Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-10-25

our own. Up this silent street and down that
silent street we wandered. Into that win
dowless and roofless home we went and came
out again onto the pavements that, now Tor
saken, were once thronged with life.
And can IL be that all up and down these
solemn solitudes, hearts more than 1900
years ago sched and rejoiced, and feet shut
fed with the gait of old age or danced with
childish glee, and overtasked workmen car
| ried their burdens, and drunkards staggered?
On that mosaic floor did glowing youth clasp
hands in marriage vow, and cross that
threshold did pallbearers carry the beloved
dead, and gay groups once mount those now
| skeletons CT staircases?
While / walked and contemplated the city
| seemed suddenly to be thronged with all the
population that had ever inhabited it, and
F.! heard its laughter and groan and unclean-
ness and Internal boast as it was on the 23d
OF August, 49, And Vesuvius, from the mild
! light with which IL flushed the sky that sum-
mer evening as L stood in disentombed Pom
peii, seemed suddenly again to heave and
lame and rock with the lava and darkness
| and desolation and woe with which more
| .han eighteen centuries ago it submerged
Pompeii. as with the liturgy OF fire and storm
shs mountain proclaimed at the burial,
| ''AsheS to ashes. dust to dust.
NV friends, l cannot tell what practical
suggestion comes to your mind from this
walk through uncovered Pompeii, but the
lrst thought that absorb5 me Is that, while
art and culture are important, they cannot
save the morals OF the life of a great town.
Much of the painting and sculpture OF Pom
| peii was so exquisite that, while some is kept
bn the walls where II was first pencilet, to be
admired by those who go there, whole wagon
loads and whole rooms full OF it have been
transferred to the MuseO BorbonicO at Ma
plies. to be admired by the centuries.
| Those P6mpeiian artists mixed such dura-
bility of colors that, though their paintings
were buried in ashes and scoriB for 100
a
| of them have remain ID there exposed to tho
| rains and winds and winters AMI summers
| l30 years. the color is as fresh and vivid an
true as though yesterday il hal passed from
the easel. Which of our modern paintings
| could stand all that? AMI yet many OF the
specimens of Pompeiian art show that the
| city was sunk to such depth of abomination
| that there was nothing deeper. Sculpturet
! and petrified and embalmed abominatlon.
There WAS state of public morals worse
| than belongs to any city now standing under
| the sun.
| Yet how many think that all that is neces-
| sary is to cultivate the mind and advance the
knowledge and improve the arts. Have you
the impression that eloluence Will do the
| eleyatiny work. Why. Pompeii had Cicero
half of every year for its citizen. Have you
! the idea that literature is all that is neces-
| sIry TO keep a city right? Why. Slllust, with
| a pen that was the boast OF Roman htera-
ture had II IN Gnsion in that doomed city Do
| YOU tnlnk tndt tui ptuTt anu art are I'tllt
sufficient for the production Of good mora !?
| Then correct your deius'On by eNanin ng
| The statues in the Temple OF Mercury at Pom
peii or the WINGED lsures of its ParthenDn,
AMI the .o,onnr tes AMI arches OF this house
| OF Do ned.
| By all means have schools and Dusseldorf
ami DOrs exhibitions AMI galleries where
! tue genius OF all the centuries can bank it
| self up in snowy sculpture, and all bric-a-
! 5rac. and all pure art, hut nothing save the
I .ENN~
moral. In proportion as churches and BIZ
bles and Christian printing presses an1 re-
vivals of religion abound is a city pure and
clean. What has Buddhism or Confucianism
or Mohammedanism done in all the hun
| dreds of years OF their progress for the ele-
walton Of society? Absolutely nothing.
| Peking and Madras and Cairo are just
| what they were ages ago, except as Christi
ianity has modified their condition. What Is
the difference between our Brooklyn AMI
| their Pompeii2 Ne difference, except that
| which Christianity has wrought. Favor ali
good art, but take best care OF your
| churches, and your Sabbath schools, and
your Bibles, and your family altars.
