The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-10

she fell upon her knees, and began to cali
down blessings innumerable on the giver's
head. This panied Mr.. Greeley even more
than her story, and he hastily silenced her.
Now, don't" said he, in his whining tone;
don't do that. Get up, and 20 'wayp"
In his theology, also, Mr.. Greeley illus
trates his illogical way of disregarding un-
pleasant facts when they disagree with his
sentimental theories. He denies a hell on
the ground of Gods benefcence. But transit
ent pain is no more reconcilable with that
idea than eternal misery nor is the misery of
the individual for the sake of the race
logically consistent with it. If Mr.. Greeley
is able to argue suffering out of eternity
because 1t is unpleasant to him, why not
also out of this world, for the same reasonY
1t would appear, indeed, that physical,
mental, and moral qualities alike unfit Mr..
Greeley for dealing with practical life. He
wilfully absorbs himself in what pleases him.
and insists upon shutting out everything else
from his vision. Especially does he shrink
from the idea of violence, in connection with
any reform in the Individual or in society,
Ardent and persistent as he has been in advo-
eating many good cause, the proposition to
use force never came from him. He would
never have made the mistake of st. Peter
and cut off an ear. He has none of that
masculine, mature and energetic Chris
tianity which the author of "Ecoe Homo
describes as "not the emasculate sentimental
thing 1t is sometimes represented to be-"
WAR;" he adds" for example, and capi-
tai punishment, are frequently denounced
as unchrtStian, because they involve circum
stances of horror; and when the ardent cham
plons OF some great cause have declared that
they would persevere, although it should be
necessary to lay waste a continent, and exter-
inmate nation, the resolution is stigmatized
as shocking and unchriStidn. Shocking it may
h11f1 mott nj Tbo
siasm of humanity does indeed destroy great
deal of hatred, but it creates as much more.
Selfish hatred is indeed charmed away but
not less fiery passion takes its place." And
the writer goes on to say that even the spirit
which inspired the Crusaders and others,
jealous to do violence for what they believed to
be the cause of religion, was not unchristian.
Sat any rate, the ostensible object of such
horrors was Christian, and the indignation
which professedly prompts them is also Chris
tian, and the assumption they involve that
agOnies of pain, and blood shed in rivers, are
less evils than the soul spotted and bewildered
with sin, is most Christian"
1t is obvious that a character so childish,
and mind so self-absorbed as Mr.. Greeley's,
must have been more or less the sport of cir
cumstances The superficial observer may
start at this, and ask whether Mr.. Greeley is
not, then, an exemplar of what man can do in
| spite of unfavorable surroundings Not re-
markably so. Constitutional qualities, good and
bad, have make him what he is; circumstances,
pretty much alone, have determined what he
was to think, say, and do. He has drifted
quite passively on the current of events.
Born in Amherst, N. H., in 1811 of parents
| who were bankrupt before he was ten years
old, Mr.. Greeley had, in all, but forty-fve
months instruction in poor district school,
But his large brain and active temperament
attracted him irresistibly to books. Endowed
with remarkable memory, and good gift
of language, he early became a great talker
as well as reader. Wherever he went, for
years, he was the town encyclopedia of
general, and especially of political informa-
! tion But, until he came to New York, in
! August, 1881, his range of literature was
necessarily very limited. Then, for years,
he was subjected to the stress of poverty,
and the anxieties of unsuccessful business
enterprises. The Ne,D Yorker was started in
March, 1884, and Mr.. Greeley edited that
diligently, in connection with other literary
and political labors, till it was merged with
the Tribune, in 1641. II was during this
active and exciting period of his life that
the transCendental movement arose in New
England. In September, 1886, Messrs. Emer-
son, Hedge Francis, and two others met at
the house of George Ripley, in Boston, and
formed the Transcendental Club which
afterwards was joined by Brownson, Parker,
rockingham, Charming, and other young and
ardent thinkers. Such amovement in thought
as this, aided and inspired by the grim utter
ances of Carlyle in England and the transla-
tions of German philosophy then becoming
current, would easily attract and absorb
mind like Greeley's. The visionary and ideal
is the hand in which all delight to dwell. To a
mind so impatient as Greeley's, this dream
land was a heavenly resort where a new At
lantis could be built up at leisure where
man, in imagination at least, could become
perfect, life happy, and everything finally
Divine. After the Tribune began its career,
Dana, Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and other dis
ciples of the Transcendental School, and
graduates of the Brook Farm, were attracted
to it. Between l845 and 1S49, all those
named became editorially connected with it,
and, in 1842 Albert Brisbane began his series
of articles in advocacy of Fourierism. That
was period of great activity and earnestness
of thought among the young men Of this
country. There was a breaking up'of old
systems, and a seeking after new ones a
period given up to the spirit of iconoelasm,
too hasty and wholesale discarding of the
old. II was welcome work for the young,
the sanguine, and the inexperienced. Such
was Mr.. Greeley; and into all the new reve-
lations of that day, spiritualism included,
he entered with the zeal of would-be re-
former, and the confidence that appertains to
ignorance. He was, in fact, the passive as
well as active instrument, through whom
these new things obtained hearing. Perhaps
no other man would have had patience with
the towering pretensions of the various isms
which aired themselves in the columns of the
Tribune Few other men, in control of such 9