Читать книгу: «The Arena. Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891», страница 10

EDITORIAL NOTES

AN EPOCH-MARKING DRAMA

A movement destined, I think, to be in a degree epoch-marking in the dramatic annals of the American stage, was inaugurated by Mr. James A. Herne, on the fourth of May, in Boston, in the production of his remarkable realistic drama, “Margaret Fleming,” at Chickering Hall. The play is a bold innovation, so much so that no theatre in the city would produce it, although the various managers who examined it declared it to be as strong as and no less powerful than any American drama yet written. The character of the audience was as striking as the play was brave and original. It was, indeed, a strange sight to see such well-known and thoughtful men and women as Mr. William Dean Howells, Rev. Minot J. Savage, Rabbi Solomon Schindler, Rev. Edward A. Horton, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, Hamlin Garland, and a score or more of persons almost as well known in literary, religious, and thoughtful circles, assembled on the first night of a dramatic production. Nor was the character of the audience less remarkable during the fortnight it was played. Men and women who are rarely seen at theatres attended two, three, and even four performances. The superb acting of Mr. and Mrs. Herne contributed much to the success of the play; curiosity also doubtless attracted many, yet beyond and above this was the deep appreciation of a thoughtful and intelligent constituency, who saw in this drama the marvellous possibilities of the stage for improvement as well as entertainment. They also saw real life depicted. The absence of empty lines and stilted phrases so common in conventional drama was refreshing and interesting to those who believe that the drama has a mission other than merely to amuse. “Margaret Fleming” is nothing if not artistic from the standpoint of the realist. Its fidelity to life as we find it—to existing conditions and types of society,—is wonderful. Its dramatic strength is none the less marked. But aside from and above all this, for me it has a far greater merit—utility. I have no sympathy with the flippant, effeminate, and senile cry, “Art for art’s sake”; that is the echo of a decaying civilization, the voice of Greece and Rome in their decline. It is the shibboleth of a people drunken with pleasure; of a popular conscience anæsthetized; the cry of sensualism and selfishness popular with shallow minds and bloodless hearts; the incarnation of that fatal effeminacy that springs from a union of wealth and superficial intellectuality; the voice of a human automaton without a soul. Victor Hugo has made no utterances more grandly true than when he pleads for the beautiful being made the servant of progress as voiced in the following sentiment:

