Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-05-02

scene of desolation to find an answer ant
pick up pieces of bitumen and brick anc
broken pottery, the remains Of Babylon, ,ane
as in the silence Of the night hear the surg
ing of that billow of desolation which roll!
over the scene, hear the wild waves say
ing: "Babylon was proud. Babylon was
| impure. Babylon was a star, bnt by Sin
she tnrned to wormwood and has ballen.'
From the prosecutions of the Pilgrim
Fathers and the Huguenot in other lands
God set upon these shores a nation. The
council fires of the aborigines went out in
the greater light of a free government
The sound of the war whoop was excbang-
ed for the thousand wheels of enterprise
and progress. The mild winters, the fruit
full summers, the healthful skies charmed
from other lands race of hardy men who
loved God and wanted to be free. Before
tho woodman's axe forests fell and rose
again into ships' masts and churches pill
lars. Cities on the bank of takes 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 steamer g
wheels. Fabulous bushels of western
wheat meet on the way fabulous tons of
eastern coal. Furs from the north pass on
the rivers fruits from the south. And trad
ing in the same market is Maine lumberman
and South Carolina rice merchant and Ohio
farmer and Alaska for dealer. And church
es and schools and asylums scatter light
and love and mercy and salvation upon six
ty millions of people.
pray that our nation may not copy the
crimes of the nations that have perished,
and our cup of blessing turn to wormwood
and like them we 60 down. lam by nature
hr-r nd T hot
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 Alle-
ghanies and the Sierra Nevadas. But be
not deceived! Our only safety is in right
eousness toward God and justice toward
man. five 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
mildew nor scourge of locust and grasshop-
per, if the political corruption which has
poisoned the fountains of public virtue and
beslimed the high places of authority max
ing free government at times Kissing and
a byword in all tie earth, il the drunken
ness and RIGHTEOUSNESS that stagger and
blasphsme in the streets of our great cities
as though they we're reaching after the fame
of Corinth and Seldom are not repented
of we will yet see the smoke of our nations
ruin; the pillars of our National and State
capitals will fall more disastrously than
when Sampson pulled down Dagon; and
future historians will record upon the page
believed with generous tears the story that
the free nation of the West arose in splsn-
dor which made the world stare. 1t had
magnificent possibilities. 1t forgot God.
1t hated justice. 1t hugged its crime. 1t
halted on its high march. 1t reeled under
the blow of calamity. 1t fell. And as it
was going down all the despotisms of earth
from the top of bloody thrones began to
shout: "Aha, so would we have itn' 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 exclamation: 'Look yonder! There
fell great star from heaven, burning as it
were lamp, and it fell upon the third part
of the rivers and upon the fountains OF
waters; aud the name of the star is called
Wormwood!"