The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-04-06
THE STARK COUNTY DEMOCRAT.-APRIL 6, 1898.

This book and thousand others por-
traying our modern cosmopolitan social
world reveal condition Of brutality be-
| meath thin'veneer of form and deoency
which is an appalling sign Of the times.
The very conversation of this world is the
| brutal and material discussion of each
others personality. The staple of the
thought of this world even among those
who pretend to respectability, is criminal
| in its personal and slanderous accent.
Rogers. the poet, won a reputation for
caustlc speech. He never entered THIS
circle of society, in which the small beer
Of this personal gossip is the staple,
without expressing his supreme disgust.
'1 wonder how the Blanks are able to
keep carriagep lady once said to him
! in his own house. He at once turned to
q servant and said, "Go to Blank square
| with Mrs. Proctor's and my compli-
ments and ask how the family contrive
to pay for their carriage a.s
In this muck heap Of degeneracy in
| volved in this book the veneer is removed
from our so called aristocracy. We see
things as they are, and it is sickening
revelation. Men before us roll in wealth,
and we are shown how they stole it. 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 and Chi
canery is the atmosphere they daily
breathe. The destruction Of home and
home life is foregone conclusion. And
yet incidentally we learn the fact, true
to life, b ovsht out in the book, that
lily may blossom in dung heap.
In other words, we have recorded be-
fore us in these characters the fact that
humanity is in itself intlinsically divine.
The daughter of the highway robber Of
the Stock Exchange-Justus Hafner-is
as pure as q saint. The daughter of this
foul adventures is the incarnation of
honesty and purity. 1t is true to life.
From the vilest 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 cod 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 phoenixlike the
child will rise in the image Of the eternal
God.
A SPARK OF THE DIVINE.
Take your scrap of humanity wherc-
ever you find it, this divine characteris-
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
ters found himself at work in a store at
Lagos He was thence shipped with
J 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 a mission school,
: was taught the trade of carpenter.
He was baptized in 1926, visited England
at the age Of 18 and returned as a
student and afterward became teacher
in the Fourah Bay college. In 1S41 he
returned to England, after a period of
study was ordained by the bishop of
: London and returned to the coast as q
missionary. He was consecrated the
first bishop of the Niger in 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, ven
erable man of God, scholarly, respected
: by the world.
3 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 sep
aration of % years. He says: "When
she saw me- she trembled; she could not
believe her eyes. We grasped each
other, looking at each other with silence
/, and astonishment. Big tears ran down
her emaciated cheeks. She trembled as
|. she held me by the hand, and called me by
: the familiar names by which l we'll 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 25 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
the miracle of humanity. 1t is the
!, God in us that flashes out in spite of all
Its miserable surroundings. And yet
upon this society the judgment of right
eousness must be pronounced in unqual-
fled 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 a
reality, its day of wrath must come.
Second-That purity and honesty must
prefer death to life in such world, and
this proposition the author has very clear
ly incarnated 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.
It is inevitable that this should be the
yesult. Honesty must prefer death to
6fe in such world. Fanny Hafner,
when she realizes the facts of such q So
; ciety, could not live in it. She buried
, herself in convent. A light headed
critic in referring to this book has said
that the catastrophe at the end was il
, logical-that Alba Steno should never
have committed suicide.
The man who wrote the criticism was
evidently of this world and was inca,
f - L.,