The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1900-01-25


should we be? We eat and drink and
sleep all night. but the dead are not
colder.
And we say 1t slowly. but without
signing: Yes; we see 1t now. There
Is no God"
And. we add. growing little colder
yet: There is no justice The OK dies
in the yoke beneath its masters whip
1t turns it's anguish filed eyes on the.
sunlight. but there is no sign Of recon- 4
pense to be made it. The black man is
shot like dog. and it goes well with
the shooter. The innocent are accused,
and the accuser triumphs. If you will
take the trouble to scratch the surface
anywhere, you will see under the skin
sentient being writing in impotent
anguish"
/ And. we say further, and our heart
Is as the heart Of the dead for coldness:.
There Is no order. All things are
driven about by a blind chance"
What soul drinks In with its moth
er's milk will not leave 1t in day.
From our earliest hour we have been
taught that the thought Of the heart.
the shaping Of the raincloud, the
amount Of wool that grows on
sleeps back. the length Of draft
and the growing Of the corn depend
on nothing that moves immutable, at
the heart Of all things; but on the
changeable will Of a changeable being
whom our prayers can alter. To us.
from the beginning, nature has been
but poor, plastic thing, to be toyed
to please his deity or not, to go to
church or not, to say his prayers right
or not. to travel on a Sunday or not.
Was it possible for us in an instant to
see nature as she is-the flowing vest
ment Of an unchanging reality? When
a soul breaks free from the arms Of
superstition. bits Of the claws and
talons break themselves off in him. 1t
is not the work of day to squeeze
them out.
And so. for us, the humanlike driver
and guide being gone, all existence, as
we look out at it with our chilled. Won
dering eyes, Is an aimless rise and
swell of shifting waters. In all that
weltering chaos we can see no spot so
large as mans hand on which we
may plant our foot.
Whether a man believes in human
like God or no Is a small thing. Wheth-
err he looks into the mental and phys
ical world and sees no relation be-
tween cause and effect, no order but
blind chance sporting, this is the
mightiest fact that can be recorded in
any spiritual existence. 1t were al
most a mercy to cut his throat, if in
deed he does not do it for himself.
We. however. do not cut our threats.
To do SO would imply some desire and
feeling, and we have no desire and no
feeling. We are only cold. We do not
wish to live, and we do not wish to die.
One day a snake curls itself round the
waist of Kaffir woman. We take it
in our hand, swing it round and round
and fling it on the ground-dead. Ev-
cry one looks at us with eyes Of admit
ration. We almost laugh. Is it wonder
full to risk that for which we care
nothing?
In truth, nothing matters. This dirty
little world full Of confusion, and the
blue rag stretched overhead for sky
is so low we could touch it with our
hand.
Existence is great pot, and the old
fate who stirs it round cares nothing
what rises to the top and what goes
down and laughs when the bubbles
burst. And we do not care. Let it
boil about. Why should we trouble
ourselves? Nevertheless the physical
sensations are real. Hunger hurts, and
thirst; therefore we eat and drink. In
action pains us; therefore we work like
galley slaves. No one demands it, but
we set ourselves to build a great dam
in red sand beyond the graves.
In the gray dawn before the sheep
are let out we work at it. All day,
while the young ostriches we tend
feed about us. we work on through the
fiercest heat. The people wonder
what new spirit has seized us now.
They do not know we are working for
life. We bear the greatest stones and
feel a satisfaction when we stagger
under them and are hurt by a pang
that shoots through our chest. While
we eat our dinner we carry on baskets
full Of earth. as though the devil drove
us. The Kaffir servants have a story
that at night a witch and two white
oxen come to help us. No wall. they
say. could grow so quickly under one
mans hands.
At night, alone in our cabin, we sit
no more brooding over the fire. What
should we think of now? All is empti-
ness. So we take the old arithmetic,
and the multiplication table, which
with so much pains we learned long
ago and forgot directly, we learn now
in few hours and never forget again.
We take a strange satisfaction in
working arithmetical problems. We
pause in our building to cover the
stones with figures and calculations.
We save money for Latin grammar
and an algebra and carry them about
In our pockets, porting over them as
over our Bible Of old. We have thought
we were utterly stupid, incapable of
remembering anything, Of learning
anything. Now we find that all is
easy. Has a new soul crept into this
@IG Ahn<