FOOTNOTES:[1]Sir Frederick Bruce, in a recent report to the Foreign Office, says:'The growth of Shanghai is wonderful; its population is estimated at 1,500,000, and it bids fair to become soon the most important city of the East. The Chinese flock to it on account of the security it enjoys; and the silk manufacture, which was destroyed by the Taiping occupation of Soochow and Hangchow, is taking root at Shanghai.'—Pekin, 30th April, 1863.[2]Civilized nations profess to look with abhorrence on the Chinese crime of infanticide, and to believe that the statements of travellers and missionaries are incredible; but a careful examination of the mortuary tables of London, Paris, New York, Dublin, Moscow, and other cities, will show that infanticide is far more common than supposed. It is a crime easily hidden and hard to trace. Take the foundling hospitals as a guide to some approximate estimate of the amount of infanticide in France. We find that she has upwards of 360 hospitals; that in Paris alone, in five years, from 1819 to 1823, 25,277 children were received, of whom eleven thirteenths died, and that the annual number of enfans trouvés ranges from 3,800 to 4,500. These children, but for the hospital, would have been murdered. Who can tell how many are thrown into the sewers of Paris? A recent writer states the number at 10,000, but we deem this an exaggeration. It is significant that the percentage of births and deaths in all France is less far the births and greater for the deaths than in England. These tables we annex.It is still more significant that the returns of foundling hospitals, from widely different countries, show that these institutions, however charitable and humane their object, are to be viewed as conveniences for murdering an infant without the actual violence at which humanity revolts. The proportion of abandoned children who live is so exceedingly small, that abandonment of a child to a foundling hospital is scarcely less than murder. If the child live, it may be viewed, almost, as a direct act of Providence.Of 62,000 children brought into the Paris foundling hospitals, 52,500 died.In Dublin, 19,420 children were received in ten years, of whom 17,440 died.In Moscow, 37,000 children were received in twenty years, of whom 35,000 died.COMPARATIVE VIEW OF MOVEMENT OF POPULATION OFEngland.France.Population19,902,91820,119,49635,597,46136,752,565Marriages170,156163,706290,657283,642Births684,018693,406953,315987,830Deaths422,721435,114782,764848,174Percentage.Percentage.Marriages.855.814.794.772Births3.4373.4612.6052.688Deaths2.1242.1632.1392.308
[1]Sir Frederick Bruce, in a recent report to the Foreign Office, says:'The growth of Shanghai is wonderful; its population is estimated at 1,500,000, and it bids fair to become soon the most important city of the East. The Chinese flock to it on account of the security it enjoys; and the silk manufacture, which was destroyed by the Taiping occupation of Soochow and Hangchow, is taking root at Shanghai.'—Pekin, 30th April, 1863.
[1]Sir Frederick Bruce, in a recent report to the Foreign Office, says:
'The growth of Shanghai is wonderful; its population is estimated at 1,500,000, and it bids fair to become soon the most important city of the East. The Chinese flock to it on account of the security it enjoys; and the silk manufacture, which was destroyed by the Taiping occupation of Soochow and Hangchow, is taking root at Shanghai.'—Pekin, 30th April, 1863.
[2]Civilized nations profess to look with abhorrence on the Chinese crime of infanticide, and to believe that the statements of travellers and missionaries are incredible; but a careful examination of the mortuary tables of London, Paris, New York, Dublin, Moscow, and other cities, will show that infanticide is far more common than supposed. It is a crime easily hidden and hard to trace. Take the foundling hospitals as a guide to some approximate estimate of the amount of infanticide in France. We find that she has upwards of 360 hospitals; that in Paris alone, in five years, from 1819 to 1823, 25,277 children were received, of whom eleven thirteenths died, and that the annual number of enfans trouvés ranges from 3,800 to 4,500. These children, but for the hospital, would have been murdered. Who can tell how many are thrown into the sewers of Paris? A recent writer states the number at 10,000, but we deem this an exaggeration. It is significant that the percentage of births and deaths in all France is less far the births and greater for the deaths than in England. These tables we annex.It is still more significant that the returns of foundling hospitals, from widely different countries, show that these institutions, however charitable and humane their object, are to be viewed as conveniences for murdering an infant without the actual violence at which humanity revolts. The proportion of abandoned children who live is so exceedingly small, that abandonment of a child to a foundling hospital is scarcely less than murder. If the child live, it may be viewed, almost, as a direct act of Providence.Of 62,000 children brought into the Paris foundling hospitals, 52,500 died.In Dublin, 19,420 children were received in ten years, of whom 17,440 died.In Moscow, 37,000 children were received in twenty years, of whom 35,000 died.COMPARATIVE VIEW OF MOVEMENT OF POPULATION OFEngland.France.Population19,902,91820,119,49635,597,46136,752,565Marriages170,156163,706290,657283,642Births684,018693,406953,315987,830Deaths422,721435,114782,764848,174Percentage.Percentage.Marriages.855.814.794.772Births3.4373.4612.6052.688Deaths2.1242.1632.1392.308
[2]Civilized nations profess to look with abhorrence on the Chinese crime of infanticide, and to believe that the statements of travellers and missionaries are incredible; but a careful examination of the mortuary tables of London, Paris, New York, Dublin, Moscow, and other cities, will show that infanticide is far more common than supposed. It is a crime easily hidden and hard to trace. Take the foundling hospitals as a guide to some approximate estimate of the amount of infanticide in France. We find that she has upwards of 360 hospitals; that in Paris alone, in five years, from 1819 to 1823, 25,277 children were received, of whom eleven thirteenths died, and that the annual number of enfans trouvés ranges from 3,800 to 4,500. These children, but for the hospital, would have been murdered. Who can tell how many are thrown into the sewers of Paris? A recent writer states the number at 10,000, but we deem this an exaggeration. It is significant that the percentage of births and deaths in all France is less far the births and greater for the deaths than in England. These tables we annex.
It is still more significant that the returns of foundling hospitals, from widely different countries, show that these institutions, however charitable and humane their object, are to be viewed as conveniences for murdering an infant without the actual violence at which humanity revolts. The proportion of abandoned children who live is so exceedingly small, that abandonment of a child to a foundling hospital is scarcely less than murder. If the child live, it may be viewed, almost, as a direct act of Providence.
Of 62,000 children brought into the Paris foundling hospitals, 52,500 died.
In Dublin, 19,420 children were received in ten years, of whom 17,440 died.
In Moscow, 37,000 children were received in twenty years, of whom 35,000 died.
England.France.Population19,902,91820,119,49635,597,46136,752,565Marriages170,156163,706290,657283,642Births684,018693,406953,315987,830Deaths422,721435,114782,764848,174Percentage.Percentage.Marriages.855.814.794.772Births3.4373.4612.6052.688Deaths2.1242.1632.1392.308
'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,Whatever stirs this mortal frame,'Thrilled through the wildering harmoniesThat from the music came.All soothing sounds of nature blent,In wonderful accord,With pleadings, wild and passionate,From human hearts outpoured.The wailings of the world's sad heart,Oppressed with social wrongs,In mournful monotones were mixedWith sounds of angel songs.The falling of a nation's tearsO'er Freedom's prostrate form,Dew droppings sweet from starry spheres,Swift-rushing wings of storm.The voices of Time's children three—Past, Present, Future, blentIn that wild 'trio's' harmony,Thrilled each fine instrument.And, at the sound, my soul awoke,And saw the dawning clearOf Freedom's coming day illumeEarth's clouded atmosphere!
The first impression which we receive from the life of Jesus, is that of perfect innocency and sinlessness in the midst of a sinful world. He, and He alone, carried the spotless purity of childhood untarnished through his youth and manhood. Hence the lamb and the dove are his appropriate symbols.
