Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1879 — A VERITABLE FIRE-BUG. [ARTICLE]

A VERITABLE FIRE-BUG.

A Man Who is Like Unto a Warlike Meteor—Snake Stories Double-Discounted. Little Rook Gazette. Information reaches us that the Sharp county “fire man” is still burning. This affkir is indeed very wonderful—wonderful in two respects—wonderful if true and wonderful if not true. Wonderful in the not true sense because people in Sharp county, some of them, believe the story. At night, so the story goes, the man resembles a moving illumination. His nose is as a taper, and his eyes are red lanterns. Several nights ago he appeared to a party of fishermen. Coming up suddenly. accompanied by a glare and fearfully flickering lights that flared with the wind, he awakened the most augmented terror. He did not speak, but stood glaring at tbe men. and when they ran away he followed them. A history of the man, as near as can be obtained, says that several years ago he was a well-to-do farmer. Though a kind-hearted man, he was exceedingly profane and was never at a loss for an oath. A protracted religious meeting was sprung at a school-house in his neighborhood. His wife, a very religious woman, persisted in attending, and nignts, when she came home her husband would hear nothing else but tbe bright way in which some neighbor came through, or how devout brother Perkins had proved himself. The man argued With nis wife, told her that there was no Christ, no God, no Devil. “Look,” said he, “into the Christ matter. The Testament says that at the crucifixion of Jesus the woild grew suddenly dark and the eafth shook. The Grecian and Roman astronomers of those days were learned. Why did they not transmit accounts of such a remarkable phenomenon?” His wife, “simple minded and unread,” did not attempt to answer his argument, but with that characteristic faith of an Olinlheus, continued to nightlysit within the sound of the gospel. The man—Hamlin is his ndtfc, which foot should have been mentioned before—gradually lost bis reason and vowed that if his wife did not quit attending churOh, he would burn down the building. This threat, though made passionately, was more than a passing declaration. One night after his wife had gone, Hamlin took a chunk of fire from the fireplace, and moved off toward the schoolhouse. When he arrived the minister was painting a glorious picture for the good, and giving to the bad a miserable chromo. Hamlin, unobserved, stole to one corner of the house. He blew the firebrand till it blazed. He laid it down and gathered splinters and dry grasses. Then igniting them, he thrust the blazing fogots and masses under one corner of the house. He fed the fire with stick and chips, and when he saw that the fire would “go,” he yelled demoniacally and dashed away through the woods. The congregation was startled by an outcry, but, hearing no repetition, again gave way to the influence of the speaker. Suddenly a. glare. A flame spear had shot through tbe floor. The superstitious congregation crowded together like sheep, and the minister himself frightened, ran from the house followed by his entire flock. The house burned down, and when Mrs. Hamlin went home she found her husband tossing on his bed. He said that he was burning up, and . before water could be lifted to his mouth It became boiling hot. Suddenly he sprang out of bed. Every hair on nis head seemed a blaze of fire. Currents of fire ran from his ears into bis nostrils. With a wild yell, he ran from the house, ami ever since then he has been burning. There are hundreds who will vouch for this improbable story.