The Red Cloud chief., 1893-11-24
O%BLIvION'S DEFEATS.
REV. Or. TALMAGE breaches A SER
Mon OF CoNsoLlNG INFLUENCE.

To-day and One Hundred Year, Tror, Now.
The Necessity of Death and Decay-Tine
IL Past, and 1t IL an Everlasting Now.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 12.-Rev. DR.. Tai
mage today preached a sermon Of unusu.
nj and marvellous consolation to the usual
throngs after they had sung:
There is no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.
The subject was "Oblivion and Its De.
feats.' The texts selected were Job xiv,
20, lie shall be no more remembered"
and Psalms cxii, @, "The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance"
"Oblivion and Its Defeats is my sub
ject today. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. 1t crunches
individuals, families, communities,
states, nations, continents, hemisphercs,
worlds. Its diet is made mp of years, of
centuries, Of cycles, Of millenniums, Of
cont That monster Is called by Noah
Webster and all the other d%ictionarians
oblivion. 1t is a steep down which ev-
erything rolls. 1t is a confagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is a
dirge in which all orchestras play and a
period at which everything stops. 1t is
the cemetery of the human race. 1t is
the domain of forgetfulness. Oblivion!
At times 1t throws q shadow over all Of
us, and l would not pronounce it today
If / did not come armed in the strength
Of the eternal God on your behalf to at.
tack 1t, to rout it, to demolish it.
%oBLIvIoN's WORN.
Why, just look at the way the families
OF the earth disappear! For awhile they
are together, inseparable and to each
other Indispensable, and then they part.
Some by marriage, going to establish
other homes, and some leave this life,
and a century is long enough to plant q
family, develop IL, prosperit and obliter-
ate 1t. So the generations vanish.
Walk up Broadway, New York; State
street, Boston; Chestnut street, Phila-
dclphia; Tho Strand, London; Princess
street, Edinburgh Champs Elysees, Paris;
Inter den Linden, Berlin, and you will
meet in this year 1893 not II person
who walked there in the year 1903. What
ingulfment! All the ordinary efforts at
perpetuation are dead failures. Walter
SCOTS "Old Mortality" may go round
with his chisel to recut the faded cpl
tapls on tombstones, but Old Oblivion
has q quicker chisel with which he can
cut out q thousand epitaphs while ''Old
Mortality" Is cutting in one epitaph.
Whole libraries of biographies devoured
of bookworins or unread of the rising
generations.
All the signs Of the stores and ware
houses of great firms have changed, I'M
less the grandsons think that it is an adj
vantage to keep the old sign up because
the name of the ancestor was more COM
mandatory than the name of the descend
ant. The city Of Rome stands today,
but dig down deep enough and you come
to another Rome, buried, and go down
still farther and you will find a third
Rome.
Jerusalem stands today, but dig down
deep enough and you will find n Jerusa-
lem underneath, and go on and deeper
down n third Jerusalem. Alexandria
on the top Of an Alexandria. and the
second on tho top Of the third. Many of
the ancient cities are buried 80 feet
deep, or so feet deep, or 100 feet deep.
What was the matter? Any special ca
lamity? No. The winds and waves and
sands and flying dust are all undertakers
and gravediggers, and if the world stands
long enough the present Brooklyn and
New York and London will have on top
Of them other Brooklyns and New Yorks
and Londons, and only after digging and
boring and blasting will the archnolo.
gist of far distant centuries come down
rs far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets Of our present American and
European cities.
Call the roll Of the armies Of Baldwin
!, or Of Charles Martel, or of Marlbor-
ough, or Of Mithridates, or Of Prince
Frederick, or Of Cortez, and not one
answer will you hear. Stand them in
line and call the roll of the 1000, OOO
men in the army Of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them in line, the Zoo.
900 infantry and the 200, 900 cavalry OF
the Assyrian army under Minus, and cal
the roll. Not N nswer Stand in line
the 1000, 900 men of Sesostris, the 200,
900 men Of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa, the
2,G41, 900 men under Xerxes at Their.
mopyl@, and call the long roll. Not one
answer.
At the opening Of u civil wa the
men of the northern and southern armies
were told that if they fell in battle theil
names would never DO forgotten bytheil
country. Out Of the million men who
fell in battle or died in military hospi
tails you cannot call the names Of 1000
nor the names Of 800, nor the anne o.
100, nor tho names of 80. Oblivion! Arr
the feet of the dancers who were at the bal
of the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels
the night before Waterloo all still? Al
still. Are all the ears that heard tin
guns of Bunker Hill all deaf? All deaf
Are the eyes that saw the coronation o
George III all closed2 All closed. Obliv
ion! A hundred years from now Their
will not be q being on this earth tina
knew we ever lived.
WELCOME TO His MEAL.
In some old family record a descend
- .A.1,;c. san Tho apcaotral lima ma,