The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-05-11
THE GENERATIONS.
DR.. Talmage breaches His Twenty
fifth Anniversary Sermon.
The Passing of Generations-No Truthful
Records of Human Life Are Kept
Each Generation Must Correct
Its Own Evils.

On SUNDAY, May %, heV. l.. DeNIeI
Talmage preached his twenty-fifth an
niversary sermon as pastor of the
Brooklyn tabernacle. The subject was
"The Generations" the text being Ec-
clesiastes 4: some generation pass
eth away, and another generation
cometh." DIR. Talmage said:
According to the longevity of people
in their particular century has gen.
Grafton been called 100 years, or so
years, or 30 years By common con-
sent in our nineteenth century, gen.
Grafton is fixed at twenty-five years
The largest procession that ever
moved is the procession of years, and
the greatest army that ever marched
is the army of generations. In each
generation there are about nine full
regiments of days These 9, 125 days
in each generation march with wonder
full precision. They never break ranks.
They never ground arms They never
pitch tents. They never halt. They
are never off on furlough They came
out of the eternity and they move on
toward the eternity of the future.
zone generation passeth, and another
generation cometh."
This is my twenty-ffth anniversary
sermon-1S69 and 1894. 1t is twenty
five years since | assumed the taber-
nacle pastorate A whole generation
has passed. Three generations we have
known. That which preceded our
own, that which is now at the front
and the one coming on. We are at the
heels OF our predecessors, and our sue
cessors are at our heels What gen.
Grafton it was that preceded us! We
who are now in the front regiment are
the only ones competent to tell the new
generation just now coming into sight
who our predecessors were.
The biographers of one of the early
secretaries of the United States never
described the scene that day witnessed
when the secretary was carried dead
drunk from the state apartments to his
own home. Autobiography is written
by the man himself, and no one would
record for future times his own weak
nesses and moral deficits. Those who
keep diaries put down only things that
read we'll No man or woman that ever
lived would dare to make full record of
all the thoughts and words of life
time. We who saw and heard much of
the generation marching just ahead of
us are far more able than any book to
describe accurately to our successors
who our predecessors were.
A mother in the country districts. ex-
pecting the neighbors at the table on
some gala night, had with her own
hands arranged everything in taste,
and as she was about to turn from il to
receive her guests, saw her little child
by accident upset pitcher all over the
white cloth, and soil everything, and
the mother lifted her hand to slap the
child, but she suddenly remembered
the time when little child herself in
her fathers house where they had al
ways before been used to candles, on
the purchase of a lamp, which was a
matter of rarity and pride, she took
it in her hands and dropped it,
crashing into pieces, and, looking
up in her fathers face, expecting
ehastisement, heard only the words:
at is sad loss, but never mind; you
did not mean to do it" History re-
peats itself Generations wonderfully
alike. Among that generation that is
past, as in our own, and as it will be in
the generation following us, those who
succeeded became the target, shot at
by those who did not succeed. In
those times, as in ours, a mans bitter
est enemies were those whom he had
befriended and helped. Hates, jeal-
nr1cfaS and
in 1869 as in 1894. Hypocrisy SMILED
and looked solemn then as now. Tween
ty-five years-yea, twenty-five GEN.
turtles have not changed human nature
particle. ! say this for the encour-
agement Of those who think that our
times monopolize all the denominations
of the age.
Yea. that generation which passed
off within the last twenty-five years
had their bereavements, their tempta-
tlons. their struggles, their disappoint-
nents, their successes, their failures,
their gladnesses and their griefs like
these two generations now in sight,
that in advance and that following.
But the twenty-five years between 1869
and 1S94-how much they sawl How
much they discovered! How much
they felt Within that time have been
performed the miracles of the tele-
phone and the monograph. From the
observatories other worlds have been
seen to heave in sight. Six presidents
of the United States have been in
augurated. Transatlantic voyage alb
breviated from ten days to five and a
half Chicago and New York, once
three days apart, now only twenty-four
hours by the vestibule limited Two
additional railroads have been built to
the Pacific. France has passed from
monarchy to republication. Many of
the cities have nearly doubled their
populations. During that generation
the chief surviving heroes of the civil
war have gone into the encampment
of the grave. The chief physicians,
attorneys, orators, merchants, have
passed off the earth, or in retirement
waiting for transition. Other men in
editorial chairs, in pulpits, in govern
or's mansions, in legislati tive, senatorial
and congressional halls There are
not ten men or women on the earth
now prominent who were twenty-five
years ago The crew of this old ship
of world is all changed. Others at
the helm, others on the lookout"
others climbing the ratlines Time is
doctor who with potent anodyne has
put an entire generation into sound
sleep Time, like another Cromwell,
has roughly prorogued parliament, and
witA iconoclasm driven nearly all the
rulers except one queen from the high
places ''One generation passeth away,
and another generation cometh."
There are fathers and mothers here
-