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Title: The United Seas
Author: Robert W. Rogers
Release Date: February 3, 2013 [EBook #41987]
Language: English
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"The United Seas"
By
ROBERT W. ROGERS
[Illustration: Publisher's seal]
Blessed are the pathfinders who do not fear the
seas, for they have discovered that the very
waters are moving toward freedom
AN INTERPRETATION
of the opening of the Panama Canal, commemorated
by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Copyrighted 1915
by Robert W. Rogers
All rights reserved
in all languages.
INTRODUCTION.
VISION, THE NEED OF THE HOUR
We are living in a day when it would almost seem that the person who
does not value vision is neither helpful nor wise. For it is a day when
the people everywhere need an essential vision in order that they may
gain courage to settle down to constructive effort after the close of
the world war.
In other words there are multitudes who feel that there is a far deeper
significance to the opening of the Panama Canal as commemorated by the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition than what appears on the
surface. There never was an Exposition like it. There never will be
another similar to it in the future. Simply because there seems to be
something written between the lines. It is an Exposition in which it
appears to be natural for the sanest men to be prophetic--one in which
men not only behold the star of faith but also feel that the star is
calling them to move toward something better, even if they have to grope
their way. An obscure vision seems to be in the sky of hosts of people
and they are anxious to hear the interpretations of men who are brave
enough to suggest one. They are asking what does the peculiar
inspiration of this Exposition mean?
This book in which the commemorative chapters are written in rhythmic
prose--for which the author need make no apology, in as much as Whitman
and others have already blazed the way for independence of poetical
expression--is given to the public with the sole object in view of
conveying a message that has impressed the mind of the author. For among
the many kind expressions of commendation on the prose-poem, "The United
Seas," none has been more appreciated than that given by David Starr
Jordan in these words, "Your prose-poem has a strong message and many
striking lines. I shall be glad to see it published."
Josiah Strong in one of his most recent books entitled, "The New World
Life," says: "Socrates in the Phoedo compares the people of his day, to
whom the lands about the Aegean were the whole world, to ants and frogs
about a marshy pond. Where would one find a more fitting comparison for
people of the same sort in our day? The development of a world life bids
us pry out our horizon and learn to think in world terms. Facts are
God's alphabet from which we may decipher tendencies and tendencies are
prophetic."
And this prying out of the horizon from the nation to the world--as the
viewpoint of the sons of the pilgrims has been widened from a New
England to a continental scope--is one of the highest responsibilities
and duties of our day. Please remember then that the object of this book
is to help others glimpse the vision. You may say that there is no
practical power in vision. But we have been following the lure of the
Golden Age and the Holy City for centuries. Visions are the only
powerful things in life. And this is what the people everywhere need
now; not only practical instruction but also a vision of something
grander and better than what they now have, in every land; so that they
will be inspired to action. I repeat it: The most necessary thing for
America, the waring and neutral nations of the hour is a powerful vision
of what ought to be and what can be. Men ought to arise in every country
and give the people the vision.
So go forward, O book, not for the sake of displaying any merit of
words. But because you are winged by the mighty inspiration of the hour.
Speed on and in some slight way help our international statesmen and
advocates of peace to carry their message to the peoples from the
nations about the seas.
_Dedicated to my good wife, a lover of flowers,
mountains and sea_
Table of Contents
I--The United Seas Page
Flowers on all Shores 10
The United Seas 11
The Words of an Eastern Sage 15
II--The Vision of The Builders
Brilliants From the Tower of Jewels 18
The Jewel City 19
The Voices of Two Cities 21
III--The Coast
The Threshold of Vision 24
Our Pacific Sea 25
IV--The Mariner's New Inspiration
The First Trip Through the Canal 30
The Ancon 31
The Altruism of Col. Goethals 31
V--World Pioneers
Land and Sea Breezes 34
The Pioneers of the World 35
The Olive Branch as an Emblem of World Peace 41
Essential Democracy 44
A Prayer for World Citizens 46
VI--World Citizens
Precepts for World Citizens 48
Beatitudes for World Statesmen 51
The World's Neighborhood 53
VII--The Sea's Highest Decree
What Are the Seas About 56
The Altruism of the Sea 58
VIII--Helps To Interpretation
How to Become a World Citizen 62
The Key to the Vision 64
Balboa 65
A New Inspiration for Literature 66
IX--Sea To Land
From Sea to Tree and Fruit 70
The Olive in Biblical History 71
The Modern Parable of the Orange Tree 77
I
The United Seas
FLOWERS ON ALL SHORES
Not long after the opening of the Panama-Pacific International
Exposition, Blossom Day, an annual feature in California life was
observed, to be followed later by nature's offering of flowers on the
shores of all nations. Here are some blossoms:
* * * * *
Flowers speak in all nations of hope to the fainting heart. And in the
nation where flowers degenerate man cannot live.
* * * * *
"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of
the stars
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of
infidels."
--Whitman.
* * * * *
Who am I and who are you to shun the sea-born rain when trees and
flowers and birds are made merry by it and never think of
shelter.--Adapted from Quayle.
* * * * *
"Flowers and fruits are always fit gifts because a ray of beauty is
appreciated all over the world; because the language of the flower can
be understood in any land."--Comfort Guild.
[A]THE UNITED SEAS
The wise men from every land, believing
That unseen good is often
With great events allied unawares,
Must be asked to unfold the meaning
Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas.
* * * * *
For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness
And ages of barrier'd friendship,
Herculean genius has removed the mountain
And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific
With the impetuous Atlantic,
To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color,
By the races assembled at the Golden Gate,
Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay,
Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built
o'er Immensity.
* * * * *
The petty Shylocks have not been invited
To be there with unfilled bags for gold,
Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh,
To daily swarm a city's pits of hell
And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains.
Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame.
For their hands, the jewels could finger
And the pageantry their eyes could observe
But their souls could never divine the sublime thought
Of the bridal of two vast seas.
* * * * *
So give way, blind temporizers!
For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived
Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in
that unusual hour.
In these ominous words, silencing all speech:
"The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse
To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World."
* * * * *
So the true from every land, vast armies of welcome guests,
they come!--
The sons of kings and nobles and the late-increasing hosts of
freemen, so innumerable,
To see the passing of provincial national life.
* * * * *
And our imagination now hears the mighty tread of pilgrims,
And sees this Western paradise bestirred in final preparation
for its festive attire--
Our Rocky's wide slope, within its hidden laboratories,
By some chemical's new magic hastening to make more enchanting
its coast-wide tribute of flowers;
If possible more stately its redwoods, more mighty its hills;
And our stars in the heavens are brightening their lights
To welcome the long caravans from the nations,
The ships from all the seas,--
To a ceremony epochal, from dawn into days worthily prolonged.
* * * * *
For the silvery Queen of Night will tarry in a veiled appreciation
Until the powerful King of Day comes resplendent from the east, in
a new vernal splendor,
While the globe, electrified and cabled into hearing,
With its armies momentarily halting in embarrassed meditation,
Will quiver with attention at the dawn of that momentous day
When it is authoritatively announced:
That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart, the first born of the east
And the interminable Austral ocean, gentle empress of the west,
Have been joined in the tidal grasp of a spheric wedlock
Uniting two hemisphere estates.
Sure to be conducive to international progress,
Prophetic of a planetary brotherhood,
And bravely resolute for world-peace.
* * * * *
Yes, in spite of war and carnage,
The invincible human spirit will then escape the thralldom of
a temporary despair;
For in this land of hope and courage, which is a prophecy of
the world to be,
Where the strong sons of freedom's pioneers still breathe a
bracing air,
And drink a freeman's water fresh from every hill--and not
human blood with warring kings--
Here, the vision so transforming,
The vision of our fathers, will become the vision of all the
sons of men!
* * * * *
Here, where reason and not hate is peculiarly creative,
Where the intelligence of peace is so successful--and not the
blind force of retrogressive men--
Here, the new spirit of World Democracy, still youthful like
David, must be strengthened to slay the European Goliath;
To defy Mar's staggering bluff and check the antiquated
ambition of war.
For not only will the vision of our fathers become the vision
of all the sons of men,
But the resolution of their heroes is also to become the
purpose of the race!
* * * * *
So, the wise men, they too have come!
Not to finger, nor to trifle;
Undismayed by war or ignorance,
Loyal advocates of unfailing providence,
Cabined not by years nor decades--
They look out upon the ages and can trace historic movements;
And for them a thousand years is no longer than a day.
* * * * *
They look northward toward Ambition;
They look eastward toward a Manager;
They look westward toward a Holy City;
They look southward toward an Isthmus;
They look inward and declare, "Man was born to grow, not stop!"
They look throng-ward, to interpret the strange spell
overcasting seers and doubters, and exclaim:
"The international mind subconscious is struggling
successfully here to become conscious.
Yea, take the scales from your eyes and you will see
That the mind of man is becoming broader
And your brotherhood from a race is to be freed
As the pilgrims from the nations become the pioneers of the
sphere--
As they catch the prophet's vision,
The Son of Man's distant vision of an essentially united earth,
When they begin to think the world-thoughts,
Irresistibly inspired by the spheric union of Jehovah's two
vast seas."
* * * * *
For the universal Father, the God of the united seas,
He is still the Lord of all might.
And His strength is in genius, in love and in truth.
THE WORDS OF AN EASTERN SAGE
Charles Francis Adams, whose grandfather was one of our early Presidents
and whose father was a Minister to London before the Civil War, felt
with overwhelming reality the inspiration of the world vision.
Mr. Adams, a man of sound judgment and of importance and distinction, a
month before his recent death, in writing about the European War, made
the following sage remarks:
"We suddenly find ourselves thrown back an entire century. Again we are
confronted by 'paper and blockades' on an almost unprecedented scale,
and by 'Milan' and 'Berlin' decrees, with 'orders in council, in reserve
and in response thereto.
