The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1891-11-27

dropped it, and all was lost.
The Turks turned the building into
a powder magazine where the Venetian
guns dropped fire that by explosion
sent the columns flying In the air and
falling cracked and splintered, But
after all that time and storm and wal
and iconoclasm have effected, the
Acropolisis the monarch of all ruins, and
before 1t bow the learning, the genius,
the poetry, the art, the history of the
ages. saw it as it was thousands OF
years ago, had read so much about
it and dreamed so much about it. that
| needed no magician's wand to re-
store it.
AT one wave of my hand on that
clear morning in 1889 1t rose before
me in the glory it had when Pericles
ordered it and lctinus planned it and
Phidias chiseled it and Protogines
painted it and 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
propyl,ea, which Epaminodas wanted
to transfer to Thebes, but permission,
| 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 thou
sand dollars. See its five ornamented
gates, the keys intrusted to an officer
for only one day lest the temptation to
go in and inappropriate the treasures
be too great for him; its ceiling a
mingling of blue and scarlet and green,
and the walls abloom with pictures ut
most in thought and coloring. Yonder
is temple to a goddess called Victory
Without Wings"
So many of the triumphs of the world
had been followed by defeat that the
| Greeks wished in marble to indicate
that victory for Athens had come never
again to fly away, and hence this tenn
pie to Victory Without Wings"-a
temple of marble, snow white and gilt
tering. Yonder, behold the pedestal
of Agrippa, twenty-seven feet high and
twelve square. But the overshadowing
wonder of all the hill is the Parthenon
In days when money was ten times
more valuable than now it cost
four million six hundred thousand
dollars. 1t is Doric grandeur
having forty-six columns, each col
umn thirty-four feet high and six feet
two inches in diameter Wondrous in
DENOMINATIONS! Painted porticoes,
architraves tinged with ocher, shields
of 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 Diony-
sius, Prometheus, Hermes, Demeter,
Zeus, Hera, Poseidon; in one frieze
twelve divinities; centaurs in battle;
weaponry from Marathon; chariot of
night; chariot of the morning; horses
of the sun, the fates, the furies; statue
of Jupiter holding in his right hand the
thunderbolt; silver footed chair in
which Xerxes watched the battle of
Salamis only few miles away.
MINERVA IN FULL ARMoR.
Here is the colossal statue of Minerva
in full armor, eyes of gray colored
stone, figure of Sphinx, on her head,
griffins by her side (Which are lions
with eagles beak), spear in one hand,
statue of liberty in the other, a shield
carved with battle scenes, and even the
slippers sculptured 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 statues of eques-
TRANS, statue of a lioness, and there are
the Graces and yonder a horse in
! bronze.
There is 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 An
acreon, drunk and singing; statue of
Olympodorus, Greek, memorable for
the fact that he was cheerful when
others were cast down, trait worthy
of sculpture. But walk on and around
the Acropolis and yonder you see a
statue of Hygeia, and the statue of
Theseus fighting the Minotaur, and the
statue of Hercules Staying serpents.
No wonder that Petronius said it was
easier to find god than a man in
Athens. Oh, the Acropolis. The most
of its temples and statues made from
the marble quarries of Mount Penteli-
cum, little way from the city.
have here on my table block of
the Parthenon made out of this marble,
and on it is the sculpture of Phidias. l
brought it from the Acropolis. This
specimen Las on it the dust of ages,
and the marks of explosion and battle,
but you can get from 1t some idea Of
the delicate luster of the Acrcpolis
when it was covered with a mountain
| VI Iliio iiSti OlC Cul lbUO tiil lllc tAQulSlU0
shapes that genius could contrive and
striped with silver and aflame with
gold. The Acropolis in the morning
light of those ancients must have shone
as though it we're an aerolite cast off
from the MONDAY sun. The temples
must have looked like petrified foam.
The whole Acropolis must have seemed
like the white breakers of the great
| Icean OF time.
| TIL APOSTLE PAUL ON MARS HILL.
But we cannot stop longer here, for
there is hill near by of more interest,
though it has not one chip Of marble to
suggest statue Or temple. We has
ten 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 hill
tops are so near that what | said in re-
ligious discourse Oh Mars Hill was heard
distinctly by some Eaglish gentlemen
on the Acropolis This Mars Hill is a
rough pile of rock fifty feet high. 1t
n