The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-07-27
Conversion Of AurtIian McGoggin,
is not n tale exactly. Ii is a
. tract; and l am immensely proud
of II. Making n tract is a eat.

~hlS Is not u tbie eNacuy' IL IL
. tract; and l am immensely proud
of 1t. Making a tract is a feat.
Every man is entitled to his W relig-
ious opinions; but no man-least of all a
junior-has a right TO thrust these down
other mems threats. The government
sends out weird civilians now and again;
but McGoggin was the queerest exported
for a long time. He was clever-brilliantly
clever, but his cleverness worked the
wrong way. Instead of keeping to the
study of the v~ernaculars, he had read
some books written by a man called
Comte, I think, and a man called Spen-
Ger. and a Professor Clifford. You will
find these books in the library.l They
deal with peoples insides from the point
of view Of men who have no stomachs.
There was no order against his reading
them, but his should have
smacked him. They fermented i'm his
head, and he came out to India with a
rarefied religion over and above his work
II was not much Of q creed. 1t only
proved that men had no souls, and there
was no God and no hereafter. and that
you must worry along somehow for the
good of humanity.
One OF its minor tenets seemed To be that
the one thing more sinful than giving an
order was obeying it. At least, that was
what McGoRgin said; but l suspect he had
misread his primers.
do not say a word against this creed.
1t was made up in Town where there is
nothing but machinery and asphalt and
building-all shut in by the fog. Naturally,
"A man grows to think that there is no one
higher than himself, N that the Metro
politan Board of Works made everything.
But In this country, where you really see
humanity-raw, brown, naked humanity
with nothing between IL and the blazing
sky, and only the used-up, o~ver-handled
earth underfoot, the notion somehow dies
away, and most folk come back to simpler
theories. Life, In India, IL not long
enough to waste in proving that there Is
no one i'm particular at the head of affairs.
For this reason, the Deputy, the Licuten-
ante Governor above the Commissioner,
and the yiceroy above all four, under the
riders OF the Secretary of State who is re-
sponsible TO the Empress. II the Empress
be not responsible To her Maker-if there
Is no Maker for her to be responsible to
the entire system of Our admins
tration u he wrong. Which is
men are to he excused. They
are stalled up a good deal and get intel
%lectual'y "beany;" When you take a
slavers and slobbers over the bit till you
can see the horns. But the bit is there
lust the same. Men do not get ..beany'
in India. The climate and the work are
against playing tricks with words.
II Mclioggin had kept his creed, with
the capital letters and the endings I'm
''isms," to himself, no one would have
cared; but his grandfathers on both sides
had been Wesleyan preachers, and the
preaching strain came out in his mind.
He wanted everyone at the Club TO see
hat they had no souls too, and to help
him IN nllr.ttpata t,s IHpnfnr A. IN vAafl
many men told him, he undoubtedly had
no soul, because he was SO young, but II
did not follow that his seniors were
equally undeveloped; and, whether there
wa another world or not, a man still
wanted TO read his papers i'm this. "Bu,
that is not the p~oint--that Is not the
pointw Aurelian used TO say. Then men
threw sofa cushions mt him and told him
10 go 70 any particular place he might be
lieve In. They christened him the "Blast
oderm,"-he said he came from a family
OF that name somewhere in the pre-
historic aRes-and, by insult and laughter
strove 10 choke him dumb. for he was an
unmitigated nuisance Mt the club; besides
being an offence To the older men. His
deputy commissioner, who was working
on a ~bed-quilt, Told him that, for a clever
boy, Aurelian was a very big idiot. And
you know, IL he had gone on with hi,
work he would have been caught up Z,
secretariat in u few years. He was jus
the type that goes tbere-all head, M
physique and n hundred theories. Not {
soul was interested in McGoggin's soul
He might have had two, or none, o.
somebody else's. His business was Il
obey orders and keep abreast of his file
instead OF devastating the club will
"isms."
He worked brilliantly; but he could no
accept any order without trying to better
il. That was the fault Of his reed. l
made men too responsible and left to-
much to their honor. You can sometime
ride an old horse with "A halter, but neve
a colt. McGoRRin took more trouble owe
his cases that n of the men of his ear
He may have fancied that thirty-pag'
judgments on 30 rupee cases-both side
perjured to the gullet-advanced the caus'
Of humanity. AT any rate he worked too
much, and worried and fretted over TN
rebukes he received, aud lectured ava,
on his ridiculous creed out OF office. ill
the doctor had TO warn him that he wa
OVERRIDING Il. No man can toll 10 anna
in the rupee In June without suffering 70
L.. But McGoRRin was still intellectual.
.beany'' and proud of himself and hi
powers, aud he would take no hint. II,
worked nine hours n day steadily.
"yery WELL" aid the doctor. 'you'l
break down because you are over-engine,
for your BEAM" McGoggin was n littl
chap.
One day the collapse me- drama,
ically as II il had been meant to embelis
a tract.
sitting i'm the veranda in the dead. no
close air, gasping and praying that In
black-blue clouds would let down an
bring the cool. Very, very far away ther