Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1894 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

LIFE’S MUTATIONS. One of the most remarkableexamples of the mutability of all human affairs was the life and great career of the late William G. Fargo, of Buffalo, N. Y. Born in an interior vikage of the Empire State, in poverty. he began his business career when a small boy as a mail carrier. By bis own shrewdness and indomitable energy he amassed • colossal fortune. At the time of his death, in 1881, he was in practical control of the express business in the United States. In 1867, at the zenith of his success, he conceived the idea of building a palatial residence in Buffalo that should surpass anything west of New York City. Plans were drawn and an entire block secured for a site, artisans <were employed and 1500,000 expended on the structure. At the end of five years the' building was occupied by its princely owner. One hundred thousand dollars were expended, to furnish the mansion. A retinue of fourteen servants was required to care for the place. For nine years the magnate dispensed a lavish hopitality and the fetes that were conducted there are matters of local history. In 1881 Mr. Fargo died. His widow continued to occupy the palace, afterwards remarrying and also surviving her second husband, another of the Fargo family, until 1890, when she died, and the house was closed, the furniture sold at auction and the estate divided among the heirs. Now comes the lastact in the drama. The new owners of the great mansion and grounds find the palace an elephant on their bands, and have at last decided to raze the triumph of the artisans’ skill to the ground at an enormous sacrifice, fill up the cellar and sell off the block in single lots! Ring down the curtain! Lights out! The play is over! “Surely man walketh in a vain show. He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them." A PERENNIAL PROBLEM. An ever-living and unsolved problem of past, present and future interest, old as the race and hidden in the mysterious legends of remote antiquity has again come into prominence by a very learned discussion by an able United States Judge at Nashville, Tenn., in a lecture on the theme: “Why Don't God Kill the Devil?" An audience of 3,000 people greeted Judge Sage on the occasion in question, and a more brilliant and deeply interested assembly ioeldom convened. In commencing his re marks the Judge stated that the subject was not to be treated in a humorous vein, but that he would thoughtfully discuss the mystery of evil. Continuing, he said: “I believe in a personal devil, Why did not God strike down Satan when he fell? Because God may have considered that his fall was not entirely Satan’s fault. If God had created angels so that they could not fall the element of free will to fall would have been entirely missing. Satan made the plea, no doubt, that God ought not to have made him so he could fall. Satan was an angel in heaven. He fell. God cast him out. Man was created. Satan tempted and man fell. The descendants of Adam became so bad that God destroyed them and started again with Noah. Again the trial of Satan went on and again the world became wicked and the Saviour was sent. Satan also tempted Christ, but failed and a new way to salvation was made. Satan today practically possesses the world. There is yet an undecided conflict between God and Satan being waged on earth. There will be an end and Satan will be vindicated or vanquished." In conclusion, Judge Sage said the reason God did not kill the devil was because his trial was not yet over. Every word of the lecturer was spoken with reverence, and he insisted that he was simply speculating on the greatest unsolved mystery in the world today. MODERN, MARTYRS. In the Middle Ages people of both sexes frequently attested their devotion to the church by allowing themselves to be burned alive, cast upon rocks at the foot of a precipice, tortured in the rack, broke on the wheel, or by submission to any other form of cruelty that the ingenious deviltry of man could devise. They all went straight to glory, of course, and many of their names have descended to posterity through the medium of “Fox's Book of Martyrs" and other records of more or less authentic value. Doubtless there are martys to the truth in oar day, but they are few and far between, and seldom get their names in print- The opportunity foi- undying fame in this -direction seems ..to be pVtotlchfiy' Exhausted.' In •plfe-tif this apparently insurmountable obstacle, however, the goo p

ladies of the Methodist church at Catskill, N. Y., resolved to become martyrs in behalf of —a new carpet for their church. They bound themselves, in spite of the glut in the labor market, to earn at least (1 each by some unusual work. The husbands “kicked" when they found their homes neglected and their buttons vanishing into the unknown, but the gentle dames continued to make pop corn balls, mince pies, bread, etc., to sell to strangers,hired out their carriages and walked when shoveled snow, and made “martyrs" of themselves in every possible way in order to swell the “carpet fund.” One woman’s husband, on hearing of the project, offered his wife a dollar to stop talking for two weeks, and so far she has not earned a cent, but the lady has the heartfelt sympathy of her sisters, who think she is already “martyr” enough in having such a “horrid” man for a husband. “MERRY WAR.” The appalling destruction of gunpowder and almost entire absence of fatalities which have, thus far characterized theinternecine struggle which the cable dispatches from time to time tell us is in actual progress in Brazil, have a tendency to arouse the risibilities of survivors of our own great rebellion, and suggest that the Shakesperean character who “but for these vile guns would have himself been a soldier," lost the opportunity of his life by not waiting until this alleged war began in order to show to the world his epaulets and valor. The record of one week’s bombardment of Rio de Janeiro discloses the death of onenoncombatant and the injury of another, The latter was a carriage driver who incautiously picked up an unexploded shell and tried to bury it, and in so doing accidentally kicked some of his tools into the hole, thus exploding the death-dealing missile. Not a soldier or a marine has been injured in the least. One soldier blew his own hat off. Admiral da Gamadeserted the government forces and went over to the insurgents because the men were not paid promptly. A heroic deed of a lieutenant and six students is recorded. The party went to the coast and sighted the rebel steamer Pallas. They immediately knelt down and all fired their carbines at the vessel. Then they returned to the city and told of their own bravery in firing on a steamer well out to sea with hand arms. It is indeed a “merry war.” It has, nevertheless, sadly interfered with business, and foreigners trying to continue their regular trade at Rio de Janeiro with interior towns have experienced great difficulty in even getting the necessary papers to enable them to leave the city,notwithstanding the payment of considerable sums for the privilege.