561. National Ruin

National Ruin

Rev_18:10 : ’93Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.’94

On cis-Atlantic shores a company of American scientists are now landing, on their way to find the tomb of a dead empire holding in its arms a dead city, mother and child of the same name’97Babylon. The ancient mounds will invite the spades and shovels and crowbars, while the unwashed natives look on in surprise. Our scientific friends will find yellow bricks still impressed with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and they will go down into the sarcophagus of a monarchy buried more than two thousand years ago. May the explorations of Rawlinson and Layard and Chevalier and Opperto and Loftus and Chesney be eclipsed by the present archaeological uncovering.

But is it possible that this is all that remains of Babylon? A city once five times larger than London, and twelve times larger than New York, Walls three hundred and seventy-three feet high, and ninety-three feet thick. Twenty-five burnished gates on each side, with streets running clear through to corresponding gates on the other side. Six hundred and twenty-five squares. More pomp and wealth and splendor and sin than could be found in any five modern cities combined. A city of palaces and temples. A city having within it a garden on an artificial hill four hundred feet high, the sides of the mountain terraced. All this built to keep the king’92s wife, Amyitis, from becoming homesick for the mountainous region in which she had spent her girlhood. The waters of the Euphrates spouted up to irrigate this great altitude into fruits and flowers and arborescence unimaginable. A great river running from north to south clear through the city, bridges over it, tunnels under it, boats on it. A city of bazaars and of market-places, unrivaled for aromatics and unguents and high-mettled horses, with grooms by their side, and thyme wood, and African evergreen, and Egyptian linen, and all styles of costly textile fabric, and rarest purples extracted from shell-fish on the Mediterranean coast, and rarest scarlets taken from brilliant insects in Spain, and ivories brought from successful elephantine hunts in India, and diamonds whose flash was a repartee to the sun. Fortress within fortress, embattlement rising above embattlement. Great capital of the ages. But one night, while honest citizens were asleep, but all the saloons of saturnalia were in full blast, and at the king’92s castle they had filled the tankards for the tenth time, and reeling, and guffawing, and hiccoughing, around the state table were the rulers of the land, General Cyrus ordered his besieging army to take shovels and spades, and they diverted the river from its usual channel into another direction, so that the forsaken bed of the river became the path on which the besieging army entered. When the morning dawned the conquerors were inside the outside trenches. Babylon had fallen, and hence the sublime threnody of the text: ’93Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come.’94

But do nations die? Oh, yes, there is great mortality among monarchies and republics. They are like individuals in the fact that they are born, they have a middle life, they have a decease; they have a cradle and a grave. Some of them are assassinated, some destroyed by their own hand. Have we a right to conclude that because our republic is alive today it will be alive forever? Let me call the roll of some of the dead civilizations and some of the dead cities and let some one answer for them. Egyptian civilization, stand up. ’93Dead!’94 answer the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, and from seventy pyramids on the east side of the Nile there comes a chorus crying: ’93Dead, dead!’94 Assyrian Empire, stand up, and answer. ’93Dead!’94 cry the charred ruins of Nineveh. After six hundred years of magnificent opportunity, dead. Israelitish kingdom, stand up. After two hundred and fifty years of divine interposition, and of miraculous vicissitude and of heroic behavior, and of appalling depravity, dead. Phoenicia, stand up and answer. After inventing the alphabet and giving it to the world, and sending out her merchant caravans in one direction to Central Asia, and sending out navigators to the Atlantic Ocean in another direction, dead. Pillars of Hercules, and rocks on which the Tyrian fishermen dried their nets, all answer, ’93Dead Phoenicia.’94 Athens, after Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Miltiades, dead. Sparta, after Leonidas, after Eury-biades, after Salamis, after Thermopylae, dead. Roman Empire, stand up and answer. Empire once bounded by the British Channel on the north, by the Euphrates on the east, by the great Sahara Desert in Africa on the south, by the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Home of three great civilizations, owning all the then discovered world that was worth owning’97Roman Empire, answer. Gibbon, in his ’93Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,’94 says: ’93Dead!’94 and the forsaken seats of the ruined Coliseum, and the skeleton of the aqueducts, and the miasma of the Campagna, and the fragments of the marble baths, and the useless piers of the Bridge Triumphalis, and the Mamartine prison, holding no more apostolic prisoners, and the silent Forum, and Basilica of Constantine, and the Arch of Titus and the Pantheon come in with great chorus, crying: ’93Dead, dead!’94 After Horace, after Virgil, after Tacitus, after Cicero, dead. After Horatius on the bridge, and Cincinnatus, the farmer oligarch, after Pompey, after Scipio, after Cassius, after Constantine, after C’e6sar, dead. The war eagle of Rome flew so high it was blinded by the sun, and came whirling down through the heavens, and the owl of desolation and darkness built its nest in the forsaken eyrie. Mexican Empire, dead. French Empire, dead.

