The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883
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Title: The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883
Author: Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution
Editor: Theodore L. Flood
Release date: February 5, 2015 [eBook #48165]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
_A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE.
ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE._
VOL. III. JANUARY, 1883. No. 4.
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
_President_, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.
_Superintendent of Instruction_, J. H. Vincent, D. D., Plainfield, N. J.
_General Secretary_, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.
_Office Secretary_, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.
_Counselors_, Lyman Abbott, D. D.; J. M. Gibson, D. D.; Bishop H. W.
Warren, D. D.; W. C. Wilkinson, D. D.
Transcriber's Note: This table of contents of this
periodical was created for the HTML version to aid the
reader.
Contents
REQUIRED READING
History of Russia
Chapter V.—The Grand Principality—Vladimir Monomakh 179
Chapter VI.—Iuri Dolgoruki, and Andrei Bogoliubski, Founders
of Suzdal 180
A Glance at the History and Literature of Scandinavia
III.—The Eastern Vikings—the Beginnings of Literature 182
Pictures from English History
IV.—The Meadow-Parliament 184
SUNDAY READINGS.
[January 7.]
History of God’s Book 184
[January 14.]
From the Beginning to Abraham 188
[January 21.]
From Abraham to the Occupation of Canaan 190
[January 28.]
The Israelites After Reaching the Land of Promise 191
The Three Ages 193
Stages 193
Driving 193
Education For and Against Caste 194
Content 196
Roumanian Peasants and Their Songs 197
Home Life in Germany 199
The Value of Good Food 202
A Petition to Time 207
A Dream, and Practical Life 207
Tales from Shakspere
A Midsummer Night's Dream 210
The Winter's Tale 213
A Tour Round the World 216
Thrift 218
C. L. S. C. Work 222
C. L. S. C. Testimony 223
Local Circles 225
Questions and Answers 228
Questions For Further Study 229
Answers to Questions For Further Study in the November Number 229
Outline of C. L. S. C. Studies For January 230
C. L. S. C. Round-Table—Colonel Daniels 231
Editor’s Outlook 234
Editor’s Note-Book 236
Editor’s Table 238
The Transit of Venus 239
Table Talk 239
New Books For Holiday Times 240
REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1882-83._
JANUARY.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
By MRS. MARY S. ROBINSON.
_CHAPTER V._
THE GRAND PRINCIPALITY—VLADIMIR MONOMAKH.
One of the illustrious successors of Iaroslaf the Great upon the throne
of Kief, was his grandson Vladimir, grandson also of the Greek emperor
Constantine Monomachus, whose surname he bore;[A] a man of wisdom, of
valor, and of integrity—a singular instance of elevation of character
in an age and among a people but partly emerged from barbarism. He
waited long for his right to rule, having respect to the national law
that gave precedence to the oldest member of the deceased sovereign’s
family. “His father was older than mine, and reigned first in Kief,”
he said, deferring to his cousin Sviatopolk Isiaslavitch.[B] Certain
of Monomakh’s kinsmen had been wrongfully deprived of their lands by
Vsevolod and Isiaslaf, respectively father and uncle of Monomakh. The
latter accepted Tchernigof as his share of the spoil; for beyond the
right of the strongest, no right was seriously considered in the Russia
of that age. Oleg, one of the injured princes, called the Polovtsui
barbarians to his aid, and harried the lands of those who had robbed
him. Monomakh, moved by the distress of the people, offered to restore
the wrested lands that had fallen to his share. To his efforts was due
the assembling of the more powerful princes in Congress at Lübetch
(1090), on the Dnieper, to effect means for the suppression of the
civil wars that afflicted the realm. Seated on a carpet, the princes
drew up a treaty, each prince taking oath and kissing the cross, as
he declared that thereafter “the Russian land shall be held sacred
and dear, as the country of us all. Whoso shall dare to arm himself
against his brother, becomes our common enemy.” As nearly as is known,
this treaty is the first written assertion of the unity that was
incipient in the administration of Ruric, that took form and strength
from the administrations of Vladimir and Iaroslaf, and that has been
steadily developing through a thousand years of national existence: a
unity that holds in an apparently inviolable bond a hundred tribes and
nationalities.
The good faith of the members of the congress was soon put to the test
by David, Prince of Volhynia, who made war upon his nephews, Vasilko
and Volodar, to whom the assembled princes had apportioned certain
lands, coveted by their uncle. The latter went to Sviatapolk, Grand
Prince of Kief—for Vladimir Monomakh had not yet come to his throne—and
represented that Vasilko had designs upon Sviatapolk’s lands and life.
The latter lent an ear to David’s calumnies, and joined with him in a
plot to seize the person of Vasilko. The youth in fetters was brought
before an assembly of Kievan boyars (nobles) and citizens, to be
sentenced as the enemy of their prince. To this arrangement the boyars
replied with embarrassment: “Prince, thy tranquillity is ours, and
it is dear to us. If Vasilko is thine enemy, he merits death; but if
David has calumniated him, God will avenge upon David the blood of the
innocent.” Sviatapolk hesitating to do violence to the youth, delivered
him to his uncle, who wickedly burned out his eyes. The crime aroused
the wrath of Monomakh, and of the other kinsmen of the victim. These
formed an alliance, in which Sviatapolk was compelled to join, for the
punishment of David, who fled first to the Poles, and later to the
Hungarians, but was ultimately deprived of his principality.
Monomakh conducted successful wars against the Polovtsui, the
Petchenegs, the Torki, the Tcherkessi, and other pagan nomads. In one
engagement with the Polovtsui, seventeen of their chiefs were among
the captured or the slain. One of the khans offered enormous ransom,
but the prince refused the gold, and cut the khan in pieces. These
khans were brigands, who subsisted on the booty obtained from the
Russian merchants and travelers. Monomakh deeply felt these injuries
to his Christian subjects, nor would he treat with princes who kindled
civil wars. To the end of his days he remained “the guardian of the
Russian lands.” In his reign, the Slavs were established in Suzdal, and
founded there a city called in his honor, Vladimir; a city of renown in
the subsequent history of the empire. The magnanimity of this prince
was shown in his giving refuge to the remnant of the Kazarui.[C] In
the construction of fortifications and other buildings, and in other
industrial arts, these people were more skilled than their conquerors.
They had also numbers of flourishing schools. In the seventh century
their empire included the regions of the lower Dnieper, the Don, the
lower Volga, the shores of the Caspian and Azof seas; an area of
765,000 square miles.
The commercial importance of this empire gave it high rank in
Byzantium, Arabia, and other Mohammedan countries, these being the only
civilized states of the world in that era.
The paper of instructions left by Monomakh, for his sons, indicates the
moral superiority of this half-barbaric prince. As early as his day,
monasticism had become a recognized element of the national life. But
he wrote: “Neither solitude nor fasting, nor the monastic vocation will
procure for you the life eternal. Well doing alone will help you in
this world, and be put to your credit for the next. Do not bury your
riches in the earth”—a custom still practiced in Russia—“for that is
contrary to the precepts of Christianity. Judge yourselves the cause of
widows, and extend a fatherly protection to orphans. Put to death no
one, not even the guilty; for the most sacred thing our God has made
is a Christian soul.... Strive continually to get knowledge; and when
you have learned aught that is useful, put it away carefully in your
memory. Without ever leaving his palace, my father Vsevolod spoke five
languages. This ability to learn foreign tongues, foreigners admire in
us.... I have made altogether twenty-three campaigns, without counting
some lesser ones. With the Polovtsui I have concluded nineteen treaties
of peace, have taken at least a hundred of their princes prisoners,
and have restored them their liberty; besides more than two hundred
whom I threw into the rivers. No one has traveled more rapidly than I.
If I left Tchernigof early in the morning, I arrived at Kief before
vespers.” The distance between the two cities is eighty miles. The
Russians are rapid travelers to this day. “Sometimes amidst sombre
forests I caught wild horses, tied them together, and subdued them.
How often have I been thrown from the saddle by buffalos, thrust at
by deer, trampled upon by elands! A furious boar once tore my sword
from its belt. A bear threw my horse, and rent my saddle. In my
youth how often did I narrowly escape death, when, thrown from my
horse, I received many wounds! But the Lord watched over me.” Such
was the Russian hero-prince of the eleventh century,—valiant, hardy,
magnanimous, pious; a sovereign whose duty did not permit him to repose
on rose leaves.
The regalia that, according to a tradition circulated by the tsars
of Moscow, belonged to their illustrious Kievan ancestor, is still
preserved in the museum of the former city. It consists of a “bonnet”
or crown, and collar of Byzantine elegance; with them is a throne and
a cornelian cup, the latter said to have belonged to the Roman emperor
Augustus. According to the tradition, the whole were gifts from the
Greek emperor to his Russian kinsman, sent by the Bishop of Ephesus,
who, in solemn state, crowned Monomakh sovereign of all Russia. The
legend is an invention for the interest of the Muscovite tsars, but
the crown and collar are still used at the ceremony of coronation:
the collar representing the burden imposed upon him whose “shoulders”
receive the weight of government. The first manifesto of the present
tsar alludes to this painful “perilous burden.”
_CHAPTER VI._
IURI DOLGORUKI, AND ANDREI BOGOLIUBSKI, FOUNDERS OF SUZDAL.
Chief among the sons of Monomakh were Iuri Dolgoruki, father of the
princes of Suzdal and of Moscow, and Mtsislaf, father of the princes
of Galitsch and Kief. The dissensions between kinsmen, that had been
allayed by the firmness of Monomakh, and by the congress of Lübetch,
broke forth anew upon the death of this guardian of Russian unity.
Uncles, nephews, brothers, after the fashion of royal families in
past times, fell upon one another with tooth and talon. Iuri, bent
on obtaining Kief, disturbed the repose of the hoary Viatcheslaf,
his elder brother, the grand prince. “I had a beard when thou was
brought forth,” remonstrated the old man, citing the national law. The
intractable Iuri obtained an ally in Vladimirko, prince of Galitsch, a
renegade member of the congress of Lübetch. When reproached for his
perfidy, this Vladimirko attested the light faith of his race, by his
retort: “It was such a little cross—the one we kissed when we took
oath.” After many years of contention, Iuri made his entrance into the
capital, and had the short-lived honor of being grand prince, but died
while a league was forming for his expulsion from the principality.
(1157.) Upon hearing of his death, one of the conspirators exclaimed,
“Great God, we thank thee for having spared us the obligation of
shedding the blood of an enemy, a kinsman!” The lineage and name of
Iuri have been preserved through eight centuries. The paramour of the
late Alexander II, and an official attached to the Russian embassy
in England are Dolgorukis, of the blood of Rurik. But the character
of their ancestor Iuri, is not one to be adduced with pride by his
descendants. In it lay the germs of that tenacious baseness, that
persistent, unscrupulous rapacity, that are still further developed in
the succeeding princes of his line.
The rivalry of the princes, together with the increasing power of
Suzdal, the remote northeastern division of Russia, were destined to
bring ruin to the ancient, magnificent capital of the realm. Andrei
Bogoliubski, son of Iuri Dolgoruki, and prince of Suzdal, assembled
an army composed of the men of his three cities, Rostof, Vladimir,
Suzdal, and descended upon Kief. The Russia of the Forests, remote from
Byzantine and from western civilization, had been silently developing
resources of strength and of wealth from within; and was ready, at
this time, to measure lances with the Russia of the Steppes, a region
ever exposed to the invasions of barbarians, and of rival princes who
were willing to take the barbarians into military service against
Russian kinsmen. In this state of affairs, the peaceful advance of
industrial civilization, or a firm system of government could no longer
be hoped for upon its soil. The northern Russians took the city by
assault. “Many times had she been besieged and brought to extremity,”
writes Karamsin. “She had opened her Golden Gate to her foes; but
till that day, none had ever forced it. To their shame, the victors
forgot that they, too, were Russians. For three days the grandson of
Vladimir Monomakh pillaged the mother of his own cities. The houses,
monasteries, churches, the Temple of the Tithe, the sacred Saint Sophia
were demolished. The precious images, the priestly vestments, the books
and the bells”—the latter especially dear to the Russian heart—“all
were despoiled or borne away by the ruthless soldiery of Suzdal.”
Thus dishonored (1169) fell the capital of Oleg, Iaroslaf, and Vladimir
the Baptist; and with her was obscured the _prestige_, the power and
glory of Southern Russia. The metropolis of the realm, in the course
of subsequent events, was transferred from the Dnieper to the Moskova.
The Russia of the Steppes, gorgeous with Byzantine art, illustrious
with the learning, the wisdom of the Orient, the fertile, beautiful
realm whose fame had reached the ends of the earth, was left a prey to
the hordes that swarmed along its river banks, and to the Olgovitchi
of Tchernigof, unrelenting foemen, though kinsmen of her princes. Her
ancient glory was departed. Nothing was left save the “warm soil,” the
genial airs and golden sun that in the former days had allured the
mighty Variags from the borean forests of the north.
Russia Slavonia was without a center. The old Slavic love of liberty
predominated again over the Variag compactness, the cohesion necessary
for the organization of a state, Tchernigof, Galitsch, Suzdal on
the frontier, and other principalities, maintained an independent
existence, and their civil contentions waiting apparently for the
coming of another Rurik, another Iaroslaf, another Monomakh who should
bind together the divided sections of the country, and reëstablish its
unity. Reëstablished it was in time, but with marked modifications; nor
were those who restored it the simple, strong-hearted men, the fathers
and heroes of the opening era of the national history.
In far off Suzdal appears a new type of prince. Unlike his gallant,
light-hearted ancestor of the happy south, swayed by conflicting
passions, frank, impulsive—the men of the new dynasty were ambitious,
subtle, intriguing. Mephistophelian in the power of their intellect,
the coldness of their affections, the inhuman absence of moral
qualities. Pitiless, unscrupulous, cruel, they attained their ends at
whatever frightful cost, at whatever sacrifice of justice. The same
type in Spain became its grand inquisitors. “Gloomy and terrible of
mien, they bore on their brows the stamp of destiny.” Patient under
ill-fortune, alert to profit by good, they could wait many years for
their opportunity, but they never abandoned a purpose once formed. Such
were the princes of Suzdal, founders of the dynasty of the Tzars of
Moscow.
Iuri Dolgoruki gave form and name to this dominion of the frontier
forests, but he spent most of his time and energy upon the conquest of
Kief. To his son, Andrei Bogoliubski, was left the care of developing
the incipient state, and of indicating in his own character and temper
the type of the future rulers of the Russias. Andrei, ill at ease in
the cities of the Dnieper, where the freedom of the citizens sometimes
conflicted with the will of the princes, withdrew from his palace at
Virishegorod and established himself upon the Kliasma, at Vladimir,
which he enlarged by a suburb, named from its princely builder,
Bogoliuboro. A successful campaign against the Russian Bulgarians,
a compulsory alliance of several of the minor princes under his
standards, and his destruction of Kief, caused him rightfully to be
regarded as the strongest, the foremost of all the princes. After the
violation of the mother of Russian cities, he turned his arms against
Novgorod the Great, capital of the glorious principality of that name,
the state that had chosen and called Rurik, the mighty republic of the
north. But the subjugation of this powerful city was another affair
from that of Kief. “The Kievans, accustomed to a change of masters,
fought only for the honor of their princes,” writes Karamsin, “while
the Novgorodians were to shed their blood in defense of the laws, the
institutions, the liberties founded for them by their ancestors.” When
Mstislaf Andreivitch, captain of the army that had pillaged “the holy
city” of Kief, appeared at the gates of the free city of Novgorod, the
inhabitants took oath to die for Saint Sophia, the citadel of their
faith and their freedom. Their Archbishop, Ivan, bearing aloft an
image of the Mother of God, moved at the head of a solemn procession
around the ramparts. Tradition tells us that the beloved Ikon, struck
by a Suzdalian arrow, turned her face toward her city, and moistened
the episcopal vestments with her tears. An ecstasy of rage seized the
freemen. A panic smote the besiegers. “Novgorod! Saint Sophia!” a sharp
cry rushed as in a whirlwind around the ramparts. The Suzdalians fell
as falls the flock of small birds beneath the swoop of the eagle. After
the victory, the markets of Novgorod were so crowded with Suzdalian
slaves that any number could be bought for a marten’s skin.
Yet in time, even the Novgorodians made terms with their powerful
subtle neighbor. Suzdal controlled the Volga, by whose waters came the
corn supplies for the great, free city. Its citizens, “of their own
free will,” according to the invariable phrasing of their documents,
agreed to accept for their prince one of Andrei’s choosing.
The princes of Smolensk had been forced into an alliance with the
autocratic Andrei, but chafed under his despotic rigors. The brother
princes, Rurik, David, and Mstislaf, disregarding his menaces,
possessed themselves of Kief, whither soon came a herald of Andrei,
with the message: “You are rebels. The principality of Kief is mine. I
order Rurik to return to his patrimony: David shall go to Berlad; and
as for Mstislaf, the guiltiest of you all, I will no longer endure his
presence in Russia.” Now the chronicles aver that Mstislaf the Brave
“had fear of no mortal being: he feared none but God.” He cropped the
hair and beard of the herald—a mark of ignominy—and bade him take to
Andrei this response: “Up to this time we have respected you as a
father; but since you do not blush to treat us shamefully, since you
forget that you have to deal with princes, we will pay no heed to your
menaces. Execute them if you can. We appeal to the judgment of God.”
Twenty vassals of Andrei were sent “to demonstrate the judgment of God”
under the walls of Virishegorod. Mstislaf ingeniously succeeded in
dividing the assailants, and by a sudden sortie put them to flight.
Andrei so far cast off the Slavic customs of his ancestors as to
decline sharing his domains with any of the members of his family,
although the testamentary provisions of his father, Iuri, had included
these. Iuri’s widow, a Greek princess, with her three remaining
sons, was compelled to leave Russia, and take refuge at the court
of her kinsmen, the Emperor Manuel. Nor did this first of Russian
autocrats adhere to the Variag custom of fellowship with his drujïna.
Properly speaking, he had none. His boyars were his subjects, bound
to accomplish his will, but never consulted. If they chafed under
their servitude, they were banished from the country. Nor did he
regard with greater favor the ancient municipal liberties of the
great cities; liberties time-honored, and dating back to the original
occupancy of the Slav race. The Vetché, or assembly of citizens, he
would in no way recognize. His violation of Kief, and his attack upon
Novgorod the Great, sufficiently indicated his hostility to their
liberal institutions. In like manner Rostof and Suzdal, the two chief
cities of his State, were obnoxious to him on account of their Vetché.
At the risk of alienating the more powerful of his boyars, he held
his residence in the suburb or town of his own founding, alleging a
divinely inspired dream and a miraculous interposition as directing
him to this spot. He essayed to develop a new Kief out of his city,
Vladimir on the Kliasma, by crowding it with monasteries, erecting a
golden gate, and a Church of the Tithe, decorated by Byzantine and
western artists. Recognizing the priesthood as a strong force in the
civilization of a nation, he conferred wealth and honors upon it, and
propitiated its favor. He made assumptions of unusual piety; practiced
ostentatious vigils, and gave large alms in public. Commemorative
feasts were established on the days of his more signal victories;
and strenuous efforts were made to procure the religious supremacy
of Suzdal, by instituting a Metropolitan at Vladimir. The Patriarch
of Constantinople would not consent to this act, but later the
Metropolitan for the Russia of the Forests was secured. The designs
of Andrei were vast and premature. Ten generations of princes, ruling
through four successive centuries, were required for their ultimate
accomplishment. He outlined in the twelfth century what was executed
in the sixteenth by Ivan the Fourth, the Terrible. Like the despots
who were to spring from his loins, he had implacable enemies; and he
was overtaken by the fate ever impending over the autocrats of the
Orient and of Russia. His boyars, exasperated beyond measure by his
iron tyranny, assassinated him in his favorite residence of Bogoliuboro
(1174).
[To be continued.]
