Part 12
Nevertheless, since we do inhabit a star, I solemnly propose we cease to call it a dirt heap, and being determined to “live up to my light,” I hereby bring forward and clap a patent upon the name
CONCORDIA.
“I move it as a substitute for the original motion,” and call the previous question on “the Parliament of Man”—aforesaid by the English Laureate. By the same token, I met half a dozen selectest growths of people in San Francisco who, in the broadest, international way are doing more to make this name Concordia descriptive, rather than prophetic in its application to our oldest home, than any other people I can name. They work among the Chinese, Japanese, and “wild Arabs of the Barbary Coast,” they go with faces that are an epitomized gospel, and preach to the stranger within the Golden Gate that he is a stranger no more; they bring glad tidings of good which shall be to all people, for to them, as to their Master, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female in Christ Jesus.”
Look at this unique group photographed upon the sensitive plate of memory by “your special artist.” A tall Kentuckian of the best type; “much every way;” “big heart, big head, fine, clear-cut countenance, blue, scrutinizing eyes, large form, wrapped in an ample overcoat, its pockets full of scientific temperance documents,” this is Dr. R. H. McDonald, President of the Pacific Bank, Prohibition candidate for Governor, and temperance leader “on the coast.” Go with me to his elegant home; see his mother, fair and beaming at eighty-four; and his talented sons, who, though educated largely abroad, have never tarnished their fine physiques with the alcoholic or nicotine poisons. Go to the “Star Band of Hope Hall” on Sunday afternoon and hear his accomplished daughter sing to the little street Arabs of the society, while the Doctor presides over the meeting and introduces the eastern temperance worker, your correspondent and her secretary, Miss Anna Gordon, after whose speeches he presents each dear little child to us, patting them on the head, whispering words of praise for each, and emptying his great pockets of goodies and children’s literature. Remember that he has heart and hand open for every good work; know that he has a fortune of seven millions, and pray heaven to send us more wealthy men with wealthy hearts. Beside him stands a small, plain looking man with a royal gray eye; a man of quiet manners, terse, vigorous style, and cultured English utterances, a former sea-captain, who in the ports of China and Japan, as well as Boston and Liverpool, has succeeded in keeping his crew sober, and in teaching them to lay up their money; a gifted head and loyal heart he has; witness his editorials in _The Rescue_ and his leadership in founding the great Orphan’s Home at Vallejo in the suburbs (both paper and orphanage being conducted by the Good Templars, whose most gifted members are Will D. Gould, the genial lawyer of Los Angeles, Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the best temperance lecturers on the coast, Mrs. M. E. Corigdon, of Mariposa, and Geo. B. Katzenstein, of Sacramento). Very different in method, though one in aim with the two men I have described, is another redoubtable champion of every good cause, Rev. Dr. M. C. Briggs, who is like a tower “that stands four-square to every wind that blows.” Observe that well-knit figure, those herculean shoulders, that dauntless face, and it will go without saying that this man is nature’s model of the Methodist pioneer, to whom all hardships are but play; who has a sledge hammer blow for evil doers, but a brother’s clasp for the repentant; a man whose deep, musical voice in the palmy days of his prime gave wings to such rhetoric and such argument as combined with the speeches of Starr King and Col. Baker, to save California to the Union. Near the gifted Dr. Briggs stand his life-time friends and allies, Captain and Mrs. Charles Goodall, the former our Methodist Mecænus in California, founder of the famous “Oregon Navigation Company,” and the true type of a Christian layman, his heart and home open to all who come in the name of the Master whom he loves with the simplicity and fondness of the child. A tall, dark-eyed, impressive man, in life’s full prime, comes next. “See Otis Gibson, or you have missed the moral hero of Gold-opolis”—this was concurrent testimony coming from every side. Garfield left no truer saying than that the time wants men “who have the courage to look the devil squarely in the face and tell him that he is the devil.” Precisely this fearless sort of character is Rev. Otis Gibson. He has been the uncompromising friend of “the heathen Chinee,” through all that pitiful Celestial’s grievous fortunes on our western shore. When others cursed he blessed; while others pondered he prayed; what was lacking in schools, church, counsel and kindness he supplied. It cost something thus to stand by a hated and traduced race in spite of hoodlum and Pharisee combined. But Otis Gibson could not see why the people to whom we owe the compass and the art of printing, the choicest porcelain, the civil service examination might not christianize as readily on our shores as their own. In this faith he and his noble wife have worked on until they have built up a veritable city of refuge for the defenceless and despairing, in the young and half barbarous metropolis of the Pacific slope. We went to a wedding in this attractive home, where a well-to-do young Chinaman was married to a modest, gentle Chinese girl, rescued from a life of untold misery and sin by this blessed Christian home. Contrary to popular opinion, a chorus of Chinese made very tolerable music, and while a Celestial played one of Sankey’s hymns, stately Mrs. Capt. Goodall, the generous friend and patron saint of the establishment, escorted the bride, and after a simple service (with the word “obey” conspicuously left out), the large circle of invited philanthropists was regaled on the refreshments made and provided for such entertainments.
