The Yale expositor., 1901-10-04
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
DEFEATS OF OBLIVION LAST SUM-
DAYS SUBJECT.
Tie Shall he No More Remembered''-
Job. xiv. eO-"Ths Righteous Shall
BE In Everlasting Rsmembrance''-
Psalms cxll @.
copyright. 1901. by LOui. Klop.ch. N. VI

sourse DR.. Talmage shows how any
pne can be widely and forever recol-
ected and cheers respondent Christian
workers; texts, Job xiv, 20, HE shall
be no more remembered" and Psalms
xii, 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
rrunches individuals, families, com
munities, states, nations, continents,
hemispheres, worlds. It's diet is made
up of years, OF centuries, OF ages, or
cycles, of millenniums, of cons. That
monster is called by Noah Webster
and all other dictionaries "Oblivion."
1t is a steep down which everything
rolls. 1t is confiagration in which
everything is consumed. 1t is a dirge
which all orchestras play and period
at which everything stops. 1t Is the
cemetery of the human race. 1t is the
domain of forgetfulness. Oblivion!
At times 1t throws a shadow over all
of us, and l would not pronounce 1t
today If did not come armed in the
strength of the eternal God on your
behalf to attack it, to route 1t, to de-
molsh 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
establish other homes, and some leave
this life. and a century is long enough
to plant family, develop it, prosper
II and obliterate it. So the generations
vanish Walk up Pennsylvania ave-
nue., Washington; Broadway, New
York; State street, Boston; Chestnut
street, Philadelphia: the Strand Lon
don; Princess street, Edinburgh;
Champs Elysees, Paris; Inter den
Linden, Berlin, and you will meet in
this year. 1901 not one person who
walked there in the year 1901. What
engulfment! All the ordinary
efforts at perpetuation art dead
failures. Walter SCOTS Old
Mortality may go round with
his chisel to recut the faded cpl
taphs on tombstones, but Old Oblivion
hdS a AulIhCl Snlotl VIII WhlIn Gun
cut out a thousand epitaphs while Old
Mortality is cutting one epitaph.
Whole libraries of biographies devour-
ed of bookworms or unread Of the ris-
ing 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 commendatory
than the name of the descendant. The
city of Rome 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 Jerusalem underneath and go
on and deeper down a third Jerusa-
lem. Alexandria, Egypt, on top of an
Alexandria, and the second on top of
the third. Many OF the ancient cities
are buried thirty feet deep or fifty feet
deep or 100 feet deep. What was the
matter? Any special calamity? No
The wind and waves and sands and
flying dust are all undertakers and
gravediggers, and II the world stands
long enough the present Washington
and New York and London will have
on top Of them other Washingtons
and New Yorks and Londons, and only
after digging and boring and blasting
will the archaeologists Of far distant
centuries come down as far as the
highest spires and domes and turrets
of our present American and European
cities.
The Roll of Armies.
Call the roll of the armies OF Bald
win l. or of Charles Martel or Of MARI
borough or Of Mithridates or of Prince
Frederick or of Cortes, and not one
answer will you hear. Stand them In
line and call the roll of the 1,000, 900
men in the army of Thebes. Not one
answer. Stand them In line, the
10000 infantry and the ZOO 900 cav
airy Of the Assyrlan army under Nj
nus, and call the roll. Not one an
swer. Stand in line the 1000 900 men
of Sesostris, the 100000 men OF
Artaxerxes at Cunaxa, the 2641 900
men under Xerxes at Thermopylae 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 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 thousand, nor the
names of 500 nor the names Of 100
nor the names OF fifty. Oblivion! Are
the feet of the dancers who at the
ball of the Duchess of Richmond at
Brussels the night before Waterloo all
still? All still. Are the ears that
heard the guns of Bunker Hill all
deaf7 All deaf Are the eyes that saw
the coronation OF George ii. all closed7
All closed. Oblivionl A hundred
years from now there will not be