The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-12-03

where Paul stood. and a slab of which
brought from Athens by consent Of
the queen, through Mr.. Tricoupis, the
prime minister, and had placed in yon.
der memorial wall, read the whole
story. Bible in hand.
What I have so far said in this dis
course was necessary in order that you
NAV understand the holiness, the de-
fiance, the holy recklessness, the mag
nificence of Paul's speech. The first
thunderbolt he launched at the oppo-
site hill the Acropolis-that moment
all a-glitter with idols and temples.
He cried cut: God who made the
world" Why, they though that Pro-
metheus made il, that Mercury made it,
that Apollo made it, that Poseidon
made it, that Eros made it, that Pam
drocus made it, that Boreas made it.
that it took all the gods of the Par
theuon, yea, all the gods and goddesses
of the Acropolis to make it, and here
stands a man without any ecclesiastical
title, neither a ID. 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 Parthenon could hear it,
was deceit falsehood, n sham, bias
phemy. Look at the faces of his audi
tors; they are turning pale, and then
| red, and then wrathful. There had been
several earthquakes in that region, but
| that was the severeSt shock these men
had ever felt. The Persians had bonn
barded the Acropolis frssn the heights
| of Mars Hill, but this Pauline bonn bard
nent was greater and more terrific.
| What" said his hearers, have we
been hauling with many Jokes Oh oxen
| for centuries these blocks from the
quarries of Mount Pentelicurn, and have
we had our architects putting up these
structures of unparalleled splendor, and
have we had the greategt of all scnlp-
tors, Phidias, with his men, chiseling
away at those wondrous pediments and
cutting away at these freizes, and have
we taxed the nations resources
to the utmost, now to be told
that those statues see nothing, hear
nothing know nothing" Oh, Paul,
stop for a moment and give these
startled and overwhelmed auditors
! time to catch their breath! Make
rhetorical pause Take a look around
you at the interesting landscape, and
give your hearers time to recover! No,
he does not make even a period. or so
much as n colon or semi-colon; but
| launches the second thunderbolt right
| after the first, and in the same breath
goes on to say: God ''dwelleth not in
temples made with hands, o, Paul!
| Is not deity more in the Parthenon, or
more in the ThcSeGm, or more in the
| Erechtheium, or more in the temple o.
| Zeus Olympus than in the open air,
more than on the hill where we are
| sitting, more than on Mount Hymettus
! out yonder, from which the bees get
their honey. "NO more" responds
| Paul "IIe dwelleth not in temples
made with hands"
| Surely that must be the closing para
graph 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 Grecian orators, standing on
| that place, always closed their adj
| dresses with something sublime and
climacteric, 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 time; now,
he will close by hurting two at once,
The little, old man, under the power of
| his speech, has Strengthened himself
up, and the stoop has gone ont of his
| shoulders, and he looks about three
| feet taller than when he began, and
his eyes, which were quiet, became
| two flames of fire, and his face, which
was calm in the introduction,
| now depicts a whirlwind of emo
ton as he tied the two thunderbolts to-
gether with cord of inconsumablc
| courage and hurls them at the crowd
now standing or sitting aghast-the two
| thunderbolts of resurrection and last
| judgment. His closing words were:
because He hath appointed day, in
which He will judge the world in right
eousness by that Man whom He hath
| ordained; whereof He hath given assur-
| ance unto all men In that He hath
raised Him from the dead" Remember
| those thoughts were to them novel and
provocative; that Christ, the despised
| Nazarene, would come to be their
| Judge and they should have to get up
out of their cemeteries to stand before
| Him and take their eternal doom.
AS that night in Athens / put my
tired head on my pillow, and the excit-
ing scenes of the day passed through
my mind, thought on the same sub
ject on which as boy | made my COM
mencement speech in Niblo's theater
on graduating day from the New York
university, viz: THE Moral Effects of
Sculpture and Architecture" but
further than / could have thought
in boyhood l thought in Athens
that night the moral effects of
architecture and sculpture depend on
what You do in great buildings after
they are put up, and upon the charac
ter of the men whose forms you cut in
marble-yea! l thought that night what
struggles the martyrs went through in
order that in our time the Gospel
might have full swing; and
thought that night what a brainy
religion it must be that could
absorb hero like him whom we
| have considered to-day, man the SUI
| perior of the whole human race, the in.
! fidels but pigmies or homunculi com.