Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the ElephantHolt, Mathew Joseph
History
Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
Holt, Mathew Joseph
Kentucky -- Fiction; Kentucky -- History
Campbell Station is now the site of a thriving mining and manufacturing
town, Middlesboro, which, financed by English capital, sprang over-night
into being and prosperity. As a boom town, its founders claimed it would
rival Birmingham, possibly Pittsburgh, saying: “Just across the mountain
from us, easily reached through the Gap, are inexhaustible beds of iron
ore, and on this side, less than a dozen miles from the ore are great
veins of the finest coking and smelting coal, and our city lies
between.”
In building Middlesboro, Yellow Creek was made straight. The redeemed
curves, filled by moving a mountain, were laid off into building lots,
which sold for a price that paid expenses and rewarded the promoter.
Streets were laid off and graded through the old family grave yard. The
tombstone which marked the grave of Colonel Archibald Campbell and
briefly reviewed his record as a colonel in the Continental Army, was
placed on exhibition in the city hall. The markers of the other graves,
as the earth that held the remains of the dead, was carted and dumped
into the old creek bed, to redeem and transform a bend into a building
lot.
The Town Company was a progressive corporation, and corporations are
soulless institutions, yet the recitation upon the tombstone of Calvin
Campbell might have saved for it a place of honor in the city hall. But
what matter, he is risen, he is present with his Lord who gives every
man according as his work shall be.
The inscription, after giving his name, date of birth and death read:
“This monument is erected to the father of this Presbytery by shilling
contributions from those persons who were brought to Christ by him.
After 1,800 had contributed, the fund being sufficient, further
contributions were refused.”
THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT
In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, who created the
soul and gave to the tongue words of wisdom, Listen! and I will tell you
the story of a king and an elephant; of a man who rose above environment
and of an elephant who was a victim of it; though this is not the rule.
Let me illustrate. If a hog is shifted from the sty to a state of
nature, he lifts his snout from the mud and in time acquires the courage
of a wild boar; if a man returns to a state of nature, he becomes a
savage. Take an Indian, educate him in your great school Harvard; if he
returns to his tribe, he cuts the seat from his trousers and wraps
himself in a blanket. The desert nomads, wandering over the site of the
birthplace of civilization, philosophy and religion, scarcely glance at
the half-buried ruins about them, and live as did their fathers five
thousand years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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