s
like me. His eyes are terrible to me, for they are always asking
questions, and that is what Grandmother Raven used to say to me. She
used to say: 'You are always asking questions with your eyes. Stop
staring and ask your questions right out.' But I couldn't. As long ago
as that, I knew my questions hadn't any answers.

"Now if the boy begins to ask himself questions about Jesus Christ,
whether He is the son of God, and whether He could take on Himself the
sins of the world, I want to tell him that I am sure it is not so. I
want the boy to remember that nobody can take away his sins: nobody but
himself. He must accept his punishments. He must even go forward to meet
them, for through them alone can he learn how to keep away from sin. And
I want him to regard the life of Jesus Christ with love and reverence,
and make his own life as much like it as he can. But I want him to
remember, too, that God made him as he is, and made his father and
mother and all the rest back to the first man, and that there is no
guilt of sinfulness upon man as a race. There is only the burden of
ignorance. We live in the dark. We were born into it. As far as our
knowledge of right and wrong goes, so far are we guilty. But He has made
us as we are, and if there is guilt, it is not ours."

As Raven read this, he found himself breathing heavily in the excitement
of knowing what it cost the man to write so nakedly for casual eyes. To
that elder generation, trained in the habit of thought that prevailed in
a country region, so many years ago, it was little short of blasphemy.
He turned a page, and had a cumulative surprise. For time had leaped.
The date was seven years later. Old Crow was now over sixty, and this
was the year before his death. Raven could hardly believe in the
likelihood of so wide a leap, but the first line showed him it was
actual. The subject matter was different and so was the style. The
sentences raced as if they were in a hurry to get themselves said before
the pen should drop from a palsied hand.

"I gave up writing with that last line. I thought there was no more to
say. I didn't even want to read it over. If I hadn't said it well, still
I had said it and I didn't see any better way. I wanted to fortify the
boy against the loneliness of feeling there was nobody that understood.
I wanted to tell him I understood. That was all I could do for him at
that time. But a great deal more has happened. The last of it happened
ov