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While the people paid the piper;
But the story of the Banker,
The great San Francisco Banker,
And the musings of the poet,
By the poet shall be written,

And shall form the second Canto.

PROSE WRITINGS

DESULTORIOUS CHRONICLES:

Translation of a Chaldean MS. lately discovered in the Archives of the Great Ducal Library of Wolfenbuttel.

Chapter First.

JAMES THE APOSTATE AND STONEWALL JACKSON.

N the days of James the Apostate, the people cried aloud for

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a change of government, and a great change came to pass.

It was said that James was a degenerate descendant of Judas Iscariot; but the cobwebs of ages had so obscured the line of genealogy that philosophers, in their antiquarian researches, were lost in doubt, and many of them believed that he did not spring from a source so respectable.

Be that as it may, while the flags of rebellion were waving in the South, and the lightnings of war playing around the gray walls of the citadel called Sumter, the hoary-headed traitor was hurled from his throne amid the loud imprecations of millions.

Judas, who betrayed his master, feeling the weight of his guilt, hanged himself; but James, the betrayer of his country, was permitted to live for a time, to behold the land deluged with the blood of the innocent, and laid waste by robbers, who were cruel without mercy.

Thus, James the Apostate, who had ruled for four years, passed away, and Abraham reigned in his stead.

The land over which he held sway was wide in its limits. Though its boundaries were not accurately known, they were allowed to extend from the bleak and granite mountains of New Hampshire to the warm and golden shores of the Pacific.

There were the Lincolnites, the Yankeeites, the Douglasites, and the Davisites.

The Davisites were haughty and proud, and held millions of the descendants of Ham in bondage. They occupied the land of the South.

One of their great captains was a holy man, and prayed fervently unto the Lord to direct his ways. He was found morning and evening at his devotions, and frequently at noonday he was seen on his bended knees.

The prayers of the oppressor are not acceptable offerings to the Lord.

As Jacob of old wrestled with the angel at Peniel, and got his thigh bone dislocated in the struggle, so Stonewall, who was surnamed Jackson, wrestled with the Prince of Darkness, who was too powerful for the warrior of the South. It was the triumph of strength over weakness.

So Stonewall entered the service of his new master, and did his duty as he was commanded.

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