The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-01-29
THE ECHOES.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on Natures
Strange Phenomenon.
Parental Teachings Have Their Echo In
the Character or Their DESCENDANTS
Beauties of Good Examples
Echoes of the Hereafter.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage gave new illustra-
ton of his mastery of the art of draw
ing spiritual lessons from common
natural phenomena. His subject was
"Echoes," and his text: Ezekiel vii, z:
''The sounding again of the mount
aims" He said:
At last / have found it The Bible
has in it a 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, found not until few days ago.
l discovered il in my text: 1.-The sound
ing again of the mountains" That Is
the echo Ezekiel of the text had heard
it again and again. Born among the
mountains and in his journey to distant
exile he had passed among mountains,
and it was natural ,hat all through his
writings there sho;,ld 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 a 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
mountains"
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 superstitious have lifted it into
| the supernatural. You and / in boy
hood or girlhood experimental with
this responsiveness of sound. Standing
half way bet IS cen 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 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 ara filled with voices ready
to answer. Yet it would not be sc
startling if they said something else, but
why do those lips of the air say just
what you say? Do thev mean to mock
or mean t. please? Who are you and
where are you, thou wondrous echoi
Sometimes its response is a reiteration.
The shot of gun, the slapping of the
hands, the beating of drum, the voice
of a violin are sometimes repeated
many times by the echo. Near Cob
lentz, that which is said has seventeen
echoes. In 1866 writer says that near
Milan. Italy, there were seventy such
reflections of sound to one snap of q
pistol Play a bugle near lake oi
Killarney and the tune is played back
to you as distinctly as when you played
it. But have you noticed-as this Is
the reason for the present discourse
that this echo in the natural has it
analogy in the moral and religion:
world? Have you noticed the tre'
mendous fact that what we say or dc
comes back in recoiled gladness or dis
asier? About this resonance l preach
this sermon.
First-Parental teaching and ex
ample have their echo in the character
of descendants. Exceptions? 0, yes
So in the natural world there may be
no echo, or a distorted echo, by reason
of peculiar proximities, but the general
rule is that the character of the chill
dren is the echo of the character 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. the son is apt to be q
crank and the grandchild 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 o.
God, | will stand this no longer
Against this hereditary tendency tc
oueerness 1 protest" And he or she
will set up an altar and a magnificent
life that will reverse things and there
will be no more cranks among tina
kindred. In another family the fatheI
and mother are c)nsecrated people
What they do is right; what they teacl
is right The boys may for some tim
be wild and the daughters worldly, bu
watch! Years pass on, perhaps tel
years, twenty years, and you go bacl
to the church where the father ant
mother used to be consistent members
You have heard nothing about tn
; family for twenty years, and at tn
door of the church you see the sexton
, and you ask him: Where is old Mr.
Webstcr?" 80! he's been dead man.
years" "Where is Mrs Webster?
40! she died fifteen years ago" ''
suppose their son ice went to tn
, dogs?' 20, no." says the sexton ''H
, is up there in the elders seat. He
, one of our most important members
You ought to hear him pray and sing
, He is not Joe any longer; he is Eide
, Webster" "Well. where is the daugh
, ter, Mary? l suppose she is the sam
| thoughtless butterfly she used to be?
10, no." says the sexton, 'sh
is the president of our missionar
: society and the dircctress in tn
orphan asylum, and when she goe
down the street all the ragamutfin
take hold of her dress and cry
'Auntie, when are you going to brin
us some more books and shoes an
, things?" And, when in times of rt
, vival, there is soae hard case back in
: church pew tLat no one else can toucf
she goes where he is, and in one minut
she has him a-cryipg, and the frs
= thing we know she is fetching tn
f hardened man up to the front to b
/ prayed for, and says: Here is
f brother who wants to find the way int
D the kingdom of God And If nobod
t seems ready to pray she kneels dow
: in the aisle beside him and says: I