{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18462/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18462","id":"gutenberg_18462","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18462","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY, AND OTHER SKETCHES\n\n\nBY\n\nDAVID STARR JORDAN\n\n\n\nPRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY\n\n\n\n\n\nSAN FRANCISCO\n\nTHE WHITAKER & RAY COMPANY (INCORPORATED)\n\n1896\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1896,\n\nBY\n\nDAVID STARR JORDAN\n\n\n\n\nTO MY WIFE,\n\nJESSIE KNIGHT JORDAN.\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE.\n\nThis volume is made up of separate sketches, historical or allegorical,\nhaving in some degree a bond of union in the idea of \"the higher\nsacrifice.\"\n\nI am under obligations to Professor William R. Dudley for the use of a\nphotograph of a record of Father Serra.  This was secured through the\nkindness of the late Father Casanova, of Monterey.\n\nPALO ALTO, CAL., June 1, 1896.\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS.\n\n\n  THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY\n  THIS STORY OF THE PASSION\n  THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE\n  THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN\n  THE LAST OF THE PURITANS\n  A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS\n  NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE\n  THE HIGHER SACRIFICE\n  THE BUBBLES OF SAKI\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\nPeter Rendl as Saint John\n\nJohann Zwink as Judas\n\nRosa Lang as Mary\n\n\"Ecce Homo!\"\n\nA Record of Junipero Serra\n\nMission of San Antonio de Padua\n\nMission of San Antonio de Padua--Interior of Chapel\n\nMission of San Antonio de Padua--Side of Chapel,\n  with the Old Pear-trees\n\nThe Great Saint Bernard\n\nHospice of the Great Saint Bernard\n\nHospice of the Great Saint Bernard--in Winter\n\nJupitere (Great Saint Bernard Dog)\n\nMonks of the Great Saint Bernard\n\nSaint Bernard and the Demon\n\nJohn Brown\n\nThe John Brown Homestead, North Elba, N. Y.\n\nJohn Brown's Grave\n\nUlrich Von Hutten\n\nUlrich Zwingli\n\n\n\n\n  _Men told me, Lord, it was a vale of tears\n  Where Thou hast placed me, wickedness and woe\n  My twain companions whereso I might go;\n  That I through ten and threescore weary years\n  Should stumble on beset by pains and fears,\n  Fierce conflict round me, passions hot within,\n  Enjoyment brief and fatal but in sin.\n  When all was ended then should I demand\n  Full compensation from thine austere hand:\n  For, 'tis thy pleasure, all temptation past,\n  To be not just but generous at last._\n\n  _Lord, here am I, my threescore years and ten\n  All counted to the full; I've fought thy fight,\n  Crossed thy dark valleys, scaled thy rocks' harsh height,\n  Borne all the burdens Thou dost lay on men\n  With hand unsparing threescore years and ten.\n  Before Thee now I make my claim, O Lord,--\n  What shall I pray Thee as a meet reward?_\n\n  _I ask for nothing.  Let the balance fall!\n  All that I am or know or may confess\n  But swells the weight of mine indebtedness;\n  Burdens and sorrows stand transfigured all;\n  Thy hand's rude buffet turns to a caress,\n  For Love, with all the rest.  Thou gavest me here,\n  And Love is Heaven's very atmosphere,\n  Lo, I have dwelt with Thee, Lord.  Let me die.\n  I could no more through all eternity._\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY.\n\nThere was once a great mountain which rose from the shore of the sea,\nand on its flanks it bore a mighty forest.  Beyond the crest of the\nmountain were ridges and valleys, peaks and chasms, springs and\ntorrents.  Farther on lay a sandy desert, which stretched its\nmonotonous breadth to the shore of a wide, swift river.  What lay\nbeyond the river no one knew, because its shores were always hid in\nazure mist.\n\nYear by year there came up from the shore of the sea an Innumerable\nCompany.  Each one must cross the mountain and the forest, faring\nonward toward the desert and the river.  And this was one condition of\nthe journey--that whosoever came to the river must breast its waters\nalone.  Why this was so, no one could tell; nor did any one know aught\nof the land beyond.  For of the multitude who had crossed the river not\none had ever returned.\n\nAs time went on there came to be paths through the forest.  Those who\nwent first left traces to serve as guides for those coming after.  Some\nput marks on the trees; some built little cairns of stones to show the\nway they had taken in going around great rocks.  Those who followed\nfound these marks and added to them.  And many of the travelers left\nlittle charts which showed where the cliffs and chasms were and by what\nmeans one could reach the hidden springs.  So in time it came to pass\nthat there was scarcely a tree on the mountain which bore not some\ntraveler's mark; there was scarcely a rock that had not a cairn of\nstones upon it.\n\nIn early times there was One who came up from the sea and made the\njourney over the mountain and across the desert by a way so fair that\nthe memory of it became a part of the story of the forest.  Men spoke\nto each other of his way, and many wished to find it out, that haply\nthey might walk therein.  He, too, had left a Chart, which those who\nfollowed him had carefully kept, and from which they had drawn help in\nmany times of need.\n\nThe way he went was not the shortest way, nor was it the easiest.  The\nways that are short and easy lead not over the mountain.  But his was\nthe most _repaying_ way.  It led by the noblest trees, the fairest\noutlooks, the sweetest springs, the greenest pastures, and the shadow\nof great rocks in the desert.  And the chart of his way which he left\nwas very simple and very plain--easy to understand.  Even a child might\nuse it.  And, indeed, there were many children who did so.\n\nOn this chart were the chief landmarks of the region--the mountain with\nits forest, the desert with its green oases, the paths to the hidden\nsprings.  But there were not many details.  The old cairns were not\nmarked upon it, and when two paths led alike over the mountain, there\nwas no sign to show that one was to be taken rather than the other.\nNot much was said as to what food one should take, or what raiment one\nshould wear, or by what means one should defend himself.  But there\nwere many simple directions as to how one should act on the road, and\nby what signs he should know the right path.  One ought to look upward,\nand not downward; to look forward, and not backward; to be always ready\nto give a helping hand to his neighbor: and whomsoever one meets is\none's neighbor, he said.\n\nAs to the desert, one need not dread it; nor should one fear the river,\nfor the lands beyond it were sweet and fair.  Moreover, one should\nlearn to know the forest, that he might choose his course wisely.  And\nthis knowledge each one should seek for himself.  For, as he said, \"If\nthe blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.\"\n\nThere were many who followed his way and gave heed to his precepts.\nThe path seemed dangerous at times, especially at the outset; for it\nlay along dizzy heights, through tangled underwood, and across swollen\ntorrents.  But after a while all these were left behind.  The way\npassed on between cleft rocks, into green pastures, and by still\nwaters; and in the desert were sweet springs which gave forth\nabundantly.\n\nBut some who tried to follow him said that his Chart was not explicit\nenough.  Every step in the journey, they contended, should be laid out\nexactly; for to travel safely one should never be left in doubt.\n\nNow, it chanced that on the slope of the mountain there was a huge\ngranite rock, which stood in the midst of the way.  Some of the\ntravelers passed to the right of it, while others turned to the left.\nStrangely enough, the Chart said nothing concerning this rock.  No hint\nwas given as to how one should pass by it.\n\nWhen they came to the rock, many of the travelers took counsel one of\nanother, and at last a great multitude was gathered there.  Which way\nhad he taken?  For in the path he took they must surely go.  Many\nscanned the rock on every side, to find if haply he had left some\nsecret mark upon it.  But they found none; or, rather, no one could\nconvince the others that the hidden marks he found were intended for\ntheir guidance.\n\nAt nightfall, after much discussion, the old men in the council gave\ntheir decision.  The safe way led to the right.  So he who kept the\nChart marked upon it the place of the rock, and he wrote upon the Chart\nthat the one true path leads to the right.  Henceforth each man should\nknow the way he must go.\n\nMoreover, those who bore the records showed that this decision was\njustified.  They wrote upon the Chart a long argument, chain upon chain\nand reason upon reason, to prove that from the beginning it was decreed\nthat by this rock should the destiny of man be tested.\n\nBut in spite of argument, there were still some who chose the left-hand\npath because they verily believed that this was the only right way.\nThey, too, justified their course by arguments, line upon line and\nprecept upon precept.  And each band tried to make its following as\nlarge as it could.  Some men stood all day by the side of the rock,\nurging people to come with them to the right or to the left.  For,\nstrangely enough, although each man had his own journey to make, and\nmust cross the river at last alone, he was eager that all others should\ngo along with him.\n\nAnd as each band grew larger, its members took pride in the growth of\nits numbers.  In the larger bands, trumpets were blown, harps were\nsounded, and banners were waved in the wind.  Those who walked shoulder\nto shoulder under waving flags to the sound of trumpets felt secure and\nconfident, while those who journeyed alone seemed always to walk with\nfear and trembling.  It was said in the old Chart that where two or\nthree were gathered together on the way, strength and courage would be\ngiven them.  But men could not believe this, and few had the heart to\ntest whether it were true or no.\n\nSo the bands went on to the right or to the left, each in its chosen\npath.  But after they had passed the first great rock, they came to\nother rocks and trees and places of doubt.  Other councils were held,\nand at each step there were some who would not abide by the decision of\nthe elders.  So these from time to time went their own ways.  And they\nmade new inscriptions on the Chart, and erased the old ones, each\naccording to his own ideas.  And there was much pushing and jostling\nwhen the bands separated themselves one from another.\n\nAt last one of the oldest travelers in the largest band--a man with a\nlong white beard, and wise with the experience of years--arose and said\nthat not in anger, nor in strife, should they journey on.  Discord and\ncontention arise from difference of opinion.  Let all men but think\nalike, and they will walk in peace and harmony.  Let each band choose a\nleader.  Let him carry the Chart, and let him night and day pore over\nits precepts.  No one else need distress himself.  One had only to keep\nstep on the road, and to follow whithersoever the leader might direct.\n\nSo the people chose a leader--a man grave and serious, wise in the lore\nof the forest and the desert.  He noted on the Chart each rock and\ntree, drawing in sharp outlines every detail in the only safe path.\nMoreover, all deviating trails he marked with the symbol of danger.\n\nAnd it came to pass that day by day other bands followed, and to them\nthe Chart was given as he had left it.  And these bands, too, chose\nleaders, whose part it was to interpret the Chart.  But each one of\nthese added to the Chart some better way of his own, some short cut he\nhad found, or some new trail not marked with the proper sign of warning.\n\nAnd with all these changes and additions, as time went on, the true way\nbecame very hard to find.  At one point, so the story is told, there\nwere twenty-nine distinct paths, leading in as many directions; each of\nthese, if the Chart be true, came to its end in some frightful chasm.\nWith these there was a single narrow trail that led to safety; but no\ntwo leaders could agree as to which was the right trail.  One thing\nonly was certain: the true way was very hard to find, and no traveler\nmight discover it unaided.\n\nAnd some declared that the Chart was complicated beyond all need.\nThere was one who said, \"The multiplication of non-essentials has\nbecome the bane of the forest.\"  Even a little meadow which he had\nfound, and which he called the \"Saints' Rest,\" was so entangled in\npaths and counterpaths that once out of sight of it one could never\nfind it again.\n\nAll this time there were many bands that wandered about in circles,\nfinding everywhere cairns of stones, but no way of escape.  Still\nothers remained day after day in the shadow of great rocks, disputing\nand doubting as to how they should pass by them.  There were arguments\nand precedents enough for any course; but arguments and precedents made\nno man sure.\n\nAnd it came to pass that most travelers followed the band they found\nnearest.  At last, to join some band became their only care.  And they\nlooked with pity and distrust upon those who traveled alone.\n\nBut the bands all made their way very slowly.  No matter how wise the\nleader, not all were ready to move at once, and not all could keep step\nto the sound of even the slowest trumpet.  There was often much ado at\nnightfall over the pitching of the tents, and many were crowded out\ninto the forest.  At times also, in the presence of danger, fear spread\nthrough the band, and many of the weaker ones were trampled on and\nsorely hurt.\n\nThen, too, as they passed through the rocky defiles, some of them lost\nsight of the banners, and then the others would wait for them, or\nperchance leave them behind, to struggle on as best they might without\nchart or guide.\n\nAnd there were those who spoke in this wise: \"Many paths lead over the\nmountain, and sooner or later all come to the desert and the river.  It\ndoes not matter where we walk; the question is, How?  We cannot know\nstep by step the way he went.  Let us walk by faith, as he walked.  If\nour spirit is like his, we shall not lack for guidance when we come to\nthe crossing of the ways.\"  And so they fared on.  But many doubted\ntheir own promptings.  \"Tell me, am I right?\" each one asked of his\nneighbor; and his neighbor asked it again of him.  And those who were\nin doubt followed those who were sure.\n\nSo it came to pass that these who walked by faith likewise gathered\nthemselves into great companies, and each company followed some leader.\nSome of these leaders had the gift of woodcraft, and saw clearly into\nthe very nature of things.  But some were only headstrong, and these\nproved to be but blind leaders of the blind.\n\nThen one said, \"We must not be filled with our own conceit, but must\nhumbly imitate him.  We must try to work as he worked; to rest as he\nrested; to sleep as he slept.  The deeds we do should be those he did,\nand those only.  For on his Chart he has told us, not the way he went\npast rocks and trees, but the actions with which his days were filled.\"\nThen those who tried to do as he had done, moved by his motives and\nacting through his deeds, found the way wonderfully easy.  The days and\nthe hours seemed all too short for the joy with which they were filled.\n\nBut, again, there were many who said that his directions were not\nexplicit enough.  The Chart said so little.  \"That we may make no\nmistake,\" they said, \"we must gather ourselves in bands and choose\nleaders.  We cannot act as he acted unless there is some one to show us\nhow.\"\n\nThus it came to pass that leaders were chosen who could do everything\nthat he had done, in all respects, according to his method.  And they\nadded to the Chart the record of their own practices--not only that \"He\ndid thus and so,\" but also, \"Thus and so he did not do.\"  \"Thus and\nthus did he eat bread, and thus only.  Thus and thus did he loose his\nsandals.  In this way only gave he bread and wine.  Here on the way he\nfasted; there he feasted.  At this turn of the road he looked upward\nthus, shading his eyes with his hand.  Here he anointed his feet; there\nhis face wore a sad smile.  Such was the cut of his coat; of this wood\nwas his staff; of such a number of words his prayer.\"  And many were\ncomforted in the thought that for every turn in the road there was some\ndefinite thing which he had done, and which they, too, might perform.\n\nThus the duties of every moment were fixed.  But as the days went on\nthese duties grew more and more difficult.  No one had time to look at\nthe rocks or trees; no one could cast his eyes over a noble prospect;\nno one could stop to rest by the sweet fountains or in the refreshing\nshadows.  One could hardly give a moment to such things, lest he should\noverlook some needful service.\n\nThen many lost heart, and said that surely he cared not for times and\nobservances, else he would have said more about them.  When he made the\njourney, it was his chief reproach that he heeded not these things.\nWith him, ceremony or observance rose directly out of the need for it,\neach one as the need was felt.  To imitate him is to feel as he felt.\nWith him feelings gave rise to word and action.  \"So will it be with\nus.  It is not for us to imitate him in the fashion of his coat or the\ncut of his beard.  He went over the road giving help and comfort, as\nthe sun gives light or the flowers shed fragrance, all unconscious of\nthe good he did.\"  And in this wise did many imitate him.  They turned\naside the boughs of the trees, that the sunshine of heaven might fall\nupon their neighbors.  And behold, the same sunshine fell upon them\nalso.  They removed the stones from the road, that others might not\nstumble over them.  And others removed the stones from their way also.\n\nBut many were still in doubt and hesitation.  The record, they said,\nwas not explicit enough.  They counseled together, and gathered in\nbands, and chose leaders who should tell them how to feel.  And the\nleaders gave close heed to all his feelings and to the times and\nseasons proper to each.  Here he was joyous, and at a signal all the\nbaud broke into merry laughter.  Here he was stern, and the multitude\nset its teeth.  There he wept, and tears fell like rain from\ninnumerable eyes.\n\nAs time went on, repeated action made action easy.  The springs of\nfeeling were readily troubled.  Still each one felt, or tried to feel,\nall that he should have felt.  No one dared admit to his fellows that\nhis tears were a sham, his joy a pretense, his sadness a lie.  But\noften, in the bottom of their hearts, men would confess with real tears\nthat they had no genuine feeling there.\n\nThen the people asked for leaders who could bring out real feelings.\nAnd there arose leaders, who, by terrible words, could fill the hearts\nwith fear; by burning words, could stir the embers of zeal; by the\nintensity of their own passions, could fill the throng with pity, with\nsorrow, or with indignation.  And the multitude hung on their lips; for\nthey sought for feelings real and not simulated.\n\nBut here again division arose; for not all were touched alike by those\nwho had power over the hearts of men.  Some followed the leader who\nmoved them to tears; others chose him who filled them with fear and\ntrembling.  Still others loved to linger in the dark shadow of remorse.\nSome said that right emotions were roused by loud and ringing tones.\nSome said that the tones should be sad and sweet.\n\nThen there were some who said that feelings such as all these were idle\nand common.  When he trod the way of old, it was with radiant eyes and\nwith uplifted heart.  He saw through the veil of clouds to the glory\nwhich lay beyond.  We follow him best when we too are uplifted.  Now\nand then on the way come to us moments of exultation, when we tread in\nhis very footsteps.  These are the precious moments; then our way is\nhis way.  In the rosy mists of morning, we may behold the glory which\nencompassed him.  In moments of silent communion in the forest, we may\nfeel his peace steal over us.  In the gentle rain that falls upon the\njust and the unjust, we may know the soft pity of his tears.  When the\nsun declines, its last rays touch with gold the far-off mountain tops\nbeyond the great river.\n\nAnd the uplifting of great moments, filling the souls of men with peace\nthat passeth understanding, came to many.  As they went their way, this\npeace fell upon their neighbors also.  And no man did aught to make\nthem afraid.  And others sought to go with these, and thus they became\na great band.\n\nSo they chose as their leaders those whose visions were brightest.  And\nthey made for themselves a banner like the white mist flung out from\nthe mountain-tops at the rising of the sun.  They spoke much to each\nother concerning the white banner and the peace which filled their\nsouls.\n\nBut as they journeyed along, the dust of the way dimmed the banner, and\nthe bright visions one by one faded away.  At last they came no more.\n\nThen the people murmured and called upon the leaders to grant them some\nbrighter vision, something that all could see and feel at once--some\nsign by which they might know that they were still in his way.  \"Cause\nthat a path be opened through the thicket,\" they said, \"and let a white\ndove come forth to lead us on; or, let the mists beyond the river part\nfor a moment, that we may behold the far country beyond.\"\n\nAnd one of the leaders standing at the head of the column, clothed in\nthe morning light as with a garment, raised his staff high in the air.\nThe sun's rays fell upon it, touching the morning mists with gold, and\nthrew across them the long shadow of the upraised staff.  The shadow\nfell far out across the plains, and about it was a halo of bright\nlight.  And all the band looked joyfully at the vision.  Adown the\nslope of the mountain and out into the plain they followed the way of\nthe shadow.  And all the time the white banner waved at the head of the\ncolumn.  The people said little to one another, but that little was a\nword of praise and rejoicing.\n\nBut it came to pass, as the day wore on, that the sun rose in the sky,\nand drew the mists up from the valley.  With them vanished the long\nshadow of the staff, and in its place appeared the sandy plain.  The\nfeet of the people were sore with the rocks and stones.  The air was\nthick with dust.  Their hearts were uplifted no longer.  Instead they\nwere filled with doubt and distress.\n\nAnd the people repined and murmured against their leader.  But the\nleader said that all was well; even in the way he went there had been\nstones and hindrances.  More than once had he carried a heavy burden\nalong a dusty road.  But he never doubted nor complained, and so the\nradiance round about him never faded away.\n\nBut all the more the people clamored for a sign.  Let the bright vision\nof the morning appear to us again.  At length, worn with much entreaty,\nthe leader raised once more his staff above his head.  The sun at noon\nfell upon it.  But as the people gazed they saw no long line of\nradiance stretching out across the plains amid a halo of shining mist.\nThe shadow of the staff was a little shapeless mark upon the sand at\ntheir very feet.\n\nThen the leader cast his staff away and went by himself alone, sad and\nsorrowful.  That night, as he lay by the roadside, he looked upward to\nthe clear, calm, honest stars.  They seemed to say to him, \"See all\nthings as they really are.  This was his way.  'In spirit and in truth'\nmeans in the light of no illusion.  Not all the visions of mist or of\nsunshine can make the journey other than it is.\"\n\nSo he came to look closely at all things on the road.  Day by day he\nread the lessons of the desert and the mountain.  He learned to know\ndirections by the growth of the trees.  By the perfume of the lilies,\nhe sought out the hidden springs.  By the red clouds at evening, he\nknew that the sky would be fair.  By the red light in the morning, he\nwas warned of the coming storm.  And there were many who followed him\nand his way, though he did not will it so.\n\nAnd he taught his companions, saying: \"We must seek his way in the\nnature of the things that abide.  To learn this nature of things is the\nbeginning of wisdom.  For day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto\nnight showeth knowledge.  The way of nature is solid, substantial,\nvast, and unchanging.  He who walks in it stands secure, as in the\nshadow of a high tower or as if encompassed by a mighty fortress.  The\nwisdom of the forest shall be granted to him who seeks for it with calm\nheart and quiet eye.\"\n\nBut among his followers there were many who were eager and would hasten\non, and although they spoke much of the Nature of Things and of the Law\nof the Forest, they were contented with speaking.  \"The road is long,\"\nthey said to themselves, \"and the hours are fleeting.\"  They had no\ntime to contemplate the glory of the heavens.  The beauty of the lilies\nfell on unobservant eyes.  For all these things they trusted to the\nreport of others.  The words passed from mouth to mouth, losing ever a\nlittle of their truth.  And in this wise the voice of wisdom was turned\nto the language of folly.  For the nature of things is truth.  But no\nman can find truth except he seek it for himself.  And so they fared\non, each well or ill, according to the truth to which his way bore\nwitness.\n\nMeanwhile those who bore the white banner remained long in council.  At\nlast one remembered that it was written, \"Faith without works is dead,\nbeing alone.\"  And it was written again, \"Those who follow me in spirit\nmust follow me in truth.\"  The essence of truth lies not in thought or\nfeeling, but must be expressed in deeds.  Right feelings follow right\nactions.  Thus it was with him; thus will it be with us.\n\nThen they went their way together, doing good to one another.  And each\ncalled his neighbor \"brother\"; and some bore cups of cold water, and\nsome balm for healing; some carried oil and wine and pots of precious\nointment.  To whomsoever they met they gave help and comfort.  The\nhungry they fed.  The thirsty were given drink.  He who had fallen by\nthe wayside was lifted up and strengthened, and the blessing of\ncleanliness was brought to him who lay in filth and shame.  The\nblessing of him that was ready to perish came upon them, and the heart\nof the widow sang for joy.\n\nBut soon those who were filled with zeal for good works were gathered\ntogether in great bands, and each band wished to magnify its work.  In\nevery way, to all men who asked, help was given.  They searched out the\nlame and the blind, and brought them that they might perforce be\nhealed.  Cup after cup of cold water was given to the little ones, even\nto those who might bring water for themselves.  They cared for the\nwounded wayfarer long after his wounds were made whole.  It was their\njoy to bathe his limbs in oil and wine, or to swathe them in fragrant\nbands.  And the wayfarer ceased to bear his own tent or to seek his own\nraiment.  What others would do for him, he need not do for himself.\nAnd those who did not help themselves lost the power of self-help.  And\nthose who had helped others overmuch came themselves to need the help\nof others.\n\nAt last the number of the helpless became so great that there was no\none to serve them.  Many waited day after day for the aid that never\ncame, and they grew so weak with waiting that they could not take up\ntheir burdens.  The little ones were thrust aside by the strong, and as\nthe band went on many of them were forgotten and left behind.  They\nfainted and fell by the healing springs, because there was no one to\ngive them drink, and they could not help themselves.\n\nAnd the burden of the way grew very hard and grievous to bear.  Then\nthere were those who said that one cannot help another save by leading\nhim to help himself.  All that is given him must he repay.  Sooner or\nlater each must bear his own burden.  Each must make his own way\nthrough the forest in such manner as he may.\n\nSo they turned back to the old Chart.  They would read his words again,\nthat they might be led to better deeds.  In these words they found help\nand cheer.  These words spake they one to another.  They came like rain\nto a thirsty field, or as balm to a wound, or as good news from a far\ncountry.  And there was wonderful consolation in the thought that for\nevery step of the way he had spoken the right word.\n\nSo those who knew his words best were chosen as leaders, and great\ncompanies followed them.  And as band after band passed along, his\nmessage sounded from one to another.  His words were ever on their\nlips.  Those who could run swiftly carried them far and wide, even into\nthe depths of the forest.  To those who were in sorrow they came as\nglad tidings of great joy, and beautiful upon the mountains seemed the\nfeet of those who bore them.  Wherever men were weary and heavy laden,\nthey were cheered by his promise of rest.\n\nBut there were some who turned to his message only to gratify sordid\nhopes or vain desires.  He who was lazy sought warrant for sleep.  He\nwho was covetous looked for gain.  He who was filled with anger sought\npromise of vengeance.  There were many who repeated his words for the\nmere words' sake.  And there were some who used them in disputations\nabout the way.  And the words of help on the Chart they turned into\nwords of command.  Each one took these commands not to himself alone,\nbut sought to enforce them upon others.  \"For it is our duty,\" they\nsaid, \"to see that no word of his shall be unheeded of any man.\"  And\nmany rose in resistance.  And the conflicts on the way were fierce and\nstrong; for with each different band there was diversity of\ninterpretation.  Thus the words of kindness became the voice of hate.\n\nAnd it came to pass that all along the way the green sward was red with\nthe blood of wayfarers.  Everywhere the leaves of the forest were\ntrampled by struggling hosts.  And \"In his name\" was the watchword of\neach warring band.  And each band called itself \"his army.\"  And\nwhosoever bore the sword that was reddest, they called the \"Defender of\nthe Faith.\"  They placed his name upon their battle-flags, and beneath\nit they wrote these fearful words, \"In this sign, conquer.\"  And each\nwent forth to conquer his neighbor, and the wayfarer fled from the\nsight of their banners as from a pestilence.  But \"Conquer, conquer,\"\nwas no word of his.  He spoke not of victory over others; only of\nconquest of oneself.  He had said, \"Resist not, but overcome evil with\ngood.\"  And till all men ceased to resist and ceased to conquer, no one\nfound himself in the right way.  Then some one said: \"By words alone\ncan no one truly follow him.  His words without his faith and love are\nlike sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.  Out of the abundance of the\nheart the mouth speaketh.  When the heart is empty the speech of the\nmouth is idle as the crackling of thorns beneath a pot.\"\n\nAnd there appeared other bands from the number of those who had passed\nto the right of the first great rock; and seeing the tumult and\nconfusion of the others, they said to themselves: \"These are they who\nfollowed not us.  We have chosen the better part.  Our leader bears the\nonly perfect Chart.  All other charts are the invention of men.  In the\nright Chart there can be nothing false; in the others there can be\nnothing true.  Those who have not the true Chart can never go right,\nnot even for a moment.  For even good deeds done in the paths of evil\nmust partake of the nature of sin.  Straight is the way and narrow is\nthe gate, but there is no safety except ye walk therein.\"\n\nSo they went on, stumbling ever along the rocky road, never resting,\nnever murmuring.  \"For the way at best is a vale of tears,\" said they,\n\"and no one would have it otherwise.  He found it thus in his time.  He\nwas ever a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  More than all\nothers had he suffered.  It was his glory to be despised and rejected\nof men.  For the greater the abasement the greater the exaltation in\nthe land beyond the river.\"  So day by day they walked in the hardest\npart of the road.  But they spoke often together of a land of pure\ndelight, of sweet fields beyond the swelling floods, and of turf soft\nas velvet that rose from the river's bank.\n\nIf perchance on the way they came to green pastures, they would hasten\non, lest they should be tempted to rest before the day of rest was\ncome.  From sweet springs they turned aside, that theirs might be the\ngreater satisfaction when they came to the sweetest springs of all.\nThey shut their eyes to beauty and their ears to music, that the light\nand music of the unknown shore might burst upon them as a sudden\nrevelation.  They looked not at the stars, lest perchance these should\ndeclare a glory which was reserved for other days.  Dreary and harsh\nwas the way they trod.  But in its very dreariness they found safety.\nThey sought no pleasure, they fought no battles, they wasted no time.\nIn the pushing aside of all temptation, the scorn of all beauty and\nidleness, they found delight.  Against the strength of granite rock\nthey set the force of iron will.  Withal, at the bottom their hearts\nwere light with the certainty of coming joy.  Even the multitude of\nconflicting paths gave them a peculiar satisfaction; for whatever way\nthey took was always the right way.\n\nBut there were some among them who lost all heart.  And they threw\ntheir charts away and set forth in disorder through the forest and up\nthe mountain.  Some of them came safely to the river, far in advance of\nthe bands they had left behind.  But to most the way was strange, and\nharder than of old.  And as the journey wore on they began to hate the\nforest and all its ways.\n\nSo they fared on, together or apart, in ever-deepening shadow.  They\ndistrusted their neighbors.  They despised the joyous bands who trooped\nafter their leaders with mouthing of verses and waving of flags.  They\nwere stirred by the sound of no trumpet.  They were deceived by no\nillusion of sunshine or of mist.  They said: \"We know the forest; no\none knows it but ourselves.  There is no future; there is no way; there\nis no rest; there is no better country.  The azure mists are shadows\nonly, hiding some dreary plain, if haply they hide anything at all.\nEvil is man; evil are all things about him.  Love and joy, hope and\nfaith, all these are but flickering lights that lure him to\ndestruction.  Vultures croak on the rocks.  The fountains flow with\nink.  Danger lurks in the desert.  The name of the river is Death.\"\nAnd when they came to the shore of the river they saw no rift in the\nclouds above it, for their eyes were filled with gloom.\n\nBut as time passed on, the way of man grew brighter, whether he would\nor no.  No day nor hour was without its joy to him who opened his heart\nto receive it.  And men saw that most of the difficulties and dangers\nof the way were those which they unwittingly had made for themselves or\nfor others.  