Some writer tells that "a geologist has estimated that a single

windstorm across the Sahara once carried nearly 2,000,000 tons of dust

from Africa and deposited it over Italy, Austria, France and Germany."

At the end of four months spent in Tripolitania, John Cornwall's

contract for a year's service with the Y expired and he asked for

transportation to America. He made the trip across the sea from Tripoli

to Syracuse, from Syracuse to Bologna by rail except across the strait

of Messina, and then in a day or so to Genoa, where he took passage on

the Giuseppe Verdi for America.

As he journeyed second-class, which was the way the Y men were sent

home, his fellow-passengers were in the main Italians on their way to

labor in the vineyards and orchards of California. While he spoke

Italian, it was too laborious and incomplete for general conversation.

He had much time to study the ways of the sea, and the infrequent ships

they passed were cause for reflection.

He thought how trite from use and yet how true, truer than any of us

even dream, is the comparison that life is a great sea and we who

journey through, as ships, that at distant intervals dot the surface.

A ship at sea, as life to many, appears a lonely and desolate thing. How

much room there is for ships, more ships, bigger ships, for great

convoys of ships, yet ships as a rule travel alone and not in convoys.

What of the ships?

Just now, there is passing a corporation-owned oil tanker, greasy and

uninteresting. Yesterday we passed several scheduled freighters,

carrying fixed cargoes to fixed ports; the day before a passenger

liner, sailing by the clock, in Naples or New York on Friday, pouring

out its never-ending tide of those going and returning.

But let us not waste time or thought on commercial or mercenary craft.

Here is not interest or adventure or much real return on the investment,

unless your aim in life is to die merely a sea captain or a ship owner.

Let us cruise where the currents are strong, where the rocks are

dangerous: in the frozen North or in sight of coral island or low beach

and palm trees, where there is an uncertainty of return in gold, but a

wealth of interest and adventure and experience.

The coral islands and the palm groves in this great sea are not in the

South Pacific; nor the ice floes north or south of a certain degree; nor

the swift currents and dangerous rocks near some inhospitable shore, but

at home; and the ships that pass are our companions.

And the ships of interest are the barks that sail as fancy whispers in

the chart room or the tramp trader, at Sidney today, tomorrow at Malta,

or the derelict. And who would not rather hear and know the story of

such a vessel and voyage than smell the oil of the tanker or hear from

daybreak to midnight the victrola, the piano and the chit-chat of the

passenger liner.

And, strange to tell, most of us when on a most wonderful cruise with

everything within reach, though out of sight, because we jab our eyes

sightless wiping the tears away, bewail our luck, saying:

"See I a dog? There's ne'er a stone to throw!

Or stone? Tere's ne'er a dog to hit I trow!

Or if at once both stone and dog I view,

It is the King's dog! Damn! What can I do?"

Home again! John finds the boy two inches taller and Mary as fair to

look upon as when first he married her. The house is just the same,

except Mary has taken down the framed needle-work done by his mother

which hung over the living-room door. He asks that it be replaced.

When John and you were boys, back in the eighties, on the wall of the

living-room of many a Kentucky home, was found mother's handwriting on

the wall, done in colored worsted or silk: "God Bless Our Home"; this

her work went to the attic or the ash heap. These mothers are no longer

of this earth.

After many months in "a far country," John understands as never before,

the sort of home that mother made and what that sentence meant to her.

We have dug out the old brass candlesticks and the old tester bed; would

we might find the old, framed needle-work and see again mother's

handwriting on the wall.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO CANDIDATES.

At the close of the April term, 1923, Judge Finch, member of the Court

of Appeals from the Seventh District, resigned.

John Cornwall, though the district was overwhelmingly Republican, was

persuaded by the State organization to make the race as the Democratic

candidate. Not that he was expected to win, but, being a strong man, it

was thought his name on the ticket would cut down the Republican

majority of the district and thus help the Democratic candidate for

Governor and the rest of the State ticket.

Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor, at home for the summer, read his announcement

in the Pineville Messenger. When her husband came home she met him on

the porch.

"I see John Cornwall is a candidate for Judge of the Court of Appeals."

"Yes, I knew that several days ago. He would make a good judge, but has

no chance in this district. I'll have to vote for him and speak and work

for the Republican ticket in some other section of the State."

"You will do nothing of the sort. You will make the race against him.

Think what an opportunity you would have while on the bench at Frankfort

to electioneer as a candidate for Governor in 1927. That is the way

Judge Singer worked it when he was nominated and elected. Besides, the

woman's suffrage organization wants a judge they can trust, and as long

as you are married to me they can trust you."

"But I want to run for Congress next year in this district."

"Can't you see further than the end of your nose. You have been in

Congress; there's nothing in that for you. You better let that drop. If

you listen to me you will be elected Governor in 1927 if the Republicans

win."

"But John is my brother-in-law; he's a much better lawyer and would make

a good judge."

"When did they begin electing good lawyers as Judges of the Court of

Appeals? You are standard judicial timber. And when did you develop such

a sentimental family streak? You have not been to see your mother since

you returned from Italy in 1919."

"Well, I will go down to Louisville and see what Searcy Chilton has to

say about it. Let's have dinner."

Several days later he called on Searcy Chilton. After waiting a short

while he was admitted to his private office. "Well! Hello Saylor! When

did you get in? What do you want? How are things going in the Eleventh

this fall? We must have thirty-five thousand in that district."

"I want the nomination for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh

District."

"Against your brother-in-law?"

"Yes, he didn't consult me before he announced."

"You are too late. We have promised that to Judge Kash; though from the

way he's shelling out, he had better change his name to Judge Tight Wad.

Your nomination would hold some votes which otherwise Cornwall would

swing for the State ticket. How do you stand with the miners? If I give

you the nomination what will you do for the State ticket?"

"I will give five thousand dollars and finance my own campaign. I'm all

right with the miners, if I do say so myself."

"Well, I will think about it and if my answer is favorable your

announcement will be in the Sunday Post. If you see the announcement

bring me down that five thousand in cash next week. I want no checks. No

one need know what is spent this year. Goodbye. Call again when you come

to town."

"In the Sunday Post Colonel Saylor read an excellent biography of

himself, coupled with a declaration that he was a candidate for Judge of

the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District, and was said to have the

backing of the Republican State organization. Though, when Mr. Searcy

Chilton was called up and asked, he stated; 'The organization has

adopted an unbreakable policy of hands off in the district, and local

races.'"

In due course, Colonel Saylor and John Cornwall were each nominated and

entered upon an active campaign of the twenty-seven counties of the

district.

In the beginning of the campaign it looked as though Colonel Saylor

would be overwhelmingly elected. While nine-tenths of the lawyers

favored Cornwall's election, Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was making an

active canvass and lining up the women in her husband's behalf; Luigi

Poggi and several other miners were organizing Saylor clubs among the

miners; and a majority of the American Legion, of course, favored the

election of one of their charter members.

Slowly sentiment began to shift in favor of Cornwall. Some of the

members of the Legion insisted that Colonel Saylor as a candidate was

using his connection with their organization too strongly. He made an

egregious blunder in an address to the Clear Creek miners and when his

speech was reported he lost many votes.

Some of the lawyers in the face of his almost certain election, knowing

that after his qualification, he would even scores with them, charged

that he was unfit for the place; and that the politicians of the State

would no longer permit a good lawyer to be elected Judge of that court.

Colonel Craddock, a retired lawyer of the local bar at Pineville, and

eighty-three years old, published a statement in opposition to Saylor's

candidacy. He said in part;

"Though an old man I am not a worshiper of ancientism. I think I can

give to present-day men credit where credit is due. But when you are old

and experience has taught you that no one is infallible and that every

one at times is weak and therefore you should judge your neighbor

compassionately, it has also given you the power to discriminate between

the false and the true and to see through the shams of life with

accurate insight.

"Exercising this faculty which comes with the loss of others, as the

sense of touch is developed in the blind, and guided by it, though a

Republican, I am forced to oppose the candidacy of J. C. Saylor as Judge

of the Court of Appeals and advocate that of his opponent John Cornwall,

a Democrat.

