What is Intellectual Greatness?
A large amount of that which the world calls greatness is nothing more than vigorous and brilliant commonplace. Taine, who is the most splendid writer upon Bonaparte, ascribes to him intellectual greatness, but it was greatness on a common plane—the plane of animal life. He had a grand comprehension of physical and social forces, of everything upon the selfish plane, for he was absolutely selfish, but of nothing that belongs to the higher life of man, to the civilization of coming centuries. To him Fulton was a visionary and so was Gall. It was not in his intellectual range to see the steamships that change the world’s commerce, and the cerebral discoveries that are destined to revolutionize all philosophy.
The pulpit orator, Beecher, who has just passed away, was estimated by many as intellectually great; but Mr. Beecher never took the position of independence that any great thinker must have occupied. He never moved beyond the sphere of popularity. He never led men but where they were already disposed to go. Upon the great question of the return of the spirit, one of the most important and fundamental of all religious questions, Mr. Beecher was silent. That silence was infidelity to truth, for Mr. Beecher was not ignorant of the truth he concealed. Nor was he faithful to any true ideal of religion. With his princely salary he accomplished less than other men, living upon a salary he would have scorned. He lived for self—he spent thousands of dollars on finger rings, and a hundred thousand on a fancy farm, but little if anything to make the world better.
The Boston Herald estimates very fairly his intellectual status, saying: “He spoke easily. His stories were well told, his points well put. He invested people with a new atmosphere, but he did not set them to thinking, and can hardly be called a thinker himself. Much as he has done to forward the vital interests of humanity, he has contributed nothing to the vital thinking of his generation. The secret of his power is the wonderful combination of animalism, with a certain bright way of stating the thoughts which are more or less in the minds of all men. Few preachers have lived with their eyes and ears more open to the world, and few have better understood the art of putting things. Mr. Beecher knew supremely well two persons—himself and the man next to him. In interesting the man next to him he interested the multitude. He had in a great degree the same qualities which made Norman McLeod the foremost preacher of his day in the Scotch pulpit. Such a man lives too much on the surface to exhaust himself. He has only to keep within the sphere of commonplace to interest people as long as he lives…. Mr. Beecher lived on the surface of things. He never got far below the surface. If he ever was profound it was only for a moment at a time…. His work was to illustrate the ideas which were operative in the world at the time, not to originate or formulate them.”
This is a just estimate. Brilliant commonplace is not greatness, but the man who is thoroughly commonplace in his conceptions, who expresses well and forcibly what his hearers think, is the one to win applause and popularity. Had Beecher been a great thinker, a church of moderate size would have held his followers. But he was not and thinkers knew it. The Rev. George L. Perin, of the Shawmut Universalist Church, Boston, said of Beecher, “As we have tried to analyze the influence of his address we have said to ourselves, ‘There was nothing new in that, for I have thought the same thing a thousand times myself;’ and yet at the same time everything seemed new, and we have gone away thinking better of ourselves because he taught us to see what we were able to think but had not been able to express. He had the remarkable faculty of dressing up the things that everybody was thinking, and making us see that they were worth thinking. And there was something contagious about his wonderful faith in human nature. He believed in the divinity of man and made others believe in it.” In other words, he added much to the sentiment of his hearer, but little to his thought. This was greatness of character and personal power, but not intellectual greatness. Beecher was a great man, but not a great thinker. The great thinker overwhelms his hearers with new and strange thought. The multitude, fixed in habit, reject it all. Clear and dispassionate thinkers feel that they cannot reject it, but it is too new even to them to elicit their enthusiasm. They sympathize with him only so far as they had previously cherished similar thoughts.
Hence we see it is ordained that the teacher of great truths must struggle against great opposition; and in proportion to his resistance by his contemporaries is the grandeur of his reception by posterity; in proportion to the power arrayed against him is the remoteness of the century in which that power shall be extinct and his triumph complete.
Spiritual Wonders.
Slater’s Wonderful Spiritual Tests (described by a Brooklyn newspaper correspondent).—“I have something to say to that gentlemen with the black hair and high forehead,” he continued, turning to another part of the house; “you have a business engagement to-morrow morning at 10 o’clock with two men. I see you go up a flight of steps into a room where there are two desks. In the second drawer of one of these are the papers of the transaction which you had in your hand to-day. You are going to invest $4,000. Is that all so?”
“Perfectly,” said the man, in amazement.
“Well, now, these two men are sharpers, and if you want to save that $4,000 keep out of that bargain. Legal advice is good, but mine is better.”
“I believe it,” said the man, emphatically. His name was C. G. Bulmer, and he lives at 229 Macon Street, Brooklyn. Your correspondent has since verified the accuracy of the test.
