The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882
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Title: The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882
Author: Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution
Editor: Theodore L. Flood
Release date: February 5, 2015 [eBook #48166]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAUTAUQUAN, VOL. 03, DECEMBER 1882 ***
[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and
italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.]
THE CHAUTAUQUAN
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE.
ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.
VOLUME III.
FROM OCTOBER, 1882, TO JULY, 1883.
THEODORE L. FLOOD, D. D., Editor.
THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS,
Meadville, PA.
COPYRIGHTED BY THEODORE L. FLOOD, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF
CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1883.
INDEX TO VOLUME III.
AGASSIZ AT PENIKESE, With. Prof. J. Tingley, Ph.D. 533.
AIR, The Worth of Fresh. 386, 449.
AMUSEMENTS—LAWN TENNIS. Robert Macgregor. 441.
ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 1882-3, C. L. S. C. 113, 172.
ANSWERS. To Questions for Further Study. A. M. Martin. 288, 355.
ARIZONA. Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.D. 255.
ART AND ARTISTS, Some German. 259.
ASSEMBLY OF 1882, California. 46.
ASSEMBLY, Pacific Coast C. L. S. C. 597.
ASTROLOGY—THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY. R. K. Miller, M.A. 441.
ASTRONOMY, Discrepancies in. Bishop Warren. 458.
ASTRONOMY. Lecture by Bishop Warren. 596.
ATTEMPTS TO FLY IN THE AIR. From the French of F. Marion. 96.
BIBLE AND NATURE, The. Rev. J. B. Thomas, D.D. 573.
BOOK NOTICES. 177, 302, 486, 608.
BORROWING AND LENDING, Morals and Sorrows of. A. Denbar. 151.
BY-WAYS, In Some Medical. Andrew Wilson, F. R. S. E. 537.
CHANGE IN WORDS, CONSTANT. John Peile, M.A. 586.
CHAUTAUQUA EMERGING FROM WINTER. Rev. Victor Cornelle. 413.
CHAUTAUQUA RIPPLES. 538.
CIRCLES, LOCAL. 104, 163, 225, 282, 347, 403, 459, 525, 592.
CIRCLES, How to Conduct Local. Dr. J. H. Vincent. 289.
C. L. S. C., The. Miss Myrtie Hudson. 44.
C. L. S. C., Pacific Branch. 523.
C. L. S. C. WORK. 42, 102, 161, 222, 280, 345, 401, 457, 522, 590.
CLOTHING, The Advantage of Warm. 264, 332.
COMMENCEMENT OF 1882, C. L. S. C. 18.
COMET THAT CAME BUT ONCE, The. E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S. 319.
COMETS. Richard A. Proctor. 142.
COMING CHAUTAUQUA DAYS. 600.
CONVERSATION, The Art of. 514.
CONJURORS. Thomas Frost. 518.
DEFECTS IN OUR AMERICAN HOMES. A Conference at Chautauqua. 399.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, Results of the. John Lord, LL.D. 562.
DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS, Geographical. Alfred Newton. 588.
DREAM, AND PRACTICAL LIFE, A. 207.
DRIVING. 193.
DRINK, The Influence of Wholesome. 519, 577.
DUTIES IN THE FAMILY, Social. Frances Power Cobbe. 342.
EDITOR’S OUTLOOK:
Art, The Study of. 416.
Assembly, The Chautauqua. 56.
Assembly, The Decennial. 294.
Chautauquan, The. 540.
C. L. S. C. as a Substitute for the College, The. 415.
C. L. S. C. as a Substitute for the Public Library, The. 359.
C. L. S. C. on the Pacific Coast. 476.
C. L. S. C. in Troy, N. Y. 114.
C. L. S. C. as an Educational Force, The. 293.
C. L. S. C. Literature. 173.
Co-Education. 235.
Commencement, the C. L. S. C. 56.
Coronation of the Czar, The. 604.
Course of Study for 1883-84, The C. L. S. C. 540.
Doré, Gustave. 360.
Draper, Professor Henry. 234.
Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret. 359.
Education, Our National. 234.
England’s Troubles in Ireland and Egypt. 115.
English-Irish Troubles, The. 540.
Gambetta. 293.
Historical Studies in the C. L. S. C. 114.
Irving, Washington. 416.
Lectureship, The Joseph Cook. 360.
Literature, The C. L. S. C. 173.
Natural Method in Language at Chautauqua, The. 173.
Passion Play, The. 293.
Penn and his Policy, William. 173.
Prohibition. 114.
Prohibition in Politics. 541.
Problem, The Educational. 478.
Religion, Prospect for a Revival of Spiritual. 173.
Roeblings, The. 604.
Schools, The Common. 57.
Social Life in the C. L. S. C. 603.
Stewart’s Madame de Staël. 477.
Temperance Question, The. 56.
Ten Years at Chautauqua. 603.
Trial by Jury. 476.
Wagner. 415.
Warren, Amos K. 605.
Weed, Thurlow. 235.
EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK. 58, 115, 174, 236, 295, 361, 417, 479, 541, 605.
EDITOR’S TABLE. 117, 176, 238, 297, 363, 419, 481, 543, 607.
EDUCATION, The History and Philosophy of. Prof. W. T. Harris. 28, 79,
194, 262, 336, 446, 567.
EGYPT AND ENGLAND. Sheldon Amos. 33.
EGYPT FOR THE EGYPTIANS. Judge G. M. Barber. 562.
ENGLISH HISTORY, Pictures From. C. E. Bishop. 15, 66, 124, 184, 246,
309, 371, 432, 494.
ETCHING. 509.
EVIDENCE OF THE NECESSITY OF A REVEALED RELIGION, An Unnoted. Rev.
R. H. Howard, M. A. 412.
EXAMINATION, Report of Chautauqua Normal. 177.
FASHION, Anecdotes of. I. D’Israeli. 323.
FASHIONS, Changes in. From the French of M. Augustin Challamel. 446.
FASHIONS, How to Regulate the. From the French of M. Augustin
Challamel. 556.
FLORIDA, A Tropical River in. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D. 576.
FOOD, The Value of Good. 202.
FORCES, The Co-Related. 257.
FRENCH CIRCLE, The Prospectus of the. 475.
FRENCH, The Study of. Prof. A. Lalande. 111, 358.
GENIUS, What is. James Kerr, M. A. 254.
GEOLOGY, How to Teach. Colonel Daniels. 231.
GEOLOGY, Readings in. J. W. Dawson. 43.
GEOLOGY, Readings in. Edward Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D. 68.
GERMAN CIRCLES, Two. 592.
GERMAN, Six Reasons for the Study of. 475.
GERMAN DEPARTMENT C. L. S. C. Prof. J. H. Worman. 54.
GERMANY, Home Life in. 199.
GOD’S IDEAL OF A MAN. Rev. B. M. Adams. 157.
GRADUATES, Class of 1882, List of C. L. S. C. 298.
GRADUATES OF 1882, Chautauqua. 118.
GREEK LIFE, Studies in Ancient. J. P. Mahaffy. 126.
GREEK, Reasons for the Study of. Prof. H. Lummis. 169.
GREEK, Hints to Beginners in the Study of New Testament. Rev.
A. A. Wright. 414, 476, 539.
GREEN, John Richard. Rev. H. A. Haweis, M.A. 575.
GYMNASTICS. 508.
HABIT OF TAKING PAINS. James Kerr, M.A. 392.
HEAVEN, The Employments of. Rev. L. T. Townsend, D.D. 570.
HISTORY, God’s Hand in. Bishop Simpson, LL.D. 70.
HOOD, Thomas. W. C. Richards. 409.
HOUSEKEEPING, German and American. 442.
INDIA, A Voice From. C. A. Martin. 47.
IRVING, Washington. Wallace Bruce. 390.
JEANNETTE, Story of the. 89.
JOYS OF HIGH COMPANIONSHIP. Arthur Helps. 561.
LANDSEER, Edwin and Charles. 466.
LANGUAGE IN ANIMALS. Richard Budd Painter. 323.
LECTURES, Local Circle. 529.
LECTURE BY ARTEMUS WARD. 549.
LETTER FROM ENGLAND, A. 524.
LIGHT, The Electric. A. A. Campbell Swinton. 325.
LITERATURE, Selections from English.
Advice, on Giving. Joseph Addison. 424.
Education compared to Sculpture. Joseph Addison. 125.
Poet Described, The. 423.
Practice and Habit. John Locke. 317.
Thoughts and Aphorisms. Jonathan Swift. 318.
LITERATURE, Selections from Chinese. 503.
LITERATURE, Selections from Japanese. 505.
LONGFELLOW’S BIRTHDAY. 459.
MAMMALIA. From the French of Ernest Menault. 389.
MAN, The Ugly. 169.
MANNER. Lord Chesterfield. 141.
MANNERS, Street. 452.
MEMORIAL BELL. 457.
MONTANA. Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.D. 394.
MIND, Ardor of. James Kerr, M. A. 532.
MUSIC AT THE DAWN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. Prof. E. E. Ayres. 95.
MUSIC IN EARLY TIMES. Prof. E. E. Ayres. 30.
NEW MEXICO. Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.D. 327.
NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS:
April, 419.
May, 482.
June, 544.
OUTLINES OF C. L. S. C. STUDIES.
November, 104.
December, 167.
January, 230.
February, 288.
March, 356.
April,408.
May, 463.
June, 531.
PAINTINGS, Old. Robert Kempt. 570.
PEARLS, A Chaplet of. William Jones, F. S. A. 385.
PHOTOGRAPHY, The Applications of. 471.
PHYSIOLOGY. 374, 434.
PLAN, The Latest—Chautauqua Summer School for Children. 111.
POISON IN COMMON THINGS. Prof. P. A. Simpson, M.A., M.D. 137.
PORTRAIT COLLECTIONS. Walter F. Tiffin. 556.
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY—Names of the Stars. 486.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY. 107, 167, 229.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. A. M. Martin.
Astronomy. 286, 353.
China, Corea, and Japan. 530.
Evangeline. 463.
Geology. First Lessons in. 48, 105.
Greece, History of. 47, 105.
Greek Course in English, Preparatory. 164, 228.
Hampton Tracts. 407.
RAINDROPS, HAILSTONES AND SNOWFLAKES. Prof. O. Reynolds. 75.
RAMBLES IN DAKOTA AND MONTANA. W. A. Duncan. 598.
READINGS FOR 1883-84, C. L. S. C. 531, 589.
RE-UNION AT CINCINNATI, C. L. S. C. 591.
ROUMANIAN PEASANTS AND THEIR SONGS. C. F. Keary. 197.
ROUND-TABLE. 51, 109, 167, 231, 289, 356, 409, 464, 596.
RUSSIA, History of. Mrs. M. S. Robinson. 10, 61, 121, 179, 241, 303,
365, 427, 489.
SCANDINAVIA, A Glance at the History and Literature of. Prof. L. A.
Sherman. 8, 63, 182, 244, 305, 368, 429, 487.
SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES, The Chautauqua. 54, 111, 414, 475, 539.
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, The Chautauqua. 112, 602.
SCIENCE, The Six Follies of. I. D’Israeli. 257.
SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE. Charles Kingsley. 321.
SCIENCES, The Circle of. Prof. J. T. Edwards. 601.
SCIENTISTS, Atheistic. John Stuart Blackie. 137.
SONGS, C. L. S. C.
Anniversary Ode—1879. 458.
Break Thou the Bread of Life. 590.
Evening Praise. 523.
Hymn of Greeting. 590.
Join, O Friends, in a Memory Song. 402.
A Song of To-day. 44.
The Winds are Whispering. 346.
SPURGEON, Rev. Charles Haddon. A. A. Livermore, D.D. 565.
SUNDAY READINGS. Selected by Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Abraham to the Occupation of Canaan, From. W. F. Collier, LL.D. 190.
Action, The Reproductive Power of Human. Henry Melvill. 3.
Beginning to Abraham, From the. W. F. Collier, LL.D. 188.
Bible and other Religious Books, The. George F. Pentecost, D.D. 251.
Bible and Science, The. George F. Pentecost, D.D. 252.
Book, History of God’s. Rev. Frank Russell, A.M. 186.
Christmas Songs. 134.
Christ and the Apostles. S. A. Allibone. 249.
Christian Described, A. Rev. W. Jay. 439.
Communion with God. R. S. Storrs, D.D. 5.
Communion with God, The Privilege of. R. S. Storrs, D.D. 6.
Conflicts of Life, The. Bishop Edward Thomson, DD., LL.D. 133.
Design of the Discrepancies of the Scriptures. J. W. Haley, A.M. 90.
Dispensations in History and in the Soul, Three. Bishop Huntington.
313.
False Balance Detected by the True, The. William Arnot, D.D. 311.
Faith the Sole Saving Act. Rev. William Taylor, D.D. 381.
Finding and Bringing. 379.
God Magnified in his Works. G. Chaplin Child, M.D. 135.
Goodness of a Good Man, The. 131.
Growing. F. E. Havergal. 131.
Having, Doing and Being. James Martineau. 130.
Israelites after Reaching the Promised Land. W. F. Collier, LL.D.
191.
Life of the Israelites from Saul to Christ. W. F. Collier, LL.D.
248.
Love. Julius Muller, D.D. 1.
Manners. Abel Stevens, D.D., LL.D. 501.
Pardon—Forgiveness. Bishop Merrill. 94.
Religion in Common Life. John Caird, D.D. 496.
Speculations in Theology. Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D. 329.
Tears of Jesus, The. J. H. Grandpierre, D.D. 2.
TALES FROM SHAKSPERE. Charles Lamb.
All’s Well that Ends Well. 515.
As You Like It. 453.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 275.
King Lear. 271.
Macbeth. 338.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. 210.
Much Ado About Nothing. 395.
Romeo and Juliet. 84.
Taming of the Shrew. 81.
The Tempest. 39.
Twelfth Night. 152.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. 583.
Winter’s Tale. 213.
TALK FROM HEADQUARTERS. Concerning Chautauqua. 474.
TAXIDERMY. 507.
TENNYSON AND MRS. CARLYLE. 588.
TESTIMONY, C. L. S. C. 103, 162, 223, 402, 524.
THEY GROW TO FLOWERS OR TO WEEDS. Maxims. 383.
THRIFT. Charles Kingsley. 218.
TOUR ROUND THE WORLD, A. 99, 147, 216, 267, 466, 510, 551.
TRANSIT OF VENUS, The. 239.
UNITED STATES, The Resources of. 393.
WEBSTER, Daniel. A Letter from Prof. W. C. Wilkinson. 292.
WEBSTER, Daniel, _versus_ Stephen Girard. 472.
W. C. T. U. BORN AT CHAUTAUQUA, The. 156.
POETRY
AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. By the author of “John Halifax, Gentleman.” 326.
BEYOND. Mrs. Emily J. Bugbee. 557.
CELIA SINGING. Thomas Stanley. 442.
CHAUTAUQUA CHIMES. Addie Glover Carter. 47.
CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 514.
CHILDREN, Our. Genevieve Irons. 150.
COMING OF SUMMER, The. Harriet Mabel Spalding. 536.
CONTENT. A. E. A. 196.
COUNSEL. Alice E. Jennings. 573.
DAFFODIL, The. Ada Iddings Gale. 558.
DAFFODILS AT SEA. J. S. Howard. 448.
DEATH’S CHANGED FACE. Frederick Langbridge. 537.
GARDEN REVERIE, A. I. L. Cosham. 18.
GLINT OF MOONLIGHT, A. I. L. Cosham. 129.
GOD’S HEARTHSTONE. Wallace Bruce. 95.
HOURS OF REST. Anna H. Drury. 392.
IN THE FOREST. S. Reid. 81.
JUNE. Ellen O. Peck. 507.
KNEELING FIGURE IN MALVERN PRIORY, On the. Chas. Grindrod. 141.
LAST SNOW OF WINTER, The. Sarah Doudney. 518.
LOSS AND GAIN. Mrs. Emily J. Bugbee. 413.
MAY. Luella Clark. 473.
MY WINTER GARDEN. Harriet Mabel Spalding. 320.
MY OWN GIRL. Frederick Langbridge. 161.
NIGHTINGALE, To the. Drummond of Hawthornden. 436.
PETITION TO TIME. B. W. Proctor. 207.
PETROCCHI, Sonnet of. Translated by Strong. 557.
PROPHECY, A. Rev. Benjamin Copeland. 582.
QUAINT OLD GARDEN OF MY CHILDHOOD. Clara Thwaites. 155.
RENUNCIATION. A. C. M. 569.
ROBIN AND I. C. B. 407.
SATISFIED. J. C. A. 452.
SONGS IN WINTER. David Buxton. 561.
SONG. Sir John Denham. 338.
SONG OF THE ROBIN. Miss A. M. Starkweather. 532.
SONNET, The. William Wordsworth. 466.
SORROW OF THE SEA, The. Alexander Anderson. 322.
SOWERS, The two. Alexander Anderson. 509.
STAGES. Benjamin Bulkeley. 193.
STRANGER, The. Ada Iddings Gale. 123.
STRIVING. Henry Burton. 75.
SUN-WORSHIPPERS, The. Hattie A. Cooley. 279.
SURPRISE, A Sweet. Mary R. Dodge Dingwall. 346.
THINKING OF MICHAEL. Alexander Anderson. 17.
THREE AGES. John Albee. 193.
TWO GRAVES, The. Henry Hogan. 78.
WEARY HEART, The. Rev. Frank S. Child. 263.
WE MUST NOT FORGET OUR DEAD. Mary R. D. Dingwall. 271.
THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
_A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN
OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE._
VOL. III. DECEMBER, 1882. No. 3.
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 by the transcriber to aid the reader.
Contents
Index to Volume III. INDEX
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle Officers 121
REQUIRED READING:
History of Russia 121
The Stranger 123
Pictures from English History 124
Studies in Ancient Greek Life 126
A Glint of Moonlight 129
SUNDAY READINGS.
December 3
Having, Doing, Being 130
Growing 131
December 10
The Goodness of a Good Man 131
December 17
The Conflicts of Life 133
December 24
Christmas Songs 134
December 31
God Magnified in His Works 135
Atheistic Scientists 137
Poison in Common Things 137
Manner 141
On the Kneeling Figure in Malvern Priory 141
Comets 142
A Tour Round the World 147
Our Children 150
Morals and Sorrows of Borrowing and Lending 151
Tales from Shakspere—_Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will_ 152
Quaint Old Garden of Our Childhood 155
The W. C. T. U. Born at Chautauqua 156
God’s Ideal of a Man 157
My Own Girl 161
C. L. S. C. Work 161
C. L. S. C. Testimony 162
Local Circles 163
Questions and Answers 164
Outline of C. L. S. C. Studies for December 167
Questions for Further Study 167
C. L. S. C. Round-Table:
How England Maintained Her Nationality During
the Middle Ages 167
Reasons for the Study of Greek 169
The Ugly Man 169
C. L. S. C. Announcement for 1882-’83 172
Editor’s Outlook 173
Editor’s Note-Book 174
Editor’s Table 176
Books Received 177
Report of Chautauqua Normal Examination—1882 177
New Books for Boys and Girls 178
REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1882-83_.
DECEMBER.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
BY MRS. MARY S. ROBINSON.
_CHAPTER IV._
THE HEROIC AGE—GROWTH OF THE RUSSIAN STATE, TO THE DEATH OF IAROSLAF
(1054).