"In the election of a Judge, the standard of measurement of the

conscientious voter should be one of fitness only.

"Shall not the Judge do right? And how can he do right if he is a crook?

"Shall not the Judge interpret the law with wisdom and understanding?

And how can he do that if he is a fool?

"Shall not the Judge be free? And how can a coward or a tool, worn blunt

in crooked service, be free or cut straight and true?

"What an execration when a Judge is a Jeffries and what a benediction

when he is a Marshall or a White.

"A Judge's mind must be open to argument and he must have power to

discern between the false and the true.

"The Lord, the First and Last Judge, alone will be able to set some

judgments straight and straighten some judges. He in majesty and power

upholds the law, which is never broken. It is man who is broken by the

law.

"The great curse of Kentucky is that many of her Judges belong to that

very common species of Judge. Judex apiarius. Their capacity for hearing

the facts and declaring the right is blurred by the buzz of the bee of

political aspiration and self-interest.

"A Judge who belongs to this species can usually be classed as of the

family Judex timidus,--those whose ears are so great that they can never

lift them from the ground, and when a mosquito hums in Covington their

dreams of peace are disturbed in Frankfort.

"They are the secret enemies of the law's certainty and stability. Their

decisions shift with the tide of popular opinion. They wash their hands

like Pilate (not always to cleanliness) and permit the crucifixion.

"A year or so ago, Chief Justice Grinder, in an address before a men's

Bible class, declared that the Court of Appeals upon an appeal to it

would have reversed the Sanhedrin. There are more than several lawyers

in this State, who, knowing the members of that court, have grave

doubts about it, had that court sat in Jerusalem and the appeal been

prosecuted A. D. 30.

"Saylor is worse. He would make a judicial tool. Judicial tools have

generally been in politics for a number of years and, preceding their

judicial service, a member of the legislature for several terms, like

Saylor, where they are first tried out. This judge expects one day to be

Governor and is willing to do any thing to further his political

ambitions. By some hook or crook or pull he succeeded in obtaining his

license to practice law and since has appeared in court occasionally;

generally when a jury was to be influenced.

"He is more or less a wanderer and, when he changes his residence,

changes his politics and votes with the majority. He is usually a

candidate for office and spends more time on the street than in his

office.

"He is a mere pawn on the political chess-board and his master

occasionally has him elected to office. Then the master tells him how to

decide, not all, but certain cases.

"His opinions are generally misstatements of the facts presented by the

record and never mention an authority cited by counsel opposing his

master's decree. His references are not complimentary to such counsel,

his purpose being to make him appear ridiculous and to forestall all

hope for modification by a petition for rehearing, because it is barely

possible that another judge may then read the record, though it is not

considered judicial etiquette to do so.

"He being the only judge who has read the record, is careful to so state

the facts in the consultation room as to meet with no dissent from his

colleagues or to make them curious about the record.

"All of these demerits Saylor has in full measure. He is known to all of

you. He lives in this county and the county is none the better for it.

He defends every bootlegger and crook that is indicted and they will

vote for him as they respond to his demands when they are chosen for

jury service, which is entirely too frequent for the administration of

justice.

"Thirty years ago no man of his reputation and limited capacity would

have dared run for this high office. Now it is another thing. If elected

he will find some of his associates not much better qualified, so far as

knowledge of the law is concerned. Instead of being learned in the law

they are politicians, who know their district and how to fool the

people.

"Conditions force comparisons. Until the Civil War, opinions rendered by

the Court of Appeals were quoted and cited with respect in every State

of the nation. The Court since in personnel has deteriorated. Its

opinions are captious, partisan, uninspired oracles, which perforce

decide the case in hand; but as an authority for future reference, so

far as the reasons given are concerned, are mere chit-chat.

"When I was young, and began the practice of law, there were lawyers at

the bar in this State and real Judges occupied the bench. There was Clay

and Crittenden and Judge Robinson and Judge Underwood. Now who have we?

Such lawyers as John Calhoun Saylor and such judges as Saylor will make

when elected;--The Lord save us!"

* * * * *

At the November election Colonel Saylor was elected; but by a very small

majority. He ran more than five thousand votes behind the head of the

ticket, and in a district where little scratching is done. The State

ticket pulled him through.

When the returns came in Searcy Chilton, commenting on the race,

concluded his remarks by saying; "Next time we must throw that Jonah

overboard."

A day or two before he qualified, Judge Saylor came to Frankfort, and

visited the courtroom a few minutes after adjournment; he even went up

and tried the chair of the Chief Justice, and found the seat was none

too large. No one was present but Jake, the negro janitor.

"Jake, what do the lawyers and judges have to say about my election?"

"They don't say nothin, Boss; they jest laff."

NIRVANA.

We are told that at one time the British Isles were connected with the

mainland of Europe; that Italy was at least within sight of the African

coast; and that westward from Gibraltar, there was a continent which

ultimately sank beneath the waves, leaving isolated mountain peaks, now

islands and shoals, to mark its submerged position.

The Egyptian priesthood told Solon of the greatness of the civilization

of this submerged land, Atlantis or Kami, even then, as of an ancient

past; and Homer, Horace and Plato have whispered of its greatness.

The soul of one of its ancient inhabitants, yet wandering upon this

earth, may through transmigration have become in part your own, and you,

in reverie at odd hours and in company with it, live again a few scenes

of those old days.

* * * * *

Near Winchester, Kentucky, driving out the Lexington turnpike you pass

an old brick farmhouse of ante-bellum days; flanked on the one side by

an old stone springhouse under two spreading elms and on the other by a

large tobacco barn that looks extremely modern and out of place. Behind

the house is an orchard of ancient apple and pear trees, all dead at the

top, a negro cabin beside which are two black heart cherry trees, higher

than the farmhouse and more than three feet through; and yet farther

back, hemp and tobacco fields and a woodland pasture of oak and walnut

trees. At least this was a description of my home thirty years ago.

I had just graduated from Center College, and having in mind to practice

law in Lexington, had during the summer formed the habit of going down

to the springhouse and under the shade of its eaves and the overhanging

elms, sit and read Kent's Commentaries.

A negro family lived in the cabin, Mose Hunter, his wife and boy. Mose

was as black as they grow them in Kentucky; but his wife was the color

of my old volumes of Kent and had build and features which fixed the

country of her ancestry in northern Africa and seemed to identify her as

a desert Berber. Mose worked on the farm, his wife was cook at the

farmhouse, and the boy, who was said to be half imbecile, was as

harmless and shy as a ground robin. I do not know of his ever having

gone off the place. He was probably fourteen, had never been to school,

and wandered about like a lost turkey hen. We could depend upon him to

pick up the apples, feed the cider mill, water the stock, gather the

eggs and feed the pigs and chickens.

The boy had the habit of coming to the springhouse and taking a nap each

day on the milk crock bench, which had been discarded since we had

bought our new refrigerator. Every warm summer afternoon about three

o'clock, he would run down the path, dodge behind a tree out of sight,

if his mother happened to step out of the kitchen door, and slipping

into the springhouse, lie down and sleep quietly in its cool moist shade

for a quarter of an hour; then, still asleep, sit up and in a startled

way, talk earnestly for some time, his features transformed by a look of

tragic intelligence, which they did not possess at other times. Then he

would lie down again and after a few minutes quiet sleep, awake and

return to the cabin.

His speech did not disturb me; his voice was low, though tense, and his

words unintelligible. Gradually his murmurings became a familiar sound,

as the call of the lark from the pasture gatepost.

Finally I noticed that he spoke in an apparently strange tongue and even

mentioned time and again names given in my ancient atlas. Many times he

used the words, pehu, Kami, Theni, horshesu, hik, nut, tash, hesoph, and

un.

I wrote Professor Fales of Danville about this time, sending him a small

box of crinoids, and casually mentioned the boy and his strange habit,

writing out the above list of words, with others, that he habitually

repeated.

He wrote back that the words were Egyptian or a kindred Hamite tongue.

