S. R. Calthrop

“ But let me ask you, What would Washington's qualities of mind and heart have availed his country, unless the manly strength, the frame of iron had been added? A good man he might have been, a patriot he surely would have been; but the Father of his Country, never! The soul that trusted in God, the conscience that felt the omnipotence of justice and right, the heart that beat for his country's weal alone, the mind that thought out her freedom, was upborne by the body that knew no fatigue, by the nerves that knew not how to tremble. ”

“ Charlotte Bronté, who feels the pressure of every-day life to be as hard as a giant's grasp upon her throat! Charlotte Bronté cannot tell why she is so unhappy, why she feels like a prisoner in the world,—why earth, our beautiful earth, is like a charnel house to her. And yet we think that the most ordinary passerby could see very satisfactory reasons why Charlotte Bronté was what she was, and felt what she felt. Hollow cheek and faded eye, teach their wisdom to their possessor last of all. ”

“ When the great coming race, prophesied of so long, shall at last inhabit the earth, they shall see no more glorious stars, no bluer atmosphere, than we do to-day; the moon shall pour forth no more silver from her bounteous horn; the sun shall lavish his golden rays no more freely, than he does to-day. But yet the whole world shall be unimaginably brighter and more beautiful to that crowning race. ”

“ The nun becomes impossible when we train the intellect; Devotion says, Worship; the Mind adds, The Lord thy God. The Conscience says, Do right; the Intellect shows what is right. The Heart says, Love thy fellow-men; the Intellect tells the right way of loving them. Piety and charity! these are glorious! these are the two angels from Heaven which prompt us to help our brothers who need our help; but intellect must show us the way to do it. To take a single instance. Piety and charity cannot show us how to drain and ventilate and rebuild the hovels of the poor in New York. ”

“ Thirty thousand clergymen, from as many pulpits, advocate the claims of the conscience and the soul. A hundred thousand teachers are busied throughout the length and breadth of the land in training the intellect, while a man could almost count on his fingers the number of those engaged in training the body. The intellectual training which the masses receive, is the highest glory of American education. If I wanted a stranger to believe that the Millennium was not far off, I would take him to some of those grand Ward Schools in New York, where able heads are trained by the thousand. ”

“ Put together the fragments of men that we have amongst us to-day,—the physical joy in existence of the western hunter, the intellectual keenness of the man of science, the love of Nature of the artist or poet, the love for each little bird and insect of the naturalist, the justice of a Washington, the love for God and man of a Florence Nightingale, and then we gain some glimpses of the men of the future whom God has willed shall possess the planet at last. For assuredly the race is safe, though nations or individuals may fail and perish. Safe, because God has not built the planet in vain ”

“ Thus, then, we find that devotion, conscience, heart, and intellect are all necessary to each other in the harmonious development of Human Nature. Will they be found sufficient for a perfect life?
Put together a strong soul, a tender conscience, a woman's heart, and a man's intellect, and we have a Charlotte Bronté,—surely one of the best types of the modern mind. Will she find these four noble parts of Human Nature sufficient for the task of living? ”

“ No, every spade, every saw, every hammer employed in that most righteous undertaking must be directed by intellect, by science. Piety and charity may prompt, but intellect must guide.
I know full well that many a woman's heart, guided only by her sacred instinct of loving, acts out the law of right without any conscious questioning of the intellect; that a thousand tender feet carry the gospel of Christ along the alleys of New York and London, or along the corridors of the Crimean hospital, though even there also woman's wit has to aid woman's heart. ”

“ For it is certain, then, that the planet upon which God has placed us, is absolutely well fitted for the development of the human race. The more Science investigates, the more wonderful seems the adaptation of Human Nature to the world in which it is placed. The more refined a man becomes, the more delicate his insight into Nature, the more satisfied, the more overjoyed is he with her exhaustless charms. It is only our sin, our folly, our ignorance, which perpetually befools us, and robs us of our inheritance. ”

“ Many a hermit in lonely cell or rocky cavern, has cut himself off from the society of men, from action, duty and love, in order that he may be devout without hindrance. How many such men have poured out their souls upon the ground, on barren sand or desert rock, souls which might have watered thousands with the dew of heaven, and all because they made one fatal life-mistake;—they thought, that to pray always meant to be always saying prayers. ”

“ See to it then, Educators! that young Human Nature has its due. See to it that conscience and the soul have their rightful supremacy, that intellect and sweet human affection walk hand in hand. And lastly, see to it, Educators! that these young bodies have their due. Learn for yourselves numberless manly sports and games, and resolutely continue to teach them and practise them yourselves in the midst of your scholars. Love open air and exercise yourselves first ”

