Part 2 (1/2)

Being a natural principle, this law is also spiritual. Standing by his mother's knee each child hears the story of the echo. The boy visiting in the mountains, when he called aloud found that he was mocked by a hidden stranger boy. The insult made him very angry. So he shouted back insults and epithets. But each of these bad words was returned to him from the rocks above. With bitter tears the child returned to his mother, who sent him back to give the hidden stranger kind words and affectionate greetings. Lo! the stranger now echoed back his kindliness. Thus society echoes back each temperament and each career.

Evermore man receives what he first gives to nature and society and G.o.d.

History is rich in interpretation of this principle. In every age man has received from society what he has given to society. This continent lay waiting for ages for the seed of civilization. At length the sower went forth to sow. Landing in midwinter upon a bleak coast, the fathers gave themselves to cutting roads, draining swamps, subduing gra.s.ses, rearing villages, until all the land was sown with the good seed of liberty and Christian civilization. Afterward, when tyranny threatened liberty, these worthies in defending their inst.i.tutions gave life itself. Dying, they bequeathed their treasures to after generations. At length an enemy, darkling, lifted weapons for destroying. Would these who had received inst.i.tutions nourished with blood, give life-blood in return? The uprising of 1861 is the answer.

Then the people rose as one man, the plow stood in the furrow, the hammer fell from the hand, workroom and college hall were alike deserted--a half-million men laid down their lives upon many a battle-field. Similarly, the honor given to Was.h.i.+ngton during these last few days tells us that the patriot who gives shall receive. From the day when the young Virginian entered the Indian forests with Braddock to the day when he lay dying at Mount Vernon the patriot gave his health, his wealth, his time, his life, a living sacrifice through eight and forty years. Now every year the people, rising up early and sitting up late, rehea.r.s.e to their children the story of his life and work. Having given himself, honor shall he receive through all the ages.

To Abraham Lincoln also came the word: ”Give and thou shall receive!”

Sitting in the White House the President proclaimed equal rights to black and white. Then, with shouts of joy, three million slaves entered the temple of liberty. But they bore the emanc.i.p.ator upon their shoulders and enshrined him forever in the temple of fame, where he who gave bountifully shall receive bountiful honor through all the ages. There, too, in the far-off past stands an uplifted cross.

Flinging wide his arms this crowned sufferer sought to lift the world back to his Father's side. In life he gave his testimony against hypocrisy, Phariseeism and cruelty. For years he gave himself to the publican, the sinner, the prodigal, the poor in mind or heart, and so came at length to his pitiless execution. But, having given himself in abandon of love, the world straightway gave itself in return. Every one of his twelve disciples determined to achieve a violent death for the Christ who gave himself for them. Paul was beheaded in Rome. John was tortured in Patmos. Andrew and James were crucified in Asia. The rest were mobbed, or stoned, or tortured to death. And as years sped on man kept giving. Mult.i.tudes went forth, burning for him in the tropics, freezing for him in the arctics; threading for him the forest paths, braving for him the swamps, that they might serve his little ones. He gave himself for the world, and the world, in a pa.s.sion of love, will yet give itself back to him.

Recently the officials of the commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts and the n.o.blest citizens of Boston a.s.sembled for celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Peabody. For a like purpose the citizens of London came together in banquet hall. Now, the banker had long been dead. Nor did he leave children to keep his name before the public. How shall we account for two continents giving him such praise and fame? George Peabody received from his fellows, because he first gave to his fellows. To his genius for acc.u.mulation he added the genius of distribution. His large gifts to Harvard and Yale, to Salem and Peabody, made to science and art as well as to philanthropy and religion, secured perpetual remembrance. When the public credit of the State of Maryland was endangered, he negotiated $8,000,000 in London and gave his entire commission of $200,000 back to the State. He who gave $3,500,000 for founding schools and colleges in the South for black and white, could not but receive honor and praise. Therefore the eulogies p.r.o.nounced by the legislators in Annapolis. As a banker in London he was disturbed by the sorrows of the poor, and for months gave himself to an investigation of the tenement-house system, developing the Peabody Tenements, to which he gave $2,500,000, and helped 20,000 people to remove from dens into buildings that were light and sweet and wholesome. Therefore when he died in London the English nation that had received from him gave to him, and, for the first time in history, the gates of Westminster Abbey were thrown open for the funeral services of a foreigner. Therefore, the Prime Minister of England selected the swiftest frigate in the English navy for carrying his body back to his native land. His generosity radiated in every direction, not in trickling rivulets, but in copious streams. Bountifully he gave to men; therefore, through innumerable orations, sermons, editorials and toasts, men vied with each other in giving praise and honor back to Peabody, the benefactor of the people.

