It is enough
for you that it is, and that, while it runs its brief course, it is yours
to make it yield its blessings. For this you must train your hand and eye
and brain--you must be in life a fisherman."
"Very well done," murmured the Doctor, "for a preacher. Stick to the
knowable things, and don't stick at the unknowable; that is my law and my
gospel."
Dan retorted, "Now let's watch the practitioner make a cast."
"Humph! Why don't you stop it, boy?"
"Stop what?" Dan sat up.
The other pointed to the great basin of water that--though the stream
rushed away in such volume and speed--was never diminished, being
constantly renewed from its invisible, unknown source.
The young man shook his head, awed by the contemplation of the mighty,
hidden power.
And the Doctor--poet now--said: "No more can the great stream of love,
that is in the race for the race and that finds expression in sympathy
and service, be finally stopped. Fed by hidden, eternal sources it will
somehow find its way to the surface. Checked and hampered, for the
moment, by obstacles of circumstances or conditions, it is not stopped,
for no circumstance can touch the source. And love will keep
coming--breaking down or rising over the barrier, it may be--cutting for
itself new channels, if need be. For every Judge Strong and his kind
there is a Hope Farwell and her kind. For every cast-iron, ecclesiastical
dogma there is a living, growing truth."
Dan's sermon the next day, given in place of the one announced, did not
please the whole of his people.
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