The Yale expositor., 1901-10-04


his features? What did he do? What
year was he born? What year did he
die? And your great-grandmother?
Will you describe the style of the hat
she wore, and how did she and your
great-grandfather get on In each
others companionship? Was 1t March
weather or June? Oblivion! That
mountain surge rolls over everything.
Even the pyramids are dying. Not
day passes but there is chiseled of
chip of that granite. The sea Is tri-
umphing over the land, and what is
going on at our Atlantic coast is going
on all around the world, and the con-
tinents 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 foundations of the earth and cut
ting its way out toward the surface.
1t surprises me to hear the people say
they do not think the world will
finally be burned up when all the sci
entists Will tell you that 1t 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 school
boys india rubber ball rolls down a
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
DRY perpetuated by a monument of
Aberdeen granite in this world there
is no world in sight of our strongest
telescope that will be 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 a crocodile takes
down a 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 merciful
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 immensely have INSTRUCTED intel
| ligence and made all research impos-
sible. The fatal epidemic of books
was merciful epidemic. Many of the
state and national libraries today are
only morgues, in which dead books are
waiting for some one to come and rec
ognize them. What if all the people
that had been born were still alive?
We would have been elbowed by our
ancestors of ten centuries ago, and
people who ought to have said their
last word 1900 years ago would snarl
at us. saying, What are you doing
| here?" There would have been no
room to turn around. Some of the
past generations of mankind were not
worth remembering. The first useful
thing that many people did was to die,
their cradle a misfortune and their
| d
ly a comfortable place to live in be-
! fore the middle of the eighteenth cen
! fury. 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 draft
The history we have of the world in
ages past is always one sided and can
not be depended on. History is fiction
illustrated by a few struggling
| facts.
why We Should BE Remembered.
Now, have told you that this obli-
Won of which 1 have spoken has its
defeats and that there is no more rea-
son why we should not be distinctly
and Yividly and gloriously remembered
! fiveg hundred million billion trillion
quadrillion quintillion years from now
than that we should be remembered six
weeks. | am going to tell you how
the thing can be done and will be
done.
We may build this everlasting re-
membrance," as my text styles it, into
the supernal existence of those to
whom we do kindness 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 re-
membrance." 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
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