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ESSAYS
AND MISCELLANIES

BY
JOSEPH S. AUERBACH

HI

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL I.

Second Edition

HARPER 6* BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

M C M X I V

a

/I

'5

y^j '

COPYRIGHT. 1914. BY HARPER S BROTHERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER. IS14

L-O

TO

MY CHILDREN

CONTENTS

PAGE

Foreword of Mb. Joseph H. Choate . . vii

Author's Preface xi

The Bible and Modern Life 1

Bible Words and Phrases 119

Future in America 141

English Style 160

One Phase of Journalism 194

Responsibility of the Community to the

Hospital 222

The Search of Belisarius 236

Literature and the Practical World . . 243

FOREWORD

I FEEL greatly complimented in being asked
to say a few words by way of introduction to
these volumes of interesting and practical es-
says and reviews by Mr. Auerbach, many of
them heretofore published and others which
now see the light for the first time.

It is but seldom that a prominent and busy
lawyer, constantly engaged in responsible af-
fairs, can find time, strength, or inclination for
constant literary work, which calls for so much
study and labor as these volumes indicate. I
regard it as most timely that they should be
given to the public in book form in the present
stage of intellectual life in America.

Mr. Auerbach has already acquired an en-
viable reputation, which these volumes will do
much to enhance. He has treated of many
subjects, widely diverse in character, but some
of them bearing closely upon our own politi-

vii

FOREWORD

cal life and prospects. It is manifest that his
acquaintance with EngHsh literature is very
broad and deep, and that he has made his own
the gems of thought and feeling which are
scattered through the great authors, whom he
must have read with earnest attention and a
most retentive memory. Even the greatest
authors have many dull and uninteresting pas-
sages; but each has jewels of thought which are
of precious value to any reader who can ac-
quire and retain them as his own possession.

Mr. Auerbach's idea, which is especially set
forth in his essay on "Literature and the Prac-
tical World," is of very great value. He thinks
and demonstrates that it is entirely feasible to
bring together again the practical business man
of affairs with the great and splendid authors,
whose works are the classics of English litera-
ture. He regards it as every cultivated man
must regard it, as a great evil, that the practi-
cal man of affairs, though he may have had a
university training or its equivalent, should
become so absorbed in the pressing demands of
every-day life as to forget much with which he
was once absolutely familiar, and to have lost
by burial in the gray matter of his brain the
viii

FOREWORD

great thoughts of great authors which were
once his own. The scheme for bringing the
hterary spirit and the business Hfe, not only
into harmony, but into close acquaintance and
actual contact, which he sketches in the essay
last referred to, is a most interesting and, as
I believe, an entirely practicable one. But no
one man can possibly be equal to the task.

His essay on the Bible as the great column
which supports the whole fabric of English
literature will be highly appreciated by all who
love the Bible, or the literature which has
grown up in its light.

His essay on Matthew Arnold, to whom he
looks so earnestly for light and leading, shows
a deep and intimate knowledge of that great
author's wonderful works, of which he must
have been a constant reader and lover; and
that on "A Club" shows how refreshing and
suggestive a lay sermon can be preached from
the text of sentiment.

The lawyer's life is a highly intellectual one,
and I think there must be many men in that
profession who make reading their chief recrea-
tion, who could give the world from time to
time essays of a worthy character and perma-

ix

FOREWORD

nent value; but, much as we may regret it, it is
only now and then that one can have the cour-
age and the tenacity of purpose which are neces-
sary for doing it.

I bespeak for the books a great multitude of
readers, and am sure that they will be accepted
as a valuable contribution to American litera-
ture, not only for their substance, but for a
finished style, which seems so rare an accom-
plishment in these modern days. Especially
to the man of practical affairs, to whom Mr.
Auerbach so justly refers as needing such re-
freshment, they will be welcome.

Joseph H. Choate.

New York, December, 191S.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

As Mr. Choate in his gracious Foreword very
truly says, among the qualities required of the
lawyer who would undertake literary work, are
tenacity of purpose and courage.

The tenacity is indispensable, for the obliga-
tions of an exacting profession often make
such effort seem all but hopeless.

Moreover, the courage called for is of no
mean order, and ought, in my opinion, to be
spelled with letters from the printer's black
font. For the lawyer that is guilty of any
departure from the customary methodical walk
of professional life, invites excommunication
from many of his brethren. If he would keep
in the good graces of such, he must not even
leave the highways for the byways of life,
much less attempt any venturesome literary
flight with pen for pinion. A lawyer of promi-
nence almost invariably betrays his solicitude

xi

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

about my health by the inquiry, "Well, how is
the poet to-day?" And inasmuch as this has
happened, merely because I have offended with
the magazine article, it is diflScult to conjec-
ture what the pretentious book may call forth.
With similar side-splitting humor, a brother
lawyer or two make it a practice to salute a
friend of mine, who is a distinguished advocate,
as the "Emersonian lawyer," ever since he was
so indiscreet as to deliver an appreciative ad-
dress on Emerson.

Nor is there anything very surprising in all
this. For to many that have never attempted
it, writing on a subject foreign to their calling,
may naturally enough seem to them as free from
difficulty as it is lacking in dignity. Their dis-
paraging notion is, after a fashion, not unlike
that of the novice, who was invited to make
trial of the easily-played-upon, frivolous flute.

Then, too, courage is needed because of the
prejudices of the "closed shop," ungrudgingly
entertained for all non-union men, by some
members of the writing guild — busily engaged
in uttering their genuine or counterfeit speci-
mens of workmanship, as the case may be.

Accordingly, there is no cheering word to be
xii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

looked for from the one group, and no welcome
from the other; and, as I wrote Mr. Choate on
the receipt of his Foreword, I should never
have ventured forth from my seclusion but for
the protection of his reassuring shield.

As indicated in the footnotes, several of the
articles (substantially as now published, except
that in a few instances omissions have been
made and in one or two places material from the
original manuscript has been added) have here-
tofore appeared in The North American Review,
to whose proprietor my thanks are given for
permission to reprint them.

"Literature and the Practical World" has a
special interest for me — the substance of it hav-
ing been prepared, as an introduction to a pro-
posed series of reviews to be published, first
in periodicals and later somewhat enlarged as
books, under the title of "Distinguishing Traits
of Great Authors." They were to be written
by scholars, but with the co-operation and ad-
vice of a board of associate editors — composed
of men of affairs, but of scholarly tastes and
distinction in their several walks of life — and
with myself as editor to care for the burdensome
part of the work. It was to be a carefully

xiii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

worked-out plan, seeking to bridge over the
break which unquestionably exists between the
practical world and the world of letters; but
unfortunately lack of leisure prevented my
going forward with it to my satisfaction. Some-
thing of my regret over its abandonment can
be readily understood, when I add that in ad-
dition to Mr. Choate, — Mr. Nicholas Murray
Butler, Dr. E. R. L. Gould, the Rev. Percy S.
Grant, Mr. A. Barton Hepburn, Mr. Adrian H.
Joline (who, unfortunately for his clients, will
never practise law again; and for his friends,
will be with them no more; and for the reading
public, will write no more), Mr. John G. Mil-
burn, and Mr. George W. Wickersham had con-
sented to act as associate editors. May the
view of Mr. Choate that the plan is one quite
feasible to carry out produce the volunteer,
with the good fortune to be able to get together
a group of associates, approaching them in
unique qualification for such an undertaking.

The article on "President Roosevelt and the
Trusts" is reprinted, because it deals with
some misconceptions of the Constitution of the
United States and of the functions of our Gov-
ernment, still under discussion, though they

xiv

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

should have been set at rest long ago; and also
because it is among the first suggestions as to
a Federal Act for corporations carrying on an
interstate commerce business.

"The Protest of the Democratic Party" is
included in the volumes, because the facts as
to our stewardship in the matter of the acqui-
sition of the Panama Canal route, should keep
the blush of shame in our cheeks, until repara-
tion is made for the great wrong done by us to
Colombia — the one wrong of which the Ameri-
can Republic has ever been guilty. Until this
has been righted, our country cannot hold high
her head among her sister Republics on this
continent, or among the nations of the world.

Surely it has not come to such a pass with us,
that the words of the Apocrypha do not apply
to a people as to an individual: Leave not a
stain in thine honor.

On a re-reading of two or three of the articles
written at long intervals apart, I notice that,
at times, they follow a similar line of presenta-
tion. Inasmuch, however, as the phraseology
is not often identical, I have not attempted, ex-
cept in a few instances, to correct what some
readers may regard as the defect of repetition.

XV

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

In this, I have the comfort and satisfaction
of good authority — the sustaining meat and
drink for the lawyer — from The Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table:

You don't suppose that my remarks made at this
table are like so many postage stamps, do you —
each to be only once uttered? If you do, you are
mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does
not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of
the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never
alluding to that sentiment again during the course
of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man
carries about with him are his tools; and do you
think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane
but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang
up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I
shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often.
I shall use the same types when 1 like, but not com-
monly the same stereotypes. A thought is often
original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
It has come to you over a new route, by a new and
express train of associations.

I had intended to include in the present vol-
umes an essay on The Value of Precedent, but
its length would have made them somewhat
unwieldy, and my purpose is to publish it later
as a separate work.

Joseph S. Auerbach.

March, 19U.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION

This Second Edition (issued with substantial-
ly the original text) enables me to acknowledge
with gratitude the reception of these volumes
by the more important critics, which, in my
judgment, has been favorable, largely because
the contents reflect the practical experience that
so often serves to interpret literature to life.

It gives me the further opportunity of em-
phasizing the regret expressed by Mr. Choate in
his Foreword, that members of the legal pro-
fession in this country are neglecting to de-
vote an adequate part of their leisure to the
production of literary work "of a worthy char-
acter and permanent value.'* Moreover it is
fair that our capable, intellectual men of affairs,
as well as members of the other professions, ac-
cept their share of responsibility for a similar
neglect. And however it has been at other
times, words of regret such as those of Mr.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Clioate should be, to all but the wilfully
thoughtless, like words of warning, now that
men stand aghast at the present hideous
spectacle of murderous warfare.

For not a few of the causes of this madness
are to be found in the world's long and
reckless flouting of the finer teachings of cul-
ture, and in the consequent fictitious value at
which it has appraised a glut of prosperity and
the arrogant supremacy of force and arms.

It all seems an evil dream; and yet man-
kind knew beforehand that the headlong jour-
ney of inexperience over *' a dim and perilous
way," without safeguard of either light or
guide, would surely invite a dread ending.

Nevertheless, after the brutal carnage is
past and there has been the day of a fearful
reckoning, we may expect to witness once more
among men the humanizing influence of co-
operation and unselfishness and charity and
nobility of spirit, which through the ages
have struggled on, stumbling and discom-
fited often and at times betrayed, but never
wholly put to rout. Then — when, in the words
of Isaiah, there is the binding up of the breach
of the people and the healing of the stroke of
their wound — we of this land must, by word
as well as deed, do our part in seeing to it

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

that the new order is so fostered and directed
as not again to falter, nor even to rest except
to gain fresh courage for the further advance,
in which the standard-bearers shall never faint
and the high places, where the chief glory of
the nations is, shall be reached at last.

Such a victory will not be too dearly bought,
bloody as has been the price.

Doubtless many a man of the world, and per-
haps many a man of letters, will not accept
the view that the wisdom and inspiration pro-
ceeding from literature can have any real share
in so great a cause. Yet if we fail to find the
quickening word striving, in rivalry with the
ministering deed, to make ready the way for
the coming of this new order, shall we not have
reason to doubt that it will come at all in our
day, and to fear that many of the outposts of
civilization have been utterly swept away?

These are the momentous times when it will
profit us to realize how often we too have failed
to hold fast to that which was best, and have
come short of the hopes of the world and our
own ideals. Even though we may comfort
ourselves with the thought that, in the main,
the things of which we stand charged call for
admonition and not a presentment, they still
remain the portent of lurking danger. Let us

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

above all not be boastful or even wise in our
conceit, because amid this rancor and horror
of war we have been vouchsafed a gracious
peace. Let us rather rejoice that thereby,
through good fortune, we are in a favored posi-
tion to turn our backs upon petty practices
and — thrilled by high purpose and with faces
toward the light — to undertake such a benefi-
cent trust as reconciliation among the em-
bittered nations.

Nor ought this to be more for their good
than for the good of ourselves. For practical
ethics teaches us that the occasions are many
when, with a people as with an individual, the
discipline of devotion to a great trust can be
as elevating as the discipline of a great adversity.

May we not therefore have abiding confidence
that, at the coming of the hour for our wise men
of affairs and of the professions, in common
with our worthy scholars, to speak, they will
be ready with the reassuring message? And it
should be the message of a solemn awakening;
for its silent but eloquent advocate will be the
grim, forbidding spectre of multitudes of the
living that suffer and of the dead that died,
because they had consented to be taught and
to believe in, foolish and wicked things.

Joseph S. Auerbach.

September, 19H.

ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES

ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens,
Insanlentis dum sapientise

CoDsultus erro, nunc retrorsum
Vela dare, atque iterare cursus
Cogor relictos.

Horace.

Niggardly in offerings unto the gods.

And disregardful of the rites of worship

Whilst drifting with mad philosophy for chart;

I now perforce must turn my sails, and once more

Traverse the abandoned ways.

IF it were true that appreciation of the noble
achievements of the world in painting and
sculpture and architecture had come to an end,
or that we were content to leave unopened the
great books of literature, all thoughtful men
would view such a condition with deep concern.
For the Parthenon stands to-day for some-
thing more than the memory of a Greek temple
of exquisite harmony of proportions and adorn-

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

ment; the Nike of Samothrace and the Venus
of Milo are not merely masterpieces of the
sculptor; Velasquez and Titian and Raphael did
more than paint marvelous canvases on which
we feast the eye; Shakespeare and Carlyle left
to the world a legacy, greater than enduring
works of genius for our gratification.

It would need no argument to persuade us,
that a disregard for what these creations are in
themselves and for what they symbolize, would
mean the vanishing out of modern life not only
of intellectual standards, but of ideals and pros-
pects and visions; that there would be a great
darkness where there is now a great light, and
that the loss would be irreparable.

Yet, if quite frank with ourselves, we must
admit that the English-speaking world is threat-
ened with another loss, irreparable too, if it
permits the Bible which, with the changes in
men's religious beliefs, is to-day a neglected
book, to become a forgotten book.

We should not, however, fall into error as to
the reasons for the permanent value of the Bible.
If from to-day it were the forgotten book
there would not necessarily come to be, as
some pulpit utterances so frequently insist.

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

a lower order of moral excellence in the world;
for men no longer need to carry about with them
the decalogue for their right guidance. Whether
this is true because our greatest religious litera-
ture has become the warp and woof of the
social fabric is not of moment, though it is un-
questionably so in part; and in this respect and
to this degree, the Bible has served its usefulness
and fulfilled its mission. In fact, at no time
was the Old Testament — without the inter-
preter to separate its right from its wrong con-
ceptions— even a sure guide for conduct; so
much does it contain of confusing contradiction
and undoubted error as to doctrine, as to the
duty of man to man, and man to God, and, as
weU, of God to man. Even the New Testament
needs interpretation. And if there had been a
prompter recognition of all this, fewer martyrs
would have died at the stake, blood would have
flowed less freely in priestly controversy, and
the day of religious freedom would have dawned
earlier in the life of the world.

The Bible, rightly understood, is the story of
the fashioning of men from feeble beginnings to
great issues; the toughening of the fiber of char-
acter, and the emancipation, through suffering

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

and humiliation and defeat and captivity and
exile, from the bondage of idolatry and littleness
to moral triumph and spiritual excellence. To
those who know the Bible it is a storehouse of
priceless possessions, without which men would
be poor indeed. In it is bound up not only
the richest treasure of our Anglo-Saxon speech,
but the highest religion of the world — the story
of the struggle of man to understand his destiny
and to ally himself with what is unseen and
eternal. Its precepts, its injunctions, its no-
bility of thought, its matchless eloquence of
expression are the source of much that is
greatest in English literature. Within the
province where it is supreme, other books often
seem by comparison colorless and trivial; and
within that province its poetry surpasses even
that of Shakespeare, as much as the poetry of
Shakespeare surpasses that of all other of our
dramatists; and beside its grandeur many of our
greatest prose writers are at times but pygmies.
Only men devoid of sense and reason, can afford
to turn a deaf ear to those voices of wisdom and
everlasting truths, which proceeded from the
prophets and the poets and the wise men of the
Scriptures. To the devout and intellectual man

4

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

the Bible should be the great devotional Epic
of life.

Modern science, with its marvelous unfolding
of the origin of the world, has banished many a
myth of creation; it has searched deep into the
mysteries of the universe; it has reconstructed
the old thought as to the earth we inhabit; it
has reached out into the limitless depths of
space, and has been obliged to coin new
phrases with which to express the infinite dis-
tances; it has demonstrated the universal reign
of law. As, against opposition and cruelties, it
was proving unfounded the legends of the birth
of worlds, its unconscious mission was to re-
create for men the religion of that reign of
law; and of this religion the Bible, rightly un-
derstood, is still in part the true interpreta-
tion.

The present-day attitude toward the Bible
does not manifest itself by controversy which,
by arraying on one side the defenders of the
faith, serves to keep the old spirit of worship
a living thing in the world. Now and then a
book, or oftener the magazine article or sermon,
raises the voice of protest against the neglect
into which Bible-study seems to be steadily

5

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

sinking; but rarely is there, as of old, the impas-
sioned outburst from the pulpit concerning the
value of the Scriptures. Nor, on the other
hand, is there anyone of distinction in letters
or science, making it a part of the business of
his life to assail accepted Bible truth. No
Huxley or Tyndall to-day is stirring Christen-
dom to a defense of religion; and no Ingersoll,
one is fortunately able to say, is haranguing
irreverent audiences in unconvincing, flippant
stump speeches against venerated faith. On
the contrary, there is rather a listless indiffer-
ence toward the momentous question, whether in
the end the Bible will be assigned a place among
the things which men are to esteem as of vital
import.

It is diflScult at best, and in large part im-
possible, to understand this lack of interest,
though we cannot fail to recognize its existence.
Perhaps the orthodox defenders of the Bible
may have exhausted the patience of their
audience, as well as their own ingenuity in a
foolish insistence that many views now recog-
nized as erroneous, or at least of negligible im-
portance, were essential to Christian belief.
George Eliot in one of her essays rather merci-

6

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

lessly exposed the extravagances of the sermons
of Dr. Gumming; but there were many such
before, and there have been many such since
his time. What would more naturally follow,
than that a large part of the public should
accept the conclusions of the defenders them-
selves, who made no distinction in importance
or verity, between those parts of the Scriptures
which are admittedly insignificant, when con-
trasted with what in them must always be im-
perishable? At times the Church became the
enemy of science and progress, and the Bible
was appealed to as final authority in con-
troversies, where its word could properly have
no influential, much less controlling weight.
Need we be surprised that protest had its day
and in a measure abused its privilege?

The Church reasoned, but it was with the
logic of emotion and traditional belief, and when
it had recourse to violence of word or deed
against the critics of the Bible, it overlooked
some of the wisdom of the Bible itself.

If this counsel or this work be of man it will be
overthrown, but if it be of God, ye will not be able
to overthrow them lest haply ye be found even to
be fighting against God.

7

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Was not the Church fighting against God,
when it clung so tenaciously to positions which
it had no reasonable expectation of maintaining
to the satisfaction of intelligent men ? And would
it not have been the part of prudence for it to
join with the reverent critic, in seeking to disen-
tangle fact from legend, and truth from error,
and thus advance the real interests of religion?

The inevitable process went on in spite of the
attitude of the Church, with this result: Few of
prominence among the clergy can be found, who
are not in accord with the more important con-
clusions of the textual and the higher criticism;
while many a former communicant is no longer
in his pew, because he accepted at its face value
the statement of those in authority, that if any
of the orthodox views of the Bible were dis-
credited, the foundations of religion would be
undermined.

Clearly Bacon in the lines

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would
not stay for an answer,

gave a typical illustration of the groping,
stumbling, obstructed progress of truth in the
world.

Equally unfortunate have been other de-

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

fenders of the Bible, who wrongly contended
that it contained a comprehensive code for the
ordering of men's conduct, rather than great
organic principles, to be adapted to new occa-
sions and emergencies, as progress was made in
more enlightened conceptions of existence. The
struggle was for the letter and not the spirit of
the book.

Nevertheless, along with the conditions which
have made the Bible a neglected book, there is
not wanting the reasonable hope that it may be
assigned to a revered place, above all other
books which are concerned with the higher life
of aspiration and the emotions. For it is now
possible for us to read the Bible, without neces-
sarily accepting much that heretofore has been
insisted on by persecutions, excommunications,
and anathemas as essential religious truth.
The Church is no longer in a position to be
dogmatic as to what is orthodoxy in faith or
creed, or as to the true interpretation of the
Bible; the heresy of yesterday is the doctrine
of to-day. It is quite evident that an offender
like Mr. Crapsey could not now be tried and
convicted, and that another Bishop Colenso or
a Robertson Smith or a Professor Briggs runs

9

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

no risk of the humiliation to which they were
subjected.

It is the day of religious toleration. Mr.
Cheyne, Canon Driver, and a long list of
others of the distinguished English scholars of
the day, carrying forward the researches of Ger-
man scholars, have, in the opinion even of many
devoutly religious people, changed utterly old
conceptions of Bible truth. On the other hand,
Mr. Sayce, an eminent authority in Assyriol-
ogy, and other critics are maintaining that much
of the higher criticism is neither authoritative
nor trustworthy. In contrast to some of the
clergy who are still preaching a rather crude,
old-fashioned orthodoxy, we have the declara-
tions of such divines as the Rev. Mr. Gordon,
of Boston, and the Rev. Mr. Thompson, of
Oxford, that belief in none of the miraculous
incidents of the Bible need be demanded of
the religious worshiper.

For the moment, therefore, we may justi-
fiably refer all such controversies to disputants
in the Church itself, as we turn to the Bible not
as the book of the priest or preacher alone, but
as the possession also of the devout scholar and
man of the world.

10

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

In days gone by cultured men, distinguished
orators, poets and prose writers, resorted to the
Bible primarily as a religious book, and found
there its literary treasures. Their utterances
were interspersed with the apt quotation and
illustration from it; and even after doubts may
have entered their minds as to its infallibility,
there still remained with them the pervading
spirit of the old faith.

Where in the work of the writer of to-day
may we look for such a passage as this :

In every truth, for every noble work the possibili-
ties will he diffused through immensity undiscover-
able except to faith. Like Gideon thou shalt spread
out thy fleece at the door of thy tent. See whether
under the wide arch of Heaven there be any bounte-
ous moisture or none. Thy heart and life purpose
shall be as miraculous as Gideon's fleece spread out
in silent appeal to Heaven; and from the kind im-
mensities, what from the poor unkind localities and
town and country parishes there never could, blessed
dew moisture to suffice thee shall have fallen.

If it be said that this is not altogether a con-
vincing reference, seeing that Carlyle of all
modern writers, except perhaps Walt Whitman
when at his best, approached nearest to the
genius of devotional expression of the men of

Scripture, we may still ask, where in the litera-

11

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

ture of to-day is there indication of an adequate
recognition of the worth of the Bible?

Moreover, a generation has grown up without
the benefit of Bible reading in the public or
private schools, or in the home circle, and with-
out the training of the Sunday-school. As a
consequence, there is among such men, little or
no intimate acquaintance with the legends and
truths and inspiration of the Bible, and few of
them would have any understanding of the
beauty of imagery of this passage of Carlyle.

Mr. Choate, in his eloquent, discriminating
tribute to Rufus Choate — one of the great
advocates of any time — says:

And his nurture to manhood was worthy of the
child. It was "the nurture and admonition of the
Lord." From that rough pine cradle, which is still
preserved in the room where he was born, to his
premature grave at the age of fifty-nine, it was one
long cause of training and discipline of mind and
character, without pause or rest. It began with
that well-thumbed and dog's-eared Bible from Hog
Island, its leaves actually worn away by the pious
hands that had turned them, read daily in the family
from January to December, in at Genesis and out
at Revelations every two years; and when a new
child was born in the household the only celebra-
tion, the only festivity, was to turn back to the first
chapter and read once more how "in the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth," and all

12

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

that in them is. This Book, so early absorbed and
never forgotten, saturated his mind and spirit more
than any other, more than all other books combined.
It was at his tongue's end, at his fingers' ends — al-
ways close at hand until those last languid hours at
Halifax, when it solaced his dying meditations. You
can hardly find speech, argument, or lecture of his,
from first to last, that is not sprinkled and studded
with biblical ideas and pictures, and biblical words
and phrases. To him the Book of Job was a sub-
lime poem. He knew the Psalms by heart, and dear-
ly loved the prophets, and above all Isaiah, upon
whose gorgeous imagery he made copious drafts.
He pondered every word, read with most subtle
keenness, and applied with happiest effect. One
day coming into the Crawford House, cold and shiver-
ing— ^and you remember how he could shiver — ^he
caught sight of the blaze in the great fireplace, and
was instantly warm before the rays could reach him,
exclaiming, " Do you remember that verse in Isaiah,
'Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire'.?" and so
his daily conversation was marked.

How many men of intelligence there are,
that would not consider the hours thus spent as
all but wasted! How many such would have
any understanding of this reference to Isaiah,
as with eloquent sarcasm he is laying bare the
folly of idolatry, or have any appreciation that
Isaiah is one of the commanding figures of
history; how many of them know even of the
inspired utterances of Isaiah, except as they
have listened to selections of them read — ^and

I.— 2 18

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

probably very imperfectly at that — ^from the
chancel of a church?

Yet how few of such men would not feel quite
competent, without any appreciation of the
humor of the situation, to discourse learnedly
upon the lowering of intellectual and some old-
fashioned moral standards in this country? We
are called upon at times, even to listen to the
declamation of such men, that indications are
not lacking that we may in the end outgrow our
Constitution, and consent to a fundamental
change in our form of government. But the gross
improbability of this is too obvious to those
having to do with the practical work of life, to
permit them to waste much time in such idle
conjectures. No country is likely to exchange a
republican form of government for a rule, even
of "temperate kings.'* We may be sure, how-
ever, that there is a real menace to the future
well-being of our country, in our growing dis-
regard of the higher things of life; and not
the least among these is a knowledge of the
best that has been written in the literature of
the world and in the Bible.

Perhaps we shall have to reverse the old
process, and persuade men to go back to the

14

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Bible for its literary treasures, in order to be-
come familiar with its inspiring religious mes-
sage.

How often too, on the rare occasions when we
hear even the man of culture refer to the Bible,
do we recognize the misquoted or misunder-
stood passage? We hear the words of Job, as
to the book he would have his adversary write,
alluded to, as if his purpose was to gloat over
its imperfections, whereas he is longing for the
indictment, so that he may bind it to himself
as proof of his conscious innocence. Even one
of the first scholars of America, in a notable
contribution to permanent literature, falls into
this error.

Many instances of like errors could be cited,
though such ignorance should not occasion less
humiliation, than similar ignorance of the text
or context of quotations from other great
English literature. For men ought not to be
willing to hold in such slight regard a book
from which that literature draws so much of
its inspiration.

It is possible to go a step further and urge
Bible reading upon the attention of one, that
merely wishes to acquire proficiency in forceful

15

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

speech and writing. As a first step to the grati-
fication of this ambition, of course he must
be possessed of a resourceful vocabulary, and
there is no substitute for that of the Bible.
Without the adequate vocabulary he will be
as helpless as a mechanic without tools. And
as the mechanic must be taught familiarity
with his tools, the student must be taught the
use of his vocabulary. Frequent writing, such
as is so often recommended by the books on
rhetoric, will not necessarily accomplish this
result. On the contrary, it may only confirm
the student in habits of error that are fatal
to correct expression. And though correct ex-
pression is composed of many elements, one of
the most indispensable of them is a judicious
repetition or emphasis of the thought or idea
to be conveyed, so as to avoid the danger
pointed out by Archbishop Whately — of either
objectionable conciseness or prolixity.

Nowhere is this feature more eloquently ex-
emplified than in the Bible diction. Much of its
prose, and nearly all its poetry, is constructed
upon the basis of parellelisms, in which the
thought of one line is elaborated and reinforced
by the succeeding line of similar import or of

16

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

contrast — ^the synonymous or antithetical par-
allelism, as Bishop Lowth has termed it.

This too should be borne in mind. The Re-
vised and Authorized Versions often fail to re-
produce some of the subtle, poetic shades of
meaning of the original. But a new beauty is
added to the English Bible by the combined
use of the vigorous, precise words of Anglo-
Saxon derivation, and the stately and proces-
sional words of Latin derivation. There is
thus given to the parallelism a rhythmic beat
and cadence, which are the secret of the melody
and charm of so many poetic lines of the Bible.

In one of the most delightful books that has
come from the Press in many a day. Early
Memories by Henry Cabot Lodge, Mr. Lodge,
among the pleasant reminiscences of John
Lothrop Motley, says:

I remember one occasion, when we happened to
be speaking of style in prose and verse, his calling
my attention to the beautiful effects which Shake-
speare produced by his arrangement of words of
Saxon origin in contrast to, and in juxtaposition
with, those of Latin derivation. He quoted as per-
haps the best example the lines from "Macbeth":

No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine ;
Making the green one red,
17

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

As soon as he repeated the familiar lines I saw at
once that the effect which they make, and which at
once arrests the attention and delights the ear, arose
from the long, rich, full-sounding Latin words being
sharply followed by the short Saxon words coming
like the sharp beats of a drum after the organ notes
of the preceding line. I never forgot either the lines
or what Mr, Motley said, and it helped me to ap-
preciate beauties in verse and high artistic skill in
placing words when I had felt, but had never under-
stood before, the reason for either.

Yet such a quotation does not adequately
illustrate the striking result, possible from this
employment of words of Anglo-Saxon and
Latin origin — seen to advantage in the Bible,
as nowhere else in literature.

As the wings of a dove covered with silver.
And her pinions with yellow gold.

The highway of the upright is to depart from evil:
He that keepeth his way preserveth his soul.
Pride goeth before destruction, »

And a haughty spirit before a fall.

Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee;
The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch, O Jehovah, before my mouth;
Keep the door of my lips.
Incline not my heart to any evil thing.
To practise deeds of wickedness with men that work
iniquity.

Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?
Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the
earth?

18

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Caiist thou lift up thy voice to the clouds.
That abundance of waters may cover thee?

Remember thy congregation, which thou hast gotten

of old.
Which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thine

inheritance;
And Mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.
Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations.

On every page of the poetical and prophetical
books, are to be found further like illustrations.

We see too in the Bible the potent effect of
judicious repetition of the word, as well as the
idea.

And God said, This is the token of the covenant
which I make between me and you and every living
creature that is with you, for perpetual generations :
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a
token of a covenant between me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over
the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud,
and I will remember my covenant, which is between
me and you and every living creature of all flesh;
and waters shall no more become a flood to destroy
all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and
I will look upon it, that I may remember the ever-
lasting covenant between God and every living
creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And
God said unto Noah, This is the token of the cove-
nant which I have established between me and all
flesh that is upon the earth.

And Joshua commanded the people, saying. Ye
shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, neither

19

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until
the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout. So
he caused the ark of Jehovah to compass the city,
going about it once: and they came into the camp,
and lodged in the camp.

And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the
priests took up the ark of Jehovah. And the seven
priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns
before the ark of Jehovah went on continuously, and
blew the trumpets: and the armed men went before
them; and the rearward came after the ark of
Jehovah, the priests blowing the trumpets as they
went. And the second day they compassed the
city once, and returned into the camp: so they did
six days.

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they
rose early at the dawning of the day, and compassed
the city after the same manner seven times: only
on that day they compassed the city seven times.
And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the
priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said unto the
people. Shout; for Jehovah hath given you the city.

So the people shouted, and the priests blew the
trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people
shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down
flat, so that the people heard the sound of the
trumpet, that the people went up into the city,
every man straight before him, and they took the city.

Doubtless to St. Paul, more than to any other
of the early men of the Church, is due the spread
of the Christian religion; for he wrote not only
with the enthusiasm of the convert, but with
the consummate power of one of the greatest
dialecticians the world has known. Yet if we

20

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

turn to any of his Epistles, we shall see that no
small part of the secret of that power lies in his
mastery of the art of repetition of word and idea,
as brought to perfection by the prophets and
poets of the Old Testament. Even the teach-
ings of Christ owe much of their wondrous,
miraculous influence to this.

Jesus saith unto her. Thy brother shall rise again.
Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said
unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he
that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall
he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die.

And again He says:

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest
the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee.
Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him,
and he would have given thee living water. The
woman saith unto him. Sir, thou hast nothing to
draw with and the well is deep: from whence then
hast thou that living water .f* Art thou greater than
our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank
thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle? Jesus
answered and said unto her. Every one that drinketh
of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.

Moreover, the Bible is a very human book.

There are stories and anecdotes and historical

21

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

incidents of absorbing Interest; there are the
picturesque, vivid parables and allegories in
both the Old and New Testaments; the irony
and sarcasm of Isaiah and Elijah over idolatry,
and Job says in rather up-to-date speech:

No doubt but ye are the people,

And wisdom shall die with you.

But I have understanding as well as you.

There are chapters of intrigue and war and
summary vengeance, and the touching love story
of a primitive age.

There are heroes of heroic mold: Abraham,
and Moses, and Joshua, and Gideon, and
Samuel, and Samson, and Saul, and David, and
Joab, and Solomon in procession — some real,
some mythical, through whom the supremacy
and dominion of God are to be manifest.
There were "giants in the earth in those days."

Throughout it is a book of remarkable
dramatic power.

Recently, when a play founded on a Bible
story was about to be produced in England, the
London Times said words which illustrate one
right attitude toward the Bible; and the spirit
of that editorial may well be pondered over by
us all.

88

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

We announced the other day that Sir Herbert
Beerbohm Tree's autumn production at His Maj-
esty's Theatre would be a drama written by Mr.
Louis N. Parker on the subject of Joseph and his
brethren. The Lord Chamberlain has given his
consent to the public production of a play on a
Biblical theme; and it may be concluded that his
action marks the return to a healthier state of things,
unknown in England for some four centuries. . . .
But in the Middle Ages, as in the Athens of ^Eschy-
lus and Sophocles, both religion and drama were of
the stuff of human life. Faith was sincere enough
and robust enough to welcome laughter — to see
Noah's wife a fool and a shrew, to have the angelic
vision of the shepherds ushered in by a roaring farce
about sheep-stealing. Truth was truth and needed
no protection from reverence or decency. And the
irama, being an expression of the profoundest move-
ments of men's minds, could turn easily from the
heartiest laughter to the loftiest worship without
strain and without offense.

The subsequent story is well known. The Eng-
lish religious drama was lost in the sands of the
Moralities and other pedantries. The new English
drama of the Renaissance was gradually transformed
under James and Charles into a mere entertainment,
and at the Restoration found itself all but divorced
from daily life. That the fault was not entirely on
the side of the drama might be guessed from one
fact alone — that the great Elizabethans, the voice
of a new and universal life, leave religion almost out
of count. The age of faith had passed. Religion
had changed from the heart of daily life into a mat-
ter of forms and ceremonies, an excuse for dispute
and enmity. The drama may be forgiven for leav-
ing it on one side, and for slipping further and
further from its old religious character. Then came

93

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

reverence and propriety, like notice-boards warning
people off the grass upon which they were meant to
play happily; and, when both religion and the drama
had lost their intimacy, their place in men's business
and bosom, the drama was forbidden to touch upon
sacred subjects — was forbidden, at one absurd mo-
ment, even to use the word "angelic."

We are living now in an age more religious than
any of its predecessors for several centuries. Forms
of reUgion change. To-day, one man finds his re-
ligion in the love of one, or of two or three, of his
kind; another in sociology or philanthropy; a third
will draw his spiritual sustenance from the East;
a fourth from science. And the drama of to-day
has begun once more — in ways often queer, often
dismal, and often undramatic — to reflect and to ex-
press the religion of living men. Hitherto the only
form of religion that has been denied a voice in the
theatre has been the Christian religion. It appears
that the Christian reUgion is in future to be allowed
an equal chance with other forms of faith to use the
most impressive of the arts for telling its great stories
and exhibiting its meaning and its ideals. There
can be little doubt that good use will be made of the
liberty. Those who control the theatre will be wise
to move warily at first; but both the Christian re-
ligion and the drama are likely to gain from the new
avowal that the drama is not common and unclean,
nor religion confined to church and chapel.

More and more as the Bible is understood,
are men of intelligence and imagination thrilled
with its great dramatic power, of which the
story of Joseph and his brethren is but one
illustration; for the evidences of that power

24

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

are on many of its pages. Where may we
find an event of more gripping interest than
the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib?

Other cities of Judah had been swept be-
fore the Assyrian, and Jerusalem itself had all
but capitulated. Yet upon the issue whether
or not it would survive the siege, as will be
pointed out in a moment, was to depend the
direction which the future civilization of the
world was to take. It was easily one of the
decisive, turning-points of history.

King Hezekiah had already given over to the
Assyrian "all the silver that was found in the
house of Jehovah and in the treasury of the
King's house"; he even "cut off the gold from
the doors of the temple of Jehovah and from the
pillars which Hezekiah, King of Judah, had
overlaid, and gave it to the King of Assyria."
Yet the maw of the King of Assyria was not
filled. And there follows under the very walls of
Jerusalem, between the oflScers of the Assyrian
king and the messengers of Hezekiah, the parley
— in which the consuming, revolting famine to
result from further resistance, is cunningly con-
trasted with the enough-and-to-spare at the
feeding-table of captivity.

