The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 10, 1905, Page 25

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1905. (] of dity R after, woman and isfor- e extract given from ps to give the will be mostly f those who have b or time to e place and well for the £ ht the young was like your enemies, nough; mor is it bluster at them, i them; you will t if. when they not turn one inch ssured heart, with and with on your way. at I say that they will ; and you shall walk t anger. description wherein Lou- e is possessed of that to a degree that made t is one wherein our au- taking delight in his 2ight fancy the smile that TARHKINGTON face ption when “Joe Walks w 11 Joe the it was that a f abusive and ma- to prevent him the yard, and he came face to ror of Canaan the coward, cona miling, ~walk mob were him! Take b and throw him in mob wanted to be ‘Head him led a but as no pectators the ludi- and over- with It became 1vos shook the e of the fire eaters lived long enough to 1 cry of that day, hich was to become the streets, a taunt y devised by de- an insult bitterer t, a fighting historical joke of ed in after days vas told how Joe Lou- ort walk which across made & Brothers, New York; HISTORY OF NATIONS OF THE EARTH. volume of the ‘“History edited by John Henry Wright of Harvard University, is out This volume, XIL is devoted to the subject of “The Religious Wars,” and counter reformation in Eastern Furope (A. D. 1556-1618) the period of the thirty yea (A. D. 1€i8-1648). It is abundantly il- 1 ed with reproductions of old- fashioned portraits and pictures and with fac-similes-of old documents of histo c importance. vI' is a strange experience to take a Elance back at these old acrimonious religious contentions and bloody wars. to imagine how you would feel this morning if you knew you were lighle to be butchered or burned ‘alive if your religious opinion happened to those of the party in power. d probubly have the villainous of the popula- rate liars or else care- of what they really thought. The bold and truthful men vwn\“d be the most likely to be elimin- ated. It would be an evolution back- ward. some really happe tury extent in this is what the sixteenth cen- history says that the progress of Germany. at the beginning of this i seemed to owe vigor to the at religious reformation: but be. cause of a mixture of influence from the powers in control the old faith of- fered resistance, and there was con- tention that erippled the energies of the nation. The reformers had to seek the aid of princely protectors. Protestantism ot became divided within Calvinists and Lutherans dit- fered and contended, and that, too, on such merely secondary points that the ant isms produced a petty, narrow | { | { | | character, debasing and weakening, in- s s stead of ennobling the heart and mina, The mighty reform movement was a time of lamentable de deterioration of the Ger man character such 2s no other epoch has seen.” | After the death of Luther these | wrangles seem to have degenerated into | the absurd. One Andreas Osiander, a pro- i fessor of theology in the University of Ko. nigsberg, originated one of these rows by explaining that justification was less a of an inner righteousness through a mystic union of the soul with Christ.” Most people nowadays would be willing to draw straws for either end of that dllem- ma, and taking the one that came, say, “jet it go at that,” because it was prob- ably as close as theology could get at the truth. However, such easy going tolerance was not for those bickering days. “Both sides fought with written and- oral arguments, in which, according to the coarse fashion of the day,’ the devil and hell played an important part. The Protestant population were excited the | ted and dared not | is written Martin Philippson, who | was form professor of history in the universities of Bonn and Brussels The volume covers the period of the Then | aivine act of grace than “the imparting | | | ] | heavens fall! g and greatly perplexed, quite sure of what was divine and what diabolical, or whether he belonged to the teous or the damned.” A curious instance of superstitution is given in speaking of the character of the great warrior, Wallenstein. “* * He took the renowned astronomer, Kepler, into his pay only to have him cast the natlvities of all persons with whom he came in contact.” It is not so much to make you wonder about Wallenstein that I quote this; it's concerning Kepler that I expect you to roll your eyes astronomic- ally high up and murmur ‘“mirabile dictu!” Was it not Kepler who was wont to account for his extraordinary wisdom by saying, “I think God's thoughts after him,” he was half inspired? No y the Apostle Paul, or rather let us say, by the great Count Cagliostro, who could have imag- ined the immortal Kepler drawing down a fat salary for that sort of a service? Howe that’s the truth of history; and —“Let justice be done, though the Kepler can ealculate the square of the distance. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in this volume is the one giving an account of the government of Richelieu. Probably rig | the best summing up ever given of the | brilliant career of that astute Fre statesman and heartily disliked boss Gt King Louls XIII is 'in the words of Madame de Motteville, namely, that he had out of his master made a slave, and out of this slave the greatest king in the world.” If Madame de Motteyille ever uttered any better mot than that we would much relish coming across it in our reading. There are some interesting pages about the literature of that age. We are told of the remarkable influence the philosopher Descdrtes had on the development of the French language. “He gave to it clearness, ‘the exact designation of each idea by a word expressly and forever assigned to it, qualities by which the French writers of the epoch immediately following dis- tinguished themselves.” If some Descartes had from the be- ginning made it clear to all men just exactly what words mean, then perad- venture we would have much less vol- uminous histories of religious wars; for doubtless most of these theological contentions, oral, written, or with sword and cannon, ate wars because of the indefiniteness of words. Consider that big Osiander-originated row of which 1 quoted you the gerrible result. The fight was about whether justification was “less a divine act of grace than the imparting of an inner righteous- ness through a mystic union of the soul with Christ” In those old days of the religious wars unless you could settle that quandary you could not tell whether you “belonged to the righteous or the damned.” Those religious wars lasted seventy-four years. All this was ended by the peace of Westphalia. Professor Philippson says near the close of his history: “At the price of its best blood, its unity, its well-being, its independence and greatness, the werman people, by the Thirty Years' War and the peace that closed it, pur- chased for Europe and for the world the most precious acquisition of mod- ern times—liberty of conscience.” (I%ea Bros. & Co., Philadelphia and New York. To be completed in twenty- four volumes). JEWISH CYCLOPEDL. NEARLY COMPLETE. The great Jewisn encyclopedia, edited by Isadore Singer, is getting close to com- pletion. There are to be twelve volumes in all, and the eleventh is now out. It extends from the word “‘Samson’’ to “Tal- mid Hakam.” There are 600 editors and collaborators employed upon this great and so give us the impression that | FROM FMARZOZY CEAWFORDS NEW NOVEL. | | | | v v — INDIANA NOVELIST WHO HAS JUST ADDED TO HIS FAME BY A NEW BOOK OF GREAT MERIT AND AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A NEW STORY BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. - | work, and the one recent volume contains | the contributions of 137'scholars. It is | quite a large volume, contalning 7% pages and 306 illustrations, | “Saul of Tarsus (known as Paul, the apostle of the heathen)” makes the sub- ject of one of the most notable articles in the present number. It covers about seventeen columns of elosely printed mat- ter, which Is a very unusual quantity of space for tbis encyclopedia to devote to one caption. To behold what sort of a | figure the great apostle of the Gentiles | presents to the eyes of Jewish schol- |arship will probably make the most ‘ widely interesting glimpse that I can give |in fragment from this Jewish tome. It will be well remembered that not ! alone by orthodox Christians is Paul ex- tolled. Matthew Arnold, one of the big- ! gest iIntellectual guns that ever expended | splendid literary ammunition upon what | free-thinkers consider the absurdities of dogma, praised Saint Paul go highly that any other agnostic examining Arnold's estimate of Saul must needs be astonished at the admiration the satirical author of “Literature and Dogma" throws like wreaths at the feet of the eloquent apos- | tle. The modern Jewish scholar who makes this study sees in Paul much to admire, but more to adversely criticize. The serious consideration given to him by this encyclopedia, as well as that admira- | tion of the unorthodox Matthew Arnold, | evidence the great import of the man to even