Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty Part 10

There is perpetual balm in Gilead, and many city workmen shall turn to it and be healed. This by faith, and a study of the signs, we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

_Of the New Time for Farmers and the New New England_

Let it be proclaimed and shouted over all the ploughlands of the United States that the same ripening that brought our first culture in New England one hundred years ago is taking place in America to-day. Every State is to have its Emerson, its Whittier, its Longfellow, its Hawthorne and the rest.

Our Puritan farmer fathers in our worthiest handful of States waited long for their first group of burnished, burning lamps. From the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 to the delivery of Emerson's address on the American Scholar was a weary period of gestation well rewarded.

Therefore, let us be thankful that we have come so soon to the edge of this occasion, that the western farms, though scarcely settled, have the Chautauqua, which is New England's old rural lecture course; the temperance crusade, which is New England's abolitionism come again; the magazine militant, which is the old Atlantic Monthly combined with the Free-Soil Newspaper under a new dress; and educational reform, which is the Yankee school-house made glorious.

All these, and more, electrify the farm-lands. Things are in that ferment where many-sided Life and Thought are born.

Because our West and South are richer and broader and deeper than New England, so much more worth while will our work be.

We will come nearer to repeating the spirit of the best splendors of the old Italian villages than to multiplying the prunes and prisms of Boston.

The mystery-seeking, beauty-serving followers of Poe in their very revolt from democracy will serve it well. The Pan-wors.h.i.+pping disciples of Whitman will in the end be, perhaps, more useful brothers of the White Christ than all our coming saints. And men will not be infatuated by the written and spoken word only, as in New England. Every art shall have the finest devotion.

Already in this more tropical California, this airier Colorado, this black-soiled Illinois, in Georgia, with her fire-hearted tradition of chivalry and her new and most romantic prosperity, men have learned to pray to the G.o.d of the blossoming world, men have learned to pray to the G.o.d of Beauty. They meditate upon His ways. They have begun to sing.

As of old, their thoughts and songs begin with the land, and go directly back to the land. Their tap-roots are deep as those of the alfalfa. A new New England is coming, a New England of ninety million souls! An artistic Renaissance is coming. An America is coming such as was long ago prophesied in Emerson's address on the American Scholar. This by faith, and a study of the signs, we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

_Of the New Village, and the New Country Community, as Distinct from the Village_

This is a year of b.u.mper crops, of harvesting festivals.

Through the mists of the happy waning year, a new village rises, and the new country community, in visions revealed to the rejoicing heart of faith.

And yet it needs no vision to see them. Walking across this land I have found them, little ganglions of life, promise of thousands more. The next generation will be that of the eminent village. The son of the farmer will be no longer dazzled and destroyed by the fires of the metropolis. He will travel, but only for what he can bring back. Just as his father sends half-way across the continent for good corn, or melon-seed, so he will make his village famous by transplanting and growing this idea or that. He will make it known for its pottery or its processions, its philosophy or its peac.o.c.ks, its music or its swans, its golden roofs or its great union cathedral of all faiths. There are a thousand miscellaneous achievements within the scope of the great-hearted village. Our agricultural land to-day holds the ploughboys who will bring these benefits. I have talked to these boys. I know them. I have seen their gleaming eyes.

And the lonely country neighborhood, as distinct from the village, shall make itself famous. There are river valleys that will be known all over the land for their tall men and their milk-white maidens, as now for their well-bred horses.

There are mountain lands that shall cultivate the tree of knowledge, as well as the apple-tree. There are sandy tracts that shall constantly ripen red and golden citrus fruit, but as well, philosophers comforting as the moon, and strength-giving as the sun.

These communities shall have their proud circles. They shall have families joined hand in hand, to the end that new blood and new thoughts be constantly brought in, and no good force or leaven be lost. The country community shall awaken ill.u.s.trious. This by faith, and a study of the signs, we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

_Welcoming the Talented Children of the Soil_

Because of their closeness to the earth, the men on the farms increase in stature and strength.

And for this very reason a certain proportion of their children are being born with a finer strength. They are being born with all this power concentrated in their nerves. They have the magnificent thoughts that might stir the stars in their courses, were they given voice.

Yea, in almost every ranch-house is born one flower-like girl or boy, a stranger among the brothers and sisters. Welcome, and a thousand welcomes, to these fairy changelings! They will make our land lovely. Let all of us who love G.o.d give our hearts to these His servants. They are born with eyes that weep themselves blind, unless there is beauty to look upon. They are endowed with souls that are self-devouring, unless they be permitted to make rare music; with a desire for truth that will make them mad as the old prophets, unless they be permitted to preach and pray and praise G.o.d in their own fas.h.i.+on, each establis.h.i.+ng his own dream visibly in the world.

The land is being jewelled with talented children, from Maine to California: souls dewy as the gra.s.s, eyes wondering and pa.s.sionate, lips that tremble. Though they be born in hovels, they have slender hands, seemingly lost amid the heavy hands. They have hands that give way too soon amid the bitter days of labor, but are everlastingly patient with the violin, or chisel, or brush, or pen.

All these children as a sacred charge are appearing, coming down upon the earth like manna. Yet many will be neglected as the too-abundant mulberry, that is left upon the trees. Many will perish like the wild strawberries of Kansas, cut down by the roadside with the weeds. Many will be looked upon like an over-abundant crop of apples, too cheap to be hauled to market, often used as food for the beasts. There will be a great slaughter of the innocents, more b.l.o.o.d.y than that of Herod of old. But there will be a desperate hardy remnant, adepts in all the conquering necromancy of agricultural Song and democratic Craftsmans.h.i.+p. They will bring us our new time in its completeness.

This by faith, and a study of the signs, we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

_Of the Coming of Religion, Equality and Beauty_

In our new day, so soon upon us, for the first time in the history of Democracy, art and the church shall be hand in hand and equally at our service. Neither craftsmans.h.i.+p nor prayer shall be purely aristocratic any more, nor at war with each other, nor at war with the State. The priest, the statesman and the singer shall discern one another's work more perfectly and give thanks to G.o.d.

Even now our best churches are blossoming in beauty. Our best political life, whatever the howlers may say, is tending toward equality, beauty and holiness.

Political speech will cease to turn only upon the price of grain, but begin considering the price of cross-roads fountains and people's palaces. Our religious life will no longer trouble itself with the squabbles of orthodoxy. It will give us the outdoor choral procession, the ceremony of dedicating the wheat-field or the new-built private house to G.o.d. That politician who would benefit the people will not consider all the world wrapped up in the defence or destruction of a tariff schedule. He will serve the public as did Pericles, with the world's greatest dramas. He will rebuild the local Acropolis. He will make his particular Athens rule by wisdom and philosophy, not trade alone. Our crowds shall be audiences, not hurrying mobs; dancers, not brawlers; observers, not restless curiosity-seekers. Our mobs shall becomes a.s.semblies and our a.s.semblies religious; devout in a subtle sense, equal in privilege and courtesy, delicate of spirit, a perfectly rounded democracy.

All this shall come through the services of three kinds of men in wise cooperation: the priests, the statesmen and the artists. Our priests shall be religious men like St. Francis, or John Wesley, or General Booth, or Cardinal Newman. They shall be many types, but supreme of their type.

Our statesmen shall find their exemplars and their inspiration in Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson and Lincoln, as all good Americans devoutly desire.

But even these cannot ripen the land without the work of men as versatile as William Morris or Leonardo. Our artists shall fuse the work of these other workers, and give expression to the whole cry and the whole weeping and rejoicing of the land. We shall have Sh.e.l.leys with a heart for religion, Ruskins with a comprehension of equality.

_Religion_, _equality_ and _beauty_! By these America shall come into a glory that shall justify the yearning of the sages for her perfection, and the prophecies of the poets, when she was born in the throes of Valley Forge.

_This, by faith, and a study of the signs, we proclaim!_

_EPILOGUE_

[_Written to all young lovers about to set up homes of their own--but especially to those of some far-distant day, and those of my home-village_]

_Lovers, O lovers, listen to my call.

Give me kind thoughts. I woo you on my knees.

Lovers, pale lovers, when the wheat grows tall, When willow trees are Eden's incense trees:--_

_I would be welcome as the rose in flower Or busy bird in your most secret fane.

I would be read in your transcendent hour When book and rhyme seem for the most part vain._

_I would be read, the while you kiss and pray.

I would be read, ere the betrothal ring Circles the slender finger and you say Words out of Heaven, while your pulses sing._

_O lovers, be my partisans and build Each home with a great fire-place as is meet.

When there you stand, with royal wonder filled, In bridal peace, and comrades.h.i.+p complete,_

_While each dear heart beats like a fairy drum-- Then burn a new-ripe wheat-sheaf in my name.

Out of the fire my spirit-bread shall come And my soul's gospel swirl from that red flame._