{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53073/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53073","id":"gutenberg_53073","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53073","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Essays","Faith","Happiness","Nature"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nAdditional Transcriber\u2019s Notes are at the end.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nGOD\u2019S COUNTRY _The Trail to Happiness_\n\n\n  _By_\n  JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD\n  _Author of_\n  The Valley of Silent Men\n  The River\u2019s End, etc.\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  NEW YORK\n  Cosmopolitan Book Corporation\n  MCMXXI\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Copyright, 1921, by\n  COSMOPOLITAN BOOK CORPORATION\n\n  _All rights reserved, including that of translation\n  into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_\n\n  _PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA_\n\n  The Quinn & Boden Company\n  BOOK MANUFACTURERS\n  RAHWAY NEW JERSEY\n\n\n\n\nThe Four Trails to Happiness\n\n\n                                         PAGE\n\n  _The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS  3\n\n  _The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER     29\n\n  _The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD         53\n\n  _The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH     83\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n_The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS\n\n\nTo-night I am in a little cabin in the heart of a great wilderness.\nOutside it is dark. I can hear the wind sighing in the thick spruce\ntops. I hear the laughter of a stream out of which I took my supper\nof trout. The People of the Night are awake, for a little while ago I\nheard a wolf howl, and, not far away, in an old stub, lives an owl that\nhoots at the light in my window. I think it\u2019s going to storm. There\nis a heaviness in the air, and, in the drowse of it, the sweetness of\ndistant rain.\n\nI am strangely contented as I start the writing of this strangest of\nall the things I have written. I had never thought to give voice to the\nthings that I am about to put on paper; yet have I dreamed that every\nsoul in the world might know of them. But the task has seemed too great\nfor me, and I have kept them within myself, expecting them to live and\ndie there.\n\nI am contented on this black night, with its promise of storm, for\nmany reasons--though I am in the heart of a peopleless forest fifteen\nhundred miles from my city home. In the first place, I have built,\nwith my own hands, this cabin that shelters me. My palms are still\nblistered by the helve of the ax. I am the architect of the fireplace\nof stone and mud in which a small fire burns for cheer, though it is\nlate spring, with summer in the breath of the forests. I have made the\nchair in which I sit and the table on which I write, and the builder of\na marble palace could take no greater pleasure in his achievement than\nhave I.\n\nI am contented because, just now, I have the strange conviction that,\nin this wild and peopleless place, I am very close to that which many\npeoples have sought through many ages and have not found.\n\nIn the distance, I can hear thunder, and a flash of lightning illumines\nmy window. A cry of a loon comes with the flash. It is strange; it\nis weird--and wonderful. And also, in a way, it has just occurred\nto me that it is a fitting kind of night to begin that which I have\nbeen asked to write. For this night, for a short space, will be like\nthe great world at large--a world that is rocking in the throes of a\nmighty tumult--a tumult of unrest, of discontent, of mad strivings,\nof despair, and lack of faith--a world that is rushing blindfold into\nunknown things, that is seeking rest and peace, yet can never find them.\n\nIt is, I repeat, a strange night to begin the writing of that which I\nhave been asked to write, and yet I do not think that I would have the\nnight changed. It seems to picture to me more vividly the unrest of the\nworld fifteen hundred miles away--and fifteen thousand miles away. I\nseem to see with clearer vision what has happened during the past two\nyears--the mad questing of a thousand million people for a spiritual\nthing which they cannot find. I see, from this vantage-point of the\ndeep forest, a world torn by five hundred schisms and religions, and I\nsee not one religion that fills the soul with faith and confidence. I\nsee the multitudes of the earth reaching up their arms and crying for\nthe Great Mystery of life to be solved. Questions that are racking the\nearth come to me in the whisperings of the approaching storm. Can the\nghosts of the dead return? Can the spirits of the departed commune with\nthe living? Is the world on the edge of an inundation of spiritualism?\nDoes the salvation of humanity lie there--or there--or there? What\nshall I believe? What _can_ I believe?\n\nThe rain is beginning to beat on the roof of my cabin and, in number,\nthe drops of the rain remind me of the millions and the tens of\nmillions of restless men and women who are reading avidly, in the pages\nof magazines and books, the \u201cexperiences\u201d of those who are giving voice\nto new creeds and new beliefs or reviving old ones long lost in the\ndust of forgotten ages.\n\nGhosts have been revived; spirits are on the move again. New\ngenerations are drinking in with wonder and suspense the whole bagful\nof tricks worn out ten thousand generations ago. To-morrow it may be\nthe revival of witchcraft. And the next day new prophets may arise\nand new religions take the place of the old. For so travel the minds\nof men; and so they have traveled for hundreds of thousands of years\nbefore Christ was born and Christianity was known; and so they will go\non seeking until God is found in a form so simple and intimate that all\nhumanity will at last understand.\n\nThe storm has broken. It is like a deluge over the cabin. The thunder\nand crash of it is in the spruce tops--and such is the dreadfulness of\nthe tumult and the aloneness of the place that I am in, that I would\ncease where I am did I think that anything I am about to say might be\nsacrilege. But when a mind gives expression to that which it holds as\ntruth, there cannot be sacrilege.\n\nI have been asked to put on paper something of that religion which I\nhave discovered for myself in nature. There are many who will laugh;\nthere are many who will disbelieve, for it will be impossible for me to\nmake myself entirely clear in such a matter as this. For I have found\nwhat, to me, is God; and I cannot expect to startle the world, even\nif I desired to do so, for what I have found has been found in a very\nsimple way--without bringing spirits back from the dead, or hearing\nvoices out of tombs, or gathering faith through the inspiration of\nmediums.\n\nI have found the heart of nature. I believe that its doors have\nopened to me, and that I have learned much of its language. Through\nadventure and bloodshed I have come to a great understanding; and\nunderstanding has brought me health and faith and a joy in life. And\nbecause these things will do the world no harm, and may do some good,\nI am undertaking to write the story of a great and inclusive God whom\nmen and women and little children should be made to know, but to\nwhom, unfortunately, the swift pace of the times has made most of us\nstrangers.\n\nI fear that I am going to shock many people, and so I am of a mind\nto get the shock over with and come to the meat of what I have to\nsay. But I shall start with something which those who read this must\nconcede--that everyone in the world seems to be looking for something\nwhich will bring him more comfort and more happiness from life. That,\nI think, is the reason the Catholic Church is the only Church which\nis growing to any extent. It is growing because it is the only Church\nwhich is holding out its arms as a mother and giving a human being a\nbreast upon which to lay his head when he is in trouble. Yet I am not\na Catholic. Neither am I a Protestant. I do not belong to the High,\nLow, Broad, or Free Church. I do not confess to Romanism, Popery, or\nProtestantism any more than I do to Mohammedanism, Calvinism, or the\ndoctrines of the Latter-Day Saints. I am not a sectarian any more\nthan I am a Shaker or a Restitutionist. I do not believe that one\nnecessarily goes to hell because he does not accept Christ as the Son\nof God. I believe that Christ was a good man and a great teacher of\nhis times, just as there have been other good men and great teachers\nin their times. I can look upon the Mussulman at prayer, or the Parsee\nat his devotion, or the Eskimo calling upon his unseen spirits with\nthe same feeling of brotherhood and understanding that I can see a\ncongregation of Baptists or Methodists singing their praise to the God\non high. I do not pity or condemn the African savage and the Indian of\nthe Great Barrens because they see their God through another vision\nthan that of the Christian. There were many roads that led to old Rome.\nAnd there are many roads, no matter how twisted and dark they seem to\nus, that lead to the better after-life.\n\nI wish that some mighty power would rise that could show to man how\nlittle and how insignificant he is. Only therein, I think, could the\nthorns and brambles be taken out of that path to peace and contentment\nwhich he would like to find, and would find if he were not blinded\nby his own importance. He is the supreme egoist and monopolist. His\nconceit and self-sufficiency are at times almost blasphemous. He is\nthe human peacock, puffed up, inflated, flushed in the conviction\n_that everything in the universe was made for him_. He looks down in\nsupercilious lordship on all other life in creation. He goes out and\nmurders millions of his kind with his scientific inventions; yet he\ncalls a tiger bad and a pest because the tiger occasionally kills the\ntwo-legged thing that hunts it. If he kills a man illegally, it is\ncalled murder, and he is hanged and goes to hell. If his government\ntells him it is proper to kill a thousand men, he kills them, and is\ncalled a hero--and a chosen place is kept waiting for him in heaven.\nHis conceit blinds him to fact. He thinks our little earth was the\nchosen creation of the Supreme Power--forgetting that the earth is\nbut a fly-speck compared with the other worlds in space. He thinks\nthat Christ was born a long time ago, and that time began with our own\nknowledge of history--when, as a matter of fact, he has no reason for\ndisbelieving that man lived and died hundreds of thousands of years\nago, and that countless religions have come and gone in the eons of the\npast. He does not stop to reason that, in number, he is as a drop in\nthe ocean compared with other beating hearts on earth.\n\nTo me, every heart that beats is a spark from the breath of God. I\nbelieve that the warm and beating heart in the breast of a singing\nrobin is as precious to the Creator of things as the heart of a man\ncounting money. I believe that a vital spark exists in every blade of\ngrass and in every leaf of the trees. It is the great law of existence\nthat life must destroy in order to live, and when destruction is\ninevitable and necessary, it ceases to be a misdemeanor. But to let\nlive, when it is not necessary to destroy, is a beautiful thing to\nconsider.\n\nBefore men find a satisfying faith and peace, they must come to see\ntheir own littleness. They must discover that they are not _alone_ in\na partnership with God, but that all manifestation of life, whether in\ntree or flower or flesh and blood, is a spark loaned for a space by\nthat Supreme Power toward which we all, in our individual ways, are\ngroping. There is one teacher very close to us, as close to the poor\nas to the rich, to show us this littleness and make us understand.\nThat teacher is nature--and, in my understanding of things, all nature\nis rest and peace. I believe that nature is the Great Doctor, and, if\ngiven the chance, can cure more ills and fill more empty souls than all\nthe physicians and preachers of the earth. I have had people say to me\nthat my creed is a beautiful one for a person as fortunately situated\nas myself, but that it is impossible for the great multitudes to go out\nand find nature as I have found it. To these people, I say that one\nneed not make a two-thousand-mile trip along the Arctic coast and live\nwith the Eskimo to find nature. After all, it is our nerves that kill\nus in the long run, our over-restless minds, our worrying, questing\nbrains. And nature whispers its great peace to these things even in\nthe rustling leaves of a corn field--if one will only get acquainted\nwith that nature. And my desire--my ambition--the great goal I wish to\nachieve in my writings is to take my readers with me into the heart of\nthis nature. I love it, and I feel that they must love it--if I can\nonly get the two acquainted.\n\n\u201cFine line of talk for a man whose home is filled from cellar to garret\nwith mounted heads and furs,\u201d I hear some of my good friends say.\n\nQuite true, too. It is hard for one to confess oneself a murderer, and\nit is still harder to explain one\u2019s regeneration. Yet, to be genuine, I\nmust at least make the confession, though it is less the fact of murder\nthan the fact of regeneration that I have the inclination to emphasize,\nnow that I have the opportunity. There was a time when I took pride\nin the wideness and diversity of my killings. I was a destroyer of\nlife. Now I am only glad that these killings ultimately brought me to a\ndiscovery which is the finest thing I have to contemplate through the\nrest of my existence.\n\nIn my home are twenty-seven guns, and all of them have been used.\nMany of the stocks are scarred with tiny notches whereby I kept track\nof my \u201ckills.\u201d With them, I have left red trails to Hudson\u2019s Bay, to\nthe Barren Lands, to the country of the Athabasca and the Great Bear,\nto the Arctic Ocean, to the Yukon and Alaska, and throughout British\nColumbia. This is not intended as a p\u00e6an of triumph. It is a fact which\nI wish had never existed. And yet it may be that my love of nature and\nthe wild things, at the last, is greater because of those reckless\nyears of killing. I am inclined to believe so. In my pantheistic heart,\nthe mounted heads in my home are no longer crowned with the grandeur\nof trophies, but rather with the nobility of martyrs. I love them. I\ncommune with them. I am no longer their enemy, and I warm myself with\nthe belief that they know I am fighting for them now.\n\nIn this religion of the open, I have come to understand and gather\npeace from the whispering voices and even the silence of all God-loving\nthings. I have learned to love trees, and there are times when I put\nmy hands on them because I love them, and rest my head against them\nbecause they are comrades and their comradeship and their might give\nme courage. There is a gnarled old cripple of an oak in the yard of\nmy Michigan home, a broken and twisted dwarf which many people have\ntold me to destroy. But that tree and I have \u201ctalked over\u201d many things\ntogether; it has pointed out to me how to stand up under adversity,\nhas shown me how to put up a man\u2019s fight. For, eaten to the heart, a\ndeformity among its kind, each spring and summer saw it making its\nvaliant struggle to \u201cdo its best.\u201d It was then I became its friend,\ngave it a helping hand, stopped its decay and death, and each season\nnow the old oak is stronger, and often I go out and sit with my back\nagainst it, and I hear and understand its voice, and I know that it is\na great friend that will never do me wrong.\n\nIt is thus that this religion of mine finds its strength from the\nsources of great and unknown power. But before it comes in all its\npeace and joy, man must bring down his head from out of the clouds of\negoism, and say, \u201cThe oak is as great as I--perhaps greater.\u201d\n\nNot long ago, it seemed to me that my world had gone dark and that it\nwould never grow completely light again. In perhaps the darkest hour,\nI flung myself down upon the ground close to the bank of a stream. And\nthen, close over my head--so close I could have tossed a pebble to\nit--a warbler near burst its little throat in song. And the miracle of\nit was that it was a dark and sunless day. But the warbler sang, and\nthen he chirped in the boughs above; and when I looked at the ground\nbeside me again, I saw there, peeping up at me out of the grass, a\nsingle violet. And the bird and the violet gave me more courage and\ncleared my world for me more than all the human friends who had told me\nthey were sorry. The violet said, \u201cI am still here; you will never lose\nme,\u201d and the little warbler said, \u201cI will always sing--through all the\nyears you live.\u201d And stronger than ever came the faith in me that these\nthings were no more an accident of creation than man himself.