Chapter VI: Part I: With the Outgoing Tide (3)

In spite of the materialistic way in which my doctor went about getting a bride, he was an idealist; and, consequently, doomed to have a hard time in this exceedingly practical world. When after his marriage he was sent to the Trenczin district, he found that the Kopanicze had as much use for a doctor as it had for a professor of psychology. Not that the people were never ill; on the contrary, infants born in the wretched huts, unless remarkably well prepared for the stifling air they had to breathe, for the hard rye bread soaked in alcohol, which often they had to eat, and for the poppy seed concoction which they were given to keep them quiet while their mothers were working in the fields--such infants, and there were many--went back into the unknown soon after they came out of it.

If they lingered, if any one lingered, before death overtook him, the witch was the first aid brought into requisition. To cure infantile convulsions, she would lay the baby on the threshold and cause a female dog to jump over it three times. A specific against typhoid fever was a vile compound made of the heart of a black cat, juniper berries, and alcohol; while if a child had eaten poisoned mushrooms, it was hit over the head until it either died or recovered.

Strange to say, and yet not strange, a fair proportion of robust infants, as well as hardened adults, survived such treatment, and even to this day there is a witch not far from the city of Vag Ujhely, who has some degree of national fame for her healing art.

If the witch failed to cure, the priest was sent for and the proper saints invoked for the healing. If the priest's prayers failed to help--"What's the use of sending for the doctor?" The undertaker was notified, and the grave-digger did the rest.

Unselfishly my friend tried to save these people. He preached the gospel of fresh air, and in passing through one of the settlements with him, some five years ago, I saw him break window after window (they were not made to open) that fresh air might at least once enter the wretched living-rooms. The result was a riot, and that night all his windows were broken; so that for once he had more air than he desired.

There was consumption in one settlement, and he provided sanitary cuspidors, proscribed by law; but he saw them used for culinary purposes instead!

Vainly, he lifted his voice against the use of alcohol; he had the innkeepers and the State against him. The State prefers to see its people rot from poison rather than lose its revenue.

In spite of all he did, he was regarded as the enemy of the community and not its friend; so having meddled much in business which was not his, he could not expect a promotion, and none came.

Five years ago he had accepted poverty, neglect, and the enmity of his neighbours as his lot in life. He had sunk into such a hopeless attitude that neither in dress nor in habits of living could one easily distinguish him from his ignorant neighbours. His wife was more disappointed than he was. Had she bestowed upon him such a dowry to live in the Kopanicze? She had expected to be the "Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----" and taste something of the forbidden fruits of Gentile society. Ordinarily, the physician breaks through the cast of race and faith; but here she was, despised even by the Kopaniczari, the lowliest of the lowly.

I left the doctor after that last visit, vowing never to see him again; for it was an uncomfortable experience, if not a painful one.

My studies last year carried me into this very region. Since I had left it, hundreds of men and women had gone to America and a large number had returned home. Here, indeed, was the proper field for observation, and the man to help me most, was my boyhood's friend.

With difficulty I found his home; for it was new, the doctor's wife was resplendent in fine clothing, and the doctor's office, once full of dust and cobwebs, contained new cases with new surgical instruments, and, wonder of wonders! a dentist's machine. I had to wait for the return of the doctor, who was visiting a patient, and had time to catch my breath; for having come a great distance by wheel and then finding such a surprise, proved quite overwhelming.

"What has happened here?" I asked him when he returned.

"One thing at a time," he replied. "First let's have some refreshments;" and as we drank the delicious raspberry soda which he prepared, he said: "If I wished to tell you in one word what has happened, I could do it by saying: Emigration.

"It seemed almost a miracle to see the first people leaving the Kopanicze; for neither they nor their ancestors had moved away since the great persecution in the sixteenth century brought them here from Bohemia.

"The letters they wrote, and which I had to read to their neighbours, contained such glowing accounts of America that others went, until nobody was left but the women, the children, the aged, the witch, and ourselves. We were at the point of starvation when the first money came from America, and with it nearly every husband, who sent it, wrote: 'If there is anything the matter with the children, send for the doctor.'

"My first case was a scarlet fever patient. The child recovered; but the contagion had spread. The mother whose child I had saved told everybody that the witch with her machinations made no impression upon the fever; while the medicine helped. I was called to other cases. In most homes I am sure that after I left the witch was called also; but I did not care so long as the children were given my medicine.

"Soon I was called to other villages, and as the money kept coming from America, and the peasants gained confidence in me, my services were greatly in demand.

"Our old house, which nearly caved in over our heads, was replaced by this one. I still owe money on it, but I am sure I can pay the rest in a year."

"What use do you make of this?" I asked, pointing to the well-known object found in every dentist's office in America.

"Since the men have come back," he replied, "filled teeth have become as fashionable as red waistcoats used to be, and I have had to learn dentistry. And there is more money in filling teeth," he added with a shrewd smile, "than in giving pills.

"What do I think of the effect of emigration on the Kopanicze? It has driven out the witch, it has awakened a community which had slept for many centuries, it has done for these people in the twentieth century what the Reformation did in the sixteenth. And as for us, it has saved us from starvation."