He was, indeed, tempted as we are, but he never yielded to temptation. His sinlessness was at first only therelativesinlessness of Adam before the fall, which implies the necessity of trial and temptation, and the peccability, or the possibility of the fall. Had he been endowed with absolute impeccability from the start, he could not be a true man, nor our model for imitation; his holiness, instead of being his own self-acquired act and inherent merit, would be an accidental or outward gift, and his temptation an unreal show. As a true man, Christ must have been a free and responsible moral agent; freedom implies the power of choice between good and evil, and the power of disobedience as well as obedience, to the law of God. But here is the great fundamental difference between the first and the second Adam: the first Adam lost his innocence by the abuse of his freedom, and fell by his own act of disobedience into the dire necessity of sin; while the second Adam was innocent in the midst of sinners, and maintained his innocence against all and every temptation. Christ'srelativesinlessness became more and moreabsolutesinlessness by his own moral act, or the right use of his freedom in the perfect active and passive obedience to God. In other words, Christ's original possibility ofnot sinning, which includes the opposite possibility of sinning, but excludes the actuality of sin, was unfolded into theimpossibility of sinning, whichcannot sin because it will not. This is the highest stage of freedom, where it becomes identical with moral necessity, or absolute and unchangeable self-determination for goodness and holiness. This is the freedom of God and of the saints in heaven, with this difference: that the saints attain that position by deliverance and salvation from sin and death, while Christ acquired it by his own merit.
In vain we look through the entire biography of Jesus for a single stain or the slightest shadow on his moral character. There never lived a more harmless being on earth. He injured nobody, he took advantage of nobody, he never spoke an improper word, he never committed a wrong action. He exhibited a uniform elevation above the objects, opinions, pleasures, and passions of this world, and disregard to riches, displays, fame, and favor of men. 'No vice that has a name can be thought of in connection with Jesus Christ. Ingenious malignity looks in vain for the faintest trace of self-seeking in His motives; sensuality shrinks abashed from His celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on Him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside His errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in His divine wisdom and divine self-abnegation.'
The apparent outbreak of passion in the expulsion of the profane traffickers from the temple is the only instance on the record of his history which might be quoted against his freedom from the faults of humanity. But the very effect which it produced, shows that,far from being the outburst of passion, the expulsion was a judicial act of a religious reformer, vindicating in just and holy zeal the honor of the Lord of the temple. It was an exhibition, not of weakness, but of dignity and majesty, which at once silenced the offenders, though superior in number and physical strength, and made them submit to their well-deserved punishment without a murmur, and in awe of the presence of a superhuman power. The cursing of the unfruitful fig tree can still less be urged, as it evidently was a significant symbolical act, foreshadowing the fearful doom of the impenitent Jews in the destruction of Jerusalem.
The perfect innocence of Jesus, however, is based not only, negatively, on the absence of any recorded word or act to the contrary and his absolute exemption from every trace of selfishness and worldliness, but, positively, also on the unanimous testimony of John the Baptist and the apostles, who bowed before the majesty of his character in unbounded veneration, and declare him 'just,' 'holy,' and 'without sin.' It is admitted, moreover, by his enemies: the heathen judge Pilate, and his wife, representing, as it were, the Roman law and justice, when they shuddered with apprehension and washed their hands to be clear of innocent blood; by the rude Roman centurion, confessing under the cross, in the name of the disinterested spectators, 'Truly, this was the Son of God;' and by Judas himself, the immediate witness of his whole public and private life, exclaiming in despair: 'I sinned in betraying innocent blood.' Even dumb nature responded in mysterious sympathy, and the beclouded heavens above and the shaking earth beneath united in paying their unconscious tribute to the divine purity of their dying Lord.
The objection that the evangelists were either not fully informed concerning the facts, or mistaken in their estimate of the character of Christ, is of no avail. For, in addition to their testimony, we have his own personal conviction of entire freedom from sin and unworthiness, which leaves us only the choice between absolute moral purity, and absolute hypocrisy; such hypocrisy would, indeed, be both the greatest miracle and the greatest moral monstrosity on record.
The very fact that Christ came for the express purpose of saving sinners, implies his own consciousness of personal freedom from guilt and from all need of salvation. And this is the unmistakable impression made upon us by his whole public life and conduct. He nowhere shows the least concern for his own salvation, but knows himself in undisturbed harmony with his Heavenly Father. While calling most earnestly upon all others to repent, he stood in no need of conversion and regeneration, but simply of the regular harmonious unfolding of his moral powers. While directing all his followers, in the fourth petition of his model prayer, to ask daily for the forgiveness of their sins as well as their daily bread, he himself never asked God for pardon and forgiveness, except in behalf of others. While freely conversing with sinners, he always does so with the love and interest of a Saviour of sinners. This is an undeniable historical fact, no matter how you may explain it. And to remove every doubt, we have his open and fearless challenge to his bitter enemies: 'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' In this question he clearly exempts himself from the common fault and guilt of the race. In the mouth of any other man, this question would at once betray either the height of hypocrisy, or a degree of self-deception bordering on madness itself, and would overthrow the very foundation of all human goodness; while from the mouth of Jesus we instinctively receive it as the triumphant self-vindication of one who stood far above the possibility of successful impeachment or founded suspicion.
The assumption that Christ was a sinner, and knew himself such, although he professed the contrary and made upon friends and enemies the impression of spotless innocency, is the most monstrous deception that can well be imagined. 'If Jesus was a sinner, he was conscious of sin, as all sinners are, and therefore was a hypocrite in the whole fabric of his character; realizing so much of divine beauty in it, maintaining the show of such unfaltering harmony and celestial grace, and doing all this with a mind confused and fouled by the affectations acted for true virtues! Such an example of successful hypocrisy would be itself the greatest miracle ever heard of in the world.'
It is an indisputable fact, then, both from his mission and uniform conduct and his express declaration, that Christ knew himself free from sin and guilt. The only rational explanation of this fact is, that Christwasno sinner. And this is readily conceded by the greatest divines—even those who are by no means regarded as orthodox. The admission of this fact implies the further admission that Christ differed from all other men, not in degree only, but inkind. For although we must utterly repudiate the pantheistic notion of the necessity of sin, and must maintain that human nature, in itself considered, is capable of sinlessness, that it was sinless, in fact, before the fall, and that it will ultimately become sinless again by the redemption of Christ; yet it is equally certain that human nature, in itspresentcondition, is not sinless, and never has been since the fall, except in the single case of Christ, and that for this very reason Christ's sinlessness can only be explained on the ground of such an extraordinary indwelling of God in him as never took place in any other human being, before or after. The entire Christian world, Greek, Latin, and Protestant, agree in the scriptural doctrine of the universal depravity of human nature since the apostasy of the first Adam. Even the modern and unscriptural dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, of the freedom of the Virgin Mary from hereditary as well as actual sin, can hardly be quoted as an exception; for her sinlessness is explained in the papal decision of 1854 by the assumption of a miraculous interposition of divine favor, and the reflex influence of the merits of her Son. There is not a single mortal who must not charge himself with some defect or folly, and man's consciousness of sin and unworthiness deepens just in proportion to his self-knowledge and progress in virtue and goodness. There is not a single saint who has not experienced a new birth from above, and an actual conversion from sin to holiness, and who does not feel daily the need of repentance and divine forgiveness. The very greatest and best of them, as St. Paul and St. Augustine, have passed through a violent struggle and a radical revolution, and their whole theological system and religious experience rested on the felt antithesis of sin and grace.
