The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-05-10
SO. LONDONDERRY. VT. THURSDAY. MAY TO- 1888.

their long silence and come up to shiver IN
the desolation, and point to fallen gates and
shattered statues and defaced sculpture, re-
spending: "Thebes built not one temple to
God. Thebes hated Righteousness and loved
sin. Thebes was star, but she turned TO
wormwood and has fallen"
Babylon-with her 25O towers and her
brazen gates and her embattled walls, the
splendor of the earth gathered within her
palaces, her hanging gardens built by
Nebuchadnez2ar to please his bride Amylttas,
who had been brought up in mountainous
country and could not endure the fiat country
round Babylon, those hanging gardens built,
terrace above terrace. till ut tho height OF
4U0 feet Jnere were woois waving ana
fountains playing, the verdure, the foliage,
the glory looking as if a mountain were on
the wing On the tip top 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 oil over rivers and lakes up
on nations subdued and tributary crying: rs
not this great Babylon which have buiitf
What battering ram smote the walls What
plowshare upturned the gardenss What ar.
my shattered the brazen gates! Whas
long, fierce blast of storm put out this
light which Illuminated the world What
crash of discord drove down the music
that poured from palace window and gar
den grove, and called the banqueters to their
revel and the dancers to their feeti walk
upon the scene of desolation to find an an
swer and pick up pieces of bitumen and
brick and broken pottery, the remains OF
Babylon; and as in the silence of the night l
hear the surging of that billow OF desolar
tion which rolls over the scene, hear tho
wild waves saving: Babylon was proud
Babylon was impure. Babylon was star,
but by sin she turned to wormwood and has
fale
From the prosecutions Of the Pilgrim
Fathers and the Huguenots in other lands
Col set upon these shores nation. The
council fires of the aborigines went out in
the greater light of a free government The
sound of the war whoop was exchanged for
the thousand wheels of enterprise and pro-
gress The mild winters, the fruitful sum-
mers, the healthful skies charmed from other
lands race OF hardy men who loved God
and wanted to be free. Before the wood
mans AK forests fell and rose again into
ships masts and churches pillars. Cities
on the banks OF lakes pegin 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 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 fur dealer. And churches
and schools and asyums scatter light and
love and mercy and salvation upon 60,0O0,-
| 0J0 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 go down. ! am by nature and
| by grace an optimist, and expect that this
| country will continue to advance until the
world shall put on milennial era, and when
| Christ comes again He will set His throne
somewhere between the Alleghenies and the
| Sierra Nevadas. But be not deceived. Our
only safety is in Righteousness toward God
and Justice toward man. If We forget tht
| goodness of the Lord to this land, ard breah
| His Sabbaths, and improve not by the dirt
disasters that have again and again come tt
us as people, and we learn saving lessor
neither from civil war nor raging epidemic
| nor drought, nor mildew, nor scourge OF locus1
and grasshopper, if the political corruption
which has poisoned the fountains of public
virtue and beslimed the high places Of author
| ity making free government at times a hiss
| ing and byword in all the earth; if thl
! drunkenness and licentiousness that stagge
| and blaspheme i'll the streets OF our grea
cities, as though they were reaching after th'
| fame of Corinth and Sodom, are not re
pented of. we will yet see the smoke OF on
| nations ruin, the pillars OF oar national anc
state capitals will fall more disastrously
| than when Sampson pulled down Dagon
| and future historians will record upon tn
page bedewed with generous tears the stor,
| that the free nation of the west arose il
splendor which made the world stare. i
had magnificent possibilities 1t forgot God
1t hated justice. 1t hugged its crime. L
halted on its high march, 1t reeled undel
the blow of calamity. 1t fell. And as Il
was going down all despotisms Of eartf
from the top OF bloody thrones began Il
| bava II ~ vvhil.
struggling and oppressed peoples looked out
from dungeon bars with tears and groan.
and cries of untold agony, the scorn of those
and the woe of those uniting in the exclama
ton: "Lools yonder! There fell a great stal
from heaven, burning as it were a lamp
and it fell upon tte third part Of the riveri
and upon the fountains of waters; and the
| mama of the star is callad Worm wnodln