The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-11-17
GBLIvION'S DEFEATS.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE breaches A SER
MON OF coNSoLlNG INFLUENCE.


MON OF coNSoLlN6 INFLUENCE.
Today and One Hundred Years From Now.
The Necessity of Death and Decay-Time
Is Past, and 1t Is an Everlasting Now.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 12.-Rev, DR.. Tai
mage today preached a sermon Of unusu-
al 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 remembered"
and Psalms cxii, 0, "The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance"
"Oblivion and Its Defeats" is my sub
ject today. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. Itcrunches
individuals, families, communities,
states, nations, continents, hemispheres,
worlds. Its diet is made up of years, of
centuries, of cycles, of millenniurns, Of
cons. That monster is called by Noah
Webster and all the other dictionarians
oblivion. 1t is q steep down which ev-
erything rolls, 1t is n confagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is a
dirge in which all orchestras play and a
period at which everything stops. 1t is
the cemetery of the human race. 1t is
the domain Of forgetfulness. Oblivionl
AT times it throws q 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.
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,
and century is long enough to plant a
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;
Inter den Linden, Berlin, and you will
meet in this year 1898 not one person
who walked there in the year 1893. What
ingulfment! All the ordinary efforts at
perpetuation are dead failures. Walter
SCOTS ''Old Mortality" may go round
with his Chisel to recut the faded cpl
taphs on tombStones, but Old Oblivion
has quicker chisel with which he can
cut out a 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, I'M
| less the grandsOns think that it is an ad-
vantage to keep the old sign up because
| the name Of tho 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 yen will find third
| Rome.
Jerusalem stands today, but dig down
deep enough and You will find Jerusa.
lem underneath, and so 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 are buried 80 feet
deep, or so 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 undertakes
and gravediggers, and if the world stands
long enough the present Brooklyn and
New York and London will have on tor
of them other Brooklyns and New Yorks
and Londons, and only after digging ant
boring and blasting will the archaolo
| gist of far distant centuries come dowr
as far as the highest spires and domes
and turrets of our present American anj
European cities.
Call the roll of the armies of Baldwin
1, or of Charles Martel, or of Marlbor
ough, or of Mithridates, or of Prince
Frederick, or of Cortez, and not one
answer will you hear. Stand them il
line and call the roll of the 1000, 0O(
men in the army of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them in line, the TOO,
600 infantry and the 100000 cavalry O.
the Assyrian army under Minus, and cal
the roll Not one answer. Stand in lin,
the 100000 men of Sesostris, the 200,
900 men of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa, tn,
2,641 900 men under Xerxes at Their
mopyla, and call the long roll. Not ON
answer.
At the opening of our civil war tn
men of the northern and southern armie
were told that if they fell in battle thei
names would never be forgotten by thei
country. Out of the million men VIII
fell in battle or died in military hospi
tails you cannot call the names of 1, ZOO
nor the names of 500, nor the names O
100, nor the names of so. Oblivionl Ar
the feet of the dancers who were at the bal
of the Duchess Of Richmond at Brussel
the night before Waterloo all still? Al
still Are all the ears that heard tn
! guns of Bunker Hill all deafp All deaf
Are the eyes that saw the coronation Q
George III all closed? All closed. Obliy
ion! A hundred years from now ther
will not be q being on this earth tina
knew we ever lived.
WELCOME TO HIS MEAL.
In some old family record descend
ant studying up the ancestral line ma
spell out our name, and from the nearl
faded ink, with great effort, find tina
some person of our name was born som,
where between 1910 and 1890, but the
will know no more about us than we kno'
about the color of child's eyes born La
. night in a village in Patagonia. Tell m
something about your great-grandfathe
What were his features? What did b
do? What year was he born? What yea
did he die? And your great-grandmothe
Will you describe the style of the hs
that she wore, and how did she and you
great grandfather get on in each other
companionship? Was it March weathe
or June?
Oblivion! That mountain surge roll
over everything. Even thepyramids a,
dying. Not a day passes but there
chiseled off chip of that granite. I'll
> ga is triumphing over the land, an