Howard Pyle, a chronicle by Charles D. Abbott, with an introduction by N. C. Wyeth and many illustrations from Howard Pyle's works.

PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC
"You have been so much in my thoughts lately--largely,
I think, because of your little poem in Harper's. It made
me feel again the useless ache of sympathy which your former letter to me aroused. What a dreadful valley of shadows it must be through which you are passing!
"You spoke in your last letter almost in a tone of resentment of scientists forbidding us 'our humble hopes of a hereafter.' I do not feel as you do concerning the scientific fiat
of nothingness. The old must die before the new can
spring from its roots and these lusty sons of Arrak are laying a wholesome axe to the rotting trunk of a bygone Church.
That old trunk will never bud again, so let it go and the
sooner the better.
"But their work is a work of destruction, and science can
never build up what it is thus cutting down. It is impossible for any scientific labor to give us a new Church for
the old order which it has made food for the burning. No
scientifics can give any man a belief in a future state, not
even-will you forgive me for saying so?-James's
Psychology.
"It seems to me that there are very few people who really
do believe now-a-days. Many persuade themselves, but if
you ask a thousand men-man to man and soul to soulperhaps nine hundred and ninety-nine will shake the head.
But does that necessarily say that the one who does believe
is wrong? Tens of thousands died in the flood and only
Noah and his family floated in the Ark. Now the earth is
again covered and hidden in a deluge of truth and lightbut still there are a few cockles floating in spite of the rain
of scientific dogmatics.
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