Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1901-12-19
HALL CAIN Is CRITIC
Much Interested In James Creel-
mans New Book.
TWO SUBJECTS APPEAL TO HIM.

TWO SUBJECTS APPEAL TO HIM.
The Tells What He Thinks
About the Pope-sBenevoIent Des-
pOtism' and Observation-Disclosures
With ToIstoi's Views on Marriage
as Reported by Creelman.
Hall Game has written the following
interesting letter, which a friend of his
recently sent to the New York World,
on socialism, religion n marriage
apropos of James Creelman's new
book, ION the Great Highway"
GREEBA CASTLE, Isle Of Man, Nov. 2.
/ have read with a great deal of pleasure James
Creelman's stirring book, "'On the Great High
way" Two at least of the subjects he deals with
are OF great interest to me. The first is the pope
and his views on social questions. The picture
Mr.. Creelman presents Of his visit to the Vatican
Is admirably faithful to the atmosphere of the
great house as l know it, and the version he
gives of the pope's views is not only true to the
spirit OF the holy fathers published encyclicals,
but he has caught with quite extraordinary fdel-
ity the tone and manner that are peculiar to
the Vatican utterances and especially characteris-
tic OF the speeches of it's great head.
/ confess that with all my reverence for Pope
Leo XIII. as a Christian statesman l fail to realize
the definite message conveyed in the words Mr..
Creelman has given. As in the encyclicals. so
here, the church by its honored mouthpiece tells
the world that it must cultivate religion, be obe-
dent to its bishops and bow the knee to the au-
thority OF the pope. Such in effect Is the word
OF life which the church gives to q sick world
through the mouth Of its sovereign pontif, and it
leaves undisturbed the great inequalities Of rich
and poor, which are the manifest causes of the
worlds unrest. Perhaps 1T is too much to expect
the holy father to be more definite. His obliga-
lions are too many; the claims upon him are too
pressing ParhanS If ono q co without ~
tense, his own position is too perilous-
For my own poor part, having none of these re.
possibilities, l do not hesitate to say plainly that
the only solution l see of the grievous social and
economic problems that weigh on the world at
present lies in the direction of the triumph of
democracy; but this means the downfall of all
forms of arrogated authority, even when they
come in the guise of a benevolent ~despotism hay
ing its only logical seat on the temporal throne
of the sovereign pontiff.
The second of the two subjects which most in
terest me in Mr.. Creelman's suggestive book is
Tolstoi and his views of marriage and the social
order. There cannot be a more sympathetic and
often enthusiastic reader of Tolstoi than myself.
but nowhere have ] seen the essential sophism on
which his great mind is built more plainly re-
vealed than in these chapters of conversation.
Tolstoi has gone further since Mr.. Creelman talk
ed with him, and In one of the admirable little
books published by The Free Age Press C'The
Relation of the Sexes''O he says plainly that in
his view marriage is an un-Christian institu-
ton" that it is "a sin demanding redemption
and that people should marry in the same way as
they die, ''only when it is impossible to do other
wise" This at all events is no uncertain note,
and If we may take 1t in relation to Mr.. Creel-
mans conversation it is strangely wanting in the
quality of logic Mr.. Cfeelman presents Tolstoi
as saying that the physical impulses in marriage,
like the appetite of hunger, are the expression of
q law Of nature and therefore neither good nor
bad.
Again Mr.. Creelman describes Tolstoi as saying,
contrary to an essential tenet of Christianity, that
human nature at its root is good. Now, if human
nature is good and the impulses in marriage are
of nature, how comes 1t that marriage is ga gin
demanding redemption?'
Tolstoi's views on the social order, as revealed
in Mr.. Creelman's book, would appear to me to
be equally wanting in the quality of logic. He
approves of Bondaref's theory, which requires
that every man shall work with his hands to pro-
cure the necessary food for his own subsistence,
meaning by that that he should till the earth and
grow grain to make his own bread. At the same
time he adnnits that the developments of modern
civilization, with railways, bridges, ships, tele-
graphs, the press, universities and all other ma
chinery of social life which has been built up
throughout the ages are Fastening the day when
humanity will be one great family and the
Christian law of love and brotherhood will pre-
vail.
Here, surely, is an absolute contradiction. If
every man had spent some portion Of his time IN
tilling the earth for his own maintenance, the
present order of civilized life could not possibly
have come to pass, and if WI carry the world
back to a condition in which each man tills the
soil for his own maintenance we reduce it to a
condition in which the Christian law of universal
brotherhood could not have come to pass.
My conclusion (Which l advance with all humil-
| ity against the authority of Tolstoi's great nance
Is that the laws of nature. whether in the rela-
| tons of the sexes or the relations Of the classes,
are working out the will of God II they are not
| doing SO, l am compelled to conclude that for
| 5000 years the Almighty has been allowing the
world to go in the wrong direction under the in
huence of laws which humanity has been powerless
to control. Before l can think that l shall con-
| clude that there is no God in the world at all
and put Christianity aside as a painful and cruel
delusion. l find the sadness of the world, the
mystery of its great burden of sorrow, as perplex-
ing as it appears to most men, bat l should
abandon faith altogether if l did not feel that on
the whole and in the long run and taking the
universal view the world is ruled in righteous
ness HALL GAME.
The Animal Man and the Newsboys.
IF Mr.. Thompson Seton chose. he