The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-10-13
LESSONS OF POMPEII.
RIGHTEOUSNESS is LIFE, BUT lNlQul-
TY Is DEATH.

BROOKLYN, Oct. SIN his sermon at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning
Rev. DIR, Talmage presented an arousing
theme of the living cities of today drawn
from the tomb of dead city of the past.
The opening hymn, led by cornet and or
ran, was joined by the voices Of the null
6tude:
Arm Of the Lord, awake, awake;
Put on thy strength; the nations shake.
The subject was "Pompeii and Its Les
sons" the text, Isaiah XIV, Q, "Thou
hast made of defensed city a ruin"
A flash on the night sky greeted us as
we left the rail train at Naples, Italy.
What was the strange illumination? 1t
was that wrath of many centuries-Vesu-
vius. Giant son of an earthquake. Intoxi-
Gated mountain of Italy, Fatherof many
considerations. 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 behavior Cotopaxi and Etna
and Stromboli and Krakatoa. Awful
mystery. Funeral pyre of dead cities.
Everlasting paroxysm of mountains. 1t
seems like chimney Of hell. 1t roars
with fiery Renaissance of what it has
done and with threats of worse things
that it may yet do. would not live in
one of the villages at its base for pres
ent of all Italy.
On day in December, 1881, it threw
up ashes that floated away hundreds and
hundreds of miles and dropped in Con-
stantinople, and in the Adriatic sea, and
on the Apennines, as well as trampling
out at its own foot the lives of $4,000
people, Biologists have tried to fathom
its mysteries, but the heat consumed the
iron instruments and drove back the
scorched and blistered explorers from
the cindery and crumbling brink. 1t
seems like the asylum of maniac ele-
tnents.
At one time far back its top had been
fortress, where Spartacus fought and
was surrounded and would have been
destroyed had it not been for the grape
vines which clothed the mountainside
from top to base, and laying hold of
tutll llc ClllilD5u Hdilu W
safety in the valley. But for centuries
it has kept its furnace burning as we
saw it that night on our arrival in No
vember of 1889.
THE DEAD CITY.
Of course the next day we started to
see some of the work wrought by that
frenzied mountain. "All out for Pon.
peiir' was the cry of the conductor. And
now we stand by the corpse of that dead
city. AS we entered the gate and passed
between the walls took off my hat, as
one naturally does in the presence of
some imposing obsequies. That city had
been at one time capital of beauty and
pomp. The home of grand architecture,
exquisite painting, enchanting sculpture,
unrestrained carousal and rapt assem-
blaGe. A high wall 20 feet thick, three
fourths of it still visible, encircled the
city. On those walls at distance of
only 100 yards from each other towers
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
Seashore, Gate of Herculaneum, Gate of
Vesuvius being perhaps the most i'm
portant. Yonder stood the Temple of
Jupiter, hoisted at an imposing eleva-
| ton, and with its six corinthian col
umns of immense gnSil, which stood like
carved icebergs shimmering in the light.
There stands the Temple of the Twelve
Gods. 'Yonder see the Temple of Her
cules and the Temple of Mercury, with
| affairs of marble and bas-relief, wonder
| full enough to astound all succeeding
| ages of art, and the Temple of Escula-
plus, brilliant with sculpture and gor-
geous with painting.
Yonder are the theaters, partly cut
into surrounding hills, and glorified with
pictured walls, and entered under arches
of imposing masonry, and with rooms
for captivated and applaudatory 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. Notice the warmth of those
ancient tepidariums, with lowering IA,
dance Of roof, and the vapor of those
caldariums, with decorated alcoves, and
the cold dash of their frigidariums, with
floors of mosaic and ceilings of all skill.
fully intermingled hues, and walls up
upholstered with all the colors of the
setting sun, and sofas ON which to recline
for slumber after the plunge.
Yonder are the barracks of the cele-
| brated gladiators. Yonder is the sum
mer home of Sallust, the Roman histo
tian and senator, the architecture az
elaborate as his character was corrupt
There is the residence of the poet Pansa
with compressed Louvre and Luxem.
bourg within his walls. There is the
home of Lucretius, with vases and an.
tiquities enough to turn the head of q
virtuoso. Yonder see the Forum, at the
highest place in the city. 1t is entered
by two triumphal arches. 1t is bound
ed on three sides by doric columns.
Yonder, in the suburbs of the city, il
the home of Arrius Diomed, the mayor
| VI tuc bClldSCd ACoiuClSC "
billionairedom, gardens, feuntained
statued, colonnaded, the cellar of tina
villa filled with bottles of rarest wine, /;
few drops of which were found 1,S0t
years afterward. Along the streets o
the city are men of might and women O
beauty formed into bronze that man,
centuries had no power to bedim. Bat
tie scenes on walls in colors which al
time cannot efface. Great city of Pom
peii! So Seneca and Tacitus and Cicer,
pronounced it.
vESUvIUS IN ERUPTION.
Stand with me ON its walls this even
ing of Aug. 90, A. D. 70. See the throng
passing up and dow. in Tyrian purpl
and girdles of arabesque, and necks Ell
chained with precious stones, proud off
cial in imposing toga meeting the slav
carrying trays a-clink with goblets an
a-smoke with delicacies from paddoc
and sea, and moralist musing over til
degradation of the times passes the pro
ligate doing his best to make thei
Norsa Hark IN tho c1attar and ratapla