Part 16

What’s left? Why God! and _His_ true Heaven above, The glory of earth, and sea and air, The deathless pulse in His heart of love, And we to His grand estate are heir.

Infinite gain: The riches that never more take wing, The gold wrought out in the furnace fire, The strength that is born of suffering, And the upward lift of the soul’s desire.

CHAUTAUQUA EMERGING FROM WINTER.

A LETTER FROM CHAUTAUQUA.

By the REV. VICTOR CORNELLE.

We enjoy this forest life; not only through the Assembly, but through the delightful autumn, when we scatter the pretty leaves in every path; through the cold, long winter and its deep and lasting snows; and through the sunny opening spring. To those who come and go, the Assembly is only a summer gathering for rest and instruction; but to us, who live here, it is like a large and stirring city passing through our woods, and bringing with it the world’s best attainments in every department of learning, the press, the telegraph, etc., and leaving behind saloons and their train of vices. In April our quiet is usually broken by a few scattered families who come before to prepare the way for the thousands who are soon to follow. These increase through June and July and reach the climax in August. Before September closes we can only hear the distant footsteps of a departing city; and when winter comes you can find but sixty small families sprinkled through the cottages. We had a long and pleasant fall, and work went on briskly while pleasant weather lasted. The Superintendent said the improvements this year would exceed any two previous years. The work was distributed over the grounds, but the most marked appears before the hotel, where the ground is worked into an easy undulating grade down to the lake. More cottages were built than usual, many enlarged and others repaired. The lake has been frozen over more than two months with ice from fourteen to sixteen inches thick, carrying sleighs all winter. The fishing-coops appeared in ordinary numbers, and the fishermen gazed long through the holes cut in the ice for the fish that would not come. A few were caught.

The fierceness of the winter is broken by the woods. The wind which sweeps the snow into immense drifts outside is heard here flowing over and among the tree-tops with a deep and constant roar; but is little felt. The memorial bell rings with a regularity and punctuality truly gratifying to those who are expected to hear it at a distance. We can inform all Chautauquans that it rings, and the imagination alone is required to convey its sound to every ear, and its inspiration to every heart. The Sabbath dawns upon us with such a peaceful quiet that it fills our hearts with reverence. Instead of being shocked by the vices of the city, we are charmed by the innocent beauties God has thrown around us in the works of his hands. The services held in the chapel are well attended, and the little society is gradually increasing. The five o’clock meetings for prayer and song in the grand and silent hall have continued without a single break. The attendance declined through the hardest of the winter, but is now increasing. Our C. L. S. C. has sustained a happy existence through the quiet winter. We number twenty, meet weekly to read essays, ask questions, and exchange opinions.

* * * * *

We find this noble precept often repeated in Plato: “Do thine own work, and know thyself.” Each member of this sentence comprehends the whole duty of man, and each includes the other. He who would do his own work aright will discover that his first lesson is to know himself and what is his duty; and he who rightly understands himself will never mistake another man’s work for his own, but will attend to himself, and above all improve the faculties of his mind, will refuse to engage in useless employments, and will get rid of all unprofitable thoughts and schemes. And as folly, even if it should succeed in obtaining all that it can possibly desire, will never be satisfied, so also wisdom, ever acquiescing in the present, is never dissatisfied with its existing state. Epicurus exempts the wise man from forethought and care for the future.—_Montaigne._

CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES.

ANGLO-SAXON PRIZES.

Last spring it was announced that during the session of the School of Languages in ’82 two prizes would be awarded for proficiency in Anglo-Saxon acquired during the session. Accordingly, after due announcements, the examination was held during the last days of the session. The papers were submitted to Dr. Cook, Professor of English in the University of California, well-known to old students at Chautauqua. He has lately decided upon the papers with the following result: The first prize was awarded _Miss Mary Parker_, Ogdensburg, N. Y.; the second to _Miss Mary A. Bryant_, Columbia, Tennessee. It is expected that similar prizes will be offered during the session of ’83.

HINTS TO BEGINNERS IN THE STUDY OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.

By REV. ALFRED A. WRIGHT, A.M.[O]

THE PURPOSES OF THIS COURSE OF STUDY.

It is one purpose of the study of New Testament Greek as conducted by the Dean of the Department of Greek and the New Testament in the Chautauqua School of Theology, to acquaint students with the best methods for obtaining an elementary knowledge of grammatical and philological principles lying at the basis of Bible Greek.

It is another purpose to acquaint students with the best methods of using the tools needed to mine the treasures of Greek ideas which are not always near the surface of things.

The supreme purpose of this course of study is to enable students to read for themselves the very _words_ which the blessed Master and his Apostles uttered, and to so enter into the mysteries of the language-forms and idioms as to behold the very _ideas_ which Christ and his Apostles had before their mental eyes.

