The weekly intelligencer., 1897-04-03

>. nm -
#ST\ #zEFTsy EfS side of the sea, as
ff%M \ly R well as the other
HTfHsiA ISaHYA M9Eside. like Paul, who
iHlSlHileAds - 2HlbW wrote the text, is
REV. TALMAGE. debtor to Greeks.
The present crisis is emphasized by the
guns of the allied powers of Europe
ready to be unlimbered against the
Uellcnes, and | am asked to speak out.
Paul. with n master intellect of the
ages. sat in brilliant Corinth, the great
Acro-Corinthus fortress frowning from
the height of 1856 feet, and in the house
of Gaius. where he was n guest, a big
pile of money near him, which he was
taking to Jerusalem for the poor. In
this letter to the Romans, which
Chrvsostom- admired so much that he
had IL read to him twice a week, Paul
practically says: II, the apostle, am
bankrupt | owe what | cannot pay,
but win pay as large percentage as
can. 1t is an obligation for what Greek
literature and Greek sculpture and
Greek architecture and Greek prowess
have done for me. will pay all can
in installments of evangelism. am
insolvent to the Greeks" Hellas, as
the inhabitants call it, or Greece, as
a third as large as the state of New
York. but what it lacks in breadth it
makes up in height, with its noun
tains Cylene. and Eta, and Taygetus,
and Tvmphrestus, each over 1000 feet
in elevation, and its Parnassus, over
5000. Just the country for mighty
men to be born in, for in all lands the
most of the intellectual and moral
ha MIA
had for cradle the valley between two
mountains. That country, no part of
which is more than 40 miles from the
sea. has made its impress upon the
world, as no other nation, and it to-day
holds first mortgage of obligation up
on all civilized people. While we must
leave to craftsmanship and diplomacy
the settlement of the intricate questions
which now involve all Europe, and in
directly all nations, it is time for all
churches, all schools, all universities,
all arts, all literatures to sound out in
the most emphatic way the declaration,
a. am debtor to the Greeks.
stIn the first place. we owe to their
language our New Testament. All of
il was written in Greek, except the
book of Matthew, and that, written in
the Aramean language, was soon put
into Greek by out Saviour's brother,
James. To the Greek language we owe
the best sermon ever preached, the best
letters ever written, the best visions
ever kindled. All the parallels in
Greek All the miracles in Greek. The
sermon on the mount in Greek. The
story of bethlehem and Golgotha and
Oliyet and Jordan banks and Galilean
3,eaehas and Pauline embarkation
and Pentecostal tongues and seven
trumpets that sounded over Patmos,
have come to the world in liquid, SYM
metric, picturesque, philosophlc, un-
rivaled Greek, instead of the gibberish
language in which many of the nations
of the earth at that time jahbered.
Who can forget il and who can eXag-
perate its thrilling Importance, that
Christ and Heaven We're introduced to
us in the language of the Greeks? the
language in which Homer had sung
and Sophocles dramatized and Plato
dialogued and Socrates discoursed and
L,Vcurgus legislated and Demosthenes
thupdered his Grafton on ''The Crown"
Everlasting thanks to God that the
waters of life were not handed to
the world in the unwashed cup OF
corrupt languages from which ma
tions had been drinking, but in the
clean, bright, golden-lipped, emerald
handled chalice of the Hellenes.
Learned Curtius wrote whole volume
about the Greek verb. Philologists
century after century have been meas
uring the symmetry of that language,
laden with elegy and phihppio, drama
and comedy, Odyssey and lliad; but
the grandest thing that Greek Ian
puage ever accomplished was to give
to the world the benediction, the COM
fort, the irraditation, the salvation OF
the Gospel of the Son of God. For
tbatwe are debtors to the Greeks.
And while speaking of our philolo-
gical obligation, let me call your at
tention to the fact that many of the in
tellectual and moral and theological
.leaders of the ages got much of their
discipline and effectiveness from Greek
literature. 1t is popular to scott at the
| dead languages, but 80 per cent of the
worlds intellectually would haV6
| been taken off if, through learned in,
stitutions, our young men had not, qR'
der competent professors, been drllleG
| in Greek masterpieces. Hesiqd's
"Weeks and Days." or the eulogium by
! Simonides of the slain in war, or Pin
| dar's ''Odes of Victory" or The Hecol
lections of Socrates" or THE Art oi
! Words" by CoraX, or henophon''
! Anabasis.
From the Greeks the world Learned
how to make history. Had there beeI
no Herodotus and no Thucydides. ther'
would have been no Macaulay or Ban
4 M SnnhnelRS
trnyedF. there would have been M
Shakespeare. Had there been M
Homer. there would have been no NIL
ton. The modern wits, who are naN
or have been out on the divine mission
of making the world laugh at the righ
tiIn,. can be traced back to AristC
phanes. the Athepian, and many of tn
jocosities that are now takenl a ne'
had their suggestions $500 years ag
in the 81 comedies of that master u
,nepriment Grecian mythology ha
been the richest mine from which ora
tors and essayistS hqve drawn thei
illustrations and painters the theme
for their canvas, and although noW a
qxhansted mine, Grecian mytholog.
has done work that nothing els
eDulu nave uCtoliI lllolluhl iIpiSo', ~
rcscntipg the north windi SisyphHs
rolling the stone up the hill
only to have the same thing t.
do over again; Tantalps, will
fruits above him that he could no
reach; Achilles, with his arrows
Icarus with his waXen wings, flynn
too near the sun; the Centaurs. hal
man and half beast; Orpheus, with hi
Tyre; Atlas, with the world on hi
back, all these and more have helpe
literature, from the graduates speee
on commencement day to Rufus Coate'
fulogium ON Daniel Webster At Darl
mouth, Tragedy and comedy wer
born in the festivals of Dionysius a
Athens. The lyric and elegiac an
epic poetry of Greece 800 years befor
Christ hes its echoes in the Tenpysons
, Jongfeliows Hnd Kryants of 1900 an
- 1900 years after CHRIST There is no
: an effective pulpit or editorial chair q
. professors room or cultured parlar O
> intelligent farmhouse to-day in Amer
4 i,., an. EurpD,. that cnulu not annrDDr