point of a gun perpetuate the power of the Catholic church," is in itself the greatest indictment against the leaders who are working in that direction. On

the other hand, Archbishop Mora, head of the Roman Catholic church in Mexico, has given out an interview in New Orleans, saying, in part:

"No pen can portray the looting, the rapine, the murder, the anarchy which has taken possession of Mexico all because these few bandits have been allowed to attempt to establish what they and some people in the United States call 'liberty.'

"Thousands of brothers of the Church still are in Mexico with no hope of escape, and it is useless to appeal to the United States, for even if President Wilson took immediate action, the Carranzistas, Villistas, Crozquietas and other heads of bandits would exterminate all these priests and all the remaining Sisters of the faith before an American army could cross the Rio Grande. Until the European war is ended and the nations take concerted action against the barbarians who are misruling Mexico it is useless to ask temporal aid."

A contributor to the Catholic World magazine, New York, reviews the situation at length under the title "Mexico for the Mexicans." This writer, Dudley G. Wooten, according to an editorial

note, is not a Roman Catholic, has been a judge, congressman (from Texas), president of the Texas Historical Association, and author of "The Land System of Mexico and Texas." He declares that Catholicism has an almost miraculous hold upon the minds and hearts of the common people. "Mexico owes all she possesses of civilized institutions and humane culture to the Church. She even owes her independence and nationality as a Republic to the spirit of Catholic freedom, and to the courage and constancy of the sons of the Mother Church."

"It is true that among the ruling class, among the educated leaders of revolutionary sentiment in Mexico, there is a widespread and desolating spirit of rationalism, infidelity and iconoclastic Modernism— the same spirit that has destroyed the remade France a decadent and discredited ligious integrity of Spain and Italy, and nation of intellectual degenerates. But this is not true of that great body of the Mexican population whose ultimate welfare and freedom should be the prime objects of all movements in that Republic. With this preponderating element the Church is, and for three hundred years has been, the only stable, uniform and racial unity and strength. She furnishes universal source of moral, educational and the only means for solidifying, elevating and guiding the aspirations and capacities of the great majority of the Mexican peo

ple. There is no other tangible or influential basis of appeal and incentive in the Mexican bosom. Catholicism is the only religious power in the country, and thereby the only avenue of reaching and regulating the immature and often lawless ism is a negligible factor in the composiimpulses of the population. Protestanttion of moral forces, for there are less

than one hundred churches of all the sects whose missionary efforts have been so strenuous and stentorious, while there are nearly fifteen thousand Catholic congrega

tions. Most of the adherents of the nonCatholic organizations have been drawn into the movement by the national habit of mendicancy, and are held to their conversion by the impelling attraction of 'the loaves and fishes.'

The existence of such religious conditions, says Mr. Wooten, "renders it nothing less than a calamity that the laws of the land and the temper of the dominant factions during the last sixty years have practically outlawed Catholicism and paralyzed the usefulness and mission of the Church. . . . If this Government feels such a responsibility for the destiny and welfare of Mexico as to warrant the assumption of a disciplinary tutelage over her domestic affairs, it is difficult to understand how it can negative its duty toward the Church that represents a vast majority of the Mexican people, and practically all of their civilization.'

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HAT is or what is to be the religion of Democracy? In this era of deep and world-wide strife and social upheaval, whence is to come a more effective religious belief than has characterized prevailing forms of Christianity? Among many attempts to answer such questions by forecasts of the "religion of the future," that of Henry W. Wright, professor of philosophy in Lake Forest College, is thought-provoking. Religion he defines as faith in the existence and efficacy of a supreme spiritual power. Such faith, he says, in The Forum, springs out of a genuine need of human nature. "As long as a type of religion best satisfies the need to which it ministers, it will live. Conversely, a type of religion will languish and die if either the need from which it springs disappears, or some other agency develops better able to satisfy the need in question." In the evolution of religion, Professor Wright finds that two types predominate: the prudential and the mystical, and both have lost their value for civilized man. Not because the needs which evoked them have disappeared, he argues, but because other and more effective means

of satisfying the needs have been found. For example:

"Modern man secures his own natural existence and well-being not by bargaining for divine protection against natural ills but by gaining mastery over natural forces through his own experimental science, inventive skill and technical proficiency. He does not rely upon divine providence to protect him from shipwreck at sea; he

makes a compass, constructs a steamship, invents the wireless telegraph. He does not expect to avert drouth by prayer; through scientific research and experiment he so improves his methods of agriculture

that a decided diminution of the rainfall does not ruin his crops. He does not attempt to check pestilence by religious sacrifices and processions; he discovers the cause of disease, learns how to destroy malignant germs or prevent their communication.

