Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-01-11
CHAPTER Xv.-(continued.)

SX@H@Aa4gs.g1,s@. Ns&s.
Z Z CHAPTER XV.-(Continued
1 A confused, disordered story, the lit
tie made large and the large small, and
nothing showing its inward meaning
1t is not till the past has receded many
steps that before this dearest eyes it
falls into coordinate pictures. 1t is not
till the ! we tell Of Las ceased to exist
that it takes its place among other
objective realities and finds its true
niche in the picture. The present and
j the near past are confusion, whose
meaning flashes on us as it sinks away
into the distance.
The stranger lighted one cigar from
{ the end Of another and puffed and
listened with half closed eyes.
II will remember more to tell you IL
yon like" said the fellow.
He spoke with that extreme gravity
common I'd all very young things who
feel deeply. 1t is not till 20 that we
[ learn to be in deadly earnest and to
Il laugh. The stranger nodded. while the
fellow sought for something more to
relate. He would tell all to this man
of his-aM that he knew, all that he
had felt, his most inmost sorest
thought. Suddenly the stranger turn
ed upon him.
"Boy," he said, "you are happy to be
. here
Waldo looked at him. Was his de-
lightful one ridiculing him? Here,
with his brown earth and these low
hills, while the rare wonderful world
lay all beyond. Fortunate to be here!
The stranger read his glance.
s YES" he said, there with the karroo
bushes and the red sand. Do you Won
der what mean? To all who have
been born in the old faith there comes
time Of danger, when the old slips
from us, and we have not yet planted
our feetpn the new. We hear the voice
u from Sinai laundering no more, and
the still, small voice of reason is not
yet heard, We have proved the re-
ligion nv others fed us on to be a
\ delusion. N our bewsii iderment we see
no rule by which to guide our steps
h day by day, and yet every day we must
step somewhere" The stranger leaned
forward and spoke more quickly. 1--WE
have never once been taught by word
or act to distinguish between religion
Z and the moral laws on which it has
artfully fastened itself and from which
1t has sucked its vitality. When we
have dragged down the weeds and
creepers that covered the solid wall
and have found them to be rotten
wood, we imagine the wall itself to be
rotten wood too. We find it is solid
and standing only when we fall head
8 long against it. We have been taught
that all right and wrong originate in
the will of an irresponsible being. 1t
is some time before we see how the in
exorable Thou shalt and shalt not
are carved into the nature of things.
This is the time Of danger
His dark, misty eyes looked into the
boys.
In the end experience will inevita-
bly, teach us that the laws for a wise
and noble life have "a foundation inf
nitely deeper than the fiat Of any be-
worlI of human nature. She will teach
us that whose shyddeth mans blood.
thouga by man his blood be not shed,
though no man avenge and no hell
await, yet every drop shall blister on
his soul and eat in the name OF the
dead. She will teach that whose takes
q love not lawfully his own gathers a
flower with noison on its petals: that
whose reyenges. strikes with sword
4 that has two edges-one for his adver.
sary, one for himself; that who lives to
himself Is dead, though the ground is
not yet on him; that who wrongs an
other clouds his own sun, and that who
sins in secret stands accused and con-
demned before the one judge who deals
eternal justice-his own all knowing
self.
Experience will teach us this. and
reason will show us why it must be
80. but at first the world swings before
our eyes, and no voice cries out: This
Is the way. Walk We in it,. You are
happy to be here. boy. When the sus-
pense fills you with pain, you build
stone walls and dig earth for relief.
Others have stood where you stand to-
day and have felt as you feel and IN.
other relief has been offered them, and
they have taken it.
when the day has come when they
have seen the path in which they
mighr walk. they have not the strength
to follow IL. Habits have fastened on
them from which nothing but death
can free them; which cling closer than
his sacerdOtal sanctimony to priest;
which feed on the intellect like a
worm, sapping energy, hope, creative
power, all that makes man higher
than beast, leaving only the power to
yearn, to regret and to sink lower in
the abyss.
Boy" he said, and the listener was
not more unsmiling now than the
speaker, "youare happy to be here. Stay
where you are. II you ever pray, let it
be only the one old prayer. Lead us