncarcerat-
ed, yea all the whispers OF coincidence
in the ear OF that poor soul dying in
that garrett, yea all the kindnesses are
being caught up and rolled on until
they dash against the Judgment
throne and then they will be struck
back into the ears OF these sons and
daughters of mercy. Louder than
the crash of Mt. Washingtonfallingon
its face in
THE WORLDWIDE CATASTROPHE,
and the boiling OF the sea over the
furnaces OF Observation-Disclosures will
be the echo and re-echo of the good
deeds done and the sympathetic
words uttered and the mighty bene-
factions wrought. On that day all the
charities, all the self-sacriiices, all the
philanthropic, all the beneficent last
Wills and testuments, all the Christian
work of all the ages, will be piled up
into mountains, and those who
have served God and served the sui
fering human ace will hear what my
text styles 'the sounding of the
mountains"
My subject advancesto tellyou that
eternity itself Is only an echo OF time.
Mind you the analogy warrants my
saying this. The echo is not always
exactly in kind like the sound origi-
nally projected. Lord Raleigh says
that q woman's voice sounding from
a grove was returned an octave high
A scientist playing a flute in Fair
fax county, Virginia, found that all
the notes were returned, although
some of them came in raised pitch. A
trumpet sounded ten times near Glas-
gov, Scotland, and the ten notes We're
q repeated, but a third lower. And
the spiritual law corresponds With the
natural world. What we do of good
or bad may not come back to us in
just incorporation we expect it, but
come back it will, it may be from a
higher gladness than we thought or
from q deeper woe, from q mightier
conqueror or from a wor captive,
from a higher throne or deeper dun
geon. Our prayer or our blasphemy,
Jul kindness or our cruelty, orr faith
or our unbelief. our holy life or our
dissolute behavior, will come back
somehow.
"Well," says someone, "this idea Of
moral, spiritual and eternal echo is
new to me. Is there not some way OF
stopping this echo?" My answer is:
"God can and he only" fit is cheer
hui echo we do not want it stopped; il
q baleful echo, we would like to have
1t stopped, The hardest thing in this
world to do is to stop an echo. Many
an Grafton has been spoiled and many
an oratorconfounded by an echo. Cost
ly churches, cathedrals, theaters and
music halls have been ruined by an
cCAIO. IdFCIllUeCUS ltNo SufullS Wlf6S
across auditoriums to arrest the echo
and hung upholstery againstth the walls,
hoping to entrap it, and hundreds OF
thousands of dollars have been ex-
pended in pibllc buildings of this
country to keep TIE air from answir-
ing when it ought to be quiet. Ars-
totle and Pythagoras and Isaac New
ton and La Place and ourown Joseph
Henry tried to hunt down the echo,
but still the unexplored realms of &C.
coustics are larger than the explored,
When our first Brooklyn Taber.
nacle was being constructed, we were
told by architects that it was of such
a shape that the human voice could
not be heard init, or, ifheard, it would
be tangled into echoes. In state Of
worriment / went to Joseph Henry,
the president of the Smithsonian In
stitute at Washington, and told him
of this evil prophecy, and he replied
II have probably experimental more
with the laws OF sound than any 9th
or man.. and ! have got as far as this