The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-11-25
die in the Lord;" the golden calf kicked

If a man by an i'll course is determined
to go to pcrdition l suppose you will
have to let him go; but he puts his wife
and children in an equipage that is the
amaZement of the avenues, and the
driver lashes the horses into two whirl-
winds, and the spokes flash in the sun,
and the golden headgear of the harness
CLEANS until black calamity takes the
! bits of the horses and stops them and
shouts to the luxurious occupants of
the equipage: ''Get outr' They get
out They get down. That husband
and father flung his family 50 hard
they never got up again. There was
| the mark on them for life-the mark of
split hoof-the death-dealing hoof of
the golden calf.
Solomon offered in one sacrifice, on
one occasion, $4,000 oxen and 122, 600
sheep; but that was tame sacrifice
compared with the multitude of men
who are sacrificing g themselves ON this
altar of the golden calf. and saeri ficing
their families with them. The soldiers
of Gen. Havelock, in India, walked lit
orally ankle deep in the blood of the
"house of massacre" where 200 wo men
and children had been slain by the Sc
poys; but the blood around about this
altar of the golden calf flows up to the
knee, flows to the girdle, flows to the
shoulder, flows to the lip Great God
of Heaven and earth, have mercyl The
golden calf has none.
Still the degrading worship goes on,
and the devotees kneel and kiss the
dust, and count their golden beads, and
cross themselves with the blood of
their own sacrifice. The music rolls on
under the arches; it is made of clinking
silver and clinking gold, and the rat
tling specie of the banks and brokers'
shops and the voices of all the eX-
changes The soprano of the worship
is carried by the timid voices of men
who have just begun to speculate; while
the deep bass rolls out from those who
for ten years of iniquity have been
dOubly damned. Chorus of voices re-
joicing over what they have made.
Chorus of voices wailing over what they
have lost This temple of which l
speak stands open day and night, and
there is the glittering god with his four
feet on broken hearts, and there is the
smoking altar of sacrifice, new victims
every moment on it, and there are the
lneeling devotees, and the doxology of
the worship rolls on, while Death
stands with moldy and skeleton arm
beating time for the chorus-"N "NIorel
Morel MoreI''
Some people are very much surprised
at the actions of folk on the stock ex-
change. Indeed, it is a scene some
times that paralyzes description and is
beyond the Imagination of one who has
never looked in. What swapping of
finger and thumb, and wild gesticula-
ton, and raving like hyenas, and
stamping like buffaloes, and swaying
to and fro, and running one upon an
other, and deafening uproar, until the
president of the exchange strikes with
his mallet four or five times, crying
"Orderl 0rderi" and the astonished
spectator goes ont into the fresh air
feeling that he has escaped from pam
demonium. What does it all mean? l
will tell you what it means. The dew
otees of every heather temple cut
themselves to pieces and yell and
gvrate. This vociferation and gyration
of the stock exchange is all appropriate.
This is the worship of the golden calf.
But my text suggests that this wor-
ship must be broken up, as the behavior
of Moses in my text indicated. There
are those who say that this golden calf
spoken of in my text was hollow, and
merely plated with gold; otherwise, they
say, Moses could not have carried it, l
do not know that; but somehow, per-
haps by the assistance of his friends, he
takes up this golden calf, which is an
open insult to God and man, and throws
it into the fire, and it is melted, and
then it comes out and is cooled off, and
by some chemical appliance, or by an
old-fashioned file, it is pulverized, and
it is thrown into the brook, and,
as punishment, the people are
compelled to drink the nauseating
stuff. So my hearers, you may de-
pend upon it that God will burn and
he will grind to pieces the golden calf
of modern idolatry and he will compel
the people in their agony to drink it
If not before, it will be so on the last
day. l know not where the fire will
begin, whether at the Battery or
Central park, whether at Brooklyn or
Bushwicl1, whether at Shoreditch, Lon
don or West End; but it viii be very
hot blaze. All the securities of the
United States and Great Britain will
curl up in the first blast All the money
safes and depositing vaults will melt
under the first touch. The sea will
burn like tinder and the shipping will
be abandoned forever. The melted
gold in the brokers' window will
burst through the melted window
| glass and into the street; but the
flying population will not stop to
scoop it up. The cry of ''ire' from
the mountain will be answered by the
cry of fire" from the plain. The con-
fiagration will burn out from the conti-
nent toward the sea, and then burn in
from the sea toward the land. New
York and London with one cut of the
red scythe of destruction will go down.
Twenty-Five thousand miles of conha-
grafton, The earth will wrap itself
round and round in shroud of fame,
and lie down to perish. What then
| will become of your golden calf? Who
then so poor as to worship it? Melted,
or between the upper and the neither
milestone of falling mountains ground
to powder. Dagon down. Moloch
down. Juggernautd down. Golden calf
| down.
But, my friends, every day is day
of judgment, and God is all the time
grinding to pieces the golden calf.
Merchants of Brooklyn and New York
and London, what is the characteristic
of this time in which we live? Bad"