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diff --git a/old/60038-0.txt b/old/60038-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7361738..0000000 --- a/old/60038-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5270 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Men as Prophets of a New Era, by -Newell Dwight Hillis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Great Men as Prophets of a New Era - -Author: Newell Dwight Hillis - -Release Date: August 1, 2019 [EBook #60038] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AS PROPHETS OF A NEW ERA *** - - - - -Produced by David T. Jones, L. Harrison, Al Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - -Great Men as Prophets of a New Era - - - - -By Newell Dwight Hillis - - - REBUILDING EUROPE IN THE FACE OF WORLD-WIDE BOLSHEVISM - - THE BLOT ON THE KAISER'S 'SCUTCHEON - Cloth, - GERMAN ATROCITIES - Cloth, - Each 12mo. cloth, - - STUDIES OF THE GREAT WAR - What Each Nation Has at Stake - - LECTURES AND ORATIONS BY HENRY WARD BEECHER - Collected by Newell Dwight Hillis - - THE MESSAGE OF DAVID SWING TO HIS GENERATION - Compiled, with Introductory Memorial Address by Newell Dwight Hillis - - ALL THE YEAR ROUND - Sermons for Church and Civic Celebrations - - THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict - - THE CONTAGION OF CHARACTER - Studies in Culture and Success - - THE FORTUNE OF THE REPUBLIC - Studies, National and Patriotic, upon the America of To-day and - To-morrow - - GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS - Studies of Character, Real and Ideal - - THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service - - A MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY - Studies in Self-Culture and Character - - - FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY - 12mo. cloth, - - HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED - 18mo. cloth, - - RIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART - A Study of Channing's Symphony - 12mo. boards, - - THE MASTER OF THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING - 12mo. boards, - - ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF THE YEARS - 16mo. old English boards, - - THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME - - - - - Great Men as Prophets - of a New Era - - By - NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS - - _Author of "The Investment of Influence," - "A Man's Value to Society," "Great - Books as Life Teachers"_ - - NEW YORK CHICAGO - Fleming H. Revell Company - LONDON AND EDINBURGH - - - - - Copyright, 1922, by - FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY - - New York: 158 Fifth Avenue - Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. - London: 21 Paternoster Square - Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street - - - - -Foreword - - -Great institutions are the shadows that great men cast across the -centuries. A great law, a great liberty, a great art or tool or reform -represents a great soul, organized, and made unconsciously immortal -for all time. Explorers trace the Nile or Amazon back to the lake in -which the river takes its rise. Historians trace institutions back to -some hero from whose mind and heart the life-giving movement pours -forth. When the scholar travels back to the far-off beginnings of -jurisprudence, he comes to some Moses, toiling in Thebes, to some -Solon in Athens, to some Justinian in Rome. Not otherwise the -renaissance of painting, sculpture, and architecture begins with some -Giotto, some Michael Angelo, some Christopher Wren. Scholars often -speak of history as narratory or philosophical, but in the last -analysis, history is biographical. These studies were prepared for the -students of Plymouth Institute in the belief that biography is life's -wisest teacher, and that the lives of great men are the most inspiring -books to be found in our libraries. - - N. D. H. - - _Plymouth Institute, - Brooklyn, N. Y._ - - - - -Contents - - - I. Dante, and the Dawn After the Dark - Ages 9 - (1265-1321) - - II. Savonarola, and the Renaissance of Conscience 34 - (1452-1498) - - III. William the Silent, and Brave Little - Holland 55 - (1533-1584) - - IV. Oliver Cromwell, and the Rise of Democracy - in England 84 - (1599-1658) - - V. John Milton, the Scholar in Politics 115 - (1608-1674) - - VI. John Wesley, and the Moral Awakening - of the Common People 143 - (1703-1791) - - VII. Garibaldi, the Idol of the New Italy 166 - (1807-1882) - - VIII. John Ruskin, and the Diffusion of the - Beautiful 190 - (1819-1900) - - Index 217 - - - - -I - -DANTE - -(1265-1321) - -_And the Dawn After the Dark Ages_ - - -All scholars are agreed as to the classes of men who build the State. -There are the soldiers who keep the State in liberty, the physicians -who keep the State in health, the teachers who sow the land with -wisdom and knowledge, the farmers and merchants who feed and clothe -the people, the prophets who keep the visions burning, and the poets -who inspire and fertilize the soul of the race. But in every age and -clime, the poet has been the real builder of his city and country. The -only kind of work that lives forever is the work of the poet. -Parthenons and cathedrals crumble, tools rust, bridges decay, bronzes -melt, but the truth, put in artistic work, survives war, flood, fire, -and the tooth of time itself. "The poet's power," said George William -Curtis, "is not dramatic, obvious, imposing, immediate, like that of -the statesman, the warrior and the inventor. But it is as deep and as -strong and abiding. The soldier fights for his native land, but the -poet makes it worth fighting for. The statesman enlarges liberty, but -the poet fosters that love in the heart of the citizen. The inventor -multiplies the conveniences of life, but the poet makes the life -itself worth living. We cannot find out the secret of his power. Until -we know why the rose is sweet, or the dewdrop pure, or the rainbow -beautiful, we cannot know why the poet is the best benefactor of -humanity. But we know that the poet is the harmonizer, strengthener -and consoler, and that the inexpressible mystery of Divine Love and -purpose has been best breathed in parable and poem." - -By common consent the three great poets of the world are Homer, Dante -and Shakespeare; and of the three, the two supreme names are Dante and -Shakespeare. After six centuries, what Hallam said nearly a hundred -years ago still holds true: "Dante's orbit is his own, and the track -of his wheels can never be confounded with that of any rival." Dante -was the greatest man of his country, he wrote the greatest book of his -era, he started the greatest intellectual movement of any age or time. -The influence of his thinking upon the people of Italy, the Italy of -his own day and of succeeding generations, is one of the marvels of -history. He was the interpreter of his age to itself; but he was also -the interpreter of man to all ages. Some names there are whose light -shines brightly for a brief time, after the fashion of the falling -stars, but Dante's emblem is the sun, whose going forth is unto the -ends of the earth, and whose shining brings universal summer. - -Dante has been well-called the "Morning Star of the Renaissance." He -was born at the end of, perhaps, the darkest period in history,--the -five black centuries succeeding the fall of Rome; he lived to see the -first fruits of his own sowing--that wonderful rebirth of art and -culture which was to culminate, two hundred years later, in the -canvases of Raphael and the sculptures of Michael Angelo. It has been -beautifully said that before singing his song Dante had to invent his -harp. No graceful phrase ever had a sounder kernel of truth. Great -poets are more than great artists in language; they create languages, -and Dante, like his two great compeers, Homer and Shakespeare, moulded -and shaped the tongue for future generations. He began his career at a -moment when the Latin tongue was dying and the Italian language was -still waiting to be born. He took the vulgar speech of his own day and -gave it colour and richness, form and substance, eternal dignity and -beauty. What Homer did for the Greek language, what King Alfred's -Bible did for English literature, that, and more, did Dante for the -Italian tongue. The influence of his thinking upon the people of Italy -is indicated by the fact that _The Divine Comedy_ was printed three -times in the one year of 1472, nine times before the fifteenth century -ended, and, to-day, there are literally thousands of volumes in the -libraries of the world upon Dante and his poems. With loving -extravagance d'Annunzio said at the great celebration held last year -in Italy: "Single-handed Dante created Italy, as Michael Angelo by -sheer force of genius created his _Moses_, and made it the supreme -marble in history." - -No one has ever been able to define genius, though many scholars have -told us what genius is not. Many men in the English lecture halls and -universities had talent, but that stablekeeper's son, John Keats, had -genius. More than one of the four hundred members of the House of -Lords during Charles the Second's reign had talent, but a poor tinker, -John Bunyan, had genius, that blazed like the sun. There were -multitudes of men living in the Thirteen Colonies, and many of them -rich, but that poor boy flying a kite, Benjamin Franklin, had the -divine gift. Not otherwise, many men living in Florence at the end of -the thirteenth century had talent, but Dante Alighieri had the gift, -and he towered above his fellows as Monte Rosa towers above the -burning plains of Italy. Strictly speaking, Dante's gift was not that -of the poet alone. He was a moralist as well as a poet--above all -others, the singer of man's soul. He believed himself to be ordained -of God to explain the moral order of the universe, man's share in that -order, his duty and his destiny. Blind Homer gave us the immortal -_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, but Homer was a poet, not a teacher, and if -there are lessons in the story of Achilles and Ulysses we have to -learn those lessons for ourselves. Shakespeare, the organ-voice of -England, gave us _Lear_ and _Hamlet_, _Othello_ and _Macbeth_, but -Shakespeare was a poet, not a teacher, and Macbeth's sin, written -though it is in letters of fire, is nevertheless accompanied by no -comments of the author. Not so with the immortal _Comedy_ of Dante. -For Dante was a teacher first, and a poet afterward. Without the -brilliancy of intellect or the compass of achievements that were -Shakespeare's, without the directness or the simplicity of Homer, he -was more serious than either. He had the passion of a reformer, the -fiery courage of a prophet. He poured his very heart's blood into his -pages. Hating oppression, he was like one specially raised up to point -the path to peace, and to vindicate the ways of God to man. - -The great thinker was born in Florence in the year 1265. His era was -the era of the Dark Ages; his century one of the submerged centuries. -For five hundred years black darkness had lain upon the world. It was -an era of war, when barons were constantly at strife. Feudalism was -entrenched behind stone walls, the landowners were masters, and the -serfs were slaves. Every road was infested with bandits. There was no -shipping upon the Mediterranean. The mariner's compass had not yet -been invented. Commerce was scant and factories almost unknown. Men -lived, for the most part, on coarse bread and vegetables, without -luxuries, and without what we call the simplest necessities. The -common people were huddled in miserable villages, behind stone walls, -with unpaved streets and windowless houses, in which ignorance, filth, -squalor, and bestiality prevailed. Peasants wore the same leather -garments for a lifetime. The dead were buried under the churches. -Prisoners rotted in dungeons under the banqueting hall of the castle. -Two hundred years were to pass before Columbus set foot upon the deck -of the _Santa Maria_. Two hundred and fifty years were to pass before -Michael Angelo could lift the dome above St. Peter's. But if the -peasant was ignorant, and the poor man wretched, the nobleman and -courtier was the child of luxury and gilded vice. It was an age of -contrasts so violent as to be all but incredible to the modern reader. -There were no books, for the art of printing was still to be invented, -yet in an age of parchment manuscripts young noblemen were taught to -speak in verse and to write in rhymed pentameters. There was no -science of geography and the world was believed to be a flat board -with a fence around it. Yet in this era, when few men could spell and -fewer read, the very monks in the monasteries were writing theses on -problems so abstract as to weary the modern scholar. For five hundred -years the world had looked to the Church, but the Church had descended -to the perpetration of crimes so terrible, that their mere chronicle -sickens the heart and chills the blood. - -Into this world of paradox and contradiction--a world of gloom, shot -through with fitful gleams of superstition--was born Dante, the poet of -love and hope and divine regeneration. We know little of Dante's -parentage, as we know all too little of his life, but this much we do -know--the family was the noble family of the Alighieri, followers and -supporters of the party then in power in Florence. Dante was educated by -his mother, and by his mother's relative, the scholar-poet Brunetto -Latini. Like John Stuart Mill he was a mental prodigy from infancy. Like -Milton he was trained in the strictest academical education which the -age afforded. Like Bacon he was a universal scholar before he passed out -of his teens. Like Pope he thought and wrote in verse before he could -write in prose. Among his friends and intimates were the poets Guido -Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoria, Dino Frescobaldi and Lapo Guianni, the -musician Casella and the artist Giotto. With such companions and under -such guidance, Dante mastered all the sciences of the day at a time when -it was not impossible to know all that could be known. - -But dreamer and student though he was, he early insisted upon sharing -the burdens of the State. On two occasions he bore arms for his -country. While still in his twenties he was offered the post of -ambassador to Rome; before he was thirty he had represented his native -city at foreign courts, and from his thirtieth to his thirty-fifth -year his voice was heard with growing frequency in municipal affairs. -In the summer of the year 1300, when he was thirty-five years of age, -he was chosen as one of the Priors, or magistrates, of Florence. - -The opening year of the new century--the year in which Giotto was -meditating his immortal _Duomo_, with its famous tower--was ushered in -by a civic revolution in Florence. Dante, with other innocent -citizens, was banished and condemned to death by burning. A statesman, -he saw his party defeated and driven from the land; a man of property, -he lost his whole fortune; one of the proudest of men, he was forced -to humble himself and live on foreign alms. Inspired by the noblest -intentions, the world gave him no thanks, but drove him forth like a -wild beast, branded his name with foul crimes and condemned him to -wander over the hills of Italy till death at last gave him release. He -never saw Florence again. For years he knew poverty, neglect and -hatred. Sick with the noise of political dissension, he strained his -eyes toward the hills for the appearance of a universal monarch; but -the vision was never realized. We know but little of his wanderings. -Many cities and castles have claimed the honour of giving him shelter; -we know only that in old age he was compelled to "climb the -stranger's toilsome stairs, and eat the bitter bread of others." - -Such, briefly sketched, is the life-history of this man who has been -called "the voice of ten silent centuries." In an era of luxury he had -lived simply and frugally; in an era of debate and publicity, he had -preferred seclusion; drawn at last into public life by his own sense -of duty, he had been driven forth into exile, to die alone in a -foreign city. It is the greatness of Dante that, in spite of defeat -and disappointment, in spite of every form of hardship, in the face of -every conceivable form of adversity, he went on with his work and -completed his masterpiece, the greatest achievement in the whole -history of Italian literature. Out of his own heart-break he distilled -hope and encouragement for others and from the broken harmonies of his -own life he created a world-symphony. - -The best-loved books in our libraries are books of heroism, books of -eloquence, books of success, and books of love. It is a matter of -misfortune that no history of human love has ever been written. -Scholars have set forth the history of wars, the history of engines -and ships, the history of laws and reforms, but no library holds a -history of the greatest gift of man, the gift of love. That is the one -creative gift that belongs to his soul. Beyond all other writers, the -author of the _Divine Comedy_ is the poet of love. Love was the -inspiration of his youth, the beacon of his middle life and the -transfiguring glory of his old age. All his poems are monuments to the -abiding and ennobling power of a pure passion. His love for Beatrice -has fascinated the generations, and remains to-day one of the few -immortal love stories of the world, as moving as the romance of -Abelard and Héloise, and infinitely more exalting. No understanding of -his poems is possible without a knowledge of that love and its -tremendous influence upon his life and work. - -Beatrice Portinari, the object of Dante's devotion, was the daughter -of a merchant, living in a street not far from his father's house. -Dante saw her but a few times, and she died when he was twenty-seven, -but from the moment when, on that bright spring morning, he first -viewed her lovely face, his whole heart and mind were kindled. "She -appeared to me," he writes, "at a festival, dressed in that most noble -and honourable colour, scarlet--girden and ornamented in a manner -suitable to her age, and from that moment love ruled my soul. After -many days had passed, it happened that passing through the streets, -she turned her eyes to the spot where I stood, and with ineffable -courtesy, she greeted me, and this had such an effect on me that it -seemed I had reached the furthest limit of blessedness." He describes -but three other meetings. While he was absent from the city--probably -during one of the two campaigns in which he fought--her father gave -her in marriage to another man. She was only twenty-four when she died. - -No one will ever know whether Beatrice was indeed the loveliest girl -in Italy; whether she really was the daughter of intellect, or whether -the greatness was in Dante, who projected the image of beauty, created -by his imagination and superimposed upon Beatrice. We all know that it -is within the power of the sun in the late afternoon to cast the -brilliant hues of gold and purple upon the vine and transform slender -tendrils into purest gold. Dante had a powerful intellect, the finest -imagination of any known artist, vast moral endowments--gifts, -however, that in themselves are impotent. The sailing vessel, no -matter how large the sails, is helpless until the winds fill the -canvas, and hurl the cargo toward some far-off port. Just as Abelard -waited for the coming of Héloise; just as Robert Browning's soul was -never properly enkindled before the coming of Elizabeth Barrett, so -the intellect of Dante waited for Beatrice. The quality and quantity -of flame in the fireplace is not determined by the size of the match -that kindles the fire, but by the quality of fuel that waits for the -spark. The strength and power of Dante's attachment was in the vast -endowments of his soul, and not in Beatrice. It may well be that -thirty years later, Dante, who realized that he was the strongest man -then living in the world and who was at once a scholar, a statesman -and a soldier, during the solitude of his exile in a distant city -turned his mind backward and broke the alabaster box of genius upon -the head of a commonplace girl, just as Raphael lent the beauty of St. -Cecilia to the face and figure of a flower-woman, a girl whose face -and figure furnished the outlines for his drawing, but held no part of -the divine, ineffable and dazzling loveliness of an angel. - -Whatever the truth--and there is little chance that we shall ever know -the truth--this much is certain: Dante's earliest long poem, the -famous "_Vita Nuova_" (New Life) celebrates his love for Beatrice, and -is nothing more than a journal of the heart, a secret diary of his -emotions. The _Vita Nuova_ is as far removed from the modern -sentimental love tale as June is removed from some almanac prepared a -year in advance of the weather changes predicted. It records Dante's -first glimpse of Beatrice, the adoration she awakened in him, and the -fervour of devotion to which she lifted him; it describes his -premonition of her death, and it ends with his resolve to devote his -remaining years to her memory. The last chapter of the book looks -forward to the _Divine Comedy_. About a year after Beatrice's death, -he writes: "It was given me to behold a wonderful vision, wherein I -saw things which determined me to say nothing further of this blessed -one unto such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. -And to this end I labour all I can, as she in truth knoweth. Therefore -if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all things that my -life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet -write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman." -Completed years later, the immortal _Comedy_ exists to-day as the most -wonderful tribute to a woman ever penned by any poet. - -In a mood of lofty pride, Dante placed himself among the six great -poets of all time. To-day, all scholars applaud the accuracy and -humility of his judgment. Every strong man knows what he can do. He -is conscious of his own vast reserves. So often has he measured -himself with his fellow-men that he realizes the number, the magnitude -and relative strength of his divine endowments. All men of the first -order of genius have realized the endowment they have received from -God and their fathers. And the _Divine Comedy_ justifies Dante's pride -in his own powers. It cannot be classified with a phrase nor dismissed -with a label. It is not a poem, like one of Tennyson's _Idylls of the -King_; it is rather an encyclopedia upon Italy. It is at one and the -same moment an autobiography, a series of personal reminiscences, a -philosophy, an oration and the spiritual pilgrimage of a thirteenth -century _Childe Harold_, with here and there a lyric poem. The motive -which inspired Dante was his sense of the wretchedness of man in this -mortal life. The only means of rescue from this wretchedness he -conceived to be the exercise of reason, enlightened by God. To -convince man of this truth, to bring home to him the conviction of the -eternal consequences of his conduct in this world, to show him the -path of salvation, was Dante's aim. To lend force and beauty to such a -design he conceived the poem as an allegory, and made himself to be -its protagonist. He depicts a vision, in which the poet is conducted -first by Virgil, as the representative of human reason, through Hell -and Purgatory, and then by Beatrice, as the representative of divine -revelation, through Paradise to the Heaven, where at last he beholds -the triune God. - -The action of the _Divine Comedy_ opens in the early morning of the -Thursday before Easter in the year 1300. Dante dreams that he had -"reached the half-way point in his path of life, at the entrance of an -obscure forest." He would advance, but three horrible beasts bar the -way, a wolf, a lion and a leopard, symbolical of the temptations of the -world--cupidity, the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh. Then the -shade of Virgil appears, representing the intellect and conscience, -glorified--to serve as his guide in the long wanderings through the -Inferno. Virgil tells him he can accompany him only through Hell and -Purgatory, but that Beatrice shall conduct him through those happy -spheres, the portals of which a pagan may not enter. So begins that -wondrous journey through the regions of the damned, over the entrance of -which is written the awful words: "All hope abandon ye who enter here." -The world through which the two poets journey is peopled, not with -characters of heroic story, but with men and women known personally or -by repute to Dante. Popes, kings, emperors, poets and warriors, -Florentine citizens of all degrees are there, "some doomed to hopeless -punishment, others expiating their offenses in milder torments and -looking forward to deliverance in due time." Hell is conceived as a vast -conical hollow, reaching to the center of the earth. It has three great -divisions, corresponding to Aristotle's three classes of vice, -incontinence, brutishness and malice. The sinners, by malice, are -divided from the last by a yet more formidable barrier. They lie at the -bottom of a pit, with vertical sides, and accessible only by -supernatural means; a monster named Geryon bears the poets down on his -back. At the very bottom of the pit is Lucifer, immovably fixed in ice. -And climbing down his limbs, the travellers reach the center of the -earth, whence a cranny conducts them back to the surface, which they -reach as Easter Day is dawning. - -Purgatory is conceived as a mountain, rising solitary from the ocean -on that side of the earth that is opposite to ours. It is divided into -terraces and its top is the terrestrial Paradise, the first abode of -man. The seven terraces correspond to the seven deadly sins, which -encircle the mountain and are reached by a series of steep climbs, -compared by Dante to the path from Florence to Samminiato. The -penalties are not degrading, but rather tests of patience or -endurance; and in several cases Dante has to bear a share in them as -he passes. At one point, the poet hesitates when he comes to a path -filled with a sheet of flame; but Virgil speaks: "Between Beatrice and -thee there is but that wall." Dante at once plunges into the heart of -the flames. On the summit of the mountain is the Earthly Paradise, "a -scene of unsurpassed magnificence," where Beatrice, representing -divine knowledge, divine love and purity, is waiting to lead the -wanderer through the nine spheres of the old Ptolemaic system to the -very throne of God. - -Such is the general scheme of the poem, in which Dante's conception of -the universe is depicted in scenes of intense vividness and dramatic -force. It embraces the whole field of human experience. Its aim is -"not to delight, but to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort, to form men's -characters" by teaching them what courses of life will meet reward, -what with penalty hereafter; to "put into verse," as the poet says, -"things difficult to think." The title given it is often -misunderstood. The men of the Middle Ages gave the name "Tragedy" to -every poem that ended sadly, and the name "Comedy" to every tale that -ended happily. There are no traces of wit and humour in this book with -its descriptions of the cleansing pains of Purgatory and the highest -reaches of Paradise. Men who have little imagination seem quite unable -to transport themselves back into the life and thought of the -thirteenth century. Even Voltaire calls Dante a savage, and Goethe, -who blundered often in his judgments of men and books, and often had -to reverse himself, thought Dante's work "dull and unreadable." But -that reader who supposes that Dante is giving a literal description of -the physical torments of hell, or imagines that Michael Angelo, in his -_Last Judgment_, was portraying his own literal belief, will find -nothing inspiring in this wonderful book. - -During the last six centuries the thinking of the world has changed. -Physical pain has assumed new importance. No man living to-day has -ever witnessed a brother man sentenced by a court to be burned alive, -or later on, has been tried himself, and upon a false charge sentenced -to death by flame. We stand aghast at Dante's miseries and monsters, -furies and gorgons, snakes and fires, lakes of pitch and pools of -blood, a physical hell of utter and unspeakable dreariness and -despair. But Dante's was an era of outbreaking and almost universal -physical cruelty; sinners and criminals could not be reached by -argument, for they could not think; there was but one way to approach -animal man, and that was from the animal side. Through fear, Dante -endeavoured to scourge men back from the horrors of iniquity. He -appealed to material men through the imagery of material flames, and -slowly by this scourge, tried to drive them back toward obedience, -sympathy and love for the poor and the weak. For their allurement also -he showed them a golden city in the far-off blue, with the flowers -blooming in the fields of Paradise. He used his unrivalled genius to -make vice and sin revolting and infinitely repulsive, just as he tried -to make truth, kindness and justice alluring. - -This volume, therefore, represents "the life history of a human soul -redeemed from sin and error, from lust and wrath and mammon, and -restored to the right path by the reason and the grace which enable -him to see things as they are." Dante's conception is that "penalty is -the same thing as sin, only it is sin taken at a later period of its -history and a little lower down the stream." It is in life, here and -now, that men's hands are fouled with the pits of greed; their -tongues tipped with envenomed hate; their hearts steeped in crimson -ooze. It is here and now that materialists "load themselves down with -sacks of yellow clay," that misers plunge into "the boiling pitch of -avarice." The genius of the _Inferno_ is that sins are seeds, big with -the harvest of their own penalty. - -Our age makes little of the _Purgatory_ itself--this realm which Dante -describes as the place where the human soul is cleansed and made -worthy to ascend to heaven. It is described as a kind of vestibule of -Paradise, where the soul fronts the results of wrong-doing, through -the debt of penalty and the evil inclination of the will, and the -instincts that have been perverted. The sins of which men are cleansed -are the sins against love and pride, envy and anger; the sins of the -body, avarice and gluttony and passion. The angels that cleanse are -the angels of forgiveness and peace. On that island of cleansing -Virgil and Dante land, and place their hands upon the ground and bathe -in dew their tear-stained cheeks. But climbing up the steep way of -penitence is like climbing up a craggy mountainside, toiling on hands -and knees, with tire that almost brings despair; and yet the higher -Dante climbs the easier the task. Just as in the _Inferno_, Dante -placed certain well-known figures--Judas Iscariot, who for avarice -betrayed his Lord, and Alberigo who with horrible treachery murdered -his own guests at a banquet, and that "youth who made the Great -Refusal"; so in the _Purgatory_ he shows us many men known to history -who have stumbled here and there and are breast-buried in the rubbish -of the world, to whom comes some angel bringing release, and -whispering "Loose him, and let him go." - -When he approaches the confines of Paradise and sees from afar the -glorified form of Beatrice, Dante asks that God may become to his soul -like a refiner's fire and cleanse away any stain or dross of sin. -Gladly he enters that healing flame, guided by a sweet voice, which -sang, "Come, ye blessed of my Father;" but, says Dante, "When I was -within I would have flung myself into molten glass to cool myself, so -immeasurable was the burning there." Then, broken down with utter -remorse, he falls in a swoon; but he is plunged in the waters of -forgetfulness and refreshed, like young plants; re-clad as if by the -angel of spring, he issues from the wave, pure and true, ready to -mount to the stars beyond. - -Strangely enough, this book, the _Inferno_, is the most widely read. -The _Purgatory_ is less frequently opened, while men value least of -all the _Paradise_ of Dante. Doubtless the reason is that experience -has brought familiarity with sin, so that all men understand its -penalties, and at the selfsame time know something of penitence and of -pardon, while the nature of that realm of perfect happiness, -righteousness and peace is beyond human experience. But if any man was -ever purified by suffering and earned the right to trust his visions -and surrender himself to the pictures that noble imagination painted, -that man was Dante. On the side of culture the measure of education of -any man is his knowledge of Shakespeare. On the side of imagination -and of pure and tender goodness, a man is a man just in proportion as -he knows his Dante. James Russell Lowell's supreme essay was his essay -on Dante, and he tells us that the great Italian "wrote with his -heart's blood, like an inspired prophet of old." 