' 3ti|ara, New fork 
 
 .A.«....H« ...StocMng.. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3537.T63T5 
 
 Thou Israel. 
 
 3 1924 021 704 758 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021704758 
 
Uru-salem, seat of Melchisedec and city of peace, had passed 
 into Israel's tiands. 
 
 —Book 2, Page 177. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS STOCKING, E. M. 
 
 Author of THE DIARY OF JEAN EVARTS, 
 CARMEN ARIZA, Etc. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE MAESTRO CO. 
 
 1923 
 
Copyright 1921 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES FRANCIS STOCKING 
 
 PUBLISHED DECEMBER 1921 
 
 PRINTED IN UNITED 81ATE8 OF AMERICA 
 
 IMPERIAL AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIOHT SECURED 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IN ALL COUNTRIES 
 
 FIFTEENTH EDITION 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 ** A ND the seals are being broken in these last days.'V said 
 l\ Alden. "It is woman who has broken them and given 
 to the world a higher concept of the Christ . . . now 
 she is indeed 'clothed with the sun'. . ." 
 
 It is to such a one that the author gratefully dedicates this 
 book — one so 'clothed with the sun' as to fill his life with 
 radiance — his wife. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 PROLOG 
 
 THE Eternal Mind thinks in my thoughts, and sees in my 
 beholding. 
 
 Nothing is but God, and God is naught but Mind. 
 Darkly the veil of things rises before me, 'tis mortal mind. 
 But when the error dies, henceforth there'll live but God in my 
 endeavors. — Fichte. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 PROLOG 
 
 NEVER liad her security seemed so great; never was it 
 actually less. Never had her coffers been so near to 
 bursting; never were they so really empty. Never had 
 she attained so high a standard of living; never was she farther 
 from a knowledge of Life. Never had she luxuriated in such 
 unattenuated materialism; never had, she grasped so feverishly 
 for greater carnal riches) nor strained so fearfully to preserve 
 those she believed she already possessed. Never had the sen- 
 suous world appeared to her so colorful, so delightfully comic, 
 so interestingly tragic ; never had the poppied charms of dogma 
 been so subtly sweet; never had the foolishness of God ap- 
 peared so utterly foolish to Crestelridge as on that wild March 
 night when, to the doleful knell of the leaden hammer that 
 long had been striking the hours, an age — her age — lay dying, 
 By the Julian calendar it was the year of our Lord 1917^ 
 By the reckoning of the chronologers it was Daniel's blessed 
 and final year of the Hegira, his extended "half week." By 
 the calculations of the seers it was the consummation of the 
 full "seven times" of Nebuchadnezzar— the shadow lay upon 
 the closing hour of the "times of the Gentiles"; the treading 
 down of Jerusalem was already low. In the symbolism of the 
 pyramidologists the world had entered the Antechamber of 
 Mizraim's great "altar," that troubled hush wherein righteous- 
 ness should be laid to the plummet and the refuge of lies ex- 
 posed before consuming in the swiftly approaching final phase 
 of Armageddon. 
 
 Thunderbolts burst from the wrack of clouds rushing over 
 Crestelridge that black night. She but hugged her robes of 
 complaisant smugness the tighter, nor knew that the winds of 
 Truth had already whipped these things of tinsel into rags. 
 Shutters whirred and crashed, casements rattled furiously, 
 trees bent groaning, bricks sprang from chimneys and hurtled 
 madly to the pavements. Crestelridge but drew her curtains 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the closer, nor recked that the vacuum in her soul had drawn 
 a rushing wind whose blast would burst her deadly pro- 
 vincialism and blow her out into a boundless area to meet, 
 stripped and alone, her outraged God. 
 
 Whir-r-r! . . . Rattle! . . . Crash! Frightful cloud shapes 
 streaked through the upper airs; owls screeched; dogs scur- 
 ried whining. The unleashed wind tore through the belfry of 
 St. Jude's with spectral shrieks. The frightened choir below 
 paused in their practice, with the words : "/ will overturn . . . 
 overturn . . . overturn" trembling on their lips. The great 
 bronze bells cried out in jangling protest. The wind howled 
 them down. "They shall wither . . . wither . . . and the whirl- 
 wind shall take them away," timidly resumed the choir. The 
 blasts drowned their feeble chant in piercing yells that seemed 
 to echo the agonies of the age that lay dying; it rose in wild 
 howls as from maimed bodies; it soughed in the gasping 
 wheeze of torn lungs; it roared in vain ravings to God, in 
 blasphemous curses, in the sickening din of slaughter^and 
 it fell, moaning, and died away among the laboring treetops 
 in long-drawn sighs, whilst a dank mist rose from the soaked 
 earth, exhaling foul odors, suggesting gangrene gas, and stole 
 under doors and loosened casements like the subtle miasmatic 
 poison that had long streamed upward from the rotten soil of 
 Franz Mesmer and gassed a sleeping world. 
 
 As the wind fell a young clergyman sprang from his chair 
 in the rector's office in St. Jude's parish house. "Father Whit- 
 tier," he cried in a tremulous voice, "is there any word from 
 the Lord?" 
 
 His companion, the rector, lifted his brows and stared per- 
 plexedly at his young assistant. "Well," he returned, "why 
 do you ask that?" 
 
 The young man hesitated; then he spoke ea,gerly. "Be- 
 cause we seem to be living in days that have about them a 
 character of finality." 
 
 The older man's brows cleared, and he smiled paternally 
 up mto the earnest young face. "Millennianism? Men have 
 gone mad over that, George." 
 
 "Then you consider Daniel's vision meaningless?" 
 
 The other laughed lightly. "I am reminded of Ted Sayor's 
 comment, that Daniel was subject to nightmare." 
 
 The young man made a gesture of impatience. "Your 
 levity is ill timed!" 
 
 "Pardon me," said the rector, becoming more serious "I 
 quoted him merely to show how the world of to-day regards 
 Scriptural prophecy. Daniel, my friend, belbngs to an age 
 that is past. His thought was concerned with the restoration 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 It came — ^yet only in part, for the ten tribes remained for- 
 ever dispersed, and so . . ." 
 
 "But they were not destroyed. Their descendants must be 
 living to-day." 
 
 "Doubtless," the rector agreed, turning to busy himself 
 with his littered papers. "I dare say they are in China; or 
 perhaps they are our modern Afghans. Perhaps they were 
 the Aztecs, or our North American Indians." 
 
 The other reflected for a moment. "Strange," he observed 
 at length, "that so great a people as lost Israel should be sought 
 among the lowest of mankind. There is something wrong. 
 But . . . Daniel's chronology?" 
 
 The rector shrugged his shoulders. "Unprofitable specu- 
 lation for a clergyman in these practical days." 
 
 "I do not agree with you," the young man returned with 
 some heat. "If Daniel's prophecy could be authenticated it 
 would prove the Scriptures . . ." 
 
 ."Eh? Prove the Scriptures?" The rector's head went up 
 and his brows lifted again. 
 
 "Does this surprise you? But what other proofs than those 
 of chronology have we — you and I — to offer our people? No, 
 I cannot avoid the conviction that Daniel holds something spe- 
 cific for us at this time. I have always regarded him as 
 inspired, for Jesus referred to him . . . But . . ." He paused 
 and stood lost in thought, while the rector turned again to 
 his desk. 
 
 Of a sudden the young assistant looked up. "Father Whit- 
 tier, Daniel tells us, regarding his prophecy, that none of the 
 wicked shall understand." 
 
 "Eh!" exclaimed the rector, jerking up his head. "Well! 
 The inference is . . . er . . . embarrassing!" 
 
 "It is more, it is damning! Oh, Father Whittier, our peo- 
 ple are crying as never before for proofs . . . and we stand 
 mute before them!" 
 
 "There, George," said the other, rising and laying a sooth- 
 ing hand upon the young man's arm; "you are tired. You 
 are really overworked. You should . . . But see, there is a 
 lull in the storm. Better take advantage of it." 
 
 "There is no lull in the storm that is convulsing the world, 
 and before which we are helpless," cried, the young man bit- 
 terly; "That is why I came to you to-night, asking if, in these 
 desperate times, there is any word from the Lord ... if the 
 vision of Daniel, which has been denied to me, perchance had 
 been accorded to you because of your greater scholarship. Is 
 there, I ask again, any definite, specific word concerning my 
 problems, or yours, or the world's? Or ... do you confess 
 
 5 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that you stand with me, a false prophet, among those whose 
 attitude is anathema for all that is not habitual?" 
 
 "Why . . . why, George! You shock me! You are not 
 well. . . Too close application. . . And this terrible equinoc- 
 tial weather! Go see Doctor Roake. You can't afford to break 
 down. . ." 
 
 The young man shook his head and smiled sadly. "No doc- 
 tor can reach my case with his pills and lotions. No, Father 
 Whittier, we are false prophets. Our people know it, and 
 they are falling away from us. They are seeking philosophy, 
 spiritualism, the various so-called mental sciences, even the 
 ouija board, because we cannot answer their awful question: 
 What is truth? And because we cannot answer it, they and 
 we suffer afflictions and consume with disease; because no 
 one can answer it, the world is aflame to-day. There is some- 
 thing terribly wrong with us who hold ourselves interpreters 
 of the Word! What in God's name is it?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, the fault is the world's, that it should 
 be so morally frail that it must needs be severely disci- 
 plined. . ." 
 
 "Is it the world's fault that it is frail?" 
 
 "Man fell, you know. . ." 
 
 "Say, rather, that man never rose! Man can't rise! Since 
 the dawn of history he has remained in a state of restrained 
 savagery! Individually, man is still a creature of the worst 
 animal impulses! That which is created out of the humus 
 can never be more than dust! Yet we preach that God created 
 this sort of man!" 
 
 "But God created all, George!" 
 
 "Then He is responsible for this dust-man, and He must 
 have created him evil and capable of evil!" 
 