25

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Sheb-
nah, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray
thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for
we understand it: and speak not with us in the
Jews' language, in the ears of the people that
are on the wall. But Rabshakeh said unto them.
Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to
thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me
to the men that sit on the wall, to eat their
own dung, and to drink their own water with
you? Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a
loud voice in the Jews' language, and spake, saying.
Hear ye the word of the great king, the king of
Assyria. Thus saith the king. Let not Hezekiah
deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you
out of his hand : neither let Hezekiah make you trust
in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will surely deliver us,
and this city shall not be given into the hand of the
king of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for
thus saith the king of Assyria, Make your peace with
me, and come out to me; and eat ye every one of his
vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye
every one the waters of his own cistern; until I
come and take you away to a land like your own
land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread
and vineyards, a land of olive-trees and of honey,
that ye may live and not die: and hearken not unto
Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, Jehovah
will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations
ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king
of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and of
Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena,
and Ivvah? have they delivered Samaria out of my
hand? Who are they among all the gods of the
countries, that have delivered their country out of
my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem
out of my hand?

26

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

"And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah
heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered
himself with sackcloth, and went into the house
of Jehovah," and sent his messengers to Isaiah
for guidance.

Then alone, amid conditions which seemed to
compel an abject surrender, with every ray of
hope gone, Isaiah — the companion of kings and
of the people, in all his heroic proportions of
soul and courage, and with Jehovah's message of
defiance to the enemy and assurance of succor
to Jerusalem — stands forth to save the state.

And to the messengers of the king, Isaiah
sends back this answer, in that "day of trouble
and of rebuke and of contumely."

And Isaiah said unto them. Thus shall ye say to
your master, Thus saith Jehovah, Be not afraid of
the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the
servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear
tidings, and shall return to his own land; and I will
cause him to fall by the sword in his own hand.

But I know thy sitting down, and thy going out,
and thy coming in, and thy raging against me. Be-
cause of thy raging against me, and because thine
arrogancy is come up into mine ears, therefore will
I put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips,
and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou
eamest.

27

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the king
of Assyria, He shall not come unto this city, nor
shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before
it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. By
the way that he came, by the same shall he return,
and he shall not come unto this city, saith Jehovah.
For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own
sake, and for my servant David's sake.

Was it strange that such a messenger should
be the forerunner of the annihilation of the
Assyrian host.'^

And it came to pass that night, that the angel of
Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the
Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand:
and when men arose early in the morning, behold,
these were all dead bodies. So Sennacherib king of
Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt
at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was wor-
shiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adram-
elech and Sharezer smote him with the sword:
and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And
Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

What an impression, never to be effaced, does
such an event make upon the mind and the
imagination; and what a marvelous, reverent,
religious drama could be constructed out of such
scenes so eloquent of the sovereignty of God.
The man that has no interest in such an ab-
sorbing, dramatic, historical incident, surely can
long for no great moments in life.

28

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

In this essay — which is not the word of the
scholar to the scholar, but merely a plea for
Bible study from one familiar with the Bible
to those unfamiliar with it — this literary value
and these dramatic features are dwelt upon in
text and quotation, for the purpose of urging
them upon the attention of the general reader
and the man of aflFairs. It is hoped that such a
plea will not offend the sensibilities of the most
devout; for any suggestion is to be welcomed,
which will persuade men to turn the leaves of
the Bible, whatever be the purpose. Let one
have recourse to the Scriptures for his material
profit or a passing interest, if that be the only
inducement to consult them, and unconsciously
vast prospects have opened up before him; he
will find what he is seeking, but the treasures
of the world are there too for his possession.

He may be merely in search of a shortened
route to the world he knows of; but like
Columbus he will discover a new world.

We are told often by those who advocate a
study of the Bible, that it must be read rever-
ently, and no one should dissent from this
advice. Nevertheless, a reverent approach to

I.— 3 i&

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

the Bible, is not all that is requisite for an
appreciative understanding of it. We must
search out its higher meaning, and aim at
understanding context as well as text, or it will
not be the book it has been once and can be
again to the English-speaking world. We must,
in addition to reverence, have some fairly accu-
rate information of the people that produced
this oriental literature, for such the Bible is; and
of the conclusions reached by the textual as
well as the higher criticism, as to the dates, the
authenticity, the authorship and the value of
its several books.

The books of Kings and Chronicles are not
works of the times they treat of. The book of
Daniel was not written in the days of Nebuchad-
nezzar, but well on toward the Christian era.
Much of Isaiah as we now have it, is of the
period immediately preceding the destruction
of Jerusalem, but many of its chapters are of
the exile and some of the restoration.

We cannot appreciate at its full value, even
the charm of the narrative books, unless we
understand their composite character and the
source from which they are derived; and this
requires that we know what the more important

30

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

researches in Syrian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and
Babylonian history tell us. Few of the books
of the Bible are without additions and interpola-
tions made long after they were first written,
and scarcely any of the traditions concerning
their authenticity or date of composition stand
unimpeached by criticism. Yet the mere fact
that the Bible is such a work of many men, and
that it finally took form centuries after the
events it describes, does not detract from, but
adds to its value. Here were reverent, chas-
tened men, re-assembling the religious utter-
ances of the people, interpreting them and in
a sense rewriting them, in the light of subse-
quent experiences, as they recorded the story
of God's providence.

The Bible remains in all its essential particu-
lars a greater possession than when it was re-
garded as an infallible book. Matthew Arnold,
in his Literature and Dogmay and in God and
the Bible, told of the inevitable changes which
modern criticism was bound to bring about in
men's belief. Critics had done this before and
have done it since, and from Astruc to Driver
the list is long indeed; but by far the greater
number have written with the desire, not to dis-

31

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

credit the Bible but to preserve it as a book for
the regard of men.

The fact that we do not find in the Bible the
intellectual treasures of the ancient classics,
and that the point of view of the two often lies
far apart, in no wise lessens its value to us.
The abstract, subtle processes of reasoning of
the one had their counterpart in the religious
meditation and aspiration of the other, ex-
pressed by simple, concrete words, rich in
poetic beauty — its very letters being the sug-
gested idea and the printed picture. Its lines
written from right to left, merely serve to em-
phasize the unique character and structure of
this oriental language.

The more we study the Bible story through

the interpretation of recent scholarly books,

the more we shall appreciate that no version

begins to reproduce the marvelous beauty of

the original. Words, we are told by Emerson,

are fossil poetry, but here are words which are

living, moving poetry. The men of the Bible

thought in terms of metaphor; life to them was

an allegory and a parable, and God was seen

through the magic lens of a certain, simple

faith; nature was incarnate God.

Si

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

We are to remember the wide distinction often
pointed out, between the ideals of "Hellenism"
and "Hebraism"; and while mythology, when
rightly understood as it often is not, is a wonder-
ful manifestation of the imagination of the Greek
people, it nevertheless appears fantastic beside
the conception of the Yahweh of the Old Testa-
ment. The supernatural gods of Olympus be-
came in time but fanciful myths to the Grecian
philosopher and poet, for whom the chief arti-
cles of religious faith were the beautiful on
earth and the redemption and salvation of man
by man. The untiring search of the writers of
the Scriptures was for the supremacy of the
Lord, and the triumph of righteousness through
divine guidance and interposition. Of one en-
vironment the man of religion was the product,
and of the other the cultured man of the world.

Each nation was suflScient unto itself in its
own creative field; and the Barbarian to the
Greek was the Gentile or the heathen or the
Philistine to the Jew. What came out of
Jerusalem and Athens was original with the
genius of its creators, and without either the
culture and intellectual resourcefulness of the
one, or the religious consecration of the other,

38

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

the world of ideas and the world of the emotions
would be but waste places. Neither nation was
imbued with the spirit of the missionary or the
colonist, but their respective ideals have made
their way to the ends of the earth.

Even though from old-time association we
prefer the Authorized Version, it is essential
that we at least read, as a commentary on it,
the Revised Version — where devout scholars
have, so far as possible, preserved the old text
but indicated the more approved rendering
marginally. The American Standard Revision,
however, is to be preferred to the English Revis-
ion. The popular impression that the revisers
made many unwarrantable changes in phrase-
ology is wholly incorrect. On the contrary, the
new rendering is often as superior to the old
in beauty of diction as it is admitted to be in
accuracy. As an illustration of the truth of
this, it may be said that the Revised Version
of the Psalms surpasses that of the Authorized
Edition, as this does the Coverdale translation
to be found in the Common Prayer Book.

The new form in which the poetic books are
printed, alone makes the Revised Version in-

34

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

dispensable; while much of Isaiah and Ezekiel,
and of the other prophets, is more impressively
rendered by it. Without its scholarly trans-
lation and marginal commentary, we cannot
adequately understand either the letter or the
spirit of many passages.

A mere glance at the two versions will serve
to convince us of this truth.

THE AUTHORIZED
VERSION

Man being in honor
abideth not: he is like
the beasts that perish.

The hoary head is a
crown of glory, if it be
found in the way of
righteousness.

Thou hast multiplied
the nation, and not in-
creased the joy.

The just shall live by
faith.

Served the creature
more than the Creator.

Faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not
seen.

THE REVISED VER-
SION

Man abideth in hon-
or: he is like the beasts
that perish.

The hoary head is a
crown of glory, it shall
be found in the way of
righteousness.

Thou hast multiplied
the nation, thou hast
increased their joy.

The righteous shall live
by faith.

Served the creature
rather than the Creator.

Faith is the assurance
of things hoped for, the
proving of things not
seen.

35

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

A man that hath He that maketh many
friends must show him- friends doeth it to his
self friendly. own destruction.

It is impossible but It is impossible but
that offenses will come; that occasions of stum-
but woe unto him, bling should come: but
through whom they woe unto him through
come! whom they come! It

It were better for him were well for him if a

that a millstone were millstone were hanged

hanged about his neck, about his neck, and he

and he cast into the sea, were thrown into the

than he should offend sea, rather than that he

one of these little ones, should cause one of these

little ones to stumble.

It would have been mere idolatry for the old
rendering, not to make such essential changes.
There are numberless like instances of errors
corrected; and not infrequently later books
concerning the Bible point out many an error
even in the Revision.

At times more serious questions than mere
verbal accuracy — having to do with the deeper
things of religion — are involved in such cor-
rections. There is in the Old Testament more
than one passage which, rightly rendered, has
no Messianic significance, but which is still
given that interpretation by the Church; and
while such claims are persisted in, the Church
is answerable at least to the charge of unwisdom^

36

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

So long as the Bible was regarded as written
under Immediate divine inspiration and per-
haps dictation, it was, in a sense, considered
sacrilege to resort to the commentary to ex-
plain its true meaning, much less to point out
its contradictions and inconsistencies. Yet
its text requires explanation and scholarly an-
notation quite as much, if not more, than that
of the ancient classics, or the standard books of
English literature. Some of the more impor-
tant French classics are being published under
the title Les Grand Ecrivains, with the most
elaborate footnotes intended for use by the
French reader, one volume being expanded into
several volumes; and what our own scholars
have similarly done to interpret Shakespeare
might well be done for many another English
author.

Fortunately, we have such an aid in the
Century Bible, which represents as great an
advance over the Cambridge Bible as this in
turn was over the Speaker's Commentary; and
no reader desiring to really know the Bible can
afford to be ignorant of its discriminating
scholarship. Its form, with the commentary
as footnotes, as well as its substance, is to be

37

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

commended. For often explanations of the
meaning of a text when added as an appendix,
are in a sense not more serviceable than marks
of punctuation would be at the end of an un-
punctuated book, with general directions for
their distribution.

Nor must we forget that, even since the re-
vision of the Bible, distinguished scholars have
in many instances, made improvements upon
the rendering of the Revision, and with these
also we must be reasonably familiar. In ad-
dition to the Revision and such luminous com-
mentaries as those of the Century Bible, we
need to read, among other books, the Early
Religious Poetry of the Hebrews, by Mr. King, of
Cambridge; The Romance of the Hebrew Lan-
guage, by Mr. Saulez; The Bible as English
Literature, by Professor Gardiner, which every
Bible student should possess, and which has
never received the recognition to which its
style and scholarship entitle it; the Critical
Introduction to the Old Testament, by Mr. Gray,
and to the New Testament, by Mr. Peake; the
more recent works of Professor Cheyne and
Canon Driver, and if possible, all the books of
these two scholars, which open up for us vistas

38

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

and visions, where before only a pathway had
been blazed. The student should have at hand
a comprehensive work such as Hastings's Dic-
tionary of the Bible, and he should know some-
thing of the geography and topography of
Palestine. And he should remember too that
bounding Palestine, was the great desert, with
its vast horizons and silences, which invited men
to introspection, to worship, and to a marvel-
ous religious utterance.

Unless, too, we have a fairly accurate knowl-
edge of the Jewish people, we shall have little
appreciation of the gradual evolution of their
religious life, or read the Bible other than as
disconnected paragraphs or quotations, or as
a concordance. In its deeper, finer meaning, it
will be to us but a closed book. For the his-
tory of the people, from whom came this won-
drous literature, is in epitome the history of
the Bible; and, though our knowledge of that
history need not be profound, it must not be
superficial; for of all commentaries it is the
most instructive.

The Jewish people, coming from their Baby-
lonian home, and taking with them the statutes
of Hammurabi, though doubtless with little

39

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

conception of the tribal God of the Pentateuch
— much less of the God of the prophets and the
poets and the wise men — were permitted to
enter the land of Egypt where they became
slaves, and all but beasts of burden. Depart-
ing under the leadership of Moses, as a handful
— and not as a host as the Bible chronicle has
it — from Egyptian bondage, they became again,
as they had been once before, nomadic tribes;
until by conquests and the partition of the land,
they entered upon a peasant, pastoral life in
Palestine, to be in touch with the outer world
by the caravan routes of peace, connecting
Egypt with the Eastern countries, but which
were also to be the routes of war. As the peo-
ple grew in numbers and strength, came the
period of the Judges, with their determining
influence upon the development of national and
religious life. Step by step this growth con-
tinued until the days of the Kings, when
through the religious zeal and administrative
genius of David, much of Palestine came to
be one nation, which he transmitted to his son
— who, though he enlarged it in outward form,
weakened it within by the oriental splendor
and luxury of his reign.

40

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

The Kingdom, thus united, small though it
was — being barely two hundred miles in length
and fifty miles in breadth, only a few thousand
square miles — was, on the death of Solomon,
divided by rebellion. Out of it was carved the
Northern Kingdom, which — after an existence
of nearly two centuries, while it was often at
war with the outside world, and not always at
peace or in sympathy with Judah — was over-
thrown and its population carried into exile by
Assyria. The downfall of the Northern King-
dom was traceable to the luxury and licentious-
ness against which Amos, a man of the people,
but from Judah, uttered his solemn warning,
often in the harsh and uncompromising words
of the stranger; and over which Hosea, of the
Northern Kingdom, mourned with affectionate
despair as he saw its imminent fate.

We shall see in the survival of the Southern
Kingdom, for more than a century after the
destruction of the Northern Kingdom — even
though during much of the time it was the vassal
of other nations — one of the great epochs of the
world; since to no other event in history is so
much of the development of civilization trace-
able.

41

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

For if Judah had been swept away along with
Israel, Bible literature by comparison with what
we have would be meager indeed. Even much
of the narrative books would be wanting, for
they were not reduced to their present form,
until probably well on toward the Christian
Era. The words of Amos and Hosea might
have come down to us; but little or nothing of
the other prophetic writings or the great poe-
try of the Bible, and probably only a suggestion
of its wisdom books — certainly not Job, or
Isaiah, or Nahum, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or the
minor prophets of the post-exilic period, and
none perhaps of the Apocrypha.

Nor is it irreverent to add that, without this
preservation of the Southern Kingdom, there
might not have arisen the conditions which
made the Christian religion possible. For out
of the long travail of impending destruction
came the sublime message of the first Isaiah
and Micah and Nahum; while from the exile
and the return to Jerusalem we have the sec-
ond and the third Isaiah and the minor prophets
of the restoration and the apocalyptic visions,
the coming of the Messiah and the promise of
immortal life.

42

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

As we study this history through the prophetic
writings, we shall see how, when evil days
threatened the Northern Kingdom — and there
was little lilielihood that the tribal God of the
Pentateuch would intervene to save it from its
enemies — there was evolved the grander con-
ception of an overruling Providence, who was
no longer to favor the people by material pros-
perity, but was to bring them, by grievous
chastisement and the humiliation of defeat
and captivity, to a sense of righteousness.
We see how Isaiah, writing in the shadow of
the destruction of the Northern Kingdom, and
with the foreboding that a like fate was threat-
ening Jerusalem, sees as never before had been
seen this greater God, as he prophesies that
there would survive the remnant to save the
people. This became his religion as he walked
with kings, and the very name he gave to his
son testifies to his certain faith in this remnant.

Nor must we overlook the supreme impor-
tance— upon the preservation of the faith of the
people during exile and the restoration, and
even after their final dispersion — of the find-
ing, within the Temple before the downfall of
Jerusalem, of the noble, eloquent book of

43

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Deuteronomy. For it operated to cause the
people to hold fast, in form as well as in sub-
stance, to the covenant made between Yahweh
and His people.

We must, too, have information enough to
know that when Cyrus, who in turn had over-
come Babylon as Babylon had destroyed the
Southern Kingdom, authorized the return of
the exiles to Jerusalem, only a remnant — ^less in
numbers and in influence than had been the
hope of the first or second Isaiah — embraced the
generous or strategic offer of the Persian con-
queror. For during the period which had gone
by since the people of the Southern Kingdom,
and the still longer period since the people of
the Northern Kingdom, had been in captivity,
many had doubtless found their material in-
terests too strong an attachment to be relin-
quished for a pilgrimage to, much less for a new
existence in, the city of their fathers.

There succeeded the reign of Darius and the
period of the prophets Haggai and Zachariah,
and later Malachi, and the writings of Ezra and
Nehemiah. There was the conquest by Alex-
ander, following a new domination of Egypt;
then the supremacy of Syria constructed out of

44

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

his Empire at his death; the struggle between
Syria and Egypt over this ready prey of nations;
the revolt by Matathias and his successors the
Maccabees; the Roman rule which was to end
in the annihilation of Jerusalem, and at last
the final dispersion of her people to the ends of
the earth.

Such, in briefest outline only, is the story of
the people, to whom we owe the imperishable
legacy of the Bible. As the outline is filled in
with a sympathetic knowledge of details which
tells of the groping, through the darkness of
unbelief and idolatry and worship of the tribal
God, to the conception of the overruling God of
the Universe, the student of the Bible will find
nothing in the devotional literature of the world,
that does not seem feeble and structureless, in
comparison with its letter and its spirit.

If we are without this information, we shall
have no appreciation of the grandeur of the
utterance of the first Isaiah when, preaching
righteousness and courage as Jerusalem was
hemmed in by her foes, he predicted her suffer-
ing and their final discomfiture.

Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth
therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him
I. — 4 45

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

that wieldeth it? as if a rod should wield them that
lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up him that is
not wood. Therefore will the Lord, Jehovah of
hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under
his glory there shall be kindled a burning like the
burning of fire. And the light of Israel will be for a
fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn
and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.
And he will consume the glory of his forest, and of
his fruitful field, both soul and body; and it shall
be as when a standard-bearer fainteth. And the
remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few, so
that a child may write them.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
remnant of Israel, and they that are escaped of the
house of Jacob, shall no more again lean upon him
that smote them, but shall lean upon Jehovah, the
Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant shall re-
turn, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty
God. For though thy people, Israel, be as the sand
of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return: a
destruction is determined, overflowing with right-
eousness. For a full end, and that determined, will
the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, make in the midst of all
the earth.

But the enemies of Jerusalem are not to go
unpunished.

Behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, will lop the
boughs with terror: and the high of stature shall be
hewn down, and the lofty shall be brought low. And
he will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron,
and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.

Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift
up the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they

46

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

may go into the gates of the nobles. I have com-
manded my consecrated ones, yea, I have called my
mighty men for mine anger, even my proudly exult-
ing ones. The noise of a great multitude in the
mountains, as of a great people! the noise of a tu-
mult of the kingdoms of the nations gathered to-
gether! Jehovah of hosts is mustering the hosts for
the battle. They come from a far country, from
the uttermost part of heaven, even Jehovah and the
weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole
land.

Wail ye; for the day of Jehovah is at hand; as
destruction from the Almighty shall it come. There-
fore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of
man shall melt: and they shall be dismayed; pangs
and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be
in pain as a woman in travail: they shall look in
amazement one at another; their faces shall be
faces of flame. Behold the day of Jehovah cometh,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land
a desolation, and to destroy the sinners thereof out
of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations
thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be
darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not
cause its light to shine. And I will punish the world
for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity:
and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease,
and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son
of the morning! how art thou cut down to the
ground, that didst lay low the nations! And thou
saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will
sit upon the mount of congregation, in the utter-
most parts of the north; I will ascend above the
heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the

47

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to
Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit. They that
see thee shall gaze at thee, they shall consider thee,
saying, Is this the man that made the earth to trem-
ble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world
as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof;
that let not loose his prisoners to their home? All
the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory,
every one in his own house. But thou art cast
forth away from the sepulcher like an abomina-
ble branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust
through with the sword, that go down to the
stones of the pit; as a dead body trodden under
foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them in
burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou
hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall
not be named forever.

Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the in-
iquity of their fathers, that they rise not up, and
possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with
cities. And I will rise up against them, saith Je-
hovah of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and
remnant, and son and son's son, saith Jehovah. I
will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and
pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom
of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Nor can we, without such information, under-
stand the rhapsody of the second Isaiah as he
sees the approaching restoration, or the somber
colors whereby the still later Isaiah portrays
the disillusionment which followed.

We cannot understand Jeremiah as other
than a prolix prophet of evil unless we see him,

48

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

too, within the shadow of the coming gloom in
Jerusalem, when, with the repetition and in-
sistence of despair, he mourns as one without
comfort and without hope.

We shall understand the impassioned elo-
quence of the opening words of Nahum, only if
we are able to see him watching with a great
joy, as the Babylonian power is poising for its
spring upon Nineveh and Assyria, which had
destroyed the Northern Kingdom, brought deso-
lation to the cities of Judah, and all but sacked
Jerusalem itself:

The Lord is a jealous God and avengeth; the Lord
avengeth and is full of wrath; . . . Bashan languish-
eth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon lan-
guisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the
hills melt; and the earth is upheaved at his pres-
ence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
Who can stand before his indignation? and who can
abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is
poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder
by him, . . .

And now will I break his yoke from off thee, and
will burst thy bonds in sunder. And the Lord hath
given commandment concerning thee, that no more
of thy name be sown: out of the house of thy gods
will I cut off the graven image and the molten
image; I will make thy grave; for thou art vile.
Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Keep
thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows: for the

49

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

wicked one shall no more pass through thee; he is
utterly cut off.

The same may be said of those vivid second
and third chapters opening with his taunts to
Nineveh, as he tells of the coming carnage:

He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy
face: keep the munition, watch the way, make thy
loins strong, fortify thy power mightily. For the
Lord bringeth again the excellency of Jacob, as the
excellency of Israel; for the emptiers have emptied
them out, and marred their vine branches. The
shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant
men are in scarlet: the chariots flash with steel in
the day of his preparation, and the spears are shaken
terribly. The chariots rage in the streets, they
jostle one against another in the broad ways: the
appearance of them is like torches, they run like the
lightnings. He remembereth his worthies: they
stumble in their march; they make haste to the
wall thereof, and the mantelet is prepared. The
gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is
dissolved. And Huzzab is uncovered, she is carried
away, and her handmaids mourn as with the voice
of doves, tabering upon their breasts. But Nineveh
hath been from the old like a pool of water, yet they
flee away;

Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts,
and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the
sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut
off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy
messengers shall no more be heard.

Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and
rapine; the prey departeth not. The noise of the

50

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

whip, and the noise of the ratthng of wheels, and
prancing horses, and bounding chariots, the horse-
man mounting, and the flashing sword, and the
ghttering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great
heap of corpses;

Then follow his matchless closing words, as
he depicts ruin and the sleep of death to fol-
low in the train of the conqueror:

Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy
worthies are at rest: thy people are scattered upon
the mountains, and there is none to gather them.
There is no assuaging of thy hurt; thy wound is
grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee clap the
hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy
wickedness passed continually?

If we suppose the following lines to be from
the first Isaiah in the reign of Hezekiah, when
Jerusalem seemed about to fall into the hands
of her enemies, they seem merely rhetorical
efforts for effect; but if we recognize them as the
words of the Isaiah of the Exile we shall see
in them the eloquence of an overflowing joy, as
the prophet writes under the ecstasy of the
vision of the restoration.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people salth your
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and
cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that
her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of
Jehovah's hand double for all her sins.

51

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

The voice of one that crieth. Prepare ye in the
wilderness the way of Jehovah; make level in the
desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be
made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and
the rough places plain: and the glory of Jehovah
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together;
for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

He giveth power to the faint; and to him that
hath no might, He increaseth strength. Even the
youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men
utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Lo, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters
and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat;
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring
forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and
bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me
void, but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth
before you into singing; and all the trees of the
field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn
shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the brier
shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to

52

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign that
shall not be cut off.

We cannot understand the full significance
of the Book of Job, unless we know that the
drama was written well along in the period of
the restoration, when a great messenger was
needed to make it clear, that righteousness was
no longer to be the guarantee of the material
well-being of Judah, but was at times to be the
hand-maiden of misfortune and misery.

The book of Daniel is largely purposeless, if
we regard it as written in the time of Nebuchad-
nezzar. Its apocalyptic visions have a mighty
meaning, if we understand them to have come to
him when the hopes of a material prosperity were
ebbing fast in the Southern Kingdom, and the
last stubborn stand for freedom was made by the
Maccabees; and when the recompense promised
by the prophet to an afflicted people, was to be
approval by Yahweh on earth, and the promise
— at least to the deserving — of immortal life.

With what unequaled power and grace and
sublimity of expression the Bible is written,
only those that enter into its spirit and under-
standing will begin to comprehend. Whenever

53

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

even the great men of literature undertake to
portray the glories of the natural world, or to
interpret some of the mysteries of existence
and eternity, into which we are all still peering,
the contrast between their words and those
of the Bible is startling.

From time immemorial, men have gazed with
increasing wonder at the imposing spectacle of
the heavens, and the pages of general literature
and of the Bible abound in passages, which tell
of their splendor. Though in the portrayal the
men of literature rise to great heights of imagery,
they are nevertheless everywhere surrounded
by inaccessible mountain peaks, on which stand
the poets and the prophets of the Scriptures.

Shelley says:

Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls.
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world.

Milton's familiar lines in "Paradise Lost" are:

Now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, 'till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light.
And o'er the dark her silent mantle threw.
54

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

And again, his words are:

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold
And pavement stars, — as stars to thee appear
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling sun thou seest
Powder'd with stars.

"The Merchant of Venice" has lines which
Lord Russell, the late Chief Justice of England,
pronounced the most beautiful of all the poetry
of Shakespeare:

Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings.
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

We are in a different world when we turn from
even such inspired descriptions to the words of
the Bible. For Shakespeare and Shelley and
Milton are describing what to them are merely
impressive scenes of natural beauty, while to
the men of the Scriptures the heavens are the
abiding-place of Jehovah, and the signs and
wonders there but the manifestations of his
majesty and dominion. The stars are living
lights shut up in the heavens, and it is God

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*that bringeth out their host by number'; 'he
calleth them by name'; his face is *as the ap-
pearance of the lightning'; and his voice *the
thunderings of his pavilions.' Everywhere we
find this:

In the Psalms:

The heavens are the heavens of Jehovah; but the
earth hath he given to the children of men.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy
fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast
ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of
him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him but little lower than God,
and crownest him with glory and honor. Thou
makest him to have dominion over the works of thy
hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

In the vision of Ezekiel:

And over the head of the living creature there was
the likeness of a firmament, like the terrible crystal
to look upon, stretched forth over their heads above.
And under the firmament were their wings straight,
the one toward the other: every one had two which
covered on this side, and every one had two which
covered on that side, their bodies. And when they
went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise
of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a
noise of tumult like the noise of a host: when they
stood, they let down their wings. And there was a
voice above the firmament that was over their
heads: when they stood, they let down their wings.

And above the firmament that was over their
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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

heads was the hkeness of a throne, as the appearance
of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the
throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man
upon it above. And I saw as it were glowing metal,
as the appearance of fire within it round about,
from the appearance of his loins and upward; and
from the appearance of his loins and downward I
saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was
brightness round about him. As the appearance
of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so
was the appearance of the brightness round about.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory
of Jehovah. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face,
and I heard a voice of one that spake.

In Isaiah:

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of
his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and
comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills
in a balance?

To whom then will ye liken God? Or what like-
ness will ye compare unto him? . . . Have ye not
known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told
you from the beginning? Have ye not understood
from the foundations of the earth? It is he that
sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the in-
habitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in.

In the vision of Daniel:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some

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to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that
are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma-
ment; and they that turn many to righteousness as
the stars for ever and ever.

He hath made the earth by his power, he hath
established the world by his wisdom, and by his
understanding hath he stretched out the heavens.
When he uttereth his voice there is a tumult of
waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapors
to ascend from the end of the earth; he maketh
lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind
out of his treasuries.

In Samuel:

Then the earth shook and trembled.
The foundations of heaven quaked
And were shaken, because he was wroth.
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils.
And fire out of his mouth devoured:
Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down;
And thick darkness was under his feet.
And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly;
Yea, he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
And he made darkness pavilions round about him,
Gathering of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness before him
Coals of fire were kindled.
Jehovah thundered from heaven.
And the Most High uttered his voice.
And he sent out arrows, and scattered them;
Lightning, and discomfited them.
Then the channels of the sea appeared,
The foundations of the world were laid bare,
By the rebuke of Jehovah,
At the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

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In Job:

Is not God in the height of heaven?

And behold the height of the stars, how high they are !

And thou sayest. What does God know?

Can he judge through the thick darkness?

Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he seeth

not;
And he walketh on the vault of heaven.

And again in the familiar words still more
glorious in the splendid setting of their eon-
text:

Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?

Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season?
Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train?
Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?
Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the
earth?

See, too, how the man of literature and of the
Scriptures, respectively views the problem of
pain and suffering. Where one has doubts and
misgivings, the other regards them as the path
of service, whereby men are brought into a
higher communion with everlasting truth and
the divine covenant.

Throughout the works of the prophets and
the poets, this thought is dominant. The peo-
ple— regarding themselves as chosen of God,

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yet suffering at the hands of their enemies,
vassalage, persecution, and defeat — step by
step are persuaded that recompense is not to
be of this world.

Browning in "Mihrab Shah" asks:

Wherefore should any evil hap to man —
From ache of flesh to agony of soul —
Since God's All-mercy mates All-potency?
Nay why permits he evil to himself —
Man's sin accounted such? Suppose a world
Purged of all pain which fit inhabitant —
Man pure of evil in thought, word, and deed —
Were it not well? Then why not otherwise?

The answer is:

In the eye of God
Pain may have purpose and be justified
Man's sense avails to only see, in pain
A hateful chance no man but would. avert.

See to what a height we have ascended, if
we turn to the Bible for the question and
answer.

We find them in the Psalms, in Proverbs, in
Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in the minor prophets, and
in those transcendently beautiful servant pas-
sages of the Isaiah of the Exile.

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?
He that formed the eye, shall he not see?
He that chastiseth the nations, shall he not correct,
Even he that teacheth man knowledge?

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Jehovah knoweth the thoughts of man,

That they are vanity.

Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Je-
hovah,

And teachest out of thy law;

That thou mayest give him rest from the days of
adversity

Until the pit he digged for the wicked.

The drama of Job is one long, inspired question
and answer concerning the problem. Oppressed
with affliction and misery and pain, he cries out
in agony and anguish of spirit:

For there is a hope of a tree.

If it be cut down, that it will sprout again.

And that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

Though the root thereof wax old in the earth.

And the stock thereof die in the ground;

Yet through the scent of water it will bud.

And put forth boughs like a plant.

But man dieth, and is laid low:

Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

As the waters fail from the sea?

And the river wasteth and drieth up;

So man lieth down and riseth not:

Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake.

Nor be roused out of their sleep.

I was at ease, and he brake me asunder;

Yea, he hath taken me by the neck, and dashed me

to pieces:
He hath also set me up for his mark.
His archers compass me round about;
He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare;
He poureth out my gall upon the ground.
I.— 5 61

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

He breaketh me with breach upon breach;

He runneth upon me Hke a giant.

I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,

And have laid my horn in the dust.

My face is red with weeping.

And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

Although there is no violence in my hands.

And my prayer is pure.

O earth, cover not thou my blood.

And let my cry have no resting-place.

As for me, is my complaint to man?

And why should I not be impatient?

Mark me, and be astonished.

And lay your hand upon your mouth.

Even when I remember I am troubled,

And horror taketh hold on my flesh.

Wherefore do the wicked live,

Become old, yea, wax mighty in power?

Their seed is established with them in their sight.

And their offspring before their eyes.

Their houses are safe from fear.

Neither is the rod of God upon them.

And again:

Let the day perish wherein I was born

And the night which said. There is a man child

conceived,
Let that day be darkness;
Let not God regard it from above,
Neither let the light shine upon it.
Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for

their own:
Let a cloud dwell upon it:
Let all that maketh black the day terrify it,
As for the night, let thick darkness seize upon it:

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Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

Let it not come into the number of the months,

Lo, let that night be barren:

Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it that curse the day,

Who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark:

Let it look for light but have none:

Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning.

He pleads his cause with his friends; he re-
calls his own righteousness, but humility and
awe overcome his presumption:

But he knoweth the way that I take;

When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as

gold.
My foot hath held fast to his steps;
His ways have I kept, and turned not aside,
I have not gone back from the commandment of

his lips;
I have treasured up the words of his mouth more

than my necessary food.
But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?
And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.

Far be it from me that I should justify you:
Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me.
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go:
My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
Let mine enemy be as the wicked.
And let him that riseth up against me be as the

unrighteous.
For what is the hope of the godless, though he get

him gain.
When God taketh away his soul?

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The picture is complete when God himself,
in utterance indeed like that of a God, answers
Job out of the whirlwind:

Who is this that darkeneth counsel

By words without knowledge?

Gird up now thy loins like a man;

For I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me,

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the

earth?
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who determined the measures thereof, if thou

knowest?
Or who stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened?
Or who laid the corner-stone thereof,
When the morning stars sang together.
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who shut up the sea with doors,
When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the

womb;
WTien I made clouds the garment thereof.
And thick darkness a swaddling band for it.
And marked out for it my bound.
And set bars and doors.

And said. Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

Little wonder, that the distance between
Browning and the author of Job is conceded to
be immeasurable, and that Carlyle says of this
great drama:

A Noble Book! All men's book! It is our first,
oldest statement of the never-ending problem —

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

man's destiny, and God's ways with him here in this
earth. And all in such free flowing outlines; grand
in its simplicity; in its epic melody and repose of
reconcilement. There is the seeing eye; the mildly
understanding heart. So true in every way; true
eyesight and vision for all things; material things
no less than spiritual; the Horse "hast thou clothed
his neck with thunder? — he laughs at the shaking of
the spear"; such living Ukenesses were never drawn.
Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciUation; oldest choral
melody as of the heart of mankind; — so soft and
great; as the summer midnight, as the world with
its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I
think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.

And it is true, as Froude predicted, that when
the book of Job is allowed to stand on its own
merits, it will perhaps one day be seen towering
above all the poetry of the world.

In the religious books of the East, in the
poems and dramas of the Greeks, in our own
classic literature, we may read inspired prayers
and songs of praise, which still stir the emotions
and the adoration of men. Stevenson has
written a book of prayers, full of the charm we
so often find in his work; yet the finest of them
scarce bear comparison with the least of the
prayers of the Scriptures.

The Bible is filled to overflowing with great
invocations. In joy and sorrow, in sickness

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and health, in triumph and defeat, in prosperity
and in adversity it is the same. The Psalms are
like one offering of thanksgiving; Isaiah and
Job, and Hosea and Amos, and Ezekiel and
Samuel, and even the Pentateuch are books of
prayer. There are great paeans of rejoicing such
as the song of Moses and of Deborah; there are
the outbursts of praise; there is the soul's plea
for peace and succor.

Everywhere we come upon their wondrous,
melodious utterances.

In the prayer of Hannah:

And Hannah prayed, and said:

My heart exulteth in Jehovah;

My horn is exalted in Jehovah;

My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies;

Because I rejoice in thy salvation.

There is none holy as Jehovah;

For there is none besides thee,

Neither is there any rock like our God,

Talk no more so exceeding proudly;

Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth;

For Jehovah is a God of knowledge,

And by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty men are broken;

And they that stumbled are girded with strength.

They that were full have hired out themselves for

bread;
And they that were hungry have ceased to hunger:
Yea, the barren hath borne seven;
And she that hath many children languisheth.

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Jehovah killeth, and maketh aHve:

He bringeth down to Sheol, and bringeth up.

Jehovah maketh poor, and maketh rich:

He bringeth low, he also lifteth up.

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust.

He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill.

To make them sit with princes.

And inherit the throne of glory:

For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah's,

And he hath set the world upon them.

He will keep the feet of his holy ones;

But the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness;

For by strength shall no man prevail.

They that strive with Jehovah shall be broken to

pieces;
Against them will he thunder in heaven:
Jehovah will judge the ends of the earth;
And he will give strength unto his king.
And exalt the horn of his anointed.

In the lament of David:

Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places!

How are the mighty fallen!

Tell it not in Gath,

Publish it not in the streets of Askelon;

Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,

Lest the uncircumcised triumph.

Ye mountains of Gilboa

Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields

of offerings:
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast

away.
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the

mighty.
The bow of Jonathan turned not back,

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And the sword of Saul returned not empty.

Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their

lives.
And in their death they were not divided:
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.
Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet delicately.
Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan is slain upon thy high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan;
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
Thy love to me was wonderful.
Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen.
And the weapons of war perished!

In the last words of David:

Now these are the last words of David.

David the son of Jesse saith.

And the man who was raised on high saith.

