In achieving spiritual emancipation the mind must pass from
prescription to conscious reason, from mere faith to knowledge. There
must be nothing lost in the transition, only a gain in the form of
science to what was before held in the form of faith and tradition.
But this transition is the most painful one in history, although its
results are the most glorious.—WM. T. HARRIS, LL. D.
One evening Mildred and I had prepared for bed, and in our
dressing-gowns were sitting cosily before our open wood fire, watching
the flames dance and flicker and cast weird shadows on the wall. It had
been a hard day, the morning having been spent in writing and dictation
and in examining a half bushel of mail matter; the afternoon we had
spent in visiting tenement houses and industrial schools in Brooklyn.
After dinner, however, I had beguiled Mildred into a merry hour over
some dashing Schubert duets, for music never failed to rest and soothe
her. Then, turning the lights down and drawing the _tête-à-tête_ before
the red glow of the firelight, we fell to talking, indulging in many
reminiscences of childish pranks and school-girl sentimentality.
I had been bred outside of New England, and our lives had been wholly
unlike. Perhaps it was because we were so very unlike in many things
that we were more and more drawn to each other day by day, finding ever
new delight in exploring each other’s history and thoughts.
I had seen more of the world, in a certain way, than Mildred,—that is,
more of society, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The
leisurely, easy-going life of a people to whom New England ideas and
“isms” were unknown had been the limits of my social, and
Presbyterianism and Episcopacy the limits of my spiritual, horizon. I
had scarcely dreamed of the existence of any other way of looking at
life among people in good society.
A brisk canter on my red roan, with a gay company of young people, a
good dinner party, plenty of bouquets and dancing and young men, with
now and then a would-be-serious talk with some of the more
studiously-minded of them apropos of German poetry or Victor Hugo,—this
life I had known all about, and but little of any other.
However, eight months previously, when reverses of fortune had cast my
fate in Salem, Massachusetts, among a family of Unitarians who had been
old-time abolitionists, and were now woman suffragists and zealous
reformers in every direction, my conception of life had enlarged a
little, and I was prepared not to be amazed at this radical, bookish
Boston girl who upset all my previous theories of what a charming woman
should be.
She was charming; no one who had seen her sitting there, in her loose
gown of a delicate rose color, her dark wavy hair falling around her
shoulders as she gazed steadily into the glowing embers, her fine
features outlined by the firelight, but would have thought her so. We
had been laughing heartily over some droll accounts of my first New
England experiences and the horror which I had aroused in some precise
old maids by my frivolity, while I had been equally horrified by their
radical theology. I thought that it was wicked for them to read Renan,
and they thought it sinful for me to wear French corsets and moderately
high heels.
After a time Mildred and I began to talk of love and lovers, as girls
will. I say “girls,” though I was six-and-twenty and she my senior. But
in New England, where late marriages are the rule and not the exception,
the term “girls,” as I have discovered, has an indefinite application.
“Mildred, were you never in love?” I asked.
I shouldn’t have dared quite so much as that, only somehow she had
invited my confidence, and I had told her all about my love affairs. I
couldn’t tell whether she blushed or not, for the firelight glowed on
her face. At first I thought that she was offended, for she waited a
minute before she answered, and we listened to the rain coming in great
gusts against the window pane, and the omnibuses rattling over the paved
street below.
Mildred nestled a little closer to the fire and adjusted her cushions.
Then she said slowly, as she stretched out her slender fingers before
the blaze, “Why, yes, I suppose I really was in love, though I didn’t
know it at the time.”
“Good heavens, Mildred, not with Mr. Dunreath!” I cried; “you told me
you never really cared for him.”
“No, not with Mr. Dunreath,” replied Mildred quickly, and throwing her
head back she clasped her hands over her knee, swaying back and forth in
the firelight. Then she stopped again. I asked no more questions, for
there was a look in her eyes and a droop to the sensitive mouth which
meant I knew not what. Was it possible that this woman, who seemed so
enthusiastically absorbed in her plans and so cheerful and gay, was
really carrying about with her a secret heart-ache? I had watched her
curiously as we had been in society together, and had been amused at her
absolute lack of coquetry and matter-of-fact way of talking with
gentlemen, and, on the other hand, at her semi-consciousness that she
must try not to say too much about her theories and hobbies, and to
“learn to talk small talk,” as she said. I, who had had my fill of small
talk, and whom the late years were beginning to teach some serious
lessons, liked much better her simplicity and unusual earnestness about
things. Her bookishness, too, which at first I had rather dreaded, did
not mean pedantry or dullness. She had read but few books, she told me;
far less than I. She once showed me in her diary her list of books for
the past year. There were only six: Plato’s “Republic,” “Wilhelm
Meister,” Stanley’s “History of the Jews,” Thackeray’s “Newcomes,” Henry
George’s “Progress and Poverty,” and a volume of Fichte.
