Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-11-17
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine'S Sum
day Sermon.
Subject: "Oblivion and Its Defeats"

! lows down everything. IL crunches indi-
| vdulls. families, communities, States, Ma
lions, continents. hemispheres, worlds. It's
diet is made up OF years. OF centuries, oil
! ages. o. cycles, Of millenniums, OF cons.
| That monster is called by Noah Webster and
all the other dictionlrians oblivion. 1t is a
steep down which everything rolls 1t is n
! connagration in which everything is con-
| sumPd. il + n dirge in which all Orchestra5
| play and period at which everything stops.
| II is the cemetery OF the human race. 1t Is
! the domain OF forgetfulness. Oblivion At
| times it throws a shadow over all OF US. and
! / would not pronounce it to-day If | did not
| come armed in the strength OF the eternal
| God on your behalf to attack it, TO routit, to
| denoish it,
Why. Just look at the way the families OF
| the earth disappear. For awhile they are to-
! gether. inseparable and TO each other in1is-
! pensable, and then they part. some by mar
| riage going to establish other homes, and
some leave this life and century is long
| enough to plant family, develop it. prosper
! it and o5literate it. SO the generations van
| isb.
Walk up Broadway, New York State street
! Boston Chestnut street. Philadelphia the
/ Strand. London Princess street, Edinburgh
Champs Elysees, Paris Inter den Linden.
| Berlin. and you will meet in this year 1898
not one person who walked it in 1898. What
cngulfment All the ordinary effort ut per
! petuatiOn are dead failures. Walter ScOtt's
! cold Mortality may 20 round with his
| chisc to recut the faded cpitaphs on tomb
stones. but Old Oblivion has quicker chisel
with which he can cut out thousand cpl
taphs while cold Mortality is cutting in one
cpitaph Whole libraries OF biographies de-
y0ured OF bOokYOrms or unread OF the rising
generations
All the signs Of the stores and warehouses
o 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 more 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 90 down still farther and you
will find third Romo. Jerusalem stands to-
day. but dig down deep enough and YOU will
ind Jerusalem underneath, and 60 on and
deeper down n third Jerusalem. Alexandra
un the top Of an Alexandria, and the second
ON the top OF the third.
Many Of the ancient cities arc buried thirty
ieet deep or fifty deep, or 100 feet. What
Was the matter? Any special calamity No.
The winds and waves and sands and flying
dust are all nm lertakers and grave diggerS,
Gndif 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
arahmolo-ist OF far distant centuries come
down rs far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets OF Our present American AMI
European cities.
Gail the roll OF the armies OF Baldwin l..
o. o, Charles Martel. or Of Marlborough, or
oi Mnhrdates or OF Prince Frederick. or oil
C9rtes. and not one answer will you hear
stand them in line AMI call the roll OF 1000
o00 men in the army OF Thebes. Not one
answer. Slant them in linz. the 1.70)00)
infantry and the 200 900 cavalry OF the As
syrian army under Minus. an ] call the roll
Not one answer Stand in line the l,0O0,OO)
men % Sasostris. the 200, 90 mea Of Artax-
rrx ,s AT Cunaxa. the 2,Gll00 men under
Xerxes at ThermopylR. and cali the long
roll. Not one answer.
At the opening of our civil war the men OF
the Northern and Southern armies were told
that If they fell i'm battle heir names would
never be forgotten 10y their country. Out OF
the million men who fell in battle or died in
military hospitals. YOU cannot call the names
o. 1000 nor the names OF 500. nor the names
~ 100. nor the names OF ATTY. Oblivion
Are the feet Of the dancers who were at the
ball Of the Duchess OF Richmond at Brussels
the night before Waterloo all still2 All still
Ar all the ears that hearl the guns OF Ban
Ler Hill all deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes that
saw the coronation Of q sorge ILL., all closed;
All closed Oblivion 4 hundred years
iron now there will not be a being on this
earth that knew we ever lived.
In some old family record des ;endant
STUDYING Mp the ancestral line may spell ont
our name. AMI from the nearly faded ini.
with great effort find that some person ct
our name was born somewhere between 1910
and 1890 but they will know no mOrs about
us than we know about the color OF child
ewes born last night in village IN Rata
gonna. Tell me something about your great
grandfather. What were his features; what
dill he doy What year was he horn? What
wear did he die AMI your great-grand-
mother. Will You describe the style Of the
hat she wore an l how did she and your
great-grandfather get On in each others
companionshp? Was 1t March weather or
June:
Oblivion That mountain surge rolls over
everything. Even the pyramids are dying
Not a day passes but Their, is chiselei OF
chin Of that granite. The sea is triunphing
over theland. and what Is going on AZ Conay
Tslani is going on all aroul the world. AMI
the continents are crumbling into tn" WAVES,
AM while this is Transporting on the outside
OF the worll the hot CHS Il Ol the eternll frs
lS UlEEllr lN lot llf lOuu MUM "a AlT TiAAH
IN cu'tin. ia way ont tOwarl the suriI"".
Il surp-is Is NE to hear people say they do
not think the world will finally be hurnei
up. wnen all scientists will tell you that it
has FOX ages been on fire. Why there Is only
a crust between US and the iurnlees inside
raging 20 get out
oblivion, The world itself will roll into
It rs easily rs a s,hoolboy's iniia rubber ball
rolls down hill. and when our world goej
It is - interlOcked by the law OF grayitation
WITH other worlds that they will 90, too. AMI
So far from having our memory perpetuatet
bv a monument OF Aberdeen granite in this
world there is no world in sight Of our
strongest teles cope that will be a sure pe1i-
men, Tor any SLAB OF COMMUNICATION OF the
fact that W. eyer lived or died nj all. Our
earth is struck with death. The aXleir'e ol
the consultations will break AMI let down
the population OF other worlds Stellar
lunar. solar mortality. Oblivion Il can
swallow and will swallow whole galaxies OF
worlds as easily as a crocodile takes down
'rog.
We, oblivion does not remove or swallow
auything that had better not be removed or
swallowed The old monster is welcome to
his meal This world would long ago have
been overcrowlel il it IN | not been foe the
mercifu removal OF Nations AMI genera
tions. What il all the be )kS ha liyeithlt
were ever written an printed AMI pup
lished2 The Libraries would by their i'm
mensity have oJsiru'tel Intelligence an
made all research impossible. The fatal
endemic OF books was mer,iful epidemic
Many of the State ami Nation1l Libraries
to-day are only mOrgues in which dead
hooks 1rs waiting for 50 mo ons TO come an
recognize them. What II all the people
that hal been born were still alye' We
would have been elbowe1 by our ancestors
OF ten centuries ago, an people who ought
TO have said their last word 5000 years ago
would snarl at us. saying What are you
doing here?" Tlers would have been nc
room to turn arounl Some Of the pas
generations of mankind we're not. worth re
membering. The first useful thing tina
many people did was to die, tn cir crauie
misfortune and their grave boon.
This world was hardly comfortable pace
TO liy, in before the middle Of the last cen
fury. So many things have come into the
world that were not fit to stay in. We ought
TO be glad they were put out. The waters OF
Lethe. the fountain Of fOrgetfulness, are
healthfu draft. The history we have OF the
world in ages past is always one sided AMI
cannot be depended on. history IS fiction
illustrated by a few stragg ling facts In all
the Pantheon the ws9kest goddess Is Clio,
the 20 idess OF history, AMI instead OF being
represented by sculptors as holding scroll
might better be repressnte as limping on