Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

66

Now, let's see, here's the god of the race-course. Come, let him deliver him. It's this young man." Then the lieutenant describes a steady, respectable, lad, "No company like his mother's, no place so good to spend the evening with as with his sisters. Presently this youth is induced to attend a first class drinking saloon ;"' politics are discussed. A few years pass, and his companions have infected him; he reads the "sporting papers now, and is back ing horses;" takes money finally out of his father's till, and then blows his brains out. "That's what the god of the race-course does to help him.'

[ocr errors]

Then comes a startling sketch of a drunkard's life; his home from the first -“take a glass of ale" to the hungering children, with their cry, "Mother, we're hungry; haven't you nothing to give us to the awful end, stated in the plainest language. A shudder goes through the audience; an unspoken assent to the truth of the description. "This is the god the drunkard desires.' Hell is before our very eyes it is awful!

66

[ocr errors]

continues

'It's a very nice dorg the lieutenant cheerfully, as he walks backward and forward, a pretty dorg; here's my dorg and me. I'll back that dorg against any one's; it's a pretty h'animal, a first-class h'animal.' You worship that dorg, you go about thinking of it, you talk of it. Your dorg is the best of all dorgs, you fight him, you race him, you're all taken up with dorg fancying, it's your desire. Your god is not ours, let's see what he can do for you. Now then, here we are, you're dying, bring the dorg to the bedside. Here, Truro, bere, lad, your master's in trouble, deliver him. He can't!' cries his dying master. 'It's nothing but fair. You've worshipped it in life. Never mind the God of Israel, the God of the Salvation Army. Call on your god. Now's the time you want him. Fetch up your pals. They patted you

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

on the back, they said you were a fine chap and your dorg the prettiest h'animal ever was. Now then speak up, help him.' 'Jack, we can't.' The devils are grinning and your life's done!”

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"Young woman, come along with me to the dancing-class, get ready for Christmas." So on through the ofttold tale to the death-bed. Now call on the god of the dancing-room. You delight in it, let it save you. Come in, old companions, waltz round the bed. Oh! send them away, it can't comfort. Oh, I'm done for. Then the preacher ended with, I won't leave you there. Our God is not like those we've been talking about. He isn't cruel, He isn't hard" (murmurs run round the congregation, "No, that he isn't! bless the Lord !''). He is the God that gave His son. Some of you know what He is. You have loved Jesus. You have fought for Him at your post. All is well (Hallelujah!') I believe in Him, He's my God too. If I lie on my death-bed I've no fear, I know I shall fly about in heaven singing His praises forever. Can you die happy? Don't come to our God in death, it is meanness in the extreme. Don't do it, brothers and sisters. Amen.

"Now we'll take up the collection. Put in plenty of envelopes next week, if you don't think of it beforehand there'll be very little in."

Accordingly we had a vigorous hymn led by the brass band, and collecting boxes with very long handles were poked about. Hardly had the last line stilled itself when a man walked on to the platform and came to the railing. His was a low type of face, but the expression was good, and he was dressed in a decent tweed suit. He said, "I want to tell you of Jesus. I want you to get the God of the Army as your God to-night. People here know what I was nineteen months ago, and they know what I'm now. On the 27th of the month, at three-quarters past nine, I was converted by that there form. Look! He was wounded for you, friends" (then the speaker drew, in a few words, a frightful picture of hell, but he soon came back to Christ). "The Lord says 'Behold I come quickly.' I look at you and I know

[ocr errors]

some

you. I see young girls who are leading horrible lives. I see them. Come to Him, He will give you rest. The gift of God is eternal life. Then he told an anecdote of a lad whose last words were, "Yes, mother, God is merciful, but He's just." "I have called," the man cried passionately, "but ye have not answered. Answer now. We promise salvation now, we don't promise for to-morrow." Then came thrilling appeals, ending with, "Poor drunkard, though you haven't got a liedown here, Jesus can give you a mansion there. And then the speaker turned and disappeared in the audience. To the front came the A.D.C. Her speech, if such it might be called, was emotional almost to hysterics; she wrung her hands and cried, "You wants joy, you wants peace, come and get it ;' then spoke of the crucifixion and the "howling crowd." Her address was certainly the weakest, and in every respect the poorest, of the evening, but even it was redeemed from worthlessness by its passionate, desperate earnestness. Next the captain rose. People bent forward to listen. He was an ordinarylooking man, speaking in North-country tones, as did also the lieutenant, and my faggot girl told me they were from

[ocr errors]

Sunderland and Bradford.'

