Part 16

Let us commence, if you please, with the dust, which is not to be despised, my dears, because you are made out of it, the sand, the drops of water, or any other of the very lowest forms of creation. We pass up from these elements, and find them crystalized into minerals, and wrought into flowers, and obtain our first ideas of beauty. Looking up through the grades of flowers, we happen upon the sensitive plants, which shrink from you, and shiver when you point your finger at them like guilty souls, and the winged orchids, which you must touch to convince yourself they are not butterflies; and in these you begin to get foreshadowings of life. From this point you find organisms which may be vegetable, or may be animal. Our skill is insufficient to decide which they are. Presently you reach the sponges and the corals, in which animal life is very apparent; and if you will do yourself the pleasure to look into that glass of water with a microscope, my dear Celeste, you will be thoroughly convinced of life, and also that you are daily drinking millions of very unpleasant looking animals. A step higher up, you reach the insects and the ephemera, who live their little day of breezy life in the sunshine, and in their buzzing you find music commences. All these little fellows, with wings and feelers, play very pretty tunes, if your ear is only good enough to catch them, when they praise God by beating their gauzy wings together. As you pass from the insects to the birds, life is more pronounced, and the music of which I have spoken develops in construction and increases in beauty. Now, we are reaching the grade of animals, where intelligence commences; and as we come up to the dog, ox, horse or elephant, affection is added to intelligence. The animals begin to assume the qualities of man, and before we are aware of it, some of the animals are walking on two legs instead of four, and assuming the form and features of men, as, for instance, the monkeys, the apes, and the orang-utans. You pass from the monkey to the Digger Indian or Hottentot, and with the single unimportant exception of length of tail, it is well nigh impossible to tell them apart. Man is a short-tailed monkey, or, _vice versa_, monkey is a long-tailed man. Even in the highest order of man, it is sometimes difficult to tell a man from a monkey. Turn a child out into the woods, and let it grow up for thirty or forty years, subsisting upon roots, herbs and nuts, like an animal, and what does it become at last but a hairy, chattering ape, climbing trees, burrowing in the ground, and living like an animal? Thus we rise through various grades of men, each new type more perfect than the other, but still possessing some characteristic of the animal, until we reach woman, who is a step higher; then up through the various types of women, until we reach the angels; through the various types of angels until we reach the archangels, and then through the shining hierarchy of Heaven, until we stop at God, the centre of all life and the sun of all perfection, beyond Whom is nullity.

Thus do I believe that man is linked with all animal and vegetable forms below him, and that in each change the higher type takes something from the lower and preserves some characteristics of it, and that man loves God best when he loves all the types below him--the beast, the bird, the insect, the flower, and even the atom. The line from God to the atom, and from the atom to God, seems to me clear and uninterrupted; and thus the whole of this great universe is bound together by clear, though sometimes unseen relations, and radiates from God, its centre. And who knows but that in other planets there are intelligences superior to us, forming more links in this grand chain? When man dies, he goes back to the dust whence he sprang. He mingles with the brook; he blossoms in the flowers of the field; he is crystalized into the mineral; and thus part after part is absorbed, until only the original atom is left, which is the foundation upon which God has built up all this marvelous superstructure. Purified of all the bad qualities of animal and vegetable, and other material organisms, the soul, or what the philosophers call the Ego, only is left, and is only fitted to be in the presence of the Originator of this complex mechanism.

Exactly where the soul comes in, in tracing the changes from type to type, I confess, is a difficult matter to solve. The physical peculiarities are easily defined, but the spiritual developments are very subtle. I am free to confess to you that I don't believe man has a monopoly of all the soul there is in the world. I am prepared to admit that some men don't have souls at all, but only instincts. The common saying, "This man hasn't the soul of a louse," I think may be literally true. Some animals, I solemnly believe, have larger, better and truer souls than some men. All the learned arguments in the world would never convince me that the faithful horse, who is diligent in business, who understands what is said to him, and who stands there weeping big tears out of his eyes, and uttering a mournful cry under the lash of the brute who is driving him, has not a soul, and more than that, a better and bigger soul than his driver. The mental acumen of all the schools would never convince me that the faithful dog who loses his master, searches for him day and night, only to find his grave, and, lying upon that grave, refuses food and drink, and, moaning piteously, dies upon his master's sleeping place, has not a soul. Did you ever look directly into the eyes of the ox, and not see the soul of the animal looking out at you in those soft and expressive orbs? To my mind, blind old Homer never said a finer thing than when he called the mother of the gods, "Ox-eyed Juno," although I think it was an injustice to the animal, because Juno was a scallawag, and deserved just such an old rake of a husband as the Cloud-Bearer.

