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 ^ OR «• 
 
 
 BY 
 
 Henry C. Badger. 
 
 OF THF. 
 
 While Valor's haughty Champions wait, 
 Till all their scars are shown ; 
 
 Love walks unchallenged through the gate 
 To sit beside the throne.— Holmes. 
 
 -t^^r*- 
 
 BENJ. H. TYRREL, 
 74 Maiden Laitb, New Yore. 
 
 Copyright Secured, 1895. 
 
7^0 ^o 
 
FAITH, 
 
 Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
 
 God's Messenger sent doivn to thee : do thou 
 
 With courtesy receive him : rise and bow, 
 And, ere his shadow cross thy threshold, crave 
 Permission first his heavenly feet to lave j 
 
 Then lay before him all thou hast j allow 
 
 No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow. 
 Or mar thy hospitality, — no wave 
 
 Of mortal tumult to obliterate 
 The soul's marmoreal calmness : grief should be 
 
 Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, — 
 Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ; 
 
 Strong to consume small troubles, — to commend 
 
 Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 
 
 Aubrey DbVere. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE. PAGE. 
 
 I. The Donation Party, ... 9 
 
 II. On the Honeoye, .... 17 
 
 III. An Earthly Paradise, . .28 
 
 IV. Nature's Teaching, ... 37 
 V. The Christian Palladium, . 46 
 
 VI. Channinq in 1825, ... 54 
 
 VII. Antioch College, .... 63 
 
 VIII. College Life in Border Lands, . 84 
 
 IX. Co-Education, 106 
 
 X. Confidence, . . . . 115 
 
 XI. Diana and Minerva, .... 131 
 
 XII. Love and Logic, ... 143 
 
 XIII. The Marble Faun, .... 156 
 
 XIV. Hilda's Return, 171 
 XV. The Sword of Bunker Hill, 184 
 
 XVI. Christ in the Hospital, 197 
 
 XVII. The Red Cross Flag, ... 208 
 
 XVIII. The Golden Shower. . . 223 
 
 XIX. The Coming Shadow, .... 233 
 
 XX. All at Sea, 244 
 
 XXI. The Ministry of Grace, . 255 
 
 XXII. The Shadow Falls, 274 
 
 XXIII. Yet Faith is Our Life, . . 291 
 
 XXIV Christianity of To-Day, . 296 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In this new world, Cliristianity meets a new crisis 
 in the evolution of a new civilization. Freedom of 
 investigation bears at last the legitimate and whole- 
 some fruit of what is now becoming known as the 
 higher criticism, and its honest and just conclusions 
 have so shaken the ancient foundations of Faith, 
 that sincere souls are wondering if anything real 
 remains. 
 
 The closing years of the Nineteenth Century will, 
 as certainly as the past cycles, reap its victories of 
 truth, and the evolution of man, if not also of God, 
 is now the question of the hour. 
 
 Can we still claim, as Jesus did, the infinite value 
 of each human soul, and so obtain eternity and im- 
 mortality as the field of its deathless development, 
 or is it only ** the survival of the fittest," wherein 
 we are now to dream of nearing some social struc- 
 ture here on earth, of such value in itself that indi- 
 viduals may drop out and disappear forever like 
 lilies of the field, without disturbing the divine har- 
 mony of beauty and use, resulting in happiness as 
 the object of life ? 
 
 That is the question of to-day, and the author 
 writes this story of ample experience, accepting in 
 humble faith the answer tendered by God's grace 
 in the life of Christ, which found its beginning 
 rather than its ending at the Cross. 
 
 Harvard College Library, 
 August, 1894. 
 
THE DONATION PARTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DONATION PARTY. 
 
 In November, 1840, the early Indian summer was 
 tilling the Genesee Valley with a subdued light, 
 and with an air exquisitely soft and still, and a 
 similar atmosphere of peace and rich content per- 
 vaded the spirits of a vigorous farmer and his wife 
 as they drove their handsome team into the town 
 of Mendon, confident of a cordial welcome as their 
 beneficent journey now came to a conclusion. 
 
 Lightly touching up the horses with his whip, the 
 farmer said ; '^ Do you think the Elder' 11 be glad 
 to see us, Susan?" 
 
 *' Glad ? He is always glad to see us ; but I'm 
 ashamed of you, Dave Randall ; I believe you're 
 half ashamed of yourself, for only fetchin' that 
 great shoat fifteen miles in this wagon, and you 
 won't dare show it to the folks when you get 
 there ! " 
 
 ** I won't? You see if I don't, and if it don't 
 please the elder, too. You remember he picked out 
 that pig himself when it was only a roaster, toward 
 the last week in March, after the protracted meet- 
 in', afore the folks all started for home, I said : 
 * Oh, Elder Badger, one thing more, here's a couple 
 of as nice pigs as ever were roasted. Just let Ike 
 
10 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 tuck 'em into a sack and put 'em under the seat of 
 your buggy.' 
 
 '**No,' said the Elder, smiling, * Eliza is with 
 me, but thank you all the same, and I'll gladly ac- 
 cept one of them if you'll kindly keep it for me 
 till I send for it." 
 
 'Twas a month or more before I saw him agin, 
 when he said : 
 
 *^ Oh ! Brother Randall, I have not forgotten 
 that pig, but Thanksgiving is coming, you know." 
 So here it is now, weighing over two hundred 
 pounds, and I guess they'll laugh when I tell all 
 the folks how he got the best of me." 
 
 *' Well, Dave Randall, he alius does get the best 
 of ye, but, of course, he didn' t want to be carryin' 
 live pigs fifteen miles in his carriage with his wife. 
 He ain't that kind of a man, but he likes roast pig 
 just as well as you do, and that's nothin' agin him, 
 nuther." 
 
 Aunt Susan then looked under the seat to be sure 
 that certain gifts of her own were all right, and the 
 great crocks of choice butter and preserves were 
 patted approvingly as if she had made amends for 
 all her husband's short-comings. Her quince pre- 
 serves and sweet pickles of the red Siberian crab- 
 apples with their stems on, had long been famous, 
 and too much of them was not enough, and never 
 failed to make the boys remember their hereafter. 
 
 " Here we are," said Dave. *' How fine the falls 
 
THE DONATION PARTY. 11 
 
 look after the rain ! And just see how the wagons 
 are a-crowdin' to the Elder's gate." 
 
 •* Welcome, Brother Randall/' said the Elder, 
 coming down from the porch. " And how is Aunt 
 Susan to-day?" he asked, extending his hand to 
 help her down from the high spring seat of the 
 farm wagon. 
 
 She confessed at once that she was very well, 
 " but that she was half ashamed of Dave Randall 
 for what he had been doin'." 
 
 But a hearty laugh went round as the pig story 
 was told, and a sturdy farm hand shouldered the 
 huge porker and vanished through the outside door 
 of the cellar under the house, which, on occasions 
 like this, always stood wide open. 
 
 Dave and Susan were welcomed by Eliza, and 
 their faces were soon glowing and radiant with 
 gratified good will as they joined the great company 
 gathering in the stately old mansion. 
 
 The Donation Party was at that time the one 
 great event of the year in the Genesee valley. When 
 November brought those wonderful Indian summer 
 days, the wheat was all threshed, the hay was in 
 the mow, the corn stood in the shock waiting for 
 the merry buskers, the orchards were full of bright 
 pyramids of apples and pears waiting for the cellar 
 or cider mill, turkeys were strutting about as though 
 defying both Thanksgiving and Christmas, though 
 roast turkey and spare-ribs were the Autumn luxu- 
 ries, as roast veal and pig were those of spring. 
 
12 BOEDEE LANDS OP FAITH. 
 
 The old colonial Wood-spell of New England, 
 which provided the early parsons with their fire- 
 wood for all winter, had grown into this joyous 
 festival, which provided a large family with almost 
 their entire subsistence for a year, and the friendly 
 visit of whole families together was considered the 
 best part of it. All the men, women and children 
 for miles around seemed to feel a moral obligation 
 to personally supercede Santa-Claus and bring some- 
 thing of use to the minister or his family on that 
 day; and well those thrifty people knew how to 
 provide for their beloved pastor as if he were one of 
 their own family. 
 
 Money they had little. Markets were few and 
 far away. No railway had yet crossed the State of 
 New York. Even Lafayette as the Nation's guest 
 in 1825, had to travel by the Erie Canal opened in 
 that year. It was the first outlet for their surplus, 
 and it carried but a small part of their crops as it 
 bore the waters of Lake Erie to the Hudson River 
 and the Sea. The over-abundance flowed out in 
 charity wherever needed, and often into the spacious 
 garners of the Clergy of all denominations, with 
 much sectarian rivalry among them as to which 
 should fare the best. 
 
 The great barn doors stood wide open, and the 
 farmers drove in on the clean threshing floor to un- 
 load many bags of choice wheat, oats and corn, and 
 even a great load of hay had often to be pitched 
 
THE DONATION PARTY. 18 
 
 into the wide hay mow, while many cords of hick- 
 ory-wood were piled under the shed. 
 
 Dave Randall's pig was soon joined in the cellar 
 by great sides of beef and many saddles of choice 
 mutton, and chickens and hams and bacon cornfed 
 and applefed and buckwheat and acorn fed, and 
 barrels of cider, and each house- wife brought some 
 product of her own domestic skill, for which she 
 wished the approval of Eliza, who was the daughter 
 of Deacon Samuel Sterling, one of the great farmers, 
 and considered a great authority in all the domestic 
 and culinary arts. 
 
 From their baskets came great hanks of yarn, and 
 many a web of grey and blue homespun, thick and 
 stout, for boys, and mittens and stockings, and 
 mufflers of various sizes and a fine calf -skin and a 
 whole side of sole leather from Ephraim the tanner. 
 
 And what good cream cheese those farmer' s wives 
 made before cheese factories were invented, and 
 what links of sausages, and great baskets of eggs, 
 and loaves of bread, and cakes of many kinds, and 
 mince pies, and preserves of innumerable fruits, 
 and pickles and apple-butter, and maple sugar, and 
 syrup, and many barrels of apples, and of all the 
 vegetables, and flour and buck-wheat, and finally a 
 whole hive of honey, white and creamy, from Aunt 
 Sally Waite, the bees having been destroyed by 
 smoke according to a wasteful custom of the time. 
 
 How the flap-jacks laughed and danced on the 
 griddle, as they saw that maple-syrup and honey 
 
14 BORDER LAT^DS OF FAITH. 
 
 come in, as if saying to themselves, ** Now we shall 
 soon be smothered in sweetness, and certainly be 
 put where we can do the most ecood." 
 
 Well might Eliza have been over- whelmed by the 
 flood of this bounty and the clatter of tongues and 
 the constant greetings and kindly inquiries, but 
 she was at home with these people and knew them 
 all well, her eldest brother, William Sterling, hav- 
 ing been the first white child ever born in the Gene- 
 see valley, soon after her parents came there from 
 Old Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1790. 
 
 The cooked provisions now brought were ample 
 for all comers, and with a few of the matrons to 
 help, she directed all things, and the great picnic 
 table was soon spread in the long dining-room, with 
 others on the porches and the lawn, where hour 
 after hour, the feast went on for the hundreds who 
 came. The younger men and maidens acted as 
 waiters with endless frolic and fun. 
 
 In the kitchen a huge wash-boiler covering the 
 whole front of the stove, was full of steaming de- 
 licious coffee, for which ample stores of cream were 
 found, and except to ask the blessing and preside 
 at the first table, there was, when the feast began, 
 no formality and no other ceremony but cheerful 
 greetings as the people came and went at will when 
 all had been amply served. And many were the 
 friendly gibes at the absent. 
 
 Guests from Spring- Water were deeply grieved 
 to have to report that Deacon Hammond had again 
 
THE DONATION PARTY. 16 
 
 fallen from grace, by actually declaring baptism 
 not to be essential to salvation. 
 
 ** But why didn't you labor with him, brethren?" 
 said the Elder. 
 
 **0h! we did. We lit upon him like a hawk 
 upon a hen, and you ought to have seen the 
 feathers fly. We labored with him and we prayed 
 with him, but he wouldn't give in, and we fear 
 that the revival last Spring didn't operate much on 
 him." 
 
 Then one of the mothers in Israel arose to go, 
 and the Elder kindly said: **I fear you are not 
 very well, Sister Marvin ; you're looking a little 
 thin lately." 
 
 '* Well, Elder Badger," she answered, *' I try to be 
 thankful for all the mercies of the Lord, but," she 
 added, *'if you had borne and nursed thirteen 
 children, you'd look thin too." Then the laugh 
 went round at the Elder's portly person, and as 
 twilight fell, the great assembly melted away in 
 the moonlight to their happy homes. 
 
 The great house was now strangely still. The 
 younger children were all away at Grandma's, 
 where they had been sent to be out of the way, and 
 the elder ones were now doing up the chores and 
 counting up the treasures of the day. The Elder 
 and Eliza were alone on the porch, where they had 
 bidden the last guests good-bye, and thinking of 
 their seven happy children, felt that they had 
 everything to be thankful for. His heart was at 
 
16 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 rest. His faith was tranquil and calm. The sun 
 of his life had risen to its meridian. The future 
 looked to him wonderfully bright. His perfect 
 health — Eliza's happiness— his large experience — 
 his mastery of men — his three large parishes, and 
 his now perfect control of all the factors of his 
 problem gave him a sense of security and com- 
 posure such as few men ever feel. 
 
 He was too strong and too proud a man to feel 
 any vanity. He was too large a man not to be 
 humble, or not to walk calmly and trustfully sup- 
 ported by a deep lying faith, while feeling toward 
 all a good will, which, like perfect love, casteth out 
 fear. 
 
ON THE HONEOYE. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE HONEOYE. 
 
 The scene of this story lies on the Genesee 
 River, some fifteen miles south of Rochester, 
 where Monroe, Ontario and Livingston, the three 
 great farming counties of New York, corner to- 
 gether on the line of the Honeoye Creek, at its 
 famous falls near where it enters the Genesee. 
 
 Where the great and beautiful City of Roches- 
 ter, now glorifies that region, there was before 
 1820, only a malarious swamp, malodorous and 
 uninviting, inhabited mainly by rattlesnakes and 
 Indians, known as the Genesee Falls, till Col. 
 Rochester, about that date emigrated from Mary- 
 land to its headwaters, and came sailing down the 
 noble stream on a raft with his family, and many 
 flat boats of his followers, to redeem the place by 
 draining the swamp, and giving it a noble name. 
 And he had to stop five years at Bloomfield to 
 await the effect of that drainage, although the 
 surrounding highlands to the eastward and south- 
 erly had been much earlier settled, and the most 
 beautiful high-rolling and rich farming lands of 
 Canandagua, Bloomfield, Mendon, Geneseo, Livo- 
 nia and Avon had been weU peopled from about 
 
18 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 1790, when the State first extinguished the Indian 
 titles and opened those lands for settlement. 
 
 Emigration thereafter poured in from New 
 England and the South in about equal streams, 
 and mostly by an educated and good class of citi- 
 zens. Those who have read Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe's famous story, *^01d Town Folks," will 
 recall not only Sam Lawson and Hepsy, but also 
 the central old homestead of Deacon Joseph 
 Badger and his noble wife as the two leading 
 types of New England character. 
 
 They may also recall the son William, for whom 
 so many pious prayers and sacrifices were made to 
 send him through Harvard College, and that he 
 thereafter emigrated from Old town, now Newbury- 
 port, and became one of the early governors of 
 New Hampshire, where his grand-father Joseph, 
 had also been long previous in the ''good old 
 colony days " one of the pioneers at Gilmanton, 
 in the White Mountains, from whence he had led 
 a brigade of New Hampshire troops, under John 
 Stark, to Bennington and Saratoga in 1777, to 
 help capture Burgoyne and the Hessians. 
 
 Those early fighting qualities developed in 
 actual war with the British and Indians, and 
 thence returning to such homes as Mrs. Stowe 
 describes in Oldtown in 1792, could not fail to 
 develop traits of character likely to be well marked 
 and visible through many generations. 
 
 "How far that little candle threw its beams" 
 
ON THE HONEOYE. 19 
 
 will appear more clearly, when we consider that 
 another Joseph Badger of that same stock, grad- 
 uated at Yale College about the same time and 
 entered the Congregational Ministry at Blandford, 
 Massachusetts, from whence the great missionary 
 societies, then as now, so powerful, soon sent him 
 out as their best representative to the western 
 reserve in Ohio ; and to their great mission to the 
 Wyandot Indians in Michigan, where he spent a 
 long and devoted life in that service till ninety 
 years of age. 
 
 But his line only crosses this story at the first 
 rude bridge made of boats over the old Indian 
 trail at the Genesee Falls in 1800, whence his path 
 extended to Buffalo Creek, and Erie, and the first 
 wagon which ever rolled west of Buffalo was 
 drawn by the four stout Presbyterian horses of 
 that first missionary. And fifteen years later 
 came his cousin of the same name of the Harvard 
 College line, licensed to preach, but with no soci- 
 eties to back him, and no heritage but brains and 
 the Oldtown character, with his bible, his inde- 
 pendent, free-thinking faith, a stout heart, and a 
 good horse. 
 
 He rode the horse from Gilmanton, New Hamp- 
 shire, in the early Spring of 1816, with only saddle 
 baggage, going out to seek his fortune like a knight 
 of ancient chivalry, and, going westward with only 
 manly courtesy, and courage and faith, was wel- 
 comed everywhere with the greatest hospitality. 
 
20 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 He entered the wonderful lake region of New 
 York, preaching liere and there and everywhere as 
 he went, in barns and school-houses and groves, 
 allowing the endless beauty of the scenery to lead 
 him on from one lake to another, past Onondaga, 
 Cayuga, Seneca, Canandagua, Conesus to the little 
 Honeoye and down its outlet to the rude old bridge 
 below the falls in Mendon, where he stood in May 
 viewing a scene of surpassing loveliness, till seeing 
 a group of idlers at the tavern near the bridge, he 
 said to them : ** Gentlemen, will you kindly tell me 
 who is the worst man in this region, the most un- 
 godly person?" 
 
 Surprised at such an address, they laughed and 
 one said : '^ Well, there's a lot of us here that's 
 pretty bad, here's Li Jennings and Bill Sykes, most 
 bad enough for anything, but there's old Zeb 
 Townsend a mile west of here ; he's an old infidel 
 who don't care for God, Man or the Devil, is that 
 the kind you want ? " 
 
 ** Thank you, gentlemen," he said, '* I have 
 business with that man," and rode on to find old 
 Zeb standing at his gate, who eyed him suspiciously 
 as he approached. He announced himself as an 
 Evangelist from New Hampshire, desiring enter- 
 tainment over Sunday, and an opportunity to 
 preach the Gospel. 
 
 " The what ? " said old Zeb ; '* what do you mean 
 by them big words 'i Be ye a Presbyterian 1 " 
 
 ** No, sir," he replied. 
 
ON THE HONEOTE. 21 
 
 "A Baptist r' 
 
 ** No, sir ! " 
 
 "Not one o' them 'ere new fangled Methodists 
 or 'Piscopals?" 
 
 •* No, sir ! " 
 
 " Well, what be ye then ? '' 
 
 ** I am trying Sir," he said, " to be a Christian ? " 
 
 " Well, well," said old Zeb, '4f I only believed 
 you could do it, I have long wanted to see one o ' 
 them — Had hopes o' raisin' some on 'em out here, 
 but there's so many of them other things I spoke of 
 round here, that there don' t seem to be no room 
 for Christians, but come in ! come in ! young man, 
 if you can help whale them Orthodox I reckon 
 you're just the kind of man I have long been wan- 
 tin' to see." 
 
 "Why, I'm the best Christian in these parts, 
 without professin' to be one at all, and yet them 
 Orthodox would burn me at the stake to-day if 
 they could, and they say they will some time, if I 
 don't stop swearin' at 'em ! But damn 'em, 
 I've no use for sich critters, and I don't believe the 
 Almighty has nuther; though for centuries they 
 'pear to have had the upper hand of him ; but he 
 don't let 'em do sich things any more, at least not 
 in these parts." 
 
 "Why they just go round blattin' about their 
 own total depravity and actually accusin' decent 
 people of havin' it I But for me and Sam Sterlin, 
 my neighbor over yonder, there would' nt be any 
 
22 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 sensible religion in this region. He's an old Scotch 
 Presbyterian, from Connecticut, and him and me's 
 the fust settlers here, you know, and we have 
 had an awful time with them pesky varmints, but 
 between his prayin' and my swearin' we kinder 
 pull together and keep the traces straight, and 
 hold the balance of things round here. We have 
 to whale them Orthodox, in order to allow the 
 divine purposes to become manifest." 
 
 As they entered the house and greeted the fam- 
 ily, there sat with them two of the handsome dark- 
 eyed daughters of Samuel Sterling on a visit, and 
 the next bright thing that attracted attention was 
 '*The Sword of Bunker Hill," hanging on the 
 antlers over the mantle, with fragments of the red 
 coat and epaulettes of a British officer, and other 
 trophies from the battle of Saratoga. Old Zeb 
 had also been an officer under Stark and had 
 come from New Hampshire more than twenty years 
 before. 
 
 He well knew the famous old brigade of New 
 Hampshire men, which had been selected after the 
 battle, to escort Burgoyne and the eight thousand 
 British red coats and Hessians there captured, in 
 their long and tedious march across the country to 
 Boston, where they were long imprisoned in bar- 
 racks on what is now the foot-ball ground of Har- 
 vard College, till the port of Boston could be 
 opened again to ship them off to England as ex- 
 
ON THE HONEOYE. 28 
 
 changed prisoners under parole, not to fight 
 again. 
 
 He also well knew General Joseph Badger, who 
 succeeded Whipple as the commander of that 
 brigade after it reached Cambridge, and who as 
 Colonel of the 10th New Hampshire Regiment, 
 had distinguished himself in the battle, and left 
 the muster-roll of his regiment containing all their 
 names at that time in the library of Harvard Col- 
 lege, where it still remains among the collections 
 of revolutionary manuscripts made by President 
 Jared Sparks, when he wrote the life of Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 These facts established at once a high degree of 
 Masonry between them, and in one hour old Zeb 
 and the preacher were firm friends for life. And 
 as Sam Sterling had also been a revolutionary 
 officer, a captain in the Connecticut line from old 
 Saybrook, he was sent for and came over in the 
 evening with his wife and two other daughters, 
 and then and there with no other preordinations 
 or mystery the divine purposes seemed beginning 
 to be manifest. 
 
 From that meeting arose the destiny of two lives, 
 which swiftly culminated into the events of this 
 story. 
 
 A sermon in that region was then an unusual oc- 
 currence — : There were no churches there as yet, 
 and scarcely a school-house ; and the rumor of this 
 young preacher's arrival spread like wild-fire, and 
 
24 BOEDEK LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 when services were announced for the following 
 Sunday in Samuel Sterling's new barn, it called 
 the whole community together, and when it came 
 the Sterling family had organized a choir, and 
 hunted up all the old hymn-books, and within a 
 month were ready to organize and build a church 
 to be called simply '' The Christian Church of 
 West Mendon." 
 
 That church was built within a year, of cobble- 
 stones brought in by many farmers from their 
 fields, and old Zebusedto say : *' Well, well, if 1 
 wa'n't a Universaler and wouldn't have to stop 
 swearin' I'd almost be persuaded to join it 
 myself." 
 
 Glad indeed were those exiles in the wilderness 
 to hear once more the good sound of the Gospel, 
 wherever some wanderer could gather a group of 
 listeners in some new barn, or quiet grove, or or- 
 chard, and there were few young preachers like 
 this stranger. His outdoor life and buoyant youth 
 in robust health, gave him a delicacy of instinct 
 and a manliness of direct address such as few men 
 ever possess. His commanding stature of six feet, 
 his powerful but soft voice, his clustering chestnut- 
 brown hair, his clear gray eyes, warming to brown 
 as he spoke, and the ardent faith that spoke 
 through him, united to make a jjreacher such as 
 Eliza Sterling had never dreamed of seeing. 
 
 When her big brown eyes of eighteen first rested 
 on him, just five years her senior, the high color of 
 
ON THE HONEOYE. 25 
 
 her bright cheeks grew brighter, and the Welsh 
 blood of her good mother shone through the calm 
 and proud look of the Caledonian beauty, and 
 when she saw him rise to speak in that barn, and 
 heard his winning voice join with her pure soprano 
 in the music, it was a case of mutual conquest at 
 first sight. 
 
 His text was Phil. 2, 5, ** Let this mind be in yon, 
 which was also in Christ Jesus." 
 
 That was his whole creed, and it was so winning 
 that his church never adopted any other, and 
 when that new church was built and dedicated, its 
 first service was to make Eliza Sterling the honored 
 wife of its minister with the blessing of her brother 
 George, who had already been converted and had 
 entered upon its service as his assistant ; while her 
 first delightful duty as a wife was to accompany 
 her husband back to New England over tlie long 
 trail he had traveled, and to find in nearly every 
 place he had stopped, and in many other places a 
 similar church already organized and active and 
 zealous in the great revolt against New England 
 Orthodoxy, with which the nineteenth century 
 began. 
 
 Even Boston had founded such a church in 1814 
 to be strangely called the First Christian Church 
 of Boston, and there they tarried two years in its 
 Ministry, and this young preacher there often 
 proved his faith by baptizing by immersion in mid- 
 winter in the open sea. His diary then kept says : 
 
26 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ** March 23, was a day of great interest to the 
 ** Christian Church of Boston. Thousands assem- 
 '* bled at the Seaside on the south beach, and I 
 ** stood in the water one hour to baptize twenty- 
 ** four happy converts. I preached three sermons 
 *' this day, and through the whole of it was scarcely 
 " sensible of fatigue. God's strength has been 
 " sufficient, and in him I put my trust." 
 
 It also records in these words his conversion in 
 1811, at 19 years of age, when the righteousness of 
 sectarianism was still undisputed. 
 
 "This memorable year will never be forgotten 
 " on account of the victorious spread of the Gospel 
 " in America. Generations yet unborn will trace 
 ** the pages of Ecclesiastical history with anxiety 
 '' and delight to learn what transpired among their 
 " ancestors during this year." 
 
 ''I thought it strange that the Saints cannot all 
 ** be one. That the affectionate names of Brethren, 
 *' Disciples, Christians, Friends :— golden names, 
 '' that I found scattered all through the New 
 ** Testament, were not sufficient without the sec- 
 " tarian names under which the denominations 
 '* were marshalled." 
 
 " I knew of none at that time who adopted the 
 ** name Christian as their only designation ; but 
 " young and ignorant as I then was, I thought I 
 " beheld something coming, more glorious than 
 " anything at which myself or others had yet 
 " arrived." 
 
ON THE HONEOYE. 87 
 
 That was the spirit of the new movement which 
 seems to have arisen spontaneously in many places 
 at about the same time. It ignored the old Jewish 
 Deism, and the terrible divine decrees which nearly 
 wrecked Christianity in New England, which had 
 contributed largely to the French Revolution, and 
 came near leading the American Revolution into 
 Anarchy, and which were not considered revoked 
 for fifty years later, till Mrs. Stowe finally wrote 
 their epitaph in her wonderful chapter of **01d 
 Town Folks'' called *'My grandmother's blue- 
 book." 
 
 To see that chapter now adopted, in part, into 
 the Public School readers of New England, is to 
 realize that Christianity has passed far beyond 
 those Border Lands. 
 
 So now passes our story. 
 
 Home is where the heart is, and the young couple 
 could not resist the heart pull which compelled 
 their return to that earthly paradise on the 
 Honeoye, where the stately Mansion was now to be 
 built, just above the Falls, where the great happi- 
 ness of their lives thereafter culminated. 
 
BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AN EARTHLY PARADI8E. 
 
 That simple creed of the Christian Church of 
 Mendon proved to be invulnerable. 
 
 No scoffer or sceptic could assail it. No atheist 
 even could object, as God or no God, the mind that 
 was in Jesus seemed desirable. 
 
 It spread like the sunlight, and by the force of 
 natural selection, and by a custom of the Bap- 
 tists the young preacher was called Elder before he 
 was thirty years of age, and then became a sort of 
 presiding Elder or Bishop, and was called to pro- 
 claim his doctrine and defend it everywhere. 
 
 More than two hundred of its churches were 
 already behind him in the East, and he now for 
 several years made long and tedious journeys to 
 the West, a volunteer missionary appointed by 
 God only, as he said, through Ohio, Kentucky 
 and Pennsylvania and Virginia, to carry that gos- 
 pel to the borders of civilization in those regions; 
 and wherever he went, " the common people heard 
 him gladly," while Eliza and the growing children 
 kept the hearthstone bright on the Honeoye. 
 
 This earth has known no happier life than blos- 
 somed on the Genesee in those early days. Sixty 
 bushels of wheat to the acre was the common 
 
AN EARTHLY PARADISE. 29 
 
 rule, and the Flour City of Rochester soon became 
 famous ; but when its grand flora was developed it 
 became also the Flower City, spelled with a w. 
 So prolific was nature, that the Indians had lived 
 there for centuries on the spontaneous growths of 
 nature, the maize and the berries, the fruits and 
 the nuts, the game and the fish, and the great 
 romance and tragedy of their recent extermination 
 had left a sad interest in the region, involving the 
 deepest mysteries of Nature and of Providence in 
 the evolution of a higher civilization. 
 
 The long house of the Senecas had ended here, 
 and their last great battle for existence, after being 
 driven out of New England and the Mohawk Val- 
 ley, was fought within a mile of these falls, where 
 their great burial mounds on the old Sterling home- 
 stead yet remained to tell the tale. They clung to 
 their waterfalls believing the Great Spirit was in 
 them, and fell back from here in despair to the 
 Genesee Falls, and thence to the great Niagara, 
 where the Government at last stayed its vengeance 
 for a time, and the remnants of Red Jacket and his 
 heroic race remain there to this day. 
 
 The famous Six Nations, the most powerful race 
 of savages ever known, had, from their earlier 
 associations and alliances with the French and 
 Jesuits in Canada, made the sad mistake of mostly 
 siding with the English during the Revolution ; 
 with the result that in August, 1779, their lands 
 were considered forfeited and in return for their 
 
30 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 terrible massacre of the settlers at Wyoming in 
 1878, General Washington sent here an army under 
 John Sullivan sufficient to exterminate them, and 
 he nearly accomplished that object, by burning over 
 forty of their villages, and killing thousands of 
 them. 
 
 Then in 1789 came the Hartford Convention, 
 appointed to settle the easterly boundary of New 
 York State, as New England claimed everything 
 east of the Hudson River. 
 
 That claim was defeated by allowing Massachu- 
 setts and Connecticut the enormous price of six 
 millions of acres of these Indian lands, covering 
 both sides of the Genesee River, which those lucky 
 states soon after sold to Oliver Phelps and Na- 
 thaniel Gorham for about two millions of dollars. 
 
 Those gentlemen at once settled upon the prop- 
 erty at Canandagua and Batavia and opened land 
 offices there and at Geneseo, which secured the 
 superior class of settlers which thereafter entered 
 this region. 
 
 But now in 1840 the laughing white children 
 were playing over those Indian graves, and digging 
 out their hidden treasures as curiosities, and Eliza's 
 two eldest boys, Bill and Clay, were foremost in 
 finding flints and arrow-heads on those famous old 
 battle fields. 
 
 Enormous mills and factories had now been built 
 below the falls, and around the old tavern at the 
 bridge had spread a large village with several 
 
AN EARTHLY PARADISE. 31 
 
 schools and rival churches, and the usual sectarian 
 war was now rending the body and garments of 
 Jesus anew. 
 
 From the one-parson towns in New England, 
 well supported and protected by the state, to this 
 array of five or six starving little churches with 
 which most country villages are now afflicted, seems 
 a desecration indeed, which has but few if any 
 compensating advantages. But it tends at least in 
 some degree to educate the people, to develop good 
 music, and keep men alive to spiritual interests, 
 and alert to anything which may be open to mutual 
 criticism, or likely to make sacred things ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 This was vividly illustrated at the first winter 
 baptism service of the new Methodist Church which 
 was conducted in the Honeoye, at the usual place, 
 directly in front of the new residence of the Chris- 
 tian minister which overlooked the scene. 
 
 Many pious people had remarked that elder 
 Badger never took cold in any baptismal service, 
 even in winter, citing his Boston and other ex- 
 periences, and attributing to him therefor great 
 spiritual exaltation, which protected him ; at which 
 Eliza used to smile quietly as she well knew that 
 the Holy Spirit was getting a false credit for what 
 was really due to a pair of rubber breeches I 
 
 On account of a severe cold taken at that Boston 
 service, he had thereafter used a waterproof suit of 
 underclothing, coming up to his arms, and this 
 
32 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 secret finally getting out, the young Methodist 
 parson had come to borrow that suit. Eliza loaned 
 it to him in her husband's absence, and sat on her 
 balcony with the children to observe the perform- 
 ance, well knowing it was several sizes too large for 
 him. 
 
 As she expected, he could get nothing on over 
 it, so he wore it outside of his ordinary clothing, 
 and came down to the water looking very baggy, as 
 if prepared for a sackrace. He was very nervous, 
 as it was his first out-door service, and the first can- 
 didate happened to be an old maiden sister of 
 Eliza who had got lonesome, as she said, and had 
 gone over to the Methodist church for more social- 
 ity. She was also very nervous, knowing she was 
 considered a prize in that new church, and that all 
 eyes were upon her for that reason. 
 
 As she stepped out into the current on his arm 
 and turned sideways in front of the minister, she 
 did not hear the usual caution of the elder to stand 
 firm so as to be immersed quickly and brought up 
 gracefully, nor did she wait for the conclusion of 
 the formula, but at its first words, " I baptize thee," 
 down she went in a heap doubled in the middle, 
 which so surprised the minister that she slipped out 
 of his arms and the further words were lost, as she 
 was swept away in the heavy current. A scream 
 of horror arose as he sprang bravely after her, but 
 the baggy breeches encumbered him, and in a 
 
AN EABTHLY PARADISE. 33 
 
 moment they were both down and drifting away, 
 struggling together in the water for dear life. 
 
 The deacons rnshed in and grasped his coat col- 
 lar and dragged him ashore, towing Fanny Sterling 
 behind him, desperately clinging to the baggy seat 
 of those trousers. 
 
 There was no more baptism by immersion by that 
 minister, and the vicarious salvation by those 
 trousers was considered miraculous. 
 
 And that same Aunt Fanny of blessed memory 
 afterwards taught the village school for several 
 seasons, and for some prank she once shut up Bill 
 and Clay in the dark closet, which to her mind was 
 the most terrible of punishments. 
 
 But somehow it did not affect their youthful 
 minds in that way, as they knew that the teacher 
 and all the big girls kept their dinner baskets in 
 that closet, which contained nice cakes, mince- 
 pies, and tarts and fruit ; and somehow they man- 
 aged to empty the teacher's first, and then five or 
 six others in succession ; and no one ever saw 
 where they put all those things, for at recess they 
 were found there, fast asleep, as innocent as the 
 babes in the wood. 
 
 And when they were punished all the next day 
 by being made to sit over among those big girls, 
 with fool's caps on their heads, like girl's night- 
 caps, they mildly urged the old plea of the good 
 deacon Badger at Oldtown, that no one had seen 
 'em do it. 
 
34 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 They also asked how long capital punishment 
 was to be continued for such small boys, and they 
 knew they could utterly demoralize that good, 
 pious teacher at any time, by bringing the boys 
 under her window at recess, and starting the good 
 old baptismal hymn : 
 
 Safe in the Lifeboat Sailor, pull for the Shore ! 
 
 They were already famous declaimers and used 
 to go round speaking pieces in the rival schools, 
 and Bill was called *' Old Put" from his declama- 
 tion of the story of General Putnam and the wolf. 
 As spellers, they often kept the spelling school till 
 midnight, trying in vain to get them down by their 
 missing a word ; and once when they paired off 
 against each other, and chose sides, the game had 
 to be declared a draw at midnight, as neither of 
 them was yet down. 
 
 Clay was known among the boys as the ** Little 
 Cuss" of not much account, and was soon dubbed 
 the "Deacon," for his early piety, but Bill was 
 already a fighter with a slogan and a following, 
 like a Highland chieftain, and all the boys in the 
 village would rally at his peculiar whistle through 
 his fingers for any fight or foray. 
 
 Years afterwards he used that same whistle as a 
 captain in the great war of the Rebellion, to rally 
 his men in the great battle of Chancellors ville, 
 where they saw Stonewall Jackson shot within two 
 hundred yards of them, in May, 1863, and yet 
 
AN EARTHLY PARADISE. 36 
 
 two months later had still to stand firmly before 
 Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. 
 
 All the boys in the village were soon ranged in 
 two clans, those who fought on his side and those 
 from the east side who fought against him, and 
 woe to the lad from over the creek who was caught 
 without his re-enforcements on the wrong side of 
 that sacred stream. 
 
 The whistle promptly rallied a posse in pursuit, 
 and as the flying Tam O'Shanter made for the 
 bridge, he was safe beyond the middle of it, but if 
 he was headed off and caught, the luckless urchin 
 got rolled in the dirt or had his face washed in the 
 snow. 
 
 In these friendly fights the *' Little Cuss" never 
 took much part. He was timid and shy and was 
 never counted in for mischief, though he was never 
 left out for any innocent fun or merriment, and his 
 divine punishment now came swiftly to the great 
 satisfaction of the fighters, when he received his 
 first lesson of vicarious atonement for a brother's 
 sins. 
 
 The Rip Van Winkle of the village was old Sam 
 Hawley, who lived two miles south and used to 
 come into the village on winter evenings with a 
 load of wood on a big ox sled, and after selling it, 
 would leave the patient oxen standing in the cold in 
 front of the tavern, while he drank up the proceeds 
 in the bar-room. 
 
 That became such an affliction to his family 
 
36 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Gretchen that those village boys took great delight 
 in watching for him, and when he was oblivious 
 in the bar-room, they would start those cattle off 
 home, getting them far ahead, and leaving Sam to 
 walk after them if he was able to. 
 
 Of course no one had seen them do it, but they 
 played that on him so often that he became sus- 
 picious, and one night laid for them with a new 
 hickory ox goad of formidable dimensions. 
 
 As the cattle started this time, out rushed old 
 Hawley yelling, ** Whoa there," and lashing about 
 him heavily with the ox goad. Not a boy was hit 
 except little Clay who happened to be standing 
 near the door, having had no part in it, and his 
 conscience was so clear and his sense of innocence 
 80 strong that he never thought of running away, 
 but merely stood and took an awful licking, only 
 crying out, ** Oh, Mr. Hawley, I ain't onel I ain't 
 one!" The boys yelled at him, **Run, you little 
 cuss, run 1 " And that became his name ever after. 
 
 But he did not run, and he was quite happy 
 when Hawley finally said, **I believe you. Clay, I 
 know you ain't one, but I have licked ye on Bill's 
 account." 
 
 And when the Elder heard that he gave those 
 boys a lecture on the value of vicarious suffering 
 which they never forgot, but that account ran 
 heavily against Hawley thereafter. 
 
nature's teaching. 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 nature's teaching. 
 
 The groves were God's first Temples, 
 
 ere man learned 
 To hew the shaft and lay the architrave, 
 And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed 
 The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
 The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
 And offered to the mightiest solemn thanks 
 And supplication. 
 
 — Bryanfs Forest Hymn. 
 
 Those boys grew up with their sister Katie now 
 close behind them, in that wilderness of Nature's 
 rarest charms. 
 
 Though they attended church, they liked best to 
 avoid it if they could, and run away for a Sunday 
 in the woods, or to go in swimming or fishing for 
 the red-finned shiners, more precious than any 
 trout, or to gather the rich butternuts, the walnuts, 
 and shagbarks, the beechnuts and chestnuts, the 
 wild cherries and flowers. 
 
 And what woods those were in those unhewn 
 forests % Huge oaks and maples, with beech and 
 birch, made a shade so dense that no underbrush 
 could grow, and they grew with smooth bark and 
 
38 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 clean tall stems that lifted the dense canopy high 
 above the brown and cool leaf -carpeted floor. 
 
 What a temple for meditation and worship 1 
 Nothing pleased the little Deacon so well, and 
 thither sped the yonng Neophyte early on the Sab- 
 bath alone. He conld not understand why the 
 other boys did not enjoy as he did the exquisite 
 charm of that communion with nature, and he soon 
 found that to feel its power he must be alone. 
 Thus he went and the hush of a tender awe fell 
 upon his spirit as he there entered his cathedral. 
 There was no prying curiosity, no critical scrutiny ; 
 no questioning. Nature seemed to him so sympa- 
 thetic and calm, so gentle, so kindly. 
 
 The divine mother of mankind seemed there to 
 fold him to her bosom and to comfort him with an 
 embrace of infinite tenderness. Her presence seemed 
 to fill him with peace, and with faith; doubts, 
 which thronged his mind in company, here van- 
 ished away. In the woods he seemed to breathe 
 the air of Heaven and to touch the loving and gen- 
 tle hand of God. 
 
 Many wondered why the stripling always made 
 off alone, for the remotest fields, woods or waters, 
 and why he brought nothing back ; nuts, flowers, 
 curious leaves or barks, he seemed to care nothing 
 for, and though he carried a rifle and was a good 
 shot, he seemed most happy and lighthearted when 
 he had killed or wounded nothing, and had not 
 -even fired his gun. 
 
natuee's teaching. 39 
 
 When asked why he carried a gun and seldom 
 used it, he would laugh and tell the story of the 
 old Puritan parson at Deerfield, who always took 
 his musket into the pulpit with him. 
 
 When his wife reminded him of his favorite doc- 
 trine of fate and foreordination, and that he of 
 course could not be killed or hurt till his time 
 came, he replied, ^'Yes, my dear, that is correct; 
 but suppose I should happen to meet a bad Indian 
 and his time had come, if I had not my gun, God's 
 will might be frustrated I " 
 
 He soon learned that the lightest footfall of man, 
 the cracking of a twig, the rustling of a leaf under 
 the foot, was a note of alarm there in Nature's 
 cathedral, and that a man passing through the 
 woods, seeing no living thing, was in truth covered 
 and studied by hundreds of eager eyes which he 
 could not see. 
 
 He would go into the deepest forest for his Sab- 
 bath worship, seat himself at the foot of some great 
 tree, breathe with delight the cool fragrance of the 
 air, listen to the gentle sigh of the light wind, and 
 in perfect silence pass into a state of exquisite peace 
 and calm lightheartedness, whose bliss he knew 
 would be brief. 
 
 As soon as the sound of his footstep was for- 
 gotten, and his moving figure fairly out of sight, 
 then '^ chirp ! " began the service of song of some 
 open-eyed bird. A chip-munk peered over the root 
 of a neighboring tree, and the red squirrel answered 
 
40 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 from the limb above where he had been lying un- 
 seen. Then a rustling at the very top of a lofty 
 tree showed where the big grey or black squirrel 
 was gathering the nuts, or springing from tree to 
 tree in the frolic of free life for fun. 
 
 Birds innumerable soon showed themselves where 
 the trees had seemed so utterly lifeless a moment 
 before : and, unless the footstep of man brought 
 again that sudden and total silence, the woods were 
 everywhere vocal and animate with that teeming, 
 eager, joyful life. Insatiable was the delight of 
 this youDg semi- savage as he shared it, a child of 
 nature, there at home with his kindred ; and in- 
 finitely varied was the service, no two days ever 
 being alike. 
 
 September's rain made in the forest a soothing 
 music all its own. October's wind stilled the ani- 
 mate voices, but roused the wood and the soul of 
 the worshipper with organ tones, rich and grand. 
 
 The scenes, the sounds, the interpretation, varied 
 with the season. Now the boy was watching the 
 clumsy wood-chuck basking on a stump in the field, 
 peering from the mouth of his burrow, or timidly 
 foraging near by. Now the muskrats were busy in 
 November, building their houses of grass. Here the 
 light-footed fox was tripping through the edge of 
 the wood or curiously peering over a log behind 
 which its body was hidden. 
 
 Now the mourning-dove was gently cooing in the 
 depth of the wood, — the wicked -looking king- 
 
nature's teaching. 41 
 
 fisher was screaming by the river, — the quail was 
 calling Bob White, and the great blue heron was 
 slowly fanning its way up the stream or standing 
 intent and watchful in the pool. Now the hawks 
 were sailing and swooping at midday, and often an 
 immense flock of wild pigeons covered the whole 
 sky, or lighted on a stubble field to feed, when 
 as the hungry ones in the rear continually rose and 
 flew over to alight again in front, the whole mass 
 seemed to roll like an enormous blue billow across 
 the clean-picked field. 
 
 His usual ramble was down the Honeoye on its 
 south side seven miles to the Genesee, and then 
 crossing over by a log dam there, and up the north 
 side to the bridge below the Falls ; but often the 
 path went up the Genesee seven miles, to the 
 famous Avon Springs, then running wild in the 
 woods. 
 
 And often also the long trail of the hunter wound 
 westward fifty miles to Niagara. 
 
 There, the mighty Father of Waters, coming 
 from his long line of noble ancestry of the great 
 lakes behind him, rushes to his merry bridal with 
 the fair Ontario, the smiling and happy daughter 
 of the Senecas, and their great family of the Thou- 
 sand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and the thou- 
 sand lakes of the Adirondacks, make the earthly 
 Paradise. 
 
 Once he strayed from an excursion party, and 
 remained all night alone with Niagara on the 
 
42 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 island in the Falls, and there and then tried to 
 answer some of the questions of his life. 
 
 Nature had seemed to him a teacher so sympa- 
 thetic, that he pictured her grander phenomena as 
 interpreters of all its problems for the soul. 
 
 No answers came, but the air was dense with the 
 spray and more bracing than any he had ever 
 breathed. Every sense was alert and keen, and 
 the bewildering tumult of conflicting tones seemed 
 as though nature were speaking in such majestic 
 voices that the feeble human soul could not compre- 
 hend. 
 
 It speaks of Nature's dawn, when God brought 
 order out of chaos millions of years before man 
 existed, and we have not yet fully learned that 
 language. 
 
