In conclusion, we demand, in the language of the resolutions "unanimously adopted" and appended to the report in "Document No. 4," "... free of cost, to every child in the state, a generous and tolerant education--such an education as qualifies him for the duties of citizenship"; and, moreover, such an education as shall recognize and protect the first and most important of all the _rights_ of citizenship--the right of conscience, which is grossly violated by the system of atheistical education.
Ye would not sit at ease while meek men kneel Did ye but see His face shine through the veil, And the unearthly forms that round you steal Hidden in beauteous light, splendent or pale As the rich Service leads. And prostrate faith Shroudeth her timorous eye, while through the air Hovers and hangs the Spirit's cleansing Breath In Whitsun shapes o'er each true worshipper. Deep wreaths of angels, burning from the east, Around the consecrated Shrine are traced, The awful Stone where by fit hands are placed The Flesh and Blood of the tremendous Feast, But kneel--the priest upon the altar-stair Will bring a blessing out of Sion there.
Mr. Schöninger came early to the rehearsal that evening, and, in his stately fashion, made himself unusually agreeable. There was, perhaps, a very slight widening of the eyes, expressive of surprise, if not of displeasure, when he saw Miss Ferrier's critics, but his salutation did not lack any necessary courtesy. He did not lose his equanimity even when, later, while they were singing a fugue passage, a sonorous but stupid bass came in enthusiastically just one bar too soon.
"I am glad you chose to do that to-night instead of to-morrow night, sir," the director said quietly. "Now we will try it again."
And yet Mr. Schöninger was, in his profession, an object of terror to some of his pupils, and of scrupulous, if not anxious, attention to all; for not only did he possess notably that exalted musical sensitiveness which no true artist lacks, but he concealed under an habitual self-control, and great exactness in the discharge of his duty, a fiery impatience of temper, and a hearty dislike for the drudgery of his profession.
"If your doctrines regarding future punishments are true," he once said to F. Chevreuse, "then the physical part of a musician's purgatory will be to listen to discords striving after, but never attaining to, harmony, and his hell to hear sublime harmonies rent and distorted by discords. I never come so near believing in an embodied spirit of evil as when I hear a masterpiece of one of the great composers mangled by a tyro. I haven't a doubt that Chopin or Schumann might be played so as to throw me into convulsions."