THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1897
■ » - - 1
GDI DEN THRONE
means, if it means anything, our zon with hie glass, hut he muttered: it like mountainous walls, and the
H p pitnvm J highest ¡«leal of goodness. Now, “It looks a hit squally over there, white foam, like a multitude of
[A ROMANCE BY SAMU
that ideal is constantly cheeked as I hope we shall get round it. If it sprites, seem to fly about it, as if
we go forth into the outward uni- hits us, it’ll knock us a good way they would tear it to pieces, and
earn his brightest blessing.”
No, he only earns the lower verse. There is evil, and we cannot off from San Francisco; and I'm in then the ship would be lifted to the
good. The Ijest comes by what we explain it away. We do not and hopes to be there in a day or two.” top and tremble on the verge of
call chance.”
cannot know the universe as a
“ We are safe enough,” said Pad- some precipitous chasm.
“Can you explain this?”
whole, and therefore we cannot de- die. “I don’t see any bad signs.” Then, a new and dazzling horror
“ I cannot. It isn’t at all rea- scribe it either as good or bad.”
“Wait an hour or so and you’ll burst upon the vision.
sonable, but it’s so.”
“ Will theism die out as not hav- change your mind/’
A long line of rocks shot up all
“ Then what’s the use of work- jng a sufficient basis in fact?”
There did seem to come an inex- of a sudden. Gloriously, the waves
mg/
“No, because it was not born of plicable darkness into the scene, dashed against them like a magnifi-
“To put yourself in the way of fact, but simply of feeling. It is and a cold draught of air. Still, cent army, battalion upon battalion,
chance. If you don’t work, you the child of imagination, the off- the sun was shining brightly.
to be shivered into gleaming frag­
won’t be lucky.”
spring of hope. It is a mental
“ I don’t like the looks of the ments upon the intractable enemy.
“But some work ami work, and rnO()(j arj(] not a demonstration, waves,’’ said the captain. “They
“ We are lost!” said the captain,
are not lucky.
This mood will ever come and go, glisten too much, and there are too “These are the rocks of Bell Isle.
“ Too true' but if they didn t
surn,y days over the stormy many of them. See how they roll I know where I am now. We are
work »hey would have no better
There will be many a glad and tumble together. They look driving right upon shore.”
luck. So, the\ might as w« ll work, height in our toilsome way, from ugly. The clouds are beginning to
Calmly, they faced the dreadful
“And might as well die, some of wpence nothing will be seen but gather.”
peril. There was no praying. It
them. Reward is so poor that life ^ „ ^ y . ”
They could see the clouds now, was simple manhood meeting the
is worthless.”
“ Is theism false, because based on faint ami fleecy, hurrying and inevitable.
“Everyone can’t draw a prize.”
mere feeling?”
scum ing along. The wind blew
“Blanche,” said Charlie, “this
Alas for our stars, if they refuse
“Not false if we let it abide there; louder and more chill.
looks like our last hour.”
to
must sutler
the ignominy
but raise
false wnen
when we
we translate
translate it it into
into
“ We’ve
It’s all
Perhaps it ih
is,”
v shine we ..............
.............
.............j Din
e ve got to take it. it's
“ rerhaps
, said she. “The
of failure, I suppose; assume tie - re- a p ropositjoll( and make it a dogma around us, and it’s a regular burri- glory of it is that we die together,
sponsibility of what we can’t help; ,.f Wllrd(1.„
cane. x „ c|d |,p8 plav t,dll <> said Is ,,ot that a subii.
ublime fate?”
and that’s what fate i--
“ Is there nothing that we can the captain.
“You are not afraid, then?”
“This is too tragical,” cried Pad- trUKt lh
“ It’s time for a storm. We’ve
“Afraid? Oh, no! Life is sweet;
die. “Let’s laugh and grow fat,
“ Indeed there is. H«»w million- had too pleasant weather for three but we must «lie, and what we must
and not think ourselves into nonen-,
^reater jg (>ur happiness than or four days. Extremes meet, and do we cannot regret,”
tities.”
our misery! As we follow the ma- now we’ve got to lake the worst of
“ Let us stand together, and let
“ It’s your luck to laugh and
jestic course of the universe, how it,” said Paddie.
us face nature and witness with un-
grow fat. If you were not born to
wonderful, how jubilant it all is!, They furled the sails, but the clouded souls her grandest spectacle.
it you couldn’t do it.”
“A good reason! Let who can When we touch humanity ami wind blew so strongly that the ship We die ro) ally, do we not, amid
thrill with its life, what language sped on more swiftly than before, this thunder of the elements. See
give a better. Whatever we are
can express our joy?”
Pliunder sounded in the distance, yonder promontory stretching into
born to th»t we must be. So what’s
“But if the comet plunges into and the horizon became intensely the sea! Its lofty head seems to
the use of vexing one’s self?”
