Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-11-27

with expectation, and my watch slow
4 ly announced to me one and two and
I three and four o'clock; and at the first
ray of dawn, / called our party to look
out of the window upon that city to
| which Paul said he was debtor, and
to which the whole earth is debtor for
Greek architecture, Greek sculpture,
Greek poetry, Greek eloquence, Greek
prowess and Greek history. That
morning in Athens we sauntered forth
armed with most generous and lovely
| letters from the President of the
! United States and his Secretary of
State, and during all of our stay in
| thatkcitv those letters caused every
door'and every gate and every temple
and every palace to swing open before
us We pass through where stood the
| Agora, the ancient marlsetplace, the
locality where philosophers used to
meet their disciples, walking while
they talked, and where Paul the Chris
tian logician flung many a proud Stolc
and got the laugh on many an imperti-
nent Epicurean. But before we make
our chief visits of to-day we must take
turn at the Stadium 1t is a little
way out, butgo we must The Stadium
was the place where the foot-races
occurred.
We come now to the Acropolis. II
is a rock about two miles in circumfer-
ence at the base and 1000 feet in
circumference at the top, and 800 feet
high. On it has been crowded more
ella borate architecture and sculpture
than in any other place under the
whole heavens Originally fortress,
afterward congregation of temples
and statues and pillars, their ruins an
enchantment from which no observer
ever breaks away. No wonder that
Aristides thought it the center of all
things-Greece the center of the
world: Attica the center of Greece:
Athens, the center of Attica, and the
| Acropolis the center of Athens
Earthquakes have shaken it; Verres
plundered it
The Turks turned the building into
powder magazine where the Nene-
tian guns dropped fire that by explo-
sion sent the columns flying in the air
and falling cracked and splintered
Bat after all that time and storm and
war and iconoclasm have effected, the
Acropolis is the monarch of all ruins,
and before 1t bow the learning, the
genius, the poetry, the art, the history
OF the ages. saw 1t as it was thou
sands of years ago.
Agrippa, twenty-seven feet high and
/ twelve feet square. But the over
shadowing wonder of all the hill is
the Parthenon. In days when money
was ten times more valuable than now,
1t cost 81, COO, 900. 1t is a Doric grand
eur, having forty-seven columns, each
column thirty-four feet high and six
feet two inches in diameter. Wondrous
DETERMINATIONS Painted porticos,
architraves tinged with ochre, 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 DionysIus, Prone
theus, Hermes, Demeter. Zeus. Hera,
Poseidon; in one frieze twelve divini-
ties; centaurs in battle; weaponry from
Marathon; chariot of night; chariot %
the morning: horses of the sun, the
fates, the furies; statue of Jupiter hold
ing in his right hand the thunderbolt;
silver-footed chair in which Xerxes
watched the battle of Salamis onlv a
few miles away. 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
|
other, q shield carved with bat
tie scenes, and even the slippers
sculptured, and tied on with
thongs of gold Far out at sea the
sailors saw the statue of Minerva ris-
ing high above all the temples, glitter
ing in the sun. Here are statues of
equestrians, statue of a lioness, and
there are the Graces, and yonder a
horse In bronze. There is a 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 ex-
peller of locusts; statue of Anacreon,
drunk and singing; statue of Olympic
dorus, Greek, memorable for
the fact that he was cheerful
when others were cast down, a
trait worthy of sculpture. But
walk on and around the Acropolis, and
youder you see statue of Hygeia.
and the statue of Theseus fighting the
Minotaur and the statue of Hercules
staying serpents. No wonder that
Petronius said that It was easier to
find a god than a man in Athens. Oh,
: the Acropolisl The most of It's temples
ard statues made from the marble
quarries Of Mount Pestelicum, a little
way from the city. / have here on
my table block of the Parthenon
, made out of tins marble, and on it is
the sculpture of Phidias brought
1t from the Acropolis THIS speci-
men has on it the dust OF ages, and
the marks of explosion and battle, but
you can get frora it some idea of
the delicate lustre of the Acropolis
when 1t was covered with a mountain
of this marble cut into all the exauis-
lite shapes that genius could contrive
, and striped with silver, and afame
, with gold. The Acropolis In the morn
ing light OF those ancients MIST have
shown as though it were 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 ocean of time.
, We next hasten down the Acropolis
TO ascend the Areopagus, or Mars HILL,
as IL is called. 1t took only about
J three minutes TO walk the distance.
and the two hill tops are so near that
what / said in religious discourse on
Mars Hill was heard distinctly by