The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-03-04
"A Change Of Heart.

anu udQ TulGu her uOIlu5 aunt Will @
rod Of iron until death deprived her Of
even this inefficient guardianship, and
/ left her, a young and inexperienced
| girl, to cope with the world. This she
did in a surprisingly able manner. To
be sure, her fine nature was undis-
Iciplined and led her into many an in
| tellectual error and excess; but her
character was above reprOach, and she
managed her modest income in a
businesslike way. Her girlish dignity
repealed undesirable acquaintance;
while her refinement and a loneliness
born more Of intellect than of feature
won her many admirers. Her earnest
ness Of purpose led her to pursue to
their ultimate conclusion the 'oologies
and ologies" with which she had been
filling her sunny head under the wise
guidance of the faculty of the State
University for the past two years
This learned body of instructors
gave fresh proof of their wisdom by
ordering her to lay aside her books and
studies and try to forget her perplex-
tiles for an entire summer, that she
might enter with renewed mental
vigor upon the autumn term. Truth to
tell, they knew no more of the riddles
of life than this troublesome pupil;
and it was simpler to assume faith
erly interest in her welfare than to
own that they were unable to answer
her searching questions as to the
origin and destiny of the earth and the
fulness thereof
And so they had been instrumental
in sending her to this remote dot OF
village in the northern Sierra Nevadas.
Acting on their advice, she had left
her beloved books in Berkeley; and
after a week a week of intercourse
with the natives" as she termed
them, she would have given worlds for
touch of their soft bindings and
crisp leaves; but, with characteristic
self-control, she refrained from send
ing for them.
Accustomed from infancy to the re-
fnements of life, she was frankly
bored by the dullness and Mortified by
the crudeness of her present surround
ings Far from banishing the questions
] that troubled her waking hours and
haunted her dreams, this solitude
seemed to bring them before her with
greater intensity. The very majesty
of these towering peaks and primeval
/ forests, the vastness of the heavens
streWn with stars that seemed ap-
pallingly near when viewed from such
heights, seemed to speak of Creator,
thus disturbing her mental attitude
when she had at last decided to accept
4 the assurance of her professors that no
such Being existed. The swift rush of
the Pitt Rivers crystal waters seemed
forever asking, Why? Where?' in
tone as provokingly insistent as her
own had proved to her learned pro-
fessors. Why, few short years OF
animal existence with no motive for
Icharity or morality-since Humanity
twas divine, and it's code of laws moth
ling more than the ever-changing will
of the majority-and then where? No
heaven or hell, no reward or punish
(ment, no God, only man. Life meant
a short passage across the stage of
earth, only to be swallowed up in moth
lingness or merged into the deity OF
professordom A dreary
philosophy, but the best she could
evoke from the tangle of creeds that
months of feverish attendance at
. Fellowship. New Thought and Theo-
lsophical meetings had thrust upon her
: bewildered brain. Man was divine, and
!: social service was the whole law and
the prophets.
}, From the heights of her intellectual
: superiority she looked down with
, contemptuous pity on that portion OF
; the community so benighted as to at
tend Mass in the little chapel at the
head Of Cedar Canon's solitary street.
And yet she deigned to bestow her
r daily companionship on one of these
same benighted beings-quaint, kindly
old John Carolan, proprietor of tiny
sawmill some two miles above the vii
I1age. She had CHANGED upon the place
in one of her lonely rambles up the
river, and the ill-assorted pair soon be
came fast friends The slender, girlish
figure, the CLINT of sunny hair, and the
sweet tones of her young voice, re
called the old mans only daughter
Aline, whose early death left sad
blank in his life; while Ruth found
his quaint humor and keen intelligence
delightfully."- refreshing after the dreary
platitudes to which she was accust
omed. And gradually she had estab
lished the custom of passing a part Of
each afternoon in his company.
The second and sole remaining
member of the mills crew never
ventured forth from the engine room
during her visits, and, in fact, seemed
totally oblivious of her presence. This
was rather provoking, as Ruth was
accustomed to admiration and re
garded it as her due, though she ap
parently ignored it's bestowal. The in
difference of the handsome, athletic
young fellow she regarded as milo
form Of treason. Had the usual amoun