The Portland daily press., 1896-02-12

rings with passionate loyalty to her
race and yearning desire that Judaism
shall be merged into universal religion.
Miss Lazarus does not underrate the
qualities and characteristics whereby the
Jews have intensified their social isolation
and have partly on this account contin-
ued to be misunderstood and abused, but
she feels that it is quite time her people
claimed their own and stood abreast OF
their brothers in modern progress,
spiritually as we'll as morally; quite
time, too, with Christians, that preju-
Jesus Christ should uncompromisingly
show his spirit of peace and universal
love. Miss Lazarus quotes briefly Claude
Montefiore, Zangwill and Edward King
and Emma Wolf. also Leroy Beaulieu.
This little volume is not detailed
treatise, rather it is statement and re-
capitalization, and an eloquent appeal.
"The times are full of signs. On every
side there is call, challenge. and
awakening. Out Of the heart OF our
material civilization has come the cry of
the spirit hungering for it's food, the
bread without money and without price,
the bread which money cannot buy. and
thirsting for living waters. which If
a man drink he shall not thirst again.
What the world needs today-not alone
the Jews who have borne the yoke, but
the Christians who bear Christ's name
and perseoute, and who have buil5 up a
civilization SO entirely at variance with
the principles he taught, what we all
need, Gentiles and Jews alike, is not SO
much new body of doctrine, which Mr..
Montetiore suggests, but new spirit put
into life, which will refashion it upon q
noble plan and conseorate it anew to
higher purpose and ideals. Science mas
done its work, clearing away the dead
wood of ignorance and superstition, en-
larging the vision and opening out the
path. 1t is for religion now to fill with
spirit and with life the facts that knowl-
edge gives US, to breathe a living soul
into the universe (New York: Dodd,
Mead & Company; Portland: Loring.
Short & Harmon.
The Paying Guest, by George Guessing.
Some young married folk, living in
Suburbia, conclude to add to their in
come and to the pleasures of society by
inviting to their abode a paying ouestn
in vulgar parla nee what we call, "a
boarder.'' They secure in this capacity
an unframed young girl of bourgeoise
connection and with startlingly indecor-
GUS propensities, who nevertheless has
something in her untutored and very
faulty self which awakens a modicum of
sympathy in the readers mind. The
little story which is clever and yet not
at all worth while. is given over, through
out Its brief course, to the narrative of
the various disasters, outward and in the
heart which followed in Miss Louise
Derrick's wake. (New York: Dodd,
Mead & Company; Portland: Loring,
Short & Harmon
Stonepastures, by Eleanor Stuart will
furnish the student of the class or
"caste" problem with another set of
/
with "Soot City, and the American born
and forcing laborers therein. The ''blast
rites" attending the frightful accidents
which frequently occur in connection
with the iron mining are altogether new
to most of us and are wildly described.
Indeed the characters of the story as we'll
rs their customs are unique. "Stone-
pastures" is not a cheering picture but it
is stamped with truth and it will teach
it's lesson, though in form it is only the
condensed episod of a seemingly sordid
existence. New York: ID. Appleton &
Company, Portland: Loring. Short &
Harmon. Price rs cents
Poems, by Ernest McGaffy, is by no
means lacking either as regards substance
or expression. At times realism pre-
walls which takes the poems out of the
category of verse into that of rhythmic
prose, butgas whole the volume shows
talent and intensity Here is bar that
is after the order Of "Ho, pretty pagep'
"Sing on through the summer, o locust,
with glee,-
Seventeen years seventeen years.
The leaf is yet green on the mulberry
tree
Seventeen years and years.)
Since last you were here ] am cynical
grown,
I've seen the June leaves by Decem her
wind strOwn,
The world is Medusa, and turns men to
stone
In seventeen, seventeen years"
The best poems OF the volume are de.
scriptive-of the Western prairie, of in
cidents of Indian and Mexican life and
similar themes. While we gather much
in fancy, the prevailing influence is sad
and does not inspire us and we lay down
the little volume, enriched by noting the
play of a fine imagination but with sigh
upon the life. New York: Dodd, Mead
& Company; Portland: Loring, Short
Pr \