The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1881-03-19
GEORGE ELIOT.
Sermon by Rev. Robert Collyer on the
Great Novelist.

lI was SAD news tnat naSneu 10 us iron
London as we were ready to welcome Christ
mas that George Eliot was dead. We ha,
been fretting over sad mistake which sh
made, to our thinking, and wondering wha
would come of it as the years swept on; ant
now death had solved the problem in day
We had also said to each other that the fire.
of her genius were abating. "Deronda'
and the essays are on the down grade. II
needed but this stroke of death to show u.
what store we set on the least she could dc
for us, who had done so much. 1t might be
like picking over heap of millet seed, o.
use one one of her own figures. searching foI
a pearl; but then we were sure of finding
the pearl Now the hand was still and cold
that for many years had tossed treasures to
us with such splendid grace.
Concerning George Eliot, the last of a great
line of writers, and among women, in my
opinion, one of the greatest who have ever
spoken to US in our mother tongue, | wish
to note, first, her outward life as far as we
can trace it through the scant data we can
lay our hands on; and then the inward life
as we touch it in her great and wonderful
books, leaving out "Romola," because I
should like to touch that some Sunday
q
cause l always think of it as separate, in
some sense, from the deep and sweet life
which beats through the other books out of
the woman's own heart. George Eliot was
born and raised in the midlands of England
Her fathers portrait is drawn, no doubt, in
'Middlemarch" as Caleb Garth Her
mother seems to have passed away when she
was child, for notice she says in a letter
that she succeeded her sister as
housekeeper when she was eleven years old
There was near kinswoman living in Der
byshire near her who stands for the wonder
full creation, Dinah Morris, the loveliest
woman she has ever drawn. There was a
house full of coopers, also carpenters, who
stand for the originals of Adam Bede and
his brother Seth. In those early years the
maids mind and heart were deeply touched
by the thought of God and communion with
Him in the spirit; but she was in no sense
Methodist. Her great, fine brain, like so
many more, condemned the vaster, and,
after all, deeper faith of Calvinism; for,
girl as she was, she would not have the hu-
man will master the divine, and leave the
eternal helpless even over one lost soul
Grim and dark as her conception of God was,
to her heart He was still master of His own
universe
Her education was such as was given to
girls of her OWE rank until she took the mat
ter into her own hands and began to climb
upward. She was very homely girl to
look at until you saw her eyes, clear and
pure as Heaven, and the wonderful smile
which would play about her mouth; until
you heard the low, sweet voice, and took
note of the noble head, with it's wealth of
auburn hair-the hair she has given Dinah
Morris. So she looked to friend of mine
after she had gone to London and was work
ing for Bookseller Chapman, quite unknown
and hOmely, angular and shy of speech.
we'll remember the evening, in 1856, when
first read in wonder and delight the story of
Amos Barton. 1t was not so much of a
story, as 1 think of it now, a revelation of
a new force abroad in the earth, genius
challenging the best for fight In their own
realm.
In speaking of the genius of George Eliot,
shall ask you first to notice the grand free
hand with which she works out all her de-
signs and the power in her stroke, remind
ing one of Shakespeare. 1t is the thing we
love first in all the great books We ever read ;
it is the seat of their power, and the first
secret to my mind. of the inspiration we
find in the great psalms and prophecies, in
the Sermon on the Mount and in the won
derful strain which closes our New Testa-
ment. l once heard DIR. Holmes and Mr..
Emerson discussing this matter. Their talk
at last turned upon certain hymns. "Ah,"
said the Doctor "but there is one hymn of
which never tire. 1t is the greatest, in my
opinion. l ever read" Then he quoted
these two lines, with a wonderful beauty in
his voice:
Though hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth, unfathomed, no man knows.
EYES," SAID Emerson, that Is, to my
mind, the greatest of them ALL"
This is to me the deepest truth about George
Eloit, and the secret of her power. 1t is
power, simple and sincere She teaches us
in each book that she wrote some deep and
solemn lesson of nature and God, from
which there is no escape. You will see as
you read her great books of the life with
which she was familiar, that there are no
intricate plots and surprises This human
life work itself out into the simplest posi-
BILE sequences And it is with these grand.
detail. Nothing is done on the spur of the
moment, and nothing is left undOne. Now
this l claim is of priceless worth, and lifts
George Eliot's books far above the mere
novel and romance. 1t is what all true
preachers aim at in their sermons, or what
they should aim at. 1t is what she has
done, and she has done it better than Dickens;
i'm short, better than the great writer of our
time who has made the story the medium of
SOfue great anu lcSSOu.
note George EliOt's sympathy as the
next noble quality in her genius, and it is a
quality which again makes her close kin to
Shakespeare, not in greatness now, perhaps
but still in likeness. 1t is said that while
the world was asking who this 'man" was,
Dickens said at once that the author of these
works was q woman. He formed this con-
clusion because he noticed that while she
revealed woman in her works she only de-
scribed men. l venture to say also on this
Limitation of her genius and power (f,'r it is
lovingly to the men she describes. who have
a touch of the feminine element in them,
no doubt, because she dips the pencil then
in her own woman's heart. The grand,
masterful men like Adam Bede are very ad-
mirable, but they do not win our SYM
pathy as do Caleb Garth, Silas
Marner or Seth Bede. But when
George Eliot turns to women
and little children and even dogs, then her
heart beats through all her words and your
heart gives up in the wonderful spell. With
all her greatness, this woman has a touch of
eveg-enduring pain In her books. She had
novision of the holy compensation of Heaven
in her later life. One may guess that the
shadow which lay or her life was the result
of her drifting away from the simple truths
of religion. The hunger for love, she her
self says, is wonderful subduer. Such q
love lay in this great woman's heart, and il
found what must call the saddest and most
cruel consummation possible to woman Of
noble, delicate and sensitive soul. We ex
cuse the fault in one so great; but that is the
pity of it. One so GREATS livingepistle. and
this supremacy of the intellect gives no free
dom to break away from the deep and holy
safeguards that lie about our human life
and we have only to imagine what Georg,
Eliot herself could not have imagined
that this should have befallen her Dinal
Morris, to see how vast the gulf is between
that pure ideal and her own actual. lie
him without sin cast the first stone, said