“I like to be acquainted with the best people,” she once said; “there is
no reason why one should put up with the second-rate ones when one can
have the best.”
“But it is not every one who can get the best society,” said I, not
understanding in the least what she meant.
“Every one who can read can have the best friends of all ages,” she
replied. And they were her friends. But I am digressing.
“I will tell you all about it,” said Mildred, with her eyes still fixed
on the coals. “There is no reason why I should not, though I never told
any one before, and I have hardly acknowledged it to myself. I think I
was in love; yes, I think I really was—in love.
“It happened in this way. I had gone down to the Fitchburg station to
take the early morning train for Concord. By the way, were you ever at
Concord?” she asked abruptly.
“What?” I answered, “Concord, New Hampshire?”
“No, our own Massachusetts Concord; the Concord of Emerson and Hawthorne
and Thoreau and the Alcotts. I had been there but once before, but since
that time it has been a sort of Mecca of mine, and I have made many a
pilgrimage there.
“I was going out to the Concord School of Philosophy, not, however, for
any special reason. I didn’t know and didn’t care to know anything about
philosophy, but I thought it might be fun to see for once the
long-haired men and short-haired women congregate and talk, as the
papers said, about the ‘thisness of the then and the whichness of the
where.’ Besides, I wanted to visit Hawthorne’s grave. I was full of his
romances then.
“At the station I met my bosom-friend Julia Mason. ‘How fortunate!’ she
exclaimed. ‘Here is my cousin, bound for the Summer School, too. You
must philosophize together.’ She introduced us to each other, and then
hastened to take her own train, while the young man and I made our way
together to the express train for Concord.
“He pleased my fancy at once. I was just at the age when a girl always
sees a possible lover in every handsome young man whom she chances to
know. Not that the thought occurred to me then, for he was far from
being the ideal lover whom I had dreamed of marrying. My lover must
combine all the graces of an Alcibiades with the virtues of a Bayard, a
knight _sans peur et sans reproche_, with classic features, curling
locks, and a voice and smile that should melt the very stones.”
“You matter-of-fact old Mildred,” I laughed. “To think of your ever
being so romantic!”
She smiled a little as she unclasped her hands from her knee and leaned
back.
“Yes,” she said, “I had my dreams once.”
Then she continued:
“He was older than I, twenty-five, perhaps; tall, broad-shouldered, a
manly man every inch of him; a little clumsy and awkward at first, and
lacking in all the manifold little attentions which girls like. He did
not offer to carry my bag, I observed, and he entered the car-door
first. He was certainly not in the least like the courteous, gallant
knight of my girlish fancy.
“But presently, as he began to talk in an animated way, his frank blue
eyes lighted up and lent to his by no means classic features a wonderful
charm. We got well acquainted on the short journey. He, it seems, had,
like myself, been at Concord only once before. It was on that raw, cold
day in ’75, when I, a young school-girl, with my mother, and he a
Phillips Academy boy, had, unknown to each other, essayed to board the
train in that same frightfully thronged station, and go to the
Centennial celebration.
“I told him of my droll experience, wedged in between a dozen men and
women in the smoking-car. He, it seems, was not so fortunate as I, for
he took no lunch, and, like thousands of others who could buy nothing
for either love or money, almost starved. I told him about our
experience: how we marched with the women assembled at the town hall,
led by a lady with a little flag, around the road to the tent on Battle
lawn; how there we were nearly annihilated by the throng, and how at
last by some good fortune I was borne up to the platform’s very edge,
and stood there within a few feet of Grant and all his cabinet, and with
Curtis, Emerson, and Lowell all within arm’s reach.
