barriers by which the world had shut him away from any further part in the body corporate. In the last exhaustion of his grief a light dawned for him. There was one who had protested against these laws of reprobation which Society had codified--one who had mercy for the sinner; who had insisted that the suffering and sorrow experienced by those not conforming themselves to the pattern Society demanded regenerated the victims of sorrow, and they became of more worth than those who condemned them. Here was a means of regaining his own peace with himself. Here was a way out of his imprisonment in the scorn of his fellows. Mary Magdalen, because of her sumptuous repentance, was of more value than the busy and virtuous Martha. The Prodigal Son was more welcome than the patient home-keeper. The lost sheep was the really important member of the flock. The repentant thief was the heir of Paradise. The sinning woman was bid go in peace. All the offenders against the laws of Society were welcomed: the dull walkers in the beaten path were contumeliously branded as Philistines and Pharisees. At once, by this point of view, the prisoner was freed from his cell. It was possible to stand upright once more and return frown for frown with his judges. All these were redeemed by their "beautiful moment"--? Well, let him too have his beautiful moment and he was really of more worth than those who had condemned him. Here is the secret of the hold the Hebrew thinker has had upon humanity. When our race slowly began to stand up on their hind legs and to live a life in common, they found--as the ants and bees had done before them--that the common life was only to be made feasible by adopting some general law of behaviour which would enable individuals to assimilate; and so morals and conscience had their generation. A man might never leave his home if the tribe would not accept it as an evil to steal; might never sleep in peace if murder were not a crime; would not feed his children were there not a rule against adultery which ensured him against assuming duties to cuckoos. How bitter, slow, and toilsome was that upward struggle to subdue for the good of the mass the lusts of the individual all history relates. Always a remnant have protested against these hard exactions of the general good at their expense. Always the tribe has, for its own safety, slain, imprisoned, cast out the rebels. The war is not over yet; will, possibly, never end. Always those who prefer their own ends will strive to find justification for their wilfulness; will seek some ground for answering scorn with scorn--and their vociferousness, their lofty, sentimental phrases confuse the minds of the slow-witted.