No More Learning

' They could
not foresee that a great literary revival was to be the outgrowth of
Ewald's work, and realized only that the new writer had forsaken the
examples of literary excellence hitherto most approved by people of
good taste. Although not very directly related to this particular
conflict of æsthetic opinion, Ewald's three satirical or controversial
plays were a natural product of the factious conditions of the time.
'Pebersvendene' (The Bachelors), 'De Brutale Klappere' (The Brutal
Claqueurs), and Harlekin Patriot'-the first in prose, the two others
in verse - did but little for the poet's fame, and are chiefly interest-
ing as evidence of his almost absolute lack of humor. Oehlen-
schläger's judgment of Harlekin Patriot,' the best of the three,
must be accepted as the final word of criticism upon this subject:-
"We cannot regard the piece as a comic drama, for it is destitute of
action, characterization, illusion, and comic nature. "
Only two of Ewald's works now remain to be accounted for, but
they are his masterpieces; 'Balder's Död' (Balder's Death), and
'Fiskerne (The Fishers), each a three-act drama in verse. . For the
tragedy of 'Balder's Död' the poet turned once more to Saxo for in-
spiration, and produced a far finer and deeper work than 'Rolf
Krage,' his earlier essay in this direction, had been. The work was
moreover the first Danish drama to forsake the conventional and
unwieldy Alexandrine verse for the freer movement and richer possi-
bilities of the iambic pentameter. It is still possible to find many
faults with this poem, to censure it for its nebulous ideality, its
monotony, its lack of adequate motivation, to accept, in short, nearly
X-352


## p. 5618 (#192) ###########################################

5618
JOHANNES EWALD
all of the adverse criticisms of Oehlenschläger and Welhaven; yet
there remains enough of the beautiful in its diction and of the mas-
terly in its construction amply to justify the high place that the work
occupies in Danish literature. At its best, and particularly in its
lyrical portions, the poem soars to a height that had never before
been reached by Danish song; it was at once a revelation of the
author's full-fledged genius and of the poetical capacities of his
mother tongue.
The production of Ewald's Fiskerne,' his last great work, is
associated with almost the only gleam of light that fell upon his
pathway. He had been living the larger part of his adult life away
from the capital, in one country or sea-coast village after another, in
great poverty, suffering much of the time from a severe form of
rheumatism. At one time the poor-house seemed his only hope of
refuge. From all this misery he was finally rescued by a friend,
through whose efforts he was brought back to Copenhagen, provided
with a comfortable home, and granted aid by the court. 'Balder's
Död' was put upon the boards of the Royal Theatre, and the poet
at last tasted the sweets of popularity. At the same time his health
bettered, and he found strength to devote himself to the new poem
which was to prove his last. 'Fiskerne is a lyrical drama - almost
what we should call a cantata based upon the story of a ship-
wreck that had occurred a few years before. In this work Ewald's
imagination, psychological insight, and lyric impulse found their
highest expression. Above all, the poem is informed with a passion-
ate patriotism and a sense of the sea power of Denmark — qualities
that affected the national consciousness like wine, and have never
lost their charm and their inspiration. One of the lyrics included in
this drama became and has ever since remained the national song
of Denmark, and no nation can boast a nobler one.
After the production and success of 'Fiskerne,' Ewald set about
the preparation of a uniform edition of his complete writings, but
lived to witness the publication of only one volume.
His partly
restored health soon failed him again, and he died, after much suf-
fering, in his thirty-eighth year. He was buried in the grave-yard of
Trinity Church, Copenhagen, in the presence of a great assembly of
his fellow-countrymen, tardily brought to recognize the fact that with
his death a great national poet had passed away.
Ewald's reputation has undergone the vicissitudes that usually
come to the memory of men of genius. . For a time the subject of
indiscriminate laudation, his work was attacked by the searching criti-
cism of later writers, notably Oehlenschläger and Welhaven, and his
reputation suffered for a time. Since then his fame has again grown
bright, and it is probable that something like the final estimate
―


## p. 5619 (#193) ###########################################

JOHANNES EWALD
5619
has been placed upon his work. And a high place in Danish litera-
ture must always be occupied by the man who wrote the national
ballad of King Christian,' who brought the pathetic quality into
Danish poetry, who first revealed the lyrical possibilities of the Dan-
ish language, who established the verse form that was ever thereafter
to be chosen for the poetical drama, and who first among moderns
tapped the well-spring of the inspiration that was to flow into Scan-
dinavian literature from the rich legendary inheritance of the old
Norse myth-makers and saga-men.
Etta Payles
[Ewald's King Christian,' in Longfellow's familiar translation, stands at
the head of the following selections. The other translations, in verse and
prose, have been made by me for this work. ]
W. M. P.
THE DANISH NATIONAL SONG
ING CHRISTIAN stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;
His sword was hammering so fast,
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed.
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast
In mist and smoke.
"Fly! " shouted they, "fly, he who can!
Who braves of Denmark's Christian
The stroke? "
K™
Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar:
Now is the hour!
He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,
And smote upon the foe full sore,
And shouted loud through the tempest's roar,
"Now is the hour! "
"Fly! " shouted they, "for shelter fly!
Of Denmark's Juel who can defy
The power? >»
North Sea! a glimpse of Wessel rent
Thy murky sky!
Then champions to thine arms were sent;
Terror and Death glared where he went,