Thus, as the road became more secure, it no longer seemed\ndreary or lonely.\n\nAnd so it came to pass at last that men ceased to gather themselves in\ngreat bands.  Nor did they longer set store on the sound of trumpets or\nthe waving of flags.  The men who were wisest ceased to be leaders of\nhosts.  They became teachers and helpers instead.\n\nAnd with all this a sure way was from day to day not hard to find.  Men\nfell into it naturally and unconsciously.  And the ways which are safe\nare innumerable as the multitude of those that may walk therein.\n\nAnd those who had gone by diverse paths came from time to time\ntogether.  Each praised the charms of the path he had taken, but each\none knew that in other paths other men found as great delight.  And as\ntime went on many wise men passed over the way, and each in his own\nfashion left a record of all that had come to him.\n\nBut the old Chart men kept in ever-increasing reverence.  They found\nthat its simple, honest words were words of truth, and whoso sought for\ntruth gained with it courage and strength.  But they covered it no\nlonger with their own additions and interpretations.  Nor did any one\ninsist that what he found helpful to himself should be law unto others.\nNo longer did men say to one another, \"This path have I taken; this way\nmust thou go.\"\n\nAnd some one wrote upon the Chart this single rule of the forest:\n\"Choose thou thine own best way, and help thy neighbor to find that way\nwhich for him is best.\"  But this was erased at last; for beneath it\nthey found the older, plainer words, which One in earlier times had\nwritten there, \"_Thy neighbor as thyself._\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE PASSION.\n\nThe Alps are not confined to Switzerland.  They fill that little\ncountry full and overflow in all directions, into Austria, Italy,\nGermany, and France.  Beautiful everywhere, these mountains are nowhere\nmore charming than in Southern Bavaria.  Grass-carpeted valleys, lakes\nas blue as the sky above them, dark slopes of pine and fir, over-topped\nby crags of gray limestone dashed by perpetual snow, the Bavarian\nOberland is one of the most delightful regions in all Europe.  When\nAttila and the Huns invaded Germany fifteen centuries ago, it is said\nthat their cry was, \"On to Bavaria--on to Bavaria! for there dwells the\nLord God himself!\"\n\nIn the heart of these mountains, shut off from the highways of travel\nby great walls of rock, lies the valley of the little river Ammer.  Its\nwaters are cold and clear, for they flow from mountain springs, and its\nwillow-shaded eddies are full of trout.  At first a brawling torrent,\nits current grows more gentle as the valley widens and the rocks\nrecede, and at last the little river flows quietly with broad windings\nthrough meadows carpeted with flowers.  On these meadows, a couple of\nmiles apart, lie the twin villages of the Ammer Valley--the one\nworld-famous, the other unheard of beyond the sound of its\nchurch-bells--Ober and Unter Ammergau.\n\nLong, straggling, Swiss-like towns, these villages on the Ammer meadows\nare.  You may find a hundred such between Innsbruck and Zuerich.  Stone\nhouses, plastered outside and painted white, stand close together, each\none passing gradually backward into woodshed, barn, and stable.  You\nmay lose your way in the narrow, crooked streets, as purposeless in\ntheir direction as the footsteps of the cows who first surveyed them.\n\nOberammergau is a cleaner town than most, with a handsomer church, and\na general evidence of local pride and modest prosperity.  Frescoes on\nthe walls of the houses here and there, paintings of saints and angels,\nbear witness to a love of beauty and to the prevalence of a religious\nspirit.  These pictures, still bright after more than a century's wear,\ngo back to the time when the peasant boy, Franz Zwink, of Oberammergau,\nmixed paints for a famous artist who painted the interior of the Ettal\nMonastery and the village church.  The boy learned the art as well as\nthe process, and when his master was gone, he covered the walls of his\nnative town with pictures such as made men famous in other times and in\nother lands.  The spirit of the Italian masters was his, and the work\nof Zwink at Oberammergau has been called \"a wandering wave from the\nmighty sea of the Renaissance which has broken on a far-off coast.\"\n\nThe Passion Play at Oberammergau has been characterized as a relic of\nmedieval times--the last remains of the old Miracle Play.  This is\ntrue, in the sense of historical continuity, and in that sense alone.\nThe spirit of the times has penetrated even to this isolated valley,\nand its Passion Play is as much a product of our century as the poetry\nof Tennyson.  Miracle Plays were shown at Oberammergau and in the town\nabout it more than five hundred years ago, but the Passion Play of\nto-day is not like them.  The imps and devils and all the machinery of\nsuperstition are gone.  Harmony has taken the place of crudity, and the\nChrist of Oberammergau is the Christ of modern conception.  The Miracle\nPlay, dead or dying everywhere else, has lived and been perfected at\nOberammergau.\n\nIt has been pre-eminently the work of the Church of Rome to teach the\ncommon people, and to train them to obedience.  In its teaching it has\nmade use of every means which could serve its purposes.  Didactic\nteaching is not effective with tired and sleepy peasants.  Sermons\nsoothe, rather than instruct, after a week of hard labor in the fields.\nHence comes the need of object-teaching, if teaching is to be real.\n\nImages have been used in this way in the Catholic Church--not as\nobjects to be worshiped, but as representations of sacred things.\nPaintings have served the same purpose.  The noblest paintings in the\nworld have been wrought to this end.  It was in such lines alone that\nart could find worthy recognition.  In like manner, processions and\n\"Passion[1] Plays\" have served the same purpose.\n\nThe old Miracle Plays were grotesque enough--made by common people for\nthe instruction of common people.  Even amid the pathos of divine\nsuffering the peasants must be amused.  Care was taken that the\ncharacter of Judas should meet this demand.  So Judas was made at once\na traitor and a clown.  His pathway was beset by devils of the most\nridiculous sort.  And when at last he hung himself on the stage, his\nbody burst open, and the long links of sausages which represented\nintestines were devoured by the imps amid the laughter and delight of\nthe peasant audience.  Now all this has passed away.  Wise and learned\nmen have taken the play in hand, and have left it a monument to their\npiety and good taste.  Everything grotesque, or barbarous, or\nridiculous has been eliminated.  All else is subordinated to a faithful\nand artistic representation of the life and acts of Christ.  Stately\nprose and the language of the Gospel narratives have been substituted\nfor doggerel verse.  As a work of art, the Passion Play deserves a high\nplace in the literature of Germany.\n\nOne striking feature of the Passion Play is the absence of\nsuperstitious elements.  Beyond the dominating influence of the purpose\nof God, which is brought into strong prominence, there is almost\nnothing which suggests the supernatural or miraculous.  That little\neven is forgotten in the intensity of human interest.  The Devil and\nhis machinations have vanished entirely.  One sees in the religious\ncustoms of the people of Oberammergau few of the superstitions common\namong the peasant classes of other parts of Europe.  In his little\nbook, \"Oberammergau und Seine Bewohner,\" Pastor Daisenberger says:\n\"Superstitious beliefs and customs one does not find here.\"  Even the\nordinary ghost-stories and traditions of Germany are outworn and\nforgotten in this town.\n\nIn 1634, so the tradition says, the black death came to Oberammergau,\nand one-tenth of the inhabitants died.  The others made a vow, \"a\ntrembling vow, breathed in a night of tears,\" that if God should stay\nthe plague, they would, on every tenth year, repeat in full, for the\nedification of the people, the Tragedy of the Passion.  Other\ncommunities might build temples or monasteries, or could undertake\npilgrimages; it should be their duty to show \"The Way of the Cross.\"\nWhen this vow was taken, the pestilence ceased, and not another person\nperished.  This was regarded by the people as a visible sign of divine\napproval.  Thus every tenth year for nearly three centuries, ever since\nthe time when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, with varying\nfortunes and interruptions, the Passion Play has been represented in\nOberammergau.\n\nThe play in its present form is essentially the work of Josef Alois\nDaisenberger, who was for twenty years pastor of the church at\nOberammergau.  In this town he was born in the last year of the last\ncentury, and there he died, in 1888, revered and beloved by all who\ncame near him.\n\n\"I wrote the play,\" Pastor Daisenberger said, \"for the love of my\nDivine Redeemer, and with no other object in view than the edification\nof the Christian world.\"\n\nThe first aim of the Passion Play has been the training of the common\npeople.  To its various representations came the peasants of Bavaria,\nWuertemberg, and the Tyrol, on horses, on donkeys, on foot, a long and\ndifficult journey across mountain-walls and through great forests.  It\nwas the memory and inspiration of a lifetime to have seen the Passion\nPlay.\n\nAbout forty years ago the tourist world discovered this scene; and\nsince then, on the decennial year, an ever-increasing interest has been\nfelt, an ever-growing stream of travel has been turned toward the Ammer\nValley.  All, prince or peasant, are treated alike by the simple,\nhonest people, and the same preparation is made for the reception of\nall.  The purpose of the play should be kept in mind in any just\ncriticism.  To have the right to discuss it at all, one must treat it\nin a spirit of sympathy.\n\nWe came into Oberammergau on Friday, the 1st day of August, 1890, to\nwitness the performance of the Sunday following.  The city of Munich,\nseventy miles away, was crowded with visitors, all bound to the Passion\nPlay.  The express-train of twenty cars which carried us from Munich\nwas crowded with people from almost every part of the civilized world.\n\nAt Oberau, six miles from Oberammergau, at the foot of the Ettal\nMountain, we left the railway, and there took part in a general\nscramble for seats in the carriages.  The fine new road winds through\ndark pine woods, climbing the hill in long zigzags above wild chasms,\npast the old monastery of Ettal, and then slowly descends to the soft\nAmmer meadows.  The great peak of the Kofel is ever in front, while the\nmain chain of the Bavarian Alps closes the view behind.\n\nArrived in the little village, all was bustle and confusion.  The\nstreets were full of people--some busy in taking care of strangers,\nothers sauntering idly about, as if at a country fair.  Young women, in\nblack bodices and white sleeves, welcomed the visitors at the little\ninns or served them in the shops.  Everywhere were young men in\nTyrolese holiday attire--green coats, black slouch hats, with a feather\nor sprig of Edelweiss in the hat-band, and with trousers, like those of\nthe Scottish Highlanders, which end hopelessly beyond the reach of\neither shoes or stockings.  Besides the rustics and the tourists, one\nmet here and there upon the streets men whose grave demeanor and long\nblack hair resting on their shoulders proclaimed them to be actors in\nthe Passion Play.\n\nOn Sunday morning we were awakened by the sound of a cannon planted at\nthe foot of the Kofel, a sharp, conical, towering mountain, some two\nthousand feet above the town, and bearing on its summit a tall gilded\ncross.  It was cold and rainy, but that made no difference with the\naudience or the play.  At eight o'clock, when the cannon sounds again,\nall are in their places, and the play begins.  It lasts for eight\nhours--from eight o'clock in the morning to half-past five in the\nafternoon, with a single interruption of an hour and a half at noon.\nThe stage is wide and ample.  Its central part is covered, but the\nfront, which represents the fields and the streets of Jerusalem, is in\nthe open air.  This feature lends the play a special charm.  On the\nleft, across the stage, over which the fitful rain-clouds chase one\nanother, we can plainly see the long, green slope of Ettal mountain,\ndotted from bottom to top with herdmen's huts or _chalets_, and on the\nsummit a tall pine-tree, standing out alone above all its brethren.  On\nthe other side appear the wild crags of the Kofel, its gilded cross\nglistening in the sunshine above the morning mists.  Swallows fly in\nand out among the painted palm-trees, their twitter sounding sharply\nabove the music of the chorus.  The little birds raise their voices to\nmake themselves heard to each other.\n\nAs the play progresses the intense truthfulness of the people of\nOberammergau steadily grows upon us.  For many generations the best\nintellects and noblest lives in the town have been devoted to the sole\nend of giving a worthy picture of the life and acts of Christ.  Each\ngeneration of actors has left this picture more noble than it ever was\nbefore.  Their work has been wrought in a spirit of serious\ntruthfulness, which in itself places the Oberammergau stage in a class\nby itself, above and beyond all other theaters.  Everything is real,\nand stands for what it is.  Kings and priests are dressed, not in\nflimsy tinsel, but in garments such as real kings and priests may have\nworn.  And so no artificial light or glare of fireworks is needed to\nmake these costumes effective.  And this genuineness enables these\nsimple players to produce effects which the richest theaters would\nscarcely dare to undertake; and all this in the open air, in glaring\nsunshine or in pouring rain.  The players themselves can scarcely be\ncalled actors.  In their way, they are strong beyond all mere actors,\nand for this reason--that they do not seem to act.  From childhood they\nhave grown up in the parts they play.  Childish voices learn the solemn\nmusic of the chorus in the schools, and childish forms mingle in the\ntriumphal procession in the regular church festivals.  All the effects\nof accumulated tradition, all the results of years of training tend to\nmake of them, not actors at all, but living figures of the characters\nthey represent.  And we can look back over the history of Oberammergau,\nand see how, through the growth of this purpose of its life, it has\ncome to be unique among all the towns of Europe.\n\nMany have wondered that in so small a town there should be so many men\nof striking personality.  The reason for this is to be sought in the\noperation of natural selection.  In the ordinary German village, the\nbest men find no career.  They go from home to the cities or to foreign\nlands, in search of the work and influence not to be secured at home.\nThe strongest go, and the dull remain.  All, this is reversed at\nOberammergau.  Only the native citizen takes part in the play.  Those\nwho are stupid or vicious are excluded from it.  Not to take part in\nthe play is to have no reason for remaining in Oberammergau.  To be\nchosen for an important part is the highest honor the people know.  So\nthe influences at work retain the best and exclude the others.\nMoreover, the leading families of Oberammergau, the families of Zwink,\nLang, Rendl, Mayr, Lechner, Diemer, etc., are closely related by\nintermarriage.  These people are all of one blood--all of one great\nfamily.  This family is one of actors, serious, intelligent, devoted,\nand all these virtues are turned to effect in their acting.\n\nThis work is that of a lifetime.  Little boys and girls come on the\nstage in the arms of the mothers--matrons of Jerusalem.  Older boys\nshout in the rabble and become at last Roman soldiers or servants of\nthe High Priest.  Still later, the best of them are ranged among the\nApostles, and the rare genius becomes Pilate, John, Judas, or the\nChrist.\n\nIn the house of mine host, the chief of the money-changers in the\ntemple, the eldest daughter was called Magdalena.  In 1890, at\nfourteen, she was leader of the girls in the tableau of the falling\nmanna.  In 1900, she may, perhaps, become Mary Magdalen, the end in\nlife which her parents have chosen for her.\n\nAfter the cannon sounds, the chorus of guardian spirits\n(_Schuetzengeister_) comes forward to make plain by speech or action the\nmeaning of the coming scenes.  This chorus is modeled after the chorus\nin the Greek plays.  It is composed of twenty-four singers, the best\nthat Oberammergau has, all picturesquely clad in Greek costumes,--white\ntunics, trimmed with gold, and over these an outer mantle of some deep,\nquiet shade, the whole forming a perfect harmony of soft Oriental\ncolors.  Stately and beautiful the chorus is throughout.  The time\nwhich in ordinary theaters is devoted to the arranging of scenes behind\na blank curtain is here filled by the songs and recitations of the\nguardian spirits.  Once in the play the chorus appears in black, in\nkeeping with the dark scenes they come forth to foretell.  But at the\nend the bright robes are resumed, while the play closes with a burst of\ntriumph from their lips.\n\nAt the beginning of each act, the leader of the singers, the village\nschoolmaster, comes forth from the chorus, and the curtain parts,\nrevealing a tableau illustrative of the coming scenes.  These tableaux,\nsome thirty or forty in number, are taken from scenes in the Old\nTestament which are supposed to prefigure acts in the life of Christ.\nThus the treachery of Judas is prefigured by the sale of Joseph by his\nbrethren.  The farewell at Bethany has its type in the mourning bride\nin the Song of Solomon; the Crucifixion, in the brazen serpent of\nMoses.  Sometimes the connection between the tableaux and the scenes is\nnot easily traced; but even then the pictures justify themselves by\ntheir own beauty.  Often five hundred people are brought on the stage\nat once.  These range in size from the tall and patriarchal Moses to\nchildren of two years.  But, old or young, there is never a muscle or a\nfold of garment out of place.  The first tableau represents Adam and\nEve driven from Eden by the angel with the flaming sword.  It was not\neasy to believe that these figures were real.  They were as changeless\nas wax.  They did not even wink.  The critic may notice that the hands\nof the women are large and brown, and the children's faces not free\nfrom sunburn.  But there is no other hint that these exquisite pictures\nare made up from the village boys and girls, those who on other days\nmilk the cows and scrub the floors in the little town.  The marvelously\nvaried costumes and the grouping of these tableaux are the work of the\ndrawing-teacher, Ludwig Lang.  Without appearing anywhere in the play,\nthis gifted man makes himself everywhere felt in the delicacy of his\nfeeling for harmonies of color.\n\nAt the beginning of the play the leader of the chorus addresses the\naudience as friends and brothers who are present for the same reason as\nthe actors themselves--namely, to assist devoutly at the mystery to be\nset forth, the story of the redemption of the world.  The purpose is,\nas far as may be, to share the sorrows of the Saviour and to follow him\nstep by step on the way of his sufferings to the cross and sepulcher.\nThen comes the prologue, solemnly intoned, of which the most striking\nwords are these:\n\n  \"Nicht ewig zuernet Er\n  Ich will, so spricht der Herr,\n  Den Tod des Suenders nicht.\"\n\n\"He will not be angry forever.  I, saith the Lord, will not the death\nof the sinner.  I will forgive him; he shall live, and in my Son's\nblood shall be reconciled.\"\n\nWhen its part is finished the chorus retires, and the Passion Play\nbegins with the entry of Christ into Jerusalem.  Far in the distance we\nhear the music, \"Hail to thee, O David's son!\"  Then follows a\nseemingly endless procession of men, women, and children who wave\npalm-leaves and shout hosannas.  One little flaxen-haired girl, dressed\nin blue, and carrying a long, slender palm-leaf, is especially striking\nin her beauty and naturalness.\n\nAt last He comes, riding sidewise upon a beast that seems too small for\nhis great stature.  He is dressed in a purple robe, over which is a\nmantle of rich crimson.  Beside him, in red and olive-green, is the\ngirlish-looking youth, Peter Rendl, who takes the part of Saint John.\nBehind him follow his disciples, each with the pilgrim's staff.  Two of\nthese are more conspicuous than the others.  One is a white-haired,\neager old man, wearing a mantle of olive-green.  The other, younger,\ndark, sullen, and tangle-haired, dressed in a robe of saffron over dull\nyellow, is the only person in the throng out of harmony with the\nprevailing joyousness.\n\n[Illustration: Peter Rendl as Saint John.]\n\nFollowed by the people, who stand apart in reverence as he passes among\nthem, Christ approaches the temple.  His face is pale, in marked\ncontrast to his abundant black hair.  His expression is serious, or\neven care-worn, less mild than in the usual pictures of Jesus, but\ncertainly in keeping with the scenes of the Passion Play.  A fine,\nstrong, masterful man of great stature and immense physical strength is\nthe wood-carver, Josef Mayr, who now for three successive decades has\ntaken this part.  A man of attractive presence and lofty bearing, one\nwhom every eye follows as he goes about the town on the round of his\ndaily duties, yet simple-hearted and modest, as becomes one who takes\non himself not only the dress but the name and figure of the Saviour.\n\nEssays have been written on \"Christus\" Mayr and his conception of\nJesus, and I can only assent to the general impression.  To me it seems\nthat Mayr's thought of Christ is one which all must accept.  He appears\nas \"one driven by the Spirit,\"--the great mild teacher, the man who can\nafford to be silent before kings and before mobs, and to whom the pains\nof Calvary are not more deep than the sorrows of Gethsemane, the man\nwho comes to do the work of his Father, regardless alike of human\npraise or of human contempt.  The great strength of the presentation is\nthat it brings to the front the essentials of Christ's life and death.\nThere is no suggestion of theological subtleties nor of the ceremonies\nof any church.  It is simply true and terrible.\n\nFrom one of his fellow-actors, I learned this of Josef Mayr.  He has\nalways been what he is now, a hand-worker (\"_gemeiner Arbeiter_\") in\nOberammergau.  He has never been away from his native town except once,\nwhen he went as a workman to Vienna, and once when, in 1870, the play\nwas interrupted by the war with France, and Mayr himself was taken into\nthe army.  Out of respect to his art, he was never sent to the front,\nbut kept in the garrison at Munich.  When the war was over, and he came\nback, in 1871, the grateful villagers resumed the play as their \"best\nmethod of thanking God who had given them the blessings of victory and\npeace.\"\n\nCanon Farrar, of Westminster, has given us the best and most\nsympathetic account yet published of the various actors.  Of Mayr he\nsaid: \"It is no small testimony to the goodness and the ability of\nJosef Mayr that in his representation of Christ he does not offend us\nby a single word or a single gesture.  If there were in his manner the\nslightest touch of affectation or of self-consciousness; if there were\nthe remotest suspicion of a strut in his gait, we should be compelled\nto turn aside in disgust.  As it is, we forget the artist altogether.\nFor it is easy to see that Josef Mayr forgets himself, and wishes only\nto give a faithful picture of the events in the Gospel story.\"\n\nAs the Master enters the temple, he finds that its courts are filled\nwith a noisy throng of money-changers, peddlers, and dealers in animals\nfor sacrifice.  He is filled with wrath and indignation.  In a\ncommanding tone, he orders them to take their own and leave this holy\nplace.  \"There is room enough for trading outside.  'My house,' thus\nsaith the Lord, 'shall be a house of prayer to all the people.'  Ye\nhave made it a den of thieves.\"  (\"_Zur Raeuberhoehle, habt Ihr es\ngemacht!_\")\n\nThe peddlers pay no attention to his protest.  Then, with a sudden\nburst of wrath, he breaks upon them, overturning their tables,\nscattering their gold upon the floor, and beating them with thongs.\nThe animals kept for sacrifice are released.  The sheep scamper\nbackward to the rear of the stage, and escape through the open door.\nThe white doves fly out over the heads of the spectators, and are lost\nagainst the green slopes of the Kofel.\n\nThe play now follows the Gospel narrative very closely.  It is, in\nfact, the Gospel story, with only such changes as fit it for continuous\npresentation.  Events aside from the current of the story, such as the\nwedding at Cana and the raising of Lazarus, are omitted.  There are few\nlong speeches.  The leading features of what may be called the plot,\nthe wrath of the money-changers, the fierce hatred of the Pharisees,\nthe avarice of Judas, which makes him their tool, are all sharply\nemphasized.\n\nThe next scene introduces us to the High Council of the Jews, and to\nits leading spirit, Caiaphas.  Caiaphas is represented by the\nburgomaster of the village, Johann Lang.  \"No medieval pope,\" says\nCanon Farrar, \"could pronounce his sentences with more dignity and\nverve.  He is what has been called 'that terrible creature, the perfect\npriest.'\"  Violent, unforgiving, and harsh, he is the soul of the\nconspiracy.  His strong determination is reflected in the weak\nmalignity of his colleague, Annas, as well as in the priests and\nscribes.  \"While he lives,\" Caiaphas says, \"there is no peace for\nIsrael.  It is better that one man should die, that the whole nation\nperish not.\"\n\nWe next behold Jesus accompanied by his disciples on the road toward\nthe house of Simon of Bethany.  As they walk along, he talks sadly of\nhis approaching death.  None of them can understand his words; for to\nthem he has been victorious over all his enemies.  \"A word from thee,\"\nsays Peter, \"and they are crushed.\"  \"I see not,\" says Thomas, \"why\nthou speakest so often of sorrow and death.  Do we not read in the\nprophets that Christ lives forever?  Thou canst not die, for with thy\npower thou wakest even the dead.\"  Even John declares that Christ's\nwords are dark and dismal, while he and his associates use every effort\nto cheer the Master.\n\nAt the house of Simon of Bethany, Mary Magdalen breaks the costly dish\nof ointment.  Judas, who carries the slender purse of the disciples, is\nvexed at the waste, and talks of all the good the value of this\nointment might have done if given to the poor.\n\nVery carefully worked out is the character of Judas, represented by\nJohann Zwink, the miller of Oberammergau, who ten years ago took the\npart of Saint John.  The people of Oberammergau regard Zwink as the\nmost gifted of all their actors; for he can, they say, play any part.\n(\"_Er spielt alle Rolle._\")  Gregor Lechner, who in his younger days\nhad the part of Judas, is now Simon of Bethany.  Of all the actors of\nOberammergau, the people told us, Lechner is the most beloved\n(\"_bestens beliebt_\").\n\n[Illustration: Johann Zwink as Judas.]\n\nIn Zwink's conception, Judas is a man full of ambition, but without\nenthusiasm.  He is attracted by the power of Christ, from which he\nexpects great results.  But Christ seems to care little for his own\nmighty works.  \"My mission,\" he says, \"is not to command, but to\nserve.\"  So Judas becomes impatient and dissatisfied.  The eager\nenthusiasm of Peter and the tender devotion of John alike bore and\ndisgust him.  So the emissaries of Caiaphas find him half-prepared for\ntheir mission.  He admits that he has made a mistake in joining his\nfortunes to those of an unpractical and sorrowful prophet who lets\ngreat opportunities slip from his grasp, and who wastes a fortune in\nprecious ointment with no more thought than if it had been water.\n\"There has of late been a coolness between him and me,\" he confesses.\n\"I am tired,\" he says, \"of hoping and waiting, with nothing before me\nexcept poverty, humiliation, perhaps even torture and the prison.\"  He\nis especially ill at ease when the Master speaks of his approaching\ndeath.  \"If thou givest up thy life,\" he says, \"what will become of\nus?\"  And so Judas reasons with himself that he can afford to be\nprudent.  If his Master fail, then he must be a false prophet, and\nthere is no use in following him.  If he succeed, as with his mighty\npower he can hardly fail to do, then, says Judas, \"I will throw myself\nat his feet.  He is such a good man; never have I seen him cast a\npenitent away.  But I fear to face the Master.  His sharp look goes\nthrough and through me.  Still at the most I shall only tell the\npriests where my Master is.\"  And thus the good and bad impulses\nstruggle for the mastery, giving to this character the greatest tragic\ninterest.  He visibly shrinks before the words of Christ, \"One of you\nshall betray me.\"  In the High Council he cringes under the scorching\nreproach of Nicodemus.  \"Dost thou not blush,\" Nicodemus says, \"to sell\nthy Lord and Master?  This blood-money calls to heaven for revenge.\nSome day it will burn hot in thine avarice-sunken soul.\"\n\nBut the High Priest says, \"Come, Judas, take the silver, and be a man.\"\nAnd when the thirty pieces are counted out to him, he cannot resist the\ntemptation, but clutches them with a miser's grasp and hurries off to\nintercept the Master on his way through the Garden of Gethsemane.\nMeanwhile, after a tender farewell from his mother, Christ leaves the\nhouse of Simon of Bethany, and, with his disciples, takes the road to\nJerusalem.\n\nThe part of Mary the mother of Christ is admirably taken by Rosa Lang.\nIn dress and mien, she seems to have stepped down from some\npicture-frame of Raphael or Murillo.  The Mary of Rosa Lang is in every\nrespect a worthy companion of Mayr's Christus.\n\n[Illustration: Rosa Lang as Mary.]\n\nThe various scenes in which the Apostles appear are modeled more or\nless after the great religious paintings, especially those of the\nBavarian artist, Albrecht Duerer.  The Last Supper is a living\nrepresentation of the famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci in the\nrefectory at Milan.  Peter and Judas are here brought into sharp\ncontrast.  Next to Christ, is the slender figure of the beloved\ndisciple.  The characters of the different Apostles are placed in bold\nrelief.  We are at once interested in the fine face of Andreas Lang,\nthe Apostle Thomas, critical and questioning, but altogether loyal.\nThe Apostle Philip looks for signs and visions, and would see the\nFather coming in His glory from the skies, not in the common every-day\nscenes of life into which the Master led them.  \"Have I been so long\ntime with thee, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?\"\n\nNext comes the night scene in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of\nOlives.  The tired Apostles rest upon the grassy bank, and one by one\nthey fall asleep.  Even Peter, who is nearest the Master, can keep\nawake no longer.  Christ kneels upon the rocks above the sleeping\nPeter.  \"O Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.\"  He\nlooks back to his disciples.  \"Are your eyes so heavy that ye cannot\nwatch?  The weight of God's justice lies upon me.  The sins of the\nfallen world weigh me down.  O Father, if it is not possible that this\nhour go by, then may thy holy will be done.\"\n\nSuddenly a great tumult is heard.  The faint light of the morning is\nreflected from the clanging armor and from glittering spears.  The\nApostles are rudely awakened.  Judas comes forth and greets the Master\nwith a kiss.  At this signal, the Master is seized by the soldiers and\nroughly bound.  Then he is carried away, first to Annas, and afterwards\nto the house of Caiaphas.\n\nOf the scenes that immediately follow, the most striking is that of the\ndenial of Peter.  Peter, as represented by the sexton of the church,\nJacob Hitt, is an old man with a young heart, eager and impulsive.  He\ndreams of the noble part he will take while standing by the Master's\nside before kings and priests, but behaves very humanly when he is\nbrought face to face with an unexpected test.\n\nThe scenes of the night have crowded thick and fast.  The Apostles have\nbeen scattered by the soldiers.  The Master had been bound, and carried\naway they know not whither.  Peter had tried to defend him, but was\ntold to \"put away his useless sword.\"  In forlorn agony Peter and John\nwander about in the dark, seeking news of Jesus.  They meet a servant\nwho tells them that he has been carried before the High Priest, and\nthat the whole brood of his followers is to be rooted out.\n\nNear the house of the High Priest Annas we see a sort of inn occupied\nby rough soldiers.  The night is damp and cold.  A maid has kindled a\nfire in the courtyard, and Peter approaches it to warm his hands, and,\nif possible, to gain some further news of the Master.  He hears the\nsoldiers talking of Malchus, one of their number who had had his ear\ncut off.  They boast of what they will do with the culprit, if he\nshould ever fall into their power.  \"An ear for an ear,\" he hears them\nsay.  Suddenly the maid turns towards Peter and says, \"Yes, you, surely\nyou were with the Nazarene Jesus.\"  Peter hesitates.  Should he\nconfess, he would have his own ears cut off, an ear for an ear--and\nmost likely his head, too, while his body would be thrown out on the\nrubbish heap behind the inn.  Peter had said that he would die for the\nMaster; and so he would on the field of battle, or in any way where he\nmight have a glorious death.  He would die for the Master, but not then\nand there.  The death of a martyr has its pleasures, no doubt, but not\nthe death of a dog.\n\nWhile Peter stood thus considering these matters, one and then another\nof the servants insisted that he had surely been seen with the Nazarene\nJesus.  Again and again Peter refused all knowledge of the Master.\nWhen the cock crew once more he had denied his Master thrice.  While\nPeter still insisted, the door opened and the Master came forth under\nthe High Priest's sentence of death.  \"And the Lord turned and looked\nupon Peter, and Peter went out and wept bitterly.\"  \"Oh, Master,\" he\nsays in the play:\n\n  \"Oh, Master, how have I fallen!\n  I have denied thee, how can it be possible?\n  Three times denied thee!  Oh, thou knowest, Lord,\n  I was resolved to follow thee to death.\"\n\n\nMeanwhile Judas hears the story of what has happened.  He is at once\nfilled with agony and remorse, for he had not expected it.  He was sure\nthat the great power of the Master would bring him through safely at\nlast.  In helpless agony, he rushes before the Council and makes an\nineffective protest.  \"No peace for me forevermore; no peace for you,\"\nhe says.  \"The blood of the innocent cries aloud for justice.\"  He is\nrepulsed with cold indifference.  \"Will it or not,\" says the High\nPriest, \"he must die, and it would be well for thee to look out for\nthyself.\"\n\nIn fury he cries out, \"If he dies, then am I a traitor.  May ten\nthousand devils tear me in pieces!  Here, ye bloodhounds, take back\nyour curse!\"  And flinging the blood-money at the feet of the priests,\nhe flies from their presence, pursued by the specter of his crime.\n\nThe next scene shows us the field of blood--a wind-swept desert, with\none forlorn tree in the foreground.  We see the wretched Judas before\nthe tree.  He tears off his girdle, \"a snake,\" he calls it, and places\nit about his neck, snapping off a branch of the tree in his haste to\nfasten it.  \"Here, accursed life, I end thee; let the most miserable of\nall fruit hang upon this tree.\"  In the action we feel that Judas is\nnot so much wicked as weak.  He has little faith and little\nimagination, and his folly of avarice hurries him into betrayal.  Those\nwho see the play feel as the actors feel, that Christ knows the\nweakness of man.  He would have forgiven Judas, just as he forgave\nPeter.\n\nIn the early morning Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate.  The\nRoman governor, admirably represented by Thomas Rendl, appears in the\nbalcony and talks down to Caiaphas, who sends up his accusations from\nthe street below.  His clear sense of justice makes Pilate at first\nmore than a match for the conspirators.  With magnificent scorn he\ntells Caiaphas that he is \"astounded at his sudden zeal for Caesar.\"\nOf Christ he says: \"He seems to me a wise man--so wise that these dark\nmen cannot bear the light from his wisdom.\"  Learning that Jesus is\nfrom Galilee, he throws the whole matter into the hands of Herod, the\ngovernor of that province.\n\nThe words of Pilate are very finely spoken.  \"We marvel,\" says one\nwriter, \"how the peasant Rendl learned to bear himself so nobly or to\nutter the famous question, 'What is truth?' with a certain dreamy\ninward expression and tone, as though outward circumstances had for the\ninstant vanished from his mind, and he were alone with his own soul and\nthe flood of thought raised by the words of Jesus.\"\n\nIn contrast to Pilate, stands Herod, lazy and voluptuous.  He, too,\nfinds nothing of evil in Jesus, whom he supposes to be a clever\nmagician.  \"Cause that this hall may become dark,\" he says, \"or that\nthis roll of paper, which is thy sentence of death, shall become a\nserpent.\"  He receives Christ in good-natured expectancy, which changes\nto disgust when he answers him not a word.  Herod pronounces him \"dumb\nas a fish,\" and, after clothing him in a splendid purple mantle, he\nsends him away unharmed, with the title of \"King of Fools.\"\n\nAgain Christ is brought before Pilate, who tells Caiaphas plainly that\nhis accusations mean only his own personal hatred, and that the voice\nof the people is but the senseless clamor of the mob set in operation\nby intrigue.  Pilate orders Jesus to be scourged, in the hope that the\nsight of his noble bearing amid unmerited cruelties may soften the\nhearts of the people.  Nowhere does the noble figure of Mayr appear to\nbetter advantage than in this scene, where, after a brutal\nchastisement, scarcely lessened in the presentation on the stage, the\nRoman soldiers place a cattail flag in his hand and salute him as a\nking.\n\nPilate then brings forth an abandoned wreck of humanity, old Barabbas,\nthe murderer.  As Christ stands before them, blood-stained and crowned\nwith thorns, half in hope and half in irony, Pilate invites them to\nchoose.  \"Behold the man,\" he said, \"a wise teacher whom ye have long\nhonored, guilty of no evil deed.  Jesus or Barabbas, which will ye\nchoose?\"\n\nAll the more fiercely the mob cries, \"Crucify him!  Crucify him!\"\n\n[Illustration: \"Ecce Homo!\"]\n\nPilate is puzzled.  \"I cannot understand these people,\" he said.  \"But\na few days ago, ye followed this man with rejoicing through the streets\nof Jerusalem.\"  The High Priest threatens to appeal to Rome.  Pilate\nfears to face such an appeal.  He has little confidence in the favor or\nthe justice of the Caesar whom he serves.  At last he consents to what\nhe calls \"a great wrong in order to avert a greater evil.\"  He calls\nfor water, and washes his hands in ostentatious innocence.  Finally, as\nhe signs the verdict of condemnation in wrath and disgust, he breaks\nhis staff of office, and flings the fragments upon the stairs, at the\nfeet of the priests.\n\nNext we behold in the foreground of the stage, John and Mary the mother\nof Jesus, and with them a little group of followers.  A tumult is\nheard, and, in the midst of a great throng of people, we see three\ncrosses borne by prisoners.  Jesus beholds his mother.  Suddenly he\nfaints, under the weight of the cross.  The rough soldiers urge him on.\nSimon of Cyrene, a sturdy passer-by, who is carrying home provisions\nfrom the market, is seized by the soldiers and forced to give aid.  At\nfirst he refuses.  \"I will not do it,\" he says; \"I am a free man, and\nno criminal.\"  But his indignant protests turn to pity, when he beholds\nthe Holy Man of Nazareth.  \"For the love of thee,\" he says, \"will I\nbear thy cross.  Oh, could I make myself thus worthy in thy sight!\"\n\nThe closing scenes of the Passion Play, associated as they are with all\nthat has been held sacred by our race for nearly two thousand years,\nare thrilling beyond comparison.  No one can witness them unmoved.  No\none can forget the impression made by the living pictures.  In\nsimplicity and reverence, the work is undertaken, and it awakens in the\nbeholder only corresponding feelings.  Every heart, for the time at\nleast, is stirred to its depths.\n\nWhen the curtain rises, two crosses are seen, each in its place.  The\ncentral cross is not yet raised.  The Roman soldiers take their time\nfor it.  \"Come, now,\" says one of them, \"we must put this Jewish king\nupon his throne.\"  So the heavy cross, with its burden, is raised in\nits place.  We see the bloody nails in his hands and feet; and so\nrealistic is the representation, that the nearest spectator cannot see\nthat he is not actually nailed to the cross.  There is no haste shown\nin the presentation.  The Crucifixion is not a tableau, displayed for\nan instant and then withdrawn.  The scene lasts so long that one feels\na strange sense of surprise when Christus Mayr appears alive again.\n\nTwenty minutes is the time actually taken for the representation.  \"It\nis hard,\" said our landlady, the good Frau Wiedermann, \"to be on the\ncross so long, even if one is not actually nailed to it.  It is hard\nfor the thieves, too,\" she said, \"as well as for Josef Mayr.\"\n\nThe thieves themselves deserve a moment's notice.  The one on the right\nis a bald old man, who meets his death in patience and humility.  The\none on the left is a robust young fellow, who defies his associates and\ntormentors alike, and joins his voice to that of the rabble in scoffing\nat the power of Jesus.  \"If thou be a god,\" he says, \"save thyself and\nus.\"  There is at first a struggle over the inscription at the head of\nthe cross.  \"Let it read, 'He called himself the King of the Jews,'\"\nsay the priests.  But the Roman soldier is obdurate.  \"What I have\nwritten I have written,\" and the centurion grimly nails it on the cross\nabove his head, regardless alike of their rage and protestations.\n\nMeanwhile, in the foreground the four Roman guards part the purple robe\nof Christ, each one taking his share.  But the seamless coat they will\nnot divide.  So they cast the dice on the ground to see to whom this\nprize shall fall.  They are in no hurry.  Traitors and thieves have all\nnight to die in, and they can wait for them.  The first soldier throws\na low number, and gives up the contest.  The second does better.  The\nthird calls up to the cross, \"If thou be a god, help me to throw a\nlucky number.\"  One cast of the dice is disputed.  It has to be tried\nagain.\n\nMeanwhile we hear the poor dying body on the cross, in a voice broken\nwith agony, \"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.\"\nAgain, amid the railings of the Jews, \"My God, my God, why hast thou\nforsaken me?\"  Then again, after a sharp cry of pain, \"It is finished!\"\n\nThe captain drives the scoffing mob away, bidding the women come\nnearer.  Then a Roman soldier, sent by Pilate, comes and breaks the\nlegs of the thieves.  We hear their bones crack under the club.  Their\nheads fall, their muscles shrink, as the breath leaves the body.  But\nfinding that Jesus is already dead, the soldier breaks not his legs,\nbut thrusts a spear into his side.  We can see the spear pierce the\nflesh, but we cannot see that the blood flows from the spear-point\nitself, and not from the Master's body.  The soldiers fall back with a\nfeeling of awe.  Then, one by one, as the darkness falls, we see them\nfile away on the road to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is left in\nsilence.\n\nThen follows the descent from the cross, which suggests comparison with\nRubens' famous painting in the Cathedral at Antwerp, but here shown\nwith a fineness of touch and delicacy of feeling which that great\npainter of muscles and mantles could never attain.  We see Nicodemus\nclimb the ladder leaned against the back of the cross.  He takes off\nfirst the crown of thorns.  It is laid silently at Mary's feet.  He\npulls out the nails one by one.  We hear them fall upon the ground.\nWith the last one falls the wrench with which he has drawn it.  Passing\na long roll of white cloth over each arm of the cross, he lets the\nSaviour down into the strong arms of Joseph of Arimathea, and, at last,\ninto the loving embrace of John and Mary.  No description can give an\nidea of the all-compelling force of this scene.  A treatment less\nreverent than is given by these peasants would make it an intolerable\nblasphemy.  As it is, its justification is its perfection.\n\nAnd this is the justification of the Passion Play itself.  It can never\nbecome a show.  It can never be carried to other countries.  It never\ncan be given under other circumstances.  So long as its players are\npure in heart and humble in spirit, so long can they keep their\nwell-earned right to show to the world the Tragedy of the Cross.\n\n\n\n[1] The word \"passion,\" as used in the term \"Passionspiel,\" signifies\nanguish or sorrow.  The Passion Play is the story of the great anguish.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE.[1]\n\nThere is something in the name of Spain which calls up impressions\nrich, warm, and romantic.  The \"color of romance,\" which must be\nsomething between the hue of a purple grape and the red haze of the\nIndian summer, hangs over everything Spanish.  Castles in Spain have\never been the fairest castles, and the banks of the Xenil and the\nGuadalquivir still bound the dreamland of the poet.\n\n  \"There was never a castle seen\n  So fair as mine in Spain;\n  It stands embowered in green,\n  Overlooking a gentle slope,\n  On a hill by the Xenil's shore.\"\n\n\nIt has been said of Spanish rule in California, that its history was\nwritten upon sand, only to be washed away by the advancing tide of\nSaxon civilization.  So far as the economic or political development of\nour State is concerned, this is true; the Mission period had no part in\nit, and its heroes have left no imperishable monuments.\n\nBut in one respect our Spanish predecessors have had a lasting\ninfluence, and the debt we owe to them, as yet scarcely appreciated, is\none which will grow with the ages.  It is said that Father Crespi, in\n1770, gave Spanish names to every place where he encamped at night, and\nthese names, rich and melodious, make the map of California unique\namong the States of the Union.  It is fitting that the most varied,\npicturesque, and lovable of all the States should be the one thus\nfavored.  We feel everywhere the charm of the Spanish language--Latin\ncut loose from scholastic bonds, with a dash of firmness from the\nVisigoth and a touch of warmth from the sun-loving Moor.  The names of\nMariposa, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey can\nnever grow mean or common.  In the counties along the coast, there is\nscarcely a hill, or stream, or village that does not bear some\nmelodious trace of Spanish occupation.\n\nTo see what California might have been, we have only to turn away from\nthe mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the\nmining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog,\nDutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these\nchanging later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia\nVale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like.  Or, if not these, our\nAnglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the\nCity of the Holy Cross, not Fresno, the ash, nor Mariposa, the\nbutterfly, but the momentous repetition of Smithvilles, Jonesboroughs,\nand Brownstowns, which makes the map of the Mississippi Valley a waste\nof unpoetical mediocrity.\n\nSo the Spanish names constitute our legacy from the Mission Fathers.\nIt is now nearly three hundred and fifty years since Alta California\nwas discovered, one hundred and twenty years since it was colonized by\nwhite people, and a little over forty years since it became a part of\nour republic.  In 1542, Cabrillo had sailed up the coast as far as Cape\nMendocino.  In 1577, Sir Francis Drake came as far north as Point\nReyes, where, seeing the white cliffs of Marin County, he called the\ncountry New Albion.  Better known than these to Spanish-speaking people\nwas the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino, who, in 1602, had coasted along\nas far as Point Reyes, and had left a full account of his discoveries.\nThe landlocked harbor which Cabrillo had named San Miguel, Vizcaino\nre-christened in honor of his flag-ship, San Diego de Alcala.   Farther\nnorth, Vizcaino found a glorious deep and sheltered bay, \"large enough\nto float all the navies of the world,\" he said; and this, in honor of\nthe Viceroy of Mexico, he called the Bay of Monterey.  To a broad curve\nof the coast to the north, between Point San Pedro and Point Reyes, he\ngave the name of the Bay of San Francisco,[2] dedicating it to the\nmemory of St. Francis of Assisi.  A rough chart of the coast was made\nby his pilot, Cabrera Bueno, who left also an account of its leading\nfeatures.\n\nFor a hundred and sixty years after Vizcaino's expedition, no use was\nmade of his discoveries.  In Professor Blackmar's words: \"During all\nthis time, not a European boat cut the surf of the northwest coast; not\na foreigner trod the shore of Alta California.  The white-winged\ngalleon, plying its trade between Acapulco and the Philippines,\noccasionally passed near enough so that those on board might catch\nglimpses of the dark timber-line of the mountains of the coast or of\nthe curling smoke of the forest fires; but the land was unknown to\nthem, and the natives pursued their wandering life unmolested.\"\n\nToward the end of the seventeenth century, Father Salvatierra, head of\nthe Jesuit missions in Lower California, fixed his eye on this region,\nand made plans for its occupation.  In this the good Father Kuehn--a\nGerman from Bavaria, whom the Spaniards knew as \"Quino,\"--seconded him.\nBut these plans came to naught.  The power of the Jesuit order was\nbroken; the charge of the missions in Lower California was given to the\nDominicans, that of Upper California to the Franciscans, and to these\nand their associates the colonization of California is due.  The\nFranciscans, it is said, \"were the first white men who came to live and\ndie in Alta California.\"\n\nAnd this is how it came about.  One hundred and thirty years ago, the\nport of La Paz, in Baja California, lay baking in the sun.  La Paz was\nthen, as now, a little old town, with narrow, stony streets and adobe\nhouses, standing amidst palms, and chaparral, and cactus.  To this port\nof La Paz came, one eventful day, Don Jose de Galvez, envoy of the King\nof Spain.  He brought orders to the Governor of California, Don Gaspar\nde Portola, that he should send a vessel in search of the ports of San\nDiego and of Monterey, on the supposed island, or peninsula, of Upper\nCalifornia, once found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a half.\nThere they were to establish colonies and missions of the Holy Catholic\nChurch.  They were \"to spread the Catholic religion,\" said the letter,\n\"among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of\npaganism, thereby to extend the dominion of the king, our lord, and to\nprotect this peninsula of California from the ambitious designs of the\nforeign nations.\"\n\n\"The land must be fertile for everything,\" says Galvez, \"for it lies in\nthe same latitude as Spain.\"  So they carried all sorts of household\nand field utensils, and seeds of every useful plant that grew in Spain\nand Mexico--the olive and the pomegranate, the grape and the orange,\nnot forgetting the garlic and the pepper.  All these were placed in two\nsmall ships, the San Carlos, under the gallant Captain Vila, and the\nSan Antonio, under Captain Perez.\n\nPadre Junipero Serra, chief apostle of these Spanish missions, blessed\nthe vessels and the flags, commending the whole enterprise to the Most\nHoly Patriarch San Jose, who was supposed to feel a special interest in\nthis class of expeditions.  His early flight into Egypt gave him a\npeculiar fondness for schemes involving foreign travel.  Galvez\nexhorted the soldiers and sailors to respect the priests, and not to\nquarrel with each other.  And thus they sailed away for San Diego in\nthe winter of 1769.\n\nAt the same time there was organized a land expedition, which should\ncross the sandy deserts and cactus-covered hills and join the vessels\nat San Diego.  That there should be no risk of failure, Don Gaspar de\nPortola divided the land forces into two divisions, one led by himself,\nthe other by Captain Rivera.  These two parties were to take different\nroutes, so that if one were destroyed the other might accomplish the\nwork.  In front of each band were driven a hundred head of cattle,\nwhich were to colonize the new territories with their kind.\n\nPadre Serra went with the land expedition under the command of Portola.\nA barefooted friar, clad in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the\nwaist, looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an Italian\ncathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan order is ill-fitted to the\npeculiarities of the California mesa.  For the vegetation of Lower\nCalifornia makes up in bristliness what it lacks in luxuriance.  Bush\ncactuses, so prickly that it makes one's eyes smart to look at them,\nand bunch cactuses, in wads of thorns as large as a bushel-basket,\nswarm everywhere.  Before the barefooted Padre had traveled far, so\nMiss Graham tells us in her charming little paper on the Spanish\nmissions, he had made the acquaintance of many species of cactus.\nHorses in that country become lame sometimes, and people say that they\nare \"cactus-legged.\"  And soon Father Serra became \"cactus-legged,\"\ntoo, so that he could neither walk nor ride a mule.  The Indians were\ntherefore obliged to carry him in a litter, for he would not go back to\nLa Paz.\n\nBut the Father felt great compassion for the Indians, who had enough to\ndo to carry themselves.  He prayed fervently for a time, and then,\naccording to the chronicler of the expedition, \"He called a mule-driver\nand said to him: 'Son, do you know some remedy for my foot and leg?'\nBut the mule-driver answered, 'Father, what remedy can I know?  Am I a\nsurgeon?  I am a mule-driver, and have cured only the sore backs of\nbeasts.'  'Then consider me a beast,' said the Father, 'and this sore\nleg to be a sore back, and treat me as you would a mule.'  Then said\nthe muleteer, 'I will, Father, to please you,' and taking a small piece\nof tallow, he mashed it between two stones, mixing with it herbs that\ngrew close by.  Then heating it over the fire, he anointed the foot and\nleg, and left the plaster upon the sore.  'God wrought in such a\nmanner,' wrote the Padre Serra afterwards, 'that I slept all that\nnight, and awoke so much relieved that I got up and said matins and\nprime, and afterwards mass, as if nothing had happened.'\"\n\nBut Father Serra did not show his faith by such simple miracles as\nthese alone.  In one of his revival meetings in Mexico, Bancroft tells\nus, he was beating himself with a chain in punishment for his imaginary\noffenses, when a man seized the chain and beat himself to death as a\nmiserable sinner, in the presence of the people.  At another time,\nsixty persons who neglected to attend his meetings were killed by an\nepidemic, and the disease went on, killing one after another, until the\npeople had been scared into attention to their religious duties.  Then,\nat a sign from Padre Serra, the plague abated.\n\nAt one time the good Padre was well lodged and entertained in a very\nneat wayside cottage on a desolate and solitary road.  Later he learned\nthat there was no such cottage in that region, and, we are told, he\nconcluded that his entertainers were Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.\n\nSuffering greatly from thirst on one of his journeys, he said to his\ncompanions, who were complaining: \"The best way to prevent thirst is to\neat little and talk less.\"  In a violent storm he was perfectly calm,\nand the storm ceased instantly when a saint chosen by lot had been\naddressed in prayer.  And so on; for miracles like these are constant\naccompaniments of a mind wholly given over to religious enthusiasm.\n\nIn due season, Padre Serra and his party arrived at San Diego, having\nfollowed the barren and dreary coast of Lower California for three\nhundred and sixty miles, often carrying water for great distances, and\nas often impeded by winter rains.  The boats and the other party were\nalready there, and in the valley to the north of the _mesa_, on the\nbanks of the little San Diego River, they founded the first mission in\nCalifornia.\n\nWithin a fortnight of Serra's arrival at San Diego, a special land\nexpedition set out in search of Vizcaino's lost port of Monterey.  The\nexpedition, under Don Gaspar de Portola, was unhappy in some respects,\nthough fortunate in others--unhappy, for after wandering about in the\nCoast Range for six months, the soldiers returned to San Diego, weary,\nhalf-starved, and disgusted, failing altogether, as they supposed, to\nfind Monterey; fortunate, for it was their luck to discover the far\nmore important Bay of San Francisco.  It seems evident, from the\nresearches of John T. Doyle and others, that the company of Portola,\nfrom the hills above what is now Redwood City, were the first white men\nto behold the present Bay of San Francisco.  The journal of Miguel\nCostanzo, a civil engineer with Portola's command, is still preserved\nin the Sutro Library in San Francisco, and Costanzo's map of the coast\nhas been published.  The diary of Father Crespi, who accompanied\nPortola, has also been printed.\n\nThe little company went along the coast from San Diego northward,\nmeeting many Indians on the way, and having various adventures with\nthem.  In the pretty valley which they named San Juan Capistrano, they\nfound the Indian men dressed in suits of paint, the women in bearskins.\nOn the site of the present town of Santa Ana, which they called Jesus\nde los Temblores, they met terrific earthquakes day and night.  At Los\nAngeles, they celebrated the feast of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels\n(Nuestra Senora, Reina de Los Angeles), from which the valley took the\nname it still bears.  They passed up the broad valley of San Fernando\nRey, and crossed the mountains to the present village of Saugus.\nThence they went down the Santa Clara River to San Buenaventura and\nSanta Barbara, their route coinciding with that of the present\nrailroad.  Above San Buenaventura they found Indians living in huts of\nsagebrush.  At Santa Barbara, the Indians fed on excellent fish, but\nplayed the flute at night so persistently that Portola and his soldiers\ncould not sleep for the music.  They next passed Point Concepcion, and\ncrossed the picturesque Santa Ynez and the fertile Arroyo Grande to the\nbasin-shaped valley of San Luis Obispo, with its row of four conical\nmountains.  At the last of these, Moro Rock, they reached the sea\nagain.  Above Piedras Blancas, where the rugged cliffs of the Santa\nLucia crowd down to the ocean, they were blocked, and could go no\nfarther.  Crossing the mountains to the east, they followed Nacimiento\nCreek to below Paso Robles, then went down the dusty valley of the\nSalinas, past the pastures on which the missions of San Miguel and\nSoledad were later planted.  Below Soledad, they came again to the sea.\nThey then went along the shore to the westward, past the present site\nof Monterey and Pacific Grove, and on to the Point of Pines itself, the\nsouthern border of the Bay of Monterey.  Yet not one of them recognized\nthe bay or any of the landmarks described by Vizcaino.  At the Point of\nPines, they were greatly disheartened, because they could nowhere find\na trace of the Bay of Monterey, or of any other bay which was\nsheltered, or on which \"the navies of the world could ride.\"  Father\nCrespi celebrated here \"the Feast of Our Father in the New World\";\n\"or,\" he adds, \"perhaps in a corner of the Old World, without any other\nchurch or choir than a desert.\"  Portola offered to return, but Crespi\nsaid: \"Let us continue our journey until we find the harbor of\nMonterey; if it be God's will, we will die fulfilling our duty to God\nand our country.\"  So they crossed the Salinas again, and went\nnorthward along the shore of the very bay they had sought so long.\nThen they came to another river, where they killed a great eagle, whose\nwings spread nine feet and three inches.  They called this river\nPajaro, which means \"bird,\" and devoutly added to it the name of Saint\nAnne, \"Rio del Pajaro de Santa Ana.\"  To the memory of this bird, the\nPajaro River still remains dedicated.  Farther on, they came to forests\nof redwood--\"_Palo Colorado_,\" they called it.  Crespi describes the\ntrees \"as very high, resembling cedars of Lebanon, but not of the same\ncolor; the leaves different, and the wood very brittle.\"\n\n[Illustration: A Record of Junipero Serra.]\n\nAt Santa Cruz, on the San Lorenzo River, they encamped, still bewailing\ntheir inability to find Monterey Bay.  Going northward, along the coast\npast Pescadero and Halfmoon Bay, they saw the great headland of Point\nSan Pedro.  They called it Point Guardian Angel (Angel Custodio), and\nfrom its heights they could clearly see Point Reyes and the chalk-white\nislands of the Farallones.  These landmarks they recognized from the\ncharts of Cabrera Bueno.  Crespi says: \"Scarce had we ascended the\nhill, when we perceived a vast bay formed by a great projection of land\nextending out to sea.  We see six or seven islands, white, and\ndiffering in size.  Following the coast toward the north, we can\nperceive a wide, deep cut, and northwest we see the opening of a bay\nwhich seems to go inside the land.  At these signs, we come to\nrecognize this harbor.  It is that of our Father St. Francis, and that\nof Monterey we have left behind.\"  \"But some,\" he adds, \"cannot believe\nyet that we have left behind us the harbor of Monterey, and that we are\nin that of San Francisco.\"\n\nBut the \"Harbor of San Francisco,\" as indicated by Cabrera Bueno, lay\nquite outside the Golden Gate, in the curve between Point San Pedro on\nthe south, and Point Reyes on the north.  The existence of the Golden\nGate, and the landlocked waters within, forming what is now known as\nSan Francisco Bay, was not suspected by any of the early explorers.\nThe high coast line, the rolling breakers, and, perhaps, the banks of\nfog, had hidden the Golden Gate and the bay from Cabrillo, Drake, and\nVizcaino alike.  By chance a few members of Portola's otherwise\nunfortunate expedition discovered the glorious harbor.  Some of the\nsoldiers, led by an officer named Ortega, wandered out on the Sierra\nMorena, east of Point San Pedro.  When they reached the summit and\nlooked eastward, an entirely new prospect was spread out before them.\nFrom the foothills of these mountains, they saw a great arm of the\nocean--\"a mediterranean sea,\" they termed it, according to Mr. Doyle's\naccount, \"with a fair and extensive valley bordering it, rich and\nfertile--a paradise compared with the country they had been passing\nover.\"  They rushed back to the seashore, waving their hats and\nshouting.  Then the whole party crossed over from Halfmoon Bay into the\nvalley of San Mateo Creek.  Thence they turned to the south to go\naround the head of the bay, passing first over into the Canada del\nRaymundo, which skirts the foot of the mountain.  Soon they came down\nthe \"Bear Gulch\" to San Francisquito Creek, at the point where\nSearsville once stood, before the great Potola Reservoir covered its\ntraces and destroyed its old landmark, the Portola Tavern.  They\nentered what is now the University Campus, on which columns of\nascending smoke showed the presence of many camps of Indians.  These\nIndians were not friendly.  The expedition was out of provisions, and\nmany of its members were sick from eating acorns.  There seemed to be\nno limit to the extension of the Estero de San Francisco.  At last, in\ndespair, but against the wishes of Portola, they decided to return to\nSan Diego.  They encamped on San Francisquito Creek, and crossed the\nhills again to Halfmoon Bay.  Then they went down the coast by Point\nAno Nuevo, to Santa Cruz.  At the Point of Pines they spent two weeks,\nsearching again everywhere for the Bay of Monterey.\n\nAt last they decided that Vizcaino's description must have been too\nhighly colored, or else that the Bay of Monterey must, since his time,\nhave been filled up with silt or destroyed by some earthquake.  At any\nrate, the bay between Santa Cruz and the Point of Pines was the only\nMonterey they could find.  According to Washburn, Vizcaino's account\nwas far from a correct one.  It was no fault of Portola and Crespi\nthat, after spending a month on its shores, it never occurred to them\nto recognize the bay.\n\nOn the Point of Pines they erected a large wooden cross, and carved on\nit the words: \"Dig at the foot of this and you will find a writing.\"\n\nAccording to Crespi this is what was written:\n\n\"The overland expedition which left San Diego on the 14th of July,\n1769, under the command of Don Gaspar de Portola, Governor of\nCalifornia, reached the channel of Santa Barbara on the 9th of August,\nand passed Point Concepcion on the 27th of the same month.  It arrived\nat the Sierra de Santa Lucia on the 13th of September; entered that\nrange of mountains on the 17th of the same month, and emerged from it\non the 1st of October; on the same day caught sight of Point Pinos, and\nthe harbors on its north and south sides, without discovering any\nindications or landmarks of the Bay of Monterey.  We determined to push\non farther in search of it, and on the 30th of October got sight of\nPoint Reyes and the Farallones, at the Bay of San Francisco, which are\nseven in number.  The expedition strove to reach Point Reyes, but was\nhindered by an immense arm of the sea, which, extending to a great\ndistance inland, compelled them to make an enormous circuit for that\npurpose.  In consequence of this and other difficulties--the greatest\nof all being the absolute want of food,--the expedition was compelled\nto turn back, believing that they must have passed the harbor of\nMonterey without discovering it.  We started on return from the Bay of\nSan Francisco on the 11th of November; passed Point Ano Nuevo on the\n19th, and reached this point and harbor of Pinos on the 27th of the\nsame month.  From that date until the present 9th of December, we have\nused every effort to find the Bay of Monterey, searching the coast,\nnotwithstanding its ruggedness, far and wide, but in vain.  At last,\nundeceived and despairing of finding it, after so many efforts,\nsufferings, and labors, and having left of all our provisions but\nfourteen small sacks of flour, we leave this place to-day for San\nDiego.  I beg of Almighty God to guide us; and for you, traveler, who\nmay read this, that He may guide you also, to the harbor of eternal\nsalvation.\n\n\"Done, in this harbor of Pinos, the 9th of December, 1769.\n\n\"If the commanders of the schooners, either the San Jose or the\nPrincipe, should reach this place within a few days after this date, on\nlearning the accounts of this writing, and of the distressed condition\nof this expedition, we beseech them to follow the coast down closely\ntoward San Diego, so that if we should be happy enough to catch sight\nof them, we may be able to apprize them by signals, flags, and firearms\nof the place where help and provisions may reach us.\"\n\n\nThe next day the whole party started back to San Diego, making the\njourney fairly well, in spite of illness and lack of proper food.\nThough disappointed at Portola's failure, Serra had no idea of\nabandoning his project of founding a mission at Monterey.  He made\nfurther preparations, and in about three months after Portola's return\na newly organized expedition left San Diego.  It consisted of two\ndivisions, one by land, again commanded by Portola, and one by sea.\nThis time the good Father wisely chose for himself to go by sea, and\nembarked on the San Antonio, which was the only ship he had in sailing\ncondition.  In about a month Portola's land party reached the Point of\nPines, and there they found their cross still standing.  According to\nLaura Bride Powers, \"great festoons of abalone-shells hung around its\narms, with strings of fish and meat; feathers projected from the top,\nand bundles of arrows and sticks lay at its base.  All this was to\nappease the stranger gods, and the Indians told them that at nightfall\nthe terrible cross would stretch its white arms into space, and grow\nskyward higher and higher, till it would touch the stars, then it would\nburst into a blaze and glow throughout the night.\"\n\nSuddenly, as they came back through the forest from the Point of Pines,\nthe thought came both to Crespi and Portola that here, after all, was\nthe lost bay of Vizcaino.  In this thought they ran over the landmarks\nof his description, and found all of them, though the harbor was less\nimportant than Vizcaino had believed.  Since that day no one has\ndoubted the existence of the Bay of Monterey.\n\nA week later, the San Antonio arrived, coming in sight around the Point\nof Pines, and was guided to its anchorage by bonfires along the beach.\nThe party landed at the mouth of the little brook which flows down a\nrocky bank to the sea.  On the 3rd of June, 1770, Father Serra and his\nassociates \"took possession of the land in the name of the King of\nSpain, hoisting the Spanish flag, pulling out some of the grass and\nthrowing stones here and there, making formal entry of the\nproceedings.\"  On the same day Serra began his mission by erecting a\ncross, hanging bells from a tree, and saying mass under the venerable\noak where the Carmelite friars accompanying Vizcaino celebrated it in\n1602.  