Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1888-04-07
TIME AND THE TRAVELLER.

tuuS cAproSSeu Tue thoughts WHICH
the scene inspired: Where, o
where is Babylon the Great, with
her impregnable walls and gates of
brass, her frowning towers and her
hanging gardens? Where are her
luxurious palaces and her crowded
thoroughfares 7 The stiffness of
death has succeeded to the active
hustle and joyous hilarity of her
multitudinous population scarcely
trace of her former magnifcence re-
mains, and her hundreds of thous-
ands ofinhabitants have long been
sleeping the sleep of death in un-
known and unmarked graves. Here
thou hast been busy, o Time, thou
mighty destroyerw
The traveller having finished his
soliloquy, there appeared before him
Il venerable person of mild aspect,
who thus accosted him:
Traveller, l am Time, whom thou
hast called the mighty destroyer,
and to whose ruthless sway thou
hast attributed the melancholy desc.
lation which Is here spread out to
the view. In this charge thou hast
wronged me. Mortals have mis-.
taken my character and office. In
their pictorial representation / am
always exhibited as welding
scythe, as if my only purpose was to
mark my way with havoc. But be-
hold me although aged, my step
has the elasticity of youth my hands
grasp no instrument of destruction !;
my countenance expresses no fierce
and cruel passions. Deeds of devas-
tation wrongfully attributed to me,
and here appear to vindicate my
name. Since this beautiful world
has sprung from chaos, [ have lent
my aid to perpetuate its beauty, and
to impart happiness to it's inhabi-
tants. My reign has been mild and
preservative. L have marked the
course of the sun, the moon, and the
stars, and during the thousands of
years in which they have rolled in
mighty expanse, | have diminished
naught of their lustre; they shine as
bright and as sweetly, they move on
their course as tremendously as they
did when the world was in it's in
fancy.
Look at the everlasting hills; they
stand as proud and as permanently
as they did when they rose up at
the command of their mighty Crea.
tor. Contemplate the ocean in its
ceaseless ebb and flow 1 have not
diminished It's mighty resources.
Bot the works of man, you will say,
are corroded by my touch, and the
beauty and life of man flee before
my approach. Even in this you
wrong me. | have witnessed the
rise and fall OF empires, and have
seen countless generations of men
pass from the stage of human life,
but in neither case have / fastened
fbaip dam, Gin hoe hoaD Tho r,,oot
destroyer-the vices of men have
scattered desoation over the fair
face of creation. The thousands
who have fallen on the battle field
have not fallen by my hand; the
scattered ruins of these once mighty
cities, whose memorial has nearly
persisted, have not been strewn by
my hand, but by the hands of earth
ly conquerors, who have trodden
down, in their march of conquest,
the palaces of the rich and the how.
els of the poor. The great works of
man originating in pride, have been
subverted by folly and cruelty. Cities
once proud, populous, and magnifi.
cent have utterly disappeared, not
by the operation of Time, but in the
conflicts of men, and in the execu-
ton of the just Judgment of God.
"Most diseases derive their origin
or their virulence from human vice
or folly, and wars resulting from the
lusts of men, swell the lists of the
dead. Many IA furrow is marked on
the brow of man, which is attributed
to Time, in which Time has had no
agency; and many totter to the grave
who go there prematurely, and not
by the weight of years. Men once
lived nearly thousand years, and
now they seldom fulfill three score
years and ten. 1t is not because
am now more emphatically a destroy
or, but because their sins and follies
have curtailed the term of their ex.
istence. Even the works of men in
ancient days might have still stood
to be gazed upon, if no other infu.
ence than mine had been exerted.
The stones of Jerusalem's Temple
are no longer recognized, bnt they
might now have occupied their
place in the glorious structure, had
not God Otherwise decreed, in pun.
ishment of mans sins. Look at the
Pyramids of Egypt; there they still
stand the lofty and cfranm mann