” and
“Pauvre
homme !
Warner - World's Best Literature - v27 - Wat to Zor
” It is an ideal instinct
that prompts the children to reply, “Well, we would like to see
the folly of it too. ” How lucky it is that nobody can decant
(
## p. 15776 (#102) ##########################################
15776
JOHN WEISS
a
his old wine into the new bottles! So the youth gets his pro-
motion from the nursery to school, to occupation, to love and
marriage, to the successive disciplines; and his knowledge of one
period never makes him equal to the next one, which always has
some surprising element that tests him on
new side. We
have to go storming parallel after parallel. Up we run impetu-
ously, with glad acclaim, and plant our colors: before the wind
takes them, we perceive an inner line that we had not suspected.
Headlong we go at that too, only to find that the busy antagonist
has thrown up another; and that also has to be assailed. It is
plot and counterplot, mine and countermine: reality works, while
the Ideal catches a nap leaning upon its weapon; till as we sink,
and the colors falter on the last breach, we find that death is
only a resource and desperate ambush of a foe that is sullenly
retreating; and to-morrow the Ideal, light-armed, with marching
rations and the packs all left behind, will buoyantly pursue.
What a hint of personal immortality is this relative imperfec-
tion of our experiences! They suggest the absolute perfection
which is the plan of every soul; like the crumbled scale or bone
that taught the naturalist the structure, shape, and habits, of
an extinct fish whose fossil even no man had ever seen. One
day a fossil is found to justify, in the minutest particulars, the
infallibility of the scientific imagination. Our partial experiences
contain the history of souls not yet completed; and they are guar-
antees given to us directly by the divine imagination, the earnest
of the spirit, that the whole plan must include all the time and
opportunity needed to fill out the spiritual form. Eternity is in
pledge to our successive disappointments. Every morning we go
down to the edge of it like the fishermen of rock-bound coasts,
and put off upon it as they do, to fight for their little gains, and
satisfy the hunger that is as prompt to return as the morning.
All day we trawl and hunt by various devices for our shy suste-
nance; and the fruitful infinite stretches all around us, so deep
and coy that everything is hidden, so deep that everything is
contained. Our day sinks into its storm or calm. Over it our
day breaks with wants that never are appeased.
What do we care for the expense that this spendthrift, our
good-will for God, subjects us to? If anything is to be melted
for a beautiful casting, men keep the flame up, and throw in all
the fuel in the neighborhood. There is nothing too precious to
go towards making a soul limpid and symmetrical. Bernard
## p. 15777 (#103) ##########################################
JOHN WEISS
15777
Palissy, at the end of twenty years spent in vain attempts to
create a white enamel for his pottery, found nothing left but
the house he lived in, and the fences around it. Not a billet
of wood, for love or money, to keep up the furnace with. The
palings were ripped down and thrown in,—the enamel had not
melted. There was a crashing in the house: the children were
in dismay; the wife, assisted doubtless by such female friends as
had dropped in to comfort her, became loud in her reproaches.
Bernard was breaking up the tables and carrying them off, legs
and bodies, to the all-consuming fire. Still the enamel did not
melt! There was more crashing and hammering in the house:
Bernard was tearing up the foors to use the planks as fire-
wood. Frantic with despair, the wife rushes off to raise the town
against him. She was starved out by his pertinacity; he was fed
by his idea. And while she was gone, the anxieties and pov-
erty of twenty years flowed in the clear coating that became the
rage of kings and connoisseurs.
Throw everything into the fire of the Ideal! - the incum.
brances of society and pleasure, the frivolous amusements, the
small-talk and idling, the clique feelings and constraints, the con-
veniences that make our life a curse, the ornaments that dress
us in a weight to crush us to the dust. Throw fruitless regrets
and memories, and all the things we are most vain about, into
the devouring flame. We are clay in the hands of the potter.
Let all our rubbish melt to make it impervious to the weather,
not subject to decay, much sought for by the King.
THE COURT FOOL
From (Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare)
THO
HOUGH Shakespeare empties all his own love for pure fun into
this clown (in “Twelfth Night'], he makes of him the only
cool and consistent character in the play, and thus convey's
to us his conviction of the superiority of an observer who has
wit, humor, repartee, burlesquing, and buffoonery at command;
for none but wise men can make such fools of themselves. Such
a fine composition is apt to be misunderstood by the single-gifted
and prosaic people: but this only piques the bells to their hap-
piest jingle; and a man is never more convinced of the divine
XXVII-987
## p. 15778 (#104) ##########################################
15778
JOHN WEISS
origin of his buffooning talent than when the didactic souls reject
it as heresy. All Shakespeare's clowns brandish this fine bauble:
their bells swing in a Sabbath air and summon us to a service
of wisdom. Feste has no passion to fondle, and no chances to
lie in wait for except those which can help his foolery to walk
over everybody like the sun. Even when he seems to be wheed.
ling money out of the Duke and Viola, he is only in sport with
the weakness which purse-holders have to fee, to conciliate, to
enjoy an aspect of grandeur. His perfectly dispassionate temper
is sagacity itself. It discerns the solemn fickleness of the princi-
pal personages. They are all treated with amusing impartiality;
and it is in the spirit of the Kosmos itself, which does not stand
in awe of anybody. It seems, indeed, as if the function of fool,
and the striking toleration which has always invested it, was
developed by Nature for protection of those of her creatures who
are exposed to flattery and liable to be damaged by it. Not for
shallow amusement have rich and titled persons harbored jesters,
who always play the part of the slave of Pyrrhus, at proper
intervals to remind them that they are mortal. All men secretly
prefer to know the truth; but the pampered people cannot bear
to sit in the full draught of it. Its benefit must, however, be in
some way conveyed to them. Bluff Kent is banished for saying
to Lear, in the plainest Saxon, what the fool kept insinuating
with impunity. Therefore, no genuine court has been complete
without its fool. The most truculent sceptre has only playfully
tapped his liberty. Timur the Terrible had a court fool, named
Ahmed Kermani. One day, in the bath with a crowd of wits,
the conversation fell upon the individual worth of men;
and
Timur asked Ahmed, “What price wouldst thou put on me if I
were for sale ? ” “About five-and-twenty aspers,” rejoined Ahmed.
“Why,” said Timur, “that is about the price of the sheet I have
“Well, of course, I meant the sheet. ” When the business
of kingship becomes decayed, the office of fool is obsolete.
»
(
on. "
## p. 15779 (#105) ##########################################
15779
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
(1807-1873)
P to the year 1814, when Norway obtained a constitution of
her own and a political separation from Denmark, her liter-
ature had been so merged in that of the latter country that
it may hardly be said to have had an identity of its own. Copen-
hagen had been, from the time of Holberg and before, the literary
centre of both Denmark and Norway; and nearly all the men of
conspicuous talent had at one time or another found their way to
the common capital of the two nations. But with the semi-independ-
ence achieved by Norway in 1814, the current of national sentiment
grew so strong that it was bound to find expression in a national
literature; and such a literature, surprising in its richness and vitality,
has grown up during the past three quarters of a century.
When we begin, then, to deal with Norwegian as distinct from
Danish literature, as we must do from the thirties onward, we are
at once confronted with the two significant names of Wergeland and
Welhaven. Henrik Wergeland, born in 1808, became at an early age
a profuse writer of somewhat shapeless verse, abounding in the faults
that characterize an impulsive and ill-regulated mind, yet seething
with patriotism of the emotional sort, and displaying at its best the
true lyrical impulse. His extraordinary lyrical drama, Skabelsen,
Mennesket, og Messias” (The Creation, Man, and Messiah), published
in 1830, offers the starting-point for a discussion of the subject of
the present article; for it was by a critical attack upon that work
that Welhaven first became known. Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer
Welhaven was born in Bergen in 1807, thus being one year Werge-
land's senior. He went to Christiania for study, and as a professor
in the national university remained afterwards identified with the
capital. An anonymous poem addressed to Wergeland, and soon
followed by a pamphlet Om Henrik Wergelands Digtekunst og
Polemik) (Upon Henrik Wergeland's Poetry and Polemics), opened a
critical warfare that raged for several years, and divided literary
circles into two hostile camps. Wergeland represented the impulsive
principle in poetry, the spontaneous lyric cry unfettered by rule or
historical tradition; Welhaven stood for the academic view, for reflec-
tion and the canons of æsthetics. The attack on Wergeland was so
unsparing in its exposure of the poet's weak spots and defects of
## p. 15780 (#106) ##########################################
15780
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
taste, and so scornful withal in its calm analysis, that it caused great
excitement in literary circles; and for a time poems and pamphlets
upon the matter in dispute flew thick and fast from the press. View-
ing the controversy from this distance, it is easy to see that the stars
in their courses fought with Welhaven; for it was his part to stand
as champion of the reflective reason as opposed to the sentimental
impressionism of his opponents. And time, while it has winnowed an
immense amount of chaff from the grain of Wergeland's voluminous
output, has preserved the body of Welhaven's work as of lasting
value, both on the critical and the creative side.
That work, which fills eight volumes in the standard edition, is
about equally divided between prose and poetry. The prose includes
the controversial matter already mentioned, an important critical
study of the eighteenth-century literature of Denmark, and a great
variety of public addresses, sketches of travel, memorial studies and
reviews. As a whole, these writings give to Welhaven the highest
place among Norwegian critics, and may still be read with profit.
Their polished style, their conservative tendencies, and their recog-
nition of the fact that criticism is a very different thing from the
expression of personal likes and dislikes, are the qualities that give
to any critical prose a lasting influence; and they are all highly char-
acteristic of Welhaven's writing. Like Heiberg and Brandes in Den-
mark, he brought to bear upon criticism a carefully conceived and
well-tested method, and his trained and penetrating mind revealed
whatever it dealt with in the dry objective light which should shine
upon the phenomena of literature and of life. It may be interesting
to view them in other kinds of light, but it is not safe; and those
critics do the best service who guard us against garish colors and
iridescent diffractions.
Welhaven's poetry consists wholly of short pieces,— lyrics, ballads,
and essays in occasional verse, - unless we regard as a single long
poem the cycle of sonnets which formed his first poetical publication
of importance. This work, entitled Norges Dæmring' (Norway's
Dawn), strikes the chord of a noble indignation when it deals with
the follies and the passions of the nation, and then in prophetic
strain sings of a spiritual dawn yet to come, and fairer far than the
dawn, already broken, of merely external political freedom. Serious-
ness is the prevailing note of Welhaven's poetry; although the sense
of humor is by no means lacking, and often finds expression in forms
that inevitably suggest the work of Heine. He has given to Nor-
wegian literature what is probably its most finished and exquisite
body of verse, excepting that which we owe to Björnson and Ibsen.
It is the verse of a scholarly and finely cultured mind, rather than
of a nature of decided lyrical endowment. In this respect, it often
## p. 15781 (#107) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15781
suggests the poetry of Matthew Arnold; and makes, to the ears fitted
to hear it, an appeal altogether disproportionate to the degree of its
acceptance by the general public.
