A Little Wrong

( Originally Published 1885 )

"There is a great deal of difference between being just right and a little wrong." — Dr. Samuel H. Taylor.

WE were standing on the very summit of Argentine Pass. This pass lies directly in the middle of the Rocky Mountain range in Colorado, about sixty miles west of Denver. The old mail-wagon road, now almost in disuse, runs over it. The summit is only perhaps two or three miles, as the crow flies, from the top of Gray's Peak. It is the highest pass in the Rocky Mountains. It is the highest carriage road in the world. It is 13,100 feet above the level of the sea. I called to my friend : "Dean, come here."

He came. I said to him: " Please stand by my side."

He took his position. We were facing toward the north. I said : "Listen with your right ear. What do you hear?"

"I hear the sound of this little gurgling brook down here."

" Yes, and you can see it only a few rods below us. You can almost toss a pebble into it. Do you know where it goes?"

" Yes, into Leavenworth creek."

" Yes, and thence into Clear creek, and that into the Platte, and then into the Missouri, and then the Mississippi, and thence into the gulf of Mexico, so that by and by the water that you now hear tumbling over the stones at your feet will be pushed out from the gulf around the Florida Keys into the Gulf Stream, and will course its way onward towards the rising sun until it is dashed upon the rocks and falls in spray to moisten the soil of Old England, in the very heart of our Christian civilization. But will you now please listen with your left ear. What do you hear?"

"I hear the ripple of that little brook down there at my left."

" Yes, and you could toss a pebble into it. Do you know where it goes ? "

"No, I do not."

"It flows into Blue river, and that into Snake river, and that into Grand river, and that into the Colorado, and that into the Gulf of California; and then it floats away into the great and wide Pacific, and it is swept by some ocean current westward to-wards the setting sun until it is lost in the darkness of heathen superstition upon the shores of China."

Dr. Samuel H. Taylor, our old preceptor at Phillips Academy, Andover, whom we boys with great respect used to call " Uncle Sam," would sometimes say to us, " Young gentlemen, there is a great deal of difference between being just right and a little wrong." A bent, an inclination, a twist, a jostle, a push, a breath of wind, a circumstance over which you may or may not have control, changes the destiny of a life-time. The thin edge of the end of a rail at the switch set this way or that, sends the locomotive and the full train along on the main track to its final destination or changes it off upon the side track where it must soon stop or meet absolute destruction.

An iron wedge, very thin, very innocent, is easily inserted in the end of a large block of wood. Blow after blow, however, little by little, the seam widens, and the block is laid open.

I need not remind you that every drunkard that has ever lived, at some time took his first glass. Had he avoided that first glass, he would never have been a drunkard. There was a time when the gambler played his first game. Had that first game been avoided he would never have been a gambler. Look at that bank robber, sentenced to twenty years bard labor in the State prison. His first crime was not the robbing of a bank. It was some petty theft. It may have been but a single penny. The end was not seen from the beginning, but it was the legitimate end from that beginning.

A gentleman wished to engage a coach-man. There were several applicants for the position. He interrogated them singly and alone. His question was, "If you were driving my wife and children across a bridge, how near to the edge of the bridge could you drive and not drive off ? " One replied, " Within six inches, sir." Another said, "I could drive within an inch, sir." The third applicant said, "I should drive in the middle of the bridge, sir." You all know which driver was engaged.

It was the wise Solomon who said: "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away." Solomon understood how import-ant it was to keep far away from evil, to let it entirely alone, to give it a wide berth; not to go near it.

Doubtless there is a line, a mathematical line, without breadth, which runs along between the right and the wrong. Solomon would have us keep a good way off from that line, on the right side. He is a foolish youth who loves to play close along that line, priding himself that he does not get over it. The time may come when his pride will have a downfall.