GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.
Booksellers rank "Quo Vadis" as one of the most popular books of the
day. In that early era persecution was rife and cruelty relentless.
It was the time of Caligula, who mourned that the Roman people had not
one neck, so that he could cut it off at a single blow; of Nero, whose
evening garden parties were lighted by the forms of blazing Christians;
of Vespasian, who sewed good men in skins of wild beasts to be worried
to death by dogs. In that day faith and death walked together.
Fulfilling such dangers, the disciples came together secretly at
midnight. But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, from
time to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and,
bursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison. Then a cruel
stratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those who
secretly cherished faith. A decree went forth forbidding the jailer to
furnish food, making the prisoners 'dependent' upon friends without.
To come forward as a friend of these endungeoned was to incur the risk
of arrest and death, while to remain in hiding was to leave friends to
die of starvation. Then men counted life not dear unto themselves.
Heroism became a contagion. Even children dared death. An old
painting shows the guard awakened at midnight and gazing with wonder
upon a little child thrusting food between the iron bars to its father.
In the darkness the soldiers sleeping in the corridors heard the
rustling garments of some maiden or mother who loved life itself less
than husband or friend. These tides of sympathy made men strong
against torture; old men lifted joyful eyes toward those above them.
Loving and beloved, the disciples shared their burdens, and those in
the prison and those out of it together went to fruitful martyrdom.
When the flames of persecution had swept by and, for a time, good men
had respite, Apollos recalled with joy the heroism of those without the
prison who remembered the bonds of those within. With leaping heart he
called before his mind the vast multitudes in all ages who so fettered
through life--men bound by poverty and hedged in by ignorance; men
baffled and beaten in life's fierce battle, bearing burdens of want and
wretchedness, and by the heroism of the past he urged all men
everywhere to fulfill that law of sympathy that makes hard tasks easy
and heavy burdens light. Let the broad shoulders stoop to lift the
load with weakness; let the wise and refined share the sorrows of the
ignorant; let those whose health and gifts make them the children of
freedom be abroad daily on missions of mercy to those whose feet are
fettered; so shall life be redeemed out of its woe and want and sin
through the Christian sympathy of those who "remember men in the bonds
as bound with them."
Rejoicing in all of life's good things, let us confess that in our
world-school the divine teachers are not alone happiness and
prosperity, but also uncertainty and suffering, defeat and death.
Inventors with steel plates may make warships proof against bombs, but
no man hath invented an armor against troubles. The arrows of calamity
are numberless, falling from above and also shot up from beneath. Like
Achilles, each man hath one vulnerable spot. No palace door is proof
against phantoms. Each prince's palace and peasant's cottage holds at
least one bond-slave. Byron, with his club-foot, counted himself a
prisoner pacing between the walls of his narrow dungeon. Keats,
struggling against his consumption, thought his career that of the
galley-slave. The mother, fastened for years to the couch of her
crippled child, is bound by cords invisible, indeed, but none the less
powerful. Nor is the bondage always physical. Here is the man who
made his way out of poverty and loneliness toward wealth and position,
yet maintained his integrity through all the fight, and stood in life's
evening time possessed of wealth, but in a moment saw it crash into
nothing and fell under bondage to poverty. And, here is some Henry
Grady, a prince among men, the leader of the new South, his thoughts
like roots drinking in the riches of the North; his speech like
branches dropping bounty over all the tropic states, seeming to be the
one indispensable man of his section, but who in the midst of his
career is smitten and, dying, left his pilgrim band in bondage.
Here is Sir William Napier writing, "I am now old and feeble and
miserable; my eyes are dim, very dim, with weeping for my lost child,"
and went on bound midst the thick shadows. Or here are the man and
woman, set each to each like perfect music unto noble words, and one is
taken--but Robert Browning was left to dwell in such sorrow that for a
time he could not see his pen for the thick darkness. Here is the
youth who by one sin fell out of man's regard, and struggling upward,
found it was a far cry back to the lost heights, and wrote the story of
his broken life in the song of "the bird with the broken pinion, that
never flew as high again." Sooner or later each life passes under
bondage. For all strength will vanish as the morning dew our joys take
wings and flit away; the eye dim, the ear dull, the thought decay, our
dearest die. Oft life's waves and billows chill us to the very marrow,
while we gasp and shiver midst the surging tide. Then it is a blessed
thing to look out through blinding tears upon a friendly face, to feel
the touch of a friendly hand and to know there are some who "remember
those in bonds, as bound with them."
