CHAPTER XLIII.
A BURIED CITY—POMPEII.
Long Shut Out of Civilization—Four Days in Gehenna—Paul’s Experience Co-Incides with Ours—Dead—Buried—A Stone Against the Door—Raised from the Grave—Under an Italian Sky—“See Naples and Die”—Off for the City of the Dead—Knocking for Entrance—Earthquake—Re-Built—Location of the City—Boasted Perfection—City Destroyed by a Volcano—Vivid Description by an Eye-Witness—Rich Field for Excavation—What Has been Found—Returns to Get Gold—Poetical Inspiration—Pompeii at Present—Mistaken Dedication.
FOR some months past I have been breathing the atmosphere of Asia and Africa. While there I was completely shut out from civilization. I have not received a paper or the scratch of a pen from any one in many weeks. I must have a letter soon, if I have to write it myself.
Since leaving Egypt I have been four days on the Mediterranean—I had almost said “four days in Gehenna.” I flattered myself that I was a moderately good sailor, but this time I lost my sea legs in half an hour after going on board the steamer, nor did I discover their whereabouts until twelve hours after landing. I thought of Paul’s experience when making a similar voyage. In Acts 27:6 we are told that Paul was put in a ship “sailing from Alexandria to Italy.” So was I. Paul’s vessel was struck with a “tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon,” and was “exceedingly tossed with a tempest.” So was mine. Paul sailed close by the islands of Crete and Clauda. So did I. I was sea-sick—so was Paul, I suppose. Indeed it was a voyage long to be remembered. I am a splendid sailor—on land—but I can not navigate a “tempestuous sea.”
Europe again! I feel as one who has been keeping company with the dead, and has now been raised from the grave and brought back to the land of the living. Verily, the people of Asia and Africa are dead—dead spiritually, dead in trespasses and sin, dead to literature and learning, dead to the progress the world is making. Not only dead, but buried—buried in conceit, in selfishness, in filth and ignorance. Yes, these people are dead and buried in a sepulchre, and against the door of that sepulchre Poverty has placed a stone which naught but the angels of God can remove. Come, O winged angel, come quickly. Roll away this stone, that these benighted people may be raised up to the nineteenth century and to God!