Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860», страница 14

Our age is an age of great devotion to secular affairs,—of men who are great in the conduct of such affairs,—in every department in life. To counterbalance this, our ministry must be filled with an equally earnest devotion to God and salvation. In real ability our ministers ought to be not a whit behind. But ability is not necessarily scholarship; though it may, and as far as possible should, include that, and a great deal more. Let it be fully understood, once for all, that we have no disparaging remark to make of scholarship; a man must be foolish beyond expression, who pretends to argue that the highest scholarship is less than a most important and almost indispensable auxiliary to the minister of Christ. All our concern in the matter, just here, is, that it shall be fully understood that piety and real ability make the minister of Christ, and not scholarship; in the words of Augustine, "the heart makes the minister";—but we may safely assume that he meant the heart of a really able man; otherwise we can accord but a qualified respect to this remark.

The prevailing impression among the ministry appears to be, that the man who cannot write "an able doctrinal discourse" is but an inferior man, fit only to preach in an inferior place; and that it would be a great gain to the Church, if scholarship were only so general that the standard of the universities could be applied, and only Phi-Beta-Kappa men allowed to enter the ministry. No doubt, those who incline to this view are quite honest, and not unkindly in it. But those who think this grievously misunderstand the necessities of the age in which we live. Reading men know where to find better reading than can possibly be furnished by any man who is bound to write two sermons weekly, or even one sermon a week; and to train any corps of young men in the expectation that any considerable fraction of them will be able to win and to maintain a commanding influence in their parishes mainly by the weekly production of learned discourses is to do them the greatest injury, by cherishing expectations which never can be realized. Why do our educated men of other professions so seldom and so reluctantly contribute to the addresses in our religious assemblies? Precisely because they understand the difficulty of meeting the popular expectation which is created by the prevailing theory; a theory which demands that sermons, and not only that sermons, but also that all religious addresses, should be chiefly characterized as learned, acute, scholastic even. An Irish preacher is reported in an Edinburgh paper as saying lately, that "he had been led to think of his own preaching and of that of his brethren. He saw very few sermons in the New Testament shaped after the forms and fashion in which they had been accustomed to shape theirs. He was not aware of a sermon there, in which they had a little motto selected, upon which a disquisition upon a particular subject was hung. The sort of sermons which the people in his locality were desirous to hear were sermons delivered on a large portion of the Word of God, carrying through the ideas as the Spirit of God had done." And it is, in part at least, because of the prevailing disregard of this most reasonable desire, that parishes so soon weary of their ministers.

It need not discourage ministers to accept the fact that there will be failures in the ministry,—and a great many failures among those who rely for their success mainly upon the weekly production of learned disquisitions. Discouragement is not in accepting a fact that accords with all just theories of truth, but in adopting a theory which is sure to be invalidated by the almost universal experience of men in, as well as out of, the ministry. A right-minded minister may have many falls in struggling up his Hill of Difficulty; but the Lord will lift him up, and will save him from adding to the temperate grief proper to any measure of short-coming the intolerable poignancy that comes of cheating by false pretences,—of assuming to do what he knows or should know that he cannot do, namely, produce any considerable number of great sermons.

Let it, then, be frankly owned, that men, very good men, very capable men, have failed in the ministry. A. failed, because he did not study; B., because he did not visit his people; C., because he could not talk; D., because he was too grave; E., because he was too frivolous; F. could not, or would not, control his temper; G. alienated by exacting more than he received; and all of them because of not having what Scougal calls "the life of God in the soul of man."

It is not worth while for any man to go into the ministry who cannot relish the Apostle's invitation, running thus:—"I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." If that seem not reasonable, ay, and exceedingly inviting too, better let it alone. All men cannot do all things. Better raise extraordinary potatoes than hammer out insignificant ideas. You do not see the connection? you were a Phi-Beta-Kappa man in college, and know that you can write better than many a man in a metropolitan pulpit? Very likely; but we of the few go to church to be made better men, and not by fine writing, but by significant ideas, which may come in a homely garb, so they be only pervaded with affectionate piety, but which can come to us only from one who has laid all ambitious self-seeking on the altar of God. There is a power of persuasion in every minister who follows God as a dear child, and who walks in love, as Christ loved us, which the hardest heart cannot long resist,—which will win the congregation, however an individual here and there may be able to harden himself against it. You think that the great power of the pulpit is in high doctrine, presented with metaphysical precision and acuteness. We have no disparagement to offer of your doctrinal knowledge, nor of your ability to state it with metaphysical precision and hair-splitting acuteness. But we know, from much experience, that there is a divine truth, and a fervor and power in imparting it, with which God inspires the man who is wholly devoted to Him, in comparison with which the higher achievements of the man who lacks these are trumpery and rubbish. Many, many men have failed in the ministry, are failing in the ministry every day, because their principal reliance has been upon what they deem their thorough mastery of the soundest theories of doctrine and of duty. They were confident they could administer to minds and hearts diseased the certain specific laid down in the book, admeasured to the twentieth part of a scruple. Confident in their theoretical acquisitions, they could not comprehend the indispensable necessity of a large experience in actual cases of mental malady. And for the want of such experience, it was absolutely impossible that they should be en rapport with the souls they honestly desired to benefit. Can you heal a heart-ache with a syllogism? There is no dispensing with the precept and prescription,—"Weep with those that weep!" "Be of the same mind one toward another!"

