i
§
i
TE ——
GOLDEN ROD.
Spring is the morning of the year,
And summer is the noontide bright;
The autumn is tha evening clear
That comes before the winter's night.
And in the evening, everywhere
Along the roadside, up and down,
I see the golden torches flare
i Likelighted street lamps in the town.
I think the butterfly and bee,
From distant meadows coming back,
Ave quite contented when they see
These lamps along the homeward track.
But those who stay too late get lost ;
For when the darkness falls about,
Down every lighted street the frost
Will go and put the torches out!
—Frank Dempster Sherman.
A SAVAGE SCHOLAR.
LY BESSIE G. HART.
EVERAL years ago
while leading the
migratory life of a
district school
teacher, fate laid
the scenes of my
tiny schoolhouse
emong the Boyls-
ton hills.
It was a lovely,
though lonely place.
hills, in gently sloping descent, melted
softly into the pebbly beach of “Old |
Ontario”’—and on the other rose, crest
on crest, as far as the eye could see.
One building alone gladdened my eyes |
—a large red barn a hali mile away.
Before the school house lay the broad |
meadows belonging to the owner of the
ging
barn, while behind it a tangled thicket |
of bushes and slender second-growth
trees almost brushed the low roof.
My scholars—with.one exception—
were the usual assortment of freckled, |
tanned, frowsly, bare-footed boys and
girls usually found in a country school.
This notable exception was Sam
Sharp, an exceedingly bright, dull
poy. For though fourteen years old
and scarcely keeping his place in a
class of children not much more than |
half his age, he was yet the quickest-
witted, the most observing and the |
handiest boy I ever knew. Add to
this that he was good-natured, truth-
ful and fearless—and exceedingly
handsome—the accusation that ‘the
teacher favored Sam Sharp’ was not,
perhaps, entirely without foundation.
When I first came to the little hill
schoolhouse the children entertained
me with many gruesome tales of the
wild animals which sometimes came
down from the North Woods, and were
apparently particularly partial to that
locality.
“Why,” said Sam Sharp, ‘right
here, on this very spot, in the bushes
back of the schoolhouse, they killed a
bear last year. You ought to have
seen his claws; and there wasn’t a
thing in his stomach!
kept then likely 'nough he’d a made a
meal of some of us. Wouldn't Minty
Smith a made him a good square one,
hé’s so fat?”
Here Minty set up a wail, “I won't
be et by a bear if I am fat;” the other
children shouted with laughter, and
such a tumult prevailed I was obliged
to ring the bell and thus shorten the
noon intermission by ten minutes.
- But I did not forget the bear, and
many were the uneasy glances I cast
"toward the thicket behind my rustic
temple of learning. But nofiery-eyed,
red-tongued black head ever peered at
me from its green depths, and I for-
got the bear in the still more blood-
curdling tale of the panther, told me
by no less an authority than the school
trustee. .
“Two years agd,” he said, ‘‘a
painter came down from the woods and
commenced rampagin ‘mong the ani-
mals. One night he killed a calf of
mine and three days after two sheep
over on the turnpike, and none knows
how many other critters he killed we
never heard of, for he was all over,
like bad weather. One nightwe heard
him over in Hemlock Lake swamp
cryin’ like a baby, the next night my
boy Bill heard him over on the Peter-
boro road ten mile from here, where |
he’d been to a dance, and he was fin’ly
shot by Mike Mullen not forty rod
from your schoolhouse door.”
Then for several weeks I heard
stealthy steps and felt a hot breath on
my neck, a half dozen times at least,
during my mile walk through the
thick September mists to the school-
house. And, surely, those were the
thickest mists that ever wrapped any
hills, they blotted everything from my
sight but a short stretch of road, be-
fore me.
The lowing of cattle, the neighing
of horses, the voices of people, came
to me from: them with the weirdness
and unreality we feel when adog barks
at midnight. And as, with ears
strained in listening and cold chills
traversing my spine, I walked the
lonely, road, many queer fancies came
to me torn of my loneliness and fears.
If the panther should devour me,
would my wraith haunt the road?
Would travelers, walking through the
mists, be startled by a pale-faced
woman passing them with hurrying
steps, and shivering, backward looks?
