Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-10-20
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON.
subject: sePompeii and It's Lessons.'' -

a HaSh on the nIgnt SKY greeted US as we
! left the rail train at Naples, Italy. What was
| the strange illumination? It was that wrath
| Cf many centnries-Vesuvius. Giant son 81
| an earthquake. Intoxicated mountain oI
Italy. Father of many consternations. A
| volcano, burning so long. AMI yet to keep on
! burning until, perhaps, it may be the very
| torch that will kindIe the last cOnfiagration
and set all the world fire. ii ecipses in
| violence Of behavior CotOpaxi and H1tna and
| StrOmholi and KrakatOa. Awful mystery.
| Funeral pyre OF dead cities. Everlasting
| paroXysm of mountains 1t seems like a
chimney OF hell. 1t. rO1rs with fiery rem in
| iscence of what il has( one and with threats
| of worse thingStthat it aay yet do. I would
not live in one OF the villages at its base for a
| present Of all Italy.
On a day in December, 1851, it threw uD
! ashes that fiOated away hundreds and hun
! dreds OF miles and dropped in Constantine
| pie, and in the Adratic sea, and on the
| Apennincs, rs we'll as trampling out at its
| own foot the lives Of Is. 600 people, Geo
| logists have tried to fathom its mysteries but
| the heat consumed the iron instruments and
| drove back the seorched and blstered ex-
p!Orers from the cindery and crumbiing
| brink. 1t seems like the asylum of maniac
| elements.
At one time far back its top had been a
| fortress, where Spartacus fought and was
| surrounded and would have been destroyed
| had it not been for the grapevines which
! clothed the mountanside 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 burning as
we saw it that night on our arrival in Novem-
| Der of 1889.
Of course the next day we started to see
| some OF the work wrought by that frenzied
| mountain. "All out for POmpeii p 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 l took
| off my hat one naturally does in the pres
| ence of sOmo imposing Obsequies. That city
| had been at one time a,Tapital of beauty and
| pomp. The home o{ grtni architecture. ex-
! quISite painting, enchanting sculpture, unre-
strained carousal and rapt assemblage A
| high wall twenty feet thick, three-fourths of
| 1t still visible. encircled the city. OF those
walls, at distance of only 100 yards from
| each other. towers rosa 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 its
| towers glittered IN the sun eight strong
| gates for ingress and egress Cato of the
| SeashOre. Gate of Hcrculaneum, Gate of
! Nesuvius being perhaps the most important
! 1Onder stood the Temple of Jupiter. hojsted
! at an imposing elevation, ard with its six
| cOrinthian columns of immense girth, which
| stood like carved icebergs shimmering in the
| light. There stands the Temple of the
| Twelve Gods. YOnder see the Temple Of
! Hercules and the Temple of Mercury, with
| altars of marble and bas-relief, wonderful
| enough to aStOund all succeeding ages of art
and the Temple of Esculapius, brilliant with
sculpture and gorgeous with painting.
| 1Onder are the theatres, partly cut into
surrounding hills and glorified with pic.
| tured walls, and entered under arches of i'm
posing masonry, and with rooms, for capti-
waited and &pplaudatOry audiences seated or
standing in vast Semi-crcle. Yonder are the
costly and immense public baths of the city,
of
| Carlsbad. Notice the warmth of those an
cient tepidariumS. with lowering radiance
| of roof, and the vap0r Of those caldariums
| with decorated alcOves. and the cold dash of
their frigidarums with floors of mosaic and
ceilings of all skilfully intermingled hues,
and walls upholstered with all the cOlors of
the setting sun, and sofas on which to recline
for Slumber after the plunge
1Onder are the barracks Of the celebrated
gladiators. Yonder is the summer home of
Sa!lust, the Roman historian and Senator,
the architecture as elaborate as his charac-
ter was corrupt. There is the residence of
the poet Pansa, with Il compressed Louvre
and Luxembourg within his walls. There is
the home of Lucretius, with vases and antiqui-
ties enough to turn the head of p virtuoso.
