The Portland daily press., 1892-11-19


nightmare of stocks, and at 1 o'clock
in the morning suddenly rise up shout
ing: "a thousand shares of railroad
stock--one hundred and eight and 8
half! take it!'' until the whole family is
affrighted, and the spectators fall back
on their pillows and sleep until they
are awakened again by a corner" or a
sudden rise in something else. Their
nerves gone, their digestion gone, their
brain gone, they die. The clergyman
comes in and reads the funeral service
BLESSED are the dead who die in the
Lord" Mistake. They did not Idle in
the Lord" the golden calf kicked them!
The trouble is, when men sacrifice
themselves on this altar suggested in
the text, they not only sacrifice them
selves, but they sacrifice their families
If man by an i'll course is determined
to go to perdition, 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, Sect out" They get out
They get down. That husband and
father flung his family so hard they
never got up again. There was the
mark on them for life-the mark of a
split hoof-the death-dealing hoof OF
the golden calf.
Solomon offered in one sacrifice, on
one occasion, twenty-twoa thousand
oxen and one hundred and twenty
thousand sheep: but that was tame
sacrifice compared with the multicudes
of men who are sacrificing themselves
on this altar of the golden calf, and
sacrificing their families with them
The soldiers of Gen. Hayelock in India
walked literally ankle deep in the blood
of the ''house of massacre" where two
hundred women and children had been
slain by the Sepoys; but the blood
around about this altar of this 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 mercy! 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 rattling spe-
Gle of the banks and bro kers' shops and
the voices of all the exchanges. 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 in
EQUITY have been doubly damned. Cho-
rus of voices rejoicing over what they
have made. Chorus of voices waillng
over what they have lost This temple
of which / 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 kneeling devotees; and the
ldoxology of the worship rolls on, while
Death stands with moldy and skeleton
arm beating time for the chorus
''More! more! more!'
Some people are very much surprised
AT the actions of folk on the stock ex-
change Indeed, it is scene sometimes
that paralyzes description, and is be-
You'd the imagination of anyone who
has never looked in. What swapping of
finger and thumb and wild gesticula-
.tion, and raving like hyenas, and
stamping like buffaloes, and swaying to
and fro, and running one upon another.
land deafening uproar until the presi-
dent of the exchange Strikes with his
mallet four or five times, crying, "Or-l
der! order!" and the astonished specta-
tor goes out into the fresh air feeling
that he has escaped from pandemonium.
What does it all mean? 1 will tell you
what it means The devotees of every
heather temple cut themselves to pieces
and yell and gyrate. 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 indie ated. There
are those who say that this golden calf
spoken of in my text was hollow, and
merely plated gold otherwise. they say.
Moses could not have carried it. dc
not know that; but somehow, perhaps
by the assistance of his friends, he
takes up the 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 COM
PEELED to drink the nauseating stuff
So, my hearers, you may depend 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. 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 bridge or
at Bushwiclz, whether at Shore,
ditch, London or West End; but
it will be very hot blaze. All the
government securities of the United
States and Great Britain will curl up
in the fire blast. All the money safes