IBSEN'S PLAYS 7-U 



but is now quite easy-going, and content with his fragment of the 

 human heart, willing enough to accept the service of one day out of 

 seven, and altogether past working miracles. The very doctrine of 

 Christian redemption has made men look upon themselves as no 

 longer called upon for any sacrifice as long as they formally assert 

 their claim to a share in the great sacrifice made for them long ago. 



Against this miserable, sordid, and decrepit religion Brand de- 

 clares war to the death. Better become frankly material and godless, 

 better give oneself up to the world and become an acknowledged 

 muck-raker on the one hand, or Bacchanal on the other, than cheat 

 oneself with such a sham. It must be "everything or nothing," and 

 if there be a God to serve, then his service must be "everything." And 

 such a God there is. If we must picture him under human form, then 

 he is no benevolent and weak old man; he is young and strong as 

 Hercules, his love is the love that could listen to the prayer of an- 

 guish in Gethsemane and yet not take away the cup. He demands 

 the whole life and will accept no less. He who offers God one-seventh 

 or one-half, or none-tenths of his life flings it into the abyss it must 

 be all or nothing. Brand's God can still work miracles, and the life 

 that is given wholly to him may still be divinely harmonious as of 

 old. 



When we iirst see Brand he is fired with the thought of preaching 

 this living God to all the world, and, as he contemptuously puts it, 

 burying the dead God that men still profess to worship. 



With the so-called "practical" spirit of the age he has little sym- 

 pathy, still less with its tolerant and humane culture. Its "practical" 

 spirit means putting material things before spiritual, with the poor 

 hope of achieving a true humanity by means of increased material 

 appliances. It thinks a new road and a new bridge of more pressing 

 consequence than a bridge between faith and life, fails to see that 

 until we are men we heap up wealth in vain, and if we are men we 

 do not need it. And the humane and tolerant spirit of the age is only 

 a fine name for indifference to truth, for weak shrinking from giving 

 or bearing pain, for dissipation of energy, for the devil's breath of 

 compromise and cowardice. 



To this man, with his motto, "All or nothing," there is no common 

 measure between material and spiritual things. You may stay your 

 steps on God's errands because you can not go farther, but never 

 because you dare not, or because you will not. If his way leads him 

 over the crevasse-crossed glacier, and the mists fall upon him as the 

 ice rings thin and hollow beneath his feet, and the roar of the hidden 

 waters threaten him with instant death, he has no thought of pausing 

 or turning back. It is enough for him that he can go farther, and 

 while his peasant guide leaves him in mortal terror, though his dying 

 daughter lies on the other side of the snow-field and cannot be at 



