Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-11-16

is the result of spiritual condition and
not of earthly environment; that this
world is a schoolhouse for splendid or
disgraceful graduation; that with or
without us the world is to be made
over into a scene of arborescence and
purity; that all who are adjoined to
the unparalleled One of Bethlehem
and Nazareth and Golgotha will be the
subjects of a supernal felicity without
any taking off.
Do you doubt my first proposition
that nations which go wrong perish.
We have In this American nation all
the elements of permanence and de-
struction. We need not borrow from
others any trowels for upbuilding or
torches for demolition. Elements of
ruin-nihilism, inidelity, agnosticism,
Sabbath desecration, inebriety, sensu-
ality, extravaganza, fraud; they are all
here. Elements of safety-God wor-
Shipping men and women by the scores
of millions, honesty, benevolence,
truthfulness, self sacrifice, industry,
sobriety and more religion than has
characterized any nation that has ever
existed; they are all here. The only
question is as to which OF the forces
will gain dominancy-the one class as
eendant, and this United States gov
ernment, | think, Will continue as long
as the world exists; the other class as
cendant, and the United States goes
into such small pieces that other gov
ernments would hardly think them
worth picking up.
Cemetery of Nations.
Have you ever noticed the size of the
cemetery OF dead nations, the vast
Greenwood and Pere lie Chaise, where
mighty kingdoms were buried? Open
:he gate and walk through this ceme-
terry and read the epitaphs. Here lies
Carthage, born 100 years before Rome,
great commercial metropolis on the bay
of-Tunis. part of an empire that gave
the alphabet to the Greeks and their
great language to the Hebrews; her
arms the terror of nations. command
ing at one time 10000 miles Of coast;
her Hamilear leading forth 80 myriads,
or 100000 troops; her Hannibal carry
ing out in manhood the oath he had
taken in bOyhood to preserve eternal
enmity to Rome, leaving costly and i'm
posing monuments at Agrigentum
ghastly heap of ruins; Carthage, her
colonies on every coast, her ships plow-
ing every sea; Carthage-where are
her splendors now? All eXtinguished.
Where are her swords? The last one
broken. Where are her towers and long
ranges of magnificent architecture?
Buried under the sands of the Ba-
gradas. As ballast of foreign ships
much of her radiant marble has been
carried away to build the walls of
ransmediterranean cathedrals, while
other blocks have been blasted in mod
ern times by the makers of the Tunis
railway. And all of that great and
mighty city and Kingdom that the tour
list finds today is here and there a bro
ken arch of what was once 30 mile
aqueduct. Our talented and genial
friend, Henry NJ. Field, in one of his
matchless books of travel, labors hard
to prove that the slight ruins of that
city are really worth visiting. Carthage
buried in the cemetery of dead nations.
Not one altar TO the true God did she
rear; not one of the Ten Command
ments but she cOnspicuOuSly Violated.
Her doom was settled in heaven when
il was decided far back in the eternities
that the nation and kingdom that will
not serve God shall perish.
Breeders of Discord.
Walk on in the cemetery of nations
and see the long lines of tombs-
Thebes and Tyre and Egypt and Baby
Ion and Medic Persian and Macedonian
and Roman and Saxon heptarchy,
great nations, small nations, nations
that lived a year and nations that
lived 500 years.
Our own nation will be judged by
the same moral laws by which all 9TH
er nations have been judged. The
Judgment day for individuals will
probably come far on in the future.
Judgment day for nations is every
day, every day weighed, every day ap-
proved or every day condemned. Never
before in the history of this country
has the American nation been more
surely in the balances than it is this
minute. Do right, and we go up. Do
wrong, and we so down. | am not so
anxious to know what this statesman
or that warrior thinks we had better
do with Cuba and Porto Rico and the
Philippines as | am anxious to know
what God thinks we had better do.
The destiny of this nation will not be
decided on yonder capitoline hill or at
Manila or at the presidential ballot
box, for it will be settled in heaven.
Another thing decided in the same
high place is that happiness is the re-
suit of spiritual condition and not of
earthly environment. If we who may
sometimes have thousand dollars to
invest find it such n perpleXity to
know what to do with it and soon
after find that we invested it where
principal and interest have gone down
through roguery or panic, what must
be the worriment of those having mil
lions to invest and whose losses COR
respond in magnitude with their re-
sources! People who have their three
or four dollars day wages are just
as happy as those who have an income
of $500,000 Il year. Sometimes happi-
ness is seated on a foOtstOol and some
times misery on the throne. All the
gold of earth in one chunk cannot pur-
chase five minutes of complete salts
faction. Worldly success is an atmos-
phere that breeds the maggots of envy
and jealousy and hate. There are those,
who will nevar FORGIVE Won if Won have