Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-10-13
DIR. TALMAGE ON POLITICS
THE TABERNACLE CROWDED
AGAIN YESTERDAY.

or American Institute Ons," the Title q
His Textile Great Divine to DevOt,
His DiscOurses to Politics until Aftel
the Election.
BRooKLYN, n. Y, Oct. 12.-Dr. Tai
mage began very interesting series OF
political sermons to-day. The Brooklyn
Tabernacle was crowded. Indeed, if the
church were twice as large now it would
no more than accommodate the people
that come. The hymn sung to-day was
''My country, tits of thee,
Sweet land of liberty"
The subject of the sermon was: ''Things
that Threaten the Destruction OF American
Institutions" The text was Revelations
xviii, 10 to 13: "Alas, alas, that great
city Babylon, that mighty city for in one
hour is thy judgment come. And the
merchants of the earth shall weep and
mourn over her; for no man buyeth their
merchandise any more; the merchandise
of gold, and silver, and precious stones,
and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple,
and silk, and scarlet, and all thyme wood,
aud all manner vessels of ivory, and ali
manner vessels of most precious wood.
and OF brass, and iron, and marble, and
cinnamon, and odOrs, and Ointments, and
lranklncense, and wine, and oil, and fine
flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep,
and horses, and chariOts, and slaves, and
souls of men," DIR. Talmage said:
On cis-Atlantic shores is a group of Ameri-
cans now landing on their way TO fini the
tomb of dead empire holding in its arms a
dead city, mother and child of the same name
Babylon. They viii find here and there a
mound inviting their spade and pick, while
groups of natives, unwashed, look on. Our
friends rs mo-
of them stamped with the name of Nebuchad-
nezzar, and will go down into the sepulchre
of monarchy buried more than two thousand
years ago. May the explorations of RaWlin-
son and Chevalller and LOTUS and Layard
and Oppert and Chesney be eclipsed by the
present archaeological uncovering!
Is this all that is left of Babylon? Once
five times larger than London. and twelve
times larger than New York. With walls 3T3
feet high and 93 feet thick. Twenty five bur
nished gates on each side, with streets run
ming clear through to the corresponding gates
on the other side. Six hundred and twenty
five squares. Holding more than the com
blaeu wealths, luxury, spendOr ami sin of
New York, London and Paris Inside the
walls an artificial hill 400 feet high and ter
raced on all sides, built to please Amyitis, the
Kings wife, lest she become home
sick for the mountain re2IOn OF her girlhood.
Waters spOuted up from the Euphrates to
irrigate that altitude into flowers and fruits
aud arborescence unimaginable, a great river
running through this city from north to
SOUTH bridges over it, tunnels under it, gOn-
dolas upon t.. city of baZara and market
places, which had no parallel for the aro-
matics and unguents, for high mettled horses
their grooms beside them, for thyme wood, an
African evergreen, for upholstered eqUipage,
Tor Egyptian linen and all costly textile
fabrics for rare purples extracted from the
shell fish on the Mediterranean coast, and
scarlets taken from brilliant insects in Spain.
and ivOries from the most successful elephant
hunts OF India, and lapis lazuli and diamonds
whose flash was repair &c to the sun. Com
merce from all lands. Pictures from all gal
leries. Statues from all studios. Architec-
ture pillared and architrayed and balustraded
and turreted and domed. FOrtresses within
fortresses. Embellishments rising above en-
battlements. Great capital of the ages!
But one night while the honest people of the
city were asleep, tut the saloons of Saturnalia
were in full blaze and at the Kings castle
they were filling the tankards for the tenth
time and around the state dining table there
reeled and guffawed and hiccoughed the
rulers of the land. Gen. Cyrus set his army
to work with their spades and turned the
rivers, which ran Il main artery through the
city, into another direction and left the for
saken river bed for the path OF entrance to
the besieging host. Morning saw the con-
querors inside the outside trenches and Baby
Ion is fallen, never to rise, and hence the
threnOde of the text: "Alas, alas, that great
city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one
hour is thy judgment come"
what! Can nation die? Yes; there has
been great mortality among mOnarchies and
-
have middle life aud a decease, a cradle and
a grave. Sometimes they are assassinated
and sometimes they suicide. Call the roll and
let some one answer for them. Egyptian civ
ilzatiOn, stand up! Dead, answer the ruins
Of Carnac and Luxor. bead, respond in
chorus the seventy pyramids on the east side
OF the Nile. Assyrian empire, stand up.