"With regard, secondly, to the spiritual goods whose acquisition mystical religion pretends to ensure, modern man has learned that these are attained not by individuals who withdraw from worldly pursuits and devote themselves to superthemselves most successfully of the spiritnatural concerns, but by those who avail

ual resources of their fellow-men, as these are developed through personal association and cooperation. Hence modern society aims so to organize its activities that

the insights, the inventions, and the appreciations of all can be appropriated by each one, and made contributory to his personal development. To this end it establishes popular education and promotes free discussion; it encourages research and rewards invention; it fosters art and stimulates wholesome play."

These two undertakings, control of nature through the application of science to industry and development of man's personal powers through organized activities of society, are declared to be the purposes of democracy. Together they constitute its program; a veritable religion, according to Professor Wright's analysis:

"For democracy is more than the abstract ideal of equality. It is the ideal of a society which provides for the free personal development of all its members. But it is also a method. Material necessities and comforts it proposes to produce and distribute through the cooperative industry of its citizens; no privileged class is to be permitted to live in idleness, supported by the labor of the remainder. culture in this very cooperative industry. And it proposes to find means of spiritual For no class is to be exempted from toil and given leisure for thought and enjoyment; hence if spiritual values are to be realized they must be found in the per

formance of the common task. But this turns out to be their true source, since industry can become genuinely cooperave only on the basis of mutual understanding, mutual helpfulness, mutual sympathy, and out of these arise knowledge and power, and love, the choicest gifts of the spirit. Democracy is thus the modern method of fulfilling those needs which prudential and mystical religion arose to satisfy. No wonder that democracy has appealed to many minds as a substitute for religion or, perhaps better, as itself a religion!"

That democracy will supplant the prudential and mystical types of religion, Professor Wright does not doubt. But he goes on to raise the question whether democracy, in providing a method of fulfilling natural and spiritual needs, does not create new needs which only a future religion of democracy can satisfy. Democracy assumes that sacrifice of private interests to comprehensive social good will raise the individual to a higher plane of reality, that of universal spiritual life. This cannot be proved, says

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Professor Wright; it must remain a matter of faith.

"On the existence of this faith democracy is altogether dependent; but democracy is of itself powerless to produce it. Here then is the new need created by democracy, which religion alone can fulfil—the need of faith in the superior reality of the social community, the community of persons united through mutual understanding, service and sympathy, over that of natural individuality with its narrow interests and exclusive ambitions. Here, too, is the function of religion in a democracy: to give supernatural sanction or, better, spiritual reality to social values."

The fundamental doctrines which the future ethical and social religion of democracy must teach, Professor Wright to suggestively formulate

ventures

thus:

"An immortality of the human person conditioned by his devotion to inclusive social ends and consequent identification with the life of a spiritual community. The future life, as an occasion of reward

or punishment, has ceased to interest the modern man or move him to action. No more powerful moral dynamic could be imagined, however, than that supplied by belief in an immortality which may be won-an immortality which offers an opportunity for further personal development to those individuals who in their

earthly existence have devoted themselves

to universal ends.

"The existence of a spiritual community made up of those persons who during the period of their earthly existence labored faithfully for the universal human good and who, after death has removed them from the earthly scene, constantly inspire men to deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice in service of society. The leaders in this community are the great moral teachers and heroes of the race; prominent in it and the martyrs, who through the long are the sages and the saints, the patriots centuries have striven to benefit their fellowmen: present also are all those who in obscure and humble station have faithfully discharged their social vocation.