The anointed of the God of Jacob,

And the sweet psalmist of Israel:

The spirit of Jehovah spake by me.

And his word was upon my tongue.

The God of Israel said.

The Rock of Israel spake to me:

One that ruleth over men righteously.

That ruleth in the fear of God,

He shall be as the light of the morning, when the

sim riseth,
A morning without clouds.

When the tender grass springeth out of the earth.
Through clear shining after rain.
Verily my house is not so with God;

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant.

Ordered in all things, and sure:

For it is all my salvation, and all my desire.

Although he maketh it not to grow.

But the imgodly shall be all of them as thorns to be

thrust away,
Because they cannot be taken with the hand;
But the man that toucheth them
Must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear:
And they shall be utterly burned with fire in their

place.

In the Psalms, over the return from captivity:

When Jehovah brought back those that returned to

Zion,
We were like unto them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter.
And our tongue with singing:
Then said they among the nations,
Jehovah hath done great things for them.
Jehovah hath done great things for us.
Whereof we are glad.
Turn again our captivity, O Jehovah,
As the streams in the South.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing seed for

sowing.
Shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing his

sheaves with him.

In Deuteronomy:

Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak;
And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain;
My speech shall distill as the dew,

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As the small rain upon the tender grass.
And as the showers upon the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of Jehovah:
Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

Again in Deuteronomy:

And of Joseph he said. Blessed of Jehovah be his
land, for the precious things of heaven, for the few,
and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the
precious things of the fruits of the sun, and for the
precious things of the growth of the moons, and for
the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for
the precious things of the everlasting hills.

In the august prayer of Solomon, at the con-
secration of the Temple:

But will God in very deed dwell on the earth?
behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot
contain thee; how much less this house that I have
builded! Yet have thou respect unto the prayer
of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Jehovah
my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer
which thy servant prayeth before thee this day;
that thine eyes may be open toward this house night
and day, even toward the place whereof thou hast
said, My name shall be there; to hearken unto the
prayer which thy servant shall pray toward this
place. And hearken thou to the supplication of
thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they
shall pray toward this place: yea, hear thou in
heaven thy dwelling-place; and when thou hearest,
forgive.

If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be
laid upon him to cause him to swear, and he come
and swear before thine altar in this house; then hear

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thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, con-
demning the wicked, to bring his way upon his own
head, and justifying the righteous, to give him ac-
cording to his righteousness.

When thy people Israel are smitten down before
the enemy, because they have sinned against thee;
if they turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and
pray and make supplication unto thee in this house:
then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy
people Israel, and bring them again unto the land
which thou gavest unto their fathers.

When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, be-
cause they have sinned against thee; if they pray
toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn
from their sin, when thou dost afllict them: then
hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy ser-
vants, and of thy people Israel, when thou teachest
them the good way wherein they should walk; and
send rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to
thy people for an inheritance.

If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence,
if there be blasting or mildew, locust or caterpillar;
if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities;
whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
what prayer and supplication soever be made by
any man, or by all the people Israel, who shall know
every man the plague of his own heart, and spread
forth his hands toward this house: then hear thou
in heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive, and do,
and render unto every man according to all his ways,
whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou
only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men) ;
that they may fear thee all the days that they live
in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

Moreover concerning the foreigner, that is not of
thy people Israel, when he shall come out of a far
country for thy name's sake (for they shall hear of

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thy great name, and of thy mighty hand and of thine
outstretched arm) ; when he shall come and pray
toward this house; hear thou in heaven thy dwelUng-
place, and do all that the foreigner calleth to thee
for; that all the peoples of the earth may know thy
name, to fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and
that they may know that this house which I have
built is called by thy name.

If the people go out to battle against their enemy,
by whatsoever way thou shalt send them, and they
pray unto Jehovah toward the city which thou hast
chosen, and toward the house which I have built
for thy name; then hear thou in heaven their prayer
and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

If they sin against thee (for there is no man that
sinneth not) and thou be angry with them, and de-
liver them to the enemy, so that they carry them
away captive unto the land of the enemy, far off or
near; yet if they shall bethink themselves in the
land whither they are carried captive, and turn
again, and make supplication unto thee in the land
of them that carried them captive, saying, " We have
sinned and done perversely, we have dealt wickedly";
if they return unto thee with all their heart and with
all their soul in the land of their enemies, who car-
ried them captive, and pray unto thee toward their
land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city
which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have
built for thy name, then hear thou their prayer and
their supplication in heaven thy dwelling-place, and
maintain their cause.

In Habakuk:

O Jehovah, I have heard the report of thee and am

afraid.
O Jehovah, revive thy work in the midst of the years.

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy.

Before him went the pestilence.

And fiery bolts went forth at his feet,

He stood and measm'ed the earth;

He beheld, and drove asunder the nations;

And the eternal mountains were scattered;

The everlasting hills did bow.

Was Jehovah displeased with the rivers?

Was thine anger against the rivers.

Or thy wrath against the sea.

That thou didst ride upon thy horses

Upon thy chariots of salvation?

Thy bow was made quite bare;

The oaths to the tribes were a sure word.

Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

The mountains saw thee, and were afraid;

The tempest of waters passed by:

The deep uttered its voice.

And lifted up its hands on high.

The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;

At the Ught of thine arrows as they went.

At the shining of thy ghttering spear.

I heard, and my body trembled.

My Ups quivered at the voice;

Rottenness entereth into my bones, and I tremble

in my place.
Because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble.
For the coming up of the people that invadeth us.
For though the fig-tree shall not flourish.
Neither shall fruit be in the vines;
The labor of the oUve shall fail.
And the fields shall yield no food;
The flock shall be cut off from the fold,

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THE BIBLE AND MODPIRN LIFE

And there shall be no herd in the stalls:

Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Jehovah, the Lord, is my strength;

And he maketh my feet like hinds' feet,

And will make me to walk upon my high places.

In the Prayer of Manasses of the Apocrypha:

O Lord Almighty, that art in heaven, thou God of
our fathers, of Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and
of their righteous seed; who hast made heaven and
earth, with all the ornament thereof; who hast
bound the sea by the word of thy commandment;
who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy
terrible and glorious name; whom all things fear,
yea, tremble before thy power; for the majesty of
thy glory cannot be borne, and the anger of thy
threatening toward sinners is importable : thy merci-
ful promise is unmeasurable and unsearchable; for
thou art the Lord Most High, of great compassion,
long suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repent-
est of bringing evils upon men.

My transgressions are multiplied, O Lord: my
transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy
to behold and see the height of heaven for the multi-
tude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with
many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head
by reason of my sins, neither have I any respite : for
I have provoked thy wrath, and done that which is
evil before thee: I did not thy will, neither kept I
thy commandments: I have set up abominations,
and have multiplied detestable things. Now there-
fore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee
of grace. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and
I acknowledge mine iniquities: but, I humbly be-
seech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and de-

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stroy me not with mine iniquities. Be not angry
with me for ever, by reserving evil for me; neither
condemn me into the lower parts of the earth. For
thou, O Lord, art the God of them that repent; and
in me thou wilt shew all thy goodness : for thou wilt
save me, that am unworthy, according to thy great
mercy. And I will praise thee for ever all the days
of my life: for all the host of heaven doth sing thy
praise, and thine is the glory for ever and ever.

It is a book of benediction and of answer to
prayer.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face to shine upon

thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon

thee and give thee peace.

The Bible is a wondrous book — for which there
is no substitute — of an all-embracing restorative
peace and silence for the mind's composure —
frittered away by necessary contact and fric-
tion with the petty things of the world. And
with that peace and silence there is a benedic-
tion and a blessing, "Unto the utmost bound of
the everlasting hills." " The Eternal God is thy
dwelling place and underneath are the Ever-
lasting Arms."

The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; be-
cause Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up

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the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the cap-
tives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort
all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the
oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that he
may be glorified.

Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and
princes shall rule in justice. And a man shall be as
a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the
shade of a great rock in a weary land.

Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine
eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent
that shall not be removed, the stakes whereof shall
never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords
thereof be broken. But there the Lord will be with
us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams;
wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall
gallant ship pass thereby.

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory
of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, dark-
ness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the
peoples: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his
glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall come
to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

It is a book of righteousness which every-
where in its pages is exalted.
In the Psalms:

Thy loving kindness, O Jehovah, is in the heavens.
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.

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Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Thy judgments are a great deep:
O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.
How precious is thy loving kindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge under the
shadow of thy wings.

Again in the Psalms:

Mercy and truth are met together:
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth springeth out of the earth;
And righteousness hath looked down from heaven.

In Isaiah:

Distill, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies
pour down righteousness: let the earth open, that
it may bring forth salvation, and let it cause right-
eousness to spring up together. I, Jehovah, have
created it.

And again:

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist,
and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.

In Amos:

Seek Jehovah, and ye shall live; lest he break out
like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and
there be none to quench it in Beth-el. Ye who turn
justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness
to the earth, seek him that maketh the Pleiades and
Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the
morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that
calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them
out upon the face of the earth.

Let justice roll down as waters and righteousness
as a mighty stream.

I.— 6 77

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

In Hosea:

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according
to kindness; break up your fallow ground; for it is
time to seek Jehovah, till he come and rain right-
eousness upon you.

In Proverbs:

Better is a little, with righteousness,
Than great revenues with injustice.
A man's heart deviseth his way:
But Jehovah directeth his steps.

In Malachi:

But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of
righteousness arise with healing in its wings.

In Daniel:

And they that are wise shall shine as the bright-
ness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

It is a book of adoration.

Bless Jehovah, O my soul,

O Jehovah my God, thou art very great;

Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment;

Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;

Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters;

Who maketh the clouds his chariot;

Who walketh upon the wings of the wind;

Who maketh winds his messengers;

Flames of fire his ministers;

Who laid the foundations of the earth,

That it should not be moved for ever.

Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a vesture;

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The waters stood above the mountains.
At thy rebuke they fled;

At the voice of thy thunder they hasted away
(The mountains rose, the valleys sank down)
Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them.
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over;
That they turn not again to cover the earth.
He sendeth forth springs into the valleys;
They run among the mountains;
They give drink to every beast of the field;
The wild asses quench their thirst.
By them the birds of the heavens have their habita-
tion;
They sing among the branches.
He watereth the mountains from his chambers:
The earth is fiilled with the fruit of thy works.

What visions there are from Genesis to the
last words of the Bible! The dream of John
Paul Richter takes us to the uttermost parts of
a limitless universe, without beginning and with-
out end, but the visions of the writer of Reve-
lation seem among the very realities of religious
fervor.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the
first heaven and the first earth are passed away;
and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying.
Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples,
and God himself shall be with them, and be their
God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their

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eyes; and earth shall be no more; neither shall there
be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the
first things are passed away. And he that sitteth
on the throne said. Behold I make all things new.
And he saith. Write: for these words are faithful and
true. And he said unto me. They are come to pass.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the
fountain of the water of life freely. He that over-
cometh shall inherit these things; and I will be his
God, and he shall be my son.

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God
the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof.
And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the
moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And
the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and
the kings of the earth bring their glory into it. And
the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day (for
there shall be no night there) : and they shall bring
the glory and the honor of the nations into it: and
there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean,
or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but
only they that are written in the Lamb's book of
life. And he showed me a river of water of life, bright
as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And
on this side of the river and on that was the tree of
life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit
every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the
healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse
any more : and the throne of God and of the Lamb
shall be therein: and his servants shall serve him;
and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on
their foreheads. And there shall be no night no
more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light

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of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and
they shall reign for ever and ever.

Before Greek civilization had reached its
height, before Rome had become mistress even
of Italy, and while the world was still groping
its way toward ethical expression and conduct,
the great devotional literature of the Bible had
already been written; and little has been added
since to its beauty and imagery.

Where have we with all our progress, devised
a higher standard of uprightness and character,
than in those words of the psalmist, as rendered
with such melody in the version of the Common
Prayer Book?

Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle: or who
shall rest upon thy holy hill?

Even he that leadeth an uncorrupt life: and doeth
the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from
his heart.

He that hath used no deceit in his tongue, nor done
evil to his neighbor: and hath not slandered his
neighbor.

He that setteth not by himself, but is lowly in his
own eyes: and maketh much of them that fear the
Lord.

He that sweareth unto his neighbor, and disap-
pointeth him not: though it were to his own hin-
drance.

He that hath not given his money upon usury:
nor taken reward against the innocent.

Whoso doeth these things: shall never fall.
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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Even in Ecclesiastes the book of the philoso-
pher, at times the book of the fatalist, we have
such noble passages as these:

Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt
find it after many days. Give a portion to seven,
yea, even unto eight; for thou knowest not what evil
shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of
rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and
if a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north,
in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be.
He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he
that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou
knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor how
the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with
child; even so thou knowest not the work of God
who doeth all. In the morning sow thy seed, and
in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou
knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or
that, or whether they both shall be alike good. Truly
the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the
eyes to behold the sun. Yea, if a man live many
years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him re-
member the days of darkness, for they shall be many.
All that cometh is vanity.

On how many pages are there tributes to
wisdom and understanding!

In Job:

But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof;
Neither is it found in the land of the living,

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

The deep saith, It is not in me;

And the sea saith. It is not with me.

It cannot be gotten for gold,

Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,

With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

Gold and glass cannot equal it.

Neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine

gold.
No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal:
Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it.
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
Whence then cometh wisdom.'*
And where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living.
And kept close from the birds of the heavens.
Destruction and Death say.
We have heard a rumor thereof with our ears.
God understandeth the way thereof.
And he knoweth the place thereof.
For he looketh to the ends of the earth.
And seeth under the whole heaven;
To make a weight for the wind:
Yea, he meteth out the waters by measure.
When he made a decree for the rain,
And a way for the lightning of the thunder;
Then did he see it, and declare it;
He established it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man he said.

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.

In Proverbs:

Doth not wisdom cry.
And understanding put forth her voice?

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On the top of high places by the way,

Where the paths meet she standeth;

Beside the gates, at the entry of the city,

At the coming in at the doors, she crieth aloud:

Unto you, O men, I call;

And my voice is to the sons of men.

0 ye simple, understand prudence;

And, ye fools, be of an understanding heart.
Hear, for I will speak excellent things.

1 wisdom have made prudence my dwelling,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil:
Pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way.
And the perverse mouth, do I hate.
Counsel is mine, and sound knowledge:

I am understanding; I have might.

By me kings reign.

And princes decree justice.

By me princes rule.

And nobles, even all the judges of the earth.

I love them that love me;

And those that seek me diligently shall find me.

Riches and honor are with me;

Yea, durable wealth and righteousness.

My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold;

And my revenue than choice silver.

I walk in the way of righteousness.

In the midst of the paths of justice;

That I may cause those that love me to inherit

substance.
And that I may fill their treasuries.

Nowhere else is the greatness of Bible truth
and wisdom more manifest than in its parables;
and it would be diflBcult to over-estimate the

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enduring effect of the teachings of Christ
through them, upon the spread and the con-
tinuing influence of the Christian religion.

The parables of the Old Testament too are
fuU of peculiar strength and beauty.

We find this in Judges, where *the trees
went forth to anoint a King over them.'

In Isaiah, where he tells of the labor of the
husbandman come to naught:

Let me sing for my well-beloved a song of my
beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved
had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he digged
it and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted
it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the
midst of it, and also hewed out a wine-press therein:
and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and
it brought forth wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of
Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vine-
yard. What could have been done more to my
vineyard, that I have not done in it.? wherefore,
when I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
brought it forth wild grapes? And now I wiU tell
you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away
the hedge thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor
hoed; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I
will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
upon it. For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is
the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his
pleasant plant; and he looked for justice, but,
behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold,
a cry.

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In Samuel, when Nathan upbraids David for
adultery with Uriah's wife.

And Jehovah sent Nathan unto David. And he
came unto him, and said to him. There were two men
in one City: the one rich, and the other poor. The
rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but
the poor man had nothing, save one httle ewe lamb,
which he had bought and nourished up : and it grew
up together with him, and with his children; it did
eat of his own morsel, and drank of his own cup, and
lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and
he spared to take of his own flock and of his own
herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come
unto him, but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed
it for the man that was come to him. And David's
anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he
said to Nathan, As Jehovah liveth, the man that
hath done this is worthy to die: and he shall restore
the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and
because he had no pity.

And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.

In Ezekiel, as he pictures the consequences
of the treachery of Judah.

A great eagle with great wings and long pinions,
full of feathers, which had divers colors, came unto
Lebanon, and took the top of the cedar: he cropped
off the topmost of the young twigs thereof, and
carried it unto a land of traffic; he set it in a city
of merchants. He took also of the seed of the land,
and planted it in a fruitful soil; he placed it beside
many waters; he set it as a willow- tree. And it
grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature,

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whose branches turned toward him, and the roots
thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and
brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.

There was also another great eagle with great
wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine
did bend its roots toward him, from the beds of its
plantation, that he might water it. It was planted
in a good soil by many waters, that it might bring
forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it
might be a goodly vine. Say thou. Thus saith the
Lord Jehovah: Shall it prosper .f* shall he not pull
up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof,
that it may wither; that aU its fresh springing leaves
may wither? and not by a strong arm or much peo-
ple can it be raised from the roots thereof. Yea,
behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall it not
utterly wither, when the east wind toucheth it? it
shall wither in the beds where it grew.

And again, as he describes the greatness and
the fall of the Assyrian power.

Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with
fair branches, and with a forest-Uke shade, and of
high stature; and its top was among the thick
boughs. The waters nourished it, the deep made
it grow: the rivers thereof ran round about its
plantation; and it sent out its channels unto all the
trees of the field. Therefore its stature was exalted
above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were
multipUed, and its branches became long by reason
of many waters, when it shot them forth. All the
birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs;
and under its branches did all the beasts of the field
bring forth their young: and under its shadow dwelt
all great nations. Thus was it fair in its greatness,
in the length of its branches; for its root was by

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many waters. The cedars in the garden of God
could not hide it; the fir-trees were not like its
boughs, and the plane-trees were not as its branches;
nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto it in
its beauty. I made it fair by the multitude of its
branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in
the garden of God, envied it.

Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because
thou art exalted in stature, and he hath set his top
among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in
his height: I will even deliver him into the hand of
the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal
with him; I have driven him out for his wickedness.
And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut
him off, and have left him: upon the mountains
and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his
boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the
land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down
from his shadow, and have left him. Upon his ruin
all the birds of the heavens shall dwell, and all the
beasts of the field shall be upon his branches; to
the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt
themselves in their stature, neither set their top
among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones
stand up in their height, even all that drink water:
for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether
parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of
men, with them that go down to the pit.

How filled is the Bible throughout, with the
wholesome truth, the wise thought, the devout
impulse, the stimulating suggestion, the pro-
phetic warning, the reassuring word !

And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly be-
fore thy God?

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith,
and he hath fellowship with a proud man shall be
like unto him.

What fellowship shall the earthen pot have with
the kettle?

If the iron be blunt, and one do not whet the edge,
then must he put to more strength: but wisdom
is profitable to direct.

Keep thy heart above all that thou guardest.
For out of it are the issues of life.

Laying up in store for themselves a good founda-
tion against the time to come.

Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

The fathers have eaten some grapes and the chil-
dren's teeth are on edge.

These are they who are hidden rocks in your love
feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that with-
out fear, feed themselves; clouds without water car-
ried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit,
twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of
the sea foaming out their own shame; wandering
stars for whom the blackness of darkness hath been
reserved forever.

Your old men shall dream dreams and your young
men shall see visions.

Therefore shall a strong people glorify thee; a
city of terrible nations shall fear thee. For thou hast
been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the
needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade

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from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is
as a storm against the wall.

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news
from a far country.

Length of days is in her right hand, in her left
hand are riches and honor.

The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the
( strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches
to men of understanding, nor yet fame to men of
skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be un-
punished.

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength
is small.

Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within
thy palaces.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he
that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

The night cometh when no man can work.

And Kings shall come out of thy loins.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

Fear God, honor the King.

Shall he that cavileth contend with the Almighty .-^

Thou shalt not delay to offer of thy harvest and
of the outflow of thy presses.

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

All those things are passed away like a shadow,
and as a post that hasted by; and as a ship that
passeth over the waves of the water, which when
it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found,
neither the pathway of the keel in the waves;
or as when a bird hath flown through the air, there
is no token of her way to be found, but the light air
being beaten with the stroke of her wings, and parted
with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed
through, and therein afterwards no sign where she
went is to be found; or like as when an arrow is
shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately
Cometh together again, so that a man cannot know
where it went through.

Remove not the ancient landmark, and enter not
into the fields of the fatherless.

And it shall be as when a hungry man dreameth,
and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his
soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth,
and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and,
behold, he is faint and his soul hath appetite: so
shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight
against Mount Zion.

None shall weary or stumble among them; none
shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of
their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes
be broken.

When thou reapest thy harvest in the field, and
hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go
again to fetch it: it shall be for the sojourner, for
the fatherless, and for the widow; that Jehovah thy
God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands.
When thou beatest thine olive-tree, thou shalt not

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go over the boughs again: it shall be for the so-
journer, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When
thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt
not glean it after thee: it shall be for the sojourner,
for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou
shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the
land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this
thing.

Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the
light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be
sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that
Jehovah bindeth up the hurt of his people, and
healeth the stroke of their wound.

The Bible is precious, too, because it is a
marvelous rendering of the poetic spirit of the
original Hebrew, the subtle beauty of the Sep-
tuagint, and the stateliness of diction of the
Vulgate. Men have exhausted the vocabulary
of admiration, as they have told of the genius
of Tyndale in the translation of the New Testa-
ment and of the Pentateuch, that for all time
has been the model for other worthy versions.

To his work there was added the consecra-
tion of the long line of reverent scholars, until
there was reproduced in graphic, vivid trans-
lation the spirit of a great original, as had never
been done before and has been done with
no other book in the world. How much there
has been lacking in a like rendering into Eng-

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

lish of the ancient classics is apparent now, as
we see the beginnings of such an accomplish-
ment, in the poetic version of the plays of the
great Grecian dramatists by Prof. Gilbert
Murray, of Oxford.

The Bible is as truly English literature as is
Shakespeare, and its words and phrases form the
magic web of the poet, and give distinction to
the prose of the historian, the essayist, the
novelist. To take away its glories from our
language, would indeed be like stripping the
flesh from the body, leaving but the bones and
skeleton of what was a living thing. Or, to
change the figure of speech, such a loss would
make our language, in comparison with what it
now is, in many respects, as it were, a kind of
sign language.

Not many of us in this hurrying, bustling
age stop long enough, to consider the potency
and magic of the exact, the fitting word; for
the sentence, the phrase, almost the word has
turned the current of events, shaped the des-
tiny of nations, and exerted a determining in-
fluence upon the thoughts and lives of the
individual. Few can lay claim to intellectual

powers above their fellow-men, and the su-
I.— 7 98

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

periority lies more often than we realize, in the
possession of the varied vocabulary of pictur-
esque, rugged words. The gifted men of our
literature, that have thought with as much
acumen as Shakespeare are many, but he stands
alone, as an over-towering, heroic figure because
of his veritable genius for expression.

Particularly is this true of the men of the
Scriptures. Their processes of reasoning were
often far below those of the authors of the
classics of the world. Their pre-eminence was
rather the pre-eminence which came from the
illuminating word and phrase, of such power
that they have passed not only into the books
of our literature, but become part of the daily
speech of men.

It will profit us all to recall some of the
hosts of such words and phrases, of strength
and beauty not only of themselves, but by
reason of their context and association — their
detonation and connotation, to use the rather
forbidding terminology of the text-books. In
an appendix to this essay, are examples of these
words and phrases selected almost at random
in Bible reading; and though some of them
appear but once or twice in the Bible, yet a

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

degree of distinction has been conferred upon
them.

There is a pageantry and processional beauty
in some of these words and phrases; an ex-
hilaration in others; some have an indefinable
joy, and others a great anguish of soul; some
seem to be born of a perfect peace, and others
are the offspring of the whirlwind and of deso-
lation; some have an incense and a pervading
fragrance, others are like the withered flower;
some are the synonym of a vast gloom, others
shine with radiance and luster; some present
to us the recesses of the universe; some a bot-
tomless pit, and still others, as it were, the
portals of a paradise.

One who has them at his ready command, has
an enviable advantage in ordinary conversation
and in formal speech, but one who knows them
in their Bible setting has his reward in the vivid
pictures they present to the imagination and to
the emotions. Through them what is dark is
made light, what is feeble and structureless,
strong and imposing; waste places are filled
with warmth and life. We scarcely need illus-
trations of this rather evident truth.

The oration of Lincoln on the battle-field of

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Gettysburg, for all time, will be among the
memorable utterances of men; and every other
similar oration — even that of Pericles over the
Athenian Dead — suffers eclipse by comparison
with it. Yet in large measure it is thus great,
because through it there vibrate the deep organ
notes of Bible words.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and
so dedicated, can long endure. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-
place for those who here gave their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can-
not consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long re-
member, what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather,
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
task remaining before us — that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion —
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

have a new birth of freedom and that government
of the people, by the people, and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

Take away the words of Bible memory and
the phrases born of Bible reading and Bible in-
spiration— "fourscore," "conceived," "brought
forth," "dedicated," "consecrated," "gave their
lives that that nation might live," "hallow,"
"resting-place," "increased devotion," "last
full measure," "unfinished work," "long en-
dure," "resolve," "new birth," "perish from
the earth " — and much of the solemn music has
died out forever from this inspiring Battle
Hymn of consecration to the Republic.

The imposing diction of the Scriptures in its
appeal to the emotions is — if we exclude Shake-
speare from the comparison — often as far above
the plays even of our great dramatists, as they
in turn are above the poorest of their contem-
poraries. What they wrote was for the mimic
stage while the momentous scenes of the Scrip-
tures were enacted upon the stage of life. Often
the words of the dramatists betray the coiner
of phrases and the dip-candles of the footlights;
the play-goers, too, are there. But the words
of the others are addressed to the congregation

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

of the people, and those who speak from the
high places are a God and his messengers.

The New Testament is the sequel of the Old
Testament. Quotations and adaptations from
the text of the Old Testament fill pages of the
New Testament; and the inspired words of
Micah and Isaiah, and Jeremiah and Malachi,
and of the Psalms and Proverbs are the glory
of the New Testament. Even Christ's divine
teachings were often but a new interpretation
of the sayings of the prophets and poets; and
the model for the parables whereby He taught
was already in the books of the Bible. It is
made of many books, but it is one book, with
the Apocrypha for appendix.

To permit the Bible to pass away from the
admiration and regard of men would be to ex-
tinguish a great light and leave in its stead a
great darkness, in which men might easily lose
their way in progress and humanity and a sure
religion. Yet to bring back the world to a
realization of all this, so unmistakably clear to
one having a true understanding of the Bible,
we must substitute for much of the old oracular
book of discarded creeds and ideas and scientific

98

THEi BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

pretensions, a new book of inspiration, a book
of great literature, a book of religion. Only
when the leaders of religious thought in the
churches understand and preach this gospel of
reasonableness, will the deserted ranks of re-
ligion be filled to overflowing with volunteers
from the intellectual and the devout. The
hour has come and with it should come the
man. Once let the Bible come to be an hon-
ored book of men that love the finer, nobler
things of literature, and it will be again as
mighty a source of religious inspiration as it
ever was.

The Bible is not the dead book of an ancient
people but the living book of the modem world.
About it hallowed associations have gathered
as about no other book in the world.

Macaulay, in one of his overwrought rhe-
torical passages in his review of Mitford's His-
tory of Greece, says:

All the triumphs of truth and genius over preju-
dice and power, in every country and in every age,
have been the triumph of Athens. Wherever a few
great minds have made a stand against violence
and fraud in the cause of liberty and reason, there
has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring,
encouraging, consoling; by the lonely lamp of

90

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; in the trib-
une of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the
scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her in-
fluence on private happiness? Who shall say how
many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and
better by those pursuits in which she has taught
mankind to engage; to how many the studies which
took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty
■ — liberty in bondage — health in sickness — society
in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at the
bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools
of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wher-
ever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain —
wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with
wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house
and the long sleep — there is exhibited in its noblest
form the immortal influence of Athens.

This is not the truth; it is scarcely the half
truth; for it is the Bible much more than the
literature of Athens that has endowed men with
power and strength under grievous trial, and
given light to such as sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death.

The lowly as well as the powerful have
drawn their inspiration from its pages. Says
Charles Reade, in the opening words of The
Cloister and the Hearth, which many regard as
the greatest work of fiction in the language:

Not a day passes over the earth but men and
women of no note do great deeds, speak great words,
and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes,
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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

philosophers and martyrs, the greater part will
never be known till that hour when many that are
great shall be small and the small great, but of
others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep;
their lives and characters lie hidden from nations in
the annals that record them.

Again it is the Bible influence which has led
such men and such women to do these great
deeds and to speak these great words. More
than this is true, for the Bible has told of the
sure way over which humanity must go in its
mission, and has given to it for the journey,
enduring courage, unconquerable hope, and
never-failing light.

We need not look again for a literature such
as that of the Bible, so unique and sublime in
spiritual expression. We need not look again
even for such devoted men as in the early cen-
turies of the Christian era spread abroad its
teachings, any more than we need look for re-
ligious paintings like those of Raphael and
Correggio and Titian and Paul Veronese and
Michael Angelo; for in different ways they
wrought under the spell of a religion, which
was to fit mankind for the imminent end of the
world and the life to come.

There can, however, be a substitute for what

101

LIBRARY
llNlVFR^iiTY nr rai !rnr?Mfi

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

has been, and some day a series of books —
greater than have yet appeared will be written
of the Bible — suited to modern-day views and
to the humanitarian spirit abroad in the world.
It is an inviting field for labor and harvest; and
so much the better if the laborers be of au-
thority in the Church, or if the work to be done
have the sanction of the Church. The men
who write these books must be devout and
reverent but courageous as well, and to them
religion must be among the realities of life as
are patriotism and hope and the emotions —
yes, as are food and raiment. Their informa-
tion must be abreast of modern scholarship.
They must seek not so much to restore the old
authority of the Bible as the book of the
Church, as to make it the great religious book
of the world. Its imperishable literary glories
must be uncovered; men must be taught that
for its sublimity of expression, and for its resig-
nation and unquenchable hope amid affliction
and misery, there is no substitute.

It will indeed be a solemn charge committed
to these writers, but they will not be equal to
it unless they realize at the outset, and always,
that in those imperishable literary glories the

102

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

closest union is to be found between man and
eternal truth. Such has been the story, rightly-
interpreted, of inspired words since the be-
ginning of the world; and no one can rightly
understand their mighty power without being
religious, and no deeply religious man can
fail to be profoundly affected and influenced
by and through them.

The writers will not merely gather together,
as the attempt has sometimes been made,
passages from the Bible as specimens of its
beauty and strength, but they will treat of the
Bible as a great dramatic spiritual book, with
quotations from it as the illustration and jus-
tification of the author's word. They will pro-
ceed with each book and tell of its value, its
history and its importance, not alone standing
by itself but as a great part of a greater whole.
They, however, must be the interpreters, not
the work itself. When they present the simple
melody of the poetic story, their word must be
the illuminating, not the deafening, egotistic
accompaniment; and in the great dramatic
passages, their voice must serve but to intensify
and make more glorious the orchestral harmony.

What a wealth of illustrations, too, they will

103

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

have at their command, from the simple story
of the birth of the world to the incomparable
visions of Revelation!

In the first words of Genesis they will make
us realize that we are in the very dawn of the
world. For every other description of that
beginning in the prose or poetry of modern or
ancient classics pales before it. It was the
priest or preacher, who sought to make of that
inspiring outlook upon the face of the earth
and the face of the waters, a treatise on geology,
concerning the truth of which men were to
wrangle and shed blood. About that story of
folk-lore, borrowed from other lands but trans-
formed by the poetic touch of the Hebrew poet,
there is the added beauty of centuries of
worship rich with visions. There is no more
conflict between science and religion in this
description of the creation of the world, than
there is contradiction between the lines:

Morn
Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr'd the gates of light,

and the statement that we see the recurring
morning light of the sun, by reason of the rota-
tion of the earth on its axis.

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

On that primeval stage, where the curtain
is thus rung up, the drama of religion and
spiritual life is to be enacted, primitive at
times and often crude, but unfailing always
in its illusions and beauty. Here we are
to read the story of man and his degrada-
tion by transgression, and the world over-
whelmed with the destroying waters, but re-peo-
pled again by the instrumentality of the first
of the mythical heroes — the new father of the
race to come, with whom the covenant is made
by the Almighty, that never again shall there
be the floods of destruction.

These writers will give a right estimate of the
value of the several books of the Bible and will
frankly concede that there are some portions
of them in which men of to-day have as little
interest as a lawyer in a volume of statutes
repealed by subsequent legislation, or a sur-
geon in a book of surgery of a past generation.
They will tell how in the successive ages these
books received additions, emendations, and cor-
rections by the priestly and other documents,
and their assertions will be supported by the
testimony of archaeologists and historians. If
they are convinced that the old notions of

105

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

prophecy are worthy of credence, they must
nevertheless put alongside of those views the
conclusions of scholars that assert the contrary
to be true. In this regard they must err on the
side of candor.

They should contrast the ideals of the Bible
with the ideals of the religious books of other
people, and thereby be enabled to point out
its incomparable superiority.

And at last in Revelation these writers will
point out how the imagination is swept from
height to height on the wings of visions, until we
seem to be in the very presence of the dazzling,
overpowering light of things unseen and eternal.

"While these writers must not dogmatize con-
cerning the miraculous incidents of the Bible,
they need not necessarily reject them. Their
attitude may well be patterned after that of
the Rev. Mr. Robbins, of the Church of the
Incarnation of the City of New York, who in
a luminous sermon on the Bible made it abun-
dantly clear how the thoughtful scholar and
reverent preacher can point out the way of
reasonableness in its interpretation.

Here let me pause a moment before closing, to
encounter a possible objection. I grant, says the

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

agnostic, that the Bible is all of this, a piece of his-
toric writing, covering the national life of an ex-
traordinary people, full of religious aspiration,
written in a grand style, and adapted to form the
mind of a child along the worthiest moral lines.
But what am I to do with the supernatural parts of
it? I don't believe in miracles: what am I to do
when my boy asks me whether such and such a
thing really happened? If I am candid with him,
will it not discredit in his mind the authority of the
book in which he has read it? That is a fair ques-
tion, and many parents who are Christian believers
have echoed it at times. The answer one can make
to them is this : Do not anticipate a child's doubts of
the supernatural, but when they come take him
fully into your confidence. If he doubts whether
Elisha made an iron ax -head swim, say to him:
There never yet was a great man who did not have
wonderful stories circulated about him after his
death. The fact that those stories are not all true
does not prove that he was not true; it only proves
that he was so great that men thought him capable
of even more greatness, and so they invented things
about him and added them to the things which were
true. Now let us go back to the Bible and study these
stories of Elijah and Elisha, and try to decide which
of the things we read here they really did and which
were invented about them afterward. And let us
try to decide, both from the things that happened
and the things that were invented, what kind of men
they were, and what kind of things they did, and
why they were so great. I do believe that if you
meet a child in that honest and interested fashion
you will stimulate him to fresh interest in his study,
and you will bring out, as in perhaps no other way,
his own powers of reflection and discrimination and
judgment. . . . Take the Bible as it stands, regard it

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

as a human book, use it as a text-book for religious
education, show the heroes of the Old Testament in
their faith and in their valor, show the Lord Jesus
as the Gospels picture Him, merciful, powerful, glori-
ous, without fear and without reproach, the King of
Saints, the Lord of loyal men, and in the providence
of God that picture printed upon a child's mind
before it is hardened by sin will do there God's own
work.

These writers must recognize that the Bible
is a wondrous book of inspiration and ideals, and
not a code of rules and conduct; that it does
not undertake to point out the particular way
over which the world shall go on its journey, but
gives the understanding whereby the right way
may be chosen when men are at the cross-
roads of life.

They must recognize, too, that not only has
the Church, by its unwise action, permitted the
world to be fed too long on the husks of doc-
trine, but that it has been guilty of more than
folly. For in days gone by, it took away the
liberty and even the lives of men for following
the dictates of conscience; and almost within
a generation men of learning and character
have, by the warrants of the Church, been
dragged forth from the Sanctuary where no
hand should have dared to molest them, and

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

humiliated by cruel and indefensible judgments,
though in the court of reason and forbearance
these men were, in the words of St. Paul, sincere
and void of offense.

The writers must work like Wycliffe and Tyn-
dale and their followers, lil^e the scholars of the
Authorized and of the Revised Version, conse-
crated to a great cause. They must be con-
cerned not alone with the attributes of the God
that created men, but with the attributes of the
God whom man has created, as the embodiment
of the ideals of religion and conscience and
aspiration. That God must not be a God
outside the universe, but a God that is the uni-
verse; not a God that is in heaven or some-
where, but a God that is everywhere; not a
God that dispenses justice and rewards for
righteousness, but a God that is justice and
righteousness; not a God that orders the world
by law, but a God that is law. And so much
has the majesty of God grown during the ages,
that to the minds of these men He must at
times be as superior to the Yahweh of the
prophets and poets, as Yahweh was to the
tribal God of the people, and as was the tribal
God to the Baal of the heathen. It must be

I.— 8 109

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

a Supreme Being toward whom all right-minded
men, whatever their religious creed, may turn
with reverence and veneration.

In another essay in these volumes the follow-
ing is said of Arnold:

Aside from those included in the class of gifted
religious teachers there is no one that taught so wisely
as he the essential truth of religion, while among
pure scholars no one has understood it so well.

