were yours for the moth and rust to damage. Your yearly income and
expenditure you knew would balance to a fraction. Your wife and children
were provided for. Your old age caused you no anxiety; you knew you
would always have enough to live upon in comfort. Your funeral, a simple
and tasteful affair, would be furnished by the tribe. And yet, poor,
foolish child, fresh from the Egyptian brickfield, you could not rest
satisfied. You hungered for the fleshpots, knowing well what flesh-pots
entail: the cleaning of the flesh-pots, the forging of the flesh-pots,
the hewing of wood to make the fires for the boiling of the flesh-pots,
the breeding of beasts to fill the pots, the growing of fodder to feed
the beasts to fill the pots.

All the labour of our life is centred round our flesh-pots. On the altar
of the flesh-pot we sacrifice our leisure, our peace of mind. For a mess
of pottage we sell our birthright.

Oh! Children of Israel, saw you not the long punishment you were
preparing for yourselves, when in your wilderness you set up the image
of the Calf, and fell before it, crying--"This shall be our God."

You would have veal. Thought you never of the price man pays for Veal?
The servants of the Golden Calf! I see them, stretched before my eyes, a
weary, endless throng. I see them toiling in the mines, the black sweat
on their faces. I see them in sunless cities, silent, and grimy, and
bent. I see them, ague-twisted, in the rain-soaked fields. I see them,
panting by the furnace doors. I see them, in loin-cloth and necklace,
the load upon their head. I see them in blue coats and red coats,
marching to pour their blood as an offering on the altar of the Calf. I
see them in homespun and broadcloth, I see them in smock and gaiters, I
see them in cap and apron, the servants of the Calf. They swarm on the
land and they dot the sea. They are chained to the anvil and counter;
they are chained to the bench and the desk. They make ready the soil,
they till the fields where the Golden Calf is born. They build the ship,
and they sail the ship that carries the Golden Calf. They fashion the
pots, they mould the pans, they carve the tables, they turn the chairs,
they dream of the sauces, they dig for the salt, they weave the damask,
they mould the dish to serve the Golden Calf.

The work of the world is to this end, that we eat of the Calf. War and
Commerce, Science and Law! what are they but the four pillars supporting
the Golden Ca