TRAILING JUNIPER 



Bible, so explicitly given, &quot; There fell from his 

 eyes, as it had been, scales,&quot; instead of its being a 

 strong Oriental way of stating a mental change, it 

 took hold of me as a mysterious supernatural and 

 physical occurrence, that was specially awful, and 

 to my youthful mind specially cruel. In the first 

 questioning stages of my growth, I wanted to 

 know why a man should be blind so that he could 

 not see the error of his way until he had traversed 

 a long route. This after-problem bothered me 

 for years in a metaphysical way, as the earlier prob 

 lem had bothered me with its physics. But as I 

 went out into the world with a lively retina that 

 had all it could do to register the impressions that 

 crowded upon it, I passed the puzzle over to a 

 spiritual domain, as not being exigent or explica 

 ble on business principles. Still, as I have said, 

 these early impressions, once made, pop up unex 

 pectedly at odd times all through a man s life, as 

 he encounters new experiences and learns sooner 

 or later that his vision varies with his conditions 

 and moods. 



These quick and passing perceptions of an 

 equable truth, lying just beyond our ordinary 

 range of vision, are little apocalyptic glimpses that 

 come to all men at times in varying degrees of 

 vividness, so that I am not assuming any special 

 faculty. It is as if a veil parts, and the eternal 

 real is lying there with a strangely familiar majesty 

 and calm. One could almost say that at such 

 times our cognitions smite, or at least that we only 

 come to the apprehension of the truth per saltum^ 



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