"The immanence and efficacy of God as the guiding spirit in social progress, the leader in the work of human betterment, who strives and suffers with us in the cause of universal evolution."

OMAN CATHOLIC papers find evidence of the influence of hostile propaganda in legislative proposals for official inspection of hospitals, convents and other sectarian institutions in Arkansas and Missouri, for Bible reading in New York State public schools, for compulsory attendance at public schools in Texas, unless private or parochial schools be approved by county superintendents, for prohibiting appropriations to sectarian institutions in Massachusetts, and the like. Besides denunciation, the fight against sensational and widely-circulated antiRoman Catholic publications has taken the form of unsuccessful attempts to exclude papers like The Menace from the mails by order of the postmastergeneral or by new Congressional legislation. The latest development appears in the form of a federal court indictment of the editors and publishers of The Menace for sending obscene literature through the mails. And The New World (Roman Catholic, Chicago) reports a federal indictment of the publishers of the National Rip-Saw and the Melting-Pot, also in Missouri, charged with circulating through the mails "defamatory and scurrilous literature." It says the action is based upon the publication of a sensation cartoon of Evangelist Billy Sunday. The Menace announces the formation of a Free Press Defense League to fight the prosecution, and the question of the freedom of the press is again injected

into press discussion of controversial church issues.

Publicity is given by the Roman Catholic press to the recent report of a commission on religious prejudice appointed by the Knights of Columbus, which expresses gratification for "magnificent support" shown by the general press in condemning bigoted publications and their supporters. As a result of its investigation, the commission has reached the opinion that these waves of bigoted attacks on religion come largely from three classes:

"First-Those who fail to appreciate the constitutional provision regarding freedom of religious worship or to understand the belief of those professing a religion

other than their own.

"Second-Those whose purpose is to de

stroy not only the Catholic religion but all religion and all duly constituted gov

ernment.

"Third-Perhaps the worst class comprises those who, despite their expressed motives of high purpose, are actuated solely by sordid mercenary consideration."

The commission invites the cooperation of societies and organizations of all religious beliefs to the end that the constitutional provision regarding freedom of religious worship may be understood and upheld. Whereupon, The Truth Seeker, New York ("A Free Thought and Agnostic Newspaper"), asks to what constitutional provision does the chairman of the commission refer?

"The United States constitution provides that there shall be no religious test for office under the government; that Congress shall make no law respecting an the free exercize thereof; or abridging establishment of religion, or prohibiting the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, etc. We would ask Colonel Callahan if these provisions have been respected by his own church, and if not whether he should not try to bring that organization into line before inviting other organizations to join him. The church has used the inquisition and all civil governments it controlled to suppress the freedom of worship; it anathematizes separation of church and state provided for by our Constitution; its followers, unrebuked by fering with the right of peaceable assemtheir spiritual superiors, are to-day interblage; and the Knights of Columbus have had two bills in Congress for the suppression of freedom of the press and mails. In a country pledged to liberty in these respects, the Catholic church by its assertion and the wonder is that it finds so many of superior rights creates its own enemies, tolerant friends. The church has never been attacked here for exercizing any rights which it grants to others."

In this connection it may be noted that a Roman Catholic editor, attempting to give to the Federation of Catholic Societies some idea of the scope and extent of anti-Catholic publications, has named seventeen papers classed with The Menace, six magazines (including The Truth Seeker), and seven other publications of bitter anti-Catholic tendency. To these should be added, he

says, "practically all the Lutheran and many other Protestant church organs, as well as most of the Socialist papers and magazines; likewise, a dozen or more Masonic journals, and an occasional daily, especially in the South." The Menace insists that the proper remedy for such injuries, as are alleged, lies in suits for libel or prosecution for criminal libel, not in prosecution upon a technical charge of obscenity; and it claims to have told the truth concerning an alleged Roman Catholic political hierarchy, even tho "it had to speak plainly of things it would have preferred not to discuss." The Menace foresees a series of such prosecutions, the costs of which are calculated to put it and other publications like it out of business. In other quarters, however, it is assumed that a legal definition of scurrility and obscenity is sought by this means, which would establish legal ground for exclusion of such papers from the mails-the objective of Roman Catholic efforts for some time past.