And would she wear frizzles, and
carry a tin dinner-pail? As this or
some other ridiculous conclusion came
to me I would laugh, and in a revulsion
of feeling come, out of the lifting |
mists, into spicy odors and merry
child-life
September mists gave way to bright |
October—a veritable golden month—
the late frosts, which had delayed al-
most to its beginning, glorified the
hillsides into such wonderful beauty,
I seemed to be living in a new world.
No monster had come from the thicket
—no dark form had bounded, with
child-like ery, from the mists.
October was almost gone, vacation
was only a month away, in the pleas-
ant present, and anticipated future, I |
bad forgotten my fears. One day,
a :
daily labors in a |.
: lin the yard, saw an enormous black |
On one side the |
If school had a |
} shortly after the beginning
afternoon session, I saw Sam Sharp’s
uplifted hand. As he never asked un
necessary questions I broke the rule
“No questions during recitations” and
asked, ‘‘What is it, Sam?”
something besides mischief in the
bright black eyes raised to mine, as he
said :
schoolhouse yard.
little bashful about coming in. He's
eating his lunch now. Shall I go out
and ask him to come in when he is
{ through?”
invite him in. We'll try and make him
fulness when he finds we are all his
friends.”
A look of amusement curiously
mingled with something else came over
Sam’s face as he walked out of the
school-room, into the entry, carefully
closing the door behind him. The next
moment I heard the ontside door close,
and the key turn in the lock.
| Before I could wonder at Sam’s
| strange conduct, he came in and beck-
oning to me said in a low voice,
“Come and see the new scholar.” I
went to the window; and looking out
| bear walking around, picking up the
| crusts of bread and cake the children
| had thrown from their dinner-pails at
{ noon!
| A mist passed before my eyes—the
! black form looked as large as an ele-
| phant, and multiplied before me until
| the yard seemed full of bears.
| ¢“What shall we do, Sam?” I gasped,
grasping histough boyish hand in mine.
“Close the shutters as quick ‘as we
can,” he whispered, and in a moment,
almost, we had fastened the heavy
| wooden, inside blinds, and thick dark-
| ness shut out the faces of the wonder-
| ing children. Then I said in a low
voice, “Children don’t move or stir—
| there’s a bear in the yard.”
The children only too well knew
their danger and save a soft rustle as
some little one crept nearer an elder
brother or sister no sound broke the
stillness except Sam's step as he stole
into the tiny woodshed and fastened
| the back door with its heavy bar.
| Then he mounted guard at the front
| door, where, through a chink, he
| could watch the movements of the
| bear.
An hour passed thus, Every mo-
| ment the feeling of horror grew more
| unbearable.
Once Sam came in to say the bear
| was still roaming around, but had
| made no movement toward the school-
lhouse.
| Another uneasy half hour passed and
| as I sat revolving a hundred wild plans
for our deliverance Sam again crept
| softly to my side.
{ ¢“He is getting restless,” he whis-
pered, ‘and I'm afraid if he comes
| nearer he'll find out we are here, anc
you know the lower panel of the door
is cracked and it won't stand much
| pushing, so I'm going to slip out the
| back door and go through the bushes
and get help.”
“Oh, Sam!” I gasped, ““‘don’t; he'll
hear you and then—" I paused, shud-
dering at the thought.
| “No, he won't,” said Sam resolutely,
‘the bushes will hide me; and see
here,” thrusting something cold in my
| hand, ‘‘there is my pistol. I've car-
| ried it in my pocket all the term, with-
| out you knowing it. If he tries to get
| in—he can’t anywhere except in front
| —fire this right in his face. ’Taint
| likely you'd kill him unless you hap-
might frighten him off. It ain’t more
'n half a mile cross lots to Mike Mul-
len’s, and I'll be back with him and a
gun less ’'n no time.”
¢“Oh, Sam!” I shuddered, ‘I can’t
{ fire a pistol! I don’t know which end
goes off!”
Was there a shade of contempt in
Sam’s voice as he showed me which
was the business end of the pistol, and
told me how to hold it? If there was
I was too cowed to resent it.
With many prayers for his safety, I
let the brave boy out of the back door,
| and barred it behind him, then sat
down to my weary waiting. Suddenly
I heard a loud snuffing at the front
door, then heavy steps, and low growls
making a circuit of the schoolhouse,
| then a ‘“‘thump” on the front door
| that made it crack, and the growls
| grew louder and angrier.
