XXII

THE GLORY OF THE CITY

"And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."-Rev. xxi. 2.

WHE

HEN one is in a healthy state of mind he must love the country with its wide distances, its varied colours, its wealth of animal life, its untainted air, its simple living; and he must resent the masterful aggression of the city as it covers the greenery with packed streets of monotonous houses, and replaces the quietness with the weary din of traffic. One almost hates the city for a crueller wrong, and a sadder waste, because of the people it has devoured, who came up healthy, contented, simple-minded, and grew stunted, restless, bitter, each man pushing his own way, and knowing not his neighbours' names, wearing out his years in grinding toil, or flinging them away in riotous pleasure. The city seems to be like the fabled monster

which lived upon a tribute of young life, because it is ever devouring our best and filling its shrunken veins with the red blood of the country. There are hours in every man's life when he longs to escape from the crowd and turmoil of the city, when he regards its problems with despair.

So far as the country mood moves townsfolk to simplicity, it is not unwholesome, but it must not be carried too far, lest we lose touch with facts. The city is the inevitable result of a law which from the beginning has been gathering men into communities, and making those communities the centres of national life, so that the progress from barbarism to civilization is marked by the increase of the city. Cities may be overgrown and the forcing bed of many social evils; they may also alienate people of simple tastes and homely ways, but the city can neither be obliterated nor reduced. It grows and asserts itself, and to the city runs ever more swiftly the tide of life. Establish a pastoral community. with vast stretches of country, and the city will rise and dominate the land, till Melbourne be Victoria, and Pretoria the Transvaal, and San Francisco be California, and Chicago the

middle West. When any tendency is a factor in the development of life, then it must be accepted as a law which may be abused, but which cannot be annulled. The city is as much of God as the country, and has done at least as much for the race.

If the country has been loved by patient silent folk, whom neither poverty nor hardship could drive away, the city has won the passionate devotion of many elect souls. Isaiah's pride in Jerusalem struggled through his shame over her sin; Charles Lamb was never happy away from London, and did not feel himself safe except upon her streets; every nook of Boston and every incident of her history were dear to Oliver Wendell Holmes; Edinburgh was Scott's own romantic town, and St. Paul's love for Tarsus was only exceeded by his ambition to see the capital of the world. As a countryman is satisfied with the flowers in his garden, a field of ripe corn, the sound of running water and the tints of autumn, so the man of the city loves its crowded market places, its ceaseless stream of people, its changing moods of fierce endeavour and sparkling pleasure, even its shadows, its

smoke, its mixed noises, its pungent odours. Nor is it difficult to understand how the city seizes the imagination of men and makes them her servants. Whatever be the sweet perfections of the country, it is the city which inspires the workers in every department of thought and action, except the highest reaches of religion, where our Lord walks with His apostles in Galilee. Not only do the masters of invention and commerce, the rulers of politics and high affairs, make the city their dwelling place; thither as by an irresistible fascination drift even the poets and artists. Painters should surely be able to resist the witchery of the city and be loyal to the country which feeds their genius, but Blake with his visions must needs live in London where fashion beat upon his closed door, and Millet, who of all French artists has most perfectly represented peasant life, was near to death in Paris. There are poets like Wordsworth whose souls flourish in the silence of the country; there are others like Browning who only come to their height amid the motion of the city. They are quickened in that electrical atmosphere which is charged with new ideas, quick criticism, stirring

ambitions, gigantic schemes, fierce contrasts, where all the comedy and the tragedy of life are placed upon the stage. One returns from the country with wistful regret, charmed and rested, but dull of thought, and disinclined for action. One has no sooner disappeared within the shadow of the smoke, and been caught by the whirl of city life, than the mind awakes, and the passion for work takes possession of the soul. We mourn the sacrifice of bright lives which have been worn out by the exacting demands of the city, the men and women who have died before their time. It is the tragedy of the city. We might also mourn the men who have come to nothing in the country, who have ceased to think and do, and have grown old, like dumb, contented animals. It is the tragedy of the country. After all it is where life is keenest, its calls heaviest, and its rewards most splendid, that as a rule the warp and woof of the richest patterns are woven. St. John the Divine was a countryman reared on the shores of the Galilean lake amid a wealth of flowers and fruit, but when he thought of the life that was to be when the former things had passed away, it