“Because, if one is born to vexa­ the sun, and the sun’s heat slays us, black. Overhead the sun was just touch the sky, and around its base
quivering forth with a lurid light. now the seething seas toil, as if they
tion, he must also fulfil that law. what then?”
“That’s a long look ahead, and I “I ’d rather see the sun out of would tear it away ami burl it into
Now, how can you answer that?”
“ I can’t, because I wasn’t horn to borrowing an immense amount of sight than looking like that,” said the abyss.”
The grandeur of the scene was
answer it. My native wit fails me.” trouble. We may go to smash, of the captain.
Soon, the great volumes rolled indescribable. The rocks loomed
“Admirable answer, the very course; but what we have accom-
acme of philosophy! When all men plished is a part of the universe, over the sun and the waves dashed forth like an innumerable army of
answer thus the problem of the uni­ and lives in all its endless trans- mightily, ami the ship plunged for- giants. Far a way in the white glare
of the billows and the vivid splen-
verse will be solved,—which is, that formation. The future cannot ward like a wild horse.
change the present, which is glor-
“So far as I can judge, we are in dor of the lightning, thev stretched
ignorance is bliss.”
i«»us in itself.
Our souls are great, mid-ocean; and, if we can stand sturdy ami unyielding. To the left
“ Ignorance of what?”
“Of things in themselves. What not for what they will he, hut for the waves, we’ve nothing else to rose a high promontory, nearly 500
we want to know is not what things what they are. Thought is not of fear; we’ve a staunch vessel and it feet in height; and against it, as if
time or space, for it precedes them.” can hap from billow to billow, al- with special fury, I he squadrons of
are, hut how to use them.”
“Can we use them to best advan­ “Must we not, as Goethe says,' most like a mermaid,” said the cap- the < cean, rank on rank, dashed
and foamed, and fell hack in surg-
tage without knowing what they live in the beyond? Today may be tain.
beautiful, but is it not more beauti-
It was a sublime and terrific ing retreat. It was a glorious pa-
are?”
“ When may we not? That is ful because we dr -ain of a beautiful scene. 'I he whole atmosphere seem- geant. It made death seem like a
ed io ro ir violently, theship heaved wild joy among the intoxicating
what science is always doing. She t°naorrow?’
I hat is indeed true, so we will and tossed, and the immense bil- grandeurs of the scene.
wisely forbears to go behind the
The captain watched every move­
veil. She sees the light and color, dream, and hope, and be forward lows swept against it and seemed
and weaves them into dazzling looking. We seek the impossible; to grasp it with gigantic hands ami ment of the ship, and scanned the
forms; and so life is beautiful. But and. seeking that, we achieve infin-j hurl it on, ami alm«»st spin it around shore constantly. He was a hard
the force she works with is still un­ itely. Otherwise, we should do like a top. The darkness became man to beat, even with all the ele-
nothmgat all.”
intense, ami still could be seen the ments against him.
explainable.”
rhus, thought, many-bued and phosphorescent glare of myriad
“If we could round that point,
“Shall we call it only ‘force?’ Is
n‘flpct'"K I he thousand pos- crests that in mad ecstasy appeared we’d be safe,” said he; “for there’s
there not a better name?”
“Perhaps not, for names are but sibihties of life, flashed and found to strike at the very heavens. The smooth water, and we could land
definitions; and definitions, when manifold «xpression amid this con- vivid lightning almost constantly before the ship went to pieces. If
we come to the ultimate, are a fail­ gemal society. No one endeavored revealed an awful theatre of action the rudder wasn’t broke, I could do
to be consistent, but to be like the
Then camea crash, and the waters it. Which way’s the wind? West-
ure.”
“ Is God a failure?’’
sough ineverenew inbuishies of Iiglu"
‘ u ’'*’
k
' T n° W’ That’8 HghtI
“Yes, as a name, unless we apply and poured fourth marvels of color
' ^,<,< ’ t ’’e ru‘*‘^ r 8 hioke, and 111 take advantage of it. Boys,
it merely to our moods of mind. and miracles of song. Oh, how now we must take it as we will!”
unfurl the sails, stretch every inch
W e say God rules when we are rich life can be when in exuberant
There was nothing to do except of canvass. The wind mav blow us
happy. When we are miserable motion we give ourselves to the ever- to wait until the fury of the storm round that point, and theii w.
we are not apt to believe in God at 5 n i a . « S W i . « : s a 5
• “ ",...... .. r - “ ■
- S ' we can
all.”
“Can we not apply the word ‘God’ absorb and translate its continuous e ° gl,l( c 11. vessel.
Swiftly and steadily, the men
to the universe as a whole?”
wonders!
.
On it dashed, climbing the great worked, the captain’s wife amid
“ I think not, for it does not cor­
It was apparently a* cloudless seas and sliding into the enormous them; and, spite of everv difficult v
respond to the realitv. ‘God’ blue as the captain swept the hori- depths. The waves towered above they set »he sails tncatch the breeze