Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-10-14
A WARMING.
DR.. Talmage Draws Lessons from
the Cemetery of Dead Cities.
Pompeiis Greatness. sinfulness and De-
struction--The Ruined Cities OF the
Oriental Warning to tho
Cities of To-Day.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage took for his subject:
''Pompeii and Its Lessons" The text
WIS from Isaiah NV. :: "Thou hast
made of defensed city ruin" The
preacher said:
A flash on the night sky greeted us
as we left the rail train at Naples,
Italy. What was the strange illumina-
ton? It was that wrath of many CEN
turies-Vesuvius 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, it may
he the very torch that will kindle the
last confiagration and set all the world
on fire. Awful mystery Funeral
pyre of dead cities. Everlasting par
oxysm of mountains. 1t seems like n
chimney of hell. 1t roars with fiery
"reminiscences of what it has done, and
with threats of worse that it may yet
do On day in December, 1851, it
threw up ashes that foated away hun
drcds and hundreds of miles, and
dropped in Constantinople and in the
Adriatic sea and in the Apennines, as
we'll as trampling out at its own foot
the lives of $4,000 people.
We started to see some of the work
wrought by that frenzied mountain.
"All out for Ponpeii!' was the cry of
the conductor. And now we stand by
the corpse of that dead city. The city
had been at one time capital of beau
ty and pomp the home of grand archi-
lecture, exquisite painting, enchanting
sculpture, unrestrained carousal and
rapt assemblage. A high wall, twenty
feet thick, three-fourths of it still visi-
BILE, encircled the city. On those walls
at distance of only one hundred yards
frora 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 city's prosperity, its towers
glittered in the sun; eight strong gates
for ingress and egress; Gate OF the Sea
Shore, Gate of Herculaneum, Gate of
Vesuvius being perhaps the most i'm
portant. Wonder stood the temple OF
Jupiter, hoisted at an imposing elevation
and with its six Corinthian columns
of immense girth, which stood like
carved iceberss, .himmering in the
light. There stands the Temple of the
Twelve Gods. Wonder see the Temple
of Hercules, and The Temple of Mercu-
nv, with affairs of marble and bas-relief,
wonderful enough to astound all sue
ceeding ages of art, and the Temple of
Esculapius, brilliant with sculpture
and gorgeous with painting. ionder
are the theaters, partly cut into sur
rounding hills and gloritied with pic
tured walls and entered under arches
of imposing masonry, and with rooms
for captivated and explanatory au-
diences, seated or standing, in vast semi
circle. Yonder are the costly and i'm
mense public baths of the city, with
more than the modern ingenuities
of Carlsbad Yonder are the bar
racks of the celebrated gladia-
tors. Yonder is the summer home
of Snllust. the Roman historian
and senator, the architecture as elab-
crate as his character was corrupt.
Along the streets are men of might and
women of beauty formed into bronze
that many centuries had no power to
bedim. Battle scenes on walls of color
which all time cannot efface. Great
city of Pompeii! So Seneca and Taci-
tus and Cicero pronounced it.
Stand with me on its walls this even
ing of August 90, A. ID. 70. See the
throngs passing up and down in Tyrian
purple and girdles 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 from paddock and sea, and
moralist musing over the degradation
of the times passes the profigate do
ing his best to make them worse. See
the verdured and lowered grounds
sloping into the most beautiful bay OF
all the earth-the bay of Naples.
Listen to the rumbling chariots,
C1TTVlUg COuNlNldl OSSupoueS W.
halls of mirth and masquerade and
carousal. Hear the loud dash of
fountains amid the sculptured water
nymphs. Notice the weird, solemn
far-reaching hum and din and roar OF a
city at the close of summer day. Let
Pompeii sleep well tonight for it is
the last night of peaceful slumber un-
til she falls into the deep slumeer OF
many long centuries. The morning OF
the s4th of August, A. D., 70, has ar
rived, and the day rolls on, and 1t is l
o'clock in the afternoon: 'Look!'
say to you, standing on this wall, as
the sister of Pliny said to him, the Ro-
man essayist and naval commander. on
the day of which / speak, as she
pointed him in the direction in which !
point You. There is q peculiar cloud
ON the sky-a spotted cloud, now
white, now black 1t is Vesuvius in