Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1901-10-04
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course DR.. Talmage shows how any
one can be widely and forever recol-
iected and cheers respondent Christian
workers; texts, job xiv. 20, HE shall
be no more remembered" and Psalms
cxii, @, "The righteous shall bc In ever
lasting remembrance"
or oblivion and its defeats I speak
today. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. IL crunch
es individuals, families. communities,
states. nations, continents. hemisphercs,
worlds. It's diet is made up oG years,
of centuries, OF ages, OF cycles, ot mil
lenpiums OF cons. That monster is
called ny Noah Webster and al the
other dictionaries ~06livSon" Ii Is a
steep down which everything rolls. II
IS a conaSgrasiop ia which everything
Is consumed. Z IS n dirce which all
CrcheStcaS p1ay sa5 period at which
evcSytGiac stops. u is The cemetery
OF the human v;Sce. u is the Domain Of
forSctfsneSS Ool,vioa! At times Il
throws . Sllacov ovcr an OF us. and l
would 0ot pconctEce e today il dill
hot cosac aieaca IN TIC stccogth OF the
eternal GS& On S-oSgr leeAslf % attack It.
10 route L. - 6ocCSliSA Ii.
Why, use so,lS az SAe way tSe fsnot-
les OF tAS os<sA 52SSpNcSc. For awhile
they Sre toSS<ScC. fslSCNS<s be. &O5 -
each other Indispensable. and then they
part, Sonae by nsarreSSe Sol&g 70 eS-
tsbliSS Other homes SnS some leave
this life. ana 3 ccasgSy Is long enough
TO plant n family. develop e. prosper IL
and oohterSle il. 50 the generats0 ions
vanish. WSls up Pennsylvania svenUe.
Washington: Broadway, New York:
State street. Boston, Chestnut street.
Philadelphia: <be Strand. London:
Princess street. Edinburgh; Champs
Elysees, Paris; Inter den Linden. Ber-
lin, and you viii meet in this year 1901
not one person who walked there in the
year1S0l. What cnSalfment- All the or
binary Efforts ct perpetustion are dead
failures. Walter SCOTS Old Mortality
may go round with his chiSel 20 recut
the faded epitaphs on tombStones, but
Old Oblivion has 4 quicker chisel. with
which he can cut out n thousand cpl
taphs while Old Mortality is cutting in
one epitaph. Whole libraries OF biogra-
plies devoured OF bookworms or I'M
read OF the rising generations. All the
signs OF the stores and warehouses OF
great firms have changed, unless the
grandsons think that il is an advantage
to keep the old sign up because the
name OF the ancestor was more COM
mandatory than the name Of the de-
scendant. The city OF Rome, Italy.
stands today, but Dig down deep
enough and you come TO another Rome.
buried. and go down still farther and
you will find n third Rome. Jerusalem
stands today, but dig down deep enough
and you will find n Jerusalem under
meath, and go on and deeper down a
third jerusalem.
Hundred Years Hence.
Cali the roll OF the armies Of Baldwin
/. or Of Charles Martel or of Marlbor-
ough or Of Mithridates or Of Prince
Frederick or of Cortes, and not one an
swer will you hear. Stand them IL
line and call the roll OF the 1,0OO, 900
men In the army of Thebcs. Not one
answer Stand them In line, the 1,T00,-
Geo infantry and the 100000 cavalry
OF the Assyrian army under Minus, and
call the roll. Not one answer. Stand
in line the 100000 men of Sesostris.
the 100000 men OF Artaxerxes ct
Cunaxa, the 2,64I,00o men under
NerXes at Thermopylr and call the
long roll. Not one answer. At the
opening OF our civil war the men of
the northern and southern armies were
told that IL 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 or
thousand nor the names OF 500 nor
the names of 100 nor the names OF
fifty. Oblivion!
In some old family record descend
ant 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 some.
where In the nineteenth century, but
they will know no more about us than
we know about the color OF a chld's
eyes born last night IN s. village In
Patagonia. Tell me something about
your srcat-grandfather. What were
his features? What did he do? What
year was he born? What year did he
die? And your great-grandmother?
VIII you describe the style OF the hat
she were, and how did she and your
great-Grandfather get on in each 9TH
er's companionshlp? Was it March
weather or June2 Oblivion. That
mountain surge rolls over everything.
Even the pyramids are dying. Not
day passes but there is chlseled of n
chip OF that granite. The sea Is tri-
umphing over the land, and what is
going on at our Atlantic coast is going
on oil around the world, and the cont.
nents are crumbling into the waves.
AND While this is transpiring on the
outside OF the world. the hot chisel OF
the Internal fire Is digging under the
founda,on or the earth and cutting
Its way out toward the surface. 1t
surprises me to hear people say they
90 not think the world will finally he
burned up when all scientists will tell
you thar it has for ages been on fire.
We Like to he Remembered.
Why, there is only crust between
us nad the furnaces inside raging to
get ont ohlivionl The world itself
will roll into 1t as easily as school
boy's india rubber ball rolls down
Iii, and when our world goes 1t Is SO
interiocked by the law of gravitation
with other worlds that they will go,
TOO and so far from having our men,
DRY perpetuated by a monument Of
Aberdeen granite in this world there is
no world In sight OF our strongest
telescope that will be a sure pediment
for any slab OF commemoration of the
fact that we ever lived or died at all.
Our earth Is struck with death. The
axletree OF the consultations will break
and let down the populations Of other
worlds Stellar, lunar, solar, mortality.
Oblivion! 1t can swallow and will
swallow whole galaxies of worlds as
easily as crocodile takes down a frog.
Yet oblivion does not remove or swal-
low anything that had better not be re-
moved or swallowed. The old monster
Is welcome to his meal This world
would long ago have been overcrowded
wklN -.