Consulting the college library, he had discovered that the ancient

Egyptian name for Atlantis was Kami. That Theni was the name of a very

ancient prehistoric city, its location unknown. That pehu meant an

overflowed land; un, uncultivated land; and the word tash, tribe; the

others he was unable to translate.

He suggested that I find out from the boy's mother where she or her

people were from; get a stenographer at Winchester to come out and make

careful notes of his murmurings; and when made send a copy to him and

one to----, a lawyer at Covington, who was an antiquarian and an

Egyptologist.

The next day after the receipt of the letter I went to Winchester and

inquired at the court-house for the official stenographer. I learned, as

all courts in the district were adjourned for the summer, he had gone

to Atlantic City for the month. So I went to Judge Buckner's office and

borrowed his stenographer.

The Judge said the season was dull and except on county court day he

could spare the girl for an hour or two almost any afternoon. He also

asked if my father still had on hand that half barrel of Old Mock. The

next afternoon when I went for the girl I brought the Judge a gallon jug

of Dad's Old Mock, telling the folks I was taking him some cider.

When we returned, we found the boy asleep in the springhouse, but within

five minutes of our arrival he sat up and went through the regular

program. After he had talked for some time, he laid down and resumed his

quiet slumber.

This program was repeated the next day except the girl brought out a

slate and succeeded in making the boy write or draw upon it characters

which were strange to us, and which he wrote from right to left with

great ease, though he could not write his name.

The writings on the slate the stenographer carefully copied and after

transcribing her notes gave me the copies, one of which I sent to

Professor Fales, who forwarded it to his learned friend at Covington. He

not only wrote but telegraphed for more.

Twice again the boy's words were taken down and twice he wrote again

upon the slate. We might with patience and quiet have gotten a complete

history of a generation of prehistoric people, but my mother, who still

looked upon me as a young boy incapable of caring for himself in the

company of a designing female person, and having noted our regular

visits to the springhouse, rushed down unannounced with the boy's

mother.

The two made such a racket when they came in they awoke the boy, who

dropped the slate. He never again came to the springhouse to sleep; and

though afterwards I sat many hours by his bedside in the cabin, he never

again uttered a strange or unusual sound until just before his death,

which occurred in the fall.

In the early fall his father and mother visited a negro family who had a

child ill with scarlet fever. Within two weeks their own boy was taken

with the same illness and a few days thereafter died. Shortly before his

death I went into the cabin and found him raving in the strange tongue.

He had been born on the place. I felt too sad to be curious or to go for

the stenographer, but I remember very distinctly the sounds of the last

few words he uttered, which were twice repeated. These I wrote down and

sent away. I found the translation of the words was; "After a brief bird

life I shall find Nirvana."

In a talk with his mother, which occurred some time before his death,

she stated that it was a rare thing he ever talked in his sleep and then

only used the most common expressions.

She told me her mother was born west of Timbuctu, belonged to a Berber

tribe, and had been taken prisoner and sold to slave dealers of the west

African coast.

Several weeks after the boy's death I received from Professor Fales a

liberal translation of the boy's talk and writings, which at the

suggestion of the professor and his friend I have kept a secret, as

neither of us believed in transmigration, or desired to figure as in any

sense encouraging such an outrageously absurd belief.

The translator and professor are both dead and I suppose their copies

have been destroyed. I give mine to the public as a spooky flight of

fancy unworthy of belief, aware that this declaration will cause a few

half-crazy people to believe the tale is true.

THE TRANSLATION.

The city of Theni is the capital of Kami. The western and southern coast

of Kami and the interior country to the central range is a pleasant

land, where palm trees of many kinds grow and there is much tropical

verdure because on these coasts there is a constant current of warm

water, which comes through an untraveled sea lying west and south of us,

and in which float endless paths of sargassum.

To the north and east beyond the central range, as also the land

northeast of us across the sea, are barren wastes of ice and snow. It

has not always been so. Our records show that centuries ago the whole

land was as the south and west coast country, but each year the fields

of ice swallow more and more of our sweet and fertile land, until now we

have but little space for our teeming population and each year less and

less to eat.

On the top of a mountain south of our city dwell a few strange people

with a strange faith and who keep to themselves. For years they have

been building a great ship well up the mountain side. They are directed

and encouraged in this useless labor by a prophet who tells of the early

destruction of our land by ice and water.

I visited the place recently; the great ship is nearly completed and

they are beginning to sheet the hull with copper to protect it from ice

floes.

For three nights past my sleep has been disturbed by strange, wild

dreams. I see the warm ocean currents which wash our shores, shifted

westward by some strange freak of nature, and a land far north of us,

now ice and snow, turned into greenland; while our whole land is

enshrouded in death dealing cold and ice and snow and preceding this,

the waters creep up and engulf our city. The mountain on which the great

ship rests sinks down to meet the rising waters and the ship sails off

to the southeast, leaving us helpless victims to be engulfed by the

rising waters or frozen by the creeping, numbing cold, or smothered

under mountains of ice and snow. How long before this shall be I do not

know.

I have told my dream to Nefert, the best beloved of my wives, and we

have agreed to prepare against the portent of such catastrophes.

We have too many idle, too many to feed; it were better were our

population reduced one-half.

We will gather all the provisions of the land into great warehouses, and

only those shall eat who labor to build our great pyramid, within which

the chosen shall find refuge from the rising waters and the destructive

cold.

When the pyramid is completed, we shall store it with great quantities

of grain and fuel and textiles to last for years; and as the waters

rise, if they shall cover the eminence on which we shall built it, which

seems impossible, we shall ascend from the lower to the upper chambers.

On the morrow we will begin our preparations, which will not be wasted,

though the flood and cold come not, as it will make for us a most

pretentious tomb.

I shall send a great force to gather grain and other foodstuffs, another

to collect fuel, others still shall be put to work to weave heavy woolen

textiles. Five thousand shall quarry stone for the pyramid of Theni,

which shall be built upon the highest mountain near our city. Thirty

thousand shall drag and carry great stones from the quarries to the site

and fifteen thousand more shall shape and place the stones. Twelve

thousand shall act as guards and task masters, to see that the work is

done and speedily.

I shall tell the pyramid is for my tomb and until my death to be used as

a great storage warehouse; else the people may grow frightened and

desperate. They have not yet learned to fear storage plants. Those of

the people who are too old or too young to labor shall die.

Dimly discernible from the city is the central high mountain range,

extending from the eastern coast far to the northwest and there ending

in a rugged promontory, jutting out into a frozen sea.

The country across these mountains, and even to their snow-capped,

fog-bannered peaks, is a land of ice and snow, destitute of all life,

except a few wild and hardy white-clothed birds and beasts. Even from

the mountain peaks you may see the spires and walls of an ice-encased,

long dead city.

Near the city is a lesser range, upon which to their very tops grow

dense groves of palm and other fern-like trees. In the shelter of these

groves are many villas of the rich.

Upon the highest of this range and near our granite quarries I have

decided to build the pyramid. The task of building, beginning today,

will be pushed with the utmost speed.

The road leading from the city to the top and from the quarries we

broadened and regraded. The site was cleared and leveled and the basal

walls, six hundred and eighty feet square, started. The height is to be

three hundred and fifty feet and the wall angle is approximately

forty-seven degrees.

During the building there was much sickness and many deaths from

starvation and hardship, for all of which I was held responsible, and

until the laboring-people swore at and called me Santa, The Terrible.

Each day the pyramid grew in size; and each night seemed slightly colder

than the one preceding it. It was reported that the snow on the distant

mountain peaks was deeper than ever before.

We now used the lower stories of the pyramid as a storeroom for fuel and

grain and were forced constantly to maintain a heavy guard to keep the

half-starved populace from stealing our supplies. I had executed more

than a dozen who were caught attempting to steal food stored for their

betters.

The warm ocean current shifted to the west. The sun was overcast by

clouds. The earth trembled. The snow line crept down the mountain range.

The land seemed slowly sinking into the sea. The people shook from fear

and cold.

It was necessary to push the work, and, in their terror and to satisfy

their hunger, the whole population labored on the pyramid.

One night, when the pyramid was three hundred feet high, a light snow,

the first, covered pyramid mountain. A few weeks later there was another

and the next morning there was thin ice.