As I was about to go, I heard a peasant girl in the hall say: "I kiss your hand, Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----. Is the Most Mighty and Honourable Mr. Dr. M---- at home?" And the "Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----" answered triumphantly, that the Most Mighty and Honourable Mr. Dr. M---- was at home, but busy. A gentleman from America had come to consult him about his health; and I am sure that at that moment the "Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----" felt that her dowry had been well invested and that it was coming back with interest, through emigration to America.

VII

"MOSCHELE AMERIKANSKY"

The Hungarian town inhabited by Magyars, does not materially differ from the villages in which so many varieties and subjects of other races live. Such a town is merely a larger village, and, instead of one broad street flanked by straw thatched huts, there are at least four streets which terminate on the "square," around which the dignitaries have built their more pretentious dwellings. Here also are the stores, usually kept by Jews, who are not indifferent to the economic movements of the people whose purveyors they are.

Twenty years ago, before emigration from the district of Nyitra had begun, the principal town in that district boasted but half a dozen stores so called, the largest and best of which could be discovered only by its tiny show-window, where, crowded in dire confusion, were a few articles of general merchandise. During all the years of my comings and goings I could never see any change in the articles displayed, nor even by a wild flight of imagination see any indication that a duster had lost its way among them.

It is not, however, of this store that I wish to tell, in spite of the fact that it now has a double show-window, and contains, among many other new things, a genuine American cash register.

The "Amerikansky Schtore" was once the meanest and smallest among all the stores of that village. No front door led into it, no show-window betrayed its existence, and certainly no sign-board gave a hint of what could be purchased within. It was then owned by "Uncle Isaac," as every one called him. He made a living out of the store; but his life came out of the Talmud, and of course both were scanty.

Uncle Isaac's father, Reb Ephraim, studied the Talmud, and his sainted grandfather, Reb Isaac, after whom he was named, left such a holy savour behind him that to this day his name is reverently uttered in prayer, as one who is surely near to God and can intercede for the children of this generation who study less Talmud and do more business.

Uncle Isaac's forefathers, "God knows how far back," kept this same store in the same way; for like the ring in Lessing's fable it was to be left to the son who knew most about the Talmud, and, as a consequence, least about the business. The Talmud had to be studied, the store ran itself. Not that there was anything automatic about it in those days; but Uncle Isaac, true to the traditions of his forefathers, sold only those things which his forefathers had sold before him, namely; red earthen pots and big green bowls which he bought from the same family in the same town where the same peasant potteries flourished, from which his forefathers had bought their supplies of these same red pots and green bowls.

If a customer came to the store while the children were little and his wife was busy caring for them (for Uncle Isaac was blessed according to the promise made to Abraham) he had to wait until Uncle Isaac disentangled himself from the mazes of the Talmud. Then almost reluctantly he sold the pot or bowl, scarcely ever exchanging a word with his customer, who was usually a peasant, and of course a Gentile whose presence disturbed the pious atmosphere into which Uncle Isaac had wrapped himself.

If any of the townspeople came, he was more friendly; he had to be, and as was often the case in later days if they asked why he didn't sell cups and saucers and wash-bowls, he would invariably shrug his shoulders as his blessed forefathers had shrugged their shoulders before him. This shrug was eloquent, and meant many things; but, above all, it meant: "Have I not bother enough to remember what Rasche's (a celebrated Jewish commentator) comment upon Rambam's (the abbreviation of another commentator's name) comment was? How can you expect me to give my time to such things as buying and selling wash-bowls and cups and saucers?"

His children, three boys and three girls, were nurtured in this atmosphere. The sons began studying the Talmud when they were five years of age, and the daughters were initiated into the mysteries of the Kosher household before that age.

As the children grew, Uncle Isaac withdrew almost entirely from business and gave himself more and more to the study of the holy books. The oldest son, named after the sainted grandfather, went to Pressburg to study for the Rabbinate, living from the charity of the faithful, by whom the support of a pious youth is considered a great privilege.

The next son married into a rich but not pious family to whom his sacred learning was a very welcome asset. This left the business, such as it was, upon the shoulders of the youngest son, Moschele.

Moschele inherited less of his pious forefathers' piety and much more of some remote ancestor's business talents, and one day he came home from a distant market bringing with him a dozen cups and saucers and a wash-bowl and pitcher.

Had he brought home idols made of clay he could not have hurt his father more, and the whole town soon knew that Moschele--young Moschele whose eyes had already rested lovingly upon the blushing faces of young maidens--had received a beating from his father, who, in his fury, had broken the cups and saucers, throwing the fragments at the poor, defenseless head of the culprit. Uncle Isaac's temper was equalled only by his piety, and the old man was beside himself.

Moschele was in the same mood, and decided to leave his old father with his red pots and green bowls and dry Talmud. I visited Uncle Isaac's store many a time after this event. It was less a store than ever. The house itself was sinking into the surrounding mire, the thatched roof was falling in on one side and sliding off on the other.

