Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 7

reap; Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve;
Not that they die, but that they die like sheep."
The Congo.
Who has not seen factory windows in village, town, and city, and who
has not known that "Factory windows are always broken"? How this
smacks of pall, and smoke, and dirt, and grind, and hurt and little weak
children, slaves of industry! Thank God, Vachel Lindsay, that the
Christian Church has found an ally in you; and poet and preacher
together--for they are both akin--pray God we may soon abolish forever
child slavery. Yes, no wonder "Factory windows are always broken."
The children break them because they hate a prison.
The "Coal Heaver," "The Scissors Grinder," "The Mendicant," "The
Tramp," all so smacking of the city, have their interpretation.

I wish in these pages might be quoted all of "The Soul of the City
Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit," for it daringly, beautifully, and
strongly carries into the new philosophy which Mr. Lindsay is
introducing the thought that every village, every town, every city has a
community soul that must be saved, through Christian influence. But
the ring of it and the swing of it will suggest itself in a few verses:
"Censers are swinging Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look
overhead! Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down. City, dead city,
Awake from the dead!
* * * * *
"Soldiers of Christ For battle grow keen. Heaven-sent winds Haunt
alley and lane. Singing of life In town-meadows green After the toil
And battle and pain.
* * * * *
"Builders, toil on, Make all complete. Make Springfield wonderful.
Make her renown Worthy this day, Till at God's feet, Tranced, saved
forever, Waits the white town."
The Congo.
Ah, if we could but catch this vision of not only the individuals but the
city itself receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, we would have therein a
new and a tremendous force for good.
One might quote from "The Drunkards in the Street":
"Within their gutters, drunkards dream of Hell. I say my prayers by my
white bed to-night, With the arms of God about me, with the angels
singing, singing Until the grayness of my soul grows white."
General William Booth.
He goes to the bottom of the social evil, down to its economic causes,
and blames the state for "The Trap," and this striking couplet rings in
one's heart long after the book is laid down:
"In liberty's name we cry For these women about to die!"
General William Booth.
The poet who speaks in "The City That Will Not Repent" is only
feeling over again, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,... how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!" The "Old Horse in the City," "To
Reformers in Despair," "The Gamblers"--it is all there: the heartaches,
the struggle for existence, the fallen woman, the outcast man, the sound

of drums, the tambourines, the singing of the mission halls. You find it
all, especially in "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven." Here is
life--the very life of life in the city.
FOREIGN MISSIONS
They who have found opposition to foreign missions will discover with
a thrill a new helper in Poet Lindsay, he who has won the ear of the
literary world. It is good to hear one of his worth, singing the battle
challenge of missions, just as it is good to hear him call the modern
village, town, and city to "The Gift of the Holy Spirit." "Foreign Fields
in Battle Array" brings this thrillingly prophetic, Isaiahanic verse:
"What is the final ending? The issue can we know? Will Christ outlive
Mohammed? Will Kali's altar go? This is our faith tremendous--- Our
wild hope, who shall scorn-- That in the name of Jesus, The world shall
be reborn!"
General William Booth.
"Reborn"--does not that phrase sound familiar to Methodist ears, as
does that other phrase, "The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the
Holy Spirit"? Or, again, hear two lines from "Star of My Heart":
"All hearts of the earth shall find new birth And wake no more to sin."
General William Booth.
TEMPERANCE
In these days, when the world is being swept clean with the besom of
temperance, the poet who sings the song of temperance is the "poet that
sings to battle." Lindsay has done this in some lines in his "General
William Booth Enters Into Heaven," which he admits having written
while a field worker in the Anti-Saloon League in Illinois. At the end of
each verse we have one of these three couplets:
"But spears are set, the charge is on, Wise Arthur shall be King!"
"Fierce Cromwell builds the flower-bright towns And