"If I went down there," said the captain pointing down to the pit," and gripped a man by the hand and asked him what he was doing, maybe he'd say, 'I'm sowing my wild oats;' so would that girl; they're young, it will be a long time, they think, before they'll have to reap the crop. I grip that middle-aged man, what's he doing?' sowing wild oats.' He's got his business, his pleasure, his wife, his children: yes, he's in middle life sowing wild oats, he's going on sowing 'em. Here's an old man; what, sowing wild oats still! 'Yes, I've been sowing to the flesh, the world; it's near the end, I know, but I've my friends and home with me, I can't change my sowing now, it's so hard to pray; the Spirit of God (ah! I once knew what he was) has left me, my chances are gone!' Friends, you'll have to pray or perish. There's no sowing to the flesh and reaping glory. There's a prop in God in death, in weakness. See, Bristol is called

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Now, Busi

to stand before the bar of God. then what will the harvest be? ness is all stopped, the crowds in the streets are still enough now. Bristol is before the bar of God! You've only a few years to sow in. twenty, forty, eighty, but the reaping is forever, eternity has no end. What will your reaping be-you who trample" (here the captain stamped on some invisible object)" on the blood of Jesus and drive away the Holy Ghost? Every devil grins through eternity if you are lost, angels sing through eternity if you are saved." So on the captain went; he walked backward and forward, entreating, with outstretched hands to the people in the arena, with wide sweeps of his arms round the galleries including all, and the three thousand hearers seemed to feel he was addressing them each individually. You are in the Circus now, you may not be far from hell-nay, you may be close to it, but there's mercy outside, and you're outside. When Christ died mercy rolled into the harlot's den, to the drunkard's hearth, into the world. It's come to Bristol! It's come here! it's sweeping round the galleries. God bless you, young man or young woman, you've begun to pray. . Your opportunities will soon be gone; but not yet, not yet, heaven waits a bit longer. Jesus knocks, let Him in. . . . Plenty of time is written everywhere on the devil's time-table, it's written in blue fire." Then the captain drew a picture of a dancing-saloon underneath which gunpowder was stored. A fire breaks out down the street, it creeps nearer and nearer; frightened people run past;

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

fire!'' is the cry. One of the dancers looks out, "Oh, it's a building off yet, there's time to have another dance, then we'll escape." "BOOM!" crash go the preacher's feet, and his hands springing upward and outward picture the explosion. We gasp. God bless you," says he quietly: says he quietly: "Amen."

་་

Hardly has his voice died away when the captain's place is taken by the sergeant, a nice modest young girl, in a black jacket and brown straw hat; she never moves, but simply stretches out her right hand, in her left she holds a well-worn hymn-book. Very clearly and sweetly the young voice ascends in the hymn, He is knocking, oh, how fair!"'

[graphic]

and goes on touchingly through all the gentle pleading. "That is Miss-,

one of our sergeants," says my faggot girl; and as I looked down and round on women whose faces bear the impress produced upon their souls by the low surroundings of their lives, and by the cruel injustice with which they are too often treated, and from which injustice, England has as yet no laws to protect them as I look upon thousands of men who are only just beginning to guess at the Divine sonship to which it is possible for them to rise, I do not wonder at the stillness with which the young girl's sung message is received, and to me at least it seems most fitting that this daughter of the people should stand among "her ain folk" and sing to them of the love of Jesus.

There was not the slightest touch of self-assertion or self-satisfaction about any one who took part in the service. Each of the officers was just absorbed in

his or her mission. The vast crowd of hearers was not preached at, but to, and on the other hand the great God was not (as so often disgusts one in prayermeetings) addressed as an equal and told) if we may dare state such a thing) what He is to please to do. Though the service ended, so to speak, with the young girl's hymn, about five hundred persons remained to the prayer-meeting which followed. Here and there before I left I saw officers helping penitentsdown whose faces the tears were coursing, some young, some old, but all terribly in earnest-forward to the platform, where females were praying with the women and male officers with the men.

So ended what was to me a deeply interesting and touching evening. And now, with this unvarnished tale of what I saw of the Salvation Army in the old Circus at Bristol, I leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.-Good Words.

