A Vicious Ox | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1882

A Vicious Ox.

Reader, I live in one of the richest counties in Missouri. A little over fifty years ago, the U. S. Government put these lands on the market. Our fathers (hardy, honest pioneers), bought, paid for, and improved them. Since then, they and we (their children) have paid annual tribute, not only on them, but also on our improvements and farm products. We prospered—we were happy.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, certain persons seeing our "goodly tents," coveted them. They could have procured homes like ours by the same means, but, unfortunately, they had an aversion to labor—they would prefer to use their wits. Seeing that ours was a rich pasture, they applied to the government for permission to graze on our lands—to turn an ox into our fertile fields.

The government inquired:—

"What is the nature of your brute?"

The answer was given:—

"He is vicious, he is wont to push with his horns; he has gored many aforetime."

The government hesitated—said it doubted the right of treating peaceable, loyal, prosperous people in that manner.

The witty, lazy applicants replied:—

"But we wlll pay you big money."

That "made the mare go." The ox was turned loose upon us.

But oh! merciful heavens, what a change he hath wrought! The house of the Lord, built by our fathers, stands moss-grown and dilapidated, while the ox-owners hold liens on our once thrifty farms.

Our children are homeless, shiftless, and uneducated. Quite a number of the brightest of them having been gored by the ox, have been carried by broken hearts to infamous graves—“unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”

Yea, the terrible beast gored to death a goodly brother and brother-in-law of mine, while a nephew, of extraordinary ability is mortally wounded, and only lives as a warning to others.

When, oh, when, will the people's government cease to devour the people? And when, alas, will the people in might demand the death of the ox?

To arms! to arms! that ox or our children must die? Which? Let the people say.—Sel.