 "No, George," the rector sighed patiently, "God did not 
 create evil, but He created that which could beco/he evil: be- 
 ings so great, so mightily endowed, that they possessed the 
 power to choose either good or evil. . ." 
 
 "Rubbish! You juggle with God!" 
 
 "George!" 
 
 "Look me squarely in the face and tell me if you still 
 believe the Almighty capable of formulating law that must 
 produce evil, and then punishing His helpless creatures for 
 falling victim to that which in His volition they cannot pos- 
 sibly avoid! If such is still yOur preachment, then you too 
 stand convicted a false prophet! I tell you. Father Whittier, 
 that unless such miserable dogma is thrown to the scrap 
 heap, unless there is a restatement — a scientific statement 
 —of Christianity, unless you and I speedily acquire a new 
 
 6 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 vision to deal with new problems, new perils, new tasks, we 
 are lostl" 
 
 "But, my dear George, don't take it so seriously! Why, 
 the dear old world is going to jog on pretty much as it 
 always has! There will be no revolting change, nothing that 
 we shall not easily adjust ourselves to. Civilization will 
 live. . ." 
 
 "Civilization!" the young man exclaimed in scorn. "Civili- 
 zation is merely coercion! I tell, you, the individual remains 
 what he was, despite us preachers! He is restrained by the 
 rules of civilization, but never reformed! His reformation, 
 if it is to be at all, must come, I am convinced, through an 
 inward change, one so great as to amount to destruction of 
 the human mind, the dust-mind, since man's mind is the 
 eternal enemy within himself. But who will tell him this? 
 Who can show him his mental task and direct his inward 
 strivings, his self-explorations, his warfare with himself? You? 
 I? Alas, no! And so the world is again in flames. . ." 
 
 "Nonsense! The flare-up in Europe is temporary." The 
 rector was becoming nervous. "And it is not your fault. . ." 
 
 "It is my fault — and yours — in part! Had we priests of 
 God been obedient to the vision, we had not lost it. Now 
 there is no excuse for our continued existence. Ah, my friend, 
 one of the most precious prerogatives of the ancient priest- 
 hood was that of interpreting the divine oracles to the people. 
 Thus arose the prophets. We pretend to follow in their foot- 
 steps—oh, we unworthy! But because of our corruption we 
 have lost their power of interpretation. . ." 
 
 "Our corruption! George, really, I protest!" 
 
 "Yes, our dense materiality. And because we lost the 
 vision — or would not see it except distorted through the lens 
 of matter — Christian nations are to-day tearing one another 
 asunder, while the Church stands by, miserably impotent." 
 
 He took up his hat and went to the door, where he paused 
 and turned again to the rector. "We profess to believe the 
 New Testament," he said slowly; "but that reports that men 
 were once made whole without drugs or lotions. If it was a 
 faict then, why is it not a fact now? Did Jesus heal? We 
 preach that he did. Did his students heal? We preach it. 
 Do we preach that they healed by mechanical, surgical, or 
 medicinal modes? No; we believe the healing to have been 
 spiritual — mental, if you prefer. Well, what is wanting that 
 we don't do likewise, as Jesus bade us? This: we believe 
 that such healing was possible then, but not now. Why? 
 Because we can't heal spiritually. But why can't we? For 
 the simple reason that we are not Christians!" 
 
 "George!" 
 
 7 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Oh, yes, we believe in the Bible in a vague manner — ^but 
 we can't use its teachings practically to meet our every-day 
 needs. We can't heal the sick; we mock those who ask us 
 to raise the dead. And yet Jesus said: 'The hour, is com- 
 ing, and now is — now is ! — when the dead shall hear the voice 
 of the Son of God,' of the Christ. But can you call to the 
 dead in that divine voice? Can I? And because we cannot, 
 nor do any of the works that Jesus is reported to have done, 
 the people have no faith in .us. Nor can we blame thein, for 
 we are utterly unable to prove the truth of the Master's teach- 
 ings. 
 
 "And yet," he went on eagerly, "I am convinced that his 
 words shall not pass away. The ancient vision must be re- 
 stored. But it will not come through the established Church, 
 for water will not flow through a channel clogged with mud. 
 Yet I believe religious history will be repeated. Moses, who 
 brought about the great religious revival and led the Israel- 
 ites out of Egyptian bondage, was a layman, uncorrupted by 
 the priesthood. So Luke reports that 'Annas and C^iaphas 
 being the high priests, the word of God came unto John' — 
 not unto the Church or its priests, but to an outsider ! So 
 Christianity itself came through the layman Jesus. So I think 
 the spiritual vision that heals and saves will come again 
 through one who, though outside the Church, will be suffi- 
 ciently free from material idols to perceive that God is Spirit 
 — with all that that connotes. Indeed . . ." He paused and stood 
 for a moment with bowed head. Then he raised his eyes to 
 the rector. "I sometimes think it will come through a . . . 
 woman." 
 
 The rector's mouth gaped, but speech delayed. Then he 
 went to the young man and laid an arm about his shoulders. 
 "George," he said tenderly, "your zeal has led you into mental 
 confusion. Check it, ere it lead you into unhappiness, or worse. 
 These are days of rampant speculation. They may be, as you 
 have intimated, days of transition. But the Church will stand. 
 And you and I. '. . Do not forget in your excessive zeal that 
 you have yourself to consider, as well as your flock. Discre- 
 tion, George. . ." 
 
 "A warning against heresy?" The young man smiled cyn- 
 ically. "If my convictions be heresy, then report me at once 
 to the bishop, that I may be unfrocked before I bring dis- 
 credit upon the Nicean creed. But, Father Whittier, can you 
 honestly say that my convictions are not your own? And can 
 we, in the face of recent world-events, deliberately choose to 
 remain in an institution that no longer exercises a command- 
 ing influence for truth within the communitv? Let us not 
 
 8 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 disguise facts. There is now a definite anti-Christian drift 
 throughout the world. The masses have ceased to look to us 
 for guidance. They have discovered our feet of clay. They 
 have found the Church a negligible quantity in political and 
 economic life, voiceless when she should have thundered from 
 the housetops, helpless and despised in these last days when 
 she should be wearing the wreath of spiritual victory. They 
 have found you and me false prophets, disseminators of un- 
 demonstrable human opinion, garblers of truth. . . Why, 
 your own daughter, Marian ..." 
 ■ "Stop, George! I cannot permit you to speak thus to me!" 
 
 A wistful smile came into the young man's face. "For- 
 give me," he said in a choking voice. "Her spirit of revolu- 
 tion has got hold of me." 
 
 "Let it not lead you down the path of sorrow and dis- 
 grace," counseled the rector severely. Then his manner soft- 
 ened. "And consider, George, what you would do should you 
 be so hasty as to leave the Church. You have . . . er . . . 
 your living to make. . ." 
 
 At thiat instant a tremendous peal of thunder burst over 
 the church edifice and shook it to its foundations. The rector 
 shrank back, clutching the other's arm. "The storm is re- 
 suming," he said in a shaking voice as he pulled himself 
 together. "You had better go." And he opened the door and 
 bowed the young man out. 
 
 As the assistant passed down the marble corridor he heard 
 the singing of the distant choir. Faint through the tumult 
 of the rising wind he caught the words: "As in the days of 
 Noe . . . of Noe." He halted and stood listening. Outside, 
 the swirling wind seemed to take up and repeat the refrain: 
 "As in the dags of Noe . . . of Noe. . ." Then he opened the 
 door and went out into the storm. 
 
 In the unseen realm of human consciousness Merodach, 
 warring against Tiamat, was rocking the visible world. In 
 the cataclysmic upheaval old standards jof thought went crash- 
 ing to their fall; hoary beliefs, age-honored, sacred, sank hiss- 
 ing in the furious chemicalization. Into the vast void that 
 typified the spiritual vacuity of Crestelridge the wind of the 
 wilderness poured, whirling angrily through boulevards, ave- 
 nues, alleys; driving clouds of sere leaves and detritus before 
 it; dashing struggling pedestrians against walls and poles; 
 and raging furiously around the stubborn materialism in its 
 path. Against a lighted window on an upper floor of the 
 suburb's finest business block it hurled itself with a mad 
 yell, then broke and died away in a despairing groan. 
 
 "A nasty night. Doctor," remarked one of the two men 
 
 9 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 within, turning toward the window. "Do you suppose this 
 wind is due to the cannonading over in France?" 
 
 "To their thinking, rather," the other amended with a 
 smile, and speaking in a deep, rich voice. "The wind is 
 externalized thought." 
 
 "Externalized thought?" The speaker laughed lightly. "An- 
 other of your metaphysical subtleties, I presume. But, I say," 
 becoming serious, "if only a wind like this could be harnessed 
 and controlled . . . eh?" 
 
 "A tremendous power; but, again, nothing when compared 
 with the power of harnessed and controlled thought. That 
 would be omnipotent for either good or evil." 
 "H'm! Particularly for the latter, I infer." 
 "Yes, for evil thought is demonstrably more powerful than 
 good." 
 
 His companion sat reflecting for some moments. Then he 
 looked up. "Say, Roake, that starts an interesting specula- 
 tion. Suppose a man should . . . well, should base his life 
 on the premise that evil thought is more powerful than good 
 . . . Say! . . . Don't look at me so sharply; your eyes seem 
 to make me nervous, . . I get dizzy when you stare at me 
 that way!" 
 
 The other relaxed and broke into a laugh. Then he 
 became serious. "The result, Chaddock, would depend on the 
 man's ability to control the thought of others." 
 "And that can't be done successfully." 
 "No? Why, Chaddock, the extent to which not only in- 
 dividuals but entire nations are moved and swayed by mental 
 influences is incalculable! What of the German people, a 
 nation whose thinking is controlled almost to a man? Most 
 remarkable example of hypnosis in all history!" 
 
 "Egad! you're right. And that is why they are going to 
 win this war." 
 