## p. 5620 (#194) ###########################################

5620
JOHANNES EWALD
From the waves was heard a wail that rent
Thy murky sky!
From Denmark thunders Tordenskiol';
Let each to Heaven commend his soul,
And fly!
Path of the Dane to fame and might,
Dark-rolling wave!
Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight,
Goes to meet danger with despite,
Proudly as thou the tempest's might,
Dark-rolling wave!
And amid pleasures and alarms,
And war and victory, be thine arms
My grave!
Longfellow's Translation.
FIRST LOVE
From 'Life and Opinions›
Ο
NE morning, the most unforgettable, the most blessed of my
life, she bade me take some lace to one of her cousins,
whom I had not seen before. I followed my directions,
and asked for the eldest Jomfrue Hulegaard. She was sitting
with her parents at table, and came out to see me in the room
to which I had been admitted. She came,-Oh Heavens! O
happy moment! how gladly would I recall thee, and cleave to
thee with my whole soul, and forget all my misfortunes, all that
I have suffered for thy sake! She came
-my Arendse !
I have dared the attempt to depict her, but did I possess all
the art of Raphael and all the art of Petrarch combined, and
should I devote my whole lifetime to picture her image, as at the
first dazzled gaze it became imprinted upon my heart and re-
mains there unchanged after so many years, I could produce
but a dull and imperfect copy thereof. She was my Arendse, and
who can see her with my eyes, or feel her with my heart?
Love beamed from her glance, love played upon her lips, love
was fragrant in her heaving bosom. Her every expression seemed
to cry out, Love! love! love! Nature, heaven, and earth all
vanished, and my throbbing, melting heart felt the blissful rap-
ture of an unspeakable affection. O my Arendse! thou wast
――
1


## p. 5621 (#195) ###########################################

JOHANNES EWALD
5621
surely intended for me by Him who made us both. Why does
another now possess thee? Perchance this is presumptuous-
God forgive me if it is-but the thought is very anguish to me.
I will forget it—if I can.
One cannot, I think, better cool his passion than by formulat-
ing opinions. I will deliver myself of two that may best be ex-
pressed in connection with this catastrophe, which will always be
to me the most serious of my life: the one is, that the first real
love depends upon a sort of sympathy or an instinctive bent that
I cannot explain, and is not deliberately to be evoked; the other
is, that the heart, if I may thus express myself, has its virginity,
and cannot possibly lose it more than once. But I must turn
back to my sweet sorrow.
My cheeks burned, my knees trembled. I stammered out my
errand as best I might, thinking of nothing else, looking at nothing
else, but Arendse. Afterwards she often told me that she marked
my agitation, and I replied that my loving heart did not find it
exactly flattering that she should have been able to mark it so
distinctly.
When I realized from the silence of my Arendse that I must
have done my errand, I ventured hesitatingly to press her hand
to my lips, and heavenly fires shot blissful from her fingers
to the depths of my soul. I lost possession of myself. I re-
treated backwards, bowing every moment, and since I at last
came to the head of a steep staircase without noticing it, my love
would in all probability, had she not spoken a word of warning,
have either found prompt expression, or once for all have worked
out its sorrowful, its terrible influence upon my fate. But I was
destined for deeper sufferings than the heaviest fall can cause,
and it was decreed that through my love I should lose more than
my life.
If you believe in omens, gentlemen, you may take this for
one!
I wake at this moment from a mood of deep reflection. I
have sat for half an hour with folded arms, trying to answer for
myself the question whether I would have missed all the tortur-
ing pangs, all the depressing misfortunes of which this first love
of mine has been the cause, on condition that I should have
missed too all the sweetness, all the blissfulness, it has brought
me; and now I can answer with a clear conscience: No! I should
indeed be very ungrateful to make plaint about it, if it had


## p. 5622 (#196) ###########################################

5622
JOHANNES EWALD
brought me nothing more than grief and misfortune. But it was
also one of the first and weightiest causes of the most serious
mistake of my life, and this feeling of its full consequences was
what drew from me just now the not altogether baseless state-
ment that it had cost me more than my life.
FROM THE FISHERS'
NOTE. This translation of the closing scene of Ewald's lyrical drama
(Fiskerne requires a word of explanation. The characters are a group of
simple fisher folk: Anders, his wife Gunild, their daughters Lise and Birthe,
and the young men Knud and Svend, betrothed to the two girls. A ship has
been wrecked upon the coast, and the men have rescued one of the sailors
from death, but have lost their own boat and fishing-tackle in so doing. This
is a serious matter, for it threatens the contemplated marriage of the young
When the scene which we have translated opens, the whole group of
fisher folk, together with the rescued seaman, have been talking over the situa-
tion; and there now appears upon the stage Odelhiem, a wealthy and philan-
thropic Dane, who has learned of their bravery and what it has cost them.
men.
W. M. P.
DELHIEM
Forgive
If I, unknown to you, should claim too freely
A share, a modest share, in your rejoicings;
For joy must wait on strife o'er deeds of heroes.
By merest chance I too was made acquainted
With what concerns you now; the part remaining
I learned from Claus. And now I beg, I pray you,
To hear what from my inmost heart is welling;
To hear how Heaven within my soul bears witness.
Knud We know not who you are.
Odelhiem-
Knud-
Odelhiem [addressing the rescued sailor]-
O
―――
A Dane.
Well, speak then.
That thou, my friend, shouldst offer all thy substance
To them who saved thee was but just. Thy ardor
Ennobles thee; thy life was worth the saving.
And that these brave men blush to hear thy offer,
And rather choose the lot of poverty,
Is but their nature, and to be expected.
The gold that thou didst seek to force upon them
Would but oppress them, would the joy but darken
That now is theirs, and that alone they sought for,-
Thy life, thy grateful tears, thy heart's thanksgiving.
Nor do I wonder that these hearts heroic
-