* * * * *
When a thought presents itself to our minds as a profound discovery,
and when we take the trouble to examine it, we often find it to be a
truth that all the world knows.—_Vauvenargues.
A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.
By L. A. SHERMAN, Ph. D.
III.—THE EASTERN VIKINGS—THE BEGINNINGS OF LITERATURE.
We have watched, in the dim twilight preceding the dawn of history,
the coming of the first Norsemen to the sea. They are a spirited and
fearless people, and they have chanced, if chance it is, to come to
that sea on which navigation is most hazardous and difficult. We
marvel they so quickly learn the arts of seamanship, and make the
fierce new element their dwelling place. They seem now to have reached
the country of their choice: its natural beauties kindle in their
breasts an immediate and romantic response of affection. They are
enamored of its wild haunts, its fjords and mountains, and they are
inspired by the surging fury of the storm. But we witness, after a
few centuries of comparative inaction, a strange transformation. The
whole Norse people, without concert, without occasion, becomes a nation
of wandering pirates. They urge forth their dragon ships, no matter
whither, if only they shall find new foemen or new coasts. With the
outbreak of this passion for booty and adventure we mark the beginning
of the viking-age. We then count two weary centuries of violence and
bloodshed, of plunder and conquest. A new continent is discovered and
colonized, a Danish dynasty is set up in England, a Norwegian duchy
is endowed in France. Thus we witness the decline—not in defeat, but
in triumph, not by overthrow from without, but by suppression from
within—of viking-supremacy in the West. It remains to speak of another
chapter of viking-history, enacted during this same period in the East,
and by vikings of the land.
In the ancient sagas frequent mention is made of Ostrogardia or
Garderike. This was the modern Russia, then a barbarous wilderness, and
inhabited by shifting tribes of Finns. Just at the beginning of the
historical era a new people appears—the Slavs. It is another member of
the Aryan family of nations, which has sent out already into Europe
the Celtic, the Greek, the Roman, the Gothic, and the Scandinavian;
and it is probably the last remnant of the race. These Slavs, already
divided into various tribes, move westward, take possession of the
country, and lay the foundation of the two cities of Novgorod and Kiev,
destined later to become the capitals of two Slavonic empires. Three
centuries pass. The Slavs have become attached to the home of their
choice, and are beginning to develop a civilization. But it is the day
of viking restlessness in the North, and Scandinavian rovers are moving
eastward as well as south and west. In the early Russian chronicles
we are told that in 859 A. D. a band of Varangians or Northmen, under
the leadership of Rurik, invaded the country and began to spoil the
native tribes. In due time they attack and capture Novgorod itself;
but after a brief triumph the invaders, who were but a handful, were
expelled by an uprising of the Slavs. Rurik and his followers made
haste, not to return to Sweden, but to push their way southward
through the wilderness, as many Northmen had done before. They reach
Constantinople, and are welcomed as recruits for the imperial army. The
vikings who had come before them had already won the praise and esteem
of the imperial court; and so much do the Northmen grow in favor, that
we soon find the emperor will entrust himself to no other guard of
honor than a regiment of Varangian foot.
The Slavs and Finns in Novgorod meanwhile find the blessings of freedom
harder to bear than the authority of their late conquerors. After
two years of anarchy and internal dissension they send messengers
to Constantinople, inviting the Norsemen, whom they had thrust out,
to return and resume the government. “We have a goodly country,” say
they, “and large. All we need is the strong arm to keep it orderly.
Come, then, be our princes, and rule our state.” In response to this
petition Rurik and his two brothers, Sindf and Truvor, with a large
following of Varangian families, returned to Novgorod. Here Rurik
established himself as supreme ruler; and to prevent the success of a
fresh uprising of the Slavs, invited into the country a large accession
of Varangian population. To his brothers he gave the principalities
of Bielozero and Izborsk; but they soon dying, Rurik assumed again
authority. So strong did this new Scandinavian kingdom become that we
find ere long an army raised for the storming of Constantinople. The
project was, however, abandoned, and the vikings who had planned it
contented themselves with seizing the little province of Kiev. This
also in a few years was brought under the dominion of Novgorod. Thus
was laid the foundation of the great “Empire of All the Russias.” The
bulk of the population was composed of Slavs and Finns: the nobles were
Varangians, and Rurik was the first Czar.
It was but just that the superior race thus installed in the government
of this vast region should give its name to the new nation. The
first Varangians or Swedes who traversed Russia on their way to
Constantinople had been called by the Finnish natives “_Ruotsalaiset_,”
or Russians, from the name of the district (Roden or Rosen) whence
they had come.[D] This name adhered to Rurik and his followers, and so
the whole empire came finally to be called Russia. The line of Rurik
continued to furnish Czars to the Russian throne until the death of
Feodor, in 1598.
The work of the vikings is now finished: what is its sum? Three-fourths
of the European continent has become Scandinavian, or has submitted to
Scandinavian rule: thousands of lives have been sacrificed, and perhaps
half the wealth of Europe has been plundered or destroyed. What is the
compensation? We can only look to history for the answer. Here has
been a great revolution; but revolutions are steps in human progress.
Progress always demands as its price the best the age or generation has
to give. The installation of the Goths and Teutons in Europe cost five
centuries of woe and strife,—we can now see why; for it was destined to
give the world a better civilization and a better leadership. But this
leadership could not come from the Teuton alone: he is never prompted
to enterprise in the world at large; he is never aggressive, he is
strong only at home. Why then those six generations of viking conquest
and mingling with the conquered, if not to supply this lack through the
evolution of the British nation?
That England is the leader of this Teutonic age, that she alone has
extended and is extending the borders of Teutonic influence, that it
was she who enabled Protestantism to triumph and freedom to prevail,
that it was she only who could lay the phantom of mediæval despotism
which Napoleon raised—all this is undoubted. But is her leadership
after all due to admixture of viking blood? Has she not become mistress
of the seas simply because she is encompassed by them?
But island states do not grow strong by privileges of the sea; else
would Ireland and Scotland have rivalled the power of England. Then
there is a much larger Scandinavian element in the English people than
is commonly supposed. We forget that Sweyn and Canute won England
more through the Danes who were living there already than by the aid
of new invaders from Scandinavia. We can also trace clearly in later
England the Norse disposition and character. We can find it depicted in
Chaucer’s Shipman (prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 388-410), who,
after the lapse of four centuries, is still a viking of the old sort.
We find also the old quality of defiance well perpetuated. In his work
on monarchy (written about the middle of the fifteenth century), Sir
John Fortescue thus compares the Frenchman and the Englishman: “It is
cowardice and lack of heart and courage that keepeth the Frenchman
from rising, and not poverty; which courage no Frenchman hath like to
the Englishman. It hath been often seen in England that three or four
thieves, for poverty, have set upon seven or eight true men, and robbed
them all. But it hath not been seen in France that seven or eight
thieves have been hardy to rob three or four true men. Wherefore it is
right said that no Frenchman be hanged for robbery, for that they have
no hearts to do so terrible an act. There be therefore more men hanged
in England, in a year, for robbery and manslaughter, than there be
hanged in France for such cause of crime in seven years.”
We pass now to inquire what literary monuments or record the Northmen
of the viking era have left behind them.
They wrote, as is well known, by means of an alphabet of runes. These
were sixteen in number, corresponding in value to our F, U, Th, O, R,
K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, and Y. Their origin is unknown. From the
Scandinavians they were borrowed by the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, and
though never a common means of communication, were nevertheless at one
time written and understood from Constantinople to Iceland. They are
found preserved especially in monumental inscriptions, of which we take
the following specimens from Stephens’s _Runic Monuments_, and Wimmer’s
_Runeskriftens Oprindelse_:
1.—INSCRIPTION ON STONE AT SYLLING, DRAUNNEN, NORWAY.
[Illustration]
_Roman equivalents._
s a i l g æ r (th) r-h u i l i r-h e r-k u (th) g a t i e (th) i n a
a s l a k r-m a r k a (th) i m i k
_Translation._
Salgarth rests here. God keep thee!
Aslak marked me.
2.—INSCRIPTION ON THE SO-CALLED SNOLDELEV STONE, FOUND 1768, NOT FAR
FROM ROSKILDE, DENMARK.
[Illustration]
_Roman equivalents._
kun-ualtstain-sunar-ruhalts-(th)ular-osalhaukum
_Translation._
Gunvald’s stone, son of hoald, speaks (or speaker—priest) at Salhowe.
Of the literature proper of the early Northmen, we will consider first
the Sagas. These record the exploits of great chieftains, and are
sometimes of historical value. They were never written out in runes,
but owe their preservation to the Norwegian colonists who settled in
Iceland. Some of them were composed there, but the greater part seem to
have been brought over from the continent; and all were kept alive by
tradition, like the Odyssey and the Iliad, until the age of writing.
In our last chapter we alluded to the attempts made by the vikings who
discovered Vinland, to establish a colony there. For our first specimen
we will translate from the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne that part which
describes the voyage of a band of these colonists, and their landing,
as some believe, on the shores of Cape Cod.
“Now is to be told of Karlsefne, that he, together with Snorre and
Bjarne, with their men, sailed southward along the coast. They sailed
for a long time, until they came to a river which flowed down from
the land above and into a bay and so into the sea; there was a broad
beach and shoals there, so that it was impracticable to go up the
stream except at high water. Karlsefne with his people sailed into the
mouth of the stream, and called the place ‘Hóp’ (haven). They found
there self-sown wheat-fields where there were lowlands, and grapevines
wherever hills showed themselves. Every brook was full of fish. They
dug ditches where land met water when the tide was highest, and when
the tide went out there were halibut (holy fishes) in the ditches.
There was a great plenty of game of all kinds in the woods. They stayed
there half a month, for pleasure, and noticed nothing [of importance];
they had their cattle with them. But early one morning, as they were
looking around, they saw a great number of skin boats; and poles were
swinging in the air on board the boats. It seemed as though they were
swinging a wisp of straw, and they swung them with the sun. Then said
Karlsefne: ‘What does this mean?’ Snorre Thorbrandson answered him:
‘It may be that this is a token of peace; let us take a white shield
and carry toward them;’ and so they did. Then the men in the boats
rowed toward them, and looked with wonder at those that were there, and
went ashore. They were dark men and ill-favored, and had ill-looking
hair. They were large-eyed, and with high (broad) cheeks. They tarried
awhile, and wondered at those they met there, and afterward rowed away
southward past the cape.”
We will add also something from the celebrated Saga of Njál. This is
the story: Gunnar, a friend and neighbor of Njál, had been sentenced to
exile for murder. Njál had prophesied, in case Gunnar should not keep
his word and leave the country, that it would lead to his death. Gunnar
did not go, and becoming thus an outlaw, was not long after attacked
by his enemies, and after a fierce resistance, killed. The prophecy of
Njál was in this way fulfilled.
“When all of Gunnar’s goods were put on board, and the ship about ready
for sea, then Gunnar rode to Bergthorshvál, and to other neighboring
farms to speak to the men, and thanked them for standing by him—all
those who had given him succor. The second day after, he got ready
early to go to the ship, and told all his retinue that he was about to
ride away never to return. It seemed heavy tidings to the men—though
they looked for his coming back some day. Gunnar bids farewell to all
his friends, when he is ready to go, and the men all went out with him.
He thrust his halberd down against the ground and swung himself into
the saddle, and Kolskeg and he rode away. They rode forward as far
as the Markarfljot. There his horse stumbled, and Gunnar was thrown
from the saddle. He chanced to glance up at the slope, and the farm at
Hlidarenda. Then he said: ‘Fair is the sloping homestead, so that it
has never seemed so fair to me,—the whitening acres and the smooth-mown
lawn,—and I shall ride back home and not go at all.’ ‘Do no such favor
to your enemies,’ said Kolskeg, ‘as to break your agreement; for no man
would look for that from you. And you may believe that so will it all
come to pass as Njál has said.’ ‘I will not go at all,’ said Gunnar,
‘and I would that you did likewise.’ ‘That shall not happen,’ said
Kolskeg; ‘I shall not play the dastard in this, nor in anything else in
which my word is honored; and there is but this alternative left: that
we part here. And tell my mother and my kinsmen that I do not expect to
see Iceland again; for I shall hear tidings of your death, my brother,
and then I shall have no desire to sail out hither again.’ Therewith
they part. Gunnar rides home to Hlidarenda, and Kolskeg rides to the
ship and sails away.”—_Njála_: Chapter lxxv, line 20.
[To be continued.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Monamakh signifies he who fights in single combat.
[B] The termination _vitch_ added to the father’s name, indicates the
son and heir presumptive. The termination _vna_ added to the father’s
name, indicates his daughter. Usually the eldest son and daughter,
respectively, receive these names.
[C] _Vid._ THE CHAUTAUQUAN for October, 1882, p. 13, chap. ii.
[D] Otté: Scandinavian History.
PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.
By C. E. BISHOP.
IV.—THE MEADOW-PARLIAMENT.
Old historians generally gave kings bad characters, but in the reaction
from this indiscriminate censure we get a school of writers who praise
too much. Treacle has taken the place of vinegar in writing history.
Thus, Green makes heroes of the coarse Saxon savages and heathen;
Froude has painted the picture of Henry VIII so his own mother—much
more his multitudinous wives—would not recognize it; even Benedict
Arnold and Judas Iscariot have their eulogists. Nevertheless, no one,
so far as I have read, has had a good word to say of King John. Green
vouchsafes “the sober judgment of history” in ratification of the
Billingsgatish opinion: “Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the
fouler presence of John.” I have no kalsomine to mix for him who seems
by all accounts to have been worse than his Satanic Majesty, in that
John _is_ “as black as he is painted.” Yet it is to this royal monster
that England owes her Great Charter of Rights and Freedom, and one of
her red letter days.
The boy whose impudence and mean spirit made everybody detest him; the
youth who so embittered the last hours of his fond father, Henry II,
that he died cursing him; the prince who plotted the dethronement and
death of his brother, King Richard, absent on a crusade, and murdered
the rightful heir, the boy Arthur; the husband who deserted his own
wife and abducted the wife of his friend; the soldier who was always
provoking quarrels and always running away from fighting, and abandoned
all his continental possessions to his enemy without striking a blow;
the churchman so abjectly superstitious that he dared not go hunting
without a string of relics around his neck, yet quarrelled with the
Pope about the right to rob the Church revenues, and ended by basely
resigning his crown into the Pope’s hands and kissing the toe of his
legate; the lawgiver of his realm who reduced bribery to a department
of the royal exchequer, and opened book accounts with the subjects
whose hush-money and blood-money bought justice and the perversion of
justice, wherein it was recorded that one man paid to have the king’s
anger appeased, another “that the king should hold his tongue about
Henry Pinel’s wife,” and that a poor woman paid two hundred livres for
the privilege of visiting her husband in prison; the father of his
people who hired foreign plunderers to rob and murder his children,
who starved women and children to death in dungeons, crushed old men
under loads of lead, extorted rich men’s money by pulling their teeth,
one each day; who was so licentious that noble ladies had to flee the
realm to be safe from his approach or his violence—this “awful example”
of the race of kings was the chosen instrument for inciting England to
demand a charter as complete in its guarantees as his encroachments, as
beneficent as he was pestilent, as monumental grandly as he was meanly.
And so at last it came about that King John had not a friend left at
home or abroad.
He had one opponent whom both interest and principle moved to lead the
national demand for justice, which now took shape. That was Stephen
Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose appointment by the Pope
had been resisted by John. This worthy Saxon successor of Anselm and
Becket had hunted out in the garret of a monastery a copy of the
charter which Henry I, in the days of his honeymoon with his Saxon
wife, had granted to his people; he had called together the barons and
bishops, and proposed that John be made to renew that bill of rights,
and they had all laid their hands on the high altar of St. Edmondsbury
and sworn to make him do so, by arms if need be. Christmas Day, 1214,
was grandly celebrated, for then the burly knights in armor came to
John in London Temple and made their demand. The crafty king asked time
to consider of it, and to study the document. “How long?” demanded
Langton. “By Easter you shall have my answer,” promised the king.
He employed the interval in begging the Pope to order Langton to cease
his opposition, which the Pope did, and the archbishop did not. On
the contrary, Langton gave to the barons’ movement religious sanction
and the title “The Army of God and Holy Church,” thus neutralizing
the moral and spiritual influence of John’s only supporter, Rome.
John tried to buy off the opposition with promises, but no one would
trust the champion prevaricator of the age. He sent out proclamations
to all bailiffs to put down his enemies, but everybody took pride in
being his enemy, so there was no one to execute the writs. He made
a great pretense of going on a crusade and took the cross, but even
that all-compelling appeal was laughed at. John a crusader! See how
necessary it was that this king should have been so bad that no one
would trust or believe him, even with the Pope at his back and the
cross in his hands.
We of this country and time—all mankind, in fact, have to thank John
for all this resistance, for the more he struggled and plotted and
lied, the more they advanced their demands, so that by Easter “the Army
of God and Holy Church” had a far different charter to offer from that
they had sworn to before the last Christmas; like all nature at that
spring-dawn, the charter had put out new shoots. Freedom, too, had come
forth from the tomb.
On Easter day, 1215, the barons were assembled in large force at
Stamford; a committee headed by Langton went to the king with the
articles drawn up on parchment; the document made a big bundle; you
can see it yet in the British Museum. If the king was astonished at
the growth the document had made, he was more so at the growth of the
demands put forth in it, and he swore up and down he never would sign
it and grant liberties to his subjects which would make him a slave.
The barons seemed to think he would sign, nevertheless. May was nearly
gone before they brought the king to book. He tried to raise an army at
home, but no one came to his banner. He sent abroad to hire soldiers,
but they did not come. May 22, 1215, “the Army of God” marched
triumphant into London, and the kingdom was in its hands. Scotland and
Wales offered aid, and the northern barons came marching with their
retainers to the common cause. For two weeks John skulked about London
with seven horsemen only, and all England in arms against him. Thanks
to John again for this resistance! The barons improved the time adding
new and stricter conditions. But there was an end to it at last, and
the king sent to know when and where the papers should be executed.
“Let it be at Runnymede, and on the fifteenth day of June,” was the
answer. All circumstances conspire to make this appointment ideally,
even romantically, appropriate. Rune-mede was the Meadow of Council,
a grassy strip between the Thames and the foot-hills of Surrey, where
since old times earls and kings and the wise men had used to deliberate
and treat, in the open air as they lived. It spoke of a time when men
dared not trust each other in enclosures; of a people in thought and
temper as free and large as “all out-doors.” On that historical spot
the powers of England who could not trust her king met the king who
would trust no one.
It is the middle day of “the leafy month of June,” 1215. [How green and
beautiful England is in June!] “The Army of God and Holy Church” has
marched out from London with a great crowd of citizens, and sat down
along the Council Meadow. A rude table is set, and on it are spread
out the fairly-engrossed parchment and writing implements. The king
rides thither from Windsor Castle. Only three or four are with him, and
they belong to the barons’ party. John stands absolutely deserted, a
picture of regal isolation such as has been never seen before or since.
Distinguished monarch! He is smiling, courtly and complaisant, as he
well knows how to be. Yes, it affords him great pleasure to do this for
his beloved subjects.
“Hold,” says Langton, as the too-eager king grasps the pen, “there is
more to be considered. Your signature is to be affixed only of your
free will and desire, and you are to here swear not to renounce this
instrument on account of anything that has taken place up to this
moment, and to keep this covenant faithfully inviolate forever.”
Yes, the smiling John would so swear.
“Then for the better fulfillment of all these conditions, you will
consent to the appointment of five-and-twenty knights, who shall have
power to enforce this contract; you hereby give them power, in case any
article is infringed by you or your officers, to punish the offender
by fine, or, if necessary, to destrain your goods, and, in case of
resistance, to levy war against you and your castles, saving only the
safety of your person and your family; and all your subjects shall be
like yourself sworn to obedience to the twenty-five barons, executors
of this contract. In further security of all which, the Tower and city
of London are to remain in possession of the Archbishop until this act
shall be duly and faithfully so put in execution by you.”
