Adventures in Contentment

"And when they shall be afraid of that which is high and fears shall be in the way----" I knew the fear of that which is high: I had dreamed of it commonly. And I knew also the Fear that stood in the way: him I had seen in a myriad of forms, looming black by darkness in every lane I trod; and yet with what defiance I met and slew him! And then, more thrilling than all else, the words of the preacher: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern." Such pictures: that silver cord, that golden bowl! And why and wherefore? A thousand ways I turned them in my mind--and always with the sound of the preacher's voice in my ears--the resonance of the words conveying an indescribable fire of inspiration. Vaguely and yet with certainty I knew the preacher spoke out of some unfathomable emotion which I did not understand--which I did not care to understand. Since then I have thought what those words must have meant to him! Ah, that tall lank preacher, who thought himself a failure: how long I shall remember him and the words he read and the mournful yet resonant cadences of his voice--and the barren church, and the stony religion! Heaven he gave me, unknowing, while he preached an ineffectual hell. As we rode home Harriet looked into my face.