Chapter LV: Rhymes and Chimes.--Suitable for Autograph Albums (9)

The basis of Marshall's ability at the bar was his understanding. Not highly read, he had one of those clear understandings which was equal to a mill-pond of book-learning. His first practice was among his old companions in arms, who felt that he was a soldier by nature, and one of those who loved the fellowship of the camp better than military or political ambition. Ragged and dissipated, they used to come to him for protection, and at a time when imprisonment for debt and cruel executions were in vogue. He not only defended them, but loaned them money. He lost some good clients by not paying more attention to his clothing, but these outward circumstances could not long keep back recognition of the fact that he was the finest arguer of a case at the Richmond bar, which then contained such men as Edmund Randolph, Patrick Henry, and later, William Wirt. He was not an orator, did not cultivate his voice, did not labor hard; but he had the power to penetrate to the very center of the subject, discover the chief point, and rally all his forces there. If he was defending a case, he would turn his attention to some other than the main point, in order to let the prosecution assemble its powers at the wrong place. With a military eye he saw the strong and weak positions, and, like Rembrandt painting, he threw all his light on the right spot. The character of his argument was a perspicuous, easy, onward, accumulative, reasoning statement. He had but one gesture--to lift up his hand and bring it down on the place before him constantly. He discarded fancy or poetry in his arguments. William Wirt said of him, in a sentence worth committing to memory as a specimen of good style in the early quarter of this century: "All his eloquence consists in the apparent deep self-conviction and emphatic earnestness of his manner; the corresponding simplicity and energy of his style; the close and logical connection of his thoughts, and the easy graduations by which he opens his lights on the attentive minds of his hearers. The audience are never permitted to pause for a moment. There is no stopping to weave garlands of flowers to hang in festoons around a favorite argument. On the contrary, every sentence is progressive; every idea sheds new light on the subject; the listener is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasurable vibration with which the mind of man always receives new truths; the dawn advances with easy but unremitting pace; the subject opens gradually on the view, until, rising in high relief in all its native colors and proportions, the argument is consummated by the conviction of the delighted hearer."

Immediately after the Revolutionary War the State courts were crowded with business, because of the numerous bankruptcies, arising from war habits, the changes in the condition of families, repudiation of debts, false currency, etc. Marshall was one of the first lawyers who rose to the magnanimity to admit the propriety of a federal judiciary, different from that of the States. The other lawyers thought it would not do to take the business away from these courts. They preferred to see the people hanging around Richmond, with their cases undecided and unheard on account of the pressure of business, rather than to concede a national judiciary. All sorts of novel questions were arising at that time, cases which had no precedents, which the English law-books did not reach, and where the man of native powers, pushing out like Columbus on the unknown, soon developed a sturdy strength and self-reliance the mere popinjay and student of the law could never get. Among the cases he argued was the British debt case, tried in 1793. The United States now had its Circuit Court, and Chief-justice Jay presided at Richmond. The treaty of peace of England provided that the creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value of all _bona fide_ debts theretofore contracted. The question was whether debts sequestrated by the Virginia Legislature during the war came under this treaty. It is said that the Countess of Huntingdon heard the speeches on this case, and said that every one of the lawyers, if in England, would have been given a peerage. Patrick Henry broke his voice down in this case, and never again could speak with his old force. Marshall surpassed them all in the cogency of his reasoning. At that time he was thought to be rather lazy. He went into the State Legislature in 1782, just before he married. His personal influence was such in Richmond that, although he was constantly in the minority, he was always elected. His principal amusement was pitching the quoit, which he did to the end of his days, and could ring the meg, it is said, at a distance of sixty feet frequently. He arose early in the morning and went to market without a servant, and brought back his chickens in one hand and his market basket on the other arm. He never took offense, and once when a dude stopped him on the street and asked him where there was a fellow to take home his marketing, Marshall inquired where he lived, and said, "I will take it for you." After he got home with the other man's marketing, the dude was much distressed to find that Mr. Marshall had been his supposed servant.

INTELLECTUAL POWER.

Nevertheless, the intellectual existence of the man was decided. From the beginning of his life he took the view that while Virginia was the State of his birth, his country was America; that all he and his neighbors could accomplish on this planet would be under the great government which comprehends all, and, true to this one idea, he never wavered in his life. Mr. Jefferson, who was much his senior, he distrusted profoundly, regarding him as a man of cunning, lacking in large faith, and constitutionally biased in mind. In the sketch Marshall made of General Washington, he said, and it is believed that he referred to Jefferson: "He made no pretension to that vivacity which fascinates or to that wit which dazzles, and frequently imposes on the understanding. More solid than brilliant; judgment, rather than genius, constituted the most prominent feature of his character. No man has ever appeared upon the theater of public action whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were more perfectly free from the contamination of those selfish and unworthy passions which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same, and his whole correspondence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any circumstances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright and his means always pure. He exhibited the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were totally unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments, and to his own countrymen, were always sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction which found existence between wisdom and cunning, and the importance, as well as the truth of the maxim, that honesty is the best policy." It is to be noticed that Marshall's "Life of Washington," though written by the chief-justice of the United States, was not a success, and passed through only one edition. It gave him more annoyance than any thing in his life. He wrote it with labor and sincerity, but he was incapable of writing mere smart, vivacious things, and, in the attempt to give Washington his due proportions, he insensibly failed of making a popular book.