A SONNET FROM NORWAY'S DAWN)
H, LIKE a youth our race with courage bold
Shall yet wax strong behind its mountain rim;
While many an evil giant, fierce and grim,
Shall fall, and lie in death's embraces cold.
0"
And valorous deeds, like those men did of old,
Shall here once more be praised in song and hymn;
The life renewed of saga-ages dim,
In glowing words shall once again be told.
The word shall turn to act of high emprise;
The thought now hushed shall spring to burning speech
In hall of counsel and the sacred fane.
The noisy shout shall cease, the precept wise
Shall take its place, and, far as sight may reach,
The gleam shall grow into the light again.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
THS
his tree of freedom we have made,
To which men thronging bring their suit, -
Whose branches cast no cooling shade,
And ashes in the mouth whose fruit, -
'Tis but the same old pole of yore,
With the old tinsel wreaths bedecked,
Around which men have danced before,
Until they knew its promise wrecked.
And if it stand on fertile soil,
No root it strikes, no bud doth bear;
'Tis but a log, smooth-shaped with toil,
And stuck end upward in the air.
The signs of blooming life it bears,
Adorning it with summer shows,
## p. 15782 (#108) ##########################################
15782
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
Are but the borrowed crown it wears
Of withered leaf and paper rose.
So when men say in ardent trust,
This is in truth the very palm
Whose foliage wide-spreading must
Bring to mankind its peace and calm,-
Why, then I test my sight anew;
But, do my best, I cannot see
The slightest cause to change my view
That but a May-pole is the tree.
Full many a pole like this shall yield
The hoary trunk of Ygdrasil,
Before the golden year revealed
With light and music earth may fill;
For men of Adam's race must God
Another earth and heaven make:
Then shall the palm spring from the sod,
And earth its thirst for freedom slake.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
GOLIATH
Hen little Goliath in stature was growing,
He was carefully fed by the Philistines knowing;
So Goliath grew up, both stout and tall,
And a weaver's beam was his lance withal,
W*
While the Philistines were to themselves confessing:
“How lucky we are in a giant possessing! ”
And viewing with pride his blustering gait,
The Philistines lived in his strength elate.
«The deuce take you all! ” thought Goliath defiant,
"I am not for my health in this business of giant;
Let them gape as they please, they dare not frown,
I will yet reign in Gaza, the wealthy town. ”
Now many a rich Judæan village
Did the braggart crew of the Philistines pillage,
Till the folk of Judæa took arms in hand,
And a tempest threatened the robber band.
## p. 15783 (#109) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15783
The Philistines thought: “What a fright will soon seize
you,
When you see what a giant we have here to tease you! "
So they gave to Goliath both helmet and shield,
And the fellow he was stood then first revealed.
(c
And Goliath he thought: «These Philistines bore me,
But now I can see my reward lies before ine.
The rich tabernacle I'll take for my share,
The rest they may have — for all that I care. )
But the Philistines thought: “A sure thing we have made
us,
The day that we have such a giant to aid us.
We'll put him before us, and watch the show,
While he lays about him with many a blow. ”
Then Goliath marched forth, all wrathful his bearing, -
The biggest he was of those Philistines daring;
But quickly a pebble his bare temple found,
And he suddenly stretched his full length on the ground.
And the Philistines asked, as they viewed him with won-
der,
How on earth could the fellow so quickly go under;
For thirteen feet, they were ready to swear,
Was Goliath's length as they measured him there.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
PROTESILAOS
MONG the Greeks for Troy their anchors weighing,
No other met such bitter fate as he
Who fell the first of all, that men might see
Fulfillment of the oracle's dark saying, -
A
The ominous words that still their memory followed,
From Delphian caves, and lingered on their lips:
« That hero who the first shall leave the ships
Shall first of all by Erebus be swallowed. ”
«Protesilaos! » every tongue was saying,
« Thy name concerns this oracle so dark. ”
But cheerfully he put to sea his bark,
And sailed from home, relentless fate obeying.
## p. 15784 (#110) ##########################################
15784
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
No craven fear his courage high displaces:
Farewell he's said to Tempe's lovely dale;
And to restrain him were of no avail
Laodamia's eager fond embraces.
But when the winds and waves at last were bringing
The hollow ships to the Dardanian shore,
The faltering warriors dared not to the fore,
Where Hector fierce his heavy lance was swinging.
He chosen by the gods the hearts to quicken
Of all who stood in the Achæan host,-
Protesilaos,- on that fatal coast
Was first to land, to fall in death down-stricken.
While weapons flashed, and men to war-cries hearkened,
Low in the dust the noble hero lay;
No booty to his tent might find its way,
And as the war dragged on, his fame grew darkened.
But afterwards men grateful learned to cherish
His mighty deed: in hymns his name was praised;
And pilgrims sought the temple to him raised
That memories of his valor might not perish.
And from the heroic age a voice deep-weighted
With earnest accent echoes on the ear:
“Who leads the way in strife, and knows no fear,
To conquer
to fight and die is fated. ”
Translation of William Morton Payne.
THE PARIS MORGUE
I
N its manifold depiction of human life, recent French literature
bears the stamp of a freshness and truth before unattained.
Nowhere else may we find experience and the study of life
raised so far above the unsafe methods of a priori construction.
After so many storms, life itself is freer here; and its every
shoot buds and blossoms in its true character, forced by neither the
espalier of a system nor the artificial temperature of a hot-house.
The public places, squares, and streets are here the academies for
the painter of souls; who might be taken for an indolent dandy,
did we not know him to be a philosopher, a modern peripatetic.
## p. 15785 (#111) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15785
Many human relations elsewhere coyly or fearfully concealed,
many scenes that seem to belong to the fireside nook, come here
to public view, and make their impression of joy or of despair.
A crowd of people are viewing from the Pont Louis XIV. the ris-
ing flood of the Seine. A lady dressed in black pushes through
the crowd, and throws herself into the stream in full view of
everybody. This is but one of many examples of the French
exaltation that feeds upon showing its wounds to the public gaze,
and ending the play with a dazzling or startling exit.
Where life lies upon all sides so unveiled, many of the limita-
tions of art must give way. The tragic pathos of the old school
.
was as a whole merely declamatory, and only upon cothurns might
it display itself with propriety. Its sentimentality was as man-
nered and bloodless as the Arcadian shepherd race that thought
itself to hold tenancy of the Eden of poetry, when people still
believed that the bird of paradise had no feet and only hovered
in the blue. Things are different now: sentimentality has taken
hold of the flesh, and the bird of paradise perches on many
a roof. Tragedy goes about comfortably in socks; and this
merciless unbaring of the frightful, this natural and painstaking
depiction of circumstances that often stiffen the sympathies with
terror, affects us with doubled force, because it clings close to
conditions with which every beholder is acquainted.
Louis the Eighteenth once remarked of Châteaubriand's
René' that it bore a resemblance to Werther'; and when
asked if a parallel might indeed be drawn between those two
works, he replied: “Yes, without doubt; and I give the prefer-
ence to Werther,' on account of its simple naturalness. The
hero is placed amid quite ordinary circumstances, which is an im-
portant matter. These every-day details attract us all the more
to Werther's violent passion. On the other hand, we feel little or
no sympathy for René, who is a mere figure of romantic fiction. ”
This observation, which was remarkable for a prince trained in
the old dogmatic school, was looked upon for some score of years
as an example of tasteless criticism. But in the present period,
an enormous amount has been done to spread abroad the dis-
covery that the world of poetry is at bottom just the same as
that which is usually called “the prosaic world. " No Parisian
doubts this at the present time. Even in the abnormal growths
of French literature, in the monstrous sensational pieces where-
with many a theatre seeks to gain the attention of a restless
(
## p. 15786 (#112) ##########################################
15786
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
public, forcing it to listen, there are traces of this reformation.
These pictures have many lifelike details; and herein they resem-
ble the Greek fabulous combinations of plant and animal forms,
which are monstrous as wholes, but whose separate parts are
worked out with the most exact truth.
Whoever closely views the various pictures of life that throng
upon the observation in the French capital, will easily recognize
them as mirrored in the productions of art; either seen in their
full potency as in a concave mirror, or viewed as sparks and
colors through some many-sided prism. The strange figures and
bizarre delineations of a Balzac are to be found here in living
reality. We read in the newspapers the bare account of some
wonderful domestic drama which seems to belong to the dream
world; yet it has been enacted in palpable form at our very
door. We go to the Théâtre de la Porte St. Martin, and view
with repulsion and terror scenes from La Tour de Nesle,' that
harrowing painting with all its ice-cold corpses; and we reject
the idea that life could have furnished forth the composition
with matter and models. Yet the original lies close at hand:
it is the corpse-house on the Seine,- La Morgue! The poet of
the Tour de Nesle' has been there. He has gazed himself sick
upon these mystical shapes; the death smell has crept into all of
his pleasures; he has been forced to visit the morgue again and
again, and the shadows have haunted him until he freed him-
self from them with his work. La Morgue is the black crater
beneath the Parisian people's grapevines of joy; it is the cry of
woe in the midst of the triumph; it is the dark writing on Bel-
shazzar's wall. The joys of life have no such focus, for they
culminate in a thousand places at once.
La Morgue is a police institution: it supplements the bureau
of found articles. This frightful find of the suicides and the
slain must fall into the right hands. People go there to seek
out in the collection the bodies of friends or relatives.
doubts it to be a wise arrangement. A body is a small thing, of
less account than hay or dry brushwood. But we know that it
sometimes is inestimable as measured by affection, and sometimes
has a deep hieroglyphic significance. Consequently, for the con-
venience of observers, the morgue is situated in the centre of
the city. Were it perhaps better that it should stand apart in
some solitary place, shaded by the cypress and the weeping wil.
low? The forsaken one might then be alone with his unrest and
No one
## p. 15787 (#113) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15787
his fear when he went to seek, and alone with his sorrow when
he had found. Alas! this is only a secondary consideration. La
Morgue is a public exhibition, a museum of the day's history.
These bodies still belong to the public; therefore their place is
in the midst of the crowd. The pit would see the tragic hero on
the boards, and pass judgment upon him before turning home-
wards.
How busily Parisian life stirs about this grewsome little
house! There is nothing sad in the neighborhood, except the wan
stream and the towers of Notre Dame. It is but a few steps to
the morgue from the flower-market. A light zephyr is enough
to waft the fragrance of roses over the low roof. Close by the
walls there is a busy traffic in fruits and vegetables. The her-
alds of life's stir, the restless omnibuses, rumble by over the
bridge. When the morgue is full of bodies, there are speculators
on hand, drawn by the throng,-mountebank tricksters, placards
announcing new inventions, harp-players and organ-grinders!
One might think that the sense of the people had become
blunted to the sights in the morgue. But this is not so: it has
offered too many heart-rending spectacles; they know that it is
a cave of Avernus, which may at any moment reveal the most
frightful things. The dusk of life hovers over that house, and it
throws a deep shadow. We often see some gloomy, motionless
figure in the midst of the noisy crowd; he casts a spell upon our
eyes, and we see him alone thereafter. His whole nature pre-
sents the picture of a dark and brooding soul, and we say to
ourselves: He is lost, — the shadow of the morgue is within him.
