[1]Aroman à clefin which Strindberg fiercely attacks the Bohemians and emancipated women of Stockholm.
[1]Aroman à clefin which Strindberg fiercely attacks the Bohemians and emancipated women of Stockholm.
The Thirteenth Axiom.—Euclid's twelfth axiom, as is well known, runs thus: When one straight line cuts two other straight lines so that the interior angles on the same side are together less than two right angles, these two lines, being produced, will at length meet on that side on which are the two angles, which are together less than two right angles.
If that is a self-evident proposition, which can neither be proved, nor needs to be proved, how much clearer is the axiom of the existence of God!
Anyone who tries to prove an axiom, loses himself in absurdity; therefore, we should not attempt to prove the existence of God. He who cannot understand what is self-evident in an axiom belongs to the class of people of a lower degree of intelligence. One should be sorry for such dullards, but not blame them.
The first point in the definition of God, is that He is Almighty. Thence it follows that He can abrogate His own laws. But since we do notknow all His laws, we do not know when He employs a law which is unknown to us, or suspends a law which is known to us.
What we call miracles, may happen according to strict laws which we do not know. We must therefore take care, when confronted by unusual or inexplicable occurrences, to see that we make no mistakes. These draw down upon us the contempt of our fellow-mortals who are gifted with keener intelligence.
The Rustic Intelligence of the "Beans."—The miller turns his mill and the seaman trims his sails according to the force and direction of the wind. They do not see the wind, but they believe in its existence, since they observe the results produced by it. They are wise people who use their intelligence.
Intelligence ("ratio"), or rustic intelligence, is an excellent faculty whereby to grasp what is perceptible by the senses, even when it is invisible. Reason is a higher faculty wherewith one may grasp what is not perceptible by sense. But when the rationalists try to comprehend the highest things with their rustic intelligence, then they see light as darkness, good as evil, the eternal as temporal. In a word, they see distortedly,for they see by the light of nature. Just as the rustic intelligence is indispensable when one goes to market, deals with coffee and sugar, or draws up promissory-notes, even so is the use of reason necessary when one wishes to approach what is above nature.
Voltaire and Heine are counted among the greatest rationalists because they judged of spiritual things by rustic intelligence. Their arguments are therefore interesting, but worthless.
And the most interesting fact about both these men is, that they discovered their errors, declared themselves bankrupt, and finally used their reason. But there the "Beans" can no longer follow them.
"Beans" is a classical name for the Philistines who worshipped Dagon, the fish-god, and Beelzebub, the god of dung.
The Hoopoo, or An Unusual Occurrence.—Johann was one day on his travels, and came to a wood. In an old tree he found a bird's nest with seven eggs, which resembled the eggs of the common swift. But the latter bird only lays three eggs, so the nest could not belong to it. Since Johann was a great connoisseur in eggs, he soon perceived that they were the eggs of the hoopoo. Accordingly, he said to himself, "Theremust be a hoopoo somewhere in the neighbourhood, although the natural history books assert that it does not appear here."
After a time he heard quite distinctly the well-known cry of the hoopoo. Then he knew that the bird was there. He hid himself behind a rock, and he soon saw the speckled bird with its yellow comb. When Johann returned home after three days, he told his teacher that he had seen the hoopoo on the island. His teacher did not believe it, but demanded proof.
"Proof!" said Johann. "Do you mean two witnesses?"
"Yes!"
"Good! I have twice two witnesses, and they all agree: my two ears heard it, and my two eyes saw it."
"Maybe. ButIhave not seen it," answered the teacher.
Johann was called a liar because he could not prove that he had seen the hoopoo in such and such a spot. However, it was a fact that the hoopoo appeared there, although it was an unusual occurrence in this neighbourhood.
Bad Digestion.—When one adds up several large numbers, one owes it to oneself to doubt thecorrectness of the calculation. In order to test it, one generally adds the figures up again, but from the bottom to the top. That is wholesome doubt.
But there is an unwholesome kind of doubt, which consists in denying everything which one has not seen and heard oneself. To treat one's fellow-men as liars is not humane, and diminishes our knowledge to a considerable degree.
There is a morbid kind of doubt, which resembles a weak stomach. Everything is swallowed, but nothing retained; everything is received, but nothing digested. The consequence is emaciation, exhaustion, consumption, and premature death.
Johann Damascenus[1]had passed through several years of wholesome doubt, proving the truths of faith by systematic denial. But when, after minutely checking his calculation, he had become sure of their asserted values, he believed. Since then, neither fear of men, love of gain, contempt, or threats could cause him to abandon his dearly purchased faith. And in that he was right.
The Song of the Sawyers.—As Damascenus wandered in Qualheim, he came to a saw-mill.Outside it, on the edge of a stream, sat two men, and sawed a steel rail with a double saw. They accompanied their sawing with a rhythmic chant in two voices, and somewhat resembled two drinkers quarrelling.
"What are you singing about?" asked Damascenus.
"About faith and knowledge," answered one. And then they recommenced. "What I know, that I believe; therefore knowledge is under faith, and faith stands above it."
"What do you know then? What you have seen with your eye?"
"My eye sees nothing of itself. If you were to take it out, and lay it down here, it would see nothing. Therefore, it is my inner eye which sees."
"Can I then see your inner eye?"
"It is not to be seen. But you see with that which is itself invisible. Therefore, you must believe on the invisible! Now you know."
"Yes, yes, yes, but, but, but.... Have you seen God?"
"Yes, with my inner eye. Therefore, I believe on Him. But it is not necessary for you to see Him, in order for me to believe on Him."
"But knowledge is the highest."
"Yes, but faith is the highest of all."
"Do you know what you believe?"
"Yes, although you don't know it."
"Prove it."
"By two concurring witnesses? Here in this district alone I can collect two million witnesses. That must be sufficient proof for you."
"But, but, but, but" ... And so on.
[1]Strindberg gives himself this name, probably in allusion to his mystery-play,To Damascus(1900).
[1]Strindberg gives himself this name, probably in allusion to his mystery-play,To Damascus(1900).
Al Mansur in the Gymnasium.—Damascenus came into a large gymnasium, which at first he thought was empty. But presently he noticed that men stood along the walls with their backs turned towards him, so that he only saw their perukes and red ears. "Why do they stand and look at the wall, and why do they have such red ears?" he asked his teacher.
"They are ashamed of themselves," answered the teacher. "During their lifetime they were regarded as very clever fellows, but now they have discovered their stupidity."
"What is stupidity?"
