ACROSS THE LAND OF THE HUSTLER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13568, 16 April 1906, Page 2

ACROSS THE LAND OF THE HUSTLER.

. o JV-TIIE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE.

By YViuuvf Hf.witsox. I travelled from New York to Boston by rail, breaking my journey for a few hours at New Haven to have a look at Yale University. Here I met Professor G. B. Stevens, the author of .several well-known works on New Testament subject.?, and heard from him good reports of our .voting fellow townsman Mr Ernest Guthrie. Mr Guthrie, after graduating in arts at the Oiago University and taking half of his divinity course in the Theological Hall of the Presbyterian Church here, proceeded lo Yale for two sessions. I was K lnd to hear from Professor Stevens that Mr Guthrie's abilities as a .student and as a speaker had commanded the attention of both Iho professors and students of Yale. DR CLARK. At Bnslon I had the pleasure of 'enjoy-' nig for a .-holt lime Ihc hospitality of Dr Clark, the founder of the Christian Endeavour movement. Dr Clark passed through the colonies a few years ago. and left a pleasant memory wilh all who met him. His home is at Atlburntlale, a lillle onl ol the t-ily of Boston, in a beautiful spot overlooking trie Charles River, a favourite stream for canoeing. The house siands surrounded by Irecs and unfeneed, a- an' also llie houses of Dr Clark's neighbours. This American fashion of doing without Fences or hedges lias a look of confidence, in one's neighbours and in lite passers-by. Il perhaps also gives lo a home a greater look of hospitableness than does a Git iron fence or a. i-lcne wall with broken glass hollies nn the Inp of it. Dr Clark. I am sorry to say, had a serious break-down afier Ins i-clnrii home frniu his world lour, but he was beginning lo "lake hold" again. as Ihe Americans say. and was looking forward lo full work at no ilislanl .late.

THE ICAXtIAROO AS A CHRISTIAN KXDI'AVOI/P.EP,. 11l llr Clark's home I here an' a "real many interesting curios gathered from all parts (if tin! world, anil on hi? office table I hum stands a .small slutted kangaroo from Australia. I)r Chirk said jokingly ilinl they had been lliinking aliout the propriety of falling the kangaroo a Christian Kiideavouror. and taking il as an emblem of I lie society. Tim C.E. movement, t was fold. had been going ahead by leaps and' bounds. BHITISII ACORKSSrOX. In Boston and in its neighbourhood I was reminded more tlian anywhere else of colonial days in America and of the conflic! between Ilw British ami Ihe colonists. l)r Clark's mollicr. a bright old lady of 80 years of aire, is a descendant of a leader who fought against the Briiish, and among her cherished possessions are .several mementoes of those stirring days. Slip, showed me, among many other things, a beautiful piece of linen which had a paper attached to it explaining Inal I lie lin»n had been found in a military camp "when the British left in a hurry." At Concord, only ;i few miles out of Boston, we saw the scenes of several engagements, n. slallio of I lie Minnie Man, the Braves of. British soldiers, and Battle Monument. II was with the strangest feelings, feelings llie like of which I had never before experienced, Hint T stood and read the inscription on Battle Monument;- - " Here, on the l!)!h April, 1773, was made the first forcible resistance lo British Aggression. On iiie opposite bank stood Hie American Militia, Here steed the invading armv, end on this snot the first of the encrav fell m the War nf the devolution, which gave Independence to these I'nitctt States. Li gratitude to Ood, and in the love of Freedom, This monument was erecteu\ A.E. 18313.' As I read of "Briiish aggression." "(lie invading army," "the enemy." 1 could not help thinking of what might, have been, and I wondered if (lie command "Thou sliuli not speak evil of dignitaries" conies under the Sialuto of Limitations, and whether, at this time of dav, it would lie lawful to relieve one's feelings about (leorge 111 and some of his friends. THE ILI.rST.IUOrS DEAD. The most interesting places in and near Boston I found to he those connected with tho names of I In- dead: the homes of her literary men and the graves of some of tlicm in Mount Auburn, ono of the most beautiful cemeteries in tho world, and in Sleepy Hollow, Concord. The day we visited Concord was very beauiiful—a dav of bright sunshine, blue heaveiK. anil brisk air. The iimel little town, with its Jong line of shade trees on both sides of the streets, seemed a fitting dwelling-nlaee for Emerson. Hawthorne, and Louisa Aleolt. Their l>oinos--iinpre!cntious wooden buildings surrounded hv trees-are pointed out to llie tourist. In Sleepy Hollow I saw tbe graves of the great literary workers of Concord, marked by stones more unpretentious even than their homes, and bearing the simplest inscriptions. Hawthome's monuinenr. a small stone about 211 high, bears only the word " Hawthorne." Louisa. May Aleoti's inoiuimeni is a similar stone, inscribed "L. M. A. 1832 to 1888." Emerson's grave is marked by a large boulder, on which a short, inscription has been engraved.

