Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1901-10-05

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 20.-In this dis
course Dr. Tulmage shows how any
one can be widely and forever recol-
lected and cheers respondent Christian
workers; texts, Job xiv, 20, "He shall
be no more remembered" and Psalms
IrxiI, 6, "The righteous shall be in ever
lasting remembrance"
OF oblivion and It's defeats I 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
Ilenniums, Of cons. That monster Is
called by Noah Webster and all the
other dictionaries "Obllvion." 1t is a
steep down which everything rolls. 1t
Is a confiagration in which everything
| is consumed. 1t is a dirge which all
crchestras play and period at which
everything stops. 1t Is the cemetery
of the human race. 1t Is the domain Of
forgetfulness. Obllvionl At times 1t
throws a shadow over all Of us, and l
would not pronounce 1t today II did
not come armed in the strength Of the
eternal God on your behalf to attack 1t.
to route it, to demollsh 1t.
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. somo by marriage going to es-
tablish other homes, and some leave
this life, and a century is long enough
to plant a family. develop it, prosper 1t
and obliterate 1t. 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; Unter den Linden, Ber-
lin, and you will meet In this year 1901
not one person who walked there In the
year 1901. What engulfment. All the or
dinary efforts at perpetuation are dead
failures. Walter Scott's 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 un-
read Of the rising generations. All the
signs Of the stores and warehouses or
great firms have changed, unless the
grandsons think that 1t 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 90 down still farther and |
you will find third Rome. Jerusalem
stands today, but dig down deep enough |
and you will find Jerusalem under
meath, and go on and deeper down a !
third Jerusalem.
A Hundred Years Hence.
Call the roll of the armies Of Baldwin |
I. or of Charles Martel or Of Marlbor-
ough or of Mlthridates or Of Prince
Frederick or Of Cortes, and not one an
swer will you hear. Stand them In
line and call the roll Of the 100000
men In the army Of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them In line, the l, ,10O,-
900 infantry and the 100000 cavalry
of the Assyrlan 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 2,641,O00 men under
Xerxes at Thermopyl@ and call the
long roll. Not one answer. At the
opening Of our civil war the men or
the northern and southern armies were
told that II 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 OF
q thousand nor the names Of 800 nor
the names Of 100 nor the names Of
fifty. Oblivion!
In some old family record 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 child's
eyes born last night In a village In
Patagonia. Tell me something about
your grcat-grandfather What were
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
get on In each 9th
er's companlonship? Was 1t March
weather or June? Obllyionl That
mountain surge rolls over everything.
Even the pyramids are dying. Not a
day passes but there is chiseled Off n
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 contl-
nents are crumblng 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
foundation Of the earth and cutting
its way out toward the surface. 1t
surprises me to hear people say they
do not think the world will finally he
burned up when oil scientists will tell
you that 1t has for ages been on fire.
We Like to BE Remembered.
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 a school
boys india rubber ball rolls down a
hill, and when our world goes 1t is 80
interlocked by the law Of gravitation
with other worlds that they will go,
too, and so far from having our men,
ory perpetuated by a monument Of