The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-11-23
New YORK, November 21, 1890.

What is absolutely most interesting in this
world? The men and women who make it.
Books pictures, wonderful houses, magnificent
scenery, great discoveries in mechanics or chem
istry, or the power to kill or the power to cure,
all become as nothing before the story of hui
man life, full of sin and virtue, Joy and sorrow,
remuneration and love.
For this reason the play called "Men and
Women attracts by its very name; and, curl
ously enough, it shows something that is grad
ually making itself felt on the American stage,
and that is that an audience may become inter-
ested, thoroughly interested, in the right or
wrong of some thing or somebody's life with
out demanding that the little love story which
comes to all should be made most prominent.
In "Men and Women you see how young
man, having the opportunity, defrauded rich
bank of its money and put the sin on the
shoulders of another, his own familiar friend
You see how conscience kept upbraiding him,
you see him go through violent mental strug-
gle right fighting wrong when his friend is to
be arrested for the crime that he has committed,
and after he has asked, as so many men have
asked, "Where shall l turn? Who will help
me p you see right conquer-you see
THE REAL MAN ASSERT HIMSELF,
and the best part of him, his honesty, rises
triumphant over everything else. When he is
calling for help the moon comes out and light
ems stained glass window, which is Just over
the fireplace, and the eyes that do not know
where to rest or who to turn to see this it is a
picture of Christ telling Magdalene to 20 and
sin no more. At first the newspapers ques-
toned the putting of this picture in the house
of Jew, and now the Jew himself, in the play
gives the reason for it. l think it worth re-
memberng myself. 1t is this ''Why should
not have the picture in my house ? 1t is the
picture of jew, of one of the best Jews that
ever lived. He can teach me to be mefciful,
and because am jew and because He ayas
one no one has better right to it,
THE JEW ON THE STAGE OF TO-DAY
occupies a different position from the one which
Shakespeare painted; he is recognized as a
power in the land, intellectually and materially.
In this country he has not been accorded the
position given him either in France or England,
though in Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston
some of the oldest and most aristocratic fami-
lies are Jews, who live up to their faith and who
are respected Of all men. The type of Jew
shown in Israel Cohen in Men and Womenn
is by no means uncommon, and aren't there a
great many of US Christians who can think of
Jews who have done great kindnesses ire
spectlVe of creed? There is no narrower type
in this world than the man or woman who be-
lieves that nothing good can come out of Judea
and it is quite time that, in the more civilized
countries in the world, the intelligent, intel
lectual jew, the one who is gentleman by
birth and education, should have that honor
given him which is his due
Is IT THE ''DEsPIsED JEw?';
a is ra1 To Of
ing princes of Europe when Jew aspires to
the hand of the daughter Of the Prince of Wales,
when in literature and art the name of the Jew
stands foremost, don't you think it's time that
the narrow cant of the ignorant man or woman
is scoffed at rather than agreed with Look at
the stage Rachel, Madame Bernhardt, Adelina
Patti, Mrs Kendall, and how many others all
have Jewish blood in them? Take up the book
of the French salon and look at tho list of paint.
ers. Take up a list of French writers and see
where the Jew stands among them, and do not,
because you are supposed to be an intelligent
man, make fool of yourself by attempting to
hit the one people in the world who have,
through everything, clung together and pre-
served their religion.
Is WRONG ALWAYS WRONG?
This question of religion is a very delicate
Wv
we may be hitting. But, says somebody, "Right
is right, and wrong is wrong !" "Oh, is it ?"
say |, ''then what is a sin for you is sin for
me :" "Certainly," answers the woman who
knows everything, and l, who know very little
but hope very much, answer ''Certainly not.
Just take the case of a woman: take YOUR own
daughter; you have built about her wall of
sweetness and purity that protects her from
even hearing about sin; you keep her like
pure white lily, and some day you hand her
over TO her husband and he protects her in the
same way. Her children love and reverence
her; she lives a sweet, peaceful life, dies, and
has written on her tombstone BLESSED are the
pure in heart Take your neighbours daughters
from the time Of her birth she has seen troubles
she wasn't welcome when she came; she's
pushed away when she would tell her mother
of her little woes and worries, and day after
day she hears a continual plant for money, and
oaths become a sound which she is perfectly in
different to, she is so used to them. Some day
they marryh her to somebody, anything to get her
away from that home. Then when she learns a
little more she sees what a mistake her life has
been, and how she has made it a greater one by
not refusing TO marry when she did. Only too
soon temptation comes; somebody who is tender
at heart who is sympathetic, who feeds both
heart and brain, meets her. Some day she is
gone. Her people never speak of her any more,
and when death comes to her she is laid away in
secrecy, and over her head is little stone
marked with her initials and nothing else'
THE PURE LILY AND THE CRUSHED ROSE.