My hearers became ashen with fear, now feeling doubly assured that I was a forerunner of some terrible curse that was about to fall upon the Trusts and corporations whom those professors were serving so assiduously, without ever speaking a word of protest in favor of the human slaves around them.

Once more I related my station.  But I spoke in most convincing terms of the eternal curse with which the Infinite would visit the guilty of all worlds.

As I left them I saw that my last words brought no relief to their faces and, after a long silence, they nervously discussed the whole affair, not being able to account for the exceptional experience through which they had just passed.

I visited, in a form invisible, the mansions of the rich and found that the most choice ornaments on their parlor shelves consisted of vials of soil or dirt, and in the homes of the most wealthy only I saw flowering plants.

It chanced that I visited this world at the graduating period of the greater schools.  This gave me privilege to hear an oration on “The Soil and the Diamond,” a synopsis of which I will translate as correctly as I can.  It will be remembered that I must use terms and style suitable to our language.

“O beautiful soil!  Thou art but a type of thy maker invisible.  Thou dost give birth to countless forms and nursest them all from thy own bosom.  From the atom thou bringest the oak, and all its children fall back into thy arms for succor.  From thy own heart spring the infinite types of vegetable beauty, all painted and frescoed by thy own exquisite touches.

“O mysterious soil!  Wrapped in thy bosom lie a thousand secrets which, if I could but read, I might interpret and thus learn anew of my Creator.  Thou holdest the ashes of the millions slain, and the dust of all our forefathers.

“O silent soil!  How thou workest without the flying shuttle, or the hum of the busy bees.  Thou doest thy greatest deeds without the sounding of a trumpet.  Silently thy atoms take their places to serve in higher forms.  O teach me thy mute language that I may live and sacrifice for others without my crying and my sighing.

“O humble soil!  Thy elements, when formed into man, or fruit, or any kind of food, return again without complaint when touched by death.  May I, like thee, take all my condescension in the spirit of humility.

“O modest soil!  Thou are not gaudy like the diamond, sparkling and dazzling in a brilliant show and living for nothing higher than display.  But thou dost lay aside thy feathery tips, leaving the sun of heaven do the shining.  Thou permittest water crystals to give the rainbow hues, whilst thou in thy own modest way, continuest to yield sustenance for man and bird and beast.

“O instructive soil!  Wilt thou not, in thy own wise way, speak to the thoughtless man who feels content to grovel with the miserable diamond, who takes his lessons from the dead, dead rock, and feeds his soul upon such flinty food.  Open his ears to hear thy words of life and light, and may he see in thee the brighter mirror reflecting the God of all.”