The Bibelot (Volume 19); A Reprint of Poetry and Prose for Book Lovers, Chosen in Part from Scarce Editions and Sources Not Generally Known

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... A Spiritual Romance, (i-iv). By J. H. Shorthouse. Preface. The readers of German autohiography (and more delightful reading cannot he had) will perceive that I have made use of some passages in the childhood of I it: inrich Jung-Stilling to create the character of Little Mark. The experience of the Princess as to private religious societies was also that of Stilting. Should this little tale induce any one, at present ignorant of Stilling's Autohiography, to read that hook, they will forget any grudge they may have formed against the present writer. As a matter of common honesty I should wish to express the pleasure I have had in reading another delightful hook, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, hy Lee. j. H. s. When the little schoolmaster Mark is forced to take up his abode in the clever and polished and wicked world, the world tikes him for his purity and unworldliness; for the world cannot choose but admire and revere. It sees what benefit religion brings, but it will not surrender itself to it --it will not gaze and gaze and adore, till it assimilates itself to the Divine Ideal. It must needs have Religion for its plaything and its playfellow-- a new instrument for its inventiveness and resource. Religion must take its share in the world's Saturnalia. But in the midst of it, the young child droops and falls, and there is a cry of Look I Look! the child is dying. And at once the play was stopped. And so the story ends. Most true vision of the end of all such endeavours! Religion must be above us, and greater than us, if it is to lift us higher. If we put it on our own level, or patronize it, or play with it, it will die. And when it dies, corruption spreads. Society may linger yet for a while in the afterglow of its memory, but the end will not be fa...