The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-01-16

knee and drew yet nearer him. In the
doglike manner of his drawing near
there was something superbly ridicu
lous, unless one CHANGED to view it in
another light. Presently the stranger
said, whiting, do something for me?"
The boy started up.
'No; stay where you are. l don't
want you to go anywhere. want you
to talk to me. Tell me what you have
been doing all your life.''
The boy skunk down again. Would
that the man had 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 now!
II have never done anything" he
said.
"Then tell me of that nothing. I
like to know what other folks have
been doing whose word 1 can believe.
1t is interesting. What was the first
thing you ever wanted very much?"
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 it.
A confused. disordered story, the lit
tie made large and the large small, and
notlli,g showing it's inward meaning.
1t is; not till the past has receded many
steps that before the clearest eyes it
falls into coordinate pictures. 1t is not
till the l we tell of has ceased to exist
that it takes it's place among other
objective realities and finds it's true
niche in the picture. The present and
the near past are a 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.
81 will remember more to tell you if
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 Utmost 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.
eyes," he said, "here with the karroo
bushes and the red sand. Do you Won
der what l mean? 70 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 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 a
1 delusion. In our bewilderment we see
| no rule by which to guide our steps
! day by day, and yet every day we must
; step somewhere" The stranger leaned
/ forward and spoke more quickly. eve
! 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
| it 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
long against it. We have been taught
that all right and wrong originate in
the will Of an irresponsible being. II
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 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 hel
await, yet every drop shall blister OF
his soul and eat in the name Of thu
dead. She will teach that whose takes
a love not lawfully his own gathers {
flower with poison on its petals; tina
whose revenges, strikes with SWORD
that has two edges-one for his adver
sary, one for himself; that who lives tt
himself is dead, though the ground il
not yet on him; that who wrongs an
other clouds his own sun, and that VIII,
sins in secret stands accused and con
demned before the one judge who deal
eternal justice-his own all knowing
self.
Experience will teach us this. an,
reason will show us why it must b
SO, but at first the world swings befor
our eyes, and no voice cries out: Thi