 "They will fail— but only because they departed from their 
 mental mode and resorted to physics. With a hypnotized 
 people, a people thoroughly prepared by suggestive propaganda, 
 their leaders swerved, through fear and impatience, and tried 
 to fanish the task of overcoming the world by employing brute 
 force. They were quite correct in believing that they could 
 dominate the world; but they should have stuck to the only 
 possible means of accomplishing that end." 
 "I see: mesmerism, eh?" 
 
 "Suggestion. They had the world nearly anesthetized. Had 
 they continued their mental manipulation, without resorting 
 to material force, they would have shortly brought every na- 
 tion on the globe under tribute." He bent forward and touched 
 
 10 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the other on the knee. "Chaddock," he said, speaking very 
 impressively, "it's because the people don't want to think. 
 Thinking is a laborious process, and they want it done 
 for them. Hence the power of the Church, of the press, 
 of us doctors. . . Why, do you know, I could, by mental 
 propaganda alone« create an epidemic of disease that 
 would kill thousands. And by the same means I could 
 stop it." 
 
 He paused and flicked the ashes from his cigar. "You 
 believe that you think, that you are the creator of your own 
 conclusions, the master of your own conduct." He laughed. 
 "But let me ask you how you have arrived at any given con- 
 clusion or determined upon a particular line of conduct, and 
 you will have to confess, upon analysis, that you have been 
 swayed throughout by influences not your own." 
 
 Again he paused. Then he resumed reflectively. "Thought ! 
 It is a strange, indefinable power. And yet it is real, even 
 tangible, for it expresses itself in objects as well as actions. 
 By our thought we are held mired in the sloughs of life, or 
 carried over unseen depths to places of power and wealth. 
 He whose thoughts are uncontrolled is like a ship adrift 
 without power or compass, the plaything of wind and tide; 
 he who controls his thinking becomes possessed of unlimited 
 power, psychic, dynamic. Such a thinker lays friend and 
 stranger, circumstance, environment, the winds of fate, yea, 
 the very elements of life under tribute. A real thinker, like 
 Marian Whittier, for example, startles the world like a burst- 
 ing bomb." 
 
 "But there are some who consider Marian Whittier dan- 
 gerous." 
 
 . The other returned the cigar to his mouth and sat back 
 with a smile. "Dangerous? Yes . . . unless herself controlled." 
 
 With a shriek the wind sprang up and belabored the window 
 so furiously that both men started to their feet. Then 'it 
 whirled away and went roaring across the crouching town. 
 
 At the far end of the narrow draw in which Crestelridge 
 lay, a violent gust -brought up against the rickety door of a 
 small, weather-beaten house with such force that the lock 
 snapped and the door flew open. A young man, tall, thin, 
 and black of hair, sprang to close it. "God of Israel," he cried, 
 "what a night!" Then he paused, -with his head inclined 
 toward the adjoining bedroom, and stood listening. 
 
 "Should not the heavens fall when one of the chosen 
 abandons the faith of his fathers?" The speaker raised his 
 hoary head and gazed fixedly at the young man. 
 
 The latter wheeled sharply and went to his venerable com- 
 
 11 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 panion. "Rabbi," he said in a gentle but determined voice, 
 "you came through the storm to-night because my dove called 
 you. My heart bursts with gratitude — and with grief, for you 
 admit that you cannot heal her. Your prayers to Jehovah 
 fail. Yet you believe that from its incipience Judaism rec- 
 ognized" the healing power of God and demonstrated it. What 
 then? I say, our people fell under the spell of materialism, 
 they strayed far from the true teachings and drifted into fruit- 
 less observance of outward form and ceremonial. Because the 
 healing system employed by the ancient Hebrews is abandoned, 
 disease and countless afflictions, war and catastrophies, are 
 now upon us. Because of it, you and I sit helpless beside my 
 suffering dove to-night. But I cannot let her die; and so I 
 shall beg the great Gentile doctor to come and save her. Is 
 that sin?" 
 
 "Nay, I do not reproach you for seeking unto the Gentile 
 doctor, my son," the old man answered; "but lest you go after 
 their false gods. Oh, David, forsake not the faith of your 
 people!" 
 
 "But, Rabbi, if the Gentile physician have the skill to cure 
 my dove, perchance his preacher too may possess the skill 
 of prophecy to explain me why the promises of Israel's 
 restitution and glory have not been fulfilled. For fulfilled they 
 are not, Rabbi, as you must admit when you cast your eyes 
 over the miserable circumstances of the Jewish people to-day. 
 Does not their condition powerfully refute all the Bible 
 promises of restoration to Israel?" 
 
 "God is just." 
 
 "Then where, I ask, is the wonderful people of Israel that 
 were prophesied to be a nation forever? Is Jeremiah not dis- 
 credited? It is prophesied that Israel shall rise to be chief of 
 the nations— cAze// Yet look at the despised Jew of to-day'" 
 
 "God is just," murmured the old man. 
 " "You have made your God a God of the past. Your Mes- 
 siah IS of the indefinite future. But my needs are of the 
 present," the young man retorted impatiently. "Ah, Rabbi, 
 2^^^®.^"''^^'^^ *^^ "^°^^^ to-day, is awhirl!- Can it rest till it 
 I*?^^*It^I"^^*°^- ^"* ^^ yo" *^a«^'i truth, then is not the God 
 01 the Hebrew Scripture foresworn?" 
 
 T ■ u'l^L'^l^'" fathers!" cried the old man. "Shall not the 
 Jewish faith live on? The faith that has survived the Pha- 
 raohs, the Czars, the. Spanish Inquisition, through fifty cen- 
 dogma?" ^°" ^^ converted from it to the Christian's 
 
 "If the Christian's faith will heal my dove. 
 The Rabbi gasped. "David Barach, apostate!" 
 
 12 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Not apostate. Rabbi, but awake to my danger, for too 
 long have I slept under the mesmerism of our inert faith. 
 Not apostate, but seeking truth. Ah, Rabbi, the rise and fall 
 of every age, of every people, every individual, has been based 
 on the answer to the terrible question: What is truth? Do 
 Moses and the prophets tell us? Nay, the glorious promises 
 have not been fulfilled; nor can the Jewish people ever verify 
 them. We. wait in vain.'' 
 
 Whir-r-r! . . . Rattle! . . , Crash! Materialistic concepts 
 went shattering before the flying winds of God. Ancient 
 thought-forms splintered. Faiths baptized in blood crumbled 
 and were blown afar. The hypnotic conviction that things 
 were forever settled broke from its roots and fell prone. There 
 were few in Crestelridge who would enter the Ark and ride 
 the rising flood; there were many who would continue to 
 ridicule the foolishness of God and perish. Against stately 
 "Craggmont" the gale beat in Cyclopean rage. Within, in the 
 beautiful music-room, a careless group heard it and laughed. 
 
 "Can you see the old witch on the hill riding her broom- 
 stick, Alden?" 
 
 A laugh rose about the young speaker, who was seated 
 at the piano. The one addressed turned from the window, 
 through which he had been peering into the storm. "The 
 Galuth, Ted?" he asked in a drawling voice. 
 
 "You've guessed it, Aldy-boy, your particular friend." 
 
 "I say now, she's no friend of mine, as you jolly well 
 know ! My word ! She's your shame ! In London we wouldn't 
 tolerate her! But she shows what's coming here in America: 
 female domination." 
 
 "Don't get Alden started on female domination," laughed 
 one of the young men; "he'll wilt his collar!" 
 
 "Whew!" exclaimed a young girl, glancing toward the 
 windows; "listen to that wind J" 
 
 The one at the piano laughed again. "If old Tom is out 
 in it with his big umbrella I'll wager he's gqne soaring after 
 the Galuth," he said. 
 
 "Who is old Tom?" someone asked. 
 
 "Why, the ancient derelict who goes about with an enor- 
 mous umbrella covered with Bible quotations about getting 
 right with God, and Jesus is coming, and that stuff. Probably 
 he's gone up to meet the Galuth, and the two will hold an 
 ecumenical council behind a big, black CLOUD-D-D 1" his voice 
 swelling in volume as he pronounced the final words. Then, 
 having delivered himself of this observation, he whirled on the 
 piano bench and plunged into a galloping execution of the 
 latest jazz score. 
 
 2 13 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "What's a ecky-mennical council, Teddybear?" purred a 
 scantily clad, exquisitely coiffured young girl, as she slid 
 her creamy arms over his shoulders and bent to rub a highly 
 rouged cheek against his. 
 
 He turned and whispered in her ear. "It's a seance of 
 religious blacksmiths for the purpose of forging mental chains 
 for weak minds. But don't tell Alden I said so. There, Ethel 
 darling," he continued aloud, "I can't keep up this pace long. 
 Grab Harris and step while the ivories are hot." 
 
 With a merry laugh the girl turned and threw herself into 
 the waiting arms of a young man standing near? and the two 
 trotted away in a wriggling embrace so close as to make their 
 every breath a gasp. . . 
 
 Of a sudden came a sharp, crackling sound, followed by a 
 deafening peal of thunder. The young man at the window 
 cried aloud and jerked down the shade. The dancers stopped 
 short and crouched as if awaiting a blow. The one at the 
 piano wheeled about and laughed again. "Roll-call!" he 
 shouted. "Alden Cragg, present?" 
 
 "I say," exclaimed that white-faced young worthy, when 
 the reverberation of the thunder had died away, "let's not 
 dance! It's Lent, ye know. . ." ^ 
 
 "Now, Alden!" protested Ethel Whittier. "You're always 
 a wet blanket!" 
 
 At that instant a tall, gray-haired woman, gowned in black 
 silk, came hastily into the room, followed by a liveried butler. 
 "Alden!" she exclaimed. There were tears of relief in her 
 eyes when they fell upon her son. 
 
 "Why, mother!" 'The young man hurried to her and put 
 an arm about her shoulders. 
 
 She stood, covering her eyes with her trembling hands for 
 a moment, then raised her head and smiled wanly up into his 
 face. "It is nothing ... a little fright, Alden dear," she 
 said in a shaking voice. She, looked off vacantly toward the 
 window. "In that terrible flash of lightning I seemed to see 
 you ..." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 ". . . in battle." 
 
