Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-11-28
REV. DR.. TALMAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
Subject. "The wonder. of Athons."

TEXT: while FdW rated for them at
Athens his spirit tcds stirred in him, tohen
he sa,c the city mholty giren to idotatry."-
Acts xvii, 16.
II seemed as il morning would never come.
We had 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
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 sculpture, Greek poetry
Greek eioqueDce, Greek proves 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 dur
ing ali our stay in that city those letters
caused every coor aud every gate and every
tempe 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 man wnere an army could
not Those names brought us into the
| presence Of a most gracious and beautiful
sovereign, the Queen of Greece and her
1 cordiality was more like that of sister than
the occupant OF a throne room. No formal
| bow as when monarcns are approached, but
| cordial shake of the hanG. and earnest
questions about our personal welfare
and our be4oved country far away.
But this morning we pass through where
stood the Agora, the ancient marxet place,
the locality where philosopt ers used to meet
| tier disciples, walking while they talked,
| and where Paul, the Christian logiciaD,
| flung many proud stole and got tho 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 hear the news.
Booths an 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, and
the Agoranomi who ruled the place could
lnfiict severe punishment upon offenders.
The different schools of thinkers had dis
/ tlnct PLACES set apart for convocatioa. The
PIatceat must meet at the cheese market,
the Deeeiians 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 up to
gossip and merchandise and lounsing and
philosophizing. All this you nee1 to know
i'll order to understand the Bible when it
! says of Paul. Therefore disputed he in the
market daily with them that met him."
You see 1t was the best place to get an au-
/ dlence, and ii a man feels himself called to
preach he wants people to preach to. But
| before we make our chief visits OF to-day wo
] itlust take u TURN st INC L Is q
! little way out, but go we must. The Sta
dunn was the place where the foot races &C.
| CURED.
Paul had been out there no doubt for his
! frequently uses the scenes Of that place as
/ figures when be tells us, Let us run the race
/ that is set before us" and again, "fhey do
4 1t TO obtain corruptibe garland, but we an
incorruptIble." The marble and the gliding
have been removed, but the high mounds
/ against which the seats were piled are still
| there. Tbs Stadium is six hundred and
eighty feet long, enc hundred and thirty feet
wide, and held forty thousand spectators.
] There is to-day the very tunnel through
/ which the defeated racer departed from tie
] Stadium and from the Kisses of the people,
and there are the stairs up which the victor
went to the topof the hill TO be crowned with
1 the laurel.
In this place contests with wild beasts
/ sometimes took place and while HadriaD, tho
/ emperor, sat on yonder height one thousand
! beasts were slain in one celebration. But it
! was chiefly for foot racing, and so proposed
1 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 at the word given by the
/ lockers on we started side oy side but before
! | 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 overcoat
and my friends freedom from such incuu-
brance showed the advantage il any kind of
a 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 1T has been crowded more elaborate
architecture and sculpture than in any
other place under the whole heavens.
Originally fortress aftsrward a couzre-
fiation of temples and statues and pillars,
their 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 Atilca, and the Acropolis the CEN
Ire OF Athens. Earthquakes have shaken it,
| Nerres plunlered ir.
Lord Elgin, the English Embassador at
EonSt2ntiuopie, got permission of the SUI
tan 10 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. a storm overthrow many
of the statues Of the Acropols Morosini,
the General, attempted TO remove from
pedmeut the scuiptured car and horses of
Victory, but the clumsy machinery cropped
/ it and all was lest.
the Turks turned the building into
| powder magazine where the Venetian guns
! dropped a fire that by explosion sent the
! columns flying in the air and falling cracked
! and splintSred But after all that time and
storm and war and iconoclasm have effected,
/ tue AcrOpois is the monarch OF all ruins
! End before it bow the learning, the genius,
J the poetry. the art, the history of the ages.
+ l saw it as it was thousands of years ago. I
had read so much about it and dreamed SO
much about it that | needed no magcians
/ wand to restore it.
/ At one wave of my hand on that clear
morning in 1889 it rose before me in the glory
| It had when Pericles ordered it and Ictinus
! planned it and Phidias chiseled it and Pro-
togines painted it aud Pausanias described
it. Its gates, which were carefully guarded
by the ancients. open to let you in and YOU
ascend by sixty marble steps the propylm,
which Epamnondas 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 do more than 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 go in and misappropriate the
treasures be too great for him; its ceiling
mingling of blue and scarlet and green and
the walls abloom with pictures utmost in
thought and coloring. Yonder is temple
to goddess cellel Victory Without
Wings" So many Of the triumphs of the
world had been followed by defeat that the
J
| victory for Athens had come. never again to
ny away, aud hence this temple to Victory
without Wings'-a temple of marble snow
white and glitterng. Yonder behold the
| PEDESTAL OF Agrippa, twenty-seven feet high
! and Twelve feet square.
But the oyerShadowiny wonder of oil tho
! MI Is the Parthenon. In days when money
/ was ten times more valuable than now it cost
four million six hundred thousand dollars
IL Is a Doric grandeur, having forty-six
columns, each column thirty-four feet high
snd SIX feet two inches in diameter. Won
/ orous transformations! Painted port-
COS, archltraves tnge1 with ocher, shields of
eoid hung up, lines of most delicate curve
figures of horses and men aud women and
/ gods, oxen on the way to sacrifice, statues of
the deities Dionysus, PrcmetheuS Hermes,
/ Demeter, Zeus, Hera Poseidon; in one friezs
| twelve divinities; centaurs in battle; wea-
| ponary from Marathon; chariot of night;
{ chariot of the morning: horses of the sun,
/ the fates the furies: statue Of Jupiter hold
! ing IN his right hand the thunder bolt; silver
! footed chair III which Xerxes watched the
battle of Salamis only few miles away.
! Here is the colossal statute OF Minerva in
/ iuIl arnor, eyes OF gray colored stone, figure
OF Sphinx on her head, criffi1s by her side
Z twnlch are lions with Gag es beakl, spear in
one hand, statue of liberty in the other, n
shield carvel vita the battle scenes. and
/ even the slippers sculpturej and tie on with
/ thongs of gold. Far out at sea the sailors
/ saw 'nis statue of Minerva rising high above
/ all tn temples, giittariuy in the sun Here
are statutes OF equestrians, statue OF a lion
{ ness, ana there are the tiratss and yon Ter a