Autumn Sights and Musings 203 



us separate merit from the hypocrisy and 

 cant that pretend to it; then, whether it 

 go under the name of ethics or religion, or 

 even policy, our honor of it shall encourage 

 it to grow. None shall rob the sorrowing 

 and suffering of the comfort they find in 

 religion, and none shall mock at any yearn- 

 ing to be good because the prayer finds 

 easiest utterance in a churchly form. 



Tradition agrees that the churchly is the 

 most perfect and dignified communion with 

 the soul of creation, but one may hear 

 farmers, soldiers, choppers, prospectors, 

 and other out-of-door people swearing 

 their prayers in right English when the 

 spirit is on them. The spirit that is erect 

 before its fellows and humble before the 

 powers : that spirit lives a prayer. We 

 may as safely look for moralities in our 

 door yards as to expect to find them, with 

 other felicities, on Saturn fifty years hence ; 

 yet, back or forward, whichever way we 

 throw our look, it is brighter than here and 

 now. In the desert world we cry as we 

 gaze on the heavenly hills, " We shall have 

 no pain there." Then we dare the heights 