'Midst all his -poverty, exile and grief, he rose triumphant over sorrow and neglect. -He never lost his confidence in the ultimate victory of right and -truth. Hating oppression, he struggled as a prophet of liberty. -Offered an invitation to return to his native city, on the condition -that he would humiliate himself by confessing that he had done a -wrong, he accepted an exile's death rather than be faithless to his -great convictions. Climbing the stairs of other men's houses, he -salted his bread with his own tears. - -An old man at fifty-six, his last days were spent in Ravenna, in the -house of a noble duke, who recognized in Dante the greatest man of his -time. Long afterward, Byron sought out the house where Dante died, and -falling upon his knees, beat upon his breast and wept, at the -recollection of the sorrows that overwhelmed the master of them all. -Just as Bunyan was rewarded for the second book in English literature -by twelve years in Bedford Jail, so Dante, as a reward for writing the -greatest book in Italian literature, was exiled from his home and -city, pursued by spies, hunted over the hills with hounds, made to -conceal himself in dens and caves of the earth, and brought to an -untimely death. Dying, Dante might have used the words which, later, -fell from the lips of Bacon, "I leave my name and fame to foreign -lands, and to my own country when long time has passed." Let us -believe that after having lived for fifty-six years in at once an -_Inferno_ and a _Purgatory_, at last Dante, the prisoner, was redeemed -out of his dungeon, the exile out of his loneliness, the fugitive out -of his rags and crusts, and the cave wherein he was hiding from his -pursuers; that the man who for years held heart-break at bay at last -was brought in out of the night, the fire-mist and the hail, into the -imperial palaces of God, where one word of welcome repaid him ten -thousand times for the bitter, grievous years, and where one word of -love leaped forth from the ineffable light--and in a moment, his every -wound was healed! - - - - -II - -SAVONAROLA - -(1452-1498) - -_And the Renaissance of Conscience_ - - -When the first warm days of May come to a land chilled through with the -frosts of winter, all pastures and meadows, all vineyards and orchards, -even the desert and the mountain rift awake to a new bloom and beauty. -The revival of learning which culminated in that golden age known as the -Renaissance was ushered in by the poet Dante, with his love for Beatrice -and his immortal poem called the _Divine Comedy_. Dante has been likened -unto that angel who descended from Heaven and, standing with one foot on -the sea and one on the land, lifted the trumpet to his lips, and wakened -the whole world. To Dante belongs the double glory "of immortalizing in -verse the centuries behind him, while he inaugurated a new age and -created a new language." But if Dante's face was turned upward and -backward, his work was taken up by the great humanist, Petrarch, whose -face was toward the future. Soon the whole land was awake, and while -other countries were held in the grip of ice and winter, full summer -burst upon Italy. - -Scholars have interpreted the Renaissance from many different angles. -Students of literature identify it with the discovery and reproduction -of the manuscripts of the Greek and Latin authors. Artists associate -it with Giotto's paintings and tower, with Michael Angelo's _Moses and -Last Judgment_, and with the names of Alberti and Leonardo. Scientists -point toward the discoveries of Copernicus and Columbus, just as -jurists think of the rise of popular freedom and the overthrow of -tyranny. Practical men associate the new era with the art of printing -and the manufacture of paper and gunpowder, with the use of the -compass by mariners, and the telescope by astronomers. But none of -these interpretations fully suffice to explain the new era, with its -new energy of the intellect and its outburst of unrivalled genius. - -The mental and emotional condition of Europe at the beginning of the -fifteenth century may be likened to the vague longings in the heart of -that child, who, legend hath it, was carried away from his father's -castle by a band of gipsies. The gipsies carried the boy to Spain, and -there they taught him to ride and hunt and steal after the gipsy -fashion. But he had the blood of his ancestors within him, and there -was something burning and throbbing within. Sometimes in his dreams he -saw a beautiful face leaning over him, and heard the bosom pressure -words of his mother, who could not be forgotten. Not otherwise was it -with society at the beginning of the fifteenth century. For centuries -the books, the arts, the tools, once so familiar to Virgil and Horace, -to Mæcenas and Cæsar Augustus had lain neglected on the shores of that -Dead Sea called the Dark Ages. Vague and uneasy memories haunted Europe. -Imagination increased the value of the lost treasure. Looking backward -through an atmosphere roseate through fancy, Helen's face took on new -loveliness. Achilles became the ideal knight, Ulysses a divine hero, and -Penelope the sum of all the gifts distributed among ideal women. - -But in the middle of the fifteenth century occurred the fall of -Constantinople, that Saragossa sea into which had been drawn the -literary treasures of the preceding centuries. Constantinople had -become a treasure-house in which were assembled the manuscripts that -had been carried away by the citizens of Rome fleeing from the Huns. -As the centuries came and went, merchants, bankers, rich men from -far-off provinces had taken their jewels, carved furniture, ivories, -paintings, bronzes, marbles, rugs, silks, laces, and housed their -treasure in palaces, looking out upon the Bosphorus. So that in 1452, -when the advancing Saracens approached the city, the scholars and rich -men of Constantinople fled to their boats, and spreading canvas sailed -into the western sun. Months passed before these fugitives dropped -anchor at the mouth of the Po. One morning, an old man, wrapped in a -cloak stained with the salt seawater, stepped from a little boat to -the wharf of Florence. Being poor and also hungry he made his way to a -bread-shop. Having no money, he drew from beneath his cloak a -parchment. When the bread-shop was filled with listeners he began to -read the story of Helen's beauty and Achilles' courage; the story of -Ulysses' wanderings and Penelope's fidelity; the tale of blind -Oedipus, and of his daughter's loving care. He recited the oration of -Pericles after the plague in Athens, and told the story of the -wanderings of Æneas. With ever-increasing excitement the men of -Florence listened. At last, waking from the spell, they lifted the -stranger upon their shoulders and carried him to the palace of a -merchant prince, and bade him tell the story, and soon the merchant's -house was crowded with young men preparing pages of vellum and sheets -of leather, while writers copied the poems and the dramas of the old -manuscript, and artists turned the vellum pages into illuminated -missals. The spark became a flame. Learning became a glorious -contagion. The fires spread from village to village, and city to city. -The dawn of the modern world had come. - -In the city of Florence, circumstances and climate were singularly -favourable to the new movement. Florence was the city of flowers; it -lay upon the banks of the Arno, set amidst orange groves, and its -palaces, art galleries, and churches, when the vineyards were in full -bloom, looked like a string of pearls lying in a cup of emeralds. All -that Athens had been to the age of Pericles, Florence was to be to the -era of Savonarola. Neither time nor events have availed to lessen the -hold of Florence upon the great men of earth. Because of her rich -associations with genius and beauty, the greatest souls of the earth -have often turned feet toward Florence, as the birds of paradise leave -the desert to seek out the oasis with its fountain and flowers. -Florence was the city of Dante with his _Divine Comedy_, the city of -Giotto, with his tower, of Gioberti, with the gates of wrought iron -that are so beautiful that Michael Angelo said they were worthy to be -the gates of Paradise. To Florence in after years went Robert -Browning, to write _The Ring and the Book_, and Elizabeth Barrett, -with the finest love sonnets in literature. To Florence centuries -later went George Eliot, to write her _Romola_, and in Florence, Keats -and Shelley dreamed their dreams of song and verse. To Florence came -Cavour, the statesman, and Mazzini, the reformer, Garibaldi, the -soldier, to build the new Italy. Many the scholar and patriot who has -said with Robert Browning, "Italy is a word graven on my heart." And -it was to Florence that there came in the year 1490 Savonarola, the -greatest moral force the city ever knew. - -Savonarola was a man of almost universal genius. He was an orator, and -the fire of his eloquence still burns in the sermons he has left the -world. He was a reformer, and descended upon the sins of his age like -a flame of fire, shaking Italy like the stroke of an earthquake. He -was a prophet, and he dreamed dreams of a new Italy and of a golden -age in morals. He was a statesman and he was created a preacher, and -he fulfilled the dreams of a divine Orpheus, who drew all things to -him by the mystery and magic of his speech. He was a martyr, and wore, -not the red hat of the cardinal, but the fire that belonged to the -chariot of flame, in which his soul rode up to Heaven to meet his God. -Like all men of the first order of genius he was great on many sides. -It was his glory that he awakened the moral sense and brought the life -of God into the soul of man. Savonarola was like the Matterhorn or the -Breithorn that lift their peaks so high that they look out upon the -Rhine of the north and the Po of the south, upon the vineyards of -France and the valleys of Austria. - -In the very year that Constantinople fell, and the scholars fled, -carrying their manuscripts--as sparks fly from the hammer falling upon -an anvil--Savonarola entered into being in the beautiful little city -of Ferrara. His grandfather was a physician, a teacher of the youth of -his town, and a member of the council. He had achieved some honour as -a scholar, and won much gold and favour as a skillful surgeon. To his -father's house came a few leading men of the villages round about to -read the pages of Dante and to talk about the manuscripts that had -thrown all Italy into a fever of excitement. The boy had a hungry -mind, and rose early and sat up late to read the copies of the few -books that his father had in the little library. His native town was -the capital of the little state, and the Duke of Este was his father's -friend. When the boy was six years of age, Pope Pius II passed through -Ferrara on his way to a celebration in Venice, and in preparation for -his coming a crimson canopy was stretched above the street, while in -the public square a throne was erected, and when the Pope had taken -his seat therein a procession of children passed by, strewing flowers -at the feet of the Pope. Young men and women sang songs in his honour, -and chanted hymns of his praise, midst clouds of golden incense -filling all the air. On the outskirts of the crowd stood the miserable -poor, the half-starved peasants, the ragged children, the miserable -lepers. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes hollow, their bread, -crusts, their garments, rags, and the spectacle of gluttony, -drunkenness and luxury, in contrast with the vast multitude of -starving poor, created such a revulsion in the mind of the boy that -from that hour all should have known that it was only a question of -time when this gifted youth would become an ascetic and a reformer. - -The revulsion in the heart of Savonarola was inevitably deepened by -the lust and cruelty laid to the door of the Church itself. That was -a dark hour for the Papacy and Italy. Paul II was a Venetian merchant, -greedy, ambitious, who, in middle age, saw that the Pope was -incidentally an ecclesiastic, but essentially an emperor, a statesman -and a banker. Everything he touched in business turned to gold. He had -agents out in all the world buying diamonds, pearls, rubies and -emeralds. He hired architects, sculptors and painters, and made the -church an art gallery. "Once the church had wooden cups and plates for -the communion, but golden priests. Now," wrote Savonarola, "the church -has golden cups and plates, but wooden-headed priests." The Rome of -that time was a Rome of art and vice, gold and blood, cathedrals and -mud huts. The least shocking page in the papal history of the time -describes Alexander VI, and his son Cæsare and his daughter Lucretia, -standing in the open window of the papal palace, looking down into the -courtyard, filled with unlucky criminals. These prisoners, sentenced -to death, ran round and round the court, while Cæsare let fly his -arrows, and the Pope and Lucretia applauded each lucky hit. The scene -is one of many, and the knowledge of such scenes inevitably brought -about rebellion in the soul of Savonarola. - -At the beginning of his career, the young reformer attracted but -little attention. He entered a monastery and became a monk, and his -novitiate was chiefly marked by a fervour of humilities. He sought the -most menial offices, and did penance for his sins by the severest -austerities. He was soon worn to a shadow, but his gaunt features were -beautified by an expression of singular force and benevolence. -Luminous dark eyes sparkled and flamed beneath his thick brows and his -large mouth was as capable of gentle sweetness as of power and set -resolve. But the spectacle of the sensualism, drunkenness, cruelty, -theft, ignorance and wretchedness of Florence, that had a handful of -aristocrats at one extreme and thousands of paupers at the other, -gradually filled his soul with burning indignation. He began to see -visions and to make prophecies which afterward were mysteriously -fulfilled. His first success as a preacher came when he was thirty-one -and the following year at Brescia, in a sermon on the Apocalypse, he -shook men's souls by his terrible picture of the wrath to come. A halo -of light was reported to have been seen about his head, and when, six -years later, he returned to Florence, to preach in the cathedral, his -fame as an orator had gone before him and the cloister gardens were -too small to contain the crowds that flocked to hear him. - -The occasion of his first sermon in the cathedral was one long -remembered in the city. The vast multitudes saw a gaunt figure whose -thick hood covered the whole head and shoulders. From deeply sunken -eye-sockets there looked out two eyes that blazed as with lightning. -The nose was strong and prominent, with wide nostrils, capable of -terrible distention under the stress of emotion. The mouth was full, -with compressed, projecting lips, and large, as if made for a torrent -of eloquence. The speaker was a visionary, and a seer. At one moment -he melted his audience to tears, at another he stirred them to horror, -again quickening their souls with prayer and pleadings, that had in -them the sweetness of the very spirit of Christ. Soon the walls of the -church reëchoed with sobs and wailings, dominated by one ringing -voice. One scribe explains fragments of the sermon with these words: -"Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could not go on." The -poet, Mirandola, tells us that Savonarola's voice was like a clap of -doom: a cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones, and the hair -of his head stood on end as he listened. The theme that morning was -this: "Repent! A judgment of God is at hand. A sword is suspended -over you. Italy is doomed for her iniquity." The speaker prophesied -coming bloodshed, the ruin of cities, the trampling down of provinces, -the passage of armies, and the devastating wars that were about to -fall on Italy. - -The great man of Florence at this moment was Lorenzo the Magnificent. -Lorenzo was the most powerful figure in Italy, the most -widely-travelled, and the richest man of his time. Tiring of luxury -and flattery, he was ambitious to be called the patron of art and -literature. He had fitted up a great banqueting-room in his palace, in -which he could assemble painters, sculptors, architects, actors, -poets, philosophers. His seat at the head of the table was after the -fashion of a throne, and he had made himself a kind of dictator in the -realm of learning. Always open to flattery, he was surrounded by a -group of citizens who never ceased burning incense at the altar of his -egotism. He was at once a politician, a poet, an amateur actor, -dramatist, and singer. At his table sat Ficino, who translated Plato's -works into Latin, and Pico della Mirandola, who was the idol of -Florentine society. It was the latter's boast that a single reading -fixed in his memory any language, any essay or poem, and made it his -forever. Other guests were Leo Alberti and Leonardo, the two men of -comprehensive genius in all the group that lived in the palace of the -Prince. Constant adulation made Lorenzo arrogant and vain to the last -degree. In disguise he led a group of dissipated young men in the -carnival fêtes. He wrote licentious carnival songs and so degraded -were his followers that they went everywhither shouting his praises as -a poet superior to Dante. And when, in July of the following year, -Savonarola was elected Prior of St. Mark's, Lorenzo sent messengers to -him, bidding him to show more respect to the head of the State. - -Savonarola refused to do so. One day the Prince was seen walking in -the garden of the monastery. An attendant came in to Savonarola, and -announced that Lorenzo the Magnificent was in the garden. "Does he ask -for me?" "No," replied the young monk. "Then let him walk." Shortly -afterward the Prince sent a deputation to wait on the new Prior, -telling him that it was not good form to preach against the Prince, -who was the patron of St. Mark's, to which Savonarola replied, "Did I -receive my position from Lorenzo, or from Almighty God?" Savonarola's -eyes blazed, and he spake in tones of thunder and the answer was, -"From Almighty God." "Then," went on the Prior, "to Almighty God will -I render homage." - -Lorenzo, as it chanced, was drawing near to the end of his life. One -day a messenger came from the palace announcing his dangerous illness. -Because Lorenzo had usurped the liberties of his country, had robbed -and oppressed his own people, Savonarola would not go. Then a second -messenger came, saying that the Prince was dying and asked absolution. -The Prior found the Prince propped up upon velvet pillows, and lying -in a great silken chamber. All his life long, Lorenzo had been -accustomed to soft words and pliant service. Now this stern prophet of -duty towered above his couch like a messenger of God. The Prior told -him absolution could not be granted except upon certain conditions. -"Three things are required of you; you must have a full and lively -faith in God's mercy; you must restore your ill-gotten gains; you must -restore liberty to Florence." Twice the Prince assented, but the third -time his face went white. He shivered, as if in fear, and at length, -in silence, he turned his face toward the wall. Savonarola turned his -back. He would not grant absolution. Lorenzo died. The news was spread -through the city by the relatives and servants standing about the -bedside of the dead Prince. The event heaved the soul of Florence as -the tides heave the sea. - -The Prior was now the most influential man in Italy. His sermons took -on a new boldness, and his denunciation of vices filled the city with -excitement. Ever increasing his power as a preacher, he now added -certain addresses as a patriot. He hated the tyranny of the Medici -with an undying hatred. Taking upon himself full responsibility, he -sent a letter of welcome to Charles VIII and his French army, -believing that if Florence opened her gates to the French, the -Florentines might recover their own liberty. Having expelled the -family of the Medici, he found it necessary to write a constitution -for Florence, and his influence in shaping that constitution was the -most powerful influence exerted in that critical time. Leaving to -others the task of writing the code, he told the people plainly that, -of necessity, a government by one man strengthened the single ruler -toward despotism and autocracy, while self-government, through the -choice of representatives, worked for the diffusion of strength and -responsibility. He proposed a grand council of 3,000 citizens -appointed by the city judges, a body that answers to our House of -Representatives, and another superior council of eighty citizens, all -over forty years of age, who, in turn, were to share with the -magistrates the task of appointing the higher officers of the State. -Then he brought about a reform of taxation, full amnesty for political -offenders, made usury a treasonable act, founded a bank that loaned -money to the poor on their character and to the rich on their -collateral. He organized a movement against licentious plays, against -luxury, extravagance, ostentatious dress and houses. And when the -exiled princes made an alliance with the Pope, he denounced the crimes -of the Papacy. - -Little by little, a great moral revival swept over Florence and Italy, -a revival that culminated in the coming together of the Florentines in -the public square, where the people threw upon a blazing fire their -vanities, with all the implements of gambling, fraud, and trickery, of -vice and drunkenness. Without being himself an ascetic, without making -any sweeping attack upon pleasure through music or the drama, -Savonarola was an opponent of every form of sensuality, and the gilded -vices that undermine sound morals. He was first of all a preacher, -changing men's lives and, incidentally, stating the reasons for their -personal reformation. Luther changed men's thinking first, and showed -men why this was wrong, and that was right, and therefore wrought -fundamental changes. But Savonarola was less of a thinker and more of -an evangelist. He had all the action of Demosthenes, all the -earnestness of Peter the Hermit, all the voice, the gestures and the -manner of Whitefield. He believed that the inevitable end of sin was -the Inferno of Dante, and therefore his language was full of fire, his -voice full of tears, and he plead with men to flee from Vanity Fair as -Lot fled from Sodom. - -His uncompromising spirit had long since aroused the hatred of -political adversaries as well as of the degraded court of Rome. Even -now, when his authority was at its height, when his fame filled the -land, and the vast cathedral and its precincts lacked space for the -crowds flocking to hear him, his enemies were secretly preparing his -downfall. From the beginning it was plain that Socrates was fighting a -losing battle against the wicked judges of Athens. From the beginning -it must have been plain to Dante that his cunning and insidious foes, -who felt that he alone stood between them and their own enrichment, -would drive him an exile from Florence. And when Savonarola came into -collision with Pope Alexander VI, it was like a bird of paradise -going up against some Gibraltar of granite and steel. - -Pope Alexander's two ambitions were the advancement of his family and -the strengthening of his temporal power. It was Alexander who, knowing -that the Sultan had a rival in the person of the young Prince Djem, -seized the young noble and put him in jail, on condition that forty -thousand ducats yearly should be paid for his jail fee. It was to -Alexander that, later, the Turk sent dispatches offering three hundred -thousand ducats if he would do away with the youth. History has -extenuated many of the crimes of Alexander, but this traffic in murder -for the Turks can never be forgiven. It was Alexander also who made -impossible liberty of the press, by forcing printers to submit their -books to the control of archbishops. It was Alexander who maintained a -harem in the Vatican. It was Alexander whose spies were in every inn, -in every village. His secret agents were in all the audiences of -Savonarola. Alexander looked upon the Prior as a traitor, disloyal and -dangerous to the Papacy. At first he sent agents to Florence, and -offered bribes to Savonarola, asked if he would accept a cardinal's -hat, and invited him to Rome to visit the Vatican. Savonarola -answered by redoubling his attacks. He called Rome a harlot church, -till the Pope ordered his excommunication. And at length, becoming -alarmed for their city, the magistrates of Florence forbade -Savonarola's preaching, and closed the cathedral to his work. - -Retiring to St. Mark's, the great leader wrote letters to the crowned -heads of Europe, and called for a general council. He reviewed the -crimes of which the Pope had been guilty, and the list of vices was -long and black. His letters to various princes were intercepted, and -taken to Alexander. Then agents, with large sums of money, were sent -to Florence to organize a movement to destroy the Prior. Every -conceivable plot was organized against him, but he escaped poison, the -knife, and the assassin's club. His enemies challenged him to the -ordeal by fire, and when he asked that he might be allowed to carry -the crucifix and the sacrament in his hand they withdrew the -challenge. Thrown into prison, the inquisitors subjected him to the -most cruel torture. He was drawn up to the ceiling by a rope fourteen -times, and then suddenly dropped, until muscles, tendons and bones -were all but torn from their sockets. He was denied food and water and -sleep. And finally his reason gave way. Bodily pain so injured and -inflamed the brain that it refused its action. Among his last words -were the words of the dying Saviour, "In thee, O Lord, have I trusted. -Let me never be confounded." - -When he was condemned to the flames, he appealed to the government of -Florence, but the rulers hastened to support the papal decree, and -insisted upon the execution of the sentence. On the morning upon which -he was to die, the great public square in Florence was crowded with -citizens. Multitudes who had wept during his sermons and whose lives -had been changed by his teachings, stood in grief and trepidation -around the funeral pyre, just as the multitudes in Jerusalem stood in -fear about the cross of Christ. In pronouncing the sentence of death, -the bishop of Verona, overwhelmed with fear and confusion, said, "I -separate thee from the Church militant and the Church triumphant." To -which Savonarola answered, "From the Church militant, yes, but from -the Church triumphant, that is not given unto you." The soldiers -pushed the lowest dregs of the city, thieves, drunkards, diseased -criminals, close to his scaffold, and encouraged them to assail him -with vile words and vile deeds. At ten o'clock of the 23d of May, -1498, his enemies achieved his death. Like Elijah he ascended unto -heaven in a chariot of fire. But soon thereafter the guilty leaders of -the Church discovered that his work had just begun. He had aroused the -conscience of the people, who followed Luther in a revolt against the -sale of indulgences that gave the right for the crime and sin. His -assertion of personal liberty put strength into Luther's arm and faith -into the heart of Calvin. Erasmus borrowed from Savonarola his -teachings of reasonableness and light. In exalting the Bible as the -final source of authority, he had enthroned that Book and the -teachings of Jesus above all popes and cardinals and bishops. -Practical men, Galileo, and Bacon, and Erasmus, and Tyndale, borrowed -courage from his life and writings. And to this day the influence of -this preacher, prophet, martyr, is still potent, not alone in Italy, -but throughout the world. - - - - -III - -WILLIAM THE SILENT - -(1533-1584) - -_And Brave Little Holland_ - - -Be the reasons what they may, liberty owes much to little lands and -confined peoples. Go back to any age and continent, place side by side -a little nation and a large one, and if the first has made for liberty -and progress, the second has often made for bondage and superstition. -For the beginnings of morals and religion we go back, not to that -widely extended state named Babylon, but to little Palestine, shut in -between the desert and the deep sea. For the beginnings of art and -culture we go not to the vast, rich plains of Asia Minor, but to that -little rocky land named Greece. For the beginnings of the republic we -go not to the sunny plains of Italy, but to the narrow valleys between -the Alpine Mountains. What great contribution to civilization has -Russia made to the world? But the little Swiss Republic has given us -the international postal system, international arbitration and the -referendum. Commerce owes a great debt to little Venice. Modern -banking owes a great debt to little Scotland. Asia and Africa owe a -great debt to little England. And though Holland was a narrow strip of -land but twenty miles wide and one hundred miles long, yet the world -can never repay the debt it owes to this mother of republics. - -For lovers of liberty the most sacred spot in modern Europe is the -square of the Binnenhof at The Hague. A tablet there records the words -with which William the Silent challenged Philip II--words that were -first made the foundation of the Dutch Republic, words that our -pilgrim fathers took as the basis of their New England institutions. - -"We declare to you that you have no right to interfere with the -conscience of any one so long as he has done nothing to work injury to -another person or public scandal." - -We can never forget that Holland gave the founders of our Republic -their shelter, with safety and leisure for working out their dreams -and visions of self-government. But a full century before the Pilgrim -Fathers set foot in Leyden, Holland had become a shelter to foreign -exiles, and her citizens had pledged themselves to a deathless hatred -of all forms of tyranny. To the cities of Holland had fled those men -who were denied liberty of thought in Paris and Nuremburg. To Holland -had come the victims of oppression in Venice and Florence. It was in -Holland that the great Humanist had lived and died, that scholar and -philosopher Erasmus, who wrought as powerfully for reform in religion -as Huss and Savonarola. It was Erasmus who forged the intellectual -weapons used by Luther in Germany, and Calvin in Geneva. It was -Erasmus who first made a correct text for the Greek Testament. It was -Erasmus who put the Bible into the common languages of Europe. And it -was a group of Dutchmen who first demanded the separation of Church -and State. Two generations before William Bradford gathered his little -band in Leyden, William the Silent stood forth to challenge the divine -right of kings. - -John Ruskin once called attention to the fact that as every great -art-age has been a reaction from an era of unendurable ugliness, so -every movement for liberty has been a reaction precipitated by -unwonted tyranny. Certain it is that as Oliver Cromwell represented a -rebound from feudalism, and Abraham Lincoln a reaction from the -cruelty of slavery, so William the Silent represented a thrilling -protest against the crime of a foreign usurper. His career is as -romantic and many-coloured as the career of David, the fugitive, -fleeing from Saul, or that of Robert Bruce, hiding in caves and dens -from the pursuers who threatened his life. In youth he was the -companion of kings, but he became the champion of the people against -their king, the idol of his followers, and the hero of a lost cause. -Like David, he knew the weariness and painfulness of the exile's lot. -Like Lincoln, he had a face furrowed with anxiety, and fell a victim -to the assassin's bullet. Reared in luxury, the heir to titles and -vast estates, the head of a dynasty, whose blood still flows in the -veins of Europe's rulers, for the cause of liberty he resigned his -rank, that he might serve the poor and oppressed. He was a statesman, -and had the foresight that organizes out of defeat, and is -unconquerable because it never knows when it is defeated. He was a -reformer, and attacked injustice and despotism in an era when of -necessity his labours were fruitless. He was a soldier, and had the -personal daring and the strong arm that count for more than strategic -skill. He was a hero, and though daily the hired poisoners sought -entrance to his palace, and assassins ever dogged his steps upon the -streets, despite the six attempts upon his life, he maintained his -courage and his boundless hope. In an age when society had not yet -doubted the divine right of kings, William of Orange fronted Philip II -with a denial of this citadel of tyranny and injustice, affirmed the -principle that the creed of a nation and the creed of individuals is a -matter of their own choice and their own conscience. - -Our libraries hold no more instructive volumes than Motley's story of -the Netherlands, their rise to material prosperity and their struggle -for liberty under the leadership of this man known as William the -Silent. The tale of their slow growth as a maritime nation is an epic of -indomitable courage in the face of every conceivable form of obstacle. -We see these people for the sake of liberty retreating from the rich -plains of central Europe into the morass that the Roman historian said -was "neither land nor water." With infinite labour they built barriers -and dikes against the North Sea, developed a system of veins and -arteries through which they compelled the ocean to fertilize their -fields, and constructed watery highways for carrying their commerce into -distant lands. At length a region outcast of earth and ocean alike -"wrestled from both domains their richest treasure." Brave cities -floated mermaid-like upon the bosom of the sea. Standing upon the canal -boats, travellers looked down upon cattle grazing below the level of the -ocean, beheld orchards and gardens whose tree-tops scarcely reached the -level of the waves. Unconsciously this race that had struggled so long -and victoriously over storms and seas was educating itself of the -struggle with the still more savage despotism of man. - -With intelligence and enterprise came the development of trade, and in -the fifteenth century the Hollanders became the carriers of the -world's commerce. Their ships and their sailors made their way around -into the Baltic, to the ports of all northern Europe, to the ports of -France and Spain, of Genoa and Naples and Venice, to Constantinople -and Alexandria, and from thence south into all countries and -continents. As bees flitting from orchard to orchard fertilize the -fruit, so these ships passing from port to port and continent to -continent fertilized the minds of men. Returning home they brought -bulbs, roots and seeds that soon made Holland the gayest flower-garden -in Europe and the home of modern floriculture and horticulture. From -the Far East they brought the suggestion of movable types. The -bleached linens, the tapestries and woollen goods of Holland won fame -throughout the world. The homes of her burghers were models of -comfort and even luxury. Small merchants of Amsterdam and Leyden and -Rotterdam became merchant princes. Weavers and spinners of linen and -silk, workers in iron, as well as silver and gold, left the other -lands of Europe and settled in the Dutch seaports. - -In that little strip of land were inclosed 208 walled cities and 6,300 -villages guarded by a belt of sixty fortresses. Little wonder that -Spain looked longingly toward this people and meditated plans for -breaking down its fortresses, subjugating its peoples and transferring -its accumulated treasure from the chests of the burghers to the vaults -of the Spanish dons and cavaliers. And when at length it began to look -as if the scepter of the sea might pass from Spain to Holland, King -Philip and his soldiers, under Bloody Alva, resolved to draw a circle -of fire around little Holland and rob her of the treasure she had so -slowly earned. - -Fully to understand the heroic struggle of the Hollanders under William -of Orange, we must know the immediate cause of the controversy and the -source of the tyranny they opposed. That cause was the Inquisition and -the tyranny was that of Spain's ambitious rulers. At the moment of the -outbreak, Spain was the richest and the most powerful nation in Europe. -Victorious in Africa and Italy, her emperor had carried war into France -and now reigned over Germany as well as those provinces now known as -Belgium and Holland. If we ask from whence Spain derived the money for -these wars of conquest the answer is found in the vast treasure she -acquired in the New World. Prescott tells us that when the Spanish -soldiers captured the capital of Peru, the soldiers spent days in -melting down the golden vessels which they found in the vaults of -temples and palaces. In that era, when the yellow metal was worth so -much, a single ship carried to Spain $15,500,000 in gold, besides vast -treasures of silver and jewels. When Cortez approached the palace of -Montezuma the king's messengers met the general bearing gifts from their -lord. These gifts included 200 pounds (avoirdupois) of gold for the -leader and two pounds of gold for each soldier. The full value of the -treasure that Spain carried from the cities and states of the New World -will, doubtless, never be known. - -But it must be remembered that the Spanish soldiers who went into -Mexico and Peru turned those two countries into a wilderness. For a -full half-century these brutal soldiers, burning with avarice, went -everywhither, looting towns, pillaging cities, butchering the people, -lifting the torch upon cottage and palace alike. The awful anguish and -suffering that Spain wrought upon the helpless people of Mexico and -Peru is one of the bloodiest chapters in history. The eagle pouncing -upon the dove, the panther leaping upon the young fawn, but faintly -interpret to us the savage cruelty of the Spaniard as he raged through -the new world. And when the Spanish ships came home, laden with gold -and silver the Emperor found means to prosecute his plans for military -conquest. Spanish armies were soon marching into northern Italy, into -Austria and Germany, into France and finally into Holland. Flushed -with victory and greedy of Holland's treasures, Philip determined to -punish these people for their refusal to vote supplies to his army, by -establishing there the Inquisition by the sword. - -The Inquisition, that mediæval instrument for the detection of -punishment of disbelievers in the established Church, had existed in -all its horrible malignity for two hundred and fifty years. But it -remained for Philip of Spain to make its name forever a byword and a -hissing in the mouth of history. He had begun by employing it against -the wealthy Jews and Moors, who made up the richest, the most -intelligent and prosperous classes in Spain. During the first few -years after its institution the Spanish population fell from -10,000,000 to 7,000,000. In eighteen years Torquemada burned 10,220 -persons and confiscated the property of 97,321 others. Primarily, the -Inquisition was a machine to search men's secret thoughts. It arrested -on suspicion, "tortured for confession and then punished with fire." -One witness brought a victim to the rack, and two to the flames. - -The trial took place at midnight in a gloomy dungeon dimly lighted by -torches. Lea tells us "the Grand Inquisitor was enveloped in a black -robe with eyes glaring at his victim through holes cut in the hood." -Preparatory to examination, the victim, whether man, maiden or matron, -was stripped and stretched upon a bench, after which all the weights, -pulleys, and screws by which "tendons could be strained without -cracking, bones crushed without breaking, body tortured without dying, -were put into operation." When condemnation was pronounced the tongue -was mutilated so that the victim could neither speak nor swallow. When -the morning came, a breakfast with rare delicacies was placed before -the sufferer and with ironical invitation he was urged to satisfy his -hunger. Then a procession was formed, headed by the magistrates, -prelates and nobility, and the prisoner was led to the public square, -where an address was given, lauding the Inquisition, condemning heresy -and warning the people against want of subjection to the Pope and the -Emperor. Then while hymns were sung, blazing fagots were piled about -the prisoner until his body was reduced to a heap of ashes. - -Such was the devilish institution Philip of Spain determined to set up -in Holland as a means of accomplishing his twofold aim, the punishment -of "disbelievers" and the despoiling of the Dutch burghers' -treasure-chests. Little wonder that even this sturdy folk drew back -from the thought in horror. They were not a people to submit to such -barbarities as they had already proved, by giving shelter to foreign -exiles. When the Inquisition was first inaugurated in Spain, and men -first stretched upon the rack as heretics, Holland had opened her -doors to the fugitives, who fled alike from the wrath of kings and -priests. All over the world, with its darkness and superstition, its -cruelty, its flames, its racks and thumbscrews, men of independent -minds had secretly turned their thoughts toward little Holland, and -their steps toward the seaports where the Dutch merchants bought and -sold the treasures of the sea. So, now, there developed in the -Netherlands a united protest, representing tens of thousands of -people, who deserted the churches ruled by the officials of the -Inquisition. These protestors went into the open air beyond the city -walls where they sang songs, and listened to the preaching of the -reformed ministers. Soon the Roman Catholics under the guidance of the -Spanish army, and the Protestants under William of Orange, stood over -against one another like two castles with cannon shotted to the -muzzle. And finally the storm broke, and the protestors went into the -churches their own hands had built, and covered the floor with rubbish -of broken statues, effigies, and images, cleansing the walls with axe -and hammer and broom, and leaving only the pulpit for the teacher, and -the plain pews for the worshippers. - -The spark which finally set aflame the powder-magazine of men's hearts -was the entrance into Holland, in 1567, of the Duke of Alva, at the -head of twenty thousand of Spain's finest troops. Bloody Alva was the -most accomplished and capable general in Europe. He had been -victorious in campaigns in Africa, Italy, France and Germany. He has -been called the most bloodthirsty man who ever led troops to battle, -and he was sent to Holland to satiate his wolfish instincts. His army -included 6,000 horsemen, notorious for the cruelty with which they had -butchered their captives in the Italian campaigns. Alva promised to -turn these human wolves loose upon the sheep of Holland. Having -arrived in Antwerp and established himself in the citadel, his first -act was to organize the "Bloody Council." This monster, whose cruelty -was never equalled by any savage beast, announced that if in the Roman -era the Emperor contented himself with the heads of a few leaders, -leaving the multitude in safety, _he_ would order the death of the -multitude, naming a few who were to be permitted to live. Soon the -streets were filled with dead bodies. Not content with hanging, -burning, and beheading the leaders, Alva hung the corpses beside the -road as a warning against free-thinking. - -In seven brief years this man brought charges of heresy, treason and -insubordination against 30,000 inhabitants. He boasted that he had -executed 18,600, while the number of those who had perished by battle, -siege, starvation and butchery defied all computation. And the more -the people rebelled, the more cruel were the methods he devised to -torment them. To the gallows he added the stake and the sword. Men -were beheaded, roasted before slow fires, pitched to death with hot -tongs, broken on the wheel, flayed alive. On one occasion the skins of -leaders were stripped from the living bodies and stretched upon drums -for beating at the funeral march of their brethren to the gallows. The -barbarities committed during the sacking of starving villages, Motley -tells us are beyond belief. "Unborn infants were torn from the living -bodies of their mothers; women and children were violated by -thousands; whole populations burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers, -and every mode which cruelty in its wanton ingenuity could desire." - -Such was the administration of the man of whom it was said: "He -possessed no virtues, while the few vices he had were colossal." To -Philip, Bloody Alva explained his failure to subdue the Hollanders by -the statement that his "rule had been too merciful." - -Over against this human monster, with his implacable hatreds and his -bestial cruelties, stands William of Orange, the champion of liberty -and the saviour of the Netherlands. By a strange coincidence, the -first vivid picture we have of this prince who gave up a life of ease -and luxury to defend the rights of his fellow men, is the scene at the -abdication of Charles V, when, in the presence of a great multitude at -Brussels, that ruler turned over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to -his son, young Philip II of Spain. William of Orange was then a youth -of twenty-two, a stadtholder, or imperial governor, of three rich -provinces, and the commander of the official army on the French -frontier. - -"Arrayed in armour inlaid with gold," says the historian, "with a -steel helmet under his left arm, he looked the picture of noble -manhood." Beside him, as he fronted the assemblage, stood young -Philip, a youth of twenty-eight, dressed in velvet and gold, but -physically ill-shapen and already an object of dislike and distrust. -Impressive indeed the contrast between these two young men, destined -in a few short years to be pitted against each other like gladiators -in the long struggle for liberty. "The one had a genius for -government, the other possessed a talent for misgovernment. William of -Orange had a passion for toleration; Philip II had a passion for -crushing every form of toleration." Sovereign at twenty-eight, Philip -was already a prey to that consuming ambition which, with his fierce -bigotry, was soon to win him universal hatred. - -How different this young prince William, with his godlike physique, -his perfect balance of heart and intellect, his conscience that could -not endure the thought of tyranny. Little wonder that men loved him. -In person most elegant, in manners most accomplished, he had been -educated by his mother, Juliana of Stolberg, a woman of rare abilities -and deeply religious character. As a _grand seigneur_, with great -estates and a brilliant retinue, he had known every temptation of -wealth and luxury. But neither the flattery of his friends nor the -adulation of his followers had sapped his manhood. He was already a -seasoned soldier, and almost at once he was to win fame as a -diplomatist. We see him serving at the head of his troops throughout -one more campaign; then, at the age of twenty-six, acting as one of -the three plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. Sent to -France as hostage for the fulfillment of this treaty, we find him the -cynosure of all men's eyes at the greatest and most brilliant court of -the day. Little here to warn those arch-plotters, Henry of France and -Philip of Spain, that he was soon to become their deadliest foe. Yet -already he was meditating rebellion against the horrors they were -planning. And soon he was to give up all thoughts of court -distinction, and go forth to organize peasants and rebels into an -army, besieging his own castle in the cause of liberty. - -It was while he was still at the French court that the incident took -place which gave him his title of William the Silent. The peace -between Henry and Philip had just been concluded, with one purpose in -view as advised by cardinals and priests. "Both sovereigns were to -massacre the Protestants in their dominions, and in the Netherlands -the Spanish troops were to be employed for this special purpose." The -Duke of Alva was in the secret, and King Henry supposed that William -of Orange was also. One day while hunting, with William riding at his -side, Henry of France unfolded the horrible scheme. The young prince -heard him without a word. He had not been told of the project, but he -betrayed his ignorance by no sign of speech or gesture. Henry assumed -that he approved of the awful butchery. No man was ever more -grievously in error. From that moment William of Orange knew that his -call had come, from that hour he meditated his withdrawal from the -political parties of the guilty leaders. And when at length the martyr -fires were kindled in Holland, and the Inquisition, under Bloody -Alva, began its hellish tasks of "Church discipline" William of Orange -sold his plate and jewels, abandoned the great estates he had -inherited, and throwing in his lot with the common people, went to the -defense of the Netherlands in the struggle for liberty of thought. - -William had already intervened, at the risk of his life, on more than -one occasion of strife and bloodshed. But the harshness with which the -laws against heretics were now carried out, the presence of Spanish -troops, the filling up of ministerial offices by Spaniards and other -foreigners was stirring the whole country, and presently his own son, -studying at the University of Louvain, was seized and carried off to -Spain. William himself was outlawed and his property confiscated. -Finding that he had been for years the real head of the movement for -liberty, Alva, as Governor-General, now set a price upon his head. It -was the darkest hour of the long struggle. In constant danger of -assassination, in constant fear of betrayal, unable to convince his -own people that the contest could never be won, William wandered from -place to place, a fugitive and an exile. - -But he never once lost heart or capitulated to despair. In that hour -he seemed to have the strength of ten. He was at once general, -statesman, diplomat, financier and saviour of his people. Like David, -he went through the forest collecting outlaws and men who had -grievances; he organized a score of bands to prey upon the Spanish -army; he developed a system of secret service by which he kept spies -in Alva's citadel and informed his people of the enemy plans. He -raised a little army--saw it defeated--raised another, and saw the -crafty Alva refuse to fight until he was forced to allow it to -disband. In seven years he organized four such armies, only to be -overwhelmed again and again by force of numbers. With peasants armed -with pikes and pistols he fought veterans who had guns, cannons and -6,000 horses. Attempt after attempt was a failure, but he would not -confess defeat. When all seemed lost, he wrote to his brother, "With -God's help, I am determined to go on." And at length, in the face of -defeat on land, he turned to the sea and, organizing his little fleet -of "Beggars," became a terror to the Spanish galleons. - -Fascinating the story of how this term, "the Beggars," came to be the -watchword of the Hollanders' revolt. One day when the clouds were at -their blackest, the nobles of Brussels rode in a body to the Duchess -Margaret to beseech the withdrawal of the Spanish troops. They came -plainly dressed and unarmed, and marching four abreast into the -council chamber, petitioned her to suspend the Inquisition. While -Margaret, deeply touched, shed tears over the piteous appeal, one of -her counsellors, named Berlaymont, spoke scornfully of the petitioners -as "a troop of beggars." The dropping of that single word was like the -dropping of a spark into a powder-magazine. That night a banquet was -held, with three hundred nobles present, and "Long live the Beggars!" -rose on every side. Born of a jibe, the name "Beggars" caught the -imagination of the people; the revolt spread like wild-fire, and -henceforth the phrase became a battle-cry, which was to ring out on -every bloody field of the long struggle. - -But the battle was only begun. Though the spring of 1572 brought hope, -the hope was quickly dashed by the news of the terrible massacre of -St. Bartholomew in France. Charles IX had aligned himself with Philip -of Spain and was seeking to exterminate the Protestants. And Bloody -Alva now redoubled his cruelties in Holland. With incredible ferocity, -he attacked and captured the city of Naarden, butchering every man, -woman, and child, and razing every building to the ground. Haarlem -was next marked for destruction. The garrison, numbering less than two -thousand men, was reinforced by Catherine van Hasselaar and her corps -of three hundred women, who handled spade and pick, hot water and -blazing hoops of tar during the assaults. Alkmaar came next. Sixteen -thousand Spaniards under Don Frederic, Alva's son, began the siege, -expecting the town to fall as Haarlem had. But the hated foreigners -were met in the breaches by women, boys and girls, who fought with -pick, stones, fire and hot water for a full month. - -When the brutal Spanish troops threatened to beat the patriots down by -sheer force of numbers, the peasants cut their dikes, flooded their -own fields and homes and renewed the attack upon the Spaniards from -the branches of their orchards and the tops of their houses. Clinging -to the dikes by their finger-tips, these people fought their way back -into the marshes, where the ground was more solid beneath their feet. -No pen can describe and no brush can paint the scenes of this and the -other sieges that followed. The history of heroism holds no more -impressive spectacle than the sight of these patriots who, in the hour -when the siege was suddenly lifted, left their dead in the streets -and went staggering toward the church to give thanks to God and swear -anew their hatred of tyranny before their lips had even tasted bread. - -The struggle went on for a score of years. Driven out of their homes, -with no shelter of tent or stable, fleeing constantly from the enemy, -hiding under the slough grass and digging holes in the frozen sand, -the patriots perished by the thousands. In winter, when the frost was -bitter, and Alva looked out upon ice on every side, he ordered -thousands of pairs of skates, that his men might the more easily hunt -down the fugitives. At the climax of the struggle William the Silent, -worn with excessive labours, his health undermined by weeks and months -spent in the swamps and in the dikes, was stricken with fever and all -but died. When the illness was at its height and he was only a -skeleton, too weak to hold his pen in his hand, able only to whisper -dispatches to his messengers, came the news that Leyden, already -besieged for months, and now plague-stricken, was about to surrender. - -The Spaniards were determined to win this defiant city, for it was the -very heart of Holland and the most beautiful city in the Netherlands. -It lay below the level of the ocean, protected by great dikes, and -its canals, shaded on either side by lime trees, poplars, and -willows, were crossed by one hundred and forty-five bridges. Its -houses were beautiful, its public square spacious, its churches -imposing. The Spanish commander had built sixty-six forts around the -city and so severe was the blockade that no succour by land was -possible. There were no troops in the town, save a small corps of -freebooters and five companies of the burgher guards. "The sole -reliance of the city was on the stout hearts of its inhabitants within -the walls, and on the sleepless energy of William the Silent without." -William, assuring them of deliverance, had implored them to hold out -at least three months, and they had "relied on his calm and -unflinching soul as on a rock of adamant." They were unaware of his -illness, for he had said nothing of it in his messages, knowing that -it would cast a deeper shadow on the city. - -When the word reached him that the besieged could hold out no longer, -he decided once more to call in the aid of the sea. Leyden lay fifteen -miles from the ocean, but the ocean could be brought to Leyden, and -though he had no army with which to overwhelm the besiegers he still -had his veteran "Beggars" and a tiny fleet of vessels. He determined -to sacrifice the neighbouring countryside, with its houses and -villages, its fields and flocks, if only he might save the heroic city -and its defenders. On a day in August, the great sluices were opened -and the ocean began to pour in over the land. While he still lay -desperately ill, waiting for the rising of the waters, his agents were -busy assembling a fleet of flat-bottomed boats laden with herring and -bread for the starving people. - -Meanwhile, within the city all was silence and death. Pestilence -stalked everywhere and the inhabitants fell like grass beneath the -scythe. The only communication was by carrier pigeons, and only the -messages from William kept up the hearts of the defenders. The scenes -of tragedy within the walls are not to be described. And by a stroke -of evil fate the wind, blowing steadily in the wrong direction, -delayed the rising of the waters. - -Even in its despair, the city was sublime. At the climax of its -sufferings, a committee waited on the burgomaster to advise surrender. -He was a tall, haggard, imposing figure, with dark visage and -commanding eyes. He waved his broad-leafed hat for silence, and then, -to use Motley's words, gave answer, "What would ye, my friends, why -do ye murmur, that we do not break our vows, and surrender the city -to the Spaniards--a fate more terrible than the agony which she now -endures? I tell you I have made an oath before the city, and may God -give me strength to keep my oath! I can die but once; whether by your -hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent -to me; not so that of the city entrusted to my care. I know that I -shall starve, if not soon relieved, but starvation is preferable to -the dishonourable death which is the only alternative. Your menaces -move me not; my life is at your disposal; here is my sword, plunge it -into my breast; and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease -your hunger, but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive." - -Then came a gale from the northwest, and when the waters were piled up -in huge waves, the ocean swept across the ruined dikes. The flotilla -of the "Beggars," that had waited outside, unable to advance, a -painted fleet upon a painted ocean, now surged forward in a wild rush -to save the city. Spaniards by the hundreds sank beneath the deepening -and treacherous flood. The fortress of Alva was destroyed. At midnight -the enemy deserted their redoubts and fled, and at daybreak the ships -of William the Silent came through the canals. Soldiers threw bread to -the starving citizens, and two hours later every living person who -could walk made his way to the church to sing a hymn of deliverance, -during which the multitude broke down and wept like children. The day -following, the wind shifted to the east, and blew a tempest. "It was," -says the historian, "as if the waters having done their work of -redemption, had been rolled back by an omnipotent hand, and when four -days had passed the land was bare again, and the reconstruction of the -dikes well advanced." - -Such was the spirit of William the Silent, and his followers. The -eventual outcome was inevitable. At length the Spaniards came to see -that victory could be bought at one price and one price -alone--extermination. From Spain came overtures to William of Orange. -His reply is historic: "Peace only upon three conditions: (1) Freedom -of worship, (2) A land dedicated to liberty, (3) All Spaniards in -civil and military employment to be withdrawn forever." In April, -1576, an act of Union was agreed and signed at Delft, by which supreme -authority was conferred upon him. In September of that year William -entered Brussels in triumph, as the acknowledged leader of all the -Netherlands, Catholic and Protestant alike. And at length, at Utrecht, -a federal republic was established, with a written constitution--that -republic which was to exist for two hundred years under the motto "by -concord little things become great." William's struggle was over and -the battle won. - -But, all unconsciously, the architect of the new republic was moving -toward his end. Like Moses, if he had led the people out of the -wilderness it was not given him to see the promised land. For years -his steps had been dogged by hired assassins. There had scarcely been -an hour during his long warfare when bribes and gold were not offered -for his death. It was a miracle that he had escaped the dagger, the -club and the cup of poison. He was now fifty-one years of age. His -portraits exhibit him as a man whose lips were locked with iron, whose -face was furrowed with care, his look alert and strained, his air that -"of a man at bay, having staked his life and life's work." And yet he -was one of the most charming of companions, brilliant of address, of -so winning a manner that it was said "every time he took off his hat -he won a subject from the King of Spain." - -One morning, while writing at his desk, a young Spaniard who had -forged the seals obtained access to the Prince's writing room. Because -he had been searched by the guard the visitor was without weapon. But -having delivered his forged letter, he asked the Prince for a Bible -and the loan of a few crowns. He received a gift of twelve pieces of -silver, and went into the courtyard, where, with the Prince's own -money, he purchased a pistol from the guard. Thence he returned to -find a hiding place in the dark passageway, and to empty three shots -into the Prince's breast. - -With the death of William the Silent the Netherlands lost their -noblest hero, their most sublime patriot, and one of the greatest -leaders of all time. Few are the names worthy to be ranked with that -of this Prince of the blood who gave his wealth, his strength and -finally his life for the cause of liberty. Ruling with a strong hand, -he was not a despot; brave, he was not reckless; giant, he was also -gentle; warring against the Inquisition, with its thumbscrews and -fagots, he held himself back from bloodthirstiness and revenge. The -victim of every kind of attack that hate could devise or malignity -invent, he never degraded himself by meeting hate with hate or crime -with crime. When the long struggle for liberty which he began was -brought to an issue, Spain had buried 350,000 of her sons and allies -in Holland, spent untold millions for the destroying of freedom, and -sunk from the ranks of the first power in Europe to the level of a -fourth-rate country--stagnant in ideas, cruel in government, -superstitious in religion. But brave little Holland had emerged to -serve forever as a rock against tyranny and a refuge from oppression. - - - - -IV - -OLIVER CROMWELL - -(1599-1658) - -_And the Rise of Democracy in England_ - - -Society's ingratitude to its heroes and leaders is proverbial. Earth's -bravest souls have been misunderstood in youth, maligned in manhood -and neglected in old age. The fathers slay the prophets, the children -build the sepulchres, and the grandchildren wear deeply the path the -heroes trod. History teems with illustrations of this principle. -Socrates is the wisest prophet, the noblest teacher, the truest -citizen and patriot that Athens ever had, and Athens rewards him with -a cup of poison. In a critical hour Savonarola saves the liberty of -his city, and Florence burns him in the market-place. Cervantes writes -the only world-wide thing in Spanish literature, and for an abiding -place Spain rewards him, not with a mansion, but with a blanket in a -dungeon, feeds him, not upon the apples of Paradise, but on the apples -of Sodom, and gives him to drink, not the nectar of the gods, but -vinegar mingled with gall. - -Next to the Bible in influence upon English literature comes the -_Pilgrim's Progress_. England kept John Bunyan in jail at Bedford for -twelve years, as his reward. For some reason, nations reserve their -wreaths of recognition until the heart is broken, until hope is dead, -and the ambitions are in heaven. The history of the other great -leaders, therefore, leads us to expect that the greatest, because the -most typical, Englishman of all time, shall be unique in his obloquy -and shame, as he was signal in his supreme gifts. During his life the -very skies rained lies and cruel taunts; in his death the mildewed -lips of slander took up new falsehoods. In the grave the very dust of -this hero furnished a sure foundation for the temple of liberty, but -his grave was despoiled. With pomp and pageantry Charles the Second -ordered his bones to be exhumed, and the skeleton hung between thieves -at Tyburn to satisfy his hatred. For twelve years Cromwell's skull was -elevated upon a pole above Westminster Hall, where it stood exposed to -the rains of twelve summers and the snows of twelve winters. - -And now that two hundred and fifty years have passed away, these -centuries have not availed for extinguishing the fires of hatred and -controversy, or for doing justice to the memory of this man, Oliver -Cromwell, God's appointed king. - -We would naturally expect that time would have availed to clear the -name and fame of Cromwell and to secure for him the recognition that -his achievements deserve. But it was hard for some royalists to -forgive this man who turned his hand against the sacred person of the -King. For nearly three centuries the conflict has raged. The royal -historians count Cromwell the greatest hypocrite in history, the -trickster, the regicide, the political Judas of all time. For a -hundred years after his death, no man was found brave enough to -mention the name of Oliver Cromwell in Windsor Castle or the House of -Lords. England's Abbey has made a place for the statues of that -one-talent general, Burgoyne, whose chief business was to surrender -his troops to our colonial soldiers, but the Abbey has no niche for a -bust of the only English general who ranks with the great soldiers of -history--Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Grant, and now Foch--these six -and no more. - -The British Houses of Parliament are crowded with statues of -politicians who gave the people what they wanted, and some statesmen -who gave the people what they ought to have. And there, too, are found -the busts of kings and queens, Bloody Mary, contemptible John, those -little feeblings and parasites named the Georges. But low down and -bespattered with mud she has written the name of her greatest monarch, -and the most powerful ruler that ever sat upon a throne. - -Not until Carlyle came forward did the cloud of slander begin to lift. -When the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Cromwell was -celebrated, Great Britain awakened to the fact that too little -recognition had been given to the great reformer whose career was one -of the marvels of English history. The measure of a nation's greatness -is the kind of man it admires. To-day, it is of little consequence -what we think of Cromwell, but it is of the first importance that -Cromwell should approve the leaders of our world-capitals. Only in the -last generation has the tide turned, and the reaction begun to set in. -John Morley, busied with his biography of Gladstone, took time to -write a history of the man whom he calls the maker of English history. -Professor Gardiner asserts that England has done injustice to Cromwell -and that the time has come for her to right a great wrong. All the -world has at last begun to recognise the fact that the farmer of -Huntingdon was an uncrowned king, ruling of his own natural right. - -The world's ingratitude to Cromwell becomes the more striking when we -remember what he did for Great Britain, for her people, to right the -wrongs of her poor, to found her free institutions and to give her a -place among the nations of the earth. Oliver Cromwell found England -almost next to nothing in the scale of European politics. France -pitied poor little England, and Spain, the one world-wide force of the -time, despised her. He found her people a group of quarrelling sects, -divided, hostile and full of hate. Her soil was scored with countless -insurrections; her commerce was dead; her navy was so miserably weak -that pirates sailed up the Thames, dropped anchor in the night in -front of Westminster Hall, and flung defiance to the frightened -merchants. In a single year, three thousand Englishmen were impressed -by these pirates and sold in the slave markets of Algiers, -Constantinople and the West Indies. He found the king a tyrant, who -one day made the boast that he had brought every man who had opposed -his will to the Tower or the scaffold. He found Parliament saying, "We -have struggled for twenty years, and every attempt has ended with a -halter, and it is better to endure a present ill than flee to others -that we know not of." - -And in the very darkest hour of England's history, this farmer flung -himself into the breach and besought his countrymen to unite in one -supreme effort to achieve liberty for the common people. For forty -years he had been a plain country gentleman, content with his farm; -ten years later he was "the most famous military captain in Europe, -the greatest man in England, and the wisest ruler England ever had." -He lived to hold the destinies of his country in his hands, to -enthrone justice and toleration over a great part of Europe, received -overtures for alliances from many kings, and died in the royal palace -at Whitehall, and was buried amid the lamentations of many who had -been his bitter enemies. - -Cromwell's greatness stirs our sense of wonder the more, because he -accomplished what others had sought to achieve and failed. Balfour or -Lloyd George trained for years to his task, is like one who stands in -the midst of an arsenal, protected by walls and battlements, and -served by cannon and machine guns. To employ Carlyle's expressive -figure, a dwarf who stands with a match before a cannon can beat down -a stronghold, but he must be a giant indeed who can capture an armed -fortress with naked fists, as did Oliver Cromwell. He lived in an age -of great men. The era of Shakespeare, of Marlowe, Jonson and Bacon was -closing. It was the era of John Pym, called "The Old Man Eloquent." It -was the era of Hampden, the patrician, the orator and hero. It was the -time of Sir Harry Vane, the distinguished gentleman who came to Boston -to be made ruler of that new city, and whom Wendell Phillips called -the noblest patriot that ever walked the streets of the new capital. -Coke was on the bench, meditating his decisions, while Lyttleton was -perfecting his interpretations of the Constitution. John Milton was -making his plea for the liberty of the press. Owen and Sherlock and -Howe were in the pulpits. - -These were among the bravest spirits that have ever stood upon our -earth. All hated tyranny, and all loved liberty. All sought to -overthrow the rule of the despot and yet, when all had done their -best, England was sold like a slave in the market-place. It was the -farmer of Huntingdon who, in that critical hour, came forward and -showed himself equal to the emergency. It was this country gentleman, -without political experience, this general who became a statesman -without the discipline of statecraft, who became the shepherd of his -people and overthrew that citadel of iniquity called the Divine Right -of Kings; who rid England of her pirates, developed a great commerce, -built up the most powerful navy that then sailed the sea--a possession -England has never lost--corrected the code, rectified the -Constitution, laid the foundation for the present Bill of Rights. This -is why John Morley asks us to study carefully the lineaments of this -man whose body England, to her undying shame, and in the days of her -dishonour, hung in chains at Tyburn. - -If we are to understand Cromwell's character and career and his place -among the world's leaders, we must recall his age and time and the -England of that far-off day, when he wrought his work and dipped his -sword in heaven. What of the religious condition of England in the era -of intolerance, when the prophet of God was anointed with the ointment -of war, black and sulphurous? It is the year 1630, and Cromwell is -still in his early manhood. One bright morning, with St. Paul's to his -back, Cromwell entered Ludgate Circus. In the midst of the circus -stood a scaffold and around it was a great throng, crowding and -pressing toward the place of torture. At the foot of the scaffold was -a venerable scholar, his white hair flowing upon his shoulders, a man -of stainless character and spotless life, renowned for his devotion, -eloquence and patriotism. When the executioner led the aged pastor up -the steps, the soldiers tore off his garments. He was whipped until -blood ran in streams down his back, both nostrils were slit and his -ears cropped off, hot irons were brought and two letters, "S-S"--sower -of sedition--were burned into his forehead. - -What crime had this pastor committed? Perhaps he had lifted a -firebrand upon the King's palace; perhaps he had organized some foul -gunpowder plot to overthrow the throne itself. Perhaps he had been -guilty of treason, or some foul and nameless sin against the State. -Not so. The reading of the decision of the judge and the decree of the -punishment made clear the truth. It seemed that a fortnight before, -the aged pastor had been commanded to give up his extempore prayers -and the singing of the Psalms, and had been commanded to read the -written prayers and sing the hymns prescribed by the state Church. But -the gentle scholar had disregarded the command, and on the following -Sunday walked in the ways familiar and dear to him by reason of long -association. He had dared to sing the same old Psalms and lift his -heart to God in extempore prayer, after the manner of his fathers. -And when the executioner announced that on the following Saturday at -high noon the old scholar would be brought a second time into Ludgate -Circus, and there scourged before the people, the cloud upon Oliver -Cromwell's brow was black as the thunder-storm that stands upon the -western sky, black and vociferous with thunder. Kings, the head of the -Church of Jesus Christ! - -Two hundred years later, Abraham Lincoln, standing in the market-place -of New Orleans, was to see a coloured child torn from its mother's -arms, held by the auctioneer upon the block and sold to the highest -bidder. With a lump in his throat, Abraham Lincoln turned to his -brother and said: "If the time ever comes when I can strike, I will -hit slavery as hard a blow as I can." And when Cromwell turned away -from that scene in Ludgate Circus he went home to dream about the era -of toleration and liberty and charity, and registered a vow to strike, -when the time came, the hardest blow he could against the citadel of -intolerance and bigotry on the part of the Church. - -But political England was as dark and troublesome as the religious -world of that day. One of the noblest men of the time was Sir John -Eliot. He was the child of wealth and opportunity. The university had -lent him culture, travel had lent breadth, and leisure had given him -the opportunity to grow wise and ripe. His nature was singularly lofty -and devout, his temper ardent and chivalric. His one ambition was to -serve his mother country. A vice-admiral, he was given power to defend -the commerce of the country and overthrow the pirates. After many -attempts, by a clever but dangerous maneuver he entrapped the king of -the pirates, Nutt, who had taken one hundred and twenty English ships -and sold the sailors in the slave market of Algiers and Tripoli. But -King Charles freed the pirate, and punished the vice-admiral by four -months' imprisonment, for he had taken bribes against his own sailors. - -When Sir John Eliot had been released, he charged the King with -complicity in a crime. For reply the King levied an illegal fine. Sir -John Eliot was rich, and he might have bought immunity. In his home -dwelt a beautiful wife and little children, and with flight he might -have escaped his prison. His wealth would have enabled him to live -abroad in ease, but he preferred to stay at home and die in London -Tower for principle. And no martyr, going to his stake, no hero, -falling at the head of a battle line, ever did a nobler thing than -Sir John Eliot, when he refused to pay his fine and preferred death to -enjoying the pleasures of expediency for a season. For three years the -hero bore his imprisonment and endured the tortures of confinement. -The rigours of the Tower could not break his dauntless spirit. One day -he found blood upon his handkerchief. Fearing that death was near, he -sent a request to the royal palace. "A little more air, your majesty, -that I may gain strength to die in!" But John Eliot had thwarted the -King's policy, and Charles carried his vindictiveness even to death. -"Not humble enough," was the King's reply. Blows cannot break the -will, waters cannot drown the will, flames cannot consume the will, -and in the hour of Eliot's death, Charles knew that his opponent had -conquered. One day John Eliot's son petitioned the King that he might -carry his father's remains to Cornwall to lie with those of his -ancestors. Charles wrote on the petition: "Let Sir John Eliot's body -be buried in the parish where he died, and his ashes lie unmarked in -the Chapel of the Tower." - -But the social England of the era of Cromwell is a darker picture -still. If our age is the era of the rise and reign of the common -people, that was an age when the middle-class was as yet almost -unknown. Feudalism still survived. There were the plebeians on the one -hand, and the patrician class on the other. Theoretically the King -owned the land, and the lords and gentlemen were agents under him. -Kenilworth Castle and its lord stand for the social England of that -day. My lord dwelt in a castle--the people dwelt in mud huts. He wore -purple and fine linen--his people wore coats of sheepskin, slept on -beds of straw, ate black bread, knew sorrow by day and misery by -night. Did a farmer sow a field and reap the harvest? Every third -shock belonged to the lord of the castle. Did the husbandman drive his -flocks afield? In the autumn, every third sheep and bullock belonged -to my lord. Was the grain ripe in the field? If the peasant owed -twenty days' labour without return at the time of sowing to my lord, -he had to give ten days more to the lord of the castle in the time of -the harvest. Again without recompense. And so it generally came about -that for want of proper time to plough and plant and for opportunity -of reaping in the hour when his grain was ripe, the serf fronted the -winter with an empty granary, and the cry of his children was -exceeding bitter. - -There were few bridges across the streams, there was no glass in the -farmer's window, not one in a thousand owned a book, sanitation was -almost unknown, every other babe died in infancy; if the upper classes -came out of the Black Death almost unscathed, about a third of the -peasant class was swept off by that scourge, which the physicians now -know was caused by insufficient food and decayed grain. It was an era -of ignorance and brutality among the poor, an era of snobs and of -criminals. Cromwell found a hundred laws upon the English statute -books that involve hanging for petty infringements against the rights -of the King. He found woman a chattel and one day saw a man sell his -wife in the market-place and beheld the purchaser lead the girl off in -a halter. When the traveller rode up to London, he passed between a -line of gibbets, where corpses hung rotting in chains. Highwaymen rode -even into London, at nightfall, and tied their horses in Hyde Park, -robbed people in the streets, broke into stores and rode away -unmolested. One advertisement read thus: "For sale, a negro boy, aged -eleven years. Inquire at the Coffee House, Threadneedle Street, behind -the Royal Exchange." - -Drunkenness and gambling were all but universal. One Secretary of -State was notorious as the greatest drunkard and the most unlucky -gambler of his era. A Prime Minister was allowed to appear at the -opera house with his mistress, and was esteemed the finest public man -of his century. We are face to face with corruption in politics, -incompetence in council and paganism in religion. To-day a member of -the Cabinet who would use his private information for purposes of -gambling in Wall Street would be instantly ruined. But in that era, -the King and his courtiers filled their coffers by such methods -without any criticism. - -In such an era, Cromwell saw that there was no hope for England until -there was a middle class. He determined to destroy the castles that -offered shelter to the princes who had spoiled and robbed and outraged -the poor, who had no defense to which they could flee when they had -outraged the law. It has often been said that he was an iconoclast; in -razing the castles of England to the ground and overthrowing the -strongholds he was the greatest criminal of his age; but if he loved the -castles and architecture less, it was because he loved the poor more. He -levelled stones down that he might have a foundation upon which the poor -could climb up, and thereby he destroyed the strongholds of feudalism -and laid the foundations of the Bill of Rights of 1832, and was the -forerunner of our own Washington and Lincoln. - -Who is this King Charles who stands for the old order, and who is the -great representative of the doctrine of the divine right of kings? He -was a grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots, who, in fleeing from Scotland, -seized the hand of Lord Lindsay, her foe, and holding it aloft in her -grasp swore by it, "I will have your head for this, so I assure you." -His father was James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland, who -had some gifts and also virtues, but who after all was simply an -animated stomach, carried far by a handful of intellectual faculties. -That Charles the First had qualities denied to his father all must -confess. He was gifted with a certain taste for pictures, he had some -imagination, and loved good literature. During his imprisonment he -read Tasso, Spenser's _Faerie Queen_, and, above all, Shakespeare. He -was methodical and decorous, but his favourite essay was Bacon's -"Essay on Simulation and Dissimulation." As a diplomat he believed -that Machiavelli's _Prince_ was the ideal to be followed, in that -truth is so precious a quantity that it ought not to be wasted on the -common people. He was not renowned for chivalry or a sense of -gratitude. Witness his foul desertion of Strafford in the hour when -Strafford exclaimed: "Put not your trust in princes!" - -Again and again, through his selfishness, he spoiled his people. To -obtain money he sold to one of his favourites the exclusive right to -use sedan chairs in London, and put chains across the streets and made -it a criminal offense for a gentleman to drive his coach into the -limits of the city. He taxed the shoes the people wore, the salt they -ate, the beds on which they slept, and the very windows through which -the light came. He hired spies to make out a list of merchants who had -an income of more than £2,000 a year and by indirect blackmail -obtained money therefrom. When the Black Death broke out, and the -streets of London were piled with corpses, and the committee of relief -asked for public subscriptions, Charles the First fled to Hampton -Court and made no subscription, large or small, to the relief fund. - -And how did he amuse himself during those days when every house in -London was left desolate? In his far-off palace, surrounded by guards, -beyond whom no messenger could pass, Charles the First sat, surrounded -by his court. He sent to Amsterdam for jewellers and paid £10,400 for -a necklace. He paid £8,000 for a gold collar for himself, and £10,000 -for a diamond ring for the Queen. On the ground that Parliament had -not imposed taxes sufficient for his expenses, he made a tax -proclamation for himself. Then Parliament, led by Pym and Hampden and -Eliot, brought in a bill of remonstrance. They assumed that the King -ruled under preëxisting laws. They declared that if Charles refused to -call a Parliament and arrogated its power to himself, twelve peers -might call a Parliament, and if this failed, the citizens might come -together through a committee and elect their representatives. - -But the King was consumed with egotism and vanity. He sent orders to -Parliament to deliver to him the five leaders who stood for the -liberties of the people, and with a mob of soldiers he entered the -House of Commons to seize Hampden and Pym. But the House refused to -give up its members, and helped them to escape through one of the -windows, and the next day it brought them back in a triumphal -procession. Returning to his palace, the King found the streets -crowded with people, silent, sullen, dark with anger. He heard threats -and growls from every side. One prophet of righteousness called out, -"To your tents, O Israel!" Suddenly Charles the First realized that -his people, driven to bay, had at last bestirred themselves, and, -fearing he might be driven into a corner, his cheek went white as -marble. That night, conscious of his danger, he fled to Hampton Court, -while the whole city applauded the five leaders who had escaped the -snare. He had furnished the dynamite to blow up his throne. The -people, represented by Parliament, stood over against the peers, -represented by the King, as enemies. It was "either your neck, or my -neck," and when a few weeks passed, there began the era of civil war, -with blazing towns and castles and strongholds. "Whom the gods would -destroy, they first make mad." - -But who is the man who shall do for England what Savonarola did for -Florence, and Luther for Germany, and William Tell for Switzerland, -and Washington and Lincoln for our own country? Oliver Cromwell was of -Celtic stock and noble family. It is a singular coincidence that he -was a ninth cousin of that Charles whose death warrant he was to sign; -that seventeen of his relatives were in Parliament to sign the Great -Remonstrance, and that ten of his blood-relatives joined with him in -signing the death warrant of the King. Cromwell was sixteen years of -age, and enrolled himself as a student at Cambridge on the very day -that great Shakespeare died in Stratford. The greatest thing England -ever did in literature ended on the day when perhaps the greatest -thing she did in action began. John Milton said that Cromwell nursed -his great soul in silence and solitude. He was but a child when the -news of the Gunpowder Plot filled his father's house with excitement. -He was but a child when a dispatch was laid in his father's hands -announcing the death of Henry of Navarre, the founder of Protestantism -in France. From boyhood he loved the story of the brave and gallant -Sir Walter Raleigh, and the announcement that he was to be executed to -please the King of Spain filled him with tumultuous indignation. - -In appearance he was above medium stature, built like Daniel Webster -and Brougham and Beecher, with great, beautiful head, bronzed face, -heavy, projecting eyebrows, large forehead, two eyes burning like -flames of fire beneath the overhanging cliffs. He was of sandy -complexion, like Alexander and Napoleon. But if he were thick set, he -was of finely compacted fiber, and this man, who was to deal a -crushing blow at Marston Moor, and sign the King's death warrant and -"grasp the scepter of a throne" and raze to the ground the citadels -of iniquity, the old strong castles of feudalism, was also strong -enough to lift little England with her six millions to a level with -the thirty millions of mighty Spain. Not until he was forty years of -age did this farmer enter Parliament. One day, in the House of -Commons, Sir Philip Warwick, while listening to a sharp voice, said to -John Hampden, whose seat was near him: "Mr. Hampden, who is that -sloven who spoke just now, for I see he is on our side, by his -speaking so warmly?" "That sloven," replied Hampden, "whom you see -before you--that sloven, I say--if we ever come to a breach with the -King--God forbid--that sloven, I say, would, in that case, be the -greatest man in England." But Hampden knew him also as gentle and -lovable, tender toward his friends, loved by his rustic neighbours, -though this vehement man, with sword stuck close to his side, had -stern and uncompromising work, and the most difficult task ever set -before an Englishman. "A larger soul, I think," writes Carlyle, "had -seldom dwelt in a house of clay than was his." - -Much of the criticism of Cromwell that has been so bitter, so rabid -and so persistent would at once disappear if it were understood that -the central element in Cromwell's life was religion. He was first of -all a Puritan, essentially a religious reformer and incidentally a -politician. This is the clue to the maze, this is the key to the -problem, and the solution to this historical enigma. He was by nature -a poet and a prophet, haunted by sublime vision, dreaming of heaven -and hell, as did Dante and Bunyan. "Verily," said he, "I think the -Lord is with me. I undertake strange things, yet do I go through them -to great profit and gladness and furtherance of the Lord's great work. -I do feel myself lifted on by a strange force. I cannot tell why. By -night and by day I am urged forward in the great work." - -Had he lived in the days of Jeremiah, he would have dreamed dreams and -seen visions and foretold retribution upon the wrongdoers. Had he -lived in the days of Socrates, he would have made much of the voice of -God. Had he lived in the time of Bernard the Monk, or Francis of -Assisi, he would have dwelt apart from men and fed his soul in -solitude. Like John Bunyan, he was a melancholy, brooding, lonely -figure, who sometimes fought with Apollyon in the Valley of -Humiliation, and sometimes was lifted to the heights of the Delectable -Mountains. He was a man of singular sincerity, who confessed like -Paul: "Oft have I been in hell, and sometimes have I been caught up -into the seventh heaven and heard things not lawful to utter." -Blackness of darkness on one day, blinding radiance of light on -another--both experiences were his. "I think I am the poorest wretch -that lives, but I love God, or rather I am beloved of God." There -speaks the religious leader, and not the ambitious politician. - -"In the whole history of Europe," writes Frederic Harrison, "Oliver -Cromwell is the one ruler into whose presence no vicious man could ever -come, into whose service no vicious man might ever enter." What an army -was that which he collected! When one of his officers was guilty of -profanity and vulgarity in his presence, he was immediately dismissed. -Cromwell sought out men like John Milton to be associated with him in -diplomatic work. "If I were to choose," he writes, "any servant--the -meanest officers of the army of the Commonwealth--I would choose a godly -man that hath principle, especially where a trust is to be committed, -because I know where to find a man that hath principle." He believed, -also, and practiced prayer, for more things are wrought by prayer than -are dreamed of in man's philosophy. With Tennyson, he held that "with -prayer men are bound as with chains of gold about the feet of God." One -day, overpressed with work, he went into the country to spend the night -with an old friend. After the Lord Protector had retired, the host heard -words, as of one speaking. Standing by the door of Cromwell's room, in -which he feared that some enemy might have found entrance, he heard -Cromwell pouring out his heart to God, telling Him that this was not a -work that he had taken up for himself; that it was God's work; that the -people were God's children, and the world God's world. Little wonder -that the modern politician cannot understand Oliver Cromwell, and finds -his life full of contradictory elements. - -Not all present-day politicians could stand the prayer test. Cromwell -was a God-intoxicated man. He believed that the Sermon on the Mount -and the law of Sinai were the basis of all political creeds. "We -think," writes the historian, "that religion is a part of life; the -Puritan thought it was the whole of life." That which was morally -right could not be politically wrong, that which was politically right -could not be morally wrong. The principles of justice and honesty that -made the individual life worthy were one with the principles that made -national life worthy. Between man and man you expected truth. Was it -a matter of indifference for the King to lie to his ministers, his -people, and his Parliament? Is a king to be excused who broke all -pledges, and laid dishonest taxes on his people? These questions were -incidentally political questions, but primarily moral problems. And -they thrust Cromwell, the religious recluse, into the whirl and -turmoil of politics, and made him a soldier and a statesman. - -What a study in contrasts is the story of this farmer of Huntingdon! -One day Parliament makes remonstrance; it sends the King word that he -must call Parliament at regular intervals; that taxes must be voted by -Parliament; that in the event of the King's refusing to call a -Parliament for the correction of injustice, the peers may issue the -call; that if the peers refuse, the judges may issue it, and if the -judges play false, the people may come together for election. Hampden, -Pym and Cromwell indict the King for wrong and tyranny. Charles gives -orders that the five leaders of Parliament shall be delivered to the -Keeper of the Tower. The King flees to Hampton Court, and sends the -gold plate and the crown jewels to Paris, hires foreign troops, lands -them upon English shores and England is plunged into civil war. - -For the time being, Parliament is stunned, and the leaders seem -paralyzed. But one man is equal to the emergency. This farmer, in -rural England, assembles the gentlemen who live in his neighbourhood. -They crowd under the trees in his orchard, he reads a psalm, kneels -down and prays with them, then tells them that on the morrow a -representative of the King is to be in Cambridge to call for troops. -Cromwell announces that to-morrow he proposes to hang the King's -representative at the crossroads, and to seize the gold plate of the -university to hire troops. "I want no tapsters, or gamesters or -cowards, but only gentlemen who fear God and keep His commandments." A -few weeks later, Prince Rupert and Charles meet Lord Essex and the -Parliamentary forces at Marston Moor, and at first are overwhelmingly -successful. When the Puritans are defeated, Lord Essex orders Cromwell -to bring up his regiment, and the stroke of Cromwell's Ironsides is -the stroke of an earthquake. The farmer turns defeat into victory. - -Then comes the overthrow of Charles at Naseby, and "God's crowning -mercy" at Worcester. When Scotland tries to force the Presbytery upon -England, Cromwell leads his troops north to Edinburgh. When the Irish -rise up at Drogheda, he marches into Ireland. When Charles breaks all -his pledges, and his private correspondence is discovered, exhibiting -him in the light of traitor to the liberties of England, Oliver -Cromwell becomes executioner, for he has to decide between the head of -the King, or the neck of the Parliament. Offered the throne, with the -right of descent passing over to his son, he refuses the crown, for he -wishes to be the protector, to guard the precious seeds of liberty -until such time as a worthy successor for the throne shall appear. If -for a time he rules as military dictator, it grows out of the -necessities of the times, for Parliament is weak, divided into hostile -camps, refusing to correct the laws, investigate the abuses of judges, -revise the principles of taxation, do anything for the navy, lighten -the burdens of the common people. Divided into little cliques, -Parliament wastes weeks and months, and at last Oliver Cromwell enters -the House of Commons and dissolves Parliament, charging them with -having thrown away a great opportunity. "May God choose between you -and me!" exclaims the one man who understands the emergency. He is the -true king who can do the thing that needs to be done! - -What were the qualities that made Cromwell the great hero that he -was? Lord Morley tells us that Cromwell was first of all a practical -man, tactful, straightforward, and going straight to his object. With -the instincts of the true general, for soldiers he selected sturdy -farmers, country gentlemen, men of iron nerve, who did not drink nor -gamble, but with whom war meant business. He gave to each of his -soldiers a pocket-Bible, and when he hurled his regiments against the -jaunty and dapper youths who made up the army of Prince Rupert, his -troops swept through the royalist army "as a cannon ball goes through -a heap of egg-shells." "Pray, but keep your powder dry," was his -motto. He had also the genius of hard work, and the love of detail. He -could toil terribly. Nothing escaped his vigilance. - -One day he was asked whether he knew that Charles II, then living in -Paris, had a representative in England? "Certainly," he replied. "He -has one representative who sleeps in such a house, and another who -sleeps near the palace. The correspondence of the first is in a trunk -under his bed. The letters of the second are in a certain inn." - -When he came at length to live in a palace, Oliver Cromwell was simple -in his tastes, pure in his morals, tireless in his pursuit of duty. -It is said that he was a Philistine, and the enemy of culture. But he -loved music and encouraged the opera. He loved literature, and his -warmest friend was John Milton, the greatest poet and author of the -age. If he levelled the castles of England to the ground, that -feudalism might have no stronghold to which it could flee, it cannot -be said that he hated art, for Cromwell bought the cartoons of Raphael -for England, and preserved the art treasures of Charles the First. It -stirs our sense of wonder that men should think that Cromwell -represents opposition to culture, and that Charles the Second stands -for the refinements of life. Charles the Second, the royalist, was a -king who endeavoured to sell the cartoons of Raphael that Cromwell had -preserved, to the King of France, to obtain money for his court. He -encouraged bull-baiting and cock-fighting and pleasures steeped in -animalism and vulgarity. No one claims that Cromwell himself was a -piece of granite, unhewn and unpolished. The fact is, neither the -Puritan nor the royalist stood for full culture and refinement. But of -the two men, a thousand times preferable is the Cromwell who -maintained friendship with John Milton, who represented genius united -to the noblest character. - -But great as was Cromwell, the ruler, he was greater still as father, -citizen and Christian. Alone, amid conspiracies and plots, the weary -Titan staggered on. At last the burden broke his heart. He held the -realm in order by his will, gave law to Europe, and defended the weak, -crushed the bigot, so that far away in Rome the Pope trembled at his -name, and the sons of the martyrs blessed him. Suddenly he realized -that his great work was done. On his death-bed he lay with one hand -upon the breast of Christ, and the other stretched out toward -Washington and Lincoln. For hours he lay, speaking great and noble -words. The storm that passed over London that day and uprooted the -trees in Hyde Park was the fitting dirge for the passing of this noble -soul. "God is good," he murmured. Urged to take a potion and find -sleep, he answered: "It is not my design to drink and sleep, but my -wish is to make what haste I can to be gone." An hour later he lay -calm and speechless. His work was done. He had shattered that citadel -of iniquity, the Divine Right of Kings, and secured for the people of -England the rights of conscience and religion. When the King returned, -he returned to reign in accordance with the people's will. When the -Church was restored, it was restored upon the basis of the Act of -Toleration, and the concession that no church can coerce the -conscience of the people. Cromwell had compacted Scotland and England. -He had outlined the movement of the reform bill of 1832. He had -brought in