He who attempts this is fascinated from the start with the anticipations of discovery and with the comforts of expected reward for every toil of endeavor. And, as he advances, whatever difficulties present themselves, appear only as the stepping-stones upon which he may plant his ascending footsteps, and from whose loftier elevations he may scan a wider scope of beauty.

Surely—if there are hidden secrets of divine truth phrased in the metaphor or in the thought tone of the Bible Greek, the student can afford to tightly gird his loins for the journey;—it shall prove to him indeed the “Quest of the Holy Grail.”

DIFFICULTIES—IN THE LANGUAGE.

1. “_It is all Greek to me_,” is often said with a quality of facetiousness in tone and manner which is evidently intended as a compliment to the exceeding difficulty of learning the language. Or, it may be a _quasi_ tribute to the very picturesqueness of the Greek letters and word-forms as they appear in the sentence. Or, it may be said by one who is overwhelmed at the erudition of some academic “Greek” flourishing a Greek Testament, and suggesting in manner a certain layman of Lynn, who once took from the parlor table a book printed in French, and asked his astonished hostess, “Is this Latin or French? For if it’s Latin I can read it.” Or it may be possible the superstition that the mysteries of religion are themselves in some manner connected with the very forms of Greek words, has its influence in producing the expression; however, it is a fact that the phrase is found on the lips of even cultured persons, “_It’s all Greek to me_.”

2. _Misapprehension._—The fact is, many people misapprehend the nature of the language and of the real difficulties in the way of mastering its secrets. For the new scholar will invariably assert that Greek, especially New Testament Greek, is _not_ a difficult study, because of the language forms or idioms. The _real_ difficulties are to be found in other places, than in the gardens of the text.

THE REAL DIFFICULTIES.

1. _Lack of Early School Training._—Here is a real difficulty which many Sunday-school teachers and others _feel_. Unquestionably, however, they too much magnify it. An undertaking may be difficult and yet possible. Its difficulty may be over-estimated. A lack of early or the best school training, seriously affects one’s future success in letters or in art. But if there be will and energy and perseverance in a man, these will go far toward insuring his success, while he who has them not will surely fail though blessed with every advantage of school and teacher.

Elihu Burritt, blacksmith, learned eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, because he _would_ learn them, not because he had early scholastic advantages.

Shakspere says,

“It is not in our stars But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

2. _Lack of Time._—With busy pastors, superintendents and teachers, this difficulty is a _real_ one. Nevertheless we may hint to _some_ pastors that their busy-ness is largely misdirected. It is certain there is time enough to do all that God wants you or needs you to do. But to elaborate the sixth topic of a thirty minute discourse upon the anvil of three weeks’ time, and to do nothing else must be pronounced at least doubtfully wise or valuable. Or, to “run in and see” the mince-pie making Martha or the floor-scrubbing Patience or the boudoir-adorning Evelyn and her æsthetic sister Elsie, and to do nothing else, may please the dear creatures and make one the most popular pastor for the village ages, but is _this_ wise or valuable?

[Hint. _They who “run in” may “run out.”_] A New York _Sun_ reporter in describing the proceedings of the last Democratic State Convention, coined a new word,—not elegant indeed, but extremely expressive. “The Hon. —— arose and proceeded to _peppersauce himself_ all over the convention.” Certainly this is a most emphatic use of the middle form of a noun-verb, and is indefinitely suggestive of the very action and _distributive energy_ of the Hon. ——’s speech as well as of the speecher. The _number_ of parish calls made per year is not the only measure of a pastor’s value to his church. We must have the _qualis_ as well as _quantus_ of his work if we would make a fair test of values. But the quantity of this work is the very consumption of time. Probably you could both learn Greek and make better pastoral calls if you should refrain from distributing yourself so continuously over the parish. Wesley’s rule, “Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be _triflingly_ employed. Neither spend more time at any place than is strictly necessary,” is one of universal wisdom. Kirke White learned Greek while walking to and from a lawyer’s office.

A nail cutter was at work cutting nails at his machine in the mill; the long stick that held his pincers was grasped in his right hand and the other end of it, running between his side and elbow, was slung in a cord pendent from the floor above. The red-hot nail plates glowed in the fire, ready to be seized one by one in the pincers, as the workman finished feeding the last one into the closing jaws of the machine. Only a minute’s time and a single nail plate—turned for every nail by the deft hand of the skilled artisan, and fed accurately, became nails. The workman was so adjusted in mental tether to his work that the jaws never closed upon the iron pincers. With a single motion the refuse bit within the pincers fell amongst its fellow scraps, and a new plate began its course. And all the while _the workman was reading a book_. The babel of two hundred crunching jaws around availed nothing to disturb him. He’d planned to save time. He didn’t mean to become machinery or a machine. _That man could learn Greek._

[To be continued.]

