People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1892-12-16
AT THE TABERNACLE.
A SERMON ADDRESSED TO VOT-
ERS JUST BEFORE ELECTION.

SidOn and Many More Warn Us-This
Nation Is Also Becoming Corrupt and
observation-disclosures Is Necessary
BROOKLYN. Nov. 6.-Rev. DR.. Talmage
today selected for his sermon a subject suf-
dciently appropriate for these times, when
throughout the United States great polit-
ical questions are being discussed and the
nation is about to go to the ballot box and
decide who shall rule in the neghborhood,
town, city and nation The text chosen
was Revelation xviii, 10, "Alas alas, that
great city Babylon, that mighty city, for
in one hour is thy judgment comeW
Modern scientists are doing q splendid
work in excavating the tomb of dead en-
pire holding in its arms dead city-moth-
er and child of the same name, Babylon.
The ancient mound invites the spades and
shovels and crowbars while the unwashed
natives look on in surprise. These scien-
lists find yellow bricks still impressed
with the name Of Nebuchadnezzar, and
they 20 down into the sarcophagus Of a
monarchy buried more than two thousand
years ago May the explorations Of Raw
lnson and Layard and Chevalier and OPP
pertO and LOTUS and Chesney be eclipsed
by the present archaeological uncovering!
THE AWFUL RUIN.
But is it possible this is all that remains
of Babylon-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 9th
er side. Six hundred and twenty-five
squares. More pomp and wealth and splen-
dor and sin than could be found in any
five modern cities combined. A city of
palaces 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, Amytis, from becoming homesick for
che mountainous region in which she had
spent her girlhood. The waters of the
Euphrates spOuted up to irrigate this great
altitude into fruits and fl urs and arbo-
rescence unimagnable. A great river run
ming from north to south clear through the
city, bridges over it, tunnels under it,
boats on it.
A city of baZaars and Of market places,
unrivaled 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 puppies
extracted from shellfsh on the Mediter-
ranean coast, and rarest scarlets taken
from brilliant insects in Spain, and worries
brought from successful elephant hunts in
India, and diamonds whose flash was
Tepartee to the sun. Fortress within for
tress, embattlement rising above embat-
Element. 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 IA taDlyurdC for tho faptb
time, and reeling and guffawing and hic-
coughing around the state table were the
rulers of the land, General Cyrus ordered
his besieging army to take shovels and
spades, and they diverted the river from its
usual channel into another direction, so
that the forsal1en bed of the river became
the path on which the besieging 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 the text, Alas alas, that
great city Babylon, that mighty city, for
in one hour is thy judgment comew But
do nations die? Oh, yes; there is great
mortality among mOnarchies and republics
They are like individuals in the fact that
they are born they have middle life; they
have decease; they have cradle and a
grave. Some of them are assassinated,
some destroyed by their own hand. Let
me call the roll of some of the dead civiliza
tions and some of the dead cities and let
some one answer for them
AS FORETOLD BY THE PROPHETS.
Egyptian civilization, stand up. "DeadW
answer the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, and
from seventy pyramids on the east side of
the Nile there comes up a great chorus cry
ing, Dead, dead!' Assyrian empire, stand
up and answer. Dead" cry the charred
ruins of Nineveh. After six hundred years
of magnificent opportunity, dead. Israel
itish kingdom, stand up. After two hun
dred and fifty years of divine interposition,
and of miraculous vicissitude, and of heroic
behavior, and of appalling depravity, dead
PhGnicia, stand mp 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 navigators to the Atlantic
ocean in another direction dead.
Pillars Of Hercules and rocks on which
the Tyrian fisherman dried their nets all
answer, Dead PREenicia" Athens, after
Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Mil
tiades, dead. Sparta, after Leonidas, after
Euribiades, after Salamis, after Their
mopyl@, dead. Roman empire, stand up
and answer-empire once bounded by the
British channel on the north. by the Eu-
pirates on the east, by the great Sahara
desert in Africa on the SOUTH by the At
lantic ocean on the west; home of three
great civilizations, owning all the then dis
covered world that was worth owning
Roman empire, answer. Gibbon in his
''Rise and Fall of the Roman EN-
pire" says, "Deadr' and the forsaken
seats of the ruined Coliseum, and
the skeleton Of the aqueducts, and
the miasma of the Campagna, and the
fragments of the maSll1e- baths, and the
useless piers of the Bridge TriumphaIis,
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, after Virgil, after Tacitus, after
Cicero - dead. After Horatius on the
bridge, and Cincinnatus, the farmer oil
garch, after Pompey, after Scipio after
Cassius, after Constantine, after Cesar
dead. The war eagle of Rome flew so high
it was blinded by the sun and came whirl-
ing down through the heavens, and the
owl of desolatiOn and darkness built its
Gest in the forsaken eyrie. Mexican en-
pire-dead. French empire-dead.
WE, TOO, ARE THREATENED.
You see, my friends, it is no unusual
thing for a government to perish, and in
the same neurology of dead nations and in
the same graveyard Of expired govern
ments will go the United States of Ameri-
ca unless there be some potent voice to call