“How my heart beat at the sight of those faces! I have seen many famous
sights since, but nothing that ever stirred my blood like that,” said
Mildred, with glowing eyes. “I was scarcely more than a child, Ruby, but
I stood there for two mortal hours, unable to move forward or backward,
to right or left, quivering from head to foot with enthusiasm and
excitement. That day my American patriotism was born. I had studied a
little text-book at school, and learned names and dates; but not until
under the spell of Curtis’s eloquence, and face to face with the men
whose fathers had shed their blood in the brave fight one hundred years
before, did I begin to realize what it all meant. I remember
particularly a little old man with weather-beaten face, clad in a simple
suit,—his ‘Sunday best,’—who stood beside me listening with eager,
upturned face, his blue eyes filled with unshed tears. I could see his
lips quiver; and once, as if carried away by the fervor of his emotion,
he grasped my arm with his brown, withered hand and whispered huskily,
‘Little girl, when you get as old as I be, you’ll understand what all
this means.’
“Since then,” said Mildred gravely, “the words ‘my country’ have meant
something new to me. A distinctly new idea took hold of me, an idea that
some time I hope to make blossom into deeds.”
I confess I was getting a little impatient for an account of the
love-making, and this did not sound much like it. But after musing a
bit, Mildred continued:
“This little experience which my companion and I had in common made us
quickly acquainted. He frankly told me of his college life and of
himself. He had been studying for the ministry, he said, though whether
he was to be a clergyman or not I inferred was somewhat doubtful.
“We passed Walden Pond, gleaming like silver in the sunshine, and he
talked of Thoreau, whom he seemed to know well, though I had at that
time read nothing of him. Presently we rolled up to the Concord station,
and while a crowd of people alighted and took the ‘barge,’ we went down
one of the long, shady streets, bordered by tall hedges and
close-clipped lawns, with comfortable, roomy mansions set back from the
street; past the little gem of a town library, on its carpet of emerald
green; past the cluster of shops and the cool-plashing fountain, and
down the famous old road which saw the redcoats’ flight, and which Hosea
Biglow, you remember, says he ‘most gin’ally calls “John Bull’s Run.”’
“Such a lovely, quiet old street! Dear, you must see it some day—with
the broad, green meadow lands on one side, and the hill crowned with
trees and vines on the other.
“‘Along this ridge lived Hawthorne’s Septimius Felton,’ said my
companion.
“‘And here,’ said I, as we passed a tiny antique house on the hillside
with curtains drawn, and no path through the grass that surrounded
it,—‘here, I am positive, an old witch with a black cat must have lived
a hundred years ago.’
“We jested and laughed as we went merrily on. We were young and happy
that brilliant summer morning. I remember how every leaf sparkled with
the heavy dewdrops, and the air seemed to fairly intoxicate one like a
draught of wine. I was fairly brimming over with delight.
“We passed the old-fashioned white house with green blinds, peeping out
from behind the pines, which I needed no one to tell me had been the
home of the Concord seer; and a little further on appeared the
brown-gabled house, nestled in a green hollow, and guarded by giant
elms, where the Little Women lived their charming life. Just within
these grounds stood the vine-covered Hillside Chapel, whither our steps
were tending. We had passed little groups on our way, and now and then
we caught a word of what they were saying; ‘first entelechy,’ ‘pure
subjectivity,’ the ‘_ding an sich_,’ and so on, which in my hilarious
mood served as a further theme for jest.
“As we took our seats beneath the bust of Pestalozzi and beside the
comfortable arm-chair always reserved for Mrs. Emerson, I scanned the
audience closely. It was not a stylish one, and I felt a little inclined
to poke fun at some of the antiquated bonnets; but my attention was
attracted by the evident eagerness with which my new friend was studying
the face of the speaker.
“He was a middle-aged man, with close-clipped gray beard and spectacles,
and a face that seemed to be the very personification of thought. The
subject of the lecture was Immortality. I listened, vainly trying to
understand, and feeling as though the essence of a thousand books was
being crowded into that quiet morning’s talk. I had heard that this man
was a German rationalist, and was undermining the foundations of
Christianity; therefore I had prepared myself to see a cynic or a
scoffer. I had thought that I would go, for once, to hear what he had to
say; just to have an idea as to what it was all about. I felt all the
excitement of doing something a little venturesome.
“Dear me,” laughed Mildred; “how droll it all seems now, and what an
ignorant little bigot I must have been!
“I tried to follow the speaker and to get some meaning from those quiet,
clear-cut sentences as they dropped from his lips, and slowly forced
upon my incredulous mind the conviction that here at least was one man
who spoke whereof he knew. I had never done so hard thinking in my life.
