Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-10-14
cept that which Christianity has


city. We ought to be slow to assign
the judgmentsof God. Cities are some.
times afflicted just as good people are
afflicted, and the earthquake and the
| cyclone and the epidemic are no sign in
many cases that God is angry with
city, but the distress is sent for some
good and kind purpose, whether we un-
derstand it or not. The law that ap-
plies to individuals may apply to Chris
tian cities as well: "All things work
together for good to those that love
God" But the greatest calamity OF
history came upon Pompeii not to Inn
prove it's future condition, for it was
completely obliterated and will never be
rebuilt. So Sodom and Gomarah were
filed with such turpitude that they
were not only turned under, but have
for thousands of years been kept under.
The two greatest cemeteries axe the
cemetery in which the sunkep ships
are buried all the way between Fire
island and Fastnet lighthouse, and the
other cemetery is the cemetery of dead
cities. l get down on my knees and
read the epitapheology of long line
of them: Here lies Babylon, once
called "the hammer of the whole
earth" Dead and buried rnder piles
of bitumen and broken pottery and
vitrifed brick. And / hear wolf
howl and reptile hiss as | am reading
this epitaph: Isaiah xiii. 81, THE wild
beast of the desert shall he there and
their houses shall be full of doleful
creatures"
The next tomb kneel before in this
cemetery of cities is Nineveh. Her
winged lions are down and the slabs of
alabaster have crumbled, and the sculp-
ture that represented her battles is as
completely scattered as the dust of the
heroes who fought thom. Perhaps /
put my knee into the dust of her Sar-
danapalus as stoop to read her cpl
taph: Zephaniah H. II, Now is Nine
veh desolation and dry like wilder
ness. and focks lie down in the midst
of her; all the beasts of the nations,
both the cormorant and the bittern.
lodge in the upper lintels3 of it." The
next entombed city j pass has a
monument Of fifty PROSTATE col
umns of gray and red granite,
and it is Tyre The next sep
ulcher of great capital is covered
with scattered columns, and defaced
sphinxes. and the sands of the desert
and it is Thebes. AS / pass on | find
the resting place OF Mycen@, city Of
which Homer sang, and Corinth, which
rejected Paul, and depended upon her
fortress Acrocorinthus, which now lies
dismantled on the hill, and move on
in this cemetery of cities, and l find
the tombs of Sardis. and Smyrna. and
Persepolis, and Memphis, and Baalbell,
and Carthage, and here are the cities
of the plain, and Herculaneum, and
Stabia. and Pompeii. Some of them
have mighty sarcophagus and hero
glyphic entablature, but they are dead
and buried never to rise.
But the cemetery of dead cities is not
yet filed, and if the present cities of
the world forget God, and with their
indecencies shock the heavens, let
them know that the God who, on the
a4th of August, 70, dropped on a city of
Italy n superincumbrance that staid
there seventeen centuries, is still alive
and hates sin now as much as lie did
then, and has mt His command all the
armament of destruction with which He
whelmed their ubiquitous predecessors.
1t was only a few summers ago that
Brooklyn and New York felt an
earthquake throb that sent the people
affrighted into the streets, and that
suggested that there are forces of ma
ture now suppressed, or held in check,
which, easier than child in nursery
knocks down row of block houses,
could PROSTATE city, or engulf con-
tinent deeper than Pompeii was en-
quilted. Our hope is in the mercy OF
the Lord continued to our American
cities.
Warned by the doom of other cities
that have persisted for their Tuffianism,
or their cruelty or their idolatry or
their dissoluteness let all our Ameri-
can cities lead the right way Our
only dependence is on God and Chris
tian influence. Politics will do moth
ing but make things worse. American
politics will become reformatory
power on the same day that pandemo-
MUM becomes q church. But there are,
am glad to say, benign and salutary
and gracious influences organ
lied in all our cities which will
vet take them for God and
righteousness. Let us ply the gospel
machinery to its utmost speed and
power. City evangelization is the
thought. Give us pictures of churches,
of schools, of reformatory associations,
of asylums of mercy. Show that the
day is coming when great tidal wave
of salvation will roll over all our cities.
Show how Pompeii buried will become
Pompeii resurrected. Demonstrate
the fact that there are millions
| of good men and women who