You see, my friends, it is no unusual thing for a government to perish, and in the same necrology of dead nations, and in the same graveyard of expired governments will go the United States of America unless there be some potent voice to call a halt and unless God in his mercy interfere, and through a purified ballot-box and a widespread Christian sentiment the catastrophe be averted. This nation is about to go to the ballot-box to exercise the right of suffrage, and I propose this morning, and in following Sabbath mornings, to set before you the evils that threaten to destroy the American government, and to annihilate American institutions, and if God will help me I will show you before I get through with these discourses the mode in which each and every one may do something to arrest that appalling calamity. And I shall plough up the whole field.

The first evil that threatens the annihilation of our American institutions is the fact that political bribery, which once was considered a crime, has by many come to be considered a tolerable peccadillo. Whole States swept by the scourge of political bribery. The pedlers carrying gold from Wall Street, gold from Third Street, gold from State Street, and gold from the Brewers’92 Association, are at all the political headquarters of the doubtful States, dealing out the infamous inducement. Then it is not only the money spent for votes, but the success of the election will be used as a bribe for the whole nation, inducing the multitude of men who sit on the fence to jump off and run with the triumphant party for the one hundred thousand offices at disposal. Such an election will not let you know whom the State wants for President of the United States. It will only indicate which party has the largest exchequer.

After one Presidential election a banquet was spread in New York to celebrate the victory, and in the presence of many of the mightiest men of the nation it was announced that one of the States had been bought up’97had been carried in the election by bribery. Another word was used than the word bribery, but everybody understood. There was no surprise. Everybody knew which State had been bought. There used to be bribery, but it held its head in shame. It was under the utmost secrecy that many years ago a railroad company bought up the Wisconsin Legislature and many other public officials in that State. The Governor of the State at that time received fifty thousand dollars for his signature. His private secretary received five thousand dollars. Thirteen members of the Senate received one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars in bonds. Sixty members of the other house received from five to ten thousand dollars each. The Lieutenant-Governor received ten thousand dollars. The clerks of the house received from five to ten thousand dollars each. The Bank Comptroller received ten thousand dollars. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars were divided among the legislators and officials by the lobbyists. You see, the railroad company was very generous. But all that was hidden, and only through the severest scrutiny on the part of a legislative committee was this iniquity displayed. Now, political bribery defies you, dares you, is arrogant, and will probably decide the election on the first Tuesday of next November. Unless this diabolism ceases in this country, Bartholdi’92s statue, on Bedloe’92s Island, with uplifted torch to light other nations into the harbor, had better be changed, and the torch dropped as a symbol of universal incendiarism. Unless this purchase and sale of suffrage shall cease, the American Government will expire, and you might as well be getting ready the monument for another dead nation, and let my text inscribe upon it these words: ’93Alas! alas! for Babylon, that great city, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come.’94 If you have not noticed that political bribery is one of the ghastly crimes of this day, you have not kept your eyes open.

Another evil which in former years threatened the destruction of American institutions, but which has now fortunately disappeared, was the solidifying of the sections against each other. A solid North, a solid South. If this had gone on, we should after a while have had a solid East against a solid West, solid Middle States against solid Northern States, a solid New York against a solid Pennsylvania, and a solid Ohio against a solid Kentucky. It is many years since the war closed, and yet at every Presidential election the old antagonism has been aroused.

