The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-11-15

usual and marvellous consolation TO the
usual throngs, after they had sung:
There is no sorrow that heaven cannot
cure.
The subject was oblivion and Its De-
feats." The texts selected were Job
xiv, 20. He shall be no more remem-
bered," and Psalms cxii. 6, The righte-
Gus shall be in everlasting remem-
bIance."
"Oblivion and Its Defeats" is my sub
ject today. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. 1t crunches
individuals, families, communities, states,
nations, continents, hemispheres, worlds.
Its diet is made up of years, of cen
turtles, Of ages, Of cycles, Of milleniums,
OF cons. That monster is called by Noah
Webster and all the other dictionarians
oblivion. It is a steep down which ev-
erything rolls. 1t is a conha grafton i'm
which everything is consumed. II 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 Obliv-
ionl At times it throws a shadow over
all OF us, and l would not pronounce it
today If / did not come armed i'm the
strength Of the eternal God on your be-
half TO attack it, to rout it, to demolish
it.
Why, just look at the way the families
OF the earth disappear 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,
,1s,,f
family. develop it, prosper it and oblit-
crate it. So the generations vanish.
Old ObIivion's ChiseI.
Walk up Broadway, New York; State
St, Boston; Chestnut-st., Philadelphia;
the Strand, London; Princess-st., Edin-
buIgh; Champs Elysees, Paris; Inter den
Linden, Berlin. and you will meet in
this year 1898 not one person who walked
there in the year 1898. What engulfment!
All the ordinary efforts at perpetuation
are dead failures. Walter Scott's "Old
Mortality may go round with his chisel
to recut the faded epitaphs on tomb
stones, but Old Oblivion has a quicker
chisel with which he can cut thousand
epitaphs while "Old Mortality" is cut
ting 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, I'M
less the grandsons think that it is an
advantage to keep the old sign up, be-
cause the name of the ancestor was
more commendatory than the name of
the descendant. 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 Jerusalem 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
thirty feet deep or fifty feet deep or
100 feet deep. What was the matter?
Any special calamity? No The winds
and waves and sands and flying dust
are all undeTtakers and grave-diggers,
and if 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 archaeolo-
gist OF far distant centuries come down
as far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets Of our present American
and European cities.
Armies Swept Away.
Call the roll OF the armies Of Baldwin
l. or of Charles Martel. or of MARI
borough, or of AIithridates, or of Prince
Frederick, or of Cortes, and not one
answer will you hear. Stand them in
line and call the roll Of the ZOO, 900 men
in the army Of Thebes. Not one an
swer. Stand them in line the LOG. 900
infantry and the 100000 cavarly Of the
Assyrian army under Minus. and call
the roll Not one answer. Stand i'm
line the 100000 men of Sesostris. the
100000 men of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa,
the 2,641, 900 men under Xerxes at Their
mopylae, and call 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 in
battle their names would never be for
gotten by their country. Out Of the
million men who fell in battle or died
in military hospitals, you cannot cal
the names of 1000, nor the names OF
900, nor the names of 100, nor the names
of so. Obliyionl Are the feet of the
dancers who were at the ball Of tbs
night before Waterloo all still? Al
guns of Bunker Hill all deaf? All deaf
Are the eyes that saw the coronation
Of George III all closed? All closed
Oblivioni a hundred years from now
there will not be being on this earth
that knew we ever lived.
Even the Pyramids Are Dying.
In some old family record a descend
ant studying up the ancestral line may
spell out our name. and from the nearly
faded ink. with great effort, find thai
some person of our name was borr
somewhere between 1910 and 1890, bu
they will know no more about us thar
we know about the color of a child.
eyes born last night in a village il
Patagonia Tell me something abou
your great grandfather. What were hi
features? What did he do? What yea
was he born? What year did he die
And your great grandmother? VIII yol
describe the style Of the hat she wore
and how did she and your great grand
father get on in each others compan
ionship2 Was 1t March weather or June
Oblivioni That mountain surge roll
over everything. Even the pyramids arr
dying Not day passes but there il
chiseled off a chip of that granite. tn
sea Is triumphant over the land, anC
what is going on at Coney Island is go
ing on all around the world, and tn
continents are crumbling into the waves
and while this Is transporting on tn
- hi