THE DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

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Weekly by The Jessie! Chreelcle Publishing Cs., Ins.

JOSEPH J. CUMMINS
JACOB MARGOLIS
JACOB H. SCHAKNE

Presiaent
Editor
General Manager

Intered as...gond-class matter March 3, Mg. •1 the Postollice at Detroit,
Math. under the At of March 3, len

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The Detroit Jewish Chronicle incites correspondenee on subjects of Interest
to the Jewish people, but disclaim. responsibility for an Indorsement of the
Mews expressed by the writer*.

April 1, 1927

V'Adar 28, 5687

Detroit Jews Honored.

The elevation of Judge Harry B. Keidan to the Cir-
cuit Court of Wayne County and the appointment of
Mrs. Isaac Gilbert to membership on the State Hospital
Commission and Herman August as Public Adminis-
trator are indicative of the high esteem in which the
Jews of Detroit are held by Governor Fred Green and
his closest advisors.
These appointments are conclusive proof that our
governor is entirely untrammelled in his religious and
racial thinking. Under ordinary circumstances, this
fact may not mean so much, but when we recall the
racial hostility and religious bitterness that obtruded
themselves in recent years due to Klan activities, it be-
comes a cause for genuine congratulation. Even those
with the shortest memories must recall the threat of
Klan control of the affairs of the city of Detroit and that
same menace was not a remote possibility even as far
as the state was concerned. Due to the combined efforts
of the Jews, Catholics, Negroes and fair-minded and
enlightened Protestants, the Klan candidate was de-
feated by a majority that revealed the temper of the
community. The election of John Smith as mayor of
Detroit and of Fred Green as governor of Michigan was
an earnest of fair, unprejudiced conduct of public af-
fairs. The threat of the Klan in Michigan has been
effectively removed and these appointments show that
the attitude of the governor is not a passive one.
It is gratifying to Detroit Jewry when its efforts
are appreciated and given the recognition they merit.
Judge Keidan, Mrs. Gilbert and Mr. August have been
honored, not because of adventitious circumstances but
because of their ability, integrity and civic minded-
ness.
We wish to congratulate the governor upon his
happy choices and to felicitate the appointees and wish
them success in their new callings.

)

Halevy Choral Society.

The concert of Jewish music given by the Halevy
Choral Society at Orchestra Hall fulfilled the promises
given by those in charge of this rather glamorous and
enjoyable event.
The Choral Society is essentially an amateur organ-
ization. This fact is of significance because it is an evi-
dence of the growth and integration of Jewish commun-
al life in l)etroit. It means that out of the diverse ele-
ments that make up our heterogenous Jewry, there has
emerged an art form expressive of its musical feeling.
Although the themes for the most part were based
upon Biblical texts or were of Chassidic origin, yet the
life of Jewry was interpreted so that one could readily
identify it as particularist. The May Lied workers-song
of the First of May, was to us distinctively American
Jewish and it evoked the greatest applause from the
large audience. It expressed the triumphant march of
the worker who sees a better day for all humanity. It
had a swing and a lilt of hope and enthusiasm. Nothing
of the Ghetto with its querulousness, groveling, or aus-
tere superiority was in that song. It was robust, assured
and joyous. American Jewish life is not by any means
sterile or apish, and in that simple song one could catch
the militant spirit of an unshackeled, moving determina-
tion to create a freer world.
Old world Jews surely found enough to warm them
in the Biblical and Chassidic folk songs. The society
performed acceptable in all the choral numbers, while
Levy, Lazaroff-Shav-
the soloists, Zaludkowsky, Ilertz, •
er, Edgar and Millman, sang with the sureness and feel-
ing that characterizes those who know their work and
like it.
Detroit Jewry is really indebted to Morris Shaver,
the chairman and prime mover in the enterprise and to
Professor Zaludkowsky, the director, and Julius Miller,
the conductor.
We are looking forward to many Jewish concerts by
this group.