"He is stupid, in the first place, who is unpractical. These have practised gymnastics all their lives, but never used the strength which they have gained. Furthermore, he is stupid who finds it difficult to comprehend simple propositions,self-evident propositions or axioms; for instance, the axiom of the existence of God. He is also stupid who cannot understand a logical proof; he who cannot accept reasonable premises, can draw no correct inferences. But the height of stupidity is, not to be able to accept an explanation founded on fact. When the Apostles told Thomas that Christ, the Son of God, was risen from the dead, he could not receive the new truth, because it was beyond his horizon. Such a man is usually called thick-headed, is he not?"
Damascenus did not answer, but his ears grew red, for he saw behind on the spring-board a man whom he thought he recognised by his broad neck and small ears.
"What are you looking at?" asked the teacher.
"Who is the man there?"
"He was, or was called Al Mansur, the Victorious, because he lost all battles but one—the battle with himself. By the Greeks he is called Chrysoroas, or 'Golden Stream'; by the Romans, John of Damascus."
The Nightingale in the Vineyard.—Johann went with his teacher through a vineyard, at the season when the vines were flourishing and exhaling their delicious perfume, which resemblesthat of the mignonette. "Do you notice the fine scent?" asked the teacher. "Oh yes; it is the scent of the vines." "Can you see it?" "No, it is invisible." "Then you can believe in what is invisible, as well as enjoy it. You are, then, on the way."
A nightingale was singing in a pomegranate tree. "Can you see her notes?" asked the teacher. "But you are delighted by them. Similarly, I delight in the invisible God through His way of revealing Himself in beauty, goodness, and righteousness. Do you think God cannot reveal Himself, like the nightingale, by invisible but audible tones?" "Yes, certainly." "Then you believe in revelations?" "Yes, I am obliged to." "You believe that God is a Spirit?" "Yes." "Then you believe in spirits?" "That is an incorrect inference. I believe in one Spirit." "Have not men spirits or souls in their bodies?" "Certainly." "Then you believe in spirits,i.e.in the existence of spirits?" "You are right; I believe in spirits." "Don't forget that the next time one asks you. And don't be afraid when the Lord of Dung comes and threatens you with the loss of bread, honour, wife, and child."
The Miracle of the Corn-crakes.—One summer evening the teacher went with Johann throughthe clover-fields. There they heard a sound, "Crex! crex!" "What is that?" asked the teacher. "The corn-crake, of course." "Have you seen the corn-crake?" "No." "Do you know a man who has seen it?" "No." "How do you know, then, that it is it?" "Everyone says so." "Look! If I throw a stone at it, will it fly up?" "No, for it cannot fly, or flies very badly." "But in autumn, it always flies to Italy! How does that happen?" "I don't know." "What do the zoologists say?" "Nothing." "Do you believe that it flies over the Sound, runs through Germany, and wanders over the Alps or through the St. Gothard Tunnel?" "They say nothing about it." "Well! Brehm calculates there are a pair of larks to every acre of field and meadow; if we reckon that there are a pair of corn-crakes to every two acres, then there are in our country in spring five million corn-crakes. The female lays from seven to twelve eggs during the summer, so that in autumn in our country there are five-and-thirty million corn-crakes. Ought they not to be visible when they fly over the Sound?" "I cannot explain it. A bad flyer cannot fly over the Sound. Is it possible that they go round by the Gulf of Bothnia?" "No, for they have rivers to cross, and one would see their flight like thatof the lemmings. Besides, in England there are seventy million corn-crakes every autumn, and they cannot go by land." "Then a miracle happens." "What is a miracle?" "What one cannot explain, but has no right to deny." "Then the flight of the corn-crakes is a miracle; it must take place according to unknown natural laws or be supernatural?"
Corollaries.—The teacher said: "The bee is a little creature, but gives plenty of honey. The corn-crake is a little bird, but it has shown us that some of the most ordinary natural occurrences cannot be explained by known natural laws, and must therefore be regarded, for the present, as supernatural, and for the rest, be taken on faith.
"You have never seen the corn-crake in fields or meadows, but you believe that it is there. If now a sportsman came, who had shot the bird, you would be more quickly convinced that the bird does appear in the district, even though the sportsman were a liar.
"But the fact that millions of birds not accustomed to flying cannot fly over great spaces of water or Alpine glaciers, does not explain the autumn flight of the corn-crakes.
"Since this cannot be explained on naturalgrounds, it is supernatural. We must accordingly admit that we believe sometimes on the supernatural, or on miracles.
"From this proved thesis you can deduce the corollaries for yourself if you possess the faculty of drawing inferences."
Phantasms which Are Real.—The teacher asked: "Can one see a phantasm?"
"What is a phantasm?"
"There are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen. An image reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen, and is therefore a phantasm. Can you see your image in a flat mirror?"
"Yes."
"Then you can see a phantasm, or an unreal image. The eye, therefore, is a skilful instrument, which can make the unreal real. One might thus be tempted to believe in ghosts."
"What are ghosts?"
"They are phantasms, or unreal images which the eye can take in at certain distances. Great and credible men, such as Luther, Swedenborg, and Goethe, have seen ghosts."
"Goethe?"
"Yes; in the eleventh book ofAus meinemLebenhe relates how he met the image of himself upon a country road. 'I saw, that is to say, not with the eye of the body, but of the spirit,' he adds. Do you consider Goethe's testimony credible?"
"Yes."
"Well, such sights are not seen every day, just as the hoopoo is not seen every day. But that does not give one any right to doubt that they are seen."
Crex, crex!—The pupil asked: "What is chance?"
"It means something accidental, irregular, illogical in the occurrence of an event. But the word is often misused by those who see, but do not understand. For instance, if after an evil deed you are systematically persecuted by misfortune, that is no chance. Firstly, because the misfortunes appear regularly, but chance is irregular. Secondly, because the punishment follows logically on the evil deed, and chance is illogical. It is therefore something else."
"Yes, it must be so. But what is it that causes me to fail in all my undertakings, to meet in the streets only enemies, to be cheated in all the shops, to get the worst eatables in the market,to read only of wickedness in the papers, not to receive pleasant letters though they have been posted, to miss my train, to see the last cab engaged under my nose, to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has been committed, not to meet the person I have taken a special journey to see; to have the money I earn immediately snatched away, to have to remain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone? Then at last, when I have no food, and am on the point of drowning myself, I find a shilling in the street. That cannot be chance? What is it then?"
"It is something else, but how it happens we don't know, since we know so little about the most ordinary phenomena."
"That's only twaddle."
"Crex, crex!"
