The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-12-03
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
a Visit to Mars Hill. where Paul
Astounded the Philosophers.
The Grandeur and Glory of ~ 'GrecIan
AcropoIIs-The Parthenon ahdfd's
wondrous ArchItecture-The
Past and the Future.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage continued
his series of discourses: From the
Pyramids TO the Acropolis" in the
Brooklyn tabernacle, taking for his
| text:
While Paul waited for thcm at Athens his
| spirit was stirred in him when he the city
wholly given to idolatry.-Acts xvii, Is.
1t seemed as if morning would never
come. We had arrived after dark in
Athens, Greece, and the night was
sleepless with expectation, and my
watch slowly announced to me one and
| two and three and four o'clock, and at
the first ray of dawn | called our party
to look out of the window upon that
city to which Paul said he was n debt
| or, and to which the whole earth is
debtor for Greek architecture, Greek
sculpture. Greek poetry, Greek elo-
| quence, Greek prowess, and Greek his
| tory. That morning in Athens we
| sauntered forth armed with most gem
erous and lovely letters from the presi-
dent of the United States and his sore
tary of state and during all our stay in
| that city these letters caused every
door and every gate and every temple
and every palace to swing open before
us. The mightiest geographical name
on earth to-day is America. The sigma
| ture of an American president and sec
rotary of state will take a man where
an army could not. Those names
| brought us into the presence of most
gracious and beautiful sovereign, the
| queen of Greece. and her cordially was
more like that of a sister than the occu-
| pant of throne room. No formal bow
as when monarchs are approached. but
| a cordial shake of the hand. and earn
est questions about our personal well
| fare and our beloved country far away.
| But this morning we pass through
where stood the Agora, the ancient
market place, the locality where phi
losophers used to meet their disciples,
walking while they talked, and where
Paul the Christian logiciau flung many
proud stole, and got the laugh on
many an impertinent Epicurean.
The market place was the center of
social and political life, and it was the
| place where people went to tell and
|
were tset up for merchandise of all
kinds, except meat, but everything
must be sold for cash, and there must
be no lying about the value of commod-
tiles, and the Agoranomi who ruled
! the place could inflict severe punish
ment upon offenders. The different
schools of thinkers had distinct places
set apart for cOnvocatiOn. The Pla-
tBanS must meet at the cheese market,
the Decelians at the barber shop, the
sellers of perfumes at the fraDkincensc
headquarters. The market place was
a space three hundred and fifty yards
long and two hundred and fifty wide,
and it was given up to gossip, and mer
chandise, and lounging, and philoso-
phizing. All this you need to know in
order to understand the Bible when it
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 audience, and if man feels
himself called to preach he wants peo-
pie to preach to. But before we make
our chief visits of to-day we must take
turn at the Stadium. 1t is a little
way out, but go we must. The sta
| dunn was the place where the foot
races occurred.
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 incor-
| 1nt 10 Cril NO In n va
been removed, but the high mounds
against which the seats were piled are
still there. The Stadium is six hundred
and eighty feet long, one hundred and
thirty feet wide and held forty thou
sand 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 Hadrian, the en-
peror, sat on yonder height one thou
sand beasts were slain in one celebra-
ton. But it was chiefly for foot-racing,
and so l 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 histor-
ical ground and SO at the word given
by the lookers-on we started side
| by side, but before l got through l
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 encumbrance showed the advan-
tage in any kind of race of 'laying
aside every weight"
We now come to the Acropolis. 1t is
a rock about two miles in circumfer-
ence at the base, and one thousand
feet in circumference at the top, and
three hundred feet high On it has
been crowded more elaborate archi-
lecture and sculpture than in any other
place under the whole heavens. Orig
inally a fortress, afterward a congrega-
ton of temples and statutes and pill
lars, their ruins an enchantment from
which no observer ever breaks away.
No wonder that Aristides thought it
the center of all things-Greece, the
center of the world; Attica, the center
of Greece; Athens, the center of Attica,
and the Acropolis, the center of Athens.
| EARTHQUAKES have shaken it. Verres
plundered it. Lord Elgin, the English
ambassador at Constantinople, got per-
1