 "In battle! Mother!" The youth's face again went whitp. 
 A suppressed titter rose from the piano bench. 
 
 "There, dear, it has passed. I had been reading of the 
 atrocities ... so foolish of me!" She shivered slightly, then 
 turned to the others. "There will be a little refection in the 
 breakfast room shortly," she said, controlling her voice. "Jed- 
 kins will announce it. Don't dance too- late; to-morrow is 
 Sunday. Isn't it an awful night?" With which, and a final 
 yearning glance at her son, she left the room. 
 
 14 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 For some moments after her departure the young people 
 remained silent. Then Ted Sayor turned again to the piano 
 and broke into a song of his own composition: 
 
 "It's Laodiceans we are; it's Laodiceans we are; 
 We know not the cold, we know not the fire; 
 We know not the cause that leads men to war. . ." 
 
 "Ted!" There was a lingering note of terror in Alden 
 Cragg's voice. 
 
 Ted rose abruptly and jammed his hands into the pockets 
 of his trousers. "Well," he exclaimed, "we can't dance and 
 we can't sing!" 
 
 "But not war songs, Ted! I . . . hate them!" 
 
 "Well, I don't blame you; the war is a nuisance." 
 
 "Nuisance!" Madeline Nence ejaculated. "It's a positive 
 outrage! Why, I can't get a thing in dress materials any 
 more! And such rotten dyes!" 
 
 "An awful inconvenience," sighed Ted sympathetically. "I 
 haven't seen an imported cravat for a year. And as for silk 
 socks and underwear . . ." 
 
 "Well, I don't know," put in Wallie Black; "Dad's cleaned 
 up another million out of it, so I should worry." 
 
 "Government contracts for beef, eh?" said Ted. "Yes, the 
 war has its little consolations." 
 
 "Consolations?" echoed Wallie's sister, Louise. "For some" 
 of us, perhaps. But when I think of those ruined homes 
 and . . ." 
 
 "But won't it be fun to visit the ruins when it's all over!" 
 chirped Ethel Whittier. "All those towns blown to pieces, and 
 the people living in funny little cellars. Mama and I are plan- 
 ning to go all over Europe, and spend months and months in 
 Paris and London. Papa says if he went with us he'd go to 
 Jerusalem and down into Egypt and visit the Pyramids — old 
 Chop's tomb. Papa runs to tombs!" 
 
 "They symbolize his religion," Ted offered, with a sly 
 glance around at Alden Cragg. 
 
 "Now, I say," protested the latter, "Father Whittier is pre- 
 paring a series of sermons against all this new-fangled rot 
 about the Pyramid being inspired, and about these being the 
 'last days'." 
 
 "Well, I'd be willing they should be the 'last days' if I 
 could spend them in the good old Paris and Vienna of pre- 
 war times," lamented Harris Chaddock. "Lord, that yvas life!" 
 
 "Oh, if the blooming rumpus would only let up over there !" 
 groaned Wallie Black. 
 
 "It can't last much longer," Ted observed cheerfully. "Es- 
 pecially if America goes in." 
 
 15 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Which she -will not," remarked Otto Hoeffel, a blond young 
 man with close-cropped head, square shoulders, ai>d decidedly 
 Teutonic features. 
 
 "Please God," Ted returned in mock solemnity. "If I could 
 trust your prophecy. Otto, I'd hand you a goodly check." 
 
 "But why should she?" Otto insisted argumentatively. "It's 
 no quarrel of ours, is it? • America will stay out." 
 
 "Speaking of the war," Harris Chaddock put in, "I heard 
 a strange thing in Doctor Roake's ofBce to-day. It has been 
 discovered that some of the soldiers suffering from shell shock 
 revert to an earlier stage of mental existence and become un- 
 able to walk or talk, can't take any food but milk. It's called 
 mental regression, and undoubtedly the mental state of such 
 patients is that of a child. They have the child's consciousness, 
 see things as children do." 
 
 Ted Sayor broke into a laugh. "It would be a joke if in 
 their retrogression they didn't stop at their infancy, but went 
 on back to Nero's time, or the period of Rameses!" 
 
 "Perfectly possible," Harris averred. 
 
 "They might find themselves present at the turning of the 
 water into wine," offered the grinning Freddy Kerl. "That 
 would be great. They'd find out whether the Lord made sherry 
 or just plain claret, eh?" 
 
 A shout of laughter went up. "Now, Freddy, .we're talking 
 war, not weddings," admonished Madeline Nence. 
 
 "Now, I say," Alden Cragg broke in petulantly, "can't you 
 people let the bally war alone? Why do you insist on bring- 
 ing up all the horrors?" 
 
 "There, Aldy-boy," Ted comforted, "we'll cease to harrow 
 your sensitive soul. Let's see, what less disquieting topic can 
 we discuss while waiting for Jedkins? Oh, you didn't finish 
 your remarks on equal suffrage. . ." 
 
 "Say/' laughed Wallie Black, "I warned you not to get him 
 started on female domination! Alden's British, you know." 
 
 "But," Ted teased, "he's a Christian too. And 'male and 
 female created He them'. . ." 
 
 "But the male first," Alden interposed warmly. 
 
 "Ergo, your warrant for male supremacy, eh? I yield. 
 We'll change the subject. H'm! How about the Zionist move- 
 ment back to Palestine? Current and interesting." 
 
 "Oh, my Lord!" cried Ethel Whittier, "to mention Jews 
 to Alden is like waving a red flag at a bull." 
 
 "But the Jews are ..." 
 
 "Hogs!" Alden finished abruptly. "Go down Grand Ave- 
 nue where they promenade four abreast and see if they don't 
 crowd you into the street." 
 
 16 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Alden wins!" shouted Ted. "Next topic?" 
 
 "I'll tell you," young Hoeffel offered, "get the ouija board 
 and let's ask it about that battle Alden's mother saw him in." 
 
 "Oh, lovely, Otto!" cried Ethel, dancing up and down. 
 
 "Now, I say . . ." from Alden. 
 
 "Ethel wants to know if she's going to be a charming 
 young widow, with lovely 'Craggmont' to mourn in," piped 
 Madeline Nence. 
 
 Another general laugh, followed by more cries of "Get the 
 ouija board!" ... "Have Jedkins bring it!". . . *'Alden is 
 horribly superstitious!" 
 
 "Now, I say," Alden loudly protested, "talk anything, sing 
 anything, but leave out war, suffrage, and Jews! I hate all 
 three!" 
 
 "Including the Galuth, eh, Aldy-boy?" 
 
 "Slip me a cigarette, Harris," whispered Ethel, sidling up 
 to that young man who slid an arm about her slender waist. 
 "Please, good doggie! I'll smoke it going home. And," she 
 muttered, "I'll slap Nence's doll face for her if she makes any 
 more cracks at me, the smart little fool!" 
 
 "The ouija board!" chorused the other guests, 
 
 "No, I say, I refuse, even if I am host!" 
 
 "Isn't Alden the baby!" murmured Ethel Whittier scorn- 
 fully to Harris Chaddock, "He's afraid of his shadow! Men- 
 tion the word 'death' to him and he goes into convulsions!" 
 
 Ted Sayor lounged across the room and dropped into an 
 easy chair. "It's Lent, all right!" he laughed, "Fasting, you 
 know, means elimination of sense — at least, that's what Marian 
 says. But, bah! doing without is mere negation, not positive 
 virtue. However," with a sigh, "I waste my perfume on 
 desert air. Well, Aldy-boy, let's observe Lent by holding a 
 little spiritual retreat." He sat up stiffly and assumed a 
 pedantic air. "Advanced class in religious philosophy, up !" he 
 called. "Ah, Mr. Hoeffel, kindly state explicitly the deside- 
 ratum of religion." 
 
 " 'In religion we desire atheism,' as the good Gernian so- 
 cialist, August Bebel, says," replied Otto, grinning. 
 
 "But," objected Ted in mock seriousness, "we believed the 
 Germans a Christian people; we discover them heathen." 
 
 "The German rulers, my friend, have wisely seen that it 
 is a political mistake for a nation to accept Christianity," Otto 
 returned. "You will acknowledge it yourself some day." 
 
 Ted shook his head. "Too advanced," he insisted. "You're 
 dismissed. Next, primary class, up! Now, Miss Whittier, do 
 you believe in hell?" 
 
 "No," laughed Ethel. "Do you?" 
 
 17 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Assuredly, for hasn't the Kaiser demonstrated its exist- 
 ence? Next question: What is truth?" 
 
 "Oh, Lord! This from such a prevaricator!" 
 
 "Insinuating that I am incompetent- to judge? Wrong 
 again, as I shall prove. For, if the Reverend Wilson Whittier 
 opposes a thing, if Doctor Roake fights it, if Alden Cragg 
 frowns upon it, if Crestelridge society condemns it, and if 
 Senator Chaddock frames laws against it, why, that thing is 
 certain to be truth. For example, what Marian Whittier says 
 about the Wess bill. . . Ob, I say. Otto, you haven't satis- 
 factorily explained yet why you didn't bring Marian to- 
 night. . ." 
 
 "Ted!" cried Alden Cragg, glancing apprehensively at Otto's 
 darkling face. The others snickered. . . 
 
 Then Jedkins appeared and announced the refection. 
 
 Whir-r-r! . . , Rattle! . . .Crash! The fury of the gale 
 increased. A tree splintered beneath a bolt and fell across 
 the path of a young girl mounting the hill opposite "Cragg- 
 mont." For a moment she stood gasping, lieaning against the 
 wind; then she went slowly on. The storm howled around 
 her; the lightning hissed in her face. She bent her head and 
 toiled doggedly upward. At the top of the hill the defeated 
 wind, in a final onslaught, caught her up and hurled her 
 against the door of the cottage toward which she had been 
 struggling. Her hand grasped the knob, the door burst open, 
 and the wind dashed her to the floor within. 
 