In these various types we do not always find perfection. There are breaks in the ascent. I will illustrate this to you. Among the insects, there are fleas, mosquitos, cockroaches, and other species, which have not advanced a particle in decency or intelligence above the hideous horned animalisms in the drop of water. Among the birds, there are some types of no more consequence than the insects. In the higher grades of the animals, there are the same unfortunate breaks. In the dog family, for instance, the yellow dog is really far below the plane on which he stands. He belongs to the same category as the skunk. He is of no earthly use to the types above or below him. The only thing he can do is to bark; and as he barks at everything, from the moon to a mud-puddle, even his barking has no significance. When you get up to men, there is no exception to the rule. Some men have not fully changed from one type to another, but have the characteristics of the lower type in a crude form, like pollywogs and water-newts.

Now, you see, assuming my doctrine to be correct, you can explain a great many peculiarities of men, and the animal characteristics they carry about with them. It explains why some men look like animals; why some men act like a dog; why some are slow as a snail; why some are secretive as a clam; why some absorb all you have got, like a sponge; why some are as dirty as a hog; why some are as sly as a fox; why some are as scaly as a fish; and so on _ad infinitum_. You can find the features of almost every animal in the human face--the ass and the monkey being specially prominent. The number of men, who, in the change of types, have preserved the family semblance to these animals is somewhat remarkable. In fact, the ass was a very hard animal to get by in the ascent. Almost every man now and then makes an ass of himself, and returns to the lower type--the only shade of difference being in the length of the ear. Were it not that a superior power continually holds him in check, man would gravitate downward, as his whole tendency is to retrograde to these lower types. Some men, who are not obstructed by this superior power, manage to get back to the brute and stay there. He must have certain conventional surroundings, also, in addition to this superior power, which is that of education, to keep his elevated position.

I think that the women mainly come from the flowers and the birds. You will find the analogies of nearly all women in the vegetable kingdom. Some women, tender, delicate, fragile, and spiritual, have all the attributes of the violet, and though they may blossom in some out of the way corner, they make everything around them joyous with their beauty and fragrance. Then there are others who flaunt their heads with a pretty disdain, and dazzle you with the beauty of their faces, but the moment you touch them, they fall to pieces like the seeds of the dandelion. They won't bear handling. Then there are women with strong natures, whose bodies are in harness, and souls in curb, who resemble the tough azalea, with a stalk like iron, and flowers we never care to gather, owing to their glutinous consistency. There are other women whom you can't take hold of at all. They repel you from every side like a porcupine. They resemble the fruit of the Durion tree, which is excellent eating provided you have courage enough to get through its hard spikes.

I was reading the other day that the birds of Paradise, when they are in their most gorgeous plumage, select some tree, or other eligible spot, go through with a regular dance for the edification of the other birds, and, during the dance, display their lustrous feathers by spreading them out as much as possible, and chatter together, in an insanely garrulous manner.

I was about to make an application of this custom to women, when I caught the eye of Mrs. Blobbs looking at me in a significant manner. I confess to you I am a little afraid of that majestic woman when she puts on her war-paint, and I immediately refrained, and we arose from the table.

May 15, 1869.

_WOMAN IN CHURCH._

In refusing to admit the women into the Young Men's Christian Association, Brother Moody has thrown aside the strongest element in religious matters which he could have used. Women are peculiarly receptive. Their nature is intensely emotional. They see instinctively where the man has to grope and reason his way up. A thousand sympathetic tendrils stretch out from their hearts, like the arms of the cuttle fish, which seize upon, wind around and draw to the centre, in strong affinity, if not assimilation, every object to which they are attracted. If it be good, it transforms them to angels; if evil, to fiends. No man can be such a saint as a woman; no man such a sinner. It is this intense emotion and natural instinct which admirably qualify them for religious purposes. And it proves, moreover, why, without them, there isn't a church in this city that could live six months. The church membership as every one knows is largely feminine. The influence which the Church exerts is feminine. The sympathy which the minister gets is feminine. His smoking-cap, dressing-robe, slippers, book-marks, donation-parties and other pleasant perquisites are feminine. And all the grumbling, fault-finding, hard work and hard knocks which the minister has to encounter, are purely masculine. The man, naturally lacking in reverence as well as religion, is inclined to regard the minister from a commercial point of view, and to treat him as an equal, while the woman looks up with admiring reverence.

