תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

"I am the worst

And again, "I

worth hearing. And he was never so deep in his book but that if a baby on the train began to cry he heard that too, and straightway opened his carpetbag and took out the little silk bag that he always carried full of confectionery, suited to the wants of little travellers in distress. He had no children of his own, and so adopted all the children that he knew. How sweet his love was、 for these little ones! They would climb up into his study, would say, "Parkie! Parkie!" and he would let them in and then what fun there would be. The play-things would be assigned, the pennies freely given, the bubbles blown, and the great man, who the next day would trance three thousand people with his eloquence, and arraign the public devil at the bar of his impartial thought, would be the truest child of all. There are touching relics of those great occasions still left in his study. I counted myself happy when I saw them a short time ago. The stock of playthings was not exhausted when he died, nor the stock of pennies either. There were plenty of both, and the clay-pipes and dish for making soap-bubbles were still there just as he left them, but he had gone out. Wonderful was the amount of love he had to give, and wonderful his craving for it in return. hated man in America," he said, "and have no children." wish to have some one always in the arms of my heart." had what he wished. Very often it was some poor, sick Exiles from European tyranny came to him every day, and he did for them what he could, gave them a home, gave them his advice if they wanted it, gave them his money and his love. Men came to him with sin upon their souls, and never went away without a little consolation. He was a true pastor. No pestilence could keep him from the homes of those he loved. Great as he was in intellect, he was much greater in affection. His love of man was never separated from his love of men. But it did not rest upon it. His estimate of the negro as a social force and possibility was very low, while Edward Everett thought him to be capable of the highest civilization. But none the less he claimed for him his rights. He spent ten years upon a history of the Religious Element in Man. To complete it was the one ambition of his life; but when Christ entered his study, wounded and shackled as a slave, and said to him, "Undo these bonds and bind up these my wounds," he didn't think of saying, "I pray thee have me excused," but left his books as if he hated them, and gave himself soul and body to the slave. Not that he was not a scholar till the last, but the one task that had been luring him for years, had to be given up. Alas, for us! Yet, not alas! The broken shackles of the slave are a sufficient compensation for our loss.

And he generally and wounded soul.

But to the immensity of his conscience, he added the immensity of trust. His consciousness of God was not a winter biting him with fear; it was the very summer of his heart. I know not if the terms in which he stated it will ever be accepted by the world. That is a little matter. Religion is not taught; it is communicated. We may refute his statements, but cannot keep ourselves from the divine infection of his faith.

To me his statements

of God's love and providence seem very deep. But if I rejected every one of them he would still inspire me to believe in God and man. His faith, it was a well of water springing up within him unto everlasting life. It filled him full to overflowing; it quenched the thirst, it cooled the weary feet of thousands; but drink of it as freely as they would, the overflow was greater than their use. He had a genius for religion, and there was no comparison between the amount and quality of his inspiration and his ability to formulate it in so many words. It is the fact and not the statement that is our great

inheritance.

Marvellous was this man's industry. Reviewing one of Prescott's histories he first read every book that Prescott had himself made use of for authority. He did everything in the same thorough way. He studied, when not interrupted, fifteen or sixteen hours a day. And yet he never seemed to feel that he was hurried. Nothing about the man was more remarkable that the impression of reserved power that he conveyed to all. All that he did he did with perfect ease; bore his great labors not as a slave bears a burden, but as a tree bears fruit. No doubt his labors were too much for him. But that they did not seem to be, shows how much greater the man was than the sum of all his faculties; that in body he was lilliputian as compared with his gigantic soul.

I have not cudgelled my brains to find out whether Parker ever taught anything absolutely new. If he did not, he vitally appropriated some things that before his time were formless shadows. Better than original ideas are original men. Parker was an original man. Kant may have given him his philosophy, and De Wette his criticism, but they did not give him his soul. At least one thing about him was original; that one thing was himself. Theodore Parker's teachings may not have been new; Theodore Parker was new at any rate. He was never anticipated; he will never be repeated There may be greater men in the future; but they will not be like him.

man.

Yes, he was himself, and nothing could avail to unmake what God made him. His study was the focus of innumerable telegraphic wires that put him in communication with all the past and all the present thought of men. They brought him messages from every quarter of the world. And these messages all passed into him and became part of the very substance of the He was like a great tree in the forest, that draws up into itself innumerable ingredients of the soil, and yet is neither sand nor clay nor anything but its own sturdy self. So Parker was neither Frenchman nor German, nor Roman nor Greek, though he drained all these of their treasures. He was himself. The most learned preacher in America, his style was probably the simplest that a man could hear, go where he would; his words, they were SO deep that a child could understand them." Socrates, it was said, brought down philosophy from the clouds. Parker did the same thing for Religion. Today she walks the earth in all her beauty. Only the eyes of some are holden and they cannot see.

[ocr errors]

When he was dying, far away from home, and his mind wandered, he said to Frances Power Cobbe, a noble woman, whom his words had in a great measure saved from spiritual death, “I have something to tell you. There are two Theodore Parkers now. One is dying here in Italy; the other I have planted in America; he will live there and finish my work." Yes, for he was the counterpart of all the living forces of his time. He was a representative Ameriand now that he is gone, all that is best in this dear land is finishing his work. Much has been done already. He that was once a slave is now a But there is much to do. God help us every one to do our part. So shall the task which Theodore Parker worked at so faithfully be sooner done, and we be not ashamed to meet him when the death-angel speaks to us and says: "Friends, come up higher."

can;

man.

""Tis sweet to hear of heroes dead,

To know them still alive,

But sweeter if we earn their bread,
And in us they survive.

Our life should feed the springs of fame
With a perennial wave,

As ocean feeds the babbling founts

That find in it their grave."

