Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-08-17
PREACHER MOBBED
BY BIG BUSINESS
International Sunday School
Lesson For August 20 Is
"The Riot of Ephesus''
(By William 7. Ellis. }


/ stood amid the marble fragments
of the old theater at Ephesus. All
about me were ruins, and memories.
In front of me extended the over
grown marble highway, Uttered with
overturned statues and columns, which
ran through the forum to the famous
marble docks of Ephesus. Not for
centuries, however, has the sea lap
ped those walls, though the outlines
of the ancient harbor, which once
connected the city with the Mediter-
ranean, show clear and strong, like
a huge green frying-pan. over yond-
er is the stadium, now covered with
a growing tobacco crop. The ruins
of once stately buildings are now but
gaping caverns, on which an "enter-
prising" rug manufacturer has painted
hideous advertisements directed to the
occasional tourist. Along the marble
walks where once trod sages and SEN
ators and saints, 1 see furtive serpents
glide.
The famous theater itself - the
very one in which the Ephesian mob
shouted itself hoarse two thousand
the Apostle Paul - still bears its
original shape, and traces of its
former marble grandeur. What thou
sands upon thousands could crowd
into this vast amphitheater! Now it
is deserted. In whatever direction I
look, I see not a single human being,
and not a vestige of living habitation.
All is ruin, ruin, ruin.
AS [ tarry in the theater, the scene
of one Of tho most Ht-aY M fio oY,5
gestive events in the New Testament,
my Imagination peoples the city as it
was in PauPS day. l hear again the
throaty, frenZied mob proving - by
noise! - the supremacy and immor-
tality of their many-breasted goddess.
A strange fancy siezes me, and amid
those barren stones 1 lift up my voice
of the Ephesians!" The only answer
is from a crow circling overhead, who
seems to wink at me.
Diana is dead. In the neighbor-
ing village, whose natives sometimes
gather relics from the ruins of
Ephesus, I could not find any token
of the worship of Diana, though there
were old Ephesiah coins bearing
Christian emblems. Even the site of
Diana's temple was long in dispute,
and it is now nothing to see. The
best preserved survival of old Ephesus
is the Double Church" of St. John
the Divine. The centuries have vim
dicated the haunted and mobbed
Apostle Paul. Demetrius, who had
caused such a loud demonstration of
the verdict of ''VoX populi" in favor
OF Diana, has been put to shame
In all the earth to-day there is not
a living creature who names the name
OF Diana with reverence, while PauTs
Gospel still sweeps on to new con-
quests. In my own case, my visit
to the ruins of Ephesus visualized for
me the defeat of error and the tri-
umph Of truth. That ancient day in
old Ephesus had seemed to belong to
Diana; but it takes time to tell where
spiritual victories lie. Where are all
the gods that combatted Christianity
in the first centuries?
To-day in An Ancient Yesterday
The story of that turbulent day in
the Ephesus of long ago is both his
tory and literature. So this Sunday
school lesson rehearses a familiar
scene. The Apostle Paul's two years
or work in Ephesus had borne such
fruit that the very vogue of Diana
was threatened. The image-nakers
felt that their business was in peril
The towns vested interests were en-
dangered; for spirituaI truth has a
serious habit of working out into
practical affairs. Led by Demetrius
the silversmiths stirred up a city-
wide riot against the Christian prop
aganda, protesting great zeal for the
old order though really caring only
for their own oockets. "Conserva-