The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-11-13
OBLIVION ANDIT DEFEATS.
Talma6e breaches on the Monster That
Swallows Humanity.

in Which All OrchestraS Play ana
the Cemetery of the Human Race.
Religion the Only Weapon With
Which Oblivion Can be Defeated.
Brooklyn Nov. l2.-Rev DR.. Talmage
to-day preached a sermon of unusual 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 We're: Job,
24:20: He shall be no more remem-
bered; :" and Psalms 1925: The
tighteous shall be in everlasting remem-
brance"
oblivion. and its Defeats 49, is my sub
ieCt to-day 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
centuries, of ages, Of cycles, Of millenni-
ums. of Bons. That monster is called by
Noah Webster and all the other diction-
arians. oblivion. IL is a steep down which
everything rolls 1t is a COntiagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is
dirge in which all orchestras play. and u
period at which everything stops 1t is
IQe cemetery OF llt human race. IL Is lH6
domain of fOrgeJfulnCSs. Oblivion. At
times it throws a shadow over all Of us.
and / would not pronounce it to-day, if l
did not come armed in the strength of the
Eternal God on your behalf 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.
h4-r fal Itch how
homes, and some leave this life, ana a
century is long enough to plant a family,
develop il. prosper it, and obliterate it.
So the generations vanish. Walk up
Broadway, New York; State street, BOs-
ton Chestnut street, Philadelphia; The
Strand, London; Princess street, Edin-
burgh Champs Elysees, Paris Inter den
Linden, Berlin, and YOU Will meet in this
year 1893 not one person who walked there
in the year 1898. What engulfmentl All
the ordinary efforts at perpetuation are
dead failures. Walter Scott's "Old Nor
tality' may go round with his chisel to
recut the faded epitaphs on tombstones,
out Old Oblivion has a quicker chisel
with which he can cut out a thousand
epitaphs while "Old Mortality" is cutting
in one epitaph. Whole libraries of BIZ
Ographies devOured of boOk-wOrms, or
unread of the rising generations. All the
signs Of the stores and warehouses of
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, Italy, stands to-day, but
dig down deep enough and YOU come to
another Rome buried, and go down still
further and you viii find a third Rome
Jerusalem stands to-day, but dig down
deep enough and you will find a Jerusa-
lem underneath, ana go on and
deeper down, third Jerusalem Alex
andria, Egypt, on the top of an Alex
andria, and the second on the top of
the third. Many of the ancient cities
are buried thirty feet deep, or fifty feet
deep, or one hundred feet deep. What
was the matterl Any special calamity?
No. The winds and waves and sands
and flying dust are all undertakers 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 arch8ologist
OF far distant centuries come down as far
as the highest spires and domes and tur-
rets of our present American and Euro
pean cities Call the roll of the armies
of Baldwin the First, or Of Charles Mar
tel, or Of Marlborough. 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 one
million men in the army of Thebes. Not
one answer. Stand them in line, the one
million, seven hundred thousand infan-
try and the two hundred thousand cav
airy of the AssYriau army under Minus
and call the roll. Not one answer Stand
in line the one million men of Sesas-
iris. one million two hundred thou
sand men of ArtaXerXes at CunaXa, the
two million. six hundred and fortv-one
thousand men under XerXes at Thermop-
ylR, and call the long roll. Not one an
swer. At the opening of our civil war.
the men of the northern and southern
armies were told that if they fell in bat
tie. their names would never be forgotten
by their country. Out of the million men
who fell in battle or died in military hos
pitfalls, YOU can not call the names of a
thousand, nor the names Of five hundred.
nor the names of one hundred. nor the
names of fifty. Oblivion! Are the feet
OF the dancers who at the ball of the
Duchess of Richmond at Brussels the
night before Waterloo all still3 All still.
Are all the ears that heard the Guns of
Bunker Hill, deaf! All deaf. Are the
eyes that saw the coronation of George
the Third all closed All closed. Oblivion
A hundred years from now. there will not
be being on this 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
ink, with great effort, fiEd that some per-
son by our name was born somewhere be-
tween 1910 and 1890, but they will know
no more about us than we know about the
color Of child's eyes born last night in a
village in Patagonia. Tell me something
ABOUT your grandfather. What
were his features What did he do
What year was he born? What year did
he die And your great-grandmother
VIII YOU describe the style of the hat
that she wore and how did she and your
great-grandfather get on in each other
companionship3 Was it March weather
or June! Oblivion That mountain surge
rolls over everything. Even the pyramids
are dying. Not a day passes but there is
chiseled off a chip Of that granite The
sea Is triumphing over the land, and
what is going on at Coney Island is going
on all around the world. and the CONT
nents are crumblinC into the waves. And
while this IS transporting on the outside of
the world, the hot chisCl Of the internal
fire is digging under the Foundation ofthe
earth and cutting its way out toward the
surface. 1t surprises me 10 hear people
say they do not think the world will I'm
ally be burned up, when all scientists will
tell You that it has for ages been on fire
Why, there is only a crust between us and
the furnaces inside raging to get out.
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