The glory of the Russian arms, the splendor of the Russian State,
attained their maximum in the reign of the great Iaroslaf. Its form
of government continued to retain the Variag-Slav elements, but was
compacted and confirmed by the ideas brought into the country with the
influx of Greek priests and men of letters. The prince long remained,
as in the primitive times, first among his equals, the drujina—the
head and chief of a family of soldiers. He had great respect for the
counsels, and for the demands of these. Vladimir’s men complained, in
that they had to eat from wooden bowls. He forthwith provided them with
silver ones. “I can not buy myself a drujina with silver and gold,”
he said, “but with a drujina I can obtain silver and gold, as did my
father and my grandfather.” The Roman empire of the east represented
another form of government. Its sovereign was the heir of Constantine
and of Augustus; the vicar of God upon earth, the human representative
of the Sovereign of the universe. The Greek emperor derived his
power, not from the consent of his subjects—a phrase unknown in his
dominions,—but rather from the Being who conferred it as a prerogative,
a divine right. His person, his regalia, were sacred. The populace of
Constantinople believed that when God gave the empire to their city, he
gave it also the regal vestments at the hands of an angel. Leo, king
of the Kazarui, was said to have been smitten with a fatal ulcer for
his temerity in putting the Byzantine crown upon his head. This Roman,
and antecedently Asiatic conception of government, as vested in the
person of the imperator who made the laws, executed justice, received
the adoring homage as well as the unquestioning obedience of his
subjects, essentially modified the nobler, freer idea of government,
as held by the Variag princes; but the change was wrought gradually,
and was hardly perceptible during the epoch of the ascendency of the
Russia of the steppes, the supremacy of Kief. It came into prominence,
as we shall see, in the Russia of the forests, when Suzdal, and later
Moscow, became the nuclei, the centers of the realm in a subsequent
epoch. Iaroslaf compiled a code of laws, the Russkaia Pravda, the
Russian right, or verity, a code that, though subsequently modified by
Byzantine influence, remained for centuries the basis of the national
jurisprudence. The laws of the Pravda are in effect those of ancient
Scandinavia. Private revenge and avenging are recognized, as are
also the judicial duel and the ordeals; fines are fixed for various
crimes. The primitive form of trial by jury is established, but none
of the harsher penalties are prescribed that were introduced later by
the corrupted Greeks. Prisons, torture to wring confession, corporal
cruelties, flogging and capital punishment were unknown in the Russia
of the eleventh century. Its laws were milder, more humane than those
of Charlemagne. The Slav had not become debased by the vices of the
Roman empire of the east, nor by the ferocity of the Tatars. “A white
Arab,” a child of nature, uncorrupted by the iniquities of an ancient
civilization, with his ardent Oriental temperament, he retained as
yet much of the simplicity, the freedom from duplicity, that won the
recognition of Homer, Choerilius and Strabo.
The introduction of Greek Christianity was a fact of immeasurable
significance to the Russian realm. It proscribed the Papal Church
from Russian territory, and thereby isolated it from the nations
of the west. This isolation precluded the Russian people from the
religious sympathy, the material support of the Pope, and of the other
European nations, in crises of peril, or periods of emergency, such
as that of the appalling Tatar invasion. They could look for no help
beyond their own resources, their own strength. The difference of
religion served also as a perpetual barrier, a continually irritating
antagonism between the Russian and the Polish Slavs. On the other
hand, as the new faith was introduced by means of the Slavonic, the
mother tongue, Russian society was spared the sharp division between
the clerical, the learned, the high, Latin-speaking class, and the
lower classes that compose the bulk of every nation; a division that
contributed immensely to the founding of caste and to the arrogations
of a hierarchy throughout Latin Christendom. In Russia was reared a
national church, subject to no foreign, no alien sway, entangled with
no foreign alliances or foreign politics. Thus was secured an absolute
national and ecclesiastical independence. “No dragonnades, no frightful
inquisition, no Saint Bartholomews, no myriads of martyrs, no hideous
tortures, such as those invented and practiced by Jesuits and Romish
priests, have ever defiled the venerable ministry that traces its
origin to Ephesus and Saint John.”
Christianity gradually but essentially modified the social life, the
customs and manners of the people. It abolished polygamy; the structure
of the family was no longer Asiatic, but European. It heightened
the Slav virtues of hospitality and benevolence, by inculcating the
humanitarian precepts of the New Testament. It conferred a dignity
previously unknown, upon weakness, infirmity, poverty and labor. It
modified the public sentiment in regard to crime, by teaching the
inherent heinousness of sin. The oft-uttered words of Vladimir, “I
fear to sin,” indicate the change that was gradually effected in the
popular mind. Assassination, theft, and other crimes ceased to be
regarded as private injuries, to be commuted by fines or atoned for by
reprisals. They were punished as offences against humanity, in the name
of the Legislator, the Father of the race. What is more precious than
a Christian soul? asks one of the earlier descendants and successors
of Vladimir. The new religion brought music in its train to a people
who had a capacity for this art, but who were ignorant of its first
principles. It brought architecture into a realm whose buildings were
simply wooden tents, and whose ramparts were made of mud. In the rude
city were laid the decorated aisles, the sumptuous columns, the golden
cupolas and domes of the Russian church. It brought literature, first
of all by the sacred books translated into the vernacular; the works
of the Church fathers, among them Basil and Chrysostom; the lives of
the saints, Byzantine chronicles, eagerly read by the scholastic monk;
works on speculative and natural philosophy, and some few romances.
Contemporary Byzantine literature was not of the highest order; but
exported among a people whose thought and knowledge were limited to the
recital of their national legends, their primitive poems, it aroused
their germinant powers, and gave direction to their intellectual, their
social, and their moral development. We have to concede, however, that
the introduction of the Greek form of Christian belief was not entirely
salutary in its effects upon the people at large. The Byzantine Church
was smitten with the decay whereof the Byzantine civilization was
perishing. It retained, indeed, the elevated truths of the Christian
system, but had deplorably lost the spirit that alone “giveth life.” It
had failed, generally speaking, to eradicate the distinctive vices of
the Greek peoples—falsehood, treachery, perfidy, instability. In place
of a regenerated nature, it required of its adherents participation in
its elaborate ceremonial, the practice of its intricate rites, homage
to its imposing forms. It did little for intellectual enlightenment
or advancement, save in the perverted form of Oriental monachism,—a
painfully unnatural mode of life, calculated to foster mental disease
and general self-stultification. With no arrogations of secular or of
civil power, it has associated itself throughout Russian history with
the baleful conservatism, the hoary tyranny, the enslaving autocracy
of her sovereigns. Oriental in its origin, it has fastened upon the
Russian State the stationary ignorance, the servitude, the mental
inertia of the effete Oriental nations. Among its adherents we shall
find scarcely an example of the moral and spiritual liberty wherewith
the Head of the Church maketh his children free. So far removed
are they from this freedom, that their spiritual debasement, their
intellectual bondage and moral perversion lie like an incubus, against
which thus far the inherent strength of the nation has struggled in
vain. An Oriental autocracy and a church devoid of spiritual vitality
have hitherto proved immovable checks upon the advancement of the
Russian people. Not without reason does the Nihilist reject the
wretched ecclesiasticism that has misguided and miseducated his race
throughout a thousand years.
The portraits of Rurik and his Variag-Slav successors, preserved in the
imperial galleries of St. Petersburgh, are doubtless much idealized;
yet they may be supposed to bear some resemblance to their originals,
for Byzantine artists were in Kief as early as the reign of Vladimir
(972). The face of Rurik is strong, and possessed of a primitive
majesty; beneath heavy brows his eyes are steadfast, penetrating,
containing a force that under stress might break into the Berserker
rage, the fury that was a characteristic of the ancient Norse warrior.
The contours of the face are vigorous, and marked by a certain rude
symmetry, so to speak. The heavy mustaches part above the lips; below
them falls a dense beard that clings to the sides of the cheeks and
climbs to the hair. The head is shielded beneath a plain helmet
terminating above in a talon. From the under side of the helmet falls
a cape of mail, protecting the throat and shoulders; a sack or loose
coat of mail covers the body. A man to put one’s trust in, a man to be
feared as an enemy, is the impression conveyed by the portrait, as a
whole.
Vladimir, “the beautiful sun of Kief,” the Christianized Apollo of the
Russian Slav, the apotheosized hero of numberless legends and poems,
still current among his people, is represented with a richly jewelled
crown above an ermine border, resting upon his shapely head. His dark
hair falls flowing upon his shoulders; his beard is fine and waved;
his eyebrows delicately pencilled. Poetry and song lie in his liquid
eyes and upon his well-moulded lips. A touch of sadness allied with a
princely stateliness adds an indefinable, a melodious charm to this
beautiful portrait, that one might take at first glance for a humanized
representation of the Son of Man. Lovely, tender, strong, it is not
difficult to ascribe to the gracious influences of Christianity the
elevation, the chastened symmetry, the perceptible advance, evident in
the face, from the rude power of the Norse physiognomy. A bust like
unto it, set amid the busts of ancient Athens, would have elicited
expressions of admiration from the beholders. “A noble, a beautiful
barbarian!” they would have exclaimed.
The portrait of Iaroslaf represents a distinctive Slav. It depicts
a melancholy temperament held in equipoise by a clear intellect and
a firm will. Delicacy, a capacity for sadness and strength, combine
in the intelligence of the face; an intelligence more reposeful than
animated. The symmetry of the features is remarkable. The long-lidded,
serious eyes are essentially Slavic. The throat is large and shapely.
The regal robe is heavily broidered, decorated around the neck and down
the front with a band of light-hued fur. A grave man, with capacities
for understanding the arts that give solace and charm to existence,
Iaroslaf the Great was also a man to love and to be loved. Captain,
sovereign, legislator, he was especially the father of his people in
his affectionate care of, and in his intercourse with them.
The Slav’s inextinguishable passion for liberty, and the faithfulness
of the Variag to his ruler, his capacity for obedience and for martial
discipline, augured well for the nascent Russian state. The Slav
conception of the family, however, dominated long over that of a
compact government. The Byzantine form of political unity took root
in Russian soil, but was of slow growth, and was long obstructed by
the division of lands among the heirs of the reigning prince—a Slavic
custom observed from time immemorial. Iaroslaf had designed that his
eldest son should succeed him upon his throne; and upon his death-bed
he urged upon his other children the duty of recognizing their brother
Isiaslaf as their sovereign; they were to regard him “as a father.” But
notwithstanding the precautions of the great prince, the Slavic custom
of division prevailed with those who came after him. As a consequence,
the hundred and thirty years following his death (1054-1224), form
a period of internal partition, of disturbance, of civil wars and
strifes between the increasingly numerous members of the royal family.
During this period the realm was divided into no less than sixty-four
duchies or principalities, under the varying possession of two
hundred and ninety-three princes. These partitions were the occasion
of eighty-three civil wars, some of which brought into conflict the
entire fighting force of the nation. In addition to the internal
contentions, the barbarians remained a hostile element in the country.
The chroniclers record forty-six invasions of the Polovtsui, and
eighteen campaigns directed against them. This anarchy of princes in
eastern Europe possessed features of similarity with the feudal anarchy
of the west. The principalities of Russia corresponded with the domains
of the dukes, grafs, land-grafs, and mar-grafs of Germany, with those
of the lords and counts of France, and with the governments of the
lords and barons of England.
The principality or grand duchy of Kief remained preëminent among these
divisions. Its position near to, and its intercourse with the Greek
empire, its control of the Dnieper, the fertility of the Warm Soil, the
illustrious history of the capital and metropolis of the realm, mother
of Russian cities, all contributed to maintain its supremacy. Its
prince was the Grand Prince, chief among his fellow rulers elsewhere
in the realm, in point of privilege. Often was his territory hotly
contested by those princes whose energy or ambition impelled them to
audacious enterprises. To obtain Kief and the position of Grand Prince,
were the ends ardently coveted by the restless, warlike rulers who
chafed within the restricted limits of their obscure domains.
Along the tributaries to the east of the Dnieper, lay the
principalities of Tchernigof and of Novgorod-Severski. The ruling
family of Tchernigof, the Olgovitchi, who traced their lineage to the
illustrious Olga, were the most formidable rivals of Kief. East of
these lay the double principality of Riazan and Murom, whose chief
towns, respectively of the same name, the one on the Moskova, the other
on the Oka, indicate their ancient principalities on the modern map
of the empire. Westward, in the heart of mediæval Russia, inclosing
within its boundaries the great forest of Okof, where rise the Volga,
the Dnieper, and the Dwina, was the principality of Smolensk, all of
whose towns were built on the banks of one or another of its great
rivers. Its political importance lay in its control of nearly all
the commerce of the realm. A government in the later divisions of
the empire bears the name of the ancient principality. Near by was
Toropets, capital of a secondary domain ruled over by two princes of
renown, Mstislaf the Brave, and his son Mstislaf the Bold, glorious
names in the history of their country. Further to the northeast, in
the dense forests of the Volga and the Oka, lay the principality of
Suzdal, with its towns, Suzdal, Rostof, Vladimir-on-the-Kliasma. This
rugged region at the extremity of the Russia of the eleventh century,
encircled by aboriginal Finn tribes, was destined in time to achieve
a supremacy over all the other principalities, and to control the
destinies of the nation. The Slavs of the Volga, mingling with the
Finn tribes, Muromians, Meria, Tcheremisa, who, from being their
enemies, were ultimately forced to become their subjects, produced a
modified race, endowed with permanent, salient characteristics. The
Russia of the steppes of the Dnieper, gave way gradually, and yielded
its supremacy to the Russia of the forests of the Volga. From the
principality of Suzdal emerged the Grand Duchy or Tsarate of Moscow,
and from the Tsarate of Moscow arose Little and Great Russia, with
which were included in the fifteenth century Red and White Russia,
the Warm Soil, and other vast territories that combine to form the
European portion of the modern empire. The principalities we have named
presented a frontier against the untamed tribes of the steppes and of
the forests. A northern system of frontier defences holding in check
the Lithuanians, Letts, and Tchudi, was re-enforced by the powerful
governments of Novgorod and Pskof, situated in the regions of Lake
Ilmen and Lake Peïpus. Within the protection of these domains lay
two secondary appanages, Polotsk and Mursk, the latter in the basin
of the Dnieper. In southwest Russia lay Volhynia and Gallicia, or
Red Russia, one of whose cities was Galitch. Gallicia was peopled by
the White Kroats, a branch of the Danubian Slavs, who had affinities
with the neighboring kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. Igor, Prince of
Novgorod-Severski, is the hero of a Russian epic, that relates his
expeditions. In it the wealth and glory of Gallicia are thus exalted:
“Iaroslaf Osmomuisl of Gallicia,” cries the poet, apostrophizing the
prince, “lofty is thy throne of beaten gold! Thou holdest up the
Carpathians with thy regiments of iron! Thou art he who shutteth the
gates of the Danube, and putteth a bar across the pathway of the King
of Hungary. At thy good pleasure the gates of Kief are opened. With
thine arrows thou smiteth from afar!”
The division into appanages delayed but did not strike at the root
of the unity of the empire. Nay, it may be said to have nourished
this idea in its nascent development. At the death of every powerful
sovereign fresh divisions were made; hence no principality remained
sufficiently secure to become the home of a distinct, an enduring
nationality. Identity of race, of language, and of religion
characterized these states, whose princes were kinsmen, and whose ties
of blood were strengthened in many instances by the bonds of wedlock.
The descendants of Rurik bore rule from the Straits of Ienikale to
the borders of the Frozen Sea. The Grand Prince was held in fatherly
respect; and if some of his contemporaries stood ready to contend
for his throne, more were at hand to defend him with their money and
their arms. The unity of the nation, notwithstanding its numerous
divisions, was more distinct than that of Germany or of France during
certain periods of the mediæval era. The isolation of the Russian
realm maintained the permanence of this idea, in that it was preserved
from alien invaders, and from diplomatic or other complications with
powers that might have interfered with its internal affairs, or that
might have modified its advancement. The unity of the realm initiated
by Rurik, was developed gradually but irresistibly, and with no
considerable fluctuations down to the national uprising in 1612, when
it attained its fullest strength, and rendered the nation impregnable
alike to the designs of aliens, or to the subversions of internal
discord.
[To be continued.]
THE STRANGER.
By ADA IDDINGS GALE.
Thou dazzling vision in the Eastern sky,
Moving so grandly through the fields of space,
Thou stranger in our starry populace,
On what swift errand dost thou sunward fly?
Haply, among the everlasting host
Thou art a messenger fleet-winged as fate,
On some grave matter sent by powers of state,
Thy winged speed thy special pride and boast.
Or, art thou but a vagrant—fetterless
Roaming at will among the wand’ring spheres,
As naught to thee the pulsing of the years,
A shining type of starry willfulness?
Speed on, oh, wonderful! through endless space,
One All-puissant marks thy tireless race.
“For he who manages his own life badly, how is he likely to take proper
care of what is external to himself.”—_Euphron._
PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.
By C. E. BISHOP.
III.—THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR’S RETURN FROM THE WAR.
Concerning the “good old days” of chivalry and the crusades, the
London _Quarterly Review_ once said: “Life was earnest in its beliefs,
stormy in its ambition, hearty in its sports.” There is a funny story
going the rounds in these “degenerate days” of a disciple of Peter
Cartwright, who resisted a western rough’s invitation to drink and to
fight. The concluding remark of the bully, as he picked himself out of
the elder bushes, was, in the tones of a deeply-deceived man: “What
do you come around here for, with a long face on, saying you ‘never
have fun with the boys,’ when you are chock full of fun? You’ve nearly
broke my back.” In this contest the champions of religion and of “fun”
were arrayed against each other, but it was the advantage of the old
crusaders that both religion and “fun” lay in the same direction.
The chief of those romantic bruisers, King Richard Cœur de Lion, is
thus practically described by Charles Dickens: “He was a strong,
restless, burly man, with one idea always in his head, and that the
very troublesome idea of breaking the heads of other men.” Anyway, the
crusades were the great safety-valve of Europe for surplus religious
zeal and pugnacity, and a great relief they proved to the people who
stayed at home, as Motley and Prof. Fiske have splendidly argued.
Richard sought this outlet for his “idea.”
His career in the Holy Land was romantically ferocious. He was, indeed,
so impatient to get to business that he fought two or three battles
with Christians on the way. He showed but one redeeming trait, brute
courage; and a historian declares that the Saracen Saladin shows as the
Christian statesman, and Richard as the fighting barbarian in these
crusades. He was far more considerate of his Saracen prisoners than of
his own soldiers, and treated the Mohammedan leaders with more chivalry
than he did the allied kings and dukes. His hot temper and overbearing
manner really defeated the crusade, for it drove every other prince and
general home in anger. The Duke of Austria, for instance: The walls of
Ascalon had to be hastily repaired to repel an assault, but the Duke
held back from manual labor, saying he “was no stone mason.” Whereupon
King Richard incontinently kicked his Grace till he went to work.
The crusade collapsed. Richard heard that his amiable brother John,
encouraged by the angry King of France, was plotting his deposition,
and he started for home, undismayed by the fact that he had not a
friend left on the continent, and must needs cross hostile territory to
reach England. His accustomed luck and pluck seem to have deserted him,
for he was cast ashore in Austria, and he tried to skulk through the
booted Duke’s dominions in disguise. And so this proud, grand hero of a
hundred fights was captured in an inn kitchen, attired like a scullion,
wrestling with pots and pans—was Richard of the Lion Heart. He was
buried in a rocky dungeon, high above the Rhine, and for months no one
in England knew what had become of him.
Curiously enough, Richard owed his discovery and consequent
deliverance, not to his own courage, wit, or influence, but to his
ability to write songs and sing them. One of his ballads he had taught
to a friend named Blondel and Blondel now went troubadouring through
Europe, singing a verse of the song under the windows of every dungeon
and castle. He was at length relieved to hear the second stanza of
the verse trolled, or, perhaps, roared through the bars. The secret
was out, but Richard was not. The Duke of Austria and the Emperor of
Germany now went into partnership, trading on the expected ransom of
the royal prisoner—offering him to the highest bidder. Avarice proved a
worse obstacle than hatred to his release. His brother John and Philip
of France promised his captors more money to keep him, or to deliver
him to them, than they might get from England for his release, and so
he lingered in jail for fourteen months, while friends and enemies
were competitively striving to get together the price of his release
or his destruction. During this time Richard busied himself composing
verses lamenting his lot, and sighing for freedom and “fun,”—the most
profitable and least discreditable portion of his career, for the
verses were very good.
For all this time we have the following picture of affairs in England:
“The condition of the English nation was at this time
sufficiently miserable. John was strengthening his own
faction in the kingdom, of which he proposed to dispute the
succession. His own character being light, profligate, and
perfidious, John easily attached to his person and faction
not only all who had reason to dread the resentment of
Richard for criminal proceedings during his absence, but
also the numerous class of ‘lawless resolutes,’ whom the
crusades had turned back on their country, accomplished in
the vices of the East, impoverished in substance, hardened
in character, and who placed their hopes of harvest in civil
commotion.
