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

I
phemer and Others styled contemptu-
ously, ''This fellow"
Paul arrived In answer to the writ or
invitation, and confronted them and
gave them the biggest dose that NOR
tails ever took, He was SO built that
nothing could scare him, and as for Ju-
piter and Athena, the god and the
goddess whose images were In full sight
on the adjoining hill, he had not so
much regard for them as he had for the
ant that was crawling in the sand I'M
der his feet. In that audience were the
first orators of the world, and they had
voices like flutes when they were pass
i've and like trumpets when they were
aroused, and l think they laughed in
the sleeves of their gowns as this insig-
niticant looking man rose to speak.
In that audience were Scholiasts, who
knew everything, or thought they did,
and from the end of the longest hair on
the top of their craniums to the end of
the nail on the longest toe they were
stuffed with hypercriticism, and they
leaned back with a supercilious look to
listen. As in 1889, stood on that
rock where Paul stood, and a slab of
which brought from Athens by con-
sent of the queen, through Mr.. Tri-
coupis, the prime minister, and had
placed in yonder memorial wall, l read
the whole story, Bible in hand. ~
GOD WHO MADE THE WORLD.
What have so far said in this dis
course was necessary in order that you
may understand the boldness, the de-
fiance, the holy recklessness, the mag
ni6cence of Paurs speech. The first
thunderbolt he launched at the oppo-
site hill-the Acropolis-that moment
all aglitter with idols and temples. He
cries out, God, who made the world"
Why, they thought that Prometheus
made it, that Mercury made it, that
Apollo made it, that Poseidon made
it, that Eros made it, that Pandrocus
made it, that Boreas made it, that it
took all the gods of the Parthenon
yea, all the gods and goddesses
of the Acropolis, to make it, and
here stands man without any ecclesi-
astical title, neither D. D., nor even a
reverend, declaring that the world was
made by the Lord of heaven and earth,
and hence the inference that all the
splendid covering of the Acropolis, so
near that the people standing on the
steps of the Parthenon could hear it,
was a deceit, falsehood, sham, a
blasphemy. Look at the faces of the
auditors; they are turning pale, and
then red, and then wrathful. There
had been several earthquakes in that
region, but that was the severest shock
these men had ever felt.
The Persians had bombarded the
Acropolis from the heights of Mars
Hill, but this Pauline bombardment
was greater and more terrific. What"
said his hearers, 'have we been haul
ing with many yokes of oxen for cen
turtles these blocks from the quarries of
Mount Pentelicum and have we had
our architects putting up these struc-
lures of unparalleled splendor, and
have we had the greatest of all sculp-
tors, Phidias, with his men, chiseling
away at those wondrous pediments,
and cutting away at these friezes, and
have we taxed the nations resources to
the utmost, now to be told that those
statues see nothing, hear nothing, know
nothing2"
Oh, Paul, stop for moment and
give these startled and overwhelmed
a lditors time to catch their BREATH
Make a rhetorical pause Take look
around you at the interesting landscape
and give your hearers time to recoverl
No, he does not make even period or
so much as colon or semicolon, but
launches the second thunderbolt right
after the first, and in the same breath
goes on to say, God 'dwelleth not in
temples made with hands"
Oh, Paul! Is not deity more in the
Parthenon, or more in the Theseum, or
more in the Erechtheium, or more in
the temple of zeus Olympus than in
the open air, more than on the hill
where we are sitting, more than on
Mount Hymettus out yonder, from
which the bees get their honey9 "No
morel" responds Paul, HE dwelleth
not in temples made with hands"
But surely the preacher on the pull
pit of rock on Mars Hill will stop now.
His audience can endure no more.
Two thunderbolts are enough. No, in
the same breath he launches the third
thunderbolt, which to them is more
fiery, more terrible, more demolishing
than the others, as he cries out: Hath
made of one blood all nations" Oh,
PAUL you forget you are speaking to
the proudest and most exclusive au-
dience in the world. Do not say "ot
one blood" You cannot mean that.
Had Socrates and Plato and Demos.
themes and Scion and Lycurgus and
Draco and Sophocles and Euripides
anu LScllyluS dllu eIlcleS anu 1 uitllds
and Miltiades blood just like the Per
slams, like the Turks, like the Egyp-
tians, like the common herd of human
ity9 Eyes" says Paul, ''of one blood,
all nations.
RESURRECTION AND LAST JUDGMENT.
Surely that must be the closing para
graph of the sermon. His auditors
must be let up from the nervous strain.
Paul has smashed the Acropolis and
smashed the national pride of the
Greeks, and what more can he sayi
Those Grecian orators, standing on
that place, always closed their adj
dresses with something sublime and eli
macteric, a peroration, aud Paul is going
to give them a peroration which will
eclipse in power and majesty all that
he has yet said Heretofore he has
hurled one tlIunderbolt at time; now
he win close by hurting two at once.
The little old man, under the power
of his speech, has Strengthened him
self up and the stoop has gone out
of his shoulders. and he looks about