Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1891-11-27

| sion ana DdUUle, Dut you can get from 10
some idea of the delicate luster OF the Aero
polls when twas covered with a mountain
of this marble cut into all the exquisite
shapes that genius could contrive and
striped with silver and ahame with gold.
| The 4 polls in the morning light of those
ancient must have shone as though it were
an aerolite cast of from the monday sun.
The temples must have looked like petrifiei
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
! is a 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
Acropolis to ascend the Areopagus, or Mars
Hill, as it is called. 1t took only about three
minutes to walk the distance, and the two
hilltops are so near that what | said in re-
ligious 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 II was famous long be-
fore New Testament times.
The Persians easily and terribly assaulted
the Acropolis from this hilltop. Here as
sembled the court to try criminals. 1t was
held in the night time, So that the faces of the
Judges 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 hill memorable above
all others.
A little man, physically weak, and his
rhetoric described by himself as contempt
BILE 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
amphitheater, the granite seats of which
are still visible, but the other people
swarmed OIL all sides OF the hill and at the
base Of it to hear this man, waom some
called fanatic, and others called a mad
cap. aud others a blasphemer, and Others
styled contemptuouslY 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 ike trumpets
when they were aroused, and 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
hvpercriticism. and they leaned back with
supercilious look to listen. As in 1889,
stood on that rock where Paul stood, and
sab of which l brought from Athens by
consent of lie queen, through Mr.. Tricoupis,
the prime minister and hal placed in yon-
der Memorial Wall, | read the whole story,
Bible in hand
What have so far said in this discourse
was necessary in order that you may un-
derstand the bolduess the defiance, the holy
recklessness, the magnihcence OF Pauls
speech. The first thunderbo,t he launched
81 fine opposite hill-ths Acropolis-that
moment ali aglitter with idols and temples.
He cries out. God who made the world.
Why. they thought that Prometheus made it,
that Mercury made il, that Apollo made it,
that Poseidon made il. that EnOs made II,
that Pandrocus made it, that Boreas
made il. that it took all the gods OF
the Parthenon, yea all the gods and god
desses of the Acropolis to make 1t, and
here stands a man without any ecclesiastical
title. neither d. D.. Tor even 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 tue
Acropolis, so near that the people standing
ON the steps of the Parthenon could hear 1t,
was a deceit a falsehood, sham, blasphe-
my Look at the faces of his auditors; they
are turning pale, and then rel, and tden
wrathful There had been several earth
ouakes in that region, but that was the Sc
verest shock these men had ever felt.
The Persians had bOmbarde1 the Acropo-
lis from the heights Of Mars Hill, but this
Pauline bombarlment was greater and more
terrific. "What," said his hearers have
we been hauling with many yolses OF oxen 10Y
centuries these blocks from the quarries OF
Mount Pentelicum, and have we had our
architects putting uD these structures OF IN
naralleled splendor. and have we had the
greatest of all sculptors. PhidaS, with his
men chiseling away at those wonfrous pe1i-
ments and cutting away at these friezes AMI
have we taxel the nations resources to the
utmost. now 10 be told that those statues see
nothing hear nothing, know nothing?
Oh, Paul, stop for moment and give
these startled and overwhelmed auditors
time "a catch their breath! Make rhetorical
nausel Take a look around you at the inter-
esting landscape, and give your hearers time
10 recover No, he does not make even a
nariod. or 50 much as a colon or semlcolon,
Int launches the second thunderbolt rlght
after the first aud i'm the same breath goes
on to say. God "dwelleth not in temples
made with hands, o.. Paul! Is not deity
more in the Parthsnon, or more in the The
scum. or more in the Erechtheiunl, or moro
in the temple of Zeus Olympus than In the
open dir. more than on the hill where we are
sitting more than on Mount hymettus OUT
wonder. from which the bees get Ine gI
honeyy "No more" responds Paul, he
dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
But surely the preacher on the pulpit oil
rock ON Mars Hill will stop now. HIS au-
d;enca can endure no more. Two thunder
bolts are enough. No, in the same breath ne
launches the third thunderbolt, which to
them is more fiery, more terrible, more de-
molishing than the Others, as he cries ouV'
"bath made of one blood all nations Oh,
Paul you forget you are speaking 70 the
nroudest and most exclusive audience IN the
world. Do not say "of one BLOOD on
cannot mean that. Had Socrates and Plato
and Demosthenes and Scion and Lycurgus
and Draco and Sophocles and Euripides ana
EscbvIus AMI Perices and Phidias and Mil
tiades blooi Just like the Persians, ike the
Turks. like the Egyptians, like the conmon
herd of humanity? Eyes" says Paui, oi
one blood all nations"
Surely that must be the closing paragraph
of the sermon. His auditors must let up
from the nervous strain. Paul has smashed
the Acropolis and smashed the natlonal prias
of the Greeks and what more can ne say
Those Grecian orators, standing on tnat
nlace. always closed their addresses VITA
Something sublime and climacteric-a peror-
ation-and Paul is going to give them
paroration which will eclipse in power ana
majesty all that he has yet sail Hereto
fore he has hurled one thunderoolt at
time now he will close by hurting TWO
ot once. The little old man, under the
mower of his speech, has Strengthened
himself up. and the stoop has gone out
of his shoulders, and he looks ABOUT
three feet taller than when he began; and
his ewes. which were quiet. became two
flames of fire. and his face, which was calm
in the introduction, now depicts a whirl-
wind Of emotion as he ties the two thunder
bolts together with cord Of inconsumable
courage and hurls them at the crowd now
standing or sitting agh1st-the two thun'
derbolts of Resurrection and Last Judg-
msnt. His closing words were, "Becau,e
He hath appointed day in the watch He will
Judge the world in righteousness by thas
man whom He hath ordained, whereof He
IL