## p. 5623 (#197) ###########################################

JOHANNES EWALD
5623
Should thrill with shame at any speech of payment;
For noble actions are their own adornment;
The very thought of profit casts a shadow
Over their splendor. This know well the righteous.
Yet, brothers, 'tis our duty that we spurn not
The meed unsought, on us bestowed by Heaven.
Gunild-That has been ours.
Odelhiem-
Svend-
Knud
Odelhiem
Noble soul, I know it!
But may we face our God, dust-shapen creatures,
And cry to him, Desist! enough of blessings!
And have not all of us a loving mother
Who may compel acceptance ?
Who?
Where?
Odelhiem-
Whose right it is, whose pleasure, and whose honor,
Virtue to crown, as to condemn the wicked.
The tenderest of mothers still must loosen
The bonds wherewith she holds us, and all fearful,
Intrust our footsteps to ourselves and Heaven,
Ere we attain to noble deeds, the well-spring
Denmark;
Whence streams the light that decks her with its splendor.
Yet still she draws men to her- not the valorous,
They find their own way- but our weaker brothers
She draws to her with prayer and promised guerdon,
With hopes, and with report of others' fortune.
And you whose hearts are burdened with the feeling
That this, of all your days the very fairest,
Should bring you unawaited grim misfortune,
The loss of wealth, the pang of hopeless passion,-
Shall you give cause for men to say reproachful:
"These folk gave glory to our haughty Denmark
By great heroic deeds, and now they languish
In want and woe, by Denmark unrequited"?
Knud My heart is Danish; he should feel its anger
Who in my hearing dared to rail at Denmark,
And what she offers, men should not hold lightly;
Yet how, and in what shape, she offers largess
Our losses to repair, bring cheer to others,—
That is not clear to my poor understanding.
Know that her arms outstretched are ever helpful;
All-powerful is her will; her law forever
Binds to her lofty aims her wealthy children.


## p. 5624 (#198) ###########################################

5624
JOHANNES EWALD
Svend
Knud-
Anders
Gunild
Knud-
Svend-
Lise
Odelhiem
-
Their joy to cherish valorous deeds, their duty
To offer in her name whatever solace,
Whatever help and strength there lies in riches.
Conscious that wealth was mine, I stood rejoicing
That I was near, and heard her voice. O brothers!
Do not begrudge the joy with which I hearken
To such a mother's hest: for I have hearkened,
And with the friend whose guest I am up yonder
Have left the cost of boat and wedding outfit;
While for our Anders and the noble fellows
Who bravely took their part in all the danger,
Is set apart a gift of equal value.
And every year, so long as still is living
One of the five, they and their children's children
Shall, that this day be evermore remembered,
Receive an equal pledge of Denmark's bounty.
For all this I have taken care; this, brothers,
To do, your deed and our fair land command me.
Thy words are generous and noble, stranger;
They overwhelm us.
I believe, by Heaven,
My soul is wax. When played I thus the woman?
Because my tears are flowing, do not scorn me!
What shall I answer thee? Speak for me, Anders!
I know thee now, the man of noble presence
Our friend has told us of. Great soul and worthy,
Do what thou will'st; thou hast deserved the pleasure
Of helping honest Danes! 'Twere pride stiff-necked
In us to scorn so generous an offer.
Ingratitude it were, and sin toward Heaven.
We thank thee, noble soul!
We thank thee deeply!
Our tears, too, give thee thanks!
Not me, but Denmark!
This is its festal day; with song and gladness,
The cheerful bowl, and-for our maidens' pleasure -
The merry dance, I trust that we may end it.
All is provided. Now, my worthy brothers,
We will forget the past, and but remember
The valor and the fortune of our country.
CHORUS
Odelhiem- The deed that is not felt a burden,
That leaves within the breast no smart,
T


## p. 5625 (#199) ###########################################

JOHANNES EWALD
5625
To deeds of ripe and lasting worth!
May Danish soil give ever birth
To deeds of ripe and lasting worth!
Gunild-O piety, where thy gentle leaven
All-
All-
Anders
All-
Lise-
All-
―
All-
Good hap be evermore its guerdon,
While freedom warms the Cimbrian heart.
May Danish soil give ever birth
Our joy to follow wisdom's beck,
That noble deeds our lives may deck.
The courage that in old days melted
The warrior-maid's defense of pride,
Still stirs the hero, as, unbelted,
He lies at his beloved's side.
Still loving Danish maidens start
The fire that lights the hero-heart.
Still loving Danish maidens start
The fire that lights the hero-heart.
Svend Where countless footprints onward reaching
To valiant souls a pathway ope,
The chosen way of honor teaching,
Bidding them forward march with hope:
On Denmark's memory-famous strand
Men win renown at danger's hand.
On Denmark's memory-famous strand
Men win renown at danger's hand.
Birthe Where men with unknown brothers vying
In life and death make common cause;
Where sympathy consoles the dying,
And slays despair in death's own jaws;
Where hearts for love of Denmark swell,
Deceit and evil dare not dwell.
-
With promise fair fills young and old,
And mingles with the dreams that Heaven
On earth bestows of joy untold;
True courage from thy strength doth spring,
And seeks the shadow of thy wing.
True courage from thy strength doth spring,
And seeks the shadow of thy wing.
Where smiles from Heaven shed light abiding,
Rewarding our industrious days,
The sons of courage safely guiding
Upon the old well-trodden ways:
Where brave men follow wisdom's beck,
Heroic deeds our annals deck.