A swift-running mountain river separated pyramid mountain and the city

of Theni from the foothills of the distant range. Gradually the current

disappeared. The river became a salt lake, then a bay of the great

western sea.

One night there was an earthquake, in which we feared for the

destruction of the pyramid, and in which a number of the houses of the

city toppled over on their occupants.

In the morning it was observed that the mountain on which the prophet's

people lived had settled until the place where the ship rested was but a

few feet above the level of our new sea. The mountain on which our

pyramid had been constructed and the adjacent plain on which the city

was built had risen materially in altitude; at least such seemed to be

the case.

Within ten days the ship rode at anchor. Then I knew that my gods had

been good to me and had truly warned so I might make preparation. I

determined on the morrow to seize the ship and retain it for my own use.

All owners of boats had long since fled the land. The next morning when

I awoke the ship was a distant speck upon the growing ocean. It seemed

the gods of some few others were caring for them also.

The pyramid now was about completed and not having provisions for all,

though we of the palace stinted not ourselves, having plenty for years,

I directed the guards to issue only half rations to the people. They

died by hundreds and were cast from the cliffs into the cold waters of

the sea.

Noticing that great crowds gathered in the city and that they wept and

swore and encouraged one another to assault the palace and tear their

ruler to pieces, I thought it best to desert the palace and take

possession of the pyramid, which was full of provisions, and had a guard

of several thousand soldiers.

So we of the palace, some hundred persons, with a guard of more than

three hundred, moved into the pyramid; and, with the stones prepared for

that purpose, closed the entrance hall with fifty feet of solid

masonry, telling the soldiers outside that we would feed them from our

supplies, which we had no intention of doing, except as they might be of

use. How easy it is to fool the common people.

That night it stormed and sleet and snow made the outer pyramid a thing

of milky glass.

The half-naked, half-starved people came by thousands, and holding out

their hands in supplication, begged for bread. But we, sheltered and fed

and clothed and sitting by our fires, had no thought for and took no

risk for others.

The pyramid in the winter sunlight, with its coating of milk-white ice,

seemed an immense half-buried diamond; and we within its heart were not

more considerate of the starving, surging mass at its base.

Through the narrow slit-like ventilators, we heard in the afternoon the

sound of strife; and, climbing to the flat top, where there was a

walled-in area about twenty feet square, looked down upon the soldiers

struggling with and slaughtering the half-armed, starving, shivering

populace.

For sport, not caring whether they killed soldiers or subjects, I had

some of our guard bring a quantity of unused granite blocks about two

feet square and slide them down the ice-smooth surface into the seething

mass below.

After watching for some time, though clothed in a heavy woolen gown, I

grew cold and tired of the sport and went below to the feast, the music

and the dance. There I sat with Nefert and two other queens, not less

beautiful.

One of the guards from the pinnacle came down and reported that the

soldiers had ceased fighting the populace and, joining cause with them,

were attempting to scale the pyramid by cutting steps in the icy

surface. So again I went above and Nefert went with me.

Our guards collected small stone blocks and with them bowled off our

desperate, slowly-climbing assailants. The boulders slid over the glazed

surface with the speed of a swift-winged water fowl and when they found

a victim precipitated him, a death-dealing catapultic charge upon the

heads of his comrades. The effort to reach us was utterly futile.

For several days we found it great sport to shoot loaves of bread and a

few tempting morsels of food down to the starving mass and watch them

fight and struggle for possession.

At my suggestion, to make the game of greater interest, we took the

bread from the crusts and stuffed the loaves with stones. Occasionally,

one snatching for the bread lost his life from the stone loaf. So the

days passed, not wholly without amusement.

The whole land was now white with snow and ice. Great white bears came

out of the mountains of the north and feasted on the dead at the base of

the pyramid. Nowhere in the land could we see a living man.

In our company was a beautiful young maid; and, thinking she might

furnish amusement for a dull afternoon, I gave orders that she be

brought to my quarters.

She was carried thence, struggling and in tears. With her came one of

our captains, who said she was to be his wife, and asked me to spare her

discourtesy for his sake. He had many times been of service, but no more

so than a subject should be. I directed that he be thrown from the top

platform, and took the girl with me, so she might see the spectacle.

The guards lifted him over the wall and gave a shove. He started slowly,

bracing and resisting with hands and feet, but was soon speeding

meteor-like down the icy incline. He disappeared, in the snow and debris

at the base, but in a few minutes reappeared, with right arm swinging

useless at his side.

The girl, giving a cry, leaped over the wall and skimming along the

incline as a swallow might the face of a white slanting cliff, sped

towards her lover. The man leaped to the edge to break her fall and she

struck him with destructive force. They were thrown some distance and

lay still in the snow, which was crimsoned by their bleeding wounds.

Two great white bears, smelling the blood, came forth from behind the

cliffs and feasted upon the pair.

In a few more days the icy waters of a polar sea covered the city of

Theni; and in tears we witnessed the great dome of the temple of our

gods sink beneath its surface. The next week great icebergs were

floating across the plain and above the site of Theni. It grew intensely

cold and the inner walls of our great upper hall were coated with frost

crystals.

The wind shrieked; great waves striking the mountain side shook our

pyramid. The sight was blotted out by a blizzard of snow and ice.

* * * * *

The guards are kept busy with spears and spades trying to keep the

ventilators and the pinnacle area free of snow and ice so we can have

air. Several have been blown from the top.

We made a mistake in the construction of our refuge. We should have

shielded our ventilators to keep off the snow. It is a hard struggle for

air. Tomorrow we must start work opening the passageway for light and

air. Nefert says I should have built a ship and sailed away, as did the

prophet and his people.

* * * * *

Nefert awake. It is dark and cold. The air is foul. I hear rushing

waters. It comes in the ventilators above our heads. It is salty. We are

being swallowed by the icy sea. I have found you! O! How cold! How cold!

* * * * *

I know not how long it has been, nor how many different habitations my

soul has tenanted since our pyramid sank beneath the icy sea and,

holding Nefert in my arms, I lost consciousness.

I am now in India, near the city of Bombay. A city presenting a

magnificent front, but reeking with filth and disease, where, through

the year, cholera daily claims its victims. It is the year 1790.

On the top of a high hill in a beautiful garden are three Dakhmas or

Parsee towers of silence. These towers, built like a windowless

colosseum, are massive cylinders of hard black granite, open to the

heavens.

The parapet supports a coping of motionless living vultures, waiting in

patience to be fed. Here the death rate is high and there are many to

die, so they do not suffer from hunger.

The vultures grow restless; they see a funeral cortege of black men in

spotless white robes; they bear a black corpse in a white shroud. The

body is hastily deposited within the area on its bed of stone and

mattress of charcoal. The vultures swoop down to the feast. In a short

while, satiated, they rise on heavy wing and lazily resettle upon the

parapet.

* * * * *

All day long, my soul struggling for freedom or forgetfulness, is caged

within the body of one of these vultures. I do not see the sun except

through vulture eyes. I do not feed except upon the dead. My companions

are vultures. I am never beyond the smell of the dead. I have no

friendships, no hopes.

There are times at night when my vulture body sleeps. Then the soul

seems to break forth; but it does not go out in freedom as of old. I may

go into the hovels of Bombay in the form of an old black beggar.

Then it is my overwhelming desire to do some act of kindness, but my

clothes are in rags; my face is a horrid mask, and I smell of the dead

and am driven away.

I found a man dying by the wayside, too weak to move, too blind to see.

When he asked for water, I thought now is my chance. I shuffled to the

fountain and when I would dip up a cupful, it became as solid glass.

At a time of famine I found a child crying for bread without the city

walls. At great strain upon my feeble limbs, I climbed a wall and stole

from the kitchen of the enclosed villa a roasted fowl and carried it to

the child. The child took it, but when he raised it to eat, it was the

hand of a putrid corpse.

When I lift the head of the sick, they shudder and gasp and grow cold.

So I return to my vulture body, to my perch on the parapet, to breakfast

on the dead and to my vulture consort.

