Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1901-10-10
THERE ISNOOBLIVLON
DR.. TALMAGE'S SUNDAY SERMON.
rlan's Responsibility Cannot Be OBJ
liberated This Side of Eternity-A
Strong Sermon.
Copyright, 1891. !


widely and forever recollected and cheers
respondent Christian workers; texts, job
XIV, 90, "He shall be no more remen.
bered," and Psalms cxii, 6, ''The righteous
shall be in everlasting remembrance"
OF oblivion and its defeats | speak to-
day. There is an old monster that swai-
lows down everything. 1t crunches indi-
viduals, families, communities. States, ma
tons, continents, hemispheres, worlds. It's
diet Is made up of years, of centuries, of
ages, of cycles. or millenniums, 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 conhagration in which everything
is consumed. 1t is drge which all or
chestras play and a period at which
<,erything stops. 1t is the cemetery OF
the human race. 1t is the domain Of for
getfulness. Oblivion! AT times it throws
a shadow over all of us, and | would not
pronounce it to-day if | did not come
armed in the strength of the eternal God
on your behalf to attack it, to rout 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 a CEN
fury Is long enough to plant family, de-
velop it, prosper it and obiiterate it. So
the generations vanish. Walk up Penn
sylvania avenue, Washington Broadway,
New York; State street, Boston, Chest
nut 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 ordi
nary efforts at perpetuation are dead fail
Il
90 round with his chsel to recut the
faded opitaphs on tombstones, but Old
ObliVions has a quicker chsel. with which
he can cut out n thousand epitaphs while
Old Mortality is cutting in one epitaph
Call the roll Of the armies of Baldwin T.
or of Charles Martel or of Marlborough
or of Mithridate3 or OF Prince Frederick
or of Cortes, and not one answer will you
hear. Stand them in line and call the roll
OF the ,OOO,O men in the army of Thebes
Not one answer Stand them in line, the
10000 infantry and the 100000 cavalry
OF the Assvrian 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 2,64l 900 men under Xerxes at Their
mopylae 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 hos
pitfalls You cannot call the names of a
thousand. nor the names of 500. nor the
names of 100 nor the names of fifty.
Oblivion, The world itself will roll
into it az easily as a schoolbov's rubber
ball rolls down a hill, and when our world
goes it is 50 iuterlocked by the law OF
Rrayitation with, other worlds that they
will go, too, and so far from having our
memory perpetuated by a monument Of
Aberdeen granite in this world there j.
no world in sight Of our strongest tele-
scope that will be a sure pediment for any
slab of commemOraton of the fact that
we ever lived or died at all. Our earth is
struck with death. The axetree OF the
constel!at'ors VIII break and let down
lunar, solar mortality. Oblivion, 1t can
swallow and VIII swallow whole galaxes
of words as easily as crocodile takes
Gown IIoE.
ieC Oh won Goes not remove or SWai-
10" anything mat had beCter not be re-
moved or swallowed; The old monster IS
|eicoihe - ms meal. Inns world would
tohs ago nave beeh oVercroWded II not
Tor the mercitul removal of nations and
ReuttaGloi'S' w Nat II an the DOCKS had
llVGd tnat were eyer 3 written and printed
ana punished! he libraries would by
their immensely have obstructed intelli-
seuGe ah9 mace an research Impossible.
what II all n the people that had been
porn We're sun awe! we would have
D t elboWed ny orr ancestors OF ten cen
ttries ago ana people VINO ought to have
sad their last word %G40 years ago would
snar! az us, Vs. saying " nat are You dong
mere! lhere would have been no room
to turn around. Some OF the past gener-
atoms or mankind are not worth remem-
her!n%. he firSt useful thing that many
people did was to die; their cradle mis-
fortune and their grave d boon.
In all the Pantheon the weakest god
dcss Is t.l0' the goddess OF history, and
instead OF beIng represented by sculptors
as o,"IhG a scroll MlSht DetJer be repre-
sented as Jumping on crutches Faithful
history Is the SAVING or q few things out
on more things lost. Inc Immortality
that comes from pomp of obsequies or
granite shaft or building named after its
founder or page OF recognition in some en-
,yc1opedia is an Immortality unworthy OF
ones ambition, for it will cease and is no
at all
Oblivion A hundred years. But while
recognize this universal submergenca of
Not one Of us. Absent for a few weeks
n months from home it cheers us to know
hat we are remembered there. 1t Is
phrase we have all pronounced, Il hope
lou missed me-" Meeting some friends
rom whom we have been parted many
ears we inquire, Did YOU ever see me be-
ore!' And they say. Yes" and call us
~ name, and we feels a delightful sensa
lon thrilling through their hand into our
1and and running up from elbow to
and then parting. the one cur
'ent OF delight ascending to the brow and
he other descending to the foot, moving
'ound and round in concentric circles un-
IL every nerve and muscle and capacity OF
,ody and mind and soul is permeated with
lellght.
Now, l have to tell You that this obi
non of which l have spoken has its de-
eats, and there is no more reason why we
should not be distinctly and yiyidIv and
OBVIOUSLY remembered i've hundred mill
on billion trllion uuadrillion QuintiIIion
,ears from now than that we should be
six weeks. [ am going to tell
-ou how the thing can be done and viii
De done.
We may build this Everlasting remem-
rance" as my text styles it, into the su-
Jernal existence OF those 10 whom we do
,indnesses in this world Yon muSt w,
member that this iniirm and treacherons