Experience

"Experience" A Narrative with a Lesson

BY JAMES E. TALMAGE, OF THE COUNCIL OF THE TWELVE

Last night, at the suggestion of a literary friend, I went to the theatre to witness the presentation of a morality play entitled "Experience." It proved to be an elaborate allegory, in which human impulses, emotions, and passions, habits good and bad, types of character, and attributes of soul are severally personified, and appear upon the stage acting and reacting upon one another, but particularly bringing their diverse influences to bear upon Youth, who is the central figure in the play. Youth, of bright eye, frank countenance, clean mind, and un- troubled conscience, is seen lingeringly and affectionately bidding farewell to Love and Hope, that he may be free to follow Ambi- tion. Youth's desire is to achieve both fortune and honor but, ;

if it be found impossible to secure both, fortune is his preference. The parting is not easy, for the pleadings of Love and the yearnings of Hope delay him; and only when stern-visaged Am- bition comes, with a peremptory summons that sounds positively harsh and even cruel in its cold incisiveness, does Youth suppress the gentler impulses, and, abruptly turning from Love and Hope, hasten away after Ambition. In the first stage of his journey, Youth is joined on the road by Experience, personified as a man of mature years, whose coun- tenance expresses at once wisdom and kind sympathy and there- ;

after, Youth and Experience travel together. They arrive in a great city. While Experience is gently yet impressively instruct- ing his young companion as to what to seek and what to eschew in the new environment, Pleasure, a giddy girl, comes upon the scene, and in beguiling manner tells Youth of the joys to which she can lead him. Then comes Opportunity and begs a few moments of Youth's time, saying she has something of lasting worth to offer him. Youth, enthralled for the moment by the alluring charms of Pleasure, bids Opportunity wait but she turns away, impatient ;

and angry, exclaiming "Opportunity waits for none." Youth accompanies Pleasure, while Experience, with sad countenance and imploring mien, follows the pair. Pleasure leads the way into a gilded and brilliantly lighted pavilion, where nothing beyond the passing hour is considered. Here Youth, at

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firstembarrassed and bewildered in the dazzling swirl, is intro- duced in turn to Beauty, Excitement, Frivolity, Song, Fashion, Sport, Curiosity, Style, Blueblood, Wealth, Pride, Slander and Deceit. The scene is a gay one; it is appropriately called the Primrose Path. Youth yields to the blandishments of Intoxica- tion — a somewhat coarse but an openly frank enticer. A mo- ment after the young man's surrender, Passion enters and tries by suggestive word and pose and by unveiled solicitation to lead Youth away. But he is already in a maudlin sleep under the stupefying spell of Intoxication. Passion is enraged at her fail- ure she raves and curses. Experience rebukes her and loudly ;

proclaims that, sad as is Youth's condition, deep as is his degra- dation, terrible as must inevitably be his remorse, he has chosen the lesser of two dread evils. Passion, foiled and enervated, retires. In the next episode, Youth enters a gambling house not a— subterranean hovel in which beggars play for penny stakes or dimes, but a gorgeous establishment of the "better" sort, where hazards run high. Experience warns Youth of the horrors that lurk in the corridors of chance. Yielding to the vague yearning that springs when the least invited in the youthful breast — to win fortune, fame, or honor, by some one lucky stroke —he enters the devil's chambers. Here he makes many new acquaintances and ;

— he plays high, and wins. He is elated. He imagines he has found a way to retrieve the losses incident to his debauch in the Primrose Path. But his luck turns as ever such luck must turn, ;

— and he is ruined in the game of chance, so-called but which, known by its true name, would be called the game of ruination and death. In the' scene that follows. Youth, now in poor, almost coarse garb, and, as ever, attended by his devoted companion, Experi- is upon the street, looking for 'an easy way to realize ence, the dreams and aspirations of his earlier years. Ambition, his one- time friend and inspirer is, he thinks and feels, dead. Pleasure, Beauty, Frivolity, Wealth, Style— all pass him in turn, hurrying anew to the Primrose Path— but every one of them spurns his approaches, and disavows all acquaintanceship. Youth begins to realize that he is left to himself, ignored, repudiated, alone. At this juncture, Youth sees, approaching at quick pace, a robust fellow, clad in cap and overalls that have been long. in service, coarse shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled up reveal- ing- hairy and well-muscled arms, and a leathern band that tightly girts the wrist of his right arm tells of hard blows and strenuous effort. Experience hails the hearty chap, and after friendly handshake introduces him to Youth. The strong man's name is Work. He has little time to spare, none to waste; but he bids Youth come with him, and promises happiness. Youth, not liking

686 IMPROVEMENT ERA the man's rough appearance, hesitates, and dubiously asks Work where and how he lives. Work tells briefly of his home life with his good wife, Contentment, and then speaks of his boys, most beloved of whom is Job. Two other sons, Position and Profes- sion, are named but little praised and yet another, Sinecure, is ;

mentioned only in disparagement. Experience urges Youth to go with Work but Youth consents only to take the proposition ;

