Good health is a great pre-requisite of successful or happy living. To live worthily or happily, to accomplish much for one’s self or others, when suffering from pain and disease, is attended with difficulty. Dr. Johnson used to say that “Every man is a rascal when he is sick.” And very much of the peevishness, irritability, capriciousness and impatience seen in men and women has its root in bodily illness. The very morals suffer from disease of the body.—Mary A. Livermore.
Season of 1884.
ByRev. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
The Temple on Mount Moriah was the result of long growth. 1. It began withthe Altar, erected of loose stones wherever the patriarchs journeyed, and bearing its bloody sacrifice as a prefiguration of Christ. 2. Next camethe Tabernacle, a movable tent, designed for a nomadic people, and symbolizing God’s dwelling-place among his people. 3. When the Tabernacle was fixed at Shiloh, a more substantial structure, by degrees, took the place of the tent, surrounded by rooms in which the priests lived, and standing in an open court. 4. This, in the age of David and Solomon, furnished the ground plan for the Temple on Mount Moriah.
There were three temples. 1.Solomon’s Temple, dedicated 1000 B. C., and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, 587 B. C. 2.Zerubbabel’s Temple, begun by the Jews on the return from captivity, B. C. 536, and completed in 20 years. 3.Herod’s Temple, begun 30 B. C., as the second temple was in a ruinous condition, but not fully completed until 65 A. D., five years before its final destruction by Titus. The latter is the one to be briefly described in this lesson. It consisted of several courts and an interior building. The dimensions named below are not precise, as the length of the cubit and the thickness of the walls are uncertain.
I.The Court of the Gentileswas an open plaza, or quadrangle, not square, but of about 1000 feet on each side. It was surrounded by a high wall, and entered by six gates, of which three were on the west, toward the city, and one on each of the other sides. On the eastern side extended a double colonnade, Solomon’s Porch, and on the south another, Herod’s Porch. As this was not regarded a sacred place, it was considered no sacrilege to have amarketupon its marble floor, especially for the sale of animals for sacrifice.
II. On the northwestern part of the Court was thechel, or sacred enclosure, a raised platform 8 feet high, surrounded by a fence, within which no Gentile could enter. Its outer dimensions were about 630 by 300 feet. It was entered by nine gates, four each on the north and south, and one on the east. Upon the platform of the chel rose an inner wall 40 feet high and 600 by 250 feet in dimensions.
III. The space enclosed by this lofty inner wall was divided into two sections, of which the eastern was a square of about 230 feet, called theCourt of the Women, on account of a gallery for women around it. It had four gates, of which the one on the east was probably the Gate Beautiful. In its four corners were rooms, used for different purposes connected with the services; and upon its walls were boxes for the gifts of the worshipers, from which it was often called “the Treasury.”
IV.The Court of Israeloccupied the western part of the enclosure, and was about 320 by 230 feet in size. Another court stood inside of it, so that it was simply a narrow platform 16 feet wide, from which male worshipers could view the sacrifices. In the southeastern corner was the hall in which the Sanhedrim met, and where Stephen stood on trial. In the wall around this court were rooms used for storage, for baking bread, for treasuries, etc. This court was entered by seven gates, on the north and south each three, and one on the east.
V.The Court of the Priestswas a raised platform inside the Court of Israel, and separated from it by a low rail. It was 275 by 200 feet in size. Upon it stood the altar, the laver, and the Temple building.
VI.The Templeitself was the only covered building on the mountain. It consisted of a lofty vestibule, having a front 120 feet high; a series of rooms three stories high for the priests,and within these the house of God, divided into two rooms, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, separated by a veil. The outer room was 30 by 60 feet in size, the inner 30 feet square and of the same height. In the Holy Place stood the table for the show-bread, the golden candlestick (properly a lamp-stand), and the golden altar of incense. In the Holy of Holies there was no ark in the New Testament period, but only a stone upon which the high-priest laid the censer when he entered the room, on but one day in the year, the great Day of Atonement.
Notice, that each department of the Temple stood at a different elevation. Thus the platform of the chel was 8 feet above the pavement of the Gentile’s Court; the floor of the Women’s Court was 3 feet higher; that of the Court of Israel was 10 feet higher still; the Court of the Priests 3 feet above that of Israel; and the floor of the house was 8 feet above the Court of the Priests. Thus there was a constant ascent to the one entering the Temple.
Attention.—This is a Latin word of very decisive meaning; “a stretching of something toward something.” A bow strained is a literal illustration. In common acceptation it is limited to mental conditions. The dictionaries define it as “a steady exertion of the mind.” Without attention there can be no teaching. In Sunday-school teaching thesomething stretchedmust be the pupil’s mind; theobjective something, the truth to be taught.
There are two kinds of attention: (1) Voluntary, and (2) Involuntary. Voluntary attention is born of ignorance and of desire to know, and places confidence in the power of the person to whom it yields itself to satisfy that desire.