“To these causes of public distress and apprehension, must
be added the multitude of outlaws who, driven to despair
by the oppression of the feudal nobility and the severe
exercise of the forest laws, banded together in large gangs,
and, keeping possession of the forests and wastes, set at
defiance the justice and magistracy of the country. The
nobles themselves, each fortified within his own castle, and
playing the petty sovereign over his own dominions, were the
leaders of bands scarce less lawless and oppressive than
those of the avowed depredators. Under the various burdens
imposed by this unhappy state of affairs, the people of
England suffered deeply for the present, and had yet more
dreadful cause to fear for the future.
“Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well
as the rich, the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event
of a tournament, which was the grand spectacle of the age,
felt as much interested as the half-starved citizen of
Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his
family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor
infirmity could keep youth or age from such exhibitions.”[A]
One of these exhibitions, the Tournament of Ashby, is famous
historically, and has been made the subject of one of the finest
word-pictures of the “Wizard of the North.” In a natural amphitheater
near the village of Ashby the lists were enclosed with strong
palisades, forming an oblong space about a quarter of a mile in length,
and half as broad. At either end were strong wooden gates wide enough
to admit but two horsemen abreast; each of these gates guarded by two
heralds, attended by six trumpeters, six pursuivants (messengers), and
a strong body of horsemen. Around the entrances the magnificent tents
of knights, each of its owner’s chosen color, surmounted by his pennon,
his shield and coat of arms hanging in front, his guards, retainers and
jester in gay livery contributing to the moving scene. Back of these,
refreshment tents and the quarters of farriers and
“The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.”
Around the circle were galleries, spread with tapestry for the ladies
and nobles, while extending up the slopes, and even to the tops of the
trees set thick about were the great multitude of common people. On
one side the royal seat and canopy, occupied by Prince John and his
brilliant retinue; on the opposite a gayer gallery, and the throne of
the Queen of Beauty and of Love, monarch of the hour and rewarder of
the victorious knights. This stand was brilliant with the rich attire
of the ladies and their pages—the prevailing colors of the habits of
the latter, as of the throne, being green and pink. The traditional
insignia of Cupid shone all about on banner and shield—wounded hearts,
bleeding hearts, burning hearts, bows, quivers, etc.
As the procession of contestants enters the arena, the sound of wild,
barbaric music rends the air—a mixture of trumpets, cymbals, bells, and
other instruments brought back from the East by the crusaders. It is a
goodly and at the same time an anxious sight to behold so many gallant
champions, mounted bravely and armed richly, awaiting the signal of
encounter with the same ardor as their generous steeds, neighing and
pawing the ground. The knights hold their long lances upright, their
bright points glancing in the sun, and the streamers with which they
are decorated fluttering over the plumage of their helmets. All is
ready; the heralds make proclamation of the conditions of the tourney;
the marshals of the field proclaim; the trumpets sound; the signal
words, _Laissez aller_! [French for “Go!”] are shouted; spears drop to
a horizontal, spurs are sunk in the steeds, and fifty knights crash
together in full gallop. Anon the dust rises and the fight becomes
visible; we see half the knights dismounted, some not to rise, others
already on their feet fighting hand to hand with mace or ax amid a
struggling pile of disabled horses, wounded men, broken spears and
armor, the still mounted knights trampling and fighting with swords,
the crash of which on iron helmets and shields makes an infernal din,
over which roar the shouts of the champions, and the more excited
shouts of the crazed spectators, the shriller encouragement of ladies
and the clang of trumpets. The splendid armor is now defaced with dust
and blood; the gay plumage, shorn from the crests, drifts upon the
breeze like snowflakes; all the beautiful and graceful has disappeared,
and what remains ought only to awaken terror or compassion. But all,
including delicate and high bred ladies, cheer on the combatants; while
the heralds spur back and forth on the borders of the _melee_, crying,
“Fight on, brave knights! man dies, but glory lives—death is better
than defeat! Fight on! for bright eyes behold your deeds!”
Now, at length, the combatants have thinned out until only one knight
is left on one side to meet three powerful antagonists. It is fighting
in earnest now, and Prince John incites the three to the destruction
of the one whom he hates as a friend of the absent Richard. “The
Disinherited Knight” is sure to be overpowered. Suddenly a voice like
a trumpet-call sounds, “To the rescue!” and a horseman in black armor,
not yet seen in the fray, spurs like a thunderbolt on the three. One is
unhorsed in the shock; another is cut down by the sword, the last falls
under his horse helpless, and the tournament is ended.
Eight knights were killed, upwards of thirty wounded, several
disabled for life. This is known in history as the “Gentle and joyous
Passage-at-Arms of Ashby.” “Hearty in their sports,” were those old
knights. They were “chock full of fun.”
In the tumult of relieving the wounded, the knight of the black
armor disappeared, and could not be found to receive the chaplet of
honor. But a few minutes later there was a commotion in Prince John’s
pavilion. An unknown messenger had placed a letter in his hands; it
bears the signet of the arms of France; it is from his confederate,
Philip, and it reads: “_Take heed to yourself! the devil is loose!_”
“What does it mean?” asked the courtiers.
“It means Richard is free and in England! We have seen him. Let us
away!”
It was so. The ransom, partly raised from English loyalty and partly
pledged by Richard’s faithful friends, had been delivered to the
captors, and the plot of John and King Philip had failed. John fled to
Normandy, and was subsequently forgiven by his brother. “I will try
to forget my injuries as soon as John will forget my pardon,” said
Richard, sarcastically. This is the only case on record where Cœur de
Lion made the mistake of being too merciful. If he had disposed of
John, England would have been saved from its worst king, but possibly
might have missed the advantage of the great charter of rights at that
time. But Richard took swift vengeance on King Philip.
Richard had landed in England March 12, 1194. He remained only
two months, the rest of his reign, five years, being spent on the
continent “in his proper line of business”—fighting. The two months
were distinguished by two things: his extortion from his subjects,
and his famous visit in the disguise of an abbott to Robin Hood,
the merry outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Popular ballads have it that
Richard indulged in a little “fun” with the doughty outlaw, and was
badly worsted; while sober history has it that the lion-hearted
king’s method of raising money “combined the attributes of the tyrant
and the swindler.[B]” England had already been impoverished by the
enormous taxes to raise the king’s ransom, and his return was the
signal for fresh exactions. He ordered the great seal to be broken,
declared the title to all property void, and required everybody to
take out new deeds and pay the price over again for the affixing of
the new seal. Ah, yes; “life was earnest in those days, stormy in its
ambition, hearty in its sports,” and we ought to add, rascally in its
administration. Government is gentler and more refined now—is it more
honest?
The manner of Richard’s death was in as marked contrast to the heroic
character which poetry and romance have given him, as were his capture,
captivity and deliverance. He was killed in Normandy in a sordid
quarrel for the possession of a pot of money which one of his knights
had found concealed in his castle—very much as if Alexander the Great
had met his death in a gambling-house row over the stakes.
The vulgar and repulsive features of Richard Cœur de Lion’s career
did not detract at all from his character as a hero in the days
of chivalry. Indeed, the minstrels sang admiringly of Richard’s
atrocities: of how he supped gayly on a fat Saracen baby when he could
not get roast pig; and caused a Saracen’s head to be roasted and served
up to the courtly ambassadors of Saladin; and butchered his prisoners
by the thousands. If the troubadours do not truly set forth Richard’s
achievements, they truly mirror the spirit of chivalry in the imputed
attributes of its most perfect champion. Comparing the character of
this lion-hearted Plantagenet, as thus reflected, with that of Robin
Hood, the Saxon hero, as pictured in the popular ballads, we must
feel that the common people’s idea of manliness and virtue, though
personified in a bandit, was higher than that of the Norman chivalry,
and we justify Knight in saying:
“The outlaw had the same attributes of bravery and
generosity with which the character of Richard the Lion
Hearted has been invested, without exhibiting those
ferocious traits which belong to the chivalric worship of
mere brute courage and blind fanaticism. The popular notion
of a hero is the more refined one, although Robin be merely
‘a good yeoman.’”
“So curtyous an outlawe as he was one
Was never none yfounde.”
[To be continued.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] “Ivanhoe,” chapter vii.
[B] Knight.
STUDIES IN ANCIENT GREEK LIFE.
By J. P. MAHAFFY, A.M.
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE GREEK HOUSEHOLD.—While the citizen prized
above all things his liberty and his rights as a member of the state—a
feeling which produced in many cases a citizen democracy—this principle
was unknown within the household, in which he was a despot, ruling
absolutely the inferior members, who had no legal grades except as
distinguished into free and slaves. The laws were very cautious about
interfering with his rights, and he was permitted to exercise much
injustice and cruelty without being punished. If in such a case he was
murdered by his dependants, the whole household of slaves was put to
death, unless the culprit was detected. Nor could a household exist
(except perhaps in Sparta) without the master. If he died, his widow
became again the ward of her father or eldest brother, or son; and so
strongly was this sometimes felt that men on their death-beds betrothed
their wives to friends, who were likely to treat them and their orphan
children with kindness. Of course clever women and servants often
practically had their own way, and ruled their lord or master; but the
theory of the Greek home was nevertheless always that of an absolute
monarchy, if not a despotism.
THE LADY OF THE HOUSE—HER DRESS.—There were two distinct styles of
female dress prevalent. The first was the Dorian, which was noted for
its simplicity. Unmarried girls at Sparta often wore but a single light
garment (_chitonion_) fastened with clasps down the sides—a dress
much criticized by their neighbors. Over this was the Doric _peplos_,
fastened on the shoulders with clasps and leaving the arms bare. The
Ionians wore a long linen chiton with sleeves, which reached down
to the ground, and over it a large flowing wrapper, fastened with a
girdle, worn high or low according to fashion; whereas the other band
called _strophion_ was worn under the _chiton_, and took the place
of modern stays. As a general rule, unmarried women confined their
hairdressing to mere artistic arrangement of the hair itself, while
married women wore bands, fillets, nets, and coronets. Dyeing the hair
was not uncommon, and the fashionable color was auburn, or reddish
fair hair. Women’s shoes were very carefully made, and they carried
fans and parasols, as may be seen in the terra-cotta figures so common
in our museums. Both sexes wore rings, but in addition the women wore
earrings, armlets, and ankle-rings, generally of gold. These were the
ornaments against which lawgivers made enactments, and which were
forbidden or discouraged in days of trouble or poverty. The ornaments
of one rich lady are spoken of as worth 50 minæ (about £195), a very
large sum in those days. The ordinary color of women’s dress was white,
but saffron cloaks, and even flowered patterns, are mentioned.
HER DUTIES.—The constant outdoor life of the Greek gentleman, his
many occupations in politics, and campaigns in war, must have made a
sensible wife even more necessary than she is to modern men, and yet
we do not find that any Greeks valued her high qualities for these
important duties rightly except the Spartans. For among them alone we
find the mistress of the house a person of real importance, appearing
when she chooses in public, and even offering an opinion which is
respected on public affairs. In cultivated Athens, on the contrary,
she was only taught spinning and cooking, and what rude medicine
might be wanting for the treatment of her household in trifling
illness. One of her main duties was always the weighing out of wool
to her women slaves, and her own working at the loom. If a lady of
the higher classes, she was not supposed to appear to male visitors,
but only saw her lady friends and her nearest male relatives in her
own house. She seldom went out, except either to the funeral of a
near relation or to some religious procession and sacrifice. Thus the
liberty of women varied from a freedom as great as need be in Sparta
to a life of seclusion and neglect at Athens. Other states may have
held an intermediate position. As for the vaunted dignity and liberty
of ladies in Homer, it is to be remarked that he speaks of the wives
and daughters of reigning princes, who probably retained the same
importance in historical Greece, wherever they were to be found. For
example, aristocratic ladies, such as Cimon’s sister, Elpinice, were
unrestrained, even at Athens, and went where they chose. This was
also the case everywhere with the poor people, who could not afford
to keep their wives and daughters in the idleness and the restraint
unfortunately so fashionable in higher life.
HER RIGHTS.—In Homeric days we find the old barbarous custom still
surviving of buying a girl from her father for a wife, and this was
commonly done, unless the father himself offered her as a compliment.
The father, however, usually gave her an outfit from the price he
received for her. In case of a separation this outfit came back to the
father, but he was also obliged to restore the price he had received
for his daughter. She does not appear to have had any legal rights
whatever. In later days the custom of paying money was reversed, and
the husband received with his wife a dowry, which was regarded as
common property with his own, so long as she lived with him. In case
of separation or divorce, this dowry had to be repaid to her father,
and at Athens 18 per cent. was charged upon it in case of delay in
repayment. In many states to marry a second wife during the life of
the first was against the practice, and probably the law, of the
Greeks, but concubinage was tolerated and even recognized by them,
though a married woman had at Athens a right to bring an action for
general ill-treatment against her husband, in which she was obliged
to appear and give evidence in person. The dowry seems to have been
partly intended as a useful obstacle to divorce, which required its
repayment, but we find that heiresses made themselves troublesome by
their airs of importance, and this is referred to in Greek literature,
in which men are frequently advised not to marry above them in wealth
or connections. As all citizens were considered equal in birth, and as
marriages with aliens were illegal and void, we do not hear of advice
to young men not to marry beneath them. To marry a poor citizen girl
was always considered a good deed, and is commended as such.
WEDDING CUSTOMS.—Though marriage among the Greeks was recognized
thoroughly as a civil contract, for the purpose of maintaining the
household, and raising citizens for the state, yet a religious
solemnity was considered by them not less essential to its dignity
than by us, and though this ceremony was not performed by an official
priest, it consisted in prayers and offerings to the gods who presided
over marriage. These were generally Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and Artemis,
but many local fashions existed. So also the full moon and the winter
season were generally but not everywhere preferred. A bath in the
most sacred water of the district was thought necessary before the
union, by way of purification. Omens were carefully observed, and
votive offerings dedicated to the gods. The preliminaries closed
with a solemn sacrifice and feast combined, at which the bride was
present, closely veiled, with her female friends. This was often
a large dinner party, for we find laws restricting the number to
thirty, and complaints of the bad taste of much display. She was then
brought in solemn procession late in the evening to her husband’s
house, generally on a carriage, with the bridegroom and his best man
sitting on either side of her. Both were covered with garlands and
perfumed, while the Hymenæus or marriage song was sung by the company
to the sound of harps and flutes. The bride’s mother had the special
duty of carrying a torch behind the carriage, while the bridegroom’s
mother received them torch in hand at his door. The bride brought
with her some household utensils, and was presented with others, and
with sweetmeats, on her arrival. The next morning the married pair
separated for a day (_apaulia_), and the bridegroom slept at the
house of his father-in-law, when the bride sent him a present of a
garment. Then only the young couple were to receive their friends,
who offered congratulations and wedding-presents, which were called
_anakalupteria_, because the bride unveiled herself to her friends
on that day. Such were the general customs of a Greek marriage, but
many old and rude habits survived in various places. Of these the most
primitive was that of Sparta, where the bridegroom pretended to carry
off his bride by violence, and visited her secretly for some time even
after his marriage. This marriage by capture is still common among
savages, and points to a ruder state of life than the marriage by
purchase, which was common in Homer’s time.
OF THE BIRTH AND TREATMENT OF INFANTS.—When a child was born in the
house, it was usual in Attica, and probably elsewhere also, to hang a
wreath of olive in case of a boy, a fillet of wool in case of a girl,
over the door. This served as an announcement to friends and neighbors.
Greek law permitted the parents absolutely to dispose of it as their
property, and there was no provision against exposing it, which was
often done in case of girls, in order to avoid expense. These exposed
children if found and brought up, became the slaves of the finder.
But on the other hand, the laws showed special favor to the parents
of large families. If a child was not exposed, there followed on the
fifth day a solemn purification of all the people in the house, and on
the seventh a sacrifice, when the relations assembled and the child
was named, generally after parents and grand-parents, sometimes by
reason of special wants or fancies—in fact on the same principles which
we follow in christening our children. There is no evidence until
the later Macedonian times that birthday feasts were held yearly;
and Epicurus’ direction that his should be kept after his death was
thought very peculiar. Children of rich people were often nursed by
hired nurses—an employment to which respectable Athenian citizens were
reduced in the hard times at the end of the Peloponnesian war. But a
Lacedæmonian nurse was specially valued, and often bought at a great
price among prisoners, as they were famed for bringing up the child
without swaddling-clothes, and making him hardy and courageous. The
Greeks used cradles for children as we do, and gave them honey as we do
sugar, and the nurses represented on the vases are distinguished by a
peculiar kerchief on the head, as they often are in our day by a cap or
national costume.
OF TOYS AND GAMES FOR CHILDREN.—As might be expected, the inventive
genius of the Greeks showed itself in the constructing of all manner
of toys, and children devised for themselves perhaps all the games now
known and many more besides. Aristotle says you must provide them with
toys, or they will break things in the house, and the older philosopher
Archytas was celebrated for inventing the child’s rattle. Plato also
complains of the perpetual roaring of younger, and the mischievousness
of older, children. We may infer from these things that the Greek boys
were fully as troublesome as our own. They had balls, hoops, swings,
hobbyhorses, and dice, with dolls for the girls, and various animals of
wood and earthenware, like the contents of our Noah’s arks. They played
hide and seek, blind man’s buff, French and English, hunt the slipper,
the Italian _morra_, and many other games which the scholiasts and
Germans have in vain endeavored to explain. But for grown people, we
do not find many games, properly speaking, played for the game’s sake,
like our cricket. There was very simple ball-playing, and, of course,
gambling with dice. Of gymnastic exercises I will speak separately.
GREEK EDUCATION GENERALLY.—As for the girls of the house, they were
brought up to see and hear as little as possible. They only went out
upon a few state occasions, and knew how to work wool and weave, as
well as to cook. We may fairly infer that the great majority of them
could not read or write. The boys, on the contrary, were subjected to
the most careful education, and on no point did the Greek law-givers
and philosophers spend more care than in the proper training, both
physical and mental, of their citizens. The modern system, however, of
public school training was not practiced anywhere save at Sparta, where
a state schoolmaster (_paidonomos_) was appointed, and all the Spartan
boys taken out of the control of their parents. They lived together
under the care of elder boys, as well as masters, so that the system of
monitors, and even that of fagging, was in ordinary practice. They were
encouraged to fight out their disputes, and were much given to sports
and athletic amusements, just like our schoolboys. But the public
school training and discipline lasted much longer at Sparta than among
us, and embraced the university period, as well as the school period,
of life.
In the other states of Greece, which were chiefly towns, or suburbs
of towns, the system of day schools was universal, and the boys went
to and from home under the charge of a special slave, chosen because
he was no longer fit for hard work. He was called the boy’s leader,
or pedagogue (_paidagogos_), a word which never meant schoolmaster
among the Greeks, though it is so rendered in our English Bible (Gal.
iii. 24). The discipline of boys was severe, and they were constantly
watched and repressed, nor were they allowed to frequent the crowded
market place. Corporal punishment was commonly applied to them, and
the quality most esteemed in boys was a blushing shyness and modesty,
hardly equalled by the girls of our time. Nevertheless Plato speaks
of the younger boys as the most sharp-witted, insubordinate, and
unmanageable of animals.
OF SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.—It does not seem that the office of
schoolmaster was thought very honorable, except of course in Sparta,
where he was a sort of Minister of Education. It was, as with us, a
matter of private speculation, but controlled by police regulations
that the school should open and close with sunrise and sunset and
that no grown men should be allowed to go in and loiter there. The
infant-school teachers, who merely taught children their letters
(_grammatodidaskolos_), were of a low class in society, sometimes even
teaching in open air, like the old hedge schoolmasters in Ireland.
The more advanced teaching of reading and writing was done by the
_grammatikos_, whose house was called, like that of philosophers and
rhetoricians, _schole_, a place of leisure. For the physical and the
æsthetic side we have still to mention the trainer (_paidotribes_)
and the teacher of music (_kitharistes_), the former of whom taught
in the palæstra the exercises and sports afterward carried on by the
full-grown citizens in the gymnasia, which were a feature in all Greek
towns. The teachers of riper youth stood in social position above the
mere teachers of letters, but beneath the professors of rhetoric and
philosophy (sophists). These latter performed the functions of college
tutors at our universities, and completed the literary side of Greek
education. The fees paid to the various teachers were in proportion
to their social importance. Some of the sophists made great fortunes,
and exacted very high fees; the mere schoolmasters are spoken of as
receiving a miserable pittance.