We afterward visited the “Chinese Quarter,” so often described, under escort of Rev. Dr. Gibson. We saw the theaters where men sit on the back and put their feet on the board part of the seat; where actors don their costumes in full sight of the audience, and frightful pictured dragons compete with worse discord for supremacy. We saw the joss-house, with swinging censer and burning incense, tapers and tawdriness, a travesty of the Catholic ceremonial, taking from the latter its one poor merit of originality. We saw a mother and child kneeling before a hideous idol, burning tapers, tossing dice, and thus “consulting the oracle,” with many a sidelong glance of inattention on the part of the six-year-old boy, but with sighs and groans that proved how tragically earnest was the mother’s faith. Dr. Gibson said the numbers on the dice corresponded to wise sayings and advices on strips of paper sold by a mysterious Chinese whose “pious shop” was in the temple vestibule, whither the poor woman resorted to learn the result of her “throw,” and then returned to try again, until she got some response that quieted her. Could human incredulity and ignorance go farther? We saw the restaurants, markets and bazars, as thoroughly Chinese as Pekin itself can furnish; the haunts of vice, all open to the day; the opium dens, with their comatose victims; and then, to comfort our hearts and take away the painful vividness of woman’s degradation, Dr. Gibson took us to see a Christian Chinese home, made by two of his pupils, for years trained under his eye. How can I make the contrast plain enough? A square or two away, the horrid orgies of opium and other dens, but here a well-kept dry goods store, where the husband was proprietor, and in the rear a quiet, pleasant, sacred home. The cleanly, kind-faced wife busy with household cares, her rooms the picture of neatness, her pretty baby sleeping in his crib, and over all the peace that comes from praise and prayer. Never in my life did I approach so near to that perception, too great for mortal to attain, of what the gospel has achieved for woman, as when this gentle, honored wife and mother said, seeing me point to an engraving of “The Good Shepherd,” on her nursery wall: “_O, yes! he gave this home to us._”
Otis Gibson conducts the Methodist Mission of San Francisco. In that of the Presbyterian, Mrs. P. B. Browne, a gifted lady, president of the W. C. T. U. of California, is prominent, as she has long been in the Woman’s Christian Association. Mrs. Taylor, president of the local W. C. T. U., is a lovely Christian worker, also Mrs. Williams of the same society, and Miss Annie Crary, daughter of that rare editorial genius, Rev. Dr. B. F. Crary of _The California Christian Advocate_, is our most talented and best taught Kindergartner.
