“Well,” began Adams, “since you want–”
“Don’t you know how to address a court?” The court bellowed.
“To say ‘Your honor’ would be a formality which even 599your friends would laugh at,” replied Grant quietly. The crowd hissed; the court turned purple. Grant Adams stood rigid, with white face and quivering muscles. His jaws knotted and his fist clenched. Yet when he spoke he held his voice down. In it was no evidence of his tension. Facing for the first few moments of his speech the little group of his friends–Dr. Nesbit, George Brotherton, Captain Morton, Nathan Perry and Amos Adams–who sat at the lawyers’ table with Henry Fenn, Grant Adams plunged abruptly into his creed: “I believe that in every human adult consciousness there is a spark of altruism, a divine fire, which marks the fatherhood of God and proves the brotherhood of man. Environment fans that spark or stifles it. Its growth is evidenced in human institutions, in scales and grades of civilization. Christ was a glowing flame of this fire.” The court gave a knowing wink to Ahab Wright, who grinned at the court’s keen sense of humor. Adams saw the wink, but proceeded: “That is what He means when He says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ for only as men and nations, races and civilization by their institutions fan that spark to fire, will they live, will they conquer the forces of death ever within them.”
Thus far Grant Adams had been speaking slowly, addressing himself more to his friends and the court stenographer than the crowd. Now he faced the crowd defiantly as he let his voice rise and cried: “This is no material world. Humanity is God trying to express Himself in terms of justice–with the sad handicap of time and space ever holding the Eternal Spirit in check. We are all Gods.”
Again Market Street, which worshiped the god material, hissed. Grant turned to the men in the benches a mad, ecstatic face and throwing his crippled arm high above his head, cried aloud:
“O men of Harvey, men with whom I have lived and labored, I would give my life if you could understand me; if you could know in your hearts how passionately I yearn to get into your souls the knowledge that only as you give you will have, only as you love these men of the mines and mills, only as you are brothers to these ginks and wops and guinnies, will prosperity come to Harvey. ‘I am the resurrection 600and the life’ should ring through your souls; for when brotherhood, expressed in law and customs, gives these men their rightful share in the products of their labor, our resurrected society will begin to live.” He stopped dead still for a moment, gazing, almost glaring, into the eyes of the crowd. Ahab Wright dropped his gaze. But John Kollander, who heard nothing, glared angrily back. Then leaning forward and throwing out his claw as if to grapple them, Grant Adams, let out his great voice in a cry that startled Market Street into a shudder as he spoke. “Come, come, come with us and live, oh, men of Market Street, you who are dead and damned! Come with us and live. ‘I am the way and the life.’” He checked his rising voice, then said: “Come, let us go forward together, for only then will God, striving for justice in humanity, restore your dead and atrophied souls. Have faith that as you give you will have; as you love, will you live.” His manner changed again. The court was growing restless. Grant’s voice was low pitched, but it showed a heavy tension of emotion. He stretched his hand as one pleading: “Oh, come with us. Come with us–your brothers. We are one body, why should we have different aims? We are ten thousand here, you are many more. Perhaps we are only dreaming a mad dream, but if you come with us we shall all awake from our dream into a glorious reality.”
Market Street laughed. John Kollander bawled: “He’s an anarchist–a socialist!” Grant looked at the deaf old man in his blue coat and brass buttons adorned with many little flags, to advertise his patriotism. Taking a cue from John Kollander, Grant cried: “I am moving with the current of Heavenly love, I am a part of that love that is washing into this planet from the infinite source of life beyond our ken. I am moved, I know not how. I am inspired to act, I know not whence. I go I know not where–only I have faith, faith that fears nothing, faith that tells me that insomuch as I act in love, I am a part of the Great Purpose moving the universe, immortal, all powerful, vital, the incarnation of Happiness! I am trying–trying–ah, God, how I am trying, to bring into the world all the love that my soul will carry. I am–”
601“That’s enough,” snapped the court; and turning to Joseph Calvin, Judge Van Dorn said: “That man’s crazy. This court has no jurisdiction over the insane. His family can bring a proceeding in habeas corpus before the probate court of the county on the ground of the prisoner’s insanity. But I have no right to take judicial notice of his insanity.” The Judge folded up his opinion, twirled his heavy glasses a moment, blinked wisely and said: “Gentlemen, this is no case for me. This is a crazy man. I wash my hands of the whole business!”
He rose, put away his glasses deliberately, and was stepping from his dais, when up rose big George Brotherton and cried:
“Say, Tom Van Dorn–if you want this man murdered, say so. If you want him saved, say so. Don’t polly-fox around here, dodging the issue. You know the truth of the matter as well as–”