OF WHAT THEY TAUGHT.—The Greeks never thought of making foreign
languages a matter of study, and contented themselves with learning
to read and write their own. In so doing the schoolmasters used as
text-books the works of celebrated epic or elegiac poets, above all
Homer, and then the proverbial philosophy of Hesiod, Solon, Phocylides,
and others, so that the Greek boy read the great classics of his
language at an early age. He was required to learn much of them by
heart, especially when books were scarce; and his teacher pointed out
the moral lessons either professedly or accidentally contained in
these poets. Thus they stood in the place of our Bible and hymns in
education. All this was _grammatike_, which with music and gymnastics,
made up the general education of the Greeks. It excluded the elementary
arithmetic of our “three R’s,” and included what they do not, a
gentlemanly cultivation in music and field sports. It is very doubtful
whether swimming was included, though Herodotus speaks of the Greeks
generally as being able to swim. There is, however, evidence that
from the fourth century B. C. onwards both elementary geometry and
arithmetic, and also drawing, were ordinarily taught.
As regards music every Greek boy (like modern young ladies) either had
or was supposed to have a musical ear, and he was accordingly taught
either the harp or the flute, and with it singing. Here again the
lyric poems of the greatest poets were taught him, and the Greek music
always laid the greatest stress on the words. Aristotle and others
complain that amateurs were spending too much time on the practising of
difficult music, and we know from the musical treatises preserved to
us that the Greeks thought and taught a great deal more about musical
theory and the laws of sound than we do. The Greek tunes preserved are
not pleasing, but we know that they used the strictest and most subtle
principles in tuning instruments, and understood harmony and discord as
well as we do. Great Athenians, like Cimon, were often able to sing and
accompany themselves on the harp, or lyre as we should rather call it.
The Greeks laid great stress on the moral effects of music, especially
as regards the performer, and were very severe in their censure of
certain styles of music. They distinguished their scales as _modes_,
and are said to have put far greater stress on keys than we do, calling
some manly and warlike (Dorian), others weak and effeminate, or even
immoral (Mixo-Lydian). The modern Chinese have the same beliefs about
the moral effects of music. The Greeks had their keynote in the middle
of the scale, and used chiefly the minor scale of our music. They had
different names and signs for the notes of the various octaves which
they used, and also different signs for vocal and for instrumental
music.
GYMNASTICS.—Among the various exercises taught were those in fashion
in the public contests in the games—throwing the discus, running, and
wrestling, and those of use in war—throwing the dart, managing the
sword and shield, and riding. Boxing was not highly esteemed, and
seems not to have been properly understood by the Greeks, who would
have had no chance against an English prize-fighter. The severest
contest was the _pancration_, where the combatants, who were naked
and unarmed, were allowed to use any violence they liked to overcome
their adversary. It was therefore a combination of boxing, wrestling,
and kicking, with occasional biting and gouging by way of additional
resource. We hear of a wonderful jumping feat by Phayllus of Croton,
who leaped forty-four feet; but as he probably jumped down-hill, and
used artificial aids, we can not be sure that it was more than can
be done now-a-days. The Spartans specially forbad boxing and the
pancration, because the vanquished was obliged to confess his defeat
and feel ashamed; and they did not tolerate professional trainers. All
the special exercises for developing muscle practised in our gymnasia
seem to have been known, and they were all practised naked, as being
sunburnt was highly valued. The Greeks smeared themselves first with
oil and then with sand before their exercises, and cleaned themselves
with a scraper or _strigil_, or in later days by taking a bath.
CUSTOMS ON COMING OF AGE.—Most Greek states seem to have wished to
free young men as soon as possible from the control of their parents.
Hence, having passed the age of boyhood, when they were called children
(_paides_), they were made _epheboi_, or “men of age,” at the age of
sixteen or eighteen, when they were enrolled solemnly in the list of
citizens. This was done at Athens with a religious service, and with a
solemn oath on the part of the youth, who declared his allegiance to
the laws and to the religion of his city, and promised to defend it
against all enemies and seditions. He was then enrolled on the list
of his deme or parish, and this roll was called _the lexiarchikon
grammateion_. He was then competent to join in debate at the assembly,
to plead in court, to marry, and perform all the duties of citizenship.
It is not clear how he stood as regards his father, except that, if
the latter became unable to manage his affairs, the son could have him
so declared by an action in court, and so become the owner during his
father’s life. Before the young men settled down, they were employed
for two years in outlying garrison duty and in patrolling the frontiers
of the land, during which time they were called _peripoloi_. This gave
them the necessary training for war, and made them acquainted with the
bounds of their country. Many remains of these frontier forts which
were once garrisoned by the youth of Athens still survive in Attica.
THE SERVANTS OF THE HOUSE.—These were of course slaves, with the
exception of some field laborers, and of nurses in times of depression
and distress, when some free women went out for hire. To these cases
we may add the cook, who was not an inmate of the house before the
Macedonian time, but was hired for the day when wanted for a dinner
party. All the rest were slaves, and were very numerous in every
respectable household. The principal sorts of servants were as follows:
There was a general steward, a butler who had charge of the store-room
and cellar, a marketing slave, a porter, baking and cooking slaves for
preparing the daily meals, an attendant upon the master in his walks,
and this was an indispensable servant, a nurse, an escort for the
children, and a lady’s maid. In richer houses there was also a groom
or mule-boy. This list shows a sub-division of labor more like the
habits of our East-Indian families than those of ordinary households
in England. I have spoken above of the purchasing and value of these
slaves. If faithful, they were often made free, especially by the will
of their master on his death-bed, but they did not become citizens.
They remained in the position of resident aliens under the patronage of
their former master or his representatives.
In proportion as the free population of Greece diminished the freeing
of slaves became more and more common, until it actually appears to
have been the leading feature in the life of the small towns. Thousands
of inscriptions recording this setting free of individual slaves are
still found, and on so many various stones, even tombstones, that it
almost appears as if material for recording had failed them by reason
of the quantity of these documents. The same increase of liberation was
a leading feature in the Roman empire, but there the freedman obtained
the right and position of a citizen, which was not the case in Greece.
The most enlightened moralists of both countries exhorted benevolence
toward slaves, and the frequent freeing of them as the duty of humane
masters, but none of these writers ever dreamt of the total abolishing
of slavery, which they all held to be an institution ordained by
nature. This seems also the view of the early Christian writers, who
nowhere condemn the principle of slavery as such.
THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS.—These were first the horses and mules, which do
not seem to have been treated with any great familiarity, but were
carefully groomed, and after exercise were allowed to roll in sand
before being brought in—a treatment still common in southern Italy,
where the old Greek fashion of driving four-in-hand abreast also
prevails. The two center horses were yoked to the pole, the others were
fastened by loose traces, and called _paraseiroi_ (outriggers). The
commonest and most valued domestic animal was the dog, which maintains
a very important place in Greek society up to the present day. There
were various kinds of breeds for hunting, chosen both for nose and for
speed; there were watch-dogs; and also ornamental kinds, such as little
lap-dogs, which are represented in the sad scenes of leave-taking on
the tombs. Many anecdotes are told of their faithfulness, and we hear
of at least one case where a handsome dog, which belonged to Alcibiades
cost about 70_l._ Cats were also common, so common as to be charged
with the breaking of household ware by guilty servants, and they are
often described as wandering along the roofs of houses. Sundry birds
were kept in cages, and for ornament, such as pheasants and peacocks;
the quail was used for combats corresponding to English cock fights.
CUSTOMS OF BURIAL.—I will conclude our consideration of the Greek
household by describing the customs when death laid its hand upon one
of the inmates.
At the moment of the death struggle the face was veiled, that no man
might see it; then it was uncovered for a moment to close his eyes
and mouth. The body was then washed by female relatives, scented
with unguents, dressed in white and with a garland, and placed upon
a couch adorned with branches, and with an unguent bottle beside it.
This laying out was done in the entrance hall of the house and the
feet were turned to the door. Outside was a cypress branch and water
for sprinkling those who came out, as the dead defiled the house and
its inmates. The laying out was limited to one day, during which both
male and female relatives, together with hired mourners, stood round
the bier, and uttered laments in refrain very like the _Irish cry_ of
our day. This almost universal custom in Asia was discountenanced and
restricted by Greek law-givers, especially the tearing of the hair and
laceration of the face which accompanied it. Burial took place in the
morning dawn, before the sun could shine upon the corpse; in later days
a small coin was placed in his mouth to pay his passage in the nether
world—a custom which still survives in some parts of Greece. In the
funeral procession the male relatives went before, the female followed
after, and in Athens and other places where women lived secluded, only
aged women and near relatives were allowed to attend, as young men
took this opportunity of seeing the ladies, who were at other times
invisible. When the dead was laid in the tomb, he was called by name
aloud, and farewell was bidden him. There was afterward a funeral
feast, and offerings at the tomb, but the time of mourning and of
wearing black or gray garments was short; in Sparta twelve days, at
Athens a month; at Ceos, exceptionally, a mother mourned her growing
son for a whole year. Praising speeches were not delivered over private
persons as at Rome, but only in the case of a public funeral, such as
that of the bones of the dead who had fallen in battle, and were burned
on the battle field. These ashes were brought home in urns, and treated
as the corpses of the dead would have been at home. The burning of the
dead, though known early, and often practiced in war and travel, was
decidedly the exception. To cast earth upon the dead was of the last
importance, and even when the body could not be found an empty grave
received the due honors.
SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.—In the oldest times the dead were buried in their
own ground, and close beside the house they had occupied. Afterward
the burying of the dead within the walls of cities was forbidden
except in the case of great public benefactors, who were worshipped
as heroes and had a shrine set over them. The rest were buried in the
fairest and most populous suburb, generally along both sides of the
high road, as at Athens and at Syracuse, where their tombs and the
inscriptions occupied the attention of everyone that passed by. The
oldest and rudest monuments placed over the tomb were great mounds of
earth, then these mounds came to be surrounded by a circle of great
stones; afterward chambers were cut underground in the earth or rock,
and family vaults established. Handsome monuments in marble, richly
painted and covered with sculpture, were set up over the spot. These
monuments sometimes attained a size almost as great as a temple. The
scenes sculptured on the marble were from the life and occupation of
the deceased, more often parting scenes, where they were represented
taking leave of their family and friends, nor do we possess any more
beautiful and touching remains of Greek life than some of these tombs.
In the chamber of the dead many little presents, terra-cotta figures,
trinkets and vases were placed, nay, in early times favorite animals,
and even slaves or captives were sacrificed in order to be with him;
for the Greeks believed that though the parting with the dead was for
ever, he still continued to exist, and to interest himself in human
affairs and in pursuits like those of living men. The crowded suburbs
where the tombs were placed were generally ornamented with trees and
flowers, and were a favorite resort of the citizens. The dead bodies
of executed criminals were either given back to their relatives or,
in extreme cases, cast into a special place, generally some natural
ravine or valley hidden from view and ordinary thoroughfare. Here the
executioner dwelt, who was generally a public slave. This place was
called _barathrum_ at Athens, and _Ceadas_ at Sparta.
A GLINT OF MOONLIGHT.
By I. L. COSHAM.
It was the time when Lenten lilies bloom,
And buds are new upon the blackthorn tree;
And I, alone in weariness and gloom,
Gazed far across the sea.
Alone I watched the cheerless daylight wane,
And heard the ocean-murmurs swell and rise;
Sharp on the window smote the gusty rain,
And darker grew the skies.
Old love-tones mocked me in the moaning tide,
And phantom faces rose upon the dark;
The ocean rolled beneath me, black and wide,
Without one beacon-spark.
I had no hope—I had no comfort left,
My soul went out in wailing to the night;
When lo, that sable sky was swiftly cleft
By one pure shaft of light!
A glint of moonlight, silver-bright and clear,
Shone on a tossing bark amid the foam;
And struggling sailors, worn with toil and fear,
Beheld the shores of home.
The summer brought me back the love of old,
My autumn days were rich with corn and wine;
Ah me, what joy the moonlight beam foretold,
In that dark hour of mine!
But when the golden lilies are in bloom
My heart looks backward, and I pause to pray
That others, watching lonely in the gloom,
May see that silver ray.
SUNDAY READINGS.
SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
[_December 3._]
HAVING, DOING, AND BEING.
By JAMES MARTINEAU.
Some men are eminent for what they _possess_; some for what they
_achieve_; others for what they _are_. _Having, doing, and being_,
constitute the three great distinctions of mankind, and the three great
functions of their life. And though they are necessarily all blended,
more or less, in each individual, it is seldom difficult to say which
of them is prominent in the impression left upon us by our fellow man.
In every society, and especially in a country like our own, there are
those who derive their chief characteristic from what they _have_;
who are always spoken of in terms of revenue; and of whom you would
not be likely to think much, but for the large account that stands on
the world’s ledger in their name. In themselves, detached from their
favorite sphere, you would notice nothing wise or winning. At home,
possibly, a dry and withered heart; among associates a selfish and
mistrustful talk; in the council, a style of low ignoble sentiments;
at church, a formal, perhaps an irreverent, dullness betray a barren
nature, and offer you only points of repulsion, so far as humanities
are concerned; and you are amazed to think that you are looking on
the idols of the exchange. Their greatness comes out in the affairs
of bargain and sale, to which their faculties seem fairly apprenticed
for life. If they speak of the past, it is in memory of its losses and
its gains; if of the future, it is to anticipate its incomings and
investments. The whole chronology of their life is divided according
to the stages of their fortunes, and the progress of their dignities.
Their children are interesting to them principally as their heirs; and
the making of their will fulfils their main conception of being ready
for their death. And so completely do they paint the grand idea of
their life on the imagination of all who know them, that when they die,
the mammon-image can not be removed, and it is the fate of the money,
not of the man, of which we are most apt to think. Having put vast
prizes in the funds, but only unprofitable blanks in the admiration
and the hearts of us, they leave behind nothing but their _property_;
or, as is expressively termed, their “_effects_,”—the thing which they
caused, the main result of their having been alive. How plain is it
that we regard them merely as _instruments of acquisition_; centers of
attraction for the drifting of capital; that they are important only
as indications of commodities; and that their human personality hangs
as a mere label upon a mass of treasure! Every one must have met with
a few instances in which this character is realized, and with many in
which, notwithstanding the relief of some redeeming and delightful
features, it is at least approached. In proportion as this aim, of
possession, is taken to be paramount in life, length of days must, no
doubt, be deemed indispensable to the human destination. The longer a
man lies out at interest, the greater must be the accumulation. If he
is unexpectedly recalled, every end which he suggested is disappointed;
the only thing he seemed fit for can not go on; he is a power lost from
this sphere, and incapacity thrust upon the other; missed from the
markets here, thrown away among sainted spirits there. For himself, and
for both worlds, the event seems deplorable enough; and it is difficult
to make anything but confusion out of it. An imagination tacitly filled
with this conception of life as a stage prepared for enjoyment and
possession, must look on a term that is unfulfilled, as on a broken
tool, dropping in failure to the earth.
Of those who have thus lived to accumulate and enjoy, _history_ is
for the most part silent, having in truth nothing to say. Not doing
the work, or joining in the worship of life, but only feasting at its
table, they break up and drive off into oblivion as soon as the lights
are out and the wine is spilt. Belonging entirely to the present, they
never appear in the past; but sink with the weight of wealth in the
dark gulf;—unless perchance some Crœsus the rich is fortunate enough
to fall into association with Solon the wise. There are no historical
materials in simple animal existence, nor is the mere sentient being of
a man, considered as the successful study of comfort, and receptacle of
happiness.
History is constructed by a second or nobler class, those who prove
themselves to be here, not that they may have, but that they may _do_;
to whom life is a glorious hour; and who are so seen not to work that
they may rest, but only to rest that they may work. No sooner do they
look around them with the open eye of reason and faith, upon the great
field of the world, than they perceive that it must be for them a
battle-field; and they break up the tents of ease, and advance to the
dangers of lonely enterprise and the conflict with splendid wrong.
Strong in the persuasion that this is a God’s world, and that his will
must rule it by royal right, they serve in the severe campaign of
justice; asking only for the wages of life, and scorning the prizes
of spoil and praise. Wherever you find such, whether in the field,
in the senate, or in private life, you see the genuine type of the
heroic character,—the clear mind, the noble heart, indomitable will,
pledged all to some arduous and unselfish task; and whether it be the
achievement, with Cobden, of freedom of pacific commerce between land
and land; or, with Clarkson, of freedom of person between man and man;
or, with Cromwell, of freedom of worship between earth and heaven;
the essential feature is in all instances the same; the man holds
himself as the mere instrument of some social work; commits himself
in full allegiance to it; and spends himself wholly in it. They “have
a baptism to be baptized with; and how are they straitened, till it
be accomplished!” During the glorious conflict of such lives it is
impossible not to look on with breathless interest. Once possessed of
their great design, we watch its development with eager eye and beating
heart. And if, early in the day, they are struck down, we clasp our
hands in sudden anguish, and a cry goes up that the field is lost. And
though this despair is a momentary loss of the true faith; though God
never fails to rally the forces of every good cause that has mustered
for battle on the earth; yet, no doubt, the victory in such a case is
deferred; the plan is broken off; the painful sense of a suspended
work, that might have been finished, remains upon survivors’ hearts. On
behalf of the noble actors themselves, indeed, we have no embarrassment
of faith; there is that within them which may well find a home in more
worlds than one, and meet a welcome wherever Almighty Justice reigns.
We are not ashamed, as with the man of mere possession, to follow them
into the higher transitions of their being, and knock for them at
the gate of better spheres. But there appears something untimely and
deplorable in the providence of the world they quit. The fruit has not
been permitted to ripen ere it dropped. The great function of their
life required time for its fulfilment; and time has been denied. Their
beneficent action was wholly through the energies of their living will;
and these energies are laid for us in unseasonable sleep. And thus,
while we are ashamed at the grave of the epicurean, we weep over the
departure of the hero.
But there is a life higher than either of these. The _saintly_ is
beyond the heroic mind. To _get_ good, is animal; to _do_ good, is
human; to _be_ good is divine. The true use of a man’s possessions
is to help his work; and the best end of all his work, is to show us
what he is. The noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing so
great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever so glorious,
is historical and transient; the majesty of their spirit is essential
and eternal. When the external conditions which supplied the matter
of their work have wholly decayed from the surface of the earth, and
become absorbed in its substance, the perennial root of their life
remains, bearing a blossom ever fair, and a foliage ever green. And
while to some, God gives it to show themselves through their work, to
others he assigns it to show themselves without even the opportunity
of work. He sends them transparent into this world; and leaves us
nothing to gather and infer. Goodness, beauty, truth, acquired by
others, are original to them, hiding behind the eye, thinking on the
brow, and making music in the voice. The angels appointed to guard the
issues of the pure life seem rather to have taken their station at its
fountains, and to pour into it a sanctity at first. Such beings live
imply _to express themselves_; stand between heaven and earth, and
meditate for our dull hearts. With fewer outward objects than others,
or at least with a less limited practical mission devoting them to
a fixed task, their life is a soliloquy of love and aspiration; the
soul not being with them, the servant of action, but action rather the
needful articulation of the soul. Not, of course, that they are, in the
slightest degree, exempt from the stern and positive obligations of
duty, or licensed, any more than others, to dream existence away. If
once they fall into this snare, and cease to work, the lineaments of
beauty and goodness are exchanged for those of shame and grief. Usually
they do not _less_, but rather _more_, than others; only under somewhat
sorrowful conditions, having spirits prepared for what is more than
human, and being obliged to move within limits that are only human. The
worth of such a life depends little on its _quantity_; it is an affair
of _quality_ alone. These highest ends of existence have but slight
relation to time. Years can not mellow the love already ripe, or purify
the perceptions already clear, or lift the aspiration that already
enters heaven.
GROWING.
By F. R. HAVERGAL.
Unto him that hath, thou givest
Ever “more abundantly.”
Lord, I live because thou livest,
Therefore give more life to me;
Therefore speed me in the race;
Therefore let me grow in grace.
