The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-11-12
BY REV. JOHN B. KOEHNE
INSPIRING ORATION DELITERED
 IN DWIGHT PLACE CHURCH.

Genius of the Jewish PeopIe-Thelr
 Art More Consummato in Their Words
 Than the Sculpture of the Greeks
 Miileps Angelus Made Possible by
 Jewish Inspiration.
 At Dwight Place church last evening the series of orations on "The Reasona-
 bleness of Christianity" by John B.
 Koehne was opened with the subject The Preparation for Christianity
 Through Judaism"
 Those who still remember the days
 Of the old Lyceum lectures, when Elm
 erson Wendell Phillips and Oliver Wen
 dell Holmes put the products of their
 life research into the form of brilliant
 addresses delivered directly to the peo-
 pie, will appreciate these profoundly en-
 tertaining orations of MT. Koehne
 Flashing with wit, eloquence and teem-
 ing with thoughts which have come
 down to the people laden with the wis
 dom of ages, surveying civilizations and 1 institutions, iconoclastic, he holds up | the petty engrossments and politics of
 the day against the everlasting purposes
 and monuments of that race which has
 gone down In history as devoted to
 Cod Illustrating the peculiar and par
 amount genius, of the Jews as com-
 pared With Greece and Rome. he says:
 Athens stood for poetry, Rome for
 prose, Judaism for spiritual things.
 tbpue ctOO5 for cn1SnS Roma foT re-
 suits, the Jew for final causes and re-
 suits. Athens built an academy, Rome
 built throne, Judaism built an altar.
 The Athenian aristocrat was q man of
 genius, the Roman aristocrat was
 millionaire, the Jews glorified the com- mon people. The Athenian religion was intellectual, the Roman religion was po
 litical-the gods belonged to Rome-the Jewish religion was pervaded with solemn spirit of eternity. Athens sum med herself up as man of thought, Rome in Caesar a man of war the Jews in Moses a man of law. Zeus was the god of Olympus, Jupiter was the god of the Roman capital, the Jewish Jeho- yah was the maker of worlds.
 What is the difference between the Jewish idea of God and the old world ideas? India said God is all, Persia said God is light Egypt said God is life, Greece said God is force, the Jew said, He made the stars also For the first time God is separated from the universe. Every idea of God before this identified God with the universe. The criticism has sometimes been that the decalogue proved the death-knell of 4l,. cbnIt not make unto myself any graven im- age' forbids sculpture. It is the truth the Jews produced no sculptors, but let us find out why. What was the birth day of art? Art began the first day that primitive man took slime from the river or bark from the tree or crude stone, and then with his fingers tried to create the shape of a god. Take the Greeks. for example. They had pam theons filled with gods, and were the greatest sculptors in the world. But why? Because their Idea of a god was simply man; therefore their gods could easily be wrought into stone. But take the Jewish idea of God and see how impossible 1t was to frame into marble his definition of Deity l am | that I am, I am Jehovah, heaven is | His throne, earth is His footstool. He | rides upon the wings of the wind. The | clouds are the dust of His feet. The | thunder Is His voice; He dwelleth in | eternity The heaven shall be rolled up | like a scroll, but Thou art everlasting to everlasting.
 ''Given all the genius of sculpture, where could the Jewish artist, though he should have ransacked worlds, have found stone and granite enough to have portrayed in visible form such a con- ceptfon of GOd?"
 Of the poetry of the Jews MT Koehne says: Hebrew poetry is as solitary as the race itself It Is picturesque as the night yet thrilled with feeling as hu- man nerve passionate as whirlwlnd and full of reDose as a mountain, in strength gigantic, yet sometimes voice softer than a flute, Measured against he worlds poets, the Hebrew bard stands alone"
 ''The Angelus," the famous painting 1f Millet, took it's inspiration originally rom the soul of the spiritual Jewish poet. He says: Place Millet's picture If The Angelus' beside the glories of A Athenian art and it stands alone Venus S more beautiful than the unlovely peasant woman with her hands clasped. Apollo Is more splendid than that farm 1T who stands with head uncovered in he ploughed field. But the artist is not trying to portray human form. He purposes to put on the canvas mans deepest devotional hour, the hour Of prayer. There stands the human race summed up in a man and woman. There S a field all written over with the di- 1ine command, By the sweat of thy ,row shalt thou eat bread That field g one of the nobest portrayals Of the ] Iignity and divinity of toll the world ,as ever seen. Labor Is their ideal. [ has been made radiant with hope nd faith, and from the still, luminous ky seem to fall benedictions. What l natter is 1t that the forms of the two : ,easants are uncouth and angular ! heir faces scared with care and bronz- ' d with the sun? Above the harsh I louds, above the labor-worn bodies or l aan and woman, there bends a sym , athletic sky II was Judaism that ( aade the Angelus possible, since 1t Y aught humanity to pray" ( The lecture continued with success { ;va and wonderful review of the Jew ,