Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
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conclusive evidencesof design and a Designer. The humblest blade of grass preaches anincontrovertible sermon. What force is it that brings it up, greenand beautiful, out of the black, dead earth? Who made it succulentand filled it full of the substances that will make flesh and bloodand bone for millions of gentle, grazing animals? What a gap would ithave been in nature if there had been no such growth, or if, beingsuch, it had been poisonous or inedible? Whose persistent purpose isit--whose everlasting will--that year after year, and age after age,stirs the tender roots to life and growth, for the sustenance ofuncounted generations of creatures? Every blade of grass, therefore,points with its tiny finger straight upward to heaven, and proclaimsan eternal, a benevolent God. It is to me a dreadful thing that mencan penetrate farther and farther into nature with their senses, andleave their reasoning faculties behind them. Instead of mindrecognizing mind, dust simply perceives dust. This is the suicide ofthe soul."
"Well, to this extremity," said Maximilian, "the governing classes ofthe world have progressed. We will go to-morrow--it will beSunday--and visit one of their churches; and you shall see foryourself to what the blind adoration of wealth and the heartlesscontempt of humanity have brought the world."
CHAPTER XXI.
A SERMON OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Max and I entered the church together. It is a magnificentstructure--palatial, cathedral-like, in its proportions--a gorgeoustemple of fashion, built with exquisite taste, of different-coloredmarbles, and surrounded by graceful columns. Ushers, who looked likeguards in uniform, stood at the doors, to keep out the poorly-dressedpeople, if any such presented themselves; for it was evident thatthis so-called church was exclusively a club-house of the rich.
As we entered we passed several marble statues. It is a curiousillustration of the evolution of religion, in these latter days, thatthese statues are not representations of any persons who have everlived, or were supposed to have lived on earth, or anywhere else; andthere was not in or about them any hint whatever of myth or antiquebelief. In the pre-Christian days the work of the poet and sculptortaught a kind of history in the statues of the pagan divinities.Bacchus told of some ancient race that had introduced the vine intoEurope and Africa. Ceres, with her wheat-plant, recited a similarstory as to agriculture. And Zeus, Hercules, Saturn and all the restwere, in all probability--as Socrates declared--deified men. And, ofcourse, Christian art was full of beautiful allusions to the life ofthe Savior, or to his great and holy saints and martyrs. But here wehad simply splendid representations of naked human figures, male andfemale, wondrously beautiful, but holding no associations whateverwith what you and I, my dear Heinrich, call religion.
Passing these works of art, we entered a magnificent hall. At thefarther end was a raised platform, almost embowered in flowers ofmany hues, all in full bloom. The light entered through stainedwindows, on the sides of the hall, so colored as to cast a weird andluxurious effulgence over the great chamber. On the walls were anumber of pictures; some of a very sensuous character; all of greatbeauty and perfect workmanship; but none of them of a religiousnature, unless we might except one of the nude Venus rising from thesea.
The body of the hall was arranged like a great lecture-room; therewere no facilities for or suggestions of devotion, but the seats wereabundantly cushioned, and with every arrangement for the comfort ofthe occupants. The hall was not more than half full, the greater partof those present being women. Most of these were fair and beautiful;and even those who had long passed middle age retained, by the virtueof many cunning arts, well known to these people, much of theappearance and freshness of youth. I might here note that theprolongation of life in the upper classes, and its abbreviation inthe lower classes, are marked and divergent characteristics of thismodern civilization.
I observed in the women, as I had in those of the Darwin Hotel,associated with great facial perfection, a hard and soulless look outof the eyes; and here, even more than there, I could not but notice asensuality in the full, red lips, and the quick-glancing eyes, whichindicated that they were splendid animals, and nothing more.
An usher led us up one of the thickly carpeted aisles to a front pew;there was a young lady already seated in it. I entered first, and Maxfollowed me. The young lady was possessed of imperial beauty. Shelooked at us both quite boldly, without shrinking, and smiled alittle. We sat down. They were singing a song--I could not call it ahymn; it was all about the "Beautiful and the Good"--or something ofthat sort. The words and tune were fine, but there were no allusionsto religion, or God, or heaven, or anything else of a sacredcharacter. The young lady moved toward me and offered to share hersong-book with me. She sang quite sweetly, but there was no more soulin her voice than there was in the song.