Around this landing grew up the town of Monterey.\n\nAt a point just back from the shore, near the old live-oak tree under\nwhich the Padre rendered thanks, there has long stood a commemorative\ncross.  On the hill above where the Padre stood looking out over the\nbeautiful bay, there was placed one hundred and twenty years later, by\nthe kind interest of a good woman, a noble statue, in gray granite,\nrepresenting Father Serra as he stepped from his boat.\n\nA fortress, or presidio, was built, and Monterey was made the capital\nof Alta California.  But the mission was not located at the town.  It\nwas placed five miles farther south, where there were better pasturage\nand shelter.  This was on a beautiful slope of the hill, flanked by a\nfertile valley opening out to the glittering sea, with the mountains of\nSanta Lucia in front and a great pine forest behind.  The valley was\nnamed Carmelo, in honor of Vizcaino's Carmelite friars, and the mission\nwas named for San Carlos Borromeo.\n\nThe present church of Monterey was not a mission church, but the chapel\nof the _presidio_, or barracks.  It is now, according to Father\nCasanova, the oldest building in California.  The old Mission of San\nDiego, first founded of all, was burned by the Indians.  It was\nafterwards rebuilt, but this took place after the chapel in Monterey\nwas finished.  The mission in Carmelo was not completed until later, as\nthe Padre was obliged to secure authority from Mexico, that he might\nplace it on the pasture lands of Carmelo, instead of the sand-hills of\nMonterey.\n\nWhen the discoveries of Portola and Ortega had been reported at San\nDiego, the shores of this inland sea of San Francisco seemed a most\nfavorable station for another mission.  Among the missions already\ndedicated to the saints, none had yet been found for the great father\nof the Franciscan order, St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved saint who\ncould call the birds and who knew the speech of all animals.  Before\nthis, Father Serra had said to Governor Galvez, \"And for our Father St.\nFrancis is there to be no mission?\"  And Galvez answered, \"If St.\nFrancis wants a mission, let him show his port, and we will found the\nmission there.\"\n\nAnd now the lost port of St. Francis was found, and it was the most\nbeautiful of all, with the noblest of harbors, and the fairest of views\ntoward the hills and the sea.  So the new mission was called for him,\nthe Mission San Francisco de los Dolores.  For the Creek Dolores, the\n\"brook of sorrows,\" flowed by the mission, and gave it part of its\nname.  But Dolores stream is long since obliterated, forming part of\nthe sewage system of San Francisco.[3]\n\nThus was founded\n\n        \"that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed,\n  O'er whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed.\"\n\n\nMeanwhile, following San Diego de Alcala and San Carlos Borromeo, a\nlong series of missions was established, each one bearing the sonorous\nSpanish name of some saint or archangel, each in some beautiful sunny\nvalley, half-hidden by oaks, and each a day's ride distant from the\nnext.  In the most charming nook of the Santa Lucia Mountains was built\nSan Antonio de Padua; in the finest open pastures of the Coast Range,\nSan Luis Obispo de Tolosa.  In the rich valley, above the city of the\nQueen of the Angels, the beautiful church of San Gabriel Arcangel was\ndedicated to the leader of the hosts of heaven.  Later, came the\nmagnificent San Juan Capistrano, ruined by earthquakes in 1812.  In its\ngarden still stands the largest pepper-tree in Southern California.\n\nThen Santa Clara was built in the center of the fairest valley of the\nState.  Next came San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara, for the coast\nIndians of the south, and Santa Cruz, for those to the north of\nMonterey Bay.  In the Salinas Valley, along the \"_Camino real_,\" or\nroyal highway, from the south to the north, were built Nuestra Senora\nde la Soledad and San Miguel Arcangel.  A day's journey from Carmelo,\nin the valley of the Pajaro, arose San Juan Bautista.  In the charming\nvalley of Santa Ynez, still hidden from the tourist, a day's journey\napart, were Santa Ynez and La Purisima Concepcion.  East of the Bay of\nSan Francisco, in a nook famous for vineyards, arose the Mission San\nJose.\n\n[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua.]\n\nIn the broad, rocky pastures above Los Angeles, arose San Fernando Key\nde Espana, while midway between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano was\nplaced the stateliest of all the missions, dedicated, with its rich\nriver valley, to the memory of San Luis Rey de Francia.  Finally, to\nthe north of San Francisco Bay, was built San Rafael, small, but\ncharmingly situated, and then San Francisco Solano, still farther on in\nSonoma.  This, the northernmost outpost of the saints, the last,\nweakest, and smallest, was first to die.  It was founded in 1823, fifty\nyears after the Mission San Diego.\n\nWherever you find in California a warm, sunny valley leading from the\nocean back to the purple mountains, with a clear stream in its midst,\nand filled in summer with blue haze, around it steep slopes on which\ngrapes may grow, you have found a mission valley, and these grapes are\nmission grapes.  Somewhere in it you will see a cluster of large,\nwide-spreading pepper-trees, with delicate light-green foliage, or a\ngrove of gnarled olives, looking like stunted willows, or, perhaps, a\ncluster of old pear-trees, or sometimes a tall palm.  Near these you\nwill find the ruins of old houses of adobe, wherein once dwelt the\nIndian neophytes.  These houses are clustered around the walls, now\nalmost in ruins, of the mission itself, which had its chapel,\nrefectory, and baptistry, and in all its details it resembled closely a\nparish church of Italy of Spain.\n\nThe mission was usually laid out in the form of a hollow square,\ninclosed by a wall of adobe, twelve feet high, the whole inclosure\nbeing two or three hundred feet square.  In the center of this square\nwas a chapel, also of adobe; for the sun of California is kind to\nCalifornia's children, and a house of dried mud will withstand the\nscanty rains of a century.  Some of these old chapels are still used,\nbut the roofs of most of them have long since fallen in, and the\nornaments have been removed to decorate some other building.  The\nmission churches were built like mimic cathedrals, cathedrals of mud\ninstead of marble, and, like their great models, each had its altar,\nwith candles and crucifix, its vessels of holy water, and on the walls\nthe inevitable paintings of heaven and purgatory.  Their most charming\nfeature was the arched cloister, a feature which has been retained and\nbeautified in the architecture of Leland Stanford Jr. University, at\nPalo Alto.\n\nEach church, too, had its little chime of bells, some of which were\npartly of gold or silver, as well as of brass.  During the early\nenthusiasm, when the mission bells were cast, old heirlooms from Spain,\nrings, vases, and ancestral goblets from which had been \"drunk the red\nwine of Tarragon,\" were thrown into the molten metal.  And when these\nconsecrated bells chimed out the Angelas at the sunset hour, with the\nsound of their voices all evil spirits were driven away, and no harm\ncould come to man or beast or growing grain.\n\n  \"Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music\n    Still fills the wide expanse,\n  Tingeing the sober twilight of the present\n    With color of romance;\n\n  I hear you call, and see the sun descending\n    On rock and wave and sand,\n  As down the coast the mission voices blending,\n    Girdle the heathen land.\n\n  \"Within the circle of your incantation\n    No blight nor mildew falls,\n  Nor fierce unrest nor sordid low ambition\n    Passes those airy walls.\n\n  Borne on the swell of your long waves receding\n    I touch the farther past.\n  I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,\n    The sunset dream and last.\n\n    *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n  \"Your voices break and falter in the darkness,\n    Break, falter, and are still,\n  And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,\n    The sun sinks from the hill.\" [4]\n\n\nAround the church were built storehouses, workshops, granaries,\nbarracks for the soldiers,--in short, everything necessary for comfort\nand security.  Each mission was at once fortress, refuge, church, and\ntown.  The little town grew in time more and more to resemble its\nfellows in old Spain.  Bull-fights and other festivals were held in the\n_plaza_, or public square, in front of the _presidio_, or governor's\nhouse, and the long, low, whitewashed _hacienda_, or tavern.\n\nAbout the mission arose a great farm.  Vines and olives were planted,\nand often long avenues of shade-trees.  The level lands were sown to\nbarley and oats; great herds of cattle and horses roamed over the\nhills.  The sale of wine, and especially of hides, brought in each year\nan increasing revenue.  The poor, struggling missions became rich.  The\ncommanders kept up a dignity worthy of the representatives of the\nSpanish king, though often they had little enough to command.  It is\nsaid that one of them, wishing to fire a salute in honor of some\nforeign vessel, first sent on board to borrow powder.  In the words of\nBret Harte, with the _comandante_ the days \"slipped by in a delicious\nmonotony of simple duties, unbroken by incident or interruption.  The\nregularly recurring feasts and saint's days, the half-yearly courier\nfrom San Diego, the rare transport ship, and rarer foreign vessels,\nwere the mere details of his patriarchal life.  If there was no\nachievement, there was certainly no failure.  Abundant harvests and\npatient industry amply supplied the wants of the _presidio_ and\nmission.  Isolated from the family of nations, the wars which shook the\nworld concerned them not so much as the last earthquake; the struggle\nthat emancipated their sister colonies on the other side of the\ncontinent had to them no suggestiveness.  It was that glorious Indian\nsummer of California history, that bland, indolent autumn of Spanish\nrule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican\nindependence and the reviving spring of American conquest.\"\n\n[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua--Interior of Chapel.]\n\nThe Indians were usually gathered about the mission by force or by\npersuasion.  Being baptized with holy water, they were taught to build\nhouses, raise grain, and take care of cattle.  In place of their savage\nrites, they learned to count their beads and say their prayers.  They\nlearned also to work, and were pious and generally contented.  But\nthese California Indians, at the best, were far inferior to those of\nthe East.  \"When attached to the mission,\" Mr. Soule says, \"they were\nan industrious, contented, and numerous class, though, indeed, in\nintelligence and manly spirit they were little better than the beasts,\nafter all.\"\n\nThe Jesuit Father, Venegas, remarks, discouragingly: \"It is not easy\nfor Europeans who were never out of their own country to conceive an\nadequate idea of these people.  Even in the least frequented quarters\nof the globe there is not a nation so stupid, of such contracted ideas,\nand weak, both in body and in mind, as the unhappy Californians.  Their\ncharacteristics are stupidity and insensibility, want of knowledge and\nreflection, inconstancy, impetuosity, and blindness of appetite,\nexcessive sloth, abhorrence of all fatigue of every kind, however\ntrifling or brutal,--in fine, a most wretched want of everything which\nconstitutes the real man and makes him rational, inventive, tractable,\nand useful to himself and others.\"  All of which goes to show that\nclimate is not everything, and that contact with other minds and other\npeople, with the sifting that rigorous conditions enforce, may outweigh\nall the advantages of the fairest climate.  The highest development\ncomes with the fewest barriers to migration, to competition, and to the\nspread of ideas.\n\nThe destruction of the missions and the advent of our Anglo-Saxon\nfreedom has been for the Indian and his kind only loss and wrong.  He\nhas become an alien and tramp, with his half-brother, the despised\nGreaser.\n\nThe mission fathers left no place for idleness on the part of their\nconverts, or \"neophytes\"; nor did they make much provision for the\ndevelopment of the individual.  The Indians were to work, and to work\nhard and steadily, for the glory of the church and the prosperity of\nthe nation.  In return they were insured from all harm in this world\nand in the world to come.  The rule of the Padre was often severe,\nsometimes cruel, but not demoralizing, and the Indians reached a higher\ngrade of industry and civilization than the same race has attained\notherwise before or since.\n\nBelieving that the use of the rod was necessary to the Indians'\nsalvation, the Padres were in no danger of sparing it, and thus\nspoiling their children.  The good Father Serra would as \"soon have\ndoubted his right to breathe as his right to flog the Indian converts\";\nand meek and quiet though these converts usually were, there were not\nwanting times when they turned about in sullen resistance.  The annals\nof some of the missions show a series of events that may well have\ndiscouraged the most enthusiastic of missionaries.  The unconverted\nIndians, or \"gentiles,\" of Southern California were heathens indeed,\nand they made repeated attacks upon the missions by day, or stole their\nstock or burned their houses by night.  Volleys of arrows not\nunfrequently greeted the priests on their return from morning mass.\n\nIn San Diego, faith in the power of gunpowder to hurt long preceded any\nbelief in the power of the cross to save.  For a whole year after the\nmission was founded, not a convert was made.  The sole San Diego Indian\nin Father Serra's service was a hired interpreter, who did not have a\nparticle of reverence for his employer's work.  \"In all these\nmissionary annals of the Northwest,\" says Bancroft, \"there is no other\ninstance where paganism remained so long stubborn as in San Diego.\"\n\nAnd the converts made at such cost of threats and promises were always\nready to backslide.  It was hard to convert any unless they subjugated\nall.  The influence of the many outside would often stampede the few\nwithin the fold.\n\nIn one of the numerous uprisings at San Diego the Fathers were\nvictorious over the Indians; the warriors were flogged, and thus\nconverted, and their four chiefs were condemned to death.  The sentence\nof death, according to Bancroft, read as follows:\n\n\n\"Deeming it useful to the service of God, the king, and the public\ngood, I sentence them to a violent death by musket shots, on the 11th\nof April, at 9 A.M., the troops to be present at the execution, under\narms; and also all the Christian rancherias subject to the San Diego\nMission, that they may be warned to act righteously.\"\n\n\nTo the priests who were to assist at the last sacrament, the following\ngrim directions was given:\n\n\n\"You will co-operate for the good of their souls, in the understanding\nthat if they do not accept the salutary waters of holy baptism, they\ndie on Saturday morning; and if they do accept, they die all the same.\"\n\n\nThe character of the first great mission chief, Junipero Serra, is thus\nsummed up by Bancroft:\n\n\n\"All his energy and enthusiasm were directed to the performance of his\nmissionary duties as outlined in the regulations of his order and the\ninstruction of his superiors.  Limping from mission to mission, with a\nlame foot that must never be cured, fasting much and passing sleepless\nnights, depriving himself of comfortable clothing and nutritious food,\nhe felt that he was imitating the saints and martyrs who were the\nideals of his sickly boyhood, and in recompense of abstinence he was\nhappy.  He was kind-hearted and charitable to all, but most strict in\nhis enforcement of religious duties.  It never occurred to him to doubt\nhis absolute right to flog his neophytes for any slight negligence in\nmatters of the faith.  His holy desires trembled within him like\nearthquake throbs.  In his eyes there was but one object worth living\nfor--the performance of religious duty; and but one way to accomplish\nthat object--a strict and literal compliance with Franciscan rules.  He\ncould never understand that there was anything beyond the narrow field\nof his vision.  He could apply religious enthusiasm to practical\naffairs.  Because he was a grand missionary, he was none the less a\nmoney-maker and civilizer; but money-making and civilizing were\nadjuncts only to mission work, and all not for his glory, but for the\nglory of God.\"\n\n\nAfter Junipero Serra came a saner and wiser, if not a better, man, the\nPadre Fermin Lasuen.  I need not go into details in regard to him or\nhis life.  No miracles followed his path, and no saint made him the\nobject of spectacular intervention; but his gentle earnestness counted\nfor more in the development of Old California than that of any other\nman.  Of Lasuen, Bancroft says:\n\n\n\"In him were united the qualities that make up the ideal Padre, without\ntaint of hypocrisy or cant.  He was a frank, kind-hearted old man, who\nmade friends of all he met.  Of his fervent piety there are abundant\nproofs, and his piety and humility were of an agreeable type,\nunobtrusive, and blended with common sense.  He overcame obstacles in\nthe way of duty, but he created no obstacles for the mere sake of\nsurmounting them.  He was not a man to limp through life on a sore leg\nif a cure could be found. . . .  First among the Californian prelates\nlet us ever rank Fermin de Lasuen, as a friar who rose above his\nenvironment and lived many years in advance of his times.\"\n\n\nThirteen years after the serene founding of the Mission San Francisco\ncame the first shock to the community, thus noticed in a letter from\nthe governor of the territory to the _comandante_ at San Francisco:\n\n\n\"Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco a ship named\nthe Columbia, said to belong to General Washington, of the American\nStates, commanded by John Kendrick, which sailed from Boston in\nSeptember, 1787, bound on a voyage of discovery to the Russian\nestablishments on the northern coast of this peninsula, you will cause\nthe said vessel to be examined with caution and delicacy, using for\nthis purpose a small boat which you have in your possession.\"\n\nAfterwards another enemy, almost as dangerous as the Yankee, appeared\nin the shape of Russians from Alaska.  They brought down a colony of\nKodiak Indians, or Aleuts, and established themselves at Fort Ross,\nnorth of San Francisco.  The Spaniards then founded the missions of San\nRafael and Solano in front of the Russians, to head them off, as the\npriest makes the sign of the cross to ward off Satan.  Trading with the\nRussians was forbidden, but, nevertheless, the Russian vessels, on one\npretext or another, made repeated visits to the Bay of San Francisco.\nThe Spaniards had no boats in the bay, and could not prevent the\ningress of the Russian and American traders.  One of the singular facts\nin connection with the missions is that the Padres made no use of the\nsea, and the missions usually kept no boats at all, and so the Spanish\nofficials were forced to receive in friendliness many encroachments\nwhich they were powerless to prevent.\n\nIn 1842, as the seals grew scarce around Bodegas Head, the Russians, to\nthe great satisfaction of the Spaniards, disappeared as suddenly as\nthey came.  The joy of the missions was short-lived, for seven years\nlater gold was discovered, California was ceded to the United States,\nand the most remarkable invasion known in history followed.  Over the\nmountains, across the plains, by the Isthmus, and by the Horn they\ncame, that wonderful procession which Bret Harte has made so familiar\nto us--Truthful James, Tennessee's Partner, Jack Hamlin, John Oakhurst,\nFlynn of Virginia, Abner Dean of Angels, Brown of Calaveras, Yuba Bill,\nSandy McGee, the Scheezicks, the Man of No Account, and all the rest.\nAnd the California of the gambler and the gold-seeker succeeds the\nCalifornia of the Padre.\n\nNumerous causes had meanwhile contributed to the decline of the Spanish\nmissions.  They had been supported at first by a Pious Fund, obtained\nby subscriptions in Mexico and Spain.  After the separation of these\ntwo countries, this fund was lost, its interest being regularly\nembezzled by Mexican officials, and, finally, the principal, it is\nsaid, was taken in one lump by the President, Santa Ana.  Still the\nmissions were able to hold their own until the Mexican Government\nremoved the Indians from the control of the Padres, for the benefit, I\nsuppose, of the \"Indian ring.\"  The secular control of the native\ntribes was, in Mexican hands, an utter failure.  The Indians, now no\nlonger compelled to work, no longer well fed and comfortably clothed,\nwere scattered about the country as paupers and tramps.  The missions,\nafter repeated interferences of this sort, fell into a rapid decline,\nand at the time that California was ceded to the United States, not one\nof them was in successful operation.  A few of the churches are still\npartly occupied, as at San Luis Obispo, San Capistrano, and San Miguel.\nThe Mission of Santa Barbara is still intact, and has yet its little\nbands of monks.  A few, like San Carlos, have been partially saved or\npartially restored, thanks to the loving interest of Father Casanova\nand others; but the Indians are gone, and neither wealth nor influence\nremains with the missions.  Most of them are crumbling ruins, and have\nalready taken their place as curiosities and relics of the past.  Some\nof them, as the noble San Antonio de Padua and the stately San Luis\nRey, are exquisitely beautiful, even in ruins.  Of others, as San\nRafael, not a trace remains, and its spot can be kept green only in\nmemory.  It is said that at San Antonio, a mission once numbering\nfourteen hundred souls, and rearing the finest horses in California,\nthe last priest lived all alone for years, and supported himself by\nraising geese and selling the tiles from the mission roof.  When he\ndied, ten years ago, no one was left to care for his beloved mission,\nwhich is rapidly falling into utter decay.\n\n[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua--side of the chapel,\nwith the old pear-trees.]\n\nSo faded away the California of the Padre, and left no stain on the\npages of our history.\n\n\n\n[1] Address at the Teachers' Institute at Monterey, California,\nSeptember, 1893.\n\n[2] This stretch of water, as explained below, lies entirely outside of\nwhat is now known as San Francisco Bay.\n\n[3] The limits of San Francisco Bay, as now understood, were\nascertained at the time of the founding of the mission, and the name\nwas then formally adopted.\n\n[4] Bret Harte.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN.\n\nIn a cleft of the high Alps stands the Hospice of the Great Saint\nBernard.  Its tall, cold, stone buildings are half-buried in ice in the\nwinter, while even in summer the winds, dense with snow, shriek and\nhowl as they make their way through the notch in the mountain.  Its\nlittle lake, cold and dark, frozen solid in winter, is covered with\ncakes of floating ice under the sky of July.  The scanty grass around\nit forms a thick, low turf, which is studded with bodiless blue\ngentians, primroses, and other Alpine flowers.  Overhanging the lake\nare the frost-bitten crags of the Mountain of Death; and the other\nmountains about, though less dismally named, are not more cheerful to\nthe traveler.  Along the lake margin winds the narrow bridle-path,\nwhich follows rushing rivulets in zigzags down steep flower-carpeted\nslopes to the pine woods of Saint Remy, far below.  Among the pines the\npath widens to a wagon-road, whence it descends through green pastures,\npurple with autumnal crocus, past beggarly villages, whose houses crowd\ntogether, like frightened cattle in a herd, through beech woods,\nvineyards, and grain-fields, till at last it comes to its rest amid the\nhigh stone walls of the old city of Aosta, named for Augustus Caesar.\nAbove Aosta are the sources of the river Po, one of the chief of these\nbeing the Dora Baltea, in a deep gorge half-hid by chestnut-trees.  It\nis twenty miles from the lake to the river--twenty miles of wild\nmountain incline--twenty miles from Switzerland to Italy, from the\neternal snows and faint-colored flowers of the frigid zone, to the\ndust, and glare of the torrid.\n\nThe Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard stands thus in a narrow mountain\nnotch, with only room for itself and its lake, while above it, on\neither side, are jagged heights dashed with snow-banks, their summits\nfrosted with eternal ice.\n\n[Illustration: The Great Saint Bernard.]\n\nIt is a large stone building, three stories high, beside the two attic\nfloors of the steep, sloping roof.  A great square house of cold, gray\nstone, as unattractive as a barn or a woolen-mill, plain, cold, and\nsolid.  At one end of the main building is a stone addition precisely\nlike the building itself.  On the other side of the bridle-path is an\noutbuilding--a tall stone shed, \"the Hotel of Saint Louis,\" three\nstories high, as plain and uncompromising as the Hospice is.  The front\ndoor of the main building is on the side away from the lake.  From this\ndoor down the north side of the mountain the path descends steeply from\nthe crest of the Pennine Alps to the valley of the Rhone, even more\nswiftly than the path on the south side drops downward to the valley of\nthe Po.\n\nAs one approaches the Hospice he is met by a noisy band of great dogs,\nyellow and white, with the loudest of bass voices, barking incessantly,\neager to pull you out of the snow, and finding that you do not need\nthis sort of rescue, apparently equally eager to tear you to pieces for\nhaving deceived them.  Classical names these dogs still bear--names\nworthy of the mountain long sacred to Jupiter, on which the Hospice is\nbuilt--Jupitere, Junon, Mars, Vulcan, Pluton, the inevitable Leon, and\nthe indomitable Turc, and all have for the traveler such a greeting as\nonly a band of big, idle dogs can give.  These dogs are not so large\nnor so well kept as the Saint Bernard dogs we see in American cities,\nbut they have the same great head, huge feet and legs, and the same\nintelligent eye, as if they were capable of doing anything if they\nwould only stop barking long enough to think of something else.\n\nThe inside of the house corresponds to its outer appearance.  Thick,\nheavy triple doors admit you to a cold hall floored with stone.\nAdjoining this is a parlor, likewise floored with the coldest of stone,\nand this parlor is used as the dining-room and waiting-room for\ntravelers.  Its walls are hung with pictures, many of them valuable\nworks of art, the gifts of former guests, while its chilly air is\nscantily warmed by a small fireplace, on which whoever will may throw\npine boughs and fragments of the spongy wood of the fir.  By this fire\nthe guests take their turn in getting partly warmed, then pass away to\nshiver in the outer wastes of the room.\n\n[Illustration: Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard.]\n\nIn this room the travelers are served with plain repasts, princes and\npeasants alike, coarse bread, red wine, coffee, and boiled meat;\neverything about the table neat and clean, but with no pretense at\npampering the appetite.  You take whatever you please without money and\nwithout price.  Should you care to pay your way, or care to help on the\nwork of the Hospice, you can leave your mite, be it large or small, in\na box near the door of the chapel.  The guest-rooms are plain but\ncomfortable--a few religious pictures on the walls; tall, old-fashioned\nbedsteads, with abundant feather-beds and warm blankets.  For one night\nonly all persons who come are welcome.  The next day all alike, unless\nsick or crippled, must pass on.\n\nThere are about a dozen monks in the Hospice now, all of them young\nmen, devoted to their work, and some of them at least intelligent and\ngenerously educated.  The hard climate and the exposure of winter\nbreaks down their health before they are old.  When they become unable\nto carry on the duties of the Hospice, they are sent down the mountains\nto Martigny, while others come up to take their places.  There are\nbeautiful days in the summer-time, but no season of the year is free\nfrom severity.  Even in July and August the ground is half the time\nwhite with snow.  Terrible blasts sweep through the mountains; for the\ncommonest summer shower in the valleys below is, in these heights, a\nraging snow-storm, and its snow-laden winds are never faced with\nimpunity.\n\nWe visited the Hospice in July, 1890.  We drove from Aosta up to Saint\nRemy, a little village crowded in on the side of the mountain, where\nthe pine-trees cease.  The light rain which followed us out from Saint\nRemy changed to snow as we came up the rocky slopes.  By the time we\nreached the Hospice it became a blinding sleet.  The ground was only\nwhitened, so that the dogs who came barking to meet us had no need to\ndig us out from the drifts.  In this they seemed disappointed, and\nbarked again.\n\nOnce inside the walls, one cared not to go out.  Many travelers came up\nthe mountain that day.  Among them were a man and his wife, Italian\npeasants, who had been over the mountains to spend a day or two with\nfriends in some village on the Swiss side, and were now returning home.\nMan and woman were dressed in their peasants' best, and with them was a\nlittle girl, some four years old.  The child carried a toy horse in her\nhands, the gift of some friend below.  As they toiled up the steep path\nin the blinding snow, all of them thinly clad and dressed only for\nsummer, they seemed chilled through and through, while the child was\nalmost frozen.  The monks came out to meet them, took the child in\ntheir arms, and brought her and her parents to the fire, covered her\nshoulders with a warm shawl, and, after feeding them, sent them down\nthe mountain to their home in the valley, warmed and filled.  This was\na simple act, the easiest of all their many duties, but it was a very\ntouching one.  Such duties make up the simple round of their lives.\n\nIn the storms of winter the work of the Hospice takes a sterner cast.\nFrom November to May the gales are incessant.  The snow piles up in\nbillows, and in the whirling clouds all traces of human occupation are\nobliterated.  There are many peasants and workingmen who go forth from\nItaly into Switzerland and France, and who wish to return home when\ntheir summer labors are over.  To these the pass of the Great Saint\nBernard is the only route which they can afford.  The long railway\nrides and the great distances of the Simplon and the Saint Gotthard\nwould mean the using up of their scanty earnings.  If they go home at\nall, they must trust their lives to the storms and the monks, and take\nthe path which leads by the Hospice.  So they come over day after day,\nthe winter long.  No matter how great the storm, the dogs are on the\nwatch.  In the last winter, of the many who came, not one was lost.\n\n[Illustration: The Hospice in winter.]\n\nThis is the Hospice as it stands to-day.  I come next to tell its story\nand the story of its founder.  I tell it, in the most part, from a\nlittle volume in French, which some modest and nameless monk of the\nHospice has compiled from the old Latin records of the monks who have\ngone before him.  This volume he has printed, as he says, \"for the use\nof the faithful in the parishes which lie next the Alps, and which, in\nhis time, the good Saint Bernard[1] passed through.\"  This story I must\ntell in his own spirit, in some degree at least, else I should have no\nright to tell it at all.\n\nIn the tenth century, he informs us, the dark ages of Europe could\nscarcely have been darker.  Weak and wicked kings, the dregs of the\nworn-out blood of Charlemagne, misruled France, while along the\nnorthern coast the Normans robbed and plundered at their will.  Even\nthe church had her share of crimes and scandals.  In this dark time,\nsays the chronicle, \"God, who had promised to be with His own to the\nend of the centuries, did not fail to raise up in that darkness great\nsaints who should teach the people to lift their eyes toward heaven; to\nrise above afflictions; not to take the form of the world for a\npermanent habitation, and to suffer its pains with patience, in the\nprospect of eternity.\"\n\n[Illustration: Jupitere.]\n\nIt happened that in the days of King Raoul, in the Castle of Menthon,\non the north bank of the lake of Annecy, in Savoy, in the year 923,\nBernard de Menthon was born.  His father was the Baron Richard, famous\namong the noblemen of the time, while his mother, the Lady Bernoline,\nwas illustrious for virtues.  The young Bernard was a fair child, and\nhis history, as seen from the perspective of his monkish historian,\nshows that even in his earliest youth he was predestined for saintship.\nEven before he could walk, the little child would join his hands in the\nattitude of supplication, and murmur words which might have been\nprayers.  While still very young, he brought in a book one day and\nasked his mother to teach him to read, and when she would not, or could\nnot, he wept, for the books in which even then he delighted were the\nprayer-books of the church.\n\nHe grew up bright and beautiful, and his father was proud of him, and\ndetermined that he should take his part in public life.  But Bernard's\nthoughts ran in other channels.  He spent his moments in copying\npsalms, and in writing down the words of divine service which he heard.\nEven in his seventh year he began to practice austerities and\nself-castigation, which he kept up through his life.  He chose for his\nmodel Saint Nicholas, the saint who through the ages has been kind to\nchildren.  Him he resolved to imitate, and to walk always in his steps.\n\nThe University of Paris had been founded by Charlemagne more than a\ncentury before, and this university was then the Mecca of all ambitious\nyouth.  To the University of Paris his father decided to send him.  But\nhis mother feared the influence of the gay capital, and wished to keep\nBernard by her side.  But the boy said, \"Virtue has too deep a root in\nmy heart, mother, for the air of Paris to tarnish it.  I will bring\nback more of science, but not less of purity.\"  And to Paris he went.\nHere he studied law, to please his father, and theology, to please\nhimself.  \"As Tobias lived faithful in Nineveh,\" so the chronicle says,\n\"thus lived Bernard in Paris.\"  In the midst of snares unnumbered, he\nonly redoubled his austerities--\"_in sanctitate persistens, studiosus\nvalde_,\" so the record says.\n\n[Illustration: Monks of the Great Saint Bernard.]\n\nHis thoughts ran on the misery of humanity, which he measured by the\nabasement to which Christ had submitted in order to effect its\nredemption.  A great influence in his life came from Germain, his\ntutor, a man who had lived the life of a scholar in the world, and who\nhad at last withdrawn to sanctity and prayer.  