\n\nOnce I saw this Great Doctor of mine a burning, vibrant force in a\nroom of a crowded tenement, from the roof of which one could not see\na blade of grass or a tree. In fact, that force filled three rooms, in\nwhich lived a man and woman and five children. I spent an hour in those\nrooms on a Sunday afternoon, and the experience of that hour in a hot\nand crowded tenement was a mightier sermon than was ever preached to\nme in the heart of a forest. At every window was a box in which green\nstuff was growing. There were flowers in pots. A pair of canary-birds\nlooked down upon the smoky roofs of a great city and sang. What\ninterested me most was two contrivances the man had made to force oats\ninto swift germination and growth. In a week, he told me, the green\nsprout of an oat would be two inches long. Then I saw why they were\ngrown. Several times while I was there would a dove come to a window\nand wait for a bit of the green. I could see they were different doves.\nThey told me at least a dozen were accustomed to come in that way. They\nwere the children\u2019s pets. A little baby in arms cooed at them and waved\nhis arms in delight. I have seen many poor tenement families, but that,\nI think, was the only happy one. The singing of the birds, the coming\nof the doves, the growing of green things in their room were their\ninspiration, their hope, the promise of dreams that would some day\ncome true. Nature had become their religion, and yet they did not know\nit as such. It was calling them out into the great open spaces--and\nthey were living in anticipation of that day when they would answer the\ncall.\n\nBecause I have spent much of my time in adventuring in distant\nwildernesses, and exploring where other men have not gone, it has been\naccepted by many that my love for nature means a love for the distant\nand, for most people, the inaccessible wilds. It is true that in the\nvast and silent places one comes nearer, perhaps, to the deeper truths\nof life. Of the wild and its miracles I love to write, and when I come\nto that part of my story, I shall possibly be happiest. But I would be\nunfair to myself, and the religion of nature itself, if the great truth\nwere not first emphasized that its treasures are to be possessed by\nmankind wherever one may turn--even in a prison cell. I was personally\nin touch with one remarkable instance of this in the Michigan State\nPenitentiary, at Jackson, where a canary-bird and a red geranium saved\na man from madness and eventually gained him a pardon, sending him out\ninto the world a living being with a new and better religion than he\nhad ever dreamed of before.\n\nBut the open skies and the free air were intended from the beginning of\nthings as the greatest gifts to man, and it is there, if one is sick in\nbody or soul, that one should seek. Whether it is a mile or a thousand\nmiles from a city makes little difference. For nature is the universal\nlaw. It is everywhere. It is neither mystery nor mysterious. Its pages\nare open; its life is vibrant with the desire to be understood. The\none miracle is for man to bring himself down out of the clouds of his\negoism and replace his passion for destruction with the desire to\nunderstand.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have in mind a case in point.\n\nI had a very dear friend, a newspaper man, whose wife had died. I don\u2019t\nknow that I ever saw a man more utterly broken up, for his love for\nher was more than love. It was worship. He grew faded and thin, and a\ngray patch over his temple turned white. The mightiest efforts of his\nfriends could do nothing. He wanted to be alone, alone in his home,\nwhere he could grieve himself to death by inches. I knew that his case\nwas harder because he was merely tolerant of religion. One day, the\nidea came to me that resulted in his spiritual and physical salvation.\nI took him in my auto, and we went out into the country four or five\nmiles, opened a gate, drove down a long lane, and stopped at the edge\nof a forty-acre wood.\n\n\u201cFred, I am going to show you a wonderful city,\u201d I said. \u201cCome with\nme--quietly.\u201d\n\nWe climbed over the fence, and I led him to the heart of the wood, and\nthere we sat down, with our backs to a log.\n\n\u201cNow, just to humor me, be very still,\u201d I said. \u201cDon\u2019t move, don\u2019t\nspeak--just listen.\u201d\n\nIt was three o\u2019clock in the afternoon, that wonderful time of a summer\nday when nature seems to rouse herself from midday slumber to fill the\nworld with her rustling life. The sun fell slantwise through the wood,\nand here and there, under the roofs of the trees, we could see golden\npools and streams of it on the cool earth.\n\n\u201cThis is one of the most wonderful cities in the world,\u201d I whispered,\n\u201cand there are hundreds and thousands of such cities, some of them\nwithin the reach of all.\u201d\n\nThe musical ripple of a creek came to our ears. And then, slowly\nat first, there came upon my friend the wonder of it all. He\nunderstood--at last. About us, through all that forty acres of wood,\nthe air seemed to whisper forth a strange and wonderful life. Over our\nheads, we heard a grating sound. It was a squirrel gnawing through the\nshell of a last autumn\u2019s nut. On an old stub, a woodpecker hammered.\nClose about us were the \u201ccheep, cheep, cheep,\u201d and \u201ctwit, twit, twit,\u201d\nof little brown brushbirds. A warbler burst suddenly into a glorious\nsnatch of song. A quarter of a mile away, a crow cawed, and between us\nand the crow we heard a fox-squirrel barking, and, a little later, saw\nit, with its mate, scrambling in play up and down the trees. My friend\ncaught my arm and pointed. He was becoming interested, and what he saw\nwas a fat young woodchuck passing near us on a foraging expedition to a\nneighboring clover field.\n\nFor an hour we did not move, and through all that city was the drone\nand voice of life, and that life was a soft and wonderful song,\nsoothing one almost to sleep. And when, at last, my friend whispered\nagain, \u201cIt sounds as though everything is talking,\u201d I knew that the\nspirit of the thing had got into him. Then I drew his attention to a\ncolony of big black ants whose fortress was in the log against which we\nwere resting. They were working. Two of them were trying to drag a dead\ncaterpillar over my friend\u2019s knee. When we rose to go, I led him past\na little swale in which a score of blackbirds had bred their young. On\na slender willow, a bobolink was singing. A land-turtle lumbered back\ninto the water, and the bright eyes of green-headed frogs stared at\nus from patches of scum. Under a bush, a score of toads were teaching\ntheir tiny youngsters to swim. When my friend saw the little fellows\nclinging to their mothers\u2019 backs, he laughed--the first time in many\nmonths.\n\nWhen we went back to the car, I said:\n\n\u201cYou have seen just one ten-thousandth of what nature holds for you and\nevery other man and woman. You haven\u2019t believed in God very strongly.\nBut you\u2019ve got to now. That\u2019s God back there in the wood.\u201d\n\nThat was four years ago. To-day, that man not only lives in the heart\nof nature but, from a special assignment man, he has risen to the\nmanaging editorship of a big metropolitan daily. He has only his summer\nvacation in which to get out into the big woods, but he has made room\nfor nature all about him. From early spring until late autumn, his\nfront and back yard fairly burst with life. And it is not, like most\nyards, merely for show and passing pleasure to the eyes. He has brought\nhimself down out of the clouds of man\u2019s egoism, and is learning and\ntaking strength from nature--which he now worships as the great \u201cI am.\u201d\nHe has developed a hobby for \u201cinterbreeding plants,\u201d as he calls it,\nand especially gladioli. Each morning in spring and summer and autumn,\nhe goes out into his garden, and, from the thousand living things\nthere, he receives strength for his nerve-racking duties of the day;\nand at night, after his task is done, he returns to his garden to seek\nthat peace which is the great and vibrant force of the life that is\nthere. During the months of winter, he has his little conservatory. And\nthis man--for more than thirty years--hardly knew whether an oak grew\nfrom an acorn or a seed!\n\nYet has he one great regret. And more than once he has said to me, with\nthat grief in his voice which will never quite die out: \u201cIf we had only\nfound these things before, she would be with me now. I am convinced of\nit. It was this strength she needed to keep her from fading away--to\nbuild her up into joyous life again. Sometimes I wonder why the Great\nPower that is above did not let her live to go into the wood with us\nthat day.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHours have passed since I first sat down to write these thoughts that\nwere in my mind. The storm has passed, and, following it, there has\ncome a marvelous silence. Both my door and window are open, and there\nis rare sweetness in the breath of the rain-washed air. I can hear\nthe near-by trees dripping. The creek runs with a louder ripple. The\nmoon is shimmering through the fleecy clouds that are racing south and\neast--toward my \u201ccivilized\u201d home, fifteen hundred miles away. Over all\nthis world of mine there is, just now, a vast and voiceless quiet. And\nif I were superstitious, or filled with the imagination of some of the\nprophets of old, I am sure I would hear a Voice speaking out of that\nmighty solitude, and it would say:\n\n\u201cO you mortal, blind--blind as the rocks which make up the mountains!\n\n\u201cBlind as the trees which you think have neither ears nor eyes!\n\n\u201cMade to see, yet unseeing; making mystery out of that which was born\nwith you; seeking--yet seeking afar for that which lies close at hand!\n\n\u201cYou want peace. You go in quest of a Breast mightier than all life to\nrest thy tired head upon. And thy quest is like the drifting of a ship\nwithout a rudder at sea. For you think that the world is young because\nthou livest in it now--and it is old, so old that thousands and tens\nof thousands of peoples lived and died before Christ was born. You\nthink that civilization has come to pass, and \u2018civilization\u2019 has died a\nthousand times under the dust of the ages. You believe you are treading\nthe only path to God--yet have a million billion people died before\nyou, unknowing the religions which you now know.\n\n\u201cO you mortals of to-day, you are small and near-sighted, and hard of\nhearing--even more than they who lived a million years before you, when\nthe world was an hour or two younger than now!\n\n\u201cWhat are you? Proud of thy purse, vain of thy power, conceited in\nthy self-glorification--yet you seek a simple thing and cannot find\nit. You cannot find _rest_. You cannot find _faith_. You cannot find\n_understanding_. You cannot find that Breast mightier than all life\nupon which to rest thy head when the end comes and when you go to join\nthose trillions who have gone before you.\n\n\u201cAnd, in your despair, you cry out that you know not which way to turn,\nthat you seek in darkness, that the world is a wilderness of schisms\nand religions, and that you cannot tell which is the right and which\nis the wrong. For you know that worlds have lived and died through the\neons of centuries before Christianity was born. And you are oppressed\nby doubt even as you grope!\n\n\u201cYet you know deep in thy soul that the heavens were not an accident.\nYou know that hundreds and thousands of worlds greater than thine own\nhave traveled their paths in space for eternities. You know that the\nsun was set in the skies so long ago that all the people of the earth\ncould not count the years of its life. And you know that a Great Hand\nplaced it there. And that Hand, you say, was God.\n\n\u201cYet you seek--and you seek--and you seek--and doubt everlastingly\nclouds thine eyes; and when darkness comes and you stand at the edge of\nthe Great Beyond, you look back, and--lo!--the path you have traveled\nseems very short, and it is cluttered with brambles and thorns and the\nwreckage of shattered hopes and wasted years.\n\n\u201cAnd then you see the Light!\n\n\u201cAnd, as thy spirit departs, the mystery unveils--the answer comes.\n\n\u201cFor that which you sought, you looked too far. Close under thy feet\nand close over thy head might you have found it!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n_The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER\n\n\nThis morning is a glory of sunshine and peace after last night\u2019s rain.\nIt seems inconceivable that the blue sky above the forest was filled\na few hours ago with the crash of thunder and the blaze of lightning.\nI was up at dawn, wakened by a pair of red squirrels playing upon the\nroof of my cabin. Together we watched the sun rise, and after that they\nchattered about my open door while I prepared my breakfast. We are\nbecoming great friends. One of them I have given the name of Nuts, and\nfor no reason in the world unless it is because there are no nuts up\nhere; and the other, the sleek, beautiful little female, I call Spoony\nbecause she looks at me so slyly, with her pretty head perked on one\nside, as if flirting with me.\n\nIt is only eight o\u2019clock, yet we have been up nearly four hours. At\nthe edge of the creek, less than a stone\u2019s throw from the cabin, I\nhave built me a narrow table of smooth-hewn saplings between two old\nspruce trees, and this is my open-air studio when the weather is fine.\nWord of it has gone abroad, though I am many hundreds of miles from\ncivilization. Many kinds of wild things have come to get acquainted\nwith me, fascinated chiefly, I think, by the marvelous new language\nof my clicking typewriter. The welcome and friendship of these little\nwilderness-hearts are growing nearer and more apparent to me every day;\nand with each day the Great Truth speaks to me even more clearly than\nthe day before--that each of these beating hearts, like my own, is a\npart of that nature which I worship and is as vitally a spark of its\nlife as the heart which is beating inside my own flannel shirt.\n\nThese friends of mine, gathering about me more intimately and in\ngreater number with each passing day, are individuals to me because\nI have come to understand them and know their language. There is the\nArtful Dodger, for instance--I sometimes call him Bill Sykes or Captain\nKidd--screaming close over my head this very moment. In very intimate\nmoments I call him Arty, or Kid, or Bill. He is a big blue jay. In\nspite of all that has been said and written against him, I have a\nvery brotherly affection for Bill. He is a man\u2019s man, among birds,\nnotwithstanding that he occasionally breakfasts on the eggs of other\nbirds, and kills more than is good for his reputation. Also, he is the\ngreatest liar and the biggest fraud and the most brazen-faced cheat in\nthe bird kingdom. But I know Bill intimately now, where I used to kill\nhim as a pest, and I love him for all his sins.\n\nHe is a pirate who never loses his sense of humor. He is always\nraising a disturbance just for the excitement of it, and when he has\ndrawn a crowd, so to speak, he will slip slyly away to some nearby\nvantage-point and laugh and chuckle over the rumpus he has raised.\nRight now, he is screaming himself hoarse forty feet above my head.\nTwo others have joined him, and they are making such a bedlam of sound\nthat Nuts and Spoony have ceased their chattering. There!--I have fired\na stick at them, and they are gone. They have had their joke, and are\nquite satisfied--for the present.\n\nI can hear the musical rippling of the creek again, now that Bill and\nhis blustering pals are gone, and my typewriter is like a tiny machine\ngun sending its clicking notes out into the still forest. A pair of\nmoose-birds, almost as big as the jays, are hopping about, so near\nthat, at times, they are perched on the end of my sapling table.\nThey are the tamest birds in the wilderness, and within another day\nor so will be eating out of my hand. Unlike the jays, they make no\ndisturbance. They are soft and quiet, never making a sound, and their\nbig, beautiful eyes fairly pop with their intense interest in me. I\nlike their company, because there is a philosophy about them. They\nnever tire of looking at me, and studying me, and at times I have the\nvery pleasant fancy that they are bursting with a desire to speak. They\nare very gentle, and never fight or scold or commit any sins that I\nknow of; and just now, as the two look at me with their big soft eyes,\nI find myself wondering which of us is of most account in the final\nanalysis of things.