The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-11-29
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Oblivion and It's Defeats.

TEXTS sHe shall be no more renen,
5ered," Job XIV, 20; ''The righteous shdG
DE in everlasting ren, enebrance,' Psalms cxii.
6.
:sOblivion and It's Defeats" is my subject
to-day. There is an old monster that swal
lows down everything. 1t crunches indt
viduals. families, communities, States, Ma
tions. continents. hemispheres, worlds. Its
dict 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
steep down which everything rolls. 1t Is
conf1agratiou in which everything IS con
sumed. It is dirSe in which all orcnestras
play and period at which everything stops.
It is the cemetery OF the human race. It is
the domain Of forgetfulness. Oblivion! Al
times it throws shadow over all OF US. and
would not pronounce it to-day II did not
come armed in the strength OF the eternal
God on your behalf to attack it, to roatit 10
demolish it.
Why. lust look at tho way rhe families OF
the earth disappear. For awhilethey are to-
gether. inseparable and to each other Indis-
pensable, and then they part. some by mar,
riage going to establish other homes. and
some leave this life, and a century Is long
enough to plant q family. develop it. prosper
it and obliterate it, SO the generations van
ish.
Walk up Broadway, New York State street,
Boston Chestnut street, Phllade!pola tne
Strand, London Princess street, EdlnourRn;
Champs Elysees. Paris Unter den Linden.
Berlin, and you will meet in this year 1898
not one person who walked 1t in 1898. What
engulfment! All the ordinary effort at per-
petuation are dead failures. Walter Scotts
s'Old Mortality" may 90 round with MS
chisel to recut the faded epitaphs on TOMB,
stones, but Old Oblivion has quicker chlsei
with which he can cut cat a thousand cpl
taphs while cold Mortality" Is cutting In one
epitaph. Whole libraries OF biographies de-
yoursd of bookworuls or unread OF the rising
generations
All the signs Of the stores and warehouses
of great firms have changed. unless the
prandsons think that it Is an advantage to
keep the old sign up, because tte name OF
the ancestor was moro conmendatory tnan
the name of the descendant. The city OF
Rome stands to-day, but dig down deep
enough and you come to anotner nome,
buried, and 20 down still farther and you
Will find third Rome. Jerusalem stands to-
day but dig down deep enough and you Will
And a Jerusalem underneath, and go on and
deeper down third Jerusalem. Alexandra
on the ton 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. Wnat
was the matter? Any special calamity! NO.
The winds and waves and sands ana nylng
dust are ali undertakers and grave diggers,
andif 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
archeologist of far distunt centuries come
down as far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets Of our present American anu
European cities.
or OF Charles Martel, or OF Marlborough, or
of Mithridates, or O. Prince Frederick, or OF
Cortes. and not one answer will you hear.
Stand them in line and call the roll OF ,0OO,-
600 men in the army Of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them in line. the 1,7Oo.Ooo
infantry and the 100000 cavalry OF the AS
syrian army under Minus, and call the roll.
Not one answer. Stand In line the 1,O00,O0O
men ofSesostris, the !, ,20OO OOo men OF Artax-
erxes at Cunaxa, the 2,641. 900 men under
Xerxes at Thermopyls. and call the long
roll. Not one answer.
: At the opening OF our civil war the men OF
tho Northern and Southern armies were told
that il they fell in battle their names would
never be forgotten by their country. Out OF
tho million men who fell In battle or died IN
military hospitals, you cannot call the names
OF 1000, nor the names OF 500, nor the names
of 100. nor tho names OF fifty. Oblivion!
Are the feet OF the dancers who were at the
bali OF the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels
the night before Waterloo all still? All still.
Are all the ears that heard the guns OF Bun
ker Hill all deaf? All deaf. Arc the eyes that
saw the coronation OF George III. all closed!
All closed. oblivion. A hundred years
from now there will not be being on this
earth that knew we ever lived.
In somo old family record descendant
STUDYING up tho ancestral line may spell ouo
our name, and from the nearly faded Ink.
with great effort, find that some person OF
our name was born somewhere between 1910
and 1890, but they will know no more about
us than wo know abou. tho color OF q chitds
eyes born last night in 4 village in Pata-
gonia. Tell me something about your great.
grandfather. What were bis features! What
did he do? What year was he born? What
year did he die? And your great-grand-
mother. Will you describe the style OF the
hat she wore. AMI how did She and your
great-grandfuther get on in each others
eompanionship? Wss 1t March weather or
June?
Oblivion! That mountain surge rolls over
everything. Even the pyramids are dying.
Not day passes bat ths-e Is chiseled QUA
chip of that granite. The sea is triumphing
over the land, and what is going on at Coney
the continents arc cruuabling into the waves,
and while this is transpiring on the outside
of the world the hot chisel OF the eternal fire
"a digging under the foundation OF the earth
and cutting its way out toward the surface.
II surprises me to hear people say they dc
not think the world will finally be burned
up, when all scientists will tell you tnaf IL
has for ages been on fire. Why, there Is only
a crust between US and the furnaces inside
raging to get out.
Oblivion! The world itself will roll into
1t as easily as a schoolboy's india rubber ball
rolls down hill, and when our world goes
ii is so interlocked by the law Of gravitation
with other worlds that they will 90, too, and
so far from having our memory perpetuated
by monument OF Aberdeen granite IN this
world there is no world in sight OF our
strongest telescope that will bea sure pedi-
ment for any slab OF commemoration OF the
fact that VIC ever lived or died at all. Our
Garth is struck with death. The axletree OF
She consultations will break and let down
the population OF other worlds. Stellar,
lunar. solar mortality. Oblivion! It can
swallow and will swallow whole galaxies OF
worlds as easily as crocodile takes down
Q frog.
Yet oblivion does not remove or swallow
ANYTHING that had better not be removed or
swallowed The old monster Is welcome to
his uleal. This world would long ago have
been overcrowded if it had not been for the
merciful removal OF Nations and genera
tions. What if all the books had lived that
were ever written and printed and pub
lished? The libraries would by their i'm
,nansitv have obstructed intelligence end
made all research impossible. Tas rstaI
epidemic Of books was II mer,lful epidemic.
Many CT ths State and National libraries
to-day are only morsues In which dead
books are waiting for some ons to come an1
recognize them. What If all the people
that had been born were still alive? We
would have been ebowad by our ancestors
OF ten centuries ago and psople WAC ought