The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-11-15

OHE idea that things in this world
are at loose ends and going at hap
Il hazard Is in this discourse combat
ed by DR.. Talmage. The text is Psalps
cxix, 80, Forever, o Lord, thy word is
settled in heaven
This world has been in process OF
change ever since it was created-moun-
tains born, mountains dying, and they
have both cradle and grave. Once this
planet was all fluid, and no being such as
YOU or l have ever seen could have lived
on it minute. Our hemisphere turns IT'S
face to the sun and then turns its back
The axis of the earth's revolution has
shifted. The earth's center OF gravity Is
changed. Once flowers grew IN the arc
tic and there was snow in the troplc
There has been a redistribution Of land
and sea, the land crumbting into the sea.
the sea swallowing the land. Ice and
fire have fought for the possession OF THIS
planet The chemical composition Of 1t
is different now from what it once was.
Volcanoes once terribly alive are dead,
not one throb of fiery pulse, not one
breath of vapor--the ocean changing its
amount of saline qualities. The internal
their way to the surfaces-upheaval and
subsistence of vast realms of continent.
Moravians in Greenland have removed
their boat poles because the advancing
sea submerged them. Linnaeus records
that in eighty-seven years a great stone
was 100 feet nearer the water than when
he wrote. Forests have been buried by
the sea, and land that was cultured by
farmers hoe can be touched only by
sailors anchor. Loeb Nevis of Scotland
and Dingle bay of Ireland and the fiords
OF Norway, where pleasure boats now
float, We're 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, according to scien-
tifc announcement, is 1S9 miles less
than it was. The entire c0nfguration Of
the earth is altered Hills are denuded Of
their forests. The frests and the wat
ers and the air lombard the earth till it
sllrrenders to the assault. The so-called
everlasting hills do not last. Many
railroad companies cease to build iron
bridges because the iron has life of its
own, not a vegetable life or an animal
life, but metallic life, and when that
life dies the bridge goes down. Oxida
ton. of minerals is only another term for
describing their death. Moses and sea-
weeds help destroy the rocks they deco
rate.
The changes Of the inani1nate earth
only symbolic the moral changes. Soci-
ETY. ever becomes different for better or
worse. Boundary lines between nations
are settled until the next war unsettles
them. Forever, o Lord, thy word is
settled in heaven"
Fate of Nations Settled.
High up in the palace of the sun at
least FIVE things are settled--that nations
which go continuously and persistentiy
wrong perish; that happiness is the result
of spiritual condition and not of earthly
environment; that this world is a school
house for splendid or disgraceful gradu-
alton; that with or without us the world
is to be made over into a scene of arbor
essence and purity; that all who are adj
Joined to the unparalleled One of Beth
lehem and Nazareth and Golgotha will
be the subjects of a supernal felicity
without any taking off.
Do you doubt my first proposition
that nations which go wrong perish? We
have in this American nation all the ele-
ments of permanence and destruction.
We need not borrow from others any
trowels for upbuilding or torches for de-
molition. Elements of ruin-nihilism, in
fidelity, agnosticism, Sabbath Dissertation,
inebriety, sensuality, extravaganza,
fraud they are all here. Elements of
safety-God worshiping men and women
by the scores of millions, honesty, benevo-
lence, truthfulness, self-sacrifce, indus
try, sobriety and more religion than has
characterized any nation that has ever
existed; they are all here. The only
question is as to which of the forces will
gain dominancy-the one class ascendant,
and this United States Government, I
think, will continue as long as the world
exists; the other class ascendant, and
the United States goes into such small
pieces that other governments would
hardly think them worth picking up.
Have you ever noticed the size of the
cemetery of dead nations, the vast Green
wood and Pere lie Chaise, where mighty
kingdoms were buried? Open the gate
and walk through this cemetery and read
the epitaphs. Here lies Carthage. born
lOO years before Rome, great commercial
metropolis ON the bay of Tunis, part Of
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 10000 miles of
coast; her Hamilcar leading forth thirty
myriads, or 300, 900 troops; her Hannibal
carrying out in manhood the oath he had
taken in boyhood to preserve eternal en-
NIFTY to Rome, leaving costly and impos-
ing monuments at Agrigentum a CHASTITY
heap of ruins; Carthage, her colonies ON
every coast, her ships blowing every sea;
Carthage-where are her splendors now?
All extinguished. Where are her swords
The last one broken. Where are her tow
ers 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
ried away to build the walls Of transmed-
iterranean cathedrals, while other blocks
have been blasted In modern times by the
makers Of the Tunis railway. And all Of
that great and mighty city and kingdom
that the tourist finds to-day Is here and
there broken arch Of what was once a
5O-mile aqueduct. Our talented and gem
ial friend, Henry NJ. Field, in one Of his
matchlpSS books of travel labOrs hard to