Brann the Iconoclast Volume 1 Part 2

I am not the apologist of the G.o.dless rake, the defender of the roue; but I have small patience with those mawkish purists who persist in measuring men and women by the same standard of morals. We might as well apply the same code to the fierce Malay who runs amuck and to McAllister's fashionable pismires. We might as wisely bring to the same judgment bar Bengal's royal beast, crazed with l.u.s.t for blood, and Jaques' wounded deer, weeping in the purling brook. Each s.e.x and genus must be considered by itself, for each possesses its peculiar virtues and inherent vices. In all nature G.o.d intended the male to seek, the female to be sought. These he drives with pa.s.sion's fiery scourge, those he gently leads by maternal longings, and thus is the Law of Life fulfilled,--the living tide runs ever on from age to age, while divine Modesty preserves her name and habitation in the earth. A man's crown of glory is his courage, a woman's her chast.i.ty . While these remain the incense rises ever from Earth's altar to Heaven's eternal throne; but it matters not how pure the man if he be a cringing coward, how brave the woman if she be a brazen bawd. Lucrece as Caesar were infamous, and Caesar as Lucrece were a howling farce.

CHARITY.

St. Paul SAYS: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding bra.s.s or a tinkling cymbal. And tho' I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

So it appears that chin-music without charity is not calculated to pay very large dividends in the interesting ultimate; that a man may be full of faith, and pregnant with prophecy, and chock-a-block with knowledge and redolent of religious mystery,--that he may leak sanctification in the musical accents of an angel and still be "nothing"--a pitiful hole in the atmosphere, a chimera circulating in a vacuum and foolishly imagining itself a man.

But what is charity? You people who have prayers and Bible readings before breakfast, while your hearts vibrate between holiness and hash--between Christ and the cook-- should know; but it's dollars to doughnuts you don't. You probably imagine that when you present your out-of-fashion finery to your poor relations, then wait for a vote of thanks or a resolution of respect; that when you permit a tramp to fill a long-felt want with the cold victuals in your cupboard, which even your pug dog disdains, that the Recording Angel wipes the tears of joy from his eyes with his wing- feathers and gives you a page, while all Heaven gets gay because of your excessive goodness. That's because your religious education has been sadly neglected. If you would read the Bible--and the ICONOCLAST--with more care you couldn't make such mistakes. St. Paul says (and, as the country preacher remarked, I fully agree with him):

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

In other words, a man can't draw on his bank account for the price of a corner lot in the New Jerusalem. He cannot acquire so much as a souphouse ticket in that city not made with hands by dying for the faith in the auto-da-fe.

Almsgiving and charity may have no more affinity than the philosophy of Plato and the political conversation of a poll parrot! Had you ever made the acquaintance of that idea? If not, I advise you to exchange visiting cards with it before you forget its address. It is not a "Brannism," I beg to state! it is part of the Pauline theology--is strictly orthodox. There's not a single heretical sign warning you to keep off the gra.s.s. Almsgiving, and even the martyr's fiery death, may be animated solely by hope of heavenly reward or terrestrial fame,--by unadulterated selfishness--may be regarded as a good investment. Too many people give to the poor only because it's "lending to the Lord"--and they expect Standard Oil stock dividends. They drop a plugged nickel in the slot expecting to pull out a priceless crown of gold,--they expect the Lord to present them with a full suit of heavenly raiment in exchange for a cold potato or a pair of frazzled pantaloons. I want no partnership with a man who tries to beat the G.o.d of the Jews in a trade.

Some of you wealthy men who, like Dives, fare sumptuously every day, may donate a hundred dollars to relieve the distress of the people of Starr county. I hope you will. If given unostentatiously--and not for advertising purposes or in hope of a heavenly reward--it will const.i.tute an act of charity; but not of the highest, n.o.blest type, for it will cost you no great sacrifice. It is just as well, however, to have a receipt for such a gift to show St. Peter. If it does not enable you to divide Abraham's bosom with Lazarus the beggar, it may save you from the post-mortem discomforts of Dives.

The two mites cast into the treasury by the poor widow o'erbalanced all the gifts of those who gave of their abundance; and a cup of cold water may carry with it more of true charity, more of the spirit of the Prince of Peace, than the largesse of the proudest plutocrat.