Although Bernard knew\nthat his father expected a brilliant future for him, and that he hoped\nto effect for him a marriage in some family of the great of those days,\nyet he took upon himself the vow of celibacy.  \"God lives in virgin\nsouls,\" he said.  There is a record of an argument with Germain, in\nwhich his tutor tries to test the strength of his purpose.  Germain\ntells him that even in a monastery evil cannot be excluded, and that\nmany even of the most austere monks live lives of petty jealousy and\nignoble ambition.  \"There are many,\" Germain says, \"who are saved in\nthe struggle of the world who would be shipwrecked in a monastery.\"\nBut Bernard is steadfast in his choice.  \"Happy are those who have\nchosen to dwell in God's court, and to sleep on His estate.\"  Thus day\nand night he struggles against all temptations of worldly glory or\npleasure.\n\nThen his father calls him home; and when he has returned to Annecy,\nBernard finds that every preparation has been made for his approaching\nwedding with the daughter of the great Lord of Miolans.  \"_Sponsa\npulchra_,\" beautiful bride, this young woman was, according to the\nrecord, and doubtless this was true.  The attitude of Bernard toward\nthis marriage his father and mother could not understand.  He held back\nconstantly, and urged all sorts of objections to its immediate\nconsummation, but on no ground which seemed to them reasonable.  So the\nwedding-day was set.  The house was full of guests.  Every gate and\ndoor of the castle was crowded by armed retainers, and there seemed to\nbe no escape.  Bernard retired to his own room, and in the oldest\nmanuscripts are given the words of his prayer:\n\n\n\"My adorable Creator, Thou who with thy celestial light enlightened\nthose who invoke with faith and confidence, and Thou my Jesus, Divine\nRedeemer of men and Saviour of souls, lend a favorable ear to my humble\nprayer; spread on thy servant the treasures of your infinite mercy.  I\nknow that Thou never abandonest those who place in you their hope;\ndeliver me, I supplicate Thee, from the snares which the world have\noffered me.  Break these nets in which the world tries to take me;\npermit not that the enemy prevail over thy servant, that adulation may\nenfeeble my heart.  I abandon myself entirely to Thee.  I throw myself\ninto the arms of thy infinite mercy, hoping that Thou wilt save me, and\nwilt reject not my demand.\"\n\n\nThen to the good Saint Nicholas:\n\n\n\"Amiable shepherd, faithful guide, holy priest, thou who art my\nprotector and my refuge, together with God, and His holy mother, the\nhappy Virgin Mary, obtain me, I pray thee, by thy merits, the grace of\ntriumph over the obstacles the world opposes to my vow of consecrating\nmyself to God without reserve--in return for the property, the\npleasures, and honors here below, of which I abandon my part, obtain me\nspiritual good all the course of my life, and eternal happiness after\nmy death.\"\n\n\nThen Bernard retired to sleep, and in a dream Saint Nicholas stood\nbefore him and uttered these words:\n\n\n\"Bernard, servant of God the Lord, who never betrays those who put\ntheir confidence in Him, calls thee to follow Him.  An immortal crown\nis reserved for thee.  Leave at once thy father's house and go to\nAosta.  There in the cathedral thou shalt meet an old man called\nPierre.  He will welcome thee; thou shalt live with him, and he shall\nteach thee the road thou should traverse.  For my part, I shall be thy\nprotector, and will not for an instant abandon thee.\"\n\n\nThen Bernard opened his eyes and the vision had disappeared.  He was\novercome with joy.  His resolution was taken.  Though he knew no way\nout of the castle, nor from the bedroom in the tower, in which he had\nbeen locked by his thoughtful father, yet he was ready to go.\n\nTaking up a pen, he wrote to his father this letter:\n\n\"Very dear parents, rejoice with me that the Lord calls me to His\nservice.  I follow Him to arrive sooner at the port of salvation, the\nsole object of my vows.  Do not worry about me, nor take the trouble to\nseek me.  I renounce the marriage, which was ever against my will.  I\nrenounce all that concerns the world.  All my desires turn toward\nheaven, whither I would arrive.  I take the road this minute.\n\n\"BERNARD DE MENTHON.\"\n\n\nLaying the letter on the table, he soon found himself on the way\noutside the castle grounds, and along this path he hurried, over the\nmountain passes, toward the city of Aosta.  So say the oldest\nmanuscripts; but in the later stories the details are more fully\ndescribed.  From these it would appear that Bernard leaped from the\nwindow eighteen or twenty feet, his naked feet striking on a bare rock.\nOn he ran through the night; on over dark and lonely paths in a country\nstill uninhabited; over the stony fields and wild watercourses of the\nGraian Alps, and when the morning dawned he found himself in the city\nof Aosta, a hundred miles from Annecy.\n\nIn an old painting the manner of his escape is shown in detail.  As he\ndrops from the window he is supported by Saint Nicholas on the one\nside, and an angel on the other, and underneath the painting is the\nlegend \"_Emporte par Miracle_.\"  It is said, too, that in former times\nthe prints of his hands on the stone window-sill, and of his naked feet\non the rock below, were both plainly visible.  Eight hundred years\nlater the good Father Pierre Verre celebrated mass in the old room in\nwhich Bernard was confined; and he reports at that time there was both\non the window-sill and on the rock below only the merest trace of the\nimprints left by Bernard.  One could not then \"even be sure that they\nwere made by hand or foot.\"  But the chronicle wisely says: \"Time, in\neffacing these marks and rendering them doubtful, has never effaced the\ntradition of the fact among the people of Annecy.\"\n\nIn the morning, consternation reigned within the castle.  The Lord of\nMenthon was filled with disgust, shame, and confusion.  The Lord of\nMiolans thought that he and his daughter were the victims of a trick,\nand he would take no explanation or excuse.  Only the sword might\nefface the stain upon his honor.  The marriage feast would have ended\nin a scene of blood were it not, according to the chronicle, that \"God,\nalways admirable in His saints,\" sent as an angel of peace the very\nperson who had been most cruelly wronged.  The Lady of Miolans,\n\"_sponsa pulchra_\" beyond a doubt, took up the cause of her delinquent\nbridegroom, whom God had called, she said, to take some nobler part.\nWhen peace had been made, she followed his example, taking the veil in\na neighboring convent, where, after many years of virtuous living, she\ndied, full of days and full of merits.  \"_Sponsa ipsius_,\" so the\nrecord says, \"_in qua sancte et religiose dies suos clausit_\"; a bride\nwho in sanctity and religious days closed her life.\n\nMeanwhile, beyond the Graian Alps and beyond the reach of his father's\ninformation, Bernard was safe.  In Aosta he was kindly received by\nPierre, the Archdeacon.  He entered into the service of the church, and\nthere, in spite of his humility and his self-abasement, he won the\nfavor of all with whom he had to deal.  \"God wills,\" the chronicle\nsays, \"that His ministers should shine by their sanctity and their\nscience.\"  \"Saint Paul commends prudence, gravity, modesty,\nunselfishness, and hospitality,\" and to these precepts Bernard was ever\nfaithful.  He lived in the simplest way, like a hermit in his personal\nrelations, but never out of the life of the world.  He was not a man\neager to save his own soul only, but the bodies and souls of his\nneighbors.  He dressed in the plainest garb.  He drank from a rude\nwooden cup.  Wine he never touched, and water but rarely.  The juice of\nbitter herbs was his beverage, and by every means possible he strove to\nreduce his body to servitude.  When he came, years later, to his\ndeathbed, it was his sole regret that it was a _bed_ where he was to\ndie, instead of the bare boards on which he was wont to sleep.\n\nHis fame as a preacher spread far and wide.  There are many traditions\nof his eloquence, and the memory of his words was fondly cherished\nwherever his sweet, rich voice was heard.  \"From the mountains of Savoy\nto Milan and Turin, and even to the Lake of Geneva,\" says the\nchronicle, \"his memory was dear.\"  So, in due time, after the death of\nPierre, Bernard was made Archdeacon of Aosta.\n\nIn these times the high Alps were filled with Saracen brigands and\nother heathen freebooters, who celebrated in the mountain fastnesses\ntheir monstrous rites.  In the mountains above Aosta the god Pen had\nlong been worshiped; the word pen in Celtic meaning the highest.\nLater, Julius Caesar conquered these wild tribes, and imposed upon them\nthe religion of the Roman Empire.  A statue of Jupiter (\"_Jove optimo\nmaximo_\") was set up in the mountain in the place of the idol Pen.\nAfterwards, by way of compromise, the Romans permitted the two to\nbecome one, and the people worshiped Jovis Pennius (Jupiter Pen), the\ngreat god of the highest mountains.  A statue of Jupiter Pen was set up\nby the side of the lake in the great pass of the mountain; and from\nJupiter Pen these mountains took the name of Pennine Alps, which they\nbear to this day.  The pass itself was called Mons Jovis, the Mountain\nof Jove, and this, in due time, became shortened to Mont Joux.  Through\nthis pass of Mont Joux the armies of every nation have marched, the\nheroes of every age, from Saint Peter, who, the legend says, came over\nin the year 57, down to Napoleon, who passed nearly eighteen centuries\nlater, on a much less worthy errand.  The Hotel \"Dejeuner de Napoleon,\"\nin the little village of \"Bourg Saint Pierre,\" recalls in its name the\nstory of both these visits.\n\nIn the earliest days a refuge hut was built by the side of the statue\nof Jupiter Pen.  In the early pilgrimages to Rome this became a place\nof some importance.  Later on, marauding armies of Goths, Saracens, and\nHungarians, successively passing through, destroyed this refuge.  In\nthe days of Bernard the pass was filled with a horde of brigands,\nFrench, Italians, Saracens, and Jews, who had cast aside all religious\nfaith of their fathers, and had re-established the worship of the demon\nin the temple of Jupiter Pen.\n\nThe old manuscripts tell us that in the middle of the tenth century the\ndemons were in full sway on these mountains; that through the mouth of\nthe statue of Jupiter the worst of lies and blasphemies were spoken to\nthose who came to consult it.  These worshipers of strange old gods\nlived by plunder, and exacted toll of all who came through the pass.\nThe same conditions existed on the Graian Alps to the southward.  On\none of these mountain passes, some fifty miles from Mont Joux, there\nlived a rich man named Polycarpe.  He, too, did homage to Jupiter, and\non the summit of a tall column which he built in the pass he had placed\na splendid diamond, which he called the \"Eye of Jove.\"  People came\nfrom great distances to be healed by its magic glance, and the mountain\non which he dwelt was the mountain of the Columna Jovis.  This became\nchanged, in time, to Colonne Joux, the Mountain of the Column of Jove.\nAnd the demons of these two heights, the Mountain of Jove and the\nColumn of Jove, sent down their baleful call of defiance to the valley\nover which Bernard ruled as Archdeacon of Aosta.\n\nIt came to pass that a troop of ten French travelers crossed over the\npass of Mont Joux.  In the pass they were attacked by marauders, and\none of their number was carried away captive.  When they came down to\nAosta, Bernard, the Archdeacon, fearlessly offered to go back with them\nto attack the giant of the mountain, to rescue their friend, and to\nreplace the standard of the cross over the altar of the demon.\n\nThat night, so says the old chronicle, Saint Nicholas appeared to him\nin the garb of a pilgrim and said: \"Bernard, let us attack these\nmountains.  We shall put the demon to flight.  We shall overturn this\nstatue of Jupiter, which the demons have taken possession of to bring\ntrouble among Christians.  We will destroy it, and we will destroy the\ncolumn and its diamond, and in their place we will build two refuges\nfor the use of the pilgrims who cross the two mountains.  Go thou, as\nthe tenth one in this band; then wilt thou conjure the demons.  Thou\nshalt bind the statue with a blessed stole, and its ruins will mingle\nwith the chaos of the mountains.  Thus shalt thou destroy the power of\nevil to the day of judgment.\"\n\nAnd in proof of the thoroughness with which Bernard performed his work,\nit is told that a spiritualist who took pleasure in tipping tables came\nthrough the pass in 1857.  The monks were incredulous of his powers,\nand he wished to convince them by an actual experience.  His efforts\nwere all in vain.  The tables, the record tells us, were quiet as the\nrocks.  The traveler, astonished, said: \"This is the first time they\nhave failed to obey me.\"  And thus, says the record, the pledge of\nSaint Nicholas was accomplished.  The enemy had never more an entrance\ninto the mountain.\n\nWhen Bernard and his followers reached Mont Joux, they found the\nmountain filled with fog and storm, but his heart was undaunted.\nPassing boldly between the guards of the temple, he flung, so the story\nsays, his blessed stole over the neck of the statue of Jupiter.  It\nchanged at once into an iron chain, against which the statue, now\nbecome a huge demon-monster, struggled in vain.  The good man\noverturned it and flung it at his feet.  With the same chain he bound\nthe high priest who guarded the demon.  The struggle was short, but\ndecisive.  In a few minutes, so the chronicle says, Bernard had\nbanished the demon of Mont Joux and his accomplices to eternal snow and\nice to the end of time, and had commanded them to cease forever their\nevil doings on the mountain.\n\nAn old painting in the Hospice shows this scene in vivid portrait.\nBernard stands erect and fearless, his fine face lit up by celestial\nzeal, his bare head surrounded by a halo, a pilgrim's staff in his\nright hand, the stole, now become a chain, in his left, while one foot\nis on the breast of the demon, which gasps helpless at his feet.  The\ndemon has the body of a man, covered with a wolf's rough, shaggy hair,\nhis fingers and toes ending in sharp claws, a long tail, rough and\nscaly, like the tail of a rat, coiled snake-like above his legs, the\nhead and ears of a wolf, the horns of a goat, and on his back an\nindefinable outgrowth, perhaps the framework of a horrible pair of\nwings, its long tongue thrust out from between its bloody teeth.  He\nwas certainly a gruesome creature.\n\n[Illustration: Saint Bernard and the demon.]\n\nAnd thus it came to pass in the year 970, in the place of the temple of\nJupiter Pen, but at the other end of the lake, and in the very summit\nof the pass, was built the Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard.  From\nthat day to this, almost a thousand years, the work of doing good to\nmen has been humbly and patiently carried on.\n\nNot long afterward, in a similar way, Bernard attacked the Graian Alps,\noverthrew the column of Jupiter, crushed its bright diamond to the\nfinest dust, which he scattered in the winds, and built in its place a\nsecond Hospice, which, with the pass, has borne ever since the name of\nthe Little Saint Bernard.\n\nSilver and gold, the builders of this Hospice had none.  Ever since the\nbeginning, they have exercised their charities at the expense of those\nwho cared for the Lord's work.  All who pass by are treated alike.\nThose who are received into the Hospice can leave much or\nlittle--something or nothing, whatever they please,--to carry the same\nsame help to others.\n\nIn the book of the good Saint Francis de Sales long ago, so the\nchronicle says, these words were written:\n\n\n\"There are many degrees in charity.  To lend to the poor, this is the\nfirst degree.  To give to the poor is a higher degree.  Still higher to\ngive oneself; to devote one's life to the service of the poor.\nHospitality, when necessity is not extreme, is a counsel, and to\nreceive the stranger is its first degree.  But to go out on the roads\nto find and help, as Abraham did, this is a grade still higher.  Still\nhigher is to live in dangerous places, to serve, aid, and save the\npassers-by; to attend, lodge, succor, and save from danger the\ntravelers, who else would die in cold and storm.  This is the work of\nthe noble friend of God, who founded the hospitals on the two\nmountains, now for this called by his name, Great Saint Bernard, in the\ndiocese of Sion, and the Little Saint Bernard, in the Tarentaise.\"\n\n\nAnd so the Hospice was built, and in the enthusiastic words of a\nchronicle of the times, \"Tears and sorrow were banished, peace and joy\nhave replaced them; abundance has made there her abode; the terrors\nhave disappeared, and there reigns eternal springtime.  Instead of\nhell, you will find there paradise.\"  Not quite paradise, perhaps, so\nfar as the elements are concerned, but a dozen kindly men, a legion of\ndogs, big, cheerful, and noisy, a warm fire, a simple meal, and a\nGod-speed to all men, whatever their race, or creed, or temper.\n\nI need add but a word more of the history of Bernard himself.  One day\nan old man and his wife came up to visit the Hospice and to pay their\nrespects to the monk who had founded it.  Bernard met them there, and\nat once recognized his father and mother.  He received them\nsympathetically, and they told him the story of their lost son.\nBernard spoke to them tenderly of the work to which God must have\ncalled him.  He told them they should rejoice that their child had been\nfound worthy of his purposes, and after a time they seemed to become\nreconciled, and felt that He doeth all things well.  Then Bernard told\nthem who he was, and when after many days they went away from the\nHospice, they left the money to build in each of them a chapel.\n\nBernard died in the year 1007, at the age of eighty-three.  His last\nwords were these: \"O Lord, I give my soul into thy hands.\"  The words,\n\"The saint is dead,\" passed on from mouth to mouth throughout these\nAlpine regions.  The peasants had canonized him already a hundred years\nbefore the sanctity of his work was officially recognized at Rome.\n\nThe story of his burial is again marked by miracles.  Rich men vied\nwith each other in making funeral offerings.  One gave him a\nmagnificent stone coffin, but this man had been a usurer.  Usury was a\nsin abhorred by Saint Bernard, and the people found that no force or\npersuasion could place his body within this coffin.  So another tomb,\nless pretentious, but more worthy, was found.  At the end Bernard's\nremains were divided among the churches, each of whom claimed him as\nits own.  To the Hospice fell his ring and his cup, a tooth, and a few\nfinger-bones, and, most important of all, his name--the \"Great Saint\nBernard.\"\n\nThe chronicles give a long list of miracles which since then have been\nwrought in his name.  These are for the most part wonderful healings,\nthe stilling of storms, the bringing of rain, the driving away of\ngrasshoppers.  However, men are prone always to look for the miracle in\nthe things that are of least moment.  The life and work of the man was\nthe real miracle, not the flight of grasshoppers.  The miracle of all\ntime is the power of humanity when it works in harmony with the laws\nand purposes of God.  Consecrated to God's work, and by the work's own\nseverity protected through the centuries from corruption and\ntemptation, the work of the monk of Aosta has outlasted palaces and\nthrones.  Through the influence of charity, and piety, and truth, the\ndemon has been driven from these mountains.  When the love of man joins\nto the love of God, all spirits of evil vanish as mist before the\nmorning sun.\n\n\n\n[1] St. Bernard de Menthon must not be confounded with Bernard de\nClairvaux, born in 1091, the preacher of the Crusades.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST OF THE PURITANS.[1]\n\nI have a word to say of Thoreau, and of an episode which brought his\ncharacter into bold relief, and which has fairly earned for him a place\nin American history, as well as in our literature.\n\nI do not wish now to give any account of the life of Thoreau.  In the\npreface to his volume called \"Excursions\" you will find a biographical\nsketch, written by the loving hand of Mr. Emerson, his neighbor and\nfriend.  Neither shall I enter into any justification of Thoreau's\npeculiar mode of life, nor shall I describe the famous cabin in the\npine woods by Walden Pond, already becoming the Mecca of the Order of\nSaunterers, whose great prophet was Thoreau.  His profession of\nland-surveyor was one naturally adopted by him; for to him every hill\nand forest was a being, each with its own individuality.  This\nprofession kept him in the fields and woods, with the sky over his head\nand the mold under his feet.  It paid him the money needed for his\ndaily wants, and he cared for no more.\n\nHe seldom went far away from Concord, and, in a half-playful way, he\nused to view everything in the world from a Concord standpoint.  All\nthe grandest trees grew there and all the rarest flowers, and nearly\nall the phenomena of nature could be observed at Concord.\n\n\"Nothing can be hoped of you,\" he said, \"if this bit of mold under your\nfeet is not sweeter to you than any other in this world--in any world.\"\n\nAlthough one of the most acute of observers, Thoreau was never reckoned\namong the scientific men of his time.  He was never a member of any\nNatural History Society, nor of any Academy of Sciences, bodies which,\nin a general way, he held in not altogether unmerited contempt.  When\nmen band together for the study of nature, they first draft a long\nconstitution, with its attendant by-laws, and then proceed to the\nelection of officers, and, by and by, the study of nature becomes\nsubordinate to the maintenance of the organization.\n\nIn technical scientific work, Thoreau took little pleasure.  It is\noften pedantic, often bloodless, and often it is a source of\ninspiration only to him by whom the work is done.  Animals and plants\nwere interesting to him, not in their structure and genealogical\naffinities, but in their relations to his mind.  He loved wild things,\nnot alone for themselves, but for the tonic effect of their savagery\nupon him.\n\n\"I wish to speak a word for nature,\" he said, \"for absolute freedom and\nwildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, to\nregard man as an inhabitant, a part and parcel of nature, rather than\nas a member of society.  I wish to make an extreme statement; if so, I\nmay make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of\ncivilization.  The minister and the school committees, and every one of\nyou, will take care of that.\"\n\nTo Thoreau's admirers, he is the prophet of the fields and woods, the\ninterpreter of nature, and his every word has to them the deepest\nsignificance.  He is the man who\n\n  \"Lives all alone, close to the bone,\n  And where life is sweetest, constantly eatest.\"\n\nThey resent all criticism of his life or his words.  They are impatient\nof all analysis of his methods or of his motives, and a word of praise\nof him is the surest passport to their good graces.\n\nBut the critics sometimes miss the inner harmony which Thoreau's\nadmirers see, and discern only queer paradoxes and extravagances of\nstatement where the others hear the voice of nature's oracle.  With\nmost literary men, the power or disposition of those who know or\nunderstand their writings is in some degree a matter of literary\nculture.  It is hardly so in the case of Thoreau.\n\nThe most illiterate man I know who had ever heard of Thoreau, Mr.\nBarney Mullins, of Freedom Centre, Outagamie County, Wisconsin, was a\nmost ardent admirer of Thoreau, while the most eminent critic in\nAmerica, James Russell Lowell, does him scant justice.  To Lowell, the\nfinest thoughts of Thoreau are but strawberries from Emerson's garden,\nand other critics have followed back these same strawberries through\nEmerson's to still older gardens, among them to that of Sir Thomas\nBrowne.\n\nBut, setting the critics aside, let me tell you about Barney Mullins.\nTwenty years ago, I lived for a year in the northern part of Wisconsin.\nThe snow is very deep in the winter there, and once I rode into town\nthrough the snowbanks on a sled drawn by two oxen and driven by Barney\nMullins.  Barney was born on the banks of Killarney, and he could\nscarcely be said to speak the English language.  He told me that before\nhe came to Freedom Centre he had lived in a town called Concord, in\nMassachusetts.  I asked him if he had happened to know a man there by\nthe name of Henry Thoreau.  He at once grew enthusiastic and he said,\namong other things: \"Mr. Thoreau was a land-surveyor in Concord.  I\nknew him well.  He had a way of his own, and he didn't care naught\nabout money, but if there was ever a gentleman alive, he was one.\"\n\nBarney seemed much saddened when I told him that Mr. Thoreau had been\ndead a dozen years.  On parting, he asked me to come out some time to\nFreedom Centre, and to spend a night with him.  He had n't much of a\nroom to offer me, but there was always a place in his house for a\nfriend of Mr. Thoreau.  Such is the feeling of this guild of lovers of\nThoreau, and some of you may come to belong to it.\n\nHere is a test for you.  Thoreau says: \"I long ago lost a hound, a bay\nhorse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail.  Many are the\ntravelers I have spoken to regarding them, describing their tracks, and\nwhat calls they answered to.  I have met one or two who have heard the\nhound and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear\nbehind the cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they\nhad lost them themselves.\"\n\nNow, if any of you, in your dreams, have heard the horse, or seen the\nsunshine on the dove's wings, you may join in the search.  If not, you\nmay close the book, for Thoreau has not written for you.\n\nThis Thoreau guild is composed, as he himself says, \"of knights of a\nnew, or, rather, an old order, not equestrians or chevaliers, not\nRitters, or riders, but walkers, a still more ancient and honorable\nclass, I trust.\"\n\n\"I have met,\" he says, \"but one or two persons who understand the art\nof walking; who had a genius for sauntering, which word is beautifully\nderived from idle people who roved about the country in the Middle Ages\nand asked charity, under pretense of going '_a la Sainte Terre_'--a\nSainte-terrer, a Holy Lander.  They who never go to the Holy Land in\ntheir walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but\nthey who go there are saunterers, in the good sense.  Every walk is a\nkind of crusade preached by some Peter the Hermit within us, to go\nforth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.\n\n\"It is true that we are but faint-hearted crusaders, who undertake no\npersevering, never-ending enterprises.  Our expeditions are but tours,\nand come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set\nout.  Half the walk is but retracing our steps.  We should go forth on\nthe shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never\nto return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to\nour desolate kingdoms.  If you are ready to leave father and mother,\nand brother and sister, and wife and child, and friends; if you have\npaid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and\nare a free man, you are ready for a walk.\"\n\nThough a severe critic of conventional follies, Thoreau was always a\nhopeful man; and no finer rebuke to the philosophy of Pessimism was\never given than in these words of his: \"I know of no more encouraging\nfact than the unquestionable ability of a man to elevate his life by a\nconscious endeavor.  It is something to be able to paint a particular\npicture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful; but\nit is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and\nmedium through which we look.  This, morally, we can do.\"\n\nBut it is not of Thoreau as a saunterer, or as a naturalist, or as an\nessayist, that I wish to speak, but as a moralist, and this in relation\nto American politics.  Thoreau lived in a dark day of our political\nhistory.  At one time he made a declaration of independence in a small\nway, and refused allegiance and poll-tax to a Government built on a\ncorner-stone of human slavery.  Because of this he was put into jail,\nwhere he remained one night, and where he made some curious\nobservations on his townspeople as viewed from the inside of the bars.\nEmerson came along in the morning, and asked him what he was there for.\n\"Why are you not in here, Mr. Emerson?\" was his reply; for it seemed to\nhim that no man had the right to be free in a country where some men\nwere slaves.\n\n\"Voting for the right,\" Thoreau said, \"is doing nothing for it; it is\nonly expressing feebly your desire that right should prevail.\"  He\nwould not for an instant recognize that political organization as his\ngovernment which was the slave's government also.  \"In fact,\" he said,\n\"I will quietly, after my fashion, declare war with the State.  Under a\ngovernment which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man\nis also a prison.  I know this well, that if one thousand, if one\nhundred, or if one honest man in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing\nto remain in this co-partnership, should be locked up in the county\njail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America.  It\nmatters not how small the beginning may seem to be, what is once well\ndone is done forever.\"\n\nThoreau's friends paid his taxes for him, and he was set free, so that\nthe whole affair seemed like a joke.  Yet, as Stevenson says, \"If his\nexample had been followed by a hundred, or by thirty of his followers,\nit would have greatly precipitated the era of freedom and justice.  We\nfeel the misdeeds of our country with so little fervor, for we are not\nwitnesses to the suffering they cause.  But when we see them awake an\nactive horror in our fellow-man; when we see a neighbor prefer to lie\nin prison than be so much as passively implicated in their\nperpetration, even the dullest of us will begin to realize them with a\nquicker pulse.\"\n\nIn the feeling that a wrong, no matter how great, must fall before the\ndetermined assault of a man, no matter how weak, Thoreau found the\nreason for his action.  The operation of the laws of God is like an\nincontrollable torrent.  Nothing can stand before them; but the work of\na single man may set the torrent in motion which will sweep away the\naccumulations of centuries of wrong.\n\nThere is a long chapter in our national history which is not a glorious\nrecord.  Most of us are too young to remember much of politics under\nthe Fugitive Slave Law, or to understand the deference which\npoliticians of every grade then paid to the peculiar institution.  It\nwas in those days in the Middle West that Kentucky blackguards, backed\nby the laws of the United States, and aided not by Northern blackguards\nalone, but by many of the best citizens of those States, chased runaway\nslaves through the streets of our Northern capitals.\n\nAnd not the politicians alone, but the teachers and preachers, took\ntheir turn in paying tribute to Caesar.  We were told that the Bible\nitself was a champion of slavery.  Two of our greatest theologians in\nthe North declared, in the name of the Higher Law, that slavery was a\nholy thing, which the Lord, who cursed Canaan, would ever uphold.\n\nIn those days there came a man from the West--a tall, gaunt, grizzly,\nshaggy-haired, God-fearing man, a son of the Puritans, whose ancestors\ncame over on the Mayflower.  A dangerous fanatic or lunatic, he was\ncalled, and, with the aid of a few poor negroes whom he had stolen from\nslavery, he defied the power of this whole slave-catching United\nStates.  A little square brick building, once a sort of car-shop,\nstands near the railway station in the town of Harper's Ferry, with the\nmountain wall not far behind it, and the Potomac River running below.\nAnd from this building was fired the shot which pierced the heart of\nslavery.  And the Governor of Virginia captured this man, and took him\nout and hung him, and laid his body in the grave, where it still lies\nmoldering.  But there was part of him not in the jurisdiction of\nVirginia, a part which they could neither hang nor bury; and, to the\ninfinite surprise of the Governor of Virginia, his soul went marching\non.\n\n[Illustration: John Brown.]\n\nWhen they heard in Concord that John Brown had been captured, and was\nsoon to be hung, Thoreau sent notice through the city that he would\nspeak in the public hall on the condition and character of John Brown,\non Sunday evening, and invited all to be present.\n\nThe Republican Committee and the Committee of the Abolitionists sent\nword to him that this was no time to speak; to discuss such matters\nthen was premature and inadvisable.  He replied: \"I did not send to you\nfor advice, but to tell you that I am going to speak.\"  The selectmen\nof Concord dared neither grant nor refuse him the hall.  At last they\nventured to lose the key in a place where they thought he could find it.\n\nThis address of Thoreau, \"A Plea for Captain John Brown,\" should be a\nclassic in American history.  We do not always realize that the time of\nAmerican history is now.  The dates of the settlement of Jamestown, and\nPlymouth, and St. Augustine do not constitute our history.  Columbus\ndid not discover us.  In a high sense, the true America is barely\nthirty years old, and its first President was Abraham Lincoln.\n\nWe in the North are a little impatient at times, and our politicians,\nwho are not always our best citizens, mutter terrible oaths, especially\nin the month of October, because the South is not yet wholly\nregenerate, because not all which sprang from the ashes of the\nslave-pen were angels of light.\n\nBut let us be patient while the world moves on.  Forty years ago not\nonly the banks of the Yazoo and the Chattahoochee, but those of the\nHudson, and the Charles, and the Wabash, were under the lash.  On the\neve of John Brown's hanging not half a dozen men in the city of\nConcord, the most intellectual town in New England, the home of\nEmerson, and Hawthorne, and Alcott, dared say that they felt any\nrespect for the man or sympathy for the cause for which he died.\n\nI wish to quote a few passages from this \"Plea for Captain John Brown.\"\nTo fully realize its power, you should read it all for yourselves.  You\nmust put yourselves back into history, now already seeming almost\nancient history to us, to the period when Buchanan was President--the\nterrible sultry lull just before the great storm.  You must picture the\naudience of the best people in Massachusetts, half-sympathizing with\nCaptain Brown, half-afraid of being guilty of treason in so doing.  You\nmust picture the speaker, with his clear-cut, earnest features and\npenetrating voice.  