shapelessness concealed the inner symmetry. Only the flying chips
could let loose the form of glowing beauty hidden within. And before
that youth he lifted up a vision of still better things. He set the
youth midway between the man he was and the man he might become. He
had achieved so much that Christ would fain lead him on to perfection
itself. When the husbandman beholds his vines entering into leafage
and blossom, he nurtures them on into fruitage. When Arnold finds some
young Stanley ready to graduate, he whispers: "One thing thou
lackest; let all thy life become one eager pursuit of knowledge." And
to this youth who had climbed so high came the vision of something
fairer and better still.
Going on before, Christ lured him forward, even as of old the goddess
lured the Grecian boy forward by rolling rosy apples along the path.
But the interview ended with the "great refusal." And the youth went
away, not angry nor rebellious, but sad and deeply grieved at himself.
For now he knew how far his aspiration outran performance. Like
Hamlet, indecision palsied action. Contentment perished, for the
vision of perfection ever haunted him. At first Christ's words and
look of earnest affection filled his heart with a tumult of joy: but
having fallen back into the old sordid self, the very memory of his
master's face became a curse and torture. And so the vision blighted
that should have blessed.
Now, the lives of great men tell us that God has always used visions
for disturbing contentment, destroying ease, and securing progress.
Witness the life of that young patrician, Wendell Phillips. His
college mates love to describe him as they first saw him in the halls
of Cambridge. His elegant person, his accomplished manners, his
refined scholarship, made him the idol of the Harvard boys. Even in
his youthful days he excelled as an orator, and was the easy master of
the platform. But to him came the sirens singing of leisure, of
opulence, and ambition. Full oft he looked forward to the day when he
would be the champion of "elegant repose and cultivated conservatism"
of the patrician element in his patrician state. But suddenly the
Christ, in the person of one of his little ones, crossed the young
scholar's path. One golden October afternoon, while Wendell Phillips
was sitting in his office, he heard the noise of a strange disturbance
in the street. Looking out he saw the mob maltreating Garrison, as,
with blows and kicks, they dragged him toward the jail. All that night
young Phillips lay tossing on his couch, thinking ever of this man who
had been mobbed in the city where Otis had said "Liberty of speech is
inalienable."
All that night the vision of the slave, scarred and scorned and
forsaken, stood before his mind, while ever he heard a voice
whispering: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." In that vision hour
perished forever all his dreams of opulence and ease. He decided to
turn his back upon all preferment and ambition, all comfort and
leisure, and follow his vision whithersoever it led. Soon the vision
led him to the platform of Faneuil Hall, where an official was
justifying the murderers of Lovejoy. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "when I
heard the gentleman lay down principles which placed the murderers of
Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I
thought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the
recreant American, the slanderer of the dead." And that vision lent
his words such burning eloquence that Wendell Phillips' speech in
Faneuil Hall ranks with Patrick Henry's at Williamsburg and Abraham
Lincoln's at Gettysburg--and there is no fourth. His vision led him
unto obloquy also. What revilings were his! What bitter hatred! What
insults and scoffs! At last the vision led him unto fame. The very
city that would have slain him builded his monument, and men who once
would not defile their lips with his name taught their children the
pathway to his tomb. It was that vision splendid that saved Phillips
from sodden contentment. Had Christ never crossed his path, his
imagination would have lost its brightest picture, his life its
noblest impulses, its most energetic forces.
And not only have visions power to shape young men's lives. To the
mature and the great also come dreams of ideal excellence, smiting
selfishness, rebuking sin, taking the sweetness out of sordid success,
and urging men on to higher achievements. The biographers have never
been able to fully account for the pathetic sadness and gloom of the
closing days of Daniel Webster. Horace Greeley once said that
"Webster's intellect is the greatest emanation from the Almighty mind
now embodied." For picturesque majesty and overpowering mentality he
is doubtless our most striking figure. That enormous and beautiful
head, those wonderful eyes, that stately carriage, that Jove-like
front, led men to call him "the godlike Daniel." When he appeared upon
the Strand in London a great crowd followed him, and a British
statesman described Webster as one describes a majestic landscape or
the sublimity of a mountain. But during the last years of his life his
face took on a strangely pathetic sorrow. With the language of a Dante
his biographer has pictured for us an Inferno, in which we see one,
sublime of reason, walking in the very prime and strength and grandeur
of full manhood, yet walking in a round of night, in a realm of
bitterness, ever gnawed by disappointment and consumed by fierce
ambition. He sank into his grave, says the historian, "under a
heart-crushing load of political despair."