Theories of doctrine and of practice are not without their value; but the minister who is merely or chiefly a theorist, whether in doctrines or in measures, is an adventurer; and the chances against him are as many as the chances against the precise similarity of any two cases presented to his attention,—as many as the chances against the education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician; "surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Theories shirk that. "In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and in His pity, He redeemed them." And precisely in this way his ministers are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less tolerant of formality,—less and less willing to accept metaphysical disquisition in place of a warm-hearted, loving, fervent expansion of the Word of God, recommended to the understanding and to the sensibility by lively illustrations of spiritual truth, derived from all the experience of life, from all observation, from all analogies in the natural world,—in short, from every manner of illumination, from the heavens above, from the earth beneath, and from the waters which are under the earth. God is surely everywhere, and hath made all things, and all to testify of Him; and the innumerable voices all agree together.

And when this is both understood and felt, what rules shall be given to guide and control the construction and the delivery of discourses? Shall we say, The people must be brought back to the old-time endurance—ay, endurance, that is the word—of long-drawn, laborious ratiocinations, wherein the truth is diligently pursued for its own sake, with an ultimate reference, indeed, to the needs and uses of the hearer, but so remote as rarely to be noticed, except by that very small fraction of any customary congregation who may chance to have an interest in such doings,—some of whom watch the clergyman as they would the entomologist, running down a truth that he may impale it, and add one more specimen to his well-ordered collection of common and of uncommon bugs? Our neighbors in the South do better than this; for they hunt with the lasso, and never throw the noose except to capture something which can be harnessed to the wheels of common life.

No, the people are not going back to the endurance of any such misery. They have found out that still-born rhetoric is by no means the one thing needful, and care far less for the art of speech than for the nature of a holy heart. They want a man to speak less of what he believes and more of what he feels. The expectation of bringing the people again to endure prolonged metaphysical discriminations, spun out of commonplace minds, cobwebs to cloak their own nakedness and universal inaptitude, if indulged, is absurdly indulged. The whole Church is sick of such trifling. She knows well that it has made her most unsavory to those who might have found their way into the temples of God, or kept their places there, but for the memory of an immense amount of wearisome readings from the pulpit,—too often a vocabulary of words seldom or never found out of sermons,—a manner of speech which, when tried by the sure test of natural, animated conversation, must be pronounced absurd and abominable. It is a wonder of wonders, that, in spite of such drawbacks, an individual here and there has been reclaimed from worldliness to the love and service of God.

The student-habits of the clergy most naturally lead them to prefer the formal statement, the studied elaboration of ideas, which their own training cannot but render facile and dear to them. And there is here and there a man who, in virtue of extraordinary genius, can infuse new life into worn-out phrases,—a man or two who can for a moment or for an hour, by the very weight and excellence of their thoughts, and because they truly and deeply feel them, arrest the age, and challenge and secure attention, in spite of all the infelicities of an antiquated style and an unearthly delivery. But in this age, more than ever before, we are summoned to surrender our scholastic preferences and esoteric honors to the exigencies of the million. And the men of this generation have, without much conference, come with great unanimity to the determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or lack of sympathies,—and especially that they will not endure dull declamation from the pulpit.

If any man really wish to know how he is preaching, let him imagine himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted, but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused sensibilities of his hearers?

How long ought a sermon to be? As long as you can read in the eye of seven-eighths of your audience, Pray, go on. If you cannot read that, you have mistaken your vocation; you were never called to the ministry. The secret of the persuasive power of our favorite orators is in their constant recognition of the ebb and flow of the sensibilities they are acting upon. Their speech is, in effect, an actual conversation, in which they are speaking for as well as to the audience; and the interlocutors are made almost as palpably such as at the "Breakfast- Table" of our dramatic "Autocrat" In contrast with this, the dull preacher, falling below the dignity and the privilege of his office, addresses himself, not to living men, but to an imaginary sensibility to abstract truth. The effect of this is obvious and inevitable; it converts hearers into doubters as to whether in fact there be any such thing as a religion worth recommending or possessing, and preachers into complainers of the people as indifferent and insensible to the truth,—a libel which ought to render them liable to fine and punishment. God's truth, fairly presented, is never a matter of indifference or of insensibility to an intelligent, nor even to an unintelligent audience. However an individual here and there may contrive to withdraw himself from the sphere of its influence, truth can no more lose her power than the sun can lose his heat.

