The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1891-12-01

wind of emotion as he ties the two
Ithunderbelts together with cord of in
consumabie courage and hurts them at
the crowd nov standing or sitting
\ laghast-the two thunderbolts of Resur.
iroct1on pad Last Judgment. His clos.
tpointed as1ay in which he will Judge
the world In righteousness by that man
fWhom he hath ordained, whereof he
snath given assurance unto all men in
deadn ~
remember those thoughts were to
them u Vel and provocative; that Christ.
the despised Nazarene, would come to
be their judge, and they should have to
get up out OF their CT ineteries to stand
before him and take their eternal doom.
Mlghttest. burst OF elocutionary power
ever heard, The ancestors of some of
those Greeks had heard Demosthenes
In his grafton on tho crown, had heard
hschlnes in his speeches against Tim
archus and CtcSiphon, had heard Plato
In his great argument for Immortality
OF the soul, had heard Socrates OH his
deathbed, suicidal cup OF hemlock in
hand, leave his hearers Ia emotion too
graai to bear; had in the theater of
(the ruins OF its piled up amphitneater
and the marble floor of its orchestra
still there) seen enacted the tragedies
OF HEschylus and Sophocl.s, but neither
had the ancestors OF these Grecians on
Mars Hill or themselves ever heard or
witnessed such tornadoes OF moral
power as that with which Paul now
Whelmed his hearers. At those Two
thoughts OF resurrection and judgment
the audience sprang to their feet. Some
moved they adjourn to some other day
to hear moro on the same theme, but
otenhaeiisS oeneisS VOID havatorn the Sacred orator
to pieces.
The record says: "Sume mocked." r
suppose it means that they mimicked
the solelnnity Of his voice; that they
took of his impassioned gesticulations.
and they cried out: "JeW! JeWl Where
did you study rhetoric? You ought to
hear our orators speak, You had bet.
ter go back to your business of tent
making. Our Lycurgus know more in
minute than you will know in month.
back, and those weak eyes fromp Hal
ha! You try to teach us Greciansl What
nonsense you talk about when you
speak of resurrection and Judgment.
NOW. little old man, climb down the side
OF Mars Hill and get out OF sight as
soon as possible" "Some Knocked"
But that scene adjourned to the day Of
which the sacred orator had spoken
the day of resurrection and judgment.
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 between the Acropolis aud Mars
In the gathering shadows OF eventide.
seemed to hear those two hills in sub.
i1me and awful converse. 81 am chief
~ OF the past" said the Acropolis. II
Hin Ths a acropolis said: sf5ye drats Mars
are dead. My lawgiyGrs are dead. My
poets are dead. My architects are dead.
My scuptors are dead. am monu-
ment of the dead past. shall never,
never again hear a song sung. l will
never again see column lifted. /
crowned"
Mars Hill responded: II too, have
history. had on my heights warriors
who will never again unsheath tue
sword, and judges who win never again
utter doOm and orators who will
never again make plea. But my in
fiuence Is to be more in the future than
1t ever was in the past. The words that
missiona y, Paul, uttered that exciting
day in the hearing Of the wisest men
and the populace on my rocky shout
ders have only begun their majestic
role; the brotherhood OF man, and the
Christ Of God. and the peroration of
which the Tarsian orator closed his SER
mon that day amid tho mocking crowd
shall yet revolutionize the planet. On,
Acropolis! l have stood here long
enough to witness that your gods are
no gods at all. Your Boreas could not
control 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. Your Jupi
ter could not handle the liqhtnings.
But the God whom proclaimed OH the
day when Paul preached before the
astounded asselublage on my rough
heights is the God Of music; the God of
wisdom, the God of power, the God Of
love, the God Of storms, the God OF sun n
shine, the God of the land and the God
of the sea, the God over all, blessed for
ever"
Then the .Acropolis spake and said,
as though In self defense, "My Plato
argued Tor the immortality of the soul,
Miitiades at Marathon drove back the
Persian oppressors." "Yes," said Mars
Hill, "your Plato laboriously guessed at
the Immortality of the soul, but my
PG diyinely inspired, declared it as a
fast straight from God. Your Socrates
praised virtue, bat expired as a suicide
Your Miltiades was brave against
earthly foes, yet died from wound
ignominionsly gotten in after defeat.
| But my Paul challenged all earth and
all hell with this battle shout. eve
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
ag dinst principalities, against powers
against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wicked
ness In high places, and then on the
goth of June, In the year 66. on the
road to Ostia, after the sword of the
headsman had given one keen stroke,
took the crown of martyrdctn."
After a moments silence By both
hills the Acropc1is moanel out in the
darkness. "Alas! Alasl" and Mars Hill
responded, "Hosannahl Hosannahl''
Then the voices of both hills became
lindistinct, and as passed ON and away
in tho twilight seemed to hear only
two sounds--a fragment of Pentelicol
marble from the architraye of the
| Acropolis dropping down on the ruins
of q shattered jfaS8id the other sound
seemed to ceme qfbm the rock oil Mars
Hill, from which we had just descend
ed. But Yee were by this time 80 far
off that the fragments Of sentences
were smaller when dropping from Mars