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

intcrlocked by the law of gravitaticn
| with other worlds that they will go,
too. and so far from having our MEM
DRY perpetuated by a monument Of
.tberdeen granite in this world there is
TO world in sight of our strongest
telescope that will be a 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.
| ObliyiOni 1t can swallow and will
swallow whole galaXies of worlds as
! easily as crocodile takes down frog.
Yet oblivion does not remove or swal-
low anything that had better not be re-
moved 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 ma
| tions and generations. What if all the
| books had lived that were ever written
and printed and published? The libra
ries would by their immensely have
| INSTRUCTED intelligence and made all re-
search impossible. The fatal epidemic
of books was a merciful epidemic.
ries today 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 centuries
ago, and people who ought to have said
their last word three thousand 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 grave a boon.
In all the Pantheon the weakest god
dess is Clio, the goddess of history, and
instead Of being represented by sculp-
tors rs holding a scroll might better be
represented as limping on crutches.
Faithful history is the saving of a few
things out Of more things lost. The
Immortality that comes from pOmp OF
obsequies or granite shaft or building
named after its founder or page of |
recognition in some encyclopedia is an
Immortality unworthy of ones ambi- |
ton, for it will cease and is no immOr- |
tally at all. Oblivion. A hundred !
years. But while | recognize this uni |
versal submergence Of things earthly I
who wants to be forgotten? Not one |
of US. Absent for a few weeks or |
months from home, it cheers us to
know that we are remembered there. |
1t is a phrase we have all pronounced,
81 hope you missed me-" Meeting some
fri WIN no vi
ed many years we inquire, did you |
ever see me before?' And they say,
yes" and call us by name, and we
feel q 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, 1 have to tell you that this OBJ
liviOn Of which l have spoken has its
defeats, and there is no more reason
why we should not be distinctly and
wildly and gloriously remembered five
hundred million billion triIlion quadril-
lion 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 supernai existence of those to
whom we do kindnesses in this world
Won mammalian thot this i0firn1
and treac herous faculty which we now
call memory is in the future state to be
complete and perfect. Everlasting re-
membrancer' 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 a stick Of candy put i'll
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 a Mag !
dalen of the street into a midnight mis-
sion, where the Lord said to her: "Nei-
Their do l 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 nearby a laver, in which he
might wash and a coronet of eternal
be 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 a city library, compared with
the imperishable records you have made
in the ill1Infned memories of those to