Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-16


time Still more collins were
brought home as the months and years
passed Grim messages these, all, sent
back to this obscure home corner of the
south that, at the 'front.'. civil war was
harvesting. But this is not to be a story
of destruction, and SO. almost within the
limits of the first chapter, the writer
passes from the actualites of strife to
the conditions and responsibilities subse-
uuent to it. This initial chapter closes,
as it begins significantly: THE little
cotton mill was again started, for L must
tell YOU in the very beginning that the
river ever ran and the mill kept turn
Ing and | should he ungrateful II l al
lowed YOU to forget that on every year,
whose events will be told in this book, the
cotton bloomed and rpened and opened
white to the sun. for the ripening of the
cotton and the running of the river and
the turning of the mills make the thread
not of my story only. but of the story OF
our southern land
The book is an evangel-the gospel OF
work and education. The burden of it's
purpose breaks out again and again like
a refrain. And the ripening OF the cot
ton and the running of the river that
turned the mill made my going away to
school possible" II was now at
Harvard-free, too. as | had not before
been Could l ever be free in the south?
But / seemed to hear the flow of the
river where it ever turned the mill.
thought of my own people-the openness
of their lives, their humor, the glow of
their unrepressed kindness L
thought of the ripe, deep summer now
coming on-a mellow land-and of the
white fields opening their fleece TO the
SUM-" And later: The one thing In our
lives that the old shadow did not fall on
was the mill by the river. The water
flowed ever, the spindles turned. the
looms were busy. Human bodies some
where were clad with the unfailing wOof
of the sunlight of our fields
And so unfolds a story with labor.
plain. everyday labor. as the center of
its impulse and the measure of its hopes;
labor lightened and upl1fted by stead
lily growing intelligence under which in
dustries spring and thrive, fields bios
som and ambition stirs. A plain theme,
of unpretentious form, athrill, though,
living Incidents and side lights. keenly
illustrative though subordinate to the
new aims and. activities of the half
dozen young men and women around
markable picture of the people of the
south at the ebb-tide of their affairs.
Here, by the familiar hand of a de-
voted son, are shown the heart wrack,
the wounded pride, the despoliation and
poverty. the inertia of encouragement.
the economic atrophy. the attitude to-
ward labor. the social theory left without
the mechanism of administration-the ne
gro, the unforesight of political trickery
clothed with oratorical bombast. The
book arrests and promises and inspires.
THE FAITH OF HIS FATHERS: A
Story of Some Idealists. BY A.
E. Jacomb. New York: Dodd, Mead
& Co. Washington: Brentanos.
In the uncountable years devoted to the
rise of man, God. too. has risen, in the
human mind, from an avenging Terror to
a compassionate God. In this general
happy progression. however, there ap-
pears now and again one of belated pas
sage by whom the affairs of the soul are
Still transacted in the austerity and gloom
of those darker days. Such an one Is the
man of this story
Set down in a small community with
wife and children about him, he leads the
uneventful life of the kind husband and
father. the good neighbor, the worthy
citizen religious man, devoted to his
meetings and his church. Within him,
however. vestige of some far remote past,
fanatic fingers, and when matters of
the soul arise he. with ever increasing
frequency and boldness. usurps the mans
place. Under this dominion, balance and
proportion fade; pleasures become sins,