Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-04-05

train himself. 1t reminds one Of nothing so
| much as of the emotion and the commotion which
pervaded the household of the Rev. Horace
| Crewler, when Tommy Traddles announced his
engagement to Sophy, whereupon says simple
| Tommy in awe-stricken tones to gaping David
! Copperfeld: Mrs. Crewler gave a scream and
became insensible. Sarah clenched both her
hands, shut her eyes, turned lead color and be-
came perfectly stiff, with various effects upon
the other eight Of a most pathetic nature as it
was broken to them, while the marriage
mounted from her legs into her chest and then
to her head, and then pervaded the whole sys-
! tenn in most alarming mannerm
1t is not simply that Mrs. Wards hero suf-
fered all this but that she thinks it ought to be
| suffered. She thinks it is the normal way Of
| thought. She fancies that it is moral and in
teuectual superiority instead Of pure intellec-
ing. She asserts that his religious dread
and shame and terror are such as every
good man feels in like strait, but it is only
the good weakling who feels it: the good
athiete feels nothing OF the sort The
fullness OF his former pupils avowal, and re-
| hected that lesser man would hardly have
made 1t In the same way. 1t would have been
| more to the purpose to reflect that greater
] man would not have made it at all. There
would have been no avowal to make. There is
! suggestion-somewha timid, indeed-that
| the young man belongs to the minority of ma
lures that are at the mercy of thought, at the
mercy of truth-the minority from whom, in
| fact, all human advance comes; but all that is
sensible in the suggestion is its timidity.
| Gripped, rigid, resisting, anguished, bound to
| the chariot wheels of truth, perhaps he does
| rightly represent the manner in which the
great mass of humanity advances; but he in no
way represents the leader and charioteer Of
thought, panoplied and upright, guiding the
| course with keen eye and strong hand rejoic-
ing in the contest and sure Of victory.
| He has little perception of the nature of
| truth who does not know that the world
| offers no greater joy than its discovery whether
that unfolding comes slowly like the rapturous
dawn, or suddenly dazzling forth from clouds
and thick darkness. To him who has once been
Christian of the old sort, says the great
Oxford tutor, comforting his pupil in epileptic
| agonies, face deadly pale, quivering pain
fully" the parting with the Christian mythoi-
| ogy is the rending asunder of bones and mar
| row." Never There is no marrow in such
| bones. Christian of the old sort, who has
| not simply felt its spirit in his life, but has
given direct and candid thought to its doc
trines, feels, in parting with its myth, that he
| has come to the fullness of time when the
clumsy centuries-gathered conglomeration is
| to clear away and the simple direct religion
of Christ is to shine forth in its pristine purity
| 1t is the sublime and browning moment of his
| life, the revelation Of God and from God in
his own rapt and worshiping soul. That man
should need to be dragged to it by cart-ropes
through five definite months Of anguish and
pallor and CONFUSION is not because he is a
great man, but because he is weak man.
He displayed his weakness in many ways.
He went at his new religion and his loving wife
with the same hysteric violence which is as far
removed from strength as spasm is from
health. He grappled for the first time with his
borrowed book of Exegesis after he had come
home late from his night school, with no one
up in the house; and he had not even the sense
IN sit He sfa do fba
tossing moaning December night; inside the
family cracking fire, the standing figure. Nat
urally he was In a state OF nervous excitement.
Any person up alone in house at midnight is
liable to feel "cruel, torturing hand laid upon
his inmost being" If when the rector came
home late and tired he had arranged himself
for the night, with nothing to do when he
should have ceased reading but to blow out his
lamp and sink to sleep, the "desolate, intoler-
able moment would have been changed into a
buoyant, budding promise and prophecy under
whose benign overpowering spell the only self
repression needed would have been not to
waken his wife out of her beauty sleep to talk
it over. Instead of which the result of his
childish vigils was to frighten her out of all
happiness and light-heartedness by stalking
around like a maniac concealing or meditating
a murder, and then because she cannot bow
down and worship his mania we are to lay it to
her intellectual limitations"
And what did it all amount to? What truth
did this advanced thinker strike out with his
wresthngs and struggles and anguish and
qulverings and sbarpest stings and desperate
catechisms-the dellrum tremens Of "con-
stantly increasing sense Of oppression, Of clos
ing avenues and narrowing alternatives which
for weeks together seemed to hold the mind in
a grip whence there was no escape; five months
of "liying intellectually at a speed no man
maintains with impunity;" walking through
the woods with hands locked and face like the
face OF blind man, getting paler and, his eyes
growing duifer, more instinct with slowly
dawning despair?
Simply this: In the shelter of the wooded
lane with the birds in the branches and the
gusts of air rustling through the gorse, waiting,
conscious that it was the crisis of his history,
there rose in him, as though articulated one by
one by an audible voice. words of irrevocable
meaning:
Every human soul in which the voice of
God makes itself felt enjoys, equally with Jesus
Of Nazareth, the divine sonshfp, and miracles
do not happen"
1t was done.
But it was better done 1900 years ago, when
Jesus Christ himself declared the same truth,
of human and divine kinship; came on earth
expressly to declare it; when he stretched forth
his hand toward his disciples and said: behold
my mother and my brethren! For whosoever
shall do the will of My Father which is in
Heaven the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother. AS Thou, Father, art in me. and in
Thee, that they also may be one in u.s."
Better said by Paul: THE Spirit itself bear
eth witness with our spirit that we are the chill
dren of God, and if children then heirs; heirs
Of God and joint heirs with Christ" Infinitely
better said when Paul not only asserted our
sonship, but cried out, Because We are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into
your hearts. crying Abba Father
Better said by the beloved and loving dis
ciple: Beloved now are we the sons Of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be-"
Old orthodoxy has befogged many truths,
but it has kept itself alive because it has kept
alive in its rugged bosom the vital truth that
We are the children of God. 1t is great truth,
but it was not left for nineteenth century
agnostic to discover, and there was no more
! intellectual advance in his lying awake nights
over it than there was in the sailors rushing
out of church and knocking down the first Jew
| In the streets for crucifying our Lord on the
! plea that, though it was done 1900 years ago,
he had just heard of it.
->~~-
Authorizing Boulanger's Prosecution.
THE CHAMBER GRANTS THE GOVERNMENT THE
NECESSARY POWER.
In the French chamber yesterday NJ. Paul de
Cassagnac pronounced the charges against
J Boulanger tissue Of absurdity and falsehood.