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About The Sioux County journal. (Harrison, Nebraska) 1888-1899 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1893)
r " The Sioux County . Journal; NUMBER 12. V VOLUME VI. HARKISON, NEBRASKA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1803. .i THE COMMERCIAL BANK. ESTABLISHED 1888. Harrison, Nebraska. B. E. BitKWgTLR, President. D. II. GRISWOLD, Cashier. AUTHORIZED CAPITAL $50 000. Transacts a General Banking Business. CORRESPONDENTS: Americas Exhianue National Bank, New York, United States National Bank, Omaha, FutsT National Bank, Chadron. Interest Paid on Time Deposits. tiriniwrH sold oxgall pahts of Europe. THE PIONEER i Pharmacy, J. E. PHINNEY. Proprietor. Pure Drugs, Medicines, Paints, Oils and Varnishes. t-ARTISTS MATERIAL, School Supplies. Prescriptions Carefully Compounded Day or Night. SIMMONS & SMILEY. Harrison, Nebraska, Real Estate Agents, Have a number of bargains in choice land in Sioux county. Parties desiring to buy or sell real estate should not fail to call on them. School Lands leased, taxes paid for non-residents; farms rented, etc' CORRESPONDENTS SOLICITED. C. F. Coffhs, Vice-President. nrBRUSHES. TALMAGE'S SERMON. THE GREAT PREACHER TALKS OF CONSOLING INFLUENCE. To-day and One H undred Yeara from Mow The NeeetMltjrof I)'th and Decaf Time I Fut, and It L aa KverbMtlag Voir ObUtrtuo'i Defeat. The Tabernacle Pulpit. Rev. Dr. Talmage last Sunday preached a sermon of unusual and mar velous consolation to the usual throngs after tney had sung: There ii no sorrow that Hsaveo cannot cure. The subjort was "Oblivion and Its Defeats." The textsselected were Job xxlv, Jil, "He shall be no more remem bered, ' and Psalms cxii, 6, "The righteous shall be in everlasting re membrance." " blivlon and Its Defeats" is my sub ject to-day. There is an old monster that swallows down everything. It crunches Individuals, families, commu nities, states, nations, continents, hem ispheres, worlds, its diet is made up of years, of centuries, of cycles, of mil luniums, of eons. That monster is called by Noah Webster and all the other djotionarians oblivion. Jt is a steep down which everything rolls. It is a conflagration in which everything is consumed. It is a dirge in 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. Oblivion! At times it throws a shadow over all of us, and I would not pronounco it to-day if I did not come armed in the strength of tho eternal God on your behalf to at tack it. to rout it, to demolish it. Olillvlonn .Vork. ' Why, just look at the way tho fuml-' lies of tho 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 a family, develop it, prosper it and obliterate it. So the generations vanish. Walk up Broad way, New York; State Street, Boston; Chestnut street, Phila delphia: the Strand, London; Princess street, Edinburgh; Champs Klysees, Paris: Unter den Linden, Berlin, and you will meet In this year 18!)3 not one person who walked there in the year IIU'A, What engulfrnent! All the ordi nary efforts at perjetuation are dead failures. Walter Scott's "Old Mor tality" may go round with bis chisel to reeut the faded epitaphs on tomb stones, but Old Oblivion has a quicker chisel with which ho can cut out a thousand epitaphs while "Old Mortal ity" is cutting in one epiiauh. iVhole libraries of biographies devoured of bookworms or unread of the rising gen erations. All the signs of the stores and ware houses of great firms have changed, unless the grandsons think that it is an advantage to keep tho old sign up because the name of the ancestor wus more commendatory than the name of thoj descendant. The city of Home stands to-day, but dig down deep enough and you come to another Homo, buried, and go down still farther and you will lind a third ltome. . Jerusalem stands to-day, but dig down deep enough and you will find a Jerusalem underneath, and goon and deejier down a third Jerusalem. Alex andria on the top of an Alexandria, and the second on the top of the third. Many of the ancient cities are buried ISO feet deep, or 50 feet deep, or 100 feet deep. What was the matter? Any special calamity? No. The winds and waves and sands and ilying dust are all undertakers and gra 'e-diggers, and if the world stands long enough tho present Brooklyn and New Vork and London will have on top of them other Brooklyns and New Yorks and t Londons, and only aft.r digging and boring and b asting will tho arch.i olo gist of far distant centuries come down as far as the highest spires and domes and turrets of our present American and European cities. ( 'all tho roll of the armies of Bald win L or of Charles Martel, or of Marl borough, or of Mithridates, or of l'l-ipco 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 tho army of Thebes. Not one answer. Stand tbem in line, the 1,700, 000 infantry and tho 200,000 cavalry of the Assyrian army under Ninus, and call tho roll. Not one answer. Stand in lino tho 1,0 (0,000 men of Sesobtris, tho 1,200,000 men of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa, the 2,041,00!) men under Xerxes at Thermopylae, and call the long roll. Not one answer. At the opening of our Civil War tho men of tho