thbse who disallow his beliefs. In the first paragraph we are told that the epistles ascribed to Paul have been proved by critics to be partly spurious (Galatians, Ephesians, Iand II Timothy, Titus, and others), and partly interpolated. This {s a very hard blow, for no doubt | there are many people who admire St. | Pau] for his wonderful command ot language, as aside from or added to his ardent faith. If the whole world should come to believe his theo- logical teachings to be but the su- persubtleties of a brilliant epileptic | ecstatic, we would still wish to keep the eloquent apostle upon our book shelves in | order to marvel at and enjoy the wonder- | ful way that religious enthusiast could | condensedly and tropically write. Now |if these mentioned modern critics are correct even his literary value is littled. | Unless we are erudite scholars we can never be sure whether we are reading the words of one who had been uplifted to an extraordinary exaltation of thought and language by a vision of divinmity, or whether we are learning by heart some spurious or interpolated sentence, done | by some scheming rectifier of theological discrepancies. St. Paul is set down in this article as “the actual founder of the Christian | church as opposed to Judaism.” This is of course equivalent to saying that | the teaching of Jesus was not opposed {to Judaism as is the church. i Another notable assertion is that Paul was not a Hebrew scholar, and that he was distinctly Hellenic in thought and sentiment rather than Hebraie. This sounds astonishing when we remember that Paul seems to summon the almost utmost of his wonderful ,power of [language to assure us he was an abso- lute Jew—“a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” It is sald all the quotations taken by him from Scripture are from the Greek ological system, 'and the episties that bear his name are said to prove him the Hellenist in thought. It is admit- ted that he was of Jewish parentage; but the rabbinical training ascribed to him is denled. That celebrated terrible *“thorn in the flesh” of which Paul complained is | here described as having been epilepsy. To this physical condition is aseribed what is called Paul's pessimism. Now here Is a view of Paul that shows him as Jewish thought sees him and op- poses him. “For Judaism,. religlon is the hallow- | Ing of this life by the fulfillment of its manifold duties: Raul shrank from life as the domain of Satan and all his hosts of evil; he longed for redemption by the deadening of all desires for life, | and strove for another world which he {saw in his ecstatic visions.” | _That quotation will remind one of Paul's peculiar views on the subject of | marriage—that the wedded state is | something distinctly below the high ideal of absolute chastity in celibacy, and that marriage is a sort of allowed license to save helpless people who otherwise would be victims of Satan's temptation. Many devout Christians will admit that the Jewish view of the wedded condition is some prettier and much more romantic than St. Paul's “better to marry than to burn” theory of the love bond. # Another Jewish view is that in re- gard to baptism St. Paul changed the Jewish and Judaeo-Christian idea of its being a symbolic rite suggestive of purification to an assertion of its being a mystic rite effecting an ac- tual transformation as the baptized emerged from the water. Again, ob- jection is made to his teaching that the Christ's death on the cross was a cosmic act “by which God Dbecomes reconciled to himself.” The encyclo- pedist says: “To a Jewish mind, trained ! by rabbinical acumen, this is not pure | monotheistic but mythological think- characteristic of Jewish thought; it is under the subhead of an- tinomianism and Jew hatred: “Paul ar- | gues that the saving grace of God lies in faith (that is, in blind belief), and" not in the works of the law.” And for another this: “Paul construed a system of faith which was at the very outset most rad- ically in conflict with the spirit of Juda- ism. childlike faith of man the ever-present helper in God as in all trou- scribed from without and which is aec- ; counted a meritorious act. He robbed hu- | man life of its healthy impulses, the hu- man soul of its faith in its own regen- erating powers, of its bellef in its own }-elf and its inherent tendency to good- | ness.” | Here is a description’ of St. Paul's per- - son and of his manner of preaching, pre- served in “Acta Paull et Theclae,” said of greater historic value than the canon- ical acts of the apostle: ’ “A man of moderate stature, with crisp (scanty) hair, crooked legs, blue eyes, large knit brows and long nose, at times looking like a man, at times like an an- version and show no familiarity with ' gel, Paul came forward and preached to the Hebrew text. From Greek litera- the men of Icomium: Blessed are they ture came his theological and eschat- | that keep themselves chaste (unmarried), He substituted for the natural | . ble, such the Old Testament jrepresents it everywhere, a blind, artificial faith, imposed and pre- | S @@5 BOOKS | for they shall be called the temple of |God. Blessed are they that mortify | their bodies and souls, for unto them | speaketh God. Blessed are they that | despise the world, for they shall be pleasing to God. Blessed be the souls and bodies of virgins, for they shall receive the reward of their chastity The Jewish commentator adds to that | this: It was by such preaching that “he ensnared the souls of young men and maidens, enjoining them to remain sin- gle.” This little glance at the great Jew- | ish Encyclopedia is a gentle reminder of how encyclopedic is this world of “many frequently recurring things that recall how very varfously artists and thinkers God of things as they are.” (Funk & Wagnalls Company, \'or.k: $6 per volume.) NEW NOUVEL FROM PEN OF CRAWFORD- The subtitie of F, Marion Crawford's new novel, “Fair Margaret, A" Por- ) trait,” and by that we are made to know that_the principal intent of the work is to plcture the character of the fair young woman whose history in the volume of (380 pages is hardly more than just begun. It is intimated in the closing sentence that her story is to be continued in other part or parts. It is to be a study of an | artistic temperament and of an operatic E career; taken us beyond prospective great made to take leave of her on the very night of her splendidly successful debut. Although she is to be the portrait, there are three others so skilifully drawn by New the girlhood of the quite appropriate for him to make the subtitle “Portraits” had he not wished to emphasize that fair Margaret was super- latively the object of his artistic work. | So far she is a girl whom a reader m like fairly well without being forced oy the power of the fiction to quite fall in love with her. Whether Mr. Crawford intends to gradually draw us on and in- crease our liking until it becomes a pas- sionate devotion is one 6. the conjectures with which we close the book. It will be remembered that Anthony Hope recently gave us a study on the same line and that the actress whom he made us admire in the first part of ber history he caused us, before the close of his book, to half-disdain as a mere sales- woman of her own emotions, which were good for stage uses, but not of the true gold ring in real life. Marion Crawford’s portrait promises a different conclusion from that of Hope's “‘Servant of the Pub- lic,” as fair Margaret seems of much finer clay and is represented as being a lady by birth. Not as remarkably beautiful is this fair Margaret pictured to us by the autho: but in taking stock of her advantag “ghe rather likeds her own face.” was a satisfactory face, on the whole, and healthy. * * ¢ It was easy to be satisfied with what she had in the way radiance of the fair beauties or the tragic splendors of the dark ones. Besides, beauty has great disadvantages; it at- tracts attention at the wrong moment * * * and hinders a woman from doing exactly what she pleases.” As for her- gelf, she had brown hair and brown eyes, a complexion of cream tinged with peach bloom, and she knew her good points and realized that some day she might have to make the most of them; they were her mouth, her complexion and her figure. A little further along in life she dis- covers she has another asset, and an enor- mously valuable one, namely, a voice fit for a star in grand opera. Splendidly | is the description given of the way that doubting young woman. She has to urge her way to the stage through strong op- | position, for the woman friend with whom she had lived since she was left an or- phan in early childhood was bitterly prej- udiced against the profession of actress, and the two men who loved Margaret were also bent on withholding her from that career. As she is not sure of the possession of a fortune in her own right she persists in preparing herself to earn | her living, and singing being her only | accomplishment she develops it by study- ing in Paris until an old but still powery tully reigning prima donna recognize: the perfection of Margaret's voice and secures for her a successful debut. This prima donna, Madame Bonanni, is quite a strongly