"That's the corn-crake."
"Yes, it is."
The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit.—The pupil feigned ignorance, and asked: "What is religion?"
"If you do not know from experience or intuition, I cannot explain it to you; in that case it would only seem to you folly. But if you knowbeforehand, you will be able to receive my explanations, which are many. Religion is connected with the Source or the head station. But in order to carry on a conversation one must have an earth-current."
"What is that?"
"That is the draining off of superfluous earthliness to the earth. As one advances in technical knowledge, one learns to speak without a wire. But for that there are necessary strong streams of electricity, clean instruments, and clear air. The electric battery is Faith, which is not merely credence, but an apparatus for receiving and arousing the divine electricity. Unless you believe in the possibility of success in an undertaking, you will not set to work, and accordingly you acquire no energy. With faith and a good will all is possible."
"But Faith is a gift for all that."
"Yes; but if, from pride or obstinacy, you refuse to receive it, it is no gift for you. Is that clear?"
Improper and Unanswerable Questions.—The pupil asked: "If God is one, why are there several religions?"
"Since the existence of God is an axiom, youshould say, 'SinceGod is one, why are there several religions?' I answer: I do not know, and, strictly speaking, it does not concern me. All agree in the chief point—that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal."
"If the soul is immortal, how is it that there are men who regard their souls as mortal, and speak of the present life as their only one?"
"Their feelings may be perverted, like a man's who believes he has a snake in his stomach. Perhaps they have committed soul-suicide. Perhaps they think the doctrine of immortality foolish, or their souls are really so rudimentary that they can be buried and dissolved. If that is the case, one cannot argue with them, for they are right as regards themselves. Either theirs is an abnormal case, or their perceptions are perverse; I cannot say which. I am inclined to regard the question as among those which are unanswerable, or which have not yet been answered, or which should not be asked."
Superstition and Non-Superstition.—The pupil asked: "What is superstition?"
"I don't know; but a sterile intellect calls the highest axioms superstitions,e.g.God, the religious life, conscience. The believing fertileintelligence, on the other hand, calls it superstition when an unbeliever avoids a squirrel, spits when he sees an old woman or when one wishes him luck, or dares not begin a journey on the thirteenth of the month."
"What is witchcraft?"
"When bad men misemploy their psychic forces on weaker minds, dazzle them, or torment them from a distance, and so on. You have seen all this at hypnotic seances. In them, for example, the medium's eyesight can be so perverted as to take a raw potato for an apple."
"Are there then witches?"
"Yes; certainly there are. An ugly and evil woman, who so dazzles the eyes of a man that he sees her as the most beautiful and best, is a witch."
"Should she be burnt?"
"No, for she burns herself through her wickedness when she meets a man who is mail-clad with the love of God. Then the missiles of the witch rebound and strike herself. But one should not talk of such. He who touches pitch is defiled."
Through Faith to Knowledge.—The pupil asked: "How shall I know that I believe rightly?" "I will tell you. Doubt the regular denialsof your everyday intelligence. Go out of yourself if you can, and place yourself at the believer's standpoint. Act as though you believed, and then test the belief, and see whether it agrees with your experiences. If it does, then you have gained in wisdom, and no one can shake your belief. When I for the first time obtained Swedenborg'sArcana Cœlestia, and looked through the ten thousand pages, it appeared to me all nonsense. And yet I could not help wondering, since the man was so extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences, as well as in mathematics, philosophy, and political economy. Amid the apparent foolishness of the book were some details which remained riveted in my memory.
"Some time later, in my ordinary life, there happened something inexplicable. Subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience which Swedenborg refers to his so-called heaven and his so-called angels. Then I began to search and to compare, to make experiments and to find explanations. I come to the conclusion that Swedenborg has had experiences which resemble those of earthly life, but are not the same. This he brings out in his theory of correspondences and agreements. The theosophists have expressed it thus: parallel with the earth-life we liveanother life on the astral plane, but unconsciously to ourselves."
The Enchanted Room.—The pupil became curious and asked: "What opened your eyes as regards Swedenborg?"
"It is difficult to say, but I will try to do so. In my lonely dwelling there was a room which I considered the most beautiful in the world. It had not been so beautiful at first, but great and important events had taken place there. A child had been born in it, and in it a man had died. Finally I fitted it up as a temple of memory, and never showed it to anyone.
"One day, however, the demon of pride and ostentation took possession of me, and I took a guest into it. He happened to be a 'black man,' a hopeless despairer, who only believed in physical force and in wickedness, and called himself 'a load of earth.' As I admitted him I said, 'Now you will see the most beautiful room in the country.' I turned on the electric light, which generally poured down from the ceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in the room. The man stood in the middle of the room, looked round, grumbled to himself, and said 'I can't see that.'
"As he spoke, the room darkened, the wallscontracted, the floor shrank in size. My splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes. It seemed to me like a room in a hospital, with coarse wall-papers; the beautiful flowered curtains looked dirty; the white surface of the little writing-table showed spots; the gilding was blackened; the brass fittings of the tiled oven were tarnished. The whole room was altered, and I was ashamed. It had been enchanted.
Concerning Correspondences.—"Now comes Swedenborg, but his explanation is somewhat difficult. I must make a prefatory remark, in order that you may not think I regard myself as an angel. By 'angel' Swedenborg means a deceased mortal, who by death has been released from the prison of the body, and by suffering in faith has recovered the highest faculties of his soul. It is necessary to bear this definition of Swedenborg's in mind, and to remember that it does not apply to my guest or myself.
"Swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings: 'All which appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created by them. The fact that their surroundings are, as it were, produced and created by them is evident, because when they are no longerthere the surroundings are altered. A change in the surroundings is also apparent, when other beings come in their place. Elysian plains change into their trees and fruits; gardens change into their roses and plants, and fields into their herbs and grasses. The reason for the appearance and alteration of such objects is that they are produced by the wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set in motion thereby.'
"Is not this a subtle observation of Swedenborg's, and have not the facts he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere? Does it not resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room?' Perhaps you have had a similar experience?"
The Green Island.—The pupil answered: "I have certainly had strange experiences, but did not understand them because I thought with the flesh. As I just heard you say that our experiences can receive a symbolical interpretation, I remembered an incident which resembled that which you have just related and compared with an observation of Swedenborg's. After a youth spent under intolerable pressure and too much work, a friend gave me a sum of money that I might spend the summer on the sea in literary recreation. When I saw the 'Green Island' withits carpets of flowers, beds of reeds, banks of willows, oak coppices, and hazel woods, I thought that I beheld Paradise. Together with three other young poets I passed the summer in a state of happiness which I have never experienced since. We were fairly religious, although we did not literally believe in the gods of the state, and we lived, as a rule, innocently enough, with simple pleasures such as bathing, sailing, and fishing.
