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“It is your work!”

The distiller closed his eyes to hide from view the grinning phantom. But it did not shut out the vision. The fiend was before him still; and now it swung around its head a horrid serpent with distended jaws, and seemed about to dash it upon him. He cowered and groaned in fear. As he still gazed upon the dreadful form, it slowly changed into a female of stern yet beautiful aspect. In one hand she held a naked sword, and in the other a balance. Her knew her, and trembled still more intensely.

“I am JUSTICE,” said the figure. “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The world is sustained by mutual benefits. No man can live wholly for himself. Each must serve the others. What one man produces another enjoys. You have enjoyed, in abundance, the good things produced by others; but what has been your return? Let me show you the work of your hands. Look!”

Suddenly there was a murmur of voices; the sound came nearer and nearer, and a crowd of men and women came eagerly toward the prostrate distiller–all eyes upon him, and all countenances expressive of anger, rebuke, or despair. One poor mother held towards him her ragged, starving child, and cried–

“Your cursed trade has murdered his father. Give him back to us!”

Another marred and degraded wretch called, with clenched hand–

“Where is my money, my good name, my all?” You have robbed me of every thing!”

By his side was a poor drunkard, supporting the pale form of his sick wife, while their starving children stood weeping before them–

“Look at us?” said he. “It is your handy-work!”

And there were dozens of others in the squalid crowd who called to him with bitter execrations, or pointed to their ruined homes and cried–

“It is your work! Your work! Rum–rum has cursed us!”

“Yes, this is your work,” said Justice, sternly. “For the good things of life you received on all hands from your fellow-men, you gave them back a stream of fire to consume them. Wealth is the representative of use to society. It comes, or should come, as a reward for serving the common good. So earned, it is a blessing; and he who thus gains it has a right to its possession. But, in your eager pursuit of gain you have cursed every man who brought you a blessing; and now your ill-gotten wealth must be given up. See!”

And, as she spoke, she pointed to an immense bag of gold.

“It is all there!” continued Justice. “Your houses and lands, your stocks and your merchandise, have been converted into gold; and I now distribute it once more among the people, to be gathered by those more worthy to possess it than thou!”

Then a troop of fiends came rushing down through the air, and, seizing the bag, were bearing it off in triumph, when the agonized sleeper sprang towards his gold, and in the effort threw off the terrible nightmare that was almost crushing out his life.

There was no sleep for him during the hours that intervened until the daylight broke. The images he had seen, and the words he had heard, were before him all the time, crushing his heart like the pressure of heavy footsteps. As soon as the day had dawned he started forth and sought the dwelling he had so hastily left on the night before. All was silent as he ascended the stairway. The door of the room where he had been stood partly open. He listened a moment–all was silent. He moved the door, but nothing stirred within. Then he entered. His purse lay upon the floor where he had thrown it; that was the first object which met his sight. The next was the ghastly face of death! The wretched drunkard had passed to his account; and his body lay upon the bed. Close beside was the form of her who had been to Mr. Grim, in early years, as a tender sister. She was in a profound sleep; and on the floor lay the child, also wrapped in deep forgetfulness of the misery with which she was surrounded.–

“And this is the work I have been doing!” sighed the distiller; whose mind could not lose the vivid impression made by his dream.

A little while he contemplated the scene around him, and then taking up his purse he silently withdrew. But ere returning home he made known to a benevolent person the fact of the unhappy death which had occurred, and, placing money in his hand, asked him to do all that humanity required, and to do it at his expense.

Few men went about their daily business with a heavier heart than Mr. Andrew Grim. He felt that he was the possessor of ill-gotten gain; and felt, besides, a sense of insecurity.

“Wealth is the representative of use to society. It comes, or should come, as a reward for serving the common good,” he repeated to himself, in the words he had heard in his dream. “And how have I served the common good? What good have I performed that corresponds to the blessings I have received and enjoy? Ah, me! I wish it were otherwise.”

With such thoughts, how could the man be happy! When night came round again he feared to trust himself in the arms of sleep; and when exhausted nature yielded, painful dreams haunted him until morning. Weeks elapsed before the vivid impression he had received wore off, and before he enjoyed any thing like a quiet slumber. But, though he had a better sleep, his waking thoughts ceased to be peaceful and self-satisfying. A year went by, and then, fretted beyond endurance at his position of manufacturer of death and destruction, both natural and spiritual, for his fellow men, he broke up his distillery, and invested his money in a business that could be followed with benefit to all.