## p. 5626 (#200) ###########################################

5626
JOHANNES EWALD
Where hearts for love of Denmark swell,
Deceit and evil dare not dwell.
Knud Beloved Sea, thy life unresting
We feel our inmost veins transfuse;
Our hearts grow stout thy billows breasting;
Thy air our failing strength renews;
Our pride and joy, O Northern Sea!
The Danish soul takes fire from thee.
Our pride and joy, O Northern Sea!
The Danish soul takes fire from thee.
Ye golden fields, rest ever smiling!
Foam in thy pride, blue-silver wave!
Be, 'neath thy guard of warriors whiling,
Ever the birth-land of the brave!
Denmark, of valor be the home!
And honored for all time to come!
Denmark, of valor be the home,
And honored for all time to come!
All-
All
Men
Women
Men
Women-
All-
―
―
-
[The play ends with a dance of the fisher folk.


## p. 5627 (#201) ###########################################

5627
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
(1831-)
MONG the influences that have formed my life," says Dean Far-
rar, "I must mention the character of my mother. She had
no memorial in this world; she passed her life in the deep
valley of poverty, obscurity, and trial, but she has left to her only
surviving son the recollections of a saint. As a boy I was not sent
to our great English public schools, but to one which is comparatively
unknown, although several men were trained there who are now play-
ing a considerable part in the world. That school was King William's
College, at Castleton on the Isle of Man.
I have sketched the natural surroundings of
the school, and many little incidents of its
daily life, in the first book I wrote-Eric,
or Little by Little,>» now in its twenty-
sixth edition. "Accident," he continues,
"made me an author. The proposal to
write a book on school life came unsought,
and I naturally found in my own reminis-
cences the colors in which I had to work. "

-
Born in Bombay in 1831, Farrar took
numerous prizes and honors during his
school life at King's College, and at nine-
teen was made classical exhibitioner of the
London University, where he was gradu-
ated. In 1854 he took his bachelor's degree at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, was ordained deacon, and in 1857 was admitted to priest's
orders. For several years he was an assistant master at Harrow; in
1871 became head-master of Marlborough College, where he remained
till April 1876, when he was appointed canon in Westminster Abbey
and rector of St. Margaret's. While at Harrow he was made chap-
lain to the Queen, and in 1883 Archdeacon of Westminster. He is
at present Dean of Canterbury.
His literary fecundity is extraordinary. Besides his 'Life of Christ,'
which gave him an almost world-wide fame; his 'Life and Work of
St. Paul' and his 'Beginnings of Christianity,' each of which repre-
sents much labor, he has written a course of Hulsean Lectures on
the Witness of History to Christ'; a bulky volume on Eschatology';
(
FREDERICK W. FARRAR


## p. 5628 (#202) ###########################################

5628
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
three linguistic works, The Origin of Language,' 'Chapters on Lan-
guage,' and 'Families of Speech', two popular romances, 'Darkness
and Dawn' and 'Gathering Clouds'; and many volumes of sermons
and theological papers.
PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA
From The Life and Work of St. Paul'
I
T WAS not, as is commonly represented, a new trial. That
would have been on all grounds impossible. Agrippa was
without judicial functions, and the authority of the procura-
tor had been cut short by the appeal.
It was more of the nature
of a private or drawing-room audience,-a sort of show occasion
designed for the amusement of these princely guests and the
idle aristocracy of Cæsarea, both Jewish and Gentile. Festus
ordered the auditorium to be prepared for the occasion, and
invited all the chief officers of the army and the principal inhab-
itants of the town. The Herods were fond of show, and Festus
gratified their humor by a grand processional display. He would
doubtless appear in his scarlet paludament, with his full attend-
ance of lictors and body-guard, who would stand at arms behind
the gilded chairs which were placed for himself and his distin-
guished visitors. We are expressly told that Agrippa and Beren-
ice went in state to the Prætorium, she doubtless blazing with
all her jewels and he in his purple robes, and both with the
golden circlets of royalty around their foreheads, and attended
by a suite of followers in the most gorgeous apparel of Eastern
pomp. It was a compliment to the new governor to visit him
with as much splendor as possible, and both he and his guests
were not sorry to furnish a spectacle which would at once illus-
trate their importance and their mutual cordiality. Did Agrippa
think of his great-grandfather Herod, and the massacre of the
innocents? of his great-uncle Antipas, and the murder of John
the Baptist? Of his father Agrippa I. , and the execution of
James the Elder? Did he recall the fact that they had each died
or been disgraced, soon after or in direct consequence of those
inflictions of martyrdom? Did he realize how closely but unwit-
tingly the faith in that "one Jesus" had been linked with the
destinies of his house? Did the pomp of to-day remind him of
the pomp sixteen years earlier, when his much more powerful
father had stood in the theatre, with the sunlight blazing on the