 At midnight alone on the island, he sat by a tree, 
 wrapped in a heavy gray shawl, and dreamed and 
 meditated and listened till there came a rushing 
 sound new to his ears, and a great forest eagle 
 swooped down to its familiar perch on a dead limb 
 not thirty feet from where he sat. His heart beat 
 tumultuously, as he had never before seen an eagle, 
 but silent and motionless he sat and gazed at it till 
 the beautiful creature stretched forth its neck and 
 turned its head, slowly scrutinizing the wild scene, 
 till their eyes met. Then starting as if in fear, it 
 stood more erect and raised its majestic head as if 
 looking over its shoulder for danger. Its grand 
 eyes seemed to open wider as it eagerly gazed at 
 
nature's teaching. 48 
 
 the unfamiliar intruder in its home ; and then rais- 
 ing itself, but without alarm or haste, it slowly- 
 spread its powerful wings and soared majestically 
 away and higher and higher into the sky. 
 
 Day was breaking as it sailed away, and though 
 it was but a usual incident, it seemed to that ex- 
 cited boy like a heavenly visitation, so proud, so 
 calm, so quick to see, so grand in motion, it seemed 
 like the incarnation of some noble spirit, sent to 
 summon him higher and higher, to a life of lofty 
 effort and devotion, and to demand of him a vow 
 of consecration. 
 
 It seemed as if the eagle had spoken to him, and 
 that the command had fallen upon him then and 
 there, both from his earthly and his heavenly 
 Father, that he was to become a Minister of Grace, 
 devoting his life to the highest discernments and 
 manifestations of Truth. He had long had the idea 
 that Truth was everywhere manifest in Nature, but 
 that Grace and Love were most everywhere want- 
 ing. 
 
 He started up with a suppressed exclamation, and 
 rejoined the great Sunday-school excursion to re- 
 turn home, exclaiming, as he met his parents, 
 ** Father, I will try, I will try.'' 
 
 On hearing that story, Bill said, ** Why didn't 
 you shoot him, Clay ? " 
 
 But Clay said, *'Why, I would as soon have 
 thought of shooting my father." 
 
IP 
 
 44 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 And years afterwards he wrote this poem in 
 remembrance of those early scenes. 
 
 On the Honeoye. 
 
 In that Eden land flowing, 
 ^ Joy goes with its going, 
 
 Glad stream of my youth, Genesee. 
 Where I roamed as a boy 
 Down the bright Honeoye, 
 
 Which babbled for Katie and me. 
 
 On its bonnie banks daily 
 We rambled so gaily, 
 
 That moonlight oft broke on our glee ; 
 And a rose cottage rises 
 Where sunlight surprises 
 
 Oft waited for Katie and me. 
 
 And the blue heron nightly 
 His wings spread as lightly, 
 
 As leaves on the butternut tree, 
 Where the squirrels ran chipping 
 And wild bees were sipping 
 
 Their honey like Katie and me. 
 
 Honeoye ! the wild Indian named it, 
 But bridges and mills have now tamed it 
 
 To almost forget it was free ; 
 When the fish in its rills 
 With no hook in their gills 
 
 Just leaped out for Katie and me. 
 
nature's teaching. 45 
 
 Ah, that life was beautiful, 
 Clever and dutiful, 
 
 And joyful as ever was seen ; 
 But its bright dreams are ended, 
 In sadder life blended, 
 
 And fifty now laughs at fifteen. 
 
46, BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PALLADIUM. 
 
 The Elder had not quite fulfilled all of Zeb Town- 
 send' 8 expectations of *' whaling them Orthodox," 
 as his creed at most was only a blossom from the 
 old Orthodox tree, which merely avoided the thorns 
 of controversy, as most of its churches have been 
 doing ever since. But when he had baptized two 
 of Zeb's daughters, and had married off two of 
 Zeb's sons, the old man's prospects of "raisin' 
 some on 'em out here," seemed to be improving. 
 He was a good man, peaceful and happy, but often 
 said *' I will have peace if I have to fight for it till 
 I die." 
 
 Yet such was the sectarian war of the time, that 
 old Zeb finally went with the east siders in a little 
 suburb called Dogtown, a mile up the river, and 
 there helped them organize and build a new Uni- 
 versalist Church. 
 
 Promptly came a challenge from its new minister 
 to the Christian minister to discuss the difference 
 of their Faith, and at it they went with alternate 
 sermons every night in the week, and closing with 
 a mutual summing up on the following Sunday in 
 the new church. 
 
 The Christian was here at a little disadvantage, 
 
OF THK 
 
 XTHIVERSITY 
 THE CHRISTIAN PALLADIUM. ^s£i^^irOUH\^ 
 
 as he fully believed in the Fatherhood of God, 
 which was wholly inconsistent with eternal damna- 
 tion, and he had never in thought or speech used 
 the word Hell, if it was possible to avoid it. He 
 could therefore only urge the folly of mere sec- 
 tarian and only partisan names not found in Scrip- 
 ture, and that the question was one of conduct and 
 happiness in this world, rather than of chances in 
 the next, and that even if God were too good to 
 damn men eternally, it were far better for men to 
 become here too good to be damned. 
 
 That was a sticker and made old Zeb squirm in 
 his seat, but the Elder continued, that the motive 
 for good conduct here was somewhat stronger to 
 most minds from the older doctrines of some future 
 punishment, and ended with the question : " Now 
 where is the man who can sincerely say, I have be- 
 come a better man here in this world from having 
 no fear of any hereafter ? " 
 
 That was too much for old Zeb and he promptly 
 rose from his seat on the broad aisle and said, 
 ** Well, here is one, sir." 
 
 At that square knock down, the audience cheered, 
 but the Elder was never bullied, and he quickly 
 made them scream with delight, as he replied, 
 ** Well, brother Townsend, we are all delighted to 
 learn that you have become a better man. It has 
 long been needed. This community has been pray- 
 ing for you many years, and God is indeed merci- 
 
48 BORDEE LANDS OP FAITH. 
 
 ful in leading you at last to see the error of your 
 profane ways." 
 
 Old Zeb collapsed as if he would sink through 
 the floor, and was never heard to swear again, 
 except to say at the tavern the next day, " Well, 
 damn him, he did gag me nicely, but then there's 
 more honesty in my swearin' than there is in most 
 preachin'." 
 
 And now the " whalin' of them Orthodox" really 
 began in more earnest. 
 
 The Elder finding his circuit quite too large for 
 him, including now five states besides New Eng- 
 land, established at Rochester in 1830 the first re- 
 ligious newspaper ever published west of the Hud- 
 son River. It was a monthly magazine called The 
 Christian Palladium. 
 
 He meant by that the Defender of the Faith, as 
 his campaign had not been aggressive, but always, 
 as he claimed, in the defense of the religion of 
 Jesus against Theology. 
 
 Religion he defined as the garden of the soul in 
 which the kindly affections bloom, but Theology 
 was only men's thoughts about God, which as all 
 history had proven, were of but little value, as 
 scarcely any two of them ever thought exactly 
 alike. 
 
 Pallas was the Grecian Goddess of Wisdom, 
 whom the Romans called Minerva, who sprang 
 ready armed from the brow of Jove. 
 
 Her statue, called the Palladium, was said to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PALLADIUM. 49 
 
 have fallen from heaven for the protection of Troy. 
 It was a female figure sitting, with a spindle and 
 distaff in her left hand, and a spear in her right, to 
 indicate protection to peace and industry, and as 
 long as it was unharmed in her Temple, the city 
 was considered safe and invulnerable. 
 
 So the Christian Palladium fell from Heaven to 
 defend the Christian Church against Theology. 
 
 " *Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, 
 And ask them what report they bore to Heaven." 
 
 That was its first motto, and its first editorial on 
 the Deformities of Sectarianism was an appeal for 
 sincerity in all things, that would let a blow be a 
 blow, and a smile be a smile. 
 
 Though it was launched as a peaceful craft, it 
 was soon so attacked on all sides that it necessarily 
 became a Man of War, and its battle flag was soon 
 waving, bearing these words, *' Religion without 
 Bigotry, Zeal without Fanaticism, and Liberty 
 without Licentiousness." 
 
 Its Editor was challenged everywhere to public 
 discussion, and though he never gave a challenge, 
 yet he never refused one. 
 
 The Presbyterians were then on their great split 
 of old school and new school. North and South, 
 and the Campbellites and Methodists in Pennsyl- 
 vania, and the Disciples and Baptists in Ohio, and 
 the Freewillers, Quakers and Comeouters were 
 everywhere, with the Millerites and the Adventists 
 
50 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 and Spiritualists soon to follow ; and tlie main 
 object of the Palladium was, if possible, to harmo- 
 nize these warring sects, or at least to abolish these 
 foolish names, and bring them to unite on the 
 simple word Christian. 
 
 They will do it, he said. They must do it in 
 time. It is the only central and commanding posi- 
 tion to take. 
 
 The labors of that conflict were endless. The 
 Diary has many entries like this : '* Sept. 11, 1832 : 
 The Presbyterians having sent for me, I rode 
 this day fifty miles, preached in their church at 
 4 p. M., nearly two hours, again in the evening two 
 long hours, and then conversed with many until 
 midnight, when my mind became so full that no 
 sleep came till three o'clock. There were present 
 many earnest gentlemen of talents and wealth, who 
 are all liberal-minded Christians." 
 
 That was the western echo of the great Unitarian 
 revolt in Boston, about that time, when some fifty 
 of the old blue light Congregational churches con- 
 cluded to drop Calvinism utterly, and almost to 
 drop Puritanism, and to follow Dr. William Ellery 
 Channing and his old Federal Street Orthodox 
 Church into the new light of the old religion of 
 Jesus, which had been almost extinguished and 
 obliterated by the Theology of the dark ages. 
 
 The shadow of those ages had extended over the 
 previous century even in this new world, but the 
 Church of the Forefathers had now broken in two. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PALLADIUM. 51 
 
 Dr. Channing, born in Newport, had graduated 
 at Harvard College in 1798, and soon after at twenty- 
 three years of age, entered upon the Orthodox 
 Ministry in Boston, and for twenty years thereafter 
 tried to preach its doctrines. There was then no 
 Unitarian Church or sect in America, and outside of 
 Boston the very name was only known as one of 
 dread and obloquy. 
 
 He first carried that name to Baltimore, where in 
 1819 he preached a great heretical sermon, which 
 might have burned him at the stake a century 
 earlier. 
 
 He said soon after that, '* I cheerfully take the 
 name of a Unitarian. I wish to regard myself as 
 belonging, not to a sect, but to the community of 
 free minds, of lovers of truth, of followers of Christ 
 on earth and in Heaven." And by Christ he meant 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the later refinements of the 
 higher criticism as to his being the Christ not 
 having yet arisen. 
 
 And fifteen years later, when about retiring from 
 the active ministry, in 1835, to his scholarly retreat 
 and home at Providence, he said, " I need several 
 lives to do what I feel I have yet to do." 
 
 He also said, '* the word Hell has done unspeak- 
 able injury to Christianity." 
 
 '' The only power which can and ought to be 
 loved is a beneficent and righteous power." * * * 
 
 *' But one object is worthy of enduring love, in 
 Heaven or on earth, and that is Moral Goodness. I 
 
52 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 make no exceptions, my principle applies to all 
 beings, to the Creator as well as his creatures." 
 
 "The voice of our whole nature, properly inter- 
 preted is a cry for a higher existence. 
 
 **The germ of Immortality is in the conscience 
 that includes as one of its elements a presentiment 
 of retribution ; in the Eeason that beholds in the 
 present an incomplete destiny ; in the thirst for 
 Happiness that is too deep to be satisfied on earth, 
 but opens into aspiration towards an infinitely 
 blessed Being ; in the love of moral goodness and 
 beauty which awakens the Ideal of spotless virtue 
 and the desire of community with the All Perfect 
 One," * * * 
 
 ** Very few state with sufficient strength and 
 precision this moral foundation and nature of our 
 religion : that Love to God is from beginning to end 
 only the love of virtue and goodness. On this 
 ground and no other our religion rests." 
 
 '* Unitarianism began as a protest against the re^ 
 jection of Reason — against mental slavery. 
 
 **This truth ought not to be disguised, that our 
 ultimate reliance is and must be on our reason. 
 Faith in this power is the foundation of all other 
 Faith. 
 
 ** Reason is the faculty to which Revelation is 
 addressed, and by which alone it can be understood. 
 I can conceive no sacrilege greater than to renounce 
 this highest faculty, which we have derived from 
 God." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PALLADIUM. 58 
 
 *' I am surer that my rational nature is from God 
 than that any book is an expression of His 
 will." * * ^ 
 
 "Nothing has wrought so powerfully on the 
 human soul as the mind and character of Jesus 
 Christ. Jesus with his celestial love is the life of 
 His religion." 
 
 *' Yet many hope to be happy through Christ's 
 dying agony, as a substitute for virtue in themselves, 
 much more than by participating in his self-sacri- 
 ficing life." 
 
 *' I doubt whether any error has done so much to 
 rob Christianity of its purifying and ennobling 
 power, as these false views of the Atonement." 
 
 Those were almost his last words as he died in 
 1842, and how grandly that theme was carried for- 
 ward by his associates, all the world now knows. 
 
 Those words brought on what is now known as 
 the great debates for the next twenty years of the 
 fundamental principles of Christianity. 
 
 The great tidal waves of that debate broke on the 
 border lands of the western frontier, and rolled over 
 them to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The Christian Palladium was tossed like a ship 
 in the white foam of those breakers, but rode them 
 like a thing of life. 
 
 But it so '' whaled them Orthodox" on one side, 
 and them Unitarians on the other, as to be long 
 known as the ''Paddle 'em,"— the "Christian 
 Paddle 'em." 
 
64 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 CHANNING IN 1825. 
 
 All those noble principles, so clearly stated, were 
 copied from time to time in the ** Palladium," and 
 commented on, and sometimes in sorrow the plea of 
 reason was criticised, and the suggestion of Jesus 
 persuasively repeated, that spiritual things must be 
 spiritually discerned, and that there is an instinct 
 of religion which is higher than reason, and which 
 is the ultimate reliance of Faith. 
 
 The Greeks by wisdom knew not God, and this 
 truth of babes and sucklings is still to be made 
 manifest. 
 
 The Editor regarded those Unitarians as only a 
 new sect, and he compared C banning and Ware to 
 the wise Ulysses and Diomed, who with only a 
 wooden horse entered Troy and carried off to Athens 
 the heaven-sent statue of the Palladium. 
 
 He considered their name as most unfortunate 
 and said it would prove their greatest encumbrance, 
 as without it their principles might have extended 
 everywhere, like the leaven in the meal. 
 
 He named Boston the Modern Athens, and quoted 
 the Trojan who said, ** I fear those Greeks bearing 
 gifts," — Timeo Danaos donaferentes. 
 
 He had known Dr. C banning in Boston, and felt 
 
CHAINING IN 1825. 55 
 
 the greatest respect for Mm, and he had also been 
 intimate there with Dr. Tuckerman, Dr. Gannett 
 and Henry Ware, whose son came soon after to 
 found the Unitarian Society at Rochester, where he 
 was heartily welcomed as a co-worker for Christ. 
 
 An editorial announced that new church hand- 
 somely, and said, though the Unitarians may not 
 be our friends, they may be sure that their enemies 
 and ours are the same. 
 
 He had also visited Dr. Channing at his home in 
 Newport, and had there drawn from him his 
 famous letter on a higher education of the ministry, 
 in which he finally said : 
 
 '' Faithful are the wounds of a friend ; I feel that 
 my brethren and I may learn much from you, and 
 my heart has been too full to allow me to guard and 
 study my language. I feel that a minister, scantily 
 educated, but fervent in spirit, will win more souls 
 to Christ, than the most learned minister whose 
 heart is cold, whose words are frozen, whose eye 
 never kindles with feeling, whose form is never ex- 
 panded with the greatness of his thoughts and the 
 ardor of his love." 
 
 '' There is no preparation for a minister so needed 
 as religious experience. All books are worthless 
 without it. But the greater the learning of a truly 
 religious man, the greater his humility, and the 
 more he feels his need of wisdom from above. 
 
56 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Learning and piety are not foes, bnt allies and 
 friends." 
 
 '* But you must, you must think more of educat- 
 ing your ministers, or you cannot take your proper 
 place in the Christian world, or exert the influence 
 which belongs to you, or do justice to your princi- 
 ples." 
 
 Those noble words bore golden fruit after many 
 years, as appears in our next chapter, but meantime 
 the Editor published the letter and answered it with 
 spirit as follows : 
 
 ** We see so many ignorant men coming out of 
 colleges who are mere college dunces, crowding into 
 the ministry because unfit for anything else, and 
 pretending to teach Theology, though they were 
 never designed by nature for the ministry, and who 
 are as ignorant of God's grace, and the first princi- 
 ples of the Christian religion as Nicodemus was of 
 the new birth, that we regard them as sources of 
 corruption and division, rather than helps to the 
 Church of God. 
 
 It is well also to remember occasionally that Jesus 
 was uneducated and never wrote a word so far as 
 known, except with his finger in the sand." 
 
 The position of Channing, in dropping the Trin- 
 ity, and yet acknowledging Jesus as the Christ, 
 without in any way confounding him with the 
 Deity, was exactly the position of that Christian 
 Church, which was organized into Conferences, 
 local and national, numbering half a million of 
 
CHANNING IN 1825. 57 
 
 church members, while the Unitarians were only the 
 United Arians, including Luther and Calvin, as or- 
 ganized in Hungary in 1563 against Rome. 
 
 They had done their best to obtain an educated 
 ministry, but such men as Dr. Channing and the 
 Editor of the Palladium, were few and far between, 
 and are the growth of centuries, and do not spread 
 like the grass in the field. 
 
 They only differed, if at all, on the question of 
 the Atonement, and the effect of vicarious suffering 
 of the innocent for the guilty, which has come to be 
 considered as the very essence of God's grace. 
 
 That there is some Divine purpose in it is appar- 
 ent from its being a universal law of nature, and 
 as this was a favorite theme of the Editor of the 
 Palladium, he set it forth at length in answer to 
 Dr. Channing, as follows : 
 
 **God has not withheld his choicest gifts for 
 thousands of years from his children, to shower 
 them now upon his latest born. His wondrous 
 compensations make all the ages rich ; and he re- 
 veals himself to the child or to the savage more 
 readily than to the man of science, — unless the man 
 of science keeps, as he very often does, the heart 
 of a child. Science sees more and more clearly 
 that the '* natural" is wholly mechanical. But it 
 is only assumption or self-delusion that carries this 
 fact over into the realm of spirit. There life moves 
 by a wholly different law. There man follows feel- 
 ing, not ''thought," instinct, not logic, affection, not 
 
58 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 speculation, God's quick soliciting, not man's slow- 
 understanding. 
 
 Science rests on speculation, art does not. Art 
 creates before criticism or theory comes in. 
 Especially is this true in that art of arts, the 
 religious life. Somebody prays before anybody 
 begins to study prayer. Christ lives long before 
 the scholars begin to study life. 
 
 God's love moves the soul to mighty efforts 
 and attainments, long before our slow science 
 is able to see that Love is the foundation 
 of all true science as well as of all Righteous- 
 ness and all Truth. That fact revealed to rever- 
 ent seers long before the dawn of science sets 
 devout affection at the base of the religious life. 
 This perception makes worship, communion, medi- 
 tation, listening to the spirit, devout love, conscien- 
 tious aspirations, self-sacrificing charity, — these, 
 and not any scientific study or attainment,— the 
 foundations and implements, the chief elements 
 and activities in human life. 
 
 Increasing man's knowledge of nature's laws, 
 gathering, sorting, storing and scrutinizing the 
 facts of science, — all that is good. But all that 
 has only an indirect and incidental bearing on 
 human life. While we study only material 
 motions, whether between planets or among 
 brain-molecules, we walk in the realm of mechan- 
 ical sequence, and we there use only mechan- 
 isms to attain our ends. 
 
CHANNING IN 1825. 59 
 
 To Pan men pray with a plough. They petition 
 with a hoe. This may be real prayer ; but it is not 
 the whole of prayer. We claim that men, thus 
 fixing their eyes on the ground, turn their backs 
 to the sky. 
 
 We rejoice in all man's gains in knowledge, in 
 all his searching of ' nature' ; but that is only one 
 side of our mighty problem. Beside that we must 
 see the astounding fact that every step of the march 
 of humanity costs blood ; that civilization, at its 
 height, reeks with social sewage ; that every ad- 
 vance in Knowledge seems to draw a veil over the 
 face of Faith, to make the joyous confidence of 
 prayer or trust more difficult or rare, so that the 
 more men prove the existence of God, the less men 
 believe it. 
 
 Sorrow and suffering give a view of our human 
 life which we count not superficial or cheap with a 
 teaching we deem untrue. Pain is not always the 
 result of a broken law of God. A tiger pouncing 
 on a fawn, leaving the kids to starvation, a cyclone 
 sweeping away a city, an earthquake swallowing 
 Lisbon, a lightning stroke slaying my child, are not 
 exactly broken laws of God. Nor is it one of the 
 laws of God that children should not stand in the 
 path of thunderbolts. 
 
 Suffering has no such cheap explanation as to 
 lay to your broken hearts this comfort, that if they 
 knew all God's laws and kept them, they would 
 not suffer. 
 
60 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 As men rise in knowledge, in wisdom, in obedi- 
 ence, in love, their sorrows increase. In our mor- 
 tal life the highest, finest, rarest, and most perfect 
 souls are those that suffer most. Their pains are 
 just as keen as their pleasures, and the greatness of 
 their sorrows or sufferings is measured only by their 
 own greatness. They have, of course, immense com- 
 pensating joys ; but they suffer all the same, and 
 the true Saviours of mankind cannot escape the 
 cross. 
 
 It is simply mmc^-worship run mad, knowledge- 
 worship that has quite lost its wits, which gives us 
 the contrary teaching. It is thoroughly superficial 
 and unsound ; and, when a thinker so true lands in 
 conclusions so untrue, we perceive at once that his 
 philosophy is false. 
 
 Vicarious suffering is the mightiest force now 
 uplifting the life of man. That makes humanity 
 human. Vicarious suffering is the chisel that cuts 
 the finest faces mankind can show. 
 
 Religions are mountain born, or born in the 
 desert. Savages and unlettered Arabs teach us 
 faith. Thinkers give us theology. Seers give us 
 religion. Not the studies or thinking of men so 
 much as the secret dreams of women — their patience 
 and hope and long-suffering trust— keep the moral 
 life of mankind alive. Masculine tongues and 
 brains do not give or preserve our faith. 
 
 Woman's brooding heart is always praying. 
 Woman's love stands by life's well, and says to the 
 
CHANNING IN 1825. 61 
 
 masculine intellect, ' Sir, thou Last nothing to draw 
 with, and the well is deep.' To the trustful com- 
 munion of reverent consciousness heaven opens, 
 when sensation and science are both asleep. 
 
 Mystery and wonder and worship know the 
 birthplace of religion. They screen and hush its 
 secret nest. Their clouds and gleams and softened 
 lights ever enfold its cradle. Tears are like the 
 dew to its dawning life. Faith and hope are its 
 sunshine, often flecked with clouds or lost in night, 
 though God's love is ever soliciting and encourage 
 ing its trust. 
 
 Our instincts— even the * babes' are the teach- 
 ers and leaders of the learned. Thus the lowest 
 classes of mankind aid, guide and bless the high- 
 est, — while literature, science and art come, like 
 the three wise men of the East, and lay all they 
 have to bring at the feet of one manger-cradled 
 babe. 
 
 If Dr. Channing had said at Baltimore in 1819, 
 ** I cheerfully accept the religion of Jesus Christ, 
 and I will bear no name but that of Christian," who 
 can say what the future of American Sectarianism 
 might have been? 
 
 But now they have there and elsewhere such 
 names as " The First Independent Christ Church of 
 Baltimore," and alas the lowest Heathen still ex- 
 claims at the word Christianity, ** which kindl" 
 And the ridicule of the world has been justly 
 
62 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 kindled by the French Tourist in New England, 
 who, finding nothing but beans, exclaimed : 
 
 **My God, what a country, twenty religions and 
 only one soup I " 
 
 The Editor of the Palladium believed the wise 
 men of the East, those few learned men of Boston 
 who ignored that Christian organization lost their 
 greatest opportunity. 
 
 He, however, quite enjoyed his last public ordi- 
 nance, which was in 1848 to baptize by immersion a 
 Unitarian clergyman who then graduated at Mead- 
 ville. 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 
 
 Bethlehem it had been named, but when the 
 Editor of the Palladium was asked to send a scrip- 
 ture text or motto to place over its Library door, 
 it was found to read : 
 
 Acts, 11:26. *' The Disciples were first called 
 Christians at Antioch." 
 
 So that became its name, when consummation 
 came at last to the life-long dream of those faithful 
 Christian hearts on the Border Lands of western 
 civilization to have a college of their own ; when 
 the golden words of Channing had ripened into 
 fruit. 
 
 A noble president was happily chosen for it by 
 an ingenuous impulse from the same source as its 
 fortunate name. 
 
 It was a bold thought, natural as such thoughts 
 are to the minds of a free people, which called the 
 most eminent educator America has ever known, to 
 preside over an unknown college in the woods, to 
 be built of bricks as yet unburned, and resting 
 only on golden hopes which might never be 
 realized. 
 
 The educator was a member of Congress from 
 Massachussets, who happened to have been also 
 
64 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 for many years at the head of its State Board of 
 Education, controlling all its public schools, and 
 in that position had made a world-wide reputation. 
 
 He was also a scholar of high rank, and quite 
 above the trade of politicians who were using his 
 learning and influence for their own purposes, and 
 so unfitted was he for politics by having a refined 
 and over-sensitive nature, that he once said that 
 even at Washington, in Congress, he often felt 
 like a skinned man among nettles. 
 
 His great love of liberty had also led him during 
 the great conflict of 1850, to openly oppose and as- 
 sail Boston's great idol, Daniel Webster, for his 
 7th-of-March speech on the Fugitive Slave Law, his 
 last bid for the Presidency, but also a very noble 
 appeal for peace and further forbearance, in wliich 
 he advised New England '* to conquer her preju- 
 dices,'* and in effect to allow the South, as it 
 threatened to do, to call the roll of its slaves at 
 the foot of Bunker Hill Monument, if it desired to 
 do so. 
 
 But for that opposition he might have succeeded 
 Webster in the Senate, but Charles Sumner stepped 
 between them and took the prize. 
 
 For that 7th-of-March speech Whittier's Ichabod 
 was written, the most terrible arraignment and 
 castigation that any public man has ever received 
 in this country at the bar of public opinion. 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 65 
 
 ICHABOD. 
 
 So fallen ! So lost ! the light withdrawn, 
 
 Which once he wore ! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 
 Forevermore ! 
 
 O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
 Of all we loved and honored, naught 
 
 Save power remains, — 
 A fallen angel's pride of thought. 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled ; 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
 
 The man is dead ! 
 
 Then pay the reverence of old days 
 
 To his dead fame ; 
 Walk backward with averted gaze 
 
 And hide the shame ! 
 
 Horace Mann sympathized fully with that casti> 
 gation, and said so, though he well knew that his 
 Congressional head was likely to fall before Bos- 
 ton's divine wrath for such desecration of its 
 Idol. 
 
 Should it do so, what would be better for him 
 than to take a more congenial occupation for which 
 
66 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 he was far better fitted, by striking hands with this 
 new enthusiasm of the west, which was then build- 
 ing a new college in Ohio, to be open to men and 
 women alike, and to be dedicated wholly to Free- 
 dom. 
 
 He soon after came on a lecturing tour to 
 Rochester, and there unexpectedly met his fate. 
 
 The Editor of the Palladium was there with 
 three of his children. Katie had then married 
 Columbus Davison, a young lawyer of Rochester, 
 who happened to be on the lecture committee, and 
 he arranged the interview, at which the great 
 educator, before he left that city, signified his prob- 
 able acceptance of the presidency of Antioch 
 College. 
 
 And those boys, Bill and Clay, were there, and 
 then received their first inspiration towards a 
 college education from that great orator and 
 philanthropist, who was indeed one of nature's 
 noblemen. 
 
 He spoke on his favorite theme of the infinite 
 grandeur of the Universe, his subject having been 
 previously announced as *'The Universe no Desert 
 and the Earth no Monopoly." 
 
 A famous scientific book had been then recently 
 published anonymously in Boston, bearing that 
 title, and many people had erroneously attributed 
 its authorship to him, and he was still bearing the 
 reputation of it, as his earnest disclaimer of its 
 authorship was considered only as modesty. 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 67 
 
 It took substantially the positions he had advo- 
 cated for years, and involved the great question of 
 universal life and intelligence in all the visible and 
 invisible universe. 
 
 Were other worlds than ours, and other suns and 
 systems inhabited by intelligent beings, and con- 
 trolled by similar laws and conditions as ours ? 
 
 No grander theme could be suggested, and none 
 more likely to rouse and interest the highest intel- 
 ligence or to kindle the rapt enthusiasm of youth. 
 
 The orator was thoroughly equipped to handle 
 the magnificent subject, by familiarity with all the 
 astronomical learning then known, and with all 
 attainable knowledge of the subject, and having 
 entire independence and freedom of thought and 
 discussion, untrammeled by any creeds or theories 
 or speculations. 
 
 And thousands assembled to hear the great ora- 
 tor on that grandest of all themes. 
 
 He was then passing fifty years of age, with a 
 noble form and presence and a most spiritual and 
 winning countenance, with a massive brow and 
 brain indicating great nervous energy and power. 
 
 His lofty form, his brown hair turning gray, his 
 great blue eyes, his blond and almost transparent 
 beauty of complexion, his erect carriage and pure 
 voice, of unusual sweetness, gave a kind and 
 fatherly dignity of appearance and expression and 
 instant credence for sincerity in every word he said. 
 
68 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 For nearly two hours he held that great audience 
 in rapt attention. 
 
 The question was then a new one, at least in that 
 place, and never had an orator a more attentive 
 and appreciative audience. 
 
 His great argument seemed irresistible, and 
 when he made the comparisons of the climates of 
 the different planets, and of the heat and the light 
 and the seasons, and of the results shown by the 
 spectrum of the photographer, in aid of the tele- 
 scope and the microscope, that the materials of all 
 the universe, so far as could be known, were the 
 same as those composing the sun and planets of our 
 system, there seemed to be a reasonable belief 
 that God's children were not limited to this world. 
 and that there was ample ground for faith in all 
 the angels, and all the heavens, and all the hells, 
 that ever had been dreamed of by seers or 
 sages or poets and prophets in all the world's 
 history. 
 
 And when he said the crust of this earth was in 
 comparison to its size only about that of an egg- 
 shell, over its central fires beneath, and that the 
 mouth of every volcano was a literal opening into 
 endless fire, and that this world would ultimately, 
 after millions of years, be extinguished by fire, by 
 being drawn back into the sun from whence it had 
 been thrown off as a mere spark, there seemed to 
 be nothing in the universe but Hell. 
 
 And as this earth with all its glories was, in the 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 0» 
 
 great comparison, but as a mere speck of dust re- 
 vloving round a mere spark of fire, like a mote 
 floating in the sunbeams of the endless ether, 
 apparently moved and balanced by the great laws 
 of matter, with gravitation, heat and electricity, as 
 its motor powers to produce the centripetal and 
 centrifugal forces, the bearing of those facts was 
 necessarily to open the mind, and to enlarge all re- 
 ligious views and teachings so as to include all the 
 children of the universe as God's children, needing 
 his protection and parental love and care equally 
 with the inhabitants of this little planet. 
 
 The inference was not pressed, but very evident, 
 that if God so loved this world as to give his only 
 begotten son tor our salvation, he had probably in- 
 cluded in the plan all his intelligent creatures in the 
 rest of the universe, which opened a most be- 
 wildering and entrancing field of thought and specu- 
 lation. 
 
 Those boys went home enthused and inspired, 
 and the little Deacon then thought he had seen the 
 eagle again. 
 
 He spent the next Sunday alone in his 
 Cathedral in the woods, with a pallet and pencil 
 in dreamy meditation over the great theme which 
 had possessed him so fully that he produced this 
 poem : 
 
70 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 MYSTERY. 
 
 Take the pinions of thought and away to the sky 
 Let us wing a wild flight where the fancy may fly. 
 The Moon as we pass it, conceals her bright locks, 
 And changes from silver to mountains and rocks ; 
 And grows dark on approach like a Beauty which far 
 In the sunlight of Love glowed as bright as a star. 
 Like the pleasures of earth, which at distance appear 
 Like a beacon attractive, but ashes when near. 
 
 And the wings of the fancy grow tired in their play 
 As there bursts the new splendor, and wakes the new day 
 For still on the azure the star dust is strown 
 Which expands on approaching to worlds like our own. 
 What power controls in those circles of light, 
 What beings inhabit those provinces bright ? 
 Does sorrow its shadow cast, sin leave its dross. 
 Has each globe its Bible, creation its Cross ? 
 
 Or do angels of light wing their way through those spheres 
 Unshadowed by sorrows, untutored by tears ? 
 'Oh, is it a problem which man may resolve 
 "To find the great centre round which all revolve ? 
 Is that centre the Throne where Omnipotence reigns, 
 Surveying in grandeur His rolling domains ? 
 We ask, but alas there comes back from the sky 
 But the echo of Mystery's laugh in reply. 
 
ANTIOOH COLLEGE. 71 
 
 The Theology of that lecture knew no Border 
 Lands. It swept the universe with telescope and 
 microscope. Human creeds or theories were but as 
 spider's webs or mere motes in the sunbeams, com- 
 pared with the electric and elastic bands which 
 hold those millions of suns in place, and balance 
 and swing the universe in such divine harmony. 
 
 It left no doubt or question of the existence and 
 omnipotence of God, as the wildest atheist admits 
 the power that controls the universe, but only 
 evades the name of God. 
 
 But call it any name, and the real question is 
 whether it is our loving Father in Heaven as Jesus 
 called it, personal, parental and beneficent, listen- 
 ing to our prayers, or whether we can only really 
 know the laws of matter, which develop those 
 wonderful phenomena. 
 
 Human love is certain and everywhere abundant, 
 even extending its likeness to the animal and floral 
 kingdoms, as even roses fall in love, and all animal 
 and vegetable life is propagated by the dual rela- 
 tion of the sexes. 
 
 The sterile oak cannot produce an acorn, nor the 
 luxuriant vine a grape, till it is visited by the 
 sacred mystery of sex in the Divine Incarnation of 
 Life. 
 
 Yet the Divine Love is still seen by many only 
 through a glass darkly, or only as the survival of 
 the fittest, which in a moral sense is usually the 
 unfittest, as it seems to be only the law of brute 
 
72 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 force that the stronger may overcome the weaker, 
 or the law of the murderer and the pirate. 
 
 " That he may take who has the power, 
 And he may keep who can." 
 
 That Nature is really, as Ingersoll has called it, a 
 Niagara of Blood, where life feeds on life from the 
 highest to the lowest organizations ; and that con- 
 science is not a law even of human nature or of 
 God ; as there is no God in the parental sense of a 
 real Father in Heaven. 
 
 Yet God in its simplest derivation is the best and 
 natural name for whatever there is which controls 
 the universe. 
 
 The first intelligent grunt of the lowest savage 
 that crawls out of his cave, and paws the hair back 
 out of his eyes to see and feel the universe, is 
 "good," meaning God. 
 
 That is the origin of the word, and the Diction- 
 aries are partly in fault in straining after some far- 
 fetched and imaginary derivation of it. The doc- 
 trine of Channing seems correct that God should be 
 worshipped as Moral Goodness. 
 
 The famous book which was the subject of that 
 lecture, was obtained and found to be one of the 
 series of the great debate, in answer to the author 
 of **The Plurality of Worlds," which took what 
 was then considered the more conservative, and or- 
 thodox side of that great question ; as if Truth 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 78 
 
 were not always conservative, and always truly 
 radical. 
 
 The whole community read it, and the new Presi- 
 dent of Antioch College secured then and there 
 his first recruit for that new Institution. 
 
 Those boys had already passed the common 
 schools, and had then been two years in the Genesee 
 Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, the great Methodist 
 school of those days, which then had over a 
 thousand pupils, within four miles of their home 
 on the Honeoye. 
 
 They walked to that school daily in fair weather, 
 both ways, across lots and through the woods, and 
 used their saddle horses in bad weather, whereby 
 at an early age they had become athletes and 
 hardy fellows and famous hunters and woodcraft 
 men. 
 
 So heretical was that new book then considered, 
 that it was excluded from many school Libraries 
 wherefore the little Deacon cut out from it and 
 pasted on his room door for all to read who wished, 
 page 218 as follows : 
 
 **Ever since Astronomy intimated to us that the 
 stars are estates like our own world, we have felt a 
 curiosity about them. We desire to know whether 
 any, and what sort of persons dwell there ; and if 
 we can affirm inhabitants endowed with intelligence, 
 the faith takes a heart which beats with a natural 
 throb and foretaste of acquaintanceship. 
 
 ** Friendship and intercourse with the starry 
 
74 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 people are a want with every faithful child. It is 
 the same in principle as our ardent desire for a re- 
 union with our deceased friends and absent rela- 
 tives. 
 
 *' God gives all an affectionate curiosity, ample 
 to infold the broad area of Orion, and the enormous 
 dimensions of Sirius. Swedenborg experienced this 
 too ; for he knew as much as the astronomers, and 
 was moreover rooted in the belief that a means so 
 immense as the sun-strewn firmament, was not ex- 
 clusively meant for the little mankind and the little 
 heaven of one planet, but for human races indefinite 
 in extent, variety and function. 
 
 ** Still farther, heaven is so immense as to require 
 the inhabitants of myriads of earths to constitute 
 it. Those whom our own globe supplies, nourish 
 but a diminutive patch in the skin of universal 
 humanity." 
 
 The selecting of that great educator as the 
 President of Antioch was the last public service 
 rendered by the Editor of the Palladium. 
 
 Like C banning he was suddenly called to his 
 heavenly home at about sixty years of age, 
 without seeing the fruition of his fondest hopes 
 at Antioch. 
 
 He was building a great new barn in the height 
 of his prosperity, and at its raising, with many of 
 his neighbors and friends, at hand, he lifted with 
 them a heavy beam, when instantly that sensitive 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 75 
 
 brain was overstrained and the fatal lesion had 
 come. 
 
 He had filled his mission to the middle of the 
 19th Century, and gone to his reward. 
 
 The text at his funeral was the same he had 
 used at his grandfather's funeral, over thirty years 
 before. ** There was a man named Joseph and he 
 was a good man and a just." 
 
 Eliza was now left alone with her big boys 
 and three more little ones coming on, when un- 
 expectedly Clay came to her in the evening on the 
 front porch, where she had sat so happy after the 
 great donation party, more than a dozen years 
 before. 
 
 She was now utterly desolate, with silver threads 
 in her hair, and her great dark eyes filled with 
 tears, as he sat on the arm of her large chair, and 
 put his arm kindly around her neck, as he said, 
 
 ** Mother, do you know, I have determined to be 
 a minister, and will try to fill my father's place to 
 you?" 
 
 '*Have you, my son?" she replied, as if sur- 
 prised at the sudden announcement, as he had not 
 been much to church except at his Cathedral in the 
 woods, had never made any public profession of 
 religion, and was known mainly as a recluse and a 
 hard student fitting for college. 
 
 He continued sadly and doubtfully, **But you 
 know, mother, I have never been converted nor 
 baptized, nor anything I " 
 
76 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 There was silence for a long time, but she finally 
 drew down his head and kissed him, and surprised 
 him in turn, as she said, 
 
 ** Well, my son, I hope you never will be. 
 People naturally good as you are, don't need to 
 be converted, and as for being baptized, it is only 
 a form, and I have seen many people evading their 
 duties by such pretensions. 
 
 "And all that stuffing for children as to natural 
 depravity is mere rubbish. Many are perverted 
 and bad enough, no doubt, but the natural law of 
 Grod and nature tends to goodness. 
 
 **You know, my son, that my children have 
 never needed whipping, and can you suppose that 
 God is less discerning than an earthly parent I " 
 
 The boy was amazed, and knew not what to 
 say further to comfort her, feeling his utter un- 
 worthiness, but finally added timidly, 
 
 ** But mother, you don't know the worst yet. I 
 don't believe anything much, at least not much of 
 what most people believe." 
 
 She instantly rejoined, ** All the better, my son ; 
 glad you don't. What you do believe will then 
 be sincere and real. It is usually the meanest 
 people who believe the most, or at least they 
 pretend to by having the longest creeds. Those 
 long-creed Christians have to be hypocrites all the 
 time. 
 
 ** Your father never had any creed, you know ? " 
 
 *' Yes," he replied, *' but he was naturally relig- 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 77 
 
 ions, you know, while I am independent, foolishly 
 so, perhaps, and as proud as the devil of my opin- 
 ions, such as they are. 
 
 ** Why, I believe the invention of the telescope 
 has made the orthodox scheme of salvation ridicu- 
 lous I 
 
 ** Well, my poor boy," she said in a kinder tone, 
 '* that's pretty bold talk for a boy of seventeen, 
 but that old creed was undoubtedly invented'bef ore 
 the telescope, or it would never have existed. 
 
 *' But you are no more proud than you should 
 be. Pride and Poverty go together, and it's well 
 they do as they comfort each other so much ; the 
 poorer people would all be sneaks and cowards if 
 it were otherwise." 
 
 ** Your father was proud, and I am so glad he 
 was. Why, he used to say, ' Pride is a hard rock, 
 Eliza, a hard rock, but it's full of gold, and God 
 knows how to grind it out.' " 
 
 It became again very still, as they both now 
 thought of the grand strong man who in the moment 
 of his best success, and without the fruition of his 
 strongest hopes, had been so swiftly taken away, 
 leaving the widow and orphan to struggle on 
 alone. 
 
 His lofty self-control and confidence, his patience 
 and submission, his unwavering faith in the Di- 
 vine Wisdom and Goodness, the kind purpose be- 
 hind it all, which time or eternity would reveal. 
 
78 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 had apparently met with a total loss of all which 
 made life desirable. 
 
 They sat long in silence, before he asked, inter- 
 preting their common thought, 
 
 '* Is there any justice in it, mother ?" 
 
 ** No, my son, no. None that we can see or feel, 
 but there is such a thing as God's grace, which 
 enables us to submit and to walk by Faith. We must 
 walk by Faith. You will know more of this some- 
 time, as you grow older and see more of sorrow, 
 something of the wonderful mystery of the Grace 
 of God in Christ." 
 
 He knew that she was speaking of something 
 which she understood, though her words had now 
 as good as no meaning to him. He remained silent 
 until she added, 
 
 * ' I hope. Clay, you will be a minister of Grace. I 
 hope you will be just as proud as you are now — 
 until God makes you less so. And I hope you will 
 never sign any creed, nor try to believe anything. 
 Leave all that to God. The schools make men, 
 but God makes ministers. Creed-signers are but 
 rebels who are insisting that men must walk by 
 sight. Walk by Faith, my son, all your life, walk 
 by Faith, looking unto Jesus the author and fin- 
 isher of our faith. The Saviour is the one thing 
 mortal eyes need here to see." 
 
 There was no need that he should say to her '' I 
 will try." She knew that he would. She spoke 
 so earnestly, he listened so intently, and her words 
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 79 
 
 had such a background of experience and of heart- 
 searching trial so well known to them both, that 
 they sank into his heart. 
 
 What a power there was in that Christian hope ! 
 What a trust it brought into the heart which but for 
 that must have given way to sorrow and despair ! 
 How that blessed master's hand did support the 
 soul ! 
 
 What an interpretation the sorrow of the crucified 
 Saviour, with the vision of his subsequent glory, 
 gave to human disappointments and humiliations ! 
 
 Such thoughts were yet new to this young man. 
 His religion he supposed himself to have learned, 
 not of his father but in the forest. He had inherited 
 an exquisite susceptibility, but he had also received 
 in childhood, even before he was born, the impress 
 of something far finer, something nature never knew 
 till Christ Jesus came incarnating a Father's re- 
 deeming love. This the young man by no means 
 knew as yet ; only the searching trials and sorrows 
 of a long life might fully reveal it. But he had 
 learned to-night how much more his mother knew 
 of it than he did. 
 
 He saw that, besides that world of visible nature 
 whose breath was so sweet and so soothing to him, 
 there was another world which his inexperience had 
 not yet entered, but whose paths were all familiar 
 to his father's and his mother's feet. 
 
 As he walked to and fro mid the few flowers now 
 
80 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 bordering that path in early autumn, the moon 
 shone serene above the rippling Honeoye, and the 
 peace that Thoreau found in Walden woods, the 
 faith that Emerson diffuses with sweet persuasion 
 through essay and song, filled his spirit with what 
 would have been a tranquil and a perfect content, 
 but for these glimpses of that mysterious universe, 
 invisible, which he was yet to enter. 
 
 What did she mean by his being a minister of 
 Grace ? It moved him profoundly to have her so 
 speak of it, and he was evidently unprepared for 
 any such ministry. 
 
 It filled him with something like a superstitious 
 awe to have his mother with her strong will and 
 her severe common sense, speak so familiarly of 
 spiritual realities, so wholly unknown to him. 
 
 His small perplexities as to his being converted 
 and being a church -member she had swept away 
 like cobwebs ; but she had roused his mind to other 
 things as no mountain bird or Niagara torrent ever 
 did. 
 
 She said no more, but all joined now in the hasty 
 preparations for his departure to Antioch college, 
 where other scenes soon absorbed his eager spirit. 
 
 The famous old song of Bill and Joe was realized 
 again, when these boys were now for the first time 
 in their lives to be separated, and neither of them 
 liked it. 
 
 They had been inseparable from childhood, al- 
 ways sleeping together in the same crib and cradle, 
 
ANTIOOH COLLEGE. 81 
 
 and often alone in the woods, and they knew no 
 separate interests. 
 
 But Bill had seen no sense in that eagle story, 
 and often insisted that it was only the imagination 
 of that little cuss the Deacon, and he finally went 
 after that big bird with a double-barrelled gun. 
 
 He did not find him, however, but on returning 
 from a weary tramp at evening, he crossed the 
 bridge in the village below the falls, and away in 
 the gloaming over his head he saw the great wings 
 flapping, scarcely visible, of a great bird slowly 
 fanning its way up the stream. 
 