"Such a situation has got to work itself out; and, in my belief, can do
so only through the complete exhaustion of those more immediately
engaged. When that condition of exhaustion is fully developed the
neutral powers, if in the interim they have held themselves in reserve,
will be in a position effectively to intervene. The whole sea usage of
nations, commonly known as 'international law,' will then have to
undergo a process of fundamental revision. The basic principles only
will be left; and a new system, which will include in my belief a world
federation, an organized judicial tribunal and an international police
must be evolved.
"This is a large contract; and yet the task is one to which both
legislators and publicists cannot, I think, too soon or too seriously
address themselves. A great educational process is involved, and cannot
be prematurely entered upon; but the time and mode of action and
concrete outcome are as yet hardly foreshadowed. Under the condition,
therefore, which I have thus sought to outline, it seems to me that the
present is a time when those who think and feel as I do should possess
their souls with patience."
These are strong words. And although the time has not yet come when the
definite line of action can even be foreshadowed, the people must get
his inspiration. He believes that there will be a revision of
international law and as has been said that there will be a world
federation, a united states of the world to give expression of its
rulings through an international court, with its decrees enforced by an
international police force. It is going to take the sagacity of strong
men to bring this stupendous achievement to pass. But because thoughtful
people are beginning to think in this direction, this magnificent ideal
is not an impossibility. It is to be prayed for, expected and worked
for. And in every land the vision should now be given to the people.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] An interpretation of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition,
written before the opening on February 20th, 1915.
II
The Vision of the Builders
BRILLIANTS FROM THE TOWER OF JEWELS
If God is light, Edison and his disciples must have glimpsed some of His
glory.
* * * * *
"They shall splash at a ten league canvas with brushes of comet
hair."--Kipling's words that might be used in describing Jules Guerin's
masterful work in painting a thousand acre canvas.
* * * * *
"Fair city of the sun, laved by the blue seas, glowing like a topaz
within a setting of dark cradling streets, that rose tier on tier around
it."--Whitaker's impression of the Exposition received upon entering the
Golden Gate from the sea.
* * * * *
The creamy surface of the tower of jewels is studded with 125,000 great
glass jewels made in Austria and safely landed in this country, which
with the floods of light diffusing from concealed sources, creates an
illumination that is peculiarly impressive against the background of the
night's sky and often makes the Exposition grounds lighter by day than
by night.
* * * * *
If Whitman was right when he said "dazzling and tremendous how quick the
sunrise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sunrise out of
me," then we do not exaggerate in saying that the sunlight has partly
spoken through the builders of the Jewel City.
THE JEWEL CITY
Mystically inspired,
Amazingly patient, tireless suppliants for the vision
You have caught the ray of a true, a far distant light.
And these palaces and pillars let them crumble when they
their days have fulfilled.
For in mind and in soul you have agonized and struggled,
Until triumphantly you have evoked the very stones into
utterance.
And through that which decays you have spoken the eternal
and the undecaying thought.
* * * * *
Well done, master-minded builders.
For the world mind, geographically at least, it has conquered!
And through this miracle of color companioning the hosts of
the nations about the universe's court,
With a modern Prometheus banishing the night,
You are radiating the contagion of the triumph to the land
and the sea.
For looking southward in a vision--
The architects and sculptors have seen the first rush of the
hemispheric waters, victoriously intermingling.
And lo, the inspiration of an isthmian genius has here become
the inspiration and joy of a race.
* * * * *
And the races--
Hear the dialects, see the people--
Now catching the world thought they hunger for brotherhood.
And even while they laugh for brotherhood they pray
For they are groping
And inaudibly they are praying for more planetary builders,
To express the growing consciousness of the international
mind,
As here materially in stone and in mortar,
So invisibly in governments and a new world order,
And in a brotherhood, large minded and interracial in its
scope.
* * * * *
And we believe
That the God of the United Seas will hear their petition in
His way.
For as intently we gaze, we can see
That this apocalypse of light and color, directing upward
and sympathizing throng-ward
Prophesies that the races are divinely to be led into
essential unity.
* * * * *
And even more, O path-finders!
[B]We seem to see, the very pillars--emblematic of a holy shaft
of light--gathering here.
Radiating not only towards the skys;
But also hovering, hovering, hovering, as if preparing, when
the festive days are o'er.
To guide to democracy's sacred task across the highways of
the seas.
THE VOICES OF TWO CITIES
Two cities on the Western coast are heralding to the world the
triumphant completion of the Panama canal. And if a certain writer is
right in saying that there are seven wonders of the modern
world--telephone, wireless, aeroplane, radium, and antisceptics and
antitoxins, spectrum analysis and X-rays--as there were seven wonders of
the ancient world, we can well add that the Panama canal is the eighth
modern wonder and that it is the wonder of all wonders, ancient and
modern.
And it is well that nearly a year is to be given by both cities to the
commemoration of this event in order that the whole world may fully feel
the significance of this remarkable engineering feat to its whole life.
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition held at San Francisco, from
February 20 to December 4, 1915, is the national celebration authorized
and sanctioned and partly financed by the government of the United
States, the total investment being $50,000,000. The Exposition area
covers 635 acres of ground, having a frontage of two miles on the bay
immediately inside of the Golden Gate. The grounds are divided into
three main divisions; the foreign section nearest to the Golden Gate,
the central portion with its exhibit palaces and great Tower of Jewels
rising 435 feet high and the eastern section for rest and amusement. In
keeping with the world consciousness four courts are found on the
grounds; the Court of the Four Seasons; Court of the Universe; Court of
Abundance; Court of Palms; Court of Flowers. Every state and territory
in the Union has made exhibits and in spite of the world war more than
forty foreign countries are represented and co-operating in the
commemoration of this most historic event.
The Panama-California Exposition is held at San Diego, California,
throughout the year 1915, for which the sum of $3,500,000 was raised.
The grounds are embraced within a fourteen-acre park, known as "Balboa
Park," being at the very heart of the city of San Diego. The Exposition
is international in its scope and has exhibits from all the American
countries and from some of the European and oriental nations. It has an
exhibit showing the progress of man from primitive times up to the
present; and also some beautiful floral and horticultural exhibits,
which are making both of the expositions most attractive, many of the
tourists going south from San Francisco in order that they may
participate in both celebrations.
FOOTNOTE:
[B] An impression caught while crossing the bay at night.
III
The Coast
THE THRESHOLD OF VISION
The following prose-poem is written from the viewpoint of the national
spirit, pressing toward the world vision which directly controls the
thought of the previous prose-poem. For the Golden Gate, especially
during the Exposition is for the quickened soul the portal--the pulling
aside of the curtain through which one gets the world vision. The title,
"Our Pacific Sea" might well be interpreted:
Our--Democracy.
Pacific--Nationality.
Sea--Verging into the world-vision.
Here on this shore--as prophets are, of course, doing elsewhere--we are
putting our feet on the rock and looking out over the waters and into
the skys. With San Diego, which is even nearer to the canal, our whole
coast is peculiarly susceptible to world thought at this time. And the
people who come here may forever after have an outward and upward look
in their lives.
Much has been written concerning the flowers, hills and climate of
California, but at this time, when the world is looking toward our
coast, would that more writers would reveal the thoughts that have been
inspired in their minds by the sight of our great Western sea.
The prose-poem itself is a denial of the thought that the Pacific is a
monotonous calm--an appreciation both of its storms and serenity written
after several visits to the beach in which both moods were displayed.
The first three verses, the prelude, describe the impression made by the
movement of the boisterous sea landward, upon the observor when first
arriving at the shore.
OUR PACIFIC SEA
The raging of our sea!
The defiant roar of its attack on rock, cliff and shore,
Spreads the contagion of a mighty courage,
Springing from the resolute deep.
* * * * *
The voices from our sea!
Like an unending processional stealing on the soul from the
double blue afar,
The eternal bass of nature's choir,
A power-inspiring undertone from profundity.
* * * * *
The laboring and heaving of her waves
Like the toiling of all humanity at its task,
Braces the will with the story
Of our faithful ocean's endless day.
* * * * *
O, great Pacific! Often calm as a sea of glass,
Who durs't say that thou cans't not live
And bestir thyself with boisterous life;
That thou cans't not with growing fury hugely to thy defense
arise,
When rebuffed by wind, by rock and cliff.
Thy deep is not an incessant, idle sleep!
Thou cans't heave and leap and live with ponderous life,
Until thy waves, up from the bottom turning, are all afoam
with terrible rage,
Their salty crests mounting on tangled spray
And raining back to sea a million opals.
* * * * *
We love our sea and thy reserve of strength,
For thou art indeed the favorite of our God,
For when the Son of Man spoke to the snarling waves,
Thou of all waters didst best obey and heed the Master's
mandate, "Peace be still."
But He commanded not eternal quite and thou art somewhat
falsely famed.
For when necessity's hour arrives,
Thou with all violent seas canst throb from deepest heart;
With unrestrained power plunging to climb the skys, crushing
against the rocks--
Sublimely tempestuous, majestic in rage, in fury glorious!
* * * * *
And after the waters' landward assault,
To-day we can better ascend to observe the ocean's peace.
And here, great Sea!--
How naturally hovers infinity over that hemispheric calm,
As from this rocky, shore-projecting cliff
We behold thy endless expanse over meridians and the world,
into and behind the sky--vast, serene, stupendous.
And as we gaze and worship and pray, drenched with
omnipotence,
We dare with highest emotions declare
That God, not once but always, walks the seas.
* * * * *
O life giving fount, a resurrecting breeze,
We cling to our sea, an army of men in cities and fields, on
streams and on hills,
Because thou dost live and let live.
For daily thy breath kisses our shores with beauty and life,
Thy varying moods are an unspeakable comfort to all manly
souls.
For thy grandeur holds an invisible gate of gold,
Through which sails a celestial mariner, the spirit of our
Father, God.
* * * * *
O visitors to these enchanted shores,
Join the brotherhood of the brothers of the sea--
Not dreamers, but heroic men,
Who love our rock-ribbed, templed hills and gigantic trees,
but better yet, our sea!
