LOOKING BACKWARD.
Roland Graeme was, by birth, a Canadian. His father had been a Scottish
clergyman who had emigrated to Canada in early life; a man of poetical
and dreamy temperament, of large and loving nature, which yet, by force
of education and habit, had been somehow forced into the compress of an
intricate and somewhat narrow creed; or at least had been led, like many
others, by an intense veneration for ancient authority, to submit
without chafing even to some articles against which his heart and moral
intelligence would have strongly protested had he allowed them any voice
in the matter. As it was, he worked on tranquilly, scorning worldly
delights and living laborious days, troubling himself little about
formal theology, and seeking to inspire his flock to love and practice
the Christian graces, "against which there is no law." In temporal
matters, he was as unpractical as he was unworldly, and, but for his
wife's calm, judicious judgment and practical common-sense, would have
been in perpetual financial straits. She, poor woman, had found it,
indeed, no easy task to steer the family bark clear of the rocks on
which the good minister's easy-going benevolence and trustful generosity
were continually on the verge of wrecking it.
Roland was this good man's only son, and on him his father had
concentrated all the ideality of his nature. Living in a remote country
place, where no good grammar school was easily accessible, he had
himself prepared his boy for college. Roland had absorbed eagerly all
that his father had to teach him, of classic lore, of poetry, of nature,
as well as the rudimentary, informal theology, that was, so to speak,
filtered through the spectroscope of a mind which unconsciously rejected
all that was harsh and narrow, allowing free passage only to what was
akin to his own loving spirit. Under such paternal influences,
intensified by his mother's strong religious nature, Roland had grown up
with his whole being inspired and colored by the great principles of
Christianity. The teachings of Christ himself, household words from his
earliest infancy, had taken a firm hold of his plastic young soul.
Principles of action seemed to him matters of course, which, as he too
often afterward found, were, to the average Christian people with whom
he came in contact, as an unknown tongue. Till he left his home, the boy
supposed all the nominal Christian world to be only an extension of the
little circle in his childhood's abode, and his fervid nature looked
forward to something like a repetition of his father's life under new
circumstances, possibly, with wider scope and under more congenial and
hopeful surroundings.
But, when he went to college, his sanguine nature was painfully
disenchanted by his first dip into the cold, commonplace reality. Many
of his comrades seemed to him little better than baptized heathen. He
saw things done, heard things said every day, by people who would have
been indignant had any one denied them the name of Christian, that
seemed to him in direct opposition to the spirit and teachings of the
Master they professed to own. Many, even of the religious students he
met, repelled him. Their religion for the most part seemed so shallow
and conventional, their creed so hard and narrow, their ideals so
worldly, that their conversation jarred and revolted him. He sought some
refuge from his perplexities in writing to his mother, who sensibly
reminded him that as he had had special privileges, he must not expect
the same degree of religious culture from lads brought up under very
different influences; that his own duty was, to hold fast by the truth
he knew, and, in so far as he could by his example and influence, help
others to see it, too. So the boy staunchly adhered to his principles,
and was thought "an odd sort of fellow," but "with no harm in him," who
could always be depended upon for a good turn, though a sort of "crank"
on certain points, especially as regarded poetry and religion. He found
no difficulty, with his natural talent and thorough preparation, in
taking a high place in his classes, though his love of literature and
general knowledge, combined with a natural dreaminess, kept him from
taking the highest honors of his course. This was, perhaps, a slight
disappointment to the good father, who cherished for his bright,
enthusiastic boy, ambitions he had never entertained for himself. But,
just at the close of Roland's undergraduate course, when he was already
looking forward to beginning his theological studies, his father
suddenly died.