But there remains a choice bit of portraiture ere my group of philanthropic leaders is complete. How firm and fine the etching that should accurately show the features of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, whose strong, sweet individuality I have not seen excelled—no, not even among women. From the time when our eastern press teemed with notices of the Presbyterian lady who had been tried for heresy and acquitted, who had the largest Bible class in San Francisco and was founder of that city’s Kindergartens for the poor, I made a mental memorandum that, no matter whom I missed, this lady I would see. So at 12:30 on a mild May Sabbath noon, I sought the elegant Plymouth Church, built by Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone, and found a veritable congregation in its noble auditorium. Men and women of high character and rare thoughtfulness were gathered, Bibles in hand, to hear the exposition of the acquitted heretic, whom a Pharisaical deacon had begun to assail contemporaneously with her outstripping him in popularity as an expounder of the gospel of love. She entered quietly by a side door, seated herself at a table level with the pews, laid aside her fur-lined cloak and revealed a fragile but symmetric figure, somewhat above the medium height, simply attired in black, with pose and movement altogether graceful, and while perfectly self-possessed, at the furthest remove from being self-assertive. Then I noted a sweet, untroubled brow, soft brown hair chastened with tinge of silver (frost that fell before its time, doubtless at the doughty deacon’s bidding); blue eyes, large, bright and loving; nose of the noblest Roman, dominant yet sensitive, chiseled by generations of culture, the unmistakable expression of highest force and mettlesomeness in character, held in check by all the gentlest sentiments: a mouth firm, yet delicate, full of the smiles that follow tears. Wordsworth’s lines describe her best:
* * “A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food, And yet a spirit, still and bright, With something of an angel’s light.”
The teacher’s method was not that of pumping in, but drawing out. There were no extended monologues, but the Socratic style of colloquy—brief, comprehensive, passing rapidly from point to point, characterized the most suggestive and helpful hour I ever spent in Bible class. There was not the faintest effort at rhetorical effect; not a suspicion of the hortatory in manner, but all was so fresh, simple and earnest, that in contrast to the pabulum too often served up on similar occasions, this was nutritious essence. A Bible class teacher is like a hen with ample brood and all inclined to “take to the grass.” How to coax them back from their discursive rambles by discovering the toothsome morsel and restfully proclaiming it, the average teacher “finds not,” but it is a portion of “the vision and faculty divine” in this California phenomenon. Let me jot down a few notes:
“What we call the new birth is but the opening of the eyes of the spirit upon its own world.” “There can be no kingdom of love to us, unless we enter it by love. We can not be mathematicians unless we enter the kingdom of mathematics. We can not perceive anything unless we address to it the appropriate organ of perception.” “Have we risen into any experience of the higher life? Are we in the way of completeness of soul? A soul dark toward God is in sad plight. No meaning in worship—none in prayer—that is a soul diseased.” “Baptism makes a child of God as coronation makes a king. But remember, he was a king before he was crowned.” As Lucretia Mott said, “We must have truth for authority, and not authority for truth.” “Dorcas did not bestow alms-gifts but alms-_deeds_; wrought not by a Dorcas society, but by Dorcas herself.” “Christ’s miracles were subject to the laws of the spiritual world. He could not spiritually bless those who were not susceptible to spiritual blessing.” “If I would prove to any one that God is his father I must first prove to him that I am his brother.”
When the delightful hour was over, among the loving group that gathered around her, attracted by the healing virtue of her spiritual atmosphere, came a temperance sojourner from the east. As my name was mentioned, the face so full of spirituality lighted even more than was its wont, and the soft, strong voice said, “Sometimes an introduction is a _recognition_—and so I feel it to be now.” Dear reader, I consider that enough of a compliment to last me for a term of years. I feel that it helped mortgage me to a pure life; I shall be better for it “right along.” For if I have ever clasped hands with a truth-seeker, a disciple of Christ and lover of humanity, Sarah B. Cooper held out to me that loving, loyal hand. The only “invitation out” which I gave to myself, and insisted on keeping, was to this woman’s home on Vallejo avenue, where, with her noble husband and true-hearted daughter, she illustrates how near the gates of Paradise a mortal home may be. One’s ideal seldom “materializes,” but in that lovely cottage, with its spotless cleanliness, fair, tasteful rooms, individualized so perfectly that he who ran might read how high the natures mirrored here, in the flower-decked dinner table and the “good talk,” in the study upstairs packed with choice books, and the sunset window looking out over the Golden Gate, I stored up memories that ought to yield electric energy for many a day. We talked of the past—and I found that my new friend, as well as her husband, had been for years the pupil of my beloved father in the gospel, our lamented Dr. Henry Bannister, late Professor of Hebrew in Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Ill. With what reverence and tenderness we talked of that brave, earnest, sympathetic life! We spoke of her experiences as a teacher in the South, and she rejoiced in the good tidings I brought of a “Yankee school-ma’am’s” welcome for temperance’s sake in nearly one hundred cities of Dixie’s land. We talked most of all about God and his unspeakable gift of Christ Jesus our Lord. I found this tireless brain had busied itself with the study of all religions, the testimony of science, philosophy and art; a more hospitable intellect I have not known, nor a glance more wide and tolerant, but “Christ and him crucified” is to that loyal heart “the Chief among thousands and altogether lovely.”