Jefferson, who had been urging Tobias Lear, Washington's secretary, to get out of Washington's papers remarks injurious to himself, was greatly exercised at the publication of Marshall's book about as much as the better element dudes are at Blaine's book.

Mr. Marshall, in 1788, assisted to make the new constitution of Virginia. By the desire of Washington he ran for Congress as a Federalist. President Washington offered him the place of attorney-general, which he declined. He also declined the minister to France, but subsequently accepted the position from President Adams, and in France was insulted with his fellow-members by Talleyrand. John Adams, on his return, wished to make him a member of the Supreme Court, but this he declined, preferring the practice of the law.

It was at Mount Vernon that Washington prevailed upon him to run for Congress. The story being raised that Patrick Henry was opposed to him, old Henry came forward and said: "I should rather give my vote to John Marshall than to any citizen of this State at this juncture, one only excepted," meaning Washington.

The father of Robert E. Lee was one of the old Federal minority rallying under Marshall. Marshall had scarcely taken his seat in Congress, in 1799, when Washington died, and he officially announced the death at Philadelphia, and followed his remarks by introducing the resolutions drafted by General Lee, which contained the words, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

ON THE BENCH.

John Marshall was next Secretary of State of John Adams, succeeding Timothy Pickering. Adams was defeated for re-election, but before he went out of office he appointed Marshall chief-justice, at the age of forty-five.

At the head of that great bench sat Marshall more than one-third of a century. Before him pleaded all the great lawyers of the country, like William Pinckney, Hugh Legaré, Daniel Webster, Horace Binney, Luther Martin, and Walter Jones.

John Marshall left as his great legacy to the United States his interpretation of the Constitution. While chief-justice he became a member of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia in company with Madison and Monroe, both of whom had been President. He gave the Federal Constitution its liberal interpretation, that it was not merely a bone thrown to the general government, which must be watched with suspicion while it ate, but that it was a document with something of the elasticity of our population and climate, and that it was designed to convey to the general state powers noble enough to give us respect.

Without a spot on his reputation, without an upright enemy, the old man attended to his duty absolutely, loved argument, encouraged all young lawyers at the bar, and he lived down to the time of nullification, and when General Jackson issued his proclamation against the nullifiers John Marshall and Judge Story went up to the White House and took a glass of wine with him.

And thus those two old men silently appreciated each other near the end of their days when the suspicions of Jefferson had resulted in incipient rebellion that was to break out in less than thirty years, and which Marshall predicted unless there was a more general assent to the fact that we were one country, and not a parcel of political chicken-coops.--GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND.

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XXIX.

A NOBLE MOTHER.

HOW SHE TRAINED HERSELF, AND EDUCATED HER BOYS

Harrietta Rea, in _The Christian Union_, some time ago, drew a picture of home life in the West, which ought to be framed and hung up in every household of the land.

In one of the prairie towns of Northern Iowa, where the Illinois Central Railroad now passes from Dubuque to Sioux City, lived a woman whose experience repeats the truth that inherent forces, ready to be developed, are waiting for the emergencies that life may bring.

She was born and "brought up" in New England. With the advantages of a country school, and a few terms in a neighboring city, she became a fair scholar--not at all remarkable; she was married at twenty-one to a young farmer, poor, but intelligent and ambitious. In ten years, after the death of their parents they emigrated to Iowa, and invested their money in land that bade fair to increase in value, but far away from neighbors. Here they lived, a happy family, for five years, when he died, leaving her, at the age of thirty-five, with four boys, the eldest nearly fourteen, the youngest nine. The blow came suddenly, and at first was overwhelming. Alone, in what seemed almost a wilderness, she had no thought of giving up the farm. It was home. There they must stay and do the best they could. The prospect of a railroad passing near them, in time, was good; then some of the land might be sold. A little money bad been laid by--nothing that she ought to touch for the present. Daniel, the hired man, who had come out with them, and who was a devoted friend and servant, she determined to keep--his judgment was excellent in farm matters. Hitherto the boys had gone regularly to school, a mile or two away; for a settlement in Iowa was never without its school-house. They were bright and quick to learn. Their father had been eager to help and encourage them. Newspapers, magazines, and now and then a good book, had found their way into this household. Though very fond of reading herself, with the care of her house she had drifted along, as so many women do, until the discipline of study, or any special application, had been almost forgotten. It was the ambition of both parents that their sons should be well educated. Now Jerry and Thede, the two oldest, must be kept at home during the summer to work. Nate and Johnnie could help at night and in the morning. The boys had all been trained to habits of obedience. They were affectionate, and she knew that she could depend upon their love.

One evening, alone in her bedroom, she overheard some part of a conversation as the children were sitting together around the open fire-place:

"I don't mind the work," said Theodore, "if I could only be learning, too. Father used to say he wanted me to be a civil engineer."

"If father was here," said eleven-year-old Nate, "you could study evenings and recite to him. I wish mother could help; but, then I guess mother's--"

"Help how?" she heard Jerry ask sharply, before Nate could finish his sentence; and she knew the boy was jealous at once for her. "Isn't she the best mother in the world?"

"Yes, she is; and she likes stories, too; but I was just thinking, now that you can't go to school, if she only knew a lot about every thing, why, she could tell you."

"Well," replied Jerry, with all the gravity of a man, "we must just take hold and help all we can; it's going to be hard enough for mother. I just hate to give up school and pitch into work. Thede, you shall go next Winter, any way."

"Shan't we be lonesome next winter?" said little Johnnie, who had taken no part in the talk; until now; "won't mother be afraid? I want my father back," and, without a word of warning, he burst into tears.

Dead silence for a few minutes. The outburst was so sudden, she knew they were all weeping. It was Jerry again who spoke first: "Don't let mother see us crying. Come, Johnnie, let's take Bone, and all go down to the trap;" then she heard them pass out of the house.

Desolation fell upon that poor mother for the next hour. Like a knife, Nate's remark had passed through her heart, "Father could have helped!" Couldn't she help her boys, for whom she was ready to die? Was she only "mother," who prepared their meals and took care of their clothes? She wanted a part in the very best of their lives. She thought it all over, sitting up far into the night. If she could only create an interest in some study that should bind them all together, and in which she could lead! Was she too old to begin? Never had the desire to become the very center of interest to them taken such a hold upon her.

A few weeks after, she said one morning, at the breakfast table, "Boys, I've been thinking that we might begin geology this summer, and study it, all of us together. Your father and I meant to do it sometime. I've found a text-book; by and by, perhaps, Thede can draw us a chart. Jerry will take hold, I know, and Nate and Johnnie can hunt for specimens. We'll have an hour or two every night."

The children's interest awoke in a flash, and that very evening the question discussed was one brought in by Nate: "What is the difference between limestone and granite?" A simple one, but it opened the way for her, and their first meeting proved a success. She had to study each day to be ready and wide awake for her class. They lived in a limestone region. Different forms of coral abounded, and other fossils were plenty. An old cupboard in the shed was turned into a cabinet. One day Nate, who had wandered off two or three miles, brought home a piece of rock, where curious, long, finger-shaped creatures were imbedded. Great was the delight of all to find them described as _orthoceratites,_ and an expedition to the spot was planned for some half-holiday. Question after question led back to the origin of the earth. She found the nebular hypothesis, and hardly slept one night trying to comprehend it clearly enough to put it before others in a simple fashion. Her book was always at hand. By and by they classified each specimen, and the best of their kind were taken to shelves in the sitting-room. Her own enthusiasm in study was aroused, and, far from a hardship, it now became a delight. Her spirit was contagious. The boys, always fond of "mother," wondered what new life possessed her; but they accepted the change all the same. She found that she could teach, and also could inspire her pupils. They heard of a gully, five or six miles away, where crystals had been found. Making a holiday, for which the boys worked like Trojans, they took their lunch in the farm wagon, and rode to the spot; and if their search was not altogether successful, it left them the memory of a happy time.

In the meantime the farm prospered. She did all the work in the house and all the sewing, going out, too, in the garden, where she raised a few flowers, and helping to gather vegetables. Daniel and the boys were bitterly opposed to her helping them. "Mother," said Jerry, "if you won't ever think you must go out, I'll do any thing to make up. I don't want you to look like those women we see sometimes in the fields." Generally she yielded; her work was enough for one pair of hands. Through it all now ran the thought that her children were growing up; they would become educated men; she would not let them get ahead, not so as to pass her entirely.