No preacher, no politician, no professional\nreformer, no Republican, no Democrat; a man who never voted; a\nnaturalist whose companions were the flowers and the birds, the trees\nand the squirrels.  It was the voice of Nature in protest against\nslavery and in plea for Captain Brown.\n\n\n\"My respect for my fellow-men,\" said Thoreau, \"is not being increased\nthese days.  I have noticed the cold-blooded way in which men speak of\nthis event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual pluck,\n'the gamest man I ever saw,' the Governor of Virginia said, had been\ncaught and was about to be hung.  He was not thinking of his foes when\nthe Governor of Virginia thought he looked so brave.\n\n\"It turns what sweetness I have to gall to hear the remarks of some of\nmy neighbors.  When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my\ntownsmen observed that 'he dieth as the fool dieth,' which, for an\ninstant, suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living.\nOthers, craven-hearted, said, disparagingly, that he threw his life\naway because he resisted the Government.  Which way have they thrown\ntheir lives, pray?\n\n\"I hear another ask, Yankee-like, 'What will he gain by it?' as if he\nexpected to fill his pockets by the enterprise.  If it does not lead to\na surprise party, if he does not get a new pair of boots or a vote of\nthanks, it must be a failure.  But he won't get anything.  Well, no; I\ndon't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take\nthe year around, but he stands a chance to save his soul--and such a\nsoul!--which you do not.  You can get more in your market for a quart\nof milk than a quart of blood, but yours is not the market heroes carry\ntheir blood to.\n\n\"Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that in the\nmoral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable; that\nwhen you plant or bury a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to\nspring up.  This is a seed of such force and vitality, it does not ask\nour leave to germinate.\n\n\"A man does a brave and humane deed, and on all sides we hear people\nand parties declaring,' I didn't do it, nor countenance him to do it in\nany conceivable way.  It can't fairly be inferred from my past career.'\nYe need n't take so much pains, my friends, to wash your skirts of him.\nNo one will ever be convinced that he was any creature of yours.  He\nwent and came, as he himself informs us, under the auspices of John\nBrown, and nobody else.'\n\n\"'All is quiet in Harper's Ferry,' say the journals.  What is the\ncharacter of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder\nprevail?  I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out\nwith glaring distinctness the character of this Government.  We needed\nto be thus assisted to see it by the light of history.  It needed to\nsee itself.  When a government puts forth its strength on the side of\ninjustice, as ours, to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the\nslave, it reveals itself simply as brute force.  It is more manifest\nthan ever that tyranny rules.  I see this Government to be effectually\nallied with France and Austria in oppressing mankind.\n\n\"The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are\nat the head of it, or how small its army,--is the power that\nestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes\ninjustice.  What shall we think of a government to which all the truly\nbrave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and\nthose whom it oppresses?\n\n\"Treason!  Where does such treason take its rise?  I cannot help\nthinking of you as ye deserve, ye governments!  Can you dry up the\nfountain of thought?  High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny\nhere below, has its origin in the power that makes and forever\nre-creates man.  When you have caught and hung all its human rebels,\nyou have accomplished nothing but your own guilt.  You have not struck\nat the fountain-head.  The same indignation which cleared the temple\nonce will clear it again.\n\n\"I hear many condemn these men because they were so few.  When were the\ngood and the brave ever in the majority?  Would you have had him wait\ntill that time came?  Till you and I came over to him?  The very fact\nthat he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him, would alone\ndistinguish him from ordinary heroes.  His company was small, indeed,\nbecause few could be found worthy to pass muster.  Each one who there\nlaid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, called\nout of many thousands, if not millions.  A man of principle, of rare\ncourage and devoted humanity, ready to sacrifice his life at any moment\nfor the benefit of his fellow-man; it may be doubted if there were as\nmany more their equals in the country; for their leader, no doubt, had\nscoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop.  These alone\nwere ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed.  Surely\nthey were the very best men you could select to be hung!  That was the\ngreatest compliment their country could pay them.  They were ripe for\nher gallows.  She has tried a long time; she has hung a good many, but\nnever found the right one before.\n\n\"When I think of him and his six sons and his son-in-law enlisted for\nthis fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to work, for\nmonths, if not years, summering and wintering the thought, without\nexpecting any reward but a good conscience, while almost all America\nstood ranked on the other side, I say again that it affects me as a\nsublime spectacle.\n\n\"If he had had any journal advocating his cause, any organ monotonously\nand wearisomely playing the same old tune and then passing around the\nhat, it would have been fatal to his efficiency.  If he had acted in\nsuch a way as to be let alone by the Government, he might have been\nsuspected.  It was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, or\nhe to the tyrant, that distinguished him from all the reformers of the\nday that I know.\n\n\"This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death, the\npossibility of a man's dying.  It seems as if no man had ever died in\nAmerica before.  If this man's acts and words do not create a revival,\nit will be the severest possible satire on words and acts that do.\n\n\"It is the best news that America has ever heard.  It has already\nquickened the feeble pulse of the North, and infused more generous\nblood in her veins than any number of years of what is called political\nand commercial prosperity.  How many a man who was lately contemplating\nsuicide has now something to live for!\n\n\"I am here to plead his cause with you.  I plead not for his life, but\nfor his character, his immortal life, and so it becomes your cause\nwholly, and it is not his in the least.\n\n\"Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning,\nperchance, Captain Brown was hung.  These are the two ends of the chain\nwhich is not without its links.  He is not Old Brown any longer; he is\nan angel of light.  I see now that it was necessary that the bravest\nand humanest man in all the country should be hung.  Perhaps he saw it\nhimself.  I almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliverance,\ndoubting if a prolonged life, if any life, can do as much good as his\ndeath.\n\n\"'Misguided!  Garrulous!  Insane!  Vindictive!'  So you write in your\neasy chairs, and thus he, wounded, responds from the floor of the\nArmory--clear as a cloudless sky, true as the voice of Nature is!  'No\nman sent me here.  It was my own promptings and that of my Maker.  I\nacknowledge no master in human form.'\n\n\"And in what a sweet and noble strain he proceeds, addressing his\ncaptors, who stand over him.\n\n\"'I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and\nhumanity, and it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with\nyou so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage.\nI have yet to learn that God is any respecter of persons.\n\n\"'I pity the poor in bondage, who have none to help them; that is why I\nam here, not to gratify personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive\nspirit.  It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged that are\nas good as you are, and as precious in the sight of God.\n\n\"'I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all of you people at\nthe South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question, that\nmust come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it.  The\nsooner you are prepared the better.  You may dispose of me now very\neasily--I am nearly disposed of already,--but this question is still to\nbe settled, this negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet.'\"\n\n\"I foresee the time,\" said Thoreau, \"when the painter will paint that\nscene, no longer going to Rome for his subject.  The poet will sing it;\nthe historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the\nDeclaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future\nnational gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no\nmore here.  We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown.\nThen, and not till then, we will take our revenge.\"\n\n\nA few years ago, while on a tramp through the North Woods, I came out\nthrough the forests of North Elba, to the old \"John Brown Farm.\"  Here\nJohn Brown lived for many years, and here he tried to establish a\ncolony of freed slaves in the pure air of the mountains.  Here, too,\nhis family remained through the stirring times when he took part in the\nbloody struggles that made and kept Kansas free.\n\nThe little old brown farmhouse stands on the edge of the great woods, a\nfew miles to the north of the highest peaks of the Adirondacks.  There\nis nothing unusual about the house.  You will find a dozen such in a\nfew hours' walk almost anywhere in the mountain parts of New England or\nNew York.  It stands on a little hill, \"in a sightly place,\" as they\nsay in that region, with no shelter of trees around it.\n\n[Illustration: The John Brown Homestead, North Elba, N.Y.]\n\nAt the foot of the hill in a broad curve flows the River Au Sable,\nsmall and clear and cold, and full of trout.  It is not far above that\nthe stream takes its rise in the dark Indian Pass, the only place in\nthese mountains where the ice of winter lasts all summer long.  The\nsame ice on the one side sends forth the Au Sable, and on the other\nfeeds the fountain head of the infant Hudson River.\n\nIn the little dooryard in front of the farmhouse is the historic spot\nwhere John Brown's body still lies moldering.  There is not even a\ngrave of his own.  His bones lie with those of his father, and the\nshort record of his life and death is crowded on the foot of his\nfather's tombstone.  Near by, in the little yard, lies a huge,\nwandering boulder, torn off years ago by the glaciers from the granite\nhills that hem in Indian Pass.  The boulder is ten feet or more in\ndiameter, large enough to make the farmhouse behind it seem small in\ncomparison.  On its upper surface, in letters two feet long, which can\nbe read plainly for a mile away, is cut the simple name--\n\n    JOHN BROWN.\n\nThis is John Brown's grave, and the place, the boulder; and the\ninscription are alike fitting to the man he was.\n\n[Illustration: John Brown's Grave.]\n\nDust to dust; ashes to ashes; granite to granite; the last of the\nPuritans!\n\n\n\n[1] Address before the California State Normal School, at San Jose,\n1892.\n\n\n\n\nA KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS.[1]\n\n\"In London I saw two pictures.  One was of a woman.  You would not\nmistake it for any of the Greek goddesses.  It had a splendor and\nmajesty such as Phidias might have given to a woman Jupiter.  But not\nterrible.  The culmination of the awful beauty was in an expression of\nmatchless compassion.  If there had been other figures, they must have\nbeen suffering humanity at her feet.\n\n\"The other was also of a woman.  Whose face it is hard to say.  Not the\nFuries, not Lady Macbeth, not Catherine de Medici, not Phillip the\nSecond, not Nero, not any face you have ever seen, but a gathering up\nfrom all the faces you have seen--the greatness, the splendor, the\nsavagery, the greed, the pride, the hate, the mercilessness, into one\ncolossal, terrifyingly Satanic woman-face.  The first was clothed in a\nsimple, soft, white robe; the other in a befitting tragic splendor,\nmostly blood-red.  I looked from one to the other.  What immeasurable\ndistance between them!  What single point have they in common?  But as\nI look back and forth I seem to see a certain formal similarity.  It\ngrows upon me.  I am incredulous.  I am appalled.  Then one touches me\nand whispers: 'They are the same.  It is the Church.'  In London I saw\nthis--in the air.\"--WILLIAM LOWE BRYAN.\n\n\nFour centuries ago began the great struggle for freedom of thought\nwhich has made our modern civilization possible.  I wish here to give\nsomething of the story of a man who in his day was not the least in\nthis conflict--a man who dared to think and act for himself when\nthought and act were costly--Ulrich von Hutten.\n\nNear Frankfort-on-the-Main, on a sharp pinnacle of rock above the\nlittle railway station of Vollmerz, may still be found the scanty ruins\nof an old castle which played a brave part in German history before it\nwas destroyed in the Thirty Years War.\n\nIn this castle of Steckelberg, in the year 1488, was born Ulrich von\nHutten.  He was the last of a long line of Huttens of Steckelberg,\nstrong men who knew not fear, who had fought for the Emperor in all\nlands whither the imperial eagle had flown, and who, when the empire\nwas at peace, had fought right merrily with their neighbors on all\nsides.  Robber-knights they were, no doubt, some or all of them; but in\nthose days all was fair in love and in war.  And this line of warriors\ncentered in Ulrich von Hutten, and with him it ended.  \"The wild\nkindred has gone out with this its greatest.\"\n\nUlrich was the eldest son, and bore his father's name.  But he was not\nthe son his father had dreamed of.  Slender of figure, short of\nstature, and weak of limb, Ulrich seemed unworthy of his burly\nancestry.  The horse, the sword, and the lute were not for him.  He\ntried hard to master them and to succeed in all things worthy of a\nknight.  But he was strong only with his books.  At last to his books\nhis father consigned him, and, sorely disappointed, he sent Ulrich to\nthe monastery of Fulda to be made a priest.\n\nA wise man, Eitelwolf von Stein, became his friend, and pointed out to\nhim a life braver than that of a priest, more noble than that of a\nknight, the life of a scholar.  To Hutten's father Eitelwolf wrote:\n\"Would you bury a genius like that in the cloister?  He must be a man\nof letters.\"  But the father had decided once for all.  Ulrich must\nnever return to Steckelberg unless he came back as a priest.  And the\nson took his fate in his own hands, and fled from Fulda, to make his\nway as a scholar in a world in which scholarship received scanty\nrecognition.\n\nAt the same time another young man whose history was to be interwoven\nwith his own, Martin Luther, fled from the wickedness and deceit of\nthis same world to the solitude of the monastery of Erfurth.  By very\ndifferent paths they came at last to work in the same cause, and their\nmodes of action were not less different.\n\nTo the University of Cologne Hutten went, and with the students of that\nday he was trained in the mysteries of scholasticism, and in the Latin\nof the schoolmen and the priests.  Wonderful problems they pondered\nover, and they used to write long arguments in Latin for or against\npropositions which came nowhere within the domain of fact.  That\nscholarship stood related to reality, and that it must find its end and\njustification in action was no part of the philosophy of those times.\n\nBut Hutten and his friends cared little for scholastic puzzles and they\ngave themselves to the study of the beauties of Latin poetry and to the\nnewly opened mine of the literature of Greece.  They delighted in\nVirgil and Lucian, and still more in Homer and Aeschylus.\n\nThe Turks had conquered Constantinople, and the fall of the Greek\nEmpire had driven many learned Greeks to the West of Europe.  There\nsome of the scholars received them with open arms, and eagerly learned\nfrom them to read Homer and Aristotle in the original tongue, and the\nNew Testament also.  Those who followed these studies came to be known\nas Humanists.  But most of the universities and the monasteries in\nGermany looked upon this revival of Greek culture as pernicious and\nantichristian.  Poetry they despised.  The Latin Vulgate met their\nreligious needs, and Greek was only another name for Paganism.  The\nparty name of Obscurantists (\"Dunkelmaenner\") was given to these, and\nthis name has remained with them on the records of history.\n\nIn the letters of one of Hutten's comrades we find this confession of\nfaith, which is interesting as expressing the feelings of young men of\nthat time: \"There is but one God, but he has many forms, and many\nnames--Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, Christ, Luna, Ceres, Proserpine,\nTellus, Mary.  But be careful how you say that.  One must disclose\nthese things in secret, like Eleusinian mysteries.  In matters of\nreligion, you must use the cover of fables and riddles.  You, with\nJupiter's grace (that is, the grace of the best and greatest god), can\ndespise the lesser gods in silence.  When I say Jupiter, I mean Christ\nand the true God.  The coat and the beard and the bones of Christ I\nworship not.  I worship the living God, who wears no coat nor beard,\nand left no bones upon the earth.\"\n\nHutten wished to know the world, not from books only, but to see all\ncities and lands; to measure himself with other men; to rise above\nthose less worthy.  The danger of such a course seemed to him only the\ngreater attraction.  Content to him was laziness; love of home but a\ndog's delight in a warm fire.  \"I live,\" he said, \"in no place rather\nthan another; my home is everywhere.\"\n\nSo he tramped through Germany to the northward, and had but a sorry\ntime.  In his own mind he was a scholar, a poet, a knight of the\nnoblest blood of Germany; to others he was a little sickly and forlorn\nvagrant.  Never strong of body, he was stricken by a miserable disease\nwhich filled his life with a succession of attacks of fever.  He was\nship-wrecked on the Baltic Sea, sick and forlorn in Pomerania, and at\nlast he was received in charity in the house of Henning Loetz, professor\nof law at Greifeswald.\n\nThis action has given Loetz's name immortality, for it is associated\nwith the first of those fiery poems of Hutten which, in their way, are\nunique in literature.  For Hutten was restless and proud, and was not\nto be content with bread and butter and a new suit of clothes.  This\nindependence was displeasing to the professor, who finally, in utter\ndisgust, turned Hutten out of doors in midwinter.  When the boy had\ntramped a while in storm and slush, two servants of Loetz overtook him\non the road and robbed him of his money and clothing.  In a wretched\nplight he reached a little inn in Rostock, in Mecklenberg.  Here the\nprofessors in the university received him kindly, and made provision\nfor his needs.  Then he let loose the fury of his youthful anger on\nLoetz.  As ever, his poetic genius rose with his wrath, and the more\nangry he became the greater was he as a poet.\n\nTwo volumes he published, ringing the changes of his contempt and\nhatred of Loetz, at the same time praising the virtues of those who had\nfound in him a kindred spirit.  A \"knight of the order of poets,\" he\nstyles himself, and to all Humanists, to the \"fellow-feeling among free\nspirits\" (\"_Gemeingeist unter freien Geistern_\") he appeals for\nsympathy in his struggle with Loetz.\n\nHe had, indeed, not found a foeman worthy of his steel, but he had\nshown what a finely tempered blade he bore.  Foemen enough he found in\nlater times, and his steel had need of all its sharpness and temper.\nAnd it never failed him to the last.\n\nMeanwhile he wandered to Vienna, giving lectures there on the art of\npoetry.  But poetry was abhorred by the schoolmen everywhere, and the\nstudents of the university were forbidden to attend his lectures.  He\nthen went to Italy.  When he reached Pavia, he found the city in the\nmidst of a siege, surrounded by a hostile French army.  He fell ill of\na fever, and giving himself up for dead, he composed the famous epitaph\nfor himself, of which I give a rough translation:\n\n  Here, also be it said, a life of ill-fortune is ended;\n    By evil pursued on the water; beset by wrong upon land.\n  Here lie Hutten's bones; he, who had done nothing wrongful,\n    Was wickedly robbed of his life by the sword in a Frenchman's hand.\n  By Fate, decided that he should see unlucky days only;\n    Decided that even these days could never be many or long;\n  Hemmed in by danger and death, he forsook not serving the muses,\n    And as well as he could, he rendered this service in song.\n\n\nThe Frenchman's sword did not rob him of his life.  The Frenchman's\nhand took only his money, which was not much, and again sent him\nadrift.  He now set his pen to writing epigrams on the Emperor, wherein\nMaximilian was compared to the eagle which should devour the frogs in\nthe swamps of Venice.  Meanwhile he enlisted as a common soldier in\nMaximilian's army.\n\nIn Italy, the abuses of the Papacy attracted his attention.  Officials\nof the Church were then engaged in extending the demand for\nindulgences.  The sale of pardons \"straight from Rome, all hot,\" was\nbecoming a scandal in Christendom.  All this roused the wrath of\nHutten, who attacked the Pope himself in his songs:\n\n  \"Heaven now stands for a price to be peddled and sold,\n  But what new folly is this, as though the fiat of Heaven\n  Needed an earthly witness, an earthly warrant and seal!\"\n\n\nMore prosperous times followed, and we find Hutten honored as a poet,\nliving in the court of the Archbishop of Mainz.  At this time a cousin,\nHans Hutten, a young man of great courage and promise, was a knight in\nthe service of Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemberg.  He was a favorite of the\nDuke, and he and his young wife were the life of the Wuertemburg court.\nAnd Duke Ulrich once came to Hans and threw himself at his feet,\nbegging that this wife, whom he loved, should be given over wholly to\nhim.  Hans Hutten answered the Duke like a man, and the Duke arose with\nmurder in his heart.  Afterward, when they were hunting in a wood, he\nstabbed Hans Hutten in the back with his sword.\n\nAll this came to the ear of Ulrich Hutten in Mainz.  Love for his\ncousin, love for his name and family, love for freedom and truth, all\nurged him to avenge the murdered Hans.  The wrongs the boy had suffered\nfrom the coarse-hearted Professor Loetz became as nothing beside this\ngreat crime against the Huttens and against manhood.\n\nIn all the history of invective, I know of nothing so fierce as\nHutten's appeal against Duke Ulrich In five different pamphlets his\ncrime was described to the German people, and all good men, from the\nEmperor down, were called on to help him in his struggle against the\nDuke of Wuertemberg.\n\n\"I envy you your fame, you murderer,\" he wrote.  \"A year will be named\nfor you, and there shall be a day set off for you.  Future generations\nshall read, for those who are born this year, that they were born in\nthe year stained by the ineffaceable shame of Germany.  You will come\ninto the calendar, scoundrel.  You will enrich history.  Your deed is\nimmortal, and you will be remembered in all future time.  You have had\nyour ambition, and you shall never be forgotten.\"\n\nThis struggle lasted long.  Finally, after many appeals, the German\nnobles rose in arms and besieged Stuttgart, and Duke Ulrich was driven\nfrom the land he had disgraced.\n\n[Illustration: Ulrich von Hutten.]\n\nAgain Hutten visited Italy, this time by a partial reconciliation with\nhis father, who would overlook his failure to become a priest if he\nwould study law at Rome.  At about this time Luther visited Rome.  He\ncame, at first, in a spirit of reverence; but, at last, he wrote:\n\"_Wenn es gibt eine Hoelle, Roma ist darauf gebant_.\"  (\"If there is a\nhell, Rome is built on it.\")\n\nThe impression on Hutten was scarcely less vivid.  Little by little he\nbegan to see in the Pope of Rome a criminal greater that Professor\nLoetz, greater than Duke Ulrich, one who could devour not one cousin\nonly, but the whole German people and nation.  \"For three hundred\nyears,\" said he, \"the Pope and the schoolmen have been covering the\nteachings of Christ with a mass of superstitious ceremonies and wicked\nbooks.\"  These feelings were poured out in an appeal to the German\nrulers to shake off the yoke, and no longer send their money to \"Simon\nof Rome.\"\n\nHutten's friends tried to quiet him.  He was a man not of free thought\nonly, but of free speech, and knew no concealment.  Milder men in those\ntimes, as later Melancthon and Erasmus, were full of admiration of\nHutten, and valued his skill and force.  But they were afraid of him,\nand fearful always that the best of causes should be wrecked in his\nhands.\n\nAt this time, at the age of twenty-five, Hutten is described as a\nsmall, thin man, of homely features, with blonde hair and black beard.\nHis pale face wore a severe, almost wild, expression.  His speech was\nsharp, often terrible.  Yet with those whom he loved and respected his\nvoice had a frank and winning charm.  He had but few friends, but they\nwere fast ones.  His personal character, so far as records go, was\nsingularly pure, and not often in his writings does he strike a coarse\nor unclean note.\n\nIn these days, the two most learned men in Germany were Erasmus and\nReuchlin.  They were leaders of the Humanists, skilled in Greek, and\neven in the Hebrew tongue, and were called by Hutten \"the two eyes of\nGermany.\"  A Jew named Pfefferkorn, who had become converted to\nChristianity, was filled with an unholy zeal against his fellow-Jews\nwho had not been converted.  Among other things, he asked an edict from\nthe Emperor that all Jewish books in Germany should be destroyed.\nReuchlin was a Hebrew scholar.  He had written a Hebrew grammar, and\nwas learned in the Old Testament, as well as in the Talmud, and other\ndeposits of the ancient lore of the rabbis.  The Emperor referred\nPfefferkorn's request to Reuchlin for his opinion.  Reuchlin decided\nthat there was no valid reason for the destruction of any of the\nancient Jewish writings, and only of such modern ones as might be\ndecided by competent scholars to be hostile to Christianity.\n\nThis enraged Pfefferkorn and his Obscurantist associates.  Pamphlets\nwere written denouncing Reuchlin, and these were duly answered.  A\ngeneral war of words between the Humanists and Obscurantists began,\nwhich, in time, came before the Pope and the Emperor.  Reuchlin was\nregarded in those days as a man of unusual calmness and dignity.  Next\nto Erasmus, he was the most learned scholar in Europe.  He would never\ncondescend in his controversies to the coarse terms used by his\nadversaries.  We may learn something of the temper of the times by\nobserving that, in a single pamphlet, as quoted by Strauss, the\nepithets that the dignified Reuchlin applies to Pfefferkorn are: \"A\npoisonous beast,\" \"a scarecrow,\" \"a horror,\" \"a mad dog,\" \"a horse,\" \"a\nmule,\" \"a hog,\" \"a fox,\" \"a raging wolf,\" \"a Syrian lion,\" \"a\nCerberus,\" \"a fury of hell.\"  In this matter Reuchlin was finally\ntriumphant.  This triumph was loudly celebrated by his friend Hutten in\nanother poem, in which the Obscurantists were mercilessly attacked.\n\nWe have seen with Hutten's growth a gradual increase in the importance\nof those to whom he declared himself an enemy.  He began as a boy with\nthe obscure Professor Loetz.  He ended with the Pope of Rome.\n\nAt this time Reuchlin published a volume called \"_Epistolae Clarorum\nVirorum_\" (\"letters of illustrious men\").  It was made up of letters\nwritten by the various learned men of Europe to Reuchlin, in sympathy\nwith him in his struggle.  The title of this work gave the keynote to a\nseries of letters called \"_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_\" (\"letters of\nobscure men\")--that is, of Obscurantists.\n\nThese letters, written by different persons, but largely by Hutten, are\nthe most remarkable of all satires of that time.\n\nThey are a series of imaginary epistles, supposed to be addressed by\nvarious Obscurantists to a poet named Ortuinus.  They are written with\nconsummate skill, in the degenerate Latin used by the priests in those\ndays, and they are made to exhibit all the secret meanness, ignorance,\nand perversity of their supposed writers.\n\nThe first of these epistles of the \"obscure men\" were eagerly read: by\ntheir supposed associates, the Obscurantists.  Here were men who felt\nas they felt, and who were not afraid to speak.  The mendicant friars\nin England had a day of rejoicing, and a Dominican friar in Flanders\nbought all the copies of the letters he could find to present to his\nbishop.\n\nBut in time even the dullest began to feel the severity of the satire.\nThe last of these letters formed the most telling blows ever dealt at\nthe schoolmen by the men of learning.  In one of the earlier letters we\nfind this question, which may serve as a type of many others:\n\nA man ate an egg in which a chicken was just beginning to form,\nignorant of that fact, and forgetting that it was Friday.  A friend\nconsoles him by saying that a chicken in that stage counts for no more\nthan worms in cheese or in cherries, and these can be eaten even in\nfasting-time.  But the writer is not satisfied.  Worms, he had been\ntold by a physician, who was also a great naturalist, are reckoned as\nfishes, which one can eat on fast-days.  But with all this, he fears\nthat a young chicken may be really forbidden food, and he asks the help\nof the poet Ortuinus to a righteous decision.\n\nAnother person writes to Ortuinus: \"There is a new book much talked of\nhere, and, as you are a poet, you can do us a good service by telling\nus of it.  A notary told me that this book is the wellspring of poetry,\nand that its author, one Homer, is the father of all poets.  And he\nsaid there is another Homer in Greek.  I said, 'What is the use of the\nGreek? the Latin is much better.'  And I asked, 'What is contained in\nthe book?'  And he said it treats of certain people who are called\nGreeks, who carried on a war with some others called Trojans.  And\nthese Trojans had a great city, and those Greeks besieged it and stayed\nthere ten years.  And the Trojans came out and fought them till the\nwhole plain was covered with blood and quite red.  And they heard the\nnoise in heaven, and one of them threw a stone which twelve men could\nnot lift, and a horse began to talk and utter prophecies.  But I can't\nbelieve that, because it seems impossible, and the book seems to me not\nto be authentic.  I pray you give me your opinion.\"\n\nAnother relates the story of his visit to Reuchlin:\n\n\"When I came into his house, Reuchlin said, 'Welcome, bachelor; seat\nyourself.'  And he had a pair of spectacles ('_unum Brillum_') on his\nnose, and a book before him curiously written, and I saw at once that\nit was neither in German nor Bohemian, nor yet in Latin.  And I said to\nhim, 'Respected Doctor, what do they call that book?'  He answered, 'It\nis called the Greek Plutarch, and it treats of philosophy.'  And I\nsaid, 'Read some of it, for it must contain wonderful things.'  Then I\nsaw a little book, newly printed, lying on the floor, and I said to\nhim, 'Respected Doctor, what lies there?'  He answered, 'It is a\ncontroversial book, which a friend in Cologne sent me lately.  It is\nwritten against me.  The theologians in Cologne have printed it, and\nthey say that Johann Pfefferkorn wrote it.'  And I said, 'What will you\ndo about it?  Will you not vindicate yourself?'  And he answered,\n'Certainly not.  I have been vindicated long ago, and can spend no time\non these follies.  My eyes are too weak for me to waste their strength\non matters which are not useful.'\"\n\nWe next find Hutten high in the favor of the Emperor Maximilian, by\nwhose order he was crowned poet-laureate of Germany.  The wreath of\nlaurel was woven by the fair hands of Constance Peutinger, who was\ncalled the handsomest girl in Germany, and with great ceremony she put\nthis wreath on his head in the presence of the Emperor at Mainz.\n\nNow, for the first time, Hutten seems to have thought seriously of\nmarriage.  He writes to a friend, Friedrich Fischer: \"I am overcome\nwith a longing for rest, that I may give myself to art.  For this, I\nneed a wife who shall take care of me.  You know my ways.  I cannot be\nalone, not even by night.  In vain they talk to me of the pleasures of\ncelibacy.  To me it is loneliness and monotony.  I was not born for\nthat.  I must have a being who can lead me from sorrows--yes, even from\nmy graver studies; one with whom I can joke and play, and carry on\nlight and happy conversations, that the sharpness of sorrow may be\nblunted and the heat of anger made mild.  Give me a wife, dear\nFriedrich, and you know what kind of one I want.  She must be young,\npretty, well educated, serene, tender, patient.  Money enough give her,\nbut not too much.  For riches I do not seek; and as for blood and\nbirth, she is already noble to whom Hutten gives his hand.\"\n\nA young woman--Cunigunde Glauburg--was found, and she seemed to meet\nall requirements.  But the mother of the bride was not pleased with the\narrangement.  Hutten was a \"dangerous man,\" she said, \"a\nrevolutionist.\"  \"I hope,\" said Hutten, \"that when she comes to know\nme, and finds in me nothing restless, nothing mutinous, my studies full\nof humor and wit, that she will look more kindly on me.\"  To a brother\nof Cunigunde he writes: \"Hutten has not conquered many cities, like\nsome of these iron-eaters, but through many lands has wandered with the\nfame of his name.  He has not slain his thousands, like those, but may\nbe none the less loved for that.  He does not stalk about on yard-long\nshin-bones, nor does his gigantic figure frighten travelers; but in\nstrength of spirit he yields to none.  He does not glow with the\nsplendor of beauty, but he dares flatter himself that his soul is\nworthy of love.  He does not talk big nor swell himself with boasting,\nbut simply, openly, honestly acts and speaks.\"\n\nBut all his wooing came to naught; another man wedded the fair\nCunigunde, and the coming storm of Romish wrath left Hutten no\nopportunity to turn his attention elsewhere.\n\nThe old Pope was now dead, and one of the famous family of Medici, in\nFlorence, had succeeded him as Leo the Tenth.  Leo was kindly disposed\ntoward the Humanist studies, and Hutten, as poet of the Humanists,\naddressed to him directly a remarkable appeal, which made the\nturning-point in his life, for it placed him openly among those who\nresisted the Pope.