Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1911-03-11

tors, already great in their art, who
went to complete their studies with
another sculptor who was pre-emi-
nent. This third one said to the 9th
ers; II cannot Judge where to be-
gin our work until know something
of your skill. There are two blocks
of marble, each take one and create
whatever you please to, then l shall
know!"
Each in his room wrought many
days, and then brought his work to
the master. One was mother kneel-
ing in prayer over the cradle of her
child, and the alabastor seemed the
more pure in its celestial whiteness
because of the figures wrought upon
1t. The other was laughing Bac-
chus and through the everlasting
whiteness of the stone warm glow
seemed to shine out because of the
infection of the laugh of the Jolly
god.
Then, strangely enough, the recall
ing Of that story brought back the
everyday life that we all live, and the
truth that things are near us which
are near us every day, but which we
no more see, than did Hugh Miller
see the sculpture within the stone
before he broke it, or the fossils and
petals on the leaves of the rock until
he had separated them. And when
we meet our fellow man we never
stop to ask, Were the rude frames
chiselled away from around his soul,
would something as sacred as a
mothers prayer be revealed, or
would 1t be laughing Bacchus?"
The leaves and fossils represent
merely impressions which the rock
received away back in uncounted past
ages; the sculptors in their work
simply eliminated from the stone all
that served to obscure the thoughts
in their own souls.
That reminds that here on our
streets there walks about every day
a poor creature who is to all appear
ances, lost drunkard.
He will tell you, If you stop to lis
ten a story Of hunger, or desire to
go to Murray or Bingham or Garfield
to try to find work, all transparent
falsehoods, for 1t is clear that he is
out laying a predicate on which to
try to win enough money to get few
more drinks. His self-respect died
long ago; his sense of shame has
vanished, he has descended from
misery to misery" until he is bound
by no obligations of truth-all his
manhood has been leeched out of
him-he is simply tailings from which
9S per cent of everything precious
has been extracted.
Well, who is to blame? Was 1t
some first great impression that left
him fossil instead of flower? Did
society heed when that impression
was being fastened upon his soul?
While yet, so to speak, his soul was
soluble, why was not prayer fixed
within it, instead of the image of the
laughing god? Are we, any of us,
doing our full duty and meeting our
responsibilities of society? Our duty
to the street gamins. to the children
in the schools, to state and country?
This poor victim Of alcohol and
opium might have been saved; he
might be still. Ought not our civili-
zation to provide a place where the
trial could be made?
The mothers prayer and the laugh
ing god as they appeared on the stone
were but photographs of the pictures
in the young mems souls; the fossils
and the flowers on the rock were but
Impressions left there in unknown
ages; what pictures are our souls
making? What impressions to by and
by reveal the records OF our lives?
-Goodwin's Waal,l,,