Current Literature [pp. 575-584]

CURRENT LITERATURE.
The first act of the five into which this
tragedy is divided opens with a quiet country scene in a New England State. David
Starr, the future prophet, appears as a farmer's son occupied with the duties of his position. A moody, dreamy, religiously inclined youth, perhaps; but still nothing very
uncommon about him strikes us till he attends a camp- meeting in his neighborhood.
There a fanatical preacher, of a type always
too common among an earnest but imperfectly educated populace, storms denunciations
and exhortations on the congregation:
"Come up, ye publicans and sinners! kneel,
Pray hard, mourn with the mourners, and be saved!
Strike off the cntsted brimstone from your feet,
And swap away the Devil's fire for water!
* * * * * * *
Come up, choose sides!
The Lord means business."
But so also, unfortunately for the untutored divine, did David, a greater and more
thorough-going fanatic than the exhorter himself, whom he faced and outfaced before the
congregation, demanding for himself in the
name of "the promises," "the power of
miracle and prophecy, and gift of tongues."
Then, of course, ensued a sort of religious
riot, and David was forced to withdraw from
the conventicle; not, however, until his enthusiasm and sincerity had favorably affected
a number of persons, who afterward formed
the germ of the sect that acknowledged him
as an inspired teacher.
Events sweep on rapidly to a climax. David goes rhapsodizing through the woods in
the silliest and most guileless manner possible. He is secretly supplied with food by
his betrothed, a poor loving girl called Rhoda, and he imagines he is fed by angels; he
addresses a multitude that comes out to hear
him, attracted by his strange actions and
sayings, and while he preaches he calls for a
sign. He is answered: a huge piece of rock
near where he stands falls as he points his fin ger at it; and he and several hundred wit nesses are convinced that he is verily "'a
prophet; yea, a prophet!"
It is two years after this that we next see
David; married to the affectionate and trusty
Rhoda, he leads some hundreds of his adherents out toward the West, to a home where
the scoffing of the Gentiles should be heard
no longer, but only the tuneful songs of the
saints of the new church. Forerunners had
gone before to establish the settlement and
erect the necessary buildings -prominent
among which were a temple for worship and
a house for the prophet. About this time,
also, there begins to appear before us another
convert to the faith - a rich and beautiful
widow, as it would appear; and when the
prophet was received into his new Zion, her
song and her face were very sweet and very
comfortable to the soul of David. Of an eminently sentimental and dreamy nature, and
feeling himself but ill comprehended by his
simple wife, the eloquent young fanatic felt
strangely drawn toward this wondrous - eyed, all -comprehending woman; and sheLivia, as she was called-who had only joined the sect for love of him, soon found a
thaumaturgic means to bring him closer.
Speedily, David is found sitting often in her
house. He cries:
"Livia! What are you? What triumphant force
Flows out from you, and knits my blood with yours?
How is it that the liquid dark of eyes
I gaze on grows a broadening sphere of light,
Inclosing me forever?-touchinig so
Your hand, that suddenly a warmer world
Beckons and wooes as if it might be mine?
That in your cheek the blossom-tender flesh,
As it were spirit, sanctifies my lips? "
And with that kiss, the shadow of the end
falls over the lips so strangely sanctified; the
fire that burned upon them was, alas! not from
the altar of God. David lends no unwilling
ear, as may be imagined, to the proposals of
some of his elders and counselors that polygamy should be established among them as in
the patriarchal times.
At last, plots in Zion itself, and an attack
from without by disgusted or distrustful Gentiles in the neighborhood, bring David, much
against his judgment, into a battle, or rather
skirmish. He is shot in the breast, and falls
into the arms of Rhoda and Livia, who had
both accompanied him to the front. He dies
as he has lived, a wholly well-meaning and
honest, but fanatical and semi-insane man,
his head upon the breast of his first love,
Rhoda, who cries, as she sinks slowly with
him:
" Nay, he is dead!
Leave us! You have no more a part in him:
He is all mine at last!"
x874.]
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