F
DEFEAT OF OBLIVION
Dr. Talmage Cheers Despondent
Christian Workers.
In HI* Sermon He Shows How Any
one Can He Widely and Forever
Recollected—Why We Should
Be Remembered,
[Copyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch, N. Y.]
Washington, Sept. 29.
In this discourse Dr. Talmage shows
how anyone can be widely and for
ever recollected and cheers despond
ent Christian workers; texts, Job 24:
20: “He shall be no more remembered,”
and Psalms 112: 6: “The righteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance.”
Of oblivion and its defeats I speak
to-day. There is an old monster that
swallows down everything. It crunches
individuals, families, communities,
6tates, nations, continents, hemi
spheres, worlds. Its diet is made up
of years, of centuries, of ages, of cy
cles, of milleniums, of eons. That mon
ster is called by Noah Webster “Obliv
ion.” It is a steep down which every
thing rolls. It is a conflagration in
which everything is consumed. It is
a dirge which all orchestras play and
a period at which everything stops.
It is the cemetery of the human race.
It is the domain of forgetfulness. Ob
livion! At times it throws a shadow
over all of us, and I would not pro
nounce it to-day if I did not come
armed in the strength of the eternal
God on your behalf to attack it, to
route it, to demolish it.
Why, just look at the way the fam
ilies of the earth disappear. For
awhile they are together, inseparable,
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 a family, develop
it, prosper it and obliterate it. So
the generations vanish. Walk up Penn
sylvania avenue, Washington; Broad
way, New York; State street, Boston;
Chestnut street, Philadelphia; the
Strand, London; Princeton street, Ed
inburgh; Champs Etysee, Paris; Unter
den Linden, Berlin, and you will meet
in this year 1901 not one person who
walked there in the year 1801. What
engulfment! All the ordinary 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 Ob
livion has a quicker chisel with which
he can cut out a thousands epitaphs
while old Mortality is cutting one epi
taph. Whole libraries of biographies
devoured of bookworms or unread of
the rising generations. All the signs
of the stores and warehouses of great
firms have changed, unless the grand
sons think that it is an advantage to
keep the old sign up because the name
of the ancestor was more commenda
tory than the name of the descendant.
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 fb-day, but
dig down deep enough, and you will
find a 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 30 feet deep or 50
feet deep or 100 feet deep. What was
the matter? Any special calamity?
No. I he winds and waves and sandsand
flying dust are all undertakers and
gravediggers, and if the world stands
long enough the present Washington
and New Y’ork and London will have
on top of them other Washingtons and
New Yorks and Londons, and only aft
er 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 Euro
pean cities.
Cali the roll of the armies of Bald
win I. or of Charles Martel or of
Marlborough 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
1,000,000 men in the army of Thebes.
Not one answer. Stand them in line,
the 1,700,000 infantry and 200,000 cav
alry of the Assyrian army under
Ninus, and call the roll. Not one an
swer. Stand in line the 1,000,000 men
of Sesostris, the 1,200,000 men of Arta
xerxes at Cunaxa, the 2,641,000 men
under Xerxes at Thermopylae and
call the Ions' roll. Not one answer.
At the opening of our civil war the
men of the northern and southern ar
mies 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 hospitals you cannot
call the names of a thousand nor the
names of 500 nor the names of 100
nor the names of 50. 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
deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes that
saw the coronation of George HI.
all closed? All closed. Oblivion! A
hundred years from now there will
not be a being on this earth that
knew we ever lived.
In some old family record a de
scendant 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 somewhere in the nineteenth
century, but they will know no more
about us than we know about the
color of a child’s eyes born last night
in a village in Patagonia. Tell me
something about your great-grandfa
ther. What were his features? What
did he do? What year was he born?
What year did he die? And your
great-grandmother? Will you de
scribe the style of the hat she wore,
and how did she and your great
grandfather get on in each other’s
companionship? Was it March weath
er or June? Oblivion! That moun
tain surge rolls over everything.
Even the pyramids are dying. Not
a day passes but there is chiseled off
a chip of that granite. The sea is
triumphing over the land, and what
is going on at our Atlantic coast is
going on all around the world, and
the continents are crumbling into the
waves. And while this is transpiring
on the outside world, the hot chisel
of the internal fire is digging under
the foundations of the earth and cut
ting its way out toward the surface.
It surprises me to hear people say
they do not think the world will
finally be burned up when all scien
tists will tell you that it has for ages
been on fire.
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
boy’s india rubber ball rolls down a
hill, and when our world goes it is so
interlocked by the law of gravitation
with other worlds that they will go,
too, and so far from having our mem
ory perpetuated by a monument of
Aberdeen granite in this world there
is no 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 constellations will
break and let down the populations
of other worlds. Stellar, lunar, solar,
mortality. Oblivion! It can swallow
and will swallow whole galaxies of
worlds as easily as a crocodile takes
down a frog.
