faith on which they rested. It clung to the rosy visions of a theologic heaven, whose evidences it invalidated by repudiating its equal revelation of visions not rosy. It was able to give no reason for its surviving faith in God or immortality; and when Abner Kneeland denied these, and was shut up in prison, Unitarianism mingled with its petition for mercy to its abhorred child a cry of helplessness.

It was then shown, also, that temples sprinkled with Unitarian holy water were not only prepared to imprison the human mind, but might be made buttresses of the national inhumanity based upon the Bible. What, then, was Unitarianism? Christianity made easy. New England theology with none of its crosses, but all of its comforts, adapted by scholars to suit spiritual epicures. Between the Universalists, who believed God too good to damn them, and the Unitarians, who believed they were too good to be damned, respectability was able to make itself quite comfortBut how was it with the real heart and intellect

able.

of the country?

The "wail of the nineteenth century," already audible in the Old World, was first heard in the new by Emerson. Even in the peaceful homes of his Quakers, or in that happy retreat at Waltham, it followed him, and to it he must respond. A young man himself, in years only thirty when he returned from Europe,

- he saw the young men of America as if stricken by a mental malady and melancholy, which "strips them of all manly aims and bereaves them of animal spirits."

"The noblest youths," he wrote in a letter printed

in the "Dial," 99.66 are in a few years converted into pale caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions. They are in the state of the young Persians when that mighty Yezdan prophet' addressed them and said, 'Behold the signs of evil days are come; there is now no longer any right course of action nor any selfdevotion left among the Iranis.' As soon as they have arrived at this turn, there are no employments to satisfy them; they are educated above the work of their time and country and disdain it. Many of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism of these things, which only embitters their sensibility to the evil and widens the feeling of hostility between them and the citizens at large. From this cause companies of the best-educated young men in the Atlantic States every week take their departure for Europe; for no business that they have in that country, but simply because they shall so be hid from the reproachful eyes of their countrymen, and agreeably entertained by one or two years, with some lurking hope, no doubt, that something may turn up to give them a decided direction. It is easy to see that this is only a postponement of their proper work, with the additional disadvantage of a two years' vacation. Add that this class is rapidly increasing by the infatuation of the active class, who, while they regard these young Americans with suspicion and dislike, educate their own children in the same courses and use all possible endeavours to secure to them the same result."

This, then, was "the wail of the nineteenth century." Undoubtedly there was a cause for the acute form assumed by this malady. Authentic voices from Europe

were announcing the departure of old beliefs and the crumbling of old institutions. Kant and Schelling, Jacobi and Schleiermacher, Herder and De Wette, Goethe and Schiller, Cousin and Quinet, Coleridge and Carlyle, were read by students in colleges supposed to be intent upon languages of the dead. Above all, Carlyle had spoken to young Americans, as Emerson said, with an emphasis which deprived them of sleep. Yet, though roused, they were drawn to travel with shamed faces and averted eyes on the traditional paths, albeit these paths had been fringed with fresh flowers by Channing and the early Unitarians. The greatest voices of their time brought them only pain as they "clung to their first fault," heritage from their fathers, who had prisoned the ideals of America in stoniest shrines.

In Plymouth Emerson's first lecture was given, in 1834, and probably in the church founded by the Pilgrim Fathers. The long and brave history that made its foreground, sent impressiveness to the vision to which. he pointed the children of the Pilgrims. The Hon. Thomas Russell, then a schoolboy, remembers across the half-century the weight of these words: "Why cannot some little community of men leave others to seem and content themselves to be?"

E

XI.

CULTURE.

MERSON'S reference, quoted in the previous chapter, to "that mighty Yezdan prophet" who came to the Iranis in their evil days, may be followed by the legend of how their darkness and doubt were dispelled by Ardá Viráf.

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They say that once upon a time the pious Zoroaster made the religion which he had received current in the world, and till the completion of three hundred years the religion was in purity, and men were without doubts. This religion, namely, all the Avesta and Zend, written upon prepared cowskins and with gold ink, was deposited in the archives of Stákhar Pápakán. But Alexander the Great, who was dwelling in Egypt, burnt them up, and after that there was confusion and contention among the people of the country of Iran. They were doubtful in regard to God, and religions of many kinds and various codes of laws were promulgated.

"And it is related that the wise men and teachers of religion assembled, and agreed that they would give to some one among them a sacred narcotic, that he might pass into the invisible world and bring them intelligence. The lot for this task fell on Ardá Viráf.

"Then those teachers of religion filled three golden

cups with wine and the narcotic Vishtasp; and they gave one cup to Viráf with the word 'Well thought,' and the second cup with the word 'Well said,' and the third cup with the word Well done.'

"While Viráf slept, seven women kept the everburning fire and the teachers chanted the Avesta. On the seventh day the soul of Viráf returned, and he rose up as from a pleasant sleep, inspired with good thoughts and full of joy. An accomplished writer sat before him, and whatsoever Viráf said he wrote down clearly and correctly, as followeth :

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'Taking the first footstep with the good thought, the second with the good word, and the third with the good deed, I entered paradise.

"I put forth the first footstep to the star-track on Hûmat, where good thoughts are received with hospitality; and I saw those souls of the pious whose radiance, which ever increased, was glittering as the stars. And I asked Ataro, the angel, "Which place is this, and which people are these?" And he answered, "This is the star-track and these are they who in the world offered no prayers and chanted no liturgies; they also exercised no sovereignty. Through other works they have attained this happiness."

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"I came to a place and saw the souls of the liberal adorned above all others in splendour, and it seemed to me sublime.

"I saw the souls of the great and truthful speakers, who walked in lofty splendour, and it seemed to me sublime.

"I saw the souls of agriculturists in a shining place, as they stood and offered praise before the spirits of