THE RISING FAITH. WE 1. THE SEEKER. E are born to interrogate; and the test of a man is what are his questions; for the measure of diginity and depravity is, in the pedler's old cry, if grandly interpreted, What do you lack? The lower the creature, the better it is content, the less being the inquiry and fewer the wants; albeit the extent of our researches and satisfactions is the gauge of our worth. Yet discreet asking is not only, as Bacon says, half of science, but of morals and religion; and that but one tithe in us is attainment and the remainder pursuit, is our title of honor and tenure of life; for Archimedes could complain he might better not have been than be slain amid his problems unsolved. Only on this Jacob's ladder of existence, let us know our direction, if our face be set up or down; for, save by a falsehood in nature, aspiration cannot be finally balked. But what is to seek? If America will go to the confessional, great defects she must own; for truth no tribunal, in letters no criticism, no standard of art, at any Paris or Vienna exhibition only some mechanical success from the farm or mill; in the crude taste of the majority all high achievements swamped, the multitude cruel, because unwise. It was a high-water mark of civilization, a coast-tide of philanthropy in war, when the Prussians sent home French prisoners with exact billets of surgical operations performed, finding their patients in their foes. Our progress scarce deserves the name. In our best circles there is little, culture, and the educated face or manner is rare. We have good gardens and-cattle-shows, but of high art almost none. Inferiority of speaker, penman, painter or musician carries off the prize. When a great pianist regretted such rollicking pieces at concerts as the Carnival of Venice, the violinist in the troupe said he must stoop for popularity and pay. The same motive of echo accounts for acres of strange regions of land or sea on the canvas, with no expression of humanity or truth. In theology, politics, and law, we are professional advocates with no make-weight of intellectual conscience. We shout liberty or death, and have liberty and death. Wild theories prevail, with no criterion or assay. Said Rubinstein, Let not the mediums tip the tables, but give us a Tenth Symphony of Beethoven or new Sixtine Madonna! Raw with wounds, civil war has made the republic old. But for the result of experience or fruit of suffering we wait. The only doubt of our projected museum is whether it would meet any general want, or there is genius enough to make it worthy of existence and support. We have photography plenty, and topography enough, in gilded frames; but, if picture means the soul and expression of man and nature, how many names among us of artists does it represent? First, the wilderness; then war; third, wealth; a long step still to art. Nor is there any fit literary expression. We have a brood of newspapers and magazines, without an organ like a judge to pronounce the sentence that wins respect. All are committed to some party-interest, rest on a money-basis, and watch a subscription-list. Every sheet might be called the Times; none of the eternities. In our newspapers we find ourselves. They are the diaries we keep. It is not the fault, but merit, of journalism to be the public mirror. As such, it is an immense benefit and power superior to all other agencies combined. Yet, as the press can be criticised only in its own columns, and is itself the instrument of a constituency unseen, it can be both insolent and subsidized, a despot and a slave at once. We have the noble prints and the base; but if there be no such truth-tellers and saints, there are no such liars and criminals with impunity as types; nor could any philanthropy meet a so signal, humane, and patriotic want as the establishment of an organ, independent of stockholders and subscribers, to stand for the moral sentiment like a Hebrew seer. In our colleges and schools, the observing and intuitive faculties for what is real within us and actual without suffer neglect. With the noble scholars and good lawyers in our offices and courts, we have generated a set of able and adroit monsters who too often win the palm by their forward pushing, while unpretending worth is put aside. In Congress or legislature, questions are determined by personal motives, aside from the merits of the case. Purchase of votes is too common to be a flagrant crime. There is more courage of opinion and candor of expression among our English cousins than here. Darwin and Spencer, and Huxley and Greg, and Goldwin Smith, can publicly differ with refreshing frankness and no il blood. Somewhere always is the idol that nobody must touch. Slavery was our political fetish. We worship the Bible still. Till lately, the divinity of Christ could not calmly be discussed. Doubt of the existence of God was a crime. We will not let the grounds of marriage be probed. We have yet to learn that nothing is sacred but that Thought which is the image of the Holy in the human breast. But let us not ask a question for the question's sake. Inquiries must not all be confounded as of equal weight. In military phrase, one of them ranks another. Is your inquiry a star in the firmament or an asterisk on the page? All problems must be handled, but accord'ing to their dignity on the scale. Was the earth flung off from the sun, and shall its crib be its tomb? Find out, O astronomer, if you can; meantime let me lodge in and describe the house, to rescue some memorysketch when it is razed or burned up. After me the Deluge; but, though the flood overhang, I will cultivate the soil to-day. Wrongly the preacher scores those who train their vines on Vesuvius heedless of the volcano. An eruption is at hand on all our fields and toils; nevertheless, produce the utmost, and keep on till the earth split! Comte's Positivism charms, not that it deeply considers or solves the riddle; but, though with superficial answers, lays the stress on quality. Father Taylor stopped a curious moralist's conceit of explanation, with the cry: Too far off, — the King's business |