Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-10-20


and natural after 100 years of burial. Tha,
woman was found clutcbiDg her adornmenfs
when the storm of ashes and fire began and
Tor 100 years she cont tiBOed 10 clutch them.
There at the soldiers barracks are sixty
four skele tons of brave men, who faithfully
stood guard at their post when the tempest
of cinders began. and after 17GG years were
still found standing guard. There is the
form of gentle wOmanhood impressed upon
the hardened ashes. Pass along and here
we see the deep ruts in tn basaItic pave
ments worn there by the whe els Of the chari-
OTIS OF the first century. There. over the
doorways and in the pOrticoas. are works of
art immortalizing the debauehery of a city,
which. Notwithstanding all it's splendors was
vpstibule of perdition.
Those cutters ran with the blood of the
glad1ators, who were prizefghters of those
ancient times, and it was sword parryfng
sword, until, with one skiIful and stout
plunge of the sharp edge. the mauled and
gashed cOmbatant reele1 over dead, to be
carried out amid the huzzas of enraptured
spectators. We staid among those suggestive
scenes after the hour that visitors are usually
allowed there and staid until there was not a
football TO he heard with in all that city except
our own. Up this silent street and down that
silent street we wandered. Into that win
dOwlesS and rOOf1eSs home we went aud came
out again onto tho pavements that, now for
saken, were once thronged with life
Autl CHI IJ De tnd[ HI up ana down tneSe
solemn SOlitudes. hearts more than 1900
years ago ached and rejOiced. and feet shuf-
fled with the gait of old age or danced with
childish glee, and overtasaed workmen car
ried their burdens, and drunkards staggered?
on that mosaic floor did glowing youth clasp
hands in marriage VOW, and cross that
threshold did pallbearers carry the beloved
dead. and gay groups once mount those now
skeletOns Of starcas9s?
While walked and contemplated the city
seemed suddenly to be thrOnged with all the
population that had ever inhabited it, and
beard its laughter and groan and unclean-
ness and inferna' boast it was on the 23d
of August, 70. And Vesuvius, from the mild
light with which it flushed the sky that sum-
mer evening as I stool in disentombed Pom
peii, seemed suddenly again to heave and
flame and rock with the lava and darkness
and desOlation and woe with which more
than eighteen centuries ago it submerged
POmpeii. as with the liturgy of fire and storm
the mountain proclaimed at the burial,
"Ashes to ashes. dust TO dust"
My friends, | cannot tell what practical
suggestion comes to your mind from this
walk through uncovered Pompeii, but the
first thought that absoros is that, while
art and culture are important. they cannot
save the morals or the life of a great town.
Much of the painting and sculpture of Pom
peii was so exquisite that, while some is kept
on the walls where it was first panciled, to be
admired by those who go there, whole wagon
loads and whole rooms full of it have been
transferred to the Museo Borbonico at Ma
pies, to be admired by the centuries.
Those Pompeiian artists mixed such dura-
bility Of colOrs that, though their paintings
were buried in ashes and scori8 for 100
years, and since they were uncovered many
of them have remained there exposed to the
rains an winds ana winters an summers
130 years, the color is as fresh and vivid and
true as though yesterday if had passed from
hnn Of
could stan1 all that? And yet many of the
specimens of POmpeiian art shcw that the
city was sunk to such depth of abominatiOn
that there was nothing deeper. Scul ulptur9d
and petrified and enlbalmed abOminatiOn.
There was a state Of public morals worse
than belongs to any city now standing under
the sun.
Yet how many think that all that is neces-
sary is to cultivate the mind and advance the
knowledge and improve the arts. Have you
the impression that eloquence will do the
elevating work? Why. POmpeii had Cicero
half of every year for its citizen. Have you
the idea TINT literature is all that is neces-
sary to keep city right? Why, Sallust. with
pen that was the boast of Roman Htera-
ture, had mansion in that doomed city. Do
you think that sculpture and art quite
sufficient for the production Of good morals?