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The Hillel Debate.

Hillel Foundation teams representing the Univer-
sity of Michigan and the University of Illinois debated
on Sunday at the community house, the question, "Re-
solved, that a Cultural Existence is the Only Salvation
of the Jews of America."
The debate was significant if/ only for the fact that
young men are concerned about a particularist culture
supplementing the prevailing American one. It would
have been a meatier debate if the question had been
whether it seas possible to continue Jewish culture in
America in the face of disintegrating and assimilative
influence of our milieu.
As we listened to the debate as it unwound itself.
we were particularly impressed with the fact that Hillel
Foundations are certainly needed if for no other reason
than to acquaint the young men and young women in
our colleges. who are interested in Jewish culture. with
the rich one that actually exists here. The emphasis
placed upon a knowledge of the past is academic, nor
can that past be appraised with the exactitude of our
present cultural life.
In discussing language both sides took it for granted
that inasmuch as there was not a sufficient knowledge
of Hebrew and because that knowledge was not wide
spread, that consequently the medium for cultural ex-
pression was to be created. There is a language at
hand, read and spoken by many millions all over the
world, in which the poetry, fiction, drama, music, phil-
osophy and science of Jews is expressed. Yiddish is
a genuine idiom, rich and flexible, and if it continues to
develop its literary possibilities it will satisfy the needs

A-vv„mrAursya

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of any particularist group that would retain its individ-
uality. Today in America more than 1,000,000 read it
daily, while scores of Yiddish theaters offer dramatic
attractions. Hundreds of books of fiction, poetry, phil-
osophy and science are printed yearly which makes the
literature one of considerable importance. But the
question arises, will this continue. Is there a sufficient
centripetal force to counteract the centrifugal forces
that make for annihilation of this variegated and afflu-
ent culture.
If the language dies, does that mean the end of Jew-
ish culture? Are there not fields in which the Jew, as
minority group, can function as a distinct entity. In the
frame work of our present society, the Jew can design
new social and cultural patterns. As a minority group,
he 'win and what is more, will be the articulate expres-
sion of those who suffer from social, political, racial and
economic discrimination. Let no one be so fatuous as to
believe that social and economic problems engage the
attention of the non-Jew to the same extent as it does
the Jew. It is well that we realize that the problems of
peace, international relations are more peculiarly of
Jewish interest than of any other group, for the simple
reason that the dispersion of the Jew means that he
must suffer when any nations decide to become belli-
cose, or when they would discriminate against an alien
group within their own borders.
The Hillel Foundations of the B'nai B'rith in focuss-
ing attention upon these perplexing problems, will bring
to their solution the most incisive, honest and astute
minds in the college fold.
This activity of the B'nai B'rith is worth while and
merits your support.

More Immigrant Restriction.

That vociferous and militant noble Nordic, Con-
gressman Albert Johnson, is on the warpath again. On
the last day of the last session of Congress he delivered
himself of all his spleen and prejudice in an attack upon
the immigrants who have come here in the last quarter
century.
Perhaps the champion of noble Nordicism does not
any longer fear defeat in the forthcoming election, for
it was apparent that this fear had caused him to sud-
denly change his mind upon questions which had all
the appearance of matured convictions. Whatever the
reason is, one is almost compelled to agree that the pre-
rogative of some congressman is ignorance, abysmal
and complete.
In the diatribe he charges the alien with causing a
marked deterioration in American life. To quote but
a few of the choice morsels of wisdom :

Who would have thought 25 years ago that in this year
1927 book publishers with strange sounding names would
turn out books too filthy for even the most decadent Eu-
ropean countries."