Take the shoes from off thy feet,
For here thou art on holy ground before nature's truest
Angelus,
To feel the awe of power, to think as deep as truth,
And leave a noble soul to uplift the homes of friends.
* * * * *
And deep-eyed patriots,
On every shore and from every inland city, vale and hill,
Look out and up, and live!
In spirit journey abroad over latitudes and longitudes, the
equator and the sphere,
To mingle with the vision'd souls of men who gaze far out on
our Pacific sea
Toward the slowly rising essential Republic of the world.
* * * * *
Fear not, move out in ship, in thought and plan--
Brave men, move out!
For on the waters of the Earth's vast deeps brotherhood has
faith in Fatherhood.
And the God who bound together
The colonies on our New England shores
Will bind together the nations about the seas,
Through fearless men of faith moving toward the best
The alluring best that is still to be.
"The fact that man has discovered no celestial body which contains
elements other than those of the earth is more than a hint of the unity
of creation" and its movement towards a single purpose.--Adapted from
Josiah Strong.
IV
The Mariners' New Inspiration
THE FIRST TRIP THROUGH THE CANAL
On August 18, 1914, the steamship Ancon made the first regular,
continuous trip, with a complete cargo, through the canal, the steamer
Cristobel making an experimental journey a few days previously.
The Ancon, with Colonel Goethals on the bridge, left Colon on scheduled
time, passed through the locks and within ten hours entered the waters
of the Pacific at Panama. And twenty-four hours after a small fleet of
ships of commerce made the passage of the canal, the opening of which
the world is now celebrating on the Pacific Coast.
The commendable spirit displayed by America in the opening of the canal
is an indication of what may be expected in the future as far as the
United States is concerned in perfecting equitable plans for
international co-operation.
The New York World puts it clearly in these words: "Today the canal lies
open to all the nations of the world upon equal terms. The United States
has acted with entire good faith, and in the observance of its treaties
discriminated against none and reserved no exclusive rights to itself.
Beyond the collection of tolls, which are uniform to ships of all flags,
it has assumed none of the privileges of national ownership at the
expense of friends and rivals in trade. It has achieved a moral triumph
no less impressive than the material victory won by its engineers over
nature in the piercing of the isthmus."
THE ANCON
Sail through, Ancon, most prophetic ship
Hastening from the heavy sobbing of blood-stained seas.
For thou art more than keel and hull,
Than armor bearer and a man freighted deck
Thou shoulds't be the Mayflower of the coming democracy of
the world.
* * * * *
Looking through the vista
Of this earth-rent canal--a telescope,
Mirroring a city in the western skys--
Clearer, clearer, clearer, becomes the vision
Of the alluring ideal halloed by a glowing sun.
Nearer, nearer, nearer doest thou sail,
Until now behold thou doest glide
Out onto the Pacific, secure in peaceful freedom.
Until the eastern war clouds being dispelled,
On, on, on thou canst sail into the haven of the essential
republic of the world.
THE ALTRUISM OF COL. GOETHALS
There is no more beautiful example in history of international altruism
than that displayed by Col. G. W. Goethals, who will for all time be
remembered as the one who successfully completed the Panama Canal. And
if all men were like him in spirit the brotherhood of the nations would
begin tomorrow.
For when the National Geographic Society honored Col. Goethals with the
presentation of a medal, at its ninth annual banquet held at Washington,
D.C., which was attended by the president of the United States, his
cabinet and the diplomatic representatives of every great foreign
nation, these are the words--entirely free from American
provincialism--that the eminent engineer used in responding to the
presentation of the medal by President Woodrow Wilson:
"Mr. President, it is an easier task to build the Panama Canal than it
is for me to find words to express appreciation of the honor conferred
upon me by the National Geographic Society and the distinguished manner
in which the presentation of the medal has been made. This medal
represents the satisfaction of the National Geographic Society at the
practical completion of the canal and its approval of the services
rendered.
"Those services are not only individual services but national services.
The French were the pioneers in the undertaking. But for the work that
they did on the isthmus we could not today regard the canal as
practically completed. But for the English we probably would not have
known the means of eradicating malaria; the death rate would have been
great. Among individuals we have national representatives in the Spanish
and the English in our laboring force.
"The canal has been the work of many, and it has been the pride of
Americans who have visited the canal to find the spirit which animated
the forces. * * * And so in accepting the medal and thanking the
National Geographic Society for it, I accept it and thank them in the
name of every member of the canal army."
Goethals is truly a world citizen. And The National Geographic Magazine
well defines his spirit in these terse words describing the completion
of the canal:
"Atlantic--Goethals--Pacific."
V
World Pioneers
LAND AND SEA BREEZES
The land is better for the sea,
The ocean for the shore.
--Larcom.
* * * * *
"The tide is rising, let the land be glad. The breathless, rollicking,
happy tides, whose comings are in truth the gladness of the
world!"--Quayle.
* * * * *
How much earth's flowers, hills, valleys and human life owe to the sea
breezes. And how indispensable are the clear mountain streams to the
sea, in pouring fresh water into its salty heart.
* * * * *
How joyful are the waters, when the earth yields up its hosts of
travellers, merchants, ambassadors, missionaries, educators, homeseekers
and international statesmen to relieve the lonesomeness of its
wide-flowing deep. All hail to the many ships that pass by sea!
* * * * *
"The earth is rude, silent and incomprehensive at first--
Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things well
enveloped;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than
words can tell."
--Walt Whitman.
THE PIONEERS OF THE WORLD
O far-seeing seers,
Looking over the shoulders of empires and nations,
unconsciously dwarfed with prejudice,
Telescopic in vision, down the vista of the centuries,
You know not how far and deep you thought,
Nor what beginnings you wrought;
For we hasten to crown you, the world pioneers.
* * * * *
Call the roll of the men whose minds have companioned with
the globe!
Who were these staunch henchmen of a race,
Getting their inspiration from a pillared cloud by day and
a pillar of fire by night,
And negotiating with the continents and seas of an earth?
Who were these world pioneers?
* * * * *
Courageous Magellan, you were the first of the spheric heroes,
Who with your fifteen braves looking out from an isthmian
cliff, civilization's bleakest frontier,
Out upon an untrailed, unsailed, trackless deep,
Was the first to push away from an Astec--hugged shore,
And send westward your creaking craft so mightily propelled
by an explorer's tireless heart,
That when at Maclan island the red man's arrow struck you to
the earth,
The mighty spirit of your immortal soul so fired your
companion's wills,
That they with invincible force encircled the globe--
Past the Celestial Empire, doubling Cape Good Hope
And into Seville Roads, they came!
The first to complete the voyage about the sphere!
The first to exclaim, "the world, the world."
* * * * *
And inconquerable Cyrus Field you were one;
Who by linking Valentia and New Foundland,
Awakening to mutual speech two continents that were mutually
dumb,--
Was, in spite of repeated breakings and the cowardly desertion
of avowed friends,
The first, O indomitable knight of a world's progress,
To successfully lay the Atlantic cable.
The first to start a conversation between two hemispheres
And with initial message to yonder shores proclaim:
"Europe and America are now by telegraph united
To God be glory, in the highest
And on earth peace and good will toward men."
Indispensable pioneer, you wedded the continents as Goethals
united the seas.
And now the voice of man is naturalized to a sphere.
It can be heard through the nations, around the world.
Whether Caucasian or Mongolian--he can talk about the globe.
* * * * *
And distance-vanishing Fulton, you were one;
Who--launching upon the waters the first steam-propelled ship,
the Cleremont,
From who's experimental hull leaped into existence
The Savanah, the Great Eastern and Britannia,
Each moving faster, faster than the one before--
Was the first to draw together the continents, like some
Colossus with a shortening cord of time
Until from coast range to distant shores
And from distant shores to coast range
Each new speeding steamer brings us closer,
Making more certain the intermingling of the races preparing
for the brotherhood of man.
* * * * *
And great Augustine, dissolute as a youth
But angelic as a man, you were one;
Who--the humblest and the quickest to recognize
That since the day of Christ all noble men were sent,
And that constrained and resolute with Paul and with Peter
they had gone--
Was the first--thank God you appeared--to marshal the good
men for conquest,
To organize into missionary ranks the vision'd souls of the
church,
Dispatching spirit-armored heroes from Rome to early England's
soil
And preventing the annihilation of Christian hope and truth.
* * * * *
Noble prophet! Little did you know, O Augustine, what you had
done.
Unbrazened in the face, illuminated with the divine,
With the crystal eye of goodness looking light and health into
pagan nights,
And cowering Lust's mountain hurling hosts,
Followed by new recruits, since then the ranks have grown.
Men have come one by one and year by year
Until fifteen thousand heralded volunteers and ninety thousand
native workers
Now can be seen from glad heavens Missionary Ridge, offering
light and character on heathen fields!
Far-reaching, sea-exploring, colonizing England in its youth
saved for enlightenment!
Christ inspired it! But you achieved it!
And today, as the oceans and the continents are united,
So five hundred and sixty-five million followers are gradually
demanding that the races and the peoples
In essential Christianity--the good recognizing in other
faiths--shall be one.
* * * * *
And mind-emancipating Luther, thou art one--
Fearing only God and truth.
Hating naught but sham and falsehood!
For traveling back from our day into medieval darkness--
(The chains, hear them rattle! But also hear them snap in a
true reformers clutch
Causing multitudes to rise from superstition
And stand upon their feet, erect in the freedom of a simple
faith)--
We there behold the pioneer of intellectual freedom,
A simple monk, commanding the low-browed ignorance of a whole
dark continent to think,
Awakening the western world to science, to true religion and
to thought;
Until the mind of the sullen masses of Europe now is brooding,
And in America it is voting,
While the public mind of the world is becoming more and more
habituated to reason for international concourse.
For the Bible, the rocks and the skys are unchained,
Because Luther lived and honestly dared for the truth!
* * * * *
These are the men--inspired by Him who altered times calendar
and began an Easter day--
Who took epochal steps for the world's conquest.