 A white-haired woman hurried to shut out the storm and 
 raise the girl. "Marian!" she exclaimed. "What brings you 
 out on such a night as this?" 
 
 The girl threw off her coat and sank panting into a chair. 
 "Alden . . .!" she gasped. 
 
 The woman stood over her, waiting. A single lamp filled 
 the room with a mellow glow. A brisk fire crackled on the 
 grate. 
 
 "Alden," the girl continued excitedly, "is . . . Oh, Madam 
 Galuth, he is in the greatest danger! ' Otto Hoeffel came to 
 ask me to go to Alden's home with him this evening ! I . . . 
 I could not! . . . you know why! Then he . . ." She buried 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 The woman waited. The girl raised her head. "He . . . 
 asked me to . . . marry him! I refused, and he became 
 very angry! Oh, it was not what he said, but what I saw 
 back of his words ! It all came to me in a flash. . . Doctor 
 Roake, Senator Chaddock, Otto ... I saw it all!" 
 
 "And you fled," said the woman, laying a hand on the 
 girl's shoulder. "Yoii saw the drive coming, and you fell back 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 before it. And yet," she added reflectively, "Joffre fell back 
 to the Marne." 
 
 "But ... if I face him . . . Alden will be destroyed!" 
 
 The woman stood regarding her for some moments. Then: 
 "The drive is not against Alden, Marian, but against you." 
 
 The girl rose abruptly and threw her arms about the other's 
 neck. For a moment they stood in close embrace; then the 
 woman gently disengaged herself and sat down. The girl sank 
 upon the floor beside the chair and laid her head in the 
 woman's lap. 
 
 For a few moments the woman gently stroked the girl's 
 disheveled hair. Then she bent and kissed it. "The command 
 is to turn, dearie, turn and go forward without fear." She 
 reached out and took from an adjacent table some papers 
 filled with writing. "Will you let me tell you a story?" she 
 asked, smiling down at the brown head in her lap. 
 
 A grateful warmth from the fireplace spread through the 
 room. The girl, overwrought by her mental battle and ex- 
 hausted by her .struggle with the storm, relaxed with a deep 
 sigh. A great peace came upon her. Her eyes closed, and 
 drowsiness stole over her senses. She roused and struggled 
 against it. Then she yielded. Yet she strove to follow the 
 woman's words, to visualize the picture she drew. Presently 
 her imagination seemed to become unwontedly active. Then 
 before it a vast panorama appeared to unfold. . . 
 
 It was the valley of the Jordan, cleaving the Holy Land 
 like a gash from a gigantic scimiter. Through this enormous 
 wound the one river of Palestine was hurrying to its grave 
 in the Dead Sea. Above the lake of Gennesaret the valley 
 appeared to contract painfully into a jagged cut; below, it 
 pressed its mountainous ligatures back until, approaching the 
 site of modern Jericho, it gaped to a width of many miles 
 of burning plain. Time had paused and rolled back its scroll. 
 It was the last watch of a night that fell j.ust before the "morn- 
 ing-time in Canaan." And on the west bank of the river a 
 host lay encamped, anxiously awaiting the day. 
 
 In type it was a military encampment, such as had dotted 
 the plains of Canaan from time immemorial; yet it gave evi- 
 dence of a host hurriedly assembled and hard driven. Scores 
 of war chariots encircled it, some broken and battered, some 
 with their iron scythes twisted and ominously red-stained. 
 Within this protecting fringe hundreds of camels and horses, 
 cattle, sheep, and goats huddled in the penetrating chill. Travel- 
 stained warriors, clad variously in robes of camel's-hair or 
 pelisses of sheep-skin, lay among them, sleeping heavily on 
 
 19 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 their arms, or keeping a nodding watch of the restive brutes. 
 vFires smoldered here and there, yet their fitful flashes scarce 
 penetrated the heavy mist that streamed steadily up from the 
 adjacent river and drowned the yellow light of the cold stars 
 in a watery pall. In the center of the camp, within another 
 protecting circle of mud-caked wagons and two-wheeled carts, 
 were grouped several large tents, each with a tribal standard 
 set before it, and all surrounded by a hundred smaller tents 
 of varying size and type. In the exact center of this inner 
 circle rose a larger tent of black goat's-hair, conspicuous not 
 only for its standard denoting the tribe of Abram, son of Terah, 
 son of Heber, but for the hastily erected pillar of stones that 
 stood before it. The skin suspended over -its entrance was 
 partly drawn, and through the aperture thus formed a gleam 
 of light escaped into the blacknes^ without. 
 
 Beyond the river a lonely jackal suddenly shattered the 
 stillness with a despairing wail. A hungry lion, creeping 
 through the canebrake, with its eyes on the gleam from the 
 large tent, raised its head and sent forth an angry roar. The 
 cattle started up, snorting with terror; men woke in alarm 
 and sprang to their weapons; children whimpered; dogs bayed; 
 the skin before the great tent was drawn quickly aside and 
 a man appeared, casting a shadow before him, huge as the 
 fabled sons of Rephaim. 
 
 For some moments the man stood peering out into the mist; 
 then, as. the alarm abated and quiet settled again over the 
 camp, he drew a deep sigh and raised his eyes to the stars. 
 
 "When shall I arise and the night be gone?" 
 
 His plaint floated into the unanswering darkness, and all 
 was still. As his head sank, his gaze rested for a moment 
 upon the stone pillar. A change came over his face. He drew 
 himself up and turned back into the tent. The light that now 
 fell full upon him from a suspended lamp of rare Chaldean 
 workmanship revealed a figure that had been cast in a mold of 
 noble proportions. His head, of a size commensurate with 
 his great frame, was crowned by a mane of iron-gray hair. 
 His strong, bearded face, browned by the hot winds that sweep 
 the plains of Mamre, reflected a lofty quality of thought quite 
 rare in those idolatrous days. His nose was prominent; his 
 eyes large, deeply black, and heavily shaded by bold brows. 
 His garb was the conventional one of the tribal rulers of early 
 Canaanitish times, with the exception of the long, loose shirt 
 of fine linen, which indicated the wearer's acquaintance with 
 Egypt. Over this he had thrown a eloak of padded wool, rich 
 with Babylonian embroidery. On his feet were sandals of 
 Assyrian type, encasing the heel and sides of the foot. A large 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and exquisitely wrought signet ring circled the index finger 
 of his right hand. As he moved, his demeanor, like his appear- 
 ance, was graceful, serious, commanding. 
 
 "What avails your faith in your unseen God, my father, 
 when evil, like yonder lion, roars ever beside your tent?" 
 
 The speaker, a man of perhaps fifty years, drew a heavy 
 ■ camel's-hair robe closely about him and sank shivering upon 
 a pile of rich rugs and skins in a corner of the tent. His 
 facial resemblance to the older man bespoke a close kinship; 
 but his smaller frame, with its lack of dignity; his effeminate 
 hands; his white skin, and his calculating gaze that appraised 
 all things in Rialto terms, indicated that' the kinship was 
 physical rather than of the soul. 
 
 "Again I ask, what avails your chance victory over the 
 drunken slaves of Kudur-Lagamar," the younger man continued 
 bitterly, "since thereby you have challenged mighty Elam, 
 striving for world-power? From distant Hobah we have fallen 
 steadily back before their swiftly gathering hosts, our warriors 
 dropping like withered leaves. The adversary hangs now upon 
 our flanks, breathing his hymns of hate to mighty Ishtar. Will 
 he not strike when the night watch ends and day floods again 
 the plain?" 
 
 "Doubtless he will strike," the other answered gravely. 
 "For God lets not evil rest till it be destroyed." 
 
 "And shall we remain to receive the blow, and with it 
 certain death or, for me, again the yoke? You might have 
 bargained for my freedom with your wealth, but now . . . 
 And yet I shall escape, and you with me, if you will but heed 
 my counsel! O my father, our cousin Shaiil, himself descended 
 through Nahor from our common father Heber, and therefore 
 worthy of our confidence, knows well the mountain passes 
 westward to the coast, and the traveled road that leads from 
 thence to Egypt. He shall guide us this night out of the hand 
 of the Elamite and into the sheltering hills. Unhampered by 
 these numerous souls, flight will be rapid, and soon the nod- 
 ding palms of happy Egypt shall bid us welcome. There let 
 us end our days, in Egypt, blessed by her gods with abundance 
 and sweet peace. . ." 
 
 "A false peace where peace is not, my son," was the patient 
 answer. 
 
 A shade crossed the younger man's face, and his retort 
 sprang angrily to his lips. "You dare not seek again the favor 
 of great Mykerinos, whose welcome you did so offend that 
 he drove us from his realm! Was it your unseen God that 
 bade you lie to Pharaoh?" 
 
 The older man sighed and stood for a moment regarding 
 
 21 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his companion. Then, in a low tone: "I have told you, my 
 son, and again I repeat: a consuming longing surcharged my 
 thought with fear Ipst Sarrat, my wife, be seized by Pharaoh, 
 and God's promise of progeny remain to me forever void. . ." 
 
 "Ah, your unseen God was weaker then than Bel!" 
 
 "Not God, O Lot, my son, but / was weak." His voice fell. 
 "I lied to Pharaoh through wavering faith in Him." 
 
 A mocking smile came into the face of the younger man. 
 "You are Abu-ramu, prince and chief," he said in a voice laden 
 with sarcasm, "accounted wise in the learning of the Chaldees. 
 Yet did you then, as now, expose yourself to sure destruction 
 because of the silly notion that your unseen God vrtll make 
 of you a mighty nation ! Of you and Sarrat, stricken in years 
 and blown like chaff before the hosts of Elam!" 
 
 He rose and stood trembling before the other. The camel's- 
 hair robe had slipped from his shoulders, but in his agitation 
 he heeded it not. 
 
