"O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!To be indeed a God!"
And again:
"O the joy of a manly self-hood!To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth."
Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and he says:
"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.Strong and content I travel the open road."
He is one of
"Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors,as to say 'Who are you? '"
And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self." Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality—the defender of the rights of each for the sake of all—and his sympathies are as wide as the world. He is the defender of the whole race.
VI. HUMANITY.
THE great poet is intensely human, infinitely sympathetic, entering into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law, Walt Whitman said:
"I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin,I fall on the weeds and stones,The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.Agonies are one of my changes of garments,I do not ask the wounded person how he feels,I myself become the wounded person....I... see myself in prison shaped like another man,And feel the dull unintermitted pain.For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side.Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing."
Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the sun excludes you will I exclude you."
In this age of greed when houses and lands and stocks and bonds outrank human life; when gold is of more value than blood, these words should be read by all:
"When the psalm sings instead of the singer,When the script preaches instead of the preacher,When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk,When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again,"When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince,When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter,When warrantee deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you."
VII.
The poet is also a painter, a sculptor—he, too, deals in form and color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women—with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it:
"Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets,A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of December,A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses.The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,He is decently put away—is there anything more?He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty,Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral."
Let me read you another description, one of a woman:
"Behold a woman!She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,The sun just shines on her old white head.Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.The melodious character of the earth.The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go,The justified mother of men."
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
"Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands. We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, On our lower gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves. The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.
Our frigate takes fire,The other asks if we demand quarter?If our colors are struck and the fighting done?Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,'We have not struck,' he composedly cries, 'we have just begun our part of the fighting.'Only three guns are in use,One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast,Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.Not a moment's cease,The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazines.One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.Serene stands the little captain,He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon the surrender to us.Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness. Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd,The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers,The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan."
Some people say that this is not poetry—that it lacks measure and rhyme.
VIII. WHAT IS POETRY?
THE whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and thought flames—that contains all seeds of action—are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and qualities, so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain.
The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the flat, barren, and uninteresting—from the small and shriveled and worthless—to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech—the creators of art.
And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator tells what passes in his own world—the imitator does not. The imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled.
In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged. For the sake of beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of language, and has left his impress on mankind.
What I have said is not only true of poetry—it is true of all speech. All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have been invented and are being invented, for the reason that new powers are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols—the civilized many—the poet most of all.
The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That excuse no longer exists.
Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his subject, to say more or less than he means, to introduce irrelevant matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance.
All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. The spring must be quick and warm, the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain enough—everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden.
The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation. Under emotion the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression the thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow.
The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself.
The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves.
I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom.
A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and passions—-joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the brain—that every thought is accompanied by certain physical phenomena. Now, it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music produces the same molecular action in the brain—the same physical changes—that are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular movements.
All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in different ways—that is to say, they produce like states of mind and feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator, work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels—his words give form, relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The composer touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. In all these there must be rhythm—that is to say, proportion—that is to say, harmony, melody.
So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the people.
The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest.
The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling—the words must be known, apt, familiar. The height must be in the thought, in the sympathy.
In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know.
We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders—there are millions of miracles under our feet.
Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend.
The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible—he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell—two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for, nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears—nothing. And yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for—that they have life, love, and hope—and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts.
IX.
The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Toward all forms of worship, toward all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and so believing he says:
"We consider Bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine,I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.""His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent.""Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?There can be any number of supremes—one does not countervail anotheranymore than one eyesight countervails another."
Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul:
"No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself....In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name."
The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:
"Not objecting to special revelations—considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation."
The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:
"Magnifying and applying come I,Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos,Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image,Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more."
Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks, on stupidity and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.
X. PHILOSOPHY.
WALT WHITMAN is a philosopher. The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him.
A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?"
Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he said:
"I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,A few sands and dead leaves to gather,Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon meI have not once had the least idea who or what I am,But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd,untold, altogether unreach'd,Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath....I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object,and that no man ever can."
There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled "Elemental Drifts."
The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass.
The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows:
"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main outline to something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings of Leaves of Grass."
As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In the presence of these mysteries—and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned—the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "I do not know."
