Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-05-25
AN ENTERTAINMENT OF UNUSUAL
MERIT.

Lecture ana song In the M. e. Church
last week were of unusual interest and
merit. 1t was travel made easy by
Artist and Lecturer. The light and
colors were brought out to nature, and
the scenes were we'll chosen and taker
with great skill and judgment. The
first night tour of Europe was made
and the readers must imagine the
sights from the Thames to the Tiber,
from st. Paul's to st. Peters. The
second night the Mediterranean was
crossed, the heather country invaded
and the footsteps of the early chris
tians and their divine leader followed
from the cradle to the grave, may to
the very portals of heaven: Pompeii
buried in all the terrors of Vesuvius;
the ruins of Syria and Armenia
and the Holy Land,-the temples and
mosques of Alexandria, Tyrol, Joppa,
the holy places in Nazareth, Bethle.
hem, Jerusalem;-the sights on the
Dead Sea and the Jordan and the
Suez,-the holy places in Biblical his
tory,--the Cheops of Egypt, the Spynx
and Obelisk, the burying places of the
ancient Kings and the Mummies OF
Egyptian kings and princes,-words
cannot express the wonders, and the
lecturer took the trip so leisurely yet
so graphically that one could almost
imagine himself really present in
those far-distant countries. The Illus
trated Song was most inspiring fea-
ture, taking the Life of Christ from
His earthly home to His Heavenly
home,-all so life-like and natural; or
The Rock of Ages, THE lowering sky,
the troubled ocean, the stormed-tossed
vessel, the clinging soul, the cross and
crown, the coming to the rescue, the
saved in esus,-enough to move the
hardest heart. Life and customs in
the Orient were pictured in wonder
full reality. Many beautiful works of
at anu heVuiO1 huoAhSS odu anu
sorrewful, all acknowledgement
brought in as brief periods of rest in
the travels, and none more agreeably
so than life like picture of the pas
tor himself, who never looked more
like Rev. Jno. Edwards than when he
smiled upon the audience from the
artists canvas.
Leaving the Holy Land the great
shipping points were reached in China
and Japan, and on the homeward
course wonderful scenes on the Suez
canal, stopping at Calcutta, crossing
over to the Sandwich Islands and
looking at the principal scenes in
Honolulu. Saturday night the travel
ers reach the Pacific Coast and started
on their overland trip, visiting all the
principal cities to the Atlantic sea-
board.
The few hours thus spent, besides
the pleasure and information afforded,
impress one who has never travelled,
though much he may have read,
with the insignificance of our being,
surroundings and possessions,-im-
pressing upon US the immensely of
space, the wonders of creation, the
vastness of worlds unknown, the per-
fiction of the arts and sciences in past
ages, especially in the great ruins of
antiquity in which ale architectural
remains as grand and perfect as any,
thing of the present,-sculpture and
masonry whose proportions and gram
deur are superior to the work of the
chisel, the hammer and the trowel in
our days.
Most impressive of all these scenes
reveal, is the weight of time,-dread-
full, overpowering. oppressive, the
silence of the dead everywhere, the
voices of ages ringing in those voice.
less streets and tombs and caverns of
centuries. TINE When vert thou
not? When wilt thou never be-?
Art thou eternity, or merely
the night of chaos, upon whose shad-
ows floats the fiat of the Creator
Light out of Darkness order out of
confusion or are these sepulchral
highways and byways ofdeparted ma
tons the common transport to that
great Unknown from whose bourne
traveller meier returns-the Past,
Death; the Future, Mystery; the Pres
ent, Suspense, drowned in the pleas
ures of a world which ages after this
will be pointed out as buried beneath
the Dead Sea of Time, or future trav-
eler viewing its ruins with the same
feelings of awe and wonder with
which we are inspired when we now
pierce the darkness of Cheops or grope
our way along those dark and silent
roads where once flourished all the
wealth and display of kings,-now
filed up with ruins upon ruins, deep,
dark and dismal.