Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-10-13
REV. DR.. 7ALNAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divlne's Sun
day Sermon.
snbiect: "Pompeii and Its Lessons

left the rail train at Naples. Italy. What was
the strange Illumination? L was that wrath
of many centuries Giant son OF
an earthquake. Intoxicated mountain OF
Italy. Father OF many considerations. A
volcano. burning so long. and yet to keep on
burning until. perhaps. il may be the very
torch that will kindle the last conhagratiOn
and set all the world on fire. II eclipses in
violence Of behavior Cotopaxi and Etna and
Stromboh and Krakatoa. Awful mystery.
Funeral pyre Of dead cities. Everlasting
paroxysm OF mountains. II seems like a
chimney OF hell. Ii roars with fiery remin-
isrence Of what it has done and with threats
OF worse things that it may yet do. l would
not live in one OF the villages at its base for a
present of all Italy
On a day in December. 1881. il threw up
ashes that fioated away hundreds and hun
fseos OF miles and dropped in Constantine
pie and in the Adriatic sea. and on the
Apennines, as we'll as trampling ont at its
own foot the lives OF $1,000 people. Geo
logists have tried TO fathom its mysteries. but
the heat consumed the iron instruments and
drove back the scorched and biistered eN-
plorers from the cindery and crumbling
brink. II seems like the asylum OF maniac
elements.
At one tine far back its top had been a
fortress. where Spartacus fought and was
surrounded and would have been destroyed
had it not been for the grapevines which
clothed the mountainside from top to base,
and LAYING hold OF them he climbed hand
under hand TO safety in the valley. But for
centuries it has kept its furnace burning as
we saw it that night on our arrival in Novem-
Der OF 1889.
OF course the next day We started TO see
some OF the work wrought by that frenzied
mountain. "All out for Pompeii - was the
cry OF the conductor. And now we stand by
the corpse of that dead city. As we entered
the gate and passed between the walls l took
of my hat. as one naturally does in the pres
ence OF some imposing obsequies That city
had been at one time a capital of beauty and
pomp. The home Of grand architecture. eX-
quisite painting. enchanting sculpture. unre-
strained carousal and rapr assemblage. A
high wall twenty feet thick. three-foUrths Of
il still visible. encircled the city. OF those
walls. at a distance of only 100 yards from
each other. towers rose for armed men who
watched the city. The streets ran at right
angles and from wall to wall, only one street
excepted.
In the days Of the ci.y's prosperity It's
towers glittered in the sun; eight strong
gates for ingress and egress Gate of the
Seashore. Gate OF Herculaneum. Gate Of
Nesuvius being perhaps the most important.
Wonder stood the Temple OF Jupiter hoisted
al ar imposing elevation and with its six
corinthian columns Of immense girth, which
stood like carved icebergs shimmering in the
light. There stands the Temple OF the
Twelve Gods. Yonder see the Temple of
Hercules and TIL. Temple OF Mercury. with
affairs of arble and bas-relief. wonderful
enough to astound all succeeding ages ofart,
and the Temple OF Esculapius. brilliant with
sculpture and gorgeous with painting.
Yonder are the theatres. partly cut into
surrounding hills, and glOrifed with pie
tured walls. and entered under arches Of i'm
posing masonry. and with rooms for capti-
waited and applaudatory audiences seated or
standing in vast semi-cirele. IOnder are the
costly and immense public baths OF the city.
with more than the modern ingenuities OF
Carlsbad. Notice the warmth of those an
cient tepidarums. with lowering radiance
of roof. and the vapOr of those caldariums.
with decorated alcoyes. and the cold dash OF
their irigidariums. with floors Of mosaic and
ceilings OF all skiliully intermingled hues,
and walls upholstered with all the cOlors OF
the setting sun. and sofas on which to recline
Tor slumber after the plunge.
NOnder are the barracks Of the celebrated
gladiatOrs YOnder is the summer home OF
Sallust. the Roman historian and Senator.
the architecture as elaborate rs his chtrac-
ter was corrupt. There is the residence of
the poet Pansa. with a compressed Louvre
and Luxembourg within his walls. There is
the homeOt Lucretius, with vases aud antiqui-
ties enough 10 turn the head Of a virtuOso.
