so he looks at it as Samuel looked at it, and remembers with gladness that he has been faithful to his trust, to his people, and turns to his children and to his grandchildren, and appeals to them to bear wit ness to his fidelity; so he looks upon it as Paul looked back upon his, with the sense of a service faithfully rendered to the Father whom he loves and to the Saviour whom he follows; so he looks back upon it as Moses looks back, and, looking forward and seeing that his children and his grandchildren will enter into the inheritance into which he cannot enter, nevertheless rejoices that his service has prepared that inheritance for them.

A man may face death as the penitent thief faced it; the memories that come out of the past may come hounding him like ghosts; and still the voice of Christ may break a way through them, and give deliverance. But that is not the graceful old age. It is only an old age that can be endured. Even the old man who looks back on a faithful life will remember blunders, but he will allay regret because he will be able to say, I have learned wisdom by my mistakes; his sins will rise up against him, but he will be able to allay remorse, because he will say, Though I fell into sin, nevertheless I fought against it. So his memories of the past will make his last days rich days.

And his present will be a blessed one. He will not have wasted his substance in his youth; he will have laid up something for this time of old age, so that he will not have to toil as though he had not made provision. He will not have wasted passions and appetites, and nothing else; he will have gotten control of the appetite and the passion; so there will come the peace, not of a man whose life has died and left nothing but ashes, but of one who has become victor over his enemy and made his enemy itself his servant and friend. He will have fought a good fight. And the doubts of his youth will have flown away as the ghosts fly at the crowing of the cock. For our doubts are the product of our spiritual ignorance and unculture. He who has had many years pass over his head, and in those years has been living for the world, will have been laying up for himself a greater skepticism when age comes upon him. But he who has been living in the eternal world, he who has been making the world serve him, he who has been keeping his heart open to the Eternal and the Infinite, he who has been walking with his Father, will find

the riddle of life less a riddle, the perplexity of life less a perplexity-he will perhaps know less than he thought he knew when he was a boy, but life will be clearer and better. In the summer the leaves hang on all the boughs, and as you stand in your country home you can get but a glimpse of the river or mountain that lies beyond the river; but when the fall has come, and the leaves are withered, and the winds have come and swept them all away and the trees stand bare, the river lies shining before you and the mountains rise up clear-marked in the autumn air. So when one after another of the things in life that did shield and surround you, and that you rejoiced in, have been swept away, and the trees in which your life is lived stand skeleton-like, if you have lived a life that has given you insight and outsight, you will see all the clearer because life seems barren, and the river of life will shimmer before you and the mountain of God stand clear-cut against the sky.

And so this man who has lived this life of temperance and probity and honor and service, and has all the flocking memories ministering to him, and has in the present all the sweet consciousness of God and immortality abiding with him, he will look forward into the future without fear, nay, with hope. "I am already being offered." If one's life has been one long self-sacrifice, why not rejoice when the sacrifice comes to its consummation and we see that it has not been offered in vain? If one has been living that life of Christly consecration and self-sacrifice, then this word, "I am already being offered," will come as a celestial anthem. He will live in the future; he will live in his children and in his grandchildren; he will project himself into them, as it were. Sometimes men in middle life grow impatient of children; but good old men never. They love the little children; and the grandmothers are more indulgent to the grandchildren than as mothers they were to their own offspring, because the old men and the old women come back again into their children and live their lives over again in them. But, more than that, God will renew his old man's youth. This old man will look forward and upward, and the life that is beyond will become near, and his heart will be more exhilarated at times than ever his heart was in his childhood. Do you remember those four pictures of Coles?-the Voyage of Life? The first, the babe in the cradle coming out from the