But in Christ we have the one solitary and absolute exception to this universal rule, an individual thinking like a man, feeling like a man, speaking, acting, suffering, and dying like a man, surrounded by sinners in every direction, with the keenest sense of sin and the deepest sympathy with sinners, commencing his public ministry with the call: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;' yet never touched in the least by the contamination of the world, never putting himself in the attitude of a sinner before God, never shedding a tear of repentance, never regretting a single thought, word, or deed, never needing or asking divine pardon, never concerned about the salvation of his own soul, and boldly facing all his present and future enemies in the absolute certainty of his spotless purity before God and man!
A sinless Saviour surrounded by a sinful world, is an astounding fact indeed, a sublime moral miracle in history. But this freedom from the common sin and guilt of the race is, after all, only the negative side of his character, which rises in magnitude as we contemplate the positive side, namely, absolute moral and religious perfection. It is universally admitted, even by deists and rationalists, that Christ taught the purest and sublimest system of ethics, which throws all the moral precepts and maxims of the wisest men of antiquity far into the shade. The Sermon on the Mount alone is worth infinitely more than all that Confucius, Socrates, and Seneca ever said or wrote on duty and virtue. But the difference is still greater if we come to the more difficult task of practice. While the wisest and best of men never live up even to their own imperfect standard of excellency, Christ fully carried out his perfect doctrine in his life and conduct. He bothwasanddidthat which hetaught; he preached his own life, and lived his own doctrine. He is the living incarnation of the ideal standard of virtue and holiness, and is universally acknowledged to be the highest model for all that is pure and good and noble in the sight of God and man.
We find Christ moving in all ordinary and essential relations of life, as a son, a brother, a friend, a citizen, a teacher, at home and in public. We find him among all classes of society, with sinners and saints, with the poor and the wealthy, with the sick and the healthy, with little children, grown men and women, with plain fishermen and learned scribes, with despised publicans and honored members of the sanhedrim, with friends and foes, with admiring disciples and bitter persecutors; now with an individual, as Nicodemus or the woman of Samaria, now in the familiar circle of the twelve, now in the crowds of the people. We find him in all situations, in the synagogue and the temple, at home and on journeys, in villages and the city of Jerusalem, in the desert and on the mountain, along the banks of Jordan and the shores of the Galilean Sea, at the wedding feast and the grave, in Gethsemane, in the judgment hall, and on Calvary. In all these various relations, conditions, and situations, as they are crowded within the few years of his public ministry, he sustains the same consistent character throughout, without ever exposing himself to censure. He fulfils every duty to God, to man, and to himself, without a single violation of duty, and exhibits an entire conformity to the law, in the spirit as well as the letter. His life is one unbroken service of God, in active and passive obedience to His holy will—one grand act of absolute love to God and love to man, of personal self-consecration to the glory of his Heavenly Father and the salvation of a fallen race. In the language of the people who were 'beyond measure astonished at his works,' we must say, the more we study his life: 'He did all things well.' In a solemn appeal to his Heavenly Father in the parting hour, he could proclaim to the world that he had glorified him in the earth, and finished the work he gave him to do.
The first feature in this singular perfection of Christ's character which strikes our attention, is the perfect harmony of virtue and piety, of morality and religion, or of love to God and love to man. He is more than moral, and more than pious; he is holy in the strict and full sense of the word. There is a divine beauty and perfection in his character, the mere contemplation of which brings purity, brightness, peace, and bliss to the soul.
Piety was the soul of his morality, and lifted it far above the sphere of legality or conformity to law. Every moral action in him proceeded fromsupreme love to God, and looked to the temporal and eternal welfare of man. The groundwork of his character was the most intimate and uninterrupted union and communion with his Heavenly Father, from whom he derived, to whom he referred, everything. Already in his twelfth year he found his life element and delight in the things of his Father. It was his daily food to do the will of Him that sent him, and to finish his work. To Him he looked in prayer before every important act, and taught his disciples that model prayer which, for simplicity, brevity, comprehensiveness, and suitableness, can never be surpassed. He often retired to a mountain or solitary place for prayer, and spent days and nights in this blessed privilege. But so constant and uniform was his habit of communion with the great Jehovah, that he kept it up amid the multitude, and converted the crowded city into a religious retreat. His self-consciousness was at every moment conditioned, animated, and impregnated by the consciousness of God. Even when he exclaimed, in indescribable anguish of body and soul, and in vicarious sympathy with the misery of the whole race: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!' the bond of union was not broken, or even loosened, but simply obscured for a moment, as the sun by a passing cloud, and the enjoyment, not the possession of it, was withdrawn from his feelings; for immediately afterward he commended his soul into the hands of his Father, and triumphantly exclaimed: 'It is finished!' So strong and complete was this moral union of Christ with God at every moment of his life, that he fully realized for the first time the idea of religion, whose object is to bring about such a union, and that he is the personal representative and living embodiment of Christianity as the true and absolute religion.
With all this, the piety of Christ was no inactive contemplation, or retiring mysticism and selfish enjoyment; but thoroughly practical, ever active in works of charity, and tending to regenerate and transform the world into the kingdom of God. 'He went about doing good.' His life is an unbroken series of good works and virtues in active exercise, all proceeding from the same union with God, animated by the same love, and tending to the same end, the glory of God and the happiness of man.
The next feature we would notice, is the completeness or pleromatic fulness of the moral and religious character of Christ. While all other men represent at best but broken fragments of the idea of goodness and holiness, he exhausts the list of virtues and graces which may be named. His soul is a moral paradise full of charming flowers, shining in every variety of color, under the blue dome of the skies, drinking in the refreshing dews of heaven and the warming beams of the sun, sending its sweet fragrance around, and filling the beholder with rapturous delight.
History exhibits to us many men of commanding and comprehensive genius, who stand at the head of their age and nation, and furnish material for the intellectual activity of whole generations and periods, until they are succeeded by other heroes at a new epoch of development. As rivers generally spring from high mountains, so knowledge and moral power rises and is ever nourished from the heights of humanity. Abraham, the father of the faithful; Moses, the lawgiver of the Jewish theocracy; Elijah, among the prophets; Peter, Paul, and John among the apostles; Athanasius and Chrysostom among the Greek, Augustine and Jerome among the Latin fathers; Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus among the schoolmen; Leo I. and Gregory VII. among the popes; Luther and Calvin in the line of Protestantreformers and divines; Socrates, the patriarch of the ancient schools of philosophy; Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton, Göthe and Schiller in the history of poetry, among the various nations to which they belong; Raphael among painters; Charlemagne, the first and greatest in the long succession of German emperors; Napoleon, towering high above all the generals of his training; Washington, the wisest and best as well as the first of American presidents, and the purest and noblest type of the American character, may be mentioned as examples of those representative heroes in history who anticipate and concentrate the powers of whole generations. But they never represent universal, but only sectional humanity; they are identified with a particular people or age, and partake of its errors, superstitions, and failings, almost in the same proportion in which they exhibit its virtues. Moses, though revered by the followers of three religions, was a Jew in views, feelings, habits, and position, as well as by parentage; Socrates never rose above the Greek type of character; Luther was a German in all his virtues and faults, and can only be properly understood as a German; Calvin, though an exile from his native land, remained a Frenchman; and Washington can be to no nation on earth what he is to the American. Their influence may and does extend far beyond their respective national horizons, yet they can never furnish a universal model for imitation. We regard them as extraordinary but fallible and imperfect men, whom it would be very unsafe to follow in every view and line of conduct. Very frequently the failings and vices of great men are in proportion to their virtues and powers, as the tallest bodies cast the longest shadows. Even the three leading apostles are models of piety and virtue only as far as they reflect the image of their Heavenly Master, and it is only with this limitation that Paul exhorts his spiritual children: 'Be ye followers of me even as I am also of Christ.'
