Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-11-05

Cartnage-an or them developing Sft>rn-
ward instead Of upward. They have evo-
luted from magnificence into destruction.
The Gospel Of Jesus Christ is the only
elevator Of individual and social national
character. Let all the living cities know
that pomp and opulence and temporal pros
perity are no security.
IF MORALITY IS GONE, ALL Is LOST.
Those ancient cities lacked nothing but
good morals. Dissipation and sin slew
them, and unless dissipation and sin are
halted, they will some day slay our
modern cities, and leave our palaces Of
merchandise and our galleries of art aud
our city hall as fiat in the dust as we found
Memphis on the afternoon of that Thanks
giving day. Aud il the cities gu down, the
nation will go down "Oh," you say, "that
Is impossible; we have stood so long-yea,
over a hundred years as a nation.n Why,
what of that2 Thebes stood five hundred
years. Memphis stood a thousand years.
God does not forget. One day with the
Lord is as thousand years and a Thousand
years as one day
Rum and debauchery and bad politics
are more rapidly working the destruction
of our American cities than sin of any kind
and all kinds worked for the destruction
of the cities of Africa, once so mighty and
now so prostrate. But their gods were
idols, and could do nothing except for de,
basement Our God made the heavens
and sent his Son to redeem the nations.
And our cities will not go down, and our
nation will not perish because the gospel
is going to triumph. Forward all schools
and colleges and churchesl Forward all
reformatOry and missionary organizations.
Forward! all the influences marshaled to
bless the world. Let our modern European
and American cities listen to the voice of
those ancient cities resurrected, and by
hammer and chisel and crowbar be COM
PEELED to speak.
notice the voice of those ancient cities
is hoarse from the exposure of forty cen.
turies and they accentuate slowly with
| lips that were palsied for ages, but all to.
gether those cities along the Nile intone
these words: "Hear us, for we are very old
and it is hard for us to speak. We were
wise long before Athens learned her first
lesson. We sailed our ships while yet
navigation was unborn. These obelisks
these pyramids, these fallen pillars, these
wrecked temples, these colossi of black
granite, these wrecked sarcophagi under
the brow of the hills, tell you of what was
in grandeur and of what l am coming
down to be. We sinned and we fell
Our learning could not save us. SCI
those half obliterated hieroglyphics or
yonder wall. Our architecture could moi
save us. See the painted columns o.
Phile, and the shattered temple of Esneh
Our heroes could not save us. Witness
Menes, Diodorus, Rameses and Ptolemy
Our Gods Ammon and Osiris could moi
save us. See their fallen temples all along
the four thousand miles of Nile. Oh
ye modern cities get some other God;
God who can help, God who can pardon
God who can save. Called up as we ar,
for a little while to give testimony, agail
the sands of the desert will bury us. Ashe
to ashes, dust to dustp' And as thes
voices of porphyry and granite ceased, al
the sarcophagi under the hills responded
"Ashes to ashes" and the capital of loft,
column fell grinding itself to powde
among the rocks, and responding, ''Dus
to dust?"