The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-08-27
Reliaions eWisrellany.
Lining the Track.

Onb OF my 1hVOTlJe Whkb 10 hiOuB tne
railway favorite, because it is always dry,
smooth, hard, good footpath for tramp
ing but, more than all else, because
never fail to meet several trains and a
prodigious stock or grain train, thunder
ing across the open country, is wonder
full pulse -quickener. 1t is the embodi-
ment of very large idea-the stored
energy of the Anglo-Saxon race. The
other morning, as was sitting on pile
of cast-away ties, for breathing-spell,
along came my friends, the section men,"
They are Swedes, and often stop to
watch them at their work and listen to
their queer "jabber." Few people realize
how much the American railway system
is indebted to the Scandinavian, not only
for his hardy, bodily strength, but also for
certain logged fidelity, born of his eli
mate and his religion, which insures good
work. The track.men, on this particular
morning, were doing some piece of work
new to me. They we're going rapidly
over their beat, stopping here and there,
irregularly, to dig out the gravel at the
ends of certain ties, now on this side
and now on that. "Whst are you dig
ging those little holes for ?" / asked of
one as he came by, after exhsusting my
own powers of conjecture. ave got to
line de track" he replied, and then kindly
went on to enlighten me. "Efrewhere We
dig is leedle crook in de track, and We
must push it over dis way and dat, to
max straight" | had not noticed the
crooks before, though l had been over
that path hundreds of times. The noble
road-bed had always seemed to me an air.
line, and had taken as much pride in
the clean, shining track, that shot away
to the vanishing point on the horizon, as
though had been stakeholder. But as
got down and laid my eye to the rail,
there, sure enough, were the serpentine
windings, very slight, indeed, half all inch
this way and half an inch the other. The
incessant jar of a multitude of trains had
shifted the track bodily out of q true
line. But, said |, these trivial reflections
cannot be of any real consequence; my
friends, the track-men, have keen eye
for leedle crooks;" they are over nice.
just then the express sounded its warn.
ing to the villagers above me to beware
of its deadly fight through the town, and
soon it came rushing down the long hill
stiff grade of couple of miles. 1t is a
train that makes but three or four stops
from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi
River, and flies from Chicago to Omaha in
about twenty hours. "a good time to study
he effects of crooked track" suggested,
and took up my post of observation be-
tween the rails. On came No. G, belching
black smoke, and painting steam from her
huge throat, in that desperate struggle to
ego" which seems as though it would
H,.~ Inr ark fnNA A.
she grew upon me-for it does not seem
to be motion, but growth, a steady en-
largement of outline, as the focus of
vision changes-I could see her sway from
side to side, like a wild thing trying to
find some escape from the tolls that held
it; and when, at the last moment of safety,
sprsng out of the fateful path, and she
went leaping and staggering by, dragging
her great train partly on the rails and
partly through the air, I said: L" 1t is just
rs we'll to get as many of those little
crooks out of the track as possible, when
such train must 60 over it twice day."
Turning homeward, my thoughts follow
ing the cue, it seemed to me that this was
precisely what was being done in the re-
igious world by our wide-awake genera.
ton. Men are trying to line" the theo-
logical track. Not that it is in very bad
condition, its ties half rotten, its rails
battered and bent. On the contrary, the
track is good and strong and safe; the
traffic of q continent or a world may 60
over it, but it is not absolutely perfect.
And, someway, it seems to be impossible
for man 10 settle down in peace till he
reaches the supreme ideal, whether in
tIxryor Isovs0
hgion may at one time be satisfactorily
true to those who use it, the swift progress
of the human mind might, after while,
demand nearer approach to the fullest
fact. Truth, in its human embodiments,
must always be only less or more true
and as thought becomes more alert and
sensitive, as conscience is more delicately
balanced, the whole mental and spiritual
creature passionately Graves the more true
instead of the less true. Moreover, the
mind of an age is closely welded to the
physics of that age; the spiritual is
largely reflex of the material. So that
it is not difficult to discern that the men
tai movements of our own era are kindled
by, and modelled upon, the immense speed
and infinite distance of its physical move.
ments. There is not only intensity, vivid.
ness, swiftness of thought, but the hori.
ION has swept away to the limits of a
circle only bounded by the telescope or
the fixed stars. AS DR.. Schaff has lately
said: I'VE live in an age of discovery, in.
vention, research and doubt. Nothing is
taken for granted; nothing believed ON
mere authority; everything must be sup.
ported by adequate proof; everything ex.
planned in its natural growth from the
seed to the fruit" The theological en-.
deavor of the time is to provide a road
bed for the religious needs of such an
age. Almost any kind of track will dc
If you only want to jog small train over
1t at ten or twelve miles an hour but il
you want to send Raymond excursion
from Boston to San Francisco and back
with all the luxury of palace and hotel
cars, and at the top speed, you must first
have track fitted for such travel. The
"new criticism " is not pagan or infdel
attack upon the Church, but an attempt to
make theology, good and serviceable in
the past, still more useful for the days
now at hand, and those still to come. The
track really needs lining" for there are
q good many signs that former builders
have left several " little crooks in it,
Miles Holhead, in Christian Union.
The Church and the THEATRE