The Seeker

Table of

ng the Ido

with doubt. This is why we fade and wither as the leaf. Could we but sweep aside the wreck without dismay and raise a new idol from the overflowing certainty of youth, then indeed should we have eaten from that other tree in Eden, for the defence of which is set the angel with the fl

the perfection of our idols, but the divinity of their creator. And it would seem that this is quite as it should be. So long as the idol-maker will be a slave to his creatures, so long should the idol survive and the maker go back to useful dust. Whereas,

me to the foolish caution of the wise, whom failure leads to doubt their own powers-as if we were not meant to fail in our idols forever! Being, then, not come to this spiritual decrepitude, fit

day. This were a catastrophe that mig

tand that Santa Claus was not a real presence. And instead of wailing over the ruins of this idol, he brought a sturdy faith to bear, b

was on the line outside to be scourged of dust; the black, formidable furniture was out on the wide porch to be re-varnished, like any common furniture, plainly needing it; the vases of dyed grass might be handled without risk; and the dark spirit that had seemed to be in and over all was vanished. Even the majestic Ark of the Covenant, which the sinful Uzza once died for so much as touching reverently, was now seen to be an ordinary stove for the burning of anthracite coal, to b

ill J., though the time was mercifully deferred-that his soul might gain strength in

increasing. So it came that his amazement was above that of all other persons when, at Spring's first breath of honeyed fragrance, Cousin Bill J. went to be the husband of Miss Alvira Abney. He had not failed to observe that Miss Alvira sang alto, in the choir, out of the same book from which Cousin Bill J. produced his exquisite tenor. But he had reasoned nothing from this, beyond, perhaps, the though

, too, gave her his favour. At the marriage he felt in his heart a certain high, pure joy that m

h all his worldly goods. Even a less practicable person than Miss Alvira would have acquired distinction in this light-being endowed with the gold horse,

ver in his sight and lend importance to the town of Edom. For his hero was to go and live in the neat rooms

between the not irksome task of wheeling out this case in the morning and wheeling it back at night, Cousin Bill J. now enjoyed the liberty that a man of his parts deserved. He was free at last to sit about in the stores of the village, or to enthrone himself publicly befor

at had brought him pain. If his hero could not be all his, at least the world would have to blink even as he

dissolution by slow poison is not

ent." Yet there came a moment when all was changed-a time of question, doubt, conviction; a terrible hour, in short, when, face to face with

down those back stairs and actually split her own kindlings-with that healthy loafer setting around in the good clothes sh

in Street. He split a large pile of kindling for her. He would have been glad to do this each day, had not Miss Alvira proved to be lacking in delicacy. Instead of ignoring him, when she saw him from her back window, where she was second-fitting Samantha Rexford's pink waist, she came out with her mouth full

chance? But it was false and cruel to say that he was a healthy loafer. When Cou

a Sabbath morning, agreeing with Milo Barrus that God might have made the world in six days and rested on the seventh; but he couldn't have made the whale swallow Jon

just sits in that shop all day long and lets tears fall every minute or so on her work. She spoiled five-eighths of a yard of three-inch lavender satin ribbon that way, that was going

e a sloppy business, making her hats and things. But what

know as much as a goat." Here she reconsidered, with an air of wanting to be entirely fair:-"Well, not as much as a goat really ought to know!" And when he overheard old Squire Cumpston saying on the

effective lustre dulled, his perfect moustache rusted and scraggly, his chi

her to Cousin Bill J. and that no man might put them asunder; that marriage had been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament and

umonia. For Miss Alvira had ever been esteemed and respected even by those who considered that she sang alto half a note off, while her husban

ting-place of her husband- Elias also made a funny joke about his having merely changed resting-places-decked in a bonnet on which were many blossoms. She had worn it through years when her heart mourned and life was bitter, when it seemed that God from His infinity had chosen her to suffer the cruellest hurts a woman may know-and now that He had set her free she was not the one to pre

e had little sympathy or notice, though he was said to have waited three days and three nights on the new earth that topp