"Where is Moschele?" I asked him on one of these visits. He lifted his weary head from the Talmud, and extricated from a pile of ancient manuscripts an envelope printed all over with English letters, which announced the business of Jake Greenbaum who kept the "finest General Department Store on Avenue B." in New York. The letter in the envelope told of Moschele's employment in the great city, and of his life there.

"Moschele, my Moschele, is in America!" And the tears began to gather in the old man's eyes as he spoke.

"Who knows whether he eats Kosher, and whether he wears the sacred fringes upon his breast? How I wish I could see him before I go hence!"

I promised to visit Moschele upon my return to America, and the old man's face beamed.

"Would you mind finding out whether he eats Kosher, and whether he wears the sacred fringes?"

I promised even that; but I did not find Moschele on Avenue B. He was up town, on the West Side, in one of the larger department stores, where he had entire charge of the crockery department. When I told him that I had seen his father, he plied me with questions. I told him the condition of affairs and urged him to return home to save his parents from utter poverty. He promised to go if his father would attend to the Talmud and let him attend to the business. I did not ask him if he wore the fringes and ate Kosher, I did not need to; for we lunched together and ham sandwich was the "pièce de résistance."

Some eight years later, my journey took me once more through Uncle Isaac's town. The rapid changes taking place in America seemed as nothing compared with those which I saw in this little spot in the Carpathians. There was actually a sidewalk, a cement sidewalk, the cement furnished by Moschele.

The old wooden pump upon which generations had expended their surplus strength and patience to coax up the water, had given place to an air pressure pump, sold to the town by Moschele.

In the old days, three coal-oil lamps furnished light for the miry street (when there was no moon), and now the town had an artificial gas plant, placed there and partly owned by Moschele. Even as in Florence, this or that or the other is by Michael Angelo; so in this far-away town, generations to come will remember that Moschele ushered in a new era, if not of art, at least of civilization.

It was well worth a trip across the ocean to have looked upon Moschele and Moschele's store. First of all was the sign in big letters, "Amerikansky Schtore"; then the outer wall of a new building, covered by huge illustrations of the various things sold therein--a method of advertising made necessary because many of the peasants cannot read.

The store itself was full of all sorts of crockery and tin and graniteware, such as had never been seen there before. And oh! the wonder of it! Moschele had already sold one bath-tub, and carried four patterns in stock. "I have not seen such faith, no not in Israel." He also sold building materials, and the yard was full of everything which could not be crowded into the store. That which especially marked the business as American, was the fact that one price was charged to all.

Uncle Isaac had withdrawn from the world and mourned the departure of the good old days. I found him sitting in a well-lighted, well-furnished room, clothed in finest broadcloth; for it was the Sabbath. Everything around him was new except the Talmud.

Was he happy? No, indeed!

"Where can a thing like this lead? Only to destruction!

"Who ever heard of such a thing as this before? Moschele rests neither by day nor by night; he prints bills and scatters them as if money were paper; he sleeps with an open window even in the winter, as if he wanted to heat all outdoors, and he has even travelled on the Sabbath!"

Then the old man broke down, hid his face in the Talmud, and wept. I think I comforted him; at least I tried to, and as I left him he breathed a prayer for his venturesome son who had deserted the Talmud, and the red pots and green bowls; who certainly was no longer in peril of poverty, but in peril of his soul.

One more year passed and in visiting this town, I immediately turned my steps towards the "Amerikansky Schtore." I found its doors closed, and from within came sounds of bitter wailing and lamentation. I did not need to be told that the death angel had made his sorrow-bringing visitation, and my heart grew tender as I thought of the dear old man who would no more bend over the Talmud and mourn the departure of the good old times.

A Jewish house of mourning is sadder than can be described. Its atmosphere chills one to the bone, such an air of resigned hopelessness pervades everything. All is sackcloth and ashes; no sign of hope is visible and but little of it lies in the hearts of the mourners.

Entering the room, where the family sat upon the ground lamenting its dead, how great was my amazement to find that Uncle Isaac, instead of being the one mourned for, was the centre of the group of mourners; while the one missing was Moschele, the pillar of the household, the founder of the "Amerikansky Schtore."

The old man stretched out both hands to me in mute welcome, and when I sat down beside him he told me the sad story which I shall try to give in his own words.

"Moschele is dead! What a blow! What a blow! I expected something terrible! I knew this couldn't go on! He grew bolder and bolder, and richer and richer. Have you seen the new store? In all Hungary there is nothing like it. He was a genius; even his enemies admit that." Then the old man fell into silence.

"But tell me how he died."

"He went out from among us in the morning as strong and straight as an oak, and he was brought home felled to the ground as if struck by lightning. God's ways are mysterious; but oh, my son, my strong, noble son! If only he had not departed from the ways of his fathers I might still have him.

"He went to the railroad; they had switched his car of goods where he could not get it--he was buying goods by the carload; nothing like this has ever been heard of before--and he wanted his car; so he helped the men to move it. Moschele wasn't afraid of anything. The men pushed and Moschele fell over a switch and the car went over him."