(End of translation.)

* * * * *

I spent the next winter at law school, returning to the old farmhouse

the middle of May.

The first time I went down to the springhouse, I saw a vividly-colored

golden robin or hangnest restlessly flitting about the old elm trees and

occasionally bursting into loud-noted song.

A few days later I heard and saw him again. He was not so restless, and

his song was low-toned and had a rich and more pleasant refrain. His

notes were of endless and individual variety.

When he ceased singing I heard an incessant warble of sweet, though

feeble, notes and, looking above my head, saw the composer, his bride,

dressed in olive and gold, weaving on the pendulous nest of moss and

horse hair, near the tips of the overhanging limb. I then knew why his

song had changed and understood the happy warble of the busy weaver.

They were so gaily colored, so happily situated, their home so far from

harm, they were so exclusive, that I called the pair the little king and

queen.

Bright pair of boundless wing and sweet song, did you first meet here?

You did not come together. How did the king mark the way for his queen?

Have you searched all the way from Panama, your winter home, for this

old elm, to celebrate your bird marriage, pass your honeymoon and find

much joy in nest-building and rearing a family? Do you know tears and

night and nothingness? Or have you found and eaten of the fruit of the

trees of life and eternal love?

In about three weeks all song ceased. They made incessant trips to the

old orchard and returned with caterpillars to feed five cavernous

yellow-throated mouths.

One warm sultry afternoon in June I sat in my old place by the

springhouse, reading Story's Equity Jurisprudence and, closing the

book, enjoyed the ease and peace of the lazy, if not the righteous.

I slept; and my mind jumbling the springhouse, the orioles, the dead boy

and his strange tale, whispered that my little king and queen of the

hanging nest were Santa and Nefert. Thereafter I called them as the

dream had said.

The little nestlings grew apace and the nest made tight quarters. One,

seeking room and adventure, climbed out and perched upon a twig. Growing

careless or sleepy, or caught by a squall, he half flew, half fell from

his perch.

The big black cat, who every week ate his weight in young birds, pounced

upon the unfortunate one, who let out a squawk of terror.

Santa darted into the face of the cat with such fierce force as to

rescue the baby bird, but lost his own life by his brave rashness.

Before the plumage of white, black and old gold had been marred I drove

the cat away and picked up the little dead king.

In the corner of the old orchard, hedged about by a stone fence overhung

with myrtle and honeysuckle, under three ancient cedar trees, were four

graves; three of slaves long dead and the other of the half-witted boy.

Under the fresh green sod of the newer grave I buried the dead bird, and

marked the spot with little cedar grave boards, on which I carved the

name, "Santa." What a place to bury a king who had built a great pyramid

for his sepulchre!

A CONSCIOUS MUMMY.

I sat under the old elm trees reading a work on Early Egyptian

Civilization, which declared that the recorded history of that ancient

people began when Menes was king, about 4300 B. C.

Placing the book, back up on the ground, I thought of their strange

faith; the reverent care with which they embalmed the body to be again

occupied by the soul, when, after many transmigrations from one animal

to another, having expiated all sins done in the body, it should return

purified to the old body. Assuming their belief true, where now might be

those ancient believers in Osiris, Ra, Horus, Isis, Set and other nature

gods, having ages before bowed in submission to Bes, the god of death?

How limited is sense; how weak intellect; how short bodily life. Yet the

very frailty and uncertainty of life establishes the immortality of the

soul and the soul, in turn, gives spontaneous testimony to God and of a

life within which the body does not own.

Nature was enjoying her afternoon siesta. Over the hills so far away as

to make it a picture, a threshing machine was eating wheat shocks and

blowing forth a golden dust-like breath of straw. The incessant sawing

of harvest flies, a heavy country dinner and the afternoon glow and heat

conspired to drive me into the springhouse, where the coolness and peace

of the place brought a bodily laziness, and, lying down on the old stone

shelf, I slept.

Three walls of the springhouse grew as the palace walls of Aladdin; the

front rolled up as the curtain for a drama; and between great columns of

red granite and porphyry, chiseled with hieroglyphics and decorated

with the symbols of Amun and Osiris, I looked out upon a grove of date

palms, the pyramid of Sneferru, an island sea of yellow flood water, and

yet beyond, the low hills of Arabia. A view seemingly as familiar as the

one from my bedroom window.

It was the Nile valley at Meidoom; Aur-Aa was at flood stage, then

nearly fifty feet above the normal level, Now, after centuries, the

valley has been filled by river silt and the tide is much shallower.

The beauty and changefulness of that narrow valley by comparison with

the monotonous lands which flank it gave promise of a happy people.

Hemmed in on the west by the sand hills of Libya and on the east by the

equally bare, dry, never-changing hills of Arabia; teeming with people

as the channels of an ant hill with ants; intensively cultivated, some

of the crops like the dhourra or millet, the principal food of the poor,

returning to the sower two hundred and fifty times its seed; shaded by

date palms which yield abundant and delicious fruit; a land with a

delightful climate seasonably watered, fertilized by yearly tides and

protected from invasion by wide deserts of soft sand; why should we not

have been a happy people?

Because no one is free. We are enslaved by caste, a most merciless

master, by the priesthood, by our king. We work continually, but for

others. Happy he, who when life is done, after contributing to the

priesthood and the king, after sacrificing to a hundred gods, leaves

sufficient estate to pay for the embalming of and a safe resting place

for his body.

This is the best of a short life, with the sad hope that after you have

been many times a lower form of life, you may return to your old body

if, perchance, it may be found. Far better off the unclean fish, which,

when the flood recedes, gasp themselves to death in shallow pools,

choked by the sand.

I rose from my couch and walked out where a better view might be had of

the river and the valley.

Near a small eminence more than sixty feet above the flood tide was a

great fleet of barges and rafts of logs, which had borne heavy blocks of

cut stone from far to the southward down on the tide to construct our

tombs and temples.

Upon the rafts and barges low caste humanity, driven by the lash to

tortured effort, swarmed and sweated and groaned that some high priest

or royal personage might in mummied grandeur await his soul's return to

its foul, flinty, wrinkled and desolate home. Near, floating northward

with the tide, was a great obelisk of granite weighing more than forty

tons, held upon the surface by parallel rafts of buoyant logs and

inflated skins.

I was head embalmer, one of the priesthood and, therefore, considered

one of the fortunate ones.

The city of Meidoom was called the City of the Dead, because at that

time, 3750 B. C., it was the place of burial of the royalty and

priesthood of Men-nefu, which name means secure and beautiful, and which

centuries later was changed to Memphis.

Meidoom's population, near forty thousand, consisted of more than two

thousand priests with their families and retainers and twenty thousand

laborers and overseers. The majority are engaged in the construction of

temples and sarcophagi.

The people are firm believers in a future state and therefore very

religious. The priests act as intercessors between the people and their

many gods, look after the sacred animals of the temples, are

professional embalmers, architects and custodians of the tombs.

The priesthood hold high social rank, are exempt from taxes, but do not

practice celibacy or asceticism. Their ranks are recruited by heredity

or from the nobility; and it is not uncommon for a prince to surrender

his claim of succession to assume the office of high priest.

Had there been occasion for a test of power between the government and

the priesthood, the priestly orders would have been found the real

rulers.

Amun is the chief or spiritual god of the Egyptians. The name means The

Hidden One; and he controls the conscience and the soul.

Rahotep is chief priest of Amun and the keeper of the Book of Death. He

and all the priesthood of Amun wear a costume of white linen decorated

with the blue figure of a man having the head of a ram and carrying in

his hand a sharsh, the symbols of Amun. The chief priest in addition

wears the royal symbol with two long feathers as a head dress.

Osiris is the god of good, in contradistinction to Set, the god of evil.

He is the god of the Nile and the guardian and preserver of the human

body after death. His symbol is a mummy wearing a royal crown and

ostrich plumes. The god of the sun is the soul of Osiris. The white

linen gowns of the priests of Osiris have a figured border of mummies in

black, wearing crowns and ostrich plumes. Nefermat, chief priest, in

addition wears the royal insignia.

