I survived, but that
does not prove anything in particular.
The two papers, the 'Joliet Signal' and the 'True Democrat', scarcely
ever mentioned the cholera. It would have been bad policy, tending
to scare away the citizens and to injure trade.
Many men suddenly found that they had urgent business to look after
elsewhere, and sneaked away, leaving their wives and families behind
them.
On Sunday Father Ingoldsby advised his people to prepare their souls
for the visit of the Angel of Death, who was every night knocking at
their doors. There were many, he said, whose faces he had never seen
at the rails since he came to Joliet; and what answer would they give
to the summons which called them to appear without delay before the
judgment seat of God? What doom could they expect but that of
damnation and eternal death?
The sermon needed no translation for the men of many nations who were
present. Irishmen and Englishmen, Highlanders and Belgians, French
and Germans, Mexicans and Canadians, could interpret the meaning of
the flashing eye which roamed to every corner of the church, singling
out each miserable sinner; the fierce frown, the threatening gesture,
the finger first pointing to the heaven above, and then down to the
depths of hell.
Some stayed to pray and to confess their sins; others hardened their
hearts and went home unrepentant.
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