Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-18
A WORLD OF ECHOES.
Natural, Moral and Spiritual Sounds
Are Always Repeated.
GOOD PARENTS. GOOD CHILDREN.
Right Example Has Its Effect on the
Youthful lmitators.
LIFE WE'LL SPENT TO BE REWARDED
.srrc,,r TELEGRAM TO THE DISPATCH

iect was Echoes and his text: Ezekiel
vii. Z: 1.-The sounding again of the noun
tains"
II q recognition OF all phases of the natural
world from the aurora OF the midnight
heavens TO the phosphorescence of the
tumbled sea. But the well-known sound
that we call the echo, found not until a
few days ago i discovered it in my text
"The sounding again of the mountains" "
That il 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
amon= mountains, and it was natural that
all through his writings there should loom
up the mountains
Greek mythology recognized the Echo as
& nymph, the daughter of Earth and Air,
following Narcissus through forests and into
Erottoes 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 1 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 reverbera-
tions.
Some yTond arful Echoes in the World.
In 1866 writer says that near Milan, Italy
there were 20 reflections of sound to one
snap of pistol. Play a bugle near a Lake
oG Killarney and the tune is played back to
y"u distinctly when you played it.
There is a well 2IO feet deep az Carisbro. Ike
castle in the Isle of Wight. Drop pin into
that well. and the sound of its fall comes to
the top OF the well distinctly. A blast o; an
Alpine horn comes back from tine rocks OF
Jangfrau in surge after surge of reflected
sound. until it seems as if every peak had
lifted ana blown an Alpine horn.
Bus 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
mora and religious world?
FirSt-PareDtal teaching and example have
their Echo in the character of descendants
Executions? Oh, yos. So in the natural
world there NAV be no Echo, a distorted
Echo, by reason OF peculiar proximities, but
the general rule is that the character of the
children is the Echo of the character of par
ents. The general rule is that good parents
have good children and bad parents have
bad children. If the old man is a crank, his
son is apt to be a crank, and the grandchild
r 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, 1
will stand this no longer Against this
hereditary tendency to queerness protest"
Typical Echoes of Good Parentage.
In another family the father and mother
ere consecrated people. What they do is
li-Lt: what they teach is right. The boys
may some ioT time be wild and the daughters
worldly. but watch! Years pass on, perhaps
ten years, 20 years. and you 90 back to the
church where the father and mother used to
he consistent members. You have heard
nothing about the family for 20 years, and at
the door of the church you see the sexton,
and you ask him: "where is old Nr. WeD-
sters"
oh: he has been dead many years"
where is Mrs. Webster"
"Oh, she uied years ago.
4 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
We'll, where is the daughter, Mary? I
suppose she is the same thoughtless butter
fiv she used to be?'
or, no." says the sexton, "she is the
President OF our missionary society and the
dlrectrcsS in the orphan asylum. and when
she gees down the street all the ragamuffins
take hold of her dress and cry, 'Auntie,
when are you going TO bring us some more
hooks aad shoes and things?' And, when in
times of revival, there is some hard case
back in church pew thar no one else can
touch, she goes where he is, and in one
minute She has him a-crying. and the first
thing We know she is fetching the hardened
man up 20 the front to be prayed for"
Youth Not an Exact Criterion.
The fact is that the son and daughter of
that family did not promise much ut the
start. but they are now an Echo, glorious
Echo, proloneed Echo, of parental teach
ing and example.
3ut here is a slip-shod home. The parents
are a goddess pair. They let their children
do aS they please No example fit to follow
No lessons al mortality or religion. Sunday
-" better than any other day. The Bible no
better than any other book. The house is
sort OF inn wGere the older and younger
prople Of the household stop for awhile.
skin 20 years and come back to the neigh
bo-hoOd where the family used to live. You
spii=et on thc street or on the road an old in
tE-h=f111T Of that npiubhOrhnOd and
'-tan You tell me anything about the
Patersuns who used 20 live here?''
Yes, says the old inhabtant, Il remcm-
her .hem very well. The father and mother
I.aNr been dead for years.
well. how about the children? What has
become Of them?"
TIE did nnhabitaut replies: ssThey turned
cu- badly. You know the old man was
about half an infidel and the boys were all
.niitelS- The oldest son married. but got
INTO drinking habits, and in a few years
has wifc was not able to live with him any
Ions.eT and his children were taken by his
1t.ativeS, and he died of delirium trelnens
tie name of his employer and fed to Canada.
The Girl Fares No Better.
''OTc al the daughters of the old folks mar
Ticd an inebratc with the idea of reforming
MIN, and you know how that always ends
in the ruin Of the e1perimenter and the one
experimental with. The other daughter
disappeared mysteriously, and has not been
heard OF. Tnere was a young woman picked
out 0: the East river and put in the morgue
and some thought it was her, but l cannot
say"
All this is only the Echo the dismal Echo.
the awful Echo the dreadful Echo OF Dar-
entail Obliquity and unfaithfulness. The old
folks heAped up mountain of wrong inf1u-
cnces. Indeed our entire behavior in this
world VIII have a resouDd. While opportu-
mites ny in straight line and just touch us
once and are gone never to return, the
wrongs We practice upon Others fly in cir
Gle, ana they come back to the place from
which they started.
30, also, the judgment day will be an Echo
o. ali our other days. The universe needs
Such day, ior there are many things in
the world that need to be fixed up and ex-
planned All the footsteps in that prison
corridor as the Christian reformer walks to
the wicket of the incarcerated Yea ali the
whispers ot confidence in the ear of that
poor soul dying in that garret, are being
caught up and rolled on until thew dash
against the Judgment throne and then
they VIII be struck back into the ears of
these sons and daughters of mercy.
Eternity the Echo of Time.
Eternity itself is only an Echo of time.
MiEd you, the analogy warrants NV saving
this. Tie Echo is not always exactly in kind
like the sound originally projected Lord
Raleigh says that Il womanis voice sounding
from a grove was returned an octave hiuher
A scientist playing a flute in Fairfax countv
Va, found that all the notes were returned |
although some of them came in 5oised ,,;tob' |
What we do Of good or bad NAV NOT con,a
back to as in just the proportion we eTnect
il. but come back it will: it NAV be from |
higher giadness than We thought or from n |
deeper woe Our prayer or our Dlasnhemy
our kindness or our cruelty, our faith or our
unbelief, our holy lie or our dissolute be- /