At this time, besides many shrines, there are three temples at Meidoom,

the temple of Amun, the temple of Osiris and the temple of The Dead. The

two orders of the priesthood are presided over by Rahotep and Nefermat,

the two sons of Sneferru, who, occupying their priestly positions at

his demise, the succession passed to Khufa, a brother, who married

Neferma, the widow of Sneferru.

As chief embalmer I had charge of the temple of the Dead, where both

orders of the priesthood officiated, since the one god, Amun, having

charge of the soul, and the other, Osiris, of the body, perforce met

officially, though usually holding little communication with each other.

As I stood at the portal two processions of priests drew near, the one

led by Rahotep, the other by Nefermat. These two, leaving their

attendants, entered the temple.

As they passed I bowed low to earth and followed into the corridor,

there they found seats, and I stood before them awaiting their commands.

Rahotep said, "Our mother, the queen, has just died; after her body is

partly embalmed they will bring it here from Men-nefer, when you,

because of your skill, are to prepare it to rest in the vault of the

great pyramid beside our father Sneferru, in care of Osiris, until Amun

shall see fit to surrender her soul again to her body."

(Nefermat) "You mean, until Osiris shall deem her soul sufficiently

purified to re-enter her body."

"No, as Amun is the superior of Osiris, so is the soul master of its

tenement, the body, though it is by the grace of Osiris that the body is

preserved until Amun has purified the soul for another human existence."

"You are wrong; in all sacred animals human souls dwell; it is only when

those souls are made pure that Osiris permits them to occupy a human

form. * * * Tepti, priest of Osiris, embalmer of and dweller with the

dead and custodian of the temple of the Dead, what say you as to the

body and the soul?"

"Pardon, Most Exalted of Osiris, am I to look upon your question as a

command?"

"Yes."

"My belief, of which I am not master, I have kept unto myself and if put

into words is but spoken ignorance. To become an expert embalmer I

experimented on the bodies of many animals not sacred to our gods and

discovered that they were as easily preserved as the bodies of men. This

forced the conclusion that if man was specially favored of the gods, it

was not in bodily composition; therefore, it would seem, the body is not

sacred and is unworthy of the great expenditure of time and wealth which

we give it as priests of Osiris. The body after death is as the husk of

a nut from which the kernel has been extracted and our people would be

better off were it burned as the refuse of earth. We of Osiris, who say

the body must not perish, know better than anyone else that it does

perish. If there is a difference between the body of a man and an

animal's, that distinction departs at death; therefore, the distinction

is life or a part of life and the questions presented are: What is life?

What is there in man besides matter? When an animate being dies, the

body, the mortal, is left; life departs. I do not see it go; I know not

where it goes. If it is a man who dies, we say the soul has left the

body, because we are men; if it is an animal, we say life has left the

body. What is the difference between life and the soul? All I know is

that I have a body which perishes and that, distinct from the body, I

have the power to think, which power troubles me more than my body, and

which power I may lose when life leaves the body. My power to think is

so limited that its indulgence is like pulling one's self up to the

stars by one's toes. I know I cannot answer the following questions:

"'What is truth?' Though I once heard a child of five answer that truth

is the right.

"'What is life?' Though I am told it is the principle of animate

corporeal existence.

"'What is death?' This I do not know, since I cannot define life, as

death is the cessation of life or the beginning of a higher life.

"Since animals think, some more than some men (the feeble-minded), do

they have souls? If so, where do their souls go?

"Is the source of new life in the soul?

"It seems we believe souls have existed from the beginning, since they

never die but are transmigrated. Is immortality a divine gift or an

inherent property of the soul?

"And of you, Chief Priest of Osiris, head of our order, I would

respectfully ask:

"'Does the soul assume a body akin to its own nature?

"'Should I live to be very old, dwarfed in limb and blind, when my soul

returns to its preserved mummy, which you maintain it does, will I rise

again, old and blind and weak? If not why preserve the body?

"'Will I know the friends of my former life if they return to their

bodies in the same period?

"'Your still-born brother, whose body I embalmed, had he yet a soul, and

when his soul returns to his body, will it have life?

"'There is a mummy in one of the old tombs with two heads and on one

body; has that body one or two souls? And if two souls, will they be

purified and return together to the body, though one be good and the

other bad?'

"I believe not in Osiris; nor that my soul after many transmigrations

shall find and reanimate its rejected tenement. Yet I know no other god

or even if I have a soul. Can I by searching find out truth or the true

God? Will there be a time when the truth shall be made clear? I know

that error is spread over all things; that the race is not to the swift,

neither the battle to the strong. That he who disdains ease and comfort,

though poverty is a disgrace and misfortune a crime, recognizes that

wealth consists not in great possessions but in few wants; looking upon

ownership as a trusteeship and therefore a responsibility; content with

what life gives; thinking himself and conceding to others the right to

think; living and letting others live; believing there is nothing after

death and death is nothing; is as well off as he who struggles to be a

blind leader of the blind. Would I could believe that we shall live many

lives and each a preparation for a higher one. Our religion, like our

government, as it grows old grows complex and rotten. What we need is a

simple government, a simple faith and one God."

(Nefermat) "What you say is the vilest sacrilege. Your belief, if

general, would lead to chaos; to the destruction of our holy order. You

shall find there is a hell for the unbeliever; your mortal life shall

end and your immortal begin as soon as our mother's body is prepared for

Osiris. You shall know the difference between soul and body and have

your doubts as to a future state tested and dissolved."

(Rahotep) "I would not be too hasty with the death sentence. What

matters it what Tepti may think! He is a good embalmer, reticent of

speech and his belief in death and nothingness if expressed would

neither find believers nor corrupt our faith. The thought of

non-existence is not acceptable to the Egyptians; it lacks enthusiasm,

it lacks certainty, it lacks hope; there is no appeal to pride or

power."

(Nefermat) "I cannot overlook such utterances from a priest of Osiris;

he must die."

(Rahotep) "He is one of your priesthood; you are sole arbiter of his

life or death, but were he one of Amun's and I demanding his opinion had

been so answered, and it was delivered as to stone ears, as his was to

us, I would pass it by. However, if you are bent on his death, which I

regret, I would ask his body, hoping by my intercession, Amun may

convince him he has a soul."

(Nefermat) "As you like. I am through with the sacrilegious beast as

soon as he is dead. I would not give his body tomb room in the temple of

the dead."

Whereupon the two high priests departed, leaving me with very sober

thoughts.

Within an hour, three priests of our order, the death watch, took up

their abode in my chambers, which I was not permitted to leave, and this

watch was continued to the end.

On the next day the body of the queen arrived from Men-nefer and I was

directed to complete the embalming already begun. This occupied a

fortnight.

The day the embalming was completed Rahotep came to my chamber and,

sending the guards from the room, said:

"On the morrow at sunrise you will be strangled to death, after which

your body will be delivered to me for disposition. When it is carefully

embalmed I shall place it in a new tomb in the temple of Amun and it

shall become sacred to him. The tomb is so constructed that light and

air penetrates through slits in the portal and it may be entered from

the temple by members of our order. Amun will permit your soul to occupy

and grow in your mummied body. You have said you are not afraid of

death. Neither you nor any other man knows what lies beyond. It is not

the end of things as you declare but the beginning of the thought life.

Living through the ages in your old shell you shall learn that the

infinite is the author of all things and from the order and harmony of

nature you shall deduce the existence of God and the immortality of the

soul. You shall learn that the soul is an immaterial being which can go

where the body can not and can live where the body cannot live and is so

sometimes punished. That its controlling force is not the body nor even

the mind but a power which pervades all space, which has existed from

the beginning, looking after the universe and each creature therein.

