The age-herald., 1902-04-06

or our wide land or plenty ana or peace. Flow, sweet river, flow: flow southward and northward and eastward and west ward, spreading through all the valleys and over all the hills, and bearing every where a new meaning to the Republic, its splendor and It's gloryi
 It is we'll for the bridegrooms and the brides to make their rejoiceful pilgrim ages to the nations home-city, for there- by they come to comprehend something of the greatest object lesson their country has given. It is not for them as the boastful Neapolitans say, "See Naples and die;" 1t is, See Washington and live live and teach the marvellous story of the the generation to follow the bridegrooms and the brides of today.
 For many and many a year there was kept in the great gloomy Treasury build ing a parcel known all over the country as ''the brides money" said to amount to ten million dollars of lawful currency. Possibly, but not probably, the parcel Is still in use to please the multitude of ptiuCo WuO NlSlL tNe Olu DullOlnRS. AL any rate, 1t was long the custc n there to thrill each visiting bride by placing in her hands "the brides money" The Treasury officer charged with the pleas ant duty of pleasing the bride would conduct her and her beloved down to the dark deeps of the Crypt, and unlocking a room called a vault" he would light the gas, take from a drawer a parcel the length and width of an ordinary ten-dol- lar bill and about six inches thick, and handing 1t to the bride. would say:
 You now hold in your hands ten mil lion dollars of government moneyr
 The trembling bride would almost faint and the trembling bridegroom would give forth a gurgling sound as If choking Overwhelmed by the immensity of the sum, the bridegroom and his bride would look at the parcel as If 1t were a sacred thing, and then they would look at one another Rapidly, repeatedly ana for a hundred heart-throbs, the mated ones would turn their eyes from the precious parcel to one another and from one anoth- CT to the precious parcel and then with deep and infinitely long-drawn breath each would whisper as one:
 'If it were ours!'
 Trembling violently, the sweet bride would finally surrender the ten millions to the Treasury officer, who would care fully replace the parcel in the drawer, bang the door of the vault so that it would sound like some echo from the tomb, and hastily conducting the bride. groom and the bride to the light of day he would bid them good-day.
 So would they pass from the touch and sight of the vast wealth with new and abiding thrill in their loving hearts; and so they and unnumbered ones of their happy kind would journey their home ward ways to tell amazed multitudes of the inches they had touched And when in the fullness of time and the good ness of providence children came to nestle in their arms and practice by their sides, the story of the millions was told over and over again, until children in their turn became bridegrooms and brides, building the rainbow of their own hopes that they might find the pot of wealth at its end.
 But-"the brides money" was worth less paper.
 As all that glistens Is not gold so all that Is green is not greenbacks.
 As the bridegroom and the bride never knew that the brides money in the great gray stove palace of the Treasury was worthless paper, let us hope that the young blush of other things of vital im- port to themselves never faded to leave bare any possible worthlessness; and as the semblance of thing seen and touch- ed in the Treasury of the nation was mot its reality. so let us hope that all the things that thrilled in the treasury of their lives seemed always real. and there fore were real.
 There Is now probably no brides money" over there beyond the narrow