 , "Say now, O Abu-ramu," he went on heatedly, "what good 
 this idle notion has brought you that your faith remains so 
 strong — for well you know what it has wrought for me! 
 Because of it my father Haran perished in Ur, striving to 
 rescue the images of our gods from the temple which, in mad 
 frenzy, you did set in flames ! For grief at this, and persecuted 
 because of your own most stubborn notion of a solitary unseen 
 God, your father Terah left our ancient seat of Ur; nor found 
 he rest, despised by those whose gods had been outraged by 
 you, until at Kharran his harassed soul took flight! What 
 then? Forthwith you did abandon your father's house, your 
 kin, for lo! a second call had come, as you did claim, from 
 your sole and unseen God, and you must forth, not knowing 
 whither, though five and seventy years lay like a burden on 
 your back! I followed you; I too had been deluded by the 
 tale, and strove for like faith in your lonely God. Ten years 
 now have I braved the. fury of great Bel, Ishtar, the Moon- 
 god Sin! What then? Evil trailed evil! Pharaoh spewed me 
 forth! The hosts of Asshur consumed me! War scattered 
 my flocks and ravished the city of my adoption! In chains 
 I followed the chariot of Kudur-Lagamar, till chance delivered 
 me to you — only now to learn that Amraphel, Arioch, and 
 Tidal, King of the Goyim, bearing the standards of Bel, are 
 gathering at the valley's mouth to hurl themselves upon us 
 and by my death or bondage avenge the insults which you 
 have heaped upon their deities!" 
 
 He drew nearer and thrust his face upward. A sneer 
 curled his thin lips, and his eyelids drew into narrow slits. 
 "Say now what you have done these ten years so filled with 
 
 22 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 wrath, O Abu-ramu, you who believe yourself appointed by 
 the God of your imagination to father a mighty race!" 
 
 In the brief interval of silence that followed this taunt, 
 the great figure of the patriarch stood like the terebinth in 
 Hebron, beneath whose massive shade he long had taught 
 his people. Then his head inclined, and his dark eyes gleamed 
 as he made reply: "I have been proving my faith in the only 
 living and true God." 
 
 For a moment his auditor stood abashed at the unexpected 
 reply. Then, to cover his confusion, he threw back his head 
 and broke into a low laugh. "And doubtless it is proof of 
 your God's great wisdom that you have come hither, rather 
 than by the coastal road to the fair cities of Egypt." 
 
 "Doubtless," was the astonishing reply. 
 
 "And what did your sole and unseen God bid you seek 
 here?" 
 
 "A city with foundations." 
 
 "Foundations! What means your riddle? Cities are not 
 built upon the sand!" 
 
 The patriarch's thought seemed to cloud, and he hesitated. 
 For a moment he looked yearningly into the face of his com- 
 panion, then turned and walked slowly to the tent door, where 
 he stood striving to pierce the night. 
 
 Without, all was quiet under that tense calm which, snap- 
 ping, lets fall the barriers that restrain the storm. Lights 
 moved fitfully; guards paced their beats softly and with strain- 
 ing ears; feral sounds and low talking floated on the heavy 
 mist; a fretful child cried, and its tired mother, but recently 
 a captive, sought to give it comfort; above, as the clouds parted, 
 Orion drove the fleeting Pleiades across the vaulted sky. The 
 patriarch smote, his bosom with his clenched fists, and a cry 
 escaped his trembling lips: "O that I knew where I might 
 find him! That I might come even to his seat!" 
 
 He turned expectantly and met the questioning eyes of his 
 adopted son. "Your God, you mean?" the latter asked. "Search 
 then your fertile imagination ! Or," he pursued in somewhat 
 gentler tones, as he noted the troubled look in the other's face, 
 "do you now seek more substantial aid? A warrior, perhaps 
 the king of that city with foundations, to succor us. , ." 
 
 "I seek . . ." The patriarch, hesitated. Then, quickly: 
 "I seek the type of that King of Peace, who shall come from 
 the heir whom God will give me." 
 
 Lot's eyes widened and his mouth gaped. Then he stooped 
 and took up the fallen robe and tossed it over his shoulders. 
 "I waste words," he said impatiently. "Your thought is not 
 upon our common danger, but wantons still with your strange 
 
 23 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 delusion. The darkest hour of night is come, and Shaul 
 awaits. Once more, will you leave your dreary prospect? 
 
 Abram shook his head. "My task is not accomplished by 
 fleeing from it," he said. ^ 
 
 "I but counsel you to lay off your too heavy burden and 
 seek safety and peace in Egypt. Ah, Egypt, playground of 
 the gods! Think, O my father, what delights to the eye, the 
 ear, the touch. . ." /-. t * 
 
 "Evil undestroyed would pursue me, as it will you, O Lot, 
 my blinded son. I will meet it here." 
 
 "Then to the God of your fancy I commend you, my father, 
 and, even as between Beth-El and Hai we separated without 
 strife, so do we now." 
 
 He drew his robe about him and started toward the exit. 
 Abram in silence extended an arm and held the skin aloft. Lot 
 stopped before him, crossed his hands over his bosom, and 
 stood for a moment with bowed head. Then he went quickly 
 out into the night. 
 
 A light breeze sweeping across Ephraim from the north 
 drove the mists toward the wilderness. The insect voices 
 of the night were hushed. The lonely patriarch's gaze instinc- 
 tively sought the now clear heavens, and he stood sunken in 
 thought. 
 
 Doubtless as he stood his mind turned back to distant 
 days in Ur, the birthplace of the tribe of Heber. Doubtless he 
 saw himself again on that wondrous night when, yearning for 
 truth, and striving to see creative intelligence in moon or stars, 
 it first dawned upon his honest thought that not these, but 
 the invisible Power that had created them, demanded his 
 reverence. Doubtless he now recalled how this simple revela- 
 tion had transformed him; how zeal to know and serve that 
 unseen One became at once his life-motif. Loathing for the 
 vices of those among whom he dwelt had long filled him. Now 
 he had denounced the worship of their idols and called upon 
 the Lord, in primitive demonstration of his new and better way 
 of thinking, to save him from the infant sacrifice and religious 
 obscenity of his fellow men. 
 
 Abram knew that his fallow mind had not been the first 
 to be touched by knowledge of the true God; he knew that, 
 since time began, the Creator had not left Himself without 
 a witness. But when men multiplied, and tribes and whole 
 nations migrated, the pouring of peoples into the fertile Meso- 
 potamian valley had given rise to a great confusion of tongues 
 and exchange of ideas and their material manifestation. Knowl- 
 edge of the One God — ^priceless heritage from such pure souls 
 as Noah, Enoch, and those who, having responsive aptitudes 
 
 24 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to the divine thought, received and translated the spiritual 
 message, and thus "walked with God" — ^became obscured by 
 the mental mist that rose from material ways of thinking. 
 The atmosphere of Ur grew noxious with idolatrous associa- 
 tions. Men became slaves of their own lusts. The divine 
 vision faded, and lessons drawn from the dire consequence 
 of evil thought, which the wise had read in floods and cata- 
 clysms, ceased to be heard or heeded. The curve of ancient 
 world morality had reached its lowest cusp, when Abram heard 
 a voice that he knew was not of man. 
 
 As the Nazarene, twenty centuries later, unerringly sensed 
 his calling, so Abram doubtless felt the irresistible impulse 
 that comes from a great conviction. And he must have felt 
 it, not as a promise, but a responsibility, a demand that he 
 leave all and, depending alone on his Creator, set out from 
 idolatrous Ur to begin his long period of preparation. He 
 fared forth "as one who drinketh up scoffing", unmindful 
 of taunt or persecution, but following his spiritual judgment 
 with a devotion to the things of God that in time must render 
 him one through whom great deeds would be accomplished. 
 
 The first demand upon him had been that of simple obe- 
 dience. And he had met it promptly. The material reward 
 was great prosperity, for in Haran the tribe of his father, 
 Terah, waxed rich and powerful. But the real reward to 
 Abram was the passing from his thought of every trace of 
 the old religious superstition, and a further preparation for 
 his destiny by the gradual recognition of his God as not merely 
 the sole Creator, but the infinite moral Governor of the uni- 
 verse. This greater mental awakening, which constituted his 
 second "call," flowered when Terah's death severed the last 
 link that held the family together. 
 
 In the working out of his salvation Abram doubtless had 
 seen the necessity of freedom, from old and hampering asso- 
 ciations. In Haran he had "gotten souls," had converted many 
 to his monotheistic views. With these and his adopted son 
 Lot, and 
 
 " — after him a cumbrous train 
 Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude — 
 Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth 
 With God, who called him—" 
 
 he "went out, not knowing whither he went," following a 
 vision that, through contemplation and consecrated devotion, 
 had taken on a larger meaning. By the world's standards he 
 had nothing to gain and all to lose in thus wrenching him- 
 self loose from Haran. But obedience implies sacrifice. And 
 
 25 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sacrifice is surrender. In this he saw a new command of 
 God that must be obeyed. The further from home he wan- 
 dered, the closer would he draw to God; the less he depended 
 upon his fellows, the more he would cling to the everlasting 
 arm, which he believed would uphold him. Doubtless, too, 
 he saw that to hang back at this juncture would be fatal to 
 that long-nourished conviction — itself based on a revelation 
 that to his sensitized and responsive spirit may have been 
 literally a "voice" — that an heir would be given him, through 
 whom something of greatest import to the unregenerate human 
 race would come. 
 
 But ten years had already spent themselves upon him since 
 leaving Haran, and the childless man who stood yearning at 
 the tent door still patiently awaited the fulfilment of what 
 had come to him as a promise. Temptations dire had assailed 
 him; fear had driven him into errors which human history 
 would for all time charge against his God; friends had scoffed 
 and fallen away, and scant sympathy was meted by his nearest 
 kin. Yet he stood — and on this portentous night more alone 
 than ever — alone in his hopes, abandoned to his motives, but 
 a witness to the stupendous truth destined ultimately to con- 
 quer every false system and form the basis of the one demon- 
 strable religion, the truth that God is One. He had once 
 before torn himself from his beloved Lot, at Bethel, that the 
 selfish materialist might enjoy the richest of the pasture lands; 
 yet now when the banded Syrian kings swooped down upon 
 the five cities of Arabah and bore Lot into captivity, the faith- 
 ful Abram had hastily armed his clan, allied himself with 
 the hosts of the Amorite brothers, Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, 
 and hurried to his rescue. In the years of solitary contempla- 
 tion of his better concept of God beneath the starry skies of 
 Canaan he had learned the value of blessing them that despite- 
 fuUy used him. This ominous night, returning from the rescue 
 of Lot from the hands of the idolatrous Kudur-Lagamar, a 
 further demand for sacrifice of self had been promptly metj 
 but the lonely patriarch still stood firm in purpose and deter- 
 mination to follow to the end his mighty spiritual venture. . . 
 
