140 
KANSAS. 
and love of freedom. The question will arise, also, whether Got, 
Shannon’s heart has become a stony heart, thus to bring a force 
against his own people. This has puzzled wiser brains than mine, 
and so I sleep, restlessly. I dream of a royal palace where there 
are men sitting. They are steeped in wine. There is revelry and 
confusion. They talk boldly of the evil deeds with which their 
lives are filled, and they swear they will fill up the measure of 
their wickedness. They ask aid of one who seems to be in author- 
ity ; and with the brimming beaker he pledges them he will go 
with them heart and soul in their deeds of blood. What to him 
is his plighted honor to a great people, or what murdered inno¬ 
cence and the cries of heart-stricken widows and orphans, whose 
homes are made desolate by the strong arm of the oppressor ? 
Naught to him are these ; so he retains the seat in the royal 
palace which he has disgraced, and is the representative of the 
law he has rendered a sad mockery. But the wine-cup fails, his 
knees knock together, his glaring eyes are fixed, and on the wall 
are characters written in living colors, unseen by all save him ; 
but the bony, bloodless hand —death’s hand —writes, and the 
words burn his soul, “ Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.” 
The dream is over, and with the waking comes a realization 
that the days of the tyrant will end, as surely as revolution is 
born of oppression ; peace and quiet springing from the broken 
system of tyranny, as surely as morning cometh from the night 
and strength is born of sorrow. 
