Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-11-13
6BIIVTON'S DEFEATS.
REV. DIR. TAGMAeE breaches A SER
MON OF coNSoLlNe INFLUENCE,

The Necessity of Death and Decay-Tim
Is Past, and 1t Is an Everlasting Now.
BRooEuYN, Nov. l2.--Rev. DR.. TIA
mage today preached sermon of unusr
o. and marvellous consolation to the usua
Irongs after they had sung:
There is no sorrow that heaven cannot cur,
The subject was ''Oblivion and Its De
feats" The texts selected were job xiv
90 He shall be no more. remembered,
and Psalms cxii. @, "The righteous shal
be in everlasting remembrance"
"Oblivion and Its Defeats" is my sub
ject today. There is an old monster tina
swallows down everything. Itcrunehel
individuals, families, communities
states, nations, continents, he,nispheres
worlds. Its diet is made up of years, Of
centuries, 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 ev-
erything rolls. It is conhagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is a
dirge in which all orchestras play and a
period at which everything stops. It is
the cemetery of the human race. 1t is
the domain of forgetfulness. Oblivion!
At times it throws shadow over all Of
us, and would not pronounce it today
if did not come armed in the strength
of the eternal God on your behalf to at
tack it, to rout it, to demolish it.
oBLIvIoN's WORK.
Whv i1ok lOoly ~ fba x.,a =, kI,o -, H.
of the earth disappearl For awhile they
are together, inseparable and to each
other indispensable, and then they part.
Some by marriage, going to establish
other homes, and some leave this life,
and century is long enough to plant
family, develop it, prosperit and obliter-
ate it. So the generations vanish.
Walk up Broadway. New York; State
street, Boston; Chestnut street, Phila-
delphia; The Strand, London; Princess
street, Edinburgh; Champs Elysees, Paris;
Unter den Linden, Berlin, and you will
meet in this year 1893 not one person
who walked there in the year 1893. What
ingulfmentl All the ordinary efforts at
perpetuation are dead failures. Walter
Scott's "Old Mortality" may go round
with his chiselto recut the faded epi-
taphs.- on tombstones, but Old Oblivion
has quicker chisei with which he can
cut out thousand epitaphs while "Old
Mortality" is cutting in one epitaph.
Whole libraries of biographies devoured
of bookworms or unread of the rising |
generations.
All the signs of the stores and ware
houses of great firms have changed, un-
less the grandsons think that it is an ad-
vantage to keep the old sign up because
the name of the ancestor was more COM
mandatory than the name of the descend
ant. The city of Rome stands today,
but dig down deep enough and you come
TO another Rome, buried, and go down
still farther and you will find a third
Rome.
Jerusalem stands today, but dig down
deep enough and you will find a Jerusa-
lem underneath, and go on and deeper
down a third Jerusalem. Alexandria
ON the top of an Alexandria. and the
second on the top of the third. Many OF
the ancient cities are buried 80 feet
deep, or 80 feet deep, or 100 feet deep
What was the matter? Any special ca
lamity? No. The winds and waves and
sands and flying dust are all undertakers
and gravediggers, and if the world stands
long enough the present Brooklyn and
New York and London will have on top
ofthem other Brooklyns and New Yorks
and Londons, and only after digging and
boring and blasting will the arch@olo-
gist of far distant centuries come down
as far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets of our present American and
European cities.
Cali the roll of the armies Of Baldwin
|, or of Charles Martel, or of Marloor-
ough. or of Mithridates. or OF Prince
Frederick, or of Cortez, and not one
answer will you hear. Stand them IN
line and call the roll OF the l,OOO'OOO
men in the army Of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them in line. the l,7OO,..
900 infantry and the 100000 cavalry OF
the Assyrian army under Minus, and call
the roll. Not one answer Stand IN lihe
the !, 600, 900 men of Sesostris, the !, ,2OO''
OUO men OI AIIdACi ASo "N
2,641, 900 men under Xerxes at Iher
1nopyl@, and call the long roll. Not one
answer.
At the openihg Of our civil war th'
men of the northern and southern armies
were told that if they fell in battle thei
names would never be forgotten by tnei
country. Out of the million men wh.
fell in battle or died in military hosp
tails you cannot cali the names OF l'OOV
nor the names of 500, nor the names 0
100. nor the names of so. oblivionl Ar
the feet of the dancers who were at the bal
of the Duchess of Richmond at Brussei
the night before Waterloo all stillf a
still. Are all the ears that heard IN
gans of Bunker Hill all deaff All deal
Are the eyes that saw the coronation
George III all closed? All closed. Ooh'
ionl A hundred years from now thei
will not be being on this ear'n 'ii
knew we ever lived
WELCOME TO HIS MEAL
In some old family record a descen'
ant studying up the ancestral line una
spell out our name. and from the near
fada1 ;,,lr ..,stl, srraaf effort ind I'M