He was taking me into a field of thought of which I had never dreamed,
and I was as unable to follow his giant strides as a child to follow the
man in seven-league boots. My temples began to throb; in despair I gave
up the attempt, and fell to watching my companion as with bated breath
he followed the speaker. Only one thing I remember, and that because I
jotted it down on the back of an envelope at the time. He said, ‘The
standpoint of absolute personality is the one to be attained. On this
plane, freedom, immortality, and God are the regulative principles of
science as well as of life; and they are not only matters of faith, but
matters of indubitable scientific certainty.’
“The lecture was nearly two hours long, and there was to be a discussion
following it; but we were both exhausted with the mental strain, and
quietly slipped out into the summer sunshine.
“My companion said nothing. He walked with head erect and long strides,
and I felt considerably piqued to find that he seemed utterly oblivious
of my presence. Presently he turned to me, and in a tone which almost
startled me exclaimed, ‘Thank God for that man! More than any other man
living or dead has he kept me from making utter shipwreck of my faith.’
I was surprised at his earnestness and touched by the simple frankness
with which he had revealed to me, almost an utter stranger, his inmost
thoughts.
“Again he seemed to forget me, and we paced on in silence, past the
fountain, under gigantic elms, past the ‘town toothpick,’ as the
æsthetic scoffers have dubbed the obelisk that commemorates the soldiers
of the war, and turned down the road by Hawthorne’s gray old manse and
through the avenue of pines, to where, stretching across the sluggish
stream, we saw the
... ‘bridge that arched the flood’
where
‘Once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.’
“Here we stopped to rest a while, under the spreading boughs of a
pine-tree, beside the graves of the two British soldiers that fell in
the famous fight. We shared our sandwiches and bananas, and threw crumbs
to the saucy squirrels that darted from limb to limb above our heads;
and then, like two children, we trimmed our hats with daisies and
buttercups from the fields close by. I watched him closely, with the
pleasing consciousness that my pretty dress and new hat were noticed
with evident approval on his part. Evidently he was able to enjoy some
other things as well as philosophy; and when he shook back the thick
blonde hair which rose from his broad forehead in a sort of Rubenstein
mane, and tossed over into the fields a great stone that had fallen from
the wall, I began to query whether a young man with locks and sinews
like a young Norse god might not be a very fascinating type of hero.
“But I was curious to know what he meant by ‘shipwreck of his faith.’ As
we picked up our various belongings (this time I noted that he asked for
my bag) and walked over through the woods to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I
determined to probe him a little.
“‘Mr. Everett,’ I began, ‘don’t you think, after all, that philosophy is
a rather dangerous thing for one to begin to study?’”
I smiled mischievously as Mildred inadvertently disclosed the name which
hitherto she had adroitly concealed. She flushed a little, as if
annoyed.
“After all,” she said, “you might as well know his name, for he has
gone, heaven knows where, and I shall never see him again.”
A shade of sadness fell upon her face turned toward the firelight, but
she went quietly on:
“He hesitated a moment before he answered, as if mentally to adjust
himself to my plane of ignorance. Then he asked, ‘And why dangerous,
Miss Brewster?’
“‘You know what I mean,’ said I, rather vexed at being obliged to put my
vague thoughts into words. ‘What good can all this theorizing and
speculation do? Don’t you think it would be a great deal better for all
these people here to spend their time in talking about something
practical? My feeling is, that people who begin to think and question
about God and immortality and such things, and aren’t satisfied with the
simple truths of the Bible, get to be skeptics before they know it, and
are ruined for life. My mother’s religion is good enough for me. If I
can live up to that I shall be satisfied, without racking my brains and
reasoning over things that God intended us to take on faith.’
“To tell the truth, this didn’t exactly represent my thought; but I had
often heard it said, and thought it sounded well. Besides, I was curious
to see what he would reply to it.
“‘It would take hours to answer adequately what you have just said, Miss
Brewster,’ replied Mr. Everett; ‘but I will try to say something; for it
is precisely these same questions that I myself have been trying to
answer in the last few years.’
“We were climbing the little hill that like a crescent surrounded the
green hollow, where lie the sleepers in their last sleep. On the summit,
beneath the tall sighing pines, beside Emerson’s grave and within a
stone’s throw of the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau, we sat down and
looked over the broad valley on the other side with the hills beyond. It
was so quiet, so peaceful, just where a tired soul would love to have
his last resting-place.
