Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1896-06-19

strnction spread the lair OF Wiid beasts
in her royal sepulchers, and taught the
miserable oottagers of today to build
huts in the courts Of her temples, and
sent desolation and ruin skulking be-
hind the obelisks, and lodging among
the sarcophagi, and leaning against the
columns, and STOPPING under the arches,
and weeping in the waters which 60
mournfully by as though they were car
rying the tears of all ages? Let the
mummies break their long silence and
come up to SILVER in the desolatiOn and
point to fallen gates and shattered statues
aud defaced sculpture, responding:
"Thebes built not one temple to God.
Thebes hated righteousness and loved
sin. Thebes was a star, but she turned
to NORWOOD and has fallen.
Babylon, with her $50 towers and her
brazen gates and her embattled walls,
the splendor of the earth gathered with
in her palaces. her hanging gardens
built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his
bride, Amytis, who had been brought
ND in mountainous country and could
not endure the fat country round Baby
lon-these hanging gardens built, ter
race above terrace, till at the height OF
400 feet there were woods waving and
fountains playing, the verdure, the foil
age, the glory looking as if mountain
were on the wing. On the tiptop king
walking with his queen, among statues
snowy white, looking up at birds
brought from distant lands, and drink
ing out of tankards Of solid gold or
looking off over rivers and lakes upon
nations subdued and tributary, crying,
SIS not this great Babylon which have
built?"
What battering ram smote the walls:
What plowshare upturned the gardens!
What army shattered the brazen gates!
What long, fierce blast of storm put out
this light which illumined the world?
What crash of discord drove down the
music that poured from palace window
and garden grove and called the ban
oueters to their revel and the dancers to
their feet? Iwalk upon the scene Of des-
olation to find an answer and pick up
pieces of bitumen and brick and broken
pottery, the remains of Babylon, and as
in the silence Of the night l hear the
surging of that billOw Of desolation
which rolls over the scene, hear the
wild waves saying: Babylon was
proud Babylon was impure. Babylon
was star, but by sin she turned to
wormwood and has fallen.
Possibilities.
From the prosecutions Of the pilgrim
fathers and the Huguenots in other
lands God set upon these shores a ma
ton. The council fires Of the aborigines
went out in the greater light Of a free
government. The sound Of the warwhoop
was exchanged for the thousand wheels
of enterprise and progress. The mild
winters, the fruitful summers, the
healthful skies charmed from other
lands race of hardy men who loved
God and wanted to be free. Before the
Woodlands AK forests fell and rose again
into ships masts and churches pillars.
Cities on the banks of lakes begin to
rival cities by the sea. The land quakes
with the rush Of the rail car and the
waters are churned white with the
steamers wheel. Fabulous bushels OF
western wheat meet on the way fabu-
lous tons of eastern coal Furs from the
north pass on the rivers fruits from the
south. And trading in the same market
is Maine lumberman and South Caro-
lima rice merchant and Ohio farmer and
Alaska fur dealer And churches and
schools and asylums scatter light and
love and mercy and salvation upon co.
600, 900 of people.
pray tn; our nation may not copy
the crimes of the nations that have per
ished and our cup of blessing turn to
wormwood, and like them we 90 down.
| am by nature and by grace an Optimist,
and l expect that this country will CON
tinue to advance until Christ shall come
again. But be not deceived. Our only
safety is in righteousness toward God
and Justice toward man. If we forget
the goodness Of the Lord to this land,
and break his Sabbaths, and improve
not by the dire disasters that have again
and again come to us as a nation, and
we learn saving lesson neither from civil
war nor raging epidemic nor drought
nor mildew nor scourge of locust and
grasshopper nor cyclone nor earthquake;
if the political corruption which has
poisoned the fountains of public virtue
and beslimed the high places of author
ity, making free government at times
kissing and a byword in all the earth;
if the drunkenness and icentiOusness
that stagger and blaspheme in the streets
of our great cities as though they were
reaching after the fame Of a COrinth
and SodOm are not repented of, we
will vet see the smoke Of our nations
ruin; the pillars Of our national and
state capitols will fall more disastrOusly
than when Samson pulled down Dagon,
and future historians will record upon
the page believed with generous tears
the story that the free nation of the
west arose i'll splendor which made the
world stare 1t had magnificent posi-
bilities 1t forgot God. 1t hated justice.
1t Rugged its crime 1t halted on its
high march. 1t reeled under the blow Of
calamity. 1t fell. And as it was going
down all the despotisms of earth from
the top of bloody thrones began to shout,
"Aha, so would we have itl' while
struggling and oppressed people looked
out from dungeon bars with tears and
groans and cries of untold agony, the
scorn of those and the woe Of these unit
ing in the exclamation: Look yonderl
There fell a great star from heaven, burn
ing as it were a lamp, and it fell upon
the third part of the rivers and upon the
fountains of waters. and the name of
the star is called Wormwood"
Lived Like a Psuperi Died Rich.
II e Dbl