In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever, and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light, a few momentary sparks.
Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together.
But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter.
The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. Y ou take in your hand a little earth—a little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit.
What is this dust—this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this?
Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret—an impregnable fortress. Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts.
Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit—the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."
This is the generalization of all history.
XI. THE TWO POEMS.
THERE are two of these poems to which I will call special attention. The first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea."
The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries—from the memories of birds—from the thousand responses of his heart—goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence.
Two guests from Alabama—two birds—build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy:
"Shine! shine! shine!Pour down your warmth, great sun!While we bask, we two together.Two together!Winds blow south, or winds blow north,Day come white, or night come black, .Home, or rivers and mountains from home,Singing all time, minding no time,While we two keep together."
In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the lost:
"Blow! blow! blow!Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me."
And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes.
And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer; waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are the shadows;" and at last crying:
"O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!In the air, in the woods, over fields,Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!But my mate no more, no more with me!We two together no more."
And then the 'boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the birds, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!"
The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln,
"The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands."
One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous western star" and "the gray-brown bird singing in the pines and cedars."
In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event.
Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the tolling bells—and the sprig of lilac.
And then for a moment they will hear the gray-brown bird singing in the cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the west, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the burial house—pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold—of the gorgeous indolent sinking sun—the sweet herbage under foot—the green leaves of the trees prolific—the breast of the river with the wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land—and the most excellent sun so calm and haughty—the violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes—the gentle soft-born measureless light—the miracle spreading, bathing all—the fulfill'd noon—the coming eve delicious, and the welcome night and the stars.
And then again they will hear the song of the gray-brown bird in the limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the star, and again the odor of the lilac.
But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant for death:
A CHANT FOR DEATH.
"Come lovely and soothing death,Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,In the day, in the night, to all, to each,Sooner or later delicate death.Prais'd be the fathomless universe,For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.Approach strong deliveress,When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.From me to thee glad serenades,Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and 'feastings for thee,And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting,And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.The night in silence under many a star,The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death."
This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last as long as the memory of Lincoln.
XII. OLD AGE.
WALT WHITMAN is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life,
"His jocund heart still beating in his breast," he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks.
He has taken life's seven steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet," he is enjoying "old age, expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying days."
He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters thanks:
"For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life,For precious ever-lingering memories,(of you my mother dear—you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends,)For all my days—not those of peace alone—the days of war the same,For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation,(You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified,readers belov'd,We never met, and ne'er shall meet—and yet our souls embrace,long, close and long;)For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms,For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy men—who've forwardsprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands,For braver, stronger, more devoted men—(a special laurel ere I go,to life's war's chosen ones,The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:"
It is a great thing to preach philosophy—far greater to live it. The highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as though it were desired.
To be satisfied: This is wealth—success.
The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have happened—consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived—glad that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has accepted life.
"I shall go forth,I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my vvoice will suddenly cease.O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?—and yet it is enough, O soul;O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough."
Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of Democracy—of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has sounded the note of Individuality. He has given the pass-word primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity—of Intellectual Hospitality. He has voiced the aspirations of America—and, above all, he is the poet of Love and Death.
How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is his farewell—his leave-taking:
"After the supper and talk—after the day is done,As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,(So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet,No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)Shunning, postponing severance—seeking to ward off the last word ever so little,E'en at the exit-door turning—charges superfluous calling back—e'en as he descends the steps,Something to eke out a minute additional—shadows of nightfall deepening,Farewells, messages lessening—dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness—loth, O so loth to depart!"
And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death the end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands Hope and whispers:
We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.
Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way.
As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the morning, of the first great singers—voices elemental as those of sea and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are forgotten—the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars—the flag of Nature. Creeds, theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, the priest the mitre, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech, and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession, and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over-arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide plains—the prairies—with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. You sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar with men and women of all employments, trades and professions—with birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace.
In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, with a smile, extends his hand to death.
We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "Leaves of Grass."
* This lecture is printed from notes found among ColonelIngersoll's papers, but was not revised by him forpublication.
I HAVE sometimes thought that it will not make great and splendid character to rock children in the cradle of hypocrisy. I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art—in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion.