That directly achieved in encircling the globe.
But there are others, a host of others, worthy, noble,
world pioneers.
* * * * *
O indispensable pioneers, see them moving out in history,
Just as bravely, just as necessary, often giving inspiration
to the first,
Most of them impelled forward by Columbus and Copernicus--
The inspirers of explorers, the pioneers of the pioneers.
* * * * *
Consecrated to humanity and the world, look backward and see
the host of sphere-ward moving men;
See the explorers--with Columbus, Balboa, Drake, Desoto
opening up a new west.
See the scientists--Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, daring to say
that God is in life.
See the philosophers--Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and
Eucken.
See the missionaries--Judson, Carey, Thomas, Livingstone,
Moffat and Morrison.
See the inventors--Stevenson, Watt, Marconi, Edison and Bell.
See the patriots--Solon, Savonarola, Cromwell, Henry,
Lincoln and Gladstone.
Mighty huers through the forests,--
See them laboring for a nation in some special task or
knowledge,
But incidentally and emphatically for the world.
* * * * *
And turn your eyes from the past to the present to observe
your own world inspired sons!
See them moving toward the international congress and the
Hague,
The greatest educators, ambassadors and financiers,
See them increasing in their numbers, for they also will be
counted with the world pioneers.
* * * * *
O Copernicus, we hail thee for announcing to timid minds that
the earth, "it is a globe."
O Kepler and Newton, we celebrate you for asserting it is true.
O Galileo, we honor and respect you for looking superstition
squarely in the face and before highest potentates declaring:
"But nevertheless it does move!"
We commemorate you all master-minded men,
Who have announced, and explored and unified the globe.
Surely these are not pygmies nor dwarfs.
But in achievement, they are Titans, they are giants,
They are the immortal pioneers of the world.
* * * * *
And these lives moving forward, have they all been lived for
naught!
No! A thousand times no, O far-sighted men, now enlisting for
new world movements!
Speak the message of the united seas with at least a prophetic
international preamble
And announce the coming of essential democracy for the world.
[C]THE OLIVE BRANCH AS AN EMBLEM OF WORLD PEACE
In history the olive has been nobly emblematic of three virtues--peace,
purity and industry with its attendant prosperity. And I mention these
three virtues for which the olive stands because we will never in the
world establish peace unless it is preceded in community, state and
nation by virile-mindedness, which is the very secret of industry and
prosperity wherever they are found.
Whenever the Greek looked out at a foothill mantled with an olive
orchard, gently waving in the distance, a sea of bluish-green leaves; or
seized upon an olive branch, he was reminded of the fact that no man was
worthy of a crown of olives unless he was right-minded, peace-loving,
and industrious. For, the placing of a crown of olive twigs on the brow
of a person was the highest distinction that could be bestowed on a
citizen who had merited well of his country.
Not only were the noble-minded statesmen and poets thus honored, but
also the athletes who, by scrupulous care and development of the body,
gained physical victories at the Olympic games. The harmless and
commendable victories of peace always result from well-developed
manhood. And so on the last day of these games the victor received, in
front of the temple, the crown of wild olives gathered from the sacred
tree. For the olive was sacred to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and
therefore of purity, peace and prosperity.
Among the Romans also it had a similar significance. The olive crown of
the Roman conqueror at an ovation and those of the equites at the
imperial review, alike typified the gifts of peace that, in a barbaric
age, could be secured by victory only. I say all history has associated
the olive with these three superb virtues, wherever the olive tree has
grown. But if secular history has offered the olive branch to the
conqueror in honor of a peace secured through contest or war, the
surprising thing about the olive in Biblical history is that it
represents peace as coming directly to an individual, community, or
nation because of a Christian-mindedness--a type of mind that is
controlled by reason, justice, love, intelligence, and purity of
thought.
For, what do these striking verses in the Prophet Zechariah mean?--
"'What sees't thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick
all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps thereon.
"'And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and
the other upon the left side thereon'."
What do these beautiful verses mean? Simply this,--that the source of
all peace, individual and international, is that type of mind which
Christ and Christian statesmen have. The two olive trees, one on each
side of the candlestick, stand for Christian character--one for the
stern moral character of the prophet, the other for the mercy of the
true religious teacher. And the candlestick stands for work, for service
for mankind and the nations. And as both of the olive trees supply the
light with oil, so we are not to seek for peace on earth with the sword,
but by increasing the number of men whose service for humanity is
controlled by Christian morality and justice, mercy, and kindness.
These are the men who will bring peace. God increase the number! These
are the men that providence can use to correlate the nations into
essential democracy. These are the men who are worthy of a crown of
olives! These are the men that we must depend upon to correct the
compass of the ship of the world, as it moves forward against the
besetting fury of antagonistic waters, bearing its prow day by day and
year by year against the unwearied enmity of hateful waves, until it
reaches the haven of essential international peace.
[D]THE INEVITABLE DRIFT
For the earth--
The white enfolded, or green Easter world,
Warmed by nature's heart into a new bursting life--
Like the universe, the earth is a perfect spherical
creation,
And because the world is a sphere, the most perfect
of figures,
Animated and endowed with purpose and reason,
It is therefore much better than all other forms.
* * * * *
And so man, with humanity-love and reason gifted,
Feeling that he is a part of all that thrills in sod, sky
or sea,
Developed, demands the fullness of the globe's life as his
home.
And to look not beyond a continent or nation,
Is barbaric, retrogressive and sinful;
For He that said, to the child of every race, "be thou
perfect,"
Thereby also commands to be naturalized to the sphere.
And this, O armies and bigots is the inevitable drift!
ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY
It may be helpful to relate, in just a word, what is meant in this
volume by essential democracy, essential united earth and similar
expressions. Springing from the Christian idea that all men are created
equal in the sight of God, in opportunity, it stands for that type of
society in which the essential power of government is wielded by the
mass of the people.
The one thing that it is important to remember is that a monarchy or an
oligarchy is not necessarily an antithesis of democracy--only absolutism
in the form of a monarchy or oligarchy or plutocracy is an antithesis to
democratic principles.
Many governments which live under the standard of a republic are not
democratic in spirit at all. Mexico has virtually been a despotism. The
Spanish-American states, especially until recent years, were nothing but
a specie of military tyranny. And France has often been only a
bureaucracy in structure and in state.
By essential democracy we mean the gradual triumph of the principles
which emphasize the equality of man before God, and which are everywhere
coming into increasing recognition throughout the world.
One author says that before the middle of the nineteenth century all the
great European states, with the exception of Russia and Turkey, had
adopted a constitution limiting the power of the crown "and investing a
considerable share of political power in the people, and in most of them
a representative legislature of the parliamentary or British type was
adopted." While in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden alone on the continent
democracy has reached a type of true efficiency. And these triumphs must
be remembered by the people for the sake of future inspiration and
courage; and because it may help one to interpret the present European
war as an agony incident to the progress of growth.
It is true that the victory of the principle of democracy has been
checked by the persisting of the military spirit in Europe and the
wonderful industrial expansion in both Europe and America. In England
also the triumph "has been delayed by the prevalence of aristocratic
traditions which still grant privileges and rights to a social class
based on berth and inherited wealth." While in American the simplicity
of the colonial life and the absence of the people from the aristocratic
classes of Europe promoted a vigorous and commanding growth of the
democratic ideas. And this is why the nations of the world in their
struggle for democracy are looking to America, because she has the most
nearly of all nations realized the democratic ideal.
In light of what has already been accomplished, how inspiring then
becomes the lure of the ideal of world democracy. Essentially it is
splendidly possible. The people crave it because it is God-born. They
love to think and work and vote for that far-off divine event. And more
than that the words, monarchy and oligarchy, are so out of date that
they are anxious to be in spirit and letter citizens of a republic. And
wherever the leaven is working thrones are in danger, because great
things are going to happen on this God-guided globe, in the interest of
humanity.
Let it be remembered that there are fifty recognized governments in the
world; and that of this number twenty-six are republics, twenty limited
monarchies, with democratic features, and only four absolute monarchies.
The very thought of this is an inspiration and shows that all the
nations are rapidly moving in the direction of essential world
democracy.
A PRAYER FOR WORLD CITIZENS
Our Father, who art in heaven--the God of humanity--hallowed
be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in the whole earth as it
is in heaven.
Give the nations this day their daily bread;
And forgive them their trespasses as they forgive the nations
that trespass against them.
And lead them not into the temptation of conquest or self
aggrandizement, but deliver them through their rulers
from this evil.
For thine is the world kingdom and the power and the glory,
forever. Amen.
At the Congress of Religions held at the World's Fair at Chicago in
1893, when the question came up as to what would be an appropriate
devotional appeal to be used in opening the Congress, the
representatives of every religion and faith of the world unanimously
agreed that the Lord's Prayer found in the Sermon on the Mount would be
acceptable to all. And the one given above is an adaption from the
Lord's Prayer, given in order that it may be seen how well its spirit
could be adapted to world democracy.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] An address delivered in the interest of the peace movement a week
previous to the observance of "California Ripe Olive Day."
[D] Suggested by the words of Timaeus of Locris.
VI
World Citizens
[E]PRECEPTS FOR WORLD CITIZENS
Never allow the glory of the world vision to keep you from performing
your daily duty, be it humble or great; remembering that you are a
part of the whole and that the fullness of the world's life will
not be expressed if one member of the body fails to perform its
function. Remember that vision is worthless unless it helps you to
take hold of the handle of service with a firm grasp and a new
enthusiasm; but also that it is necessary to enter into the spirit
of the world vision a few moments at the dawn of each day.
* * * * *
Do not be deceived into looking upon national bigotry as patriotism. For
the interests of humanity are always primary to the interests of the
nation. What is good for the whole world is good for each continent
and government.
* * * * *
Begin to urge a national individualism among established nations which
insists less on rights and more on duties; which recognizes that the
greed for territory is the "original sin of the nations." God
divided the world into nations so that they might help, not destroy
each other; and when they admit this they will begin to inaugurate
essential world democracy.