Winter came. Now Daniel could see to the work; but these habits of study were not to be broken. "Boys, let us form a history club," was the proposition; "it shan't interfere with your lessons at school." They took the history of the United States, which the two younger children were studying. Beginning with the New England settlements, and being six in number, they called each other, for the time, after the six States, persuading old Daniel to take his native Rhode Island. "That woman beats all creation," he was heard to exclaim, "the way she works all day and goes on at night over her books." The mother used to say she hardy knew if she were any older than her boys when they were trying to trip each other with questions. The teacher of the district school came over one Saturday afternoon. "I never had such pupils," said he, "as your sons, in history; and indeed they want to look into every thing." Afterward he heard with delight the story of their evening's work. The deep snows often shut them in, but the red light shone clearly and bright from that sitting-room window, and a merry group were gathered around the table. Every two weeks an evening was given to some journey. It was laid out in advance, and faithfully studied. Once, Theodore remembers, a shout of laughter was raised when nine o'clock came by Jerry's exclamation, "O, mother, don't go home now; we are all having such a good time!" Five years they lived in this way, and almost entirely by themselves. They studied botany. She knew the name of every tree and shrub for miles around. The little boys made a collection of birds' eggs, and then began to watch closely the habits of the birds. It was a pure, simple life. It would have been too wild and lonely but for the charm of this devoted mother. Her hours of loneliness were hidden from them; but she learned in an unusual degree to throw every energy into the day's work of study, and create, as it were, a fresh enthusiasm for the present hour. Her loving sacrifice was rewarded. Each child made her his peculiar confidante. She became the inspiration of his life.

English history opened a wide field to this family. One afternoon she brought in Shakespeare to prove some historical question. It was a rainy day, and the boys were all at home. Jerry began to read "Hamlet" aloud; it proved a treasure that brought them into a new world of delight. Sometimes they took different characters for representation, and the evening ended in a frolic; for good-natured mirth was never repressed.

First of all, a preparation had been made for the Sabbath. There was a church in this town, but at a distance of several miles, and during many days the roads were impassable. She had leaned upon infinite Strength, gathering wisdom through all these experiences. The secret of many a promise had been revealed to her understanding; and, above every thing, she desired that the Scriptures should become precious to her children. She took up Bible characters, bringing to bear the same vivid interest, the same power of making them realities.

These lessons were varied by little sketches or reports of one Sunday to be read aloud the next. Of this, Nate took hold with a special zest. None of this family could sing. She thought of a substitute. They learned the Psalms, much of Isaiah, and many hymns, repeating them in concert, learning to count upon this hour around the fire as others do upon their music. How many of these times came to her in after life--the vision of the bright faces of her boys as they clustered affectionately around her!

Time rolled by. The railroad passed through. A village sprang up, and the land was ready to sell. She could keep enough for her own use, and the boys could prepare for college. Thede and Nate went away to school. The old home was kept bright and pleasant; friends, new settlers, came in, and now there was visiting and social life.

Jerry stayed on the farm; Theodore became a civil engineer; Nate a minister; Johnnie went into business. Theodore used to say: "Mother, as I travel about, all the stones and the flowers make me think of you. I catch sight of some rock, and stop to laugh over those blessed times." Nate said: "Mother, when I am reading a psalm in the pulpit, there always comes to me a picture of those old evenings, with you in the rocking-chair by the firelight, and I hear all your voices again." Johnnie wrote: "Mother, I think that every thing I have has come to me through you." When Jerry, who remained faithful always, had listened to his brothers, he put his arm about her, saying tenderly: "There will never be any body like mother to me."

She died at sixty-five, very suddenly. Only a few hours before, she had exclaimed, as her children all came home together: "There never were such good boys as mine. You have repaid me a thousand-fold. God grant you all happy homes." They bore her coffin to the grave themselves. They would not let any other person touch it. In the evening they gathered around the old hearth-stone in the sitting-room, and drew their chairs together. No one spoke until Nate said, "Boys, let us pray;" and then, all kneeling around her vacant chair, he prayed that the mantle of their mother might fall upon them. They could ask nothing beyond that.

No Longer My Own.

In serving the Master I love,
In doing his bidding each day,
The sweetness of bondage I prove,
And sing, as I go on my way--
I never such freedom have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

His burden is easy to bear,
My own was a mountain of lead;
His yoke it is gladness to wear,
My own with my life-blood was red--
I never such gladness have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

Discharging the duties I owe
To household and neighbor of mine,
The beauty of bondage I know,
And count it as beauty divine--
I never such beauty have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

And everywhere, Master so dear,
A dutiful bondman of thine,
All things my possession appear,
Their glory so verily mine--
I never such glory have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

My heart overflows with brave cheer;
For where is the bondage to dread,
As long as the Master is dear,
And love that is selfish is dead!--
I never such safety have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

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XXX.

THE CARE OF THE BODY.