Deepen all thy work, O Master,
Strengthen every downward root,
Only do thou ripen faster,
More and more, thy pleasant fruit.
Purge me, prune me, self abase,
Only let me grow in grace.
Jesus, grace for grace outpouring,
Show me ever greater things;
Raise me higher, sunward soaring,
Mounting as on eagle wings.
By the brightness of thy face,
Jesus, let me grow in grace.
Let me grow by sun and shower,
Every moment water me;
Make me really hour by hour
More and more conformed to thee,
That thy loving eye may trace,
Day by day, my growth in grace.
Let me, then, be always growing,
Never, never standing still;
Listening, learning, better knowing
Thee and thy most bless’d will.
Till I reach thy holy place,
Daily let me grow in grace.
[_December 10._]
THE GOODNESS OF A GOOD MAN.
By ALEXANDER McLAREN, D. D.
“He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of
faith.”—Acts xi: 24.
You remember how once a young man came to Jesus, with much beautiful
youthful purity in his life and youthful enthusiasm in his heart, and
in his eager way, prefaced his question with a lightly-uttered “Good
Master.” Christ answered by trying to make him feel how much more the
word meant than he had ever seen. “Why callest thou me good?” said
he, not thereby rejecting the term for himself, but setting the youth
to ponder its deep meaning. And whenever we have learned to feel
“how awful goodness is,” we shall be ready to listen to Jesus saying
further: “None is good but one, that is God.” By that saying he neither
means to deny his own goodness nor that of men who will take up their
cross and follow him, but only to remind the light-hearted inquirer,
who was so ready with his conventional bestowment of the epithet, and
so eager to know what he was to do for eternal life, that there was one
source—and only one—-of goodness, and, therefore, that the only way to
be good was to have our emptiness replenished by his fullness.
A good man, then, is a man who draws his goodness from God, the
source of all goodness. He himself is the type of all perfection, the
home of all things fair. Whatsoever things are lovely and whatsoever
things are venerable—all that we call virtue, all to which hearts and
consciences ascribe praise—dwell in God as in their native home. In
the abyss of his being the streams of goodness, which part into many
heads to fertilize the wilderness and sweeten the salt marshes of human
nature, rest undivided. He is the reality of which all our conceptions
of goodness are but the fragmentary representations, the substance
of which they are but shadows. Not only so, but as all life is an
effluence from him with whom alone is the fountain of life, and as it
is his light in which we see light, so all the goodness which is in
men is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Light. All light
and heat are from the sun, and all goodness is of God. All virtues are
radiations from him. “They are but broken lights of thee.” He alone is
good of himself and by himself. Drawing his being from none, he owes
his character to none, to no outward helps or occasions his actions,
to no importation his beauty. Receiving from none, he gives to all,
and every deed of fair goodness that man has ever done, at the last
analysis, has been to the doer no less than to the beholders or the
hearers the gift of God.
He would not be good unless he delighted in bestowing himself. Goodness
is communicative, and all love has its chiefest delight in giving
away itself. As the sun “rejoices to run his race,” and as it is the
very nature and property of light to radiate, and of gases to diffuse
themselves, so he can not be stayed nor sealed up, but rejoices to
impart. And, certainly, there can be nothing in God which he so much
delights to bestow as his goodness, since it is that in which most
chiefly do we bear his image, and by which we are most closely knit
to him. His highest purpose concerning us all is “that we should be
partakers of his holiness.” Happiness, wisdom, life itself, all in some
measure and fashion, offshoots from his own, he delights to give; but
these are but means to an end, and thus moral likeness to himself is
his aim in all his other gifts. God had rather have us good than great,
and makes us sometimes glad and sometimes heavy that by both we may be
made to desire, and so be able to receive, more resemblance to himself
in holiness. This is the meaning of life. This is the dearest desire of
our Father for us. This is the gift which he—the infinite love—is ever
longing to bestow on us.
This goodness, then, affords a presumption that he will make us good.
That is a profound word of the Psalmist’s “Good and upright is the
Lord; therefore will he teach sinners in the way.” The more clearly we
see the perfect purity and goodness of God, the more conscious shall
we certainly be of our own unlikeness to him. But in that discernment
of his lustrous perfectness, and penitent recognition of our own
sinfulness, there lies hope, not despair. We may be sure that he loves
us too well to keep such sovereign completeness to himself and leave
his poor children stumbling here in the mud and mire. What he is,
he assuredly will desire to make us, so far as it may be. He is the
“giving God” and the poorest and most impure of men may be sure that
God does desire to give him purity of heart and life, and may lift up
the hopeful and bold prayer, “Thy spirit is good, lead me into the land
of uprightness.”
Surely, too, it needs but little experience of life to feel that, if
we are ever to be made good, a divine power is needed to do it. A very
small amount of honest attempt to mend our own characters might teach
each of us that the viper has got far too tight a hold on us for us to
shake it into the fire, and that its poison is in our blood. If you
have ever tried to cure a bad habit, you know how hard it is; and some
of us could tell how the sins that we loathe most hold us in a grip
none the looser because of our disgust at them and ourselves, and,
like a reefer’s knot, their cords are tied the tighter by the pressure
of our resistance against them. It is as impossible for a man to make
himself good, in the deepest sense of the word, as it is for him to
lift himself by his own hand laid on his own collar. There must be some
power outside him to raise. God only can strengthen us to cast out sin.
God only can enlighten our eyes to see lurking evil; he only can give
energy to our wills to root it up, though we drag bleeding fragments
of our hearts with it; he only can give the positive goodness which is
more than mere freedom from evil, and fill the empty chamber with a
guest strong enough to keep out the returning demon and all his crew.
So his Holy Spirit is given to us, if we will, to make us holy. We may,
if we will, have that divine guest in our inmost spirit, molding us
anew, purging the fountains of our will, enlightening our blindness,
fixing our love on all things pure and high, burning up all our evil,
with which in our own strength we have vainly fought, and kindling in
us a flame of self-forgetting love, in which, as in the central fire
of the earth, all the elements of the new nature to be formed within
us are molten together, ready to crystallize into beauty like precious
gems, or to consolidate into strength like the granite mountains. Any
man may, if he will, be “full of the Holy Ghost”—as a vessel is filled
with precious elixir poured into it. Any man may, if he will, have his
whole nature influenced and inhabited by that mighty spirit of whom
we may all be the temples, and which dwells in us not as the image of
the god abides in the shrine, but as our spirits animate our bodies,
being diffused through all our nature, the eye of our seeing, the heart
of our love, the will of our resolve, and in all of us the source of
our goodness, and the life of our better life. “If any man have not
the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Let us remember that this
penetration of all our nature with a divine spirit dwelling within us
is _the_ promise of Christianity to every man. No mere love of God
the Father, even if it were brought to us in the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ would be enough without the communion of the Holy Ghost.
Calvary and Olivet are not sufficient for our victory over sin without
the upper room and the rushing mighty wind. And let us not forget that
the spirit thus given to all Christians is the spirit of illumination
indeed, the spirit of power, rich in his seven-fold energies, and the
source of every endowment of mind and hand and tongue and heart that
we possess, but that his highest and most universal office is to make
us good, and his best name the Holy Spirit. Let us court earnestly the
best gifts, but seek more earnestly still that gift which needs no
special capacity to receive nor any special circumstances to exercise,
but may be claimed by the poorest, and will ennoble the loftiest. Let
others seek for gifts; do you pray for graces. Let who will be great,
do you try to submit to the working of the good Spirit who makes you
good.
Our text carries the analysis a step farther, and shows us how Barnabas
came to be full of the Holy Ghost. It gives us the _condition of
goodness_. He was good because he was full of the spirit, and he was
full of the spirit because he was full of faith. That is the final
explanation of his character.
The spirit of God dwells in a man through his faith. One text speaks
of “the Holy Ghost which they that believe on him should receive,” and
everywhere similar language is held as to the connection between faith
and the dwelling of the spirit of goodness in our hearts. By the act
of trust in Christ, the Lord of the Spirit, we open our natures for
the entrance of the sanctifier, who ever waits to enter in. A man has
to shut his door and pull down his blinds to keep the light out. If we
open ever so minute a crevice, a beam will come in, and the wider we
open, the broader the stream that pours in. So in our simple faith, we
open the door and there pour into our hearts the quickening energies of
that good spirit. The amount of our faith measures the amount of our
possession of the Spirit who makes us good.
Thus faith becomes the condition of goodness, because it is the
condition of the Spirit of God dwelling in us. It brings us into
contact with the electric battery, completes the circuit, and as soon
as the circuit is completed the spark comes. It is also the condition
of goodness, because it implies self-oblivion and self-distrust, and is
the opposite of that self-regard which, as we have seen, is the root
of all evil. The germ of all holiness is in faith, not only because it
brings us under the operation of the divine power which makes holy, but
because it is itself the great antagonist of selfishness.
So Christian morality is the very opposite of the practical heathenism
which lies at the bottom of so much of the teaching of to-day. Trust
thyself, say many voices—it is the beginning of wisdom, strength,
freedom. Distrust thyself and trust Christ, says the Gospel—thereby
alone wilt thou be made pure and blessed. The Babel builders tried to
get up to the heavens by their own building. The Titans tried to storm
it by placing mountain on mountain, but “no man hath ascended up to
heaven.” Better for us to rise thither by that ladder which now binds
together heaven and earth, even Jesus Christ, our brother and our Lord,
by whom all bright-winged angels of help and cleansing will come to
minister to us purity and joy, and by whom we at last, perfected in
goodness, shall pass into that presence, of which the radiant purity
would blast all that had one taint of uncleanness.
Learn the conditions, then, on which you can be good. No goodness
without God’s Spirit—no Spirit without faith. You can not make yourself
better, can not hammer or pare your own nature into purity and
loveliness. But you can put your confidence in Jesus Christ, who will
take your nature into his hands and mold it into a fairest likeness to
himself. You can trust him, who will breathe into you his spirit to
make you holy. If my epitaph is ever to be, “He was a good man,” it
must first be said, “He was full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.” Let
us give up the weary, hopeless work of trying to make ourselves good,
and yield ourselves to him that he may make us like himself, and that
we may have a mightier power ever working in our natures till they are
full of beauty and “holy as God is holy.”
[_December 17._]
THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE.
By BISHOP EDWARD THOMSON, D. D., LL. D.
1. We can not escape difficulty. The air is tainted, the soil churlish,
the ocean tempest tossed. Whether we are in the field or in the
wilderness, on Persian plains or Alpine heights, amid equatorial heats,
or temperate climes, or polar solitudes, we are met by a thousand
obstacles. Earth is cursed, and everywhere she puts forth her thorn in
obedience to her Maker’s withering word. True, the curse is tempered
with the mercy which yields unnumbered blessings to the hand of toil;
nevertheless, it cleaves to all earth’s surface, and turns the key upon
her hidden treasures. We read of cloudless skies, and sunny climes, and
fields which need naught but the sickle; but who finds them? Paradise
is always ahead of the emigrant.
Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward; that is, by a general
law of nature. Hence we find it in want and abundance, in toil and
indolence, in indulgence and restraint, in infancy, in manhood, and in
age. It waits on every pleasure, and every path, and every pursuit—it
dwells within. We can no more escape it than we can fly existence.
Take a few illustrations. A young man resolves to be eminent. Entering
the academy, he finds many difficulties in algebra, and becoming
discouraged he gives it up; but has he liberated himself? No, he has
plunged from great to greater difficulties. How can he unlock the
vaults of mathematics without algebra, their only key? Does he abandon
mathematics, another difficulty seizes him. How can he become educated
without a knowledge of the exact sciences? Does he relinquish his aim
at scholarship? How then, can he carry out his resolution to become
eminent? Will he rescind his resolution? Then challenge him to tame
the restless passions by which it was prompted. Like the fabled ships
of the ancients, “_Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim_”—he
who endeavors to avoid Charybdis is drawn into the jaws of Scylla. How
many, because of difficulties in their pursuits, become idlers? But
who on earth has more trouble than the idler? A man becomes religious,
and enters the path of life; but he soon finds that the world opposes,
that his passions demur, that his secular plans come in conflict with
his religious efforts, that an invisible adversary stands in the path
to contend every inch of ground with him. He retreats. But now his
difficulties are ten thousand fold greater. He finds that an unseen
footstep treads upon his wandering heels, that an All-seeing eye
surveys his inmost soul, that an invisible hand writes his guilt in
characters indelible on all the objects around him. He must encounter
the stings of conscience, the upbraidings of reason, the admonitions
of the altar, the prayers of Zion, the cross of his dying Christ,
the intercession of his risen Jesus, the moving, mellowing, subduing
influences of the divine Spirit, the ten thousand warnings of a
merciful Providence, the unnumbered monitions of living, decaying,
dying, reviving nature, the very sympathies of heaven, yea, even the
moving entreaties of her compassionate king. The apostate deliberately
contends with conscience, reason, Providence, truth, Zion, men, angels,
God; and in addition to all these the enemies he had before, and
without a single auxiliary in earth, hell, or heaven! Verily, he has
gained.
2. Difficulties invigorate the soul. I do not mean the difficulties
of indolence and disobedience, these are withering curses, but the
difficulties of industry, of obedience.
They are conditions essential to strength. What gives power to the arm
of the smith? The weight of his hammer. What gives swiftness to the
Indian foot? The fleetness of the game. Thus it is with the senses.
What confers exquisite sensibility upon the blind man’s ear? The
curtain which, by hiding the visible universe from his sight, compels
him to give intense regard to the most delicate vibrations that play
upon his tympanum. Thus it is with the intellect. Who is the greatest
reasoner? He who habitually struggles with the worst difficulties that
can be mastered by reason. Some men have fruitless imaginations; but
who are they? Those who have never led their fancies out. The genial
oak planted in a dismal cellar, shut out from the light and air of
heaven, would not grow up and lift its branches to the skies. Plant
your imagination in the heavens, and let it be subject to the high and
holy influences of its pure ether, and its silent lights, and it shall
manifest vitality, and vigor, and upward aspirations.
The memory, too, is strong, if subjected to proper exercise. It
will yield no revenue to the soul that does not tax it; and just
in proportion as it is taxed, will it be found to have capacity of
production. I will add that it is thus with the moral powers. Envy,
jealousy, anger, those bitter fountains which so often tincture the
streams of private and domestic joy, deepen in proportion to the
obstacles through which they flow. Avarice and ambition, those demons
that have desolated the globe with war, derive their overwhelming power
from the difficulties which impede their progress. The daring lover
testifies that love becomes more wild and resistless as great and
romantic difficulties rise around him. What makes the good Christian?
Perpetual trial. He who has experienced the severest storms, and has
most frequently thrown out the Christian anchor, has the strongest
hope. Where shall we expect the firmest faith? At the gate of St.
Peter’s? or at the martyr’s stake? Who is compared to purified silver
or gold? That Christian around whose soul God hath kindled the fires of
his furnace, and kept them glowing till it reflected his own image.
Difficulties give a healthy tone and tendency to the powers. As a
body in a state of inaction becomes lethargic and diseased, so the
intellect, if not kept in vigorous exercise, becomes enfeebled, and
gradually sinks under the sway of the passions. Energetic action is
indispensable to preserve both the body from disease, and the soul from
the dominion of sense.
3. Difficulties develop resources. To prove this it is only necessary
to cite the aphorism—necessity is the mother of invention. She
levels forests, she rears cities, she builds bridges, she prostrates
mountains, she lays her iron pathway from river to river, and from sea
to sea, she baffles the raging elements, and extends her dominion from
earth to air and ocean, she ascends the heavens, and with fearless foot
treads round the zodiac.
4. There is scarce any difficulty that can not be overcome by
perseverance. Trace any great mind to its culmination, and you will
find that its ascent was slow, and by natural laws, and that its
difficulties were such only as ordinary minds can surmount. Great
results, whether physical or moral, are not often the offspring of
giant powers. Genius is more frequently a curse than a blessing. Its
possessor, relying upon his extraordinary gifts, generally falls into
habits of indolence, and fails to collect the materials which are
requisite to useful and magnificent effort. But there is a something
which is sure of success; it is the determination which, having entered
upon a career with full conviction that it is right, pursues it in
calm defiance of all opposition. With such a feeling a man can not but
be mighty. Toil does not weary, pain does not arrest him. Carrying
a compass in his heart, which always points to one bright star, he
allows no footstep to be taken which does not tend in that direction.
Neither the heaving earthquake, nor the yawning gulf, nor the burning
mountain can terrify him from his course; and if the heavens should
fall, the shattered ruins would strike him on his way to his object.
Show me the man who has this principle, and I care not to measure his
blood, nor brains. I ask not his name nor his nation—I pronounce that
his hand will be felt upon his generation, and his mind enstamped upon
succeeding ages.
This attribute is God-like. It may be traced throughout the universe.
It has descended from the skies—it is the great charm of angelic
natures. It is hardly to be contemplated, even in the demon, without
admiration. It is this which gives to the warrior his crown, and
encircles his brow with a halo that, in the estimation of a misjudging
world, neither darkness, nor lust, nor blasphemy, nor blood can
obscure. The bard of Mantua, to whose tomb genius in all ages makes
its willing pilgrimage, never presents his hero in a more attractive
light, than when he represents him, “_tot volvere casus_,” rolling his
misfortunes forward, as a river bearing all opposition before it.
I am well satisfied that it is a sure passport to mental excellence.
Science has no summit too lofty for its ascent—literature has no gate
too strong for its entrance. The graces collect around it, and the
laurel comes at its bidding. Talk not of circumstances. Repudiate
forever that doctrine so paralyzing, so degrading, and yet so general,
“Man is the creature of circumstances.” Rather adopt that other
sentiment, more inspiring to yourselves, more honorable to your nature,
more consonant with truth, Man the architect of his own fortune. I
grant that circumstances have their influence, and that often this is
not small; but there are impulses within, to which things external
are as lava to the volcano. Circumstances are as tools to the artist.
Zeuxis would have been a painter without canvas; Michael Angelo would
have been a sculptor without marble; Herschell would have been a
philosopher without a telescope, and Newton would have ascended the
skies though no apple had ever descended upon his head. One of the
most distinguished surgeons of modern times performed nearly all the
operations of surgery with a razor. West commenced painting in a
garret, and plundered the family cat for bristles to make his brushes.
When Paganini once rose to amuse a crowded auditory with his music,
he found that his violin had been removed, and a coarse instrument
substituted for it. Explaining the trick, he said to the audience, “Now
I will show you that the music is _not in my violin_, but _in me_.”
Then drawing his bow, he sent forth sounds sweet as ever entranced
delighted mortals. Be assured, the world is a coarse instrument at
best, and if you would send forth sweet sounds from its strings, there
must be music in your fingers. Fortune may favor, but do not rely upon
her—do not fear her. Act upon the doctrine of the Grecian poet,
“I seek what’s to be sought—
I learn what’s to be taught—
I beg the rest of heav’n.”
Talk not of genius. I grant there are differences in mind, originally,
but there is mind enough in every ordinary human skull, if its
energies are properly directed, to accomplish mighty results. Fear not
obstacles. What are your difficulties? Poverty? ignorance? obscurity?
Have they not all been overcome by a host well known to fame? But
perchance you climb untrodden heights. Nevertheless, fear to set down
any obstacle as insuperable. Look at the achievements of man in the
natural and moral worlds, and then say whether you dare set down any
difficulty as insurmountable, or whether you are ready to prescribe
boundaries to the operations of human power.
Are you destined to maintain the worship of the true God amid the
darkness of infidelity? Daniel in the den of lions, Shadrach, Meshech,
and Abednego, in the flames of the furnace, and a long line of
illustrious martyrs, shouting hosannas from the flames, put forth their
hands from the stake to beckon you onward. Are you destined to plant
the Gospel in heathen lands—an enterprise the most daring and glorious
in which mortals can engage? Do you imagine you can meet a difficulty
which the apostle Paul did not vanquish? But he was an apostle, yea,
and the most successful of all the apostles. And what was the secret of
his success? Was it his learning? The gift of tongues made the other
apostles his equals in this respect. Was it his eloquence? Doubtless
he was eloquent; but Apollos, too, was eloquent and mighty in the
Scriptures. Was it his inspiration? But were not others inspired, also?
It was his firmness and perseverance. When he preached Christ Jesus and
him crucified, nothing could drive or divert, or daunt him: “This one
thing I do,” etc.