an epoch when, for the first and only time in Europe, -morality and religion were qualifications insisted upon in a court. -Much of that which is best in the life and thought of America and -England, the republic and the great monarchy alike owe to that stern -workman of God, Oliver Cromwell. - - - - -V - -JOHN MILTON - -(1608-1674) - -_The Scholar in Politics_ - - -By common consent, critics acclaim John Milton the greatest Latin -scholar, the foremost man of letters and one of the two first literary -artists England has produced. Historians have united to give him a -place among the ten great names in English history. Take out of our -institutions Milton's plea for the liberty of the printing press, his -views on education, and all modern society would be changed. Tennyson -called Milton "the God-gifted organ-voice of England, the -mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies; an angel skilled to sing of time -and of eternity; a seer who spent his days and nights listening to the -sevenfold _Hallelujah Chorus_ of Almighty God." Voltaire was not an -Englishman, but Voltaire characterized Milton's poems as "the noblest -product of the human imagination." Many American statesmen believe -that the principles of the Compact signed in the cabin of the -_Mayflower_ and the final Constitution, are none other than the -reproduction in political terms of the dreams of freedom that haunted -the soul of John Milton all his life long. But it remained for -Wordsworth to pay the supreme tribute to this immortal singer: - - "Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart; - Thou hadst a voice that sounded like the sea; - Pure as the native heavens, majestic, free. - We must be free or die that speak the tongue - That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals hold - Which Milton held." - -Poet, statesman, philosopher, champion and martyr of English -literature, John Milton was born at one of the critical moments in the -history of mankind. His era, says Macaulay, "was one of the memorable -eras--the very crisis of the great conflict between liberty and -despotism, reason and prejudice. The battle was fought for no single -generation, for no single land. The destinies of the human race were -staked on the same cast with the freedom of the English people. Then -were first proclaimed those mighty principles which have since worked -their way into the depth of the American forests . . . and from one -end of Europe to the other have kindled an unquenchable fire in the -hearts of the oppressed. Of those principles, then struggling for -their existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent champion." - -If it be true, as Macaulay would have us believe, that as civilization -advances, poetry necessarily declines, and that in an enlightened and -literary society the poet's difficulties are "in proportion to his -proficiency" as a scholar, then it may truly be said that few poets -have triumphed over greater difficulties than John Milton. He was born -at the end of the heroic age in English literature, and he enjoyed all -the benefits and advantages that travel and culture could bestow upon -him. If, however, as others of us believe, great literature is like a -spring of clear water, bubbling out of the soil, and no man can say -what mysterious elements give it its crystal purity, then it behooves -us to examine somewhat into the nature of Milton's parentage, the -character of his environment and the significance of the training he -received as a young man. - -The great poet was born in London, eight years before the death of -Shakespeare. The first sixteen years of his life were the last sixteen -of the reign of James I. In Cheapside, within a block of his father's -house, stood the old "Mermaid" tavern of Marlow, Ben Jonson, Dekker -and Philip Massinger. His father was a scrivener, who drew deeds, made -wills, invested money for his clients, and, in general, fulfilled for -many families the tasks that now devolve upon the modern trust -company. The father's skill and probity won for him an increasing -number of clients, and with money came leisure for study and travel. -He was a musician, a man of culture, a composer of considerable note; -and he made his home an all-round center for young artists and -authors. From the beginning, he recognized the unique genius of his -son, and made the development of that genius to be the chief object of -his life. He never tired of telling the boy that his first duty was to -make the most possible out of himself. He held to those ideals that -were outlined in Plato's and Aristotle's books on education. Whatever -development could come through music, art, lectures, books, teachers, -travel, was given the young poet. Just as misers pursue the -accumulation of gold, just as ambitious statesmen pursue office and -honour, so this father, by day and by night, toiled upon the education -of his son; first teaching the child in his own library; then calling -to his aid wise and experienced tutors; then sending the boy to a -great London grammar school and thence to Cambridge University. The -boy showed promise from the first. His exercises, "in English or other -tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly the latter," early attracted -attention. He studied hard, at school and at home; often studying till -twelve at night. He loved books, "and he loved better to be foremost." -He was only fifteen years of age when he wrote: - - "Let us blaze his name abroad, - For of gods, he is the God, - - Who by wisdom did create - Th' painted heavens so full of state, - - He the golden tressèd sun - Caused all day his course to run, - Th' hornèd moon to hang by night - 'Mid her spangled sisters bright; - - For his mercies aye endure, - Ever faithful, ever sure." - -Throughout his youth, Milton's enthusiasm for reading and learning -burned like a fire, by day and by night. He was one of the few students -outside of Italy who could think in Latin, debate in Latin, and write -verse in Latin quite as readily as in English. "He was a profound and -elegant classical scholar; he had studied all the mysteries of -Rabbinical literature; he was intimately acquainted with every language -of modern Europe from which either pleasure or information was then to -be derived." He fulfilled his own definition of education:--"I call a -complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, -skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, -of peace and war." And he believed that culture and character should -have an aggressive note. "I take it to be my portion in this life, by -labour and intense study, to leave something so written to after time, -that they should not willingly let it die." Faithfully did he seek to -live up to these high ideals. He sowed no wild oats, cut no bloody -gashes in his conscience and memory, dwelt apart from vice and -sensualism, and, at last, left the university with the approbation of -the good and with no stain upon his soul. - -Upon entering Cambridge it had been his intention to become a clergyman, -but that intention he soon abandoned. The reasons he gives us are "the -tyranny that had invaded the church," and the fact that, finding he -could not honestly subscribe to the oaths and obligations required, he -"thought it better to preserve a blameless silence before the sacred -office of speaking, begun with servitude and forswearing." His father, -meantime, had retired from business, and taken a country house in a -small village near Windsor, about twenty miles from London. Few fathers -have ever been as generous in meeting and encouraging a son's desire to -devote himself to literature. For the next five years and eight months, -in that country quietude, within sight of the towers of Windsor, Milton -describes himself as "wholly intent, through a period of absolute -leisure, on a steady perusal of the Greek and Latin writers." His -father, of course, had provided the funds. His biographer Masson says: -"Not until Milton was thirty-two years of age, if even then, did he earn -a penny for himself." Such a life would have ruined ninety-nine out of -every hundred talented young men; but it is the genius of Milton that he -put those years to good use. Believing himself to be one dedicated to a -high purpose, he not only completed his studies in classical literature -but produced, at the same time, those early immortal classics known as -his "minor" poems. There he wrote the "Lycidas," one of the world's -great elegies; there the "Comus," which alone of all the masques of that -time and preceding time, "has gone in its entirety into the body of -living English literature." And there he wrote those two exquisite, -airy fancies known to every schoolboy under the titles of "L'Allegro," -and "Il Penseroso." - -It was in 1638, at the age of thirty, that Milton determined to -broaden his views by study in foreign lands. Once more his father -generously made possible the fulfillment of his ambition. The young -scholar naturally turned his steps toward Italy, then the home of -painting, letters and the newer learning. His biographer pictures him -for us--"a slight, patrician figure, distinguished alike in mind and -physique. . . . He carries letters from Sir Henry Wotton; he sees the -great Hugo Grotius at Paris; sees the sunny country of olives in -Provence; sees the superb front of Genoa piling up from the blue -waters of the Mediterranean; sees Galileo at Florence--the old -philosopher too blind to study the face of the studious young -Englishman that has come so far to greet him. He sees, too, what is -best and bravest at Rome; among the rest St. Peter's, just then -brought to completion, and in the first freshness of its great tufa -masonry. He is fêted by studious young Italians; has the freedom of -the Accademia della Crusca; blazes out in love-sonnets to some -dark-eyed signorina of Bologna; returns by Venice and by Geneva where -he hobnobs with the Diodati, friends of his old school-fellow, -Charles Diodati." In Rome again, we find him writing Latin poems, some -of which, seen by learned Italians, stir these writers to amazement at -the thought that a Briton could be so excellent a Latin poet. It was -their praise, Milton says in one of his letters, that led to his -renewed resolve to devote his life to literature. Then and there he -determined to do for England what Homer had done for Greece, what -Virgil had done for Rome, what Dante had done for Italy. Lingering in -the Sistine Chapel and in the various galleries of the Vatican, he saw -the religious dramas of Michael Angelo, and the paintings of Raphael, -with the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve, culminating in the -Last Judgment. And in those hours of leisure and contemplation he -stored his memory with the glorious images that he was to use in later -years for unfolding and unveiling the fall of man's soul in his -_Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_. - -It was while he was in the midst of his studies in the libraries of -Rome and Florence, that the news reached him of the civil war -threatening at home. Charles the First had reaffirmed the doctrine of -the divine right of kings--that iniquitous theory which long afterward -was to be revived by Kaiser Wilhelm as an excuse for the Great War. -Over against Charles stood the Parliament, representing the people, -and led by John Eliot and John Pym, John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell. -Milton, with instant decision, turned his steps toward England. "I -thought it dishonourable," he tells us, "that I should be travelling -at ease for amusement when my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting -for liberty." Back in London, he found the country rocking on a red -wave--the Scotch marching over the border--the Long Parliament -portending--Strafford and Laud on the verge of impeachment--city -pitted against city; brother against brother. His own father, drawing -near to the end of his life, was a strong Royalist. The storm had -broken, and in that sea of trouble the King and the old leaders were -to go down. It is the glory of Milton that in that hour he chose to -ally himself with a great cause and abandoning, for the time, his -dream of an immortal epic, threw himself into the struggle for -intellectual and moral liberty. - -For the next twenty years, he was engulfed in a maelstrom of politics, -tossed on a feverish tide of political hatred. With his own father and -brother on the side of the King, he could no longer live under their -roof; and unwilling to surrender his convictions of freedom and -self-government, he struck out for himself in London. He took -lodgings, and for years earned a slender livelihood by preparing -pupils for the university. He gave his mornings to his students, and -spent his evenings in writing pleas, attacking the autocracy of the -King, and supporting the Puritan Leaders who wished to found the new -commonwealth. It was not only Milton's life that was so affected. The -lives of almost all his English contemporaries suffered similarly. -Through the twenty years, from 1640 to 1660, there was an eclipse of -pure literature in England. When he wrote he wrote necessarily, in -prose. "I have the use," he explains, "as I may account it, of my -_left hand_." But never once did he lose sight of his ideal--poetry. -"Neither do I think it shame," he explains in one of his pamphlets, -"to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I -may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now -indebted,"--meaning the composition of some poem which "the world -would not willingly let die." He kept his promise--in the fullness of -time. But in the interval, he played his part in the great drama of -the Civil War. - -At the very outset he was forced to endure and triumph over a -personal misfortune. Like Shakespeare and Goethe, and many other -poets, John Milton was most unfortunate in his marital life. At -thirty-five, after a month's rest in the country, he returned to -London, bringing with him a wife. She was young and of a family -virtually committed to the Royalist cause; she had a shallow mind, and -no sympathy either for Milton's artistic aims or his political -convictions. The Civil War was on, Milton was giving himself with -intense application to important public topics, was away from home in -consultation with public men the long day through, and often returned -late at night. The poor girl was in despair. A stranger in a great -city, with no gift for friendship, she slowly became conscious of the -fact that she never could be interested in John Milton's life. Urging -the necessity of a brief visit to her country home, she went away and -later positively refused to return. Milton was first hurt, then -angered and finally disillusioned; and after great mental distress and -careful study of the whole question of marriage and divorce, he -published his views, which have exerted a profound and lasting -influence upon society. - -John Milton held that divorce should be as easy as marriage, and that -when two people, beginning their contract in good faith, discover -after honest endeavour, that there can be no happiness in the home, -and both decide that it is best and honourable to separate, then there -should be no legal obstacle to prevent this, providing always that -proper provision be made for the support and education of children, -whose character and disposition could not fail to be injured by the -daily spectacle of unhappiness. Years afterward, when his wife's -family had been rendered homeless, he took them all back into his own -house. When his wife died, he married again, and within a year he was -left a widower. Six years later he married his third wife, but his -home was embittered by endless warfare between his daughters and his -third wife. One of his letters says plainly that his wife was kind to -him in his blind, old age when his daughters were undutiful and inhuman. - -The Civil War was scarcely begun before he issued the first of those -thunderbolts of indignation and exhortation known as his pamphlets on -church discipline, education, and the liberty of unlicensed printing. -The years that followed were years of incessant labour. He began and -completed during this period his _History of England_, written from -the viewpoint of the common people and tracing the ills, the poverty, -and rebellion of Britain to misgovernment and tyranny. When Parliament -tried the King upon charges of treason, and executed Charles, it was -John Milton who came forward to defend Parliament, in a treatise which -bore this title upon the title page: - - The Tenure of Kings and Magistrate - Proving that it is Lawful - To call to account a tyrant or wicked King - And, after due conviction, to depose and put him to death. - - By - JOHN MILTON. - -Milton was not only the greatest pamphleteer of his generation--"head -and shoulders above the rest"--but there is no life of that time, not -even Cromwell's, in which the history of the revolution, so far as the -deep underlying ideas were concerned, may be better studied. He was -the first Englishman of note outside of Parliament to attach himself -thus openly to the new Commonwealth. And every one of his prose works -had this great quality, that it struck a blow for liberty. - -In beginning any study of Milton it must be remembered that his -intellect was essentially athletic. If he was the great poet of his -era, he was not a dreamer of the closet, but a man who plunged into -the thick of the fight, and made his writing and his doing a vital and -indestructible part of his time. In analyzing the scholar's influence, -De Quincey speaks of "the literature of knowledge" and "the literature -of power." The function of the first is to teach men, the function of -the second is to move and persuade men to action. De Quincey wishes us -to understand that Milton's writings entered almost immediately into -the thinking and the doing of the British people, just as bread enters -into the blood of the physical system. Milton cared nothing for -learning for its own sake. Knowledge was important only to the degree -in which it was vitally creative, inspiring men, correcting their -blunders, rebuking their selfishness, enlightening their darkness, and -lifting them into the realm of silence, peace, and mystery. After -defining the true scholar and Christian, as a knight going forth to -war against every form of ignorance and tyranny, he exclaims, "I -cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and -unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks -out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not -without dust and heat." Learning, with Milton, was a means of -enlarging his being and doing. Mark Pattison has well said, "He -cultivated not letters, but himself, and sought to enter into -possession of his own mental kingdom. Not that he might reign there, -but that he might royally use its resources in building up a work -which should bring honour to his country and his native tongue." - -The glory of the battle which he fought for freedom--the freedom of -the human mind--is all his own. "Thousands and tens of thousands among -his contemporaries raised their voices against ship-money and the Star -Chamber; but there were few indeed who discerned the more fearful -evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits which would -result from the liberty of the press and the unfettered exercise of -private judgment." Milton was determined that the people should think -for themselves, as well as tax themselves. And that he might shake the -very foundations of the corruptions which he saw debasing the state, -he selected for himself the most arduous and dangerous literary -service. "At the beginning he wrote with incomparable energy and -eloquence against the bishops. But, when his opinion seemed likely to -prevail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the -crowd of writers who now hastened to insult a falling party." He -pressed always into the forlorn hope. The very men who most -disapproved of his opinions were forced to respect the hardihood with -which he maintained them. - -Milton's prose pamphlets deserve the close study of every writer who -wishes to know the full power of the English language. They sparkle -with fine passages; they ring with eloquence; they have the fire and -the fervour of a great mind at white heat. For quotable sentences, -they are "a perfect field of cloth of gold." And the fineness and -stiffness of their texture is by no means their greatest splendour. -Every one of these controversial pamphlets answers to its author's -definition of a good book in that it contains "the precious life-blood -of a master spirit." - -By far the most popular, and probably the most eloquent of all his -prose writings is the famous _Areopagitica_, his argument for the -liberty of unlicensed printing. It appeared on the 25th of November -1664, deliberately unlicensed and unregistered, and was a remonstrance -addressed to Parliament in the form and style of an oration to be -delivered in the assembly. Nobly eulogistic of Parliament in other -respects, it denounced their printing ordinance as utterly unworthy of -them, and of the new era of English liberties. Admired to-day because -its main doctrine has become axiomatic--at one blow it accomplished -the repeal of the licensing system and established forever the freedom -of the English press--it contains passages which for power and beauty -of prose make the finest declamations of Edmund Burke sink into -insignificance. - -It was not, however, the _Areopagitica_, but his vindication of the -execution of Charles the First that procured for Milton the office of -Latin Secretary under Cromwell's government. His boundless admiration -for Cromwell had shown itself already in his immortal sonnet on the -great soldier. He considered Cromwell the greatest and the best man of -his generation, or of many generations; and he regarded Cromwell's -assumption of the supreme power, as well as his retention of that -power with a sovereign title, "as no real suppression of the republic, -but as necessary for the preservation of the republic." Cromwell, in -turn, saw in Milton a most powerful defender of the new commonwealth. -By 1651 it was generally conceded that "the reputation of the -Commonwealth abroad had been established by two agencies, and only -two:--the victories of Cromwell, and the prose pamphlets of John -Milton." In the nature of the case, their friendship and mutual -respect of the two men was inevitable. - -After the death of Charles, new treaties had to be drawn between -England and Spain, England and France and Italy and Holland. These -state papers were all written in Latin, and the Secretary of Latin and -of Foreign Relations was a great person in the cabinet of every -country. Milton's knowledge of Spanish, French, Italian, German, -Dutch, as well as Latin and Greek, made him an important figure in the -deliberations of Cromwell's Council of State. His special duty was the -drafting in Latin of letters of state, but from the first, he was -employed in every conceivable kind of work. The council looked to him -for everything in the nature of literary vigilance in the interests of -the struggling Commonwealth. He was employed in personal conferences, -in the examination of suspected papers, in interviews with their -authors and printers, agents of foreign towns, envoys, ambassadors. It -was a period of intense and feverish activity, with cabinet meetings, -conferences between the leaders of the government, necessarily held at -night. In that era of candle-light and flickering torches, with oil -and electricity both still unknown, Milton, with despatches to be -translated, notes to be made at all hours, was soon imperilling his -eyesight. He was forty years of age when he took the post; at -forty-six, as a result of his continuous and indomitable activities, -he had ruined his eyes and was totally blind. - -Wonderful the fortitude with which he faced this affliction! Hear the -lines he composed in the first of those dark days: - - "When I consider how my light is spent - Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, - And that one talent, which is death to hide, - Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent - To serve therewith my Maker, and present - My true account, lest he, returning, chide; - 'Dost God exact day-labour, light denied?' - I fondly ask: But Patience, to prevent - That murmur, soon replies--'God doth not heed - Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best - Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state - Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed - And post o'er land and ocean without rest; - They also serve, who only stand and wait.'" - -And hard upon this catastrophe came a new turn in the wheel of fortune. -Cromwell died; the Commonwealth came to an end; all London threw its -cap in the air at the Restoration. The leaders of the Commonwealth had -to flee for their lives. Some fled to America for safety and some were -caught and executed. Cromwell's body was taken from its grave in -Westminster Abbey, suspended from the gallows, and left to dangle there. -Past Milton's house, near Red Lion Square, the howling mob went by, -dragging the body of his old leader. Milton himself, blind and in -hiding, narrowly escaped execution. His head was forfeit, his pamphlets -burned by public order. Only chance, and the exertion of influential -friends, saved him from discovery and death. His escape from the -scaffold is a mystery now, as it was a mystery at the time. - -In the evil days that followed--the days of the Restoration, with its -revenges and reactions, its return to high Episcopacy and suppression -of every form of dissent and sectarianism, its new and shameless royal -court--Milton, blind and forgotten by the public, turned to his -long-cherished dream of a great poem. For twenty years, through all -the storm and stress of political agitation, it had never been -banished wholly from his thoughts. In the library of Cambridge -University there may be seen to-day a list of over one hundred -possible subjects, written in his own hand during some leisure-hour -when he was pondering the great project of his heart. Living in -retirement, visited only by a few close friends, he now proceeded to -compose the masterpiece planned as a young man. Unable to see a book, -forced to beg every friend who visited him to read aloud to him, -dependent upon the assistance of three rebellious daughters, none of -whom understood the many languages he knew so well, he nevertheless -drove forward, determined to finish his task. _Paradise Lost_, begun -and brought to completion in the face of every sort of discouragement, -was finished in 1665 and published in 1667. - -This amazing poem--the glory of English literature--is one of the few -monumental works of the world. The English language possesses no other -epic poem, nor a poem of any other kind, which approaches it in -sustained sublimity. Nothing in modern epic literature is comparable -to it save only the _Divine Comedy_ of Dante. It is impossible, in a -single page or chapter, to call the roll of the beauties of Milton's -poetic style. Much has been written of the organ-music of his verse, -its magical, mysterious influence. Speaking generally, the terms mean -little; but applied to Milton, both have significance. For his -melody, his verse-structure, the very names he employs act like an -incantation, with an almost occult power. - -James Russell Lowell emphasizes this quality: "It is wonderful how, -from the most withered and juiceless hint gathered in his reading, his -grand images rise like an exhalation; how from the most battered old -lamp, caught in that huge drag-net with which he swept the waters of -learning, he could conjure up a tall genii to build his palaces." His -words, says Macaulay, in another brilliant summary, "are words of -enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present -and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into -existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. -Change the structure of the sentence; substitute one synonym for -another, and the whole effect is destroyed. There is large learning in -the poem--weighty and recondite; but this spoils no music; great -cumbrous names catch sonorous vibrations under his modulating touch, -and colossal shields and spheres clash together like symbols. The -whole burden of his knowledges--Pagan, Christian, or Hebraic, lift up -and sink away upon the undulations of his sublime verse, as -heavy-laden ships rise and fall upon some great ground swell making -in from outer seas." - -Fully to comprehend the peculiar sublimity of _Paradise Lost_, one must -understand the peculiar character of the age in which Milton was living. -It was a theological era, as the next century was a political era. In -their reaction from the absolutism of Rome, the Puritans hated -everything that reminded them of the Roman excesses, and that revulsion -extended not only to the ecclesiastical autocracy of Rome, but to the -lesser things, the clouds of incense, stained glass and the rich dresses -of the clergy, the ecclesiastical holidays. These Puritans are called by -Macaulay the most remarkable body of men that the world has ever -produced. They had a contempt for all terrestrial distinctions. -Confident of the favour of God, they despised the dignities of this -world. "Unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets they were -deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the -registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their -steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of -ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not -made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which shall never fade -away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they looked -down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious -treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by right of an -earlier creation and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. Thus -the Puritan was made up of two different men--the one all -self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, -inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his -Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his King." - -It is only to be expected that the literature of such an age--both -prose and poetry--should be to a large degree theological. Milton's -_Paradise Lost_ is an epic of war between good and evil. Not that, -strictly speaking, Milton belonged to the class just described. He was -not a Puritan, any more than he was a Freethinker, or a Royalist. In -his character the noblest qualities of all three groups were combined. -"From the Parliament and from the Court, from the conventicle and from -the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy circles of the Roundheads and the -Christmas revels of the Cavalier, his nature selected and drew to -itself whatever was great and good." But the peculiar religious note -that is in his great epic, the serious note, the note of dignity, is -the distillation of an atmosphere charged and aquiver with the most -intense theological convictions. - -Numerous accounts have come down to us of Milton's personal appearance -and habits toward the end of his life. By nature a patrician, -reserved, clothed with a gentle dignity, he was not without a certain -haughty, defiant self-assertion such as Lowell ascribes to Dante and -Michael Angelo. He came to be a familiar figure in the neighbourhood -of his residence, "a slender figure, of middle stature or a little -less, generally dressed in a grey cloak or overcoat, and wearing -sometimes a small silver-hilted sword, evidently in feeble health, but -still looking younger than he was, with his lightish hair, and his -fair, rather than aged or pale, complexion." - -He was a very early riser, and regular in the distribution of his day, -"spending the first part, to his midday dinner, always in his own -room, amid his books, with an amanuensis to read for him and write to -his dictation. Usually there was singing in the late afternoon, when -there was a voice to sing for him; and instrumental music, when his, -or a friendly hand touched the old organ." He loved the out-of-door -life, walked much in the fields, loved his garden and his flowers, -made his library to be the world of the open air. - -From time to time learned and noble visitors, native and foreign, made -their way to his modest home. They read in the lines of his noble -countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory and his -affliction. They listened to his slightest words, they kneeled to kiss -his hand and weep upon it, for the neglect of an age that was unworthy -of his talents and his virtues. They contested with his daughters the -privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down the immortal -accents which flowed from his lips. But, for the most part, his last -days were days of retirement. The grand loneliness of his latter years -makes him the most impressive figure in our literary history. Yet it -is idle to talk of the loneliness of one, the habitual companions of -whose mind were the Past and Future. "I always seem to see him, -leaning in his blindness, one hand on the shoulder of each, sure that -the Future will guard the song which the Past had inspired." - -Few characters have stood the test of time and history so well. And no -other man has so fully incarnated himself in literature. Therefore the -tribute of James Russell Lowell: "We say of Shakespeare that he had -the power of transforming himself into everything, but of Milton that -he had the power of transforming everything into himself." Dante is -individual, rather than self-conscious, and he, the cast-iron man, -grows pliable as a field of grain at the breath of Beatrice, and flows -away in waves of sunshine. But Milton never let himself go for a -moment. As other poets are possessed by their theme, so is he -self-possessed, his great theme being John Milton, and his great duty -that of interpreter between him and the world. Puritanism has left an -abiding mark in politics and religion, but its true monuments are the -prose of Bunyan and the verse of Milton. For the epitaph written by -his friend was scrupulously accurate: "Whatsoever things are true, -whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever -things are honest, whatsoever things are of good report, Milton -thought upon these things." - - - - -VI - -JOHN WESLEY - -(1703-1791) - -_And the Moral Awakening of the Common People_ - - -Now that long time has passed, the two bright names of the eighteenth -century are seen to be the names of Washington and Wesley. The -statement will come with a note of shock to many readers, but beyond -most critical estimates, it is one that will stand examination. Time -has a way of reversing judgments, and not the least of the changes in -men's thought has been the gradual transformation in the attitude of -the historian toward Wesley, carried to his grave by six poor men in -1791. Now that one hundred and twenty years have passed, Wesley has -thirty millions of followers, who believe in his method and are -carrying forward his work. The time has come when there is not a city -in Great Britain, or on the North American continent, or in India--and -few indeed, of any size in China or Japan--where there are not some -disciples of this teacher, spreading his message, according to his -plan. During these hundred and twenty years, dynasties have fallen, -empires have perished, cities and states have changed, but the ideas -and the influence of Wesley, stamped upon the memories of his -followers, have spread like leaven, working often in silence and -secrecy, but slowly transforming the world. - -The praise of his critics is enough to lend John Wesley enduring fame. -Leslie Stephen called him "the greatest captain of men of his century." -Macaulay ridiculed the historians of his day who failed to see that "the -greatest event of the era was the work of Wesley." To Macaulay's -statement that Wesley had a genius for government, equal to that of -Richelieu, Matthew Arnold added, "He had a genius for godliness." Buckle -called him the first of ecclesiastical statesmen, while Lecky said, -"Wesley's sermons were of greater historic importance to England than -all the victories by land and sea under Pitt." - -"No other man," writes Augustine Birrell, "did such a life-work for -England. He helped to save England from the horrors of the French -Revolution." This is not a careless pronouncement, nor an instance of -biographical exaggeration. Born in 1703, belonging to the era just -preceding the French Revolution, John Wesley, with his fifty years among -the working people of Great Britain, changed the thinking of his time. -The eighteenth century was a coarse age; Carlyle summarized it in a -single biting phrase: "soul extinct; stomach well alive." The pictures -of Hogarth, the journals of Wesley, and the _History of Great Criminals_ -prove that there was at least a basis for Carlyle's bitterness. Dr. -Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines a pension as "pay given to a -street hireling for treason to his country." Burke describes the British -Secretary of State as "the greatest drunkard and most unlucky gambler of -his age." Walpole portrays cabinet ministers and statesmen reeling into -the ferry-boat of Charon at forty-five, worn out with drunkenness and -gout. In his pictures of Beer Street and Gin Lane, Hogarth sketches the -drunkenness and filth of the London that he calls "the city of gallows," -with a street that was a lane of gibbets, where the corpses of felons -hung. Hume and Walpole both prophesied an inevitable revolution, with -corpses that would be piled up as barricades "in front of human beasts -who fought with the ferocity of tigers." But at the very moment when -France was seething with revolt, across in England, in Newcastle and -Moorfields, thousands of grimy miners were assembled, now weeping in -penitence, now singing hymns of praise to God. When the spirit of -destruction swept over Europe, Wesley's revival had done its work, and -its influence held the people of England back from the horrors of the -guillotine in Paris. It is for this reason that historians rank John -Wesley in terms of abiding influence, above Pitt, Wellington and Nelson. - -In _Adam Bede_, George Eliot, the great novelist, describes with the -minuteness of an eye-witness an open-air revival meeting among the early -Methodists of England. Her heroine, Dinah Morris, relates the incident -in the following words: "It was on just such a sort of evening as this, -when I was a little girl, and my aunt took me to hear a good man preach -out-of-doors, just as we are here. I remember his face well; he was a -very old man, and had very long, white hair, his voice was very soft and -beautiful, not like any voice I had ever heard before. I was a little -girl, and scarcely knew anything, and this old man seemed to me such a -different sort of man from anybody I had ever seen before, that I -thought that he had perhaps come down from the skies to preach to us, -and I said, 'Aunt, will he go back into the sky to-night, like the -picture in the Bible?'" . . . That man of God was John Wesley, who had -spent a lifetime going up and down the land, doing good. He had preached -from fifteen to twenty times a week for fifty years--in all, over forty -thousand times. In this, his sixty-second year, he was to preach eight -hundred times. He had ridden nearly two hundred and fifty thousand -miles; and in his long preaching tours through Ireland he had crossed -the Channel forty times. The poor had lost their heart to him. The -ignorant, the outcast, the collier and clerk alike, all pressed and -thronged about this saintly figure, with his beautiful face, his clear -eyes, his musical voice, who never tired of telling people, "God is -love; Christ is love; and religion is life, as it is the happiest, so it -is the cheerfullest thing in the world." - -It is written of Moses that his hands were held up by two friends, Aaron -and Hur. Not otherwise John Wesley was supported on either side by two -great comrades,--Whitefield, the evangelist, and his own brother, -Charles Wesley. If any man ever had the gift of eloquence and oratory, -it was George Whitefield. At twenty-one years of age Whitefield received -orders, and within a single year he was England's first preacher in -point of hearers. His warmest friends may have overpraised this -evangelist, but his harshest critics concede that he had the most -musical, carrying voice that ever issued from a speaker's throat. During -his career he wrote some sixty sermons, but he preached them over and -over again, eighteen thousand times. Within a single week he spoke on an -average of forty hours. There is nothing in his sermons, as they have -come down to us, to explain their marvellous transforming influence, but -Whitefield had the vision of the seer, saw heaven and hell as clearly as -he saw the world around him, and could make men see and feel what he -himself experienced. Benjamin Franklin heard Whitefield preach in -Philadelphia, and was carried away by the personality of the preacher, -whose luminous eyes, matchless voice, and transfigured face stirred the -men of the Quaker City as if he were the angel Gabriel. - -Charles Wesley, like George Whitefield, was an evangelist who preached -constantly in the open air, to multitudes of fifteen to twenty -thousand people. He was without the iron strength of Whitefield, but -for fifteen years he did preach once a day, and sometimes two and -three times. He lacked Whitefield's organ voice, and the strange -mystic, magical charm of his brother John, but his sentences were -short, with the swiftness of bullets, and he was a most persuasive -orator. The fact was, Charles Wesley's emotions were often beyond his -powers of control. He pled with men with tears running down his -cheeks; his voice shook and quavered; he melted men until their hearts -were like water. Often, in the midst of his sermon, he broke into -song. In theory he was a high-churchman, but in practice he was a -nonconformist, who ordained laymen to the ministry. He was a little -man, short-sighted, quick to resent a wrong, loyal in friendship, most -lovable, full of faults, and full of sorrow by reason of his faults, -an inspired singer of hymns; but he lacked the order, the organizing -gift, the iron purpose and the unyielding will of his brother John. - -Far greater than either Whitefield or Charles Wesley was the brother, -preacher, statesman, theologian, scholar, and evangelist. John Wesley -outlived Whitefield by thirty, and his brother Charles, by four years. -If Whitefield preached eighteen thousand times, this amazing man -preached forty-two thousand, four hundred times and within fifty-one -years. His comrades broke down, his friends passed away, bitter -opposition developed, the doors of the churches were closed against -him but Wesley's zeal "burned long, burned undimmed, burned when even -the fire of life turned to ashes." For fifty years he not only -preached, but published seven volumes a year. He did an enormous work -as author and publisher. In the interests of the poor he was the first -man to publish cheap literature, and he brought many wise books within -the reach of colliers and peasants. He wrote a volume on household -medicine; simple books on grammar, style, good health and history. He -translated the writings of other authors, and abridged works that were -beyond the poor man's purse. The germ of the modern lecture system, -social settlement work, night-schools, and the shelter-houses of -General Booth, are all in Wesley's work. He accomplished an incredible -amount as author, publisher, educator, and organizer of social and -political reforms. His _Journal_, covering a period of fifty-four -years, and existing to-day in the shape of twenty-one beautifully -written volumes, has been called "the most amazing record of human -exertion ever penned." - -This personal _Journal_ of John Wesley deserves a place among the few -great journals of the world. There are only two other eighteen century -volumes worthy to be spoken of in the same breath:--Walpole's _Letters_ -and Boswell's _Johnson_. Horace Walpole was the rich idler, the male -butterfly, who lived for pleasure and position, and in his gossiping -letters embalmed for later generations "all the lords and ladies, the -rakes and flirts, the fools and spendthrifts, the gossip and scandal of -a rich man's career." Dr. Johnson stands for manliness, independence, -courage, robust common sense. His chief interests in life were -literature and politics, and Boswell says that he divided society into -two classes, Whigs who were to be cudgelled and scourged, and Tories who -were to be admired and praised. But Wesley's _Journal_ is upon a far -higher level. His spirit is not that of curiosity, as was Walpole's, nor -of vehement resentment and personal preferences, as was Johnson's. It is -that of a passionate and divine pity. He possessed an overpowering sense -of the value of men apart from their position, their politics, their -knowledge or ignorance, their poverty or wealth; he saw them as God sees -them. And the result is a work far sweeter and finer than either of the -two famous volumes just considered. - -Wonderful the picture of serenity and strength given us in these -intimate, vivid pages. The story of a single day is the story of the -whole fifty years. Wesley rose at four o'clock, read his devotional -books until five, preached in the open air to the colliers who had to go -to their tasks at half-past six. After breakfast at seven, he mounted -his horse; drew rein for a few minutes from time to time to read a page -in some book that he was analyzing; after twenty or thirty miles' ride, -preached in a public square or some churchyard at noon; dismissed his -hearers at one o'clock that they might return to their work; rode -rapidly, often twenty miles, to his next appointment, where he preached -at five; after supper, when the evening twilight fell, preached again, -holding a service that often lasted until nine or even ten o'clock. - -During the half century, Wesley worked along the lines of a triangle, -westward from London to Bristol, north by Liverpool and Carlisle to -Newcastle; then back to London through the towns of the east coast of -England. His preaching tours followed the lines of England's -industrial centers. He worked where the population was thickest. He -loved the mining districts, where two or three thousand men would -assemble for him at almost any hour of the day. The falling rain -never disturbed him, the rough roads seemed to bring no tire. He loved -crowds, and noise and excitement did not seem to wear upon his -strength. Apparently there was not a tired or sore nerve in his -wonderful little body. An entry in his journal speaks of having -travelled that day ninety miles, and not being in the least tired, -although he seems to have preached three times. "Many a rough journey -have I had before," says the _Journal_, "but one like this I never -had, between wind and rain, ice and snow, and driving sleet and -piercing cold. But it is past; those days will return no more, and are -therefore as though they had never been." His appointments were often -made a fortnight in advance. His journals are filled with pictures of -deep snow, dripping skies, bitter northwest winds. - -What is the secret of Wesley's greatness, and how did he ever endure -such labour? The hidings of his power are in his wonderful ancestry. -Long after Samuel Wesley's death, the son found in the garret of the -old rectory a manuscript of his father's, with a scheme of world-wide -evangelization which became a chart for the son, who said, "the world -is my parish." The mother, Susannah, was possessed of so many gifts -that her son felt that to have fallen heir to her mental and moral -treasures was, in itself, a gift of God. Gibbon described his tutor in -Oxford as a "man who remembered that he had a salary to receive and -forgot that he had a duty to perform." - -John Wesley had the opposite theory of life. At seventeen, going to -Oxford he won distinction as a scholar of the finest classical taste, -of the most liberal and manly sentiments, and one of the finest men of -his time. Elected a Fellow of Lincoln College when thirty-two years of -age, appointed lecturer in Greek, carrying on his own studies in -Arabic and Hebrew, in poetry and oratory, young Wesley wrote in his -_Journal_ a sentence that describes the next sixty years of his life: -"Leisure and I have taken leave of each other." It was true of him in -middle life, and it was to be true of him to the day of his death. - -During the critical years when Wesley was educating himself, his -favourite books were the _Imitation of Christ_, by Thomas à Kempis, -Jeremy Taylor's _Purity of Intention_, and William Law's masterpiece, -_Serious Call_. It was while he was in Oxford that he formed the habit -of reading for one hour before he outlined the duties of the day. Then -came the two years' visit to the United States, his brief ministry in -Georgia, his friendship with the Moravians, and that golden hour on -May 24, 1738, when he went with Peter Böehler and passed through an -experience like that of Paul on the road to Damascus, that has been -described by the critical historian Lecky,--"It is scarcely an -exaggeration to say that the scene which took place at that humble -meeting in Aldersgate Street forms an epoch in English history." But -it is a striking fact that Wesley's real work did not begin until he -had reached full middle life. It was under the influence of George -Whitefield, the greatest pulpit orator England has produced, that -Wesley went to Bristol and under pressure by Whitefield, consented to -speak in the open air to some three thousand people, gathered about a -little eminence. Few careers offer greater encouragement and -inspiration to the man who at middle-age has yet to find himself. - -And what was the secret of his incredible strength? The secret is very -simple. During each day he kept two or three little islands of silence -and solitude for himself, betwixt the sermons and crowds. He learned -how to read books on horseback. He never hurried, and never worried. -He preached with physical restraint, so that public speech became a -form of physical exercise, a life-giving kind of gymnastics. He -learned how to breathe, so that speaking three, or four and five hours -a day did not injure his vocal cords. Morley, in his _Life of -Gladstone_, says that at Gravesend, Gladstone spoke for two hours to -an audience of twenty thousand, and his biographer declares that -physically and intellectually, that speech was the greatest of Mr. -Gladstone's career. Gladstone was sixty-two years old when he -performed that feat, which is unique in his career. Wesley's journal -is filled with records like this:-- - - Sunday, August 10, 1786. Preached in the churchyard to large - congregations. - - Preached at one P. M. to twenty thousand. - - At five o'clock to another such congregation. - - All at the utmost stretch of my voice. - - But my strength was as my day. - -Seven years later, August 23, 1773, his journal holds this record: - - Preached at Gwennap Pit to above 32,000, perhaps the first time that a - man of seventy had been heard by 30,000 persons. - -Fitchett says that Wesley's voice must have far outranged Gladstone's. -The people all stood closely packed together. At Bristol, after the -audience had gone, one man measured the ground from Wesley's stand to -the outskirts of the audience and found it to be 420 feet. For this -reason his biographers say that Wesley preached more sermons, rode -more miles, worked more hours, printed more books, and influenced more -lives than any Englishman of his age, or _any_ age. In 1773 he writes, -"I am seventy-three years old, and far abler to preach than I was at -twenty-three." Ten years later, the old man writes, "I have entered -into the eighty-third year of my age. I am never tired, either with -preaching, writing or travelling." And yet his emotions had tremendous -intensity. He held thousands of miners in breathless silence for an -hour and a half at a time. When he was ill, he exclaimed that if he -could only go into the pulpit for two hours, and have a good sweat he -thought he might recover. His secret of health was "a little more -work." That was the tonic that cured worry and dissipated all clouds. - -The moral courage of John Wesley is one of the wonderful spectacles of -history. He lived in a brutal, cruel century. The crowds did not stop -with jeers, oaths, vulgar epithets. It was a time when disputes were -marked by all the savagery of a Spanish bull-fight. Wesley gives the -details of these persecutions and without complaint. The period -between June 1743, and February 1744, was particularly trying. An -organized movement was carried on to intimidate the people from -following Wesley. In several cities the Methodists were beaten and -plundered by a rabble that broke into their houses, destroyed their -victuals and goods, threatened their lives, and abused their women. -During that winter Wesley received many blows, occasionally lost part -of his clothing and was often covered with dirt. Meanwhile, enemies -went on in advance to sow the towns with wild scandals, and stir up -strife and storm, but Wesley went on building churches, developing -schools, training lay preachers, organizing his people to take care of -the class during his absence. - -Wesley was a scholar, and prepared his sermons with the greatest care. -He was also a flaming evangelist, and therefore was freed from what -Robertson of Brighton describes as "the treadmill necessity of being -always ready twice a week with earnest thoughts on solemn themes." -Like Beecher, Wesley was not afraid of repeating his sermons. Like -Wendell Phillips, he thought a lecturer was never in shape until he -had one hundred nights of delivery back of him. Having heard a good -man say, "Once in seven years I burn all my sermons," Wesley answered, -"I cannot write a better sermon on the Good Steward than I did seven -years ago; I cannot write a better on the Great Assize than I did -twenty years ago; I cannot write a better on the use of money than I -did thirty years ago." - -As an orator, Wesley had many wonderful gifts. Not a large man, he was -compact and strong, with nerves of silk and sinews of steel. In -moments of impassioned speech he seemed to tower and take on the -dimensions of a giant. His portraits show him to have been a man of -fine figure, and beautiful face, with firm lips, mobile and sensitive, -eyes bright and kindly. His complexion was very beautiful, fair, clear -and somewhat ruddy. His forehead was broad, and beautifully curved. -His voice was called the finest instrument of its kind in England, -always saving that of Whitefield. During his college days he made a -reputation as an accurate scholar, and a keen and skillful logician. -All his life long he retained his analytic method, and was always -working upon his sermons. He was a master of keen, arrowy sentences. -His sermons abound in short paragraphs. His illustrations are simple, -but so perfectly related to his thought, that they become a part of -the argument itself. The chief characteristic of his style is its -clearness. He excelled in the searching force of the application, and -tested the result of each address by the number of hearers whom he had -persuaded to change their lives at a given moment. - -Little by little he developed a kingly authority. He carried the -atmosphere of gentle supremacy. "How did you know that Theseus was a -god?" The answer was: "I recognized Apollo by his speech; Mars by his -thunderbolts; Minerva by her wisdom, but I knew that Theseus was a -god, because whatsoever he did, whether he sat, or whether he walked -or whatsoever he did, he conquered." John Wesley was a natural king, -ruling men by the divine right of moral supremacy. One day a mob -threatened to tear him in pieces. "I called," Wesley writes, "for a -chair. Suddenly the winds were hushed, and all was calm and still; my -heart was filled with love; my eyes with tears; my mouth with -arguments. The leaders were amazed; they were ashamed; they were -melted down; they devoured every word." At the end of the sermon the -leader, who held a stone in his hand, with which to strike Wesley, -seemed transformed. He turned to his followers and shouted, "If any -man dares to lift a hand against Mr. Wesley he will have to reckon -with me first!" Those who came to curse remained to pray. - -Wesley has had scores of biographers, and every one of them seems to -have emphasized the happiness and the serene cheerfulness of his daily -life. If there ever lived a man who dwelt in constant sunshine, and -maintained unbroken tranquillity and peace amidst endless storm and -tumult, that man was John Wesley. He cared nothing about a great -house, servants, equipage, money. It is said that the profits of his -various publications were about $150,000, but he gave this money away -as fast as it came in. He discovered the simple life long before -Pastor Wagner. He ate sparingly, cared nothing for rich foods or -costly raiment. He loved the temperate zone, far removed alike from -luxury and poverty. He never wrote a creed. In welcoming a member into -his company he asked two questions, "Is thine heart right? If it be, -give me thine hand. Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough. I give -thee the right hand of fellowship." In that spirit, when members of -other churches came to him he bade them keep their own creed if only -"they did love and serve God, and desired to save souls." - -And so his work spread into every land. Asbury, the great pioneer, rode -his horse to and fro over the Alleghany Mountains, preaching in hundreds -of settlements between the Atlantic Coast and the Mississippi River. -Simpson, with his unrivalled eloquence, travelled from state to state -for forty years, founding churches, charging class leaders, consecrating -lay preachers, placing the torch in the hand of some gifted youth, and -sending him out to light a thousand other tapers. Taylor made his way -across India with its three hundred millions, and in every cannibal -island in the South Seas and along the path through the jungles of -Africa, went the followers of Wesley. It is a wonderful story. For the -man who counted himself the friend of all the churches and the enemy of -none "has liberalized, broadened and sweetened every Christian faith." - -The year 1741 brought the beginning of Wesley's plan of world -evangelization. He saw that the millions of the human race would never -be reached by a handful of preachers. He tells us that it was as if a -veil had fallen from his eyes, after which he saw clearly that Jesus -used lay disciples, both men and women, for the spread of His life and -teaching. Holding a candle in his hand, Wesley lighted another -candle, and watched the flame leap from taper to taper. He organized -each group of one hundred converts into a class and pledged them to -come together in a meeting, when each disciple was to tell the story -of what the living Christ had done for him. He saw that merchants -advertised their cotton and their woollen goods; that manufacturers -went everywhither telling other men the advantages of the new loom, or -locomotive; and instead of having one minister to confess Christ -before five hundred dumb hearers, Wesley conceived the idea of -dedicating each of the five hundred hearers, not to dumbness but to -full speech, and to send them forth, from house to house, and mine to -mine, and school to school. - -Scientists tell us that the Gulf Stream, made up of individual drops -of water, each of which has been warmed by the tropic sun, bathes -England and turns a land that is as far north as Labrador into a land -of fruit and flowers. And from that hour, if other churches had one -minister, to five hundred disciples, Wesley dedicated laymen and -laywomen to the task of going forth into all the world to tell the -story of the love of God to sinful men. - -The movement he started is still advancing in the world. It was Wesley -who gave the impulse to Wilberforce, the emancipator, to Howard, the -prison reformer, to Livingstone, the missionary, to the Booths with -their work for the submerged classes. Above any other man in modern -times he made it plain to the miner, the peasant, and the criminal, that -they must achieve eminence through penitence and obedience, love and -self-sacrificing service. Having turned multitudes to righteousness, his -name now shines like the brightness of the firmament, and will continue -to shine like the stars for ever and ever. - -John Wesley mastered another secret--he knew how to die gloriously. In -his last hours, Moody, the evangelist, turned with smiles to a friend, -and whispered, "They were all wrong. There is no valley, and no -shadow." Wesley died with that memorable word upon his lips, "The best -of all is, God is with us." He preached his last sermon on February -23, 1791. His last letter was addressed to Wilberforce, and was a -protest against the horrors of slavery. A few weeks before, he had -given the first five days of the new year to the task of walking -through the streets of London, soliciting alms for the relief of the -poor. In those days his appearance in the street was the signal for -all passers-by to uncover. Men revered him as a noble saint. He died -singing, in the spirit of serene happiness and outbreaking joy: - - "_I'll praise my Maker while I've breath_ - _And when my voice is lost in death,_ - _Praise shall employ my nobler powers._" - -Great was the power of the soldier, Napoleon; wonderful the genius of -his opponent Wellington, the victor; marvellous the influence of Pitt, -with his vision of the expansion of England as a world power; but more -wonderful, a thousand times, the influence of John Wesley, carried to -his grave by six very poor men, but whose work is memorable, whose -influence is immortal, and whose spirit is inshrined in the hearts of -millions of his grateful followers. - - - - -VII - -GARIBALDI - -(1807-1882) - -_The Idol of the New Italy_ - - -Among the builders of the New Italy, history has made a large place -for Mazzini, the agitator and author, and for Cavour, the statesman, -but the common people have kept the first place in their heart for -Garibaldi, the soldier, and hero. Mazzini was the John the Baptist of -the movement, who descended upon the political ills and wrongs of his -time, carrying a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. Cavour -was the statesman of the movement, a most skillful diplomat, who -organized political and moral forces against the foul wrongs found in -the prisons of Naples and the palaces of Rome. But it was Garibaldi -who captured the imagination of the Italian people, who turned mobs -into regiments, overthrew the citadels of iniquity, and made possible -the realization of the visions of Mazzini and the reforms of Cavour. - -Unlike the other great men whose stories fill the pages of this -little book, Garibaldi was not a man of universal genius; he wrote no -enduring history nor philosophy, he created no body of laws. In terms -of intellect his gifts were modest. No pamphlet, no great speech -survives his death. He was one of the common people. But he was born -with the gift of surrender, and he knew how to dedicate himself to a -great cause. Early in his career Garibaldi allied himself with an -unpopular movement, in the interests of the poor and the oppressed, -and thereby opened the doors of hope to all men of modest gifts, who -are ambitious to serve their fellows. - -The career of this soldier, Garibaldi, forms one of the most dramatic -and fascinating tales in history. It is a story so unique and -unexplainable that many Italians speak of the miraculous note in it, -the note of mystery. Garibaldi's mother was a remarkable woman, who -believed that her son had a call from God to do a great piece of work, -and she filled the soul of the child with the firm belief that he -could not be killed by any sword or bullet or cannon-ball. This -supreme conviction explains, in part, deliverances that his -biographers tell us were "miraculous." With words of matchless -simplicity, the apostle Paul tells us the number of times he was -stoned and mobbed, flogged and imprisoned; but the perils of -Garibaldi in the wilderness, in the city and the sea were scarcely -less dramatic. In his boyhood his father was the captain of a sailing -vessel, who owned and commanded his own ship and made the ports -between Nice and Constantinople. At fifteen years of age the boy went -to sea; learned to build a sailing-vessel, to rig the masts, to sail -the boat against opposing winds, and to fight the pirates who were -still occasionally found upon the seas. And he was barely twenty when, -under the influence of Mazzini, he surrendered his soul to the spirit -of Washington and Hamilton and dreamed the dream of a second republic. -From that moment, when, heart and soul, he threw himself into the -cause of liberty, his life was one long chapter of thrilling -adventures and miraculous escapes. - -His biography teems with striking incidents. Once, after enlisting on -the side of the revolutionists, he was on a small vessel going up the -La Plata River. Rounding a bend in the stream, Garibaldi's little boat -was attacked by two large vessels, that opened fire, cut down the -masts, carried away the sails, and covered the decks with killed and -wounded. As captain of the boat, Garibaldi wore his red shirt, and so -became the target of the gunners. When several of his men tried to -drag him below, he answered, "I can't be killed!" A few minutes later -a shot struck his neck and cut a part of the jugular vein. Now, many -surgeons say that if the jugular vein be severed it cannot be healed, -because it is always throbbing and throbbing with each pulse beat, -just as it is said that a shot through the heart is fatal. A little -later the boat struck a sandbar, and the battle swept to another part -of the river. The physician told Garibaldi that his wound was fatal, -and asked what word he wished to send home. Garibaldi answered, "Tell -my mother I shall live to be seventy-six." - -On another occasion, his place of hiding was surrounded by a company -of soldiers, who opened fire upon the house. Garibaldi awakened, flung -open the door, took his sword in one hand and his dagger in the -other--his ammunition was exhausted--and rushed forth against the -enemy. From their ambush these enemies saw his red shirt. They had -heard that no bullet could kill him, and armed as they were, they fled -in every direction, across fields and into the woods. - -At the very outset of his career, Garibaldi's life was threatened by -the State and a price put upon his head. Under the influence of -Mazzini, he had joined a secret society and been made acquainted with -the plans