THE ARISERS.—CHAOS MENDERS.—MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TINKERS
AND COBBLERS.—ARTIFICIAL PIETY.—PRAISE CONVENTION.—A
HOLY ONE A MAKER OF LONG PRAYERS AND SHORT WAGES, IS VERY
HOPEFUL.
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NOW as soon as the Apologist Philosophers and their Proverb Foundry
arose it was as though they had opened the doors of a Bottomless Pit
where were confined an infinite host of Arisers; for from that time on
there arose, and arose, and arose an endless succession of until-then
unknown and needless Chaos Menders who came forth equipped with moral
saws and hammers and jack planes and set up shop all over Canisville
and put out big flaring signs setting forth that all manner of Moral
and Spiritual Cobbling and Repairing was done there on the shortest
notice; special attention being given to the Production of Public Virtue
amongst dogs, by a large corps of operators, in the highest degree
skilled in the art of fitting all sorts, sizes and qualities of dogs
to Standard Moral Measurement, by the use of the latest improved and
perfected machinery, warranted to lengthen, shorten, flatten, puff out,
square up, round off, expand or compress as required. Also Corrupt Trees
carefully trained and made to bear the best of Good Fruit; thorns made
to bear grapes, and thistles to bring forth figs; all under the able
superintendency of their various agents.
First, there arose divers well-meaning dogs of prophets who imagined
they could restore the fighting, squabbling community to a state of
decency by schooling the dogs into a habit of compelling their brains to
sever all relationship and connection with their stomachs.
So when they were ready with their Plan they sent one into the Public
Place, crying, “Behold now, this fighting and bad temper is all wrong;
ye ought to deal kindly with one another. Lo! I come to proclaim peace.”
And an infidel dog said, “How wilt thou bring peace when there are more
hungry dogs than bones?”
And the prophet said, “Let us bear with one another; let us resolutely
put away from us all malice and evil thoughts, and be kindly affectioned
one to another; and when one of us has found a bone, let not the other
one cast covetous and hungry eyes upon it, but let him meekly bear his
lot; and when his belly rumbles through emptiness, and he be tempted
to rush upon his neighbor’s bone, let him put up a little prayer to
the Providence which hath wisely ordained our several lots, and howl a
little hymn thus:
“Help me, O Lord, to bear my lot,
And when with hunger spent,
I’ll think of other boneless ones,
And learn to be content.
Not more than others I deserve,
Whose forms with want are bent;
Oh, give me then, a spirit meek,
That always is content.
“This, my canine brethren, is all that we need—the spirit of meekness,
resignation and contentment. Think, my beloved brethren, of all the
glorious prospects that lie beyond this vale of tears, when, if we have
been very humble and contented, and have not barked at the upper
classes, nor scoffed at the well-paid ministers of the fleas’ gospel, we
shall trot the streets of the New Canisville where the best food lies
around in the greatest profusion, and poor dogs hunger no more, neither
thirst any more.”
“And,” said a sceptic dog, “what shall we do for grub on earth until we
reach the grubful Canaan?”
“My brother,” said the prophet, “thou must pray for grace to be
content.”
Now, when the Church of the Fleas heard that there was a very holy
dog of a prophet gone down amongst the wicked and discontented
canines to preach unto them the doctrine of present contentment and
future bellyfuls, they gathered themselves together in a great Praise
Convention to give thanks and rejoice for the new Star of Hope that had
risen on the land, and a Holy One, a Maker of long prayers and short
wages, arose and addressed them.
The Honorable One a Maker of long prayers and short wages was a smooth
and influential lay flea, who ran a large blood suckery six days of the
week, and on the other a large snivelling prayery, and was reputed to
be very rich in grace, but much richer in this world’s wealth, and was
world-noted for his stinginess towards the dogs he drew his life blood
from, and the prodigality of his gifts to churches and charities.
There was a very queer peculiarity about his eyes: One of them was
turned permanently downward towards the earth, and was a very keen,
bright eye of high microscopic power, which restlessly scanned every
object, and by long practice had grown able to discern with a marvellous
infallibility certain dirty looking little blood spots called pennies.
This eye was what was known as his six-days-a-week eye, and was so
powerfully developed that no matter how small these spots were, nor how
deeply hidden—even deep down at the bottom of and beneath a hundred
feet of dirt—he could see them and he would never rest until he had
uncovered them, and gathered them in with his marvellously acquisitive
blood sucker.
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His other eye was known as his seventh-day eye, and was a very keen,
bright eye of high telescopic power, which by persistent straining and
practice had bulged outward and upward towards Heaven, and had developed
a marvellous capacity for seeing mansions in the skies, harps and golden
crowns of glory and immortality, laid up in particular for the Honorable
One a Maker of long prayers and short wages.
