There will be an old Hard-shell clock resurrected, with throat whiskers, and wearing a shad-bellied coat and flap breeches. And when he is wound up a little, and a little oil is squirted into his old wheels, he will swing out into space on the wings of the gospel with: "My Dear Beloved Brethren-ah: I was a-ridin' along this mornin' a-tryin' to study up somethin' to preach to this dying congregation-ah; and as I rid up by the old mill pond-ah lo and behold! there was an old snag a sticking up out of the middle of the pond-ah, and an old mud turtle had clim up out uv the water and was a settin' up on the old snag a sunnin' uv himself-ah; and lo! and behold-ah! when I rid up a leetle nearer to him-ah, he jumped off of the snag, 'ker chugg' into the water, thereby proving emersion-ah!"
Our brains are clocks, and our hearts are the pendulums. If we live right in this world, when the Resurrection Day shall come, the Lord God will polish the wheels, and jewel the bearings, and crown the casements with stars and with gold. And the pendulums shall be harps encrusted with precious stones. They shall swing to and fro on angel wings, making music in the ear of God, and flashing His glory through all the blissful cycles of eternity!
THE PANIC.
Happy is the man who lives within his means, and who is contented with the legitimate rewards of endeavor. The dreadful panic that checks the progress of civilization and paralyzes the commerce of the world, is the death angel that follows speculation. Everything is staked and hazarded on contingences that are as baseless as the fabric of a dream. The day of settlement comes and nobody is able to settle. The borrower is powerless to meet his note in the bank; the banker is powerless to pay his depositors, and confidence is stampeded like a herd of cattle. The timid and suspicious old farmer catches the wild note of alarm, and deserting his plow and sleepy steers in the field, he mounts his mule, and urging him on with pounding heels, rushes pell-mell to the bank, and with bulging eyes, demands his money. The excitement spreads like fire. The blacksmith leaves his anvil, the carpenter his bench, and the tailor his goose. The tanner deserts his hide, and the shoemaker throws down his last to save his all. The mason with his trowel in his hand, rushes from the half-finished wall; Pat drops his hod between heaven and earth and slides down the ladder, muttering: "Oi'll have me moaney or Oi'll have blood!" The fat phlegmatic Dutchman, dozing behind his bar, wakes to the situation and waddles down the street, puffing and blowing like an engine, and muttering: "Mine Got in Himmel—mine debosit ish boosted!" And thus they make the run on the bank, gathering about it like the hosts of Armageddon. The bottom drops out, and millionaires go under like the passengers of a wrecked steamer.
"BUNK CITY."
Did you ever pass the remains of a "boom" town in your travels? Did you never gaze upon the remains of "Bunk City," where but yesterday all was life and bustle, and to-day it looks like the ruins of Babylon? The empty fields for miles and miles around are laid off and dug up in streets, and look like they had been struck with ten thousand streaks of chain lightning. Standing here and there are huge frames holding up mammoth sign boards, bearing the names of land companies, but the land companies are gone. Half driven nails are left to rust in a few old skeleton buildings, the brick lies unmortared in half finished walls, and tenantless houses stand here and there like the ghosts of buried hope. Down by the river stands the furnace, grim and silent as the extinct crater of Popocatepetl; and the great hotel on the hill looks like the tower of Babel two thousand years after the confusion of tongues. The last of the speculators, with his blue nose and his old battered plug hat which resembles an accordion that has been yanked by a cyclone, stands on the corner and contemplates his old sedge fields which have shrunk in value from one hundred dollars a front foot, to one dollar for a hundred front acres, and balefully sings a new song: