The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-12-16

There is a statue said III 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 expeller OF
Iocusts; statue Of Anacreon, drunk and
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 yonder you see a statue OF
Hygeia, and the statue Of the TheseuS light
ing the Minotaur and the statue of Hercules
Staying serpents. No wonder that Petronlus
said it was easier to find a god than a man In
Athens. Oh, the Acropolis! The most OF
its temples and statues made from the mar
BILE quarries of Mount Pentelicum, a little
way from the city.
have here on my table q block OF the
Parthenon made out Of this marble, n on
it is the sculpture of Phidias. l brought 1t
from the Acropolis. This specimen has on
& the dust of ages and the marks Of explo-
sion and battle, but you cal get from 1t
some idea of the delicate luster OF the Aero
oolis when it was covered with a mountain
IF this marble cut into all the exquisite
shapes that genius could contrive and
striped with silver and afame with gold.
The Acropolis in the morning light of those
ancients must have shone as though 1t were
an aerolite cast off from the MONDAY sun.
The temples must have looked like petrihed
foam. The whole Acropolis must have
seemed like the white breakers of the great
ocean OF time.
But we cannot stop longer here, for there
isl hill near by of more interest, though it
has not one chip Of marble to suggest a
statue or a temple. We hasten down the
A~cropolis to ascend the Areopagus, or Mars
Eill, as it is called. It took only about three
minutes to walk the distance, and the two
hilltops are so near that what L said IN re-
liqious discourse on Mars Hill was heard dis
tinctly by some English gentlemen on the
Acropolis. This Mars Hill is a rough pile OF
rock fifty feet high. 1t wasfamous long be-
fore New Testament times.
The Persians easily and terribly assaulted
the Acropolis from this hilltop; Here as
SAMPLED the court to try criminals. 1t was
heldin the night time. So that the faces OF the
indpes could not be seen, nor the faces OF the
LAWYERS who made the plea, and so, instead
of the trial being one of emotion, it must
have been one of cool justice. But there was
one occasion on this mill memorable above
all others.
A little man, physically weak, and his
rhetoric described by himself as contempti.
bic, had By his sermons rocked Athens with
commotion, and he was summoned either by
writ Of law or hearty invitation to come
upon that pulpit of rock and give a spec.
linen of his theology. All the wiseacres OF
Athens turned out and turned up to hear
him. The more venerable Of them sat in an
amnhitheater. the granite seats Of which
are still visible, but the other people
swarmed OH all sides of the hill and at the
base of it to hear this man, whom some
called O fanatic, and others called a mad
cap, and others q blasphemer, and others
STYLED c~ontemptuously 'this fellow"
Paul arrived in answer to the writ or in
vitation, and confronted them and gave
them the biggest dose that mortals ever took.
He was so built that nothing could scare
him, and as for Jupiter 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 under his
feet. In that audience were the first orators
of the world, and they had voices like flutes
when they were passive, and like trumpets
when they were aroused, and I think they
laughed in the sleeves Of their gowns as this
Insignificant 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
s9percilious look to listen. As in 1859, I
stood on that rock where Paul stood, and a
sab of which I brought from Athens by
consent Of the queen, through Mr.. Tricoupis,
the prime minister, and had placed in yon-
der Memorial Wall, I read the whole story.
Bible in hand.
What I have so far said in this discourse
was necessary in order that you may. un-
derstand the bolduess, the defiance, the holy
recklessness, the magnifcence Of Paurs
speech. The first thunderbolt he launched
at the opposite hill-the .Acropols-that
moment ali aglitter with idols and temples.
He cries out. "God who made the world"
Why, they thought that Prometheus made 1t,
that Mercury made 1t, that Apollo made it,
that Poseidon made 1t, that Enos made it,
that Pandrocus made it, that Boreas
made it. that it took all the gods Of
the P%arthenon, yea, all the gods and god.
desses Of the Acropolis to make II, and
here stands a man without any ecclesiastical
title, neither a D. D.. nor even q reverend,
declaring that the world was made by the
Lord Of heaven and earth, and hence the In
ference that all the splendid covering Of the
Acropolis, so near that the people standing
on the steps Of the Parthenon could hear 1t,
was a deceit, a f~alsehood, q sham, a blasphe-
nv. Look at the faces Of his auditors; they
are turning pale, and then red. and then
wrathful. There had been several earth
ouakes in that region, but that was the Be-
verest shock these men had ever felt.
The Persians had bombarded the Acropo-
lis from the heights of Mars Hill, but this
Pauline b~ombardment was greater and more
terrific. "What," said his hearers, ''have
we been hauling with many yokes OF oxenf for
centuries these blocks from the quarries Of
Mount Pentelicum, and have we had our
architects putting up these structures OF un'
paralleled splendor, and have We had the
greatest Of all sculptors, Phidias, with his
men chiseling away at tho3A wondrous pedi-
ments 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 nothing?.
Oh, Paul, stop for a momen and give
these startled and overwhelmed auditors
time to catch their breath! Make a rhetorical
pause! Take a look around you at the inter-
esting landscape, and give your hearers time
to recover! No, he does not make even a
period, or 80 much as a color or semicolon,
but launches the second ~thunderbolt right
after the first, and in the same breath goe;
on to say, God ''dwelleth not in temples
made with hands" Oh, Paul! Is not deity
more in the Parthenon, or more in the The
scum, or more in the Erechtheium, OF mora
in the temple Of Zeus Olympus than In the
open air, more than on the hill where we are
sitting, more thar on Mount Hymettus GU,
yonder, from which the bees get then
honey? mo more" responds Paul, "Hs
dwelleth 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 thunder
bolts are enough. No, in the same breath hs
launches the third rhunderbolr, which to
them is mora fiery, mora terrible, more de-
molishing than the others, as he cries out
hath made OF one blood all nations" o.
Paul! you forget you are speaking to thu
world. Do NOT saw .sot one blood" You