Here a paroxysm of grief silenced the old man and he swayed to and fro, weeping piteously.

* * * * *

And again I passed through the town, and this time I went to the God's acre with Uncle Isaac, to visit the grave of his son. In weird confusion lay the gray and moss-grown stones. No care is bestowed upon the graves or upon the memorials of the departed; for the body is nothing, the spirit is everything and that is with God.

In the centre of the cemetery is a knoll, and upon its crest is a monument such as cannot be found anywhere in Hungary. It is in the shape of a sarcophagus, is hewn out of Vermont granite and is so heavy that it cost over 500 kronen to bring it from the station and put it in place. How much the stone cost no one knows except Uncle Isaac, who erected it for his son Moschele, who wanted everything he had to come from America--even his tombstone.

VIII

"NOCH IST POLEN NICHT VERLOREN"

It has always seemed to me wise to carry letters of introduction, especially when travelling to the East of Europe; often, too, I have found it still wiser to forget that I had them, for a letter of introduction sometimes blocks avenues of investigation, particularly when the problem in question involves the privileged or official classes.

This time in following the immigrant tide, I carried one letter which I was eager to deliver; it was given me by a personal friend in America and was to be presented to his mother-in-law in Poland. Not that I was overanxious to meet his mother-in-law, but because Polish women of the upper class are, as a rule, so superior to the men, so ready to talk and talk so well, that I promised myself a rather fruitful call. I did not meet the mother-in-law yet I was not disappointed.

Cracow looks dingy even to one who, like myself, is able to illuminate its sombre present in the light of its important if not glorious past. Coming, as I had come, by way of industrial German-Poland, with its glistening newness, from the

Here Poland mourns her glorious past, and the returned immigrant assures her of a glorious future.]

policemen's helmets to the weather-vane of the new Rathhaus; out of its tense atmosphere of whirring wheels within wheels; out of its geometrically correct parks and new and ever growing building additions, Cracow looked to me as if it had fallen off this revolving planet and settled itself "Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest"--wherever that may be.

The only thing that had grown since last I saw the city was its hatred of the Germans. On the doors of many stores on the Rinok were large placards, which, literally translated, read: "The gentlemen travellers from Germany, who wish to come in here to do business with us, are politely requested to stay out."

Everything else looked the same, only more dingy; even the Austrian officers who loaf around Havelik's restaurant seemed to have lost something of their newness; for braid and buttons, two of the component elements out of which Austrian officers are made, were tarnished and worn.

The Jews' quarter seemed more hopeless and wretched than ever. On the Kazimir were the same haggling crowds in the same small stores, and the same shambling Jews in black, greasy cloaks. In front of the Jesuit church stood the same twelve apostles, and I regret to say that they were just as shabby-looking as their unbaptized brethren.

Cracow, the freest portion of divided Poland, is certainly as wretched looking as Warsaw, where liberty dare not lift her head, and it cannot compare with any of the cities of German-Poland where the Prussian gendarme is trying, at the point of the bayonet, to cram German speech down the unwilling throats of Polish children.

Why, I asked myself, should this shabbiness, this negligence, this "run-down-at-the-heel" appearance prevail in all the Slavic cities from Belgrade to St. Petersburg, and from Cracow to Irkutsk? Why should this be so of every place, except where the German has stepped in with his iron heel or where the Magyar or the Jew is trying to make of the Slav what he is not and does not care to be?

I was tempted to take the first train out of Cracow, so painful to me was this condition of affairs; for I admire the Slavs, although I think I know their weaknesses. But the first train did not go until midnight, and I had nearly eight long hours on my hands. Then I remembered my letter of introduction. I found it with my passport and letter of credit, and looked at it again, to assure myself that it was right. Yes, it was addressed to the Countess So & So, and all the way to the house, I pictured to myself my friend's mother-in-law. She would be rather rotund, for Slavic women incline that way, especially during the full moon of life. She would have gray hair, dark complexion, and a rather pronounced down on the upper lip. That seems to be the tendency of the Polish woman as she grows older; perhaps because of her great vitality.

Beneath the portal of a so-called palace, which was pervaded by an incredibly strong smell of whitewash, I presented my card to the porter, who looked somewhat contemptuously at the German name it bore. After long waiting I was guided to the very top story of the house, through clouds of falling mortar and showers of broken brick. The building seemed to be in the possession of masons and plasterers, and the noise they were making was as confusing as the dirt and dust their destructive hands were creating.

Two surprises awaited me. The first was, that in spite of the fact that the roof was partly torn off, and confusion reigned supreme, that top story contained some of the most lavishly appointed apartments I have ever seen. Pictures, statuary, and bric-à-brac, created by Polish genius, costly vases, rare flowers, exquisite rugs and furniture; and everything in perfect taste. If Cracow without seemed dingy and dead, here it was brilliant and alive. Thus had I pictured my Slav at his best--imaginative, creative, revelling in the beautiful, lavish of colour, yet creating harmonies. Everything around me seemed to breathe out life, and here I could understand the "Noch ist Polen nicht Verloren," although in the street I had been ready to sing a requiem for the nation.

