and down from the windlass.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AWAKENING

By all the tricks of stage-craft and book-craft, of the copybook
headlines and platitudinous lies which we have had rammed down our
throats since childhood, virtue should have triumphed in the person of
the Ranger, because he fought regardless of consequences for right.
MacDonald, the sheep rancher, who went out of his way to enforce the
fair deal and the square deal, when he could very much more easily have
remained safely at home, a fire-insurance, bread-and-butter,
safety-guarantee Christian of the quiescent kind, MacDonald by all the
tricks of the-be-good-and-you-will-prosper doctrines, ought not to have
been shot down as he stood guard at the head of the mine shaft.

A very great many years ago, a very great Man, in fact, the very
greatest moral teacher the world has ever known, declared that the
milk-and-water, neither-hot-nor-cold, quiescent, safety-guarantee type
of Christianity was a thing to be spewed out of the mouth; but that was
a very great many years ago. Time has softened the edge of that
passion for right. Perhaps, He didn't mean it! Perhaps, we have
permitted sentimentality to sand-paper down the fighting edge of
militant righteousness that goes out beyond the Safety Line! To be
sure, bread-and-butter goodness is an easier matter than risking hot
shot beyond the Safety Line; and perhaps, a sentimental Deity may be
persuaded to allow us a little jam on our bread and butter if we sit
tight on the safe side with a fire-insurance policy in the shape of a
creed! Personally, I wonder when we all take to joining the sit-tight,
safety-guarantee brigade, who is to stand on the outside guard? Or is
there any modern Fighting Line? Or does the Fighting Line belong to
the old Shibboleth legends of Canaanite and Jebusite and Perizzite and
God knows what other "ite"? I hear these ancient gentry preached about
and the heroes who smote them hip and thigh extolled. Personally, I am
a great deal more interested in the modern tussle for a promised land
than in those old time frays for a fertile patch in a sterile
wilderness; and I see the same call for the hero's fighting edge; and I
like the MacDonalds, who jump out from behind the Safety Line to fight
for right, though it bring but the bloody bullet holes in the soft of
the temple; and I like the Waylands, who take up the game trail to run
down crime though it bring the sword of dismissal dangl