During the Civil War a grizzly old Yankee sergeant and a young Confederate soldier, both badly wounded, lay near each other between the lines, while above their prostrate forms the fierce flood of metal swept back and forth, a whistling, screaming hurricane of death. The sergeant had lain long unconscious, and he awoke racked with fever and perishing with thirst. Do any of you know the horror of that thirst which gunshot wounds, abetted by a blazing summer sun and the stifling fumes of powder- smoke, produce? It is the concentrated agony of h.e.l.l.

Thirst will break the courage of the bravest. Even great Caesar, upon whose imperial brow fear was afraid to sit, cried for drink "like a sick girl." The sergeant found his canteen almost empty,--just a few spoonfuls left,--drops more precious to him than all the gold of Ophir, than all the pearls of Ind. He was lifting the canteen to his parched lips when his neighbor begged to share it. He glanced at the gray uniform and hesitated. The Confederate was but a boy and in his breast there stood a broken bayonet. The sergeant crawled over to him amid the plunging shot and sh.e.l.l.

"'Tain't much, Johnny, an' I'm dry as a mackerel; but I'll whack up."

He divided the precious drops with rigid impartiality and gave the young Confederate his portion. Then he raised the canteen to his own lips, but again he hesitated. The landscape swam before his eyes, the pounding of the great guns fell but faintly upon his ear, the Angel of Death had set his seal upon the bronzed brow. He handed the canteen to his companion untasted.

"Take the rest of it, Johnny; I kinder guess I won't miss it long."

Yet we imagine we are wonderfully charitable if we give a few dollars from our abundance to feed the starving, or send our cast clothing to the Relief Society! Charity is not a virtue you can measure in money. Its abiding place is not in the vest pocket. Its home is the heart, and not the little 2 X 4 dog-kennel heart either. It only takes up its abode where there is a mighty temple in which to circulate itself and make grand music that rolls and reverberates through all eternity--a temple flooded with G.o.d's own sunshine and peopled with beautiful thoughts and n.o.ble aspirations--a temple whose spires pierce the highest Heaven and whose foundations are broad and deep as humanity. Such is the home of Charity, queen of all the virtues. Hear St. Paul:

"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." Now do you comprehend what charity really is? It is toleration, it is kindness, it is humanity, it is truth, it is the spirit of G.o.d made manifest in man. He that gives liberally to the poor, to the church, to education, to the campaign fund, yet says to his brother, "Thou fool," because he's followed off after a different political folly, or differs from him on the doctrine of transubstantiation, is not staggering about under a load of charity calculated to give him flat feet. The supreme test of a charitable mind is toleration for the opinions of others,--an admission that perchance we do not know it quite all. It is much easier to give a $5 bill to a beggar than to forgive a brother who rides his pitiless logic over our prejudices. The religious world has contributed countless millions to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but has never forgiven Tom Paine for brushing the Bible contemptuously aside and looking

"Through nature up to nature's G.o.d."

Perhaps some future age will do justice to the memory of the man to whose daring pen we are so largely indebted for those dearly-prized privileges of free government, to the ablest advocate of human liberty the world has known, and whose piety was deep and fervent as that of St. Paul himself. But that cannot be until the freedom for which he toiled and prayed extends to the mind as well as the body; until the shackles are stricken from the brain as well as the hand,--until the sun of Knowledge dispels the empoisoned mists of Ignorance and divine Charity dethrones unreasoning Hate. Then will the infidel freely concede that Servetus' murder was rather the fault of his age than Calvin's crime, and the Christian will find in Paine, if not a guide, at least a learned philosopher and a loyal friend.

Charity a.s.sumes as many shapes as Prospero's busy sprite. I was once waiting for a train in a small Missouri town, where everybody turns out to "see the keers come in." A big, bl.u.s.tering fellow, well filled with booze, was making himself generally obnoxious, and the village constable approached him kindly and tried to quiet him.

Instead of subsiding, the boozer whipped out a big six- shooter and began blazing away at the representative of the peace and dignity of the state. The constable threw his hand to his hip, but instead of pulling his gun sprang forward, disarmed the hoodlum, cracked him over the head with his own battery and sent him about his business. The officer looked as shamed after the melee as though he had stolen a sheep or scratched the Democratic ticket. I remarked that he'd taken unnecessary chances.