The arrangement of the morgue is very simple. The bodies
lie in a light-yellow hall, on dark inclined planes, and a stream
of cold water falls upon each of them. They are naked save for
a fig-leaf of dark leather. Over the couch hangs the clothing of
the corpse. Light falls from above. This hall is separated by a
grating from the anteroom, which is always open to the public.
Here we find placards displayed, describing persons who have
disappeared, and asking for information about them. At the
grating may be seen many indifferent, but also many feverishly
agitated faces.
Now and then an outcry is heard, as "C'est
affreux !
” and “Pauvre homme ! »
How mysterious these bodies are! We stare at them, and
would read their history in their discomposed features: we pict-
ure them in the silent oppressive gambler's den, in the dark
## p. 15788 (#114) ##########################################
15788
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
squalid street where a dull gleam from the mansards is the only
light; we follow them to the Seine; we hear the awful spash of
the water: and before we know it, we have clothed these dumb
shapes with life, full of horror and despair.
I was once with a friend who lived close to the morgue. I
saw the crowd stream in, but I saw no one come out, and con-
cluded with a shudder that the corpse-house must be unusually
rich. I could not resist the powerful impulse that drove me
to view the image of terror close by. The house was full, and
most of the bodies were set forth in horrible display; one of
them had been hanged, and still had the rope about his neck.
High up lay an old colossal warrior. There was a great scar
on his forehead; his coat hung wet and muddy behind him, and
was decorated with the Legion of Honor. What proud memories
must not have dwelt in that broad breast! But they were shad-
owy ranks, and could bring no booty to his airy bivouac. This
warrior had been at Beresina. Perhaps with the fury of a tiger
he hewed a path for this body through the dense mass of men
on the breaking bridge, or fought for his life among the ice
floes of the wild stream. And now it was all a fairy tale. It
rushed into his head when he stood alone on the Pont-Neuf; but
the bridge would not break under him, and he had to cast him-
self into these quiet waters, which mirror the trophies of his
valor. The last body in this company was that of a young girl:
her hair was of glistening black and extraordinarily long; one
hand was clenched convulsively, the other limp and outspread.
“Du armes Kind, was hat man Dir gethan ? " A soldier stood
at my side: he was a handsome man, and could not have been
over eighteen. The sweat pearled on his forehead, and he
pressed his face hard against the grating. I could not tire of
watching him, but he did not notice,- he stared incessantly at
the last body.
La Morgue is an instructive institution, and has brought many
misdeeds to light. But a true feeling for the high seriousness of
death, for the deep significance of silent grief, may not be recon-
ciled with this sort of exhibition. The mechanism of the State
is skillfully constructed, - it goes and goes, and its workings cor-
respond more and more closely to calculation, - but how many a
delicate nerve in the human organism must it bruise or divide
before it shall become an entirely safe and trustworthy machine!
Death is a mystery; a corpse is sacred. We must take heed
## p. 15789 (#115) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15789
not to offend the sanctity that invests a body from which the
soul has fled. The thought of suicide is fearful; but it does
not lose its poison through the desecration of God's image in
human form. The sad and prayerful moods that attend the
dead, and preserve his memory, shun the body in the morgue.
Repulsion and terror alone seize upon us at the sight of these
shapes. We have the same uncomfortable feeling as when we
read in old chronicles of those sorceries whereby the body was
robbed of its repose by horrible runes placed under the tongue.
The warm heart, that would bleed itself to death, and desired
naught but rest, must now be anatomized by cold hands! Those
secret sorrows that made its fibres quiver must now be displayed
to stimulate and amuse a light-hearted mob! Here in the French
corpse-house, I could but think of our Norse tale of the wounded
bird, that, stricken to death, dives to the bottom and bites fast in
the sea-weed.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
## p. 15789 (#116) ##########################################
'
:
2
iii.
11
. 1
1
1
+
1
1
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JOHN WESLEY.
## p. 15789 (#118) ##########################################
15790
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
(1703-1791) (1708-1788)
BY WILLIAM POTTS
W
ith a jocose reapplication in a literal sense of a metaphorical
phrase, John Wesley was used to speak of himself as “a
brand plucked from the burning. ” He had been forgotten
when a child, through the excitement caused by a conflagration in his
father's house due to incendiarism, and only rescued at the last pos-
sible moment. There were other experiences in that house, and in
the one which succeeded it, which were not
wholly conventional. Susannah Wesley, the
mother of John and Charles, was a woman
of fine education and of strong character,
and a pious and devoted mother. She usu-
ally bent herself to her husband's will,
though with discretion; but they were not
politically agreed, and he at one time with-
drew for a considerable period from associ-
ation with her because he was offended on
this account. It is said that his salary was
never greater than £20 per annum, and
he was frequently called upon to aid impe-
CHARLES WESLEY cunious relatives; but Malthus had not yet
come, and neither he nor his wife perhaps
realized any incongruity between his income and their family of
nineteen children. Mrs. Wesley had her own theory as to how the
early education of children should be conducted. She did not begin
with them until they were five years old, and then she made them
learn the alphabet perfectly in one day; on the next day they were
put to spell and to read one line, and then a verse, never leaving it
until they were perfect in the lesson. ” Of the nineteen, only a lim-
ited selection of three boys and three girls lived to grow up: the
three boys all attained prominence, the girls all great unhappiness.
Unseen powers appear to have taken part in the political schism
between the Rev. Samuel Wesley and his wife: their home at Ep-
worth parsonage, during a long period while John was a schoolboy,
being the scene of the most unaccountable noises and other disturb-
ances, which attained their maximum of obtrusivenes during the
(
## p. 15789 (#119) ##########################################
در بیرون می اور بین .
دیگر نمی تنه
## p. 15789 (#120) ##########################################
:
)
1
:
N
1.
KT
1
1
1
11
## p. 15789 (#121) ##########################################
9
JOHN WESLEY.
## p. 15790 (#122) ##########################################
## p. 15791 (#123) ##########################################
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
15791
>
Reverend Samuel's prayers for the royal family. So customary did
these noises become, that for convenience, their unknown author was
given the name of “Old Jeffery,” by which appellation he was long
familiarly called in the family.
John Wesley was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, June 17th (O. S. ),
1703. His brother Charles, with whom he was closely associated
throughout their lives, was born at the same place five years later
(December 18th, 1808, O. S. ). In studying their biographies, one can-
,
not well avoid the conclusion that though Charles was less aggressive
than his brother, and though his fame, in part on this account, has
been wholly overshadowed by that of the latter, his was the steadier
and better rounded character of the two; and that to him their com-
mon success as religious leaders is largely due. Charles was the
forerunner in the movement at Oxford, and again, though only by a
few days, in his “conversion”; and above all, Charles was the hymn-
writer of Methodism, and the influence of the service of song upon
the Methodist movement it is almost impossible to exaggerate.
Charles Wesley, it is said, wrote more than six thousand hymns; and
though in this vast flux of words he sometimes — nay, often — “ran
to emptins,” there are among his sacred songs some which appeal to
people of every faith, and promise to live as long as Divine service
is continued. The strong musical bias in his blood is shown in the
fact that his son Samuel played on the organ at three, and composed
an oratorio at eight.
John was educated at Charterhouse School, and at Christ Church
College, Oxford. He easily won a reputation as a fine scholar. He
was ordained a deacon in 1725, was elected a Fellow of Lincoln Col-
lege in 1726, was in the same year appointed Greek lecturer and
moderator of the classes, became curate for his father at Wroote in
1727, and was ordained a priest in 1728. Charles was educated at
Westminster School, at St. Peter's College, Westminster, and at Christ
Church College; but was not ordained until 1735. At Oxford, about
1728, he with a dozen others organized an association, which in deris-
ion was known variously as the Holy Club, the Godly Club, the
Bible Moths, the Bible Bigots, the Sacramentarians, and the Method-
ists. The latter term, referring to the formal system introduced by
them in their services, was destined to become the title of the most
important religious organization of the century; although this organ-
ization, founded by the same men, took a wholly different direction
from the club from which it inherited its title. Among the members
of the club, besides the Wesleys, the most important were George
Whitefield, and James Hervey the author of the Meditations.
Returning to Oxford in 1729. John joined this club, and was im-
mediately recognized as its leader. In the austerities practiced by
the members, and in many other ways, is clear that they permitted
## p. 15792 (#124) ##########################################
15792
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
themselves to be led into great excesses, which later they more or
less frankly acknowledged.
In 1735 the brothers went to Georgia in General Oglethorpe's com-
pany; the elder to take spiritual charge of his colony, the younger as
his secretary. Upon the same vessel were a number of Moravians
from Herrnhut, by whom John was greatly impressed; and under the
influence of that body he remained for a number of years. This
Georgia episode was characterized by a variety of disagreeable inci-
dents. The responsibility for the troubles which occurred, it is now
impossible to place with exactness; but it is safe to say that they
resulted in part at least from some lack of tact or of fitness in the
brothers for the tasks which they undertook. Charles returned to
England in 1736, but John remained abroad until 1738.
Through their intercourse with the Moravians, the brothers had
become convinced that although they had undertaken to teach oth-
ers, they had themselves not yet become true Christians. Remaining
under the same influence, it was in the natural order of events that
John, a little later, recorded his awakening into the new life "at a
religious meeting at a quarter before nine o'clock on the evening of
May 24th 1738 ”; Charles having gone through the same experience
three days earlier. From this time forward the work of evangel-
ism occupied his life, until its close fifty-three years later. He died
March 2d, 1791, having traveled during the period of his active minis-
try, it is estimated, 225,000 miles, and preached more than 40,500 ser-
mons, not including miscellaneous addresses. After he was seventy
years of age he gave this explanation of his continued cheerfulness
and good health: “The chief reasons are, my constant rising at four
for about fifty years; my generally preaching at five in the morning,
one of the most healthy exercises in the world; my never travel-
ing less by sea or land than four thousand five hundred miles in a
year. ” Until his later years he usually traveled on horseback; and
he often read the while, until consequent mishaps warned him of
the risks to which he was exposing himself. His home life was not
inspiring. He had spoken much of the advantages of celibacy, but
in 1750 married a widow with four children. The marriage was not
a blessed one. Mrs. Wesley seems to have been “good” but not
wholly agreeable. Their intercourse was not harmonious; and after
some tentative absences, it is said that she finally left him not to
return, although in his journal there appears some indication that
this is not a strictly correct statement.
Neither of the brothers withdrew from the established Church, and
Charles appears never to have reconciled himself to the prospective
establishment of a new denomination, to which course John seems to
have been fully committed many years before his death. Both en-
gaged actively in the ministry from the date of their conversion or
## p. 15793 (#125) ##########################################
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
15793
soon after, until 1740 in connection with the Moravians, and after-
ward independently; and when in London, their meetings were
usually held in a room in Fetter Lane. In 1739 an old building in
Moorfields called “The Foundery” was converted into a meeting-
house; but this soon became inadequate for the crowds which were
drawn together, and open-air preaching followed in the natural order
of evolution. Whitefield was soon drawn into the work; but he and
Wesley subsequently parted upon theological grounds, Wesley having
fully assimilated the doctrines of Free Grace and Salvation by Faith,
while Whitefield held firmly to Predestination. The impossibility of
attending with frequency congregations gathered in various parts of
the kingdom, led before long to the employment of lay speakers; and
these in turn gradually gave place to an established order of itiner-
ant preachers; and later these again to ministers settled for a limited
period, with superintending bishops.