Let me give a few sentences from the inspiring letters that come to me across the distance between that bay window by the Golden Gate, and my “Rest Cottage” by the inland sea:
“If I know myself, I have one regnant wish: To help build up the coming kingdom.” “I desire you to include me in all your invocations for light and guidance.” “We move on in one work, we are co-laborers for a common Master—blessed be His name. We both aim at one thing: character-building in Christ Jesus. I am to speak before the C. L. S. C. at Pacific Grove, Monterey, on the ‘Kindergarten in its Relation to Character-Building.’ I shall speak of temperance. Have tried to help women both north and south who are working in their little towns heroically.” “The Chautauqua of the Coast, energized by desperate, sometimes almost despairing love for their tempted ones.”
The _Independent_ and other leading journals have in Mrs. Cooper a valued correspondent, and her work among the little, ill-born and worse-nurtured children of San Francisco’s moral Sahara has been described by her own pure and radiant pen. It is one of the most potent forces in that city’s uplift toward Christianity. Among the best types of representative women, America may justly count Sarah B. Cooper, the student, the Christian exegete and philosopher, and the tender friend of every untaught little child.
TABLE-TALK OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
When Napoleon was about fourteen, he was conversing with a lady about Marshal Turenne, and extolling him to the skies.
“Yes, my friend,” she answered, “he was a great man; but I should like him better if he had not burnt the Palatinate.”
“What does that matter,” he replied briskly, “if the burning was necessary to the success of his plans?”
* * * * *
Napoleon’s German master, a heavy and phlegmatic man, who thought the study of German the only one necessary to a man’s success in life, finding Napoleon absent from his class one day, asked where he was. He was told he was undergoing his examination for the artillery.
“Does he know anything then?” he asked ironically.
“Why, sir, he is the best mathematician in the school.”
“Well,” was his sage remark, “I have always heard say, and I always thought, that mathematics was a study only suitable to fools.”
“It would be satisfactory to know,” Napoleon said twenty years after, “if my professor lived long enough to enjoy his discernment.”
* * * * *
In 1782, at one of the holiday school fêtes at Brienne, to which all the inhabitants of the place were invited, guards were established to preserve order. The dignities of officer and subaltern were conferred only on the most distinguished. Bonaparte was one of these on a certain occasion, when “The Death of Cæsar” was to be performed.
A janitor’s wife who was perfectly well known presented herself for admission without a ticket. She made a clamor, and insisted upon being let in, and the sergeant reported her to Napoleon, who, in an imperative tone, exclaimed, “Let that woman be removed, who brings into this place the license of a camp.”
* * * * *
Bonaparte was confirmed at the military school at Paris. At the name of Napoleon, the archbishop who confirmed him expressed his astonishment, saying that he did not know this saint, that he was not in the calendar, etc. The child answered unhesitatingly, “That that was no reason, for there were a crowd of saints in Paradise, and only 365 days in the year.”
* * * * *
Dining one day with one of the professors at Brienne, the professor knowing his young pupil’s admiration for Paoli, spoke disrespectfully of the general to tease the boy.