“And don’t you suffer with your limbs?” he inquired of a lady just in front of him.
“Well, not now; I used to; I feel it now.”
“Well, I am going to show you that I know all about your limbs. The pain is here,” he continued, touching the calf of his leg. “You have a peculiar feeling of drowsiness and then sharp pains run through you, right there. Is it true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll tell you something else. You missed what your sister called a big chance when you were seventeen years old, and she said you were a great fool to let it go by. Is that so?”
“It is,” said the lady reddening.
“There’s a man in the hall,” he continued, pacing restlessly up and down with clasped hands. “He has been sitting here and saying to him self, ‘Well, this is all mind-reading. Now, if he will tell me something that is going to happen I may believe something in Spiritualism.’ He has been rather scoffing me. Now, I want to know if this is true. I am talking to you,” pointing his long, thin finger at a gray-haired man who sat on his left. “All correct?” The man bowed his head. “Well, I tell you, that one Christmas day,” he continued, so solemnly that a hush fell on the audience—“I don’t think the spirits ought to tell these things, but I am forced to say that one Christmas day a member of your family will die.” A startled look passed over his face, and a shiver ran through the audience at the uncanny message. The man’s name could not be learned, but on the succeeding Sunday your correspondent heard two women get up in the audience and admit that the young Spiritualist was correct.
Spirit Pictures.—Henry Rogers, a slate writing and prescribing medium of established reputation, recently located at 683 Tremont Street, Boston, has wonderful powers in the production of spirit pictures of the departed. His most recent success is certainly a fine work of art, resembling a crayon portrait of a young lady. His previous pictures are entitled to a high rank as works of art. They are purely spirit productions, no human hand being concerned. San Francisco has similar productions under the mediumship of Fred Evans, but the pictures have not the artistic merit of those produced by Rogers, whose beautiful pictures, however, require many sittings for their production; while those of Duguid of Glasgow, and Mrs. De Bar of New York, are produced in a few minutes and are also highly artistic. One of the very finest works of art at San Francisco is the portrait of Mrs. Watson, made by a medium, Mr. Briggs.
Our highest productions in art, music, poetry, philosophy, and medicine, are destined yet to come from the co-operation of the spirit world. We have no music at present superior to that of the medium Jesse Shepard.
Spirit Telegraphy.—In 1885 we were informed of the success of spirits at Cleveland, Ohio, in communicating messages by the telegraphic method in rapping, in which our millionaire friend, Mr. J. H. Wade, has taken much interest. A little apparatus has been constructed, with which the spirits give their communications in great variety. I have repeatedly stated that the diagnoses and prescriptions of deceased physicians have always proved in my experience more reliable than those of the living. This has been verified at Cleveland. The late Dr. Wells of Brooklyn has been giving diagnoses and prescriptions through the telegraph. One of these published in the Plain Dealer exhibits the most profound and accurate medical knowledge. The full account of these telegraphic developments in the Cleveland Plain Dealer I expected to republish, but my space was already occupied. It may be found in the Banner of Light of April 9. But we shall have other reports hereafter.
Spiritual Music.—Maud Cook, a little blind girl nine years of age, at Manchester, Tenn., is an inspired musical wonder,—a performer and composer. She is said to equal Blind Tom, and the local newspapers speak of her in the most enthusiastic terms. She needs a judicious and wealthy friend to bring her before the public in the best manner.
Slate Writing.—Dr. D. J. Stansbury, of San Francisco, is very successful in obtaining spiritual writing in public as well as in private. The Golden Gate says:—
“There came upon the slates at Dr. Stansbury’s public seance, last Sunday evening, the following message from Judge Wm. R. Thompson, father of H. M. Thompson, of this city: ‘The essential principles of primitive Christianity and the precepts of Modern Spiritualism are essentially one and the same, which, if practised, would lead to the highest standard of morality and be the means of grace by which all might be saved.’”
The Fire Test.—At the great spiritual convention held at Cincinnati for several days at the end of March, (the spiritual anniversary) the report states,—
“Mrs. Isa Wilson Porter, under control of an Oriental spirit, held her bared hands and arms in the flames of a large coal oil lamp. She also heated lamp chimneys and handled them as readily as she would in their normal condition, and made several gentlemen cringe and some ladies screech by slightly touching them with the hot glass. The test was made under supervision of a committee of doctors and well known physicians, who reported at the conclusion that previous to its commencement they examined the lady’s hands and arms, and that they were in their natural condition, and that her pulse beat was seventy. While the test was in progress the pulse indicated forty. After its conclusion the pulse beat was sixty-five; the arms and hands were a little red, but unscorched, and the hair upon them not even singed. This incident seems weak in the description after witnessing the fact of tender flesh and blood held in such a flame for several minutes.”