What these representative men are to particular ages or nations, or sects or particular schools of science and art, Christ was to the human family at large in its relation to God. He and he alone is the universal type for universal imitation. Hence he could, without the least impropriety, or suspicion of vanity, call upon all men to forsake all things and to follow him. He stands above the limitations of age, school, sect, nation, and race. Although a Jew according to the flesh, there is nothing Jewish about him which is not at the same time of general significance. The particular and national in him is always duly subordinated to the general and human. Still less was he ever identified with a party or sect. He was equally removed from the stiff formalism of the Pharisees, the loose liberalism of the Sadducees, and the inactive mysticism of the Essenes. He rose above all the prejudices, bigotries, and superstitions of his age and people, which exert their power even upon the strongest and otherwise most liberal minds.
Witness his freedom in the observance of the Sabbath, by which he offended the scrupulous literalists, while he fulfilled, as the Lord of the Sabbath, the true spirit of the law in its universal and abiding significance; his reply to the disciples, when they traced the misfortune of the blind man to a particular sin of the subject or his parents; his liberal conduct toward the Samaritans, as contrasted with the inveterate hatred and prejudices of the Jews, including his own disciples at the time; and his charitable judgment of the slaughtered Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and the eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them. 'Think ye,' he addressed the children of superstition, 'that these men were sinners above all the Galileans, and above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem,because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.'
All the words and all the actions of Christ, while they were fully adapted to the occasions which called them forth, retain their force and applicability undiminished to all ages and nations. He is the same unsurpassed and unsurpassable model of every virtue to the Christians of every generation, every clime, every sect, every nation, and every race.
It must not be supposed that a complete catalogue of virtues would do justice to the character under consideration. It is not only the completeness, but still more the even proportion and perfect harmony of virtues and graces apparently opposite and contradictory, which distinguishes him specifically from all other men. This feature has struck with singular force all the more eminent writers on the subject. It gives the finish to that beauty of holiness which is the sublimest picture presented to our contemplation.
He was free from all one-sidedness, which constitutes the weakness as well as the strength of the most eminent men. He was not a man of one idea, nor of one virtue, towering above all the rest. The moral forces were so well tempered and moderated by each other, that none was unduly prominent, none carried to excess, none alloyed by the kindred failing. Each was checked and completed by the opposite grace. His character never lost its even balance and happy equilibrium, never needed modification or re-adjustment. It was thoroughly sound, and uniformly consistent from the beginning to the end.
We cannot properly attribute to him any one temperament. He was neither sanguine, like Peter, nor choleric, like Paul, nor melancholy, like John, nor phlegmatic, as James is sometimes, though incorrectly, represented to have been; but he combined the vivacity without the levity of the sanguine, the vigor without the violence of the choleric, the seriousness without the austerity of the melancholic, the calmness without the apathy of the phlegmatic temperament.
He was equally far removed from the excesses of the legalist, the pietist, the ascetic, and the enthusiast. With the strictest obedience to the law, he moved in the element of freedom; with all the fervor of the enthusiast, he was always calm, sober, and self-possessed; notwithstanding his complete and uniform elevation above the affairs of this world, he freely mingled with society, male and female, dined with publicans and sinners, sat at the wedding feast, shed tears at the sepulchre, delighted in God's nature, admired the beauties of the lilies, and used the occupations of the husbandman for the illustration of the sublimest truths of the kingdom of heaven. His virtue was healthy, manly, vigorous, yet genial, social, and truly human, never austere and repulsive, always in full sympathy with innocent joy and pleasure. He, the purest and holiest of men, provided wine for the wedding feast, introduced the fatted calf and music and dancing into the picture of welcome of the prodigal son to his father's house, and even provoked the sneer of his adversaries that he 'came eating and drinking,' and was a 'glutton' and a 'winebibber.'
His zeal never degenerated into passion or rashness, his constancy into obstinacy, his benevolence into weakness, nor his tenderness into sentimentality. His unworldliness was free from indifference and unsociability, his dignity from pride and presumption, his affability from undue familiarity, his self-denial from moroseness, his temperance from austerity. He combined child-like innocence with manly strength, all-absorbing devotion to God with untiring interest in the welfare of man,tender love to the sinner with uncompromising severity against sin, commanding dignity with winning humility, fearless courage with wise caution, unyielding firmness with sweet gentleness.
He is justly compared with the lion in strength and with the lamb in meekness. He equally possessed the wisdom of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove. He brought both the sword against every form of wickedness, and the peace which the world cannot give. He was the most effective, and yet the least noisy, the most radical, and yet the most conservative, calm, and patient of all reformers. He came to fulfil every letter of the law, and yet he made all things new. The same hand which drove the profane traffickers from the temple, blessed little children, healed the lepers, and rescued the sinking disciple; the same ear which heard the voice of approbation from heaven was open to the cries of the woman in travail; the same mouth which pronounced the terrible woe on hypocrites and condemned the impure desire and unkind feeling as well as the open crime, blessed the poor in spirit, announced pardon to the adulteress, and prayed for his murderers; the same eye which beheld the mysteries of God and penetrated the heart of man shed tears of compassion over ungrateful Jerusalem, and tears of friendship at the grave of Lazarus.
These are indeed opposite, yet not contradictory traits of character, as little as the different manifestations of God's power and goodness in the tempest and the sunshine, in the towering alps and the lily of the valley, in the boundless ocean and the dewdrop of the morning. They are separated in imperfect men, indeed, but united in Christ, the universal model for all.
Finally, as all active virtues meet in him, so he unites the active or heroic virtues with the passive and gentle. He is equally the highest standard of all true martyrdom.
No character can become complete without trial and suffering, and a noble death is the crowning act of a noble life. Edmund Burke said to Fox, in the English Parliament: 'Obloquy is a necessary ingredient of all true glory. Calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph.' The ancient Greeks and Romans admired a good man struggling with misfortune as a sight worthy of the gods. Plato describes the righteous man as one who, without doing any injustice, yet has the appearance of the greatest injustice, and proves his own justice by perseverance against all calumny unto death; yea, he predicts that if such a righteous man should ever appear, he would be 'scourged, tortured, bound, deprived of his sight, and, after having suffered all possible injury, nailed on a post.' No wonder that the ancient fathers saw in this remarkable passage an unconscious prophecy of Christ. But how far is this ideal of the great philosopher from the actual reality, as it appeared three hundred years afterward! The great men of this world, who rise even above themselves on inspiring occasions, and boldly face a superior army, are often thrown off their equilibrium in ordinary life, and grow impatient at trifling obstacles. Only think of Napoleon at the head of his conquering legions and at the helm of an empire, and the same Napoleon after the defeat at Waterloo and on the island of St. Helena. The highest form of passive virtue attained by ancient heathenism or modern secular heroism is that stoicism which meets and overcomes the trials and misfortunes of life in the spirit of haughty contempt and unfeeling indifference, which destroys the sensibilities, and is but another exhibition of selfishness and pride.
Christ has set up a far higher standard by his teaching, and example, never known before or since, except in imperfect imitation of him. He has revolutionized moral philosophy, and convinced the world that forgiving love to the enemy, holiness and humility, gentle patience in suffering, and cheerful submission to the holy will of God is the crowning excellency of moral greatness. 'If thy brother,' he says, 'trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.' 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.' This is a sublime maxim, truly, but still more sublime is its actual exhibition in his life.
