Here are clothes, my friends; here are
beds, my friends; here is delicious food, my friends. Our precious bodies
were given us to love, to cherish. Oh, let us do so! Oh, let us never
hurt them; but care for and love them, my friends!"
Every one was impressed, and Bonaparte proceeded:
"Thirdly; let us not love too much. If that young man had not loved that
young woman, he would not have jumped into Mount Etna. The good men of old
never did so. Was Jeremiah ever in love, or Ezekiel, or Hosea, or even any
of the minor prophets? No. Then why should we be? Thousands are rolling
in that lake at this moment who would say, 'It was love that brought us
here.' Oh, let us think always of our own souls first.
"'A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify;
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.'
"Oh, beloved friends, remember the little boy and the meiboss; remember the
young girl and the young man; remember the lake, the fire, and the
brimstone; remember the suicide's skeleton on the pitchy billows of Mount
Etna; remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears;
and what I say to you I say to all--watch! May the Lord add his
blessings!"
Here the Bible closed with a tremendous thud. Tant Sannie loosened the
white handkerchief about her neck and wiped her eyes, and the coloured
girl, seeing her do so, sniffled.
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