Part 12

Soon after captivating the mother the young man persuaded the girl to elope with him. Having lost the love of one man she was willing to listen to any proposal the lover might make, so she consented. There could be nothing wrong about the elopement, for her mother believed the young man was perfect. It was only a bit of romance, and every girl is romantic when in love.

Six months later the agonized mother received a tear-stained letter from her daughter, written in the city of San Francisco. The daughter was deserted, penniless and without a friend, and must end it all in suicide unless her mother forgave her and took her back home.

Reluctantly the disillusioned mother sent money to bring her daughter back to the old home, but she did not know all until the daughter’s return in charge of a trained nurse. She was suffering from a loathsome disease contracted from the libertine who had dragged her from her home; and is today a miserable invalid in her mother’s house, scolded and abused daily for her miserable condition. The misguided mother will not confess that she ruined her daughter’s life when she turned the honorable lover away, and took the human vampire into her parlor. No, she blames everything on the poor, ruined girl. Poor, blind mother—your prejudice drove the honorable lover away.

THE WORLD IS BLIND

So many of the world’s inhabitants are going through life mentally blind. The greatest education does not always guarantee mental sight. It takes real wisdom to open the human intellect, and education is not always wisdom. A man may be able to solve great mathematical problems, diagram an intricate sentence in grammatical form, name all the capitals and great cities of the big world geographically and historically—but still be blind to human justice.

Without geological knowledge a man goes blindly through the world, stepping on valuable specimens of minerals and precious stones without realizing their value or worth.

And just so, in like manner, do men who are blind to the justice that belong to their neighbors, go tramping on human hearts and human principles without knowing the real value and worth of the objects on which they tread.

It is painful to see a blind man go feeling his way with a cane, but he never creates the sorrows that are created by the man who is blind to human justice and the rights of the people below his station.

I know a man who loves a beautiful woman. He was once engaged to marry her, but friends who are blind to the rights of humanity, no odds how poor or rich the individuals may be, interfered and separated the loving couple. They trampled on their young hearts and crushed them until they bled from the bruises, and made love appear as a criminal and outlaw.

They love each other still, though both are married to another. There is a pain in each heart that will never cease aching, but the wealthy friends who separated them are blind to the wrong they perpetrated against these disappointed souls. They crushed two ideals in the soul of two loving people, but the ideals will never die in their souls. That first dream of love will ever remain the sweetest, dearest dream that ever took possession of their young souls—a dream that died and was buried there and left a grave that is always bleeding.

And yet the blind friends do not realize that the ghost of a great wrong stalks through their hearts during the silent hours of the night, when the world imagines they are sleeping without a shadow to obscure the sunlight of human happiness and hope.

And this is only one case out of a million. And through the blindness of friends and relatives our divorce courts do a big business. Young people who are denied the companionship of the one they love best, and are induced to marry some one else for convenience sake, soon find the matrimonial bands galling, and a separation is inevitable. This is the main cause of so many divorces amongst the rich. They marry for convenience when they find it impossible to marry the one they love.

How unfortunate for parents who no longer care for each other to bring unwelcome children into a loveless world. The children find their environment one of cold speculation and fashionable hypocrisy, and they grow up believing that all the world is like their own domestic relations. Where there is no display of affection between the parents, the child grows up believing that love and affection are unnecessary, and passion is cultivated as a substitute. These are the sons who make the white slave business prosperous. They come from loveless homes, and do not realize that there is any such thing as genuine companionship love. Father and mother lived so independently of each other, spending most of their time at their clubs and at card parties, or visiting abroad with strangers, that the name of wife does not suggest a companion, nor does the name mother suggest the dearest friend on earth to the child.

And thus the fashionable world goes staggering blindly on, grasping at wealth and power and notoriety as the only prizes worth winning.

WRONG ON THE THRONE

As far back as the mind of man can trace the history of the race we see bleeding Right on the scaffold and triumphant Wrong sitting on the throne. If this is contrary to God’s plan, he is slow to correct error. Cain slew his brother Abel because he was the stronger and most brutal. The meek and humble Abel gave up his life to the violence of wrong, and Cain’s punishment was rather mild. He was allowed to hunt a wife and marry her and raise a family, while the name of his victim was wiped from the face of nature.