Ah, the smile has faded from the king’s face, and pale and trembling
he abruptly leaves the council and returns to the castle. Once there
he raves and stamps like a caged madman. He froths at the mouth, rolls
on the floor and bites at every object near him. “They have given me
five-and-twenty over-lords,” roars the king repeatedly.
A week passed before all the formalities were complied with, the barons
remaining obstinately in camp, yielding not one jot of their demands,
and at last tiring out the king and securing his assent to everything.
What is Magna Charta? What are its provisions, what reforms did it
work, what good has it done? Everybody has heard of it, not one in
a thousand probably can answer these questions. It undertook two
things—reform of existing abuses and provisions for further justice;
remedy for the past, security for the future. Its great mission in
the cause of civilization has been as a rallying-point for popular
rights against royal encroachments. Kings and ministers in succeeding
centuries were again and again patiently brought back to that ground
and made to swear obedience to the principle of _limitation of
authority_. On this one point British obstinacy stuck and never budged,
and it is due to that resistance and persistance for Magna Charta that
limited monarchy, and constitutional, representative government stand
where they do on the earth to-day.
A remarkable thing about the instrument itself is the lawyer-like
accuracy of its language and the minuteness and fullness of its
provisions, showing care in its preparation and affording evidence of
the state of the jurisprudence and scholarship of the time, and of the
extent of the ramifications of the executive wrongs it sought to remedy.
But this is not a constitution, not a statement of rights; it is a
statute-law of the sort then possible, viz: in the form of a royal
edict. In each section the king ordains so and so. Nor is it a charter
in the interest of the rights of man. The bondsmen, who made the bulk
of the population of England at that time, are not included in its
benefits, and not mentioned save once, and that exception was doubtless
inserted for the benefit of the masters, for it exempts from execution
the tools of the slave, which of course belonged to his owner. So much
for what the charter is not and does not.
A large share of its articles are devoted to defining and regulating
the feudal tenure, duties and rights of the barons, and were quite
selfish in their scope, although they mark progress as reducing
ill-understood relations of king and feudatories for the first time to
a written form. But they went further, and stipulated that all these
privileges and immunities should apply to all classes of freemen—an
important point, as it made Normans and Englishmen equal before the
law. Much space is devoted to regulating business and commercial
matters; as leasehold rights, treatment of the estates of wards and
widows, fixing the widow’s right of dower, freeing of trade, home
and foreign, from restrictions and imposts, regulating fisheries,
bridge-building, highways, weights and measures.
Advancing into the domain of property and personal rights, it fixed
the terms and places of courts and opened them freely to all; no man
could be tried without witnesses, or detained in prison without trial;
borough franchises were declared inviolable. Then came three sections
which struck at the heart of the tyrannical practices of John’s reign:
Foreign officers, temporal or spiritual, were to be removed and their
holdings filled by Englishmen; and mercenary troops were to be removed
from the realm.
“Justice or right shall not be sold, delayed or denied to any man.”
And then came the declaration of civil rights, which has never ceased
to echo wherever free institutions aspired to live:
“No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of rights and
property, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise destroyed but by
lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land.”
This grand declaration was five hundred years ahead of the times,
and was not made a fact sooner than that; but all the same, it made
the condition of “freeman” in England a great prize for the slave to
struggle for, and under all the stormy vicissitudes of royal, baronial
and clerical oppression of succeeding ages; made the condition of men
in England infinitely superior to that of subjects of other realms—in
fact, and in the end, made England what she is, America what _she_ is
as to free institutions.
So, on the whole, those iron-fisted old barons did their work well,
according to their light and the condition of their times; and
Runnymede has become, by their great act, a shrine of freedom.
But here our thanks to John must cease. His phenomenal wickedness had
done the world all the good it could. He did not mean it, of course.
When he had signed the charter, and as soon as the Army of God had
dispersed, he sent to the Pope for absolution from his oath, and to
the continent for an army of murderers and marauders. He hurled upon
his realm the excommunications of the Church and the torch and sword
of his mercenaries. He went through England from end to end, as if
determined to annihilate all life and property in his wild, insatiable
revenge. His career of ruin was short. We regret that it could not have
been terminated by the sword of justice, instead of by nature, and so
have rounded up the measure of retribution. But every writer and every
reader of English history, from that day to this, has in thought and
wish constituted himself John’s executioner, and, setting off against
the glory of Runnymede his detestable career, has learned to loathe
injustice, treachery, cowardice, and sin in high places.
[To be continued.]
* * * * *
We can not be just if we are not kind.—_Vauvenargues.
SUNDAY READINGS.
SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
[_January 7._]
HISTORY OF GOD’S BOOK.
By REV. FRANK RUSSELL, A. M.
The word of God began to be spoken to the first of the race in Eden,
and such is the beginning of the Bible. It was only a spoken word,
doubtless, for nearly twenty-five hundred years. From generation to
generation through all the patriarchal ages it was preserved by fathers
carefully teaching it to their children. Many fragments may have been
lost, but it is no taxation of our belief that for many centuries
much of the early Word may have been carefully treasured through the
exercise of memory. We know of marvelous instances of the power of
memory. It is supposed that the works of Homer, an elaborate poem with
careful divisions, were preserved for centuries in critical form, by
one generation repeating it to the next while it was unwritten. It does
not bear the marks of change during these generations of its history,
but is unique, precise, and giving every evidence of being the original
work of one author, Homer. Sir Robert Peel is stated to have been able
to listen to a speech in Parliament one and a half or two hours long,
and then repeat it all verbatim, and it is also said at the present
time that Gladstone has learned Homer so thoroughly that on hearing
any line of it repeated he is able at once to repeat the following and
the preceding line. Now Shem lived upon the earth after he came out
of the ark five hundred years, and could have thoroughly taught the
new race in Asia the story. Snatches of song and old tales which he
related might have been verbally composed in the antediluvian period,
and many think that specimens of the same still hold their place,
set like pearls in the earliest Scripture writings. There is little
doubt that Job is the first writer whose productions are preserved.
That he wrote before Moses seems quite evident from statements easily
understood; viz., his descriptions are only of the manners and customs
of the ancient patriarchs, his religion is purely patriarchal, the only
idolatry he mentions is the worship of the sun and moon, thus seeming
to antedate the time of their idol worship, and lastly, he makes no
mention of Sodom, Gomorrah, or Abraham, which would scarcely have been
the case had he written after Moses. Moses may likely have read Job and
have received added inspiration from it, if, indeed, he should need
more than to have received the tables writ with God’s own finger. There
are, thus far, six pamphlets bound with sixty of later date that make
up our book. Look at the antiquity of these six venerable fragments,
written one thousand years before Homer sang, one thousand years before
either Herodotus or Confucius was born.
Following these earlier Scripture writings there came to be mentioned
the rolls of the prophets, songs and sketches of genealogies and
history, so that gradually fragments, here and there, came forth by
divine direction, which, preserved by divine care, were to enter the
canon which we have of sixty-six pamphlets, by about forty writers,
the entire authorship spanning a period of about sixteen centuries,
geographically ranging over the cities of Chaldea, the plains of
Arabia, and the mountains of Palestine. The range of mind is equally
varied; written by men who sat on thrones, by some who lived as hermits
in the mountains, and by some who were shepherds and fishermen.
About 600 B. C., it is recorded in Jeremiah xxxvi that Jehoiachim,
while listening to the reading of the roll, became so enraged at its
contents that he took his penknife and defaced it, and then cast it
into the fire-place and saw it consumed. He has had many descendants
of the same temper, and his race is not yet extinguished.
In about 450 B. C.—I am careful to give approximate dates in round
numbers—the sacred rolls were so mutilated that when Ezra and Nehemiah
returned from the eastern captivity and reorganized the old worship
in the city of Jerusalem, they added to their other improvements the
establishment of a district library, Ezra collected and translated all
the copies of the Bible, writing in a kind of Chaldaic Hebrew, the
old language modified by the eastern dialect, with which the Hebrews
in their captivity had grown familiar, so that now there were two
languages of Scripture, the Samaritans clinging tenaciously to the old
Hebrew of Job, and Moses, and the prophets after them.
About 280 B. C., marks another epoch in the development of the book.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, the ruler of Egypt, desired to enrich the great
imperial library of Alexandria with a complete and careful translation
of the sacred writings into Greek, which was the popular language of
his time. He organized a college of seventy or seventy-two eminent
scholars, and classified the work among them; and the result was the
Septuagint translation, the foundation of all our translations of the
Old Testament since. It is said that the last transcript of this work
was made by the hand of a woman named Techla. This was the edition
which the Savior and the apostles used, the very language which
they quoted and mostly spake. Between 130 and 140 B. C., Antiochus
distinguished himself by attempting to burn all the Bibles in the
world, thus acting the part of Jehoiachim No. 2.
In 128 A. D., Aquila made another translation, it is thought in favor
of the more zealous Jews and to the prejudice of Christians, and not
as fair a work as the Septuagint, and in 300 A. D., Diocletian added
to the infamies of the tenth great persecution an attempt to destroy
the Bible by seizing and burning all copies that could be found. He is
Jehoiachim No. 3. Such attempts in fulfillment of the declarations of
the text are like the effort to exterminate a ripened head of wheat by
stamping it beneath your feet; the next year many thrifty growths will
laugh at the result.
In the early part of the fifth century good Saint Jerome, one of the
most distinguished of the Latin fathers, profound in learning and
devout of heart, collected all the important translations that preceded
him, took up his residence in Palestine and made a very thorough
version, called the Latin Vulgate, and used by our Catholic friends
ever since, an important aid in all subsequent Bible work.
In 500 the Emperor Justinian decreed, to quell some discussion about
the preferences of versions, that either might be used with entire
liberty in any part of the realm. It is supposed that the Jewish
sentiment, vacillating for some time between liberal views and their
characteristic conservatism, rebounded at this decree and led to a
tenacity for their own ancient language, to which they have since
scrupulously adhered, reading mostly throughout their wide dispersion
the ancient characters of Job and Moses, but some, as at Frankfort in
Germany, using the Chaldaic shading of Ezra’s version. From a little
before 600 we are able very definitely to trace the way of the book in
England. There was dense ignorance among the masses of common people
throughout the middle ages, but the convents and the great monasteries
were some of them nevertheless centers of great learning. The Jews of
England from the first kept a clear knowledge of their old writings,
and furnished men in every century eminent in scholarship. Monks,
so inclined, had little else to do but to eat and study, and God
perpetuated through their work the knowledge of his word. I was shown
in the British Museum a copy of the Gospels in Latin, of exquisite
beauty, done by Eadfrid in the seventh century. It is on excellent
paper, in red and black characters, executed almost with the precision
of type. Near the close of that century Cædmon, the father of English
poetry, translated portions of the Scripture into the Saxon or early
English.
A fragment of manuscript written by Aldhelm, a bishop, in 706,
praises the nuns for their fidelity in the daily reading of the holy
Scriptures, a circumstance that indicates both that there was something
of education among the convents, and also that they doubtless had many
copies of Scripture manuscripts. Aldhelm himself is known to have
translated fifty of the Psalms into the early English.
A bright picture comes to us by the pen of Saint Cuthbert in 735.
On the 26th of May—Ascension Day—cloudless and beautiful toward its
closing, there were silent tread and hushed voices among the monks of
a great monastery in the county of Durham, in England. All attention
along the cloisters was directed toward the passageway of one cell,
and eager inquiries of all who came thence if the dying one were still
alive.
Within the cell, on a low white bed, was the feeble form of an old man,
bolstered up that his eye might rest upon either of the manuscripts
supported in position on and about his bed. At a table near him was
seated a scribe writing every word which the pale lips spake. One
listening heard the scribe say, “There is only one chapter left,
master, but you are too weary now, and you must sleep.” “No, go on,
it is very easy, write rapidly,” was the reply; and so the writing
proceeded according to the faint dictation of the exhausted old man,
until he seemed to fall asleep. The scribe awoke him again, and the
glassy eyes brightened as the old man heard, “Master, there is but
one verse now,” and with an effort to fix the drooping eyes upon the
adjusted scrolls, there came slowly forth, one by one, the words of
the last verse of John’s gospel, and when the “Amen” was pronounced,
the whitened head sank among the pillows lightened with the last rays
of the setting sun, as it streamed through the grated window, and the
bloodless lips murmured forth, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost,” when the form of the Venerable Bede was still,
and the awful silence of death followed immediately the ending of his
translation.
Portions of the Word were also translated in the ninth century,
and were authorized by King Alfred. He himself did something at
translating, and was careful to have nicely executed, as a preface
to every published code, the manuscript of the Decalogue. It might
exercise a salutary effect if our statesmen, every law they read,
might also have the ten commandments before them. King Alfred made the
declaration more than once that he desired to see the day when all men
in his kingdom would be able to read God’s word.
Elfrac also, after Alfred, from 1004 to 1030, translated portions of
the Scriptures into English.
But the last manuscript translation of the English Scriptures is
greater than any which preceeded it, and the only one which can be
called a popular edition. The quaint old stone church of Saint Mary is
still standing in Leicestershire, where John Wycliffe preached when in
1830 he completed his translation. He had long been the fiery lecturer
at Oxford, and had come into sore conflict with ignorant priests of
the papacy for his enunciations of religious liberty and his schemes
for the better education of the masses of the people. So that when his
translation was finished a strong hatred sought his life. He was cited
to Rome, but being too feeble to go, he was buried in his own parish.
Forty years afterward, however, the same council which burned John Huss
exhumed the bones of Wycliffe, and having burned them, they gathered
the ashes and scattered them into the river which had the significant
name of “Swift,” down which they found their way through other rivers
into the ocean, and were washed, it would seem, with the strength of
Wycliffe’s spirit, upon every shore of the world. There were as many as
one hundred and seventy copies of the Wycliffe version made with busy
pens, and circulated secretly, but widely read, thus preparing the way
for greater works thereafter, and confirming the propriety of calling
their author “The Morning Star of the Reformation.”
A few years since I stood long before the great bronze statue of
Gutenberg in Mayence on the Rhine, a place now of over fifty thousand
population. All citizens are eager to show any American that can
make out to ask it, the site of the building where the invention of
printing with movable type was made about 1450. The house still stands
where Gutenberg lived, and another in which he did his first work with
his press. Twenty-five years later printing began in England, and in
another twenty-five years there were in the world over two hundred and
twenty places where printing was done. I took a walk on the heights
back of Bristol, in England, and was asked if I was seeking Sudbury,
the old manor, which I was not, but accidentally had it pointed out to
me where Sir John Walsh lived, when he employed for the instruction of
his children a young priest, a fine scholar and a great reader. The
fact that he devoted so much of his time and thought to the Scriptures,
and even taught children to read it, produced some sensation in the
community. In June, 1523, at a dining, the young priest suffered some
rebuke for his liberal handling of the Scriptures by the pompous parish
priest, who was present, and who, among other things, declared that it
was better even to disobey a law of God than a law of the Pope. At this
the opposition in the heart of the young priest became very decided,
and his reply was almost in these words: “I hope to live to see even
the ploughboys of England knowing more of the Word of God than either
yourself or the Pope.” That young priest’s name was William Tyndale.
When it was noised about that his pen was busy preparing a translation
of the Bible for print, he was obliged to fly abroad on the continent,
where at Cologne on the Rhine he printed a few sheets, then fled
again to Worms, where he printed all of his translation, and was soon
thereafter imprisoned in Antwerp for six months, during which time he
converted the jailor and his family. He was then strangled and burned
at the stake, his last words being, “May the Lord open the King of
England’s eyes.”
It was Henry the VIII who was then King of England, and who assisted
the bishops to buy up Tyndale’s edition and burn the books in a heap
before St. Paul’s in London.
I saw a fragment of one of the books, mostly burned, rescued from the
flames, and now in the British Museum. This is Jehoiachim No. 4.
It is said that a young man named Coverdale had been greatly interested
in Tyndale’s edition; that he was a fine scholar, and that he, with
several others, finding that the edition would be destroyed, succeeded
in selling many copies for the flames, thus erecting a fund with which
they proposed another edition. The prayer of Tyndale in less than two
years was answered. Henry the VIII, with increasing disgust at the
ignorance and corruption of the religious teachers in every community,
determined that, after all, the Bible should be printed and extensively
circulated. So Coverdale, with strong patronage, was employed to issue
it, which he did, under the care of Archbishop Cramer, in 1527, in
Zurich. Two thousand five hundred copies of Coverdale’s edition were
seized and burned by the Inquisition in France. This is Jehoiachim No.
5.
Following Henry VIII, Edward VI ordered that every parish priest should
own a copy and read therefrom a chapter at each service.
In 1558 John Calvin, with able associates, published an edition called
the Genevan edition.
In 1614 King James commissioned forty-seven scholars to make a careful
and complete edition, which was authorized as standard. This is our
own edition or translation in common use since. As Tyndale commenced
his work in 1511, you will see that it took just a century and more
than fifty years after the time of printing to produce a complete and
authorized version of God’s word. The race of Jehoiachims in many parts
have attempted to destroy it, especially in Spain, for the last few
years.
During the time of the preparation of King James’s version, our
Catholic friends completed an edition more to their liking, which was
published in 1609 in Douay, France, and which they have in whatever
common use it is proper to say, called the Douay version.
In 1604, the same year that King James moved for his version, John
Eliot was born. In 1631 he joined the church in Boston, and became
a learned and pious missionary among our American Indians. In 1661
he published his translation, and lived to see over twenty Indians
educated and using his edition in their own tongue, in the pulpit.
Eliot died when he was eighty-six years old. There are now about thirty
copies of his translation remaining, about equally divided between
England and America. There is a copy in the Astor Library in New York,
and one in Yale College library. A copy was sold at auction in New York
a few years since for $1,130, the highest known price ever paid for one
book. There is no man now living who can read Eliot’s Bible.
In 1870 a movement was started, appropriately by the Church of England,
for a thorough revision of our Scriptures. The New Testament has been
in our hands for some time, and we now eagerly look forward to the
appearance of the Old Testament in the new version.
“Within this simple volume lies
The mystery of mysteries;
Happiest story of human race,
To whom that God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to force the way;
And better had they ne’er been born
Than read to doubt or read to scorn.”
—_Sir Walter Scott._
[_January 14._]
FROM THE BEGINNING TO ABRAHAM.
By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
_The Creation of Man_ involved the necessity of preparing a
dwelling-place for him. The Bible informs us that the world passed
through successive changes, which transformed an unshapely mass to
its present condition of beauty and fitness. God said, “Let there be
light,” and the rays of the sun burst upon the surface of the earth.
Then the land appeared from under the waters, and was clothed with
vegetation. The fishes, reptiles, and birds were called into existence.
Next, quadrupeds appeared. Finally, as a crowning act, man was created
in the image of God, his Maker. “Then the woman was formed from the rib
of the man, in token of the closeness of their relation, and the duty
of man to love his wife as his own flesh.”
Man having been created, means were employed for his occupation. In
order to develop his mind and body activity was necessary. He was to
dress and keep the garden, to subdue the lower animals, study them, and
subject them to his control and use.
Distinguished from all other created beings around him by the gift of
speech, he was enabled to classify and name the animals, hold converse
with his wife, and engage in oral acts of praise and worship of his
Heavenly Father.
The locality of the Garden of Eden is believed to be in the highlands
of Asia Minor, near the sources of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
The whole district drained by these rivers is represented by travelers
as one of surpassing beauty. Mountains rise, by easy slopes, to the
height of five thousand feet; their sides are clothed with gigantic
forest trees, underneath which the box, bay, and rhododendron flourish.