We suppose that to Mr. Johnson the following are
strange sounding names: Bobbs-Merrill, Little-Brown,
Ilarcourt Brace, Doubleday-Page, Putnams, McMil-
lans, Boni & Liveright, The Viking Press, to mention
a number that appear in the daily press of that corrupt
Babel, familiarly known as New York. We would like
to ask the learned literary congressman what strange
sounding names he found among the nine novels banned
by pure Boston in a recent effort by that chaste city to
preserve the tender morals of its citizenry from the vile
and filthy books published by these strange sounding
publishers above enumerated.
The erudite Mr. Johnson proceeds to the next count
in the indictment. The drama has changed until a great
part of it is nude, cheap and vulgar. Methods in our
public schools have changed.

The grade schools and even the high schools have had
to slow down no as not to get too far ahead of the children
who have come out of the melting pot mixture.
I attribute nearly all of these changes to the forces of
the newly arrived people of the last quarter of a century,
not charging it against any one kind of foreign people,
mind you."

The hinterland jokelry has its articulate represen-
tative in Albert Johnson. Ile voices the hackneyed,
age-old reactionary point of view of all those elements
that would keep all the color and music out of life. To
him the anti-evolutionist of Tennessee and the kluxers
of Georgia are the exemplars of a satisfactory Ameri-
can culture.
As to the drama, the late lamented Anthony Com-
stock said exactly the same thing about it before 1902.
If it is cheap, nude and vulgar, it would be rather dif-
ficult to lay it at the door of those products of the melt-
ing pot.
There has been a frightful to-do in New York re-
cently about two plays in particular. "Sex" and "The
Captive." Neither one comes front the melting pot of
the last 25 years. "Sex" is based on a story, "Follow-
ing the Fleet," by John J. Byrne. and "The Captive."
by the Frenchman. Bourget. "The Captive," by the
way, was approved by every competent dramatic critic
of New York, including such melting pot products as
Woolcott, Hammond, Benchley and Dale.
'We challenge Mr. Johnson to make a study of the
plays in New York—and there are nearly 100—anti
show that these foreigners, who came here during the
last 25 years. have made it vulgar, nude and filthy out
of proportion to their number. The newcomers have
certainly helped to place the drama upon a plane where
it now compares favorably with the drama of Conti-
nental Europe. They have helped to refine. civilize
and sophisticate it. We suppose the drama of the
eighties and nineties of the last century. with their
sickly romanticisms, forensic deliveries, stupid inanities
are more pleasing to the dramatic taste of our critic of
the drama. Mr. Johnson.
With the purblindness of a desicated ignorance. the
critic of education finds that the schools have had to
slow up so that they should not get too far ahead of
these inferior foreigners. In recent surveys, made in
Boston and New York by school authorities, this state-
ment was completely disproved. Many of the foreign
of the
groups. especially the Jewish, were far
noble Nordic groups. In the college and universities
a reading of the Phi Kappa Beta lists will completely
disprove such arrant absurdities.
We could go on endlessly to disprove every state-
ment made by Mr. Johnson, but. as long as the reac-
tionary restrictions are in control, we shall have just
such legislation passed as he proposes.
The citizens of California can and should retire this
gentleman to private life, where his fulminations cause
no harm.

41YVAP:MtlYtittr kekti'

Dropsie College

Its Work for Jewish Learning In
America.

By ZVI COHEN

(Copyright, 1927, Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency.