When Garfield died, and all the States gathered around his casket in sympathy and in tears, and as hearty telegrams of condolence came from New Orleans and from Charleston as from Boston and Chicago, I said to myself: ’93I think sectionalism is dead.’94 But alas! no. The difficulty will never be ended until each State of the nation is split up into two or three great political parties. This country cannot exist unless it exists as one body, the national capital the heart, sending out through all the arteries of communication warmth and life to the very extremities. This nation cannot exist unless it exists as one family, and you might as well array solid brothers against solid sisters, and a solid bread-tray against a solid cradle, and a solid nursery against a solid dining-room; and you might as well have solid ears against solid eyes, and solid head against solid foot. What is the interest of Georgia is the interest of Massachusetts; what is the interest of New York is the interest of South Carolina. Does the Ohio River change its politics when it gets below Louisville? It is not possible for these sectional antagonisms to continue for a great many years without permanent compound fracture.

Another evil threatening the destruction of our American institutions is the low state of public morals. What killed Babylon of my text? What killed Ph’9cnica? What killed Rome? Their own depravity; and the fraud and the drunkenness and the lechery which have destroyed other nations will destroy ours, unless a merciful God prevent. To show you the low state of public morals, I have to call your attention to the fact that many men nominated for offices in the State and nation at different times are entirely unfit for the positions for which they have been nominated. We have now ten persons nominated for the offices of President and Vice-President. Two of them are women. They are good. But three out of the eight men nominated for the offices of President and Vice-President have no more qualification for them than a wolf has qualification to be professor of pastoral theology in a flock of sheep, or a blind mole has qualification to lecture a class of eagles on optics, or than a vulture has qualification to chaperon a dove. The mere pronunciation of some of their names makes a demand for carbolic acid and fumigation! Yet Christian men will follow right on under the political standards.

I have to tell you what you know already, that American politics have sunken to such a low depth that there is nothing beneath. What we see in some directions we see in nearly all directions. The peculation and the knavery hurled to the surface by the explosion of banks and business firms are only specimens of great Cotopaxis and Strombolis of wickedness that boil and roar and surge beneath, but have not yet regurgitated to the surface. When the heaven-descended Democratic party enacted the Tweed rascality it seemed to eclipse everything; but after a while the heaven-descended Republican party outwitted pandemonium with the Star Route infamy.

We have in this country people who say the marriage institution amounts to nothing. They scoff at it. We have people walking in polite parlors in our day who are not good enough to be scavengers in Sodom! I went over to San Francisco four or five years ago’97that beautiful city, that queen of the Pacific. May the blessing of God come down upon her great churches and her noble men and women! When I got into the city of San Francisco, the mayor of the city and the president of the Board of Health called on me and insisted that I go and see the Chinese quarters; no doubt so that on my return to the Atlantic coast I might tell what dreadful people the Chinese are. But on the last night of my stay in San Francisco, before thousands of people in their great opera house, I said: ’93Would you like me to tell you just what I think, plainly and honestly?’94 They said: ’93Yes, yes, yes!’94 I said: ’93Do you think you can stand it all?’94 They said: ’93Yes, yes, yes!’94 ’93Then,’94 I said, ’93my opinion is that the curse of San Francisco is not your Chinese quarters, but your millionaire libertines!’94 And two of them sat right before me’97Felix and Drusilla. And so it is in all the cities. I never swear, but when I see a man go unwhipt of justice, laughing over his shame and calling his damnable deeds gallantry and peccadillo, I am tempted to hurl red-hot anathema and to conclude that if, according to some people’92s theology, there is no hell, there ought to be!

There is enough out-and-out licentiousness in American cities today to bring down upon them the wrath of that God who, on the 24th of August, 79, buried Herculaneum and Pompeii so deep in ashes that the eighteen hundred subsequent years have not been able to complete the exhumation. There are in American cities today whole blocks of houses which the police know to be infamous, and yet by purchase they are silenced, by hush money; so that such places are as much under the defence of the government as public libraries and asylums of mercy. These ulcers on the body politic bleed and gangrene away the life of the nation, and public authority in many of the cities looks the other way. You cannot cure such wounds as these with a silken bandage. You will have to cure them by putting deep in the lancet of moral surgery and burning them out with the caustic of holy wrath and with most decisive amputation cutting off the scabrous and putrefying abominations. As the Romans were after the Celts, and as the Normans were after the Britons, so there are evils after this nation which will attend the obsequies unless we first attend theirs.