Yonder see the Forum, at the highest place
in the city. 1t is entered by two triumphal
arches. 1t is bounded on three sides by
dOric columns.
YOnder, in the suburbs of the city, is the
suburbs, terraced residence of billionaire-
dom, gardens, fOuntained, statued, colon
naded, the cellar of that villa filed with bot
ties OF rar2st wine, Il few drops of which
were found 1900 years afterward. Along the
| streets of the city are men Of might and
women of beauty formed into bronze that
many centuries had no power to bedim. Bat
tie scenes on walls in COtOrs which all time
cannot efface. Great city of POmpeii So
Seneca and Tacitus and Cicero pronounced
it.
Stand with me on its walls this evening of
August %. A d. 70. See the throngs pass
ing up and down in Tyrian purple and gr-
dies Of araheSqu@, and necks enchained with
precious stones, proud official in imposing
tOga meeting the slave carrying trays a-clink
with gobletS and a-SmOke with delicacies
from paddock and sea. and mOralist musing
over the degradation of the times passes tho
profigate doing his best to make them worse.
Hark to the clatter and ratapIan of the hoofs
on the streets paved with blocks of basalt
See the verdured and fowered grounds slop-
ing into the most beautiful bay of all the
earth-the bay Of Naples
Listen to the rumbling chariOts carving
convivial occupants to halls of mirth and
masquerade and carousal Hear the loud
dash of fountains amid the sculptured water
nymphs. Notice thesweird, solemn farreach-
iag hun y ! saa a q r9aF q smbs,i eity at slsse sse
well tonight, ~ is the last night of peace
full slumber before she falls into the deep
slumber of many long centuries. The morn
ing of the oath OF August, A. d. 79, has ar
rived, and the days roll on, and it is l O'Clock
| in the afternoon. ''LoOkr / say to you,
! standing on this wall. as the sister of Pllny
said to him. the Roman essayist and naval
| commander. on the day of which | speak, as
| she pointed him in the direction in which l
| point you.
There is peculiar cloud on the sky a
! spotted cloud, now white. now black. 1t is
| NesuviUs in awful and unparalleled eruption.
! Now the smoke and fire and steam of that
! black monster throat rise and spread, RS, by
| my gesture. | now describe it. 1t rises, a
| great column of fiery, darkness. higher and
higher, and then spreads out like the
| branches OF tree. with midntghtS enter-
| wrapped in its foliage, wider ant widcr
| Now the sun goes out, and showers OF
| pumice stone AMI water from furnaces more
| than seven times heated, and ashes in avail
anche after avalanche, binding and scalding
! and sutfocating. descend north, south, east
AMI west, burying deeper and deeper in
| mammoth Sepulcher, such as never before
or since was opened. Stabie, Herculaneum
and Pompeii. Ashes ankle deep, glrdla
deep, chin deep, ashes overhead.
Out of the houses and temples and thea
tres and into the streets and down to the
| beach fed many of the frantic, but others, II
| not Suffocated of the ashes, were scalded to
| death by the heated deluge. And then came
| heavier destruction in rocks after rocks,
crushing in homes and temples and theatres.
| No wonder the sea receded from the beach as
though in terror. until much of the shipping
| was wrecked. and no wonder that waen they
| lifted Pliny the elder from the sailcloth Oh
| which he was resting, under the agitations o1
what he had seen. he suddenly expired.
For three days the entonbment proceeded
Then the clouds lifted, and the cursing O
that Apolyon of mountains subsided. Fol
100 years tua1 CITY 20 upe.' iii Huriet
and without anything to show its place o.
doom. Br after 1900 years of ob!iteration
a workman's spade. digging a we'll, strikes
some antiquities which lead to the exhuma
tion OF the city. Now walk with me through
some of the streets and into some OF the
bouses and amid the ruins of basilica anC
temple ani amDhitheatrp.