Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-01-18

IiNNbttH Aor ~ iilty plettSe. NJ tAtlhplc
FL 10 follow No lessons of morality or
religion Sunday no better than any other
day The Bible no better than any other
book The house is n sort of inn where the
older and younger people of the household
stop for awhile. The theory acted on,
though perhaps not announced, is: THE
children will have to do us | did and take
their chances. Life, is lottery anyhow,
aud some draw prizes and some draw
blanks, and we will trust to luck"
SKIP twenty years and come back to the
ueighborhood where that family used to
live You meet on the street or on the
road an old inhabitant of that neghbor
hood, and you say, Can You tell me any
thing about the Petersons who used to live
rep Yes" says the old inhabitant; Il
remember them very we'll The father
and mother have been dead for years"
"Well how about the children? What
replies "They turned out badly You
know the old man was about half an in
hGel and the boys were all infides The
oldest son married, but got into drinking
habits, and in few years his wife was not
able to live with him any longer and bis
children were taken by relatives, and he
island. His other son forged the name of
his employer and fled to Canada
"One OF the daughters of the old folks
married an inebrate with the idea of re-
forming him, and you know how that
always ends in the ruin of both the ex.
perimenter and the one experimental with
The other daughter disappeared mysteri-
ously and has not been heard of. There
nj cd # ba
east river and put in the morgue, and
some thought it was her but cannot say"
as it possible?" you cry out YES, it is
possible The family is a complete wreck"
My hearers, that is Just what might have
been expected All this is only the Echo,
the dismal F'ho the awful Echo, the
dreadful Echo of parental obliquity and
unfathfulness The old folks heaped upa
mountain of wrong influences and this is
only what my text calls THE sounding of
the mountains"
Indeed our entire behavior in this
world will have resound While oppor
tunties fly in II straight line and just
touch us once and are gone never to return
the wrongs we practice upon others fly in
a circle, and they come back to the place
from which they started, Doctor Guillo
tine thought it smart to introduce the in
strument Of death named after him, but
did not like it so well when his own heau
was chopped off with the guillotine
THE DAY OF ALL DAYS.
So also the Judgment Day will be an
Echo OF all our other days. The universe
needs such day, for there are so many
things in the world that need to be fixed
up and explained If God had not ap-
pointed such ii day all-the nations would
cry out, "Oh, God, give " Judgment
Day. But we are apt to think CT it and
speak about it as a day away off in the fu.
ture, having no special connection with this
day or any other day. The fact is that we
are now making up it's voices; its trumpets
will only sound back again to us what we
now say and do. That is the meaning all
that Scripture which says that Christ will
on that day address the soul, saying, II was
naked and ye clothed me, was sick and in
prison and We visited me"
All the footsteps in that prison corridor
as the Christian reformer walks to the
wicket Of the incarcerated, yea all the
whispers of coincidence in the ear of that
poor soul dying in that garnet, yea all the
kiudnesses are being caught up and rolled
on until they dash against the Judgment
Throne and then they will be struck back
iuto the ears of these sons and daughters
OF mercy, Louder than the crash of Mount
Washington falling on its face in the
world wide catastrophe, and the boiling Of
the sea over the furnaces Of universal con.
iiu.T}aiuu VIII be the Echo and Re-eCho Of
the good deeds done and the sympathetic
words uttered and the mighty benefactions
wrought
ON chat day all the charities, all the self
sacrifices, all the philanthropies all the
beuuicnut last Wills and testaments, all the
Christian work OF all the ages, will bepiled
up into mountains, and those who have
served God and served the suffering human
rice will hear what my text styles "The
sounding OF the mountains"
My subject advances TO tell you that
eternity itself is only an echo of time.
Mind yOu, the analogy warrants my saying
this. The echo is not always exactly in
Kind like the sound originally projected. |
Lord Raleigh says that Il wOman's voice
sounding from grove was returned an
octave higher, A scientist playing flute
in Fairfax county Va, found that all the
notes were returned, although some of
them came in raised pitch
4 trumpet sounded ten times near Glas
Cow Scotland, and the ten noes were all
repeated, but II third lower. And the
spi ,5.I law corresponds with the natural
worlu What we do of good or bad may
not come back to us in just the proportion
we expect it,, but come back it will; it may
hr from Il higher gladness than we thought /
ur tram Il deeper Woe from Il mightier
or from a worse captive from a
higher throne or deeper dungeon. Our
prayer or our hlasphemy, our kindness or
our cruelty, our fuitn or our unbelief, our
holy HE or our dissoute behavior will
come back somehow,
Suppose the boss of Il factory or the head
of a commercial firm some day comes out
among his clerks or employees, and putting
his Thumbs in the armho!eS of his vest
says, with an air of swagger and iocosty
"NplI, don't believe in the Bible or the
church. The one is an imposition and the
other is full of hypocrites declare
would not trust one of those very pious peo
pie further than could see him" That is
uil he says, but he has said enough. The
young men go back To their counters or
their s1attles and say within themselves,
"Ncll, he is successful man and has
probably studied up the whole subject and
Is probably right
That one lying uttcTance against Bibles
and churches has put five young men on
Tire wrong track ard though the intluen-
lial man had spoken only in half Jest, the
Nuu snail come back To hlIn IN nve ruined
Htgtines and five destroyed eternitiess
\ on ~ge the Echoes are IN octave lower than
he anticipated. On the other hand, some
rainy aay. when there are hardly any Gus
0uuuas. the Christian merchant comes out
from his counting room and stands among
the Young men who have nothing to do,
and says; "Wclt, boys, this is dull day,
Uut ID will clear oil after awhile. There