"What would you have done, mister?" he inquired. I replied that I would have filled that fellow's hide so full of holes that it couldn't be stuffed with straw.

"Well," said he slowly, "I k.u.m purty nigh doin' it. But I jes'

thought as how 'twan't Jim a shootin', but his jag, an' then I seemed ter see his kids a hangin' on th' gate a waitin'

fer him t, come home, an' his wife a worritin' about him, an'

I jis couldn,t do it. I took chances fer them."

Involuntarily I removed my hat. I felt that I was in the presence of a G.o.d-created king. "You're a philanthropist,"

I said.

"I dunno what them ar' maybe, mister," said he; "but I'm glad Jim's gone home alive,--d--d glad!"

That was charity of the broadest, deepest kind that ever held its G.o.dlike sway in the human soul,--a charity that will brave death itself rather than wring the heart of helpless woman or cloud the sunny face of childhood with the orphan's tears.

"Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away."

"Charity never faileth." The real article will stand the most crucial test,--is never weighed and found wanting. It never persecutes because of honest difference of opinion. It never back-caps or boycotts. It turns a deaf ear to the tongue of scandal and heals the hurts made by the poisoned arrows of hate. "Charity suffereth long and is kind." Its supreme example was given us from the cross: "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

Prophecies fail; tongues are forgotten, and knowledge fades like the evening sunlight before the dusky wing of night; but Charity endureth forever. "And now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity."

Faith is founded upon fallible human judgment. A man believes thus and so, not necessarily because it is so, but because his head is built on a particular pattern or has had a peculiar cla.s.s of phenomena filtered through it. The average human head, like an egg, or a crock of clabber, absorbs the flavor of its surroundings. It is chiefly a question of environment whether we grow up Democrats or Republicans, Protestants or Catholics, Mormons or religious mugwumps. As a man's faith is inherited, or formed for him by circ.u.mstances, he deserves little more credit or blame therefor than for the color of his hair or the size of his ears.

Hope is Fancy's child; oft branded as an illegitimate, yet esteemed above and beyond all the royal progeny of the proudest intellect, enshrined in the sanctum sanctorum, the veritable holy-of-holies of the human heart. Hope is not a virtue; it is but a rainbow with which Fancy paints the black o'erhanging firmament, a golden shaft of sunlight with which she gilds Life's rugged mountain peaks,--a melody most divinely sweet with which she cheers the fainting soul of man.

But greater than Faith, grander than Knowledge, brighter than the star of Hope which gilds the cradle and illumes the grave, is Charity, for 'tis the incarnation of heavenly Law, the bright essence increate of eternal Love.

THE SEVEN VIALS OF WRATH.

A WORLD-WIDE WAR.

Unless all signs fail, the world is on the eve of a war such as was never known in all the mighty cycles of human history. Lucky indeed will it be if the twentieth century is not born amid the shock of universal battle.

Is our boasted civilization breaking down beneath its own ponderous weight--the rotting props and pillars unable to sustain the gilded roof? Are the prophecies of Scripture about to be fulfilled--the world rushing headlong to the final catastrophe?

A murderous mania hath everywhere seized upon the minds of men. The pulse of the race is beating the reveille; the soul of the world is sounding "boots and saddles."

Savagery is rea.s.serting itself--the Christian nations are further than ever before from that age of gold,

"When the war-drum throbs no longer, And the battle-flags are furled In the parliament of man, The federation of the world."

Peace? "There is no peace war is inevitable." The ostrich may avoid seeing the approach of the fierce simoon by hiding his head in the sand, but cannot stay its onward march. The craze for slaughter, the l.u.s.t for blood, is abroad in the land. The stars are evil, and Ate, ranging hot from h.e.l.l, plants her burning feet on every brow.

For years the brute pa.s.sions of man have had no outlet--a prolonged peace hath become that good custom which doth corrupt the world. A new generation hath arisen in Europe and America which knows naught of the horrors of war, but is intoxicated by its glory. Its superfluous energy must find expression, its pent-up pa.s.sions are ready for explosion. It is all aweary of these piping times of peace--wildly eager for the glorious pomp and circ.u.mstance of war--the bullet's mad hiss and the crash of steel. Civilized man is but an educated savage sooner or later his natural ferocity will demand its pound of flesh.