Three bills were introduced in Congress seeking to make definite the power of the postmaster-general to declare unmailable any indecent, scandalous, immoral, scurrilous or libelous printed matter or other publications reflecting on any form of religious worship, practiced or held sacred by any citizens of the United States. Many Roman Catholic papers, editorially, favored such legislation, declaring that loyal supporters of the government were entitled to protection from insult. But strong opposition developed at a public hearing (reported in detail in The Protestant Magazine, Washington) mainly

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on the ground of danger involved in a censorship of the press by any government official. The bills did not get beyond the committee stage.

The censorship issue, however, was sharply discussed by a number of secular papers and many Protestant journals. The Chicago Tribune said:

"It is a mistake to strike at these publications in a manner which involves perhaps the most jealously guarded of all It is American constitutional liberties. evident that it is difficult or impossible to get at them through existing statutes; nevertheless, the attempt to bar them from the mails by the necessary general law hardly can be accepted as within the bounds of public policy in our country.... The injection of religious intolerance into our public life is deplorable, and those who are guilty of it are not true Americans. But the way to fight it is not by the perilous path indicated in these bills. disease of that kind." Forcible suppression only aggravates a

The New York Christian Advocate (Methodist Episcopal) asserted that "printing presses are as available to Roman Catholics as to Protestants, and if they have replies to make to the charges which papers like the Menace are offering, the opportunity is theirs, and the postal authorities will facilitate the distribution of their protests." It added:

"We have no sympathy with those anti

Romanists whose eyes are filled with blood the moment a Roman Catholic dignitary

is named, and who see an appalling attack upon liberty in every participation of Romanists in public affairs. But we rejoice in the purpose to turn daylight upon the political machinations of Rome, and

we know that after all deductions have

been made for an inflamed imagination, there is yet enough to cause alarm in the bare facts of Rome's persistent official activity in politics."

The New York Outlook took the position that if the Roman Catholic Church is libeled, its remedy is a prosecution of the libeler. Informed that the law is that attacks upon such bodies as secret societies and churches do not make libelants amenable to prosecution under the libel laws except as their victims' material resources are impaired, The Outlook says:

"If this is the law, the remedy is not a Federal act authorizing the postmaster to refuse the mails to any publication which he regards as libelous. It is such a change in the libel law as will render publications liable to criminal prosecution for libels against organizations, ecclesiastical or secular. There is no reason why societies and churches should not be furnished the protection which is furnished to individuals."

Meanwhile the secretary of the Church Peace Union, Rev. Frederick Lynch, proposes a conference of twenty leading Roman Catholics and Protestants to consider the problems growing out of the age-long controversy between them which has reached an acute stage. His publication, Christian Work, contains interesting letters, pro and con, each week. He declares that "there is no more important question before the American people at just this time than this, of whether the two great Christian groups of the nation should spend their time fighting each other, or spend it in fighting the common foes of all religion."

UITE unheralded by the press at large, a war against habit-forming drugs was declared by President Wilson's recent Congress. This was the Congress which, according to very widely published debate, balked on the question of federal prohibition of the liquor traffic (tho it gave a majority vote for the submission of a constitutional amendment) by insisting upon the issue of states' rights. But the drug law enacted by the same body, without any noise, so to say, is a federal statute enforceable by the Internal Revenue Bureau under instructions from the Secretary of the Treasury. Not until it went into effect did its importance attract the attention of the press to any extent. The prevailing note in the daily newspapers since is highly commendatory.

The federal government undertakes to supervise the distribution of "opium,

coca leaves, salts, the derivatives or preparations such as morphine, cocaine and heroin." It is well known, says the New York Herald, that in recent years the United States has been consuming about ten times as much of these habit-forming drugs as was needed for strictly medical purposes.

"Investigation showed, too, that young criminals were more and more addicted to the use of these drugs and that a rapidly growing proportion of them undoubtedly owed some of their tendency to violate law, and in not a few cases all their disregard for the consequences of crime, to the taking of these active narcotics.