 He well knew that an eagle did not fly so leis- 
 urely as that, but raising his gun and waiting for 
 the flank shot as it passed, he blazed away with 
 both barrels at long range, and down came the 
 great bird in a tumble, but still flapping its great 
 wings violently, and screaming, quack, quack, 
 quack, as it fell directly on top of Mary Spellisy, 
 an old Irish woman who was gathering drift-wood 
 by the stream. 
 
 Mary ran up the bank, shouting, *'Holy Vargin 
 save us!" and ran plump against Bill rushing 
 down with his gun, and as she had seen neither 
 hunter nor bird, she was knocked over and rolled 
 insensible down the bank, and declared ever after 
 that she had received a visitation of the devil, from 
 whom only her hasty appeal to the Virgin had 
 saved her. 
 
 The bird was the great blue heron, standing six 
 
82 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 feet liigh when it raised its long neck, and spread- 
 ing its wings the same distance, and it is consid- 
 ered the most spiritual of birds as it has almost no 
 body, but is all legs, neck and wings, like an at- 
 tenuated saint. 
 
 Those wings graced the family mantel, to obscure 
 the eagle story, and many a confab those boys had 
 about all the eagles having gone west. 
 
 Bill opposed the western college and had the am- 
 bition to bear his grandfather's name back to Har- 
 vard, where it had been honored before, and 
 finally decided he would go there and study law. 
 
 On finding Clay determined on the Ministry, 
 though he had as yet made no profession of re- 
 ligion, lie finally said : 
 
 '* Well, Deacon, you know, we haven't got piety 
 enough in us two for more than one, so you take 
 what little of it I've got, and you preach, and I'll 
 practice, and we'll see which gets to Heaven first." 
 
 ** All right, old Put," he replied, **if you only 
 practice what I preach, you'll be safe enough," 
 and he then pulled out and read his last composi- 
 tion written for the Genesee Lyceum at Lima, con- 
 taining this invocation : 
 
 Columbia, shall it be when thou art dead, — 
 
 Forgive the thought that thou shalt ever die, — 
 No deeds of thine are worthy to be read, 
 
 And none of thine the boast of minstrelsy ? 
 God grant thee men, too worthy to be sold 
 By love of office or by greed of gold. 
 
ANTIOOH COLLEGE. 83 
 
 Great men whom Satan cannot bribe nor buy, 
 Who dare to speak and yet dare not to lie ; 
 Men, whom the heavenly inspirations teach 
 To preach the truth, and practice what they preach 
 Then o'er the world shall flow thy honest fame 
 And tyrants still shall tremble at thy name. 
 
84 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 
 
 It was indeed a new world that opened to the 
 great educator as Western college life unfolded it- 
 self to his interested eyes. There are no mountains 
 in Ohio, but a high table-land along the river sur- 
 rounds the famous Yellow Springs, about halfway 
 between Columbus and Cincinnati, and forests 
 bound the prospect on every side, giving a soothing 
 air of peace and rest. But in the school itself beat 
 an eager moral life, unknown to older institutions, 
 while large plans and bold projects revealed the 
 vigorously budding life of a new people. 
 
 Very few of these young men and women had any 
 scholarly fitness for entering college, but they 
 pressed here to the preparatory school as the most 
 important part of an opening Western college. 
 Above a thousand eager pupils might have been 
 gathered the first year, had there been room to be- 
 stow them. 
 
 And what material it was, which in the prepara- 
 tory school confronted the educator as he entered 
 on his bold enterprise and took up the burdens of 
 his enormous task. 
 
 To a New England college come as freshmen the 
 delicate children whose lives have been passed in 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BOEDER LAND8. 85 
 
 elegant homes, or overlooked in quiet and discreet 
 schools, but here were young men and women no 
 longer children, all whose childhood had been 
 passed out of doors, on the farm, in the forest, 
 amidst the cattle, handling the plough, the axe and 
 the rifle. 
 
 Educated they already were — far better than any 
 New England college boys, in the development and 
 discipline of their senses, their powers of observa- 
 tion, perception, and in their conscience and relig- 
 ious sentiments, but little they knew of books, less 
 of art, and they had an alert quickness of appre- 
 hension, and an exceeding warmth and depth and 
 susceptibility of affections. 
 
 They were princes of the people, lords of the soil, 
 whose axes had hewn away the forests, reared their 
 cabins, and raised the golden corn such as New 
 England eyes had never seen. 
 
 Those forests of corn might here be seen a thou- 
 sand acres in a field ; and so luxuriant of growth 
 that a horseman might ride through it, and horse 
 and rider soon be wholly lost to view, while so lofty 
 were the stalks that the tallest man could not reach 
 so high as to hang his hat upon the ear. 
 
 And the men were as stalwart as the corn, their 
 pride was lofty, their self-respect was grand, and 
 they felt it was a fit recognition of their noble free- 
 dom and worth when America's greatest educator 
 left the halls of Congress to come and share their 
 new hopes and prospects. 
 
86 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 The walls of the new college rose swiftly to the 
 music of a thousand hammers busy in rearing cot- 
 tages on every side. Here and there were scattered 
 the great canvas -covered wagons which had come 
 from remote farms, and wherein the family now 
 lived, while the sturdy sons toiled at building the 
 little house where they and their sisters should live 
 to gain the great blessing of education. 
 
 They slept first in these covered Tabernacles on 
 wheels, and cooked in the open air, and among the 
 first buildings completed was the Christian Church 
 in Grove Street, which the educator at once joined. 
 
 After a year of this labor, the great college chapel 
 was so nearly completed that the tribes of the faith- 
 ful could go up thither and greet that honored man 
 as he rose to give his inaugural address. 
 
 Face to face on this border land now stood the 
 two principles on the play of which the interest of 
 this story turns. Intellect and conscience stood up 
 to speak that noble inaugural address before the 
 newest creations of that creative passion which 
 keeps intellect and conscience alive. 
 
 The educator was a typical New England man, 
 high, pure, ardently devoted to his principles, and 
 confident of the nobleness of his purposes. 
 
 He did not consider the mere imparting of knowl- 
 edge to be education or in itself a saving force for 
 society, but the training of the conscience, the dis- 
 cipline of the will, were to him far more precious 
 factors, and he willingly fled away from New 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 87 
 
 England to try in the wilderness what was to him a 
 great experiment, — the starting of college life anew 
 without the inherited vice which taints New England 
 college blood. 
 
 He had there seen the vicious consequences of 
 letting college traditions of European customs es- 
 sentially unclean, take hold of American life to 
 perpetuate those customs as something sacred and 
 valuable. 
 
 He had seen the frequent betrayal of the sweet 
 trust of New England's mothers who gave their 
 pure boys into the keeping of the college, heedless 
 of the fact that the college itself would be their ed- 
 ucation in vice, would hold a wine-cup to their lips, 
 and while woman as motherhood and sisterhood 
 would be excluded, the wanton might find protection 
 very near the college. 
 
 He had seen the purity of childhood under that 
 system at once beginning morally to decline, rising 
 in knowledge, in mental power, even in health and 
 physical strength, but steadily sinking in average 
 purity and truth, with faces marked each year more 
 and more by vice, until more than half the men of 
 the average class found the four years of college 
 life a steady degradation. To this college woman 
 should come not so much to win her rights, as to 
 bring the saving power of her presence 
 
 The educator, however, stood up to face his new 
 experiment in an hour when great events and 
 mighty forces rose up beside him. But a few miles 
 
88 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 away across the Ohio river, it was still a crime to 
 teach a colored child to read. 
 
 The tremendous moral conflict which made Amer- 
 ica willing to wash away the awful stain of slavery, 
 even in blood, was educating men for heroic deeds. 
 
 From 1860 to 1860, this land was kneeling in 
 Gethsemane and preparing to taste the bitter cup 
 that might not pass away. The educator was 
 worthy to stand in the presence of such great 
 events. 
 
 The exacting severity of his moral demands, made 
 him seem, as he stood before his pupils, something 
 like the incarnate justice of God. He soon became 
 an idol that encouraged hope and spoke to the 
 imagination, and so, long after he was gone, he 
 shaped the lives of thousands of children whose 
 parents sat here in childhood at his feet. 
 
 That inaugural address and many others of his, 
 are kept as classics in thousands of happy homes. 
 
 Clearly foreseeing our national struggle for life 
 soon to follow, it first dealt with national sins in 
 this vigorous way ; illustrating with stubborn 
 facts : 
 
 ** There is unimaginable suffering when a nation 
 turns oppressor and invents and plies the enginery 
 of wrong." 
 
 "For magnitude of crime, for tenacious vitality 
 of wrong, there are no crimes like national crimes. 
 Individuals can debase individuals, bad govern- 
 ment can brutalize a race." 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BOEDER LANDS. 89 
 
 •* A wicked government makes agony epidemic. 
 It strikes a blow that stuns humanity for ages." 
 
 ** Napoleon shortened the average stature of 
 Frenchmen two inches, by selecting all the taller 
 of his thirty millions of subjects, and killing them 
 in war." 
 
 ** The British Government lowered the forehead 
 of the Irish Catholic peasantry two inches by mak- 
 ing it an offence, punishable with imprisonment 
 and a traitor's ignominious death, to be the teacher 
 of children In school, and by the cruel adminis- 
 tration of her cruel laws, she transposed their 
 brains from the intellectual forehead to the animal 
 hindhead." 
 
 He then answered the Millerites, who were still 
 daily expecting the end of the world, or pretending 
 to, — not by wrangling with them over scripture 
 texts, which like the slaveholders they were adepts 
 at, but by pointing to the telescope and saying : 
 
 '* Our whole solar system is sweeping through an 
 immense orbit around some other centre, along a 
 circumference so inconceivably vast, that during 
 the six thousand years since the creation of Adam, 
 the solar group has passed through about one de- 
 gree of the three hundred and sixty degrees that 
 make but one of its mighty circuits. That is, it 
 has performed since the creation of the human 
 race, about one three hundred and sixtieth part of 
 a single revolution." 
 
 ** Now, when did even an earthly mechanic ever 
 
90 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 allow a wheel which he had constructed to make 
 but one three hundred and sixtieth part of its lirst 
 revolution, and then stop it forever f '' 
 
 ** No part of the natural world grows old. The 
 sun is not shorn of its brightness. The lightning 
 lags not with decrepitude. To the oceans we say, 
 
 ' Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow.' 
 
 The briny flood distils as fresh water as ever, — as 
 it rises on the wings of evaporation, sustains all 
 life, and returns again to the ocean. How emblem- 
 atic of its Maker's love ! " 
 
 Then coming to individual character, he said : 
 
 '' Clergymen are exhorting us to keep our spirits 
 clean and pure, and then exemplifying their teach- 
 ing by all the defilements of tobacco. From such 
 causes has come our present diluted and depleted 
 humanity, wasted and short-lived, with its manli- 
 ness evaporated and its native fires quenched." 
 
 '* But we here tread a new earth, whose ribs are 
 covered ten feet thick with alluvial fat, from which 
 to rear new men for the new blessings. Chemistry 
 will yet beautify the earth as much as Astronomy 
 has glorified the heavens, and the greatest need is 
 honest manhood." 
 
 That was the spirit of this new Plato of the West, 
 and those wild woods became the fitting home of his 
 new Academy. 
 
 The grand buildings rose amidst a noble lawn of 
 forest trees, which opened on the eastward into 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 91 
 
 the famous Glen of the Yellow Springs, where were 
 the fountains and a purling stream running into 
 pools and cascades for miles away among the noble 
 trees. 
 
 The entrance to that Glen had Whittier's beauti- 
 ful hymn as its inscription : 
 
 The harp at Nature's advent strung 
 
 Has never ceased to play ; 
 The Song the Stars of morning sung 
 
 Has never died away. 
 
 The green Earth sends her incense up 
 From many a mountain shrine, 
 
 From folded leaf and dewy cup 
 She pours her sacred wine. 
 
 So Nature keeps the reverent frame 
 
 With which her years began ; 
 And all her signs and voices shame 
 
 The prayerless heart of man. 
 
 How different the scene from that ancient city of 
 Antioch on the Orontes where Paul and Barnabas 
 passed the first year of their ministry, and where 
 Paul first preached to the Gentiles, and came near 
 being stoned to death for it, for heresy, on his return 
 to Jerusalem. 
 
 The High Priests of Orthodoxy had driven the 
 disciples, then called Nazarenes and Galileans, out 
 of Jerusalem, and far to the northwest in that border 
 
92 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 land of Syria they had sent Barnabas to found that 
 first Christian Church. 
 
 Antioch, named from Antiochus, a famous teacher 
 and philosopher, was then the largest city in the 
 world, and only second to Rome and Alexandria in 
 importance, but had only the Pagan religion of the 
 worship of Idols. 
 
 Its famous grove of Daphne extending many 
 miles southwest of the City was full of fountains 
 and shrines, with fine statues of the many Deities 
 presented by many visiting kings and named after, 
 them. 
 
 Its approach was through stately avenues of noble 
 trees, cooled by the spray of fountains and water- 
 falls, and it was considered the greatest pleasure 
 resort of voluptuaries, and the home of the Nymphs 
 and the Dryads, the spirits of the waters and the 
 woods. 
 
 It was given over to the wildest revels of Bacchus 
 and Venus and Apollo ; but Diana and Daphne 
 were also there, in the undraped purity of nature, 
 and the legend of their shrines was peace and rest 
 without fear, and love without law, but the tears 
 of Daphne would flow at the breaking of a bud 
 from her laurel boughs. 
 
 And the saying was, '* Better be a worm and feed 
 on the mulberries of Daphne, than be a king's 
 guest." 
 
 But here at last in the new world, were the new 
 shrines of Daphne and Apollo, with Diana and 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 93 
 
 Minerva as the controlling Divinities, and the un- 
 known God whom Paul proclaimed, now recognized 
 and ruling over all. 
 
 Hither came many noble and gifted young women 
 from New England and everywhere, led by the 
 fame of the great educator to worship at these new 
 shrines, and well worthy were they of the best and 
 choicest blessings nature could produce. 
 
 Hither came also into this intensity of new life 
 and beauty, the young Neophyte of the Honeoye, 
 feeling very grand, but utterly bewildered at the 
 wilderness of new attractions. 
 
 He had written to a few friends of the time he 
 should arrive, and so went in haste to get their re- 
 plies to the little post office on the morning after he 
 came, and there met his first surprise* 
 
 As he entered by one door, there stepped in at 
 the other door just before him, a young girl of six- 
 teen, of such noble presence, with such purity and 
 delicacy of expression, that his heart leaped into 
 his mouth, as he mentally exclaimed, '' Priscilla.' 
 
 She reached the window before him, and asked 
 for her letters in so gentle a tone that he could not 
 hear her name. 
 
 He had never seen so lovely a vision. He gazed 
 intently upon her, and instinctively followed her 
 at a distance as she walked toward the college 
 across the great park of noble oaks. 
 
 He felt perfectly sure she was the one woman 
 
94 BORDEK LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Heaven meant that he should meet. Soon he 
 asked of a friend, 
 
 ** What of Miss Helen Marvin you spoke of. 
 Her name is very pretty ; is she like it 1 " 
 
 " Returned to Boston," was the reply ; '* Not to 
 be here any more ; think she failed to pass." 
 
 *' Who then," he asked, ''is this New England 
 girl I have just seen this morning ?" 
 
 ** Ah, Miss Eliot, another Boston girl. Look out 
 for yourself ; she passes everything I " was the 
 sportive rejoinder, such as college boys make. 
 
 The next day, on appearing for examination, he 
 was more surprised to learn that Miss Eliot and 
 himself were the only new comers able to join the 
 advanced class, now entering upon the second or 
 Sophomore year. 
 
 But both of these applicants were amazed as well 
 as amused, when the Professor conducting the ex- 
 amination in Mathematics examined them together, 
 and not only seated them at one tahle, but gave 
 them the same problems to solve and then quietly 
 departed leaving them alone for two hours to them- 
 selves, and securing them from intrusion by coolly 
 locking the door as he vanished. 
 
 This was life in Border Lands, indeed. 
 
 Not a word had been exchanged between them as 
 they were barely introduced by name, and for two 
 hours they wrote answers to those problems in 
 silence, under the rule that they were not to seek 
 assistance from any source. 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 96 
 
 Finally he had to ask to use the inkstand of his fel- 
 low sufferer ; and a pleasant smile was exchanged 
 and each observed that they had made the same 
 progress, and that both were now '* stuck" on 
 the same final geometrical problem. 
 
 The diagrams they were both then drawing made 
 that revelation, and led to a little mutual confes- 
 sion, showing that neither needed any assistance. 
 
 This experience was a revelation to both of them, 
 of the fact that they had indeed entered a new 
 world, in going from New England to this new 
 Border Land, where they were thus welcomed at 
 the outset with no severity of scrutiny, but with a 
 spirit of perfect confidence and trust. 
 
 Such was the foundation stone of the new school. 
 Miss Eliot had left her far-away home to find here 
 a college training not then to be had by a woman in 
 any school in New England, and to draw near as 
 well to that spirit of freedom and of trustful faith 
 now incarnated in the great educator, who had 
 come here to make a bold experiment in the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 Women were to have here precisely the same 
 privileges and opportunities given to men. College 
 vices were here to be wholly left behind as things 
 pertaining to a semi-barbarous civilization. Creeds 
 there were none to recite or to sign ; and it seemed 
 as though the new college students were listening 
 anew with a child's fresh interest to him who said, 
 ** Behold I make all things new." 
 
96 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 A few teachers and newly appointed professors 
 had come with the educator, and had brought with 
 them something of the Massachusetts atmosphere ; 
 but these dense forests now every where shutting off 
 the view, and this warm, soft, too soothing air, 
 seemed like the men and women of the Ohio val- 
 ley, as compared with those in Massachusetts. 
 
 They were people such as Miss Eliot had never 
 seen, and she gazed on them with lively interest ; 
 almost with an amused curiosity, but it gradually 
 dawned upon her that she was quite as curious and 
 as interesting an object to them. She was the true 
 type of the Puritan maiden, so clean, so calm, so 
 bright ; yet also so gentle, so reserved, so delicately 
 modest, that these vigorous sons and daughters 
 from Ohio farms looked on her as some saintly 
 character from a novel. 
 
 Catharine Eliot, now nearing seventeen years, of 
 a commanding figure, tall and graceful, and mov- 
 ing ever with a quiet confidence that seemed al- 
 ways to know the end and the way, was one on 
 whom no young man could look with indifference, 
 or without saying in his heart ^^incedit Regina?'* 
 
 The perfect modesty and composure of woman- 
 hood now crowned the grace and charm of maiden- 
 hood. The brown curls fell about her face, and 
 seemed to frame a living picture, wonderfully 
 lighted up by her large blue eyes. 
 
 Her transparent face seemed illuminated from 
 within by sincerity and truth, and the glow of a 
 
COLLEaE LIFE IN BOEDER LANDS. 97 
 
 spirit that had nothing to conceal except a heart of 
 such delicate instincts and susceptibilities that it 
 seemed like a half -open rose visited as yet by noth- 
 ing ruder than the dew. 
 
 She already had a scholarly training and attain- 
 ments such as few women ever possess, and with it 
 an ease of manner and a familiarity with all social 
 customs of the best society. 
 
 Her very handwriting, so swift, so accurate, so 
 confident seemed to indicate a clean cut character 
 and intellect ; something unique and wholly unlike 
 anything often seen. 
 
 She naturally at once, and more and more as the 
 days went by, awakened an interest in the whole 
 school, which soon recognized her as its leading 
 lady and scholar. 
 
 In languages, ancient and modern, she quite ex- 
 celled the young Neophyte, and left him far behind 
 in her knowlege of all literatures and of works of 
 art, and made him feel ashamed whenever they re- 
 cited together in Greek, for he could no more learn 
 to excel in Greek than an eagle could dig clams. 
 
 Her presence became to him at once a provocation 
 and an inspiration, while he was to her only one of 
 fifty classmates whom she met in daily competition 
 in the class-room. A queer creature she called him 
 afterwards in writing to her friends at home, with 
 a big head and a shy reserved manner, as melan- 
 choly as Nathaniel Hawthorne. Such he seemed to 
 
98 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 many at that time, with his quiet ways and his in- 
 scrutable face. 
 
 His hazel eyes seemed at times restless and flit- 
 ting, but they always gazed at her steadily and 
 quietly as though reading every secret of her face, 
 which was frank, open and curiously susceptible 
 and responsive, yet changing with every movement 
 in a way that puzzled him, while her clear, calm 
 eyes seemed to have an invisible vail which stopped 
 all intrusion. 
 
 Sympathetic they were, swift to respond, light- 
 ning-like in their flash of recognition and introspec- 
 tion, but there was a shrine and a shadow within, 
 **like the dusk in evening skies." 
 
 She came later into college commons and he 
 seemed to have at last all that heart could ask, 
 when he found himself and his chum presently 
 seated at the same table with Catharine Eliot and 
 her smart set. His chum was Cyrus Christie, from 
 the Adirondack region of New York, a gifted fel- 
 low, and Professor Primrose, who presided at their 
 table asked one day, when Cyrus came in first, 
 what made his new chum so shy, and why he 
 didnH talk. 
 
 "Oh, " Cyrus said, " he can talk like Daniel 
 Webster, but you can't make him talk till he wants 
 to." 
 
 Miss Eliot eagerly listened next day when in 
 their Friday afternoon debating society, this silent 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 99 
 
 classmate stood up in his place and quietly read an 
 essay on Emerson. 
 
 She tried to get near him to say that it was ex- 
 cellent, and to tell him that she knew Emerson 
 well, having attended his church in Boston from 
 her childhood, and how delighted she was to find 
 him so well understood and appreciated by one 
 who had only known him in his books. 
 
 But she was surprised to see Christie rush at him 
 and throw his arms about his neck and kiss him in 
 his enthusiasm over the essay, as the two friends 
 moved away together, deeply interested in their 
 own conversation and taking no notice of any body 
 else. 
 
 Christie was an old friend and already a member 
 of the little church in Grove Street, and had been 
 earnestly hoping to induce his chum to join it. 
 They were now always together, creatures of the 
 forest alike, knowing all manner of woodcraft, and 
 never so happy as when alone together in the 
 woods and talking over those sacred things. 
 
 That paper on Emerson began between them a 
 more intimate friendship than most men ever 
 know. 
 
 His admiration for Miss Eliot he would by no 
 means allow her to suspect. He buried it deep in 
 his heart, while his kindly and always respectful 
 look seemed ever to welcome her. 
 
 Others did not seem so indifferent. There was 
 nothing in her to provoke the jealousy of women, 
 
100 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 as she was free from all assumption of superiority. 
 
 He was silent because he had to retreat to the 
 glen, where alone he breathed again the breath of 
 the primal forest. 
 
 Rocks of picturesque beauty there framed the 
 gorge, their own dark faces illuminated in summer 
 with crimson columbines. 
 
 The triliums come earlier, starring the ground 
 with their chaste white trefoil, and when the deli- 
 cate May-flower bloomed in New England, there 
 burst through the brown leaves here the almost 
 equal beauty of the sweet hepatica. 
 
 To avoid flirtation a simple regulation secured 
 this charming retreat to solitude and mediation, by 
 admitting ladies and gentlemen on alternate days ; 
 and here he could fling himself down to dream and 
 to recall the communions of his childhood, while the 
 vision of Catharine and all the questions and long- 
 ings she waked in him could not wholly arrest his 
 dreaming eyes. 
 
 Cyrus and Clay were now constantly together, and 
 many wondered how two silent men so unlike could 
 find so much satisfaction in each other. 
 
 Prof. Primrose said, *' Christie, you seem to have 
 found his heart. What's in it ? He hardly speaks 
 to anybody else." 
 
 *'He seems to me very accessible," said Christie, 
 ** but we'll bring him out soon." 
 
 It came out in this way : They were sitting in the 
 college library one Sunday at twilight, when Christie 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 101 
 
 said, " Clay, why don't you join the church 1 You 
 must have thought of it often V^ 
 
 "Why, it is my one thought," he replied. **I 
 wish to join the church now as the President has 
 done ; but it would be so much to my advantage — 
 worldly advantage — that I distrust myself. You 
 know they are accusing the President now of only 
 doing it to please the people and to hold his position 
 and influence here. How many would say, he wants 
 to be a preacher or a professor here.'' 
 
 ** Yes, but you ought to be man enough to trample 
 such considerations under your feet." 
 
 "True, but that's only part of it, Cyrus. I 
 know it would please the President, and Eli Fay is 
 there as pastor, my dear old friend who succeeded 
 my father on the Honeoye, but I can't do it." 
 
 "Why can't you?" 
 
 "Well, Cyrus, there is one question I've never 
 asked you and have never answered myself, * What 
 think ye of Christ?' " 
 
 " Why, what do you mean, Clay ? " 
 
 " Cyrus, I mean exactly this : Wasn't the exal- 
 tation of Jesus as the Christ all a mistake 1 Isn't 
 the whole movement, so far as it all hinges on that 
 one fact, simply a stupendous blunder, the Blunder 
 of the Ages 1 That's what I mean." 
 
 " Well, as to that, it's done and you can't undo 
 it, and it seems to me you might as well ask whether 
 it was not a stupendous blunder to say, * Let there 
 be light,' and to hang out yonder sun and moon in 
 
102 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 the sky, and to make the movement of the tides 
 and planets depend on that. The divine wisdom 
 which did one did the other." 
 
 " Ah, then, is Christ but a part of the system of 
 Nature to you ?" 
 
 •* Certainly, if you know what you mean by 
 Nature. Nature that leaves out human nature and 
 so excludes Christ Jesus is no nature at all. As 
 Emerson says, * By nature I mean all that is not 
 me — otherwise my own body.' " 
 
 "Yes, but why does he not say, 'My own soul 
 or mind r " 
 
 **No doubt he would ; but at that moment he 
 was looking from himself as a centre toward all 
 that which made the environment and had influence 
 on him." 
 
 *'And he would then have made even God 
 Almighty a part of that nature ?" 
 
 * * No, he would sooner have made Nature a part 
 of God,— the underlying foundation of all, the 
 vital source and centre from which all springs — 
 that of which all else is a natural manifestation he 
 would see to be God ; but he might say that man's 
 soul is the most natural thing in nature." 
 
 *'A11 right, but it seems to me you have now 
 given your whole case away. Jesus as one of the 
 phenomena of nature, is but one among many. We 
 might have had several Saviours ! ' ' 
 
 ''Might have had, yes. We might have had as 
 many moons as Jupiter." * 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BOEDER LANDS. 103 
 
 * 'But we have. Where is Confucius and Buddha?' ' 
 
 "Now you're talking. This is just what I 
 wanted to hear you say, for I've been over all 
 this ground before and I want you to see that 
 those men and Jesus stand exactly on the same 
 foundation.'' 
 
 ** Why then is Christ superior, and your Saviour, 
 your Lord ?" 
 
 ** Simply because he is. Why is the sun superior 
 to the moon. When we haven' t one we are glad to 
 get the other, but it is the sun that ripens the corn. 
 Moonlight is good enough for lovemaking." 
 
 Clay was silent. The last statement struck his 
 quick apprehension, and a beautiful image was in 
 his mind at the word, and he wondered if his friend 
 meant anything by it. 
 
 He saw the false analogy, but presently said', 
 **You don't suppose, Cyrus, that the President and 
 Elder Fay take this merely human view of Christ 1 " 
 
 "I hope they do," was the reply. "I feel sure 
 it's the true view." 
 
 " Well, then, are they not simply hypocrites 
 not to say so 1 Their brethren in that Christian 
 Church certainly don't think so, nor suspect that 
 they do." 
 
 ** Yes, but in that Church, you know they are 
 absolutely free." 
 
 *' Still, there is in that church an unwritten 
 creed, a common understanding like the mental 
 reservation of the Catholics, which they think 
 there is no need to confess. All those people be- 
 
104 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 lieve, and they understand their fellow worshippers 
 to believe a certain theory as to Christ Jesus par- 
 taking of the Divine Nature, and as to his mira- 
 cles, as to prophesy, as to the whole Bible being 
 infallible, and if I step in with them, they of 
 course take it for granted that I share their belief ; 
 but I don't and I cannot meet them and let them 
 suppose that I do. It is not any whim. It is not 
 my love of freedom or of twilight and moonshine, 
 but of daylight. It is my own truth and self-re- 
 spect that bars me out." 
 
 To this Christie could make no reply. His con- 
 science was quick, and he never scorned self dis- 
 trust, but he said presently, ''Well, if reverence 
 for other men's error and ignorance is to keep us 
 from association with them, I don't see how the 
 truth is to spread at all." 
 
 To which his friend replied, *' It should spread 
 by sincerity if at all, for otherwise it is^vnot 
 truth. You were only a child when you joined that 
 church, and your views then were not what they now 
 are. Cyrus, I think you must withdraw from that 
 church. Does your own truth, your own sincerity 
 never demand it ?" 
 
 " Now, Clay, this is carrying the war into Africa, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 ** No matter, don't dodge the question. What 
 right have you to remain in that church ? Did you 
 want me to join it partly because my hold- 
 ing aloof is a reproach to you ?" 
 
 **0h, you tiger-cat?" said Christie. 
 
COLLEGE LIFE IN BORDER LANDS. 105 
 
 ** Very well," was the reply. ''A tiger's footfall 
 is not so sly nor so dangerous as the step of soph- 
 istry in a Christian Church, when it begins to 
 smuggle hypocrisy into the heart of a religious 
 devotee ! " 
 
 Christie was hurt at that word hypocrisy. He 
 arose and left the library and walked down alone 
 to the glen. 
 
 •* I don't believe he means it," he said to him- 
 self, but he thought of himself as being understood 
 to hold opinions he had wholly given up. He re- 
 membered what Primrose had said of Clay, *^ He 
 drops on you unexpectedly ; you don't Jjnow where 
 he'll light." 
 
 But Clay sat by a window of the library, look- 
 ing out over the glen and more profoundly moved 
 than his friend had been. 
 
 ** Moonlight is good enough for lovemaking," he 
 repeated. What did Cyrus mean! Does he see 
 into the heart like that ? 
 
 He was thinking of Catharine and knew that his 
 belief was her's also. Thus he unconsciously passed 
 two hours in the moonlight, thinking of but one 
 thing, that unchurched but lovely Puritan, when 
 Cyrus came in again from the glen. 
 
 He said, '* Clay, you cannot really mean that I 
 ought to withdraw from the Church 1 " 
 
 ** Well then," was the reply, ** you cannot mean 
 that I ought to join the Church, can you ? " 
 
 ** Well," said Cyrus, ** no man can judge for an- 
 other." 
 
106 BORDEE LAN-DS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CO-EDUOATION. 
 
 " Kapila, Kapila, so young and true, 
 
 I yearn for a Glory like thine, 
 And hail thee from battle to ask anew 
 
 Can ever thy Valor be mine ? 
 
 Kapila sat on his Charger dun, 
 
 A Hero never so grave ; 
 Who loveth all things, hath fear of none, 
 'Tis Love that maketh me brave. 
 
 A Woman gave me her soul one day. 
 The Soul of my Soul to be alway, 
 Thence came my Valor to me. 
 Go try it, — try it, — and see. 
 
 Kapila, Kapila, so old and gray. 
 The Queen is calling for thee ; 
 
 But ere I go hence, I wish thou wouldst say, 
 How Wisdom first came to thee ? 
 
 Kapila stood in his temple door, 
 
 A priest in eremite guise ; 
 It did not come as men get their lore, 
 'Tis Faith that maketh me wise. 
 
 A Woman gave me her heart one day. 
 The Heart of my Heart to be alway ; 
 Thence came my Wisdom to me, 
 Go try it, — try it, — and see." 
 
CO-EDUCATION. 107 
 
 The detail of that college life, so picturesque in 
 setting, and so rich in incidents, went on in times 
 big with the portent of coming events. 
 
 As America moved into the vortex of the great 
 civil war, the tossing of the educator himself from 
 Washington to Boston, and over into the Ohio 
 Yalley, was part of the turbulence of those rapids 
 which tumbled on toward the cataract. 
 
 Startling events rocked the cradle wherein these 
 new hopes were laid ; Webster was dead with a 
 broken heart, and Charles Sumner was in the Sen- 
 ate with a broken head, received from a Southern 
 bludgeon, with the thunders of war already threat- 
 ening and breaking around him. 
 
 The new and more liberal Faith of New England 
 had a Transcendental and an Ecclesiastical branch 
 which were curiously unlike. 
 
 Transcendentalism was a child of the French 
 Revolution turned loose to run wild in the fence- 
 less forests of the new world. Fruits were there to 
 be had without labor. So light a creature found 
 shelter like a bird on any springing bough, and the 
 blithe goddess had a spirit of hopefulness which 
 fixed her eyes on the glowing future and passed 
 her life wholly in an exquisite dream, taking no 
 heed of the duties of to-day. 
 
 Catharine Eliot was not wholly entranced with 
 this dream. The earnest spirit of Theodore Parker 
 had taught her that life was something more than 
 the mere flutter of hope's radiant wings, but Emer- 
 son was her Idol. 
 
108 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 He was one whom the sweet madness of Trans- 
 cendentalism had not wholly spoiled, and he came 
 now to Antioch with his great lecture on Jesus, 
 the Interpreter of Nature. 
 
 ** How did you like it?" said Miss Eliot, when 
 they met at table after hearing it. 
 
 *' I think I like him better than his lecture," 
 said Clay. '* Jesus as the Interpreter of Nature, I 
 confess I cannot understand." 
 
 "But he is ! He is!" she eagerly exclaimed, 
 and defended it warmly by repeating its best 
 points. 
 
 '*Ah," said Cyrus afterwards, **a woman argu- 
 ing is like a dove walking in the snow. The rosy 
 feet look very pretty, but they don't walk far. 
 Wings, wings and a heavenly path and medium 
 are for women, and that is why they all worship 
 Emerson so much ? " 
 
 Professor Primrose, always alert and eager to 
 support Miss Eliot, now came to her relief. He 
 was one of those carefully schooled New England 
 men so delicately nursed that they have never been 
 truly educated, and he had that comfortable con- 
 ceit which takes it for granted that what such a 
 Boston man doesn't know, is not worth knowing. 
 
 **I quite share your feeling. Miss Eliot," lie 
 said, ** but superstitions die slowly; superstitions 
 die slowly, and we can't expect everybody to see 
 those things as Emerson does. Still, Truth stead- 
 ily makes its way, and makes its men." 
 
CO-EDUCATION. 109 
 
 ** Does it," said Clay, '* or do the men make the 
 truth, and what is Truth, please V 
 
 **Why, I mean," said Primrose, ''true convic- 
 tions, truer preceptions, better knowledge of Na- 
 ture's facts and laws." 
 
 '* Pardon me, Professor," he said, "as I see it, 
 the knowledge of facts has but little to do with 
 Truth. That is, this gathering and sorting of facts 
 has about as much to do with Truth as the quarry- 
 ing of stone has to do with sculpture. I think. 
 Professor, that true men come first, and true 
 theories come afterwards, if indeed they ever come 
 at all." 
 
 "The world has always been partly full of true 
 men, but never full of true theories. I mean that 
 true men, and all the higher forms of truth, true 
 affections, true deeds, true faith, are not the prod- 
 uct of true opinions." 
 
 "But you don't mean that they are the product 
 of false opinions ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, they are not the product of opin- 
 ions at all. You New England men seem to think 
 that Emerson was born only of Man's intellect with 
 a creed for a father and a catechism for a mother !" 
 
 ** But, surely, mind is the main element of such a 
 man?" 
 
 ** Not at all, a vastly greater amount of affection, 
 of faith, of all that which is spiritual, not mental or 
 intellectual. 
 
 *' Creative affection. Miss Eliot, takes hold not on 
 
110 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 principles, not on ideas, but on persons. When 
 ideas become incarnate as Ideals, they take hold on 
 the witchery of imagination and shape men." 
 
 ** But are you not wandering away from the lec- 
 ture," said she, slightly blushing. 
 
 **0h, no!" he laughingly answered, ''We are 
 just getting in sight of it. That lecture strikes the 
 key-note, Christianity is not a bunch of opinions 
 or convictions. It carries such things along as 
 an army carries pontoon bridges, to be used only 
 when needed. Christ is Christianity ; that is, 
 man's faith, affection, hope, are so quickened by 
 him, woman's imagination and love are so blest 
 by him, that his life, God's life in him, is flowing 
 into and through humanity by natural law. That 
 vital flow is Christianity." 
 
 *'But," said the Professor, ''you don't make 
 anything of the Reformation then 1 Its glorious 
 reaffirmation of great truths goes for nothing. Are 
 you a Catholic ?" 
 
 " Yes, I hope to be a Catholic in the larger sense 
 of the word, not a Papist. But the Reformation, 
 Professor, was one of our sad retreats. It was a 
 necessary use of the pontoons, as we had to fall 
 back on our creeds to carry us over. It was all a 
 false theory, however, that of the infallible Book 
 and all that— but the true life was flowing there 
 all the same, unhurt by the false theory. Christ is 
 no more a Prostestant than a Catholic, and he will 
 have a new church yet, better than either of those 
 
CO-EDUCATION. Ill 
 
 —but he is tlie Way, the Truth and the Life." 
 
 '* But," said the Professor, with some impatience, 
 "why live wholly upon the past ? " 
 
 **I believe, Professor, you have taught us the 
 great doctrine of evolution, that there can be no 
 future except by vital sequence, it is the child of 
 the past." 
 
 The Professor was thoroughly disturbed and 
 Catharine was somewhat confused and mystified. 
 She was not, however, vexed as the Professor was, 
 but deeply interested and with all her classmates, 
 quite enjoyed seeing the Professor baffled, as he 
 was becoming known as her most ardent admirer. 
 
 Clay and Cyrus went to their beloved retreat in 
 the glen and walked impatiently to and fro, more 
 disturbed than they liked to confess, and thinking 
 of the two they had left together at the table, and 
 Cyrus now suspecting how the land lay said en- 
 couragingly, 
 
 ** Well, Clay, if he can get her he'll have to fight 
 for her." 
 
 But Clay felt that it was a crisis in his life, and 
 feared he had already alienated any sympathy or 
 regard Miss Eliot might have had for him. He 
 felt, however, that a gleam of light on his own path- 
 way had come from that lecture, and the talk that 
 followed it. 
 
 *'But," said Cyrus, **was his theory wholly 
 false that life springs from belief ? " 
 
 **I don't know," said Clay, **but, Cyrus, Pm 
 
112 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 going to join the church, the one true church of 
 Christ that includes all others." 
 
 "You can't join that," said Cyrus, ** you were 
 born into it, and you can't get out of it." 
 
 *'True, true, Cyrus, that's jast what I'm be- 
 ginning to perceive. It's exactly my idea, and if 
 there is any Fatherhood of God, who shall put me 
 out of his grace ? 
 
 " But how did you like that lecture ? " 
 
 ** Right well, except that I would say Nature the 
 Interpreter of Jesus." 
 
 ** Christ is what needs interpreting for you and 
 me. There is no other phenomena in nature so 
 wonderful and so mysterious as the plucking out of 
 that defeated poverty and crucified enthusiasm 
 from its death and shame, and giving it such a 
 growing power in the world. 
 
 *'But is it a growing power, Cyrus, and will it 
 always grow?" 
 
 " Certainly, by natural law that influence grows 
 and must grow. Grod alone could stop it now. 
 God alone started it, out of the degredation of that 
 Pagan religion, which the Jews had failed to re- 
 deem. It will overrun the world till at the name 
 of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue 
 confess him Lord." 
 
 "But, Cyrus, I see so many dead limbs at its 
 top, that indicate a decaying heart." 
 
 "Not at all, the air is dry up there, and they 
 soon drop ofip. The infallible book and the prophe- 
 
CO-EDUCATION. 113 
 
 sies, and even the miracles, have outlived their 
 usefulness and will soon drop off as blossoms fall 
 before the fruit can ripen. They were mere bridges 
 used to cross a muddy stream, and to keep the 
 Spiritual life out of the swamp of ignorance and the 
 slough of despair. 
 
 *'It is now the reign of an unselfish service, of 
 love and self-sacrifice, of a holy sorrow that is not 
 so much grief as sympathy. Christ lives as the 
 Incarnation of Divine Love. The true disciples so 
 take him into their hearts that they absorb him, 
 they consume him, they transmute him, and I say 
 nature shows no other such marvellous and myste- 
 rious phenomena. 
 
 ''Ah," said Clay, *'is that what my mother 
 meant by the Ministry of Grace? I don't under- 
 stand it. 
 
 ** But," said Cyrus, ** don't try to understand it. 
 If you ever fall in love with a noble woman, you 
 will not understand it, nor will she. So avoid that 
 Boston trick of making too much of the under- 
 standing. This world is not run by thinking or 
 reasoning, so much as by love. Did Jesus ever 
 speak to the understanding or ask men if they 
 understood him? Think of that three-fold ques- 
 tion addressed to Peter : 
 
 * Simon, Peter, lovest thou me ?' " 
 
 And he wandered in the Glen and meditated 
 upon that as follows : 
 
114 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 THE STREAMLET. 
 
 In a world full of heartlessness, wandering alone, 
 Where disaster and triumph thy pulses attune, 
 
 Be thou, O, my heart, though unyielding as stone, 
 As gentle and genial as zephyrs in June. 
 
 I stretch on to regions of manly control, 
 
 Where love has no passion, and sorrow no pain ; 
 To the land above sorrow, which only the soul 
 
 That has suffered and triumphed may hope to 
 attain. 
 May my life like this streamlet in melody flow. 
 
 There are rocks in its course, there are foes in my 
 way; 
 But obstructions grow gentle where soft mosses grow. 
 
 And the still touch of purity wears them away. 
 
 O childhood departed ! O boyhood gone ! 
 
 Shall my heart thy innocence know no more .? 
 The billows of life come shouldering on. 
 
 And bear me away from that radiant shore. 
 Yet I linger oft o'er those glimmering scenes, 
 
 With a longing I scarce can understand. 
 As a mariner long o'er the taffrail leans, 
 And yearns toward his vanishing native land. 
 
CONFIDENCE. 1 15 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONFIDENCE. 
 
 The sea-gull lifts her wings 
 
 On lighting in the sea, 
 Aloft again she springs 
 
 And soars exultantly ; 
 Her refuge is in heavenly things, 
 
 As mine, my love, in thee. 
 
 Lift up thy wings, my soul. 
 
 If e'er thy ways decline. 
 When wild the billows roll 
 
 What confidence is thine ! 
 Despair and death thou shalt control 
 
 If but her love be mine. 
 
 What young man or maiden ever fully under- 
 stood themselves at seventeen years of age ? Life 
 is then all a mirage and the heart leaps up when i t 
 beholds a rainbow in the sky. 
 
 He could not stop thinking. He could not swal- 
 low up speculation in worship. But it occurred to 
 him when an agnostic denied our knowledge of 
 God to ask what do I know of myself 1 Can my 
 hand grasp itself 1 
 
 Can 1 form any mental picture of my own mind, 
 any image of my very soul, myself 1 
 
116 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 What do I know of that innermost self but these 
 passing moods or conditions which I may more or 
 less modify and control, but not avoid? 
 
 And as to the self-knowledge there seem to be at 
 least three creatures living here within me each 
 claiming to be me. 
 
 But she seems to have no such perplexity. She 
 seems always the same and always to know who 
 she is, what and where she is. 
 
 She was his greatest problem. Christ and the 
 church he seemed beginning to understand ; but 
 she was a puzzle because he found his thought of 
 her so variable. Walking in the glen he seemed 
 to breathe an atmosphere that told him she had 
 been there. The hepaticas so delicate and pure 
 seemed to him to be her foot-prints or something 
 she had scattered as she passed. The murmuring 
 rivulet there seemed to be her voice or ever prat- 
 tling of her, and all the earlier Deities seemed to 
 have left the woods, while Diana now reigned there 
 alone. 
 
 •* Queen and huntress chaste and fair," 
 
 he would say on seeing the moon, but he always 
 gave the words a different application ; and while 
 his si)eculation wandered and wondered whether 
 they two could or should walk together for life, he 
 never doubted that he desired it. 
 
 Thus two years glided away in this idle but 
 happy dreaming. Helen Marvin, a most beautiful 
 
CONFIDENCE. 117 
 
 girl, had returned to the school and entered a lower 
 class, and Lucretia Lane, one of the gifted teach- 
 ers, had partly absorbed the attentions of Prof. 
 Primrose. 
 
 Guarding himself as he always did when with 
 Catharine, he had become more and more a mystery 
 and a queer creature to her. 
 
 As they entered on the final year of their college 
 life, there came an October day when a party went 
 to Clifton, a few miles away, walking up the river 
 in the afternoon, having a little picnic, and reach- 
 ing home early in the evening. 
 
 All day, for once, she had seemed shy and sad, 
 silent and over-sensitive, feeling, as she afterwards 
 said she often did on autumn days, the flighty 
 instinct of birds or migratory creatures. They did 
 not mingle freely with the party, but hovered about 
 it ; and lingered on the homeward way, and neither 
 he nor Catharine could have told how it happened 
 that they found themselves together and loitering 
 behind on the little bridge as the party entered the 
 village. 
 
 She seemed so reticent that he referred to their 
 common joys in thus seeing so much of nature in 
 their college life, and yet, he said, " Are not people 
 often more united by common sorrows ? The sym- 
 pathy of Jesus shone bright in the pleasures of the 
 vintage and of all that gentle pastoral life ; but did 
 it not take hold more vitally when death and sorrow 
 
118 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 came in the cry of Mary of Bethany, * Oh, Master, 
 wert thou here? ' '' 
 
 **Why, what do yon meanT' she said with a 
 startled look. 
 
 *' I mean that pleasures, even worthy joys, seem 
 so often but ripples on the surface. Pain strikes 
 deeper." 
 
