The Iola register., 1901-10-04

Even the pyramids are dying. Not
day passes but there is chiseled off
chip of that granite. The sea is
, triumphing over the land and what
is going on at our Atlantic coast is
going on all around the world, and
the continents are crumbling into the
waves. And while this is transpiring
on the outside world, the hot chisel
of the internal fire is digging under
the foundations of the earth and cut
ting its way out toward the surface.
1t surprises me to hear people say
they do not think the world will
finally be burned up when all scien-
lists will tell you that it has for ages
been on fire.
Why, there is only a crust between
us and the furnaces inside raging to
get out. Oblivion The world itself
will roll into it as easily as a school
boys india rubber ball rolls down n
hill, and when our world goes it is so
interlocked by the law of gravitation
with other worlds that they will go,
too, and so far from having our mem
ory perpetuatcd by a monument of
Aberdeen granite in this world there
is no world in sight Of our strongest
telescope that will he a sure pedinent
for any slab of commcmoratiun of
the fact that we ever lived or died at
all. Our earth is struck with death.
The aXletrec of the considerations will
break and let down the populations
of other worlds. Stellar, lunar, solar,
mortality. Obliyionl 1t can swallow
and will swallow whole galaXies of
worlds as easily as crocodile takes
down n frog.
Yet oblivion does not remove or
swallow everything that had better
not be removed or swallowed. The
old monster is welcome to his meal.
This world would long ago have been
overcrowded if not for the mcrciful
removal of nations and generations.
What if all the books had lived that
were ever written and printed and
published? The libraries would by
their immensity have obstructed in
telligence and made all research inn
possible. The fatal epidemic of books
was "A merciful epidemic. Many of
the state and national libraries to-
day are only morgues, in which dead
books are waiting for some one to
come and recognize them. What if all
the people that had been born were
still alive? We would have been ell
bowed by our ancestors of ten cen
turies ago, and people who ought to
have said their last word 5000 years
ago would snarl at us, saying: "What
are you doing hereP" There would
have been no room to turn around.
Some of the past generations of man
kind were not worth remembering.
/ The first useful thing that many peo-
pie did was to die, their cradle "A mis-
fortune and their grave boon. This
world was hardly comfortable place
to live in before the middle of the
eighteenth century. So many things
have come into the world that were
not fit to stay in we ought TO be glad
they were put out. The waters of
Lethe, the fountain of forgetfulness,
are a healthful draught. The history
we have of the world in ages past is
always one-sided and cannot be de-
pended on. History is fiction Illus
trated by few struggling facts.
We may build this Everlasting re-
membrance." as my text styles it, into
the supernal existence of those to
whom we do kinduesses in this world.
You must remember that this infirm
and treacherous faculty which we now
call memory is in the future state to
be complete and perfect Everlasting
remembrance" Nothing will slip the
stout grip of that celestial faculty.
Did you help widow pay her rent?
Did you find for that man released from
| prison place to get honest work? Did
you pick up child fallen on the curb
stone, and by stick of candy put in
his hand stop the hurt on his scratched
! knee? Did you assure business man
swamped by the stringency of the
money market that times would after
awhile be better? Did you lead Mag
| dalen of the street into midnight
| mission, where the Lord said to her:
Neither do ! condemn thee. Go and
sin no more?" Did you tell a man clear
! discouraged in his waywardness and
hopeless and plotting suicide that for
| him was near by laver i'm which he
] lHlRHl WASH anu u tOTOutl OF tlefnuI
blessedness he might wear? What are
! epitaphs in graveyards, what are euo-
| gums in the presence OF those whose
breath is in their nostrils, what are
unread biographies in the alcoves of
city library, compared with the inn
| perishab,e records you have made in
| the illumined memories of those 20
whom you did such kindnesses? For
get them? They cannot forget them.
Notwithstanding all their might and
! splendor there are some things the
! glurtied of Heaven cannot do, and this
is one of them. They cannot forget an
earthly kindness done. They have no
cutlass to part that cable, They have
no strength to hurl into oblivion that
benediction. Has Paul forgotten the
inhabitants of Malta who extended the
island hospitality when he and others
with him had felt, added to ship
wreck, the drenching rain and the
sharp cold2 Has the victim of the
| hiUhwaVman IN the road tn .Iaricho