THE VIRTUE OF PAIN

on that account dividing the spoil with the strong and having its portion with the great), contains within itself the promise of the future. It is the bleeding heart whose drops are to be transi ormed into the fiowers of the new life which shall be brought to manifestation in the next spring-time of the race.

O buds and blossoms of Spring onoQ more retoming, Bright watQis flowing, O heavenly blue still shining. And Thou still spreading over ail and cbaagelMS, O tender heart of our homanity, O bleeding sacred heart, with tears of ages.^

This has affinity with Maeterlinck's suggestion that, had we the mystic vision, we should stand with great révérence before such as the world calls depraved and makes outcast ; for the pure soûl within them, wedded to coarse and passionate flesh, buried there in the lowest earth-levels of ail, has the hardest task to perf orm, the most grievous burden to bear. The world " with coarse thtunb and finger" judges the suffering of some to be honourable, and of others dishonourable. Of the obscure, submerged, dumb mass of sufiering it takes but little heed, save when a lurid Ught is suddenly cast into the darker places of the earth ; and then it speaks of Chance, Luck, or the Neces* sity of Things ; or with impious piety convicts of evil-doing those ' ' upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell." To Religion, they are ears for the gospel of another world; to Biology, they are

150 IBROTHERHOOD OF SUFFERERS

the weaker going to the wall in the struggle for existence ; to Psychology, they are pathological cases; to Philanthropy, they are objects of pity ; to the Reformer, they are a stubbom économie problem ; to Carpenter, they are none other than the " tender heart of our Htunanity, the bleeding sacred heart, with tears of âges." The pathway of the future Ues more in the direction of Wormwood Scrubs than of Park Lane ; the Star comes to rest over the East, rather than the West ; humanity is nearer to the slave goaded into rébellion, than to the ovmer whose cruelty drives him thither ; divinity is nearer at hand to the prostitute, than to the Pharisee who needs no repentance.

Pœts, with gênerai approval, hâve sung the praises of the martyr, the hero, the saviour, those who hâve led pain' s captivity captive and given conspicuous gif ts unto men ; it waited for Edward Carpenter that one should arise with vision deep and broad enough to see, without discrimination of cause or occasion or motive, the " brotherhood of sufïerers," and to interpret it and its manifold pain as the race^womb constricted and agonized in parturition of the higher holier humanity.

Se still to ail—

To those lingering in prison,

To the aged and forsakeû, stranded like wrecks on the bleak shore o| life,

To the heartbroken and weary, to those stunned with despair;

BROTHERHOOD OF SUFFERERS 151

To the wife awaking to tfaa treachery of her hnsband ;

To the exile leaving his dear ones, and probably for ever ; to the crippled and incapable and diseased ;

To the pinned workers in back streets osdllating drearily between the home and the workshop ;

To tibose of the hopeless, sad, mechanical days over ail the earth — the outcast, the shunned, the persecnted,

The closing days, the narrowing grooves, the heart touched no more by the sweet illusions, no more to hope responding, no more to the call of religion ;

Ah, to ail in the mighty brotherhood sufferers —

Dearest, most precious ones,

Comer-stones of human life, hidden beaiers of bnrdens, undergirders of the great ship with its incalculable freight !

Dearest and most precious of ail — ah, sufifereis, sufferers,

To you we give our love —

Arise ! for great is your triumph I ^