To him it must have seemed that the exterior of
the temple of religion had been defaced by additions
and by attempts at restoration, while in the interior
idols and images had been set up. It must have
seemed to him, too, that the glory of its walls had
been concealed, though not destroyed, by successive
layers of creed and dogma and legend; just as of
old a wealth of inspired mural paintings has for a
time disappeared under the whitewash of the ascetic.
And in all reverence he sought to strip away this
false ornamentation, to uncover this beauty, and
to cast out the idols and the images, so that with
its exquisite harmony of proportion without, and its
splendor and its altars within, this temple would
become a sanctuary wherein all men might worship.

The men who write these books can surely
do as much as Arnold. They ought to be able
to do infinitely more, since he often wrote with
the zeal of the doughty antagonist, while an
eagerness should await the new interpretation
of this Book of Books.

Inasmuch as the miraculous incidents of the

110

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Bible have become less and less acceptable to
many men of to-day, these writers will do well
to emphasize that overshadowing miracle — com-
pared with which other miracles are of minor
importance — resting, too, not on conjecture or
questionable tradition but upon the sure foun-
dation of historic truth.

A Semitic tribe few in number comes out
from its Eastern home, carrying with it the
moral statutes of the great lawgiver and king
of the first Babylonian dynasty, to wander
across the desert toward the sea. For years
they are held in bondage in Egypt. Dramati-
cally they escape from that bondage, and after
years of wanderings among the mountains
they gain at first a feeble foothold in Palestine,
and in the end make conquest of it; and when
the great leader Moses lies dead on the plains
of Moab they enter into the Promised Land
to become a peasant people. Under the ad-
ministration of the Judges they grow in power
until the time is ripe for the Kingdom, the very
foundation of which is traceable to the herds-
man who, searching for strayed asses, finds his
mission in a consecration to the sacred national

cause. After the short reign of the Kings, there

111

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

follows the dismemberment of even that petty
Kingdom — always the plaything and the spoil
of the warring nations of the East and Egypt —
and Israel and Judah appear among the nations.
Idolatry more and more gives place to the wor-
ship of an always greater Yahweh, who grows
to majestic proportions as there is dropped from
him as a discarded garment, the attributes of
the strange gods whom he so often resembled.
Seers and diviners and soothsayers become the
prophets and leaders of the people, and out of
triumph and defeat, out of independence and
vassalage and captivity, there is awakened a
marvelous genius for spiritual utterance such as
the world has never known. There come the
ebb and flow of religious worship and devotion,
the time of visions and the time when "the
word of the Lord God was rare in those days,
and visions were seldom seen." But ever pres-
ent in misery and in joy, in peace and in war,
is the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of
religious faith and the consecration of wor-
ship, the sacred receptacle which it was believed
neither Philistine nor heathen might desecrate
with impunity, but which like a palladium
would insure the safety of the people and the

112

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

preservation of the Temple. As Syria threat-
ens the security and even existence of the two
kingdoms, there looms on the horizon the new
power of Assyria to stay her destructive hand.
The armies of Assyria take Samaria and carry
Israel into captivity. But when turned against
Judah they meet a crushing disaster just as
victory seems in sight and Jerusalem within
their grasp — a disaster well-nigh miraculous,
whether we accept the explanation of the
Assyrian that it was due to dread disease, or
that of Herodotus that field-mice gnawed away
the strings of the bows of the warriors, or that
of Isaiah and the writer of Kings, in the stirring
lines of Byron:

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the might of the Gentile unsmote by the sword
Has melted like snow in the hands of the Lord.

There follows for generations the long vigil
of Jerusalem amid the mountains; but at last
she, too, succumbs to the enemy and her peo-
ple are carried away into a long captivity; her
victors become in turn the vanquished; the

113

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

captives change masters, and then the prophecy
of the restoration is fulfilled.

Centuries elapse, and the prophet's voice is
heard again in the land; the Temple is rebuilt,
some of the noble books of the Bible are written
and some of the older books are reduced to their
present form; subjugation follows subjugation;
there is an unavailing uprising for freedom and
for religion, and the flickering flame of the gut-
tered candle of hope dies out amid a vast dark-
ness. "But the end is not yet."

For then comes, not the mighty Deliverer ex-
pected but the great High Priest of religion, the
Messiah, who — steeped in the inspiration of the
Scriptures, and with so many of the divine
attributes of God and man as to be the Son of
God and the Son of man — was to make spiritual
conquest of the world and, in the words of
Froude, remodel the conscience of humanity.

Why have controversy over the question
whether Balaam's ass spoke or a whale swal-
lowed Jonah, when the whole Bible story is the
greatest of miracles.'*

Yet when all this has been said something
more should be added. We stand before a
great mystery across the threshold of which

114

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

we may not pass. While some men of learning
and piety, of calm judgment or enthusiasm are
mentally so constituted that the observation
of ordered events forbids the acceptance of
miracles as possible, others for generations
and centuries have had implicit faith in their
reasonaTDleness and probability. Some insist
that the miracle is the corner-stone of the
edifice of religion, others that it is no part
either of its stability or its beauty. Nor are we
to forget that distinguished representatives of
the two classes are of the Church as well as of
the world.

The mystery of existence remains a mystery
still, and for either the agnostic or the believer
to dogmatize about its solution is, to say the
least, a kind of intellectual arrogance. The
wisest have never been guilty of this, and none
of them all has pictured the ever-recurring
problems of doubt and belief more reverently
than Goethe in those words beginning:

Misshoer mich nicht, du holdes Angesicht.

And how effectively Walt Whitman in his
stately lines silences the petty cavilings of
irreverence!

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,

At Nature and its wonders. Time and Space and

Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual

Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs.
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space

In the one we see the homage of a great in-
tellect and in the other the homage of a great
soul to an Infinite Being.

The astronomer, with equipment of mathe-
matical formula and telescope and camera and
spectroscope, invades the very recesses of the
universe until its jealously guarded secrets
seem all surrendered. The geologist reads the
story of the structure and of the making of
the earth. The scientist knows of the evt>lution
of the higher out of the lower organic forms
and resolves atoms into electrons; philoso-
phers philosophize. But concerning the why
and the wherefore of it all, the whence and the
whither, they give back no answer. Over the
beginning and the end of life — the "two Eter-
nities"— there is still the impenetrable veil.

It will be the privilege of the writers of these
new Bible books to furnish for all men a common
meeting-ground, in a tolerant attitude toward

116

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

these much debated and never-to-be-decided
problems of existence. They must not, how-
ever, accept for this common meeting-ground
any of the cheerless, forbidding places suggested
by some modern-day founders of new religions;

"And never know how with the soul it fares."

Doubtless the views which these writers en-
tertain, or those which they will candidly pre-
sent, but with which they themselves may not
be in accord, will not resolve the doubts of some
or disturb the beliefs of others. But the far-
reaching good to result is not to be lightly esti-
mated; for they can fairly insist — and few
thoughtful readers will differ from them — that
the mere word of the Bible is so deeply relig-
ious as to verge upon the miraculous. Many
will be prepared to agree with them, that in
the beginning perhaps men saw with a keener
vision than ever since into the inscrutable ways
of Providence; and that in all essentials the
Bible cannot be other than the work of those
having an inspiration beyond all that has been
or will ever again be vouchsafed to mankind, for
the cause of spiritual excellence and righteous-
ness and true religion.

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THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

And when the Church shall exhibit a broad
and an increasing charity for the divergent
religious views of men; when this Book of
Books is read understandingly in schools and
universities and in the home circle as mar-
velous, inspired literature; and when the clergy
in the pulpit shall consent to prefer substance
to form and the spirit to the letter as they
preach the gospel of reasonableness, we may
be sure that veneration for the Bible and for
religion will be born again.

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

As stated in "The Bible and Modern Life," the following
words and phrases have been merely marginally noted in Bible
reading, and then, so far as was feasible, those of kindred mean-
ing assembled together. As an indication of the wealth of the
Bible vocabulary, it may be said that many a similar selection
can be made, and that the quotations in the essay furnish the
material for no insignificant one. Not a few of these words and
phrases occur but once or twice in the Bible or the Apocrypha;
and from the Oxford Historical Dictionary, we may learn that
some of them appear for the first time and often, in the books of
general literature. Nevertheless, as a rule, they have what may
be called the Scriptural impress.

Even out of their context and presenting only the suggestion
of the completed thought, they are picturesque, rugged, unique;
while to the lover of the Bible, the allusion is quite sufficient to
recall in many instances, the sentence, the incident, and the
page of wondrous power and imagery and inspiration.

MAJESTY and dominion and glory, sitting
at the right hand of power and coming
with the clouds of heaven, the glorious majesty of
his kingdom, sovereignty from the Highest, his
holy memorial name, an everlasting sign, ascribe
greatness, glorify the house of my glory, lift up
an ensign, oracle of God, his dominion shall be
from sea to sea and from the river to the ends

119

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

of the eartli, the four corners of the earth, the
isles afar off, armor of Hght, marvelous won-
drous works, breast-plate of judgment, buckler,
golden girdle, go forth in might, salvation for
walls and bulwarks, sun and shield, golden
splendor, pre-eminence, put down princes from
their thrones and exalt them of low degree,
longer than the earth and broader than the
sea, exalted above the hills, founded it upon the
seas and established it upon the floods, the
nations for their inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for their possession, strength-
en the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees,
watch tower and rock and refuge, keep the fort-
ress, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power,
mighty men of valor, goodly heritage, heritage
of the nations, chosen for an inheritance, or-
dained of God, as one having authority, the
bricks are fallen down but we will build with
hewn stone, deliverer, the fire had power in the
water forgetting his own virtue and the water
forgat his own quenching value, what God hath
wrought, principalities and powers, a tumultu-
ous noise of the kingdoms of the nations gath-
ered together, muster the hosts of the battle,
clouds are the dust of his feet, light rise in dark-

120

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

ness and obscurity be as the noonday, as the
stars of heaven for multitude, stand in awe,
commandment, diadem, the earth his footstool,
he made darkness pavilions round about him,
establish in the very heavens, the measures of
the firmament, the brightness of the firmament,
an ordinance for ever, steadfast unmovable,
cast forth his roots as Lebanon, throughout the
generations, upon a thousand hills, king of eter-
nity, forever and ever, righteous judge, minister
judgment, the judgment seat, mighty unto per-
fection, scepter of equity, an invincible shield.

Labor of love, shower blessings, clear shining
after rain, a parched land a plentiful rain,
plenteousness is made ready, seed-time, white
with harvest, send forth laborers into the har-
vest, gather wheat into the garner, sow unto
yourselves in righteousness reap in mercy break
up your fallow ground, spring up among the
grass as willows by the watercourses, gathered
as the sheaves, like a cloud of dew in the heat
of harvest, the angels are the reapers. In green
pastures and beside still waters, pastures of the
wilderness, yield increase, a fruitful hill and the
choicest vine, even from the flower till the grape
was ripe, a tree planted by the streams, replen-

121

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

ish the earth with the rivers of God, flourish
like grass of the earth, open rivers on the bare
heights and fountains in the midst of the val-
leys, land of the living, the plowman shall over-
take the reaper, instead of the thorn shall come
up the fir-tree and instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle-tree, a land flowing with milk and
honey. The day is at hand, the eyelids of the
morning, until the day dawn and the day-star
arise, joy cometh in the morning, prisoners of
hope, loose the sackcloth from off thy loins,
of good courage of good cheer, abode, stretch
forth the curtains of thine habitations, dwell-
ing-place, a lodge in the branches, of his own
household, not build and another inhabit not
plant and another eat, repairer of the breach
the restorer of the paths to dwell in. The day
is far spent, shadows of the evening, eventide,
heavy with sleep, at rest and quiet, slept with
his fathers, he giveth his beloved sleep.

Mindful of the covenant, abound, obeisance,
watch the way, bow the knee of the heart,
integrity of heart and innocency of hands, for-
swear, moved with compassion, bowels of com-
passion, vouchsafe, offering, given to hospital-
ity, the stranger within thy gates, entertained

122

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

angels unawares, the wayfaring man, betray
not the fugitive, the sojourner. Not suffer
the soul of the righteous to famish, a table
in the wilderness, as the shade of a great
rock in a weary land, turn the curse into a
blessing, the dew of youth, rich in good works,
abide, blood on the lintel, calling and election
sure, heal diseases of the soul, commune with
your own heart, pay thy vows, testimony of
conscience, born of the spirit, cloud of witnesses,
proclaim peace, fulfil the Scriptures, not im-
pute sin. Great is truth and mighty above all
things, a word spoken in due season, a word
fitly spoken like apples of gold in network of
silver, the tongue of the stammering shall speak
plainly, keep the door of thy lips, bridle the
tongue, held his peace, not forswear thyself,
words of truth and soberness, keep thy soul
diligent, mighty in word and deed, meditation,
mete out, appease, assuage, respect unto the
lowly, not grudgingly or of necessity, faithful
unto death, walk in integrity, for a testimony,
take counsel together, congregation, the faith-
ful and wise steward, good and faithful servant,
incorruptible and undefiled, overflowing cour-
age, gracious assurance, under the shadow of

123

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

thy wings, according to the cleanness of the
hands, well pleasing, a delight to the eyes.

The end is not yet, path of the upright, whose
leaf shall not wither, consecration, sacrament,
broken the yoke and burst the bonds, with-
hold not thy hand, withstand or gainsay, the
tree of life, regeneration, not anxious for the
morrow, extol, exult, quicken, account of thy
stewardship, clothed and girded with strength,
loins girt about with truth, in majesty ride on
prosperously, her warfare is accomplished, over-
shadowing, strivings, come on pinions, voice of
a great multitude, seasonable, measurably, ad-
jure, abundant in treasure, not return void,
establish the footsteps, blossom as the rose,
edify, sanctify, strength to them that turn
back the battle at the gate, give thee favor and
accomplish thine enterprises, prevail against,
lighten darkness, the light of thy countenance,
tabernacle, temple, thy hallowed house, altar
of incense, sanctuary, paradise, build up the old
wastes and raise up the former desolations, unto
the desired haven, pilgrimage, the land of prom-
ise, with loins girded shoes on the feet and a staff
in the hand, save a staff and shod with sandals.

The way of the wind, the four winds of hea-

124

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

ven, a sound as the rushing of a mighty wind,
sweep by as a wind, the wings of the wind,
hiding-place from the wind and a covert from
the tempest, bring forth the wind out of his
treasuries, water out of the wells of salvation,
Jacob's well, resting-place, mercy-seat, holy
place, burnt-offering, manna. A great calm,
isles of the sea, the heart of the seas, the face
of the waters, the river of God is full of water,
rushing of mighty waters, the pride of the sea,
the paths of the sea, they that go down to the
sea in ships, all the rivers run to the sea but
the sea is not full, waters cover the sea, rebuke
the sea, voice of many waters, haven of the sea,
the fountains of the sea, breadth of the waters,
like the sound of many waters, layeth up the
deep in storehouses, the balancing of the clouds.
A lamp unto the feet a light unto the path,
enlightening the eyes, according to your faith,
a crown of life, nourished in the words of faith,
boldness in faith, not weary in well doing, heap
coals of fire on his head, unsearchable riches,
the headstone of the comer, joy unspeakable,
consolation, redemption, anoint, appease, ex-
hort, a man after his own heart, a sweet savor,
yearning, contrite, things invisible, mindful of

I.— 9 125

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

spiritual strength, fulfilment, as the apple of
his eye, worship, pacify wrath, slow to wrath,
let not the sun go down upon thy wrath, a
brand plucked from the burning, compass with
favor as with a shield, an acceptable man tried
in the furnace of adversity, lines fallen in pleas-
ant places, righteousness, justice the line and
righteousness the plummet, a righteous token,
garland, fashioned as clay, renounce the hidden
things of dishonesty, peace offering, repentance,
remission, searching of hearts, lay down his life
for his friend, reveal, bestow, buy the truth
and sell it not, not dismayed or abased, a song
as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept,
with joyful acclamations, of the king's retinue,
as thy days so shall thy strength be, zealous,
not in word neither in tongue but in deed and
in truth, a good foundation against the time
to come, a city set on a hill, commend the
spirit, atonement, a book of remembrance,
seemly, in wise dealing.

The whole desire, an even balance, establish
equity, restore the pledge, recompense accord-
ing to their deeds and the work of their hands,
make restitution, fret not thyself, requite, a
goodly portion, the good part.

126

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

Increase in wisdom and in stature, sow not
upon the furrows of the unrighteous, be swift to
hear and let thy Hfe be sincere, incline the ear,
mighty in the Scriptures, the accepted time,
hearken diligently, walk circumspectly, take heed
to, search out, to him that over-cometh, bring the
body into subjection, quit yourselves like men,
never faint in their watches, a living dog is better
than a dead lion, leaven the whole loaf, grace
seasoned with salt, prove all things, God forbid.

Excellency of knowledge, who can number
the sand of the sea and the drops of rain and
the days of eternity, wisdom and understanding,
wisdom justified of her children, a heart of wis-
dom, perfection of wisdom, devour wisdom, the
spring of understanding the fountain of wisdom
and the stream of knowledge, the branches of
wisdom are long life, the light that cometh from
her never goeth out, to be allied with wisdom
is immortality, the well-spring of life, — whoso
seeketh wisdom early shall find her sitting at the
doors, she is the brightness of the everlasting
light the unspotted mirror of the power of God.

Constrain, the law of kindness, not muzzle
the ox when he treadeth out the corn, evil re-
port and good report, unto the perfect day, the

1*7

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

signs of the times, ministers of God, in the
twinkling of an eye, the right hands of fellow-
ship, bear no malice, depart in peace, the peace
of God which passeth understanding, assurance
of things hoped for the conviction of things not
seen, not done in a corner, dispensation, walk
while you have the light, swifter than eagles
stronger than lions, the people arose as one man,
if the trumpet give an uncertain sound who
shall prepare himself for the battle, the voice of
the trumpet, not afraid for the terror by night
or the arrow that flieth by day, dwell in hope,
not slothful in business fervent in spirit. Leave
not a stain in thine honor, without blemish, an
unspotted life, all things work together for
good, the letter killeth but the spirit maketh
alive, a brand plucked from the burning, ex-
ceeding and eternal weight of glory, weak but
strong having glory but dishonor, a spectacle
unto the world, there is no discharge in battle,
beat their swords into plowshares and their
shears into pruning-hooks, eternal purpose, in
their death they were not divided, a good fight,
the house of prayer, passing the love of women,
many called few chosen, by their fruits ye shall
know them, work manifest, a wheel within a

128

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

wheel, let the dead bury the dead, a new cloth
unto an old garment new wine into old bottles,
force not the course of the river. Testimony of
conscience, the truth shall make you free, no
evil befall thee, purged of iniquity, not live by
bread alone, the laborer worthy of his hire,
render to all their dues, tribute to whom trib-
ute is due, content with your wages, fought a
good fight, a good treasure against the day of
necessity, a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptation, let your communication be yea
yea nay nay, the breath of life, full of youth,
in a good old age, honorable age not that which
standeth in length of time not that measured
by number of years, labor of love, in holy ar-
ray, the crooked be made straight and the
rough places plain, quench not the spirit, by
prayer and fasting, greatly desiring, the shield
of faith, helmet of salvation, bear witness, dis-
ciple, apostle, expound, able to withstand the
evil day, well with him, in season out of sea-
son, cleave unto, seeking justice and swift to
do righteousness, the commandment is a lamp
and the law is light, render to, lay hold on,
ordered aright, walk and not faint, the nations
are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the

129

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

small dust of the balance, the victory of battle
standeth not in the multitude of an host.

Whited sepulchers, righteous in his own
eyes, righteous overmuch, scribes and Pharisees,
build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the
sepulchers of the righteous, vain oblations, pub-
licans and sinners, the hypocrites in the syna-
gogues and in the streets, counted our life a
pastime and our time here a market for gain,
getting and gaining, ask bread and be given a
stone, withheld the poor from their desire. A
great gulf fixed, the raging of the sea, the wilder-
ness of the sea, the troubled sea, the tempestu-
ous sea, in perils in the sea, the empty cry, envy
the rottenness of the bones, deceit and oppres-
sion, gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity.
Fallen from grace, of little faith, church of the
Laodiceans, lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,
like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and
tossed, forsaken the fountains of living water,
dreamer of dreams, gone astray, to the unknown
God, ignorantly in unbelief, floods of ungod-
liness, served the creature rather than the
Creator, the cock crew, a convenient season,
Ephraim joined to idols, in his temple of idols,

130

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

heresy, great is Diana of the Ephesians, false
gods, graven image, every wind of doctrine, set
at nought. Pass away as the trace of a cloud,
dispersed as a mist that is driven away with the
beams of the sun and overcome with the heat
thereof, nor take deep rooting from bastard
slips, no fellowship with wisdom, not having a
wedding garment, for a good journey asketh of
that which cannot set a foot forward, of the
earth earthy, carnally minded, ill favored and
lean-fleshed, bring gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave, a proverb and a byword, stumbling-
blocks and a snare. Then had thy peace been
as a river and righteousness as the waves of
the sea, wide the gate and broad the way,
empty swept and garnished, dissolutely and un-
righteously, the last state worse than the first,
breathing out threatenings and slaughter, hard
to kick against the pricks, pearls before swine,
the hope of the unthankful shall melt away as
the winter's hoar frost and shall run away as
unprofitable water, evil desire, multiply sorrow,
for naught and vanity, not gather ;figs of this-
tles, years of dearth, unprofitable servants, the
sluggard, the slack hand, the unjust steward,
faith without works, thorn in the flesh, the

131

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

house of bondage, grievous servitude, rule with
rod of iron, urgent taskmasters, the tale of
bricks. The covetous, they that trust in riches,
love of money is the root of all evil, filthy lucre,
where the treasure is there will the heart be
also, heap up riches and know not who shall
gather them, riches make themselves wings,
deceitfulness of riches, fared sumptuously every
day, God and mammon, the ransom of a man's
life. To the moles and the bats, desolation shall
be in the threshold, woe unto them, the house
of mirth, smitten and withered and alBflicted, a
house divided against itself, fear hath torment,
like as the king so suffered the common person,
innumerable dead with one kind of death, the
king of terrors, drew his bow at a venture, the
stars in their courses fought against Sisera, the
harvest is passed the summer is ended, endure
for a while, sow the wind and reap the whirl-
wind, the way of the fool, came up in a night
and perished in a night.

Company of the godless, in the tents of
wickedness, like the remembrance of a guest
that tarrieth but a day, despise dominion and
speak evil of dignities. Exalt my throne above
the stars of God, pomp is brought down to the

132

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

grave, vain glory, wise in your own counsels,
arrogancy of the proud, haughtiness of heart.
Seed of falsehood, walked with falsehood, in-
iquity with words of falsehood, tale-bearer, vain
knowledge, a parable in the mouth of fools,
cunningly devised fables, unprofitable talk, tat-
lers and busybodies, contentious, words with-
out knowledge, empty words, unclean lips, strife
of tongues, darken counsel, feigned lips, muttered
perverseness, a prating fool, the evil way the
froward mouth, the wayward mouth, an angry
countenance a backbiting tongue, tongue like
a serpent, the slanderous tongue, the stroke of
the tongue breaketh the bones, the mouth
that belieth slayeth a soul, a fool in his folly,
prophesy falsely, a lying spirit, multiply words,
vain repetitions, profane babblings, a railing
accusation, murmured against, entice, sooth-
sayers, diviners. The last that are first the
first that are last, sin croucheth at the door,
the sluggard, a den of thieves, the tempter,
back - sliding, sow discord, in sheep's cloth-
ing, as a thief in the night, profaned thy
dwelling-place, a reprobate mind, fierce an-
ger, avenger for wrath, boast not of to-mor-
row, craftiness, rebuke, admonition, to weaken

133

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

strength, deal treacherously, in slippery places,
righteousness temperance and judgment to
come, streets waste and battlements desolate,
refuge of lies, sackcloth and ashes, as an oak
whose leaf fadeth, the mirth of all the land is
gone. Sinful, wantonness, void of understand-
ing, beguile, at their wits' end, would fain have
filled his belly with the husks, wasted his sub-
stance in riotous living, exiled from the eternal
providence, bread of adversity and the water
of affliction, whose trust shall be a spider's web,
the veil of the temple was rent, defile the
temple, unquenchable fire, vanity of vanities,
wrongfully exacted, devise mischief and wicked-
ness, blaspheme, anathema maranatha, cham-
bers of death, in deep mire where there is no
standing, wallowing in the mire, as a dog to his
vomit, a perpetual reproach, the line of con-
fusion and the plummet of emptiness.

Leprous, corruption, loathsome, lascivious-
ness, shameless uncleanness, worldly lusts, filth
of the flesh, lewdness, a stubborn and rebellious
generation, whose end is perdition, pit of cor-
ruption, deadly pestilence, bloodthirsty and
deceitful, in exchange for his soul, plague,
pollute, leprosy, crawling things of the dust, the

134

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

beasts that perish, weeping and gnashing of
teeth, a bottomless pit, the treacherous shall
eat violence, clothed with shame and dishonor,
a devouring fire an overflowing scourge, snare of
the fowler, in the day of the great slaughter
when towers fall.

Charming never so wisely, turn and rend you,
count the cost, presumptuous sins, a reproach
of men and despised of the people, lurking in
secret places, the moon confounded and the
sun ashamed, reproof, barren night, an habita-
tion of dragons and a court for owls, defile,
tribulation, disquieted in vain, the spoil of the
poor is in your houses, grind the faces of the
poor, conceive chaff and bring forth stubble,
stumble at noonday as in the twilight, grope for
the wall like the blind, revile, fro ward generation,
generation of vipers, the fool and the brutish, the
wrath to come, thy shepherds slumber, scatter
as stubble, as the tongue of fire devoureth the
stubble, his remembrance shall perish from the
earth, the strong shall be as tow, built with
blood and established by iniquity, as the pangs
of a woman in travail, howling wilderness, blood
guiltiness, transgression, rolled together as a
scroll, wars and rumors of wars, Philistines, the

135

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

slain in the streets, hot displeasure, his sling in
his hand, her gates shall lament and mourn,
their root shall be as rottenness and their blos-
som go up as dust, until the time of threshing
come, a corrupt tree, degenerate branches, the
stone shall cry out of the wall.

The sword hath drunk its fill, the hurtful
sword, sharp as a two-edged sword, the oppress-
ing sword, destined to the sword, a flaming
sword, the sword without and terror within, no
pity on the fruit of the womb, the field of blood,
the land soaked with blood, the blast of fire the
flaming breath and the great tempest, the
mighty fallen in the midst of battle, as when a
standard-bearer fainteth, the drawn sword, the
bent bow the grievousness of war.

Strength your shame and refuge your con-
fusion, a covenant with death and with hell at
agreement, the earth mourned the world lan-
guished, utterly laid waste, abomination of deso-
lation, dismayed and confounded, as a drunken
man staggereth to his vomit, weighed in the
balance and found wanting, crooked ways, des-
perate sorrow, utterly consumed with terrors,
filthy rags, filled with violence, the wages of sin,
dogs shall lick thy blood, lick the dust, the dust

136

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

of death, sweep with the besom of destruction,
as refuse in the midst of the streets, as straw
is trodden down in the water of a dunghill, as
a man sweepeth away dung till it be all gone.

The rebuke of thy countenance, drunk at the
hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, he stretched
out his hand over the sea he shook the king-
doms, poured out mine indignation upon them,
my glittering sword, mine arrows drunk with
blood, sound an alarm in my holy mountain,
it is the day of the Lord's vengeance.

Fatherless, the cry of the poor, long suffer-
ing, borne the heat and burden of the day,
trodden the wine-press alone, way of all the
earth, stricken in years, brought low, heavy
tidings, chastened, broken in spirit, weary and
heavy laden, seeking rest and finding none,
days swifter than a weaver's shuttle, weariness
of the flesh, heaviness, bowed down, a broken
vessel, the gloom of anguish, loins filled with
anguish, the couch of languishing, in time of
need, the dogs came and licked his sores, in
the sweat of thy face, sore bruised, a reed
shaken with the wind, tossed with tempest and
not comforted, bewail, bereft, befallen. Gaunt

137

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

with want and famine, that which the locust hath
left hath the cankerworm eaten, pestilence that
walketh in darkness, the vintage shall fail and
the ingathering not come, weep bitterly, a dry
and weary land, the waters shall fail from the
sea, the poor and the sorrowful, the temporal
and the eternal, suffer hardship violence ship-
wreck persecution, uttermost farthing, the
gates of the shadow of death, multitudes in the
valley of decision, the issues of life, the way of
life and the way of death, how long halt ye
between two opinions? Beset, the whole head
sick and the whole heart faint, labor in vain,
wax old as a garment, put to shame, laughed
to scorn, held in derision, bemoan, hireling, the
whirling dust, bitter as wormwood, my name
is Legion, barrenness, penury, sore pressed,
worldly care, lamentation, cast out and ab-
horred, cast out and trodden down under foot
of men, as a shadow that passeth away, fleeth
as a shadow, thrust down, bereave, beseech,
tribulation, disquieted, discomfited, as a dream
of a night vision, in the day of visitation of
perplexity of trouble and of treading down, un-
til the indignation be overpast, grievously vexed,
a grievous vision, darkness that may be felt,

138

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

the blackness of darkness, terrors of thick
darkness, outer darkness, stars of the twilight
dark, more grievous than the darkness, put to
shame, all the foundations of the deep broken
up and the windows of heaven opened, travail
of soul, instruments of death, the sanctuary
laid waste, the altar broken down, the temple
destroyed, whose antiquity is of ancient days,
to stain the pride of all glory and to bring into
contempt all the honorable of the earth.

Not leave comfortless, clothed and in his
right mind, persecuted but not forsaken, not
forsake us utterly, entreaty, intercession, for-
bearance, jealous for his land, go out into the
streets and lanes and into the highways and
hedges, his hand is stretched out still, recon-
ciliation, the lilies of the field, shall not a wom-
an have compassion on the son of her womb,
mediator, propitiation, bind up the broken-
hearted, prosper thy way, justice to the desti-
tute, a refuge from the avenger of blood, at
the right hand of the needy, he shall doubtless
come again with joy bringing his sheaves with
him, then judgment shall dwell in the wilder-
ness and righteousness remain in the fertile
field, the lake of torment the place of rest, the

139

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

furnace of hell, the paradise of delight, thy ex-
ceeding great reward, dew upon the fleece only,
captivity captive, the remnant shall return.

Taught many things in parables — wheat and
tares, treasure hid in a field, laborers in the
vineyard, pearl of great price, the wise virgins,
the house upon the rock, a certain Samaritan,
not light a candle and put it under a bushel, be-
hold a sower went forth to sow, a grain of mus-
tard-seed, the lost sheep — the summer is nigh,
having nothing yet possessing all things, the
poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peace-makers, a
burning and a shining light, good tidings of great
joy, the gospel, preach ye upon the housetops.

I am with you always even unto the end,
the light of the world. Alpha and Omega the
beginning and the end, the comforter, the
bread of life, the water of life, the word of life,
the way the truth and the life, not to be min-
istered unto but to minister and to give his life a
ransom for many, betrayed to be crucified, the
blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings
and Lord of lords, the resurrection and the life,
the treasure of immortality.

FUTURE IN AMERICA*

Omne tuHt punctum qui miscuit utile duici,
Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo.
Hie meret aera liber Sosiis; hie et mare transit
Et longum noto scriptori prorogat sevum.

Horace.

MR. WELLS has done important literary
work, appreciation of which must increase
as time goes on; but he has written nothing
which so clearly entitles him to a prominent
place among distinguished men of letters, as his
Future in America, issued from the press of
Harper & Brothers. Whether we consider its
substance or its form, it would be difficult, if
not impossible, to name another author equally
well equipped to produce such a book. His
stay in this country was short, but the two
chapters written before he reached America —
one in his study in England, and one on the
ocean — vindicate how complete was his prepara-

^ Future in America. By H. G. Wells. Published in The
North American Review of February, 1907.
I.— 10 141

FUTURE IN AMERICA

tion for a correct interpretation of our problems
and so-called progress — with which he had be-
come intimately conversant, in their intellectual
and economic and spiritual import. Accord-
ingly, we have a work of rare merit and absorb-
ing interest, though the charm and effect of a
graceful, vigorous style are distinctly marred by
the "isn'ts" and "don'ts" and "haven'ts," and
other similarly irritating colloquialisms appear-
ing so persistently on many pages.

To turn from the discussion by the demagogue
of the problems that are confronting us, to this
book, is like coming from a foul tunnel into the
exhilarating atmosphere of a bracing day.

Its views may not minister to our vanity,
but they ought to have a wide influence with
us as a people. There would be no doubt
as to this, if we did not so much exagger-
ate the importance of the views of some so-
called practical men — whose judgment is
rarely based on contemplation, but is often
warped by interest or excessive activity — that
we are disposed to neglect counsel of the
worthy men of letters. For the world of ideas
and the world of activities lie close together,
and, sooner or later, there will be some just

FUTURE IN AMERICA

appraisement of our legacy from great authors
— not alone from the point of view of mere lit-
erary excellence, but of the immediate relation
of their writings to a correct disposition of the
ills of the body politic. Then we shall appre-
ciate infinitely more than we do to-day, that
while many others have been seeking like eco-
nomic quacks to deal with the symptoms of a
disease, it is they who have given wise, but
often rejected counsel, for its complete eradica-
tion. Men like Emerson, and Matthew Arnold,
and Mr. Wells — for this book entitles him to
an intellectual kinship with them in the ex-
pression of great truths about us — have more
knowledge of our true condition than we are
inclined even to conjecture.

Fortunately, the Future in America has ap-
peared at the period of our disillusionment,
when what Mr. Wells terms our egotistical in-
terest in our own past is at an end. Now, if
ever, we should be prepared to receive such
a book without irritation but with a distinct
welcome.

The Spectator, in a comment full of crudities
and contradictions, has reviewed the book some-
what unfavorably; but apparently the Spec-

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

tator has volunteered to see to it that nothing
from an English source critical of American
institutions shall pass unrebuked. It mistakes,
however, the present temper of the American
mind, which is no longer solicitous for adula-
tion, but is seeking and insisting upon true
enlightenment and guidance, as it gropes its
way through its labyrinth of doubts and
difficulties. And to apply the term "carica-
ture," as does the Spectator, to the splendid
picture Mr. Wells presents, — with its extended
horizons and true perspective, its fine spiritual
coloring, and with only such detail as serves to
emphasize its proportions, — evinces for us a lack
of that frankness which is the true test of friend-
ship. And from the intellectual point of view
the characterization is a close approach to un-
pardonable nonsense. Yet the Spectator, with
an inconsistency of which it seems quite uncon-
scious, admits that Mr. Wells has produced a
"remarkable book," and that *'no bird's-eye
view of a nation that we know has a keener
imaginative insight." Fortunately full justice
is done to Mr. Wells in England by Mr. Sydney
Brooks's scholarly and appreciative review of
the book.

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

Aside from a startling clairvoyance, so to
speak, which enables Mr. Wells to see our prob-
lems in their relative importance and to point
out the peculiarities of our existing and threat-
ening difficulties, one of the chief attractions of
his book is the absence of anything like an
attempt to dogmatize about us. He often
doubts the accuracy of his own impressions —
leaving us to answer many of the questions
he has asked, though the answer is often but
too obvious. His playful fancy, character-
istic of so much of his other writings, does not
desert him, nor is there wanting a certain grim
humor centering largely about our "spike-
crowned" Statue of Liberty, that, "dwarfed"
by the sky-scraping commercial structures form-
ing its background, suggests to him something
of the slight regard in which hitherto in our na-
tional life we have held liberty in comparison
with trade and commerce.

What he believes to be our failure to live close
to high ideals in business, does not escape his
notice; but then he considers this a condition
in no way peculiar to us, for he is of the opinion
that business for the most part is without
high ideals. And his views generally as to the

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

natural effect of excessive devotion to the pur-
suit of trade will not weary the reader with
platitudes. Even for Mr. Rockefeller, who, in
so much of the newspaper discussion of the day,
is put down as the incarnation of much that is
evil and unprincipled in business methods, he
confesses to a "sneaking liking," recognizing in
him almost an unconscious product of a glut of
opportunity. And the point is made that if the
product had not been Mr. Rockefeller, it would
have been some one else suspiciously like him.
From his point of view, Mr. Rockefeller is
not the criminal; but the thing criminal is the
economic and industrial cut-throat game, which
— with the little children of the factory and
the sweat-shop among its pitiable victims — he
considers we have in part made our national
pastime and occupation.

He regards as of comparatively trivial and
negligible importance in our national life, things
like the Chicago scandals, the insurance scan-
dals, and all the manifest crudities of the Ameri-
can spectacle. He knows well enough that as a
matter of self-preservation, men cannot permit
such things to have any abiding-place in a commu-
nity. Long ago Fisher Ames uttered this truth:

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

If there could be a resurrection at the foot of the
gallows; if the victims of public justice could live
again, unite and form themselves into a society, they
would find themselves constrained, however loath,
to adopt the very principles of that justice by which
they suffered, as the fundamental law of their state.

The insistence upon honesty in such cases is
not a virtue, it is merely a policy. Penal Codes
do not furnish the foundation on which a great
nation's life can be reared.

This, too, should be added, that much in our
method of announcing these scandals is itself
scandalous. Some wrongdoing there unques-
tionably has been; yet, as Mr. Wells says, graft
is no American specialty. It appears everywhere
in the world in spots and places, but the moral
sense of the men of this country who are making
its true and enduring history is sound and
wholesome. And in default of the whipping-
post, there should be the appropriate social or
business or political outlawry for those who, in
high or low places, are to our lasting shame
blazoning forth to the world the untruthful and
repulsive assertion that a great body of Amer-
ican citizens are afliicted with a loathsome dis-
ease— ^the contagious itch for other people's
property.