The ministrations of the two brothers and of Whitefield, but
especially of John Wesley, were characterized by an impassioned ear-
nestness which worked powerfully upon the susceptibilities of their
hearers. The meetings were soon the scene of violent demonstrations
of nervous emotion and physical contortions, such as have in a meas-
ure survived to this day; though in late years they have not been so
frequent or so pronounced, nor do they appear to be usually encour-
aged by the exhorters. These hysterical demonstrations, though fa-
miliar to every student of history, were then not so well known and
understood as now; and perhaps it was quite natural that John Wes-
ley accepted them as valuable testimony to the virtue of his teach-
ing, without scrutinizing them too closely. It is true that he was at
times on his guard, and disposed to try the spirits”: to which course
he was prompted by the extravagances of the Camisards, — the
“French Prophets,” then numerous in England, the counterparts of
which had been seen in New England during the so-called witchcraft
excitement of fifty years earlier. But his occasional success in restor-
ing calm in some cases, which were clearly not intended as impost-
ure, might have led him to a greater caution in other cases. Charles
never looked with a kindly eye upon these paroxysms of “enthusi-
asm. ” He was more conservative in several ways than his brother;
and though he was engaged for many years in itinerant preaching,
he was disposed to a quieter and more contemplative life. His lit-
erary work is comprised in his innumerable hymns and verses, and
in a journal and sermons published subsequent to his death. He
was not quite so self-assertive as his brother, who perhaps would not
have written-
(How ready is the man to go
Whom God hath never sent!
XXVII–988
## p. 15794 (#126) ##########################################
15794
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
How timorous, diffident, and slow,
His chosen instrument!
Lord, if from thee this mark I have
Of a true messenger,
By whom thou wilt thy people save,
And let me always fear. ”
Charles Wesley died March 29th, 1788, three years earlier than his
elder brother.
John Wesley was an eager reader and a voluminous writer. It
seems almost impossible that even in his long life he could have
found time for all that he accomplished. Sermons, letters, and con-
troversial works; works on Divinity, on Ecclesiastical History, on
Medicine; a short History of Rome,' a History of England,' — what
did he not indite! He even published an abbreviation of Brooke's
(Fool of Quality. He was a good linguist and an extremely forcible
writer, and his works have been republished in many forms and .
editions.
The value to the Church and to society of the work initiated by
the Wesleys cannot be overestimated. The times in which they
lived were sadly out of joint, and few would hesitate to say with
Thackeray :-
«No wonder that Whitefield cried out in the wilderness, – that Wesley
quitted the insulted temple to pray on the hillside. I look with reverence on
chose men at that time. Which is the sublimer spectacle,- the good John
Wesley surrounded by his congregation of miners at the pit's mouth, or the
Queen's chaplains mumbling through their morning office in their anteroom
under the picture of the great Venus, with the door opening into the adjoin-
ing chamber, where the Queen is dressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or
uttering sneers at Lady Suffolk, who is kneeling with a basin at her mistress's
feet ? »
Wienam Porto
THE NEW BIRTH
From a Discourse entitled (The New Birth)
EFORE
B"
a child is born into the world, he has eyes but sees
not; he has ears but does not hear. He has a very imper-
fect use of every other sense. He has no knowledge of
any of the things of the world, or any natural understanding.
## p. 15795 (#127) ##########################################
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
15795
To that manner of existence which he then has, we do not even
give the name of life. It is then only when a man is born, that
we say he begins to live. For as soon as he is born, he begins
to see the light, and the various objects with which he is encom-
passed. His ears are then opened, and he hears the sounds
which successively strike upon them. At the same time, all the
other organs of sense begin to be exercised upon their proper
objects. He likewise breathes, and lives in a manner wholly
different from what he did before. How exactly doth the par.
allel hold in all these instances! While a man is in a mere
natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual
sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon
them: he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he
is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are
all locked up; he is in the same condition as if he had them
not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with
him: he is not at all acquainted with him. He has no true
knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal
things; therefore though he is a living man, he is a dead Christ-
ian. But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change
in all these particulars. The eyes of his understanding are
opened” (such is the language of the great apostle); and he who
of old commanded light to shine out of darkness shining on his
heart, he sees the light of the glory of God,” his glorious love
in the face of Jesus Christ. ” His ears being opened, he is now
capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good
cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “Go and sin no more. ”
is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although per-
haps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatso-
ever “He that teacheth man knowledge ” is pleased from time
to time to reveal to him. He “feels in his heart” (to use the
language of our Church) “the mighty working of the Spirit of
God”: not in a gross, carnal sense, as the men of the world
stupidly and willfully misunderstand the expression; though they
have been told again and again, we mean thereby neither more
nor less than this: he feels, is inwardly sensible of, the graces
which the Spirit of God works in his heart. He feels, he is con-
scious of, a "peace which passeth all understanding. ” He many
times feels such a joy in God as is unspeakable, and full of
glory. ” He feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart by
the Holy Ghost, which is given unto him”; and all his spiritual
senses are then exercised to discern spiritual good and evil. By
(
## p. 15796 (#128) ##########################################
15796
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
the use of these, he is daily increasing in the knowledge of God,
of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and of all the things per-
taining to his inward kingdom. And now he may be properly
said to live: God having quickened him by His spirit, he is alive
to God through Jesus Christ. He lives a life which the world
knoweth not of, a “life which is hid with Christ in God. ” God
is continually breathing, as it were, upon the soul; and his soul
is breathing unto God. Grace is descending into his heart; and
prayer and praise ascending to heaven: and by this intercourse
between God and man, this fellowship with the Father and the
Son, as by a kind of spiritual respiration, the life of God in the
soul is sustained; and the child of God grows up, till he comes
to the full measure of the stature of Christ. ”
From hence it manifestly appears, what is the nature of the
new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul
when he brings it into life; when he raises it from the death of
sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the
whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God, when it is created
anew in Christ Jesus,” when it is renewed after the image of
God, in righteousness and true holiness”; when the love of the
world is changed into the love of God; pride into humility; pas-
sion into meekness; hatred, envy, malice, into a sincere, tender,
disinterested love for all mankind. In a word, it is that change
whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind is turned into the
“mind which was in Christ Jesus. ” This is the nature of the
new birth: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit. ”
OUR STEWARDSHIP
From a Discourse entitled (The Good Steward)
W*
E SHALL not receive ta còla — our own things — till we come
to our own country. Eternal things only are our own:
with all these temporal things we are barely intrusted by
another - the Disposer and Lord of all. And he intrusts us with
-
them on this express condition, that we use them only as our
Master's goods, and according to the particular directions which
he has given us in his word.
On this condition he hath intrusted us with our souls, our
bodies, our goods, and whatever other talents we have received;
but in order to impress this weighty truth on our hearts, it will
be needful to come to particulars.
## p. 15797 (#129) ##########################################
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
15797
And first, God has intrusted us with our soul,- an immortal
spirit, made in the image of God; together with all the powers
and faculties thereof, - understanding, imagination, memory, will,
and a train of affections, either included in it, or closely depend-
ent upon it,— love and hatred, joy and sorrow; respecting present
good and evil, desire and aversion; hope and fear, respecting that
which is to come.
All these St. Paul seems to include in two
words, when he says, “The peace of God shall keep your hearts
and minds. ” Perhaps indeed the latter word, vonpara, might rather
"
be rendered thoughts, provided we take that word in its most
extensive sense, for every perception of the mind, whether active
or passive.
Now of all these, it is certain we are only stewards. God has
intrusted us with these powers and faculties, not that we may
employ them according to our own will, but according to the
express orders which he has given us: although it is true that
in doing his will we most effectually secure our own happiness;
seeing it is herein only that we can be happy, either in time or
in eternity. Thus we are to use our understanding, our imagina-
tion, our memory, wholly to the glory of Him that gave them.
Thus our will is to be wholly given up to him, and all our affec-
tions to be regulated as he directs. We are to love and hate, to
rejoice and grieve, to desire and shun, to hope and fear, accord-
ing to the rule which he prescribes, whose we are, and whom we
are to serve in all things. Even our thoughts are not our
in this sense: they are not at our own disposal; but for every
deliberate motion of our mind, we are accountable to our great
Master
God has, secondly, intrusted us with our bodies (those exqui-
sitely wrought machines, so “fearfully and wonderfully made"),
”
with all the powers and members thereof. He has intrusted
us with the organs of sense; of sight, hearing, and the rest: but
none of these are given us as our own, to be employed accord-
ing to our own will. None of these are lent us in such a sense
as to leave us at liberty to use them as we please for a season.
No: we have received them on these very terms, that as long
as they abide with us, we should employ them all in that very
manner, and no other, which he appoints.
It is on the same terms that he imparted to us that most
excellent talent of speech. “Thou hast given me a tongue,” says
the ancient writer, “that I may praise thee therewith. ” For this
Own
## p. 15798 (#130) ##########################################
15798
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
purpose was it given to all the children of men, to be employed
in glorifying God. Nothing, therefore, is more ungrateful or
more absurd than to think or say, “Our tongues are our own. ”
That cannot be, unless we have created ourselves, and so are
independent of the Most High, Nay, but It is he that hath
made us,
and not we ourselves: " the manifest consequence is
that he is still Lord over us, in this as in all other respects. It
follows that there is not a word of our tongue for which we are
not accountable to him.
To him we are equally accountable for the use of our hands
and feet, and all the members of our body. These are so many
talents which are committed to our trust, until the time appointed
by the Father. Until then, we have the use of all these; but as
stewards, not as proprietors: to the end, we should render them,
not as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but as instru-
ments of righteousness unto God. ”
God has intrusted us, thirdly, with a portion of worldly goods,
with food to eat, raiment to put on, and a place where to lay
our head; with not only the necessaries but the conveniences of
life. Above all, he has committed to our charge that precious
talent which contains all the rest, - money: indeed it is unspeak-
ably precious, if we are wise and faithful stewards of it; if we
employ every part of it for such purposes as our blessed Lord
has commanded us to do.
