The southern argus., 1892-01-21
THE ECHOES.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on Natures
Strange Phenomenon.
Parental Teachings Have Their Echo IN
the Character OF Their DESCENDANTS
Beauties of Good ExampIes-
Echoes of the Hereafter.

ing spiritual lessons from common
natural phenomena His subject wa
Echoes" and his text: Ezekiel vii,
1.-The sounding again of the mount
aims" He said.
At last I have found it. The Bible
has in it a recognition of all phases o.
the natural world from the aurora Of
the midnight heavens to the phosphor
I>escence of the tum bled sea. But the
well known sound that we call the
echo, found not until a few days ago
l discovered it in my text: 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 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 nature as Ezekiel could not
allow another sound, viz, the echo, to
be disregarded, and so he gives us in
our text 1.-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 between the house and barn,
we shouted many a 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 1.-THE sounding again
of the mountains"
The echo has frightened many 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 illed with voices ready
to answer. Yet it would not be so
startling if they said some thing else, but
Why do those lips of the air say just
what you say? Do they mean to mock
Sr mean to please? Who are you and
where are you, thou wondrous echo?
Sometimes its response is. reiteration.
The shot of a gun, the slapping of the
hands, the beating of a 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 a writer says that near
Milan, Italy, there were seventy such
reflections of sou i'd to one snap of
pistol Play bugle near lake of
Killarney and the tune is played back
TO you as distinctly as when you pl ayed
it. But have you noticed-as this is
the reason for the present discourse
that this echo in the natural has its
analogy in the moral and religious
world? Have you noticed the ire
mendous fact that what we say or do
comes back in recoiled gladness or dis
aster? About this resonance | preach
this sermon.
First-Parental teaching and ex-
ample have their echo in the character
of descendants. Exceptions? o, 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 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 If the old
man is crank the son is apt to be a
crank and the grandchild 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
queerness l 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 are consecrated 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 years, 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?" 20! he's been dead many
years" where is Mrs Webster?'
20! she died fifteen years ago" II
suppose their son ice went to the
iogs?" 20, no. says the sexton HE
IS up there in the elders seat. He is
one of our most important members.
You ought to hear him pray and sing.
He is not Joe any longer; he is Elder
We bster." We'll, where is the daugh-
ter, Mary? I suppose she is the same
butterfly she used to be?"
20 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 ragamuffins
lake hold of her dress and cry:
'Auntie, when are you going to bring
is some more books and shoes and
things?" And, when in times of re-
'ival, there = some hard case back in a
church pew that no one else can touch,
The goes where he is. and in one minute
she has him a-.rying, and the first
thing we know she is fetching the
hardened man W to the front to be
prayed for, aud says: Here is a