Neither do I believe thought to be dangerous.
It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.
We have passed midnight in the great struggle between Fact and Faith, between Science and Superstition. The brand of intellectual inferiority is now upon the orthodox brain. There is nothing grander than to rescue from the leprosy of slander the reputation of a good and generous man. Nothing can be nearer just than to benefit our benefactors.
The Infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. The old passes away, and the new becomes old. There is in the intellectual world, as in the material, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of Infidels. Political rights have been preserved by traitors—the liberty of the mind by heretics. To attack the king was treason—to dispute the priest was blasphemy. The sword and cross were allies. They defended each other. The throne and altar were twins—vultures from the same egg.
It was James I. who said: "No bishop, no king." He might have said: "No cross, no crown."
The king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men. One lived on taxes, the other on alms. One was a robber, the other a beggar, and each was both.
These robbers and beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the priest made creeds. With bowed backs the people received the burdens of the one, and with wonder's open mouth the dogmas of the other. If any aspired to be free they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both.
The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and he made me king. He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. Such is the justice of God." And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile. He made me holy and wise. If you do not obey me, God will punish you here and torment you hereafter. Such is the mercy of God."
Infidels are intellectual discoverers. They sail the unknown seas and find new isles and continents in the infinite realms of thought.
An Infidel is one who has found a new fact, who has an idea of his own, and who in the mental sky has seen another star.
He is an intellectual capitalist, and for that reason excites the envy and hatred of the theological pauper.
The Origin of god and Heaven, Of the Devil and Hell.
IN the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure—a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend.
Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell?
Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal goaler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy.
Against the heartlessness of the Christian religion every grand and tender soul should enter solemn protest. The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved—cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell—in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.
The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas.
Our barbarian ancestors knew but little of nature. They were too astonished to investigate. They could not divest themselves of the idea that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. They made up their minds that at least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that both demanded praise and worship; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the next. The Devil has paid cash—God buys on credit.
Man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward him. When his poor hut was torn and broken by the wind, he thought it a punishment. When some town or city was swept away by flood or sea, he imagined that the crimes of the inhabitants had been avenged. When the land was filled with plenty, when the seasons were kind, he thought that he had pleased the tyrant of the skies.
It must be remembered that both gods and devils were supposed to be presided over by the greatest God and the greatest Devil. The God could give infinite rewards and could inflict infinite torments. The Devil could assist man here; could give him wealth and place in this world, in consideration of owning his soul hereafter. Each human soul was a prize contended for by these deities. Of course this God and this Devil had innumerable spirits at their command, to execute their decrees. The God lived in heaven and the Devil in hell. Both were mon-archs and were infinitely jealous of each other. The priests pretended to be the agents and recruiting sergeants of this God, and they were duly authorized to promise and threaten in his name; they had power to forgive and curse. These priests sought to govern the world by force and fear. Believing that men could be frightened into obedience, they magnified the tortures and terrors of perdition. Believing also that man could in part be influenced by the hope of reward, they magnified the joys of heaven. In other words, they promised eternal joy and threatened everlasting pain. Most of these priests, born of the ignorance of the time, believed what they taught. They proved that God was good by sunlight and harvest, by health and happiness; that he was angry, by disease and death. Man, according to this doctrine, was led astray by the Devil, who delighted only in evil. It was supposed that God demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters and heretics, and that he regarded all investigation as rebellion.
Now and then believers in these ideas, those who had gained great reputation for learning and sanctity, or had enjoyed great power, wrote books, and these books after a time were considered sacred. Most of them were written to frighten mankind, and were filled with threatenings and curses for unbelievers and promises for the faithful. The more frightful the curses, the more extravagant the promises, the more sacred the books were considered. All of the gods were cruel and vindictive, unforgiving and relentless, and the devils were substantially the same.