God has intrusted us, fourthly, with several talents which do
not properly come under any of these heads. Such is bodily
strength; such are health, a pleasing person, an agreeable ad-
dress; such are learning and knowledge in their various degrees,
with all the other advantages of education. Such is the influence
which we have over others, whether by their love and esteem of
us, or by power-power to do them good or hurt, to help or hin-
der them in the circumstances of life. Add to these that invalu-
able talent of time, with which God intrusts us from moment
to moment. Add, lastly, that on which all the rest depend, and
without which they would all be curses, not blessings; namely,
the grace of God, the power of his Holy Spirit, which alone
worketh in us all that is acceptable in his sight.
that prompts the children to reply, “Well, we would like to see
the folly of it too. ” How lucky it is that nobody can decant
(
## p. 15776 (#102) ##########################################
15776
JOHN WEISS
a
his old wine into the new bottles! So the youth gets his pro-
motion from the nursery to school, to occupation, to love and
marriage, to the successive disciplines; and his knowledge of one
period never makes him equal to the next one, which always has
some surprising element that tests him on
new side. We
have to go storming parallel after parallel. Up we run impetu-
ously, with glad acclaim, and plant our colors: before the wind
takes them, we perceive an inner line that we had not suspected.
Headlong we go at that too, only to find that the busy antagonist
has thrown up another; and that also has to be assailed. It is
plot and counterplot, mine and countermine: reality works, while
the Ideal catches a nap leaning upon its weapon; till as we sink,
and the colors falter on the last breach, we find that death is
only a resource and desperate ambush of a foe that is sullenly
retreating; and to-morrow the Ideal, light-armed, with marching
rations and the packs all left behind, will buoyantly pursue.
What a hint of personal immortality is this relative imperfec-
tion of our experiences! They suggest the absolute perfection
which is the plan of every soul; like the crumbled scale or bone
that taught the naturalist the structure, shape, and habits, of
an extinct fish whose fossil even no man had ever seen. One
day a fossil is found to justify, in the minutest particulars, the
infallibility of the scientific imagination. Our partial experiences
contain the history of souls not yet completed; and they are guar-
antees given to us directly by the divine imagination, the earnest
of the spirit, that the whole plan must include all the time and
opportunity needed to fill out the spiritual form. Eternity is in
pledge to our successive disappointments. Every morning we go
down to the edge of it like the fishermen of rock-bound coasts,
and put off upon it as they do, to fight for their little gains, and
satisfy the hunger that is as prompt to return as the morning.
All day we trawl and hunt by various devices for our shy suste-
nance; and the fruitful infinite stretches all around us, so deep
and coy that everything is hidden, so deep that everything is
contained. Our day sinks into its storm or calm. Over it our
day breaks with wants that never are appeased.
What do we care for the expense that this spendthrift, our
good-will for God, subjects us to? If anything is to be melted
for a beautiful casting, men keep the flame up, and throw in all
the fuel in the neighborhood. There is nothing too precious to
go towards making a soul limpid and symmetrical. Bernard
## p. 15777 (#103) ##########################################
JOHN WEISS
15777
Palissy, at the end of twenty years spent in vain attempts to
create a white enamel for his pottery, found nothing left but
the house he lived in, and the fences around it. Not a billet
of wood, for love or money, to keep up the furnace with. The
palings were ripped down and thrown in,—the enamel had not
melted. There was a crashing in the house: the children were
in dismay; the wife, assisted doubtless by such female friends as
had dropped in to comfort her, became loud in her reproaches.
Bernard was breaking up the tables and carrying them off, legs
and bodies, to the all-consuming fire. Still the enamel did not
melt! There was more crashing and hammering in the house:
Bernard was tearing up the foors to use the planks as fire-
wood. Frantic with despair, the wife rushes off to raise the town
against him. She was starved out by his pertinacity; he was fed
by his idea. And while she was gone, the anxieties and pov-
erty of twenty years flowed in the clear coating that became the
rage of kings and connoisseurs.
Throw everything into the fire of the Ideal! - the incum.
brances of society and pleasure, the frivolous amusements, the
small-talk and idling, the clique feelings and constraints, the con-
veniences that make our life a curse, the ornaments that dress
us in a weight to crush us to the dust. Throw fruitless regrets
and memories, and all the things we are most vain about, into
the devouring flame. We are clay in the hands of the potter.
Let all our rubbish melt to make it impervious to the weather,
not subject to decay, much sought for by the King.
THE COURT FOOL
From (Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare)
THO
HOUGH Shakespeare empties all his own love for pure fun into
this clown (in “Twelfth Night'], he makes of him the only
cool and consistent character in the play, and thus convey's
to us his conviction of the superiority of an observer who has
wit, humor, repartee, burlesquing, and buffoonery at command;
for none but wise men can make such fools of themselves. Such
a fine composition is apt to be misunderstood by the single-gifted
and prosaic people: but this only piques the bells to their hap-
piest jingle; and a man is never more convinced of the divine
XXVII-987
## p. 15778 (#104) ##########################################
15778
JOHN WEISS
origin of his buffooning talent than when the didactic souls reject
it as heresy. All Shakespeare's clowns brandish this fine bauble:
their bells swing in a Sabbath air and summon us to a service
of wisdom. Feste has no passion to fondle, and no chances to
lie in wait for except those which can help his foolery to walk
over everybody like the sun. Even when he seems to be wheed.
ling money out of the Duke and Viola, he is only in sport with
the weakness which purse-holders have to fee, to conciliate, to
enjoy an aspect of grandeur. His perfectly dispassionate temper
is sagacity itself. It discerns the solemn fickleness of the princi-
pal personages. They are all treated with amusing impartiality;
and it is in the spirit of the Kosmos itself, which does not stand
in awe of anybody. It seems, indeed, as if the function of fool,
and the striking toleration which has always invested it, was
developed by Nature for protection of those of her creatures who
are exposed to flattery and liable to be damaged by it. Not for
shallow amusement have rich and titled persons harbored jesters,
who always play the part of the slave of Pyrrhus, at proper
intervals to remind them that they are mortal. All men secretly
prefer to know the truth; but the pampered people cannot bear
to sit in the full draught of it. Its benefit must, however, be in
some way conveyed to them. Bluff Kent is banished for saying
to Lear, in the plainest Saxon, what the fool kept insinuating
with impunity. Therefore, no genuine court has been complete
without its fool. The most truculent sceptre has only playfully
tapped his liberty. Timur the Terrible had a court fool, named
Ahmed Kermani. One day, in the bath with a crowd of wits,
the conversation fell upon the individual worth of men;
and
Timur asked Ahmed, “What price wouldst thou put on me if I
were for sale ? ” “About five-and-twenty aspers,” rejoined Ahmed.
“Why,” said Timur, “that is about the price of the sheet I have
“Well, of course, I meant the sheet. ” When the business
of kingship becomes decayed, the office of fool is obsolete.
»
(
on. "
## p. 15779 (#105) ##########################################
15779
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
(1807-1873)
P to the year 1814, when Norway obtained a constitution of
her own and a political separation from Denmark, her liter-
ature had been so merged in that of the latter country that
it may hardly be said to have had an identity of its own. Copen-
hagen had been, from the time of Holberg and before, the literary
centre of both Denmark and Norway; and nearly all the men of
conspicuous talent had at one time or another found their way to
the common capital of the two nations. But with the semi-independ-
ence achieved by Norway in 1814, the current of national sentiment
grew so strong that it was bound to find expression in a national
literature; and such a literature, surprising in its richness and vitality,
has grown up during the past three quarters of a century.
When we begin, then, to deal with Norwegian as distinct from
Danish literature, as we must do from the thirties onward, we are
at once confronted with the two significant names of Wergeland and
Welhaven. Henrik Wergeland, born in 1808, became at an early age
a profuse writer of somewhat shapeless verse, abounding in the faults
that characterize an impulsive and ill-regulated mind, yet seething
with patriotism of the emotional sort, and displaying at its best the
true lyrical impulse. His extraordinary lyrical drama, Skabelsen,
Mennesket, og Messias” (The Creation, Man, and Messiah), published
in 1830, offers the starting-point for a discussion of the subject of
the present article; for it was by a critical attack upon that work
that Welhaven first became known. Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer
Welhaven was born in Bergen in 1807, thus being one year Werge-
land's senior. He went to Christiania for study, and as a professor
in the national university remained afterwards identified with the
capital. An anonymous poem addressed to Wergeland, and soon
followed by a pamphlet Om Henrik Wergelands Digtekunst og
Polemik) (Upon Henrik Wergeland's Poetry and Polemics), opened a
critical warfare that raged for several years, and divided literary
circles into two hostile camps. Wergeland represented the impulsive
principle in poetry, the spontaneous lyric cry unfettered by rule or
historical tradition; Welhaven stood for the academic view, for reflec-
tion and the canons of æsthetics. The attack on Wergeland was so
unsparing in its exposure of the poet's weak spots and defects of
## p. 15780 (#106) ##########################################
15780
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
taste, and so scornful withal in its calm analysis, that it caused great
excitement in literary circles; and for a time poems and pamphlets
upon the matter in dispute flew thick and fast from the press. View-
ing the controversy from this distance, it is easy to see that the stars
in their courses fought with Welhaven; for it was his part to stand
as champion of the reflective reason as opposed to the sentimental
impressionism of his opponents. And time, while it has winnowed an
immense amount of chaff from the grain of Wergeland's voluminous
output, has preserved the body of Welhaven's work as of lasting
value, both on the critical and the creative side.
That work, which fills eight volumes in the standard edition, is
about equally divided between prose and poetry. The prose includes
the controversial matter already mentioned, an important critical
study of the eighteenth-century literature of Denmark, and a great
variety of public addresses, sketches of travel, memorial studies and
reviews. As a whole, these writings give to Welhaven the highest
place among Norwegian critics, and may still be read with profit.
Their polished style, their conservative tendencies, and their recog-
nition of the fact that criticism is a very different thing from the
expression of personal likes and dislikes, are the qualities that give
to any critical prose a lasting influence; and they are all highly char-
acteristic of Welhaven's writing. Like Heiberg and Brandes in Den-
mark, he brought to bear upon criticism a carefully conceived and
well-tested method, and his trained and penetrating mind revealed
whatever it dealt with in the dry objective light which should shine
upon the phenomena of literature and of life. It may be interesting
to view them in other kinds of light, but it is not safe; and those
critics do the best service who guard us against garish colors and
iridescent diffractions.
Welhaven's poetry consists wholly of short pieces,— lyrics, ballads,
and essays in occasional verse, - unless we regard as a single long
poem the cycle of sonnets which formed his first poetical publication
of importance. This work, entitled Norges Dæmring' (Norway's
Dawn), strikes the chord of a noble indignation when it deals with
the follies and the passions of the nation, and then in prophetic
strain sings of a spiritual dawn yet to come, and fairer far than the
dawn, already broken, of merely external political freedom. Serious-
ness is the prevailing note of Welhaven's poetry; although the sense
of humor is by no means lacking, and often finds expression in forms
that inevitably suggest the work of Heine. He has given to Nor-
wegian literature what is probably its most finished and exquisite
body of verse, excepting that which we owe to Björnson and Ibsen.
It is the verse of a scholarly and finely cultured mind, rather than
of a nature of decided lyrical endowment. In this respect, it often
## p. 15781 (#107) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15781
suggests the poetry of Matthew Arnold; and makes, to the ears fitted
to hear it, an appeal altogether disproportionate to the degree of its
acceptance by the general public.