* * * * *
Cultivate the spirit of "give and take"; recognizing that there is good
to be absorbed from other nations into the international life as
well as from your own.
Do not labor for a world peace which is to depend on "treaties, or
skillful diplomacy or mutual fear and equal preparedness for war;"
but for one which is based "on the common interests and sympathies
and on the mutual needs and services of a world organism, in which
each nation is a member of a world body-politic."
* * * * *
Urge a more mature development of an international conscience;
remembering that an ethical standard can be established for the
world as it was evolved from the individual to the tribal and then
to the national standard of ethics.
* * * * *
Do not forget that a man of another race is not a different kind of
animal than yourself. For one has well said: "The strangest thing to
me is that people who are so different are so much alike."
* * * * *
Encourage the spread of the new knowledge which has given to us a
clearer understanding of disease and through eugenics a vital
interest in those racial qualities which shall improve future
generations, remembering that when the bodies and minds of the races
are at their best they will be more open to reason and more cordial
to the spirit of harmony among the nations.
* * * * *
Do not be too much alarmed about the talk of foreign labor, or
interracial marriage. But take up the torch of enlightenment and
fulfill today's duty, remembering that in due time the co-operative
council of the Occidental and Oriental mind will see that all
problems are justly solved according to the best interests of the
whole race.
* * * * *
Insist that as soon as possible there be inaugurated a permanent
international court at the Hague, which shall be endowed with the
power to act as well as discuss, in behalf of the interests of the
whole world.
* * * * *
Finally, put on the whole armor of a faith in a deity which is not
tribal nor national but the God of humanity, that you may be able to
defeat prejudice. Stand, therefore, having your manhood girt about
with a broad intelligence; having on the breastplate of
righteousness wrought from the essential morality of the races.
Having your feet shod with the gospel of world peace, your judgment
made discreet with the gospel of contact and your soul made heroic
for service by an invincible faith in a better humanity, such as was
possessed by the Son of Man.
BEAUTITUDES FOR WORLD STATESMEN
Blessed are the poor in spirit. For in leaving the prejudice of
restricted nationalism they will gain the inspiration of the world
view and possess more of the kingdom of heaven.
* * * * *
Blessed are the meek, those possessing the childlike but world view
point of Christ, for they shall inherit the environment of the
earth.
* * * * *
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. For the
ethics of true religion is to be sifted from the chaff of
superstition, and righteousness is to cover the whole earth as the
waters cover the seas.
* * * * *
Blessed are the merciful nations. For they shall obtain mercy in return
from other nations, and learn that impulsive retaliation is too
costly and that patient and honorable conciliation makes for world
peace and national prosperity.
* * * * *
Blessed are the peacemakers. For now that the nations have entered
through the united seas into a neighborhood; they--by encouraging
disarmament and teaching the gospel of contact as well as good
will--will hasten the day when the nations can live together without
war in the spirit of council and peace.
* * * * *
Blessed is he who is persecuted by people whose minds are filled with
race prejudice, national pride and selfishness; for he has
discovered the secret of seeing good in all nationalities, of
detecting the soul behind the color, and shall be honored by
humanity as a pioneer of international brotherhood.
* * * * *
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all
manner of evil against you falsely, for so persecuted they Him who
said "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature." Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in
heaven and in the councils of the world.
* * * * *
Blessed are the pure in heart. For they shall see God as transcendant
and immanent in the resurrected Christ. They shall find His spirit
in all life and behold His glory wherever they journey throughout
the wide world.
* * * * *
Blessed is this noble brotherhood of manly souls. For ye are not only
the salt of the school, the city, the state and nation; but also of
the earth. Yours is not the light of bigoted patriotism. But ye are
the light of the world. And your city placed upon a hill cannot be
hid.
* * * * *
Blessed are these pathfinders who do not fear the seas, for they have
discovered that the very waters are resolutely moving toward
freedom; and they are being led forward by a pillar of light into
the promised land of the essentially unified races.
THE WORLD'S NEIGHBORHOOD
Remember that a new world neighborhood has been created, bringing
important points on the globe into closer proximity by one-half to
two-thirds of the former distance, through the short route of the
Panama Canal.
* * * * *
Therefore, a new commandment is given to each nation, namely, "to love
thy neighbor as thyself," by entering by thought and co-operation
into such policies as will make for the best interest of the entire
new world neighborhood.
* * * * *
Do not think that other nations are unapproachable. But remember that
North and South America, with all Europe, "are more closely related
in point of time and common interests than were the original
Thirteen States when the necessities of commerce forced them to form
the compact of the Union; that the two geographical extremes of the
colonies were as far separated as Berlin and the Barbary States or
as London and the Black Sea."
* * * * *
Do not think that the short route through the canal is merely a path for
commerce's ships, or only a highway for navies or state dignitaries;
but remember also that it is a short route to the Hague and
international congresses.
* * * * *
And do not fail to recall that brave men opened up this international
highway--not through forests or smoking prairies, but through
mountains, swamps, rocks and hills--in order to hasten the day of
essential world democracy.
* * * * *
So think clearly enough and you will surely see that the completion of
the Panama Canal is virtually the discovery of a basis of essential
world unity. He who walks by land or sails by sea can now read the
will of God.
* * * * *
With increasing numbers we are now arriving at the day that Whitman
speaks of in the following words:
"The main shapes arise!
Shapes of democracy total, result of centuries
Shapes ever projecting other shapes,
Shapes of turbulent manly cities,
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,
Shapes bracing the earth and braced by the whole earth."
* * * * *
The key that is in tune with all other keys of its own instrument is in
tune with all harmony on the earth. And the man that has attuned his
life to justice and liberty in the community in which he lives is in
accord with freemen in every land, loves the vision of world-wide
liberty and prays for its realization.
* * * * *
Tagore, the Hindu poet, says: "I have learned though our tongues are
different and our habits dissimilar, at the bottom our hearts are
one. The monsoon clouds, generated on the banks of the Nile,
fertilize the far distant shores of the Ganges; ideas may have to
cross from east to western shores to find a welcome in men's hearts.
East is east and west is west--God forbid that it should be
otherwise--but the twain must meet in amity, peace and mutual
understanding; and their meeting will be all the more fruitful
because of their differences; it must lead to holy wedlock before
the common altar of humanity."
FOOTNOTE:
[E] I am indebted to Josiah Strong for some of the suggestions in these
precepts.
VII
The Sea's Highest Decree
WHAT ARE THE SEAS ABOUT?
The deeper one goes into the subject of world democracy the more one is
convinced of the necessity of calling to one's aid the help of true
religion in formulating a world consciousness.
Walt Whitman, whom many may regard as somewhat unwise in some of his
utterances, was absolutely right when he intimated that world democracy
could not be formulated without religion.
And today there is nothing that is going to help people so effectively
to grasp and feel at home with the ideal of an essential union of the
nations, as the modern teaching of the immanence of God. If we are a
part of the whole world, and if God is in the seas as well as the
flowers and hills then we will not dread them, for they are our
inspiration and helpers.
Not only does the teaching of the immanence of God in the seas help the
nations into closer fellowship. But what is more than that, it helps the
soul of man to find in the waters a purpose. The seas themselves seem to
be up to something.
No man felt this secret of nature with keener appreciation than the late
Prof. J. J. Blaisdell of Beloit College, Wis. For in one of his
lectures, the notes of which, I still have, he says:
"Nature is expressive of a purpose. And no one has gotten the good of
nature until he has got the momentum of the mighty work that it is
working. Its face is steadily set forward. It is not static. It is not a
current running down. It is an achievement. When you stop and think of
it you are led to reflect that its onward movement is so stupendous
toward the working out of a far off divine event that if you should
throw yourself across its track you would be annihilated in a moment.
"I have stood on the shore of Lake Michigan on a stormy day in December
and the rhythm of that lake seemed to be the echo of the march of the
universe treading its victorious way into the future. It is about
something--its face is steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem. The firmness
of great souls is but its child and copy; and responded to, it is the
breeder of great souls.
"Now until we become alive to the expressiveness of purpose in nature, a
purpose expressed in feeling and ready to lackey man in his pilgrimage,
we fail to understand nature and lose much of the blessedness of living
in this world.
"And my simple question is, how comes about this expressiveness? Why,
simply there is a person who is projecting himself through this
embodiment and it is the revelation of him, just as our friends' ways
express the person of the friend behind them."
How grand are those words! And how helpful to men who desire the very
co-operation of the seas in fulfilling their plans in unifying the
races! For if Prof. Blaisdell was thus inspired with the thought of the
co-operation of the waters of Lake Michigan with the historic purposes
of man, what should the true freeman feel as he looks out over the
Pacific? I can only tell you what I have felt in the words on the
following page:
THE ALTRUISM OF THE SEA
Free from the intrusion of littleness,
Standing on the shores of our great Western Sea,
My groping thoughts, O sea,
Now grapple with thy tempestuous waves.
My ecstatic soul argues with thy gales for an interpretation
of the message flowing clean and strong from the
"million-acred meadows" of the out-lying seas.
My straining ear listens to the clamorous, reiterating almost
uninvokable voice of thy tides.
For able to speak to man, like brooks and flowers,
I am inquiring, what you are about, the knowledge of your
place in the amelioration of the world?
* * * * *
And lo, now nature's cord is struck,
The secret word is caught,
And this is what I hear
As again I plead, "thou are not a purposeless, lifeless
plangent deep.
O great sea, who's purpose doest thou fulfill?
What are thou almightily about, what doing?"
* * * * *
"Doing!" seems to murmur its sustained voice with its rhythmic
storming of my soul,
"Doing! I am doing what man is doing, what the nations are
evolving, what the eternal, creative spirit living within
me is urging,
I am resolutely moving--crest, wave, tide and ponderous deep
in sympathy with world harmony, toward democracy.
Moving from ponderous deep, tide, wave and crest toward
distant lands.