A hundred questions passed through my brain; questions which I would ask the mother-in-law when she appeared. Then came my second surprise. As I sat there thrilled by contending emotions, the curtain opposite me was thrown back gracefully and quickly, not at all as if a short, stout mother-in-law were behind it--and my eyes fell upon one of the most beautiful young women I have ever seen. This again was Poland at her best, if not Poland typified. Her eyes were burningly eloquent, yet showed a hidden pathos; her features looked as if chiselled by a master's hand, yet, in the background, the crude touch was faintly visible. The welcome accorded me was genuinely cordial, yet tinged by the proper reserve.

"How is it," I asked, after some conversation, "that you don't look like a mother-in-law, and that you speak English as if you came from Boston?"

"Because," she said, with the sweetest smile, "I am as yet only a sister-in-law, and I do come from Boston. That is, I lived there for years after my parents were exiled from Poland. I came back here after my marriage."

This, then, was my chance to ask all manner of questions about the Slavs in general and the Poles in particular, and have them answered in the light of a rather unique experience.

"Why is Cracow a dead city?" This was certainly a perfectly familiar American question, and I received a characteristic answer.

"It is dead because it is 'crying over spilt milk.' Nobody is regarded as a patriot unless he talks about our past glory and blames some one in general and the Germans in particular, for the loss of that glory. We might do great things if we would just do them. We have the vision and the talent; but we wear ourselves out, saying what a great people we are and how superior to all other human beings; yet we accomplish nothing. Look at this house of ours, and you see Poland in miniature. I don't know just how old it is, my husband can tell you; but when it was built, the work was poorly done, and every year it has to be repaired from the bottom up. In America, it would have been torn down years ago, and a new house built, to suit the needs of the times. Instead of that, my husband is spending a fortune trying to make it a fit place to live in, and he never succeeds.

"Yet that is the thing he enjoys. He can scold the workmen half the year for dragging their task along, and the other half year he scolds them for having done their work so poorly.

"You Americans enjoy being comfortable, we Poles enjoy being miserable. If the Polish men had half the energy of the American men, we would indeed be a great people, and Cracow would be a city worthy of our pride in it."

I am not sure that I am recording the Countess' exact words, for to see her talk was such an æsthetic pleasure, that I must have forgotten much of what she said; but I give the substance of her words.

"See what America is doing for our peasants!" she continued.

"They go there lazy and shiftless, they come back thrifty and industrious, and are rapidly taking the places of our decayed nobility. When they come back, they have what we Slavs have always lacked--initiative. I wish we could export to you all our stock of Counts."

I suggested that she might try it as a business venture; for they would bring a good price in our matrimonial market.

"Oh, no!" she replied. "We would want them back. They have talent and devotion; they need only to learn to work, and America is the world's great boss."

At this point in the conversation the Count entered the room. The Countess had told me that her home was the type of Poland; she had not told me what I soon discovered, that her husband was the typical Pole, both physically and mentally.

He was a small man with unmistakable Polish features, which looked well worn; for being a Polish nobleman, he had travelled through life swiftly and indulgently. After scarcely five minutes' conversation, he began talking about the sufferings of the Poles, and what they would do if it were not for those wicked Germans.

Then followed what was as nearly a family jar as I care to witness. My hostess opened wide her beautiful eyes, and, in most forceful Polish, gave her liege lord a piece of her mind.

"I am tired of your tirades against the Germans. I don't admire their methodical ways, myself; but they are doing things.

"Go out of Cracow to the border and look across, and you will see order on that side and disorder on this. Step into a German train; it is clean and efficiently managed, while our cars, from the first-class to the third, are dirty and ill-lighted and the trains go by fits and starts.

"Go to the German towns, and you will find business flourishing; while ours stagnates. They don't neglect art, either. Their music may be slower than ours, but it is art; their paintings may not be as brilliant as ours, but they are as artistic. Go to work! Do something worth while! Build from the foundations! Develop some backbone, some character, do better than the Germans, and then you may call them names!"

The sensitive nostrils of the husband grew wider and contracted again. He was furiously angry; but facing him was his Americanized wife, and he knew that "Discretion was the better part of valour"; so he permitted his anger to cool while he nervously bit the ends of his moustache.

"Yes," he said, ignoring the Countess' outburst; "there is a great future for us Slavs when we all get together. We were in Prague this summer, at the Slavic Congress, and everything between us was so harmonious that I have great hopes of a Slav Confederation. Then we will crush our German oppressors. What do you think of it?"

I analyzed the situation thus: "As yet, the Slavs lack racial consciousness. Each group, no matter how small, thinks itself different from the other, and often superior to it. Not only are they divided by small historic dissimilarities, but religious differences have obscured racial unity to such a degree that I have but little hope that their racial consciousness will soon ripen into tangible results.

"In the great game of politics, the Slav has given his soul as a pawn, with which popes and patriarchs have gambled. Poland's national life has been lost, not so much by corruption from within, as because the Pole was used as a tool by the Roman Curia in the game of world politics she was playing, and playing unscrupulously."

