THE WIZARD CITY.
1. The weird city of inventors described.
2. Its ultimate overthrow predicted in a realistic climax.
I saw that Miss Church-Member was anxious to visit the vast tower in
the central part of the city. So Mr. World, in deference to her wishes,
and agreeably to his own desires, escorted her in that direction.
Standing away at some distance, they were soon gazing upward at the
awe-inspiring spectacle. Its grandeur and proportions now appeared to
be greatly increased.
They could see, with more distinctness, circling around the massive
wizard cone, the aerial boulevards, ever alive with private conveyances,
and the trolley cars each carrying a variety of passengers.
“Will you accompany me on the trolley to the first series of hangings
gardens?” cheerily invited Mr. World.
“If we are permitted, and you think it safe to ascend,” she answered
in a tremulous voice. He calmed her fears and led her to the central
passenger room at the base of the tower. Here they saw a system of
interior elevators carrying throngs of people to the numerous stations
between the base and the highest dizzy view-point.
Leading off to the right ran the double trolley system, and to the
left the equally wide boulevard, each on the exterior of the massive
tower.
I saw the obliging Mr. World, with more than usual courtesy, conduct
his friend to a seat on a trolley car bound for the aerial gardens.
The ascent was smooth and afforded delightful opportunities to view,
at every desirable angle, the surrounding city and its suburbs.
“This is the most exhilarating ride of my life!” triumphantly cried
Miss Church-Member as they circled higher and higher so gradually that
more than ten miles were traveled ere the objective point was reached
one thousand feet from the base.
Here lay the variety gardens, suspended from the rigid side of the
tower by a feat of architectural engineering surpassing anything in
the natural world.
Around the gardens the boulevards and the trolley lines circled
horizontally, and also passed through some of the huge corridors which,
on this level, diverge from the interior elevators toward the exterior
gardens.
When the trolley car reached this height Miss Church-Member at once
fixed her eyes on the ponderous pillars on each side of the converging
corridors, for she knew that more than four thousand feet of the tower’s
amazing weight rested on these defiant granites.
Mr. World and his pleasing friend meandered amongst the multitude from
one to another of the hanging gardens, drinking in all the vain glories
that this aerial world afforded. At last, wearied by the endless
succession of extraordinary sights, they stole away to a quiet retreat
on the outer edge of a garden farthest from the tower’s center.
Reclining in hammocks, they conversed of all the greatness of the
world.
Looking upward they saw, fifteen hundred feet above them, the next
series of hanging gardens; and during the lull in the music near by,
they caught the strains falling from the upper orchestras like music
from Heaven.
“Will you go with me still higher to taste the sweetness of a more
ethereal level?”
Intoxicated with the charms already felt, Miss Church-Member was ready
for any height. Upward they went on the venturesome trolley, admiring
the phenomenal ride and the scenery it opened to their view in panoramic
splendor. Their course wound round and round until they came to the
horizontal circle twenty-five hundred feet above the base.
This was a place of more refinement and beauty. The touch of the finer
artists was seen in all the arrangement and style of the terraces and
hanging gardens, but especially in the rich variety of flowers and
plants that added their wealth to the novel combinations.
Mr. World carefully guarded his much esteemed friend during their
sight-seeing from garden to garden, for at times they encountered
throngs of people.
I saw them eventually seek rest on rustic chairs where their
conversation deepened into the relations they sustained one to the
other, succeeded at last by a tender, thoughtful silence.
In the midst of their reveries they noticed a little spider, swinging
on its silken thread, floating in the air between them.
“You rude little creature! Why do you come, at such a time, between
my friend and me?” said Miss Church-Member in a half humorous mood.
“It may be for a purpose, dear. Perhaps the little insect poses here
to remind us that we can never escape the foe that seeks to separate
us.”
“Quite an ingenious explanation,” she said with deepening seriousness.
“But who is that lurking foe who seeks our separation?”
“’Tis better to learn to know your enemies than to be told of them.
Hence look through your eyes askance.”
Just at this instant Miss Church-Member raised her hand and caught the
little intruder, placing it alive into a locket which she had secretly
carried ever since she had visited the Pawn Shop.
“What can be the meaning of that?” queried Mr. World as he saw, through
the glass of the little lid, the struggling insect.
“So may it be to any foe that seeks to separate us,” she explained.
“Then let me carry the locket,” he suggested. “You have captured the
foe; allow me to keep him imprisoned.”
There was a happy exchange of glances as she pressed the little prison
into his hand. “It is yours forever,” she pledged under the sway of
her rising emotions.
And he, accepting it with a warm heart, spoke thus in glowing words:
“I accept the endless task and also pledge to the utmost of my power
to keep any foe imprisoned that seeks to rob your life of any passing
happiness.”
