A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE KOW 259 



ledge; and his own desire for himself would be the 

 speediest oblivion both of his person and his 

 works. *' 



But the man was true; there can be no doubt 

 about that, and when such is the case the message 

 may safely be left to take care of itself. We have 

 got the full force and benefit of it in our own day 

 and generation, whether our "cherished ideas of 

 political liberty, with their kindred corollaries," 

 prove illusions or not. All high spiritual and pro- 

 phetic utterances are instantly their own proof and 

 justification, or they are naught. Does Mr. Froude 

 really mean that the prophecies of Jeremiah and 

 Isaiah have become a part of the permanent "spir- 

 itual inheritance of mankind " because they were 

 literally fulfilled in specific instances, and not be- 

 cause they were true from the first and always, as 

 the impassioned yearnings and uprisings and reach- 

 ings-forth of high God-burdened souls at all times 

 are true? Regarded merely as a disturbing and 

 overturning force, Carlyle was of great value. There 

 never was a time, especially in an era like ours, 

 when the opinion and moral conviction of the race 

 did not need subsoiling, loosening up from the bot- 

 tom, — the shock of rude, scornful, merciless power. 

 There are ten thousand agencies and instrumental- 

 ities titillating the surface, smoothing, pulverizing, 

 and vulgarizing the top. Chief of these is the 

 gigantic, ubiquitous newspaper press, without char- 

 acter and without conscience; then the lyceum, 

 the pulpit, the novel, the club, — all cultivating 



