threads of gold.

The splendor of the Hebrew nation culminated when the roof of their
great temple was laid with beaten gold, and when all the magnificent
furnishings within the temple were wrought from gold and silver and
brass.

The invincible Greeks had chariots and javelins of iron, helmets of gold
and brass, and now as their tombs are rifled there is found beside where
their bones went back to dust the metal implements with which they
wrought, and the imperishable coins with which they carried on their
commerce.

The power of Rome came when her artisans learned how to fashion the short
sword, and her soldiers learned how to wield it, and her splendor came
when, through conquest, she brought under her dominion the gold fields
of Spain and Asia, and learned the power which money carries with it. Her
civilization began to recede when the money supply began to fall off, and
when it became too precious for the masses to possess it, then the race
degenerated until the men were no longer fit to be soldiers, the women
lost the grace to become the mothers of soldiers, and darkness settled
upon Europe.

England remained little more than a rendezvous for wild tribes until
her people learned mining and began the study of how to reduce the metals
which the mines supplied, and her advancement since can be rated exactly
by the progress she has made in bringing the metals into effective
forms and combinations. When first the rude Saxon acquired the art to
mend the broken links in a knight's armor, and how to temper one of the
old-fashioned two-handed swords, it was possible to comprehend, that from