The people, under the quickening influences characteristic of our age, are awaking to the consciousness, that, on the day which should be the best of all the week, they have been defrauded of their right, in having solemn dulness palmed upon them, in place of living, earnest, animated truth. Let not ministers, unwisely overlooking this undeniable fact, defame the people, by alleging a growing facility in dissolving the pastoral relation,—a disregard of solemn contracts,—a willingness to dismiss excellent, godly, and devoted men, without other reason than the indisposition to retain them. Be it known to all such, that capable men very department of life were never in such request as at this very hour; and never, since the world began, was there an audience so large and so attentive to truth, well wrought and fitted to its purpose, as now.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen. Herausgegeben von Adolph Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.

FIRST NOTICE

Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried, (1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of information respecting the great master, and the history of his works, available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen" are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's "Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,—perhaps has given sufficient occasion for it,—but we must bear this testimony to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New American," published by the Appletons.

A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers, combined with the materials scattered through other publications,—even though no original researches were made,—was still a desideratum, when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.

Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two works,—"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg, 1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works—in French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,—consists principally of an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique, chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the "Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."

The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the "Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected; but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;—at all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,—apropos of nothing,—has called—out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation. In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his "Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single work.

Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title, "Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig, 1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,—not in real life,—as to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first twenty-five years of the present century,—a supplement to his famous view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled, save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy. Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. We can forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.

But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when he shall appear.

It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice, granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in any German publication which has come under our notice, because out of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at home,—whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.

Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from Schilling's "Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft," Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,—a work which deserves to be better known in our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.

Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,—the well-known contrapuntist, Türk, being his instructor in musical theory and composition. "He [Türk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."¹⁰

Soon after finishing his legal studies, Marx removed to Berlin, as the place where he could best enjoy the means of artistic culture. "For one quite without fortune, merely to live in a strange city demands great strength of character; but to go farther and fit one's self for a career and for a position in the future, which even under the best auspices is of very difficult attainment, and, beside all this, to have others dependent upon him for the necessaries of life,—what a burden to bear! ….. By a very intellectual system of instruction in singing and in composition, and, at a later period, (1824-81,) by editing the 'Berliner Allgemeine Musikzeitung,' and several theoretical and practical musical works, he earned the means of subsistence. Never was a periodical more conscientiously edited. It was for Marx like an official station, and his seven years upon that paper were in fact a preparation for the position of Public Teacher, to which in 1830 he was appointed, in the University at Berlin, after having declined a judicial position offered to him, with a fair salary, in one of the provinces. Honorably has he since that period filled his station, however great the pains which have been taken in various quarters that it should not be said of him, 'Virtus post nummos!'"¹¹

"The diploma of Doctor of Music Marx received from the University at Marburg; and thereupon (?) obtained the greatest applause for a course of lectures, in part strictly scientific for the musician, and in part upon the history of music, its philosophy, etc.; also, as Music-Director of the University, he has brought (1841,) the academic choir into such a flourishing state, both as to numbers and skill, as to be adequate to the most difficult music."¹²

Again we read,—"We remember, that, some time since, Fetis, at Paris, pointed out Marx as the one who had introduced the philosophy of Kant into music." Were this so, so much the more credit to Marx, who, at that time, we are informed, had never studied the works of the philosopher of Königsberg, and his basing music upon the Kantian philosophy is therefore but a proof of the profundity of his genius.

From the same article we extract the following list of his productions:—1. A work on Singing, in three parts; the second and third of which "contain throughout admirable and novel remarks." 2. "Maigruss" (Maygreeting). "This pamphlet, humorous and delicate, yet powerfully written," calls attention to certain novel views of its author in regard to music. 3. Articles in the "Cäcilia," a musical periodical. 4. Essay on Handel's works. 5. A work on Composition. 6. Several biographies and other articles in Schilling's Encyclopædia,—"indeed, all the articles signed A. B. M." 7. Editions of several of Bach's and Handel's works. To these we may now add his extensive treatise upon Musical Science, in four volumes, his "Music in the Nineteenth Century," and the work which is now before us.

Of musical compositions we find the following noticed:—1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und Bätely,"—which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly damned;—but then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture and entr'actes, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the work did not succeed." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouqué, with a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,—but then, it was badly executed! 4. Symphony,—"The Fall of Warsaw,"—still manuscript. "The music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,—preferring Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,—"one of Marx's most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"—a series of songs, the music of which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the Baptist," an oratorio,—twice performed by the University choir in one of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,—the music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed vigorously after the sense of the text,—are distinguished from those in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the list of his works at that time.

"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in its profound conception of character will have but few equals."

The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.

We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England and the United States;—for, singular as the fact may appear, we are unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach, whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,—a writer upon music.

There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of Marx,—modesty, the ornament of true greatness,—may (or may not) add weight to the extracts we have made from it,—namely, that the article was written for Schilling by Marx himself.

We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven papers are preserved,—a city, moreover, in which more than in any other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.