\n\nTen or fifteen rods above me, the creek widens and forms a wide\npool overhung with trees, so that, in the hottest weather, it must\nbe a delightfully refreshing place. I can see it plainly from where\nI am sitting, for the creek twists a little, so that it is running\ndirectly toward me when I look in that direction. Many wild things\ncome to that pool. This morning, I found a bear-track there, and the\nfresh hoof-prints of a doe and fawn. Yesterday, a pair of traveling\notters discovered it, but when I tried them out with the voice of my\ntypewriter, they turned back. I am confident they will return, and that\nwe shall get acquainted.\n\nAt the present moment, in looking toward the pool, I am struck by what\nat first thought I might consider a discordant note in this wonderland\nof quiet and peace that is about me. At the edge of the pool, rigid\nand watchful, a hawk is poised on a dead limb projecting from a\nlightning-struck stub. He is hungry and eager to kill. I have seen him\nlaunch himself twice after a victim, but each time without success.\nFinally, he will succeed. He will kill a living thing that he himself\nmay continue to live. Yet I have no inclination to shoot him. For to\nlive, and to cherish that spark of life that is in him, is as much his\nright as it is mine. He is not, like man, a killer for the love of\nkilling. He wants his breakfast.\n\nAnd in fairness to him I think of two tender young spruce-partridges\nwhich I shot late last evening, and which I shall roast for my dinner,\nalong with a potato and a flavor of bacon. My religion does not demand\nvegetarianism any more than it does flesh; for that, too, is life.\nFor the trees whispering above me now are as alive to me as the\nmoose-birds perched at the end of my table, yet when necessity comes\nI cut them down with an ax, and make a cabin or cook my food with\nthem. All nature cries out that life must exist upon life, that one\ntree must grow upon the mold of another, that for each green blade of\ngrass another blade must die. It is not against a wise and necessary\ndestruction that the God of all nature cries out. The crime--the crime\ngreater than all other crimes--is destruction without cause.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat is what I must come to now, even in this glory of peace that is\nwhispering about me--I must face the task of confessing my own sins as\na killer, as a destroyer of life for the love and thrill of killing. I\nwas born, like all the children of men, a monumental egoist. My parents\nwere egoists. My forefathers for ten thousand generations were egoists\nbefore me, and I was the last product of their egoism--one of the\nbillion and a half people who are living to-day in the blindness of a\nself-conceit that has filled their worlds with schisms and religions as\nfalse and as unstable as the treacherous sands of human \u201calmightiness\u201d\nupon which they have been built.\n\nFrom the beginning, I did not need argument or education to tell me\nthat I was the greatest of all created things--that my particular\nbrand of life, of all life on the earth, was the only life that God\nhad intended to be inviolate. That fact was pounded home to me in the\npublic schools; it was preached to me in the churches. I was part and\nparcel of the great \u201cI Am.\u201d For me, all the universe had been built.\nFor me, the Great Hereafter was solely created. All other life was\nmerely incidental, and created especially for my benefit. It was mine\nto do with as I pleased. In a mild sort of way, the school and the\nchurch told me to have a little charity, and not to \u201churt the poor\nlittle birdies.\u201d\n\nBut church and school did not tell me, and has never told its pupils,\nthat all other life on the earth was as precious as my own, and had\nan equal right to fight for its existence. It is true I was told that\nnever a sparrow falls that God does not see it, but it is also true\nthat, for six years, my state urged its children to kill sparrows for\na bounty of two cents a head. I found no course in school or college\nthat attempted to teach me that the spark of life animating my own\nbody was no different from the sparks which animated all other living\nthings. Both religion and school instilled into me that I was next in\nplace to God. All other life, from the life of trees and flowers to\nthat of beasts and birds, was put on earth for my special benefit. No\nother life had a right to exist unless the human egoist saw fit to let\nit live. And all this simply because human life happened to be the most\npowerful life, and cleverest in the art and science of destroying other\nlife.\n\nI wonder what would happen if for ten generations the churches and\nschools would teach their little children and their grown-ups that\nthere is a heaven for flowers and trees and birds and butterflies\njust as surely as there is a heaven for man! What would happen if the\nteaching of the Great Truth of nature began in the kindergarten, and\nwent on through the lives of men and women, growing stronger in the\nrace as generation added itself to generation? It is something to think\nabout in these days when, in our madness for a faith, we are reviving\nghosts and phantom voices and are frightening our children again with\nthe diseased and weird belief that the spirits of the dead can come\nback to us. We want something that is clean and healthy and inspiring,\nsomething that is beautiful to contemplate, and which is not an\noverwhelming insult to that Great Power of the universe of which we are\nso small a part--and in the kindergarten we could plant the seed of\nthat thing, so that, through the school and the church and all life, it\nwould continue to grow stronger with each generation, until, at last,\nman would shake off that deadliest of all his enemies, his own egoism\nand self-conceit. Then, and not until then, will he find contentment\nand peace and happiness in the brotherhood of all other life that is\nabout him.\n\nBut I seem to be evading the issue--my own confession as a monumental\negoist and a killer. I have said that my parents were egoists, like\nall their forefathers before them. Yet the world never held a better\nmother than mine. I do not except any who may sit in heaven at the\npresent time. And my father, as a man, was far better than his son will\never be. He was a gentleman of the old school, living, as he died, an\nexample of courage and fearlessness and honor to all who knew him.\nYet did these two splendid people, like all other parents, foster and\ncultivate my egoism from the beginning. They did it unconsciously,\nblindly, as hundreds of millions of other parents are doing to-day.\n\nMy father loved hunting and fishing, and at eight years of age I\npossessed my own gun. I remember with what pride he taught me to shoot\nand to stalk my first living victims; and when we returned from a hunt,\nif I had killed anything, it was always to me that my beloved mother\ngave her greatest attention and commendation. We lived on an Ohio farm\nthen, and I became a sort of boy prodigy in the art of hunting. When\nI was nine years old, a newspaper in a near-by city published a story\nof my prowess, and I do not think I was more puffed up over it than my\nfather himself. By the time I was twelve, I had lost all respect for\nthat life which the laws of our state said I might take. I had a fine\ncollection of birds\u2019 eggs, and another \u201csplendid\u201d collection of birds\u2019\nwings. My room was decorated with the wings.\n\nI always recall with an odd sort of feeling that at this particular\nheight of my boyish slaughter of life I \u201cgot religion,\u201d and got it\nhard. At Joppa, a \u201cfour-corners\u201d two miles from our farm, a series\nof revival meetings was going on that winter, and I cannot remember\nanyone in all our community who did not get the religious fever,\nexcept most of the youngsters. But it hit me hard. I felt that I was\nactually inspired. So deeply did the excited preachings effect my mind\nthat frequently, when I was alone, I felt that angels were with me.\nOne moonlight night, in returning from a revival, I actually saw an\nangel, and the beautiful thing with white wings and white raiment and\nwonderful flowing hair walked halfway home with me. When I told that\nstory at school the next day, and insisted that it was true, I had five\ndifferent fights. My mother said that it probably was true, for she was\ndelighted that I had become religious. So I fought, and licked--and got\nlicked--for about a month because of my faith.\n\nBut what I am coming to is this: Though practically our whole township\nwas converted, at no time did this religion tell me to stop killing. So\ninspired was I that Mr. Teachout, the revivalist, had me give a short\n\u201csermon\u201d one evening--and I recall vividly how, in \u201cintroducing\u201d me,\nhe said, in a loud voice and with a great flourish of his arms, that\nI \u201cwas the best hunter in all Erie County and could kill more game\nin a day than almost any grown hunter there.\u201d Whereupon there was a\nmighty applause from the hundred people present, and I was the proudest\nyoungster in Ohio.\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause from a church rostrum I was hailed as the greatest boy killer\nin that county! No one of all those Christians told me that I should\nstop killing. They made a hero of me because I was already becoming\na master in the art of killing. They built up my egoism to a point\nwhere it became blasphemous--to a point where it more than offset my\nmother\u2019s pleadings that I stop shooting birds for their wings. Then\ncame a thing which, as I look back upon it now, seems to me monstrous.\nThere was to be a big \u201chunters\u2019 supper\u201d to end the revival. The men\nchose sides, and on a certain day all these men set out to kill. They\nwere to kill nothing \u201coutside the law.\u201d But all life not protected by\nlaw might be sacrificed. I remember that a rabbit counted five points,\na squirrel four, a hawk six, a blue jay two, and so on. The side that\nlost out on \u201cpoints,\u201d or, in other words, destroyed the least life,\nwas compelled to furnish the supper. How I did slaughter! When I came\nin to the \u201ccount\u201d that night, my game-bag was filled to the brim with\ndead things. Among other creatures I had killed seventeen blue jays!\nAny wonder that Captain Kidd and his pals screamed over my head this\nmorning?\n\nAnd yet good Christian people still regard with horror the day when\npagan Rome burned the martyrs.\n\nMy education in the art of destruction increased as my years grew in\nnumber. I was not alone. All the human world was destroying, just as\nit is destroying to-day. We moved back to the little city of Owosso,\nin Michigan, where I was born. In Erie County, Ohio, my nickname had\nbeen Slippery--just why I don\u2019t know; now, in Michigan, it became\nNimrod and Wildcat Jim. I haunted our beautiful Shiawassee River as\nghosts are now haunting some of our scientific writers. I trapped and\nhunted and fished more than I studied--so much more, in fact, that I\nbecame decidedly unpopular with our high-school principal, Mr. Austin,\nwho is now my very good friend. At last, I stood at the splitting of\nthe ways--and I chose my own course. I trapped a season, and, with\nthe money earned, started in on a special course at the University of\nMichigan. Things went well. I slipped through college with the ease of\nan eel, took up newspaper work in Detroit, became a special writer and\na magazine writer and the youngest metropolitan newspaper editor in\nMichigan. I felt inclined to believe that I was a wild and uproarious\nsuccess.\n\nBut under it all burned my desire to get back to my old job of\ndestruction, and this desire led me into my long years of adventuring\ninto the far northern wildernesses.\n\nAs I sit here now, clicking my typewriter in the still heart of the\nforest, it is a wonder to me that some colossal spirit of vengeance\ndoes not rise up out of it and destroy me. And yet, when I consider, I\nknow why that vengeance does not come--and in the face of this \u201cgreat\nreason,\u201d I see my littleness as I have never seen it before. It is\nbecause, very slowly, my egoism is crumbling away. And as it crumbles,\nmy big brother--all nature--grips my hand ever more closely, and\nwhispers to me to tell others something of what I have found. And that\nbig brother is not only the spirit of the heart-beating things about\nme, but also the spirit and voice of the trees, of the living earth\nthat throbs under my feet, of the flowers, the sun, the sky. It is\nall reaching out to me with a great show of friendliness, and I seem\nto feel that fear and misunderstanding have slipped away from between\nus. It is inviting me to accept of it all that I may require, yet to\ncherish that which I cannot use. It is telling me, as it has whispered\nto me a thousand times before, the secret of life; that the life in\nmy own breast and all this that is about me are one and the same--and\nthat, in our partnership for happiness, we each belong to the other.\nAnd there must be no desire for vengeance between us.\n\nYet, to me, it does not seem like justice, looking at it from the\nwarped and narrow point of view of my human mind. It is the human\ninstinct to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And I\ncannot see why my God of nature should give me such reward of peace and\nfriendship after what I have done. It has always been my logic that\nlife is the cheapest thing in existence. There is just so much earth,\nso much water, so much air about us; but of life there is no end. So\nwe go on destroying. If nature would keep this destroyed life unto\nherself for a few generations, instead of giving it back to us in her\nunvengeful way, the earth would soon become a desert. Then we would\nlearn our lesson.\n\nI am thinking, as I write this, of a beautiful little forest in a\nwonderful valley in the heart of the British Columbia mountains. It\nwas a glorious thing to look down upon that day when I destroyed it.\nI call it a forest, though there was not more than an acre of it, or\ntwo at the most. And the valley was really a \u201cpocket\u201d among the mighty\npeaks of the Firepan Range. It was of balsams and cedars, rich green,\nand densely thick--a marvelous patch of living tapestry, vibrant with\nthe glow and pulse of life in the sunset of that day. Into its shelter\nwe had driven a wounded grizzly which had refused to turn and fight.\nAnd so thick and protecting was the heart of it that we could not get\nthe grizzly out. Night was not far away, and in its darkness we knew\nour game would escape us. And the thought came to us to burn that\nlittle paradise of green. There was no danger of a spreading fire. The\nmountain walls of the \u201cpocket\u201d would prevent that. And it was I who\nstruck the match!\n\nIn twenty minutes, the little forest was a sea of writhing, leaping\nflame. It cried out and moaned in the agony of conflagration. The bear\nfled from its torture and its ruin, and we killed him. That night, the\nmoon shone down on a black and smoldering mass of ruin where a little\nwhile before had been the paradise.\n\nIn our camp, we laughed and exulted. The egoism of man made us feel our\nfalse triumph. What it had taken a thousand years to place in that\ncup of the mountains we had destroyed in half an hour--yet we felt no\nregret. We had destroyed a thousand times more life than filled our own\npitiable bodies, yet did the false ethics of our breed assure us that\nwe had done no wrong--simply because the life we had destroyed had not\npossessed a form and tongue like our own.\n\n\u201cThis man must be losing his reason,\u201d I hear some of my readers say. Is\nit that, or is a bit of reason just returning to me, after a million\nyears of sleep? If it is madness, it is of a kind that would comfort\nthe world could all be mad as I am mad. Life is Life. It is a spark\nof the same Supreme Power, whether in a tree, a flower, or a thing of\nflesh and blood. To me, as I view it now, the wanton destruction of\nthat little paradise was as tragic as the destruction of life carried\nabout on two legs or four. I feel that the crime of its destruction was\nas great as that of another day which I recall most vividly in these\nmoments.\n\nI was in another wonderland of the northern mountains, and my companion\nwas a grizzled old hunter who had learned the art of killing through\na lifetime of experience. With our pack-outfit of seven horses, we\nwere hitting for the Yukon over a trail never traveled by white man\nbefore. So glorious was the valley we were in on this day of which I\nwrite that at noon we struck our camp. So awesome was the vastness\nand beauty of it that my soul was held spellbound with the magic of\nit. On all sides of us rose the mighty mountains, with snow-crowned\npeaks rising here and there out of the towering ranges. The murmur of\nrippling water filled the soft air with soothing song; green meadows,\nsweet with the perfume of wild hyacinths, violets, and a hundred\nother flowers, carpeted the rich earth about us; on the sun-warmed\nrocks, whistlers lay in fat contentment, calling to one another like\nsmall boys whistling between their teeth; the slopes were dotted with\nptarmigan; a pair of eagles soared high above us, and from the patches\nand fingers of timber came the cry and song of birds. With my back\npropped against a pile of saddles and panniers I carefully scanned the\nslides and slopes through my hunting-glasses. High up on the crag of\na mountain-shoulder, I picked up a nanny-goat feeding with her kid.