The Story of the Innumerable Company | Page 9

David Starr Jordan
ink. Danger lurks in the desert. The
name of the river is Death." And when they came to the shore of the
river they saw no rift in the clouds above it, for their eyes were filled
with gloom.
But as time passed on, the way of man grew brighter, whether he would
or no. No day nor hour was without its joy to him who opened his heart
to receive it. And men saw that most of the difficulties and dangers of
the way were those which they unwittingly had made for themselves or
for others. Thus, as the road became more secure, it no longer seemed
dreary or lonely.
And so it came to pass at last that men ceased to gather themselves in
great bands. Nor did they longer set store on the sound of trumpets or
the waving of flags. The men who were wisest ceased to be leaders of
hosts. They became teachers and helpers instead.
And with all this a sure way was from day to day not hard to find. Men
fell into it naturally and unconsciously. And the ways which are safe
are innumerable as the multitude of those that may walk therein.
And those who had gone by diverse paths came from time to time
together. Each praised the charms of the path he had taken, but each
one knew that in other paths other men found as great delight. And as
time went on many wise men passed over the way, and each in his own
fashion left a record of all that had come to him.
But the old Chart men kept in ever-increasing reverence. They found
that its simple, honest words were words of truth, and whoso sought for
truth gained with it courage and strength. But they covered it no longer
with their own additions and interpretations. Nor did any one insist that

what he found helpful to himself should be law unto others. No longer
did men say to one another, "This path have I taken; this way must thou
go."
And some one wrote upon the Chart this single rule of the forest:
"Choose thou thine own best way, and help thy neighbor to find that
way which for him is best." But this was erased at last; for beneath it
they found the older, plainer words, which One in earlier times had
written there, "Thy neighbor as thyself."

THE STORY OF THE PASSION.
The Alps are not confined to Switzerland. They fill that little country
full and overflow in all directions, into Austria, Italy, Germany, and
France. Beautiful everywhere, these mountains are nowhere more
charming than in Southern Bavaria. Grass-carpeted valleys, lakes as
blue as the sky above them, dark slopes of pine and fir, over-topped by
crags of gray limestone dashed by perpetual snow, the Bavarian
Oberland is one of the most delightful regions in all Europe. When
Attila and the Huns invaded Germany fifteen centuries ago, it is said
that their cry was, "On to Bavaria--on to Bavaria! for there dwells the
Lord God himself!"
In the heart of these mountains, shut off from the highways of travel by
great walls of rock, lies the valley of the little river Ammer. Its waters
are cold and clear, for they flow from mountain springs, and its
willow-shaded eddies are full of trout. At first a brawling torrent, its
current grows more gentle as the valley widens and the rocks recede,
and at last the little river flows quietly with broad windings through
meadows carpeted with flowers. On these meadows, a couple of miles
apart, lie the twin villages of the Ammer Valley--the one world-famous,
the other unheard of beyond the sound of its church-bells--Ober and
Unter Ammergau.
Long, straggling, Swiss-like towns, these villages on the Ammer
meadows are. You may find a hundred such between Innsbruck and

Zürich. Stone houses, plastered outside and painted white, stand close
together, each one passing gradually backward into woodshed, barn,
and stable. You may lose your way in the narrow, crooked streets, as
purposeless in their direction as the footsteps of the cows who first
surveyed them.
Oberammergau is a cleaner town than most, with a handsomer church,
and a general evidence of local pride and modest prosperity. Frescoes
on the walls of the houses here and there, paintings of saints and angels,
bear witness to a love of beauty and to the prevalence of a religious
spirit. These pictures, still bright after more than a century's wear, go
back to the time when the peasant boy, Franz Zwink, of Oberammergau,
mixed paints for a famous artist who painted the interior of the Ettal
Monastery and the village church. The boy learned the art as well as the
process, and when his master was gone, he covered the
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