This week's Theme: Faith Builders
Day 1: Needless Alarm
The sheep were distraught. Their peaceful, serene world was rattled by dreadful yells so terrifying it seemed to them that demons produce[d] them doubtless. They went through various responses of shock—from instinctive congregating, to transfixed immobility—from walking around in circles, to standing at the brink—from ceaseless contemplation to mindless confusion:
All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed, Admiring, terrified, the novel strain, Then coursed the field around, and coursed it round again; But recollecting, with a sudden thought, That flight in circles urged advanced them nought, They gather'd close around the old pit's brink, And thought again—but knew not what to think…
It was at this point that a stately ram—who took great pains to emphasize that he was not the type to succumb easily to fear—recommended drastic action. His radical decision, he explained, should be understood in light of his generally unruffled temperament.
His composure, he believed, could withstand just about anything—even rogue winds, should they be unleashed from the bowels of the earth and rise with... hideous howling to the skies. After all, the flock had seen him resting quiet in the fold through rolling thunder and tremendous nocturnal commotions that he had been able to calmly explain away.
But the present circumstances were so much more alarming, so undoubtedly indicative that demons are abroad, that this tried and tested stalwart could see only one wisest and most fit solution: That, life to save, we leap into the pit.
Not so fast! This was the gist of the interjection by his loving mate and true, but more discreet than he, a Cambrian ewe. And then the most profound wisdom:
How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave? The depth how awful! falling there, we burst...
She continues with well-thought out logic—even if the brambles were to break their fall, that would be small comfort, considering the potential damage to their vulnerable bodies. Meanwhile, she reasoned: ...Noise kills not.... Sounds are but sounds, and, till the cause appear, We have at least commodious standing here.
Thus she dissuaded him from leading the flock into a precipitous leap into despair. And even as she spoke, the noise abated, for the fox-hunt, the source of the cacophony, vanished when the poor beleaguered fox close attended at his heels By panting dog, tired man, and spatter'd horse, Through mere good fortune, took a different course.
This is the story told by William Cowper in his poem, Needless Alarm. He switches to narrator mode as he ends the tale: The flock grew calm again, and I, the road Following, that led me to my own abode, Much wonder'd that the silly sheep had found Such cause of terror in an empty sound...
Cowper concludes with a moral:
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
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