The Opelousas courier., 1893-04-08
with moldH and ske,e.on arm beating time

lyzes description, and is beyond the fmag-
ination of any one who has never looked in.
What swapping of finger and thumb and
widest gesticulation, and raving like hYenas,
n stamping like bufaioes, and swaying
to and fro, and running one upon another,
and d%eafening uproar until the President
of the exchange strikes with his mallet four
or five times, crying, "Orderl orderm
And the astonished spectator goes out into
the fresh air feeling that he has escaped
from pandemonium. What does it all
mean9 l will tell you what it means. The
devotees of every heather temple cut them
selves to pieces and yell and gyrate. This
vociferation n gyration of the Stock ex-
change is all appropriate. This is the wor"
ship of the golden calf.
But my text suggests that this worship
must be broken up, as the behavior Of Moses
in my text indicated. There are those who
say thai this golden calf spoken of in my
text was hollow, aud merely plated with
gold; otherwise, they say. Moses could not
have carried it. | do not know that. but
somehow, perhaps by the assistance of his
friends, he takes up this golden calf, which
is an insult to God and man, and throws it
into the fire, and it is melted, n then it
comes out and is cooled off, aud by some
chemical appliance, OF by an old fashioned
file, it is pulverized, and it is thrown into
the brook, and as a punishment the people
are compelled to drink the nauseatlng stun.
So, my hearers, you may depend upon 1t
that God will burn and He will grind to
pieces the golden calf of modern idoiatry,
and He will compel the people in their agony
to drink it. If not before, it will be so on
the last day. know not where the fire will
begin, whether at the Battery or Central
Park, whether at Brooklyn Bridge or at
Bushwick, whether at Shoreditch, London
or West End, but it will be a very hot blaze.
All the Government securities of the United
States and Great Britain will curl up in the
first blast. All the money, safes and depos-
iting vaults will melt under the first touch.
The sea will burn like finder, and the ship
ping will be abandoned forever The melted
gold in the brokers' window will burst
through the melted win low glass and into
the street, but the flying population will not
stop to scoop it up.
The cry of Fire from the mountain
will be answered by the cry of Fire" in the
plain. The c~onfagration will burn out from
the continent 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 conaagration! The earth
will wrap itself round and round in shrou!s
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. J~uggernau5 down. Golden
calf down.
But, my friends, every day is a day of
Judgment, and God is ali 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," you say. Professional
men, what is the characteristic of the times
in which we live? "Bad," you say. Though
l should be in a minority of one,
l venture the opinion that these are the
best times we have had, for the reason
that God is teaching the world as never be-
fore that old fashioned honesty is the only
thing that will stand. We have learned as
never before that forgeries will not pay,
that the spending of fifty thousand dollars
IN country seats and a palatial city resi-
dence, when there are only thirty THOUSAND
dollars income, will not pay; that the APP
preparation of trust funds to our WI pr+st
vate speculation will not pay
We had a great national tumor in the
shape of fictitious prosperity. We called it
national enlargement. Instead OF calling it
enlargement we might better nave called it
a swelling. 1t has been a tumor, and God is
cutting it out-has cut it out-and the
nation will get we'll and will come back to
the principles of our fathers and grand
fathers, when twice three made six instead
L SlAt1y dllu Ii dpplCS az IL
of the barrel were just as good as the apples
on the top of the barrel, and a silk hand
kerchief was not half cotton, and a man who
wore q five dollar coat paid for was more
honored than a man who wore a fifty dollar
coat not paid for.
The golden calf of our day, like the one of
the text, is very apt to be made out Of Dor
rowed gold. These Israelites of the text
borrowed the earrings of the Egyptians
and then melted them into a god. That
is the way the golden calf is made nowadays.
A great many housekeepers, not pay
ing for the articles they get, borrow of the
grocer, and the baker. and the butcher,
and the dry goods seller. Then the re-
taller borrows Of the wholesale dealer.
Then the wholesale dealer borrows OF the
capitalist, and we borrow and borrow and
borrow until the community is divided into
two classes-those who borrow and those
who are borrowed of-and after awhile the
capitalist wants his money and he rushes
upon the wholesale dealer, and the wholesale
dealer wants his money and he rushes upon
the retailer, and the retailer wants his
money and he rushes upon the consumer,
and we all go down together.
There is many a man in this day who rides
in a carriage and owes the blacksmith for
the tire, and the wheelwright for the wheel,
and the trimmer for the curtain, and the
driver for unpaid wages, and the harness
maker for the bride, and the furrier for the
robe, while from the tip Of the carriage
tongue clear back to the tip of the shawl
huttering out of the back of the vehicle
everything is paid for by notes that have
been three times renewed.
1t is this temptation to borrow and bor-
row and borrow that keeps the people ever
lastinglY praying to the golden calf for
help, and just at the minute they expect the
help the golden calf treads on them. The
judgments of God, like Moses in the text,
will rush in and break up this worship; and
I say, let the work go on until every man
shall learn to speak truth with his neighbor,
and those who MAKE engagements shall feel
themselves bound to keep them, and when
a man who will not repe 1t of his business
iniquity, but goes on wishing to satiate his
cannibal appetite by d%evouring widows
houses, shall by the law of the laui be COM
PEELED to exchange his mansion for Sing
Sing. Let the golden CALI perish!
But, my friends. if we have made this
world our god, when we come to die we will
see our idol demolished. How much of this
world are you going to take with you into
the next? Will you have two pockets-one
in each side of you shroud? Will you
cushion your coffin with bonds and mort
cages and certificates of stock? An, mol The
ferryboat that crosses this Jordan takes no
baggage-nothing heavier han q spirit.
You may perhaps take five hundred dollars
with you two or three miles, in the shape Of
funeral ~trappings, to Greenwood, but you
will nave to leave them there. 1t would not
be safe for you to lie down there with a gold
watch or a diamond ring, it would be a
temptation to the pillagers.
All, my friends, if we have made this
world our god, when we die we will see our
idol ground to pieces by our pillow, and we
will have to drink it in bitter regrets for the
wasted opportunities of a lifetime. Soon we
will be gone. Oh, this is a faeting world;
it is a dying world! A man who had wor-
SHIPPED it all his days, in his dying moment
Described himself when he said. ssFoolt foolt