dethroned, but which had come to their own again. Lashed on by his returning pain, he wrests himself away from the arms of Beauty and goes to seek in the desert. There in the vast solitude he discovers the meaning of his pain. The universal omnipresent pain with its reflex in struggle he recognizes as the only reality of existence, the mainspring of all phenomena of Nature and Man, and Life and Death. His people, the Jewish people, he recognizes as the richest in pain and the greatest in struggle; he sees them even now engaged in an age-long tremendous struggle, which he feels himself called upon to help fulfill. Big with his conception of pain-struggle and the prophecy of fulfillment, he returns to the Great City and there [6 utters 8 messace.
It is in the last chapter entitled “The Struggler Prophesies before the Great City,” and in the last division of that chapter under the heading “The Prophecy of Fulfiillment” that the writer displays his best powers. The poetry elsewhere is often through not always, beautiful: it is, however, always strong, and at times with a rugged and rather crude strength which may not ‘be sweet to the palate of those who have been pampered on 116 6 dainties of the day. In the last division ot the final chapter, however, the expression is wholly adequate to the great theme. We must state incidently, moreover, that the author is exclusively concerned with his message, and with all the frank independence of the true prophet he says to the hunter of literary rarebits:
Wherefore, come not fawning around these things
Forever and forever;
But gather from them
The things that is needful
For yourself and your struggle; and leave them.
The true prophet scoris the art of bowing and soliciting applause. His supreme independence amounts almost to insolence and his outspokenness is almost brutal. He cannot afford to dally with phrases. The Prophet Nathan comes not with hon- eyed speeches to King David, but flings denunciations in the very teeth of the powerful King. This freedom of speech is undoubtedly present in the work under consideration and the effect is certainly refreshing and invigorating.
It must be beyond the province of these
remarks to give a complete estimate of the law of pain-struggle. There can be no doubt, however, of the depth of its significance and the breadth of its application as worked out by the author. And here we discover the presence of another trait characteristic of the Hebrew Prophets of old. While they bore their message primarily to their own people and called upon them to be the first in the field as God's Chosen, they also included the whole of mankind in their sweep of vision, and thus combined with the nationalism of the Jewish patriot, the universalism of the true lover of man. And here too, the law of pain-struggle is universal in its significance and application, and in his call to his people to fulfill their great struggle for national self-preservation, the poet exclaims,
For, of. old time Oh my People
When you feasted, who went hungry!
And when you built, who was not enriched?
And now when you arise and fulfill Who shall go empty?
JEWISH FICTION*
In this work, so we are informed in its preface “an attempt as made to revive interest in the early days and struggles of Moses Mendelssohn,” a purpose which is, no doubt, commendable, especially so when we reflect—and here again we have recourse to the author's own words—that “the heroes and heroines of Jewish history are as many as those in the records of any other people, but unfortunately, their lives and deeds are less known,” and that “apart from the characters in Holy Writ and a few worthies in rab- ‘binical literature little has been done to rescue them from forgetfulness,” which makes it incumbent upon us, the cherish- crs of their deeds and memories, to do our utmost to rescue them from such a sad_ fate.
The book differs from the great majority of works of fiction based upon the
STEP BY STEPS A story of the early days of Moses Mendelssohn, by Abram S. Isaacs, Philadelphia, the Jewish Publication Society, 1910.