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The Test

ANONYMOUS

A MAN'SENDURANCpEh,ysical and. psychological, is an unknown
quantity. It is something each desires to know and must at-
tempt to discover. This has been true of man from the day he was
placed on earth till now and probably will remain true as long as he
lives on the planet. The tests of endurance are many and varied. They
range from the victory race at Marathon in 490 B.C. to the football
contests of the present day. They embrace the trials of martyrs .and
the agonies of those who have been tortured. Always there remamed
one question: how far can I go, how much can I really endure?

In the early hours of an August morning in a year not long ago
a boy stood on a beach next to a small dory and listened to the rumble
of the surf. The tall breakers were barely discernible in the feeble
light which prevails in the hour before dawn. This was the day he
had chosen. After it was over he would know. At the same time he
wondered whether he should really dare to find out. Was there not
danger in the undertaking, perhaps great danger? He had thought
about the danger many times and it had only made his desire to ~nd
out burn just that much more fiercely. The threat of danger failed
to quench this desire now.

He pushed the dory over the smooth beach down to the ocean's
edge where the boat became alive-in its proper element. Once set-
tled away in the boat he broke out the sturdy oars and began the long,
even strokes which would take him through the surf to the sea beyond.
Two miles at sea he turned south and began the journey, the test.

In an hour's time the Sun crept up over the horizon and began its
flight across the sky. The sea was calm, unbelievably calm, and there
was no breeze-two wonderful blessings. Occasionally a school of
menhaden would pass by, their splashing and the glint of sun on
their silver sides betraying them. Off to the starboard a lone shark
fin silently cutting the surface of the water, far to the stern a school
of playful porpoises coming up fast, and high in the sky above a
solitary osprey endlessly circling ready to begin its power dive into
the sea whenever a delectable fish should prove foolish enough to come
too close to the surface-these were his companions on the journey.
. Shoreward the long. line of low 'dunes and empty beach were
mterrupted by an occasIOnal cottage, then a string of cottages, and

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