Illustration: My little child sees my hand upon the door-knob; sees the door open, and my egress. Next day, pursuing his desire, his hand seeks the knob, but the door does not open. He comes to me with his difficulty. I slowly turn the knob. He watches. He gives attention. It was born of ignorance; of desire to know; and of confidence in me. It was voluntary; and it will end when the necessity for it ends.
2. Involuntary attention. This is of two kinds—(1)Compelled; (2)Won. The galley slave under a master’s eye illustrates the first. Another is furnished by a violin string, when strained. It is attent, it answers the thought in the soul of the musician who draws the bow upon it. But the bow was resined and the string strained by the artist’s hand. He created the attention. It was involuntary; nay, more; it was compelled. Such attention ends when the compulsion ends. I do not want such from my pupils.
2. That which is won; and which involuntary at first soon becomes voluntary. This is the attention which results in teaching and learning.
The duration of attention, voluntary or involuntary, must always depend on certain conditions:
1. Conditions of Circumstance. (a) The place must be suitable; (b) the time must be opportune; (c) the ventilation good; (d) the temperature agreeable. These are necessary elements in the effort of holding attention. But though these things be all unfavorable, their disadvantages may be overcome, if there is no lack in the second class of conditions, namely:
2. Conditions of Personality. By this I mean my personality as teacher. These conditions are (a) that of attractive power that will draw the pupil toward me; (b) that of magnetism that will hold the pupil fast to me; (c) that of enthusiasm that will fire my pupil with zeal for work; (d) that of self-withdrawal; (e) that which transfers attention from myself to my subject. If I have these personal elements in my teaching, I shall get attention and hold it. If I have not, I must cultivate them.
3. Conditions of Knowledge. These are three. I must knowmy subject,myself, andmy pupil. A knowledge of the subject, involves a knowledge of methods. And here is the critical test with a teacher.
Notice some of the methods essential: (a) The use of illustrations apt and interesting; (b) the use of questions full of surprises and wise devices; (c) the use of elliptical readings between teacher and pupil; (d) the use of concert recitations in low tones by pupils; (e) the use of inter-questions, each pupil asking a question in turn of his fellow-pupil, and each also of the teacher; (f) the use of pictures, maps, and objects.
A mob in Cincinnati, involving the loss of many lives and much property in a three days’ reign of terror, has added another to a long list of warnings that the criminal administration of this country needs a thorough-going reform. The popular indignation which expressed itself at Cincinnati has been growing slowly into steady strength for thirty years and more. About 1845, gangs of horse thieves in northern Illinois were broken up—the law having failed—by regulators composed of the best citizens, who summarily hanged the thieves. About ten years later this history was repeated in Cedar and Linn counties, Iowa. These are two incidents among many of like type. Most readers know the history of the vigilance committee in San Francisco. The criminal administration having utterly failed, the best citizens organized themselves outside of the law and by vigorous and summary punishment restored the supremacy of the law. The mobbing of the “Dukes jury” at Uniontown is a still fresh event. In New York City, a few years ago, a citizen was brutally murdered in a public place, and the murderer, when arrested, said: “Hanging is played out.” The remark roused public feeling and refreshed the courage of the courts so that for some time hanging became the certain punishment of wilful murder. But in New York City, it is the press which really administers criminal law—by compelling the courts to do their duty. In the Cincinnati case, the last of a series of miscarriages of justice was the convicting of manslaughter in a case where wilful and mean-motived murder had been proved. The judge commented harshly upon the verdict. A public meeting listened to appropriately animated addresses, and passed strong resolutions of condemnation of the jury in that case, and of the criminal administration of the city. The excitable elements of the audience broke up there to reorganize in an assault on the jail. They were joined by a baser element, and a reign of terror followed.
The criminal system of the entire country is defective. It is not a terror to evil-doers. It tortures the conscience and the self respect of honest men. It has rendered human life much more insecure than private property. It is on the average safer to kill a man after robbing him than to rob him only. The match that lighted the Cincinnati conflagration was a murder done for the sake of robbery, and punished as if it had been robbery.
Our evils in this branch of justice are several distinct fungus growths of demoralized customs. A murder trial seldom ends within a year of the discovery of the criminal; it often ends twice as long after the arrest of the murderer. In England,three months suffices for the same work. There is no civilized country except our own where these long delays are tolerated. This is the safest country in the world for a murderer to carry on his profession. He is less likely to be arrested; he is not tried until the general public has forgotten his crime. When he comes to the dock,if he has money, or friends possessed of money, he can buy out the law by employing some member of a class of lawyers who make a profitable industry of defeating the aims of public justice. In the Cincinnati case, the judge said, courageously, that the murderer had been cleared of that crime becausehis friends had six or seven thousand dollars to fee criminal lawyers with. It is almost a rule that if the murderer has money, his cunning lawyers will delay trial, destroy testimony, and confuse the jury, or bribe the jury. If these fail, and there is money left, motions for new trials will be pressed upon judges, and perhaps secured by fictitious testimony. The motto of a murderer may well be: “While there is money there is hope.” It is plain to all intelligent persons that the law’s delay, under the influence of money, has become intolerable. We do hang the poor; we seldom hang the men who can command money. There ought to be a more summary procedure. There ought to be more pure discretion—unhampered by precedent—vested in judges. These interminable delays ought to be impossible without the connivance of the judges.