Northern and Southern armies were told that If they fell in buttle their names would never lo for gotten by their country. Out of the million men who fell in battle or died in military hospitals you cannot call the names of l.ooo, nor the names of ftio, nor tho names of 100, nor the names of 50. Oblivion! Are the feet of the dancors who were at the ball of the Duchess at Richmond at Brussels the night before Waterloo all still? All rtill. Are all the ears that heard the guns of Bunker Hill a 1 deaf? All d al. Are the eyes that saw tho coro nation of George III. all closed. All closed. Oblivion! A hundred years from now there will not be a being on this earth that knew we ever lived. Wnlrome tn Ilia Meal, In some old family record a descend ant studying up tho ancestral line may spell out her name, anil from tho noiirlv faded ink, with great effort, II nd that tome person of our name waH born somewhere between 1Mb) and IHiiO, but they will know no moro about us than we know about Uyi color of a child's eyes born last night In a village in Patagonia. Tell nie something about your great-grandfather. What were bis features? What did he do? What year was he born? What year did be die? And vour great-grand mot her? Will you describe the style of the hat that she wore, and bow did she and your great grandfather get on in each other's coni)anionship? Was it March weather or June? ( )bli vion ! That mountain surge rolls over everything. Even the pyramids are dying. Not a day passes but there is chiseled off chip of that granite. Tho bps is trie .phing over the land, and what is going on at Coney Island is roing on all around the world, and. tho continents are crumbling into the waves. And while this is transpiring on the outside of the world the hot chisel of the internal Are is digging under the foundation of the earth and cutting 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 scientists will ted vou that it has for ages been on fire. Why, there is only a crust be tween ns and the furnaces inside rag in? to get out. Oblivion! The world Itself will roll into it as easily as a schoolboy's India rubber ball rolls down a hill, and when our world goes it is so interlocked by the law of gavita tion with other worlds that they will go, too, and bo far from having our memory perpetuated by a monument of Aberdeen granite in this world, there is no world in sight of our strong est telescope that will be a sure pedi ment for any slab of commemoration of tho fact that we ever lived ov died at all. Our earth is struck with death. Tho axletree of tho constellations will break and let down the populations of other worlds. Stellar, lunur, 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 lie removed or swallowed. The old monster is welcome to his meal. This world would long ago have been over crowded If it hud not been for tho merciful removal of nations and gen erations. A few days ago. visiting the place of my I ovhood. 1 met one whom 1 had not seen since wo played together at 10 yoars of age, and I had peculiar pleas ure in puzzling him a little as to who I was, and I can hardly describe the setisutiait as after awhile he mumbled out: "Let me seo. Vw, yi are De Witt." We all like to be remembered. Now, I have 1o tell you that this ob livion of which I have spoken has its defeats, and that there is no more rea son why we should notbe distinctly and vid'idly and gloriously remembered five hundred million billion trillion quadrillion quintillion years from now than that we should tie remembered six week. I am going to tell you how the thing can be done. KomcUitnir That Cannot He. Effaced. "" 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. i Did you help a widow pay her rent.-' Did you find for that man released from I prison aplaco 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 j knee? Did you assure a business man, swamped by the stringency of the ' money market, that times after awhile ! would be better? I Did you lead a Magdalen of the street into a midnight mission, where the Lord said to her, "Neither do I con demn thee; go and sin no more?" Did you tell a man, clear discouraged in his i waywardness and hopelcssand plotting suicide, that for h fm was near by a I laver, in which ho might wash and a , coronet of eternal blessedness he might ! wettr? What are epitaphs in grave j yards, what are eulogumis in presence of those who.-io breath is in their nos l trils, what are unread biographies in tho alcoves of a city library, compared i with tho Imperishable records you have made in the illumined memories ' of those to-whom you did such kind- nouses? Forget them'? They cannot forget them. I Notwithstanding all their might and splendor, there aro 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 i that benefaction. Has Paul forgotten tho inhabituntsof Malta, who extended the island hospitality when he and Others with him bad felt, added to a shipwreck, the drenching rain and tho sharp cold? Has tho victim of tho highwayman on tho road to Jericho forgotten the Good Samaritan with a medicament of oil and wine and a free rido to the hostelry? Have the En glish soldiers who went up to God from tho