The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-11-12
THE SODOM OF BIBLE TIMES,

FEY. DR. sMYrH DRAWS 4 VIVID
 WORD PICTURE.
 sedom's Supreme Opportunity for Fifty
 True, CIsan Men-The Vast Importance
 of Purity in Politics of Clean. True Men
 as Citssns of This Republic.
 Genesis xviii, %: And the Lord sald, if Ind in 6odom fifty righteous within the oity, then will spare all the place for their sake,
 It would be immensely instructive. as we'll as interesting. If history had pre- served some records of sodom contain ing particular and definite information concerning It's earlier history. its social institutions, and the course of its poll tics. We should like to know what kind of city charter 1t had, how its laws were administered, what kind of men were honored with its ofiices what par ties gained control within 1t, or through what machines from time to time its history of increasing corrup- ton was run out. Such information about Sodom would be extremely in- structive and timely. The Biblical mar rative only presents to us three suc- cessive pictures of Sodom, one Is taken from the mountains, giving the city from the Lords point of view; another is a scene at night in one of the streets of the city; the third Is the judgment scene of the city. Meager, however, as is the Biblical narrative, and scanty as are the traditional materials by which we may reproduce the life of men and women in those primeval cities of the plain, we may assume that the ten- dencies of human nature were very much the same then as they are now; and the historical imagination, drawing its lines and colors from more recent and familiar civilization, without violence to probable truth, may fill out with liv- ing interest the rapid Biblical sketch of Sodom and Gomorrah. The latter city, however, seems in the narrative to have been a kind of an annex to Sodom, like place by the seashore, into which the pleasure seeking life of the city oc- casionally overfiows. Could Sodom it. self have been redeemed, its annex of Gomorrah might also have been made a respectable summer resort.
 We have valid reason for the assump- tion that Sodom originally may have been decent community, for some an- cestral virtue lies at the foundation of almost every prosperous town, al- though only one ancient city had Vir- gil to make an epic of 1t. Very proba- bly, Sodom in its earlier days, like other primitive cities, had been peopled by industrious citizens, and governed by its most capable men. Some of it's de- generate inhabitants, even at the time when the Biblical narrative is concerned with 1t, may have had In their houses pictures or memorials of their sober minded and virtuous ancestors. Cities usually do not begin their fortunes in corruption, but in virtue; and there Is no reason for regarding Sodom as an exception to the rule. f 5
 We are left to conjecture the various ways in which Sodom may have f1eaped up its last measure of corruption; yet here likewise experience may help us to fill out soqneWhat the unWritten his- tory. We know that its situation fur nished natural temptation to an easy going and inefficient life.I was a city of the plain. It was the chief city of a fertile land. in which not much toll was required to make a living. And the Canaanitish blood seems to have had little iron, and much idolatrous pas sion in 1t. Such Q city as Sodom could not be kept tolerably righteous and de- cent from generation to generation ex- cept by somebody's hard moral work in 1t. But according to the Biblical narra- tive, the so-called moral cranks of So- dom had at last become so discouraged that there were not ten of them left.
 Beside the natural tendency of de- generacy which marked city of the plain, its form of government and in- ternal politics may have had much to do with its downward course. We have indeed no information as to it's city charter; probably some contrivances for
 misgovernment with which modern cities are familiar had not then been in- vented. It isljmprobable that there could have been found in Sodom mul- tiplied spells of office, or boards. and commissions of all sorts and sizes, in- geniously contrived and balanced to equalize the burdens of government among a large number of men, so that no one bad man should ever gain too much power, and good mans respon- sibllity among so many would be hard to locate as a needle in haystack. Probably the original. town government of Sodon and comparatively simple thing, neither diffusely bipartisan, nor too tyrannically condensed. For it was 8 free city. not under the dominion, of some great king, like the king of As- syria. It may have developed, however, and patiently endured its own little satrap, or boss. There are no annals of successive dynasties in these smaller Canaanitish cities, such as are to be found in the libraries of Nineyah orS Babylon; but in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis the names occur of several of these small city kings; and very likely, if the civic records of Sodom and Co., morrahsshould ever be dug up from be- meath the bitter waters of the Dead sea we might find in them an Interesting account of the development of some local boss system, and It's success in managing the affair of city, until the Lord rained down fire and birthstone upon them. The people doubtless had very little to do with 1t. Wa sl1f,sIId 1ilro IT, ho Vye ro,,a<, ,,o r+ao