The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-11-17

worlds as easily as crocodile takes
down frog.
Yet oblivion does not remove or swal-
low anything that had better not be re-
moved or swallowed. The old monster
is welcome to his meal. This world
would long ago have been overcrowded
If it had not been for themerciful remov-
al of nations and generations What if
all the books had lived that were ever
written and printed and publishedl The
libraries would by their immensely have
INSTRUCTED intelligence and made all re-
search impossible. The fatal epidemic of
books was q merciful epidemic.
Many of the state and national libra
ries today are only morgues in which
dead books are waiting for some ono to
come and recognize them. What if all
! the people that had been born were still
alive? We would have been elbowed by
our ancestors of ten centuries ago, and
people who ought to have said their last
/ word 5000 years ago would snarl Mt us,
saying, "What are you doing here?"
There would have been no room to turn
around. Some of the past generations of
mankind were not worth remembering.
The first useful thing that many people
did was to die-their cradle misfortune
and their grave boon.
This world was hardly comfortable
place to live in before the middle of the
last century. So many things have come
into the world that We're not fit to stay
in we ought to be glad they were put
out. The waters of Lethe, the fountain
of forgetfulness, are II hcalthful draft
The history we have of the world in ages
past is always one sided and cannot be
depended on. History is fiction illus
trated by a few struggling facts. In all
the Pantheon the weakest goddess is
Clio, the goddess of history, and instead
of being represented by sculptors as
holding a scroll might better lie repre-
sented as limping on crutches.
Faithful history is the saving of few
things out of more things lost. The i'm
mortality that comes from pomp of OBJ
sequies or granite shaft or building named
after its founder or page Of recognition
in some encyclopedia is an Immortality
unworthy of ones ambition, for it will
all cease and is no immortality at all.
Oblivion! "A hundred years. But while
l recognize this universal submergence
of things earthly, who wants to be for
gotten? Not one of us.
Absent for a few weeks or months
from home, it cheers us to know that we
are remembered there. tits a phrase we
have all pronounced, II hope you missed
me-" Meeting some friends from whom
we have been parted many years, we in
quire, "Did you ever see me before?" and
they say Yes" and call us by name, and
we feel a delightful sensation thrilling
through their hand into our hand, and
running up from elbow to shoulder, and
then parting, the one current Of delight
ascending to the brow and the other de-
scending to the foot, moving round and
round in concentric circles until every
nerve and muscle and capacity Of body
and mind and soul is permeated with de-
light.
A few days ago, visiting the place of
my boybood, met one whom had not
seen since we played together at 10 years
of age, and l had peculiar pleasure in
puzzling him little as to who was,
and l can hardly describe the sensation
as after awhile he mumbled out: "Let
me see. Yes, you are De Witt" We all
like to be remembered.
Now, have to tell you that this obliv-
ion of which have spoken. has its de-
feats, and that there is no more reason
why we should not be distinctly and Wv
idly and gloriously remembered five
hundred million billion trillion luadril-
lion quintillion years from now than
that we should be remembers six weeks
am going to tell you how the thing can
be done and will be done.
SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE EFFACED.
We may build this everlasting re-
membrance," as my text styles it, into
the supernal existence of those to whom
we do kindnesses in this world. You
must remember that this infirm and
treacherous faculty which we now call
memory is in the future state to be COM
plete and perfect. Everlasting remem-.
brancev' Nothing will slip the stout
grip of that celestial faculty. Did you
help widow pay her rent? Did you find
for that man released from prison place
to get honest work? Did you pick up
child fallen on the curbstone, and b.
stick of candy put in his hand stop the
hurt on his scratched knee? Did you as
sure business man, swamped by the
stringency of the money market, that
, times after awhile would be better?
Did you lead Magdalen of the street
into midnight mission, where the Lord
said to her, Neither do condemn thee;
go and sin no moreT Did you tell
man, clear discouraged in his hayward
ness and hopeless and plotting suicide,
that for him was near by laver in
! which he might wash and coronet of
. eternal blessedness he might wear? What
: are epSaphs in graveyards, what are
. eulogiums in presence of those whose
!. breath is in their nostrils, what are I'M
t read biographies in Tho alcoves Of city
: library, compared with tho imperishable
9 records you have made in the illurlined
t memories Of those to whom you did such
kindnesses? Forget them? They cannot
forget them.
? splcndor, there are some things the glori-
= fed Of heaven cannot do, and this is one
t of them. They cannot forget an earthly
: kindness done. They have no cutlass to
y part that cable. They have no strength
' to hurl into oblivion that benefaction.
It Has Paul forgotten the inhabitants Of
g Malta, who extended the island hospital
:. ity when be and others with him had
Q felt, added to a sllipwreck, the drenching
r rain and the sharp cold? Has the victim
Z of the highwayman on the road to Jeri-
t cho forgotten the Good Samaritan with
r n medicamcnt of oil and wine and free
s ride to the hosiery? Have the English
r soldiers who went up to God from the
Crimean battlefelds forgotten Florence
8 Nightingale
e Through all eternity will the north
s ern and southern soldiers forget the
o northern and southern women who ad
+, ministered to the dying boys in blue and
gray after the awful fights in Tennessee