Crimean battlefields forgot ten Florence Nightingale? Through all eternity will tho North ern and Southern soldiers forget the Northern and Southern women who administered to the dying lioys in blue and gray a.'tei-tho awful fights in Ten nessee, and Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and Georgia, which turned every house and barn and shed into a hosp tul and incarnadined tho Susquehanna, and the James, and tho Chattahoochee. and tho Savannah with brave blood'? The kindness 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. (haraeter Is Eternal. Another defeat of oblivion will be found fn the character of those whom we. fescue, uplift, or save. Character Is eternal. Suppose by a right inllu ence we aid In transforming a bad man into a good man, a dolorous man Into a happy man, a disheartened man into a courageous man every stroke of that work done will lie Immortal i.ed. There may never bo so much as one line in a newspaper regarding it, or no mortal tongue may ever whisper it Into hu man ear, but wherever that soul shall go, your work upon it shall go-wher-ever 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 t hat soul in Heaven that it shall for get 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 known on earth that Christopher Wren planned and built St. Paul's as it will be known in all Heaven that you were the instrumen tality of building a temple for the sky. We teach a Sablath class, or put a Christian tract in the hand of a passer by, or testify for Christ in a prayer meeting, or preach a sermon and go home discouraged, as though nothing had been accomplished, when we had been character building with a ma terial that no frost or earthquake or rolling of the centuries can damage or bring down. Oh, this character building! You and I are every moment busy in that tremendous occupation. You are mak ing me better or worse, and 1 :im mak ing you better or worse, and we shall through all eternity bear the mark of this benediction or blasting. Let others have the thrones of Heaven those who have more mightily wrought for God and the truth but it will be Heaven enough for you and rue if ever and anon we meet some radiant soul on the boulevards of the great city who shall say: " Von helped me once. You encouraged me when I was in earthly struggle. I do not know that I would have reached this shining place had it not been for you." And we will laugh with Heavenly gbe and say: "Ha; ha! Do you real ly remember that talk? Do you remember that warning? Do you remember that Christian invitation? What, a memory you have! Why, that must have been down there in Brook lyn and New Orleans at least ten thou sand 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, independent of crumbling mausoleums, independent of tho whole planetary system. Aye, if the material universe, which seems all lxnind 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 the chasm of immensity ail the suns and moons and stars should tumble liko 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 defthee! O Death, we stamp thee in the dust of thine own sepulchers! O Eternity, roll on till the laHt star has stopped rotating, and the last sun is extinguished on the sapphire pathway, and the last moon has il lumined the last night, and as many years have 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! A Frown followed by a Kiss. There is another and a more com plete defeat for oblivion, and that is in j the heart of God himself. You have seen a sauor roll up his sleeve ana show you his arm tattooed with the figure of a favorite ship -perhaps the first one in which he ever sailed. You have seen a soldier roll up his sleeve and show you his arm tattooed with the picture of a fortress where ho was garrisoned, or the face of a great gen eral under whom he fought. You have seen many a hand tattooed with the face of a loved one before or after mar riage. This tattooing is almost as old as the world, Jt is some colorod liquid punc tured into the llesh bo indelibly that nothing can wash It out. It may have been there fifty years, but when the man goes into his coflin that puiu ture will go with him on hand or arm. Now, God says that he has tattooed us upon his blinds. There can be no other meaning in the forty-ninth chap ter of Isaiah, where God Hays. "Be hold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands!" It was as much as to say: "I cannot open my hand to help, but I think of you. I cannot, spread abroad my hands to bless, but I think of you. Wher ever I go up and down the heavens I take these two pictures of you with me. They are so inwrought into my being that I cannot lose them. As long as my hands last the memory ot ! vou will last. Not on the backs Of mv I hands, as though to announce you to j others, but on the palms of mv hands I Iformiselfto look at and study and! J love. ' Not on tho palm of one hand I alone, but on the palms of both hands, i for while I am looking upon ono hand and thinking of you. 1 must have the 1 I other free to protect you, free to strike j back your enemy, free to lift if you fall, "l'alms of my hands indelibly tat ........1 An.i i..,u t tun 1 : in my fist no cyclone