“Shall we go still higher?” he soon asked as he fixed his eyes on the
dizzy terraces two thousand feet above them.
“In your presence I fear no height,” was her confiding response.
The trolley cars ascended no higher, so they proceeded to the interior
elevators. But they were told that no visitors were allowed above that
point that privilege being reserved alone for the inventors.
“Are we permitted to visit the interior apartments of this tower, even
below us?” asked Mr. World wistfully.
“They are all doubly sealed. No one but an expert inventor, true and
tried in our master’s service, ever passes through these secret
chambers.”
“May we know what particular branch of work is done in this tower?”
“It is devoted alone to the invention and testing of weapons of warfare
for the armies of our master, especially for the sharp-shooters
stationed along the so-called King’s Highway.”
Miss Church-Member trembled at this announcement and urged Mr. World
to conduct her to the base of the tower that they might visit other
parts of the city.
As I was looking at all these things, a flash of light, coming from
one side, blinded my vision, and as I turned I saw a heavenly messenger
in a blaze of glory.
“Hither, hither!” beckoned the sweet-faced angel.
I was instantly at his side without effort, except an act of volition.
He transported me almost instantaneously to the apex of the great tower
in the Wizard City.
There I stood without fear under the sweet charms of my angel guide
who floated gently about me in the air.
“O mortal man,” calmly spoke the angel, “thou shalt now be privileged,
for a brief space of time, to gaze upon this Wizard City as angels do.
Thy memory shall be strengthened so that thou shalt not forget the
vision of these carnal things.”
Then, in a manner surpassing all things human, scales fell from my
eyes, and I was struck with horror at the awful sight that lay before
me.
“Look thou first into the interior of this tower,” bade the angel, as
he pointed downward. All things were open to my view, and I saw many
of the bright geniuses of the world in league with the imps of darkness,
all busily engaged in the secret service of Satan.
I saw how Satan used the ingenuity of man to carry forward his infamous
schemes. Instead of the old rifles used in the earlier days of
Christianity I saw in this tower almost numberless kinds of fatal
weapons which send forth their poisonous and deadly discharges without
smoke or sound, so that the wounded, not knowing whence the missiles
come, might imagine that they were smitten of God.
The angel informed me that every year this fiendish tower puts out
into the hands of its agents many new devices, either for poisoning
or wounding the disciples who travel on the King’s Highway, and who
by any kind of negligence come within reach of Satan’s forces.
“Seest thou,” continued my guide, “with what cunning Satan hath builded
this tower? By its exterior beauty he gaineth the confidence of the
unwary, and thus winneth countless thousands to his cause. And seest
thou the depth to which it reaches, not six thousand feet below us, but
ten times six thousand feet, into the bowels of the earth?”
Then could I see, at a glance, the whole under-ground dominions
stretching their borders far, wide, and deep. There was a small empire
of groveling imps, each bent on the work of his particular branch.
“Look thou now into the apartments of those ponderous wheels,” directed
my glorious guide.
Neither metal nor granite obstructed my vision. I saw delicate and
complex machinery, and half-human creatures in league with mortal man,
all bending to their tasks.
“They all work in league with the Devil’s Optical College. The inventive
genius of Hell hath contrived, in these graded departments, all the
modern lenses that are so terribly warping the vision of an alarming
number in the church and the world.
“And seest thou,” continued the angel, as he pointed to a far section
of the city, “those inventors plying their ingenuity in behalf of
Satan’s Medical Colleges and Hospitals?
“And also witness, in that nearer section, the viler groups at work
inventing snares and traps for Satan’s allies to use in catching
Heaven-bound pilgrims.
“Also behold,” he continued, turning to another part of the city, “that
special class of geniuses who work for Satan’s general emissaries as
they journey far and wide to do exploits. How terribly they influence
the weaker servants of our King!”
Then I stood gazing, as the angel continued his interpreting, until
I had seen the foul workings of this whole city.
I was so filled with a mixture of grief and indignation that I cried
out in painful anguish: “Why does not God send thunderbolts from his
eternal throne, and smite this city to fragments?”
Then the sweet angel calmly answered: “Not until the worm ceaseth to
crawl, and thistles no more infest the ground. Till then the patience
of God endureth and his sunshine falleth on the temples of Virtue and
of Vice.”
“And what comes at the end of patience?”
“Then shall the taint of sin be purged from the earth, for every temple
and pest-hole of Satan, including this whole Wizard City, will be
consumed by an awful fire whose lurid light will glimmer long after
the metals and granites of this great Tower shall have been reduced
to ashes amidst the general ruin.”