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

The C. L. S. C. as a Substitute for the College.

The C. L. S. C. has been called the “People’s College.” That it is indeed a school for the thousands who pursue its course of study no one has questioned. Some, however, of the more exact of speech might doubt the propriety of applying the dignified name of college to an institution of its character. We do not set up any claims on the ground of derivation from the Latin verb _colligere_, to collect or bring together, for then would the C. L. S. C. outrank all other colleges in the world. Nor do we plead the right to use such a name because of the scores of institutions chartered under the name of college, which scarcely bear comparison for character and grade of instruction with our academies and best high schools. Let us be content to speak of plain, unpretentious C. L. S. C. as a substitute for the respectable college.

The warmest enthusiast for the C. L. S. C. has never recommended it to young men and women with means and opportunity to pursue a regular college course. On the contrary it has been a claim from the beginning that it tends to arouse in many a home the ambition to have son and daughter enjoy the advantages of the college training. But to the thousands of C. L. S. C. students to whom opportunity is past, or to whom it never came for want of time and money, to those and other thousands of well wishers it will be of interest to consider how and to what extent the C. L. S. C. may be deemed a substitute.

It should be borne in mind that the college proper is entirely distinct from the professional school. The former aims to give that general and accurate knowledge and training which prepares for the work and duties of life. The latter is wholly technical in its character. Now, keeping this definition in view and comparing the C. L. S. C. with the college, we shall see that each possesses its points of superiority and inferiority. The college has facilities for taking the student of physics and chemistry into apparatus-room and laboratory where he may witness experiment and illustration of great practical value. The C. L. S. C. student reaches the same facts and conclusions through the cuts and explanations of text-books, supplemented in many cases by experiments of his own, which, though rude, are often the most valuable of all. All that acquaintance with the operations and formulæ of higher mathematics which the college student with taste and talent for such things may possess, the C. L. S. C. student does not have. But the result wrought out through these higher mathematical processes with all their various practical applications are brought to his knowledge. The C. L. S. C. student does not have the benefit of a critical study of Latin and Greek, but he gets through history and the literatures of these languages as large an acquaintance with Greece and Rome. Horace Greeley, when reminded of the impossibility of his obtaining a good knowledge of the old classic authors because of his ignorance of the languages in which they wrote, replied that he did not think it necessary to eat a few feet of “lead pipe every day in order to get a pint of Croton water.” Whatever may be the strength or weakness of such reasoning it must be admitted that acquaintance with the thought and feeling of mankind is the highest fruit of language study. This, through faithful and scholarly translations, the C. L. S. C. student receives.

In the departments of general history and English literature the C. L. S. C. has a wider range and requires more than the college. It has its special courses which correspond with the idea of elective studies in the more advanced colleges of the times. The C. L. S. C. possesses, too, the advantages of all the improved methods of instruction, so far as circumstances will permit of their application: the lecture, the text-book, the question and answer. The student may lose something by reason of the long distance in miles between himself and the author or lecturer who is his teacher, but he is somewhat compensated by the better facilities which he possesses for the development of habits of personal investigation and self-reliance. The C. L. S. C. is not the college but in many features it is like the college. It is the best substitute for it known.

Wagner.

The recent death of Richard Wagner removes from the world of art one, the greatness of whose work it would be difficult to exaggerate. His musical devotees, who are in every land, and who pay him the most enthusiastic homage, regard his loss as irreparable. The art of music has perhaps had no follower who in all respects was his equal. His impression upon his age was deep, and his work will not soon pass away. He died February 13, in Venice, where he was spending the winter. For some years he had been accustomed, as the season of cold came on, to seek the milder Italian climate.

