Chapter 7

Upon a Sabbath day, I walked amid all those charms and fascinations, in which nature can bind us as in a spell. I passed through green aisles of woods, that were ever-shadowed and made fragrant with every various vegetable growth of this temperate northern clime; while the morning beam of the sun in heaven fell brightly aslant the leaves and branches; and the birds, that my lonely step startled from their perch or nest, flew from glen to glen, making with their song, save the murmur of the breeze in the boughs, the only sound I could hear. At length, the high-arched avenues of this immense forest-cathedral let me out upon the broad, open shore, where I saw and heard wave after wave break on the rocks, with shifting splendor and that mellow thundering music which so saddens while it delights. Solitude, verily, was stretched out asleep in the sun upon the length of sandy beach and beetling promontory; and I sat and gazed now over the boundless waters, now into the devouring abysses opened by the bending crests of the billows, and anon into the gloomy depths of the forest or the serene and measureless openings of the sky. What grandeur in every line transcendent! Yet what impenetrable mystery too, what menacing ruin to the small remnant of human life still spared from the generations in ages past, already swallowed up! Peering around in this pensive mood, in which the joy of being mixed with the uneasy doubt of its tenure, my eye fell at last on the spire of a little church, rising like a pencil of light to heaven, out of the fathomless waste. And there my soul alighted and found rest. Like some sea mark to the voyager, that slender shaft, reared by the social religion of the world, stood to tell me where in the universe I was; the common Christian consciousness reinforced my own, and dark queries and agitating uncertainties subsided from my spirit, as the deluge from the dove that Noah sent out to pluck the green branch of promise. From the illimitable reaches of the huge, but dimly responding creation around, the slight, frail temple for God's praise drew me to its welcome and peaceful embrace. As I approached it, the tolling of the bell struck on my ear in a touch of gladder tidings than I had received from all the melody of the great wind-harp of the trees, with all the soft accord of the tossing billows. Stroke after stroke, distinctly falling, seemed to bring to me the echoes of a million holy telegraphic towers all over the surface of the globe; and when I came to stand under the eaves of the small sanctuary, the measured turning, in the belfry, of the wheel, by revolutions such as I had seen long years ago in my childhood, filled my eyes with gracious tokens, that were not drawn from me by the sublime circling of the sun and moon, then moving east and west in their spheres. The final tone of praise in the great ascription to God is, in its fullness, supplied by a revelation greater than blessed the times of David. A new and sweeter string is strung upon the lyre his royal fingers so nobly swept, and the voice of thanksgiving is more highly raised for an "unspeakable gift." The kingdoms of nature are the chords on the harp we may sound to the Creator of all. There has been of late much discussion as to the place nature should hold among religious influences and appeals, some super-eminently exalting her, and others putting her in contrast and almost opposition with all spirit, beauty and truth. This is no place, nor has the present writer inclination, here, to take part in the grand debate, infinitely interesting as it is, on either side. He would only catch, or repeat and prolong the strain of an old and sacred ode--he would contribute a meditation. He would run the matchless ancient verse into a few particulars of fresh and modern illustration, content if he can make no melody of his own, to recall for some, perhaps not enough heeding it, the Hebrew music that has lingered so long on the ear of the world.

TRANSLATIONS.

BY THE REV. CHARLES T. BROOKS

I.

TO GOD'S CARE I COMMIT MYSELF!

(FROM THE GERMAN OF ARNDT.)

Again is hushed the busy day, And all to sleep is gone away; The deer hath sought his mossy bed, The bird hath hid his little head. And man to his still chamber goes To rest from all his cares and woes.

Yet steps he first before his door, To look into the night once more, With love-thanks and love-greeting, there, For rest his spirit to prepare, To see the high stars shine abroad And drink once more the breath of God.

Mild Father of the world, whose love Keeps watch o'er all things from above, To Thee my stammering prayer would rise; Bend down from yonder starry skies; And from Thy sparkling, sun-strewed way, Oh teach thy feeble child to pray!

All day Thou hadst me in Thy sight; So guard me, Father, through this night; And by thy dear benignity From Satan's malice shelter me; For what of evil may befall The body, is the least of all.

Oh send from realms of purity The dearest angel in to me, As a peace-herald let him come, And watchman, to my house and home, That all desires and thoughts of mine, Around thy heaven may climb and twine.

Then day shall part exultingly, Then night a word of love shall be, Then morn an angel-smile shall wear Whose brightness no base thing can bear, And we, earth's children, walk abroad, Children of light and sons of God.

