Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-23

| end OF the longest hair on the top OF their
| craniums to the end of the nail on the long
est toe, they were stuffed with nypercrfti-
| cism and thew leaned back with supercil-
The first thunderbolt he launched at the
| opposite hill-the Acropois-that moment
all aglitter with idols and temples; he cries
| out, God, who made the world" Why,
| they thought that Prometheus made it, that
Mercury made it, that it took all the gods OF
the Acropolis to make 1t, ana here STANDS a
man without any ecclesiastical title, neither
a n D., nor even a reverend, declaring that
the world was made by the Lord of heaven
and earth, and hence the inference that all
the splendid covering OF the Acropolis, so
near that the people standing on the steps
of the Partnenon could hear il, was Deceit,
falsehood, a sham, a blasphemy.
His second and Third Thunderbolts.
He launches the second thunderoolt right
after the first and in the same breath goes
on to say: God "dwelleth not in temples
mado with hands" "No more., responds
Paul, HE dwelleth not in temples made
with hands"
But surely the preacher on the pulpit OF
rock on Mars Hill will stop now. His audi
ence car endure no more Two thunder
bolts are enough. No. in the same breath
he launches the third thunderbolt, which,
to them, is more fiery, more terrible, more
demolishing than the others, as he cries out;
Hath made of one blood all nations" oh.
Paul! you forget you are speaking to the
proudest and most exclusive audience in the
world. Do not say..'of one blood
Surely that must be the closing paragra phi
of the sermon. His auditors must be let up
from the nervous strain. Paul has smashed
the Acropolis and smashed the national
pride OF the Greeks, and what more can he
say? Those Greclan orators. standing on
that place. always closed their addresses
with something sublime and climacteric, a
peroration, and Paul is going to give them a
peroration which will eclipse in power and
majesty all that he has yet said. Heretofore
he has hurled one thunderbolt at n time:
now, he will close by hurting two at once.
He hurlS the two thunderbolts of reSurrec-
tion and last Judgment. His closing words
were: Because He hath appointed a day, in
the which He will judge the world in righte-
business by that man whom He hath or
dained: whereof He hath given assurance
unto all men in that He hath raised him from
the dead"
The Moral Effects of Two Fine Arts.
As that night in Athens / put my tired
head on my pillow, and the exciting scenes
of the day passed through my mind, /
thought on the same subject on which as a
boy i made my Commencement speech in
Niblo's Theater on Graduation Day, from the
New York University, viz: "The moral ef-
fects of sculpture and architecture but
further sthan 1 could have thought in boy
hood. thought in Athens that night that
the moral effects of architecture and sculp-
ture depend on what you do in great build
1ngs alter they are put up, and upon the
character of the men whose forms You cut
in the marble: yea: thought that night
what s:-uggles the martyrs went through in
order that in our time the Gospel might
have full swing: and l thought that night
what brainy religion it must be that
could ab- orb a hero like him whom we have
considered to day, man the superior of the
whole huma-: race, the int1dels but pigmies
or homuncuh compared with him: and I
thought what rapturous consideration il is
that through the same grace that saved
raul, we Shall confront this great Apostle,
and shall have the opportunity, amid the
familiarity of the Skies of asking him what
was the greatest occasion of all his life.
He may say: THE shipwreck of Melita."
He may say: tThe riot of Ephesus" He
NAV say: my last walk out on the road to
Ostia." But think he will say: "The day I
stood on Mars Hill addressing the indignant
Areopagites, and looking off upon the tow
ering form of the goddess Minerva, and the
majesty of the Parthenon, and all the bril-
liant divinities of the Acropol.s. That ac-
count in the Bible was true. My spirit was
stirred within me whe1 1 saw the city
wholly given to idolatry"