Isaiah 23:8 Who has taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes… If we would realise more fully the noble part that merchants have played in the history of the world, and the close relation that commerce has always sustained to human progress, we hare only to investigate the origin of cities and consider the forces that pushed them upward in their growth. It was trade that gave birth to our modern cities; a knot of traders beneath the wails of a castle, feeding the castle and protected by it, adding booth to booth and house to house, — so cities arose, so have they been builded. The same is true today. Commercial facilities and necessities are the forces that build our cities. They represent the material forces and results of civilisation. Each city is a hive, and ships and railways are the bees that bring honey to the hive, bringing it from all the world. They fly everywhere, — these bees with sails and wheels for wings, — their flight girdles the earth, and the rush and roar of their going and returning fill the whole air. Now, cities represent progress. In them you see the results of human invention and skill. Here the artist brings his canvas and the sculptor his marble. Hero the loom is represented by the finest fabrics, and architecture lifts the pillars of her power. In cities oratory finds her school, and eloquence her platform; music her applause, and the poet his wreath. Every city is a record, a testimony, an advertisement. In its congregated forces and results you behold the people who built it. (W. H. Murray.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth? |
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