The Maccabaean

is not a promise simply, for they have had a revival already. In art and science and literature they have in the most recent times established their claims. In a land of their own, living and developing freely, their contribution will be even richer and more peculiarly characteristic.

It should need little argument that a revived Jewish Palestine and a revived Arab nation are supplementary, not conflicting, projects. The Arabs have no claims and no ambitions in Palestine. Their political centres lie elsewhere. The frontiers of the two States would meet, and that would require adjustment, but it would be a fairly simple matter, and a decisive pronouncement with regard to Palestine need not be delayed until it is settled. In the proclamation at Bagdad the boundaries of the future Arab State, or fellowship of States, has been left vague, but the proclamation is none the less an epoch-making document. So a proclamation setting forth the resolve of Great Britain to set up a Jewish State may for the time being leave the frontiers vague so long as

it establishes the principle. Between Jews and Arabs there will be in the future, as there has been in the past, good comradeship. They understand one another, and the kinship of language and blood makes the communion between them swift and easy. There is always as much danger as fascination in speculating on the future, but yet the part which a Jewish Palestine will play in the new family of nations

to which both West and East will belong is not difficult to anticipate. What Palestine is geographically, that the Palestinian Jews will be spiritually. Palestine is the link between three continents, and the Palestinian Jews will be the link between the peoples of three continents. They are of the East by origin, and will again be of the East by residence. Yet they will have passed through all the schools of the West, and learnt all that they can teach without losing their own essential character and quality. They will be the natural interpreters of East to West and West to East; and they will interpret not merely by recording and transmitting, but by creating. They will be themselves, and show in and through themselves that East and West are not two hostile worlds, but divisions of the human race engaged in the common task of civilization.

The idea of collaborating in the revival of the two great Semitic nations, the Jews and the Arabs, should appeal to the imagination as well as to the calculation of the statesman, and these days of great suffering and great achievement are a time when imagination should widen and enoble-the vision of the statesman, and the vision of the statesman dictate to the diplomatist and the strategist. There is no virtue in lingering, hesitating, or postponing when the road is clearly indicated. The British successes in Palestine are completing the remarkable undertaking which was commenced by Sir Stanley Maude..

Man is made of tears and blood,And trees are made of earth and dew;From tiniest seed and sweetest budTo gnarled height they grew.

The man and tree are friends of old,Their roots are deep in kindred soil,In tender earth whose caverns holdThe progeny of toil.

Who plants a tree is planting bread, Is planting shade from glare and heat; He plants a roof above his head And earth beneath his feet.

My wandering people, scattered wide,We nurse no little living tree,For tossed and spurned from tide to tideWhat roots have such as we?

Yet still we store, from shore to shore,Within our pack a greening slip;

"It is a Tree of Life to themThat hold it in their grip."

Afar, afar I plant my tree,I plant my heart in distant loam!Mine ears shall hear, mine eyes shall see—For there I plant my home.

My little land of scar and rock, Of coast and peak, of gorge and plain, Your naked sides the spoilers mock, You writhe with barren pain.

For land is made of field and shade,Of crumbling life and falling stem,Of seed that springs and heart that sings—For life, my land needs them.

And man is made of tears and blood,And trees are made of dew and sand,And these are brothers—root and bud—For life, they need a land.

—Jessie E. Sampter.