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

Quite apart from such things he sees our real
dangers. He looks for disastrous consequences
from the unwisdom of inviting to our shores,
without any attempt at discrimination, an im-
migration which does not impress him as an
influx of energetic people, of economically in-
dependent settlers, but in the main as an im-
portation of laborers increasingly alien to the
native tradition. And he adds some valuable
suggestions for the avoidance of this menace.
Dr. Darlington, the Health Officer of New York
City, in a most thoughtful article in a late issue
of The North American Review, says something
quite similar as to the quality and character
of our present immigration. Nor can we ask
for any more impressive comment upon our
perfunctory insistence that the suffrage will
elevate these people, than Mr. Wells's words:
"The immigrants are being given votes, I
know; but that does not free them, it only
enslaves the country. The negroes were given
votes."

Then, with keen insight, he points out how
in association with the momentous consequences
of this immigration, we are summoned to deal
with the pathetic and ominous problem — ^pre-

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

sented by our great and increasing colored
population — which he terms the "Tragedy of
Color." He cannot be said to have any specific
remedy for this ill, but he does not think there
is much admixture of the true American spirit
in our treatment of it. He excuses himself, but
many will think he needs no excuse, for-idealizing
the dark, submissive figure of the negro, who
seems to him to " sit waiting — and waiting with
a marvelous and simple-minded patience — for
finer understandings and a nobler time." And
if the negro problem does not appeal to our sense
of justice, it ought at least to teach us the pru-
dence of not adding to it the further menace of
fresh and unrestricted importations of an in-
ferior population, which he is confident cannot
be assimilated into our citizenship. Our hurry
and disposition to "step lively" furnish him
with evidence of om* disregard of much that
must be a part of a nation's creed and practice,
if it would realize its ideals. As typical of
our contradictory extremes, he found Chicago
squalid and joined to its idols of acquisition —
" smoky, vast, and undisciplined." But in even
such an environment, there were not wanting
evidences of the awakening of that new public

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

spirit which in so many communities of the
world is groping its way upward. Boston, with
all its intellectual virtues, impressed him as "cul-
tured, but uneventful," and without leadership
or even an appropriate interest in the struggle
to solve the great problems of to-day. At such
a time as the present he has no tolerance for
the "immense effect of finality" of Boston;
and he was distinctly disappointed in not
finding what he looked for in Washington — a
"clearing-house of thought."

In the world at large he recognizes some
national conditions not radically different from
ours. And — though he sees our difficulties
magnified here because our activities are so
impressive in their vastness — he points out, as
Matthew Arnold has pointed out, how this very
vastness may bring to us the sense of a solemn
responsibility to ourselves and to the world.
But he is of the view that our political degrada-
tion, the lack of a "curb upon our lust of ac-
quisition," and what he terms our "State
blindness," are among the faults peculiar to
ourselves. And if he had continued his in-
vestigation further, he would not have failed
to see startling evidences of our proneness to

FUTURE IN AMERICA

condone political transgression — the benefici-
aries and even the perpetrators of which so
often escape unrebuked.

By State blindness he does not mean a lack
of patriotism in feeling or expression, but a
disposition to look upon our activities and con-
duct as absolute things affecting only ourselves
or our immediate surroundings, when, in fact,
they must be looked at in their relation to the
common good. It will profit us to read without
irritation, but with deep thoughtfulness, this
startling statement which a candid but friendly
critic feels justified in making:

Patriotism has become a mere national self-
assertion, a sentimentality of flag-cheering with no
constructive duties. Law, social justice, the pride
and preservation of the State as a whole, are taken
as provided for before the game began, and one de-
votes one's self to business. At business all men are
held to be equal, and none is his brother's keeper.

To the catalogue of our dangers he adds our
tolerance of, if not our sympathy with, the
injustice of mere public clamor, a certain " flash
of harshness" and an "accompanying contempt
for abstract justice." He wishes, however, to
regard this as an "accident of the commercial
phase that presses men beyond dignity, patience,

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

and magnanimity," and is "loath to believe it
to be something fundamentally American."
Yet, when he cites to our shame the instances
of McQueen and Gorky, though he refrains
from much injurious comment, he offers no
excuse for our conduct.

He sees in the greedy acquisition of vast
wealth and its vulgar display, and in the cen-
tralization and concentration of that wealth
and of our organized industry within an in-
creasingly few hands, more than the beginnings
of the collapse of our much-vaunted individual
competition and the equal opportunity for all.
It is apparent to him that our economic process
has begun to grind living men as well as in-
animate matter. And he notes the ominous
mutterings of a disapproval that will not be
mute, even though it must speak with the
economic jargon of the demagogue. It is no
longer a case of our avoiding or stifling the
debate, but of the substitution of wise counsels
for intemperate utterance and for possibly in-
temperate acts. And by wise counsels is meant
the introduction into our conceptions of our
national life, of many considerations which up
to the present time we have ignored.

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

All of us frequcDtly hear expressions of sur-
prise at the appearance of this disapproval, at a
time when the evidences of material prosperity
confront us everywhere. Yet we must not for-
get that, fortunately, the American people think
as well as eat; and it is a hopeful sign for the
future that their consciences and intellects can-
not be drugged with the "full dinner-pail."

By this it is not meant to suggest that all
or even the larger part of this disapproval is
justified. On the contrary, much of it is super-
ficial or manufactured by men with evil or in-
terested motives; much of it is full of crudities.
Yet, when all this is said, it remains true that
at the present time there is flowing through this
and other lands a great stream of influence to
which — according as men variously view the
contributions it has received from many sources
— ^they have applied the several names of "dis-
content," "unrest," "socialism," "humanita-
rianism," and a "great spiritual awakening."
Whatever be its proper characterization, only
our folly can persuade us that this influence in
the world will disappear, or that it is wise for
us to wish it to disappear. On the contrary,
if indications count for anything, it gains in

15S

FUTURE IN AMERICA

depth and volume as it sweeps on, and threatens
to undermine the foundations of many things
whose security we have until now regarded as
beyond menace. Nor, as some think, can its
current be dammed; for through or over any
obstruction placed in its way, it would be likely
one day to rush with even more disastrous con-
sequences. Nevertheless, what appears to many
of us merely as a meaningless or destructive
agency, can be utilized for good. For just as
men by directing the course of mighty rivers
into countless channels have turned deserts
into fertile lands, so we, with this influence, can
perhaps restore to usefulness the places in our
national life — laid waste by selfishness, neglect,
and the lack of regard for those things which
concern the general welfare.

Mr. Wells does not write in despair of our
future; and, despite our shortcomings — and
despite his patriotic views concerning his own
country, and his belief in the pre-eminence in
certain directions of Germany — ^he inclines to
the conviction that "the leadership of progress
must remain with us"; and that if we fail, ours
will not be an isolated failure but a failure of
the realization of great ideals of all the world.

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

The doubts that existed in his mind, when he
came to America, were largely resolved in our
favor while he was in the midst of our excite-
ment and rush and a part of our "step-lively"
brigade. But back again in his study by the
sea — where he writes the last, as he wrote the
first portion of his book — his doubts recur, re-
inforced somewhat by later reflections.

He believes, nevertheless, that true friendship
is shown to the American people not by con-
cealing but by indicating our dangers, which
are many and conspicuous to the observer, who,
by reflection and contemplation, sees them in
their true perspective and proportions. We
have not, as he points out, the problem con-
fronting Great Britain of holding together a
vast and extended empire, and, to use his
language, we are not as are the other countries
of Europe weighed down with the armor of
war.

He sees our dangers in divers directions:
in our legal entanglements, which perhaps he
may emphasize too much — but in the other
things he refers to that cannot be too much
emphasized; in our persistent and reckless
affirmation by word and deed that individual-

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

ism is a thing to be worshiped; in our exces-
sive devotion or yielding to the exacting de-
mands of a material progress that precludes the
continuous exercise of our highest intelligence
and best thought; in the absence among us of
a social environment that enjoins a discipline
of respect for a governing class or for some ap-
propriate substitute; and in our vast and irre-
sponsible new immigration and in our colored
population — in all these things he finds con-
ditions requiring that the loins even of a great
people like ours be girded up for a struggle, in
whose issue not only we but all the world have
a momentous interest.

Perhaps, on the whole, it may be said that,
with his passionate belief in an intelligence
which insures the irresistible progress of man-
kind, his conclusions concerning us are not
essentially diflFerent from those of Emerson,
who — though refering in plain speech to

our great sensualism, our headlong devotion to
trade, our extravagant confidence in our talent and
activity, which becomes, whilst successful, a scorn-
ful materialism, but with the fault, of course, that
it has no depth, no reserve force to fall back upon
when a reverse comes,

nevertheless believes, that with us

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

there is even an inspiration, God knows whence; a
sudden undated perception of eternal right coming
into and correcting things that were wrong, a per-
ception that passes through thousands as readily as
through one.

Nor are his conclusions essentially different
from those of Arnold that in the world at large:

in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and
brutalizing influence of passionate material progress,
it seems to me that this progress is likely, though
not certain, to lead in the end to an apparition of
intellectual life.

Fortunately for our present safety and for
our future creative work in the world, we are
as Mr. Wells views us, feverish with desire for
trustworthy information as to our whereabouts
and true destination. Though he believes that
we have drifted far from our true course, he
realizes that our voyage has been over unknown
seas, without the possession of the delicate in-
struments of -tradition and contemplation for
the taking of observations, and without beacons
on the shore to warn us of dangers. And he
realizes, therefore, that we have been obliged
to cover great distances in our national life by
mere dead-reckoning. He does not, however,
wish to conclude that we have yet made, or

I—" 157

FUTURE IN AMERICA

shall make, shipwreck of our own hopes and of
the hopes of mankind.

Carlyle says of our harsh, cruel judgment of
men who err:

Granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds
and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he
has not been all- wise and all-powerful; but to know
how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage
has been round the globe or only to Ramsgate and
the Isle of Dogs.

And Burns, on whose behalf he pleads, has said
in verse that is immortal:

What's done we partly may compute.
But know not what's resisted.

Let us therefore not doubt that here in
America, in the fullness of time, there will be
reared that new State — with its realization of
something akin to a perfected citizenship, and
with its creed of intelligence and with altars
raised to the worship of great truths and of
righteousness; a State where, for offenses against
the standards of right conduct, there shall be
as swift a condemnation in the Court of Con-
science as there is punishment for violations of
criminal statutes in the courts of law; and where
to the imagination of man there shall rise in

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FUTURE IN AMERICA

the midst of these harmonious surroundings not
a "dwarfed statue," but a noble and command-
ing monument to Hberty, from whose lofty
summit there shall for us and all the world
shine forth with increasing splendor the light
of a true civilization — that ideal State for
which mankind has watched and prayed, and
of the certain coming of which Mr. Wells and
other great authors in their creative writings
have given prophetic utterance.

It will be difficult indeed for the American
people to discharge the great debt of gratitude
they owe to Mr. Wells.

ENGLISH STYLE*

"Well do they play the careful critic's part.
Instructing doubly by their matchless art;
Rules for good verse they first with pains indite.
Then show us what are bad, by what they write."

IT is idle to ignore the deep, far-reaching sig-
nificance of the fact, that to-day even many
well-educated persons indicate by their speech
and writing an increasing indifference to any-
thing approaching a due regard for English
style. Such indifference is by no means a
trivial matter; for, as a rule, a feeble, faulty
style is associated not only with platitude but
frequently with intellectual error, as well as with
a disregard if not contempt for true culture.
Perhaps, after all, Mr. Benson is correct when
he says:

Very few people are on the lookout for style
nowadays. The ordinary reader is quite indifferent
to it, and the ordinary critic is quite unaware of what
it is. The public are on the lookout for amusement;
they want a thrill of some kind, an emotional thrill

1 Published in The North American Review of June, 1907.
160

ENGLISH STYLE

by preference; and the critic who has been reared
mostly on fiction, and who has very little acquaint-
ance with classical literature, is really on the look-
out for effectiveness. . . . The mistake is to think
that there is much intellectual or artistic feeling
abroad. There have been nations by whom, and
periods when these things were valued; there have
even been periods in our own national history, but
this is not one. Indeed, the appreciation of intel-
lectual and artistic excellence has distinctly de-
creased in the last fifty years; and probably the rea-
son why there is a lack of great writers is that we
do not at present want them. We want a sparkling
heady beverage, not an old fragrant mellow vintage.
It is an age of cigarettes, champagne, golf, motors —
brisk, active, lively, brief things — not an age of re-
flection or repose.

In speaking of our intolerance of any super-
visory body like the French Academy, Matthew
Arnold says:

We like to be suffered to lie comfortably in the
old straw of our habits, particularly of intellectual
habits, even though the straw may not be very clean
and fine.

If mindful of our duty and even of our inter-
est, we must not be content until we have done
what lies in our power to correct such deplorable
conditions; and especially in America are we
charged with this responsibility. We have
many magazines which provide entertainment,
along with their pages of advertisements of

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ENGLISH STYLE

wares and nostrums, but we give inadequate
support to only one or two publications of a
high order of Hterary excellence; and articles of
distinct merit even in these are not by any
means the rule. We can measure the extent of
such a loss when we consider that volumes and
volumes on our library shelves, constituting a
priceless part of our literature, represent merely
contributions to the magazines of the authors*
day. It is a long catalogue of splendid names,
among which are to be numbered those of
Carlyle, Macaulay, Addison, Arnold, Stevens
and Johnson.

It is at best doubtful whether our univer-
sities are doing their share of the work of cor-
rection. From the curriculums of some, the
ancient classics — with all their qualifications for
intellectual training and for the inculcation of
an understanding and love of what is true style
— have to a great extent been omitted. Our
universities are teaching many things; but just
how much of what they are teaching can be
fairly regarded as a substitute, even if there be
any substitute for that which has thus been
omitted, is quite another question.

Apparently, a special department for the

162

ENGLISH STYLE

teaching of English will not suffice. President
Thwing of the Western Reserve University
says, in a late number of The North American
Review:

Oxford has no special chair devoted to the train-
ing of students in the art of English composition.
For thirty years and more, the American College
has been emphasizing this department and form of
instruction. The Oxford system presupposes that
the writing of English is an art and a science in
which it is a duty of every instructor to give tuition.
The department is not a department. It does not
represent segregations. It must be confessed that
the results of the two systems seem to favor the
Oxford interpretation and method. One compre-
hensive deficiency of the American system is found
in the lack of a sense of style which most of the
writing done by American students shows.

So keen an observer as Mr. Howells, in one
of his recent books, contrasts the "slovenliness"
of speech of the best type of the American under-
graduate with "the beauty of utterance" of the
Oxford student.

It is doubtless true that to our over-devotion
to the exacting demands of trade and commerce,
and to neglect in the home circle and in the
preparatory school, is to be traced much of our
indifference to English style, and therefore to
culture. Yet, in the opinion of those qualified

163

ENGLISH STYLE

to speak authoritatively on the subject, some
of our great educational institutions are blame-
worthy and must accept their share of the
responsibility. It is not presumptuous, there-
fore, for one — with only such information on the
subject as is possessed by persons of ordinary
education — to call attention to existing methods,
which neither meet with the approval of the ob-
servant scholar nor accomplish the desired results.
Moreover, not only does the Oxford student
speak the English language better than the
American student, but the graduate of our
prominent universities not a score of years ago
spoke it with a grace and precision, compared
with which the conversation of many a graduate
of the present day is a close approach to a kind
of jargon. There has been of late years a
distinct decadence in literary expression. With
our undue striving after "practical" things and
results, we have established in some of our
universities the form of a drill or routine in-
struction for the writing of correct English, but
apparently we are content with the form. And
it is at best doubtful whether appropriate
prominence has been given to the development
of a love for English literature.

164

ENGLISH STYLE

It is not meant by this statement to suggest
that text-books on rhetoric can be dispensed
with; quite the contrary. The text-books, how-
ever, should be those which, both by precept and
example, teach correct principles and which do
not consist merely of a series of ungraceful,
though correct directions, strung together as
rigid rules. They must be books that are the
product of the scholars' effort, calculated to
persuade the student to turn to the page of
literature where he may find not only the
model for expression but much of the joy of
living. The standard works on rhetoric accom-
plish this result and are not lightly to be cast
aside; and if any new treatise is to be written,
it must supplement these works and not at-
tempt to supplant them.

The whole subject receives a fresh interest
by reason of the issue from the publication office
of one of our foremost Universities, of a pam-
phlet containing, among other things, illustra-
tions of errors in the writings of English by
students applying for admission to its academic
department. Many of the examples given, it is
true, are sorry exhibitions, though some of them
do not deserve the censure they receive. But,

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ENGLISH STYLE

while it is made abundantly clear that there are
students incapable of writing anything ap-
proaching graceful, forceful English, a cursory
examination of the pamphlet discloses the fact
that more than one sentence of its authors can-
not be said to be above reproach.

The chief significance of the pamphlet, how-
ever, lies in the fact that it goes out of its way
to commend a work on English Composition
by the Professor of English Literature in this
University — considered sufficiently meritorious
to justify its recent re-publication by a well-
known publishing-house, and its use there as a
text-book.

It is of deep import, therefore, not only to
the instructor and the student, but also to
the general reader, to know whether this
book by a Professor of English Literature in
this representative University — who is himself
sufficiently prominent to have been selected to
deliver a course of lectures on literary subjects
at Oxford and Paris — is entitled to be regarded
as an authority on English composition. If it
ought not to be so regarded, then we should
endeavor to arrive at a correct estimate of the
merits of such a book — uninfluenced in our

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ENGLISH STYLE

judgment, by its authorship, its commendation,
or the use to which it is devoted.

For, as has been said by Mr. Moon in his
masterpiece of criticism. The Dean's English :

By influential example it is that languages are
molded into whatever form they take; therefore,
according as example is for good or for evil, so will
a language gain in strength, sweetness, precision, and
elegance, or will become weak, harsh, unmeaning, and
barbarous.

And Macaulay says, in defense of his rather

merciless review of Robert Montgomery's poems,

that

The opinion of the great body of the reading pub-
lic is very materially influenced even by the unsup-
ported assertions of those who assume the right to
criticize.

Inasmuch as its author has shown by some of
his literary work that he is not without the
ability to present a subject attractively, it
would be reasonable to expect that this work
on English Composition would be a worthy
publication, and compare favorably with the
standard books of rhetoric, and even with
treatises on style by distinguished men of let-
ters. Yet it can be confidently stated that
one is wholly disappointed in this reasonable
expectation; that neither for its precept nor

167

ENGLISH STYLE

for its example is the book justly entitled to
be commended, and that in it are found em-
phasized many objectionable methods of im-
parting instruction in English composition.
The most indifferent writing seems to be good
enough for this book.

A number of new definitions are attempted,
but these are neither particularly happy nor
comprehensive. Along with some rather sol-
emn insistence upon principles, the correctness
of which is generally conceded, we find a certain
finality in statements concerning things about
which men have agreed there may be a justi-
fiable difference of opinion; while many obvious
facts are described in detail, as if the author were
announcing to the world an important intellec-
tual discovery. We find crudities, inaccuracies,
mistakes of grammar and exhibitions of at least
questionable scholarship. There are also some
enigmatical observations as to the art of writing;
but, as Mr. John Morley has said, " a platitude
is not turned into a profundity by being dressed
up as a conundrum."

There is little in the book indicating an
abounding charity or even a fair considera-
tion for the views of others; and men and

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ENGLISH STYLE

things displeasing to the author are treated with
scant courtesy. He says that particularly
journalists, along "with most of us, generally
speak or write hastily, without leisure to con-
sider details of style." There are, however, in
the city of New York several newspapers, in
which no editorial — so loosely and so inartisti-
cally put together as is the greater part of this
book — will ever be found. Legal language is
referred to as associated with "bewildering,
slovenly masses of words." Yet the brief of
many a trained advocate at the Bar of New
York is written with more idiomatic, graceful,
forceful English than is characteristic of this book.
Wendell Phillips, whose name is found high
on the roll of great orators, is called "the
cleverest of our oratorical tricksters." Of
Emerson the author says, "Emerson's indubi-
table obscurity to ordinary readers I take to be
a matter of actual thought." The following
sentence, quoted by the author in support of this
assertion — which it may be said in passing is
itself by no means free from ambiguity — he
"fails to understand at all":

The simplest person who in his integrity worships
God becomes God; yet forever and ever the influx

169

ENGLISH STYLE

of this better and universal self is new and un-
searchable.

As we read on in English Composition we
shall have cause to wonder what would have
been the result if the author had undertaken
to re-state the great spiritual truth expressed
by Emerson in such simple, impressive words.

There are long rambling references to things
which are at least trivial. On pages 35, 36, and
37, in the discussion of the sentences "Nero
killed Agrippina" and "Nero interfecit Agrip-
pinam" — with the commentary, among other
things, that it is the convenient final "m"
which "does Agrippina's business" — as in the
discussion on pages 107, 108, and 109 of the
sentence — "I started up and a scream was
heard," with its variations "I started up and
screamed'* and "I started up with a scream," —
it is made clear ad nauseam that the most
obvious conclusions are defensible.

Fought all his battles o'er again

And thrice he slew the slain.

Much of the treatment of the subject cannot
be said to be on a very elevated plane. We

170

ENGLISH STYLE

are told about "our present business," "our
next business," "the chief part of our business ";
"the matter in hand," "the chief matter in
hand," and "the real matter in hand." Things
"at bottom" are of this or that character; the
writer's art is a "trade with tricks"; we have
"pieces of style" as well as "pieces of writing"
and "pieces of literature"; "clauses are thrown
into grammatical form"; words are "pitched
upon," and ideas are referred to as "packed,"
not only within prose sentences, but into ex-
quisite lines of verse.

Even in quotations by the author we find
inaccuracy.

On page 295 we read, "No man is great to
his body-servant, you remember." No one
remembers this. What we do remember is that
"No man is a hero to his valet," a fairly accu-
rate translation of a French line. In speaking
of Emerson, the author says on page 208:
"Consistency, if I remember aright, he some-
where declares to be the chief vice of little
minds." The author did not remember aright.
What Emerson wrote was that "A foolish con-
sistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

The following statement is fairly typical of

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some of the attempts to deal in a scholarly
method with the subject of English composition
(pages 56 and 58):

Etymology, in short, is a most interesting study or
pastime; and the history of this potpourri of an Eng-
lish of ours make the fit words for simple ideas —
ideas of fighting, for example, or of spontaneous as-
piration— chiefly Saxon in their origin; but the same
history makes the fit words for more contemplative
ideas — ideas of literary criticism, for example, or
of deliberate mediation — chiefly Latin. . . . Big
words are apt to be Latin, and little to be Saxon;
acknowledge and damn to the contrary notwith-
standing.

To condemn any such statement, we do not
need to contrast it with the language of the
scholar, as found in books like Words and
Their Ways in English Speech, by Professors
Greenough and Kittredge of Harvard. In
comparison with even the common knowledge
possessed by all persons reasonably well in-
formed as to the genesis of English speech, the
statement quoted lacks seriousness.

On pages 282 and 283 there is a discussion
as to the choice of the word "Elegance" for the
title of one of the chapters of the book. The
use of this obvious word needed no defense, and
as matter of fact, the author admits he adopted

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ENGLISH STYLE

the three divisions of his subject, "Clearness,
Force, and Elegance," from Professor Adams S.
Hill's book. The author, however, insists on
justifying his choice of the word Elegance by
a reference to what is termed its derivation
from "ea;" and ''lego," which he says "mean
literally to pick out, to choose from among some
great mass of things the one thing that shall
best serve our purpose, etc." The author by
such a method could have justified for the title
of his chapter the use of "Election," which
with propriety can be said to be derived from
''ex" and "lego." The fact is that our word
"elegance" is probably traceable directly or
indirectly to the Latin "elegans" to which was
already attached its figurative meaning, before
it was adopted into our language. And "ele-
gans" was not derived from the verb "lego" of
Latin literature, but from an obsolete verb of
the first conjugation. The whole discussion,
absolutely and relatively, is misleading.

Such resort to etymology, though often es-
sential, is at times of little aid in determining
the precise meaning which usage attaches to
words. Mr. Marsh in his Lectures on the English
Language, and Mr. Greenough and Mr. Kit-

I.— 12 173

ENGLISH STYLE

tredge, in their book before referred to, have
an emphatic condemnation of "such false
linguistic doctrine."

On page 46 there is this sentence:

And I know that there are few more unidiomatic
absurdities than those of the gentlemen who insist
on spelUng Alfred Aelfred, and Virgil with an e, and
otherwise on impairing that irrational spontaneous
variety which people who love English know to be
one of its most subtle charms.

That such a peculiarity in spelling has any-
thing to do with an "idiomatic absurdity" will
be news to most persons; and, in the thoughts
of some unamiable reader, the author's rather
flippant assumption of superiority to such
scholars as insist that "Vergil" is a correct
spelling, may well seem to border on a kind
of arrogance.

The expression "it is me" is defended as
idiomatic, and "it is I" announced to be
pedantic. The distinction in the use of the
auxiliary verbs shall and will is by no means
forcibly or fully stated.

While it is true that some accepted rules of
writing are correctly set forth, they are found
as well, if not better, expressed by other au-
thors; and perhaps it may not be unfair to

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ENGLISH STYLE

say as to this part of the book, what Webster
said of the principles of the Free-Soil party:

I have read their platform, and though I think
there are some unsound places in it, I can stand upon
it pretty well; but I see nothing in it both new and
valuable: what is valuable is not new, and what is
new is not valuable.

When, however, we consider the style of the
book, it is exceptional to jBnd sentences that are
not censurable for their feeble or ungraceful
structure; and the quotations which follow —
reproduced as printed, except that words are
italicized in order to emphasize errors — are
selected from among similar sentences almost
at random.

The methods which, after a reflection of ten
years, the author adopts and recommends for
intellectual production are, to say the least,
novel; some persons might pronounce them not
serious.

On separate bits of paper — cards, if they be at
hand — I write down the separate headings that oc-
cur to me, in what seems to me the natural order.
Then, when my little pack of cards is complete — in
other words, when I have a card for every heading
which I think of — I study them and sort them al-
most as deliberately as I should sort a hand at whist;
and it has very rarely been my experience to find

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ENGLISH STYLE

that a shift of arrangement will not decidedly im-
prove the original order, ... A few minutes' shuffling
of these little cards has often revealed to me more
than I should have learned by hours of unaided
pondering.

There are, however, other methods, for on
page 211 we read:

My method of clearing my ideas is by no means
the only one. I have known people who could do
it best by talking; by putting somebody in [sic] a
comfortable chair and making him listen to their
efforts to discover what they really think.

Certainly the listener undergoing such an
ordeal is entitled to a comfortable chair; for the
people intent on clarifying their ideas might all
talk at once.

Much of the presentation of the subject is
loose and disjointed. A slothful method, or
bearing in mind the pack of cards used by the
author, one is tempted to say a shuffling method,
is characteristic of much of the writing.

On page 120 we have an example of what is
considered good English:

A sentence which on analysis proves sensible is
generally good English. By the same token, a para-
graph sensibly composed is beyond cavil a good
paragraph.

176

ENGLISH STYLE

To it should be added this sentence from
page 35:

A style that sticks together is coherent; a style
whose parts hang loose is not;

and also the following intellectual nugget from
page 193:

In the first place, any piece of style appeals to the
understanding; we understand it, or we do not under-
stand it, or we are doubtful whether we understand
it or not; in other words, it has an intellectual
quality.

Sentence after sentence will be found ending
with " what not " and " and so on," long before
the expression of the thought has approached
completion. For instance, on page 112 we read :

As I utter these words in combination, the pro-
noun calls up certain individualities of face and form
and manner and dress, and what not.

On page 167 we read:

There may be living occasional individuals who
have resisted the impulse to skip the endless lucu-
brations of Dyrasdust and what not; but I do not
remember having met one.

On page 89 we read:

I have said enough, I hope, to show that the
fundamental difference between periodic sentences
and loose is about the same as the fundamental dif-

177

ENGLISH STYLE

ferences we discussed between different kinds of
words, — Latin and Saxon, big and little, and so on;
it is a difference of effect.

On pages 76, 125, 128, and 190 we have more
of these "and so ons."

Clearly, the reader is entitled to know the
author's meaning, and not be foreclosed of
information by these meaningless "what nots'*
and "and so ons." There is about as much
propriety in this kind of writing, as there was
in the announcement of the country minister
who — after reading from Genesis of the geneal-
ogy of the patriarchs, how Adam begat Seth and
Seth begat sons and daughters — summed up the
remainder of the chapter, by the rather novel
and yet comprehensive assertion: "And so they
kept on begetting to the end of the chapter."

Here are illustrations of favorite but quite
indefensible expressions distributed throughout
the book:

Are not short sentences preferable to long? What
long sentences are, and short, I leave to your com-
mon sense; what anybody can perceive needs no
definition ( page 89) .

From this, two or three conclusions follow, some-
times laid down as distinct rules. Obviously a short
sentence is less apt to stray out of unity than a long;
a periodic than a loose ( page 98) .

178

ENGLISH STYLE

If our object be to ramble, then not to ramble were
to blunder; but in general our object is to produce
a definite effect and not a nebulous ( page 162) .

Perhaps the simplest way to show the superiority
of carefully planned work to carelessly, is to com-
pare, etc. (page 181).

Repetition of the same words is persisted in,

as in one of the sentences just quoted, when

its avoidance is required by euphony and the

rules of graceful writing. We read:

And the more you analyze your impressions of
style the more you will find, unless your experience
differs surprisingly from most, that, etc. (page 8) .

In a book on rhetoric I lately read is a long quota-
tion from some respectable man of letters concerning
what the career of a man of letters ought to be; and
at the end of the quotation he who quotes writes thus
(page 205).

The following quotation is from the chapter

on "Elegance":

And whoever should say that passionate writing
cannot have the trait before us now — ^the quality that
pleases the taste — as well as the intellectual quality
clearness, and the emotional quality force, would
obviously say something that would make his notion
of the quality very different from the notion I am
trying to lay before you.

Perhaps a frivolous and provincial person
might say by way of paradox that this sentence
lacks "quality."

179

ENGLISH STYLE

On page 71, there is this paragraph:

It is not what it seemed at first — simply to pitch
upon a word by which good use has agreed with
reasonable approximation to name the idea he wishes
to arouse. It is equally, if not more, to make sure
that the word he chooses shall not only name the
idea distinctly enough to identify it, but also name
it by a name — if such a name is to be found — which
shall arouse, etc.

We can all recall from the great books of
literature the impressive and often electric
effect of judicious repetition, but it is of a
different quality from that so lavishly dis-
played in English Composition.

Throughout the book the relative pronoun
"that" is over and over again used to excess,
where the employment of " which " is demanded
by good usage or euphony. Evidently the
author has determined to deny "The humble
petition of who and which," against being
supplanted by the "jack-sprat that," so en-
gagingly urged by Steele in The Spectator.

There are attempts like the following to con-
tribute to the sum of our knowledge. On page
32 is this sentence:

What distinguishes vmiien words from spoken, lit-
erature from the colloquial language that precedes

180

ENGLISH STYLE

it, is that written words address themselves to the
eye and spoken words to the ear. Though this fun-
damental physical fact has been neglected by the
makers of text-books, I know few more important.

While not overlooking the unhappy form of
the statement, it may be said that the fact
referred to has not been neglected by the
makers of text-books, if by the "makers of
text-books" we are warranted in guessing that
the author meant to describe the writers of
books on Rhetoric and Composition. And hav-
ing in mind the well-known lines of Ars Poetica,
one may add that the oft-pointed-out distinc-
tion is as old as Horace and the hills.

On page 209 we have the following:

To be clear in narrative, or in exposition, or in ar-
gument, or in any kind of discourse whatever, we
must evidently proceed from what is known to what
is unknown; and if at any point in this process we
permit our style to become vague or ambiguous or
obscure — in other words, so to express ourselves either
that our meaning may rationally be mistaken or that
we may rationally be supposed to have no meaning
at all — we may resign ourselves, etc.

Aside from its exhibition of the characteristic
faults of the author, the paragraph is censur-
able in construction, for the "so to express our-
selves" is inadmissible. The context makes it

181

ENGLISH STYLE

necessary to say "if we so express ourselves,"
etc.

There are many sentences containing an in-
genious variety of infelicities in the choice and
use of words, fatal to a correct and pleasing
style; but lack of space forbids more than a
passing reference to them.

On page 47 we read:

Touching this subject in some lectures at college
I took up a package of undergraduate themes.

Not a very artistic "touch" certainly!
On page 69 we read:

Just such misunderstanding as any of us can see
would arise here, underlies by far the greater part
of what disputes come to my knowledge.

On page 163 is this sentence:

Or should he take us to Washington, and tell us
how the troops marched out and how all manner of
rumors began to come in.

Then, too, an indefensible order of words
produces at times an effect almost grotesque.
On page 94 we read:

Of course, these few examples indicate the develop-
ment of style in a very rough way.
182

ENGLISH STYLE

On page 23, the italics being the author's, we
read:

I noticed a dirty gamin, writes a student; and an-
other, using a word now confined at Harvard Col-
lege to a street urchin, describes the same small boy
as a mucker.

Perhaps one may suggest that the confine-
ment has not been very rigorous; for clearly the
word has broken jail and is enjoying its liberty
in street-talk and sometimes elsewhere.

On page 181 are these sentences:

They are not rules like rules of grammar, the vio-
lation of which is positive error, and the observance
of which must be rigid; they are general principles of
conduct, the disregard of which may very probably
lead us astray. To state them to ourselves too
rigidly is to make masters of what should be our
servants, and to produce work whose effect is fatally
frigid.

On pages 185 and 186 the following:

Even the best literary artists cannot see their way
to the best form in which their work may be cast
without a good deal of preliminary experiment. In
the act of composition this preliminary placing and
the preliminary failures it involves are perhaps the
longest and most tedious part of the work.

A person would not be over-fastidious oip
hypercritical if, in addition to his censure of the

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ENGLISH STYLE

tautology of the last quotation, he should com-
ment unfavorably on the use of language, which
shows a disposition to transform authors into
printers.

On page 104 there is this paragraph:

I believe, however, that coherence of sentence is
dependent on one of three pretty simple general de-
vices; that all the rules I have found to guide us
toward it will fall under one of the hroadly general
ones. By stating these and briefly discussing each
in turn, I can certainly treat the subject with more
decision (sic) than otherwise.

It is not hypercritical to insist that one
may not treat a subject but must treat of a
subject. It is apparent too that the author
did not intend to state that by the method
adopted he could discuss his subject "with
more decision than otherwise," but merely to
state that he could thus discuss it with more
decision than would otherwise be possible.
Moreover, it is reasonably clear from the con-
text that the author failed to express his real
thought by the use of the word "decision."

Here is a sentence of infinite variety on
page 136:

The moment when it is perfectly easy to disentangle
from the riotous thicket of thought and emotion we

184

ENGLISH STYLE

all know within ourselves the exact thoughts and
emotions whose mutual relations as well as whose
independent selves shall serve our purpose of im-
parting to readers what we have in mind, is a mo-
ment that to most of us never comes.

There are readers who will doubtless insist
that they can guess what this sentence means,
and who can assent in part to its accuracy;
though it will be news to some of them that the
personified thicket of thought is convivial even
to the extent of disorder.

On page 33 we are edified with this rather
surprising statement:

Or again, remark a fact that is becoming in my
literary studies comically general: familiar quota-
tions from celebrated books are almost always to be
found at the beginning or the end. "Music hath
charms" are the opening words of Congreve's
Mourning Bride. Don Quixote fights with the wind-
mill very early in the first volume; he dies with the
remark that there are no birds in last year's nests
near the end of the last.

The advice to the shoemaker to "stick to his
last" does not work well when applied literally
in authorship.

On page 183 we are regaled with the following,
— which is on a parallel with the rather startling
statement of Mr. Isaac DTsraeli that "The

185

ENGLISH STYLE

beaux of that day used the abominable art of
painting their faces, as well as the women."

Perhaps the cleverest variation of all is that by
which such treason to a friend as makes Proteus
odious is made, simply by attributing it to Helena,
a woman, a very venial matter.

Mr. Choate, with inimitable humor, dismissed
woman's claim of equality to man, by his alto-
gether convincing remark, that woman at best
was originally merely a "side issue." It was
reserved for the author of English Composition
to suggest that woman continues to be "a very
venial matter."

The author, on page 247, after having spoken
at some length on figures of speech, adds:

The first trait in them to which I would call your
attention is that, far from being artificial creatures
of a finished civilization, they lie at the root of all
language in its primitive form.

Then, after some not very illuminating writ-
ing, this follows:

These few examples are typical of such use of
figures among educated people as has led so many
good teachers to advise pupils to use no figures
at all.

While it is true that "figure" may mean
figure of speech, the context must make it

186

ENGLISH STYLE

abundantly clear that the word is not used in
its literal sense. Failure to do this is rather
ridiculously apparent in the following quotation :

I might go on endlessly, from Dante, from Shake-
speare, and from thousands of the lesser masters,
showing figures such as every lover of letters must
be glad to have.

And just as figures of speech become with the
author merely "figures," so the elements of
style become merely "the elements," and we
are vouchsafed this information — a little more
applicable, one would think, to the world of
physics than to the world of letters:

Force, then, just as surely as clearness, must be
sought and sought only in the elements.

With the following sentences, which embody
much that is typical of the author's style, and
which are themselves a fitting commentary on
English Composition, the limit of quotations for
a magazine article will have been reached.

All the carelessness of habitual speech and writing
rarely suffices to make a note of something recent by
any means as indistinct as a note of the same thing
after an interval. While sometimes a mere matter
of style, vagueness is oftener an actual matter of
thought. In a general way, a vague writer does not

187

ENGLISH STYLE

know what he wants to say, and so generally says
something that may mean a great many different
things.

The author, properly enough as one will see
who inspects it, has acknowledged his obliga-
tions to the text-book of Professor Hill, in which
are printed side by side many examples of incor-
rect and correct sentences. To this text-book
could be added no inconsiderable supplement,
devoted entirely to the reconstruction of faulty
sentences from English Composition. For such
use the author may properly claim that he has
written an acceptable work, entitled to an ex-
tended circulation:

Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quae ferrum valet exors ipsa secandi.