Christ's passive virtue is not confined to the closing scenes of his ministry. As human life is beset at every step by trials, vexations, and hindrances, which should serve the educational purpose of developing its resources and proving its strength, so was Christ's. During the whole state of his humiliation he was 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,' and had to endure 'the contradiction of sinners.' He was poor, and suffered hunger and fatigue. He was tempted by the devil. His path was obstructed with apparently insurmountable difficulties from the outset. His words and miracles called forth the bitter hatred of the world, which resulted at last in the bloody counsel of death. The Pharisees and Sadducees forgot their jealousies and quarrels in opposing him. They rejected and perverted his testimony; they laid snares for him by insidious questions; they called him a glutton and a winebibber for eating and drinking like other men, a friend of publicans and sinners for his condescending love and mercy, a sabbath breaker for doing good on the sabbath day; they charged him with madness and blasphemy for asserting his unity with the Father, and derived his miracles from Beelzebub, the prince of devils. The common people, though astonished at his wisdom and mighty works, pointed sneeringly at his origin; his own country and native town refused him the honor of a prophet. Even his brothers, we are told, did not believe in him, and in their impatient zeal for a temporal kingdom, they found fault with his unostentatious proceeding. His apostles and disciples, with all their profound reverence for his character and faith in his divine origin and mission as the Messiah, of God, yet by their ignorance, their carnal Jewish notions, and their almost habitual misunderstanding of his spiritual discourses, must have constituted a severe trial of patience to a teacher of far less superiority to his pupils.
To all this must be added the constant sufferings from sympathy with human misery as it met him in ten thousand forms at every step. What a trial for him, the purest, gentlest, most tender hearted, to breath more than thirty years the foul atmosphere of this fallen world, to see the constant outbursts of sinful passions, to hear the great wail of humanity borne to his ear upon the four winds of heaven, to be brought into personal contact with the blind, the lame, the deaf, the paralytic, the lunatic, the possessed, the dead, and to be assaulted, as it were, by the concentrated force of sickness, sorrow, grief, and agony!
But how shall we describe his passion, more properly so called, with which no other suffering can be compared for a moment! There is a lonely grandeur in it, foreshadowed in the word of the prophet; 'I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me.' If great men occupy a solitary position, far above the ordinary level, on the sublime heights of thought or action, how much more then Jesus in his sufferings; he, the purest and holiest of beings! The nearer a man approaches to moral perfection, the deeper are his sensibilities, the keener his sense of sin and evil and sorrow in this wicked world.Never did any man suffer more innocently, more unjustly, more intensely, than Jesus of Nazareth. Within the narrow limits of a few hours we have here a tragedy of universal significance, exhibiting every form of human weakness and infernal wickedness, of ingratitude, desertion, injury, and insult, of bodily and mental pain and anguish, culminating in the most ignominious death then known among the Jews and Gentiles, the death of a malefactor and a slave. The government and the people combined against him who came to save them. His own disciples forsook him; Peter denied him; Judas, under the inspiration of the devil, betrayed him. The rulers of the nation condemned him, rude soldiers mocked him, the furious mob cried: 'Crucify him!' He was seized in the night, hurried from tribunal to tribunal, arrayed in a crown of thorns, insulted, smitten, scourged, spit upon, and hung like a criminal and a slave between two robbers and murderers!
How did Christ bear all these little and great trials of life, and the death on the cross?
Let us remember first, that, unlike the icy stoics in their unnatural and repulsive pseudo-virtue, he had the keenest sensibilities and the deepest sympathies with all human grief, that made him even shed tears at the grave of a friend and in the agony of the garden, and provide a refuge for his mother in the last dying hour. But with this truly human tenderness and delicacy of feeling, he ever combined an unutterable dignity and majesty, a sublime self-control and imperturbable calmness of mind. There is a solitary grandeur and majesty in his deepest sufferings, which forbids a feeling of pity and compassion on our side as incompatible with the admiration and reverence for his character. We feel the force of his words to the women of Jerusalem, when they bewailed him on the way to Cavalry: 'Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.' We never hear him break out in angry passion and violence, although he was at war with the whole ungodly world. He clearly and fully foresaw and repeatedly foretold his sufferings to his disciples.
And yet never murmured, never uttered discontent, displeasure, or resentment. He was never disheartened, discouraged, ruffled, or fretted, but full of unbounded confidence that all was well ordered in the providence of his Heavenly Father. His calmness in the tempest on the lake, when his disciples were trembling on the brink of destruction and despair, is an illustration of his heavenly frame of mind. All his works were performed with a quiet dignity and ease that contrasts most strikingly with the surrounding commotion and excitement. He never asked the favor, or heard the applause, or feared the threat of the world. He moved serenely like the sun above the clouds of human passions and trials and commotions, as they sailed under him. He was ever surrounded by the element of peace, even in his parting hour in that dark and solemn night, when he said to his disturbed disciples: 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' He was never what we call unhappy, but full of inward joy, which he bequeathed to his disciples in that sublimest of all prayers, 'that they might have his joy fulfilled in themselves.' With all his severe rebuke to the Pharisees, he never indulged in personalities. He ever returned good for evil. He forgave Peter for his denial, and would have forgiven Judas, if in the exercise of sincere repentance he had sought his pardon. Even while hanging on the cross, he had only the language of pity for the wretches who were driving the nails into his hands and feet, and prayed in their behalf: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' He did not seek or hasten his martyrdom, like many of the early martyrs of the Ignatian type, in their morbid enthusiasm and ambitious humility, but quietly and patiently waited for the hour appointed by the will of his Heavenly Father.
But when the hour came, with what self-possession and calmness, with what strength and meekness, with what majesty and gentleness did he pass through its dark and trying scenes! A prisoner before Pilate, who represented the power of the Roman empire, he professes himself a king of truth, and makes the governor tremble before him. Charged with crime at the tribunal of the high priest, he speaks to him with the majesty and dignity of the judge of the world. And in the agony of death on the cross he dispenses a place in paradise to the penitent robber. In the history of the passion, every word and act are unutterably significant, from the agony in Gethsemane, when, overwhelmed with the sympathetic sense of the entire guilt of mankind, and in full view of the terrible scenes before him—the only guiltless being in the world—he prayed that the cup might pass from him, but immediately added, 'Not my but thy will be done,' to the triumphant exclamation on the cross, 'It is finished!' Even his dignified silence before the tribunal of his enemies and the furious mob, when 'as a lamb dumb before his shearers he opened not his mouth,' is more eloquent than any apology. Who will venture to bring a parallel from the annals of ancient or modern sages, when even a Rousseau confessed: 'If Socrates suffered and died like a philosopher, Christ suffered and died like a God!' The passion and crucifixion of Jesus, like his whole character, stands without a parallel, solitary and alone in its glory, and will ever continue to be what it has been for these eighteen hundred years, the most sacred theme of meditation, the highest exemplar of suffering virtue, the strongest weapon against sin and Satan, the deepest source of comfort to the noblest and best of men.
Such was Jesus of Nazareth—a true man in body, soul, and spirit, yet differing from all men, a character absolutely unique and original, from tender childhood to ripe manhood moving in unbroken union with God, overflowing with the purest love to man, free from every sin and error, innocent and holy, teaching and practising all virtues in perfect harmony, devoted solely and uniformly to the noblest ends, sealing the purest life with the sublimest death, and ever acknowledged since as the one and only perfect model of goodness and holiness! All human greatness loses on closer inspection; but Christ's character grows more and more pure, sacred, and lovely, the better we know him.
