He is not one of those who say
that religion is good for the people at large. He does not admit such
a shade of contempt in a question touching so near the human heart.
He knows that every one is a man in the presence of sorrow and the
conundrum of fate, contradiction of justice, tearing of death, and
uneasiness of hope. He believes that the only way to cross the
precipice is the flight with the wings of faith, the precipice made
between the submission to general and absolute laws and the confidence
in the infinite goodness of the Father.
The time passes and carries with it people and doctrines and systems.
Many authors left as the heritage to civilization rows of books, and
in those books scepticism, indifference, doubt, lack of precision and
decision.
But the last symptoms in the literature show us that the Stoicism
is not sufficient for our generation, not satisfied with Marcus
Aurelius's gospel, which was not sufficient even to that brilliant
Sienkiewicz's Roman _arbiter elegantiarum_, the over-refined patrician
Petronius. A nation which desired to live, and does not wish either to
perish in the desert or be drowned in the mud, needs such a great help
which only religion gives. The history is not only _magister vitae_,
but also it is the master of conscience.
Literature has in Sienkiewicz a great poet--epical as well as lyrical.
I shall not mourn, although I appreciate the justified complaint about
objectivity in _belles lettres.
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