The valleys and lowlands are studded with villages, and checkered by
orchards, vineyards, and gardens, yielding both the cereals of the
temperate zones and the fruit of the tropics. Somewhere in the eastern
part of this charming district the garden was located, on the shore of
Lake Van. This lake is described by travelers as follows:
“The shores of Lake Van (a noble sheet of water, two hundred and
forty miles round), are singularly fine. They are bright with poplar,
tamarisk, myrtles, and oleanders, whilst numerous verdant islands,
scattered over its placid bosom, lend to it the enchantment of fairy
land. In one direction the gardens cover a space of seven or eight
miles long, and four miles broad. The climate is temperate, and sky
almost always bright and clear. To the southeast of the lake extends
the plain of Solduz, presenting in one part an unbroken surface
of groves, orchards, vineyards, gardens, and villages. The same
description is applicable to the tract extending along the Araxes,
which, for striking mountain scenery, interspersed with rich valleys,
can scarcely be equalled. This district accords, in every respect, with
the best notions we can form of the cradle of the human race.”
Here, say the Armenians, was the Vale of Eden. On the summit of Mount
Ararat, at no great distance from this, the ark rested; and here, also,
the vine was first cultivated by Noah. It is impossible to say whether
further investigation in this comparatively unknown district will ever
guide us nearer to the spot where the Lord planted the garden; but
there can be no doubt that these plains, lakes, and islands must have
given birth to the images of Elysian fields and Fortunate islands that
continued, age after age, to gild the traditions of the world.[E]
_The Fall of Man._—This expression signifies the loss of the innocence
and perfection with which he was endowed at his creation. The Fall was
the consequence of disobedience.
Milton thus describes the momentous event:
“Of man’s disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”
Eve’s act—
“... her rash hand, in evil hour,
Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.”
Adam’s act—
“Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin
Original....”
At what period of the existence of our first parents their fall
occurred the inspired writer does not inform us. The _fact_ is only
stated. There is reason to infer that it occurred soon after their
creation.
Before the fall they lived in the garden, whose enchanting beauty has
already been described. Their employment was to dress, admire, and
enjoy the lovely spot, and to praise and glorify their Maker.
Having disobeyed, they were driven forth from the garden, and the
ground, which before brought forth, spontaneously, an abundant supply
of fruits to satisfy all their desires, became changed, and needed
cultivation to produce the food their desecrated bodies needed.
“Adam and Eve went forth into the wide world, carrying with them the
fallen nature and corrupt tendencies which were the present fruit of
their sin, but with faith in the promise of redemption.”
The chief object of their life was yet to be accomplished, the earth
was to be peopled and subdued. The curse was accompanied by a promise.
The toils of the man were to be rewarded by the fruits the earth would
yield to cultivation; and the woman, in her suffering, was consoled by
the hope of a Redeemer.[F]
_The Flood._—Sin and wickedness had become so wonderful that God
determined to destroy the whole race, except Noah and his family.
Noah was directed to construct a vessel sufficiently large to
accommodate his family and such animals as he should need. In this
vessel, called in the Bible the Ark, he embarked with his wife, three
sons, and their wives, making in all eight souls. He took, according
to Divine direction, clean beasts and birds by sevens, and of such as
were not to used for food or for sacrifice by pairs, with a supply of
food for all. The age of Noah at the time he entered the ark was six
hundred years. When all had embarked, the ark was shut by the hand of
God, and immediately the fountains of the great deep were broken up,
and the clouds sent forth torrents of water, which increased and bore
up the ark. The Bible does not describe the terrific character of the
consequences of such a storm. We are left to imagine the scenes that
followed. The mountain streams must have swollen so suddenly as to
forsake their channels and find new outlets, sweeping away, in their
angry force, hamlets, villages, and even cities, washing down hills,
and undermining mountains. But, most prominent, there rises before
the fancy a scene of terrible conflict—brawny men fighting with the
tempest, carrying their families from height to height, but still
pursued by the remorseless, unwearying foe.
The next scene is one of defeat and death.
Bleached and bloodless corpses float everywhere, like pieces of a
wreck over the shoreless sea; the poor babe, locked in the arms of the
mother, having found even nature’s refuge fail.
Last of all, there is a scene of awful stillness and desolation, not
one object being seen but the dull expanse of the ocean, nor one sound
of life heard but the low moan of its surging waters.
On the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. But
nearly a year elapsed, after the mighty vessel grounded, before Noah
emerged from this temporary prison. Immediately upon landing he erected
an altar, and offered sacrifice to God for preserving him from the
watery grave which had engulfed all mankind except his family, with
which act, God being well pleased, he made a covenant with him never
again to destroy the world by flood, and to seal the promise, he set
his bow in the cloud.
Noah, as has been stated, on going out of the ark, celebrated his
deliverance by a burnt offering of all the kinds of clean beasts which
he had preserved in the ark with him.[G]
_Babel._—The next great event in man’s history was the confusion of
tongues, and the consequent dispersion of mankind into three great
lingual families.
On leaving the ark new privileges were granted, new laws imposed, and a
new covenant made. In addition to the plants, all animals were allowed
for food. They were forbidden to eat blood, and murder was made a
capital offence. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood
be shed.” We may infer that the sons of Noah, and their descendants,
moved naturally toward the south, until, after many years, they reached
and settled the plains south of Ararat; until Assyria, the plains of
Mesopotamia, and Chaldæa swarmed with busy multitudes, pursuing the
various avocations of life.
It was on the plains of Chaldæa, south of Mesopotamia, that the mighty
city of Babylon arose on the banks of the river Euphrates, where the
inhabitants, in their pride, attempted to erect a tower that should
reach to the heavens. This tower was, no doubt, intended to serve as a
place from which to expose signals to call the people together, hence
it was to be high enough to be seen from all parts of the plain.
To humble their pride, and to people other sections by distribution,
God arrested the work by confounding of tongues, so that when the
workmen asked for brick the laborers brought mortar. It is not certain
to how great an extent the confusion of tongues was brought; but it
is not believed that each person spoke a different dialect from every
other. But, on the other hand, there is reason to believe that the
whole was divided into three great lingual divisions or families.
Men now grouped together, from necessity, into tribes or families,
composed of those who understood each other, sought new regions and
neighborhoods where they might settle, and engage in the various
departments of human industry then practiced.
In that mild climate and generous soil men were greatly tempted
to become shepherds and herdsmen, a mode of life at once simple
and healthful, and one highly calculated to extend the borders of
occupation, and increase the population.
The government was patriarchal—a mode of government which seemed to
have been especially acceptable to God, and well calculated to prevent
centralization.
_Social Life of the Ancients—Job._—It would be utterly impossible, in
any single picture, to present a view of the state of society during a
period of so great extent, and embracing such a variety of nations and
countries. We can but follow the example of the Bible itself, and make
choice of a single spot, and a single family, to convey some idea of
the life and manners of the age. It is probable that it was during this
period that the patriarch Job lived, suffered, and triumphed. Job was
probably a descendant of Shem; his residence is said to have been “in
the east” (Job i. 3)—the term usually applied to the district where the
first settlement of men took place. (Gen. ii. 8; iii. 24; xi. 2). The
Sabeans and Chaldæans were his neighbors; and at the time when he lived
the knowledge of the True God seems to have been preserved, without
material corruption. The adoration of the heavenly bodies had begun to
be practiced (Job xxxi. 26, 27), but there seems still to have been a
general belief in one Almighty God.
The picture of social life in the book of Job is in many respects
extremely beautiful. We dare not regard it as a sample of what was
usual over the world, but rather as exhibiting the highest condition
of social life that had been attained. There were even then cases
of oppression, robbery, and murder; but, for the most part, a fine
patriarchal purity and simplicity prevailed. The rich and the poor met
together, and to the distressed and helpless the rich man’s heart and
hand were ever open: “When I went out to the gate through the city,
when I prepared my seat in the street, the young men saw me, and hid
themselves: and the aged arose and stood up.... When the ear heard
me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to
me; because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and
him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to
perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.”
The sweet bonds of family affection retained all their power in the
household of Job; his children feasted by turns in each other’s houses;
while the affectionate and pious father rose early in the morning to
offer sacrifices for them all, lest any of them should have sinned. The
simple burnt-offering retained its place as the appointed ordinance
of heaven, and was the sacrifice that Job, as the high-priest of his
house, presented on behalf of his children.
In the book of Job mention is made of kings, princes, nobles, judges,
merchants, warriors, travelers, and slaves. The pen of iron had
begun to engrave inscriptions upon rocks; the mining shaft was sunk
for gold and silver; and palaces that had been built for kings and
nobles had fallen into ruin. Astronomy had begun to acquaint men with
the heavenly bodies, and many of the stars and constellations had
received well-known names. Altogether, the state of civilization was
highly advanced. The more closely we study those early times, the more
erroneous appears the opinion that man began his career as a savage,
and gradually worked his way up to refinement and civilization. The
reverse of this is nearer the truth. “God made man upright”—civilized
and refined, as well as intelligent and holy; but as man departed from
God, he lost these early blessings. Sometimes a considerable degree of
refinement has been reached by other paths; but by far the richest and
best civilization is that which has come with true religion—with the
pure knowledge and simple worship of the one True God.
[_January 21._]
FROM ABRAHAM TO THE OCCUPATION OF CANAAN.
By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
_Call of Abraham._—The next important step chronicled in the Mosaic
history of man is the call of Abraham, ten generations after Noah.
Abram was born 1996 B. C. Ur, a Chaldæan city, was his birthplace.
Terah, Abram’s father, removed from Ur to Haran, in Mesopotamia.
The Lord spake to Abram while residing in Haran, when he was
seventy-five years old, and commanded him to leave his father’s house,
to separate himself from his kindred, to depart from his country, and
to go to a land that should be shown him.
The Lord said to him, “I will make thee a great nation, and will bless
thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I
will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And
in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Abram, in
obedience to this command, set out with his wife Sarai, and his nephew
Lot, taking with him his flocks and herds, and journeyed into the
land of Canaan. Having arrived, his first act was to erect an altar,
and sacrifice to the Lord. From this place he moved to the east of
Bethel, and again built an altar and worshipped. A famine drove him
from his new home into Egypt, where was an abundance of food. Having
spent some time in the land of the Pharaohs, he returned to Canaan,
greatly enriched by his sojourn in Egypt. Soon after the return from
Egypt Lot separated himself from Abram, and settled in the valley of
the Jordan, while Abram sought the hill country, and finally sat down
in the neighborhood of the ancient city of Hebron. The king of Chaldæa
made a raid on the cities of Canaan, and carried off Lot, with other
prisoners. This fact coming to the knowledge of Abram, he immediately
set out to rescue his relation. Having over three hundred servants, he
attacked the camp of the invaders at night, set them to flight, and
rescued his nephew.
This is the first battle recorded in history.
When Abram was one hundred years old the Lord’s promise was renewed to
him. His name was changed to Abraham, the name of his wife to Sarah;
and Isaac, through whom the promise of a great progeny was to be
fulfilled, was born. When Isaac was forty years old, Abraham sent his
servant to Mesopotamia to obtain a wife for him. His second cousin,
the grand-daughter of his father’s brother, was selected, and she
consented to go back with the servant and marry her kinsman. From this
marriage two sons were born, Esau and Jacob. By the right of birth Esau
possessed certain advantages, which Jacob purchased of him by dressing
him some food when returning faint and hungry from the chase, thereby
supplanting him. He afterwards, by deceiving his father, who was nearly
blind, obtained from him the parental blessing conferred only upon the
first born. This so enraged his brother, that Jacob sought safety in
flight, and went to his mother’s brother in Mesopotamia. There he was
kindly received, and after a short time had elapsed he entered into the
service of his uncle, and agreed to labor for him seven years for his
youngest daughter. Having fulfilled his part of the contract, Laban,
his uncle, gave him his _eldest_ daughter. When Jacob discovered the
deception his father-in-law had practiced upon him, he demanded Rachel.
Laban, however, required him to serve another seven years, which he
did. After the second marriage he continued still to live with Laban,
and received as pay a share of his flocks. In securing this share, he
was thought by his brothers-in-law to have practiced unfair means,
hence they became hostile to him. His father-in-law also having become
unfriendly, he fled, and returned to his native land with his family
and his flocks. Laban pursued and overtook him, and though their
meeting was far from being friendly, they entered into an agreement,
and gave pledges that they would not annoy each other in future. Jacob
then pursued his journey. As he approached his native country he sent
presents to his brother Esau, who came out to meet him, and they became
reconciled.
Jacob journeyed on to Canaan, and sat down in the city Shalim. Soon
after he removed to Hebron, the home of his childhood. He was rich
in flocks and herds, and his neighbors respected and feared him. In
accordance with the patriarchal mode of life, his twelve sons and
one daughter remained with him, who, with their wives, children, and
servants, made a large family or tribe.
_Joseph._—Jacob treated the children of Rachel, his beloved wife,
with greater tenderness than he did those of Leah, his first wife,
and Joseph was his favorite. The partiality shown to this son so
enraged his brothers that they determined to get rid of him. They
found an opportunity to carry out their design under the following
circumstances. The older brothers having been absent with their flocks
so long that their father became anxious about their safety, and sent
Joseph to search for them. As they beheld him afar off they plotted
to murder him; but, taking the advice of Reuben, they imprisoned him
in a pit in the wilderness. Soon after his confinement a caravan of
traveling merchants passed, and to these they sold Joseph into slavery,
telling their father that he had been destroyed by wild beasts. The
merchants carried him into Egypt, and disposed of him to Potiphar,
the commander of the king’s guards. In Potiphar’s house he rose to
great eminence as a servant; but falling into disgrace through a false
accusation, he was thrown into prison. While in prison his conduct was
so exemplary and submissive, that he gained the favor of the jailor,
and was allowed the freedom of the prison. Later on he was summoned
to appear before the king to explain certain dreams which troubled
Pharaoh. Appearing before the great monarch, Joseph disclaimed all
power in himself to explain the meaning of what had appeared to the
mind of the king, but modestly and reverently said the Lord of his
fathers would show the signification. The king having told his dreams,
Joseph predicted seven years of great plenty, to be succeeded by seven
years of dearth, and advised Pharaoh to build vast granaries and fill
them, during the years of abundance. The advice was immediately acted
upon, and Joseph was elevated to the rank of governor of all Egypt,
and the erection of storehouses, and the filling of them with grain,
was entrusted to him. The years of plenty came and passed away, and
were succeeded by tedious years of sore famine. While the Egyptians had
stores of food laid up by the providence and foresight of Joseph, the
neighboring nations, having exhausted their stock of provisions, were
obliged to go to Egypt to buy. The dearth oppressing the inhabitants of
Canaan, Joseph’s brothers came down to purchase also. While on a second
visit to buy food, they were made aware that their despised and hated
brother, whom they had sold into slavery, was the governor of Egypt.
Having made himself known to them, they were overwhelmed with surprise
and fear; but he most magnanimously pardoned and comforted them by
saying, “Be not grieved or angry with yourselves that ye sold me
hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis
xlv: 5, 7.) “God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the
earth, and to save yourselves for a great deliverance.”
Joseph’s father and all his family were at once brought into Egypt,
and established with their flocks and herds on the eastern bank of the
lower Nile, where Joseph nourished them, and where they prospered for
many generations, until a new king arose, who knew not Joseph.
_The Exodus._—The part of Egypt in which Joseph had settled his family
was one of the most fertile parts of the valley of the Nile. Skirted
on the south by hills, it sloped off to the northwest toward the
Mediterranean Sea, thus affording the most favorable exposure for the
purpose of the pastoral life which the Israelites led. For more than a
century they pursued their quiet employment, and were treated by the
Egyptians with respect and consideration, in memory of Prince Joseph.
The prosperity and increase of the Israelites, with their distinctness
as a people, alarmed the Egyptian powers, who turned their attention to
some means to cripple them and arrest their increase. Oppression was
resorted to. Privileges were withheld, and severer tasks imposed, until
one tremendous groan went up from the land of Goshen to the God of
their fathers. In spite of all the oppression and injustice practiced
upon this people, they throve and increased in numbers.
The Lord heard the cry of the outraged Hebrew slave, and permitted his
enemies to afflict him, that he might find the country hateful, and
feel that he was only a sojourner, who was to seek a promised land, the
land promised to his father, Abraham. Their burdens became intolerable.
Moses, their leader, applied to Pharaoh to allow them to depart from
the country; but the king refused, and God afflicted the Egyptians with
dreadful plagues, until they prayed the Israelites to depart. They set
out with all their effects, moving toward Arabia, and on reaching the
shores of the Red Sea they became aware of the fact that Pharaoh, with
his army, was pursuing.
Hemmed in on either side by hills, the sea before them, and their
enemies behind, they were overwhelmed with despair. But now the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, their fathers, delivered them with
a great deliverance, for, at his command, the sea opened and allowed
them to pass over in safety. Pharaoh, pursuing, led his chariots and
horsemen into the bed of the sea, and the returning waters engulfed
them. All were destroyed, not _one_ escaped; a terrific exhibition of
the wrath of the Almighty. The Israelites journeyed on toward Canaan,
the land of promise, spending forty years in the desert of Arabia,
living in tents, subsisting on manna, which they found on the ground
in the morning, and on the flesh of birds, which came to them every
evening, making their whole journey a series of miracles and special
providences. They finally reached the Jordan, which, like the Red
Sea, opened for them, and allowed them to pass over dry-shod. The
inhabitants of the land were driven out, and the weary wanderers, who
had crossed and recrossed their path in the rocky wilds and desert
sands of Arabia, sat down in the land of their fathers, and became
dwellers in permanent habitations.
[_January 28._]
THE ISRAELITES AFTER REACHING THE LAND OF PROMISE.
By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
Between the time of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan and the
birth of our Savior, a period of 1,451 years elapsed. It is not our
object to follow out the history of this wonderful nation, yet it would
seem necessary to state briefly their progress.
For several centuries they remained much in the same state as Joshua,
their great captain, left them; contending with the surrounding tribes
whenever their encroachments were disputed, at other times living
friendly with them; not only intermarrying, but allowing themselves
to be seduced into idolatry; for which sin the Lord permitted the
neighboring nations, in more than one instance, to conquer them,
to break up their government, and carry the principal inhabitants
into captivity. In each case, however, after long and weary years
of captivity, their country was restored to them, and the spoilers
themselves were made instruments in the hands of God to reconstruct the
nation.
_Social and Religious Condition._—During the forty years of wandering
in the wilderness, very little opportunity was afforded for the
exercise of the arts of life. It is difficult to conjecture the
employment of that vast multitude during all those years.
The construction of the tabernacle and its furniture called into use
the skill and workmanship of the best artisans; but, aside from that,
there was nothing to tax their talent. During the forty years they lost
the arts they had learned in Egypt.
For many years after they entered the Holy Land their mode of living
was rude and simple, depending mainly upon the produce of their flocks
and herds for sustenance. We have reason to infer that they also drew
upon the same source for many articles of clothing.
The forty years of pilgrimage in the wilderness swept into the grave
nearly all the vast multitude that left Egypt with Moses. Those
who entered the Holy Land had not witnessed the idolatry of Egypt.
Moreover, their very existence had depended upon the fall of the manna.
Witnessing this daily miracle, a spirit of dependence and submission
must have engrafted itself upon this new generation.
The dreary chastisement of the forty years, the plagues that once
and again made such havoc, the sad fact that the bones of their
fathers were left to whiten in the wilderness, must have produced a
terrible impression. The people who came out from Egypt were haughty,
unbelieving, rebellious. Their descendants, humbled by chastisement,
made dependent by their helplessness, became gentle, submissive, and
obedient. We must hence infer that they remained for many years simple
in habit and devotional in spirit.
For three hundred and thirty-two years after the death of Joshua, the
successor of Moses, the Israelites were governed by judges. During
this period the Jews were a nation of farmers, and each farmer was
the proprietor of his own farm. The size of the farm allotted to each
family may at first have averaged from twenty to fifty acres; and as
there were very few servants or laborers, except such hewers of wood
and drawers of water as the Gibeonites, each family had to cultivate
its own estate. The houses were seldom built apart from each other,
like the farm houses of our own country—that would have been too
insecure; they were placed together in villages, towns, and cities; and
when the place was very much exposed, and of great importance, it was
surrounded by a wall.
