Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-10-02


and Psalms exit. 6, "The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance.
or oblivion ana its defeats l speak to-
day. There is an old monster thar swal-
lows iown everything. 1t crhnches I'M
divid,Ials, families, communities, states,
nations, continents. hemispheies, worlds.
Its diet is made up OF years, of centuries.
of ages, of cycles. of miiienniums, of
cons That monster is called by Noah
Webster ana ali the other dictionaries
oblivion" 1t is steep down which
everything rolls. 1t is conhagration III
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. Ii Is
the domain of forgetfulness. Oblivion!
At times 1t throws a shadow over all of
us, aud | would not pronounce 1t to-day
if l did not come armed in the strength
Of the eternal God on your behalf to at
tack it, to route it, to demolish it
Why, just look at the way the families
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
century is long enough to plant family,
develop it. prosper it and obliteratc NJ
So the generations vanish. Walk up
PENNSYLVANIA avenue. Washington
Broadway, New York; State street, Bos-
ton; Chestnut street Philadelphia; the
Strand, London; Princess streety Edin-
burg: Champs Elysees, Paris; Inter
den Linden, Berlin, and YOU will meet
in this year 1901 not one person VINO
walked there in the year 1901. What en-
gulfnentl All the ordinary efforts at
perpetuation are dead failures. Walter
SCOTS Old Mortality may go round
with his chisel to recut the faded cpl
taphs on tombstones, but Old Oblivion
mas a quicker chisel with which he can
cut out a thousand epitaphs while Old
Mortality is cutting one epitaph. Whole
libraries of biographies devoured of
bookworms or unread of the rising gen
eratioas. 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 be-
cause the name of the ancestor was more
commendatory than the name Of the de-
scendant. The city of Rome stands to-
day, 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 to-day,
but dig down deep enough, and yol will
find Jerusalem underneath and go on
and deeper down a third Jerusalem.
Alexandria, Egypt on the top of an
Alexandria, and the second ON the top of
the third. Many of the ancient cities are
buried thirty # deep or fifty feet deep
or 100 feet dee,,. What was the matter?
Any special calamity? No. The winds
and waves and sands and flying dust are
all undertakers and grayediggers, and il
the world stands long enough the present
Washington and New York and London
will have on top of them other Washing
tons and New Yorks and Londons, aDS
only after digging and boring and blast
ing will the arehaeologists of far distant
centuries come down us far as the high
est spires and domes and trrfets of our
present American and European cities.
The Kohl Of Armies.
Cali the roll of the armies of Baldwin /.
or of Charles Martel or Of Marlborough
or Of AGithridates or of Prince Frederick
or of Cortes, and not one answer 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 100000 infantry and the
100000 cava' of the Assyrian rlny
Under Minus, 1Bl call the roll. Not one
answer. Stand IN line the LOCO 900 men
of Sesostris, the 100000 mer Of Arta-
xerxes at CunaXa, the 2,64IG(0 men I'M
der Xerxes at Thermopylae ald call the
long roll Net one answer. At the open
ing of our Civil War the men of the
Northern and Southern armies were told
that il they fell i'll battle their names
would never be forgotten by their coun-
try. Out of the million men who fell in
b. ttle or died in military hospitals you
cannot call the names of a thousand nor
the u mes OF 900 nor the names of 100
nor the names Of fifty. Oblivion. Are
the feet Of the dancers who were at the
ball Of the Duchess of Richmond NJ Brus-
sells the night before Waterloo all still?
All stilL Are the cars thai heard the guns
Of Bunker Hin all deaf: All deaf. Are
the eyes that saw the coronation of
George III all closed? All closed OBJ
hvion! 4 hundred years from now there
will not he be ny on this earth that
knew we ever lived.
1t surprises me to hear people say they
do not think the world viii finally he
burned up when all scientists will tell
you that it has for ages been on fire.
Why there Is oily crust between as
and the furnaces inside raging 10 get
out ODlivionI The world itself viii roll
into it as easily as a school boys india
rubber ball rolls down a hill, and when
our world goes it is 50 interloeked by the
law of gravitation with other worlds that
they viii go, too, and SO far from having
our memory perpetuatea by monument
Of Aberdeen granite in this world there
Is no world in sight Of our strongest
telescope that win he sure pediment
for any slab OF commemeration Of the
fact that we ever lived or died at all
Our earth is str * with death. The
axletree of tiie consultations viii break
and let d5wn tho populations Of other
worlds. Stellar, lunar, solar, mortality
Oblivion! II can swallow and viii swal-
low whole galaNies Of worlds rs easily
as crocodile takes Down 4 frog
Yet Oblivion does not remove or swal-
low everything that had better not be re-
moved or swallowed. The Old monster
is welcome 70 lis meat This world
you'd long ago have been 9vercrowded
Il not for the mercifni removal Of ma
tons ana generations. What Il all the
books had lived that we're ever written
and printat and Published The libraries
would by their i-n.nei-sity have olstruct-
al intelligence and mad III research i'm
possible. The fatal epidemic Il books
was q ineTcifui epilenia Many y he