A Man's World. Edwards Albert

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СКАЧАТЬ was on Literature and the King James Version was taken as a model of English prose. No mention was made of the fact that much of the original had been poetry. There was also a course on "Science." A professor of Exigesis from a neighboring Theological Seminary delivered a venomous polemic against Darwin. The "Nebular Hypothesis" was demolished with many convincing gestures.

      My little love affair with Margot had put me in a state of exaltation. Other things conspired to make me especially susceptible to religious suggestion. Oliver was back from his second year in the seminary. My dislike for him was forgotten. He seemed very eloquent to me in the young people's meetings, which he conducted.

      Mary was there with her three children and had taken for the summer the cottage at one end of the semi-circle overlooking the lake. Her husband, Prof. Everett, had been away for several months on the geological expedition to Alaska, which was, I believe, the foundation of the eminence he now holds in that science. Mary also had been caught up in the religious fervor of the place. To me she seemed wonderfully spiritualized and beautiful beyond words. Oliver and I used often to walk home with her after the evening meetings and, sitting out on her porch over the water, talk of religion.

      Sundays were continuous revival meetings. Famous fishers-of-souls came every week. All methods from the most spiritual to the coarsest were used to wean us from our sins. It was "Salvation" Milton, who landed me.

      He was the star attraction of the summer's program. He stayed in the camp two weeks, fourteen days of tense emotion, bordering on hysteria. To many people "Salvation" Milton has seemed a very Apostle. His message has come to them as holy words from the oracle of the Most High. To such it may, I fear, seem blasphemous for me – a criminologist – to write of him as a specimen of pathology. But I have met many who were very like him in our criminal courts.

      I have no doubt of his sincerity – up to the limit of his poor distorted brain. He had moments of exaltation when he thought that he talked face to face with God. He believed intensely in his mission. He had lesser moments, which he regretted as bitterly as did his friends who, like the sons of Noah, covered him with a sheet that his drunken nakedness might not be seen by men. He was pitifully unbalanced. But I think that if he had been given the strength of will to choose, he would have always been the ardent servant of God we saw in him at the camp meeting.

      He was a master of his craft. By meditation and fasting and prayer he could whip himself into an emotional state when passionate eloquence flowed from his lips with almost irresistible conviction. He was also adept at the less venerable tricks of his trade.

      It was his custom in the afternoon about four to walk apart in the woods and spend an hour or more on his knees. Once he took me with him. I remember the awe of sitting there on the pine needles, in the silence of the forest and watching him "wrestle with the Spirit." I tried to pray also, but I could not keep my mind on it so long. Suddenly he began to speak, asking Christ's intercession on my behalf. And walking home, he talked to me about my soul. For the first time I was "overtaken by a conviction of sin." That night he preached on the Wages of Sin.

      I will never forget the horror of fear which held me through that service. Milton was in the habit of dealing with and overcoming men of mature mind. Such a lad as I was putty in his hands. When, out of the shivering terror of it, came the loud-shouted promise of salvation, immunity from all he had made me feel my just deserts, I stumbled abjectly up the aisle and took my place among the "Seekers." I must say he had comfort ready for us. I remember he put his arm over my shoulder and told me not to tremble, not to be afraid. God was mighty to save. Long before the world was made He had builded a mansion for me in the skies. He would wash away all my sins in the blood of the Lamb. Milton had scared me into a willingness to wade through an ocean filled with blood if safety lay beyond.

      The next morning brought me peace. I suppose my overstrained nerves had come to the limit of endurance. I thought it was the promised "peace which passeth all understanding." I was sure of my salvation. Several weeks of spiritual exaltation followed. I read the Bible passionately, sometimes alone, more often with Oliver or Mary, for it was the fashion to worship in common. Whenever the opportunity offered in the meetings, I made "public testimony."

      But I would have found it hard to define my faith. I had been badly frightened and had recovered. This, I thought, came from God. I had only a crude idea of the Deity. In general, I thought of Him as very like the Father, with white hair and a great beard. I thought of Him as intimately interested in all I did and thought, jotting it all down in the tablets of judgment – a bookkeeper who never slumbered. I was not at all clear on the Trinity. These mountain Presbyterians were Old Testament Christians. The Christ had a minor role in their Passion Play. They talked a good deal of the Holy Ghost, but God, the Father, the King of Kings, the jealous Jehovah of Israel was their principal deity. We were supposed to love Him, but in reality we all feared Him. However, I was very proud in the conviction that I was one of His elect.

      Advancing years bring me a desire for a more subtle judgment on things than the crude verdict of "right" or "wrong." I look back on my religious training, try to restrain the tears and sneers and think of it calmly. I doubt if any children are irreligious. Some adults claim to be, but I think it means that they are thoughtless – or woefully discouraged. We live in the midst of mystery. We are born from it and when we die we enter it again. Anyone who thinks must have some attitude towards the Un-understandable – must have a religion. And loving parents inevitably will try to help their children to a clean and sweet emotional relation towards the unknown. Evidently it is not an easy undertaking. For the adults who surrounded me in my childhood, in spite of their earnest efforts, in spite of their prayers for guidance, instead of developing my religious life, distorted it horribly. They were sincerely anxious to lead me towards Heaven. I do not think it is putting it too strongly to say they were hounding me down the road which is paved with good intentions.

      I can think of no more important task, than the development of a sane and healthy "course of religious education for children." The one supplied in our Sunday schools seems to me very far below the mark. It is a work which will require not only piety, but a deep knowledge of pedagogics.

      Certainly the new and better regime will discourage precocious "professions of faith." I do not think it will insist that we are born in sin and born sinful. Above all it will take care not to make religion appear ugly or fearsome to childish imagination. Even the most orthodox Calvinists will learn – let us hope – to reserve "the fountain filled with blood" and the fires of Hell for adults. The Sunday school of the future will be held out in the fields, among the flowers, and the wonder of the child before this marvelous universe of ours will be cherished and led into devotion – into natural gratitude for the gift of the earth and the fulness thereof. Surely this is wiser than keeping the children indoors to learn the catechism. I can think of nothing which seems to me less of a religious ceremony than those occasions, when Bibles are given to all the Sunday school scholars who can recite the entire catechism. What have youngsters to do with such finespun metaphysics? Oh! the barren hours I wasted trying to get straight the differences between "Justification," "Sanctification," and "Adoption" – or was it "Redemption." One would suppose that Jesus had said "Suffer the little children, who know the catechism, to come unto me."

      But, of course, at sixteen, I had no such ideas as these. I knew of no religious life except such as I saw about me. I had been carefully taught to believe that a retentive memory and a glib tongue were pleasing to the Most High. I was very contemptuous towards the children of my age who were less proficient.

      VI

      In the midst of this peace a bolt fell which ended my religious life. Its lurid flame momentarily illumined the great world beyond my knowing. And the visioning of things for which I was unprepared was too much for me. I may not be scientifically correct, but it has always seemed to me that what I saw that July night stunned the section of my brain which has to do with "Acts of faith." Never since have I been able to believe, religiously, in anything.

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