Artom did not reach the perfection of Jellinek, but he never sank to the level of the botcher. What he aimed at he succeeded in attaining. If his rabbinic quotations at the beginning of a discourse were perfunctory, those which he made in the body of the discourse were invariably to the point; they always interpreted. He did not merge Midrash into his own personality as Jellinek did. But he employed it as a certain type of painter does the accessories to a picture, to add color, to relieve the severity of the main idea, to suggest outwardly that which he is not quite able to express inwardly. Hence he usually quoted obvious Midrashim, and used them in an obvious sense. He showed his wisdom in this. If a painter puts in a camel to help me to perceive that he is representing a desert, he must be very careful to make his camel recognizable. It will not do to give me a symbolical “Ship of the Desert,” it must be a camel, palpable and conventional. Within his limitations, he shows himself the better artist the less he tries to make his accessories bizarre or even original. I trust that no one will suspect me of a desire to “damn with faint praise.” On the contrary, starting with the unquestionable fact that the living Artom was a great preacher, my intention was to indicate what we have to keep in mind if we would admire his printed addresses as they deserve. If we know what to expect from them we shall find it. Take the following paragraph: “Our sages said that ‘a precious jewel hung around the neck of Abraham.’ It was not a talisman, an amulet, supposed by the superstitious to keep away the consequence of envy, of evil eye; the jewel was the knowledge of the Lord, of the one God, of the Omnipotent Being, that knowledge which Abraham disseminated among men; it was the spiritual jewel which ought to be treasured in the heart of every good man, of every true Israelite. We have inherited that Jewel, we have it still. Oh, let us wear it with pride, for it is the noblest decoration.” There are a hundred such passages in Artom’s volume. They got home when the orator pronounced them, and they get home still when calmly read as literature. It is perhaps curious that a preacher who in his day was admired for his brilliance, should endure less for the sparkle than for the substance of what he said. That is, however, the common fate of orators. Happy they, if their utterances have worth after the personality behind them has passed away. SALKINSON’S “OTHELLO”