But disappointed ambition cannot account for Daniel Webster's sadness
and woe. Strength was his for supporting the loss of a nomination. He
knew that his title, "Defender of the Constitution," was fully equal
to the title of President. He was too great a man to have his heart
broken by the loss of political honor. What was his woe? Let us
remember the young ruler who was sad and grieved after he met Christ,
and had refused to obey the heavenly vision. Let us remember the dream
that came to Pilate, and how, afterward, the great Roman was uneasy
and restless. And to Daniel Webster there came the memory of his
speech in favor of a law compelling men in the North to send fugitive
slaves back to their masters; and there also came the words of Christ,
who said: "I am come to give deliverance to the captive." And looking
forward, Webster anticipated the judgment of the generations upon the
breach between his duty and his performance. That vision of higher
things haunted him. Oft he heaved sighs of bitter regret. Daniel
Webster was saddened and deeply grieved at what he himself had done.
For the hope of the Presidency he sacrificed his convictions as to the
slave. The heavenly vision bade him deliver the captives, not send
them back into slavery. No political disappointment crushed Daniel
Webster. The consciousness of duty performed would have sustained him
under any sorrow. It was the consciousness of having sinned against
the heavenly vision that broke his heart, and brought Webster's gray
hairs down with sorrow to the grave!
Plutarch tells us that the finest culture comes from the study of men
in their best moods. But always life's best moods come through these
heavenly visions. George Eliot makes the destiny of each hero or
heroine to turn upon the use of those critical hours when some ideal
fronts the soul for acceptance or rejection. To Maggie Tulliver came a
delicious moment when her lover offered her honorable marriage, and
would have led her into a perfumed garden of perfect happiness. But
just in that hour when joy bubbled like a little spring in her heart,
there came the memory of the crippled boy, to whom years before in her
childhood she had plighted her troth. And the vision of her duty and
the thought of his disappointment led her to refuse pleasure's spiced
cup, and choose self-renunciation and a life for others. That heavenly
vision saved her from plunging into the abyss of selfishness, even as
the lightning's flash in the dark night reveals the precipice to the
startled traveler.
And when the visions divine have rebuked selfishness, they go on to
conquer sin. Hawthorne uses the vision for redeeming his hero. To
Arthur Dimmesdale, pursued by his enemy, came the dream of freedom,
when, journeying to a foreign land with Hester and Pearl, he might
regain health and happiness and find peace again in walking in the
dear old paths of wisdom and study. But the day before his ship sailed
came the vision splendid, bidding him mount the scaffold, confess his
wrong, and free his conscience of its guilt. And it was obedience
thereto that redeemed his life from hypocrisy.
And, having saved men from wrong, the vision goes on to secure their
service for the right. Here is that colored woman, Harriet Tubman,
whom John Brown introduced to Wendell Phillips as the best and bravest
person upon our continent. If Frederick Douglass wrought in the day,
Harriet Tubman toiled at night; for when the man had praise and honor,
the black woman had only obscurity and neglect. When this bravest of
her race escaped from slavery in 1850 and reached Canada she exclaimed
exultingly, "I have only one more journey to make--the journey to
heaven." But in that hour when the tides of joy rose highest there
came the vision calling her back to danger and service. She was not
disobedient thereto, but turned her face again toward the cotton
fields. Between 1850 and 1860 she made nineteen trips into the South,
and rescued over three hundred slaves. One day while lying in a swamp
with her band of fugitives, a black man brought her word that a reward
of $40,000 had been offered by the slave dealers of Virginia for her
apprehension. Hard pressed by her pursuers, she sent her fugitives on
by a secret route and went herself to the train. But when she saw in
the car advertisements for her arrest she left the Northern train and
took the next one going south, thinking by her fearlessness to escape
detection, and also to collect a new band of fugitives. And so her
people came to call Harriet Tubman the Moses of the black race. And,
following on, the vision lifted her to a place among those whom the
world will not willingly let die.
When the vision has redeemed bad men to good deeds it goes on to
redeem good ones unto perfection. Here is Channing, with his cultured
scholarship, his refined manners, his gentle goodness. So heavy were
the drafts study made upon his strength that at length came a day when
the mere delivery of his sermons and orations left him physically
exhausted. But he went smilingly and forever from the pulpit, and gave
up also the use of his pen. In that hour, when sorrow and gloom rested
heavily upon those who loved him, the vision shone clearly for
Channing. He determined to turn his whole life into a sermon and poem.
With pathetic eloquence he said, "It is, indeed, forbidden me to write
or speak, but not to aspire and be. To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than
fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to do
all cheerfully, bear all bravely; to listen to stars and birds, to
babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard, think quietly, act
frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never--in a word, to let
the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the
common--this is to be my symphony."
