Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-03-13
but she turned to NORWOOD and has
The Lesson of Babylon's Fall.

fallen.
The Lesson of Babylon's Fall.
Babylon, with her $50 towers and her
brazen gates and her embattled walls,
the splendor of the earth gathered with
in her gates, her hanging gardens built
by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS to please his bride,
Amytis, who had been brought up in
mountainous country and could not en-
dure the fiat country around Babylon.
These hanging gardens built terrace
above terrace, till at the height of 400
feet there were woods waving and foun-
tains playing, the verdure, the foliage,
the glory, looking as if mountain were
on the wing. On the tiptop king walk
ing with his queen among the statues,
snowy white, looking up at birds
brought from distant lands and drink
ing out of tankards Of solid gold or lock-
ing off over rivers and lakes upon ma
tions subdued and tributary, crying,
sis not this great Babylon which I have
built?''
What battering ram smote the walls2
What plowshare upturned the gardensf
What army shattered the brazen gates2
What long, fierce blast of storm put
out this light which illuminated the
world? What crash of discord drove
down the music that poured from pal
ace window and garden grove and called
the banqueters to- their revel and the
dancers to their feet? | walk upon the
scene of desolation to find an answer
and pick up pieces of bitumen and
brick and broken pottery, the remains
of Babylon. hear the wild waves say
ing: Babylon was proud. Babylon
was impure. Babylon was star, but
by sin she turned to NORWOOD and
has fallen.
From the prosecutions of the pilgrim
fathers and the Huguenots in other
lands God set upon these shores ma
ton The council fires of the aborigines
went out in the greater light of free
government. The sound of the war
whoop was exchanged for the thousand
wheels of enterprise and progress. The
mild winters, the fruitful summers, the
healthful skies, charmed from other
lands race of hardy men, who loved
God and wanted to be free. Before the
woodlands ak forests fell and rose
again into ships masts and churches
pillars. Cities on the banks of lakes be-
gan to rival cities by the sea. The land
quakes with the rush of the rail car,
and the waters are churned white with
the steamer wheel. Fabulous bushels
of western wheat meet on the way fab
ulous tons of eastern coal Furs from
the north pass on the rivers fruits from
the south. And trading in the same
market are Maine lumberman and
South Carolina rice merchant and Ohio
farmer and Alaska fur dealer. And
churches and schools and asylums scat
ter light and love and mercy and saliva
ton upon 20, 900, 900 of people.
An Optimistic View.
pray that our nation may not copy
the crimes of nations that have per-
ished; that our cup of blessing turn not
to wormwood and we go down. L am
by nature and by grace an optimist,
and I expect that this country will con-
tinue to advance until the world shall
reach the millennial era. Our only
safety is in righteousness toward God
and justice toward man. If we forget
the goodness of the Lord to this land
and break his Sabbaths, and improve
not by the dire disasters that have again
and again come to us as people, and
we learn saving lesson neither from
civil war nor raging epidemic, nor
drought, nor mildew, nor scourge of
locust and grasshopper; if the political
corruption which has poisoned the foun-
tains of public virtue and beslimed the
high places of authority, making free
government at times q Kissing and
bywOrd in all the earth; if the drunk
enness and RIGHTEOUSNESS that stagger
and blaspheme in the streets of our
great cities, as though they were reach
ing after the fame of Corinth and
Sodom, are not repented of, we will yet
see the smoke of our nations ruin. The
pillars of our national and state capitols
will fall more disastrously than when
Samson pulled down Dagon, and future
historians will record upon the page
believed with generous tears the story
that the free nation of the west arose
in splendor which made the world stare.
1t had magnificent possibilities; it for
got God; it hated justice; it Rugged
it's crimes; it halted on it's high march; ;
it reeled under the blow of calamity;
it fell, and as it was going down all the
despotisms of earth from the top of
bloody thrones began to shout: "Ahal
So would we have it'll" while strug-
Cling and oppressed peoples looked out
from dungeon bars, with tears and
groans and cries of untold agony, the
scorn of those and the woe of these,
uniting in the exclamation: "Look
yonderl 'There fell great star from
heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and
it fell upon the third part of the rivers
and upon the fountains of waters, and
the name of the star is called Worm
wood 20