 ** Why, what a strange idea ! ' ' she said. 
 
 '* But do not the innocent continually suffer for 
 the guilty ? Is it not one of the great laws of 
 lifer' 
 
 " Why, that is a dreadful idea," she said. *' Is 
 not the world sad enough already ? " 
 
 ** Yes, too sad, but not too sympathetic." And 
 without any purpose or even knowing why, he 
 recited Bryant's lines on The Living Lost : 
 Of which the sufferers never speak, 
 Nor to the world*s cold pity show 
 The tears that scald the cheek. 
 
 He spoke thus as unconsciously as he often 
 talked to himself when alone, but she visibly 
 started away from him, turned pale and fixed her 
 large eyes upon him as though about to break into 
 tears. 
 
 What had he done ? He was deeply troubled by 
 her look, but could not interpret it. 
 
 He tried to change the subject, but she was now 
 as silent as he commonly was ; and they walked 
 from the bridge to the ladies' college and parted in 
 silence. 
 
CONFIDENCE. 119 
 
 He walked straight back to that bridge— the 
 bridge of sighs, as he afterward called it, and won- 
 dered for hours how and why he had so uncon- 
 sciously hurt her. 
 
 But he had almost seen tears in her eyes, and 
 though he knew no cause for it, he deemed it a 
 hopeful sign J and finally went to his room feeling 
 ecstatically happy. He seemed not to be walking 
 on the earth. He felt that his life had touched the 
 dawn of a golden day, such as it had never known 
 before. He was eager to catch the first glimpse of 
 her in whom his life had so centered itself. He 
 expected a sensitive glance from her tender eyes 
 which would tell him all that he wished to know. 
 He was sure to see her across the chapel at morn- 
 ing prayers and to meet her later in the lecture 
 room. 
 
 To his astonishment she was not in chapel nor out 
 of her room for a week, and when she did appear 
 her eyes were averted and cold. 
 
 What did he mean ? she thought. Was he but 
 trying to play upon her feelings ? Was he but a 
 cynic, as Primrose had said, concealing his own 
 heart, yet searching and trying that of everyone 
 else ? She would never speak to him again. 
 
 Why should he call up such a terrible subject to 
 her? It never occurred to her that he was speak- 
 ing of himself to win a sympathy he so needed for 
 a secret sorrow of his own. The more she ques- 
 tioned, th« more confused and distracted she grew. 
 
120 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 She felt that all the hope of life had vanished 
 for her, and her conduct, was such in refusing any 
 explanation, which he had most kindly asked for, 
 that his life also was soon embittered and passed 
 into the shadow in a way that amazed him. 
 
 He remembered the words of Cyrus, *' If you ever 
 fall in love with a noble woman, you will not un- 
 derstand it, nor will she." 
 
 He had not spoken unkindly to her, but gently 
 and tenderly and only to draw her sympathy and 
 confidence to himself. 
 
 But a wall of ice seemed to have been suddenly 
 thrown up between them, and it looked as though 
 they would never meet again, and such was the 
 pride and willfulness of the human heart that each 
 of them went on from blunder to blunder till they 
 were wholly estranged. 
 
 He took refuge in Cyrus and they left the col- 
 lege commons and went to a farm house not far 
 away. 
 
 Cyrus had passed his early life in that part of 
 the Adirondack forest of New York now known as 
 Childwold Park, where his profoundly religious 
 nature had been developed, made sympathetic and 
 converted at a Methodist camp-meeting, as they 
 called that flowering out into open confession or 
 avowal of the religious consciousness. And now 
 they read together everything from Bible to Bun- 
 yan, Emerson and Carlyle and the whole of the 
 richest English and Grerman literature. 
 
CONFIDENCE. 121 
 
 They knew John Calvin well ; but they drank in 
 the inspired philosophy of Plato so that Calvin's 
 grim intellectuality could not compete for the pos- 
 session of their minds with the soul-born visions 
 of Zwingle and Tauler. 
 
 Cyrus had been taught that every Christian must 
 kneel in Gethsemane and go up to Calvary bearing 
 his own cross. Gcethe seemed to him to be telling 
 the same story, and it was the anguish in that sad 
 face that most stayed his faith in Carlyle. He, 
 therefore, looked on in kind and quiet silence when 
 he saw that both were suffering and believed that 
 time would bring relief. 
 
 Not so Prof. Primrose. He observed the rup- 
 ture and assumed at once that Miss Eliot had been 
 annoyed by undue attentions which she had re- 
 jected. 
 
 He, therefore pressed his own suit zealously and 
 did all he could to draw her confidence, but quite 
 to his surprise it was entirely in vain as she only 
 sought seclusion and buried herself in German and 
 Italian literature, in both of which she was profi- 
 cient. 
 
 Cyrus considered this a hopeful sign, and as his 
 own heart was entirely at rest with his boyhood's 
 only sweetheart, a young girl at Childwold, he was 
 at peace vrith all the world, as he knew that she 
 needed no more education to love him well, which 
 was likely to be her whole duty in life, as his home 
 was waiting for her there in only another year. 
 
122 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 His love of Emerson had begun there in 1850, 
 when a dozen literary and scientific men of Boston 
 came into those woods for the first time on a sum- 
 mer vacation and founded the Philosopher's Camp, 
 as it has been called ever since, on the Folansbee 
 Water, west of the Saranacs and not far north of 
 his home at Childwold, a little village snuggling 
 in a sunny valley on the southerly slope of the 
 great mountains. 
 
 Thither had come Emerson and Lowell and 
 Longfellow, with Thoreau, Hawthorne and Holmes, 
 and Agazzis, Field and others, and Cyrus Christie, 
 then a boy of fifteen, acted as one of their guides, 
 with his father to show them the native home of 
 the American moose and red deer, which were then 
 there in abundance. 
 
 There Cyrus literally won his spurs as Agazzis 
 presented him with a pair of spiked shoes, such as 
 linemen now use to climb telegraph poles, and 
 which crafty woodsmen then used to climb trees ; 
 with which Cyrus at once ascended to the very top 
 of the tallest pine and brought down the great 
 Osprey's nest, which has ever since been famous in 
 the Agazzis Museum of Harvard College. 
 
 Thereafter he tried to teach Emerson to shoot a 
 deer, but that was more difficult than climbing 
 trees, and they lost many a fine buck at daylight, 
 by waiting for Emerson to shoot first, as he always 
 insisted that he could see nothing but a foggy mist. 
 
CONFIDENCE. 123 
 
 That became such a joke in the Camp that it is 
 said Longfellow left the party fearing for his per- 
 sonal safety, when he learned that Emerson was 
 carrying a gun. 
 
 Cyrus loved to tell that story and apply it to 
 Emerson's Transcendentalism which he said was 
 only a foggy mist, leaning up against Christianity 
 for support, and suddenly disappearing in day- 
 light. 
 
 But the guides determined that Emerson should 
 have a deer if they had to hold one by the tail till 
 he could shoot it, but even that failed, and they 
 finally ran a fine buck into the Lake where two 
 smart oarsmen succeeded in rowing Emerson up to 
 it to take it by the horns, but in the struggle 
 which ensued the buck again escaped into the 
 woods. 
 
 Many tramps in the forest with those spurs on, 
 with which he could climb any tree almost as quick 
 as a squirrel, now beguiled the lonely days ; and 
 Cyrus always admitted that his aspiration for col- 
 lege education grew wholly from that chance ac- 
 quaintance with those philosophers. 
 
 By such slight and accidental opportunities, how 
 often the whole course of a life is determined. 
 
 In the kitchen of the farm house where they now 
 boarded, by the wide open fire sat grandma 
 
124 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Moulton, whose four-score years told of earthly- 
 toils nearly ended, though her sweet calm face and 
 ever tranquil spirit made her still a most active Min- 
 ister of Grace. Of her Christie was devoutly fond, 
 and he hoped his chum might draw nearer to her 
 and learn from her the secrets that no philosophy 
 could teach him. So they used to visit the kitchen, 
 where Miss Eliot also sometimes came. 
 
 But to their sorrow they now found there only 
 one whom the naughty college boys had nick- 
 named The Frock. Sophronia Rok was one of 
 those strange women on the border lands of old 
 maidenhood, who illustrated the comical side of the 
 co-education problems. 
 
 '' Strong minded " they were indeed, and deter- 
 mined on having all their '* rights," and their re- 
 bellion at their feminine fate led them to make war 
 on all that the world reverences in its ideal of 
 womanhood. 
 
 Woman's long skirts were to them only a badge 
 of servitude and something like the abomination of 
 desolation, so they clipped those needful encum- 
 brances almost as short as a Highlander's kilt, 
 while far below their scanty limits projected an en- 
 ormous pair of walking boots emerging from some 
 frightful calico trousers. 
 
 It had the virtue at least of confessing more than 
 it concealed, and being called the Bloomer, became 
 somewhat popular with a few of the more elderly 
 and strong-minded women. 
 
CONFIDENCE. 125 
 
 She had joined the Preparatory School, and be- 
 ing a very good scholar and a great reader, her 
 heart was set on going through college ; and the 
 freedom of those days allowed no interference with 
 what she claimed as her personal rights as a great 
 reformer. 
 
 The boys soon named her Sofa Rok, which soon 
 became The Frock ; and when they wished to scat- 
 ter any group in consternation they had only to 
 whisper, '' The Frock is coming I " 
 
 She had found shelter in this farm house, and 
 was now found seated near the saintly grandma as 
 they entered the old kitchen, and ready to battle 
 for her rights. 
 
 The Frock began at once. *'0h. Clay," i^he 
 said, "I'm so happy to meet you. I have long 
 wished you'd come out to this house. I used to 
 know your father when I was a girl, and you ought 
 to know how all the women used to admire him. I 
 tell you if he was here now, some of us wouldn't be 
 so much neglected as we are. We'd get some of 
 our rights then 1 
 
 "Isn't it a blessing that we have a college here 
 where women can be heard? It must be awful 
 lonesome up there in college commons for you boys. 
 It's agin natur', you know, to keep men shut up 
 there so much, all alone." 
 
 What further was coming those boys never knew, 
 as they fled in horror to the woods ; but for the 
 
126 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 first time they had a doubt of the propriety of co- 
 education. 
 
 The story got out that the Frock had proposed to 
 Clay and those roguish boys congratulated him on 
 every hand at having so soon found consolation, 
 while so many different stories flew among the 
 girls, that it seemed as if tongues were given to 
 women only as claws are to cats, to scratch with. 
 
 They nearly drove the sensitive fellow crazy and 
 he thought he had seen enough of women in col- 
 lege. 
 
 Those few Bloomers also rebelled against the use- 
 ful regulation of alternate days in the glen, and the 
 boys somehow discovered that whenever the sign 
 Ladies' Day was up at its entrance, those few 
 strong-minded women were apt to be found over in 
 the westerly woods where all days were open to 
 them, and it was soon suspected that Daphne and 
 her mulberries had been transplanted to those more 
 natural groves. 
 
 And Christie thought that was only another 
 illustration of the law of Natural Selection. 
 
 One day an unusual noise of many screaming 
 voices came out of the westerly woods, and on in- 
 quiry it was learned that those strong-minded 
 women were merely practising the new college yell. 
 
 Only the thought of another woman kept Clay 
 from leaving and joining his brother at Harvard. 
 
 The next week the old farmer was preparing 
 
OF my 
 
 XTNIVBBSITY 
 CONFIDENCE. 
 
 some young apple trees to set out for an orchard in 
 the spring. 
 
 Those boys knew the process well, but they 
 looked on with lively interest as the operations 
 proceeded on the great floor of the barn, which had 
 been filled with the young trees. Eaised from the 
 seed, those trees were of two years' growth, large 
 enough to make walking sticks, and had now been 
 roughly torn up by the roots and sawed off six 
 inches from the root, and the top thrown away. 
 The stump left was then cleft through the heart, a 
 chosen scion of a choice fruit was set in the rift, 
 and the wound salved over with prepared wax, and 
 this stock, as it was now called, was laid away in the 
 cellar to be set out in the spring. 
 
 *'It's a strange thing," said Cyrus, '*that these 
 natural stocks, unless thus maltreated, are good for 
 nothing. Fruit raised from the seeds of our fairest 
 apples is so sour to the taste, even puckery, tliat it 
 is good for nothing." 
 
 "Well, what does it mean ? " 
 
 **It means, first, that we don't understand 
 Nature's method, not the whole of it. It's not so 
 simple a thing as we think." 
 
 '* You've got to understand, first of all, that you 
 don't understand the understanding." 
 
 *' We mustn' t declare the natural fruit to be good 
 for nothing; it's good to be grafted ; that's what 
 it's for." 
 
 '* But why should it need to be grafted ? " 
 
128 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 '*Ah, that's it; perhaps for the scion's sake. 
 Civilization must continually keep touch with bar- 
 barism, or it will perish. It means growth. Even 
 the life of a tree must have some love-making — 
 some sympathy." 
 
 '*A11 the best qualities of the tree come not from 
 the earth but from the sky. The tree lives, not so 
 much upon the soil as upon the sun." 
 
 *' Life is a mystery — that of an apple tree just as 
 much as that of a man. There is some law and 
 sympathy that eludes our grasp. The fact we see, 
 the why or the how we do not see or know." 
 
 '* But what is the fact ?" 
 
 '' The fact is that nature both blesses and dooms 
 individuality. It tolerates no solitude. It puts 
 all its vigor into this solitary shoot, and makes it 
 lusty and tall ; but only that it may be cut down 
 to the ground and receive into its riven heart a 
 gracious scion that grew elsewhere and earlier, 
 nearer the sky." 
 
 ** Ah, now you are preaching again ! You always 
 come round to it, the receiving with meekness the 
 engrafted word. Well, it seems to me to be at war 
 with all the joy of life." 
 
 •* Not at all, the true joy of life cannot be sep- 
 arated from the heroisms of life, and the heroism 
 of life is found only where we find self-denial and 
 suffering. It may be self-denial, even though it 
 dwell in a palace and wear a crown. It may be 
 suffering that you do not suspect." 
 
CONFIDENCE. 129 
 
 The word '* suffering " banished now every other 
 thought but the image of the one sufferer whose 
 unexplained anguish he was now sharing, as they 
 wandered away to the woods. 
 
 Between these friends there prevailed such per- 
 fect sympathy that they never needed to explain 
 to each other their silences. 
 
 They would enjoy together the beauty of a land- 
 scape and not a word pass between them. They 
 would pass hours in the library, neither conscious 
 of the other's presence ; and when either then came 
 to himself and lifted up his head, he would know 
 at once, without a word or a look, whether his 
 friend's mind was now open to approach or still 
 bent on its pleasant task. 
 
 It was near the close of October. Frosts tiad 
 cleared the air, but mists still mellowed the picture 
 of the inviting landscape. The oak leaves yet 
 clung to the tree, their crimson bronze making rich 
 and warm everything then in view. It was the 
 season and the scene in which they always found 
 most delight. Pause now for a moment in the 
 woods, and they could hear the partridge whirring 
 away with her full-grown brood, or the squirrels 
 dropping the chips of his nut-shells on the dry 
 leaves. 
 
 Wander anywhere and they could still find great 
 trees clad in all the gorgeousness of autumn, or 
 immense vines laden with grapes, which in that 
 land of plenty, not even the birds cared to gather. 
 
130 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Stand in the clearing or at the edge of the forest, 
 and they could see fields of ** tented corn " filled 
 with merry huskers, while here and there from 
 the smaller barns came the music of the measured 
 beating of the flail. It made a scene of peace and 
 plenty and repose suited to fill the heart with 
 quiet content and happiness. 
 Clay tried to say to himself : 
 
 " Golden October 
 Flushes crimson for Katie and me." 
 
 But the thought brought a sense of humiliation 
 and defeat such as he had never associated with 
 October. 
 
DIANA AND MINERVA. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DIANA AND MINERVA. 
 
 It caused a little ripple of sensation in tlie quiet 
 life of Bethlehem, when the rumor spread that the 
 leadinp^ senior had determined to leave the college 
 and take his degree at Harvard, where his brother 
 Bill was already taking honors, having just been 
 awarded the Boylstone gold medal, the first prize 
 for oratory. 
 
 It seemed incredible that he would do so, when in 
 five months more he was sure, where he was, to be 
 also graduated with honors, but what was the de- 
 gree of that woman's rights seminary, as it had been 
 called, when compared with the venerable sheep- 
 skins of Harvard ? 
 
 Miss Eliot also heard this rumor and betrayed her 
 interest at once by speaking to the President about 
 it, and they held various little conferences by which 
 the President's wife finally held a little confessional 
 over Miss Eliot, and obtained her story of the mis- 
 understanding. 
 
 The result of this was, that after some little femi- 
 nine manoeuvering and diplomacy. Clay and Cyrus 
 were induced to return to the college commons table. 
 
 There she met him again, always self-conscious 
 and alert, yet perfectly gentle, quiet and shy. They 
 
132 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 had never exchanged a word except in the com- 
 pany of others since they met at the bridge. Why 
 they were so separated, she could not really under- 
 stand, much less could he. 
 
 She did not dream that he had meant to make 
 to her any avowal of affection. He had never 
 said a word implying that. But his quickness of 
 leaping at a conclusion left him no doubt that 
 she understood what he meant, and what he was 
 about to say— when something, he knew not what, 
 had compelled her instantly to stop all his ad- 
 vances, as she had done. 
 
 That her course had manifestly plunged her also 
 into sorrow was but the confirmation of his con- 
 jectures, bat her refusal to give him any explana- 
 tion had left him no further recourse of asking it 
 again. 
 
 The experience had tremendously stimulated the 
 mental activity of both by driving them to solitude 
 and hard work, and they had made quick work with 
 most of the senior studies. 
 
 During that year, the subjects wherein his lack of 
 early training had told most against him were all 
 left behind, and he was now again in his native air 
 with no more clam digging of Greek roots, but with 
 Logic, Political Economy, Mental Philosophy and 
 Metaphysics to use the nomenclature of that time 
 and place, which were but playthings to his mind. 
 He no longer felt humiliated at the sight of Miss 
 Eliot's attainments as when she had so fairly ex- 
 
DIANA Al^D MINERVA. 133 
 
 celled him in Greek ; and she now wondered as she 
 saw him, without an effort, come to the front in 
 their higher studies of the senior year. 
 
 He felt now that he was passing her in the rank 
 of scholarship and somehow was not proud of it, 
 but ashamed, as if he had been caught beating a 
 woman. Commendation would make him blush, 
 and yet he often felt like missing a word to let her 
 go up head, as the boys used to do occasionally with 
 their sweethearts in spelling school. 
 
 His perceptions were now so quick that he could 
 take Whately's Logic or Stuart Mill's, and reading 
 it for two days so fill his mind with the principles 
 and the picture of the pages, that he could recite 
 them all on examination as though he had the book 
 before him. 
 
 When they met at table again, it was like a severe 
 duty of civility, both were so silent, so shy and 
 seemingly so unreal to each other. Only their 
 common timidity seemed to touch, and Christie had 
 to lead off the conversation with Professor Primrose, 
 so that it seemed like talking at Miss Eliot rather 
 than to her. 
 
 She soon recognized that, and managed to let 
 them know that she was not to be lectured over the 
 Professor's head, by at once leading off herself with 
 all sorts of discussions, and that soon, and all un- 
 consciously to herself, led to the sweet surrender of 
 the soul. 
 
 They had one day attended the President's lee- 
 
134 BOKBEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ture on Justice as the highest interest of the State 
 and discussed Herbert Spencer's great chapter on 
 that subject. 
 
 Professor Primrose at once complacently avowed 
 his belief that, aside from some few mistakes and 
 errors of judgment easily rectified, justice was 
 generally done amongst men, and that men, as a 
 rule, received on earth about what they deserved. 
 
 ''But Professor," said Clay, **did Latimer or 
 Bruno deserve to die at the stake? Did Christ 
 Jesus deserve to die on the cross ? " 
 
 **0h, of course,'^ replied Primrose, *' those are 
 exceptional cases. Exceptions from the rule." 
 
 *'But, what rule would you thus establish. Pro- 
 fessor? The great rule is that there is no such 
 thing as justice ruling amongst the affairs of men, 
 except occasionally in dealing with individual 
 cases." 
 
 ** Why, what do you mean 1 " said the Professor. 
 
 **I mean that the great law of our life here is 
 plainly not justice, but the rule of vicarious suffer- 
 ing. It is so often the innocent that suffer and not 
 the guilty; the most innocent often suffer the most, 
 and they directly suffer because of another's guilt." 
 
 ** But what then becomes of our justice ? " 
 
 "What, indeed? Professor, there is no such 
 thing ruling on earth. There is a clumsy attempt 
 amongst men to attain to something we call by that 
 name. But God is ruling through and by another 
 law — a higher law." 
 
DIANA AND MINERVA. 135 
 
 ** A higher law than Justice V^ 
 
 ** Yes, the divine law of the Cross, the law of 
 sacrifice, the law of community of life won through 
 suffering, of grace diffused through sympathy. 
 God is dealing with men not as individuals, or not 
 merely as such, but as links in chain-armor of this 
 highly strung fabric of social life, where the whole 
 web quivers, whichever link we strike." 
 
 ''Well, well," said Primrose, "that is a view I 
 should have expected to meet some centuries ago, 
 but not to-day." 
 
 "And well you might, Professor, find it to-day 
 in Zwingle ; find it in Tauler, find it in Christ Jesus 
 himself ! But Christie there understands all this 
 far better than I do," said he, turning to his friend 
 for relief. 
 
 "No, no!" said Christie. "No, no! you are 
 my teacher now." 
 
 " And mine," said Catharine, impulsively, look- 
 ing with surprise and most kindly sympathy at 
 him. 
 
 He was deeply touched by Catherine's single 
 word, and while he could not guess what a pro- 
 found impression he had made upon her mind, and 
 heart, he knew that she was won I 
 
 She had divined at once that this was what he 
 had tried to say to her at the bridge. 
 
 He had now fully decided on Harvard at least 
 for its Divinity School, even if he should take this 
 western degree first, and he now lingered only to 
 
136 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 secure this pearl of all womanhood, to be not only 
 the heart of his heart, but the soul of his soul. 
 
 He had determined to become a Minister of Grace, 
 though he belonged to no church as yet, and he felt 
 that he could not proceed further without at least 
 one soul who would understand him perfectly. 
 
 On returning to his room that night, he seemed 
 to know just what he needed now to say and send 
 to Catherine. 
 
 He seemed to know her soul now better than 
 even she knew it herself. 
 
 He took a little collection of German poems, and 
 hastily placed here and there some bits of blue ribbon 
 that had marked his favorite readings. He lightly 
 scored in pencil a stanza, this and that from 
 Goethe, Uhland and Heine, Platen's little song, 
 **Mein Herz und Deine Stimme," seemed to him 
 to mean more than it ever meant to anybody else. 
 
 Goethe's '* Neue Liebe Neues Leben," seemed to 
 him to begin in wisdom, but to end in folly. 
 
 But he marked for her eye one stanza of *' Trost 
 InThranen": 
 
 Wie kommst das du so traurig bist, 
 
 Da alles froh erscheint ? 
 Man sieht dir's an den Augen an, 
 
 Elwiss, du hast geweint. 
 
 And he thus marked the last stanza of Schnltze's 
 ^*UeberallNurDu": 
 
DIANA AND MINERVA. 137 
 
 Ach wie kan ich dein vergessen, 
 
 Dein gedenken ohne Leid ? 
 Bist mir ewig ja so nahe, 
 
 Bist mir ewig ja so weit ! 
 
 Some other words of farewell intimated that 
 they should part. He wrapped it, directed it and 
 asked Cyrus to go in first and lay it at her plate at 
 breakfast. 
 
 He was profoundly astonished when Cyrus came 
 hastily back, bringing him a letter she had also 
 sent down to the table before she received the 
 books. 
 
 It was unsigned, with no date or address, and 
 only said, 
 
 *' Will you not come to see me ? " 
 
 It had cost Catherine a sore struggle to send that 
 little word, but she perceived at last that she had 
 been unjust in refusing the explanation he had 
 long since so kindly asked for, and she had felt 
 something of a noble woman's magnanimity in 
 realizing that they both had been misunderstood 
 
 She now saw that she had wholly misunderstood 
 his purpose in speaking to her at the bridge. His 
 words at the table came like a revelation, and true 
 as she knew them to be, she realized for the first 
 time that he was not applying them to her nor to 
 any of her personal affairs. 
 
 She wrote, therefore, that single line, believing 
 he would respond to her heart's cry, before receiv- 
 
138 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ing the little volumes that told so much to her wait- 
 ing heart. 
 
 It was evening before she was summoned to the 
 parlor to meet a caller for whom the day had 
 seemed even longer than for her. Her one line had 
 filled him with such a tempest of conflicting feel- 
 ings, that he had avoided meeting her at table or 
 in public, as his heart was a tossing sea on which, 
 however, the bark of hope rode lightly. 
 
 He could make nothing of what seemed so like a 
 change of mind in one who was but incarnate 
 steadfastness, but he remembered Christie's word, 
 ** You will not understand it — nor will she." 
 
 He understood it quickly when they met. He 
 was walking up and down the room impatiently, 
 when she came in quickly, her pale face tense with 
 excitement, and coming close to him, laid her cool 
 hand in his burning one and said at once, " Why 
 have you been so disturbed since our walk in Oc- 
 tober?" 
 
 **Why have you?" he answered, still holding 
 her hand firmly. 
 
 *'I could not understand," she answered, "why 
 you should so refer to my personal history, to my 
 only sorrow." 
 
 " Your sorrow ? " he replied, " I never knew that 
 you had one, and was only thinking of my own." 
 
 Then the mutual confessions all came out, of two 
 innocents suffering for the wrongs of others, and he 
 showed her the following slip from a newspaper as 
 
DIANA AND MINERVA. 139 
 
 illustrating his idea of what lie had tried to gay at 
 the bridge. 
 
 " Two sisters in Connecticut became insane 
 through their devotion to a brother, for whose in- 
 carceration and support in a private retreat they 
 denied themselves the necessities of life." 
 
 He saw how unfeeling his words must have seemed 
 to her, which he only meant to speak as opening 
 the one sacred confidence of life. 
 
 Those words now came more directly in the lan- 
 guage of nature, and without any college preface or 
 literary circumlocution. 
 
 They sui)posed they had been together but a few 
 moments, when the kindly matron of the ladies 
 college knocked at the door to say that the hour 
 for closing the hall was long past. 
 
 They had been there three hours, but it was the 
 only time they had ever been alone together, ex- 
 cept their first imprisonment of two hours in the 
 mathematical examination room when their co-edu- 
 cation began. They felt now that it was just be- 
 ginning all over again. The life of the soul was 
 now to begin under the higher law of spiritual de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Both felt that they had never tasted life before 
 and they were ecstatically happy. Yet their sym- 
 pathy had a profoundly serious foundation, in view 
 of the life he had chosen as a Minister of God's 
 Grace. 
 
 Those who fear that co- education may lead to 
 
140 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 premature or hastily formed relations between 
 young men and women, will be found to be those 
 who speak with slight consideration of the subject, 
 or with little knowledge of its realities. 
 
 They fail to appreciate the serious purposes 
 which may lead, a gifted young woman to devote 
 all her early life, the whole flowering time of 
 romantic youth, to a course of secluded and severe 
 study, which she hopes may make her a nobler 
 woman and more fitted to be man's equal, if not 
 his superior, and the companion of his soul in the 
 serious duties of life. 
 
 The Flora McFlimseys of society have no part in 
 such a life, and the Divorce Courts are sustained 
 and overloaded with the wrecks of their existence. 
 
 They are mere butterflies of fashion and folly, 
 which flutter for a day only in the glorious sun- 
 shine of life, which nature provides for songbirds 
 and singing souls. 
 
 If the college friendships of men are among the 
 most deep-rooted and long-enduring things of life, 
 does it not follow that women admitted to that 
 noble fellowship, meet nowhere else where merely 
 superficial and showy attractions are more com- 
 pletely subordinated to the actual knowledge of 
 the mental character and qualities, which form the 
 lasting ties between immortal souls ? 
 
 That thorough knowledge and mental acquaint- 
 ance resulting from the actual competition for 
 years of the class room in their daily recitations of 
 
DIANA AND MINERVA. 141 
 
 common studies, now blossomed into the more per- 
 sonal relation of the affections, and bore a fruitage 
 fairer than its flowers. 
 
 The first class graduated in June, 1857, and his 
 oration and poem on Life was followed by her's on 
 Duty, and neither of them would ever confess 
 which took the first honors of that class, and the 
 record, when examined, proved that their attain- 
 ments were so equal that each had been awarded 
 the first rank. 
 
 And now came out the great secret of those little 
 conferences of Miss Eliot with the President and 
 his wife. 
 
 The great educator thought it desirable to fill the 
 college chairs as soon as possible with teachers, 
 educated in his system and fully imbued with his 
 ideas and principles, and he had long since sifted 
 and sorted this first class of fifty to find any mate- 
 rial suitable for his purpose. 
 
 And what was the surprise of these young grad- 
 uates, at least one of them, to be invited to a pri- 
 vate conference with the President, where Miss 
 Eliot looked as innocent as a dove, — though she 
 was well aware of its import from the time of her 
 confessional to the President's wife — while the 
 President offered to her future husband the first 
 Professorship of Logic and Belles-Lettres, and to 
 her that of Modern Languages and Literature. 
 
 His duties would require him also, as first Pro- 
 fessor, to act for the President whenever he was 
 
142 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 absent, in conducting the worship in the college 
 chapel on Sundays and the daily morning prayers. 
 Catherine had worked up this surprise as the 
 first benediction of her love. 
 
 K he had worshipped her before as Diana, he 
 now fell at her feet and hailed her also as Minerva, 
 for her wisdom had so far transcended his, as to 
 open all gates before him. 
 
 She had at once opened his pathway to the Min- 
 istry of Grace and stood smiling beside it as his first 
 Ministering Angel, while he was blindly grouping 
 in the dark, without knowing which way to turn 
 to find its entrance : 
 
 " While Valor's haughty Champions wait 
 Till all their scars are shown ; 
 Love walks unchallenged through the gate 
 To sit beside the Throne ! " 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 143 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LOVE AND LOGIC. 
 
 Swiftly sped the weeks for the young Professor 
 as his life now entered on a series of events that 
 seemed to move with maddening speed, as the 
 country passed into the shadow of the impend- 
 ing conflict of war. 
 
 A Professor of Logic and a Minister of Grace 
 were a combination apparently inconsistent, neces- 
 sarily in conflict, and involving the inevitable 
 question of which should extinguish and supersede 
 the other. 
 
 As the Calvinist would put it, if an immovable 
 object is met by an irresistible force, what can re- 
 sult but "a wreck of matter and a crush of 
 worlds." 
 
 Not so, says the Philosopher, for if the object be 
 immovable the bodies must become one and the 
 force be absorbed in the union, whereby the im- 
 movable object will possess and contain the irresist- 
 ible force as part of itself. 
 
 The new Professorship was to be attempted after 
 the hurried preparation of a single year in the Di- 
 vinity School of Harvard, and in the meantime 
 Catherine was to speed away to Europe to continue 
 there her training for the professorship of modern 
 languages. 
 
144 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 And now began the culminating romance of her 
 life. Nathaniel Hawthorne was then an honored 
 Consul-General of her country, and with his lovely 
 wife welcomed her to his family circle, and there, 
 with rare facilities, she saw the best life of Eng- 
 land, Paris and Italy. The one year of her con- 
 templated absence was prolonged to two, and the 
 educational and social advantages and happiness of 
 it were so great that this met the hearty approval 
 of her intended husband, whose trust in her was so 
 perfect that his faith was in no way shaken even 
 when the consul's noble wife was compelled to 
 write him, in the second year, of her anxiety lest 
 the attentions of a prominent Boston artist and 
 sculptor, then at Rome, might make it impossible 
 for Catherine to return to that obscure western 
 school. 
 
 ** If he can get her, he may have her," was the 
 reply of that perfect faith and confidence born of 
 conquest of the soul in their long school life, and 
 nourished now by their constant communication. 
 He was joyfully happy in that perfect trust, and 
 busy himself during his first year of preparation 
 for the Ministry of Grace, and then in entering on 
 his new Professorship. His duties were new. His 
 occupation was incessant. His interests were many. 
 And what with his new lectures and his occasional 
 sermons in the college Chapel, he was wholly ab- 
 sorbed and coming nearer and nearer to an answer 
 to the one most absorbing question for him, *' What 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 145 
 
 think ye of Christ f For him, that was a study of 
 the whole of human life and destiny here and 
 hereafter. 
 
 Would her life amidst and within those grand 
 churches develop in her such a growth of devout 
 feeling and quick religious sympathy as he had 
 found in his native forests ? 
 
 Or would those plain discoveries and the now 
 familiar view of Rome's squalor and vice, and of 
 its church's empty pretences, pomp and parade, 
 yet more fully alienate her sympathy from anything 
 called Christianity ? 
 
 He brooded long over the miracles. And it 
 somewhat cleared the sky for him when the Presi- 
 dent lectured on that subject and said, '* Miracles 
 are the children of Materialism. So long as the lat- 
 ter lingers about our philosophy, the former will 
 keep their place in our theology. Believe that God 
 is far away, external to nature, and Calvin must 
 resort to miracle as the only ground of belief. See 
 with Plato the divine immanence, and Calvin's 
 miracles become absurd conjectures, while those of 
 Christ Jesus, in healing the sick and by faith mov- 
 ing mountains at the bidding of love, when rightly 
 understood, become but natural phenomena, and to 
 Calvin no miracles at all." 
 
 '* The prophecies were mainly of the imagina- 
 tion, or the intelligent forecasting of what was 
 probable in the future as natural sequences of what 
 was already known. Any astronomer can foretell 
 
146 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 an eclipse thousands of years ahead, and that to 
 the uneducated man is both a prophecy and a 
 miracle." 
 
 *' So of most of the apparently supernatural things 
 recorded, they are either mistranslations or inter- 
 polations put in long after the events described." 
 
 He was yet too immature to understand all that 
 the President was saying, but his sympathy took 
 hold promptly on a faith so clear and high, which 
 yet had all science and philosophy behind it, 
 and he only wished that Catherine might share 
 those studies, and his rising hopes. 
 
 Would her prolonged life in Rome fit her to bet- 
 ter aid him in his further study of those great 
 questions ? 
 
 To his view, one of her greatest privileges in Rome 
 might be to meet the great German scholar Tischen- 
 dorf, then just returning from the Convent on Mt. 
 Sinai with that priceless manuscript of the Gospels 
 there just discovered, written about one hundred 
 years after the death of Jesus and now admitted to 
 be the earliest ever written, which is still pre- 
 served. 
 
 To see that old Greek text through her educated 
 eyes, so familiar with every Greek dialect, was bet- 
 ter than to see it himself, and the first problem he 
 gave her was to compare it with the next oldest 
 copy in the Vatican, and later with the third oldest 
 copy in the British Museum, to verify, as she did, 
 the amazing statements of Tischendorf and Strauss, 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 147 
 
 then first published, that neither of those oldest 
 manuscripts contained the last twelve verses of 
 Mark, for centuries accepted as genuine and infalli- 
 ble, in King James' version of those Gospels. 
 
 As Mark is now generally admitted by scholars to 
 be the oldest Gospel written, the result was plainly 
 to show that the supernatural was not taught by 
 Jesus or his disciples; and that all those wonders and 
 apparently miraculous events were but additions to 
 the record, or interpolations and embellishments of 
 later ages, as any story naturally grows by much 
 repeating. 
 
 But she also saw more in those early manuscripts 
 than he had ever discovered, and after seeing what 
 was not in them, as many critics do, she carefully 
 read what was in them and learned that Jesus was 
 spoken of in several places simply as the Carpenter, 
 and as Joseph, the Carpenter's son, (John 1 : 45; 
 VI : 42), and particularly after his first sermon in 
 the synagogue at Nazareth and "among his own 
 kin and in his own house," where bis four brothers 
 and at least two sisters were then living (Mark YI : 
 3; Matt. XIII : 66), " that he could there do no 
 mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a 
 few sick folk and healed them." 
 
 And when she read in Luke 11 : 48, the only re- 
 corded word that Mary ever said about the parent- 
 age of Jesus, ''Thy father and I have sought thee 
 sorrowing," and found the plain Greek work 
 "parents," in two places, Luke 11 : 33, 43, curiously 
 
148 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 translated in St. James's version not ** parents,'' 
 but ** Joseph and Ms mother," she was amazed and 
 could not help wondering why four English words 
 were used to translate one Greek word, where there 
 was no possible ambiguity in the original. 
 
 But when the great Cardinal came, who had 
 kindly aided her to an inspection of those early 
 manuscripts, and thinking he had a convert, sought 
 most persuasively to lead her as a lost lamb of the 
 flock to the Roman Confessional, of the worship of 
 Mary and the Holy Trinity and the sacred relics, as 
 told in the Marble Faun in our next Chapter, he 
 was amazed in turn to find a young girl in Rome 
 only twenty-one years of age, who knew as much of 
 those early records as he did. 
 
 Probably few other women in Italy had ever had 
 their attention called to those points, and after a 
 long discussion, the Cardinal himself was brought 
 to the confessional, as he finally had to say : 
 
 ** Oh, yes, my daughter, the sincere clergy always 
 admit those facts when they meet with scholars 
 capable of understanding them ; but for many others 
 silence seems still to be the greater kindness, as 
 mankind is not yet wholly out of tlie mudhole of 
 the middle ages, and many souls still need those 
 old bridges, and every old plank or rope we can 
 leave them, to get over to the Christianity of to-day, 
 which does not depend at all upon prophesy or 
 miracles, but rests wholly upon the spiritual life 
 and teachings of Jesus." 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 149 
 
 As that was only the old Jesuit argument of the 
 end justifying the means, Catherine was still more 
 amazed, and asked the Cardinal further about the 
 main prop of that old church, the fall of man as a 
 race and the miraculous redemption from the effect 
 thereof, by the death, agony and Atonement of 
 Jesus, and pressed the question, whether such a 
 doctrine was consistent, or could coexist with the 
 doctrine of a Heavenly Father to whom Jesus 
 prayed. 
 
 There was no evading that question, which 
 pressed like a bayonet at his heart, and the Cardi- 
 nal could only suggest again the sad necessities of 
 those dark ages, which needed any story or any 
 theory which could lift them up, or even frighten 
 them into propriety by the terrors of damnation in 
 an endless hell. 
 
 But he finally said that doctrine is not so much 
 a Bible doctrine as it is commonly claimed to be. 
 It is only told in Gfenesis III, and is never men- 
 tioned again in the Old Testament. 
 
 Christ never refers to Adam's fall, nor does John, 
 the most Spiritual apostle, nor Peter, the fighter, 
 nor even Jude. 
 
 It is therefore fair to assume that it is an ancient 
 legend, which the unknown writer of Genesis 
 availed himself of and utilized and rewrote, some- 
 what as Tennyson is now writing the Arthurian 
 Legends anew, in order to write into it a moral and 
 a spiritual lesson. 
 
150 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 The Hebrew people probably believed in some 
 fall of man, which affected the whole human race, 
 as it was very bad in those days, except the very 
 best of their own chosen people, and Paul evidently 
 availed himself of that belief, to enforce his 
 own argument and teachings with those Hebrew 
 people, who were a stiff-necked race, and the earli- 
 est Puritans in their customs and habits. 
 
 But when Paul comes to speak of sin in Romans 
 VII, he says nothing of Adam or the fall, nothing 
 of original or of inherited sin, but says, '' we should 
 serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of 
 the letter," and in Romans YIII, 39, that nothing 
 *' shall be able to separate us from the love of Gfod, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 This admirable answer, so adroit and sincere, so 
 pleased Catherine, thai she actually went to that 
 Confessional the following Sunday, and then wrote 
 a long account of all this to the young professor of 
 Logic at Antioch ; but added at the end in refer- 
 ence to that evasive translation of " parents " and 
 other similar things she had found, 
 
 *' It is evident that some of those old Monks of 
 the dark ages have been monkeying with the 
 sacred records, and that primitive Christianity, as 
 taught by Jesus, cannot be found in Rome to-day, 
 without looking for it with a microscope in these 
 old records." 
 
 Interested as he was in these questions, he was 
 far too busy and too completely at rest in his trust 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 151 
 
 in Catherine very seriously to ponder them, while 
 she was so fully absorbed in her affection for him 
 and in her wish to complete her preparation that 
 she might return to him and to her home, even to 
 know that such questions had any very important 
 significance for him or for her. 
 
 She had devised the celestial telegraph as she 
 called it by which they had communication every 
 night when, at a given hour, they would both gaze 
 at a given star, and feel that they were seeing each 
 other's affection there reflected, and even hear what 
 each was whispering to the other's trust. 
 
 Not the pole-star, though always in sight as 
 that was too far away, too low down, and too 
 cold, now and then one of the planets seemed 
 to place itself as their mirror amoris, but during 
 part of the year Alpha Lyrae was the star that 
 hovered between them, and which came at length 
 to seem to him to show the very reflection of her face, 
 and the glow of her deep and tranquil affection. 
 
 Allowing for the six and a half hours of time that 
 separated the observers, he in the earliest twilight, 
 she before retiring, or on rising in the night, would 
 thus gaze for a half hour on that lovely object, 
 feeling something of the peace of nature flowing 
 into their hearts and deepening their common trust. 
 
 This constant thought of her seemed to make 
 him more and more sympathetic and more and 
 more conscious of the dependence of his life on 
 hers. His sensitive nature was always trembling 
 
152 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 like the magnetic needle, seeming to change with 
 every motion of the ship, yet an image of constancy, 
 showing even in its quivering, the stress of the one 
 commanding attraction. 
 
 It seemed to him that he could actually feel all 
 the changes in her moods and all the daily motions 
 of her life, despite the hundred degrees of the earth's 
 surface that lay between them. 
 
 And so they watched the stars and dreamed and 
 waited. 
 
 But on receiving that letter, the young Professor 
 of Logic set himself to a more careful study of this 
 Gospel of Mark, and discovered that the pretty 
 story of the Star of Bethlehem or of any miraculous 
 birth or resurection was not in it ; and he then 
 looked at the record of this great Cardinal, who, 
 professing infallibility and inspiration, made such 
 candid admissions of manifest error. 
 
 He was not really a Cardinal as yet, except in his 
 heart and hopes, but was then in the Church of San 
 Giorgio in Velabro, for which he had left a great 
 position at Oxford, and the English Church in 1845. 
 
 His exquisite hymn had endeared him to all hearts: 
 
 ** Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, 
 
 Lead Thou me on ! 
 The night is dark and I am far from home,— 
 
 Lead Thou me on ! 
 Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene,— one step enough for me. 
 
 Lead Thou me on ! " 
 
LOVE AND LOGIC. 153 
 
 He had acquired the idea in early life, that revo- 
 lutions do sometimes roll backward, and he seems 
 to have believed that the English and the Roman 
 Church could and should be united. 
 
 But Rome made no concessions, and a total sur- 
 render of the priceless right of private judgment 
 and conscience, and of free thought and speech 
 were, as always, its only terms. 
 
 Consistency is a jewel which seemed not to be in 
 his collection. 
 
 Charles Kingsley, the gifted Rector of Eversley 
 in 1864 in his brilliant Review of Fronde's History 
 of England, noticed the defection as a typical event 
 of the middle of the 19th Century, in such severe 
 terms, as to reopen the discussion, and the world 
 rang with it for another dozen years, till 1877, when 
 he was nearly eighty years of age, he was announced 
 as the first English Cardinal. 
 
 And his "History of his Opinions," since called so 
 strangely An Apology for his Life, ''Apologia pro 
 Vita sua,^^ thus states his reasons, on page 236, 
 " There are but two alternatives, the way to Rome 
 and the way to Atheism ; Anglicanism is the half- 
 way house on the one side, and Liberalism is the 
 half-way house on the other." 
 
 And ** there were a number of tender eager hearts 
 who were watching me, wishing to think as I 
 thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find 
 it out * * * and felt the weariness of waiting, 
 
154 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 and the sickness of delayed hope, and did not 
 understand that I was as perplexed as themselves, 
 and were made ill by the suspense." 
 
 Some women were weary of his confusion of mind, 
 therefore the Pope was infallible, and the English 
 Church should be abandoned. 
 
 The double vision that saw two taverns on that 
 road, instead of one, is most peculiar, and suggests 
 that the English Church has long been recognized 
 as a half-way house of comfortable rest for indolent 
 or indifferent souls ; but no road leads from it to 
 Atheism. 
 
 But Liberalism in religion ends the 19th Century 
 with no half-way houses, but with many well recog- 
 nized leaders of about the same age as Newman, 
 whose lives cover the entire century, like James 
 Martineau in England, and William H. Furniss of 
 Philadelphia, who are still proclaiming their 
 favorite theme, that God is Love, and who are no 
 nearer Atheism than Jesus was ; and no one believes 
 that their road tends in that direction. 
 
 My Prayer. 
 
 Shall my approach to Thee 
 O, God, be but a sigh, 
 And all thy Love for me 
 See but a beggars' cry ? 
 
 Lord God, rebuke my tears, 
 My murmurings and fears ! 
 
LOVE AND LOaiO. 
 
 165 
 
 And be my Prayer my joy 
 
 Where I in Thee may hide, 
 Like an all-trusting boy, 
 
 Safe by his Father's side. 
 My sorrow, toil and care 
 I know that Thou dost share / 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Cai ipnBM\K 
 
156 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MARBLE FAUN. 
 
 How many literary artists have tried to picture 
 tlie American girl abroad ! 
 
 Howells attempted it in his Lady of the Aroo- 
 stook, and greatly improved on Miss Blood in his 
 Buffalo girl named Brown in his Indian Summer, 
 and his Boston woman in New York, seeking her 
 change of fortunes, is far better than either. 
 
 The caricature of " Daisy Miller" by James, even 
 as amended in his '* perfect lady " has been followed 
 by so many, that we welcomed with pleasure the 
 bright " Yassar Girls Abroad," by Mrs. Champney, 
 though they were about the only '^ Innocents 
 Abroad" that summer; for '* Daphne" by Mrs. 
 Cruger, and the '*Fair Barbarian" by Mrs. Bur- 
 nett were there soon after and drove them home. 
 
 But no one as yet has portrayed the highest type 
 of the Puritan Maiden, educated yet lovely, so well 
 as our greatest master, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 
 his Hilda of the Marble Faun. 
 