\n\nRecounting to the new Pope Leo all the usurpations which in his\njudgment had been made, one by one, by his predecessors--all the\nrobberies, impositions, and abuses of the Papacy, from the time of\nConstantine down--he appeals to Leo, as a wise man and a scholar, to\nrestore stolen power and property, to correct all abuses, to abandon\nall temporal power, and become once more the simple Bishop of Rome.\n\"For there can never be peace between the robber and the robbed till\nthe stolen goods are returned.\"\n\nNow, for the first time, the work of Luther came to Hutten's attention.\nThe disturbances at Wittenberg were in the beginning treated by all as\na mere squabble of the monks.  To Leo the Tenth this discussion had no\nfurther interest than this: \"Brother Martin,\" being a scholar, was most\nprobably right.  To Hutten, who cared nothing for doctrinal points, it\nhad no significance; the more monkish strifes the better--\"the sooner\nwould the enemies eat each other up.\"\n\nBut now Hutten came to recognize in Luther the apostle of freedom of\nthought, and in that struggle of the Reformation he found a nobler\ncause than that of the Humanists--in Luther a greater than Reuchlin.\nAnd Hutten never did things by halves.  He entered into the warfare\nheart and soul.  In 1520 he published his \"Roman Trinity,\" his gage of\nbattle against Rome.\n\nHe now, like Luther, began to draw his inspiration, as well as his\nlanguage, not from the classics, but from the New Testament.  A new\nmotto he took for himself, one which was henceforth ever on his lips,\nand which appears again and again in his later writings: \"_Jacta est\nalea_\" (\"the die is cast\"); or, in the stronger German, in which he\nmore often gave it, \"_Ich hab's gewagt_\" (\"I have dared it\").\n\n  \"Auf dasz ichs nit anheb umsunst\n  Wolauf, wir haben Gottes Gunst;\n  Wer wollt in solchem bleiben dheim?\n  Ich hab's gewagt! das ist mein Reim!\"\n\n  \"Der niemand groessern Schaden bringt,\n  Dann mir als noch die Sach gelingt\n  Dahin mich Gott und Wahrheit bringt,\n      Ich hab's gewagt.\"\n\n  \"So breche ich hindurch, durch breche ich, oder ich falle,\n  Kaempfend, nach dem ich einmal geworfen das Loos!\"\n\n  (So break I through the ranks else I die fighting--\n  Fighting, since once and forever the die I have cast!)\n\n\nIn this motto we have the keynote to his fiery and earnest nature.\nConvinced that a cause was right, he knew no bounds of caution or\npolicy; he feared no prison or death.  \"I have dared it!\"\n\n\"To all free men of Germany,\" he speaks.  \"Their tyranny will not last\nforever; unless all signs deceive me, their power is soon to fail--for\nalready is the axe laid at the root of the tree, and that tree which\nbears not good fruit will be rooted out, and the vineyard of the Lord\nwill be purified.  That you shall not only hope, but soon see with your\neyes.  Meanwhile, be of good cheer, you men of Germany.  Not weak, not\nuntried, are your leaders in the struggle for freedom.  Be not afraid,\nneither weaken in the midst of the battle, for broken at last is the\nstrength of the enemy, for the cause is righteous, and the rage of\ntyranny is already at its height.  Courage, and farewell!  Long live\nfreedom!  I have dared it!\" (\"_Lebe die Freiheit; ich hab's gewagt_.\")\n\nWarnings and threats innumerable came to Hutten, from enemies who\nfeared and hated, from friends who were fearful and trembling; but he\nnever flinched: He had \"dared it.\"  The bull of excommunication which\ncame from the Pope frightened him no more than it did Luther.  But at\nlast he was compelled to retire from the cities, and he took up his\nabode in the Castle of Ebernburg, with Franz von Sickingen.\n\nFranz von Sickingen was one of the great nobles of Germany, and he\nruled over a region in the bend of the Rhine between Worms and Bingen.\nHis was one of the bravest characters of that time.  A knight of the\nhighest order, he became a disciple of Hutten and Luther, and on his\nhelp was the greatest reliance placed by the friends of the growing\nreform.  His strong Castle of Ebernburg, on the hills above Bingen, was\nthe refuge of all who were persecuted by the authorities.  The \"Inn of\nRighteousness\" (\"_Herberge von Gerechtigkeit_\"), the Ebernburg was\ncalled by Hutten.\n\nThe Humanists who had stood with Hutten in the struggle between\nReuchlin and Pfefferkorn saw with growing concern the gradual transfer\nof the field of battle from questions of literature to questions of\nreligion.  Reuchlin, growing old and weak, wrote a letter, disavowing\nany sympathy with the new uprisings against the time-honored authority\nof the Church.  This letter came into Hutten's hands, and, with all his\nreverence for his old friend and master, he could not keep silence.\n\n\"Eternal Gods!\" he writes.  \"What do I see?  Have you sunk so deep in\nweakness and fear, O Reuchlin! that you cannot endure blame even for\nthose who have fought for you in time of danger?  Through such shameful\nsubservience do you hope to reconcile those to whom, if you were a man,\nyou would never give a friendly greeting, so badly have they treated\nyou?  Yet reconcile them; and if there is no other way, go to Rome and\nkiss the feet of Leo, and then write against us.  Yet you shall see\nthat, against your will, and against the will of all the godless\ncourtesans, we shall shake off the shameful yoke, and free ourselves\nfrom slavery.  I am ashamed that I have written so much for you--have\ndone so much for you,--since when it comes to action you have made such\na miserable exit from the ranks.  From me shall you know henceforth\nthat whether you fight in Luther's cause or throw yourself at the feet\nof the Bishop of Rome, I shall never trust you more.\"  The poor old\nman, thus harassed on all sides, found no longer any rest or comfort in\nhis studies.  Worn-out in body, and broken in spirit, he soon died.\n\nThe great source of Luther's hold on Germany lay in his direct appeal\nto the common people.  For this he translated the Bible into\nGerman--even now the noblest version of the Bible in existence.  For in\ntranslating a work of inspiration the intuition of a man like Luther,\nas Bayard Taylor has said, counts for more than the combined\nscholarship of a hundred men learned in the Greek and Hebrew.  \"The\nclear insight of one prophet is better than the average judgment of\nforty-seven scribes.\"  The German language was then struggling into\nexistence, and scholars considered it beneath their notice.  It was\nfixed for all time by Luther's Bible.  Luther often spent a week on a\nsingle verse to find and fix the idiomatic German.  \"It is easy to plow\nwhen the field is cleared,\" he said.  \"We must not ask the letters of\nthe Latin alphabet how to speak German, but the mother in the kitchen\nand the plowman in the field, that they may know that the Bible is\nspeaking German, and speaking to them.  Out of the abundance of the\nheart the mouth speaketh.  No German peasant would understand that.  We\nmust make it plain to him.  '_Wess das Herz voll ist, dess geht der\nMund ueber_.'  ('Whose heart is full, his mouth runs over.')\"\n\nThe same influence acted on Hutten.  All his previous writings were in\nLatin, and were directed to scholars only.  Henceforth he wrote the\nlanguage of the Fatherland, and his appeals to the people were in\nlanguage which the people could and did read.  No Reformation ever came\nwhile only the learned and the noble were in the secret of it.\n\n  \"Latein, ich vor geschrieben hab\n  Das war ein jeden nicht bekannt;\n  Jetzt schrei ich an das Vaterland,\n  Teutsch Nation in ihrer Sprach\n  Zu bringen diesen Dingen Rach.\"\n\n  (\"For Latin wrote I hitherto,\n  Which common people did not know.\n  Now cry I to the Fatherland,\n  The German people, in their tongue,\n  Redress to bring for all these wrongs.\")\n\n\nA song for the people he now wrote, the \"New Song of Ulrich von\nHutten,\" a song which stands with Luther's \"Em feste Burg\" in the\nhistory of the Reformation:\n\n  \"Ich hab's gewagt mit Sinnen,\n    Und trag des noch kein Reu,\n  Mag ich nit dran gewinnen,\n    Noch muss man spueren Treu.\n\n    \"Darmit ich mein\n    Mit eim allein,\n  Wenn Man es wolt erkennen\n    Dem Land zu gut\n    Wiewol man thut\n  Ein Pfaffenfeind mich nennen.\"\n\n\nPart of this may be freely translated--\n\n  \"With open eyes I have dared it;\n    And cherish no regret,\n  And though I fail to conquer,\n    The Truth is with me yet.\"\n\n\nHutten's dream in these days was of a league of nobles, cities, and\npeople, aided by the Emperor if possible, against the Emperor if\nnecessary, which should by force of arms forever free Germany from the\nrule of the Pope.  Luther had little faith in the power of force.\n\"What Hutten wishes,\" he wrote to a friend, \"you see.  But I do not\nwish to strive for the Gospel with murder and violence.  Through the\npower of the Word is the world subdued; through the Word the Church\nshall be preserved and freed.  Even Antichrist shall be destroyed by\nthe power of the Word.\"\n\nNow came the Great Diet at Worms, whither Luther was called before the\nEmperor to answer for his heretical teachings, and before which he\nstood firm and undaunted, a noble figure which has been a turning-point\nin history.  \"Here I stand.  I can do nothing else.  God help me.\"\n\nHutten, on his sick-bed at Ebernburg, not far away, was full of wrath\nat the trial of Luther.  \"Away!\" he shouted, \"away from the clear\nfountains, ye filthy swine!  Out of the sanctuary, ye accursed\npeddlers!  Touch no longer the altar with your desecrating hands.  What\nhave ye to do with the alms of our fathers, which were given for the\npoor and the Church, and you spend for splendor, pomp, and foolery,\nwhile the children suffer for bread?  See you not that the wind of\nFreedom[2] is blowing?  On two men not much depends.  Know that there\nare many Luthers, many Huttens here.  Should either of us be destroyed,\nstill greater is the danger that awaits you; for then, with those\nbattling for freedom, the avengers of innocence will make common cause.\"\n\nI have wished, in writing this little sketch, that I could have a\nnovelist's privilege of bringing out my hero happily at the end.  I\nhave hitherto had the struggles of a man living before his time to\nrelate; the voice of one crying in the wilderness.  If this were a\nromance, I might tell how, with Hutten's entreaties and Luther's\nexhortations, and under the wise management of Franz von Sickingen, the\npeople banded together against foreign foes and foreign domination, and\nGerman unity, German freedom, and religious liberty were forever\nestablished in the Fatherland.  But, alas! the history does not run in\nthat way; at least not till a hundred years of war had bathed the land\nin blood.\n\nFor Hutten henceforth I have only misery and failure to relate.  The\nunion of knights and cities resulted in a ruinous campaign of Franz von\nSickingen against Treves.  Sickingen's army was driven back by the\nElector.  His strong Castle of Landstuehl was besieged by the Catholic\nprinces, and cannon was used in this siege for the first time in\nhistory.  The walls of Landstuehl, twenty-five feet thick, were battered\ndown, and Sickingen himself was killed by the falling of a beam.  The\nwar was over, and nothing worthy had been accomplished.\n\nWhen Luther heard of the death of Sickingen, he wrote to a friend:\n\"Yesterday I heard and read of Franz von Sickingen's true and sad\nhistory.  God is a righteous but marvelous Judge.  Sickingen's fall\nseems to me a verdict of the Lord, that strengthens me in the belief\nthat the force of arms is to be kept far from matters of the Gospel.\"\n\nHutten was driven from the Ebernburg.  He was offered a high place in\nthe service of the King of France; but, as a true German, he refused\nit, and fled, penniless and sick, to Basle, in Switzerland.\n\nHere the great Humanist, Erasmus, reigned supreme.  Erasmus disavowed\nall sympathy with his former friend and fellow-student.  He called\nHutten a dangerous and turbulent man, and warned the Swiss against him.\nErasmus had noticed, with horror, in those who had studied Greek, that\nthe influence of Lutheranism was fatal to learning; that zeal for\nphilology decreased as zeal for religion increased.  Already Erasmus,\nlike Reuchlin, was ranged on the side of the Pope.  So, in letters and\npamphlets, Erasmus attacked Hutten; and the poet was not slow in giving\nas good as he received.  And this war between the Humanist and the\nReformer gave great joy to the Obscurantists, who feared and hated them\nboth.\n\n\"Humanism,\" says Strauss, \"was broad-minded but faint-hearted, and in\nnone is this better seen than in Erasmus.  Luther was a narrower man,\nbut his unvarying purpose, never looking to left nor right, was his\nstrength.  Humanism is the broad mirror-like Rhine at Bingen.  It must\ngrow narrower and wilder before it can break through the mountains to\nthe sea.\"\n\nRepulsed by Erasmus at Basle, Hutten fled to Muelhausen.  Attacked by\nassassins there, he left at midnight for Zuerich, where he put himself\nunder the protection of Ulrich Zwingli.  In Zwingli, the purest,\nloftiest, and clearest of insight of all of the leaders of the\nReformation, Hutten found a congenial spirit.  His health was now\nutterly broken.  To the famous Baths of Pfaffers he went, in hope of\nrelease from pain.  But the modern bath-houses of Ragatz were not built\nin those days, and the daily descent by a rope from above into the dark\nand dismal chasm was too much for his feeble strength.  Then Zwingli\nsent him to a kindly friend, the Pastor Hans Schnegg, who lived on the\nlittle Island of Ufnau, in the Lake of Zuerich.  And here at Ufnau, worn\nout by his long, double conflict with the Pope and with disease, Ulrich\nvon Hutten died in 1523, at the age of thirty-five.  \"He left behind\nhim,\" wrote Zwingli, \"nothing of worth.  Books he had none; no money,\nand no property of any sort, except a pen.\"\n\n[Illustration: Ulrich Zwingli.]\n\n\nWhat was the value of this short and troubled life?  Three hundred\nyears ago it was easy to answer with Erasmus and the rest--Nothing.\nHutten had denounced the Pope, and the Pope had crushed him.  He had\nstirred up noble men to battle for freedom, and they, too, had been\ndestroyed.  Franz von Sickingen was dead.  The league of the cities and\nprinces had faded away forever.  Luther was hidden in the Wartburg, no\none knew where, and scarcely a trace of the Reformation was left in\nGermany.  Whatever Hutten had touched he had ruined.  He had \"dared\nit,\" and the force he had defied had crushed him in return.\n\nBut, looking back over these centuries, the life of Hutten rises into\nhigher prominence.  His writings were seed in good ground.  At his\ndeath the Reformation seemed hopeless.  Six years later, at the second\nDiet of Spires, half Germany signed the protest which made us\nProtestants.  \"It was Luther alone who said _no_ at the Diet of Worms.\nIt was princes and people, cities and churches, who said _no_ at the\nDiet of Spires.\"\n\nHutten's dream of a United German people freed from the yoke of Rome\nwas for three hundred years unrealized.  For the Reformation sundered\nthe German people and ruined the German Empire, and not till our day\nhas German unity come to pass.  But, as later reformers said, \"It is\nbetter that Germany should be half German, than that it should be all\nRoman.\"\n\nFor the true meaning of this conflict does not lie in any question of\nchurch against church or creed against creed, nor that worship in\ncathedrals with altars and incense and rich ceremony should give way to\nthe simpler forms of the Lutheran litany.  The issue was that of the\ngrowth of man.  The \"right of private interpretation\" is the\nrecognition of personal individuality.\n\nThe death of Hutten was, after all, not untimely.  He had done his\nwork.  His was the \"voice of one crying in the wilderness.\"  The head\nof John the Baptist lay on the charger before Jesus had fulfilled his\nmission.  Arnold Winkelried, at Sempach, filled his body with Austrian\nspears before the Austrian phalanx was broken.  John Brown fell at\nHarper's Ferry before a blow was struck against slavery.  Ulrich von\nHutten had set every man, woman, and child in Germany to thinking of\nhis relations to the Lord and to the Pope.  His mission was completed;\nand longer life for him, as Strauss has suggested, might have led to\ndiscord among the Reformers themselves.\n\nFor this lover of freedom was intolerant of intolerance.  For fine\npoints of doctrine he had only contempt.  When the Lutherans began to\ntreat as enemies all Reformers who did not with them subscribe to the\nConfession of Augsburg, Hutten's fiery pen would have repudiated this\nconfession.  For he fought for freedom of the spirit, not for the\nLutheran confession.\n\nHad he remained in Switzerland, he would have been still less in\nharmony with the prevailing conditions.  Not long after, Zwingli was\nslain in the wretched battle of Kappel, and, after him, the Swiss\nReformation passed under the control of John Calvin.  There can be no\ndoubt that the stern pietist of Geneva would have burned Ulrich von\nHutten with as calm a conscience as he did Michael Servetus.\n\nThe idea of a united and uniform Church, whether Catholic, Lutheran, or\nCalvinist, had little attraction for Hutten.  He was one of the first\nto realize that religion is individual, not collective.  It is\nconcerned with life, not with creeds or ceremonies.  In the high sense,\nno man can follow or share the religion of another.  His religion,\nwhatever it may be, is his own.  It is built up from his own thoughts\nand prayers and actions.  It is the expression of his own ideals.  Only\nforms can be transferred unchanged from man to man, from generation to\ngeneration; never realities.  For whatever is real to a man becomes\npart of him and partakes of his growth, and is modified by his\npersonality.\n\nHutten was buried where he died, on the little island of Ufnau, in the\nLake of Zuerich, at the foot of the mighty Alps.  And some of his old\nassociates put over his grave a commemorative stone.  Afterwards, the\nmonks of the abbey of Einsiedein, in Schwytz came to the island and\nremoved the stone, and obliterated all traces of the grave.\n\nIt was well that they did so; for now the whole green island of Ufnau\nis his alone, and it is his worthy sepulcher.\n\n\n\n[1] For many of the details of the life of Hutten, and for most of the\nquotations from Hutten's writings given in this paper, the writer is\nindebted to the excellent memoir by David Friedrich Strauss, entitled\n\"Ulrich von Hutten.\" (Fourth Edition: Bonn, 1878.)  No attempt has been\nmade to give here an account of Hutten's writings, only a few of the\nmore noteworthy being mentioned.\n\n[2] \"Sehet ihr nicht dasz die Luft der Freiheit weht?\"\n\n\n\n\nNATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE.[1]\n\nIn pleading for nature-study as a means of moral culture, I do not wish\nto make an overstatement, nor to claim for such study any occult or\nexclusive power.  It is not for us to say, so much nature in the\nschools, so much virtue in the scholars.  The character of the teacher\nis a factor which must always be counted in.  But the best teacher is\nthe one that comes nearest to nature, the one who is most effective in\ndeveloping individual wisdom.\n\nTo seek knowledge is better than to have knowledge.  Precepts of virtue\nare useless unless they are built into life.  At birth, or before, \"the\ngate of gifts is closed.\"  It is the art of life, out of variant and\ncontradictory materials passed down to us from our ancestors, to build\nup a coherent and effective individual character.\n\nThe essence of character-building lies in action.  The chief value of\nnature-study in character-building is that, like life itself, it deals\nwith realities.  The experience of living is of itself a form of\nnature-study.  One must in life make his own observations, frame his\nown inductions, and apply them in action as he goes along.  The habit\nof finding out the best thing to do next, and then doing it, is the\nbasis of character.  A strong character is built up by doing, not by\nimitation, nor by feeling, nor by suggestion.  Nature-study, if it be\ngenuine, is essentially doing.  This is the basis of its effectiveness\nas a moral agent.  To deal with truth is necessary, if we are to know\ntruth when we see it in action.  To know truth precedes all sound\nmorality.  There is a great impulse to virtue in knowing something\nwell.  To know it well, is to come into direct contact with its facts\nor laws, to feel that its qualities and forces are inevitable.  To do\nthis is the essence of nature-study in all its forms.\n\nThe claim has been made that history treats of the actions of men, and\nthat it therefore gives the student the basis of right conduct.  But\nneither of these propositions is true.  History treats of the records\nof the acts of men and nations.  But it does not involve the action of\nthe student himself.  The men and women who act in history are not the\nboys and girls we are training.  Their lives are developed through\ntheir own efforts, not by contemplation of the efforts of others.  They\nwork out their problem of action more surely by dissecting frogs or\nhatching butterflies than by what we tell them of Lycurgus or Joan of\nArc.  Their reason for virtuous action must lie in their own knowledge\nof what is right, not in the fact that Lincoln, or Washington, or\nWilliam Tell, or some other half-mythical personage would have done so\nand so under like conditions.\n\nThe rocks and shells, the frogs and lilies always tell the absolute\ntruth.  Association with these, under right direction, will build up a\nhabit of truthfulness, which the lying story of the cherry-tree is\npowerless to effect.  If history is to be made an agency for moral\ntraining, it must become a nature-study.  It must be the study of\noriginal documents.  When it is pursued in this way it has the value of\nother nature-studies.  But it is carried on under great limitations.\nIts manuscripts are scarce, while every leaf on the tree is an original\ndocument in botany.  When a thousand are used, or used up, the archives\nof nature are just as full as ever.\n\nFrom the intimate affinity with the problems of life, the problems of\nnature-study derive a large part of their value.  Because life deals\nwith realities, the visible agents of the overmastering fates, it is\nwell that our children should study the real, rather than the\nconventional.  Let them come in contact with the inevitable, instead of\nthe \"made-up,\" with laws and forces which can be traced in objects and\nforms actually before them, rather than with those which seem arbitrary\nor which remain inscrutable.  To use concrete illustrations, there is a\ngreater moral value in the study of magnets than in the distinction\nbetween _shall_ and _will_, in the study of birds or rocks than in that\nof diacritical marks or postage-stamps, in the development of a frog\nthan in the longer or the shorter catechism, in the study of things\nthan in the study of abstractions.  There is doubtless a law underlying\nabstractions and conventionalities, a law of catechisms, or\npostage-stamps, or grammatical solecisms, but it does not appear to the\nstudent.  Its consideration does not strengthen his impression of\ninevitable truth.  There is the greatest moral value, as well as\nintellectual value, in the independence that comes from knowing, and\nknowing that one knows and why he knows.  This gives spinal column to\ncharacter, which is not found in the flabby goodness of imitation or\nthe hysteric virtue of suggestion.  Knowing what is right, and why it\nis right, before doing it is the basis of greatness of character.\n\nThe nervous system of the animal or the man is essentially a device to\nmake action effective and to keep it safe.  The animal is a machine in\naction.  Toward the end of motion all other mental processes tend.  All\nfunctions of the brain, all forms of nerve impulse are modifications of\nthe simple reflex action, the automatic transfer of sensations derived\nfrom external objects into movements of the body.\n\nThe sensory nerves furnish the animal or man all knowledge of the\nexternal world.  The brain, sitting in absolute darkness, judges these\nsensations, and sends out corresponding impulses to action.  The\nsensory nerves are the brain's sole teachers; the motor nerves, and\nthrough them the muscles, are the brain's only servants.  The untrained\nbrain learns its lessons poorly, and its commands are vacillating and\nineffective.  In like manner, the brain which has been misued\n[Transcriber's note: misused?], shows its defects in ill-chosen\nactions--the actions against which Nature protests through her scourge\nof misery.  In this fact, that nerve alteration means ineffective\naction, lying brain, and lying nerves, rests the great argument for\ntemperance, the great argument against all forms of nerve tampering,\nfrom the coffee habit to the cataleptic \"revival of religion.\"\n\nThe senses are intensely practical in their relation to life.  The\nprocesses of natural selection make and keep them so.  Only those\nphases of reality which our ancestors could render into action are\nshown to us by our senses.  If we can do nothing in any case, we know\nnothing about it.  The senses tell us essential truth about rocks and\ntrees, food and shelter, friends and enemies.  They answer no problems\nin chemistry.  They tell us nothing about atom or molecule.  They give\nus no ultimate facts.  Whatever is so small that we cannot handle it is\ntoo small to be seen.  Whatever is too distant to be reached is not\ntruthfully reported.  The \"X-rays\" of light we cannot see, because our\nancestors could not deal with them.  The sun and stars, the clouds and\nthe sky are not at all what they appear to be.  The truthfulness of the\nsenses fails as the square of the distance increases.  Were it not so,\nwe should be smothered by truth; we should be overwhelmed by the\nmultiplicity of our own sensations, and truthful response in action\nwould become impossible.  Hyperaesthesia of any or all of the senses is\na source of confusion, not of strength.  It is essentially a phase of\ndisease, and it shows itself in ineffectiveness, not in increased power.\n\nBesides the actual sensations, the so-called realities, the brain\nretains also the sensations which have been, and which are not wholly\nlost.  Memory-pictures crowd the mind, mingling with pictures which are\nbrought in afresh by the senses.  The force of suggestion causes the\nmental states or conditions of one person to repeat themselves in\nanother.  Abnormal conditions of the brain itself furnish another\nseries of feelings with which the brain must deal.  Moreover, the brain\nis charged with impulses to action passed on from generation to\ngeneration, surviving because they are useful.  With all these arises\nthe necessity for choice as a function of the mind.  The mind must\nneglect or suppress all sensations which it cannot weave into action.\nThe dog sees nothing that does not belong to its little world.  The man\nin search of mushrooms \"tramples down oak-trees in his walks.\"  To\nselect the sensations that concern us is the basis of the power of\nattention.  The suppression of undesired actions is a function of the\nwill.  To find data for choice among the possible motor responses is a\nfunction of the intellect.  Intellectual persistency is the essence of\nindividual character.\n\nAs the conditions of life become more complex, it becomes necessary for\naction to be more carefully selected.  Wisdom is the parent of virtue.\nKnowing what should be done logically precedes doing it.  Good impulses\nand good intentions do not make action right or safe.  In the long run,\naction is tested not by its motives, but by its results.\n\nThe child, when he comes into the world, has everything to learn.  His\nnervous system is charged with tendencies to reaction and impulses to\nmotion, which have their origin in survivals from ancestral experience.\nExact knowledge, by which his own actions can be made exact, must come\nthrough his own experience.  The experience of others must be expressed\nin terms of his own before it becomes wisdom.  Wisdom, as I have\nelsewhere said, is knowing what it is best to do next.  Virtue is doing\nit.  Doing right becomes habit, if it is pursued long enough.  It\nbecomes a \"second nature,\" or, we may say, a higher heredity.  The\nformation of a higher heredity of wisdom and virtue, of knowing right\nand doing right, is the basis of character-building.\n\nThe moral character is based on knowing the best, choosing the best,\nand doing the best.  It cannot be built up on imitation.  By imitation,\nsuggestion, and conventionality the masses are formed and controlled.\nTo build up a man is a nobler process, demanding materials and methods\nof a higher order.  The growth of man is the assertion of\nindividuality.  Only robust men can make history.  Others may adorn it,\ndisfigure it, or vulgarize it.\n\nThe first relation of the child to external things is expressed in\nthis: What can I do with it?  What is its relation to me?  The\nsensation goes over into thought, the thought into action.  Thus the\nimpression of the object is built into the little universe of his mind.\nThe object and the action it implies are closely associated.  As more\nobjects are apprehended, more complex relations arise, but the primal\ncondition remains--What can I do with it?  Sensation, thought,\naction--this is the natural sequence of each completed mental process.\nAs volition passes over into action, so does science into art,\nknowledge into power, wisdom into virtue.\n\nBy the study of realities wisdom is built up.  In the relations of\nobjects he can touch and move, the child comes to find the limitations\nof his powers, the laws that govern phenomena, and to which his actions\nmust be in obedience.  So long as he deals with realities, these laws\nstand in their proper relation.  \"So simple, so natural, so true,\" says\nAgassiz.  \"This is the charm of dealing with Nature herself.  She\nbrings us back to absolute truth so often as we wander.\"\n\nSo long as a child is lead from one reality to another, never lost in\nwords or in abstractions, so long this natural relation remains.  What\ncan I do with it? is the beginning of wisdom.  What is it to me? is the\nbasis of personal virtue.\n\nWhile a child remains about the home of his boyhood, he knows which way\nis north and which is east.  He does not need to orientate himself,\nbecause in his short trips he never loses his sense of space direction.\nBut let him take a rapid journey in the cars or in the night, and he\nmay find himself in strange relations.  The sun no longer rises in the\neast, the sense of reality in directions is gone, and it is a painful\neffort for him to join the new impressions to the old.  The process of\norientation is a difficult one, and if facing the sunrise in the\nmorning were a deed of necessity in his religion, this deed would not\nbe accurately performed.\n\nThis homely illustration applies to the child.  He is taken from his\nlittle world of realities, a world in which the sun rises in the east,\nthe dogs bark, the grasshopper leaps, the water falls, and the relation\nof cause and effect appear plain and natural.  In these simple\nrelations moral laws become evident.  \"The burnt child dreads the\nfire,\" and this dread shows itself in action.  The child learns what to\ndo next, and to some extent does it.  By practice in personal\nresponsibility in little things, he can be led to wisdom in large ones.\nFor the power to do great things in the moral world comes from doing\nthe right in small things.  It is not often that a man who knows that\nthere is a right does the wrong.  Men who do wrong are either ignorant\nthat there is a right, or else they have failed in their orientation\nand look upon right as wrong.  It is the clinching of good purposes\nwith good actions that makes the man.  This is the higher heredity that\nis not the gift of father or mother, but is the man's own work on\nhimself.\n\nThe impression of realities is the basis of sound morals as well as of\nsound judgment.  By adding near things to near, the child grows in\nknowledge.  \"Knowledge set in order\" is science.  Nature-study is the\nbeginning of science.  It is the science of the child.  To the child\ntraining in methods of acquiring knowledge is more valuable than\nknowledge itself.  In general, throughout life sound methods are more\nvaluable than sound information.  Self-direction is more important than\ninnocence.  The fool may be innocent.  Only the sane and wise can be\nvirtuous.\n\nIt is the function of science to find out the real nature of the\nuniverse.  Its purpose is to eliminate the personal equation and the\nhuman equation in statements of truth.  By methods of precision of\nthought and instruments of precision in observation, it seeks to make\nour knowledge of the small, the distant, the invisible, the mysterious\nas accurate as our knowledge of the common things men have handled for\nages.  It seeks to make our knowledge of common things exact and\nprecise, that exactness and precision may be translated into action.\nThe ultimate end of science, as well as its initial impulse, is the\nregulation of human conduct.  To make right action possible and\nprevalent is the function of science.  The \"world as it is\" is the\nprovince of science.  In proportion as our actions conform to the\nconditions of the world as it is, do we find the world beautiful,\nglorious, divine.  The truth of the \"world as it is\" must be the\nultimate inspiration of art, poetry, and religion.  The world as men\nhave agreed to say it is, is quite another matter.  The less our\nchildren hear of this, the less they will have to unlearn in their\nfuture development.\n\nWhen a child is taken from nature to the schools, he is usually brought\ninto an atmosphere of conventionality.  Here he is not to do, but to\nimitate; not to see, nor to handle, nor to create, but to remember.  He\nis, moreover, to remember not his own realities, but the written or\nspoken ideas of others.  He is dragged through a wilderness of grammar,\nwith thickets of diacritical marks, into the desert of metaphysics.  He\nis taught to do right, not because right action is in the nature of\nthings, the nature of himself and the things about him, but because he\nwill be punished somehow if he does not.\n\nHe is given a medley of words without ideas.  He is taught declensions\nand conjugations without number in his own and other tongues.  He\nlearns things easily by rote; so his teachers fill him with\nrote-learning.  Hence, grammar and language have become stereotyped as\nteaching without a thought as to whether undigested words may be\nintellectual poison.  And as the good heart depends on the good brain,\nundigested ideas become moral poison as well.  No one can tell how much\nof the bad morals and worse manners of the conventional college boy of\nthe past has been due to intellectual dyspepsia from undigested words.\n\nIn such manner the child is bound to lose his orientation as to the\nforces which surround him.  If he does not recover it, he will spend\nhis life in a world of unused fancies and realities.  Nonsense will\nseem half truth, and his appreciation of truth will be vitiated by lack\nof clearness of definition--by its close relation to nonsense.