No biographer, moralist, or artist can be satisfied with any attempt of his to set it forth. It is felt to be infinitely greater than any conception or representation of it by the mind, the tongue, and the pencil of man or angel. We might as well attempt to empty the waters of the boundless sea into a narrow well, or to portray the splendor of the risen sun and the starry heavens with ink. No picture of the Saviour, though drawn by the master hand of a Raphael or Dürer or Rubens—no epic, though conceived by the genius of a Dante or Milton or Klopstock, can improve on the artless narrative of the gospel, whose only but all-powerful charm is truth. In this case certainly truth is stranger and stronger than fiction, and speaks best itself without comment, explanation, and eulogy. Here and here alone the highest perfection of art falls short of the historical fact, and fancy finds no room for idealizing the real. For here we have the absolute ideal itself in living reality. It seems to me that this consideration alone should satisfy the reflecting mind that Christ's character, though truly natural and human, must be at the same time truly supernatural and divine.
Even Göthe, the most universal and finished, but at the same time the most intensely worldly of all modern poets, calls Christ 'the Divine Man,' the 'Holy One,' and represents him as the pattern and model of humanity. Thomas Carlyle, the great hero-worshipper, found no equal in all the range of ancient and modern heroism; he calls his life a 'perfect ideal poem,' and his person 'the greatest of all heroes,' whom he does not name, leaving 'sacred silence to meditate that sacred matter.' And Ernest Renan, the celebrated French orientalist and critic, who views Jesus from the standpoint of a pantheistic naturalism, and expels all miracles from the gospel history, calls him 'the incomparable man, to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title ofSon of God, and that with justice, since he caused religion to take a step in advance incomparably greater than any other in the past, and probably thanany yet to come;' and he closes his 'Life of Jesus' with the remarkable concession: 'Whatever may be the surprises of the future,Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus.'
The whole range of history and fiction furnishes no parallel to such a character. There never was anything even approaching to it before or since, except in faint imitation of his example. It cannot be explained on purely human principles, nor derived from any intellectual and moral forces of the age in which he lived. On the contrary, it stands in marked contrast to the whole surrounding world of Judaism and heathenism, which present to us the dreary picture of internal decay, and which actually crumbled into ruin before the new moral creation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one absolute and unaccountable exception to the universal experience of mankind. He is the great central miracle of the whole gospel history, and all his miracles are but the natural and necessary manifestations of his miraculous person, performed with the same ease with which we perform our ordinary daily works.
In vain has infidelity, in ever-changing shapes and forms, assailed the everlasting foundation of this greatest and sublimest character that ever blessed or will bless the earth. He arises brighter and stronger from every fiery ordeal of criticism, and stands out to every beholder as the greatest benefactor of the race and the only Saviour from sin and ruin.
Yes! he still lives, the Divine Man and incarnate God, on the ever fresh and self-authenticating record of the Gospels, in the unbroken history of eighteen centuries, and in the hearts and lives of the wisest and best of our race. Jesus Christ is the most certain, the most sacred, and the most glorious of all facts, arrayed in a beauty and majesty which throws the 'starry heavens above us and the moral law within us' into obscurity, and fills us truly with ever-growing reverence and awe. He shines forth with the self-evidencing light of the noonday sun. He is too great, too pure, too perfect to have been invented by any sinful and erring man. His character and claims are confirmed by the sublimest doctrine, the purest ethics, the mightiest miracles, the grandest spiritual kingdom, and are daily and hourly exhibited in the virtues and graces of all who yield to the regenerating and sanctifying power of his spirit and example. The historical Christ meets and satisfies our deepest intellectual and moral wants. Our souls, if left to their noblest impulses and aspirations, instinctivelyturn to him as the needle to the magnet, as the flower to the sun, as the panting hart to the fresh fountain. We are made for him, and 'our heart is without rest until it rests in him.' He commands our assent, he wins our admiration, he overwhelms us to humble adoration and worship. We cannot look upon him without spiritual benefit. We cannot think of him without being elevated above all that is low and mean, and encouraged to all that is good and noble. The very hem of his garment is healing to the touch; one hour spent in his communion outweighs all the pleasures of sin. He is the most precious and indispensable gift of a merciful God to a fallen world. In him are the treasures of true wisdom, in him the fountain of pardon and peace, in him the only substantial hope and comfort of this world and that which is to come. Mankind could better afford to lose the whole literature of Greece and Rome, of Germany and France, of England and America, than the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Without him, history is a dreary waste, an inextricable enigma, a chaos of facts without meaning, connection, and aim; with him it is a beautiful, harmonious revelation, the slow but sure unfolding of a plan of infinite wisdom and love: all ancient history converging to his coming, all modern history receiving from him his higher life and impulse. He is the glory of the past, the life of the present, the hope of the future. We cannot even understand ourselves without him. According to an old Jewish proverb: 'The secret of man is the secret of the Messiah.' He is the great central light of history as a whole, and at the same time the light of every soul; he alone can solve the mystery of our being, and fulfil our intellectual desires after truth, all our moral aspirations after goodness and holiness, and the longing of our feelings after peace and happiness.
Not for all the wealth and wisdom of this world would I weaken the faith of the humblest Christian in his Divine Lord and Saviour; but if, by the grace of God, I could convert a single sceptic to a child-like faith in him, who lived and died for me and for all, I would feel that I had not lived in vain.
'Men,' saith my Lord Bacon, 'think to govern words by their own reason: but it also happens that words throw back their force upon the understanding;' and thus, we may justly add, often distort our thoughts, and lead us to very erroneous conclusions.
This is apparently the case with the wordmotive, in speaking of human volitions. A motive power in mechanics is one that produces motion; and hence the application of the word to the occasion or reason of any particular act of choice, with the all but inevitable fallacy of confounding the idea of a mechanical force with that of an influence upon the mind. That there is some analogy must be admitted; but that there is such similarity as is often assumed, we are obliged to deny. The almost total difference between a mechanical power and a thought or desire—between a material and spiritual subject of operation—is too apt to be left out of the account.
Few indeed are the pleasures that can be compared with the keen enjoyment of travel in a new and beautiful country, where every sense is stimulated by the purest and most aromatic of atmospheres, and where rocks, trees, rivers, lakes, and skies offer every possibility of combination imaginable under the structural conditions of the region. The life of the scout and the pioneer is a constant succession of pleasant surprises and unanticipated adventure; every hilltop promises a new picture, every dawn and sunset an additional novelty for that gallery, longer than the Louvre, and fuller than the Vatican, of which memory holds the key and is sole warden. Hardship and even danger are enclosed in surroundings so beautiful, so fresh and invigorating, that they seem only to add zest to the pursuit, to give dignity and significance to an occupation which might perhaps otherwise be stigmatized as mere selfish vagabondage. Oh, the freedom of the wild woods! the rest to the soul of the shadowy forest and flower-strewn turf! The wind may toss the locks, the sun brown the skin, and the brambles tear the garments, but there are none to cavil, none to count the gray hairs or the freckles, or see that said garments are of last year's fashioning. If the eyes look kindly, the peering squirrels will be content, and if the voice be gentle, the birds will ask no more, except, perhaps, a crumb or two from the slender stock of woodsman's fare. The deer and the trout will not question our philosophy, knowing instinctively, as we do, that there is a great God who made us all, and who ever encompasseth us with a love surpassing every created conception. They will only ask of our good will, and that our absolute need be the limit of our tax upon their lives. With the sky for roof, and the beech and the pine for friends and teachers, the body has time to strengthen, and the conscience and inner self to grow steadily upright, that they may overtop trifles, rise to the height of heavenly inspirations, and hence win power to withstand the surging floods of bewildering human passion. When men meet such souls, they are amazed at their calmness and simplicity, and dimly guess that the All-Powerful, through His created universe, has been whispering to them secrets of strength, perseverance, patience, and charity.
But this subject is boundless as its origin, and we must now to the particulars of a personal experience, which, if limited, may yet be of service to others desirous of journeying in the same region.
