"How Much You Will Be
Able To Teach The Poor, Dark Souls Of The Stockmen," A Well-Meaning
Southerner Had
Said, with self-righteous arrogance; and in the brilliant
glory of that bush Sabbath, one of the "poor, dark souls"
Had set the air
vibrating with the grandest, noblest principles of Christianity summed up
into one brief sentence resonant with its ringing commands: Hoe your own
row the best you can. Lend others a hand with theirs. Let God see to the
rest.
Men there are in plenty out-bush, "not much at religion," as they and the
world judge it, who have solved the great problem of "hoeing their own
rows" by the simple process of leaving them to give others a hand with
theirs; men loving their neighbours as themselves, and with whom God does
the rest, as of old. "Be still, and know that I am God," is still
whispered out of the heart of Nature, and those bushmen, unconsciously
obeying, as unconsciously belong to that great simple-hearted band of
worshippers, the Quakers; men who, in the hoeing of their own rows have
ever lived their lives in the ungrudging giving of a helping hand to all
in need, content that God will see to the rest.
Surely the most scrupulous Quaker could find no fault with the "Divine
Meeting" that God was holding that day: the long, restful preparation of
silence; that emptying of all active thought from the mind; that droning
Scotch voice, so perfectly tuned to our mood, delivering its message in a
language that could pierce to the depths of a bushman's heart; and then
silence again - a silence now vibrating with thought.
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