Into our nation also has come the disturbing vision. Ours is called an
age of unrest. We hear much about social discontent. Beneath all the
outer activity and bustle there is an undertone of profound sadness.
Neither wealth, pleasure, nor politics has availed to conceal the
world's weariness. Strangely enough, just at a time when prosperity is
greatly increased, when our homes are full of comforts and
conveniences, when all the forces of land and sea and sky have lent
themselves to man as willing servants, to carry his messages, run his
errands, reap his harvests, pull his trains, and push his ships; in an
age when a thousand instruments that make for refinement and culture
have been invented, just at this time, strangely enough, unrest and
disquietude have fallen upon our people. Why is our age so sad? Has
Schopenhauer carried the judgment of mankind by his favorite motto,
"It is safer to trust fear than faith?" Is it because our age has lost
faith in God? Have doubt and skepticism burned the divine dew off the
grass, and left it sere and brown? Nay, a thousand times nay!
The world is sad because it has found God, not lost him. Man is weary
in the midst of his wealth and pleasures for the same reason that the
young ruler was grieved and sad in the midst of his great possessions.
Our age has seen the vision splendid, but halts undecided, being yet
unwilling to go on and fulfill its new ideals. For those who have eyes
to see, Jesus Christ stands again in the market and the street. He has
given society a new vision of the earth as a possible paradise, filled
with the fruits of peace and plenty where none know surfeit, and none
know want. He has given a vision of the brotherhood of man and the
fatherhood of God, and that vision has destroyed the old contentment.
Our fathers were happy because what they did kept pace with what they
saw. And we are unhappy because we are unwilling to do what we see.
This vision of possible excellence will continue to haunt our
generation until performance shall have overtaken the ideal promise.
All the processes of buying and selling without must be carried up to
meet the requirements of the vision within. Just as in Luther's day
the vision divine disturbed Germany and filled the land with unrest
until the people achieved spiritual freedom; just as in Cromwell's day
the vision of freedom in political relations came to England and gave
disturbance until the doctrine of the divine right of kings was
overthrown; just as in our own day the vision of liberty for all,
without regard to race or color, disturbed our land and filled our
council chambers with conflict and strife, and turned the South into
one immense battle-field, until the laws of the Nation matched the
ideals of God--so to-day, the vision of the brotherhood of man in
Jesus Christ has fallen upon the home, the market, and the forum, and
brought restlessness and discontent to our people.
Our colleges are restless, and by the university extension plans are
seeking to fulfill their vision of wisdom for all. The church hath
seen the heavenly vision, and, restless and grieved at its own
failures, is rewriting its creeds, inventing new methods of social
sympathy and social help, and is seeking eagerly to fulfill its
vision. Wealth too, is discontented, and by manifold gifts is becoming
the almoner of universal bounty toward school and college, and gallery
and church. Looking toward the council chamber, society is becoming
restless, and feeling that the council chamber should be as sacred as
a temple, and that as of old so now evil men have turned the temple
into a place for money-changing, and made the house of God a den of
thieves. Good men are again lifting the scourge of small cords. The
discontent is becoming universal. This vision of a new order will
continue to haunt and disturb men, until at length society will make
all its activities without correspond to the heavenly vision within.
The tradition tells us that when the young ruler who made the "great
refusal" had returned home he found the old zest of life had gone.
Gone forever his contentment in fields and flocks, in houses and
horses and goods; in books and pictures! He himself seemed but a
shadow moving through a phantom world. Struggle as he would, he could
not forget the new vision, nor find the old joy. At last he ceased
struggling, and, fulfilling his vision, he found the cross was the
magic key that opened the door of happiness.
And to the youth of this far-off day, the vision splendid doth come
again. In strange ways come these luminous hours and exalted moods.
Sometimes they come through memory, and then the tones of a voice long
still fall softly upon the ear like celestial bells calling us
heavenward. Sometimes these luminous hours come through the
affections, when anticipations of joy are so bright that it seems as
if the youth reaching forward had plucked beforehand the fruit from
the very tree of life. For some they come through sorrow, when the
soul stands dissolved in tears, even as some perfumed shrub stands in
the June morning making the very ground wet with falling raindrops.
Then the soul wanders here and there, all dumb with grief, seeking
comfort, yet finding none. Then sitting near the much-loved grave, the
soul hears the night winds whispering, "Not here, not here!" to which
the murmuring sea replies, "Not here," while the weeping vines and the
mournful pines ever answer, "Not here, not here!" But softly falling
through the pathless air comes a voice murmuring, "Here! Here! Come
up hither!"
