our tent to a higher part of the bank. To do this we were, however, reluctant, for it was impossible to encounter the deluge without being almost instantly soaked to the skin; and we had put the shanty up with more care and pains than usual, intending it should serve us for a home until our house was comfortably furnished. About three o'clock the skies were dreadfully darkened and overcast. I had never seen such darkness while the sun was above the horizon, and still the rain continued to descend in cataracts, but at fits and intervals. No man, who had not seen the like, would credit the description. Suddenly a sharp flash of lightning, followed by an instantaneous thunder-peal, lighted up all the forest; and almost in the same moment the rain came lavishing along as if the windows of heaven were opened; anon another flash, and a louder peal burst upon us, as if the whole forest was rending over and around us. I drew my helpless and poor trembling little boys under the skirts of my great coat. Then there was another frantic flash, and the roar of the thunder was augmented by the riven trees that fell, cloven on all sides in a whirlwind of splinters. But though the lightning was more terrible than scimitars, and the thunder roared as if the vaults of heaven were shaken to pieces and tumbling in, the irresistible rain was still more appalling than either. I have said it was as if the windows of heaven were opened. About sunset, the ground floods were as if the fountains of the great deep were breaking up. I pressed my shivering children to my bosom, but I could not speak. At the common shanty, where there had been for some time an affectation of mirth and ribaldry, there was now silence: at last, as if with one accord, all the inhabitants rushed from below their miserable shed, tore it into pieces, and ran with the fragments to a higher ground, crying wildly, "The river is rising!" I had seen it swelling for some time, but our shanty stood so far above the stream, that I had no fear it would reach us. Scarcely, however, had the axemen escaped from theirs, and planted themselves on the crown of a rising ground nearer to us, where they were hastily constructing another shed, when a tremendous crash and roar was heard at some distance in the woods, higher up the stream. It was so awful, I had almost said so omnipotent, in the sound, that I started on my feet, and shook my treasures from me. For a moment the Niagara of the river seemed almost to pause-it was but for a moment-for, instantly after, the noise of the rending of weighty NEW OUTLOOK trees, the crashing and the tearing of the rooted forest, rose around. The waters of the river, troubled and raging, came hurling with the wreck of the woods, sweeping with inconceivable fury everything that stood within its scope;-a lake had burst its banks. The sudden rise of the waters soon, however, subsided; I saw it ebbing fast, and comforted my terrified boys. The rain also began to abate. Instead of those dreaded sheets of waves which fell upon us as if some vast ocean behind the forest was heaving over its spray, a thick continued small rain came on; and, about an hour after sunset, streaks and breaks in the clouds gave some token that the worst was over;-it was not, however, so, for about the same time a stream appeared in the hollow, between the rising ground to which the axemen had retired, and the little knoll on which our shanty stood; at the same time the waters in the river began to swell again. There was on this occasion no abrupt and bursting noise; but the night was fast closing upon us, and a hoarse muttering and angry sound of many waters grew louder and louder on all sides. The darkness and increasing rage of the river, which there was just twilight enough to show was rising above the brim of the bank, smote me with inexpressible terror. I snatched my children by the hand, and rushed forward to join the axemen; but the torrent between us rolled so violently that to pass was impossible, and the waters still continued to rise. I called aloud to the axemen for assistance; and, when they heard my desperate cries, they came out of the shed, one with burning brands and others with their axes glittering in the flames; but they could render no help; at last, one man, a fearless backwoodsman, happened to observe, by the firelight, a tree on the bank of the torrent, which it in some degree overhung, and he called for others to join him in making a bridge. In the course of a few minutes the tree was laid across the stream, and we scrambled over, just as the river extinguished the fire and swept our shanty away. This rescue was in itself so wonderful, and the scene had been so terrible, that it was some time after we were safe before I could rouse myself to believe I was not in the fangs of the nightmare. My poor boys clung to me as if still not assured of their security, and I wept upon their necks in the ecstacy of an unspeakable passion of anguish and joy. About this time the mizzling rain began to fall softer; the dawn of the morn appeared through the upper branches of the forest, and here and there the stars looked out from their windows in the H NEW OUTLOOK "THE IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES underneath the present upheaval go far back to those launched by