What year was the writer of "The Celestial Railroad" born?
The Celestial Railroad "The Celestial Railroad" is short story written as an allegory by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. In it, Hawthorne parodies the seventeenth-century book "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan, which portrays a Christian's spiritual "journey" through life. In this story, the pilgrim journeys by iron horse rather than by foot, the burden of sin that Bunyan portrays is pulled by the same train, and Bunyan's figure Evangelist, preaching a message of conversion, is replaced by a figure known as "Mr. Smooth-it-away." Hawthorne mostly wrote against his own religious belief, popular at the time, Unitarianism or Transcendentalism, but according to some educators, several of his comments also indicate his dissatisfaction with Bunyan's religiously exclusive theology. In addition to this underlying view, however, he states "we were rushing by the place where Christian's burden fell from his shoulders at the sight of the Cross...for our burdens were rich in many things esteemed precious throughout the world." The story ends with the traveler's relief that what he'd seen was just a dream and an element of hope that is rare in Hawthorne's romantic era literature.
L. W. Rogers Louis William Rogers (May 28, 1859 – April 18, 1953), commonly known as "L.W.," was an American teacher, railway brakeman, trade union functionary, socialist political activist, and newspaper editor. Rogers is best remembered in this context as one of the key officials of the American Railway Union jailed in conjunction with the Pullman Strike of 1894. After more than two decades in and around the labor movement, Rogers shifted his activity to mysticism as a prominent lecturer, writer, and long-time President of the Theosophical Society in America.