## p. 5629 (#203) ###########################################

FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5629
tissued silver of his robe, and the people shouting that he was a
god? Did none of the dark memories of the place overshadow
him as he entered that former palace of his race? It is very
unlikely. Extreme vanity, gratified self-importance, far more
probably absorbed the mind of this titular king, as in all the
pomp of phantom sovereignty he swept along the large open
hall, seated himself with his beautiful sister by the procurator's
side, and glanced with cold curiosity on the poor worn, shackled
prisoner-pale with sickness and long imprisonment - who was
led in at his command.
Festus opened the proceedings in a short complimentary
speech, in which he found an excuse for the gathering by saying
that on the one hand the Jews were extremely infuriated against
this man, and that on the other he was entirely innocent, so far
as he could see, of any capital crime. Since however he was a
Roman citizen, and had appealed to Cæsar, it was necessary to
send to "the Lord" some minute of the case by way of elogium,
and he was completely perplexed as to what he ought to say.
He was therefore glad of the opportunity to bring the prisoner
before this distinguished assembly; that they, and especially King
Agrippa, might hear what he had to say for himself, and so, by
forming some sort of preliminary judgment, relieve Festus from
the ridiculous position of sending a prisoner without being able
to state any definite crime with which he had been charged.
As no accusers were present, and this was not in any respect
a judicial assembly, Agrippa, as the person for whom the whole
scene was got up, told Paul that he was allowed to speak about
himself. Had the Apostle been of a morose disposition he might
have despised the hollowness of these mock proceedings. Had he
been actuated by any motives lower than the highest, he might
have seized the opportunity to flatter himself into favor in the
absence of his enemies. But the predominant feature in his, as
in the very greatest characters, was a continual seriousness and
earnestness; and his only desire was to plead not his own cause,
but that of his Master. Festus, with the Roman adulation, which
in that age outran even the appetite of absolutism, had used that
title of "the Lord," which the later emperors seized with avid-
ity, but which the earliest and ablest of them had contemptuously
refused. But Paul was neither imposed upon by these colossal
titles of reverence, nor daunted by these pompous inanities of
reflected power.


## p. 5630 (#204) ###########################################

5630
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
There is not a word of his address which does not prove how
completely he was at his ease. The scarlet sagum of the pro-
curator, the fasces of the lictors, the swords of the legionaries,
the gleaming armor of the chiliarchs, did not for one moment
daunt him,—they were a terror, not to good works but to the
evil; and he felt that his was a service which was above all
sway.
Stretching out his hand in the manner familiar to the orators
whom he had often heard in Tarsus or in Antioch, he began
by the sincere remark that he was particularly happy to make
his defense before King Agrippa, not—which would have been
false for any special worth of his, but because the prince had
received from his father-whose anxiety to conform to the Law,
both written and oral, was well known-an elaborate training in
all matters of Jewish religion and casuistry, which could not fail
to interest him in a question of which he was so competent to
judge. He begged therefore for a patient audience; and nar-
rated once more the familiar story of his conversion from the
standpoint of a rigid and bigoted Pharisee to a belief that the
Messianic hopes of his nation had now been actually fulfilled, in
that Jesus of Nazareth whose followers he had at first furiously
persecuted, but who had won him by a personal revelation of
his glory to the knowledge that he had risen from the dead.
Why should that belief appear incredible to his hearers? It once
had been so to himself; but how could he resist the eye-witness
of a noonday vision? and how could he disobey the heavenly
voice which sent him forth to open the eyes both of Jews and
Gentiles, that they might turn from darkness to light and the
power of Satan unto God; that by faith in Jesus they might
receive remission of sins and a lot among the sanctified? He
had not been disobedient to it. In Damascus, in Jerusalem,
throughout all Judea, and subsequently among the Gentiles, he
had been a preacher of repentance and conversion towards God,
and a life consistent therewith. This was why the Jews had
seized him in the Temple and tried to tear him to pieces; but in
this and every danger God had helped him, and the testimony
which he bore to small and great was no blasphemy, no apos-
tasy, but simply a truth in direct accordance with the teachings
of Moses and the Prophets: that the Messiah should be liable to
suffering, and that from his resurrection from the dead a light
should dawn to lighten both the Gentiles and his people.
—


## p. 5631 (#205) ###########################################

FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5631
Paul was now launched on the full tide of that sacred and
impassioned oratory which was so powerful an agent in his mis-
sion work. He was delivering to kings and governors and chief
captains that testimony which was the very object of his life.
Whether on other topics his speech was as contemptible as his
enemies chose to represent, we cannot say; but on this topic, at
any rate, he spoke with the force of long familiarity and the
fire of intense conviction. He would probably have proceeded to
develop the great thesis which he had just sketched in outline;
but at this point he was stopped short. These facts and revela-
tions were new to Festus. Though sufficiently familiar with true
culture to recognize it even through these Oriental surroundings,
he could only listen open-mouthed to this impassioned tale of
visions, and revelations, and ancient prophecies, and of a Jewish
Prophet who had been crucified and yet had risen from the
dead and was Divine, and who could forgive sins and lighten
the darkness of Jews as well as of Gentiles. He had been get-
ting more and more astonished, and the last remark was too
much for him. He suddenly burst out with the loud and ex-
cited interruption, "You are mad, Paul; those many writings are
turning your brain. " His startling ejaculation checked the ma-
jestic stream of the Apostle's eloquence, but did not otherwise
ruffle his exquisite courtesy. "I am not mad," he exclaimed
with calm modesty, giving to Festus his recognized title of
"your Excellency," "but I am uttering words of reality and
soberness. "
But Festus was not the person whom he was mainly address-
ing, nor were these the reasonings which he would be likely to
understand. It was different with Agrippa. He had read Moses
and the Prophets, and had heard from multitudes of witnesses
some at least of the facts to which Paul referred. To him, there-
fore, the Apostle appealed in proof of his perfect sanity. "The
king," he said, "knows about these things, to whom it is even
with confidence that I am addressing my remarks. I am sure
that he is by no means unaware of any of these circumstances,
for all that I say has not been done in a corner. " And then,
wishing to resume the thread of his argument at the point where
it had been broken, and where it would be most striking to a
Jew, he asked:-
"King Agrippa, dost thou believe the Prophets? I know that
thou believest. "
―