We may build this everlasting- re
membrance,’' as my text styles It, into
the supernal existence of those to
whom we do kindnesses in this world.
You must remember that this infirm
and treacherous faculty which we now
call memory is in the future state to
be complete and perfect. “Everlasting
remembrance!” Nothing will slip the
stout grip of that celestial faculty.
Did you help a widow pay her rentV
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 in
his hand stop the hurt on his scratched
knee? Did you assure a 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
mission, where the Lord said to her:
"Neither do I 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 near by a laver in which he
might wash and a coronet of eternal
blessedness he might' wear? What are
epitaphs in graveyards, what are eulo
giums in the presence of those whose
breath is in their nostrils, what are
unread biographies in the alcoves of a
city library, compared with the im
perishable records you have made in
the illumined memories of those To
whom you did such kindnesses? For
get them? They cannot forget them.
Notwithstanding all their might and
splendor there are some things the
glorified of Heaven cannot do, and this
is one of them. They cannot forget an
earthly kindness done. They have no
cutlass to part that cable. They have
no strength to hurl into oblivion that
benediction. Has Paul forgotten the
inhabitants of Malta who extended the
island hospitality when he and others
with him had felt, added to a ship
wreck, the drenching rain and the
sharp cold? Has the victim of the
highwayman on the road to Jericho
forgotten the good Samaritan with a
medicament of oil and wine and a free
ride to the hostelry? Have the Eng
lish soldiers who went up to God from
the Crimean battlefields forgotten
Florence Nightingale? Through all
eternity will the northern and south
ern soldiers forget the northern and
southern women who administered to
the dying boys in blue and gray after
the awful fights in Tennessee and
Pennsylvania and Virginia and Geor
gia which turned every house and
barn and shed into a hospital and in
carnadined the Susquehanna and the
James and the Chattahoochee and the
Savannah with brave blood? The
kindnesses you do to others will stand
as long in the appreciation of others as
the gates of Heaven will stand, as the
“house of many mansions” will stand,
as long as the throne of God will stand.
Another defeat of oblivion will be
found in the character of those whom
we rescue, uplift or save. Character
is eternal. Suppose by a right influ
ence we aid in transf orminga bad man
into a good man, a dolorous man into
a happy man, a disheartened man info
a courageous man, every stroke of
that work done wiTl be immortalized.
There may never be so much as one
line in a newspaper regarding it or
no mortal tongue may ever whisper it
into human ear, but wherever that soul
shall go your work upon it shall go,
wherever that soul rises your work
on it will rise, and so long as that soul
will last your work on it will last. Do
you suppose there will ever come such
an idiotic lapse in the history of that
soul in Heaven that it shall forget that
you invited him to Christ; thaf you,
by prayer or Gospel word, turned him
round from the wrong way to the right
way? No such insanity will ever smite
a heavenly citizen. It is not half as
well on earth known that Christopher
Wren planned and built St. Paul’s as
it will be known in all Heaven that you
were the instrumentality of building
a temple for the sky. We teach a
Sabbath class or put a Christian tract
in the hand of a passerby or testify
for Christ in a prayer-meeting or
preach a sermon and go home discour
aged, as though nothing had been ac
complished, when we had been char
acter building with a material that no
frost or earthquake or rolling of the
centuries can damage or bring down.
Oh, this character building! The
structure lasting independent of
passing centuries, independent of
crumbling mausoleums, independent
of the whole planetary system. Aye,
if the material universe, which seems
all bound together like one piece of
machinery, should some day meet with
an accident that should send worlds
crashing into each other like tele
scoped railway trains, and all the
wheels of constellations and galaxies
should stop, and down into one chasm
of immensity all the suns and moons
and stars should tumble like the mid
night express at Ashtabula, that would
not touch us and would not hurt God,
for God is a spirit, and character and
memory are immortal, and over that
grave of a wrecked material universe
might truthfully be written: “The
righteous shall be held in everlasting
remembrance.” O Time, we defy thee!
O Death, we stamp thee in the dust of
thine own sepulchers! O Eternity, roll
on till the last star has stopped rotat
ing and the last sun is extinguished on
the sapphire pathway and the last
moon has illuminated the last night
and as many years have passed as all
the scribes that ever took pen could de
scribe by as many figures as they could
write in all the centuries of all time,
but thou shalt have no power to efface
from any soul in glory the memory of
anything we have done to bring it to
God and Jleaven.
*» uni , >viia.l iiumu, <-aii inert: ue
comparable to that of being- remem
bered by the mightiest and most af
fectionate being in the universe?
