The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-02-03
THE NYMPH
That Chased Narcissus Thu Dug b
Ancient Greece.
Had Parents Have bad Children, and Vice
versa-Though This Rule, Like 9th
ers, Has Some Exceptions
DIR. Talmage's Sermon.

the natural world from the aurora OF
the midnight Heavens to the phosphor-
escence of the tumbled sea- But the
well-know sound that we call the echo
/ found not until few days ago dis
covered in my text: 1.-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 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
the wild beasts, but man of so poetic
a 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 mount
AIMS"
Greek mythology represented the
echo as 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 superstitous have lifted it into
the supernatural You and | in boy
hood or girlhood experimental with
this responsiveness of sound. Stand
ing half way between the house and
barn, we shouted many time to hear
the reverberations, or out among the
mountains back of our home, on some
long tramp, we stopped and made ex-
clamation with full lungs to hear
what Ezekiel calls ''the sounding
again of the mountains" The echo
has frightened many a child and
many man. 1t is no tame thing after
you have spoken to hear the same
words repeated by the invisible. All
the silences are filed with voices ready
10 answer Yet it would not be so
startling if they did 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 wondrous echo?
Sometimes it's response is reiteration.
The shot of q gun, the clapping of the
hands the beating of drum, the voice
of violin, are sometimes repeated
many times by the voice of the echo.
Near Coblentz--that which is said has
seventeen echoes. In 1866 writer says
that near Milan. Italy, there were sew
enty such reflections of sound to one
snap of pistol. Play n bugle near a
lake of Killarney, and the tune is
played back to you as distinctly as
when you played it. There is well
210 feet deep near Carishbrook Castle,
in the Isle of Wight. Drop a pin into
that well and the sound of it's fall
comes to the top of the well distinctly.
A blast of an Alpine horn comes back
from the rocks of Jungfrau in surge af-
ter 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 it's 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 reso-
nance preach this sermon.
l. Parental teaching and example
have their echo in the character of de-
scendants Exceptions? Oh, yes so in
the natural world there may be no echo,
or distorted echo, by reason of peculiar
proximities. but the general rule is that
the character ofthe children is the echo
of the character of parents The gen.
eral rule is that good parents have good
children and bad parents have bad chill
dren. If the old man is crank his
son is apt to be crank and the
grandch'ld 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:
"Here By the help of God, l will stand
this no longer. Against this hereditary
tendency to oueerness l protest" Aid
he or she will set up an altar and a
magnific mt life that will reverse things
and there will be no more cranks
among that kindred. In another fam.
lily the father and mother are conse.
Grated people. What they do is right;
what they teach is right The boys
may for some time be wild and the
daughters worldly, but watch! Years
pass on, perhaps ten years, twenty
year,, and you go back to the church
where the father and 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.. Webster?"
"Oh! he has been dead many years. II
"Where is Mrs Webster?" "Oh! she
died fifteen years ago." 81 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 important members
You ought to hear him pray and sing.
He is not Joe any longer; he is Elder
Webster" ''Well, where is the daugh.
ter, Mary! suppose she is the same
thoughtless butterfly she used to sbe?'
"Oh! no." says the sexton. "She is the
president of our missionary society and
the directress in the orphan asylum,
and when she goes down the street all
the ragamufiins take hold of her dress
and cry, 'Auntie, when are you going tc
bring us soms more books and shoes
and things?' And when, in times OF
revival, there is some hard case back
In church pew that no one else can
touch. she goes where he is, and in one
minute she has him crying, and the
first thing that we know she is fetching
\ the hardened man up to the front to be