The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-09
PAUL'S STAY IN CORINTH
DIR. ABBOTT TREATS ANOTHER
PHASE OF THE APOSTLES CAREER.
Persecution and It's Efect-Change in
the Great MissiOnary's Conception
of the Kingdom of God.


Brooklyn Eagle.
In Plymouth Church. Sunday night the
Rev, DR.. Lyman Abbott resumed his series
of lectures on the life and writings of St.
Paul, which had been interrupted by spe-
cial Christmas services. DR.. Abbott said:
''Forty-five miles from Athens lies, or
rather formerly lay, the city of Corinth.
If Athens may be called the Boston of
Greece, Corinth may be called the New York
of Greece. 1t was the commercial metropolis
of Achaia. IT is situated on the isthmus be-
tween two seas, the Aegean on the east,
the Ionian on the west. 1t is between two
ranges of hills, separating Northern from
Southern Greece. So that the slip COM
merce to avoid the stormy peninsula had
necessarily to come to Corinth, where either
the goods were transshipped or the vessels
were carried by kind OF roadway from
one sea to the other, and traders desiring
to pass from Northern to Southern Greece
must go through the mountain ranges
which separated Northern and Southern
Greece at Corinth. So that Corinth was the
gateway both of internal and marine COM
merce, 1t was the commercial metropolis
Of ancient Greece. And its glory and its
shame were those of a great commercial
metropolis. 1t had been a great and glori-
Gus city. The light Of all Greece Cicero
calls it.
Two hundred years before Pauls visit
it had been visited by Roman army and
dire vengeance had been taken upon it for
some real or fancied insult put upon Rome.
It had been given over to horrible sack. The
men had been killed, the women and the
children had been sold into slavery and the
city with its temples and its affairs and its
public buildings had been given to the
flames For a hundred years it lay desolate
and in ruin. Then julius Caesar resolved to
rebuild it. He sent thither Roman colonists,
he put money into the rebuilding, and it re-
gained something of its ancient emlnence,
though never regaining the whole.
This city. therefore, With great foreign
population gathered in it, still had great
commerce and enjoyed commercial pTlYl-
leges, and some political and social priv
leges as well. For It was the natural cap
ital of Greece. And whatever Corlnth did,
Greece was likely to follow Thus, it was
not only the New York of the ancient word,
Paris has been to France, that in some
sense Corinth was to Greece. Its glory, l
have said, commercial, and Its shame.
1t was pervaded by the commercial spirit.
We are mistaken ii we imagine the Grecian
people to be always a highly intellectual
people. They We're very commercial people,
pervaded by the commercial spirit. Five
hundred years before and more Pindar mad
man. in bitter satire of his countrymen;
and this spirit that money makes the man
was nowhere in Greece embodied as II was
AN IMMORAL CITY.
at was a city given over to luxury and
to the effeminacies and vices of luxury.
Greece was never very highly moral state,
certainly not measured by moral standards,
and Corinth was pre-eminently an immoral
city. The religion of that day had nothing
to do with morality. There was no attempt
on the part of the priests in the temples to
promote moral life. 1t is said AT there
were a thousand prostitutes connected with
the temple of Venus. That simple fact is
sufficient to Indicate how little effect or
influence the religion of Greece had in pro-
''The women of Corinth, the wives and
mothers, were left for the most part, 10
grow up in ignorance and were kept in Sc
clusion in their homes. The public women
were educated. There you were to look for
the culture, the refinement and the educa-
ton. They had their receptions and their
gatherings. and with them the wisest and
the best. the philosophers and the moralists,
ton with one another, and for brilliant con-
versation with women, who, in time and
in this city we would not allow within our
homes. So far had this gone that it became
q proverb in Greece, and for a woman 10
become devoted to public life of shame
This was the moral quality of Corinth.
And this moral quality Of Corinth had af-
was no longer philosophy 1t was sophism.
The SOphists were teachers OF a pseudo
philosophy. They organized their schools.
will of the iogician, certainly of the dia-
Iectician. They piled them for money
which was perhaps quite legitimate; they
piled them not for fruth-which was GER
tainly not at al legitimate. The
average teacher in Corinth had that idea
OF the duty OF professor of instruction
which is entertained and frankly avowed
by some Journalists at the present day re-
specting the profession of journalism They
say the newspaper is a comm ercial enter
prise; il gives to the people what the peo-
pie want: If you do not like tie newspaper
you must change the appetite OF the speo-
pie. So these professors Of rhetoric and log
ic in Cornth said, We are conducting a
commercial enterpriae, and we give the peo-
pie what the people want And what the
people wanted was ingenuity and skill in
intellectual fence The SopEist pretended
to know everything and 70 teach every
thing. He would talk 90 you on any sub
5ect you wanted to be talked to about: Much
s.Rain like some modem journalists II