Think of it, to hold an everlasting
place in the heart of God! The heart
of God! The most beautiful palace in
the universe. Let the archangel build
some palace as grand as that if he
can. Let him crumble up all the stars
of yesternight and to-morrow night
and put them together as mosaics for
such a palace floor. Let him take all
the sunrises and sunsets of all the days
and the auroras of all the nights and
hang them up as upholstery at its win
dows. Let him take all the rivers and
all the lakes and all the oceans and toss
them into the fountains of this pal
ace court. Let him take all the gold
of all the hills and hang it in its chan
deliers and all the pearls of the seas
and all the diamonds of all the fields,
and with them arch the doorways of
that palace and th?n invite into all
the glories that Esther ever saw at a
Persian banquet or Daniel ever walked
among in Babylonian castles or Jo
seph ever witnessed in Pharaoh’s
tlironeroom and then yourself enter
this palace of archangelic construction
and see how poor a palace it is com
pared with the greater palace that
some of you have already found in
the heart of a loving and pardoning
God and into which all the music and all
the prayers and all the sermonic con
siderations of this dqy are trying to
introduce you through the blood of the
slain Lamb.
Oh, where is oblivion now? From
the dark and overshadowing word that
it seemed when I began it has become
something which no man or woman or
child who loves the Lord need ever fear.
Oblivion defeated. Oblivion dead. Ob
livion sepulchered. But 1 must not
be so hard on this devouring monster,
for into its grave go all our sins when
the Lord for Christ’s sake has for
given them. Just blow a resurrec
tion trumpet over them when once ob
livion has snapped them down. Not
one of them rises. Blow again. Not a
stir amid all the pardoned iniquities
of a lifetime. Blow again. Not one
of them moves in the deep grave
trenches. But to this powerless res
urrection trumpet a voice responds,
half human, half Divine, and it must
be part man and part God, saying:
“Their sins and their iniquities will I
remember no more.” Thank God for
this blessed oblivion. So you see I
did not invite you down into a cellar,
but on a throne; not into the grave
yard to which all materialism is des
tined, but into a garden all a-bloom
with everlasting remembrance. The
frown of my first text has become the
kiss of the second text. Annihilation
has become coronation. The wringing
hands of a great agony have become
the clapping hands of a great joy. The
requiem with which we began has be
come the grand march with which we
close. The tear of sadness that rolled
down our cheek has struck the lip on
which sits the laughter of eternal tri
umph.
RACING IN THE SOUTH,
Since Nashville, Tenn., ceased, some
years ago, to give an annual race meet
ing for harness horses, that branch of
sport has made no great progress in
the South. Atlanta, Birmingham, and
a few other cities have held meetings
of fair proportions, but none of them
have risen to the first rank, their pro
moters very wisely believing.that with
care they can be grown to become im
portant yearly events, even though
their beginning was modest. In conse
quence Lexington, Ky., has been the
only Southern city to hold an annual
harness meeting of national import
ance. This year Memphis makes its
debut and will have a racing carnival
October 21 to 26 inclusive that
promises to be one of the very greatest
ever held. A new mile track, with
mouern buildings of every sort, has
been built, at a total cost of $250,000,
and experts say it is the most complete
plant in the world, devoted entirely to
trotting and pacing. For the inaugural
meeting the sum of $35,000 will be
distributed in stakes and purses. Not
far from 500 of the best horses in
training have been entered for the
various races. They come from almost
every State in the Union, including
far-off California. New England, New
York and Pennsylvania will be repre
sented. There will be no lack of great
horses, noted drivers and prominent
owners, and the meeting will mark a
new era in the history of harness rac
ing in Tennessee, a State that gave to
tue world the first two-minute pacer,
Star Pointer, 1:59%, and .the master
reinsman, Edward F. Geers, who has
driven no less than four horses to
world’s records, and whose achieve
ments on the turf this year have fur
nished a sensational climax to his al
ready eventful history. It is the in
tention to make the annual meeting
at Memphis, including the one of this
year, as good as the best, and the result
will undoubtedly be a revival in the
breeding interests that will be worth
tnousands of dollars to the people of
Tennessee.
Pulling Teeth With the Fingers.
We learn from the Medical News
that Dr. Charles E. Coughlin of
Indianapolis, has discarded the forceps
In pulling teeth and has adopted the
primitive rule of the Chinese by using
the index finger for the purpose. He
believes that the sight of the forceps
constitutes the harrowing part of tooth
pulling and that many nervous per
sons are almost as shocked at the sight
of the instrument as they would be if
a cocked revolver were presented at
their heads. He can take out the most
firmly rooted double tooth in a few
seconds, and that without causing pain
comparatively speaking. “It is all
done with the thumb and forefinger of
the right hand,” he declares, “and
does not require any great strength,
for it is not performed by main force.”
he learned the.art from a Chinese
practitioner.—The Druggists’ Circu
lar.
One Way of Owning a Diamond.