This is the infinite, the beginning, the end of all things, which,

lacking a better name and light to discern, I call Amun, The Great, The

Only One. The wind has not a body, yet you know the wind blows; light

has not substance, yet you feel and see it and know it comes from the

worlds in the skies. Your soul has existed from the beginning as a part

of the infinite. It came into existence as the angels of light and

darkness. It is of the size of the faith that is in you and yours is

quite small. Yours shall grow during the ages, as Amun is about to begin

its experience, which each soul is to have, though the experience given

each is different, being judged and punished or rewarded according to

the light given, which in every case is dim. You are first to be turned

over to Phtha, the great father of beginnings. Your little seed of a

soul, assuming the form of a beetle, shall remain in your mummified

body. Your embalming robes shall be decorated with his sign, the

scarabeus. Your body will be carefully watched by our priesthood to

observe the growth of your soul and know that you finally believe in its

existence and the infinite power of God. You shall pass through the

valley of humiliation, living as the Chelas live upon your own soul.

Your suffering shall bring improvement and growth until your soul shall

prove sufficient unto itself, since it shall know God and itself.

Finally it shall part company with your mummied body and become a part

of the light of the world."

I arose at daylight the next morning and, after carefully bathing,

rubbed my whole body with a preparation for closing the pores; then,

retiring to a couch, drank a vial of most precious and potent embalming

fluid, which, knowing death to be near, I had secreted when preparing

the mummy of the queen.

I felt a contraction of my stomach, an icy chill, a gradual though rapid

cessation of consciousness and being. For what period I know not I slept

the sleep of death.

Sluggishly in my dead frame fluttered a something. For days or years, I

know not, there was a mere sense of spiritual life or being and a

fluttering of body as of a small numbed insect; was it a scarabeus? This

was succeeded in time by an acuter consciousness, when I saw my puny

soul in its bare weakness.

Then began the journey through the valley of humiliation and suffering,

when soul lived upon and thought only of self and its escape. Through

ages of suffering and loneliness and blackness, my only thought was a

constant prayer for absolute non-existence. Within the heart of my tiny

soul there began to grow a germ-like conception and reverence for God.

With this thought the soul seemed to take unto itself strength to make

feeble efforts to tear a way through its coffin of flinty skin and in

feeble flight bounded and pounded incessantly on its case of parchment,

as a drummer on his drum, with a ceaseless, monotonous, drum, drum,

drum.

Finally, through the mummy eyes, there seemed to come dim rays of light.

Then the feeble soul stationed itself immediately behind them and prayed

only for light. And, after a thousand years, enough light was given to

see crevices in the tomb and shifting grains of sand drift through. Life

before had been so bare that the mere seeing of the flight of a grain of

sand into that place of utter calm and monotony was as an angel visit to

the disconsolate of earth.

Now the all-absorbing desire was for more light; for freedom to break

through the prison walls of flinty skin and have one peep at earth and

sun. Then, remembering how I had stolen our most potent embalming fluid

and used it on my own body, I attributed continued imprisonment to its

preservative properties and looked upon myself as my own jailer.

As the soul grew, reason discarded this thought and fixed upon my

imprisonment as punishment for disbelief. Seemingly, ages went by; the

soul passed through a period of great remorse; remorse grew to

repentance, and repentance to hope and faith.

Then my soul seemed to fill the whole mummied frame and gained strength

until it acquired the power of motion. I could shift position and look

out upon the valley of Aur-Aa, now called Nilus, where, as time passed,

I saw the maturity and wane of Egyptian power and the iron hand of Rome

reach out in conquest.

The vandal hand of a conquering Roman tore loose the stone portal of the

tomb, and mummy and imprisoned soul were carried across the great sea

and with other husks of former life exhibited in the triumph of

Octavius; then placed in a museum to be gazed upon by the curious of

Rome.

One night robbers broke into the room, thinking the dead carried their

treasures with them, and unwound our grave cloths. My soul pounded and

tore at its case, hoping pantingly that they might break the parchment

shell; but all they did was to remove a string of turquoise and porphyry

beetle-shaped beads. When morning came the mummies were rewrapped and

returned to the exhibit slab.

As the crowds passed by, if one, perchance, looked into my sunken eyes,

the soul, watching hungrily beneath, looked out with an intensity and

read his very inmost mind and most secret thought; and some there were

who seemed to know the meaning of my look.

When I read thoughts of doubt, such as I had known in life, I sought

with utmost soul strength to convey to them some warning and some hope;

and as I struggled thus, there came rifts of light into my prison as

from a higher life.

One day a noble Roman youth came strolling by with a companion and,

stooping, gazed upon my form.

"See, Marcus! How much better preserved this man of ancient Egypt is

than the others. Look! In his sunken eyes you may discern a glimmer as

of intense life; of consciousness; I feel his look, as though he read me

through and through and would speak in advice or warning."

"Oh! Come on! You have eaten too heavily or else departed from your

stoical way and conscience has made you uneasy; else you could not

attribute life to this foul shell, dead these three thousand years."

"I shall return alone tomorrow when the light is better and have a good

look."

At noon the next day, when the sunlight rested on my slab, the youth

returned and, bending over my black parchment face, peered into the

hollow eye holes; and in some weird way I held communion with him. When

he left, my soul seemed to go along, a companion of his own.

Lost in thought, he walked a long way into the poorer quarter of the

city, where there was much squalor and suffering. He was aroused by the

cries of women and children driven from their squalid homes by a band of

Nero's condottieri, who then set fire to their deserted hovels.

He rushed to their rescue, remonstrating with the soldiers. They refused

to desist, telling him that the people were of the new sect, the

Christians; and their orders were to burn them out. He was assaulted by

them, resisted, killed two and was himself slain.

His soul as a great white bird, with a brilliancy as of the sun, left

his body and flew heavenward. My own returned to its mummied chamber.

But the chamber had been reformed; it was of many hued crystal, of

expansive wall and gave forth a light all its own. I settled upon a

couch and drifted into a restful peace.

My own soul became as the tabernacle of God. All tears were wiped away

by the conqueror of sorrow and pain and death. I had found the Father;

the Father a son; and I entered into the place where God is the Light.

In the meantime Rome burned. The fire, started by Nero's soldiers near

the Palatine Hill, spread from house to house and quarter to quarter

until it reached my couch. The old shell parted and burned as tinder.

Then the mortal put on immortality and the shackled darkness of the old

soul gave place to light and liberty.

I awoke. It was near twilight; the world seemed new and fresh, but it

was the old home place.

I bent over and examined my couch; it was the old slab shelf of the

springhouse. Looking along its raised edge, which I had used as a

pillow, I noticed for the first time crude strange characters or letters

cut in the stone.

That night I asked my father the history of the slab. He said he had

brought it from the Stoner Creek farm near Wade's Mill, where it had

been plowed up in cultivating over a small Indian mound.

I came to the conclusion the slab possessed weird properties, making it

a restless and unsatisfactory couch, and thereafter I called it the

dream bench.

DOCTOR BROWN OF DANVILLE.

Incidentally I took up stenography, its usefulness having been impressed

upon me by my inability to transcribe the narrative of the feeble-minded

black boy.

The winter following his death, attending law school at the University

of Virginia, I continued its study and practice and found it quite an

aid in jotting down the lectures. By the following summer I had grown to

be quite an efficient stenographer.

That summer, shortly after I had my disturbing dream as a priest of

Osiris, the Kentucky synod of the Southern Presbyterian Church met at

Winchester. My mother, a member of the First Presbyterian Church,

entertained two of the visiting preachers, both of whom were personal

friends of Doctor Chisholm. One was from the western portion of the

State, I believe Owensboro, the other, Doctor Brown, of Danville.

Doctor Brown rarely smiled; his poise was indicative of the utmost

self-control, his form lank, his hair heavy and graying at the temples,

his general appearance giving evidence of a clean, active ascetic life

and a strong moral and physical make-up. He was inclined to keep the

light of his conversational powers under a bushel, and at times spoke

only when aroused from apparent self-centered thought. His voice was

deep and pleasant, his diction and expression perfect, his thoughts,

clothed in finished sentences, were entertainingly expressed and at

times exhibited a rich vein of the choicest humor. He was the leading

member of the conference--certainly the brainiest--and it fell to his

lot to deliver the most important address of the gathering.

He seemed to fancy the old springhouse, its quiet coolness and the

spreading elms. Except at mealtime he did all his drinking from its cool

fountain and out of the old gourd dipper, though mother insisted on

sending a glass down for his service.

