Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-04-03

oyerlooks Athens, he dared to quote
from one of their own Greek poets,
either Cleanthus or Aratus, declaring,
"As certain also of your own poets have
said, For we are also his offspring. y
And he made accurate quotation, Clean.
thus, one Of the poets, having written;
For we thino offspring arc All things that
creep
Are but tho echo of the voice divine.
And Aratus, enc of their own poets,
! had written:
Doth care pcrplcx2 Is lowering danger nighf
We are his offspring and to Jovo we fly.
1t was rather. a risky thing for Paul
to attempt to quote extemporaneously
from Il poem in language foreign tc
his and before Greek scholars, but Paul
did it without stammcring and then
acknowledged before the most distin-
guished audience on the planet his III
debtedncss to the Greeks. crying out i'll
his grafton, GAS one of your own poets
has said.
Inventors of Architecture.
Furthermore, all the civilized world,
like Paul is indebted to the Greeks fol-
architecture. The world before the time
of the Greeks had built monoliths, ODE
lisks, cromlechs, sphinxes and pyramids,
but they were mostly monumental, to
the dead whom they failed to memorial
iZc. We are not certain even of the
names of those i'll whose COMMUNICATION
the pyramids were built. But Greek
architecture did most for the living.
Ignoring Egyptian precedents and Dor
rowing nothing from other nations,
Greek architecture carved its own col
umns, set its own pediments, adjusted
its own cntablatures, rounded its own
holdings and carried out rs never be-
fore the three qualities of right build
ing, called by an old author 'firmitas,
utilitas, venustns ''-namely. firmness,
usefulness, beauty.
Although the Parthenon OH the Acrop-
oils of Athens is only wreck of the
storms and earthquakes and lombard
ments of many centuries, and although
Lord Elgin took from one side of that
building. at an expense of $3.50, 900,
two shiploads of sculpture, one shipload
going down III the Mediterranean and
the other shipload now to be found in
the British museum, the Parthenon,
though i'll comparative ruins, has been
an inspiration to all architects for cen-
turies past and will be. an inspiration
all the time from now until the world
itself is a temple ruin. Oh, that Parthe-
non! One never gets over having cnce
seen it. But what must it have been
when it stccd as its architects, 1kitnos
and Kallikrates, built it out of Penteli-
can marble, white us Mont Blanc at
MONDAY and as overwhelming. Height
above height Overlapping the august
and majestic pile and rising from its
roof was statue of Pallas Promachus
in bronze, so tall and flashing that sail
ors far ont mt sea beheld the plume OF
her helmet Without the aid Of the
eternal God it never could have been
planned, and without the aid of God
the chisels and trowels never could have
constructed it, There is not fine church
building in all the world, or properly
constructed courthouse, or Il beautiful
art gallery, or an appropriate audlto-
rum or a tasteful home, which, because
of that Parthenon, whether its style or
some other style be adopted, is not dl-
rectly or indirectly a debtor to the
Greeks.
Blessings Of Sculpture.
But there is another art in my mind
the most fascinating, elevating and
inspiring of all arts and the nearest to
the divine-for which all the world
owes a debt to the Hellcnes that will
never be paid. mean sculpture. At
least $50 years before Christ the Greeks
perpetuated the human face and form
in terra Gotta and marble What a bless
ing to the human family that men and
women, nightly useful, who could live
only within century may be perpetu-
ated for five or six or ten centuries.
How 1 wish that some sculptor contem-
poraneous with Christ could have put
his matchless form in marble! But for
svery grand and exquisite statue OF
Martin Luther, of John Knox, OF Will
liam Penn, Of Thomas Chalmers, of
Wellington, CT Lafayette, of any of the
great statesmen or emancipators or con-
uuerors who adorn your parks or fill the
inches of your academies, you are debt
ors to the Greeks. They covered the
Acropolis, they glorified the temples,
they adorned the cemeteries with stat
ues, some in cedar, some i'll ivory, some
in silver, some in gold, some in size
diminutiye and some in size colossal.
Thanks to Phidias, who worked IN
stone; to Clearchus, who worked IN
bronze; to Dontas, who worked in gold,
and to oil ancient chisels Of commend
rationl Do you not realize that for
many of the wonders of sculpture we
are debtors to the Greeks?
Yea, for the science Of medicine, the
great art of healing, we must thank the
Greeks. There is the immortal Greek
doctor, Hippocrates, who first opened
the door for disease to go out and health
to come in. He first set forth the impor-
lance of cleanliness and sleep, making
the patient before treatment to be wash
ed and take slumber on the hide OF a
sacrifice beast. He first discovered the
importance of thorough prognosis and
diagnosis. He formulated the famous
oath of Hippocrates which is taken by
physicians of our day. He emancipated
medicine from superstition, empirlclsm
and priestcraft. He was the father OF
all the infrmaries, hospitals ard medic
al colleges of the last % centuries.
Ancient medicament and surgery had
before that been anatomical and physl'
oIogical assault and battery, -and-lone