Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-01-23

Every ct and Word Has Eternal Con-
sequcnccs-Tho Redemption of Chill
.lren Through the Memory of Their
Pious Parents.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 17.-Dr Talmage
gave IL new illustration in his sermon
this morning of his mastery of the
art of drawing spiritual lessons from
common natural phenomena. His
subject was Echoes" and his text
Ezekial vii. Z. The sounding again
of the mountains.
At last have found it. The Bible
has it in recognition of all phases OF
the natural world from the aurora
of the midnight heavens to the phos-
phorescence of the tlunbled sea. But
the well known sound that we call
the Echo found not until a few days
ago discovered it in my text. THE
sounding again of the mountains. !"
That is the Echo. Ezekiel of the text
had heard it again and again.
Born among mountains and in his
Journey to distant exile he had passed
among mountains, and it was natural
that all through his writings there
s.lunll loom up the mountains.
Among them he had heard the sound
of ,4.ta.9uts and of tempests in
wrestle with oak and cedar, and the
voices of wild beasts; but a man OF
so poetic Il nature ;ls Ezekiel could
not allow another sound, VIZ, the
Echo, to be ,lislpgarded, and so he
gives us in our text The sounding
again of the mountains.
ANALOGY OF MORAL AND MATERIAL.
Greek mythology represents the
Echo ls Il nymph, the daughter of
Earth and Air. following Narcissrls
through forests and into glottoes and
every whittier, and so strange and
weird and startling is the Echo ! do
not wonder that the supelstitious
have lifted it into the supernatural.
You and | in bnyhoml or girlhood ex-
perimentetl with this responsiveness
of sound. Standing half way between
the house and barn, we shouted
many IL time to hear the reverbera-
tions; or out 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 lad 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 ale filled
with voices ready to answer. Yet it
would not he so startling if they said
something else, but why do those
lips Of the ;lir say just what you saya
Do they mean to mock or mean to
pleasu2 Who are you and where are
YOU. thou wontlluus Echo2 Some
times it's response is a reiteration.
Tie shot of ii gun, the clapping OF the
hands. the beating of drum, the
voice of a violin are sometimes re-
peatel many times by the Echo.
Near Collentz 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 ii pistol. Play
a bugle near IL lake of Killarney and
the tune is played buck to you as dis
tinctly ;ls when you played it. There
is i, well two hundred and ten feet
deep at Calisbrooke 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 from an Alpine horn comes
back from the rocks of Jungfrau in
surge after surge of reflected sound,
until it seems as if 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 re-
liglous worll2 Have you noticed the
tremendous fact that what we say
and do comes hack in recoiled glad
ness or disasters About this reso-
nance preach this sermon.
First Parental teaching and ex-
ample have their Echo in the charac-
terof descendants Exceptions? Oh,
yes. So in the natural world there
may he no Echo or Il distorted Echo,
by reason of peculiar proxilnities. but
the general rule is that the character
of tile 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. LII the old man is a crank,
his son is apt to be a crank and the
grantlchild 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: Here
By the helpof God, | will stand this
no longer Against this hereditary
tendency to qleerness protest. >
And he or she will set up an altar
and Il magnificent life that will re-
verse things, and there will he no
more cranks among that kindred.
In another family the father and
mother are conseclated people. What
they do is right; what they teach
is right. The boys may for some
time be wild and tho daughters
worldly, but watch! Years pass on,
perhaps ten years. twenty years, and
YOU 90 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
coor Of the church you see the sex
ton and vol, ask him. Where is old