Again, was it right that Jesus Christ should be crucified on a cross? This is the most horrible death any living animal can die—nailed alive to a cross of wood with cruel nails driven through feet and hands, and left to die of terrible pain and anguish of soul. The good book says God planned it. If so, then God himself indorses the rule of wrong and the sufferings of right.

Socrates was forced to drink the deadly hemlock, for the crime of teaching men the right. Socrates knew that the system taught by the ruling spirits of his country was a wrong theory. It kept the people in darkest ignorance and darkest slavery. He strove to lift them up and free them from their mental and physical slavery. The men who fattened on the spoils of the wrong system realized that Socrates would ultimately rob them of their slaves and half-fed servants, by teaching them the truth, and their natural rights, so they put Socrates to death. God did not interfere or intervene; so he must surely indorse the violent rule of wrong.

Almost every one knows of King Leopold’s cruelty to the natives of the Congo Free State. It is said of him that he had instructed his agents to inflict terrible punishment on the natives if they failed to bring in the required quantity of rubber. Many of the poor, god-forsaken creatures have had a hand cut off, or a foot removed, for failing to bring in wealth to the agents of this monstrosity of a ruler. If I stood on the banks of the crater known as the bottomless pit and saw such deeds of brutality inacted in hell, I could not believe my own eyes; and to hear of such things being done on top of ground, makes one’s soul groan in utter despair of Right ever being able to dethrone Wrong and usher in the rule of peace and love.

And the latest outrage Wrong has perpetrated against the world was the murder of Ferrer, the Spanish reformer. And they tell me it was done in the name of religion! The shameless idea of that half-idiot, Alfonso, King of Spain, ordering the death of a man towering intellectually so far above the pigmy dummy who ornaments the Spanish throne, insults the very fiber of my soul.

Ferrer was teaching the men the science of human rights, just as Socrates had done centuries ago. The crime is always the same, and the excuse for killing the reformer is always the same. The world is made to believe that the killing is done to protect religion, and to defend God. The plot is dark and deep—deeper than orthodox hell itself; for hell is said to be the everlasting abode of wrong, and wrong doers.

Will the mists ever clear away from men’s eyes, so that they can recognize Wrong on the throne and Right hanging by the neck on the scaffold erected by the willing tools of Wrong? Will they? I very much doubt it. The world’s history has been written by the sword of the tyrant, dipped in the blood of the many victims who died for the cause of human liberty, and the sleeping world has been made to believe that it was all done in the name of religion.

Does God care? Go to the graves of the millions slain by Wrong; go to the stake where the thousands were burned and left their ashes to cry to high heaven for human liberty; go to the prison dungeons where the thousands of martyrs wasted their lives and died in filth and misery—and ask there if God cares that this monster, Wrong, shall longer rule the destinies of men. I cannot see a single ray of hope. These insects we call men, are brutal as the beasts of the field. They glory in bloodshed.

THE VOICES WE UNDERSTAND

Even child life is full of tragedy. In their helplessness they stand in the way of advancing events, a mother or a father taken away while yet they need their helping hand, and often the mother is stricken down while the child has no other means of existence but the milk that flowed from the maternal breast of the dead woman. If this is by design, who can justify the designer while looking through the orphan’s tears? No, the designer of all these heartaches and sorrows does not ask to be justified by those who suffer most. The same God who created conditions that give pain to his creatures, also gave the suffering creature voice to protest and cry out against the treatment they receive. Tears and sobs are also a protest against the pangs of sorrow and pain.

Yes, tragedy is forced into each life at the hour of birth. Show me a child a year old, and I can write of its history in a way to bring tears to your eyes, and to my own. Its little tiny wail at the hour of birth is a protest against the pains of the world, and only when it sleeps does instinct cease to cry out for mercy and assistance. For this is a cruel world to be born into. Nature has provided a thousand sources of torture to direct the child mind into choosing the proper way through life. God does not temper the hot stove to the tender hand of a child, and when one falls into the fire Nature does not halt to pull it out and pour a soothing balm upon the blisters. No, Nature moves on as unrelentingly as the cogs of two great wheels in a mill crushing all that falls between the meshing cogs.