Ah! It was good to see the Countess' dark eyes dancing from pleasure, while I thus analyzed the situation. I continued:

"The Slav either lacks sane pride in his race, or he has an overbearing conceit; he is either easily crushed, or he crushes, ruthlessly. Look at this daily paper. In Dalmatia, the Serbs break the windows of the Italians, and tramp madly through the streets proclaiming their superiority over the Latins. In Laibach, the Slovene does the same thing to the Germans. Tears down German business signs, shoots, and is shot in turn. In Prague, the Czechs are constantly bombarding the houses of the Germans, until martial law has to be declared. All this, to the detriment of the development of a rational, racial pride.

"And these same boisterous, roistering Slavs, to-morrow will cringe before their Magyar and German masters.

"Another thing is in the way," I hastened to add; for I saw that my host was eager to talk: "The Slavs lack collective wisdom. Where there are three thinking Slavs, there are always three quarrels. People who wish to rule must learn to act wisely together; yet in the history of the Slavs this collective wisdom, this inability of one group to acknowledge the equality of the other, has been their greatest lack.

"The Russian revolution failed, even as the Polish revolution failed, and as the Czechs' will fail, because they lack collective wisdom. It will take at least a hundred years," I concluded prophetically, "before you Slavs will confederate."

My host laughed nervously. "You are a false prophet. It will come in a decade. We will flow together like small rivers into a great stream. We Poles, of course, being the most cultured, the most civilized, and the best prepared to play the leading rôle, will be the stream into which all these lesser rivers will flow. In the great overture of Slavic union, the Pole will play the leading part."

To reason with such a man was futile; so I drank my tea and looked at the beautiful lady opposite me, in whom the practical American and the idealistic Pole were so harmoniously blended. Perhaps in her person she was a prophecy of the great day to come.

The Count talked incessantly about Poland, its past, its powers, its enemies; but I was not listening.

From my silence he thought he had convinced me, and as I rose to go, he asked: "Have you not changed your mind about its taking a hundred years to federate the Slavs?"

"Yes," I replied, "I have changed my mind. It will take two hundred years; unless"--and I looked at my fair hostess--"you bring back many more such Polish women from America."

IX

THE DISCIPLES IN THE CARPATHIANS

The river Waag has a broad and beautiful valley in which to indulge its vagabond habits. Now it seeks a channel close to the Carpathian hills on one side, and again rushes far away towards the mountain wall, close to the Austrian border.

The Romans appropriately named the river "Waag," the vagabond river, and it lives up to its reputation at all times of the year. One can scarcely find fault with its wandering propensities, for both shore lines are imposing and wildly beautiful; many of the little towns are castle-crowned, while each town and each castle has its myth and story, rivalling those of the Rhine in fantastic invention and equalling them in historic interest.

The river Waag, however, is not in Germany, where everything is prohibited, regulated, and subdued, even the turbulent rivers.

This is Hungary, the ill-mated spouse in that Austro-Hungarian alliance, in which quarrels are continual, and divorce, with alimony or without it, is threatened every day. Here rivers and races foam and rage; floods of hate beat against historic walls and there are no smooth channels for politics, education, or religion.

Struggle there is everywhere. Those who are too weak to fight, resist, and none, however small or unimportant, is ready to surrender.

Among those people with strength enough to resist, but not enough to fight, are the Slovaks, who live in wretched villages on both sides of the river. The villages grow more wretched as they climb away from the richer valley to the scant clearings in the mountains, where poverty, ignorance, superstition, and intemperance are the four walls which hem them in from the throbbing life of the century and shut them out from it. No one climbs the almost impassable highways except the Magyar gendarmes, who are the minions of the master race which has subdued the Roumanians, Ruthenians, and Germans within its borders, and is now hard at work to blot out the Slovaks, the feeble remnant of a once powerful people.

These gendarmes are but stupid tools in the hands of a stupid government. They erase the Slavic names of villages and paint over them Magyar names, not even remotely related to the original; they prohibit the Slovak language in the higher schools, fall savagely upon assemblies of innocent folk and disperse them by force of arms, annoy unsuspicious travellers and arrest nationalistic agitators and severely punish them. Then they believe that they have changed sluggish Slovak blood into the fiery Magyar fluid, obliterated age-long, historic memories, created in a day a new patriotism, blotted out a vernacular spoken in related languages and dialects by 100,000,000 of people and substituted for it one spoken by a warlike people, numbering not more than 8,000,000, and slowly emerging from Asiatic barbarism.

This they believe; but the fact is that no people were ever assimilated by force. Force begets resistance, and the most stupid Slovak, shut in by the four walls of his wretched isba, if he knows nothing else, knows that the Magyar is his enemy, and that the Magyar speech must not lodge in his memory and displace his mother tongue. Although he may have no knowledge of his historic past and no idea of the significance of the Slavic race of which he is a member, he _does_ know that he must resist the Magyars, and resist, only where he cannot fight.

Two forces are at work which will soon turn this resistance into fighting. One of them is the unbearable and unreasonable methods used by the Hungarian government, and the other is that giant in the growing, the returned immigrant.

