A Man's World

s dogmas. I did not even know that they might be q

ot together there was always talk of the war. I do not think there was any elder or deacon in our church who had not served.

been shot to pieces. One was an old man, three were middle aged, and one was so young that he could not have been more than sixteen on the day of the fight. The man who had been their captain stayed at the parsonage. After supper the principal men of the village gathere

erhaps if Launcelot had been a real person, there in the parsonage parlor, and had told me face to face and vividly how he had slain the false knig

. I did not know that grown men were also asking the same question. Years afterwa

essed for carnag

the word has

s: go forth, des

solves ye from Chr

een Chaplain as well as Captain of his company. If the war had broken out again, as the "Irreconcilables" believed it surely would, a

hymn," which we sang almost every Sunday. It ha

ountain fill

m Emanuel

plunged bene

their gui

much more frightful to my childish ima

to so many questions, that I got out of the habit of asking them. I believed

es simultaneously with a new suit and hat before. Such things catch a child's imagination. I had to stand up before the whole congregation and reply to un-understandable questions with answers I had learned by rote. Then for the first time I was given a share of the communion bread and wine. The solemnity of the occasion was emphasized. But there was no effort-at least no successful one-to make me understand what it was all ab

ligious experience" until that summe

cannot nowadays attend a service of the Paulist Fathers, or at Saint Mary the Virgin's without feeling the intoxication of the heavy incense a

lake the hill dropped away, leaving a sweeping view out across the valley. Man seemed a very small creature beneath those giant trees, in the face of the great distances to the range of mo

-a fashionable and worldly resort nearby. There was no card playing nor dancing, as such thin

ly remember two which were secular. One was on Literature and the King James Version was taken as a model of English prose. No mention was made of the fact that much of the original had been poetry. There wa

pecially susceptible to religious suggestion. Oliver was back from his second year in the seminary. My disl

the geological expedition to Alaska, which was, I believe, the foundation of the eminence he now holds in that science. Mary also had been caught up in the religious fervor of the place. To me she

every week. All methods from the most spiritual to the coarsest were

ople "Salvation" Milton has seemed a very Apostle. His message has come to them as holy words from the oracle of the Most High. To such it may, I fear

is mission. He had lesser moments, which he regretted as bitterly as did his friends who, like the sons of Noah, covered him with a sheet that his drunken nakedness might not be seen by m

elf into an emotional state when passionate eloquence flowed from his lips with almos

needles, in the silence of the forest and watching him "wrestle with the Spirit." I tried to pray also, but I could not keep my mind on it so long. Suddenly he began to speak, asking Ch

salvation, immunity from all he had made me feel my just deserts, I stumbled abjectly up the aisle and took my place among the "Seekers." I must say he had comfort ready for us. I remember he put his arm over my shoulder and told me not to tremble, not to be afrai

seth all understanding." I was sure of my salvation. Several weeks of spiritual exaltation followed. I read the Bible passionately, sometimes alone, m

intimately interested in all I did and thought, jotting it all down in the tablets of judgment-a bookkeeper who never slumbered. I was not at all clear on the Trinity. These mountain Presbyterians were Old Testament Christians. The Christ had a minor role in their Passion Play

live in the midst of mystery. We are born from it and when we die we enter it again. Anyone who thinks must have some attitude towards the Un-understandable-must have a religion. And loving parents inevitably will try to help their children to a clean and sweet emotional relation towards the unknown. Evidently it is not an easy undertaking. For the adul

ligious education for children." The one supplied in our Sunday schools seems to me very far be

the future will be held out in the fields, among the flowers, and the wonder of the child before this marvelous universe of ours will be cherished and led into devotion-into natural gratitude for the gift of the earth and the fulness thereof. Surely this is wiser than keeping the children indoors to learn the catechism. I can think of nothing which seems to me less of a religious ceremony than those occasions

saw about me. I had been carefully taught to believe that a retentive memory and a glib tongue were ple