Returning now to himself and to man, and meditating yet more deeply, as he is thus prepared to do, on work and play, and play and work, as blended in the compound of our human life; asking again what is work and what is play, what are the relations of one to the other, and which is the final end of all, he discovers in what he was observing round him a sublimity of import, a solemnity even, that is deep as the shadow of eternity.
I believe in a future age yet to be revealed, which is to be distinguished from all others as the godly or godlike age,—an age not of universal education simply, or universal philanthropy, or external freedom, or political well-being, but a day of reciprocity and free intimacy between all souls and God. Learning and religion, the scholar and the Christian, will not be divided as they have been. The universities will be filled with a profound spirit of religion, and the bene orâsse will be a fountain of inspiration to all the investigations of study and the creations of genius.
I raise this expectation of the future, not because some prophet of old time has spoken of a day to come when "the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof" (for I know not that he meant to be so interpreted), but because I find a prophecy of play in our nature itself which it were a violation of all insight not to believe will sometime be fulfilled. And when it is fulfilled it will be found that Christianity has at last developed a new literary era, the era of religious love.
Hitherto the passion of love has been the central fire of the world's literature. The dramas, epics, odes, novels, and even histories, have spoken to the world's heart chiefly through this passion, and through this have been able to get their answer. For this passion is a state of play, wherein the man loses himself in the ardor of a devotion regardless of interest, fear, care, prudence, and even of life itself. Hence there gathers round the lover a tragic interest, and we hang upon his destiny as if some natural charm or spell were in it. Now this passion of love, which has hitherto been the staple of literature, is only a crude symbol in the life of nature, by which God designs to interpret, and also to foreshadow, the higher love of religion,—nature's gentle Beatrice, who puts her image in the youthful Dante, by that to attend him afterwards in the spirit-flight of song, and be his guide up through the wards of Paradise to the shining mount of God. What then are we to think, but that God will sometime bring us up out of the literature of the lower love, into that of the higher?—that as the age of passion yields to the age of reason, so the crude love of instinct will give place to the loftier, finer, more impelling love of God? And then around that nobler love, or out of it, shall arise a new body of literature, as much more gifted as the inspiration is purer and more intellectual. Beauty, truth, and worship; song, science, and duty, will all be unfolded together in this common love.
FROM 'THE AGE OF HOMESPUN'
Most of all to be remembered are those friendly circles gathered so often round the winter's fire; not the stove, but the fire, the brightly blazing, hospitable fire. In the early dusk, the home circle is drawn more closely and quietly round it; but a good neighbor and his wife drop in shortly from over the way, and the circle begins to spread. Next, a few young folk from the other end of the village, entering in brisker mood, find as many more chairs set in as wedges into the periphery to receive them also. And then a friendly sleighful of old and young that have come down from the hill to spend an hour or two, spread the circle again, moving it still farther back from the fire; and the fire blazes just as much higher and more brightly, having a new stick added for every guest. There is no restraint, certainly no affectation of style. They tell stories, they laugh, they sing. They are serious and gay by turns, or the young folks go on with some play, while the fathers and mothers are discussing some hard point of theology in the minister's last sermon, or perhaps the great danger coming to sound morals from the multiplication of turnpikes and newspapers! Meantime the good housewife brings out her choice stock of home-grown exotics, gathered from three realms—doughnuts from the pantry, hickory-nuts from the chamber, and the nicest, smoothest apples from the cellar; all which, including, I suppose I must add, the rather unpoetic beverage that gave its acid smack to the ancient hospitality, are discussed as freely, with no fear of consequences. And then, as the tall clock in the corner of the room ticks on majestically towards nine, the conversation takes, it may be, a little more serious turn, and it is suggested that a very happy evening may fitly be ended with a prayer. Whereupon the circle breaks up with a reverent, congratulative look on every face, which is itself the truest language of a social nature blessed in human fellowship.
Such, in general, was the society of the homespun age....
Passing to the church, or rather I should say, to the meeting-house—good translation, whether meant or not, of what is older and more venerable than church, viz., synagogue—here again you meet the picture of a sturdy homespun worship. Probably it stands on some hill, midway between three or four valleys, whither the tribes go up to worship, and, when the snow-drifts are deepest, go literally from strength to strength. There is no furnace or stove save the foot-stoves that are filled from the fires of the neighboring houses, and brought in partly as a rather formal compliment to the delicacy of the tender sex, and sometimes because they are really wanted. The dress of the assembly is mostly homespun, indicating only slight distinctions of quality in the worshipers. They are seated according to age,—the old king Lemuels and their queens in front, near the pulpit, and the younger Lemuels farther back, inclosed in pews, sitting back to back, impounded, all, for deep thought and spiritual digestion; only the deacons, sitting close under the pulpit by themselves, to receive, as their distinctive honor, the more perpendicular droppings of the Word. Clean round the front of the gallery is drawn a single row of choir, headed by the key-pipe in the centre. The pulpit is overhung by an august wooden canopy called a sounding-board—study general, of course, and first lesson of mystery to the eyes of the children, until what time their ears are opened to understand the spoken mysteries.