It was also believed that certain things must be accepted as true, no matter whether they were reasonable or not; that it was pleasing to God to believe a certain creed, especially if it happened to be the creed of the majority. Each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of God were converted or killed. To allow a heretic to live in peace was to invite the wrath of God. Every public evil—every misfortune—was accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. When epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the vengeance of God. From the knowledge they had—from their premises—they reasoned well. They said, if God will inflict such frightful torments upon us here, simply for allowing a few heretics to live, what will he do with the heretics? Of course the heretics would be punished forever. They knew how cruel was the barbarian king when he had the traitor in his power. They had seen every horror that man could inflict on man. Of course a God could do more than a king. He could punish forever. The fires he would kindle never could be quenched. The torments he would inflict would be eternal. They thought the amount of punishment would be measured only by the power of God.
These ideas were not only prevalent in what are called barbarous times, but they are received by the religious world of to-day.
No death could be conceived more horrible than that produced by flames. To these flames they added eternity, and hell was produced. They exhausted the idea of personal torture.
By putting intention behind what man called good, God was produced. By putting intention behind what man called bad, the Devil was created. Leave this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away.
If not a human being existed the sun would continue to shine, and tempests now and then would devastate the world; the rain would fall in pleasant showers, and the bow of promise would adorn the cloud; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, and the earthquake would devour; birds would sing, and daisies bloom, and roses blush, and the volcanoes would fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine just as serenely as though the world was filled with loving hearts and happy homes. But in the olden time man thought otherwise. He imagined that he was of great importance. Barbarians are always egotistic. They think that the stars are watching them; that the sun shines on their account; that the rain falls for them, and that gods and devils are really troubling themselves about their poor and ignorant souls.
In those days men fought for their God as they did for their king. They killed the enemies of both. For this their king would reward them here, and their God hereafter. With them it was loyalty to destroy the disloyal. They did not regard God as a vague "spirit," nor as an "essence" without body or parts, but as a being, a person, an infinite man, a king, the monarch of the universe, who had garments of glory for believers and robes of flame for the heretic and infidel.
Do not imagine that this doctrine of hell belongs to Christianity alone. Nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. Upon this burning foundation nearly all have built. Over the abyss of pain rose the glittering dome of pleasure. This world was regarded as one of trial. Here a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man. Between the outstretched paws of the Infinite the mouse, man, was allowed to play. Here man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. Here he could read and hear read the sacred books. Here he could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. Here he could build churches and cathedrals. Here he could burn incense, fast, wear haircloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, count beads, be miserable one day in seven, make creeds, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images, eat little square pieces of bread, sprinkle water on the heads of babes, shut his eyes and say words to the clouds, and slander and defame all who have the courage to despise superstition, and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. After death, nothing could be done to make him better. When he should come into the presence of God, nothing was left except to damn him. Priests might convert him here, but God could do nothing there,—all of which shows how much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator; how much more potent is the example of your average Christian than that of all the angels, and how much superior earth is to heaven for the moral development of the soul. In heaven the Devil is not allowed to enter. There all are pure and perfect, yet they cannot influence a soul for good.
Only here, on the earth, where the Devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement.
Strange! that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations and thick with fiends, should be the only place where hope exists, the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! Strange! that heaven, filled with angels and presided over by God, is the only place where reformation is utterly impossible! Yet these are the teachings of all the believers in the eternity of punishment.
Masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. The poor have damned the rich and the rich the poor. The imprisoned imagined a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker, religion for reason, superstition for science.
All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word—Hell.
For the nourishment of this dogma cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light.
Christians have placed upon the throne of the universe a God of eternal hate. I cannot worship a being whose vengeance is boundless, whose cruelty is shoreless, and whose malice is increased by the agonies he inflicts.
THE APPEAL TO THE CEMETERY.
WHOEVER attacks a custom or a creed, will be confronted with a list of the names of the dead who upheld the custom, or believed the creed. He is asked in a very triumphant and sneering way, if he knows more than all the great and honored of the past Every defender of a creed has graven upon his memory the names of all "great" men whose actions or words can be tortured into evidence for his doctrine. The church is always anxious to have some king or president certify to the moral character of Christ, the authority of the Scriptures, and the justice of the Jewish God. Of late years, confessions of gentlemen about to be hanged have been considered of great value, and the scaffold is regarded as a means of grace.
