Faces in the Fire, and Other Fancies

of juvenile science. There was the gap in the hedge, or the low part of the wall, by which we coul

overed that, by going up a certain right-of-way, and climbing a certain fence, we could approach the school playground from a new and undreamed-of direction, our transports knew no bounds. It was not the 99 lazy gratification of having invented a labour-saving device; it was the stately joy of the explorer. Half the romance of life was bound up with those short cuts. The trysts of courtship were kept at the stiles by which those surreptitious footways were intersected. The most delightful walks we ever enjoyed were the strolls along those uncharted by-paths. It may have been for the

r destination more expeditiously without them. But, to pass abruptly from the microscopic to the magnificent, history furnishes me with a quite dramatic and most convincing demonstration of my point. In his Up From Slavery, Mr. Booker Washington illustrates this tendency again and again. The slaves were freed. But it is one thing to be free, and quite another thing to be worthy of the rights of freemen. With one voice the black people cried out for education. 'This experience of a whole race going to 101 school for the first time presents,' says Mr. Washington, 'one of the most interesting studies that has ever occurred in connexion with the development of any race.' But many of the people were advanced in years. To begin at the beginning and attain to knowledge gradually seemed a tedious process. It was like the round-about path from our front door to that of our next-door neighbour. The black people woke up late to the consciousness of their racial possibilities; and, like most people who wake up late, they spent the morning of their freedom in a desperate hurry. Here is a young coloured man, 'sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar!' On anothe

and consulted the oracle. The oracle assured them that all their troubles would cease as soon as they chose for their king the first man they 103 met driving in his chariot to the temple of Jupiter. Leaving the sacred building, they set out along the road and soon met Gordius, whom they accordingly elected king. Gordius drove on to the temple, to return thanks for his elevation, and to consecrate his chariot to the service of the gods. When the chariot stood in the temple courts it was observed that the pole was fastened to the yoke by a knot of bar

l-being of the State. A case in point occurs in Mark Rutherford's Clara Hopgood. Baruch and Dennis are discussing those old social problems that men have discussed since first this world began

nis. 'I would hang somebody, but

al reach of most of us; and in that particular brand of politics, therefore, most of us occasionally indulge. But the politics that consist in really grappling with the knotty problems, with a view to discovering some means of ameliorating hum

d intelligent Roman Catholic, listening to such an utterance, would, after making a reasonable allowance for rhetorical exaggeration admit the truth of all that had been said, and go home to weep, and, perhaps, to pray over it. Many of those who have passed over from Protestant communions to the Roman Catholic Church have travelled very widely and observed very closely. They are not ignorant. Newman sobbed over the seamy side of Romanism before he made the plu

its encrusted ritual, and its antique associations, crystallizes itself into a single voice. It possesses an enthroned incarnation. It has a Pope. Romanism is like a pine-tree. It towers to a pinnacle. All its branches converge upon the topmost bough. Protestantism is like a palm. Its summit consists of a great cluster of graceful fronds, but no one is uppermost. Romanism is the adoration of the topmost twig. In the person of the highest official, confused ears catch the accent of authority for which they hunger. Here they find the music of majesty. And they nestle their aching heads in the lap of a Church that will sternly command thei

to be desired, things that He was destined to possess. But the whole point of the record is that He was tempted to make His way to the bread and the angels and the kingdoms by means of short cuts. Now this is vastly significant. It is significant because, when you come to think of it, nearly all the things that we are tempted to acquire are good things. The temptation consists in the suggestion th

be saved was a consideration. Evangelist had clearly directed him, it is true; but then, if Mr. Worldly Wiseman knew a short cut, why not take it? 'Let him who has no such burden as this poor pilgrim had cast the first stone at Christian; I cannot,' says Dr. Alexander Whyte. 'If one who looked like a gentleman came to me to-night and told me how I could on the spot get to a peace of conscience never to be lost again, and how I could get a heart to-night that would never any more plague and pollute me, I should be mightily tempted to forget what all my former teachers had

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