mystic cave, with an angel holding the tiller in the hand; the second, the young man standing in his boat and holding the tiller himself, while before him there is that impossible castle in the air which his imagination has built, toward which he is looking; the third, the man in middle life coming to the very edge of a great cataract, the clouds above black and the lightning flashing out of them, while he stands firm and strong, with a courageous hand upon the tiller; and, last of all, the boat upon the smooth bosom of the river, as a child rests its head upon the bosom of its mother, and before him, not the dreams of childhood, but through the rift of clouds the angels calling him up and on. Only he grows old gracefully who has seen that vision and steered toward it, and in the time of tempest and peril has kept a firm hand on the tiller and a courageous heart in his bosom.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turnin again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion-
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Is this Shakespeare's view of life? No! It is Shakespeare's representation of the cynic's view of life. And you might almost class it with the words of that other dramatic cynic, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Yes, it is to the cynic. But not so does Christian faith view life. It sees the child in the bulrushes, God's special care; it sees the boy brought up to the Temple and there given to God; it sees the youth kindled with love by woman's love, and first beginning the real full life when woman has taken him to herself and enriched his life with her love and crowned him therewith; it sees the soldier going forth like Joshua, not seeking bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, but armed with courage for God and his native land; it sees the man of middle life judging justly, learning experience from all the past and giving experience to others; it sees the patriarch gathering the children and the grandchildren about him and making a hospitable home, foundation and center of all life, fruitful in all love; it sees the old age that is birth into a new life, the happiest of all, glorious in memories of past achievement, the present all peaceful, the future all radiant with hope awaiting coronation in the world God grant that we may so live our life that we may thus grow old gracefully !

to come.

-The Spectator.

Tolstoï's "What is Art?"1

Tolstoi's "What is Art?" is presented in the English translation, the author tells us, "for the first time in its true form." The editions issued in Russia, he says, have been so much mutilated by the censor that the author requests all who are interested in his views to judge of them only by the work in its present shape. The mutilations which it has previously suffered have been not merely in the exclusion of expressions which he had used,

but also in the insertion of some which he had not used. What he had said upon "church religion,” for example, was so worded as to seem to refer to the Western Church only, and not the Greek Church; while his disapproval of luxurious living was made to apply, not to present queens and emperors, but to the Cæsars or the Neros. So with his re

marks about the private ownership of land;

he was allowed to condemn such concentration of ownership as exists in England, but not such as exists in Russia. These alterations, however, did not, so far as we can see, affect at all the essence of his doctrine respecting art. The usual definitions of art, as he points out in his introductory chapters, nearly all center in the beauty which is exhibited or the pleasure which is afforded.

Tolstoï shows that much of the highest art does not exhibit beauty or afford pleasure in any natural use of those words. Véron's definition that art is the expression of emotion through external manifestations comes nearer the mark, he thinks, but misses it by classing as art expressions of emotion which fail to kindle the same emotion in others. "Art," says Tolstoï, "is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings and also experience them." Whatever is rightly called art, whether in literature or in music or in painting or in oratory, has this common characteristic, that through it the artist has expressed an emotion in such a way as to awaken it in others, and unite them with him in a community of feeling.

From this fundamental and satisfactory

What is Art? By Leo Tolstoï. Translated from the Russian by Aylmer Maude. T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York. $1.

definition Tolstoï logically goes on to declare that the art which communicates to others the highest and best emotions is the highest and best art; and that that which communicates to others the lowest and degrading emotions is bad art, and unworthy of preservation among men, no matter what beauty it depicts or pleasure it affords. This deduction is really the core of his teaching, for his book, though nominally upon art, is really upon morality. The creed "Art for art's sake" he condemns with all the vigor of his moral nature; over against it he holds up his ideal of art for humanity's sake. Art, he says, brings men into a community of feeling, and the true mission of art is to bring the human race to a sense of its unity with God, and the unity of all its members. Any art which does not directly fulfill this mission he regards with the same religious distrust as did the Puritans and the Quakers in the days of their primitive zeal. Mere delight in beauty seems to him, as to them, an emotion that may lead men away from that which is best. Art should be the expression of religion, and the true art of our day should express that which is vital in the religion of our day. The essence of the religious life of

