Ch. III] AND ITS LESSON The seed must now be sown, While life's hours are yet our own, Till our harvest in God's garners bright be stored; To join the angelic choir. All earth's treasures fade before that great reward.1 131 He finished the song, and, to impress the lessons more deeply, he added these words: "Now you are of an age when one begins to look for manly studies and a severer training; therefore the greatest caution and counsel are necessary, in order to start with success." He then casually asked Auximus how old he was, who replied: "You know indeed better than I do, for you were here when I was born, but I neither remember my birth, nor my babyhood at the breast." "Yours is the right answer," said Joseph, "and it is indeed a fact which we all fail to remember sufficiently, whether it be from the natural incapacity of that period of life, or from our own dulness and inattention, just as if it were true, as the poets tell us, that we all have come forth from the waters of Lethe. Since however, one part of our existence is that which has preceded this life, and we can no more think it out than we can death and the other part of our existence that This song as an antidote to a previous one is a thoroughly Miltonic touch. It bespeaks the author's high moral tone, a unique feature throughout all Milton's verse. He cannot let the praises of sensual love and idle joys be sung without a disclaimer. So here, as in Milton's acknowledged seventh elegy, the antidote is supplied close upon the poison. Elegy VII. was the most passionate love effusion that Milton has left on record, and it was founded on a real incidenthis love at first sight on May Day, 1628, when he was nineteen. He, however, felt it must not stand before the public gaze without some warning, or antidote, or recantation; and so in 1645, when he first published it with his other poems, the ten lines of postscript are added, and the Miltonic conscience is satisfied. Later on in this book our author a second time puts in a demur to a lyrical love piece, the O sistitote furem (0 stop her, stop the thief, I pray), when he suggests that any sensible man will see from it how foolish lovers are. Very few writers of amatory lyrics have first filled their votive vase with the precious spikenard of fervent passion, and then tried to put flies into the ointment to make it of ill odour. Milton did; so did our present author. Ergo shall follow, how clearly does it appear, if we give due attention to these two fast-bolted doors in the passage of life, what small and narrow limits ours are! For instance, you are eleven; what, think you, was your condition twelve years ago?" Struck by such a question, and looking steadily for some time at Joseph, he at last answered: "I was not what I am now-certainly I was not Auximus; and I begin now to wonder why I did not live in David's time or Herod's, or at least in some past century; and then again, how is it that I am who I am, and not some one else, not Joseph, not Augentius, nor another? Certainly these matters must be considered by me more carefully than they have been." "You can do nothing better," said Joseph; "and you will perceive that not a single day can be added to the end of your life any more than it can be added to the beginning; and so we live from day to day by a divine gift, and all our affairs depend on Him alone who, so to speak, gives to us as a free gift our very selves, and that always, everywhere. And this identity of person is a matter of deep import. Let me submit to you this one fact only at present, a fact sufficiently obvious-viz. that since you are Auximus and no other, and that you are entering into possession of yourself for ever, you are to see well to it that you yourself obtain the grace and eternal salvation of God, for if not, whatever may befall Joseph or Augentius, Auximus will perish. However, it does not follow that it is right to depend solely on your personal salvation, for since you are a man by birth, you ought to consider yourself a member of the great Brotherhood of Man; since you are a Jew by nationality, you are a partaker in the civil privileges, duties, and prosperity of your countrymen. When you consider your relation to your brother, it is that of one eye to the other, the very closest reciprocity. And last The Latin is: arctissima officiorum conjunctio. As is well known, Confucius said that one word, viz. reciprocity, included all the duties of life. Ch. III] MILTON'S TRACTATE 133 of all, as a Christian, you should have the most complete union with your fellow-Christians in heart and intellect, in thought and purpose." It is by early discourse of this sort that the younger children are brought to have a relish for true religion, and a freedom of thought withal.1 Here ends the account of the author's system of training as regards younger children up to the age of ten or thereabouts. No allusion whatever to such early training is made in Milton's tractate on Education to Hartlib in 1644; but as we find a reference in that tractate to dividing and transposing "my former thoughts," is it not possible that we have some