I saw a poisoned air, in which Life drooped.
I saw Disease, arrayed in all its store of
hideous aspects and appalling shapes,
triumphant in every alley, bye-way, court, back
street, and poor abode, in every place where
human beings congregated—in the proudest
and most boastful places, most of all. I saw
innumerable hosts, fore-doomed to darkness,
dirt, pestilence, obscenity, misery, and early
death. I saw, wheresoever I looked, cunning
preparations made for defacing the Creator's
Image, from the moment of its appearance
here on earth, and stamping over it the
image of the Devil. I saw, from those reeking
and pernicious stews, the avenging
consequences of such Sin issuing forth, and
penetrating to the highest places. I saw the
rich struck down in their strength, their
darling children weakened and withered,
their marriageable sons and daughters perish
in their prime. I saw that not one miserable
wretch breathed out his poisoned life
in the deepest cellar of the most neglected
town, but, from the surrounding atmosphere,
some particles of his infection were borne
away, charged with heavy retribution on the
general guilt.

There were many attentive and alarmed
persons looking on, who saw these things
too. They were well clothed, and had
purses in their pockets; they were educated,
full of kindness, and loved mercy. They
said to one another, "This is horrible, and
shall not be!" and there was a stir among
them to set it right. But, opposed to these,
came a small multitude of noisy fools and
greedy knaves, whose harvest was in such
horrors; and they, with impudence and
turmoil, and with scurrilous jests at misery and
death, repelled the better lookers-on, who soon
fell back, and stood aloof.

Then, the whisper went among those better
lookers-on, saying, "Over the bodies of those
fellows, to the remedy!"

But, each of them moodily shrugged his
shoulders, and replied, "It is a great wrong
—BUT IT WILL LAST MY TIME!" And so they
put it from them.

I saw a great library of laws and law-
proceedings, so complicated, costly, and
unintelligible, that, although numbers of lawyers
united in a public fiction that these were
wonderfully just and equal, there was scarcely
an honest man among them, but who said
to his friend, privately consulting him, "Better
put up with a fraud or other injury than
grope for redress through the manifold
blind turnings and strange chances of this
system."

I saw a portion of the system, called (of all
things) EQUITY, which was ruin to suitors, ruin
to property, a shield for wrong-doers having
money, a rack for right-doers having none: a
by-word for delay, slow agony of mind,
despair, impoverishment, trickery, confusion,
insupportable injustice. A main part of it, I
saw prisoners wasting in jail; mad people
babbling in hospitals; suicides chronicled in
the yearly records; orphans robbed of their
inheritance; infants righted (perhaps) when
they were grey.

Certain lawyers and laymen came together,
and said to one another, "In only one of
these our Courts of Equity, there are years of
this dark perspective before us at the present
moment. We must change this."

Uprose, immediately, a throng of others,
Secretaries, Petty Bags, Hanapers, Chaff-
waxes, and what not, singing (in answer)
"Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen ;"
making flourishing speeches, pronouncing hard
names, demanding committees, commissions,
commissioners, and other scarecrows, and
terrifying the little band of innovators out of
their five wits.

Then, the whisper went among the latter,
as they shrunk back, saying, "If there is
anything wrong within the universal knowledge, this
wrong is. Go on! Set it right!"

Whereon, each of them sorrowfully thrust
his hands in his pockets, and replied, "It is
indeed a great wrong;—BUT IT WILL LAST MY
TIME!"—and so they put it from them.

The Spirit, with its face concealed,
summoned all the people who had used this
phrase about their Time, into its presence.
Then, it said, beginning with the Minister of
State:

"Of what duration is your Time?"

The Minister of State replied, "My ancient
family has always been long-lived. My father
died at eighty-four; my grandfather, at ninety-
two. We have the gout, but bear it (like our
honors) many years."

"And you," said the Spirit to the Priests
and Teachers, "what may your time be?"

Some, believed they were so strong, as that
they should number many more years than
threescore and ten; others, were the sons of
old incumbents who had long outlived youthful
expectants. Others, for any means they
had of calculating, might be long-lived or
short-lived—generally (they had a strong
persuasion) long. So, among the well-clothed
lookers on. So, among the lawyers and
laymen.

"But, every man, as I understand you, one
and all," said the Spirit, "has his time?"

"Yes!" they exclaimed together.

"Yes," said the Spirit; "and it is—
ETERNITY! Whosoever is a consenting party
to a wrong, comforting himself with the base
reflection that it will last his time, shall bear
his portion of that wrong throughout ALL
TIME. And, in the hour when he and I stand
face to face, he shall surely know it, as my
name is Death!"

It departed, turning its shaded face hither
and thither as it passed along upon its ceaseless
work, and blighting all on whom it
looked.

Then went among many trembling hearers
the whisper, saying, "See, each of you,
before you take your ease, O wicked, selfish,