A time of terror followed—the bear
ran round and round the house, shak-
ing the doors, dashing his great paws
through the windows, whose heavy
inside shutters held fast, and roaring
with the pain of the cuts the broken
glass gave him.
At last the sagacious brute seemed
to realize that the only weak spot in
our defense was the front door, and
concentrated all his fury there.
All this time the brave children had
made no sound. As for me—though I
knew that unless help came quickly I
or some of my little charge must sure-
ly perish—I was never calmer in my
life.
Without emotion I thought of my
distant home—I saw the golden-
fruited hop vines—the grape vines
swing in the woods—the maple trees
before the house—theJunerosesinthe
fence corner—I womrdered what my
sisters were doing, and I wondered if
my mother sat in the Boston rocker
knitting.
1 felt a vague regret that I had not
mended the tear in my dress that
| morning instead of reading a novel
until the last momen=t.
Some of my Sunday-school lessons
| came to my mind—among them the
story of the bears that devoured the
mocking Jewish children. But my
dear little children were not mocking,
nor was I such a very wicked girl if I
did read novels instead of mending my
| clothes and sometimes went to sleep in
' church.
And then a flood of self-pity came
over me, and aot tears rained silently
down my cheeks. Then ‘split, crash,”
1 flew
|
{
|
{
|
| the rotten panel had broken,
There was |
“There is a new scholar in the |
He seems to be a |
““Certainly, Sam,” I said,**‘go and |
feel at home, and he’ll forget his bash- |
pened to hit him in the eye, but you"
of the | to the entry door—the bear's hideous
| head was in the hole, and he was try-
|
ing to crowd his body through. A
| feeling of despair came over me, then |
| a sudden anger—should I quietly sub- |
mit to a terrible death for myself, or
| the little ones in my care?
| Desperate rage overwhelmed all
other feeling, and grasping the pistol
I rushed into the entry. Just then
another piece of the door flew off with
a hard crack, and the bear roared witk
almost human triumph.
Until now perfect quiet had reigned |
inside, but one child, frantic with re:
| pressed emotion, shrieked wildly. A
wave of fear swept through the school
room, and the children ran around
screaming frantically, begging their
parents, their friends, me to save them.
How did Sam say the pistol went? 1
| grew frantic with anger, all feeling but
| an intense thirst for the blood of the
| horrible brute went from me, and wilc
| with rage I dashed the pistol in his
| face.
| went off. Startled by the report anc
It struck him on the nose anc
| flash the beast recoiled and frantically |
| pawed his burned nose.
I flew back into the school room,
great black head, springing back just
in time to avoid the cluch of his claw:
which tore a great piece from my dress:
Then I heard the sound of voices, the
barking of a dog, and three shots were
fired in quick succession.
With a roar of dying rage, the bear
plunged forward and bringing the doo:
with him, fell full length in the little
entry—dead. Faint with joy I leaned
against the wall. With a roguisk
twinkle in his black eyes Sam came tc
me and said, ‘Well, teacher, how did
you like that scholar? I think we
eave him a warm reception and made
him feel at home, don’t you?”
complimented me highly on my
courage, and said I was a genewine
herowine, and would e killed the bear
sure had I only bad the weapins anc
known how to use them,” which was
doubtless true.
But surely of all thestrange scholars
that ever appeared to a country school
ma'am, the strangest came to me that
| day in the little schoolhouse among
| the Boylston hills. —Detroit Free Press.
le —i
In a Flour Mill.
The noises on the inside of the mil
| are deafening. One who has never
been in a flouring mill of the largest
size cannot realize what a peculiar lof
of noises are made by the machinery.
As soon as the wheat enters the ma
| chine from the long spout which brings
| it down from the upper floors, it falls
| between two rollers of iron— ‘‘chilled™
| iron they call it, and very hard iron it
| is, too. One of these rollers revolvet
| rapidly, the other moreslowly, inorder
| that the separation of the cost, or bran,
| from the kernel may be more easily
| accomplished. The wheat first passes
| between rollers separated just enough
| to allow the coat to be crushed. © Itsie
| then carried away up to the top of the
| mill agein, toa room where the sun
| vainly tries to shine in through the
flour coated windows far above the
city’s roofs. It next passes over &
wire sieve which separates the bran
from the kernel proper. 3
This bran, which ¢ontains much of
the flour material, again passes down
and is ground once more, this process
being repeated four times, making five
grindings, each one finer than the one
preceding it. Each time the fibrous
‘or bran portions are more completely
separated, and at last the bran comes
outa clear, brownish husk with. every
particle of flour removed.
The inside part of the kernel has
meanwhile been going through a very
interesting process. After the firs
grinding or breaking, it passes to a big
six-sided revolving reel covered witha
fine wire netting or sieve. Through
this reel the finer portions of the ker-
| nel pass, coming out in what is called
| ¢mjddlings,” a granulated mass which
goes back to the rollers for another
crushing. This process is repeated
through five reels, all but the first being
of silk. The last one has one hundred
and twenty threads to the lineal inch.
The flour which comes out of the fifth
reel, while white in hue, is yet not of
| the finest or ‘patent’ grade, but is
| classed as ‘‘baker’s’” or second grade
! flour.
The middlings above referred to are
| purified "by an interesting process.
They are passed over a fine wire sieve,
through the upper part of which a
strong current of air is passed. This
holds in suspense the tiny portions of
fibrous matter which may have been in
the flour, and at last, after this pro-
cess of middlings-purifying has been
very carefully carried out, the flour
appears a spotless, snowy white—the
“patent” flour, as it is called. In the
process .of grinding in this gradual
and repeated way, the germ of the
wheat, a tiny particle about the size
of a mustard seed, is separated from
the white flonr, It is what one might
call the life-part. of the wheat. If it
were ground up, it would not leave the
patent flour so white and powdery, 80
it is separated in one of the sievings,
and passes into the darker or lower
grade flour. Tt contains, however, the
best and most nutritious part of the
wheat.
The last thing that happens to the
pulverized kernel, before it is ready
for market, is the filling of barrels or
sacks. Down many stories through a
| smooth tube comes the white or “pat-
ent” flour. Under the tube is the bar-
rel or the sack, as the case may be,
and, as it begins to fill, a steel auger,
just the size of the barrel, bores down
into the flour, packing it carefully and
solidly benesth the broad blades. —St.
Nicholas.
en
Cowper loved pets, and had at one
time five rabbits, three hares, two
guinea pigs, a magpie, 8 jay, a star-
ling, two canary birds, two dogs, a
‘retired cat’ and a squirrel.
Mike Mullens, who shot the bear, |
| of great
|
seized the heavy poker, and with al | gether, inseparable and to each other indis-
Wo ? 5]
my strength brought it down on hit |
REV. DR TALMAGES SERMON
THE DEFEAT OF OBLIVION.
Ce
How We CanOvercome ThatMysterio
Something That Buries Us
‘Under the Ages.
—_——————
TexTS: “He shall he no more remems=
hered,” Job xxiv., 20; ‘The wighteous shall
be in everlasting remembrance,” Psalms exii.,
Oblivion and Its Defeats” is my subject
to-day. There is an old monster that swal-
lows down everything, It crunches indi-
viduais, families, communities, States, Na-
tions, continents, hemispheres, worlds. Its
diet is made up of years. of centuries, of
ages, of -eycles, of millenniums, of eons.
That monster is called by Noah Webster and
all the other dictionarians oblivion. It is a
steep down which everything rolls. It is a
conflagration in which everything is con-
sumed. It is a dirge in whicn all orchestras
play and a period at whieh everything stops.
it is the cometery of the human race. It is
the domain of forgetfulness. ‘Oblivion! At
times it throws a shadow over all of us. and
1 would not pronounce it to-day if I did not
come armed in the strength of the eternal
God on your behalf to attack it, to routit, to
demolish it.
Why, just look at the way the families of
the earth disappear. For awhilethey are to-
pensable, and then they part, some by mar-
riage 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 van-
ish.
Walk up Brondway, New York ; State street,
Boston ; Chestnut street, Philadelphia : the
Strand, i.ondon : Princess street, ldinburgh :
Champs Elysees, Paris ; Unter den Linden,
Berlin, and you will meet in this year 1893
not one person who walked it in 1793. What
enguliment! All the ordinary effort at per- |
petuation are dead failures. Walter Scott's |
+:0ld Mortality”. may go round with his |
chisel to recut the faded epitaphs on tomb-
stones, but Old Oblivion has a quicker chisel
with which he can cut out athousand epi-
taphs while “Old Mortality” is cutting in one
epitaph. Whole libraries of biographies de- |
voured of bookworms or unread of the rising |
generations
All the signs of the stores and warehouses
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 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 you will
find a Jerusalem underneath, and go on and
deeper down a third Jerusalem. Alexandria |
on the top of an Alexandria, and the second
on the top of the third.
Many of the ancient cities are buried thirty
feet deep, or fifty deep, or 100 feet. What |
was the matter? Any special calamity? No. |
The winds and waves and sands and flying
dust are all undertakers and grave diggers,
and if the world stands long enough the |
present Brooklyn and New York and London |
will have on top of them other Brooklyns |
and New Yorks and Londons. and only ater
digging and boring and blasting will the |
archeologist of far “distant centuries come
down as far as the highest spires and domes |
and turrets of our present American and |
Luropean cities.
Call the roll of the armies of Baldwin I.,
or of Charles Martel. or of Marlborough. or
of Mithridates, or of Prince Frederick, or of
(lortes, and not one answer will you hear.
Stand them in line aad call the roil of 1.090,-
000 men in the army of Thebes. Not one |
answer. Stand them in line, the 1.700,000
infantry and the 200,000 cavalry of the As- |
syrian army under Ninus, ani cail the roll |
Not one answer. Stand in line the ,000,000
men of Sasostris, the 1,200,000 men of Artax- |
arxes at Cunaxa, the 2.641,000 men under
Xerxes at Thermopyle, and call the long!
roll. Not one answer.
At the opening’ot our eivil war the men ol
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 hospitals. you cannot call the names
of 1000, nor the names of 500, nor the names
of 100, nor the names of fitty. Oblivion!
Are the feet of the dancers who were at the
ball of the Duchess of Richmond at Brusssls
the night before Waterloo all still? All still.
Are all the ears that heard the guns of Bun-
ker Hill all deaf? All deaf. Are the eyes tonat
saw the coronation of George ITI. all closed?
All closed. Oblivion! A hundred years
|
earth that knew we ever lived.
In some old family record a deseendant
studying up the avcestral line may spell out
our name, and from the nearly faded ink.
with great effort, find that some person of
our nnme was born somewhere between 1810
and 1890, but they will know no mors about
us than we know about the color of a child's
eyes born last night in a village in Pata-
gonia, Tell me something about your great-
grandfather. What were his feat ures? What
did he do? What year was he born? What
year did he die? And your great-grand-
mother. Will you describe 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 weather or
June?
Oblivion! That mountain surga rolis over
eversthing. Even the pyramids are dying.
Not a day passes but thers is chiseled off a
chip of that granite. The sea is triumphing
over theland, and what is going on at Coney
Tsiand is going on all around the world, and
the continents are crumbling into the waves,
and while this is trauspiring ou the outside
of the world the hot chisel of the eternal tire
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 be burned
up, when all scientists 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 schoolboy’s indin rubber ball
rolls down a hill, and when our world goes
it is so interiozked by the law of gravitation
with other worlds that they will go, too. ani
=o far from having our memory perpetuated
by a monument of Aberdeen granite in this
i! cannot be depended on.
i} illustrated by a few straggling facts.
il the Pantheon the weakest goddess is Clio,
{| the goddess of history, and instead of bein?
tury. So many things have come into the |
world that were not fit to stay in, we ought
to be glad they wera put out. The waters of
Lethe, the fountain of forgetfulness, are a
healthful draft. The history we have of the
world in ages past is always ore sided and
History is fiction
In all
represented by sculptors as holding a seroil
might better be represented as limping on
crutches.
Faithful history is the saving ef a few |
things out of more things lost. The immor-
tality that comes from pomp of obsequies, or
granite shaft, or building named after its
founder, or page of recognition in some en- |
cyclopedia is an immortality unworthy of
one’s ambition, for it will cease and is no im-
mortality at all. Oblivion! A hundred
vears. ' But while I recognize this universal
submergence of things earthly who waats to
be forgotten? Not one of us.
Absent for a few weeks or months from |
home, it cheers us to know that we are re- |
membered there. Itis a phrase wa have all
pronounced. ‘I hope you missed me,” Meet- |
ing some friends from whom we have been
parted many rears, we inquire, ‘Did you
ever see me hefore?” and they say, -‘Yes”
and call us by name, and we feel a delight-
fu! sensation thrilling tbrough their hand
into our hand. and running up from elbow
to shoulder, and then parting, the one cur-
rent of delight ascending to the brow and |
the other descending to the foot, moving
round and round in concentric circles until
every nerve and muscle and capacity ofbody
and mind and soul is permeated with de-
light.
