The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-02-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Brooklyn Preacher Talks Upon
Ithe Eternal City.
The Colosseum, Its History and IT'S Re-
nSious Lessons The Terrible
Slaughter In Its Vast
Amlphitheator.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for
the subject of recent sermon Rome"
dwelling particularly ON the Colosseum
and its history. He took for his text:
I am ready to preach tho GOSPEL to you that
are at Rome also.-Romans l., Is
Romel What a city it was when Paul
visited it! What city it is now! Romel
The place where Virgil sang and Hor-
ace satirized, and Terence laughed and
Cataline eonspired, and Ovid drama
tiled and Nero fiddled, and Vespasian
prosecuted and Sulla legislated, and
Cicero Numbered, and Aurelius, and
Decius, and Caligula, and Julian, and
Hadrian, and Constantine, and Angus
tus reigned, and Paul, the apostle,
preached the Gospel.
am not much of draughtsman, but
I have in my memorandum book a
sketch which I made in the winter of
1899, when ] went out to the gate
through which Paul entered Rome, and
walked up the very street he walked
up to see somewhat how the city must
have looked to him as he came in on
the Gospel errand proposed in the text.
Palaces on either side of the street
through which the little missionary
advanced. Piled up wickedness. En-
throned accursedness. Tempted cruel
ties. Affairs to sham deities. Glorifed
decisions Pillared, arched, domed,
turreted denominations Wickedness of
all sorts at high premium, and right
eousness ninety-nine and three-quar-
tiers per cent. off. And now he passes
r IL ! I. ~,
is to be almost unparalleled for vast
ness. You can see by the walls, which
have begun to rise, that here is to be
something enough stupendous to as
found the centuries. Aye, it is the
Colosseum started.
Of the thcater at Ephesus where
Paul fought with wild beasts, of the
temple of Diana, of the Parthenon. of
Pharoah's palace at Memphis, and of
other great buildings, the ruins Of
which. j have seen, it has been my
privilege to address you, but a member
Of my family asked me recently why
had not spoken to you of the Colosseum
at Rome, since its moral and religious
lessons are so impressive.
Perhaps, while in Rome, the law of
tied the Mamertine dungeon where
Paul was incarcerated. l had meas
ured the opening at the top of the
dungeon through which Paul had been
let down., and it was twentythree
inches by twenty-six. The ceiling, at
its highest point. was seven feet
from the floor, but at the sides of the
room the ceiling was five feet seven
inches. The room, at the widest, was
fifteen feet. There was a seat of rock
two and one-half inches high. There
was a shelf four feet high. The only
furniture was spiders web suspended
from the roof, which / saw by the
torchlight l carried. There was the
subterraneous passage from the dun
geon to the Roman forum, so that the
prisoner could be taken directly from
prison to trial The dungeon was
built out of volcanic stone from the
Albano mountains Oh, it was n dis
NAL and terrific place. You never saw
n coal-hole so dark or so forbidding.
The place was to me nervous shock,
for ! remembered that was the best
thing that the world would
afford the most illustrious being, ex-
cept One, that it ever saw, and that
from that place Paul went out to die.
From that tspot / visited the Colos-
scum, one of the most astounding mir
acles of architecture that the world
ever saw. I saw it morning, noon and
night, for it threw spell on me from
which l could not break away.
Although now u vast ruin, the Col
Osseum is so well preserved that we
can stand in the center and recall all
that it once was. 1t is in shape clip
soidal, oval, oblong. 1t is, at its great
est length, six hundred and twelve
feet. After it had furnished seats for
eighty-seven thousand people it had
room for fifteen thousand more to
stand, so that one hundred thousand
people could sit and stand transfixed
by it's scenes of courage and martyr
dom and brutality and horror. Instead
of our modern tickets of admission
they enter by ivory checks, and a
check dug up near Rome within few
years was marked: Section six, Low
est Tier, Seat Number Eighteen" You
understand that the building was not
constructed for an audience to be adj
dressed by human voice, although j
tested it with some friends and could
be heard across it, but it was made
only for seeing and was circular, and
at any point allowed full view of the
spectacle. The arena in the center in
olden times was strewn with pounded
stone or sand, so as not to be too Slip
perry with human blood, for if it were
too slippery, it would spoil the fun.
The sand flashed here and there with
sparlles of silver and gold, and Nero
added cinnabar and Caligula added
| chrysccolla. The sides of the arena
were composed of smooth marble,
eleven feet high, so that the wild
beasts of the arena could not climb
into the audience On the top of these
sides of smooth marble was a metal
railing, having wooden rollers, which
easily revolved, SO that if a panther
should leap high enough to scale the
wall, and with his paw touch any of
those rollers, it would revolve and drop
him back again into the arena. Back
of this marble wall surrounding the
arena was platform of stone, adorned
with the statues of gods and goddesses
and the artistic effigies of monarchs
and conquerors. Here were movable
seats for the emperor and the imperial
swine and swinesses with which he sur
rounded himself Before the place
where the emperor sat the gladiators
would walk Immediately after entering
the arena crying: Hail, Caesar! Those
about to die salute thee" The differ
an4 ,aplxe 0f SDectatOrs were divided