Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-12-11

victory for Athens had come, never again TO
hy away, and hence this temple to Victory
Without WingS'-a temple OF marble, sno"
white and gIittering. Yonder behold the
pedestal of Agrippa, tTenty-seven feet nign
and twelve feet square.
But the overshadowing wonder OF all the
hill is the ParthenoD. In days when money
was ten times more valuable than now it cost
four million six hundred thousand dollars.
It is a Doric grandeur, having forty six
columns. each column thirty-four feet high
and six feet two inches in diameter. w on
drous inter-columniations! Painted portl-
cos, architraves tinged with ocher, shields or
gold hung up, lines of most delicate curve,
figures of horses and men and women and
gods, oxen on the way to sacrifice, statues OF
the deities Dionysius, Prcmetheus, Hermes.
Demeter Zeus Hera, Poseidon; in one frieze
twelve divinties; centaurs in battle; wea-
ponary from Marathon; chariot of night;
chariot OF the morning; horses or the sun,
the fates the furies; statue OF Jupiter hold
ing in his right hand the thunder bolt; silver
footed chair in which Xerxes watched the
battle Of Salamis only few miles away.
Here is the colossal statute OF Minerva in
full armor eyes of gray colored stone, figure
of Sphinx on her head, grifins by her side
(which are lions with eagles beak), spear in
one hand, statue Of liberty in the other, a
shield carved with the battle scenes, and
even the slippers soul ptured and tied on with
thongs Of gold. Far out at sea the sailors
saw this statue of Minerva rising high above
all the temples, glittering in the sun. Here
are statutes Of equestrians, statue Of a lion
ness, and there are the Gracas, and yonder
horse in bronze.
There is a statue said in the time OF
Augustus to have of its own accord turned
around from east to west and spit blood;
statues made out Of shields conquered in
battle; statue of Apollo the expeller OF
locusts; statue of Auacreon, drunk and
singing; statue of Olympodorus, a Greek.
memorable for the fact that he was cheerful
when others were cast down. q trait worthy
of sculpture. But walk on and around the
AcropOlis and yonder you a statue OF
Hygeia, and the statue Of the Theseus fight
ing the MinoGaur and the statue of Hercules
Staying serpents. No wonder that PetrOnius
said it was easier to find a god than man in
Athens. Oh, the Acropolis! The most OF
It's temples and statues made from the mar
BILE QuarrieS of Mount Peutellcun, q little
way from the city.
l have here my table block of tho
ParJhenon made out of this marble, and on
it is the sculpture of Phidias. l brought it
from the AcrOpOlis. This specimen has on
it the dust Of ages and the marks of eXDlO-
sion and battle, but you can get from it
some idea Of the delicate lus5er OF the Aero
polls when it was covered with a mountain
of this marble cut into all the exquisite
shapes that genius could contrive and
striped with silver and atame with gold.
The AcrOpOns in the morning light of those
ancients must have shOne as though it were
an aerolite cast off from the monday sun.
The temples must have looked like p9trfie1
foam. The whole Acropolis mus have
seemed like the white breakers of the great
ocean Of time.
But we cannot stop longer here, for there
is a hill near by of more interest, though it
has not one chip Of marble to suggest a
statue or a temple. We hasten down the
Acropolis to ascend the Areopagus, or Mars
Hill, as it is called. 1t took only about three
minutes to walk the distance, and the two
hilltops are SO near that what | said in re-
ligious discourse on Mars Hill was heard dis
timely by some English gentlemen on the
Acropolis. This Mars Hill is a rough pile OF
rock fifty feet high. 1t was famous long be-
fore New Testament times.
The PersianS easily and terribly assaulted
the Acropolis from this hilltop. Here as
sembled the court to try criminals. 1t was
held in the night time. So that the races of the
judges could not be seen, Dor the faces Of the
lawyers who made the plea and so, instead
Of the trial being of emotion, it must
have been one of cool justice. But there was
one occasion on this mill memorable above
all others.
A little man, physically weak, and his
rhetoric described by himself as contemptl-
bic, had by his sermons rocked Athens with
cOmmotion, and he was summoned either by
writ of law hearty invitation to come
upon that pul pit of rock and give spec
linen of his theology. All the wiseacreS OF
him. The more venerable of them sat in an
amphitheater, the granite seats of which
are still visible, but the other people
swarmed Oh all sides of the hill and at the
base of it to hear this man, wnom some
called fanatic, and others called mad
cap, and others blasphener, and others
styled contemptuousy this fellow"
Paul arrived in answer to the writ or in
vitation, and con ronted them and gave
them the biggest dose that mortals ever took.
He so built that nothing cOul6 Scara
him, and as for Jupiter and Athena, the
god and the 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 i'll the sleeves Of their gowns as this
insignificant man rose to speak.
In that audience were Scholiasts, who
knew everything, or thought they did, and
from the end of the longest hair on the top
of their craniums to the end OF the nail on
the longest toe, they were stuffed vita
hypercrlticiSm, and they leaned back with a
supercilious look to listen. AS in 1889, 1
stood on that rock where Paul stood, and
sab of which I brought from Athens by
consent of the queen, through Mr.. Tricoupis.
the prime minister, aud had placed in yon-
der Memorial Wall, read the whole story,
Bible in hand.
What have so far said in this discourse
was necessary in order that you may IN
derStand the bolduess, the defiance, the holy
recklessness, the magnificence of Paurs
speech. The first thunderboit he launched
ct the opposite hi1-the A cropolis-that
moment all aglitter with idols and temples.
He cries out. God who made the world. "
Why they thought that Prometheus made it,
that Mercury made it, that Apollo made it,
hat made HA