WHAT DR. SARGENT, OF THE HARVARD GYMNASIUM, SAYS ABOUT IT--POINTS FOR PARENTS, TEACHERS, AND PUPILS.

The time is coming--indeed has come--when every writer will divide the subject of education into physical, moral, and intellectual. We recognize theoretically that physical education is the basis of all education. From the time of Plato down to the time of Horace Mann and Herbert Spencer that has been the theory. It has also been the theory of German educators. The idea that the mind is a distinct entity, apart from the body, was a theological idea that grew out of the reaction against pagan animalism. The development of the body among the Greeks and Romans was followed by those brutal exhibitions of physical prowess in the gladiatorial contests where the physical only was cultivated and honored. With the dawn of Christianity a reaction set in against this whole idea of developing the body. They thought no good could come from its supreme development, because they had seen so much evil. The priests represented the great danger which accompanied this physical training without moral culture, and there is no doubt that they were right to a certain degree. Give a man only supreme physical education, without any attention to the moral and intellectual, and he will go to pieces like our prize-fighters and athletes. But the Christians went to the other extreme. They practiced the most absurd system of asceticism, depriving themselves of natural food and rest, and, of course, the results which followed on a grand scale were just what would follow in the individual. Let a person follow the course they did, denying himself necessary raiment and food, taking no exercise, and living in retirement, and nervous prostration will follow, and hysterical disturbances and troubles. This result in the individual was found on a large scale throughout Christendom. The idea that the Christians brought down from the very earliest dawn of Christianity, that the body and soul are distinct, and that whatever is done to mortify the flesh increases the spiritual, life, has a grain of truth in it. There were men in our army who, half-starved, marched through the Southern swamps in a state of exaltation. They imagined they were walking through floral gardens, with birds flitting about and singing overhead. But it was an unnatural, morbid state. So priests deprived themselves of food, and reduced themselves to the lowest extent physically, and then saw visions; and were in an exalted mental state. But it was morbid. If a man sit up till twelve o'clock to write on a certain theme, he may not have a single idea until that hour; but then his mind begins to work, and perhaps he can work better than under any other circumstances. But his condition is abnormal. It does not represent the man's true state of health. He is gaining that momentary advancement of power at terrible cost.

This disregard of physical conditions is giving rise to national disturbance. It has thoroughly worked itself into our educational system. Though our schools profess to be purely secular, they still adhere to this old theological idea. You can not get teachers to enter with zest into exercises for physical development, because they think that a man who trains the body must be inferior to the man who trains the mind. They do not see that the two are closely allied. They will tell you that the time is all apportioned, so many hours for each study, and that if you take half an hour out for exercise the boy must lose so much Latin or Greek, or something else. The idea of the high-school is to get the boy into college. They care nothing about the condition of the individual. The individual must be sacrificed to the reputation of the school, or of the master; the standard must be kept up. If the master can not get just such a percentage of scholars into college, his own reputation and the reputation of the school are injured. If he can get this percentage into college, he does not care what becomes of the individual. Our schools treat a boy as professional trainers treat a man on the field; the only idea is to make the boy win a certain prize. They do not care any thing about his health; that is nothing to them. Their reputation is made upon the success of the boy in his entrance to college. Here I have to step in and say to the father: "This boy must not go any farther. His future prospects ought not to be sacrificed in this way. Your son's success in life does not depend upon his going through the Latin school. Let him step out and take another year. Do not attempt to crowd him." The result of this lack of attention to physical training, even looking at it from the intellectual stand-point, is fatal. The boy gets a disgust for study, as one does for any special kind of food when kept exclusively upon it. Many a fellow who stood high in school breaks away from books as soon as he enters college, and goes to the other extreme. That is nature's method of seeking relief. He has mental dyspepsia, and every opportunity that offers for physical play he accepts. He can not help it, and he ought not to be blamed for it, because it is the natural law.

The laws of assimilation govern the brain as well as the body. You can only store up just about so much matter--call it educational material if you will--in a given time. If you undertake to force the physical activity of the brain, you must supply it with more nourishment. If a boy takes no exercise to increase his appetite, if he does not invigorate and nourish his blood, which supplies brain substance, of course there is deterioration. If he has a good stock of reserve physical power he will get on very well for a while, but all at once he will come to a stop. How many hundreds of those who stood well when they entered college get to a certain point and can get no farther, because they have not the physical basis. They are like athletes who can run a certain speed, but can never get beyond that. On the other hand, men who have had a more liberal physical training will go right by them, though not such good scholars, because they have more of a basis back in the physical.

When these things are fully appreciated, the whole system of education will be revolutionized. To build the brain we must build the body. We must not sacrifice nerve tissue and nerve power in physical training, as there is danger of doing if gymnastics are not guided by professional men. But the proper training of the body should produce the highest intellectual results.