the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the French Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1789). A Declaration of Interdependence is now needed to restate in modern terms the unfinished business of the earlier declarations and to express contemporary thought. It differs from previous declarations in that it is an agreement between individuals, not between governments. . . . This present Declaration is intended to give the individual, in a world so large that he often feels insignificant, confidence in himself by affirming: I am only ONE. But, I AM one. I cannot do everything. But I can do something. What I can do I ought to do. And what I ought to do I will do. It aims to engender a feeling of participation in a worldwide invisible fellowship united by common aspiration. . . . ... Its religious expressions are intended to be equally acceptable to people of all the principle religions, from whose sacred writings many phrases are taken. -Quoted from the Introduction to the "Declaration of Interdepend ence", copies of which may be obtained from the Interdependence Council, 9006 Crefeld Street, Philadelphia 18. NEW OUTLOOK Book Reviews ERRORS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY By Sebastian de Grazia. Doubleday. 1953. $3. Surprising though it may seem, this excellent critical analysis of the confusing cross-currents of psychiatry was written by a young political scientist, now at George Washington University. A keen, well-posted "outsider" may sometimes throw bold fresh glances at a field and discern things not visible to an "insider." New Outlook readers will be especially drawn to some of de Grazia's unorthodox views-e. g. "The neurosis is a moral disorder. ... Moral authority is the crux of all psychotherapy. . . .Authority and morality and healing are connected in the family.” His opening words, "Small gods walk up and down the land. To them, people pray. They pray for relief from disordered passions, but so long as they beseech small gods their peace will be small. They are like children crying for parents they do not know are dead," indicate an attitude which dominates the whole volume, namely, ALBERT CROISSANT that psychic health and morality go hand in hand, as do, of course, mental disorders and the sense of sin. Religious sages have all along been telling the world this basic truth. De Grazia says that "God is in the beginning and end and middle of everything . . to the extent that the loves and dreams of men are shared, to that extent the community lives. The dreams are the ideals sought by law and authority. If a man does not partake of them, he is outside the community. He must be restored. . . . The Political community cannot recognize a psychotherapy that is all in pieces." The main difficulty arises where moral values are all confused, for this is bound to create sick souls; and, since there must be a close relationship between the health of the mind and body politic, de Grazia, being a professor of political science, interestingly emphasizes the role that political science may play in psychiatry. connection with ** ONLY THE UNAFRAID By Ronald Kirkbride. 268 pp. NY. Duel, Sloan & Pearce; Boston: Little, Brown & Co., $3.50 Only the Unafraid is the final volume in the notable trilogy about the Quaker, David Jordan, and his fight to establish a cooperative in South Carolina. The wide public won by the first two volumes, Winds Blow Gently and Spring is Not Gentle, may now follow David's new adventures as he returns to his Carolina home to take up his significant struggle to organize his fellow-farmers into a cooperative after the eighteen months sentence he served in prison for his religious principles. Mr. Kirkbride, who spent his youth in South Carolina, understands well the age-old battle of the small farmer with the soil, the seasons and the wealthy planters and merchants who dominate the community. Resourceful and patient, David and his associates, in spite of mischance and opposition, succeed in reclaiming their land and in demonstrating the results obtainable through intelligent, cooperative agricultural planning. The vigorous cooperative group also build homes, a school, a hospital, a store and a recreation hall, and in the end even their enemies, the big planters, are won over. All people who are interested in practical Quakerism and in the cooperative movement will thoroughly appreciate Mr. Kirkbride's stirring trilogy. As usual, Kirkbride exhibits smooth style and dramatic power in combining David's romantic relations to three women with philosophilcal and social content. (Cont. from page 3) world (as) a simple matter of moral principles. To Dr. Malan the white race is permanently superior to that of any other color . . . and has the right, the duty and the privilege of ruling the other races, keeping them apart and on a lower level. This is a false and wicked doctrine which has been rejected by modern civilizations and by religion at all times. "That the vastly outnumbered white man has a practical problem of enormous difficulty and complexity in South Africa is not denied, but that it should be rationalized into the monstrous doctrine of racism is wicked. Therefore there will be a day of reckoning for these men, since human beings will not endure injustice and the loss of freedom interminably." |