to-day, he says, is the recognition of every

man's sonship with God and brotherhood with his fellows. The term Christian art, therefore, can be applied only to art which unites men with God and with one another. Most of the art which now passes for such, especially the ecclesiastical art, he declares to be neither Christian in the primary sense of uniting men with God, nor in the secondary sense of uniting them with one another. It does not unite them to God because the artists have not themselves felt the emotion which their art should awaken. It does not, as a rule, unite men with one another, but rather unites those of a class, to the exclusion of the great mass, and thus serves to separate men from one another. Many of the illustrations which he gives of his artistic creed are full of penetrating criticism and inspiring suggestion. Sometimes, however, as was inevi table, his personal crotchets mar his presentation of his doctrine, as when he cordemns the art of Wagner by declaring that Wagner's predetermination to adjust his musical work to the demand of his poetry destroyed all

possibility of creative power and necessarily resulted, not in art, but only in imitation of art. That Tolstoï himself does not think this is made clear upon another page, where, after speaking of the religious meaninglessness of Vasnetsoff's ecclesiastical pictures, he declares that the little picture which Vasnetsoff drew for Turgenief's story of the crane, expressing the father's pity for the bird he had killed, is true art. In this picture, as in Wagner's music, the story made a demand upon the artist; but because the artist expresses a feeling into which Tolstoï entered, he pronounces it art, whereas in Wagner's case he does not.

Books of the Week

[The books mentioned under this head were received by The Outlook during the week ending August 19. Prices will be found under the head of Books Received in the preceding issue of The Outlook. This weekly report of current literature will be supplemented by fuller reviews of the more important works.]

Labor Co-partnership, by Henry D. Lloyd, is a spirited account of that portion of the co-operative enterprises in England in which the workmen share in the ownership and management. The extent of these enterprises is a matter of which the best-informed economists have had little conception. When we read, in Mr. Lloyd's account, of towns of five thousand families where there are four thousand co-operators, it seems as if industrial democracy were nearer than we have dreamed. Unfortunately, Mr. Lloyd begins his book with chapters upon co-operation in agriculture. The experiments here are described at second-hand from official reports, or speeches at co-operative congresses, and give no insight into the co-operative spirit among workers necessary to the vitality of the movement. Indeed, this agricultural movement (which, Mr. Lloyd frankly states, has had nearly as many failures as successes) seems to be co-operation in which the workingmen have done singularly little co-operating. The experiments inaugurated by Mr. Plunkett in Ireland (though they have sensibly covered the field of dairy-farming) have the flavor of philanthropic undertakings rather than movements from the laborer, for the laborer, by the laborer, which labor co-partnership is supposed to indicate. When, however, Mr. Lloyd comes to describe the co-operative works at Kettering, where great undertakings, managed by the laborers, have grown out of the soil, we have a vision of something which

At

may transform industrial life. Mr. Lloyd's style also rises with his theme, and here we have work on a par with that wrought in "Wealth Against Commonwealth." Kettering, "co-operation" went through its normal growth, from co-operative stores to co-operative workshops, from co-operative workshops to collectively owned homes for the operators, and, finally, from collectively owned homes to a co-operative farm, from which their homes might receive their supplies. The great successes in these enterprises came out of great sacrifices at the beginning for the accomplishment of what seemed very humble ends. The chapter is one to inspire workers in every kind of reform. In a natural way, the success of labor copartnership has led to imitations in which the form appears but the spirit is lacking. Thus, one of the London gas companies, in its effort to defeat the labor union and make the laborers more dependent upon itself, has established co-partnership features, such as the election of two well-to-do workmen among the directors of the company. Mr. Lloyd s book will furnish encouragement to all who have hope for industrial democracy. (Harper & Brothers, New York)

The Paternal State in France and Germany, by Henry Gaullieur, is a book written to show that the demand of the working classes for State interference in industrial affairs is a demand for the same kind of paternalism that has kept the working people of France and Germany upon a lower level than those of England and America. Mr. Gaullieur was born in France and educated in Germany, and he speaks with knowledge, with feeling, and with power of the lack of enterprise, the lack of spirit, the lack of intelligence, the lack of manhood, that have been the outcome of the omnipresent direction of the individual by the State. His chapters upon Germany are written with strong feeling, and should be read by those who are preaching that German civilization is on as high a level as our own. It is, indeed, a Frenchman who speaks of German "innate servility and apathetic submissiveness," but no one who reads of the immoralities and cruelties of the petty despotisms in Germany, up to a recent period, can deny that Mr. Gaullieur's strong words have some justification. Where his book fails is in its assumption that because State management, when introduced from above, against the wishes and even the protests of the working people, resulted in destroying

their independence and mental alertness, these same results will follow from State interference demanded by the working people and directed in all respects by their expressed wishes. The democratization of industry may produce bad economic results, but it certainly will not result in the apathy of the working classes called upon to exercise the management. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