A ROBIN said:

A WINTRY SONNET.

BY CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

The Spring will never come,

And I shall never care to build again.

A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,

My sap will never stir for sun or rain.

The round Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.

The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main.-
When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Gray hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might.
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue. yet thirsted evermore.

Macmillan's Magazine.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

by all classes of readers is almost unprecedented, in the case of books of this kind. Lord Lawrence was one of the greatest of England's heroes, and as "the savior of India" will always occupy a large place in the memories of all Englishmen. And his fame is not confined to England alone; for his character and his deeds were such as to make him one of

This splendid work may be said to have already established itself as one of the few truly good biographies of modern times. The enthusiasm with which it has been received the world-heroes, and to attract to his biog

[graphic]

raphy a world-wide interest. He entered the Indian service at the age of eighteen, and received many promotions, until at the age of fifty he became ruler of the Punjab. Soon after came the crowning achievement of his life, the siege and capture of Delhi. The expression of English gratitude to the man who saved India in those terrible days of revolution cannot easily be exaggerated. When peace was fully restored he returned to his native country, but was soon sent out again, however, this time as Viceroy of India. The last ten years of his life, from 1869 to 1879, were spent quietly at London, his attention being given largely to educational and charitable work, but his interest in Indian affairs continuing to the last. His life work was that of a faithful servant of his country.

64

A career so honorable and so glorious was worthy of a noble monument of letters, and such a monument Mr. Smith has certainly erected to the memory of Lord Lawrence. Although his two volumes contain over a thousand pages, very few readers would wish them curtailed. He has made a masterly use of his excellent and ample materials, the very amplitude of which must have been a frequent embarrassment. In addition to a literary facility eminently adapted to the work, he possessed the personal confidence and friendship of his hero during the later years of his life, thus being able to bring to his work the element of affectionate admiration, so necessary to all good biographical writing. But while his labor has been one of love, he has not neglected the duties of the historian. 'My highest aim," says Mr. Smith, "has been to render to so heroically simple a character that homage which is its due-the homage of unalloyed truth. So far as I have been able to avoid it, I have toned down nothing; I have exhibited his character in all its lights and shades." Of that character and of the manner in which it is here portrayed, the Spectator says: "The strong, masterful North Irishman, with his capacity for rule, his indomitable courage, his love of justice, and his rude straightforwardness, is thoroughly well brought out by a friend who does not forget that under that rough husk was one of the most tender of hearts, a man who, however rugged to the external world, was to those he loved one of the most devoted of friends. There is something almost of pathos in the contrast between the hero of the office, who seemed to all subjects so stern and to all subordinates so exacting, and the man at home, who could not be at rest if his wife were absent from the room ten minutes, and who was the playfellow of all his children. No one who reads Mr. Bosworth Smith's minute narrative will doubt that John Lawrence was a king of men, a man with a

royal simplicity of nature, who swayed all who came in contact with him by virtue not of arts but of qualities inherent in himself, who first overawed and then conciliated millions of Asiatics by right of a certain majesty of nature."

WORKS OF FREDERIC HUIDekoper. 2 vols. New York: David G. Francis.

These two portly and beautifully printed volumes, contain the collected works of a most diligent and earnest worker, in a field which in some respects is peculiarly his own. Although remote from popular interest, the importance of many of the treatises here reprinted is attested by the significant fact that they now appear in their fifth edition. The first volume is a history of "Judaism at Rome," from 76 B. C. to 140 A.D. The scope of this work is much broader than its title suggests, since it includes an investigation of the political, social, moral, and religious ideas and influences which were operative through and upon the different races gathered at Rome during the first two centuries, thus constituting a valuable chapter in the history of the crumbling Roman civilization. The author's special purpose, however, was to show the influence of Judaism directly upon the Roman mind, illustrating its inherent superiority over heathenism. A chronological narrative of the leading political events in each emperor's reign is given, interrupted frequently by chapters upon topics pertinent to the main subject, such as the influence of the Jews upon Stoicism, the belief among the Jews of Rome's impending destruction, "effects of the Jewish revolt under Hadrian," a chapter discussing the "Apocalypse, in Book of Christ's Second Coming," and a chapter treating of public games, war, slavery, methods of living, Jewish and Roman aristocracy, etc. Two introductory chapters give a history of ancient Judaism, its growth and influence throughout Europe, with the causes, accessories, and hindrances of that influence, and its relations to Greek culture and influence. The appendix contains a description and analysis of the Sibylline Books and a discussion of the relation of Plato's writings to Judaism.