under consideration. Work, impatient over the loss of his time, hurries off. — In every incident Experience is at Youth's side willing, ready, eager to suggest, encourage and warn. Youth, now nearly penniless, forlorn and almost hopeless, secures employment as a waiter in a squalid dive, where poor food and cheap liquor are sold to degraded creatures of the social underworld. Even such occupation is better than hard labor, he fancies. In time Youth comes to see for himself the emptiness and moral squalor of the life into which he has drifted. He grows desperate, deserts his place and again wanders upon the streets, disconsolate. Experience tries to guide him, but is repulsed. Remorse preys upon him as a relentless worm. Poverty, a hide- ously grinning spectre, in rags, and with haggard face and tooth- less jaws, glares upon him, gloats over him. Experience tries to show that Poyerty may be Youth's friend, but Youth angrily con- tradicts. Poverty cries out in mocking glee "I'll get you yet." A chance acquaintance, Delusion, comes along, and offers Youth respite from his remorseful agony if he will only go round the corner, to the house of lost souls. Experience tries by cau- tion, argument, and plea to prevent; but Youth goes with De- lusion. In a dirty hovel Youth meets the unsightly hags, Habit and Degradation, and later, the dread impersonation of Crime. Crime confesses a recent murder but Youth has been dulled to ;

stupor by the drug he has welcomed, and is but little moved, even by this awful averment. As he is recovering from the narcotic sleep of temporary forgetfulness and deluding dreams, Youth sees Poverty staring in upon him through the window, and hears anew the gaunt creature's weird exclamation, "I'll get you yet." Youth has been more afraid of Poverty than of any other kind of distress. He goes out into the night. His aimless course leads him near a church, whose illumined windows depict in brilliant hues im- pressive incidents from holy writ. Youth's attention is attracted by the singing of the choir. The hymn is one his mother often sang to him. He recalls his early days. He remembers his mother and weeps bitterly. He bows and prays. His soul is subdued. Guided by Experience, Youth returns, humble and penitent, to the home of his youth. To his joyful surprise he is welcomed

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by his companions of olden days, who are young and comforting as when he tore himself away from their company but he is old ;

in memories though not in years, and, as he thinks himself, a being apart from them. Love claims him he is enthralled. Hope ;

inspires him he is exalted. Then he learns that Ambition, who, ;

as he believed, was long since dead, is alive, but less domineering than of old. Ambition, as Youth finds him now, is under the gentle control of Hope and Love. Thus Youth, after his long and afflicting pilgrimage, comes back to the ministering angels, from whose sweet influence he need never have gone. The allegory is a good one. It was well acted. As a morality play it is wholesomely impressive if rightly interpreted but a ;

defective application may make it essentially misleading. The real significance of experience, its true importance in life, is not infrequently misapprehended. There is radical mis- take in assuming that one should seek personal experiences of evil in order that he may comprehend and appreciate good. Re- member that in the play, Experience was ever trying to lead Youth aright by advice, entreaty, argument, and testimony, and so to preclude the necessity of the young man having to see, feel, en- dure, and suffer for himself. It is solemn truth that man is born into mortality in accord- ance with the divine plan to give him opportunity and experience — — experience that could not be had otherwise experience that may equip the soul for eternal achievement and endless progres- sion. But the experiences that so serve are such as are met in the path of duty. Experience in full measure comes to each of us without our having to seek it in the primrose path, in the halls of chance, in the slums of vice or squalor, in the street of forgotten days, or in the land where the sin-drugged dreamer awakens to bitter realization. Know ye not that we are here to profit by the experiences of those who have come and gone before? Were it inevitable that every generation pass through the experiences of its progenitors how could advancement be possible? Even the Christ advanced through experience indeed we are expressly told that He learned ;

obedience by the things that he suffered.* But He dallied not with sin nor tasted of vice in order to overcome such. The sin- less Savior suffered for the sins of others; and a specified pur-

pose of His agonizing experiences was that of obviating the neces- sity of others suffering the extreme penalty, "For," said He, "be-

hold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent."f Is it consistent with reason to hold that every man who

*See Heb. 5:8; compare 4:14, 15. tSee Doc. and Cov. 19:16-19; compare 18:11

688 IMPROVEMENT ERA would know of the painful effect of fire must be scarred by actual burning; or that to know that an electric current may torture or kill he must experience the deadly shock? It is a gross miscon- ception of truth — this thought that man must personally pass through all the experiences of the lower planes of action, else he cannot rise to higher states. One who will not profit by the ex- periences of the past, but must himself follow the devious course of low attainment toward improvement, is as the crow, which builds its nest today in the makeshift careless way in which crows bnilded in the bygone centuries. With reference to this extreme and erroneous conception of experience in evil as an indispensable stepping-stone to good, Roger Ascham has tersely said "He hazardeth much who de- :

— pends for his learning on experience. An unhappy master is he who is made wise only by many shipwrecks a miserable merch- ;

ant, who is neither rich nor wise till he has been bankrupt. By — experience we find out a short way by long wandering." And Erasmus, in the long ago, wrote for such as had ears and were ready to hear :"Experience is the common school house of fools — and ill men. Men of wit and honesty are otherwise instructed." The spirit of the age is that of accepting the experiences of the past, learning from them, and rising to other and better exper- iences that point the way to nobler achievements. The mind that seeks experiences of the low and baser kind is in discord with the Spirit of God.

The Silent Land

I long, tonight, for the Silent Land, The Silent Land so far, so far; 'Tis there men live, 'tis there men give Their souls to the sea and the sky and the star, And the Struggle, fierce and grand. Up there in the mystic, Silent Land, Men do kind deeds, and fight great fights; They grapple with Death and face the breath Of the Arctic, sweeping fierce from the glowing lights Beyond, beyond its ice-bound strand.

Up there I tune myself with God; His might and power, I feel it there; It thrills my soul, I link the whole Universe with my yearning breast, and dare To kiss the cold and lifeless sod. Frank C. Steele RAYMOND, ALBERTA