Eager--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores,
The ships, the statesmen and the life giving trade winds of
democracy."
* * * * *
"It is true, astonishingly," I said,
"Yes now I sense it and I feel it.
And what an unconquerable will, what a purpose!
The very shores, they tremble with its resolution,
For with man even the seas are sympathically for freemen
at work!"
* * * * *
And then looking outward and skyward, the God of our sea
going fathers, the spirit of the very God of Hosts, awoke
this stronger message to my thought:
"Fear not, O sons of Pilgrims
For the waters engulfed not Columbus' freemen when they
sailed a shoreless sea,
Nor was the Mayflower immeshed in the black jaws of an angry
deep.
And yours are ships of fate!
He who omnipotently palms the oceans pilots them.
To let them pass--O ships--to bear them safely on,
The tides, the storms and the winds are stayed.
* * * * *
"Move on, move on befriended by an illimitable peace.
Move on, move on to every slave desecrated shore!
Move on, the harmless, but forward momentum of these tides
will take you on and on.
For the Creator worketh hitherto and they must work.
For He hath given "to the sea His decree."
Move on to Hindu, Confucian and Teutonic shores.
O ships of freemen, sail on!"
"Winnow me through with thy keen, clean breath
Wind with tang of the sea."
--Ketchum.
VIII
Helps to Interpretation
HOW TO BECOME A WORLD CITIZEN
To become a good world citizen, it is not necessary to distribute
oneself by travel everywhere--although travel is most valuable--any more
than it is absolutely necessary for a worthy citizen of the United
States to cross the continent or have homes in both California and New
York, desirable as that may be.
Nor would one lose any interest in his nation--remembering that only a
bigoted and selfish nationality does harm; and that even in a federation
of the nations of the world each individual nation, like each individual
State in the Union, would have its own interests and would have to do
its part towards expressing the life of the whole.
Of course with the realization of a federation of the world in the
future, there would be public world citizens as well as private world
citizens, just as there are public and private citizens in every nation;
and the public world leaders should necessarily have a higher training,
a wider experience and a broader travel than the private world citizen,
judging from the standpoint of leadership alone.
But independent of these things it should be remembered that every
man--private or public--can acquire full world citizenship by learning
to think in world terms and developing the world consciousness which
makes you feel that you are a necessary part of all that exists. And
this can be done by developing an unprejudiced love for humanity, by
persistently opposing war, by keeping in touch with world statesmen and
reading world literature, by acquiring a love for nature and the seas
which comes from a faith in God, by helping to unify the world's
languages and religions, by advocating constantly a central world
government for the nations, by traveling when one can and by making it
as easy for people to travel as possible, by attending all public
meetings that deal with international movements, by never losing
sight--especially in the hour of perplexity, ridicule and hardship--of
the world vision which is championed on these pages and by becoming
sanely religious so that you will feel that the same good spirit throbs
in your breast that quickens the whole universe into harmony and beauty
as well as every flower and living thing on the globe.
Here are some of the exceptional world citizens. Hear them talk in their
own words:
Whitman:
"There is no trade nor employment but the young man following
it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the
wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, let your soul stand cool and
composed before a million universes."
* * * * *
Browning's Christian Creed:
"That face far from vanishes, ever grows
Or decomposes only to recompose
Become my universe that feels and knows."
* * * * *
Emerson--
"I am the owner of a sphere
Of the seven stars and solar year
Of Caeser's hand and Plato's brain
Of the Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain."
* * * * *
And so the star that shines from above moves on, calling all noble souls
to move out by sea and land--with the God who shepherds us with His love
and joy everywhere as the guide--to the grandest work of human history,
the work of essentially unifying the globe. And as they go forward with
this stupendous task, they will not forget to pluck the flowers by the
wayside, look into the faces of children and take the hand of their
fellows; but rather they will do it with a grander simplicity and a
better humanity.
THE KEY TO THE VISION
The very last and most important thing that must be said on the subject
of world consciousness is that man himself is the key to the vision--is
that man is the fullest expression of God and that man can conquer
nature and build nations, republics and a world democracy. The immanence
of God in man is the secret of sanity and balance in the study of this
question and also the power that is going to make the vision a reality.
And I have purposely refrained from saying anything about the superb
position that man holds in this mighty work in order that you might feel
the grandeur of the world vision through the power of the seas; might
feel the awful majesty of the vision, its divine glory--in order that
people might be arrested and caught up in its mighty enthusiasm--before
discovering that the secret of bringing it to pass is the wholesome
secret of a simple human life. O wonder of wonders, the simple key that
balances our thought and puts our feet on the earth in this hour of
tremendous vision is in man himself; is right here in our own lives--is
in the engineer, the educator, the missionary, the preacher, the
financier, all of whom can rise superior to nature and gain dominion
over the earth. Let me express what I mean in the following on "Balboa"
who is so intimately associated historically with the Panama canal and
with the Pacific ocean, as its discoverer:
BALBOA
Can a man discover a sea?
Can a human eye that's sealed by a night and sun-dazed by day
discover a sea?
Discover, O discover a far-going, a far-coming endless,
sky-meeting, infinitely finite sea?
Could a Balboa discover a sea?
* * * * *
Yes--
A dew-drop can orb a sun.
A telescope can enfold the stars of a sky.
A pure heart can incarnate God.
And an eye opened by fate, visioned by providence, looking
out from a Panama peak can discover an endless sea!
* * * * *
And great explorer--could you arise and speak--
How did you feel when you discovered a sea?
Did you feel like a babe first opening its eyes from marge to
marge on heaven's blue skys?
Did you feel like a mariner sailing the ship of the Earth out
through the gates of the dawn?
Did you feel like a soul just escaping from its clay out into
the joy of the freedom of space into a home built from
the light of the suns?
Looking, looking, looking far outward, how did you feel when
you first saw the sea?
Descending, walking towards the shores, approaching the
waters; how did you feel when, with the ineffable shock
of a glorious discovery, you first touched the sea?
* * * * *
And great explorer--could you but speak--
What would you say to a whole coast with pilgrims from all
the world inquiring of thee?
What would you say, standing now at the mingling of two
vast seas.
Looking west, west, west until west becomes east,
Looking east, east, east until east becomes west,
You could not declare consistently that this is for England,
for Germany or America alone.
But inspired by the thought of the hour, we feel sure you
would exclaim:
"I--the first to touch both the hemispheric waters--
Hear me, all nations, O hear me,
Claim the intermingling oceans for 'The Republic of The
United Seas.'"
* * * * *
Yes a man can discover a sea and also cross a sea
And also chart a sea and even unite the seas,
And civilize and uplift all the people in the nations
bordering and tributary to their shores.
Made in the image of God, a little lower than the angels.
He can gain full dominion over its wide flowing waters,
And on the pillars of courage build essential, earthwide
democracy.
* * * * *
Strong men, this, then is the hour's decree!
Look upward in faith, move outward in service
From the harbor of the present to the wide-emancipating
future that is to be.
A NEW INSPIRATION FOR LITERATURE
A new inspiration for literature is at hand. The times, with its mighty
impetus for world movements, more than ever demands a class of
literature that has at its heart the world consciousness. And the man
that is to write the literature, it seems to me, must familiarize
himself with three master-minds:
Walt Whitman, who chatted in terms of world democracy and whose spirit
was as readily attuned to the earth as to the dew drop and flower.
Homer, the blind bard of Greece, the masterful interpreter of the power
of the oceans, who talked about the seas as easily as the ordinary man
converses about village events.
Christ, the child-like but universal minded Leader of the human race,
who has quickened men to move toward the essential unity of the races
and nations.
Literature can now come to its own as never before. Writers of fiction
now have a new and superb opportunity of introducing a majestic back
ground to their stories. Men everywhere feel the lure of a new
inspiration. They want to talk and write in grander terms, bringing new
glory to the simple and common place. And they are sure to break forth
in the song of a better literature, orchestral with the spirit of world
consciousness and broadly sympathetic with the yearning for essential
world democracy. Commerce, science and religion are active in world
movements, and what a mighty help it will be toward the realization of
the ideal when many writers of fiction and poetry, as well as of history
and politics, begin to take advantage of this opportunity. I can think
of no higher calling that can engage the attention of man than that of
trying to express the inspiration of these days in a worthy literature;
which shall be majestically spiritual, and will tell what the unscaled
eyes see, microscoped and telescoped to find the message of nature and
history thrilling with a divine life.
And when the masses who have not had the opportunity to travel, catch
the spirit of a world patriotism and learn to think and talk in world
terms--interested not only in their city, their state, their nation, but
also in their world movements,--then a world government unifying the
nations will be more easily formulated. I say, when the people once
glimpse the vision of world peace, world harmony (or democracy) in its
full grandeur, a spirit will be aroused that all the warring kings and
illegitimate trusts on earth cannot check! David Starr Jordan well says
in a most capable and thorough series of articles on "How to End War"
that "people under the stress of immediate excitement might vote for
war, especially if told of some vicious aggression." How true that is!
And we should also add that there is a cure, a substitute for this false
excitement. For the excitement about war is only coarse vaudeville in
comparison with the noble passion that takes hold of men's lives when
they become interested in the struggle and movements that make for world
harmony.
And to create this higher enthusiasm--which can never be quenched when
once it is kindled in a man's heart--the constructive workers need the
co-operation and help of the deepest and clearest visioned men of
letters in every nation. The task of reconstruction will be so
stupendous that the orator, the press, the writer, must be enlisted to
bring the vision to the people so that they and their rulers can be more
readily led by the constructive international statesman into essential
world democracy.
And it is the uniting of the two hemispheric seas that so irresistibly
suggests the essential union of the nations. There never was an
Exposition held, nor ever will be, affording such a vision of world
unity; not only because of the union of these two oceans associated with
this event, but also because of the world war, which cannot avoid being
interpreted by some of the most penetrating thinkers as the darkness
before the dawn. Any man of clear vision who stands with Goethals at the
mingling of the two hemispheric bodies of water looking through the
clouds of war cannot help but speak prophetically. The world has been
brought together geographically. It will also be brought into essential
harmony politically and racially. The new proximity of the nations
created by the canal demands it. And above all, it is the inevitable
drift of things. Blessed then are the people that have the vision! And
twice blessed are those who give it to others! And above all, blessed
are the men who are laboring to make the vision a reality!