“Be of some service. Do not be fastidious when so much depends upon being efficient and good. Art for art’s sake may be very fine, but art for progress is finer still. Ah! you must think? Then think of making man better. Courage! Let us consecrate ourselves. Let us devote ourselves to the good, to the true, to the just; it is well for us to do so. Some pure lovers of art, moved by a solicitude which is not without its dignity, discard the formula, ‘Art for Progress,’ the Beautiful Useful, fearing lest the useful should deform the beautiful. They tremble to see the drudge’s hand attached to the muse’s arm. According to them, the ideal may become perverted by too much contact with reality. They are solicitous for the sublime, if it descends as far as to humanity. They are in error. The useful, far from circumscribing the sublime, enlarges it. But critics protest: To undertake the cure of social evils; to amend the codes; to impeach law in the court of right to utter those hideous words, ‘penitentiary,’ ‘convict-keeper,’ ‘galley-slave,’ ‘girl of the town’; to inspect the police registers; to contract the business of dispensaries; to study the questions of wages and want of work; to taste the black bread of the poor; to seek labor for the working-woman; to confront fashionable idleness with ragged sloth; to throw down the partition of ignorance; to open schools; to teach little children how to read; to attack shame, infamy, error, vice, crime, want of conscience; to preach the multiplication of spelling-books; to improve the food of intellects and of hearts; to give meat and drink; to demand solutions for problems and shoes for naked feet,—these things they declare are not the business of the azure. Art is the azure. Yes, art is the azure; but the azure from above, whence falls the ray which swells the wheat, yellows the maize, rounds the apple, gilds the orange, sweetens the grape. Again I say, a further service is an added beauty. At all events, where is the diminution? To ripen the beet-root, to water the potato, to increase the yield of lucern, of clover, or of hay; to be a fellow-workman with the ploughman, the vinedresser, and the gardener,—this does not deprive the heavens of one star. Immensity does not despise utility,—and what does it lose by it? Does the vast vital fluid that we call magnetic or electric flash through the cloud-masses with less splendor because it consents to perform the office of pilot to a bark, and to keep constant to the north the little needle intrusted to it, the gigantic guide? Yet the critics insist that to compose social poetry, human poetry, popular poetry; to grumble against the evil and laud the good, to be the spokesman of public wrath, to insult despots, to make knaves despair, to emancipate man before he is of age, to push souls forward and darkness backward, to know that there are thieves and tyrants, to clean penal cells, to flush the sewer of public uncleanness,—is not the function of art! Why not? Homer was the geographer and historian of his time, Moses the legislator of his, Juvenal the judge of his, Dante the theologian of his, Shakespeare the moralist of his, Voltaire the philosopher of his. No region, in speculation or in fact, is shut to the mind. Here a horizon, there wings; freedom for all to soar. To sing the ideal, to love humanity, to believe in progress, to pray toward the infinite. To be the servant of God in the task of progress, and the apostle of God to the people,—such is the law which regulates growth. All power is duty. Should this power enter into repose in our age? Should duty shut its eyes? And is the moment come for art to disarm? Less than ever. Thanks to 1789, the human caravan has reached a high plateau; and, the horizon being vaster, art has more to do. This is all. To every widening of the horizon, an enlargement of conscience corresponds. We have not reached the goal. Concord condensed into felicity, civilization summed up in harmony,—that is yet far off. The theatre is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human communion. All its phases need to be studied. It is in the theatre that the public soul is formed.”

The theatre may be made the most potent engine for progress and reform. We are living in the midst of the most splendid age which has dawned since humanity first fronted the morning, dimly conscious of its innate power and the possibilities that lay imbedded in its being; an era of life, growth, warfare. On the one hand are ancient thought and prejudice, on the other the inspiration of greater liberty and a nobler manhood. On the one hand selfishness, sensuality, vulgar ostentation, avarice, luxury, and moral effeminacy crying, “Art for art’s sake,” demanding amusements that will aid in dissipating any moral strength or deep thought that still lingers in the mind, and literature that shall enable one to kill time without the slightest suspicion of intellectual exertion; physical, mental, and moral ennui, with an assumed lofty contempt for utility. On the other hand we have the gathering forces of the dawn, demanding “art for progress,” declaring that beauty must be the handmaid of duty; that art must wait on justice, liberty, fraternity, nobility, morality, and intellectual honesty,—in a word the forces in league with light must compel the beautiful to make radiant the pathway of the future. In the union of art and utility lies the supreme excellence of “Margaret Fleming,” it deals with one of the most pressing problems of our present civilization; it is the most powerful plea for an equal standard of morals for men and women that I have ever heard. This thought, it is true, like the entire drama, is anything but conventional; it breathes the spirit of the coming day. The subtile bondage and servility of woman, a vestige of the barbarous past, still taints our civilization. Far more is demanded by society of her than of man, and when heretofore she has raised her voice against this inequity she has been silenced by unworthy imputations. It is the shame of our age that woman is not accorded a higher meed of justice. She has a right to demand that the man who marries her be every whit as pure and moral as herself, and until she makes this demand, and holds herself from the contamination of moral lepers, no substantial progress for higher morals and purer life will be made. Unless woman checks the increasing degradation of manhood, man will sooner or later drag her to his deplorable level. “Margaret Fleming” shows this truth and points to the woman of to-day her stern and inexorable duty.

Unless woman assumes an aggressive stand and ostracizes the libertine, refusing his society, his attention, and most of all the proffer of his leprous love, the moral outlook for society will soon be as gloomy as was Rome’s future when Epictetus was banished from her streets because he mercilessly assailed the moral degradation of his day.

