The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-20
A WARNING.
DIR. Talrnage Draws Lessons from
tho Cemetery Of Dead Cities.
POmreii's Greatness. SinfuIness and De-
struction-T The Ruined Cities of the
Orient-A Warning to the
Cities of To-Day.

In n late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt TalInage took for his subject:
'Pompeii and Its Lessons" The text
was from Isaiah XIV. =: Thou hast
made of a defensed city ruin" The
preacher said:
: flash on the night sky greeted us
as we left the rail train at Naples,
Italy. What was the strange illumiEa-
ton? It was that wrath of many CEN
turies-Nesuvius. Giant son of an
earthquake Intoxicated mountain of
Italy. Father of many consternations
volcano, burning so long, and yet to
keep on burning until, perhaps, it may
be the very torch that will llindle the
last conhagration and set all the world
on fire. Awful mystery. Funeral
pvre of dead cities Everlasting par
-oXysm of mountains. 1t seems like a
chimney of hell 1t roars with fiery
reminiSccnce of what it has done, and
with threats of worse that it may yet
do On a day in December, 1851, it
threw up ashes that floated away hun
.dreds and hundreds of miles, and
dropped in Constantinople and in the
Adriatic sea and in the Apennines, as
well as trampling out at its own foot
the lives of Is. 900 people.
We started to see some of the work
wrought by that frenzied mountain.
All out for Pompeii,'' was the cry of
the conductor And now we stand by
the corpse of that dead city. The city
had been al one time capital of beau
ty and pomp. the home of grand archi-
lecture, exquisite painting, enchanting
sculpture, unrestrained carOUsal and
5apt assemblage. \ high wall, twenty
feet thick. threc-fourths of it still visi-
bic, encircled the city. On those walls
at a distance of only one hundred yards
from each other, towers rose 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; Gate of the Sea
Shore. Gate of Herculaneum, Gate of
Nesuvius being perhaps the most i'm
portant. Wonder stood the temple of
Jupiter. hoisted at an imposing elevation
and with its six Corinthian columns
of immense girth, which stood like
carved icebergs, shinmering in the
light. There stands the Temple of the
Twelve Gods. Yonder see the Temple
of Hercules. and the Temple of Mercu-
~, with affairs of marble and bas-relief,
wonderful enough to astound all sue
.ceeding ages of art, and the Temple of
EsculapiUs. brilliant with sculpture
and gorgeous with painting. Ionder
are the theaters, partly cut into sur
rounding hills and glorified with pic
tured walls and entered under arches
of imposing masonry, and with rooms
for captivated and explanatory au-
-diences, seated or standing. in vast semi
circle. Wonder are the costly and i'm
anense public baths of the city, with
more than the modern ingenuities
of Carlsbad. Yonder are the bar
racks of the celebrated gladia-
tors. Yonder is the summer home
of Sallust, the Roman historian
and senator, the architecture as elab-
crate as his character was corrupt.
There IS the residence of the poet
Pansa, with 4 compressed Louvre and
Luxembourg within his walls. There
is the home of Lucretius, with vases
and antiquities enough to turn the
head of a virtuoso. Wonder 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. Wonder. in the suburbs
of the city, is the home of Arrius Do
nede, the mayor of the suburbs, ter
raced residence of billionairdom, gar
.dens, fountained, statued, colonnaded,
the cellar of that villa filled with bot
ties of rarest wine, a few drops of
which were found 1900 years afterward.
Along the streets are men of might and
women of beauty formed into bronze
that many centuries had no power to
bedim. Battle scenes on walls of color
which all time cannot efface. Great
city of Pompeii. So Seneca and Taci-
tus and Cicero pronounced it.
Stand with me on its walls this even
ing of August %, a. ID. 20. See the
-throhgs passing up and down in Tyrian
purple and GRIZZLIES of arabesque and
necks enchanted with precious stones,
proud official in imposing toga
meeting the slave carrying trays
a-clink with goblets and a-smolle with
-delicacies from paddock and sea, and
moralist musing over the degradation
of the times passes the profigate do
ing his best to make them worse. See
the verdured and lowered grounds
-sloping into the most beautiful bay of
all the earth-the bay of Naples.
70 n ohay-:ntS
carrying convivial occupants to
halls of mirth and masquerade and
-carousaL Hear the loud dash of
fountains amid the sculptured water
rymphs Notice the weird, solemn,
far-reaching hum and din and roar of
city at the close of summer day. Let
Pompeii sleep well tonight. for it is
the last night of peaceful slumber I'M
til she falls into the deep slumber of
many long centuries. The morning of
the oath of August, A. D., 20, has ar
rived, and the day rolls on, and it is l
o'clock in the afternoon: Look !
say to you, standing on this wall, as
the sister of PIiny said to him, the Ro-
man essayist and naval commander, on
the day of which l speak, as she
pointed him in the direction in which /
point you. There is a peculiar cloud
on the sky--a spotted cloud, now
white, now black. 1t is Vesuvius in
awful and unparalleled eruption.
Now the smoke and fire and steam of
that black monster throat rise and
spread, as, by my gester, 1now describe
it 1t rises, a great column of fiery
darkness, higher and higher, and then
spreads out like the branches of tree
with midnights interwrapped in its
foliage, wider and wider Now the
sun goes out and showers of pumice