It can be said without exaggeration, that the
foregoing sentences are fairly illustrative of the
unfortunate methods employed in this book.
In the true sense it cannot be said to have any
style at all. Errors in scores of its sentences
are apparent even to the most inexperienced
writer, and it is the exception to find thoughts
expressed with either grace or vigor. Even
in the quality of clearness, the book is full
of transgressions, while to the precision and

188

ENGLISH STYLE

niceties and beauty of the English language it
seems quite obHvious. Yet at this University,
which prides itself upon its method of instruc-
tion in the study of our language, English
Composition is commended by its faculty and
used as a text-book. In one of our great
institutions of learning, therefore, the judgment
of Addison that no critical writer "has ever
pleased or been looked upon as authentic, who
did not show by his practice that he was master
of the theory'* seems obsolete. And the pity
of it all is, the author has made it clear by his
other publications that he could doubtless have
written a worthy book on English composition.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Assuredly the time has come for the educated
people of the community, to express in no un-
certain voice their disapproval of the condi-
tions which make such a publication possible.
In the possession of what Emerson terms our
great metropolitan English speech and of our
English literature, we are the trustees of an
invaluable possession. It is our duty and our
privilege to transmit it at least undisfigured and
unimpaired to succeeding generations; while
the few that are fitted for the task are bound

!•— 13 189

ENGLISH STYLE

to do what lies in their power, to increase that
possession in volume and in charm.

It is to be feared, however, that we are
unable to render a very creditable account of
our stewardship, and that our indifference to
literature and to culture is but a symptom of
much that is of evil import. As we have been
directing our restless energy toward commer-
cial supremacy, made possible by laws per-
haps too prodigal in their stimulus to industry,
we have cast out of our life much of its com-
posure and its true rewards. We have failed
often to discern the relative importance of
things, or to appraise them at their real value;
we have even fallen short of many duties we
owe to our neighbor and to the State. As we
have grown fat with material prosperity, we
have starved ourselves intellectually and spirit-
ually; and it will profit us much to exchange
some present-day aims and results for a few old-
fashioned standards of ideals and of conduct.

Then, too, if it be not yet taught from the
pulpit, it is beginning to be believed by some
thoughtful persons, that in the divine order of
the world there never has been and never will
be a place for the intervention of miracle or

190

ENGLISH STYLE

accident. And it is reasonably certain that new
beliefs and readjustments will enter into our
religious faith, and that we must seek out some
compensation for the consequent loss. More
and more as these thoughts are brought home
to us, the great books of literature, of which
the Bible is supreme — whether we regard their
never-failing springs of intellectual joy, their
tireless search for truth and beauty, their
deep insight into the perplexing problems of
the world, or their conception of righteousness
— should come to occupy a revered place and
assert a controlling influence in our lives.

Nor ought we to consider our higher education
complete until a just appreciation of what is
best in the ancient classic authors has become
part of it. As Mr. Woodrow Wilson said in his
inaugural address as President of Princeton
University:

The classical literature gives us, in tones and with
an authentic accent we can nowhere else hear, the
thoughts of an age we cannot visit. They contain
airs of a time not our own, unlike our own, and yet
its foster parent. To these things was the modern
thinking world first bred. In them speaks a time
naive, pagan, an early morning day when men looked
upon the earth while it was fresh, untrodden by
crowding thought, an age when the mind moved as

191

ENGLISH STYLE

it were without prepossessions and with an un-
sophisticated, childlike curiosity, a season apart
during which those seats upon the Mediterranean
seem the first seats of thoughtful men. We shall
not anywhere else get a substitute for it. The
modern mind has been built upon that culture and
there is no authentic equivalent.

We must promote these tendencies unless we
are prepared to witness consequences that are
for the benefit neither of ourselves nor of the
Republic; and to promote them we must be
intolerant of such books as English Composi-
tion, which with their confusion of expression
persuade no one to a love and a reverence for
letters.

For that which distinguishes great authors
above their contemporaries is the style of their
work. That which gives even to Shakespeare
his "surpassing excellence" is not only that in-
tellectually he was more perfectly equipped
than all the goodly company of which he was
a part, but also that he wrote with a nobility
and splendor of expression which made him
"not of an age, but for all time."

Great thoughts and great emotions find their
true interpretation, and are made manifest in
the infinite variety of the style of illustrious,

192

ENGLISH STYLE

creative minds, as the several strings of a
musical instrument are waked to harmony by
the touch of the master. Style is not some-
thing separate and apart from the written word,
any more than in the conception of the devout
worshiper, is God HimseK a being outside of
and aloof from the throbbing life of His uni-
verse; style is not mere ornamentation and
adornment of the uttered thought, but its very
soul. And it finds eloquent and persuasive
voice, only when, as though within a great
temple, men consecrate themselves to the spirit
of culture.

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM*

THE assertion so frequently made that we
Iiave a too sensational Press is, in a meas-
ure, doubtless correct. Yet so long as we con-
tinue to have sensations to record, it is perhaps
idle to expect, and it may be unwise for us to
desire, any marked change in the character of
news published. Though all of us when abroad
enjoy the great London dailies — with their at-
tractive appearance and admirable presenta-
tion of matters of general interest to the whole
English-speaking world — we may not always
consider, why it is that the columns of a London
and a New York newspaper of equal promi-
nence, so often exhibit such striking if not start-
ling contrasts.

If quite frank with ourselves, we must recog-
nize that there is much less occasion there than
here for the publication of sensational news.
Embarrassing as may be the admission, it is

'Published in The North American Review oi November, 1911.
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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

nevertheless true that we have not, to the same
extent as have the EngHsh, an underlying re-
gard for law and order m relation to what we
are pleased to term petty offenses, with which
the sensational item so frequently deals. And
we do not, therefore, as is done in England,
see to it that they are disposed of as matters
of primary importance.

An incident at an important conference re-
cently held at the country home of a distin-
guished Englishman, many miles from London,
may serve as an extreme illustration of this
distinction. A member of the nobility, and
also well known "in the City," who was among
those taking part in the conference, made it
quite clear to all present, except an American,
that his absence from one of the discussions was
imperative — because he was obliged to appear
to press a complaint at Scotland Yard against
a cab-driver that had overcharged him. What
in such a case is the rule in England, would be
the exception in this country.

By this it is not intended to suggest that vast
problems are not being solved by us for the ad-
vancement of the world, for the contrary is
true. One must be indeed blind who does

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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

not see that this country, in humanitarian acts
— which elsewhere seem meager and grudging
by comparison — and in high purpose and
achievement, is justifying the hope of mankind
in the experiment of a democracy. But, as we
move forward to our great accompHshment,
we in a sense disregard and frequently do not
even unfavorably comment upon these many
minor transgressions — apparently content that
for the time being they should be merely el-
bowed out of the way by the larger and more
urgent affairs of our life. Nevertheless, we
shall be unwise if we close our eyes to the pos-
sible consequences of permitting even them to
go too long uncorrected, lest by and by they
grow into accepted precedents for much wrong-
doing.

That we shall in the end deal summarily with
petty as well as with grave offenses, and make
graft and greed synonymous in the public
estimation with criminal acts, all who read
aright our history are entitled to expect.
Meanwhile until these reforms are brought
about, there should be no precipitate con-
clusion that the Press is too censurable for its
vigorous methods of presenting some rather

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seamy sides of our progress. We can often be
more profitably employed in considering wheth-
er, in the mirror thus held up, there may not be
presented a more or less accurate, though it be
a discouraging, reflection of men and things
as they are to-day.

It is not meant by this statement to applaud
the unnecessary prominence often given to un-
wholesome news, and to the theatric comings
and goings of many persons, whose whereabouts
and performances, one would think, were of
little or no moment in the world. Such a prac-
tice does more than make a newspaper page
uninviting, for it may even give rise to much
misconception concerning the community which
tolerates it. The City of New York, in the
opinion of many another section of this country,
is a hot-bed of things of at least frivolous growth,
instead of standing for what it really is, a credit-
able monument to the character and culture and
worthy deeds of the great body of its citizens.
And this impression is due, more than to any-
thing else, to the inference capable of being
drawn from many newspaper accounts that the
casual, contemptible outcropping of misconduct
is largely typical of the ways of life here. And

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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

if the reader be too inert or perhaps indisposed to
draw this inference, the editor often gladly
volunteers to do it for him. But of all this
the present article presents no extended dis-
cussion.

Another phase of journalism, however, to
be deeply regretted by all thoughtful persons,
is the harsh and undeserved criticism to which
men of character and distinction are often
subjected in the news item as well as in the
editorial column. Whether the injustice be
deliberate or merely the result of a kind of
flippancy or indifference, injury is done to the
individual by subjecting him to humiliation,
and to the community by destroying or at least
chilling his ardor for further effort. Moreover,
such a course if persisted in cannot fail to
lessen the influence of the Press in an emergency
calling for legitimate reproof or denunciation.
There are times when there is some excuse for
the exaggerated statement that scarcely anyone
prominent in public or private life seems safe
from this kind of reproach. Even a President
of the United States encounters it; a member of
Congress, with much to his credit as a legislator,
if he be, so to speak, too aggressively progres-

198

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

sive, may find himself classed among dema-
gogues; and the upright man of affairs, that
does not hesitate to give liberally of his time
and resources for the public welfare, may, on
slight provocation, come to be -persona non
grata to the newspaper.

Even those representative newspapers, which
exhibit in their editorial columns a vigor
and charm of style, the very reverse of the
slovenly writing appearing in many a magazine
article and not a few books of the day — and
which maintain an attitude toward better civic
conditions, in refreshing contrast with what we
at times are called upon to witness elsewhere —
are now and then guilty of the rough rebuke of
men deserving at most only temperate criti-
cism. Or if it be not rough rebuke, it is an
inconsiderate ridicule quite as damaging, if not
more so. It is not easy, even if it be possible,
to account for this tendency, but the habit ac-
quired in the rather lurid presentation of the
sensations of the day has undoubtedly a good
deal to do with it. Still, the newspaper pro-
prietor is a merchant, giving to the people what
they demand or are willing to put up with; and
if he forgets this, his memory is promptly

199

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jogged from the counting-room or the circula-
tion department. So it may well be that we
as readers have our distinct share of responsi-
bility in the matter. For having indulged our-
selves so long on the highly-seasoned mental
food provided by the newspaper — together with
a goodly admixture of the cleverly told salacious
story and the questionable but well-presented
play — ^perhaps we are no longer satisfied with
simple, old-fashioned nourishment. If the tu
quoque retort be made, that many of us in pri-
vate conversation are prone to express unami-
able and unfair judgments about our fellow-
men, we may concede the point to be well
taken. But we can at least reply that the harm
thus done within a limited circle is relatively
negligible, compared with what results when
the editor of a great metropolitan journal errs
in his appeal to the vast audience which he ad-
dresses and so unmistakably influences. With
the momentous privilege of his high calling he
has correspondingly momentous obligations; and
a frame inclosing a card on which Noblesse
Oblige was conspicuously printed would not
be an inappropriate addition to the rules and
regulations of more than one editorial sanctum.

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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

It could properly enough be a substitute for
a list of the excommunicated, provided the wall-
space be already fully occupied.

If it be not feasible to have the list dispensed
with altogether, at least there would be a like-
lihood of some erasures from it, if the editor
could be induced to have a referendum of the
matter (which would be much more defensive
than the political referendum some of us are
shouting so loudly for just now) to the books of
literature that can give us chart and compass
and the sure and steady light, whereby we may
find the true course for just criticism. They
are not, however, books written by the cynic
but by authors that come to have a kindly and
yet practical understanding of the "rule of rea-
son" which should govern us in our judgments
and conduct, quite as much as it does in the
interpretation of statutes. There is no need
of quoting from such authors, or even to call
the long roll of their illustrious names. The
reassuring voice of Horace still speaks for them
all, during these days of illogical extremes, in
that inimitable Satire which pleads for dis-
crimination in censure, with many a delightful

variation of the theme:

ieoi

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

Adsii,
Regula, peccatis quoB poenas irroget asquas
Ne scutica dignuni horribili sectere flagello.

In the event that this suggestion of a search
for the judicial frame of mind be rejected by
the editor, it might, after a fashion, serve the
purpose if, before starting with the ominous
scratch of his pen, he consent to surrender him-
self to the spirit of such rollicking but subtle
lines as those of Gilbert in "The Mikado" —
— outlining some methods by which punish-
ment may be made to fit the crime. Or if
neither alternative be acceptable, certainly re-
course to the homely injunction of Jefferson —
when angry count ten; if very angry a hundred
— should be of some avail in allaying any
exuberant editorial wrath.

Sometimes this very pronounced displeasure
of the newspaper seems to be merely a form of
survival of the obsolete stump oratory, which
was usually regarded as a failure when the
adversary was not well pommeled. At other
times it has only the excuse, that the person
criticized may have been guilty of a venial
mistake or shortcoming. The Autocrat of the
Editorial Council, high up above the earth, is

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apparently unwilling on occasions to admit — as
we who toil in the streets are not infrequently
called upon to do — that the man of distinction
in public and private life, as well as the man of
business, has a balance-sheet with its debits
as well as credits. When the balance is struck,
condemnation should not follow merely because
entries are found on the debit side, but the test
should be whether the balance is on the wrong
or on the right side. If on the right side the
man is honored, and if on the wrong side, he is
classed with the unworthy. And it may ap-
propriately be added that much of existence
becomes intolerable, unless we are sufficiently
rational to recognize that there is the saving
grace of time and conduct — whereby we may
interpret not only the former deeds of men, but
their motives which are so often elusive.

The impressive chapter and verse are not
wanting with which to fortify the foregoing
statements.

We have just passed through a very acri-
monious controversy over the election of a
United States Senator from New York. With-
out entering into any discussion as to the
relative fitness of the two candidates, Mr.

• 203

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

Sheehan and Mr. Shepard, it is quite safe to
say that the incident presented a painful object-
lesson of the newspaper criticism referred to.
Each candidate was respected by his acquaint-
ances. And any question as to the personal
character of either ought in large measure to
have been set at rest by the number and the
character of the friendships he was permitted
to enjoy, and the general regard in which he
was held by the community. It was the good
fortune of Mr. Shepard not only to escape
criticism, but to be eulogized, though as we
shall be reminded in a moment, he had a wholly
different experience a few years before.

The respective qualifications of the two men
were fairly presented by some of our newspapers;
but in others, the reiterated insistence upon the
unfitness of Mr. Sheehan for the oflfice to which
he was legitimately seeking election, came as
a shock to his many friends and to all who
knew him. There seemed to be little or no
end of the hard usage to which he was sub-
jected, though after the noise and excitement
of the controversy subsided, few could be found
who were not of the opinion that it was unjust
and indefensible. Naturally enough this was

204

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so, for "the very head and front of his offending'*
was that, in his early political career he had
perhaps been over-zealous, not in his personal
interest be it remembered, but in the service of
his party, for which his attachment has always
been an unselfish, passionate, untiring devotion.
And that devotion on more than one occasion,
even against the remonstrance of his intimate
associates, has gone so far as to make inroads
upon his strength and health.

We have a more forcible illustration of the
tendency referred to, in Mr. Shepard's candi-
dacy for the Mayoralty of the city of New York
in 1901, that incurred the even greater hos-
tility of the Press. For the newspapers them-
selves in this instance, if not in so many words
yet by a complete change of front have made
acknowledgment of their error. There can be
little or no serious claim that the treatment of
Mr. Shepard was justified, since the same news-
papers said one thing of him then and quite
another when he was a candidate for the Sen-
atorship, and at the time of his death, — though
admittedly he was in point of character and
reputation in 1901 what he was in 1911. He
had not meanwhile done anything, and had not

I-— 14 205

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

been required to do anything, to bring about
this reversal of opinion.

Nor was the tribute the newspapers have
just paid to his intellectual attainments and
worth as a citizen, traceable to any extrava-
gance of statement, or to the charity which in
our judgment of men we so generously display
at their death. For it was the counterpart of the
eulogies printed during the Senatorial contest,
and was as merited as it was spontaneous.
Nevertheless, in this discriminating estimate of
his life, there is but slight if any disapproval of
his course in 1901. Yet then, by reason of that
course he was not only charged, among other
offenses, with unpardonable inconsistency and
with equivocation and even insincerity, but was
characterized as one quite willing to barter
repute and principle for political office. The
language of vituperation appeared at times
to be almost exhausted as the lash was ap-
plied, and it seems incredible that the words
quoted below, when read in conjunction with
the newspaper columns during the past few
months, were ever published. And it all came
about because the acceptance of the nomination
and his method of discussion of the issues were

206

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

frowned upon. As a consequence, Mr. Low,
his opponent, was elected, and Mr. Shepard
came out of the campaign overwhelmed by
denunciation and discredited by defeat.

The question was fairly debatable whether
it was judicious for Mr. Shepard to accept a
nomination from Tammany Hall, which only
a few years before he had bitterly denounced
as a "foul and disgraceful blot" upon our
municipal history and government. That he
may have attempted also to deal in a too tact-
ful way with some of the issues of that cam-
paign, we may at least for the sake of argument,
be prepared to concede. All that is now urged
is that his course, if it was a mistake, called for
criticism not abuse. Though unquestionably
he had meanwhile experienced no change of
heart as to that organization, it is certain that
with all his professional honors, he was not so
intent on being Mayor of the city of New York
as to be willing to forfeit his self-respect for the
greed of public office. And no right-minded
person can permit himself for a moment to
believe that Mr. Shepard's administration if he
had been elected, would not have conformed to
his superior standards of principle and conduct.

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Mr. Tilden was the scourge of Tammany Hall,
but he did not spurn its aid in securing a nomi-
nation or an election to a high office nor did
he as a candidate devote his time to a discussion
of its shortcomings. The same is true of Mr.
Cleveland and of other distinguished men whom
we all have in mind. Mr. Shepard was willing
to pass over in silence some of the issues of the
campaign, believing undoubtedly that his elec-
tion would place him in a position where he
could, once and for all, put an end to those
party abuses which must have been quite as
apparent and repugnant to him as to any news-
paper critic. It may be that this was the con-
trolling consideration which induced him to be
a candidate. Editors know, as do the rest of
us in the world, that the man of distinguished
ability and strong character is often in a position
where he is unable, in season and out of season,
to express his convictions from the house-tops
without running the risk that, at times, his
utterances may be ill advised. This does not
presuppose hypocrisy; on the contrary, it pre-
supposes every-day prudence and is to be
commended.

Let us, nevertheless, for a moment consent to

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go so far as to be in accord with the implacable,
Rhadamantine judges — and there are more than
three of them in this world — who insist that
Mr. Shepard, under the then existing condi-
tions, did commit a mistake in seeking or re-
ceiving a nomination from Tammany Hall. Let
us go still further, and journey all the way
from modern-day New York to Utopia, and
while temporarily there agree with Plato, that
a city will be best administered by men with
such appreciation of the responsibilities of
government as to be averse to accepting office.
Life, however, is not wholly made up of un-
compromising, uncharitable conclusions or of
philosophers' abstractions. The time will surely
come when the saving common sense of which
Tennyson speaks will persuade us to leave
these judges to the enjoyment of their judg-
ments, and to make our way back from Utopia
— for we cannot always live there — to this
earth, which, despite the poet's view, does bear
a balsam for mistakes. Nor can we better com-
memorate our home-coming with readjusted
perception, than by reading in the company of
the humane and genial spirit of Horace, out of
the Satire quoted from, the further comforting

209

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

and sane suggestion — that reason should estab-
lish one guilt for the trespasser who in another's
garden breaks a cabbage - stalk, and quite a
different sort for him who in the night makes
off with the sacred vessels of the gods.

It is not possible, in the space of a magazine
article, to refer to all the editorials published in
October and November, 1901, tending to es-
tablish the injustice to Mr. Shepard. But, al-
most at random, selections are made from four
of the representative newspapers of this city,
together with their recent expressions concern-
ing the fine example of his life. Even those
newspapers which it may, perhaps, with some
reason be claimed did not go beyond the prov-
ince of legitimate criticism, nevertheless used
words in which there was a good deal of the
crack and cut of the lash; but ingenuity would
soon exhaust itself in any attempt to justify
the following editorials.

One newspaper, under the heading, "The
Unartful Dodger," printed the following:

What a clumsy dodger the man is, and how utter-
ly destitute of shame!

Again it stated:

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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

. . . What a shameless Shepard he is! Just how
shameless was not revealed till Mr. Philbin spoke for
the first time in this campaign and showed us what
he had been fighting, and what he had had to con-
tend with.

And what, pray, are you, Mr. Shepard? Are you
an honor to us in the eyes of the civilized world?
What are you drawing your "flaming sword" in
defense of? What are you dodging and trimming
and falsifying and sneering in the hope of accom-
plishing? You know. You cannot deceive your-
self, no matter how much you may deceive others.

In the same newspaper there was an editorial,
attempted to be so worded as to justify its title,
"A Political Rake's Progress."

On still another occasion it said:

Shepard might have succeeded better in his role
of screen for Crokerism had not Justice Jerome ap-
peared in the field. That made the contrast between
a man who was "not afraid" and a man who was,
between a fearless man and a dodger, so clear that
all men saw it. The braver and franker Jerome has
been, the more despicable have Shepard's daily
wriggling and dodging and hair-splitting appeared.
It is no new revelation that the American people
like courage in a public man. Neither is it a new
revelation that all mankind detests a sneak. . . .

The following quotation from the same source
has a bearing upon the subject-matter of this
article, not alone for its treatment of Mr.
Shepard, but for its reference to Mr. Dayton,

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

who at that time was a lawyer of position in the
community, and who later became a worthy
judge:

. . . Every man who respects manliness and honor
in his fellow-men rejoices to-day over the defeat of
Charles W. Dayton for this Bench. Next to
Shepard he is the most odious figure in the cam-
paign. . . . Like Shepard, he sold himself for a price,
and the price is found to be worse than worthless. . . .

At the time of Mr. Shepard's death the news-
paper had this to say:

New York has lost a good citizen by the untimely
death of Edward M. Shepard at the comparatively
early age of sixty-one, and the local Democracy is
minus a member it could ill afford to spare. Mr.
Shepard was one of the few Democrats left in this
region whose opinions received, and deserved, re-
spectful attention, irrespective of party or politics.
His pohtical career was governed by personal con-
victions rather than blind party fealty. He was of
too high a type to be popular with the local party
leaders. If fate had cast his part on some other and
less frankly commercial Democratic stage he would
probably have attained high political distinction.

Another newspaper asserted:

Low speeches in this campaign are straight and
strong. Shepard speeches are sly and slinking.

A further editorial is entitled, "A Shifty
Shepard."

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Still another editorial in the same newspaper,
"The Shepard of Shalott," has this:

. . . Was ever man so fated to trip himself on his
own moral standards and condemn himself out of
his own mouth? . . . Since he grew "half sick of shad-
ows" in political exile, and looked away from wear-
ing the fabric of reform to long for the pleasure and
power of the Tammany world, he seems bewitched.
The evil influence of Crokerism overwhelms him.
His own handiwork flies from its place to vex him.
He is tangled in the threads of his own spinning.
The web of his own political declarations enmeshes
him. The rope of his own logic ties him down. The
glass in which he once saw moral issues clearly lies
shattered. The old Shepard is no more.

Out flew the web and floated wide,
The mirror cracked from side to side.
The curse is come upon me, cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Again in the same newspaper there is an
editorial not inaply entitled, "Plain Words."

... Is the mantle of charity broad enough to
cover even such a monstrous departure from the
truth as Mr. Shepard has made in this instance?
We are still anxious to think so. But we must tell
Mr. Shepard plainly that no man who honestly
believes what he urged all to believe four years
ago considers it in the slightest degree unfair or in-
decorous to declare an utter contempt for his pres-
ent course. . . , We have his own authority for de-
claring that his candidacy is a personal degradation
and a public affront.

213

ONE phasp: of journalism

Yet this newspaper Iiiis just printed this:

Mr. Shepard would have served the public better
in the field of politics if he had been able to look
at things more simply and directly. Yet he was of
service, for his ideals were high and generous and
he was ever ready to contribute according to his
power to the promotion of good causes and to the
alleviation of the evils of our economic and social
order. As a good citizen, he will be remembered,
and missed.

Another newspaper said: "Because he does
not do this" (pledge himself to put Murphy
and Devery out of oflBce), "and will not under
any compulsion, Mr. Shepard's sincerity is
questioned day by day. Yet he insists that he
is talking to the people with perfect frankness."
His attitude on this Devery question was said,
in an earlier part of the same editorial, to be
"juggling, and not at all skilful juggling."

This newspaper, in an editorial characterized
by uncompromising indignation and biting
satire, expressed the view that if Hercules had
been the like of Mr. Shepard, the Augean
stables would have remained foul and unclean
and a stench in the nostrils of the ancients.
Again it spoke of the "delusive pretenses" of
the Shepard campaign, and added: "The politi-

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

cal ruin of its leader, whatever the result of the

election, seems clear."

The same newspaper, in the course of a long

editorial full of a keen appreciation of his life,

said:

Apart from the difficulties his high standard made
for him in political life, it may be that Mr. Shepard's
intensity of conviction and habitual rigidity of con-
science led him to hold secondary and compromisable
opinions too firmly for success in dealing with the
general run of political workers, even those in sym-
pathy with his ends. But there was no limit to the
confidence he inspired in his fidelity and unselfish-
ness, in his courage and enlightened patriotism,
national and municipal. He was one of the most
trusted and active workers and leaders in civil-
service reform. . . . The personality of Mr. Shepard
was exceedingly winning. His tastes were refined,
his culture was broad and fine. . . . His death is a
most serious loss to his city and his coimtry, and a
very mournful one to those whose privilege it was
to know his noble nature in the intimacy of per-
sonal friendship.

Still another newspaper offered Mr. Shepard
the alternative of having the public disbelieve
his intellectuality or "his desire for righteous-
ness," and evinced a strong disposition to cast
its vote for his intellectuality.

All doubts on the subject, however, were
promptly resolved, for the same newspaper
declared:

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ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

If you were a man who lived on the price of a
woman's shame you would have no doubt as to how
to vote next Tuesday, or as to whether you would
vote at all. You would vote, and vote for Edward
Morse Shepard.

If you were one who kept a misnamed hotel into
which Stanton Street "cadets" tempted to their
ruin the daughters of poor men and women who had
but little in their homes of anything but dreariness
and drudgery, you would have no doubt as to how
you would vote. It would never occur to you to do
anything for pleasure or for profit on election day
before you had east your vote for Edward Morse
Shepard.

If you kept a "fence" you would see to it that
every bookkeeper and clerk in your employ voted
early on election day, and that he voted for Edward
Morse Shepard.

If you made your living by running crooked
roulette-wheels or fixed faro-boxes, or by manufac-
turing those precious articles of commerce, you would
feel yourself remiss in your best interests if you did
not vote for Edward Morse Shepard.

And again it said:

One of the happy results of yesterday's election
is the enforced retirement from politics of Mr.
Edward M. Shepard, of Brooklyn. He can never
again pose as a character of lofty "ideals," deserv"
ing of confidence because of his superior moral eleva-
tion, and the period of his usefulness to Tammany
or for any political purpose is brought to an end.

After having advertised himself for years as a
peculiarly exalted type of "reformer" whose spe-
cialty was horror of the iniquity of Tammany gov-
ernment, Shepard sold out to Tammany the mo-
216

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

ment it offered him his price in a nomination as the
head of its ticket in a campaign where honest popu-
lar sentiment was struggling for its overthrow. That
was the time chosen by Shepard to desert from the
opposition to Tammany and enter into the service
of the enemy he had pretended so long to hate and
loathe.

A very miserable, a very contemptible character
Edward M. Shepard has proved himself to be, and
he will not be missed in the field of pohtics from
which popular revulsion has now retired him. Not
even Tammany is a mourner at his political grave.
It sheds no tears as it sees its worthless tool buried
out of sight and out of memory.

The following from the same newspaper which
published the last two editorials would seem to
be a suggestive end to these quotations:

In Edward M. Shepard this city loses a man who
through many years had served it in a variety of
ways, with a distinction that was constant and a
loyalty that was invariable.

In the public life of the city and the state, in the
political activities of the party of which he was a
distinguished member, in that profession in which
he attained conspicuous eminence, Mr. Shepard
was high-minded, honorable, and unselfish.

To those rare abilities which showed themselves in
a wide range of contemporary and active endeavor,
Mr. Shepard joined the attainments and the spirit
of the scholar, and wrote with authority of the pohti-
cal history of the state and the nation.

The measure of Mr. Shepard's services and repu-
tation is far wider than this city, but within its Hmits
his loyal and unselfish efforts earned for him the

217

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

gratitude, the respect, and the admiration of his
fellow-citizens.

Mr. Shepard never attained, or claimed to
have attained, to perfection; but, as these later
editorials so eloquently bear witness, his life
rose to a high level of accomplishment and
sterling quality. He did his duty as a man and
a citizen; he was generous in the giving of his
ability for the best interests of the community
in which he lived, and was so justly honored.
He held in the main true to the highest ideals,
and from any reasonable point of view no one
act of his, though it might have been regarded
as a mistake, should have furnished the occasion
for these utterances. Nor ought we to be able
to read them without the sincere hope that such
arraignments of men of unimpeachable char-
acter— which would be inconceivable on the
part of the Press of London — may not, for
want of a protest, ever come to be regarded
here as having the authority of accepted ap-
proval.

We need not dwell overmuch on any attempt-
ed defense of the course pursued, for at best it
would be only some kind of explanation which
might perhaps be pleaded in mitigation, but

218

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

certainly not in justification, of what was done.
That the words used must have cut like a knife
and stunned like a bludgeon is only too ap-
parent. Fortunately it was vouchsafed to Mr.
Shepard with his sensitive nature, to live long
enough to see, during the Senatorial contest and
at other times, a wholly different attitude of the
Press toward him, and to have the satisfaction
of knowing that, in the end, the esteem of all
self-respecting men is the sure reward of a pure
life and an honorable career. But the cruel
and ugly wounds that had been made must
have left scars for him to carry to the grave.

More than this may have been true, for we
read in the Apocrypha:

The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh;
but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones.

Then, too, the whole subject has a far-reach-
ing significance quite apart from its relation to
the individual primarily affected, for it is such
episodes as these that lend weight to the other-
wise frivolous views we often hear expressed, as
to the imfairness and injustice of the newspaper
of to-day. And it would be something little
short of a calamity if any such opinion were
generally entertained by thoughtful people.

219

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

For the Press of this country, on the whole,
is neither unjust nor unfair, but is the most
potent single agency we have for good — directing
its vast and ever-widening influence in the in-
terest of a better observance of law and order,
and for the promotion of a higher citizenship.
It has escaped from the clutches of the political
creed and party, and is in the best sense inde-
pendent; it has a stanch courage and is entitled
to the outpost of responsibility it occupies, as
the incorruptible sentinel to warn us of threaten-
ing peril; it takes vice by the throat with a
rough hand and gives no quarter to wrong-
doing; it is intolerant of sham, and does yeo-
man's service in exposing hypocrisy in the
stocks to the contemptuous gaze; it is sub-
servient to no interest and wears the yoke of
no master; it seeks to hold open the door of
industrial opportunity through which the de-
serving may pass. And more important than
all, it is doing as much as is the pulpit to lift
men up above the sordid things of life so that,
on the extended horizon, there may be seen
the vision, without which, in the language of
the proverb of Scripture, the people perish.

And for the very reason that the Press holds

220

ONE PHASE OF JOURNALISM

steadfast to these articles of faith and is doing
these great deeds, the judicious, even though
they have no other recourse, may at least grieve,
when it fails to be true to the highest standard
of impartiality and temperance in its judgment
of men and of events.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COMMUNITY
TO THE HOSPITAL^

BEFORE speaking of the responsibility of
the community to the hospital, let me for
myself and others of your guests, offer to the
physicians and surgeons associated with this
hospital, congratulations upon the completion
of your new building — wherein you are now
enabled to carry on with fresh impetus and
usefulness the great work to which you are giv-
ing your best days and energies. It is a build-
ing erected by your efforts. Some friends of
yours have given generously toward it, but the
greater number of us have given in smaller
measure, meagerly and insufficiently. But
whatever be the character of the gifts, they are
traceable to your presentation of the needs of
the institution, to your urgency, and to what

' Response to a toast at the annual dinner of the Manhattan
Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, on the completion of its new
building, February 18, 1907.

222

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

some of us in our thoughtlessness may have
been inclined to regard as your importunity.

Nor have you been satisfied with anything
but the best, undoubtedly believing that a
"pretty good" hospital — along with many other
pretty good things — is like a pretty good egg,
not of much consequence in the world. And if
I were inclined to be facetious, and at the same
time forget that the quotation habit is often as
dangerous a practice to indulge in as the drug
habit, I might in commemoration of what you
have done, reproduce the words of the tablet
in St. Paul's Cathedral, testifying to the great
achievement of Sir Christopher Wren:

Si requiris monumentum circumspice.

I dismiss any such temptation, for I recall
that Horace Smith, of Rejected Addresses fame,
pronounced the inscription equally appropriate
for the tombstone of a physician buried in a
churchyard.

Let me say at the outset that in my opinion
the responsibility of the community to the hos-
pital is not discharged merely by adequate
provision for its pressing financial needs, —
though we have often fallen short even of this

223

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

obligation. I recollect that during my Uni-
versity days I heard Tyndall, in one of his
lectures in America, express his deep regret
that we were requiring of our distinguished
scientific men mere routine duties of teaching,
to the exclusion of appropriate opportunity for
original research. He referred, in illustration
of this error, to the great names of Joseph
Henry and John William Draper. These words
made a lasting impression upon me. For
in those days I sat under the teaching of
Professor Draper, the eminent scientist and
scholar, and I am clear that much was lost
to science and to letters, by the service he
so ungrudgingly gave to the most elemental
instruction.

Nor is this the whole case. For the men
of your profession have too often not only
been denied the leisure essential for original
research, but have been obliged to assume finan-
cial burdens and perform irksome tasks not
rightfully belonging to you and for which others
were far better fitted. There has not been a
fair division of labor between the community
and yourselves. With tireless devotion you
stand at the bedside of suffering where you

224

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

alone can bring relief; with your unerring knife
you perform operations ensuring to the afflicted
the preservation of those senses which make
life livable. Then, figuratively and almost
literally, you have been obliged to go from the
sick-room and the operating-room, out upon
the highways to solicit funds to defray the
expenses incident to your work — including
everything except your own services, which
have been contributed freely and with a gen-
erosity we altogether failed to appreciate and
respond to. There was no more appropriate-
ness in our permitting this, than there would
be in assigning to a minister of the Gospel the
duty of going down from the pulpit after his
sermon, and, hat in hand, taking up a collection
for the support of the Church and of himself.
You were entitled to look to others for an ade-
quate financial maintenance of the work you
are contributing so much to carry on; and we
in turn cannot afford to have the charge success-
fully laid at our door that we are failing to
do our share in relieving suffering and lessening
human ills. The streams of support for such
institutions must ever be renewed by us —
who in this way are enabled, or I might rather

225

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

say are permitted, to supplement the work of
the men of your profession — or injurious conse-
quences will be the result.

We seem to have in mind that in some way
or other a hospital is to be carried on by the
practical methods brought to such perfection
in Squeers's school:

"This is the first class in English spelling and
philosophy, Nickleby," said Squeers, beckoning
Nickleby to stand beside him. "We'll get up a
Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then,
where's the first boy?"

"Please, sir, he's cleaning the back-parlor win-
dow," said the temporary head of the philosophical
class.

"So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers. "We
go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nicldeby;
the regular educational system. C-1-e-a-n, clean,
verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win,
d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows
this out of book, he goes and does it. It's just the
same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the
second boy?"

"Please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a
small voice.

"To be sure," said Squeers, by no means discon-
certed. "So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin,
n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge
of plants. When he has learned that bottinney
means a knowledge of plants he goes and knows
'em. That's our system, Nickleby; what do you
think of it?"

"It's a very useful one, at any rate," answered
Nicholas.

226

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

"I believe you," rejoined Squeers, not remarking
the emphasis of his usher. "Third boy, what's a
horse?"

"A beast, sir," replied the boy.

"So it is," said Squeers. "Ain't it, Nickleby.?"

"I believe there is no doubt of that, sir," an-
swered Nicholas.

"Of course there isn't," said Squeers. "A horse
is a quadruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, as
everybody that's gone through the grammar knows,
or else where's the use of having grammars at all?"

"Where indeed," said Nicholas, abstractedly.

"As you're perfect in that," resumed Squeers,
turning to the boy, "go and look after my horse, and
rub him down well, or I'll rub you down. The rest
of the class go and draw water up, till somebody
tells you to leave ofif , for it's washing-day to-morrow,
and they want the coppers filled."

In all seriousness, it is a just complaint that
the part we have taken in the direction — where
our services can be most ejffective for so de-
serving an institution as this hospital — has been,
in comparison with what it really should have
been, almost trivial. And if I were not fearful
of the well-deserved, well-aimed missile from
some of the tables before me, I would add that
the complaint is not made by you, since you
limit yourselves to curing complaints, and do
not make them. But of course one must now
and then have some thought of self-preser-
vation.

827

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

With our increasing population, the carrying
on of the work of a great hospital cannot be
regarded otherwise than as a serious business.
There is the great outgo, and unless there be
correspondingly suitable income, the usefulness
and energies of the institution must lessen,
even though they be not permanently impaired.
What would these so-called Captains of In-
dustry— who in times gone by loved to tell
almost with the megaphone of their activities,
but who are now content to refer to them in
subdued whispers, as if fearful that the infor-
mation be overheard in the city of Washington
— what, I say, would these Captains of Industry
think of a method of conducting their affairs,
such as by their indifference and neglect they
seem to assume suffices for our hospitals? How
soon would the wheels of their ceaseless ma-
chinery come to rest? In the hospital there has
been little appropriate provision for the much-
boasted division of labor so essential in great
manufacturing and industrial establishments,
where success depends on each man doing his
part, and only his part, fully and completely —
without the obligation or even the permission
to do several things ineffectively and insuffi-

228

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

ciently, by a diversion or misdirection of his
energies.