"It will be well worth while then for all the legitimate use of these drugs to be hampered a little so as to secure the limitation of the great abuse of them which has been working such serious harm. The new law may prove annoying at first, but promises to repay all the trouble it involves amply by the reduction of a rapidly growing evil."

The necessity of federal regulation. is emphasized by the Indianapolis News, which points out that "the state and city governments have for years endeavored to discipline corrupt practitioners, druggists and others, who purposely provide victims with the drugs which they crave. Boards of health have had more or less success, but the traffic was of such scope that it was seen that only through interstate control could regulation be attained. Imprisonment or fine, or both, is the penalty provided for violations." The New York Press makes similar comment on the stringency and effectiveness of federal control:

"A record must be kept of every sale, stating the amount sold and the name of the purchaser. This supplies the remedy, the evidence, that the States lacked in attempting to break up illicit traffic in drugs, for a State could not go beyond its own boundaries, whereas there is no limit to

the operation of the Federal act. Another wholesome effect of the law will be to discover and outlaw the class of physicians that have found catering to drug victims a profitable practice and that encourage the drug habit. Now there must be an accounting; as strict a watch will be kept over the sale of drugs as over the sale of intoxicating liquors, with the vast difference that the drug law will restrict the sale of harmful drugs and remove the temptation far from all."

Commending the drastic character of the new law, the St. Louis Star sums up its attitude toward the drug purveyors to habitual victims: "Whenever we have anything to say on this subject we feel much like asking Billy Sunday to say it for us." That paper also says that the shutting off of drughabit cures by mail is one of the best features of the drug law:

"Most of these drug cures are not only fakes in the sense that they are not cures at all, but they are worse, since they con

tain the very drugs the habitués have been using, and enable them to continue the habit by taking the cure.

"The theory of the government is that prescription by mail in this way is not regular professional practice. That theory ought to be extended to all advertizing doctors and remedies of the alleged prescription variety. . . . If the drugs act is so construed as to class prescriptions by mail symptom blanks as not legitimate medical practice, the door would seem to be opened to the exclusion of all the advertizing and correspondence of such doctors from

the mails."

It is pathetically apparent that the federal drug act has come none too soon, observes the Chicago Tribune:

tims of the habit fill the atmosphere of "The moans and groans of the vicprivate and public hospitals, but the law

is cruel only to be kind. The Tribune is gratified at the prompt and humane action of federal and local officials in cutting red tape and opening hospitals to the tortured victims. From every city of any size the

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same story is reported-the story of panic, alarm, piteous appeals for relief, overworked internes and nurses. How many of us have had any realizing sense of the proportions and advance of the 'dope' evil? . . .

"The climax is not yet, according to the authorities; many victims have little stores they can draw on for another fortnight or month. Come the climax when it may, the federal law cannot be too firmly—if considerately applied, too rigidly enforced against professional violators. Public health has been gravely menaced, and the advance of prohibition throughout the country has made all the plainer and more urgent the duty of arresting the tendency to seek in 'dope' the easy substitute for strong drink. Everything should be done to carry victims over to safety and sanity, but every instance of mercy from a bedridden 'fiend' of the suicide or attempted suicide, every cry for terrible habit is a painfully convincing argument for the most determined action by state and nation toward the eradication of the evil and the prevention of its extension to new and ignorant recruits, old or young."

"The congregations are weary of conflicting reports from Petrograd of Russian victories, from Vienna of Austrian victories, from Berlin of German victories, from Paris of French victories; it is only unhappy Belgium which reports no victories. Weary of the perpetual discussions as to who is responsible for the war, who to blame for bringing it on; while still interested in new aspects of the war and discussions respecting them, they desire relief from them on Sabbath morning.

"And yet they are in no mood to listen to discussions of abstract theology, of questions of the Trinity, vicarious atonement, the reconciliation of divine sovereignty and free will, and the like, in which congregations were interested a hundred years ago."

