Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1901-05-31

lisks. her catacombs. her mosques. the
colossus OF Rameses, the dead cities OF
Memphis and Thebes. the temples OF
Luxor and Karnak, the museum con-
taiuing the mummified forms of the
pharaohs. II Is not the Egypt OF today
that we go TO see. but the Egypt OF
many centuries age. Her spirit has de-
parted. Her doom was scaled. The
Lord weighed her spirit.
Now cross over the Dardanellee or
Hellespont and see Greclan civilization
put I'm the royal balances. Surely that
is an imperisbsble spirit. A land that
produced q Pindsr and Homer In no.
etry, q Sophocles and en- Hschylus In
tragedy. a Herodotus and Thueydides
in history. a Socrates and Plato I'm phi
losophy. Strabo in geography, q Hip
pocrates In medicine, Xenophon IN
literature, Plutarch In biography. a
Miltiades and an Alexander In battle.
and could build a temple OF Diana nj
Ephcsus and the acro-Corinthus at Cor
NTH, and could crown the Acropo,is
with Parthenon-surely such a land
with moro genius compressed in small
space than in any of the nations of all
the ages. will stand forever triumphant
among surrounding nations. No. Her
pride or heroics, her pride OF literature,
her pride of architecture, must be
brought down lower and lower, and hui
initiation must follow humiliation until
In the latter part of the nineteenth CEN
fury she Is compelled to submit TO the
outrages of sultan whose hands are
red with the blood of $4,000 Arme-
mans. Had Athens prayerfully lis
tened TO Paups sermon on Mars Hill
and adopted his precepts OF brother
hood and divine worship she would
have stood In her old power today. and
all Greece would have stood with her.
and that civilization 80 long dead IN
der the carved pillars OF her shrines
and under the marble OF her pentellcan
mountains would have been, perhaps
for all Asia and for much OF Europe. n
living civilization. But for her AFRO
gance she was cast out and cast Down.
The Lord weighed her spirit.
The Crucial Test.
And so the spirit OF our American
nation is put into the royal balance.
and 1t Will be weighed as certainly as
all the nations of the past were weigh
ed and as all the nations OF the present
are being weighed. When we go to
estimate the wealth of this nation, we
weigh its gold and silver and coal and
Iron and copper and lead, and all the
steelyards and all the balances are kent
BUSY, So many tons of this and so
many tons of that; mountainful of
this metal and another mountainfuI of
another metal. That is well. We want
30 know our mining wealth, our manu-
iacturing wealth, our agricultural
wealth, and the bushel measure and
the scales have an important work.
But know right well there is a divine
weighing in this country all the timo
going on, and L can tell you our coun-
try's destiny, II you will tell me wheth-
err IL shall be God hoporing nation,
reverential TO the only book of his au-
thorship, observing the SHALT nots" of
the law OF right given on Mount Sinai
and the law OF love given on the Mount
or Beatitudes, one day OF thu zssph sA-
served, not In revelry. but in boz ZOO
vocation, marriage honored In core
mony and in fact, blasphemy silenced
In all the streets, high toned systems OF
morals In au parts OF our land-then
our institutions will live, and all the
vondrous properties of the present
are only a faint hint OF the greater
properties to come. Richer harvests
Will rustle In the fields, a higher styie
OF literature will turn its leaves In our
libraries. Dobler men Will adorn our
state and national legislatures. and
there viii be Washingtons aud Hamii-
tons and Patrick Henrys and John
Marshalls and Abraham Lincelns In
the future quite equal to those of the
past. And the last day OF the worlds
existence will find our free American
institutions permanent as the noun
tains before they begin to fall and
glorious as the seas before they begin
to die.
But II our character and behavior
as a nation are reversed and good NOR
ais give place TO loose living and God
is put away from our hearts, and our
schools and our homes and our people
and our literature be debauched. aud
anarchism and atheism have fun sway.
and our American Sabbath becomes
Partisan Sabbath, and infamous
laws get place ON our statute
books, and the marriage relation be-
comes a joke instead of n sanctrty.
and the God to whom Columbus pray
ed TO on the day OF his landing
from stormy seas and whom BENJAMIN
Franklin publicly reverenced when he
moved, amid derisive cries, the regular
opening OF the American congress with
prayer, shall In our national future be
insulted and blasphemed. then it will |
not be long before we win need another |
Edward GIbbon to write the decline |
and fall OF the United States republic, |
and 1t Will not be another cnse of de- |
struction by the Goths and Huns and |
Tartars and Tamerlanes and Attilas |
or foreign opposition and hate, but II |
VIII be q case OF world astounding ma
tional suicide.
Invisible Scales.
The wish OF this sermon Is to empha-
size the invisible. to show that there
are other balances besides those made |
or brass and platinum and aluminium
and set In earthly storehouses; that tAe
spirit is the most important part of us;
that the scales which weigh your body
are not as important as the scales
which weigh your soul Depend net
too much for happiness upon the visi-
bic. Pyrrhus was king and had large
but was determined to make
war against the Romans. and Cineas,
the friend Of the king, said to him,
Sir, when you have conquered them
what will you do next?" "Then Sicily
Is near at hand and easy to MASTER"
And what when you have conquered
SicilyT 'Then we will pass over to
Africa and take Carthage. which can
lot long Withstand u.s." when these
Ire conquered what win you next at
emptT 'Then we will fall in upon
Greece and Macedonia and recover
What we have lost there" "Well, when
Ill are subdued what fruit do you ex-
>ect from all your victoriesY' "Then,"
'aid the king, I'VE Will sit down and
'n3oy ourselves" Sir" said Cmeas.
80 a. "A l