\nStill farther away, on a green \u201cslide\u201d at least two miles from camp, I\ndiscovered five mountain-sheep lying down. And after that, swinging\nmy glasses slowly, I came to something which sent a thrill through\nmy blood. It was a mile away, a great, slow-moving hulk that I might\nhave mistaken for a rock had my eyes not been trained to the ways and\nmovement of game. It was a grizzly.\n\nAlone I went after him, armed with man\u2019s deadliest weapon of\nextinction, a .405 Winchester. Inside of half an hour I was well in the\nteeth of the breeze coming up the valley, and almost within gunshot of\nmy victim. I came to a coulee and crept up that, and when I reached the\ntable-land meadow where it began, a thousand feet above the valley, I\nfound myself within a hundred yards of the grizzly.\n\nHe was digging like a dog for a gopher. And, then, suddenly, my heart\ngave a thump that almost choked me. In a twist of the mountain-bench,\nnot more than seventy or eighty yards above me, were two more\ngrizzlies. I hesitated, and looked back down the coulee, for a moment\ndoubtful whether to retreat or declare war. Then I decided. In my hands\nwas a killer of the deadliest and surest kind. I was an expert shot and\nmy nerves were steady. I began. I think I fired five shots in perhaps\nthirty seconds, and the three big grizzlies died almost in their\ntracks. A conqueror returning in his triumph to old Rome could not\nhave been more elated than I. I remember that I leaped and danced and\nshrieked out at the top of my voice in the direction of camp. I was mad\nwith joy. Three thousand pounds of flesh and blood lay hot and lifeless\nunder my eyes, and I, the human near-god, with my own two insignificant\nhands and a mechanical thing, _had taken the life from it_!\n\nI sat down on one of the huge carcasses that still breathed under me.\nI wiped my face, and my blood was running a race that heated me as if\nwith fire. And the thought came to me: \u201cOh, if the world could only see\nme now--here in my glorious triumph--with these great beasts about me!\u201d\nFor it was a mighty triumph for man, the egoist. In thirty seconds I\nhad destroyed a possible one hundred years of throbbing, heart-beating\nlife, a hundred years of winter, a hundred years of summer, a hundred\nmating-seasons, and the thousand other lives that now would never be\nborn! I stood up, and shrieked again toward the camp, and far above me\nout of the blue of the sky I heard an answering cry from one of the\neagles....\n\nYes, as I sit here, looking back over the days that are gone, I wonder\nthat the spirit of vengeance does not rise up out of the forest and\ndestroy me, even as I have destroyed. It would be justice, according to\nthat justice which man the egoist metes out. And yet, even as I wonder,\nthe answer comes to me very clearly. I am no different than hundreds of\nmillions of others. I have destroyed in my own way, while others have\ndestroyed in theirs. And nature, the most blessed of all things, is not\nvengeful. God forgives. And nature is God. It is God that lives in the\nrose, in the violet, in the tree, just as he lives in the heart of man.\nIt is God that breathes in the grass which makes the earth sweet to\ntread upon, and it is God that lives in the song of birds. His \u201clife\u201d\nis all-encompassing, the vital spark of all existent things. Instead of\nsending ghosts back to earth to prove his power, he gives us all these\nthings, and lives and breathes in them, that we may have him with us in\nphysical things all the days of our lives if we will only rise out of\nour egoism--and understand.\n\nAnd now I have come again to the parting of a way. I have bared the\nblack side of my ledger, and it has not been pleasant work for\nme. To-morrow begins the joyous part of my task--the beginning of\nthat story which will tell how at last my eyes were opened, how\nunderstanding came to me, and with that understanding a new faith which\nwill live with me through all the rest of the years of my life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n_The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD\n\n\nTo-day is Sunday, and I have just returned from a week\u2019s hike up the\nmysterious little creek that runs past my cabin. It seems good to be\nhome again, and Nuts and Spoony and Wild Bill, the blue jay, have given\nme a royal welcome, and I am almost convinced my pop-eyed moose-bird\nfriends are trying to tell me who was the thief in my cabin while I\nwas gone. On that \u201cto-morrow\u201d when I had promised myself another day\nof writing, the _Wanderlust_ came to me, and I packed up a kit and a\nweek\u2019s supply of grub and started out to explore my creek. It is a\nvery individual sort of creek--it has character, even, if it hasn\u2019t a\nname. It comes out of deep, dark, and unexplored masses of forest to\nthe north, and I have fancied it bringing down all sorts of romance\nand tragedy out of the hidden places if it could only talk. So I went\nto the end of it to find out its secrets for myself. And there was so\nmuch of interest that I could fill a book with it. I don\u2019t think any\nother white feet have ever traveled up this creek, which I now call\n\u201cLonesome.\u201d Surely not even an Indian has been along it for at least a\ngeneration, for I did not find the mark of an ax or sign of a fire or\nvestige of deadfall or trap-house.\n\nBut it did take me forty miles back into a country of such savage\nwilderness and dense forests that I have almost determined to build me\nanother cabin there a little later, if for no other reason than to live\nfor a while with the hundreds of owls that inhabit certain parts of it.\nI have never seen so many owls anywhere in the Northland, and I figure\nthis is because the big snow-shoe rabbits have been multiplying for\nseveral years past, and now exist there literally in thousands. At many\nplaces along the creek, the earth was beaten hard by their furred feet.\nBy all the signs, I have predicted that next year, or the year after,\nthe \u201cseven-year rabbit-plague\u201d will come along and kill off ninety out\nof every hundred. Then the owls will scatter, and most of the lynxes\nand foxes and wolves will wander off into other hunting grounds, for\nthe rabbit is the staff of life of the flesh-eating birds and beasts\nof the big northern forests, just as all the world over wheat is the\nmainstay of human stomachs.\n\nBut I am wandering a bit from the point in mind--which is to say that,\nin leaving on my journey of exploration, I forgot to close the window\nof my cabin, and through that open window entered the rascally thief\nwhom the pair of moose-birds are trying to tell me about. I think Bill\nknows also, but I don\u2019t believe he would give a brother robber away,\neven if he did have four feet and a tail. By tracks and two or three\nother signs, I know the thief is a wolverine, who, like the pack-rat\nover in the mountains, steals almost entirely for the fun of it. This\nmischief-making humorist, among other things, has carried away a hat,\none of my two frying-pans, several tins, half a slab of bacon, and my\nfavorite fish-cleaning knife during my absence. But I know this clever\nfellow\u2019s ways, and have hope that I shall soon recover my property if I\nkeep my eyes open and listen with both my ears.\n\nAnd I shall not kill him, no matter how red-handed--or red-footed--I\ncatch him. A few years ago, I would have planned to ambush him with\na rifle. But now I have the desire to become as intimate with him as\npossible and learn a little more definitely what he wants with a\nknife, a skillet, and my pans. I feel that, for his theft, he should\nin some way be rewarded and not slain, for he has added to my interest\nin life by rousing a keen and harmless curiosity. His is only one way\nin which nature is constantly adding fullness of life and greater\ncontentment to my years. Everywhere, even to the smallest things under\nmy feet and at my hand, I am learning more and more of the marvelous\nways and life of all creation, and the more I learn the more I am\nconvinced that I am simply an atom in its vast brotherhood, and I am\nfinding a great happiness by making myself actually a part of it.\n\nHeretofore, I have been a self-expatriated spark of life, so to speak;\nin my human egoism, I have held myself apart from all other sparks of\nlife that were not formed in my own poor and unlovely shape--and, even\nthen, I considered myself considerably better than those who did not\nhappen to be of my particular color and breed.\n\nTwo very simple things are adding to my pleasure in life this early\nafternoon, and illustrate the point I have in mind--if one can bow\none\u2019s head down to the level of understanding. I am writing again\nbetween the two big spruce trees, but during my week of absence other\nsparks of life have, in a way, taken possession of my table. From\nbetween two of the hewn saplings that form the top of this table, where\nthe big storm of wind must have flung a bit of earth and a seed, a\ntender green sprout of something has started to grow. It is a single\nspear now, not of grass, and its green is the whitish green of the\nlower part of an asparagus shoot. To me, it seems fairly to pulse with\nlife, and I have the very foolish feeling within me that nature planned\nthis little surprise for me while I was away, and that, if I give it a\nbit of brotherly attention, I am going to have a flower on my table,\nnot transplanted or plucked, but there deliberately through friendship\nfor me. However foolish this notion may be, it is a very pleasant one\nto have, and its effect is to bring me much nearer to the Creator of\nthings than any sermon I could hear preached from a pulpit; for I am\nnot listening merely to words about God, but I am looking directly at a\nphysical part of God, and I find a great satisfaction in this faith.\n\nA second interesting thing that has happened to my table is that it has\nbecome a plain across which now runs the trail of a big tribe of ants.\nThese ants, I have found, climb up the farthest right-hand support of\nmy table and proceed straight across to the big spruce on my left, up\nwhich they disappear; and a returning file of the workers come down\nthe spruce and hit it \u201ccross-country\u201d to the table-leg again. They\ndon\u2019t seem to be bearing any burdens, yet they move with precision and\npurpose, and I have come to understand that, when ants move in this\nway, they have something very definite in mind. I am convinced they\nare moving from one fortress home to another, or at least that every\n\u201cworking\u201d individual in the tribe is personally investigating some new\ndiscovery that has been made either up the spruce or in the direction\nof the creek. Later, I will know more about it.\n\nBut the point that impresses itself upon me most is that, in my\ndestroying days, I would have swept the friendly little green sprout\nfrom its cradle, and would have driven the ant tribe from my property,\ndestroying as many of them as possible. Again I want to emphasize\nthat I am not a crank, or narrow-minded in my religion of \u201clive and\nlet live.\u201d If this same tribe of ants had invaded my cabin, and were\npreying on things necessary to me, I would destroy them or drive them\naway. That is my nature-given privilege--to protect myself and what is\nmine. It is also the privilege of every other spark of life. These same\nants, were I to stand on their fortress, would attack me desperately.\nBut now they do not molest me. And I do not molest them. It is the\nbeautiful law of \u201clive and let live\u201d--so long as the necessity for\ndestruction does not arise.\n\nWhen I sat down at my typewriter an hour ago, I had planned to\nbegin immediately the telling of what I have wandered somewhat away\nfrom--the story of a few incidents which helped to bring about my own\nregeneration, and which at last impressed upon me this great Golden\nRule of all nature--live and let live. The big dramatic climax in that\npart of my life happened over in the British Columbia mountains, where\nmy love of adventure has taken me on many long journeys.\n\nBut the change had begun to work in me before then. My conscience was\nalready stabbing me. I was regretting, in a mild sort of way, that\nI had killed so much. But I was still the supreme egoist, believing\nmyself the God-chosen animal of all creation, and when at any time I\nwithheld my destroying hand, I flattered myself with a thought of my\ncondescension and human kindness.\n\nAt the particular time I am going to write about, I was on a big\ngrizzly-hunt in a wild and unhunted part of the British Columbia\nmountains. I had with me one man, seven horses, and a pack of Airedales\ntrained to hunt bear. We had struck a grizzly-and-caribou paradise,\nand there had been considerable killing, when, one day, we came upon\nthe trail of Thor, the great beast that showed me how small in soul\nand inclination a man can be. In a patch of mud his feet had left\ntracks that were fifteen inches from tip to tip, and so wide and deep\nwere the imprints that I knew I had come upon the king of all his\nkind. I was alone that morning, for I had left camp an hour ahead of\nmy man, who was two or three miles behind me with four of the horses\nand the Airedale pack. I went on watching for a new campsite, for the\nthrill of a great desire possessed me--the desire to take the life of\nthis monster king of the mountains. It was in these moments that the\nunexpected happened. I came over a little rise, not expecting that my\nbear was within two or three miles of me, when something that was very\nmuch like a low and sullen rumble of far-away thunder stopped the blood\nin my veins.\n\nAhead of me, on the edge of a little wallow of mud, stood Thor. He\nhad smelled me, and, I believe, it was the first time he had ever\nsmelled the scent of man. Waiting for this new mystery in the air, he\nhad reared himself up until the whole nine feet of him rested on his\nhaunches, and he sat like a trained dog, with his great forefeet, heavy\nwith mud, drooping in front of his chest. He was a monster in size,\nand his new June coat shone a golden brown in the sun. His forearms\nwere almost as large as a man\u2019s body, and the three largest of his five\nknifelike claws were five and a half inches long. He was fat and sleek\nand powerful. His upper fangs, sharp as stiletto-points, were as long\nas a man\u2019s thumb, and between his great jaws he could have crushed the\nneck of a caribou. I did not take in all these details in the first\nstartling moments; one by one they came to me later. But I had never\nlooked upon anything in life quite so magnificent. Yet did I have no\nthought of sparing that splendid life. Since that day, I have rested in\ncamp with my head pillowed on the arm of a living grizzly that weighed\na thousand pounds. Friendship and love and understanding have sprung\nup between us. But in that moment my desire was to destroy this life\nthat was so much greater than my own. My rifle was at my saddle-horn in\nits buckskin jacket. I fumbled it in getting into action, and in those\nprecious moments Thor lowered himself slowly and ambled away. I fired\ntwice, and would have staked my life that I had missed both times. Not\nuntil later did I discover that one of my bullets had opened a furrow\ntwo inches deep and a foot long in the flesh of Thor\u2019s shoulder. Yet I\ndid not see him flinch. He did not turn back, but went his way.\n\nShame burns within me as I write of the days that followed; and yet,\nwith that shame, there is a deep and abiding joy, for they were also\nthe days of my regeneration. Day and night, my one thought was to\ndestroy the big grizzly. We never left his trail. The dogs followed\nhim like demons. Five times in the first week we came within long\nshooting-range, and twice we hit him. But still he did not wait for us\nor attack us. He wanted to be left alone. In that week, he killed four\nof the dogs, and the others we tied up to save them. We trailed him\nwith horses and afoot, and never did the spoor of other game lure me\naside. The desire to kill him became a passion in me. He outgeneraled\nus. He beat all our games of trickery. But I knew that we were bound\nto win--that he was slowly weakening because of exhaustion, and the\nsickness of his wounds. We loosed the dogs again, and another was\nkilled.\n\nThen, at last, came that splendid day when Thor, master of the\nmountains, showed me how contemptible was I--with my human shape and\nsoul.