The relation of Christianity to the theme of the volume presents a delicate, and, it may be thought, a dangerous topic of discussion, for a so decidedly secular pen as Mr. Leland's; but he touches upon it with freedom and boldness, though with frankest sympathy and reverence for the great Spirit, whose religion is the most significant fact in the history of the world. 'I must confess,' says he, 'that even regarded from a material and historical point alone, that is a poor, cowardly soul, which does not feel the deepest earnestness of truth in acknowledging the Wonderful One, Jesus Christ, as the Lord and Saviour of the whole world.' His sublime soul, profound, universal, loving beyond all power of human conception, introduced a new era for humanity. Under his teaching, philosophy became indeed truly divine, for it became infinite, and was thrown open to all. He first of all opened the consolations of free thought, of freedom from old superstition, of love, and strength, and inward joy, to the whole race of mankind. No narrow limits of sect or caste or nationality cramped him, the first great Cosmopolite. We cannot sufficiently admire the infinite adaptability, the universal knowledge of humanity, the boundless sympathy with man, which are everywhere manifest in the original Christian philosophy of life. What a depth of meaning in the symbolic bread and wine, typical of the life which flows through eternity and all its changes, of human love and birth and death, of bounteous, beautiful nature, with its continually renewed strength—the whole given, not in funereal guise, not with sombre fasting, but as a joyous feast.
The New Testament abounds in symbols, parables, and proverbs, taken from ancient tradition, but beautifully woven into a purer faith, which taught that the healthy joys of life, and all knowledge of divine truth, should be given not to a few kings or priests, a few favored with initiation into divine mysteries, as of old, but to the whole world; for the spirit of Christianity was identical with the genius of republicanism. As taught by our Lord Jesus Christ, it was eminently healthy, brave-hearted, and joyous. It did not commend celibacy, nor excess of fasting, nor too long prayers, nor righteousness overmuch. It did not approve of a plethora of outward goods, while the culture of our highest faculties was neglected. It condemned all excess of care, even in our daily duties, at the expense of that 'better part' which distinguishes us from mere ants or bees. It gave no warrant for the dismal dirges and melancholy groans which are raised in its name, by men whom Jesus would have been the first to reprove. 'It was a religion of life and of beauty, of friendship and temperate mirth, of love, truth, and manliness; one which opposed neither feasting at weddings nor "going a fishing."'
The temptation to find a refuge from the evils of life in active exertion, instead of cultivating the sources of joy in our own nature, is the subject of an ingenious and striking chapter. In a land, where enjoyment in many minds is connected with a sense of sin, it is doubtless better that the overflowing energy of character, which is a trait of the population, should seek vent in the excitements of labor, than in poisonous liquors, horse races, politics, and the gaming table. Where the natural support of life is wanting, partial methods of relief may be employed. He who can no longer swallow, may gain an imperfect nourishment by means of baths, or artificial transmission. So, the grim and hardened soul, which has lost the support of inward cheerfulness, may find strength in work, merely for the sake of work. But it is a fraud upon humanity to educate men solely as industrious animals. Hives are beautiful, honey is sweet, and wonderful is the cunning structure of the cell; but society is not a hive, nor the people bees. The day is dawning when it will be understood that cheerful songs are as essential to genuine manhood as work; that labor is not to be borne as a curse, with sighs and groans; but combined with mental culture, will become capable of self-support, and will supply its own enthusiasm.
The great problem of the age is the union of beauty with practical uses. In their highest forms, art and science blend and become identical, just as the Beautiful and the Good assimilate, as we trace them to their source in Truth. While art becomes more practical, it loses none of its beauty. In the infancy of science, it was mainly devoted to the illustration of the fanciful and ornamental. Even architecture, in the early ages, looked less to permanent comfort than to artistic effect. But everything now tends to realization. Poetry and art fall in with this influence of the age. Science is every day taking man away from the purely ideal, the morbid and visionary; from the fond fancies of old eras, and leading him to facts and to nature.
Mr. Leland never becomes formal or spiritless in the treatment of his favorite topics, and often rises to a high degree of enthusiastic eloquence. Witness the following noble appeal in behalf of a cheerful earnestness in the cultivation of literature and art:
Young writer, young artist, whoever you be, I pray you go to work in this roaring, toiling, machine-clanking, sunny, stormy, terrible, joyful, commonplace, vulgar, tremendous world in downright earnest. By all the altars of Greek beauty themselves, I swear it to you; yes, by all that Raphael painted and Shakspeare taught; by all the glory and dignity of all art and of all Thought! you will find your most splendid successes not in cultivating the worn-out romantic, but in loving the growing Actual of life. Master the past if you will, but only that you may the more completely forget it in the present. He or she is best and bravest among you who gives us the freshest draughts of reality and of Nature. It lies all around you—in the foul smoke and smell of the factory, amid the crash and slip of heavy wheels on muddy stones, in the blank-gilt glare of the steamboat saloon, by the rattling chips of the faro table, in the quiet, gentle family circle, in the opera, in the six-penny concert, the hotel, the watering-place, on the prairie, in the prison. Not as the poor playwright and little sensation-story grinder see them, not as the manufacturers of Magdalen elegies and mock-moral and mock-philanthropical tales skim them, but in their truth and freshness as facts, around and through which sweep incessantly the infinite joys and agonies, the dreams and loves and despair of humanity. Heavens! is not Life as earnest and as mysterious and as well worth the fierce grapple of Genius, here and now, in this American nineteenth century, as it ever was under the cedars of Italy, the olives of Greece, or the palms of Morning Land? Are there not as much, or more vigor and raciness in the practical souls of the multitude and in their never-ending strife with Nature, as among the spoiled and dainty darlings of fortune and among the nerveless, mind-emasculated Victims of Society who sing us their endless Miserere from the Sistine chapels of fashionable novels? You know there is, and if you watch the time, you may see that it is the warm truth from real life, which is most eagerly read and which goes most directly to the hearts of all. Never yet in history was there an age or a country so rich in great ideas, in great developments, or which offered such copious material to the writer as these of ours. Be bold and seize it with a strong hand. Those who are to live after us will wonder as we now do of the great eras of the past, that there were so few on the spot to picture them. Yet, why speak of great scenes, when humanity and Nature are always great—great in small things even, far beyond our utmost power of apprehension? Forget the spirit of the past, live in the present, and thus—and thus only—you will secure a glorious and undying reward in the future.
The fault of this volume, in the eyes of many readers, will be a certain confusion in the arrangement of the matter, and the want of sufficient expansion in the development of some of its leading suggestions. But it must be judged as the earnest utterances of a poet, rather than a grave didactic treatise. With the purpose which the author had in view, a spice of rhapsody is no defect. He presents a beautiful example of the smiling wisdom of which he is such an eloquent advocate. He has an intuitive sense of the genial and joyous aspects of life, and has no sympathies to waste on the victims of 'carking care' or morbid melancholy. A more complete exposition of the conditions of cheerfulness in the nature of man, would furnish materials for an interesting volume; but it belongs more properly to an ethical or philosophical discourse. We will not complain of the author for not doing what he has not attempted—for what he had no inward call or outward occasion; what he could not have accomplished but at the sacrifice of much which constitutes the charm and grace of the present work; while we cordially thank him for this endeavor to speak a cheering word in behalf of the joyousness of life, and to spread 'sunshine in the shady place.'
R.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Sunshine in Thought. By Charles Godfrey Leland. 12mo, pp. 197. New York: Geo. P. Putnam.