Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-02-13

| had u columns C2Cn IA arcHcS 2T.er
| arches, and on enca arch El e1Cuis. z
statue Of q god or Il here.
| Into $50 feet Of alti, lde scared the
| Coliseum 1t glitterel and flashed an
| shone with whole sunriScs and sunsc,,.s f
l. dazzlemer1t. After the audience had as
sembled aromatic liquids Oozed FROM
| tubes distilled from pipes and refine
| gently on the lmultitudes and filed the
| air with odors of hyacinth and hello
| trope and tfrankincense and balsam AMI
| myrrh and saffron, so that Lucan, the
| poet, says of 1t:
| At once ten thousand saffron currents flow
And rain their odors the crowd below.
ORGANIZED MURDER AND TORTURE.
But where was the sport to come from!
| Well, Invent into the cellars opening off
| from the arena, and I saw the places
| where they kept the hyenas and lions and
panthers and wild boars and beastly vlo-
| lences of all sorts, without food Or water
| until made fierce enough for the arena,
and l. saw the underground rooms where
the gladlators were accustomed to wait
Until the clapping of the people outside
demanded that they comeforth armed
to murder or be murdered. All the ar
rangementS were complete, as enough of
the cellars and galleries still remain to
indicate. What fun they must have had
turning lions without food or drink upon
.aniunarmed disciple of Jesus Christ!
At THE dedication of this Coliseum
1900 wild beasts and 10000 immortal
mem were slain, SO that the blood Of men
and beast was not brook, but a river:
not.arpool, but lake. Having been in
that way dedicated, be not surprised
when Itell you that Emperor Probus Oh
,one occasion threw into that arena of
thesC Coliseum 900 stays, 900 bears and
1000 ostriches. What fun it must have
been-the sound of trumpets, the roar Of
wild beasts and the groans Of dying men
while in the gallery the>wives and chill
drencof those down under the lions paw
wrung their hands and. shrieked out i'll
widowhood and orphanage, while 100000
people clapped their hands, and there
was q Hal har'>wide as Rome and deep
as perditiOni
The ct43 SeS of that arena were put on
a cart or dragged by a hook out through
what was called the Gate of Death. What
an excitement it must have been when
two ,combatants entered the arena, TIE
one with sword and shield: and the other
with net and spear. The swordsman
strikes ;at the man with the net and
spear. He lodges the sword and then
filings thenet over the head Of the swords
man and jerks him to the floor of the
arena, and the man who flung the net
puts his foot on the neck of the fallen
swordsnan, and spear in hand looks up
to the galleries, as much as to say, ''Shau
let himup or.shall I plunge this spear
into his body until he is dead?"
The audience had two signs, either of
which they might give. IF they waved
their flags, it meantsspare the fallen con-
testant. Ii they turned their thumbs
down, it meant slay him. Occasionally
the audience would wave their flags.
and the fallen would be let up, but that
was too tame sport for most occasions,
and generally the thumbs from the gal
1eries were turned down, and with that
sign would be heard the accompanying
shout of ''Kill Kill! Kill! Ki1lr'
CRUELTY ADDED'TO CRUELTY.
Yet it was far from being q monotone
of sport, for there was acchange of pro-
.gramme in that wondrous Coliseum.
Under strange and powerful machir-
cry, beyond anything of modern inve-l-
tion the floor of the arena would begin
to rock and roll and then give away, ard
there world appear q lake of bri~-t
water. and On its banks trees VOL
spring up rustling with foliage, and Il
gers appeared among the ju1glcs, ;-1d
armed men would come forth, and there
would be tiger hunt Then on the lake
in the Coliseum armed ships would float,
and there would be sea fight. What
Wy IL.
came, in order to appease the gods, in
this Coliseum a sacrifice woz1ld be made,
and the people would throng that great
a1nphitheater, shouting, 1.-The Christians
to the wild beasts!'' and there would be
a cracking of human bones ia the jaws
of leOninC ferocity.
But all this was to be stopped By the
outraged sense of public decency? No.
There is only one thing that has ever
stopped cruelty and sin, and that IS
Christianity, and it was Christianity.
whether You like its form or not, that
stopped this massacre of centuries One
day while in the Coliseum Roman
victory was being celebrated, and 1O0,-
900 enraptured spectators Were looking
down upon two gladiators in the arena
stabbing and slicing each other to death,
an Asiatic monk of the name Of Tele-
machus was SO overcome by the cruelty
that he leaped from the gallery into the
arena and ran ia between the two
swordsmen and pushed first one back
and then the other back and broke up the
contest.
Of course the audience was affronted
at having their sport stopped, and they
hurled stones at the head of Telemachus
until he fell dead in the arena. But
when the Guy was passed, and the pas
sions of the people had cooled off, they
deplored the martyrdom of the brave
and Christian Telemachus, and as a re-
s11 II of the nverdone cruelty the human