Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1893-10-09

NhNUAO nan VI CNDAy Jp~4
Have you the idea that literature is all
that is necessary to keep a city right?
Why, Sallust, with a pen that was the
boast Of Roman literature, hal a man
sion In that doomed city. DO you think
that sculpture and art are quite suti-
cient for the production Of good morals.
Then
CORRECT YOUR DIFFUSION
by examining the statues in the temple
OF Mercury at Pompeli, or the winged
figures of It's P~arthenon, and the colon
nades and arches of this house OF
Diomed. BY all means have schools
and Dusseldorf and Dore exhibitions
and galleries where the genius OF all
the centuries can bank itself up in
snowy sculpture, and all bric-a-brac
and all pure art, but nothing save the
religion of Jesus Christ can make a
city moral. In proportion as churches
and Bibles and Christian printing
presses and revivals Of religion abound
is a city clean and pure. What has
Buddhism or C~onfucianism or Moham-
mechanism done in all the hundreds OF
years Of their progress for the eleva-
tion Of society? Absolutely nothing.
Pekin and Madras and Cairo are just
what they were ages ago, except as
Christianity has modified their condi-
tion. What IS the difference between
our Brooklyn and their Pompeii? No
difference except that which Christian
ity has wrought. Favor all good art,
but take the best care OF your churches
and your Sabbath schools and your
Bibles aud your family affairs.
Yea, see 10 our walk to-day through
uncovered PomDeli what sin will do for
a city. We ought to be slow to assign
the judgments Of God. Cities are some
times afflicted just as good people are
afflicted, and the earthquake and the
cyclone aud the epidemic are no sign in
many cases that God is angry with a
city, but the distress is sent for some
good and kind purpose. whether we un-
derstand 1t or not. The lEw that applies
to individuals may apply TO Christian
cities as well: "All things work together
for good TO those that love God" But
the greatest calamity OF history came
upon POmpeii not TO improve
ITS FUTURE CONDITION,
for II was completely obliterated and
will never be rebuilt, 1t was so bad
that 10 needed 10 be buried seventeen
hundred years before wen its ruins
were iii 10 be uncovered.
So Sodom and GOmorrah were filed
with such turpitude that they were not
only turned under, but have for thou
sands Of years been kept under. The
two greatest cemeteries are the
tery in which the sunken ships are
buried all the way between Fire Island
and Fastnet Light House, and the other
cemetery is the cemetery OF dead cities.
l get down on my knees and read the
epitapheologY OF a long line OF them:
Here lies Babylon, Once called ''The
hammer of the whole earth" Dead
and buried under piles of bitumen aud
broken pottery and vitrefed qrick.
And 1 hear a wolf howl and q reptile
hiss as l am reading this epitaph:
Isaiah 1921, The wild beast OF the
desert snail be there and their houses
shall be full Of doleful creatures"
The next tomb l knelt before In this
cemetery OF cities is Nineveh. Her
winged lions are down and the slabs OF
a~labaSter have crumbled, and the sculp-
ture that represented her battles Is as
completely scattered as the dust OF the
heroes who fought them. Perhaps l
nut my knee into the dust OF her Sar-
~donapaluS as l stoOp TO read her cpl
taph: Zephania 2:l4, NOW in Nineyeh
a desolation and dry like a wilderness;
and locks lie down In the midst of her;
all the beasts OF the nations, both the
cormorant and the bittern, lodgD In the
upper lintelS Of it," AID weile l read
10 l hear an owl boot, and a hyena
laugh. The next entombed city ! pass
has a monument Of fifty PROSTATE col
umns Of
GREY AND f GRANITE
and it is Tyre. The next sepulchre Of
a great capital is covered with scat
tered columns, and defaced s~phinIeS.
and the sand Of the desert, and il is
Thebes. As l pass on 1 find the resting
place Of Mycenae, a city OF which
Homer sang. and COrinth which reject
ed Paul, and depended upon her fort
ress Acrocorinth1s, which now lies dis
mantled on the hill, and l move on in
this cemetery Of cities, and fad the
tombs of Sardis, and Smyrna, and Per-
sepohs, aud Memphis, and Baalbek,
and Carthage, and here are the Cities
of the Plain, the He%rculaneum, and
S,abia, and Pompeii. Some Of them
have mighty sarcophagus, and hero
RIvphic entablature, but they are dead.
aud buried never to rise.
Bnt the cemeteries OF dead cities is
not yet filled, and II the present cities
of the world forget God, and with their
iudecencies shock the heavens, let them
know that the God, who, on the oath OF
August, 20, dropped on a city of Italy
g superlncumbrance that staid there
seventeen centuries, is still alive and
hates sin now as much as He did then,
aud has at His command, all the arma-