Now this principle of social sympathy and liability gives us the secret
of all the epoch-making men of our time. Carlyle once called Ruskin
"the seer that guides his generation." More recently a prominent
philanthropist said: "All our social reform movements are largely the
influence of John Ruskin." How earned this man such meed of praise?
Upon John Ruskin fortune poured forth all her gifts. He was born the
child of supreme genius. He was heir to nearly a million dollars, and
by his pen earned a fortune in addition. At the age of 21, when most
young men were beginning their reading, he completed a book that put
his name and fame in every man's mouth. "For a thousand who can speak,
there is but one who can think; for a thousand who can think, there is
but one who can see," and to this youth was given the open vision. In
the hour of fame the rich and great vied to do him honor, and every
door opened at his touch. But he turned aside to become the
knight-errant of the poor. Walking along Whitechapel road he saw
multitudes of shopmen and shopwomen whose stint was eighty hours a
week, who toiled mid poisoned air until the brain reeled, the limbs
trembled, and worn out physically and mentally they succumbed to spinal
disease or premature age, leaving behind only enfeebled progeny, until
the city's streets became graves of the human physique. In that hour
London seemed to him like a prison or hospital; nor was it given to him
to play upon its floor as some rich men do, knitting its straw into
crowns that please; clutching at its dust in the cracks of the floor,
to die counting the motes by millions. The youth "remembered men in
bonds as bound with them." He tithed himself a tenth, then a third,
then a half, and at length used up his fortune in noble service. He
founded clubs for workingmen and taught them industry, honor and
self-reliance. He bought spinning-wheels and raw flax, and made pauper
women self-supporting. He founded the Sheffield Museum, and placed
there his paintings and marbles, that workers in iron and steel might
have the finest models and bring all their handiwork up toward beauty.
He asked his art-students in Oxford to give one hour each day to
pounding stones and filling holes in the street. When his health gave
way Arnold Toynbee, foreman of his student gang, went forth to carry
his lectures on the industrial revolution up and down the land.
Falling on hard days and evil tongues and lying customs, he wore
himself out in knightly service. So he gained his place among "the
immortals." But the secret of his genius and influence is this: He
fulfilled the debt of strength and the law of social sympathy and
service.
This spirit of sympathetic helpfulness has also given us what is called
"the new womanhood." To-day our civilization is rising to higher
levels. Woman has brought love into law, justice into institutions,
ethics into politics, refinement into the common life. Reforms have
become possible that were hitherto impracticable. King Arthur's
Knights of the Round Table marching forth for freeing some fair lady
were never more soldierly than these who have become the friends and
protectors of the poor. The movement began with Mary Ware, who after
long absence journeyed homeward. While the coach stopped at Durham she
heard of the villages near by where fever was emptying all the homes;
and leaving the coach turned aside to nurse these fever-stridden
creatures and light them through the dark valley. Then came Florence
Nightingale and Mary Stanley, braving rough seas, deadly fever and
bitter cold to nurse sick soldiers in Crimea, and returned to find
themselves broken in health and slaves to pain, like those whom they
remembered. Then rose up a great group of noble women like Mary Lyon
and Sarah Judson, who journeyed forth upon errands of mercy into the
swamps of Africa and the mountains of Asia, making their ways into
garrets and tenements, missionaries of mercy and healing, Knights of
the Red Cross and veritable "King's Daughters." No cottage so remote
as not to feel this new influence.