Society, always sensitive to generosity, is equally sensitive to selfishness. He who treats his fellows as so many cl.u.s.ters to be squeezed into his cup, who spoils the world for self aggrandizement, finds at last that he has burglarized his own soul. Here is a man who says: ”Come right, come wrong, I will get gain.” Loving ease, he lashes himself to unceasing toil by day and night. Needing rest on Sunday, he denies himself respite and scourges his jaded body and brain into new activities. Every thought is a thread to be woven into a golden net. He lifts his life to strike as miners lift their picks.

He swings his body as harvesters their scythes. He will make himself an augur for boring, a chisel for drilling, a muck-rake for scratching, if only he may get gain. He will sweat and swelter and burn in the tropics until malaria has made his face as yellow as gold, if thereby he can fill his purse, and for a like end he will s.h.i.+ver and ache in the arctics. He will deny his ear music, he will deny his mind culture, he will deny his heart friends.h.i.+p that he may coin concerts and social delights into cash. At length the shortness of breath startles him; the stoppage of blood alarms him. Then he retires to receive--what? To receive from nature that which he has given to nature. Once he denied his ear melody, and now taste in return denies him pleasure. Once he denied his mind books, and now books refuse to give him comfort. Once he denied himself friends.h.i.+p, and now men refuse him their love. Having received nothing from him, the great world has no investment to return to him. Such a life, entering the harbor of old age, is like unto a bestormed s.h.i.+p with empty coal bins, whose crew fed the furnace, first with the cargo and then with the furniture, and reached the harbor, having made the s.h.i.+p a burned-cut sh.e.l.l. G.o.d buries the souls of many men long years before their bodies are carried to the graveyard.

This principle tells us why nature and society are so prodigal with treasures to some men and so n.i.g.g.ardly to others. What a different thing a forest is to different men! He who gives the ax receives a mast. He who gives taste receives a picture. He who gives imagination receives a poem. He who gives faith hears the ”goings of G.o.d in the tree-tops.” The charcoal-burner fronts an oak for finding out how many cords of wood are in it, as the Goths of old fronted peerless temples for estimating how many huts they could quarry from the stately pile.[1] But an artist curses the woodsman for making the tree food for ax and saw. It has become to him as sacred as the cathedral within which he bares his head. It is a temple where birds praise G.o.d. It is a harp with endless music for the summer winds. It fills his eye with beauty and his ear with rustling melodies.

For the poet that selfsame oak is enshrined in a thousand n.o.ble a.s.sociations. It sings for him like a hymn; it s.h.i.+nes like a vision; it suggests s.h.i.+ps, storms and ocean battles; the spear of Launcelot, the forests of Arden; old baronial halls mellow with lights falling on oaken floors; King Arthur's banqueting chamber. To the scientist's thought the oak is a vital mechanism. By day and by night, the long summer through, it lifts tons of moisture and forces it into the wide-spreading branches, but without the rattle of huge engines. With what uproar and clang of iron hammers would stones be crushed that are dissolved noiselessly by the rootlets and recomposed in stems and boughs! What a vast laboratory is here, every root and leaf an expert chemist!

For other mult.i.tudes the earth has become only a huge stable; its fruit fodder; its granaries ricks, out of which men-cattle feed. These estimate a man's value according as he has lifted his ax upon tall trees and ravaged all the loveliness of creation; whose curse is the Nebuchadnezzar curse, giving to nature the tongue and hand, and receiving from nature gra.s.s; who are doomed to love the corn they grind, to hear only the roar of the whirlwind and the crash of the hail, never ”the still small voice;” who see what is written in lamp-black and lightning; who think the clouds are for rain, and know not that they are chariots, thrones and celestial highways; that the sunset means something else than sleep, and the morning suggests something other than work. All these give nature only thought for food, and food only shall they receive from nature, until all their deeds are plowed down in dust. Give forth thy gift, young men and maidens, and according as thou givest thou shalt receive fruit, or picture, or poem, or temple, or ladder let down from heaven, or angel aspirations going up.

Conscience also receives its gifts and makes a return. Give thy body obedience and it will return happiness and health. Give overdrafts and excesses and it will return sleepless nights and suffering days. Man's sins are seeds, his sufferings harvests. Every action is embryonic, and according as it is right or wrong will ripen into sweet fruits of pleasure or poison fruits of pain. Some seeds hold two germs; and vice and penalty are wrapped up under one covering. Sins are self-registering and penalties are automatic. The brain keeps a double set of books, and at last visits its punishments. Conscience does not wait for society to ferret out iniquity, but daily executes judgment.

Policemen may slumber and the judge may nod, but the nerves are always active, memory never sleeps, conscience is never off duty. The recoil of the gun bruises black the shoulder of him who holds it, and sin is a weapon that kills at both ends.

In the olden days, when the poisoner was in every palace, the Doge of Venice offered a reward for a crystal goblet that would break the moment a poison touched it. Perhaps the idea was suggested to the Prince because his soul already fulfilled the thought, for one drop of sin always shatters the cup of joy and wastes life's precious wine.

