Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-11-18
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Advice to Voters"

TEXT: ''1iIns, alas, that great city Baby
Ton. that n11gIltu city, for IN one hour as thy
judgment conae.n'-kevelatio xviii, 10.
Modern scientists are doing a splendid
work in exca wing the tomb OF a dead en-
pire holding IN its arms dead citv-moth-
er and child of the same name, Babylon.
Tine ancient mound invites the spades and
shoveis aud crowbars while the unwashed
natives look on with surprise. These scien-
lists find yellow bricks still impressed with
the name NebuchadnezZ and they go
down into the sarcOphagu5 OF a monarchy
buried more than two thousand years ago.
May Interpretations OF ia " 'Inson and Lay
ard AMI Chevaiier and Opperto and Lotus
and Chesney be eclipsed by the present
-archR illogical uncovering!
But is it possible this Is all that remains
of Bebvlon-a 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 Tor and
sin than could be found in any five
modern cities combined. A city of pal.
aces and temples. A city having WITHIN
it a garden on an artificial hill four hun
dred feet high, the sides Of the mountain
terraced. All this built TO keep the kings
wife, Amyt;s from beco ming homesick for
the mountainous region in which she had
spent her girlhood. The waters of the Eu-
pirates sp0uted 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 it, boats
on ir.
A city of bazaars and market places, IN
rivaled for arOmaticS aud unguents, and
high melted horses with grooms by their
side, and thyme wood, AMI African ever
green, and Egyptian linen, and all styles Of
costly textile fabric, and rarest purples ex-
tracted from shelltish on the Mediterranean
coast and rarest ScarletS taken from bril-
hunt insects in Spain, and worries brou yht
from successful elephant hunts in lntla,
and diamonds whose fash was repartee to
the sun. Fortress within fortress embat-.
Element rising above e.Ibattlement Great
capital OF the ages. But one
night, while honest citizens were
asleep, hut all the saloons OF saturnalia
were In full blast. and at the kings castle
they had filled the tanEards for the tenth
time, and Keeling and gutf1wing aud hic-
coughing around the state table were the
rulers OF the land, Genera Cyrus O. Tered
his besieging army to take shOvels and
spades, and they diverted the river from its
usual channel into another direction, SO
that the forsaken bel of the river became
the path on which the besle 5lng army en-
tered.
When the morning dawneI the conquer
ors were inside the outside trenches, Baby
lon had fallen, and hence the sublime
threnodv of the text: Alas alas, that great
city OF Baby lon, that mighty city, for In one
hour is thy judgment Gomez But do Nations
die? On, yes; there is great mortality among
mouarcnies and republics. They are like in
dividuaIs in the fact that they are born; they
have a middle life; they have decease; they
have a cradle and grave. Some OF them
are assassinate1, some destroyed by their
hot of mo Ra a roll
the dead civilizations and some OF the dead
cities and let some one answer for them.
Egyptian civiliz alton, stand up. I'D ad"
answer the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, and
from seventy pyramids on the east side OF
the Nile there comes up great chorus cry
ing, ''Deac, dead!' Assyrian Empire, stand
up and answer. "Deadn' cry the charred
ruins of Nineveh. After six hundred years
OF magnificent opportunity, dead. Israel
itish kingdom, stand up. After two hum
bred and fifty years of divine interpretations
and of miraculous vicissitude, and OF heroic
behavior, and of appalling depravitY. dead.
Phpnicia- stand up and answer. After in
venting the alphabet anu giving it to the
world, and sending out her merchant cara
vans in one direction to Central Asia, AMI
sending out her navigatcr5 to the Atlantic
Ocean in another direction dead.
: Pillars of Hercules and rocks on which
the Tyriau fisherman dried their nets all
answer. dead PhCaQicla." Athens, after
L "a Ter D6IIlCjSLueuSS, AFTER MItCIa10S,
dead. Sparta, after Leonidas, after Euri-
blades, after Saiamis, after Thermopyle,
dead. Roman empire, stand 10 and answer
empire once bounded by the British Chan
mel on the north, by the Euphrates on the
east, by the great Sahara desert in Africa
on the south, by the Atlantic Ocean on the
west; home OF three great civilizations,
owning all the then discovered world that
was worth ownng-Roman empire answer.
Gibbon in his Rise AMI Fall of the Roman
Empire says, 'Deadw aud the forsaken
seats of the ruined Coliseum, and the skee-
ton of the aqueducts. ana the miasma of the
Campagna, and the fragments of the marble
baths, aud the useless piers of the Bridge
TrIuInphahs, and the Mamertine prison,
holding no more apostolic prisoners. and the
silent Forum and Basilica or Constantine and
the arch OF Titus, and the Pantheon cone i'll
with great chorus, crying, dead, dead"
After Rorace, after Virgil. after Tacitus,
brlf51, and CrnclnnatuS. the farmer oil
ga IN, after Pompey, after Scipio, after
ICassius after Constantine, after Cesar
dead. The war eagle of Rome flew so hiph
it was blinded by the sun and came whirIinp
down through the heavens. and the owl Of
desolatioR and darkness built its nest in the
forsaken eyrie. Mexican empire-dead.
French empire dead.
| You see nay 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 go the United States of America
unless there be some potent voice to call
halt, and unless God in His mercy inter-
feres, and through purified ballot box and
a widespread public Christian sentiment
the ca1astrophs be averted. This nation
is about TO go to the ballot box to exercise
the right of suffrage, and | propose
to set before you the evils that threaten TO