The forests dropped like broken reeds,—the mountains crumbled into pits and quarries, the seas and rivers, the lakes and waterfalls dried up into black and muddy waters, and all the land was bereft of beauty. In the place of wholesome green fields and leafy woods, there rose up gigantic cities, built in on every side, and bristling with thousands upon thousands of chimneys belching forth sickening smoke into the overhanging gloom which hid the skies; and the cities were full of a deafening noise and crashing confusion as of ten million hammers beating incessantly—beating away all peace, all solitude, all health, all rest. On,—on, and into these countless prisons of stone and mortar the Demon of the Car swept vast and ever-hurrying crowds of human beings, with the furious force of a mighty whirlwind sweeping dead leaves into the sea. “No room to breathe—no time to think—no good to serve!” he cried—“Now shall you forget that God exists! Now shall you all have your own wild way, for Your way is My way! Now shall you resolve yourselves back to an embryo of worms and apes, and none shall rescue you, no, not one! For the Seven Angels of the Judgment Day are sounding their trumpets of terror, and who shall silence their Voices, or stay the thunderings and lightnings, or the great earthquake? “Hail and fire!—and the trees, and the green grass burnt up and destroyed!—the sun and the moon, the day and the night smitten into one blackness! We will have no more virtues!—no more hopes of Heaven! Honour shall be as a rag on a fool’s back, and Gold shall be the pulse of Life! Gold, gold, gold! Fight for it, steal it!—pile it up, hoard it, count it, hug it, eat it, sleep with it, die with it! Lo, I give it to you in millions, packed down and pressed together in full & overflowing measure—I scatter it among you even as a destroying rain!