The power of money in criminal trials is a feature of the jury systemas we manage it. In some states a man who knows what is going on in the world about him can not be admitted to serve on a jury. He has heard of the case and formed an opinion. Every intelligent man does that in a case of murder. This leaves jury duty to professional jurors, and to the least intelligent citizens. Worse still, on the plea of business duties intelligent men evade service on juries. In New York City, last year, a ring of “jury fixers” was discovered. They had hundreds, probably thousands, of customers—consisting of business men—who paid from ten to fifty dollars a year to have “things fixed” so that they should not be called on jury service. The men who thus bought themselves off from a civil duty were so numerous that even the press evaded the duty of vigorously exposing the crime. The men who are left, in large cities, to serve on juries, are men whose judgments can be involved in confusion by an artful plea; often, too, their verdicts can be bought with money. The city demoralization is gradually extending to the country.We must reform.We are nearing the end of popular patience. People begin to demand that they shall not be murdered with impunity. Get better juries; or amend the constitution and abolish juries. Give judges more power over the criminal lawyers, and more real discretion in refusing delays that defeat the ends of justice. Give judges to understand that we want more speedy trials and more direct methods of trial. Ask for reform—imperatively, emphatically—and reform will come. The lawlessness of court proceedings keeps within the forms of law; but it has become an ally of that other lawlessness which murders men, women and children—and gives its ally comparative impunity.
There is a large amount of well-founded distrust of the tendencies of our public life. It is not a distrust of Republican principles, or of universal suffrage, or of popular influence on government. It centers in our public service, and relates exclusively to the political paths to office, the uncertain or inadequate rewards for service, and the speculative element in the tenure of office. Are we not on a road which leads to demoralization in the civil service? The civil service law applies only to a small part of the public field. Cabinet officers, heads of departments, custom house and internal revenue officers, and all judicial officers, are outside of that law, not to forget the entire body of law makers. If we ask ourselves what first-class ability is worth, we find the railroads, banks and other corporations paying an average of twice (or more) as much as the government pays legislators, judges, cabinet officers, and heads of departments. If we compare what is needed by corporations with what is needed by the government, we shall be slow to admit that the public service can be satisfied with inferior ability. If we look at the cost of holding an office, we discover that a bank president may live where and in such style as he pleases, but a cabinet officer must live in Washington, andoughtto spend more than we pay him in acquitting himself of social obligations.
The editor ofThe Chautauquanrecently attended a party in the house of Secretary Chandler, the cost of which could not have been less than a thousand dollars; and there was no ostentation; only the reasonable social demand was met. Of course Secretary Chandler can not give such parties out of his salary, and could not meet the social demand upon his official position, if he had not a private fortune. The incident points to the suspicion that we are rapidly advancing to a condition of things under which poor men can not hold high offices. Everywhere the public officers of the classes which we have named are under special social obligations which exceed in money-cost the amount of their salaries. There is a double tendency—on two parallel lines—to exclude honest poor men, and to take in an inferior class of men who are either rich or unscrupulous. There is no reasonable doubt that the United States Senate has seriously deteriorated through the tendencies just mentioned. Every one knows that so many members of the other House are habitually absent, that a political battle has to be advertised to collect the members of the majority for the time being. The men in this case may or may not be inferior, but they are certainly rendering an inferior service—doing their own work while in the pay of the people. The other work is a growing factor. Senators live by their practice in the Supreme Court or by their services to corporations in which they hold office; this private work too often coming into collision with public interests.
The subject is so large that we can barely hint at points. Here is a man climbing to public place through a political combination which taxes him at every step. He must have money, or borrow or steal money, to make the ascent. When he reaches the place, he is paid a salary so far below the demands of his office that if he is to meet his social obligations he must have an income beyond his salary, and this income he must earn as he can if he is not wealthy. And the real evil is still farther on: if he wishes to stay in public life he must pay tribute to political sponges; for the tenure of his office is so short that he must begin to provide for the next election as soon as the first is over. If he wishes to rise, he must pay, and keep on paying to the invisible army of political tax-collectors which lines, many ranks deep, every road that leads to an office. Rare and favored men escape these evils; but the majority of public men encounter them. To crown the edifice of bad policy, partisan rules are set up which limit time of service. Two terms, for example, is the limit for service in the lower House of Congress, in many districts. That is to say, your Congressman is advised at the outset that he must retire in four years. What motive has he for qualifying himself to be a good legislator? He naturally seeks an office under the government, and gives his brain power to that pursuit. But wherever he is—unless he hold a judicial office—he is menaced by the rule of rotation in office. We have been remarkably fortunate in the judicial service through the fact that, though the salaries are niggardly, the terms of service are long, and safe from partisan influences.