Fascinating, also, the life-story of that fair, sweet girl who married
Audubon. Yearning for her own home, yet finding that her husband would
journey a thousand miles and give months to studying the home and
haunts of a bird, she gave up her heart-dreams and went with him into
the forest, dwelling now in tents, and now in some rude cabin, being a
wanderer upon the face of the earth--until, when children came, she
remained behind and dwelt apart. At last the naturalist came home
after long absence to fulfill the long-cherished dream of years of
quiet study with wife and children, but found that the mice had eaten
his drawings and destroyed the sketches he had left behind. Then was
he dumb with grief and dazed with pain, but it was his brave wife who
led him to the gate and thrust him forth into the forest and sent him
out upon his mission, saying that there was no valley so deep nor no
wilderness so distant but that his thought, turning homeward, would see
the light burning brightly for him. And in those dark days when our
land trembled, and a million men from the north tramped southward and a
million men from the south tramped northward, and the columns met with
a concussion that threatened to rend the land asunder, there, in the
battle, midst the din and confusion and blood, women walked, angels of
light and mercy, not merely holding the cup of cold water to famished
lips, or stanching the life-blood until surgeons came, but teaching
soldier boys in the dying hour the way through the valley and beyond it
up the heavenly hills. These all fulfilled their mission and
"remembered those in bonds as bound with them."
This principle also has been and is the spring of all progress in
humanity and civilization. Our journalists and orators pour forth
unstinted praise upon the achievements of the nineteenth century. But
in what realm lies our supremacy? Not in education, for our schools
produce no such thinkers or universal scholars as Plato and his
teacher; not in eloquence, for our orators still ponder the periods of
the oration "On the Crown;" not in sculpture or architecture, for the
broken fragments of Phidias are still models for our youth. The nature
of our superiority is suggested when we speak of the doing away with
the exposure of children, the building of homes, hospitals and asylums
for the poor and weak; the caring for the sick instead of turning them
adrift; the support of the aged instead of burying them alive; the
diminished frequency of wars; the disappearance of torture in obtaining
testimony; humanity toward the shipwrecked, where once luring ships
upon the rocks was a trade; the settlement of disputes by umpires and
of national differences by arbitration.
Humanity and social sympathy are the glory of our age. Society has
come to remember that those in bonds are bound by them. Indeed, the
application of this principle to the various departments of human life
furnishes the historian with the milestones of human progress. The age
of Sophocles was not shocked when the poet wrote the story of the child
exposed by the wayside to be adopted by some passer-by, or torn in
pieces by wild dogs, or chilled to death in the cold. When the wise
men brought their gold and frankincense to the babe in the manger, men
felt the sacredness of infancy. As the light from the babe in
Correggio's "Holy Night" illumined all the surrounding figures, so the
child resting in the Lord's arms for shelter and sacred benediction
began to shed luster upon the home and to lead the state. To-day the
nurture and culture in the schools are society's attempt to remember
the little ones in bonds. Fulfilling the same law Xavier, with his
wealth and splendid talents, remembered bound ones and journeyed
through India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician for
the sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his face
benignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying his
message of peace to the farther-most shores of the Chinese Sea, through
his zeal for "those who were in bonds." And thus John Howard visited
the prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from the
sword of justice its most polluting stain. Fulfilling the debt of
strength, Wilberforce and Garrison, Sumner and Brown, fronted furious
slave-holders, enduring every form of abuse and vituperation and
personal violence, and destroyed the infamous traffic in human flesh.
This new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help in
solving the problems of social unrest and disquietude. Events will not
let us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent. Society is
full of warfare. Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.
The professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishing
hatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess the
antagonism between classes. There is an industrial class strong and
happy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle class weak and wicked
and miserable, among both rich and poor. Unfortunately, as has been
said, the wise of one class contemplate only the foolish of the other.
The industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, and
identifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workman
despises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all the
rich with him. But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor and
busy rich. "If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich
people, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched and
rebuked the idle poor people all would be right. Many a beggar is as
lazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune is
busier than his errand boy."
Forgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire to
pillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.
Now, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industrious
classes and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as do
two branches of one tree. This year one bough is full of bloom, and
the other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be
reversed. Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will
soon be trough. Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual
sympathy. Some men are born with little and some with large skill for
acquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a
handful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and
carrying the sickle of success. For generations the ancestors back of
one man's father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were
far-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined
forces for a vast campaign for wealth. Beside him is a brother, whose
thoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but
who walks midst practical things with the eagle's halting gait. The
strong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard
and guide and plan for him.