From all parts of the United
States, from the various universities
and colleges of this country and
abroad, students have come to seek
knowledge at Dropsie College, the
only Jewish college in the Diaspora.
The number of students that have
enrolled this year at Dropsie College
has considerably increased. The
courses given by Professor Margol-
ies have been attended to overflow-
ing and it was necessary to have this
class transferred to the main audi-
torium. The same was the case with
Professor Zeitlin's courses, so that
the authorities were compelled to
think of augmenting the college
building with additional stories or
annexes.
Jewish learning in Dropsie Col-
lege occupies a position of indepen-
dence. Bible studies are conducted
from a Jewish standpoint, and are
not following the trend of the non-
Jewish Bible critics. The Talmud is
taught and studied and Jewish his-
tory and Jewish literature are taught
so that new ideas and new explana-
tions are created in the minds of the
students. It is the only college
where one goes to study for the sake
of learning and not for the sake of a
career.
Very few know of the work done
by Dropsie College. Dropsie College
for Hebrew and Cognate Learning
which was founded in Philadelphia in
1109 has already produced at number
of Jewish scholars such as Rabbi Dr.
B. Revel, Dr. S. Zeitlin, Dr. E. Rider
and others. The college is the insti-
tution of learning where the Jewish
spirit is fostered and developed by
the research of the Hebrew language
and Cognate Semitic tongues of the
Bible and its commentators, of Jew-
ish mythology, the development of
the Talmud and the Jewish Law, the
Jewish philosophy and in particular
the Jewish philosophic works of the
Middle Ages and of the Jewish
martyrology. An institution for the
furtherance of every branch of Jew-
ish knowledge.
The forerunner of Dropsie College
was the Maimonides College of Phil-
adelphia founded by Rabbi Isaac
Lesser and the Hebrew Education So-
ciety of that city which existed from
1867 to 1873.
Aaron Dropsie, to whose niunifl-
s bhh r e s-
,i cineegna ,ct he n D.:1719; 51e. Clwooi yes its hf eg

fortune to the establishment of at
college of Hebrew and Cognate learn-
ing. In 1907 a charter for such a
college was granted and in 1969
Dropsie College opened its doors with
Dr. Cyrus Adler as president. The
choice of this scholar and communal
worker, of more than national repu-
tation, as head of the institution was
indeed a happy one. It is due to his
energy and to his foresight that the
institution is being more and more
developed and is becoming an even
greater factor in the domain of Jew.
ish learning,.
Since 1912 Dropsie College has had
its own beautiful building, corner
Broad and York streets, Philadelphia.
It is one of the land-marks of the
City of Brotherly Love. Its distin-
guishing feature is its library.
On the faculty of Dropsie College
are many outstanding scholars, Pro-
fessor Max L. Margolies is a notable
name and scholars the world over will
regret that Dr. Henry Molter and
Dr. Ben Zion Helper are no longer
in the land of living. In adlition to
Dr. Margolies, the other members of
the faculty are Dr. S. Zeitlin, Dr. A.
A. Newman, Dr. N. Reich, Dr. F.
Heider, Dr. S. Skoss and others of
high achievement in the world of
learning. Visiting professors from
thegreat American and European
universities come to the college.
The student body consists of men
and women who desire to prosecute
their Jewish studies and to enrich
Jewish scholarship. By means of fel-
lowships students are encouraged to
make researches and delve into the
past.
There are those who are somewhat
pessimistic as to the future of Jewish
learning in America. Their fears are
greatly exaggerated; are in fact un-
founded, for there is a strong effort
to carry tan Jewish learning. As the
years go on Dropsie College for Ile-
brew and Cognate Learning will jus-
tify more than ever the purpose of its
noble founder and the aims of those
who direct its destinies.

HYPOCRISY

I attended recently at the Princess
Theater, Manhattan. a nowerful
drama well presented called "Tour-
IOW. " It Was sort of the program of
Clare Tree Major's, that brilliant
brave woman who has thus been try-
ing to scour the New York 'tare of
some of its salaciousness. The plat'
was splendid, the admission little, and
yet the attendance was so small and
saddening in its paucity that it made
the occasion appear tragic.
"Courage" and its splendid cast
was well advertised. Its purnose was
well known. And yet out of possible
thousands only a few score assem-
bled.
I am skeptical of melt of the talk
heard about nurifying the stage. It
reminds me of the rarrulity one hears
of the necessity of greater religious
interest. i observe that some of the
mo , t consnieuous propagandists of in-
creased devotion to religion are in.
conspicuous in practicing what they
preach even when opportunity is
abundant and convenient.
We lack a requisite reform of the
stage as we do a right reinforcement
of religion for the reason that w
have too many hand-clappers • people
who merely applaud. instead of more
who put their hands to the work.
I know of no more sacrilegious hy-
pocrisy than that which substitutes
applause for action.
What's to be done? Let us have
an torcantzation to reform pretended
reform rs.—Alexander Lyons in the
Supplement.

