The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open CountrySeton, Ernest Thompson
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The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open Country
Seton, Ernest Thompson
Clergy -- Fiction; Great Plains -- Fiction; Western stories
It would have been much to Jim's taste to have an open war with Father
O'Hara and his flock. His Ulster blood was ready for just such a row.
And in his heart he believed pork and beans quite the best of foods. But
his opinions were not law; he had been learning many things. Others had
rights; and he won the disaffected back, one by one, by recognizing the
justice of their claims and by making kindly personal calls on each of
them.
Thus Jim Hartigan got a new knowledge of his own endowment and
discovered unsuspected powers. He had held his peace and triumphed in a
number of trying situations that two or three years before would have
ended in an unprofitable brawl. He had controlled his temper, that was a
step forward and he was learning to control those about him as well as
manage an organization. He had begun to realize his _prejudices_ and to
learn to respect the beliefs of others even when he thought them wrong.
The memory of Father Cyprian and the Sioux boy had helped him to deal
kindly and respectfully with Skystein and Father O'Hara.
Strange to say, it was a travelling Hindu who supplied him with the
biggest, broadest thought of all. This swarthy scholar was deeply imbued
with the New Buddhism of Rammohan Roy and, when asked for his opinion of
some Romanist practices, he remarked softly, but evasively, "My religion
teaches me that if any man do anything sincerely, believing that thereby
he is worshipping God, he _is_ worshipping God and his action must be
treated with respect, so long as he is not infringing the rights of
others."
Jim took a long walk by the lake that day and turned over and over that
saying of the Hindu in the library. The thing had surprised him--first,
because of the perfect English in the mouth of a foreigner, and
secondly, because of the breadth and tolerance of the thought. He
wondered how he could ever have believed himself open-minded or fair
when he had been so miserably narrow in all his ideas. Where was he
headed? All his early days he had been taught to waste effort on
scorning the ceremonials great and small of Jews, Catholics, yes, of
Baptists even; and now the heathen--to whom he had once thought of going
as a missionary--had come to Chicago and shown him the true faith.
Striding at top speed, he passed a great pile of lumber and sawdust. The
fresh smell of the wet wood brought back Links--and his mother, and a
sense of happiness, for he had given up "trying to reason it all out."
He was no longer sure, as he once was, that he had omniscience for his
guide. Indeed he was sure only of this, that the kindest way is the only
way that is safe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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