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5632
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
But Agrippa did not choose to be entrapped into a discussion,
still less into an assent. Not old in years, but accustomed from
his boyhood to an atmosphere of cynicism and unbelief, he could
only smile with the good-natured contempt of a man of the
world at the enthusiastic earnestness which could even for a
moment fancy that he would be converted to the heresy of the
Nazarenes with their crucified Messiah! Yet he did not wish to
be uncourteous. It was impossible not to admire the burning
zeal which neither stripes nor prisons could quench, the clear-
sighted faith which not even such a surrounding could for a
moment dim.
"You are trying to persuade me off-hand to be a Christian'! ,”
he said with a half-suppressed smile; and this finished specimen
of courtly cutrapelia was his bantering answer to St. Paul's ap-
peal. Doubtless his polished remark on this compendious style
of making converts sounded very witty to that distinguished com-
pany; and they would with difficulty suppress their laughter at
the notion that Agrippa, favorite of Claudius, friend of Nero,
King of Chalcis, Ituræa, Trachonitis, nominator of the High
Priest, and supreme guardian of the Temple treasures, should
succumb to the potency of this "short method with a Jew. "
That a Paul should make the king a Christian (! ) would sound
too ludicrous. But the laugh would be instantly suppressed in
pity and admiration of the poor but noble prisoner, as with per-
fect dignity he took advantage of Agrippa's ambiguous expres-
sion, and said with all the fervent sincerity of a loving heart,
"I could pray to God that whether in little' or 'in much,' not
thou only, but even all who are listening to me to-day might
become even such as I am- except," he added, as he raised his
fettered hand-"except these bonds. " They saw that this was
indeed no common prisoner. One who could argue as he had
argued, and speak as he had spoken; one who was so filled with
the exaltation of an inspiring idea, so enriched with the happi-
ness of a firm faith and a peaceful conscience, that he could tell
them how he prayed that they all-all these princely and dis-
tinguished people - could be even such as he; and who yet in
the spirit of entire forgiveness desired that the sharing in his
faith might involve no share in his sorrows or misfortunes-
must be such a one as they never yet had seen or known, either
in the worlds of Jewry or of heathendom. But was useless to
prolong the scene. Curiosity was now sufficiently gratified, and
-


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FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5633
it had become clearer than ever that though they might regard
Paul the prisoner as an amiable enthusiast or an inspired fanatic,
he was in no sense a legal criminal. The king, by rising from
his seat, gave the signal for breaking up the meeting; Berenice
and Festus and their respective retinues rose up at the same
time, and as the distinguished assembly dispersed, they were heard
remarking on all sides that Paul was undeserving of death, or
even of imprisonment. He had made, in fact, a deeply favor-
able impression. Agrippa's decision was given entirely for his
acquittal. "This person," he said to Festus, "might have been
permanently set at liberty if he had not appealed to Cæsar. "
Agrippa was far too little of a Pharisee and far too much of a
man of the world not to see that mere freedom of thought could
not be, and ought not to be, suppressed by external violence.
The proceedings of that day probably saved St. Paul's life full
two years afterwards. Festus, since his own opinion on grounds
of Roman justice was so entirely confirmed from the Jewish
point of view by the Protector of the Temple, could hardly fail
to send to Nero an elogium which freely exonerated the prisoner
from every legal charge; and even if Jewish intrigues were put
in play against him, Nero could not condemn to death a man
whom Felix, and Lysias, and Festus, and Agrippa, and even the
Jewish Sanhedrim, in the only trial of the case which they had
held, had united in pronouncing innocent of any capital crime.
ROMAN CIVILIZATION UNDER NERO
From The Early Days of Christianity'
I
NEED but make a passing allusion to its enormous wealth; its
unbounded self-indulgence; its coarse and tasteless luxury; its
greedy avarice; its sense of insecurity and terror; its apathy,
debauchery, and cruelty; its hopeless fatalism; its unspeakable
sadness and weariness; its strange extravagances alike of infidelity.
and of superstition.
At the lowest extreme of the social scale were millions of
slaves, without family, without religion, without possessions, who
had no recognized rights, and towards whom none had any rec-
ognized duties, passing normally from a childhood of degradation
to a manhood of hardship and an old age of unpitied neglect.
X-353


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FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
Only a little above the slaves stood the lower classes, who formed
the vast majority of the free-born inhabitants of the Roman
Empire. They were for the most part beggars and idlers, famil-
iar with the grossest indignities of an unscrupulous dependence.
Despising a life of honest industry, they asked only for bread
and the games of the circus, and were ready to support any
government, even the most despotic, if it would supply these
needs. They spent their mornings in lounging about the Forum
or in dancing attendance at the levées of patrons, for a share in
whose largesses they daily struggled. They spent their afternoons
and evenings in gossiping at the public baths, in listlessly enjoy-
ing the polluted plays of the theatre, or looking with fierce
thrills of delighted horror at the bloody sports of the arena. At
night they crept up to their miserable garrets in the sixth and
seventh stories of the huge insula, - the lodging-houses of
Rome, into which, as into the low lodging-houses of the poorer
quarters of London, there drifted all that was most wretched and
most vile. Their life, as it is described for us by their contem-
poraries, was largely made up of squalor, misery, and vice.
Immeasurably removed from these needy and greedy freemen,
and living chiefly amid crowds of corrupted and obsequious
slaves, stood the constantly diminishing throng of the wealthy
and the noble. Every age in its decline has exhibited the spec-
tacle of selfish luxury side by side with abject poverty; of —
-
"Wealth, a monster gorged
'Mid starving populations:"
but nowhere and at no period were these contrasts so startling
as they were in imperial Rome. There a whole population
might be trembling lest they should be starved by the delay of
an Alexandrian corn-ship, while the upper classes were squan-
dering a fortune at a single banquet, drinking out of myrrhine
and jeweled vases worth hundreds of pounds, and feasting on
the brains of peacocks and the tongues of nightingales. As a
consequence, disease was rife, men were short-lived, and even
women became liable to gout. Over a large part of Italy, most
of the free-born population had to content themselves even in
winter with a tunic, and the luxury of the toga was reserved
only, by way of honor, to the corpse. Yet at this very time the
dress of Roman ladies displayed an unheard-of splendor. The
elder Pliny tells us that he himself saw Lollia Paulina dressed for