"But there was an evil man among us. He was overbearing, and regarded mankind as his enemies; denied all goodness; spied after others' faults; rejoiced in others' misfortunes. Every time he left us to go to the town, the island seemed to me more beautiful; it seemed like Sunday. I was always the object of his gibes, but did not understand his malice. My friends wondered that I was not angry with him, as I was generally so passionate. I do not myself understand it, but I was as though protected, and noticed nothing, whatever the cause may have been. Perhaps you ask whether the island really was so wonderful. I answer: I found it so, but perhaps the beauty was in my way of looking at it."
Swedenborg's Hell.—The pupil continued: "The next summer I came again, but this timewith other companions, and I was another man. The bitterness of life, the spirit of the time, new teachings, evil companionship made me doubt the beneficence of Providence, and finally deny its existence. We led a dreadful life together. We slandered each other, suspected each other even of theft. All wished to dominate, nobody would follow another to the best bathing-place, but each went to his own. We could not sail, for everyone wished to steer. We quarrelled from morning till night. We drank also, and half of us were treating themselves for incurable diseases. My 'Green Island,' the first paradise of my youth, became ugly and repulsive to me. I could see no more beauty in nature, although at that time I worshipped nature. But wait a minute, and see how it agreed with what Swedenborg says! The beautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas, that I got malarial fever. The gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through the thickest veil. If I wandered in the wood, and wished to pluck a flower, I saw an adder rear its head. One day, when I took some moss from a rock, I saw immediately a black snake zigzagging away. It was inexplicable. The peaceable inhabitants must have been infected by our wickedness, for they became malicious,ugly, quarrelsome, and enacted domestic tragedies. It was hell! When I became ill, my companions scoffed at me, and were angry, because I had to have a room to myself. They borrowed money from me, which was not my own, and behaved brutally. When I wanted a doctor, they would not fetch him."
The teacher broke in: "That is how Swedenborg describes hell."
Preliminary Knowledge Necessary.—The pupil asked: "Is there a hell?"
"You ask that, when you have been in it?"
"I mean, another one."
"What do you mean by another one? Has your experience not sufficed to convince you that thereisone?"
"But what does Swedenborg think?"
"I don't know. It is possible that he does not mean a place, but a condition of mind. But as his descriptions of another side agree with our experiences on this side in this point, that whenever a man breaks the connection with the higher sphere, which is Love and Wisdom, a hell ensues, it does not matter whether it is here or there. He uses parables and allegories, as Christ did in order to be understood.
"Emerson in hisRepresentative Menregards Swedenborg's genius as the greatest among modern thinkers, but he warns us against stereo-typing his forms of thought. True as transitional forms, they are false if one tries to fix them fast. He calls these descriptions a transitory embodiment of the truth, not the truth itself."
"But I do not yet understand Swedenborg."
"No, because you have not the necessary preliminary knowledge. Just like the peasant who came to a chemical lecture and only heard about letters and numbers. He considered it the most stupid stuff he had ever heard: 'They could only spell, but could not put the letters together.' He lacked the necessary preliminary knowledge. Still, when you read Swedenborg, read Emerson along with him."
Perverse Science.—The teacher continued: "Swedenborg never found a contradiction between science and religion, because he beheld the harmony in all, correspondences in the higher sphere to the lower, and the unity underlying opposites. Like Pythagoras, he saw the Law-giver in His laws, the Creator in His work, God in nature, history and the life of men. Modern degenerate science sees nothing, although it has obtained the telescope and microscope.
"Newton, Leibnitz, Kepler, Swedenborg, Linnæus, the greatest scientists were religious God-fearing men. Newton wrote also an Exposition of the Apocalypse. Kepler was a mystic in the truest sense of the word. It was his mysticism which led to his discovery of the laws regulating the courses of the planets. Humble and pure-hearted, those men could see God while our decadents only see an ape infested by vermin.
"The fact that our science has fallen into disharmony with God, shows that it is perverse, and derives its light from the Lord of Dung."
Truth in Error.—The teacher continued: "Let us return for a moment to your green island. There you discovered that the world is a reflection of your interior state, and of the interior state of others. It is therefore probable that each carries his own heaven and hell within him. Thus we come to the conclusion that religion is something subjective, and therefore outside the reach of discussion.
"The believer is therefore right when he receives spiritual edification from the consecrated Bread and Wine. And the unbeliever is also not wrong when he maintains thatfor himit is only bread and wine. But if he asserts that it is thesame with the believer, he is wrong. One ought not to punish him for it; one must only lament his want of intelligence. By calling religion subjective, I have not thereby diminished its power. The subjective is the highest for personality, which is an end in itself, inasmuch as the education of man to superman is the meaning of existence.
"But when many individuals combine in one belief, there results an objective force of tremendous intensity, which can remove mountains and overthrow the walls of Jericho.
Accumulators.—"When a race of wild men begin to worship a meteoric stone, and this stone is subsequently venerated by a nation for centuries, it accumulates psychic force,i.e.becomes a sacred object which can bestow strength on those who possess the receptive apparatus of faith. It can accordingly work miracles which are quite incomprehensible to unbelievers.
"Such a sacred object is called an amulet, and is not really more remarkable than an electric pocket-lamp. But the lamp gives light only on two conditions—that it is charged with electricity and that one presses the knob. Amulets also only operate under certain conditions.
"The same holds good of sacred places, sacredpictures and objects, and also of sacred rites which are called sacraments.
"But it may be dangerous for an unbeliever to approach too near to an accumulator. The faith-batteries of others can produce an effect on them, and they may be killed thereby, if they possess not the earth-circuit to carry off the coarser earthly elements.
"The electric car proceeds securely and evenly as long as it is in contact with the overhead wire and also connected with the earth. If the former contact is interrupted, the car stands still. If the earth-circuit is blocked, an electric storm is the result, as was the case with St. Paul on the way to Damascus."
Eternal Punishment.—The pupil asked: "What is your belief regarding eternal punishments?"
"Let me answer evasively, so to speak: since wickedness is its own punishment, and a wicked man cannot be happy, and the will is free, an evil man may be perpetually tormented with his own wickedness, and his punishment accordingly have no end.
