Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-03-29
OUR DEBT TO GREECE
REV. DR.. TALMAGE RECOuNTS THE
OBLIGATION ri AN ABLE SERMON.


the Obligatson-Pasl's Peroration.
WASHINGTON, March 2S-As DR. Tai
mage's sermons are published on both
sides the ocean, this discourse on a sub
iect of worldwide interest will attract
universal attention His text was Ro-
mans j, IA, 81 am debtor both to TIE
Greeks and to the barbarians
At this time, when that behemoth of
denominations, Mohammedanis1n, after
having gorged itself On the carcasses of
100, 900 Armenians, is trying to put its
paws upon che of the faiIest of all ma
tions, that of the Greeks. preach this
sermon of sympathy and protest, for ev-
cry intelligent person on this side, like
Paul, who wrote the text. is debtor to
the Greeks The present crisis is en-
phasized by the guns of the allied pow
ers of Europe, ready to be unlimbered
against the Hellenes, and am asked to
speak out. Paul, with master intellect
of the ages, sat in brilliant Corinth, the
great Acro-Corinthus fortress frowning
from the height of 1855 feet, and in the
hc<lse of Gaius, where he was guest,
q big pile of money near him, which he
was taking TO Jerusalem for the poor.
Chrysostom admired SO much that he
had it read to him twice "a week, Paul
practically says: "I, the apostle, am
bankrupt. I owe what i cannot pay,
but / will pay as large percentage as
1 can. 1t is an obligation for what Greek
literature and Greek sculpture and
Greek architecture and Greek prowess
have done for me. viii pay all j can
In installments of evangelism. am in
solvent to the Greeks" Hellas, as the
inhabitants call 1T, or Greece, as we call
it, is insignificant in size, about .aithird
as large as the state of New York, but
what it lacks in breadth it makes up in
height, with its mountains Cylene and
Eta and Taygetus and Tymphrestus,
each over 1000 feet in elevation, and
its PaTnassus. over 8, 600. just the
country for mighty men to be born in,
for in all lands the most CT the intellec-
tual and neral giants were not born on
the plain, hut had for cradle the valley
between two mountains That country,
no part of which is more than DO miles
from the sea, has made its impress upon
the world as no other nation, and it to-
day holds a first mortgage of obligation
apon all civilized people. While we
must leave to craftsmanship and diplO-
macy the settlement of the intricate
questions which now involve all Eu-
rope and indirectly 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, az am debtor to the
Creeks
Tho Best Sermon.
In the first place, we owe to their
language our New Testament. ALI of it
was first written in Greek. except the
book Of Matthew, and that. written i'll
the Aram9aN language, was soon put
into Greek by our 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 Olivet,
and Jordan banks, and Galilean beaches,
and Pauline embaTkation, and Pente-
ecstal tongues, and seven tTnmpets that
sounded over Patmos, have come to the
world in liquid, symmetric, picturesque,
philosophic, unrivaled Greek, instead
of the gibberish language in which
many Of the nations of the earth at that
time jabbered- Who can forget it, and
who can exaggerate its thrilling impor
tance, that Christ and heaven were in
troduced to US in the language of the
Greeks, the language in which Homer
had sung, and SCphocles dramatized,
and Plato dialcgued, and Socrates dis
coursed, and Lycurgus legislated, and
Demosthenes Numbered his Grafton on
''The Crown" Everlasting thanks to
God that the waters of life were not
handed to the world in the unwashed
cup CT corrupt languages from which
nations had been drinking, but in the
clean, bright, golden Tipped, emerald
handled ehalice of the Hellenes. Learn
ed Curtius wrote whole volume about
the Greek verb Philologists century
after century have been measuring the
symmetry OF that language. laden with
elegy and philippe, drama and comedy,
Odyssey" and tIliad,' but the grand
est thing that Greek language ever &C.
complished was to give to the world the
benediction, the comfort, the irradia-
ton, the salvation, of the gospel of the
Son of God For that we are debtors to
the Greeks.
And while speaking of our philolog
ical obligation let me cali your atten-
ton to the fact that many OF the intel
lectual and moral and theological lead
ers of the ages got much of their disci-
pline and effectiveness from Greek lit
erature. 1t is popular toscof at the dead
languages, but so per cent of the world
intellectually would have been taken
off if through learned institutions our
young men had not, under competent
professors. been drilled in Greek mas
ternieces HesiCd'S .sWeeks and DAYS -