All the churches of our day seek the rich. They are no longer the friends and defenders of the poor. Poverty no longer feels at home in the house of God. In the Temple of the Most High, garments out of fashion are considered out of place. People now, before confessing to God what worthless souls they have, enrich their bodies. Now words of penitence mingle with the rustle of silk, and light thrown from diamonds adorns the repentant tear. We are told that the rich, the fortunate, the holders of place and office, the fashionable, the respectable, are all within the churches. And yet all these people grow eloquent over the poverty of Christ—boast that he was born in a manger—that the Holy Ghost passed by all the ladies of titled wealth and fashion and selected the wife of a poor and unknown mechanic for the Mother of God.
They admit that all the men of Jerusalem who held high positions—all the people of wealth, influence and power—were the enemies of the Savior and held his pretensions in contempt. They admit that he had influence only with the poor, and that he was so utterly unknown—so indigent in acquaintance, that it was necessary to bribe one of his disciples to point him out to the police. They assert that he had done a great number of miracles—had cured the sick, and raised the dead—that he had preached to vast multitudes—had made a kind of triumphal entry into Jerusalem—had scourged from the temple the changers of money—had disputed with the doctors—and yet, notwithstanding all these things, he remained in the very depths of obscurity. Surely he and his disciples could have been met with the argument that the "great" dead were opposed to the new religion.
The apostles, it is claimed, preached the doctrines of Christ in Rome and Athens, and the people of those cities could have used the arguments against Christianity that Christians now use in its support. They could have asked the apostles if they were wiser than all the philosophers, poets, orators, and statesmen dead—if they knew more, coming as they did from a weak and barbarous nation, than the greatest men produced by the highest civilization of the known world. With what scorn would the Greeks listen to a barbarian's criticisms upon Socrates and Plato. How a Roman would laugh to hear a vagrant Hebrew attack a mythology that had been believed by Cato and Virgil.
Every new religion has to overcome this argument of the cemetery—this logic of the grave. Old ideas take shelter behind a barricade of corpses and tombstones. They have epitaphs for battle-cries, and malign the living in the name of the dead. The moment, however, that a new religion succeeds, it becomes the old religion and uses the same argument against a new idea that it once so gallantly refuted. The arguments used to-day against what they are pleased to call infidelity would have shut the mouth of every religious reformer, from Christ to the founder of the last sect. The general objection to the new is, that it differs somewhat from the old, and the fact that it does differ is urged as an argument against its truth.
Every man is forced to admit that he does not agree with all the great men, living or dead. The average Catholic, if not a priest, as a rule will admit that Sir Isaac Newton was in some things his superior, that Demosthenes had the advantage of him in expressing his ideas in public, and that as a sculptor he is far below the unknown man of whose hand and brain was born the Venus de Milo, but he will not, on account of these admissions, change his views upon the important question of transubstantiation.
Most Protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and genius to some men who have lived and died in the Catholic Church; that in the matter of preaching funeral sermons they do not pretend to equal Bossuet; that their letters are not so interesting and polished as those of Pascal; that Torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment dispute the palm with Catherine de Medici.
And yet, after all these admissions, they would insist that the Pope is an unblushing impostor, and that the Catholic Church is a vampire fattened by the best blood of a thousand years.
The truth is, that in favor of almost every sect, the names of some great men can be pronounced. In almost every church there have been men whose only weakness was their religion, and who in other directions achieved distinction. If you call men great because they were emperors, kings, noblemen, statesmen, millionaires—because they commanded vast armies and wielded great influence in their day, then more names can be found to support and prop the Church of Rome than any other Christian sect.
Is Protestantism willing to rest its claims upon the "great man" argument? Give me the ideas, the religions, not that have been advanced and believed by the so-called great of the past, but that will be defended and believed by the great souls of the future.