Yet a large hospital must, for its satisfactory
administration, adopt or at least adapt, the
methods which business men the world over
have shown are essential for the successful out-
come of industry. Those of us who have failed
to take this very obvious consideration into ac-
count, if we have not had blindness, at least
have had the most complete kind of astigma-
tism.

Then, too, in our efforts to afford you proper
assistance there must be an unflagging opti-
mism, similar in degree to that illustrated by
an incident in my professional experience.

Some years since in the course of the re-
organization of a railway system, my clients
were very desirous that a citizen of prominence
in another community should reconsider his
refusal to become a member of the Committee
of Reorganization. I renewed the request that
he serve; but in response to my suggestion that
the plan to which he was asked to lend his aid
would succeed, he told me that though he was
not pessimistic, he had not the kind of opti-
mism which led him to share my views. In sup-

229

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

port of my attempt to get his consent, I told
him the story, then current in New York, con-
cerning a man of such optimistic views, that
as a rule he said concerning any mishap: "It
was all for the best." At times when the
springs of his optimism ran low his comment
would be: "It might have been worse"; but
below this state of mind he never fell. In
order to test this optimism, it was reported to
him one day that a man, painting a church
steeple hundreds of feet in the air, had missed
his footing and been crushed to death by the
fall. His comment to the surprise of every
one was "Well it might have been worse";
and when asked for an explanation, he said:
"Why the poor fellow might have fallen upon
somebody." The story won the day.

Moreover, we must do the work ourselves,
and not be satisfied with an enthusiasm which
has any similarity to the patriotism of Arte-
mus Ward, who, on the outbreak of the W^ar
of the Rebellion, expressed himself as quite
prepared to send all his wife's relatives to the
front at once.

Yet despite the cynical views of some and
the misgivings and forebodings of others — that

230

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

the present outlook in this land is not of a char-
acter to make any of us feel over-hopeful of the
future — indications are not wanting, to entitle
us to be of good cheer and to be sure that in
the support of an institution like this, and in
other humanitarian directions, men of affairs
are likely to give a good account of their stew-
ardship. It is true that recent disclosures have
shown that among a few in some walks of life,
there have been faithlessness to trust, an in-
difference to many an old-fashioned precedent
for right conduct, and a lack of nice discrimina-
tion in the choice of methods for accomplishing
results. Many of us have accordingly rushed
to the conclusion voiced often in the Press
and in current conversation, that things are
hopelessly out of joint in the land. But
clearly this is a superficial view. What wrong-
doing there is among us must be and will be
stamped out effectually as a mere matter of
self -protection as well as of principle, and then
we shall go forward with our work in the world,
not only without discouragement but with re-
newed courage.

In the review of an illuminating book by Mr.
"Wells, the Future in America, I had occasion to

831

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

say concerning the loose and unsupported charge
that to any substantial extent American insti-
tutions and the American people are unsound:

Some wrongdoing there has been in the past.
This, however, appears everywhere in the world in
spots and places, but the moral sense of the men of
this country who are making its true and enduring
history is sound and wholesome. And in default of
the whipping-post, there should be the appropriate
social or business or political outlawry for those who,
in high or low places, are to our lasting shame
blazoning forth to the world the untruthful and
repulsive assertion that a great number of Ameri-
can citizens are afflicted with a loathsome disease —
the contagious itch for other people's property.

If I read the signs of the times aright, we are
so changing and readjusting our conceptions of
what are our duties in the world, that the
thought of our material progress and pre-
eminence is no longer a controlling factor with
us. Everywhere there appears evidence of
this change in the realization by men that their
acts have a relation to others as well as to them-
selves. It is no longer true, if the statement
ever was true, that men here are wilfully regard-
less of the interests of others. Indifference is
the most that can be charged against the peo-
ple of this city and the people of this country,

232

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

as to those things which are due from them to
the society in which they Hve. Nor has this
indifference ever been with us a deep-seated
disease, but rather a temporary symptom that
we were too much given over to an exacting
material progress, and were unconsciously
drifting with the set of a tide selfish in its ten-
dency. Yet if appearances count for anything,
a new dawn of unselfishness has come into the
world.

Let us, however, not forget that we shall be
the enemies of our own interests, and the ene-
mies of good citizenship, if we do, or permit
to be done, anything that may operate to re-
tard the extension of this newly awakened
spirit. We must promote not discourage gen-
erosity. When it transpired a few days since,
that a princely gift had been made by a rich
man for a worthy educational and benevolent
purpose, was it not just and seemly that we
should with one accord say that the princely
gift had come from a princely giver? Was it
not a cheap cynicism which intimated, if it did
not state, that such an act represented merely
a restoration of what had been improperly
exacted from the public by unjust and in-

233

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

defensible methods of business. Rather let us
consider such a gift as a manifestation that vast
fortunes are now regarded by their owners not
merely as personal possessions, but in part as
trusts to be administered for the benefit of the
community. Any other attitude is likely to be
an injustice to the giver and a discouragement
to many others willing, according to the
measure of their ability, to do their share,
but unwilling that their conduct should rest
under any unjust imputation or misconstruc-
tion. For the mighty stream of giving must
be supplemented by countless smaller contri-
butions, or in the end it will dry up and
disappear.

Let us all believe the time will come, and will
come soon, when the services of the surgeons
and physicians here will begin with a devotion
to the interior needs of this hospital, and end
with the leisure for independent original re-
search. And let us believe too, that men of
affairs, affected by the contagion of your ex-
ample, and with a quickened sense of their
responsibility, will realize that in providing
for the generous maintenance and business-like
administration of this institution and of all

234

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE HOSPITAL

similar institutions, they are discharging an
obligation — on which they and not those of
your profession are primarily liable — and are
also ministering to their self-respect and pride
and gratification.

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS^

A BYZANTINE LEGEND

By Percy Stickney Grant

Soepius ventis agitatur ingens
Pinus et celscE graviore casu
Decidtmt turres.

JUST now when it is apparent that there
is a distinct decadence in hterary, and
particularly in poetical production, there has
been written by Percy Stickney Grant, Rector
of Ascension Church in the city of New York,
a noble poem. And it is such a poem whether
we consider it from the point of view of Arnold,
that true poetry is but a criticism of life and the
highest expression of the best literature, or
from the other extreme of Poe, that poetry
is merely "the rhythmical creation of Beauty."

^ The Search of Belisarius: A Byzantine Legend. By Percy
Stickney Grant. New York: Brentano's. From The North
American Review of February, 1908.
236

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

The legend of Belisarius, oddly enough, with
all its fascination and pathos, has not been a
favorite with the poets. Longfellow has written
a short poem called "Belisarius," but neither
in conception nor in expression does it present
the proportions of the theme.

The story as given by Mr. Grant tells how
Belisarius — having won back for the Roman
Empire something of its old renown in the
world, and having made for himself a place
among the foremost generals of all time — is
summoned at the opening of the poem before
his two sovereigns, Justinian and Theodora, to
answer to the charge of treason.

The Forum of the great City; the swaying,
feverish crowd with its protest against royal
injustice, and its assertion of confidence in
Belisarius; the ceremony of the Court; the
baseless charge of guilt from the throne, and
the simplicity of the defense of the old general,
blinded now as a penalty for his greatness — all
go to make up a scene alive with movement
and color.

His banishment follows; and when he asks,
in his grief and blindness, for his child, he hears
from the reluctant King that it has been stolen

I.— 1 6 237

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

from him. Then, after his wife has sought to
atone by suicide for her share in his degradation,
Belisarius sets forth in the search for his son.

He is met everywhere with tributes to his
name and exploits. To young children, with
his hand among their curls, he tells of the
strange lands he has visited, but he learns of
them nothing to guide him in his search.

As, wandering on, he kneels in prayer before
the entrance of a basilica, maidens "white-
robed like lilies in the isles far west " come to
him with their ministering devotion. In words
of peculiar beauty he tells them of his gratitude:

Daughters of love, your words are like the night
That weaves its dream-web 'twixt two days of
pain;
I feel the soothing of your presence bright
Like woods at dusk adrip with silver rain.
Your words are like the slumbering night's low
strain
Which murmurs to the stars from dark till day;

A song of myriad life in hushed refrain.
The song of life that sings to us alway
Amid our tears, our doubts, disease, and Death's
decay.

Loyal veterans of his wars urge upon him
that he lead a victorious army against the cruel
power which had stripped him of his honors, and

238

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

taken from him the light of his eyes and the
child of his heart. For a moment the thought
of vengeance possesses him, but in the end he
turns from it, not merely because

Arms cannot strive against eternal laws,

And whom God hath dethroned man cannot crown,

Ensceptered by vain might,

but also for the reason that contemplation has
taught him another lesson:

My ears can hear the undertone of life.

The joy, the woe, the wonder and the prayer
I could not hear amid the din of strife.

As, strengthened in his purpose, he sets forth
once more upon his search, a holy man greets
him:

I welcome thee to a rich solitude,
Rest for thy body and thy soul is here.

Belisarius, however, has had a glimpse of the
Divine, other than that which has been vouch-
safed to the holy man. And conqueror as he
has been of men and of worlds, he must be active
in the conquest of his own self. His interpre-
tation of the call of God to man — little as he
may understand the mystery of existence as
manifested in his own misery — ^is not to

2S0

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

Find heaven in hungry weakness' passive mood.

Poor soldiers they against the power of Hell
Who hide in cave or desert when the brood

Assailing Heaven scorn walls;

but it is to strive on even though that be to
suffer, and to find victory in high endeavor and
achievement which the search for his son sym-
bolizes.

The chant of the monks with its closing lines —

Earth is behind us.
Heaven before us.
Steep is the pathway,
Deep is thy face.

Yet we behold thee.
Far in the heavens.
Mother of Jesus,

Mother of God-
is heard in the distance as the holy man leads
him down the mountain-side, to take up his
weary march again.

He journeys on until among a group of boys,
to whom he recounts the story of a great deed
out of his life, the wanderer after all his tireless
effort finds his son. But, as he carries the child
in his arms, it dies of the sting of an asp, and
Belisarius bears his boy but to the grave.
The picture which the story presents — somber

240

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

enough with its unmerited suffering and un-
rebuked guilt — is redeemed from gloom by the
great calm of its atmosphere and the noble
proportions of its heroic central figure.

Peculiarly fitting for the title-page of the
volume are the lines put by Lowell into the
speech of Columbus as he sails on his seemingly
hopeless search for a new world:

Endurance is the crowning quality

And patience all the passion of great hearts.

The poem is written in the Spenserian stanza
which has been the despair of many a gifted
poet other than Byron, Keats, and Shelley.
It was a wise selection for a narrative poem,
and Mr. Grant has made effective use of its
strength and grace. It may serve to empha-
size this statement, if it be added that the
preceding quotations are selected merely as
illustrative of the method employed in treating
the legend, and not because of their superiority
to the other stanzas, which frequently are of
even greater merit.

If the poem be read aloud it must be regarded
as one of the fine poems of recent years. But,
as Mr. Corson in his admirable treatise on

841

THE SEARCH OF BELISARIUS

English Verse says, poetry must be read aloud.
There can be little doubt as to the correctness
of this view. To read poetry in silence, par-
ticularly poetry written in the Spenserian
stanza or in blank verse, is more or less like
attempting to appreciate a great musician's
creation by a mere inspection and study of the
score. The composer may find satisfaction
in such a method, but to others the mute score
is largely meaningless, and is only waked to life
and beauty by the musical instrument, as are
the lines of poetry by the human voice.

The appreciative reader will have keen enjoy-
ment in this work of a man of rare intellectual
attainments and spiritual insight, and on laying
down the volume will find it no easy task to call
to mind another living author, equally capable
of writing such a poem.

LITERATURE AND THE PRACTICAL
WORLD

UNFORTUNATELY the statement needs
little or no argument to support it, that
an increasing number of practical men — from
indifference or absorption in their several call-
ings, or even from a conclusion that culture is
rather a hindrance than an aid to the highest
success in life — have no longer any adequate
interest in the great books of literature. Many
a library shelf has its ornament of fine edi-
tions; but often the volumes are dust-covered
and, what is more to be regretted, some of the
pages are uncut. The world of affairs and the
world of letters, which should touch each other,
often lie far apart.

Clearly this condition, however it is to be
accounted for, is undesirable if not ominous.
For despite the protest of scholars, the practical
man who is often the highly trained university
graduate and prominent in the professions as

243

LITERATURE AND THE

well as in business, will, in the end, largely be
the representative of his age and reflect its
opinion. But unless a knowledge and love of
literature shall appreciably afltect the formation
and expression of that opinion, the consequences
cannot be otherwise than injurious to the indi-
vidual and to the community. On the other
hand, the scholar that unduly disparages the
activities of the world in its material progress,
tends to make letters and culture visionary
aims and to bring them into a kind of discredit.
The chief vice of strenuous, exacting, modern-
day business is not any resulting monopoly of
trade and commerce, but rather a monopoly of
much of the time which could find profitable
employment in understanding the true purpose
and the intellectual joy of life — without thereby
lessening what some choose to regard as its
more substantial rewards. While it is un-
doubtedly true that the practical man may have
become contemptuous of scholars, — as men who
in his opinion have only looked out upon life
from the college window, — it is equally true that
they, not lacking in a certain kind of reciprocity,
entertain no very flattering opinion of him or
of his calling. There can be the arrogance and

244

PRACTICAL WORLD

condescension of accumulated learning as well
as of much worldly experience or the big bank-
account; and as between the practical man and
the scholar in the matter of this exchange of
courtesies, the controversy may, in homely
phrase, be termed a draw.

Yet, that there ought to be a common meeting-
ground for these practical men and scholars,
somewhere between the extremes of their re-
spective opinions, seems altogether reasonable.
Accordingly, the purpose in what follows is to
suggest seeldng for it through the agency of a
series of new reviews of the great books of
literature, to be the result of conferences be-
tween the scholars selected to write, and an
advisory Board of Editors, made up of men
from the world of affairs, of scholarly tastes and
distinction in their several walks of life, who are
to decide as to the most advisable methods of
presentation. Thus at the outset, the plea for
literature would be indorsed by practical men
to practical men; and though it be found, as is
almost certain to be the case, that the plan has
not wholly accomplished the result hoped for,
we are entitled to expect that a tendency in the

right direction will have been established.

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LITERATURE AND THE

If the explanation as to how this is at all
probable seem to some persons unnecessarily
extended, it must be remembered that without
it, many others, not to be classed among the
thoughtless, might regard any such undertaking
as a waste of time for writers and editors and
readers. For not only are we living in a period
considered to be essentially industrial and com-
mercial, but we already possess — in separate
books and essays of such merit as to be entitled
to a permanent place in literature — almost
numberless estimates of great authors. Partic-
ularly does the "English Men of Letters" publi-
cation— at least in the early and more important
volumes issued under the editorship of Mr. John
Morley — represent a scholarship which it cannot
now be reasonably expected to excel or perhaps
equal. Nevertheless the permanent value of
nearly all of these volumes would have been
distinctly increased by preparation under con-
ditions similar to those here suggested.

The proposed undertaking should have no
rivalry with such publications, but rather serve
to emphasize their importance without losing
sight of its own primary purpose.

Some writers seem at times of the notion that

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literary production if made popular and per-
suasive is cheapened, and for a good many per-
sons in the world, Tyndall and Huxley lived in
vain. As a rule, the distinguished scholar con-
tinues to write for the scholar, just as does the
professional man for those of his own profession;
or if that be not the intention it is the result.
There is little evidence that scholars generally
give much heed to the advisability of enlisting
the attention of the engrossed man of the world
in the vital subject of culture. Authors of
plays, composers of music, and even preachers,
do not hesitate to strive for persuasive methods
of presentation; and the scholars that reject the
lesson of these examples, forget that it is much
less embarrassing for the disheartened reader to
close a book than for one to leave a theatre, a
concert-hall, or a church. Dullness and mo-
notony are not a necessary part of catalogue or
index; and when they attach themselves to
creative or even critical literary work, they are
frequently linked up with error as well as
mediocrity.

At times the view of the scholar is not put
forth as merely his individual conclusion, but
as the representative of some secret guild, for

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LITERATURE AND THE

membership in which a special qualification is
assumed; and then to the uninitiated the tone
adopted often seems of the ex cathedra, dictatorial
order. Again we have the reverse of this in the
happy-go-lucky, chatty, languid method which
seems to take it for granted that at best noth-
ing in the world is of much concern. Just so
among advocates at the Bar, we find not only
those who undertake to make it rather offen-
sively clear to the court, that dissent from their
views would be indefensible error, but others
who adopt the conversational, slipshod, casual,
unconvincing kind of argument. The result is
generally not any more acceptable in the one
case to the client than it is in the other to the
public. Sometimes we find the two faults
combined, and as a consequence doubly em-
phasized.

It is startling too at times to note the lack
of uniform merit in the same writer — one book
being aglow with light and color and action,
with a style that is forcible and graceful and
another featureless and depressing. By de-
grees, even with an author that has gained de-
served success, routine and monotony and in-
difference often sap the vitality of effort, and

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PRACTICAL WORLD

he becomes more and more merely the form of
what he once was and is still capable of being.
If the reader no longer understands or cares
about superior literary work, the writer cannot
be expected to over-exert himself to produce
it; if the hall-mark is no longer looked for, why
not manufacture the thing below the hall-mark
standard?

A well-known English essayist dismisses
Matthew Arnold's sonnet to Shakespeare with
the remark that "at best it is fine writing, but
of fine writing about Shakespeare we have had
enough." On the contrary, what the public is
still looking for is fine writing about Shake-
speare and other great authors, and not a sloven-
ly, repellent, nerveless style which, it is safe to
say, so often relegates the critic to his present
limited audience. Have we any doubt that the
following from a standard English magazine is,
at least in a measure, a fair statement of present-
day conditions .f*

What one misses in twentieth-century English is a
certain racy smack of the joy of living which comes
from life in the open air. Our speech has no taste
of Flora and the country green — there is about it
no smell of Mother Earth. The age seems to affect
all its children in the same way. Optimist and pessi-
249

LITERATURE AND THE

mist write and speak alike. Mr. Chesterton's Eng-
lish is certainly more poetical than Mr. Bernard
Shaw's, but they both alike write a language learned
from books, and not derived from direct contact
with things. This language is not very robust. It
is not the tongue of Shakespeare. With all Mr.
Chesterton's sympathy, for instance, with mellow
Burgundy and old October, and his subtle insight
into their magical effects, you will hardly find him
describing one of his characters as "pot-valiant."
Mr. Belloc might, perhaps, do so. The vocabulary
of the English spoken in polite circles becomes ever
more and more restricted. Everything is "nice" —
we have nice books, nice curates, nice cakes.

No such slothfukiess on the part of a capable
writer is likely to survive the enlightening, stim-
ulating conferences between him and these distin-
guished practical men of the world, with whom he
would be in association under the plan suggested.

In order to emphasize the importance of the
plan — ^for emphasis of it cannot be too much
insisted on — the reviews might appear first as
magazine articles both here and in England,
and then somewhat enlarged as books. The
completion of the work with monthly publica-
tion would doubtless extend over a period of
two or three years, during which time there
would be issued more than a score of these re-
views. The mere announcement of such a

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PRACTICAL WORLD

plan must cause widespread popular discussion
which, together with the critical comment in
daily newspapers and literary magazines should
be no small factor in contributing to the hoped-
for success.

There would be no loss of dignity to the
scholar in thus consenting to write from the
point of view arrived at in such conferences.
On the contrary, he should welcome such
an opportunity for increasing the size of his
audience and thus the influence of his work.
We do not have to make an extended search,
to find in projects concerned with educa-
tional publications, that are in the true sense
literary publications, precedents for such co-
operation. The making of an encyclopedia of
general information, for instance, would not
be possible except by some such concert of
action and conference between editors and
writers. Of the topics to be discussed, many
have endless branches and ramifications of great
academic interest. The editors necessarily must
determine from the commercial point of view,
those to be touched upon or merely outlined or
even ignored, and those to be featured and ex-
haustively presented.

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LITERATURE AND THE

Under most favorable auspices the new re-
views would aim at being, so to speak, a labor-
saving, time-saving device to the engrossed man
of the world. In the interest of brevity, they
should contain only so much of the biography
of the author as is essential for the interpreta-
tion of his work. But at times the views of the
practical editors, as to what part of the life of
the author reviewed did really have a determin-
ing influence upon that work, would come as a
revelation to the writers. The reviews should
represent an interchange of opinions between
the writer and the editors, not unlike that
whereby the judges of our appellate courts or
directors of institutions and corporations, hav-
ing important questions to dispose of, reach
their conclusions. While seeking to avoid mere
caprice, they should aim at independence in
judgment, with the conviction that intellectual
candor can now and then safely run the risk
of being impeached for literary heresy; they
should be in the nature of appreciations rather
than criticisms, since it is of more importance
for men of to-day to know what the author
accomplished than to be cynically told what
he failed to accomplish. They should never-

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theless not reject or disregard the accepted
principles of criticism. For, appreciation has
to criticism a relation not unlike that of faith
to reason; and the thought so frequently ex-
pressed, that faith begins where reason ends is
not complete, unless we are to regard faith as
prolonged upon the lines established by reason.
The evidences of literary distinction should be
pointed out, and reinforced by homely illustra-
tions— which are not to be regarded as unfit for
service in criticism — and by appropriate and
generous quotations, more or less as in the
courts, where judges expect the assertions of
counsel to be supported by the authority of de-
cisions. The estimate of the merit of one au-
thor should be arrived at in part by a pains-
taking comparison and contrast with that of
another. There should be a presentation in the
true sense popular, with some admixture of an
old-fashioned enthusiasm for letters, and not a
mere analytical though scholarly definition of
literary excellence; and the style of the treatises
should be worthy of a great subject.

One of the distinguishing features of the re-
views should be the attempt to persuade the

new readers that the dividing line between the
I-— 17 253

LITERATURE AND THE

world of ideas and of activity is partly imagi-
nary; and that tlie books of literature, though
chiefly valuable as an intellectual asset, con-
tain much of immediate interest to us all, and
often a very shrewd knowledge of the intimate
connection between conduct and true success
in life.

Such a stanza as that of Burns —

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile,

Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by ev'ry wile

That's justify 'd by honor;
Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Not for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege

Of being independent —

or such a phrase as that of Franklin, "It is hard
for an empty bag to stand upright," has a vital
significance which is more and more apparent
when pondered over, and is a contribution not
alone to literature but to our practical and
ethical information.

All the medical authorities of the world have
not stated the relation of life out of doors to
mental vigor with any more accuracy than has
Lowell, in lines having the added merit of
peculiar beauty:

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The brain
That forages all climes to line its cells.
Ranging both worlds on highest wings of wish,
Will not distill the juices it has sucked.
To the sweet substance of pellucid thought.
Except for him who hath the secret learned,
To mix his blood with sunshine and to take
The winds into his pulses.

Superficially viewed, such a reason for devo-
tion to literature may seem comparatively nar-
row, even though the appeal be only to the
practical man; yet it is a reason, and having
regard to the special purpose of the suggested
publication it is by no means trivial.

Those who are to be responsible for these
reviews must, however, not permit themselves
to entertain this superficial view, but be on
their guard as to the correct interpretation of
what we are accustomed to hear termed prac-
tical results. For the phrase has a meaning,
varying with the persons who employ it, fre-
quently importing from men of affairs com-
mendation, and from men of letters a kind of
reproach. If the right perspective be secured
there is little difficulty in understanding that
what is at times interpreted to be nearly vision-
ary is quite the reverse. Often only time has
made the distinction apparent. Ruskin wrote

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LITERATURE AND THE

of the elements of perspective and the laws
of architecture; but he also wrote much that, in
his day, was looked upon as the incoherent
utterances of one who had gone far beyond the
French philosopher with his "Social Contract."
Yet as the years have gone by, no insignifi-
cant portions of his Munera Pulveris, Unto this
Last, and of kindred writings stand out as
milestones marking the economic progress of the
modern world, while a goodly portion of his so-
called practical work is bound up in uncon-
sulted volumes.

The charge that as a people we are altogether
too prone to look for material results in life, and
have thus become hopelessly commercialized,
has grown old in the service of criticism of
men's aims in many a day past. Yet, con-
ceding it to be peculiarly true of our time, this
practical tendency probably cannot be arrested,
even if it were desirable to make the attempt.
The words of the Apocrypha "force not the
course of the river" is a very sane contribution
to the gospel of common sense.

The effort should rather be, while in a measure
accommodating ourselves to this tendency, so
to direct it as to secure from it all possible

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PRACTICAL WORLD

benefit. There are the accompanying disadvan-
tages of a practical tendency, but then too there
are the manifest advantages. For earthy as the
thought may at first appear, a community com-
posed wholly of scholars would doubtless be a
community of stagnation; and stagnation in
life as in nature is to be shunned. Men must be
permitted to see sights as well as visions.

A reasonable pragmatism will no longer ap-
peal to us as a mere cult but as a sane phi-
losophy, if we have the good sense to realize that,
while it is the offspring of a somewhat crude
utilitarianism, it has many traits which are not
ancestral. For rightly interpreted, it proposes
a practical test that is often infallible for the
ascertainment of truth; and it points the way
to an eminence where we may view the things
of this world in their relative and not alone in
their absolute place. The training which fits
men for the realization of happiness and a
better understanding of life, while ideal is quite
as practical as that designed to promote the
acquisition of fortune, or to develop the ability
to embrace opportunity for material advance-
ment, as it presents itself. Let a man pursue a
course of education or devote himself to any

257

LITERATURE AND THE

task without some definite goal in view, and we
all know well enough that he puts a premium on
his becoming an idler in duty and purpose. It
would doubtless surprise some of us if we should
recall how many are the authors with a con-
tinuing influence in the world, that lived in
close and sympathetic touch with men or with
nature, or were identified with important
events and thus became practical in experience
and knowledge. The judge of our courts is the
better judge if, at the bar he has been the
trained advocate and adviser, and the minister
is efficient in proportion as to his interpretation
of God he brings a familiar understanding of
the needs of man.

Such views are not, as might at first seem,
opposed to the protest of Matthew Arnold,
against the too immediate application of ideas;
for he was merely inveighing against the critical
methods of some English magazines controlled
or directed by men who had personal or political
ends to subserve. Criticism, in his judgment,
as in the judgment of us all, ought not to be thus
distorted. Arnold himself was not merely the-
oretic, and when some of his really practical
injunctions are ignored, we have such an in-

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adequate estimate of his work as that in the
"EngHsh Men of Letters" series.

On the other hand, the culture which, in the
words of John Morley, "is scientific in method,
rationahstic in spirit, and utihtarian in pur-
pose," has a practical identity with conduct
and the higher aims of life. Lowell stated
that "intellect, infused with the sense of
beauty . . . seeks to give ideal expression to
those abiding realities of the spiritual world for
which the outward and visible world serves at
best but as the husk and symbol." He scarcely
needed to answer the question he asked: "Am
I wrong in using the word realities, wrong in
insisting on the distinction between the real and
the actual, in assuming for the ideal an existence
as absolute and self-subsistent as that which
appeals to our senses, nay, so often cheats them,
in the matter of fact.?*" When Emerson says
in the noble passage familiar to us all, "Now
that is the wisdom of man, in every instance of
his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star and see
his chore done by the gods themselves," he
voices the practical philosophy of life.

The time is not all lost which is given over,
even in the daytime, to the dreaming of dreams,

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LITERATURE AND THE

and it is as essential for a man's mental health
that now and then he mount a hobby, as it is
for his physical health that he sit astride a
horse. Horace, in his inimitable way, relates
how, as a child, he was saved by the Muses
from an untimely end, and they have saved
many an adult since.

The new reviews can forcibly preach also
some of this other gospel of common sense.

Still, the writers and the editors must real-
ize, that while much that is characterized
as the unfortunate consequence of a practical
tendency is unjustified, a large part of our in-
dustrial activity is not a tendency with which
we are imperceptibly drifting, but a kind of
undertow likely to sweep us off our feet. Mate-
rial success is frequently looked upon as the end
itself and not as appropriate means to a desi-
rable end. If quite candid with ourselves, we
must admit that commendable literary pro-
duction and literary appreciation are now
rather the exception than the rule, and that
there has come about a distinct deterioration
in our writing and speech — with a disposition
to avoid or apologize for a graceful, vigorous
presentation of a subject.

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The conversation of many of us — with its
narrow range and meager, starved vocabulary,
and lack of literary quality or any approach to
real charm — is a poor enough substitute for
that once heard when it was not a lost art, as
it so often seems to be at the present time.
Certainly nowadays we are privileged to en-
joy little of that conversation whereby, as Emer-
son says, we are brought "out of our egg-shell
existence into the great dome and see the zenith
over and the nadir under us," and where "in-
stead of the tanks and buckets of knowledge to
which we are daily confined we come down to
the shores of the sea and dip our hands in its
miraculous waves." William J. Locke, in one
of his fascinating novels, comments in this
quaint way upon the propensity of one of the
characters to use the word "delicious" in sea-
son and out of season:

We have the richest language that ever a people
has accreted, and we use it as if it were the poorest.
We hoard up our infinite wealth of words between
the boards of dictionaries, and in speech dole out
the worn-bronze coinage of our vocabulary. We are
the misers of philological history. And when we can
save our pennies and pass the counterfeit coin of
slang, we are as happy as if we heard a blind beggar
thank us for putting a pewter sixpence into his hat.

261

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The leaves of the Bible are no longer as of old
turned in search of its inspiration, its wisdom,
or its wondrous literary charm. From lack of
discrimination or a kindly disposition, we no
longer exact of the contemporary writer rug-
gedness, picturesqueness, and variety in the
use of language, but apparently seem in a meas-
ure content with a kind of monotone and a
structureless style. Noteworthy books if not
wholly neglected are often not really read but
skimmed; and what appears in our current
magazine publications, while by no means
trivial, does not fulfil its true office of supple-
menting literature but operates to supplant it.

No matter how embarrassing may be the
confession the truth is too that we do not re-
sent finding in many new books and plays
with no pretense to literary merit, a coarseness
and vulgarity bordering on filthiness. Alto-
gether too frequently there can be predicted
the notoriety and rewards of a "best seller,"
for the cleverly told salacious story, and for
the questionable play, if attractively presented,
the assured long run. It has come to such a
pass with the stage, as some one has aptly
said, that the question to be addressed by the

262

PRACTICAL WORLD

self-respecting playgoer to himself is not what
play shall I go to see, but what play can I go to
see. Even writers of the distinction of Mr.
Galsworthy and Mr. Wells are sometimes of-
fenders; for the admirers of them — and there are
many of these — can have little that is charitable
to say in defense of such repellent, purpose-
less productions as The Dark Flower and The
Passionate Friends. And though we should
not exaggerate the gravity of existing condi-
tions, it is mere prudence to insist that at least
we cannot in safety disregard them; for too
often are intellectual error and slothfulness and
disregard for some old-fashioned literary stand-
ards reflected in what at best is but indifferent
conduct. This is putting the case rather mild-
ly, for to such a source some of the wisest of
ancient and modern days have traced much
positive wrong-doing.

We have, so to speak, covered great distances
in our national life by dead reckoning, and, it
is time we knew something definite as to our
whereabouts. In the best literature rightly
interpreted there will be found more of such
knowledge than we are apt to realize. There
is none, as some of us seem to believe, likely to

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LITERATURE AND THE

come from the mere exhorter, the self-seeking
demagogue, the practical man without ideals
or their several understudies.

On the other hand, the scholar untrained in
the school of the world has necessarily no
monopoly of such knowledge. During a re-
cent voyage across the Atlantic, a professor of
astronomy in one of our first universities, until
requested by the captain to desist, continued
to take observations of his own and keep the
passengers in a ferment — by reporting the ship
far out of her true course and in danger of
foundering. Having neglected to allow for the
variation of the compass-needle and his ele-
vation above the surface of the sea, the learned
professor was neither a trustworthy navigator
nor a reassuring companion. Unfortunately
all men similarly equipped do not confine
their activities to the movements of vessels.
A goodly number are bustling about on shore
giving forth crude critical conclusions, un-
assented to because the practical view is left
out of their calculations.

We need in criticism and in life, quite as
much as we do in mechanics, the compensat-
ing balance.

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PRACTICAL WORLD

If, however, practical men are to be persuaded
that in the great books of Hterature is to be
found one remedy for these existing conditions,
the interpreters must be conversant with hfe as
well as with letters, and make judicious use of
their varied information in the estimate of what
constitutes literary distinction.

Above all, the conferences between the edi-
tors and the writers should emphasize the im-
portance in these reviews, of a style having
for its distinguishing characteristics, vigor and
grace and proportion made possible through
the possession of a generous vocabulary by a
disciplined or creative mind. They should not
tolerate excessive ornamentation and weak
metaphors interspersed with the imported for-
eign phrase — all as a kind of veneer designed
to palm ojff what is counterfeit as genuine and
authentic. The practical man is to be taught
by example as well as by precept, that the very
life and beauty of a sentence depend often upon
a single phrase or even a word of precision,
without which the sentence is dead and ugly
and falls to pieces as completely as an arch
collapses without its keystone. Proper words
in proper places is Swift's definition of style.

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Macaulay says: "Propriety of thought and
propriety of diction are commonly found to-
gether. Obscurity and affectation are the two
greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression
generally springs from confusion of ideas; and
the same wish to dazzle at any cost which pro-
duces affectation in the manner of a writer is
likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings."
Mr. Symonds, too, in pointing out the difference
between the language of some critics and that
of the poet, states with striking truth: "Almost
every poet has found the exact word of defini-
tion, of revelation, which the prose critics were
laboriously hunting for or still more laboriously
writing around."

Of the authors to be reviewed many would
be poets. Their genius not only for luminous
but for precise expression must be pointed out,
so that the practical man may appreciate it at
its full value. For no lawyer in his brief, no
judge in his opinion, no man of science in his
treatise uses language with more precision than
does the true poet. He has at his command
as we can so readily have at our command,
the infinite wealth of the English vocabulary.
There are its words of Latin origin for the ab-

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PRACTICAL WORLD

stract idea and the intellectual processes of
thought and reason, and the Anglo - Saxon
words, which not only stand for the tangible,
concrete things of the world, but which are
the language of the spirit — eager to rise as
on strong and tireless wings to the heights of
the fancy and the emotions. If we have per-
mitted ourselves to look upon the poet's lan-
guage merely as exaggeration, it is largely be-
cause the objects of our neglect are seen by
him in a light and color, as real as they are
magical. Poetry is not simply the most ex-
pressive and picturesque form for the occasional
use of language, but the poetical significance of
words is frequently their idiomatic, every-day
significance. Professors Greenough and Kitt-
redge put this very aptly in the chapter entitled
"Language is Poetry" of their admirable book
Words and their Ways in English Speech —
which most of us might read with profit: "Lan-
guage is fossil poetry, which is constantly
being worked over for the uses of speech.
Our commonest words are worn out meta-
phors."

This embodies the idea and in some respects
the language of Emerson:

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The etymologist finds the decadent word to have
been once a brilHant picture. Language is fossil
poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists
of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so
language is made up of images or types which now,
in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind
us of their poetic origin. But the poet names the
thing because he sees it or comes one step nearer
to it than any other.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his Preface to the
Autocrat of the Breakfast Tables in speaking of
two articles, published years before under the
same title as "crude products,'* nevertheless
wished this thought to be recalled:

When I feel Inclined to read poetry I take down
my dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as
beautiful as that of sentences. The author may
arrange the gems effectively; but their shape and
luster have been given by the utterance of ages.
Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of
imaginative writings, and I will show you a single
word which conveys a more profound, a more ac-
curate, and a more eloquent analogy.

Accurate as this statement was when it was
written, it is peculiarly so in a day and genera-
tion when we have a work of the scholarship of
the new Oxford Historical Dictionary. And one
is quite justified in saying that next to the great
joy there must be in the making of such a

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PRACTICAL WORLD

dictionary, is pleasure in the reading and study
of it.

The best in poetry and in all creditable liter-
ary composition, as in music and art and archi-
tecture, is made up of elements almost scien-
tific and mathematical in exactness. There is
the framework of literature and art, of music
and architecture just as there is of the human
body which nature conceals from the eye. The
artist, the musician, the architect, or the man
of letters looms up above his fellows in propor-
tion as he is able to reproduce or adapt this
gracious but never cheap and gaudy process
of nature. One thoroughly saturated with a
knowledge of the best in literature does not
become adept at showy declamation or flowery
writing. He has been trained in the best
school for lucid thought and convincing ex-
pression, and therefore for an increasing influ-
ence in the world. It is forgotten by some
critics that the simple precision of statement,
so essential to insure attention and persuasion
will, when a great subject is under discussion,
easily rise to true eloquence, though mere rhe-
torical or turgid speech never does.

This should not be difficult to make clear, for

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oftener than we are accustomed to assign the
correct reason for it, our estimate of the relative
excellence of authors is determined, not so much
by any superficial tricks of style, but by pre-
cision in the choice of words — economy one may
add, if he wishes to emphasize the virtue.

Little enough is the glory of the heritage of
our English speech appreciated at anything like
its full value by the most thoughtful of us, for
to no other people has such a possession been
vouchsafed. We owe the French people a debt
we can never fully discharge for their imperish-
able works of literature. Yet their language —
while, as Lowell says, it has ease, fluency,
elegance, lucidity — lacks adaptability and is
shackled in use by the required rhyme of its
poetry. Dryden, while assigning to it a superior
claim over the German, adds that it is not
"strung with sinews like our English but has
the nimbleness of the greyhound and not the
bulk and the body of a mastiff." Of the English
in comparison with the German language, Jacob
Grimm says:

The English language has a veritable power of
expression, such as, perhaps, never stood at the com-
mand of any other language of men. . . . For in

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wealth, good sense, and closeness of structure, no
other of the languages at this day spoken deserves
to be compared to it. . . .

