an enterprise that he knows is to result in the sale of twenty thousand shares of an undeveloped nothing—­God will tear off the cloak of his hypocrisy, and in the last day show him to all the universe—­a brazen-faced gambler.  His house will be accursed.  God’s anathemas will flash in the chandelier, and rattle in the swift hoofs of his silver-bitted grays; and the day of fire will see him willing to leap into a burning oil-well to hide himself from the face of the Lamb.  The hundred thousand dollars gotten in unrighteousness will not be enough to build a barricade against the advance of the divine judgments.

Think of the elder in a church who, from the oil regions, sends an exciting telegram, so that one man buys a large amount of stock at twelve, on Wednesday.  The next day it is put on the stock-board at six.  The enterprising man, who sold it at twelve, goes out to buy one of the grandest estates within ten miles of the city.  The man who bought it goes into the dust; and the secret gets out that the exciting telegram sent by the elder arose, not from any oil actually discovered, but because in boring they had found a magnificent odor of oil.

If he who steals a dollar from a money-drawer is a thief, then he who by dishonesty gets five hundred thousand dollars is five hundred thousand times more a thief.  And so the last day will declare him.

Did not the law right the injured man?  No!  The poor who were wronged would not undertake a suit against a company that could bring fifty thousand dollars to the enlightenment of judge, jury, and lawyer; while, on the other hand, the affluent who had been gouged would not go to the courts for justice.  Why! how would it sound, if it got out, that Mr. So and So, one of the first merchants on Wall, or Third, or State street, had got swindled?  They will keep it still.

The guilty range to-day undisturbed through society, and will continue to do so until the Lord God shall bring them to an unerring settlement, and proclaim to an astonished universe how many lies they told about the land, about the derricks, about the yield, about the dividends.  What shall such an one say, when God shall, in the great day of account, hold up before him the circular, and the map, and the newspaper advertisement?  Speechless!

Before that day shall come I warn you—­Disgorge! you infamous stock gamblers!  Gather together so many of your company as have any honesty left, and join in the following circular:—­“We the undersigned, do hereby repent of our villainies, and beg pardon of the public for all the wrongs that we have done them; and hereby ask the widows and orphans whom we have made penniless to come next Saturday, between ten and three o’clock, and receive back what we stole from them.  We hereby confess that the wells spoken of in our circular never yielded any oil; and that the creeks running through our ornamented map were an entire fiction; and that the elder who piously rolled up his eyes and said it was a safe investment, was not as devout as he looked to be.  Signed by the subscribers at their office, in the year of our Lord 1871.”