 That it was real, and drawn from life, was evi- 
 dent as soon as it was seen ; as the four characters 
 stand at once together on its first page, Miriam, 
 Hilda, Kenyon and Donatello, in the sculpture 
 gallery in the Capitol at Rome, looking at the 
 antique relic of a statue, the Faun of Praxiteles. 
 
THE MARBLE FAUN. 157 
 
 The very spirit of mischief is in it as the three 
 young American artists chaff the young Italian 
 count, Donatello, with his resemblance to the 
 Faun, '*the true and natural conception of the 
 antique in poetry and art; " and wonder how any 
 sculptor, though a poet also, could have imagined 
 the sportive and frisky thing, and then succeeded 
 in imprisoning it in marble. 
 
 The curious imagination is indicated mainly by 
 the two ears of the Faun, which are leafshaped, 
 terminating in little peaks, covered with soft, 
 downy fur, and by ''a certain caudal appendage, 
 which is hidden by the lion's skin that forms the 
 garment." 
 
 The lack of any moral severity in the statue, it is 
 said, is "what makes it so delightful an object to the 
 human eye, and to the frailty of the human heart." 
 
 ^* Let us see," said Miriam, as she tried to lift his 
 brown curls to see the ears. "No, no," said 
 Donatello, springing away, "my ears are a tender 
 point with me." 
 
 "Well, well," said Miriam, " your tender point, 
 —your two tender points, if you have them— shall 
 be safe, as far as I am concerned." 
 
 Then Hilda is appealed to, "a slender, brown- 
 haired. New England Puritan girl," who replies : 
 
 "Hush, naughty one; you are very ungrateful 
 for all he has done for you." 
 
 Mr. Hawthorne frankly acknowledges in his 
 preface that his Kenyon is the young Boston 
 
168 BORDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 sculptor, then in Rome making his great statue 
 of Cleopatra, in the old studio of Canova, whose 
 genius had not rendered the place sacred, but only- 
 interesting. 
 
 That identifies him, as Mr. William Story, who 
 left the Boston Bar, after writing some law books, 
 and retired from the great position inherited there 
 from his father, who, for over thirty years was 
 Chief Justice of the United States, to lead the 
 higher life of poetry and art in Italy ; where, in his 
 versatile talent of doing many things well, he has 
 long been considered our best representative of the 
 highest culture. 
 
 His statues have only been equalled by his 
 poems, and those only by his paintings. 
 
 Round the studio of that young artist grew up 
 the events which cluster in the great story of the 
 Faun ; and its author frankly acklowledges that he 
 made many other studios contribute materials, as 
 he says in his preface that * ' he laid felonious hands 
 on a certain bust of Milton, and a statue of a 
 pearl diver, which he found in the studio of Mr. 
 Paul Akers, and thought of appropriating some 
 bronze doors of Mr. Randolph Rogers, and Miss 
 Hosmer's admirable statue of Zenobia," and carry- 
 ing them off to decorate Canova' s old den, '^ in the 
 little dirty lane near the Corso." 
 
 There sat the young sculptor, *' throwing stones at 
 Posterity,*' as he said, and as likely to hit it as 
 anybody. 
 
THE MARBLE FAUN. 159 
 
 He *'had a face whicli, when time had done a 
 little more for it, would offer a worthy subject for 
 as good an artist as himself — an ideal forehead, 
 deeply set eyes, and a mouth sensitive and delicate, 
 but much hidden in a light brown beard." 
 
 There Miriam came to see his Cleopatra, or 
 rather to let him see it, as she was evidently the 
 model of that exalted passion of undecorous woman- 
 hood, and there she surprised him one day by 
 peeping into his '' little old-fashioned ivory box, 
 richly carved, with antique figures and foliage.'' 
 
 There, ** lapped in fleecy cotton, lay a small, 
 beautifully shaped hand, most delicately sculptured 
 in marble." 
 
 ** Ah, this is very beautiful," exclaimed Miriam, 
 ** it is as good as Power's famous hand with its 
 baby dimples, and better then Harriet Hosmer's 
 clasped hands of Browning and his wife, symboliz- 
 ing the heroic union of two high poetic lives : " 
 
 '* Do you, then, recognize it?" asked Kenyon. 
 
 *' Certainly, there is but one hand on earth that 
 could have supplied the model, so delicate and yet 
 with so much character and energy. 
 
 *' I did not dream you had won Hilda so far. 
 How have you persuaded that shy maiden to let 
 you take her hand, even in marble ?" 
 
 "Never! She never knew it," hastily replied 
 Kenyon, " I stole it. The hand is only a reminis- 
 cence. I shall never win her ! 
 
 *' Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atmosphere, 
 
160 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 and gentle and shy as she appears, it will be as 
 difficult to win her heart, as to entice down one of 
 her white doves from its freedom in the sky.'' 
 
 This was long before Du Maurier and his three 
 English artists had discovered the delicate white 
 foot of Trilby. 
 
 To get above the squalor and disease of Rome, 
 so well described in this story, the author had to 
 locate Hilda up a tower, where she kept the eternal 
 lamp burning before the Virgin's shrine, and 
 where ** the other doves knew her for a sister," as 
 he said. 
 
 And what a frame he made for that bright picture 
 in the rival tower of Miriam's studio in the old 
 Cardinal Palace on one side, and the Owl Tower 
 and grounds of the young Italian count on the 
 other, in the Appenines, where his noble race, from 
 before the flood, seemed now evolving backwards 
 to the dust whence it came. 
 
 That pedigree of Monte Beni has no rival in the 
 English language, as back of Noah the heralds 
 gave up the lineage in despair, as it ran into that 
 gray antiquity of which there is no token left. 
 
 ** There grew the fig tree that had run wild and 
 taken to wife tbe vine, which likewise had grown 
 rampant out of all human control, so that the two 
 wild things had tangled and knotted themselves 
 into a wild marriage bond, and hung their various 
 progeny, — the luscious figs and grapes, oozy with 
 the southern juice, and both endowed with a wild 
 
THE MARBLE FAUN. 161 
 
 flavor that added the final charm,— on the same 
 bough together." ^ "^ ^ 
 
 ** In the gush of the small stream stood a marble 
 nymph, whose nakedness the moss had kindly cov- 
 ered, and the long tresses of the maiden-hair had 
 done what they could in the poor thing's behalf, by 
 hanging themselves about her waist." * ^ ^^ 
 
 *' Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, ex- 
 cept that her soul and life were interfused through- 
 out the gushing water. She was a cool, fresh and 
 dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, but as constant 
 as her native stream, which kept the same gush 
 and flow forever." 
 
 This sunny nymph used to become a rainbow in 
 the fountain and then suddenly '' gather herself up 
 into the likeness of a beautiful girl, laughing,— or 
 was it the warble of the rill over the pebbles ? " 
 
 Then as the young knight knelt, ''to drink of 
 the spring, a pair of rosy lips came up out of its 
 little depth and touched his mouth with the thrill 
 of a sweet, cool, dewy kiss ! " 
 
 But when he tried to wash his hands in the 
 stream, ''there was a sound of woe, it might have 
 been a woman's voice, it might have "been only the 
 sighing of the brook over the pebbles, as the water 
 shrank away from his hands " and disappeared. 
 
 From this exquisite legend sprang the story of 
 the Faun, and that young sculptor came often to 
 kneel at that spring, and to drink of the water be- 
 fore <5limbing the owl tower, to see the landscape,. 
 
162 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 where the ** lakes opened their blue eyes in its 
 face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals should forget 
 that better land, when they beheld the earth so 
 beautiful." 
 
 From its height "he felt a strange pull at his 
 heartstrings," as he gazed far away towards Hilda's 
 tower in Rome, and wished for the white wings of 
 a dove, that he might have flown away and alighted 
 at the Virgin's shrine. 
 
 Meantime the dark beauty of Miriam was 
 already flying away towards this mountain shrine, 
 where he held Donatello in leash ; while he himself 
 was ** cherishing a love which insulated him from 
 the wild experiences which some men gather." 
 
 The great story goes back to the Fountain of 
 Trevi in Rome, and its shadows in the troubled 
 water ; and then on to the great black cross in the 
 centre of the Coliseum, where more human agony 
 has been endured than on any other spot on 
 earth. 
 
 An inscription there promises seven years' indul- 
 gence, seven years' remission of the pains of pur- 
 gatory, and earlier enjoyment of heavenly bliss, 
 for each kiss imprinted on that black cross. 
 
 And a range of shrines extends around it, each 
 commemoratinec some scene of the Saviour's life 
 and suffering, and a custom requires each pilgrim 
 desiring absolution, to make the entire immense 
 circle on his knees, saying a penitent's prayer at 
 each shrine. 
 
THE MARBLE FAUN. 163 
 
 *' There are sermons in stones," said Hilda, 
 ** and especially here in Rome." 
 
 *' Yes," said Kenyon, '' and after middle life, 
 when accumulated sins are many, and the remain- 
 ing temptations are few, what better could one do 
 with life, than to spend it all here on those terms, 
 in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum ! 
 
 **It was foolish of Curtius to sacrifice himself, as 
 all Rome has gone into the gulf of despair, in spite 
 of him!" 
 
 On returning over the Capitoline Hill, the sculp- 
 tor had expected the sweet charge of escorting 
 Hilda alone to her tower ; but as the paths divided 
 at a gateway, she said, 
 
 " Miriam has something to tell me, some sorrow 
 she needs to impart," and quickly left him to join 
 her friend. 
 
 The sculptor was mortified, and a little angry, 
 but he knew Hilda's gentle decision was immov- 
 able, and he therefore allowed that fearless maiden 
 to depart alone. 
 
 She quietly opened the gate of the little court^ 
 yard, and was startled midway by the noise of a 
 struggle within, on the edge of the Tarpeian Rock, 
 and a shrill scream, which quivered an instant in 
 the air and sank downward over the precipice. 
 
 Poor Hilda had looked into the courtyard and 
 saw the whole quick passage of a deed, which en- 
 graved itself on her soul, as her first actual con- 
 tact with crime; 
 
164 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Miriam liad committed murder by approving, 
 though only with her eyes, the mad rush of Dona- 
 tello upon his hated rival, a Capuchin priest. 
 
 ** Say that I have slain him against your will," 
 said Donatello, '' and I will at once throw myself 
 beside him !" 
 
 ** Oh, never, never," cried Miriam, as the gate 
 slowly closed and the criminals were left forever 
 alone with their guilt. 
 
 That terrible secret Hilda only revealed at the 
 confessional, after that sad summer in Rome, where 
 her suffering for another's sin tortured her almost 
 to madness, with the conflict of betraying her 
 friend to human justice, or of leaving her to the 
 Divine mercy. It seemed as if the awful guilt 
 were her own of keeping it hidden in her heart, as 
 if she were a party to or sharing in it. 
 
 At that English confessional in St. Peter's, she 
 finally poured out her whole terrible secret to the 
 kindly cardinal, then Father Newman, who had 
 aided her to see the old Greek Manuscripts,— and 
 she was so nearly won to the worship of Mary, as 
 to exclaim in her sorrow, 
 
 ** Ah, why should there not be a woman in 
 Heaven to listen to the prayers and confessions of 
 women ; a mother as well as a Father in Heaven ? " 
 
 And when offered absolution only if she would 
 reveal also the names of the guilty persons, she ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 ^* No, Father ! No 1 No torture shall wring that 
 
THE MAEBLE FAUN. 165 
 
 from me. Only God can forgive my sins ; leave 
 Providence to deal with them." 
 
 " Trust a girl's simple heart, sooner than any 
 casuist of your church, however learned he may 
 be!" 
 
 ** Do not let it grieve you, if I never return to the 
 confessional. I am a daughter of the Puritans I " 
 
 As she received the blessing, and rose to depart, 
 she met Kenyon at the door, who had witnessed her 
 transfiguration, and saw it now again as her inward 
 delight beamed in her face. 
 
 *'You will be St. Hilda," he said, "whatever 
 church may canonize you." 
 
 ** Ah, my dear friend," replied Hilda, '*try to 
 forgive me, if you deem it wrong, because it has 
 saved my reason, and made me happy again. Had 
 you been here yesterday, I would have confessed 
 to you." 
 
 " It was the sin of others that drove me thither, 
 not my own, though it almost seemed so by my 
 concealing it" 
 
 Then they walked over the bridge of the yellow 
 Tiber, and in the exuberance of youth and happi- 
 ness, Hilda exclaimed : 
 
 *' Let us find that lost relic of the Jews, the seven 
 branched golden candlestick from Solomon's Tem- 
 ple, which was brought here in the time of Constan- 
 tine, and lost in this muddy Tiber. 
 
 "How it might illuminate the world if it were^ 
 lighted up again. 
 
166 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 " Or let us write a great story, to be called the 
 Seven Sacred Candlesticks, a sort of parable or 
 seven-armed allegory, full of poetry, painting, 
 sculpture, architecture, philosophy, religion and 
 music, giving each branch a different color and set- 
 ting, so that when all the seven are kindled, their 
 radiance shall unite and combine into the intense 
 white light of faith and truth ! " 
 
 ** Well, Hilda, that is a magnificent conception," 
 cried Kenyon, **the more I look at it the brighter 
 it burns." 
 
 "So, I think," said Hilda, **but it seems more 
 suited to verse than prose." 
 
 "When I go home to America, I will suggest to 
 seven of our great poets that they shall write the 
 poem together, each lighting a separate branch of 
 the Sacred Candlestick." 
 
 "But that leaves me out," said Kenyon. 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Hilda. "You shall do the 
 sculpture branch. You cannot forget Beacon Street, 
 though you are trying hard to do so. I think your 
 poem of Cleopatra is better than the statue." 
 
 " But you have not seen it, since it is finished, 
 and now you are really going home?" 
 
 "Very soon, but I would like to see it before I 
 go/' 
 
 So an appointment was made, and before its time, 
 Kenyon had modeled for her a beautiful little 
 statue of Maidenhood, holding a snow-drop to her 
 breast. 
 
THE MARBLE FAUN. 167 
 
 ** O, Genius, though canst chain 
 Not marble only, but the human soul, 
 And melt the heart with soft control. 
 
 And wake such reverence in the brain, 
 
 That man may be forgiven 
 If in the ancient days he dwelt 
 Idolatrous, with sculptured life, and knelt 
 
 To Beauty, more than Heaven ! " 
 
 ** How do you like it 1 " said he when she came. 
 
 '* I think it is exquisite," she replied. 
 
 "But I mean the Cleopatra," he rejoined, **if I 
 thought it a mere lump of senseless stone, which 
 did not express her character, I should like to hit 
 her Egytian nose a bitter blow now with this 
 mallet." 
 
 *' Don't do that, it will get blows enough. I am 
 ashamed to tell you how perfect it is. 
 
 **You have hit Miriam's figure exactly. You 
 must have melted her into a mould, or packed h er 
 alive into your plaster, and it seems yet fervid to 
 the touch with her fiery life. 
 
 ** You feel her compressed heat and passionate 
 nature, as if it had a tiger-like character, even in 
 repose. No other sculptor could have done it. I 
 would say to artists, as Edward Everitt once said 
 to the law students at Cambridge : 
 
 ** * Climb the ladder of Fame, gentlemen. Climb 
 as high as you can, but you will never rise above 
 one Story.' " 
 
 This sweet praise pleased Kenyon greatly, as he 
 
168 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 replied laughing, " But did you ever happen to hear 
 my father's reply to that sweet flattery ? " 
 
 **0h, yes/' said Hilda, *' it is well known, and 
 equally good. He merely said quietly, ** Eloquence 
 is honored where Everitt goes." 
 
 In this pleasant intercourse they strolled away for 
 their farewell walk over the Pincian Hill, passed 
 the Eed Egyptian obelisk, ** oldest of things even 
 in Rome," and stood at the best distant view of St. 
 Peter's, and the tall column of Antoninus, bearing 
 up the grand statue of St. Paul. 
 
 There the last word was said, as to Miriam, and 
 what a terrible thraldom did it suggest. 
 
 The ruin of her early life by a priest, and there- 
 after free as she seemed to be in Rome, and beggar 
 as he looked in following her under the pretence of 
 being a model, '' that nameless vagrant was still a 
 power in the church, and was dragging the beauti- 
 ful Miriam through the streets, fettered and 
 shackled more cruelly than any captive queen." 
 
 That iron chain, with its unyielding links around 
 her feminine waist, and held in that ruthless hand, 
 had tortured her to crime, for which there was no 
 earthly tribunal in Rome capable of justice. 
 
 Only God's infinite wisdom and mercy can deal 
 properly with such crimes. 
 
 **Ah," said Hilda, "now I understand how the 
 sins of generations past have created here an at- 
 mosphere of sin, which affects all who follow. 
 
 "Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky." 
 
THE MAEBLE FAUN. . 169 
 
 '* And what of Donatello ? " said Kenyon. 
 
 ** Oh, he is a Faun, you know, and no more re- 
 sponsible for himself than a goat." 
 
 "Oh, Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and 
 trust you hide under that little straw hat I " he ex- 
 claimed at length. 
 
 **A Faun! A Faun! Great Pan is not dead 
 then after all ! 
 
 ** The whole tribe of mystical creatures yet live 
 in the moonlight seclusions of a young girl's fancy, 
 and find it a lovelier abode, doubtless, than their 
 Arcadian haunts of yore ! 
 
 *' What bliss, if a man of marble like myself 
 could stray thither, too ! " 
 
 But it was only a moonlight fancy. 
 
 Hilda suddenly disappeared from Home, as the 
 story narrates, but she was never rescued from a 
 convent to marry Kenyon, and the only Sacred 
 Heart she ever knew in those summers, was her own, 
 which she was safely keeping for a young college 
 professor in the West. 
 
 Mr. Ho wells has written in his youthful pilgrim- 
 age to New England in 1860 thai Emerson then 
 called this greatest story of our gifted Hawthorne 
 *'mere mush," but we should remember that it was 
 in the same interview in which he spoke of Edgar 
 A. Foe, as *'the jingle man," and that the wind 
 was probably easterly that morning, whereby the 
 bells did not sound well in that region. 
 
 Genius builds its airy castles out of air, by throw- 
 
170 BORDEB LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ing in a few clouds and sunshine in proper pro- 
 portions, and mixing them up **in the light that 
 never was on sea or land." 
 
 Out of a young sculptor and his model, and a 
 young teacher of languages, the companion of his 
 invalid wife and daughter, Mr. Hawthorne only 
 needed the effete Count Donatello to exalt them 
 each on a tower into the upper air, and fling 
 around them the fleecy clouds of romance to pro- 
 duce this immortal story, a classic in our language, 
 which shall endure as long as the language exists. 
 
Hilda's eeturn. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HILDA'S RETURN. 
 
 But she was now to return from the Palace and 
 Court to the little cottage in the West. 
 
 The great steamer Yanderbilt was to arrive in 
 New York on Saturday, in June of 1859, and to be 
 there to welcome her ; the young Professor had ac- 
 cepted an invitation to preach there on the follow- 
 ing Sunday, for Dr. Bellows. Catherine had never 
 heard him preach, and he thought it would be a 
 pleasant surprise and a great day for himself. 
 
 No shadow crept into his sky until Saturday af- 
 ternoon began to wear away, bringing no word of 
 the overdue steamer. At the headquarters of the 
 company on Broadway telegrams came up from 
 Sandy Hook, ** No sign of the Vanderbilt." 
 
 The evening wore away, and near midnight he 
 went to his hotel, after being assured that the 
 steamer could not now come up the bay before 
 noon of the next day. He went to bed somewhat 
 disheartened that Catherine could not be there to 
 hear his sermon, and with pleasant thoughts of her 
 was soon asleep. 
 
 What was it that was now awake within him 
 while he slept. What was it that, with no con- 
 
172 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 scions dream or vision, yet felt her approach from 
 out of the depth of the sea and knew that she was 
 nearer than he believed ? What was it that im- 
 [)elled him, with no dream, no restlessness, no 
 question, to spring out of bed at four o'clock, ex- 
 claiming, '' She's in ! She's in !" 
 
 There was no hint or suggestion given him from 
 any source on which to base such a conclusion, and 
 it seemed foolish to dress with all speed — not for a 
 moment doubting the impression and to rush away 
 for the dock, exclaiming '' She's in ! She's in ! " 
 
 As he reached the Astor House, his nearest point 
 of information, he rushed into the office, exclaim- 
 ing, ''Any news from the Yanderbilt?" 
 
 *' She's just coming into the dock, sir," politely 
 answered the night clerk. 
 
 His rapid walk was not arrested until he reached 
 the end of the long wharf, just in time to meet the 
 plank, and be the first man on board. 
 
 In a moment he stood at the cabin door, where 
 Catherine sat before him, talking with a lady 
 friend. She was not expecting him so early, and 
 he waited till she lifted her eyes, when their meet- 
 ing was impulsive but quiet and tranquil as though 
 they had parted but a day before. 
 
 But why was it that the Sunday service and the 
 sermon seemed to him now of small moment, not 
 even worth mentioning to Catherine, by no means 
 worth her attending ? 
 
 A carriage hurried them away to their early 
 
173 
 
 breakfast, and she to her forenoon's rest, as she 
 was tired of the ship and its all-night watchfulness, 
 while he was gone, she knew not where. But in 
 the night train for Boston were two souls that 
 seemed to have but one thought and no need of 
 sleep. 
 
 " Whither ? Together 
 Then, no matter whither." 
 
 Their quiet conversation was too low to disturb 
 the peace of others, and there was no kindly mat- 
 ron of the Ladies' College to interrupt them again, 
 and it seemed to them to be but one brief hour of 
 bliss, ere they were in Boston, and the sea-battered 
 trunks were piled on the piazza of the old Eliot 
 house on the heights of Dorchester. 
 
 They were there soon married, and the college 
 welcomed them anew, as they entered on their 
 united life. 
 
 They seemed to have reached the end of a long 
 and stormy voyage, and to be sailing into a haven 
 of perfect peace. Friends were about them. Hap- 
 piest occupation with its varied activities made the 
 days speed by like twinkling rays. Honored, 
 praised, envied, the conflicts of youth and child- 
 hood triumphantly passed, they seemed to have all 
 that heart could ask. Their pretty cottage at Beth- 
 lehem was bowered in honeysuckles and roses, plain 
 and white and unshaded without and within, a place 
 where purity dwelt and diligent activity quietly 
 labored. 
 
174 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 That scliolarly toil commonly involves too small 
 an element of self-sacrifice to be in itself a sanctified 
 thing. To become such and to be made itself a 
 source of spiritual life, it must go hand-in-hand 
 vrith self-denial, as when scholars in poverty thrust 
 aside the solicitation to divert their powers to a 
 worldly service, seeking affluence or wealth. 
 
 She was all that he had dreamed, full of truth 
 and tenderness, gentle, loving, unselfish, and brim- 
 ming over with kindliest impulse and wisest ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 How imperfectly they as yet understood that 
 when two love each other so unselfishly, when they 
 truly live for each other they have so become one, 
 that they are in truth but living for themselves, 
 and that their reflected affection presently so re- 
 sembles self-love as to become a source of real peril 
 unless it merge itself in something higher. 
 
 Parentage is the marvelous experience which 
 transforms the love of husband and wife into some- 
 thing higher and nobler. 
 
 .Life cannot be sustained simply by pleasure. 
 Brief is the season of bloom, of bird songs and be- 
 ginnings, but far deeper and more abiding joys 
 come with the autumn fruits, when leaves are 
 withered and the corn is bruised under the flail. 
 
 The joy of motherhood is one of the real things 
 that makes many false things flee. It was a reve- 
 lation now to Catherine when, within two years of 
 her wedding day, she one day found herself weep- 
 
175 
 
 ing as she sat in their pleasant cottage alone before 
 a charming wood fire. She was so astonished at her 
 tears because she could not tell why they fell. 
 
 *' What Hast Thou Bone?" was her husband's 
 text for that day. His preaching had deeply im- 
 pressed Catherine already. 
 
 She herself spoke with a quiet fervor which her 
 modesty always underestimated. In her lectures, 
 in an occasional address now and then to the girls 
 of the school, or before the Ladies' Society, her 
 quiet and sincere speech, her earnest purpose, her 
 deep womanliness made a far more profound im- 
 pression than she was aware of, on women and on 
 men alike. 
 
 But this sermon had touched her heart. She 
 looked forward to it with keen interest and con- 
 cealed the pain she felt because he usually mulled 
 the sermons in secret ; thought them out while the 
 chips were flying from his axe in the woods, and 
 unconsciously kept it all to himself. 
 
 He began quietly to sketch the scene as Christ 
 stood before Pilate. *' What hast thou done 'M • 
 
 The Roman Empire, triumphant over the known 
 world, asked the question of a humble teacher from 
 Galilee. What had he done ? Nothing, as yet. 
 What had not that Roman Empire done— at least 
 in the opinion of Pilate ? What had it done— in 
 facti 
 
 In a few minutes the scene was shifted to the 
 Middle Ages. What now had either done? 
 
176 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Where was Rome? What had she done? What 
 was God in Christ now doing? Had Pilate's arro- 
 gant pride overlooked the little shadow no larger 
 than a man's hand, which in his day showed itself 
 in Rome's northern horizon? 
 
 Having pictured the high call of Christ to each 
 individual heart, he turned the eyes of each hearer 
 with searching self-scrutiny upon his own life. 
 What hast thou done? Christ Jesus demands 
 now thine own heart, and will urge this question 
 hereafter, again and again, — What hast thou done? 
 
 The earnestness of the preacher, his searching 
 voice, his glowing eyes, were making an almost 
 painful tension in the audience, when he diverted 
 the strain, and described the service rendered by 
 some simple, pure-minded girl, all whose life had 
 been a ceaseless benediction to all who beheld her. 
 None were called upon, he said, to do more than 
 they could do. The devoutly obedient found it 
 true that the yoke was easy and the burden light, 
 and he concluded by picturing the pathos of the 
 scene when the Master looked lovingly on the self- 
 sacrificing woman, and said with the divine accep- 
 tance of a perfect satisfaction, *'She hath done 
 what she could I" 
 
 She suddenly felt as though he was saying it 
 of her, and in truth he was. She seemed to him to 
 be an ideal woman, and he well knew the change 
 for her was very great from the Palaces of Rome 
 to the Rose Cottage in the woods. 
 

 TTNIVEBSITY 
 HILDA'S RETURN. T*^£^ 
 
 Catherine now enjoyed nothing else so much as 
 being out in the woods with her husband. She 
 was not aware that she was getting tired of books 
 and of teaching, but she did find a keen delight in 
 getting away from the sight of the College and 
 watching something of his woodcraft. She had 
 learned to shoot with the rifle, and she could tell a tu- 
 lip tree from a maple by glancing at the bark. 
 
 It was in the early Autumn as they thus walked 
 on the edge of the forest, she called his attention 
 to some animaPs burrow, asking, ** What is that ? " 
 
 *'Ah! " he replied, *'Mr. Woodchuckis at home. 
 See all those happy flies coming out of the hole ? 
 They have just been nestling about the nose of Mr. 
 Woodchuck, until, hearing our footsteps, he with- 
 drew into winter quarters." 
 
 "But mercy ! What is this ? " she said, when they 
 had gone a few steps further. Five dead mice lay 
 in a curious pile, and soon she saw three more, 
 then seven more. Some little mouser had been 
 bringing these spoils from the prairie. 
 
 Glancing about, he saw that a hollow tree had 
 been felled probably as a bee tree, and left sloping 
 from its high stump down to the ground. Step- 
 ping quickly to it, he beckoned to Catherine. Five 
 little foxes, impatiently expecting the mother's 
 return, had crept somewhat too near the open door 
 of their sloping house, and there they lay, five 
 beautiful little creatures, just old enough to be 
 weaned. It was to provide for this maternal duty 
 
178 BORDER LANDS OP FAITH. 
 
 that Mrs. Fox had been fetching in from the prairie 
 mouthful after mouthful of field mice, the deposit 
 of which Catherine had found. The brighest of 
 the little ones was soon in her hands, and when she 
 had soothed its fears, she rolled it up in the corner 
 of her cloak and tucked it under her arm when as 
 she stroked it, it began to purr like a contented 
 little kitten. Catherine quickly pressed it to her 
 heart, as there burst out close to them the clear, quick 
 bark of Mrs. Fox. Both were startled, and gazed 
 intently in the direction of the sound, until sud- 
 denly, sharp and clear, again it broke out right be- 
 hind them. They turned quickly but could see 
 nothing, till at last detecting the trick, lie glanced 
 back to the former direction and soon saw the 
 mother fox, and called Catherine's attention to her 
 tactics. 
 
 She would run close to the ground, almost in- 
 visible in the light grass, until finding a log or a 
 stump which might just meet her need, she would 
 hide behind it, laying her thin head flat on top and 
 keenly scrutinize the enemy that held her camp. 
 After a moment's observation, she would give a 
 sharp yelp and instantly disappear. Running now 
 partly round the circle, she would dart up another 
 stump or stone in the same way, seeing, but herself 
 unseen, her bark breaking out always from some 
 unexpected quarter. 
 
 In a few moments a hoarser yelp, farther away, 
 revealed Mr. Fox, more visible, but keeping his 
 
HILDA'S EETUEN. 179 
 
 prudent hide at a safer distance. He presently dis- 
 appeared, while the mother's anxiety brought her 
 nearer and nearer, and kept up her ceaseless circuit 
 until Catherine's compassion broke out, as she said, 
 ''Poor thin^, how unhappy we are making her ! " 
 
 " Don't you think we might have one or two of 
 the kittens? " he asked. "Do you suppose mother 
 fox can count five T' 
 
 "I know she can," said Catherine. ''She's a 
 true mother, and we must go right away and end 
 her distress. We must not touch them ! " 
 
 Her little purring pet was quickly restored to its 
 place in the litter— the mother's bark had, indeed, 
 stopped its purring, and the two college professors 
 went home happier and wiser. As they walked 
 thus in the twilight, Catherine proposed that they 
 should give notice of their intended resignation at 
 the end of the college year, and that he should seek 
 a pulpit in New England. 
 
 "A pulpit," he said, "why, I am not a member 
 of any church I " 
 
 He was much in doubt as to his ever being fit or 
 ready for such a work. Catherine, he felt, was 
 made for a minister's wife. The duties would ex- 
 actly suit her. But as for himself, he had never 
 joined any church, nor assented to any creed, nor 
 avowed any theory, while his loyalty to Christ as 
 the one conspicuous centre of the world's religious 
 activities, was the only tie that seemed to hold fast 
 in an age of increasing scepticism. 
 
180 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 They discussed the question of the resignation 
 and the pastorate, Catherine feeling more ready for 
 it than her husband was, till the debate seemed to 
 be abruptly ended, before Christmas, by his receiv- 
 ing a formal invitation from a wealthy church, in 
 one of the best of New England's cities, to become 
 its pastor. She again had prepared him a great 
 surprise. 
 
 He had preached there a few times during the 
 summer vacation, feeling himself very unworthy to 
 stand in so honored a place, but Catherine felt that 
 no man was ever more worthy, and her heart leapt 
 up on his receiving the call. She knew the usual 
 rule to consider such things providential, and for 
 herself she accepted it at once, and she could not 
 but wonder that he should hesitate about it. 
 
 It made him silent and even sad. The scruples 
 that restrained him Catherine could not share. 
 She did not know that Emerson had retired from 
 the pulpit from similar scruples. That he should 
 have any doubts of anything filled her with aston- 
 ishment. It was wholly vain to discuss with her, 
 questions of Christology. In her experience there 
 was yet nothing that could interpret them, and she 
 knew better than he did that such a church in New 
 England then demanded of its Ministers no Christ- 
 ology at all. 
 
 ** Why of course you must accept it," she said, 
 
 "No, dear,'' he said. *'I cannot. Don't you 
 see, Catherine, I have no theory of Christianity ? " 
 
Hilda's return. 181 
 
 She laughed lightly, as she answered, ** But why 
 do you need a theory ? You have the thing itself, 
 the fact, the habit of doing justly, of loving mercy, 
 and walking humbly before Gfod." 
 
 **But Plato had all that, and Confucius, and 
 they were not Christians. No, no, dear ! He that 
 doeth righteousness is accepted of God, no doubt. 
 But in Christianity there is a power, an influence, 
 I know not what, which Paganism never had. It 
 wakes enthusiasm, it supports hope of future life, 
 it glorifies suffering, it transforms death, it tram- 
 ples sin under its feet. What is that 1 Whence 
 comes it ?" 
 
 ** It comes, I have been told, from fanaticism. 
 Have not the Buddhists all that ? " 
 
 ** Have they ? They have part of it. They have 
 the fanaticism. They have the power to defy 
 death. But it is in truth despair, not hope, that 
 seems to defy what its misery really seeks. There 
 is no constructive power in Asia. There is no 
 future for its civilization unless Christ first touch 
 their eyes that they may see that our civilization 
 does rest on Christ. 
 
 " Good as the best pagans are, there is something 
 lacking of that pure and peaceful faith, and life 
 shown to us in a Fenelon or a Channing, which 
 comes from Christ, and comes from him alone. A 
 personal relation with the Saviour, with all the 
 hopes that that alone can bring, gives that treasure 
 which makes the humblest Christian rich, and 
 
182 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 the lack of which, leaves even a divine Plato poor." 
 
 ^* What is Christ? " said Catherine almost impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "Ah, that is just the question," said he. ** You 
 come to the heart of the matter now. We cannot 
 answer that question." 
 
 " Well, I don't see why you should try. It seems 
 to me people have talked about it a great deal too 
 much already." 
 
 ** Catherine," he said presently, ** is there any 
 worship in that Unitarianism ? " 
 
 ** Why, what do you mean, dear ? " she said. 
 
 '* It would be delightful, wouldn't it, if we could 
 go to this pleasant church ? One sermon on Sun- 
 day, no prayer-meetings, a charming, refined 
 people, a pleasant home, with Boston and Heaven 
 60 near." 
 
 **I think it would be pleasant," she innocently 
 answered. 
 
 '* Catherine," he said, ** there is no real service 
 or self-sacrifice in it. It is enjoyment. It is a 
 Bweet, and pure, and high self-indulgence. The 
 Cross looks, of course, toward an unutterable joy 
 and glory, but Grethsemane and Calvary come 
 first." 
 
 "What has that to do with Boston pulpits ? " 
 
 "The Cross? Not much, but all city churches, 
 the world over, seem to be trying to hire somebody 
 to do the worship, to take the service and render 
 the sacrifice for them. They have only to pay the 
 
183 
 
 pew rent and they are saved ! In some of them, 
 even the form of joining the church is only to go to 
 the sexton and hire a pew, like buying a lot in a 
 graveyard, and that entitles them to vote in all its 
 business affairs and management." 
 
 ** You're not really going to refuse the call ! " 
 
 '*Iam. I must." 
 
 ** Then what higher duty can you find to do ? " 
 
 ** I am going to the war ! " 
 
 Catherine's lips parted, and she looked up, at 
 first with a startled incredulity, but she saw that 
 he meant what he said and her heart sank within 
 her. 
 
 She reflected long in silence and sadness, before 
 she answered, '* Well, if you go to the war, I shall 
 go with you." 
 
 And he knew that she meant what she said. She 
 always did. 
 
184 BORDEK LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SWORD OF BUNKER HILL. 
 
 I hear the footsteps of approaching days, 
 I see their glory and would sing their praise ; 
 But chains are clanking on Columbia's coast ; 
 The Muses mourn their ancient grandeur lost ; 
 And bow in tears before the " privileged wrong,* 
 Till nobler freedom called for nobler song. 
 Then some high Muse to future days shall tell 
 How Freemen armed for war when Sumner fell. 
 
 The cyclone came at last. That noble appeal of 
 Daniel Webster to both sides, for peace and further 
 forbearance tiad borne no fruit but his own utter 
 discomfiture and downfall, and his only son Flet- 
 cher had died in the field, as Colonel of a Massa- 
 chusetts Regiment, in almost the first battle, in at- 
 tempting to redeem that noble name. 
 
 His successor had been assailed in the Senate 
 Chamber with a club, and the bully who carried it 
 allowed to walk away alive to tell the tale. 
 
 The great sun-kissed flag of freedom, the emblem 
 of liberty and American independence, had been 
 fired upon by South Carolina, and more than a 
 million of men were now arming for its defense. 
 
THE SWORD OF BUNKER HILL. 185 
 
 The great heart of the North, slow to anger, yet 
 intelligent and patriotic, was roused at last, and 
 Abraham Lincoln's second call for volunteers, to 
 put down the great slaveholders' rebellion, was 
 answered by the ringing shout from Maine to Cali- 
 fornia : 
 
 " We are coming, Father Abraham, 
 Five hundred thousand strong." 
 
 Every college in the land, North and South alike, 
 sent its full quota of men, in the flower of youth, 
 into that terrible war. Scores of western colleges, 
 like Antioch, Oberlin and Hiram had not a student 
 left, above the preparatory school, after 1861, for 
 four years. 
 
 Garfleld of Hiram was promptly met by Horace 
 Mann of Antioch, in forming a Regiment ; but, 
 alas, among the first misfortunes of those exciting 
 times was the loss of the great Educator himself. 
 
 Cyrus Christie, returning from Childwold, was 
 made captain of a select company of sharpshooters, 
 which he named the Adirondack Rangers, and the 
 Professor of Logic formed a similar company, with 
 his two younger brothers, Nick and Jo, as Lieu- 
 tenants, who were then mere boys, not half way 
 through college, and they took their honors in high 
 degree, in four years of active service in war. 
 
 But the great Educator was a man of peace, who 
 had never contemplated the actual drawing of a 
 sword, nor the firing of a gun, and the excitement 
 
186 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 of this new life, and the apparent frustration and 
 loss of all his fondest hopes, had overpowered his 
 sensitive nature, and a slight cold rapidly developed 
 pneumonia, and in a week he was borne to his 
 grave, under the grand mausoleum which since 
 marks his resting-place on that noble college lawn. 
 
 His Regiment was consolidated into two com- 
 panies of the Eighth Ohio Cavalry, which have 
 told their own story in the field. 
 
 But beware of tender ties, if you aspire to deeds 
 of noble heroism, for you will be either more or 
 less than man, if they do not compel you to pru- 
 dence. 
 
 Just as that Regiment was leaving for the front, 
 came a telegram from the President of the Sanitary 
 Commission in New York, to Catherine, saying : 
 '*Yonrself and husband are needed at once for 
 important posts, together, in this Commission,' ' 
 and the same day a letter from the Professor's 
 venerable mother, on the Honeoye, saying: *'You 
 and Catherine are appointed to important places 
 in New York, and must spend a week with me 
 here, on your way, as you may never see me 
 again." 
 
 It was evidently Catherine' s hand again, and the 
 Professor realized anew that his head was not en- 
 tirely his own, and that Minerva was the Gfoddess 
 of both Wisdom and War. 
 
 They had been married three years when she said 
 she would go with him to the war, and she evi- 
 
THE SWORD OF BUNKER HILL. 187 
 
 dently had no intention now of being left behind 
 alone. 
 
 That Ohio Cavalry went out short of one Captain, 
 thus providing an early promotion for one of its 
 lieutenants, and away sped Minerva and her hus- 
 band for the sylvan shades of the Honeoye, which 
 she had never yet visited. 
 
 The old country stage coach at Rochester soon 
 rolled them away fifteen miles southerly, to the old 
 home in Mendon, where they met a royal welcome. 
 
 Catherine's good name and fame had long been 
 known there, but as Eliza's dark eyes now looked 
 upon her for the first time, their hearts were melted 
 with mutual satisfaction and happiness, and their 
 tears flowed freely together. 
 
 Katie was also there, her husband having already 
 gone to the front as Major of the Second Rochester 
 Regiment, and Minerva had already a large ma- 
 jority on her side. 
 
 The Professor left them together, while he took 
 a stroll to look again upon his loved Honeoye, and 
 to greet a few old friends in the village ; and when 
 he returned, after dark, he thought as he stepped 
 on the porch, the house seemed strangely still, 
 when the tongues of three so vigorous women were 
 there together for the first time. 
 
 He soon understood the silence. The sound of 
 his footstep had caused it, as a moment's suspense 
 followed his merry greeting, and then his mother 
 solemnly said at once : 
 
188 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 "My dear boy, I have now four sons in tlie 
 army, including Katie's husband, and you know- 
 none of them are cowards, and you are all I have 
 left to depend upon in my old age, if they should 
 be cut off. We know not how long this war may 
 last, and it seems certain to be a most terrible one, 
 where many thousand precious lives must be sacri- 
 ficed. Do you not think we are doing our share ? " 
 
 *'We cannot do too much in such a cause, 
 mother," he replied, *'and you certainly do not 
 expect me to appear to be the only coward in the 
 family, when my grandfather and your own were 
 honored soldiers of the Kevolution, which gained 
 our liberties and independence?" 
 
 "No, no, my son, it is not that ; no one will ever 
 dare to think you a coward, but you are the only 
 one of my sons who is married, and we women 
 must have some rights in such cases. Catherine 
 has confided in me, and it seems plain to us all 
 that you should not be separated at this time, lest 
 your own son may be deprived of a father's care." 
 
 He was silenced, and glancing at Catherine, saw 
 that her face flushed and her eyes fell as they never 
 did before on meeting his. He was completely out- 
 generaled, and both flanked and surrounded ; his 
 first campaign was a failure, and he was already 
 wounded and taken prisoner. 
 
 But he remembered the definition of strategy, 
 which Old Put had just sent home, as received 
 from one of his Irish soldiers at Harper's Ferry. 
 
THE SWORD OF BUNKER HILL. 189 
 
 " Och," he said, '' it's grand strategy just to kape 
 on firin' so as not to let the inimy know ye' re all 
 out of amunishun." 
 
 So he rallied and finally said, ** Well, mother, 
 if Old Put falls, I shall certainly go at once and 
 take his place." 
 
 They were silent, but seeing that it gave time, 
 said *' Well, let us hope that time will never come, 
 but it may do to consider it when it does." 
 
 Old Put had been admitted to the bar in New 
 York City, and his first great case was that of the 
 South against the North, which he was then argu- 
 ing in Virginia as Captain in an Irish Regiment re- 
 tained for the defence. 
 
 His graduating part at Cambridge had contained 
 the lines which head this chapter, and soon after, 
 while in the Law School there, he, with a group of 
 students, had assisted in the great Boston Riot, 
 which unchained the Court House and rescued 
 from Ben Butler, then United States District At- 
 torney, and his sheriff's posse of Marshalls, the 
 fugitive slave, Robert Burns, and hid him in the 
 cellar of Theodore Parker until the underground 
 railroad carried him safely away to freedom in 
 Canada, 'while the Marshals were searching in vain 
 the house of William Lloyd Garrison, to find him. 
 
 The bright name of that poor black slave from 
 Maryland, doubtless given him by some gentleman 
 there, had proved his salvation, as it kindled the 
 
190 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 enthusiasm of those students, and they made the 
 whole country ring with it. 
 
 Old Put had written for the Boston Press his 
 sentiments of that affair, and they all believed his 
 sword would prove true to his words, as follows : 
 
 THE BURNS RESCUE. 
 
 There's a sign in the times, there's a wild thrilling cry, 
 That swells from the earth, and is echoed on high, 
 From the souls of our sires who for liberty bled. 
 When Freedom inspired and Washington led. 
 
 Shall Liberty die on the hills of Tremont, 
 Where Warren's warm blood was its baptismal font ? 
 Shall the cradle of Freedom be also her grave. 
 And the shadow of Bunker Hill rest on a slave ? 
 
 There*s a conflict of laws, and slave-minions combine, 
 With the statutes of sin to oppose the Divine, 
 And the thunders of Sinai again should be hurled. 
 Giving death to oppression, and law to the world. 
 
 There's a time when allegiance ceases to bind. 
 And a higher than human law guides the free mind, 
 'Tis when might murders right and the government's nod 
 Demands of our hearts what is treason to God. 
 
 Then rebellion is duty ; we welcome its dawn, 
 Though our blood wash in hope-drowning rivers the sod 
 We will welcome the gleaming of every sword drawn. 
 That can strike for the right, for truth,freedom and God. 
 
THE SWOED OF BUNKER HILL. 191 
 
 Then be true to the dream in which young hope began 
 
 And have faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth ; 
 Trust in God, but not blindly, to perfect your plan. 
 While you trust like a child, you must strike like a man, 
 And live up to the destiny-dream of thy youth. 
 
 **Now,'' said Catherine eagerly, **we will join 
 the Sanitary Commission at once, after a week's 
 rest in this delightful place." 
 
 Katie had some picnic tents in which they began 
 a tent life immediately, to get used to it, by camp- 
 ing out on the wooded shore of the beautiful Hem- 
 lock Lake in Livonia, whose clear waters have been 
 since utilized for the great water works of Roch- 
 ester. 
 
 It was then a scene of perfect woodland repose, 
 with not a house in sight, except a fisherman's cot- 
 tage a mile away, across the Lake, from which an 
 old Scotchman and his two little girls rowed over 
 every morning to bring them fresh milk and other 
 supplies for the rustic table. 
 
 With Eliza and Katie in a second large tent, and 
 no other companion but a good collie dog, Dona- 
 tello, they seemed to have realized again the earth] y 
 Paradise. 
 
 That good dog was a novel wedding present to 
 Catherine, which had been left at Honeoye for safe 
 keeping, and he now remembered his old master 
 with redoubled affection. 
 
 He was a constant pleasure and source of rest and 
 
192 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 security to the little family, and he contributed his 
 full share to the happiness and fun. Bat he made 
 a sensation on the following Sunday when the pro- 
 fessor went to preach in his father's old pulpit in 
 Mendon. Catherine supposed that Don had re- 
 mained at the camp, but Don had his own ideas, and 
 in the midst of the first prayer, in he walked, sniffing 
 at the rail, as if coming to take part in the service. 
 
 Straight to the platform he went, smelt the steps 
 at the right, knew that his master had not gone up 
 by them, and crossed over to the other flight, then 
 up the five steps he came, and halting at the top, 
 lifted his paw and pointed at his master, as though 
 he had been a partridge up a tree, and wagging his 
 tail looked smilingly at the congregation, as if he 
 were saying, ** there he is, why don't you shoot." 
 
