The times., 1899-09-10

much pleasure in this book, and this par
tieular type of public is not only fairly
large one, but it is intelligent and culti-
waited.
The particular charm of the work is its
pure, sweet, wholesome tone. One feels
that the man who wrote it, while cler
gyman and thoroughly interested in his
work, is not bound by any formal letters,
and that he will meet any man on terms
of equality, desiring only to make himself
OF use. He is democratic in his writing
He even treats his horse as an equal-a
thing which few men have the sense to do.
Jess is the horse on whose back this
minister journeyed through certain hiily
districts of Wisconsin, during summer
vacation. The indications are that he
brought back some valuable things from
this Journey as a man with humor, SEN
sitiyeness, and a genuine love OF nature
is likely to do. This is the way in which
he sketches his journey and in spite OF,
or because of. the bit of ministerial moral
izing at the end, many people will lind 1t
an enjoyable page:
jess was a thoroughbred American. For the
first two days she was tornented with the spirit
of the age, the hurry to get there, though she,
like many OF the pushers and the rushers, had
no idea where that there was, or what 1t
would contain for her when ii should be found;
but with her, as with her human fellow beings,
the road evidently thing to be done with,
and the end of the road the thing 10 be de-
sired. But well along in the third day she be-
gan TO think there was no end to that road Tor
her, and that If anything was to be gotten out
of it, she must take her pleasure and her pay az
she went along. Then the wayside shade and
The long grass in the fence corner began TO
tempt her and to give her much pleasure.
The chief difference between jess and her hu-
man kin in this respect, l fancy, lay in the fact
that she learned her lesson in much less time
than we do. How many OF us go steaming ON,
champing bits, pressing, fretting 10 get
there, through forty fifty, sixty years of lifes
road, tufted with clover, carpeted with sweet
grass, shaded ever and with noble trees,
marked with frequent surprises and tempting
resting places, all of which do not and
viii rot see because of the prolonged fever Tor
the end. When jess had learned this lesson the
march itself became delightful, and went
and on and on, day after day, counting valley
after valley, climbing hill after hill with no
more haste. but with growing that here
as good there, and that there de-
! lights everywhere We grew companionable, we
trusted each other, we rested each other.
One of the quaintest and prettiest of the
character sketches is that of little house
which the traveller discovered in the midst
of a clearing with two people in it, COM
monplace, everyday young Americans just
starting in life the man working as farm
hand when he could get work, and spend
ing the rest of the time in clearing his own
4
and looking after some out-of-door matters,
/ as American farmers wives do There is
nothing of the heroic pioneer in these two,
! they are just such people We may meet
every day in most unheToic occupations
The little sketch is a mixture of the comic
! and the pathetic. The young couple had an
/ organ in their parlor, the gift of Fred s.
| grandmother, and Fred" had taught him
self to play some hymns, though Jesus
Lover of My SOUL was all that he could
play with both hands" Did the clergy
man from the city sneer, inwardly or out.
wardly, at this? He sat down by the organ
and sang with Fred and the wife of Fred
and enjoyed it, And this is what he has to
say of that squeaky little instrument of
music
What we ought to do for our wofkingmen to-
day is to put the love of music into their souls,
the joy of love into their hearts arouse home
making pride in their lives and then the punch
con fcor, Boston rocker, patchwork quilt,
and diet of string beans will make them inde-
pendent nabobs, and happier than millonaires-
A man who talks in this way is one of
the best opponents TO the shoddy aristoc-
racy which decries any attempt at gen
tility on the part of those whom it Is
! pleased to call the working classes. The
wood people did not know that their
guest was a clergyman-the more credit
TO him-and so they talked freely to him
about their religious attitude: !.
Neither of them belonged to the church. Both
OF them felt that they would like to, but she
was deferred because the people quarreled more
in the church than out OF 1t, as she thought, and
he had tried and tried to get interested, but
never could any sense in much Of what they
said and believed. His piety touched me, but
it was not of theological kind. Not his belief
or non-belief, but the unconscious way he set
tied into his place in the universe, the absence
OF the friction which too much selfshness brings,
limited to me Of the coming religion. Life
seems 10 rise out of the sea OF unconsciousness,
and pass through the turbulent development of
consciousness, TO rise again into that upper
stratum of spontaneity which speaks of a voli-
tion adjusted to the infinite plan, the human
will becoming unconsciousy exponent OF the
Divine, loving the nearest things, doing the
nearest duties, accepting the tasks offered as
they come, one by one.
Why is ii that notions of spiritual ma
ture have TO be expressed in such trans
cendental language as that Of the last
sentence in this paragraph?
Yet there is much simplicity of thought
in these pages, and the new transcenden-
talism is preferable, on the whole. to the
old theology. 1t is not a clergyman of the
old school who says as this man does.
that were he a painter he would paint an
Indian baby and its mother as the Ma
donna and Child. This is in the chapter
which tells of his visit to camp of Chip
pewas. He says:
II / failed to put revelation of the divine
into the picture the fault would be mine not
the subjects, for God was revealing himself
when ne taught the Indian baby to nestle, and
the Indian mother TO Groom.
In spite of its lack of literary form, there
is much that is likeable and admirable in
this book, and 1t would be well if more of
its kind could be written. The spirit of
the writer is the sort of influence which
ought to shape American life, and which
; must eventually overcome the cheap snob-
bishness of one class of society and the bit
terness and anImalism of another class.
(New York: The Macmillan Company.
sL50.)