Having made a thorough acquaintance with the environs of Elizabethtown, Elsie and I could no longer resist the blandishment of the blue mountains ever beckoning us westward through the rocky portal of the Keene Pass. July 13th, at six A.M., we started in the weekly stage for Saranac, thirty-six miles distant. The morning was bright; a few low clouds hung about the tops of the higher hills, and the wind blew from the east, a direction which here, contrary to our experience near the seaboard, by no means implies rain. So great is the distance of the Adirondac plateau from the sea, so numerous its ranges, and so great the elevation of the ridges lying between it and the ocean, that we found our ordinary weather calculations all come to nought, east winds blowing for days without a drop of rain, andwestern breezes bringing clouds and moisture.
The road to Keene winds along a branch of the Boquet River, on which are one or two quite pretty falls, with consequent mills; it ascends continually until it reaches the foot of the steep rocks forming the Keene Pass. The views back over the Boquet Valley and toward the Green Mountains of Vermont are very lovely, and those obtained in descending the western slope of this, the Boquet range, are magnificent. Soon left behind are the high cliffs and the steep slide, where a gathering avalanche of rocks and earth swept through a forest, carrying off a great belt of timber, wherewith to strew the little valley, and block the road and stream below. The rugged mountains on either hand have been burnt over, and send up into the blue ether bare, white, foot-enticing peaks. At the base of the western declivity lies the valley of the East Branch of the Au Sable, and beyond, the great Adirondac range, overtopped by Whiteface and Mount Tahawus. We greeted these giants with due reverence, hoping for a nearer acquaintance, for only their extreme summits are visible from that point, Whiteface bold and peaked, Tahawus round and indistinct. The great ridge, hiding all but their heads, is here jagged or flowing, steep, and dark with spruce and pine. It rises like an impassable wall; of a clear morning, a frowning barrier of granite and forest; of a hazy afternoon, the shining, glowing rampart of some celestial city.
The village of Keene is a straggling collection of dwellings, with an inn, a post office, and a store or two. It lies in the intervale bordering the East Branch of the Au Sable, and is twelve miles from Elizabethtown.
Thus far, our only fellow traveller had been a school girl, going home for the summer vacation. At Keene our number was increased by the addition of another damsel, with accompaniment of two hounds, Spart and Prince, bound for Saranac. When first fastened behind the open wagon (our stage), they began a vigorous quarrel, which struck us very much as a matrimonial squabble, both tied, and neither having a fair chance for a free fight. Our driver, an excellent specimen of the upright and intelligent man of Northern New York, cracked his whip, increased the existing merriment by calling out, 'Wal, dogs, hev ye done fightin'?' and started up the long declivity leading over the Adirondac range, through Pitch-off Mountain (another pass), to the plains of North Elba. The hill is a long one, the cliffs of the mountain pass exceedingly picturesque, and the black tarn under the beetling crags suggestive of Poe's 'House of Usher.' Long, however, ere we reached this point, Spart had gnawed through his rope, and was trotting beside the wagon. Our driver vainly endeavored to refasten him. Although mild of visage, and apparently good-natured, he showed so formidable a set of teeth, that it was thought prudent to desist, and trust to his following his companion, who still trotted along, coughing and choking, and almost stifled by our own dust, blown after us by the east wind. After this attempt, Spart evidently played shy of our whole party, and, having raced ahead during a few miles, finally disappeared in the woods, probably attracted by the scent of game.
We reached North Elba (twelve miles from Keene) about noon, and there stopped to dine at Scott's, a place widely and favorably known to travellers in that section of country. Round the plain of North Elba tower the very highest peaks of the Adirondacs; Tahawus (Marcy), Golden, McIntire, and the beautiful gateway of the Indian Pass to the south, and to the north the scarred sides of Whiteface and the bold forms of the mountains bordering the Wilmington notch. Descending the plain into the village, wecame to the West Branch of the Au Sable, which rises in the Indian Pass, and flows past the former dwelling of John Brown. The little wooden tenement is in full view from the road, and stands in the midst of the clearing made by old John himself, with the aid of his sons. His grave is in the garden near the house, beside a huge rock. The place is of his own selection, and is now visited by many who, while reprehending the means taken by the gray-haired enthusiast for the accomplishment of his designs, cannot but rejoice that the final freedom of every human being within the limits of our country seems so probable a result of the present struggle. The neighbors—even those of opposing political creeds—give John Brown an excellent character for integrity and charitable deeds. His family have all left the region, and are, I believe, scattered through the great West.
Crossing the Au Sable, we soon came to the tamarac forests and whortleberry plains, so characteristic of the tract between that river and the Saranac lakes. We had left the arbor vitæ and the juniper with the Boquet range, the beech and maple with the valleys and the lower portions of the Adirondac, and now found ourselves chiefly amid birches, yellow and white, spruce firs, and interminable stretches of fantastic tamarac. The hills lower as we reach the lake region proper, and, while still picturesque, the Saranacs can boast no near mountains such as skirt Lake Placid and the two 'Ponds of the Au Bable.' Tahawus and Whiteface are indeed visible from the Saranac waters, but far away, and shorn of much of their grandeur. The lakes themselves are elevated some twelve hundred feet, perhaps, above the level of the sea, and the climate is correspondingly bracing and delightful. There are at Saranac two inns, at either of which the traveller can make himself very comfortable. At six o'clockP. M., we found ourselves at the house immediately upon the lake, and, after an excellent supper, were ready for a row upon the clear, shining water. The evening was delightful, the sun just setting, the low, wooded shores (rising beyond into higher hills) flooded with golden light, the temperature elysian, our oarsman broad browed, broad shouldered, and athletic, our boat one of the fairy craft, sharp at both ends, and light as possible, borne by guides over portages from lake to lake, and the whole scene as placidly beautiful and reposeful as the most vivid imagination could desire. War, contention, suffering, even the law, trade, politics, or any acute state of feeling, seemed incomprehensible excrescences upon the normal state of man's being, which there, indeed, appeared to be an endless floating over placid waters, with the tinkling of oars and the even song of birds for all needful sounds, and those long, low, slanting rays of golden light forever stealing through half-closed lids, and steeping the nerves and brain and tired senses in long dreams of peace and quietude—dreams without the wearisomeness of monotony or the shock of awaking.
Night, however, came at last, and with it forgetfulness; morning, too, came in due season, and with it, the daily call for active thought and exertion.
From Saranac, by means of boats, guides, and camping out, delightful excursions can be made through the lakes, the two Saranacs, Round, Long, and Racket Lakes, and the Racket River. This region has been much travelled and often described.
Our faces, however, must be turned eastward, and the following day found us again in our wagon,en routefor Placid Lake. To reach this, we left the return stage about two miles west of North Elba, and walked northward two miles through open country and some beautiful woodland, until we came out upon Bennet's Pond, on whose shore stands the pleasant farmhouse where we intended to pass the night. The owner and his family were absent, but we found a smiling little handmaiden, who brought us a cooling draught, and an antique whaler, who offered to show us the way to Lake Placid and give us a row.
