Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.

Abraham's servant accepts the invitation and enters the dwelling. His camels are looked after by attendants, and meat is placed before him. But Eliezer a true picture of a faithful

servant—remarks:

I will not eat until I have told mine errand.

Permission being granted, he rehearses all the incidents that led up to the journey and the subsequent wonderful answer to his prayer in meeting with Rebekah. squarely in the face he adds:

Then looking Laban

If ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.

The father and brother of Rebekah can only reply:

The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.

At this fruition of all his hopes Eliezer falls to the ground and worships the Lord. Then arising he takes "jewels of silver and jewels of gold" and gives them to the bride elect. Next he bestows precious gifts upon Laban and the various members of his family, for Abraham, his master, is a mighty prince and must not be thought niggardly or parsimonious. Next follows a night of rejoicing and merrymaking. But the conscientious servant is anxious to get home and so in the morning he comes to Laban with the request: "Send me away unto my master!"

The family of Rebekah, however, are loth to part with her. Naturally enough they strive to keep her for a few days; but Eliezer is importunate:

Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way: send me away that I may go to my master.

They call Rebekah and ask her: "Wilt thou go with this man?" "I will go," is the immediate response. Rebekah and her maidens then mount the camels and follow Eliezer.

In the meantime, Isaac, utterly unaware of the good fortune that is coming to him, like an earlier Wordsworth, goes "to

meditate in the field at the eventide; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw and behold the camels were coming!"

But the keen-eyed bride has already seen the solitary figure. "What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?" she inquires of Eliezer.

"It is my master," comes the hurried whisper.

With a quick movement Rebekah covers her face with a veil. And so they meet!

"And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife: and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."

old.

It will take

The charm of this story is perennial. It will never grow It has upon it the hall mark of literary immortality. its place alongside of the stories of Homer. It will lose its inspiration only when men and women cease to love each other and when marriage and the marriage relation, with its beauty, power and divine sanction, has lost its meaning, and the world is run according to the dictates and maxims of Vanity Fair!

There is also the story of Joseph and his Brethren, a world masterpiece. Local color, graphic character-sketching, absorbing interest, all are there. If it were not in the Bible men and women would rave over it; but just because it is, they neglect it or completely ignore it. When you expostulate with them, they remark: "Yes, I did read it once, when I was a child; but somehow or other I never read and re-read it as I do other favorite stories. I suppose it is so because it is in the Old Testament and we are not supposed to go to the Bible for literary charm and delight." Is there any hope that this state of affairs will ever change? That because a story is in the Bible, it can have no literary interest?

A change for the better is coming, I am glad to say, despite the narrowness of those who refuse to look upon the Bible as literature, and notwithstanding the dictum of those critics whose mental horizon is limited to the books of the day and who think a petty little mannerism, a childish trick of style, is going to supersede the masterpieces of all time.

Of the critics and scholars who are trying to let the Bible tell its own story, the man above all others is Professor Moulton of

the University of Chicago, as I mentioned at the beginning of this paper. He has taken the Bible out of its archaic setting and placed it where it belongs, in the forefront of the classics of the world. The whole Bible-reading world owes him a lasting debt of gratitude for his monumental work, "The Modern Reader's Bible." In the Book of Genesis, as edited by this critic, the Story of Joseph and his Brethren stands out clear and distinct. We can read it in half an hour, and if our taste has been cultivated by feeding on the best models, we can go back to it with ever increasing delight and find in its pages new interest and charm.

How many ap

Finally, we may take the Story of Balaam. preciate its literary value? I am perfectly aware of the extraordinary interest the story has for a preacher of righteousness. One has but to think of the sermons of Bishop Butler, Cardinal Newman and Frederick Robertson to see this, while lesser men by the score have followed these princes of the pulpit in making it the subject of their discourses. But I am not now interested in its ethical and religious value, though frankly admitting that the lessons that can be drawn from the story are legion, but in its literary worth. Read it then from this standpoint. Take down the first volume of Stanley's "Jewish Church" and see how a master of historical criticism could treat it; or better still go to the Book of Numbers and read the three chapters which tell the story.

Of its manifold beauties I shall call attention only to the wonderful poetry contained in the story. Four times Balaam breaks into song and four times we hear poetry which, though chanted thousands of years ago, can still move and thrill us:

How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel!

As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.

God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath . . . the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.

He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee!

And then, turning to the enraged King of Moab, Balaam, in language that must have thrilled his hearer through and through, utters this prophecy of the Jewish People:

I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth !

GEORGE DOWNING SPARKS.

Babylon, Long Island.

LONGFELLOW TWENTY YEARS AFTER

It has been now somewhat more than a score of years since the death of Longfellow, the famous American poet. Perhaps we are not yet far enough removed from his day to form an impartial estimate of the rank and place in our literature which this deservedly popular poet is destined to occupy. It requires a

considerable lapse of time to dispel the illusion and glamour which his charming poetry cast over the minds of his readers; and it may be that we are not yet prepared to examine his verse in the cold and dispassionate light of criticism.

The recent appearance of Longfellow's life in the "American Men of Letters" series has served to draw attention anew to his work. It seems therefore fitting to review his poetic achievement and inquire whether the foremost American poet of a generation ago is still holding his own. It is possible that his popularity has been eclipsed by the fame of some bard whose star had not risen two decades ago.

In his own time Longfellow enjoyed a wider fame than any other poet, alive or dead, on this side of the Atlantic. Emerson was doubtless a profounder thinker and more philosophical, and appealed more powerfully to a select circle of readers. But he was the recognized exponent of a certain school, and his audience was therefore limited. Whittier's verse smacked too much of a party, or of a section, to be universally admired. Profoundly stirred by the evils of slavery, he came to regard himself, for the nonce, as the poetic mouthpiece of the Abolition party, and when his party passed away together with the cause which called it into being, Whittier's poetry lost its power and charm, even for his most zealous co-partizans. Lowell was perhaps more brilliant and versatile than Longfellow; but he was rather bookish, and his poetry is not infrequently open to the charge of pedantry. Bryant was chaste and finished and grand withal; but his poetry was as lifeless and as cold as marble. There was no fire or passion in it it came from the head, not from the heart. Longfellow, however, "looked into his own heart and wrote"; and he touched in his song those chords which awaken an echo in every