Superstition tells of a marine reptile, the cephaloptera, which enfolded and crushed a ship of war; but it is no superstition when I tell you that the history of many of the dead nations proclaims to us the fact that our ship of state is in danger of being crushed by the cephaloptera of national depravity. Where is the Hercules to slay this hydra? Is it not time to speak by pen, by tongue, by ballot-box, by the rolling of the prison door, by hangman’92s halter, by earnest prayer, by Sinaitic detonation? A son of King Croesus is said to have been dumb and to have never uttered a word until he saw his father being put to death. Then he broke the shackles of silence, and cried out: ’93Kill not my father, Croesus!’94 When I see the cheatery and the wantonness and the manifold crime of this country attempting to commit patricide’97yea, matricide’97upon our institutions, it seems to me that lips that heretofore have been dumb ought to break the silence with thunderous tones of fiery protest.

I want to put all of the matter before you, so that every honest man and woman will know just how matters stand, and what they ought to do if they vote, and what they ought to do if they pray. This nation is not going to perish. Alexander, when he heard of the wealth of the Indies, divided Macedonia among his soldiers. Some one asked him what he had kept for himself, and he replied: ’93I am keeping hope.’94 And that jewel I keep bright and shining in my soul, whatever else I shall surrender. ’93Hope, thou, in God.’94 He will set back these oceanic tides of moral devastation.

Do you know what is the prize for which contention is made today? It is the prize of this continent. Never since the hour when, according to Milton, Satan was

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,

With hideous ruin and combustion down,

have the powers of darkness been so determined to win this continent as they are now. What a jewel it is’97a jewel carved in relief, the cameo of this planet! On one side of us the Atlantic Ocean, dividing us from the wornout governments of Europe. On the other side the Pacific Ocean, dividing us from the superstitions of Asia. On the north of us the Arctic Sea, which is the gymnasium in which the explorers and navigators develop their courage. A continent ten thousand five hundred miles long, seventeen million square miles, and all of it but about one-seventh capable of rich cultivation. One hundred millions of population on this continent of North and South America’97one hundred millions, and room for many hundred millions more. All flora and all fauna, all metals, and all precious woods, and all grains and all fruits. The Appalachian range the backbone and the rivers the ganglia carrying life all through and out to the extremities. Isthmus of Darien the narrow waist of a giant continent, all to be under one government, and all free and all Christian, and the scene of Christ’92s personal reign on earth if, according to the expectation of many good people, he shall at last set up his throne in this world. Who shall have this hemisphere’97Christ or Satan? Who shall have the shore of her inland seas, the silver of her Nevadas, the gold of her Colorados, the telescopes of her observatories, the brain of her universities, the wheat of her prairies, the rice of her savannas, the two great ocean beaches’97the one reaching from Baffin’92s Bay to Terra del Fuego, and the other from Behring Straits to Cape Horn’97and all the moral, and temporal, and spiritual, and everlasting interests of a population vast beyond all computation save by him with whom a thousand years are as one day? Who shall have the hemisphere? You and I will decide that, or help to decide it, by conscientious vote, by earnest prayer, by maintenance of Christian institutions, by support of great philanthropies, by putting body, mind and soul on the right side of all moral, religious, and national movements.

Ah! it will not be long before it will not make any difference to you or to me what becomes of this continent, so far as earthly comfort is concerned. All we will want of it will be seven feet by three, and that will take in the largest, and there will be room and to spare. That is all of this country we will need very soon, the youngest of us. But we have an anxiety about the welfare and the happiness of the generations that are coming on, and it will be a grand thing if, when the archangel’92s trumpet sounds, we find that our sepulchre, like the one Joseph of Arimathea provided for Christ, is in the midst of a garden. By that time this country will be all Paradise, or all Dry Tortugas. Eternal God, to thee we commit the destiny of this people!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage