is another cause for congratulation on this side of the

water.

Our British comrades on the western fighting front were in fierce action on March 8 and 9, in the Ypres-Dixmude sector. They sustained savage and repeated attacks by the Germans on those days, and where the British were first driven back locally they later by counter-attacks re-established their lines.

A GREAT IRISH LEADER

In the early eighties Charles Stewart Parnell fell from grace as an Irish leader. John Edward Redmond rose to take his place. Not as spectacular as Parnell had been, Redmond proved to be a far safer leader for Ireland.

His thirty-seven years of service in the House of Commons have now ended. He was sixty-eight years old. His death has come as a shock to all who have watched the Irish leader's seemingly youthful strength. Mr. Redmond's portrait appears on page 450.

The truth is that Redmond was what every great leader must be, no matter what his later attainments-he was a real personality. He gloried in the title of Irishman, and no man ever presented to the world the virtues of the Irish more attractively. In the second place, Redmond's long Parliamentary experience and his incessant devotion to Parliamentary activity made him notable. When one heard him speak in the House of Commons, therefore, he gave the impression not only of a party leader but also of a Parliamentary authority.

Though for years vigorously opposed to Mr. Redmond on all Irish political questions, Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster leader, recalling that he had known Mr. Redmond for thirty-five years, said: "I cannot recollect that one bitter or personal word ever passed between John Redmond and myself. . . . Indeed, we were not very far apart in our attempts at a settlement of the Irish question. He was a great Irishman and an honorable opponent, and as such I mourn his loss."

But the thing which Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen, as well as the great majority of Irishmen, are thinking of to-day is Redmond's loyalty. At a time when he had attained the great project of his life and had succeeded in getting Home Rule for Ireland, knowing that his enemies might take advantage of the war to cast a cloud over that law-as they did-he was not deterred from unrestrainedly and unconditionally pledging the aid of the Irish to England. His speech in the House of Commons at the outset of the war will rank with the great historic speeches of our time. He set an example which all of Ireland should have followed. His open espousal of Great Britain's cause at that critical time was worth thousands of men to the armies of liberty.

"BATTLE-SHIPS ARE CHEAPER THAN BATTLES"

An efficient public servant has just died-George von Lengerke Meyer. He was not quite sixty years old. Born to great wealth, he used it well. It did not check his activity. After his graduation he went into the rubber business and also became an officer of many large industrial and financial concerns. He entered the Boston Common Council, and then the Massachusetts Legislature, where he became Speaker of the House. In 1890 President McKinley appointed him Ambassador to Italy, where his success justified his transfer to Russia by President Roosevelt, who two years later recalled him to accept the portfolio of Postmaster-General. From this post he was transferred to that of Secretary of the Navy. As Secretary he showed the resources of a practical statesman who knew how to utilize direct business methods in cutting administrative red tape.

But in this position he also displayed two qualities which should cause his name to be remembered. The first of these qualities was economy. Over and over he pointed out that we had too many dockyards for the size of our Navy. He recommended the abolishment of such yards as that of New Orleans, a hundred miles up the Mississippi River, and the extra yards in such States as Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Florida, which already had one yard. The other quality was his sense of the necessity of preparedness. He urged as the minimum of efficiency the construction of two battle-ships a year. Our naval policy, he said then, should be to possess a fleet powerful enough

to prevent or answer any challenge to this country. He urged this, not with the idea of outstripping other countries, but merely to enable the United States to hold its own. He de clared that "treaties are of no use without a fleet," and that "battle-ships are cheaper than battles.” Events since those words were uttered have confirmed their truth.

MUSIC FOR CHILDREN

If any one would like to see fifteen different nationalities in the process of being welded into citizenship, let him call at the red brick building, evidently adapted from three former dwellings, at 51, 53, and 55 East Third Street, New York City. on the first Sunday afternoon of any month.