THE PRESENT REVOLUTION IN THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT

The rapid spread of heresy throughout the churches is creating genuine dismay in many quarters. When such ripe scholars and representative thinkers as Rev. Heber Newton, Dr. C. A. Briggs, and Rev. Dr. Bridgman, representing three of the most powerful Protestant communions, freely preach doctrines at variance with conventional orthodox views, and express a grander hope and broader faith than that cherished by conservative theologians, it is by no means strange that the current of old-time thought should be stirred. If, however, these scholarly minds stood alone in their convictions, there would be no warrant for such widespread apprehension as is manifest. The serious character of the present theological revolution, however, lies in the fact that the pulpit and the people are honey-combed with the peculiar heresy which rejects the verbal inspiration of the Bible and the dogma of eternal damnation.⁹ The general uneasiness occasioned by the present epidemic of heresy, and the bitter strictures which it has called forth, are perfectly natural, while it is equally true that the present liberal attitude of so many of the foremost thinkers in the various orthodox churches is the legitimate outcome of numerous agencies which have been silently working for generations.

At various era-marking periods in the annals of history, the multitudes have been thus disturbed. They have felt that the old-time beliefs of their fathers, the tradition of ages, the oracles, which from early infancy they have learned to revere and hold most sacred, were being demolished. This naturally aroused bitter antagonism in their souls. They believed they were carrying out God’s wishes when like Saul of Tarsus, they aided in slaying heretics. Thus when the great Nazarene taught a higher, sweeter, and nobler code of ethics than the ancient Jewish law-givers and teachers, he was persecuted and slain because the Jews believed he sought to overthrow their revered and sacred truths. In a like manner Paul and the early advocates of Christianity, when they proclaimed their religion in Gentile lands frequently aroused the bitterest antagonism. At a later date Galileo’s demonstrations and Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery occasioned precisely the game dismay, and called forth bitter and pronounced opposition, because it was felt that in one case the authority of the Bible was impeached, and in the other that God was to be taken out of the universe. When Luther and the Reformation broke the dead calm of centuries of growing corruption and externalization in the religious life of Europe, Christendom felt a thrill of dismay. New disturbing elements had entered the fields. The general uneasiness on the part of tens of thousands of people who believed they were sincere worshippers of God, was succeeded by an intense desire to crush out this dangerous heresy with fire and torture, if necessary. The terrible days, months, and years that followed the dawn of the Reformation, bear melancholy testimony to the innate ferocity of man’s nature, and the relentless character of religious warfare. Nevertheless, in spite of persecution, the new truth spread. A broader horizon opened to man’s view. That conflict marked the birth of one of the grandest epochs in humanity’s onward march. Thus has it ever been. To-day stones the prophet, to-morrow tearfully rears a monument and treasures his lofty utterances.

Yet with every transition period comes the old-time struggle, the apprehension and anguish of spirit, the night of doubt. It is, therefore, not surprising that the oppression of fear weighs on the minds of all those who believe that God has spoken His last word; that in the twilight of the past alone lies the hope of humanity.

