And my feelin’s as I looked at that Temple wuz large and noble-sized as you will find anywhere.

A Temple consecrated not so much to the Almighty in Heaven, who don’t need it, as to God in Humanity—­to the help of the Divine as it shows itself half buried and lost in the clay of the human—­a help to relieve the God powers from the trammels of the fiend—­

A Temple—­not so much to set, and pray, and sing in, about the beauties of our Heavenly home, as to build up God’s kingdom on earth, show forth His praise in helpin’ His poor, and weak, and sinful.

My feelin’s wuz a sight—­a sight to behold, as I sot and looked at it—­that tall, noble, majestic pile, and thought of the way it wuz built, and what it wuz built for.

But as we drove on agin, my mind got swamped once more in a sea of immense figgers that swashed up agin me—­elevators that carry grain up to the top of towerin’ buildin’s, 10,000 bushels a hour, and then come down its own self and weigh itself, and I guess put itself into bags and tie ’em up—­though he didn’t speak in particuler about the tyin’ up.

And then he praised their stores—­one of ’em which employed 2,000,400 men.  And then he praised up their teliphone system, so perfect that nothin’ could happen in any part of the city without its bein’ known to once at police headquarters.

And then he praised up agin and agin the business qualities and go-ahead-it-ivness of the people, and how property had riz.

“Why,” sez he, “Chicago and three hundred miles around it wuz bought for five shillings not so long ago as your little town was founded, and now look at the uncounted millions it represents.”

And then he boasted about the Board of Trade, and said its tower wuz 300 feet high.  And, sez he, “While folks all over the world are prayin’ for their daily bread, the men inside that building was deciding whether they could get it or not.”

And after he talked about everything else connected with Chicago, and hauled up figgers and heaped ’em up in front of me till my brain reeled, and my mind tottered back, and tried to lean onto old Rugers’ Rithmatick—­and couldn’t, he wuz so totally inadequate to the circumstances—­he mentioned “that they had 6000 saloons in Chicago, and made twenty-one million barrels of beer in a year.”

“Wall,” sez I, a-turnin’ round in the buggy, “my brain has been made a wreck by the figgers you have brung up and throwed at me about the noble, progressive doin’s of Chicago, and,” sez I firmly, “I wuz willin’ to have it, for I respect and honor the people who could do such wonders, and keepon a-doin’ ’em, to the admiration of the world.  But,” sez I, “my brain shall not totter under none of your beer and whiskey statisticks.”  And as I spoke I put my hand to my fore-top, and I looked quite bad, and truly I felt so.

He glanced at me, and see that I wuz not in a situation to be trifled with.