Meditation

In all the city where I dwell two spaces only are wide and clean. One is the compound about the great church of the mission within the wall; the other is the courtyard of the great factory beyond the wall. In these two, one can breathe.

And two sounds there are, above the multitudinous crying of the city, two sounds that recur as time recurs—the great bell of the mission and the whistle of the factory. Every hour of the day the mission bell strikes, clear, deep-toned—telling perhaps of peace. And in the morning and in the evening the factory whistle blows, shrill, provocative—telling surely of toil. Now, when the mulberry trees are bare and the wintry wind lifts the rags of the beggars, the day shift at the factory is ten hours, and the night shift is fourteen. They are divided one from the other by the whistle, shrill, provocative. The mission and the factory are the West. What they are I know.

And between them lies the Orient—struggling and suffering, spawning and dying—but what it is I shall never know.

Yet there are two clean spaces in the city where I dwell, the compound of the church within the wall, and the courtyard of the factory beyond the wall. It is something that in these two one can breathe.