Graham guardian., 1905-03-03
Twentieth Century lconocIasm,

BANNER in hand, and knocks al
everything that we have hitherto
been taught to revere. Under
that critical, analyzing influences
Jonah's gourd has sunk to the level
of Jacks bean stalk, and poor old
Santa Claus has been so bruised
and mutilated that his own rein.
deer would not recognize him.
The Spanish heroine known as the
Maid of Saragossa has done the
great disappearing act, and the
angel that was said to have pre-
sented the sword OF Joan of Arc
has become but the ghost of myth;
Shakespeare's laurels knew the
desecrating touch, and even George
Washington's little Ratchet was
not spared, and that one sentence
that has served as national epic
-"Father, cannot tell lie"-has
been classed with such fiction as
"Simple Susan" and "One-E Eyed
Pete" So the sorrowful list goes
on through history until its pages
are like the censored pages
of a Russian nihilistic pulpit.
These and many other idols we
saw cast down and broken, but it
remained for Mr.. Edward jerks,
an English historian, to discover
that "the Magma Charta we gained
from John and Henry the third
set his seal upon," was not and is
not the Foundation stone Of Eng
lish liberty" us our teachers have
shamelessly assured us and as we
have fatuously believed, On the
contrary, Mr.. jerks says sit was
q positive stumbling block" in
the path of progress and liberty.
In childhood we read, with many
thrills and throbs, the descriptions
of that memorable conference on
Runnymeade between the aroused
and outraged mobiles and the
scared and cringing King John,
How splendid it all seemed, how
fearless and patriotiel And now,
with one awkward movement of
his pen, Mr.. jerks has upset the
old ideal and trampled the broken
fragments in the dust. English
liberty has no longer a "corner
stone," for the boasted Magma
Charta is ruthlessly cast into the
barrel along with Cinderella's
slippers, Shakespere's authorship,
the whale that swallowed Jonah,
and the bulls hide with which
Dido circumscribed the boundaries
of the ancient city Of Carthage.
1t is about time we should call a
halt and ask what will be the next
thing to go down under the re-
morseless hammer-will it be the
Declaration of Independence, the
farfamed Poets Corner, the gull
lotine, the Inquisition, the prov
that first touched the West world?
Will Paul Revere's horse become
a phantom steed, and Pulaski's
banner degenerate into a puff of
smoke! 1t all seems probable,
nothing is safe, nothing is immune,
for iconoclasm is possessed of two
devils, the devil of irreverence
md the devil of destruction. The
world is better for its hero worship
sven for its small idealisms that
nave come up from childhood.
Every overthrown idol leaves an
Empty niche. To the coarse-grain-
ID materialist this is of little mo-
nent; nay, it is even a source of
sinister qualification. But to
hose who, through faith, have
'een Santa's footprints in the ashes
IN the hearth; who have heard, |
with inward ears, the cry of the
geese that saved Rom9; who, with
imagination that was almost |
reality, have felt with careful finger
he keen edge of the traditional |
latchet-to these the iconoclast is
particularly cruel, for he not only
destroys their idols, but gives
hem nothing in return. Disillus-
ons come soon enough without the
lid of the mental smelling pot.
-SNe-