The lands were adapted chiefly for three kinds of produce—grain, fruit,
and pasture. Wheat, millet, barley, and beans were the principal kinds
of grain; flax and cotton were also cultivated, and small garden herbs,
such as anise, cummin, mint, and rue. (Mat. xxiii: 23.)
The orchards were exceedingly productive. The olive, fig, pomegranate,
vine, almond, and apple were all common; and a great part of the time
of the Hebrews, in days of peace, must have been spent in cultivating
these fruit trees.
As beasts of burden they had the ox, the camel, and the ass; while
sheep and goats constituted the staple of their flocks.
Their grain harvest began about the beginning of our April, and lasted
for about two months. Summer followed, in June and July, and was the
season for gathering the garden fruits. The next two months were still
warmer, so that the sheep shearing would have to be overtaken before
they set in. During all this time little or no rain falls in Palestine.
The country becomes excessively parched, the brooks and springs dry up,
and almost the only supply of water is from the pools and reservoirs
that have been filled during the winter.
October and November are the seed time. “The former rain” falls now. It
often falls with violence, fills the dry torrent-beds, and illustrates
our Savior’s figure of the rains descending, and the floods coming and
beating upon the houses. (Matt. vii: 25, 27.) December and January are
the winter months, when frost and snow are not uncommon; February and
March are also cold. “The latter rains” fall at this season. About the
end of it, “the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and
the voice of the turtle is heard in the land; the fig tree putteth
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes have a good
smell.” (Song of Sol., ii: 11, 13.)
Among the wild trees and vegetable products of the country were the
cedar, stable and lofty, an emblem of usefulness and beauty (Ps. xcii:
12); the oak, both the smooth and the prickly sort, which grow in great
luxuriance in Bashan; the terebinth, or turpentine tree (translated
_oak_ in our Bibles), a large evergreen, with spreading branches,
often growing singly, and so striking as to mark a district—like the
terebinth of Shechem, of Mamre (or Hebron), and of Ophrah; the fir,
the cypress, the pine, the myrtle, and the mulberry. The oleander and
the prickly pear flourished in most situations. The rose and the lily
were the common flowers. Altogether, the number of vegetable products
was large and varied; and, in such a country, Solomon’s memory and
acquirements could not have been contemptible, when “he spake of trees,
from the cedar that is in Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of
the wall.”
The ordinary employments of the Hebrew farmer were thus ample and
varied, but not very toilsome; and often they were pleasantly
interrupted. Thrice a year the males went up to Shiloh, to the three
great festivals—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Each seventh
day was a holy Sabbath to the Lord, devoted to rest and worship. At
each new moon there was also a holy day. Each seventh year was a year
of rest, at least from the ordinary occupations of the field and the
garden: it was probably turned to account in repairing houses, clothes,
and implements, and particularly in the religious instruction of the
people. The education of the children was chiefly in the hands of
their parents, assisted by the Levites, who were scattered over the
country, and paid from the tithes of the whole produce. On the whole,
the Hebrews, in times of peace, led, during this period, a quiet,
unambitious, country life.
Occasionally, as in the song of Deborah, we meet with proofs that
music, and song, and literary culture were not neglected; and the
“divers colors of needlework on both sides,” for which the mother of
Sisera waited so anxiously at her window, showed that the Hebrew ladies
had acquired no mean skill in the use of their needles. But, on the
whole, neither learning, nor the mechanical arts, nor manufactures, nor
commerce, nor the fine arts, were very vigorously cultivated, or made
much progress during this period. Each man was content to sit under his
vine and under his fig tree; and the children of a family were usually
quite pleased to divide the possessions, and follow the occupations of
their fathers.
The government of the country was carried on chiefly by local
officers. It is not easy to ascertain the precise number and nature
of the departments of the government, or of the officers by whom they
were carried on. But each of the twelve tribes seems to have had a
government of its own. Each city had its elders, and each tribe its
rulers and princes. In ordinary cases, justice seems to have been
administered, and local disputes settled by the tribal authorities.
There seem also to have been certain central tribunals. In particular,
there was “the whole congregation of Israel”—a sort of house of
commons, or states-general, composed of delegates from the whole
nation, by whom matters of vital importance to the whole country were
considered.
In ordinary times, the high priest seems to have exercised considerable
political influence over the nation; and in pressing dangers, the
judges were invested with extraordinary powers. The whole of the twelve
tribes were welded together, and had great unity of feeling and action
imparted to them, through the yearly gatherings at the great religious
festivals. When idolatry prevailed in any district of the country,
these gatherings would be neglected, and the unity of the nation
consequently impaired.
No important addition was made during this period to the religious
knowledge of the people. There was no new revelation of the Messiah,
except in so far as the several deliverers who were raised up
foreshadowed the Great Deliverer. The ceremonial law of Moses
was probably in full operation during the periods of religious
faithfulness. The great lesson regarding sin—its hatefulness in God’s
eyes, and the certainty of its punishment—was continually renewed by
the events of providence.
Those who really felt the evil of sin would see in the sacrifices that
were constantly offered up a proof that God can not accept the sinner
unless his sin be atoned for through the shedding of blood. But even
pious men had not very clear ideas of the way of acceptance with God.
A humble sense of their own unworthiness, the spirit of trust in God’s
undeserved mercy for pardon, and a steady, prayerful endeavor to do all
that was right in God’s sight, were the great elements of true piety in
those days. There was great occasion for the exercise of high trust in
God, both in believing that prosperity would always follow the doing
of his will, and in daring great achievements, like those of Barak and
Gideon, under the firm conviction that he would crown them with success.
But in a religious point of view this period was a very checkered one;
sometimes one state of things prevailed, sometimes another. The people
showed a constant inclination to forsake the pure worship of the true
God, and fall into the idolatry of their neighbors. The oppressions
which those very neighbors inflicted on them, and the wars which
ensued, generally produced an antipathy to their religious and other
customs, which lasted for some years; but the old fondness for idolatry
returned again and again.
It clearly appears that a pure, spiritual worship is distasteful to the
natural heart. Men unconverted do not relish coming into heart-to-heart
contact with the unseen God; they are much more partial to a worship
conducted through images and symbols: for this reason the Israelites
were always falling into idolatry; idolatry led to immorality; and both
drew down on them the judgments of their offended God.
[_End of Required Reading for January._]
FOOTNOTES:
[E] For an account of Creation, see first and second chapters of
Genesis.
[F] For an account of the Fall, see third chapter of Genesis.
[G] For an account of the Flood, see the sixth, seventh, and eighth
chapters of Genesis.
THREE AGES.
By JOHN ALBEE.
’Twas morn, and o’er my little window ledge
Flew many a wild bird of plumage bright;
They sang sweet songs, and left the truest pledge
Of love, of love and truth, by day and night.
’Twas afternoon, and through my stately door,
In soberer dress, stepped the too tame birds,
Calling our former themes so vain and poor,
Twittering now in philosophic words.
It is night now; life, love, and thought are done;
What is it comes and sets my heart aglow?
Of all the wise and learned tongues not one—
Only the foolish songs of long ago.
—_The Journal of Speculative Philosophy._
STAGES.
By BENJAMIN R. BULKELEY.
I.
Once life was joy, not joyous service done—
Quick days of selfish rapture, broad, not deep;
The world was like a picture, and the sun
Rose for the gilding of a dreamy sleep.
II.
We woke; and life was labor; naught of glee
Was left, for deepest-rooted toil remained;
And as we delved no end was there to see,
And suns but glimmered on the dross we gained.
III.
But now, or in the perfect time, we know
The joy returns while labor yet abides;
Life’s round and fair, and, delving deep below,
We find the joy that early pleasure hides.
—_The Journal of Speculative Philosophy._
DRIVING.
There is now no branch of outdoor education of greater importance than
that of an ability to “handle the ribbons.” Not a man or woman but
would be ashamed to say that they were incompetent, if in fair health
and strength, to pilot their own carriage. And yet, though so large a
proportion of society can boast a smattering of the science, there is
no pursuit in which perfection is proportionately so rarely attained.
The first requisite for a tyro is to learn to sit well, and so to
acquire the proper scope for his own power over his horse.
The seat should be above, or at least on a level, with the horses’
heads, not below them; and it should, moreover, be so placed that the
driver can use his legs and feet to restrain the pull of the horses if
necessary, and that can not be done if the reins pull down over the
splash-board into the driver’s lap.
Though most tyros begin their essay with a horse in a single harness,
yet in a general way it is easier and safer to drive a pair than one.
If the single horse is perfect in manners, all that has to be learned
is to keep him straight, and to direct him without collision. But if a
horse has faults he is safer with a companion; though if the two have
coincident faults, or could confabulate mischief together, they would
be more dangerous than a single animal, yet it is in practice long
chances against the two both doing wrong simultaneously. Each is a
check on his fellow: the one may not want to bolt when the other does,
or if one falls the other will probably keep his legs.
The tyro should take his seat uprightly and squarely, plant his feet
well in front of him, grasp his reins firmly, and let his left arm
play lightly from the _shoulder_ (not the elbow), his elbows both well
squared. Nothing looks so slovenly, or entails such waste of necessary
power, as a slouching back, and hands sunk in the lap.
The whip should not always be used because it is handy; it is wanted
to make a horse take hold of his collar if he shirks, and to feel his
bit if he hangs back when there is difficulty in navigation. Unless he
runs up to his bit there is little or no communication between him and
his driver. The whip should be used from the wrist, not from the arm;
a lash delivered from the shoulder is far less effective and much more
ugly than a stroke from the wrist. A good fly-fisher never makes a bad
whip in this respect.
Let the beginner commence by casting an eye over his harness; at first,
rather that he may learn by inspection the place for everything and
that everything is in its place; but later, when he has passed his
apprenticeship, he should still do the same, and this time with a
master’s eye, to see that nothing is wanting before he mounts to his
seat. Let him note that the breeching, if in single harness, is neither
so loose as to be useless, nor so tight as to hamper the action of the
horse and to rub the hair off. Let him see that the rein is on the
proper bar of the bit; else, if the horse has been accustomed to be
driven from one bar, and his bitting is suddenly altered, his manners
will probably change at the same time. If he is driving double harness,
let him note the length of his traces, and see that his horses are
properly “poled up,” else the carriage will overrun them down hill.
Having cast a careful glance round his harness, the driver will then
proceed to mount.
Let him take the reins in his hand before he mounts the box, then, when
seated, let the “near” or left hand rein pass between the forefinger
and thumb, the “off” or right-hand rein between the fore and middle
fingers—palm of the hand uppermost. Then let the grasp of all the
fingers close tightly on the loop of the rein, which should pass out
under the remaining fingers. Though the grasp should be tight the
touch should be light; let not the exercise of the muscles of grip
confuse the driver into adding to this a tug from his shoulder upon
his horse’s mouth. However light a horse’s mouth is, or supposing he
is a slug, that does not take his collar and run up to his bit, still
the driver should always _feel_ the mouth, else he has no control
over him in sudden emergency if the reins are hanging loosely. There
is more danger in driving a sluggish or dead-mouthed horse in a crowd
than a free goer. The latter runs up to his bit at once, and so feels
your orders; the slug does not feel, and may interpret a touch of the
reins to direct him into an order to stop in the teeth of a Pickford’s
van, or on a level railway crossing in sight of an express. Whipcord
must keep a slug to his collar, and so to his bit, or the absence of
constant communication between his mouth and his driver’s hand may lead
to collisions.
And now in the seat, and the grasp of the reins first secured, let
the tyro make a start; not in a hurry, not with an instant dose of
whipcord—a word of encouragement to his horse should suffice at first.
Let him learn to allow free room for his own wheels in turning corners
or passing obstacles: he has got two things to provide for, his vehicle
as well as the horse. Better give a wide margin at first than collide;
though before long his eye will guide him, and he need not then make
himself conspicuous as a greenhorn by giving too wide berths at corners
and rencontres. Go steadily round a corner; remember there is such a
thing as centrifugal force; and a two-wheel vehicle, high hung, may
easily be upset to the outside by a hasty whisk round a sharp corner,
even without the help of a bank to lift the inner wheel.
Then, as to the rule of the road. If he meets anything coming the
opposite way, he must take it on his right hand; if he overtakes it, on
his left; if he is overtaken he must keep to the left, and be passed on
the right.
“The role of the road is a paradox quite,
For if you go right you go wrong, and if you go left you go right.”
Down hill he should progress carefully, especially when on two wheels,
for then the extra weight of the cart hangs on the pad or saddle on
the horse’s back. A stumble and fall will probably break the shafts,
certainly cut the horse’s knees, and may pitch the occupant over
the splash-board. Let him hold well in, sit well back, play firmly
and lightly with his hand, ready to hold up sharply in event of a
stumble. Even a sure-footed horse may make a false step from the pain
of a loose, sharp-pointed bit of stone cutting his frog. A judicious
and timely support from the rein may save the horse and preserve his
balance, by thus suddenly shifting part of the weight of his head and
neck on to the carriage itself.
Next to a powerful seat, the mouth of the horse and the lightness of
the hand upon it are the requisites. “Half the value of a horse is in
his mouth” is an old maxim. Few owners are aware how much “manners”
depend upon the bitting and handling of a horse. Shifting the rein from
one bar to another makes all the difference in the going of the horse.
The mouth is the link of communication between him and his driver; the
bit must control him without fretting him, and the touch of the hand,
unless light, deadens its own injunctions.
As the whip progresses in his craft, he will note many other minor
details, apart from mere safety, which conduce to the welfare of
his horse and carriage also. Though he is bound by rules of road at
rencontre, he may choose his own path when all is clear; he need not
take his share of rolling into shape newly-laid stones, if a smoother
passage presents itself. Even if he can not altogether avoid stones,
he may yet ease the draught if he can manœuvre only one wheel on to a
smooth surface.—Cassell’s _Sports and Pastimes_.
EDUCATION FOR AND AGAINST CASTE.
By W. T. HARRIS.
We often hear in our time the fear expressed that there is a danger in
too much education, and especially in a too great extension of free
education at the expense of tax-payers. “Where shall society obtain its
hewers of wood and its drawers of water?” is asked in an anxious tone.
“Education renders people unwilling to earn their living by hand labor
alone, and they resort to crime rather than work at an honest trade.”
Investigation, however, does not confirm these fears. We find, upon
studying social science, that those states of the world that enforce
universal education are by far the greatest wealth producers and
accumulators of wealth.
The statistics of the seventeen states in our nation (the seventeen
that kept statistics of illiteracy in jails and prisons in 1870),
show that out of a total of 110,538 prisoners, 27,581, or 25 per
cent. could not write, while only 3½ per cent. of the adults of those
seventeen states were illiterate—that 3½ per cent. of the population,
if illiterate, furnish as many criminals as 32 per cent. of the people,
if able to read and write—or that the one who can not read and write
is nine times as liable to get to prison as the one who can read and
write. Of course we must remember that the education of the school is
powerfully reinforced by the education of the family, the community,
the State, and the Church, and that the school is not the only
educational influence, nor the most potent one. We must not place a too
high estimate on the phase of civilization that merely keeps men out
of prison. Chinese education does that, although it does not produce
scientific thinkers, a literature of freedom, or a people that worship
the true God, or any god that allows man to participate in his being.
We shall learn this lesson again in studying the caste education of
India. The duties of each person to members of his own caste and then
to the members of the other castes form the chief staple of Hindoo
education. There the hewers of wood and the drawers of water are
effectually provided for, first by birth and then by education.
If we desire to behold the effects of caste-education made supreme
over all others, we must look carefully into East Indian life, and
interpret it by its laws, religion, and philosophy. The division of
labor is necessary in order that men may gain the requisite skill to
conquer nature. Food, clothing, and shelter are rendered necessary
by nature—that is to say, by our bodies—and can be supplied only
by nature—the mineral, vegetable, and animal realms. Besides food,
clothing, and shelter, there is the fourth want, that of culture or
spiritual direction, and the fifth want, or that of protection,—the
realm of religious and scientific education, and the realm of the
political government.
In India one caste is devoted to spiritual direction—the Brahmin,
which reads and interprets the Vedas and gives counsel to the rulers
of the state. Next is the Kshatrya, or warrior caste, that manage the
secular or political government, with the counsel and advice of the
Brahmins. Then the food, clothing, and shelter providers, who devote
themselves to agriculture and the arts and trades of commerce, form a
third caste, the Vaisyas; and lastly is the Sudra caste, which consists
of day-laborers, or servants. The caste is determined by birth, not by
the free choice of the individual, but by an accident of nature. For
the East Indian the division of labor is the great divine fact of life.
Brahma, the highest god, created the caste of Brahmins from his head,
the warriors from his arms, the trades peoples from his loins, and the
servants from his feet. Manu says that the first part of the name of a
Brahmin ought to express sanctity; of a warrior power; of a merchant
wealth; of a laborer contempt. The second part of the Brahmin’s name
should express blessing; of a warrior protection; of a merchant means
of subsistence; of a Sudra menial servitude.
Caste being of divine origin and imposed upon man, how shall it be
preserved and transmitted? The answer is a perpetual education in the
duties of one’s caste and in the abnegation of all that looks toward
the recognition of identity of human nature and the equality of all in
the substance of manhood. The greatest possible care is taken not to
educate children beyond the position into which they are born and which
has been occupied by their ancestors (if they belong to one of the
regular castes). By marriage other castes are produced. The Hindoo must
have for his first wife one of his own caste, and then he may take one
more from each caste below him. Thus the Brahmin may have four wives,
three being from the lower castes; the warrior may have three wives and
the merchant two, while the Sudra can have only one. The children of
the wives from the lower castes are classified according to a scheme
invented by one of the kings, and there are more than thirty castes in
all. The chandalas have for their vocation the removal of corpses, the
execution of criminals, and such impure offices. General duties, common
to all castes, are very few.
What is a virtue in one caste may be a sin in another. The duties are
prescribed with such minuteness that a very complex system arises
for each person, which must be obeyed in its smallest particular,
under penalty of excommunication from one’s caste. The observances
and formalities are more numerous with the higher castes. Hence even
for the Brahmin, who is as a god to the other castes there is such a
weight of formalities and observances that life is not worth living for
him. He must perform tedious ceremonies of purification to remove the
effect of the most casual accidents. Should he walk abroad and meet one
of a lower caste, he must turn back and purify himself. If he should
step over a rope to which a calf is tied, he must purify himself. If
he should happen to look up and see the sun when setting, or at any
time see it reflected in the water, he must purify himself. If he
should chance to go out and get caught in a shower, he must purify
himself; and so, too, if he happens to step on the wrong foot when
he rises from bed. He must not look at his wife when she sneezes or
gapes or eats. He must not step on a cotton seed, on a piece of broken
crockery, or on ashes. When out in the sun he must look northward; when
under the stars, southward; only when under a tree or a roof he may
look in any direction. If he should fail to purify himself he will be
excommunicated from his caste, and can be restored only by a painful
ceremony.
The first, second, and third castes are of the twice-born, and they
may hear the Vedas, but the Sudras must not read, nor hear read, those
holy books. Burning hot oil poured into his ears was the penalty for
breaking this law. If the Sudra were to speak evil of a Brahmin or
warrior or merchant, the code of Manu decrees that a red-hot iron bar
shall be thrust into his mouth.
There is more respect shown toward cows than toward the lowest caste
of human beings. In fact, the Hindoo will not tread upon ants nor kill
brute animals, but founds hospitals for sick or aged cows and monkeys,
while he is entirely indifferent to the sufferings of a man from a
lower caste.
The women, even of the highest caste, are treated like lower castes in
spiritual things,—no woman is allowed to read the Vedas or to become
learned. The children of whatever caste, too, may be sacrificed to the
deities by their parents. A mother may throw her child, especially if
it be a girl, into the Ganges, or any sacred river. The women are
excluded from education, and are given in marriage in their seventh
or eighth year. A woman who is discovered to possess a knowledge
of reading and writing draws down upon her head the most severe
condemnation. There is one exception to this in the dancing girls, and
the bayaderes, who are purchased from poor parents for service at the
temples. These are taught by the priests reading and writing, music,
dancing, and singing, as well as the female arts of coquetry. They are
dedicated to the gods, and do not learn housework.
