IN RUINS by J. CLARKE.

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 8, 1859

IN RUINS.

By J. CLARKE.

THIS world is a ruin. All over its surface are evidences of its decay. Internal fires belching forth volcanic matter with sullen mutterings, or shaking "terra firma" from center to circumference, sometimes engulfing towns and cities in one common destruction, rivers of liquid rock burying in their flow the crowded city and fruitful field, destroying the hopes of man.

Armies trained to war, drawn up in battle array, in one short hour cut short the fond hopes of home and kindred. Children are made fatherless, and parents childless, the joyous bride is widowed, and many a happy home is desolated forever. Tears flow in rivers, hopeless, fruitless tears, from hapless orphans, and bereaved survivors, with whom is left the sting of war, while relentless poverty, wretchedness and famine, follow close in its wake.

Nations, once strong, gifted, and far-famed in history and in song, now lie buried in oblivion, and were it not for the historian's page, would now be as unknown as the builders of Noph. Where are the ancient empires of Chaldea, and Media, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome? Who will claim that the present population and governments of those countries, do at all compare, either in virtue or intelligence, with those ancient empires? No; could those ancient warriors awake from the dust and behold their present representatives, their faces would mantle with shame.

Cities once populous and wealthy, compassed with massive walls, and defended by brave and true men; cities of seemingly inexhaustible resources, adorned with all that was beautiful and costly in art, and enriched with all that was admired and loved in literature and science, have crumbled into decay. What could stay their fall? Where now is Athens, the boast and pride of classic Greece? Where is Rome, that once numbered her seven millions, that humbled kings and emperors as its legitimate every-day business, that for centuries gave law to the world? Where are Herculaneum and Pompeii, with their luxurious inhabitants? Where is Carthage with its Hannibal? Where are Nineveh and Babylon with their mighty wealth and prowess? Tyre with its ingenious and skillful artisans, its independence and its enterprise? Where is Jerusalem, with its beauteous walls and towers, its gardens and vineyards, and fountains and aqueducts, its temple lined with gold, its streets paved with mosaic, its Davids and Solomons?

Go with the geologist, view the different strata of earth and rock lying in confusion, as if rent and piled by some strong convulsions of nature, and fragments of rock strewed afar upon the surface of the earth, sea shells upon the tops of lofty mountains, while fossil remains of unknown animals lie here and there imbedded in the earth; or with the antiquarian explore ruins of Central and North America, which display the industry and skill of a race now extinct; or dive into the deep sea, and count the treasures there buried, which centuries of labor had amassed; or visit the

tombs and cemeteries with which earth is filled, and count the myriads of men, the mean and the noble, the good and the bad, sleeping in the dust, waiting the last trump to call them forth; or take a glance at the inhabitants of earth, how the great man boweth down, and the mean man humbleth himself, each to his God; heathens debased to the level with the brutes, while enlightened men worship mammon, thus slighting their Creator, and scoffing at his messages, and as you meditate, answer the question, Is not earth a ruin?

J. CLARKE.