A few days ago, visiting the place of my
boyhood, I met one whom I had not seen
since we played together at ten years of age,
and I had peculiar pleasure in puzziing him
a little as to who I was, and I can hardly de- |
seribe the sensation as after awhile he mum-
bled out: ‘Let me see.
Witt.” We all like to be remembered.
Now, I have to tell you that this oblivion
of which I have spoken has its defeats, and
that there is no mors reason why we should
not be distinctly and vividly and gloriously
remembered five hundrad million billion
trillion quacwillion quintillion years from
now than that we should be remembered six
weeks. Iam going to tell you how thething
can be done and will be done.
We may build this ‘‘everlasting remem-
branece,” as my text styles it, into the super-
nal existence of those to whom we do kind-
nesses 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. ‘‘Ever-
lasting remembrance!’ Nothing will ship
the stout grip of that celestial faculty,
you heip a widow pay her rent? Did you
find for that man released from prison au
place to get honest work? Did you pick up
a child fallen on the curbstone, 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 Magdalen of the strest 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 dis-
couraged ip 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 ara epitaphs in graveyards, what are
aulogiums in presence ofthose whose breath
is in their nostrils. what are unread biogra-
phies in the aleoves of city library, com-
pared with the imperishable records you
nave made in the illumined memories of
thoss to whom you did such kindnesses?
Forget them? They cannot forget them.
Notwithstanding all tieir might and splen-
dos, 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
eable. They have no strength to hurl into
oblivion that benefaction.
Has Paul forgotten the inhabitants of
| Malta, who extended the island hospitality
when he and others with him had felt, added
to a shipwreck. the drenching rain and the
sharp cold? Has the victim of the highway-
man on the road tc Jericho forgotten the
rool Samaritan with a medicament of oil
and wine and a fres ride to the hosteiry?
Have the Fnglish soldiers who went up to
God from the Crimean battleflelds forgotten
Florence Nightingale?
Through all eternity will the Northern and
Southern soldiers forget the Northern and
Southern women who administered to the
dying boys in blue and gray after the awful
fichts in Tennesse: and Pennsylvania and
Virginia and Georgia, which turned every
house and barn and shed into a hospital,and
incarnadined the Susquehanna, and the
from now there will not be a being on this | James, and the Chattahoochee, and the Sa-
vannah with brave blood? The kindnesses
you do to others will stand as long in the ap-
preclation 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 ws rescue,
uplift or save. = Character is eternal... Sup-
pose by a right influences wa aid in trans-
forminz a bad man into a good man, a dol-
orous man into a happy man, a disheartened
man into a courageous man-—every stroke of
that work done will be immortalized. There
may never be so much as one line in a news-
paper regarding it, or no mortal tongue may
ever whisper it into human ear, but where-
ever that soul shall go your work upon it
shall go, wherever that soul risés your. work
upon it shall rise, and so long as that soul
will last your work on it will last.
Do you suppose thers will ever come such
an idiotic lapse in the history of that soul in
heaven that it shall forgat that you invited
him to Christ ; that 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 will be
known in all heaven that you were the in-
strumentality of building a temple for the
sky” © -
Wea teach a Sabbath class, or put a Chris-
tify for Christ in a prayer meeting, or preach
{ a sermon, and go home discouraged. as
| thoughnothing had been accomplished, when
| wo had been character building with a nia-
of the centuries can damage or bring down.
There is no sublimer art in the world than
architecture.
world there is no world in sight of our
strongest telescope that will bea sure pedi-
ment for any slab of commemoration of the
{ fact that we ever lived or died at all. "Our
enrth is struck with death. The axletree of
the constellations will break and let down
the populatiow 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.
Yet oblivion does not remove or swallow
anything that had better not be removed or
swallowed. The old monster is welcome to
his meal. This world would long ago have
heen overcrowded if it had not been for the
merciful removal of Nations and genera-
tions.
were ever wrttten and printed and pub-
lished? The libraries would by their im-
mensity have obstructed intelligence m1
made all research impossible.
epidemic of books was a merciful epidemic.
