The Monitor-register., 1896-12-04
THE DYING CENTURY.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE MAKES A CHEER
Full PROPHECY.

tuo tliue auQ place VI i1S uoAAfSAy, uA1s
sermon of DR.. Talmage is of absorbing
and startling interest. 1t is not only ma
tional, but international in its signif-
canoe. His subject was "The Dying
Century" and the text III Kings Xxx, /,
"Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house
in order, for thou shalt die and not
live"
No alarm bell do ring in the utter
ance of this text, for in the healthy glow
of your countenanees find cause only
for cheerful prophecy, but shall apply
the text as spoken in the ear of Heze-
kiah, down with bad carbuncle, to the
nineteenth century, now closing. twill
take only four more long breaths, each
yeah breath, and the century will ex-
pire. Ny theme is "The Dying Gen.
tury." discuss it at an hour when our
national legislature is about to assemble,
sonic of the members now here present
and others soon to arrive from the north,
south, east and west All the public con-
veyances coming this way willbrlng I'M
portant additions of public men, SO that
when on Dec 7, at high noon, the CAV
els of senate and house of representa-
tives 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 trial.
Amid such iritensifying circumstances l
stand by the venerable century and ad-
dress ii in the words of my text, '"Thus
saith the Lord, Set thine house in order,
for thou shalt die and not live. -
Plain Talk.
Eternity is too big subject for us to
understand. Some one has said it is a
great clock that says Click in one
o6ntury and ''Tack!' in another. But
we can better understand old time, who
has many children-and they are the
centuries-ald many grandchildren
and they are the years. With the dying
nineteenth century we shall this morn
ing have plain talk, telling him some
of the good things he has done, and then
telling Rim some of the things he ought
to adjust before he quits this sphere and
passes out to join the eternities. We
generally wait until people are dead
before we say much in praise of them.
Funeral eulogium is generally very pa
thetic and eloquent 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 cudgel him into
spinal meningitis and wait until, in the
rooms where have been living the last
year, he puts his hand on his heart and
cries "Oh'' and is gone, and then we
make long procession in his honor, DR..
Sunderland, chaplain of the American
senate, accompanying, stopping long
enough to allow the dead senator to lie
in state in Independence hall, Philadel
phia, and halting at Boston statehouse,
where not long before damnatory reso-
buttons had been passed in regard to
him, and then move on amid the toll
ing bells and the boom of minute guns
until we bury him at Mount Auburn
and cover him with flowers five feet
deep. What pity he could not have
been awake at his own funeral to hear
the gratitude of the nation! What 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 Arlington! What
pity that out of the great choirs who
chanted at his obsequies one little girl,
dressed in white, might not have sung
to his living ear a complimentary solol
The post mortem expression contradict
ed the antemortem. The nation could
not have spoken the truth both times
about Charles Sumner. Was it before
or after his decease it lied? No such in
justice shall be inflicted upon this ven
cradle nineteenth century.
A Century's Inventions.
Before he goes we recite in his hearing
some Of the good things he has accom-
plished. What an addition to the world Is
intelligence he has madel Look at the
old sehoolhouse, with the snow sitting
through the roof and the filthy tin cup
hanging over the water pail in the cor
.ner, and the little victims on the long
benches without backs, and the illiterate
schoolmaster with his hickory CAD, and
then look at our modern 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 CO. Thank
you, venerable century, while at the
same time we thank God What an ad-
dition to the worlds inventions-with-
in our century the cotton gin, the agri-
culturalmachines for planting, reaping
and thrashing; the telegraph; the pho
nograph, capable of preserving human
voice from generation to generation; the
typewriter, that rescues the world from
worse and worse penmanship, and ste
biography capturing from the lips Of the
swiftest speaker more than 900 words "a
minute. Never was so amazed at the
facilities Of our time as when, few
days ago, 1 telegraphed from Washing
ton to New York long and elaborate
manuscript, and few minutes after, TO
show its accuracy, it was read to me
through the long distance telephone,
and it was exact down to the last semi
colon and comma. What hath God
wrought Oh, am SO glad 1 was not
born soonerl For the tallow candle the
electric light; for the writings of the
surgeons table God given an@sthetics,
and the whole physical organism ex-
plored by sharpest instrument and Civ
ing not SO much pain as the taking of a
splinter from under a child s finger nail
for the numbering stagecoach the linn
tied express train. And there is the
spectroscope Of Fraunhofer, by which
our modern scientist feels the pulse OF
other worlds throbbing with light
80 Jenner's arrest by incubation Of one
of the worlds worst plaques. DIR.
Keeley's emancipation for inebriety. In
timation that the virus of maddened
canine and cancer and consumption are
yet to be baked by magnificent medical
treatment. The eyesight of the doctor
sharpened dfl he can look through thick
flesh and find the hiding place Of the
bullet What advancement in geology,
or the catechism of the mountains;
chemistry, or the catechism of the ele.
ments; astronomy, or the catechism OF
the stars; eleotrology, or the catechism
of the lightnings! What advancement in
music! At the beginning of this century,
combining itself, SO far as the great
masses of the people were concerned, to
few airs drawn out on accordion CT
massacred on church bass viol, now en-
chantingly dropping from thousands OF
fingers in Handel's Concerto In B Flat
or Guilmant's Sonata In D Minor. y
Thanks to you, o century, before you die.
for the ssylums of mercy that you have
fsunded-the blind seeing with their
fngers, the deaf hearing by the motion
of your lips. the born imbecile by skill
full object lesson lifted to tolerable in
telligence. Thanks TO this century for
the improved condition Of most nations.
The reason that Napoleon made such
successful sweep across Europe at the