Placid Lake is a beautiful, clear sheet of water, about five miles long and two or three wide. It is divided down the centre by three islands, charmingly wooded. The surrounding mountains are high, and at the north-easterly end rises Whiteface, nearly, if not quite, 5,000 feet in height, the lower portion clad in deciduous trees, the middle in spruce, and the upper rising bare and white, with a great slide of many hundred feet extending from the top toward the lake, and marking out the steep pathway by which the ascent must be made. Bennet's Pond is about a mile and a half long, and half a mile broad. Bennet is a contraction of Benedict—Benedictus—Blessèd—and never, surely, did blue expanse of limpid crystal better merit the appellation—Lake of the Blessèd. Its shores are gently sloping, and beyond the nearer hills rise the giant summits of the highest peaks. These two sheets of water are within a quarter of a mile of each other, but have no communication, and are divided by a ridge of land, chiefly cleared, from whose top the view is as beautiful as any view from the same elevation to be obtained in America. To the north lies Lake Placid, with its shining waves, its islands, and the stately Whiteface; and to the south, the heaven-reflecting Lake of the Blessèd, crowned by the noble dome of Tahawus, and his splendid retinue, Colden, McMartin, McIntire, Wallface, Dial Mountain, Nipple Top, and Moriah. To the east and west are wooded hills, completing the panorama, and enclosing a scene as enchanting as any single one the writer ever looked upon.
The following day our host, who had meantime returned, drove us down through the Wilmington Pass to Upper Jay, and thence through Keene to the Keene Flats, a distance in all of between twenty and twenty-five miles.
The Wilmington Pass, though not so rough and rugged as its far-famed rival, the Indian Pass, is far more beautiful, and quite as majestic. The great cliffs overhanging the road, and the swift Au Sable, the fine rapids, and the fall of over a hundred feet, the noble views of Whiteface and the dark, steep peaks rising round it, all combine to render this one of the most impressive mountain chasms we have ever visited. After passing through the defile, we left the West Branch of the Au Sable, and crossed a low ridge to Upper Jay, where we again came upon the East Branch, and ploughed our way through heavy sands to Keene, where we dined, and whence the road up the valley to the Keene Flats becomes firmer and less tedious. The way was bordered by rich fields of grass and grain, potatoes in abundance, flax in pale azure flower, and acres blue with the beautiful campanula or harebell. At the inn in Keene we met our rebellious friend Spart, who, having tired of his chase, had returned to his former headquarters.
Toward the 'Flats,' five miles above Keene, the intervale grows narrower, and the bordering mountains become loftier, wilder, and correspondingly more grand. Dix's Peak towers above the southern extremity of the valley.
We passed the night at a comfortable farmhouse, there being no inn at the 'Flats,' and the following morning were driven back to Elizabethtown, with the increased store of information, health, and admiration for the Adirondac country we had amassed during our three and a half days' scouting excursion.
The beginning of August found us once more housed under the neat roof of our farmer host at the Keene Flats,and not only Elsie and myself, but also sundry friends, drawn thither by our praise of the beauty of the land and the fineness of the air. There were the brilliant M. W. C., learned in all philosophical lore, and with feeling and imagination sufficient to furnish out half a dozen poets; the staid but energetic M. T., whose portrait in our gallery occupies, a conspicuous place in the small niche devoted to model women; the gay and witty A. I., whose blue eyes imperil so many hearts, but whose frank, keen speech quickly puts to rout all popinjays and useless danglers; also E. B. C. (our Diogenes), a faithful knight from Caissa's thoughtful train, a rapid walker and sharp thinker; and last, a merry little four-year-old, whose quaint sayings are heeded and treasured as if emanations from Delphos or Dodona. Our Orpheus had gone to Saranac.
Our purpose was to visit the Au Sable Ponds, with the waterfalls in their neighborhood, and to ascend Mount Tahawus; but alas! for weather! The haze settled down so thickly that the nearest hills were undistinguishable. A violent thunder storm came, but brought no relief. Desperate, we thought we might at least see the ponds and the falls, and early one hazy morning started off with strong wagon, stout horses, and careful driver. The distance to the Lower Pond is seven miles—three excellent, and four so execrable that nearly all our party preferred walking to the jolting over rocks and stumps and ploughing through rich, deep forest mould, dignified by the name of driving. This is a new road, just opened, and the intention is, we believe, to work it into better shape as rapidly as possible. The intervale ceases at the end of the first three miles, where the road leaves the Au Sable and winds up a hill to the last clearing, whence the view to the blasted, riven sides of Mount Moriah, towering opposite, is wonderfully grand. Thousands of acres of bare rock, scarred and lined, and apparently nearly perpendicular, form the western slope of that gaunt giant. The road soon after passes the cabin of one of the oldest pioneers of the region, crosses Gill Brook, on which are some charming cascades, and, through a noble forest of beech, basswood, maple, birch, and some evergreens, finds its way to the lofty shores of the Lower Pond. Arrived there, the haze was thicker than ever, giving to view only the sparkling waters at our feet, and the nearest mountains, whose craggy sides overhang the lake. To cap the climax, a fishing party had carried off both boats, so that a nearer acquaintance with the Lower Pond was impossible, and the Upper could not be seen at all—these ponds forming no exception to the general Adirondac rule, that any sheet of water navigable for boats requires no road upon its bank. And indeed, a road round this Lower Pond would be a considerable undertaking, the shores are so steep and high, the rocks often rising perpendicularly from the water. Crossing the great dam at the outlet, our guide led us through tangled patches of magnificent wild raspberries, 'through brake and through briar,' to the opening of a narrow gorge through which poured a small stream. Climbing up over the rocks and bowlders, we soon reached the end of the chasm, where we were enchanted by the spectacle of the most fairy-like and peculiar waterfall we had ever beheld. The Cascade Brook here falls over a precipice of about 150 feet. The little stream at this point makes a right-angled turn, and thus is built up an opposing wall of equal height. The chasm is so deep and narrow, that the water, descending in a silvery veil, seems flowing from the clouds. A heavy fringe of trees bordering the top, adds to the mystery and the apparent elevation. The campanula, as is usual with this delicate blossom, hangs out its blue bella and slender foliage from every jutting cornice andearth-filled cranny. Below, the water has worn away a series of steep, narrow steps, and comes leaping and foaming down, as if a magic wand had touched the rocks, and at each touch a springing fountain had gushed forth.
On our way back to the 'Flats,' we went a mile off the main road, to visit another fall on Roaring Brook. The precipice here is some 250 feet in height. A great slide has bared the rock for many yards on either side of the fall, which has worn deep grooves for its passage, and clings to the face of the mountain, as if it feared to lose itself amid the savagery of the surrounding desolation. Here, as in all the neighboring region, are plainly visible the terrible effects of the great freshet of October 1st, 1856. We were told that, in the vicinity of this fall, neither the heavy rain nor the rushing waters could for a time be heard, only the rattling and battering of stones, as if the Titans had again taken to pelting the poor earth with whatever of rock and bowlder they could lay their hands upon. The State dam at the outlet of the lower Au Sable broke down, and the freed lake rushed out through the valley, over the meadows, carrying away bridges, dams, mills, houses, and whole fields of earth, with their crops. The Au Sable River rose three feet in fifteen minutes, and many persons perished before aid could reach them. Bowlders, rocks, trees, stumps, and timber were whirled along by the boiling flood. Bowlders of six feet in diameter were afterward found lying twenty feet above the bed of a brook where trout had been caught before the freshet. They had been brought down stream some forty rods, and piled one above another. The effects of the rise were felt all the way to the mouth of the river, the high stone bridge at Keeseville being the only one on the whole course left standing, and that, to this day, bearing a stone inscription marking the almost incredible height to which the water rose on that eventful first of October. The inhabitants of the region sued the State for damages; but as the dam had been constructed in consequence of a petition of sundry of those inhabitants, for the purpose of running logs down the river at all seasons, the court decided that the State was not responsible for the consequences. John's Brook, which flows into the Au Sable near the farmhouse at which we stayed, bears wild marks of this desolating freshet; indeed, one can scarcely credit the fact that the pretty little stream and smoothly purling river could ever have met in such desperate conflict as is evidenced by the scars and rifts still existing near their confluence.