\n\nIt was Sunday. I had climbed three or four thousand feet up the side\nof a mountain and below me lay the wonder of the valley, dotted with\npatches of trees and carpeted with the beauty of rich, green grass,\nmountain-violets and forget-me-nots, wild asters, and hyacinths. On\nthree sides of me spread out the wonderful panorama of the Canadian\nRockies, softened in the golden sunshine of late June. From up and down\nthe valley, from the breaks between the peaks, and from the little\ngullies cleft in shale and rock that crept up to the snow-lines came a\nsoft and droning murmur. It was the music of running water--music ever\nin the air of summer, for the rivers and creeks and tiny streamlets\ngushing down from the melting snow up near the clouds are never still.\nSweet perfumes as well as music came to me; June and July--the last\nof spring and the first of summer in the northern mountains--were\ncommingling. All the earth was bursting with green; flowers were\nturning the sunny slopes and meadows into colored splashes of red\nand white and purple, and everything that had life was giving voice\nto exultation--the fat whistlers on their rocks, the pompous little\ngophers on their mounds, the squirrel-like rock-rabbits, the big\nbumblebees that buzzed from flower to flower, the hawks in the valley,\nand the eagles over the peaks.\n\nEarth, it seemed, was at peace.\n\nAnd I, looking over all that vastness of life, felt my own greatness\nthrust upon me.\n\nFor had not the Creator, of all things, made this wonderland for _me_?\n\nThere could be no denial. I was master--master because I could think,\nbecause I could reason, because I held the reins to an unutterable\npower of destruction. And then the vastness of time seized upon me like\na living thing. Yesterday, a thing had happened which came strongly\ninto my thoughts of to-day. Under a great overhanging cliff I had found\na part of a monster bone, as heavy as iron--a section of a gigantic\nvertebra. Two years before I had found part of the skeleton of a\nprehistoric creature, identical with this, and, from photographs which\nI took of it the scientific departments of the University of Michigan\nand the government at Ottawa agreed that the bones were part of the\nskeleton of a mammoth whale that once had swum where the valleys and\npeaks of the Rocky Mountains now disrupt the continent.\n\nAnd on this Sunday, looking down, I thought of the monster bone I\nhad found yesterday in the dry shale and sand under the cliff. When\nthe Three Wise Men saw the star in the east, that bone was as I had\nfound it. It was there when Christ was born. It was there, unmoved\nand untouched, before Rome was founded, before Troy died in the mists\nof the past, before history, as we know history, began. It was there\na million years ago, ten million, fifty, a hundred. And, thinking of\nthis, I felt myself growing smaller and smaller; my egoism died away,\nand I saw these mountains obliterated and under the blue of a vast\nocean, and rising out of that ocean I saw other continents, peopled\nwith other people, moved by other religions, beating to the pulse of\nother civilizations long dead. I heard the beat of waves below me,\nwhere grew the grass and the flowers of the valley. And the droning\nmusic of that valley seemed to change into the low whisperings of\ncountless trillions of men and women and little children who had\nlived and died in those other civilizations of the lost ages; and\nthat fancied whispering of dead worlds told me a great truth--that\nthe Supreme Arbiter of things had watched over all those trillions\njust as he was now watching over me, that I was but a pitifully small\ngrain of dust in the great scheme of things, that my egoism was\ncriminal, sacrilegious, a curse set upon myself by myself. And the\nsoft and droning whisper also told me the time would come when my own\n\u201ccivilization\u201d would be obliterated, to be followed by a hundred, a\nthousand, or a million others, each in its turn to live and die.\n\nAnd it was then, on that Sunday precious to me, that I asked myself an\nold, old question in a great, new way--\u201cWhat is God?\u201d\n\nAnd looking down into the valley, and up into the sky, understanding\ncame to me. God is there, and there, and there. He is the Infinite\nPower. He is Life. Life began infinities ago, and it will continue\nthrough other infinities. While we are squabbling among ourselves with\nour little religions and our little views, while we are preaching the\ndamnation of beliefs that are not ours, while sects fight to convert\nsects that do not think as they think, while our narrow-gage minds\ntravel in their narrow-gage paths,--that Infinite Power is watching\nand waiting, as it has watched and waited from the beginning, and\nas it will watch and wait until the end. And I stared down into the\nvalley, green and glorious and filled with sunshine and peace, and that\nlow-sung whisper seemed to say, \u201cIf this is not God what _is_ God?\u201d And\nthen also, in a new way, came something in my brain which said to me,\n\u201c_And who are you?_\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI climbed higher up the mountain. I felt my greatness gone. Kindly,\nsomething had told me how pitiful I was. I was not mighty. I was no\nmore in the ultimate of things than a blade of grass. My egoism, on\nthat glorious Sunday, began to crumble in my soul. And then, by chance\nif you will have it so, came the climax of that day.\n\nI came to a sheer wall of rock that rose hundreds of feet above me.\nAlong this ran a narrow ledge, and I followed it. The passage became\ncraggy and difficult, and in climbing over a broken mass of rock, I\nslipped and fell. I had brought a light mountain-gun with me, and in\ntrying to recover myself I swung it about with such force that the\nstock struck a sharp edge of rock and broke clean off. But I had saved\nmyself from possible death, and was in a frame of mind to congratulate\nmyself rather than curse my luck. Fifty feet farther on I came to\na \u201cpocket\u201d in the cliff, where the ledge widened until, at this\nparticular place, it was like a flat table twenty feet square. Here I\nsat down, with my back to the precipitous wall, and began to examine my\nbroken rifle.\n\nI laid it beside me, useless. Straight up at my back rose the sheer\nface of the mountain; in front of me, had I leaped from the ledge,\nmy body would have hurtled through empty air for a thousand feet. In\nthe valley I could see the creek, like a ribbon of shimmering silver;\ntwo or three miles away was a little lake; on another mountain I\nsaw a bursting cascade of water leaping down the heights and losing\nitself in the velvety green of the lower timber. For many minutes,\nnew and strange thoughts possessed me. I did not look through my\nhunting-glasses, for I was no longer seeking game. My blood was\nstirred, but not with the desire to kill.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, there came a sound to my ears that seemed to\nstop the beating of my heart. I had not heard it until it was very\nnear--approaching along the narrow ledge.\n\nIt was the click,--click,--click of claws rattling on rock!\n\nI did not move. I hardly breathed. And out from the ledge I had\nfollowed came a monster bear!\n\nWith the swiftness of lightning, I recognized him. It was Thor! And, in\nthat same instant, the great beast saw me.\n\nIn thirty seconds I lived a lifetime, and in those thirty seconds\nwhat passed through my mind was a thousand times swifter than spoken\nword. A great fear rooted me, and yet in that fear I saw everything to\nthe minutest detail. Thor\u2019s massive head and shoulders were fronting\nme. I saw the long naked scar where my bullet had plowed through\nhis shoulder; I saw another wound in his fore leg, still ragged and\npainful, where another of my soft-nosed bullets had torn like an\nexplosion of dynamite. The giant grizzly was no longer fat and sleek\nas I had first seen him ten days ago. All that time he had been\nfighting for his life; he was thinner; his eyes were red; his coat was\ndull and unkempt from lack of food and strength. But at that distance,\nless than ten feet from me, he seemed still a mighty brother of the\nmountains themselves. As I sat stupidly, stunned to the immobility of a\nrock in my hour of doom, I felt the overwhelming conviction of what had\nhappened. Thor had followed me along the ledge, and, in this hour of\nvengeance and triumph, it was I, and not the great beast, who was about\nto die.\n\nIt seemed to me that an eternity passed in these moments. And Thor,\nmighty in his strength, looked at me and did not move. And this thing\nthat he was looking at,--shrinking against the rock,--was the creature\nthat had hunted him; this was the creature that had hurt him, and\nit was so near that he could reach out with his paw and crush it!\nAnd how weak and white and helpless it looked now! What a pitiful,\ninsignificant thing it was! Where was its strange thunder? Where was\nits burning lightning? Why did it make no sound?\n\nSlowly Thor\u2019s giant head began swinging from side to side; then he\nadvanced--just one step--and in a slow, graceful movement reared\nhimself to his full, magnificent height. For me, it was the beginning\nof the end. And in that moment, doomed as I was, I found no pity for\nmyself. Here, at last, was justice! I was about to die. I, who had\ndestroyed so much of life, found how helpless I was when I faced life\nwith my naked hands. _And it was justice!_ I had robbed the earth of\nmore life than would fill the bodies of a thousand men, and now my\nown life was to follow that which I had destroyed. Suddenly fear left\nme. I wanted to cry out to that splendid creature that I was sorry,\nand could my dry lips have framed the words, it would not have been\ncowardice--but truth.\n\nI have read many stories of truth and hope and faith and charity.\nFrom a little boy, my father tried to teach me what it meant to be a\ngentleman, and he lived what he tried to teach. And from the days of my\nsmall boyhood, mother told me stories of great and good men and women,\nand in the days of my manhood, she faithfully lived the great truth\nthat of all precious things charity and love are the most priceless.\nYet had I accepted it all in the narrowest and littlest way. Not until\nthis hour on the edge of the cliff did I realize how small can be the\nsoul of a man buried in his egoism--or how splendid can be the soul of\na beast.\n\nFor Thor knew me. That I know. He knew me as the deadliest of all\nhis enemies on the face of the earth. Yet until I die will I believe\nthat, in my helplessness, he no longer hated me or wanted my life. For\nslowly he came down upon all fours again, and, limping as he went, he\ncontinued along the ledge--_and left me to live_!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am not, in these days, sacrilegious enough to think that the Supreme\nPower picked my poor insignificant self from among a billion and a half\nother humans especially to preach a sermon to that glorious Sunday\non the mountainside. Possibly it was all mere chance. It may be that\nanother day Thor would have killed me in my helplessness. It may all\nhave been a lucky accident for me. Personally, I do not believe it,\nfor I have found that the soul of the average beast is cleaner of hate\nand of malice than that of the average man. But whether one believes\nwith me or not, does not matter, so far as the point I want to make is\nconcerned--that from this hour began the great change in me, which has\nfinally admitted me into the peace and joy of universal brotherhood\nwith Life. It matters little how a sermon or a great truth comes to\none; it is the result that counts.\n\nI returned down the mountain, carrying my broken gun with me. And\neverywhere I saw that things were different. The fat whistlers, big as\nwoodchucks, were no longer so many targets, watching me cautiously from\nthe rock-tops; the gophers, sunning themselves on their mounds, meant\nmore to me now than a few hours ago. I looked off to a distant slide\non another mountain and made out the half-dozen sheep I had studied\nthrough my glasses earlier in the day. But my desire to kill was gone.\nI did not realize the fullness of the change that was upon me then.\nIn a dull sort of way, I accepted it as an effect of shock, perhaps\nas a passing moment of repentance and gratitude because of my escape.\nI did not tell myself that I would never kill sheep again except when\nmutton was necessary to my camp fire. I did not promise the whistlers\nlong lives. And yet the change was on me, and growing stronger in my\nblood with every breath I drew. The valley was different. Its air was\nsweeter. Its low song of life and running waters and velvety winds\nwhispering between the mountains was new inspiration to me. The grass\nwas softer under my feet; the flowers were more beautiful; the earth\nitself held a new thrill for me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA few nights later, beside a small fire we had built in the\ncool of evening, I tried to tell old Donald something about the\nTransfiguration, how Christ had gone up on the mount with Peter and\nJohn and James, and what had happened there.\n\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t that Christ himself was actually changed as he prayed on\nthe mountain-top,\u201d I said to Donald. \u201cThe change was in Peter and John\nand James, who in these moments saw Christ with a new vision and a new\nunderstanding. The Transfiguration was simply a mental process of their\nown; they saw clearly now where before they had been half blind. And I\nam wondering if this old world of ours wouldn\u2019t change for us in the\nsame way if we saw it with understanding, and looked at it with clean\neyes?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo, on this other Sunday, as the evening draws on, I look back through\nthe years between me and that day on the mountain-top, and the memory\nof Thor fills a warm corner of my heart. Through him I have the happy\nthought that I was given birth into a new world, and all things now\nhold a new significance for me. I have discovered for myself, in a\nsmall way, the wonderful secret of the instinctive processes of nature,\nand in a thousand ways I have found this instinct, coming directly from\nthe fount of supreme direction, far more amazing than reasoning itself.\nI understand more clearly, I think, why all humanity loves a baby, no\nmatter how ugly it may be. It is because it is so utterly dependent\nupon instinct alone, so completely helpless, so absolutely without\nreason or protection of its own. We like to believe that a baby is very\nclose to God, simply because it has no reasoning and because it is as\nyet purely a creature of instinctive processes. And yet, as we lay down\nour lives for its protection, we forget that adult man, with all his\nreasoning and his power, was originally a creature of instinct himself.\nWe forget that it took millions of years to give him a language, and\nthat possession of language alone has made him a super-creature. For\nit is language that gives birth to reason, allows of communication\nof thought, and should man be suddenly bereft of all language and\nthought-communication he would, in the course of ages, revert again\ninto a creature guided solely by instinct. In that event he would be\nnothing more or less than a brother to all other creatures of instinct.\nHe would again become an ordinary member of the Ancient Brotherhood of\nCommon Heritage, and could no longer call himself the Chosen One and\nthe Ordained of God. But good luck came to him, perhaps even in the\ndays when he may have swung from the trees by his tail--good luck in\nthe discovery of a crude method of thought-communication, a discovery\nthat developed through the ages, until now his head is turned, so to\nspeak, and for tens of thousands of years he has looked down more and\nmore upon his poor relations who have not had his own good fortune.\n\nBut I am learning that time has not freed him, and never will free\nhim, from his blood relationship. And creed may follow creed, and\nreligion may follow religion, but never will he find that full peace\nand contentment which might be his lot until he recognizes and admits\ninto his comradeship again the soul of that nature which is his own\nmother, and forgets his monumental egoism in a new understanding of\nthose instinctive processes of nature through which he, himself, passed\nin the kindergarten of his own existence.\n\nThis is my faith, my religion. Close to where I am sitting is an old\nstub, clothed in a mass of wood-vine, warm and vivid in the golden glow\nof the setting sun. The wood-vine has climbed, instinctively, to the\ntop of the stub, and now, finding their support gone, half a dozen long\ntendrils are reaching out toward a tall young birch six or eight feet\naway. One tendril, stronger and older than the others, has reached and\nclasped the nearest branch. The others are following unerringly. _Yet\nthey have no eyes to see._ No voice calls back to them to point out\nthe way. It is the instinct of life itself that is guiding them, the\nsame instinct, in a smaller way, that dragged man up bit by bit from\nout of the black chaos of the past. In a thousand other ways, if one\nwill take the blindfold from his eyes and try to understand, he may see\nthis mightiest of all the forces of the earth--instinct--a vibrant,\nbreathing, struggling thing about him, a force so much more powerful\nthan his own, so all-consuming and indestructible that it stands out as\na giant mountain compared with the mole-hill of his own littleness. In\nmy own faith, I see it as a vast and inexhaustible reservoir of life,\nof strength, of \u201cupward climb,\u201d of inspiration. I see it as the one\ngreat, all-necessary force of creation--a force more precious to man\nthan all the mines of the earth, more precious than all the treasure of\nthe mints, if he would forget his greatness and reach out his hands to\nit in the gladness of a new brotherhood.