Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1891-11-28

tents. Our Lycurgus knew more In o
minute than you know In month. Ha!
Ha! You try TO teach US Grecians.
What nonsense you talk about when
you speak OF resurrection and judgment.
Now climb down the side OF Mars hill
and get out OF sight as soon as possible"
'Some Knocked" But that scene ad-
journed to the day Of which the sacred
orator had spoken-ths day OF resurrec-
tion and Judgment.
AS in Athens that evening In 1880
we climbed down the pile Of slippery
rocks, where all this had occurred. on
our way back to our hotel, l stood hall
way between the Acropolis and Mars
hill in the gathering shadows OF even
tide, seemed to hear those two hills
in sublime and awful converse. II am
chiefly OF the past. said the Acropolis:
II am chiefly OF the future" replied
Mars hill. The AcroDolis said: MY
orators are dead. My lawgivers are
dead. My poets are dead. My archi-
tects are dead. My sculptors are dead.
am q monument OF the dead past.
shall never again hear song sung.
will never again see q column filed.
will never again behold q goddess
crowned" Mars hill responded: Il,
too, have had history. l had on my
heights warriors who will never again
unsheath the sword and judges who will
never again utter doom, and orators
who will never again make plea.
"But my influence Is to be more in
the future that 1t ever was In the past.
Tho words that Missionary Paul uttered
that exciting day in the hearing OF the
wisest men and the populace on my
rocky shoulders have only begun their
majestic roll. The brotherhood OF man,
and the Christ OF God, and the perora.
tion OF resurrection and last judgment
with which the Tarsian orator closed
his sermon that day amid the hooking
crowd shall yet revolutionize the
planet. Oh, Acropolis! l have stood
here long enough to witness that your
gods are no gods at all. Your Boreas
could not control the winds. Your
Neptune could not manage the sea.
Your Appolo never evoked musical
note. Your goddess Ceres never grew
a harvest. Your goddess OF wisdom,
Minerva, never knew the Greek alpha
bet. Your Jupiter could not manage
the lightnings. But the God whom
proclaimed on the DAY when Paul
preached before the astounded assem-
blage on my rough heights Is the God
OF music. the God OF wisdom, the Gcd Of
power, the God OF mercy, the God oil
love. the God OF storms, the God OF sun
shine, the God OF the land and the God
OF the sea, the God over all, blessed for
ever"
Then the Acropo!is spake and said, rs
though in self defense: my Plato ar
gued for the immortality Of the soul.
and nv Socrates praised virtue, and my
Miltiades at Marathon drove back the
Persian oppressors.
"Yes," said Mars hill, "Your Plato
laboriously guessed at the Immortality
OF the soul. but my Paul. divinely in
spired. declared it as a fact straight
from God. Your Socrates praised vir.
tue, hut expired as suicide. Miltiades
was brave after earthly foes, yet died
from wound icnominiously gotten In
after defeat. But my Paul challenged
all earth aud all hell with his battle
shout: we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principallties,
against powers. against spiritual wick
cdness in high places, and on June %.
in the year 66, on the road to Ostia af-
ter the sword OF the headsman had Civ
en- one keen stroke, took the crown oil
martyrdom."
After q moments silence by both
hills, the Acropolis moaned out in the
darkness: "Alas! Alas! and Mars hill
responded: "Hosannah! Hosannah!'
Then. the voices OF both hills became
indistinct. and as passed on and away
in the twilight, I seemed to hear only
two Sounds fragment OF Pentelicon
marble from the architraves OF the Ac-
ropolis dropping down on the ruins Of
q shattered idol, and the other sound
seemed to come from the rock on Mars
hill, from which he had just descended,
But we were by this time so far of that
the fragments OF sentences were smaller
when dropping from Mars hill than
were the fragments OF fallen marble on
the Acropolis, and I could only hear
parts OF disconnected sentences waited
on the night air-"God who made the
word"-''of one blood all nations
appointed a day in which he will Judge
the world"-''raised him from the
dead"
AS that night at Athens I put my
tired head on pillow, and the exciting
scenes OF the dHR, passed through my
mind, thought ID the same subject on
which as boy made my commence
ment speech in Niblo's garden on grad
uation from the New York university.
viz: '"The moral effect OF sculpture and
architecture. but further than could
have thought In boyhood 1 thought in
Athens that night that the moral effects
OF sculpture and architecture depend on
what you do in great buildings after
they are put up; and though. that
night what brainy religion it must be
that could absorb hero like him whom
we have considered to-day. superior to
the whole human race, the infidels but
pigmies or homunculi compared with
him; and I thought what a rapturous
a 4 4.