Although the warrior caste and merchant caste may read the Vedas, they
must do it under the supervision of the Brahmins.
Elementary instruction to the regenerated, or twice born, includes
reading, writing, and arithmetic. The children learn to form letters
on the sand first, and afterward on palm leaves with an iron pencil;
at last with ink on plantain leaves. The monitorial system is
practiced—one child hearing the other recite his lesson and assisting
him to learn it. The Brahmin’s children are in all cases treated with
partiality.
The chief branch of study in school is, of course, the Vedas, or holy
books. This exercise must be approached with due ceremony—of girding
with bands, purification, consecrated fires, and solemn ceremonies
performed morning, noon, and night. The pupil must seize his teacher’s
feet before he begins, and then read with clasped hands, and at the
close of his reading again seize his master’s feet. This ceremony of
greeting his teacher he performs by crossing his hands and taking his
master’s right foot in his right hand and the left foot in his left
hand.
Pupils generally reside with their teachers—in a sort of
boarding-school—each teacher having the care of ten or twelve pupils. A
very strict surveillance is kept up.
“Without his teacher the pupil must not enter a house nor look to the
right or left, but bend his look to the ground as he follows behind
his teacher.” “When reading the holy scriptures one must not cough
nor take any food or drink. In blowing the nose one must not make too
much noise—nor spit in a clean place—nor offer tea with his hand—he
must hold his arm-sleeve before his mouth when he gapes—he must not
smack his lips when he eats nor scratch his head.” Such directions
are found in the educational code. We often find sublime moral duties
intermingled with trivial details of ceremonial. If the pupil does
not say “_Om_” on beginning and ending his reading of the Vedas, the
exercise will do him no good.
The moral maxims are taught in the form of fables. The book used
is what we know as the Fables of Bidpai (“Friend of Science”) from
an Indian work, which was rewritten as the _Hitopadesa_ (“Friendly
Advice”) some centuries ago. It contains profound ethical wisdom, mixed
with some things whimsical and absurd. Proverbs are quoted at every
turn, being strung on the thread of the fable, like glittering stones
on a necklace.
The instruction of the Brahmin’s son extended to the philosophic
doctrines of Hindoo pantheism. To understand the nature of this
pantheism is most important. There is Brahm—above all the individual
gods. Brahm expresses pure abstraction from all distinctions—merely
to think it is to become unconscious of all things. Brahma is the
personification of that substance (Brahm) as the creator, Vishnu as
the preserver, and Siva as the destroyer. Below these high gods there
are terrestrial ones presided over by Indra, the Hindoo Jupiter, ruler
of the sky. Creation is not an act of the will of deity, but a sort of
emanation “like the growth of plants from seed or the hair from the
head.” The world proceeds from nothingness, growing out of Brahma, and
returns into nothingness—it is all an illusion, a sort of dream, which
the Hindoo calls “Maya.” Brahm is the substance of all the gods, and
of the beings of the world, and hence all their differences vanish to
the Brahmin, who meditates long enough to reach the idea of Brahm.
Hence the highest aim of education is to reach this annihilation of all
distinction—passing beyond all the gods, even to Brahm.
The Sankhya philosophy expresses this doctrine of annihilation of all
particular things and beings through reflection: “So through the study
of principles the conclusive, incontrovertible, one only knowledge, is
attained, that neither I am nor is aught mine, nor do I exist.”
One must not suppose that the Hindoo education is so complete that the
lower castes remain without aspiration. They learn by degrees in what
rests the power of the Brahmin to ascend above the gods by the exercise
of meditation and abstraction. This is taught in the Bhagavad Gita—even
a Sudra can by meditation come to Brahm.[H] The lower castes may become
partakers of the divine life through regeneration—“immense self-denial,
torture and penance” are requisite. They become “yogis,” and undertake
some painful exercise, such as standing for twelve years without once
lying down, then clasping the hands over the head for another twelve
years; then a third grade by standing between four fires and the
tropical sun, afterward swinging backward and forward over a fire for
nearly four hours; lastly, if life is not extinct, being buried alive
for the same length of time. If he lives still, the devotee has now
become a Brahmin.
From the bondage of caste there is therefore one possible
escape—through self-torture and penance,—but the remedy is as bad as
the disease. It was Buddha who taught a doctrine that furnished a
real relief from all this in the utter abolition of the caste system.
Driven out of India, this doctrine spread throughout Ceylon, Farther
India, China, Thibet, and among the Tartars of Siberia, and to this day
numbers more human beings in its faith than any other form of religion.
It gives all families a chance to ascend to the highest state of
religious culture.
Buddhistic emancipation is from the rigid bonds of family as well as
from caste. Any family having four sons must devote one to a monastic
life. This demands the renunciation of all personal wishes and
longings—all desires, all pride, and anger, and stubbornness; then the
devotee reaches Nirvana and all will and consciousness have sunk into
the rest and quiet of non-existence, and are purified of all finitude
and special existence. In Nirvana ceases all change—no more beginning
and ending—no more birth and death—perfect rest.
In the catechism of Chinese Buddhism there are ten duties prescribed:
(1) Slay no living being; (2) steal not; (3) be chaste; (4) speak
nothing wrong; (5) drink nothing intoxicating—these are also found in
primitive Buddhism—another five duties are added relating to external
rules of the order: (6) Do not perfume the hair on the top of the
head, nor paint the body; (7) do not listen to songs nor attend the
theater; (8) do not sit or lie on a large cushion or pillow; (9) do not
eat except at meal-time; (10) do not own gold or silver, or anything
of value as private property. The ideal is that of mendicancy—pious
beggary.
Its ideal of the divine is no higher than that of India. God is
conceived, not as a personal being having consciousness and will
and love (our Christian conception), but rather as a being above
personality and consciousness (the Hindoo conception). Hence the
Buddhist still strives for the annihilation or extinction of his
conscious individuality, just as the Indian devotee, but without those
frightful penances, and without cruel laws of caste.
We can not commend the views of those who find in Buddhism, as
portrayed in the “Light of Asia,” a doctrine almost or quite equal
to Christianity. To us it seems to be infinitely below Christianity.
Its conception of God and of God’s creation is just the opposite of
the Christian conception, for in Christianity we believe God to be a
personal being, who reveals himself in nature and man, and even becomes
human in his Son, and dies on a cross out of love for the human race.
Man can grow forever into the image of God, realizing that image in
his will, his love, his intellect, because God is all there in an
infinite degree, while to the Buddhist God is none of these but a being
who is the negative of nature and of man too. Hence the education of
Brahminism and Buddhism is based on an idea radically opposed to our
own.
FOOTNOTE:
[H] “That man who, casting off all desires acts without interest,
free from egotism and selfishness, attains to tranquility—this is
the condition of the supreme being. Having obtained this, one is not
troubled, and remaining in it [during the rest of his life] passes on
to extinction in the supreme spirit.”—[From the “Bhagavad Gita.”]
CONTENT.
By A. E. A.
_Before the Wedding._
We stood upon the mountain top at eve—
Only we two; no other soul was nigh,
And watched the purple hills afar receive
Their last soft tinting from the evening sky.
The fading splendor shed a parting glow
On the faint mountains vanishing from sight,
And lit with one last gleam the lake below,
Ere it was shrouded in the gloom of night.
Through the hushed woods the silent darkness stole,
No living thing the sleeping echoes woke,
Save one late bird, unseen, whose wakeful soul
With ringing song the silence sweetly broke.
In that still hour so close our spirits drew;
We seemed alone in all the wide, dim earth;
I felt your strong arm clasp me, and I knew
The tender thought wherein the act had birth.
’Twas then I felt there was in that wide scene
Nothing so beautiful or so divine,
Nothing so sweet, the earth and heaven between,
As was the love that stirred my heart and thine.
* * * * *
The ancients were acquainted with the loadstone, but they only knew
that it possessed the power of attracting iron, whether it was that
they attached little value to a mere object of curiosity which led to
nothing, or whether they had never examined this stone with sufficient
care. A single experiment more would have taught them that it turns of
itself toward the poles of the earth, and would have put into their
hands the invaluable treasure of the mariner’s compass. They were
on the very verge of this important discovery, but it escaped their
notice; and if they had given a little more time to what appeared
a useless curiosity, its hidden application would have been found
out.—_Fontenelle.
ROUMANIAN PEASANTS AND THEIR SONGS.
By C. F. KEARY.
A special interest, as it seems to me, belongs to every attempt to
restore to a place in literature the genuine peasant speech of the
Roumanians, with all its Slavisms undiluted, and showing by those
Slavisms that it is not a sham peasant literature with the thoughts
of educated men put into the language of a lower class. The task of
contributing to this restoration has been undertaken by M. Ricard
Torceanu. He has spent much time and labor in going from village to
village to collect the songs, the customs, and lore of the peasants.
Everything which he amassed was orally communicated to him. What he
gained was often fragmentary and uncouth, but it had the advantage of
being a genuine product. It would almost seem as if the villagers were
beginning to forget their village songs. In a few years’ time, perhaps,
these songs will be no longer to be heard, having been driven away
by the new education code and by the new language which has been to
a great extent substituted for the old tongue. Then these poems will
remain like the last echoes of bygone days.
M. Torceanu has invented nothing, he has extenuated nothing. He has
set down what he heard, and no more; he needs, therefore, to make no
apology, although the poetry is often meagre and is always absolutely
simple. In actual form these songs have some points of likeness to
Mr. Barnes’s Dorset lays. In both the beat of four is much the most
usual measure of the line; only that, owing to the difference in the
accent, while in English the four-beat is often reached in only seven
syllables, in the Roumanian eight are nearly always employed. A great
variety of accentuation prevents the monotony which would naturally
arise from the frequency of this form. And as this variety of accent
can not be rendered in the English translation, more freedom has been
used in the number of syllables contained in a line than is used in the
original. At the same time the four-beat, when found in the original,
has been generally preserved.
Alternate rhyme is the exception, the most usual thing being the
couplet. Very frequently, however, four of five lines rhyme or sound
together. These poets are not very particular about accurate rhyme.
Untrained ears are never very exacting on this head. Our ballad
literature could show countless instances of such assonance as _wind_,
_begin_, _him_, _them_, _am_, _man_, etc. The Roumanians are much more
liberal still—at least as appears to our ears. Some of their rhymes
recall the loose assonance of old French poetry, such as the _Chansons
de Geste_. Little distinction seems to be made between the liquids _l_
and _r_, so that _are_ and _ale_ would pass for a proper rhyme. In
singing each line is repeated twice, with a variety of accent.
The songs have one peculiarity: almost all begin with the words _frunză
verde_, that is, green leaf. To this follows sometimes “of the so and
so.” This reminds us of the beginnings of the snatches of rhyme in Mr.
Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi”:
Flower o’ the clove,
All the Latin I construe is _amo_, I love.
Occasionally the _frunză verde_ is followed on by the name of a flower
unconnected with it by any conjunction. Thus the following song begins
with a line which, literally translated, is simply “green leaf, three
violets;” but to make it intelligible we will borrow the form from Mr.
Browning’s songs.
The same phrase _frunză verde_ is frequently introduced into the middle
of the poem. One might be tempted to suppose that when it is found
there, it has been the result of the welding together of two different
songs. But there are some instances where this certainly has not been
the case.
Now take for a specimen the following song, characteristic enough of
the greater number of these village lays:
Green leaf, green leaf of the violet,
As of old, across the wold
And round my house the wind sobs yet,
Whispering longing and regret,
For the loved ones who have fled.
Breathes the wind among the grasses:
I faint with wishing as it passes.
Storm-gusts rise and fall again,
And passion wrings my heart with pain.
Breathes the wind, and small leaves move,
I die with longing for my love.
Over the mountain the mountain wind blows,
My longing for my kindred grows.
Blows the breeze the trees among,
My brothers’ names shall fill my song.
When it creeps the flowers through,
My sisters sweet I think of you.
Leaf o’ the maple branching fair,
What cloud comes here, the wanderer—
Hast thou told to her forsaken
How her love’s for a conscript taken?
Oh, little cloud, thou dost not carry
Rain or snow, but the tears of Marie.
Curious little conceits such as these, drawn from the common imagery
of nature, are very characteristic of the poems. In that respect some
of the songs resemble not a little some of the popular songs which one
may hear in Italy, and resemble much less the popular songs of northern
lands, wherein these conceits are more rare. Here is a still more
simple fragment:
Green leaf of holly, all are gone,
The girls of the village, and I am alone.—
Not all; for one remains for me;
Only one my hope to be.
My hope but she;—
Frail as ice my trust will find her,
To the trysting who can bind her?
And here one which is far from ungraceful:
“Undo, my dear, the charm which you have made,
And let me now go free.”
“To make you go my charm was never laid,
But to make you marry me.”
The following might seem like an imitation of Shakspere; but it is a
quite true rendering from the mouth of peasants to whom Shakspere was
not even a name:
Green leaf of the poplar grove,
Tell me, prythee, whence comes love?
From the eyes or from the brows,
Or from the crimson lips?
Can a peasant taste thereof
As one honey sips?
This is the lament put into the mouth of a girl who has disgraced
herself so far as to marry a tzigan (gipsy).
Swallows, swallows, little sisters—
Sisters, seek my mother dear;
Tell her from her daughter here,
That she send her kirtle red,
For a raven she has wed,
And a large thick veil for shroud
When the watch-dogs bark aloud.
Her brave dresses, that she take them,
Into one rude bundle make them,
Throw them in the street and burn them,
Utterly to ashes turn them.
Or here again a woman’s complaint:—
When the world despises me,
Only God has any pity.
Thou too, doubting, comest not near me,
Willst not know and willst not hear me.
Only one, my little dove,
Knew my sorrow, brought me love:
My sweet turtle dove, I know,
If her other half should go,
Would not mate with any other,
Or fly from one tree to another.
This is a more passionate vein, with some adumbrations of a story in
it:—
“Hide, O God, the moon in a mist,
Let me revel as I list;
Wrap like a shroud his face in a cloud,
Till my lover has kissed and kissed.”—
“Green leaf of the vine’s long train,
I go, but in autumn shall come again.”—
“If you go for a month away,
Mad you’ll find me on your home-coming day;
If you go away for a year,
Not mad you’ll find me but laid on my bier.
Then to my grave I bid you come,
Scatter dust upon my tomb,
Take a look within
At the death of sin;
As I lie at your feet
And at Death’s deceit.”
Most of the poems collected are short ones, of a kind not dissimilar
from the specimens given above. There are, however, some pieces which
approach more nearly to the ballad form, which are considerably
longer, and contain some sort of story. Our specimens would not be
representative unless we included one poem of this kind. Let this
ballad stand upon its own merits, merely as a representative one,
without attempting to explain or apologize for its obscurities and want
of harmony. The inequality of the metre here will represent the, to our
ears, irregularity of the original:—
Over the mountain, bathed in the dew,
Is standing a little cottage new,
With windows that face the rising sun,
And door that leads toward the valley down.
In it was held a meeting gay
Of all the girls of the village one day.
And they sang and they spun,
And they laughed—all but one,
The hostess’ young daughter:
From her came no laughter
As from every other.
Then thus spake her mother:
“Little daughter, what fails thee?
What is it that ails thee?
Art thou sick, little daughter,
Or is it heart-pain?”
Said her daughter, “Refrain,
Little mother, seek not to know why
I am sad; lest I curse in reply.
For love’s pain I have proved;
I had once one beloved.
He was tall, little mother,
Fairer than any other.
His eyebrows black as a raven’s wing,
In an arch long drawn as is a ring,
Skin soft as silk, white as the froth of milk,
His eyes were like the dark wild-plum,
His hair was like ripe corn in the sun.
Securely my beloved slept,
Safe was my beloved kept
From the sun’s strong rays,
From the wind of wintry days.
And I sent my love
To the fair of Brachov
To buy for me linen,
Fine thread for my spinning,
And rich clothes to wear,
Gold beads for my hair.—
Thence he sent with a message, my mother,
With a message the moon in the night,
That I was to be his stepmother:
Then I sent to him in reply
The sun, for I said that he should
Go wed whomsoever he would.
With the leaf of the hazel-nut tree
He sent his answer to me,
That I should his stepmother be;
Little mother, but dear little mother,
Can I marry him to another,
Or shall I curse him, shall I curse him, my mother?“
“Be not mad, little daughter, go be
His stepmother, as he tells thee:
And you, Gypsy, Gypsy,
Bring my carriage to me,
For I am the grand stepmother.”
“But mother, oh mother, say how
Shall I speak, and what name call him now?”
“My beloved, my stepson,
My heart’s love, my cherished one.”
“And her, O my mother, what word
Shall I give her, what name?”
“My stepdaughter, abhorred,
The whole world’s shame.”
“Then, my mother, what shall I take him?
What gift shall I make him?”
“A handkerchief fine, little daughter,
Bread of white wheat, for thy loved one to eat,
And a glass of wine, my daughter.”
“And what take _her_, little mother,
What gift shall I make _her_?”
“A kerchief of thorns, little daughter;
A loaf of black bread for her whom he wed,
And a cup of poison, my daughter!”
* * * * * *
Whether this is anything more than a fragment one may reasonably doubt,
but no more than this was known to the reciter. This is of course the
disadvantage of orally imparted poems, that a great portion is very
often left out of the beginning, the end, or the middle. Sometimes,
again, two different songs are combined into one. We can understand
without much difficulty what was meant by sending the moon with a
letter or message, and sending back the sun; it is not so obvious what
the letter written upon the hazel-nut leaf implies. The explanation
which seems the most probable is: This Roumanian peasant lover could
not write. He had no means of sending a message unless the sun would
be the messenger, nor of receiving a reply unless the moon would bring
it. The peasants sometimes make calls by whistling against a leaf, as
our peasant boys do with a piece of grass. This apparently is what is
meant by the answer sent by a hazel-nut leaf. Possibly the rest of the
poem, if there had been a remaining part, would have made the difficult
points of this ballad more clear. We might have had a tragedy of the
Ugo and Parisina sort. But all that is now covered up in night.
With one poem of a simple kind we will end this short selection:
List ye who love:
Three evils ye will prove.
The first is that you love,
The next because he seldom comes
Your love to prove.
This bitterness your heart will know.
The third when altogether he shall go,
And say adieu.
He will not come back again;
But your heart will scorch with pain.
Leaf of the barley, he will say,
I know not what has found me,
Nor what sorcery around me
Takes me from you away—
But adieu forever and a day.
—_The Nineteenth Century._
HOME LIFE IN GERMANY.
Housekeeping in Germany is reduced to a science; an accurate knowledge
of principles, gained by experiment, experience and reflection.
Personal and domestic expenditures are regulated in strict accordance
with the best theories in consumption of capital and consumption of
labor. This is especially true in the large cities where the houses
are built to accommodate eight or ten families in addition, various
people below in the basements, such as shoemakers, seamstresses, and
washerwomen, who are ready to give service to the _herrschaften_ above.
These houses are generally built of brick, stuccoed, and oftentimes
in the early years of their existence present a very handsome front,
deceiving a stranger’s eye with the impression that they are stone.
The massive front door opening to the corridor which leads to the
_porte-cochère_, is in modern houses, most ornamental. Wrought iron, in
arabesque patterns, with the monogram of the owner, serves to protect
the plate-glass behind. The panels of wood below are elaborately
carved. This door opens to the touch of a bell attached to a rubber
tube and bell which remains in the basement where the _portier_ lives.
Invariably on the inside of the door one sees in large German letters,
“_Bitte die Thür leise zu zumachen_.” Every person entering or going
out reads this request, and, while occupied with reading, naturally
lets the door slam the louder. Only sly young men returning from the
_kneipe_ in the darkness feel obliged to bear it in mind. The slamming
of the great corridor door, however, makes no impression upon the
numerous families above, and if it chanced to be a friend of Frau
Schültze who just entered the house, there is yet time for the gracious
lady (_gnädige frau_), who probably lives up the second flight of
stairs, to take off her morning cap (which a German woman is apt to
wear until she hears some one coming) before her friend has time to
ring the bell to her own apartment.