And when the last red evening-glow Shall greet these failing eyes below, When yearns my soul to wing its way To the high track of endless day, Then all the shining ones shall come To bear me to the spirit's home.

II.

THE UNKNOWN.

(FROM THE GERMAN OF AUERSPERG.)

Through the city's narrow gateway Forth an aged beggar fares, None is there to give him escort, And no farewell word he bears.

Heaven's grey cloud to no one whispers Of God's message in its fold; Earth's grey rock to no one whispers That it hides the shaft of gold.

And the naked tree in winter Tells not straightway to the eye That it once so greenly glistened, Bloomed and bore so bounteously.

None would dream that yon old beggar, Tottering, bending toward the ground, Once was clothed in royal purple, And his silver locks gold-crowned!

Foul conspirators discrowned him, Tore the radiant purple off, Placing in his hands, for sceptre, Yonder wormy pilgrim-staff.

Thus, for years, now, has he wandered, All ungreeted and unknown, Through so many a foreign country, Bowed and broken and alone.

Weary unto death, he lays him 'Neath a tree, in evening's beam, Music in the twigs and blossoms Sings him to an endless dream.

Men that to and fro pass by him, Speak in softened tones of grief; Who may be the poor old beggar, That has found this sad relief?

But mild Nature, soft-eyed Nature, Knows the aged sleeper there, Obsequies of solemn splendor, Meet for king, will she prepare.

From the tree fall wreaths of blossoms, Floating down to crown his head, And a sceptre's golden lustre Sunset on his staff hath shed.

For a canopy above him Rustling twigs a green arch throw, And he wears a royal purple In the evening's mantling glow.

RECOLLECTIONS OF NEANDER,

THE CHURCH HISTORIAN.

BY THE REV. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.

In the spring of 1848, during the progress of the European revolutions, which promised so much and performed so little, I spent several weeks in Berlin, the capital of Prussia, and saw much, both in public and in private, of "the father of modern church history," whose name I had long revered, and whose image now is one of the choicest treasures of memory. Of all the Christian scholars I have ever known, he stands in my thoughts without a rival; a child in simplicity, a sage in learning, and in broad, catholic and fervent piety, a noble saint. In common with hundreds of my countrymen, I owe him a debt of gratitude, of which this humble tribute to his memory will be but a faint acknowledgment.

Of Neander's outward history there is but little to be reported; his life was the retired and uneventful one of a peculiarly intense and abstracted student. It is hardly a figure of speech, but almost exactly the literal truth to say that he was born, and lived, and died, beneath the shadow of the Universities. He was not, indeed, quite so much of a recluse as his fellow-countryman Kant, the renowned Königsberg philosopher, who, though he reached the age of eighty, and had a reputation which filled all Europe, was never more than thirty-two miles away from the spot where his mother rocked him in his cradle. But considering the ampler means at his command, and the greatly increased facilities for travelling, Neander's neglect of locomotion is nearly as much to be wondered at as Kant's; I doubt if he was ever beyond the boundaries of Germany.

He was born January 16th, 1789, in Göttingen, a city of some eleven thousand inhabitants in the kingdom of Hanover, the seat of a famous University, which, though now less prominent than formerly, has numbered amongst its professors such men as Blumenbach, Eichhorn, and Michaelis. His parents were of Jewish blood and the Jewish religion, and he inherited from them, in a strong degree, both the peculiar physiognomy and the distinguishing faith of that despised but most remarkable race. Nor was he a Jew only outwardly; from the beginning he was marked as an Israelite indeed, a true Nathanael soul.

At an early period in his life, his father having suffered reverses and been reduced to poverty, he removed with his parents to Hamburg, a commercial city on the Elbe, and one of the four free municipalities of Germany. In the Hamburg gymnasium, corresponding in rank with our American academies, though prescribing a wider range of studies, he received his first public instruction. It is related of him, that he used frequently to steal into one of the book-stores, and for hours together sit buried in some rare and erudite volume. And here the original bent of his genius was early developed; subtlety, profoundness, and intense subjectivity of thought were noticed as the distinguishing characteristics of his mind. In a letter from Neumann to Chamisso, bearing date February 11th, 1806, when, of course, he was only seventeen years old, it is said of him: "Plato is his idol, and his perpetual watchword. He pores over that author night and day; and there are probably few who receive him so completely into the sanctuary of the soul. It is surprising to see how all this has been accomplished without any influence from abroad. It proceeds simply from his own reflection and his innate love of study. He has learned to look with indifference upon the outward world." Such was the beginning of his illustrious career. He was thoroughly a Platonist. And it happened to him, as to so many of the early fathers of the church before him; he was led from Plato to Christ. The honored walks of the Academy were exchanged for the manger and the cross; and so he passed from Judaism to philosophy, and from philosophy to faith. "Pray and labor," writes he in one of his letters, "let that be the bass-note, or rather praying merely; for what else should a human, or even a superhuman do than pray?" This was the dawning of the light. Of his progress in the Christian experience, we have no means as yet of tracing the steps. We only know, in general, from what he started, and to what he came.

In the April of 1806, he joined the University at Halle, where he came under the influence of Schleiermacher, whose learned and thrilling voice was the first to sound the return of infidel Germany to the truth as it is in Jesus. Schleiermacher was then thirty-eight years old, in the first bloom and vigor of his faculties, and made, of necessity, a very profound and durable impression upon the young and ardent Hebrew Platonist, who was already, in obedience to his own impulses, seeking the way of life.

He had been in Halle about six months, when the city was captured by the French under Bernadotte. The University was immediately suspended by Napoleon, and the students ordered to disperse. Neander fled, with one of his friends, to Göttingen, the place of his birth, where, joining the University, he came under the instruction of Gesenius, afterward the great Hebrew lexicographer, then but twenty years of age, and just commencing his distinguished career. The manner of their introduction to each other is a curious bit of literary history worth preserving. Gesenius was returning to Göttingen from his native place, Nordhausen, which was then in flames, having been set fire to by the French. The soldiers of the broken Prussian army were hurrying to their homes. In the general flight and confusion, Gesenius saw two young men on their way from Halle to Göttingen, one of whom had broken down, unable to go any further, and was entirely out of money. He procured a carriage for the unknown young student and conveyed him to Göttingen. That young student was Neander; and this little adventure led to a friendship which lasted for life, the gulf which subsequently yawned between them, in respect to matters of faith, abating nothing of their mutual respect and kindliness. "At first it was painful to me," said Neander, writing from Göttingen, "to be thrown into this place of icy coldness for the heart. But now I find it was well, and thank God for it. In no other way could I have made such progress. From every human mediator, and even every agreeable association, must one be torn away, in order that he may place his sole reliance on the only Mediator."

In 1809 he returned to Hamburg to become a pastor. But the city had a small fund to support one of its theologians as a lecturer at Heidelberg. This was wisely appropriated to Neander, who promised more as a scholar than as a preacher. Accordingly, in 1811, we find him established at Heidelberg as a teacher in the University, he having previously, on his public profession of Christianity, assumed the name of _Neander_ deriving it from the Greek, [Greek: nheos hanêr], "a new man," to signify the entire change which had come over him. The family name was Mendel. The year following he was appointed Professor Extraordinary, which, in plain English, means a professor without a regular salary from government, and shortly issued his work on "The Emperor Julian and his Time," the first of those monographs which awakened the admiration of his learned countrymen, and paved the way for the great undertaking of his life, "A General History of the Christian Religion and Church."

In 1813, when but twenty-four years of age, he was called to a professorship in the then recently established University of Berlin, and signalized his removal thither by a work on "St. Bernard and his Age." Five years later, he published a work on Gnosticism, and in 1821, his "Life of Chrysostom;" besides some treatises of minor note, which we need not pause to enumerate. At length, in 1825, when of course he was thirty-six years old, the first volume of his General History of the Church appeared. And to say that this work put him directly at the very head of Christendom as the expounder of its inward life, is saying only what we all know to be true. After that, he turned aside occasionally in obedience to other calls of duty, at one time to write a history of the Apostolic Age, and at another the Life of Christ, but always returning to his General History, as the one great task appointed him of God to do. As I parted with him in the spring of 1848, my heart drawn out toward him with an admiring tenderness and reverence, such as I had never experienced toward any other living scholar, I could not forbear assuring him, that many prayers would go up for him in America as well as in Europe, that he might be spared to complete his work. "I hope it," he replied, "but that must be as God wills." But this wish of his heart was denied him. He died in Berlin on Sunday, July 14th, 1850, in the midst of his unfinished labors. He had published what brings us down to the year 1294, and was then at work upon the centuries which lie between that and the Reformation. The posthumous volume, edited by Schneider, still falls short, by nearly a hundred years, of that important epoch. Had he been spared to proceed thus far, we had been the better reconciled to his dying; although his countrymen were anxious to have him turn his peculiar powers upon the Reformation itself, and the world-wide movements which have grown out of it. But this was not to be. He died, leaving no one to take his mantle; died, too, somewhat prematurely, for he was only sixty-one years old.