Then correct your delusion by examining
the statues in the Temple OfMercury at Pom
peii, or the winged figures of its Parthenon,
and the colonnaIes an | arches of this house
of Diomed.
By all means have schools and Dusseldorf
and 'Dore exhibitions and galleries where
the genius of all the centuries can bank it
self up in snowy sculpture and all bric-a-
brac, aud all pure art, but nothing save the
religion of Jesus Christ can make city
moral In proportion as churches and BIZ
bles and Christian printing presses and re-
vivals of religion abound is city pure and
clean What has Buddhism or Confucianism
or MOhammedanism done in all the hun
dreds of years of their progress for the ele
walton of society? Absolutely nothing.
Peking and Madras and Cairo are Just
what they were ages ago, except as Christi
anity has modified their condition. What is
the difference between our Brooklyn and
their Pompei? No difference, except that
which Christianity has wrought. Favor all
gool art, but take best care of your
churches, and your Sabbath schools, and
your Bibles. and your family affairs.
Yea, see in our walk through uncovered
PomDeii what sin will do for a city. We
ought to be slow to assign the Judgment of
God. Cities are sometimes afflicted Just as
go ID people are afflicted and the earthquake,
and the cyclone, and the epidemic are
sign In many cases that Godis angry with a
city, but the distress is sent for some good
and kinI purpose, whether we understand
it or not. The law that applies to individ-
uaIs may apply to Christian cities as well,
All InIn2S WORK lOS6LuSE ZOE SOOu W LHOSS
that love God"
But the greatest calamity of history came
upon Pompeii not to improve its future con-
dition, for it was completely obliterated and
will never be rebuilt. 1t was so bad that
it neededto be buried 1900 years before even
ITS runs we're lit TO bo unGoVeIed. 30 sodUIi
and Gomorrah were filed with such turpt-
tude that they were not only turned under,
but have for thousands of years been kept
under. The two greatest cemeteries are the
cemetery in which the sunken ships are bur
led all the way between Fire Island and
Fastnet Lighthouse. an l the other cemetery
is the cemetery Of dead cities.
| get down on my knees and read the
epitapheology OF a long line of them. Here
lies Babylon, once called 1.-The hammer OF
the whole earth" Dead and buried under
piles of bitumen anI broken pottery AMI
vitrefied brick And l hear Il wolf howl ana
a reptile hiss as | am reading this epitaph
Isaiah xiii. 2D, The wild beast OF the
desert shall be there, and their house shali
be full of doleful creatures.
The next tomb kneel before in this GEM
eter, of cities is Nineveh. Her winge1 lions
are down. AMI the slabs of alabaster have
crumbled, and the sculpture that repres9hle l
her battles is as completely seatter41 as tn9
dust of the heroes who fought them. FER
haps put my knee into tn" dust OF her S1r-
danapalus as [ stoop to real her epitaph
(Zephaniah it,, H. Now is Nln2veh deso!a-
tion and dry like a wilderness, an1 hockS lie
down in the midst of her all th9 beasts OF
the Nations. both the cormorant AMI the blt,
tern. lodge in the upper linteis OF It, Ani
while [ read it l hear an owl hooe ana a
hyena laugh.
The next entonbed city pass has monu,
ment of fifty PROSTATE columns OF gray an
red granite, and it is Tyre. The next Sc
pulcher of great capital is covered with
scattered columns and defaced sphinxes and
the sands of the desert. and it is Thehes. As
I D3SS on find the resting DlA,,e of MyCende,
a city of which Homer sang, and Corinth,
which rejected Paul and depended upon her
fortress. Acrocorinthus. which now lies dis
mantled on the hill. and | move on in this
cemetery of cities, and I find the tombs OF
Sardis and Smyrna and Persepolis and
Memphis and Baalbek and Carthage. and
here are the cities OF the plain and Hercu-
laneum and Stabia and Pompeii. Some OF
them have mighty sarcophagus and hero
glyphic entablature, but they are dead and
buried never to rise.
But the cemetery of dead cities is not vet
filled and if the present cities of the world