On each floor in the largest houses are two apartments, usually of
seven or eight rooms—large enough, the Germans think, to accommodate a
family of eight or nine. And if you are a foreigner, examining these
houses with a view to renting, the _portier frau_ will accompany you
around, exclaiming how comfortable it all is! There is a _salon_ in
the front, a large, finely-proportioned drawing-room, with bay-window
and frescoed ceiling, and inlaid floor. Then the smaller room to the
right, or left, as it may chance to be, looking also on the street
with two windows, and generally a balcony, is intended for the library
or sitting-room. Then throwing the folding-doors wide open, between
the _salon_ and dining-room, she explains how handsome the two rooms
look during a dinner party. The dining-room has an alcove with a
large window looking down into the court. Then you follow her through
a narrow hall, passing perhaps the bath-room, with the servants’
room above—only five feet high—coming next to the kitchen. “But the
bed-rooms, where are they?” you ask, not being able longer to suppress
your anxiety on this point. “_Ach, hier sind die!_” exclaims the
astonished _frau_, and opens the door to two small rooms, about 10x12.
You look at your companion, the significant glance is returned and you
start for the next house, or up a second flight of the same, to see
if the division of rooms be there as ridiculous. After visiting about
twenty-five houses, however, and finding them all alike, you conclude a
bed-room with a German is a secondary consideration, and as to “guest
chambers,” they have never dreamed of them! Goethe was a true German
in this respect, and no wiser than the rest of his countrymen. Lewis,
in his biography of Goethe, never fails to express astonishment at
the small, dark room, in which the great man slept and finally died.
In the handsome old house at Weimar the spacious reception rooms and
commodious dining-room contrast strangely with the dark little closet
which is called the bed-room. I heard a German gentleman, who came to
America at the time Mr. Schurz did, but who was not so successful,
and who returned to Germany, and was consequently embittered with
everything, say, “The Berlin houses remind me, with their swell fronts
and elegant drawing-rooms, of the fashion of wearing embroidered
chemisettes when the rest of the toilet is mean and contemptible.” “The
Germans,” said he, “put all the elegance on the front of their houses,
while the sleeping-rooms are miserably ventilated little holes.” This
does not apply to the houses built recently. There is no longer such
discrepancy between bed-room and _salon_—economy, convenience and
rich designing characterize many German houses now, which would have
astonished the German mind a half-century ago.
The system by which these houses are rented or occupied is worth our
attention, since it has come to be a matter of great expense for one
family to rent or own a single house in our large cities. Let us
suppose the man who owns an apartment house in a large German city to
have a capital of $60,000 invested. He lives himself with his family
in the _parterre wohnung_, or what we would call the first floor. The
_bel étage_, or second floor, is the choice apartment, and rents,
if the house be in a desirable part of the city, for 3,000 marks (a
mark equals 25 or 24 cents). If the house be a double one, and this
is generally the case, the first _étage_ would bring 6,000 marks, the
second _étage_ 4,800 marks, and the third _étage_ 3,600. He has also
his own apartment, and below, the shoemaker, furnishes shoes for the
family; the seamstress does the sewing and the washerwoman is the
family laundress. From his capital he realizes a large percentage. The
taxes are heavy, but the outlays are not great, being in most cases
incidental, for the water, gas, and garbage, etc., are met by the
different tenants.
As to the housekeeping in one of these apartments or _wohnungs_—the
windows are casement style, with double glass, easy for washing but
difficult for drapery. The floors are inlaid with different colored
woods, and waxed. The walls are papered with rich and dark colors,
and the ceilings finished in stucco. A characteristic German house
will be furnished about as follows: Grand piano in the drawing-room
or upright if preferred; in front of the sofa, a good imitation of
Smyrna rug, (made in Silesia generally). A table stands on the rug
removed from the sofa only far enough to allow a stout matron to
squeeze in for a seat in one corner, which is her prerogative. Around
the sofa are arranged a half dozen chairs, all belonging in color and
form to the sofa. It would be unjust here not to say that the modern
craze for bric-a-brac, for elegant hangings and unique furniture has
penetrated the German mind as it has the English and American, and the
revival of house decoration is appreciated in Germany by those who
have the means to investigate the subject, but the house we describe
is “pre-æsthetical” and stands for characteristic German taste, and it
will be found compares most favorably with an American house before
the “highly æsthetical” fever developed. The dress circle of Smyrna
rug, sofa, table and chairs, is the center of attraction, but the
opposite walls and the corners of the room are not neglected. The piano
occupies a conspicuous position, and one or two pedestals, with choice
copies from the antique, are hid in the corners. A lady’s writing desk,
with delicate note paper ready for her use, a beautiful chair for
her service, and a rich robe for her feet, completes a German lady’s
drawing room. If she can not afford good pictures, she will have none.
Steel engravings from the old masters are frequently found, but seldom
oil paintings unless the parties be very wealthy or where artistic
home talent prevails. How shocking many houses in America are made, by
horrid crude pictures—in color, houses which maintain some beauty in
wood work, carpets, walls, and furniture. The portfolio of etchings
which are now sent to the farthest west and all over the United States
for inspection, are creating a higher taste, and it is a laudable
scheme, although accompanied with exorbitant prices.
The arrangement of our Teutonic lady’s drawing-room is so national that
the palace and the poor man’s house has the same link of resemblance;
for if a man owns but one table and one sofa, the table will stand
in front of the sofa, and the chairs around it. This impresses a
foreigner as being stupid and dull, and the American or French or
English woman living in Germany conscientiously avoids all proximity of
sofas and tables. There is some excuse for this stupid regularity in
the circles which still have the _kaffee klatsch_; an old and artless
entertainment which traveled women eschew, and women of high rank
long ago ignored, but which remains a blessing to women of moderate
means and unpretentious life. The hour for the _kaffee klatsch_ is
always 4 o’clock, and each guest is requested to bring her knitting
or fancy work, to take her seat at a table spread with a white cloth,
upon which the _kaffee_ stands, covered up with a quilted hood to keep
it warm, and flanked on either side by large baskets of cakes. Here
these innocent women sit for hours sipping coffee and knitting and
gossiping to their hearts’ content. It is the hour _sans-souci_ for the
genuine “_hausfrau_.” In such society one can recognize the simplicity
and ingenuousness of the German woman, and contrast the startling
differences of education and habit with her American sisters.
Returning to the furniture of the house, we find the library, or
sitting-room (_wohnstube_), for private libraries are rare, and only
found in the house of the _gelehrte_. It is true that every house has
Goethe, Schiller, Wyland, Heine, Schlegel’s translation of Shakspere,
Humbolt’s travels, and, it may chance to be, Kant, Hegel, and Strauss,
if the paternal mind cares no longer for Martin Luther. In the
neighborhood of the old _wartburg_ the memory of Luther is too sacred
to allow David Strauss to lie on the same shelf with the Reformer. If
the family taste runs to æsthetics more than ethics, a cabinet of rare
porcelain will take the place of a book-case in the sitting-room. But
in either case the inevitable sewing table stands by the window with
an easy chair by its side. If the gentleman of the house has writing
at home, or any business engagements, then the sewing table finds its
way to the big window in the alcove of the dining-room. This room is
more comfortable than an American dining-room, inasmuch as it has, in
addition to the set of dining-room chairs, a sofa and some easy seats,
two closed cabinets for the damask, on either side of the buffet,
which glistens with glass and china. Sofa pillows and footstools are
abundant, which one can not say are easily discovered in the American
home. But first of all a German house is comfortable, then ornamental.
“Wine, wife and song,” is the motto, as it was in the days of Martin
Luther, and _gemüthlich_, which may mean friendly, well-disposed,
good-natured, kind-hearted; snug, comfortable, lack-a-daisical, is
the word which expresses the tone of home life. The bed-rooms are
unattractive, as we have said. Two mahogany bedsteads, side by side,
“too short than that a man can stretch himself on them, and the
covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” These German
beds are fearfully and wonderfully made, feathers below and above,
pillows hid during the day under the covers, and finally, a white
spread thrown over the entire mountain, in such a manner that it is
impossible to distinguish head from foot.
Of late the sense of the beautiful has brought to light in the shop
windows blue silk quilted spreads and lace coverings for these
monstrosities, and corresponding materials for the toilet table. But
the genuine _hausfrau_ considers them a “snare and delusion.” A German
lady who had just returned from a visit to America, said to me, “How
do the American women make up their beds? I must come and learn. But,”
added she, in the same breath, “I should think you would die under
such thin covers!” The floors of the bed rooms are painted with yellow
ochre and varnished. Small rugs lie in front of each bed, and before
each piece of furniture. A candle, matches, and water _carafe_ stand
on the table by the bed. During the Philadelphia Exposition, a German,
writing from an American hotel, observed: “How exasperating it is to go
to bed in a room with no candle, only gas in the centre of the room,
and innumerable chairs between one and the gas at midnight; and how
dreadful to awaken and find white walls staring at one and reflecting
the morning sun into one’s eyes.” Just criticism! The Germans are too
highly cultivated in art to tolerate white walls, and the Americans are
rapidly becoming so.
The kitchen is the German woman’s pride, and no wonder, with its
shining rows of brass and copper kettles and cooking utensils, hanging
so orderly against the gray wall, and the white porcelain oven,
brass-doored and brass-knobbed. Does it surprise you that she likes
to take a seat there every morning and talk over the _menu_ for the
day with Frederika, then unlock the pantry door and survey the clean
shelves, all dressed up in perforated paper, or red leather and brass
tacks, and loaded with groceries and confectioneries. What woman’s
heart would not swell at the sight of such a pantry and kitchen, and
such a capable, white-capped, white-aproned girl as Frederika? It is an
ideal picture, but one often and often seen in Germany.
We shall make the acquaintance of German servants presently, but first
some reference to the German ovens will be necessary, for it is with
these that the servant’s time is first engaged in the morning and last
at night. Next to the Dutch stove, the German oven is probably the
most economical, and as far as mere temperature is concerned, the most
effective of all warming arrangements. They are built of brick covered
with porcelain and are part of the house, being built in with the
walls. The cost is about seventy-five dollars for those finished with
plain white tiles; but frequently the tiles are colored like majolica,
and are highly decorated. In the Gewerbe Museum, of Berlin, there is
a collection of tiles used in Nürnberg on the old ovens—some are most
curious and beautiful. Since the spirit of decorative art is reviving
in Germany, as elsewhere, the artists of highest rank do not consider
it beneath their dignity to paint tiles or panels, or anything that
can ornament the “house beautiful.” These ovens are generally built
in the corner of a room, and are oftentimes eleven feet high. The
fire is burned in a furnace near the bottom, and the heated smoke is
made repeatedly to traverse the structure from side to side along the
winding passage before it reaches the top, where a pipe conveys it,
when comparatively cold, into a flue in the wall. The heated mass of
brick continues to warm the room long after the fuel is burned. The
same quantity of fuel which heats a German oven for a day is consumed
in an open grate in three hours. In Northern Germany the poorer classes
burn turf and charcoal, the better classes use the turf to mix with
the stone-coal. Wagons of turf are brought to the front of the house
early in the morning, the horses unhitched and taken away. The fuel is
then carried basket by basket full, on the backs of old women, to the
attic or fifth story of the house, which is divided into store rooms
for the different _herrschaften_. On this floor is stored the wood, the
coal, the turf. Early in the morning the back stairs are crowded with
the various servants, from the different apartments, going up and down
with their baskets of fuel. The fire must be lighted one hour before
the rooms become comfortable. While the fires are beginning to burn
the waxed floors are being polished, which is the time in our American
or English economy for cooking the breakfast. If our German friends
however prefer polished floors to gladden their sight on rising,
to heavy beefsteaks to warm their stomachs, what reason have we to
criticise? Frederika is lighting not the kitchen fire, but a little
spirit lamp underneath the “coffee machine,” or boiler, and carrying
in the fresh (but cold) rolls which she has just received from the
baker’s wife at the back door, and in ten minutes she will formally
announce to the _gnädigen herrn_ and the _gnädiger frau_ (gracious
lord and gracious lady) that “_frühstück ist fertig_” (breakfast is
ready). The _gnädiger herr_ will appear wrapped up in a heavy morning
wrapper (made of gray cloth, trimmed in mazarine blue) with newspaper
in hand, and the _gnädige frau_ will take her seat at the table where
the coffee is sending up its smoke. She looks, in her morning cap and
white apron, surely as healthy as her English sisters, and much more
so than the beautiful but frail American woman, who sits eating her
mutton chops and warm muffins. Who shall settle the question if doctors
disagree? Continental Europe has existed on coffee and cold bread and
eggs and never had dyspepsia, while England and America have grown fat
or nervous on the beefsteak and muffins.
The German washing is so well-known, and has afforded so much
amusement, that I would not overthrow the traditions; yet after a long
residence in Germany, and an experience of years in keeping house in
a German apartment, I learned to regard the “_grosse wäsche_” as a
necessary development of the apartment system of keeping house. For
instance, there is one common wash-room, and one drying-room; the
family in the _parterre wohnung_ engage it the first two days in the
week, then it belongs to the family on the opposite side of the house,
and successively to the other inmates of the house, so that weekly
occupancy is out of the question. But a foreigner can escape this
egregious imposition by sending the washing out of the house every week
and waiting patiently for it to return in ten days.
I was asked repeatedly by my German lady friends, “Where is your
wedding chest of linen?” meaning a carved cedar chest containing a
wedding dowry of linen, enough to last through four generations, which
is quite the thing to be inspected by one’s intimate friends, more than
the _trousseau_. How should an American woman answer such a question,
or place herself in the favorable estimation of her good German friends
again after shocking their education and hereditary taste by confessing
that her house linen was only sufficient for present use. There is a
sense of pride in the monthly washing in Germany little dreamed of by
the general observer.
A cook, a house-girl, or _kindermädchen_, and a man-servant (_diener_)
are the usual number of domestics employed by a well-to-do German
family where there are children. If there are no children, a cook and
_diener_ are sufficient help, even in a large city. In the country one
girl is enough. She is “Jack-of-all-trades,” and gets poor pay and less
praise for her proficiency. Her brawny arms and rosy cheeks are only
found admirable by some wandering artist, who makes a hasty sketch of
her carrying water from the village fountain. Among people who keep up
any social style a _diener_ in livery is indispensable. He opens the
door, serves at table, sets the table, polishes the floors, does the
errands, carries the invitation, walks behind the ladies when they go
out, or sits on the box with the coachman when they are driving. Above
all, he keeps Frederika in a good humor by polishing the doors of her
oven, and sipping coffee with her while the _herrschaften_ are sipping
theirs. She learns to call him her “_lieber Schatz_,” and by and by,
Frederika’s head becomes turned, and the cooking is not so perfect.
The wages of this _diener_ are not large according to American ideas;
he receives, according to his ability, per month, twenty thalers, ten
thalers, five, or even two and a half, if he is young, and has never
served outside a restaurant. In addition to his wages, he gets good
food, or the equivalent in money, which he generally prefers, for he
can then go to the _bier garten_ and get his meals, or eat with the
family of the porter below. A servant must understand his or her work
distinctly before entering into an engagement. Each must have a book
in which the employer can read the date of birth, place of birth, the
occupation of parents, the character of the employe, the recommendation
or condemnation of the last employer. This book is kept by the lady
of the house as long as the servant remains in her service, and when
leaving, if the person has been faithful, she is expected to write a
good recommendation in the book. There are two classes of cooks in
Germany—the finished cook (_die fertige köchin_), and the cook who is
willing to do any kind of work. _Die fertige köchin_ is an educated
queen in her department, and like every autocrat, her power renders
her unaccountable for her actions. She prefers to do the marketing,
and is in league with all the grocers and butchers. This coalition
of butchers, bakers, grocers, and cooks in Germany is a confederacy
which threatens the _hausfrau_, the baroness and royal household
alike. Socialism is a ubiquitous monster, and who feels it more than
the helpless woman with her account books before her, knowing there is
no remedy if the cook says “Meat has risen, and the butcher would not
take less.” An unending task in a European kitchen is dish washing,
for six dozen plates in serving the dinner there go no farther than
one dozen in the ordinary American way. The _diener_ is expected to
help the cook in this work, and once a week a _schauer frau_ (scouring
woman, or woman inspector), comes to help. It is a distracting day in
the _wirthschaft_, and serves as a weekly reminder of what is to come
before Christmas and Easter. This _schauer frau_ comes early in the
morning, tears down all the kitchen utensils, takes off the brass oven
doors, sets all the copper kettles and tin ware in a row, and goes to
work scouring them as bright as we would think necessary for a spring
cleaning. Then she washes the windows, scrubs the floors, and returns
with her fifteen silver groschen in the evening as contented as a
woman in America would be with a dollar. Christmas and Easter are the
seasons above all other times of the year for thorough cleaning. Then
the floors are so highly polished, and the brass knobs and doors of
the porcelain ovens made so brilliant that the servants go around in
felt slippers and old gloves, for fear of dimming the luster before
the dawn of the sacred days. Christmas is an expensive season for the
_herrschaften_—so many presents expected: the cook, the _diener_,
the porter and the _portier frau_, the lamp lighter, the gas man,
the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker, and above all, the
letter carrier. Eight and five dollars are small amounts for the cook
and _diener_. But we must remember the cook’s small wages during the
year (from five to twelve dollars is the usual monthly wages), before
pronouncing the Christmas gift too much.
_Feiertage_, or holidays for servants in Germany, are a great annoyance
to the order of domestic life. They are so importunant in their
demands, and so obstinately disagreeable if not gratified, that it
is better for the family to go to the restaurant for dinner and “eat
bitter herbs where there is peace,” than to remain at home for “a
stalled ox,” with angry servants to serve it. While they demand so much
for themselves, they are equally disappointed if the _herrschaften_
do not celebrate every birthday of their own. The extra work is no
consideration, and by touching little ways they show their pleasure
when extra company is expected. Bouquets are placed on the coffee
table by the plate of the member of the family whose birthday has
arrived; a cake, with the number of candles to indicate the age of the
person is found burning, and Frederika and August have broad smiles on
their faces as they come in and rattle off some poetry which they have
committed to memory for the occasion, wishing the person whose birthday
they are celebrating _glück_ and _heil_.
Dinner parties are the most frequent and most formal entertainments in
Germany. They are stereotyped, but the type belongs purely to Germany.
When the ladies enter the room, after the introductions they are
invited to be seated on the sofa and chairs of the “dress-circle” which
we have described. The gentlemen stand around the fair ones, bending
or breaking their backs in the effort to talk, or the more unconcerned
stand off in groups, learning from the hostess at the earliest moment
which ladies they are to escort to the table. The seat on the sofa is
the seat of honor, and if a lady of inferior rank has arrived first and
occupied that place, she rises immediately and resigns it on seeing
her superior enter the room; so that a captain’s wife will offer the
seat to a major’s wife, and a major’s wife to a general’s wife, and so
on. The white-gloved _diener_ throws open the doors of the dining-room
ten minutes after the arrival of the guests, and the guests have the
privilege of speaking to each other at the table if an introduction has
failed in any case in the _salon_. The dinner is served entirely from
the buffet; the snowy damask, flowers and glass are only presented upon
the table for the guests to feast their eyes upon. The meats are all
carved in the kitchen, and handed around by the servants. A good _menu_
resembles the French taste and order somewhat, although a discerning
eye will detect the German element in the following:
Bouillon (consommé).
Caviar (caviare).
Lobster.
Salmon du Rhin.
Turbot d’Ostende.
Poulets Santés aux Truffes.
Pâté de Foie Gras.
Filet de Bœuf Garni, Remouladen Sauce.
Rehbraten, } Salad Compotes.
Petit Pois,}
Butter und Käse und Radieschen, mit Pumpernickel.
