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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
77
He
told
my
father
once:
I
recall
his
exact,
words:
"My
days
have
been
long,
and
I
have
failed.
It
was
not
given
me
to
reach
men's
hearts."
Oh,
gray
preacher,
may
I
now
make
amends?
Will
you
forgive
me?
I
was
a
boy
and
did
not
know;
a
boy
whose
emotions
were
hidden
under
mountains
of
reserve:
who
could
have
stood
up
to
be
shot
more
easily
than
he
could
have
said:
"I
love
you!"
Of
that
preacher's
sermons
I
remember
not
one
word,
though
I
must
have
heard
scores
of
them--only
that
they
were
interminably
long
and
dull
and
that
my
legs
grew
weary
of
sitting
and
that
I
was
often
hungry.
It
was
no
doubt
the
dreadful
old
doctrine
that
he
preached,
thundering
the
horrors
of
disobedience,
urging
an
impossible
love
through
fear
and
a
vain
belief
without
reason.
All
that
touched
me
not
at
all,
save
with
a
sort
of
wonder
at
the
working
of
his
great
Adam's
apple
and
the
strange
rollings
of
his
cavernous
eyes.
This
he
looked
upon
as
the
work
of
God;
thus
for
years
he
had
sought,
with
self-confessed
failure,
to
touch
the
souls
of
his
people.
How
we
travel
in
darkness
and
the
work
we
do
in
all
seriousness
counts
for
naught,
and
the
thing
we
toss
off
in
play-time,
unconsciously,
God
uses!
One
tow-headed
boy
sitting
there
in
a
front
row
dreaming
dreams,
if
the
sermons
touched
him
not,
was
yet
thrilled
to
the
depths
of
his
being
by
that
tall
preacher.
Somewhere,
I
said,
he
had
a
spark
within
him.
I
think
he
never
knew
it:
or
if
he
knew
it,
he
regarded
it
as
a
wayward
impulse
that
might
lead
him
from
his
God.
It
was
a
spark
of
poetry:
strange
flower
in
such
a
husk.
In
times
of
emotion
it
bloomed,
but
in
daily
life
it
emitted
no
fragrance.
I
have
wondered
what
might
have
been
if
some
one--some
understanding
woman--had
recognised
his
gift,
or
if
he
himself
as
a
boy
had
once
dared
to
cut
free!
We
do
not
know:
we
do
not
know
the
tragedy
of
our
nearest
friend!
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