The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-09


cher, such AS never before or since was
I opened. Stable. Herculaneum and Pom
/ peii Ashes ankle deep, girdle deep, chin
! deep. ashes overhead. Out Of the houses
/ and temples and theaters, and into the
/ streets and down 10 the beach fed many
I of the frantic, but others, if not sufocated
I OF the ashes. were sCalded 20 death by the
heated deluge And then came heavier
destruction in rocks after rocks, crushing
/ in homes and temples and theaterS. NO
4 wonder the sea receded from the beach as
| though in terror until much of the ship
/ ping was wrecked, and no wonder that
/ when, they lifted Pliny the elder from
| the sail cloth on which he was resting,
under the agitations of what he had seen,
! he suddenly expired For three days the
! entombment proceeded Then the clouds
| lifted and the cursing Of that Apollyon of
/ mountains subsidized. For seventeen hun
| dred years that cityof Pompeii lay buried
| and without anything to show its place of
| doom. But after seventeen hundred years
! of Obliteration, workman's spade, dig
| ging a well, strikes some antiquities
which lead to the elimination of the city.
Now walk with me through some of the
streets and into some of the houses and
amid the ruins of basilica, and temple
and amphitheater.
From the moment the guide met us at
the gate on entering Pompeii that day in
gate on our departure, the emotion | felt
was indescribable for elevation and sol
emnity, and sorrow and awe. Come and
see the petrified bodies of the dead found
in the city, and now in the museums of
Italy. About $50 Of those embalmed by
that eruption have been recovered.
Mother and child noble and serf mer-
chant and beggar, are presentable and
natural after seventeen hundred years of
burial. That woman was found clutching
her adornmcnts when the storm of ashes
and fire began, and for / 200 years she
continued to rclutch them. There at the
soldiers barracks are siXty-fOur skele-
tons of brave men, who faithfully stood
guard at their post when the tempest of
cinders began, and after seventeen hun
bred years were still found standing
guard. There is the form of gentle wo-
manhood impressed upon the hardened
ashes Pass along and here we see the
deep ruts in the basaltic pavements worn
there by the wheels of the chariots of the
first century. There, over the doorways
and in the pOrticOes, are works of art i'm
mortalizing the debauchery of a city,
which, notwithstanding, all its splendOrs,
was a vestibule of porditiOn. Those gut
ters ran with the blood of the gladiators,
who were the prize fighters of those an
cient times, and it was sword parrying
sword, until, with one skillfuluand stout
plunge Oh Llt sharp CuEC, IIlC uldulGu ana
gashed com Blatant reeled over dead, to be
carried out amid the huzzas of enrap-
tured spectators. We staid among those
suggestive scenes after the hour that
visitors are usually allowed there, and
staid 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
windowless and rOofess home we went
and mo ont AGA in IN To the
that, now fOrsaken, were once thronged
with life
And can it be that all up and down
those solemn solitudes hearts, more than
eighteen hundred years ago, uached and
reioiced, and feet shuffied with the gait
of old age or danced with childish
glee, and overtasked workmen carried
their burdens, and drunkards staggered
On that mosaic floor did glowing youth
clasp hands in marriage vow, and across
that threshold did pall-bearers carry the
beloved dead, and gay groups once mount
those now skeletons of staircases2 While
walked and contemplated, the city seemed
suddenly to be thronged with all the
population that had ever inhabited it,
and I'heard its laughter and groan and
blasphemy and uncleanuess and Internal
boast, as it was on the 23d of August, 40.
And Vesuvisus, from the mild light with
which it flushed the sky that summer
evening as | stood in disemtombed Pom
peii, seemed suddenly again to heave and
fame and rock with the lava and dark
ness and desolation and woe, with which,
more than eighteen centuries ago, it sub
merged Pompeii, as with the liturgy of
fire and storm, the mountain proclaimed
at the burial: "Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust"
My friends, cannot tell what practi-
cal 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
sulpture of POmpeii was so exquisite that,
while some is kept on the walls where it
was first penciled, to be admired by those
who go there, whole wagon-lOadS and
whole rooms full of it have been trans
ferred to the Museo Borbonico at Naples,
to be admired by the centuries. Those
Pompeiian artists mixed such durability
of colors that though their paintings were
buried in ashes and scorim for 200 years,
and since they were uncovered many of
them have remained there exposed to the
rains and winds and winters
summers of 1870 years, the
color is as fresh and vivid and
true as though yesterday it had passed
from the easel Which of our mod
GIn paintings NOulQ SLdlN Ill Indl.
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 Sculp-
tured and petrified and embalmed abom-
ination. There was "A state of public
morals whose than belongs to any city
now standing under the sun. Yet, how
many think that all that is necessary is
| to cultivate the mind and advance the
| knowledge, and improve the arts Have
! you the impression that eloquence will
! do the elevating workl Why, Pompeii
had Cicero half of every year for its citi-
zen. Have you the idea that literature
| is all that is necessary to keep a city
rightl Why Sallust, with a pen that
was the boast of Roman literature, had
! a mansion in that doomed city. Do YOU
! think that sculpture and art are quite
| sufficient for the production of good
moralsl Then, correct your delusion
! by examining the statues in the Temple
! of Mercury at Pompeii, or the winged
! figures of its Parthenon, and the colon
nades and arches of this house of
! Diomed. BY all means have schools
and Dusseldorf and Dore exhibits, and
/ galleries where the genius of all the cen
turtles can bank itself up in snowy sculp-
ture, and all bric-a-brac, and all pure
art, but nothing save the religion of Jesus
| Christ can make a city moral In proper
ton as churches and Bibles and Christian
Narn.a !