Pudding d’Orange.
Dessert.
Café et Liqueurs.
There is much leisure, much conversation, and much “toasting,” at a
German dinner. Instead of the ladies retiring when the cigars and
coffee are served, as they do in England, the gentlemen and ladies
leave the table at the same time, and upon entering the _salon_ each
guest goes to the host and hostess and offers his or her hand, saying
in the most gracious manner, “_gesegnete malzeit_.” The guests all
shake hands with each other and repeat the same, and then the gentlemen
go into the library to smoke, and coffee is taken to them, as it is
also brought to the ladies in the _salon_. The German hostess does
not dress for her dinner parties as much as the English women. She is
never _décolleté_—generally appears in light or black silk, square
neck and half sleeves, with long white gloves. When the hour for
departure comes, the _diener_ goes down to the street corner, orders
a _droschke_ (cab) for those who have not private carriages, for one
mark (twenty-five cents), the old _kutcher_ will drive away the happy
or weary guest, and the _diener_ returns with a bright countenance and
full pocket, having received from each guest in the corridor below
enough “five silver _groschens_” to take Frederika to twenty concerts,
and buy as many glasses of beer as they want. And so goes life in the
“Vaterland!”
THE VALUE OF GOOD FOOD.
The food which you give to your body keeps it for long years unwasted
and unworn, besides giving it the power by which it works and moves.
The food, to you, is maintenance as well as strength. You do not
destroy yourself by the labor you get through.
The bread and meat which you eat, first get changed into the substance
of your body; actually become flesh and blood; then as flesh and blood
they perform a certain amount of useful labor. Like the iron of the
steam engine, they are worn away by the work; but that is not of any
real consequence, because fresh food will make fresh flesh and blood,
capable of doing fresh work. You therefore are fed, not only that you
may be able to work, but also that you may be kept in repair while you
are working, at least during some three-score years and ten.
The food first renews the worn body, and then it is the renewed body
which is worn again by work, yet again to be renewed. Here, indeed, is
a wonderful difference between the divinely-planned mechanism and the
mechanism made by human hands.
Coal does something for the steam engine besides setting it to work—it
makes it warm. Soon after the fire has been lit in the furnace, the
iron gets furiously hot, and the water in the boiler turns into
scalding steam; all this heat really comes out of the coal. It was
hidden away in the black mass, and only required that to be placed in
the furnace, to be set light to, and to be blown upon by a draught of
air, in order that it might be brought out and made serviceable. One
pound of coal has heat enough hidden away in it to boil sixty pints of
water.
But your body is too warm. And where do you think it gets its heat
from? Starve yourself for a day or two, and you will find this out.
You will, under such circumstances, feel colder and colder, as well as
getting weaker and weaker. A good nourishing meal on the other hand,
will directly make you glow with warmth. Food warms the body, as it
furnishes it with strength. There is as much heat produced in your
body in a single year, as would be sufficient to turn eleven tons of
ice into steam; as much in a single day, as would boil eighty pints of
water.
Food, then, does three distinct things for the living body, and the
living body must be duly fed at proper intervals, in order that three
distinct ends may be gained. It keeps the body warm. It maintains it
in a state of repair, notwithstanding the wear and tear to which it is
exposed while laboring. And it gives it strength and power. Weigh out
two pounds of bread and meat, and look at them. The two pounds make
no very great show. But eat them, and in the wonderful contrivances
of your body, those two pounds of bread and meat will sustain its
machinery unwasted during the exertion of a fair day’s work, and in
addition to this will supply heat enough to make eighty pints of water
boil, and strength enough to lift a ton weight one mile!
In order that food may render these important services, it is necessary
that it shall be wisely chosen, and no less wisely used. Many men get
wasting disease and death out of food, in the place of nourishment,
warmth, and vigor. If we were to heap up wet sand in the furnace of
the steam engine, instead of coal, fire would be smothered, and the
movement of the machinery stopped. If we were to heap up gunpowder
there, the whole would be blown into fragments in a moment. Or so
again, the fire of the furnace might be extinguished by smothering it
with too great an abundance of coal; or it might be allowed to smoulder
and die out for want. Exactly in the same way the fire and strength
of the living body may be smothered by a too heavy load, or by a bad
kind of food. Or it may be fanned into the explosion of destructive
inflammation and fever. It is important, therefore, that everyone
should know what right food is, and how good food requires to be
managed. When I go down to see my friend’s yarn-spinning steam engine,
I find that a very great amount of care is bestowed upon its feeding.
Only the most suitable coal is supplied for its consumption, and the
stoker who feeds it is chosen from among his companion workmen for his
judgment, and he is trained to be exceedingly careful, watching its
wants, and studying its appetite, so as to give exactly what it can
manage, a little and often, never allowing the furnace to be either too
hungry or too much gorged.
My friend is ten times more particular about the feeding of his steam
engine, than he is about the feeding of himself, and in this respect
he is pretty much like the rest of mankind. Men select and regulate,
with the most careful thought, what they put into the furnaces of
their machinery; but into those delicate and sensible living furnaces
which they carry about in their own bodies, they toss with reckless
indifference, now, as it were, lumps of lead, and now explosive
gunpowder. There is, indeed, sad need that men should be made more
thoughtful than they are about feeding their bodies. As a guardian and
supporter of the health, good food stands close by the side of fresh
air and pure water. Bad feeding, on the other hand, is the ally of
foul air and deficiency of water, in bringing about disorder. Improper
management in feeding, then, is another way in which men lay up for
themselves disease and suffering, and cause sickness to take the place
of health.
Man’s food consists of an almost endless variety of substances. The
surface of the earth is covered with things which man can eat, and get
strength out of. This is a very bountiful arrangement, made by Divine
Providence, in order that the rapidly increasing multitudes of the
human race may be supported. Into whatever diversity of climate or
country man can go, there he finds a rich abundance of the nourishment
which the continued well-being of his body requires. In the hot tropics
he gathers bread-fruit from the trees, and plucks rice from the
ground. In temperate lands he covers the soil with corn, and pastures
beef-yielding oxen and mutton-affording sheep upon the grass. In the
frozen wastes that lie near the poles, he gets whale-blubber and
seal-oil from the inhabitants of the ocean. The water teems every where
with fish, the air with fowl, and the solid ground is literally painted
green with fattening grass. Nearly all food substances are, however,
more or less solid bodies, in order that they may be kept conveniently
in store until they are immediately needed, and it is, therefore, a
natural result of this arrangement that they have to undergo a sort of
preparation before they can be put to use. The several parts of the
body which have to be nourished are far more delicate than the finest
hairs. Now suppose that you were set to get beef and bread into hairs,
I fancy you would find yourself rather puzzled by the task. God however
is not so puzzled. He pours beef and bread into fibres that are as much
smaller than hairs, as hairs themselves are smaller than men six feet
high and three feet round. You will, no doubt, like to learn how this
is done.
The All-wise and Almighty Designer of life has seen fit to employ in
the work an agent that is already familiar to us. This agent is pure
water. God washes food into the body, exactly as he washes worn-up
material out of it. The very water, indeed, which carries away the
waste, has in the first instance carried in the food. God has laid
down pipes of supply which run every where through the structures of
the body, exactly as he has laid down the drain-pipes. These pipes
branch out to the hair, the eyes, the head, the feet, the flesh, the
bones, and the skin. At the beginning of the supply pipes there is a
great pump always at work, pumping on the supply. This pump is called
the heart. Place your hand on the left side of your chest, and you
will feel how this heart is springing at its pumping work. You will be
sensible that it is raising itself up at its labor, at every stroke, so
determined is the exertion of its strength. The supply-pipes are termed
arteries. One large arterial pipe comes out from the heart, and then
sends out branches in all directions, very much like the water-pipes
sent out from the great reservoir into all the houses of a town. The
branch-pipes get smaller and smaller as they go from the main, until
at last they are many times smaller than the smallest hair. The food
that is washed through the branching supply-pipes, by the strokes of
the heart, is called blood. There are about twenty pounds of blood in
the body of a full grown, active man; of these twenty pounds nearly
sixteen are nothing else than pure water, the other four pounds are the
finely divided food which is being hurried along by the water. This
then is what I mean when I say that the food is washed into the body,
by the agency of water. Take the finest needle you can find, and stick
its point any where into your body, and you will find that blood will
rush out of the hole. This will show you what great care has been taken
to send supply-pipes everywhere. There is no spot, however small, into
which a needle point can be thrust without wounding a supply-pipe.
When the heart pumps, red blood thus flushes through every portion
of the living frame, repairing and warming it, and supporting it in
its offices. But you will say I have not yet proved my case. Food is
washed out of the heart to all parts of the body. This heart, however,
is already in the body. There is therefore no washing of the food into
the body here. It is already in, when it is pumped from the heart;
but where does the heart get the blood from, which it pumps onwards?
How can it be shown that the blood comes from the food? This is to be
my next step. I am going on to explain to you that the heart gets its
blood from the food which is eaten; that the blood indeed is finely
divided food given up to the carrying power of water; food finely
prepared for its task of nourishing the living frame. How then is the
food thus prepared? how is solid food turned into liquid and easily
flowing blood?
Food is turned into blood by being digested. Men have digesting bags,
more commonly known under the name of stomachs, inside of them, into
which portions of digestible substances are placed from time to time.
These inside digesting bags are particularly convenient, because when
a fair quantity of food is once packed away there, men may move about
in pursuit of their business without having to give any further heed to
the digesting work that is going on in their behoof. Before, however,
food is passed down into the digesting bag, it is first ground in a
powerful mill, and mixed up with liquid into a sort of paste. The
mill has many pairs of very hard stones set in rows over against each
other. It is called the _mouth_, and the stones are termed _teeth_.
The liquid, which makes the ground food into paste, is poured out from
little taps laid on in the mill or mouth, and is called _the saliva_.
When the ground and moistened food has been deposited in the stomach,
more liquid is poured out upon it there. This liquid is termed the
“gastric” or _stomach juice_. Next it is shaken, and churned up, and
turned over by the movements of the stomach-bag. After a few hours’
churning, it has become so soft and pulpy from the soaking, that it
is ready to advance another stage. Then a sort of sluice-gate at the
end of the stomach is opened, and down the pulp goes into the bowel,
there to be mixed with another liquid called _bile_, or _liver juice_,
and the soaking or digestion is completed. The pulp then consists of
two things—a white milk-like liquid; that is the rich and nourishing
part of the food, ground and soaked down to the utmost fineness, and
mingled with some of the water which has been drunk. And a coarse solid
substance, still undigested; that is the waste part of the food which
has resisted the dissolving power of the stomach, and is on its way to
be rejected as good for nothing. The white milk-like essence of the
food gets sucked up, by a quantity of little holes or mouths that lie
all over the lining of the bowel, as the pulp moves down this canal.
Then it is carried by tubes provided for the purpose into one main
channel. This channel runs upwards until it ends in the great forcing
pump. Poured into the heart, it reinforces the blood which it finds
there, and is sent onwards with it through the supply-pipes. This is
how food becomes blood.
But there are certain distinct and different principles which the body
requires should be furnished to it, out of food. You stand there very
firmly on the ground, and you look jolly and substantial enough. I
should think from your appearance you have been in no way stinted in
the matter of supplies. I estimate, at a guess, that your substantial
body would weigh, some one hundred and fifty pounds, if placed in the
scales. Now what do you think the greater part of those one hundred and
fifty pounds is composed of. Bones? Not exactly, you are too soft for
that. Flesh? There seems plenty of flesh, but the flesh is not the most
abundant element. Brains? I am afraid they are less than the flesh. No.
You will wonder indeed when I tell you that three-quarters of that firm
and well-knit frame are nothing else but water. If I were to take your
body and dry it until all its water was gone, there would remain behind
nothing but thirty-seven pounds of dry mummy-substance, in the place
of the original one hundred and fifty pounds; one hundred and thirteen
pounds of water would have steamed away. You will see then that water
must be furnished in fair quantity, with or in the food. You have
heard, I do not doubt, many horrible and sad things which have happened
when people have been kept a long time without water. Thanks to the
bounty of Providence, this privation is, however, one that very rarely
occurs.
But now, supposing that we have steamed away the one hundred and
thirteen pounds of water, and that there are left behind thirty-seven
pounds of dry substance, what does that substance consist of? It still
contains several distinct things, which have had entirely distinct
offices to perform in the living frame.
First, you know, there is that flesh, which makes so comely a show.
Now, we shall be able to find out how much there really is of flesh.
Of dry flesh-substance, including a little skin and jelly, there
are seventeen pounds, and that is the working part of the frame.
It is by its means the ton-weight can be lifted one mile high in a
single day, and that all the moving and acting, of whatever kind, are
effected. Remember, then, that the acting part of the living body is
flesh-substance, and that of that flesh-substance there are not more
than seventeen pounds in a full-grown man.
While your body is alive, there is a hard frame-work inside of it,
upon which the soft flesh is fixed, in order that it may be kept in
a convenient and durable form, and around which the water is packed
in a countless myriad of chambers, and vessels, and porous fibres.
The hard internal frame-work is composed of what are called bones. In
the dried mummy, left when the moisture is all gone from the body,
there are rather more than nine pounds of this mineral bone-substance.
But there are also nearly three-quarters of a pound of other mineral
substances, which were scattered about in various situations, and which
were employed for various purposes. There is salt which was in the
saliva, in the gristle, and in the blood. There is flint which was in
the hair. There is iron which was in the blood. There is potash which
was mixed with the flesh-substance. There are lime and phosphorus in
the hard millstones—the teeth; and there is phosphorus, which was in
the nerves and the brain. These mineral substances with the bone-earth,
which is principally a kind of lime, form together the ash or dust
which is returned to the ground after the body has decayed. It is the
flesh-substance which flies away to become poison-vapor in the air.
But besides water to do transporting work, flesh substance to do
active mechanical or moving work, and mineral substance to do passive
mechanical or supporting work, there is yet another kind of material
within the body. You have as much as six pounds of fat, scattered about
or packed away amid the seventeen pounds of dry flesh. What can that be
for? What use do you think you make of your fat? You have, I dare say,
a sort of comfortable sense that it keeps you warm. You know that some
of your lean neighbors cast envious eyes towards you in severe winter
weather, and have chattering teeth and goose’s skins, when you are
quite free from such tokens of chilliness. But you will nevertheless be
surprised when I tell you what a really fiery piece of business this
warming by fat is. Your fat is a store of fuel, which you are going to
burn to heat your body, exactly as you burn coal in the grate to heat
your room in the winter. It is oil laid by, to be consumed gradually,
as a sort of liquid coal, in the furnace of the living machine. Of
this, we shall, however, have to say more, by itself, by and by. For
the present merely bear in mind that fat is the fuel substance which
furnishes warmth to the body. It also combines with the phosphorus and
with water to make up the nerve-substance and the brain-substance,
which do the feeling and thinking work. These too, however, will have
to be spoken of hereafter by themselves.
Let us now then take stock of the stores we have on hand, within the
skin of a living body of 150 pounds weight. We have
Water for transport and moistening 113 pounds
Flesh-substance for movement 17 pounds
Mineral-substance for support 10 pounds
Fuel-substance for warming 6 pounds
——
If we add these together, our sum is 146 pounds
We still want four pounds more to make up our 150. Where are we to
get these? Why we have got them already. Have we not already learned
that there are four pounds of freshly-digested food being washed along
through the supply-pipes of the body?
We have only to add to the previous 146 pounds
Dry substance of the blood 4 pounds
——
and our tally is completed to 150 pounds
As the blood is the direct source of supply to all the structures
of the body, the material which is being poured out through the
supply-pipes,—it follows that those four pounds must contain within
themselves flesh-substance, mineral ash, and fuel. There are in twenty
pounds of blood, sixteen pounds of water to wash along the more
substantial part through the supply-pipes, three pounds ten ounces of
flesh-substance, four ounces of fuel, and about two ounces of mineral
matter; salt, phosphorus, lime, and the rest.
The blood is speedily exhausted of its richness, because it gives up
its several ingredients to the different parts of the living frame to
confer warmth, repair, and active strength upon them. The warmth is
procured by burning the fat; you will easily understand that; you know
that an oil lamp gets very hot whilst its flame is kept up. The repair
is effected by the plastering of new matter out of the blood, upon all
the different structures as they wear away. Each structure chooses
for itself out of the blood what it wants, and arranges what it takes
in due order. But you would now like to know how active strength is
supplied by the blood. It will not be possible just now to tell you
concerning this, all which might be, and indeed ought to be told,
because we have other and more practical things to bend our attention
to. But this much you will easily comprehend. The power comes out
of that very change of substance, which we call wear. The “wear” is
actually the turning of the substance into power. Upon another occasion
this may be made more plain.
The blood supplies what every part of the living body requires, and of
course itself loses what it gives out. But the exhausted blood is in
its turn renewed and refreshed by occasional supplies of food. Here
then we at last arrive at the pith of the subject we are speaking of.
The food supplies the blood, and the blood supplies the body. Therefore
efficient and good food must have in it all the several principles
required by the body—flesh, fuel, and mineral. No kind of food is
sufficient to maintain vigorous life and health, which does not contain
a due amount of every one of these.
When the young animal comes first into the world, its powers of
digestion are weak, and it is fed for some time entirely upon a food
already digested for it by the parent. This parent-prepared food of the
young animal, which is called milk, of course contains within itself
all the several matters which have been spoken of above, as necessary
for the supply of the body. Thus when the dairy-maid curdles milk with
rennet, and draws off the whey, afterwards pressing and drying the
curdled part, the curd at length comes out of the press as cheese.
That is the flesh-substance which was contained in the milk. When the
dairy-maid turns and twists cream about in the churn, until butter
collects in the midst of it—that butter is the fuel-substance, or fat,
which was contained in the milk. The whey which is taken off from the
cheese, or butter, is principally water; but if this water were steamed
away by heat, there would remain behind a small quantity of fixed ash,
which could not escape. This is the mineral-substance. Here then we
have what we may term a specimen of Nature’s pattern-food. The relative
proportion in which the several food-principles are contained in milk,
becomes most excellent guide to the way in which they should be used in
the more artificial feeding of later life. Take then as
A RECEIPT FOR PATTERN-FOOD,
the following, which expresses the relative quantities of cheese,
butter, and ash, in milk:
One ounce of Flesh-substance,
Two ounces of Fuel-substance, and
Ninety grains of Mineral-substance,
To twenty-two ounces of Water.
The most extensively and generally used of all the articles of human
diet is bread. It has been fittingly called “the staff of life.” Now
it is a curious and remarkable fact that bread contains in itself
just the same principles as milk; but it is of course drier, and has
proportionally more fuel and less flesh-making substance. The flour,
from which it is made, is composed of a stiff, sticky paste, and a fine
white powder, well mixed up together. The paste is flesh-substance;
it is nearly the same thing, indeed, as the flesh of the body, in all
excepting arrangement. The powder is starch: just such as is used in
the work of the laundry. Now starch is merely fat in its first stage of
preparation.
When bread is well made, the rising of the dough marks the change
of the store-starch into sugar and gum through fermentation. This
is really a beginning of the work of digestion, and, in so far, a
lightening of the task the stomach will have to perform. It is very
important, however, that this change shall be carried to a proper
point, and then stopped. Bread should be neither too heavy nor too
light. If the former, it will not be easy enough of digestion; if
the latter, some portion of the virtue will have been unnecessarily
wasted. Bread contains a great deal of water, and so to a certain
extent is both food and drink.
Brown bread is more rich in flesh-making substance, bulk for bulk,
than fine wheaten bread, because the outer husk of the grain, which
constitutes the bran, itself contains a large quantity of that
material. When the dough is formed from whole meal, instead of fine
flour, the cost of the bread is considerably diminished, at the same
time that its bulk and weight are, even in a greater degree, increased.
Rye bread is not so pleasant in flavor as wheaten bread, but it
is about equal to it in nourishment, and can be kept for months
without being spoiled, which wheaten bread can no
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