Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-11-13

" "N"4iu tlS NOTlu, ana the con
ylnents are crumbling into the waves
ana wnlle this is transpiring on the out
ade OF the world the hot chisel Of tboin
'ernal fire is digging under the founda
hon OF the earth and cutting its wav ont
toward the surface.
bsurprises me to hear people say they
do not think the world will finally bf
= burned up, when all scientists will tell
You that it has for ages been on fire.
Why, there is only crust between MS
and the furnaces inside raging to get
cut. Oblivion! The world itself will
roll into it as easily as a schoolboy's in
Tia rubber ball rolls down a hill, and
when our world goes it is SO interlocked
by the law of gravitation with other
worlds that they will go, too, and so far
from having our memory perpetu4ted by
monument of Aberdeen granite in this
world, there is no world in sight of our
strongest telescope that will be a sure
pediment for any slab of commemora-
ton Of the fact that we ever lived or
died atsall. Our earth is struck with
death. The axletree Of the constella-
tions will break and let down the popu-
lations of other worlds. Stellar, lunar,
solar mortality. Oblivionl 1t can swal-
low and will swallow whole galaxies Of
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 hemerciful remov-
al of nations and generations. What if
all the books had lived that were ever
written and printed and published2 The
libraries would by their immensity have
obstructed intelligence and made all re-
search impossible. The fatal epidemic of
books was merciful epidemic.
Many of the state and national libra
ries today are only morgues in which
dead books are waiting for some one 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 at 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 were not fit to stay
in we ought to be glad they were put
put. The waters of Lethe. the fountain
Of forgetfulness, are healthful 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 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 be 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
| 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
ara remembered there. tits phrase we
have all pronounced, II hope you missed
me-" Meeting some friends from whom
we have been parted many years, we in
ouire, "Did you ever see me before" and
they saw ''Yes, and call US by name, and
we feel delightful sensation thrilling
through their hand into our hand. and
running up from elbow to shoulder, and
then parting, the one current OF dehght
ascending TO the brow and the other de-
scepding to the foot, moving round and
ronnd in concentric circles until every
nerve and muscle and capacity OF body
and mind and soul is permeated with de-
light. .looo %
NV boyhood, | met one whom | had not
seen since we played together at 10 years
of age. and I had peculiar pleasure IN
puzzling him little as to who was
and | can hardly describe the sensation
os after awhile he mumbled out: Let
me see. Yes, you are De Witt WesiI
like to be remembered. . ,,-
Now have to tell you that this obllv
ION Of which have spoken has its De
feats and that there is no more reason
wbv we should not be distinctly ana yiy
idly and gloriously remembered nv "
hundred million billion trillion quaGrll
hon ouintillion years from now 'hai
thot we should be remembered SIX weeks
+ am going 10 tell you how the thing ca'
be done and will be done
SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE EFFAcED.
We may build this everlasting fs
r,emb brance," !" as my text styles H. mi
{ the snpernal existence OF those 10 waoi
we do kindnesses in this world 40
) inst remember that this inhrm an
/ .-sacberous faculty which we now ca
',emorv is in the future state TO De con
,.a-fact Everlasting Temen