On the other hand, the theological revolt now manifest is a legitimate result of multitudinous agencies, which have for generations been silently and subtly influencing the mind of man, among which may be mentioned the spread of popular education, and the growth of the newspaper. As long as people knew not how to read or were unable to procure any medium of information which brought them in rapport with the vast growing world of thought and action, they naturally turned to their priest or clergyman for intellectual as well as religious food, and from him as a rule received instruction with the docility and confidence exhibited by little children seeking for truth. With the appearance of schoolhouses in every hamlet, and the establishment of cheap and popular newspapers, however, came a change as marked as it was wonderful. People began to reason and think for themselves. They demanded credentials for the various dogmas and ideas discussed in every department of thought. It is true, that religion was approached much more reluctantly and reverently than other subjects, but the growth of knowledge, the opportunity to hear all sides of problems discussed, and the broader conception of life which a world knowledge gave, exerted a positive and ever-increasing influence on their minds in this department of thought. The great inventions of the past hundred years, which have bound together as one family almost the whole world, have also brought to light the great religions of other races and ages. Gradually it dawned on the public mind that almost every people had a clearly defined system of theology; containing much that was beautiful, elevating, and inspiring, more or less hidden among superstitious traditions natural to childhood and credulous ages. This led many to ask whether Jesus might not have had a larger thought in his mind than mankind had dreamed when he said, “Other sheep have I which are not of this fold”; and whether there might not be a wider significance than had been given to the idea, that God had in sundry times and in divers ways spoken to His children on earth. Another lever of progressive thought was the marvellous strides taken in physical science, which followed the Reformation. Discoveries in astronomy, in geology and biology have completely overthrown many time-honored and revered traditions and fables regarded for ages as divine truth. The critical spirit of the age, the inquiring condition of human thought, which instead of being discouraging is distinctly a mark of human growth, stands in bold antithesis to the dark ages, when speculation and progress were outlawed in many fields of research, and spirituality suffered an eclipse behind the pomp, form, and show of theology, when to a great degree mental stagnation prevailed. Yet this critical spirit has been one of the most potent factors in liberalizing thought. Another cause for the radical change of views among Bible scholars is found in the rich results of archæological research during the past generation. This with a critical, or scientific study of the Bible, the early church, and profane history, contemporaneous with the rise of Christianity, has led thousands of the most profound and sincere religious thinkers into broader fields, giving to them a loftier view of life, eternity and God than was possible under the old conceptions. What diligent research on the part of scholarship has effected among critical students, the recent revision of the Bible has accomplished among the people. The old-time reverence for the letter of the law, or what is commonly known as verbal inspiration, is disappearing as mist before the sunshine, owing, in this latter case, to the people becoming acquainted for the first time with the fact that there are passages in the Bible confessed by the most orthodox scholars to be spurious. They found in the revised scriptures passages in some instances containing many consecutive verses enclosed in brackets, as, for example, the story of the woman taken in sin in the Gospel of John from vii. 53 to viii. 11 inclusive. Consulting the foot-note they found that these passages were spurious or added by a later hand. I well remember the explanation made by a scholarly and devout professor in theology, while at the Kentucky University, regarding the passage referred to above. “The incident doubtless occurred much as it appears,” asserted the professor, “but while omitted from the earlier copies, was handed down by tradition, and at a later day incorporated into the text.” Such explanations in the very nature of things, however, were by no means calculated to satisfy the doubts which had been raised in the minds of those who had from infancy been taught to believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Naturally the question arose in the minds of the thinking masses, if one passage is proved to be spurious, and the world possesses no original manuscripts, what guarantee that anything approaching the original teachings of Jesus is preserved. If the stream of inspiration is proved to be muddy in some places, is it not possible that what at first was pure as the melting snow on the mountain tops, after passing through the hands of various human authors and copyists, may have become as turbid with the cast of human thought as the mountain stream which, pure at the source, is heavy with mud at the base? It is impossible to estimate how much influence this discovery on the part of the people has exerted in behalf of a broader and more liberal interpretation of the Bible. Another factor which is usually overlooked, but which has had a marked effect on the thought which to-day is in open rebellion against the old standards, is found in the influence exerted by a galaxy of great and godly lives, which came on the stage of existence early in the present century, and whose thoughts have unconsciously broadened the minds, refined the sentiment, and ennobled the lives of every one who has read their works. In this country Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Hawthorne, Emerson, Channing, Parker, Clarke, and other illuminated souls, gave all who came under the magic of their words a broader view of life, a truer conception of the universe, and a loftier inspiration than aught that had touched them before. It is doubtful if the great thinkers dreamed that on the current of their thoughts tens of thousands of earnest lives were to be carried into a larger hope, a more intelligent, humane appreciation of the mysteries of creation, and a grander idea of God. Thus we see in the present religious revolution nothing strange in the bitter opposition of conservative thought, nothing remarkable in the persistent and earnest attitude of those who stand for the higher criticism. It is the old feud; the past struggling with the future; departing night battling with the dawn. Of the issue none who have faith in the ultimate triumph of truth, wisdom, and progress can doubt.