LESSING'S NATHAN THE WISE.

NATHAN THE WISE: A Dramatic Poem, by GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM Lessing, translated by ELLEN FROTHINGHAM. New York: LEYPOLD & HOLT. 1868. Price, $1.75.

O little is known in America, beyond the circle of scholars, of the author

[ocr errors]

cidents of his life, and to indicate the current of his thought, introductory to our remarks upon this book.

He was born January 22d, 1729, at Kamentz in upper Lusatia, where his father was pastor primarius. He belonged to a family of scholars, his paternal ancestors having been for several generations men of classical tastes and pursuits. So it would seem that the strong intellect of Lessing was the culmination of a development that had worked through generations, even though the intellectual weapons that in the hands of his sturdy forefathers were used solely for the defence of their hereditary theology, served in his hands the nobler purpose of discovering new worlds of truth. Even in his early youth he gave evidence of that glorious independence which was then strong enough to oppose itself to parental authority in matters where his faith or his conscience were concerned. He seems, too, not to have lacked a boyish relish of mischief in his independence, for he used to say of himself that he had never smoked except at the Meissen Grammar School," because it was forbidden there."

The inability of his father or his family to appreciate his thought or his work, and the frequent misunderstandings of his motives, were a constant source of trial in his early days of manhood. His attraction to the drama, and the early production of plays, which were represented on the stage at Leipsic, were a great source of alarm to his worthy parents, who mourned over the son they designed for the ministry, as being entirely given over to evil.

[ocr errors]

In times when heresy against the church of Luther was as heinous an offence as heresy against Rome had been two centuries before, save only that it was no longer punishable by death, it was a brave man who would say, Well-doing is the main thing,-belief is secondary," and express his longing for the day when it would be conformable to decorum to be called a good Christian, as now public opinion demands that so long as one is in good health, he shall be considered an atheist."

Throughout his whole life Lessing was struggling with poverty and sorrow, and the year which completed his Nathan the Wise, projected long before, was perhaps the darkest one of all. Indeed, he speaks of finding laudanum for his sorrow and pain in his literary pursuits. He possessed a faculty of masking his griefs "by a certain wild, ironical humor," as his biographer terms it, which we have noticed as characterizing strong men who suffer keenly. For the sad story of his love we would refer our readers to the pages of his biography, for we do not feel equal to telling the tale.

Nathan the Wise is the ripest work of his ripest years, simple and beautiful in its conception and execution. The miserable theologians who regarded themselves as the representatives and defenders of the Christian faith, were terrified at his setting forth of the weaknesses and foibles of the prevailing religion, and of course raised the cry of Jew and Atheist. The making a Jew, whose wisdom and virtues exceeded those of the Christians figuring in the play, the chief personage in it, was sufficient cause for this outcry. The following passage is one which must have made him exceedingly ob noxious.

You do not know, you will not know the Christians.
Christianity, not manhood, is their pride.

E'en that which from their founder down has spiced
Their superstitution with humanity,

'Tis not for its humanity they love it.

No; but because Christ taught, Christ practised it.

Happy for them he was so good a man!

Happy for them that they can trust his virtue !
His virtue? Not his virtue, but his name,
They say shall spread abroad and shall devour
And put to shame the names of all good men ;
The name, the name is all their pride.

We should like to quote the whole fable of the Three Rings, but limited space excludes all but the closing passage, which we trust will be so interesting that every one will want to read the whole.

Go, therefore, said the judge, unless my counsel
You'd have in place of sentence.
It were this:
Accept the case exactly as it stands,
Had each his ring directly from his father,
Let each believe his own is genuine.
'Tis possible your father would no longer
His house to one ring's tyranny subject;
And certain that all three of you he loved,-
Loved equally, since two he would not humble,
That one might be exalted. Let each one
To his unbought, impartial love aspire;
Each with the others vie to bring to light
The virtue of the stone within his ring;
Let gentleness, a hearty love of peace,
Beneficence and perfect trust in God,
Come to its help. Then if the jewel's power
Among your children's children be revealed,
I bid you in a thousand, thousand years
Again before this bar; a wiser man

Than I shall occupy this seat and speak.

A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own time, and Lessing well knew that it would be long before the truths embodied in this play would be recognized. Wearied by controversies with the theologians, he said, they would let him "at least preach undisturbed in his old pulpit, the theatre." A hundred years was, he thought, the earliest period when a stage representation of Nathan would be possible, but in 1783, only two years after his death, it appeared at Berlin. The actor who took the principal role was unequal to his part, as were indeed the rest of the company. An amusing anecdote is related in connection with this occasion. "Who plays Nathan ?" enquired Engel, when Dobbelin informed him of the speedy appearance of the piece. "Nathan? Why, I myself!" replied the "Well; but who plays the Wise ?" was the

self-conscious theatre director. response of Engel.

Though the play has long been popular in Germany, it has never been produced, we believe, in any other European country, with the exception of Turkey. A Greek translation was brought out by Greek actors at Constantinople in 1842. It was received with considerable enthusiasm, although, it is said, the audience sometimes seemed disposed to receive Nathan's frankness before the throne of Saladin with less magnanimity than did this Sultan himself.

Unwavering courage in defence of whatever he held to be true and right, is Lessing's most marked characteristic.

When his parents stung him with reproaches concerning his course of life and opinions, which seemed to them blasphemous, he replies grandly:"Time shall show whether he is the better Christian who has the maxims of religion by heart, goes to church, and joins in all the ceremonies through force of habit, or he who has once wisely doubted and has arrived at conviction through deep investigation, or at least has endeavored to arrive at it. The Christian Religion is not a thing that ought to be received on trust from one's parents."

« הקודםהמשך »