 He turned quickly, as sounds of a commotion rose through 
 the night. A moment later a runner, naked but for a loin- 
 cloth,, and dripping with perspiration and the mist, dashed 
 breathlessly up to the tent and sank at the patriarch's feet. 
 
 "Shalat . . . the adversary . . . approaches!" 
 
 Lights were springing up in all parts of the camp; there 
 were shouts and cries of command and alarm; the sound of 
 a Chaldean keren rent the air, followed by prolonged taboring. 
 Before the patriarch could speak a second and a third runner 
 arrived at the tent. 
 
 26 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Host after host is against us, O Shalatl From the mouth 
 of the valley they are swarming like bees!" 
 
 "Like a cloud of locusts they will come! They are form- 
 ing to the attack!" 
 
 The blazing camp was now awhirl. Men of war feverishly 
 donned helmet and buckler and reached for the ready javelin; 
 archers strung their bows and threw their quivers upon their 
 backs; "servants" directed the gathering of munitions, of 
 darts and slings, of mauls and axes; "rulers of his chariots 
 and his horsemen" hurried the harnessing of the pawing steeds, 
 while "princes" and captains shouted orders and rushed the 
 preparations for desperate defense. 
 
 "My son!" The patriarch's thought had turned to Lot, who, 
 abandoning all else, had sought personal safety in flight. So 
 might he have done . . . 
 
 "What is man that thou shouldest try him every moment?" 
 he murmured, with a quick glance upward to the fading stars. 
 "But He is one Mind, and who can turn Him?" 
 
 Then his great frame became suddenly animate, and com- 
 mand chased command from his lips. Facing the menace of 
 swift destruction from organized evil, the patriarch became 
 at once the powerful sheikh, the natural head of the confeder- 
 acy of Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, and spiritual leader of the 
 army of the righteous. The various tribal chiefs were hur- 
 riedly summoned to his tent; directions were issued and 
 quickly borne to the farthest limits of the camp; the dynamic 
 presence of the great director moved like a tower of strength, 
 from which radiated courage, hope, and determination. Scarce 
 had the exhausted runners unburdened their dread news when 
 the striking of tents began; and soon the cattle and flocks, 
 the women and children, the wounded and infirm, were mov- 
 ing swiftly down the valley, surrounded by lumbering carts 
 and staggering burden bearers, while horsemen and chariots 
 followed in the rear, leaving a strong detachment behind to 
 meet the shock of the oncoming hordes. Songs and chants 
 rose from the souls whom Abram had gotten. And ever and 
 anon from the patriarch's lips as he rode among them came 
 the assertion of his own strong faith . . . 
 
 "In heaven, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art 
 supreme ! 
 On earth, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art 
 supreme !" 
 
 In the east the first tints of dawn had begun to glorify the 
 long crest of Gilead. On the soft morning breeze came, faintly 
 borne, a rushing sound, swelling steadily to a dull roar. Min- 
 
 27 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 gling with the thud of hoofs and the whir of flying chariots, 
 as if in mocking reversal of Abram's chant of faith, echoed 
 the Elamite hymn of hate: 
 
 "O Ishtar, turn thou our hearts to hate! To plot against 
 thy foes, the hosts of Heber! Give hail for rain! Flam- 
 ing fire in their land ! Strike their vine and fig tree, and 
 break the trees on their border! Let locusts and yeleqs 
 come upon them without number! Let thistles grow 
 instead of wheat, and cockle for barley ! Turn their water 
 into blood and kill their fish ! Smite them, O Ishtar, and 
 bring thy chosen ones in exultation to their lands ! Curse 
 them, O Ishtar, and smite them with blindness and 
 disease!" 
 
 A captain dashed up to the patriarch. "Look back, O 
 Shalat," he shouted, "where our warriors give way before 
 them! Hear the enemy's joyous shouts!" 
 
 The leader moved not his head, but rode steadily forward. 
 "The triumphing of the wicked is short," he made reply, "and 
 the joy of the godless is but for a moment." 
 
 "But thou hast miscalculated, Shalat!" cried the captain. 
 "They are like the grains of dust! And we so few in number!" 
 
 "One with Him is a host, O son." 
 
 The tribal leaders, now overwhelmed with fear, came press- 
 ing about the patriarch. "We are lost, O Shalat!" they cried. 
 "Thou hast misled us sore!" 
 
 Fear surged like a tidal wave over the pursued. Panting 
 fugitives from the "shock troops" left behind were beginning 
 to overtake the van. Women strained their babes to their 
 bosoms and broke into wailing and wringing of hands. 
 Despairing horsemen, unable to curb their fear, wheeled and 
 spurred their steeds toward the distant hills; others fled to the 
 river. . . 
 
 "This way, O Shalat!" 
 
 "To the mountains! Turn, O Shalat, or thy life . . ." 
 
 "He knoweth the way that I take," came from the patriarch. 
 Panic and rout were imminent, yet for him the issue lay with 
 his God. 
 
 The sun was now streaming garishly over the steaming 
 plain. The driven hosts of Abram stumbled and drooped. 
 Vultures hung expectantly above them. The adversary drew 
 on with a roar, in si whirling cloud of dust. Chants, cries, 
 shouts, and yells of despair and defiance, of pain, of hatred, 
 filled the morning air. Warriors dropped, and were ground 
 into the earth by a thousand hoofs. Abram's straining eyes 
 were fixed upon the farther limit of the plain, where the moun- 
 
 28 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tains again draw close to form the valley of the Kidron, once 
 known as "Shaveh, which is the king's dale." Arrows from 
 the great bows of the skirmishers of the nearing enemy were 
 already falling around him. Their fiendish yells of victory 
 smote his ears. Still his gaze held to the distant prospect, 
 where through the swirling dust something glittered in the 
 mist-laden sun . . . 
 
 "Curse them, O Ishtar, and smite them with blindness and 
 disease!" yelled the adversary, as he closed in to the slaughter. 
 
 Abram raised a hand to shade his eyes. "I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth, and at last he will stand upon the earth!" 
 was his murmured reply to the curse of evil. 
 
 Then a cry broke from his dry lips. The dust-cloud fell from 
 before him, and a dazzling reflection, as from a vast expanse 
 of shining mail, of bronze chariots and polished spears, broke 
 upon his eager sight. Mamre, the Amorite, came galloping to 
 his side. 
 
 "Dost thou see it too, O my father? Behold, in the distance! 
 They come! They cornel" 
 
 Down from the hillsides and along the valley rolled a glit- 
 tering throng, like a sea of molten silver. The spent warriors 
 of Abram saw it and halted, \vith eyes bursting and mouths 
 agape. Then, at the command of their great leader, they sent 
 up a wild shout and turned as a man upon their pursuers. 
 The surprised Elamites jerked back their steeds in their hot 
 tracks until harness snapped and wheel crunched upon wheel, 
 but their momentum carried them onward and left them 
 impaled upon a sea of spears. Chariots' and horsemen piled 
 high in a frenzied, struggling, suffocating mass. Yells of terror 
 burst from the remnant in the rear who saw, with bulging 
 eyes, the shining hosts in the distance pouring down upon 
 them. They reinpd about, turned again, as if unbelieving, to 
 see the oncoming flood, then wheeled and fled wildly up the 
 valley whence they had come. The exhausted hosts of Abram 
 sank to the ground and waited. Only the patriarch, with a 
 small retinue of tribal chieftains, rode out to meet the legions 
 that had risen before them, as it seemed, out of the earth. 
 
 But soon the patriarch reined his horse and hastily dis- 
 mounted. The tribal chieftains immediately followed the 
 example of their leader. Mamre, the Amorite, turned to his 
 brothers and spoke in awed tones. "Have you marked, O my 
 brothers, how this oncoming host has diminished in number? 
 I thought them numerous as the sands of the desert. . ." 
 
 "And I," gasped Aner, staring before him in astonishment. 
 
 "And, behold," cried Eshcol, "they come unarmed! Yet I 
 swear their spears and shields glistened in the sun when first 
 I marked them!" 
 
 3— Apr. 22. 29 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Others of the chieftains drew together and whispered low, 
 as they gazed in amazement at the approaching strangers. 
 Only Abram seemed unmoved by surprise. Instead, his eyes 
 were fixed reverently upon the majestic figure, clad, in white 
 robes and mounted upon a white steed of wondrous size and 
 beauty, who rode alone at their head. 
 
 "God only is supreme!" the patriarch breathed. And his 
 hands trembled as he crossed them over his bosom. 
 
 The advancing throng came swiftly, some in glittering 
 chariots, some mounted on prancing horses, some afoot, with 
 songs on their lips, with banners afloat, with tailoring, and 
 blowing of pipes and horns. Many held earthen jars upon 
 their shoulders; some bore well-filled wine-skins upon their 
 backs; others carried burdens of bread, of meats, of fruits. 
 Abram moved slowly forward and knelt on the ground, await- 
 ing their leader. 
 
 The latter drew rein and extended his arms before him. 
 "Peace be unto you and yours, O Abram," he called in a voice 
 as gentle as the morning breeze, "in the name of the only living 
 and true God." 
 
 "To Whom be honor and glory.for ever more, O Melchisedec, 
 Prince and Priest of the Most High," reverently returned the 
 patriarch. 
 
 Exclamations broke from the hosts of Abram. "Patesi!" 
 they gasped. "Prince and king!" 
 
