Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-23
"The Greater Glory"

folk like Aunt Mary Purse; and their
suffering and toll and attainment is
an inspiration to carry our load I'M
complainingly and do the work that
is given us to do, until We also, in
the language of printers,-dump our
final stick and then go home.
Here in this town are eight thous-
and souls. In this volume we have
been able to mention but handful.
Here in this community are hundreds
of our fellowmen and fellow-women
with narratives just as interesting,
just as inspiring; hundreds Of other
love affairs; hundreds of women who
have moaned ooh my baby; my only
only little baby in the velvet black
of the soundless midnights. All
through the long time we have print
ed a daily paper in this valley Aunt
Mary Purse has been but one of
many whom we know to have kept Il
stuot heart through days of black
despair and made the world believe
that things didn't matter when we
know they did mattcr-very, very
much; folk who have carried brave
smile on their faces to hide the gang
lion sorrow gnawing at their hearts
and declared that troubles are sent to
us to be overcome and "we'll manage
somehow" Not all of them realize
the great reward which has been
Aunt Mary's. But most of them re-
ceive some measure of compensation,
somewhere, sometime, somehow, if
nothing more than their evolution in
to finer, nobler men and women.
Rare indeed is the life which is made
up entirely of shadows.
But we have set it down in the
beginning that these sob hours do
not seem as melancholy as we grow
older and journey down the hill of
life. True, we miss old faces and old
landmarks and we long with Il great
longing to hear familiar voices again.
We feel sad and lonesome at times
because many of those who travelled
such long way on the Journey with
US, have dropped by the way; some
times among the strangers who have
taken their places we feel out OF
sympathy and understanding.
But we know that it is only for
Il little while that this loneliness shall
be. Because of our places in this
community, knowing intimately its
men and women stripped to the quick
of their livid souls at times by fear
full trouble, we have seen things
which convince us that there is indeed
a Power behind all this comedy and
this tragedy, that there is a rca-
son for this play. As we come into
this world as strangers, at the bid
ding of forces over which we had
no voice or control and yet fould
that wise and kindly God had pro-
vided strong and loving mother-arms
ready to receive us and care for us
and protect us in our weakness, just
so do we believe and have faith that
as we pass through the dark cavern
of the Great Adventure the same
wise and kindly God, in His infinite
mercy, has provided similar help and
protection for US on the other side.
If we could have approached birth
into earthly life consciously as we
now approach death, we might have
been as afraid of earthly birth as
many of our neighbors are now panic
stricken by the thought of the APP
proaching homeward journey. But
knowing the heart of God because
we have learned the hearts of men
and women-whom we are told have
ample evidence to believe, are Great
ed in His image-we are not afraid
to go forward cheerfully to that place
where others in turn must at last
bid us goodbye, and turn back,
while we advance alone down in
to the Valley of Eternal Quiet.
For thirty-fivc years now, we have
published this little local paper, Sam
and l. Perhaps we may be spared
to keep it going for another quarter
century; such things have happened.
Or perhaps just tomorrow as we sit
writing our briefs and our editorials,
our four and five line bits of pabulum
about the out-of-town visitors with
us, the sales of new automobiles, the
recovcrics from the sick-list, who
has newly painted fence and who
drove into town yesterday with a load
of potatoes-anything and every
thing which will put peoples names
in print, and please them and make
them buy copies so we can sell our
advertising space-perhaps a soft
hand will be laid on our shoulders,
we may look up triflc bewildcredly
to see who stands there; and we may
behold stranger-yet stranger
who knows US well, who has come to
guide us to the land of our missing
who shall stoop over, take
our blue pencil, write "Thirty" be-
meath the items of the page on which
we are working, and bid US follow.
When that time comes we shall
not be afraid to 60, we say, because
we have seen God in the faces and
souls of the ordinary men and women
about us. Although the curriculum
of our earthly education has been a
mystery at times and in many strange
turnings in the long lane of living,