The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-10-04
DEFEAT OF OBLIVION
Dr.. Talmage Cheers Despondent
Christian Workers.
In His Sermon He Shows How Any
one Can BE Widely and Forever
Rccouected-WhyW We Should
Be Remembered.

lCopyrignt, 19ul, by Louis klopscns N IL
Washington,
In this discourse DR.. Talmage shows
how anyone can be widely and for
ever recollected and cheers despond-
ent Christian workers; texts, Job "a:
20: HE shall be no more remembered"
and Psalms 112: 6: "The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance"
Of oblivion and it's defeats 1 speak
to-day. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. 1t crunches
individuals, families, communities,
states, nations, continents, hemi-
spheres, worlds. It's diet is made up
of years, of centuries, of ages, of cy-
cles, of milleniums, of cons. That mon
ster is called by Noah Webster "Obliv
ion." 1t is a steep down which every
thing rolls. 1t is conhagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is
dirge which all orchestras play and
a period at which everything stops.
1t is the cemetery of the human race.
1t is the domain of forgetfulness. OBJ
livionl At times it throws shadow
over all of US, and 1 would not pro-
nounce it to-day if L did not come
armed in the strength of the eternal
God on your behalf to attack it, to
route it, to demolish it.
Why, just look at the way the fam
lilies of the earth disappear. For
awhile they are together, inseparable,
and then they part, some by marriage
going to establish other homes, and
some leave this life, and a century is
long enough to plant family, develop
it, prosper it and obliterate it. So
the generations vanish. Walk up Penn
sylvania avenue, Washington; Broad
way, New York; State street, Boston;
Chestnut street, Philadelphia; the
Strand, London; Princeton street, Ed
inburgh; Champs Erysee, Paris; Inter
den Linden, Berlin, and you will meet
in this year 1901 not one person who
walked there in the year 1901. What
engulfment! All the ordinary efforts
at perpetual ton are dead failures.
Walter Scott's "Old Mortality may go
round with his chisel to recut the faded
epitaphs on tombstones, but Old OBJ
hvion has a quicker chisel with which
he can cut out a thousands epitaphs
while old Mortality is cutting one cpl
taph. Whole libraries of biographies
devoured of bookworms or unread of
the rising generations. All the signs
-
firms have changed, unless the grand
sons think that it is an advantage to
keep the old sign up because the name
of the ancestor was more commenda-
tory than the name of the descendant.
The city of Rome stands to-day, but
dig down deep enough, and you come to
another Rome, buried, and go down
still farther, and you will find third
Rome. Jerusalem stands Today, but
dig down deep enough, and you will
find Jerusalem underneath, and go
on and deeper down third Jerusalem
Alexandria, Egypt, on the top of an
Alexandria, and the second on the
top of the third. Many of the ancient
cities are buried 80 feet deep or so
feet deep or 100 feet deep. What was
the matter? Any special calamity?
No. The winds and waves and sands and
flying dust are all undertakers and
gravediggers, and if the world stands
long enough the present Washington
and New York and London will have
on top of them other Washingtons and
New 4orks and Londons, and only aft
er digging and boring and blasting
will the archaeologists of far distant
centuries come down as far as the
highest spires and domes and turrets
of our present American and Euro
pean cities.
Call the roll of the armies of Bald
win l. or of Charles Martel or of
Marlborough or of Mithridates or of
Prince Frederick or of Cortes, and
not one answer will you hear. Stand
them in line and call the roll of the
100000 men in the army of Thebes.
Not one answer. Stand them in line,
the 100000 infantry and 100000 cav
airy of the Assyrian army under
Minus, and call the roll. Not one an
swer. Stand in line the 100000 men
of Sesostris, the 100000 men of Arta-
XerXes at CunaXa, the 2,641, 900 men
under Xerxes at Thermopylae and
call the long roll. Not one answer.
At the opening of our civil war the
men of the northern and southern ar
mics were told that if they fell in
battle their names would never be
forgotten by their country. Out of
the million men who fell in battle or
died in military hospitals you cannot
call the names of a thousand nor the
names of 500 nor the names of 100
nor the names of so. Oblivion! Are
ball of the duchess of Richmond at
Brussels the night before Waterloo
all still? All still. Are the ears that
heard the guns of Bunker Hill all
deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes that
saw the coronation of George Ill
all closed? All closed Oblivioni A
hundred years from now there will
not be a being on this earth that
knew we ever lived.
In some old family record a de-
scendant studying up the ancestral
line may spell out our name and from
the faded ink with great effort find
that some person by our name was
born somewhere in the nineteenth
century, but they will know no more
about us than we know about the
color of child's eyes born last night
in a village in Patagonia. Tell me
something about your great-grandfa-
Their. What were his features? What
did he do? What year was he born?
What year did he die? And your
great-grandmother? Will you de-
scribe the style of the hat she wore,
and how did she and your great
grandfather get on in each others
companionship? Was it March wealth
er or June? Oblivionl That noun
tain surge rolls over everything.