Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-06-20

and job work of distillery, that
was worth more than all the tempe
rance folks had ever paid him; that
Us for the particularly pious people,
they are the most penurious in the
world
For every dollar that you pay
For pufing In our pages.
II we don't give You six or eight
You think II Ia outrageous;
Or are, to say the very least,
Extremely disappointed;
That any one should be so 10th
To aid the Lords anOinted,
IT'S well for you salvation's FREE,
And the grace OF God Is Oiren.
That when you've sponged thro' life you can
"Dead-bcat" 1t into Heaven.
But during the war the editor had
acquired the habit of drinking; and
after the excitement of this confab,
he went over to neighboring, sa-
loon-took q drink-several drinks
got drunk-fell asleep-awoke to
find himself in the cold, damp grave,
among the dead and buried:
Intensest fear and terror trod
Close on the heels of wonder:
He saw the lightning's lurid dash,
He heard the rolling thunder.
But high above the fearful scene
OF elements contending,
Amid the sunless, starless dome,
He saw IN sngel standing:
blowing golden trumpet; the ed
itor naturally concluded the resur-
rection day had arrived; he found
himself surrounded by friends who
had come for him; they bear him
to the margin of the fiery lake:
And every glittering deck Of foam,
Those fiery waves that crested, =
Was some damned soul that shrieked while be
TheSurning pillows breasted.
Into this lake they plunged him,
and here this chapter ends.
Meanwhile, in the same town
with this editor lived a newly fledg-
ed physician, who had among his
patients lady so sick that he told
the sexton she could not live till
morning; as the sexton had to be
absent the next day, he dug the
grave that very evening; but the
same evening the doctor, by some
mistake took dose of his own
medicine intended for the sick wo-
man
When she. who for SO long time
"Twix life and death had lowered,
Began ut once to cOnvalesce
And finally recovered.
While he, through mistake, the which,
Alas, don't happen often,
In less than four and twenty hours
Was ready for his coffin:
His funeral came off in due time;
("the sexton being gone Of course
there wasn't any mourner'o; and
the absence of the sexton, the pro-
cession that followed the doctors
corpse ranged themselves beside
the grave intended for the sick lady
but found another corpse already
in possession. 1t had rained
the night before, and in the
bottom Of the grave was half a foot
Of water in which lay the village
editor-not dead but sleeping;
when lifted from the grave he was
as much surprised at the crowd as
they were at him. He looked around
he looked aloft, at the stceple Of
the neighboring church, where he
saw something that seemed familiar
to his vision.
For on the very spire there was
A huge brass form located,
Through which lightning rod ran up
Where he was bifurcated;
A huge trumpet was at his lips,
which he seemed loudly blowing
All OF which was understood tobe
A tableau emblematic
OF some celestial messenger
Who cried in tones most emphatic
''The year Of Jubilee il comet
Return, each rsnsomed sinner!
Come back, ye straving prodigale,
The horn Is blown for dinner!''
And this angel on the church
spire the drunken editor had, by the
lightning's glare, amid the fearful
storm of the preceding night, mis-
taken for the resurrection angel,
and the terror had caused an attack
OF delirium tremcns, in which he
found himself surrounded by de-
mons. He made his way to his
sanctum-had a season Of sober,
solemn thinking-signcd the tenn.
perance pledge-became q man of
influence, in sympathy with the
better classes and causes of CON-
munity.
His paper aleO seemed to be
In many ways the gamer
In no particular 20 much
As In Its general tenor.
A single number might not show
A great increase of merit,
But on the whole 1t was imbued
With far nober spirit.
Its contents was not always sharp.
Or critical or splendid,
But always more cOnsiderate,
And just, and well intended.
When seeking only for success,
Misfortune WAS its dover;
But when 1t worked for principle,
1t camc to be power.
And with o brief comment by
way of moral, the poem concluded.