God's Country: The Trail to Happiness — John Shaqi
God's Country: The Trail to HappinessCurwood, James Oliver
Religion
God's Country: The Trail to Happiness
Curwood, James Oliver
Essays; Faith; Happiness; Nature
I have read many stories of truth and hope and faith and charity.
From a little boy, my father tried to teach me what it meant to be a
gentleman, and he lived what he tried to teach. And from the days of my
small boyhood, mother told me stories of great and good men and women,
and in the days of my manhood, she faithfully lived the great truth
that of all precious things charity and love are the most priceless.
Yet had I accepted it all in the narrowest and littlest way. Not until
this hour on the edge of the cliff did I realize how small can be the
soul of a man buried in his egoism--or how splendid can be the soul of
a beast.
For Thor knew me. That I know. He knew me as the deadliest of all
his enemies on the face of the earth. Yet until I die will I believe
that, in my helplessness, he no longer hated me or wanted my life. For
slowly he came down upon all fours again, and, limping as he went, he
continued along the ledge--_and left me to live_!
* * * * *
I am not, in these days, sacrilegious enough to think that the Supreme
Power picked my poor insignificant self from among a billion and a half
other humans especially to preach a sermon to that glorious Sunday
on the mountainside. Possibly it was all mere chance. It may be that
another day Thor would have killed me in my helplessness. It may all
have been a lucky accident for me. Personally, I do not believe it,
for I have found that the soul of the average beast is cleaner of hate
and of malice than that of the average man. But whether one believes
with me or not, does not matter, so far as the point I want to make is
concerned--that from this hour began the great change in me, which has
finally admitted me into the peace and joy of universal brotherhood
with Life. It matters little how a sermon or a great truth comes to
one; it is the result that counts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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