The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1893-02-23
TH E ROMAN co OSSEU NJ.
ITS HISTORY AND ITS RELIC
lOUS LESSONS.
The Terrible Slaughter IN the Great
3 Amphithe ater--The Heroism Of
Telemachus--Mo Modern Brutal
ism--The Last Judg
ment. jE

BROOKLYN, IN. Y, Special: Rev Dr..
Talmage discoursed from the text.
Romans, i, Is: Il am ready to
preach the Gospel, to you that are at
Rome, Also
Rome! What a cityit wasw hen Pail
visited it! What a city Is i Is now!.
Rome! The place whero Virgil sang
I and Horace satirized, and Terence
laughed and Cataline conspired, and
Ovid dramatized and Nero hddled,
and Vespasian prosecuted, and Sulla
legislated, and Cicero thundered, and
Aurelius and Decius and Caligula and
Julian and Hadrian and Constantine
and Augustus reigned, and Paul, the
apostle, preached the Gospel.
am not much of a draughtsman,
but have in my memorandum book
a, sketch which / made in the winter of
1889, 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 pro-
posed in the text. Palaces on either
side Of the street through which the
little missionary advanced. Piled up
wickedness. Enthroned accursedness,
Tempted cruelties. Affairs to sham
dieties. Glorifed decisions. :Pillared,
arched, domed, turreted abomina-
tions. Wickedness of sall sorts at a
high premium, and Righteousness 99%
per cent off. And now he passes by
the foundations Of a building which 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
astound the centuries. Aye, it is the
Colosseum started.
OF the theater at Ephesus where
Paul fought with wild beasts, of the
temple of Diana, of the Parthenon, of
Pharaoh's palace at Memphis, and of
other great buildings, the ruins OF
which I have seen, it has been my
privilege to ,address you, but mem
Der of my family asked me recently
why 1 had not spoken to you of the
Colosseum at Rome, since it's moral
and religious lessons are so impressive.
Perhaps, while in Rene, the law of
contrast wrought upon me. I had
visited the Mamertine dungeon where
Paul was incarcerared. I had meas
ured the opening at the top of the
dungeon through which Paul had been
ct down, and it was % inches by 26.
The ceiling, at its highest point, was :
feet from the floor, but at the sides OF
the room the ceiling was 5 feet 7
| inches. The room, at the widest, was
IL feet. There was a seat of rock 2b
feet high. There was shelf 4 feet high.
The only furniture was a. spiders web
suspended from the roof, which saw
! by the torchlight carried. There was
the subterraneous passage from the
dungeon to the Roman forum, 50 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 a.
dismal and terrific place. You never
saw q coal-hole so dark or so forbid
ding. The place was to me nervous
shock, for / remembered that was the
best thing that the world would afford
the most illustrious being, except One,
that it ever saw, and that from that
place Paul went out to die. From
that spot visited the Colosseum, one
OF the most astounding miracles of
architecture that the world ever saw.
Indeed, saw it morning, noon and
night, for it threw spell on me from
which | could not break away. 1.
Although now vast ruin, the Col
osseum is so we'll preserved that we
can stand in the center and recall all
that it once was. It is in shape clip
sodial, oval, oblong. It is, at it's
greatest length, 6l2 feet. After it
had furnished seats for 81, 900 people
it had room for Is, 900 more to stand
transfixed by it's scenes of courage
and martydrom and brutality and
horror. Instead of our m odern tick
cts Of admission they entered by ivory
check, and a check dug up near Rome
within a few years was marked:
Section 6, Lowest Tier, Seat No 49,"
You understand that the building
was not constructed for an audience
to be addressed by human voice. al
though ! 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 slippery, it would
spoil the fun. The sand flashed here
and there with sparkles OF silver and
gold, and Nero added cinnabar and
Caligula added chrysocolla. The sides
OF the arena were composed of smooth
marble, IL feet high, so that the wild
beasts of the arena could not climb
up into the audience. On the top Of
| these sides of smooth marble was q
metal railing, having wooden rollers
! which easily revolved, SO that if 8
panther should leap high enough tc
scale the wall and with his paw
! touch any OF those rollers, il
would .revolve and drop him
! back again into the arena. Back O
this marble wall surrounding thu
arena vas a level platform of stone
adorned with statutes Of gods
and goddesses and the ar
tistic efigies of monarchs and con
querors. Here were movable seats o
* %Lo a