Swedenborg by John Greenleaf Whittier — Read

[1844.]

THERE are times when, looking only on the surface of things, one is almost ready to regard Lowell as a sort of sacred city of Mammon, -- the Benares of gain: its huge mills, temples; its crowded dwellings, lodging- places of disciples and "proselytes within the gate; " its warehouses, stalls for the sale of relics. A very mean idol-worship, too, unrelieved by awe and reverence, -- a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the "least-erected spirit that fell from paradise. " I grow weary of seeing man and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse, answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods over all. I long at times to hear a voice crying through the streets like that of one of the old prophets proclaiming the great first truth, -- that the Lord alone is God.