Dodge City times., 1889-12-12
DIR. TALMAGEIN ATHENS.

DkTALMAGEIN ATHENS.
f1xACMNG WHERE PAUL DID. HE
PREAcaEs ON PAUL's WORDS.
Vivid word Picture Of Ancient Corinth-
Ths Classical City OF Athens-Impsrsect
vIsssas-EtsrnIfy wan Mako Them Clear
RA1i's Anticipstions of Heaven.
The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, Of
Brooklyn, preached in the ancient city
Of Athens, ON Sunday, Nov. "a, to .
group Of friends, basing his discourse
ON the following two passages from the
Pauline epistles: I Corinthians, II, >:
Eye hath nor seen, nor ear heard, and
Corinthians, xiii, 2: For now we see
through . glass, darkly. The sermon
Was as follows:
Both these sentences were written by
the most iliustrious merely human be-
ing the world ever saw, one who walked
these streets, and preached from yonder
pile of rocks, Mars Hill. Though more
classic associations are connected with
this city than with any other city under
the sun, because here Socrates, and
Plato, and Aristotle, and Demosthenes,
and Pericles, and Herodotus, and Py-
thagorss, and Xenophon, and Praxiteles
wrote or chiseled, or taught or thun-
dered or sung, yet in my mind all those
men nd their teachings were eclipsed
by Paul and the Gospel he preached in
this city and in your near by city of Cor
inth. Yesterday, standing on the old
fortress at Corinth, the Arco-Corinthus,
out from the ruins at its base arose in
my imagination the old city, Just as Paul
saw it. I have been told that for splen-
dor the world beholds no such wonder
to-day as that ancient Corinth standing
ON an isthmus washed by two seas, the
one sea bringing the commerce OF
Europe, the other sea bringing the COM
merce Of Asia. From her wharves, in
the construction of which whole king
doms had been absorbed, war galleys
with three banks of oars pushed out and
world. Huge-handed machinery, such
- modern invention cannot equal,
lifted shipe from the sea on one side and
transported them on trucks across the
isthmus, and set them down on the sea
ON the other side. The revenue officers
Of the city went down through the olive
groves that lined the beach to collect
atarif from all nations. The mirth of
all people sported in her Isthmian games
and the beauty of all lands sat in her
thesters, walked her porticos and threw
itself ON the altar of her stupendous
dissipations.
Column and statue and temple be-
wildered the beholder. There were
white marble fountains into which. from
spertures at the side. there gushed
waters everywhere known for health
giving qualities. Around these basins,
twisted into wreaths of stone, there
were all the beauties of sculpture and
architecture, while standing, as if to
guard the costly display, was a statue of
Hercules of FURNISHED Corinthian brass.
Vases Of terra Gotta adorned the ceme
teries of the dead--vases SO costly that
Julius Cesar was not satisfied until he
had captured them for Rome. Armed
officials, the corintharii, paced up and
down to see that no statue was defaced,
no pedestal overthrown, no bas-relief
touched. From the edge of the city the
hill held it's magnificent burdens of
columns and towers and temples Q,0OO
slaves waiting at one shrine), and a
citadel SO thoroughly impregnable that
Gibraltar is head of sand compared
with it. Amid all that strength and
magnificence Corinth stood and defied
the world. OH it was not to rustics
who had never seen anything grand that
Paul uttered one of my texts. They
had heard the best music that had come
from the best instruments in all the
world; they had hearI songs floating
from morning porticos and melting in
evening groves; they had passed their
whole lives among pictures and sculp-
ture and architecture and Corinthian
brass, which had been nodded and
shaped until there was no chariot wheel
in which it had not sped, and no tower
gateway that it had not adorned. All.
It was bold thing for Paul to stand
there amid all that and say: All this
is nothing. These sounds that come
from the temple of Neptune are not
music compared with the harmonies of
which speak. These waters rushing
in the basin of Pyrene are not pure.
These statues of Bacchus and Mercury
are not exquisite. Your citadel of Aero
Corinthus is not strong compared with
that which l offer to the poorest slave
that puts down his burden at that brazen
gate. You Corinthians think this is
splendid city; you think you have heard
all sweet sounds and seen all beautiful
sights; but 1 tell you eve hath not seen
nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love Him"
Indeed, both my texts, the one spoken
by Paul and the one written by Paul,
show us that We have very imperfect
eyesight, and that our day of vision is
yet to come: For now We see through
glass darkly, but then face to face. So
Paul takes the responsibility of saying
that the Bible is an indistinct mirror,
and that its mission shall be finally sus-
pended. 1 think there may be one
Bible In Heaven fastened to the throne.
just as now, in a museum, We have a
lamp exhumed from Herculaneum or
Nineveh, and we look at it with great
interest and say: How poor light it
must have given, compared with our
modern lamps" So 1 think that this
Bible, which was lamp to our feet in
this world, may lie near the throne of
God, exciting our interest to all eternity
by the contrast between its compara-
lively feeble light and the illumination
Of Heaven. The Bible, now, is the
scaffolding to the rising temple, but
when the building is done there will be
no use for the scaffoIding.
The idea shall develop to-day is,
parativelv dim and unsatisfactory, but
nevertheless is Introductory to grander
and more complete vision. This is
eminently true in regard to our view of
God. We hear SO much about God that
We conclude that We understand Him.
He is represented as having the tender
ness of father, the frmness of judge,
the pomp of king and the love Of
mother. We hear about Him, talk about
Him, write about Him. We lisp His
name in infancy, and it trembles on the
tongue of the dying octogenarian. We
think that We know very much about
Him. Take the attribute of mercy. Do
We understand it? The Bible blossoms
all over with that word-Mercy. 1t
speaks again and again of the tender
mercies Of God; of the sure mercies; of
the great mercies: of the mercy that en-
dureth forever; of the multitude of His
mercies. And yet know that the views
We have of this great being are most in