for a revolution in Italy. The plot was betrayed by a spy, -and in the disguise of a peasant trying to buy sheep, Garibaldi was -forced to flee across the line into France. Once on French territory, -he abandoned caution and entered a village inn. "I must have something -to eat," he told the landlord, "I am starving." His host was -suspicious and asked Garibaldi if he was not a fugitive, to which the -youth replied with open truthfulness, "Yes, I am an Italian! I fled -from soldiers who would have shot or hung me, had they been quick -enough." . . . "What have you done?" asked the landlord. Garibaldi -answered: "I met Mazzini. He told me about the republic in the United -States. He said that the American colonists threw off the yoke of a -tyrant and made a constitution for themselves, and asked whether the -people of Italy could not break their own fetters. I answered that -Italy should become a republic." - -After that bold statement, the landlord signalled to one of his men, -who put his hand upon Garibaldi's shoulder, saying, "I am an officer -of the French government. Under the treaty with Italy I am sworn to -arrest all those accused of treason who flee across the frontier." . . . -"Very well," said Garibaldi. "And now that is settled, give me -something to eat!" - -When the servant asked Garibaldi whether he had money for his dinner, -the youth pulled out his purse. "Since I am going to be either hung or -shot, I may as well have one good meal before I die!" He then asked -two or three strangers who were in the inn to join him in his last -dinner, and extended that invitation until there were fifteen or -twenty about the table, singing, telling stories, and relating -incidents of adventure. When Garibaldi saw that the time had come for -his arrest, since a group of soldiers had appeared at the door, he -arose, and looking out upon his new friends, said, "Well, the -landlord, who is an officer of the government, has sent for these -soldiers to arrest me. It seems I have committed treason. I wanted to -have a republic in Italy. So I joined Mazzini's society." One by one -the inmates of the inn rose. One looked toward the landlord and said, -"Is this true? Are you going to imprison and shoot this man? Why, this -Garibaldi is a great man, and a good man; I never saw him before -to-night, but before you arrest him you will have to arrest me." -Another shouted, "Before you shoot Garibaldi, you will have to shoot -me!" A moment later, the whole company had joined to form a bodyguard -around the brave young stranger. They lifted Garibaldi to their -shoulders. They dared the officers to arrest him. They carried him out -to the stable behind the inn, filled his pockets with copper and -silver, and paid the driver to set him twenty miles beyond the -frontier. Four of them rode with him as a guard to protect him. . . . - -Condemned to death, he escaped to South America, where he plunged at -once into the struggle for liberty there. The story of the happiness -and prosperity of the people of the United States under a free -government had spread all over the Southern continent. Unfortunately -there were still many men who believed in autocracy and in the -absolutism of an hereditary despot. Garibaldi at once took sides. He -fought on the sea. He began as a private sailor, but soon became -commander of the fleet. He fought on the land. He began as a private -soldier, but he ended as a general. Once he was captured and beaten -within an inch of his life. Once he was taken from a prison and hung -by his hands from a beam. During those two hours, he tells us, he -suffered the anguish of a hundred deaths. - -Then came the dramatic meeting with Anita. One of his soldiers told -Garibaldi about the beauty, bravery and self-sacrifice of a daughter -of a certain rich man. Hearing that this girl, Anita, had gone to -visit a friend in the village, Garibaldi, with several of his men, -rode to the little store. Drawing rein before the door of the shop, he -sent one of his men into the store to buy some trifle. In the upper -window stood Anita. Garibaldi turned his horse and rode close to the -door. Looking up, he met the eyes of Anita, and for a full minute, -without saying a word, the two looked each into the soul of the other. -Suddenly Garibaldi said, "Señorita! I have never seen you before. I do -not know your name, but you belong to me! Sooner or later you will -come to me." Anita arose. She leaned out of the window. In a low voice -she said, "Shall I come now?" And Garibaldi answered, "I will ride up -the street and return within a moment. Be ready at this spot." There -was just time for Anita to grasp a cloak and a few articles of -clothing. A moment later, down the street on a gallop came Garibaldi, -followed by his soldiers. Anita was standing on the stone step. As -Garibaldi dashed by, he put out his right arm, swept her against his -horse and up to the front of the saddle and dashed away for a ten -mile gallop to a little church whose frightened priest refused to -perform the marriage ceremony without publishing the banns for the -next two Sundays. Anita's father was of the other political party and -the soldier knew that the consent would never be given. Garibaldi laid -two revolvers upon the altar and said quietly, "Father, the service -will proceed immediately." - -So they were married. Anita was well educated as well as brave and -very beautiful. In a fit of anger and hate, her father organized a -group of conspirators who were to receive a rich reward for killing -Garibaldi. It was Anita who discovered the plot and fired the pistol -that led the conspirators to believe that they had been discovered. -Later, a drunken mob discovered that she was alone in a little house. -The leader of the despot organized a group at midnight, all of them -crazed with liquor. They set fire to the house and then rushed in, -only to find that Garibaldi had not yet returned home. And when these -drunken brigands had beaten Anita down and knocked her into -unconsciousness Garibaldi returned unarmed save for his dagger. One by -one he took these eight men who were standing about the unconscious -girl, and one by one they went down before him. - -His life in South America, extending over a period of fourteen years, -was one long struggle against tyranny and oppression. Fighting first -in the revolt against Brazil, then joining the patriots of Uruguay, he -formed the Italian Legion, and in the spring of 1846 won the battles -of Cerro and Sant'Antonio, assuring the freedom of Uruguay. Refusing -all honours and recompense he returned to Italy, having heard of the -incipient struggle for liberty at home. He landed at Nice in 1848 and, -forming a volunteer army of 3,000, plunged at once into the struggle -against the French. His troops were largely students, mere lads, many -of them never before under fire, and the troops of the enemy included -the legions of France, Austria and Spain. The climax of the struggle -came with his wonderful retreat through central Italy toward Venice, -pursued by four armies. Only his consummate generalship and the -matchless loyalty of his men saved them all from annihilation. During -this retreat, Garibaldi was accompanied by his wife, Anita, who had -cut off her hair and mounted a horse, and who wore men's clothing to -avoid observation. Realizing at length that the struggle was hopeless, -Garibaldi issued an order, releasing his soldiers, and bidding them -return to their homes. And leaving Anita hidden at the house of a -friend, he himself took refuge in a cave in the hills, after the -fashion of David the Fugitive and Robert Bruce--a hiding-place from -which he continued to send forth his military orders. - -Among the many wonder tales of this period, many of which are -traditional and perhaps untrustworthy, there is one that bears the -stamp of reality. One night Garibaldi was asleep in the cave. A -faithful soldier was on guard. Suddenly the soldier saw a torch waving -in the blackness of the valley below. The torch was spelling a signal, -but the guard was ignorant of its significance. He hurried into the -cave and wakened his leader. Garibaldi knew the signal--it told of the -approaching death of Anita. With instant decision, he started down the -mountainside; made his way to the house of a peasant, and, despatching -a man in advance, found and mounted a horse for the long ride to the -village where Anita lay dying. Ahead of him, the galloping rider -warned the countryside, shouting that Garibaldi was coming and -commanding every man to go into his house and close the door, that no -man might see the face of the fugitive, for whose person a reward had -long been offered. The hurrying hero changed horses, and when the day -was nearly done, rode into the village to the house where his beloved -wife lay dying. In the night, wrestling with the death angel, -Garibaldi was defeated, and left desolate. When the morning came, he -wrapped Anita's body in the flag of the new republic, and buried her -in the corner of the garden. That night he rode back to his handful of -fugitives, hidden in a defile of the mountains. - -It was about the year 1850 that, once more a fugitive, Garibaldi -sailed for America, and coming to New York, settled as a chandler on -Staten Island. He had a brother living in New York, and the brother -had never tired of writing letters about the wonderful opportunities -in the United States. It was an era of candles. Kerosene oil was but -little used, while gas and electricity were unknown. As a cattle -drover in the Argentine Republic, Garibaldi had seen the great herds -on the ranches, the tanneries filled with hides, the great stores of -tallow in the warehouses. He entered into an agreement with a friend -in South America to keep him supplied with tallow, and over at St. -George he started his little candle factory. Later, he became a -trading skipper and in 1854 was able to return to Italy with funds -sufficient to purchase the tiny island of Caprera, and build the -house which thenceforth was to be his home. - -Throughout the four years in America and on the sea, he had never once -ceased to dream his dream of liberty and a republic to be set up in -Italy. In 1851, while he was living here, Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian -patriot, had landed in New York and received an ovation. While here, -Kossuth had perfected the constitution for the republic he proposed to -set up in Hungary, and had announced his plans for the overthrow of -the royal family, and the enthronement of a president. Garibaldi kept -in touch with every such new movement. He read the daily papers of New -York; met the political leaders of the city and everywhere heard -discussions as to Washington and Franklin, Hamilton and Webster. The -fire burned ever more fiercely in his heart. He wrote a friend saying: -"Whenever they are ready, the people of Italy can shake off the old -tyranny that has come down from the middle ages, just as a peasant in -the forest shakes the fallen leaves from his coat." - -And during his trading days, while on a voyage to Hong Kong, he -dreamed another dream, of a different kind. Half-way across the ocean, -he dreamed that he saw his mother kneeling at the foot of a white -cross. He fell upon his knees beside it and heard her say: "Fight -only for liberty, my son! Fight only for liberty!" It was his -birthday, the fifth of May. Months later, he discovered that on that -very night his mother had passed away in the little house in Nice. -From that hour he dedicated the remainder of his life to the -liberation of his native land. - -One day, while he was following the plow on his little island farm near -the coast of Sardinia, a messenger brought word that an Austrian -regiment had landed on the shore of Sardinia and seized the island for -Austria. Once more, Garibaldi plunged into the struggle. For a year he -fought at the head of Italian volunteers under Victor Emmanuel, against -the Austrians, liberating the Alpine territory as far as the frontier of -Tyrol. Then, in retirement at Genoa, came another summons--a letter -telling the story of the sufferings of the liberal leaders in Naples. -King Francis, the tyrant of Naples, had been arresting by wholesale men -suspected of sympathy with free institutions. The despot filled the -dungeons, crowded the upper cells, packed the corridors between the rows -of cells, until there was not room for men even to lie down upon the -floor. Without any warning whatsoever, the soldiers would appear at the -home of some citizen. Without any hearing, much less a trial, men were -sent to the royal prison and jammed into corridors already filled to -suffocation with murderers, brigands, thieves, forgers. The under-cells -dripped with filth. There was no sanitation. Vermin, rats, every form of -vice and uncleanliness were there. In the stifling heat some smothered -to death. - -Gladstone was at this time in Italy. One day he reached Naples, en -route for Pompeii and Herculaneum. Calling upon the British Consul, he -was told about these prisons, that were death-traps. He hurried back -to London. He used his official position as a statesman under Queen -Victoria to address a letter to the civilized peoples of the world. A -wave of indignation and horror swept over the capitals of Europe. The -hour had struck for Italy. Garibaldi headed a tiny army and started -south to the attack. Naples was besieged. After weeks of fighting, and -oft wounded, one day with clothes covered with blood he addressed a -handful of citizens: "Soldiers, what I have to offer you is -this--hunger, thirst, cold, heat, no pay, no barracks, no rations, -frequent alarms, forced marches, charges at the point of the bayonet. -Whoever loves honour and fatherland, follow me!" Ah, Garibaldi knew -that there is a latent instinct of heroism in every human heart. Why -are there few boys going into the ministry to-day? Because the task -has become too easy. Here are the young fisherman, John; the young -physician, Luke; the young rabbi, Paul;--offer them stones, scourges, -blows, fagot-fires, martyrdom, and they will leap into the breach. -After that appeal of Garibaldi four thousand men followed their leader -to battle. Soon the bloody tyrant of Naples was driven from his city. - -Then came the long campaigns in the south, with Garibaldi's entrance -into the city of Palermo; the struggle in Sicily, the siege of the -fortress at Massina, the triumphal march through Calabria, his victory -at Naples, culminating with that great day, September 7th, 1860, when -he handed over a fleet and an army to Victor Emmanuel. Having endured -every form of peril, hunger, and cold, with loss of blood through many -wounds, the citizens of Naples, after the expulsion of their recreant -King, turned with one heart and offered him the throne for his -leverage, and the palace for his home. But Garibaldi refused the -throne, because he believed in the republic, and no bribe nor -blandishment could swerve him a hair's breadth from his conviction -that the fairest, stablest form of government was self-government. - -On the day of his entrance, the people went out and carried him into -the city upon their shoulders. All along the central street he was -welcomed with the words, "Secundo Washington"--"Second Washington." -For what Lincoln did for the three million slaves, and what Washington -did for the three million colonists, Garibaldi had wrought for three -million downtrodden Italian peasants. But having freed the people from -cruel oppression, he sent for Victor Emmanuel, the ruler who had -insulted him, and said, looking toward his army and the captains of -his navy, "I have not been trained for civil government! I therefore -abdicate my position as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and I -turn these instruments of defense and offense over to you." History -holds the story of no sublimer act of disinterested patriotism. That -deed insured a united Italy, the chief aim of Garibaldi's life. - -From that hour his fame, his place in the history of Italy were fully -established. During the next few years many honours and offices were -offered Garibaldi, all of which he consistently declined. He was the -last hero of the heroic age of the new Italy, the most popular, the -most legendary, in the sense that he resembled a hero of old romance. -A faithful soldier, who might have been a king; a hero always a hero, -even to his own servants and amid sordid circumstances; unspoiled by -the admiration of the world and the adulation of his friends; a -warrior with hands unstained by plunder, cruelty or the useless -shedding of blood, he remained to the end one of the few characters -for whom neither wealth nor rank ever offered temptation. Michelet, -the French historian, wrote of him, "There is one hero in all -Europe--one! I do not know a second. All his life is a romance; and -since he had the greatest reasons for hatred to France, who had stolen -his Nice, caused him to be fired upon at Aspromonte, fought against -him at Mentana, you guess that it was this man who flew (during the -Franco-German War) to immolate himself for France. And how modestly, -withal! Nothing mattered it to him that he was placed in obscure posts -quite unworthy of him. Grand man, my Garibaldi! My single hero! Always -loftier than fortune! How sublimely does his memory rise and swell -toward the future!" - -In retrospect, strategists tell us that Garibaldi knew little and -cared less about the usual military tactics, or the plans of -organization and transport taught in military schools. His wonderful -career, with its many and brilliant victories, is explained by the -supreme influence which his person exercised. Knowing neither danger -nor fear, rushing into the most perilous spots, his very daring -fascinated and inspired his followers. "He had all the instincts of -the lion; not merely the headlong courage, but the far nobler -qualities of magnanimity, placability, self-denial. His impulses were -all generous, his motives invariably upright, his conscience -unerring." The most loving among great leaders, the least hating among -great soldiers, he was devoid of all personal ambition, as he was -devoid of all rancour and malice. He was one of the most picturesque -leaders, one of the most dramatic figures in all history. "None could -fail to admire or be inspired by the sight of him on the field of -battle, as with clear, ringing silver voice, his lion-like face, his -plain red shirt and grey trousers, he sat his horse with perfect ease -and calm, guiding his soldiers by plunging into the thick of the enemy -and trusting his troops to follow." - -Garibaldi's moral courage was always the equal of his physical -bravery. During the siege of Rome, when he was defending the city -against the forces of Austria and of France, the enemy located the -house from which he was directing the defense. Cannonball, smashing -through the roof, carried away his flag; bullets aimed with unerring -accuracy entered the windows, and buried themselves in the walls. -While the others ran to the cellar, Garibaldi walked out the front -door, stood on the steps, and calmly supervised the carrying to a -place of safety of all the important military papers. That night the -Roman leaders sent messengers to Garibaldi, and insisted upon -surrender. At last Garibaldi exclaimed, "Is it not enough that I must -fight our enemies? Has it come to this, that with equal strength I -must oppose my friends?" And then, he lifted his broken sword, and -exclaimed: "On my monument write these words, 'A man who never -surrendered to the enemies of human freedom!'" - -Where were the hidings of this man's power? History tells of no leader -who was so idolized. For Garibaldi men braved martyrdom. For him, -women endured starvation. Priests risked the anathema of their -masters. Boys, wearing the red shirt, flung themselves upon the -bayonets of Austria and France. Captured, they were tortured by the -enemy, but died smiling rather than betray Garibaldi. There is a -tradition not mentioned by his best biographer, that many Italians -claim is absolutely true. Once when he was in hiding, he appeared at -midnight in the public square of Naples. The city was completely -controlled by the King, who had set a price upon Garibaldi's head. But -many of the people were secret followers of Garibaldi, who wished to -confer with one of his friends in the prison. Recognizing a policeman -who was his friend, Garibaldi put his fingers upon his lips and drew -his cloak the closer about his face. After a whispered word the -soldier led Garibaldi to the entrance of the prison. Another whispered -word and the great iron gate swung open. A second whispered -conversation and the inner gate opened. Within, another guard stooped -while Garibaldi whispered in his ear. A little later, out of a cell, -came that captured friend of Garibaldi. The hero asked and obtained -the information he desired. Putting his two fingers upon his lips, -Garibaldi saluted, and was led to the inner gate. Having passed -through he put those two fingers upon his lips, saluted, and was led -to the outer gate. Putting his fingers upon his lips he saluted again, -and with an officer who had become his guide, walked hurriedly to an -alley, where he stepped into his carriage, where he saluted and -disappeared in the darkness--whether cellar or attic no man knows -unto this day. The following morning Garibaldi led his troops into -battle. Now tell me, where is there in history of human heroism a -chapter more thrilling than this story of Garibaldi? - -The truism that men without fault are generally men without force, is -well illustrated in the life of Garibaldi. It is the strongest, most -adventurous, romantic and troublous career in history. There are many -blots upon his scutcheon, just as there are many yellow spots upon the -front columns of the Parthenon, and nothing is gained by calling the -roll of faults rehearsed by his critics and enemies. "The evil that men -do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." -Remember the story of the farmer in Sardinia who came home at night, -sick because he had lost a favourite lamb, and how the next morning -Garibaldi returned with the little dumb creature wrapped in his blanket -and lying upon his bosom. Remember, how at Palermo, Garibaldi came out -of the battlefield unshaken, but at sight of the little orphans in the -asylum crying for food the great soldier burst into tears. Even when -they led him to the palace and called him "Your Excellency," he frowned -and moved to the lighthouse, where, the idol of his people, he lived in -a tiny room with no furniture but a couch and a stool. Once he was -offered great riches if he would go out to China and lead a regiment and -ship slaves to South America, but he answered that "Not all the wealth -of the Indies could induce him to buy and sell human flesh." After his -long campaigns and victories for the people of Uruguay the new -government sent him a title deed to an enormous tract of land and -thousands of heads of cattle, but he tore up the deeds because he had -fought for liberty. In time of plague he became a nurse, in time of -shipwreck he risked his life to save his comrades. - -It is true that for some years, under the influence of two friends who -were foreigners, he passed under the influence of their own materialism -and doubt, and he tells us that from that hour it seemed as if the -spirit of his mother and of Anita had both deserted him. During the last -years of his life he became almost a hermit and seemed to be confused by -the problems of the world in which he lived. But he had been starved, -imprisoned, tortured, betrayed and shot down. The real Garibaldi speaks -in this message that he addressed to the people of Italy: - -"I am a Christian and I speak to Christians. - -"I love and venerate the religion of Christ. - -"Christ came into the world to deliver humanity from slavery. - -"You who are here have the duty to educate the people. - -"Educate them to be Christians. - -"Education gives liberty. - -"On a strong and wholesome education for the people depend the liberty -and greatness of Italy! - -"Viva Victor Emmanuel! - -"Viva Italia! - -"Viva Christianity!" - - - - -VIII - -JOHN RUSKIN - -(1819-1900) - -_And the Diffusion of the Beautiful_ - - -The genius of John Ruskin's message is in a single sentence: "Life -without industry is guilt, and industry without art and education is -brutality." He held that all the doing that makes commerce is born of -the thinking that makes scholars, and that all the flying of looms and -the whirling of spindles begins with the quiet thought of some -scholar, hidden in a closet, or sequestered in a cloister. He never -made the mistake of supposing that education would change a ten-cent -boy into a thousand-dollar-a-year man, but he _did_ know that there is -some power in Nature that will transform a seed into a sheaf, an acorn -into an oak, and that the truth will change a child into a sage, a -statesman, a seer, a man with a message for his century. - -Ruskin wrote many volumes to prove that wealth is not in raw -material;--not in iron, not in wood, not in stone, not in cotton, not -in wool. Wealth is largely in the intelligence put into the raw -material. Pig-iron is worth twenty dollars a ton, but intelligence -turns that ton of iron into a ton of tempered hair-springs, and it is -worth perhaps ten thousand dollars a ton. The clay in Rodin's -_Thinker_ represents a value of a few francs, but the idea in the -_Thinker_ brought 150,000 francs. On the sixtieth anniversary of the -coronation of Queen Victoria, an editor offered Rudyard Kipling $1,000 -for a Commemoration poem. The paper, ink and the pen stand for a few -pennies; all the rest of the $1,000 was for a trained intellect. The -average income of a family in the United States to-day is not far from -$2,000. That income could be carried up to $4,000 if our workers would -only double the intelligence, efficiency and loyalty put into the raw -material they handle! - -The career of Edison illustrates the industrial value of one informed -intellect to the nation. In 1910, business men in the United States -had invested in the expired patents of Thomas Edison six billion seven -hundred millions of dollars. These factories brought in an annual -income of a billion and seventy millions of dollars. To-day, -half-a-dozen Edisons, the one showing us how to burn the coal in the -ground, the other taking nitrogen out of the air, another showing us -how to transmute metals, another attacking the enemies of the cotton, -the fruits and the grains, with a teacher who would show the parents -of the country how successfully to assault intellectual and moral -illiteracy, would easily double our annual income. What our -country--what every country--needs is an invasion of knowledge and -sound sense. Therefore Ruskin's message, "the first business of the -nation is the manufacture of souls of a good quality." - -During his lifetime John Ruskin wrote some forty volumes. Between the -ages of twenty and thirty he wrote _Modern Painters_, dealing with the -claims of cloud, sun, shower, wave, shrub and flower, land, sea, and -sky upon man's intellectual and moral life. He held that the open-air -world is man's best college and the forces of the winter and the -summer his best teachers. From thirty to forty he wrote the _Lectures -on Architecture_, and _Stones of Venice_, with many studies of the -galleries, towers, and cathedrals of Florence and Rome. In these books -his thought is that the soul of the people within determines the -painting, architecture and civilization of the state without. From -forty to fifty he wrote many books on the claim of the beautiful upon -man's spiritual life, and insisted that those claims were binding not -less upon the working people and the peasants in factory and field, -than upon the scholar in his library and the artist in his studio. - -From fifty to sixty he wrote his _Fors Clavigera_, his _Time and -Tide_, _Munera Pulveris_, and _Unto This Last_, studies of the -problems of wealth and poverty, of labour and capital. He tells us -that men, to-day, are charmed with the glitter of gold and silver as -young birds are charmed with the glitter of snakes' eyes; that the -business man is divinely called to serve through property; that there -is, however, such a thing as a despotism of wealth; that the property -of some millionaires represents the breaking of the strength and the -will of competitors and the paralysis of the forces of the people, so -that what seems to be wealth, in verity is only "the gilded index of -far-reaching ruin, a wreckers' handful of coin, gleaned from the beach -to which he has beguiled an argosy; the camp follower's bundle of -rags, unwrapped from the breasts of goodly soldiers dead, the purchase -pieces of potter's fields, wherein shall be buried together the -citizen and the stranger." - -And then Ruskin bent himself to what he believed to be the real task -of his life, the writing of a series of books on the problems of -labour and capital, in the hope that he might save the State from -trampled cornfields and from bloody streets. But just at the supreme -moment in his career his health gave way, and he never completed his -studies of the _Robber King_, the _Rust Kings_, the _Moth King_ and -the _Hero Kings_. John Ruskin died believing himself to be an -unfulfilled prophecy, in that he was unable to complete these books -for which he believed all his life had been one long preparation. But -in reality he was a prophet who gave forth a message that is slowly -transforming the institutions of mankind. - -A full understanding of Ruskin's life-work begins with an outlook upon -his contribution to modern social reform. Biographers often identify a -great reform with one man's name, as if this man, single handed, had -wrought the social transformation. Thus they speak of Howard as the -reformer of prisons; of Shaftesbury as the author of the Poor Acts; of -Cobden as the author of the Corn Laws; of Lincoln, as the emancipator -of slaves; of Booth as the founder of the City Colony, the Home -Colony, the Farm Colony. But strictly speaking, thousands of leaders -of the movement for the abolition of slavery stood behind the forces -of Wilberforce in England, and Lincoln in the United States. Not -otherwise many biographers have claimed too much for the influence of -Ruskin, certainly more than the master would have claimed for himself. - -At the beginning of his career Ruskin started a movement to diffuse -the beautiful in the life of the people. For centuries the beautiful -had been concentrated in the temples of Athens, the palaces and -galleries of Italy, the museums of Paris and London, in the manor -houses of the landed gentry. Meanwhile the poor people of Athens, -Venice and Florence lived in huts, wore leather garments, ate crusts, -dwelt amid ugliness, squalor and filth. Ruskin dreamed a dream of the -beautiful put into the life of the common people. He found that -Sheffield, with its smoking chimneys and grimy streets, had been -spoken of as the ugliest factory town in England. Therefore Ruskin -went to Sheffield, hired a building, installed therein his paintings, -etchings, and illuminated missals, and hired a few instructors to help -him diffuse the beautiful in the daily life of the people. He brought -in men who made the implements of the dining-room, and showed them how -to make the knife, the fork, the spoon, the table linen, minister to -the sentiment of taste and refinement. He brought in men who made -wall-papers for the poor man's house, and showed the craftsmen how to -make the colours soft and warm, delicate and beautiful. He interested -himself in beautiful furniture. He wrought with William Morris for a -more beautiful type of illustrations in books and magazines. He -denounced the ugliness of the houses and clothing and bridges and -railways. He insisted that women should have beautiful garments, the -youth read beautiful books, the men ride in beautiful cars, the -families live in beautiful little houses, the children play upon -beautiful carpets and look upon walls that had one or two beautiful -pictures. John Ruskin laboured, and others wrought with him, and now -at last we have entered into the fruit of their labours. To-day the -beautiful, once concentrated in temples, palaces, and cathedrals, is -diffused in the life of the common people. - -In the same fashion Ruskin started a movement among the working men -for a diffusion of sound learning. The St. George Guild represents the -first University Extension Course and the first Chautauqua system our -world ever knew. More than fifty years ago he worked out his plan to -carry the knowledge given to rich men's sons in their lecture halls -and libraries to the working people, who were to carry on their -studies in the evening after the day's labour was over. He laid out a -course of studies for these working men, planned the organization of -lecture centers, gave us the outline of the University Extension -Course of lectures, induced many men in England to go from one working -man's guild and club to another, and after Ruskin's health broke down, -the men in the faculty of Oxford University took Ruskin's mother-idea, -and developed it into the University Extension Course of lectures. -Brought to our country that idea has spread through these lecture -courses carried on in great halls in the winter, in tents and open-air -assemblies in the summer. - -We say much of our Social Settlement Work, and trace these thousands -of settlements in the