Some tear doth ever bear love
company.

[

VZOIWAVAYW MMt-VM1ykli:'

Spinoza's Home-Corning

By

RABBI LEON

Ile was a pale, delicate., consumptive
lad, yet all Europe feared hint. He
was gentle as at WOIllall, and children
loved to play with lino, yet lie was
regarded as the most dangerous man
of his day. Ile never raised his voice
above a whisper, he was modest to a
fault, and he avoided all social con-
tacts, yet his name was in every mouth
and it was in every mouth for abomi-
nation anal not for blessing. Jew and
Christian united to curse him.
The Power of the Weak.
Weak as he was, he defied his ene-
mies. What could they do to hint?
Take away his money? He did not
value money. When his sister avail-
ing herself of the public's hostility
toward him, tried to appropriate their
father's legacy, he fought her in the
Dutch courts, until the courts decreed
that the whole of the estate belonged
to him, and not a penny of it to his
sister. Then, with all the property
rightfully his again, what that he do
but give it straight hack to his sister
as a gift, keeping only one bed. Jus-
tice he valued, but for money he that
not care. How could they hurt such
a man? Ostracize him socially? He
loved solitude. His correspondence
kept hint in touch with the free minds
of other lands, Through his books he
communed with the greatest spirits of
an time, and was not the whole starry
universe his intimate companion?
What could his powerful enemies that
to hint? Put him to death? They
were not above that. In fact, as he
left the theater one day an assassin
lunged at him with a dagger and
missed his neck by a hair's bre a dth.
But the threat of death could not
frighten a man who always stood
ready to die for his ideas. The threat
of death had no meaning for the cough-
shaken body which trembled daily at
the edge of the grave.
So monarchs of limitless authority,
tocelesiasts of vast influence, and mobs
of fearful violence were equally help-
less before this near-sighted, stooped,
bookish and ailing youth. In his weak-
ness he was stronger than they. Im-
potent to force hint into submission,
they tried to silence hint by bribery.
The Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig of-
fered him a life-post as professor at
the University of Heidelberg at a gen-
erous salary, it only he would moder-
ate his views. But he preferred, like
the rabbis of old to make his living
by manual labor and not to use learn-
ing as a "spade wherewith to dig." Ile
could earn the little bread and wine
which he required to sustain him by
his highly skilled trade of grinding
lenses for microscopic and telescopic
instruments. He preferred freedom
to comfort. That famous Rabbi Ma-
nasseh hen Israel, the Jew what by the
charm of his personality and the cog-
ency of his learned arguments per-
suaded Oliver Cromwell to re-admit
the Jew's into England, the interna-
tionally famed Manasseh ben Israel,
was empowered by the Jewish congre-
gation of Amsterdam to offer the sick-
ly lad a yearly pension of 1000 florins,
if only—if only he would behave like
other gore! Jewish young men. But
this young man knew only one code of
conduct, public or private—the con-
duct according to his reason.
