Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1891-11-26
Given Up to Idolatry.

suggested by MS Jour IN BLDG IdnuS. HIS
text was taken from Acts xvii, 16,
''While Paul waited for them at Athens
his spirit was stirred in him, when he
saw the city wholly given to idolatry."
1t seemed as if morning would never
come We had arrived after dark in
Athens, Greece, and the night was sleep
less 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 debtor, and to
which the whole earth is debtor for Greek
architecture, Greek poetry, Greek elo-
quence, Greek proWess and, Greek
history.
That morning in Athens we sauntered
forth armed with most generous and
lovely letters from the President of the
United States and his Secretary of State,
and during all our stay in that city those
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 signature of an American
President and Secretary of State will
take a man where an army could not.
Those names brought us into the pres
ence Of a most gracious and beautiful
sovereign, the Queen of Greece, and her
cordiality was more like that of a sister
than the occupant Of a throne room. No
formal bow, as when monarchs are APP
preached, but a cordial shake of the hand
and earnest questions about our personal
welfare and our beloved country far
away But this morning we passed
through where stood the AgOra, the
ancient market place, the locality whore
y,biIOsnnharc nca1 RI thnir 6iCpjnlnS
walking while they talked, and where
Paul, the Christian logician, flung many
all impairment Epicurean.
The market place was the center Of
social and political life, and it was the
place whore people went to tell and hear
the news. Booths and bazaars We're
set up for merchandise of all kinds eX-
Cept meat; but everything must be sold
for cash, and there must be no lying
about the value of commodities, and the
AgOranomi who ruled the place could in
1lict severe punishment upon offenders.
The different schools of thinkers had dis
tinCt places set apart for cOnvOcatiOn.
The PlatUanS must meet at the cheese
market, the Deceians at the barber
shop, the sellers of perfumes at the
frankincense headquarters.
The market place was q space $50 yards
long and $50 wide, and it was given up
to gossip and merchandise and lounging
and phIosOphizing. 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 sec it was
the best place to get an audience, and if
a man feels himself called to preach he
wants people to preach to. But before
we make our chief visits of to-day we
must take q turn at the Stadium 1t is
a little way out but go we must. The
Stadium was the piece whore 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
qls run the race that is set before us, !"
and again, "They do it to obtain cor
ruptible garland, but we are an incor-
ruptiblc." The marble and the gliding
have been removed, but the high mounds
against which the seats were piled are
still there. The Stadium is $50 feet
long, 1870 feet wide and held 40, 900
spectators.
There is to-day the very tunnel
through which the defeated racer de-
parted 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
Naurel. In this place contests with wild
beasts sometimes took place, and while
Hadrian, the Emperor, sat on yonder
height, 1000 beasts were slain in one
celebration
But it was chiefly for foot racing, and
so / proposed to my friend 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 l got
through | 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
.oYercOat and my friends freedom rom
such incumbrance showed the advan Vage
in any kind of Il race of ''laying aside
every weight
we come now to the Acropolis. 1t is
rock about two miles in circumference at
the base and 1000 feet in Circum-
ference at the top and 800 feet high. On
it has been crowded more elaborate archi-
lecture and sculpture than in any other
place under the whole heavens. Origin
ally a fortress, afterwards congrega-
tion of temples and statues and pillars,
Sheir ruins an enchantment from which
mo observer ever breaks. No wonder
that Aristides thought it the center of
all things-Greece, the center of the
world; Attica, the center Of Greece; Ath-
ems, the center Of Attica, and the Acrop-
oils the Center Of Athens. Earthquakes
have shaken it; Vcrres plundered it.
Lord Elgin, the English ambassador
at Constantinople, got permission of the
Sultan to remove from the Acropolis
fallen pieces of the building, but he took
from the building to England the finest
rn,nnyinTr thnn1 4 of
$500, 600. A storm overthrow many of
the statues of the Acropolis Morosini,
the general attempted to remove from
pedimcnt the sculptured car and horses
of Victory, but the clumsy machinery
1rpnnnd il and all was lost