A SONNET FROM NORWAY'S DAWN)
H, LIKE a youth our race with courage bold
Shall yet wax strong behind its mountain rim;
While many an evil giant, fierce and grim,
Shall fall, and lie in death's embraces cold.
0"
And valorous deeds, like those men did of old,
Shall here once more be praised in song and hymn;
The life renewed of saga-ages dim,
In glowing words shall once again be told.
The word shall turn to act of high emprise;
The thought now hushed shall spring to burning speech
In hall of counsel and the sacred fane.
The noisy shout shall cease, the precept wise
Shall take its place, and, far as sight may reach,
The gleam shall grow into the light again.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
THS
his tree of freedom we have made,
To which men thronging bring their suit, -
Whose branches cast no cooling shade,
And ashes in the mouth whose fruit, -
'Tis but the same old pole of yore,
With the old tinsel wreaths bedecked,
Around which men have danced before,
Until they knew its promise wrecked.
And if it stand on fertile soil,
No root it strikes, no bud doth bear;
'Tis but a log, smooth-shaped with toil,
And stuck end upward in the air.
The signs of blooming life it bears,
Adorning it with summer shows,
## p. 15782 (#108) ##########################################
15782
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
Are but the borrowed crown it wears
Of withered leaf and paper rose.
So when men say in ardent trust,
This is in truth the very palm
Whose foliage wide-spreading must
Bring to mankind its peace and calm,-
Why, then I test my sight anew;
But, do my best, I cannot see
The slightest cause to change my view
That but a May-pole is the tree.
Full many a pole like this shall yield
The hoary trunk of Ygdrasil,
Before the golden year revealed
With light and music earth may fill;
For men of Adam's race must God
Another earth and heaven make:
Then shall the palm spring from the sod,
And earth its thirst for freedom slake.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
GOLIATH
Hen little Goliath in stature was growing,
He was carefully fed by the Philistines knowing;
So Goliath grew up, both stout and tall,
And a weaver's beam was his lance withal,
W*
While the Philistines were to themselves confessing:
“How lucky we are in a giant possessing! ”
And viewing with pride his blustering gait,
The Philistines lived in his strength elate.
«The deuce take you all! ” thought Goliath defiant,
"I am not for my health in this business of giant;
Let them gape as they please, they dare not frown,
I will yet reign in Gaza, the wealthy town. ”
Now many a rich Judæan village
Did the braggart crew of the Philistines pillage,
Till the folk of Judæa took arms in hand,
And a tempest threatened the robber band.
## p. 15783 (#109) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15783
The Philistines thought: “What a fright will soon seize
you,
When you see what a giant we have here to tease you! "
So they gave to Goliath both helmet and shield,
And the fellow he was stood then first revealed.
(c
And Goliath he thought: «These Philistines bore me,
But now I can see my reward lies before ine.
The rich tabernacle I'll take for my share,
The rest they may have — for all that I care. )
But the Philistines thought: “A sure thing we have made
us,
The day that we have such a giant to aid us.
We'll put him before us, and watch the show,
While he lays about him with many a blow. ”
Then Goliath marched forth, all wrathful his bearing, -
The biggest he was of those Philistines daring;
But quickly a pebble his bare temple found,
And he suddenly stretched his full length on the ground.
And the Philistines asked, as they viewed him with won-
der,
How on earth could the fellow so quickly go under;
For thirteen feet, they were ready to swear,
Was Goliath's length as they measured him there.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
PROTESILAOS
MONG the Greeks for Troy their anchors weighing,
No other met such bitter fate as he
Who fell the first of all, that men might see
Fulfillment of the oracle's dark saying, -
A
The ominous words that still their memory followed,
From Delphian caves, and lingered on their lips:
« That hero who the first shall leave the ships
Shall first of all by Erebus be swallowed. ”
«Protesilaos! » every tongue was saying,
« Thy name concerns this oracle so dark. ”
But cheerfully he put to sea his bark,
And sailed from home, relentless fate obeying.
## p. 15784 (#110) ##########################################
15784
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
No craven fear his courage high displaces:
Farewell he's said to Tempe's lovely dale;
And to restrain him were of no avail
Laodamia's eager fond embraces.
But when the winds and waves at last were bringing
The hollow ships to the Dardanian shore,
The faltering warriors dared not to the fore,
Where Hector fierce his heavy lance was swinging.
He chosen by the gods the hearts to quicken
Of all who stood in the Achæan host,-
Protesilaos,- on that fatal coast
Was first to land, to fall in death down-stricken.
While weapons flashed, and men to war-cries hearkened,
Low in the dust the noble hero lay;
No booty to his tent might find its way,
And as the war dragged on, his fame grew darkened.
But afterwards men grateful learned to cherish
His mighty deed: in hymns his name was praised;
And pilgrims sought the temple to him raised
That memories of his valor might not perish.
And from the heroic age a voice deep-weighted
With earnest accent echoes on the ear:
“Who leads the way in strife, and knows no fear,
To conquer
to fight and die is fated. ”
Translation of William Morton Payne.
THE PARIS MORGUE
I
N its manifold depiction of human life, recent French literature
bears the stamp of a freshness and truth before unattained.
Nowhere else may we find experience and the study of life
raised so far above the unsafe methods of a priori construction.
After so many storms, life itself is freer here; and its every
shoot buds and blossoms in its true character, forced by neither the
espalier of a system nor the artificial temperature of a hot-house.
The public places, squares, and streets are here the academies for
the painter of souls; who might be taken for an indolent dandy,
did we not know him to be a philosopher, a modern peripatetic.
## p. 15785 (#111) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15785
Many human relations elsewhere coyly or fearfully concealed,
many scenes that seem to belong to the fireside nook, come here
to public view, and make their impression of joy or of despair.
A crowd of people are viewing from the Pont Louis XIV. the ris-
ing flood of the Seine. A lady dressed in black pushes through
the crowd, and throws herself into the stream in full view of
everybody. This is but one of many examples of the French
exaltation that feeds upon showing its wounds to the public gaze,
and ending the play with a dazzling or startling exit.
Where life lies upon all sides so unveiled, many of the limita-
tions of art must give way. The tragic pathos of the old school
.
was as a whole merely declamatory, and only upon cothurns might
it display itself with propriety. Its sentimentality was as man-
nered and bloodless as the Arcadian shepherd race that thought
itself to hold tenancy of the Eden of poetry, when people still
believed that the bird of paradise had no feet and only hovered
in the blue. Things are different now: sentimentality has taken
hold of the flesh, and the bird of paradise perches on many
a roof. Tragedy goes about comfortably in socks; and this
merciless unbaring of the frightful, this natural and painstaking
depiction of circumstances that often stiffen the sympathies with
terror, affects us with doubled force, because it clings close to
conditions with which every beholder is acquainted.
Louis the Eighteenth once remarked of Châteaubriand's
René' that it bore a resemblance to Werther'; and when
asked if a parallel might indeed be drawn between those two
works, he replied: “Yes, without doubt; and I give the prefer-
ence to Werther,' on account of its simple naturalness. The
hero is placed amid quite ordinary circumstances, which is an im-
portant matter. These every-day details attract us all the more
to Werther's violent passion. On the other hand, we feel little or
no sympathy for René, who is a mere figure of romantic fiction. ”
This observation, which was remarkable for a prince trained in
the old dogmatic school, was looked upon for some score of years
as an example of tasteless criticism. But in the present period,
an enormous amount has been done to spread abroad the dis-
covery that the world of poetry is at bottom just the same as
that which is usually called “the prosaic world. " No Parisian
doubts this at the present time. Even in the abnormal growths
of French literature, in the monstrous sensational pieces where-
with many a theatre seeks to gain the attention of a restless
(
## p. 15786 (#112) ##########################################
15786
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
public, forcing it to listen, there are traces of this reformation.
These pictures have many lifelike details; and herein they resem-
ble the Greek fabulous combinations of plant and animal forms,
which are monstrous as wholes, but whose separate parts are
worked out with the most exact truth.
Whoever closely views the various pictures of life that throng
upon the observation in the French capital, will easily recognize
them as mirrored in the productions of art; either seen in their
full potency as in a concave mirror, or viewed as sparks and
colors through some many-sided prism. The strange figures and
bizarre delineations of a Balzac are to be found here in living
reality. We read in the newspapers the bare account of some
wonderful domestic drama which seems to belong to the dream
world; yet it has been enacted in palpable form at our very
door. We go to the Théâtre de la Porte St. Martin, and view
with repulsion and terror scenes from La Tour de Nesle,' that
harrowing painting with all its ice-cold corpses; and we reject
the idea that life could have furnished forth the composition
with matter and models. Yet the original lies close at hand:
it is the corpse-house on the Seine,- La Morgue! The poet of
the Tour de Nesle' has been there. He has gazed himself sick
upon these mystical shapes; the death smell has crept into all of
his pleasures; he has been forced to visit the morgue again and
again, and the shadows have haunted him until he freed him-
self from them with his work. La Morgue is the black crater
beneath the Parisian people's grapevines of joy; it is the cry of
woe in the midst of the triumph; it is the dark writing on Bel-
shazzar's wall. The joys of life have no such focus, for they
culminate in a thousand places at once.
La Morgue is a police institution: it supplements the bureau
of found articles. This frightful find of the suicides and the
slain must fall into the right hands. People go there to seek
out in the collection the bodies of friends or relatives.
doubts it to be a wise arrangement. A body is a small thing, of
less account than hay or dry brushwood. But we know that it
sometimes is inestimable as measured by affection, and sometimes
has a deep hieroglyphic significance. Consequently, for the con-
venience of observers, the morgue is situated in the centre of
the city. Were it perhaps better that it should stand apart in
some solitary place, shaded by the cypress and the weeping wil.
low? The forsaken one might then be alone with his unrest and
No one
## p. 15787 (#113) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15787
his fear when he went to seek, and alone with his sorrow when
he had found. Alas! this is only a secondary consideration. La
Morgue is a public exhibition, a museum of the day's history.
These bodies still belong to the public; therefore their place is
in the midst of the crowd. The pit would see the tragic hero on
the boards, and pass judgment upon him before turning home-
wards.
How busily Parisian life stirs about this grewsome little
house! There is nothing sad in the neighborhood, except the wan
stream and the towers of Notre Dame. It is but a few steps to
the morgue from the flower-market. A light zephyr is enough
to waft the fragrance of roses over the low roof. Close by the
walls there is a busy traffic in fruits and vegetables. The her-
alds of life's stir, the restless omnibuses, rumble by over the
bridge. When the morgue is full of bodies, there are speculators
on hand, drawn by the throng,-mountebank tricksters, placards
announcing new inventions, harp-players and organ-grinders!
One might think that the sense of the people had become
blunted to the sights in the morgue. But this is not so: it has
offered too many heart-rending spectacles; they know that it is
a cave of Avernus, which may at any moment reveal the most
frightful things. The dusk of life hovers over that house, and it
throws a deep shadow. We often see some gloomy, motionless
figure in the midst of the noisy crowd; he casts a spell upon our
eyes, and we see him alone thereafter. His whole nature pre-
sents the picture of a dark and brooding soul, and we say to
ourselves: He is lost, — the shadow of the morgue is within him.