“Mr. Everett was silent for a moment, as if to collect his thought;
then, not looking at me, but afar off at the glimpses of blue between
the swaying boughs, he began to speak, while I listened intently, every
word fairly burning itself upon my memory. I did not rest that night
until I had transmitted it all to my diary, to be read and reread over
and over again.
“‘You say that your mother’s religion is good enough for you,’ he began.
‘Well, Miss Brewster, when I think of the love and devotion, of the
tender prayers and wise counsels that guided my boyish waywardness, when
I think of the saintliness and unselfishness of my own sainted mother, I
feel like saying that, too. If I could ever have one half her
spirituality and Christlikeness, I should count my life a grand success.
But I cannot say, and I know that truth and justice cannot compel me to
say, that my mother’s theology would be enough for me, for her life was
not the outcome of much in her theology. Her unquestioning faith in a
literal Adam and Eve had nothing to do with her sweetness and devotion
to duty. Nor was her unwavering belief in the sacredness of everything
in the sixty-six Hebrew and Christian books the cause of her infinite
patience and self-sacrifice. No; I want my mother’s religion, but I
cannot accept all of her theology. I should count it a sin against God
if I were to so stultify my intelligence as to do it.
“‘You say, “Don’t you think all these people here had better be doing
something practical?” What is more practical, I ask you, than for a
human soul, to whom life is something more than meat and drink, to learn
of that which more than all else concerns that soul’s welfare? And what
can more help to this than the study of the wisest thought of all the
ages on just these very problems of life and death, things present and
things to come? As Novalis says, “Philosophy can bake no bread; but she
can procure for us God, Freedom, and Immortality.” I count that the most
practical as well as the most precious help that can be offered to any
questioning human soul who has come to see that man cannot live by bread
alone, and whose sorest need is to know the meaning and the end of this
life of ours.’
“‘But the Bible tells us that,’ I cried impatiently; ‘what more do we
need?’
“‘Perhaps you need nothing more,’ he answered quietly. ‘If so, well and
good. Clear insight is not essential to living a noble life. If you have
really grasped the spiritual meaning of Christianity it matters little
that you should hold it in a more naive and literal way than I am able
to. If in this age you can accept unquestioningly everything that has
been taught you, if you never have a doubt, I would be the last person
to raise one, for I know what mental misery would ensue in one educated
as you have been. But so long as your religious faiths have been
inherited, like your hair and eyes, and you have not examined them so as
to make them your own, pardon my saying that there is small virtue in
your holding them, and so far as your own thought goes you might as well
have been a Papist or a Mohammedan.’
“‘But what is the use of mental misery? Why should I encourage doubts
and unrest? Is it not far better to trust in God and not venture to
question all the strange things that he allows?’
“‘You ask two or three questions at once; let me take them one at a
time. Five years ago I asked just those same questions, and I know how
you feel.’ He spoke tenderly, and his voice comforted me. I was
beginning to get nervous and troubled and felt myself in deep waters.
“‘No great thing is ever born into this world except by suffering. If we
are put here simply for pleasure, for calm content, for peace of mind,
let us banish all questioning and dread it as a precursor of the
nightmare. Yes, if immediate peace of mind is the primary consideration,
let us, like the ostrich, bury our heads in the sand, like the chicken
refuse to pick our way through the shell, and be turned out of our warm
corner into the bare, cold world outside. If peace of mind is our chief
aim, let us stop thinking once for all. It is dangerous. Yes, thinking
is always dangerous; dangerous to one’s love of ease and content with
existing ideas. The little shoot content with its environment in the
dark mould will never reach the sunlight until first it struggles upward
from the conditions that surround it.
“‘Many a time in the last four years I have said to myself, in the night
of horror that swept over me, when I felt as if the foundations beneath
me had broken away, “whether the Bible be true, or life eternal, or God
a father, I do not know; but this one thing I do know: I must be true; I
must be unselfish; I must go on and seek the light;” and, thank God, I
have begun to find it at last.’
“Mr. Everett spoke with a quiet intensity of feeling that awed me.
However, I ventured to ask, rather timidly, ‘But you did find—you do
believe in the Bible now, don’t you?’
“‘That is a question which cannot be rightly answered by a “yes” or
“no,”’ he replied; ‘for neither answer would be true. I was brought up,
as perhaps you were, to look upon all these matters without the
slightest discrimination; to think a disbelief in Jonah’s whale
synonymous with the disbelief in the divine inspiration of any part of
the Bible; to think a disbeliever in the Bible necessarily a disbeliever
in God; and to count a disbeliever in immortality on a par with a
bigamist or a horse-thief.
