The Golden Calf

of Precedent
Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)
ij
O
ne day, through the primeval
wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves
should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
1
Since then two hundred years have
ed,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
Te trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail oer vale and steep,
And drew the ock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, oer hill and
glade,
Trough 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.
1. I rst heard this quoted (not read) by
Judge Roy Moore, Former Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court of Alabama
Wayne Rogers
But still they followeddo not
laugh
Te rst migration of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way
stalked,
Because he wobbled when he
walked.
Tis forest path became a lane,
Tat bent, and turned, and turned
again;
Tis 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
Tey trod the footsteps of that calf.
Te years passed on in swiftness
eet,
Te road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A citys crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And oer his crooked journey went
Te trac of a continent.
Councel of Chalcedon Issue 1 2009 20
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries
dead.
Tey followed still his crooked his
way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to
preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
Tey 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.
But how the wise old wood-gods
laugh,
Who saw the rst primeval calf!
Ah! many things this tale might
teach
But I am not ordained to preach.
Continued from Page 2
good out of it. Or again, in relation
to sin, the balconeer asks whether
original sin and personal perversity
are really credible, while the traveler,
knowing sin from within, asks what
hope there is of deliverance. Or, take
the problem of the Godhead; while
the balconeer is asking how one God
can conceivably be three, what sort
of unity three could have, and how
three who make one can be persons,
the traveller wants to know how to
show proper honor, love and trust
towards the three persons who are
now together at work to bring him
out of sin to glory.
Packer goes on to ask what our
aim and object is in occupying our
minds with knowledge about God.
What do I intend to do with my
knowledge about God, once I have
got it? For the fact that we have to
face is this: that if we pursue theo-
logical knowledge for its own sake, it
is bound to go bad on us. It will make
us proud and conceited.To be pre-
occupied with getting theological
knowledge as an end in itself, to ap-
proach Bible study with no higher
a motive than a desire to know all
the answers, is the direct route to a
state of self-satised self-deception.
We need to guard our hearts against
such an atitude, and pray to be kept
from it. As we saw earlier, there can
be no spiritual health without doc-
trinal knowledge; but it is equally
true that there can be no spiritual
health with it, if it is sought for the
wrong purpose and valued by the
wrong standard. (Pg. 17)