Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1891-11-26

eyes, WHICH WeTc QulCU, CCCduc TWO
flames of fire, and his face, which was
calm in the introduction, now depicts
whirlwind of emotion as he ties the two
thunderbolts together with a cord of in
consumable courage and hurls them at
the crowd now standing or sitting aghast
the two thunderbolts of Resurrection
and Last Judgment. His closing words
were: Because He hath appointed
day which He will judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom He
hath ordained, whereof He had given as
surance unto all men in that He hath
raised Him from the dead"
Remember those thoughts were to
them novel and provocative; that Christ,
the despised NaZarene, would come to be
their Judge, and they should have to get
up out of their cemeteries to stand be-
fore Him and take their eternal doom.
Mightiest burst of elocutionary power
ever heard. The ancestors of some of
those Greeks had heard Demos
themes in his GRAFTON on the Crown, had
heard Eschines in his speeches against
TimarchGs and Ctesiphon, had heard
Plato in his great argument for immor-
tality of the SOUL had heard Socrates on
his deathbed. suicidal cup of hemlock in
hand, leave his hearers in emotion too
great to bear; had in the theater of
Dionysius at the foot of the Acropolis
(the ruins of it's piled up amphitheater
and the marble floor of it's orchestra still
there), seen enacted the tragedies OF
Hschylus and Sophocles, but neither
had the ancestors of these Grecians on
Mars Hill, or themselves, ever heard or
witnessed such tornadOes of moral pow
er as that with which Paul now whelmed
his hearers. At those two thoughts Of
Resurrection and Judgment, the audi
ence sprang to their feet. Some moved
they adjourn to some other day to hear
more on the same theme, but others
would have torn the sacred rorator to
pieces.
The record says, ''Some mocked." /
suppose it means that they mimicked the
solemn.ty of his voice, that they took off
his impassioned gesticulation, and they
cried out: 'Jcw! Jew! Where did you
study rhetoric? Yea ought to hear our
orators speak! You had better go back
TO your business of tent-making. Our
Lycurgus knew more in minute than
you will know in d month. Say, where
did you get that crooked back, and those
weak eyes from? Ha! Ha! You try to
| teach us Grecians! What nonsense you
talk about when you speak of Resurrec-
| ton and Judgment. Now, little old
man, climb down the side of Mars>HilI
| 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-the day of Resurrec-
ton and Judgment.
AS in Athens, that evening in $780, we
climbed down the pile of slippery rocks
where all this had occurred, on our way
| back to our hotel. | stood half way be-
| tween the Acropolis and Mars Hill in
| the gathering shadows of eventide /
seemed to hear those two hills in sub
| lime and awful converse. 81 am chiefly
of the past" said the Acropolis. II am
chiefly of the future replied Mars Hill.
| The Acropols said: 'My orators are
dead. My lawgivers are dead. My
poets arc dead. My architects are dead.
My sculptors are dead / am a monu-
ment of the dead past. / shall never
| again see o column lifted. / shall never
again behold goddess crowned"
| Mars Hill responded: II, too, have
had history / had on my heights
warriors who will never again unsheath
| the sword, and judges who will never
| again utter a doom, and orators who will
never again make plea. But my in
it ever was in the past. The 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 broth
erhOod of man, and the Christ of God,
and the perOration of Resurrection and
Last Judgment with which the Tarsian
orator closed his sermon that day amid
the mocking crowd, shall yet revolution
ize the planet. O AcrOpolis! | 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. You'll Apollo
never evoked musical note Your god
Ceres never grew harvest. Your god
dess of wisdom, Minerva, never knew
the Greek alphabet. Your Jupiter
could not handle tho lightnings. But
God whom proclaimed on the day when
Paul preached before the aStOunded as
semblage on my rough heights is the
God of music, the God Of wisdom, the
God of power, the God of mercy, the God
of love, the God of storms, the God Of
sunshine, the God of the land, and the
God of the sea, the God over all, blessed
forever Then the Acropolis spake and
Sald, as LnOugn IN sell OelenSe, MY
Plato argued for the Immortality of the
soul, and my Socrates praised virtue,
and my Mlliades at Marathon drove
back the Persian oppressors."
YES" said Mars Hill, ''your Plato
laborlously guessed at the Immortality
of the soul, but my Paul, divinely in
spired, declared it as fact straight
from God. Your Socrates praised virtue,
but expired as suicide. Your Miltiades
was brave against earthly foes, yet died
from a wound ANONYMOUSLY gotten in
after defeat. But my Paul challenged
all earth and all hell with his battle
shout, we wrestle not against flesh and
boo3, but against municipalities, against
powers, against the rulers or the dark
ness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places, and then on
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