\n\nDusk is falling. And, as I stop my work, here in the heart of a forest,\nI seem to see the smiles of many who will read this, and I seem to hear\nthe low and unbelieving laughter of those who think themselves of the\nflesh and blood of God. And I seem to hear their voices saying:\n\n\u201cHe is wrong. Nature is beautiful--sometimes. Also, it is crude. It\nis rough. It is destructive. It is, half the time, a pest. While\nwe--we--have we not performed wonders? Have we not _proved_ ourselves\nthe chosen of God? Have we not created nations? Have we not built up\ngreat cities? Have we not accumulated vast riches? Have we not invented\nthe Dollar? Are we not, in a hundred ways, shackling nature as a man\nharnesses a horse, proving ourselves its masters, and it our slave?\u201d\n\nI hear--and then I hear another voice, and softly, distantly, it says:\n\n\u201cYea! you are great--in your own eyes. You have made nations and\ncities and great tabernacles--and you have created the Dollar. But,\nwhen, for a moment, you cease the mad struggle you are making, you\nare _afraid_. Yes; you cry out loudly then in your fear. You fight to\nbring ghosts back, that they may tell you what happens when you lie\ndown and die. You cry out for a religion which will give you absolute\nfaith and comfort and cannot find it. You think you are great because\nyou have built skyscrapers and ride close to the clouds and have made\nit possible to rush swiftly through a country choked with dust. But you\nforget quickly. You forget how little you were--yesterday. You do not\ntell yourself that you are a pest, perhaps the greatest of all. Yea;\nyou are great, and in your greatness you are wise, but all that which\nyou have achieved cannot give you that which you so vainly seek--the\ncontentment of a deep and abiding faith.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n_The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH\n\n\nIt has been some time since I sat down to work at my table under the\ntall spruce trees. I have had an experience during the past five or six\ndays which is one of my rewards for letting nature live, and, for a\nspace, it quite completely upset me, so far as work was concerned.\n\nIn other words, I have been having an experience with a species of\nvermin which I love. The baby vermin of this particular species are,\nto me, almost as lovable and quite as cute in their ways as human\nbabies; and for the adult vermin, the mothers and fathers of the\nbabies, I have a far greater love and respect than I have for many\nmales and females of my own breed. And, taking it all round, they are\na cleaner, handsomer, and more wholesome-looking lot than the average\ncrowd of humans, though they are--because of the mightiness of man\u2019s\nedict--nothing more than vermin.\n\nI am speaking of bears. A few years ago, one of my most thrilling\nsports was to hunt them--blacks, grizzlies, and polars. Now I consider\nthem, in a way, my brothers, and I am having a lot of fun in the\ncomradeship. I am filled with resentment when I consider that in all\nthe states of this country, with the exception of two or three, the\nlaw says these friends of mine are \u201cvermin,\u201d along with lice and fleas\nand maggots, and that they may be killed on sight, babies and all,\nbecause,--perhaps once in his lifetime,--a bear living very close to\ncivilization may make a meal of pig or lamb. If every human mother in\nthe land could hold a baby cub in her arms for five minutes, there\nwould be such an uprising of feminine sympathy that the laws would be\nrepealed.\n\nIn thinking again of our mothers, I would give a good year of my\nlife if a million of them could have seen what I have seen during\nthe past few days. For, after all, I believe that nearly all great\nmovements toward better and bigger and more beautiful things must and\nwill begin with women. No amount of \u201cequality\u201d will ever take that\nblessed superiority to men away from them. To-day, even religion,\nshameful to men as the fact may be, rests on a pillar of women\u2019s white\nshoulders, and all the faith that the world possesses first finds\nits resting-place in their soft breasts. And I look ahead to the day,\nwith unbounded faith of my own, when women will see, and understand,\nand begin the great fight toward comradeship with all that other life\nwhich is so utterly dependent about them now--life which throbs and\nurges in every living thing from the grass-blade and the oak to the\n\u201cinstinct\u201d creatures of flesh and blood. Then shall we have a \u201creligion\nof nature,\u201d with a force and a might behind it which will glorify the\nearth, and man will come to realize that he is not God, but only an\ninsignificantly small part of God\u2019s handiwork. And when man comes to\nthat point, where he casts off his arrogance and his ego, then will the\ntime have come for the birth of a satisfying and universal faith in\nthat great and all-embracing Power which we know and speak of in our\nown language as God.\n\nAnd the very foundation of this faith, I believe, will be an\nunderstanding of _all_ life, the acknowledgment at last that man\nhimself may not be a more precious physical manifestation of the\nSupreme Vital Force than many of the other created things about him.\n\nIt is because I believe that nature, the mother of all life, is trying\nto teach us this great truth in a thousand or a million different ways,\nin the smoke and grime and crush of big cities as well as in farm-land\nand forest, that I come back to my little experience with the bears.\n\nAbout six or seven miles to the north of me is a great ridge, plainly\nvisible from one of the halfway limbs of my lookout spruce, a sort\nof barrier which rises up between me and the still vaster hinterland\nbeyond it. Sometime in the past, a fire swept over it, so that now\nit is covered with a gorgeous and splendid growth of young birch and\npoplars, and virile patches of vines on which, a little later, there\nwill be an abundance of strawberries, raspberries, rose-berries, and\nblack currants. It is also richly sprinkled with mountain-ash trees,\nwhich give promise of a yield of hundreds of bushels of fruit this late\nsummer and autumn. Altogether, it is an ideal feeding-range for wild\nthings, hoof, claw, and feathers. Three times I have traveled for miles\nalong the cap of this ridge. To me, in all its richness and promise,\nit is a glorious manifestation of Life. It breathes under me and about\nme. I can fairly hear its compelling youth bursting from its growing\nleaves, its swelling fruits, its flowers, and from the mold that\npulses and throbs with the vital forces under my feet. I almost think I\ncould live and die on this ridge, or another ridge like it, and never\nbe at loss for company.\n\nOn my first visit to the ridge, being overtaken by storm, I built me\na brush shelter in a lovely spot close to it, with a tiny creek of\nspring-cold water not more than a dozen paces away. On my third and\nlast visit, I returned to this spot, and ran face on into my adventure.\n\nFrom the sheltered bower of balsams where I had built my wigwam, I\ncould look up a rolling, meadowy breast of the ridge, so perfect in its\nadornment of vine and bush and small clumps of young trees that, to\none not entirely acquainted with the exquisite art of nature, it would\nalmost seem as though a human landscape-architect had \u201claid out\u201d the\nlittle paradise which was my hillside back yard. On this particular\nmorning, coming up quietly, my eyes were greeted by an amazingly pretty\nspectacle. The green hillside, soft and velvety in the sunlight and\nshadow of the morning, was in full possession of two families of black\nbears.\n\nSo close were the nearest of them to me that I dropped like a shot\nbehind a big rock, and the breath of air that was stirring being in my\nfavor, I was at a splendid vantage-point to take in the whole scene.\nWithin forty yards of me were a mother and three cubs, and a little\nhigher up--perhaps twice that distance--were a mother and two cubs.\nAt almost the very crest of the ridge were two more bears, which I at\nfirst thought were adults. A closer inspection assured me they were\nlast year\u2019s cubs, and possibly not more than a third grown, though to\nwhich of the two mothers they belonged, if to either, I could not make\nup my mind. Frequently, instead of setting out in life for itself, a\nblack bear cub will follow its mother through a second season, and I\njudged this to be the situation here.\n\nFor two hours, I did not move from my place of concealment. That\nspectacle of motherhood and babyhood on the hillside, with the virile\nand luxuriant life of nature pulsing and beating all about it, was\na new chapter in my book of religion. It was pointing out to me, in\nperhaps a hundredth or a thousandth lesson, that all life is the same,\nand that it is only language, or the want of language, that makes the\ndifference in the \u201clife-relationship\u201d of all created things. I could\nfancy, as I lay there, just how the Supreme Arbiter of things had\ngiven physical being to all this life that was about me, as well as\nthe life that was in me. It has all come from the same dynamo, so to\nspeak--a spark of it in each tree, a spark of it in each flower and\nshrub, and blade of grass, a spark of it in each of the beasts of flesh\nand blood on the hillside, and a spark of it in me. Our life was the\nsame. It had all come from the same vital source, from the same supreme\nfount of existence. Yet how different were the forms it animated! Close\nto my hand was a beautiful rock-violet, blue as the sky, its velvety\npetals freckled with tiny flecks of gold; a few yards away, perched\namong the rustling leaves of a birch, a brush-warbler filled the air\nwith melody; back of me, the tops of the thick balsams whispered\nsoftly, and up there I could hear the grunting of the mother bears,\nthe squealing of the little cubs, and a gentle murmuring sound that\ncame from the ridge itself, as if all living things were fighting for a\nlanguage, struggling to give voice to something that was in them.\n\nI have had some amusement and a little discord over the teapot tempests\nthat so-called nature-scientists occasionally stir up among themselves\nover the \u201chumanizing\u201d of wild life. Man\u2019s ego has possessed him so\nutterly that it is distasteful to him to concede anything \u201chumanlike\u201d\nto any creature that is not in his own flesh and form. For my part,\nloving all wild life as I do, I am proud and glad that it does not\npossess more of our human qualities. If I write honestly of what has\ncome to me in my own wide experience in nature, I must--no matter how\nunpleasant the statement may be--confess that wild life _does_ possess\na great many characteristics that are very \u201chuman,\u201d and the ways of its\nmembers are in many instances strangely the same. I could see little\ndifference between my bears on the hillside and two human mothers and\ntheir children, except in their physical appearance, and the fact that\nthe humans would undoubtedly have made a great deal more noise. But the\nbears were handsomer--begging the ladies\u2019 pardon. Their sleek coats\nshone like black satin in the sun, and the cubs were cute enough to\nhug to death. But they were a worry to their mothers for all that, and\nespecially one of them, which appeared to be the hog-it-all member of\nthe family nearest me. Whenever the mother bear pawed over a stone or\npulled down a tender bush, this little customer was always there ahead\nof the rest of the family, licking up the choicest grubs and ants and\ngetting the first mouthful of greens. Half a dozen times, the mother\nslapped him with her paw, rolling him over like a fat ball. But there\ncould have been no very great corrective power in the cuffings, or else\nhe was toughened to them by usage, for he was back on the job again\nwithout very much loss of time.\n\nFor almost two hours, the bears fed on the hillside. Several times\nthe two families drew so near together that the cubs intermingled and\nthe mothers almost rubbed sides. I feel that the interest of this\nparticular page would be greatly increased for many of my readers\nif I added a ferocious imaginary fight between the two mothers and\na bloody feud between the youngsters. Bears do fight when they\nmeet--sometimes--just like humans, only not as often. But it is my\nduty to relate that these bears were at peace on this particular day,\nand that they seemed to enjoy the mutual companionship. It was all so\nfine that I had an impelling desire to go up on the hillside and become\na comrade with them. When the feeding was over, and the cubs were\nwrestling and running about in play, I almost rose up from behind my\nrock to call out my friendship to them. The lack of one thing held me\nback--that one thing which all nature is crying out for--_a language_.\nI feel they would have welcomed me could I have told them I was a\nfriend, and wanted to play with them, and make them a present of some\nsugar. But instead of that this is what happened:\n\nIn their play, two of the cubs had descended within twenty feet of my\nrock. One of these was the gourmand. Somehow, he lost his balance,\nrolled over, and came tumbling down. When he stopped he was not more\nthan half a dozen feet from me. As he brought his fat little body to\nits feet he saw me. His eyes fairly popped. It seemed to me that for a\nfull minute he did not move or breathe. And during that same minute I\nremained as still as a rock. In his amazement and his wonder, he was\nthe funniest thing I had ever seen, and in spite of myself, my face\nbroke into a grin. Instantly there came out of him a little, piggish\ngrunt,--and he was off. Up that hillside he went as if the world was\nafter him. He did not stop when he reached his mother and the other\ncubs, but seemed to hit it still faster for the top of the ridge. The\nmother looked after him, sniffed the air, and rose to her feet. In\nhalf a minute, she was lumbering after him, the two remaining cubs\nhustling ahead of her.\n\nA hundred yards away, the second mother bear took the warning. In a\nvery short time, they had all disappeared over the cap of the ridge.\nI had not shown myself. I had made no sound. The wind was still in my\nfavor. Yet the frightened cub had given warning to them all. For no\nother creature but man would they have fled like that. Even in the face\nof a pack of wolves, the mothers would have turned to fight. Something\nhad told them that man was near--yet only the cub had seen and smelled\nthat man, and he had probably never seen or smelled another. Yet he\nknew, and all the others knew, that man was the deadliest of all\nenemies. And I am half convinced, as I write this, that nature has\nat least the beginning of a universal language, that the centuries\nand hundreds of centuries have given it four words, and these words\nare: \u201cMan is our enemy.\u201d I might fancy that the winds carry these\nwords, that the tree-tops whisper them, that they are in the undertone\nof running waters, that all life outside of man and man\u2019s pitiably\nfew friends has, in some strange way, come to learn them. It is, I\nconfess, an elusive sort of fancy,--but it sets one to thinking.\n\nIt makes one wonder, for instance, why man is so jealous of himself.\nThe Supreme Power is immeasurable, he tells himself. It has no such a\nthing as limitation. Heaven, no matter in what form he may conceive\nit, is utterly boundless. Yet he is jealous of it. He does not want to\nconcede that any other life will form a part of it but that of his own\nbreed. He has tried, through unnumbered centuries, to fool himself into\nthe belief that he is the one and only thing in all creation upon which\nthe Ruling Power of the universe has its guardian eye. He has tried\nto make himself believe that he is the one toad in the huge puddle of\nlife. He has not conceded that an all-powerful but tender God might\nlove flowers and birds and trees and many other living things as well\nas he loves man. And as I sit here under my spruce trees again, it\nseems to me that, just because he has been so near-sighted, man has not\nyet found a faith which is all-comforting and of which he is utterly\nsure.