“‘When I dared trust myself to think and read this book, or rather
collection of books, with a calm, unprejudiced eye, I was amazed to find
how much I had been taught to claim for them which they never claim for
themselves. They became utterly new books to me, as if I had never read
them before; wonderfully rich and helpful and inspiring and full, as I
believe, of the truest religious inspiration, but not always a guide for
me in history and science, and not infallible as to fact.
“‘Who shall find any authority for the doctrine that inspiration ceased
with the last one of those sixty-six books? No, Miss Brewster,’ said Mr.
Everett, looking at me earnestly, his shoulders thrown back, his head
erect, ‘God reveals himself to man to-day just as truly in this new
world as ever he did thousands of years ago to Hebrew seers.
“‘You ask why I should crave any deeper reasons for my belief in God,
free will, and immortality than these writings give. Simply this: I
must. At first I fought against it, fearing it to be a temptation of the
devil. But I came to see that this fear, for me at least, was cowardice
and folly. The command was laid upon my soul to give an adequate reason
for the faith that I held, and I could not be recreant to this call of
conscience. I had been told to believe the Bible because it was God’s
Word, and then, following in a circle, to believe that there was a God
because God’s Word proved it. It did not take me long to see the
childishness of this, and though I put it off again and again, my
conscience would not be stilled until I had systematically set myself to
see whether or not anything could really be known, or whether inference,
conjecture, and hope were all that God had vouchsafed to the creature
made in his image.
“‘I suppose few women ever feel this necessity. I do not say that it is
necessary for you or for any one to probe to the bottom of these things,
if you are content without doing so. I think, however, that it is of the
utmost importance for the thousand bewildered spirits in our day, who
long to know but who cannot themselves study, to come to see that
knowledge on the questions which are most vital to us all is to be had
by every rational being who has time and patience and follows the right
path of inquiry; and that in these matters, if we are willing to pay the
cost of time and labor, we may in truth see and know.
“‘There are few who have the time or taste for any deep philosophic
study. There are fewer still who have any faith in the outcome of such
study, and of these few but a handful who get started on the right road
and persist until they attain results. Moreover, as truly in philosophy
as in religion must one be “born again”; and, unlike religious birth, it
cannot be instantaneous, for it is not a matter of will. It takes years
to bring about this new and deeper insight.
“‘I rarely find a person whom I would advise to study philosophy, for
here, if anywhere, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and one is
maddened by the superficial talk of those who have not learned its
a-b-c, but yet presume to argue as if they had mastered everything from
Aristotle to Schelling. I have come to find that there are very few
people who even dream of what philosophy is. The average man fancies
that speculative philosophy must be simply guess-work or some vague
theorizing, unworthy of a Christian man who has any practical work to do
in this world in the way of earning his living and helping to hasten the
kingdom of God.
“‘But the average Christian is largely materialistic in his thought. His
heaven, his hell, are localities; his God a huge, anthropomorphic being,
and the universe a kind of vast machine, guided by some external Power;
or a sort of precipitate or sediment, as it were, of the eternal
thought.
“‘If this is true of a man who professes and in some measure accepts a
real spiritual faith, how much more true is it of the average worldly
man of common sense! He looks upon the ground he walks on as something
real. It is something that appeals to his senses, and he smiles with
calm contempt if you tell him that an idea is far more real than the
earth beneath his foot; that it is thought, and thought alone, that
sustains this planet; and that all the things that he considers real are
in fact mere passing phenomena, absolutely nothing in themselves, except
as they exist in relation to other things.’
“I looked up somewhat perplexed at this and was about to ask a question,
but Mr. Everett was too preoccupied with his own thought to notice this.
Leaning his head against a gray tree-trunk, he looked with absent eyes
far off at the purple hills. Presently he went on:
“‘Just as the sensualist can never understand the spiritually-minded man
and his infinitely higher capacity for joy, so the man of mere _common_
sense can never understand the man of philosophic insight, the man of
more than common sense, until he has been mentally born again, and has
transcended the materialistic phase of thought in which we all begin to
do our thinking, and which most of us never pass beyond. As said the man
whose dust lies at our feet, “Every man’s words, who speaks from that
life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on
their own part.”’