A young man who works in a Che3b
nut street store, bought a diamond
ring some time ago. He was to pay for
it on the installment plan, $15 a
month. He made the first payment
and the diamond was delivered to him.
At the end of the first month the col
lector came around again. The young
man was broke. Finally he went to
a pawnbroker, borrowed $15 on the
ring and paid the pawnbroker. In
three weeks he got the ring out by
paying $16.50. Then in another week
the collector came around again. Once
more the ring was pawned. Then it
became a struggle for the young man
to get the ring out in time to pawn it
again, but he did. It has now been
four months since the diamond was
purchased. The young man is paying
double interest and the pawnbroker is
custodian of the ring.—Philadelphia
Times.
Making: Soap Bubbles.
Making soap bubbles is great sport
for the little folks, but It is twice as
much fun to make big ones that will
not break when they are floated to
the floor. To make these big bubbles,
take a piece of white castile soap,
about as big as a walnut. Cut U
up into a cup of warm water and
then add a teaspoonful of glycerine.
Stir well and blow from a small pipe.
This quantity of soap bubble material
will make enough for one day. To
color the bubbles pink add a few
drops of strawberry juice and to im
part a yellow tint add a little orange
juice.
A Nice Man.
“Supposing,” said Mr. Cirius Bark
er during a pleasure trip on an excur
sion boat, “that I were to fall over
board. What would you do?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Barker with
a gasp, “I’d cry my eyes out.”
“I knew it. That’s just like a wo
man. Always looking for a way to
make matters worse. Can’t you see
that crying wouldn’t do the slightest
good and that it would only make the
water that much deeper?”
TITLES THAT WERE REFUSED.
Gladstone, Dickenn, Verdi, Huxley
and Tjndnl >11 ttl I * Have Ileen
Lurdx Had They Cared To.
While the majority of mankind seek
titles with persistent industry, there
are others who actually refuse to ac
cept the same. Gladstone was a
notable example of the latter order
of humanity, for the peerage which
time after time was held out to him
was always rigidly rejected, says a
writer in Stray Stories.
Swinburne might have had a “Sir"
before his name had he chosen to ac
cept the baronetcy which was offered
him some years ago, but with true
democratic independence he refused
to accept a title which, after all,
could do little to enhance his fame.
Similarly, Mr. Watts, It. A., whose
pictures are known the wide world
over, could have ranked with Lord
Leighton had not he stoutly asserted
his objection to titles and elected to
remain as he was.
Lord Tennyson, when first ap
proached on the question of accept
ing a peerage, was strongly opposed
to the idea, but eventually suc
cumbed to the offer on the ground
that his son would inherit the title,
and that he was therefore justified in
taking it.
It is rumored that the late Prof.
Huxley was offered a knighthood by
Mr. Gladstone—an offer which was
politely but firmly declined. A sim
ilar honor was proposed to his dis
tinguished contemporary. Prof. Tyn
dal, and was also declined without
hesitation.
It is an open secret that Charles
Dickens might have added the word
“bart” to his illustrious name had he
chosen to do so.
A few years before the demise of
Verdi, the illustrious composer, the
late King Humbert sent for the
maestro and offered him a dukedom
in recognition of his services to mu
sic. Verdi refused the gracious offer
with dignified courtesy,, whereupon
the king admitted that he was quite
right.
“For,” said his majesty, “all the
titles in Italy could not make you
greater than you are.”
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CHAIRS,
Some of Them Are Still Preserved at
llushbrooke, in Suffolk,
England,
Curiously Interesting, says the Lon
don Lady’s Pictorial, are the Queen
Elizabeth chairs. In the days when
Sir Robert Jermyn owned the large
red-brick moated mansion at Rush
brooke, Suffolk, her majesty, Queen
Elizabeth, and the French ambas
sadors were several times entertained
by him, “with w'hich charges and
courtesies they stood marvelously
contented.” The Elizabethan hall
still displays as much dignity as when
royalty feasted beneath its spacious
roof, and nobles and ladies in all the
splendor of the sixteenth century
waited upon their sovereign within
its massive walls. A great deal of in
terest attaches to the two old chairs,
which formed part of the suite used
by Queen Elizabeth when she visited
Rushbrooke hall, and which are still
retained by the present owner, Wynd
ham Rushbrooke, Esq., as mementoes
of her majesty’s visits. The high
backed arm-chair is of carved beech,
the back and seat are upholstered
with the original Genoa velvet with
chenille borders. The arms and legs
are carved and pierced; cabriole con
nected with carved scrolled rail in
front. The back rails are turned.
The chair at his side is also a high
back arm-chair, with scrolled legs and
arms. The front bar between the
legs is carved with the royal crown
and scrolls; the top rail and splats
at the back are carved with cupids
and royal crown; the seat and back
are of cane.
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