I know an orphan boy who was one of several children when his mother died, and was sent from the western home to the grandparents in the East. They were kind to him and did all they could to make him happy, but often in the silent hours of the night, they could hear him sobbing and crying as though his little heart were breaking. They were the sobs of a homesick child, for when they would ask him why he was crying so bitterly, he would say: “Oh, I fear I will never see my little brothers nor my papa again. They are so far away, and I am so small, and they will forget me.”

Something had gone out of his life when his mother died which no human love could replace. He lost something that would never, never be found and restored to the child; and in my blind way I can never reconcile the death of a loving mother with the work of a loving God. Does he love to hear the bitter cries and heart-broken sobs of a homesick child?

Who knows how much influence these bitter cries have over the designs of the great Creator? If God listens to prayer, is he deaf to the sobbing cries of a homesick orphan? Is not the pathetic music sweeter than all other strains of harmonious sound? Perhaps God loves the pathetic and the heart-cries of children far better than the coarser songs of the full-grown people.

We do not know, but there must be some reason for all these sad causes and effects. The child outgrows its many distresses, and the orphan soon lives down its sorrows, and happiness blooms in the ashes of child memories. A loving God would not send all these afflictions for sport. They all mean something in the universal design. Perhaps to soften older hearts and to water the tender plant of love with a child’s tears.

These sobs and tears may be necessary as the sunshine and showers of rain, else why do they exist? It may be as impossible to run this old sphere without human sorrow and heartaches as it is to run a living world without an atmosphere and clouds. Who knows that the clouds do not suffer afflictions when they pour out their raindrops, or the wind feel pain and heartache when it wails at our doors?

Do the trees feel sad when they droop their leaves, or the vines and shrubs feel melancholy when their flowers wither and die on their stems? They have a language of their own, no doubt, and one that we can not understand. Man can only listen and have his sympathies awakened by the voices he can understand. If he knew all the pain and the suffering the other things are obliged to endure, he might hesitate to cut a tree or to plow up the bosom of the earth and force it to produce vegetables and grain.

We are in the midst of a great mystery, and only the songs and laughter, the sermons and the tears of others are evidence that we are all human creatures.

CHASING THE COWS UP

I want to talk today to the boys on the farm, and the old gray-haired boys who were raised on the farm. I think the old boys will appreciate my talk the most because they have had the experience I shall talk about. The farm boy nowadays knows nothing of the old experience that used to come to us older farm boys who were obliged to go barefooted the greater part of the summer and autumn. Say, you old gray-headed farm hand, do you remember how you used to chase the cows up on a cold, frosty morning, and use the warm spot to warm your half-frozen feet? I do. Often when obliged to go to the fields for the cows on a frosty October morning I would chase the cows up and then stand in the warm spot to thaw out my red feet.

Well, that game has been reversed on me a hundred times since that day, and I have been chased up from my bed that others might warm their feet at my expense. Once in particular I owned, or thought I owned, a tract of mountain land. I was saving the timber for a future day. It was all the property I had in the world. The man who owned the tract adjoining mine sold it to my neighbor. This neighbor was an amateur surveyor, and spent much time running old lines through the woods. I thought it was for the practice he was getting out of the work, but I soon learned differently.

He had discovered an old line running through the centre of my tract of mountain land. It was two years older than the line between his new possessions and my land. He jumped the tract and said that all above the old line he found was his—that it belonged to the tract he had purchased. He began at once to cut down the timber I had been saving for a future day, and laughed at me when I protested and told him I had bought the land in good faith, and it belonged to me.

I employed a surveyor, who counted the growths of the trees since the blazes were made, and he agreed with my surveying neighbor that he was right—the line to which he claimed was two years older than the line to which I had purchased land. I was obliged to get up and let him warm his feet in the one spot on earth I had warmed.

It all came back to me how I used to chase the cows up to warm my bare feet. It wasn’t exactly bread coming back on the water, but it was the cold coming back to my feet. I was taken with cold feet and gave up the land.