tenement-house region of great cities back to -Arnold Toynbee's work, and that of Canon Barnett, in the East End of -London. But we must remember that when Ruskin was lecturing in Oxford -to some of the richest boys in Great Britain he told them that every -boy who consumed more than he produced was a pauper and that the more -the youth received from his ancestors and the State, the larger his -debt to those who were less fortunate. He believed that every gifted -boy should keep in touch, not only with his own class, but with all -classes, and that every youth would do well to do some physical work -every day. Ruskin and his students built a road outside of Oxford, and -the foreman of the gang of students was young Arnold Toynbee. Toynbee -admired and loved Ruskin, as a young pupil and disciple loves a noble -teacher and a great master. - -After his health broke down, Ruskin gave up his work in Whitechapel Road -and urged Arnold Toynbee to give himself to the problems of the poor, -and when Ruskin's health gave way completely, it was Toynbee who rewrote -his lectures on labour and capital and gave them a new form in his -_Industrial Revolution in Great Britain_. The time came when Arnold -Toynbee broke down with overwork and brain fever, as his master had -broken before him, and his friend Canon Barnett raised the money to make -Toynbee Hall a permanent institution. But the seed of the Social -Settlement movement was John Ruskin's brief career in the tenement -region of the East End, and the first full fruit was in his disciple's -Toynbee Hall and in Canon Barnett's noble work at St. Jude's. Little by -little the Social Settlement Idea spread, until in the tenement regions -of Manchester, Birmingham, New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, -gifted men and women of wealth, leisure and patrician position, began -to give their lives to the neglected poor. - -Not less striking, the influence of Ruskin upon the plans of General -Booth. Long before the book called _In Darkest England and the Way -Out_ was published, Ruskin founded his coöperative printing press in a -little colony outside of London. One of his biographers has told the -story of Ruskin's plan to make the men and women in the poorhouses -self-supporting, happy and useful. This biographer has never fully -established the connection between that first coöperative colony of -Ruskin, and Booth's plans for the City Colony, the Farm Colony and the -Foreign Colony. But one thing is certain:--Ruskin had a pioneer mind. -Instead of his chief interest being in mountains and clouds, in wave -and flower, cathedrals, pictures, marbles, illuminated missals, the -overmastering enthusiasm of his life was people, and his real message -was a message of social reform. When long time has passed, Ruskin's -fame will rest upon his work as a social reformer, a man who loved the -poor and weak. - -Not less significant, his views of education, that have leavened all -modern schools whatsoever. Matthew Arnold defined culture as "a -familiarity with the best that has ever been done in literature." -Ruskin insisted that there were thousands of scholars living in their -libraries, surrounded by books, who were perfectly familiar with the -best that has ever been thought or done, but whose knowledge was all -but worthless, because it was selfish. He looked upon the informed man -as a sower, going forth to sow the seed of truth over the wide land. -All selfish culture is like salt in a barrel; the salt has no power to -save unless it is scattered. Selfish culture is like seed corn in the -granary, important for a harvest. Under Ruskin's influence many of his -friends gave an evening or two a week to lectures before his working -men's clubs, his art groups, and his classes for the improvement of -the handicrafts. - -No modern author has made so much of vision, or tried so hard to teach -people how to see. Many teachers think that education is stuffing the -pocket of memory with a mass of facts. When the mind is filled so that -it cannot hold another truth, the youth receives a diploma. Ruskin held -that education was teaching the child how to see everything true and -beautiful in land and sea and sky. "For a thousand great speakers, there -is only one great thinker; for a thousand great thinkers, there is only -one great see-er; we cut out one 'e' and leave it seer, but the true -poet and sage is simply the see-er." The millions are blind to the -signals hanged out from the battlements of cloud. Isaac Newton was a -see-er,--he saw an apple falling from the tree; saw a moon falling -through space, and gave us the law of gravity. Columbus was a see-er. In -a crevice in a bit of driftwood, tossed upon the shore of Spain, he saw -a strange pebble, and his imagination leaped from the driftwood to the -unknown forest from whence it came, from that bright piece of stone to -the mountain range of which it was a part. Columbus had the seeing eye, -and discovered the continent hidden behind the clouds. - -Not otherwise the geologist sees the handwriting of God upon the -rock-pages; the astronomer sees His writing upon the pages of the sky; -the physiologist reads His writing on the pages of the human body; the -moralist deciphers the writing on the tablets of the mind and the -heart. The beginning of Wordsworth's fame was the hour when his eyes -were opened, and he saw man appearing upon the horizon, and like a -bright spirit trailing clouds of glory, coming from God who is man's -home. It was the inner sight of Wordsworth's soul that was "the bliss -of solitude." It was his power of vision that enabled him to look out -upon the field, yellow as gold, a vision that lingered long in his -memory when he said, "and then my heart with rapture thrills, and -dances with the daffodils." - -It is useless for people who are colour-blind to look at Rembrandt's -portrait. It is folly for people who cannot follow a tune to buy a -ticket for a symphony concert. Men who by neglect atrophy the -spiritual faculty, or by sin cut gashes in the nerve of conscience, -will soon exclaim, in the spirit of the fool, "There is no God," just -as the blind man is certain that there is no sun. The old black -ex-slave, Sojourner Truth, once illustrated this principle. In those -days excitement ran high. Northern merchants, fearful of losing their -trade with Southern cities, frowned upon any one who dared criticize -"the peculiar institution" of the South. One day, in New York, -Sojourner Truth, just escaped from slavery, went to an Abolition -Meeting, hoping for an opportunity of making a plea for the -emancipation of her race. When the black woman, with her gnarled -hands, and face seamed with pain and sorrow, arose to speak, a young -newspaper reporter slammed his book upon the table, and stamped his -way down the aisle toward the door. Just before he reached the door, -Sojourner Truth stretched out her long black finger and said, "Wait a -minute, honey! You goin' 'way 'cause of me? Listen, honey--I would -give you some ideas to take home with you to your newspaper, but I see -you ain't got nothing to carry 'em in!" . . . Homely but forceful -illustration of an old truth. The angel of truth and the angel of -beauty, leaning from the battlements of heaven, oft whispers, "Oh, my -children! I would fain give you a new tool, a new painting, a new -science, but you have no eyes to see the vision, and no ears to hear -the sweetest music that ever fell from heaven's battlements." It is -the man of vision who founds the new school of painting, or the new -reform or the new liberty. The visions of the idealist to-day become -the laws and institutions of to-morrow. - -In this power of the open eye, Ruskin found the secret of daily -happiness, and mental growth. No one knew better than John Ruskin that -the millions of working men and women would never be able to make -their way to the galleries of Paris and Madrid, of Florence and -Venice, to St. Peter's or the Parthenon, much less have time, leisure -and money for travel unto the far-off ends of the earth. Therefore he -taught the people how to see the wonders of God, in every fluted blade -of grass, in every bush that blazed with beauty, and blazing, was not -consumed. He proved that he who knows how to see will find the common -clod to be a casket filled with gems, and that the sky that looks down -upon all workers, spreads out scenes of such loveliness and beauty as -to make travel to distant lands unnecessary! - -And yet, for the most part, men turn their eyes toward the sky only in -moments of utter idleness and insipidity. "One says it has been wet, -and another, it has been windy, and another, it has been warm. But -who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and -precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the -horizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of -the south, and smote upon their summits, until they melted and -mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead -clouds, when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew -them before it like withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted, and -unseen. Not in the clash of the hail nor the drift of the whirlwind, -are the highest characters developed. God is not in the earthquake, -nor in the fire, but in the still small voice. Blunt and low those -faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through -lamp-black and lightning." - -The whole world owes Ruskin an immeasurable debt for this: that he -taught us how to see the beauty in the great imperial palace in which -man hath his home. - -In his defense of Turner, the world's greatest landscape painter, Ruskin -advanced his theory of first seeing accurately, and then, through the -creative imagination, carrying up to ideal perfection flowers, faces and -landscapes often marred by the storms and upheavals of life. It is -altogether probable that John Ruskin saw as accurately the scene of -loveliness as Turner himself. It seems quite certain that Ruskin was -altogether unique in his capacity for enjoyment. It was not simply that -his eyes saw accurately, and his intellect registered his impressions -without flaw, but that his imagination and his emotions were sensitive -to the last degree, as sensitive as the silken threads of an Æolian harp -that responds to the lightest wind that blows. Many people know the -intense flavour of a strawberry, but Ruskin's soul was pierced with an -intense and tumultuous pleasure at the sight of the clouds piled up upon -the mountains. He loved Nature with all the passion with which Dante -loved Beatrice. In Ruskin's forty odd volumes the scholar can find -registered a hundred experiences in the presence of the mountain glory -and the mountain gloom, in which this delight and happiness sent his -whole body shivering with the piercing intensity that shook the soul of -Romeo during his passionate interview with Juliet. Coarse natures, -gluttonous, avaricious, full of hate, can no more understand the -happiness of Ruskin's life than a deaf man can understand Mozart's -rapture, when he listened to the music in the cathedral. Not even a -tornado can make a crowbar vibrate, but the flutter of a lark's wing can -set a silken thread vibrating and singing. - -Ruskin has spread out, like a rich map, the story of the people who -educated him. The overmastering influence in his life was that of his -mother. He tells us that he received from his home in childhood the -priceless gift of peace, in that he had never seen a "moment's trouble -or disorder in any household matter, or anything whatever done in a -hurry or undone in due time." To this gift was added the gift of -obedience. "I obeyed word, or lifted finger, of father or mother, -simply as a ship her helm; not only without idea of resistance but as -necessary to me in every moral action as the law of gravity in -leaping. To the gifts of peace and obedience my parents added the gift -of Faith, in that nothing was ever promised me that was not given; -nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever -told me that was not true." And to these was added the habit of fixed -attention with both eyes and mind--this being the main practical -faculty of his life, causing Mazzini to say of Ruskin that he had "the -most analytic mind in Europe." - -The books from which Ruskin had his style in childhood were Walter -Scott's novels, Pope's translation of the _Iliad_, Defoe's _Robinson -Crusoe_, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, and above all, the Bible. "My -mother forced me, by steady and daily toil, to learn long chapters of -the Bible by heart; as well as to read it every syllable through -aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once -a year; and to that discipline, patient, accurate, and resolute, I owe -much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of my -taste in literature." The great chapters of the Bible from which -Ruskin says he had his style included the fifteenth and twentieth of -Exodus; the twenty-third Psalm, and also the thirty-second, ninetieth, -ninety-first, one hundred and third, one hundred and twelfth, one -hundred and nineteenth, one hundred and thirty-ninth, the Sermon on -the Mount, the conversion of Paul, his vision on the road to Damascus, -Paul's Ode to Love and Immortality. "These chapters of the Bible," -Ruskin says, "were the most precious, and, on the whole, the one -essential part of my education." - -Ruskin's message upon education is of vital importance to the people -of our republic. Strictly speaking, education should teach each -citizen to think aright upon every subject of importance, and to live -a life that is worthy, making the most out of the gifts received from -God and one's ancestors. Ruskin traced the national faults and -miseries of England, to illiteracy and the lack of education in the -art of living. The inevitable result of this illiteracy was that -England "despises literature, despises compassion, and concentrates -the soul on silver." From this illiteracy came physical ugliness, -envy, cowardice, and selfishness, instead of physical beauty, courage -and affection. To the dry facts taught, therefore, he proposed to add -inspiration, and the art of seeing. - -Above all, he feared the results of uniformity and the manufacture of -men by machinery, until all youths coming out of the same school, having -studied the same facts, in the same way, became as uniform as crackers, -and also as dry. The important man, he thinks, is the occasional boy, -who has received a gift and can open up new realms for the rest. -"Genius? You can't manufacture a great man, any more than you can -manufacture gold. You find gold, and mint it. You uncover diamonds, but -do not produce them. You find genius, but you cannot create it." Getting -on, therefore, does not mean "more horses, more footmen, more fortune, -more public honour,--it means more personal soul. He only is advancing -in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain -quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace." Education is a -preparation for complete living; therefore Ruskin adopts Milton's -definition of the complete and generous education as, "that which fits a -man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the duties of -all the offices of life." - -Frederic Harrison gives Ruskin's _Unto This Last_ first place as the -most original book in modern English literature. He ranks it as a -masterpiece of pure, incisive, brilliant, imaginative writing, "a book -glowing with wit and fire and passion." The heart of the message is that -every man is born with a gift appointed by his fathers, and that -happiness begins with grasping the handle of one's own being. The -greatest and most enduring work is done for love, and not for wage. The -soldier's task is to keep the state in liberty, and when the second or -third battle of Gettysburg or Ypres comes, he does not go on a strike, -but puts death and duty in front of him and keeps his face to the front; -in like manner the physician is appointed to keep the state in health -and in time of yellow fever or the Black Death he works as hard for -nothing as for a large fee, even as a father, in time of famine, -shipwreck or battle, will sacrifice himself for his son. - -Ruskin held that the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and -sell in the dearest," was part truth, and part falsehood. "Buy in the -cheapest market? Yes; but what made your market cheap? Charcoal may be -cheap among the roof timbers after a fire, and bricks may be cheap in -your streets after an earthquake, but fire and earthquake may not be, -therefore, national benefits. Sell in the dearest market? Yes; but -what made your market dear? Was it to a dying man who gave his last -coin rather than starve, or to a soldier on his way to pillage the -bank, that you put your fortune? The final consummation of wealth is -in full-breathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human creatures." -Therefore, said Ruskin, "I can imagine that England may cast all -thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric nations among whom -they first arose; and that, while the sand of the Indias and adamant -of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash -from the turban of the slave, she at last may be able to lead forth -her sons, saying, 'These are my jewels!'" - -Whether, therefore, property shall be a curse or a blessing depends upon -man's administrative intelligence. "For centuries great districts of the -world, rich in soil, and favoured in climate, have lain desert, under -the rage of their own rivers, not only desert, but plague-struck. The -stream which, rightly directed, would have flowed in soft irrigation -from field to field,--would have purified the air, given food to man and -beast, and carried their burdens for them on its bosom--now overwhelms -the plain, and poisons the wind, its breath pestilence, and its work -famine. In like manner, wealth may become water of life, the riches of -the hand and wisdom, or wealth may be the last and deadliest of national -plagues, water of Marah, the water of which feeds the roots of all -evil." Man's body alone is related to factory and mine. No amount of -ingenuity will ever make iron and steel digestible. Neither the avarice -nor the rage of men will ever feed them. And however the apple of Sodom -and the grape of Gomorrah may spread the table with dainties of ashes -and nectar of asps,--so long as men live by bread, the far-away valleys -laugh only as they are covered with the gold of God, and echo the shouts -of His happy multitudes. - -During the closing and most fruitful period of his career, Ruskin's -supreme thought had to do with the manufacture of souls of good -quality. Quite beyond the influence of some hero or statesman was the -influence, hidden, constant, but immeasurable, of the spirit of the -invisible God. "If you ask me for the sum of my life-work, the answer -is this,--whatever Jesus saith unto you, do that." Daniel Webster -himself never made a more powerful plea for the Christian Church and -preacher than Ruskin's statement on the importance of the hour on -Sunday, after the people have been exposed for six days to the full -weight of the world's temptation. That hour when men and women come -in, breathless and weary with the week's labour and "a man sent with a -message, which is a matter of life or death, has but thirty minutes to -get at the separate hearts of a thousand men, to convince them of all -their weaknesses, to shame them for all their sins, to warn them of -all their dangers, to try by this way and that to stir the hard -fastenings of those doors, where the Master Himself has stood and -knocked, yet none opened, and to call at the openings of those dark -streets, where Wisdom herself has stretched forth her hands and no man -hath regarded,--thirty minutes to raise the dead in!--let us but once -understand and feel this, and the pulpit shall become a throne like -unto a marble rock in the desert, about which the people gather to -slake their thirst." - -And in the very fullness of his power, when his bow was in full -strength, and every sentence and arrow tipped with fire, Ruskin -gathered his strength for a final study of the obligations of wealth -to poverty, of wisdom to ignorance,--the opportunity of rich men to -serve their generation, and make the world once more an Eden garden of -happiness and delight. Just as men sweep together an acre of red -roses, and condense the blossoms into a little vial filled with the -precious attar, we may condense several volumes of Ruskin into a -single parable. Why has one man ten-talent power? Why have ninety-nine -men only one-talent power? Why is one boy ten years of age and strong, -while in the same orphan asylum are ninety-nine little boys one year -old? And what if some kind hand hath spread the table with orange, -date, and plum, with every sweet fruit and nutritious grain? Has the -ten-year-old boy, answering to the ten-talent man, a right to dash up -to the table, and with one hand sweep together all the fruits, and -with the other hand, all the cereals, milk and cream, while he shouts -to the ninety-nine little one-year-old children, "Every fellow for -himself! Get all you can! Keep all you can! The devil take the -hindmost!" This, says Ruskin, is the fashion of certain rust-kings, -and moth-kings. Why is that one boy ten years of age? Is his strength -not for the sole purpose of carrying these foods to the little -one-year-old children, scarcely able to provide for themselves? It is -said of the Master and Lord of us all, that "being rich, for our sakes -He made Himself poor." And the kings in the realm of art, or song, of -industry or finance, have been ordained by God, not to loot the world -of its blossoms, not to squeeze men, like so many purple clusters, -into their own cups. In the vegetable world the expert pinches off -ninety-nine roses, and forces the rich and vital currents into one -great rose at the end of the stock. But what if a ten-talent man -should pinch out ninety-nine lesser men as competitors, and force the -vital elements of all their separate factories and stores, that were -intended to be distributed among many men, of lesser gifts, into his -one treasure house? - -Ruskin not only pointed the moral but fashioned his own life after it. -He was one of the few men who have lived what they taught. He fell -heir to what his generation thought was a very large fortune. He made -another fortune by sheer force of genius. But he held his treasure as -a trust fund in the interest of God's poor. And so-called practical -men turned upon him, with the bitterness and hate of wolves that try -to pull down some noble stag. His articles were shut out of the -_Cornhill Magazine_. Through the influence of selfish men who feared -the influence of his teachings upon the people, he was for a time -bitterly assaulted. Scoffed at and maligned, he overworked and passed -from one attack of brain fever to another. When it was too late, the -angry voices died out of the air, and his sun cleared itself of -clouds. When at last a wreath of honour was offered Ruskin, it was as -if an old man had taken the blossoms and the laurel leaf, and carried -them out to God's acre, to be placed in the snow upon his mother's -grave. But ours is a world that first slays the prophet and then -builds his sepulchre. It is indeed, as the wise man said, a world that -crucifies the Saviour. - -And we can say of Ruskin what James Martineau said of the world's -injustice, that "in almost every age which has stoned the prophets, -and loaded its philosophers with chains, the ringleaders of the -anarchy have been, not the lawless and infamous of their day, but the -archons and chief priests, who could protect their false idols with a -grand and stiff air, and do their wrongs in the halls of justice, and -commit their murders as a savoury sacrifice; so that it has been by no -rude violence, but by clean and holy hands that the guides, the -saints, the redeemers of men have been poisoned in Athens, tortured in -Rome, burned in Florence, crucified in Jerusalem." And we ought not to -be surprised that a world that threatened Milton, starved Swammerdam, -imprisoned Bunyan, and assassinated Lincoln, should break the health -and the heart of John Ruskin, who poured out his very life-blood to -redeem the people from ignorance, and sloth, and wrong. - - - - -Index - - - Abelard and Héloise, 19 - - Achilles, 37 - - Act of Toleration, The, 114 - - _Adam Bede_, 146 - - Æneas, The wanderings of, 35 - - Alexander the Great, 86, 103 - - Alexander the Sixth, 42, 51 - - Alva, Duke of, 61, 66, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 - - Angelo, Michael, 11, 12, 15, 27, 39, 123, 140 - - _Areopagitica_, 131, 132 - - Aristotle, 25 - - Arnold, Matthew, 144 - - Asbury, Francis, 162 - - Asia Minor, 55 - - Athens, 26, 37, 50, 84, 195 - - Augustus Cæsar, 36 - - - Bacon, Francis, 32 - - Balfour, Lord, 89 - - Barnett, Canon, 197 - - Barrett, Elizabeth, 39 - - Beatrice, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 30, 205 - - Bedford Jail, 32, 85 - - Beecher, Henry Ward, 158 - - "Beggars," The fleet of, 73, 74, 77 - - Bernard the Monk, 105 - - Birrell, Augustine, 144 - - Black Death, The, 97, 100 - - "Bloody Council," The, 57 - - Booth, William, 199 - - Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 151 - - Bradford, William, 57 - - Brescia, 43 - - Brougham, Henry, 103 - - Browning, Robert, 39 - - Bunyan, John, 12, 32, 85, 105, 142, 216 - - Burke, Edmund, 132 - - - Calvin, John, 54 - - Carlyle, Thomas, 89, 145 - - Cateau-Cambresis, Treaty of, 70 - - Cavour, 39, 166 - - Cecilia, St., 21 - - Cervantes, 84 - - Charles I of England, 94, 95, 99, 101, 102, 103, 109, 110, 112, 123, - 132, 133 - - Charles II of England, 111, 112 - - Charles V, Emperor of Germany, 69 - - Charles VIII of France, 48 - - Charles IX of France, 74 - - Childe Harold, 23 - - Church, The, 15, 41, 53, 63, 93 - - Columbus, Christopher, 14, 35, 200 - - Common people in the Dark Ages, The, 14 - - _Comus_, 121 - - Constantinople, 36, 40, 88, 168 - - Copernicus, 35 - - Cromwell, Oliver, 57, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 97, 98, 102, 103, 106, 107, - 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 123, 132, 133, 134, 135 - - "Crowning Mercy of Worcester, The," 109 - - Curtis, George William, 9 - - - Dante, Alighieri, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, - 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 40, 50, 105, 123, 136, 140, 142, - 205 - - Dark Ages, The, 14, 36 - - Dekker, 118 - - De Quincey, Thomas, 129 - - _Divine Comedy, The_, 19, 22, 23, 24, 136 - - Divine Right of Kings, The, 91, 113, 123 - - - Easter Day, 25 - - Eclipse in English literature, 125 - - Edison, Thomas, 191 - - Eliot, George, 39, 146 - - Eliot, Sir John, 95, 101 - - England's darkest hour, 89 - - England in the days of Charles I, 97, 98, 99 - - Erasmus, 54, 57 - - Este, Duke of, 41 - - - Farmer of Huntingdon, The, 90, 108 - - Ferrara, 40 - - Feudalism, 14 - - Ficino, 45 - - Florence, 14, 16, 37, 38, 43, 45, 46, 47, 50, 52, 216 - - Foch, Marshal, 86 - - Francis of Assisi, 105 - - Franklin, Benjamin, 12, 147, 178 - - French Revolution, The, 144 - - - Garibaldi, 39, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, - 180, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187; - in the United States, 177 - - Garibaldi's aim--a united Italy, 182; - Anita, 174, 175, 177; - charmed life, 168, 169; - power over his troops, 185; - life in South America, 175; - reckless courage, 171, 172; - refusal of throne, 181; - return to Italy, 175; - loyalty to Victor Emmanuel, 179; - victories, 181 - - Geography, The science of, 15 - - George, David Lloyd, 89 - - Geryon, 25 - - Gioberti, 38 - - Giotto, 7, 38 - - Gladstone, 180 - - Goethe, 27 - - Grant, General, 86 - - Great Remonstrance, The, 102 - - Gulf Stream, Influence of the, 163 - - - Hallam the historian, 10 - - Hamilton, Alexander, 168, 178 - - Hamlet, 13 - - Hampden, John, 101, 104, 108, 123 - - Harrison, Frederic, 106, 209 - - Helen of Troy, 36, 37 - - Henry of Navarre, 103 - - History, The scope of, 18 - - Hogarth, William, 145 - - Holland, 55, 56, 57, 59 - - Homer, 10, 11, 12, 13, 123 - - Horace, 136 - - House of Lords, The, 12 - - Hume, David, 145 - - - _Idylls of the King_, 23 - - _Imitation of Christ_, 154 - - _In Darkest England_, 199 - - _Inferno, The_, 31, 32 - - Inquisition, The, 65, 74 - - Italian language, The, 11 - - Italian literature, 18 - - - James I of England, 117 - - Jonson, Ben, 90, 117 - - Julius Cæsar, 86 - - - Keats, John, 12 - - Kenilworth Castle, 96 - - King Alfred's Bible, 12 - - Kipling, Rudyard, 190 - - Kossuth, Louis, 178 - - - _Last Judgment, The_, 27 - - Law's _Serious Call_, 154 - - Latin tongue, The, 11 - - Lecky the historian, 144, 155 - - Leonardo, 35 - - Leyden, Siege of, 77, 78, 79, 80 - - Lincoln, Abraham, 57, 58, 99, 102, 113, 182, 194 - - Lorenzo the Magnificent, 45, 46, 47 - - Lowell, James Russell, 31, 137, 140, 141 - - Lucifer, 25 - - Luther, Martin, 49, 54 - - _Lycidas_, 121 - - - Macaulay, Lord, 116 117, 137, 138, 144 - - _Macbeth_, 13 - - Marlow, 90, 117 - - Marston Moor, Battle of, 103, 109 - - Martineau, James, 216 - - Mary Queen of Scots, 99 - - Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 74 - - Massinger, Philip, 118 - - "Mayflower, The," 115 - - Mazzini, 39, 166, 168, 170 - - Mæcenas, 36 - - Medici, The, 48 - - "Mermaid" Tavern, The, 116 - - Methodists, The early, 146 - - Methodism, world-wide sphere of, 162 - - Michelet, 183 - - Middle Ages, The, 26 - - Mill, John Stuart, 16 - - Milton, John, 16, 103,106, 112, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 129, 132, - 138, 139, 140, 142, 216; - and his studies, 120, 121; - at Cambridge, 120; - made Secretary of State, 133 - - Milton's belief in himself, 121; - fight for relationships, 126; - pamphlets, 131; - views on divorce, 126, 127 - - Mirandola, Picadella, 44, 45 - - Modern world, The dawn of, 37, 38 - - Monte Rosa, 13 - - Moravians, The, 155 - - Morley, John, 111 - - Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, 156 - - Morris, William, 196 - - - Napoleon, 103, 164 - - Naseby, Battle of, 109 - - Nelson, Lord, 146 - - Newton, Sir Isaac, 200 - - - _Othello_, 13 - - - Paradise, 26, 28 - - _Paradise Lost_, 123, 136, 139 - - _Paradise Regained_, 123 - - Pattison, Mark, 129 - - Paul II, 41 - - Penelope, 36, 37 - - Pericles, 37 - - Peter the Hermit, 49 - - Petrarch, 34 - - Philip II of Spain, 56, 57, 61, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 74 - - Phillips, Wendell, 90, 158 - - Pius II, 41 - - _Pilgrim's Progress, The_, 85 - - Pitt, William, 144, 146 - - Plato, 45 - - Pope, Alexander, 16 - - Prince Djem, 51 - - Prince Rupert, 109, 111 - - Priors of Florence, The, 16 - - Purgatory, 25, 29, 30, 32 - - Puritanism, 142 - - Puritans, The, 138, 139 - - Pym, John, 101, 108, 123 - - - Queen Victoria, 180, 191 - - - Raleigh, Sir Walter, 103 - - Raphael, 11, 21, 112, 123 - - Ravenna, 32 - - "Renaissance, The Morning Star of," 10 - - Renaissance, The, 35 - - Restoration, The, 135 - - Revival of learning, The, 34 - - Richelieu, 144 - - _Ring and the Book, The_, 39 - - Rodin's _Thinker_, 191 - - Rome, 35, 41, 51, 216 - - _Romola_, 39 - - Ruskin, John, 57, 190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, - 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 216; - and social reform, 194; - books of his childhood, 207; - world's debt to, 205 - - - Savonarola, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 51, 53, 84 - - Shakespeare, 10, 11, 13, 90, 117, 141 - - Shelley, 141 - - Socrates, 50, 84 - - St. Peter's Cathedral, 15 - - _Story of the Dutch Republic_, Motley's, 39 - - Swammerdam, 216 - - - Tasso, 99 - - Taylor's _Purity of Intention_, 154 - - Tennyson, 106, 115 - - Torquemada, 64 - - Toynbee, Arnold, 197, 198 - - Truth, Sojourner, 202, 203 - - Turner, J. W., 205 - - Tyndale, William, 54 - - - Ulysses, 13, 36, 37 - - - Venice, 55 - - Verona, Bishop of, 53 - - Virgil, 24, 29 - - _Vita Nuova_, 21 - - Voltaire, 26, 115 - - - Walpole, Horace, 145, 151 - - Washington, George, 99, 102, 113, 143, 168, 182 - - Webster, Daniel, 103, 178, 212 - - Wellington, Duke of, 146 - - Wesley, Charles, 147, 148 - - Wesley, John, 143, 144, 145, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, - 161, 162, 163, 164; - at Oxford, 154; - growth of followers, 143; - _Journal_ of, 150, 153; - labours of, 100, 152, 153, 156, 157; - last words of, 164; - liberality of, 161; - moral courage of, 157; - persecution of, 158; - personal traits, 159; - plan for world evangelization, 162 - - Wesley, Samuel, 153 - - Wesley, Susannah, 153 - - Whitefield, George, 147, 148, 149, 155 - - Wilberforce, William, 194 - - William the Silent, 56, 57, 59, 61, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, - 77, 80, 82 - - Wordsworth, William, 200 - - -_Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - -Transcriber's Note - - - Hyphenation inconsistencies left as in the original - - Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired - - Pg 84: "...the path the heroes' trod." to "...the path the heroes - trod." - - Pg 156: Removed extraneous blank line from August 23, 1733 journal - entry - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Men as Prophets of a New Era, by -Newell Dwight Hillis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AS PROPHETS OF A NEW ERA *** - -***** This file should be named 60038-0.txt or 60038-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/3/60038/ - -Produced by David T. 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