Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-11-29
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "oblivIon and It's Defeats.


be in everlasting remembrance" =" Psalms cxii.
"Oblivion and Its Defeats" is my subject
to-day. There is an old monster that swal-
lows down everything. 1t crunches indi-
viduals, families, communities, States, Ma
tions, continents. hemispheres, worlds. Its
diet is made up Of years, Of centuries, oil
ages, of cycles, of millenniums, OF cons.
That monster is called by Noah Webster and
all the other dictionarians oblivion. 1t is a
steep down which everything rolls. II Is a
confagration I'm which everything Is con-
sumed. 1t is a dirge in whicn all orchestras
play and period at which everything stops.
II is the cemetery of the human race. 1t ls
the domain OF forgetfulness. Oblivion Al
times il throws shadow over all of US. and
/ would not pronounce it to-day IL did not
come armed in the strength OF the eternal
God on your behalf to attack 1t, to rout II, &c
demOiish it.
Why. Just look at the way rhe families OF
the earth disappear. For awhilethey are to-
geSher inseparaDIe and to each other indis-
pensable, and then they part, some by mar
rage going to establish other homes, and
some leave this life. and century is long
enough to plant a family develop 1t, prosper
it and obliterdte il, SO the generations van
ish.
Walkup Broadway, New York State street,
Boston Chestnut street, Philadelphia; the
Strand, London Princess street, Edinburgh
Champs Elysees, Paris Unter den Linisn.
Berlin. and you will meet in this year 1898
not one person who walked it in 1898. What
engulfmeut! All the ordinary effort at per-
petuatiOn are dead failures. Walter scott 5
"Old Mortality may go round with his
chisel TO recut the faded epitaphs on tomb
stones, but Old Oblivion has quicker chisel
with which he can cut out thousand epi-
taphs while cold 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 warehoussa
OF great firms have changed, unless the
grandsons think that it is an advantage to
keep the old sign up, because the name oil
the ancestor was more commendetory tnsn
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 a third Rome. Jerusalem stands to-
day, but dig down deep enough and you viii
find a Jerusalem underneath, and go on an 1
deeper down a third Jerusalem. AleXan ir.t
on the top of an Alexandria, and tie secon
on the top Of the third.
Many OF the ancient cities arc buried thirty
feet deep or fifty deep. or 100 feet. What
was the matter? Any special calamity No.
The winds and waves and sands AMI living
dust are all uniertakers and grave diyErrs,
and If the world stands long enough the
present Brooklyn and New York and London
will have on top Of them other BrooSiyns
and New YOrks and LonlOns, and only ter
digging and boring and blasting will the
srchROlOgist Of far distant centuries cone
down rs far rs the highest spires an 20 n :
and turrets of our present American AM
European cities.
Call the roll OF the armies OF Baldwin l.,
or Of Charles Alartel, or of Marlborough. or
OF Mithridates, or OF Prince Frederick, or OF
Cortes, and not one answer Will you hear.
Stand them in line and call the roll OF 1,OOO,-
600 men in the army OF Thebes. Not ons
answer stand them in line. the 1,1OO,OJO
infantry and the 200, 900 cavalry OF the As
syrian army under Minus, and call the roll.
Not one answer. Stand in line the l, ,009, 900
men Of Sasostris, the l ,200,0OO men OF Artax-
erxes at CunaXa. the 2,6il 900 men under
Xerxcs at ThermOpylR. and call the long
roll. Not one answer.
At the opening OF our civi! war the men OF
the Northern and Southern armies were told
that If they feH in battle their names would
never be forgotten by their country. Out OF
the 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 the names Of fifty. Oblivion
Are the feet of the dancers who were at the
ball 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 deaf2 All deaf Are the eyes that
saw the coronation of George III. all closed?
All closed Oblivion hundred years
earth that knew we ever lived.
In some old family record a descendant
studying up the ancestral line may spell out
our name, and from the nearly faded ina.
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 we know about the color OF a child 8
eyes born last night in a village in Pats-
gonia. Tell me something about your great
grandfather. What were his features? Mnat
did ne do? What year was he born! what
year did he die? And your great-Srand-
mother. Will you describe the style OF the
hat she wore, and how did she and your
great-grand father get on in each other g
companOnship? Was it March weather or
June?
Oblivion That mountain surge rolls over
everything Even the pyramids are dying.
Not day passes but there is chiseled of a
chip Of that granite. The sea is triumphing
over the lant. and what is going on at Coney
Island IS going on all around the world, and
the continents are crumDling into the waves,
and while this is transpiring on the outside
Of the world the not ch,ssl OF the eternal fire
is digging under the foundation Of the earth
and cutting its way out toward the surface.
1t surprises me to hear people say they do
not think the world will finally be burned
up, when all scientists will tell you that 1t
has for ages been on fire. Why, there IS only
n crust between Us and the furnaces inside
raging to get out.
oblivion The world itself will roll into
It as easily as a schoolboy's india rubber ball
rolls down hill. and when our world goes
it is so interlocked blythe law OF gravitation
with other worlds that they will co. too, and
so far from having our memory perpetuated
bv a monument of Aberdeen granite in this
world there is no world in sight OF our
strongest telescope that will be a sure pedi-
ment for any slab OF cOmmemoration OF the
fact that we ever lived or died at all. Our
earth Is struck with death. The aXletree OF
the 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 a 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 meal. 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
mensity have obstructed intelligence and
made all research impossible. The fatal
epidemic OF books was a merciful epidemic
Many OF the State and National libraries
to-day are only morgues In which dead
books are waiting for some one to come and
recognize them. What il 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 re-
membering. 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 CEN
turv. So many things have come into the
world that wera not III TO stay in. we ought
to he glad they wera put out. The waters OF
Lethe. the fountain Of fOrSetlulness, are a
healthful draft. The history we have OF the
world in ages past is always one sided and
cannot he depanlel on. History is fiction
illustrated by few struggling flsS-, In all
the Pantheon the weakest goddess Is Clio
the so idass Of history. and inst ea5 of being
represented by sculptOrs as holding scroll
might better be represented as limpinG on
crutchaS.
Faithful history is the saving OF few