THE SUPREME TEST
"Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat."
--Longfellow.
The emotions of the woodsman's heart had been in the main cheerful and
full of hope during the springtime and the summer; but when the autumn
came, with its wailing winds, its dying vegetation, and falling leaves,
new moods were superinduced in his sensitive soul.
It is impossible even for the good and innocent to behold this universal
dissolution and decay without remembering that they themselves must pass
through some such temporary experience. But upon those who carry guilty
secrets in their hearts these impressions descend with crushing weight.
David felt them to the full when at last the winter set in; when the
days were shortened and he was compelled to forego his toil at an early
hour and retire to his cabin! There he was confronted by all the
problems and temptations of a soul battling with the animal nature and
striving to emancipate the spirit from its thraldom.
At the close of one cold, blustering day, when his evening meal had been
eaten in solitude, he sat down before the great fire which roared in the
chimney. He read awhile, but grew tired of his book and threw it down.
The melancholy which he had suppressed so long rose at last, and there
burst on him the apparent uselessness of the task he had gratuitously
assigned himself. Why had he ever done it? Why should he be sitting
there alone in his cabin when by his side there might be that radiant
woman whose presence would dispel instantly and forever the loneliness
which ceaselessly gnawed at his heart? What, after all, was to be gained
by this self-sacrifice? Life is very short, and there are few pleasures
to be had, at best. Why should he not seize them as fast as they came
within his reach? Had he not suffered enough already? Who had ever
suffered more? It was only an unnecessary cruelty that had even
suggested such agony as he was now experiencing. He was being cheated
out of legitimate pleasures, and that by the advice of an old ascetic
whose own capacity for enjoyment had been dried up, and who was envious
of the happiness of others! As these thoughts rushed through his soul,
he could not but perceive that he had been forced once more to enter the
arena and to fight over the old battle which he had lost in the
lumberman's cabin three years before! And he found to his dismay how
much harder it was to fight these foes of virtue when they come to us
not as vague imaginations of experiences which we have never tried, but
as vivid memories of real events. Then he had only dreamed of the sweet
fruits of the knowledge of good and evil: but now the taste was in his
mouth, to whet his appetite and increase his hunger. The slumbering
selfhood of his soul woke and clamored for its rights.
It was Chateaubriand who affirmed that the human heart is like one of
those southern pools which are quiet and beautiful on the surface, but
in the bottom of which there lies an alligator! However calm the surface
of the exile's soul appeared, there was a monster in its depth, and now
it rose upon him. In his struggles with it he paced the floor, sank
despairingly into his chair, and fell on his knees by turns. Animal
desires and brute instincts grappled with intellectual convictions and
spiritual aspirations; flesh and blood with mind and spirit; skepticism
with trust; despair with hope.
The old forest had been the theater of many combats. In earth, air and
water, birds, animals and fishes had struggled with each other for
supremacy and existence. Beasts had fought with Indians and Indians with
white men; but no battle had been more significant or tragic than the
one which was taking place in the quiet cabin. There was no noise and no
bloodshed, but it was a struggle to the death. It was no new strife, but
one which has repeated itself in human hearts since they began to beat.
It cannot be avoided by plunging into the crowds of great cities, nor by
fleeing to the solitudes of forests, for we carry our battleground with
us. The inveterate foes encamp upon the fields, and when they are not
fighting they are recuperating their strength for struggles still to
come.
But although neither combatant in this warfare is ever wholly
annihilated, there is in every life a Waterloo. There comes a struggle
in which, if we are not victorious, we at least remain permanent master
of the field. This was the night of David's Waterloo. A true history of
that final conflict in the soul of this hermit would not have disgraced
the confessions of Saint Augustine!
He wrestled to keep his thoughts pure and his faith firm, until the
sweat stood in beads on his forehead. He felt that to yield so much as
the fraction of an inch of ground in his battle against doubt and sin
this night was to be lost! And still the conflict went against him.
It turned upon another of those trivial incidents of which there had
been a series in his life. His attention was arrested by a sound in the
woods which summoned his consciousness from the inner world of thought
and feeling to the great external world of action and endeavor. His
huntsman's ear detected its significance at once, and springing to the
corner of the room he seized his rifle, threw open the cabin door and
stood on the threshold. A full moon shone on the snow and in that white
and ghostly light his quick eye caught sight of a spectacle that made
his pulses leap. A fawn bounded out into the open field and headed for
his cabin, attracted by the firelight gleaming through the window and
door. Behind her and snapping almost at her heels, came a howling pack
of a half dozen wolves whose red, lolling tongues, white fangs and
flaming eyes were distinctly visible from where he stood. Coolly raising
his rifle he aimed at the leader and pulled the trigger. There was a
quick flash, a sharp report, and the wolf leaped high in the air,
plunged headlong, tumbled into the snow, and lay writhing in the pangs
of death.
There was no time to load again, and there was no need, for the
terrified fawn, impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, chose the
lesser of two dangers and with a few wild bounds toward the cabin, flung
herself through the wide-open door.
David had detected her purpose and stepped aside; and instantly she had
entered closed and bolted the door upon the very muzzles of her
pursuers. They dashed themselves against it and whined with baffled
rage, while the half-frantic deer crawled trembling to the side of her
preserver, licked his hands and lay at his feet gasping for breath.
To some men an incident like this would have been an incident and
nothing more; but souls like Corson's perceive in every event and
experience of life, elements which lie beneath the surface.
Not only was he saved from the spiritual defeat of which he was on the
verge, by being summoned instantly from the subjective into the
objective world; but the rescue of the deer became a beautiful and holy
symbol of life itself, and so revealed and illustrated life's main end
"the help of the helpless,"--that he was at once elevated from a region
of struggle and despair into one of triumph and hope. He remained in it
until he fell asleep. He awoke in it on the morrow. From that high plane
he did not again descend so low as he had been. The courage that had
been kindled and the purposes which had been crystallized by the joy of
this rescue and the gratitude of the deer remained permanently in his
heart. He lived in dreams of other acts like this, in which the objects
saved by his strength were not the beasts of the field, but the hunted
and despairing children of a heavenly Father.
The fawn became to him a continual reminder of this spiritual struggle
and victory, for he kept it in his cabin, made it a companion, trained
it to follow him about his work, and finally presented it to Pepeeta.
There were many beautiful things to be seen in the winter woods; snow
hanging in plumes from the trees, the smoke of the cabin curling into
the still air, rabbits browsing on the low bushes, the woodsman standing
in triumph over a fallen tree; but when, on the days of her visits to
the exile, Pepeeta entered the clearing and the deer, perceiving her
approach, ran to greet her in flying leaps, bounded around her, looked
up into her face with its gentle eyes, ate the food she offered and
licked the hand of its mistress--David thought that there was nothing
more beautiful in the world.