Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-12-08

cOuIIiuuliuS Twenty-Five UOlidTS 10 Tue
Southern Missionary Society. Canni.
balism driven of the face Of the earth
The gates of all nations wide open for
the Gospel entrance when the church
shall give up its intellectual dandy
ism, and quit fooling with higher crit.
icism, and plunge into the work, as
at life-saving station the crew pull
out with the life-boat to take the sail
ors off a ship going to pieces in the
Skerries. I thank you, old and dying
Century; all heaven thanks you, and
surely all the nations Of the earth
ought to thank you. 1 put before your
eyes, soon to be dim for the last sleep,
the facts tremendous. / take your
wrinkled old hand and shake 1t in con-
graduation. battle your fevered brow,
and freshen your parched lips from the
fountains of eternal victory.
Tell us. o Nineteenth Century! be-
fore you 60, in score of sentences,
some Of the things you have heard and
seen. The veteran turns upon us and
says: II saw Thomas Jefferson riding
in unattended from Monticello, only
few steps from where you stand,
dismount from his horse and hitch the
bride to a post, and on yonder hill
take the oath Of the presidential office.
I saw yonder capital ablaze with wars
incendiarism. / saw the pun OF the
first steam engine in America. l
heard the thunders of Waterloo, OF Sc
bastopol, and Sedan, and Gettysburg.
l was present at all the coronations OF
the kings and queens, and emperors
and expresses now in the worlds pal
aces. l have seen two pillows roll
across this continent and from ocean
to ocean; billow Of revival joy In
1857, and billow Of blood in 1864.
havfie seen four generations Of the hui
man race march across this world and
disappear. / saw their cradles rocked
and their graves dug. have heard the
wedding bells and the death bells OF
near hundred years. / have clapped
my hands for millions of joys and
wrung them in millions of agonies.
saw Macready and Edwin Forrest act,
and Edward Payson pray. heard the
first chime of Longfellow's rhythms,
and before anyone else saw them l
read the first line Of Bancroft's His
tory, and the first verse Of Bryant's
'Thanatopsis,' and the first word of
Victor Hugo's almost supernatural ro-
nance. / heard the music of all the
grand marches and the lament of all
the requiems that for nigh ten decades
made the cathedral windows shake.
have seen more moral and spiritual
victories than all of my predecessors
put together. For all you who hear or
read this valedictory have kindled all
the domestic firesides by which you
and roundelays and merriments you
have ever heard, and unrolled all the
pictured sunsets and starry banners of
the midnight heavens that you have
ever gazed at. But ere go, take this
admonition and benediction of Dying
Century. The longest life, like mine,
must close: Opportunities gone never
come back, as l could prove from nigh
hundred years of observations: The
eternity that will soon take me will
soon take you: The wicked live not out
half their days. as l have seen In ten
thousand instances: The only infiu-
ence for making the world happy is
an influence that !, the Nineteenth
Century, inherited from the first CEN
fury of the Christian era-the Christ
of all the centuries. Be not deceived
by the fact that have lived so long.
for century is a large wheel that
turns hundred smaller wheels, which
are the years and each one of those
years turns three hundred and sixty
five smaller wheels, which are the
days; and each one Of the three hun
dred and sixty-five days turns twenty
four smaller wheels, which are the
hours: and each one of those
twenty-four hours turns sixty smaller
wheels, which are the minutes; and
those sixty minutes turn still smaller
wheels, which are the seconds. And
all of this vast machinery Is In per-
petual motion, and pushes us on and
on toward the great eternity whose
doors will, at IL o'clock of the winter
night between the year nineteen hun
dred, and the year nineteen hundred
and one, open before me, the Dying
Century. I quote from the three in
scriptions over the three doors of the
Cathedral of Milan. Over one door
amid a wreath of sculptured roses, ]
read: All that which pleases us is blu,
for a moment Over another door
around a sculptured cross, I read: AL
that which troubles us is but for q
moment But over the central door ]
read: That only il important which
IS eternal o eternity! eternity!
eternity"
My hearers, as the Nineteenth Cen.
tury was born while the face of this
nation was yet wet with tears because
Of the fatal horseback ride that Wash.
ington took, out here at Mt. Vernon
through a December snowstorm, wish
the next century might be born at q
time when the face Of this nation shall
be wet with the tears of the literal OIL
spiritual arrival of the great deliverel
of nations. of whom st. John wrote
with apocalyptic pen: "And I saw
and behold white horse; and he tha