"But we will hope that the wicked will not adhere to his evil will for ever. A wicked man often experiences a change of nature when he sees something good. Therefore, it is our duty to showhim what is good. The consciousness of fatality and being damned comes to everyone, even to the incredulous. That proves that there is an inborn sense of justice, a need to punish oneself, and that quite independent of dogmas. Moreover, it is a gross falsehood that the doctrine of hell was invented by Christianity. Greeks and Romans knew Hades and Tartarus with their refined tortures; the Jews had their Sheol and Gehenna; the cheerful Japanese rival Dante with their Inferno. It is therefore thoughtless nonsense to make Christian theology solely responsible for the doctrine of hell. It would be just as fair to trace it to the cheerful view of life of the Greeks and Romans, who first came upon the idea."
"Desolation."—The teacher continued: "When this feeling of fatality strikes an unbeliever, it often appears as the so-called persecution-mania. He believes himself, for example, persecuted by men who wish to poison him. Since his intelligence is so low that he cannot rise to the idea of God, his evil conscience makes him conjure up evil men as his persecutors. Thus he does not understand that it is God who is pursuing him, and therefore he dies or goes mad.
"But he who has strength enough to bow himself,or intelligence enough to guess at a method in this madness, cries to God for help and grace, and escapes the madhouse. After a season of self-chastisement, life begins to grow lighter; peace returns; he succeeds in his undertakings; his 'Green Island' again blooms with spring. This feeling of woebegoneness often occurs about the fortieth or fiftieth year. It is the balancing of books at the solstice. The whole past is summed up, and the debit-side shows a plus which makes one despair. Scenes of earlier life pass by like a panorama, seen in a new light; long-forgotten incidents reappear even in their smallest details. The opening of the sealed Book of Life, spoken of in the Revelation, is a veritable reality. It is the day of judgment. The children of the Lord of Dung who have lost their intelligence understand nothing, but buy bromkali at the chemist's and take sick-leave because of 'neurasthenia.' That is a Greek word, which serves them as an amulet.
"Swedenborg calls this natural process 'the desolation' of the wicked. The pietists call it the 'awakening' before conversion."
A World of Delusion.—"Swedenborg writes: 'The angels are troubled concerning the darknesson earth. They say that they can see hardly any light anywhere, that men live and strengthen themselves in lying and deceit, and so heap up falsity upon falsity. In order to ratify these, they manage to extract, by way of inference, such true propositions from false premises, as, on account of the darknesses which conceal the true sources, and because the real state of the case is unknown, cannot be refuted.'
"This agrees with what every thinking man observes, that lying and deceit are universal. The whole of life—politics, society, marriage, the family—is counterfeit. Views which universally prevail are based upon false history; scientific theories are founded on error; the truth of to-day is discovered to be a lie to-morrow; the hero turns out to be a coward, the martyr a hypocrite. Te Deums are sung over a silver wedding, and the wedded pair, still secretly leading immoral lives, thank God that they have lived together happily for five-and-twenty years. The whole populace assembles once in a year to celebrate the memory of the 'Destroyer of the Country.' He who says the most foolish thing possible, receives a prize in money and a gold medal. At the annual asses' festival, the worst is crowned the asses' king.
"A mad world, my masters! If Hamlet plays themadman, he sees how mad the world is. But the spectator believes himself to be the only reasonable person, therefore He gives Hamlet his sympathy."
The Conversion of the Cheerful Pagan, Horace.—"Among the conventional falsehoods of the apes,[1]one of the best known is that conversion from irreligion is a purely Christian doctrine. By looking into Kumlin's Swedish translation of Horace, even a schoolboy can find this heading to the thirty-fourth ode of the first book, 'The Religious Conversion of the Poet.'
"Horace belonged to the Epicurean sect who only believed in phantom gods, because they held that the divinities did not trouble themselves with the course of the world or of events, but enjoyed a careless life of continual ease. Horace accordingly had not been remarkably zealous in his religious duties. But a sudden flash of lightning and a heavy peal of thunder from a clear sky taught him at last that it was no blind unconscious force of nature, but the hand of a God, which hurled the lightning. Thereby he was awoken to reflection, and tried to warn and sober his frivolous countrymen by dwelling on the power of Jupiter. 'God can change the lowestwith the highest; He puts down the exalted and uplifts the obscure.'
"After this Horace preached like a Jeremiah against the corruption of religion and morals. A modern 'ape' might feel justified in calling him a pietist since he was converted!
Cheerful Paganism and its Doctrine of Hell.—"Origen against Celsusis the title of the first refutation of the lying accusations which the pagans have brought against Christianity. Who will write a second? Who will show that the hell of the pagans was seven times worse than that of the Christians? In some Christian countries the Christian religion may not be taught in the schools, but boys are obliged to read Virgil's Sixth Æneid, which describes the terrors of the underworld.
"There is the Lernæan Hydra, the Chimæra, Gorgons, and Harpies. On the banks of Cocytus roam crowds of the unburied; there they must roam for centuries because they have never found a grave. Is that humane? Then there are the poor suicides everlastingly immersed in the Styx. And the field of mourning where unhappy lovers hide themselves. 'Even after death their pangs are not ended.'
"But these were comparatively innocent. Criminals, however, are punished first by the fury Tisiphone. She seizes the damned, mocks them with hellish laughter, and threatens them with snakes. A Hydra opens fifty black jaws.... And so on till we come to the sieve of the Danaids, the wheel of Ixion, the thirst of Tantalus.
"Let us remember, however, that the men of the Renaissance, Dante and Michael Angelo, have depicted the most extreme torments, as though they believed in them. Anyone who wants to see how the cheerful Japanese describe hell, can look at the pictures which Riotor and Leofanti published in Paris, 1895, in theEnfers Bouddhiques."
[1]Materialistic evolutionists.
[1]Materialistic evolutionists.
Faith the Chief Thing.—The teacher continued: "Pietism is a condition of repentance, which men pass through like a purifying bath and gain a consciousness of inward cleanliness. It is therefore no hypocrisy, as the children of the Lord of Dung suppose. He who is severe towards himself may easily appear malicious to the unintelligent; and he who has suffered for his wickednesses feels himself freed from the past. This feeling the unbelievers call 'self-satisfaction.'
"A penitent never attains perfection, butceaselessly relapses into the desires of the flesh. This may easily cause him to appear a hypocrite. Luther quickly saw that it is impossible to make one's acts correspond to one's belief. Therefore he laid stress on faith, let acts go, and adduced as his authority St. Paul's solution of the paradox: 'So I obey the law of God with the spirit, but with the flesh the law of sin.'
