Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-11-18
ACOOMAC C. H. VA SATURDAY. NOVEMBER Is, 1893
and the furnaces Inside raging to get
out. Oblivionl The world itself will
roll into it as easily as schoolboy's in

lUl1 lutO>1S do CdSllJ 10 dSO1oO4DOJ o IL
dia rubber ball rolls down o hill, and
when our world goes 1t is so interlocked
by the law Of gravitction with other
worlds that they will go, too, and 80 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 be sure
pediment for any slab Of commemora-
ton of the fact that we ever lived or
died at all. Our Garth is struck with
death. The axletree Of the constella-
tions will break and let down the popu-
lations of othcr worlds. Stellar, lunar,
solar mortality. Oblivionl 1t can swal-
low and will swallow whole galaxies Of
worlds as easily as a crocodile takes
down frog:
Yet oblivion does not remove or swal-
low anything that had better not be re-
moved OF swallowed. The old monster
is welcome to his meal. This world
would long ago have been overcrowded
if it had not been for the merciful remov-
al of nations and generations What if
all the books had lived that were eyer
written and printed and published? The
libraries would by their immensely have
DISTRACTED intelligence and made all.re-
search impossible. Tho fatal epidemic Of
books was merciful epidemic.
Many Of the state and national libra
Ties 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 tho 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 WIS 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
out. The waters of Lethe. the fountain
of forgetfulness, are healthful draft.
The history wo 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 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 It's 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.
Oblivionl A hundred years. But while
I recognize this universal submergence
of things earthly, who wants to be for
gotten? Not one Of us.
Absent for few weeks or months
from home, it cheers US to know that we
are remembered there. tits phrase we
have all pronounced, Ihope- 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 Eyes" and call US Dynamo, 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 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 boyhood, met one whomI had not
seen since we played together at 10 years
Of age, and I had peculiar pleasure in
puzzling him little as to who I was,
and can hardly describe the sensation
as after awhile he mumbled out: "Let
me see. Yes, you are De Witt" Veal
like to be remembered.
Now, Ihave to tell you that this obliV-
lon Of which l 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 trillon quadril-
lion quintillion years from now than
that we should be remembered six weeks.
am going to tell you how the thing can
be done and will be done.
SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE ErFACED.
We may build this Everlasting re-
membrance," as my text styles it, into
the supernal existence of those to whom
we do hndnesses in this world. You
must remember that this infrm and
treacherous faculty which we now call
memory is in the future state to be COM
plete and perfect. Everlasting remem-
brancer' 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 9
child fallen on the curbstone, and by
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 better3
Did you lead a Magdalen of the street
into midnight mission, where the Lord
said to her, "Neither do / condemn thee;
go and sin no morer Did you tell
man, clear discouraged in his wayward-
ness and hopeless and plotting suicide,
that for him was near by LAYER In
which he might wash and q coronet of
eternal blessedness he might wear? What
are epitaphs In graveyards, what are
eulogiums in presence Of those whose
breath is in their nostrlls, what are un-
read biographies in tho alcoves Of a city
library, compared with the inperishable
records you have made in the illumined
memories Of those to whom you did such
t:.J.oorooo Eor,ot %Ia,,oo Thov cnnn0f