George William Curtis maintained, through the greater part of his life, a peculiarly warm friendship for Dr. John S. Dwight, the musical critic and journalist, who was one of Mr. Curtis's instructors at Brook Farm. The volume somewhat awkwardly entitled Early Letters of George William Curtis to John S. Dwight includes about sixty letters in all, perhaps one-third of which are late, rather than early, letters. Naturally, these epistles deal very largely with matters relating to art and music; and, as all readers of "The Easy Chair" know, Mr. Curtis never spoke on these topics without saying something that was of deep interest and suggestiveness. The character and admirable qualities of Mr. Curtis are strikingly brought out in these letters, which are simple, unaffected, and without the slightest pretension. The editor of the book, Mr. George Willis Cooke, furnishes, in the first third of the volume, a readable account of the Brook Farm experiment, gathering up from many sources incidents and records which bring out into a cheerful light its social as well as its philosophic peculiarities. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

For mid-August, the week has been prolific of poetry. Four slender volumes reach our desk-Mr. Charles D. Roberts's New York Nocturnes (Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston, Mass.), Mr. Bliss Carman's By the Aurelian Wall, and Other Elegies (same publishers), Mrs. Julia P. Dabney's Songs of Destiny, and Others (E. P. Dutton & Co., New York), and Lucien V. Rule's The Shrine of Love (H. S. Stone & Co., Chicago). Of these volumes we should say that Mr. Carman's has the most art, Mr. Roberts's the most feeling, Mrs. Dabney's the most passion, and Mr. Rule's the most natural simplicity.

A beautifully printed edition of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village has been made with exquisite taste by The Roycroft Shop, which, as the title-page reiterates, "is in East Aurora, New York, U. S. A." The form is a pleasing quarto, the page delight

ful to the eye and large of margin, the type clear though with an antique face, while the book has illuminated initials, decorative sidetitles and ornaments. This volume is a credit to the press from which it issues. Goldsmith's poem is preceded by one of Mr. Elbert Hubbard's "Little Journeys," this one being an account of "Sweet Auburn." As usual, Mr. Hubbard is vivacious and readable, although somewhat jauntily patronizing.

The latest published volume of the Biographical Edition of Thackeray contains the Sketch Books—that is, the "Irish Sketch Book," the "Paris Sketch Book," and the "Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," besides a few lesser sketches. (Harper & Brothers, New York.) The introduction by Mrs. Ritchie is equal in interest to those of the preceding volumes, and gives us glimpses of Thackeray before his day of success had come, and while he was cheerfully meeting petty annoyances. Several drawings from Thackeray's pen, not before printed, add to the interest.

The novels of Mrs. Sarah Pratt McLean Greene are quite unclassifiable. They violate the ordinary rules of fiction at every turn, and are frequently improbable in situation and talk; yet it must be admitted that they are always vivacious, always bring out salient traits of human nature, and always have a strong feeling behind them. Her latest story is called The Moral Imbeciles, and one's only objection to the title is that most of the people so termed hardly live up to the evil reputation bestowed upon them, as they are peculiarly amenable to every good influence. The book has no claim to a high rank in fiction, but it is distinctly entertaining. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

Science popularized for spiritual profit is a summary description of a most entertaining little book by Bishop Warren, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, entitled Among the Forces. Its thirty-two short chapters deal with the wonderful forces and phenomena of nature, from the tides to the cosmic ether, and from the beach-grass of Cape Cod to the Cañon of the Colorado, in a sprightly, story-telling style, chastened by the religious spirit that looks through nature up to nature's God. Dr. Warren holds, with some of the most eminent physicists, to a spiritual interpretation of "matter." (Eaton & Mains, New York.)

A Guide to True Religion, by the Rev. P. Woods, is written from a historical point of view, to show that true religion can be fully