The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-06

great auditorium erected to hold such
an audience as has never been seen on
any sacred occasion in America, If
Scribonius Curio at the cost of a king
dom could build the first two vast am
phitheaters, placing them back to back,
holding great audiences for dramatic
representation, and then by wonderful
machinery could turn them round with
all their audiences in them, making
the two auditoriums one amphitheater,
to witness a gladiatorial contest. and
Vespasian tould construct the Colos-
scum, with its eighty columns and its
architecture and a capacity to hold
$1,000 people seated and $1,000 stand
ing, and all for purposes of cruelty and
sin, cannot our glorious Christianity
rear in honor of our glorious Christ a
structure large enough to hold so, 600
of its worshipers.
If we go CROPPING now among the
ruined amphitheaters of Verona and
Pompeii, and Capua, and Puzzuoli, and
Tarraco. and then stand transfixed
with amazement at their immense
sweep that held from so, 900 to 100, 900
spectators gathered for carousal and
moral degradation, could not Christi
anity afford one architectural achieve
ment that would hold and enthrall its
so, 1000 Christian disciples? Do you say
no human voice could be heard through
out such building? In that mighty
concert hall and preaching place which
1 suggest for this nineteen hundredth
anniversary, let music crown our Lord.
Bring all the orchestras, all the orato-
rios, all the philharmonic and Handel
and Haydn societies Then give US
Haydn's oratoria of the Creation, for
our Lord took part in universe build
ing, and without Him." says John,
twas not anything made that was
made and Handels Messiah" and
Beethoven's Symphonies" and Men
delssohn's "Elijah," the prophet that
typified Christ, and the grandest COM
positions of German and English and
American masters, living or dead.
What an arousing when so. 900 join in
Antioch or Coronation or Ariel, rising
into Hallelujah or subsiding into an
almost supernatural Amen!
Yea, let Scriptures stand on pedes-
tails all around that building, the forms
of apostles and martyrs, men and
women, who spoke or wrought, or suf-
fered by headsmen's AK or fire. Where
is my favorite of all arts, this art of
sculpture, that it is not buster for
Christ or that its work is not better APP
preciated? Let it come forth at that
worlds jubilee of the nativity. We
want a second Phidias to do for that
new temple what the first Phidias did
for the Parthenon. 1.-THE gods of the
heather are nothing but dumb idols
but our Lord made the heavens" In
marble pure as snow celebrate Him,
who came to make us whittier than
snow" Let the chisel as well as PEN
ell and pen be put down at the feet of
Jesus.
Added to all this I would have a
floral decoration on q scale never
equaled. The fields and open gardens
could not furnish it, for it will be win
ter, and that season appropriately
chosen, for it was into the frosts and
desolations of winter that Christ immi-
grated when He came to our world.
But while the fields will be bare, the
Conservatives and lighthouses within
200 miles would gladly keep the sacred
Colosseum radiant and aromatic during
all the convocations-
Added to all, let there be banquets,
not like the drunken bout at the Met
ropolitan opera house, New York, cele-
brating the centennial of Washington's
Inauguration, where the rivers of wine
drowned the sobriety of so many sena-
tors and governors and generals,
but a banquet for the poor,
the feeding of scores of thou
sands of people of world in which
the majority of the inhabitants have
never yet had enough to eat; not a
banquet at which few favored men
and women of social or political for
tune shall sit, but such banquet as
Christ ordered when he told his serv-
ants to ''go out into the highways and
hedges and compel them to come in"
Added to this let there be at that in
ternational and religious exposition a
mammoth distribution of sacred litera-
ture. Let the leading ministers of re-
ligion from England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, Germany, and the world, take
the pulpits of all these cities, and tell
what they know of Him whose birth
we celebrate. At those convocations
let vast sums of money be raised for
churches, for asylums, for schools, for
colleges, all of which institutions were
born in the heart of Christ. On that
day and in that season when Christ
gave Himself to the world let the world
give itself to Him.
Why do / propose America as the
country for this convocation? Because
most other lands have state religion
and while all forms of religion may be
tolerated in many lands, America is
the only country on earth where all
evangelical denominations stand on an
equal footing. and all would have
equal hearing in such an international
exposition. Why do 1 select this clus-
ter of seacoast cities? Answer: By
! that time, December %, 1900, these
four cities of New York, Brooklyn,
Jersey City and Hoboken, by bridges
and tunnels, will be practically one
and with an aggregate population OF
about 4,00o,O 900. Consequently no other
part of America will have such inn
mensity of population
Why do now make this nomination
of time and place? Answer: Because
such stupendous movement cannot be
extemporized 1t will take seven years
to get ready for such an overtowering
celebration. and the work ought to be
gin speedily In churches, in colleges, in
legislatures, in congresses, in parlia-
ments, in all styles of national assem-
blages, and we have no time to lose.