Napoleon was energetic in his defense. “Paoli, sir,” said he, “was a great man! he loved his country; and I shall never forgive my father for consenting to the union of Corsica with France.”
* * * * *
One evening in the midst of the Reign of Terror, on returning from a walk through the streets of Paris, a lady asked him:
“How do you like the new Constitution?”
He replied hesitatingly: “Why, it is good in one sense, certainly; but all that is connected with carnage is bad;” and then he exclaimed in an outburst of undisguised feeling: “No! no! no! down with this constitution; I do not like it.”
* * * * *
1794. During the siege of Toulon, one of the agents of the convention ventured to criticise the position of a gun which Napoleon was superintending. “Do you,” he tartly replied, “attend to your duty as national commissioners, and I will be answerable for mine with my head.”
* * * * *
An officer, entering Napoleon’s room, found, much to his astonishment, Napoleon dressed and studying.
“What!” exclaimed his friend, “are you not in bed yet?”
“In bed!” replied Napoleon, “I have finished my sleep and already risen.”
“What, so early?” the other replied.
“Yes,” continued Napoleon, “so early. Two or three hours of sleep are enough for any man.”
* * * * *
When Barras introduced Napoleon to the convention as a fit man to be entrusted with the command, the President asked, “Are you willing to undertake the defense of the convention?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
After a time the President continued: “Are you aware of the magnitude of the undertaking?”
“Perfectly,” replied Napoleon, fixing his eyes upon the questioner; “and I am in the habit of accomplishing that which I undertake.”
* * * * *
“How could you,” a lady asked about this time, “fire thus mercilessly upon your countrymen?”
“A soldier,” he replied calmly, “is only a machine to obey orders. This is my seal which I have impressed upon Paris.”
* * * * *
Napoleon’s apt replies often excited good humor in a crowd. A large and brawny fishwoman once was haranguing the mob, and telling them not to disperse. She finished by exclaiming, “Never mind those coxcombs with epaulets on their shoulders; they care not if we poor people all starve, if they but feed well and grow fat.”
Napoleon, who was as thin as a shadow, turned to her and said, “Look at me, my good woman, and tell me which of us two is the fatter.”
The fishfag was completely disconcerted, and the crowd dispersed.
* * * * *
1796. “Good God!” Napoleon said in Italy, while residing at Montebello, “how rare men are. There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have with difficulty found two—Dandolo and Melzi.”
* * * * *
“Europe!” Napoleon exclaimed at Passeriano, “Europe is but a mole-hill; there never have existed mighty empires, there never have occurred great revolutions, save in the east, where lived six hundred millions of men—the cradle of all religions, the birthplace of all metaphysics.”
* * * * *
One day Napoleon, conversing with Las Cases, asked him, “Were you a gamester?”
“Alas, sire,” Las Cases replied, “I must confess that I was, but only occasionally.”
“I am glad,” replied Napoleon, “that I knew nothing of it at the time. You would have been ruined in my esteem. A gamester was sure to lose my confidence. I placed no more trust in him.”
* * * * *
Some one read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was stated that Napoleon crossed the bridge first, and that Lannes passed after him.
“Before me! before me!” Napoleon exclaimed. “Lannes passed first, I only followed him. I must correct that error on the spot.”
EARLY FLOWERS.
By FRANCIS GEORGE HEATH.
The fields and woods of January, when not covered by snow, offer much better opportunities for the study of flowers than we ordinarily believe. Mr. Heath has told, in his “Sylvan Spring,” of all the early-comers of the year. If all the flowers which he mentions here are not found this season in a locality, observation extending through several seasons will undoubtedly reveal them. A carefully kept note-book of all the changes in vegetation, the growth, blossoming, etc., will be found most interesting.
January in temperate latitudes is popularly believed to possess no wild flowers in our lanes, fields or hedgebanks; and the reason for the common belief is that no one expects or looks for them, and there is no conspicuous color to attract attention to them at that ordinarily cold and apparently “dead” season of the year. Yet there are not less than twenty-five of our wild flowers that may be found in bloom _somewhere_ in January.