Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-04-23

tankards of solid gold, Or iooting of
over rivers and lakes upon nations sub
dued and tributary, CRYING: as net this
great BABYLON which l have built?"
Whist bsttering ram smote the walls?
What ploughshsre upturned the gardens
What army shattered the brszen gstes2
What lopg. fierce blast Of storm put cut
this light which illumined the
worldP What crash of discord drove
down the music that poured from palace
window and garden grove and called the
banqueters to their revel and the dancers
to their feet? walk upon the scene of
desolation to find an answer and pick up
pieces Of bitumen and brick and broken
pottery, the remains of Babylon, and as
in the silence Of the night 1 hear the
surging of that
BILLow OF DEsOLATIoN
W Itch rolls over the scene, 1 hear the wild
waves saying: "Bsbylon was proud.
Babylon was impure. Babylon was s
star but by sin she turned to i1ormwood
and has fallen"
From the prosecutions of the Pilgrim
fathers and the Huguenots in other lands
God set upon these shores nation. The
council fires Of the aborigines went out in
the greater light Of free government
The sound OF the war whoop WAS e1.
changed for the thousand wheels of en-
terprise and progress. The mild winters,
the fruitful summers, the healttful skies
charmed from other lands race of hardy
men who loved God and wanted to be
free. Before the woodlands tx forests
fell and rose again into ships masts and
oh nhe taill -
lakes begin to rival cities by the sea. The
land quakes with the rush of the rail car
and the waters are churned white with the
steamers wheel. Fabulous bushels of
western wheat meet on the way fabulous
tons Of eastern coal. Furs from the
north pass on the rivers fruits from the
south. AID trading in the same market
is Maine lumoermsn, and South Carolina
rice merchant, and Ohio farmer, and
Alaska fur dealer. Aud churches and
schools and Asylums scatter light, and
love, and mercy and salvation upon
go. 600, 900 of people.
1 pray that our nation may not copy the
crimes of the nations that have persisted,
and our cup of blessing turn to worm
wood and like them we go down. l am
by nature and by grace an optimist, and
l expect thst this country will continue
TO advance until the world shall put on
millenial era and that when Christ comes
again he will set his throne somewhere
between the Alleghanies and the Sierra
Nevadas. But be not deceived! Our
only safety is in righteousness toward
God snd justice toward man. II we for
get the goodness Of the Lord to this land
and break his Sabbaths and improve not
by the dire disasters that have again and
again come to us as people, and we
learn saving lesson neither from civil
war nor raging epidemic, nor drouth nor
mildew nor scourge of locust and grass
hopper, If the
POLITICAL CORRUPTION
which has poisoned the fountains of pub
lie virtue and besllmed the high places OF
authority, making free government at
times Kissing and a byword in all the
earth, II the drunkenness and licentious-
ness that stsgger and blaspheme in the
streets Of our great cities as though they
were reaching after the fame Of q
Corinth and a Sodom are not re-
pented Of we will yet see the smoke of
our nations ruin; the pillars of our ma
tionsl and state capitols will fall more
disastrously than when Sampson pulled
down Dagou; and future historians will
record upon the page believed with gen.
erous tears the story that the free nation
Of the west arose in splendorIwhich made
the world stare. 1t had magnificent posi-
bilities. 1t forgot God. 1t hated justice.
1t Rugged its crime. 1t halted on its high
march. 1t reeled under the blow Of
calamity. 1t fell. And IS it was going
down all the despotisms Of earth
from the top OF bloody thrones be-
gan to shout: "Aha, SO would we have
it," while struggling and oppressed peo-
pies look out from dungeon bars with
tears and groans and cries of untold
sgony, the scorn of those and the woe of
these uniting in the exclamation; "Look
yonder! There fell great star from
heaven, burning as it were lamp, and 1t
fell upon the third part of the rivers and
upon the fountains Of waters; and the
name of the star is called Worm wood ~