Where are now the wealthy merchants who used to haunt those courts and chambers ?--why do they not come here as of old ?--why do they not buy and sell, and send their messengers and ships to the farthest parts of the world?
Because the Lord hath smitten them and driven them forth--'From the least of them even to the greatest of them,' as the prophet Jeremiah saith, 'every one has been given to covetousness.' The balances of deceit have been in their hands.

They have cozened their neighbours, and greedily gained from them, and will find it true what the prophet Ezekiel hath written, that 'the Lord will pour out his indignation upon them, and consume them with the fire of his wrath.' Yea, I tell you, unless they turn from their evil ways--unless they cast aside the golden idol they now worship, and set up the Holy One of Israel in its stead, a fire will be sent to consume them, and that pile which they have erected as a temple to their god shall be burnt to the ground." Leonard's heart was too full to make any answer, and the enthusiast, after a brief pause, again addressed him.

"Have you seen Doctor Hodges pass this way?
I am in search of him." "On what account ?" asked Leonard anxiously.

"His advice, I trust, is not needed on behalf of any one in whom I am interested." "No matter," replied Solomon Eagle, in a sombre tone; "have you seen him ?" "I have not," rejoined the apprentice; "but he is probably at Saint Paul's." "I have just left the cathedral, and was told he had proceeded to some house near Cornhill," rejoined the enthusiast.
"If you have been there, you can perhaps tell me how my master's porter, Blaize Shotterel, is getting on," said Leonard.
"I can," replied the enthusiast.

"I heard one of the chirurgeons say that Doctor Hodges had pronounced him in a fair way of recovery.