The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-02

Egyptian civilization did It's work but 1t | was cruel and superstitious and td6fntrous and defiant of the Almighty. H was cast
 out and cast down. The tourist finds his | chief interest not in the generation that ! now inhabits the regions watered by the Nile and sprinkled py her cascades but | in the temples that are the skeietons or l obelseks. her catacombs. her mosques, I the colossus of Rameses. the dead. cities | of Memphis and Thebes, the temples Of ! Luxor and Karnak. the museum contain | ing the mummihed forms of the pha- | raohs. It is not the Egypt Of today that
 we go to see. but the Egypt of many cen turies ago. Her spirit has departed. Her doom was sealed. The Lord weisned her spirit.
 | Hellespont and see Grecian civilization
 put in the royal balances. surely that | produced a Pindar and Homer Tn poetry, a Sophocles and an Aeschylus | in tragedy, a Herodotus and Thucydides
 osophy. a strabo in geography, a Hippo | crates in medicine, Aenophon m ntera- | ture, Plutarch in biography, Miitiades l and an Alexander in battle and could | build a temple of Diana at Ephesus and | the acro-Corinthus at Corinth and could crown the AcropQlis with a Parthenon- surely such 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 of heroics, her pride of literature, her pride of architec- ture must be brought down lower and lower. and humiliation must. follow hn- initiation untilsin the latter part or the nineteeneh century sne is compelled to submit to the out,ages of sultan wnose hands are red with the blood of 60.o00 Armenians. Had Athens prayerfully lis- tened to Paurs sermon on Mars Hill and adopted his precepts of brotherpood and divine worship she would nave stood Tn hor al q would have stood with her, and that civ ilization so long dead under the carved pillars of her shrines and under the mar ble of her pentelican mountains would have been. perhaps for 'all Asia and for much of Europe, a living civilization. But for her arrogance she was cast out and
 cast down. The Lord weighed her spirit. Wander along the banks of the Tiber,l and you come to another civilization
 which is put in the royal balances-the Roman civilization. It, capital was the
 something that will last as long as the
 earth continues to swing in it's orbit.
 Here Caeser reigned and Trajan and Ti-
 tus and Canstantins brought home their
 in the sun the Coliseum. comb ming in
 its architecture the best Doril. Ionic and Corinthian, s7.0o0 spectators gazing upon
 the gladiators in bloody struggle. Look!
 penciling the facade of palace. Hear!
 That Is tn evoice of Marcus Tullius Cie- ero in the defense of Arcfias. Now lis- ! ten to the laughter of Terence in immor- tai comedy. What rich aroma! It is
 waited from the gardens of Sallust. Be-
 hold the splendor of the Augustan age!
 Hear the rustling of the historical pages sirs "Aeneid." Behold her system of laws. which have been the foundation of
 good laws all the world over! But the
 empire was plunged into extravagance
 and dissoluteness. and 1t takes the four
 great volumes of Gibbon to describe her decadence. The Goths. the Huns. the TArtars. Tamerlane, Attila and Alaric
 helped in the demolition. We go there
 now to see her ruins. Coliseum in ruins. Forum in ruins. Caesars palace in | ruins. Baths of Titus in ruins. Appian way in ruins. CatacomEbs in ruins Tem- | Hadrian in ruins. Roman civilization in | ruins. It's spirit was an impure spirit, an
 all conauerng spirit. and the Lord | weigheth the spirits"
 The Weighing of Nations.
 And so the spirit of our American na-
 tion is put into the royal balance. and it | will be weighed as certainly as all the
 nations of the past were weighed and as.
 all the nations of the present are being
 weighed. When we go to estimate the
 and silver and coal and iron and copper 1 and lead. and all the steeyards and all | the balances are kept busy. So many
 tons of this and so many tons of that, |
 mountainful of another metal. That is | well. We want to know our mining 1 wealth, our manufacturing wealth, our, | agricultural wealth, and the bushel meas
 ure and the scales have an important l work. But know right well there is di- | vine weighing in this country all the time
 going on, and I can tell you our coun- | try's destiny if you will tell me whether | 1t shall be God honoring nation. rever-
 entia1 to the only book of hts authorship,
 observing the "shalt nots" of the law of | of love given on the Mount of Beati- | tudes, one day out of the week observed
 not in revelry. but in holy convocation, | marriage honored in ceremony and in 1 fact. blasphemy silenced in all the streets, l high toned systems of morals in ail'parts | of our land then our institutions will | live, and all the wondrous prosperitie5 of
 the present are only faint hint of the | greater prosperities to come. Richer har-
 vests will rustic in the fields. a higher
 style of literature will turn it's leaves in | our libraries. nobler men will adorn our | State and National Legislatures. and
 there will be Washingtons and Hamitons
 and Patrick Henrys and John Marshalls
 and Abraham Lincolns 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 mountains before they begin to fall
 and glorious as the seas before they be- | gin to die.
 l Keeping the National Life Pure. l But If our character and behavior as | nation are reversed and good morals give | place to loose living and God Is put away l from our hearts and our schools and our | homes and our people and our literature | be debauched and anarchism and atheism | have full sway and our American Sab l bath becomes a Parisian Sabbath and | infamous laws get a place on our statute | books and the marriage relation becomes | a joke instead of a sanctity and the God l whom Columbus prayed to on the day of | his landing from stormy seas and whom Benjamin Franklin publicly reverenced when he moved amid derisive cries the 1 regular opening of the American Con- gross with prayer shall in our national future be insultv- and blasphemed. then it will not be long before we willkReed another Edward Gibbon to write tE 4ea cI. ne and faa ot the United StaAN@ A- public and 1t will not be anotheN D4sNspf destruction by the Goths an1ff1tns and Tartars and Tamarlanes ana. Attitas Of foreign opposition andr hate. but 1t will
 be a case of word astounding national
 1rfee The wish of this sermon IS to ,empha- size the invisibIe--to showathat there are other balances besides thoseAof brass and platinum and aluminium and Set in earth | iy storehouses; that the spirit ie the most l important part of us; chat the scales which weigh your body are not as, impor- | tant as the scales which weigh your soul. l Depend not too much for happiness upon | the visible. Pyrrhus was king and had large dominion, but was determined to ! mako war against the Romans, and Gin