Therefore, the task of the minister is to preach to the times without taking his text from the times. It is easier

to illustrate than to define the wants of the congregation, says the editorpreacher. Here is his first illustration:

"Jesus, in his last hours, said to his disciples, 'My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you.'

And then he went out into the darkness and the tempest: to be deserted by his disciples; to be arrested and brought before a fraudulent tribunal for a mock trial; to pass from condemnation by that court to another trial before a cowardly judge who believed him innocent but dared not acquit him; to hear the voices of the mob crying for his blood; to be scourged, spit upon, insulted; to be crowned with thorns and clothed with purple in derision of his loyalty; to see the sword piercing the heart of his own mother, and an unspeakable dread settling down upon the heart of his beloved disciple. And in it all he was the one serene, unperturbed spirit, facing calmly the taunts of his enemies and the torturing sorrows of his friends, speaking hope to the penitent brigand at his side, and comfort to the weeping mother at the foot of his cross.

"This was his peace; this the peace which he gave to his disciples. Tell us, O preacher, how, in this hour when the very foundations of Christian faith are shaking, we can possess in our souls the serene, comfort-giving peace which characterized the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth. What was this peace of his? How can we possess it?"

The text of Dr. Abbott's second sermonette to preachers is taken from Paul, who wrote to his readers: "We glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed.”

"Is this experience possible for us? If so, tell us, O preacher, how we can attain it.

"The world is still divided into stoics and epicureans: stoics, who grit their teeth and courageously endure the trouble

which they cannot escape; epicureans, who flee from it when flight is possible, or laugh it off by forced, if not mock, merriment.

"But here is a prophet who tells us that trouble is real, is not to be fled from but welcomed, not to be stoically or even submissively endured but to be converted into a glory. And this prophet is the follower of One who came into the world that he might be crowned with the glory of tribulation, and who bade his disciples follow him, walking in the same path, inspired by the same spirit.

"Tell us, O preacher, next Sunday how we can convert our sorrows into joys, our tribulations into glories. Impossible? No, you are wrong. It is not impossible. The book of Revelation was written in the darkest period in the history of the Christian Church; written in the time of Nero; written when Christians were thrown into the arena to be devoured by wild beasts or bound about with inflammable material soaked in oil and set on crucifixes, to be hideous torches; written when the Church of Christ would have seemed to a historian looking at it from without to be going to its death, as did its Master-a lingering, painful, but unescapable death. And yet this book of Revelation has more Hallelujah choruses in it than any other book in the Bible except the Hebrew Psalter.

"Tell us, O preacher, how we can make the night of sorrow vocal with such songs of praise."

Lastly, Dr. Abbott reminds preachers that when Paul declares that he glories. in tribulation, he also declares that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. The question is how can we keep the love of God in our hearts when life seems all awry?

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New York the Athens of
Jewish Literature.

URING the next decade New

York is destined to become the Athens of Jewish literature. During the last six months the Yiddish Ghetto has been kept busy arranging receptions for its literary guests writers driven out of Europe, out of Russia especially, by the repelling forces of the war and the Jewish prosecutions abroad. Among these writers who have taken up their residence in New York are Abraham Raisin, Sholom Asch, Perez Hirschbein, Sholom Aleichem, and a number of others. So we read in East and West (New York), a new monthly devoted to Jewish literature, art and life. Yiddish literature, the editor of this magazine writes, is a product of two worlds. The fathers and masters of the art belong to Russia, but the American Ghetto has also contributed constellations of greater and lesser magnitude to this literary firma

ment.

Altho the Yiddish drama had its birth in Russia, it was transplanted to the East Side of New York at an early age, and has there been nursed from infancy to youth and from youth to maturity. The master-hand of the Jewish drama, "who raised it out of the pit of nonsense and placed it on a pedestal of art," labored in the old Bowery playhouses. The best actors and actresses learned their profession and developed their talents chiefly under the guidance of that master-hand-Jacob Gordon.

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An American Criticism of
Yiddish Literature.

HE initial number of East and West is devoted to translations in English of a group of short stories, poems and plays by those representative Jewish writers now in America. It also contains a criticism of the translated pieces by Professor John Erskine of Columbia. Professor Erskine is, on the whole, not completely satisfied with these stories.