How do events interpret this principle! One day Louis, King of France, was riding in the forest near his gorgeous and guilty palace of Versailles. He met a peasant carrying a coffin. ”What did the man die of?” asked the King. ”Of hunger,” answered the peasant. But the sound of the hunt was in the King's ear, and he forgot the cry of want. Soon the day came when the King stood before the guillotine, and with mute appeals for mercy fronted a mob silent as statues, unyielding as stone, grimly waiting to dip the ends of their pikes in regal blood. He gave cold looks; he received cold steel.

Marie Antoinette, riding to Notre Dame for her bridal, bade her soldiers command all beggars, cripples and ragged people to leave the line of the procession. The Queen could not endure for a brief moment the sight of those miserable ones doomed to unceasing squalor and poverty. What she gave others she received herself, for soon, bound in an executioner's cart, she was riding toward the place of execution midst crowds who gazed upon her with hearts as cold as ice and hard as granite. When Foulon was asked how the starving populace was to live he answered: ”Let them eat gra.s.s.” Afterward, Carlyle says, the mob, maddened with rage, ”caught him in the streets of Paris, hanged him, stuck his head upon a pike, filled his mouth with gra.s.s, amid shouts as of Tophet from a gra.s.s-eating people.” What kings and princes gave they received. This is the voice of nature and conscience: ”Behold, sin crouches at the door!”

This divine principle also explains man's att.i.tude toward his fellows.

The proverb says man makes his own world. Each sees what is in himself, not what is outside. The jaundiced eye yellows all it beholds. The chameleon takes its color from the bark on which it clings. Man gives his color to what his thought is fastened upon. The pessimist's darkness makes all things dingy. The youth disappointed with his European trip said he was a fool for going. He was, for the reason that he was a fool before he started. He saw nothing without, because he had no vision within. He gave no sight, he received no vision. An artist sees in each Madonna that which compels a rude mob to uncover in prayer, but the savage perceives only a colored canvas.

Recently a foreign traveler, writing of his impressions of our city, described it to his fellows as a veritable hades. But his fellow countryman, in a similar volume, recorded his impressions of our art, architecture and interest in education. Each saw that for which he looked.

This principle explains man's att.i.tude toward his G.o.d. G.o.d governs rocks by force, animals by fear, savage man by force and fear, true men by hope and love. Man can take G.o.d at whatsoever level he pleases. He who by beastliness turns his body into a log will be held by gravity in one spot like a log. He who lives on a level with the animals will receive fear and law and lightnings. He who approaches G.o.d through laws of light and heat and electricity will find the world-throne occupied by an infinite Aga.s.siz. Some approach G.o.d through physical senses. They behold his storms sinking s.h.i.+ps, his tornadoes mowing down forests. These find him a huge Hercules; yet the Judge who seems cruel to the wicked criminal may seem the embodiment of gentleness and kindness to his obedient children. Man determines what G.o.d shall be to him. Each paints his own picture of Deity. Macbeth sees him with forked lightnings without and volcanic fires within. The pure in heart see him as the face of all-clasping Love. Give him thy heart and he will give thee love, effulgent love, like the affection of mother or lover or friend, only dearer than either. Give him thy ways, and he will overarch life's path as the heavens overarch the flowers, filling them with heat by day and yielding cooling dews by night. Give him but a flickering aspiration and he will give thee balm for the bruised reed and flame for the smoking flax. Give him the publican's prayer and he will give thee mercy like the wideness of the sea. Give his little ones but a cup of cold water and he will give thee to drink of the water of the river of life and bring thee to the banquet hall in the house of many mansions.

[1] Mod. Ptrs., Vol. 5, Chap. 1. The Earth--Veil Star papers: A Walk Among Trees.

VICARIOUS LIVES AS INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS.

”Only he that uses shall even so much as keep. Unemployed strength steadily diminishes. The sluggard's arm grows soft and flabby. So, even in this lowest sphere, the law is inexorable. Having is using.

Not using is losing. Idleness is paralysis. New triumphs must only dictate new struggles. If it be Alexander of Macedon, the Orontes must suggest the Euphrates, and the Euphrates the Indus. Always it must be on and on. One night of rioting in Babylon may arrest the conquering march. Genius is essentially athletic, resolute, aggressive, persistent. Possession is grip, that tightens more and more. Ceasing to gain, we begin to lose. Ceasing to advance, we begin to retrograde.

Brief was the interval between Roman conquest of Barbarians, and Barbarian conquest of Rome. Blessed is the man who keeps out of the hospital and holds his place in the ranks. Blessed the man, the last tw.a.n.g of whose bow-string is as sharp as any that went before, sending its arrow as surely to the mark.”--_Roswell W. Hitchc.o.c.k_.

CHAPTER IV.