Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-11-28

Paul has smashed the Acropoiis and
smashed the national pride Of the
Greeks, and what more can he say2
Those Grecian orators, standing on
that place, always closed their adj
dresses with something sublime and eli
lnacteric, peroration, and Paulisg going
to give them u peroration which will
eclipse in power and majesty all that
he has yet said Heretofore he has
hurled onefssinnderbolt at a time; now
he will close by hurling two at once.
The little old man. under tic power
of his speech, has Strengthened him
self up and the stoop has gone out
of his shoulders. and lie looks about
three. feet taller than when he began,
and his eyes, which were quiet. became
two flames Of fire, and his face, which
was calm in the introduction. now de-
picts whrwind. of emotion as he ties
the two tlIunderbolts together with Il
cord of inconsunable courage and
hurls them at the crowd now standing
or sitting aghast-the two thundcrbolts
of Resurrection and Last Judgment
His closing words were: because He
hath appointed5a daysin which lie will
Judge tile world in righteousness by;tIat
man whom lie 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 Nazarenc, would
come to be their Judge, and they should
have to get up out of their cemeteries
to stand before him and take their
eternal doom. Mightiest burst of elo-
cutionary power ever heard. The an.
cestors Of some of those Greeks had
heard Delnosthenes in his Grafton on
the Crown. had heard Nsciines in his
speeches against Tilnarchus and Ctes-
phon, had heard Plato in his great ar
gulnent for Immortality OF the SOUL had
heard Socrates OH his deathbed. sui
cidal cup of he.nlock 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 aluphitheater
and the marble floor of its orchestra
still there), seen enacted the tragedies
of Eschylus and Sophocles. butneitller
L.. 4 Of t1,oca T.. rnoin,c
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 Judg-
lnent. 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 mocked." I
suppose it means that they nliinicked
the soleinnity of his voice, that they
took off his imprisoned gestculation,
and they cried out: Jew! Jew Where
did you study rhetoric3 You ought to
lear our orators speak! You had bet
ter go back to your business of tent
making Oar I,ycurgus knew more in
a minute than you will know in
month. Say, where did you get that
crooked back, and those weak eyes
from? Hal Ha! You try to teach us Gre
clans! 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
snd Judgment.
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
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 and Mars
Hill in the gathering shadows of even
tide 1 seemed to hear those two hills in
sublime and awful converse Il am
chiefly of the past" said the Acropolis.
Il am chiefly Of the future" replied
Mars Hill. The Acropolis said: "Nfy
orators are dead. My lawgivers Gre
dead. My poets are dead. My archi-
tects are dead. Ny sculptors are dead.
/ am a monument of the dead past.
shall never again hear song sung.
l shall never again see a column lifted.
1 shall never again behold a goddess
crowned"
Mars Hill responded: II, too, have
had q history I had on my heights
warriors who will never again unsheath
the sword, and judges WHO will never
again utter doom, and orators who
will never again make plea. But my
influence is to be more in the future
than it ever was in the past. The
words that missionary, Paul, uttered
that exciting day in the hearing of tue
wisest men and the populace on my
rocky shoulders, have only begun their
majestic roll the brotherhood of man,
and the Christ of God, and the perora-
ton Of Resurrection and Last Judgment
with which the Tarsian orator closed
his sermon that day amid the hooking
crowd, shall yet revolutionze the planet.
o Acropolisl 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 musical note. Your
god Ceres never grew a harvest. Your
goddess of wisdom, Minerva, never
knew the Greek alphabet. Your Ju-
piter could not handle the lightnings.