Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-10-14

the color is as fresh and vivid and true
as though yesterday it had passed from
the easel. Which of our modern paint
ings could stand all TINT? And yet many
of the specimens of Pompeiian art show
that the city was sunk to such adepth
of abomination that there was nothing
deeper. Sculptured and petrifed and en-
balmed abomination. 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
necessary is to cultivate the mind and
advance the knowledge and improve the
arts. Have you the impression that elo-
quence will do the elevating work?
Why, Pompeii had Cicero half of every
year for it's citizen. Have you the idea
that literature is all that is necessary to
keep city right Why, Sallust, with q
pen that was the boast of Roman litera-
ture, had o mansion in that doomed city.
Do you think that sculpture and art are
quito sufficient for the production Of
good morals7 Then correct your delu-
sion by examining the statues in the
Temple of Mercury at Polnpeii, or the
winged figures of its Parthcnon, and the
colonnades and arches Of this house Of
Diomed.
BY all means have schools and Dussel-
dorf and Dore exhibitions and galleries
where the genius of all tho centuries can
bank itself up in snowy sculpture, and
all bric-a-brac, and all pure art. but
nothing save the religion of Jesus Christ
can make city moral. In proportion
as churches and Bibles and Christian
printing presses and rcvivals Of religion
abound is city clean and pure. What
has Buddhism or Confucianism or Mo
hammedanism done in all the hundreds
of years of their progress for the eleva-
ton of society? Absolutely nothing.
Picking and Madras and Cairo are just
what they were ages ago, except as Chris
tianity has modified their condition.
|. What is the difference between our
Brooklyn and their Ponpeii? No diff
ference, except that which Christianity
has wrought. Favor all good art, but
take best care of your churches, and your
Sabbath schools, and your Bibles, and
your family affairs.
TWO REMARKABLE CEMETERIES.
Yea, sec in our walk today through
uncovered Pompeii what sin will do for
city. We ought to be slow to assign
the judgments of God. Cities are some
times afflicted just as good people are
afflicted, and the earthquake, and the cy-
clone, and tie epidemic are no sign in
many cases that God is angry with a
city, but the distress is sent for some
good and kind purpose, whether we
understand it or not. Tho law that APP
plies to individuals may apply to Chris
tan cities as 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 condition, for it was completely
obliterated and will never be rebuilt. 1t
was so bad that it needed to be buried
1,700 years before even its ruins were fit
to be uncovered So Sodom and Gomor-
rah were filed with such turpitude that
they were ,r,i only turned under, but
have for liz .a:it;sof years been kept
under. The 40 :.,-atcst cemeteries are
tho cemetery in m..aicf The, sunken ships!
are buried all the way between Fire
island and Fastuet Lighthouse, and the
other cemetery is tho cemetery of dead
cities.
I get down on my knees and read. the
epitapheology Of long line OF them.
Here lies Babylon, once called 1.-THE ham
mer of the whole earth" Dead and
buried under piles of bitumen and bro
ken pottery and vitrehed brick. And l
hear a wolf howl and n reptile hiss as l
am reading this cpitaph Isaiah xiii, 21),
"The wild beast of the desert shall be
there, and their houses shall be full of
doleful creatures
The next tomb / kneel before In this
cemetery of cities is Nineyeh. Her
winged lions are down, and the slabs of
alabaster have crumbled, and the scrAp-
ture that represented her BATTLES is as
completely scattered as the dust OF the
heroes who fought them. Perhaps !
put my knee into the dust of her Sar-
danapalus as / stoop to read Ler epitaph
(zephaniah ii, 49, Now is Nineveh des-
olation and dry like u wilderness, and
fiocks lie down in the midst of her; all
the beasts of the nations, both the cor
morant and the bittern, lodge In the up
per lintels of it." And while l read it
hear an owl boot and hycna laugh.
The next entonbed city>I pass has @
monument Of 90 PROSTATE columns of
gray and red granite, and it is Tyre.
The next scpulcher OFFS great capital is
covered with scattered columns and de-
faced sphinxes and the sands of the dcs-
ert, and it is Thebcs. As pass on I find
the resting place of Mycenm, a city Of
which Homer sang, and Corinth, which
rejected Paul aud depended upon her
fortress, Acrocorinthus, which now lies
dismantled on the hill, and move on i'll
this cemetery of cities. and find the
tombs of Sardis and Smyrna aud Per-
sepolis and Memphis and Baalbck and
Carthage, and here are the CITIES of the
plain and Herculaneum and Stabia aud
Pompeii. Some of them have mighty
sarcophagus and hierroglyphic entabla-
lure, but they are dead and buried never
10 rise.
But the cemetery of dead cities is not
yet filled, and If the present cities Of the
world forget God and with their indie
cencies shock the heavens let them
know that the God wrho on the Gath Of
August, 10, dropped on city of Italy
superincumbranee that staid there II
centuries is still alive aad hates sin now
as much as he did then and has at his
command all the armament Of destruc-
tion with which he whelmed their In
iquitous predecessors.