drawn portrait to be set beside Margaret's. So far, if anything, she seems more lifelike than the heroine. She is a woman peasant-born, but made imperious in a way by her talent and the power than came as result of it She is one “about whom dreadful stories are told,” but she takes such a warm- hearted Interest in saving Margaret from nefarious plots that no one can feel toward her as if she were essentially evil. When Margaret first decides to visit her at her house and ask an opinion of the value of her volce she did it with the idea she could for that purpose sep- arate the artist from the ‘woman and so justify the personal contact with her. As the story develops a discovery Is made by Margaret about Madame Bonannl which draws the old prima donna into close relations with her life of love as well as her life of art. The two men who are rivals for the heart of Margaret are very distinctively portrayed characters also. One of them is | Lushington, a successful young writer and critic. He is very sensitive and easily em- barrassed and provoked. He seems quite a strange mingling of conceit and mod- | esty. He claims to be a realist. Margaret i{s an idealist. Although deep under the |-urhce the two love each other, it is a difficult approach for both through mu- tual misunderstandings. Though Mar- garet cares for him very much it is not |to be assumed from that she ip- tends to marry him. It is mot by any means sure even that he is going to propose marriage to her. There is some family dishomor of which he Is | ashamed, though not his fault, which holds him back from offering _.mself. ]These two quarrel and criticize each . other quite to the point of rudeness, but still they never become completely es- tranged. Lushington has a deep-seated dislike of the stage as a career for a lady, and especially. for the one he loves. The other lover, Constantine Logotheti, is an immensely wealthy Greek, middle ; aged and of artistic temperament. He is represented as a thoroughbred Oriental gentleman of Constantinople by birth and breeding, but whose standards of gentility did not dény him the permission of his own will to capture a woman by strata- gem and make her his by force. He came of a race which, “though being temporari- grown old with it.” Margaret does not ! by this authority to be in some respects | love him, but because of his talents, his | | great wealth and his social recognition ! she is pleased with his attention and plays with his passion. She is frank and genu- ine enough, however, to tell him all through the progress of the flirtation that she will not marry him. Acceptance of the attentions of this wealthy Greek leads to Margaret having some adventures. In one case men many minds,” and is one of the so| | “draw the thing as they see it—for the| but so far the story has not| actress, and we are this practiced author it would have been | she thought, perfectly natural and frank | of looks, and not to envy the insolent| | discovery burst' upon the ambitious bm‘ ly isolated from modern progress, has not & she went voluntarily to his house and. king to speak with him alome, was ushered mnto an apartment which was en- tered through double conse doors and each thickly padded so that po sound could be heard through them. She only saved herself in that adventure by plead- ing to the Greek to remember his mother. It is a finely described sceme and gave ! Crawford fine opportunity for his literary | skill; but one cannot escape the Impres- | sion that there was some literary foreing of a situation and »pportunity to get ja sensible and good girl like fair Mar- | garet inte h a predicament, where he could magnificently describe her magnifi- { cent extrication of herself from a danger { no prudent woman would have gone into. It will be remembered that the virtuous heroine in Mrs. Thurston's “The Gam- bler” is made to do that same sort of an absurdly risky thing: and it is perhaps the only serious blemish in that fine story We know that in real life such women as these are described would be too wise and too wary to be so caught. Logotheti loved the fair Margaret and his love for her made him wish to keep r from going on the stage. It is an in- ing account Crawford gives of the gs of this Oriental lover about this maiter. After Margaret had resolved to an actress she, as an artistic jon, “was as desirable as ever in Logothetl's eyes; but she was no longer at all desirable as a wife. The Greek, in spite of the lawless strain in him, was an aristocrat to the marrow of his very solid bones. * * * g man who reveited at the thought of marrying a