Several times I found him sitting in the rustic chair by the door

jotting down notes for some address or sermon, but never seated on the

old stone bench.

On Monday at breakfast, following a busy Sunday, on which he had

preached two exceptionally good sermons, and, following the noonday

service, greeted lengthily and cordially seemingly every member of the

large congregation, I noticed his usually active manner had given place

to a languorous calm.

So I went down to the springhouse, carried the rustic chair into the

open beyond the shade and carefully loosened and removed one of the

legs, placing the chair in such a position as to show it was

unserviceable and undergoing repairs; then I returned to the house.

In about an hour Doctor Brown left the library for the springhouse,

carrying a couple of books and a scratch pad under his arm.

When he saw the condition of the chair he walked within and found a seat

on the old stone bench. After resting for some time he stretched his

form on the cool smooth slab and was soon fast asleep.

Then I slipped in and preparing for business, sat down upon the floor

with note book and pencils handy, heading the page with the name of our

distinguished guest.

He began in a conversational tone what was apparently an introductory

address to a gathering of primitive Christians. It was in Greek, which I

was able to transcribe.

The translation undoubtedly is faulty, robbed of the thought and beauty

of his smooth diction, and gives but imperfect meaning and

interpretation to many idiomatic expressions.

* * * * *

"Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, servant of Jesus Christ, on the road to

Damascus ordained of God and called to the apostleship; having been

taken a prisoner at Jerusalem, charged with sedition; appealed to Caesar

and now traveling to Rome for trial, is in Syracuse and will preach to

us tonight.

"He took ship at Adramyttium, touched at Sidon, Cyprus and Myra. There a

ship of Alexandria was found sailing into Italy. This he boarded and,

sailing many days, passed near Chidus, Crete, Salmone and Fair Havens,

near the city of Lascea. From whence he sailed, when the south wind blew

softly, close to Crete. There a tempest arose. The ship was forced from

her course and driven by wind until, days after, she was wrecked on the

island of Malta.

"After an enforced stay of three months, he sailed away in the good ship

Castor and Pollux and arrived in Syracusa this morning. He will remain

with us for three days.

"The church knows his service. He has faced every crisis and danger with

an iron will and with unfailing resolution has kept the faith. He is a

most faithful worker in the cause of Christ and his field of service is,

messenger unto the Gentiles.

"In his present troubles he has our prayers. We will now hear him."

* * * * *

"Brethren of the Church of Syracusa; grace be to you and peace from God

the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

"First, I thank God that your faith is spoken of and an example to all

the Christian churches.

"I came first after landing to Sergius Publius of your church, to whom I

bore a letter from his cousin Publius, the Roman ruler at Malta.

"We were at Malta three months waiting for a ship. During that time by

prayer and the laying on of hands, the father of Publius was healed. For

this and other things, the people honored us with many honors and when

we departed they laded us with such things as were necessary, we having

lost all by shipwreck on our journey from Caesarea to Rome.

"Not unwillingly am I sent to Rome for trial as fitting one born free

and a Roman citizen, since Rome is mistress of the world and to Rome the

Christian faith must be carried to be spread over the Gentile world.

"Being ordained an apostle to the Gentiles, it is but meet that I should

assume the risks of the journey and take as personal the command to

preach the Gospel in Rome or elsewhere and to every Gentile nation. A

gospel of universal faith granting to Jew and Gentile alike repentance

unto life and grace through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"This work has been most successful and many strong Gentile churches

have been established; but God forbid that I should glory save in the

cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"After the establishment of a number of these churches, when I returned

to Jerusalem I was falsely accused of teaching all the Jews which are

among the Gentiles to forsake the law of Moses; and of having brought

Greeks into the temple and polluted the holy place. And after this

charge I was cast from the temple and the doors closed; then set upon

and beaten with staves and stones until Roman soldiers came to quiet the

disturbance; and by them bound with chains was led towards the castle.

When asking and receiving permission to speak unto the people, I did so

in the Hebrew tongue saying:

"'Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense, now made unto you, I am

verily a man, a Jew born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, yet brought up in this

city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the perfect manner of

the law of the fathers and was zealous towards God, as ye all are this

day.

"'And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into

prison both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness,

and all the estate of the elders; from whom also I received letters unto

the brethren and went to Damascus, to bring them which were bound unto

Jerusalem for to be punished.

"'And it came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh unto

Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light

round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and hearing a voice saying

unto me, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

"'And I answered, "Who art thou Lord?" And he said unto me, "I am Jesus

of Nazareth, whom thou persecuteth."

"'And they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but

they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

"'And I said, "What shall I do Lord?" And the Lord said unto me, "Arise

and go unto Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things

which are appointed for thee to do."

"'And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the

hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.

"'And one, Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good

report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me and stood and

said unto me, "Brother Saul receive thy sight." And the same hour I

looked up upon him.

"'And he said, "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou

shouldst know his will and see that Just One, and should hear the voice

of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou

hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized

and wash away thy sins," calling on the name of the Lord.

"'And it came to pass that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even

while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw him saying unto

me, "Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem; for they will not

receive thy testimony concerning me."

"'And I said, "Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every

synagogue them that believed in thee; and when the blood of thy martyr

Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consented unto his death

and kept the raiment of them that slew him."

"'And he said unto me, "Depart; for I will send thee far hence unto the

Gentiles."'

"When I had spoken thus far, the multitude would not hear me further.

"At the castle, the chief captain ordered that I be scourged, when,

hearing the order, I said to the centurion standing by, 'Is it lawful to

scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?' Thereafter no further

indignity was offered me.

"Then the Lord appeared unto me saying. 'Be of good cheer, Paul, for as

thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also

in Rome.' Then I was sent to Caesarea, unto Felix.

"Before Felix, I was accused by Tertullus, speaking for the priesthood,

as a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews and a

leader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

"To which I answered, 'They can charge me with nothing unlawful though I

confess that after the way which they call heresy so worship I the God

of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the

prophets, and have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection

of the dead both of the just and the unjust. And herein do I exercise

myself, to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and

men.'

"After a period of two years Porcius Festus succeeded Felix and willing

to favor the Jews, asked, If I would go to Jerusalem to be judged, to

which I answered; 'I stand at Caesar's judgment seat where I ought to be

judged.'

"Then Festus after conference said, 'Hast thou appealed unto Caesar?

Unto Caesar shalt thou go.'

"Shortly thereafter I was delivered to Julius, a centurion of Augustus'

band, and we set sail at Adramyttium for Rome to be delivered for trial

as a Roman citizen.

"What a privilege it is to be a Roman citizen; to have the protection of

a strong and capable government; whose laws are stable and enforceable;

a bulwark against petty strife and sect jealousies. Christ our Master

declares the divine origin of government and the obligation of his

followers to obey human law when not in conflict with the commandments

of God.

"This, it seems, is the greatest obligation, next to our faith.

"What is faith? What are the teachings of our faith?

"Faith in God is more than the exercise of the understanding.

"Faith changed me from a persecutor, until now, I preach the faith I

sought to destroy; hoping thereby you may rejoice the more in Christ

because of my coming; while I rejoice at your patience and faith under

all the tribulations which you now endure.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not

seen. And Christ our Lord, is its author and finisher.

"For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves

your servants for Jesus' sake.

"For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in

our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the

face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that

the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

"We are troubled on every side yet not distressed; perplexed but not in

despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed;

always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the

life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

"For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake that

the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So

then death worketh in us but life in you.

"We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believe

and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and therefore speak;

knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by

Jesus and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes

that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many rebound

to the glory of God.

"For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish yet the

inward is renewed day by day.

"For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a

far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the

things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the

things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen

are eternal.

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved

we have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the

heavens.

"I am told that some among you who live according to the law, say,

'There is no resurrection of the dead.'

"First of all--Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again

the third day.

"If the dead rise not then is Christ not raised; and if Christ be not

raised your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also

which are fallen asleep in Christ and rest in these caverns are

perished.

"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of

them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the

resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ

shall all be made alive--But some men will say, 'How are the dead raised

up? And with what body do they come?'