tas of
purple and gold:--Atlanta, Queen of the cotton kingdom; Atlanta,
Gateway to the Land of the Sun; Atlanta, the new Lachesis, spinner of
web and woof for the world. So the city crowned her hundred hills with
factories, and stored her shops with cunning handiwork, and stretched
long iron ways to greet the busy Mercury in his coming. And the Nation
talked of her striving.

Perhaps Atlanta was not christened for the winged maiden of dull
Boeotia; you know the tale,--how swarthy Atalanta, tall and wild, would
marry only him who out-raced her; and how the wily Hippomenes laid
three apples of gold in the way. She fled like a shadow, paused,
startled over the first apple, but even as he stretched his hand, fled
again; hovered over the second, then, slipping from his hot grasp, flew
over river, vale, and hill; but as she lingered over the third, his
arms fell round her, and looking on each other, the blazing passion of
their love profaned the sanctuary of Love, and they were cursed. If
Atlanta be not named for Atalanta, she ought to have been.

Atalanta is not the first or the last maiden whom greed of gold has led
to defile the temple of Love; and not maids alone, but men in the race
of life, sink from the high and generous ideals of youth to the
gambler's code of the Bourse; and in all our Nation's striving is not
the Gospel of Work befouled by the Gospel of Pay? So common is this
that one-half think it normal; so unquestioned, that we almost fear to
question if the end of racing is not gold, if the aim of man is not
rightly to be rich. And if this is the fault of America, how dire a
danger lies before a new land and a new city, lest Atlanta, stooping
for mere gold, shall find that gold accursed!

It was no maiden's idle whim that started this hard racing; a fearful
wilderness lay about the feet of that city after the War,--feudalism,
poverty, the rise of the Third Estate, serfdom, the re-birth of Law and
Order, and above and between all, the Veil of Race. How heavy a
journey for weary feet! what wings must Atalanta have to flit over all
this hollow and hill, through sour wood and sullen water, and by the
red waste of sun-baked clay! How fleet must Atalanta be if she will
not be tempted by gold to profane the Sanctuary!

The Sanctuary of our fathers has, to be sure, few Gods,--some sneer,
"all too few." There is the thrifty Mercury of New England, Pluto of
the North, and Ceres of the West; and there, too,