The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1893-04-13

I OF FMS pSrsnuAA koSosF - tNo e~"fsN
| without; expressing his supreme disgust
| ~ wonder how the Blanks are able e
keep a carriage lady once said 10 him
in his own house. He at once turned &c
a servant and said. ''Go TO Blank square
| with Mrs. proctors and my coinpli-
meuts and ask how the family contrivs
10 nav for their carriage.
/ I'm this muck heap IF degeneracy in
/ yolvei in tins book the veneer is removed
1 from our so called aristocracy. We ses
/ things ~ they are. and il IL n sickening
/ revelation Men before rs roll in wealth,
| and we are shown how they stole II. Men
/ dressed in the latest costume Of polite
society live one life before the world,
| another life of adventure and Of crime
beneath the surface Falsehood AMI Chi
| canery is the atmosphere they daily
| breathe. The destruction Of home and
| home life il forcgon~ conclusion. And
vet irci lent lis we learn the fact, true
| to life. b .ughi ont in the book. that n
lily maN l,l,rSSum in dung heap.
In other words. we have recorded be-
| fore rs in these characters the fact that
humanity is in itself iatrinsi,ally divine.
The daughter of the highway robber Of
| the Stock observation-disclosures Hafner-is
as pure a. "A saint. The daughter Of this
| foul adventures is the incarnation of
honesty and purity. 1t is true To life.
From the vilcst OF the vile. again and
again. we behold the miracle of purity
and honesty emerging in its highest and
noblest developments. The truth is, man
is made in the image of God. You may
deface and mar and degrade the image
in one life. it will rise triumphant to-
ward the sun in the next. You may
burn the image To ashes in the fires of
ignoble passions. and phHnixlike the
child will rise in the image of the eternal
God.
A SPARK OF THE DIVINE.
Take your scrap of humanity where
ever You find it. this divine characters
tic is of its inherent nature. A poor
little African boy was sold into slavery
years ago. He was carried to the coast,
and after varied experiences with mas
tiers found himself at work in store at
Lagos. lie was thence shipped with
other slaves to America. The vessel
was captured by an English cruiser and
carried its human cargo to Sierra Leone.
where they were freed. The boy re-
ceived an education in mission school,
was Taught the trade of "a carpenter.
He was baptized i'm 1925, visited England
ut the age of IS and returned as
student and afterward became a teacher
in the Fourah Bay college. In 1s41 he
returned TO England, after period of
study was ordained by the bishop of
London and returned to the coast as a
missionary. He was consecrated the
first bishop of the Niger i'm Canterbury
cathedral. The University of Oxford
about the same time conferred on him
the degree of doctor of divinity. He
died in Lagos in December, 1891, a VEN
cradle man of God. scholarly, respected
by the world.
In his journal he describes a meeting
with his savage mother years after he
received his education. He accidentally
met her in the market place after a sep
aration of % years He says: When
she saw me, she trembled; she could not
believe her eyes. We grasped each
other. looking ut each other with silence
and establishment. Big tears ran down
her emaciated checks. She trembled as
she held me by the hand, and called me by |
the familiar names by which 1 well re-
member | used to be called by my grand |
mother, who has since died in slavery.
We could not say much, but sat still |
and cast now and then an affectionate |
look at each other-a look which violence |
and oppression had long checked, an af- |
lection which had been nearly extin-
guished by the long space of % years."
From poor. ignorant, savage woman |
sprang the bishop of the Niger. From
an evil wretch of an adventures comes
the child with pure mind, with unsullied |
heart. with the noblest aspirations. 1t
is the miracle of humanity 1t is the
God in US that flashes out in spite of all
its miserable surroundings And vet
upon this society the judgment of right
must be pronounced in unaual-
flied condemnation, and such is the
judgment of the common people. the
people who believe in common honesty.
In honor. in purity, in womanhood. in
manhood. And as sure as there is a
God in the heavens, as sure as truth is n
reality, its day of wrath must come.
Second-That purity and honesty must
prefer death to life in such world, and
thls proposition the author has very clear
ly lncarnated in his characters. There
are only four characters in the book that
are worthy to live. One Of them seeks
refuge In monastery, the other fees in
terror from the scene, another enters a
convent, and the heroine commits suicide.
1t Il inevitable that this should be the
result. Honesty must prefer death to
lie In such world. Fanny Hafner.
when she realizes the facts g such q so
lety. could not live in 1t. She buried
lerself In convent. A light headed ,
rltic In referring to this book has said
nat the catastrophe at the end was IL
og1cal-that Alba Steno should never
ave committed suicide. !
Inc man who wrote the criticism was |
of this world and was inca ,
able OF understanding a real moral i
notlve. 1t was inevitable from the very I
lrst that If the girl We're true and pure 9
ne mad but to see this society as it is I
no o'e, Such life is the life of a 8
rute Humanity is divine. Humanity 2
lntrlnsically divine, and conscious Of I
IS origin and given the alternative he. r
ween the return to the brute and the q
lence and uncertainty of death the i
Jul prefers to dispense with the BODY
.o meet the u .-nown world. Such a t
re Is a life in which the gospel of dirt. b
ne philosophy OF terms, dominates. II /,
the gospel OF good clothes, good houses. t
ood food well cooked. In such a world n
II men who have sense enough see that a
he end must be a tragedy. r
aATERIALIsM LEADS TO MADNESS. n
ouch men live as if this world with its q
latter were the sum total of human life =
ennyson once said: eff there be a God h
lat has made the earth and put this a
ope and passion into it, it must foresbow
,e truth II it be not true that is. inn A