The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1857-07-02
They brought him a dollar.

and then gazed on it long and intently, with
his dull, leaden eyes.
That day, in the hurry of business, death had
struck him, even in the street. He was hurry
ing to collect last months rent, and was on
the verge of the miserable court where his
tenants herded like beasts in their kennels--he
was there with the hand book in his haRd, when
death laid his hand upon him.
He was carried home to his splendid man.
sion. He was laid upon bed with a satin
coverlet. The lawyer, the relations and the
preacher were sent for. All day long he lay
without speech, moving only his right hand,
as though in the act of counting money.
Atmidnight he spoke. F
He asked for dollar, and they brought one
to him, and, lean and gaunt, he sat up in his
bed, and clutched it with the grippe of death.
A shaded lamp stood on table near the
silken bed. Its light fell family around the
splendid room, where chairs and carpets and
mirrors, silken bed and lofty ceiling, all said,
gold as plainly as human lips can sayi
His hair and eyebrows were white; his
cheeks sunken, and his lips thin and surround
ed by wrinkles that indicated the pattern of
Avarice. As he set up in bed with his neck
barred, and the silken coverlet wrapped about
his lean frame, his white hair and eyebrows
contrasted with his wasted and wrinkled face
he looked like ghost. And there his life
was centered in the dollar which he griped in
his clenched fist.
His wife, pleasant-faced, matronly woman,
was seated at the foot of the bed. His son,
young man of twenty-one dressed in the last
touch of the fashion, sat by the lawyer. The
lawyer sat blythe table, pen in hand, gold Spec
tacles on his nose. There was huge parch-
ment spread before him.
"Do you think he'll make a will ?'' asked
the son.
s'Hardly compos n,entis yet,o was the whis-
pered reply. "Wait. He'll be lucid after
while"
'.My DEAR said the wife, ''had not better
send for preacher?' ..s -.- ..e a.......
She rose and took her dying husband by the
hand, but he did not mind. His eye was upon
tine dollar.
He was rich man. lie owned palaces in
Walnut aud Chestnut Streets. and novels and
courts in the outskirts. He had iron mines in
this State; copper mines on the lake some
where; he had golden interests in California.
His name was bright tupon the records of TWEEN
ty banks-he owned stock of all kinds; he had
half dozen papers in his pay. ......
He knew but one crime Ito be in debt with
on. the power 10 pay. ..4... ......
He knew bat one virtue-to get money.
That crime he had never forgotten--this vir-
tue he had never forgotten. in the long way of
thirty-fve years.
To hunt down debtor, to distress tenant,
to turn few additional thousands by q sharp
speculation-these were the main achieve
fnen,s OF his life.
lie was a good mau--his name was upon
the silver plate ON the pew door of velvet
cushioned church.
lie was benevolent man-fer every thou
sand dollars which he wrung from the tenants
of his courts, or from tie debtors who writhed
beneath his heels, he gave ten dollars to some
benevolent institution.
lie was a just man--the gaIlows and the
Jail always found him a faithful and unswery-
ing advocate.
/. And now he is dying man--see! As he sits
upon the bed of death, with the dollar in his
clenched hand.
o! holy dollar, object Of his lifelong pur-
suit, what comfort hast thou for him now In his
pains of death?
At length the dying man revived and dicta.
ted his will. 1t was strange to see the mother
and son and lawyer, muttering, and sometimes
wrangling, beside the bed Of death. All the
while the testator clutched the dollar in his
right hand.
While the will was being made, the preach.
er came--even he who held the pastoral
charge Of the great church, whose pew doors
bore sanity names on silver plates and whose
seats on Sabbath day groaned beheath the
weight Of respectability, broadcloth and sat.
IN.
He came and said his prayers-decorousl
and in measured words--but never once did
Tie uyAiS udH IcioA ule uOlu VI tuc uOiidis
"Can't you see Pm going? at length said the
rich man, turning frightened look towards
the preacher.
The preacher whose cravat was Of the
whitest, took book with golden clasp from
a marble table.
And he read;
Sand say unto you ii is easier for camel
to 60 through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter the king dom of God"
"Who said these words-who--who?" fairly
the dying man, shaking the hand
which clenched the dollar, at the preac hers
head.
The preacher hastily turned over the leaf
and did not reply,
"Why did you never tell me of this before 2
Why did you never preach from it as ! sat in
your church? Why-why?"
The preacher did not reply, but turned over
another leaf. But the dying man would not
be quieted:
''And it is easier for camel to go through
the eye of needle, than for rich man to en-
ter the Kingdom of God, is il? What tenant
did ever spars-what debtor did ever re-.
lease? And you stood up Sunday sfter Sunday
and preached to US, and never said one word
about the camel!''
The preacher in search of a consoling pas