We might profitably reflect on foreign comparisons. In Italy men receiving from $300 to $600 in bureaus serve for life, and have certain promotion. It is not a perfect method, but under it the government service is honorable to an extent which amazes an American. The honor is the largest item of the pay. We pay a less and less measure of honor. The path to ourservice grows more filthy, and the man who has reached the goal is often soiled with the filth through which he has waded—often enough to discredit, insensibly but surely, the class which he has joined. We pay too little in money; we pay too little in honor; we cheat ourselves and demoralize our public servants by befouling the ladders on which they climb, and by making their ascent as uncertain, and their hold on any round of the ladder as precarious, as possible. A large moral lies in the contrast that a bank cashier is discriminatingly chosen for ability, has no election expenses, is secure in his office, owes no social duties to the bank, and may rise to the presidency of it. It is the same in other corporations. As employers, the corporations have more soul and more sense than the people of the United States.
The disturbance of Christian peace which has for some months affected the Madison Avenue Congregational Church, New York, has impressed us as disclosing a new phase of inter-church life. To an onlooker the case—the very heart of the case—is a struggle of a pastor to maintain himself in full membership with two denominations, against a struggle of men in both denominations to shut him out of one or the other denomination. This is the novelty in this New York “church quarrel.” For our part we are disposed to ask what general principle of morals, equity or discipline is violated by the Rev. Dr. John P. Newman’s position? He claims to be the permanent pastor of a Congregational church while retaining his membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Why not? It surely is not an axiom that a man can not belong to two denominations. Dialectic theologians may invent a score of arguments, but they will find their best one in the fact that the practice has been to confine a Christian’s membership to one branch of the church. But in the advance to Christian unity we have rapidly changed the practice at several points; and it is quite possible that Dr. Newman’s “new departure” may be another march on the general line of our progress.
A few words respecting the Madison Avenue Church and its pastor will help our readers to understand the case. The church was founded a dozen or more years ago by Dr. Hepworth, who up to about that time had been a Unitarian clergyman. It was a very expensive enterprise, and Dr. Hepworth became satisfied, after a few years, that he could neither fill the church with an audience nor pay its debt. Dr. W. R. Davis, who had been a Methodist clergyman, and is now a Dutch Reformed pastor in Albany, N. Y., succeeded Dr. Hepworth, and, after a few years of experience like that of his predecessor, hunted up a successor in the person of Dr. Newman, and resigned. There were two distinct difficulties in both these pastorates. One was the large debt; the other was the failure to secure adequate audiences. The last difficulty suggests no fault in either of the pastors. Both were gifted and popular. But the church is surrounded by other churches, and only an extraordinary man can secure a large body of hearers in it. The church was not at fault for not paying its debt; the burden was beyond its strength. When it asked Dr. Newman to become its pastor, it asked him for two reasons: He had friends who could pay the debt, and he would bring these friends into the church and congregation; and it was well understood that he could fill the large house with hearers.
Rev. Dr. John P. Newman has a national reputation as a pulpit orator. He always has full houses where he statedly preaches. Among his friends he numbers General Grant, whose pastor he was in Washington in the days of Grant’s presidency. The ex-president is one of the men whom Dr. Newman took into the Madison Avenue congregation and made a trustee of the church property. Dr. Newman is one of the last of the classical pulpit orators. His style is stately, his presence majestic. Pure taste and high ideals characterize his thought. His noble person, his rich, smooth voice, and the elevation of his thought conspire to make him admired and reverenced in the pulpit. His ardent friends have called him “the Chrysostom of his age.” Not unnaturally, he has expected the highest places in Methodism. Neither Webster nor Clay became President of the United States—and John P. Newman did not become a bishop. Some difficulties arose respecting a place for him in New York three years ago, he having then finished his term as pastor of the Central Methodist Church. After a year of decorous waiting, he accepted the call to the Madison Avenue Church. There are controversies about sundry minor matters; but after painfully laboring through the documents, we find two clear facts: 1st. From the start Dr. Newman has clung to the idea of remaining a Methodist while becoming a Congregationalist; 2d, there is an abundant lack of proof that in this policy he has deceived any one or done any other act which is inconsistent with the character which he displays in the pulpit. A single sentence in his address before the council was out of place; but, even it, from his point of view, had great provocation. To the onlooking public, perhaps to Dr. Newman also, it was a surprise to see the editor of theChristian Advocatefurnishing material for use against Dr. Newman. This new party to the controversy presents the Methodists as semi-officially engaged in the effort to crowd Dr. Newman from his attitude as holding positions in two denominations. The justification of the editor of theChristian Advocatecan not rest on any special pleading; it must rest on the ground that Dr. Newman’s claim is a bad one in church moralities. If this be true, then his Methodist antagonist has discharged a disagreeable duty and “meddled” for a dignified purpose.
The church quarrel did not originate in the new position of Dr. Newman, but the conflict having begun, this new position was made the point of attack by what is called the “Anti-Newman party.” It was the weak place because Dr. Newman had taken a new departure. The quarrel came out of the incompatibility of temper and interest developed between the old and the new elements in the church and congregation. Some of the old men left; the new were then more numerous and powerful than the old. The latter saw themselves gradually retiring to back seats, while the new men filled the front seats. They precipitated a conflict to secure themselves against the consequences of Dr. Newman’s abundant success. In the wisdom of this world, the new element put off paying the large debt; but they preferred to be certain that they would be left in peaceable possession after paying the debt.
The council has “advised” that Dr. Newman is in an untenable position—is not the permanent pastor. The advice is probably according to precedent. But it was not according to precedent that Dr. Hepworth left the Unitarians, and Dr. Davis the Methodists, to become pastor of that church. And for forty years there has been an increasing interflow between denominations. Half a score of ex-Methodists, including some of the ablest pastors in the city, are preaching in churches of other denominations. Ministers and members pass and repass between denominations. All this would have looked strange forty years ago. Perhaps Dr. Newman’s new idea may not look strange forty years hence. The advice of the council has probably only changed the form of the conflict which does not depend on Dr. Newman, but on the antagonism of the old and new elements in the congregation. We should like to see Dr. Newman’s theory thoroughly tested, and Congregationalism is liberal enough to afford the desired test. Methodism, as a whole, has no reason for jealousy of Dr. Newman’s success in the Madison Avenue Church. His success and good fame reflect honor on all Methodist preachers. We may come to realize that if a man is “worthy of confidence and fellowship by virtue of his responsible connection with some other body of Christian churches”—words quoted by the late council—he may safely “be counted a minister of the Congregational,” or any other “order.”
A writer inCornhill Magazine, some years ago, facetiously suggested that, while societies for the acquisition of useful knowledge abounded, each, doubtless, in its way, proving of eminent service to mankind, another society, not so much as a direct opponent, but rather as a proper, and even necessary, corrective of its rivals, should be organized, the object of which should be to sift out and to suppress the vast and ever increasing accumulations of knowledge that are not only really worthless but which are an unmitigated nuisance, a useless burden, a confused and baffling heap.
The suggestion above referred to, made perhaps in jest, is one, we venture to suggest, which might well be made in earnest. Useless knowledge! Has it never occurred to the reader what areas, and even continents, not to say oceans of valueless, of absolutely superfluous knowledge there are in the world? Observe we are not now writing of literature, or books, merely; we say knowledge.
Useless knowledge! For everything that may, with any kind of propriety, be comprehended under this honored term, knowledge, we usually cherish a profound and reverent respect. The highest conception of scholarship, on the part of many, consists in being possessed of encyclopedic information concerning the details of almost every conceivable matter.
According to this idea learning consists in an intimate acquaintance, at once and quite indiscriminately, with all the results of the latest scientific research, the facts of universal history, the mysteries of theology and subtleties of metaphysics; with all the institutes of law and politics; with all the literature of poetry and art.
To one entertaining such an idea of scholarship as this how positively depressing must be the monstrous and obviously ever-accumulating mass of facts heaping up around him. He quite envies the great men of the olden time who, in consequence of the then comparatively narrow range of knowledge, found it not impracticable to maintain a creditable standing at once as statesmen, soldiers, poets, philosophers, and artists; while he, in his day, can serve, at best, only as an infinitesimal wheel in a machinery of boundless complication.
Even were it desirable to burden the mind with boundless mental acquisitions, one certainly has not long to live to discover the utter futility of even the most capacious memory ever being able to compass any such result—to learn that the human mind, whatever its capabilities, is yet finite; that it is, therefore, the part of wisdom to select some one department of study and devote one’s energies mainly to the mastery of the same; and that, finally, one essential condition of usefulness depends on one’s thus wisely restricting himself to a comparatively narrow and limited field of inquiry and of attainment.
In the meantime it should be distinctly understood that true scholarship does not, by any means, consist in thus knowing absolutely everything. The popular idea that learning consists in being a walking repository of all sorts of curious and of more or less ill-assorted erudition, is a most childish error. Scholarship may, perhaps, be properly defined as knowingsomethingabout almost everything; but more especially every thingabout some one thing. This is the true university idea. Some one has defined the university as being the school wheresomethingcould be learned about everything, andeverythingabout someonething. In other words, true scholarship consists in having just so much learning as one can not only digest and master but effectively use in connection with his own special work, or mission in life; in having the keys, if you please, that shall unlock and open up to one at will all the varied stores of knowledge; and more especially in being the undisputed master of just so much and of just such knowledge as he can himself best utilize. Just as no mechanic cares to encumber himself with more tools, or the soldier with more weapons, than he can advantageously use, so no true scholar, in our judgment, will covet more knowledge than he can render properly, wisely, available for service. Why, indeed, may not too much of a good thing, as well as too little—l’embarrassment de richesseas well as the embarrassment of poverty—prove not a help but a burden, not a source of power but an occasion of weakness and a cause of stumbling?
