The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-02-24


upon the throbbing and broken hearts
What the world wants is thousand
men like Telemachus to leap out of the
gallery into the arena, whether he be
Roman Catholic monk, or a Methodist
steward, or a Presbyterian elder, and
goi between the contestants. Blessed
are the peacenakers for they shall be
called the children of God"
One half the world is down and the
other half is up and the, half that is up
has it heel on the half that is down. If
you, as a boss workman, or as a con-
tractor. or as a bishop, or as a state or
national official, or as potent factor
in social life, or in any way, are
expressing any one, know that the
same devil that possessed the Roman
Colosseum Expresses you. The Do
cletians are not all dead. The cellars
leading into the arena of life's
struggle are not all emptied of their
tigers. The vivisection by young doc
tors of dogs and cats and birds most of
| the time adds nothing to the human
discovery but is only a continuation of
Vespasian's Colosseum. The cruelties
of the world generally begin in nurser-
les and in home circles and in day
schools The child that transfXes the
| fly with pin, or the low feeling that
sets two dogs into combat, or that bull
lies weak or crippled playmate,.or the
Indifference that starves a canary bird,
needs only to be developed in order to
make tirst-class Nero or a full armed
Apollyon.
The last evening before leaving Rome
l went alone to the Colosseum. There
was not living soul in all the immense
area. The place was so overwhelming
| ly silent l could hear my own heart
beat with the emotions aroused by the
place and hour. paced the arena. l
walked down into the dens where the
hyenas were once kept L assembled to
the place where the emperor used
leries from which the mighty throngs
of people had gazed in enchant-
ment To break the silence 1
shouted. and that seemed to awaken
the echoes, echo upon echo. And those
awakened echoes seemed to address me,
saying: "Men die, but their work lives
on. Gaudeites, the architect who
planned this structure, the 10000 en-
shaved Jews brought by Titus from
Jerusalem and who toiled on these
walls, the gladiators who fought in
this arena, the emperors and expresses
who had placed on yonder platform,
the millions, who during the centuries,
sat and rose in these galleries, have
passed away, but enough of the
Colosseum stands to tell the story of
cruelty and pomp and power.
Five hundred years of bloodshed-"
Then, as l stood there, there come
to me another burst of echoes
which seemed throbbing with the pray
ers and songs and groans of Christians
who had expired in that arena, and
they seemed to say: 'How much it cost
to serve God in ages past and how
thankful modern centuries ought to be
that the persecution which redeemed
the sands of this amphitheater have
been abolished" And then ] ques-
toned the echoes, saying: where is
Emperor Titus who sat here?" The
answer came: "Gone to Judgment"
where is Emperor Trajan who
sat here?" ''Gone to Judgment"
Where is Emperor MaXiminus
who sat here?" "Gone to judg-
ment" ''Where are all the multitudes
who clapped and shouted and waved
flags to let the vanquished up, or to
have them slain, put tumbs DOWN. The
echoes answered: Gone to Judgment"
inquired: "All?" And they answered.:
AL" And / looked up to the sky
above the ruins and it twas full of clouds
scurrying swiftly past, and those clouds
seemed as though they had faces, and
some of the faces smiled and some of
them frowned, and they seemed to
have wings; and some of the wings
were mOon-gilt and the others thunder
charged, and the voices of those
clouds overpowered the echoes be-
Meath Behold, he cometh with
clouds and every eye shall see him"
And as l stood looking up along the
walls of the Colosseum they rose higher
and higher, higher and higher, until
the amphitheater seemed TO be filed
with all the nations of the past and all
the nations of the present and all the
nations of the future, those who went
down under the paws of wild beasts,
and those who sat waving flags to let
up the conquered, and those who held
thumbs down to command their assas-
sination, and small and great,
and emperor and slave, and
pastor and people, and right
eous and wicked, the amphitheater
all sides of me, and in the center of that
amphitheater, instead of the arena of
combatants, a great throne stood, rising
higher and higher, and on it sat the
Christ for whom the martyrs died and
against whom the Diocletians plotted
their prosecutions, and waving one
hand towards the piled up splendors to
the right of him He cried: Come, We
blessed" and waving the other hand
tow ards the piled up glooms on the left
of him He cried: Depart, We cursed"
And so the Colosseum of Rome that
evening of 1889 seemed enlarged into
the amphitheater of the Last Judgment
and passed from under the arch
of that mighty structure, mighty even
in its ruins, praying to Almighty
God, through Jesus Christ, for mercy in
that day for which all other days We're
made, and that as l expected mercy
from God, l might exercise mercy to-
ward others, and have more and more
the spirit of "Let-him-up" and less and
less of the spirit of Thumbs down"
We may not all be able to do sum in
higher mathematics, but there is sum
in the first rule of gospel arithmetic
which we all may do. 1t is a sum in
simple addition. Add to your faith
virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to
l-po,rladra tanparauca and 70 famnar-