"Faith, Hope, and Love: that is the essence and kernel of religion. One's acts never come up to one's faith, and often lag far behind it. But there are some pious souls who persist in remaining in the condition of penance, and it may easily seem as though they wished to gain heaven in advance of the rest. But we should not blame them for it. There may be secret reasons which we do not know, and have never experienced.
"Socrates regarded the sense of shame and conscience as what distinguished man from the beasts. To these two Christ added pity."
Penitents.—The teacher continued: "Muhammed early traversed the stage of desolation and became a pietist, when he believed himself persecuted by devils. Set free finally by suffering and prayer, he exclaims in the 93rd Sura: 'By the forenoon, and the night when it darkens, thyLord has not forsaken thee or hated thee, and surely the future for thee will be better than the past. And thy Lord will give thee sufficient, and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an orphan and give thee shelter? and find thee erring and guide thee? and find thee poor with a family and nourish thee? But as for the orphan, oppress him not; and as for the beggar, drive him not away; and as for the favour of thy Lord, discourse thereof!' When Buddha left his father's palace and saw the sufferings of men and the instability of life, he became a penitent, left wife and child, went into the wilderness, and chastened himself by fasting and renunciation. But after he had undergone the severest penances, he cautiously returned to ordinary life, and allowed himself moderate enjoyments in order not to devastate his soul. Some of his disciples deserted him and called him a recreant, but that did not trouble him.
"Goethe himself passed through religious crises, and was at one period intimate with the Hermhuters, the pietists of that time. In his old age, when he grew wise, he became a mystic,i.e.he discovered that there are things between heaven and earth of which the 'Beans' have never let themselves dream."
Paying for Others.—The pupil said: "I must confess that I do not understand the Atonement." "You mean, understand it with everyday intelligence. No one can. The highest questions cannot be solved by us, just as little as problems of the fourth dimension. But the solution is given to us, if we ask for it in a proper way.
"As regards the redemptive work of Christ, you can comprehend it by an analogy. You remember, when you owed so many debts, that there were knocks at your door all day long, that you had to go out early in the morning in order to borrow, or to escape your creditors. Finally you feared your room so, that you dared not go home to sleep. You sat on a seat in the park, and said to yourself, 'It is hell!' Then there came a man who knew you; he paid your debts; you called him your saviour. Do you not see that one can pay for another, and deliver him?"
"Yes, but one cannot make an evil deed undone."
"No, but the Almighty can obliterate it from our memory, and from the memory of others. But mark this well: every time that you rummage in the past of another, although it has been atoned for, the memory of your own evil deeds starts up. Just like a badly washed stain which goesthrough the stuff and appears on the other side. All miracles are conditional, just as vows are."
The Lice-King.—As the teacher roamed one day in Qualheim he came into a wood under whose shadow many decaying funguses grew. On a footpath he saw what he thought at first was a snake writhing about. It was no snake, however, but a mass of grubs clotted together. The teacher asked his guide: "What is the meaning of that?"
"Ask first what it is; then I will tell you the meaning of it."
"Well?"
"These are the larvæ of the snake-worm, which are obliged, like clay and wadded straw, to hold together in order not to perish. They love poisonous funguses, and cannot bear the light. They maintain their existence by a mutual interchange of slime, without which they become dead and dry. But they call darkness light, because the sun would kill them. They feed on the poisonous funguses. They hate each other, but must keep together. Do you understand now, or not?"
"What is the name of the creature?"
"It is called the snake-worm or lice-king,appears once in every generation, and is a herald of evil times."
"What does it mean then?"
"It is a symbol of the men who talk with their faces turned backwards, and therefore see everything distorted; who call evil good, and good evil. Because they live in pride and self-love they cannot see God, but elect one of the mass to be their king, and believe that they are, collectively, God. By 'freedom,' they mean freedom to do evil. Often an ox or cow comes by and treads upon the motely mass. Then, of course, it is obliterated in slime, but another soon takes it place."
"It seems to be as eternal as evil."
The Art of Life.—The teacher said: "Life is hard to live, and the destinies of men appear very different. Some have brighter days, others darker ones. It is therefore difficult to know how one should behave in life, what one should believe, what views one should adopt, or to which party one should adhere. This destiny is not the inevitable blind fate of the ancients, but the commission which each one has received, the task he must perform. The theosophists call it Karma, and believe it is connected with a past which weonly dimly remember. He who has early discovered his destiny, and keeps closely to it, without comparing his with others, or envying others their easier lot, has discovered himself, and will find life easier. But at periods when all wish to have a similar lot, one often engages in a fruitless struggle to make one's own harder destiny resemble the lot of those to whom an easier one has been assigned. Thence result disharmony and friction. Even up to old age, many men seek to conquer their destiny, and make it resemble that of others."
The pupil asked: "If it is so, why is not one informed of one's Karma from the beginning?"
The teacher answered: "That is pure pity for us. No man could endure life, if he knew what lay before him. Moreover, man must have a certain measure of freedom; without that, he would only be a puppet. Also the wise think that the voyage of discovery we make to discover our destiny is instructive for us. 'Let My Grace be sufficient for thee; My strength is made perfect in weakness.'"
The Mitigation of Destiny.—The teacher continued: "Some appear to be destined to honour and wealth, others only to honour, and others only to wealth. Many seem to be born tohumiliations, poverty, and sickness—'struck like a coin in the mint,' as the saying is. Everyone can mitigate his destiny by submitting and adapting himself to it—by resignation, in a word. The inward happiness which one gains thereby, excels all outward prosperity. All things work for good to him who serves God. The man who does not strive after honour and wealth is impregnable; in a certain sense, all-powerful.
"The hardest thing is to see the injustice in the world; but even that can be overcome by taking it as a trial. If the wicked prospers, let him; we have nothing to do with it. Besides, his happiness is not so great when one looks closer at it.
"When you are persecuted by misfortune, and your conscience cannot call it deserved, take it quietly. Regard the endurance of the ordeal as an honour. There will come a day when everything will improve. Then perhaps you will discover that the misfortunes were benefits, or, at any rate, afforded opportunity for exercising endurance. Envy no man; you know not what his envied lot might conceal, if it actually came to changing places."
The Good and the Evil.—The pupil asked: "Is there really such a great difference between men?"
The teacher answered: "Yes and No! But a sure mark of the evil man is, he does evil for evil's sake. That is the bad man—the sarcastic schoolmaster, the domestic tyrant. That is the child, which torments its mother by finding out everything she dislikes. That is the bad wife, the fury, who enjoys torturing and humiliating a man who only wishes her good.
