The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-11-23
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject "Advice to VOTERS

Judgment comen-Revelation xviii, TO-
!, Modern scientists are doing splendid
work in excavting the tomb OF q dead em-
pre holding in its arms dead city-moth l.
er and child Of the same name, Babylon;
The ancient mound invites the spades ana
shovels and crowbars while the unWasned
natives look on with surprise. These scien-
fists find yellow bricks still impressed WITH
the name Nebuchadnezzar, and they go
down into the sarcophagus OF monarchy
buried more than two thousand years ago.
May the explorations of Rawlinson and Lay
ard and Chevalier and Opperto aud Lotus
and Chesney be eclipsed by the present
archaeological uncoveringl
/, But is it possible this is all that remains
Of Babyion-s city once five times larger
than London and twelve times larger than
New York; Walls three hundred and sew
enty-three feet high and ninety three feet
thick. Twenty-Five FURNISHED gates on
each side, with streets running clear
through to corresponding gates on the other
side. Six hundred and twenty-five squares.
More pomp and wealth and splen ior and
sin than could be found in any five
modern cities combined. A city. of pal
aces and temples. A city having within
it garden on an artificial bill four hun
dred feet high, the sides OF the mountain
terraced. Ali this built to keep, the kings
the mountainous region in which she had
spent her girlhood. Tue waters of the Eu-
pirates spouted up to irrigate this great
altitude into fruits and flowers and arbo-
rescence unimaginable. A great river run
ming from north to south clear through the
city. bridges over it. tunnels under 1t, boats
on it.
A city of bazaars and market places, un-
rivaled for aromatics and unguents, and
high mettled horses with grooms by their
side, and thyme wood, and African ever
green, and Egyptian linen, and all styles Of
costly textile fabric, and rarest purples ex-
tracted from sheltish on the Mediterranean
coast, and rarest scariets taken from bril-
liant insects in Spain, and ivories brought
from successful elephant hunts in India,
and diamonds whose fash was arepartee to
the sun. Fortress within fortress, embat-
element rising above embatslement Great
capital OF the ages But one
night, while honest citizens were
asleep, but all the saloons OF saturnalia
were in full blast and at the kings castle
they had filled. the tanxards for the tenth
tune. and reeling and guffswing and bic
coughing around the state table were the
rulers OF the land. General Cyrus ordered
his besieging army to take snovelS and
spades, and they diverted the river from it's
usual channel into another direction, 90
that ths forsaken bed of the river became
the path on which the beaeging army en-
tered.
When the morning dawned the conquer
,ors were inside the outside trenches, Baby
Ion had fallen, and hence the sublime
.threnody of tho text: "Alas. alas that great
city of Baby lon, that mighty city, for in one
hour is thy Judgment Gomez But do Nations
diee Oh. yes: there Is great mortality among
mouarchies and republics. They are like In
dividuals in the fact that they are born; they
have middle life; they have adecease; tney
have q cradle and grave. Some or tnem
are .assassinated,. some DESTROYED by their
own hand. Let me call the roll OF some OF
the dead civilizations and some OF the dead
cities and let some one answer fof tnen- =,
Egyptian civiliz alton, stand up. Dead!
answer the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, and
from, seventy pyramids on the east side Oh
the Nile there comes up great chorus CRY,
ing, t.DeaS, deadr' Assyrian Empire, stand
up and suswer. sDead" !" cry the charred
rains of Nineveh. After six hundred years
Of magnificent opportunity. dead. Israel
itish kingdom, stand up. After two num-
dred and fifty years Of divine interpretations
and of miraculous vicissitude, and OF heroic
behavior, and of appalling depravity, dead.
venting the alphabet and giving 1t to the
world, and sending out her merchant cara
vans in one direction to Central Asia and
sending out her ,pavigators tothe Atlantic
Ocean in another direction, dead.
Pillars of Hercules and rocks on which
the Tyrian fisherman dried their nets all
answer, "Dead Phenicia." Athens after
Phidias. after Demosthenes aftar: :hiitiades.
dead. Sparta, after Leonidas, after Euri-
blades, after Sslamis. after Thermopylee.
dead. Roman empire. stand up and answer
-lol Nv fha ppfk hon
mel on the north, by the Euphrates on the
east, by the great Sahara desert in Africa
on tho south. by the Atlantic Ocean on tho
west: home Of three great civilizations,
owning all the then discovered world that
was worth owning-Roman empire answer.
Gibbon in his Rise and Fall Of the Roman
Empire'' says, Dead" and the forsaken
seats Of the ruined Coliseum, and the skele.
ton Of the aqueducts, and the miasma Of the
Campagna. and the fragments OF the marble
baths, and the useless piers OF the Bridge
Triumphalis, and the Mamertine prison.
holding NO more apostolic prisoners, and the
silent Forum and Basilica OF Constantine, and
the arch Of Titus, and the Pantheon come In
with great chorus, crying, "Dead, dead"
After Horace, aftar Virgil. after Tacltus,
after Cicero-dead. After Huratius on the
bridge, and Cinclnnatus, the farmer OIL
garch, after Ponpey. after soiplo, after
;Cassius, after Constantine, after Cesar
dead. The war eagle of Rome few 30 high
1t was blinded by the sun and came whirltng
down through the heavens. and the owl OF
desolation and darkness built tts4nest in the
forsaken eyrie. Mexican empire-dead.
You see my friends, it Is NO UNUSUAL
thing for government to perish, and in
the same neurology of dead Nations and In
the same graveyard Of expired governments
will 90 the United States OF America
unless there be some potent voice to call q
halt, and unless God In bis mercy inter.
feres, and through.a q purified ballot box and
a widespread public Christian sehtiment
the catastrophe be averted. This nation
is about to 60 to the ballot box TO exercise
the right Of suffrage. and propose
to set before you the evils that threaten to
DESTROY the American Government and to
suuihilate American institutions, and It
God will help me will show you before l
get through the mode in which each and
every one may do something to arrest that
appalling calamity. And I shall plow up
the whole field.
The first evil that threatens the annihila-
tion of our American institutions is the fact
that political bribery, which once was con-
sidered crime, has BY many come to be
considered tolerable virtue. There Is q
legitimate use Of money in elections, in the
printing Of political tracts, and in the hiring
Of public halls, and in the obtaining OF cam
paign oratory, but is there any homunculus
who supposes that this vast amount OF money
now being raised by the political parties is
going in a legitimate direction? The vast
majority Of 1t will 60 to buy votes.
Hundreds and thousands of mon will have
set before them 30 much money, for a Re-
publican vote, and SO much money for a
Democratic vote and the superior financial
inducemsnt will decide the action. You
want to know which party will carry the
doubtful States day after tomorrow