The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-12-11


l&9NE kASAMWIcentury will expire.
SSI'ceNNNA WLH" Ny theme is 1.-THE
l. DEWITT rALMAeE. Dying Century"
discuss it at an hour when our
national legislature is about to assem-
BILE, some of the members now here
present, and others arrive from the
north, south, east and west All the
public conveyances coming this way
will bring important additions of pub
lie men, so that when, on December z,
at high noon, the gavels of senate and
house of representatives shall lift and
fall, the destinies of this nation, and
through it the destinies of all nations
struggling to be free, will be put on
solemn and tremendous tgial. Amid
such inteusifying circumstances 1
stand by the venerable century and adj
dress it in the words of my text, THUS
saith the Lord, set thine house in
order; Tor thou shalt die, and not
live"
Eternity is too big a subject for US
to understand. Some one has said it
is great clock that says tick" in one
century and tack" in another. But
we can better understand Old Time,
who has many children, and they are
the centuries. and many grandchildren,
and they are the years.
With the dying 10Th century we shall
this morning have plain talk, telling
him some of the good things he has
done, and then telling him some of the
things he ought to adjust before he
= I'D 70 iCiY,
the eternities We generally wait I'M
til people are dead before we say much
in praise of them. Funeral eulogium
is generally very pathetic and elo-
quent with things that ought to have
been said years before. We put on
cold tombstOnes what we ought to
have put in the warm ears of
the living. We curse Charles
Sumner while he is living, and
wait until, in the rooms where | have
been living the last year, he puts his
hand on his heart and cries ''Ohr' and
is gone, and then we make long pro-
cession in his honor. DR.. Sunderland,
chaplain of the American senate, ac-
companying; stopping long enough to
allow the dead senator to lie in state
in Independence hall, Philadelphia,
and hating at Boston state house,
where, not long before, damnatOry
resolutions had been passed in regard
to him, and then move on, amid the
tolling bells and the boom of minute
guns, until we bury him at Mount Au-
burn and cover him with flowers five
feet deep. What a pity he could not
have been awake at his own funeral,
to hear the gratitude of the nation!
What a pity that one green leaf could
not have been taken from each one of
the mortuary garlands and put upon
his table while he was yet alive at the
Arlingtonl What a pity that out of
the great choirs who chanted at his
obsequies one little girl, dressed in
white, might not have sung to his liv-
ing ear complimentary solo! The
post-mortem expression contradicted
the ante-mortem. The nation could
DOT have spoken the truth both times
about Charles Sumner. Was it before
or after his decease it lied?
No such injustice shall be inflicted
upon this venerable 10Th century. Be-
fore he goes we recite in his hearing
some of the good things he has accom-
plished. What an addition to the
worlds intelligence he has madel Look
at the old schoolhouse, with the snow
sitting through the roof and the filthy
tin cup hanging over the water pail in
the corner, and the little victims on
AA
the illiterate schoolmaster with his
hickory CAD, and then look at our mod
ern palaces of free schools, under men
and women cultured and refined to the
highest excellence, so that, whereas
in our childhood we had to be whipped
to go to school, children now cry when
they cannot go. Thank you, venera bic
century. while at the same time we
thank God.
What an addition to the worlds in
ventions! Within our century the cot
ton gin. The agricultural machines,
for planting, reaping and threshing.
The telegraph. The photograph, capa-
BILE of preserving a human voice from
generation to genertion. The type
writer, that rescues the world from
worse and worse penmanship. And
stenography, capturing from the lips
of the swiftest speaker more than 200
words a minute. Never was l so
amazed at the facilities of our time as
when, few days ago, 1 telegraphed
from Washington to New York long
and elaborate manuscript, and a few
minutes after, to show it's accuracy, it
was read to me through the long-dis-
lance telephone, and it was exact
down to the last semicOlon and comma
What hath God wrought Oh, l am so
glad was not born sooner. For the
tallow candle the electric light For
the writings of the surgeons table
God-giyen anaesthetics, and the
whole physical organism ex-
plored by sharpest instruments,
and giving not so much pain as
the taking of splinter from under
child's finger nail. For the numbering
stage coach the limited express train