St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-05-01

TALMAGE'S SERMON.
What tho Oivfised World Owes
to Greece.
ChfnsA 1ey Largely Indebted to Hellas-
RaAiS Acknowledgements
- ArcAlEsst1ral. Art and
Othef 0eligassoas.
Rev. T. Dewitt TalmaRc delivered
the following sermon Of present world
wide interest before his Washington
congre CATION, taking for his text:
| am debtor both to the Greeks and to The
observation-disclosures +, II
At this time, when that behemoth OF
| denominations, Mohammedanism, after
having gorged itself on the carcasses Of
loo, 600 Armenians, is trying to put its
paws upon one of the fairest of all ma
tons, that Of the Greeks, preach this
sermon OF sympathy and protest, for
every intelligent person on this side of
the sea, IS well as the other side. like
Paul, who wrote the tex1 is debtor to
tie Greeks- The present crisis is en-
phasizt'd by the guns Of the allied pow
ers OF Europe, ready to be unlimbered
against the Hellenes, and am asked
70 speak out. Paul, with q master in
tellect Of the ages, sat in brilliant Cor
NTH, the great Aero Corinthus fortress
frowni1g from the height of 1856 feet,
and in the house Of Gaius, where he
was guest, big pile of money near
him, which he was taking to Jeru-
salem for the poor. In this let
ter to .he Romans, which Chrysostom
admired SO much that he had it read to
him twice q week, Paul practically
says: Il, the Apostle, am bankrupt.
owe What l can not pay, but will
pay rs large percentage as can. 1t
is an obligation for what Greek litera-
ture and Greek sculpture and Greek
architecture and Greek prowess have
done for me. will pay all can in
lnstallrnents Of evangelism. am in
solvent to the Creeks Hellas, as the
inhabitants call it or Greece, as we
call it, Is Insignificant in size, about .
third as large as the state of New York;
but what it lacks in breadth it makes
up in height, with its mountains Cy-
lene, and Eta, and Taygetus, and Tym-
phrestus, each over 1000 feet in ele-
walton, 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 giants were
not born on the plain, but had for era
die the valley between two mountains. 4
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 oday holds first mort
gage OF obligation upon all civilized
people. While we must leave to states
manship and diplomacy the settlement
of the intricate questions which now
involve all Europe, and indirectly all
nations it is time for all churches, al
schools all universities, all arts, all
iteratIres to sound ont in the most
emphatic way the declaration: 81 am
debtor to the Greeks
In tie first place, we owe to their |
language our New Testament. All of
it was first written in Greek, except
the Book of Matthew, and that, writ |
ten in the Aramean language, was
soon put into Greek by our Saviour's |
brother, James. To the Greek Lam
guage we owe the best sermon ever
preached, the best letters ever written,
the bent 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 Gtlilean beaches ans, Pauline en-
barkation and Pentecostal tongues and |
seven .rumpets that sounded over Pat |
mos, have come. to the world in |
liquid, symmetric, picturesque, philo- |
sophie unrivaled Greek, instead OF the |
gib6of!sh language in which many Of |
the M lions of the earth 1T that time |
jabber.d. Who can forget it and who |
can exaggerate its thrilling Importance,
that Christ and Heaven were introduced |
to us In the language of the Greeks? |
the language in which Homer had sung |
and SOphocles dramatized and Plato |
dialog ned and Socrates discoursed and
Lycurgus legislated and Demosthe-
mes Hundred his Grafton on 1.-THE |
Crown" Everlasting thanks to God
that the waters Of life were not |
handed to the world in the un-,
washed cup of corrupt languages from
which nations had been drinking. but /
in the clean, bright, golden-ipped,
chalice of the Hell
lenes. Learned Curtius wrote q whole
volume about the Greek verb. Philol-
ogists century after century have been
the symmetry of that
language, laden with elegy and philip
pic, drama and comedy, Odyssey and
Iliad, but the grandest thing that
Greex language ever accomplished was
to give to the world the benediction,
the comfort, the irraditation, the sal
vation 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 call your atten-
ton 70 the fact that many Of the intel
lectual and moral and theological lead
lrs Of the ages got much Of their disci-
pline and effectiveness from Greek lit
erature. It is popular to scoff at the
lead languages. but 50 per cent. of the
intellectually would have
been taken of If, through Lerned in
situations, our young men had not, un-
der competent professors, been drilled
in Greek masterpieces Hesiod's
Weeks and Days. or the eulogium by
Simonides of the slain in war, or Pin
dar's 'Odes Of Victory" or the ..Recol-
lections of Socrates" or 1.-The Art OF
Words" by Corax, or Xenophon's
s.Anabasis."
From the Creeks the world learned
how u make history. Had there been
no Hsfodotas and Thucydides, there
woule1 havc been no Macauley or Ham
croft Had there been no Sophocles in
tragedy, there would have been no
Had there been no Ho>
mer, there would have been no Milton.
The modern wits, who are now or have
been out on the divine mission Of maxi
ing the world laugh At the right time,
nm be traced back to Aristophanes, /,