The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1891-12-25

I NH tops are so near tnat whae SAID IN
religious discourse on Mars Hin was
heard distinctly by some English gen.
tleman on the Acropolis.
This Mars Hill is n rough pile of rock
fifty feet high. IL was famous long be-
| fore New Testament times. The Per-
slams easily and terribly assaulted the
Acropolis from this hilltop Here as
sem led the court TO Nry criminals II
was held in the nighttime, so that the
faces of the judges could not be seen,
nor the faces OF the lawyers who made
the plea, and so. instead of a trial being
one of emotion, IL must have been one
of cool justice. But there was one oc-
casion on this hill memorable above all
others A little man, physically weak,
and his rhetoric described by himself
as contemplate, had by his sermons
rocked Athens with commotion, and he
was summoned either by writ of law or
! by hearty invitation to come upon the
pulpit of rock and give q specimen Of
his theology.
! All the wiseacres Of Athens turned
out and turned up to hear him. The
more venerable Of them sat in an amphi-
theater, the granite seats Of which are
still visible, but the other people
swarmed on all sides Of the hill and at
the base of it to hear this man, whom
some called lunatic and others called
mad-cap, and others n blasphemer,
and others styled contemporary this
! fellow" Paul arrived in answer to the
writ Of invitation and confronted them
and gave them the biggest dose that
mortals ever took. He was so built
that nothing could scare him, ard as
/ for Jupiter and Athena, the god and
goddess, whose images were in full
| sight on the adjoining hill, he had
not so much regard for them as he had
| for the ant that was crawling in the
sand under his feet In that audience
were the first orators of the world, and
they had voices like flutes when they
/ were passive and like trumpets when
/ they were aroused, and l think they
! laughed in the sleeves OF their gowns
as this Notwithstanding man rose
! to speak. In that audience were So
| cialists, who knew every thing, or
| thought they did, and from the end OF
the longest hair on the top of their
craniums to the end of the nail of the
! longest toe, they were stuffed with
hypercriticism, and they leaned back
with n supercilious look to listen. AS
/ in 1850, | stood on that rock where
| Paul stood, and slab OF which /
| brought from Athens by consent of the
queen, through Nh. Tricoupis, the
prime minister, and had placed in yon-
der memorial wall l read the whole
story, Bible in hand.
/ What | have so far said in this dis
/ course was necessary in order that you
may understand the holiness, the def
ance, the holy recklessness, the mag
nificence of Pauls speech. The first
! thunderbolt he launched at the hill
| the Acropolis-the moment all aglitter
/ with idols and temples. He cried out:
/ God who made the world" Why,
/ they thought that Prometheus made it,
/ that Mercury made it, that Apollo made
/ il, that Poseidop made it, that Eros
made il, that Pandrocus made it, that
Boreas made it, that it took all the gods
of the Pantheon; yea, all the gods and
1 goddesses of the Acropolis TO make it,
and here stands man without any
ecclesiastical title, neither ID. ID. nor
even n reverend, declaring that the
world was made by the Lord Of Heaven
and earth, and hence the differences
that all splendid covering OF the Aero
polls, so near that the people standing
on the steps of the Parthenon could
/ hear it, was n deceit. A falsehood.
sham A blasphemy. Look at the
faces of his auditors; they are turning
pale, and then red, and then wrathfuL
There had been several earthquakes in
hat reg on, but that was the severest
,hock these men had ever felt
The Persians had bombarded
ne Acropolis from the heights
# Mars Hill, but this Pauline bonn
bardment was greater and more ter
rife. What" said his hearers have
we been hauling with many yokes OF
oxen for centuries these blocks from
the ouarries of Mount Pentelicum, and
have we had our architects putting up
these structures of unparalleled splen-
dor, and have we had the greatest OF all
sculptors, Phidias, with his men chisel-
ing away at those wondrous periments,
and cutting away at these friezes, 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 moment and give
these startled and overwhelmed aud
tors time to catch their breath! Make
rhetorical pause! Take look
around you at the interesting land
scape. and give your hearers time to
recover. No, he does not make even n
period, or so much as "A colon or semi
,olon, but launches the second thun-