 Don was rewarded for that, and he added to the 
 fan of the camp the next day when Catherine at- 
 tempted to paddle across the lake with the little 
 girls, leaving Don to guard the tent. 
 
 He again followed the trail, and halfway across 
 the lake they were alarmed at an ominous whin- 
 ning behind them, and turned to behold the bulky 
 watchman, half Newfoundland and half setter, now 
 tired out and half drowned, in his desperate at- 
 tempt by a long swim to overtake them. 
 
 He rarely got left, but he now squealed piteously, 
 as the little girls vigorously tugged one at each end 
 to pull him into the boat, almost upsetting it as 
 they did so. 
 
THE SWORD OF BUNKER HILL. 193 
 
 He rewarded them at once by shaking his huge 
 pelt till he drenched all three of them from head 
 to foot, and made an unsightly piece of work ol 
 Catherine's muslin dress, which she had put on to 
 visit the jBsherman's cottage. 
 
 At supper, however, Don seemed penitent and 
 was so loyal, so grateful and sympathetic, so affec- 
 tionate and conscientious, so unselfish and humble, 
 and yet so vigilant and brave, he seemed to lack 
 nothing but language to make him really human 
 and a Christian too. 
 
 As he lay at his master's feet, his lustrous 
 orange-tawney fleece now dried again, his large 
 eyes looked up so appealingly, following every turn 
 of his master's head, that it seemed as though he 
 did really understand every word that was said, 
 and did continually long for language that he might 
 take part in the conversation. 
 
 *'How he listens to you," said Catherine. **I 
 believe he understands all you say." 
 
 '* Don !" said the Professor, sharply, ** Catherine 
 would now be grateful if you would relieve us of 
 your company." 
 
 Don was inclined to whimper, but perceiving no 
 relenting in his master's face or tone, he at once left 
 the tent. 
 
 A low whistle recalled him, and he came in very 
 happy. 
 
 **Don ! " said the Professor, in the same sharp 
 tone, *^ Catherine is very grateful to you for your 
 
194 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 gracious attentions to-day, in escorting her across 
 the lake!" 
 
 Don began to look ashamed. His tail dropped a 
 little, as if he knew his master to be saying some- 
 thing he did not quite understand. He looked 
 puzzled, but kept his beautiful eyes fixed on his 
 master's face, and he promptly left the tent again, 
 when he heard : 
 
 " Senor Don ! Outside, on guard ! " 
 
 Catherine looked on with amazement as the 
 obedient creature again went out making no effort 
 to return. 
 
 *' He does understand you ! " she said. 
 
 ^'Certainly, but you see he interprets only the 
 tone and the temper of it, and learns when he had 
 better bestow his hide in a safer place." 
 
 ''Is that all?" 
 
 '' All ? Isn't that everything % What more do 
 we know % The grace of God on which we live is 
 just that. 
 
 "We know nothing of God, but his good 
 will, his love, his grace. That reveals itself in 
 every voice of nature. We interpret the temper 
 and tone, and then take the wisdom and love for 
 granted. Is not that to be childlike \ Every 
 child walks first by faith. Our trust is the funda- 
 mental thing. That is the one common endow- 
 ment." 
 
 " Then Don is human, for he has that as well as 
 we?" 
 
THE SWORD OF BUNKEB HILL. 195 
 
 ** Not quite, dear, the fear of the Lord is only the 
 beginning of wisdom." 
 
 " Don's relation to me has but two ties, his affec- 
 tion and his fear. He would love you and obey 
 you just as well if you would whip him occasionally. 
 
 It seems as though he only needed conscious- 
 ness to make him human. His trust in nature is 
 perfect. He trusts the water, the ground, the sight 
 of his eyes, the sensations of his nose. How differ- 
 ent is that trust when it comes to long for con- 
 sciousness, to struggle for knowledge of how to be- 
 come conscious, as it does when he looks to a 
 master, and his life verges on duty, dependence, 
 loyalty, worship. 
 
 Obedience is the bridge on which trust passes over 
 into faith. Disobedience or distrust is the source of 
 all fear." 
 
 *'Then how can the fear of the Lord be the be- 
 ginning of wisdom ? I always did hate that text." 
 
 *' And rightly, if you supposed fear there meant 
 simply dread or terror ; but how if it meant rever- 
 ence and looked toward obedience and loving de- 
 pendence ? " 
 
 " I see that would be different, but I do hate the 
 thought of discipline through fear." 
 
 "But can there be any other ? It is the sin that 
 brings the fear ; perfect love and obedience casteth 
 out fear." 
 
 " The animals know no fear in the true sense. 
 They are timid, but they have no imagination, no 
 
196 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 fancy, no ideal, no moral sense, little memory, few 
 sympathies, no anticipations, no baffled hopes, no 
 disappointments, no regrets— none of the sources 
 of our dread and terror, our reproach and self- 
 torment." 
 
 " And you don't think they suffer as we do ? " 
 ** Certainly not ; human beings must suffer be- 
 cause they are human, and have also higher joys. 
 Their higher powers involve exquisite susceptibili- 
 ties, with a thousand ties that involve suffering." 
 ''But why should we suffer. What is it all for?" 
 '' Ah, that is the great Problem of Evil. Why 
 sin is permitted ? That would be to tell why God 
 made man at all, and that surely we do not know. 
 We pay a terrible price for knowledge and intelli- 
 gence, and pain is the small price we pay for 
 innumerable pleasures." 
 
 ''Yet pain, of itself, is nothing ! But suffering 
 is really the key to heaven, it speaks of such in- 
 finite capacities and relations in the soul, and 
 vicarious suffering is the crown of all, when love 
 suffers for guilt. That reveals a community of life 
 that God must share, and by it we partake of the 
 Divine Nature. Suffering is our promise of heaven, 
 and God's pledge that sin shall some day cease, 
 and its best revelation and interpretation is in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 Catherine's gentle spirit was very quick in its 
 sympathy, but her Boston heart hated that phrase, 
 "vicarious suffering," though with the thing itself 
 she was very familiar. 
 
CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 '* Beside a stricken field I stood, 
 On the torn turf, on grass and wood, 
 Hung heavily the dew of blood. 
 
 Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain ; 
 But all the air was quick with pain, 
 And gusty sighs and tearful rain. 
 
 Two angels, each with drooping head, 
 And folded wings and noiseless tread, 
 Watched by that valley of the dead. 
 
 The one, with forehead saintly, bland, 
 And lips of blessing, not command. 
 Leaned weeping on her olive wand. 
 
 The other's brows were scarred and knit ; 
 His restless eyes were watch fires lit ; 
 His hands for battle-gauntlets fit. 
 
 Then freedom sternly said, I shun 
 No strife nor pang beneath the sun. 
 When human rights are staked and won." 
 
 Their week at the lake extended through the 
 month of August, 1862, and they felt they could 
 
198 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 have floated there forever, vratching the sunset and 
 waning twilight, like Adam and Eve in the Garden 
 of Eden. 
 
 But early one morning the Scotchman rowed 
 across the lake to bring a telegram from the Presi- 
 dent of the Sanitary Commission, saying again, 
 **Come at once." 
 
 That grand man, who crowned a general's execu- 
 tive power and wisdom with a Christian's faith, was 
 one of Nature's noblemen. He was God's grace 
 incarnate, and his demands now were numberless, 
 and his lieutenants were few. Men were wanted, 
 fit to command in the field, yet willing to serve the 
 wounded in the hospitals, on the borders of the 
 battle. 
 
 He cordially welcomed Catherine and her hus- 
 band to New York, and set them to studying the 
 grand organization his genius had shaped, when a 
 nation's greatest need called it into being. The 
 horrors of Fair Oaks, and the terrors of Malvern 
 Hill were then in the air, and the vast service the 
 commission had there rendered, in saving life to the 
 army, had swept away all opposition and doubts of 
 its usefulness, so that it now entered on its grander 
 career, as the great battles of Antietam and Sharps- 
 burg approached. 
 
 The temperaments that could stay away from the 
 battle, content to minister, within sound of its 
 guns, to the men it had smitten, were rare and few. 
 
 They were but imperfectly trained and prepared 
 
CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL. , 199 
 
 when, at the first sound of those great parks of ar- 
 tillery at Antietam they were rushed away, with a 
 freight train loaded with supplies of endless vari- 
 ety, to that field of terrible slaughter and unlimited 
 suffering. 
 
 They reached the borders of that great battle on 
 the 19th of September, just as McClellan's too 
 cautious pursuit found out that the agile foe had 
 again slipped from his grasp, leaving many miles of 
 territory literally covered with mangled, and suf- 
 fering and dying men. 
 
 It was a wholly new experience to them, and to 
 see only the terrible side of war, with none of the 
 glory, was most disheartening, during the long 
 nights and days, when they were surrounded by an 
 army of stricken men, friend and foe alike needing 
 aid, far beyond their limited means. 
 
 Barns, houses, churches, tents, freight cars, fence- 
 corners and fields were all full of suffering. 
 
 It astonished Catherine to see how merry many 
 of the poor fellows were, and so happy to have es- 
 caped with life, and how friendly the late foemen 
 were with one another, when they fell together, or 
 were brought together to the temporary hospitals. 
 
 They worked without rest for two days, trying 
 wisely to distribute their train of supplies, and to 
 extend its resources as far as possible, to relieve 
 the unlimited suffering. 
 
 Then Catherine broke down from overwork, in 
 the eagerness of her zeal and compassion, which 
 
200 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 hardly permitted her to eat or to sleep, till nature 
 fell, exhausted. 
 
 The conviction was soon forced upon them that, 
 however willing, she was out of place amid such 
 scenes. Her trained skill, and education as a 
 teacher, made her in no way superior as a nurse, to 
 the hundreds of uneducated women about her. 
 This field was so accessible by the railroads, East 
 and West, that the homes of Pennsylvania and 
 New York and Ohio, sent forth a host of such 
 compassionate ministers of grace, and the army 
 surgeons had fairly to struggle with them to save 
 the poor fellows in hospital from their too zealous 
 attentions. 
 
 Catherine could hardly believe this, till she heard 
 a too attentive visitor say to a burly artilleryman, 
 restless from fever: "My poor fellow, may I not 
 bathe your face?" and he answered, '* Well, mum, 
 if it would please you very much, you may ; but 
 it's been bathed about seventeen times this morn- 
 ing, already! " 
 
 The sight of Catherine passing through this host 
 of the suffering and the dying, seemed to do more 
 good than any medicine, and she had begun to feel 
 that no new horror or surprise could await her, 
 when her heart leapt up one day, to hear a feeble 
 voice calling her name. 
 
 ** Great Gfod ! there she is," exclaimed one of 
 her own boys from Bethlehem. There lay George 
 Schuyler, a New York boy, from the preparatory 
 
CHBIST IN THE HOSPITAL. 201 
 
 Bchool, his golden hair matted with blood, his blue 
 eyes sunken and sad, his face so white and wan ! 
 He had seen her again and again, and longed to 
 speak to her, but she had not come near enough. 
 When he was sleeping, again he called her name, 
 and a nurse came to send her to him. A shell had 
 shattered the bones of both legs, and he had, so far, 
 survived a double amputation. 
 
 He said he was sorry he had called her, as it 
 caused her so cruel a pain, and cost her so visible 
 and so bitter a struggle to keep the tears from 
 pouring down her face, as she sat beside him. 
 
 He tried to apologize for having pained her, for 
 having spoken to her, but her hand on his brow 
 seemed to quiet and encourage him, and she kissed 
 him lovingly, as the only reply she could make, as 
 he asked her if she would please write a letter for 
 him to his mother. 
 
 All the mothers of these gallant men were now 
 in the same terrible suspense, North or South, 
 knowing that their boys were there, and knowing 
 nothing more. The cruel shells, bursting for three 
 days over the battle field, caused directly but little 
 pain, compared with that which followed, as the 
 slow messengers of the post made their way to ten 
 thousand homes, turning the misery of suspense 
 into the certainty of a keener anguish. At first, 
 the North suffered most, as the telegraph every- 
 where reported the battle, and filled all homes 
 
202 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH, 
 
 with terror; while in the South, the mothers of 
 brave men, there smitten, did not even know for 
 weeks that a battle had been fought, and were 
 doomed sadly to wait, year after year, for tidings 
 that never came. 
 
 Catherine sat down to write, and it was a revela- 
 tion to her of the tenderness and considerateness 
 of a boy' s heart, as George Schuyler dictated, and 
 finally signed, a cheerful letter to his mother, tell- 
 ing of his joy in having one of the Antioch teach- 
 ers beside him, and of his comfort as he lay there, 
 as well cared for as he could be, under the circum- 
 stances—while he assured her that he had been 
 told that boys who lost both legs, as he had, would 
 be grandly provided for by a grateful nation ; so 
 that he could do something yet for her support ! 
 
 Catherine was only too glad to despatch the note 
 at once, while there was hope, adding a word of 
 encouragement, and her sleep was sweet, that 
 night, in thinking over what more she could do for 
 George and his mother. 
 
 Her face was radiant next morning, as she hast- 
 ened to his cot ; but she started on seeing that the 
 blanket covered his face. He was dead ! 
 
 Even his effort to comfort her, and to send a word 
 of cheer to his mother, had drawn too severely on 
 the small stock of vitality. His life ebbed away 
 after midnight, and ere morning he was gone. 
 
 Catherine went back sadly to her little desk 
 in the freight car, where she lived. Could 
 
CHEIST IN THE HOSPITAL. 203 
 
 she write to his mother now? What could she 
 say? Could she quote to her the grand Latin 
 sentiment that it is a happy fate to die for one's 
 country ? Those who die are not those who suffer 
 most. Could she tell her of her womanly sym- 
 pathy? She tried to write. It was all in vain. 
 She rushed out, presently, to appeal to her hus- 
 band, as if he would know what to say. But he 
 could only telegraph to his friend, the pastor of the 
 Schuylers, saying merely, '* George Schuyler .died 
 last night," thinking how much better it was that 
 the sad news should come first, and George's tender 
 and careful letter a day later. 
 
 He knew that the pastor's Christian sympathy 
 would break the news as kindly as possible, and 
 would know how to sustain the smitten mother's 
 heart, though there is no earthly consolation for 
 such losses as that, which was only one of thou- 
 sands like it on every battlefield. 
 
 Upon Catherine this whole brief experience made 
 a profound impression. It also led her husband to 
 feel that her affection was so great, while her re- 
 ligious conviction was yet so undeveloped, and her 
 faith so feeble, that such scenes were too trying 
 for her. He felt that she ought to return to her 
 New England home. The freight cars they had 
 brought from New York they now fitted with 
 hammocks and bunks, to bear North some of the 
 wounded, who might gain by such transportation. 
 But as the days passed, and graves were added to 
 
204 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 graves, continually, Catherine's face grew more 
 and more thin and sad, and she thought continu- 
 ally of George Schuyler's mother. She could not 
 but dwell upon the fact that he was one of thou- 
 sands, and that, in thus losing an only son, the 
 ordinary consolations of religion seemed mere 
 mockery. 
 
 " But when Italy's made, for what end is it done 
 
 If we have not a son ? 
 When you want a great song for your Italy free, 
 
 Let none look at me ! " 
 
 *'Tell me, dear," she said one day, "tell me 
 more of this you speak of as vicarious suffering." 
 
 **Ah, Catherine," he answered. "I don't know 
 much about the theory of it. The fact we all know 
 very well. We shall have to think of it all our 
 lives, Catherine, but we need first of all to see that 
 it is not vicarious punishment." 
 
 ** We suffer for the sins of others, but we do not 
 bear part of the punishment of them. You see, 
 dear, all the great doctrines of the church may be 
 and have been horribly degraded. They have been 
 dragged through the mud of the dark ages. They 
 have been in the hands of people gross and rude. 
 They have been handed down, indeed, and not 
 always by clean hands. Even our Protestant right 
 of private judgment is held to carry with it the 
 power and the right of private degradation of the 
 holiest gifts of the past." 
 
CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL. 205 
 
 ** But this age is enlightened, is it not ? " 
 
 ** Ah, 'tis our pet fallacy. A million inventions, 
 the knowledge of ten million facts may just as 
 easily bring confusion and moral blindness as en- 
 lightenment. The latter comes not from the intel- 
 lect, but from the soul, and we can only see Christ 
 aright, if we see him as Paul and John did, through 
 the pure eyes of the Greek philosophy, and under 
 the light of the Orient." 
 
 *' Susceptibility must suffer. How could a Haw- 
 thorne or a Tennyson live without suffering 1 " 
 
 *' But what of poor Gfeorge's mother ? " 
 
 '*Ah, what of George's poor mother, 1 should 
 ask. You see it is not those who die that suffer 
 most. It is not those who sin that suffer most — 
 unless they come hereafter to suffer because of the 
 anguish they have heaped upon the innocent. It 
 is innocent sympathy that suffers." 
 
 '*It seems as though the greater the innocence, 
 the greater the susceptibility, the sympathy and 
 the suffering." 
 
 '' Certainly, it must be so." 
 
 *' But is it not horrible r' 
 
 *'It would be, if that were all of it. Hence we 
 know that this is not the whole. There must be 
 compensation somewhere. There must be redemp- 
 tion. It is our best hold on immortality." 
 
 '* Think first of the compensation given to a 
 Tennyson, which so few that have ever lived could 
 iully share ; that ecstacy which so hears and sees, 
 
206 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 as when his eye rests on the delicate beads of dew 
 gemming 
 
 " The cobweb spun across the cannon's throat ! ' " 
 
 " But, dear, can we conceive of God as suffer- 
 ing T' 
 
 "Why not? Is there, do you think, no sym- 
 pathy in the Divine Love ? Can there be sympathy, 
 even in our sins and sorrows, and yet no suffer- 
 ing?" 
 
 '* But if he sees that it all has blessed results, 
 that it is all for human good ? " 
 
 '* Ah, if he sees, yes." 
 
 '*We must have a theory you see, at least a 
 hypothesis. His foreseeing would indeed diminish 
 suffering, possibly remove it ; and so if we see, 
 what when? If our suffering increase our faith 
 and our insight, it will bring us nearer to the 
 Divine Peace, will it not ?" 
 
 *' And if our sympathy begets sympathy, and so 
 brings the sinful nearer to them that suffer for 
 them, the suffering will be directly an uplifting, 
 revealing, saving power, will it not, even to them 
 that cause it ? " 
 
 '* Certainly." 
 
 "And could there be any other — any other to 
 compare with this? Suffering love is man's Sa- 
 viour. Is not sympathy the one highest law of life ?' ' 
 
 " Is not this law of the suffering of the innocent, 
 the one revelation of the solidarity of our race, of 
 the fact that we live not as individuals alone, and 
 
CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL. . 207 
 
 the promise that every human soul must continue 
 to exist, and at last be saved from sin ? " 
 
 "It is a severe law, dear, and a hard road." 
 
 " It is the road to Heaven, Catherine, the only- 
 road, the Cross, the Cross alone, is the key to the 
 gate we long to enter." 
 
 " Then I think you ought to enter the pulpit," 
 she said. " You can have no higher duty." 
 
 "Though my first sermon might be against the 
 Bible." 
 
 "Certainly. That is what is most important to 
 know — that it is not against the Bible to tell the 
 truth about it." 
 
 "Not even of the flood and that big fish story 
 that Jonah swallowed a whale 1 " 
 
 "He didn't, dear, but that is more probable 
 than the way it is told. If sincere men avoid the 
 pulpit for such reasons, then the church is left to 
 sneaks and cowards, and there are too many of them 
 in it, already." 
 
 " Well, what of the tables of stone V 
 
 "So far as they are good, they are God's word. 
 All voices of Goodness are the voice of God ; and 
 it is no discredit to his Authorship that he had to 
 use the poor tools of those early days in the feeble 
 hands of Moses or some other workman, who took 
 about forty days to chisel them out." 
 
 "God had written those commandments in the 
 hearts of his people, long before they got on to those 
 old stones." 
 
208 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIT. 
 
 THE RED CROSS FLAG. 
 
 The President of the Sanitary Commission was a 
 noted Unitarian divine, and the well recognized 
 leader of the more conservative wing of those intel- 
 ligent and somewhat self-righteous people. He 
 represented the Channing Unitarianism of 1825, 
 and when Antioch was projected in 1850, by the 
 Christians, he warmly espoused their cause at once, 
 and boldly proclaimed that the only difference he 
 knew between them and the Unitarians he repre- 
 sented, was that the Christians had the better 
 name. 
 
 That both pleased and surprised the Christians, 
 and they accepted him at once, as the most worthy 
 successor of Channing, and made him a trustee of 
 their new college ; but many of them greatly loved 
 to pay him off for it, as they considered it, by ap- 
 plying to him the old story, attributed to Thomas 
 Starr King, on his leaving Boston for California in 
 1860, when he was asked at a public dinner, if there 
 was any important difference between the Unita- 
 ians and the Universalists ? 
 
 '* Well," said King, *' the only important differ- 
 ence I know, is that the Universalists believe that 
 
THE EED CR0S8 FLAG. 209 
 
 God is too good to damn them eternally, while the 
 Unitarians only believe that they, themselves, are 
 too good to be damned ! " 
 
 That limited faith of the Unitarians has been sup- 
 posed to be the reason of their limited numbers, as 
 so few people can sincerely believe that creed ; and 
 it leaves no room for hypocrites, as there is so little 
 else to profess. 
 
 When Emerson once said they believed in the 
 humanity of God and the divinity of man, some 
 radical objected because he did not state the divin- 
 ity of man first ! 
 
 But such men as Dr. Channing and the President 
 of the Sanitary Commission, Dr. Bellows, always 
 have a faith wider than their creeds, and even 
 wider than Tom Paine' s famous platform, — **The 
 world is my country, and to do good is my religion," 
 — as they can say sincerely: *'The universe is my 
 country, and all truth is my religion." And he 
 emphasized that by exchanging pulpits occasionally 
 with a learned Jewish Rabbi, who respected Chris- 
 tianity without fanaticism. 
 
 The President of the Sanitary Commission there- 
 fore had great faith in those Antioch boys, who had 
 been educated under his eye ; and he now applied 
 to the Government to have Captain Cyrus Christie 
 detailed to his aid at Memphis. 
 
 Hissystem was now well established in the East, 
 and reinforced to follow the great battles of Fred- 
 ericksburg in midwinter, and on to Chancellors villa 
 
210 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 and Gettysburg in the following Spring, with all 
 that ample money could furnish, of kindness, at- 
 tention, cleanliness, service, food, clothing and 
 medicine, to aid the sick and wounded. 
 
 But the West was yet neglected in this important 
 service, from mere inability to get it every where at 
 once, and the great battles of Shiloh and Corinth 
 were now opening the Mississippi and the way to 
 Vicksburg, when its first great depot was estab- 
 lished at Memphis by Captain Christie. 
 
 Catherine now consented to rest awhile at her 
 New England home in Dorchester, believing she 
 would soon bring her husband there to enter the 
 pulpit ; while he now sped away to join Cyrus at 
 Memphis. 
 
 No time now to pause at Mendon, or to halt for 
 a night at Antioch. People cannot well conceive, 
 at the close of the 19 th century, the fearful pace at 
 which life was driven when the pressure of that 
 great civil war lay upon the land. 
 
 Away speeds the panting engine, with another 
 immense train of supplies for that western relief, 
 whirling night and day across Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois ; it seemed like cruel waste and 
 delay to have to take the slow steamer from Cairo, 
 in order to reach Memphis. 
 
 Memphis became the chief hospital centre in the 
 field for the West. Thence supplies were poured 
 out by the steamboat load, and thither cargoes of 
 sick and wounded men came back. 
 
THE KED CROSS FLAG. 211 
 
 Bullets and battles are but harmless things in 
 war, as compared with the deadly fevers and the 
 other diseases which take hold of the strongest 
 men, in that climate, and harrass the army, day 
 and night. 
 
 The President of the Sanitary Commission well 
 knew that he and his subordinate host were saving 
 more good men than could be now recruited, and 
 that they were the real saviours of the army and 
 the nation. 
 
 As a Unitarian, though prudent and conscien- 
 tious, even to the verge of timidity, he knew he 
 was open to attack, and his Faith was here made 
 the first object of assault. He had not called his 
 organization the Christian Commission, though 
 such it was in fact, preferring that it should be 
 known by its fruits. Christ wrought through all 
 its devoted and tender hands, but to have called it 
 such might have aggrieved some kindly friends, or 
 have seemed to assume too much, as many wealthy 
 Jews and men of no religious professions had con- 
 tributed to it thousands of dollars. 
 
 It was the helping hand, the doer of Christian 
 work, regardless of Faith, to foe or friend alike. 
 
 Hence the door was left open for a great rival 
 organization to spring up, disputing the ground 
 with the Sanitary Commission, often misrepresent- 
 ing its work, and filling the land with new distrac- 
 tions and fears and sectarian warfare. 
 
 The Christian Commission built on the churches 
 
212 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 of the land, while the Sanitary Commission had 
 built on its homes. The former had, therefore, an 
 organization ready-made, reaching to every hamlet 
 in America, and, while quickening its humanity 
 with sectarian zeal, it had in denominational 
 papers, preachers, churches and Sunday schools, a 
 million powerful agencies for communication be- 
 tween the homes and the army, and swiftly inter- 
 changing supplies and information. 
 
 Something was wasted between the two commis- 
 sions, in bickerings and controversies, ]ust as sim- 
 ilar waste is made among rival churches. But 
 they spurred up each other's energies, jealously 
 watched each other's works, and illustrated the 
 great law of progress, through the conflict of loy- 
 alties. 
 
 It was just that of which the civil war itself con- 
 sisted. It was a conflict of loyalties. And always, 
 in such struggles, the loyalty to the lower thing is 
 more barbaric, bitter and relentless, because it is 
 the more ignorant and blind, and by its nature 
 cannot give up until ground to powder, by the high 
 hope and heaven-born persistency of the loyalty to 
 the higher thing which is kinder, calmer and more 
 enduring, because endowed with the indestructa- 
 bility of Divine Love. 
 
 The struggle of the higher with the lower is 
 always a sacrifice, and involves the loving willing- 
 ness of the innocent and the holy, to suffer for and 
 with the guilty and the vile. 
 
THE BED CEOSS FLAG. 213 
 
 Never was there another war on earth, wherein the 
 victor was called to show and did show, from the 
 beginning to the end, such forbearance and patience 
 and long-suffering charity. 
 
 The madness of slavery wrapped in the fiction of 
 State's rights, and encouraged by the selfishness 
 of England's nobility and gentry, was indeed a 
 maniac, bound blindly to destroy until destroyed. 
 
 On arriving at Memphis, the old flag was flying 
 from the barracks, where Christie was toiling like 
 a slave, but the rival structures of the Christian 
 Commission, across the way, were the more con- 
 spicuous, because of their large white flag, display- 
 ing the crimson cross. 
 
 Fond as the Professor was of that symbol, which 
 stood to him for all that is holiest, most unselfish 
 and tenderly compassionate, he clenched his teeth 
 as he now looked at it, as though it were a sign of 
 opposition. 
 
 He was thinking of the cruel calumny some of its 
 blind followers had already spread through the 
 North, concerning his friend Cyrus. They said he 
 had sold the stores of the Sanitary Commission to 
 the soldiers, for his own benefit. 
 
 Here were the men, they averred, now wearing 
 the garments sent by loyal homes for sick men 
 only, and to be given away, not sold. How could 
 they know that Christie, seeing this army corps 
 coming down from the Tennessee Mountains, almost 
 barefoot, had turned over to its Commissary De- 
 
214 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 partment twenty thousand pairs of stockings, 
 trusting to the tardy movement of government 
 officials to restore them, and taking all the respon- 
 sibility on himself, and risking his income, his 
 position and his good name ? 
 
 He gives tvrice who gives quickly, and to give 
 immediate relief, even by cutting the red tape of 
 negligent officials, was then a great virtue. Yet 
 the report was sent into all the churches of the 
 North, that agents of the Sanitary Commission were 
 but pilfering rogues. 
 
 "How can you bear it, Cyrus 1" said his old 
 chum, impatiently. 
 
 " I don't bear it," his friend answered. **It is 
 the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit, and 
 Christ bears it for me." 
 
 Evidently this was now his habitual thought. 
 There was no time to discuss it, as he sat at his 
 desk, swiftly writing. 
 
 Demands were coming, orders were going, com- 
 plaints were pouring in, subordinates were shirk- 
 ing, conflicting interests and calls were incessant. 
 
 But later they in silence left the office, and walked 
 on the bluff, where they coald see up and down the 
 mighty river. 
 
 Steamboats were trailing their heavy banners of 
 smoke here and there, steam tugs were puffing and 
 screaming, the grand river was rolling in silence 
 below, while behind them waved the rival flags of 
 the two Commissions, and near by, in the suburbs, 
 
THE RED CEOSS FLAG. 215 
 
 was the camping place of the host of freedmen, who 
 had followed the army down the Tennessee. 
 
 This camp of contrabands they now went to visit, 
 partly to see the orthodox prayer-meeting, there 
 established by that Christian Commission. 
 
 But first that mighty flood of the great river 
 seemed the most impressive thing they had ever 
 seen, so silent, so deep, so dark and still, yet rolling 
 with such momentum, with such absence of uncer- 
 tainty or hesitation, it seemed so to know what it 
 was doing, and where it was going, while it power- 
 fully impressed the imagination, as If it were at 
 peace and at rest like the universe, notwithstanding 
 its mighty motion. 
 
 They walked from the bluff, as darkness began 
 to gather over the river, being recalled by a sacred 
 song they now heard from the contraband camp. 
 A host had gathered for an evening meeting, and it 
 impressed them strangely to hear familiar hymns 
 sung so feelingly, as they walked slowly toward 
 the camp, while darkness now wholly concealed 
 them from view. 
 
 Suddenly a faintness like vertigo caused them to 
 stagger and stumble, and nearly fall. They knew 
 in a moment what it was, for again there came that 
 strange sensation, when the ground under their 
 feet seemed to roll and swell and make a slight 
 shiver, very slight, yet alarming, as the common 
 little earthquakes often do. Again it came, that 
 slight shiver of the ground, not sudden, but slow, 
 
216 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 even, a regular vibration, lasting a full second or 
 more, doing no real harm, but making one feel as 
 though something worse was coming, and the bot- 
 tom of things all dropping out. 
 
 Wholly unaccountable as it is, the terror of an 
 earthquake is something wonderful, and those who 
 know it best dread it the most, as the nameless 
 terror of the unknown. A confused murmur of 
 alarm at once came from the contraband camp, 
 which was filled with terror. The men shrieked, 
 and the women seized their children and crowded 
 toward the place of prayer-meeting. 
 
 Sighs, murmurs, groans and brief ejaculations of 
 prayer were heard, and soon, in the little assembly, 
 several were earnestly praying at once, paying no 
 attention to the others, and not in the slightest 
 doubt of its moral effect in averting the danger, 
 while over the strange scene a tallow candle, here 
 and there, cast a most ghostly light. 
 
 One grizzly veteran near the door poured out 
 this earnest plea : 
 
 ** Oh, Lord, come down now and save us 1 Come 
 down this minute, oh, God I and help us ! I If 
 you can't come yourself, send your son ! But 
 come yourself, oh, Lord, if you can ! This is no 
 night for chillen', oh. Lord ! Come yourself ! You 
 said ye would I Come down, oh, God, and save 
 us I" 
 
 Those prayers seemed to suggest the close rela- 
 tion of piety with ignorance, and they felt that, 
 
THE RED CROSS FLAG. 217 
 
 sooner than enter the pulpits of such a ministry, 
 they would rather be doorkeepers in the tents of 
 wickedness, as those of the Sanitary Commission 
 were called. 
 
 They at least had cleanliness, which is next to 
 godliness, and felt that "a doer of the work shall 
 be blessed." 
 
 As they walked away he said, ** Cyrus, you are 
 killing yourself here I " 
 
 ** Well, where can one die more fitly ? Are the 
 consolations of God small with thee ? By the grace 
 of God, I am what I am. It is the glory of the 
 Gospel that, despite ignorance and error, and cal- 
 umny even, the work of grace goes on. No matter 
 how bad the tools, they would have been far worse 
 had sin wielded them." 
 
 *** Christ bears it for me,' what did you mean 
 by that, Cyrus?" 
 
 ** I mean that I accept the Incarnation as an in- 
 scrutable mystery, but as an unquestionable fact." 
 
 ** You do not mean that Christ was God ? " 
 
 ** Certainly not, yet it was God that bade men 
 worship him. That is, if there had prevailed a true 
 view of the relation of man and God, there would 
 never have been such a doctrine as the Incarnation." 
 
 ** Christianity is a vital process. It is a move- 
 ment in history, in human life, changing men and 
 manners, ideas and customs ; and the whole con- 
 sists of the vital sequence by natural law, of that 
 one wonderful life, opportunely set by God in 
 
218 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 Galilee, and exalted on the Cross for men evermore 
 to behold it. In such a vital process, theory never 
 precedes. It follows. It is man's explanation of 
 God' s wonderful work. ' ' 
 
 **The imagination is one of the powers man 
 shares with God. It is the king of our constructive 
 forces. Without it, even science could make no 
 deductions, no classification, nor even go on with 
 the logical sequence of its assumptions." 
 
 **Its assumption ? Science would scorn to make 
 assumptions." 
 
 ** It cannot help making them. Every step of 
 knowledge, of discovery, of experiment, rests on a 
 preliminary act of faith. Man trusts that nature 
 is not deceiving him. That is, man trusts in the 
 truth of God. All science assumes that." 
 
 **But the Incarnation?" 
 
 ** The Incarnation is part of the vital process, not 
 yet completed. It is God's revelation of himself, 
 and his method. Christ stands forth as the incar- 
 nate love of God, set before man's imagination, un- 
 speakably precious to the love of woman, and 
 thereby impressing a holy image upon children 
 unborn. Christ is divine." 
 
 " Was he a mystery to himself 1 " 
 
 **Most assuredly he was. It was the glory of his 
 mortal life, that he walked by faith, not by sight. 
 Self-knowledge, came only with the Resurrection 
 as it will to you and to me. We know not what we 
 shall be." 
 
Of THW 
 
 THE BED CROSS FLAG. ^»SEilii!£5£t 
 
 "You believe then, in Christ's resurrection?" 
 
 **To me, Jesus was not Christ until the Resur- 
 rection. As to that, I offer no theory, but the 
 fact. The Truth which has transformed the his- 
 tory of the world, became the common property of 
 mankind, in the Belief of the Resurrection of 
 Christ." 
 
 " And not of the Resurrection of Jesus ? " 
 
 **Not of the Body of Jesus. You must remember 
 that Mark, as originally written, does not record 
 it ; and the witnesses who received that Body from 
 the Cross, Joseph the owner of that Garden, and 
 Nicodemus, who embalmed the Body, Mary, and 
 the *Many women who had followed him from 
 Galilee,' have never told their story of the burial 
 so far as known." 
 
 ** The Incarnation was not complete while Jesus 
 walked in Palestine — not till that Mortal put on 
 Immortality, not till Christ began His new pilgrim- 
 age on earth, in which He now asks you and me 
 to join." 
 
 *' Cyrus I do you mean that His personal call 
 comes to us to-day ? His personal presence and 
 sympathy supports us ? I believe you do really re- 
 gard him as God." 
 
 ** I believe Him to be the one highest manifesta- 
 tion of God. Reject Him and there is no sufficient 
 evidence of God left. God, to man's intellect, is 
 a hypothesis. To man's praying spirit, the Holy 
 Spirit is the Divine contact, a felt influence, which 
 
220 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 is a sweet reality, but a thing wMch fancy cannot 
 picture, nor reason define, and on which mental 
 conception cannot lay hold." 
 
 ** In Christ is that visible manifestation which 
 the creative imagination must have or make, on 
 which love and gratitude and hope of immortality 
 can lay hold, and whereby Divine Power works 
 most naturally and potently." 
 
 ** Do you mean Christ Jesus 1 " 
 
 *' Certainly. Those who now talk of Jesus only, 
 and study only that mortal life, have turned their 
 backs upon the grander figure and work, and know 
 nothing of Christ. To them Christianity is only 
 a grand blunder, instead of the growing and most 
 glorious of all the revelations of God." 
 
 ** Growing ? A growing revelation 1 The terms 
 are self -contradictory." 
 
 ** Not at all ! What do you suppose God is do- 
 ing through all these ages 1 Has he ceased to exist ? 
 Or is he asleep ? " 
 
 ** You mean that He is making revelations 
 now!" 
 
 ** Just as fast as He can. Just as fast as our 
 human infirmity or stupidity permits. He must 
 not trample down His children's freedom. As He 
 has made them, so He must handle and train 
 them, and He is not handling and dealing with 
 individuals alone, but with churches, nations, and 
 the whole family at once." 
 
 ** The brethern in Christ should not look back- 
 
THE RED CROSS FLAG. 221 
 
 ward so much,-— look forward. They are the salt 
 of the earth, indeed, but some of them look back- 
 ward so much, they seem to stand like Lot's wife, — 
 pillars of salt! Christ has come and Christianity 
 is coming. Our civilization rests on Him. It must 
 obey Him. It must absorb Him and make Him its 
 Saviour, or it will cease to exist.'' 
 
 " But what of the future ? " 
 
 ** The future life, you know, is my only conclu- 
 sion. Without that, this life would be an incalcu- 
 lable horror, and the Cross of Christ a hateful thing. 
 
 ** We are coming to the fourth great stage of 
 our mundane Christianity. Rudimentary Chris- 
 tianity was developing itself till Rome's decay made 
 necessary and forced into being the Roman Church, 
 with its false theory of Infallibility. 
 
 The Arab, I fancy, came with the Crescent to the 
 rescue of the Cross, and forced on Europe the men- 
 tal awakening that brought the Reformation, with 
 its second great false theory of the Infallible Book. 
 We are now putting both those great false theories 
 aside. We leave them behind, like fortresses of the 
 Middle Ages, set to check or bombard each other. 
 
 ** We are now coming out of them and out of the 
 pet English fiction of the Apostolic succession, to 
 the fourth great form of Christianity's develop- 
 ment, which builds not on Buddha, Confucius, nor 
 Jesus alone, but on Christ Jesus,as the one supreme, 
 ever-growing revelation of God." 
 
 *^ Ever-growing 1 Is its life never to end 1 " 
 
222 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ** Only when its victories are ended and its world - 
 conquest complete. Only, as it is foretold, when 
 at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and 
 every tongue confess Him Lord, — not to His 
 glory, not to humanity's glory, though both those 
 good things it will bring — but to the glory of God 
 the Father.'* 
 
THE GOLDEN SHOWER. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 THE GOLDEN SHOWER. 
 
 These Border Lands of high thinking, amid 
 severe labor and self-sacrifice, were now to be still 
 further extended. 
 
 The Golden Gfate of California had opened wide 
 to all of New England's dreams and hopes. 
 
 No railroad had yet entered its Earthly Paradise, 
 and a month's tedious journey by Indian trails, or 
 by sea and across the Isthmus, was necessary to 
 reach its golden shores. 
 
 For that reason it sent but few men into that 
 terrible war, but many regiments of stalwart 
 heroes stood ready to defend its borders against 
 all approaches of secession, and its golden wealth 
 had been sent in showers, to aid the great cause of 
 the Union. 
 
 One voice above all others had spoken the loyalty 
 of the whole Pacific coast, and all hearts had re- 
 sponded joyfully to the young Chrysostom of the 
 West, as he was called, after the golden-tongued 
 orator. 
 
 Like the sacred master he had served so faith- 
 fully, his public ministry in that border land was 
 less than three years. 
 
 The one watchman of the Liberal Faith and 
 
224 BORDER LANDS OP FAITH. 
 
 Loyalty at the Golden Gate had suddenly fallen. 
 The trumpet tones of Starr King could sound no 
 more on that remote shore. 
 
 The beloved Chrysostom was dead, and the wires 
 were instantly quivering between San Francisco and 
 New York, with the terrible news of the disaster, 
 and appealing for help. 
 
 Not a man in the Liberal Faith could fill his 
 place, and all eyes turned at once to the President 
 of the Sanitary Commission to go himself, as a 
 temporary relief, to give them encouragement and 
 and hope, until they could realize what could be 
 done. Within a single week the President and his 
 family were at sea, on that noble mission, and with 
 them went his trusted Lieutenant from the West. 
 
 The New York pulpit was temporarily supplied 
 for six months, and an urgent telegram sent to 
 Memphis said again, '* Come at once.'' 
 
 That was the usual order of the President for in- 
 stant service, and again it was the opening of a 
 new life, full of surprises. Like Paul and Silas, 
 they went forth again from Antioch, over the bor- 
 der lands, for new conquests. 
 
 With but a day of farewell with Catherine he 
 was at sea. Life and death reveal all their solem- 
 nity and grandeur to a man at sea for the first time. 
 
 It may look lonely. It may seem unspeakably 
 sad and depressing. Its tones may be mournful, 
 but they are always solemn or grand, and if the 
 phosphorescence gleam at night along the seething 
 
THE GOLDEN SHOWER. 226 
 
 waves, and the great billows dance brilliantly un- 
 der a spanking breeze, there is yet a suggestion of 
 the spiritual in that evanescent light. 
 
 Byron speaks of the sea with a true prophet's in- 
 terpretation, and the little family now recalled his 
 noble and familiar lines, as they sat, hour after 
 hour together, gazing upon the grand monotony of 
 the deep. 
 
 But it was not all monotony. War flung its awful 
 shadow also upon the sea. That slow steamship 
 could not creep through the West Indies, without 
 a day and night of anxious watching and signalling 
 for a gunboat convoy over that pirate -haunted 
 path, and the Isthmus of Panama, where the new 
 railway was then waging a desperate battle with 
 the tropic ocean of vegetation, which threatened to 
 swallow it up, seemed to them to show the amazing 
 force and sleepless vitality of Nature far better 
 than anything they had ever seen. 
 
 They soon knew why it was called the South Sea, 
 when they found, after crossing that Isthmus, that 
 the new steamship bore right on, almost due south, 
 for a whole day before making that deflection to 
 the west and northerly, by which they were to 
 traverse nearly the whole breadth of the Continent, 
 before reaching San Francisco. 
 
 A vast throng filled the ship, which moved on 
 like a floating city. The Sundays came and went, 
 with a grand service, conducted by the Commis- 
 sion's President. 
 
BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 They watched at midnight to see the Southern 
 Cross bow gracefully toward the West. He had 
 heard it spoken of as insignificant and not at all 
 impressive, but it did not seem so to him. Their 
 ship did not go so far south as to lift the Cross too 
 far from the horizon ; and as it tilted on its dia- 
 mond points, they gazed upon it every night 
 adoringly. 
 
 Even that little reinforcement of faith was needed, 
 when they confronted California' s great demand, and 
 even dreamed of trying to fill that great vacancy. 
 
 What a land of gleaming skies, of smiling flowers, 
 and of sad, eager and homesick men. That land of 
 sunshine and hope— could it be a clime where life 
 was sad and joyless, or was it only that there were 
 so many homeless and disappointed men ? 
 
 Was it their lack of domestic life, the absence of 
 women and of children, or was it the wine cup and 
 the vice of gambling ? What a scene it was, when 
 the largest theatre of the city was first filled with 
 that great audience, which welcomed the Pres- 
 ident of the Sanitary Commission. 
 
 His public acknowledgments of their many pre- 
 vious gifts, had made his name a household word, 
 on that coast, where as yet households were so few. 
 
 The great hall was cleared of its seats, that the 
 vast throng might have more room to pack in closer 
 and stand. No ladies ventured into that close- 
 packed mass. 
 
 Men in middle life, brown, stern, eager, many of 
 
THE GOLDEN SHOWER. 227 
 
 them a dozen years there without families, spread 
 before the speaker such a sea of upturned, mascu- 
 line faces, as no man ever before saw in a civilized 
 city. 
 
 The President, now fifty years of age, a great or- 
 ator, laid the spell of his genius in eloquent speech 
 on that multitude of matured faces, as Homer might 
 have laid his hand upon the Harp. He wished to 
 provoke no outburst of enthusiasm at first, but 
 rather to avoid it, and to inaugurate a regular sys- 
 tem of contributions, which should draw from every 
 hamlet and every loyal man on that vast coast. He 
 came, he said, not to ask for money. He never had 
 asked California for a cent. He came but to lay a 
 nation's gratitude at her feet, for what she had al- 
 ready voluntarily done. 
 
 That word gratitude was like a spark upon the 
 powder. The tension of feeling in that community, 
 and especially in that audience, was something 
 wonderful. There were men there fairly in rebel- 
 lion that they could not go to the war themselves. 
 Their brothers were being slain. Their mothers 
 and sisters, far away in the East, were day and 
 night scraping lint, rolling bandages, and toiling 
 for hospital and camp, and these men, so far away, 
 could take no part in it, and yet so strong. 
 
 They chafed like caged lions, that they could 
 strike no blows, as they heard the great story of 
 the battles. 
 
 They felt that they had done nothing, and that 
 
228 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 word gratitude was more than they had expected 
 to hear. 
 
 An old miner broke out with, " My God ! boys, 
 hear that !" and chucked a great gold piece toward 
 the stage, where it fell on the green carpet in plain 
 sight. It was one of those hexagon $50 pieces the 
 Government was then coining. 
 
 As it showed its color, an impulse seized the 
 great audience, and nearly every man present fol- 
 lowed the grand example and opportunity, till a 
 golden shower began to fall, such as filled every- 
 body with amazement and astonishment. 
 
 Silver dollars were few, but they came with the 
 rain of eagles, double eagles and hexagons, till the 
 few occupants of the platform had to beat a safe 
 retreat for shelter, until the storm was over. The 
 orator probably never confronted a more trying 
 situation than when he returned to his place, the 
 stage being literally strewn with gold. 
 
 They had given him a grand surprise, and the 
 reaction in their relieved feelings now spoiled his 
 hold upon their hearts. 
 