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FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5635
a betrothal feast in a robe entirely covered with pearls and emer-
alds, which had cost forty million sesterces, and which was known
to be less costly than some of her other dresses. Gluttony,
caprice, extravagance, ostentation, impurity, rioted in the heart of
a society which knew of no other means by which to break the
monotony of its weariness, or alleviate the anguish of its despair.
"On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad in furious guise
Along the Appian Way;
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers -
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours. "
At the summit of the whole decaying system - necessary, yet
detested; elevated indefinitely above the very highest, yet living.
in dread of the very lowest; oppressing a population which he
terrified, and terrified by the population which he oppressed-
was an emperor, raised to the divinest pinnacle of autocracy,
yet conscious that his life hung upon a thread; an emperor
who in the terrible phrase of Gibbon was at once a priest, an
atheist, and a god.
The general condition of society was such as might have been
expected from the existence of these elements. The Romans had
entered on a stage of fatal degeneracy from the first day of
their close intercourse with Greece. Greece learnt from Rome
her cold-blooded cruelty; Rome learnt from Greece her voluptuous
corruption. Family life among the Romans had once been a
sacred thing, and for 520 years divorce had been unknown among
them. Under the empire, marriage had come to be regarded
with disfavor and disdain. Women, as Seneca says, married in
order to be divorced, and were divorced in order to marry; and
noble Roman matrons counted the years not by the Consuls, but
by their discarded or discarding husbands.
To have a family was regarded as a misfortune, because the
childless were courted with extraordinary assiduity by crowds of


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5636
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
fortune-hunters.
When there were children in a family, their edu-
cation was left to be begun under the tutelage of those slaves
who were otherwise the most decrepit and useless, and was car-
ried on, with results too fatally obvious, by supple, accomplished,
and abandoned Greeklings. But indeed, no system of education.
could have eradicated the influence of the domestic circle. No
care could have prevented the sons and daughters of a wealthy
family from catching the contagion of the vices of which they
saw in their parents a constant and unblushing example.
tion.
Literature and art were infected with the prevalent degrada-
Poetry sank in great measure into exaggerated satire,
hollow declamation, or frivolous epigrams. Art was partly cor-
rupted by the fondness for glare, expensiveness, and size, and
partly sank into miserable triviality, or immoral prettinesses, such
as those which decorated the walls of Pompeii in the first cen-
tury and the Parc aux Cerfs in the eighteenth. Greek statues of
the days of Phidias were ruthlessly decapitated, that their heads
might be replaced by the scowling or imbecile features of a
Caius or a Claudius. Nero, professing to be a connoisseur, thought
that he improved the Alexander of Lysimachus by gilding it
from head to foot. Eloquence, deprived of every legitimate aim
and used almost solely for purposes of insincere display, was
tempted to supply the lack of genuine fire by sonorous euphony
and theatrical affectation. A training in rhetoric was now under-
stood to be a training in the art of emphasis and verbiage,
which was rarely used for any loftier purpose than to make
sycophancy plausible, or to embellish sophistry with speciousness.
The drama, even in Horace's days, had degenerated into a
vehicle for the exhibition of scenic splendor or ingenious ma-
chinery. Dignity, wit, pathos, were no longer expected on the
stage, for the dramatist was eclipsed by the swordsman or the
rope-dancer. The actors who absorbed the greatest part of popu-
lar favor were pantomimists, whose insolent prosperity was gen-
erally in direct proportion to the infamy of their character. And
while the shamelessness of the theatre corrupted the purity of
all classes from the earliest age, the hearts of the multitude
were made hard as the nether millstone with brutal insensibility,
by the fury of the circus, the atrocities of the amphitheatre, and
the cruel orgies of the games. Augustus, in the document
annexed to his will, mentioned that he had exhibited 8,000 glad-
iators, and 3,510 wild beasts. The old warlike spirit of the


