The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-03-18

TIE LORDS CHILD.
Ufpm The Coming Tower).
was the Gavonarola Of Adamant, Missouri.
A busting railroad town Of some thrss
On the Kav River. Here in tho Bridge Street.
Church
God Numbered in my voice,
Failed in,my thrashins arms. turned my dark
eyes
TO livid coalA
The pool halls and the motion picture shows.
The dances At the Elks' Club,
And . painted Jezebel Of hor-h name
Blew high before my preaching, even - barns
and windmills
From Kansas cyclones.
After my sermons women hurried homo
To bura their husbands cribbage boards.
To empty vile cider Jugs and viler whisky
TASKS.
One talk in which called 4 spade a spade
addressed to women cnly)
Caused three divorces and no fewer than ten
broken engagements.
Here was my secret
The hre-tipped words
Which scotched iniquity, sent maids and
matrons
In tear-deluged repentance at my feet
Caught spark from smouldeFing Satanic flames
In my own nature A wise Providence
Transformed this baser matter into zeal
To lead a holy war against the devil.
Thus swept all before me-cleaned out, root
and branch
The sin of Adamant.
And sat one morning, dreaming Of new worlds,
OF wilder Babylons
And blacker-souled Gomorrahs.
Could not save the damned
OF Omaha Texarkans, Kalamazoo. Oshkosh.
Topeka,
And DubuQue-espec Dubuque.
In the rich state OF Iowa, where live
Ny wife's relations? On Bonded knee
asked for guidance. AS il in answer
The door swung open softly and before me,
link and white, budding
Delicate as . twig of plum blossom.
Stood Linda Marsh, Just turned eighteen,
One OF my latest converts.
When she stammered her errand
About repairing hymnbooks for the choir,
could not hear her for a crashing voice
Beating within me like a thousand cymbals,
Saying: yield! Yield!
How can you hope to pluck lost souls from
hell
To wipe out the red Ninevehs
OF this great nation,
Unless you know, first hand, the pitchy heart
of sin!'
She lifted slow, gray eyes, warm lit.
She raised her arms,
her hair,
Smiling. l caught her. AS she fed
The kiss I had intended for her mouth
Trailed off and disappeared under her ear,
Scarcely could it be called kiss at all.
Linda confded in a girl who went dragging;
the tale to Japhet Marsh,
A hardware merchant who owned secretly
A rooming house Of which
I'd made short shrift
Japhet was Lindas father.
He brought suit against me for ten Thousand,
dollars,
much damage
To Lindas morals.
Then began happenings in Adamant
Like to the scourges of the Trojan wars.
II was as though my roofing up Of evil
Had left vacuum which abruptly burst.
The town divided in Two camps-in one
The devils janizaries led by Japhet Marsh.
In the other
| Women Of virtue few godly men,
Myself-and Unseen Hosts.
My trial opened at the winter term
| OF circuit court; and l preached nightly
sermons,
Barring to the public view sin-r4eidng lives
OF we'll known citizens opposing me-
| The prairie roads
Twinkled with autos speeding into town.
My eloquence emptied three counties
The hotels were jammed.
The streets eddied with crowds,
Horses, mules, Fords. Tho papers wrote me mp.
I saw my picture on the second page
| OF The Chicago Tribune. Those were great
days;
And God fought by me with a fiery sword
Japhet lost out He had to pay the costs.
Ten Thousand was too much. the jury said,
For one kiss, under the ear, and given largely
In = paternal spirit
My prosecutors thronged the streets that night
in numerous mobA
Masked men rolled oil barrels against tie
church.
The snoW-yeiled landscape bloomed
Red like an evil passion.
As thirsty, scarlet tongues sucked at the very
tip of the white steeple,
woman's figure
Dropped from the railroad bridge behind the
church
Into the fre-fecked river.
BACK there in Adamant