Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-11-30
tCopyright, Louis Klopsch. 1892,


Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1892,
WASHINGTON, u. C.-'rhe idea that things
In this world are at loose ends and going
at haphazard is in thk discourse combated
by DR.. Talmage. The text is Psalms cxix.,
80. Forever, o Lord, thy word Is settled
In heaven"
This world has been in process OF change
ever since 1t was screated-mountains born.
mountains dying, and they have both
cradle and grave. Once this planet was
all fluid and no being such as you or
have ever seen could have lived on 1t q
minute. Our hemisphere turns its face to
the sun and then turns its back. The axis
Of the eart1's revolution has shifted, The
earth's centre of gravity Is changed, Ouce
flowers grew in the arctic aud there was
snow in the tropic. There has been re-
distribution OF land and sea, the land
crumbling into the sea, the sea swallowing
the land. Iceand fire have fought for the
possession OF this planet. The chemical
composition of 1t Is different now from what
1t once was. Volcanoes once terribly alive
= are dead, not one throb OF fiery pulse, not
one breath of vapor-uhe ocean changing
its amount Of saline qualities. The inter-
nal fires Of the earth are gradually eating
their way to the surface-upheaval and
subsistence OF vast realms of continent.
Moravians in Greenland have removed
their boat poles because the advancing sea
submerged them. Ltnn3us records that
in eighty-seven years great stone was 100
feet nearer the water than when he wrote.
Forests have been buried by the sea, aud
land that was cultured by far mer's hoe can
be touched only by sailors anchor.
Loch Nevis of Scotland and Dingle bay
OF Ireland and the fiords OF Norway, where
pleasure boats now float, were once valleys
and glens. Many OF the islands of the sea
are the tops OF sunken mountains. Six
thousand miles of the Pacific Ocean are
sinking. The diameter Of the earth, ac-
cording to scientific announcement, is 139
miles less than it was. The entire con-
nguration OF the earth is altered. Hills
are denuded of their forests. The frosts
and the waters and the air lombard the
earth till it surrenders to the assault
The SO called "everlasting hills do not
last Many railroad companies cease to
build iron bridges because the iron has u
life of its own, not vegetable life or an
anirNal life, but metallic life, and when
that life dies the bridge goes down. Oxida-
tion OF minerals is only another term for
describing their death. Moses aud sea-
weeds help destroy the rocks they deco
rate.
The changes of the inanimate earth only
symbolic tho moral changes. Society
ever becomes different for better or worse.
Boundary lines between nations are set
tied until the next war unsettle5 them.
Uncertainty strikes through laws and Gus.
toms and legislation. The characteristic
OF this world is thatnothing in 1t is settled.
At n time when we hoped that the arbi-
tration planned last Summer at The
Hague, Holland, would forever sheathe
the sword and spike tho gun and dismantle
the fortress the world has on hand two
wars which are digging graves for the
flower Of English and American soldiery.
From the presence of such geological and
social and national and international un-
rest we turn with thanksgiving and exul-
tation to my text and find that there are
things forever settled, but in higher lati-
tudes than we have ever trod. Forever,
Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven"
High up in the palace of the sun at least
five things are settleu--that nations which
go continuously and persistently wrong
perish; that happiness is the result of
spiritual condition and not of earthly en-
vironment; that this world is n school
house for splendid or disgraceful gradua-
| tion; that with or without US the world Is
| to be made over into scene of arborescence
and purity; that all who are adioined to
the unparalleled One OF Bethlehem and
Nazareth and Go!gothn will be the sub
| jects of p supernai felicity without any
! taking off.
Do you doubt my first pro position-that
nations which go wrong perish? We have
in this American nation all the elements OF
| permanence and destruction. We need not
! borrow from others any trowels for up
building or torches for demolition. Ele-
! ments OF ruin-nihilism, infidelity agnostic-
ism, Sabbath desecration, inebriety, sensu-
ality, extravaganza, fraud; they are all
here. Elements Of safety worship
ing men and women by the scores oil
| millions, honesty, benevolence, truthful
| ness, sef-sacrlfice, industry, sobriety and
! more religion than has characterized any
nation that has ever existed; they .are all
| here. The only question is as to which oil
| the forces will gain dominancy-.he one
class ascendant, and this United States
! Government, think, will continue rs long
| as the world exists; the other class as
| cendant, and the United States goes into
such small pieces that other governments
would hardly think them worth picking u p,
Have YOU ever noticed the size of the
cemetery of dead nations. the vast Green
wood and Pere le Chaise, where mighty
kingdoms were buried; Open the gate an
walk through this cemetery and read the
epitaphs. Here lies Carthage, born 100
years before Rome. great commercial
metropolis on the bay Of Tunis, part oil
an empire that gave the alphabet to the
Greeks and their great language to the
Hebrews; her arms the terror OF nations
commanding at one time 5000 miles ol
coast; her Hamilcar leading forth thirty
myriads, or 100000 troops; her Hannibal
carrying out in manhood the oath he had
taken In boyhood to preserve eternal Gu
! nifty to Rome, leaving costly and tmpos-
Ing monuments at Agrigentum a CHASTITY
heap Of ruins; Carthage, her colonies on
every coast, her ships plowing every sea
Carthage-where nre her splendors now
All extinguished. Where are her swordsi
The last one broken. Where are her towers
and long, ranges of magnificent archi-
lecture? Buried under the sands OF the
Bagradas. As ballast OF foreign ships
much Of her radiant marble has been car
rled away to build the walls OF trausmedl'
terranean cathedrals, while other blocks
have been blasted In modern times by the
makers of the Tunis railway. And ell oil
that great and mighty city and kingdom
that the tourist finds to-day is here and
there a broken arch of what was once q
nfty-Tile aqueduct
Our talented and genial friend, Henry
M. Field, in one of his matchless books o
travel, labors hard to prove that the slight
ruins of that city are really worth visiting
Carthage buried Ia tho cemetery OF dead
nations. Not one altar to the true God
did she rear. Not one OF the Ten Com
mandments but she conspicuously vio
lated. Her doom was settled in heaven
when it was decided far back in the eterni
ties that the nation and kingdom that viii
not serve God shall perish.
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