The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1891-12-02
DR.. TALNAGE IN ATHENS.
WONDERS OF THE ACROPOLiS AND
ITS SUGGESTIONS.

The Market Where the Athenians Daily
! Net TO Hear or Toll su,ae New Ching
Sc. Pau, on Mars HIli---A City wholly
Givsn TO Idoistry.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 22.-The consresa-
tion At the Tabernacle, led hJ cornet
snt organ, sang this morning with great
power she hymn Of Isaac Watts, begin
hing:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
The sermon, which was on the Aero
polls, is the sixth otthe series DR.. Tai
mage is preaching on the subjects sug-
gested by his tour in Bible lands. HIS
text was taken from Acts xvii. 16,
while Paul waited for them at Athens
his spirit was stirred in him, when ne
saw the city wholly given to idolatr;."
1t seemed as II morning would never
come. We lad arrived after dark IN
Athens, Greece, and the light was sleep-
less with expectation, and my watch
slowly announced to me one and two
and three and four O'Clock; and at the
first ray Of dawn I called our party TO
look out of the window upon that city
to which Paul said he was debtor, and
10 which the whole earth is debtor Tor
Greek architecture, Greek sculpture,
Greek poetry, Greek cloquen ;e, Greek
! pro-..s opfl C,ranl, hIstorg
That morning in Atheas wesauntered
forth armed with most generous 2ld
lovely letters from the president oi the
United States and bis secretary OF state,
and durin. all our stay in that city those
letters caused every door and every gate
and everT temple and every palace to
swing open beiUre US. The mishtlest
geographical name on Garth today Is
America.
But this morning ne pass through
where sto,d the A-cra, the anclen:
market place. the LEGALITY where phllo-
sephars used to mesS their disciples,
waking while they talked, and where
Paul, the Christian logiclan, flung many
proud Stole and got the laugh On many
an inpertinent Episureaa. The market
place was the center ofs0clal and poI.ti-
cal lie, and it vas the place where peo-
pie went to tell and hear the news.
The market place vas spa three
hundred and fifty yards long and two
Auadred aad fifty wide, and IL was given
up to gossip and merchandise. and
louncing and philesophizlng. All this
YOU need to know in order to understand
tie Bible when it says of Paul, There
!ore disputed he in the market daily with
them that met him." You see It was
the best place to get an audience, and If
a man feels himself called to preach he
wants people to preach to. But before
we make our chief visits OF today we
must take & turn at the Stadium. 1t is
little way our, but go we must. The
Stadium was the place where the loot
races occurred.
Paul had been cut there no doubt, tor
be frequently uses the scenes OF that
place as figures when he tells us, Let
US run the race that IS set before US, u
and again. They do it TO obtain cor
ruptiDle garland, but We an lncorruptl-
bic" The marble and the gliding nave
been removed, but the high mounds
against which the seats were piled are
still there. The Stadium is six hundred
and eighty feet long, one hundred and
thirty feet wide, and held forty thousand
spectators. There is today the very
tunnel through which the defeated racer
departed from the Stadium and from the
hisses Of the people, and there are the
stairs up which the victor went to the
TOP OF the hill to be crowned With the
laurel.
In this place contests with wild beasts
sometimes took place, .nnd while Had
rian, the emperor, sat on ycnder height
ono thousand beasts where slain is oae
celebration. But it was chiefly for foot
racing, and so I proposed to ny friend
that da7 while ne were in the Stadium
that We try which Of us could run the
socpcr from end to end OF this historical
ground. and so at the nord given by the
lockers on we started side by side but
before got through l found out what
Paul meant when he compares the
spiritual race with the race ia this very
Stadium, as he says, Lay aside every
weight" My heavy overcoat and my
friends freedom from such lncumbrance
showed the advantage in any kind OF a
race of laying aside every weight"
We come now 20 the Acropol,s. i
is a rock about two miles in circumtcr-
ence at Tie base aad a thousand feet IN
circumference at tho top and three hun.
jred feet high. On it has been crowded
more elaborate architecture and sculp-
ture than in any other place under the
whole heavens. OrlsisaIly fortress,
afterward congregation of temples and
statues and pillars, their ruins an en-
chantmens from which DO observer ever
breaks away. Ne.nonder that Arlstides
thought it the center Of all things
Greece, the cester Of the world, Attica,
the center Of Gree-e; Athens. the center
OF Attica, and the Acropelis, the center
OF Athens. Earthquakes have shaken
fit. Verres piundered it.
Lord Elsin, the English ambassador
at Con.tantinople. got.perm!ssion of the
sultan to remove from the Acropo!is tai-
len pieces Of the building. but he took
from the building to England the finest
statues, removing them a! an expense OF
eight hundred Thousand dollars. a storm
over threH many Of the statues ofthc
Acropoli,. Moroslni, the general, at
tempted to remove FROM podinens the
.culptured car aHd horses Of Victory,
but the clumsy machinery dropped II
sad all was lost.
But the overshadowing wonder OF al
dirinites; centaurs il battle; neaponry
from Marathon; chariot Of night; char.ot
O. the morning; horses OF the sus, the
fates, the iuries; statsc ofJupiter holding
in his right hand the thunderoolt; silver
Eooted chair in which AerIes watched
the battle OF Sa'amis euly e few miles
away.
Hero IS the colossal statue Of Minerva
in fu.l arnor, eJes.of gray colored stone,
tyu-e of Sph;a1 on her head, gri fins