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FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5637
Romans was dead, among the gilded youth of families in which
distinction of any kind was certain to bring down upon its most
prominent members the murderous suspicion of irresponsible des-
pots. The spirit which had once led the Domitii and the Fabii
"to drink delight of battle with their peers" on the plains of
Gaul and in the forests of Germany, was now satiated by gazing
on criminals fighting for dear life with bears and tigers, or upon
bands of gladiators who hacked each other to pieces on the
encrimsoned sand. The languid enervation of the delicate and
dissolute aristocrat could only be amused by magnificence and
stimulated by grossness or by blood. Thus the gracious illusions
by which true art has ever aimed at purging the passions of
terror and pity, were extinguished by the realism of tragedies.
ignobly horrible and comedies intolerably base. Two phrases
sum up the characteristics of Roman civilization in the days of
the empire-heartless cruelty, and unfathomable corruption.
CHRIST AND PILATE
From The Life of Christ'
A
SON of God! The notion was far less strange and repulsive
to a heathen than to a Jew; and this word, unheard before,
startled Pilate with the third omen which made him trem-
ble at the crime into which he was being dragged by guilt and
fear. Once more, leaving the yelling multitude without, he takes
Jesus with him into the quiet judgment hall, and-"jam pro sud
conscientia Christianus," as Tertullian so finely observes — asks
him in awe-struck accents, "Whence art thou? " Alas! it was too
late to answer now. Pilate was too deeply committed to his gross
cruelty and injustice; for him Jesus had spoken enough already;
for the wild beasts who raged without, he had no more to say.
He did not answer. Then, almost angrily, Pilate broke out with
the exclamation, "Dost thou not speak to me? Dost thou not
know that I have power to set thee free, and have power to
crucify thee? » Power-how so? Was justice nothing, then?
truth nothing? innocence nothing? conscience nothing? In the
reality of things Pilate had no such power; even in the arbi-
trary sense of the tyrant it was an idle boast, for at this very
moment he was letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would. " And
Jesus pitied the hopeless bewilderment of this man, whom guilt


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5638
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
had changed from a ruler into a slave. Not taunting, not con-
futing him,—nay, even extenuating rather than aggravating his
sin,- Jesus gently answered, "Thou hast no power against me
whatever, had it not been given thee from above; therefore he
that betrayed me to thee hath the greater sin. " Thou art indeed
committing a great crime; but Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, these
priests and Jews, are more to blame than thou. Thus, with in-
finite dignity, and yet with infinite tenderness, did Jesus judge
his judge. In the very depths of his inmost soul Pilate felt the
truth of the words,- silently acknowledged the superiority of his
bound and lacerated victim. All that remained in him of human
and of noble-
"Felt how awful Goodness is, and Virtue
In her shape how lovely; felt and mourned
His fall. "
All of his soul that was not eaten away by pride and cruelty
thrilled back an unwonted echo to these few calm words of the
Son of God. Jesus had condemned his sin, and so far from
being offended, the judgment only deepened his awe of this
mysterious Being, whose utter impotence seemed grander and
more awful than the loftiest power. From that time Pilate was
even yet more anxious to save him. With all his conscience in
a tumult, for the third and last time he mounted his tribunal
and made one more desperate effort. He led Jesus forth, and
looking at him, as he stood silent and in agony, but calm, on
that shining Gabbatha, above the brutal agitations of the multi-
tude, he said to those frantic rioters, as with a flash of genuine
conviction, "BEHOLD YOUR KING! " But to the Jews it sounded
like shameful scorn to call that beaten, insulted sufferer their
King. A darker stream mingled with the passions of the raging,
swaying crowd. Among the shouts of "Crucify! " ominous threat-
enings began for the first time to be mingled. It was now nine
o'clock, and for nearly three hours had they been raging and
waiting there. The name of Cæsar began to be heard in wrath-
ful murmurs. "Shall I crucify your King? " he had asked, vent-
ing the rage and soreness of his heart in taunts on them. "We
have no king but Cæsar," answered the Sadducees and priests,
flinging to the winds every national impulse and every Messianic
hope. "If thou let this man go," shouted the mob again and
again, "thou art not Cæsar's friend. Every one who tries to


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FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
5639
make himself a king speaketh against Cæsar. " And at that dark
terrible name of Cæsar, Pilate trembled. It was a name to con-
jure with. It mastered him. He thought of that terrible imple-
ment of tyranny, the accusation of lasa majestas, into which all
other charges merged, which had made confiscation and torture
so common, and had caused blood to flow like water in the
streets of Rome. He thought of Tiberius the aged gloomy
Emperor, then hiding at Capreæ his ulcerous features, his poison-
ous suspicions, his sick infamies, his desperate revenge. At this
very time he had been maddened into a yet more sanguinary
and misanthropic ferocity by the detected falsity and treason of
his only friend and minister, Sejanus, and it was to Sejanus
himself that Pilate is said to have owed his position. There
might be secret delators in that very mob. Panic-stricken, the
unjust judge, in obedience to his own terrors, consciously betrayed
the innocent victim to the anguish of death. He who had so
often prostituted justice was now unable to achieve the one act
of justice which he desired. He who had so often murdered pity
was now forbidden to taste the sweetness of a pity for which
he longed. He who had so often abused authority was now ren-
dered impotent to exercise it, for once, on the side of right.
Truly for him sin had become its own Erinnys, and his pleasant
vices had been converted into the instrument of his punishment!
Did the solemn and noble words of the Law of the Twelve
Tables - "Vanæ voces populi non sunt audiendæ, quando aut
noxium crimine absolvi, aut innocentem condemnari desiderant "
come across his memory with accents of reproach as he deliv-
ered Bar-Abbas and condemned Jesus? It may have been so.
At any rate, his conscience did not leave him at ease. At this,
or some early period of the trial, he went through the solemn
farce of trying to absolve his conscience from the guilt. He
sent for water; he washed his hands before the multitude! he
said, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to
it. " Did he think thus to wash away his guilt? He could wash
his hands; could he wash his heart? Might he not far more
truly have said with the murderous king in the splendid tragedy:
"Can all old Ocean's waters wash this blood
Clean from my hand? Nay, rather would this hand
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green, one red! "


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5640
FREDERICK WILLIAM FARRAR
It may be that as he thus murdered his conscience, such a
thought flashed for one moment across his miserable mind, in
the words of his native poet -
-
"Ah, nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cædis
Flumineâ tolli posse putatis aqua! " OVID, Fast. ii.