IX
Sea to Land
FROM SEA TO TREE AND FRUIT
The following two chapters were prepared for special occasions
commemorative of typical California life. The one on "The Olive in
Biblical History" was written by the author in compliance to a request
from "The California Ripe Olive Day Association" to be used in the
observance of the first California Ripe Olive Day, March 31st, 1915, at
the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
The chapter on "The Modern Parable of the Orange Tree" was delivered as
a special address at Porterville, California, just previous to the
beginning of the harvesting of the golden fruit in that section, and is
in keeping with "Orange Day" as observed at the Exposition.
And it is well for us to close the book with these chapters for the
world view only helps us to appreciate the inland beauty more, and the
valleys with their restricted vision only prepare us in return for the
world enterprises again.
THE OLIVE IN BIBLICAL HISTORY
In the Old Testament times the olive was recognized as the "fruit of
fruits." But during the hurry and rush of Western progress a gross
oversight has been committed, especially on the part of the American
people, in failing to fully appreciate its value; and as a result the
olive has not as yet gained its true leadership here among the elect of
the trees, composed of the orange, pear, apple, pomegranate, fig, and
date.
But the oversight has been discovered by the pioneers of the olive
industry in America, and the signs of the time indicate that the olive
will be known here as it was in the Holy Land. And, with the
unprecedented developments in the ripe olive industry, it has an
opportunity of becoming even more favorably known than ever before.
By a careful study, recall the place that the olive held in the old
Promised Land and you will get a faint idea of what we mean by the
rediscovery of the olive in this new Promised Land situated here on the
coast of our Western empire.
Where the olive originated, we do not know. Some think in Syria. Others
are not afraid to say that it is as old as man himself. For not only did
it grow previous to the flood, as is indicated by the dove bringing an
olive leaf to the ark. But some actually maintain that it was one of the
trees that grew in the Garden of Eden, wherever that may have been. And
whether such an assertion is far-fetched or not, there is absolutely no
reason why this wonderfully fruitful tree should not have been one of
the very first trees appearing on the globe for the sustenance of human
life.
But wherever it came from, of this Bible students are absolutely
certain--that it was the most popular tree in the Promised Land.
Indeed, it seems to have been one of the inducements that led the
children of Israel escaping from Egyptian captivity to move toward
Canaan, the Land of Promise with an irresistible expectancy. For the
Promised Land that they were to enter is described--a description which
would most accurately apply to our own California--vividly in the Bible
as follows:
"For the Lord thy God bringeth them into a good land, a land of
brooks and water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys
and hills. A land of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive
and honey."
And not only were these freemen from Egypt encouraged by the fact that
they would find the olive with other trees flourishing in the Promised
Land; but they were also commanded, according to the author of
Deuteronomy, to recognize its superior importance and cultivate it
everywhere, in these clearly put words: "Thou shalt have olive trees
through all thy coasts." And today the very names of different
localities in Palestine, such as the Mount of Olives and
Gethsemane--that is, Gath-Semen, which means the "oil press"--indicates
the love of those people for the beautiful olive groves, which gently
nodded at each other across roads and lanes when wooed by the winds,
even as they do in California, this newer Land of Promise.
No one saw how conspicuously and romantically the olive was associated
with the early Bible history of these people, as well as the prophet
Jotham, who spoke the famous fable of the olive--in which he
unmistakably infers that people should recognize it as the most
important of the fruits--in these striking and beautiful words, found in
the book of Judges:
"And Jotham went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and lifted up
his voice and said, 'Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem. * * * The
trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them and they said
unto the olive tree, "Reign over us" (or, as one of the versions so
suggestively translates the Hebrew, "Wave your branches over us").'"
The olive also held a most conspicuous place in the religious life of
the peoples of the Promised Land. Indeed, in the building of Solomon's
temple 480 years after the Babylonian captivity, the olive wood was
honored by being used in completing the most sacred parts of the
edifice. The cherubims, the sacred symbols of Divine wisdom, one on each
side of the oracle and each with wings five feet long extending over the
temple walls, were made of the olive tree.
In fact, the book of First Kings shows that the olive wood was built
into most of the conspicuous parts of the temple, in these definite
words:
"And for the entering of the oracle, be made doors of the olive
tree; the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall. So
was also made for the door of the temple posts of the olive tree, a
fourth part of the wall."
Not only was the olive given a primary place industrially and
religiously; but it was also pressed into service on festive occasions
of joy, commemorating historic events. It was used at the great feast of
the Tabernacles, in constructing the booths, made principally of olive
branches, intermingled with branches from other trees. And when spring
hangs her infant blossoms on California's thousands of olive trees,
rocked in the cradle of the western breeze, we will not fail to
understand why Nehemiah reminds us of the early Jews' deep appreciation
of the olive branch as a symbol of joy, in these words:
"So the people went forth and brought them olive branches (with pine
and myrtle) and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of
his house, and in their courts. And all the congregation of them
that were come again out of the captivity made booths and sat under
booths, and there was very great gladness."
And the Psalmist himself must have been inspired by the joy that came
from the prosperity of these olive groves, when he wrote, in the one
hundred and twenty-eighth Psalm:
"For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands, happy shalt thou be,
and it shall be well with thee. Thy children shall be like olive
plants round about thy table."
Indeed, with the Greeks and Romans, the Israelites found that there was
no tree that could be used for so many purposes as the olive--its fruit
for food, its wood for costly decorations, its branches and blossoms for
festive occasions, and its oil for medicine and light. For not only was
the olive itself used, but the oil was also used for the anointing of
the bodies of the sick, the captive and the dead. And the oil was
likewise valued for illuminating purposes in the lamps and vessels in
the tabernacle. And how highly they regarded it, we can fully understand
by reading these words from Leviticus:
"Command the children of Israel that they bring in to thee pure oil
of olive beaten for the light to cause the lamps to burn
continually."
There was no spot in all of Palestine that Christ loved to frequent more
than the Mount of Olives, to which he retired for meditation and rest.
And why was this? It may have been because of the general outlook that
he gained upon nature; which is doubtless true in part. But it was not
the primary nor exclusive reason why He resorted to the Mount of Olives.
For if there are tongues in trees, as well as sermons in stones, I
thoroughly believe that those beautiful olive groves must have said
something to His observing mind. What was it? Why did He go to the
Mount of Olives?
Perhaps it was because the olive is the symbol of peace. As Ovid said,
"In war the olive branch of peace is in use." So the olive groves which
the poet Browning says "have the fittest foliage for dreams," may have
helped Him in coming from the turmoil of Jerusalem to regain calm and
self-control for a warring soul.
Or, as He walked through the orchards, noticing that each tree was
sympathetic to the rest and that each appeared to be a neighbor to the
rest, He may have been inspired by thoughts similar to those of the
eloquent naturalist who said, "The trees live but to love and in all the
groves the happy trees love each his neighbor." And as a result He found
it more possible to return to His work with a quickened love for His
fellow-men.
Or perhaps suggestions for chivalrous meekness came to Him as He
observed the gray foliage of the trees modestly glistening in the
sunlight. It might have helped Him to say, "Blessed are the meek."
It may have been that the inspiration of timeless time, the power of
eternal years, was awakened in His thought by the knowledge of the
marvelous age of those trees. He may have known that well cared for
trees will live for three hundred years and even longer. For so great is
the olive's hold on life that even when a dying tree is cut down close
to the ground, its vigorous root will give birth to still another tree.
Or it may have been that the Mount of Olives, clothed with green beauty,
like many of our own olive-planted foothills, helped Him more to find
the spiritual inspiration of nature than a trip to some other, bald and
naked, mountain; helped Him to say:
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees."
All these inferences may be true and doubtless are in part. But--if I
dare say it--it seems to me that the primary lesson that Christ learned
in frequenting the Mount of Olives was the importance of fruitfulness of
life. For the predominant characteristic of the olive is fruitfulness.
So much so that Spencer in his "Faerie Queen" speaks of the warlike
birch--"the beech for shafts," "the ash for nothing ill," "the willow
for forlorn paramours;" but always and every time, he speaks of the
olive as the "fruitful olive."
And this is the reason why the olive should wave its branches over the
other trees. For, like manna, it is a composite growth--a food, a fruit,
a medicine. Always fruitful for a three-fold end; and never failing to
be prolific, the trees bearing even for centuries.
And this is why the prophet Jotham reports the trees as first urging the
olive to become king; and why he felt disappointed when the olive tree,
in the beginning, refused, saying:
"Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man,
and go to be promoted over the trees?"
For, according to the fable, the trees after consulting the fig and vine
were finally compelled to temporarily enthrone the worthless bramble as
king, even as Israel had selected the most incompetent man for ruler,
instead of choosing the most efficient statesman who was available.
But justice and good judgment would not long tolerate the rule of a
worthless potentate. So they ultimately succeeded in enthroning a worthy
king, in throwing away the bramble and finally crowning the olive to
wave its branches modestly but worthily over the other fruit-bearing
trees.
THE MODERN PARABLE OF THE ORANGE TREE
It is most appropriate at this season when California is just beginning
to harvest its "golden crop" to open wide our eyes and find the message
of these beautiful fruit bearing trees. For the Christ, who's mind was
quick to pronounce a curse on idleness in the parable of the barren fig
tree, would no doubt have been just as alert to have emphasized worthy
success by speaking a parable of the orange tree, had there been orange
groves in Palistine then as there are today.
