Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1896-12-09
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
The Eminent Dlvine's Sunday
Discourse
SUBJECT "The Dying Century"

SUBJECT "The Dying Century"
TEXT: s'Thus saith the Lord, Set thine
house in order, for thou shalt die and not
ive."-u Kings *. I.
No alarm bell do ring Ia the utteranoe OF
this text, for In the healthy glow OF your
countenances find cause only for cheerful
prophecy, but shall apply the text as
spoken In the ear OF Hezekiah. down with Q
bal carbuncle. to the nineteenth century,
now closing. 1t will take only four more
long breaths, each year q breath. and the
century will expire. My theme is ''The Dy-
ing Century," discuss 1t at an.hour when our
National Legislature is about to assemble.
some OF the members now here present and
Others soon to arrive from the North, South,
East and West. All the public conveyanceG
coming this way will bring important addt.
tions Of public men, so that when on Decem.
Der 2. at high noon, the gavels OF Senate and
House of Representatives shall lift and fall
the destinies OF this Nation. and through II
the destinies of all Nations struggling to b<
free. will be put on solemn and tremendous
trial. Amid such intensifying circumstances
stand by the venerable century and address
1t in the woris OF my text. "rhus saith the
Lord, Set thine house in order, for thou
shalt die and not live
Eternity Is too big a subject for Us to
understand. Some one has said It Is q
great clock that says "Tick" in one CEN
tury 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 nineteenth century
We shall this morning have a 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 quits
this sphere and passes out to join the
eternities. We generally walt until people
are dead before We say much In praise OF
them. Funeral eulogium is generally very
pathetic 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 fs dv-
ing and cud9el 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. DIR. Sunderland. chaplain OF the
American Senate, accompanying stopping
long enough to allow the dead Senator to lie
in state in Independence Hall, Philadelphia,
and haltins at Boston Statehouse, 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 min
ute guns, until We bury him at Mount Au-
burn and cover him with flowers five feet
deep. What pity he could not have been
awake at his own funeral to hear the graft
tude OF the Nation! What pity that one
green leaf could not have been taken from
each one Of the mortuary garands 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 lit
tie girl dressed in white might not nave sung
to his living ear complimentary solo! The
postmorten expression contradicted the ante
mortem. The Nation coul d not have spoken
the truth both times about Charles Sumner.
hafp of fSnr 10 iodD
No such injustice shall be inflicted upon
this venerable nineteenth century. Before
he goes We recite in his hearing some OF the
| good things he has accomplished. What
an addition to the worlds intelligence he
has made! Look at the old schoolhouse,
! with the snow sitting through the roof and
the filthy tin cup hanging over the wafer
| pail in the corner, 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 cul-
| tured and refined to the highest excellence.
DO that whereas in our childhood we had to
be whipped tn go to school, children now
cry when they cannot so. Thank you.
| venerable century; while at the same time
We thank God! What an addition to the
worlds inventions-within our century the
| cotton gin, the agricultural machines for
planting. reaping and thrashing; the tele-
graph; the phonograph, capable OF pre-
| BcTNlUS u Humdu NOtCo IEOiu ScucfsttlOA "
I generation; the typewriter, that rescues the
world from worse and worse penmanship,
| and stenography, capturing from the lips OF
the swiftest speaker more than 200 words q
| minute. Never was 1 SO amazed at the
| facilities of our time as when a few days ago
telegraphed from Washington to New York
q long and elaborate manuscript. and few
minutes after, to show its accuracy, it was
read to me through the long-distance tele-
phone, and it was exact down to the last
| Semicolon aud comma.
What hath God wrought! Oh. I am so
| glad was not born sooner. For the tallow
candle the electric light. For the writings
| of the surgeons table God given anBsthetics,
and the whole physical organism explored
by sharpest instrument, and giving not 80
| much pain as the taking OF a splinter from
under a child's finger nail. For the lumber
ing stagecoach the limited express train.
And there Is the spectroscope OF Fraunhofer,
| by which our modern scientist feels the pulse
| of other worlds throbbng with light, Jen-
ners arrest by incubation of one of the
worlds worst plaques. Dr.. Keeley's emanci-
patton for inebriety. Intimation that the
| virus Of maddened canine and cancer and
consumption are yet to be baked by maRnt-
| fcent medical treatment. The eyesight OF
the doctor sharpened till he can look through
thick flesh and find the hiding place OF the
! the catechism of the mountains; chemistry,
or the catechism of the elements; astronomy.
or the catechism of the stars; electrology, or
the catechism of the lightnings. What ad-
I vancement in music. Atthe beginning OF this
century, confining itself, SO far as the
great masses of the people were con-
cerned, to few airs drawn out on
accordion or massacred on church bass
viol, now enchantirgly dropping from
thousands of fingers in Handers Concerto
In B Flat" or Guilmant,s Sonata In
Minor" Thanks to you, o century, before
you die, for the asylums Of mercy that you
have founded-the blind seeing with their
fingers, the deaf hearing by the motion OF
your lips, the born imbecile by skiliful object
lesson lifted to toerabie lntelligence.
Thanks to this century for the improved con-
dition of most Nations. The reason that Ma
poleon made such a successful sweep across
Europe at the beginning of the century was
that most Of the thrones OF Europe we're oc-
cupied either by imbeciles or prohfgates.
BUT most OF the thrones of Europe are to-day
occupied by kings and queens competent.
France a republic, Switzerland q republic,
and about fifty free constitutions, am told.
in Europe. Twenty million serfs Of Russia
manumitted. On this Western continent
can call the roll Of many republics-Mexico,
Guatemala, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Para
quay, Uruguay, Honduras, New Grenada,
Venezuela, Peru. Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile,
Argentine Republic, Brazil. The one strag-
Cling village of Washington to which tht
United States Government moved, its entire
baggage and equipment packed up In sever
boxes, which got lost in the woods near thi:
place, now the architectural glory of the
continent and admiration of the world.
The, money power, so much denounced
and often justly criticised, ha, covered this
continent with universities and free iibrar
les and asylum of mercy. The newspaper
press, which at the beginning of the Cen
tury was an ink roller. by hand moved owe
one sheet OF paper at a time, has b come fh'
miraculous manufacturer OF four or five o
six hundred thousand sheets for one dali,
newspapers issue. Within your memory
o dying century, has been the genesis 0
nearly ali the great institutions eyangel
islic. At London tavern, March 2, 1902
British and Foreign Bible society was born
In 1915 American Bible society was born
In 1924 American Sunday-school unio
was born. In 1910 American board q
commissioners for foreign missions. whic
has pur its saving hand on every Nation Q