East Third Street runs from the Bowery to the East River. It is a typical East Side street. Its passers-by are Jews, of course-Russian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Austrian, German, Syrian Jews. But there are also Christians-Armenian, Ital ian, French, Belgian, Swedish, and white and black Americanand Chinese besides.

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Inside the building on a recent Sunday afternoon the visitor might have found children from five years of age up, standing and sitting about, enjoying their so-called " rally," or rehearsal for the public concert of the school given in Carnegie Hall on March 6.

This is one of the features of an enterprise which has existed for a quarter of a century. Inspired by it, twenty other similar enterprises in various parts of the country have been estab lished. It is the Music School Settlement.

A thousand children in New York City go to this school. They sing free of charge. They take lessons for which they pay from ten to fifty cents-and last year some thirty thousand hours were devoted to those lessons. The settlement has a library of seventy-five hundred compositions. These statistics are eloquent. But they become more eloquent when we realize that the children are not only learning to enjoy one of the fine arts, but have the benefit of the best instruction, brought finan cially within the reach of virtually every one in the community, where otherwise only three or four per cent would have the opportunity; that the privilege of social service is impressed on the pupils, as they are sent on many an occasion to play without charge for schools, churches, and charitable institutions; that, on the other hand, the financial status of the pupils is improved by the hundreds of paid engagements secured to them throughout the year; that, besides maintaining regular summer courses. roof playground, and baths in the Third Street house, the Settlement sends more than a thousand children every summer to two camps, one at Newfoundland, New Jersey, the other at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, and that out of all this the chil dren are becoming constructive forces in our civilization. Out of the friendly tumult of the Sunday afternoons at the red brick building in Third Street, out of the violins scraping and tuning, out of the patience of the director, Mr. Arthur Farwell have come attention and discipline.

At the Music School Settlement there are applicants for lessons who cannot be supplied. There is a long waiting list. There are hosts of children who for lack of accommodations at the school are denied the chance to learn what music will mean to them as they grow older, and to find in it a solace in perplex. ity and sorrow. The children who want to come to the school should have the chance to come, and the men and women who are maintaining the school should be supported.

BLOCH'S YOUTHFUL SYMPHONY

America has become a refuge for musicians. Never before were there so many people of distinction in the world of music resident in this country as there are to-day. One of the latest arrivals is the famous violinist and violin teacher Auer, who is, for the time being at least, living in New York. Another such refugee, if he may be so called, is the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch. He is now te..ching and lecturing at the David Mannes School in New York City, and is settled in that city with his family. performed,

Last year a number of Mr. Bloch's works were

and aroused considerable interest, partly because of their intrinsic qualities and partly because they were set forth as examples of modern Jewish music. Mr. Bloch has called one of his symphonies" Israel;" he has named a group of his compositions" Three Jewish Poems;" and he has composed psalms and a Hebrew rhapsody. Last winter he conducted a cycle of his Jewish works in Philadelphia.

On Friday afternoon, March 8, he conducted the Philhar monic Orchestra in a performance of his first symphony. It is not one of his recent works. In fact, he composed it sixteen years ago, when he was twenty-one years of age, and he has frankly acknowledged that it "has probably the qualities and defects of youth." It is an astonishing production for a man just through his preparatory musical studies. It is very hard for the layman to understand how anybody twenty-one years of age could have mastered all the technical intricacies of music necessary for the production of such an orchestral work as this.

The amateur listener at that concert might well have wondered how such a symphony would have struck Haydn or Mozart. We can imagine either of these old worthies clapping his hands to his ears and rushing to the street to find relief in the clatter and the rumble of the Seventh Avenue subway under construction. Nevertheless, the work is obviously sincere, vigorous, and earnest, and in instrumental color original; but it is terrifically noisy.

It is not so much that there is but an occasional piece of noise as it is that the noise is sustained. Dissonance is involved with dissonance at high tension.

That, it seems to us, is one of the signs of the youthfulness of which Mr. Bloch himself has made mention. The greatest experiences in mature life do not express themselves in noise. Such an impression of vastness bordering on infinity as may be derived from the sight of the quiet sea or the prairie or the sky at night is deepened by silence. Simplicity may almost be said to be an essential trait of greatness. The creative genius is the one who selects, out of the tangle of dissonances and complications and baffling inconsistencies and antagonisms of life, those elements that reveal unity and harmony and wholesome

ness.

It is only that youth who has not had experience who is stimulated by all the things that clash. So perhaps it is natural that Mr. Bloch's symphony should be a sort of external description of a young man's view of this discordant world.

It would be easier to accept this as a piece of genuine expressionism on the part of a young man if there were intrinsic musical beauty in the material which the composer used, but it is hard to discern any such intrinsic musical beauty at a single hearing. The greatest pictures retain evidence of their greatness as pictures even in reproduction. So it is with the greatest musical compositions. A Beethoven or a Brahms symphony is, of course, but a pale reflection when it is played by two ama teurs in a four-hand arrangement on a pianoforte; but those amateurs who play that symphony again and again cannot remain in ignorance of the elements in the symphony that make it really great. We cannot imagine two amateurs playing a four-hand arrangement of Bloch and getting anything out of it. We cannot imagine them playing it, anyway.

The great fault of even so honest and capable and astonishing a piece of work as this is that it is hopelessly "modern." That means that it is hopelessly artificial. The soldiers in camp who sing "Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" will appreciate the beauties of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony;" but it is hard to imagine any group of people who have a natural liking for music, but are not sophisticated by any theories of modern musical impressionism, getting any enjoyment except perhaps a thrill of astonishment out of the "C Sharp Minor Symphony" by Ernest Bloch.

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The armies that are fighting on the other side are making a great deal more noise than Napoleon's soldiers ever heard, but we have yet to hear that the great war has developed a Napoleon. A great many modern composers can make orchestras perform more wonderful feats than Bach, with all his elaborate and marvelous counterpoint, ever imagined; but, after all, Bach, after nearly two hundred years, is still a "live one." If a young composer should ask our advice as to how he might in the modern world attain distinction, we should counsel him to study simplicity.

FOOD IN FRANCE

We are in receipt of some interesting little bread tickets from France. They show what the consumer has to meet there. They are issued by the French Government and are stamped, for instance, "3 Février," "4 Février," or "5 Février, 1918," as the case may be, and each reading "100 grammes de pain." The consumer gets three tickets each day, each ticket entitling him to 100 grammes (about 31⁄2 ounces); he may thus count on a total of 101⁄2 ounces a day. The difference between this ration and the average daily consumption per head before the war is seen in the fact that then it was about 26 ounces per head.

No cream may be offered at any public eating-place, only milk, and even milk may not be offered after nine o'clock in the morning. Nor may butter be served. Nor may solid food be

served between 9 and 11 A.M. and between 2:30 and 6:30 P.M.

No restaurant keeper may serve at any meal more than four courses to the same customer: the first course to be soup, oysters, or other hors d'oeuvre; the second and third to be of meat or other dishes, with or without vegetables; and the fourth to be a dessert, such as fruits, compote, preserves, marmalade, or an ice made without milk, cream, sugar, eggs, or flour. Of course the making of biscuits, pastry, and confectionery is prohibited.

Food coming under the public eating-place restrictions and bought elsewhere may not be eaten at such establishments. Moreover, all restrictions of patrons of public eating-places apply also to persons living in an apartment or in a hotel, and to clubs and other places where the consumption of food is not entirely free.

France is obviously restricted in her supply of food, and it is clearly possible that she may become even more restricted. The resultant obligation on America is evident.

