The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-10-30

perforated and prepared to be fingered
by TIE musical performer, and blown
upon when pressed to the lips. As in
another sermon have fully described
that scene, l will only say that every
day for seven days the ministers of re-
ligion went round the city Of Jericho
blowing upon those rams horns, and on
the seventh day. without the roll of
war-chariot, or the stroke Of catapult,
or tho swing of a ballista, crash! crasbi
crash! went the walls of that magnificent
capital.
On the evening OF December 8 we
walked amid the brick and mortar OF
that shattered city, and l said to my
self All this done by poor music blest
of God, for it was not a harp or a flute,
or a clapping cymbal, or an organ
played, at the sound of which the city
surrendered to destruction, but rude
instrument making rude music blest OF
God, to the demolition of that wicked
place which had for centuries defied tho
Almighty. And said, if all this was by
the blessing of God on poor music, what
mightier things could be done by the
blessing of God on good music, skillful
music, Gospel music. II all the good
that has already been done by music
were subtracted from the world, i be-
lieve three-fourths of its religion would
be gone. The lullabys OF mothers
which keep sounding on, though the
lips that sang them forty years ago be-
came ashes, the old hymns in log-cabiD
churches, and country meeting houses,
and psalms in Rouse's version in Scotch
kinks, the anthem in English cathedrals.
the roll OF organs that will never lea
Handel or Haydn or Beethoven die, tho
thrumb of harps the sweep of the bow
across bass viols, the song OF Sabbath
schools storming the heavens, the
doxology of great emblages-why a
thousand Jerichos of sin have by them
all been brought down.
Now on this plain of Jericho tho sun
setting, making the mountains look
like balustrades and battlements of
amber and maroon and gold; and the
moon, just above the crest, seems to be
a window of Heaven through which i'm
mortals might be looking down upon
the scene. Three Arabs, as watchmen,
sit beside the campfire at the door of
my tent, their low conversation in a
strange language all night long, a
soothing rather than interruption. l
had dream that night never to be
| forgotten, that dream amid the COM
plete ruins of jericho. Its past grand
eur re turned, and l saw tho city as it
was when Mark Antony gave it
to Cleopatra, and Herod bought it from
her. And l heard the hoofs of its
swift steeds, and the rumhling of its
chariots, and the shouts of excited
spectators in its amphitheater.
And there was white marble amid
green groves of palm and balsam; cold
stone warmed with sculptured foliage;
hard pillars cut into soft lace; Iliads
and Odysseys in granite, basalt jet as
the night, mounted by carbuncle fam.
ing as tho morning; upholstery dyed as
though dipped in the blood of battle
fields; robes encrusted with diamonds
mosaics white as sea-foam flashed on bs
auroras; gayeties which the sun saw by
day, rivaled by revels the moon saw by
night; blasphemy built against the skyi
ceilings stellar as the midnight heavens,
grandeurs turreted, archiovolted and in
| tercolumnar; wickedness so appalling
that established vocabulary fails, and
we must make an adjective and call it
Herodio.
The region round about the city walls
seemed to me white with cotton such
as Thenius describes as once growing
| there, and sweet with sugar cane, and
luscious with orange and figs and pome-
granates, and redolent with such flora
as can only grow where tropical sun
kisses the earth. And the hour came
back to me when in the midst of all
that splendor Herod died, COM
manding his sister Salome inn
mediately after his death to Sc.
cure the assassination of all tho
chief Jews whom he had brought
to the city, and shut up in circus for
that purpose, and the news came to the
audience in the theater as some one
took the stage and announced to the
excited multitude: "Herod is dead!
Herod is dead!' Then, in my dream.
all the pomp of Jericho vanished, and
gloom was added to gloom, and desola-
ton to desolation, and woe to woe,
until, perhaps, the ripping waters of
the Fountain of Elisha suggesting it
as sounds will sometimes give direc-
tion to a dream-I thought that the
waters of Christs salvation and
the fountains ''open for sin and
uncleanliness," were rolling through
that plain and rolling across that conti-
nent, and rolling round the earth, until
on either side of their banks all tho
thorns became flowers, and all the
deserts gardens, and all the novels
mansions, and all the funerals bridal
professions, and the blood of war was
turned into dahlias, and all the groans
became anthems, and Dante's Inferno
| became Dante's "Divina Commedia,"
and paradise Lost" was submerged by
Paradise Regained," and tears be-
came crystals and cruel swords came
out of foundries glistening plow-
shares, and, in my dream, at the blast
of trumpet tho prostrated walls of
Jericho rose again. And some one told
me that as these walls in Joshua's time,
at the sounding trumpets of doom went
down, now at the sounding trumpet of
the Gospel they come up again. And
thought man appeared at the door Of
my tent and / said: WHO are you and
from whence have you Gomez" and he
said: II am the Samaritan you heard
of at the tavern on the road from
Jerusalem to Jericho. as taking
care of the man who fell among