The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-11-07
DANGER OF THE NATION.
-ALMAGE ATTACKS CORRUPTION
IN ELECTIONS.


Halt is Caued-Sectionalis Another
Evil That Threatens the Stability OF
the Republic.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 6. DIR. Talmage to-day
selected for bis sermon a subject sufficiently
appropriate for these times, when, through
out the United States, great political ques-
tons are being discussed and the nation is
about to 60 20 the ballot box and decide
who shall rule in neighDorhood, town, city
and nation. The text chosen was Rev. xviii,
10; Alas. alas, that great city Babylon,
thai mighty city for in one hour is thy
Judgment come"
Modern scientists are doing a splendid
work IN excavatiug the tomb of "A dead ems
plre holding in Its arms a dead city. mother
aud child OF toe same name Babylon. The
. ancient mound invites the spades and shOveis
and crOwbarS, while the unwashed natives
/ look on IN surprise. These scientists find
yellow bricks still impressed with the name
/ OF Ne-uchadnezzar, and they 20 down into
the sarcophagus Of a monarchy buried
more than two thousand years ago. May
the explorations OF Rawlinson and Layard
and Chevalier and OppertO ana LOTUS and
/ Chesney he ecllpSed by the present archae-
/ logical uncovering.
But is it possible this is all the remains of
/ Baoylonl city once five times larger than
/ London aud twelve times larger than New
! York; Walls three hundred and seventy
] three feet high and ninety-three feet thick.
/ Twenty-Five FURNISHED gates on each side,
| with streets running clear through TO cor
! responding gates on the other side. Six
/ hundred and twenty-five squares. More
pOmp and wealth and splendor aud
| sin than could be found in any five
/ modern cities combined 4 city of
! palaces aud temples. A city hav-
/ ing within it garden on an artificial hill
/ four hundred feet high, the
/ sides Of the mountain terracei.
! All this built to keep the kings
WIFE Amytis, from becoming homesick for
| the mountainous region in which she had
( spent her girlhood. The waters of the
/ Euphrates spOuted up to irrigate this great
altitude into fruits and flowers and azores
Cence unimaginable. A great river run
ming from north to south clear through the
city, bridges over 1t, tunnels under it, boats
on it.
A city Of bazars and market places, I'M
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 faoric, and rarest puppies ex-
tracted from shell -tish on the Mediterranean
coast, and rarest scarlats taken from brill
liant insects in Spain, and ivories brought
~ Jill ouCCSSoAu4 6L6JuauI uuuLS II luQld, ana
diamonds whose fash was repartee 10 The
sun. Fortress within fortress embat.
Element rising above embattlement.
Great capital of the ages. But
one night, while honest citizens were
asleep, but all the saloons of saturnaIia
were IN full blast, and at the kings castle
| they had filled the tankard for the tenth
! time, and reeling and gutfawing and hic-
coughing around the state table were the
rulers of the land, Gen. Cyrus ordered
his besieging army to take shovels and
spades, and they diverted the river from its
usual channel into another direction
80 that the forsaken bed of the
river became the path on which the
besieging army entered. When the morn
ing dawued the conquerors were inside
! the outside trenches. Babylon had fallen
| and hence the sublime threnodv of the text;
ALIAS, alas, that great city Babylon. that
| mighty city, for IN one hour is thy judg-
| ment come" But do nations diel O, yes
| there Is great mortality among monarchies
and republics. They are like individuals in
the fact that they are born, they have a
/ middle life, they have decease, they have
a cradle ard grave. Some Of them 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 for them
Egyptian civilization, stand up "Deadp
| 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: Dead, dead~ AsSyrian empire, stand
up aud answer. "Deadp cry the charred
ruins OF Nlneveh. After six hundred years
OF magnificent opportunity, dead Israel
ltish Kingdom, stand up. After two hun
dred and fifty years of divine interpretation
and OF miraculous vicissitude and of heroic
behavior and of appalling depravity, dead
fhoenicla, stand up and answer. After in
venting the alphabet and giving it to the
world, and sending out her merchant cara
vans in one direction to Central Asia. and
sending out her navigetors to the Attain
tic ocean in another direction, dead.
Plllars OF Hercules and rocks on which the
Tyrian fisherman dried their nets, all an
swer, dead Phunica." Athens, after
] Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Miitiades
dead. Sparta after Leonidas. after Fury
blades, after Salamis, after Thermopyle;
dead. Roman empire, stand up and au-
swer. Empire once bounded by the British
channel 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 civilza-
tons, owning all the then discovered world
that was worth owning, Roman empire.
answer. Gibbon. in his Rise and Fall of
the Roman Empire says "Deadw and
the forsaken seats of the ruined coliseum
and the skeleton of the aqueduots, and the
mlasma OF the the CampaRna, and the frag-
ments of the marble baths, and the use
less piers of the Bridge Triumphalis, and the
Mamertine prison, holding no more apos-
tolic prisoners, and the silent Forum, and
Basllica Of Constantine, and the arch Of
Titus. and the Pantheon come in with great
chorus, crying: Dead, deadw After
Horace, after Virgil, after Tacitus. after
Cicero, dead. After Horatius on the bridge,
and Cincinnatus, the farmer oligarch, after
Pompey, after ScipiO, after Cassius, after
Constantine, after Caesar, dead. The war
eagle of Rome flew so hight it was blinded
by the sun and came whirling down through
the heavens. and the owl of desolation and
darkness built its nest in the forsaken eyrie.
Mexican empire, dead. French 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 govern
mehts will go the United States of
America unless there be some potent voice
to call halt. and unless God in his mercy
lnterferes, and through purified ballot-box
and a widespread public Christian senti-
meht the catastrophe be averted. This ma
ton is about 10 go to the ballot box to ex-
erclse the right of suffrage, and propose
TO set before you the evils that threaten to
] destroy a