The Monitor-register., 1897-01-22

y OSeND O~-N@@S'
The Tower of Babel.
The story of the tower of Babel has
been confirmed by the fact that recently
at Babel an oblong pile of brick 110
feet high evidences the remains of a
fallen tower. In the inspired book OF
Ezra we read Of the great and noble
Asnapper, a name that meant nothing
especial until recently in pried up
/ Egyptian sculpture we have the story
there told of him as great hunter as
| well as a great warrior What L say
now is news to those prejudiced against
the Bible They are so far behind the
times that they know not that the old
book is being proved true by the prying
eye of the antiquarian and the ringing
hammer of the arch9ologist and the
plunging crowbar of the geologist. No
more is infdelity characterized by its
blasphemy than by its ignorance, but
oh, what high mountain of prejudice
against the Bible, against Christianity,
against churches, against all evangellz-
ing enterprises-a mountain that casts
its long black shadows over this con-
tinent and over all continents. Geog-
raphers tell rs that Mount Everest is
the highest mountain in the world. Oh,
no! The mountain of prejudice against
Christianity is higher than the highest
crags that dare the lightnings of heaven.
Before our Zerubbabel, can it ever be-
come plain?
Another mountain of hindrance is
that of positive and outspoken JIM
morals. There is the mountain of inc
briacy. 1t is piled high with kegs and
demijohns and decanters and hogsheads,
on which sit the victims of that traffic
whose one business is to rob earth and
heaven Of the most generous and large
hearted and splendid Of the human race.
If their business was to take only the
mean and stingy and contemplate and
useless, we would not say much against
the work, for there aretens of thousands
of men and women who are nuisance
to the world, and their obliteration
from human society would be an ad
vantage to all that is good. The re-
moval of these moral deficits would not
arouse in US much Of protest. But in
sobriety takes the best.
The mountain of inebriacy stands in
the way of the kingdom of God, and
hundreds of thousands of men, but for
that hindrance, would step right into
the ranks of the Lord s host and march
heavenward, each one taking regi-
ment with him. The mountain of ine-
briacy is not an ordinary mountain, but
it is armed It is line of fortresses
continually blazing away its destructive
forces upon all our neighborhoods, towns
and cities, their volleys of death poured
down upon the homes and churches.
Under this power more than 100, 600
men and women are in this country
every year imprisoned, and an army of
600, 900 drunkards almost shake the
earth with their staggering tread. 1t
causes in this country 800 murders and
400 suicides year.
Inebriacy on the Sea.
This mountain of inebriacy has not
only assaulted the land, but bombarded
the shipping of the sea, and some of the
most appalling shipwrecks on Atlantic
and Pacific coasts have been the result.
What sank the steamer Rothsay Castle,
on the way from Liverpool to Dublin,
destroying 100 human lives? A drunken
sea captain. What blew up the Ben
Sherrod on the Mississippi and sent $50
to horrible death? A drunken crew.
What drove on the breakers a steamer
making its way from sNew York to
Charleston and sent whole families, on
the way home from summer watering
places, to the lnereiless depths 'ef the
tea? A drunken sea captain. Gather up
from the depths of the river and lakes
and oceans the bones of those ship
wrecked by intoxicated captains and
crews, and you could build out of them
a temple Of horrors, all the pillars and
affairs and floors and ceilings fashioned
Of human skulls Is it possible that such
mountain Of inebrjaey can ever be
made plain?
Yonder also is the mountain Of
crime, with its strata of fraud and
malpractice and malfeasance and black
mail and burglary and piracy and
embezzlement and libertinism and
theft, all its heights manned with the
desperadoes, the cutthroats, the pick
pockets, the thimble riggers, the plum.
derers, the marauders, the pillagers,
the corsairs, the wreckers, the bandits,
the tricksters, the forgers, the thugs,
the garroters, the fire fiends, the dyna-
miters, the shoplifters, the kleptomani-
acs, the pyromaniacs, the dipsomaniacs,
the smugglers, the kidnapers, the Jack
Sheppards, the Robert Macaires and
the Macbeths of yillainy. The crimes of
the world! Am l not right in calling
them, when piled up together, noun.
tain? But we cannot bring ourselves to
appreciate great heights except by COM
parison. You think of Mount Washing
ton as high, especially those Of you who
assembled as of old, ON muleback, or
more recently by rail train, to the Tip
top House. Oh, mol That is not high,
for it is only about 5000 feet. whereas,
rising on this western hemisphere are
Chimborazo, 1900 feet high, and
Mount Sahama, 23, 900 feet high, and
Mount Sarota, 24,S00 feet high. But
that is not the highest mountain ON the
western hemisphere. The highest noun
tain is the mountain of crime, and is it
possible that this mountain, before our
Zerubbabel, can ever be made plain?
The Mountain of War.
There is also the mountain of war,
the most volcanic of all mountains-the
Vesuvius which, not content, like the
Vesnvius of Italy, with whelming two
cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii, has
14. Jc
of cities and would like to whelm all
the cities Of both hemispheres. Give
this mountain full utterance, and it
would cover up Washington and New
York and London as easily as house
holder, with his shovel at 10 O'Clock at
night, banks a CRATE fire with ashes.
This mountain is pile of fortresses,
barricades and armories, the worlds
artillery heaped, wheels above wheels,
columbiads above columbiads, "a pound
ers above IA Founders, wrecked nations
above wrecked nations.
This mountain Of war is not only
loaded to cannonade the earth, but it is
also cemetery, holding the corpses of
10000, 600 slain in the wars of Alexan-
der and Cyrus, so, 900, 900 slain in Ro-
man wars, 180, ,000, 600 slain in war
with Turks and Saracens, and holding
about 30. 900, 900, 600 corpses, not mil
lion, but billion, which was the estimate
made by Edmund Burke more than
1S0 years ago of those who had been
destroyed by war, SO that you would
have to add many more millions now.
Twenty years ago careful author
estimated that about IA times the then
population of the world had gone down
in battle or in hospital after battle. All,
this mountain of war is not like an Or
dinary mountain. 1t is like Kilauea,