Does the name Sam Walter Foss mean anything to you? This gentleman was born in New Hampshire in 1858, graduated from Brown University in 1882, and served as librarian of the Somerville Public Library here in Massachusetts for 13 years. (A bronze tablet dedicated to him was placed in the library in 1916.)

In addition to being a librarian, Foss was also a great poet. Though today he is not as famous as other poets, in his lifetime Foss was referred to as the "Poet of the People" and "Master of the Yankee Dialect." One of his most famous poems is entitled The Calf Path:

One 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.
Since then three hundred 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 bell–wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell–wethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill 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.
This 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 thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on 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 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.
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;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

Thankfully, this weekend for our Missions Conference we do have one who is ordained to preach -- Dr. Rodney Woo from Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Dr. Woo has a passion for reaching people with the gospel of Christ, beginning in our own "Jerusalem." God used Dr. Woo to transform the body life of his own congregation by dismantling their racism and traditionalism with the Word of God.

To my knowledge, Sam Walter Foss was not a Christian, but he made a very good point in his poem: People tend to follow the path that others have walked without considering WHY. But if we were to establish our direction in light of our purpose, then we could blaze new trails for others to follow.

By God's grace, this is what Dr. Woo has done at Wilcrest Baptist Church over the last fifteen years by developing a multi-racial congregation. God is using this shepherd and his flock to grow a church of all nations to all nations. It all began with a passion to reach their community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. What God did at Wilcrest, He can do at Weymouth.

Let's trust God for a great conference!