Woodsburner by John Pipkin Read Free Book Online

“Scripture tells us,
‘Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.’
Our fathers and their fathers before them came to build that city, the city on the hill. And yet what has become of it? What have we allowed to happen? Boston is no longer a beacon of righteousness. Our great city has fallen into the hands of corrupt men sated to distraction by the bountiful rewards that heaven bestowed upon their forefathers.”
    Caleb watches his followers nod in assent, but he sees them steal sideways glances at the flickering light. He will not be able to hold their interest much longer. They are faithful, but he knows that they have been waiting for a sign.
    The field where Caleb and his followers intend to build their church abuts the last remaining bit of woods in Concord, a few hundred acres of untouched forest stretching from the edge of town to Walden Pond and the river. Most of the trees in Concord have been chopped down to make room for the growing town. Where there had once spread a dense crown of pines and oaks andsugar maples, now the rich soil of New England lies exposed to sun and sky, furrowed by plow, bought, owned, and sold by men. And this, Caleb believes, is as it should be. He has not brought his hatchet today, and his hands feel empty and useless as he eyes the surrounding trees. When men allow God's gifts to go unexploited, they show contempt for the Almighty's plan. Far better to cut down all the forests in America than for man to think that he might create his own Eden here among the trees. He is disgusted by utopians like George Ripley and Bronson Alcott, who think they can re-create the world in their own image. Caleb points to the empty branches in the woods and waits until he has the congregation's attention. He decides to improvise.
    “You are right to gaze at the barren trees yonder. Why are they not festooned with greenery? What do they tell us?
Depravity!
Everywhere we see signs of man's depravity. The seasons, in which some men erroneously find cause for celebration, are evidence of man's wickedness. Why do we not have eternal summer? Because our first parents chose sin. They chose knowledge over obedience, and every generation since has made the same choice. The changing seasons are evidence that we are a fallen people, evidence that in this world we will find neither perfection nor salvation.”
    Caleb knows that there are men who think otherwise: the mystics and the spiritualists, the Swedenborgians and the Fourierists, and the so-called transcendentalists—pagans all of them. These men claim to look no further than nature for their comfort and reward. They seek the infinite in every bud and leaf, find revelations in birdsong and thunder, and pretend to read the mind of God by watching the wind blow. They fail to realize that it was nature, bountiful nature, that led men astray in the first place, so much so that God has entirely given up on them, allowing them to do as they please without recrimination or punishment. The Methodists and the Unitarians and the Trinitarians are all too tolerantof the pantheists, who disguise their idolatry as poetry and hide in leafy shadows at Brook Farm and Fruitlands and Hopedale, living like animals among the trees.
    “And thus,” Caleb continues, “it is only just that we come here to lay the cornerstone of our new church at the doorstep of Mr. Emerson.”
    Caleb's followers are aware that they are not among the elect. They cling to the hope that they may as yet be chosen, but they do not know that it is Caleb Ephraim Dowdy alone who will do the choosing. He has revealed nothing of his plan to them, and he does not tell them his true purpose in founding this new church. These simple people cannot comprehend the dark mystery that has taken him a lifetime to realize: that the path to revelation lay through damnation.
    Caleb opens his Bible and holds down the annotated pages with his thumbs. The breeze ruffles the edges of the thin