“Many of the State and National libraries
to-day are only morgies in which dead
people
recognize them. What if all the BL
that had been born were still alive?
of ten centuries ago, and people who ought
doing here?” - There would have been no
room to turn around.
generations of mankind were not worth re-
membering. ‘The first useful thing that
jnany people did was to die, their cradle a
misfortune and their gravea boon.
This world was hardly a comfortable place
to live in before the middle of the last cen-
What if all the books had lived that |
The fatal |
hooks are waiting for some ons to come and |
would have been elbowed by our ancestors |
10 have said their last word 3000 years ago |
would snarl at us, saying, ‘What arc you |
Some of the past |
pass the architect sits down alone and in si-
fence. and evolves from his own brain a ca-
| thedral, or a National capitol, or a massive
| home before he leaves that table, and then he
goes ont and unrolls his plans, and calls car-
| penters and masons and artisans of all sorts
| to execute his design, and whenit is finished
| he walks around the wast structure and sees
| the completien of the work with high satis-
| faction, and on astone at. some corner of the
| building the architect’s name may be chisaled.
| But the storms do their work, and time, that
| takes down everything, will yet take down
¢hat structure until there shall not be one
stone left upon another.
{But thers is a soul in heaven. Through
your instrumentality it was put there.
| eternal happines
Your name is written, not
on one corner of its mature, but inwrought
into its every fiber and enerzy. Will the
| storms of winter wash outithe story of what
| you have wrought upon that spiritual strue-
ture? No. There are no storms in that land,
and there is no winter. Will time wear out
| the inscription which shows your fidelity?
i No.
which celestials shall call you.
[ know the Bible says in one place that
| God is a jealous God, but that refers tothe
| work of those who worship some other god.
| A true father is not jealous of his child.
| With what glee you show the pleture your |
| child penciled, or a toy ship your child
| hewed out, or recite the noble deed your |
Yes, you are De |
Did |
tian tract in the Hand of a pagserby, or tes-
terial that no frost or earthquake or rolling
With pencil and rule and com-
| Ub- 4 >
der God's grace you are the architect of {ts | ad it must be part man and
Time is past, and it is an everlasting
now. Built into the foundation of that imper-
| ishable structure, built into its pillars, built
into its capstone, is your name—either the
name you have on earth or the name by
child accomplished! And God never was
i jealous of a Joshua, never was jealous of a
Paul, never was jealous of a Frances Haver-
zal, never was jealous of a man or woman
who tried to heal wounds and wipe away
| tears and lift burdens and save souls;
and while all is of grace, and, your seif-
abnegating 'utteranee will be, ‘‘Net unto
us, not unto us, but unto Thy name,
O Lord, give glory!’ you shall always
feel a heavenly satisfaction in every
|
|
|
wood thing you did on earth, and if icono-
clasm, borne trom beneath, should break
through the gates of heaven and efface one
| record of your earthly fidelity. methinks
Christ would take one of the nails of His
own cross and write somewhere on the erys-
tal, or the amethyst, or the jacinth, or the
chrysoprasus, your name and just under it
the inscription of my text, “The righteous
shall be held in everlasting remembrance.’
Oh, this character building! You and I
are every moment busy in that tremendous
occupation, You are making me better or
worse, and J am making you better or worse,
andrwe shall through alt eternity bear the
mark of this benediction. or blasting.
Let others have the thrones of heaven—
| thoss who have more mightily wrought for
} god and the truth—Yut it will be heaven
{ enough for you and me if 6v8t and anon we
meet some radiant soul on the boulevards ot
| the great city who shall say: “You helped
| me once. You encouraged me when I was
| in earthly struggle. I did not know that I
would have reached thisshining place had it
not been for you.” And we will laugh with
heavenly glee ‘and say: “Ha! ha! Do you
| really rememberthat talk? Do you remem-
| ber that warning? Do you remember that
| Christian invitation? What a memory you
{ have! Why, that must have been down there
in Brooklyn or New Orleans at'least ten
| thousand million years ago.” And the an-
| swer will be, ‘‘Yes, it was as long as that,
|
|
but I remember it as well as though it were
| yesterday.”
| Oh, this character building! The structure
| lasting independent of passing centuries, in-
| dependent of crumbling mausoieums, inde-
| pendent of the whole planetary system. Aye,
lif the material universe, which seems ali
| bound together like one piece of machinery,
should some day meet with an accident that
| should send worlds crashing into each other
| like telescoped 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 midnight express at Ashta-
! bula, 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.”
