The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-18
TALMAGE ON THE ECHOES
EZEKIEL SPOKE OF THEM AS TIE
SOUNDING OF THE MOUNTAINS.

ample or Parents Echoed In the
Character of Their Children-The
JudRmen5 Day co be an Echo of ALL
Our Other Days.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, Jan. I7.-Dr. TalmaRe
gave a new illustration in his sermon this
morning OF his mastery Of the art Of draw
ing spiritual lessons from common natural
phenomena. His subject was "Eohoes,"
and his text: Ezekiel viii, z, THE sounding
again OF the mountains"
At last have found il. The Bible has in
IL a recognition of all phases of the naturat
world from the aurora Of the midnight
heavens TO tho phosphoresceuce Of the
troubled seq. But the we'll known sound
that we call the echo, found not until a
few days ago l discovered it In my texts
''The sounding again of the noun
tains" That is the Echo. Ezekiel of the
text had heard IL again and again. Born
among mountains and In this journey to-
distant exile he had passed among noun
tains, and it was natural that all through
his writings there should loom up the nouns
taius. 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 q
the Echo, to be disreRarded, and so he gives
US In our text "the sounding again OF the
mountains
Greek mythology represented the Echo as
a nymph, the daughter Of Earth and Air.
following Naroissus 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 II into the supernatural. You and 4
in boyhood or girlhood experimented with
this responsiveness OF sound. Standing half
way between tho house and barn, we
shouted many time 20 hear the reverbera-
tions, or out among the mountains back OF
our home on some long tramp we stopped
and made exclamation with full lungs iusb
TO hear what Ezekiel calls 'the sounding
again of the mountains" The Echo had
frightened many a child and mauy a man.
II is no tame thing after you have spoken
to hear the same words repeated by the In
visible All the silences are filed WITH
voices ready 60 answer. Yet IL would noH
be so startling II they said something else,
but why do those lips of the air say jus5
what you sayl Do they mean to mock or
mean to pleasel Who are you and where
are you, thou wondrous Eohol Sometimes
its response is roiteration. The shot Of a
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 1906, writer saws
that near Milan, Italy, there were seventy
such reflections of sound to one snap Of a
pistol. Play bugls near lake OF
Killarney and the tune is played back
played It, There is well two hun
dred and ten feet deep at Caris-
brooke castle in the Isle Of Wright. Drop
pin In that we'll aud the sound Of its fall
comes to the top Of the we'll distinctly. AZ
blast Of an Alpine horn comes back from
the rocks OF Jungfrau in surge after surge
of reflected sound, until 1t seems as il every
peak had lifted and blown an Alpine horn.
But have you noticed-and this IL the reason
for tie present discourse-that the Echo
in the natural world has its analogy In the
moral and religious world? Have you
noticed the tremendous fact that what we
say and do comes back in recoiled gladness
or dlsaster9 About this resonance preach
this sermon.
First: Parental teaching and example
have their Echo in the character of de-
scendants. Exceptions! o. yes. So in the
natural world there may be no Echo, or q
distorted Echo, by reason Of peculiar prox-
unity. but the general rule is that the charA
acter OF the children is the Echo OF the char
acter OF parents. The general rule Is that
good parents have good children and bad
parents have bad children. II the old man
Is q crank, his son is aUt 20 be a crank, and
the grandchild a crank. The tendency is SO
mighty In that direction that it will gee
worse and worse unless some hero or
heroine In that line shall rise aud saw
"Herel BY the holp of God, 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 rights
what they teach IS right. The boys may
for some time be wild and the daughters
worldly, but watchl Years pass on, pers
haps 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 SEQ the sexton, and you aslr
bin: Where is old Mr.. WebsterY' 20!
he has been dead many years" "Where is
Mrs. Webstern "Oi she died fifteen
years ago" II suppose their son Joe
ton. He is up there in the elders seat. He
Is one OF our best and most important mems
bers. You ought to hear him pray and
sing. He is not Joe any longer he Is Elder
w ebster." "Well, where is the daughter.
Maryl suppose she is the same thought
less butterfly she used to beP' 20! no,n
says the sexton. 'she is the president Of GUS
missionary society and the directress in the
orphan asylum and when she goes down the
street all the ragamuffins take hold Of
her dress and cry; 'Auntie when are you
going TO bring us some more books and
shoes and thingsr And when 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-crying, and the firsp
thing we know she is fetching the hardened
man up to the front to be prayed for, and
says. Here is O brother who wants to find
the way into the kingdcm of God.' And if
nobody seems ready to pray, she kneels
down in the aisle beside him and says, %,
LcrdP with pathos and power and a
triumph that seem instantly TO emanoipate
the hardened sinner. O., no, you must not
call her a thoughtless butterfly in our press
ence. You see we would not stand itn The
fact is that the son and daughter of that
family did not promise much at the start.
but they are now an Echo, glorious Echo.
a prolonged Echo, Of parental teaching and
example.
A Vermont mother, as her boy was about
10 start for life on the sea, said: Edward,
have never seen the ocean, but l unders
stand the great temptation is strong drink.
Promise me you will never touch it.n Many
years after that. telling of this in a meeting.
Edward said: II gave that promise to
mother, and have been around the world
and at Calcutta the ports of the Mediter-
ranean, San Francisco, Cape of Good Hope.
and North and South Poles, and never saw
4 glass Of liquor in all those years that nv
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