The Slovak immigrant comes back less rugged but more agile; for he has passed through trials by fire and by flood; he goes back less docile, for he has had no masters except those that directed his daily task; his mind is awakened, for he has read the uncensored news from the Fatherland; news coloured more or less by the not always scrupulous agitator; added to all this, the Slovak immigrant goes back conscious of his racial inheritance, for he was one of a great Slavic brotherhood, organized on this side the sea, carrying on, unhampered, its agitations against the historic Magyar foe. Above all, he goes back with a bank account, and money is power in business and politics alike.

Hat in hand, the Slovak used to wait patiently at the ticket window until the Magyar station agent deigned to notice him and sell him his third-class ticket; then, as if he were an ox being loaded for the stockyards at Budapest, the Magyar conductor would push him into a car crowded by his kind.

I have repeatedly seen Slovak men and women miss the only train that could take them to the market town or from it, because the proud Magyar official paid no attention to their repeated request for a ticket. Day after day I have witnessed the incivilities and even cruelties they had to suffer on the trains; but when the Slovak comes back, he knows that the railroad official is only a servant, his servant, and he treats him like one; he demands attention. Woe unto the bribe-taking conductor--and there are no others on the Hungarian railways--who pushes him into a car crowded to suffocation, while more than half the cars of the same class are almost empty, with only here and there a passenger, who is politely treated because he is a Magyar or because he has pressed into the conductor's responsive hand the usual bribe.

The Slovak immigrant returns home somewhat of a rebel. The Hungarian government knows this, and were it not for the fact that he brings back money, and spends it freely, his emigration to America would be forbidden.

Recently a special police force has been created to watch every outgoing and incoming train, and every third-class passenger who has baggage enough to mark him as an emigrant is detained, rigidly examined, and if permitted to go to America at all, is sent _via_ the Hungarian port of Fiume. On the way he is duly inoculated by the fact that he is an Hungarian subject and that as such he must return.

The stupidity and the illiberal spirit of the Hungarian government are nowhere more clearly manifested than in its relation to the religious movements which are American in their origin and which have been transplanted from the Alleghanies to the Carpathians. In the hands of a truly liberal government this new force might become a constructive and saving one to multitudes of people; instead, it is alienated, put on the defensive and limited in its usefulness.

When the Y. M. C. A. expedition, of which I was the leader, reached the valley of the Waag, to study the Slovak language and people, serious difficulties to the carrying out of our plans presented themselves. The towns have all become Magyarized by the gendarmes and a multitude of officials. To speak the Slovak language marks one an inferior and renders one an object of suspicion.

The village inns are merely dram-shops, kept and generally ill-kept by Jews, who are under the influence of the Magyars, and consequently look down upon the Slovaks. Even had it been possible for us to lodge in one of these inns, our friendly attitude towards the Slovaks would have forbidden it.

The gendarmes were alert and agitated from the moment we entered the valley, and when they learned the nature of our errand they were incredulous. "Who ever heard of anybody's having a disinterested concern for the Slovaks? How could they believe that Americans, cold, materialistic Americans, would equip an expedition to study the needs of this downtrodden race, that it might be lifted up? Of course, we were nationalistic agitators sent out by the Slovanic Society of America, to arouse the half-awake Slovak into revolution."

That which confirmed them in this suspicion was the fact that the only place where it was posible for us to lodge was the home of Jan Chorvat, Apostle of the Christian faith in the Carpathians, and suspected of being a revolutionary, because he preached to his countrymen in their native tongue; preached to them a Gospel broad enough to embrace all races and nationalities, strong enough to wean them from drink and free enough to loose them from the bonds of superstition and ecclesiastical tyranny.

The simple and perfect hospitality which Jan Chorvat and his wife offered us was the product of that faith. Without hesitation they moved into the basement and gave the upper rooms to their guests. The first night of our sojourn with them, our hearts were cheered, and we felt as if we were at home when we overheard their evening devotions. The words of an English hymn, "My Faith Looks up to Thee," came in subdued tones through the thick walls of the room below. Then Jan Chorvat prayed, as only those can pray who walk consciously with God. The sentences which I could translate from the strange tongue knitted us into an unbroken friendship.

"I thank Thee, God, that Thou hast put it into the hearts of the American people to send these dear brothers across the sea, that they might learn to speak the tongue of my people so that they may serve them in the far-away land and inspire them to become sober and chaste; good citizens, good husbands, and good brothers.

"May these young brothers learn, above all, to love my people with the passion of Jesus, so that they will be able to lead them to the source of all redemptive power--Jesus Christ."

Jan Chorvat and his wife, in their outlook upon life, in the strength of their convictions, in their passion for righteousness, would have fitted easily into the church of the Puritans anywhere on this side the sea, where Puritanism is still at its best. In his asceticism Jan Chorvat reminded us of John the Baptist, in the sweetness of his temper of the Beloved Disciple, and, in his zeal and passion for Christ, of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Here was a Slovak who spoke English almost perfectly, who wrote his native language classically, who clung to a noble faith passionately; yet that which bound us to him closely and I must regretfully admit, most closely, was the fact that Jan Chorvat was what he was, because of certain religious influences emanating from America. These influences and ideals, which are slowly growing stronger, are being augmented and reënforced by returning immigrants who come home with a passion for their kinsmen, eager to redeem them from their individual and national sins.

