The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-04-27

barrenness where once she challenged the adj
miration of all nations, let the barbarians who
set their rude tents where once her palaces
glittcred, answer the question. She was a
star, but by her own sin turned to WOrmWood
and has fallen.
Hundred-gated Thebes-for all time to be
the study of antiquarian and hierOglyphist;
her stupendous ruins spread over twenty
seven miles; her sculptures presenting in
figures of warrior and chariot and victories
with which the now forgotten kings OF
Egypt shook the nations; her Obelisks and
columns; Carnac and Luxor, the stupendOus
temples of her pride. Who can imagine the
greatness of Thebes in those days when the
hippOdrOme rang with her sports and foreign
royalty bowed at her shrines aud her avenues
roared with the wheels Of professions in the
wake of returning conquerOrs. What dashed
down the vision of chariots and temples and
throness What hands pulled upon the
columns of her gloryi What truthlessness de-
faced her sculptured wall and broke Obelisks
and left her Undesirable temples great
skeletons of GRANTEES What spirit of destrnc-
ton spread the lair of wild beasts in her roy al
sepulchres, and taught the miserable cottagers
of to-day to build huts in the courts of her
temples, and sent .desOatiOn and ruin skulk-
ing behind the obelisks and lodging among
the sarcODhagi and leaning against the
columns and STOPPING under the arches and
weeping in the waters which 60 mournfully by
as though they were carrying the tears of all
agesf Let the mummes break their long
silence and come up to shiver in the desOla-
ton, and point to fallen gates and shattered
statutes and defaced sculpture, responding:
"Thebes built not one temple to God. Thebes
hated righteousness and loved sin. Thebes
was a star but she turned to NORWOOD and
has fallen"
Babylon-with her two hundred and fifty
towers and her brazen gates and her embat-
tied walls, the splendor of the earth gathered
within her palaces her hanging gardens built
by ACKNOWLEDGMENT to please his bride
Amyittis, who had been brought up in a
mountainous country and could not endure
the fiat country round Babylon, these hanging
gardens built, terrace above terrace, till at
the height of four hundred feet there were
woods waving and fountains play
ing, the verdure, the foliage,
the glory looking as if mountain were 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 off over rivers and lakes
upon nations subdued and tributary, crying:
us not this great Babylon which l have
built!" What battering ram smOte the wallis
What plOughshare upturned the gardensl
What army shattered the braZen gatest
What long, fierce blast of storm put out this
light which illumined the world! What
crash OF discOrd drove down the music thai
poured from palace window and garden grove
and called the banqueters to their revel and
the dancers 10 their feet? | walk upon the
scene of desOlatiOn to find an answer and
pick up pieces of bitumen and brick and
broken pottery, the remains of Babylon, and
as in the silence of the night | hear the
surging of that billow of desolation which
rolls over the scene, | hear the wild waves
saying: Babylon was proud. Babylon was
impure. Babylon was a star but by sin she
turned to NORWOOD and has fallen.'
From the prosecutions of the Pilgrim Faith
ers and the HuguenOts in other lands God
set upon these shores a nation. The council
fires of the abOrigines went out in the greater
light OF free government. The sound of
the war WhoOp was exchanged for the thOus-
and wheels of enterprise and progress.
The mild winters, the fruitful summers, the
healthful skies charmed from other lands
race of hardy men who loved God and wan
ted TO be free. Before the woodman's axe
forests fell and rose again into ships maSts
and churches pillars. Cities on the bank of
lakes begin to rival cities BY the sea. The
land quales 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
i'll the same market is Maine lumberman and
South Carolina rice merchant and Ohio farm
er and Alaska fur dealer. And churches and
and mercy and salvation upon sixty millions
of people.
l pray that our nation may not COPY the
crimes of the nations that have persisted, and
our cup of blessing turn TO NORWOOD and
like them we 90 down. | am bv nature and
by grace an Optimst and | 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 Alleghanies
and the Sierra Nevadas. But be not deceived
Our only safety is in righteousness toward
God 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 people, and we learn saving lessons
neither from civil war nor raging epidemic,
nor drOuth nor miIdew nor scOurge of locust
and grasshOpper, if the political corruption
which has poisoned the fountains of public
virtue and beslimed the high places of
authority, making free government at times
kissing and a bywOrd in all the earth, If the
drunkenness and RIGHTEOUSNESS that stagger
nd blaspheme in the treets of our great
cities as though they were reaching after the
fame of Corinth and a SOdOm are not re-
pented of we will yet see the smoke of our ma
tiOn's ruin; the pillars Of our National and
State capitals will fall more disastrously than
when Sampson pulled down Dagon; and fu-
ture historians will record upon the page be-
dewcd with generous tears the story that the
free nation of the West arose in splend0r
which made the world stare. 1t had magnifi-
cent possibilities. 1t forgot God. 1t hated
justice. 1t Rugged its crime. 1t halted on
its high march. 1t reeled under the blow of
calamity. 1t fell. And rs it was going down
all the despOtisms of earth from the top of
bloody thrones began to shout: AHA, so
would we have it," while struggling and OBJ
pressed peoples look out from dungeon bars
with tears and groans and cries of untold ag-
Onv the scOrn of those and the woe of these
uniting in the exclamation: Look Wonder
There fell a great star from heaven, burning
as it were lamp, and it fell upon the third
part of the rivers aud upon the fountains of
waters; and the name Of the star is called
WOrmWOOd!n