Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-09-30

workers: texts, Job xiv. 20, "He shall
be no more remembered" and Psalms
cxii, 6, THE righteous shall be in ever
lasting remembrance"
OF oblivion and its defeats [ speak
today. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. 1t crunch
es individuals, families, communities.
states, nations, continents, hemispheres,
worlds. Its diet is made up of years,
Of centuries, Of ages, of cycles, of mil
lenniums, 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 conf1agratiOn in which everything
Is consumed. 1t is q dirge which all
crchestras play and a 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 l
would not pronounce it today if l did
not come armed in the strength of the
eternal God on your behalf to attack it.
to route it, to demolish it.
Why, just look at the way the fami-
lies Of the earth disappear. For awhile
they are together. inseparable, and to
each other Indispensable, and then they
part, some by marriage going to es-
tabliSh other homes, and some leave
this life. and a century is long enough
to plant family, develop it, prosper it
and obliterate it. So the generations,
vanish. Walk up Pennsylvania avenue,
Washington; Broadway, New York;
State street, Boston; Chestnut street,
Philadelphia; the Strand, London;
Princess street, Edinburgh; Champs
Elysees, Paris; Inter den Linden, Ber-
lin, and you will meet in this year 1901
not one person who walked there in the
year1S01, What enSulfment. All the or
binary efforts at perpetuation are dead
failures, Walter SCOTS Old Mortality
may go round with his chisel to recut
the faded epitaphs on tombstOnes, but
Old Oblivion has a quicker chisel, with
which he can cut out thousand cpl
taphs while Old Mortality is cutting in
one epitaph. Whole libraries of biOgra-
phies 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 it 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 a third Rome. Jerusalem
stands today, but dig down deep enough
and you will find a Jerusalem under
meath, and go OH and deeper down a
third Jerusalem.
49,. Hundred Years Hence.
Cali the roll of the armies of Baldwin
I. or of Charles 1artel 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 cali the roll Of the 100000
men in the army Of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them in line, the 1,100,-
600 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 at
CunaXa, the 2641,OOO men under
Nerxes at Thermopyl9 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 if 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
a thousand nor the names of 500 nor
the names of 100 nor the names of
fifty. Oblivion!
In some old family record a 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 child'S
eyes born last night in a village in
Patagonia. Tell me something about
your great-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 wore, and how did she and your
great-grandfather get on in each 9TH
er's companionship? Was it March
weather or June? Oblivion! That
mountain surge rolls over everything.
Even the pyramids are dying Not a
day passes but there is chiseled off
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 CONT
+0ents are crImbling into the waves.
And while this is transpiring on the
outside of the world, the hot chise1 Of
The internal fire is digging under the
Foundation of the earth and cutting