ness, and I could not stay away from more familiar approach, but seemed irresistibly but gently drawn. toward God. My soul, then thou didst magnify the Lord, and rejoice in the God of thy salvation! And then came to my mind the many exultations of the Psalms of David, and never before were the expressions and figures so noble and so necessary to express what I felt. I had risen, it seemed to me, so high as to be where David was when his soul conceived the things which he wrote. . O! when in the prayers, breathed forth in strains of sweet, simple, solemn music, the love of Christ was recognized, how I longed then to give utterance to what that love seemed to me. There was a moment in which the Heavens seemed open to me and I saw the glory of God! All the earth seemed to me a storehouse of images, made to set forth the Redeemer, and I could scarcely be stilled from crying out. For the first time in my life I went forward to commune in the Episcopal Church. Without any intent of my own, but because from my seat it was nearest, I knelt down at the altar, with the dust of Shakespeare beneath my feet. I thought of it as I thought of ten thousand other things, without the least disturbance of devotion. It seemed as if I stood upon a place so high that, like one looking over a wide valley, all objects conspired to make but one view. I thought of the General Assembly and Church of the First Born, of my mother and brother and children in Heaven, of my living family on earth, of you, of the whole Church entrusted to my handsthey afar off, I upon the banks of the Avon." 1 "Star Papers," pp. 30-31. Oxford, noblest built of English towns, with its "Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet impressed him as it does all sensitive minds. He walked with solemn reverence among the alcoves and through the halls of the Bodleian Library "as if in a pyramid of embalmed souls." Arrived in London, he had the usual feelings which come to natures like his, workers in behalf of their fellow men, when visiting the scenes of historic renown, a sense of insufficiency for his own life's work. "I have everywhere in my traveling at the shrine of the martyrs in Oxford, at the graves of Bunyan and Wesley in London, at the vault in which Raleigh was for twelve years confined in the Tower-asked myself whether I could have done and endured what they did, and as they did! It is enough to make one tremble for himself to have such a heart-sounding as this gives him. I cast the lead for the depth of my soul, but I have little reason for pride." 1 1 He found relief from these moods of discouragement in Art and in Nature. In August he went over to Paris and noted the life of the common people, and the immense and startling impressions made upon his own mind by the prodigious wealth and beauty of the art galleries. "I knew that I had gradually grown fond of pictures from my boyhood. I had felt the power of some few. But nothing had ever come up to a certain ideal that hovered in my mind, and I supposed I was not fine enough to appre 1" Biography," pp. 345-346. ciate with any discrimination the works of masters. To find myself absolutely intoxicated; to find my system so much affected that I could not control my nerves; to find myself trembling and laughing, and weeping, and almost hysterical, and that in spite of my shame and determination to behave better-such a power of these galleries over me I had not expected. I have lived for two days in fairyland, wakened out of it by some few sights which I have mechanically visited, more for the sake of pleasing friends at home, when I return, than for a present pleasure for myself, but relapsing again into the golden vision."1 He described a state of trance, of happy exaltation when he almost seemed to himself to float out of his body, that came to him while gazing at these masterpieces. "The subjects of many of the works-suffering, heroic resistance, angels, Arcadian scenes, especially the scenes of Christ's life and death-seemed not unfitting accompaniment to my mind and suggested to me, in a glorious vision, the drawing near of the redeemed souls to the precincts of Heaven! O! with what an outburst of soul did I implore Christ to wash me, and all whom I loved, in His precious blood, that we might not fail of entering the glorious city whose builder and maker is God! All my sins seemed not only sins but great deformities. They seemed not merely affronts against God but insults to my own nature! My soul snuffed at them and trod them down as the mire in the street. Then, holy and loving thoughts toward God or toward man seemed to me to be as beautiful as those fleecy islets 1" Star Papers," p. 57. along the West at sunset, crowned with glory; and the gentler aspirations for goodness and nobleness and knowledge seemed to me like silver mists through which the morning is striking, wafting them gently and in wreaths and films heavenward. Great deeds, heroism for worthy objects, for God, or for one's fellows, or for one's own purity, seem not only natural but as things without which a soul could not live." Such emotions were fatiguing and some would say almost morbid, but they are a key to the magnificent possibilities of eloquence on religious themes which he afterwards and often illustrated, and perhaps they are also a key to the almost reckless heroism of self-sacrifice which, disregarding the voice of selfish prudence, brought him into. some of his most terrible sorrows. It is interesting to remember one habit of his, maintained in Paris, which is quite in contrast with the custom of many of his fellow countrymen who travel abroad. Writing to his daughter in 1859 he says: "When I was in Paris I acted just as I do in Brooklyn. I took no more liberties, and was quite as observant of my home proprieties. And I must say that I do not relish the idea of our young countrymen going to Europe to learn how to get rid of religious habits. Foreign travel should improve our manners, increase our information, enlarge our experience of men, enrich our imagination, cultivate our tastes, but not enervate our conscience." " 1" Star Papers," p. 61. "Biography," p. 384. CHAPTER XIV. REVIVALS. NATURE. MUSIC. He returned to America restored in health, and shortly after his arrival home he wrote for the New York Independent a letter denouncing what he deemed the bigotry and intolerance practised upon the Cunard steamer. "No one was allowed to read the service there except the captain, who, having been playing cards late Saturday night, and being addicted to the sailor habit of profanity, was not considered fit for the office."' Mr. Beecher was a born fighter for what he deemed truth and liberty. His articles in the New York Independent from this time began to attract wide attention, and in truth many of these Star papers are as brimful of genius, witty observations on a great variety of themes, and of helpful suggestions as anything which he ever wrote. He defended the Jenny Lind managers for the high price of tickets demanded for her famous concerts, and said: "Jenny Lind, if we understand her desires and aims, is employing a resplendent musical genius in the most noble accordance with the spirit of the Gospel. In 144 Biography," p. 350. ΙΟ |