It gives me pleasure to say that Lord Bacon was a great man; but I do not for that reason abandon the Copernican system of astronomy, and insist that the earth is stationary. Samuel Johnson was an excellent writer of latinized English, but I am confident that he never saw a real ghost. Matthew Hale was a reasonably good judge of law, but he was mistaken about witches causing children to vomit crooked pins. John Wesley was quite a man, in a kind of religious way, but in this country few people sympathize with his hatred of republican government, or with his contempt for the Revolutionary Fathers. Sir Isaac Newton, in the domain of science, was the colossus of his time, but his commentary on the book of Revelation would hardly excite envy, even in the breast of a Spurgeon or a Talmage. Upon many questions, the opinions of Napoleon were of great value, and yet about his bed, when dying, he wanted to see burning the holy candles of Rome. John Calvin has been called a logician, and reasoned well from his premises, but the burning of Servetus did not make murder a virtue. Luther weakened somewhat the power of the Catholic Church, and to that extent was a reformer, and yet Lord Brougham affirmed that his "Table Talk" was so obscene that no respectable English publisher would soil paper with a translation. He was a kind of religious Rabelais; and yet a man can defend Luther in his attack upon the church without justifying his obscenity. If every man in the Catholic Church was a good man, that would not convince me that Ignatius Loyola ever met and conversed with the Virgin Mary. The fact is, very few men are right in everything. Great virtues may draw attention from defects, but they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem. No one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and beliefs of that man. It is better to give reasons and facts than names. An argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author. Facts need no pedigree; logic has no heraldry, and the living should not be awed by the mistakes of the dead.
The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind.
Daniel Webster had great respect for the Scriptures, but very little for the claims of his creditors. Most men are strangely inconsistent. Two propositions were introduced into the Confederate Congress by the same man. One was to hoist the black flag, and the other was to prevent carrying the mails on Sunday. George Whitefield defended the slave trade, because it brought the negroes within the sound of the gospel, and gave them the advantage of associating with the gentlemen who stole them. And yet this same Whitefield believed and taught the dogma of predestination. Volumes might be written upon the follies and imbecilities of great men. A full rounded man—a man of sterling sense and natural logic—is just as rare as a great painter, poet, or sculptor. If you tell your friend that he is not a painter, that he has no genius for poetry, he will probably admit the truth of what you say, without feeling that he has been insulted in the least. But if you tell him that he is not a logician, that he has but little idea of the value of a fact, that he has no real conception of what evidence is, and that he never had an original thought in his life, he will cut your acquaintance. Thousands of men are most wonderful in mechanics, in trade, in certain professions, keen in business, knowing well the men among whom they live, and yet satisfied with religions infinitely stupid, with politics perfectly senseless, and they will believe that wonderful things were common long ago, such things as no amount of evidence could convince them had happened in their day. A man may be a successful merchant, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, statesman, or theologian without one particle of originality, and almost without the ability to think logically upon any subject whatever. Other men display in some directions the most marvelous intellectual power, astonish mankind with their grasp and vigor, and at the same time, upon religious subjects drool and drivel like David at the gates of Gath.
SACRED BOOKS.
WE have found, at last, that other nations have sacred books much older than our own, and that these books and records were and are substantiated by traditions and monuments, by miracles and martyrs, christs and apostles, as well as by prophecies fulfilled. In all of these nations differences of opinion as to the authenticity and meaning of these books arose from time to time, precisely as they have done and still do with us, and upon these differences were founded sects that manufactured creeds. These sects denounced each other, and preached with the sword and endeavored to convince with the fagot. Our theologians were greatly astonished to find in other bibles the same stories, precepts, laws, customs and commands that adorn and stain our own. At first they accounted for this, by saying that these books were in part copies of the Jewish Scriptures, mingled with barbaric myths. To such an extent did they impose upon and insult probability, that they declared that all the morality of the world, all laws commanding right and prohibiting wrong, all ideas respecting the unity of a Supreme Being, were borrowed from the Jews, who obtained them directly from God. The Christian world asserts with warmth, not always born of candor, that the Bible is the source, origin, and fountain of law, liberty, love, charity, and justice; that it is the intellectual and moral sun of the world; that it alone gives happiness here, and alone points out the way to joy hereafter; that it contains the only revelation from the Infinite; that all others are the work of dishonest and mistaken men. They say these things in spite of the fact that the Jewish nation was one of the weakest and most barbaric of the past; in spite of the fact that the civilization of Egypt and India had commenced to wane before that of Palestine existed. To account for all the morality contained in the sacred books of the Hindus, by saying that it was borrowed from the wanderers in the Desert of Sinai, from the escaped slaves of the Egyptians, taxes to the utmost the credulity of ignorance, bigotry, and zeal.