It was a terrible blow to the lad, in more ways than one. His father had
been so much to him, a centre of such passionate love and reverence,
that life did not seem the same to him now that his father was no longer
there to guide and advise his still immature mind, and to sympathize
with his enthusiasms and aspirations. Moreover, this sad event seriously
affected his own prospects. He could no longer, for the present at
least, continue his professional studies. He must "buckle to" the task
of providing for his mother and two younger sisters, whom it was
necessary for him, in great measure, to support and educate. Teaching
was the work readiest to hand, and he soon secured a fairly remunerative
position, entailing, however, work which absorbed the greater portion of
his time and strength. He toiled on, steadily, faithfully; finding, as
time passed, much satisfaction in knowing that he was so well fulfilling
the responsibilities bequeathed to him by his father. He still read
omnivorously, seizing eagerly every fresh vein of thought, or view of
life and nature that came in his way. Of course, modern science threw
over him the glamour of its fascination, and he rapidly assimilated its
leading facts and theories, with an avidity characteristic of his active
and unresting mind, while, after the manner of young men, he did not
always stop to discriminate between fact and theory. Nor did he always
discern just whither the theory was leading him.
As he had by no means given up the hope of eventually prosecuting his
theological studies, he began, as he could spare the time from his daily
duties and the more secular reading that so fascinated him, to take up
some of the old text-books which had been in his father's library. One
of these was the intricate and elaborate compendium of doctrine which
formed the standard creed of the ministry of his Church--an able
synopsis of a certain rigid, scholastic, one-sided theology, having, for
most thoughtful minds nowadays, the great fault that it attempts to
compress into a series of logical propositions, mysteries far
transcending human thought, and never thrown into this dogmatic form by
the original teachers of Christianity. He found there, not only
statements that seemed to conflict with the teachings of science, but
also declarations concerning the deepest mysteries of Divine purpose,
against which his heart and his sense of justice alike rose in
passionate revolt, and which he could never have dreamed it possible to
conjure out of the love-lighted pages of his New Testament. Was this, he
thought, what his father had believed? Looking back on all he had ever
heard from that father, he could not think so. At all events, he knew
that _he_ could never believe it or profess to do so. His mother could
give him little help in his perplexities. She had never troubled herself
about abstruse theological questions. Her Bible was enough for her, and
she did not think his father had felt himself bound to believe
everything the theologians taught. Yet there was confronting him, this
long series of definite propositions, subscription to which was the only
entrance-gate to the ministry of the Church which was so dear to his
imagination through a thousand traditions and tender associations. He
felt that, for him, that gate was firmly barred.
But this was by no means all. The questioning and disintegrating
process, once begun, did not stop here. The mystery of life and being
seemed to have opened an abyss before him which he now seemed unable to
bridge by the old simple faith that had hitherto been enough for him.
Sceptical friends, by plausible arguments, increased this difficulty,
and the attacks on the Divine origin of Christianity, which were
constantly coming in his way, found a ready entrance into his perplexed
mind, unarmed to repel them. A "horror of great darkness" seemed to have
swallowed up the very foundations of his faith. Life and death--the
present and the future--seemed shrouded in the cloud of unfathomable
mystery which his baffled vision vainly strove to penetrate. Much
thought about it became too heavy a burden to bear; and he practically
gave up the struggle for light, making up his mind, for the present, to
follow the one compass in his possession--the Christian ideal and
conscience that had been developed and educated with his own growth,
till it had become an inseparable part of his moral being. He was at
least happy in having his life founded on this rock, even though his
eyes might be for a time blinded as to the true source of his strength.
Some busy years had passed, lighted at least by the consciousness of
practical duty honestly followed and of being the trusted prop and
consolation of his mother's life; while for his sisters he did his best
to secure as careful an education as had been bestowed on him. The
interest that he had felt compelled to withdraw from speculative
thought, he had thrown, all the more strongly, into some of the great
practical questions of the day, unconscious that much of his early faith
still survived in the enthusiasm with which he caught at every new plan
or measure for lightening the load of the more burdened portion of
humanity. Altruistic by inherited temperament, the "enthusiasm of
humanity" gradually possessed him like a passion. It seemed as if the
wrongs and woe of oppressed multitudes lay like an actual weight on his
heart. He devoured the works of Henry George, as they came out, till
these "Problems" absorbed his own mind, and the remedies proposed by
George and others seemed to bring up the vision of a fair Utopia which
might become the noble aim of a modern crusade. To devote himself and
his life in some way to such an object, seemed to him the aim most
worthy to set before himself. But, of course, his first duty was to
provide for his mother and sisters.
An unexpected event, however, set him free from this obligation in a
very agreeable way. The elder of his two sisters had been gradually and
imperceptibly developing into a very charming and attractive young
woman; and, much to Roland's surprise, he one day discovered in a
wealthy young friend of his own a prospective brother-in-law, who was
generously ready to provide a home for the mother of the bride he was
eager to claim. And as his younger sister was almost ready for her own
chosen vocation of teaching, Roland could now begin to think of a career
for himself.
One of his most promising and congenial classmates at college, with whom
he had always kept up a steady correspondence, had, some years before,
gone to the United States, to engage in journalistic work, and had
become the editor of the Minton _Minerva_. He had frequently urged
Roland to join him there, setting before him the inducements of a wider
sphere and a more active and busy life. Roland had always had strong
republican sentiments and sympathies, and humanitarian instincts were
still stronger in him than were local or traditional attachments and
associations. There was the attraction, too, of possibly helping on a
great "movement" in which he thoroughly believed, and then there was the
fascination of new scenes and surroundings to one whose life for years
had been so monotonous. He stuck to his post, however, till he had saved
enough to supply his own simple needs for a year or two, and then set
off on a rapid trip to those portions of the Old World which, from his
childhood, he had most longed to see.
There, besides the old quaint cities and ruins, around which a thousand
literary and historical associations clustered like the ivy which
clothed them, and the glorious mountain scenery of which as a boy he had
so often dreamed, he had found in his wanderings another subject of deep
interest. This was the condition of those "forgotten millions," of which
he had read so much of late. Here, as in other cases, he found all his
conceptions fall far short of what he actually beheld--men, women and
children, pent up in rank and wretched slums, fighting with gaunt famine
for a miserable existence. He saw them, at early morning, searching
heaps of rubbish for a few crusts, only too eagerly devoured. He saw
young girls, forced to still more revolting means of procuring daily
bread--means that dragged them rapidly down to worse than physical
death. He saw young children, with haggard unchildlike faces, and most
unchildlike sharpness and callous greed, born of the premature "struggle
for existence" that was written on their pinched young features. He saw
human beings who had not, literally, "where to lay their heads," glad to
throw themselves down on the damp grass of city parks, yet driven from
thence, and from every other resting-place, by the relentless order to
"move on!" He knew that, of these multitudes, fighting hand to hand with
starvation, many could not, by any effort, secure remunerative work. For
these, there seemed nothing but despair and death, on an earth which
could no longer make good for them the promise--"In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread." For them there was neither work nor bread.
The sights he then saw burned themselves into his heart and brain
forever. And, side by side with all this misery, he saw gorgeous
displays of wealth and luxury, such as he had scarcely thought possible,
outside of the "Arabian Nights;" evidences of idle _abandon_ to
voluptuous pleasure--of unblushing and reckless extravagance--until he
wondered how it could be that a just and over-ruling Providence should
not interfere; how it was that the earth did not open to swallow up
these selfish cumberers of the ground. It was the old problem which
perplexed the righteous soul of Job in the dawn of history--which has
perplexed many a moralist and driven to despair many a bewildered
enthusiast in all the ages. But if anything had been needed to intensify
in him the "enthusiasm of humanity," the passion for reform; to grave on
his heart the resolve to "open his mouth for the dumb, in the cause of
all such as are left desolate," it was what he then saw of that
hopeless, inarticulate hardship and misery, which rarely finds
expression in speeches or pamphlets, but sometimes does find it, at
last, in strikes and catastrophes! A little, too, he saw, of _that_
underlying social dynamite, and felt to his heart's core the gravity of
the situation.