Since then I learned that the old line that served so well to swindle me out of my mountain land was an old township line, and had nothing to do with dividing the tracts of privately owned land. Did my surveying neighbor know this to be a fact at the time? I fear he did, for he had previously gone over that same township line from the starting point at the river, and had learned the truth about the line through the woods. With this knowledge he chased me out of my warm spot and proceeded to warm his feet.

Strange to say, we are friends today. I wouldn’t do him an injury for any price, and I don’t think he would injure me—any more than to chase me out of a warm spot again, and warm his feet at my expense; for this seems to be the game of life with most business people. Some of them prosper and some of them do not. My neighbor has gained but little. He took all I had in the world, but it didn’t prosper in his hands. I would not trade positions or future prospects with him today.

It doesn’t always pay to chase a man up to get possession of the warm spot he occupied.

It didn’t pay me at all when I used to chase the cows up for the same purpose. The intermittent moments of cold and warm feet made the cold feel all the more chilly when I left the warm spot and stepped into the frost-laden grass.

No doubt my neighbor realizes the same truth now. He would be far happier if he had never wronged me—if he had never chased me up to get possession of the spot I had warmed. We all feel that way, dear readers, no odds how hard we try to hide the fact from the world. We are far happier in occupying only the small spot we have warmed ourselves; for it is not natural to treat human beings the same as we sometimes treat the inoffensive cows.

FLOWERS FOR THE LIVING

Sending flowers to the dead is a beautiful tribute to their worth while living. Some day I shall lie in my coffin with closed lips and folded hands, looking through dead and expressionless eyes into the great eternity that opens to receive me; and those who loved me will bring sweet flowers and lay them near my hard bed and drop a tear to mark the place of our parting. But I will not be able to smell the flowers, nor to see the tear, nor to look into their beloved faces and catch the gleam of friendship and the glory of human love. It will then be too late for a responsive smile and hand squeeze and a tender word of recognition; for I will be far away from the touch of friendship, and only the cold clod of the senseless mortal will be there to receive the gift of love.

Below I publish a bouquet that was sent to me while my heart is hungry for appreciation, and my soul longs for congenial companionship; for we are all groping our way through this jungle of theory and blindfolded guess work, and we are glad to know that others are going our way:

Reading, Pa., January 7, 1910.

Jake Haiden, Esq., Chatham Run, Pa.

My Dear Sir—Permit me to introduce myself for the purpose of expressing my appreciation of the beautiful sentiments contained in your “philosophy,” appearing in the “Reading Times” daily. I was particularly impressed with the article in today’s issue, and thank you sincerely for same. I am looking forward to the time when the citizens of this community will become better and more generally acquainted with you personally and with your writings, and I assure you that if my recommendation to my friends and neighbors will in any measure help to call attention to the increasing value and attractiveness of the “Times,” I unreservedly give it, for I feel that if our merchants, business men and men in all walks in life, should spend a few moments each day in silent communion with you, we will all feel better and accomplish more for the philosophy of “Jake Haiden.”

With my very best wishes, I am,

Yours truly,

JENKIN HILL.

These are the bouquets that give new life to the living, new hope to the despondent, new inspiration to the writer who has often doubted the value of his work. For any one who treads on new paths and leaves the old beaten tracks where the thoughtless millions have trod for centuries, is so likely to be misunderstood. When the independent thinker finds himself away from the old ruts where the heavy chariots of plodding thought have left deep gutters for the millions to follow, he feels that he is traveling alone, and is ever reaching out to grasp some friendly hand and feel the warmth of a congenial living body and a progressive mind.

Some day Mr. Hill will carry a bouquet to a dead friend, but the flowers will not be able to bring new hope and new inspiration and new courage, like his letter has brought to me. And yet, I have never met Mr. Hill, to touch his hand and look into his face and express pleasure in meeting him. Our bodies are total strangers to each other, but out on the sea of thought we met and touched each other’s boat, and now go floating down the storm-tossed stream toward the land of God knows where—out beyond these shadows that hide our faces and our motives from our neighbors and cause us to misjudge our fellow man, and to throw him thorns and thistles instead of the sacred flower of human love.