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS

At the very beginning of the war it was evident that there were going to be in it not only bad deeds, brutal deeds, but also good deeds, magnanimous deeds. One such is found in Coningsby Dawson's "Carry On:"

During one fierce engagement a British officer saw a German officer impaled on the barbed wire, writhing in anguish. The fire was dreadful, yet he still hung there unscathed. At length the British officer could stand it no longer. He said, quietly: "I can't bear to look at that poor chap any longer." So he went out under the hail of shell, released him, took him on his shoulders, and carried him to the German trench. The firing ceased. Both sides watched the act with wonder. Then the commander in the German trench came forward, took from his own bosom the Iron Cross, and pinned it on the breast of the British officer. Such an episode is true to the holiest ideals of chivalry; and it is all the more welcome because the German record is stained by so many acts of barbarism which the world cannot forgive.

Another magnanimous deed has just taken place on this side of the Atlantic. The other day, on the coast at the Cape May aviation station, Ensign Walker Weed, one of the first aviators to be graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the best fliers in the corps, was driving a service hydro-airplane. When the plane was about fifty feet above level, the wire which controlled the steering apparatus broke. The plane plunged down. When it struck land, there was a back-fire, and the three gasoline tanks exploded, enveloping the machine and its occupants in a whirlwind of flame. Weed unstrapped himself and, with his clothes afire, ran towards the ocean, but before reaching it looked back to see if his companion, William Bennett, was following. Bennett was still bound to the plane. Weed ran back, and finally extricated Bennett. By this time both aviators were burning to death, the flames being so fierce that the crystal of Weed's wrist watch was melted off. They struggled towards the sea. Bennett fell, breaking his nose, and, though Weed stumbled too, he succeeded in dragging the still helpless Bennett into the water, where they were freed from fire, rescued by brother officers, and hurried to the base hospital. At first it was thought Bennett would recover, though his legs had been burned practically to the bone. He died, however, a week later. Weed died immediately, his death being due not so much to his fearful burns as to the result of inhaling flames.

His act of devotion deserves to be ranked alongside those

other acts of individual heroism with which the records of our Army and Navy are replete.

JAPAN AND RUSSIA

THE whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves forever from autocratic government and become the masters of their own lives."

In this assurance from the President of the United States, sent to the Soviet Congress in Moscow on March 11, all Americans will concur. For nearly three years Russia, burdened with an autocratic, corrupt, and partly disloyal government, fought the Pan-German menace. What her armies did while England was preparing and while we remained coolly neutral places the whole world in Russia's debt. Now, after those exhausting months, Russia is torn to pieces by internal anarchy and overwhelmed by the German enemy from without. America, with her strength untapped, must, out of decent regard for her own self-respect, sympathize with Russia and do whatever is possible to aid her.

But at the present time, when the German enemy of human freedom is sweeping eastward toward the center of Russia, it is not sufficient that the whole heart of the United States be with the people of Russia; it is necessary that the American people put at the disposal of Russia and the cause of liberty their brain and their will and their arms, and that they enlist in the fight against Germany not only their own resources, but such resources as they can secure from friendly nations. We cannot stop Germany with sympathy.

And stop Germany we must if we are going to keep this world a safe place for free people to live in. Germany has been a nation besieged. Now she has broken through. Russia has given way, and there is no sign that she can ever renew the siege herself. And from where Germany has broken through there leads a road to the goal of Germany's ambition.

Germany wants to dominate the world. To do that she knows that she must conquer her way to the East. She started to do that by building up a Pan-Germany to be formed out of the vassal or subject countries of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Turkey. That way led through Bagdad. Across that route, however, stand the British forces in Mesopotamia. Endangering that route, too, are the unconquered spirit of the Serbians and the restlessness of the peoples of Austria-Hungary. By the

greatest of Germany's good fortunes, therefore, it was at the moment when the Pan-German scheme, planned out on the line from Berlin to Bagdad, was most gravely imperiled that a new way was opened to Germany for her projected conquest of the East. The Russian dike gave way, and another route to the East was open which for alliteration's sake we may call, in contrast to the line of Berlin to Bagdad, the line of Berlin to Bokhara, or, if one likes it better, Berlin to Baluchistan.

On this route Germany will find no liberty-loving Serbians standing in her path, no British army corps. She will, on the other hand, find Mohammedans whom she will not scruple to organize and to incite against Christian populations. In place of a united Russia she finds warring provinces so torn by class strife that they are no real obstacles to her, but can be used even as instruments of her greed.