Let no one, therefore, be tempted to envy the attainments of certain knowing ones in those walks of literature, or of science, to which he is for the most a stranger; and, because of his ignorance comparatively on certain special lines of study and intellectual inquiry, to depreciate himself as a scholar. Rather, on the other hand, while thankful that, in your own chosen sphere, you have been enabled to give a good account of yourself and to render some service, however humble, to your kind, you should also rejoice that others have been called to explore fields of thought and inquiry by your feet as yet untrod.
Who that, a few years ago, at the great Exposition at Philadelphia, walked through those acres of textile fabrics, miles of most ingenious machinery, and thousands of square yards of painting, but must have been profoundly impressed with the narrow limits of his own knowledge and attainments. And yet who, if really a sensible person, instead of feeling mortified and chagrined at all on this account, but was moved rather, at every step, silently to give thanks that here was presented another, and yet another branch of knowledge or industry concerning which it was his privilege to remain in profound and most contented ignorance? Why, indeed, should it be deemed specially important that, in order richly and intelligently to enjoy that marvellous display of the products of all nations, one should be altogether conversant with the Chinese puzzle, or versed in all the arts of sub-soiling, top-dressing, tile-draining, or stock-raising?
Let the dictionaries, therefore, and the encyclopædias, the archives and the libraries, for the most part, serve as the treasure-houses of the materials of knowledge—especially of all more strictly technical and curious lore, properly classified, indexed, assorted, accessible. Let it be the part of scholarship, if you please, exhaustively to explore certain departments of learning as specialties; but to be content, meantime, as a general thing, to know where, and how readily to find, and to be able wisely to appropriate, and effectually to employ, as occasion may require, this accumulated and duly sifted and organized learning of the ages.
The discovery of a manuscript copy of “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles,” a Christian compilation of the second century, has created a general expectation of new and better light by means of it, on early Christian history. The portions of this manuscript which have been published in this country are too brief to afford much satisfaction. The genuineness of the document is vouched for by Professor Harnack, of Giessen, one of the foremost patristic scholars. If there were not a general disposition to believe the manuscript to be genuine, we might note some circumstances as suspicious. Professor Harnack has believed and taught that such a book probably existed in the early centuries. If we were suspicious we should wonder whether another Saphira has not undertaken, of his own avaricious motion, to find what a great patristic scholar believes to exist—and to make discovery certain by constructing the desired document himself. No breath of suspicion taints the atmosphere, and the finding of the manuscript is regarded as a strong proof of the rare learning and sound judgment ofProfessor Harnack. But until the whole document, in the Original Greek, with a history of its discovery, has passed under the eyes of many scholars, it will be wise to keep our judgments in suspense respecting the genuineness and the importance of the document.
The new Congregational creed has been received with a good deal of favor. The aim of it is in the right direction; we leave others to decide whether or not it hits its mark. Theology consists of doctrines and explanations of doctrines. The aim of the authors of the new creed is to make a statement of doctrines, leaving explanations of doctrines to the field of liberty. It happens that the larger half of most creeds make doctrines out of explanations. For example, the deity of Jesus Christ is a doctrine; but along with it we hold a number of explanations of the doctrine. The atonement is a doctrine; but three-fourths of the texts of the creeds, on this subject, are explanatory theses. That Christdied for usaccording to the Scriptures is doctrine; but the various theories called “Governmental,” “Substitutional,” “Moral Influence,” etc., are explanatory. That the Bible is God’s book, revealing Him and His law is doctrine; but the separation of the printers’ and proof-readers’ mistakes—that is all the failure in the human making-up of the book—proceeds by way of explanatory theology. If tolerably clear lines can be drawn between doctrine and explanation—we are not sure such a line can be drawn—then evangelical Christendom can have a common creed at once. The doctrinal unity exists in fact; we are only waiting for some one to state the doctrines clearly, leaving us to differ concerning the explanations. The new Congregational creed may prove to be a rough first sketch of the creed of Christendom. There is no doubt that the great body of Christians, though ranked in distinct divisions, has a common faith. Some symbolic expression of that faith is to be expected—is probably near at hand.
A shocking piece of news is that several women were recently attacked, and two of them killed, by wolves. That is bad enough, surely; but a greater shock will be experienced by the general reader when we add that the scene of this tragic incident was in southern Italy! Our habitual associations of Italian things are music, sculpture, architecture, and other high humanities, all overarched by beautiful sunshine. Most of us hardly realize that there has been a wolf in Italy since the demise of the one which suckled the boys who founded Rome. But in fact wolves and other ferocious beasts still reign in the Italian mountains, along with the brigands. The latter are not as numerous as when Spartacus collected an army of them which defeated Roman armies within sight of Naples. But the brigand is, like the wolf, an unconquerable element in Italian life. A few months ago, an Italian nobleman was captured by brigands who exacted and obtained fifty thousand dollars for restoring him to the bosom of his family. Add brigands and wolves to your “pictures from Italy.”