Oh, these luminous hours! These hours of deeper conviction are life's
real hours! Summer is sunshine and beauty, not storm and snow. There
are dark and wintry days in March, when spring seems a delusion. There
are days in April so cold that summer seems a snare. But between the
storms there are brief warm intervals when the sun falls soft on the
south hillsides, and the roots begin to stir and the seeds to ache
with harvests, and all the air is vocal. The fitful snows in April are
but reminders of what the dying winter was; but these occasional sunny
days are prophecies of what summer hath accomplished in its full
ministry upon the fields and forests.
And after long periods of sodden selfishness and clouded sin, suddenly
the vision of better things breaks through the cloud and storm. Then
the vision strikes clarity into reason, memory and imagination. In
these hours the soul scoffs at sordid things. As the flower climbs
upward to escape from the slough, as the foot turns away from the
mire, as the nostril avoids the filth, as the ear hates discord, so in
these hours the soul scoffs at selfishness and sin. Oh, how beautiful
seem purity and gentleness, and sympathy and truth! And these hours
are big with prophecy. They tell us what the soul shall be when time
and God's resources have wrought their will upon man. They are to be
cherished as the mariner cherishes the guiding star that stands upon
the horizon; they are to be cherished as some traveler, lost in a
close, dark forest, cherishes the moment when the sun breaks through a
rift in the clouds and he takes his bearings out of the swamp and
toward his home. Visions are God within the soul. They come to lead
man away from sin and sorrow. They come to guide him to his heavenly
home.
THE USES OF BOOKS AND READING
"Bring with the books."--_Paul._
"A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit
embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond
life."--_Milton._
"God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the
distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual
life of past ages. In the best books great men talk to
us, give us their most precious thoughts and pour their
souls into ours."--_Channing._
"All that mankind has done, thought or been is lying as
in magic preservation in the pages of books. They are the
chosen possession of men."--_Carlyle._
"We need to be reminded every day how many are the books
of inimitable glory, which, with all our eagerness after
reading, we have never taken into our hands. It will
astonish most of us to find how much of our very industry
is given to the books which have no worth, how often we
rake in the litter of the printing press, whilst a crown
of gold and rubies is offered us in vain."--_F.
Harrison._
XI
THE USES OF BOOKS AND READING
Paul was at once a thinker, a theologian, and a statesman, because he
was always a scholar. One duty he never neglected--the duty of
self-culture through reading. Certain companions were ever with
him--his favorite authors. Imprisoned in Rome, the burden of his
letters to his young friend in Ephesus was books and the duty of
reading. Himself a Hebrew, by much study he became a cosmopolitan and
a citizen of the wide-lying universe. Like Emerson, he believed that
"the scholar was a favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his
country, and the happiest of men." Saner intellect than his never trod
this earth, and could he speak to our age, with its fret and fever,
his message would certainly include some words about the companionship
of good books.
The supreme privilege of our generation is not rapid transit, nor the
increase of comforts and luxuries. Modern civilization hath its flower
and fruitage in books and culture for all through reading. Should the
dream of the astronomer ever come true, and science establish a code
of electric signals with the people of Mars, our first message would
not be about engines, nor looms, nor steamships. Not the telephone by
which men speak across continents, but the book by which living men
and dead men converse across centuries, would be the burden of the
first message. President Porter once said that the savage visiting
London with Livingstone appreciated everything except the libraries.
The poor black man understood the gallery, for the face of his child
answered to that of Raphael's cherub and seraph. He understood the
cathedral, with its aisles and arches, for it reminded him of his own
altars and funeral hymns. He understood the city, for it seemed like
many little towns brought together in one. But the great library,
crowded from floor to ceiling with books, the strange, white pages
over which bowed the reader, while smiles flitted across his face as
one sun-spot chases another over the warm April hills, the black marks
causing the reader's tears to flow down upon the open page, made up a
mystery the poor savage could not understand. No explanation availed
for the necromancy of the library.
For wise men the joys of reading are life's crowning pleasures. Books
are our universities, where souls are the professors. Books are the
looms that weave rapidly man's inner garments. Books are the
levelers--not by lowering the great, but by lifting up the small. A
book literally fulfills the story of the Wandering Jew, who sits down
by our side and like a familiar friend tells us what he hath seen and
heard through twenty centuries of traveling through Europe. Newton's
"Principia" means that at last stars and suns have broken into voice.
Agassiz's zoology causes each youth to be a veritable Noah, to whom it
is given to behold all insects and beasts and birds going two by two
into the world's great ark. God hath given us four inferior teachers,
including travel, occupation, industry, conversation, and four
teachers superior, including love, grief, death--but chiefly books.