Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-11-17
AT THE TABERNACLE.
A SERMON ADDRESSED TO voT.
ERs JUST BEFORE ELECTION.

The Examples Of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre,
sIdon and Many More Warn Us-This
Nation Is Also Becoming Corrupt and
LIoentious-''Reform Is Necessary"
BRooKLYN, Nov. 6.-Rev. DR.. Talmage
today selected for his sermon a subject suf-
ficiently appropriate for these times, when
throughout the United States great polit-
ieal questions are being discussed and the
nation Is about to 10 to the ballot box and
decide who shall rule In the neighborhood,
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 comeP'
Modern scientists are doing 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 go down into the sarcophagus OF a
monarchy buried more than two thousand
years ago. May the explorations Of Raw
linson and Layard and Chevalier and OPP
perto and LOTUS and Chesney be eclipsed
by the present archaeological uncoveringi
THE AWFUL RUIN.
But is 1t 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 or
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
1t 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
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 flours 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 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 ivories
brought from successful elephant hunts in
India, and diamonds whose flash was q
repartee to the sun. Fortress within for
tress, embattlement rising above embat-
tlement. 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 tankards for the tenth
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, SC
that the forsaken bed of the river became
the path on which the besieging army en-.
tered.
When the morning dawned the conquer.
ors We're 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, fol
in one hour is thy Judgment comeW But
do nations die? Oh, yes; there is great
mortality among monarchies and republics
| They IRE like individuals in the fact that
l,,, "A ba, ,,1sIJ1a lfn,
Atvr ~ druease; they have cradle and 6
paa,Nr. .So,ne ci them are assassinated
s@u"t destroyed by their own hand. Lei
Hl!u call the roll of some of the dead civiliza
\ tions and some of the dead cities and Lei
\ some one answer for them.
! AS FoRET0LD BY THE PROPHETS.
Egyptian civilization, stand up. "Deadl'
answer the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, ant
frNm seventy pyramids on the east side o
| thc.Nilethere comes up great chorus, cry
ing, Dead, deadp Assyrian empire, stant
up and answer "Dead" cry the charret
ruins Of Nineveh. After six hundred year
OF magnificent opportunity, dead. Israel
4 ftcsh kingdom, stand up. After two hun
dred fifty years of divine interpostion
and of miraculousvicissitude and of heroi
behavior, and of of,appalling depravity, dead
Phenicia, standIup and answer. After in
venting the alphabet and giving it to th'
world, and sending out her merchant cara
vans in one direction to central Asia, ant
sending out her Jnavigators to the Atlanti
ocean in another direction, dead.
| Pillars Of Hercules and rocks on whicl
the Tyrian fisherman dried their nets al
answer, Dead Phenicia." Athens, afte
Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Mil
tiades. dead. Sparta, after Leonidas, afte
Eiribiades, after Salamis, after Ther
mopyla dead. Roman empire, stand VI
and answer-empire once bounded by tn
British channel on the north. by the Eu
pirates on the east, by the great Sahar
desert In Africa on the south, by the AT
lantic ocean on the west; home of, tbre