 In that roaring fun and enthusiasm, it was very 
 diflBcult to go on with his serious discourse, and he 
 had to wait, while the Professor of Logic took the 
 President's tall silk hat, and proceeded to gather 
 up the gold, till it was full, when the weight of the 
 treasure so bulged down the crown, that it looked 
 like a bag, as he held it up by the rim ; a,t which 
 
THE GOLDEN SHOWER. , 229 
 
 the audience yelled, ** Get a mail bag I His head 
 isn't big enough ! " 
 
 Gfrotesque fun ruled the rest of that meeting, and 
 was always a characteristic of that California life. 
 
 Men soon forget to smile, when away from 
 women and children. Their mirth comes in gusts 
 of laughter, a sudden outbreak, then a sudden, 
 almost ominous, silence. Shout now with the 
 revellers, and burst out in abrupt laughter, and 
 sink the next moment into doubt, and fold the 
 arms in sullen vigilance, with a good revolver in 
 the hip pocket. 
 
 Such was America's frontier life in Calfornia, in 
 1863, closely allied with that of her savages on the 
 border lands, whose fortitude and silent endurance 
 we have read of, but of whose tenderness and fidelity 
 we have but little record. 
 
 '*The Luck of Roaring Camp," was no mere 
 fancy sketch of the destitution of affection in those 
 border lands. The want of domestic life, of home 
 and children, soon deprives men of nearly all that 
 makes men human and civilized. 
 
 They especially longed for some word as to the 
 more permanent interests, and the never-ceasing 
 conflict, whereby man's faith and hope ever fight 
 with his doubts and sin. 
 
 A life so earnest and so unartificial, as that of 
 California, always hungers for a higher life, and 
 men there want to know everything of the faith, 
 
230 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 which made so large a part of their childhood's 
 life. 
 
 Theological speculation never ceases among rude 
 men, out-of-doors with Nature, whether in the 
 Arab*s camp, the hunter's cabin, the miner's gulch, 
 or in the sheep-ranges of Montana. 
 
 Death and life, with the sky above and eternity 
 before, demand interpretation from every faithful 
 human heart. 
 
 The Sanitary Commission's President was one 
 eminently qualified to speak to men in any walk of 
 life, statesman or peasant, and calls for his preach- 
 ing came from every quarter. 
 
 Go where he would on that coast, what men most 
 wished to hear was the word of hope in the name 
 of Christ. 
 
 In the Yosemite Valley, one of those huge red- 
 wood trees had been bored down, by many days' 
 labor of men, working with long pump-augers, he 
 must mount the huge stump, on which most of his 
 audience could also be reverently seated, to hear 
 him preach and pray. What to them was the 
 thousand-year life of the tree, unless they could 
 hear faith interpret to them the passing events of 
 that thousand years of history i 
 
 Hither and thither they went along the whole 
 coast, from Los Angeles to Oregon, to Nevada, and 
 down the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, every- 
 where a centre of the liveliest interest, as they 
 preached often, several times a day ; but the great 
 
THE GOLDEN SHOWEE. 231 
 
 place in San Francisco could not be left wholly 
 vacant, and tlie Lieutenant had finally to remain 
 there, and hold the fort, till the President could 
 complete the circle of his many appoiatments. 
 
 Here the climate began to tell of its dangers, for 
 men whose nervous temperaments had been de- 
 veloped under New England's dark and fog- 
 wrapped skies. His own confidence was now 
 shrinking, as he perceived, he knew not why, the 
 conditions that had broken down the young Chry- 
 sostom in the prime of life. 
 
 The dry air and the constant, glaring sunshine, 
 seemed to be drying up the very sources of life ; 
 with no rain and no shade the Northern man 
 begins to wilt like a flower, wanting the dew, and 
 the more sensitive his organization, the greater the 
 danger, unless he have that strong assimilation 
 which soon acclimates itself to all countries. 
 
 For the Fourth of July a score of places called 
 on the President of the Commission, to give the 
 usual oration, and they each spoke in two places 
 on that day. 
 
 The Lieutenant, to change the scene, went up to 
 the Silver Mines at Petaluma, and a poor substitute 
 he felt himself to be, as he met there an immense 
 and eager audience of thousands as he spoke under 
 a magnificent tree. 
 
 And what a surprise it was to him the next day, 
 when he went down to the express office in San 
 Francisco, to receive the Petaluma contribution, 
 
232 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 which had followed his appeal for the Sanitary 
 Commission. 
 
 Three great sacks were filled with silver coin. 
 An express wagon was needed to carry them for 
 him to the bank. 
 
 And when he put in no appearance at the five 
 o'clock dinner at the hotel, the President did not 
 surmise that it was because he and an expert clerk 
 were still bending over their task on the broad 
 bank counter, trying to compute the vast heap of 
 old Spanish and Mexican coins they had poured 
 out of those bags. 
 
 Petaluma's two thousand dollars in small, old- 
 fashioned silver coin, it took them several hours 
 of extra time to count. The task, however, revived 
 their spirits, and modified the dissatisfaction with 
 which he had viewed his first attempt at a Fourth 
 of July oration. 
 
 It was the great day of Yicksburg and Gettys- 
 burg, the high water mark of the great Rebellion, 
 from which it waned and fell, through the terrible 
 destruction and despair of two more terrible years. 
 And those were the helping hands and bounding 
 hearts, so eagerly beating, from Maine to Cali- 
 fornia, behind our brothers who so gallantly fought 
 in those grand armies. 
 
THE COMING SHADOW. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE COMING SHADOW. 
 
 Again in August, the Lieutenant was absent at 
 dinner from the little table occupied by the Presi- 
 dent's family at the Grand Hotel. Keen interest 
 was excited on the following morning when it was 
 found that he had not returned to the hotel during 
 the night. No word of explanation could be found, 
 and sharp anxiety awoke when it was heard that 
 he had ridden away on the previous afternoon, and 
 the horse had returned to its stable in the evening, 
 without a rider. 
 
 Search was at once instituted. A police patrol 
 coursed over the few roads then stretching south 
 and west from the city, and not a word of informa- 
 tion came in. 
 
 And the mystery baffled all minds, as in case he 
 had been robbed or murdered, they all knew that 
 to California bandits in those days, the horse was 
 worth more than the man. 
 
 Was it possible that he had gone into the ocean 
 like the gifted Rallston, never to return, or could 
 he have been spirited away to secure a ransom ? 
 Such things were then unknown there. In truth, 
 it was more of a mystery to the Lieutenant himself 
 than to anyone else. 
 
234 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 One thing he had greatly enjoyed in San Fran- 
 cisco : that was the excellent roads. With no soil 
 to make dust, and no rains to cause mud, those 
 smooth roadways were delightful, where he could 
 roll away with a friend, whose spanking team 
 swung along as California teams then did, or when 
 he could mount a good horse and gallop away to 
 the shore of the Pacific at the Golden Gate. 
 
 This he had done, on the day in question. Every 
 day at twelve o'clock he had noticed that the wind 
 began to rise, blowing in steadily and powerfully 
 from the sea, and before it rolled a mountain wall 
 of vapor striving to reach and overflow San Fran- 
 cisco. 
 
 As that foggy front slowly advanced over the 
 miles of sand, between the city and the sea, the 
 dry air eagerly drank up the vapor, while the wind 
 urged on the re-inf orcements from behind. Though 
 the wind always blew a gale in the middle of the 
 afternoon, that menacing wall of mist never ad- 
 vanced, only inch by inch as the dry air sucked it 
 up, and the long conflict so went on till on some 
 rare days, the fog actually invaded the city, while 
 a dryer day or a feebler wind would compel it, on 
 other days, to fall back, defeated. 
 
 On the day in question, he had checked his 
 horse about four o'clock, on the bluff west of the 
 city, feasting his eyes on the mountain wall of 
 mist before him, hoping to get into it for some 
 wholesome air, and turning to gaze over the won- 
 
THE COMING SHADOW. 235 
 
 derful bay, shored with mountains, and the great 
 Mt. Diablo looming up in the east ; then, dashing 
 into the coming fog, he had enjoyed seeing the city 
 vanish, and the sun veil its face, while he rode 
 eagerly on to the shore near the Golden Grate, his 
 favorite resort. 
 
 There was the little cliff-house, like a mud-spar- 
 row's nest, hanging on the walls of the grand gate- 
 way of commerce and civilization. There were the 
 hugh rocks near the shore, covered with the brawl- 
 ing sea-lions clambering over them. There was the 
 grand old Pacific, on which no one is ever weary of 
 gazing, and there he found the solitude and the 
 peace he had sought of old in the Mendon woods. 
 
 As he slowly rode southward along the firm 
 sand of the beach, time lapsed more swiftly than he 
 had observed, until he was surprised, amidst his 
 revery to see the sun already sinking below the 
 horizon, and to realize that dinner had been long 
 since called at the hotel, while he was here, many 
 miles away. The twilight already wrapped in 
 gloom the good road, when at last he regained it, 
 and with a feeling of self-reproach at being so late, 
 but with no sense of fear, he urged his good horse 
 sharply forward in a brisk gallop, and he never 
 knew what happened next. 
 
 It was twenty-four hours later, when he found 
 himself, lying in bed, with a strange sense of deli- 
 cious langour and sweet repose around him. He 
 
^36 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 seemed to hear music, which had awakened him 
 from sleep, and yet he was but half awake. 
 
 It did not occur to him that he was not in his 
 own bed at the hotel. It presently occurred to him 
 that he was hearing that music again, and it seemed 
 to be religious music or psalm singing. He tried 
 to listen, and the voices of men now came, and an 
 organ interlude : was he in Heaven or hearing the 
 angels sing 1 
 
 The strange chant was resumed, and he could no 
 longer be mistaken — there were men's voices 
 chanting the service of the Roman Church. How 
 could he be listening to Monks intoning Latin 1 
 Where was he ? Indeed who was he ? 
 
 It was certain that he did not know where he 
 was, and that he seemed not to know who he was ; 
 but he was serenely happy and at rest, as though 
 he were asleep in Nirvana. 
 
 All connection with his recent life was lost ; no 
 thought of California entered his mind ; but he 
 dreamed of Catherine, and he wondered if she were 
 still in Rome, and gazing at Alpha Lyrae. His 
 mind kindly dwelt upon her image, and then the 
 picture changed and she seemed to be the Madonna, 
 with the Child lying in her lap, and then it 
 changed again, and he saw his dear little boy 
 Theodore, with Catherine's Madonna smile hover- 
 ing above him. 
 
 He had no thought of asking any question, and 
 not a thought of all that had occurred since he left 
 
THE COMIl^G SHADOW. 237 
 
 New England, yet entered his mind. He felt no 
 curiosity, and seemed to be perfectly at rest, at 
 ease, at home, and wishing to dream again. 
 
 He slowly turned his eyes about the large room, 
 dimly seen by the light of a small wood fire smold- 
 ering in a wide chimney, and was dozing again, 
 when a kind voice near him said, *'are you well, 
 my brother V ' 
 
 He then stared at the speaker in amazed silence. 
 A monk indeed stood before him, an old man, an 
 Italian — no, more like a Spaniard. They stared at 
 each other in silence, each confronting the unfamil- 
 iar image of a total stranger. 
 
 His eager, wild gaze now alarmed his visitor, 
 who partly turned and spoke in Spanish to some 
 one behind him, when another monk came in from 
 the corridor and said kindly, " Are you well, my 
 brother r' 
 
 Then he suspected he had been drugged, and 
 rousing himself upright he fiercely demanded, 
 ''Where am I?" 
 
 '' In the house of friends," kindly answered the 
 padre. 
 
 "But where, where am I ? " he again sternly ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 The padre advanced and placed his hand with a 
 benediction on the invalid's brow as he answered, 
 **With the brethren of the Holy Cross of Christ, 
 my brother. His peace be unto you." 
 
 A mother's voice could not have been more gen- 
 
238 BORDER LATTDS OF FAITH. 
 
 tie and loving, and as the blessing fell the invalid 
 fell back exhausted and feeling indeed very faint, 
 but safe as if in his mother's arms. The padre 
 signed with his hand for his assistant to withdraw, 
 and presently, after gazing earnestly upon the suf- 
 ferer, he, with another blessing, also withdrew. 
 
 Hours seemed to pass in a half conscious condi- 
 tion, and the delicious dreams came again, and he 
 only felt there was no cause for alarm, as he evi- 
 dently was in the care of men devout and kind, and 
 his only thought was, let me dream again. 
 
 But why that strange look with which the padre 
 had tried to search his face ? Had he been ill, or 
 insane, and where was he ? It did not occur to him 
 that they were more puzzled with him than he was 
 with them. The thought flashed over him that he 
 had been insane, and that this was now an asylum 
 where they were trying to deceive him for his good. 
 
 He lay still and listened. Presently a bell 
 sounded, a silver-toned bell, rung lightly, as if 
 giving some religious summons ; then all was still. 
 There was no sound from the streets, no patter of 
 footsteps, no rumble of wheels, no sound of a city. 
 As he listened there came from without the light 
 whistle of a bird, which instantly caught his ear. 
 It was a sad and peculiar note, and seemed to say, 
 ''Poor Will, poor Will!" 
 
 He knew it at once, as again and again it 
 had sounded at evening in the suburbs of San 
 
THE COMING SHADOW. 239 
 
 Francisco, as the peculiar note of the California 
 Whippoorwill, which omits the first syllable. 
 
 He had never heard that elsewhere, and it awoke 
 at once an amazed feeling which poured over him 
 as the bird-note restored the lost link in his fading 
 memory, and there rushed back upon him all the 
 vivid picture of his recent life. 
 
 He remembered it all now. Vividly he recalled 
 his ride of the day before, his delight in gazing on 
 the sea, his eager gallop toward the city — there it 
 stopped. 
 
 He was sure he had never reached the city, and 
 where was he, and was that the day before, or had 
 years passed since then ? He sprang out of bed to 
 dress, but he found that he only had a capacious 
 night-robe of soft home-spun flannel, such as he 
 had never seen. 
 
 He called aloud, and the elderly padre came at 
 once, and a servant behind him bearing a tray cov- 
 ered with a light repast, with fresh figs and grapes, 
 the sight of which assured him that be was still in 
 California. 
 
 "Please tell me," he said, ''whose kindness has 
 so well cared for me here ?" 
 
 "That of Christ Jesus," he said, "and of his 
 servants, who, by God's grace, keep the mission of 
 San Dolores," 
 
 "Ah, the old Spanish mission ! Then, indeed, I 
 am safe, but how came I here ? " 
 
 The padre then explained that the night before, a 
 
340 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 horse had galloped fiercely past their door, as they 
 sat at supper, and a belated brother coming in soon 
 after had found an insensible man lying near their 
 gate. 
 
 They knew no more, and their duty seemed plain. 
 As he had straggled in his sleep, they had given 
 him a light anodyne to quiet his nerves, and 
 awaited the blessing of God for his recovery. 
 *'Are you well, my brother?" he said again, 
 kindly. 
 
 Curiosity was now singularly absent from his 
 mind. It did not even occur to him that his disap- 
 pearance might alarm the city. He was perfectly 
 at rest, and fell back and slept again, as though 
 amidst the most congenial surroundings. 
 
 He took it for granted that he should again pass 
 the night in those pleasant quarters, and it seemed 
 but the gratification of a wish long cherished, and 
 many a time spoken of with kindly interest and 
 longing, that he should sometimes visit the old 
 mission of San Dolores. 
 
 Doubtless the city's vigorous growth has now 
 wholly swallowed up the waste of sand, which then 
 separated the old mission from the city, but in 
 1863 the quaint old buildings lay two miles away 
 toward the southwest, and where the only tram- 
 way then turned to the south. In those outer sub- 
 urbs, a man was then kept shovelling all the early 
 afternoon, lest the sand drifting before that dismal 
 gale should wholly bury that car track out of sight. 
 
THE COMING SHADOW. 241 
 
 The good padre's anodyne was probably stronger 
 than he had intended, as it evidently was still tan- 
 gling the over-sensitive brain of the visitor, till his 
 sense of peaceful security and content was such, 
 that he slept away the whole afternoon and most 
 of the following dreamless night. 
 
 The padre came again in the morning, bearing 
 strong coffee, and looking far more disturbed than 
 his patient, as the servant again brought the break- 
 fast, and placed beside the plate a morning news- 
 paper. 
 
 They watched him closely, as after the coffee he 
 took up that morning paper. And well they 
 might. 
 
 The anodyne was now gone, and in a moment he 
 saw his name displayed in great letters at the head 
 of the page, with all the usual newspaper catch- 
 penny magnifyings. Mysterious disappearance I 
 Suspected defalcation ! The Treasurer of the Sani- 
 tary Commission probably robbed and murdered I 
 And a column of particulars of the return of the 
 riderless horse. 
 
 The president could give no information, nor say 
 whether the funds were intact or not. The horse 
 had evidently been hard ridden, and not a clue 
 could be found of what had become of the rider. 
 
 The visitor was no longer an invalid, but amazed 
 that he could have been so oblivious to the alarm 
 his absence would cause. He blamed the padre, 
 dressed in haste, and rushed away breakfastless 
 
242 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 toward the city, hardly pausing to be civil, and 
 quite despising the slowness of the little donkey 
 they urged him to accept for the journey. 
 
 He made straight for the hotel, with several 
 people who recognized and followed him, and as he 
 rushed into the anxious group gathered in the 
 President's parlor, he looked like an insane man 
 escaped from an asylum, and more and more so as 
 he tried to explain, and found that he could say 
 nothing which anybody would accept without 
 suspicion. 
 
 He could easily have said that he had been 
 thrown from his horse and injured accidentally, 
 but that was not the truth, and as he told as quietly 
 as he could the little that he knew, an air of in- 
 credulity and compassion crept over the faces of all 
 that heard him. They scattered to talk together, 
 and all felt that he was concealing something, some 
 lapse from rectitude, some fiasco, they all felt sure, 
 lay back of his poor explanation. 
 
 The President, who had passed a most wakeful 
 night, looked perplexed and troubled, but he 
 privately drove out at once to the old mission to 
 learn the truth. When he knew it all he looked 
 on his friend sadly, as though he had lost confi- 
 dence in the future, and their relations of perfect 
 trust seemed broken. That completed his disaster, 
 and if he was not insane before, he was so near it 
 now that he knew not which way to turn. 
 
 The doctors consulted and said he was sunsick ; 
 
THE COMING SHADOW. 243 
 
 that an over-sensitive nervous system was sometimes 
 affected that way in California, as in Denver, and in 
 any thin and dry air, which seemed to make the 
 nerves brittle, so that they would break or fail 
 when least expected, and cause a sudden fit of 
 nervous prostration. 
 
 That was what had happened when he had fallen 
 insensible from his horse. He now wrote all this 
 earnestly to Catherine, saying that he should re- 
 turn at once to New England as soon as a new pas- 
 tor could be selected for the Golden Gate. 
 
 He remained till October, and then gave the 
 right hand of fellowship to the new pastor, saying : 
 **No man can fill the place of our lost Chrysostom, 
 but you can make here a place for yourself which 
 after you no man can fill." 
 
 The air was yet full of the most tender and re- 
 gretful memories of Starr King. Round him the 
 whole loyalty of that coast had rallied. His church 
 had come to be a gathering of strong men, generals 
 and judges, wealthy merchants, eminent lawyers, 
 governors of States and territories, senators and 
 legislators, and all men of large influence and high 
 hope, there felt themselves at home, so that it came 
 to be for once the established church. 
 
244 BORDER LAiq-DS OF FAITH.. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ALL AT SEA. 
 
 He was thoroughly sun-sick, and longing for 
 clouds and rain. A hundred days had passed with- 
 out a cloud in the sky. The occasional and rare 
 fog from the Pacific, which usually kept well out 
 to sea, had been his only relief. 
 
 He was deeply grateful when once more afloat 
 upon the ocean, the great steamer swimming slowly 
 southward toward the storm. Yet monotony would 
 soon have made him weary, but for the variety 
 offered by the shore, and by the picturesque life the 
 ship carried within. 
 
 This coast itself, shore and sea, was historic 
 ground. He was now in the track of the bold navi- 
 gators who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth cent- 
 uries, had dared to explore these remote coasts. 
 
 Here, into the grand bay of San Francisco, and 
 on even to Oregon, had come Sir Francis Drake in 
 1666, and others before and after him. 
 
 A night at Acapulco was a thing to remember. 
 The moon had nearly set when they crept in through 
 the narrow gate, between the mountains, and swung 
 round southward to anchor in that wonderful har- 
 bor, set amid lofty mountains, which wrap them- 
 selves in dense tropical forests to their lofty tops. 
 
ALL AT SEA. 245 
 
 A city was there somewhere, though invisible as 
 yet, but soon a myriad lights, small, separate, slow, 
 began to creep toward the ship on every side. The 
 canoes of the natives had been waiting for her, 
 ready laden with their store of semi-tropical fruits, 
 and semi-savage curiosities. 
 
 The paddles slowly felt their way along, while 
 the owner of each little commercial venture, lighted 
 his great torch in the bow to show the fruits, the 
 bead- work, the shells, all less attractive than the 
 brown Mexican faces so picturesquely lighted up. 
 
 The few passengers now on board, bartered with 
 those shrewd barbarians, tossing silver coin down 
 to the canoes, and lowering, by a cord, baskets or 
 pails, to draw up the purchased treasures. Now 
 came the sound of rowing, heavy, slow, regular, 
 laborious. What could it mean ? What occasion 
 was there, amid these wild surroundings, for the 
 toil of the galley-slaves, for such it seemed ? 
 
 One small lantern only, in the long boat's bow, 
 was all that could be seen, and that seemed hardly 
 to move at all, though presently it dimly revealed 
 eight sturdy rowers, bending and rising with their 
 long and powerful strokes. 
 
 As they approached the ship, some heavy black 
 mass appeared afloat behind the boat, and presently 
 appeared the heads of a score or more of wild cattle, 
 trailed up to the barge by their horns, while their 
 bodies were wholly immersed in the sea. 
 
 It was the primitive way of fetching their beef on 
 
246 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 board, and soon, by a single rope, looped about 
 those horns, each huge ox was swiftly run up 
 toward the yard-arm, by a powerful steam windlass, 
 and lifted bodily out of the sea, dangling by that 
 one thread, and kicking and bawling vigorously, 
 till swung on board by the derrick and deftly 
 dropped in the hold. 
 
 Full of such pictures seemed to be that night at 
 Acapulco and the steak was good, when again at 
 day break, the great ship swung round and swept 
 out to sea. 
 
 But life on the Pacific could not well be monoto- 
 nous, with that motley gathering of all nations on 
 the ship, and he never missed the President so 
 much as when, on the following Sunday, he was 
 asked to preach to that curious assemblage. 
 
 The flag beautifully wreathed the capstan on 
 deck, whereon the good book lay. Singing they 
 did not attempt, but prayer was easy, where all 
 hearts had such varied experiences, and were so full 
 of home-coming memories of earlier days. 
 
 Many nations, many faiths, mingled in that little 
 group of worshippers, as he tried to speak, first of 
 that which is common to all Christians, and then 
 of what is common to all men, in universal depend- 
 ence and need of God, and finally of the messen- 
 gers of Christ, coming to explore this western 
 world, coming not to defraud ignorant savages, as 
 some explorers had done, but to plant the Cross, as 
 a symbol of a better civilization. 
 
ALL AT SEA. 247 
 
 Thus the French Catholics, going from Canada, 
 before 1700, into the upper valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, there met the earlier Spanish Catholics, going 
 into New Mexico and Colorado, from California, 
 pioneers of their sovereigns indeed, but inspired 
 and supported by another sovereign, and protected 
 by no worldly power. 
 
 The immunity with which that up-lifted Cross 
 went forth alone into the midst of savage peoples, — 
 the sacred spirit which enabled it to go in safety, — 
 the hopes which went with it, and founded missions 
 like that of San Dolores,— the motive which led 
 scholarly men to expatriate themselves for the sake 
 of rude savages, — the zeal for service which led to 
 self-sacrifice, — these were topics which hold the 
 attention of rude or cultered men, alike. 
 
 On such themes, his voice gave no uncertain 
 sound, and he felt that his words made an impres- 
 sion that Sabbath day on the Pacific, as if his 
 thought had the whole weight and momentum of 
 Christian History behind it. 
 
 Among the hearers that day, was a scientist, the 
 superintendent of mines at Yirginia City, Mr. Ab- 
 bott, a Harvard college man, now returning to his 
 home in Boston. 
 
 After the sermon, as they met on the deck, he 
 said, ** Professor, I supposed you were a Unitarian, 
 but you appear to believe in Christianity." 
 
 ** Yes, I might say I don't believe in anything 
 else, but what do you mean by Christianity ?" 
 
248 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 **Imean," said Abbott, ''the belief that Christ 
 was not born as other men are, that he had con- 
 scious pre-existence before the advent ; that he was 
 at once raised bodily from the dead, and he now 
 sitteth on the right hand of God.'^ 
 
 *'Well I do not believe either of those propo- 
 sitions." 
 
 "Then how can you preach as you did to-day? 
 And what does the word mean to you 1 " 
 
 " I mean by Christianity," he replied, '* a certain 
 vital movement in the progress of human life, 
 which Divine Wisdom prepared, and is now con- 
 ducting, for the civilization of the world." 
 
 *'But mtal movements began with Adam, long 
 before the time of Jesus." 
 
 *'Not so. Adam is a myth, but Jesus is a real- 
 ity, and this movement began at the Cross of 
 Christ, which constantly changes and betters the 
 the vital conditions and relations of communities, 
 and of individuals. 
 
 *' All previous civilizations were practically a 
 failure, and God swept them away by Jesus. 
 
 ** Christian civilization supersedes them all, and 
 has apparently come to stay, and this movement 
 rests on certain fundamental beliefs. Yet a con- 
 stant change in the beliefs is a very important part 
 of it. 
 
 '* Few things are believed now, as they were by 
 Pilate, when he longingly asked. What is Truth ? 
 
 '*Thi8 movement rests on God, rather than on 
 
ALL AT SEA. 249 
 
 any one's belief in God, and it is not affected by 
 any man's belief or disbelief in God, as the same 
 sun shines on the Atheist as on the Christian. 
 
 *' God is in it, notwithstanding the Atheist, who 
 merely quibbles over the name of God, and prefers 
 to call it by another name, without ever disputing 
 the reality. 
 
 *' But if our spiritual life does not rest on beliefs 
 or convictions of truth — on what does it depend 1 " 
 
 ** On passions, on feelings, on affections, on vital 
 forces, love and hate, hope and fear— on the motive 
 powers by which God moves men to act." 
 
 *' Then my love for my creed, is at war with the 
 Catholic's love for his creed, by God's will." 
 
 ** Certainly. How else could it exist. It is God's 
 way of advancing the movement, and he seems to 
 succeed in it, in spite of our doubts and quib- 
 blings." 
 
 ** Then why is not a false creed as good as a true 
 one, if they both get there all the same ? " 
 
 ** Certainly not; they do not both get there. 
 Falsehood is transient in its nature, while truth is 
 eternal, being God's word in Nature, only needing 
 to be understood. 
 
 *• How well our gifted Bryant has expressed that : 
 
 " * Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers, 
 But error, wounded, writhes in pain. 
 
 And dies amid her worshippers.' 
 
260 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ** All our beliefs and theories have been largely 
 erroneous, as you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know that ; but I did not suppose you 
 would admit it — least of all of your own religious 
 convictions." 
 
 "Man's religious affections are full of truth ; his 
 convictions and beliefs have always been but tis- 
 sues of error. It is the glory of Christianity that 
 it rests on affections, which are true, and not on 
 opinions which are false. 
 
 " Man's affections make no chan^jje ; his opinions 
 change, and should change, with every hour of life 
 and must do so if new evidence arises, as belief is 
 involuntary." 
 
 " Well, it is just that distracting confusion, 
 which drives men of science away from the church, 
 to find secure foundations." 
 
 " Well, do you find them ? That is one of the 
 most untrue convictions man ever held. You men of 
 science have true affection for knowledge, but you 
 are handling more false convictions than all the 
 churchmen together." 
 
 "Well, how would even that, if true, help faith 
 in Christianity ? " 
 
 " It admits the whole of it. You cannot study 
 thisplanet and leave out Christianity. It is the 
 one conspicuous, crowning fact among all the phe- 
 nomena which make up the life of this planet. 
 
 " This movement in human life, God inaugurated 
 
ALL AT SEA. 
 
 in his own time and way, and he is developing it in 
 his own method. 
 
 *' Our interpretations of it are poor enough, but 
 they are the best we could make. We have no 
 pre- vision. What God is doing we only find out 
 after it is done. Vital processes, the origin of life, 
 he still hides in mystery. 
 
 ''The creeds were doubtless the best men could 
 make, when they were made, but God will lead us 
 in his own way and time, to make them better, as 
 he is now doing." 
 
 "But how little we really know I " 
 
 *' We know, at least, that the foundations of our 
 life are these great primary affections, out of which 
 spring domestic life and the religious lile, and that 
 society does not rest so much on knowledge as on 
 affection and faith. 
 
 " The fact is that the Universe itself, is a living 
 thing, that Space is but the Divine Extension, 
 th€ Spiritual body of Deity,— the fact, that God 
 covereth himself with Light as with a garment." 
 
 As they thus stood, the starry night fell around 
 them and they beheld the spangled heavens. 
 
 *' Is there life there ? " asked the scientist. 
 
 '* Yes, yes. Yonder suns are but specks of gold 
 dust on the royal robe. The garment itself fills all 
 space. It is this space, luminiferous, quivering 
 everywhere with the one Life." 
 
 * ' I understand you. I agree with you that light 
 is identical with this interstellar shiver, which we 
 
262 BOEDER LAKDS OF FAITH. 
 
 call electricity, which also is the one manifestation 
 of force that may yet account for all the rest." 
 
 ** And you agree that this quivering of life must 
 have had a beginning 1 " 
 
 *' Yes, and must have an ending, too. An end- 
 ing when the material universe and all molecular 
 organization would vanish away, and leave not a 
 wreck behind." 
 
 ** Possibly, possibly. Well, I shall be ready for 
 that ending, or for my own, while I feel sure of 
 that beginning. Grant that, whatever that primal 
 impulse may have been, and I am sure that the 
 whole is alive, and the universe but the living gar- 
 ment of the living God." 
 
 It suggests the courtship of motion and matter 
 before planetary systems were born of them. 
 
 The celestial space was never vacuous, but light 
 and heat were always playing in it, as the children 
 of motion and matter. Their laughter thrills across 
 the endless lines of electric ether, revealing comets 
 and meteors as mere pollen bearers of the Universe, 
 carrying life from new worlds to old, as the Sun 
 stokes his furnace with dead planets, and girds 
 tighter his belt to throw off a new system. 
 
 It teaches eternal life, rising always to higher 
 perfection, through endless spheres and systems, 
 and also explains the evanescent flame and flower 
 of the human senses in sensation, consciousness and 
 thought, but how and to what result ? 
 
ALL AT SEA. 253 
 
 Ah ! there's the rub — where the unknowable 
 begins. 
 
 **The luminiferous ether is not material you 
 think ^ Is there friction there ? " 
 
 ** No, no. It is spiritual. At least it is the semi- 
 spiritual vehicle of the Divine Will, whereby God 
 is creating and sustaining all. The mutual re- 
 pulsion of its atoms or space-points or force- 
 centres, is infinite. Science cannot measure it, 
 yet the planet masses do intercept it, at least in 
 part." 
 
 '* Certainly, and thence comes through the lateral 
 distortion that local pressure which holds us to the 
 planet. Thence comes gravitation, does it not?" 
 
 '' Plausibly, I grant ; but our difiiculty comes in so 
 reversing in part, your infinite power of levitation, 
 as to group your force-centre atoms into our pri- 
 mary molecules." 
 
 '*I know, and that I leave the men of the labor- 
 atory to study out at their leisure. Your theory 
 will come in time. The greater fact we have 
 already." 
 
 ** But can we know him ?" 
 
 ''We know nothing absolutely. Life does not 
 rest on knowledge. Does the babe unborn, even 
 the nursing child, Tcnow its mother % It recognizes ; 
 its love knows. So does ours. Our need knows. 
 What else could \ We make too much of knowl- 
 edge. We are but nursing children. We only 
 feel that love is our life." 
 
254 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ET FILIOQUE. 
 
 Thee, God, we cannot comprehend, 
 Yet tireless Faith to thee will tend 
 And apprehend Thee, while we see 
 
 All thought begins and ends in Thee. 
 
 We cannot see Thee. Eyes were made 
 To see not light, but only shade, 
 
 And yet our souls, our eyes and mind 
 No gap, no void, no vacuum find. 
 
 We see when fairest friends we view 
 
 Not love, but faces love shines through. 
 
 Thy Grace, like music fills our sphere. 
 The soul must grasp it, not the ear. 
 
 So lead us Lord, in Thee to hide. 
 
 With eyes, mind, heart, all open wide, 
 
 While like the sunlight to the rose 
 Thy Holy Spirit round us flows. 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 
 
 The Southern Cross was already tilting toward 
 the West, as Abbot now withdrew, repeating 
 ** Love is our life,'' and wishing that he knew more 
 about it. 
 
 The Professor remained standing on the forward 
 deck, feeling rather than saying, '* Love is our 
 life." 
 
 He had a faith that was without fear. He knew 
 enough of science not to be afraid of it. He had 
 never put on any theological fetters. He looked 
 Nature in the face as fearlessly and as trustfully as 
 Plato did. 
 
 And as that good ship now swung slowly round 
 the Cape, his eager spirit rushed forward to the 
 union with Catherine and his boy, as the recovery 
 of all that was most dear. 
 
 But of all that he foresaw, his pulpit seemed now 
 to him the most important. 
 
 •* There is nothing like it," he said, thinking of 
 the Ministry of Grace. ** Nothing else deals so 
 directly with life itself. Sciences are but mend- 
 ing our roads and cobbling our shoes. Col- 
 leges are but training minds and trying not to spoil 
 
266 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 the good work the mothers of those boys have 
 already done. Merchants are but feeding and 
 clothing men. But while the mothers and the 
 homes are making men, the Minister of Christ is 
 most directly and powerfully aiding in their work, 
 as he is dealing at first hand with Life itself. 
 
 Eagerly his ardent spirit now looked forward to 
 his own home circle, and to that New England par- 
 ish he was ai once to seek. Merciful Providence, 
 how kindly thou dost still lead us on by the gentle 
 hand of hope ! 
 
 He would have been far less bold in seeking his 
 new parish, had it not been that Catherine was now 
 with him in spirit. Her confidence in him gave him 
 a confidence in himself he would never otherwise 
 have had. 
 
 He always felt that what he was saying, she was 
 doing ; and he often said, as the two drove away on 
 Sunday morning, to some parish near Boston, *'I 
 go to preach ; she, to practice." 
 
 He felt that it was true ; and while he seemed 
 himself, since his California breakdown, of small 
 value to any people, in her he felt sure they would 
 find a treasure worth their seeking. His self-dis- 
 trust seemed to find no echo, however, amongst 
 these kindly people. 
 
 Boston was worthy of all love and honor, not 
 merely because her cultured classes abhorred sham 
 and show, while they gave to the world pens like 
 those of Prescott, Ticknoi^, Motley, Lowell and 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 267 
 
 Bancroft ; but because a true courtesy, born of real 
 kindness and gentleness, pervaded all ranks of her 
 people. 
 
 The old Puritan severity had now softened into a 
 gentle but exacting demand of duty, which kept 
 manners quiet and sincere, and held her wealth up 
 to a mental ejffort and attainment, which kept her 
 culture from sinking into imbecility. 
 
 Her churches were in a curiously comatose con- 
 dition. The old Calvinism was dead, but its intel- 
 lectual habit survived, and, as a result, people ap- 
 proached all religious subjects and establishments 
 with none of the fervid imagination, which made, 
 and which alone can appreciate, the glory of the 
 Roman Church, yet with none of the passion Luther 
 threw into the Reformation. 
 
 Boston pulpits were without much insight or 
 zeal, and a respectable conformity went to church 
 on Sunday, merely at the impulse of prudence and 
 propriety. 
 
 To them Christ was synonymous with Jesus, and 
 the difference between them was neither understood 
 nor appreciated. 
 
 Jesus was regarded only as an example, or a 
 pattern to be consciously imitated, yet with none 
 of the ardent love and glowing devotion, which 
 give wings to the feet of a Christian, who recog- 
 nizes the Christ. 
 
 Worship was, therefore, self-conscious and al- 
 most mechanical, and real devotion and prayers, 
 
258 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 outside of the pulpit, were becoming unknown. The 
 ardent soul of Transcendentalism had withdrawn 
 from Boston's pulpit, and was communing with 
 Nature in Walden woods. 
 
 The Boston pulpit, having lost Calvin's Grod, had 
 not found Emerson's Oversoul, nor the Christian's 
 Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; and its trumpets, 
 therefore, gave forth so uncertain a sound, that its 
 host was halting at the dividing of the ways, where 
 intellectual speculation was to distract and hold 
 them, until man's natural love of religion and wor- 
 ship brought back both the glory and the peril of 
 an ecclesiastical revival, which restored worship to 
 its place, even though it brought the Puritan to 
 the Prayer-book and the Kitual. 
 
 In 1864, the bolder spirits among the younger 
 men, who had been well-trained intellectually, yet 
 knew nothing by experience as to what Christian- 
 ity really is, deemed organic Christianity a thing 
 of the past, and dreamed of such a union between 
 nominal Christians, Buddhists and Mohammedans, 
 as would come when each abandoned all the special 
 characteristics of its own faith. 
 
 These radicals were soon lost in the mere efflor- 
 escence of Transcendentalism, or sunk in the dead 
 sea of Materialism, and were soon found withered 
 up like the barren fig-tree, bearing nothing but 
 leaves, because the season of such figs had not 
 yet come. 
 
 And when the Master of the Vineyard came that 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 259 
 
 way, he said to those young men : ** Why stand ye 
 here all the day idle 1" 
 
 And they answered : '' Master, because no man 
 hath hired us." 
 
 Then the Master said : " Gfo ye also into my vine- 
 yard, and work." And they went, although it was 
 the eleventh hour. 
 
 It was then a very simple thing to enter that Uni- 
 tarian ministry. Between those churches there was 
 no connection whatever, save that of a kindly sym- 
 pathy and courtesy. Each church was as strictly 
 independent, as though it were the only one on earth. 
 
 It might invite the company or co-operation of a 
 few sister churches, when it ordained or installed a 
 pastor, and having no coherence and no creed, they 
 were open to the invasion of any enthusiastic boys, 
 the separate peoples might choose to call to their 
 pulpits. And these came forward with a boldness,, 
 in whose presence modest age and wisdom often 
 stood abashed. Keverence for the past seemed 
 about wholly to vanish away before this vast confi- 
 dence in the revelations of to-morrow ; and there 
 was something even pathetic in the glow of youth- 
 ful ardor, with which the Liberal pulpit of New 
 England rushed blindfold into that extravagance 
 attained conspicuously by the churches, which 
 sought a new revelation of God, made through the 
 intellect of man, while ignoring all the past revela- 
 tions God was making in Christian history, in the 
 evolution of Jesus as the Christ. 
 
260 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 They thereby ceased altogether to make any 
 united advance or any common assault on any evil 
 or untruth. They began confusedly to look around 
 and question one another, to inquire which had the 
 ablest preacher, and to criticize each other's logic 
 and work. An era of uncertainty brought its aim- 
 less irresolution to the clergy, while ecclesiastical 
 stagnation and decay crept over the churches, 
 which were once such confident champions of the 
 cause of Christ. 
 
 In Boston, strong and wise men, like James 
 Freemen Clarke and Edward Everett Hale, strongly 
 sympathized with their illustrious New York 
 brother, Dr. Bellows, while men of spiritual vision 
 and deep scholarship, like Cyrus A. Bartol and 
 Frederic Hedge, still lived in the spirit, and wielded 
 the intellect as its tool, seeing the leadership God 
 had plainly given to Jesus as the Christ, the sacred 
 Mediator. 
 
 The great body of the younger men, however, 
 stammered confusedly, or declined to say anything 
 whatever in the name of Christ, thinking that their 
 honesty and sincerity forbade it. This was the 
 frame of circumstances in which the great revival 
 of Christianity, as well as of religion, now origi- 
 nated in New England. 
 
 The new President of Antioch College, Dr. 
 Thomas Hill, had also fully realized that Christi- 
 anity without Christ was only an accursed thing, 
 a barren fig-tree, growing in a graveyard, and 
 
THE MINISTRY OP GRACE. 261 
 
 must soon be withering up to die, unless '*The 
 Way, tlie Truth, and the Life" of Jesus could be 
 restored to its vital forces. 
 
 In consequence of that belief mainly, he had been 
 advanced from his humble position in the West, to 
 the most distinguished position of influence and 
 honor in New England, and was then President of 
 Harvard College. 
 
 The path was thereby again easily opened to that 
 Ministry of Grace, of which the young Professor of 
 Logic had so long dreamed. It was an impressive 
 scene, in one of the three parishes of that old college 
 town of Cambridge, when that new President of 
 Harvard, with Catherine's old pastor from Boston, 
 together laid their kindly hands on the young man's 
 head, asking Heaven to consecrate his powers to 
 the blessed work of that Ministry of Grace, and 
 there their united lives again began, after passing 
 over all the border lands, except that final bourne, 
 from which no traveler returns. 
 
 Their home for years to come was in the pictur- 
 esque old Allston Mansion, in the suburbs of Cam- 
 bridge, and near the great highway to Boston, over 
 the Charles River Bridge. 
 
 There at first he fell naturally into the ordinary 
 place, as one of the kindly pastors, smiling placidly 
 on his quiet people, gently ministering to their 
 decent grief when death invaded the flock, and 
 reading, with due gravity and propriety his one 
 optimistic sermon on Sunday morning. 
 
262 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 There Protestantism's old conviction as to the 
 infallibility of the Book was wholly dead, but time 
 had not yet matured the theory destined to succeed 
 it. Ages of Christian faith and culture had pro- 
 duced there intelligent men and women, whose faces 
 and whose hearts were as sweet and pure, as New 
 England's Mayflower; and their lives were so inno- 
 cent and correct, that they seemed to need no Gos- 
 pel but that of ** sweetness and light," which they 
 had heard of, as the Transcendentalists' dream. 
 
 The Transcendentalists were a people of the sweet- 
 est sympathy, and finest spiritual insight, not to say 
 of the most unassuming and gentle humility, too ; 
 but their new worship of unconditional freedom, 
 which assumed no duty but that of high living and 
 pure thinking, now gave the rein to intellectual 
 speculation, and ended the habit of prayerful self- 
 sacrifice, which had built those good New England 
 churches, and filled the homes of their founders 
 with a pure and humble faith. 
 
 Intoxicated with the new wine of Christian free- 
 dom, they had almost overthrown the Cross. 
 
 Instead of rising into that clear-eyed loyalty to 
 Christ, which builds churches and blesses homes, 
 their enthusiasm was allowed to lapse into a dream- 
 ing devotion to what they called ** Truth," till their 
 lives became a mere ecstatic meditation on truth ; 
 and while their Seers and Saints were all dying 
 childless, the Catholics and Methodists were build- 
 ing warm nests in Boston, and the Episcopal Church 
 
THE MINISTEY OF GEACE. 263 
 
 drew in the devout element of worshipping Liberal- 
 ism to greet the great Bishop of Massachusetts, 
 Phillips Brooks, who built grandly on the ruins of 
 Transcendentalism. 
 
 In his Bohlen Lectures, he announced his faith 
 as follows : 
 
 **The inspiring idea is the Fatherhood of God, 
 and the childhood of every man to Him. Jesus is 
 always bringing into more and more perfect revela- 
 tion the certain truth that man, and every man, is 
 the child of God." 
 
 •* This is the sum of the work of the Incarnation, 
 to reassert the fatherhood and childhood as an un- 
 lost truth, and to re-establish its power as the cen- 
 tral fact of life, that was the purpose of the coming 
 of Jesus." * * ^ 
 
 *'Two centuries ago, I think that Christ was far 
 less real to men than he is now ; but its religion 
 had grown strangely impersonal. It believed doc- 
 trines far more than it believed in the Son of 
 Man." * * * 
 
 **The loftiness of the life of Jesus altogether 
 escaped the perplexity of many of the questions 
 with which our lives are troubled, as the eagle fly- 
 ing through the sky is not worried how to cross the 
 rivers." * * * 
 
 *'The Lord's Supper, realized in the simplest 
 way, as the Father's table, is its transparent sacra- 
 ment. I would let a man forget, or never know, 
 all about councils and bishops, aU about corrup- 
 
264 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 tions and reformations, all about creeds and confes- 
 sions, if he kept that picture, he would know the 
 open secret of the Christian Church." 
 
 Theodore Parker had gone before him through 
 Boston like a cyclone, a sort of fighting Joab, or 
 vehement Paul, who forced even rude men to see 
 with a spiritual vision; but he had left many- 
 wounds and ruins in his path. 
 
 He had stepped in to finish Calvinism, with what 
 Bunyan would have called a ''grievous crab-tree 
 cudgel," and he laid about him on every side, as 
 though at a Donnybrook fair, where the chief duty 
 was to see a head and hit it. 
 
 But, on the whole, that Gospel of the Cudgel, 
 where it was needed, has had a vast and beneficent 
 influence. 
 
 Calvin died hard, but he is really dead, at least 
 in Boston, and beyond the hope of resurrection ; 
 even his ghost does not walk in America to-day, 
 outside of the Catholic or the Presbyterian 
 churches ; and they will soon also exclaim : '' Naza- 
 rene, Thou hast conquered ! " 
 
 Jesus and Calvin cannot exist together, at least 
 not in one family ; and for that inestimable bless- 
 ing we are most indebted to that bit of incarnate 
 fidelity, Theodore Parker. 
 
 He was like a devout and praying bulldog, set to 
 rend and harry the Church of Gfod, till it flung 
 away the filthy creed rags, in which its divine 
 beauty had been so long concealed, bat out of them 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 265 
 
 it came at last, *'a thing of beauty and a joy for- 
 ever." 
 
 Into that setting now came the Ministry of Grace, 
 largely reinforced from the best souls of all denomi- 
 nations, yet falling far short of its ideals. 
 