Any woman who has been to church, unless her nearest neighbor has just come out in a new hat, can tell you what text the minister preached from, and give you a syllabus of his discourse. There isn't one man in ten who can do that. The man carries his business into church with him. The woman, unless there is an harassing doubt concerning the integrity of the beans, which might have been placed in the oven a little too soon, leaves her business at home. She can shed her cares as an umbrella sheds rain. The man, be he a dentist, allows dental reflections to insinuate themselves among the threads of the discourse, and wonders how he can get sister this or that into his chair of torture, and mentally determines to try it on at the next sewing-circle. The doctor is rather quietly rejoiced to see a large number of sisters absent, because this argues sickness. Women don't stay away from church unless they are sick, or some one is coming to dinner. The lawyer wonders if a certain statement the minister has made, has any legal bearing, and this leads him to think of the case of Boggs _vs._ Noggs, which is pending in the courts. The merchant who has just seen two of his clerks driving down the avenue at a very rapid rate, with cigars in their mouths, and in a style which seems to indicate they are not going to a Sunday School, wonders where they _are_ going, where they got their money to go with, and what they are going to do when they get there. And so on with each class. It is all very well to talk of the quiet of the Sabbath, and the propriety of forgetting the things of this world. It is a pretty theory, but men don't observe it. A man, in course of time, gets his nature so soaked and saturated with the cares, foibles, and follies of this world, that the moment it is squeezed in the slightest degree, some of these things will ooze out. So he thinks of the things of this world, and the words of the minister hum through his thoughts as the buzz of the bees comes to your ears in a hot summer day, when you are lying in the shade of the trees; and, as the architect was in league with the devil when he built the church, the ventilation is slightly bad. All these things militate against watchfulness, and the man, having confidence that the minister is on the right doctrinal track, quietly goes to sleep, and makes no sign thereafter, except to brush a fly from his nose, or nod vigorous assents to the parson's heads with his own.

I have noticed that women do not sleep in church. When Mrs. Blobbs accompanies old Blobbs to church, that good woman's attention is sadly distracted from the sermon, by the constant necessity of punching Old Blobbs in the ribs to keep him from snoring, whereat Old Blobbs opens both eyes wide open, fixes them upon the minister, as if he had never slept a wink in his life, gives his individual and serious attention to the sermon for the space of one minute, gradually closes one eye, as if winking at somebody, then quietly shuts the other, as if he did not want to disturb any one, and in another moment his nose sounds the whistle that he has arrived at the station of Morpheus, which necessitates another punch from Mrs. Blobbs. Thus Old Blobbs is kept between a snore and a swear the whole blessed morning, and goes home to his dinner without a single coherent idea about the sermon, while Mrs. Blobbs can go from firstly to tenthly, and throw in significant remarks about the young fellow who was fool enough to go to sleep on a window sill, while Paul was preaching, resulting in a broken neck, or something of that sort, you know.

Woman gives herself up without a question or a doubt to the inspiration of the hour, with the whole intensity of her emotional nature, very much as I think I should give myself up to the beats and pulsations of the organ-heart of some old cathedral, while the "dim, religious light" streamed in through the stained windows, and saints and martyrs looked down upon me from their niches.

And then a man in a sewing circle, or church sociable, or maternal meeting, or aid society meeting, or anything else of that harmless sort, is as much out of place, and as essentially useless as a coal-heaver would be at a classical concert. And yet these are great aids. They must be in the hands of the women. The major part of the machinery of the church must be engineered by the women. For all these reasons do I think that Brother Moody was unwise to refuse admission to the women.

May 22, 1869.

_THE MOUNTAINS._

Did you ever go East over the Pennsylvania Central Railroad? If not, do it at your first opportunity, and get a glimpse at the mountain scenery. It will reconcile you to life. The memory of those grand, imposing forms, towering into the heavens, clothed with their mighty greenery, girdled with the mists and crowned with the eternal sunshine, will stand you in good stead when life presses with its cares and anxieties, and the daily routine frets and worries, and friendship grows forgetful, and the grasshopper begins to be a burden.

