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MENTAL MEDICINE
Some practical suggestions from a spiritual
standpoint
(Cloth, $1.00 net)
THE MELODY OF GOD'S LOVE
An interpretation of the Twenty-Third Psalm
(Cloth, 75 cts. net)
WAGNER'S MUSIC DRAMAS
Retold in English Verse
(Each, cloth, 75 cents net)
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
[Illustration]
Parsifal
Oliver Huckel
1903
T.Y. Crowell & Co.
Composition and plates by D.B. Updike
To my Wife
Parsifal in Quest of the Holy Grail
Monsalvat, the Castle of the Grail
The Communion of the Holy Grail
Parsifal healing King Amfortas
Parsifal revealing the Holy Grail
The Parsifal of Richard Wagner was not only the last and loftiest workof his genius, but it is also one of the few great dramas of moderntimes,—a drama which unfolds striking and impressive spiritualteachings. Indeed, Parsifal may be called Richard Wagner's greatconfession of faith. He takes the legend of the Holy Grail, and uses itto portray wonderfully and thrillingly the Christian truths of thebeauty, the glory, and the inspiring power of the Lord's Supper, and theinfinite meaning of the redeeming love of the Cross. He reveals in thisdrama by poetry and music, and with a marvellous breadth and depth ofspiritual conception, this theme (in his own words): "The founder of theChristian religion was not wise: He was divine. To believe in Him is toimitate Him and to seek union with Him…. In consequence of His atoningdeath, everything which lives and breathes may know itself redeemed….Only love rooted in sympathy and expressed in action to the point of acomplete destruction of self-will, is Christian love." (Wagner'sLetters, 1880, pages 270, 365, 339.)
The criticism has sometimes been made that the basic religious idea ofParsifal is Buddhistic rather than Christian; that it is taken directlyfrom the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who was perhaps as nearly aBuddhist as was possible for an Occidental mind to be; that thedominating idea in Parsifal is compassion as the essence of sanctity,and that Wagner has merely clothed this fundamental Buddhistic idea withthe externals of Christian form and symbolism. This criticism isingenious. It may also suggest that all great religions in their essencehave mu