The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-07-25
POTENCY OF THE DOLLAR.
BY GEO. LIPPARD.

and then gazed at it long and ~intently with
his dull, leaden eye. x,tl -
That day, in the hurry of business, Death
had struck him, even In the street. He was
hurrying to collect the last months rent, and
was on the verge of the miserable court where
his tenants berded like wild beasts in thei1
-kennels-he was there with his hand upon
him. ~
he was carried home to his splendid man.
sion. He was laid on a bed with a satin Gov
erlet. 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.
At midnight he spoke.
& He asked for a dollar, and they brought one
to him, and lean and gaunt he laid upon his
death bed, and clutched it with the grip of
death.
a9A shaded. lamp stood on a table near the
silken bed and lofty ceiling, all said gold! as
splainsas human lips could say H. -
His hair and eyebrows were white. His
cheek sunken, and his lips thin and surround
ed By wrinkles that indicate the passion of av-
arice. As he sat up in his bed with his neck
barred and the silken coverlet wrapt about his
lean frame, his white hair and eyebrows con-
Trusting with his wasted and wrinkled face, he
lookedlike a ghost. And there was life in his
Sleaden eye-ai that life was centered on the
Dollar, which he gripped in his clenched fist.
His wife a pleasant faced, matronly woman,
was seated at the foot of the bed. His son, a
young man of twenty-one, dressed in the last
touch of fashion, sat by the lawyer. The
lawyer sat before the table, pen in hand, and
gold spectacles on his nose. There was a huge
parchment spread before him.
"Do you think he win make a will?" asked
the son.
"Hardly contpos mentis yet, was the whisp-
cred reply. @Wait he'll be lucid after a while.
"My dear" said the wife, had not 1 better
send for a preacher I"
She rose and took her dying husband by
the hand, but he did not mind. His eye was
upon the dollar.
He was a rich man. He owned palaces on
Walnut and Chestnut street, and novels and
courts in the outskirts. He had iron mines in
this state; copper mines on the lakes some
where. he had golden interests in California.
His name was bright upon the record of twenty
banks, he had a half dozen papers in his pay.
BE knew but one crime-to be in debt with
out the power to pay.
He knew but one virtue-to get money.
That crime he had never forgotten in the
long way of t~hirty-fve years.
To hunt down a debtor, to distress a tenant,
to turn a few additional thousands by a sharp
aspeculation-these were the main achieve
ments of his life.
L& IG q q EOOA dA-AAo hoA4S WOO 1POa sLS
pew door of a velvet cushioned church.
He was a benevolent man-for every thou
sand dollars that he wrung from the tenants OF
his courts, or from the debtor who wTithed be-
meath his heel, he gave ten dollars to some be-
n~eyolent institution.
He was a Just mantle gallows and the
-iail always found in him a faithful and un-
swerying advocate. 2 s
And now he is a dying mau-see! As he
q I'LL al H. no1la-1n
his clenehed fist.
o. holy dollar, object cf his life long pur-
suit, what comfort hast thou for him now in
his pain of death.
A. length the dead man revived and dicta-
ted his will. It was strange to see the mother
and SON and lawyer muttering-and sometimes
swrangling-beside the bed of death. All the
while the testator clenched the Dollar in his
right hand.
While the viii was being made, the preach
er came-even he who held the pastoral charge
sof the great church, whose pew doors bore,
sanity names on silver plates, and whose seats
on Sabbath day gTeaned beneath the weight
of responsibility. broadcloth and satin.
He came and said his prayer-decorously
and in measured words-but never once did
sthe dying man relax the hold of the dollar.
@Can't you read me somethings1say quick,
don't you see Pm goingP' at length said the
rich man t1rning toward the preacher.
The preacher, whose cravat was of the
vhitest, took a book with a golden clasp from
a marble table. And he read
aAnd I say unto you it is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"
a. ssWhosaid those Observation-Disclosures"
fairly shrieked the dying man, shaking the
hand which clenched the dollar at the preach
er's head.
The preacher hastily turned over the leaf
and did not reply. - ~
"Why did you never tell me of this before?
Why did you never preach from it as / sat in
your church Why?"
The preacher did not reply, but turned over
another leaf. But the dying man would not
be quoted. F%oH.9
the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to en-
ter the Kingdom of God, is it? then what's
to become of me? Am not I rich What
tenant did I ever spare, or did 1 released
And you stood up Sunday after Sunday and
preached to us and never said one word about
the camel"
The preacher in search of a consoling pas
sage, turned rapidly over the leaves, and in
his confusion, came to this passage which he
read -
$50 row, ye rich men, weep and howl for
your miseries that shall come upon you. Your
gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of
them shall be a witness against you and shall
eat your flesh as it were fire; ye heaped treas
are together for the last days. Behold the
hire of the labo1ers who have reaped down
y6ur fields, which is of you kept by fraud
crfeth, and the cries of them which have reap
ed are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sab
bath" .E.EE3
tAnd yet you never preached that to me =
The preacher who had Numbered through
the sassoge of James which we have quoted
knew not what to say.
Then the wife drew near and strove to com
fort him, and the son attempted a word or two
of consolation. But with the dollar in his
hand he sank into death talking of stock, OF
rent, of copper mine, and camel, of tenant
and debtor, until the breath left his bps.
Thus he died.
When he was cold the preacher arose and