It was, therefore, with no room in his mind for trifling, and little for
selfish aims, that Roland Graeme returned from abroad to take up the
work of his life. He first, of course, paid a brief visit to his mother
and sisters, to satisfy himself as to their happiness and comfort; and
then, with his few belongings--chiefly books--he betook himself to his
friend at Minton. Dick Burnett received him cordially, and at once gave
him some light work, in the way of reporting and editorial writing,
which would at least keep his purse moderately supplied, while he was
also studying law in a lawyer's office, with the view of eventually
entering that profession. To him, among other things, fell the work of
reporting sermons for the _Minerva_, a task for which, of course, he was
well fitted by his early training; and this was the reason why, for some
months past, Mr. Chillingworth had wondered at the skill and accuracy
with which his sermons had been synopsized for the benefit of the
readers of the _Minerva_. In fact, he sometimes could not help admitting
to himself, that, in clearness of thought and felicitous condensation,
the abstract was almost an improvement on the sermon. Had he been aware
that Roland Graeme was his unknown reporter, he would doubtless have
been more affable in his greeting on the occasion of the young man's
visit.
Minton was largely a manufacturing town, and Roland soon found that
there were many wrongs around him calling for redress. His
investigations speedily brought him into contact with leaders of the
"Knights of Labor," and sympathy with their aims very soon led him to
enroll himself in their ranks. He could not, indeed, remain a member
after he should become a legal practitioner, as the rules of the order
do not admit lawyers; but he could and would work with heart and soul
for its objects, both in the ranks and outside them. He found the
leaders cordially grateful for his aid and counsel, and in the sympathy
and coöperation of some of the more intelligent workingmen he found much
of the pleasure and stimulus of his new life. Of course, his efforts on
their behalf sometimes evoked, from the "party of the other part,"
sentiments of a very different character; but Roland was happily so
constituted as to care little for that; and, so long as he could carry a
point for the benefit of his friends, the _employés_, he could bear hard
names with great equanimity. So absorbed was he, indeed, in his ideals
and enthusiasms, that the "personal equation" had become very
insignificant.
He found, however, that, in order to rouse the public mind on certain
points, he wanted an opportunity for stronger expression than he could
venture to use in his editorials in the _Minerva_, which, of course
would not risk irretrievably offending its wealthy patrons. The editor,
who was in part proprietor, was by no means uninterested in the "labor
question," and was quite willing to go as far as he thought "safe" in
its interests. But Roland wanted more liberty of speech for the burning
thoughts that filled his breast; and the idea gradually took shape, in
the course of their discussions in the _sanctum_, of issuing a small
weekly journal to be devoted entirely to the object nearest to Roland's
heart, his friend the editor being willing to afford all the facilities
of the printing-office to the new journal, and even to bear part of the
expense, which was also to be shared by an eccentric old Scotchman who
boarded in the same house with Roland, and with whom he had struck up an
odd sort of friendship.
Roland was determined to call his paper _The Brotherhood_, so that it
would bear in its very title the imprint of the truth which his
Christian training had interwoven with every fibre of his being, and
which, he also expressed in the motto, "_All ye are brethren_." In the
simplicity of his heart, Roland imagined that every Christian minister
must be as profoundly impressed with this great truth as he himself was,
and that he could count on the warm sympathy which they, at least, would
accord to his paper--intended, as the prospectus stated, "to bring this
fundamental principle and its corollary, the Golden Rule, to bear on all
social questions," including business arrangements and the relations of
employer and employed. So obvious an application of practical
Christianity must, he thought, enlist the cordial coöperation of those
whose vocation was to teach it.
As we have seen, however, he sometimes found himself disappointed in
this very natural expectation.