New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-05-02

the study of antiquarian and hierogl yph1 ST;
her stupendous ruins spread over twenty
seven miles; her sculptures presenting IN
figures of warrior and chariot the victories
with which the now forgotten kings Of Egypt
shook the nations; her obelisks and columns
1 Carnac and Luxor, the stupendous tenn pies
/ OF her pride. Who can imagine the great
/ ness OF Thebes in those DAYS when the hip
| podfome rang with her sports, and foreign
royalty bowed at her shrines, and her as-
enues roared with the wheels OF professions
| IN the wake Of returning conquerors? What
] dashed down the vision of chariots and
j temples and thrones? What hands pulled
1 upon the columns of her glory? What ruth
lessness defaced her sculptured wall and
i broke obeiisks and left her Undesirable
1 temples great skeletons of granite? What
spirit of destruction spread the lair of wild
beasts IN her royal sepulchers, and taught
the miserable cottagers OF to-day to build
4 huts In the courts OF her temples, a3d sent
desolation snd ruin skulking behind the
obelisks and lodging among the sarcophagi,
i and leaning against the columns, and stoop-5
/ ing under the arches, and weeping in the
/ waters Which go mournfully by, as though
they We're carrying the tears of all ages? Let
/ the mummies break their long silence and
/ come up to shiver in the deso!ation, and
point to fallen gates and shattered statties
/ and detaced sculpture, responding: "Thebes
I built not one temple to God. Thebes hated
| righteousness and loved sin. Thebes was a
! star, but she turned to wormWood and has
fallen"
Babylon, with her $50 towers, and her
brazen gates, and her embattled walls, the
splendor OF the earth gathered within her
palaces, her hanging-gardens, built by
! Nebucha dneZZar to please his bride Amyit-
] tbs, who had been brought up ina mountains
| GUS country and could not endure the fiat
country round Babylon-these hanging-gar-
/ dens built, terrace above terrace, till at the
height of four hundred feet there were
woods waving and fountains Eplaying, the
yerdure, the foliage, the glory, looking as If
] a mountain We're on the wing. On the tip
top a king walking with his queen among
statues snowy white, looking up at birds
brought from distant lands and drinking out
of tankards of solid gold or looking
dued and tributary, crying: 1'Is not this
/ great Babylon which I have built?' What
| battellng-ram smote the walls? What pow
share upturned The gardens? What army
shattered the brazen gaJes? What long,
| fierce blast of storm put out this light which
illuminated the world? Whit crash OF dis.
ord drove down the music that poured from
| palace window and garden grove, and call
| ed the banqueters to their reyel and the
dancers to their feet? I walk upon thescene
OF desolatlon to find an answer and pick up
pieces OF bitumen and brick and broken pot
terry, the remains Of Babylon, and as in the
silence Of the night / hear the SURFING of
| that billoW of desolatioll which rolls over the
scene, / hear the wild waves saying:
SBabylon was proud. Babylon was impure.
| Babylon was a star, but by sin she turned to
WormWord and has fallen"
From the prosecutions of the pilgrim tatn-
| ers and the Huguenots Ill other lands God
set upon these shores nation. The council
| tires OF the abOrigines went out in the greater
light OF free government. The sound of
| the War-Whoop was exchanged for the thou
sand wheels of enterprise and progress The
mild winters, the fruitful summers, the
! healthful skies charmed from other lands
race of hearty men who loved God and want
ed to be free. Before the Woodlands ak
forests fell and rose again into ships masts
and churches pillars. Cities on the banks
Of lakes begin to rival cities by the sea. The
land quakes with the rush of the rail-car,
and the waters are churned white with the
steamers wheel. Fabulous bushels of west
ern wheat meet On the way fabulous tons
! OF eastern coal. Furs from the north pass
on the rivers fruits from the south: and
trading in the same market is Maine lun-
herman and South Carolina rice.merchant
and Ohio farmer and Alaska fur dealer
And churches and schools and asylums scat
ter Highland love and mercy and salvation
upon sixty millions Of people.
pray InaC our natlOn may not copy the
crimes of the nations that have persisted, and
our cup of blessing turn to wormwood and
like them we go down. | am by nature and
by grace an optimist, and I expect that this
country will continue to advance until the
world shall put on millennial era, and that
when Christ comes again he will set his
throne somewhere between the Alleghenles
and the Sierra Nevadas. PVT be not deceiv-
ed! Our only safety is in righteousness to-
ward Goa and justice toward man. If we
forget the goodness of the Lord to this land
and break his Sabbaths and improve not by
the dire disasters that have again and again
come TO us as a people. and we learn saving
lesson neither from civil war nor raging cpl
demlc, nor drought nor mildew nor scourge
OF locust and grasshopper, if the political
corruption Which has poisoned the fountains
OF public virtue and beslmed the hi Oh places
OF authority, making free government at
times a Kissing and a byword in all the earth,
it the drunkenness and licentiousness that
stagger and bsaspheme IN the streets of our
great cities as though they were reaching
after the fame Of q Corinth and a Sodom are
not repented OF we will vet see the smoke
OF our nations ruin; the pillars Of our ma
tional and state capitals will fall more disas-
trously than when Samson pulled down Da-
gon; and future historians Will record upon
the page believed with generous tears the
story that the free nation of the west arose
In splendor which made the world stare. 1t
had magnificent possibilities. 1t forgot God.
1t hated justice. 1t Rugged its crime. It
halted on its high march. 1t reeled under
the blow Of calamity. 1t fell And as it
was going down all the despotlsms of earth
from the top Of bloody thrones began to
shout, 'Aha, so would we have it!'' while
struggling and oppressed peoples looked out
from dungeon bars with tears and groans
and cries of untold agony, the scorn of those
and the woe OF these uniting in the excla-
nation: .'Look yonder! There fell a great
star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp,
and it tell upon the third part of the rivers
and upon the fountains of waters; and the
name Of the star is called Wormwoodp,,
Other Peoples Money.