Of his personal appearance, which was altogether unique, descriptions have frequently been given. He was small of stature, his height not exceeding five feet and four or five inches. He had studied so hard, exercised so little, eaten so sparingly and suffered so much from imperfect health, that his muscles seemed entirely relaxed and flabby. His hand, when he gave it in salutation or in parting, was like that of a sick child. But his hair remained as black as a raven. His brows were shaggy and overhanging, and his black eyes, when ever and anon the drooping lids were lifted away from them, shot forth a very deep and searching light. As one sat over against him, watching his words, he might easily imagine himself gazing through those glowing orbs back into the ages. His study, up two flights of stairs, overlooking one of the public squares of the city, was a place to be remembered. Its furniture was a plain round table, a standing-desk, an old sofa and two or three chairs. High up on the walls between the book-shelves and the ceiling, nearly all round the room, hung engraved portraits of distinguished men; and he showed his noble catholicity of spirit, in having the great men of his native land all there, without regard to their peculiar schools and sentiments. His library contained about 4,000 volumes. They filled the room; table, chairs and sofa were loaded with them; they lay in stacks upon the floor; and, in some cases, were piled, two or three tiers deep, into the shelves against the walls. To anybody else the library would have been a chaos; but he could lay his hand at once upon any book he wished for. It was in this room, thus crammed with books, that he used to entertain the little parties he invited to sup with him. The repast was always frugal; the conversation, on his part, such as might have gone into print. A man-servant brought in the refreshments on a tray; or, sometimes, one of his pupils officiated. His only sister, who kept house for him during the greater part of his life, never made her appearance at these exclusively masculine entertainments. He himself rarely paid any attention to the progress of the meal, but seemed to be as much a visitor as any of his guests. The little he needed was soon dispatched, and his thoughts were again afloat, sounding along from theme to theme.

He never married, and, at the time I speak of, was almost alone in the world. Neither father, nor mother, nor any other near relative remained to him, save his sister, Johanna, whose care of him had need to be almost maternal. Well-nigh every day in the year these two might be seen walking out together to take the air. They went always arm in arm, a beautiful embodiment of the tenderest affection. Hardly the king himself attracted more attention in the street. Scarcely a person he met failed to raise his hat and salute the venerable scholar with the heartiest good will. As he was both short-sighted and suffering from diseased vision, he had to depend upon his sister to know who bowed to him; and it was amusing to see his returning salutation bestowed, in almost every instance, a little too late. Many anecdotes were afloat in Berlin, and indeed all over Germany, going to illustrate his habits of abstraction and absent-mindedness, some of which no doubt were true, and all of which were likely enough to have been so.

An exact description of his manners in the lecture-room would, by any one who never saw him, be thought a caricature. He entered the room with his eyes upon the floor, as if feeling his way; a student stood ready to take his hat and overcoat and hang them up in their places; while he went directly to his stand--a high pine desk; threw his left elbow upon it; dropped his head so low that his eyes could not be seen; tilted the desk over on its front legs, so that you expected every moment to see it pitching forward into the lecture-room, with the lecturer after it; and, seizing a quill, always provided for the purpose, began at once to speak, and to twist and twirl and tear in pieces the quill. Sometimes, in the heat of his discourse, he would suddenly jerk up his head, whirl entirely round with his face to the wall and his back to the audience, and then as suddenly whirl back again, his words all the while pouring along in a perfect torrent of involved and fervent thought. Add to this a constant writhing and swinging of his legs, with a frequent slight spitting, produced by a chronic weakness of the salivary glands, and you have a picture of the outward man known in Berlin as John William Augustus Neander; to be known in history as one of the most learned, revered and beloved teachers of our century.

While it is indispensable to our full and lively appreciation of Neander that these little things be known of him, no one will be so foolish as to let such accidents and eccentricities of the outward life divert his attention from the grand and rarely equalled manhood which lay behind and beneath them. To give anything like a just estimate of this manhood would be no easy task, however. His native endowments, the attainments he had made in the learning pertaining to his department, and the part he was called to play in the regeneration of German science and German faith, were all remarkable. From the first glimpse we catch of him, when, at 17 years of age, he had given his head and heart to Plato, he strikes us as no ordinary character; and our wonder deepens at every step, till at last we behold him sinking exhausted amidst his labors, and all Christendom gathered in sorrow around his grave.