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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
76
But
I
must
come
to
my
experience,
which
I
am
almost
tempted
to
call
a
resurrection--the
resurrection
of
a
boy,
long
since
gone
away,
and
of
a
tall
lank
preacher
who,
in
his
humility,
looked
upon
himself
as
a
failure.
I
hardly
know
how
it
all
came
back
to
me;
possibly
it
was
the
scent-laden
breeze
that
came
in
from
the
woods
and
through
the
half-open
church
window,
perhaps
it
was
a
line
in
one
of
the
old
songs,
perhaps
it
was
the
droning
voice
of
the
Scotch
preacher--somehow,
and
suddenly,
I
was
a
boy
again.
----To
this
day
I
think
of
death
as
a
valley:
a
dark
shadowy
valley:
the
Valley
of
the
Shadow
of
Death.
So
persistent
are
the
impressions
of
boyhood!
As
I
sat
in
the
church
I
could
see,
as
distinctly
as
though
I
were
there,
the
church
of
my
boyhood
and
the
tall
dyspeptic
preacher
looming
above
the
pulpit,
the
peculiar
way
the
light
came
through
the
coarse
colour
of
the
windows,
the
barrenness
and
stiffness
of
the
great
empty
room,
the
raw
girders
overhead,
the
prim
choir.
There
was
something
in
that
preacher,
gaunt,
worn,
sodden
though
he
appeared:
a
spark
somewhere,
a
little
flame,
mostly
smothered
by
the
gray
dreariness
of
his
surroundings,
and
yet
blazing
up
at
times
to
some
warmth.
As
I
remember
it,
our
church
was
a
church
of
failures.
They
sent
us
the
old
gray
preachers
worn
out
in
other
fields.
Such
a
succession
of
them
I
remember,
each
with
some
peculiarity,
some
pathos.
They
were
of
the
old
sort,
indoctrinated
Presbyterians,
and
they
harrowed
well
our
barren
field
with
the
tooth
of
their
hard
creed.
Some
thundered
the
Law,
some
pleaded
Love;
but
of
all
of
them
I
remember
best
the
one
who
thought
himself
the
greatest
failure.
I
think
he
had
tried
a
hundred
churches--a
hard
life,
poorly
paid,
unappreciated--in
a
new
country.
He
had
once
had
a
family,
but
one
by
one
they
had
died.
No
two
were
buried
in
the
same
cemetery;
and
finally,
before
he
came
to
our
village,
his
wife,
too,
had
gone.
And
he
was
old,
and
out
of
health,
and
discouraged:
seeking
some
final
warmth
from
his
own
cold
doctrine.
How
I
see
him,
a
trifle
bent,
in
his
long
worn
coat,
walking
in
the
country
roads:
not
knowing
of
a
boy
who
loved
him!
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