I know not whether Deity or Devil be the author of war. All human advancement is born of strife. Only warlike nations march in the van of the world's progress--prolonged peace has ever meant putrefaction. The civilizations of Greece and Rome were brightest when their blades were keenest. When the sword was sheathed there followed social degradation and intellectual decay. When all Europe trembled at the haughty tread of her matchless infantry, Spain was empress in the realm of mind. The Elizabethan age in England was shaped by the sword. America's intellectual preeminence followed the long agony of the Revolution, and blazed like a banner of glory in the wake of the Civil War. The Reign of Terror gave forth flashes of true Promethean fire--the crash of steel in the Napoleonic war studded the heavens with stars. It required an eruption of warlike barbarians to awaken Italy from her lethargy, while Celt and Saxon struck sacred fire from the shields of the intrepid Caesars. The Israelites were humble and civilized slaves in Egypt, cowering beneath the lash and finding a sweet savor in the fleshpots of the Pharaohs.

Thrust forth into the wilderness, they became the fiercest of all barbarians before giving us the Psalms of David and the Song of Solomon. They had to become conquering warriors--had to be heroized--before they could breed inspired poets.

The age of "blood offering" has not yet pa.s.sed. Is it possible that these awful rites are necessary to foster that spirit of self-sacrifice which marks the highest reach of humanity? to feed the golden lamp of love? to inculcate the virtue of valor? Can heroes be forged only with the hammer of Thor? Is genius the child of blood and tears?

Are wars the tidal waves in the mighty social sea, ordained by the Deity to prevent putrefaction? Was the Phoenix of the ancients but an old civilization, enervated by luxury and corrupted by peace, that could only be purified of its foul dross and infused with new energy by fire? Was that poet inspired who declared that, "Whatever is, is right?" I do not know.

The trend of events points to a war that will involve the world--will align the Old against the New. I will be told the idea that Europe will combine against America is sheer madness. Is it even so? Has the time arrived when young men dream idle dreams and old men see lying visions?

Scan the European press for six months past, and you will find such an event foreshadowed by the ablest editors and most distinguished diplomats. The probable necessity of such a coalition has been seriously discussed by various European cabinets.

Great Britain is the pariah of nations, feared by most, detested by all. Continental Europe would gladly see her humbled in the very dust. Had war resulted from the Venezuelan complication, England would, in all probability, have been left without allies, albeit the president's ultimatum was not relished by other transatlantic powers.

Realizing his inability to cope with the Giant of the Occident, the world's bully stopped bl.u.s.tering and began sniffling about his beloved cousin across the sea and the beat.i.tude of arbitration. The American Congress pa.s.sed resolutions of sympathy with the Cuban insurgents, and from so slight a spark the Spanish people took fire. Instead of acting as peace-makers, the official organs of most European governments proceeded to fan the flames-- encouraged Spain to resent the fancied affront by a.s.suring her that she would not lack powerful allies. There was no recognition by this government of Cuban independence; no recommendation that we wrest the island from the moribund nation that has so long misgoverned it; but a semi-official expression of concern for men striving to achieve their liberty afforded Europe a pretext to "get together" and work off on a distant people that war spirit, so long suppressed at home, lest it disturb the balance of power. The British journals, which had warbled so sweetly anent their American cousins and "the indissoluble bond of Anglo-Saxon brotherhood," when there was a fair prospect that John Bull would have to toe the scratch alone, at once forgot the blessed ties of consanguinity and a.s.sured the bombastic Spaniard that he would have "plenty of help should he decide to humble American impudence." The press of France and Germany discoursed in much the same manner, while the diplomats of those countries agreed that "Europe would yet find it necessary to materially modify the Monroe Doctrine." But the Spaniard, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, had apologized for the acts of his undiapered babes and the excesses of his hungry beggars before his neighbors could stiffen his backbone with their ostentatious insolence.

The Monroe Doctrine, literally interpreted, is simply a warning to transatlantic powers to keep off the American gra.s.s--an official notice that they will not be permitted to overrun and parcel out this continent regardless of human rights as they have done in Asia and are doing in Africa.