Too Numb To Know
Dear Edgar:
You told me of an experience you once had with a deer-hunting companion in the high Uinta mountains late one fall in bitter cold and stormy weather.
Your companion had become lost, panicky and exhausted from running over the mountain-side. He had finally lain down under a pine tree, and by sheer luck you had come upon him before he froze to death.
He was still conscious and could talk to you but in his numbed condition, claimed he was not cold at all. No amount of coaxing on your part could persuade him to get up and move around. He begged to be left alone, insisting he was perfectly comfortable and got sore [angry] when you dragged him to his feet and made him move.
He really cussed you plenty, you said, when you at last in desperation picked up a stick and laid one or two across his back until he moved to get out of reach of it. You had to drive him more than a mile like that, for every time you got sympathetic and eased up with the stick, he'd lie down again.
Finally, however, you got him moving faster and faster to get out of the way of the stick and his blood warmed up and began circulating so when he could think clearly again he thanked you with tears in his eyes time and time again for using the stick and saving his life.
I have the feeling since our conversation the other day that you, and hundreds of other good men like you, are in about the same condition spiritually, as your hunting companion was physically.