woman who could show herself upon the stage, and for money, who could sing for money. | and for the apy e of a couple of thou- }sand people, nine-fenths of whom he would never allow to enter his house. * * * It is not in the nature of Orientals to let their wives exhibit themselves to the public.” A picture in the new novel shows us i the fair Margaret as she appeared in { male attire when, at her debut, she was | playing m Rigoletto. To see her thus spofled her for wifehood according to the standards of her wealthy Greek lover. | But it was when she was in that garb that Lushington, who was himself the son of an opéra singer, pressed the new i actress’ hand to his lips just after he had | assisted In saving her from being kid- !m\DPd. “She beld her head high and a | little thrown back, and there was some- thing wild and almost fantastic about her looks as she stood there. * * * She held out her whitened hand to him; and when he took It he feit the chalk on it, and it was no longer to him the hand of Margaret Donne, but the hand of Cor- dova, the great soprano.” (Macmillan Company, New York; $130). —_— LITERARY NOTES. The immense popularity o “The Fat of the Land,” Dr. Streeter's story of an American farm, which ran through eight large editions in sixteen months, | is only one of many indications of the widespread interest at present in coun- try life. The Macmillan Company ex- vect that “A Self-Supporting Home,” which they announce for fssue in No- vember, will also find a wide audience. Mrs. Saint Maur tells in it how she es- tablished a self-supporting home In seventeen months on a run-down farm without capital. &0 h Eugene P. Lyle’s novel, “The Mis- sourian,” is one of the six best selling books in the United States. It is a re- markable record for the first book of a new writer. . Jack London’s “Love of Life,” in Me- Clure’s for December, is a harrowing tale of human endurance, pitting against na- | ture and against each other a starving man and a starving wolf. Blumenschein has illustrated it wonderfully, in color. BOOKS RECEIVED. CHARLOTTE TEMPLE—By Susan- nah Haswell Rowson. Funk, Wagnalls & Co., New York: $1 25. THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES—By Meredith Nicholson. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. | FAIR MARGARET—By F. Marion | Crawford. Macmillan Company, New York; 31 50. GREAT PEDAGOGICAL ESSAYS— By F. V. N. Painter. American Book Company, New York. GREEK PROSE COMPOSITION; for use in schools—By Clarence W. Glea- son. American Book Company. THE COMPETENT LIFE — By Thomas D. West. Cleveland Printing and Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio; $1 25. THE DISCIPLE OF CHRIST—By Er- rett Gates. Baker, Taylor & Co., New York. ROWING AND TRACK ATHLETICS —By Samuel Crowther and Arthur Ruhl. Macmillan Company, New York; $2 net. A LEVANTINE LOGBOOK—By Je- rome Hart. Longmans, Green & Co., New York: $2. BEETHOVEN—The man, an artist, as related in his own words—By Friederich Kerst, compiler. B. W. Huebsch, New York; $1. RILEY'S SONGS O CHEER — By James Whitcomb Riley. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. THE HAND—By Lewis Dayton Bur- dick. The Irving Company, Oxford, New York; $1350. DEERFOOT IN THE MOUNTAINS— By Edward 8. Ellis. John C. Winsten Company, Philadelphia; $1. THE BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS— By Dexter Wallace. The Rooks Press, Chicago. ' THE MENACE OF PRIVILEGE—By Henry George Jr. Macmillan Company, New York: $1 50 net. ~ LA COPA DE ORO (The Cup of | Gold)—By the members of the Pacific { Coast Women's Press Association. | Edited by Abbie E. Krebs. Press of George Spaulding & Co., San Francisco. THE FAIRY GODMOTHER-IN-LAW | —By Ollver Herford. Charles Scrib- ner's Sons, New York; $1. CAPTAINS ALL—By W. W. Jacobs. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York: $1 50. WHEN YOU WERE A BOY-By Ed- : win L. Sabin. Baker & Taylor Company, New York; $1 50. A CHRISTMAS CAROL and THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH-By | Charles Dickens. Baker & Taylor Com- » pany. I THE POET, MISS KATE AND I-By Margaret P. Montague. Baker & Taylor Company, New York. ROMANCES OF OLD FRANCE—-By Richard Le Gallienne. Baker & Taylor Company, New York. THE NEXT GREAT AWAKENING— By Josiah Strong. Baker & Taylor | Company. New York. Paper. 35 cents. THE TIMES AND YOUNG MEN— By Josiah Strong. Baker & Taylor Company. New York. Paper, 35 cents. THE WOOD FIRE IN NO. 3-By F. Hopkinson Smith. Charles Seribner's Sons, New York. _$1 50. IMPRESSIONS OF JAPANESE AR- CHITECTURE — By Ralph Adams Cram. Baker & Taylor Company. New York $2.