"In the battles of life it is quite human to rejoice when a foe is defeated. On all battlefields God has been thanked for the victory. That is something different.
"When one sees the insolent struck by misfortune, one rejoices that there is justice. When one sees the wicked punished, one feels satisfaction at seeing the balance of equity restored. That is something different.
"But he who rejoices over every evil deed which he himself has been under no necessity of committing; he who rejoices when the criminal escapes his punishment; he who gloats over the misfortune of a good man; he who suffers when goodness and merit are rewarded—that is the evil man. Such were those who clamoured for the murderer Barabbas's release and perhaps gave a feast in his honour."
Modesty and the Sense of Justice.—The teacher continued: "Properly speaking, the question you should have asked just now is, 'What men are good?' Socrates, according to Plato, said, 'Those who possess modesty and a sense of justice. Those are the religious men.'
"He, on the other hand, who has neither faith nor hope, can assume the outward aspect of an honourable man. But when his worldly interests or advantages are concerned, he lets honour drop. Similarly, when it is a question of saving one of his associates from punishment. Then he can bear false witness, and believe it is a good act. He does not stick at helping forward an unworthy friend or relative. He will swear falsely in order to attack a believer. He thinks everything lawful,i.e.on his side against others, and he never repents anything, saying to himself, 'He who lets himself be misled must pay for it.'
"When a religious man makes a slip, he is wont to feel ashamed, and to reproach himself. Often he is naïve enough to confess his fault or his mis-doing. Then the Lice-King shouts 'Hurrah!' For he would never be so simple. Still, though a believer fall seventy times and seven, he rises again and confesses his fault. That is the difference."
Derelicts.—The pupil asked: "How is one to judge of the men who are overthrown in the battle of life without being armed for the conflict? You remember such characters at school; they could not learn, could not attend; they were not ashamed, however, but regarded themselves as a kind of victims. They left school, went out into life, and collapsed. It was not the fault of their domestic surroundings, for they came of good families, who supported them. They were not bad, possessed talents, were clever, but had no knowledge and no interests in life. 'What is the object of it?' they were in the habit of saying. They could not bring themselves to work, but dozed at their desks. They seemed to be born to do nothing, which is a punishment for the active. Explain to me their destiny!"
"That I cannot."
"Some have died young in poverty; others begged their way through to their sixtieth year, while they saw former school-fellows who had been worse than they, prosper and flourish."
"I have seen and lamented them, but I cannot explain their destiny."
"Then they are not to blame, and yet live such lives of shame and poverty; that is cruel."
"Hush! Criticise not Providence! What isnow inexplicable may some day be explained! And remember that life is not paradise. Two shall be grinding at one mill; one shall be taken, and the other left!"
Human Fate.—The teacher said: "The destinies of men are obscure; therefore one should be extremely careful in judging. The Tower of Siloam was ready to fall, and fell on good and evil alike. The disciples asked Christ what sin the man born blind had committed. Christ answered that neither he nor his parents had committed any special sin. When we see how some are born crippled, blind, deaf, and dumb, we had best be silent. To lament their lot may annoy them, for they seem to be protected in a mysterious way. They are objects of pity, and seldom fall into abject poverty. They are good-humoured through life, and hardly seem to suffer under their ailments. But woe to the man who ridicules anyone marked out by such a fate! If he is persistently pursued by calamity, or struck himself by a greater misfortune, one can hardly ignore it by using the formula 'chance.' A person who had scoffed at a blind man was struck in the eye by a stone which was thrown into a tramcar. At first he was alarmed, andthought of Nemesis. But when he heard that the stone had been so hurled as the result of some blasting operations he became cheerful,i.e.more ignorant, and said it was a chance. He saw the phenomenon, but nothing behind it; the effect, but not the cause.
"The 'Beans' cannot see beyond their noses. Sometimes, when they have long noses, they see somewhat further. The supernatural in nature is incomprehensible to their intelligence. Indeed, all which passes their limited understanding is for them supernatural. That is logical, but these rustics regard it as illogical."
Dark Rays.—As the teacher wandered through his Inferno, he came to a temple of black granite, which was quite dark inside. Within it something was going on, but he could not distinguish what.
"What is it?" he asked a white-robed figure, which wore a laurel-wreath, but had a green face spotted blue like a corpse. "That is a temple of light," it answered; "but the initiated cannot see our black rays until he receives the white arsenic-kiss from the ultra-violet priestess."
"Give me the kiss," answered the teacher, but he turned his back to her at the same time.However, she did not notice this, as she could not distinguish back from front. Now his eyes were opened, and he saw how within the temple they were offering incense to their "gods of light," as they called them. There stood the murderer Barabbas, a halo round his head, and a plate on his breast with the inscription: "Acquitted because of insufficient evidence." There sat Judas Iscariot under his fig-tree, with the thirty pieces of silver, in the bosom of his family, promoted to be general-director of customs. There were the Emperor Nero, fresh from the bath, with a white dove on his hand, and Julian the Apostate near an altar, with geese sacrificed upon it.
The priests and priestesses sang a chant of New Birth and Resurrection, burned incense compounded of rose-leaves and arsenic-acid, and danced a snake-dance, which they called "the joy of life." Then they began to quarrel about a laurel-wreath, and fought one another. As the teacher went, they all sat there in the darkness and wept. But when a fresh north wind blew through the temple, they trembled like dry leaves.
Blind and Deaf.—The teacher said: "There are, as you know, people with whom one cannotbe angry. Perhaps it is because of their natural good-nature, which shines even through a cutting jest. And there are people whose malice comes to light long after one has met them. Such an after-effect I have experienced myself.
"Five-and-twenty years after a conversation with a man, I felt angry with him. Naturally, during a sleepless night, when memory threw a new light on the scene which had taken place between us. Not till then did the insulting word he spoke receive its proper signification, which I now understood. There are words which can murder. Such a word this one was. What a good thing that I did not understand it at the time! It would have resulted in calamity to four people.
"By developing a peculiar instinct I have succeeded in fabricating a kind of diving-costume, with which I protect myself in society. When the insulting word or the biting allusion is uttered, the sound certainly reaches my ear, but the receptive apparatus refuses to let it go further. In the same way I can make myself literally blind. I obliterate the face of the person I dislike. How it is done, I do not know, but it seems to be a psychological process. The face becomes a dirty whitish-grey spot and disappears.It is necessary to make oneself deaf and blind, or it is impossible to live.