shall uproot tho i inscription of your name and your face, and though I hold the ocean in tho hollow of my hand its billowing shall not wash out, the roeord of my remem brance. 'Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands.' " What joy, -what honor can there be comparable to that of being remem bered by the mightiest and kindest and loveliest and tenderest and most affectionate being in the universe. Think of it--to hold an everlasting place in the heart of God. The heart of God! Tho most beautiful palace in tho nni verso. Let the archangel build some palace as grand as that if he can. Let him crumble up all tho stars of yesternight and to-morrow night and put them together as mosaics for suek 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 as upholstery at its windows. Let him' take all the rivers, and all the lakes, and all the oceans, and toss them into the fountains of this palace court. Let him take all the gold of all the hills and hang it in its chandeliers, and all the pearls of the seas and all the diamonds of the fields, and with them arch the doorways of that palace, and then invite into it all the glories that Esther ever saw at a Persian ban quet, or Daniel ever walked among in Babylonian castles, or Joseph ever witnessed in Pharaoh's throneroom, and then yourself enter this castle of archange!ic 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 al the music and all the prayers, and all the sermonic considerations of this day 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. Oblivion sepulchered. But I must not bj so hard on that devouring monster, for into its grave go all our sins when the Lord for Christ's sake has forgiven them. Just blow a resur rection trumpet over them when once oblivion h'as 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 ot them moves in the deep grave trenches. But to this powerless resurrection 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 seo I did not invite you down into a cellar, but up on a throne not into tho graveyard to which all mater ialism is distined, but Into a garden all abloom with everlasting remembrance. The frown of my first text has become the kiss of the second text. Annihila tion has become coronation. The wringing hands of a great agony have become the clapping hands of a great joy. The requiem with which we be gan has became 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 triumph. Postage Stamps. Post ige stinips in the form of " stamped envelopes were tlrst issued by M. de Yelayer, jvho owned a pri vate post in the city of Paris in the reign of Louis XIV. Over a century later, in 1 7 ;" 8, M. de Cbamouset, also the proprietor of a post, issued printed postage slips to be attached to let ters. In Spain in I6lu and in Italy also stamped covers for mail matter were tried, but it was not until 1840 that stamps, as we know them now, were put in use. This was In En gland, the Government adopting the system devised by Rowland Hill. Brazil was the first country to take up the new invention. .Russia, adopted the postage stamp next in 1845; then Switze land in 184(1, and March 3, 1847, the Con gress of the United States author ized the issue of postage stamps. These were at first a 5-cent stamp and a 10-cent stamp The reduction of rates in 1851 gave a new set ot stamps, valued at 1, 3 and 12 cents respectively. Other stamps of dif ferent values were added from time to time to meet the exigencies of postal arrangements, reduction of postage to foreign countries, etc. Before 1845 the postal rates on let ters in the United states varied froni ii cents for carrying a distance of thirty miles to 25 cents for o er 400 miles. By the reduction of that year the postage was made 5 cents for 200 miles o less and 10 cents for any dis tance above that li 1851 the rate was fixed at 3 cents for every half ! ounce for 3,000 miles and 0 cents for any greater distmce within the United States. In 1883 the postage was reduced to 2 cents for half an ounce for letters sent less than 3,000 miles and iu 1885 to 2 cents an ounce. This Is Vouched For. ' Bronzed and brown the Colonel stood in the Queen street doorway ot Eaton's emporium, waiting for his wife within. That morning the bat talion, returning from Niagara camp, had marched proudly up the street, the Colonel in command. But now off duty he stood complacently strok ing his tawny mustache and looking, as he is, every lixh a soldier. When 1 shook hands with him and asked him to dine with nie his eyes twin kled. "Thank you, so much, but I cau'6. I must uet home," and he glanced down at his rcgimeotals. "What do you think a young woman just asked me? I saw her looking at me In tently, but that seemed natural enough. She had one of those per ambulators,' and she said, with a com prehensive look attny uniform and a smile or relief. "Are you the man who takes care of the baby carriages?' She did, upon my honor. I think I had better get home. Inrantrv, by jove, but not baby carriages!" To ronto Saturday Night. Tiieuk is a deaf and dumb man In Kansas seven feettalL This Is what we might call a long silence. It Is scratching at the polls that makes the candidate's head sore. '4.