So that what with the present riches his six-days-a-week eye enabled his
marvellously acquisitive blood sucker to pick up, and the prospective
riches his seventh-day eye enabled him to see was his, he was very
wealthy indeed, very sleek and exceedingly well contented—as any one so
well fixed for both worlds ought to be.
He said: “Brethren of the most ancient and honorable Church of the
Suckers, it is evident that the great problem of sin and wickedness
amongst the poor is about to be solved. I confess that, to me, the state
of the poor has been for years past, a great burden of anxiety upon
my heart, and a subject of agonizing prayer. I have remarked their
pinched features, their hungry jaws, their woe-begone condition, and I
have endeavored as far as in me lies, to alleviate their hard lot. What
shall be done to lift them up? Let us remember that they are _of our own
blood_. The poor brutes on which I live excite my compassion more than
I can tell, and I have done everything I know of to lessen the hardness
of their lot. I encourage my lady flea and our flea-lets—than whom
there are not more holy ones between here and the seventh heaven—to
go down and teach them. They take little tracts to them, showing them,
in the most beautiful manner, how by more toil, more thrift, more
temperance, more economy of time and little retrenchments in sleep and
_luxuries_, and the lopping off here and there of sinful indulgences,
and crucifixion of various ungodly lusts, they can with the help of God,
come up to fatness, and even to a sleek condition. They have showed them
that “Where there’s a will, there’s ALWAYS a way” to success in life,
and they have shown them by various shining examples, how ANY dog may,
by patient perseverance, lift himself out of the condition of being a
blood-yielding dog and come up by Transformation into that of being an
honored sucker himself and deacon of a church. And to encourage them,
I have even sometimes remitted five per cent. of _the blood they owe
me_. But nothing seems to come of it. They seem just as thriftless as
ever and as full of vice. And really their idleness and shiftlessness
cause me serious alarm as I perceive that their daily yield of blood
is decreasing and I have suffered much loss. And brethren, no doubt
I voice your experience. We know that godliness among these poor is
economically profitable. A pious, contented dog works more faithfully
than an ungodly one; and there is infinitely more pleasure in going to
collect our monthly dues from amongst the pious, sober, well behaved and
godly dogs, than amongst those who by their wicked idleness, insobriety
and insolent barkings, give us trouble and anxiety. Let us remember that
nice Scripture which says, ‘Godliness is profitable unto all things,
having the promise not only of the life that now is, but of that which
is to come.’ Let us then be not only good but wise, and not only support
this good prophet in his work, but set apart others unto the good work;
and let us call them City Missionaries. Will some one now move that we
pass ’round the hat? And let the collection be a good big one brethren,
for, recollect, this is to send the gospel to the poor, and ‘he that
giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,’ and the Lord always pays good
interest, brethren, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and
running over. So that we shall by this present sacrifice be eternal
gainers and come out at the large end of the horn.”
And it was so. And they made up a big pot of money for the missionaries;
and they stroked their paunches affectionately and departed, feeling
that God ought to be very much obliged to them for having condescended
to think on his poor.
And from that time on there was reported “great success” in the
preaching of the Gospel of Content. At the end of the year the Church
of the Suckers got together, and had the prophets tell them of the good
work done during the year. And the good prophets made various long
reports of their work. They had written down in books called “diaries”
how many visits they had made among the poor dogs; how many they had
induced by exhortation, to give up their fighting and quarreling; how
many had thus been brought to sit in rows in certain bare-looking gospel
houses called “Missions,” and howl out certain noises called “hymns,”
and to declare at the end of meetings that they had “got religion” and
“found grace” to bear their hunger and all their miseries, and even
to put on a visage and a look that betokened that they rather enjoyed
hunger and poverty and hankered for more. But the reports always wound
up with the statement, that how much soever of good _had_ been done,
it was as nothing to the good that remained to _be_ done; that the
“fields were white unto the harvest,” and praying that “more laborers
be sent into the harvest,” and, finally, that although they had got
quite a number of hungry and poverty-stricken dogs to enter the ranks
of the contented saints, the vast multitude were still discontented and
quarrelsome and wicked, and would not come to the “Mission,” but loafed
about the streets on Sunday, blind to their “privileges,” and deaf to
the “gracious call.” And what was even more sad and pitiable, these
loafers, who would not be gathered under the wing of the new gospel
hen, not only made a mock at sin, but had made grievous faces at the
missionaries. Then the speakers congratulated the “mission society” on
the “good” they had done and urged the missionaries to bear their hard
trials with meekness, and to put forth “greater efforts” in the future.
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