The Yale expositor., 1899-05-05
Downright 1899 by Louis Klopsch)

and woe through all Egypt. That de-
stroying angel has fled the earth, but
far worse has come. He sweeps
through these cities. 1t is the de-
stroying angel of strong drink. Far
worse devastation wrought by this
second than by the first The calamity
in America worse than the calamity in
Egypt. Thousands of the slain, mil
lions OF the slain. No arithmetic can
calculate their number.
Once upon time four fiends met in
the lost world. They resolved that the
people of our earth were too happy,
and these four INTERVALS came forth to
our earth on an embassy of mischief.
The one fiend said; III take charge
of the vineyards" Another said: III
take charge of the grain fields" An
other said: I'll take charge Of the
dairy" Another said: I'll take
charge of the music" The four tiends
met in the great Sahara Desert, with
skeleton fingers clutched each other
in handshake of fidelity, kissed each
other goodbye with lip of blue flame
and parted on their mission.
The fiend of the vineyard came in
one bright morning amid the grapes
and sat down on a root of twisted
grapevine in sheer disbursement.
The fiend knew not how to damage the
vineyard, or, through it, how to dam
age the world. "he grapes were so
rina and baautif,,I opd luSpipus They
bewitched the air with their sweet
ness. There seemed to be so much
health in every bunch; and while the
fiend sat there in utter Indignation
and disappointment, he clutched
cluster and squeezed it in perfect
spite, and 10! his hand was red with
the blood of the vineyard, and the fiend
said: That rertpds me of the blood
of broken hearts; I'll strip the vine
yard and I'll squeeze out all the juice
of the grapes, and I'll allow the juices
Of the grapes to stand until they rot,
and I'll call the process fermentation.
/ And there was a great vat prepared,
and people came with their cups and
their pitchers, and they dipped up the
blood of the grapes, and they drank
and drank and went away drinking,
and they drank until they fell in long
lines of death, so that when the fiend
of the vineyard wanted to return to
his home in the pit, he stepped from
carcass to carcass and walked down
amid a great causeway Of the dead.
Then the second fiend came into the
grain field. He waded chin-deep amid
the barley and the rye. He heard all
the grain talking about bread, and
prosperous husbandry, and thrifty
homes. He thrust his long arms into
the grain field and he pulled up the
grain and threw it into the water and
he made beneath it great fires-fires
lighted with a spark from his own
heart-and there was a grinding, and
a MASKING, and stencil, and the peo-
pie came with their bottles and they
dipped up the fiery liquid, and they
drank, and they blasphemed and they
staggered, and they fought, and they
rioted, and they murdered, and the
fiend of the pit, the fiend of the grain
htlNl, was SO BltooNu Win NhNli NC
havior that he changed his residence
from the pit to a whisky barrel and
there he sat by the door of the bung-
hole laughing in high merriment at
the thought that out of anything 50
harmless as the grain of the field he
might turn this world into a seeming
pandemonlum.
The fiend of the dairy saw the cows
coming home from the pasture field,
full-uddered and as the maid MIXED
he said: "I'll soon spoil all that mess;
I'll add to it brandy, sugar, and nut
meg, and I'll stir it into a milk punch,
and children will drink it, and some OF
the temperance people will drink 1t,
and il I can do them no more harm,
I'll give them a headache, and then I'll
hand them over to the more vigorous
fiends of the Satanic delegation" And
then the fiend of the dairy leaped upon
the shelf and danced until the long
row of shining milkpans almost
quaked.
The fiend of the music entered a
grogshop, and there were but few GUS
toners. Finding few customers he
swept the circuit of the city, and he
gathered up the musical instruments,
and after nightfall he marshaled a
band. and the trombones blew, and the
cymbals clapped, and the drums beat,
and the bugles called and the people
crowded in, and they swung around in
merry dance, each one with a wine
glass in his hand; and the dance be-
came wilder and stronger and rougher,
until the room shook, and the glasses
cracked, and the floor broke, and the
crowd dropped into hell.
Then the four fiends-the fiend OF
the vineyard, and of the grain field,
and of the dairy, and of the music hall
went back to their home, and they
held high carnival because their work
had been so well done; and Satan rose
from his throne and announced that
there was no danger of the earth's re-
demption so long as these four fiends
could pay such tax to the diabolic.
and then all the demons, and all the
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