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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
M. Emil de Loveleye, the eminent French critic, says: “As for Mr. Bellamy’s dream, it will, I fear, always remain an Utopia, unless man’s heart be entirely transformed. His ideal is pure communism, and as such raises my invincible objections.” And Mr. Vinton, in his “ Looking Further Backward,” has drawn a gloomy picture of the outcome of nationalism as advocated by Mr. Bellamy. However, all seem to admit that he has instilled heart into the usually dry subject of political economy, and has woven poetry around the dread problem of social reform, which wrecks lives and embitters souls, and that he has offered a pleasing remedy instead of a raven prophecy.
It has been suggested that “ Looking Backward,” like “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” may be one of those unexpected incidents which occasionally bring mighty causes and forces into play, and with astonishing results.
The plan is beautifully conceived and quaintly sketched with the skill of a master, but I very much fear that the time for the lion and the lamb to live together and not covet each other’s strength or flesh will be deferred to our millennium instead of the twentieth century.
However it may be, public opinion says that it at least demands attention and is worthy of investigation; that it may be garnished with a multiplicity of ornamental towns, columns and entablatures, a wild mingling of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture, and yet suggest many needed additions to the edifice of our government. I believe in looking at bright things, at pictures of places that I may never hope to see, at grand mountains that I may never hope to climb, and in hoping that the survival of the fittest will be the survival of the most gracious spirit and the most tender heart.
Duty, assisted by anxiety, compels us to ask: “What is there in this weird proposition to which generation after generation comes in such questionable shapes? ” Is it a curse, or a blessing in disguise, or some angel in the process of development? We seem to be driven to the necessity of saying, as Hamlet said, “Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak with thee;” or as Carlyle said of the dingy, soiled and ragged toiler: “ Thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and, fighting our battles wert so marred.” We know that glorious dreamers, unselfish martyrs, untamed lovers of liberty and noble-minded women, as well as dynamite fiends and incendiary hags, have been led to the executioner’s block, or doomed to pass their lives in the dark mines of Siberia, toiling with broken hearts under the lash of heartless masters. It is said that the barricades have their Christs, in whom we can detect aspirations, emotions, instincts and ideas essentially beneficent and good, the despairing anguish of nature’s longing for justice and right.-, Oscar Wilde, with real insight, touched a right note when he said:
“I love them not, whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause; beneath whose ignorant reign,
Arts, culture, reverence, honor, all things fade,
Save treason, and the dagger of her trade,
And murder, with his silent, bloody feet,
* * * And yet, and yet,
These Christs upon the barricades,
God knows, I am with them in some things.”
John the Baptist, clad in his camel’s hair blanket, and feeding upon locusts and wild honey, was a most startling character, and the victim of unfortunate circumstances; although he was a forerunner of our Saviour, who, also, by the way, came to be Saviour only after Calvary and the cross.
We might do worse things than remember that it was a murderer who said: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and listen to these weird reformers why teach us the Divine lesson of inculcating self-sacrifice; or condemn or dread them us we will, no selfish thoughts taint the simplicity of their aims.