| Yea. see in our walk through uncovered
| Pompeii what sin will do for city. We
| ought to be slow TO assign the Judgment OF
| God. Cities are sometimes afflicted just As
20 ID people are afflicted, and the earthquake,
| and the cyclone. and the epidemic are no
| sign in MANY cases that God - angry with
| city. but the distress is sent for some cool
and KIM purpose, whether we understand
| it or not. The law that applies to individ-
uals may apply to Christian cities rs 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 con-
| dition. for it was completely obliterated and
| will never be rebuilt. II was so bad that
| it neededto be buried 1900 years before even
| its ruins were fit TO be uncovered. So SOiOm
| nd vii
| tude 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 tn. sunken ships are bur
| led all the way between Fire Island ant
| Fastnet Lighthouse. and the other cemetery
| is the cemetery OF dead cities.
| get down on my knees and read the
eptapheolOSy of a long lin OF them. Here
| lies Babylon, once called tine hammer OF
the whole earth" Dead and buried under
| piles of bitumen AMI broIen pottery AMI
| vitrefsd brick. And l hear n wolf howl AMI
| a reptile hiss as l am reading this eptapl
| Isaiah xiii, 2I, 1.-The wild beast of tne
desert shall be there, and their house shall
| be full of doleful creatures"
| The next tomb kneel before in this Gem
etery of cities is Nineveh. Her winged lions
| are down, and the slabs of alabaster have
| crumbled and the sculpture that represente
\ her battles Is as completely scattered as the
| dust of the heroes who fought them. Per
1
| danapalus as l stoop TO read her epiraph
| (Zephanish IT,, IA Now is Nineveh desOia-
| tion and dry ike a wilderness, and hocks lie
| down in the midst of her all the beasts Oi
] the Nations, both the cormorant and the bit
[ tern, lodge in the upper lintels of it." AMI
while 1 read it 1 hear an owl hoot and
| hyena laugh.
The next entombed city pass has mOnu.
ment OF fifty PROSTATE columns OF gray anj
sd granite, and it is Tyre. The next Sc
| oulcher OF a great capital is covered with
| icattered columns and defaced sphinIes and
| he sands OF the desert. and il is Thsbes. As
! [ pass on find the resting place OF Mycene,
! city OF which Homer sang, and Corinth.
| which rejected Paul and depended upon her
| iortress, Acrocorinthus, which now lies dis
| nantled on the hill. and move on in this
| ,emetery of cities, and l find the tombs of
| 5ardis and Smyrna and Persepolis and
Memphis and Baalbek and Carthage, and
| here are the cities OF the plain and Hercu-
aneum and Stabia and Pompeii. Some of
| hem have mighty sarcophagus and hero
slyphic entsblature, but they are dead and
| buried never to rise.
| But the cemetery of dead cities Is not vet
allied, and II the present cities OF the world
| forget God and with their indecencies shock
| he heavens let them know that the God who
| IN the Path OF August, 49, dropped on a city
| )f Italy a superlncumbrance that staid there
| seventeen centuries Is still alive and hates
/ lin now as much as He did then and has at
Ill tne OF OeStruc-
ion with which He whelmed their iniquitous
predecessors.
| It was only a few summers ago that Brook
| yn and New York felt an earthduS-,.--ur--,
hat sent the people affrighted into the
| rreets andth suggested that there are forces
of nature now suppressed or held in check,
which easier than a child in a nursery
| snocks down a row of block houses could
orostrate a city or engulf continent deeper
han Pompeii was engufed. Our hope Is in
he mercy OF the Lord continued to our
American cities.
1t smazes me that this city, which has the
Iuietest Sabbaths on the continent and the
oest order and the highest tone of morals OF
my city that l know OF, is now having
brought into as near neighborhood as Coney
Island carnivals OF pugilism debasing as
my of the gladiatorial interests of Pompeii.
| What precious crew that Coney Island Ath-
etic Club is, under whose auspices these
orgies are enacted What degradation TO
he adjective 'athletic" 4" which ordinarily