Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-11-24
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine'S Sun
day Sermon.
lubiect: "Oblivion and Its Defeats"

Uo "e eCeTCuSttIt9 rem ignorance, PSalmS cX1.
6.
"Oblivion and Its Defeats" is my subjec
| to-day. There Is an old monster that sWal
/ lows down everything. It crunches indi
vlduals, families, communities, States, Ma
tions, continents, hemispheres, worlds. II!
diet is made up of years, of centuries, o
ages, OF cycles, of millenniums, of cons
That monster is called by Noah Webster and
all the other dictionarians oblivion. 1t is q
steep down which everything rolls. 1t Is q
condagration In which everything is con-
sumed. 1t Is dirge in which all orchestras
play and period at which everything stops.
II is the cemetery OF the human race. 1t is
the domain Of forgetfulness Oblivion At
times 1t throws shadow over all of us, AMI
L would not pronounce it to-day if did not
cone armed in the strength of the eternal
God on your behalf to attack it, to rout it, to
demolish it.
Why, just look at the way rhe families OF
the earth disappear. For awhile they are to-
gether, inseparable and to each other inds-
pensahle. and then they part. some by mar
rlage going to establish other homes, and
some leave this life, and century is long
enough to plant family, develop it, prosper
1t and obliterate it, So the generations van
isb.
Walk up Broadway, New York State street,
Boston Chestnut street, Philadelphia the
Strand, London Princess street, Edinburgh
Champs Eysees, Paris Inter den Linden.
Berlin, and you will meet in this year 1898
not one person who walked it in 1893 What
engulfment! Allthe ordinary effort at per-
petuation are dead failures. Walter SCOTS
sold Mortality" may go round with his
chisel to recut the faded eptaphs on tomb
stones, but Old Oblivion has quicker chisel
with which he can cut out thousand cpl.
taphs while "Old Mortality" is cutting in one
epitaph. Whole libraries of biographies de-
voured of bookworms or unread of the rising
generations
All the signs of the stores and warehouses
OF great firms have changed, unless the
grandsons think that it is an advantage to
keep the old sign up, because the name of
the ancestor was mora commendatory than
the name of the descendant. The city of
Rome stands to-day, but dig down deep
enough and you come to another Rome,
buried and go down still farther and you
will find third Rome. Jerusalem stands to-
day, but dig down deep enough and you will
find Jerusalem underneath, and go on and
deeper down third Jerusalem. Alexandria
on the top of an Alexandria, and the second
on the top of the third.
Many OF the ancient cities arc buried thirty
feet deep, or fifty deep, or 100 feet What
was luo I1dtlcIl ANY special cdldUllty! NO.
The winds and waves and sands and flying
dust are all undertakers and grave diggers,
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 alter
digging and boring and blasting will the
of far distant centuries come
Town as far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets of our present American and
European cities.
Call the roll of the armies Of Baldwin l.,
Or of Charles Martel, or of Marlborough. or
If Mithridates, or of Prince Frederick, or Of |
Jortes, and not one answer will you hear.
Stand them in line and call the roll of 1.0OO,-
100 men in the army of Thebes. Not ono
answer. Stand them In line. the 1,700,00
Infantry and the 20O,0 900 cavalry of the AS
yrian army under Minus, and call the roll.
Sot one answer. Stand in line the ,000, 900
men of Sesostris. the /, 200 900 men OF Artax-
rxes at Cunaxa, the 2,641 900 men under
lerXes at Thermopyl&, and call the long
oil. Not one answer.
At the opening of our civil war the men OF
he Northern and Southern armies were told
bat If they fell in battle their names would
ever be forgotten by their country Out Of
be million men who fell in battle or died in
military hospitals, you cannot call the names
f 1000, nor the names OF 500. nor the names
( 100, nor the names of fifty. Oblivion
re tho feet of the dancers who were at the
all Of Che Duchess of Richmond at Brussels
he night before Waterloo all still? All still.
re all the ears that heard the guns of Bun
er Hill all deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes that
aw the coronation of George III: all closed?
ii closed. Oblivion A hundred years
.om now there will not be a being on this
arth that knew we ever lived.
4
udying up the ancestral line may spell out
ur name, and from the nearly faded Ink,
18th great effort, find that some person OF
ur name was born somewhere between 1910
nd 1890, but they will know no more about
8 than we know about the color of chid's
res born last night in a village in Pata-
Onia. Tell me something about your great
randfather. What were his features? What
Id be do? What year was he born? What
ear did he die? And your great-grand-
other. Will you describe the style of the
at she wore, and how did she and your
get on in each others
'mpanionship? Was it March weather or
Inc?
Oblivion! That mountain surge rolls over
Ierything. Even the pyramids are dying.
OF day passes but there is chiseled of "a
Zip of that granite. The sea is triumphing
7er the land. and what is going on at Coney
Iland is going on all around the world, and
lie continents are crumbling into the waves,
nd while this is Transporting on the outside
the world the hot chisel OF the eternal fire
digging under the foundation of the earth
i'd cutting its way out toward the surface
surprises me to hear people say they do
1t think the world will finally be burned
D, when all scientists will tell you that it
is for ages been on fire. Why, there is only
crust between US and the furnaces inside
gng to get out.
oblivion! The world itself will roll into
as easily as a schoolboy's india rubber ball
lis down hill, and when our world goes
is so interocked by the law OF gravitation
it'll other worlds that they will 20, too, and
far from having our memory perpetuated
a monument of Aberdeen granite in this {
orld there is no world in sight of our
-ongest telescope that will be a sure pedi-
emit for any slab of commemoration Of the s
ct that we ever lived or died at all. Our J
nth is struck with death. The axletree of t
Q consultations will break and let down 6
@ population of other worlds. Stellar, t
mar, solar mortality. Oblivion 1t can :
allow and will swallow whole galaxles OF I
,rlds &C easily as a crocodile takes down
rog. l
Yet oblivion does not remove or swallow
ything that had better not be removed or
allowed The old monster is welcome to
meal. This world would long ago have
en- overcrowded if it hal not been for the
,rciful removal of Nations and genera Z
MS. What if all the books had lived that
re ever written and printed and pub c
he'd? The libraries would by their i'm
nsitv have ehstructed intelligence and n
lde all research impossible. The fatal !,
idemic of books was merciful epidemic. I,
Many of the State and National libraries -
day are only morgues in which dead "
Oks are waiting for some one to come and :,