The Bossier banner., 1893-11-09
THE DEAD CITIES.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Sounds a Shrill
Note Of Warning
20 the Cities of To-Day by Drawing Vivid
Picture of the Fate that Overlook
Pompeii and Other Great
and Wicked Cities.

mage in the Brooklyn tabernacle, being
based on the text:
Thou hast made Of defenced city ruin
Isaiah xxV..2.
A flash on the night sky greeted us
Italy. What was the strange illumi-
nation? 1t was the wrath of many
centuries-Vesuvius. Giant son of an
earthquake. Intoxicated mountain OF
Italy. Father of many consternations.
A volcano, burning so long, and yet to
keep on burning until, perhaps, it may
be the very torch that will kindle the
last conhagration and set all the world
on fire. 1t eclipses in violence of be-
havior Cotopaxi and Etna and Strom-
boli and Krakatoa. Awful mystery.
Funeral pyre of dead cities. Everlast-
ing paroxysm of mountains. Is seems
like chimney of hell. 1t roars with
fiery reminiscence of what it has done,
and with threats of worse that it
may yet do. l would not live in
one of the villages at it's base for
cember, 1851, it threw up ashes that
floated away hundreds and hundreds
of miles, and dropped in Constantine
pie and in the Adriatic sea and in the
Apennines, as we'll as trampling out at
its own foot the lives of eighteen
thousand people. Biologists have
tried to fathom it's mysteries, but the
heat consumed the iron instruments
and drove back the scorched and bis
tered explorers from the cindery and
crumbling brink. 1t seems like the
asylum of maniac elements. At one
time far back its top had been a for
tress, where Spartacus had fought and
was surrounded, and would have been
destroyed had it not been for the
grape vines which clothed the noun
tain side 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 burn
ing as we saw it that night on our ar
rival in November 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 con-
ductor. And now we stand by the
corpse of that dead city. AS we en-
tered the gate and passed between the
walls, l took off my hat, as one natur-
ally does in the presence of some i'm
posing obsequies. That city had been
at one time u capital of beauty and
pomp, the home of grand architecture
exquisite painting, enchanting sculp-
nl nd ~
assemblage. A high wall, twenty feet
thick, three-fourths of it still visible
encircled the city. On those walls at a
distance of only one hundred 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 city's prosperity, it
towers glittered in the sun; eigh
strong gates for ingress and egress
gate of the Sea Shore, gate of Hercu
I laneum, gate of Vesuvius being per
haps the most important Yondel
stood the temple of Jupiter, hoisted a
an imposing elevation, and with it's 81,
Corinthian columns of immense girth
which stood like carved icebergs
shimmering in the light. There stand
the temple of the Twelve Gods
Yonder see the temple of Hercules
and the temple Of Mercury, witt
altars of marble and bas-relief, wonder
full enough to astound all succeeding
ages of art, and the temple of Escr
lapius, brilliant with sculpture an
gorgeous with painting. Yonder ar
the theaters, partly cut into surroundin
and entered under arches of imposin
masonry, and with rooms for capt
waited and applaudatory audience:
seated or standing in vast semi-cirolt
Yonder are the costly and immens
public baths of the city, with NOR
than the modern ingenuities of Carl!
bad. Notice the warmth of those al
cient tepidariums with lowering rs
dance of roof, and the vapor of thos
caldariums with decorated alcoves, an
the cold dash of their frigidarium.
with floors of mosaic and ceilings of a
skillfully intermingled hues, and wal
upholstered with all the colors of tn
setting sun, and sofas on which to RI
cline for slumber after the plunge
Yonder are the barracks of the cell
brated gladiators. Yonder is the sun
mer home of Sallust, the Roman hi
torian and senator, the archite
ture as elaborate as his :haractt
was was corrupt. There IL res
dence of the poet Pansa, with con
pressed Louvre and Luxembour
within his walls. There is the home ,
Lucretius, with vases and antiquiti,
enough to turn the head of a virtuos
Yonder see the Forum, at the highe
place of the city. 1t is entered by tv
triumphal arches. 1t is bounded c
three sides by Doric columns Yonde
in the suburbs of the city, is the hon
of Arrius Diomed, the mayor of IL
suburbs, terraced residence of billio
airedom, gardens, fountained, statue
collonnaded, the cellar of that vii
filled with bottles of rarest wine.
Few drops of which were found eich
cen hundred years afterward. Alor
the streets of the city are men of migl
and women OF beauty formed in
bronze that many centuries had
power to bedim Rattle seenes ,