Connecticut western news., 1901-10-03

are you doing hereY' There would have been no room to turn around. Some of tue 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 grave boon.
 In all the Pantheon the weakest god dess is Clio, the goddess of history, and instead of being represented by sculp tors as holding scroll might better be represented as limplng on crutches Faithful history Is the saving of a few things out of more things lost. The immortality that comes from pomp oi obsequies or granite shaft or building named after It's founder or page of recognition in some encyclopedia is an immortality unworthy of ones ambt tion, for 1t will cease and is no immor tality at all. Oblivion! A hundred years. But while I recognize this uni versal submergence of things earthly, who wants to be forgotten? Not one of us. Absent for a few weeks ol months from home, 1t cheers us to know that we are remembered there. 1t Is phrase we have all pronounced 'I hope you missed me-" Meeting some friends from whom we have been part ed many years we inquire, Did you ever see me before?" And they say. "Yes," and call us by name, and We feel a delightful sensation thrilling through their hand into our hand and running up from elbow to shoulder and then parting, the one current of delight ascending to the brow and the other descending to the foot, moving round and round in concentric circles until every nerve and muscle and capacity of body and mind and soul Is permeat- ed with delight.
 Good Lives Forever.
 Now, l have to tell you that this ob- defeats, and there is no more reason why we should not be distinctly aad vividly and gloHously remembered five hundred million billion trillion quadril- lion quintillion years from now than that we should be remembered six weeks. I 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 kindnesses 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 membraDcep Nothing will slip the stout grip of that celestial faculty. Did you help a widow pay her rent? Did you find for that man released from prison a place to get honest work? Did you pick up a child, fallen on the curb stone and by stick of candy put iu 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 mis sion, where the Lord said to her: "Nei- ther do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more?" Did you tell man, clear discouraged In his waywardness and hopeless and plotting suicide, that for him was nearby a layer, in which he
 
 blessedness he might wear?
 What are epitaphs in graveyards, what are eulogiums in presence of those whose breath Is In their nostrils, what are unread biographies In the al coves of city library, compared with the imperishable records you have made In the illumined memories of those to whom you did such kindnesses? For get them? They cannot forget them. Notwithstanding all their might and splendor, there are so-ne things the glo- rified 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 benefaction. 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 cold? Has the victim of the highway man on the road to Jericho forgotten the good Samaritan with a medicament of oil and wine and a free ride to the hostelry2 Have the English soldiers who went up to God from the Crimean battlefields forgotten Florence Nightin- gale? Through all eternity will the northern and southern soldiers forget the northern and southern women who administered to the dying boys in blue and gray after the awful fights in Ten nessee and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Georgia, which turned every house nd barn and shed into a hospital and incarnadined the Susquehanna and the James and the Chattahoochee and the Savannah with brave blood? The kind nesses you do to others will stand as long in the appreciation of others as the gates of heaven will stand, as the "house of many mansions" will stand, as long as the throne of God will stand.
 Oblivion Defeated.
 Another defeat of Oblivion will be found In the character of those whom we rescue, uplift or save. Character Is eternal. Suppose by right influence we aid in transforming bad man into a good man, a dolorous man into hap py man, a disheartened man into a courageous man, every stroke of that work done will be immortalized. There may never be so much as one line ill a newspaper regarding 1t or no mortal tongue may ever whisper 1t into human ear, but wherever that soul shall go your work upon 1t shall go, wherever that soul rises your work on 1t will rise, and so long as that soul will last your work on it will last Do you sup pose there will ever come such an idi- otic lapse in the history of that soul in heaven that 1t shall forget that you in- vited him to Christ; that you, by pray CT or gospel work, turned him round from the wrong way to the right way No such insanity will ever smite a heavenly citizen. It Is not half as well on earth known that Christopher Wren planned and built St. Pauls as 1t will be known in all heaven that you were the instrumentallty of building a tenn pie for the sky. We teach a Sabbath class, or put a Christian tract in the hand of a passerby or testify for Christ In prayer meeting, or preach a