Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-12-11

Plato laboriously guessed st the Immortality
of the soul, but my Plato, divinely in
spired, declared it as fact straight from
God. Your Socrates praised virtue but ex-
pired as suicide. Your Miitiades was brave
against earthly foes, yet he died from q
wound ignominiousiy gotten in after defeat
But my Paul challenged ell earth and all hell
with this battle shout 1--WE wressie not
against flesh and blood, but againt principal
tiles against powers. against the rulers OF
the darkness Of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. and then on the
29th OF June, in the year I'd, on the road to
Ostia, after the sword of the headsman had
given one keen stroke, took the crown of
martyrdom."
After a moments silence by both hills
the Acropolis moaned out in the darkness,
ALIAS! Alase and Mars Hill responded.
"Hosannah! HosannahT Then the voices
of both hills Became indistlnct and as l
passed on and away in the twilight seemed
to hear only two sounds-fragment OF
Pentelicon marble from the archltrave OF
the Acropolis dropping down on the ruins OF
a. shattered idol, and the other sound seemed
to come from the rock on Mars Hill. from
which we had just descended. But we were
by this time 50 far off that the fragments OF
sentences were smaller when dropping from
Mars Hills than were the fragments of fallen
marble on the Acropolis, and l could only
hear parts of disconnected sentences waited
on the night air-'God who made the
world"-"of one blood all nations"-"ap-
pointed a day in which He will judge the
world'-''ralsed from the dead"
As that night in Athens put my tired
head on my pillow, and the exciting scenes
Of the ay..passed through!my mind, thought
on the same subject OF which, as a boy, l
made my commencement speech in Niblos
Theatre on graduation day from the New
York University, viz. The moral effects OF
sculpture and architecture" but further
than l could have thought in boyhood,
thought in Athens that night that the moral
effects of architecture and sculpture depend
on what you do in great buildings after they
are put up and upon the character OF the
men whose forms you cut in the marble.
Yea! I thought that night what struggles
the martyrs went through in order that in
or time the Gospel might have full swing;
and thought that night what brainy re-
hgion it must be that could absorb a hero
like him whom we have considered to-day,
man. the superior of the whole human race,
the infidels but pigmies or hOmunculi COM
pared with him: and thought what a rap
turous consideration it is that through the
same grace that saved Paul. we shall con-
front this great apostle, and shall have the
opportunity, amid the familiarities Of the
skies. OF asking him what was the greatest
occasion of all his life.
He may say, The shipwreck of Melita."
He may say. The riot at Ephesus." he
may say, My last walk out the road to
Ostia." But, l think he will say, THE day
stood on Mars Hill addressing the indignant
Areopagites, and looking off upon the tower
ing form of the goddess Minerva, and the
majesty of the ParthenOn and all the brill
liant divinities Of the AcroDolis. That account
in the Bible was true. My spirit was stirred
within me when saw the city wholly given
up to idolatry"