Milford chronicle., 1891-11-27

ias with his men chiseling away at those
wondrous pediments and cutting away at
these friezes, and have we taxed the ma
tion's resources to the utmost, now 70 be
told that those statues see nothing, hear
nothing, know nothingi
oh, Paul, stop for moment and give
these startled and overwhelmed auditors
time to catch their BREATH Make rhe-
torical pause! Take look around you at
the interesting landscape, and give your
hearers time to recoverl No, he does not
make even a period, or so much as a 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, OF 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 honeyi mo
morer' responds Paul, "He dwelieth not
in temples made with hands"
But surely the preacher on the pulpit Of
rock on Mars Hill will stop now. His au-
dience can endure no more. Two thnn-
derbolts 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 ma
tions" Oh, PAUL you forget you are
speaking to the proudest and most exclu-
sive audience in the world. Do not say 'ot
one blood.D You cannot mean that. Had
Socrates and Plato aud Deinosthenes and
Solon and Lycurgus and Draco and Sopho-
cles and Euripides and Asschylus and Peri
cles and Phidias aud Miltiades blood just
like the Persians, like the Turks, like the
Egyptians, like the common herd OF hu-
manity? "Yes," says Paul, "of one blood
all nations"
TBR ORATORS OF GREECE.
Surely that must be the closing para
graph Of the sermon. His auditors must
let up from the nervous strain Paul has
smashed the AcropOlis and smashed the
national Dride of the Greeks, and what
more can be say? Those Grecian orators
standing on that place, always closed their
addresses with something sublime and eli
macteric.--a peroration-and 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 thiln-
derbOlt at a time; now he will close by
hurling two at once. The little old man.
under the power Of his speech, has straight
ened himself up, and the stoop has gone
out Of his shoulders, and he looks about
three feet taller than when he began; and
his ewes, which were quiet, became two
flames OF fire; and his face, which was
calm in the introduction, now depicts
whirlwind Of emotion as he ties the tYo
thunderboIts together with a cord of in-
consumable courage and hurls them at tie
crowd now standing or sitting aghast-the
two thunderbolts of Resurrection and l.asJ
Judgment. His closing words were, Bd-
cause be hath appointed a dny IN the
which he will Judge the world in righteous
ness by that man whom he hath ordained
whereof he hath given assurance 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 Nasarene, would come to be their
Judge, and they should have TO get ur g
Of their cemeteries to stand befc'
Sake their eternal doom.
of elocutionary poweraVer
cestohe-of some cfefhOse Gl0,
Demosttises ia his Grafton on
had heard Asschines in his
against Timarchus and CtesiphC
heard Plato in his great argumo
immortality of the soul, had heard SOel-
ties on his deathbed, suicidal cup Of hem
lock 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 its piled up amphitheater and the
marble floor of its orchestra still there)
seen enacted the tragedies of Aeschylus and
Sophocles, but neither had the ancestors
of these Grecians on Mars Hill or them
selves ever heard or witnessed such tor
nadoes Of moral power rs that with which
Paul now whelmed his hearers. At those
two thoughts Of resurrection and Iudg-
nient 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.
The record says, "Some moeked." Isup-
nose it means that they mimicked the
solemnity of his voice; that they took of
his impassioned gesticulation. aud they
cried out: "Jewl Jew Where did you
study rhetoricS You ought to hear our
orators speak, You had better go back to
your business Of tentmaking. Our Lycur-
gus knew moro in minute than you will
know in a month. Say, where did you get
that crooked back, and those weak eyes
fromf Hal hal You try to teach MS Gre
ciansi What nonsense you talk about
when you speak Of resurrection and ludg-
ment. Now, little old man, climb down
the side OF Mars Hill and get out OF sight
i as soon as possible.n ''SOme Knocked"
1 But that scene adjourned to the day OF
which the sacred orator had spoken-the
/ day of resurrection and Judgment.
WEAKNESS OF THE CREEKS.
] 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, stood half way be
! tween the Acropolis and Mars Hill in the
I Gathering shadows Of eventide, / seemed
/ to hear those two hills in sublime and aw-
fuI converse II am chiefly of the past"
I said the AcroDolis. 81 am chiefly Of the
future;" replied Mars Hill. The Acropolis
said; my orators are dead. My lawglvers
are dead. Ny poets are dead. Ny archl-
tects are dead. My sculptOrs are dead.
am a monument of the dead past. shan
never again hear song sung. will never
amin see a column lifted. l will never
again behold goddess crowned.
Mars Hill responded 81, too, have a his
tory. had on my heights warriors who
will never again unsheath the sword, ana
Judges who win never again utter doom
and orators who will never again make
plea. But my influence Is to be more IN
the future than 1t ever was in the past.
The words that missionary, Paul, uttered
that exciting day in the hearing Of the
wisest mon and the populace on my rocky
shoulders have only begun their majestic
role; the brotherhood Of man, aud the
Christ Of God, and the peroration Of resur-
rection and last Judgment with which the
Tarsian orator closed his sermon that
day amid the mocking crowd. shall yet
revolutionize the planet Oh, Aerop-
olisl 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 harvest. Your goddess OF
wisdom. Minerva, never knew the Greek
alphabet. Yonr Jupiter could not handle
the lightnings. But the God whom pro
claimed ON the day when Paul preached
before the astounded assemblage on my
rough heights is the God Of music, the
I Col If ,4ytedon,. thq God of DOWpr. the God