\n\nI seem to see a very clear reason for this. In this age, though\nstill fettered by his egoism, man is not utterly blind to his own\ndeformities. As \u201ccivilization\u201d progresses, he sees more and more what\na monster he has been in the past, and what a monster in many ways he\nis to-day. He sees his breed committing every crime known to the ages,\nfrom petty larceny to world-slaughters that devastate nations. He sees\neverywhere the strong taking advantage of the weak. He sees millions go\nhungry and cold that a few may profit. In great convention-halls, he\nsees the \u201cstatesmen\u201d that rule the destiny of a mighty nation cutting\ncapers and acting generally like a lot of silly little children. He\nsees every man in a great game fighting to see who can accumulate the\nmost dollars, no matter at what cost to the others. He sees sickening\nand disgusting fads come and go. He looks on a world-brothel of\niniquity, of discontent, of avarice and greed and butchery among men.\nNowhere does he see the stability, the dignity, and the mighty forces\nof good that should walk hand in hand with \u201cthe chosen of God.\u201d\n\nHe is beginning to see himself, at last, as a contemptible specimen of\nlife--in spite of his brain and his inventions.\n\nHe is beginning to understand that the most perfect airship his brain\nwill ever conceive cannot take him to heaven.\n\nHe is beginning to realize that there is a thing greater than brain,\ngreater than mechanical progress.\n\nAnd as he comes to understand more and more how imperfect a thing he\nis, the more unstable his faith becomes; and the sacrilegious thought\ncomes to him, unconsciously but with terrific force: \u201cIf I am the\nchosen handiwork of God, then I can have no very great faith in the\njudgment and workmanship of God.\u201d\n\nAnd as the suspicion grows upon him that he may not be the \u201cone and\nonly\u201d child of God, he cries out wildly in these modern days for\nevidence. He tries to bring spirits back from the dead that they may\noffer him some proof. He quests vainly for \u201crevelations\u201d that may\nsatisfy him. He says with his mouth, \u201cYes; I believe absolutely in\nGod,\u201d yet, in his heart, he knows that he is half lying,--because of\nfear of what his neighbor will think if he speaks the truth. He wants\nto believe there is a God. He wants to _know_ there is a God. Yet he is\nafraid.\n\nAnd, personally, I am glad that the time has come when he is afraid. I\nthink it is the real beginning of his salvation and the dropping-away\nof his egoism. To-day he is beginning to see all life as he did not\nsee it yesterday. And to-morrow his eyes will be wide open.\n\nThat is my faith. I believe that God is greater than humanity has ever\nconceived him to be. I think he is \u201ca common sort of fellow,\u201d and I\nwrite these words with all the holy reverence of which the soul is\ncapable. I do not mean to imply that I think he is in my form, or in\nany particular form. But he is Life. And it is his intention and his\ndesire that every living thing that is worthy of life be a part of him.\nI am almost Indian in this faith. I can hear the buoyant, cheering call\nof Life in a waterfall. The inspiration of it comes into my own body\nfrom out of a whispering tree, from a bush glowing with bloom, from a\nflower, from the song of a bird, from the rain itself. I find great\npeace and contentment in my faith that this God is everywhere, and that\nwe may meet him face to face fifty times a day if we throw off the hard\nshell of our egoism, and realize that all nature is God--and that we,\nas men and women and children, are a part of that all-embracing nature.\n\nEven now the sun is filtering through the tree-branches upon this\npartly written page. I look at it, and I see again the inconceivable\ngreatness of the Supreme Power, and my own microscopic littleness. For\nwe of the earth have thought that the earth is great, and that we,\nhaving inherited the earth, are of all things greatest. Yet is that sun\nwhich warms and lights my page as I write--more than a million times\nas large as the earth--more than eight hundred thousand miles from\none end of its diameter to the other. And the still more stupendous\nfact is that this sun is itself only a small bit of mechanism in the\nmighty forces of infinity, for there are a _hundred million other\nsuns in space_, each lighting and warming its own worlds--innumerable\nworlds--each peopled with its own type of flesh and blood, and each\npossessing, perhaps, its own peculiar forms of \u201ccivilization\u201d and its\nown savagery.\n\nJust that great, and vast, and all-embracing is the handiwork of that\nvital force which rules all infinity--and to which we have given the\nname of God.\n\nAnd here I emphasize again that great truth which nature has impressed\nupon me--that, just so long as man considers himself the one and only\nchosen part of God, and therefore next to him in greatness, just that\nlong will his egoism and self-conceit blind him to the greatness and\nglory of the real truth, and to the glory of the faith which might be\nhis. I believe that Christ was a great teacher, that he was a great\nstudent of his times, and incorporated into his teachings all that was\nhighest and best in the teachings of other great men who had lived\nand died before him. And I have always regretted that Christ was\nunfortunate to have for his historians a set of men who were unequal\nto their task, many of them narrow-minded, moved by \u201cvisions\u201d and\nsuperstitions instead of fact, men who believed in all the miracles of\nthe imagination from conversing with angels to stopping the sun,--men\nutterly incapable of writing down calmly and truthfully those mighty\nteachings of Christ which, had they been written as they were spoken,\nwould have meant so much for the world to-day. For I believe, in my\nown heart, that Christ was the greatest lover of nature that history\nknows of to the present day. I believe that in the many years of his\n\u201cdisappearance,\u201d Christ was not only studying the teachings of the\npast, but that, close to the breast of nature, he was learning the\nsplendid truths of life--all life--which were afterward the very heart\nand soul of his messages to mankind.\n\nI believe that Christ, could he return to earth to-day, would say:\n\u201cMy biographers have given you a wrong impression of me, and they\nhave misquoted me. What my soul was called upon to teach nineteen\nhundred years ago, they have clothed in the raiment of superstition, of\nmisunderstanding, and of impossible miracle. For I am a man, even as\nthee and thine. But I have found the true faith. And that faith, as I\ntold them then, depends utterly upon the dropping of the scales of self\nfrom man\u2019s eyes, and his understanding of _all life_. For that I gladly\ndied.\u201d\n\nThe greatest regret I have is that Christ, as a man, did not foresee\nmore clearly the tremendous influence his teachings were to exert upon\nhumanity through the ages. Had he guessed this, he would have written\ndown with his own hand those teachings which were so carelessly left\nto the mercy of superstitious--frequently fanatical--and at nearly all\ntimes incapable biographers. For Christ, of all men that ever lived,\nwas undoubtedly one of the best and the most humble. His teachings\ncame straight from his heart. He did not intend that they should be\nsmothered in hyperbole, metaphor, and rhetorical embroidery until no\ntwo living men could agree absolutely upon their meaning. I believe\nthat he spoke simply and directly, for only in that way could he have\nreached the hearts of the masses. And I believe that the greatest of\nall his lessons was the lesson of humility. As a man, he had dropped\nhis egoism, had submitted himself to the Master of all life, and in\nthat submission he had found the truth, and the glory of a great\nfaith. The misfortune of the humanity to follow in after-ages was that\nthe world of Jesus Christ was small--so small that by word of mouth\nhe could reach from end to end of it. Had he dreamed that there were\nstill undiscovered worlds so great that in comparison his own was but a\nhandful of dirt out of a wagon-load, I am convinced within myself that\nthe world to-day would not be struggling to understand a faith written\nin parables and riddles, for Christ would have set his own hand to the\ntask which others so poorly accomplished.\n\nWith such a priceless inheritance in the form of Christ\u2019s own\nhandiwork, I am equally sure that humanity would no longer have\nan excuse for its egoism, or be ashamed of that humility which\nis necessary to the understanding of life, and essential to the\npossession of a deep and abiding faith.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have, at times, heard intelligent people express amazement that\nI should dare to place human life on an equal level with all other\nlife, that I should so \u201cblaspheme the Creator\u201d as to say that the\nlife in a two-legged animal who can talk is the same as that in a\nflower or a plant or a tree or some other animal which cannot talk. I\nhave sometimes allowed myself to point out the innumerable advantages\npossessed over man by many living things which have no language, as\nwe know language. I could fill a dozen volumes with word-pictures of\nthe thousands and tens of thousands of advantages which living things\noutside of man possess over man, and which, if man could achieve, would\nbe stupendous miracles. But man, collectively, is blinded by his egoism\nto the marvelous attainments of all life that does not walk and talk as\nhe walks and talks. When confronted by the incontrovertible wonder and\napparent miracle of other life as compared with his own I have nearly\nalways found that men and women fall back, as a last resort, on the\nabsurd and shallow argument: \u201cBut this other life you speak of has\nonly instinct. It cannot talk; it cannot reason, and therefore it is\nimpossible for it to have a soul.\u201d\n\nOnce a beautiful young matron said to me, \u201cThere is much in your creed\nthat is inspiring and beautiful, but it reaches a point where it is\ninconceivable, for you must concede that a human being is the most\nperfect of all created things.\u201d\n\nI gave her an exquisite rose which I had plucked from my garden only a\nfew minutes before.\n\n\u201cThere are, outside of men and women and children, innumerable things\nmore perfectly created than this flower,\u201d I said. \u201cAre you, in your\nyouth and beauty, as perfect as that rose?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd yet I know that such arguments as these, innumerable though they\nmight be, cannot prevail until men and women bring themselves face\nto face with nature itself, filled with a willingness and a yearning\nto understand. They point out the pests of life--the serpent, the\ndeadly insects, the plants that scar and poison; yet they cannot\nsee themselves as perhaps the deadliest and the most relentless of\nall pests. For it is one of the mysterious laws of Creation that\nevery living thing--flower, and tree, and beast, and man--has a pest\nborn unto it; and unto these pests other pests are born, until at\nlast,--when the thing is analyzed,--a pest is a pest only in so far as\nits enemy, and not its friends, judge it to be a pest. If the world\nto-day were eliminated of human pests as each individual in the world\nmight judge for himself, how many of us would be left alive to-morrow?\n\nAnd always, when I have listened to the age-old arguments prompted by\nman\u2019s egoism and self-glorification, I love to return to the peace\nand the comfort of nature, whether that nature be in the form of a\ndeep forest, a clover field, an orchard, or the little back plot of a\ncrowded city home. And if I am where there is no cool earth to stand my\nfeet upon, I find my peace and rest in the printed pages which describe\nthat nature-world of mine. From the most beautifully written volumes\nto the honest pages and unembellished fact of farm-journals, I have,\ntimes without number, found enthralling interest, consolation, and the\nstrength and courage of the cool and glorious earth itself. Nature\u2019s\nBible is not hard to find. It is everywhere, living, breathing,\nprinted--the one universal and ever-present Book of Life.\n\nWhenever I think of the commonest of human arguments: \u201cBut this other\nlife you speak of has only instinct. It cannot talk; it cannot reason,\nand therefore it is impossible for it to have a soul,\u201d my mind always\ntravels back to a certain incident in my experience as a refutation. I\ncould, had I the space, answer that argument with a hundred compelling\nfacts; I might answer it from the point of the flower, the vine, the\ntree, the grass that carpets the earth, but I always think first of the\nparticular tragedy I am going to describe, because of the chief human\nactor in it, and because this actor was, in my humble estimation, one\nof the most physically perfect of her species.\n\nI will not give her name. She is the daughter of one of the best known\nmen in the nation, and one of the foremost scientists of the world; and\nshould she happen to read these lines, I hope that she will see, with a\nnew vision and a new understanding, that \u201ctriumph\u201d of years ago.\n\nI think she was about twenty when my outfit happened to join trails\nwith her father\u2019s in the far north. She will remember that early\nafternoon when we camped together close to the Cochrane, in the\nReindeer Lake country.\n\nI believe that I am quite reasonably sure of myself when I say that\nshe was the most beautiful woman I had seen up to that time or have\nseen since. It is simply because of her perfection that she has\nalways appealed as having furnished to me one of the most dramatic\nobject-lessons of my experience. She was athrill with life. She\nworshiped her father. She loved the sun, the sky, the wind, the trees,\nthe whole world. Life seemed to have given her everything that it\npossessed--the rare coloring of the most beautiful flower under her\nfeet, a form that was divine, hair and eyes that no artist could paint,\nand, I think, one of the sweetest voices I have ever heard. She is,\nI have heard, beloved in her own environment. She is a worker for\nhuman betterment, and spends much of her time in actual work with the\npoor. Not long ago she was responsible for the building of a home for\nunfortunate little children.\n\nThat day in camp there was a sudden excitement. Three of the Indians\nhad driven a cow moose, a yearling, and a bull into a small cover. It\nwas a splendid chance for the girl. I can see her eyes glowing with\nthe fires of excitement now, as she caught up her rifle and hurried\nwith her father and brother and the Indians to the refuge-place of\nthe family of moose. She was placed at the head of an open space, and\nthe moose were driven out. First came the yearling calf, then the\nmother, and after them came the old bull. The girl\u2019s lovely face, as I\nlooked at it, was flushed. It seemed as though I might hear the excited\nbeating of her heart as she waited, quivering with the desire to kill.\n\nShe fired first at the calf, and then at the mother--and from that\nmoment all that was big and beautiful and noble in life seemed to\nleave her own body and enter that of the old bull moose. For the first\nshot had struck the calf, laming it so that it could run but slowly,\nwith the mother urging it on from behind. Not once in the moments that\nfollowed did the mother run ahead of her calf. And then I beheld a\nthing that I believe to be as noble as anything that man has ever done\nin all the ages. Believe, if you will, that the magnificent old bull\nhad no reason. Believe, if you cannot sacrifice your egoism, that he\ndid not think. Do not give him the credit of possessing a heart or a\nsoul or feelings, if that sacrifice of egoism hurts you. But consider\nwhat happened.\n\nThe old bull ran alongside the cow, alongside the calf, and then, by\nreason or instinct, he _knew_ what had happened. He did not forge\nahead. He did not race for safety, but deliberately he dropped behind,\nturned himself broadside, and stopped, _making of his own splendid body\na barrier in the path of the bullets_.\n\nI heard the girl\u2019s rifle cracking. Twice I saw the bull flinch, and I\nknew that he was struck. Then I heard her cry out, almost frantically,\nthat her last shot was gone. In the same instant, her brother ran up\nfrom the cover and thrust his own rifle into her hands.\n\n\u201cGive it to him, sis!\u201d he cried. \u201cGive it to him!\u201d\n\nThe big bull had turned. He staggered a bit as he ran, but in a hundred\nfeet he had overtaken the cow and the calf. The calf was going still\nmore slowly, and in my desire to see the cow and the bull break away, I\nshouted.