Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1891-12-04

!
iuFs lihs the Egvptians Ike the common
herd OF humanity "Yes" says Paul 20
one blood all nations
surely that must be the closing paragraph
OF the sermon. His auditors must let tlp
from the nervous strain. Paul has smashed
the Acropolis aud smashed the national pride
OF the Greexs and what more can he saw
Ihose Grecan orators standing on that
| place, always closed their addresses with
something sublime and climacteric-a peror.
aton-and Paul is going TO give them a
| peroration which will eclipse in power and
majesty all that he has yet said. Hereto
fore he has hurled one thunderbolt at a
time; now he will close by hurting two
at once. The little old man, under the
power OF his speech, has Strengthened
himself up, and the stoop has gone out
OF his shoulders and he looks about
| three feet taller than when he began: and
| ms ewes, which we're quiet. became two
hames OF fire; and his face, which was calm
In the Introduction, now depicts a whirl-
wind or emotion as he ties the two thunder
bolts together with cord Of inconsumable
courage and hurls them at the crowd now
standing or sitting aghlst-the two thun-
derbolts OF Resurrection and Last Judg-
ment. His closing words were, Because
DE hath appointed day in the wnIch He will
Judge the world in Righteousness by that
man whom He hath ordained, whereof He
hath given assurance unto all men in that
de hath raised him from the dead.
Remember those thoughts were 70 them
novel and provocative: that Christ the de-
spised Nazarene would come to be their
Judge and they should have to get up out
OF their cemeteries to stand before Him and
take their eternal doom. Mightiest burst Of
evolutionary power ever heard. The auces-
tors OF some OF those Greeks had heard
Demosthenes in his oration on the crown,
had heard Eschines in his speeches against
1imarchus and Ctesiphon, had heard Plato
in his great argument for immortality OF
the SOUL had heard Socrates on his death
bed, suicidal cup of hemlock in hand, leave
his hearers in emotion too great too bear;
had in the theater OF Dionysius, at the
foot OF the Acropolis tthe ruins
of its piled up amphitheater and the
marble floor OF its orchestra still there) seen
enacted the tragedies Of Eschylus and Sopho-
cles- but neither had tue ancestors Of these
Greclans on Mars Hill or themselves ever
heard or witnessed such tornadoes Of moral
power as that with which Paul now whelmed
his hearers. At those two thoughts Of re-
surrection and Judgment the audience 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
orator to pieces
AS in Athens, that evening in 1889, We
climbed down the pile of slippery rocks,
where all this had occurred, on our way back
to our hotel. l stood half way between the
Acropolis and Mars Hill In the gathering
shadows Of eventide, seemed to hear those
two hills in sublime and awful converse. ~
am chiefly OF the past" said the Acropolis
II am chiefly Of the future;" replied Mars
Hill. The Acropolis said: my orators are
dead. Ny lawgivers are dead. Ny poets
are, dead. My architects are dead. Ny
sculptors are dead. | am a monument Of
the dead past. l shall never again hear a
song sung. will never again see column
lifted. will never again beh old . goddess
crowned"
Mars Hill responded: "I, too have his
tory. | 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 influence is to be more In the
future than 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 role; the
brotherhood 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 revolutioniEe the planet. Oh,
Acropohsl l have stood here long enough
to witness that your gods are no
gods at ALL Your Boreas could not con-
troll the winds. Your Neptune could not
manage the sea. Your Apollo never evoked
a musical note. Your god Ceres never grew
a harvest. Your goddess of wisdom, Min
erva, never knew the Greek alphabet. Your
Jupiter could not handle the lightnings.
But the God whom proclaimed on the day
when Paul preached before the astounded
assemblage on my rough heights is tue 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 said. as
though in self dei ense. my Plato argued
for the Immortality Of the soul. and my
Socrates praised virtue, and my Miltiades
at Marathon drove back the Persian OPP
pressorsn Yes" said Mars Hill, your
Plato laboriously guessed at the immortality
of the soul, but my Plato, divinely In
spred, declared it as fact straight from
God. Your Socrates praised virtue, but ex-
pired as a suicide. Your Miltiades was brave
against earthly foes, yet he died from
wound ANONYMOUSLY gotten in after defeat.
Bet my Paul challenged all earth and all hell
with this battle shout, I'VE wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but againt principal
iLies, against powers, against the rulers Of
wickedness in high places, aud then on the
29th Of June in the year 06, on the road TO
Ostia, after the sword OF the headsman had
given one keen stroke, took the crown OF
martyrdom."
After moments silence by both hills
the Acropolis moaned out in the darkness,
"Alasl AlasF and Mars Hill responded,
"Hosannahl Hosannahr' Then the voices
of both hills became indistinct, and as
passed on and away in the twilight / seemed
to hear only two sounds-fragment OF
Pentelicon marble from the architrave OF
the Acropolis dropping down on the ruins Of
shattered idol, and the other sound seemed
to come from the rock on Mars Hill. from
which we had Just descended But we were
| by this time so far Off that the fragments OF
sentences were smaller when dropping from
Mars Hills than were the fragments OF fallen
marble ON the Acropolis and l could only
hear parts OF disconnected sentences waited
| on the night air-"God who made the
world"-''of one blood all nations"-"ap-
pointed day in which He will judge the
| world"-''raised from the dead. -
AS that night in Athens put my tired
head on my pillow, and the exciting scenes
of the day.passed through,,my mind, thought
on the same subject on which, as q boy,
made my commencement speech in Niblo's
Theatre on graduation day from the New
York University, viz, "The moral effects oil
sculpture and architecture" but further
than could have thought in boyhood,
thought in Athens that night that the moral
effects of architecture and sculpture depend
on what you do in great buildings after they
are put up, and upon the character of the
men whose forms you cut in the marble.
Veal thought that night what struggles
the martyrs went through in order that in
or time the Gospel might have full swing
and thought that night what a brainy re
ligion it must be that could absorb here
like him whom we have considered to-day, Q
man, the superior OF the whole human race
the iiitidels but pigmies or homunculi com
pared with him; and thought what a rap
turous consideration it is that through tn
same grace that saved Paul, we shall con
front this great apostle, and shall have tn
, opportunity, amid the familiarities OF tn
skies of asking him what was the creates