This is the lesson of nature--the strong must bear the burdens of the
weak. To this end were great men born. Nature constantly exhibits
this principle. The shell of the peach shelters the inner seed; the
outer petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-bird
protects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young and
gently eases them to the ground; above the babe's helplessness rise the
parents' shield and armor. God appoints strong men, the industrial
giants, to protect the weak and poor. The laws of helpfulness ask them
to forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill their
destiny only by fulfilling the debt of strength to weakness.
To identify one's self with those in bonds is the very core of the
Christian life. Not an intellectual belief within, not a form of
worship without, but sympathetic helpfulness betokens the true
Christian. God, who hath endowed the soul with capacity to endure all
labors and pains for wealth, to consume away the very springs of life
for knowledge, hath also given it power for pouring itself out in great
resistless tides of love and sympathy. For beauty and royal majesty
nothing else is comparable to the love of some royal nature. A loving
heart exhales sweet odors like an alabaster box; it pours forth joy
like a sweet harp; it flashes beauty like a casket of gems; it cheers
like a winter's fire; it carries sweet stimulus like returning
sunshine. We have all known a few great-hearted men and women who have
through years distributed their love-treasures among the little
children of the community and scattered affection among the poor and
the weak, until the entire community comes to feel that it lives in
them and without them will die. Happy the man who hath stored up such
treasures of mind and heart as that he stands forth among his fellows
like a lighthouse on some ledge, sending guiding rays far out o'er dark
and troubled seas. Happy the woman whose ripened affection and
inspiration have permeated the common life until to her come the poor
and weak and heart-broken, standing forth like some beauteous bower
offering shade and filling all the air with sweet perfume.
In crisis hours the patriot and martyr, the hero and the
philanthropist, die for the public good, but not less do they serve
their fellows who live and through years employ their gifts and
heart-treasures, not for themselves, but for the happiness and highest
welfare of others. Richter, the German artist, painted a series of
paintings illustrating the ministry of angels. He showed us the
child-angels who sit talking with mortal children among the flowers,
now holding them by their coats lest they fall upon the stairs, now
with apples enticing them back when they draw too near the precipice;
when the boy grows tall and is tempted, ringing in the chambers of
memory the sweet mother's name; in the hour of death coming in the garb
of pilgrim, made ready for convoy and guidance to the heavenly land.
Oh beautiful pictures! setting forth the sacred ministry of each true
Christian heart.
History tells of the servant whose master was sold into Algeria, and
who sold himself and wandered years in the great desert in the mere
hope of at last finding and freeing his lord; of the obscure man in the
Eastern city who, misunderstood and unpopular, left a will stating that
he had been poor and suffered for lack of water, and so had starved and
slaved through life to build an aqueduct for his native town, that the
poor might not suffer as he had; of the soldier in the battle, wounded
in cheek and mouth and dying of thirst, but who would not drink lest he
should spoil the water for others, and so yielded up his life. But
this capacity of sacrifice and sympathy is but the little in man
answering to what is large in God. Here deep answers unto deep. The
definition of the Divine One is, he remembers those in bonds, and it is
more blessed to give than to receive; more blessed to feed the hungry
than starving to be fed; more blessed to pour light on darkened
misunderstanding than ignorant to be taught; more blessed to open the
path through the wilderness of doubt than wandering to be guided; more
blessed to bring in the bewildered pilgrim than to be lost and rescued;
more blessed to forgive than to be forgiven; to save than to be saved.
THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.
"All that we possess has come to us by way of a long path. There is no
instantaneous liberty or wisdom or language or beauty or religion. Old
philosophies, old agriculture, old domestic arts, old sciences,
medicine, chemistry, astronomy, old modes of travel and commerce, old
forms of government and religion have all come in gracefully or
ungracefully and have said: 'Progress is king, and long live the king!'
Year after year the mind perceives education to expand, art sweeps
along from one to ten, music adds to its early richness, love passes
outwardly from self towards the race, friendships become laden with
more pleasure, truths change into sentiments, sentiments blossom into
deeds, nature paints its flowers and leaves with richer tints,
literature becomes the more perfect picture of a more perfect
intellect, the doctrines of religion become broader and sweeter in
their philosophy."--_David Swing_.