Certain parts of the body bear certain relations to one another. The office of the stomach is to supply the body with nourishment. The office of the heart is to pump this nourishment over the body. The office of the lungs is to feed the heart and stomach with pure blood. All support one another, and all are dependent on each other. If a boy sits in a cramped position in school, that interferes with the circulation of the blood, and that with the nourishment of the brain. You could in this way trace the cause of many a schoolboy's headache. Speaking roughly, we might say that one-half of the school children have a hollow at the bottom of the breast-bone from sitting in such positions, and this depression interferes with digestion. And the moment the stomach gives out, that affects the whole physical and mental condition. When nutrition is imperfect, the action of the heart and the distribution of the blood are interfered with.

The only way to remedy these evils is by popular education. It is of no use to attempt to bring about at once; any regular or prescribed system of exercise, requiring such exercises to be carried out in school, because our schools, like our theaters, are what the public make them. There is many a master who knows he is pursuing the wrong course, but he is kept to it by the anxious solicitations of parents who wish their children kept up to a certain rank. They are forced to follow the present system by the inordinate demands of parents. The parents must be educated. The father and mother must be converted to the necessity, the absolute necessity for success in life, of physical culture. There are plenty of men who stand as political and financial leaders who are not highly educated men. A man who has the rudiments of education--reading, writing, arithmetic--with a good physique, good health, a well-balanced and organized frame, brought into contact with the world, stands a better chance of success than the one who goes through school and takes a high rank at the expense of his physique.

Let a gifted but weakly lawyer go into a court-room and meet some bull-headed opponent with not half the keen insight or knowledge of the law, but one who has tenacity, ability to hold on, and nine times out ten the abler man of the two--mentally--goes home wearied and defeated, and the other man wins the case. Who are the men prominent in the pulpit? Are they weak, puny men, or men of physique? Who are the leaders in the Churches? They are not leaders on account of their intellectual brilliancy, but by their wholeness as men. They find sympathy with the people because they are good specimens of manhood. There might be many more such had they been better trained.

The best training-school for the body is the gymnasium. That is the purpose of all its appliances and apparatus. But it may be dispensed with if one has an adequate desire for physical training. Give a boy to understand that his body is not impure and vile, but that it is as much worth consideration as his mind, and that if he does not take carte of his body he can not do any thing with his mind, and ways of physical training will not be wanting.

All children should be examined at intervals by a physician, and a record kept of their development. I measure my little boy every year. I know how he is growing. If he has been subject to too much excitement, there will be larger relative growth of the head, and we adjust his manner of life accordingly. The object of education is to _develop the boy_, not to put him through so much of arithmetic or so much language. The object is to get out of the boy all there is in him. The first thing, then, is to have the boy examined. If, instead of calling a physician when the children are sick, he is called while they are well, it would be much better. Is he getting round-shouldered? Has he a crook in the back? Is he beginning to stoop? There are many things which can be stopped in a child which can never be changed after the habits are hardened. Too late the parent may find that his child is incapacitated for the highest education, because there is no room for the heart and lungs to play their parts. The boy is limited in his possibilities as a tree planted in unfavorable soil is limited. He is stunted. He will reach a certain limit, and no efforts on his part will carry him further. But if he has been taken in hand in time, and these suggestions acted upon, different results might have been produced. These efforts to develop the boy's body will awaken the interest of the boy himself. It does not awaken animalism. Let a man have pride in his body, and his morals will look out for themselves. If a a boy is thus examined, and a record kept, he will take a pride in keeping up his record. It is not necessary, then, to have appliances. He can make trees and clothes-horses and gates and fences take their place. Teach him the value of such opportunities. Teach him to increase the capacity of his lungs and heart, and what relation they bear to the brain, and thus awaken his interest. He will soon learn to exercise in the best way. When the parent has to watch a boy to see that he exercises, exercise is of little or no avail. But let the father and mother realize the full value and importance of the body, and the results will follow naturally. Every thing depends primarily upon the parent. If he simply commands exercise without sharing in it, he is like a father who lectures his sons about smoking and drinking while he smokes and drinks himself.

This is a great field. It is opening up broader every day. I do not know any field where a man can go more enthusiastically to work. It affects not only the physical, but the moral condition. We have brought about a higher moral tone at Harvard through physical training. There is less smoking and drinking by far than before the gymnasium was so universally used. Every thing that develops the whole man affects morals. Our Maker did not put us here merely to be trained for somewhere else. No one can walk through the streets of Boston without feeling that there is need enough of work to do right here, in bringing about a better condition of affairs; something which shall be nearer an ideal heaven on earth.--_The Christian Union_.

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XXXI.