The second volume contains a treatise on the "Indirect Testimony of History to the Genuineness of the Gospels," a transcript of the Greek text of the famous forgery of the early Christians known as the "Acts of Pilate," a translation of which is also given, and a curious treatise on "The Belief of the First Three Centuries Concerning Christ's Mission to the Underworld." To all who are interested in the history of early and mediæval Christianity these volumes will prove a thesaurus of wellarranged information.

[graphic]

A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, from the Revolution to the Civil War. By John Balch McMaster. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

This work is one of those happy surprises in literature which come to us necessarily only at long intervals. Once it would have been an epoch-making book, and even now it deserves no less distinction than is implied in that rather rusty epithet. It has been conceived and executed in the spirit and manner of the new school of historical writing, of which Mr. John Richard Green's "Short History of the English People," will long remain the most brilliant achievement, and it is no disparagement to Mr. McMaster, to say that he has taken this book as his model. Indeed we are bestowing high praise upon his work, when we say that it possesses the chief excellences of historical composition, with which we have become familiar in Mr. Green's writings. As indicated by the title, it is the author's intention to write the history of the people of the United States from the close of the war for independence, down to the opening of the war between the States. "In the course of the narrative,' says Mr. McMaster, "much indeed must be written of wars, conspiracies, and rebellions; of presidents, of conquerers, of embassies, of treaties, of the ambition of political leaders in the Senate-House, and of the rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the history of the people shall be the chief theme." He still further defines his purpose to be " to describe the dress, the occupations, the amusements, the literary canons of the times; to note the changes of manners and morals; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which abolished punishment for debt, which reformed the discipline of prisons and of jails, and which has, in our own time, destroyed slavery and lessened the miseries of dumb brutes. Nor shall it be less my aim to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of our race; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our just pride and boast; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unparalleled in the annals of human affairs; how, from a state of great poverty and feebleness, our country grew rapidly to one of opulence and power; how her agriculture and manufactures flourished together; how, by a wise system of free education, and a free press, knowledge was disseminated, and the arts and sciences advanced; how the ingenuity of her people became fruitful of won

ders far more astonishing than any of which the alchemists had ever dreamed."

The value and interest of a narrative of our country's history upon such a plan, can hardly be over-estimated. Mr. McMaster enters a new and broad field, and, if the present volume is an earnest of the four that are to follow, he is fully able to command it, while much has been written about our Constitution in a restricted and technical way, but little has been written about the growth of our constitutional government and national development. Bryant's extended work, which promised so well in the early volumes, dwindles to a meagre outline during this period; and Bancroft has entered the field in his old age with a single volume, with but little promise of proceeding farther. Mr. McMaster, has secured all the advantages of a subject, and no one will doubt, after reading his first volume, that he possesses the learning and ability to make his work a masterpiece.

CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY: A Translation of Professor C. Witt's "Griechische Götter und Heldengeschichten." By Frances Younghusband. With a Preface by Arthur Sidgwick, M.A. New York: Henry Holt & Co. This may be call eda young people's manual of classical mythology, and seems to be admirably adapted for the purpose which it is intended to subserve. It is a collection of legends about the Greek gods and heroes, culled from the best sources, chiefly from the poems of Hesiod, Homer, and Sophocles, and from the compilation made by Apollodorus in the second century B.C. The stories are related in simple child-language, that is to say, in plain, vigorous Saxon, and in this form they will possess for young readers all the interest of the Arabian Nights. Much skill and good judgment have been displayed by the author in the selection and use of his materials, so as to avoid everything unsuitable for young minds. The aim and hope of the translator are summed up by Mr. "Our children will Sidgwick in these words: get pleasure out of these stories, and that is much. Many children will perhaps get the elements of culture, and that is more. And some may get at once pleasure, culture, and a little real preparation for severer studies; and so receive a benefit, though doubtless of a humbler kind, yet something like that which Pope's 'Homer' has given to so many generations of schoolboys." But much more than this is true, for readers of all ages will be almost equally entertained and instructed by these stories. For this reason the publishers have added to this edition a glossary of "Etymologies and Related Myths," so that the volume may serve as an easy and popular introduction to comparative mythology. Teachers

« AnteriorContinuar »