The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-11-08
A SERMON TO VOTERS.
Or. TALMAoE scOURGES THE PHARI-
SEES WHO CORRUPT ELECTIONS.


the Same Course?
BRooKLYN, Nov. 6.-Rev. DR.. Tai
mage today selected for his sermon
subject sufficiently appropriate for these
times, when throughout the United
States great political questions are being
discussed and the nation Is about to go
to the ballot box and decide who shall
rule in neighborhOOd. town, city and ma
ton. The t,zt chosen was Revelation
xviii. 10, Alas. alas, that great city
Babylon, that mighty city, for in one
hour is thy Judgment Gomez
Modern scientists are doing a splendid
work in excavating the tomb of a dead
empire holding i'll its arms dead city
mother 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 scientists find yellow
bricks still impressed with the name of
ACKNOWLEDGMENT, and they go down into
the sarcOphagus of a monarchy buried
more than two thousand years ago. May
the explorations Of Rawlinson and La
yard and Chevalier and OppertO and
Lotus and Chesney be eclipsed by the
present archaeological uncOvering!
But is it possible this is all that re-
mains of Babylon-a city once five times
. larger than London and 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 CORE
spending gates on the other side. Six
hundred and twenty-five squares. More
B6ifIp and wealth and splendOr and sin
than could be fourd in any five modern
Cities combined. 4 city of palaces and
temples. a city having within it a gar
den on an artificial hill four hundred
feet high, the sides of the mountain ter
raced. 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 aborescence unimaginable-a great
river running from north to south clear
through the city, bridges over it, tun-
nels under it, boats on it
THE DEBACCHED CITY.
A city of bazaars and market places,
unrivaled for aromaticS and unguents,
and high melted horses with grooms by
their side, and thyme wood, and African
evergreen, and Egyptian linen, and all
styles of costly textile fabrics, and rar-
est puppies extracted from shellfsh on
the Mediterranean coast, and rarest scar
lets taken from brilliant insects in
vi from
cessful elephant hunts i'll India, and
diamonds whose flash was repartee to
the sun, fortress within fortress, EN-
battlement rising above embattlement,
Great capital of the ages.
But one night, while honest citizens
were asleep, but all the saloons of satur-
MALTA were in full blast, and at the
kings castle they had filled the tankards
for the tenth time, and reeling and guf
fawing and hiccOughing around the
state table We're the rulers of the land
General CYRUS ordered his besieging
army to take shovels and spades, an
they diverted the river FROM its usua
channel into another direction so thai
the forsaken bed of the river became
the path GU which the besieging army
entered. When the morning dawneC
the conquerors were inside the outside
trenches. Babylon had fallen, ant
hence the sublime threnody of the text
''Alas, alas, that great city Babylon
that mighty city, for III one hour Is tn.
Judgment comet"
But do nations die? Oh, yes; there i
great mortality among nonarchies anC
republics. They are like individuals II
-, hos .
middle life; they have decease; the.
have a cradle and a grave. Some o
them are assassinated, some destroyed
by their own hand. Let me call tn
roll of some of the dead civilization
and some of the dead cities and let som
one answer for them.
Egyptian civilization, stand VI
dead" answer the ruins of Karna
and Luxor, and from seventy pyramid
on the east side OF the Nile there come
up "a great chorus, crying, Dead, dead!
Assyrian empire, stand up and answer
s'Dead!' cry the charred ruins of Nil
evan. After six hundred years of mas
nifcent opportunity, dead. Israelitis
kingdom, stand up. After two hundre
and fifty years of divine interpositioI
and of miraculous viciSsitude, and of h'
roic behavior, and of appalling depravit!
dead PhPnicia, stand up and answe
After inventing the alphabet an
giving it 10 the world, and senc
ing out her merchant caravans
one direction to central Asia, an
sending out her navigators to the A
lantic ocean in another direction, deat
Pillars of Hercules and rocks on whic
the Tyrian fishermen dried their ne
all answer. Dead Ph9nicia.' Athen
after Phidias. after DemOsthenes, aft,
Miltiades, dead. Sparta, after Leon
das. after Eurybiades, after SalaIni
after Thermopyle, dead. Roman Ell
pire, stand up and answer-empire ont
bounded by the British channel ON Il
north. by the Euphrates on the east,
the great Sahara desert in Africa on Il
south, by the Atlantic ocean ON Il
west; home of three great civiliz