Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-10-22
CalrnaQe
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmaee, D. D.

for good resolutions and turning over
a new leaf" is this sermon. the text for
which is taken from Acts xvii, 80, "And
the times of this ignorance God winkec
at"
What a tremorfo of excitement must
have stirred the minds and the hearts
OF his men when Horatio Nelson, the
celebrated English admiral, gave the
order to clear the gun deck for action
at Trafalgar! All, yes, we can truly
say the one armed naval hero whose
body now sleeps In st. PauPs cathedral
by the side of the Waterloo chieftain
was no novice in the art of war. Way
back in the uprising of the American
colonies be fought as a young captain
of twenty-one under Lord Howe. He
was in the midst Of the British strug-
giles or Cape Vincent in 179S. He was
tie commander who destroyed the
Brench fleet in the harbor of Aboukir
when Napoleon was making his Egyp-
Hion conquests. He was part of the
naval history Of England from 1770 up
To the time Of his tragic death, but all
BIS previous engagements were mere
preparation for his great battle of Traf-
falgar. Then he gripped NapoleOn's
admiral-Villeneuve by name-and
grimly said, Thou shalt not make it
possible for the c%onquerors Of Prussia
and Spain and Austria and Italy and
Holland and W~estphalia to cross the
channel aqd fight under the shadow of
Westminster abbey and Windsor cas-.
tie" Truly that Trafalgar order, Eng.
land expects every man to do his duty"
must have aroused the heroic in every
British heart, for Trafalgar was the SUI
preme battle of Horatio Nelson's life.
What the quarter deck of the British
line Of battle ship Victory was to Nell
son at Trafalgar Mars hill was to the
great gospel warrior Paul. Like Mel
son, Paul was no novice. He had
fought in many a conflict for Christ.
He was a SCARED veteran of many
gospel campaigns. In Damascus, at
Jerusalem, over in Corinth. in EpheSus,
we can follow his martial footsteps.
But though he had fought many bat
ties for Christ the supreme battle of
Paul's life was witnessed at Mars hill.
EO AlOultNll III int dulldlS VI ll6
church." wrote the historian, has
larger significance than that in which
the gospel of the living Christ came in
its first contact at Athens with the
worn faiths of paganism, its philosophy
and its science" Here it was that
Paul not only had to grapple with
PlatO's philosophy and with the teach
ings of the Stoics and the ~Epicureans,
but here also he had to preach Christ
in the home of the drama and preach
Jesus from the rostrum mate memOra
bic by the o~rations of the greatest ora
tors of the past, whose silver tongues
had created armies and made laws and
started forth Greece on its conquest o.
the world.
When Paul looked up and waved his
hand above him he saw the famous
Acropolis crowned with it's many TEN
pies. There is the Parthenon with its
beautiful statue of Pallas, the guard.
ian goddess of Athens, which city was
the home of Demosthenes and Lysias
n Lycurgus and Aeschines, the ora
tors, and of Aeschylus and Sophocles
the dramatists, and of T~hucydides ant
Xenophon, the historians, and of Scion
the lawyer, and of Socrates, the teach
er. n of Pericles, the poet, and o
Phidias, the Michael Angelo of tn
Greeks. To the right of this famOu
temple was the marvellous colossa
statue of Athanae Promachus. An,
there is a beautiful poem in marbl
called 1.-The Temple of Wingless Vie
tory" Every COLUMN, every shrine. ey
Nery~ intricate covering of that citadt
of ancient Athens was chiseled by th
hand Okla master. John Keats ono
wrote:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty; hat is al
Ye know on earth and all We need to know
If that is true, then truth was ever!
where ~intrenched on the heights owe
topping Mars hill. For beauty in he
most exquisite proportions was thel
in imperishable marble.
Not Preaching to savages.
When Paul ceased to look up and
a student of the beautiful looked dow
his eyes in amaZement wandered owe
the massive proportions of the grea
temple of Jupiter Olympus. which wa
out VI lue seven NVuueIS VI uC WIN
The few huge columns of this might
temple still standing inspire more. aw
=. in the minds of the modern student
2 than do ever the gigantic stones of th
pyramids or the ruined foundations c
the ancient statue OF the god Hello
once bestriding the harbor Of Rhodes
There was also the beautiful temple {
the Theseium, perhaps the most pc
fectly preserved temple. of all the al
clients. And there before him was th
gigantic temple Of Mars. the god
war. Paul was not preaching Chri:
among'a set Of ignorant savages. n
was preaching Christ to the create:
students Of architecture. Of sculptur
OF poetry and of oratory the world hs
ever seen. Wherever PauPs eyes thrl
ed he could see the beautiful statu,
end shrines erected not only to scor,