Driven to desperation by this power-
ful weakling, the church and state
with all the majesty of their power
forbade the reading or the publication
of any of his writings, and the syna-
gogue, lacking more concrete means of
punishing him, expressed its frenzy of
fear by invoking against him the an-
cient curse of excommunication.
The City of Refuge.
Who was this "infant terrible," and
what were the awful things he had to
say that thrones seemed to shake and
cathedrals to topple, and the whole
social order to stagger everytime he
opened his mouth or let his goose-quill
run over a sheet of paper?
His grandfather was a Spanish Ma-
rano—one of the thousands of Jews in
Spain who had permitted themselves
to he publicly converted tat Catholic-
ism in order that they might not be
expelled from the country, but who had
secretly continued not only to hold
Jewish beliefs, but actually to observe
the Orthodox Jewish ceremonial. When
he saw the Inquisition hot on his trail,
when he saw how hundreds of his fel-
low Maranos had loon detected in the
observance of Judaism and burned up-
on the funeral pyre, he made his way
out of Spain and sought refuge in the
Dutch city of Amsterdam. The little
republic of Holland had just sought
refuge from Spain by means of a
bloody revolution and was therefore
ready to sympathize with all other peo-
pies that suffered at the hand of Spain.
Nor that these Jewish refugees come
to the door of Holland ragged and pen-
niless. They came with mercantile
talent, with wealth and with credit.
They had made Spain the busiest mar-
ket in the wadi'. They promised to
give Holland supremacy in the com-
merce of the seas. They were ex-
tremely pious—these escape marantos.
They had risked much for their faith.
Their faith lass therefore precious to
them, every line and letter and dot of
it. They considered it an act of provi-
dence that they should have found so
happy a hartwor of deliverance as Hol-
land. Their gratitude went out first
to the God of Israel who had guided
them aright even as he had guided
Moses in the wilderness. And after
the God of Israel, their thankful hearts
went out to the Dutch republic which
welcomed them and treated them with
respect. In their feeling of security
and at-homerwss, they began to speak
of Amsterdam as the new Jerusalem
and they laid plans fur a synagogue
so magnifiicent that it would be
worthy of being designated "The
Third Temple." (The Amsterdam
synagogue is today one of the great
sights of Europe.)
Into this community was born in
the year 1032 Baruch Spinoza—born
with a heritage of Jewish initiative
and Marano obstinacy. horn also with
a heritage, alas, of predisposition to
tuberculosis, He started his educa-
tion at an early age, as is the Jewish
custom. Never in all his experience
had the teacher in the synagogue-
schol at Amsterdam seen such a bril-
liant pupil. He devoured knowledge
as a hungry animal devours food. It
seemed as though nature, having lim-
ited his stay on earth by stamping his
body with the impress of the white
plague, had endowed him also with the
power of learning and achieving more
in his brief allotment of years than
healthier bodies could attain in a full

