Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-11-24
LEV. DIR. TALMAGE,
THE BROOKLYN DIVTNE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON
Subject: "ObUvion and Its Defeats.

| Subject: "ObIIViOn and Its Defeats.
TEXTS: "He stnU he M more ,.oapn,
ber"d, Job xiv. 20; "Thc y5qhtoogs shni
be IN eoey'La&titJ rem c"l5Tn"ca,' Psalms cxii.l
| 6.
'Oblvion anI It's Defeats is ny subject
| to-day. There is an old monster that swa!-
lows down everything. It crunGhe5 indi-
| vIdupts, families. communities, States, Ma
| tfons, continents, hensphares, worlds. IT.
| diet IL male mp Of years. Of centuries. Oi
| ages, OF cycles. of micnniums. Of eOns.
| That monster is called by Noah Webster and
all the other dictiOnarians oblivion. 1t is a
| steep down which everything rolls. 1t is a
| conhagrdtion in which everything ~fs con.
. s'itrcd. u il a durge in which all Orchestraq
! play and period at which everything stops.
| 1t IS the cemetery of the human rlca. 1t il
the do main Of f0rgetfninass. O5iviou! At
| times it throws 4 shadow over all OF u. and
! | would not pronounce it to-day if | dit not
| come armed in the strength OF tho etarll Il
! God on yOur behalf ID attack il, to rOut it. to
| drmOiish it,
Why, just look at tho W W the families OF
! the earth disappear. For awhile they are to-
! gcther. inSeparab'e and to each other in lis
! pensable. and then they part. some by mar
riaSe going to establish other homes, aud
| some leave this life, and century is long
| enough to plant n FAMILY. develop it. prosper
| it and o1literate it, 50 the generations van
| ish.
Walk up Broa iway, New York State street.
! Boston, Chestnut street, Philadelphia the
| Stranl. London Princess street, Edinburgh ,
| Champs Elysees, Paris Unter den Linden.
! Berlin, and you will inset in this year 1893
! not one p-rSOn who walked it i'll 1893 What
! cngulfmGnt! All the ordinary effort at per
! petuItion are dead failures. Walter Scott g
| "Old Mortality" may 90 round with his
| chisel 10 recnt the failed cpitaphs on tomb
| stones, but Old Oblivion hasa quicker chisel
| with which he can cut out thousand ept-
! 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 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 moro cOmmendatCry than
the name OF the descendant. Tho city OF
Rome stands to-day, but dig down deep
enough and you come to another Rome,
buried, and go down still farther and you
will tin1 third Rome. Jerusalem stands to-
day, but dig down deep enough and you will
| find Jerusalem underneath, and 90 on and
deeper down third Jerusalem. Alexandria
on the top OF an Alexandria, and the second
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 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 IOrkS and JIOpdOns, and only after
digging and boring and blasting will the
archiROlOyst of far distant centuries come
down as far rs the highest spires and dOmeS
and turrets Of our present American and
European cities.
Call the roll OF the armies of Baldwin J.,
or of Charles Martel, or Of Marlborough, OF
of Mithridates. or of Prince Frederick, or of
COrteS and not one answer will you hear.
Stand them in line AMI clll the roll Of ,000,-
600 men in tho army of ThebeS. Not one
answer. Stand them in line. the 1.700.000
infantry and the 200, 900 cavalry of tho AS
syrian army under Minus, and call the roll
Not one answer. Stand in line the 100000
men of SesOstris. tho POO. 900 men of Artax-
erxas at Cunaxa. the 2,641. 900 men under
NerxeS at ThermOpylD, 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 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 800, nor the names
OF 100. nor the names of fifty. Oblivion! !!
Are the feet Of tho dancers who were at tho
ball OF the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels
the night before Waterloo all still? All still
Are all tho that heard the guns OF Bun
ker Hill all deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes that
saw the coronation of George III. all closed?
All closed. Oblivion A hundred years
from E"w there Will not be a being on this
earth that knew we over lived.
In some old family record 4 descendant
studying up the arc ,stral lin may spell out
our name, aud from the nearly faded ink,
with great effort, find that some person OF
our name was born somewhere between 1910
AMI 1890. hut they will know no more about
us than we know about the color of Il chltds
eyes born last night in a village in Pata-
gOnia. Tell me something about your great
Grandfather What were his features? What
did he do? What year was he born? What
veHr did he die? And your great-Srand-
mother Will you describe the style of the
hat she wore. AMI how did she and your
grandfather get on in each others
companionship? Was it March weather or
June?
Oblivion! That mountain surge rolls over
everything Even the pyramids are dying.
Not u day passes but there is chiseled Off
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. AMI
Il e continents are crumblinG into the waves,
and while this is tranSpiring on the outside
of the world the hot chisel OF the eternal fire
is digging under the foundation OF the earth
and cutting its way out tOWdr the surface.
1t surprises me to hear people say tney 90
not think the world will finally be burned
up when all scientists will tell you that II
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
if as easily as a schoolboy's india rubber ball
rolls down u hill. and when our world goes
il is so iuterlOcked by the law OF SraVltatlon
with other worlds that they will go, too, AMI
SO far from having our memory perpetutted
hv monument of Aberdeen granite in this
world thpro is no world in sight OF our
strOn ngest telescope that will be- sure p9dl-
mont for any slab of commemOratlon OF the
fact that we ever lived or died at all. Our
earth is struck with death. The aXietree OF
the consultations will break and let down
the nonulation of other worlds. Stellar,
lunar solar mortality. Oblivion! 1t can
swallow and will swallow whole gataXleS OF
worlds as easily rs Il crocodile takes down
| a frog.
ANYTHING that had better not be removed or
| swallowed The Old monster is welcome 10
| his meal. This world would long ago have
been overcrowdcI if it hal not been Tor the
| merciful removal OF Nations an gen d.
! tiOns What if all the books had lived thit
| were ever written and printed aai pu3-
| lished? The libraries would by their I'M
| mensity have O5structe1 intelligence an |
| made ali research impossible. rho fatal
epidemic of books was a merciful epidemic.
| Mrny of the State and National norarie3
! to-day are only mOrgueS in when deaCi
| books are waiting for some one to come AMI
! recognizes 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 the past
generations of mankind were not. worth re-
membering. The first useful thing tha'
many people did was to die, tn cir cradle
| misfortune and their grave Il boon.
This world was hardly Il comfortable place
to live in before the middle OF the last cen
tury. 50 many things have come into til
world that were not fit to stay in. ouSh
TO he gla they were put out. The waters o
Lethe. the fountain of forgetfulness, are
heathful draft. The history We have Of TIL
world in ages past is always one sided an
cannot be depended on. H istory is fiction
illustrated by few stragg ling facts. In al
the Pantheon the weakest goddess is Clio
IL