“ The pale-eyed school-girl, who never played along with the other children, never ran and laughed and shouted with the rest, little knew what days and hours and years of dulness, of pain and agony, she was laying up for the future, what a premature grave she was digging for herself. ”

“ Take, as an instance, another of America's great men.
Daniel Webster! perhaps the most cavernous head, set upon the strongest shoulders, which has appeared upon the planet, since the soul of Socrates went back to God. Daniel Webster! strong mind in strong body, leader and king of men, deep-chested, lion-voiced, whose words of power moved men as the wind moves the sea, whose eloquence had a physical energy, a bodily grandeur about it like to that of no other man. Daniel Webster! pride of all Americans ”

“ Nature, dear friends, makes nothing in vain, and it is of such infinite importance that strength of limb, readiness of eye and hand, physical vigor in short, should be transmitted from generation to generation, that she keeps producing fast young men, in spite of the thousand excesses which they commit, and will do so, until the ablest and wisest human minds take the matter in hand, and see to it that this part of Human Nature has its proper and legitimate food, guided by mind, thought, and reverence, instead of being allowed to run riot in all manner of wantonness. ”

“ The grand work once inaugurated, by the wondrous law of hereditary descent, natures completer and nobler on all sides will be the heritage of the next generation, by virtue of their birth, and so on in stately progression each generation shall expand and transmit a larger power to the generation that succeeds it; and at last the grand universe of matter shall put the world of man to shame no longer, but man with God's image shining through him, shall be seen to be worthy of the glorious nature in whose bosom he dwells. ”

“ The whole concave of heaven then would appear a thousand times larger than it does to our eyes, that is, it would appear a thousand times over more like its real size, though even then, eyes thus grandly gifted would fall immeasurably short of the reality of the universe which lies in the bosom of God! ”

“ I have played at cricket in summer with the thermometer at 90, and I have never yet seen one serious accident. The fact is, that I have a theory that Nature loves young men and boys, and love to aid them in their sports. She sends her ice and snow to educate them and make them hardy, while we are sitting by the stove and abusing the weather. She won't let them be hurt half as much by a blow or a fall, as older people who do not love her half as well. She breaks the young one's fall, and herself puts the plaster on his little fingers. ”

“ Now that great race of the future shall have their nature so in tune with things, and their spiritual conceptions so enlarged, that the great world shall be realized in its vastness, so much more vividly than we can conceive of it, that it shall be as if their material eye were exalted to the power of Lord Rosse's telescope. ”

“ The coward is the one most likely to get hurt. I think that there is just enough risk in these games to engender a manly contempt for pain, and a bold handling of a danger. If the cricket ball were a soft affair, it would be a game for babies not boys.
Let us then take a hint from the sporting world, and turn to the use of the many that which has formed the only redeeming feature of a few. The good that these manly games do, should not be confined to a small class, but should be diffused among the whole community, for the sporting world has something to say to all of us. ”

“ I almost feel ashamed to criticize such noble institutions as the schools of New York; but truth compels me to do this. Hitherto, nothing whatever has been done to train the bodies of the tens of thousands who are educated there. All that is done is excellent, is wonderful, but fearful drawbacks come into play, in the shape of physical weakness, and positive male-formation of body. ”

“ It were a theme worthy of the place and time, if we could sketch out the progress of mankind; to show how God laid the foundations of the human race in the barbaric ages, strong, savage human bodies being the stones thereof; how in due order, order as sure and stately as that of the geologic eras, arose the Roman and the Greek, the types of full developed body and mind together: how in the fullness of time Christianity revealed the mighty powers of heart, conscience and soul, which before were lying dormant in the human race ”

“ This, then, is what cricket and boating, battledore and archery, shinney and skating, fishing, hunting, shooting, and baseball mean, namely, that there is a joyous spontaneity in human beings; and thus Nature, by means of the sporting world, by means of a great number of very imperfect, undignified, and sometimes quite disreputable mouthpieces, is perpetually striving to say something deserving of far nobler and clearer utterance; something which statesmen, lawgivers, preachers, and educators would do well to lay to heart. ”

“ Devotion, then, needs conscience. Conscience tells a man that he must act as well as pray. Devotion makes the great act of prayer. Conscience works out into the actual of every-day life, the ideal of which devotion has conceived. Will then devotion and conscience be sufficient for a noble manhood? Devotion and conscience alone developed, have ofttimes, in the days that are past, formed some stern old grand inquisitor, torturing the life out of human sinews because he ought. ”

“ If an educator or college tutor wishes to influence this class of his scholars, or if a clergyman wishes to gain the souls of this part of his congregation, the one most difficult to deal with, let him join with them in some manly game, and let him assuredly know that whatever true manhood he has will stand him in good stead, and nothing else: nothing but real vital religion, real nobleness of character will be of any use in the cricket-field or the row-boat ”