“‘But is it necessary to go through this tragic experience of which you
have spoken in order to reach right results?’ I asked.
“‘Whether it be tragic or not depends upon the temperament and
traditions of the individual,’ he answered.
“‘To me, brought up to know all that was possible of the loveliness of
Christian character, and taught to attribute it to a theology that was
more or less false, a change of belief was naturally almost as much to
be dreaded as a deterioration in moral character. From the cradle I was
destined for the missionary work; so you see that I had always the fear
of frustrating my parents’ most cherished hopes if I should deviate from
their standard of doctrine. In later years I gladly acquiesced in their
desire to see me in the ministry; it seemed to me, it still seems to me,
the most enviable life in the world.’
“I listened eagerly,” said Mildred, “as Mr. Everett said this. I, too,
had often thought of the missionary work, but I could not leave mother
then.
“‘Well, Miss Brewster,’ Mr. Everett continued; ‘I was blessed or
afflicted, whichever you may please to call it, with a conscience which
would not let me rest content with tacit consent to what I came to see
was hardly more than a half truth, and my inward life since my senior
year at Yale three years ago has been, until recently, one of bitter
conflict. Night after night, after leaving the lecture-room at the
seminary, have I walked my floor until morning, too wretched to pray, my
brain half crazed with the ceaseless turmoil of my thoughts. “I have no
message to give to others,” I said, “for I am sure of nothing; no one is
sure of anything.” Like the sad Hindu king, I asked myself,
“How knowest thou aught of God,
Of his favor or his wrath?
Can the little fish tell what the eagle thinks,
Or map out the eagle’s path?
Can the finite the infinite seek?
Did the blind discover the stars?
Is the thought that I think a thought,
Or a throb of the brain in its bars?”
“‘But at last help came, I have told you through whom, and now as I look
back upon it, I thank God for all that bitter experience. I know better
how to understand and sympathize with many a one whom I have found
struggling in the meshes of sophistry; earnest souls, who long for the
truth more than they long for life itself, and finding no one who can do
more for them than to simply say “Repent and believe.”
“‘Not that I have learned much yet. I have only begun to get glimpses of
the truth. I feel sure of far less now than I did five years ago. But I
know this: I do know and see beyond peradventure that it is right to
probe to the uttermost the problems which confront me. I should have
been false to myself, unfaithful to my highest, truest instinct, if I
had listened to the tearful advice of my timid friends and turned my
back and shut my eyes to what God would reveal to me. I did not know
where I should be led; my knees knocked together with fear as I felt my
way through the gloom. But gradually, and chiefly from the writings of
that man whose teachings we heard this morning, have I learned not only
to believe, but to know the truths which he taught us to-day. Some men
call him skeptic, rationalist; at best they say, such talk must be
unpractical. Fools! not to know that to save a soul from hopeless
despair, to give life and health to an immortal spirit, is quite as
practical a thing as to pave streets and cut coats.
“‘I look upon a true philosophy as the most completely useful thing in
the world.’ He stopped, and I looked up bewildered.
“‘Useful?’ I asked.
“‘Certainly; useful. Is not that useful which gives man a clear insight
into what must otherwise be forever obscure? Is it not useful to lift
him out of the domain of prejudice and mere opinion on vital matters,
and give him the key to the universe by making him to know the grounds
of his knowledge, of his being, and of his destiny?’
“‘But do you not believe in relying on faith at all? Do you accept
nothing that you do not understand?’ I asked.
“‘I understand very few things that my reason compels me to accept,’
answered Mr. Everett. ‘I do not understand the chemical change which
transmutes my food into living animal matter, and I do not understand a
million things which I believe. Certainly we must have faith. All
business and all life depends upon faith. But by faith I do not mean the
simple credulity of my childhood in everything that I was taught. By
faith I mean a steadfast reliance on what my reason tells me is true,
even though I have no immediate evidence of it, and imagination and
understanding fail to compass it. When I see the apparently useless
suffering and cruelty which the Supreme Power has permitted, I have
faith in his infinite goodness, not because any man or book has told me
that it is so, but because, thank God, I see that it is so; and it is
philosophic study alone which has made me see this. He who is afraid to
study and question into the nature of the universe “and trust the Rock
of Ages to his chemic test” is the man who has no true faith.’
“‘But after all,’ I said, ‘you must admit that the philosophers are but
little read. It is the practical, common-sense people of the world who
have done the work, and they have got on very well, too, without all
this theorizing.’
