Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-10-13


allowed there and stad until there was not a
football to be heard within all that city except
our own. Up this silent street and down that
silent street we wandered. Into that win
! dowless and roofless home we went and came
out again onto the pavements that, now for
saken. were once thronged with life.
| And can it be that all up and down these
solemn solitudes. hearts more than 1900
years ago ached and.rejoiced, and feet shut
fed with the gait of old age or danced with
| childish glee, and oYertasked workmen car
| ried their burdens and drunkards staggered?
| on that mosaic floor did glowing youth clasp
hands in marriage vow, and cross that
threshold did pallbearers carry the beloved
dead, and gay groups once mount those now
skeletons Of staircases?
While l walked and contemplated the city
seemed suddenly to be thronged with all the
population that had ever inhabited it, and
heard its laughter and groan and unclean-
ness and Internal boast as it was on the 23d
OF August. 10 And Vesuvius, from the mild
light with which il flushed the sky that sum-
mer evening as / stood in dsentombed Pom
peii. seemed suddenly again to heave and
fame and rock with the lava and darkness
and Gesolation and woe with which more
than eighteen centuries ago it submerged
Pompeii, as with the liturgy OF fire and storm
the mountain proclaimed at the burial,
"Ashes 10 ashes. dust 10 dust.
Ny friends. | cannot tell what practical
suggestion comes to your mind from this
walk through uncovered Pompeii. but the
first thought that absorbs me is that, while
art and culture are important, they cannot
save the morals or the life OF a great town.
Much OF the painting and sculpture Of Pom
peii was so exquisite that. while some is kept
on the walls where it was first penciled. to be
admired by those who 90 there. whole wagon
loads and whole rooms full Of it have been
transferred to the MuseO BOrbOnicO at Ma
pies, to be admired by the centuries
Those Pompeiian artists mixed such dura-
bility of cOlors that though their paintings
were buried in ashes and scori@ for 100
years. and since they were uncovered many
of them have remained there exposed TO the
rains and winds and winters and summers
$50 years, the color is as fresh and vivid and
true as though yesterday it had passed from
the easel Which Of our modern paintings
could stand all that? And yet many OF the
specimens of POmpeiian art show that the
city was sunk to such a depth of abOmination
that there was nothing deeper. Sculptured
and petrifed and embalmed abominatio1.
There was a state OF public morals worse
than belongs to any city now standing under
the sun.
Yet how many think that ali that is neces-
sary is TO cultivate the mind and advance the
knowledge and improve the arts Have you
the impression that eloquence will do the
elevating work. Why. Pompeii had Cicero
half of every year for its citizen. Have you
the idea that literature is all that is neces-
sary 10 keep a city right? Why. Sallust. with
a peu that was the boast of Roman litera-
ture, had a mansion in that doomed city. Do
YOU think that sculpture and art are quite
sufficient for the production OF good morals!
Then correct your delusion by examining
the statues in the Temple ofMercury at Pom
peii or the winged figures OF its Parthenon,
and the colOnnaies and arches OF this house
OF Diomed.
By all means have schools and Dusseldorf
and Dore exhibitions and galleries where
the genius Of all the centuries can bank it.
self up in snowy sculpture, and all brle-a-
brac and all pure art, but nothing save the
religion of Jesus Christ can make city
moral. In proportion as churches and b.
bles and Christian printing presses and re-
viyals of religion abound is a city pure and
clean. What has Buddhism or Confucianism
or MohammedaDism done in all the hun
dreds OF years of their progress Tor the ele-
walton Of society? Absolutely nothing.
Peking and Madras and Cairo are Just
what they were ages ago. except as Christi
anitv has modified their condition. What is
the difference between our Brooklyn and
their Pompeii? No difference, 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.
Yea. see in our walk through uncovered
Pompeii what sin will do for city. We
oughtto be slow to assign the judgment OF
God. Cities are sometimes afflicted Just as
good people are afflicted. and the earthquake,
and the cyclone. and the epidemic are no
sign in many cases that God is angry with
city. but the distress is sent for some good
and kind purpose, whether we un ierstand
it or not. The law that applies to indiyid-
uals may apply to Christian cities as well,
''All things work together Tor good 10 those
that love God.
Bat the greatest calamity of history came
upon POmpeii not to improve its future con-
dition. for it was completely Obliterated ana
will never be rebuilt II was so bad that
il neededto be buried 1900 years before even
its ruins were fit to be uncovered. SO SOdom
and Gomorrah were filed with such turpi-
tude that they were not only turned under,
but have for thousands OF years been kept
under The two greatest cemeteries are the
cemetery in which the sunken ships are bur
led all the way between Fire Island and
Fastnet Lighthouse. and the other cemetery
is the cemetery OF dead cities.
I get down on my knees and read the
epitapheology Of a long line Of them. Here
lies Babylon. once called 'the hammer OF
the whole earth Dead and buried under
piles OF bitumen and broken pottery aud
vitrefed brick. And hear wolf howl and
a reptile hiss as l am reading this eptaph
Isaiah xiii. 81. The wild beast Of the
desert shall be there, and their house snail
be full Of doleful creatures"
The next tomb | kneel before in this GEM
etery of cities is Nineveh. Her winged lions
are down. AMI the slabs OF alabaster have
crumbled. and the sculpture that represented
her battles is as completely scattered as the
dust Of the heroes who fought them. Per
hans nut nv knee into the dust of her Sar-
danapalus as / stoop to read her epitaph
(Zephaniah H.. IA ) Now is Nineveh desola-
ton and dry like wilderness, and fiocks lie
down in the midst Of her all the beasts OF
the Nations both the cormorant and the bit
tern. lodge in the upper lintels Of ii" And
while l read it l hear an owl boot and
hyena laugh.
The next entombed city pass has a monu.
ment OF fifty PROSTATE columns OF gray and
red granite. and it is Tyre. The next Sc
pulcher of a great capital is covered with !
scattered columns and deiaced sphinxes and /
the sands Of the desert and it is Thebes. As /
j pass on find the resting place Of Mycen@, |
a city OF which Homer sang, and COrintb. |
which rejected Paul and depended upon her /
fortress. Acrocorinthus. which now lies dis
mantled on the hill. and | move on in this |
cemetery OF Giles. ana l ma the tOmbS Of /
Sardis and Smyrna and Persepolis and
Memphis and Baalbek and Carthage, and !
here are the cities OF the plain and Hercu-
laneum and Stabia and Pompei Some of !
them have mighty sarcophagus and hero |
glyphic entablature, but they are dead and |
buried never to rise.
But the cemetery of dead cities is not yet |
filed, and if the present cities Of the world |
forget God and with their indecencies shock |
the heavens let them know that the God who |
on the oath of August. 70, dropped on a city |
Of Italy a superincumbrance that staid there |
seventeen centuries is still alive and hates |
sin now as much as He did then and has at !
His command all the armament OF destruc-
ton with which He whelmed their Ubiquitous
predecessors.
II was only few summers ago that Brook !
Ign and New York felt an earthquake throb |
that sent the people ailrighted into the /
streets andtha suggestedthat there are forces |
Of nature now suppressed or held in check
which easier than a child in a nursery
knocks down a row OF block houses could |
PROSTATE a city or engulf continent deeper /
h.. D. ntrr h., tg IN,