Are you called to meet bigotry and superstition, armed with learning,
power, and wealth? See Luther braving the thunders of the Vatican, and
hear him say, “I would go to Worms were there as many devils there as
there are tiles on the houses,” and then affirm, if you dare, that
it is your duty to succumb to your difficulties. Are you destined,
which heaven forbid, to lead an army to resist invaders, or advance
to conquest? Ask Cæsar, Hannibal, Pyrrhus, Alexander, what kind of
difficulties may be overcome by decision of character. Have you
undertaken to ascend from poverty and obscurity to eminence and wealth?
Ask the field or the cabinet, any profession whatever, or either house
of Congress, whether there are any difficulties which will not yield to
firmness and perseverance, and ten thousand voices shall respond, in
animating accents, No.
[_December 24._]
CHRISTMAS SONGS.
THE BEAUTIFUL SONG.
There’s a song in the air,
There’s a star in the sky,
There’s a mother’s deep prayer,
And a baby’s low cry,
And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!
There’s a tumult of joy
O’er the wonderful birth,
For the Virgin’s sweet boy
Is the Lord of the earth.
Aye, the star rains its fire, and the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!
In the light of the star
Lie the ages impearl’d;
And that song from afar
Has swept over the world:
Every hearth is aflame, and the beautiful sing
In the homes of the nations that Jesus is King!
We rejoice in the light,
And we echo the song
That comes down through the night
From the heavenly throng.
Aye, we shout to the lovely evangel they bring,
And we greet in his cradle our Savior and King.
J. G. HOLLAND.
THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.
Night of wonder, night of glory,
Night all solemn and serene,
Night of old prophetic story,
Such as time has never seen:
Sweetest darkness, softest blue
That these fair skies ever knew.
Night of beauty, night of gladness,
Night of nights—of nights the best;
Not a cloud to speak of sadness,
Not a star but sings of rest:
Holy midnight, beaming peace,
Never shall thy radiance cease.
Happy city, dearest, fairest,
Blessed, blessed Bethlehem!
Least, yet greatest, noblest, rarest,
Judah’s ever-sparkling gem;
Out of thee there comes the Light
That dispelleth all our night.
Now thy King to thee descendeth,
Borne upon a woman’s knee;
To thy gates his steps he bendeth,
To the manger cometh he;
David’s Lord and David’s Son,
This his cradle and his throne.
He, the lowliest of the lowly,
To our sinful world has come;
He, the holiest of the holy,
Can not find a human home.
All for us he yonder lies,
All for us he lives and dies.
Babe of weakness, child of glory,
At thy cradle thus we bow;
Poor and sad thy earthly story,
Yet the King of glory thou:
By all heaven and earth adored,
David’s Son and David’s Lord.
Light of life, thou liest yonder,
Shining in thy heavenly love;
Naught from thee our souls shall sunder,
Naught from us shall thee remove:
Take these hearts and let them be
Throne and cradle both to thee!
HORATIUS BONAR.
CHRISTMAS HYMN.
O North, with all thy vales of green!
O South, with all thy palms!
From peopled towns, and fields between,
Uplift thy voice of psalms.
Raise, ancient East, the anthem high,
And let the youthful West reply.
Lo, in the clouds of heaven appears
God’s well-beloved Son;
He brings a train of brighter years,
His kingdom is begun.
He comes a guilty world to bless,
With mercy, truth, and righteousness.
Oh Father, haste the promised hour,
When at his feet shall lie
All rule, authority, and power,
Beneath the ample sky;
When he shall reign, from pole to pole,
The Lord of every human soul;
When all shall heed the words he said,
Amid their daily cares,
And by the loving life he led,
Shall strive to pattern theirs;
And he who conquer’d death shall win
The mightier conquest over sin.
ON CHRISTMAS EVE.
By the firelight’s quivering crimson,
While the winter sun sinks low,
Let us watch till the first vague star, wife,
Has dawned o’er the glooming snow;
For if ever our lost ones may wander from the realms of their rest,
I believe
That they seek us as visiting angels in the dusk of the Christmas
Eve.
And our lonelier anguish of longing,
Our thrills of in tenser despair,
Are born—who may tell?—of a viewless embrace
Or a shadowy hand on our hair!
O, the darlings are near us to-night, wife, as we watch the soft
hearth-glimmer weave
Strange pictures on ceiling and curtain in the dusk of the Christmas
Eve!
And pitiful memory’s enchantment
Has mingled the gloom round us cast,
With a glow as from ashes of embers
That crumble on hearths of the past!
And a note of boy-laughter, long vanish’d, or the gold of a ringlet,
each leaves
An echo—a gleam—that forever must haunt the dusk of our Christmas
Eves!
And the children draw near once again, wife,
And, marveling, hark to the quaint
Immemorial holiday legend
Of the beautiful reindeer-drawn saint.
Let us murmur it now, till the shadows of the desolate chamber
believe
That they fall, as of old, round the dear ones in the dusk of the
Christmas Eve!
Let us murmur it softly; who knows, wife,
But a whisper will float, in reply,
Clear and sweet through the compassing dimness
As proof that our darlings are nigh?
For if ever their footsteps may wander from the heavenly home,
I believe
They will seek us as visitant angels in the dusk of the Christmas
Eve!
EDGAR FAWCETT.
[_December 31._]
GOD MAGNIFIED IN HIS WORKS.[C]
By G. CHAPLIN CHILD, M. D.
In an outlying province of the Turkish empire, where sultan and firman
are often superseded by the lawless will of sheik or pacha, two famous
rivers—Tigris and Euphrates—gradually converge, and, after mingling
their waters together, glide gently onward to the Persian Gulf. In the
fork thus formed between them stretches a vast plain, made known to us
in early Scripture history as Shinar, Chaldæa, and Babylon, as well as
by other less familiar names, but to which the term Mesopotamia has
been more usually applied, as it aptly designates a district “lying
between rivers.” The general aspect of this plain is one of desolation.
Fertile strips here and there border the Euphrates’ banks, and willows
are still seen flourishing where the sorrowing Israelites once hung up
their harps; but away from those green fringes the eye wanders over
wild, dreary wastes from which the last traces of cultivation are
slowly dying out. Vast tracts lie soaked in permanent swamps, while
much of the remaining land is, at one period of the year, flooded by
the unheeded inundations of the neighboring rivers, and, at another,
baked into an arid desert by the burning rays of the sun. It need
scarcely be said that population has almost disappeared from those
melancholy plains; for the wandering Arab is little tempted to pitch
his tent or to pasture his flocks on so sterile a soil. The doom that
was so clearly foretold by the prophets has fallen upon it, and Babylon
now “lies desolate in the sight of all that pass by.” It has become the
“habitation of the beasts of the desert.” As the traveler plods onward
over its unfrequented tracts, the startled wild-fowl rises with quick
splash from the reedy pool, or a few scared gazelles may perhaps be
descried bounding over the distant plain. The “owl” and the “bittern,”
the jackal and the hyena add their testimony to the exactness with
which the words of Scripture have been fulfilled. More rarely a
solitary lion may be seen skulking among the strange, mysterious mounds
and “heaps” of stones that loom here and there above the plain.
Mournful and dreary though this land now be, it is and ever will
remain one of the most interesting spots on earth. It was not always
“desolate.” No other place, perhaps, claims with a better title to
be regarded as the scene where our first parents walked together in
paradise. Such, at least, has been the common tradition; and in a
well-known edition of the Bible, published in 1599, may be found a
map of the Garden of Eden, of which the site of Babylon forms the
center. But, be that as it may, there can be no doubt of its former
greatness and fertility, for the record is plainly written all over
the soil. Everywhere it is furrowed by ruined canals, of which some
tell us of departed commerce and wealth, others of skillful irrigation
and abundant crops. Heaps of rubbish are to be met with in which lie
hidden fragments of pottery which bear witness to the former presence
of a highly cultivated people; and uncouth mounds rise strangely above
the plain, in which the last relics of palaces and cities are buried
together. For centuries history appeared to have lost her hold upon
the great places of the past, and it is only within the last few years
that some of them have been rescued from the oblivion that was slowly
creeping over them. Questioned by the light of modern knowledge those
mysterious stones of the plains open up to us the first page in the
history of nations—transport us back almost to the dawn where antiquity
begins, and bring within our sight those to whom the deluge was a
recent event. They impart a substance to scenes we have often tried in
vain to realize. In imagination we see Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, busy
with the foundations of the city of Babel on the neighboring Euphrates’
banks, and piling up the “tower that was to reach Heaven.” Then it
was that the patriarchal dignity of early Bible records expanded into
royalty, and Babylon became the starting point in the long pedigree of
kingdoms.
Babylon touched the zenith of its grandeur two thousand four hundred
and fifty years ago, when Nebuchadnezzar sat upon the throne. He was
the great warrior of that age. After overrunning Egypt he had returned
to his capital laden with its spoil; he had chastised his rebellious
subjects and treacherous allies, and he had utterly crushed the power
of the Kings of Judah. The wicked and faithless Jehoiakim, blind to the
warnings he received, had brought a terrible doom upon his country;
for Nebuchadnezzar, not content with plundering the treasuries of the
temple at Jerusalem, carried the king himself a prisoner to Babylon.
Among the captives on this occasion were included Daniel the Prophet
and his three friends,—Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, who in the land
of their exile received the Chaldæan names of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego.
Nebuchadnezzar was no less great in the arts of peace than in those
of war. He, therefore, encouraged learned men to make his capital
their resort, and he also promoted the national prosperity by favoring
agriculture and commerce. He dug canals in all directions to fertilize
the land by irrigation. His merchants traded along the rich shores of
the Mediterranean, and penetrated even to remote China. He provided for
the security of Babylon by building or strengthening its walls, and he
made it beautiful by adorning it with palaces. Its “hanging-gardens”
were acknowledged throughout ancient times to be one of the wonders of
the world, and their fame has endured up to this very hour.
At the court of such a monarch, Daniel’s learning was sure to procure
for him distinction, and he soon became a member of the college of Magi
or wise men. His subsequent success in interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream, after all others had failed, raised him to the first rank in the
tyrant’s favor, and we are told that “he sat in the gate of the king.”
Nor in his prosperity did he forget his three Jewish friends,—Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego,—who through his influence were promoted to be
governors in the province of Babylon.
The history of Nebuchadnezzar and the burning, fiery furnace—so
illustrative on the one hand of perfect trust in God, and, on the
other, of God’s power to deliver his servants from the assaults of
their enemies—is endeared to all as one of the interesting Scripture
narratives by which those who watched over us in the days of childhood
endeavored to attract us onward to the knowledge of our Bible. In the
book of Daniel it is related how Nebuchadnezzar, after having been
brought by the miraculous interpretation of his dream to acknowledge
the “God of Gods and Lord of Kings,” subsequently relapsed into
idolatry through the corrupting influence of worldly prosperity. In
the full swell of his pride he set up a golden image, and commanded
that all his subjects should fall down and worship it. The Babylonian
nobles were jealous of the favor shown to the three captives; and they,
therefore, encouraged this wicked fancy of the king, because it seemed
to open out the means of effecting their ruin. They rightly calculated
that the Hebrew Governors would never forsake the God of their Fathers,
nor worship the image which the king had set up. And we know that when
the hour of trial did come, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego remained
true to their faith; and were forthwith bound and cast into the
burning, fiery furnace, as a punishment for their disobedience to the
tyrant’s will.
From the torments and dangers of this ordeal the three Hebrews were
miraculously preserved. Daniel tells us that Nebuchadnezzar himself saw
them “loose and walking in the midst of the fire.” “Not a hair of their
heads was singed, neither were their coats changed, nor had the smell
of fire passed on them.” Elsewhere, in the Song of the Three Children,
we are told that “they walked in the midst of the fire, praising God,
and blessing the Lord.” After so signal a deliverance, it is easy to
conceive the fervor with which their hymn of gratitude was poured
forth. The deepest consciousness of the merciful power of God welled
up in their hearts and burst from their lips, and the whole universe
was ransacked for illustrations to typify and express it. In whatever
direction they turned, they beheld Nature crowded with emblems of his
greatness and mercy, and they eagerly seized upon them as aids to bring
their thoughts up to the fervor of their adoration. Shall not we also
do wisely to profit by their example? Our daily obligations to God may
not be so miraculous, in the ordinary meaning of the term, but they
are, nevertheless, great and countless beyond our power to conceive.
Let us then, in humble consciousness of the poverty and imperfection of
our thanksgivings, gladly make this suggestive hymn our own; and let us
on this, as on all occasions, accept with joy every aid that helps us
to “bless, praise, and magnify the Lord.”
“BENEDICITE, OMNIA OPERA.”
O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O ye Angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Heavens, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him
forever.
O ye Waters that be above the Firmament, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him forever.
O all ye Powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O ye Sun and Moon, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Stars of Heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Showers and Dew, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Fire and Heat, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Winter and Summer, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Dews and Frosts, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Frost and Cold, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Ice and Snow, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Nights and Days, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Light and Darkness, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O let the Earth bless the Lord: yea, let it praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O ye Mountains and Hills, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O all ye Green Things upon the Earth, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him forever.
O ye Wells, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him
forever.
O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him and
magnify him forever.
O ye Whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the
Lord: praise him, and magnify him forever.
O all ye Fowls of the Air, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O all ye Beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O ye Children of Men, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and
magnify him forever.
O let Israel bless the Lord: praise him, and magnify him
forever.
O ye Priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and
magnify him forever.
O ye Servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him,
and magnify him forever.
O ye Spirits and Souls of the Righteous, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him forever.
O ye holy and humble Men of heart, bless ye the Lord: praise
him, and magnify him forever.
O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, bless ye the Lord: praise
him, and magnify him forever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world
without end. Amen.
[_End of Required Reading for December._]
FOOTNOTE:
[C] Babylon—the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’
excellency!—Isaiah xiii: 19.
Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land
wherein no man dwelleth.—Jeremiah li: 43.
ATHEISTIC SCIENTISTS.
By JOHN STUART BLACKIE.
There is a sort of men whose faith is all
In their five fingers, and what fingering brings,
With all beyond of wondrous great and small,
Unnamed, uncounted in their tale of things;
A race of blinkards, who peruse the case
And shell of life, but feel no soul behind,
And in the marshaled world can find a place
For all things, only not the marshaling Mind.
’Tis strange, ’tis sad; and yet why blame the mole
For channelling earth?—such earthy things are they;
E’en let them muster forth in blank array,
Frames with no pictures, pictures with no soul.
I, while this dædal dome o’erspans the sod,
Will own the builder’s hand, and worship God.
* * * * *
“My friend, whoever has experienced misfortunes knows that when a
mountain-wave of ills comes upon mortals, they are wont to fear all
things; but when the gale of fortune blows smoothly, they are confident
that the same deity will constantly propel their bark with a favorable
breeze.”—_Æschylus._
POISON IN COMMON THINGS.
By PROF. P. A. SIMPSON, M. A., M. D.
POISON IN THE AIR WE BREATHE.
There are few words in the English language which produce a more
painful impression upon the popular mind than does the word Poison,
and there are at least two valid reasons why it should be so. In the
first place we find poison waging war against human life, sometimes
openly, sometimes insidiously, often successfully; and in the second
place, from remote ages down to the present day, we are accustomed
to see poison going hand in hand with crime as its chief companion.
But we must remember that poison is by no means an evil-doer, only as
the agent of the assassin or of the suicide. These are doubtless its
most hideous aspects, but there are many others where its effects are
produced as surely, though often very insidiously, without any evil
intention, and, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, clad in garments
which are intended for our good. It is to such cases that we wish to
direct attention, by pointing out a few of the modes in our every-day
life in which poison may enter the human body without our knowledge,
and wherein its presence is unnoticed until disease or death makes it
manifest.
Let us, then, consider in the first place the composition of
atmospheric air, and how it may become so vitiated that, instead of
supporting life and health, it may carry disease or death to those who
breathe it. It was long thought that air was spiritual, that it was
like the life, and that it was the soul of the world; but we now know
that it is just as material as a piece of iron, and that it will weigh
down the scales of a balance in the same way; and the time may yet come
when by means of immense pressure and intense cold it may be condensed
into a liquid, as carbonic acid and other gases have already been. We
find air present everywhere. There is scarcely a solid, however compact
it may appear, which does not contain pores, and these pores are filled
with air. It is to be found in abundance in the soil; indeed were it
not so, numberless worms and insects which inhabit the latter would
cease to exist. The most compact mortar and walls are penetrated by
it, and water in its natural state contains a large quantity of air in
solution. The atmosphere was formerly believed to extend no higher than
five miles above the earth’s surface, but meteorological observations
have since shown that it extends to a height of more than two hundred
miles. Owing to the force of gravity the air is much denser near the
earth, and gets thinner, layer by layer, as you ascend. If then the
atmosphere were possessed of color it would be very dark just round
the globe, and the tint would gradually fade into space. There is no
absolutely normal condition of the air we breathe; or, if there be, it
is not at present known. It contains, however, in all cases, unless
under purely artificial conditions, two _essential_ elements, which
are nearly invariable under normal circumstances, namely, oxygen and
nitrogen, and two accessory elements which vary extremely in amount,
but are practically never absent, namely, carbonic acid and water.
Without either of the first two, air could not exist, and without the
last two, air is scarcely found in nature. Their combination moreover
is not a chemical union but a simple mechanical mixture. But besides
these constituents the air contains an immense amount of life, and
small particles derived from the whole creation. In the air may be
found animalcules, spores, seeds, cells of all kinds, eggs of insects,
fungi and elements of contagion, besides formless dust, and sandy and
other particles of local origin. For example, no one can travel in a
railway carriage without being surrounded by dust, a large portion
of which may be attracted by a magnet, consisting as it does in a
great measure of minute particles of iron derived from the rails. The
purest air has some dust in it. There probably never fell a beam of
light from the sun since the world was made which would not have shown
countless numbers of solid particles. Roughly speaking, 100 measures of
air, if pure, should contain 78.98 parts of nitrogen, 20.99 of oxygen,
and .03 of carbonic acid. Without oxygen a candle will not burn, and
animals can not live; but for the purposes of animal life this gas
requires to be diluted, and this is effected in the atmosphere by a
large admixture of nitrogen. In fact, nitrogen seems to act in the
animal economy purely as a diluent or vehicle for the administration
of oxygen. Carbonic acid, as far as we know, is not essential to
the animal kingdom. To man it is simply a superfluous ingredient,
but harmless when in small quantity; to the vegetable world, on the
contrary, it is a food which together with water often suffices to
support the entire life of a plant. When, however, from any cause
the quantity of carbonic acid is much increased, it becomes highly
poisonous to man. When the amount reaches 10 or even 5 volumes per
cent. it produces fatal results, and even 2 per cent. occasions in most
persons severe headache. The balance between carbonic acid and oxygen
in the atmosphere, continually disturbed in one direction by the animal
kingdom, is constantly maintained by the vegetable kingdom; for while
the former consumes oxygen and gives off carbonic acid, the latter for
the most part performs the opposite function. Owing to certain local
conditions, however, which we shall presently consider, the quantity
of oxygen in the atmosphere sometimes falls below the normal amount to
the extent of over 3 per cent., while the carbonic acid proportionately
increases. In order to estimate the importance of what might otherwise
appear trifling differences in the composition of the air we breathe,
we must remember that we take into our lungs from 1,000 to 2,000
gallons of air daily. Now the presence of only a few grains of impurity
in a gallon of water would render it unfit for drinking purposes,
although as we only drink a comparatively small quantity of water the
whole of these few grains would not be swallowed in a single day.
We have spoken of carbonic acid as an impurity in the atmosphere;
and so it is, for it is unfitted to support animal life. An animal
will die from suffocation in an atmosphere containing plenty of
free oxygen if it contains over 10 or 12 per cent. of carbonic acid
gas. But a minute increase of this gas in the atmosphere is of most
importance from the fact that it always comes in bad company, and
is found to be a measure of the many impurities which accompany it.
Moreover, for every increase of carbonic acid there is a corresponding
decrease in oxygen, so that we have in such cases a double effect,
viz., a subtraction of the life-giving principle of the air, and the
addition of noxious substitutes. These noxious substitutes consist
for the most part of organic matter, either of animal or vegetable
origin. The exact nature of the organic substances, which constitute
the specific poisons of contagious diseases, still remains obscure.
