The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-10-25
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: esPompeii and It's Lessons. "

TEXT: "7ho,l hast made Of defensed city
druin. XIV, 2.
A flash on the night sky greeted us as we
left the rail train at Naples, Italy. What was
the strange Illumination? 1t was that wrath
of many centuries-vesuvius. Giant son OF
an earthquake. Intoxicated mountain OF
Italy. Father of many consternations. A
volcano, burning 80 long, and yet to keep on
burning until, perhaps, 1t may be the very
torch that will kindle the last confagration
and set all the world On fire. 1t eclipses in
violence Of behavior Cotopaxi and Etna and
Stromboh and Krakatoa. Awful mystery.
Funeral pyre of dead cities. Everlasting
paroxysm of mountains. 1t seems like
chimney OF hell. 1t roars with fiery remin.
iscence Of what 1t has done and with threats
ofworse things that 1t may yet do. L would
not live In one OF the villages at its base Tor 8
present Of all Italy.
On q day In December, 1851, 1t threw up
ashes that foated away hundreds and hun
dreds of miles and dropped In Constanttno-
pie, and in the Adriatic sea, and on the
Apennines, as we'll as trampling out at its
own foot the lives OF $4,000 people. Geo
logists have tried to fathom Its mysteries, but
the heat consumed the iron instruments and
drove back the scofched and blistered ex-
plorers from the cindery and crumbling
brink. It seems like the asylum OF maniac
elements. .-.r
At one tine far back its top had been
fortress, where Spartacus fought and was
surrounded and would have been destroyed
had 1t not been for the grapevines which
clothed the mountainside from top to base,
and laying hold of them he climbed hand
under hand to safety in the valley. But for
centuries 1t has kept its furnace burning as
we saw it that night on our arrivai1n NoVem-
ber Of 1889.
OF course the next day we started to see
some Of the work wrought BY that frenzted
mountain "An out for Pompeii r. 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 took
of my hat, as one naturally does In the pres
ence Of some imposing obsequies. That city
had been at one time capital Of beauty and
pomp. The home Of grand architecture. ex-
quisite painting, enchanting sculpture, unre-
high wall twenty feet thick, three-fourths OF
It still visible, encircled the city. OF those
walls, at distance of only 100 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.
towers glittered In the sun; eight strong
gates for ingress and egress; Gate OF the
Seashore. Gate Of Herculaneum. Gate OF
vesuvius being perhaps the most important.
Yonder stood the Temple OF Jupiter, hoisted
at an imposing elevation, and with its SIX
oorinthian 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
affairs Of srble and bas-relief, wonderful
enough to astound all succeeding ages ofart,
and the Temple Of Esculapius, brilliant with
sculpture and gorgeous with painting.
Yonder are the theatres, partly cut into
surrounding hills, and glorl1ed with pic
tured walls, and entered under arches Of i'm
posing masonry, and with rooms, for capti-
waited and applaudatory audiences seated or
standing In vast semt-circle. Yonder are the
costly and immense public baths Of the city,
with more than the modern ingenuities OF
Carlsbad. Notice the warmth of those an
cient tepidariums, with lowering radiance
Of roof, and the yapor OF those caldariums.
with decorated alcoves, and the cold dash OF
their higidariums, with floors of mosaic and
ceilings Of all skiIfnlly intermingled hues,
and walls upholstered with all the colors OF
the setting sun, and sofas on which to recline
for siumber after the plunge
Yonder are the barracks OF the celebrated
gladiators. Yonder Is the summer home OF
Sallust the Roman historian and Senator,
the architecture as elaborate as his cherac-
ter was corrupt. There Is the residence OF
the poet Pansa, with compressed Louvre
and Luxembourg within his walls. There Is
the home OF Lucretius, with vases and antiqui-
ties enough to turn the head OF virtuoso.
Yonder see the Forum, at the highest place
in the city. It is entered by two triumphsl
arches. It is bounded on three sides by
dorlc columns.
Yonder, in the suburbs Of the city, is the
home OF Arrius Dlomed, the mayor OF the
suburbs, terraced residence OF billionatre-
dem, gardens, fountained, ssstued, colon.
naded, the cellar Of that villa filed with bot.
ties Of rarest wine, 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 colors which all time
cannot efface. Great city of Pompei! So
Seneca and Tacitus and Cicero pronounced
ii.
Stand with me on It's walls this evening Of
August 2S. A. d. 79. See the thrOngs pass
ing up and down In Tyrlan purple and gir-
dies OF arabesque, and necks enchsined with
precious stones, proud official In imposing
toga meeting the slave carrying trays a-clink
with goblsts and a-Smoke with deltoacier
from paddock and sea, and moralist muslng
over the degradation OF the times passes the
profiigate doing his best to make them worse.
Hark to the clatter and ratsplan Of the hoofs
on the streets paved with blocks Of basalt.
See the verdured and flowered grounds slop-
ing into the most beautiful bay Of all the
earth-the bay OF Naples.
Listen to the rumbiing chariots, carrying
convivial occupants to halls Of mirth and
masquerade and carousal. Hear the loud
dash of fountains amid the sculptured water
nymphs. Notice the weird, solemn farreach.
ing hum and din and roar OF city at the
close Of a summer day. Let Pompeii sleer
we'll tonight, for It Is the last night of peace
full slumber before she falls into the deep
slumber Of many long centuries. The morn
ing Of the Gath OF August, A D. 79. has ar.
rived, and the days roll on, and 1t Is O'Clock
in the afternoon. Look" I say to you,
standing on this wall, as the sister Of Pliny
said to him. the Roman essayist and naval
commander, on the day OF which speak, az
she pointed him In the direction in which
point you.
There is peculiar cloud on the sky q
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 gesture, I now describe 1t. It rises,
great column Of fiery, darkness. higher and
higher, and then spreads out like the
branches of a tree, with midntghts enter.
wrapped in its foliage, wider and wider.
Now the sun goes out, and showers OF
pumice stone and water from furnaces more
than seven times heated, and ashes in avail
anohe after avalanche, binding and scalding
and suffocating, descend north, south, east
and west, burying deeper and deeper In
mammoth sepulcher, such as never before
or since was opened, Stable, Herculaneum
and Pompeii. Ashes ankle deep, girdle
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