The arrangement of the morgue is very simple. The bodies
lie in a light-yellow hall, on dark inclined planes, and a stream
of cold water falls upon each of them. They are naked save for
a fig-leaf of dark leather. Over the couch hangs the clothing of
the corpse. Light falls from above. This hall is separated by a
grating from the anteroom, which is always open to the public.
Here we find placards displayed, describing persons who have
disappeared, and asking for information about them. At the
grating may be seen many indifferent, but also many feverishly
agitated faces.
Now and then an outcry is heard, as "C'est
affreux !
” and “Pauvre homme ! »
How mysterious these bodies are! We stare at them, and
would read their history in their discomposed features: we pict-
ure them in the silent oppressive gambler's den, in the dark
## p. 15788 (#114) ##########################################
15788
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
squalid street where a dull gleam from the mansards is the only
light; we follow them to the Seine; we hear the awful spash of
the water: and before we know it, we have clothed these dumb
shapes with life, full of horror and despair.
I was once with a friend who lived close to the morgue. I
saw the crowd stream in, but I saw no one come out, and con-
cluded with a shudder that the corpse-house must be unusually
rich. I could not resist the powerful impulse that drove me
to view the image of terror close by. The house was full, and
most of the bodies were set forth in horrible display; one of
them had been hanged, and still had the rope about his neck.
High up lay an old colossal warrior. There was a great scar
on his forehead; his coat hung wet and muddy behind him, and
was decorated with the Legion of Honor. What proud memories
must not have dwelt in that broad breast! But they were shad-
owy ranks, and could bring no booty to his airy bivouac. This
warrior had been at Beresina. Perhaps with the fury of a tiger
he hewed a path for this body through the dense mass of men
on the breaking bridge, or fought for his life among the ice
floes of the wild stream. And now it was all a fairy tale. It
rushed into his head when he stood alone on the Pont-Neuf; but
the bridge would not break under him, and he had to cast him-
self into these quiet waters, which mirror the trophies of his
valor. The last body in this company was that of a young girl:
her hair was of glistening black and extraordinarily long; one
hand was clenched convulsively, the other limp and outspread.
“Du armes Kind, was hat man Dir gethan ? " A soldier stood
at my side: he was a handsome man, and could not have been
over eighteen. The sweat pearled on his forehead, and he
pressed his face hard against the grating. I could not tire of
watching him, but he did not notice,- he stared incessantly at
the last body.
La Morgue is an instructive institution, and has brought many
misdeeds to light. But a true feeling for the high seriousness of
death, for the deep significance of silent grief, may not be recon-
ciled with this sort of exhibition. The mechanism of the State
is skillfully constructed, - it goes and goes, and its workings cor-
respond more and more closely to calculation, - but how many a
delicate nerve in the human organism must it bruise or divide
before it shall become an entirely safe and trustworthy machine!
Death is a mystery; a corpse is sacred. We must take heed
## p. 15789 (#115) ##########################################
JOHAN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER WELHAVEN
15789
not to offend the sanctity that invests a body from which the
soul has fled. The thought of suicide is fearful; but it does
not lose its poison through the desecration of God's image in
human form. The sad and prayerful moods that attend the
dead, and preserve his memory, shun the body in the morgue.
Repulsion and terror alone seize upon us at the sight of these
shapes. We have the same uncomfortable feeling as when we
read in old chronicles of those sorceries whereby the body was
robbed of its repose by horrible runes placed under the tongue.
The warm heart, that would bleed itself to death, and desired
naught but rest, must now be anatomized by cold hands! Those
secret sorrows that made its fibres quiver must now be displayed
to stimulate and amuse a light-hearted mob! Here in the French
corpse-house, I could but think of our Norse tale of the wounded
bird, that, stricken to death, dives to the bottom and bites fast in
the sea-weed.
Translation of William Morton Payne.
## p. 15789 (#116) ##########################################
'
:
2
iii.
11
. 1
1
1
+
1
1
## p. 15789 (#117) ##########################################
JOHN WESLEY.
## p. 15789 (#118) ##########################################
15790
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
(1703-1791) (1708-1788)
BY WILLIAM POTTS
W
ith a jocose reapplication in a literal sense of a metaphorical
phrase, John Wesley was used to speak of himself as “a
brand plucked from the burning. ” He had been forgotten
when a child, through the excitement caused by a conflagration in his
father's house due to incendiarism, and only rescued at the last pos-
sible moment. There were other experiences in that house, and in
the one which succeeded it, which were not
wholly conventional. Susannah Wesley, the
mother of John and Charles, was a woman
of fine education and of strong character,
and a pious and devoted mother. She usu-
ally bent herself to her husband's will,
though with discretion; but they were not
politically agreed, and he at one time with-
drew for a considerable period from associ-
ation with her because he was offended on
this account. It is said that his salary was
never greater than £20 per annum, and
he was frequently called upon to aid impe-
CHARLES WESLEY cunious relatives; but Malthus had not yet
come, and neither he nor his wife perhaps
realized any incongruity between his income and their family of
nineteen children. Mrs. Wesley had her own theory as to how the
early education of children should be conducted. She did not begin
with them until they were five years old, and then she made them
learn the alphabet perfectly in one day; on the next day they were
put to spell and to read one line, and then a verse, never leaving it
until they were perfect in the lesson. ” Of the nineteen, only a lim-
ited selection of three boys and three girls lived to grow up: the
three boys all attained prominence, the girls all great unhappiness.
Unseen powers appear to have taken part in the political schism
between the Rev. Samuel Wesley and his wife: their home at Ep-
worth parsonage, during a long period while John was a schoolboy,
being the scene of the most unaccountable noises and other disturb-
ances, which attained their maximum of obtrusivenes during the
(
## p. 15789 (#119) ##########################################
در بیرون می اور بین .
دیگر نمی تنه
## p. 15789 (#120) ##########################################
:
)
1
:
N
1.
KT
1
1
1
11
## p. 15789 (#121) ##########################################
9
JOHN WESLEY.
## p. 15790 (#122) ##########################################
## p. 15791 (#123) ##########################################
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
15791
>
Reverend Samuel's prayers for the royal family. So customary did
these noises become, that for convenience, their unknown author was
given the name of “Old Jeffery,” by which appellation he was long
familiarly called in the family.
John Wesley was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, June 17th (O. S. ),
1703. His brother Charles, with whom he was closely associated
throughout their lives, was born at the same place five years later
(December 18th, 1808, O. S. ). In studying their biographies, one can-
,
not well avoid the conclusion that though Charles was less aggressive
than his brother, and though his fame, in part on this account, has
been wholly overshadowed by that of the latter, his was the steadier
and better rounded character of the two; and that to him their com-
mon success as religious leaders is largely due. Charles was the
forerunner in the movement at Oxford, and again, though only by a
few days, in his “conversion”; and above all, Charles was the hymn-
writer of Methodism, and the influence of the service of song upon
the Methodist movement it is almost impossible to exaggerate.
Charles Wesley, it is said, wrote more than six thousand hymns; and
though in this vast flux of words he sometimes — nay, often — “ran
to emptins,” there are among his sacred songs some which appeal to
people of every faith, and promise to live as long as Divine service
is continued. The strong musical bias in his blood is shown in the
fact that his son Samuel played on the organ at three, and composed
an oratorio at eight.
John was educated at Charterhouse School, and at Christ Church
College, Oxford. He easily won a reputation as a fine scholar. He
was ordained a deacon in 1725, was elected a Fellow of Lincoln Col-
lege in 1726, was in the same year appointed Greek lecturer and
moderator of the classes, became curate for his father at Wroote in
1727, and was ordained a priest in 1728. Charles was educated at
Westminster School, at St. Peter's College, Westminster, and at Christ
Church College; but was not ordained until 1735. At Oxford, about
1728, he with a dozen others organized an association, which in deris-
ion was known variously as the Holy Club, the Godly Club, the
Bible Moths, the Bible Bigots, the Sacramentarians, and the Method-
ists. The latter term, referring to the formal system introduced by
them in their services, was destined to become the title of the most
important religious organization of the century; although this organ-
ization, founded by the same men, took a wholly different direction
from the club from which it inherited its title. Among the members
of the club, besides the Wesleys, the most important were George
Whitefield, and James Hervey the author of the Meditations.
Returning to Oxford in 1729. John joined this club, and was im-
mediately recognized as its leader. In the austerities practiced by
the members, and in many other ways, is clear that they permitted
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JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
themselves to be led into great excesses, which later they more or
less frankly acknowledged.
In 1735 the brothers went to Georgia in General Oglethorpe's com-
pany; the elder to take spiritual charge of his colony, the younger as
his secretary. Upon the same vessel were a number of Moravians
from Herrnhut, by whom John was greatly impressed; and under the
influence of that body he remained for a number of years. This
Georgia episode was characterized by a variety of disagreeable inci-
dents. The responsibility for the troubles which occurred, it is now
impossible to place with exactness; but it is safe to say that they
resulted in part at least from some lack of tact or of fitness in the
brothers for the tasks which they undertook. Charles returned to
England in 1736, but John remained abroad until 1738.
Through their intercourse with the Moravians, the brothers had
become convinced that although they had undertaken to teach oth-
ers, they had themselves not yet become true Christians. Remaining
under the same influence, it was in the natural order of events that
John, a little later, recorded his awakening into the new life "at a
religious meeting at a quarter before nine o'clock on the evening of
May 24th 1738 ”; Charles having gone through the same experience
three days earlier. From this time forward the work of evangel-
ism occupied his life, until its close fifty-three years later. He died
March 2d, 1791, having traveled during the period of his active minis-
try, it is estimated, 225,000 miles, and preached more than 40,500 ser-
mons, not including miscellaneous addresses. After he was seventy
years of age he gave this explanation of his continued cheerfulness
and good health: “The chief reasons are, my constant rising at four
for about fifty years; my generally preaching at five in the morning,
one of the most healthy exercises in the world; my never travel-
ing less by sea or land than four thousand five hundred miles in a
year. ” Until his later years he usually traveled on horseback; and
he often read the while, until consequent mishaps warned him of
the risks to which he was exposing himself. His home life was not
inspiring. He had spoken much of the advantages of celibacy, but
in 1750 married a widow with four children. The marriage was not
a blessed one. Mrs. Wesley seems to have been “good” but not
wholly agreeable. Their intercourse was not harmonious; and after
some tentative absences, it is said that she finally left him not to
return, although in his journal there appears some indication that
this is not a strictly correct statement.
Neither of the brothers withdrew from the established Church, and
Charles appears never to have reconciled himself to the prospective
establishment of a new denomination, to which course John seems to
have been fully committed many years before his death. Both en-
gaged actively in the ministry from the date of their conversion or
## p. 15793 (#125) ##########################################
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15793
soon after, until 1740 in connection with the Moravians, and after-
ward independently; and when in London, their meetings were
usually held in a room in Fetter Lane. In 1739 an old building in
Moorfields called “The Foundery” was converted into a meeting-
house; but this soon became inadequate for the crowds which were
drawn together, and open-air preaching followed in the natural order
of evolution. Whitefield was soon drawn into the work; but he and
Wesley subsequently parted upon theological grounds, Wesley having
fully assimilated the doctrines of Free Grace and Salvation by Faith,
while Whitefield held firmly to Predestination. The impossibility of
attending with frequency congregations gathered in various parts of
the kingdom, led before long to the employment of lay speakers; and
these in turn gradually gave place to an established order of itiner-
ant preachers; and later these again to ministers settled for a limited
period, with superintending bishops.