Whether they consist of inconceivably minute particles of decaying
matter, or of living microscopic germs; whether in some instances they
are conveyed by particles of skin and pus-cells from the diseased to
the healthy, or are condensed with the watery vapor of the atmosphere
and thus disseminated; all these are questions which have yet to be
satisfactorily answered. It is, however, certain that almost invariably
the atmosphere is made the vehicle of the contagion or deadly agent,
whatever may be its nature; and hence the great importance of taking
such precautions as will prevent the contamination of the air; or
at all events, aid in dissipating or destroying its more hurtful
impurities. An estimate of the amount of organic impurity in the
air of our large cities may be formed by considering the enormous
quantities of carbonic acid gas that are daily and hourly poured forth
in these industrial centers. Dr. Angus Smith, whose investigations
regarding “Air and Rain” have won for him a world-wide celebrity, has
found that in the city of Manchester 15,066 tons of carbonic acid
are daily passed into the air that envelops it; and Dr. de Chanmont
states that 822,000,000 cubic feet of this gas are generated in London
per day, or more than 9,500 cubic feet per second. Fortunately the
operations of nature are in themselves calculated to restore a state
of equilibrium in the constitution of the air. Injurious gases become
diffused, diluted, or decomposed; animal emanations are absorbed in the
processes of vegetation; suspended matters are washed down by rain, or
fall by their own weight, while many organic substances are so acted
on by oxygen as to render them innocuous. Thus the vast aerial sea
maintains a uniformity of composition, owing to the mighty forces of
nature, without which all our sanitary measures would be futile. But
if nature be so powerful as a sanitary agent, how is it that we still
require to cope with that formidable enemy which we call foul air? It
is because we ourselves are constantly vitiating the atmosphere around
us whether we live, or work, or die, and because the impure products
thus generated are not sufficiently provided against by efficient
ventilation. Let us glance briefly at the principal sources from which
these impurities rise. These may be grouped under three heads, viz.:
(1) Respiration; (2) Putrefaction; (3) Trades and Manufactures.
_Respiration._—The air which we draw into our lungs with every breath
contains twenty-one per cent. of oxygen, but when we expire it again
it only contains 13 parts. We have, in fact, abstracted 8 per cent.
of oxygen and given back in its place a poisonous mixture of carbonic
acid, organic matter, and watery vapor. We breathe out this poisonous
mixture at the rate of one gallon each minute, but (even apart from
the organic matter) it is so impure, owing to the amount of carbonic
acid which it contains, that each gallon would require to be diluted
with one hundred gallons of pure air before being again fitted for
respiration. In such a city as London then, the air is being polluted
even by the carbonic acid which we exhale at the rate of nearly six
hundred million of gallons per minute, to such an extent as to render
it unfit to be breathed again. Surely this should make us welcome every
strong gale as an angel sent from heaven bearing healing on its wings.
But it is in dwellings, and especially in the dwellings of the poor,
that the polluting effects of respiration are greatest, for in these
it is too often the case that man places every possible obstacle in
the way of nature’s methods of ventilation. Moreover, in apartments
that are crowded it is practically impossible to maintain the air
in a state of purity, and thus they become hot-beds of disease. The
very interesting experiments made by Dr. Angus Smith upon himself in
an air-tight leaden chamber, led him to the conclusion that, in air
containing an increased amount of carbonic acid, this gas alone, even
without the other hurtful ingredients, such as organic matter, rapidly
produces poisonous effects—indicated by feebleness of the circulation,
extreme slowness of the heart’s action, and great rapidity of the
breathing—and that when men are exposed to it they are really gasping
for breath, without being aware of the cause.
The presence of carbonic acid in the air we expire is readily seen
by blowing our breath, by means of a tube, into a bottle containing
ordinary lime-water. The water soon becomes opalescent and then milky
in appearance, owing to the formation of carbonate of lime or chalk;
the carbonic acid of the expired air having combined with the lime
previously held in solution. It is this principle which is taken
advantage of in order to estimate the amount of carbonic acid in
atmospheric air. Dr. Angus Smith lays down a simple practical rule
whereby any one may ascertain if the air of an apartment contains
carbonic acid to a dangerous amount, viz.: “Let us keep our rooms so
that the air gives no precipitate when a 10½-ounce bottle full of air
is shaken with half an ounce of clear lime water.”
It is well known that speedily fatal results arise from overcrowding
and want of fresh air. Out of the one hundred and forty-six prisoners
confined in the “Black Hole of Calcutta,” one hundred and twenty three
died in one night; and it is significant that many of the survivors
afterward succumbed to “putrid fever.” Nor have similar instances been
wanting in this country. Of the one hundred and fifty passengers that
were shut up in the cabin of the Irish steamer _Londonderry_, with
hatches battened down during a stormy night in 1848, seventy died
before morning. In these two catastrophes suffocation was doubtless the
direct cause of death, but the fact that “putrid fever” attacked many
of those who were carried out alive from the “Black Hole of Calcutta,”
showed that the fœtid exhalations to which they were exposed must have
aided largely in destroying the lives of the immediate victims. The
re-breathing of fœtid matter thrown off by the skin and lungs produces
a kind of putrescence in the blood, in proportion to the amount
inhaled, and to the period of exposure to its influences; and even air
only moderately vitiated, if breathed for a long time day after day,
produces most serious results. These results are seen in pale faces,
loss of appetite, a lowering of the spirits, and a decrease of muscular
strength. That air polluted by respiration is the one great cause of
consumption, which may be handed down from parents to children for
generations, rests upon such a mass of facts, that it is no longer
controvertible. For instance, we know that increase of the disease
occurs _pari passu_ with an increase in the density of population;
that in manufacturing centres, where the males are the chief workers
at indoor employment, the male death-rate is the highest; that in
others, where females are principally required at indoor work, they
suffer most; and that in agricultural districts, where the men spend
nearly all their lives in the open air, and the women scarcely ever
leave their cottages, the female death-rate from this disease is higher
than the male. Moreover, the testimony of the most able physicians
at home and abroad, the results of inquiries as to the prevalence of
this disease amongst the picked men of the armies and navies of the
world, the reports of hospitals for consumption, and of commissioners
and committees appointed to make special investigations of jails,
workhouses, and schools—all these point to poisoning by impure air as
the most fertile source of consumption and many allied diseases.
_Putrefaction._—We now pass on to the second source of foulness of
the air, viz.: putrefaction. Putrid emanations have from the earliest
times been held to be capable of producing injurious effects on the
human system. In the Bible we read of the great care taken to disinfect
or clean vessels which may have contained any putrid matter, and in
ancient Rome measures were adopted for the efficient cleansing of the
sewers and streets of that city. Our present method of disposing of our
refuse is by means of water, which washes it through channels called
“sewers” to the sea. But meanwhile the organic portions are undergoing
decay, and certain gases are thus evolved, which, mixing together,
form what we term “sewer gas.” The principal gases thus given off are
carbonic acid, nitrogen, and sulphuretted hydrogen, and although this
mixture if breathed is injurious to health, it can not be regarded
as poisonous. Thus sulphuretted hydrogen (similar to the odor given
off by rotten eggs) although a deadly poison when inhaled in large
quantities, is so diluted in sewer gas that its poisonous properties
are in a great measure neutralized. There is still, however, sufficient
sulphuretted hydrogen in sewer gas to render it very injurious by
lowering the tone of health, and by gradually diminishing vitality to
such an extent that disease ensues. What, however, is of far greater
importance as a poisonous agent, is the organic matter which is held
in suspension by these gases. The composition of this organic matter
is by no means uniform. It is composed of particles from all kinds of
decomposing matter, sometimes containing minute living organisms, and
sometimes without doubt the germs of disease. The exact nature of these
germs of disease is still a matter of uncertainty, and the question as
to whether they may appear spontaneously during the progress of decay,
or whether they are merely wafted by sewer gas, just as the ripe seeds
of many plants are scattered by the atmosphere, is equally unsettled.
This, however, has been sufficiently established, that when diseases
do come amongst us they take root with most effect in those places
where decomposing matter is found, and that the germs of these diseases
find in the organic element of sewer gas a congenial soil, in which
they can increase and multiply indefinitely, and by which they can be
carried from the dead to the living. That typhoid fever depends, to a
great extent, upon the polluted air of sewers, cesspools, and of the
soil, is proved by very strong evidence. In some cases the disease has
been confined to a particular part of the house, especially exposed
to the effluvia from badly trapped drains, where there could be no
doubt as to the source of the infection. The sewer air, laden with the
specific poison, may be inappreciable to the senses, but its hurtful
effects make themselves felt none the less, and, as recent events have
shown, may sometimes exhibit themselves in the most exalted stations
of life. Nay, more, it would seem that persons of the upper and middle
ranks in towns are more liable to be attacked by typhoid fever than
the poor classes; the reason being that the houses of the former are
more generally connected with sewers, and either from structure or
situation are of higher elevation, so that the light sewer gases,
obeying natural laws, are more apt to accumulate in the drains of such
houses, and failing efficient trapping and ventilation of the drains,
to effect an entrance into the houses themselves. There is good ground
for the belief that cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever, as well as many
other diseases, are occasionally spread by means of the air of sewers
and cesspools; but whether these diseases originate spontaneously in
this way, or whether the sewer gas only serves as a carrier of the
disease-germs, is a question, as in the case of typhoid fever, as yet
unsettled.
_Trades and Manufactures._—Let us next consider some trades and
manufactures which have an injurious influence upon persons engaged
in them, and to a certain extent upon the community at large. The
injurious effects are owing to solid particles and offensive gases
which are given out into the air. The result of inhaling air more
or less charged with solid particles may be easily explained. When
the latter reach the entrance to the windpipe they at once set up
irritation in the delicate lining membrane, and nature tries to repel
the intruders by the involuntary cough which results. Should this fit
of coughing fail in doing so, a quantity of glairy fluid is poured out
from small glands in the windpipe, and this fluid enveloping the solid
particles tends to prevent them from doing further mischief. Should
they, however find their way lower down into the air passages, nature
has provided a very beautiful mechanism for their expulsion. The entire
lining membrane of these passages is covered with innumerable minute
hairs, or “cilia” as they are called, which, by constantly waving in an
upward direction toward the mouth, tend to carry the solid particles,
and the glairy secretion which they have provoked, away from the
lungs, and so out of harm’s way. This wonderful provision of nature is
sufficient for the purpose, provided the strain be not too prolonged;
but when the supply of irritating particles is constant, or nearly so,
the nerves and muscles involved in this mechanism become exhausted and
cease to perform this process of expulsion. The irritating particles
are now no longer removed from the delicate membrane of the air
passages upon which they lodge, this membrane becomes inflamed, and
bronchitis or asthma is the result. But this inflammation, at first
only affecting the superficial membrane, may sink into the deeper
tissues and affect the lung itself, in which case the original attack
of bronchitis frequently merges into a condition of a consumptive
nature. This will explain why many trades are injurious in which the
danger to health is due to the fine dust floating continually in the
air of the premises. For example, the particles of coal dust in the air
of mines, and the smoke from factory chimneys; particles of steel and
grit given off in grinding; organic dust or fluff in shoddy and flax
mills; the dust in potteries, china works, pearl button manufactories,
in polishing and cement works, in brass works, in marble and steel
polishing works of various sorts, especially where emery is used; in
all of these cases the solid particles are inhaled and tend to produce
disease in the lungs and air passages. Moreover, the severity of the
effects is chiefly dependent on the amount of dust, and on the physical
conditions as to angularity, roughness or smoothness of the particles,
rather than on the nature of the substance, except in some specific
cases. The habitual inhalation of coal dust in the air of coal mines
very frequently results in consumption, and the fine divisions of the
lung become so blocked up by the particles of coal that the term “black
lung” has been applied to the appearance presented by the lung after
death. It has been found that the death rate from consumption among
miners who work in mines where the air is changed rapidly, is very much
less than among miners who work in mines that are badly ventilated. Of
all unhealthy occupations that of steel-grinding is the most fatal.
Steel-grinding is divided into the dry, wet, and mixed methods; and
the injurious effects vary according to the amount of water used on
the stone. Forks, needles, etc., are ground on the dry stone, and
accordingly the men and boys employed at this kind of work are found
to be the greatest sufferers. Dr. Hall, of Sheffield, has furnished
important information as to the average duration of life among the
artisans in steel, which he found to be as follows, viz.: dry grinders
of forks, 29 years; razors, 31 years; scissors, 32 years; edge-tool
and wool-shears, 32 years; spring-knives, 35 years; files, 35 years;
saws, 38 years; sickles, 38 years. In this and many other similarly
injurious trades various methods have from time to time been devised,
more especially of late years, whereby the dust might be prevented
from entering the air-passages, such as fans for blowing it away, and
respirators of various kinds to filter the air as it is being breathed;
but it has been found that workmen themselves frequently object to any
innovation which appears to them to interfere with their more immediate
comfort. There are some trades where the dust given off acts not only
as a mechanical irritant when breathed, but where the substance thus
inhaled acts as a direct poison. For instance, manufacturers of white
lead and other mineral paints frequently exhibit symptoms of poisoning
in this way, and workmen who use arsenical compounds, as in the making
of wall papers, artificial flowers, etc., are often the victims of
poisoning by arsenic. This poisoning by means of arsenical wall papers
deserves more than a passing notice, owing to the dangerous and even
fatal effects which they induce, not only in the workmen who prepare
them, but also in persons inhabiting apartments where the walls are
covered by them. These wall papers are mostly of a beautiful green
color, the latter being due to a paint composed of arsenic and copper.
Owing to variations of heat and moisture the green particles are
constantly being set free from the paper and carried about the room
by ventilation. Some idea of the amount of poison with which so many
people are surrounded in their rooms may be formed if we consider
that this green pigment contains fifty-nine per cent of arsenic, and
that a square foot of one of these wall papers contains on an average
more than sufficient arsenic to poison twelve persons. In addition
to the cases which most physicians are now so familiar with, where
dangerous symptoms of poisoning have been traced to this cause, it is
much to be feared that insidious and chronic disease is too often due
to this practice of covering the walls of our sitting-rooms, and more
especially our bedrooms, with arsenic. It may be remembered, however,
that a wall paper may be green and yet not contain any arsenic, so
that the following simple method of detecting an arsenical paper may
be useful. If a camel-hair brush be dipped in an ordinary solution of
ammonia, and applied to the green portions of the suspected paper, the
green will be rapidly changed to an azure blue color if arsenic be
present. Some such simple test is all the more important, because green
papers, “warranted free from arsenic,” have been found to contain a
large percentage of that poison.
In addition to the sources of pollution of the atmosphere which we
have been considering, there are various trades and manufactures in
which poisonous matters are given off. Some of these are of an organic
nature, as in the melting of fats, in the making of size and glue,
in the boiling of oil, in the boiling of bones, and in many other
processes carried out on a considerable scale, where the emanations
are highly offensive and often of unknown chemical composition. Gas
works must be included in this poisonous group, owing to the accidental
escape of gas, sometimes in large quantity. In lime kilns enormous
volumes of carbonic acid gas are poured out, both from the limestone
burnt and from the fuel employed, and in this way persons living in
the immediate neighborhood have been suffocated. In chloride of lime
(bleaching powder) manufactories, and in places where it is used for
bleaching wool and other materials, chlorine gas is given off into
the air, causing when inhaled a great amount of irritation in the air
passages. Moreover, this chlorine vapor is often carried in the air for
long distances. In other branches of industry the workers are exposed
to the vapors of sulphurous acid and muriatic acid, both of these being
very irritating, and giving rise to various diseases of the lungs and
eyes.
Such, then, are a few of the impurities, more or less poisonous, to
be met with in the air we breathe; and dangerous to health as all of
them are, it must be admitted that they do far less mischief to the
public health than the continual mismanagement of our atmospheric food,
common in all classes of society, by which it is rendered unfit to
support a healthy life. The two ways in which air may be rendered thus
comparatively valueless are either by excluding it too much from our
dwellings, and this is the fault of the rich, or by crowding too many
people together in small rooms, and this is the fault of the poor. In
the houses of the better classes the air is kept out by closed windows,
doors, curtains, and even in some places by putting screens before the
fire-places in summer, and in bedrooms in winter when fire is not used.
Pure air is, in fact, the most important of all health factors. When
it is breathed freely, plentifully, and continually, there are few
diseases which it will not enable the body to resist. Nay, even some
injuries, which, received by the denizens of the overcrowded city,
would be speedily followed by death, will be readily recovered from
by the agricultural laborer or country farmer, who, always breathing
a pure atmosphere, has thus stored up a great amount of additional
constitutional force.—_Good Words._
MANNER.
By LORD CHESTERFIELD to his Son.
I fear and suspect, that you have taken it into your head in most
cases, that the matter is all, and the manner little or nothing. If you
have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced that, in everything, the
manner is full as important as the matter. If you speak the sense of an
angel in bad words and with a disagreeable utterance, nobody will hear
you twice, who can help it. If you write epistles as well as Cicero,
but in a very bad hand, and very ill-spelled, whoever receives will
laugh at them; and if you had the figure of Adonis, with an awkward
air and motions, it will disgust, instead of pleasing. Study manner,
therefore, in everything, if you would be anything.
UNPREPOSSESSING MANNERS.
This epigram in Martial,
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te;
has puzzled a great many people, who can not conceive how it is
possible to love any body, and yet not know the reason why. I think
I conceive Martial’s meaning very clearly, though the nature of the
epigram, which is to be short, would not allow him to explain it more
fully; and I take it to be this: O Sabidis, you are a very worthy,
deserving man; you have a thousand good qualities, you have a great
deal of learning; I esteem, I respect, but for the soul of me I can not
love you, though I can not particularly say why. You are not _amiable_;
you have not those engaging manners, those pleasing attentions,
those graces, and that address, which are absolutely necessary to
please, though impossible to define. I can not say it is this or that
particular thing that hinders me from loving you; it is the whole
together; and upon the whole you are not agreeable.
How often have I, in the course of my life, found myself in this
situation, with regard to many of my acquaintance, whom I have honored
and respected, without being able to love. I did not know why, because,
when one is young, one does not take the trouble, nor allow one’s
self the time, to analyze one’s sentiments, and to trace them up to
their source. But subsequent observation and reflections have taught
me why. There is a man, whose moral character, deep learning, and
superior parts, I acknowledge, admire, and respect; but whom it is
so impossible for me to love, that I am almost in a fever whenever I
am in his company. His figure (without being deformed) seems made to
disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. His legs
and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of
the body, they ought to be in, but constantly employed in committing
acts of hostility upon the graces. He throws any where, but down his
throat, whatever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means to
carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes or
misplaces everything. He disputes with heat, and indiscriminately,
mindless of the rank, character, and situation of those with whom he
disputes; absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity
or respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and
his inferiors; and therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurd to two
of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can
do for him is to consider him as a respectable Hottentot.
METHOD.
Despatch is the soul of business; and nothing contributes more to
despatch than method. Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it
inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow. Fix one certain
hour and day in the week for your accounts, and keep them together in
their proper order; by which means they will require little time, and
you can never be much cheated. Whatever letters and papers you keep,
docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may
instantly have recourse to any one. Lay down a method also for your
reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it
be in a consistent and consecutive course and not in that desultory
and immethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different
authors upon different subjects. Keep a useful and short common-place
book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic
quotations. One method more I recommend to you, by which I have found
great benefit, even in the most dissipated part of my life; that is,
to rise early, and at the same hour every morning, how late soever you
may have sat up the night before. This secures you an hour or two, at
least, of reading or reflection, before the common interruptions of the
morning begin; and it will save your constitution, by forcing you to go
to bed early, at least one night in three.
You will say, it may be, as many young people would, that all this
order and method is very troublesome, only fit for dull people, and
a disagreeable restraint upon the noble spirit and fire of youth. I
deny it; and assert, on the contrary, that it will procure you both
more time and more taste for your pleasures; and so far from being
troublesome to you, that, after you have pursued it a month, it would
be troublesome to you to lay it aside. Business whets the appetite,
and gives a taste to pleasures, as exercise does to food; and business
can never be done without method; it raises the spirits for pleasures;
and an assembly will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed,
than a man who has lost, the preceding part of the day; nay, I will
venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man
of study or business, than to a saunterer. The same listlessness runs
through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures as
inefficient in everything else.