SAINT CECILIA

THE PATRONESS OF MUSIC-MYTHS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC-ITS RELATION TO WORK AND BLESSEDNESS

Her legend relates that about the year 230, which would be in the time of the Emperor Alexander. Severus, Cecilia, a Roman lady, born of a noble and rich family, who in early youth had been converted to Christianity, and had made a vow of perpetual virginity, was constrained by her parents to marry a certain Valerian, a pagan, whom she succeeded in converting to Christianity without infringing the vow she had made. She also converted her brother-in-law, Tiburtius, and a friend called Maximius, all of whom were martyred in consequence of their faith.

It is further related, among other circumstances purely legendary, that Cecilia often united instrumental music to that of her voice, in singing the praises of the Lord. On this all her fame has been founded, and she has become the special patroness of music and musicians all the world over. Half the musical societies of Europe have been named after her, and her supposed musical acquirements have led the votaries of a sister art to find subjects for their work in episodes of her life. The grand painting by Domenichino, at Bologna, in which the saint is represented as rapt in an ecstasy of devotion, with a small "organ," as it is called--an instrument resembling a large kind of Pandean pipes--in her hand, is well known, as is also Dryden's beautiful ode. The illustration which accompanies this chapter, after a painting by one of the brothers Caracci, of the seventeenth century, represents Cecilia at the organ. Borne heavenward on the tide of music, she sees a vision of the holy family, the child Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, with an angel near at hand in quiet gladness.

God's harmony is written
All through, in shining bars,
The soul His love has smitten
As heaven is writ with stars.

MYTHS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC.

Music is so delightfully innocent and charming an art, that we can not wonder at finding it almost universally regarded as of divine origin. Pagan nations generally ascribe the invention of their musical instruments to their gods, or to certain superhuman beings of a godlike nature. The Hebrews attributed it to man, but as Jubal is mentioned as "the father of all such as handle the harp and organ" only, and as instruments of percussion were almost invariably in use long before people were led to construct stringed and wind instruments, we may suppose that, in the Biblical records, Jubal is not intended to be represented as the original inventor of all the Hebrew instruments, but rather as a great promoter of the art of music.

"However, be this as it may, this much is certain: there are among Christians at the present day not a few sincere upholders of the literal meaning of these records, who maintain that instrumental music was already practiced in heaven before the creation of the world. Elaborate treatises have been written on the nature and effect of that heavenly music, and passages from the Bible have been cited by the learned authors which are supposed to confirm indisputably the opinions advanced in their treatises.

"It may, at a first glance, appear singular that nations have not, generally, such traditional records respecting the originator of their vocal music as they have respecting the invention of their musical instruments. The cause is, however, explicable; to sing is-as natural to man as to speak, and uncivilized nations are not likely to speculate whether singing has ever been invented.

"There is no need to recount here the well-known mythological traditions of the ancient Greeks and Romans referring to the origin of their favorite musical instruments. Suffice it to remind the reader that Mercury and Apollo were believed to be the inventors of the lyre and cithara (guitar); that the invention of the flute was attributed to Minerva, and that Pan is said to have invented the syrinx. More worthy of our attention are some similar records of the Hindoos, because they have hitherto scarcely been noticed in any work on music.

"In the mythology of the Hindoos, the god Nareda is the inventor of the _vina_, the principal musical instrument of Hindoostan. Saraswati, the consort of Brahma, may be said to be considered as the Minerva of the Hindoos. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech. To her is attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds into a musical scale. She is represented seated on a peacock and playing a stringed instrument of the guitar kind. Brahma, himself, we find depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his hands upon a small drum. Arid Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is represented as a beautiful youth playing upon a flute. The Hindoos still possess a peculiar kind of flute which they consider as the favorite instrument of Krishna. Furthermore, they have the divinity of Genesa, the god of wisdom, who is represented as a man with the head of an elephant holding in his hands a _tamboura_, a kind of lute with a long neck.

"Among the Chinese, we meet with a tradition according to which they obtained their musical scale from a miraculous bird called Foung-hoang, which appears to have been a sort of phoenix. As regards the invention of musical instruments, the Chinese have various traditions. In one of these we are told that the origin of some of their most popular instruments dates from the period when China was under the 'dominion of the heavenly spirits called Ki. Another assigns the invention of several of their stringed instruments to the great Fohi, called the "Son of Heaven," who was, it is said, the founder of the Chinese Empire, and who is stated to have lived about B.C. 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Ki, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important Chinese musical instruments, and the systematic arrangement of the tones, are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural female, who lived at the time of Fohi, and who was a virgin-mother. When Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, happened to hear, on a certain occasion, some divine music, he became so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months. The music which produced the miraculous effect was that of Kouei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the _king_, a kind of harmonicon constructed of slabs of sonorous stone, would draw wild animals around him and make them subservient to his will.

