The Bossier banner., 1893-11-09


proclaimed at the burial: ''Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust"
My friends, can not tell what prac-
tical suggestion comes to your mind
from this walk through uncovered
Pompeii, but the first thought that ar
serbs me is that, while art and culture
are important, they can not save the
morals or the life of great town.
Much of the painting and sculpture OF
Pompeii was SO exquisite that, while
some is kept on the walls where it was
| first penciled, to be admired by those
who go there, whole wagon loads and
whole rooms full of it have been trans
ferred to the Museo Borbonico at Ma
Piles, to be admired by the centuries.
Those Pompeiian artists mixed such
dura bilitv of colors that though their
paintings were buried in ashes and
scori9 for seventeen hundred years,
and since they were uncovered many
| of them have remained there exposed
| to the rains and winds and winters and
summers of one hundred and thirty
years, the color is as fresh, and vivid,
and true as though yesterday it had
passed from the easel. Which of
our modern paintings could stand
all that? And yet many of the
specimens of Pompeiian art show that
the city was sunk to such depth
of abomination that there was nothing
deeper. Sculptured and petrified and
embalmed abomination. There was
state of public morals worse than be-
longs to any city now standing under
the sun. Yet how many think that all
that is necessary is to cultivate the
mind and advance the knowledge and
improve the arts. Have you the i'm
preston that eloquence will do the
elevating work? Why, Pompeii had
Cicero half of every year for its citizen.
Have you the idea that literature is all
that is necessary to keep the city
right? Why, Sallust, with pen
that was the boast of Roman litera-
ture, had mansion in that doomed
city. Do you think that sculpture and
art are quite sufficient for the pro-
duction of good morals? Then correct
your delusion by examining the statues
in the temple of Mercury at Pompeii,
or the winged figures of its Parthenon,
and the colonades and arches of this
house of Diomed. By all means have
5 schools and Dusseldorf and Dore exhi-
bitions, and galleries where the genius
of all the centuries can bank itself up
, in snowy sculpture, and all bric-a
: brac, and all pure art, but nothing,
, save the religion of Jesus Christ, can
5 make city moral. In proportion as
t churches and Bibles and Christian
r printing presses and revivals ofreligion
abound is city clean and pure. What
? has Buddhism or Confucianism or Mo-
: hammedanism done in all the hundreds
S of years of their progress for the eleva-
1 tion of society? Absolutely nothing.
f Pekin and Madras and Cairo are just
l what they were ages ago, except as
S Christianity has modified their condi-
e ton What is the difference between
: our Brooklyn and their Pompeii? No
e difference, except that which Chris
o tianity has wrought. Favor all good
S art, but take best care Of your churches,
i and your Sabbathschools, and your
Bibles, and your family affairs.
S Warned by the doom of other cities
t that have perished for their ruffianism,
s or their cruelty, or their idolatry, OF
y their dissoluteness, let all our Amer
l. lean cities lead the right way. Oul
d only dependence is on God and Chris
IS tian influences. Politics will do moth
" ing but make things worse. Send
II politics to moralize and save q city
d and you send smallpox to hea'
|. leprosy, or a carcass to relieve the all
r of malodor. For what politics will dc
d 1 refer you to the eight weeks of stul
s tifcation enacted at Washington by
d our American senate. American poll
e tics will become a reformatory power
d on the same day that pandemoniun
l. becomes a church. But there are,
le am glad to say, benign and salutar!
E. and gracious influences organized il
ID all our cities which will yet take then
st for God and righteousness. Let IL
n ply the Gospel machinery t.
d. it's utmost speed and power
Ie City evangelization is the thought. Ac
d. customed as are religious pessimists t.
ye dwell upon statistics of evil and delor
E. Gus facts we want some one with sane
le tilted heart and good digestion to pu
e, in long line the statistics of nature
IS, transformed, and profigacies ball1ed
E. and souls ransomed, and cite
h. redeemed. Give us pictures Q
il churches, of scho ools, of reforma
IN tory associations, of asylums Q
10 mercy. Break in upon the Miserere
Mt of complaint and dependency with I
lg Deums and Jubilates of moral and re
I'd ligious victory. Show that the day i
ne coming when great tidal wave of sa,
I'd vation will roll over all our cite:
he Show how Pompeii buried will becom
We Pompeii resurrected. Demonstrate tn
es fact that there are millions G
ly good men and women who will Civ
re themselves no rest day nor nigh
in until cities that are now of the typ
is of the buried cities of Italy shall TAX
ct type from the New Jerusalem comin
,ss down from God out of Heaven. I ha
ne the advancing morn. l make the sam
wv proclamation to-day that Gideon mad
tn to the shivering towards of his arm,
"Whosoever is fearful and afraic
I