The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-12-12
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Moquent Discourse Upon the Dy-
ing Century.
The Lesion Taught by the Past Hundred
Year of Christian Civilixaslon--
THE Progress OF the
Worlds Nations.

Rev. T. hewitt Talmage took "Ths
Dying Century" as the subject for q
recent sermon before his Washington
congregation, basing 1t upon the text
Thus saith the Lord. set thine house In or.
der; for thou shalt die, and not live.-IL
Kings. Xxx
No alarm bell do I ring in the utter.
ance of this text, for in the healthy
glow of your countenances find cause
only for cheerful prophecy, but I shall
apply the text as spoken in the ear of
Hezeklah, down with bad carbuncle,
TO the nineteenth century, now clos
ing. It will take only four more long
breaths, each year q breath, and the
century will expire. NY theme is
"The Dying Century," discuss it at
IN hour whom our national legislature
Is about to assemble, some of the
mem ers now here present, and others
soon to arrive from the north, south,
east and west. All the public convey
ances coming this way will bring inn
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 trial. Amid
such intensfying circumstances l
stand by the venerable century and
address it in the words of my text:
sThus saith the Lord, set thine house
In order; for thou shalt die, and not
live"
Eternity is too big a subject for us
20 understand. Some one has said 1t
is great clock, that says stick" 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 nineteenth century
we shall this morning have a plain
talk, telling him some of the good
him 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
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 is living, and cudgel him into
spinal meningitis, and wait until, in
the rooms where l have been living
the last year, he puts his hand on his
heart and cries "Ohr' and is gone, and
then we make long procession in his
honor. DR.. Sunderland, chaplain of
the American senate, accompany
ing; stopping long enough to allow
the dead senator to lie in state in
Indepen dence hall, Philadelphia, and
hating at Boston state house, where,
not long before, damnatory resolu.
tions 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 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 u 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 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 u complimen tary solo! The
post-mortem examination contradicted
the ante-mortem. The nation could
not have spoken the truth both times
about Charles Sumner. Was it before
or after his decease it lied?
No suchin justice shall be inflicted up
on this venerable nineteenth century.
Before he goes we recite in his hear
ing some of the good things he has ac-
complished. 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
water pail in the corner, and the little
victims on the long benches without
backs, aud the illlterate schoolmastcr
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 can not go. Thank
you, venerable 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,
capable of preserving human voice
from generation to generation. The
typewriter, that rescues the world
from worse and worse penmanship.
And stenography, capturing from the
lips of the swiftest speaker more than
600 words a minute. Never was / so
amazed Mt the facilities of our time as
when, few days ago, telegraphed
from Washington to New York long
and elaborate manuscript, and few
minutes after, to show its accuracy, it
was read to me through the long-dis-
tancc telephone, and 1t was exact
81, las nj