The ministrations of the two brothers and of Whitefield, but
especially of John Wesley, were characterized by an impassioned ear-
nestness which worked powerfully upon the susceptibilities of their
hearers. The meetings were soon the scene of violent demonstrations
of nervous emotion and physical contortions, such as have in a meas-
ure survived to this day; though in late years they have not been so
frequent or so pronounced, nor do they appear to be usually encour-
aged by the exhorters. These hysterical demonstrations, though fa-
miliar to every student of history, were then not so well known and
understood as now; and perhaps it was quite natural that John Wes-
ley accepted them as valuable testimony to the virtue of his teach-
ing, without scrutinizing them too closely. It is true that he was at
times on his guard, and disposed to try the spirits”: to which course
he was prompted by the extravagances of the Camisards, — the
“French Prophets,” then numerous in England, the counterparts of
which had been seen in New England during the so-called witchcraft
excitement of fifty years earlier. But his occasional success in restor-
ing calm in some cases, which were clearly not intended as impost-
ure, might have led him to a greater caution in other cases. Charles
never looked with a kindly eye upon these paroxysms of “enthusi-
asm. ” He was more conservative in several ways than his brother;
and though he was engaged for many years in itinerant preaching,
he was disposed to a quieter and more contemplative life. His lit-
erary work is comprised in his innumerable hymns and verses, and
in a journal and sermons published subsequent to his death. He
was not quite so self-assertive as his brother, who perhaps would not
have written-
(How ready is the man to go
Whom God hath never sent!
XXVII–988
## p. 15794 (#126) ##########################################
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JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
How timorous, diffident, and slow,
His chosen instrument!
Lord, if from thee this mark I have
Of a true messenger,
By whom thou wilt thy people save,
And let me always fear. ”
Charles Wesley died March 29th, 1788, three years earlier than his
elder brother.
John Wesley was an eager reader and a voluminous writer. It
seems almost impossible that even in his long life he could have
found time for all that he accomplished. Sermons, letters, and con-
troversial works; works on Divinity, on Ecclesiastical History, on
Medicine; a short History of Rome,' a History of England,' — what
did he not indite! He even published an abbreviation of Brooke's
(Fool of Quality. He was a good linguist and an extremely forcible
writer, and his works have been republished in many forms and .
editions.
The value to the Church and to society of the work initiated by
the Wesleys cannot be overestimated. The times in which they
lived were sadly out of joint, and few would hesitate to say with
Thackeray :-
«No wonder that Whitefield cried out in the wilderness, – that Wesley
quitted the insulted temple to pray on the hillside. I look with reverence on
chose men at that time. Which is the sublimer spectacle,- the good John
Wesley surrounded by his congregation of miners at the pit's mouth, or the
Queen's chaplains mumbling through their morning office in their anteroom
under the picture of the great Venus, with the door opening into the adjoin-
ing chamber, where the Queen is dressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or
uttering sneers at Lady Suffolk, who is kneeling with a basin at her mistress's
feet ? »
Wienam Porto
THE NEW BIRTH
From a Discourse entitled (The New Birth)
EFORE
B"
a child is born into the world, he has eyes but sees
not; he has ears but does not hear. He has a very imper-
fect use of every other sense. He has no knowledge of
any of the things of the world, or any natural understanding.
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15795
To that manner of existence which he then has, we do not even
give the name of life. It is then only when a man is born, that
we say he begins to live. For as soon as he is born, he begins
to see the light, and the various objects with which he is encom-
passed. His ears are then opened, and he hears the sounds
which successively strike upon them. At the same time, all the
other organs of sense begin to be exercised upon their proper
objects. He likewise breathes, and lives in a manner wholly
different from what he did before. How exactly doth the par.
allel hold in all these instances! While a man is in a mere
natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual
sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon
them: he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he
is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are
all locked up; he is in the same condition as if he had them
not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with
him: he is not at all acquainted with him. He has no true
knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal
things; therefore though he is a living man, he is a dead Christ-
ian. But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change
in all these particulars. The eyes of his understanding are
opened” (such is the language of the great apostle); and he who
of old commanded light to shine out of darkness shining on his
heart, he sees the light of the glory of God,” his glorious love
in the face of Jesus Christ. ” His ears being opened, he is now
capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good
cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “Go and sin no more. ”
is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although per-
haps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatso-
ever “He that teacheth man knowledge ” is pleased from time
to time to reveal to him. He “feels in his heart” (to use the
language of our Church) “the mighty working of the Spirit of
God”: not in a gross, carnal sense, as the men of the world
stupidly and willfully misunderstand the expression; though they
have been told again and again, we mean thereby neither more
nor less than this: he feels, is inwardly sensible of, the graces
which the Spirit of God works in his heart. He feels, he is con-
scious of, a "peace which passeth all understanding. ” He many
times feels such a joy in God as is unspeakable, and full of
glory. ” He feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart by
the Holy Ghost, which is given unto him”; and all his spiritual
senses are then exercised to discern spiritual good and evil. By
(
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JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
the use of these, he is daily increasing in the knowledge of God,
of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and of all the things per-
taining to his inward kingdom. And now he may be properly
said to live: God having quickened him by His spirit, he is alive
to God through Jesus Christ. He lives a life which the world
knoweth not of, a “life which is hid with Christ in God. ” God
is continually breathing, as it were, upon the soul; and his soul
is breathing unto God. Grace is descending into his heart; and
prayer and praise ascending to heaven: and by this intercourse
between God and man, this fellowship with the Father and the
Son, as by a kind of spiritual respiration, the life of God in the
soul is sustained; and the child of God grows up, till he comes
to the full measure of the stature of Christ. ”
From hence it manifestly appears, what is the nature of the
new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul
when he brings it into life; when he raises it from the death of
sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the
whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God, when it is created
anew in Christ Jesus,” when it is renewed after the image of
God, in righteousness and true holiness”; when the love of the
world is changed into the love of God; pride into humility; pas-
sion into meekness; hatred, envy, malice, into a sincere, tender,
disinterested love for all mankind. In a word, it is that change
whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind is turned into the
“mind which was in Christ Jesus. ” This is the nature of the
new birth: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit. ”
OUR STEWARDSHIP
From a Discourse entitled (The Good Steward)
W*
E SHALL not receive ta còla — our own things — till we come
to our own country. Eternal things only are our own:
with all these temporal things we are barely intrusted by
another - the Disposer and Lord of all. And he intrusts us with
-
them on this express condition, that we use them only as our
Master's goods, and according to the particular directions which
he has given us in his word.
On this condition he hath intrusted us with our souls, our
bodies, our goods, and whatever other talents we have received;
but in order to impress this weighty truth on our hearts, it will
be needful to come to particulars.
## p. 15797 (#129) ##########################################
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And first, God has intrusted us with our soul,- an immortal
spirit, made in the image of God; together with all the powers
and faculties thereof, - understanding, imagination, memory, will,
and a train of affections, either included in it, or closely depend-
ent upon it,— love and hatred, joy and sorrow; respecting present
good and evil, desire and aversion; hope and fear, respecting that
which is to come.
All these St. Paul seems to include in two
words, when he says, “The peace of God shall keep your hearts
and minds. ” Perhaps indeed the latter word, vonpara, might rather
"
be rendered thoughts, provided we take that word in its most
extensive sense, for every perception of the mind, whether active
or passive.
Now of all these, it is certain we are only stewards. God has
intrusted us with these powers and faculties, not that we may
employ them according to our own will, but according to the
express orders which he has given us: although it is true that
in doing his will we most effectually secure our own happiness;
seeing it is herein only that we can be happy, either in time or
in eternity. Thus we are to use our understanding, our imagina-
tion, our memory, wholly to the glory of Him that gave them.
Thus our will is to be wholly given up to him, and all our affec-
tions to be regulated as he directs. We are to love and hate, to
rejoice and grieve, to desire and shun, to hope and fear, accord-
ing to the rule which he prescribes, whose we are, and whom we
are to serve in all things. Even our thoughts are not our
in this sense: they are not at our own disposal; but for every
deliberate motion of our mind, we are accountable to our great
Master
God has, secondly, intrusted us with our bodies (those exqui-
sitely wrought machines, so “fearfully and wonderfully made"),
”
with all the powers and members thereof. He has intrusted
us with the organs of sense; of sight, hearing, and the rest: but
none of these are given us as our own, to be employed accord-
ing to our own will. None of these are lent us in such a sense
as to leave us at liberty to use them as we please for a season.
No: we have received them on these very terms, that as long
as they abide with us, we should employ them all in that very
manner, and no other, which he appoints.
It is on the same terms that he imparted to us that most
excellent talent of speech. “Thou hast given me a tongue,” says
the ancient writer, “that I may praise thee therewith. ” For this
Own
## p. 15798 (#130) ##########################################
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JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY
purpose was it given to all the children of men, to be employed
in glorifying God. Nothing, therefore, is more ungrateful or
more absurd than to think or say, “Our tongues are our own. ”
That cannot be, unless we have created ourselves, and so are
independent of the Most High, Nay, but It is he that hath
made us,
and not we ourselves: " the manifest consequence is
that he is still Lord over us, in this as in all other respects. It
follows that there is not a word of our tongue for which we are
not accountable to him.
To him we are equally accountable for the use of our hands
and feet, and all the members of our body. These are so many
talents which are committed to our trust, until the time appointed
by the Father. Until then, we have the use of all these; but as
stewards, not as proprietors: to the end, we should render them,
not as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but as instru-
ments of righteousness unto God. ”
God has intrusted us, thirdly, with a portion of worldly goods,
with food to eat, raiment to put on, and a place where to lay
our head; with not only the necessaries but the conveniences of
life. Above all, he has committed to our charge that precious
talent which contains all the rest, - money: indeed it is unspeak-
ably precious, if we are wise and faithful stewards of it; if we
employ every part of it for such purposes as our blessed Lord
has commanded us to do.
God has intrusted us, fourthly, with several talents which do
not properly come under any of these heads. Such is bodily
strength; such are health, a pleasing person, an agreeable ad-
dress; such are learning and knowledge in their various degrees,
with all the other advantages of education. Such is the influence
which we have over others, whether by their love and esteem of
us, or by power-power to do them good or hurt, to help or hin-
der them in the circumstances of life. Add to these that invalu-
able talent of time, with which God intrusts us from moment
to moment. Add, lastly, that on which all the rest depend, and
without which they would all be curses, not blessings; namely,
the grace of God, the power of his Holy Spirit, which alone
worketh in us all that is acceptable in his sight.