"There seems to be an elusive secret, either of experience or of tradition, which we must share before we know with certainty what these writers mean. . . . I have in mind the difficulty of grasping the writer's general intention. Is he trying to arouse our sympathy, or to stimulate laughter, or to express his own sympathy or his own bitterness? This uncertainty in an English or a French or a German writer would be set down to a lack of skill; but in these stories there is evidence of much skill, and we hesitate to pass

I

The Art of Sholom Asch.

N a dramatic scene by Sholom Asch, however, Professor Erskine finds a wealth of racial idealism which carries us back to the Scriptures. "I found myself thinking, as I read this beautiful drama, of other literature of racial loyalty in our day-of Belgian or Irish literature, for example, and, perhaps, it is the similarity with the writings of Maeterlinck or Synge which makes this an easy work to understand." In content, he finds Sholom Asch's drama radically unlike the Celtic or Flemish poems. Professor Erskine thus interprets the play, entitled "Sin" (or "The Sinner"):

"In one respect it is unlike anything I have ever read, and the conviction comes over me that in this unlikeness it is most true the characters in it seem to have no freedom of will, but are rather in the grip of a tradition. The dead man had sinned, yet he could not cease to be a Jew. The Gabai and the Rabbi condemn his way of life, yet they must be merciful and if possible must save his soul. It is not so much a question whether he has been loyal, or whether they will be forgiving, as it is a demonstration of the all-sufficiency of a religion and a God. There is in this theme something strikingly noble and universal, and the characters are elethink of Naomi and Elimelech, and of mental in their dignity—making the reader the father of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament. The universal significance of the story is bound up with much emphasis on ceremonial-the breaking of the bricks, for example. Just how that aspect appeals to the Jewish reader I do not know, but to me it has only an antiquarian interest apart from the main theme, just as the ceremonials and customs are in the Book of Ruth. But in one respect the Book of Ruth is more modern than this drama; the ancient writer had sympathy for the Moabitish woman, whereas the woman in 'Sin-a very different character, perhaps—is treated with singular austerity. I wonder again whether the writer intended us to sympathize with this outcast, whose great love has brought her into conflict with a religion that has no place for her, or whether his thought was on

the religion, and the sympathy for the woman is something we contribute. But such questions are not of a nature to in

terfere with admiration for what is a work of art in the noblest sense."

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Prose, Poetry and the Panama-Pacific.

NA letter to the literary editor of the Chicago Evening Post, Eunice Tietjens protests against the attitude taken by the directors of the Panama-Pacific Exposition toward the arts. They recognize painting and sculpture. They treat music as a legitimate form of entertainment. But literature-both prose and poetry—is seemingly ignored, unless, of course, one accepts as literature the oratory which

has afforded Mr. Franklin P. Adams so much amusement. But, as the literary editor of the Chicago daily points out, "any attention paid to poetry would not be representative of the general

American attitude toward that art."

How to recognize poetry to best advantage presents another difficulty. “In the case of Mr. Vachel Lindsay, there would be no difficulty. The acoustic attributes of his chanting style would lend themselves admirably to a rendition. Put the author in the exposition's largest hall and we feel that the occasion would be a popular one."

"But otherwise, we fear, literature, and

especially poetry, does not tend itself to exhibition purposes. Like philosophy, poetry is a matter for individual rather than mass appreciation, and altho philosophical congresses have been features of expositions, the thought of halls where pragmatism, Roycean idealism and the new realism compete with one another to attract popular attention is not very inspiring when taken in connection with the positions." plaster work and fountains of popular ex

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Congress on Letters and Art. YPICAL of the “general American attitude" toward literature and art was the debate in Congress preceding the defeat of the bill for the incorporation of the Academy of Arts and Letters. Considerable disfavor was evoked by the fact that a majority of those on the roster of the Academy were residents of New York and Boston. Representative Slayden tactfully explained that this fact was not indicative of any native superiority of these sections: "they come from all parts of the country originally, but the market for their wares is in New York and Boston and they-like a mechanic