The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-12-16
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
TIE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Wonders of Athens"

TEXT: "While Paul ,voited for them ut
Athens his spirit Wus starred in him, aohen
he sar the cityvhouy gicen to tdoIatry."-
Acts xvii, 10.
1t seemed as if morning would never come.
Wehad arrived after dark in Athens, Greece,
and the night was sleepless with expecta-
ton, and my watch slowly announced to me
one and two and three and four o'clock; and
look out Of the window upon that city to
which Paul said be was a debtor, and to
which the whole earth is debtor for Greek
architecture, Greek sculpture, Greek poetry,
Greek eloquence, Greek proves and Greek
history.
That morning in Athens we sauntered
forth armed with most generous and lovely
letters from the President Of the Uplted
States and his Secretary Of State, and dur
ing all our stay in that city those letters
caused every door n every gate and every
temple and every palace to swing open be-
fore US. The mightiest geographical name
on earth to-day is America. The signature
of an American President and Secretary OF
State will take a man where an army could
not. Those names brought us into the
presence of a most gracious and beautiful
Sovereign, the Queen Of Greece, and her
cordially was more like that OF q sister than
the occupant Of q throne room. No formal
bow as when monarchs are approached, but
q cordial shake Of the hand, and earnest
questions about our personal welfare
and our beloved country far away.
But this morning we pass through where
stood the Agora, the ancient Market place,
the locality where philosophers used to meet
their disciples, walking while they talked,
and where Paul, the Christian loglcian,
flung many a proud stole and got the laugh
on many In impertinent Epicurean. Inc
market place was the center OF social and
political life, and it was the place where
people went to tell and hear the news.
Booths and bazaars were set up for merchan-
disc Of all kinds except meat. but everything
/, must be sold for cash, and there must be no
lying about the values of commodities, m
the Agoranomi who ruled the place could
hfict severe punishment upon noe
The different schools Of thinkers had DIS
tinct places set apart for conVocaton. Inc
Platoeans must meet at the cheese market,
the Decelians at the barber shop, the sellers
of perfumes at the frankincense head
quarters.
The market place was a space three hun:
dred and fifty yards long and two hundred
and fifty yards wide, and it was given upto
gossip and merchandise, and lounging and
ph~ilosophizing. All this you need to know
In order to understand the Bible when II
says of Paul, Therefore disputed he In the
market daily with them that met him"
You see it was the best place to get an au-
dience. and If a man feels himself called to
preach b wants people to preach to. But
before we make our chief visits OF to-day VIC
must take a turn at the Stadium. IL IS q
little way out, but 60 we must. The Sta
dunn was the place where the foot races &C.
CURED.
Paul had been out there no doubt, for he
frequently uses the scenes OF That place as
figures when he tells us, LET us run the race
that is set before us" and again, "They do
it to obtain a %corruptible garland, but we an
incorrupdble." The marble and the gliding
have been removed, but the high mounds
against which the seats were piled are SILL!
there. The Stadium is six hundred and
eighty feet long, one hundred and thirty feet
wide, and held forty thousand spectators.
There is to-day the very tunnel through
which the defeated racer departed from the
Stadium and from the Kisses Of the people,
and there are the stairs up which the victor
went to the top Of the hill to be crowned with
the laurel.
In this place contests with wild beasts
. sometimes took place, and while Hadr1an, the
emperor, sat on yonder height one thousand
beasts were slain in one celebration. But it
was chiefly for foot racing, n so proposed
to my friend that day while we were In the
Stadium that we try which Of us could run
the sooner from end to end Of this historical
ground, and so at the word given by the
lockers on we started side by side. but before
I got through I found out what Paul meant
when he compares the spiritual race with the
race in this very Stadium, as he says, Lay
aside every weight" My heavy overcoat
and my friends freedom from such incum-
brance showed the advantage in any kind OF
q race OF '.laying aside every weight"
We come now to the Acropolis. 1t is a
rock about two miles in circumference at
the base and a thousand feet in circumfer-
ence at the top and three hundred feet high.
On it has been crowded more elaborate
architecture and sculpture than in any
other place under the whole heavens.
Originally a fortress, afterward q congre-
CATION OF temples and statues and pillars,
theil ruins an enchantment from which no
observer ever breaks away. No wonder
that Aristides thought it the centre of all
things-Greece, the centre Of the world.
Attica, the centre of Greece; Athens, the
centre of Attlca, and the Acropolis the CEN
tire OF Athens. Earthquakes have shaken it
Verres plundered it.
Lord Elgin, the English ambassador at
Constsntinople, got permission OF the u
tan TO remove from the Acropolis fallen
pieces Of the building. but he took from the
building to England the finest statues, re.
moving them at an expense Of eight hundred
thousand dollars. Astorm overthrow many
OF the statues Of the Acropolis. Morosini,
the General, attempted to remove from q
pediment the sculptured car and horses of
Victory, but the clumsy machinery dropped
it and all was lost.
The Turks turned the building into a
powder magazine where the Venetian guns
dropped a fire that by explosion sent the
columns flying in the air and falling cracked
and splintefed. But after all that time and
storm and war and iconoclasm have effected,
the Acropolis is the monarch Of all ruins,
and before it bow the learning, the genius,
the poetry, the art, thu history OF the ages.
I saw it as it was thousands of years ago. I
had read so much about it and dreamed so
much about it that I needed no magician's
wand to restore it.
morning in 1889 it rose before me in the glory
it had when Pericles ordered it and Ictinus
planned it and Phidias chiseled 1t and Pro-
to2ines painted it and Pausanias described
1t. Its gates. which were carefully guarded
by the ancients, open to let you in and you
ascend by sixty marble steps the propyla,
which E~paminondas wanted to transfer to
Thebes, but permission, l am glad to say,
could not be granted for the removal Of this
architectural miracle. In the days when
ten cents would Go more than a dollar now,
the building cost two million three hundred
Thousand dollars. See its five ornamental
gates, the keys intrusted to an Off
Ger /. for only one day, lest the temp.
tation to 60 in and m~isappropriate the
treasures be too great for him; its ceiling q
mingling of blue and scarlet and green, and
the walls abloom with pictures Utmost in
thought and coloring. Yonder is a temple
to a goddess called "Victory Without
Wings" 30 many Of the triunphs OF the
world had been followed by defeat that the
Greeks wished in marble to Indicate that
victory for Athens had cone neyar a cain To