What too must appeal to the most practical
of men is the knowledge that the English lan-
guage is adapted to be pre-eminently the great
modern language for eloquent, convincing ex-
pression,— ^provided one has an understanding
of the derivation and original significance of
its words as well as the indefinable shades of
meaning, which time and usage have imposed
upon them. The difference between the en-
gaging and the prosaic author is at times not
easy to define or even account for, and for want
of a better term, we call the difference style.
Yet this usually is but another name for a re-
sourceful knowledge of etymology, which in some
aspects is as exact a science as mathemat-
ics and as fascinating and engrossing a study
as history. Let the readiest pen lack this knowl-
edge and there results the mixed metaphor,
which is as disturbing an element in literary
expression, as a false and discordant note or the
filing of a saw in the midst of what should be
exquisite music. True enough, many words
have come to have a new, transposed meaning,

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but often in tliat meaning something of the
original significance persists and lingers. Failure
to understand this puts a premium upon in-
different literary composition.

When all this comes to be understood, as is
possible through the agency of these reviews,
the man of the world can have his whole idea
of literature transformed. With something of
moment to say, he may find himself capable of
utterance which will have the merit of sim-
plicity and precision and, at times, of such
marked attractiveness and power as to give
him a commanding place among men. Such a
possibility must make its appeal to the most
practical of men.

Nor has there been in recent history a time
when with the coming of the hour, there was
more need of the man of forceful speech, coupled
with wide experience and clear judgment — made
possible through an intimate acquaintance with
the best thought of the world, to be found in the
great books of literature. To every such man
who is a believer in the institutions of his
country, there is the summons to take part in
the right solution of political and economic
controversies, having to do not only with the

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security of liberty and property, but with the
advancement of the world — controversies which
neither indiflFerence or denunciation on the one
hand nor demagogism or emotional advocacy
on the other will ever rightly solve.

The protest in the past has been against the
power of authority in the hands of a few, and,
when it was unheeded, institutions were changed
and the lives of nations affected. The protest
to-day is against what is asserted to be the un-
due power of wealth and opportunity in the
hands of a few. The methods whereby wrong-
ly or rightly much of this wealth has been ac-
cumulated as in a night, have sown the seed
of unrest from which has sprung up an ugly
and evil crop of menacing conditions. To-day
in and out of legislatures, men by Socialism are
preaching the seductive gospel of a common
brotherhood. Some of its leaders are armed
with conviction, and some with only the subtle
art of adroit and dangerous persuasion; but
no sophist of old ever made his appeal with
anything approaching the power and ingenuity
of these messengers of new and revolutionary
creeds. Though in constructive power the
movement is yet feeble, its criticism is insidious

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because it seeks to subject the past conduct
of men to the censure and condemnation of
present-day views, and lays claim to the credit
of many new laws and customs having a purely
humanitarian origin. Yet notwithstanding all
this. Socialism is asking perplexing questions
to which only disciplined thought can give the
convincing answer.

We shall be foolish indeed if we fail to do
what lies in our power so to equip men, that
they may be ready to cope with this organized
effort to bring mankind to a dangerous and
degrading commonplace level. Unwilling as
we are to assent to the claim of Socialism and
its allied protests, that any millennium can be
brought about by statutory enactment, we
must nevertheless be prepared for some pru-
dent compromise between what we have been
taught to regard as right, and those new con-
ditions which the enemies of existing condi-
tions so loudly demand. Even such a com-
promise involves a reconstruction of many of
our traditional and time-honored views.

Those who decline to admit the ominous
advances Socialism has made, must at least
recognize that, imperceptibly at first but surely

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and visibly now, there has come about even
among men of right understanding, a steady
process of detachment from some old concep-
tions of political and even property rights —
disillusion many may choose to characterize
the process. The high estimate in which
wealth and inherited advantage and position
were once held has undergone a marked change.
The praise awarded to men for individual ac-
complishment is beginning to be measured by
the relation of that accomplishment to the in-
terests of society as a whole; and many things,
once regarded as of primary economic value
and importance have been assigned to an-
other and less important place in the catalogue
time has made up.

It is at best doubtful if the world of to-
morrow will permit the continuance of condi-
tions that have invited the amassing of many
vast present-day fortunes. If it finds itself un-
able to interfere with the constitutional right
to gather and enjoy such fortunes, we may ex-
pect it to set its face against the unrestricted
privilege of their testamentary disposition — ■
which is purely a statutory right and not diflS-
cult therefore to reach and modify. The de-

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bate as to the rights and limitations of capital
and labor, the measure of legal and conventional
restraints to be put upon evils that cannot be
legislated out of existence, are subjects which
are no longer to be resolved by recourse alone
to old precedents.

The notion is abroad and fortified by many
an argument often specious but sometimes
weighty, that the much-heralded door of op-
portunity is closed and boarded up in this
country. Clearly enough in more than one
industry artificially stimulated by a protective
tariff, unremunerative capital and underpaid
labor are confronting each other in a kind of
dazed attitude and hopeless defiance. Grave
as the situation admittedly is, it is made still
graver by the self-seeking or ignorant agitator
who, whatever his motive, is the common
enemy of the community. Men holding high
political positions are swept along with the
current of new ideas, which have little if any-
thing but novelty for their recommendation.
And some such men are apparently from mere
recklessness adding to the increasing volume
and the alarming tendencies of that current.
Knowingly or unknowingly, like the false

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prophets of Scripture, they "show great signs
and wonders so as to lead astray if possible
even the elect." In this emergency, men of
mark and tried experience are not to abdicate
their place of authority to men with views
founded upon error, or with only the informa-
tion supplied by the curriculum of the university.
On the contrary the distinguished lawyer, the
trained speaker and writer, the man prominent
in business, while first discharging the primary
obligations of their several callings, must let it be
known that they are in the world and of it, and
realize their great stake in the common welfare.
Many must serve in such a cause, but we may
be sure that those to whom leadership is to be
conceded, will have the ability to express them-
selves with clearness and persuasion and judg-
ment. If men of the world, in the broadest
and best sense of the term, can be persuaded
of the truth of all this, as they undoubtedly
can be through these reviews, surely the dust
will not gather hereafter as it does to-day on
so many undisturbed volumes.

The proposed publication may be oppor-
tune, for the reason that the time has doubtless

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come for a re-appraisement of the value of many
prose and possibly some poetic productions.
If this be wisely and courageously done it should
serve not only to arouse fresh interest in the great
books of the world, but to stimulate that finer
thought which will express itself in new litera-
ture and in conduct; and this, after all, must
be one of the main objects of judicious criticism.
The words of Shakespeare, that reputation is
oft got without merit and lost without the de-
serving, are not inapplicable to literary repu-
tation. Even the superficial observer realizes
that, while as a rule our estimate of the worth
of poetry once established persists, that of prose
writings undergoes if not frequent at least peri-
odic changes. This is largely so because the
appeal of poetry is so often to the emotions,
and its "subject-matter" as Mr. Alfred Noyes
says, "is the all-enfolding skies of life," though
merely this circumstance will not always ac-
count for the result. Not alone is the subject-
matter of the prose work often of interest only
to its own age, but its inferior form quite as
much as its temporary interest affects our final
judgment. It may be that the spoken prose
words passing into the printed book lose what

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originally was their oral charm; or the very
ornateness of the style, once its chief recom-
mendation— as it was not so long ago of a
certain form of oratory now generally dis-
credited— no longer attracts us; or the work
may rest on a make-shift foundation of caprice
or fashion, and so share in the end the fate of
the foundation.

Reasonable regard for the critical views of the
past is not to be confused with servile accept-
ance of them, when the conditions which led
to their expression have changed. The prac-
tical man of the world if he is to be persuaded
of the value generally of literature, must find
in the critic's views some recognition of the
changed estimate which time has made in the
relative value of the work of different authors.
Tennyson and Keats are not to be classed to-
gether as poets, nor Macaulay and Carlyle as
historians and essayists, without any attempt
to indicate the superiority of the work of one
over that of the other in creative power and
permanent wealth. If, as Mr. John Morley in-
sists, Macaulay, with all his vast information,
was flashy, and shallow and vulgar, the reader
is entitled to look for such frankness from the

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critic in these new reviews. Discrimination,
too, must be made between the various pro-
ductions of the same author. Even men of
genius are not always at their best, and the
fame of Wordsworth was not a Httle added to
when his finer work was gathered by Matthew
Arnold into one volume.

Naturally such discrimination involves the
exercise not alone of literary judgment but of
courage, for it will meet with many remon-
strances. Yet without such discrimination the
scholar cannot reasonably expect that his au-
dience will include the great body of practical
men of the world. Having to do in their lives
with material progress which often makes the
accepted view of to-day, the rejected view or
the half-truth of to-morrow, they are no longer
prepared to receive without question, stereo-
typed conclusions from which there is legiti-
mate dissent. A foreign diplomat of distinc-
tion lately visiting this country, is reported to
have said that we have the tenacity of tradition
and the audacity of progress. If it be flattering
to us to regard this as true of our political de-
velopment, we should endeavor to see to it
that such a phrase has some application to our

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critical appreciation and judgments of the books
of literature.

A practical age is not without its valuable
contributions to right critical conclusions. One
of the lessons it emphasizes is that for the high-
est expression in music, in the drama and in
architecture as well as in literature, there must
not be mere repetition or reproduction but ap-
propriate adaptations of past models, and tran-
sitions from what is old and obsolete to what is
new and of present interest. It is not so clear
that we understand this distinction as do the
French. Certainly in architecture we do not;
for side by side with the "sky-scraper " capable
of being so designed as to have its imposing
effect, we set up copies of noble buildings which
in new and incongruous surroundings ill serve
their intended purpose, either of utility or
beauty — qualities not mutually opposed, as
some of us think. On the contrary, that which
should have but which is wanting in utility,
can never be wholly beautiful.

Unquestionably there is something uninvit-
ing in abridgments of works of famous authors,
and we receive a kind of shock when we read
of such an edition of Scott's novels. Yet had

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Scott lived in this century, we may be quite
sure that his elaborate introductions and pref-
aces would have been less extended, and his
stories told with only such incidental descrip-
tions of natural scenery as were essential to the
dramatic development of the plot or characters.
Why conceal from ourselves the fact that by
our picking and choosing as we read, we do
that which is the equivalent of abridgment,
skip what does not grip and hold the interest?
In this respect we must admit that we are all
swept along with the swift, practical current
of the age.

One of the most fascinating short-story
writers not only of his day but of all time, is
"O. Henry." More and more his claim to a
permanent reputation will assert itself until it
is once and for all time established. We have
no difficulty in calling to mind the authors of
a past age that would have prolonged into half
a volume one of his dramatic stories, which it
was the exception with him to permit to exceed
a score of pages. Had he lived a hundred years
ago, doubtless his stories would have had the
elaboration of the authors of that day. It may
be that he went too far in brevity, and also

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that in the interest of a prompter acceptance of
his work, he permitted it to be permeated with
a kind of slang which will never come into even
colloquial use. Thus he may never become a
classic; but that such stories as "The Gift of
the Magi" and "The Roads of Destiny " and a
host of others are masterpieces, and that he was
one of America's men of genius there is little
room for doubt. In cleverness, conciseness and
a fine interpretation of the perplexing contradic-
tions of life, and in its contributions to a wider
charity in our judgment of men and events, the
work of "O. Henry" was distinctly the brilliant
product of a practical age.

Shakespeare, along with many of the dis-
tinguished dramatists, wrote for audiences not
accustomed to the variety of scenic effect we
insist upon. The scenes in the manuscript,
therefore, might be varied at will without in-
volving any corresponding change of stage set-
ting. When to-day these plays are given in
the theatre they are re-arranged to suit mod-
ern requirements, so that the manager will not
be a bankrupt before the curtain rises. Yet
often contemporary dramatic work of distinct
merit finds its way from the manager to the

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waste-basket or back to the playwright, be-
cause written in slavish adherence to what is
obsolete. We scarcely need to be reminded
that to conform too closely in literary judgment
and literary workmanship to impracticable prec-
edents, is not more sensible than would be the
worship to-day of the gods of the ancient re-
ligions.

It is asserted that the drama — to which we
have been taught to look for the highest ex-
pression of literature — is just now without
worthy literary creations; and certainly many
successful plays of to-day support the state-
ment. Yet this is by no means the whole
story; for though we are not entitled to ex-
pect in the modern play the literary excellence
of former days, it need not by any means be
devoid of merit as literature. Some plays hav-
ing that merit but wanting in dramatic quality
are failures from lack of popular support.
Thereupon the author and his admirers rush
to unamiable conclusions about the commer-
cialism of the stage. This is pique rather than
judgment. The great plays of the past were
successful, not because they were literature
but primarily because they were dramas.

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Shakespeare ransacked the ancient and modern
world for the plot or story which would arrest
and insure the interest of the public. He was
manager as well as playwright; and, heresy
though it may be to some of his worshipers, he
was obliged to be first the discerning manager
in order to continue to be the successful play-
wright. The end would have come very soon
if the financial result had always disclosed more
outgo than income. He accordingly wrote
popular plays, though we can well believe that
his genius was capable of producing even
grander works of the imagination if this con-
cession had not been essential. Yet without
this concession there would be a great dark-
ness in the world where there is now a great
light.

Neither literature nor art is prostituted by
judicious recognition of the demands of its age.
Always the relative question projects itself
into our thoughts and work. Reasonable com-
promise is not the surrender of principle, but
the highest as well as the most prudent exer-
cise of judgment. The practical world to-day
is a busy world with little time for debate on
theoretic questions; rightly or wrongly it de-

I-— 19 285

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maiids results. Finding a play of literary merit
a failure because it never projects itself across
the footlights, the public concludes — and has
neither time nor inclination to listen to any
other explanation — that literature and the
drama have had an absolute divorce.

The experienced advocate at the Bar often
sees the opportunity for a kind of address that
would add to his reputation. He remembers,
however, the judge and the jury, upon whom it
might make an unfortunate impression, and in
the interest of his client, he dismisses the
temptation. This does not mean that he must
be slovenly in argument; quite the contrary,
for the intellectual, well-balanced appeal can be
depended upon to be persuasive and effective.
Though the lawyer may even believe that his
rhetorical and perhaps his eloquent speech
would read well in his memoirs, yet if that
continued to be his chief ambition, it is doubt-
ful if he would have memoirs. If the artist does
not so vary his theories as to secure and retain
public support, he will paint canvases solely for
his own gratification and that of his immediate
circle of admirers. The surgeon that deter-
mines upon the operation which he may regard

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PRACTICAL WORLD

as desirable for his patient's good, without
first considering whether the anesthetic can be
safely administered, will not be required to
devote all his time to his profession. Some
otherwise unemployed part of it, will be taken
up with the defense of actions for malpractice.
The practical men, in the conferences spoken
of, should have little difficulty in persuading the
scholar that he must at times so modify the
statement of his own views as to accommodate
himself to the views, or perhaps he may choose
to think the limitations, of the readers he is
seeking to reach.

The practical editors would also make it clear
to the scholar, that one of the principal objects
of criticism is the promotion of new literature.
A critic, therefore, must set no fashion, where-
by the painstaking work of the capable author
of to-day will be summarily dismissed and
the enthusiasm for new effort killed by the
frivolous, inconsiderate, rough attack. Criti-
cism is not spleen or thoughtlessness or ridi-
cule. The critics for those daily newspapers
in the editorial columns of which is still main-
tained the art of finished writing, have their

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peculiar responsibilities in this regard. There
is at least one such morning newspaper and
one such evening newspaper in the city of
New York, and when from this source rough
and unjust words come, they cut like a lash
and stun like a blow.

Some time since a narrative poem was pub-
lished, of such merit that the number of men
now living, with the equipment to write it,
could be counted on the fingers of one's hands.
A very ill-considered review in a daily journal
of wide circulation and influence, condemned
this work of years on the ground that only
subjective poetry — the outcome or the expres-
sion of the emotions — was of any moment in
the world. The present writer undertook by
a review of it in one of our prominent maga-
zines to present its claims to just considera-
tion, and later there was like commendation
from others. Thereupon the newspaper in
which the criticism appeared, re-published not
only without delay but with favorable com-
ment, what had been said in praise of the work.
Who can measure the effect of such a simple act
of justice, done promptly and ungrudgingly,
upon the life of an author .^^ Fortunately Ar-

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nold did not succumb to the savage attack upon
some of his early work, though humiliation
drove him to withdraw for a time from circula-
tion, a volume containing many of his finest
poems.

Critics too often forget that they carry about
with them a very deadly weapon in the pen.
They would have a forcible illustration of the
better course if they should embrace the oppor-
tunity of listening in the Supreme Court of the
United States, to the method adopted by its
Chief Justice, probably the greatest judge in
the English-speaking world. In interrupting
counsel before him — with whom he is quite
evidently not in complete accord — it is uni-
formly with the manner and sometimes with the
statement, that it is done for the purpose of
seeing if it be not possible for him to occupy
the point of view of the counsel. The counsel,
appreciating the purpose of the interruption, is
not depressed but stimulated by it.

Moreover, in undertaking to give a just esti-
mate of the value of the books of literature,
the practical editors would see to it that the
personality of the author is not, as has often
been the case, taken too much into considera-

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tion. Guesses as to what would have been the
result if an author had possessed this or that
virtue, or been without this or that blemish, are
at best idle; for how far personality is an insep-
arable part of literary creation we can never
know. Unquestionably the mess which Shelley
made of his life had much to do with Arnold's
faulty estimate of his contribution to the
permanent literature of the English language.
Even to Burns he did scant justice, while
Emerson was the uncompromising judge of both
Shelley and Poe. Carlyle was wise in not
permitting his views to be thus warped; he was
wiser still, for he meted out no blame but had
only "pity and wonder" for the transgressions
of erring genius.

But the world is habitually unjust in its judgments
of (such men; unjust on many grounds, of which this
one may be stated as the substance: It decides, like
a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively,
but negatively, less on what is done right, than on
what is or is not done wrong. Not the few inches
of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are
so easily measured, but the ratio of these to the whole
diameter, constitutes the real aberration. This or-
bit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the
solar system; or it may be a city hippodrome; nay,
the circle of a gin -horse, its diameter a score of
feet or paces. But the inches of deflection only are

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measured; and it is assumed that the diameter of
the gin-horse, and that of the planet, will yield the
same ratio when compared with them! Here lies
the root of many a bUnd, cruel condemnation of
Burnses, Swifts, Rousseaus, which one never listens
to with approval.

Then, too, one of the chief entrances to
nature for the most practical man if he would
find the treasures there, is through the gateway
of literature. We must learn that really to
visit her wonderland, it is essential that we be
accompanied by the poets as guides and in-
terpreters. Without them, though we behold
vast horizons and listen to inspiring music, we
shall be blind to much of the beauty and deaf
to much of the harmony there. By his com-
munion with nature, the poet comes to have
a clairvoyant knowledge of things unseen or
even undreamt of by us.

In the Arabian tale — referred to by Macaulay
in his protest at the indifference of Mitford to
Greek literature — the dervish gladly bartered
worldly possessions for the mysterious fluid
which could uncover to him the hidden beauties
of the universe. The illuminating word of the
poet is even greater in magical power, and for
it we may wisely make a similar sacrifice.

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Nature asks of us with Horace:

Deterius Libycis olet aut nitet herba lapillis?

but in countless ways we give back the wrong
answer.

With the poets — and the Burroughs and the
Thoreaus, for they are poets too — the famihar
but unregarded sights of nature are woven into
the very fiber of their thoughts and emotions.
To Wordsworth, "the impulse from a vernal
wood" was more than the teachings of the
sages. And when we have drunk deep of the
spirit of such familiar lines as,

and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face;

and.
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream,

the waters, that for so many of us are but a
graceful addition to the landscape, or a profitable
place for a fisherman to cast his fly, become the
mirror of haunting verse. The advent of the
successive seasons, the coming of the night and
dawn, the moon, the sun, the stars and con-

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PRACTICAL WORLD

stellations, the cloud that floats overhead, the
lightning and tempest, the rain, the rainbow
and the dew from heaven, the snowfall, the
brook and rivulet, the stream, the stately river,
the seas, the hill and valley, the woods and fields
and meadows, the tiniest bird and insect and
the wayside flower — all have been created for
us anew by the revelation of poetry.

If we think the lines of Perdita exaggerated:

Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.
Or Cytherea's breath,

it is only because there has not come to us, as
there had come to Shakespeare, a miraculous
insight into the mystery of nature.

The glory of nature has not been told by the
naturalist and astronomer alone. At one ex-
treme we stand in our indifference or ignorance,
and at the other, botanists and ornithologists
familiar with the birds and flowers by their
structure, and astronomers engrossed with the
problem of determining the weights and density
and distances of heavenly bodies. Between the
two extremes but somewhere on the mountain-

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tops, is the dreaming poet througli whom we
may, if we will, know the flowers and birds and
stars, not only as they are in nature but as
they are in song and legend. Mere technical
knowledge is not the sole substitute for igno-
rance, and neither mathematics nor botany can
teach us all of nature's lessons. Often in life as
in optics, the higher the magnifying power the
less extended the field of vision. It is said of
Leverrier that — after having demonstrated by
his marvelous mathematical calculations in the
study, that the orbit of an observed planet
betrayed the existence of another till then
unknown — ^he had not the curiosity to view
with the telescope his discovery in the
heavens.

Walt Whitman comes into close communion
with the spirit if not the letter of poetry in
these lines from the "Leaves of Grass":

When I heard the learned astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me.

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them.

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he
lectured with much applause in the lecture-
room.

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

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Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to

time.
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

When the long roll of poets is called, we are
able to name but few whose charm and power
do not in large part proceed from this close
communion with nature; like Antaeus of old
they renewed their strength by contact with
the mother earth.

We think of Emerson as the seer and the
writer of what Matthew Arnold believed to be
the most important prose of the nineteenth
century. But in his one volume of poetry,
overshadowed in importance though it be by
his essays, there is a passionate love of nature,
now manifesting itself in a glad outburst of
song, and now bringing to us with great organ
notes of harmony a kind of peace that passes
understanding — not unlike that invoked for us
in the prayer of the benediction. The key to
which the music of his great prose work is set
is in these poems.

To give any adequate idea of how great that
passion was, would be to append nearly all his
poems, for no lines torn away from their con-

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text and made to do poor service as quotations
will suffice. Over him always

Soared the eternal sky.
Full of life and deity.

For him

The countless leaves of the pine are strings
Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings;

and he would have us

Take the bounty of thy birth,
Taste the lordship of the earth.

He takes his texts from all of nature's reve-
lations. The bumblebee, mocking, as he says,
at fate and care — ^his "Yellow-breeched philoso-
pher"— is a teacher above many pedagogues.
For Emerson the earth "laughs in the flowers,'*
and he has catalogued them for us, not in the
learned index but in lines of stirring verse.
Whether he sings of the sea with its "mathe-
matic ebb and flow," of the outstretched fields
or of "the radiant pomp of sun or star," it is
always with the fervor of an adoration. Even
in the "Threnody," that plaintive poem of the
soul's lament over the loss of his "hyacinthine
boy," nature comes to him with a consolation
like a caress. Companionship with his spirit

PRACTICAL WORLD

as we go out under the skies will mean for our
exhilaration many a verse like this:

Whoso walks in solitude

And inhabiteth the wood.

Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird

Before the money loving herd.

Into that forester shall pass

From these companions power and grace.

To the poet's view, as it ought to be ours.

Even bones are bleached

And lichened into color with the crags.

When in accord with the imagination of the
poet we too are able

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower;
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand.

And eternity in an hour.

Even prosaic and repellent things can be-
come the theme of poetry. The worm, the
naturalist tells us, renews the soil, but to
Tennyson :

The souls of evil men are drawn

Down as the worm draws in the wither'd leaf.

And makes it earth.

Cicero states a truth often overlooked by us,
when he describes in eloquent words how the
contemplation of the heavens and of nature

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LITERATURE AND THE

subordinates our own petty affairs to the
grandeur of the world. Still, with our modern-
day neglect of the emotions, and with what
Wordsworth calls our getting and spending
and the laying waste of our powers, it is to be
feared that we fail to find in such thoughts the
antidote we need for our vanity.

The farmer with his life out of doors, is to
many of us the embodiment of what is pecul-
iarly practical. Yet he gives no heed to the wild
flowers he treads underfoot in the fields, to the
birds singing unrecognized notes in the trees and
the air, or to the stars in the sky; while to any
adequate appreciation of nature's loveliness he
is indeed blind from birth. His plodding rou-
tine repeated day by day, is a good illustration
of the homely adage that shoemakers* wives and
blacksmiths' horses oftenest go barefoot. Nor
are we, experienced men of the world and suc-
cessful in life by the accepted standards of
success, so much superior to this farmer. And
is it not far from the truth that — aside perhaps
from one or two ordinary wild flowers and
birds of the fields, and the "big dipper" in the
sky — we have little or no conception of the
feast which Nature in her bounty has spread out

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to the eye, the mind, and the soul. Though the
ignorance is a kind of indictment of our modern-
day education, we do not know even the names
of the stars or their groupings in the constella-
tions, of which poets sang centuries before
the Christian era. Nor have we such informa-
tion as a mere smattering of popular astronomy
can give us.

We are wrong in our view, if we think the
dawn the same to one that does not know as to
one that knows such lines as

Night's candles are burnt out.
And jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty moun-
tain-top.

The close of the day becomes something more
than the going down of the sun and an end for
the time being of our bustle, if we recall that
to Evening, Milton has written the accompani-
ment of a great hymn surpassing in melody any
even-song, that ever rose on the air at vespers,
to the arches of church or cathedral. The night
is one thing to him that knows, and quite an-
other thing to him that does not know such
lines as those beginning

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.

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LITERATURE AND THE

The moon shines for us with renewed splendor
if we are able to recall the prodigal imagery
of Shelley's lines in "The Cloud." If we sur-
render ourselves to the poet as interpreter, the
milky way is no mere bright band of stars but
in truth a river of light in the firmament:

The white drift of worlds . . .

The Stardust that is whirled aloft and flies

From the invisible chariot wheels of God.

The Pleiads in their dazzling clusters; Orion
and Sirius in their startling radiance; the
sparkling jewels in the crown of Ariadne; Arc-
turus and Spica in their serene loveliness; the
marvelous Vega toward which we and our
solar system are journeying through endless
space with a velocity the imagination cannot
conceive; the planets in their stately and ma-
jestic procession through the constellations, and
all the starry host shine as of old and sing still
the celestial music of the spheres, as they have
shone and sung through the ages — though
revealing to us now the secrets of the in-
finite universe and the religion of the reign
of law.

Yet to most of us, except for an occasional
indifferent glance into the skies, the lights and

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glories there are about as expressionless as the
city street-lamp.

Lamb in his poem "Living Without God in
the World," says:

Heavens roof to them.
- It is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps.
No more, that lights them to their purposes.

We pass all this by without much comment,
but we should have our goodly share of con-
tempt for a companion who, visiting with us a
famous gallery, could be similarly indifferent to
its canvases and sculptures which were among
the treasures of the earth. It is a strange world
we inhabit. The ignorance we are prepared to
censure merely lessens what might be the fund
of our conversation and pleasure; the other
ignorance has to do with things of imposing
grandeur in themselves, and which are sym-
bols too of the divinely ordered plan of life.

The sublime prayer of Milton for celestial
light could not have been answered in such
abundance, if great visions had not first come to
him from the earth and the sky. His genius,
rooted in a love of nature and of God, groped
its way through all the tragedy of his blindness,
until it grew into the beauty and strength of a

I.— 20 801

LITERATURE AND THE

perfected creation. Literature and life became
one with him, as they may become one with us.

The province of the Arts is the province too
of literature. There is something deficient in
all our accumulated knowledge of sculpture, if
we are ignorant of Keats's Ode on a Grecian
Urn; and Emerson, in his pregnant way, points
out how alike are the methods of the poet and
the painter that reach an eminence in the
world. Milton besought of Mirth music, but
it was to be music

in soft Lydian airs
Married to immortal verse;

and Victor Hugo, in one of his wonderful cre-
ative chapters,

Ceci tueea cela,

tells how the book was to be destructive of the
edifice, and how printing was to embody what
had been creative in architecture.

We leave unopened the great books of litera-
ture wherein we may learn that all these foun-
tains of inspiration are at our threshold, while

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we are making long and arduous journeys only
to find polluted waters.

There is to-day another reason why in the
interest of both enjoyment and knowledge, the
practical man should have recourse to litera-
ture. Though we are no longer making the
voyage of life by some old religious charts, we
have not yet found — and perhaps we have not
sought to find — any substitute for what we have
lost. If in our indifference we fail to search for
it in literatiu'e, we have no good reason to
expect, however much else we may do, that
material considerations or at best mere moral
excellence will not continue to be too controlling
a factor with us. Science has its well-defined
function for teaching men precision of thought
and morality has its decalogue; but neither
should usurp the province of the emotions and
the imagination. If the Bible has ceased to
be merely the inspired record of miraculous
events, it must not be permitted to fall into
neglect or become simply a moral code. Stripped
of crudities and contradictions and obsolete
dogma with its blood -stains of controversy
and persecution, and of those things which
have forfeited the regard of reverent intelli-

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LITERATURE AND THE

gence, the Bible still remains the Holy Scrip-
tures in whose pages are to be found sacred
truth, the lessons and life of a Teacher in all
essentials divine, and the longing of the soul
and the mind for emancipation from what is
debasing or commonplace in life.

Arnold tells us that we should have in mind
quotations from the classic writers, as "touch-
stones," by which to test and reveal literary
excellence in others. We need them much
more for the higher service of a quickening of
the spirit. Mere forms of expression will point
the way to nobler thought and finer conduct;
and at times but a phrase has kindled a fire of
patriotism and sacrifice whose warmth and
light will never die out in the world. Shake-
speare did not merely make marvelous contribu-
tions to the pleasures of the imagination; he
has had an immeasurable influence upon the
thoughts and manners of men and the develop-
ment of nations. Not on a mimic stage but
in a world of purpose, the characters of Shake-
speare— made alive and real as are the char-
acters of history, by the genius of his thought
and his limitless power over expression — ^pass
before us in eloquent procession. His spiritual

304

PRACTICAL WORLD

gift to mankind, aside from that given to us in
the Bible is supreme and of a kinship with
righteousness. The homely exhorter of days
gone by has been able to tell the story of cause
and effect in the moral world, with as much
literal truth as do illustrious authors. Yet his
words have a relation to theirs, not unlike that
which the facts gathered together in some book
of reference have to literary creation, or a col-
lection of statutes to the vital organic law.
From well-known texts the one expounds the
gospel of what is admittedly praiseworthy,
often to weary and inattentive listeners. The
others with the same texts cause the responsive
chord of a finer impulse to vibrate within us;
and though what they say may not be new it
can never grow old, for it contains the secret
of eternal youth.

One who really lives within the influences
proceeding from the inspired books of the
Bible and from Shakespeare, and Carlyle and
Wordsworth and Emerson and Arnold and
Lowell and all those with whom culture was
a creed, comes to possess the refinement of
speech and conduct which pure thoughts com-
pel. We cannot live in the society of accom-

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LITERATURE AND THE

plished people and naturally turn to vulgar
associations. We hear a great deal concern-
ing the decadence of style among authors, yet
there is a world of truth in the statement that
our writing is a by-product of our conversation.
Men betray their environment by their thought
and speech and act, quite as much as they do in
dress and manners. If they elect to live amid
surroundings where ideals are flouted or held
in slight regard, then almost as certainly as the
night follows the day, their conduct will accord
with the views in which they are content to
acquiesce.

Under right conditions — and they are to be
largely found in the progress we are making in
this country along humanitarian lines — ^the ap-
preciation of the side of literature which, in
part, can take the place of much that was once
regarded as essential religious belief, should
hasten the production of the higher literature
we are entitled to look for.

We are making momentous strides in ad-
vancing the good of the world. However it
may be with us in trade and manufacture,
there is no monopoly but the keenest com-
petition in benevolence. So pronounced has

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PRACTICAL WORLD

this become that the judicious are not with-
out concern lest such generous sources should
produce a tendency, Hkely to take from the
beneficiaries the incentive to independence and
mdividuality. Men and institutions are held
up to a searching responsibility. If some of-
fenses escape condemnation in the courts of
law, the court of public opinion announces its
decision in no uncertain tone; and we have but
to look about us to see more than the begin-
nings of a determination that personal advan-
tage shall not be gained or even sought at the
expense of the public welfare.

If this great movement be not arrested — and
the indications are that it is increasing — then
from the point to which it will advance us
there should be no abyss to be bridged, but
merely an uninterrupted path to literary crea-
tion, all the more impressive because of its
origin and inspiration. It is a wholly reason-
able expectation that when, by understanding
the literature we have, we shall have been
fitted to be appreciative as well as eager list-
eners for the new message, there will be found
those prepared to speak it with eloquent and
persuasive voice. The throbbing heart of the

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LITERATURE AND THE

world has made life aglow with a mighty purpose;
and it will be strange indeed if a great spirit-
ual epoch does not in the end become a great
literary epoch.

This need not be a mere opinion but it can
become a faith upon which we can lay hold, if
we permit ourselves to understand the spirit of
such an inspired prophecy as this of Emerson:

What, then, shall hinder the Genius of the time
from speaking its thought? It cannot be silent, if
it would. It will write in a higher spirit and a
wider knowledge and with a grander practical aim
than ever yet guided the pen of poet. It will write
the annals of a changed world, and record the de-
scent of principles into practice, of love into govern-
ment, of love into trade. It will describe the new
heroic life of man, the now unbelieved possibility
of simple living and of clean and noble relations with
men. Religion will bind again those that were
sometimes frivolous, customary enemies, skeptics,
self-seekers, into a joyful reverence for the circum-
ambient Whole, and that which was ecstasy shall
become daily bread.

These are among the reasons which must in
the end bring home to us all, however practical
we may be, a recognition of the deep and ever-
increasing significance of the relation of litera-
ture to life.

For literature exalts what is ideal without

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PRACTICAL WORLD

ignoring or under-estimating the worth of what
is practical in the world; it shows us nature
as a land of loveliness to the eye, and re-creates
it as a land of the imagination to whose do-
minion and grandeur there are no boundaries;
it puts within our reach the invaluable posses-
sion of forceful, persuasive speech, and holds out
to us the divine gift of charity, of right judg-
ment, and of everlasting truth; it presents to us
infinite horizons and worthy aims, and enables
us to see in every-day affairs and in great
emergencies not only the opportunity for ad-
vantage but the privilege of service; it enables
us to view the things of this world in their true
proportion and perspective by contrasting them
with the things which are unseen and eternal;
it puts between us and sordid thoughts an im-
passable abyss; it teaches us to write our laws
and fashion our conduct so as to become mighty
as a people in something else than material
resources; and it so ministers to our higher
needs, that the petty affairs of life become
subordinate to its true purpose and mere mo-
rality becomes a religion.

Shall not the practical man and the scholar
serve together in such a noble, inspiring cause —

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LITERATURE AND THE

to the end that the world may escape many of
the perils of its voyage, and that the wondrous
visions, seen by the wise men of all times, may
become for us a reality and a sure possession?

Let us not make the fatal mistake that any
success, however conspicuous, gained at the
sacrifice of such prospects, can rightly be re-
garded as other than an ominous, Pyrrhic vic-
tory. It is true that the records of history and
our experience bear witness to our almost inex-
haustible resourcefulness when confronted by
adverse conditions, and give us a hope that the
outcome will not be disheartening now. But
this hope, to be reasonable, must have made
a covenant with unremitting watchfulness and
effort.

Our country to-day stands for a great ac-
complishment, but it is mere vanity for us to
regard ourselves as immune from the dangers of
tendencies that must be checked and of problems
that must be wisely solved. If we are thus un-
wise we must be content to witness the impair-
ment of our obvious mission as a nation — des-
tined perhaps to express the final judgment of
the world as to the experiment of a democracy.

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Emerson optimist though he was expresses
these misgivings as he prophesies of the future:

The spread eagle must fold his foolish wings and
be less of a peacock.

And then he adds:

In this country, with our practical understanding
there is, at present, a great sensualism, a headlong
devotion to trade, to trade and to the conquest of
continent — to each man as large a share of the same
as he can carve for himself — an extravagant con-
fidence in our talent and activity, which becomes,
whilst successful, a scornful materialism, but with
the fault, of course, that it has no depth, no reserved
force to fall back upon when a reverse comes.

Matthew Arnold from another land, speak-
ing with the authority of a distinguished scholar
and kindly critic, in his lecture on "Numbers"
— one of the American addresses by which he
wished to be remembered more than by any
of his other prose productions — says:

And the philosophers and the prophets, whom I
at any rate am disposed to believe, and who say that
moral causes govern the standing and the falling of
states, will tell us that the failure to mind whatsoever
things are elevated must impair with an inexorable
fatality the life of a nation, just as the failure to
mind whatsoever things are just, or whatsoever
things are pure, will impair it; and that if the failure
to mind whatsoever things are elevated should be

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real in your American democracy, and should grow
into a disease, and take firm hold on you, then the
life of even these great United States must inevitably
sufiFer and be impaired more and more, until it
perish.

Horace, in one of his impassioned Odes,
summed up for us as well as for the Roman peo-
ple the philosophy of conduct, when he charged
them with having left too long unvisited and
neglected the altars of the gods.

Dis ie minorem quod geris imperas
Hinc omne jyrincipium, hue refer exitum.

Where there is no vision the people perish,
says the proverb of Scripture. And should it
ever come to pass that we cease to hold in es-
teem and cast out of our lives great literature,
and all those other influences which make for a
finer growth and a more responsive citizenship,
we may be sure the Republic is not safe.

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