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Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of
ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their
reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their
trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every
natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-
swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no
concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic
vicissitudes, [199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly
by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.
[Contents]
D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.
Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of
nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause
and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their
crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to
the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss
and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus
nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and
rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had
been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned
rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines.
Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the
farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat
their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till
vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and
the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of
an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more
severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From
the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains
descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging
torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile
mould. Hillsides which in the times of [200]Virgil had furnished
pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of
desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their
dells choked with rock debris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies
and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated
in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering
anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the
ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations
engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms.
Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less
inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared
with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south
coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same
dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock;
forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia
Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with
cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity.
The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a
Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded
plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of
statistical computations, the population of the territory once
comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been
reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000, i.e., from a
hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of
seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of
existence, and the same area of ground [201]which once supported a
flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a
small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has
devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of
antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to
endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would
have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole
tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a
subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would
have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent
for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress,
only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a
sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to
supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and
abundance.
[Contents]
E.—REFORM.
The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to
make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be
turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with
shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the
consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in
the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren
table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the
end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended
to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred
years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the
primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will
be busy wresting land [203]from the desert. The men that will “work
the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their
second lease.
In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the
foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of
gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the
observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites,
and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances
of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over
the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a
chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance:
From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the
world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an
injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!
[Contents]
CHAPTER XVII.
RECREATION.
[Contents]
A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free
public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty
cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest
hamlet had at least a palaestra, where the local champions met
every evening for a trial of strength and skill.
[Contents]
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is
averse to permanent gloom. [206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all
nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a
child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of
recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the
advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition
burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors
thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the
soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had
reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their
triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in
periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon
their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans
forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither
their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of
the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent
by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under
the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency,
envy, and despair.
[Contents]
C.—PERVERSION.
[Contents]
D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.
Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the
flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank
thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of
despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has
yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful
recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of
alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed
by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a
natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the
convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every
chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations,
neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could
prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans
of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic
penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought
refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many
centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to
tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of
the larger cities open every Sunday at 2 p.m. In Italy the patronage of
Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited [210]only by the
financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large
odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the
muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a
consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer
in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the
consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than
in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic
causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another
cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to
enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad.
Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village
to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses,
upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls,
and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city
resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers
assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and
raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital
of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all
resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather
unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only
closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls
were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen
were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private
citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before
long evinced a passionate [211]and ever-increasing fondness for
intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in
their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the
heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban
staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in
imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-
weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad
to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the
old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with
a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.
[Contents]
E.—REFORM.
[Contents]
CHAPTER XVIII.
DOMESTIC REFORM.
[Contents]
A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
[Contents]
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the
“survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has
doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its
predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive
love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so
unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for
centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, who had no
personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist
has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to
shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden
age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free
citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.
[Contents]
C.—PERVERSION.