"The Japanese have a beautiful tradition, according to which the Sun-goddess, in resentment of the violence of an evil-disposed brother, retired into a cave, leaving the universe in darkness and anarchy; when the beneficent gods, in their concern for the welfare of mankind, devised music to lure her forth from her retreat, and their efforts soon proved successful.

"The Kalmucks, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, adore a beneficient divinity called Maidari, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking man, with a mustache and imperial, playing upon an instrument with three strings, somewhat resembling the Russian _balalaika_.

"Almost all these ancient conceptions we meet with, also, among European nations, though more or less modified.

"Odin, the principal deity of the ancient Scandinavians, was the inventor of magic songs and Runic writings.

"In the Finnish mythology the divine Vainamoinen is said to have constructed the five-stringed harp, called _kantele_, the old national instrument of the Finns. The frame he made out of the bones of a pike, and the teeth of the pike he used for the tuning-pegs. The strings he made of hair from the tail of a spirited horse. When the harp fell into the sea and was lost, he made another, the frame of which was birchwood, with pegs made out of the branch of an oak-tree. As strings for this harp he used the silky hair of a young girl. Vainamoinen took his harp, and sat down on a hill, near a silvery brook. There he played with so irresistible an effect that he entranced whatever came within hearing of his music. Men and animals listened, enraptured; the wildest beasts of the forests lost their ferocity; the birds of the air were drawn toward him; the fishes rose to the surface of the water and remained immovable; the trees ceased to wave their branches; the brook retarded its course and the wind its haste; even the mocking echo approached stealthily, and listened with the utmost attention to the heavenly sounds. Soon the women began to cry; then the old men and the children also began to cry, and the girls and the young men--all cried for delight. At last Vainamoinen himself wept, and his big tears ran over his beard and rolled into the water and became beautiful pearls at the bottom of the sea.

"Several other musical gods, or godlike musicians, could be cited; and, moreover, innumerable minor spirits, all bearing evidence that music is of divine origin.

"True, people who think themselves more enlightened than their forefathers, smile at these old traditions, and say that the original home of music is the human heart. Be it so. But do not the purest and most beautiful conceptions of man partake of a divine character? Is not the art of music generally acknowledged to be one of these? And is it not, therefore, even independently of myths and mysteries, entitled to be called the divine art?"

THE RELATION OF MUSIC TO WORK AND BLESSEDNESS.

"Give us," says Carlyle, "O, give us the man who sings at his work! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time--he will do it better--he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous--a spirit all sunshine--graceful from very gladness--beautiful because bright."

Again, this author says, who had so much music in his heart, though not of the softest kind--rather of the epic sort:

"The meaning of song goes deep. Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!"

The late Canon Kingsley certainly conceived much of the height and depth, and length and breath of song, when he wrote:

"There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain rules and laws. Man did not make these laws of music; he has only found them out; and, if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly: all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds: The greatest musician in the world is as much bound by those laws as the learner in the school; and the greatest musician is one who, instead of fancying that because he is clever he may throw aside the laws of music, knows the laws of music best, and observes them most reverently. And therefore it was that the old Greeks, the wisest of the heathens, made a point of teaching their children _music_; because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of laws. And, therefore, music is fit for heaven; therefore music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven; a life of melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other and with God.

"If thou fulfillest the law which God has given thee, the law of love and liberty, then thou makest music before God, and thy life is a hymn of praise to God.

"If thou act in love and charity with thy neighbors, thou art making sweeter harmony in the ears of our Lord Jesus Christ than psaltery, dulcimer, and all other kinds of music.

"If thou art living a righteous and a useful life, doing thy duty orderly and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ than if thou hast the throat of the nightingale; for then thou, in thy humble place, art humbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody by which God made the worlds and all that therein is, and, behold, it was very good, in the day when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new-created earth, which God made to be a pattern of his own perfection."

The minstrel's heart in sadness
Was wrestling with his fate;
"Am I the sport of madness,"
He sighed, "and born too late?"

"No gifts are ever given,"
A friendly voice replied,
"On which the smile of Heaven
Does not indeed abide.

God's harmony is written
All through, in shining bars,
The soul his love has smitten,
As heaven is writ with stars.

The major notes and minor
Are waiting for their wings;
Pray thou the great Diviner
To touch the secret springs.

He may not give expression
In any ocean-tide,
But music, like confession,
Will waft thee to his side;

Where thou, as on a river,
The current deep and strong,
Shalt sail with him forever
Into the land of song."

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XXXII.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

(BORN 1786--DIED 1859.)

A LIFE OF WONDER AND WARNING.