Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1900-05-17
No.2O

cigar and lighted IT, The boy l.fted
the heavy wood from the stranScTs
knee and drew yet nearer him. In tie
dogllke manner of his drawing near
there WAS something superbly ridicu-
lous, unless one Glanced to view it In
another light Presently the stranger
said. whiting, "Do something for meT
The boy started up.
mo; stay where you are. | don't
want you to go anywhere. want you
10 talk TO me. Tell me what you have
been doing all your life"
The boy skunk down again. Would
that the man hnd asked him to root
up bushes with his hands for his horse
to feed on, or to run to the far end
OF the plain for the fossils that lay
there. or to gather the flowers that
grew on the hills at the edge of the
plain. He would have run and been
back quickly-but nowl
Il have never done anything" he
said.
"Then tell me of that nothing. I
like to know what other folks have
been doing whose word | can believe.
1t is interesting. What was the first
thing you ever wanted very muchT
The boy waited to remember. then
began hesitatingly, but soon the words
flowed. In the smallest past we find
an inexhaustible mine when once we
begin to dig at 1t.
confused, dlsordered 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 Die clearest eyes 1t
falls into coordinate pictures. 1t Is not
till the | we tell of has ceased to exist
that it takes Its place among other
objective realities and finds its true
niche In the picture. The present and
the near past are a confusion, whose
meaning flashes on us as 1t sinks away
into the distance.
The stranger lighted one cigar from
the end OF another and puffed and
listened with half closed eyes.
81 will remember more to tell you IL
you like" said the fellow.
He spoke with that extreme gravity
common TO all very young things who
feel deeply. 1t is not till 20 that we
learn to be IN deadly earnest and to
laugh. The stranger nodded, while the
fellow sought for something more to
relate He would tell all to this man
Of his-all 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 ridlculing him? Here,
with his brown earth and these low
hills while the rare wonderful world
lay all beyond. Fortunate to be herel
The stranger read his glance.
"Yes," he said, "here 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
a time of danger, when the old slips
from us, and we have not yet planted
our feet on the new. We hear the voice
from Sinai laundering no more, and
the still, small voice of reason is not
yet heard. We have proved the re-
ligion our mothers fed us on to be
deluslon. In our bewilderment we see
no rule by which to guide our steps
day by day, and yet every day we must
step some where" The stranger leaned
forward and spoke more quickly. I'VE
have never once been taught by word
or act to distinguish between religion
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 1t Is solid
and standing only when we fall head
| 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 wise
| and noble life have a foundation inf
nitely deeper than the fiat Of any be-
| Ing, God or man, even in the ground
work of human nature. She will teach
us that whose sheddeth mans blood
though 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
| a love not lawfully his own gathers a
| flower with poison on its petals; that
| whose revenges, strikes with sword
| 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
| sther 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 1t must be
so. but at first the world swings before
our eyes, and no voice cries out: This
is the way. Walk ye 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 an
| other relief has been offered them, and
they have taken 1t.
| "When the day has come when they
| have seen the path in which they
might walk. they have not the strength
| to follow It, 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
| worm, sapping energy, hope, creative
| power, all that makes a man higher
| than a 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, "you are happy to be here. Stay
| where you are. If you ever pray, let 1t
| be only the one old prayer, Lead us
not into temptation Live on here qui-
| city, The time may yet come when
| you will be that which other men have
hoped to be and never will be now"
| The stranger rose, shook the dust
| from his sleeve and, ashamed at his
| own earnestness. looked across the
| bushes for his horse.
1--WE should have been on our way al
| ready" he said. I'VE shall have a
long ride in the dark tonight"
Waldo hastened to fetch the animal,
Il. NlaN