If the vision of the old Pan-Germany is fading, by a shift of fortune there has come to the Kaiser and his military and political associates the vision of a new and more splendid Pan Germany rising on the ruins of Russia and extending to India and the Far East.

Any map of Europe and Asia (such an outline map as is printed below) will show how Germany's fortunes have been revived by this shift; and such a map will show that her way is opening, not merely toward the Nearer East of India, but the Farther East of the Pacific. It is reported that a Chinese official said to a German: "The way to the East lies not through Asia Minor to the head of the Persian Gulf, but along the north coast of the Black Sea, along the Azov and Caspian, through Turkestan, thence through China to Peking." And now we see that not only that route lies before Germany, but also the route along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. If the Russians are as non-resistant in the future as they have now seemingly become, what stands in the way of German domination over what have called Russia, or in the way of the plundering of the East by the Potsdam gang? What stands in the way of Germany's reaping this great reward for her perfidy, her brutality, her unspeakable crimes?

we

There are only two things that can stand in the way. One is the crushing, overwhelming defeat of Germany on the western front. The other is the military power of Japan, with such aid as could be derived from China and the United States.

To a crushing, overwhelming defeat of Germany on the west ern front all people who love liberty more than bodily comfort and even life must look forward with hope. Daily America is increasing her pressure on the Allied front. Daily the western

Allies are approaching nearer the hour of victory. But everything that tends to postpone that hour is immeasurably costly in life and happiness and human welfare. We cannot afford to neglect anything which will bring that hour of victory nearer. And it will not relax the will to such victory, but rather stiffen it, to use every means available for the thwarting of Germany's plans. And so far the record of Allied arms against Germany in the west, glorious as that record is in the history of defensive warfare, is not such as to indicate the early coming of such an overwhelming victory as is necessary to make Germany disgorge all her ill-gotten gains. And the more gains she accumulates, the severer will be the defeat required to make her disgorge. Every consideration, therefore, should impel the Allies, among whom we include the United States, to give countenance and aid to Japan against the new German menace.

Have we not yet learned, has not the lesson yet been beaten into us, that procrastination and over-caution and vacillation are godsends to the enemy?

Without delay we should make it clear to Japan that if she can undertake this task of replacing in Russia its power of resistance we shall give her enterprise our hearty support.

The Allies have a right to follow the German army wherever it goes and to fight the German army wherever it is found. Russia is either our ally, our enemy, or a neutral country. If she is our ally, we ought to come to her aid in whatever way is practicable. If her treaty with Germany makes her our enemy (which we do not for a moment believe), we of course have the right of fighting on her territory. And if she is a neutral Power we have the same right to meet the German armies in Russia that England had to meet the German armies in Belgium.

Of the Allies Japan is the only one that can undertake this task. England and France are out of the question. China has the men, but lacks the organization and the power. We have the men, but we are far away from the scene of action. Japan is near and Japan has the power.

While we are expressing our sympathy to Russia in words we ought also to express it by an action which speaks louder than words, by a cordial approval of the entrance into Russia by our ally Japan for the purpose of saving the Russian people from the German menace.

We must have regard for the feelings of the Russian people, but we must have greater regard for their liberties.

If the Russian people suspect the motives or purposes of Japan, there is only one way by which we can help to allay those suspicions, and that is by showing that we trust Japan ourselves. If there is danger that Japan may have territorial ambitions in the East, that danger can be averted by our active co-operation with Japan in combating the Power which is attempting to destroy democracy throughout the world.

This country ought to be decked with flags in honor of Japan's entrance to the fighting line against Russia's and the world's most terrible enemy.

LENTEN LESSONS

IV-LOVE'S SACRIFICE

The story is told of a Frenchman who invented a new religion but could get no attention paid to it. He went to Talleyrand for advice. "My religion," he said to Talleyrand, " is a great deal better than Christianity, but no one will even consider it. What would you advise me to do?" "Get yourself crucified," was the reply.

