The Red Cloud chief., 1892-11-18
FALL OF BABYLON.
NGermon by DR.. Talmage on Political
Corruption.
This Great Republic Warned Against the
Fate Of the Ancient City-Corruption
In American Politics-Licen-
tiousness Rebuked.

fXNCNs IL. DC IdlU1dQt ~ulScOurSpO on
the tendency to corruption in politics,
taking his text from Revelations xviii,
10: ALAS, alas. that great city Bah.
ylon, that mighty city! for in one hour
is thy judgment come" He said:
Modern scientists are doing a splen-
did worl, in excavating the tomb of a
dead empire holding in its arms q 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
Nebuchadnezzar, and they go down into
the sa~rcophagus OF n monarchy buried
moro than two thousand years ago.
May the explorations Of Rawlinson and
Layard and Chevalier and Opperto and
Lotus and Chcsney be eclipsed by the
present archaeological uncovering.
But Is it possible this Is all that re-
mains of Babylon? u city once five
times larger than London and twelve
times larger than New York? Walls
three hundred and seventy-three feet
high and nincty-three feet thick.
Twenty-Five FURNISHED gates on each
side, with streets running clear through
to corresponding gates or the other
side. Six hundred and twenty-five
squares. More pomp and wealth and
splendor and sin than could be found
in any five modern cities combined. A
city Of palaces and temples. A city
having within 1t u garden on an arti-
fetal hill four hundred feet high, the
sides Of the mountain terraced. All
this built to keep the kings wife, Amy
tbs, from becoming homesick for the
mountainous region in which she had
spent her girlaood. The waters of the
Euphratcs spouted up to irrigate this
great altitude into fruits and flowers
andarborescence unimaginable. A great
river running from north to south
clear through the city, bridges over 1t,
tunnels under it, boats on it.
A city Of bazaars and of market places,
u~nrivalled for aromatics and unguents
and high mcttled horses with grooms
by their side, and thyme wood, and
African evergreen, and Egyptian linen,
and all styles of costly textile fabric,
and rarest puppies extracted from she'll
fish on the Mediterranean coast, and
rarest scarlets taken from brilliant in
sects in Spain, and worries brought from
successful elephants in India, and dia-
monds whose flash was a repartee to
the sun. Fortress within fortress, EN-
battlement rising above embattlement
Great capital of the ages But n 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, Gen. Cyrus or
dered the besieging army to take shov'
els and spades, and they diverted the
river from its usual channel into an
other direction so that the forsakcn bee
of the river became the path On which
the besieging army entered. When the
morning dawned the conquerors were
inside the outside trenches. Babylon
had fallen, and hence the sublime thren'
ody of the text: "Alas, alas that great
city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one
hour has that Judgment come" Butdt
nations die? o, yes, there is great NOR
tality among monarchies and republics
They are like individuals in the fac
that they are born, they have a middle
life, they have n d~ecease, they have
cradle and a grave. Some Of them ar
assassinated. some destroyed by thei
own hand. Letme call the roll of som
of the dead civilizations and some O
the dead cities and let some one answe
for them.
Egyptian civilization, stand up
'Dead!' answer the ruins Of Karnal
aud 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 an
answer. Dead" cry the charred ruin
of Nincveh. After 800 years OF magnif
cent opportunity, dead. Israelitis'
kingdom, stand up. After $50 years @
divine interpretation and of miraculou
vicissitude and OF heroic behavior an
of appalling depravity, dead. PhGnicia
stand up and answer. After invcntin
the alphabet and giving it to the worlt
and sending out her merchant caravan
In one direction to central Asia, an
sending out her navigators to the A
lantic ocean in another direction, dcat
Pillars of Hercules and rocks on whic
the Tyrian fishermen dried their net
all answer: Dead Phenicia." Athen
after Phidias, after Demosthene'
after Miltiades, dead. Sparta, aftt
Leonidas, after Eurybiades, after Sala
mis-. after Thermopyl@, dead. Roma
empire. stand up and answer Empii
once bounded by the British channel O
the north, by the Euphrates on the cas-
by the great Sahara desert in Africa o
the south, by the Atlantic ocean on I'll
west. Home of three great civiliz'
lions, owning all the then discovere
world that was worth owning, Roma
empire, answer. Gibbon in his IRIS
and Fall of the Roman Empire say
'Deadv" and the forsalSen seats OF II
ruined Coliseum, and the skeleton
the acqueducts, and the miasma OF u
'Campagna, and the fragments OF Il
marble baths, and the useless piers
the Bridge T%riumphalis, and the Man
,ertine prison, holding no more apo
tolic prisoners, and the silent Forum
- Do.ut,a "a Copsfuntiua and I'll