\n\nAlmost simultaneously with the sound of my voice, the bull stopped\nagain. He placed himself broadside, at perhaps a three-quarter angle,\nso that, by turning his head slightly, he was looking back at us. He\nwas directly between the cow and the calf, and the girl\u2019s bullets\ncontinued to rip into him. I remember that I cried out in protest, but\nshe did not sense my words. Every fiber of her being was strung to\nthe thrilling achievement of that crime. She was deaf and blind to the\nnobility of the great-hearted beast who, in my eyes, was deliberately\nsacrificing his life. The flaming lust to kill had driven all other\nthings out of her heart and soul. Her father had run up, and brother\nand father cried out in triumph when the old bull sagged suddenly in\nthe middle and almost fell to his knees. Four times he had been struck\nwhen again he went on.\n\nFrom my experience in big-game hunting, I knew that he was done for.\nYet, even in these moments when he was dying, the glorious soul of him\nwas unafraid. Three hundred yards away he stopped and turned again,\ngiving the cow and the calf a last chance to reach the timber. The\ngirl fired her last shots, and missed. Then the bull swung after the\ncow and the calf and disappeared in the cover. But, as he went, there\ncame back to us a terrible, deep-chested cough, and my heart gave up\nits hope. It told me the heroic old bull was shot through the lungs.\nI did not hurry after the girl and her father and brother as they ran\nover the blood-stained trail. I continued to hear the coughing for a\nfew moments. Then it was silent. When I came up to them, just inside\nthe timber, the three were standing in triumph close to the dead body\nof the bull. Hardly more than twenty paces from it was the yearling\ncalf, dying, but not quite dead. The brother had ended it with a\nrevolver-shot.\n\nAnd then I looked at the creature who had committed this double murder.\nMany times I had done this same crime, but with me, crude and rough,\nwith all the inborn savagery of man, killing had not seemed quite so\nhorrible. And standing there, a little later,--red-lipped, her face\naflame, her eyes glowing, exquisite in her beauty,--the girl had her\npicture taken in triumph as she stood with one booted little foot on\nthe neck of her victim.\n\nWhen I hear of the vaunted human soul, and when men and women tell me\nthere is no soul but the soul of a human, my mind goes back to that\nday. I might tell of a hundred other instances that are convincing unto\nmyself, but that one stands out with unforgettable vividness.\n\nI am sure, for instance, that the soul of a flower once saved my life.\nThis is not unusual, or even remarkable, for the souls of flowers\nhave saved unnumbered lives, as well as giving cheer and courage to\ncountless millions; and when we die it is still the Soul of the Flower\nthat watches over us in our resting-places. No place in the world do\nflowers live more beautifully than in our gardens of the dead, cheering\nus when we come with our grief to the place of our lost ones, giving\nus courage to go on. Take the Soul of the Flower away from us, and the\nworld would be hard and bleak to live in.\n\nTo me, the soul is synonymous with life. I do not disassociate the\ntwo. When we breathe our last, our life--our soul--is gone. The two, I\nbelieve, are one. When we pluck a flower we destroy neither, but when\nwe tear it up by the roots so that it dies, then has its soul, or its\nlife, gone the same way as that of man who dies. I have spent many\nwonderful hours in those gardens of the dead which every city, hamlet,\nand countryside must have. To me, there are only beauty and the glory\nof God in a cemetery. It seems to me that there, if never before, one\nmust come to understand the brotherhood of all life. It seems to me\nthat the very stillness and peace of a resting-place of the dead softly\nwhisper to us the great secret which those who are lying there have at\nlast discovered--that life is the same, that its only difference is in\nform and manifestation. I seem to feel that I have come into the one\nplace where there are only charity and faith and good will, and I have\nalways the thought--which to me gives courage and hope--that this is\nwhy the flowers and the trees are so beautiful and so comforting there.\nI have stood in other cemeteries which, to the passing eye, have been\nbarren and ugly, where man has lent but very feebly a helping hand, but\neven there, if I looked a little closer, I have found the Soul of the\nFlower, the same peace, the same tranquillity, perhaps even greater\ncourage to inspire one to \u201ckeep on.\u201d\n\nI have a case in point, so convincing to myself that all the preaching\nin the world could not change my sentiment in the matter. I happened,\nat this particular time, to be traveling alone in the Northland, and\nwhen a certain accident befell me, the nearest help I knew of was at\na half-breed\u2019s cabin between twenty and thirty miles away. Thirty\nmiles is not a very great matter in a country of paved roads and\nlevel paths, but it is a far distance in a country of dense forest\nand swamp, without trails or guide-posts--and especially when one is\nbadly crippled. Like the most amateurish tenderfoot, I took a chance\nalong the face of a cliff near a small waterfall, slipped, fell, and\ncame tumbling down a matter of thirty feet with a sixty-pound pack and\nmy rifle on top of me. In the fall, my foot received a terrific blow,\nprobably on a projecting ledge of rock.\n\nThe man who has faced many situations is usually the man who is\ncautious, and though I had just committed an inexcusable error in my\ncarelessness, I now lost no time in putting up my small silk tent while\nI could still drag myself about. It was well I did so. For ten days\nthereafter, I was not able to rest a pound of weight upon my injured\nfoot.\n\nWith the music and refreshing coolness of the waterfall less than a\nhundred feet from my tent door, and the creek itself not more than\na quarter of that distance, I was most fortunately situated under\nthe circumstances. The first morning after my fall found me almost\nhelpless. Every move I made gave me excruciating pain. My entire foot\nand ankle, and my leg halfway to the knee, were swollen to twice their\nnormal size. This first day I dragged myself to a sapling, cut it as I\nlay on my side, and made me a rough crutch of it. The second day, my\nentire lower limb was swollen until it had lost all semblance to form,\nand was so badly discolored that a cold and terrible dread began to\ngrow in me. I had only thirty cartridges. I fired ten that first day,\nin the futile hope that some wandering adventurer might have drifted\nwithin the sound of my rifle. Occasionally I hallooed. Night of the\nsecond day found me in the beginning of a fever, and, at a cost of\nphysical agony, I prepared myself for the worst--placed my possessions\nwithin the reach of my hands, and dragged myself up from the creek with\na small pail of water.\n\nI shall never forget the dawn of the third day. Racked with pain, with\nthe fever in my blood, my leg now stiff as a board to the thigh, I was\nstill not blind to the beauty of the morning. The rising sun first\nlighted up the waterfall, then it fell in a warm and golden flood where\nI had made my camp. In that silence, broken only by the music of the\nwater, every soft note that was made by the wild things came to me\ndistinctly. It was a morning to put cheer and hope into the heart of a\ndying man. Then my eyes turned, and, a few feet beyond the reach of my\nhand, I _found something looking at me_.\n\nYes; to me, in that moment, it was a thing living and vibrant with\nlife, and yet it was nothing more than a flower. It grew on a stem a\nfoot high, and the face of it made me think of one of our home-garden\npansies; only, the flower was all one color, with longer petals--a\nsoft, velvety blue. It seemed to have turned to face the morning sun,\nand, in facing the sun, it was squarely facing me--a piquant, joyous,\nlaughing little face, asking me as clearly as in words, \u201cWhat can\npossibly be the matter with you on this fine morning?\u201d\n\nI am not going into the psychology or soul-language of that flower. I\nam not going to argue about it at all, but simply tell what it did for\nme. Perhaps, if you want to lay it all to something, you may say it was\nbecause I was out of my head a part of the time with fever. But that\nflower was my doctor through the days of torture and hopelessness that\nfollowed. Now and then a bird sang near me; occasionally a wild thing\nwould come and peer at me curiously, then go its way. But the flower\nnever left me, and only turned its face partly away from me in the\nhours of its evening worship. For its God was the sun. It faced the sun\nin the morning, wide-awake and open. Late in the afternoon, it would\nturn a little on its stem, and with the setting of the sun, its soft\npetals would begin to close, and it would go to sleep, like a little\nchild, with the coming of dusk. Day after day, it grew nearer and more\nof a beloved comrade to me.\n\nAfter the fourth day, it did not, for an instant, allow me to think\nthat I was going to die. Never for an instant did it lose its cheer and\nconfidence. It was there to say \u201cHello!\u201d to me every morning, and there\nto say \u201cGood-night\u201d to me when the shadows grew deep--and all through\nthe day it talked to me, and bobbed its little head in the whispers of\nthe breezes, and I had the foolish sentiment, at times, that it was\nactually flirting with me. I do not think I realized how precious it\nhad become to me until, one day, there came a terrific thunder-storm.\nI thought the first blast of the wind and beat of rain were going to\ndestroy my comrade, and, almost in a panic, I dragged myself right and\nleft, forgetful of pain, until I had built a protection about my flower.\n\nThat was the sixth day, and, from that day, the swelling and the pain\nbegan to leave my limb. On the tenth, I could move about a little on my\nfeet. On the fifteenth, I was prepared to undertake my journey again.\nI felt a real grief in leaving that solitary flower. It had become\na part of me, had encouraged me in my blackest hours, had cheered\nand comforted me even in the darkness of nights, because I knew it\nwas there--my little comrade--waiting for the sun. For me, it had\nindividualized itself from among all the other flowers in the forest.\nAnd now, when I was about to go, I saw that the flower itself had about\nlived the span of its life; in a very short time it would fade and die.\nOn the morning I left, the petals were drooping, and its tiny face did\nnot look up at the sun and at me as brightly as before, and I fancied\nthat I could hear its little voice saying, \u201cPlease take me with you.\u201d\nAnd I did. Call it foolish and trivial sentiment if you will, but the\nflower and I went together, and afterward I wrote a novel and called it\n\u201cFlower of the North.\u201d\n\nI have often heard strong men say, \u201cOh, that is merely a matter of\nsentiment. Life is too hard and real for a thing like that.\u201d\n\nI agree with them to an extent. Sentiment does not play a large part\nin the world to-day. For sentiment, as that word is understood by the\nmillions, is the heart and soul of all that is good and great. Without\nsentiment in the hearts of a man and a woman, there cannot be the\nfullness of real love between them, even though the law has made them\nman and wife. Without sentiment, no good act is ever done from the\nheart out. Without sentiment--a sentiment that warms the soul as a fire\nwarms a cold room--there will never be a deep and comforting faith. I\nhave seen this \u201cco-operation of rational power and moral feeling\u201d make\nplain faces beautiful, and I have seen the lack of it make others hard\nas rock. Selfishness, egoism, the desire to get everything possible out\nof life, no matter at what expense to others, is its antithesis.\n\nAs I write these last pages, I have at hand facts which seem to show\nthat sentiment, and therefore faith, is as nearly dead as it has ever\nbeen. For science in all the great nations of the earth is planning and\nplotting frantically for the extermination of their fellow men, and\nthis, in the hour when all the world is crying out for a faith, is what\nis being achieved:\n\nDeadly gases that will make gunpowder and the rifles anachronisms, that\nin the next war will depopulate whole regions, men, women, and little\nchildren alike.\n\nPerfection of the lethal ray, which will shrivel up and paralyze human\nbeings over vast areas, irrespective of whether they are combatants or\nnot.\n\nDevelopment of plans for \u201cgerm-warfare,\u201d whereby whole nations will be\ninfected by plagues.\n\nAnd then consider the words of one great military scientist of the\nEnglish-speaking race: \u201cGerm-warfare was tried on a small scale in the\nlate war, and its results have been promising. The method of its use\nwas in the poisoning of water supplies with cholera and typhus germs,\nand the loosing of dogs inoculated with rabies and of women inoculated\nwith syphilis into the enemy country. _Here apparently is a promising\nbeginning from which vast developments are to be hoped for._\u201d\n\nA promising beginning--vast developments expected for the\nfuture--typhus--rabies--the commercial breeding of diseased women.\n\nYes; the world is crying aloud for a great faith, even as it smashes\nitself into moral fragments on the rocks of its own egoism and its own\nselfishness. But there has come a rent in its armor, and as it commits\ncrimes and plans for still greater crimes, it also begins to realize\nits colossal wickedness. And in its terror it shrieks aloud for a\nmanifestation of the Divine Power. It demands proof.\n\nAnd again I say that the proof is so near that the world looks over\nits head--and does not see it. Not until man\u2019s egoism crumbles will he\nunderstand. For ghosts will not come back from the dead to quiet his\nfrenzies, nor will angels descend from out of the heavens. The Divine\nPower is too great and all-encompassing for that. God, speaking of that\nPower as God, is not a trickster. He is not a mountebank. He is not a\nlawyer arguing his case. He is Life. And this Life That Never Dies has\nno favorites. Such is my humble faith.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA long time has passed since I wrote these pages. All day the\ncountryside has lain in that sleepy, golden shimmer that is the pulse\nof Indian summer. The nights are touched with frost. There is glory in\nthe warmth of the sun.\n\nI am in a little valley that I love--Sleepy Hollow, I call it.\nThe farmhouse is old and unpainted, and it has stood on its stone\nfoundation for almost a century. The barn is sagging in the middle,\nand between the barn and the house is an old well that a long-dead\ngrandfather rigged when the timber in the hollow knew the howl of\nwolves and the screech of bobcats. Crowding close up to the back of the\nold house is an orchard of apple and cherry trees, so old they could\ntell many an interesting story if they could talk.\n\nAnd all about the sides and the front of the house are great trees--a\nhuge cottonwood, and ancient oaks from which the Indians may have shot\nsquirrels with their bows and arrows two hundred years ago. The \u201cwoman\nof the house\u201d has been in an invalid\u2019s chair for years, and the husband\ndoes little but care for her. Therefore Life has crept up and almost\ninundated the place. The grass grows high and uncut. Wild flowers bloom\nin the yard. Quail come to feed with the chickens. And beyond this, all\nabout, is the whisper of corn fields in growing-time, the ripples of\nfields of wheat and oats and rye, the music of the mowing-machine and\nthe lowing of cattle. In this little old house of Sleepy Hollow, there\nis a woman who has not walked for years, and who will never walk again;\nand there is a little man with a great fierce mustache who watches\nher tenderly, and who knows that he must go on watching her until the\nend of her time--and yet in this house there is happiness, and also\n_a great faith_. And nature seems to rejoice in that faith. Birds\nbuild their nests under the porches. There is melody in the trees. At\nnight, crickets sing in the long grass under the open windows, and the\nwhippoorwills come and perch on the roof under the old sycamore.\n\nHere are suffering--and peace; few of the riches of man, but an\nunlimited wealth of contentment and faith. These two, prisoned to the\nend of their days, have found what all the world is seeking. The little\nold house of the hollow, even with its tragedy, is glad. And life has\nmade it so, the understanding of life, the voice and living presence of\nlife as it whispers about me now in the golden sheen of Indian summer.\n\nAnd its whisper seems to be, \u201cMen are seeking me, reaching out for me,\ncrying for me--yet they do not find me. They are looking far, and I am\nvery near--so far that they look over and beyond me when I am waiting\nat their feet. When at last they see me, and understand, then will they\nhave discovered the greatest of all treasures--Faith!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nPunctuation has been made consistent.\n\nVariations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in\nthe original publication.","title":"God's Country: The Trail to Happiness","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":25046}