  THE ORIGINAL SIN AS JOSLIN wandered along a street unknown to him, lighted by flickering arc lights, he was not conscious of the exercise of any of his faculties, but a faint, sweetish smell came to him, a thing familiar in its way. It was the smell of distilled liquors. He looked up, and saw by the sign above the door that here one by the name of John Moran sold aged whiskeys bonded in the wood. Inside, the room was still light, though now the proprietor was beginning to put away his bottles for the night, it being past midnight. Joslin turned in at the door without any definite purpose in his mind. The proprietor looked at him inquiringly, standing at attention behind the bar. Joslin swayed slightly as he approached, and placed his last two coins upon the counter. The bar man was of the very plausible belief that his customer was already the worse for liquor. “Sir,” said he, “that’s all the money I have. I want to rest here to-night if I may. I want to give you the dime, and I want you to let me keep this quarter.” “I’m just closing up,” began the man, pushing back his bottles upon the shelf. Joslin looked at him straight as he replied: “I know, but I’m alone in this town, and I’ve no place to lay my head. I’m in trouble. Perhaps you know what trouble means?” The man looked at him curiously, accustomed as he was to all the vagaries of alcohol. “Have one on the house,” said he at length, and pushed the bottle once more toward his customer. Joslin picked up the flask with trembling hand, and poured out a full drink into the glass. He raised it to his lips, but did not drink. “Sir,” said he, “I find I do not need to drink.” The proprietor, was disposed to be irritable. “On your way, neighbor,” said he, “This is a saloon, and we sell liquor here.” Joslin perhaps did not fully understand all that he said. Once more he pushed both the coins back across the bar top. “Please, my friend,” said he, “I’m very tired. I come to you as to one who will aid the needy. Let me sit to-night in that chair by the little table yonder. Put the glass on the table by me. In the morning I’ll be here if the liquor in the glass has not been tasted—and then I can go on my way, as you say. If the liquor is gone, you will have had pay for it—take this larger coin—but I will not be here then. “I’d like to sit here and read, that’s all,” he added “Who are you, bo?” asked the saloon-keeper curiously. His education in human nature did not often lead him astray. He knew now this was no ordinary drunk, and no ordinary man. “What’s your line?” he asked again. “I’m a preacher, sir,” replied Joslin, “or I was to have been—till to-night.” The barkeeper laughed shortly. “Well, I believe you’d fight fair,” said he. And then quickly, “Say, I’ll take a chance with you! I’ll leave you here to-night. I believe you’re up against it. You can drink yourself crazy, or steal all the stock if you like. Or you can do as you say—stay here until I come back in the morning.” Joslin looked at him, still swaying slightly, his hands upon the polished wood, steadying himself. “To some men I’d say, ‘Take a drink and pull together,’ but with you I won’t,” said the proprietor. “Fight it out. It’s a man’s game, friend. By morning you’ll know whether you’re going up or down.” “And you’ll accept that risk with a stranger?” said Joslin. “You’ve got the risk—this night will have bigger chances in it for you than for me! Two or three drinks and I might find you on the floor in the morning. None at all, and I may find you sitting there. “Well, fly to it, friend,” he concluded, chuckling grimly. “Don’t ask it again—I don’t know what I might do.” “No,” said Joslin, “I shall never have another night like this. Let me sit here and read to-night. I will thank you al-ways.” “You’re a mountain man,” said the saloon-keeper suddenly, noticing the accent on the last syllable. Joslin nodded. “They’re hardy, and sometimes they can keep away from liquor. Well, luck to you.” He pulled down the apron screening the shelves of bottles, and coming around the end of the bar stood for a moment looking at his visitor. Joslin was sitting now at the table, the glass of liquor close at hand. “If you’re going to read,” said he, “you’ll have to have a light—I’ll leave this one burning for you.” A moment later he had passed out of his own door, which he left unlocked. Joslin felt for him a strange kinship, so that greater loneliness fell on him when he had left. The reek of liquor was still in the air, the sawdust itself was redolent of it. But none of this now stirred the blood of David Joslin. Two or three times he raised the half-full glass in front of him level with his eye—and placed it back again untasted on the There were certain worn places where the book fell open readily. Familiar words stared up at him. The solitary reader, trained to literal interpretations, pondered what he read. He endeavored to restore the vision of the Garden, the first home of Man. He undertook to conceive the Temptation, to picture the Serpent himself; indeed, tried to think as John Calvin thought when he wrote his words: But, since it could not have been a trivial offense, but must have been a detestable crime, that was so severely punished by God, we must consider the nature of Adam’s sin, which kindled the dreadful flame of divine wrath against the whole human race. Augustine properly observes, that