The Newtown bee., 1902-05-23

with most of the goods they contained. But little has been saved, and the in- surance on losses can hardly equal half of the values destroyed. Our crowded and busy Bank street, the little Broadway and Wall street combined for a large region of country, needs only growth of grass and weeds to resemble the ruined cities of the ancient world. It seems like dream. On calm and lovely May evening we stood and looked on helplessly,
 AS THOUGH SOME WEIRD STAGE PLAY was being enacted before our eyes, and saw rows and streets of valuable build ings, some of them good enough for any city, and filled with rich and costly merchandise, standing complete one moment, and at the next the red mouthed dragon Flame had licked them up as the OK licks up grass, and they were not. We saw huge black columns of smoke burst from as yet invisible cont1agrations inside of buildings and roll and coil and writhe in the still air like huge black serpents and then spread out like black pail of doom until the flames that followed them created drafts of wind that swept them away. And we saw this hungry, remorseless combustion spread and devour for three hours, and noth- ing but the uncommon stiffness of the atmosphere, and at last the arrival of the special train bearing help from Danbury, saved the historic mansions and churches on the Green, the re- maining stores and lumber yards on Railroad and West streets, and all the homes between them and the Housa- tonic. South Main street, with it's beautiful houses would have gone, too, and probably East street, with every church, school, library and public hall in town, and Great Brook Neck would have been left as bare as when Wara- maug's painted tribesmen had their smoky wigwams here.
 But a merciful Providence spared us from gale like that which swept the fiery deluge over Waterbury, although the area burned over (about four acres), and the financial loss, are much larger, in proportion to the size of this place, than in the case of Waterbury.
 1 have said it seems like dream, or stage play, but as we have walked through the still smoking ruins, day after day, the desolation has re mained and the. rising new village of board tabernacles on our beautiful green, soon to be filled with fine stocks ot merchandise, proclaim that our mer- chants realize the situation, and are rising heroically to meet it, and to compel Prosperity still to dwell in New Milford. Amid this calamity we have still great things to be thankful for. Not life, of man or beast, was lost or endangered by the ire. Not church or school was even scorched. Our beautiful library, our historic Town hall, and the historic mansions on the
 
 ROUGH BUT VALUABLE BLESSINGS our two great hardware and tool stores, our carpenter shops, our extensive lumber yards and coal yards, are all intact. We have everything at hand to begin to build up again. This con- gregation has only one proprietor burn- ed out, and she we'll insured. A few have been thrown out of employment, for few days only, and the demand for laborers is greater than ever be- fore. Surely we all have great cause for gratitude.
 And now, my friends, for such time as this, it seems to me we have in the tWo-fOld eXhortation of our text, an appropriate theme for meditation and instruction. ''In the day of prosper
 ty be joyful, but in the day of adver- sity consider"
 Generally speaking men need little urging to induce them to comply with the first exhortation of this text, though some churlsh souls seem to grudge themselves any joy to-day, for fear it may not last tomorrow also. They are so worried with needless fear about tomorrow, that they spoil to-day, by fretting about it, and so spoil tomorrow also. They are like H.