“‘There was never a greater mistake in the world,’ replied Mr. Everett
vehemently, too deeply in earnest to remember anything but the point
that he was trying to make. ‘The philosophers certainly have not been
widely read, but that by no means measures their influence. It is they
who have taught the teachers who have taught the masses, and as the
traveler knows perhaps nothing of the inventor of the engine which
carries him safely from one side of the continent to the other, and
makes life larger for him in a hundred ways, so we all, reaping every
day in every one of our human institutions the rich benefits which the
thinkers of the ages have bestowed upon us, say ungratefully that we owe
them nothing. We attribute all our speed to the visible engineer and
conductor who by another man’s genius have brought us to our
destinations.’
“‘Would you advise me to study philosophy?’ I inquired humbly, much
impressed with the point of his reply to what I had flattered myself was
a rather bright remark.
“‘That depends,’ he said, ‘on what and how you study. If you wish to
study simply to be able to say or to feel that you have studied
philosophy, and can quote from this or that man, I advise you not to
study.’
“I must have flushed and looked a little hurt, for he quickly added,
‘Pardon me, Miss Brewster, I think that you are far too much in earnest
for that; but I have seen too many begin to read philosophy as a mere
amusement, a sort of fad, and with no real earnest purpose, learning
just enough to make them conceited or discouraged, and doing no good to
themselves or any one else, and bringing the study of philosophy into
disrepute. To me my philosophy has been a search for God, for truth. I
have studied for my soul’s sorest need, and in all my intellectual life
I have found nothing so satisfying, nothing that gives me such hope and
courage.’
“‘Should you advise me to begin with Herbert Spencer?’ I asked, thinking
that I would come to something definite.
“‘No, as you value your power to grow. You are not ready for him yet. He
would fascinate you, and you could not refute his fallacies; but read
Plato, read Kant, Fichte, Hegel. Don’t begin with them, though. Read
first, perhaps, the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the man whom we
heard this morning. I will give you also an article of his which deals
with Spencer in a way that opened my eyes.
“‘Don’t read much at a time, else it will utterly daunt you. Come back
to it again and again at intervals. You will be astonished to see your
growth. You will be surprised to find how digging at these tough
problems makes such mental muscle as renders other tasks easy.
“‘It will open a new world to you; but you must have infinite patience.
I have made up my mind to that. I shall be more than thankful if in
twenty years I have mastered this book;’ and he drew a volume of Hegel
from his pocket.
“The sun was sinking behind the trees as we rose to go homeward.
Stiffened with sitting so long, I tripped and fell. He sprang and caught
me in his great strong arms for one little moment; then—well—I trembled
a bit with the start it had given me, and finding that my foot had
really been hurt a little, I accepted his help as we descended the slope
and climbed upon the other side to the road again. It seemed very
pleasant to have his strong arm for a support. There had not been a word
of love, but his unaffected, frank talk had touched me as no compliments
or sentiment could ever have done.
“I had thought his voice rather harsh at first when he spoke so
earnestly and vehemently, but it had grown very tender and quiet now,
and as we came back from the woods to civilization again we lapsed into
silence.”
As Mildred ceased, the clock struck midnight. The noise outside had died
away, and the fire had burned low, too low for me to distinguish her
face clearly.
“And was there no love-making at all?” I asked, much disappointed at the
prosaic ending of the little romance that I had been anticipating. A
talk on philosophy in a graveyard was not the kind of love-making that I
knew about, and I wondered if there ever were another girl like Mildred.
“Oh, I didn’t say there was any love-making,” said Mildred rather dryly.
“I simply said that I think I really was in love.”
“And is that all? Did you never see him again?” I persisted.
“Yes, several times afterward,” she answered; “for I went regularly to
the school after that. At first I understood almost nothing, and much of
what he said was Greek to me. I met some delightful people there, but he
helped me more than any one else. He loaned me books, and we had many a
talk.
“I felt that we were becoming fast friends, when suddenly he went West.
I received a note from him some months afterward, telling me that his
parents had died; but there was very little about himself. I heard
afterward that he was engaged; but after Julia died I lost all knowledge
of him. Probably he has forgotten me long ago, but I owe to that talk
the best things that have come to me since I was a woman. Yes, Ruby,
that first April-day and that second day in midsummer in old Concord are
the two red-letter days of my life.”