pride was the first of all evils. But we may obtain a more complete definition from the nature of the temptation as described by Moses. For as the Woman, by the subtlety of the Serpent, was seduced to discredit the word of God, it is evident that the fall commenced in disobedience. This is also confirmed by Paul, who states that all men were ruined by the disobedience of one. With propriety, therefore, Bernard teaches that the gate of salvation is opened to us, when in the present day we receive the Gospel with our ears, as death was once admitted at the same doors when they lay open to Satan. Augustine? Bernard? Who were they? Dust and forgotten for the most part. But after them and before them men had lived, human beings, hoping, aspiring, falling, sinning. David Joslin, mountaineer, turned once more to the pages of the old dogmatist. This is that hereditary corruption which the fathers called original sin; meaning by sin, the depravation of a nature previously good and pure; on which subject they had much contention. Yet this timidity could not prevent Pelagius from arising, who profanely pretended that the sin of Adam only ruined himself, and did not injure his descendants. But the temerity of the Pelagians and Celestians will not appear surprising to him who perceives from the writings of Augustine what a want of modesty they discover in everything else. Every descendant from the impure source is born infected with the contagion of sin; and even before we behold the light of life, we are in the sight of God defiled and polluted. For “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” The Book of Job tells us, “Not one.” We have heard that the impurity of the parents is so transmitted to the children that all, without a single exception, are polluted as soon as they exist. But we shall not find the origin of this pollution, unless we ascend to the first parent of us all, as to the fountain which sends forth all the streams. Thus it is certain that Adam was not only the progenitor, but as it were the root of mankind, and therefore, that all the race were necessarily vitiated in his corruption. What cavil will the Pelagians raise here? And then John Calvin went on to tell David Joslin, sitting here in the saloon of John Moran, what sin was: Wherefore, Augustine, though he frequently calls it the sin of another, the more clearly to indicate its transmission to us by propagation, yet, at the same time, also asserts it properly to belong to every individual. And the apostle himself expressly declares, that “death has therefore passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;” that is, have been involved in original sin, and defiled with its blemishes. And therefore infants themselves, as they bring their condemnation into the world with them, are rendered obnoxious to punishment by their own sinfulness, not by the sinfulness of another. For though they have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have the seed of it within them. When arguing respecting corrupt nature, Paul not only condemns the inordinate motions of the appetites, but principally insists on the blindness of the mind and the depravity of the heart; and the third chapter of his Epistle to the Romans is nothing but a description of original sin. We say, therefore, that man is corrupted by a natural depravity. Thus vanishes the foolish and nugatory system of the ManichÆans who, having imagined in man a substantial wickedness, presumed to invent for him a new Creator, that they might not appear to assign the cause and origin of evil to a righteous God. The dour words of the savage old doctrinaire looked up familiarly to David Joslin. More than once alone Two years ago he had closed the pages of his own past. Now he knew that he was closing the book upon yet another stage of his own development. Fellowship, understanding, sympathy, the common human struggles! From John Calvin’s interpretation David Joslin turned to an interpretation of his own. He read from larger pages. The night passed at length. Dawn grayed the dull windows of the saloon front, opaqued that passers-by might not see what went on within. But this dull dawn was the opening of a new horizon to David Joslin. He saw a wider world. He had learned that dogma is not life. He heard the door open. The owner of the place entered, his usually impassive face curiously turned toward the interior. Joslin walked forward to meet him, on his face now at least the semblance of a smile. John Moran himself smiled, as he looked and saw the untouched glass upon the table. “Well, friend, you’ve won,” said he. “Here’s your quarter back again.” Joslin felt in his hand the weight of a gold piece, but “Don’t you need it?” “Yes. But I’ll have to finish my own way, I reckon,” said David Joslin. “You see, I’ve been going to school up North here. But now I’ve concluded not to go there any more. No—I don’t need it.” He smiled now, as he extended his hand with that quality upon his face which brought friends to him so quickly, and held them so staunchly. “Good-by,” said he, clasping his brother’s hand in his own large one. “I thank you more than I can tell you. I’m better than when I came in here last night. You’ve been a good Samaritan.” And so David Joslin passed out into a larger world and a wider dawn. BOOK III
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