Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1862-12-06
A Wonderful Architect.

Do you know the type setter is an ar.
cbitect? You know those bits of lead and
zinc lying over, across and against each
other. like the tangled brads of a mer.
maids hair And yet they form an army
more powerful than ever fought on the
tented field, Yesterday they stood up
'form'-trnly, in . thousand forms. You
may look upon the little bits with q smile
on your lips, but you little dream they
are stronger and wiser than you-they
will speak when you are dead and forgot
ten. They have sometimes made you
smile, and sometimes shudder. Stocks ?
Isn't there something in that word
Havn't you been head and heels in them
for years, and don't your feelings rise aud
with them alternately? A little further on
you come to the Married. All l tho't
that would make you smile. saw you
kiss baby then, and that word unraveled
it all You havn't forgotten the day you
went counting, have you? Then .here was
magic in the utterancc. You stood at the
alter on the strength of the happiness you
felt, and if you have not always loved the
girls as you onght to, there is no one you
love as well. You secretly bless the day
when the single word Married was
wreathed like sacred archway over the
joys of you and yours Don't you remem-
Der little Minnie--she whom you loved so
well-she with the blue eyes and auburn
curls When Deaths dark Angel folded
her little delicate hands over hes snowy
bosom, and sealed her lovely eyes with its
icy fingers, don't you remember how the
great tide Of sorrow came surging o er
your smitten heart? You little thought the
other day whom you picked up the paper
that the word Died. of only four letters
which you laughed at as they lay dusty
and dirty 10 their square homes--would
make you wcep-would make you shink Of
her whom God hath taken.
Ii you come to his office, the printer will
show you how to distribute knowledge.
He will pull to pieces tough, wiry argu.
mcnts that yesterday deied the world.
Those pretty palaces which the poet
wrought will have to come down, and their
golden lancies become tomorrow tie in
tcguments of the politicians prose. In
they go--tho5e metallic dwarFs, scattered
broadcast like good seed, which shall bring
forth sixty, aye an hundred fold. Sixty
lives lost and Prentice 5 last joke march
in together, and the printer whistles Yau
kce Doodle as carelessly as if human life
was below par, and 50 it is. This is the
printers life and business.
A Printing Ol;ice is great bowling al
10y. The printer sets up pins-the world
al aH, ha hon
motion, and away it goes, carrying death
and destruction in its front, sending pin
here and q pin there, while noisy rabble
always stand by to cheer and hiss down
the players Some play for money; and
few-a precious few-do it to Patronize
the boss and bless mankind. No matter
what the balls are made of or how they
go, il they only hit tho mark. The crowd
pocket the spoilS and the honors are left to
the proprietor, who g 'e, behind the scenes
and staryes in his shirt sleeves And snch
is life.
When the printer dies, the world Just
gets glimpse Of his value as his coat.tail
vapishos into glory, and then it looks very
bad, rubS its head little, calls him "a
clever feIow-says only fault was in boiug
poor, and then the world shoves his sym
pathy out of sight into that idiom the hu.
man heart, and on rolls the Juggernaut as
though nothing had happened.
Some day the people will wake up and
find screw lost in the jagged machine of
human progress. If you do, don't waste
more sympathy than possible on those my
theological fellows who print your books
and papers.