I remember that the first thought which flashed upon me, as I stood upon the rear of the train, crawling up the hills in sinuous track, like some great serpent, was not so much the physical aspects as the perfect repose which seemed to brood among them. There was no life apparent--no motion visible. There was a river, which now and then glistened in the sunlight, but it was far down in the valleys, and it seemed from our height only a silver thread, tying the mountains together in a great emerald cluster. You saw the tops of the trees overlaying each other, and covering the mountains like the scales of a fish. But there was no motion in them. They were solid, massive and gigantic as petrified Titans. I do not believe the birds sing on those mountain sides; I do not believe the fairies gambol there in the moonlight, nor even that the insects play their part in the breezy morning symphonies under those still trees. It seems to me that none but a Deity should come down to those mountain tops, and thrice happy the man who can commune with him in that solitude. It seems to me that there would be no need of the written word there. The genius of solitude broods there--on the jutting peaks, in the great trees, in the solemn shadows, in the dark, silent pools and tarns, in the dank, trailing robes of the mist, and in the ineffable golden glory of the sunshine. I can now see how Irma found repose on "the Heights;" how she could reach from the Alpine summits up toward Heaven, and feel the hand of the Great Father reaching down to her; how, among the toils, and the sorrows, and the sins of the little world down in the valleys, the sweet repose of the mountains purified her; and how she struggled out of vice into virtue, out of impurity into perfect purity. I can see how all great souls, tormented with the follies and littleness of the world, with the ungratefulness and faithlessness of those they have trusted, bound down under the weight of their earthly burdens, their wings clipped, and their hands fettered, have longed for the mountain tops, where they might forever forget the world, and be alone with nature and the Deity. I can see how God came down to Moses on the mountain; how the marvelous transfiguration shone from the mountain; how Goethe sang,

"On every height there lies repose."

Another thought struck me, and that was the magnificent littleness of humanity, when it is brought into the presence of these mighty manifestations of Nature. What a poor little speck you are upon the great canvas! How small you look with your aches and pains, your fusses and foibles, your fashions and furbelows, your vanities and ambitions, in this eternal presence! How evanescent is fame; how transient is wealth; how feeble is love; how fickle is friendship; how small is this hand-breadth of life; how utterly insignificant all accomplishment of human industry; how utterly pinchbeck all displays of human grandeur, compared with this awful majesty of Nature! How few men have caught the mountain spirit and left it in their works! Blot out Shakspeare and Milton and Dante, Moses and Paul and Martin Luther, Raphael and Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Bach, and who is left to correspond with the height and depth, the majesty and solitude of the mountains? Not that genius was confined to them, but the other great names have been celebrated in the valleys, by the brooks, and among the flowers. They made the earth lovelier and brighter for their presence, but they did not reach the heights of human nature, where dwells everlasting repose. They saw the star-shadows on the water, but these others soared to them in the heavens. They sowed the world with richest flowers of thought. To these others, it was given to pluck the asphodels and amaranths growing by eternal waters. They budded in the trees of the valleys, and their songs were sweet. These others sought the regions above the storms with their eagle-flights, and when their voices come to us from their calm heights, they are laden with an awful majesty and beauty, as the west is now laden with the thunder-clouds, and pregnant with sweeping power, as those clouds are now pregnant with the lightnings.

The physical aspects of these mountains are marvelously beautiful. What a compact wall the tree-tops make! They seem impervious even to the sharpest lightning. Their forms give you every diversity of surface. Their outlines are never harsh or rugged, but always undulating and graceful. As the train sweeps along, now you get only the bold, precipitous wall of one mountain side. In a minute you get a view of another face. Now a chain of mountains group themselves together in a superb tableau. Now they form the gigantic setting of a peaceful green valley with a river laughing in its face, with here and there the dot of a house, and the column of thin, blue smoke no bigger than that which curls up from your cigar. The next instant the pretty vision is swept out of sight. You are thundering along on the edge of a curve right in the clutches of these Titans. The motion of the train impresses you with the idea that they are moving down upon it with resistless might, and that they will crush it like an egg-shell. You are surrounded with dense shadows. The mountains are bowing down their shaggy heads. You almost feel their weight pressing down upon you, and their breath, full of the bracing essence of life, in your face. It seems almost profanation to speak with such a presence near you, and you can only think thoughts too deep for the fashion of words. But anon, the train speeds through the sulphurous blackness of a tunnel, and you emerge into the sunlight, rolling in great waves of gold up the mountain sides, and giving you weird effects of light and shade, and constantly changing emerald tints that would mock the finest frenzy of the artist. I believe the clouds love to deck the mountains, as the sea loves to deck the shore with shells and sea-flowers. A sunrise or sunset in those mountains when the heavens are full of clouds, shows what dyes nature can use, and what forms she can mould, as you will see them nowhere else.

July 3, 1869.

_THE JUBILEE._

BOSTON, June 15, 1869.

The day of Jubilee has come.