The centre of this religious movement is in O Tura, one of those mountain villages isolated, but brought into the world's current by mighty ideals; fit birthplace of a new hope.

Here a Protestant pastor ministered in the more or less stereotyped forms of the established faith, and, when he died, left three daughters, the "Roy Sisters," to carry on his work for the people he loved. Hampered by a strict orthodoxy and a suspicious government, they hungered with their people and for them, unconscious of a larger faith and a better way; until so commonplace a thing as a religious newspaper, published by the missionaries of the American Board at Prague, found its way to them.

Our credulity has been so severely tested by the narratives of missionaries who hinged mighty consequences upon trivial causes, that here too one is assailed by doubt; until one reads Christina Roy's little story: "How I came to the Light."

In simple yet graphic language, she tells of her life in the parsonage, her father's struggle against adverse conditions, her own budding ideals, and finally the important moment when for the first time she came in touch with the vital truths of Christianity as presented in the little Bohemian newspaper, _Bethania_. Upon so slender a thread travelled this mighty current which gave direction to her own life, which has enabled her to enlarge the vision of an oppressed peasantry, and which is now encouraging her and the noble group of men and women around her to attempt the almost hopeless struggle against intemperance.

Whether one agrees with the type of theology which these people preach or not, one can but feel that they are in touch with real spiritual forces, and that, by the test of character and of work accomplished, we who travel faster in the paths of what we call progress, are compelled to halt and admire.

The students who were the members of my expedition were nearly all recent college graduates and had left their schools with much of their traditional faith unsettled. Any doubts they may have had regarding the doctrine of the Incarnation, as it is commonly interpreted, were lost, when they saw the spirit of Jesus dominating the lives of simple peasants whose dull faces have become radiant, whose animal appetites have been controlled, and whose homes have become the abodes of peace and happiness.

To look into the faces of the "Roy Sisters," of Jan Chorvat and his wife, and of hundreds of peasants who come to hear the Gospel preached in true simplicity, was a better definition of the doctrine of the Incarnation than any professor of theology can give.

The Atonement, as defined by our orthodox churches and which is such a stumbling-block to the rationalistic mind, lost all its mystery in watching another member of this group, John Rohac[ve]k, at work among the gypsies; loving those whom no one loves, living with them in huts by the wayside and trying with a divine passion to lift them out of age-long Paganism into a wholesome relation to the doctrine: "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

Although John Rohac[ve]k believes with all his simple soul that "Jesus paid it all," he is willing and eager to shed his blood for God's despised children, those most neglected of all, the gypsies. For them he has suffered persecution, imprisonment, hunger and thirst, in the true apostolic spirit; and although those American students may never be able to explain to themselves the meaning of the Atonement, they certainly will never be able to say that they have not seen the Atonement "at work."

Here among the Slovaks, the seed sown by the American missionary at home and abroad has brought forth more vital fruit, perhaps, than on the home soil. Although these Slovak disciples have gone out to save only this one or that one, they are helping to save a nation and are lifting a race out of degeneration.

Nominally, Jan Chorvat was a teacher in the Slovak language to our expedition; and to learn the more effectually, my students often went with him on his tours from village to village. As they walked, he explained to them the grammar

and enriched their vocabulary. How much of the difficult Slovak language they will remember when they come to their task in Pennsylvania, I do not know; but they can never forget the lessons he taught them by his singleness of purpose, his devotion to his people, and his fearless approach to those who he thought needed his admonition. Those students will surely remember that "Though they speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, it profiteth nothing."

The last day of our stay in Hungary brought us early to a village at the foot of the Tatra mountains, the village of Czorba. Leaving our uncomfortable third-class carriage in which we had spent the night, we were quickly revived by the ozone-laden mountain air, and by the marvellous sight which greeted our eyes. Here were the giant mountains of Hungary which she has proudly pictured highest on her escutcheon.

That which most quickened us, however, as a group of strangers, was the greeting extended to us by three men waiting in the early dawn. They had come many miles on foot to meet us, and carried huge loaves of rye bread and bottles of milk for our refreshment. They were to guide us to the top of the mountain. The three men belonged to three antagonistic races of Hungary, and we were Americans, a conglomerate of races; Teutonic, Semitic, and Celtic. Together we broke bread, prayed, sang, and exchanged thoughts about the vital things of life.

The man who appeared to be the leader of the group, the brightest and happiest of the three, the one with the largest outlook on life, was a Slovak who had found his vision and his happiness in America. He worked in a blacksmith's shop in Torrington, Conn. Here some one with a passion for common men ministered to him and led him from drunkenness to sobriety, and from his coarse animal existence into fellowship with the divine. He returned home and is daily at his task of shoeing horses and mending broken ploughshares; but he never forgets that what carried him back among his people was his awakened passion for them.