After a little time the preacher appeared on the platform. Max toldme his name was Professor Odyard, and that he was one of the mosteminent philosophers and orators of the day, but that his moralcharacter was not of the best. He was a large, thick-set, florid,full-bearded man, with large lips, black hair and eyes, and swarthyskin. His voice was sweet and flute-like, and he had evidentlyperfected himself in the graces of elocution. He spoke with a greatdeal of animation and action; in fact, he was a very vivacious actor.
He commenced by telling the congregation of some new scientificdiscoveries, recently made in Germany, by Professor Von der Slahe, tothe effect that the whole body of man, and of all other animals andeven inanimate things, was a mass of living microbes--not in thesense of disease or parasites, but that the intrinsic matter of allforms was life-forms; the infinite molecules were creatures; and thatthere was no substance that was not animated; and that life wastherefore infinitely more abundant in the world than matter; thatlife was matter.
And then he went on to speak of the recent great discoveries made byProfessor Thomas O'Connor, of the Oregon University, which promise toend the reign of disease on earth, and give men patriarchal leases oflife. More than a century ago it had been observed, where thebacteria of contagious disorders were bred in culture-infusions, forpurposes of study, that after a time they became surrounded by massesof substance which destroyed them. It occurred to Professor O'Connor,that it was a rule of Nature that life preyed on life, and that everyform of being was accompanied by enemies which held its over-growthin check: the deer were eaten by the wolves; the doves by the hawks;the gnats by the dragon-flies.
"Big fleas had little fleas to bite 'em, And these had lesser still, ad infinitum."
Professor O'Connor found that, in like manner, bacteria, of allkinds, were devoured by minuter forms of life. Recovery from sicknessmeant that the microbes were destroyed by their natural enemiesbefore they had time to take possession of the entire system; deathresulted where the vital powers could not hold out until the balanceof nature was thus re-established. He found, therefore, that theremedy for disease was to take some of the culture-infusion in whichmalignant bacteria had just perished, and inject it into the veins ofthe sick man. This was like stocking a rat-infested barn withweasels. The invisible, but greedy swarms of bacilli penetrated everypart of the body in search of their prey, and the man recovered hishealth. Where an epidemic threatened, the whole community was to bethus inoculated, and then, when a wandering microbe found lodgment ina human system, it would be pounced upon and devoured before it couldreproduce its kind. He even argued that old age was largely due tobacteria; and that perpetual youth would be possible if a germicidecould be found that would reach every fiber of the body, and destroythe swarming life-forms which especially attacked the vital forces ofthe aged.
And then he referred to a new invention by a California scientist,named Henry Myers, whereby telephonic communication had beencuriously instituted with intelligences all around us--not spirits orghosts, but forms of life like our own, but which our senses hadhitherto not been able to perceive. They were new forms of matter,but of an extreme tenuity of substance; and with intellects much likeour own, though scarcely of so high or powerful an
order. It wassuggested by the preacher that these shadowy earth-beings hadprobably given rise to many of the Old-World beliefs as to ghosts,spirits, fairies, goblins, angels and demons. The field in thisdirection, he said, had been just opened, and it was difficult totell how far the diversity and multiplicity of creation extended. Hesaid it was remarkable that our ancestors had not foreseen theserevelations, for they knew that there were sound-waves both above andbelow the register of our hearing; and light-waves of which our eyeswere able to take no cognizance; and therefore it followed, _apriori_, that nature might possess an infinite number of forms oflife which our senses were not fitted to perceive. For instance, headded, there might be right here, in this very hall, the houses andwork-shops and markets of a multitude of beings, who swarmed aboutus, but of such tenuity that they passed through our substance, andwe through theirs, without the slightest disturbance of theircontinuity. All that we knew of