EMEUSOX. Most men owe something to Emerson: ofien it is a debt incurred early in life, and though the debt may not lie increased at a later date, yet w«> continue, to pay tribute to him all our days. Henry Drummond somewhere speaks of tbo beginnings ol his library—the fpw books that ho owned a.s a voung man, and among Iliem Emerson's'•• Essays" siml Robertson's "Sermons" occupied an honourable- place. My earliest recollections of Emerson go back lo my boyhood, when my timi<l mind began to tmiekon. 1 used It) love to go lo the home of one who was mv own and my falher's friend. 1 can see him yet. as he hat. by the open white-washed fireplace in the liack kitchen. The lire-irons shone in the light of the wood fire, and the whole room was as clean as. plenty of soap and vigorous polishing could make it. My Sriend had been a working man ail his days, from the lime lie went to lhe coal pit at lhe age of eight- until be worked his last shift as' a watchman at, 70, no longer squill to more laborious work. He has none, and so has bis wife, who so heartily believed and practiced the precept- that cleanliness is iicni, lo godliness. Many years have passed, and all has changed: Iml that back kitchen in the lamplight is will clear in niv memory. That was my first real school. It was there that my education began; and my old friend, as he smoked his pipe and talked about his rending uul his observations, of life with an incisivoness or a droll humour that I have scarcely ever heard equalled—certainly never "sui'pa=;e<!.--tv:is my first toaclioi'. Emerson was nfien the subject of our conversation in those days, and my old friend found congenial thoughts roilgenially pressed in the "Essays ami Orations." I remember how the ''boggy" passages

used tq 'trouble him, Ihc parts whore ho could not see the roimoction between what went More and what followed after. One V-4y he compared {he reading of a certain ,<essay to driving oh a country road: you get places on (lie road of easy and smooth going, but suddenly yon conic tmon hits where you are likely to be ioltcj out of the hap. 1 did not know then what 1 now si'spcct is the* truth concerning the apparent want, of consecution in the essays, that it is due to Emerson's method "of composition, as that is described for us by Dr Garnctt. As I 6 tood by the grave of the Concord Sage, I thought of my old philosophical engine-driver friend— "dead, too i now. and of the "iKiggy" parsages. In speaking of Wordsworth's unconsciouslies, of the prosaic character of some of his work. Matthew Arnold sav« that we ran imagine if anyone mot Shakespeare in thc-Eiysian fields and told him that some of his passages were in a strain <inilc false, the poet wotdd smile and reply that lie knew it perfectly well himself.'and what did it matter I wonder sometimes i( my old friend has found out Kmoison ami told him that some of hi s passages are very jolty, and whether Emerson's eyes, smiled a_ slow, wise smile. By the side of Emerson lies his wife, Lilian. I quote the inscription ,011 her grave for the sake of the fine ideal of woman it presents:—"ln her youth an unusual sense of the Divine •presence-was granted her, and she retailed through _ life the impress of that Divine communion. To her children she seemed, in her native n'tendency and unquestioning' courage, a. queen, a flower in e'egance and delicacy. Her love and care for her husband and children were her first earthly interest, hut with her overflowing compassion her -heart- went nut to the" slave, the sick, and dumb creation, She remembered them that were in bonds as bound with them." MOUNT AUBURN. At Mount Auburn, near Boston, T saw the grave of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In all of whose philosophising and sly r.ml keen inspection into human nature there is not a caustic word—not a word that burns or siinss. I found out also the la.-i reeling place of Phillips Brocks. [ had --?en in the city his beautiful church, always t-hrongfitl iii Brooks's dav by a. crowd anxious to hear him as lie poured forth in a torrent oi words I hat was the despair of the reporters-thoughts that made men more 'hopeful of the. ..mod jn themselves and others, awl more pitiful, but nor mere tolerant, of the evil. Brook lies bv the side of his father, mother, and 'three brothers. A small stone mark- the last resting place of each member of the family. (In the headstone of the bishon (hero 'is an inscription detailing the various cecledasilcal positions lie occupied, and closing with tlu- passage: ""Him that ovcreomctii will 1 make a pillar in the temple of my f!od." I was p-rhaps more iii the tombstone of (he mother than that of any other memlier of the family group with its liiscriniion. "0. woman 'great is thy faith." She was the mother' of hs sons: all of them lx>eame members of the Episcopal Ch-rcli of America, four of them clergymen, one of the [our becoming a bishop, (he fifth was a business man, and the mil, a soldier who was shot in ihe war. As .she siands portrayed in the biography of her great son. T do net think I have ever seen a woman of more yearnimr. maternal affection, and more eompolliiie religions faith.

Time would fail me to tell of our visit to the graves of Longfellow. Lowell, and others, and of iho cmolioiis that cur visit excited. II was wilh lingering feel we made our way io the rates o[ the cemetery and caught the tram "that carried us back to Ihe pity. II had been for us a memorable afternoon of a beautiful Indian summer day.