 Even England sent many of its greatest souls to 
 aid in that resurrection of Christ. 
 
 Brooke Hereford gave the best years of his life 
 to it, and Stopf ord Brooke, in two generations, and 
 Professor Carpenter of Oxford came to greet their 
 many worthy peers and brothers, like Sunderland 
 of Ann Arbor, and the soulful Robert CoUyer of 
 New York. 
 
 ** Let us study the omens," said Catherine, as 
 they walked together by the beautiful Charles 
 River, through the Longfellow field. 
 
 ** Tell me, dear," she said, '' which of us do you 
 think will first be called to pass away, and which 
 must be left here alone ? " 
 
 Without speaking he drew two parallel lines on 
 the smooth sand with his cane, and in a moment 
 in rolled the tide, and obliterated them both at 
 once. '* You see," he said. 
 
 " But tell me, dear," she pleaded, *' what do you 
 think about it?" 
 
 ** Well," he said, " try these two scallop shells 
 —just alike— let us launch them, and see which 
 shall sink first !" 
 
 He gently set them afloat, side by side. The re- 
 tiring tide carried them out to the current, and a 
 
266 BORDEK LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 light breeze from the shore caused them to sail 
 away, gently tilting over the light ripples, and, as 
 they thus receded, Catherine pressed closer and 
 closer to his side, catching her breath now and then 
 in a nervous anxiety, as one or the other seemed to 
 have disappeared ; but keeping her eyes fixed on 
 the graceful scallops, which became more and more 
 difficult to see, until they both found themselves 
 breathless v^ith interest, as it became plain that 
 the omen was to give no response, since the shells 
 drifted away and away out of sight, into the twi- 
 light, side by side. 
 
 As they returned from that walk, they passed 
 through the College grounds, and there met with 
 one of the venerable overseers of the college, 
 who walked with them to the college pump, in the 
 early evening of Commencement Day. 
 
 He paused and gazed intently at a broad black 
 stain, on the white sand of the college ground ; 
 classic soil, he had always considered it. 
 
 The stain, less than a yard wide, was trailed 
 down, and away from the college pump, and a sus- 
 picious odor filled the air, while near by, in the 
 doorway of one of the buildings, lay one of the 
 janitor's men, evidently very drunk. 
 
 *' Ah," said the overseer, shaking his whitehead, 
 '* a sad sight ! a sad sight ! I know these things 
 occasionally happen on Commencement Day, when 
 the janitors empty the punch bowls from the class 
 spreads, and the great Commencement dinner." 
 
THE MINISTRY OF aRAOE. 267 
 
 *' Why don't you prevent them ? " said the new 
 pastor. 
 
 ''Would you destroy a venerable social cus- 
 tom 1 " was the reply. 
 
 ** I would destroy the custom, and the college 
 too, sooner than see it stand like a wanton, holding 
 the wine-cup to the lips of youth !" 
 
 ** Ah, you western men are so headstrong, so in- 
 considerate ! Mad-caps, all of you !" 
 
 ** Yes, Doctor, mad-caps for Christ ! You can- 
 not keep Christ in the pulpit, while you banish 
 him from the schools." 
 
 ** Banish him from the schools 1 Why, what do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 '' Doctor, I was taught in a western college that 
 it is about as prudent to load down a maniac with 
 dynamite, as to put the weapons of learning and of 
 trained skill into the hands of a young man 
 schooled in vice !" 
 
 *' Schooled in vice ! Tut, tut ! We have no 
 schools of vice ! But what would you do about it ? 
 
 '^ I think we should say, at least, no importing 
 of European vices for our schools ; no turning of 
 our boys into beer-tubs and tobacco fiends, because 
 German and French students are so sketched ; no 
 giving of power or place or diplomas to any young 
 man who does not give ample evidence of some 
 sanctifying or saving grace or power in his own 
 soul, that would keep him above such vices, and 
 
268 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 insure his using learning or position as a sacred 
 trust." 
 
 ** But what a Utopian scheme is that ! What 
 evidence could you get ? " 
 
 ^* I would demand that every student in college 
 should publicly kneel daily, as a recognition of 
 Christ." 
 
 ** You wouldn't attempt to pump religion into 
 these young men ? " 
 
 '* I would not attempt to pump learning into 
 them, every day, and then stand idle while Satan 
 pumped religion out of them, every night." 
 
 ^' Well, you would compel attendance at pray- 
 ers? What else?" 
 
 '* I would endeavor to train boys so, that they 
 should deem that attendance a privilege, by allow- 
 ing the young gentlemen mainly to conduct the 
 service themselves." 
 
 " But we receive all denominations here, you 
 know ? This is not a sectarian school — a mere hatch- 
 ery for heretics. What would you do with the Jew 
 or the Catholic?" 
 
 ** Of course, only by making it honorable, and 
 by changing the habits of the school. At the end 
 of each sophomore year, I would have twenty men 
 chosen to conduct prayers, for the year to come. I 
 would give, a year later, as the highest honor the 
 college confers, a crimson ribbon, bearing a cross of 
 gold, and the college seal and motto, to the ten 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 269 
 
 young men who had shown themselves most worthy, 
 fitly to conduct that service. 
 
 " That is, I would so train all college graduates, 
 that they could conduct a public religious service, 
 at least as well as an English ship captain, for 
 whom it is made a part of his trade or business. 
 
 ** And if there were here any Augean stable of 
 customs, tilled with the inherited vice and tilth from 
 the evil habits of dead generations, I would clean 
 it out, or grant no diploma to its occupants. 
 
 " Both whiskey and tobacco should be con- 
 sidered sinful^ and no youth should be graduated, 
 or secure any diploma, who habitually used either. 
 
 ** Drunkards and smokers diVQ usually made such 
 in their teens and both should be outlaws in the 
 college life of pure boys ! 
 
 ** There is no greater degradation of American 
 manhood to-day, than arises from the early use or 
 any use of those remaining **twin relics of barbar- 
 ism," whiskey and tobacco. 
 
 He could hardly believe that it was barely twenty 
 years then, since John Pierpont's manly plea had 
 banished the punch-bowl from the feast of minis- 
 ters who installed any New England pastor, and 
 that not fifty years had passed since the State had 
 allowed Harvard College openly to draw lotteries 
 in Boston. 
 
 New England's respectable sin of the punch-bowl 
 was something he had never seen, and he disliked 
 the easy compliance with which some of his new 
 
270 BOEDEE LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ministerial friends walked hand in hand with it. 
 
 But the united influence for temperance finally- 
 carried no license as the rule for Cambridge. Then 
 the pastor came down Cambridge Street from Har- 
 vard Square to Boston, and said, " This looks good. 
 All these saloons open this October evening, and 
 not a drunken man to be seen. Prohibition seems 
 to prohibit. The sight of these streets to-night 
 ought to do one's heart good." 
 
 So saying, and feeling especially hopeful, he came 
 over the Craigie Bridge into Boston, but how sud- 
 denly the mood was changed when he left the 
 bridge. Conspicuous at the first corner on the left 
 stood forth the sign " Hell-gate Lager." 
 
 ** A good name for it," he said, ''but is the en- 
 trance into Boston to be one of the gates to Hell I " 
 
 He began to think so as the car rolled on ; saloons 
 to the right and to the left, each filled with a half- 
 tipsy crowd ; and in all of them the horrible work 
 of drunkard-making going on. That car, on its 
 short circuit of about a mile before it gets back to 
 the bridge, passes fifty or sixty open drinking 
 places. The number of drinking men there visible 
 was about five hundred, and, as that motley crowd 
 changes continually from five o'clock till eleven, 
 from five thousand to twenty thousand men there 
 taste the poison every night. 
 
 His mind was growing dark with the shadow of 
 that dismal group of facts, before he reached Scollay 
 Square, as he knew that route is no worse than a 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. 271 
 
 score of others in Boston. The Chelsea cars or the 
 Harvard Square cars go over just such a course. 
 Over all of them Boston is pouring streams of sin 
 into her sister cities, and the question becomes one 
 of vital moment whether Boston is to go on forever 
 acting the part of a v^hite-haired bar-tender, and 
 holding the cup of death to the lips of the young 
 men of Cambridge and of Harvard College. 
 
 Anybody who will, may see any night in the 
 week, a river of tipsiness sluggishly flowing over 
 that Craigie Bridge from Boston into Cambridge, 
 as her workingmen stagger back after having got in 
 Boston what they cannot get at home. What has 
 Boston to say to that ? The fact is one that any 
 man may see. Boston is debauching her sister 
 City, and is making money thereby. And how 
 little the clergy can do in these terribly practical 
 matters. 
 
 To many of the homeless, the saloon is the thing 
 now most nearly resembling home. The outcast and 
 the lonely seek and often find something of com- 
 panionship and good will, even before the open bar. 
 The deadly cup must go, but the companionship it 
 often stands for must not go. 
 
 The songs and kindly greetings of these beer- 
 gardens must not be banished. The places of refuge, 
 these resorts of the homeless, these hiding-places of 
 onr misery — all these must remain. 
 
 Fill none of them so visibly full of cold holiness 
 that a shabby sinner could not endure to go in. Let 
 
272 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 a little grace give to that holiness a glow that will 
 make it winsome, and forget not that these minis- 
 tering hands of the Saviour are rough as well as 
 gentle ; those hands have been crucified ; they are 
 torn and pierced and marked with blood. 
 
 And this conflict demands the blood of some loyal 
 martyrs now. It is no child's play to tackle this 
 rum demon in Boston. 
 
 Though not a hint could be given that *' no 
 license" was not working well in Cambridge, the 
 license vote went up from 2,344 in 1886 to 3,727 in 
 1887 ; but thanks to Chaplain Peabody and to Prof. 
 Norton, to Rev. Mr. Hall and to the other loyal souls 
 that worked with them, the ** no-license " vote also 
 went up from 2,910 to 4,293 ; and the fight was won. 
 
 And the glory of that victory shines brightest in 
 this— that it carries with it the decision of fair 
 Harvard, and of the culture and scholarship of 
 Cambridge, that they will not in any way back up 
 or indorse the rumseller, nor play the part of a 
 white-haired bartender. 
 
 And yet the unattained ideal of that ministry of 
 grace is far away. Experience baffles hope, and 
 aspiration often ends only in meditation, like this : 
 
 THE THREE STATUES IN HARVARD SQUARE. 
 
 Puritan, whose iron stride 
 Seems to thrust the past aside, 
 Seekest thou, with visage stern 
 Other heretics to burn ? 
 
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE. , 273 
 
 Freed from persecution's grip. 
 Wilt thou fiercer hounds let slip ? 
 Or hath sorrow nursed in thee 
 Sweeter Faith than cloisters see ? 
 
 Soldier, mounting guard in stone, 
 What hast thou to gaze upon ? 
 Wars are over, discords dead. 
 Reverently bare thy head, — 
 Grander conflict round thee roars. 
 Life its mightier tide outpours. 
 Where young men in thousands meet 
 Hearing now the world's heart beat ; 
 Bare thy bowed head to the storm. 
 Watch ! The conflict still is warm ! 
 
 Scholar, throned upon thy chair, 
 Thou alone art free from care ; 
 Not the Puritan's grim zeal, 
 Not the Soldier's ready steel ; 
 Anxious apprehension none, 
 Shuts thy sweet face from the sun, 
 Love alone equipped thy hand 
 Faith predicted, wisdom planned ; — 
 Dreaming Scholar, ages fleet. 
 Lay fulfilment at thy feet. 
 So, the Century's golden stream, 
 Brings fruition to thy dream. 
 And thy sweet Faith yet shall see 
 Here thy grandest liberty. 
 
274 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE SHADOW FALLS. 
 
 For ten years more this happy life rolled on in 
 the ministry, at least of sweetness and light, and 
 four lovely children had blessed that happy home. 
 
 The duties of the parish work were light, and its 
 only contact with any very serious sin was with a 
 few poor and ignorant working people, who never 
 entered its church, but from the sadness and lone- 
 liness of their lives, were addicted to occasional 
 drunkenness in the streets at night, and to carousals, 
 fishing excursions and picnics on Sunday. 
 
 The sweetness and light somehow did not seem 
 to reach those poor people, whose homes were less 
 pleasant, and sometimes empty of food or fire, and 
 when the tract distributor came around, they 
 would occasionally swear at him, and say in effect, 
 if the children ask for bread, would you give them 
 only something to read ? 
 
 In the little practical work he could do with 
 those classes, the new pastor found his ablest co- 
 laborers for Christ were a faithful Catholic Priest, 
 in the suburbs, and a Jewish Rabbi, who seemed 
 to personally know all those poor people, and 
 really to take some interest in them, towards im- 
 proving their condition, just as if that were one of 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. . 275 
 
 the duties of a Christian, to go about doing good. 
 
 The Eabbi often so far excelled in these good 
 works, that the new pastor once remarked to his 
 Catholic brother, ''We must be active, my brother, 
 or these Jews will become the best Christians." 
 
 " They always have been," retorted the Rabbi 
 when he heard that remark, "they at least take 
 care of their own poor and suffering, to the extent 
 of their ability, and without waiting to say prayers 
 about it first, give and receive thanks afterwards 
 for their ability to do it." 
 
 In these good works Catherine could be of but 
 little assistance, absorbed as she now was in her 
 home and children ; and the usual parish visiting 
 round, and the Sunday School and sewing circle 
 did not seem to interest her much, as her active 
 mind could not be over much interested with such 
 things ; and she had taken to reading Herbert 
 Spencer and the philosophers. 
 
 She finally welcomed the change when her hus- 
 band was advanced to a new church in Dorchester, 
 which he insisted on naming Christ Church. 
 
 That was near her old home, amid many friends, 
 and enabled them to take a fine new house in Bos- 
 ton, in Marlborough street, where her circle was 
 greatly enlarged and her interests and duties in 
 many ways increased, and the Browning Clubs, and 
 the Emerson Clubs, and the Ethical Lectures had 
 more fully occupied her mind. 
 
 From there, on Christmas Day of 1879, the pas- 
 
276 BOEDEK LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 tor had taken an afternoon walk, and came in from 
 Dorchester, across the public gardens as the sun 
 was setting, and quietly entered the now familiar 
 Marlborough street door. 
 
 The house was singularly still. The children, 
 after their merry morning, at home, had gone to 
 Dorchester to greet and dine with Grandma Eliot, 
 and their uncle's great sleigh would soon bring 
 back the merry troop for the Christmas evening at 
 home. 
 
 He entered the long reception room at the left of 
 the door, where a great coal fire glowed and lighted 
 up the elegant room, and there sat Catherine alone, 
 in a large arm-chair, before the grate. 
 
 She lifted her large eyes, as if startled from a 
 re very, and unconsciously sighed, as she often did 
 of late, especially if left thus brooding alone. 
 
 Her husband was troubled by the look and by 
 the sigh, as evidently something lay back of it. 
 She gazed silently again at the fire and almost 
 without noticing him. 
 
 He laid his hand upon her forehead, and stroked 
 the brown hair with a caressing touch, of which 
 she was fond, and tears welled into her eyes as he 
 did so. 
 
 She took his hand in both hers, kissed it affec- 
 tionately, pressed it to her heart, and said: 
 ** There's something I have long wanted to tell you, 
 and yet I fear to say it." 
 
 They were less often quite alone together, as they 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. 277 
 
 were now, with the children all away, and no one 
 to interrupt. 
 
 So he sat down upon the arm of the chair, and 
 pressed her head to his side, with his left arm 
 around her, while his right hand again stroked her 
 hair, and he said : *' Well, dearest, there can be 
 no better time than now. You can tell me nothing 
 painful, as we have been very happy together for 
 twenty years; and God's mercy is not likely to 
 fail us now." 
 
 She replied : ** Are yoa quite sure there is a 
 personal God, a Being who knows us personally, 
 and whom we can know, or go to as a Father ?" 
 
 He started up in surprise, and said : " Why, 
 you've been dreaming, Catherine. Don't be so 
 moody." And to change the subject, he said : 
 
 *'Fm sorry, dear, you haven't had more love to 
 brighten your life, but you know, dearest, God is 
 love, and you've had all there was. Nobody else 
 ever had any such as you and I have given to 
 each other." 
 
 *'But you do not answer my question," she said, 
 **and I want you to very much." 
 
 He felt that mere words could not evade that 
 searching soul, and he knew that mere words often 
 made a mockery of love ; in trying to answer its 
 needs, but that true affection speaking in kind 
 looks and gentle tones and acts could not be con- 
 cealed, where there was any affectionate sympathy 
 to discern it. 
 
278 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 She did not doubt his love, but she was losing 
 her faith in a personal God, and a conscious in- 
 dividual future life. 
 
 '* Yes, dear,*' she answered, "I've had all there 
 was and it has been blessed, but somehow I wish I 
 was more satisfied about these things, so that I 
 could be more to you. I wish I was more to you. 
 Do you never feel you would be better off without 
 meT' 
 
 ** Impossible I You are everything to me,'' he 
 said. 
 
 But the shadow had come again,— that strange 
 shadow of self-reproach and distrust, so intangible, 
 but so ominous and fearful. She sighed again 
 heavily, and sat for some time in silence, while he 
 stroked the head he loved best of all things on 
 earth. Then he sat on a footstool at her feet, and 
 laid his head in her lap and gazed up into her 
 face, as he said earnestly : 
 
 "Have we not, dear, all that heart can wish, 
 those dear children, my renewed health and hopes, 
 our happy life, and bright prospects, and our un- 
 diminished joy in each other ? " 
 
 **0h, yes," she said, "but do you never feel 
 that something will some time separate us ? Were 
 you gone, what have I left? Do you feel really 
 sure of immortality, so that even death could not 
 wholly separate us ? " 
 
 •* Why, certainly, dear.; what a strange mood 
 you are in. We must not doubt Grod's providence, 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. . 279 
 
 which insures the future life. What else has he 
 made us for 1" 
 
 ** Ah, dear, I have so often heard you say that ; 
 but what has he made all other animal life for? 
 What has he made roses and lilies for ! And ants 
 and bees and horses and dogs, and elephants, which 
 often seem to have as much intelligence as men ? 
 
 ** But can they reason Y^ Yes, they can to some 
 extent. 
 
 '' Can they pray?'' Better than most men, and 
 their fidelity and sincerity are beyond comparison. 
 
 ** You see, dear, that law of compensation in the 
 future should include the orchids and the lilies, 
 which shed their exquisite beauty only for the 
 pleasure of the hour, or to produce other more 
 beautiful and perfect orchids and lilies, and if Sol- 
 omon in all his glory was not equal to one of these, 
 pray why should he live forever as an individual, 
 while they perish ? 
 
 **I think the same law applies to both, and that 
 we have our own immortality in other individuals, 
 like all the rest of nature, in the children. 
 
 '* Life is eternal, but its blossoms, even the high- 
 est and fairest of human souls, drop oflP, and fall 
 back into the great source of life, which we call 
 God, only from knowing no better name for it.'* 
 
 " Oh, my darling I You amaze me I You wound 
 me to the heart ! What do you really mean ?" he 
 said. 
 
 " I do not know what I mean, dear, but I fear, I 
 
280 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 fear, for you and for me. I fear that death ends all !" 
 
 Her husband started up in amazement, staggered 
 and fell insensible at her feet. 
 
 Three days after the doctors consulted and said 
 he had a fit, but he knew he had only received a 
 shock of the soul. Men often die of shock from 
 wounds, but what are physical wounds to such a 
 shock of the faithful soul 1 
 
 All the hope and courage and joy of his life ; all 
 the strength to bear up under terrible trials ; all 
 the gentleness and tenderness with which he had 
 always dealt with Catherine ; all in him that was 
 manly ; all his fortitude ; all his faith ; all that his 
 loved wife most admired in him. seemed to him 
 now lost forever, as if the bow had broken in his 
 hands, and all the elasticity and hope had gone 
 out of his life. 
 
 All this rushed over him anew, as he revived at 
 midnight, and found her bending over him with 
 true wifely solicitude and affection, and it recalled 
 the secret sorrow he had touched at the bridge of 
 sighs at Antioch, when the terrible question of 
 heredity was first suspected. 
 
 It came now like a flash of revelation, this vision 
 of the fact that her reason was in danger, if not 
 already lost to her, that in her hour of need, 
 appeals to God or Christ were unmeaning and as 
 nothing at all, while to him they were all in all, 
 and that he had no other source of consolation to 
 offer her. 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. 281 
 
 It was as if death had already separated thetn. 
 
 *'0h, forgive me, dear," she cried, *' Forgive me, 
 dear. You know that I did not mean anything. 
 That I do not understand it. I do not. I cannot I 
 and my nature is somehow different from yours.'* 
 
 He was constantly with, her now, as if to realize 
 the worst, and seeking to interest her again in the 
 great subject, he said, ^* My darling, let us make it 
 certain. Let us exchange solemn vows that which 
 ever of us shall die first, shall as soon as possible 
 thereafter, communicate to the other in some way; 
 the fact of a future, conscious existence, as an indi- 
 vidual being, as we are in this life." 
 
 That seemed to divert her mind, and the most 
 solemn vows were exchanged that nothing should 
 prevent such communication if it were possible ; 
 and if it did not come, the impossibility of such 
 communication at least should thereby be deter- 
 mined. 
 
 She laughed as she said the Spiritualists had been 
 pretending to do that for many years, but that 
 nothing reliable had ever come from it yet, and she 
 didn't believe there ever would, as they were such 
 a set of frauds and humbugs. 
 
 ** But, my dear, you believed it when in Italy, 
 you know, as we gazed at Alpha Lyrae so many 
 nights." 
 
 *'Ah," she said, **that was different. Love is 
 life, as you say, and we were both very much alive 
 then I " 
 
282 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 It was a sad week that followed. There seemed 
 to be growing upon Catherine the feeling that she 
 was no help to her husband ; that all his calamities 
 had sprung from her, and that a gulf separated 
 them, which nothing could bridge. 
 
 He longed to do something for her, who had been 
 so much to him, and who was doubly dear to him 
 now, as the mother of those four lovely children, 
 yet she could not take in through the intellect 
 real convictions that should have come in child- 
 hood. If the heart does not first take hold of Christ, 
 the mind never will. 
 
 On any topic relating to themselves, his wife had 
 never before asked him a question which he could 
 not answer to her satisfaction. He had been per- 
 fectly true to her, and not a shadow of distrust 
 had ever come between them. 
 
 A few days later she came in suddenly to his 
 great study at the top of the house, and threw her 
 arms about his neck and said, ** Do you think we 
 shall pull through, dear ? '' 
 
 " Why, what do you mean, dear ? " he said. 
 
 She seemed to evade the question and referred to 
 some financial engagements of no real importance, 
 and presently said, **Do you know, dear, I fear I 
 am becoming insane." 
 
 '* Impossible, my darling," he replied. *' Your 
 clear intellect is in no danger of insanity. I am 
 more likely to go that way." 
 
 '* Well, let us exchange vows again, that what- 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. ,283 
 
 ever happens neither of us will ever send the other 
 to any asylum. You know what Charles Lamb had 
 to endure with his insane sister." 
 
 *'Yes, dear," he replied, ''and you know I 
 promise anything you can ask before you ask it, 
 and will keep the promise." 
 
 *' Yes, but Susan Blake is still in that asylum, 
 and I believe that she is no more insane than I am 
 now." 
 
 ''Nonsense, dear, nonsense ! But you shall cer- 
 tainly never have any snch need." 
 
 He left the house presently and walked across 
 the public garden, considering if he should consult 
 a physician without her knowing it, as it seemed 
 impossible to do so otherwise without increasing 
 her uneasiness and alarm. 
 
 He went to the treasurer of the church and drew 
 a quarter's salary, hoping to quiet her by giving 
 her a much larger sum than she had mentioned, 
 and on entering he placed several hundred dollar 
 bills more than she needed in her pocketbook, after 
 assuring her there was no need of any anxiety. 
 
 He then advised her to have some company over 
 the following Sunday, and she sent at once for her 
 intimate friend Miss Abbott, for that purpose. 
 
 To that friend he imparted his own anxieties, 
 and asked for her assistance in observing Catherine 
 closely. 
 
 On Sunday morning he had to go away early, as 
 usual, to his church in Dorchester, where he was 
 
284 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 again to dine with the children at grandma's, and 
 for greater care, before he went, he wrote to 
 Miss Abbott, who had not yet come down from her 
 room, and slipped it under the door of her room, a 
 note which read, *' Miss Abbott will kindly remem- 
 ber, should there be need of counsel to-day, that 
 Dr. Clark has come in from Somerville, and lives 
 now at No. 17, where she can see him if necessary.'' 
 
 He went on his way with a sigh, but he did not 
 observe or know that wifely anxiety was looking 
 over the banisters above, where Catherine had come 
 out to the stairs on her way down, and to her sorrow 
 and surprise saw him slip that note under Miss 
 Abbott's door. 
 
 Oh, spirit of distrust, fell destroyer, that parent 
 of terror, of anguish, what venom canst thou not in 
 a moment drop into the human heart ? Faith could 
 forever exorcise thee and end thy horrible work. 
 
 But for Catherine's new spirit of distrust, and a 
 lack of faith in God or man, which soon destroys 
 all faith, if not also all faithfulness, she would have 
 gone at once to her friend's room and inquired 
 about the note, and learned that only her husband's 
 anxious love for her had moved him to do what he 
 had never done before, and to conceal his hand 
 from her for the first time. But that she never 
 knew. 
 
 She returned to her room in anguish and despair, 
 and in such suspicion, that she could only wonder 
 if she had already been placed in charge of a keeper, 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. ,285 
 
 while Miss Abbott's kindly persistence in trying all 
 day to be with her only tended largely to increase 
 that suspicion. 
 
 Her husband came in at four o'clock and was met 
 by Catherine at the door with a pleasant greeting, 
 and seeing that she looked very sad, he asked where 
 she was going ? 
 
 *' To the German book-store," she said. 
 
 **Well, don't be gone long, dear," he replied, 
 and went in to consult with Miss Abbott, who 
 seemed better now than any physician. Not find- 
 ing her below stairs, he walked the floor of the par- 
 lors restlessly, and finally stood long at the window, 
 looking sadly toward the public garden, and wish- 
 ng that Catherine would speedily return. 
 
 As the twilight fell, he went up to his study 
 where daylight lingered longest, and presently sat 
 down at his study table and lighted the lamp. 
 
 Something moved him to open the shallow 
 drawer under the centre of the table, for a pen, 
 and there, in a place she had never left them 
 before, were his wife's watch and pocketbook. 
 He opened the book and found the larger bills in it 
 as he had placed them, and thought she had left 
 them there for greater safety, rather than carry 
 them in the street, but the watch was one she 
 always carried. 
 
 He started up with an outcry of alarm, as the 
 fear flashed upon him at once that she had left 
 the house n^ver to return. Where could she have 
 
BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 gone? What was her plan? He had feared that 
 she might even think of suicide, but his trustful 
 heart had never suspected such a thing of her in 
 earnest. Her brothers' houses were not far away and 
 she had probably stopped at one of them. He felt 
 sure of it. He thought he knew it. What else 
 could she do ? 
 
 A tap at the study door startled him, and the 
 maid came in with little baby Catherine in her 
 arms, asking if the mother was there, or if she had 
 yet come in ? 
 
 The sight of the smiling babe brought a new 
 rush of suggestions. ** Oh, the children, the chil- 
 dren ! " he cried, "Think of their losing such a 
 mother. What madness in me to have let her out 
 of my sight to-day a moment." 
 
 He sent the nurse for Miss Abbott, and rushing 
 down to the reception room, determined to make 
 some alarm. Pausing a moment to think how to 
 proceed, his hand touched the bell-pull by the 
 mantel to summon the servants from below, and 
 as he did so his eyes caught sight of two letters, 
 slipped in behind a picture that stood on the man- 
 tel. He seized them at once, one to himself, one to 
 Miss Abbott. 
 
 They were calm, quiet, loving, expressing no dis- 
 satisfaction or distrust of anybody, but saying he 
 had broken his promise and placed her under a 
 guardian, preparatory to an asylum, and avowing 
 a purpose long formed that in such an event, she 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. 287 
 
 would sacrifice her life, rather than be an incum- 
 brance to him or anyone, and finally ending with, 
 ''Do not look for me, you will never find me." 
 
 '* What does that mean ? " he cried, ** Where can 
 she be that I will never find her. What spot on 
 earth will I not search for her." 
 
 '*It means," said Miss Abbott, **the open sea. 
 She spoke twice to-day of the open sea. Where 
 could she now reach the open sea ? " 
 
 "It means Point Judith," he said, **she is 
 there." 
 
 It was now quite dark. The train for Fall River 
 had been gone an hour. He went to the door, saw a 
 neighbor whom he summoned to his aid, forced 
 him to accept a confidence he was unwilling to 
 take, read to him the letters, and asked him to go 
 instantly and telegraph to Fall River and to New- 
 port. 
 
 The banker's prudent mind hesitated, and he be- 
 gan to express some doubts, when he exclaimed, 
 ** Great God I Can men still argue when there is 
 no time left to act?" 
 
 He then rushed away to the Old Colony station 
 and sent urgent telegrams to both places, and hap- 
 pening to find a clerk there who knew him, said, 
 " An engine, quick, quick 1 Every moment is 
 worth a life ! " 
 
 There happened to be an engine there, ready 
 fired for the next train, and in two minutes he was 
 on it with two firemen, flying over the clear track. 
 
BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 It was now seven o'clock, the hour for the steamer 
 to leave Fall River, but it was barely possible to 
 intercept it at Newport at 9 o'clock, and rescue 
 Catherine, if the telegram had accomplished any- 
 thing. They had asked for her detention there, or 
 for any steamer which could await this engine, and 
 there intercept the New York steamer, the Newport. 
 
 He felt happy now in thinking he should certainly 
 rescue Catherine, and prove to her whether he had 
 broken trust with her or not. But how did he know 
 she was there? Might she not have gone to the 
 Portland boat, or the Bangor boat, or to the Charles 
 River Bridge ! 
 
 He asked no questions. He knew he was right. 
 He was acting by Faith, and by that instinct of 
 love, which is inspiration. He could almost see her 
 now, on the deck of that boat, going down the 
 Providence River, and he became strangely calm 
 and glad, as the panting engine flew through the 
 night, fired to its highest speed, and thought of 
 that Providence River. 
 
 " Strange name," he thought. ''It certainly will 
 carry her safely." 
 
 The lighted towns slipped by in the dark, and 
 seemed to him bright flashes of domestic bliss. His 
 confidence rose, as they rushed on, and it was 
 like an intoxicating joy, admitting no doubt and 
 no fear. 
 
 The strain of feeling so exalted his spirit, that 
 he seemed to be at perfect peace, and could feel na 
 
THE SHADOW FALLS. . 289 
 
 anxiety in thinking liow glad she would be to see 
 him, and to learn that she could not even run away 
 from the kind Providence of God. 
 
 He stood silent and calm near the engineer, saying 
 ** Slower, slower!" as the light track seemed to 
 shrink and tremble, under the tremendous bounds 
 of this iron steed. ** Slower ! slower I there is ample 
 time," he said, fearing some accident might lose all 
 at last. 
 
 As they whirled into Fall River, the agent met 
 the engine with the telegram in his hand, saying 
 it came half an hour too late, and they could do 
 nothing. 
 
 " On to Newport," he whispered, but with trem- 
 bling lips. 
 
 In half an hour more they were there, but only 
 to see a long trail of black smoke on that bleaky 
 night air, as the vanishing steamer swept out to sea 
 around Point Judith. 
 
 It was January, and that Sunday night steamer 
 had not stopped at Newport at all. The telegraph 
 office there was not even open, and the Boston mes- 
 sage had only been delivered to the idle ticker 
 inside, with no one in charge of it. 
 
 They could have learned all that at Fall River, 
 or even at Boston, by more careful inquiry, but 
 Faith so far outruns facts, that its conclusions do 
 not always reach tangible results. 
 
 He again fell insensible at the shocks and again 
 
290 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 the doctors said a fit, knowing no other name 
 for it. 
 
 Yet Faith was right, for Catherine was on that 
 steamer, and before morning her stricken husband 
 rallied, to send a telegram to his brother in New 
 York, well knowing that she would not be there, 
 and he met the steamer at its landing, and found 
 in her stateroom the ticket she had purchased in 
 Boston, and a letter to her son, saying merely, 
 ** My son, when you receive this letter, your mama 
 will be in Heaven. Do not think she no longer 
 loves you, as it is because she loves you that she 
 has to go." 
 
 She had gone into that wintry sea, at Point Judith, 
 and no trace of her was ever found. 
 
 And that Celestial Telegraph? Well, its offices 
 seem not yet to have been opened, and there is 
 apparently no one in charge of them, and we do not 
 even know whether any boat stops there or not ! 
 
YET FAITH IS OUR LIFE. . 291 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 YET FAITH IS OUR LIFE. 
 
 He that loseth Ms life in unselfish service, shall 
 surely find it. 
 
 That stricken husband always considered that his 
 life had gone out with hers on that wintry sea, as 
 the drifting scallops had long ago foretold. 
 
 He lived, but with a broken wing, and life was 
 no more a song, but an endless sorrow, which would 
 gladly welcome even Nirvana, whose rest is peace. 
 
 Her one little act of faithlessness in not trusting 
 him, about that simple letter, had swiftly wrought 
 such madness in her brain, that brilliant life, and 
 all its blessings and duties, and even children, and 
 home and heaven, were all forgotten in that blind 
 suspicion of the untrusting heart. 
 
 And that is life without faith. 
 
 How terrible are thy punishments, oh God, for 
 faithlessness ; it seems to be the one unpardonable 
 sin against the Holy Spirit to doubt its fidelity : 
 Infidelity is only unfaithfulness ; Atheism is im- 
 possible to sane minds, as those who claim to be 
 Atheists recognize the power we call God, though 
 they may call it many other and poorer names. 
 
 " Genius and Madness are so close allied, 
 That thin partitions- do. their walls divide." 
 
293 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 And when we approach those border lines, we 
 are facing at once the great question of the future 
 life, and it allows no backward look. 
 
 Forward is the Christian's favorite word. We 
 hear it sounding from beyond the vale. 
 
 The earthly life dwindles into insignificance, or 
 seems but a confusing noise between two great 
 silences, as we approach that unknown shore. 
 
 But is it really true that, 
 
 " If a man die, he shall live again ? " 
 
 At last that is the only question worth asking. 
 That we are is some proof that we shall be, or as 
 Mrs. Browning quaintly puts it : 
 
 " God lends not ; but gives to the end, 
 As He loves to the end. If it seem 
 
 That he draws back a gift, comprehend 
 ' Tis to add to it rather, — amend, 
 
 And finish it up to your dream. 
 
 Or keep, as a mother may, toys 
 
 Too costly, though given by herself, 
 
 Till the room shall be stiller from noise. 
 And the children more fit for such joys 
 
 Kept over their heads on the shelf." 
 
 " Love spurns the grave and leaps to welcoming skies. 
 And burns, a steadfast star to steadfast eyes." 
 
 Nor is this merely poetry. 
 
 The latest word of Science in its wildest dreams 
 of evolution, confirms the noblest faith. 
 
YET FAITH IS OUB LIFE, 293 
 
 Now as ever the pioneer of progress and the 
 handmaid of Religion, it storms all opposition and 
 proclaims the voice of nature is the voice of God. 
 
 What is scientifically true, cannot be theologic- 
 ally false, and the noble faith of to-day accepts 
 this axiom, and welcomes as its apostles the very 
 Agnostics of science, whose ignorance alone reveals 
 the kindly light. 
 
 Genius may strike, but Faith inspires the blow, 
 and Priest and Philosopher at last unite in singing 
 one great Psalm of life : 
 
 " Life is real, life is earnest, 
 
 And the grave is not its goal. 
 Dust thou art, to dust returnest. 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul." 
 
 Our gifted Dr. Hunger states this nobly as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 ** When Scientists and Metaphysicians are found 
 in each other's camps they are not to be regarded 
 as intruders, even if they have not learned the 
 password, but rather as visitors from another corps 
 of the Grand Army. The sappers and miners may 
 undervalue the flying artillery, and the cavalry 
 may gird at the builders of earthworks ; but as the 
 campaign goes on each will come to recognize the 
 value of the other, and perhaps in some dark night 
 of defeat and despair, when the forces of the com- 
 mon enemy are pressing them in the rear, they will 
 welcome the skill of those who can throw a bridge 
 
294 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 across the fatal river in front of the unseen shore 
 beyond. * * * 
 
 "Take your stand at any stage of evolution and 
 the next step is no stranger, no more to be antici- 
 pated, it is no broader leap than that from death to 
 future life. 
 
 ** Plant yourself at any given stage, and from 
 the knowledge then given of the phenomena report 
 what you can see ahead. Go back to the time 
 when the swirl of fire mist was drawing into 
 spheres and predicate human life — the raging ele- 
 ments laugh you to scorn. Life from fire — no 
 dream of metempsychosis was so wild as that. * * 
 These are specimens of the questions that Philoso- 
 phy puts to Science, and getting no answer — 
 
 ** Metaphysics holds the field, and on its 
 triumphant banner is the name of God. * ^ *'' 
 And this is moral evolution. 
 ** To see justice slowly creeping to higher forms ; 
 penalty first as vindictive, then retributive, and 
 now at last reformatory ; first a conception of God 
 as Power, then as Justice and finally as Love. 
 
 '* Science itself has led up to a point where mat- 
 ter, and not God, becomes the unknowable. * * * 
 **The seeming antagonist of immortality daring 
 its earlier studies of evolution. Science noio seems 
 in its later studies to become an ally." 
 
 And Faith is, therefore, triumphant. '' To doubt 
 would be disloyalty ; to falter would be sin." 
 
YET FAITH IS OUR LIFE. 295 
 
 " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of 
 Cathay." 
 
 But fifty years and more of Channing were re- 
 quired for a great national convention of Chris- 
 tians in 1894, to adopt the simple creed. 
 
 " We accept the Religion of Jesus Christ, in ac- 
 cordance with His teaching, which is the Father- 
 hood of God to every man." 
 
 '*Andwe share with Christians everywhere the 
 supreme conviction that the power which has estab- 
 lished this universe is conscious and beneficent, and 
 on this rests the hope of immortality and the love 
 to God and love to man, which is the whole foun- 
 dation of our faith." 
 
 And that Faith is still worth living for and dying 
 for. 
 
 (Tune.) FAIR HARVARD. 
 
 As a bird to her mountain my spirit must flee, 
 
 When the snare of the fowler is spread ; 
 There's a refuge for sorrow, a shelter for me, 
 
 Though the billows now break on my head ; 
 To the hills, to the hills, lift thine eyes, O my soul ! 
 
 Time and anguish will soon pass away ; 
 Hid with Christ, be my life, thou art part of the whole. 
 
 And Eternity comforts to-day. 
 
296 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE CHRISTIANITY OF TO-DAY. 
 
 Christianity without Christ is a mistake, a mis- 
 nomer and, as a religion, a failure ; because it dif- 
 fers not sufficiently from civilization and ethical 
 culture. 
 
 Christianity is not mere worship of God, as the 
 Jews and others share that equally. 
 
 Christ is not synonymous with Jesus, and neither 
 of them is the Jewish Messiah, nor has any rela- 
 tions with that Jewish dream of prophecy. 
 
 Christ is the Saviour of men, from their sins, the 
 Divine influence by which God moves humanity. 
 
 Salvation is happiness here or hereafter. 
 
 Jesus became Christ the Saviour of men, by God's 
 grace, in using His life and death for that purpose, 
 as shown in all history since that time. 
 
 The Divinity of Jesus Christ is thereby recog- 
 nized as a fact, without confounding him with 
 Deity, or the Creator of the Universe, or source of 
 life, whether called God, or any other name. 
 
 This drops the Trinity, as a poetic legend, born 
 of man's adoration and devotion. 
 
 Believers in Christianity should accept no name 
 but that of Christians, as the many sub-divisions of 
 
THE OHEISTIANITY OP TO-DAY. 297 
 
 it only weaken its power, and have become dis- 
 graceful, if not justly subjects of the ridicule of 
 scoffers. 
 
 Christianity is the religion of Jesus Christ as 
 taught by Jesus, consisting only in believing the 
 Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of all men, 
 as the children of God, and the blessed hope of 
 immortality. 
 
 Within those border lines it is peace, sincerity 
 and truth, while beyond them is still the outer 
 darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of 
 teeth, in the partisan warfare of many sects, which is 
 merely the selfish and degrading politics of religion. 
 
 Whose factions like the wretched thieves are seen 
 While Heavenly Truth is crucified between. 
 
 But American liberty is a prolific tree, which 
 blossoms with such efflorescence in religious mat- 
 ters, that its secular arm of civil power is con- 
 stantly needed to keep the peace between the war- 
 ring sects. 
 
 And if we go to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusa- 
 lem, to-day, we will still find the amazing fact, that 
 the Mohamedan guards that sacred shrine with a 
 drawn sword, to keep the peace among the warring 
 disciples of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 His peace on earth and good will to men, only 
 exists after conflicts of centuries, by depriving his 
 followers, from the Pope down to the humblest 
 convert, of all secular power. 
 
298 BORDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 ** Peter put np thy sword " is still the Divine 
 command, and the only certain land-marks in 
 Jerusalem to-day appear to show that the Via 
 Dolorosa of the Roman Church as there laid out, 
 and covered with the fourteen shrines or altars as 
 the stages of the Cross, is certainly not the way the 
 Saviour trod. 
 
 The Mount of Olives is the most reliable land- 
 mark left there now, and olive branches are still 
 growing upon it, and just north of it is Gethe- 
 semane, and a little westward, outside of the 
 Damascus gate at the junction of the old roads to 
 Galilee and the west, is Golgotha the place of a 
 skull, still plainly visible in the eternal rock, yet 
 bearing no shrine or altar, and the Via Dolorosa 
 does not even lead that way, although the new 
 tomb of Joseph of Arimathea hewn in the solid 
 rock is still there and plainly visible. 
 
 On this rock Protestants should erect their 
 shrine, as they are not represented on the other 
 road, where Greeks and Copts and Syrians and 
 Rome hold all the right of way. 
 
 The higher and most recent criticism seems at 
 last to have fixed this rock with reasonable cer- 
 tainty, as shown in the brilliant and exhaustive 
 article of the Rev. Haskett Smith, in Murray's 
 Magazine in 1892. 
 
 Almost the only other certain land-marks of 
 Jesus near Jerusalem are at Bethany and Bethle- 
 hem. 
 
THE CHRISTIANITY OF TO-DAY. 299 
 
 David's well, still existing on the highway at the 
 northerly gate of Bethlehem, was doubtless near 
 the field of Boaz, and the Shepherd's field where 
 the angels sang at night, and the voices of Ruth 
 and Rachel and their kind mingling in the soft 
 moon-light near that well, might well have been 
 taken for Angels' voices. 
 
 Did not Jacob serve for her fourteen years in 
 those very fields, and if so, why should she not sing 
 like an Angel ? 
 
 Somebody sang, and those shepherds were sincere 
 and truthful people, and Rachel's tomb is still 
 there on the very spot, with similar Angels singing 
 over it to-day. 
 
 And the Star of Bethlehem ? 
 
 Well ; the stars do not leave their courses to 
 guide wise or foolish men across the desert, but all 
 wise men know enough to find their way at night 
 by following the stars ; and no miracle was needed 
 for that simple fact. 
 
 When Justin Martyr confirmed the scripture re- 
 cord, by writing in the second century, that Jesus 
 was born in a grotto near Bethlehem, because there 
 was no room for them at the inn, and no record 
 mentions any other place of birth : it seems as 
 though the higher criticism, so called, might have 
 spared us that little gleam of heavenly light. 
 
 " Sleep, sleep, my little one, and I 
 Will pluck the star for thee, and by and bye 
 Will lay it on thy pillow, bright with dew. — 
 
300 BOEDER LANDS OF FAITH. 
 
 And the child sleeps, and dreams of stars whose light 
 Shines in his own bright eyes when he awakes." 
 
 There is a power, as pure as childhood's glee, 
 
 We feel it when all outward things depress, 
 The power that triumphed upon Calvary, 
 
 The calm, sustaining power of consciousness. 
 The sea may rage, the elements convene, 
 
 To toss the works of wisdom in their wrath. 
 
 The winds may sweep proud cities from their path 
 But Samsons perish in their conquering scene. 
 
 While Faith is deathless, and the still small voice 
 
 The only symbol of eternal power. 
 Shall bid earth's crushed and mourning ones rejoice. 
 
 Shall gild with glory each dark trial hour. 
 And teach our race, the sorrowing and forlorn. 
 
 That all true power is in the manger born. 
 
 [THE END.] 
 
IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 This story was left unfinished by my late brother 
 Henry Clay Badger, at bis untimely death in 1894, 
 and is a truthful record of his life and views of the 
 highest questions, expressed with utter fearlessness 
 and candor. 
 
 Believing its lessons to be of permanent value, I 
 have published it as his best memorial. 
 
 Its loyal Faith is at least significant, in an age 
 when Presbyterianism only survives by boycotting 
 Learning, as Mohammed and Rome prevailed for a 
 time, by burning the libraries and the scientists. 
 
 But as the statue of Bruno before the Vatican 
 has at last made the infallible Pope ridiculous, so 
 the persecution of Dr. Briggs and his innumerable 
 class will certainly abolish the more foolish idea 
 of the infallible book. 
 
 While Plutocracy is still so powerful, the lives 
 of even humble scholars are inspiring, and con- 
 stantly suggest anew the higher ideals, so well 
 illustrated by England's greatest Premier when he 
 gave his eldest daughter in marriage to a school- 
 master, his second to a clergyman, and installed 
 his third as a college Professor at Cambridge. 
 
 There is nothing so radical as Truth, and nothing 
 so conservative. It is a two-edged sword which cuts 
 to the correct line every time. Sincere souls with 
 knowledge sufficient to form an intelligent belief, are, 
 therefore, both radical and conservative. 
 
 Such is this book, in favor of the Religion of 
 Jesus as taught by him, which was never more 
 needed or more welcome than now. 
 
 William Whittlesey Badger, 
 
 178 Broadway, N"ew York. 
 Memorial Day, May 30, 1895. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY