I saw money grabbed from fellow grabbers and swindled from fellow swindlers, and underneath the workman forever spinning it out of his vitals;

I saw the laboring world, thin and pale and bent and care-worn and driven, pouring out this tribute from its toil and sweat into the laps of the richly dressed men and women in the pews, who only glanced at them to shrink from them with disgust;

I saw all this, and the plate burned my fingers so that I had to hold it first in one hand and then in the other; and I was glad when the parson in his white robes took the smoking pile from me on the chancel steps and, turning about, lifted it up and laid it on the altar.

It was an old-time altar, indeed, for it bore a burnt offering of flesh and blood—a sweet savor unto the Moloch whom these people worship with their daily round of human sacrifices.

The shambles are in the temple as of yore, and the tables of the money-changers waiting to be overturned.

—Ernest Crosby.

SPELLING

LESSON 15

There is a class of words having the sound of long e, represented by the diphthong ie, and another class having the same sound represented by ei. It is a matter of perplexity at times to determine whether one of these words should be spelled with ie or ei. Here is a little rhyme which you will find a valuable aid to the memory in spelling these words: