The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-09


/ be uncovered. So Sodom and Gomorrah
were filled with such turpitude that they
/ were not only turned under, but have for
/ thousands Of years been kept under. The
/ two greatest cemeteries are the cemetery
/ 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. / 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 and broken pottery and vitreted
| brick. And / hear a wolf howl and rep
! tile hiss as / am reading this epitaph:
! Isaiah ID: p, THE wild beast Of the des-
ert shall be there and their houses shall
| be fun of doleful crea tures.n
The next tomb | kneel before in this
| cemetery Of cities is Nineveh. Her
! winged lions are down and the slabs of
alabaster have crumbled, and the sculp-
| ture that represented her battles is as
completely scattered as the dust of the
heroes who fought them. Perhaps put
my knee into the dust of her Sardanapa-
lus as | stoop to read her epitaph: Zepha-
niah 2; IA, Now is Nineveh a desolation
and dry like a wilderness; and fiOcks lie
down in the midst of her; all the beasts of
the nations, both the cormOrant and the
bittern. lodge in the upper lintels of it..
I
and hyena laugh. The next entombed
city pass has a monument of fifty pros
| trate columns of gray and red granite, and
il is Tyre. The next sepulcher of great
capital is covered with scattered column,
and defaced sphinXes and the sands of the
desert, and it is Thebes. AS pass on l
find the resting place of MycenB a city
of which Homer sang, and Corinth which
rejected Paul, and depended upon her
fortress AcrOcorinthus, which now lies
dismantled on the hill, and / move on in
this cemetery of cities and | find the
tombs of Sardis and Smyrna, and Per
sepOlis and Memphis, and Baalbek, and
Carthage, and here are the Cities of the
Plain, and Herculaneum, and Stabia, and
Pompeii. Some Of them have mighty
sarcophagus, and Intercollegiate entabla
ture, but they are dead, and buried never
to rise.
But the cemetery of dead cities is not
yet filled, and if the present cities of the
world forget God, and with their lnde-
cencies shock the heavens, let them know
that the God, who, on the oath of August,
~, dropped on city of Italy super
incumbranCe that staid there seventeen
centuries, is still alive and hates sin now
as much as he did then, and has at his
command all the armament of destruction
with which he whelmcd their
ubiquitous predecessors. 1t was only a
few summers ago that Brooklyn and
New York felt an earthquake thrOb
that sent the people affrighted into the
streets, and that suggested that there
are forces of nature now suppressed, or
held in check, which, easier than child
in nursery knocks down a row of block
houses, could PROSTATE city, or engulf
continent deeper than Pompeii was en-
quilted. Our hope is in the mercy of the
Lord continued to our American cities.
1t amazes me that this city, which has
the quieteSt Sabbaths on the continent
and the best order and the highest tone of
morals of any city that l know Of, is
now having brought into as near neigh
borhOod as COney Island caTnivals of
pugilism as debasing as any Of the gladia-
torial contests of Pompeii. What pre-
cious crew that "Coney Island Ath-
letic Club is, under whose auspices
these orgies are enacted. What a degra-
dation to the adjective athlete"
which ordinarily suggests health and
muscle developed for useful purpose!
Instead of calling it an atheletiC club
they might better style it "The Ruffian
Club for Smashing the Human Visage."
Vile men are turning that COney Island,
which is one of the finest watering
places on all the Atlantic coast, into
place for the offscouring of the earth to
cOngregate, the low horse Jockeys and
gamblers and the pugilists and the pick
pockets and the blOats regurgitated from
the depths of the worst wards of these
cities. They invite delegates from uni
versal loaferdom to come to their carni-
val of knuckles But | do not believe
that the pugilism contracted for and adj
vertised for next December will take
place in our neighborhoOd.
Evil sometimes defeats itself by going
one step too far. You may drive the hoop
of a barrel down 50 hard that it breaks
| will not believe that the international
prize fight will take place on Long Island,
or in the state of New York, until | see
the rowdy rabble rolling drunk off the
cars at tlatbush aven ne and with faces
banged and cut aud bleeding from the i'm
hruting scene. Against this infraction of
the laws of the state of New York lift
solemn protest. The curse of Almighty
God will rest upon any community that
consents to such an outrage. Does any
one think it cannot be stopped and
that the constabulary would be over
borne, then let Governor Flower send
down there regiment of state militia,
and they will cle2n out the nuisance in one
hour.
Warned by the doom of other cities
that have persisted for their runianism.
or their cruelty or their idolatry or their
dissoluteness, let all our American cities
lead the right way. Our only dependence
/ IS on NEOu ana OnflSUldu lnIlQeuCeS.
! Politics will do nothing but make things
worse, Send politics to moralize and
save city and you send small-p to
| heal leprosY. or a carcass to relieve the
air of malodor. For what politics will
do l refer you to the eight weeks Of stul-
LITIGATION enacted at Washington by our
American Senate. American politics
will become reformatory power on the
same day that pandemonium becomes a
church. But there are, l am glad
! to say, benign and salutary and
| gracious influences organized in all
our cities which will yet take them for
| God and Righteousness. Let us ply the
| gospel machinery to its utmost sspeed
| and power City evangelization is the
! thought. Accustomed as are religious
! pessimists to dwell upon statistics of evil
and dolorous facts we want some one
with sanctitied heart and good digestion
| to put in long line the statistics of ma
! lures transformed, and prohigacies baked
and souls ransomed, and cities re-
| deemed. Give us pictures of churches,
| of schools, of reformatory associations,
| of asylums of mercy. Break in upon
! the MiSereres Of complaint and despou-
! dency with TIE Deums, and Jubilates of
moral and religious victory. Show that
| the day is coming when a great tidal
wave of salvation will roll over all our
! cities Show how Pompei buried will
| become Pompeii resurrected. Demon