The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-02-03
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
) DAY SERMON.
Subject: Echoes"


aims. s."-Ezekiel vii. 7.
At last I have it. The Bible has in it
a recognition Of all phrases Of the natural
world from the aurora Of the midnight
heavens to the phosphorescence OF the tum-
bling sea. But the we'll known sound that
we call the Echo found not until few
days ago discovered it in my text, "Ine
sounding again of the mountains" That Is
the Echo. Ezekiel of the text heard 1T
again and again.
Born among mountains, and in his jour
ney 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 cstaracts and OF tempests In
wrestle with oak and cedar, and the voices
Of wild beast, but man Of 50 poetic MAJ
sound, viz, the Echo, to be dlsregarded,
and 50 he gives us in our text "The sound
ing again Of the mountains"
Greek mythology represented the Echo as
a 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 superstitious have lifted it
into the supernatural. You and In boy
! hood or girIhood experimental with this re-
spopsiyeness of sound. Standing half way
between the house and barn, we shouted
many times to hear the reverberations, or
out among the mountains back Of our home,
on some long tramp. we stopped and made
exclamation with full lungs just to hear
what Ezekiel calls 'The sounding again OF
the mountains"
The Echo has frightened many child and
many a man. 1t 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 it would
not be so startling il they said 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
its response is reiteration. The shot OF
gun, the clapping Of the hands, the beating
Of drum, the voice of violin are some
times repeated many times by the Echo.
Near Coblentz-that which Is said has
seventeen Echoes. In 1776, writer says
that near Milan, Italy, there were seventy
such reflections of sound to one snap OF a
pistol. Play bugle near a lake Of Killar-
ney and the tune Is played back to you as
well two hundred and ten feet deep at
Cc-ishrooke castle, in the Isle of Wight.
Drop q Din into that well and the sound OF
its fall comes to the top Of the well distinct.
II. A blast of an Alpine horn comes back
from the rocks Of Jungfrau in surge after
surge Of reflected sound, until 1t seems as If
every peak had lifted and blown an Alpine
horn.
But have you noticed-and this is the rea-
son for the present discourse-that this Echo
IN the natural world has its analogy in the
moral and religious worldf Have you noticed
the tremendous fact that what we say and
do comes back in recoiled gladness or dis
aster, About this resonance preach this
sermon.
First-Parental teaching and example
have their Echo in the character Of descend
ants. E1ceptions' Oh, yes. So in the
natural world there may be no Echo, or
distorted Echo, by reason of peculiar prox-
tmities but the general rule Is that the char.
acter Of the children is the Echo of the char
acter Of the 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 bs crank
and the grandchild crank. The tendency
fs 30 mighty in that direction that it will get
worse and worse unless some hero or heroine
IN that line shall rise and say: "Herei By
Against this hereditary tendency to queer
ness I protest." And he or she will set up an
altar and magnificent life that will reverse
things, and there will be no more cranks
among that kindred. ..
In another family the father and mother
1 are consecrated people. What they do Is
right. What they teach isright. The boys
may for some time be wild and the daugh-
ter worldly, but watchl Years pass on, per-
back to the church where the father and
mother used to be consistent members.
N 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,
ttWhere is old Mr.. Websterf' ''Oh, he has
Websterf' "OI, she died fifteen years agor'
'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
4 longer, he is Elder Webster" swell, where
Is the daughter Nary suppose she is the
same thoughtless butterfly she used to
beg' 'Oh, no,n says the sexton,
'she is the president Of our missionary
| society and the directress In the
the street all the ragamufins take hold Of her
dress and cry, .Auntie, when are you going
to bring us some blore books and shoes and
fhingsf And VIXEN, 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
a-cryfng, and the drst thing we know she Is
Fetching the hardened man up to the front
to be prayed for, and says Here Is brother
OF God, And If nobody seems ready to
pray, she kneels down in the aisle beside him
and says, 20 IIordp with pathos and q
power and triumph that seem instantly to
&amancipate the hardened sinner. Oh, no!
you must not call her q thoughtiess butter
1 fy in our presence. You see We would not
stand It," Tho fact is that the son and
| - - kL1A 81 -
much at the start, but they are now an
Echo, a glorious Echo, a prolonged Echo Of
parental teaching and example.
A Vermont mother, as her boy was about
to start for life on the sea, said: ed
ward, i have never seen the ocean, but un-
j derstand the great temptation is strong
drink. Promise me you will never touch
it.n Many years after that, telling Of this
in meeting, Edward said: II gave that
promise to mother, and have been around
| the world, and at Calcutta, the ports Of
4 the Mediterranean, San Francisco, Cape
of Good Hope and north and south poles,
! and never saw glass OF liquor in all those
years that my mothers form did not appear
before me, and do not know how liquor
tastes. never have tasted it and all be-
cause of ths promise made to my mother"
This was the result Of that conversation at
i the gate of the Vermont farmhouse. The
| statuary of Thorwaldsen was sent from
Italy to Germany, and the straw in which
the statues had been packed was thrown
upon the ground. The next spring beauti-
full Italian flowers sprang up where this
straw had been cast, for in it had been some
,Of the seeds Of Italian flowers, and, whether
conscious Of it or not, we are all the time
,planting for ourselves and planting for
Others roses or thUrns. You thoug ght it
only straw, yet among it were anemones.
But here is a sipshod home. The parents
are goddess pair. They let their children
1.do a. they please. No example f1t to follow