By D.S. Cook for Apostoic Venn.
Each destined to encounter the traps and trials of fate according to his own nature, there once lived three men in a wilderness both wild and weird. And each, having no sure destination, sojourned out across the desert of that place, which reflected the hateful sun as if determined to roast alive all those who walked upon her. There they may have nearly intersected, at a crossroad where thousands of footprints of wanderers like they, anonymous and unstoried, criss-crossed like the imprints of so many insects upon a stretch of unmanned earth. The dry expanse was marked with many pits and thorny growths, quicksand that threatened to suck both man and spirit from existence upon the surface. Yet in the far distance, there loomed great cliffs, at whose plateau, no man could guess what lay; riches and rest, or horrors yet unnamed.
A fellow of fastidious intellect but slim determination was the first of the three to lose his footing, stumbling on a twisted root. Down he plummeted, finding himself uninjured in the bowels of a pit, whose grade no man could hope to scale unassisted. Perpendicular walls of hardened earth rose about him, yet his glance did not leave him hopeless; for there hung vines in that hole. Approaching the first, he quickly drew back his questing hand, amid horrid pain that seared his palm like a snake’s venomous bite. “You horror!” He spoke as if to the vine. “What hatred dost thou bear toward a fallen creature, that you defend yourself thus with barbs and hooks? This vine is too thorny for the flesh of man. I like it not.”
Circling a way, he examined a second with greater care, and having discovered no thorns, began to climb a little. Alas, his grip was poorly matched to the slick and slippery surface of this limb, and for each arm he gained, he slid backward toward the ground a near-equal distance. Releasing it, he cursed the plant that would produce such branches. “Foul seed it was, to grow a weed so sheer. This vine slips through fingers like ice. Would you mock the climber at every inch, gifting nothing but regress with each progress? Poor escape thou art, impotent dross. I like it not.”
Encircling once more, he inspected a third for thorn and slick. Laying upon it with both hands and beginning to ascend, he quickly let go again for the fearsome groans it made, cracking arid under his fingers. “Curse you, weak and brittle vine.” He spoke. “You would see me half free ere your betrayal, and give broken bones for my pains. You are poor support for the weight of a man. I like it not.”
Having come round the circumference, he met again that first thorny vine. Thus for many hours did he circle, rejecting each afresh. His vacillations spun into a day, then two; thirst weakening by the hour, and the strength of limb and heart diminishing all hope. Many a curse did he pour out upon a pit which offered none but imperfect ladders, before succumbing to thirst and meeting his end in the miserable depths.
His fellow, a man of a different make, had not journeyed long in that desert before the same misfortune befell him. Down he plunged, and stood again, bones rattled, at the bottom of a terrible pit. Calming his breath, he surveyed his choices as the first man had done, but without illusion as to the particular trial of each. Deliberating but briefly, he set his hands upon the horrid thorns, bearing down with force while the blood sprung. “The pain is immense.” He said to himself. “Yet, you wicked barbs, you seem most like to bear a man’s weight, and for that I must give thanks. If thorns be the price of freedom, pierced by them shall I be free.” His ascent was cruel, the blades tore his hands to ribbons, and his tears flowed freely. Yet he climbed on, and when he had gained his triumph, he spread upon the ground, gasping in the open air. Having learned by cruelest experience that he could indeed endure suffering to make any man weep, his reward was a fresh resolve unlike any man before. On the morrow, he approached the cliffs, climbing now not to escape but to conquer. His journey lengthened into days and weeks, but onward he pressed, through thorn, thirst, and sheer ascent, gaining at last the summit of which no man could speak informed. There he found a plateau of surpassing abundance and beauty, and entered into a victorious rest of hard-won peace and honor. His hands, once bloodied and pierced to the bone, had become instruments of mastery.
As to the third, he fell into no pit whatever. Always careful to traverse the safest of desert paths, he journeyed onward with no destination. Long were his days, with no deeds to mark them; and never starved, but with a belly never full, he passed them trudging. No terrible hardship threatened his way, nor did any upward struggle stir his heart to climb. He passed beneath and between the lush plateau above his head, in ignorance and ease. In the end, the man wandered until claimed by the sands, perishing as he had lived, nameless. His footprints, his only gift to that world, melted into the forgotten traces of those gone before.
Thus ends the parable. Dear reader, the road to improvement, and ultimately to greatness, is without exception full of labors and tortures. A man may find himself caught in the monotony of stagnant complacency, or in the throes of some deep quagmire, likely self-inflicted. In either case, not an upward step may be taken without the acceptance of pain and difficulty. To climb even a little way upward, you must possess the fortitude of will to take thorns into your hands, and press onward without regard. The man destined for a dreary and lackluster life, or worse, miserable mortal or spiritual poverty, rejects every vine with a distasteful “I like it not.” He who would improve his lot must choose his hardship, but hardship will certainly accompany the man of action. “It is circumstances that show what men are” says Epictetus. “Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? You may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”
And from the sacred Scriptures we read this enduring counsel of Paul: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
Let us quit ourselves like men, with faces of flint; that we might avoid the fate of the first two men and emulate the second. Let us train our hands and minds to do hard things, and our spirits to suffer with a smirk.
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