0, Time, we defy thee! O, Death, we
stamp thee in the dust of thine own sepul-
chers! O, Eternity, roll on till the last star
tinguished on the sapphire pathway, and
the last moon has illumined the last night,
and as many years haye passed as all the
scribes that ever took pen could describe 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 heaven!
There is another and a more complet» de-
feat for oblivion, and that is in the Zeart of
God himself. You have seen a sasor roll up
his sleeve and show you his arm tattooed
with the figure of a favorite ship-—perhaps
the first one in which ke ever sailed. You
have seen a soldier voll up his sleeve and
show you his arm tattoosd with the figure
of a fortress which he was garrisoned, or
the face of a great general under whom he
fought. You have seen many a hand tat-
tooed with the face of a loved one before or
after marriage.
This tattooing is almost as old as the world.
It is some colored liquid punctured into the
out. It may have been there fifty years, but
when the man goes into his coffin that pic-
ture will go with him on hand or arm. Now,
God says that he has tattooed us upon his
hands. There can be no other meaning in
the foriy-ninth chay ter of Isaiah, where God
says, ‘*Behold, I have graven thee on the
palms of my hands!”
It was as much as to say: ‘J cannof open
My hand to help, but I think of you. I can-
not spread abroad My hands to bless, but I
think of you. Wherever I go up and down
the heavens I take these two pictures of vou
with Me. They are so inwrought into My
being that I cannot lose them. As long as
My hands last the memory of you will last.
Not on the back .of My hands, as though to
announge you to others, but on the palms ef
My hands for Myself to look at and study
and love. Not on the palm of one hand
alone, but onthe palms of both hands, for
while I amlooking upon one hand and think-
ing of you, I must have the other hand free
to protect you, :fres to strike baek your
enemy, freeto lit if you fall. Palms of My
hands indelibly tattooed! And though I
ho!d the winds in My first no cyclone shall
uproot the inscription of your name and
your face, and though I hold'the ocean in
the hollow of My hand its billowing shali not
wash out the record of My remembrance.
‘Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of
My band§." © ¢
What joy, what honor can thers be com-
parable to that of “being remembered by the
mightiest;and; kindest and loveliest and ten-
derest and most affectionate being in the
universes? Think of it, to hold ‘an everlasting
place in the heart of God. The heart of God!
The most beautiful palace in the universe.
I.et 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 himtake all the sun-
rises and sunsets of all the days and the
auroras of all the nights and hang them as
upholstery at its windows.
Let him takeall the rivers, and all the
lakes. and all the oceans, and toss them into
the fountains of this palace eourt. Let him
its chandeliers, and all the pearls of all the
seas, and all the diamonds of all the flelds,
and with them arch the doorways of that
palace, and then invite into it all tho glories
that Esther ever saw at a Persian banquet, or
Daniel ever walked among in Babylonian
castles, or.Joseph ever witnessed in Pharaoh’s
throneroom. and then yourself enter this
castle of archangelic construction, and see
how poor a palace it is compared 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 sermouie considern-
tions of this day are trying to introduce you
through the blood of the slain lamb.
Oh, where is oblivion now? Irom 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 T,ord need ever fear. Oblivion defeated.
Oblivion dead. Oblivion sepulchered. But
I must not be so hard on that devouring
monster, for into ita grave go all our sins
when the Lord for Christ's sake has forgiven
them. Just blow a resurrection trumpet
over them when once oblivion has snapped
them down. Not one of'them rises. Blow
again. Not a stir amid all the pardoned in-
iquities of a lifetime, Blow again. Not one
oi them movas in the deep grave trenches.
But to this powerless resurrection trumpst
a voice responds, half human, half divine,
part God, say-
ing, ‘*Theirsins and their iniguities will I re-
m ember no more.’ :
Thank God for this blessed oblivion! So
you see I did not invite you down into a cel-
lar, but upon a throne; not into the grave-
yard to which all materialism is destined.
but into a garden all sbloom with everlasting
remembrance, ‘Che frown of my first text
has become the kiss of the second text. An-
nihilation hasbhecome coronation. The wring-
ing hands of a great agony have become the
clapping hands of a great joy. The requiem
with which we began has become the grand
marca with which we close. The tear of
sadness that rolled ‘down our cheek has
struck the lip on which sits the laughter of
eternal triumph. :
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