ON THE KNEELING FIGURE IN MALVERN PRIORY.
By CHARLES GRINDROD.
[The old Renaissance figure (of a lady) is placed just
outside the altar rail; looking northward, with one
side of the face turned to the west, the other to the
altar. Although kneeling, it has at a little distance the
appearance of standing, owing to its peculiar erectness
from the knees upward. The face is remarkable for the
singular smile, half cynical, half spiritual (especially in
the tightly compressed lips), which gives an expression of
_living_ interest.]
Tenant of stone! here still thou worshippest,
Smiling the prayer that on thy lips has hung
While ages traveled. Still thou kneel’st among
The quiet tombs. Impassioned joy or spleen
Moves not thy face—in part to heaven addressed,
In part to the green hills thy feet have clomb.
Image of what is past, and what shall come!
Silent as death, which thou embodiest
Far more than life. Mute sentry! stood between
The crumbled mortal and ascended sprite!
Has thou no sense for what is, or has been?
Can nothing break thy sepulchre of rest?
Once thy heart throbbed with human motion keen,
Thy folded hands with others warmly pressed,
Thy close-sealed lips have sweetly spoke or sung—
Now an eternity is not more dumb!
The organ peels around thee its deep notes;
But thou art deaf to music’s noblest strains.
A glory of rich hues about thee floats;
Thou car’st not for the splendor of bright panes.
What fateful storms and changes hast thou seen!
How little dost thou heed the mad world’s hum!
Our childhood knew thee as doth now our age—
Time stirs not thee. Where art thou all this space,
The part of thee which not in stone remains,
While wondering centuries roll past thy place?
They change and cease: the whole world turns a page—
But thou still wear’st that smile upon thy face.
COMETS.
By RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
During the last two years several comets—some telescopic, others
visible to the naked eye, and even conspicuous objects in the
heavens—have been observed, not only by the older methods, but by some
which have only been available within recent years. It is naturally
expected, therefore, by the general public that some new light should
be thrown on these mysterious objects, whose phenomena still remain
among the unexplained, seemingly the inexplicable problems of the
celestial depths.
We propose to consider here what has thus been learned, and what also
(unfortunately it is much more) remains still to be learned, respecting
comets. But first it will be well to show what are the special
phenomena which present themselves for explanation.
A comet apparently comes out from the remote depths of space in a
condition of comparative calm. It appears as a small round nebulous
object, looking like a tiny cloud of extreme tenuity—the idea of
tenuity being suggested by the exceeding faintness of the comet’s
light. This cloud appears somewhat condensed toward the middle. As the
comet draws nearer to the sun, it usually grows somewhat long in the
direction of the sun; and before long a portion within the part nearest
the sun is seen to be brighter than the rest, and to have a more or
less defined outline. This is the _nucleus_—sometimes seen as a dull
disc of nearly uniform brightness, at others as a mere bright point not
unlike a star. The fainter light around this is the _coma_, or hair,
which resembles a luminous fog round the nucleus, usually brighter on
the side toward the sun, and on the other side growing fainter and
fainter till it can no longer be seen. Later this lengthening of the
comet in directions toward and from the sun becomes more marked, until
at length the comet may fairly be said to have a head directed toward
the sun and a tail directed from him. Nucleus, coma, and tail may be
very different in appearance in different comets, and in particular the
tail may be more or less complicated in structure, being sometimes a
mere straight streak, at others twofold, multiple, curved, with thwart
streaks, and so forth—no two comets, in fine, having tails resembling
each other except in general details.
Dr. Huggins, in a rather disappointing article on comets, recently
communicated to a contemporary, remarks that the nucleus, though an
apparently insignificant speck, “is truly the heart and kernel of the
whole thing—potentially it is the comet.” This has scarcely yet been
proved, though it appears exceedingly probable. It is true, however,
as he adds, that this part only of the comet conforms rigorously to
the laws of gravitation, and moves strictly in its orbit. “If we
could see a great comet,” he proceeds, “during its distant wandering,
when it has put off the gala trappings of perihelion excitement, it
would appear as a very sober object, and consist of little more than
nucleus alone.” This again seems probable, though it has never yet
been proved, and the division of some comets into two or more parts,
each having coma, nucleus, and tail of its own, shows that the nucleus
cannot be, in every case, what Dr. Huggins seems here to suggest.
Dr. Huggins has done well in saying (though scarcely with sufficient
emphasis, considering how often the mistake is repeated) that “though
many telescopic comets are of extremely small mass, nucleus included—so
small, indeed, that they are unable to perturb such small bodies as
Jupiter’s satellites—yet we should mistake greatly if we were to
suppose that all comets are ‘airy nothings.’ In some large comets the
nucleus may be a few hundred miles in diameter, or even very much
larger, and may consist of solid matter. It is not necessary to say
that the collision of a cometary nucleus of this order with the earth
would produce destruction on a wide scale.”
It is even more necessary to correct the widely-spread misapprehension
as to the relations between meteors and comets. We hear it stated that
the nucleus of a comet is made up of meteoric stones (Professor P. G.
Tait says—for unknown reasons—that they resemble “paving stones or even
bricks”) as confidently as though the earth had at some time passed
through the nucleus of a comet, and some of our streets were now paved
with stones which had fallen to earth on such an occasion. As a matter
of fact, all that has yet been proved is that meteoric bodies follow
in the track (which is very different from the tail) of some known
comets, and that probably all comets are followed by trains of meteors.
These may have come out of the head or nucleus in some way as yet
unexplained; but it is by no means certain that they have done so, and
it is by many astronomers regarded as more than doubtful.
The most important points to be noticed in the behavior of large
comets, as they approach the sun, is that usually the side of the
coma which lies toward the sun is the scene of intense disturbance.
Streams of luminous matter seem to rise continually toward the sun,
attaining a certain distance from the head, when, assuming a cloud-like
appearance, they seem to form an envelope around the nucleus. This
envelope gradually increases its distance from the sun, growing fainter
and larger, while within it the process is repeated, and a new envelope
is formed. This in turn ascends from the nucleus, expanding as it does
so, while within it a new envelope is formed. Meanwhile, the one first
formed has grown fainter, perhaps has disappeared. But sometimes the
process goes on so rapidly (a day or two sufficing for the formation
of a complete new envelope) that several envelopes will be seen at the
same time, the outermost faintest, the innermost most irregular in
shape and most varied in brightness, while the envelope or envelopes
between are the best developed and most regular.
The matter raised up in these envelopes seems to have undergone a
certain change of character, causing it no longer to obey the sun’s
attractive influence, but to experience a strong repulsive action
from him, whereby it is apparently swept away with great rapidity to
form the tail. “It flows past the nucleus,” says Dr. Huggins, “on
all sides, still ever expanding and shooting backward until a tail
is formed in a direction opposite to the sun. This tail is usually
curved, though sometimes rays or extra tails sensibly straight are
also seen.” The description is, however, incomplete in one important
respect. The matter raised from the nucleus to form the envelopes may
be, and probably is, carried past the nucleus on all sides; but the
appearance presented by the tail just behind the nucleus is not exactly
in accordance with our ideas as to what should result from the flowing
past “on all sides.” There is a dark space immediately behind the
nucleus, that is, where the nucleus, if solid, would throw its shadow,
if there were matter to receive the light all around so that the shadow
could be seen. Now it may be thought at first that this corresponds
exactly with what should be seen: when we look just behind the nucleus
there is no light, or very little; when we look on either side of that
dark space there is the luminous matter which has been driven back from
the envelopes in front of the nucleus. But if the luminous matter flows
past the nucleus _on all sides_, it must flow past the nucleus on the
side nearest to the observer, and also on the side farthest away; and
it is just where the line of the sight passes through these two regions
of brightness that a dark streak is seen just behind the nucleus. Let
the reader draw two concentric circles—one an inch in diameter, the
other two inches—and let him then draw two parallel tangents to the
inner circle on opposite sides of it. Supposing now the space between
the two circles to represent in section the luminous matter which flows
all round the nucleus, while the surface of the inner circle represents
the unilluminated part behind the nucleus, the two tangent lines
will represent the lines of sight on either side of the dark region,
where as we might expect, we get plenty of light; and we can also
understand very well why outside of that the line of sight through the
luminous matter (or the chords to our outer circle), getting shorter
and shorter, the light of the luminous streaks bounding this part of
the tail gets fainter and fainter; but if just inside either of the
two tangents, chords are drawn parallel to them, crossing the inner
circle, the parts of these chords which lie between the two circles
are very nearly equal in length to the tangent lines themselves; and
even a common diameter to both circles has, lying between them, two
portions together equal to the radius of the outer. Hence, since the
line of sight even across the middle of the space behind the nucleus,
passes through a considerable range of luminous matter, while a line
within but near the outskirts of that space passes through nearly
as great a range of luminous matter as one just outside that space,
there should be plenty of light where yet to the eye there seems to
be something like absolute darkness. Either then the eye is greatly
deceived, or else we must find some explanation of darkness existing
where considerable brightness might be expected.[D]
The matter which forms the tail, seems, as I have said, to be swept
off from the envelopes raised by the sun’s action on the nucleus.
It seems as though the matter thus raised had undergone in some way
a change of character, which caused it no longer to obey the law of
gravity as it had done when forming part of the nucleus, but instead
of yielding to the sun’s attraction, to submit rather to an intense
repulsive action, carrying it at a much greater rate from the sun
than, under the action of gravity—starting from rest and free from all
perturbing influences—it could have been drawn toward him. Dr. Huggins
thus words his account of what seems to happen: “Now is seen to take
place a change which is most puzzling—namely, these envelopes of light
appear to give up their substance under the influence of a strong
repulsive force exerted from the sun, and to be forced backwards.” Sir
John Herschel, after his long and careful study of the comet of 1830
(Halley’s at its second return) came to the conclusion that repulsive
action exerted by the sun on the matter raised in these envelopes had
been distinctly proved.
Yet here, where we seem to have our first firm ground for hypothesis
respecting these mysterious objects—comets’ tails—we meet with
stupendous difficulties. Consider, for instance, the phenomena
presented by Newton’s comet. That comet had traversed the last ninety
millions of miles of its approach toward the sun in four weeks. At
the end of that time it passed out of view for a few days, having
then a tail ninety millions of miles, at least, in length. Four days
passed, and it reappeared on the other side of the sun—having in the
interval traversed nearly a semi-circle—in reality, of course, the
perihelion end of its long oval path. At its reappearance, it had a
tail still ninety millions of miles in length, but the tail with which
it reappeared had, of course, a direction entirely different from that
of the tail which had been seen before—the two directions were inclined
about one hundred and sixty degrees to each other. Now, as Sir John
Herschel remarks, we can not look on the tail of a comet as something
whirled round like a stick, as the comet circles round its perihelion
sweep. The tail with which the comet reappeared must have been an
entirely new formation. Nor can we doubt that if the comet had been
watched as it swept around the sun, the changes in the tail’s position
which had been observed to the time of disappearance, would have been
observed to progress continuously, the tail passing by a uniform motion
from the position it then had to that which it was observed to have
at the time of reappearance. So that we may fairly suppose the tail
with which the comet reappeared to have been formed in much less than
the time during which the comet had been out of sight. Probably its
farthest part had been formed in much less than a day, the part near
the head being, of course, formed later. But if the matter repelled
from the head was thus driven over a distance of ninety million miles
in twenty-four hours, at the outside, the average velocity of its
motion was about a thousand miles per second, or nearly three times as
great as the greatest velocity which the sun _can_ communicate by his
attractive energy to matter approaching him from without, even though
such matter come to him from an almost infinite distance, and in a
perfectly straight line—the conditions most favorable for giving a
high rate of final velocity. Such velocity as the sun can thus give by
his attractive energy is only given to matter which has been exposed a
long time to his influence; but here, in the tail of the great comet of
1680, matter seems to have acquired almost instantaneously a velocity
sufficing to carry it over ninety million miles with an average
speed three times as great as the sun can thus, after long effort,
communicate by means of his attractive power!
The difficulty is so great that many efforts—some bold and daring,
others positively wild in the unscientific absurdity of their
nature—have been made to overcome it.
Among the most ingenious of these is (or rather was, for I think it
is no longer maintained even by its eminent author), Prof. Tyndall’s
theory of a comet’s tail as an actinic cloud, generated by the
passage of the solar rays through exceedingly tenuous matter after
those rays had been in part deprived of their heating power, during
their passage through the comet’s head. According to this theory the
actinic cloud can not be formed under the heating rays, but so soon
as the actinic rays fall on the tenuous matter alone, the cloud is
formed,—so that all round the region in which would be the comet’s
shadow, there is no luminous cloud, while along that region the cloud
exists. The rapidity with which light travels would of course make
this explanation absolutely perfect in explaining cometic tails lying
always exactly in a straight line directed from the sun, or with their
axis so situated. But unfortunately this exceedingly rapid formation of
the tail (a tail of ninety million miles in length would be formed in
about eight minutes) is more than observation requires or can explain.
Prof. Tyndall made a slight oversight in dealing with this part of his
theory. Noticing that the actinic cloud, as he called it, is not formed
instantly, but after a delay of a few seconds, in his experiments, he
reasoned as though it would follow from this that the formation of
the actinic cloud behind a comet’s head in space might be a process
extending its action in distance from the head at a rate considerably
less than that at which light travels, yet still fast enough to account
for the exceedingly rapid formation of the tail of Newton’s comet,
and of other similar tails. But a little consideration will show that
the few seconds following the fall of light on the vapors dealt with
by Tyndall, before the luminous cloud appeared, would produce no such
effect as he imagined. The rate of formation of the tail would still
be that at which light travels. Imagine the head at A, for the sake of
argument, and the sun’s light after reaching A, passing on to B, C, D,
E, etc., to Z, a distance say of one hundred million miles, in nine
minutes:
A ... B ... C ... D ... E ... ... Z.
Suppose that, when the light has reached the vaporous matter lying at
B, an interval of one full minute (much greater than any noticed in
Tyndall’s experiments), occurs before the actinic cloud comes into
view, a similar interval after the light has passed C before the
cloud is seen there, and so on, up to the time of the arrival of the
light at Z. Professor Tyndall’s reasoning implied that all the time
intervals thus occurring at B, C, D, E, etc., up to Z, had to be added
together, to give the total time of the formation of the tail from A to
Z, and hence naturally a long time might elapse, and the head having
at the end of this time reached a different position from that which
it had occupied at the beginning, the divergence of the tail from
the direction exactly opposite to the sun, and the curvature of the
tail, would be alike readily accounted for. But what are the actual
facts of the case. The part of the tail formed latest by the supposed
solar actinic action, namely, the part at Z, would be formed just nine
minutes after the light had left A, and ten minutes after the part
nearest to A had been formed (by the same light waves), for, nine
minutes after leaving A, the light would be at Z, and a minute after
each epoch (according to our supposition) the actinic cloud would be
formed respectively at A and at Z. We get just the same interval—nine
minutes—whether the actinic cloud appears immediately after light has
traversed the vapour which is to form the cloud, or a minute after, or
an hour after. In every case the tail would be formed outwards from
A, at the rate at which light travels. This does not accord with the
phenomena—in fact, the supposition that a tail could be formed at the
rate at which light travels, will be found, on examination, to lead
to many most manifest absurdities, which Professor Tyndall doubtless
recognized when he sought escape from the supposition of such rapid
tail formation, through the effects he attributed to the delayed
appearance of the actinic cloud.
Another theory in explanation of the rapid formation of such a tail
as that of Newton’s comet is worthy of far less notice. Professor
Tyndall’s theory was based on an interesting physical fact, which he
had himself discovered, and which was also manifestly akin in character
to the formation of a comet’s tail. The one to be now noticed was
suggested to a mathematician by a rather familiar phenomenon, the
effects of which on his imagination he seems to have been never able to
entirely overcome—at any rate no amount of evidence against the theory
seems to counterbalance in his mind the notion once conceived that the
theory might be true. (It is a way some theorists have.)
Professor Tait was once looking at a part of the sky which seemed
clear. As he looked, a long streak rapidly formed, which presently
disappeared (if I remember his original description aright) almost as
rapidly as it had formed. At any rate, the appearance of the streak
was rapid enough to remind him of what astronomers said about the
rapid (apparent) development of comets’ tails. The phenomenon itself
was easily explained. There had been a flight of seabirds, traveling
after their wont in a widely extended layer, which when he began his
observations had been looked at somewhat aslant, so that—the distance
being too great for the birds to be seen individually—nothing of the
flight could be discerned at all. But it is evident that in such a
case a very slight movement on the part of each bird would suffice
so to shift the position of the layer in which they were traveling,
that it would be seen edgewise, and then the birds, being so situated
that the range of sight toward any part of the layer passed athwart
a great number of them, would of course be seen, not individually but
as a cloud, or long straight streak, a side view in fact of the layer
in which they were traveling. _Eureka!_ shouted Professor Tait; and
presently announced to the world the marvelous theory that the rapid
formation of comets’ tails may be accounted for on the same general
principle. Astronomers have found that along the tracks of some comets
(where the tails never lie, by the way, but that is a detail) are
countless millions of meteoric bodies separately undiscernable (and
never yet discerned as a cloud—another detail); therefore it follows
that the tails of all comets are formed by movements of “brickbats and
paving stones” in them (Professor Tait’s own description of meteors),
after the manner of the seabirds he saw from Arthur’s Seat. Professor
Thomson at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association endorsed
this theory with special reference to the value of the “seabird
analogy” in explaining the phenomena of Newton’s comet. Dr. Huggins,
who, as he does not claim to be a mathematician (or to speak more
correctly, as his labors in physical research have not given him time
for profound mathematical research), may be more readily excused, also
speaks of the seabird theory as if it had some legitimate standing.
“The tail, he conceives,” he says, referring to Dr. Tait, “to be a
portion of the less dense part of the train illuminated by sunlight,
and visible or invisible to us, according, not only to circumstances of
density, illumination, and nearness, but also of tactic arrangement,
as of a flock of birds under different conditions of perspective.”
Of course, the theory is utterly untenable—by astronomers who know
something of the actual facts, and have enough mathematics to consider
simple geometrical relations. Bodies moving in a plane surface like
birds, if they individually travel in the same plane, keep its position
unchanged. But if they move individually at an angle to that plane
(as they occasionally do), they change its position—the surface,
however, in which they collectively are at any moment, still remaining
plane. In such a case only could such a phenomenon as was observed
by Professor Tait be seen. But in such a case the visibility of the
streak formed by the flight of birds would last but a few minutes, for
the same motion which had in a few minutes brought the streak into
view would in the next few minutes take it out of view. During the
short time that a flight is visible in this way, it has an unchanging
position, or a scarcely changing one. If the tail of Newton’s comet
had rapidly formed and as rapidly vanished, remaining, while visible,
in an almost unchanging position, the “seabird analogy” might explain
that particular phenomenon, however inadequate to explain multitudes
of others. But the phenomena to be explained are entirely different.
Leaving out of the question the varying position and length of the tail
as it approached the sun, and after it left the sun’s neighborhood,
all of which were entirely inconsistent with the seabird analogy, what
we are called upon to explain is that a visible tail ninety millions
of miles in length, seen in position 1A on one day, was seen three
days later in position 3A (having manifestly in the meanwhile passed
through all the intermediate positions, including 2A). If Professor
Tait, profound mathematician though he be, though he may “differentiate
and integrate like Harlequin,” can show how any flight of bodies,
like or unlike seabirds, can accomplish such a feat as the above,
appearing first to form a thin streak A1, and in less than four days
a thin streak A3, each ninety millions of miles long, without _some_
of them having had to travel a distance nearly equal to the line 1 to
3—or some one hundred and fifty millions of miles long, instead of the
trifling journeys he assigned them, he should take a rank above Newton
and Laplace as a mathematician. But there is another feat, apparently
equally difficult to him, which he might achieve very readily with
great advantage to those non-mathematicians among astronomers whom his
name—well deserved, too—as a mathematician has hitherto misled, and
with not less advantage to his own reputa
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