Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1896 — Opening the Olympic Games. [ARTICLE]

Opening the Olympic Games.

The crown prince, taking his stand in the arena, facing the king, then mado a short speech, in which he touched upon the origin of the enterprise, and the obstacles surmounted in bringing it to fruition. Addressing the king, he asked him to proclaim the opening of the Olympic games, and the king, rising, declared them opened. It was a thrilling moment. Fifteen hundred and two years before the Emperor Theodosius had suppressed the Olympic games, thinking, no doubt, that in Abolishing this hated survival of paganism he was furthering the cause of progress; and here was a Christian monarch, amid the applause of an assemblage composed almost exclusively of Christians, announcing the formal annulment of the imperial decree; while a few feet away stood the archbishop of Athens, and Pere Didon, the celebrated Dominican preacher, who, in his Easter sermon in the Catholic cathedral the day before, had paid an eloquent tribute to pagan Greece. When the king had resumed his seat, the Olympic ode, written for the occasion by the Greek composer Samara, was sung by a chorus of one hundred'and fifty voices. Once before music had been associated, with the revival of the Olympic games. —Century. :—: •- -'' - -- - t -