May 22, 1813, in Leipsic, Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born, the youngest of seven children. His father was an actuary of police, and died a few months after the son’s birth. A step-father, Ludwig Geyer, a portrait painter, who had once been an actor and a writer of plays, probably helped in giving his mind a dramatic bent, but he also died when Richard was but seven years old. Wagner, in his autobiography, tells us that, though he early discovered a strong taste for music, he could never learn to play well on the piano. His teacher in boyhood declared that his making a player was quite out of the question, and the teacher was right. His playing was never good. He was sent to school to prepare for the regular university course; but here his time was largely spent in verse-making, in studying the Greek and other tragedies, and writing plays. He passed among his school fellows for one of bright mind, and he excelled in literary work. Before he had reached his twelfth year verses of his appeared in print. It was a memorable time with the boy when a translation of Shakspere’s works fell into his hands. His admiration for the great genius of English literature knew no bounds; he studied English that he might read the plays in the original. He became an earnest student of this master, and it was his delight to sit at his feet. One of his biographers, speaking of this boyhood period, says that “He projected an immense tragedy, which was a concoction of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear,’ on an absurdly grand scale. Forty-two men died in the earlier part of the play, and he was obliged to make a number of them return as ghosts, in order to keep the last acts sufficiently supplied with _dramatis personæ_.” Another event in his life was his first hearing at a concert one of Beethoven’s symphonies. The lad of fifteen was deeply moved, and a purpose to be a musician was awakened in his soul. His friends had no faith in his musical gifts, but finally allowed him to follow his inclination. He set to studying music at a furious rate, and to composing music. He studied for a time at the Thomas-schule at Leipsic, but in a desultory fashion at first, from which he derived little good. At length, however, he put himself under the instruction of Theodore Weinlig, cantor of this seminary,—a thoroughly competent teacher,—and laid an excellent foundation for his musical future. He became an adorer of Beethoven, as he had been—and continued ever to be—of Shakspere. “I doubt,” wrote one musical critic, “whether there ever was a young musician who knew Beethoven’s works more thoroughly than Wagner at his eighteenth year. The master’s overtures and larger instrumental compositions he had copied for himself in score. He went to sleep with the sonatas and rose with the quartettes; he sang the songs and whistled the concertos.”

The success of Wagner did not come speedily. He was forced to wait a long time for the world’s appreciation. There were years in which failure followed failure with him as a musical director and composer. He struggled long with poverty. He received his share of ridicule. But the time of his triumph came. His music has gone everywhere, and in these last years people from all quarters of the globe have flocked to the little Bavarian city where he had his home to listen to the productions of his genius as rendered by the world’s first artists. The coming of King Ludwig to the throne of Bavaria meant for Wagner his needed opportunity. The young king believed in him and took him under his protection. He could show the world at length the power that was in him. And the world has acknowledged it, and crowned him king in the realm of music. He founded a school; his theories were new and revolutionary. And his school has triumphed; his theories, as one has said, have “leavened the whole lump of European music.” His great name was sought to add to the glory of our American Centennial in 1876, and a portion of the music sung at the opening of the great exhibition in Philadelphia was from his pen. He was more than a musical composer. He was a matchless orchestral organizer and director. He was possessed of exquisite dramatic insight. He was a poet of genuine poetic gifts. He was a profound writer upon political and philosophical subjects. And his writings upon music and the drama have had a great influence. His literary works have been collected and published in an edition of nine volumes, and show in their author a strangely versatile genius. Some of his best known musical compositions are “Rienzi,” “Tannhäuser,” “Lohengrin,” “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger,” the four operas of the “Nibelungenring,” whose presentation enraptured thousands attended at Baireuth—among whom were different crowned heads of Europe—and “Parsifal” given last July at the same place with equal or greater success. Wagner lived in his last years at Baireuth in royal style. If fame, wealth, the homage of men could give man content, his lot should have been one of satisfaction. Personally, he was a man of strong will, of self-assertion, and of stubbornness—a man who could say of others things harsh and severe. Among his friends, however, he was amiable and often jolly. He was twice married. His first wife was not a congenial partner, and was divorced. His second was the daughter of the illustrious Liszt, and she survives him.

The Study of Art.

Within the last decade there has been in this country a marked increase in the interest manifested in all matters pertaining to the fine arts. Not only have amateur artists been multiplied all over the land, but many persons who make no pretensions to the use of brush or chisel, have applied themselves assiduously to the study of the history and principles of art. Each succeeding year adds to the number.

Of late years, also, the facilities for such studies have been greatly increased. In many of our universities and colleges departments of art have been instituted and capable instructors secured to train such students as desire to acquire thorough knowledge. In addition to this, societies are to be found in most of our leading cities, which are designed to encourage the study of art and afford great facilities to those desiring to perfect themselves in its different departments. At least one school of design has been established in this country, which has already attracted many students. Instructions in oil and water colors can be obtained in almost every town and hamlet in the land. Opportunities are numerous and afford delightful and profitable pastime for those who have leisure and capacity for such employments.

The study of art has been given suitable prominence in the course of the C. L. S. C. Text-books, well written and beautifully illustrated, have been prepared by persons in every way qualified for the task they have undertaken. Numerous lectures on this subject, full of entertainment and instruction, have been delivered on the Chautauqua platform, while the Chautauqua Schools of Drawing and Modeling are each year increasing in interest and attendance. A number of articles on various departments of art have appeared in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and its future numbers will be enriched by many more.