Milford chronicle., 1901-10-04

WASHINGTON, Sept 29.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmage shows how any one
can be widely and forever recollected and
cheers Respondent Christian workers;
texts, Job xiv, 20, lie shall be no more
remembered" and Psalms cxii, 6, 1.-THE
righteous shall be in everlasting remem-
brance"
OF oblivion and its defeats speak to-
day. There is an old monster that swal-
lows down everything. 1t crunches in
dividuals, families, communities, states,
nations, continents, hemispheres, worlds.
Its diet is made UP Of years, Of centuries,
Of ages, Of cycles, Of millenniums, Of
cons. That monster is called by Noah
Webster and all the other dictionaries
"Oblivion." 1t is a steep down which
everything rolls. 1t is a conhagration in
which everything is consumed. 1t is a
dirge which all orchastras play and
period at which everything stops. 1t is
the cemetery of the human race. 1t is
the domain Of forgetfulness. Oblivion!
At times it throws a shadow over all of
us, and | would not pronounce it today
if | did not come armed in the strength
of the eternal God on your behalf to at
tack it, to route it, to demolish it.
Why, just look at the way the families
of the earth disappear. For awhile they
are together, inseparable and to each
other Indispensable, and then they part,
some by marriage going to establish other
homes, and some leave this life, and
century is long enough to plant family,
develop 1t, prosper it and obliterate it.
So the generations vanish. Walk up
Pennsylvania avenue, Washington;
Broadway, New York; State street, Bos-
ton; Chestnut street, Philadelphia; the
Strand, London; Princess street, Edin-
burgh; Champs Elysees, Paris; Inter
den Linden, Berlin, and you will meet
in this year 1901 not one person who
walked there in the year 1901. What en-
gulfmcnt! All the ordinary efforts at
perpetuation are dead failures. Walter
SCOTS Old Mortality may go round
with his chse to recut the faded cpl
taphs on tombstones, but Old Oblivion
has n quicker chisel with which he can
cut out a thousand eptaphs while Old
Mortality is cutting one epitaph. Whole
libraries Of biographies devoured of
boOlwOrms or unread of the rising gen
erations. All the signs of the stores and
unless the grandsons think that it is an
advantage to keep the old sign up be-
cause the name of the ancestor was more
commendatory than the name of the de-
scendant. 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 a
third Rome Jerusalem stands today,
but dig down deep enough, and you will
find a Jerusalem underneath aud 50 on
and deeper down a 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 thirty feet deep or fifty feet deep
or 100 feet deep. What was the natter
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 Washing
tons and New Yorks and Londons, and
only after digging and boring and blast
ing will the archmologists Of far distant
centuries come down as far as the high
est spires and dOmes and turrets of our
present American and European cities.