Wonder see the Forum. at the highest place
il the city 1t is entered by two triunphal
arches. Ii is bounded on three sides by
dOric columns.
Yonder. in the suburbs OF the city is the
home OF Arrius Diomed. the mayor Of the
suburbs. terrlced residence Of Millionaire
dom. gardens. fOuntaine1. statusi colon
naded, the cellar Of that villa filed with bot
ties Of rarest wine, few drops OF which
were found 1900 years afterward. Along the
streets of the city are men of might and
women OF beauty formed into bronze that
many centuries had no power to be1im. Bat
tie scenes on walls in cOlors which all time
cannot efface. Great city of POmpeii SO
Seneca and Tacitus and Cicero pronounced
II.
Stand with me on its walls this evening Of
August %. A. D. ~. See the thrOngs pass
ing up and down in Tyrian purple and Cir
dies Of arabesque. and necks enchanted with
precious stones. proud official in imposing
toga meeting the slave carrying trays a-clink
with gOblets and a-smOke with delicacies
IRON paddock and sea. and mOralist musing
over the degradation OF the times passes the
IrOhigate doing his best 10 make them worse.
Hark to the clatter and rataplan Of the hoOfs
on the streets paved with blocks of basalt
See the verdured and Powered grounds slOp-
ing into the most beautiful bay Of all the
earth-the bay OF Naples.
Listen to the rumbling chariOis. carrying
cOnyivial occupants 10 halls OF mirth and
masquerade and carOusal. Hear the loud
dash of fountains amid the scuptured water
nymphs Notice the weird. solemn farreach-
ing hum and din and roar OF city at the
close Of a sumner day. Let POmpeii sleep
we'll tonight, for il IS the last night of peace
fui slumber before she falls into the deep
slumber Of many long centuries. The morn
ing Of the oath Of August. A. ID. 70. has ar
rived. and the days roll on. and il is 1 O'Clock
in the afternoon. Look ', / say TO YOU.
standing on this wall. as the sister of Pliny
said to him. the Roman essayist and naval
commander. on the day Of which [ speak. as
she pointed him in the direction in which |
point you.
There is a peculiar cloud on the sky a
spotted cloud. now white. now black. II is
Vesuvius Ia awful and unparalleled eruption.
Now ihe smoke and fire and steam Of that
black monster throat rise and spread. as. by
my gesture. l now describe 1t. II rises, a
great column OF fiery. darkness. higher and
higher. and then spreads out like the
a
wrapped in its foliage. wider and wider.
Now the sun goes out, and showers OF
Dumice stone and water from furnaces more
than seven times heated, aud ashes in avail
anche after avaia1che. binding and scalding
and suffOcating. descend north, south. east
AMI west. burying deeper aud deeper In
mammoth sepulcher. such as never before
OF since was opened. Stable, Hercuianeum
and POmpeii. Ashes ankle deep, girdle
deep. chin deep. ashes overhead.
Out Of the houses and temples and thea
tres and into the streets and down to the
beach fed many OF the frantic, but others, il
not suffocated Of the ashes, were scalded to
death BY the heated deluge. And then came
heavier destruction In rocks after rocks,
crushing in homes and temples and theatres
No wonder the sea receded from the beach as
though in terror, until much OF the shipping
was wrecked, and no wonder that wnen they
lifted Pliny the elder from the sailclOth on
which he was resting, under the agitations OF
what he had seen, he suddenly expired.
For three days the entombment proceeded.
Then the clouds lifted, and the eursing Of
that ApOllyOn Of mountains subsided. For
100 years that city Of Pompeii lay buried
and without anything 10 show its place Of
doom. But after 100 years Of CELEBRATION
worSmans spade. digging a well, strikes
some antiquities which lead TO the exhuma-
ton OF the city. Now walk with ne through
some OF the streets and into some OF the
houses and amid the ruins OF basilica and
temple and amphitheatre.
From the moment the guide met US at the
gate on entering POmpeii that day in No