goes it while
they're young; and thar be brothers here what, as long as thar
constitutions and forty-cent whisky last, goes it blind; and thar be
sisters here what, when they get sixteen years old, cut thar
tiller-ropes and goes it with a rush. But I say, my brethering, take
care you don't find, when Gabriel blows his last trump, that you've
all went it alone and got ukered; "for they shall gnaw a file, and
flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam."

And, my brethering, there's more dam beside Hepsidam: thar's
Rotterdam, Haddam, Amsterdam, mill-dam, and don't-care-a-dam; the last
of which, my dear brethering, is the worst of all, and reminds me of a
circumstance I once knew in the State of Illinoy. There was a man what
built him a mill on the east fork of Auger Creek, and it was a good
mill, and ground a site of grain; but the man what built it was a
miserable sinner, and never give any thing to the church; and, my
brethering, one night thar come a dreadful storm of wind and rain, and
the fountains of the great deep was broken up, and the waters rushed
down and swept that man's mill-dam into kingdom come, and, lo, and
behold! in the morning, when he got up, he found he was not worth a
dam. Now, my young brethering, when storms of temptation overtake ye,
take care you don't fall from grace, and become like that mill--not
worth a dam; "for they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains
of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the whang-doodle mourneth for
its first-born."

"Whar the whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born." This part of the
tex, my brethering, is another figger of speech, and isn't to be taken
as it says. It doesn't mean the howlin' wilderness whar John the
Hard-shell Baptist was fed on locusts and wild asses; but it means, my
brethering, the city of New Yorleans, whar corn is worth six bits a
bushel one day, and nary red the next; whar gamblers, thieves, and
pickpockets go skiting about the streets like weasels in a barnyard;
whar they have cream-colored hosses, gilded carriages, marble saloons
with brandy and sugar in 'em; whar honest men are scarcer than hens'
teeth; and whar a strange woman once tuk in your beluved preacher, and
bamboozled him out of two hundred and twenty-seven dollars; but she
can't do it again, hallelujah! For "they shall gnaw a file, and flee
unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the
whang-doodle mourneth for its first-born."

Brother Flint will please pass