Dead, answer the charred ruins of NiueVeh
After six hundred years of opportunity, dead.
lsraelitish kingdom, stand up! After two
hundred and fifty years of miraculous yicissl-
tude and divine Intervention, and heroic
achievement and appalling depravity, dead.
PhGnca, stand up! after inventing the al
phabet and giving 1t to the world, aud send
ing out her merchant caravans to Central
Asia in one direction, and her navlgatOrs into
the Atlantic ocean in another direction. and
five hundred years of prosperity, dead
Dead, answer the ''pllars OF Hercules" and
the rocks on which the Tyrian fishermen
spread their nets. Athens, after Phidias,
after DemOsthenes, after Miltiades, after
MarathOn-dead. Sparta, after Leonidas,
after Eurpides. after Salamis. after Ther-
mopyl8-dead.
Roman empire, stand up and answer to the
roll call! Once bounded on the north by the
British ch 4nnel and the south BY the
sahara desert of Africa. on the east by the
Euphrates and on the west by the Atlantic
ocean. Home of three civilizations. Owning
ali the then discovered world that was worth
owning. GibbOn IN his Rise and Fall of the
Roman Empire,' answers Dead" And the
vacated seats of the ruined colosseum and the
skeleton OF the aqueduct and the miasma of
the campagna and the fragments of the mar
BILE baths, and the useless piers of the bridge
Trlumphales, and the sllenced forum, and the
masmatic dungeon holding no more Apos.
tollc prisoners and arch of Titus and Basi-
lica of Constantine, and the Pantheon lift
up mighty chorus Of ''Dead! Dead! Deadv'
after Horace and Virgil and Tacitus a q
Livy and Cicero; after Horatius of tile bridge:
and Cincinnatus, the farmer Oligarch: after
Scipio and Cassius and Constantine and Caesar.
Her war-eagle, blinded by flying TOO near the
naFr inrrH do tnrrht tI,l
and the owl of desolation and darkness made
the nest in the forsaken eyrie. Mexican en-
pre-, dead French empire, dead! You see it is
no unusual thing for government to perish
And in the same neurology of nations and in
the same cemetery of expired governments
will go the United States OF America, unless
some potent voice snail call halt and
through Divine interposltiOn by a purified
ballot box and an all-pervading moral Chris
tian sentiment the present evil tendency be
stopped.
AS the nation is about to exercise the right
OF suffrage propose for two or three Sabbath
to speak of the evils that threaten
the destruction of our American institutions.
and how each and all OF you may do some
thing to avert such catastrophe, and l pro-
pose, as God may help me, to plOW UP the
whole field. Among the mightest of the ma
tonal perils Is the fact that political bribery
has ceased to be called vice, and is By many
looked upon as commenddble virtue. The
$4,000 this autumn sent by one party into
Ohio, and as much by the other party if thev
can raise it. " hat fOr2 1t is legitimate and
right to spend none for political tracts and
for hall rent and for campaign Oratory, but is
there here any hOmunculus who supposes
that these great sums of money are all
to be thus expended? Everybody
knows that most of It Is to buy votes. Hun
dreds of people will have put before them SO
much for the Republican vote and SO much for
the Democratic vote, and the superior finan-
cial inducement will decide the election Next
tuesday ONO, the pivotal State. will speak
can tell which party will carry the dav
The party that spends the most money. NV
are for Ohio from Lake Erie to
Kentuckys border. its 39964 SQUARE miles
swept by the scOurge of political bribery The
peddlers with gold from Wall street and gold
from State street and gold from Third streat
are now in the hotels of Cincinnati and CIeve
land and Columbus and in all the nolitical
headquarters Of the State. deaIing ont
the infamous Inducements. In addition
to the bribery of voters in that
State the success of this election viii viii
be used as bribe to the whole nation in
ducing the men who sit on the fence to get of
and go with the triumphant party for some |
one of the hundred thousand onices at dis |
posal The election in Ohio. no matter which |
way 1t Will go, will not be any indication of |
whom that State wants for President, bnt |
only an indication as to which party has the |
fullest exchequer. At the close of the last |
Presidential election, at q banquet in New |
ork celebratiYe of the result and in the pres |
sence of one ex-President and in the presence |
Of one who afterwards became President il |
was stated without rebuke that Indiana had |
been carried by bribery, although that word |
was not used, but more pToyerbIal word |
namely. soap.
In other days bribery existed but was a sin |
that held down its head in shame Utmost |
secrecy was enjoined, as when. many wears |
ago. the Legislature and other officials Of Wis |
cOnsin were bought up by arailrOad company
The Governor received $4,000 for his sigma
ture, His private secretary. received $4,000. |