"One must cancel and go on! That is generally called 'forgiving,' but it may be a device of the revengeful for sparing himself trouble, or a scheme of the sensitive for not letting insults reach him. One cannot undertake more than one can bear!"
The Disrobing Chamber.—The teacher continued: "Swedenborg says in hisInferno...."
"Say 'Hell,'" the pupil interrupted him. "I know that there is a hell, for I have been in it."
"Well, Swedenborg has in hisHella disrobing chamber into which the deceased are conducted immediately after their death. There they lay aside the dress they have had to wear in society and in the family. Then the angels see at once whom they have before them."
"Does Swedenborg then mean that we are all hypocrites?"
"Yes, in a certain way. An inborn modesty compels us to conceal what has to do with the animal; politeness obliges us to be silent on many points. Consideration, friendship, kinship, love, oblige us to overlook our neighbour's weaknesses, although we disapprove them even inourselves. A man who is ashamed of his faults is also silent about them. To boast of one's faults is shamelessness."
"Can one really call such consideration hypocrisy?"
"Hardly; especially as things go wrong, however one behaves."
"Yes, life is not easy; it is hard to be a man; almost impossible."
The Character Mask.—The teacher said: "I knew in my youth a man who was imperious, quick to anger, revengeful, emotional. Accidentally his gifts as a speaker were discovered. He could thrill the minds of his hearers, bring them into touch with himself, lift them up—yes, and nearly carry them away. But on one occasion when he was at the height of his oratory he halted, became grotesque and ridiculous, and people laughed. The first time that this happened, he was depressed. But they thought he wished to produce a comical effect, and he obtained the reputation of a humorous speaker.
"Out of his misfortune he made a virtue, accepted the rôle which had been assigned to him, and finally enjoyed a great popularity as a humourist. He often felt annoyed at havingto play the part of a buffoon, but the desire to hear his own voice and to be greeted with applause unceasingly spurred him on to win new triumphs.
"Society had made of him a sort of 'homunculus,' which it cultivated. But in his family and in his office it was not to be found."
Youth and Folly.—The teacher said: "What do you think of the proverb, 'The youngimaginethat the old are fools, and the oldknowthat the young are fools?'"
"It is quite true. When I was young, I imagined that I understood everything better than the old, but I really understood nothing. I was young and stupid, confused my own knowledge with that of others', believed that what I had learnt was my own. When I had read a book, I went into society and proclaimed what I had read, as though it were my own discovery, I was therefore a thief.
"But I was the victim of another delusion,i.e.I believed that I understood all that I remembered, or that I knew what I happened at the moment to remember. For instance, when I was fourteen I did not understand logarithms, but I learnt the way of proceeding with them by heart, and used logarithms as a short-cut.
"When one studies a science in detail, one begins to collect material, else the result is nil. But the young man attacks the difficult science of life without experience,i.e.without material. And the result is what we see.
"I can see myself now as a young student. How proud I was of borrowed knowledge and borrowed plumes! How I despised the old! And yet all that I had stolen from books was stolen from the old, who had written the text-books. The young write no text-books. O Youth! O Foolishness!
When I was Young and Stupid.—"When I was young and stupid, I always had a band of hearers who saw a light in me. When I grew older, and wisdom came, I was left alone with my lecture and regarded as an old ass. But the passage from youth to age was bitter, when I discovered that the old could not be deceived. They read my secret thoughts behind my lofty words; they anticipated my evil purposes; they unmasked my crude desires; they prophesied the results of my actions; and found in my past the true cause of my present condition. They seemed to me to be wizards and prophets, although they were simple characters.
"When I asked myself how they could know this and that, I found the answer later—because they had collected material; because they had passed through all the stages which were new to me; because they had also tried to deceive the old in the same way, but had not succeeded. Youth, however, is always believing that it can deceive old age, were it only by stealing a thought from him. I know, moreover, why the young obstinately imagine they are superior because they can deceive. There are old wise men who have come to terms with life, and therefore think it a duty to let themselves be deceived now and then; they let themselves be deceived tastefully.
"Youth is only an idea, an abstraction, a boast, a theme for an essay, a song, a toast!"
Constant Illusions.—The pupil continued: "When I was young I was never really happy, because my seniors oppressed me, because the future disquieted me, because I lived on my parents' money almost as though I were a pensionary. When the first symptoms of love showed themselves, life became a hell. I was never very well, for the most serious illnesses—measles, scarlet fever, agues, croup, and others—affect onlythe young. I could never satisfy an innocent fancy, for I had no money; every desire was nipped in the bud. I was a slave, for my time was not at my own disposal, and I could not leave my place in order to visit foreign countries. Such is the huge humbug which is called 'youth.' No one has dared to unmask it, for fear lest the young might pelt him with stones, or draw caricatures of him on the walls. The teachers in the schools crouch before them, flatter them, pretend to envy them. If anyone comes who does not flatter these shameless and conscienceless little bandits, these lewd apes who live in the age of innocence, these parent-murderers—there is always some old woman there who exclaims, 'Ah! he does not understand the young!' He understands them very well, for he has been young himself. But the young do not understand the old, for they have never been old.
"The young assert that the future is in their hands, and that therefore they are feared by the cowardly. Let us wait and see! If thirty per cent, reach the future at all, they will work just as their elders have done, and with the thoughts which they have borrowed from them. Exceptions prove the rule."
The Merits of the Multiplication-Table.—The teacher said: "All wish to haul at the rope called 'Development.' The word generally signifies 'alteration,' and men usually love any novelty which does not injure them. But there are some excellent things which are very old, and therefore they remain unaltered. The multiplication-table, for instance, is splendid, though it is said to be as old as Pythagoras. The Rule of Three holds good, though it was the ancient Hindus who discovered this law of causes and effects. The geometry of Euclid and the logic of Aristotle is still read in the schools. Our architecture imitates Greek and Roman models, and the sculpture of the ancients is not despicable. We regulate our calendar very much as the Egyptians and Chaldæans did. Goethe and Schiller can be read, and Shakespeare is still performed.
"We see, therefore, that not all which has been done in the past is to be despised. He who prophesies that Christianity will disappear because it is old, makes a miscalculation. Homer is a thousand years older. And the Old Testament would first have to be cancelled. But Christianity lives and flourishes, although it may be in secret and not published in the newspapers. Still they sing in schools and barracks every morning,'Trust in God and in His word and strength in order to do good.'
"But it must go hard with the Christians. 'In this world ye have tribulation.' Through periodical seasons of bondage under Egyptian Pharaohs, they learn patience till they begin their wanderings in the wilderness."