The Calf Path
(Sam Walter Foss) 1895
One day through a primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should,
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then 300 years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep.
And drew the flock behind him, too.
As good bellwethers always do.
And from that day, o’er bill and glade
Through those old woods, a path was made
And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ‘twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed -- do not laugh
The first migrations of that calf.
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
The forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years did pass in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street:
And this before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day:
For such a reverence is lent,
To well-established precedents.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-path of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.
Traditions are not bad in themselves. A tradition is merely a practice that has been handed down. The problem develops when we do not know the source which began the tradition, and we follow it reverently anyway.
Jesus said, "Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition" (Mk. 7:9). Our Lord was condemning the religious leaders of His day. They had added their own ideas in religion and were more faithful in following them than God’s law. He calls their worship vain in verse 7. In verse 13 He said they made the word of God "of none effect".
Not all things that are handed down are wrong. Paul wrote "...withdraw yourselves from every brother that walked disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye received from us" (II Thes. 3:6).
We must adhere to that which the Apostles handed down from God (I Cor. 15:3), but reject the teachings that originate with men. Think of the source before you follow the path they have left behind (Jer. 6:16).