1

FRAM.

lifetime. At the• age of 14, Spinoza
was ordained rallobi. Ili• knew all Jew-
ish literature-- Bible and Talmud and
mediaeval metaphysics by heart. With
his Jewish studies completed, his ad-
venturous mind looked about for more
knowledge

ete'rn7nngiUt'er.Doulst.

But it happened that Spinoza's fav-
orite book was the "Commentary on
the Bible" written by that restless
soul, the poet, adventurer, and travel-
er known as Abraham Ibn Ezra. This
Ezra was really a g,otal deal of a skep-
tic. Ile saw many things in the Bible
which contradicted the prevalent or-
thodox doctrines. There is good
ground for believing that Ihn Ezra
doubted that the so-called Five Books
of Moses were written by Moses. But
the eleventh century, in which llon
Ezra lived, was too early for any such
bold hypothesis to be published. There-
fore, Ihn Ezra contented himself with
pointing out every significant self-
contradiction, in the Bible, and instead
of drawing the conclusion from those.
contradictions, namely, that the Torah
was the work of ninny hands, he would
merely place beside each instance of
contradiction the phrase "and the
shrewd will understand." Thus the
travelling commentator satisfied his
town critical conscience and yet pro-
tected himself from the intolerance of
his age.
Now 'when Spinoza read Ihn I:zra,
he could see those formulas "anal the
shrewd will understand" winking at
hint from every page and challenging
him.' It did not take the crystal-clear
mind of young Baruch long to under-
stand precisely what the wandering
poet had aimed at and why he had
been afraid to speak out. It was lion
Ezra, long regarded as an orthodox
and authoritative comment:der on the
Bible who taught Baruch Spinoza how
to doubt. It happened coincidentally
that the teacher to wham Spinoza went
for his Latin studies, the distinguished
Dutch scholar Van Den Ende, was also
a man of the type lat Abraham Ihn
Ezra. Though lo. was professedly at
Christian, his mind trelli s ' with here-
sies. And despite his pre-occupation
with books he found the time to [royal
from one European country to another
and the inclination to enter into e rev-
olutionary intrigue against the king of
France which proved abortive and
which brought his life to a romantic
end on the scaffold. Van Den Ende
not only taught Spinoza how tat read
Latin, he taught him also how to read
those things in Latin which would set
his mind awondering and asearching.
Israel Zangwill believes that young
Spinoza fell in love with Van Den
Ende's daughter and that it was out of
his yearning for her that he learned
the frequent use of the wont "love" in
his writings. Will Durant seers that
it was when Miss Van Den Ende jilted
hint for a wealthier fellow that Spin-
oza became a philosopher. But these
cold-blooded clielllies of romances, the
critical historians, have discovered
that Van Den Ende's daughter was
perhaps twice as old as Spinoza and
that she was not at all pre-possesing.
So if we must find romance, in Spin-
oza's life we shall have to look for it
in another dirt•ction.
This we know. that in the house-
hold of Van Den Erode, Spinoza learned
to love the sciences. Ile took them up
one after another and learned easily
all that was to be known in those days
of chemistry, astronamy, mathematics,
mechanics, physics and medicine.
In the course of his studies in phys-
ics and mathematics he came upon two
men whose life-stories shocked Spinoza
into his original lint. lat thought. One
was Giordano Bruno, the physicist, the
other was Rent. Descartes, the mathe-
matician. From the adventures and
writings of these men, Spinoza made
the startling discovery that Europe,
as it was than organized, looked upon
knowledge as the most dangerous and
the most undesirable thing in the
world. lie found that all these scien-
ces which he had studied really knew
pitably little, because every attempt
to find out more met with armed oppo-
sition from all the organized powers of
society. He learned that Bruno who
was well on the way to making im-
portant discoveries in physics and as-
tronomy had been 'tut to death, that
Galileo had been threatened into si-
lence, and that Ilene Descartes in or-
der t o save his life had been compelled
to write in ambiguous language anal
had obviously refrained from writing
down ell that he knew. Spinoza's spirit
began to rebel. Why, knowledge was
the most precious thing in the world,
and the ability to discover knowledge
was the greatest gift that God had
given to man. And yet all the govern-
ments of Europe were so organized as
to crush a man the m•ment he showed
any inclination to make a new discov-
ery in the science of nature. What re-
voiles' Spinoza most of all was that
this persecution of the seekers of
knowledge was done in the name of
God. It was the church that was
hounding and burning the scientists.
This, thought Spinoza, was the utmost
blasphemy.
The Higher Criticism of the Bible.
Young ropinoza now set his keen in-
tellect to work trying tat explain why
religion, the evident purpose of which
was to teach men goodness, should be
the source of such an evil. He came
to the conclusion that the church,
which was the instrument of religion
in Europe, had forgotten its original
business—the business of teaching
goodness—and had gone into another
business in which it was utterly in-
competent—the lousiness of describing
nature and its operations, which is re-
ally the business of science. The
church had somehow' come to the mis-
taken notion that men could he good
only if they believed a certain de-
scription of the world to he true. Spin-
oza himself could rot see what connee.
Gen there was tx tweet, being decent
to your felloar-men and believing that
the world was either round or flat.
But he could readily guess how that
terrible mistake had come to take pos.
session of the minds of men. It all
resulted from the idea 0-at the Bible,
the lank which contained the teachings
of religion, namely, the teaching of
love, peace, and justice, was the word
of Goal, literally alienated by Him, and
therefore final and unalterable truth.

(To

o;4.=

4.4'4

*4

444.

LS

24+,

04'

■ 44x+ "-'4}+

continued next week.)

Who would know how to live most
learn to feign.

=4:4444:41:41:441444:444.3444444:44.144:444-4:44,.'''',„'.1,41-.DA