of Milton's original former thoughts in this chapter? But in any case, all through our Romance the educational part is of so similar a character, and of such high moral tone, that it may well be said to deserve the great though rather tardy praise that has at last been awarded by the best critics to Milton's tractate. Professor Masson finally endorses the opinion of modern experts, and says (Milton, iii. 252): "The noble moral glow that pervades the tract on Education, the mood of magnanimity in which it is conceived and written, and the faith it inculcates in the powers of the young human spirit, if rightly nurtured and directed, are merits everlasting." Oscar Browning tells a good tale about Milton's tractate. He says it had been a favourite study of his own for five-and-twenty years, and when he became an assistant master at Eton, it struck him, as an ardent Educational Reformer, that a cheap reprint of Milton's tractate would have a good effect in clearing the thoughts and opinions of his colleagues. He had even opened negotiations with the school bookseller, when, to his surprise and disgust, one of the masters senior to him set Milton as a subject for a Latin theme, and told his boys that they were to prove that Milton, like Burke, went mad in his old age. This was a new idea to Oscar Browning, and he went to ask the master on what grounds it rested. The senior master replied: "Did he not write a crack-brained book about education in his old age?" This was giving himself away pretty liberally, for Milton was by no means in his old age when he favoured Hartlib with his views. A CHAPTER IV TERRIBLE ADVENTURES WITH BANDITTI FEW days later one of the servants came and told Joseph that Alcimus, his tutor's son, had come back to Solyma, and was now in the house with the master, and wished to speak with him. Joseph went at once, little expecting such a visitor. As soon as Alcimus was told that Joseph had arrived to see him, he quickly ran towards him, and, kneeling down, humbly begged his pardon. But Joseph, unaware of any cause for this, simply replied that an offence must be known before pardon can be properly asked or prudently granted. "The truth is," said the suppliant, "I have done a very great wrong both to you and to my father." He said no more, for a sudden flow of tears, mingled with many sighs, stopped him. Such an amazing beginning startled Joseph, who bade him rise up on his feet and tell the whole history. So he began : "You will remember how, six months ago, you were travelling with my father and one attendant, a mere lad, in Sicily near Catania. I had, some time before this, as you know, run away from my father and betaken myself secretly to Sicily. After many adventures, and being reduced to the greatest privation, I became so lost to everything, except the desire to live, that I joined a band of noted robbers, who for security had quartered themselves in a neighbouring wood. "One morning you three came riding past our ambush. Bk. I, Ch. IV] ADVENTURES 135 We took aim and fired: one shot killed the attendant, another struck your horse, who fell with you, and before you could free yourself, we rushed out, and took both you and my father captives. While we were looking after the spoil, we heard some fresh travellers approaching. Our captain at once gave orders that four of us should take charge of the captives and booty and retreat along a path we knew through the wood, while he with the other six (for there were ten of us) went to meet the travellers we heard, for he feared that if all fled we should be deemed cowards, and the dead bodies would be the cause of their pursuing us. I and another of the band, named Milo, took charge of my father, and led the way down the path with the horse and the booty strapped on it. When we had got to a safe place, Milo at once began to unpack the baggage, while I stood guard over my father, holding his arm, and threatening him with a naked dagger. My father waited a little, watching for a safe opportunity to speak to me. At last he said: 'Do not you know me, Alcimus ?' I, who at the first onset and the succeeding tumult had hardly observed his features-nor, indeed, after seven years was I likely to remember them with any certainty-when I heard his exclamation, was struck with horror, and now, looking more closely at his features, eyes, and beard, I could utter nothing else but, 'O father, forgive, I pray, your son!" and in my confusion and terror I let go his arm and dropped my weapon. Nor was he less amazed at at such an unexpected and inauspicious meeting. 'I am indeed your most unfortunate father; but whether this my son is found or lost I can hardly say; but since,' said he, 'you seem not quite bereft of all human feeling, if you have the will and power to help me, do at once rescue our belongings from the hands of your companion, for indeed we are strangers and foreigners by mere hap travelling here, and if we lose our all we shall neither be able to exist nor to escape from the island.' "I assured him I would try my best; so first I loosened his bonds, and then we both approached Milo. He, intent |