The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-06-04
THE MURMUR
..,.se OF TIE WORLD

And bears his bltrshing honors thick upon
The third day come frost. killing frost.
And-when he thinks, good easy man. full
surely
His greatness is a ripening-nips his root
And then he falls, as do. have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on blad-
ders,
This many summers in sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown
AT length broke under me and now has left
me
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
OF a rude stream that must forever hide
Vain pomp and glory of this world, hate
feel my heart new open'd. & IN !
. <r.1-
This wonderful outburst of eloquence,
accredited to Wolsey by a greater than he,
is very like what he might have said, If we
know anything of the man. And it tells,
as no other utterance has ever told, of the
evanescence of mere human glory, lust for
power and pelf, and that vain ambition
which would march over the bones of pow
erty to the palace of the rich, or over MUIR
dered men to the throne of the great. VOL
sey, himself the offspring of poverty and
ignorance, schemed and lied and swindled
his way to that sea of glory in which he did
swim through many fair summers, the en-
WED of the earth. In the end nothing was
left him but his robe when he came to beg
as charity his little six feet of vile earth
That he did not bare his great ox-neck to
the headsman was due to the momentary
tenderness of the royal murderer, whom he
had served. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling
away ambition; b., that sin fell the an
gels" After ambition had proved his ruin
he could advise others to fling it away.
Some one has likened ambition to a "glo-
rious cheat In all purely selfish and un-
righteous things it is always cheat, but
it is not always glorious In some rela-
tons it is the meanest, lowest, sinfullest
bag of immortality that trails bedraggied
skirts through streets of uncleanliness. 1t
is the pitifullest of all the ghostly spectres
that beckon to the brink of the trimming
lake of foul doors. From the bootblaok
that swindles at the crossing of the street
to the rich man who swindles in the gilded
den consecrated to the cause of l-got
gains the graduation is easy Lustful am
bition has kissed the ragamuffin and en-
braced the round-bellied money-changer,
whom there is now no god to scourge from
the temple. The boy is father to the man.
In the fullness of time we may have the
bootblack with depressing millions of
money and the course of his giant strides
to the empire of Moneybags will be strewn
with the white bones of poverty stripped
bare of sinew to bind stone and mortar in
the work of building monuments to purse
proud lust In the earlier years of Romes
decadence gold Wanted itself in the eyes
of the world, and aroused perhaps for the
first time that spirit of sullen resentment
in the minds of tolls weary children that
has never yet been appeased. Tyranny has
held it down, suppressed it for longer or
shorter periods, but occasionally in the
progress of the ages it has burst into un-
controllable foods that have swept tradi-
tons and good things and evil into huge
muck-heaps to offend the gods. ~
Poverty is worse than crime; 1t is vulgar.
1t is a condition precedent to immortality.
1t is helpful chiefly in promoting sin. Blear-
eyed, hungry, tongue-parching, soul-con-
Stunning, resourceless, hopeless, despairing,
poverty sinks in the slums a breeder of
death and that which is worse, a living pro-
test against the cardinal plans of civiliza-
ton and the great cause of righteousness
under God. Either the creed of salvation
is wrong or we have wickedly msapplied
its teachings. We who have been toiling
towards Rome are yet far from the golden
milepost, and the Forum is but a dim figure
in the dis5ointed dreams of the wayfarers
who drop weary of breath in the deepening
shadows falling upon flood and field and
forest like the night of doom. 1t is all
wrong, all wrong, all wrong! A million of
men thirst for knowledge and starve for
comfort and enlightenment that one
may be enabled to study the problem of
how to make hundred millions of money
grow to two hundred millions of money.
Never before was gold SO powerful, never
before was gold SO devoutly worshipped;
never before did gold raise itself up so high
as the standard of virtue and religion. A
man who had acquired within four years
untold millions presented to st. Paul's
sacramental service of gold in value
princes ransom. The strange thing was
that it was accepted; for it bore his hid
eous name, as if to keep God and future
generations informed that there once lived
a rich man. The man lost his all and was
sent to prison. 1t was then shown that
he had robbed sixty thousand of his eoun-
trymen, who were in humble circumstances.
The service of gold is still used in the h9iy
sacrament at the mighty altar where have
worshipped ten generations of Christian
Englishmen. -. .a A.
There are certain directions which ambi-
tious desire takes that elevate mankind,
ennoble our race and make for the worlds
redemption. Whosoever is not given over
to lustful purposes walk these ways 1t is
the supreme duty of every man to acquire
a competency. "To build home for child
rem and wife. that is the pathos and sub
lime of human life
1t is not needful to rob and plumber and
deceive; it is needful only to be up and do
ing, and to be provident, thrifty, saving of
the earnings OF honest endeavor. De-
sire that takes this direction is noble. 1t