The regulation of railroad traffic has made more progress than the general public supposes. In Massachusetts, for instance, the Board of Railroad Commissioners say in their last report to the legislature that “No charge of unreasonable preference or discrimination by a lower charge for the longer haul has this year been brought before the board, except in two cases, where the evidence wholly failed to support the charges.” The Massachusetts system of supervision was founded twelve years ago by C. F. Adams, and the results obtained by him and his successors in office show clearly that an intelligent and judicious supervision by state authority benefits both parties—the railroads and their customers. But—and this point is the reason of the success in Massachusetts—there has not been one ounce of demagogism in the action of the commissioners.
The decision of the United States Supreme Court that Congress may issue paper money at its discretion has been received with lugubrious prophecies by a part of the press. It is probably good for us that the decision has been rendered now rather than a few years later—and it was certain to come. The good of it is, we know clearly what the powers and responsibilities of Congress are in regard to money. We can select our Congressmen with a plain and full understanding of their functions. The doubt which has hung over this subject for several years has had an unwholesome effect—“unsettled questions have no mercy on the peace of nations.” The people of this country are conservative under well defined responsibilities. Perhaps the prophets of evil have too little faith in the popular sense and conscience.
There is no sympathy in this country with the Irish dynamiters; but we are all more or less astonished by the gravity with which English newspapers rail at this country for not preventing the exportation of dynamite. The LondonTimesunconsciously puts its fingers on the proper place for the discovery of such dynamite when it calls attention to the fact that a ninety pound package of the murderous stuff got to Londonthrough a British custom house. The British custom house is the spot where the watching should be done. If the importation of goods was as closely supervised in England as it is in this country, no dynamite could reach London. We do not watch exportation closely because no export duties are allowed to be levied by the constitution. It is the inward movement, not the outward, for which we have official machinery of supervision. To invent and carry on machinery for watching exports is an expensive business in which we should not engage. It is entirely unnecessary. Let England watch at her own custom houses. If her officers admit dynamite in ninety pound cases, let her improve that branch of her civil service. TheNationvery judiciously says: “If the English custom house can not stop the infernal machines, it is folly to ask any foreign police to do it.”
Our suggestion that laws against intermarriage between races should be repealed (April number) has “shocked” one reader. Our friend does not get shocked at the right time and place. Intermarriage of white and colored persons is very rare, because nature and society exercise adequate restraint. The place for being shocked is in another part of the field. And yet it is an astounding fact that the peoples who are most easily shocked by the marriage of two persons of different races seem not to be shocked by the very large number of illegitimate children of dark skinned mothers. There is an exact parallel in the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy, and the intense feeling which enforced it, in the days of Hildebrand. A recent writer says of that state of things: “The priest who kept a harem of concubines was simply guilty of a venial sin which did not vitiate his act as a priest; it was the act of marriage, with its more deliberate declaration of principle, which the church could not tolerate.” In both cases, that old case of mock celibacy and the present case of illegitimate mingling of races, thefeelingon the subject is very sincere, deep, aggressive, againstmarriage“with its more deliberate declaration of principle.” But in each case the real evil evades the feeling and defeats its object with demoralizing effects.
They do some things better in France. The government has ordered observations to be made on strokes of lightning and their effects, by a bureau, using postmasters and others as observers. A report for the first half of 1883 shows that in January there was one lightning stroke which injured a man carrying an umbrella with metal ribs; in February there were no strokes; in March and April, four each month; in May twenty-eight; in June one hundred and thirteen. Seventy animals and seven men were killed, and about forty persons were injured. Lightning rods were treated with contempt, and the electric fluid especially attacked the bells and bell-towers of churches, and in one case blasted the gilt wooden figure of theChrist on a church which had a lightning rod. The second half of the year would of course show a longer chapter of accidents. Why can not we have in this country just such a system of collecting the facts about lightning strokes?
An interesting set of experiments is reported by Mr. G. H. Darwin, son of the great author of Darwinism, on right-leggedness and left-leggedness. The subject is of more importance than it seems. Most readers will remember that Charles Reade, the novelist, contended in a recent work that right-handedness is a fruit of bad education, and that, if children were not meddled with by nurses and teachers, both sides of the body would be equally strong and skilful. Mr. Darwin blindfolded a group of boys, having first ascertained whether they were right or left handed, and set them to walking toward a mark, leading them straight for three or four paces. All but one swung round to right or left, tending to a circular path, and the right-handed boys turned to the left, and the left-handed boys to the right. The one exception was a boy about equally expert with both hands. He went tolerably straight. Mr. Darwin’s opinion is that right-handed persons are left-legged, because every strong effort by the right hand is attended with a corresponding effort by the left leg. This does not, however, settle the question raised by Mr. Charles Reade; for left-leggedness is only an effect of right-handedness.
We shall have to study the machine politician a good deal before we dispense with his existence. In New York City, investigations show that the city offices, such as County Clerk, Register and Sheriff, afford from $50,000 to $100,000 a year of revenue to the man holding either office, and that he buys the office, never paying less than $50,000 for it to the bosses who control votes by arts that are as dark to respectable citizens as the mysteries of mediæval astrology. A man on a school board was caught selling teachers’ appointments. He was put off the board and went to selling liquor. In due time he became an alderman. The halls could not agree upon a president of the Board of Aldermen. Then the Republican boss made “a deal” with the Tammany hall and turned over the Republican aldermen’s votes to elect as president the smirched seller of teachers’ places and bad whiskey. This man is mayor of New York when Mayor Edson is absent, and has recently acted as such. An intrigue of that sort is as well worth studying as the farewell letter of Washington. It opens the very heart of our political demoralization. The chief parties to this intrigue will both be at Chicago, one in June, the other in July, with the votes of their respective parties in New York City in their dirty hands. They are engaged in a commercial business the staple of which is ballots, and they amass fortunes by selling votes and offices.
Is there any other competitive industry which is exploited with so much skill as politics? We write these words in early April, within sixty days of the Republican convention, and we should hardly be able to affirm that any prominent candidate is anavowedcandidate. Are there no candidates, then? Is the nomination of the party which has ruled the country twenty-three years going a begging at Chicago? By no means. You are in the presence of management as a fine art. It is certain that the work of “getting up an interest” is going on briskly, and it is not possible that the candidates are ignorant of it. The popular pulse is rising, and there are men who can tell why it is rising. Perhaps the Democratic art is of a finer quality. Mr. Tilden has educated bright men in the delicate branches of political art. That there is no prominent candidate except Mr. Tilden, who is not a possible candidate, means that all dangerous aspirants are kept back by the candidacy of “the Sage of Greystone;” but the object of this suppression of candidates is out of sight. The children of this world are very wise in this political generation.
Our readers all know that the Methodist Episcopal General Conference meets May 1st in each Presidential election year. Not all of them have our opportunities of knowing what a wholesome effect the approaching session is having upon the seven or eight periodicals whose editors will be re-elected or relegated to pastoral cares by the conference. Ordinarily we can see small faults in these papers. Now we would as soon seek to find the proverbial “needle in a haystack” as to discover a blemish on the face of a Methodist periodical. A cynic at our elbow says: “What a pity the General Conference does not meet every year!” In sober earnest we must say that all these “official editors” have been outdoing their former selves during the last eight or ten months.
Temple Barfor March contains a criticism of “The New School of American Fiction”—that of James and Howells—which makes some excellent points. Mr. Howells claims the art of fiction has become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens and Thackeray. This reminds us of a story, as Lincoln used to say. Once a young preacher was warmly commended for his last sermon in the following terms: “It was a fine sermon, a very fine sermon, in fact it was so fine there was nothing of it.” The attenuated art of Mr. Howells spins out into a fineness which vanishes in nothingness.Temple Barthinks this “finer art” of our new school is a study of surface emotion and accidental types of mankind. The art is “a photograph where no artist’s hand has grouped the figures, only posed them before his lens.” Mr. Howells boasts that he finds “delight in the foolish, insipid face of real life.” But the life that wears that kind of face affords no material for art—is notreallyreal life. The accidental types which Mr. Howells paints so carefully please us just as a gossip’s description of a bridal dress pleases her feminine neighbor—for a moment. Sometimes we have seen specimens—as for example, Bartley Hubbard—of the transient creatures and recognize the photograph. But after all such photography is the function of the newspaper. We all know that last year’s newspaper is dull reading. The fiction produced by the “new school” will probably be just as dull in ten years. Dickens and Thackeray are much older than that and are still fascinating reading.
Is not the tone of the general newspaper press below that of the people who read newspapers? Are our people as slangy, coarse and low-toned as the average newspaper is? We do not believe that the people whoreadthe papers are as vulgar-minded as the average reporter supposes them to be. We have read many defenses of the newspaper methods; but we never heard of a newspaper which died by becoming decent and wholesome. The reporter is trying to please a class which rarely reads anything, and is displeasing his habitual patrons. Let the latter take courage and tell him the simple truth and ask him to write English in future. A few talks of this nature will do the young man good.
The name of Adelaide Bell Morgan, Stapleton, N. Y., should have been among the list of C. L. S. C. graduates of the class of ’83, published inThe Chautauquanfor February.
Mr. W. A. Duncan, the new secretary of the Chautauqua Assembly, requests that all questions concerning Chautauqua matters should be addressed to him at Syracuse, N. Y.
A late number ofHarper’s Weeklysays of Mrs. P. L. Collins, the author of the interesting article on the Dead-Letter Office which appears in this number ofThe Chautauquan: “Mrs. Collins has for several years held an important and responsible position in the Dead-Letter Office. Her fine culture, varied attainments, and the skill and ability displayed in the performance of the difficult and intricate duties of the service have won for her high and well deserved repute. No one is better qualified than Mrs. Collins to give our readers an insight into the workings of this important branch of our postal service.”