The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1897-04-02
of the Greeks.

of all nations, that
of the Greeks, I preach this sermon
Of sympathy and protest, for every In
telligent person on this side of the sea,
as well as the other side, like Paul, who
wrote the text, is debtor to the Greeks.
The present crisis is emphasized by
the guns of the allied powers of Eu-
rope, 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
Aero-Corinthus fortress frowning from
the height of sixteen hundred and eigh-
ty-slx feet, and in the house OF Gaius,
where he was a guest, a big pile OF
money near him, which he was taking
to Jerusalem for the poor. In this let
ter to the Romans, which Chrysostom
admired so much that he had 1t read
to him twice week, Paul practically
says: Il, the Apostle, am bankrupt. 1
owe what cannot pay, but will pay
as large a percentage as l can. 1t is
an obligation for what Greek literature
and Greek sculpture and Greek archi-
lecture and Greek prowess have done
for me. / will pay all can in Install
ments Of evangelism. l am insolvent
to the Greeks" Hellas, as the inhabi-
tants call 1t, or Greece, as we call It,,
is Insignificant in size, about a third
as large as the state of New York, but
what 1t lacks in breadth is makes up
IN height, with it's mountains Cylene,
and Eta, and Taygetus, and Tymphres-
tus, each over seven thousand feet in
elevation, and its Parnassus, over eight
thousand. 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
mad for cradle the valley between two
mountains. That country, no part of
which is more than forty miles from
the sea, has made its impress upon the
world as no other nation, and it today
holds first mortgage of obligation
upon all civilized people. While we
must leave to statesmanship and di-
plomacy the settlement of the intri-
cate questions which now involve all
Europe, and indirectly all nations, it
is time for all churches, all schools, all
universities, all arts, all literature to
sound out in the most emphatic way
the declaration, Il am debtor to the
Greeks"
In the 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. written in
the Aramean language, was soon put
into Greek by our Savior's brother,
James. To the Greek language we owe
the best sermon ever preached, the
best letters ever written, the best Wis
ions 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 embarkation and
Pentecostal tongues and seven trumpets
that sounded over Patmos, have come
to the world in liquid, symmetric, pic
turesque, philosophic, unrivaled Greek,
instead of the gibberish language in
which many Of the nations of the earth
at that time jabbered. Who can forget
1t and who can exaggerate its thrilling
that Christ and heaven
were introduced to us in the language
of the Greeks? the language in which
Homer had sung and Sophocles drama
tized and Pluto dialogued and Socrates
discoursed and Lycurgus legislated and
Demosthenes Numbered his Grafton on
1.-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
nations had been drinking, but in the
clean, bright, golden Tipped, emerald
handled chalice of the Hellenes.
Learned Curtius wrote whole volume
about the Greek verb. Philologists
century after century have been meas
lring the symmetry of that language,
aden with elegy and philippe, drama
and comedy, Odyssey and Iliad; but
he grandest thing that Greek language
ever accomplished was to give to the
world the benediction, the comfort, the
the salvation of the Cos
,el of the Son of God. For that we are
lebtors to the Greeks.
And while speaking of our philologi-
al obligation, let me call your atten-
ion to the fact that many of the in
ellectual and moral and theological
eaders of the ages got much of their
discipline and effectiveness from Greek
literature. 1t is popular to scotf at the
lead languages, but 80 per cent Of the
worlds intellectually would have been
AIKEN off il, through learned institu-
ions our young men had not, under
professors, been drilled in
ireek masterpieces. Hesiod's Weeks
nd Days." or the eulogium by Simon
1es of the slain in war, or Pindar's
Odes of Victory" or 1.-The Recollec-
ions of Socrates" or THE Art of
Words" by Corax, or Xenophon's Ana
asis.
From the Greeks the world learned
ow to make history. Had there been
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