The cynic hit on the secret of the power of Christianity. That secret is not the doctrine but the practice of sacrifice. For no sacrifice is of any value to the world but self-sacrifice.

The peasant in the Hartz Mountains sometimes sees a gigantic human figure on the cloud-capped mountains. It terrifies him. It is his own image reflected from the clouds. So the ancient pagans saw their own images in the heavens and worshiped them. Fear inspired their religion and they brought sacrifices to pacify the gods they dreaded.

The ancient Hebrews used in the worship of Jehovah sacrifice as used by their neighbors in the worship of their gods, much as in the Middle Ages the Church used in the praise of God music as used by the Minnesingers in the praise of fair

maidens and chivalrous knights. But there was a vital differ ence between the sacrificial system of the pagans and that of the Jews. Sacrifices were required of the pagans; they were voluntary with the Jews. No punishment was ever inflicted upon a Jewish worshiper for failing or refusing to sacrifice. No condemnation was uttered against him. But bitter and frequent were the invectives of the prophets against those who brought their sacrifices to the Temple and did not accompany them with works of justice and mercy in their daily lives.

Throughout the Hebrew history the sacrificial system is secondary and incidental; character and conduct are primary and essential. This truth may easily be traced by the unpreju diced student from the very earliest Hebrew law on this subject, "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me,. and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone," down to an utterance of one of the latest of the prophets, "Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it : thou delightest not in burnt offering." Even the ecclesiastical law provided that sacrifice should be offered only in Jerusalem. so that with the destruction of Jerusalem the sacrificial system came to an end, and Judaism has never since employed it. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was simply a bridge over which religion passed from paganism to Christianity.

In paganism sacrifice is offered by a terrified mortal to appease the wrath of an angry God; in Judaism, by a remorse ful mortal to satisfy the law of a just God; in Christianity the sacrifice is offered not by man to God but by God to man "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Sacrifice is not a means which man employs to win the love of God; it is the means which God employs to give life and love to man.

There were on Calvary three crosses, and on them three vic tims, all suffering the same physical pains and awaiting by slow tortures the same death. One was a brigand, defiant to the last of God and man. One was a sinless Sufferer bearing in his breaking heart the sin and shame of the world which crucified him and for which he died. And one was a repentant sinner. inspired to repentance by the Sufferer at his side.

There are to-day in Europe three crosses.

There are those who suffer cold and hunger and tears and wounds and death that they may impose their dominion on the civilized world. For most of them we may well pray, "Father. forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Some are learning by their own suffering and the suffering of the comrades at their side what is the hell which the rule and religion of Odin imposes on mankind, and what is the glory of the cross-bearing followers of Jesus Christ.

Some have chosen cold and hunger and tears and wounds and death that they may give to the world the gift of liberty and justice. They are suffering not for their own sins but for the sins of the world. They have heard the call: "He laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren' The only sacrifice Christianity knows is love's sacrifice.

IS MUSIC A NON-ESSENTIAL? The other day at Carnegie Hall, in New York City, Arthu Farwell, the Director of the Music School Settlement, after he had finished leading an orchestral piece in the midst of the concert, turned about to the audience and made a brief speech in which he said:

Certain persons in high places have said that music at the present time is one of the non-essential industries. Is it nonessential when one former Music School Settlement boy, now in Paris, raises $7,000 for the Allies by his music? Is it non-essential when one organization after another, working for Americanization, for our soldiers in France, for a world new-born in the triumph of right, comes to us asking us to lend our power of music, saying that without the power of music the organization cannot make the appeal necessary for its success?

These are all practical and utilitarian applications of music, simple to perceive and impossible to deny. But I say to you "He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle (Leviticus i. 3). It is true that our Revised Version gives a radically different trans lation: "He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord." It is doubtful which of these translations is correct: but there is no doubt that the former epitomizes the spirit or the Levitical code.