But there were no citrus trees in the Holy Land when He walked its
highways and crossed through its orchards. Hence the religious worker of
today has the advantage over the founder of our faith of a visual
acquaintance with this luxuriant tree. Indeed this fruit has, because of
its color, become the most attractive of all fruits in modern life, so
universally in demand that it seems to me that the orange itself has and
is still seeking interpreters. So if, with Ruskin, we can only "open our
eyes and see things"--see through and back of things, I am sure that we
will clarify the vision of our souls and find emphasized some abiding
truths in a new parable of the orange tree.
It would be informing to speak of the first orange fruit found in
America--to tell in detail how the Spanish explorers gave the citrus
fruit to the Indians of Florida, who in eating it dropped the seeds in
the soil, making possible the wild orange groves now beautifying the
valley of the Indian river. For this is the romantic story of the origin
of the orange tree in America.
Or it would be keenly interesting to every Californian to read about the
arrival of the Franciscans in the southern part of our State, who
established twenty missions in the rear of each of which was a garden
where the orange, olive and fig were planted and bore fruit. Because
this explains the inception of the industry in our great commonwealth
and puts into our hand the key which unlocks the entrance to these
modern gardens of Hesperides--these orange belts now scattered
throughout our State.
Or in this day when scholars are feverish to learn the origin of things,
we could speak of the world's first orange trees which were found in
India. From the two original spices--the bitter and sweet--which were
first discovered there, we could trace the evolution of the one hundred
different varieties of the citrus fruit which are found in the world
today, the original fruit being imported by merchants from India into
China in the ninth century and into Europe in the fifteenth century, and
then finding its way to America during the period of Spanish
exploration.
But we prefer to be interpretive, to come closer home than this. We
prefer to consider these fruit bearing orchards as an object lesson
immediately at hand and to think of the labor and activity of the people
co-operating with nature's forces that have made this golden crop about
to be harvested possible. Thus recognizing at once the suggestion coming
so eloquently from these trees that, the fundamental secret of all
growth in character as well as in nature is adaption to environment and
service, not the passive submission of Calvinism alone, nor the
uncontrollable egotism of an unrestrained Arminianism, but the union of
both, the working of God with man--spiritual co-operation, the most
helpful phrase in modern religious thought. So with this primary
principle as a premise let us try to interpret in detail the new parable
of the orange tree. For the man that has learned its parable has found,
as Dr. McClaren would say, the secret of a fine soul culture.
Some days past as I stood upon an elevation commanding a view of that
great area of eight thousand acres of orange groves, spreading off into
the distance with its wide expanse of tree tops blended into a
continuous luxuriant green and its myriads of ripening oranges nestling
in the deep green back ground, like countless numbers of gold fish at
the surface of a sea or like circular stars in some new sky, these were
the three suggestions that came to me as I tried to learn its beautiful
parable.
First, the secret of a refined Christian character is an abiding sense
of the reality of God, as revealed in Christ. For the finest spirits,
the deepest minds and the most arresting personalities from Gladstone
and Lincoln down to the ordinary citizen, have been those that have
drawn their inspiration and thought from hidden sources. Just as the
fruit and leaves of these trees receive their rich color from the
sunbeams and absorb their health from the moisture coming from the heart
of God's hills, so the cultured souls of history have received their
winsome illumination of personality from a light that shineth neither by
land nor sea.
We realize that these trees could not grow where there is limited
sunshine and a restricted water supply. Neither can men find moral
maturity and health until they possess that type of mind which is
characterized by spiritual reality. We know that California's far-famed
orange orchards would not be possible without incessant sunlight; and
that our golden fruit would never again pass through the Golden Gate to
the markets of the world, if the sun did not appear to shower down upon
our orchards its magic beauty gathered in its own paradise beyond the
gates of the morning. But Tennyson, who had a sane knowledge and
appreciation of the Sun of Righteousness, was also well aware of the
secret of a beautiful life when he said of those who had not discovered
it,
"For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not bands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?"
At first I could not understand why the owners cultivated their orchards
so incessantly. But when I was told by one of the experts that continual
pulverizing of the soil made the moisture more accessible to the roots,
permitted the oxygen of the air to find its way to the tree, and
liberated the nitrogen in the soil so that it would be absorbed, then I
saw clearly that there was a scientific reason for the constant
harrowing; and felt that it might be very practical to demand that we
deepen our convictions so that we can go into the fields of human life
equipped with the mighty contagion of something to say that will go
deeper than the ears, to harrow the inner life of patronizing listeners.
For without the prophet whose harrowing words opens up a way to the
nerve of conscience and quickens the deeper emotions of the soul men
will not become eager to receive truth and the masses will remain
proselytes of mammon and low ideals. Indeed the irresistible characters
in religious service like the great singers are those who have had their
hearts broken; but at the same time and as a result, their interest in
righteousness deepened and their wills nourished and strengthened.
These trees are peculiarly beautiful and strong because they send their
roots into a well prepared soil thrilling with the liberated elements of
life and their branches into God's air to woo the purity of the
sunlight. And the young who are to lead us safely in the future are
those whose souls have been cultured by helpful and trying
experiences--those who have been taught to think deeply, to see far in
vision and to act bravely because the conviction of truth and
experience has liberated from the subconscious mind--or the subsoil of
their lives--those elements which send through the whole man the iron of
the prophet and the revealed wisdom of the apostle.
One of the strange characteristics about the orange is that the tree is
unusually sensitive and the fruit very hardy. Indeed the tree can be
blighted by a frost that will not injure deciduous fruits so that it
must be planted in localities protected by a warm climate and God's
hills, and often watched and tended like an infant child. But the orange
itself, which is so hardy, has an advantage over many other varieties of
fruits and can be shipped into any market in the world. For the citrus
fruit is not perishable in the same sense that the plums and peaches are
and after being removed from the trees may be kept for weeks with
advantage without being destroyed by decay or losing its beauty.
I say this is rather unusual. But, to mention the second lesson of the
parable, it is no stranger than the guiding of youth through the
formative years into a maturity, morally beautiful and capable of
vision. And it is only as the home and school, the church and state
watch over these sensitive periods, protecting the young from the
blights of the frosts of skepticism and sensuality that their lives will
mature into characters as golden and hardy as our native fruit. Sane,
honorable evangelism never excludes Christian nurture any more than the
sunlight obviates the necessity of soil cultivation.
The orange tree, it is true, does not tower in height and conspicuous
leadership like the giant Sequoias and Redwoods--although it is said
that the bitter specie of the tree occasionally acquires considerable
diameter and that the trunk of one near Nice still standing in 1789
became so large that two men could scarcely embrace it. The citrus tree
does not tower like Babel. But better yet, it simply bears fruit for
food--which the giants of the forest fail to do--like the strong men
who prefer only to be reliably useful.
And this third thought suggested by our object lesson is most apparent.
For with the instinct of good Americans we hasten to declare that the
sight of these trees all comparatively of the same height and vibrant
with the same beauty and glow of health does not suggest a monarchy, an
aristocracy or even a plutocracy but rather a successful democracy; not
only one of an equality of rights, because they all have access to the
same sunlight and soil, but also an equality of duty because they all
seek to bear fruit--a commonwealth in which every private citizen is
capable of being an uncrowned king. This must have been the lesson that
Ruskin interpreted from nature when he said: "A forest of all manner of
trees is poor, if not disagreeable in effect, a mass of one species of
trees is sublime."
And thus as I stood on the highest foothill overlooking these valleys,
these were the most important thoughts that were suggested to me by what
I saw--the necessity of these three qualities in the forming of mature
character, faith in God, the guidance and protection of friendship and
education for youth, and useful service, all of which condensed into a
single phrase means the co-operation of God with man in producing the
beautiful fruit of a refined, symmetrical life.
And then it dawned upon me that a number of other men had also learned
parables from the trees. For as I looked over that great expanse of
orchards to the south, detecting the irrigating streams flowing among
the trees, with patches of the barren desert appearing here and there in
striking contrast, the results of an abiding faith in God came to me in
the words of David:
"Blessed is the man that walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
And finally as I descended the foothill and came long side of an orchard
and saw a barren, scrubby trunk next to a splendid orange tree vigorous
and laden down with fruit, the words of Christ pressed to my lips for
utterance: "By their fruit ye shall know them. * * * A good tree cannot
bear evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bear good fruit."
It was then that I said to myself, why should not all men observe and
find the helpful parable in this favorite California tree. Because we
are more than mere animals we should rebel against hearing the terrible
parable of a barren fig tree pronounced on our lives. But if we profit
by the thoughts suggested by a modern parable of the orange tree, then
our spirit will be as beautiful and wholesome as the eternal green of
its leaves, our character as golden as its fruit and our deeds as
numerous as its blossoms, for often the new blossoms appear before the
ripe fruit has been picked from the branches.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note
Punctuation has been standardised. Asterisms retained as in the original
text. All other errors and inconsistencies have been retained
except as follows; (the first line is the original text, the second
the passage as currently stands):
decipher tendencies and tenencies are prophetic.
decipher tendencies and tendencies are prophetic.
will be another similiar to it in
will be another similar to it in
Nor the sordid traffickers in human fllesh,
Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh,
That the tumultous Atlantean stalwart,
That the tumultuous Atlantean stalwart,
The raging of of our sea!
The raging of our sea!
Aristotle, Palto, Hegel, Kant and Eucken.
Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and Eucken.
man was worthy of a crown of olives unles
man was worthy of a crown of olives unless
and that the fullness of the worlds life
and that the fullness of the world's life
the torch of enlightenment and fulfilll today's
the torch of enlightenment and fulfill today's
in the hour of perplexity, redicule and hardship
in the hour of perplexity, ridicule and hardship
the God who sheperds us with His love
the God who shepherds us with His love
Earger--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores,
Eager--so providenced--to carry to all pagan shores,
I thorougly believe that those beautiful
I thoroughly believe that those beautiful
Jerulsalem to regain calm and self-control
Jerusalem to regain calm and self-control
Or, as He walked though the orchards,
Or, as He walked through the orchards,
the two original spicies--the bitter and sweet
the two original spices--the bitter and sweet
has an adavantage over many other varieties
has an advantage over many other varieties
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