\n\nThat this is no slight defect can be shown in every community.  There\nis no intellectual craze so absurd as not to have a following among\neducated men and women.  There is no scheme for the renovation of the\nsocial order so silly that educated men will not invest their money in\nit.  There is no medical fraud so shameless that educated men will not\ngive it their certificate.  There is no nonsense so unscientific that\nmen called educated will not accept it as science.\n\nIt should be a function of the schools to build up common sense.  Folly\nshould be crowded out of the schools.  We have furnished costly lunatic\nasylums for its accommodation.  That our schools are in a degree\nresponsible for current follies, there can be no doubt.  We have many\nteachers who have never seen a truth in their lives.  There are many\nwho have never felt the impact of an idea.  There are many who have\nlost their own orientation in their youth, and who have never since\nbeen able to point out the sunrise to others.  It is no extravagance of\nlanguage to say that diacritical marks lead to the cocaine habit; nor\nthat the ethics of metaphysics points the way to the Higher\nFoolishness.  There are many links in the chain of decadence, but its\nfinger-posts all point downward.\n\n\"Three roots bear up Dominion--Knowledge, Will, the third, Obedience.\"\nThis statement, which Lowell applies to nations, belongs to the\nindividual man as well.  It is written in the structure of his\nbrain--knowledge, volition, action,--and all three elements must be\nsound, if action is to be safe or effective.\n\nBut obedience must be active, not passive.  The obedience of the lower\nanimals is automatic, and therefore in its limits measurably perfect.\nLack of obedience means the extinction of the race.  Only the obedient\nsurvive, and hence comes about obedience to \"sealed orders,\" obedience\nby reflex action, in which the will takes little part.\n\nIn the early stages of human development, the instincts of obedience\nwere dominant.  Great among these is the instinct of conventionality,\nby which each man follows the path others have found safe.  The Church\nand the State, organizations of the strong, have assumed the direction\nof the weak.  It has often resulted that the wiser this direction, the\ngreater the weakness it was called on to control.  The \"sealed orders\"\nof human institutions took the place of the automatism of instinct.\nAgainst \"sealed orders\" the individual man has been in constant\nprotest.  The \"warfare of science\" was part of this long struggle.  The\nReformation, the revival of learning, the growth of democracy, are all\nphases of this great conflict.\n\nThe function of democracy is not good government.  If that were all, it\nwould not deserve the efforts spent on it.  Better government than any\nking or congress or democracy has yet given could be had in simpler and\ncheaper ways.  The automatic scheme of competitive examinations would\ngive us better rulers at half the present cost.  Even an ordinary\nintelligence office, or \"statesman's employment bureau,\" would serve us\nbetter than conventions and elections.  But a people which could be\nruled in that way, content to be governed well by forces outside\nitself, would not be worth the saving.  But this is not the point at\nissue.  Government too good, as well as too bad, may have a baneful\ninfluence on men.  Its character is a secondary matter.  The purpose of\nself-government is to intensify individual responsibility; to promote\nabortive attempts at wisdom, through which true wisdom may come at\nlast.  Democracy is nature-study on a grand scale.  The republic is a\nhuge laboratory of civics, a laboratory in which strange experiments\nare performed; but by which, as in other laboratories, wisdom may arise\nfrom experience, and having arisen, may work itself out into virtue.\n\n\"The oldest and best-endowed university in the world,\" Dr. Parkhurst\ntells us, \"is Life itself.  Problems tumble easily apart in the field\nthat refuse to give up their secret in the study, or even in the\ncloset.  Reality is what educates us, and reality never comes so close\nto us, with all its powers of discipline, as when we encounter it in\naction.  In books we find Truth in black and white; but in the rush of\nevents we see Truth at work.  It is only when Truth is busy and we are\nourselves mixed up in its activities that we learn to know of how much\nwe are capable, or even the power by which these capabilities can be\nmade over into effect.\"\n\nMr. Wilbur F. Jackman has well said: \"Children always start with\nimitation, and very few people ever get beyond it.  The true moral act,\nhowever, is one performed in accordance with a known law that is just\nas natural as the law which determines which way a stone shall fall.\nThe individual becomes moral in the highest sense when he chooses to\nobey this law by acting in accordance with it.\"  Conventionality is not\nmorality, and may co-exist with vice as well as with virtue.  Obedience\nhas little permanence unless it be intelligent obedience.\n\nIt is, of course, true that wrong information may lead sometimes to\nright action, as falsehood may secure obedience to a natural law which\nwould otherwise have been violated.  But in the long run men and\nnations pay dearly for every illusion they cherish.  For every sick man\nhealed at Denver or Lourdes, ten well men may be made sick.  Faith cure\nand patent medicines feed on the same victim.  For every Schlatter who\nis worshiped as a saint, some equally harmless lunatic will be stoned\nas a witch.  This scientific age is beset by the non-science which its\naltruism has made safe.  The development of the common sense of the\npeople has given security to a vast horde of follies, which would be\ndestroyed in the unchecked competition of life.  It is the soundness of\nour age which has made what we call its decadence possible.  It is the\nundercurrent of science which has given security to human life, a\nsecurity which obtains for fools as well as for sages.\n\nFor protection against all these follies which so soon fall into vices,\nor decay into insanity, we must look to the schools.  A sound\nrecognition of cause and effect in human affairs is our best safeguard.\nThe old common sense of the \"un-high-schooled man,\" aided by\ninstruments of precision, and directed by logic, must be carried over\ninto the schools.  Clear thinking and clean acting, we believe, are\nresults of the study of nature.  When men have made themselves wise, in\nthe wisdom which may be completed in action, they have never failed to\nmake themselves good.  When men have become wise with the lore of\nothers, the learning which ends in self, and does not spend itself in\naction, they have been neither virtuous nor happy.  \"Much learning is a\nweariness of the flesh.\"  Thought without action ends in intense\nfatigue of soul, the disgust with all the \"sorry scheme of things\nentire,\" which is the mark of the unwholesome and insane philosophy of\nPessimism.  This philosophy finds its condemnation in the fact that it\nhas never yet been translated into pure and helpful life.\n\nWith our children, the study of words and abstractions alone may, in\nits degree, produce the same results.  Nature-studies have long been\nvalued as a \"means of grace,\" because they arouse the enthusiasm, the\nlove of work which belongs to open-eyed youth.  The child _blase_ with\nmoral precepts and irregular conjugations turns with delight to the\nunrolling of ferns and the song of birds.  There is a moral training in\nclearness and tangibility.  An occult impulse to vice is hidden in all\nvagueness and in all teachings meant to be heard but not to be\nunderstood.  Nature is never obscure, never occult, never esoteric.\nShe must be questioned in earnest, else she will not reply.  But to\nevery serious question she returns a serious answer.  \"Simple, natural,\nand true\" should make the impression of simplicity and truth.  Truth\nand virtue are but opposite sides of the same shield.  As leaves pass\nover into flowers, and flowers into fruit, so are wisdom, virtue, and\nhappiness inseparably related.\n\n\n\n[1] Read before the National Educational Association at Buffalo, New\nYork, 1896.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HIGHER SACRIFICE.[1]\n\nEach man that lives is, in part, a slave, because he is a living being.\nThis belongs to the definition of life itself.  Each creature must bend\nits back to the lash of its environment.  We imagine life without\nconditions--life free from the pressure of insensate things outside us\nor within.  But such life is the dream of the philosopher.  We have\nnever known it.  The records of the life we know are full of\nconcessions to such pressure.\n\nThe vegetative part of life, that part which finds its expression in\nphysical growth, and sustenance, and death, must always be slavery.\nThe old primal hunger of the protoplasm rules over it all.  Each of the\nmyriad cells of which man is made must be fed and cared for.  The\nperennial hunger of these cells he must stifle.  This hunger began when\nlife began.  It will cease only when life ceases.  It will last till\nthe water of the sea is drained, the great lights are put out, and the\nuseless earth is hung up empty in the archives of the universe.\n\nThis old hunger the individual man must each day meet and satisfy.  He\nmust do this for himself; else, in the long run, it will not be done.\nIf others help feed him, he must feed others in return.  This return is\nnot charity nor sacrifice; it is simply exchange of work.  It is the\ndivision of labor in servitude.  Directly or indirectly, each must pay\nhis debt of life.  There are a few, as the world goes, who in luxury or\npauperism have this debt paid for them by others.  But there are not\nmany of these fugitive slaves.  The number will never be great; for the\nlineage of idleness is never long nor strong.\n\nWhen this debt is paid, the slave becomes the man.  Nature counts as\nmen only those who are free.  Freedom springs from within.  No outside\npower can give it.  Board and lodging on the earth once paid, a man's\nresources are his own.  These he can give or hold.  By the fullness of\nthese is he measured.  All acquisitions of man, Emerson tells us, \"are\nvictories of the good brain and brave heart; the world belongs to the\nenergetic, belongs to the wise.  It is in vain to make a paradise but\nfor good men.\"\n\nIn the ancient lore of the Jews, so Rabbi Voorsanger tells us, it is\nwritten, \"Serve the Lord, not as slaves hoping for reward, but as gods\nwho will take no reward.\"  The meaning of the old saying is this: _Only\nthe gods can serve_.\n\nThose who have nothing have nothing to give.  He who serves as a slave\nserves himself only.  That he hopes for a reward shows that to himself\nhis service is really given.  To serve the Lord, according to another\nold saying, is to help one's fellow-men.  The Eternal asks not of\nmortals that they assist Him with His earth.  The tough old world has\nbeen His for centuries of centuries before it came to be ours, and we\ncan neither make it nor mar it.  We were not consulted when its\nfoundations were laid in the deep.  The waves and the storms, the\nsunshine and the song of birds need not our aid.  They will take care\nof themselves.  Life is the only material that is plastic in our hand.\nOnly man can be helped by man.\n\nWhen they hung John Brown in Virginia, many said, you remember, that in\nresisting the Government he had thrown away his life, and would gain\nnothing for it.  He could not, as Thoreau said at the time, get a vote\nof thanks or a pair of boots for his life.  He could not get\nfour-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year around.  But he\nwas not asking for a vote of thanks.  It was not for the\nfour-and-sixpence a day that he stood between brute force and its\nvictims.  It was to show men the nature of slavery.  It was to help his\nfellow-citizens to read the story of their institutions in the light of\nhistory.  \"You can get more,\" Thoreau went on to say, \"in your market\n[at Concord] for a quart of milk than you can for a quart of blood; but\nyours is not the market heroes carry their blood to.\"  The blood of\nheroes is not sold by the quart.  The great, strong, noble, and pure of\nthis world, those who have made our race worthy to be called men, have\nnot been paid by the day or by the quart; not by riches, nor fame, nor\npower, nor anything that man can give.  Out of the fullness of their\nlives have they served the Lord.  Out of the wealth of their resources\nhave they helped their fellow-men.\n\nThe great man cannot be a self-seeker.  The greatness of a Napoleon or\nan Alexander is the greatness of gluttony.  It is slavery on a grand\nscale.  What men have done for their own glory or aggrandizement has\nleft no permanent impress.  \"I have carried out nothing,\" says the\nwarrior, Sigurd Slembe.  \"I have not sown the least grain nor laid one\nstone upon another to witness that I have lived.\"  Napoleon could have\nsaid as much, if, like Sigurd, he had stood \"upon his own grave and\nheard the great bell ring.\"  The tragedy of the Isle of St. Helena lay\nnot in the failure of effort, but in the futility of the aim to which\neffort was directed.  There was no tragedy of the Isle of Patmos.\n\nWhat such men have torn down remains torn down.  All this would soon\nhave fallen of itself; for that which has life in it cannot be\ndestroyed by force.  But what such men have built has fallen when their\nhands have ceased to hold it up.  The names history cherishes are those\nof men of another type.  Only \"a man too simply great to scheme for his\nproper self\" is great enough to become a pillar of the ages.\n\nIt is part of the duty of higher education to build up ideals of noble\nfreedom.  It is not for help in the vegetative work of life that you go\nto college.  You are just as good a slave without it.  You can earn\nyour board and lodging without the formality of culture.  The training\nof the college will make your power for action greater, no doubt; but\nit will also magnify your needs.  The debt of life a scholar has to pay\nis greater than that paid by the clown.  And the higher sacrifice the\nscholar may be called upon to make grows with the increased fullness of\nhis life.  Greater needs go with greater power, and both mean greater\nopportunity for sacrifice.\n\nIn the days you have been with us you should have formed some ideals.\nYou should have bound these ideals together with the chain of\n\"well-spent yesterdays,\" the higher heredity which comes not from your\nancestors, but which each man must build up for himself.  You should\nhave done something in the direction of the life of higher sacrifice,\nthe life that from the fullness of its resources can have something to\ngive.\n\nSuch sacrifice is not waste, but service; not spending, but\naccomplishing.  Many men, and more women, spend their lives for others\nwhen others would have been better served if they had saved themselves.\nMere giving is not service.  \"Charity that is irrational and impulsive\ngiving, is a waste, whether of money or of life.\"  \"Charity creates\nhalf the misery she relieves; she cannot relieve half the misery she\ncreates.\"\n\nThe men you meet as you leave these halls will not understand your\nideals.  They will not know that your life is not bound up in the\npresent, but has something to ask or to give for the future.  Till they\nunderstand you they will not yield you their sympathies.  They may jeer\nat you because the whip they respond to leaves no mark upon you.  They\nwill try to buy you, because the Devil has always bid high for the\nlives of young men with ideals.  A man in his market stands always\nabove par.  Slaves are his stock in trade.  If a man of power can be\nhad for base purposes, he can be sure of an immediate reward.  You can\nsell your blood for its weight in milk, or for its weight in\ngold--whatever you choose,--if you are willing to put it up for sale.\nYou can sell your will for the kingdoms of the earth; and you will see,\nor seem to see, many of your associates making just such bargains.  But\nin this be not deceived.  No young man worthy of anything else ever\nsold himself to the Devil.  These are dummy sales.  The Devil puts his\nown up at auction in hope of catching others.  If you fall into his\nhands, you had not far to fall.  You were already ripe for his clutches.\n\nWhen a man steps forth from the college, he is tested once for all.  It\ntakes but a year or two to prove his mettle.  In the college high\nideals prevail, and the intellectual life is taken as a matter of\ncourse.  In the world outside it appears otherwise, though the\nconditions of success are in fact just the same.  It is not true,\nthough it seems so, that the common life is a game of \"grasping and\ngriping, with a whine for mercy at the end of it.\"  It is your own\nfault if you find it so.  It is not true that the whole of man is\noccupied, with the effort \"to live just asking but to live, to live\njust begging but to be.\"  The world of thought and the world of action\nare one in nature.  In both truth and love are strength, and folly and\nselfishness are weakness.  There is no confusion of right and wrong in\nthe mind of the Fates.  It is only in our poor bewildered slave\nintellects that evil passes for power.  All about us in the press of\nlife are real men, \"whose fame is not bought nor sold at the stroke of\na politician's pen.\"  Such are the men in whose guidance the currents\nof history flow.\n\nThe lesson of values in life it should be yours to teach, because it\nshould be yours to know and to act.  Men are better than they seem, and\nthe hidden virtues of life appear when men have learned how to\ntranslate them into action.  Men grasp and hoard material things\nbecause in their poverty of soul they know of nothing else to do.  It\nis lack of training and lack of imagination, rather than total\ndepravity, which gives our social life its sordid aspect.  When a plant\nhas learned the secret of flowers and fruit, it no longer goes on\nadding meaningless leaf on leaf.  And as \"flowers are only colored\nleaves, fruits only ripe ones,\" so are the virtues only perfected and\nripened forms of those impulses which show themselves as vices.\n\nIt is your relation to the overflow of power that determines the manner\nof man you are.  Slave or god, it is for you to choose.  Slave or god,\nit is for you to will.  It is for such choice that will is developed.\nSay what we may about the limitations of the life of man, they are\nlargely self-limitations.  Hemmed in is human life by the force of the\nFates; but the will of man is one of the Fates, and can take its place\nby the side of the rest of them.  The man who can will is a factor in\nthe universe.  Only the man who can will can serve the Lord at all, and\nby the same token, hoping for no reward.\n\nLikewise is love a factor in the universe.  Power is not strength of\nbody or mind alone.  One who is poor in all else, may be rich in\nsympathy and responsiveness.  \"They also serve who only stand and wait.\"\n\nIn a recent number of The Dial, Mr. W. P. Reeves tells us the tale,\nhalf-humorous, half-allegorical, of the decadence of a scholar.\nAccording to this story, one Thomson was a college graduate, full of\nhigh notions of the significance of life and the duties and privileges\nof the scholar.  With these ideals he went to Germany, that he might\nstrengthen them and use them for the benefit of his fellow-men.  He\nspent some years in Germany, filling his mind with all that German\nphilosophy could give.  Then he came home, to turn his philosophy into\naction.  To do this, he sought a college professorship.\n\nThis he found it was not easy to secure.  Nobody cared for him or his\nmessage.  The authority of \"wise and sober Germany\" was not recognized\nin the institutions of America, and he found that college\nprofessorships were no longer \"plums to be picked\" by whomsoever should\nask for them.  The reverence the German professor commands is unknown\nin America.  In Germany, the authority of wise men is supreme.  Their\nwords, when they speak, are heard with reverence and attention.  In\nAmerica, wisdom is not wisdom till the common man has examined it and\npronounced it to be such.  The conclusions of the scholar are revised\nby the daily newspaper.  The readers of these papers care little for\nmessages from Utopia.\n\nNo college opened its doors to Thomson, and he saw with dismay that the\nlife before him was one of discomfort and insignificance, his ideals\nhaving no exchangeable value in luxuries or comforts.  Meanwhile,\nThomson's early associates seemed to get on somehow.  The world wanted\ntheir cheap achievements, though it did not care for him.\n\nAmong these associates was one Wilcox, who became a politician, and,\nthough small in abilities and poor in virtues, his influence among men\nseemed to be unbounded.  The young woman who had felt an interest in\nThomson's development, and to whom he had read his rejected verses and\nhis uncalled-for philosophy, had joined herself to the Philistines, and\nyielded to their influence.  She had become Wilcox's wife.  His friends\nregarded Thomson's failure as a joke.  He must not take himself too\nseriously, they said.  A man should be in touch with his times.  \"Even\nPhilistia,\" one said, \"has its aesthetic ritual and pageantry.\"  A wise\nman will not despise this ritual, because Philistinism, after all, is\nthe life of the world.\n\nBut Thomson held out.  \"I pledged my word in Germany,\" he said, \"to\nteach nothing that I did not believe to be true.  I must live up to\nthis pledge.\"  And so he sought for positions, and he failed to find\nthem.  Finally, he had a message from a friend that a professorship in\na certain institution was vacant.  This message said, \"Cultivate\nWilcox.\"  So, in despair, Thomson began to cultivate Wilcox.  He began\nto feel that Wilcox was a type of the world, a bad world, for which he\nwas not responsible.  The world's servant he must be, if he received\nits wages.  When he secured the coveted appointment, through the\npolitical pull of Wilcox and the mild kindness of Mrs. Wilcox, he was\nready to teach whatever was wanted of him, whether it was truth in\nGermany or not.  He found that he could change his notions of truth.\nThe Wilcox idea was that everything in America is all right just as it\nis.  To this he found it easy to respond.  His salary helped him to do\nso.  And at last, the record says, he became \"_laudator temporis\nacti_,\" one who praises the times that are past.  As such, he took but\nlittle part in the times that are to be.\n\nSo runs the allegory.  How shall it be with you?  There are many\nThomsons among our scholars.  There may be some such among you.  When\nyou pass from the world of thought you will find yourself in the world\nof action.  The conditions are not changed, but they seem to be\nchanged.  How shall you respond to the seeming difference?  Shall you\ngive up the truth of high thinking for the appearance of speedy\nsuccess?  If you do this, it will not be because you are worldly-wise,\nbut because you do not know the world.  In your ignorance of men you\nmay sell yourself cheaply.\n\nOne must know life before he can know truth.  He who will be a leader\nof men must first have the power to lead himself.  The world is selfish\nand unsympathetic.  But it is also sagacious.  It rejects as worthless\nhim who suffers decadence when he comes in contact with its vulgar\ncleverness.  The natural man can look the world in the face.  The true\nman will teach truth wherever he is,--not because he has pledged\nhimself in Germany not to teach anything else, but because in teaching\ntruth he is teaching himself.  His life thus becomes genuine, and,\nsooner or later, the world will respond to genuineness in action.  The\nworld knows the value of genuineness, and it yields to that force\nwherever it is felt.  \"The world is all gates,\" says Emerson, \"all\nopportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.\"\n\nThus, in the decadence of Thomson, it was not the times or the world or\nAmerica that was at fault; it was Thomson himself.  He had in him no\nlife of his own.  His character, like his microscope, \"was made in\nGermany,\" and bore not his mark, but the stamp of the German factory.\nTruth was not made in Germany; and to know or to teach truth there must\nbe a life behind it.  The decadence of Thomson was the appearance of\nthe real Thomson from under the axioms and formulae his teachers had\ngiven him.\n\nMen do not fail because they are human.  They are not human enough.\nFailure comes from lack of life.  Only the man who has formed opinions\nof his own can have the courage of his convictions.  Learning alone\ndoes not make a man strong.  Strength in life will show itself in\nhelpfulness, will show itself in sympathy, in sacrifice.  \"Great men,\"\nsays Emerson, \"feel that they are so by renouncing their selfishness\nand falling back on what is humane.  They beat with the pulse and\nbreathe with the lungs of nations.\"\n\nIt is not enough to know truth; one must know men.  It is not enough to\nknow men; one must be a man.  Only he who can live truth can know it.\nOnly he who can live truth can teach it.  \"He could talk men over,\"\nsays Carlyle of Mirabeau, \"he could talk men over because he could act\nmen over.  At bottom that was it.\"\n\nAnd at bottom this is the source of all power and service.  Not what a\nman knows, or what he can say; but what is he? what can he can do?  Not\nwhat he can do for his board and lodging, as the slave who is \"hired\nfor life\"; but what can he do out of the fullness of his resources, the\nfullness of his helpfulness, the fullness of himself?  The work the\nworld will not let die was never paid for--not in fame, not in money,\nnot in power.\n\nThe decadence of literature, of which much is said to-day, is not due\nto the decadence of man.  It is not the effect of the nerve strain of\nover-wrought generations born too late in the dusk of the ages.  Its\nnature is this--that uncritical and untrained men have come into a\nheritage they have not earned.  They will pay money to have their\nfeeble fancy tickled.  The decadence of literature is the struggle of\nmountebanks to catch the public eye.  There is money in the literature\nof decay, and those who work for money have \"verily their reward.\"  But\nthese performances are not the work of men.  They have no relation to\nliterature, or art, or human life.  These are not in decadence because\nimitations are sold on street-corners or tossed into our laps on\nrailway trains.  As well say that gold is in its decadence because\nbrass can be burnished to look like it; or that the sun is in his\ndotage because we have filled our gardens with Chinese lanterns.\n\n  \"No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,\n    My oldest force is good as new\n  And the fresh rose on yonder thorn\n    Gives back the bending heavens in dew.\"\n\n\nLiterature has never been paid for.  It has never asked the gold nor\nthe plaudits of the multitude.  Job, and Hamlet, and Faust, and Lear,\nwere never written to fill the pages of a Sunday newspaper.  John\nMilton and John Bunyan were not publishers' hacks; nor were John\nHampden, John Bright, or Samuel Adams under pay as walking-delegates of\nreform.\n\nNo man was hired to find out that the world was round, or that the\nvalleys are worn down by water, or that the stars are suns.  No man was\npaid to burn at the stake or die on the cross that other men might be\nfree to live.  The sane, strong, brave, heroic souls of all ages were\nthe men who, in the natural order of things, have lived above all\nconsiderations of pay or glory.  They have served not as slaves hoping\nfor reward, but as gods who would take no reward.  Men could not reward\nShakespeare, or Darwin, or Newton, or Helmholtz for their services any\nmore than we could pay the Lord for the use of His sunshine.  From the\nsame inexhaustible divine reservoir it all comes--the service of the\ngreat man and the sunshine of God.\n\n  \"Twice have I molded an image,\n    And thrice outstretched my hand;\n  Made one of day and one of night,\n    And one of the salt sea strand\n  One in a Judean manger,\n    And one by Avon's stream;\n  One over against the mouths of Nile,\n    And one in the Academe.\"\n\n\nAnd in such image are men made every day, not only in Bethlehem or in\nStratford, not alone on the banks of the Nile or the Arno; but on the\nColumbia, or the Sacramento, or the San Francisquito, it may be, as\nwell.  All over the earth, in this image, are the sane, and the sound,\nand the true.  And when and where their lives are spent arises\ngenerations of others like them, men in the true order.  Not alone men\nin the \"image of God,\" but \"gods in the likeness of men.\"\n\nIt is to the training of the genuine man that the universities of the\nworld are devoted.  They call for the higher sacrifice, the sacrifice\nof those who have powers not needed in the common struggle of life, and\nwho have, therefore, something over and beyond this struggle to give to\ntheir fellows.  Large or small, whatever the gift may be, the world\nneeds it all, and to every good gift the world will respond a\nthousand-fold.  Strength begets strength, and wisdom leads to wisdom.\n\"There is always room for the man of force, and he makes room for\nmany.\"  It is the strong, wise, and good of the past who have made our\nlives possible.  It is the great human men, the \"men in the natural\norder,\" that have made it possible for \"the plain, common men,\" that\nmake up civilization, to live, rather than merely to vegetate.\n\nWe hear those among us sometimes who complain of the shortness of life,\nthe smallness of truth, the limited stage on which man is forced to\nact.  But the men who thus complain are not men who have filled this\nlittle stage with their action.  The man who has learned to serve the\nLord never complains that his Master does not give him enough to do.\nThe man who helps his fellow-men does not stand about with idle hands\nto find men worthy of his assistance.  He who leads a worthy life never\nvexes himself with the question as to whether life is worth living.\n\nWe know that all our powers are products of the needs and duties of our\nancestors.  Wisdom too great to be translated into action is an\nabsurdity.  For wisdom is only knowing what it is best to do next.\nVirtue is only doing it.  Virtue and happiness have never been far\napart from each other.  To know and to do is the essence of the highest\nservice.  Those the world has a right to honor are those who found\nenough in the world to do.  The fields are always white to their\nharvest.\n\nAlexander the Great had conquered his neighbors in Greece and Asia\nMinor, the only world he knew.  Then he sighed for more worlds to\nconquer.  But other worlds he knew nothing of lay all about him.  The\nsecrets of the rocks he had never suspected.  Steam, electricity, the\ngrowth of trees, the fall of snow,--all these were mysteries to him.\nThe only conquest he knew, the subjection of men's bodies, went but a\nlittle way.  All the men who in his lifetime knew the name of Alexander\nthe Great could find encampment on the Palo Alto farm.  The great world\nof men in his day was beyond his knowledge.  His world was a very small\none, and of this he had seen but a little corner.\n\nFor the need of more worlds to conquer is no badge of strength.  It is\nthe stamp of ignorance.  It is the cry only of him who knows that the\ngreat earth about him still stands unconquered.  No Lincoln ever sighed\nfor more nations to save; no Luther for more churches to purify; no\nDarwin that nature had not more hidden secrets which he might follow to\ntheir depths; no Agassiz that the thoughts of God were all exhausted\nbefore he was born.\n\n\nAnd now, a final word to you as scholars: Higher education means the\nhigher sacrifice.  That you are taught to know is simply that you may\ndo.  Knowing the truth signifies that you should do right.  Knowing and\ndoing have value only as translated into justice and love.  There is no\nman so strong as not to need your help.  There is no man so weak that\nyou cannot make him stronger.  There is none so sick that you cannot\nbring him to the \"gate called Beautiful.\"  There is no evil in the\nworld that you cannot help turn to goodness.  \"We could lift up this\nland,\" said Bjoernson of Norway, \"we could lift up this land, if we\nlifted as one.\"\n\nTherefore lift, and lift as one.  You are strong enough and wise\nenough.  You shall seek strength and wisdom, that others through you\nmay be wiser and stronger.  You shall seek your place to work as your\nbasis for helpfulness.  Others will make the place as good as you\ndeserve.  If your lives are sacrificed in helping men, it is to the\nmarket of the ages you carry your blood, not to the milk-market of\nConcord town.  The honest man will not \"pledge himself in Germany to\nteach nothing which is not true.\"  Being true himself, he can teach\nnothing false.  The more men of the true order there are in the world,\nthe greater is the world's need of men.\n\nAs you are men, so will your places in life be secure.  Every\nprofession is calling you.  Every walk of life is waiting for your\neffort.  There will always be room for you, and each of you will make\nroom for many.\n\n\n\n[1] Address to the Graduating Class, Leland Stanford Jr. University,\nMay 21, 1896.\n\n\n\n\n  THE BUBBLES OF SAKI.\n\n  In sad, sweet cadence Persian Omar sings\n  The life of man that lasts but for a day;\n  A phantom caravan that hastes away,\n  On to the chaos of insensate things.\n\n  \"The Eternal Saki from that bowl hath poured\n  Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour,\"\n  Thy life or mine, a half-unspoken word,\n  A fleck of foam tossed on an unknown shore.\n\n  \"When thou and I behind the veil are past,\n  Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last?\n  Which of our coming and departure heeds,\n  As the seven seas shall heed a pebble cast.\"\n\n  \"Then, my beloved, fill the cup that clears\n  To-day of past regrets and future fears.\"\n  This is the only wisdom man can know,\n  \"I come like water, and like wind I go.\"\n\n  But tell me, Omar, hast thou said the whole?\n  If such the bubbles that fill Saki's bowl,\n  How great is Saki, whose least whisper calls\n  Forth from the swirling mists a human soul!\n\n  Omar, one word of thine is but a breath,\n  A single cadence in thy perfect song;\n  And as its measures softly flow along,\n  A million cadences pass on to death.\n\n  Shall this one word withdraw itself in scorn,\n  Because 't is not thy first, nor last, nor all--\n  Because 't is not the sole breath thou hast drawn,\n  Nor yet the sweetest from thy lips let fall?\n\n  I do rejoice that when \"of Me and Thee\"\n  Men talk no longer, yet not less, but more,\n  The Eternal Saki still that bowl shall fill,\n  And ever stronger, purer bubbles pour.\n\n  One little note in the Eternal Song,\n  The Perfect Singer hath made place for me;\n  And not one atom in earth's wondrous throng\n  But shall be needful to Infinity.","title":"The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":49761}