 The radiant leader dismounted and came to where Abram 
 knelt. "Rise, O friend of God," he said, stooping over him. 
 
 Abram clasped the extended arms and rose to his feet. 
 Then Melchisedec placed his hands on the patriarch's shoulders 
 and kissed him tenderly on both cheeks. 
 
 Tears coursed freely down the patriarch's face. "Thou 
 callest me by name, O Priest of Elion," he spoke in quavering 
 tones; "thou comest to meet me, sore pressed by evil. . ." 
 
 "Long have I known you, O Abram," said the other. "For 
 smce first you entered Chna I have watched, through many 
 eyes, the ripening of that rare faith which now must fructify 
 m knowledge. I saw your flying hosts pass to the north to 
 rescue Lot, unworthy son and nephew! from the servants of 
 false Bel. I knew when, withstanding strong temptation to 
 take the path of safety back to Egypt, you did choose to come 
 this hazardous way." 
 
 "Because of thee, O great^Melchisedec ! Long have I sought 
 thee, for thou . . ." His voice sank as he continued. "Thou 
 canst pomt me to that city with foundations." 
 
 "Which is the true understanding of God, O Abram," the 
 other gently answered. "And by faith you reach it. By faith 
 
 30 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 already you have learned that such understanding is possible 
 to man. Know now that it is the city which God has prepai-ed 
 for you and these," extending an arm toward Abram's people, 
 "who have seen the promise afar off and have been persuaded 
 to embrace it. But, come, pitch now your tents, O Abram, 
 and rest and comfort your wearied people," he went on. "Nor 
 fear a return of the fleeing adversary, whom but to face with 
 strong faith in God was to drive headlong in rout. So always 
 with evil." 
 
 Abram turned and gave a sign. This was instantly trans- 
 mitted by his Damascene steward Eliezer, and immediately the 
 host set about pitching camp. An awning was quickly erected, 
 and beneath its shade Abram and his guest disposed them- 
 selves to await the ordering of the camp. 
 
 Of the status of the mysterious being who sat conversing 
 with him, it was apparent that Abram had been but dimly 
 apprised; for, while he had diligently sought him, driven by 
 an impulse which he had believed divine, yet conflicting rumor 
 had mingled with tales of the Canaan plains to cast a haze 
 over his name and veil his person in myth. Nor is it strange 
 that in that day of dense materialism, so manifest in obscene 
 rites of worship of wood and stone, of planet, star, and the 
 ghosts of fear and every evil, individuals of the pattern of 
 Melchisedec should not be truly comprehended by groveling, 
 sin-stained mortals. 
 
 Yet they dwelt among men, sacred and mysterious, even 
 before the day of Abram — dwelt on earth as the great adminis- 
 trators of justice such as they believed God Himself would 
 have it. Monotheists they were, and kings of righteousness 
 and peace that as far transcended human understanding then 
 as now. And the greatest of these was the stately Melchisedec, 
 kingly priest and priestly king, clear-seeing, never faltering, 
 spiritually-minded servant of the One God, and type of that 
 greater Priest who would one day come as a sinful world's 
 Messiah. 
 
 "I heard of thee in Egypt," Abram resumed, now lost to 
 the bustling activity around him, where tents rose and prepara- 
 tions for rest and ministration went busily on. "For, though 
 I sought corn against the famine, yet my true mission was 
 with Egypt's priests, that I might give them knowledge of the 
 One God in place of their imaginary deities. There I learned 
 of thee; there I saw that mighty witness to God^ — though none 
 could decipher it nor name it aught but Khufu's tomb. Yet 
 even those idolatrous priests did admit that thou, whom Prince 
 Philition they called, a 'shepherd king,' didst peacefully sub- 
 due warlike Egypt, cause great Khufu to close the idol temples 
 
 31 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and wait with reverence whilst this great altar should rise to 
 witness for all time to Him who is God alone. Yet some say 
 that the purpose of this mighty pillar shall remain unrecog- 
 nized throughout the ages, that its message may be read- in 
 the last days, long hence, when it shall confound the evil 
 unbelief of those distant future times," 
 
 "Misunderstand me not, O Abram," was the grave reply. 
 "The eternal God is never without witness. See in that pillar, 
 known as Khufu's tomb, a prophecy, a symbol of eternal justice, 
 of all mortal belief laid to the plummet; but forget not that all 
 things material must pass away, whilst God and His image 
 shall alone remain. Seek ye then but the spiritual; abandon 
 your belief that things of matter can have substance, life; quit 
 now your fear that evil can have power, since that belief, 
 contesting with your faith that God is All, keeps the lion ever 
 roaring by your tent. Could our omnipotent God create a 
 power against Himself? 
 
 "Then listen well: the mighty El has called you. How? 
 He sent His angel — a thought divine, an impulse pure — ^which 
 bade you cease the worship of the thing created and reverence 
 Him who made all that of which this universe material is but 
 the symbol crude. And you did yield obedience. Then followed 
 angel after angel, and formed an ever better concept within 
 you of the true and only God. The spiritual bidding to leave 
 the idolatrous environment in which you dwelt brought with 
 it faith that God would care for you while seeking Him, O 
 Abram, the steps that lead up to that city which you seek are 
 these: pure thought, pure concept, pure impulse, obedience, 
 faith, then understanding, which is the reward, for rightly to 
 know Him Ls life eternal." 
 
 "How rightly to know Him is what I seek, O Priest and 
 King," answered Abram. "And when I learned from Egypt's 
 reluctant priests how thou didst so project new, strange, and 
 abstract ideas into sluggish human minds that, without employ 
 of arms, without slaughter, violence, or force, thou didst lay 
 all, Egypt, from Khufu down, beneath thy spell beneficent— 
 ah, then I knew that thy idea of God was far more perfect 
 than mine own, and I must seek from thee to learn of Him " 
 
 Melchisedec raised his arms and extended them toward 
 
 Abram. "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor 
 
 of heaven and earth," he said in a voice of great solemnity. 
 
 And blessed be the Most High God, who has delivered vour 
 
 enemies into your hand." 
 
 "They fled when thou didst burst upon their sight 
 
 'Not so, O Abram. Came we with arms, or in' great 
 numbers? No, What saw the adversary then? Naught but 
 
 32 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 what his own fears personified. He fled before his vision of 
 Omnipotence. Your enemies, O Abram, are but your human 
 fears, and thoughts not based on Truth. These your God has 
 delivered into your hands." 
 
 "The scales drop from mine eyes, O Priest of God!" cried 
 Abram in great animation. "But say further now: our father 
 Enoch, he who left our midst, and was not ..." 
 
 "He learned, what all mankind must some day know, that 
 God is Spirit and is One. That Spirit is the sole Creator; 
 and His Creation is not formed of dust, but made the eternal 
 image of His perfect Self. So Enoch saw all evil, sin, the 
 things of matter, death itself, as but the formless mist that 
 seems at dawn to rise to oppose the sun, but flees before it and 
 dissolves and is no more. Thus grounded on immovable 
 Truth, he loosed his mortal bonds, o'ercame the false beliefs 
 that limit all mankind, and so focused the sharp rays of 
 Truth omnipotent upon his seeming self that it dissolved and 
 vanished quite from human view. Thus doing, he walked 
 with God and passed, without death, linto a consciousness of 
 life eternal. Thus all mankind must do to live." 
 
 Long they talked, and Abram sat at the Master's feet 
 absorbed. Meantime, the tents were spread in favored spots, 
 and tables laden with unleavened cakes, clotted cream, flesh 
 of kid and calf, and fruits of many kinds. Then Abram rose 
 and led Melchisedec to his own tent. There he bade him sit, 
 while he ungirt himself and from a silver laver washed the 
 feet of his distinguished guest. Then Melchisedec called his 
 servants, who set out the bread and wine which they had 
 brought, as symbols of the spiritual gifts which will always 
 follow the purifying of thought. 
 
 "From your own. land of the Accadians," he said, "cbmeS 
 wheat, which mortals call the staff of life. Know, O Abram, 
 that each thing of Spirit must seem to have its counterpart 
 in human thought. So wheat originated in that land v^rhenCe 
 first came human man, as the counterpart material of the reve- 
 lation of Truth as Life, the revelation that came to you that God 
 is One." 
 
 The day declined, and long shadows stole across the plain. 
 Low singing rose f^^om the women's tents, where grdteful 
 mothers crooned and drowsed over sleeping babes. Peace crept 
 down from the empurpled hills and enveloped the quiet caltnp. 
 Cattle munched their grain in deep content. Warriors stretched 
 out their tired limbs, while the memory of strife and strain, 
 of wounds and harassed flight, faded with the waning day 
 and passed into night. 
 
 "The command has come, O Abram: 'Thou shalt have no 
 
 33 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 other Elohim before me'," said Melchisedec, as he rose. And 
 it must sift you, sift you, sift you, till every human support 
 shall fall, and you shall stand on Truth as God alone. 
 
 "And what is Truth?" asked Abram. 
 
 "That God is -All," came the quick reply. 
 
 Then Melchisedec drew nearer and laid his hands again 
 upon the shoulders of Abram. "What down the corridors of 
 time I see, I may not tell you," he said, "for as yet you rest 
 more on faith than understanding. Yet through faith are you 
 made heir to the Word. Because of this shall come your trial. 
 Gird up now thy loins, for He shall demand of thee on what 
 thine understanding rests, if it be Spirit, or its shadowy oppo- 
 site, matter. Unto you are committed the oracles of God. For 
 this, all nations shall seek to slay you, thinking thereby to 
 kill the Word, But thy seed shall possess the gate of his 
 enemies. Through you, obedient, shall the covenant with death 
 be annulled. I see, far off, the day of restitution, when the 
 mists of matter shall roll away and reality shall appear. This, 
 O Abram, shall come through him who comes through you." 
 
 As quietly, even mysteriously, as they had appeared, so 
 went the hosts of Melchisedec with their great priest and king. 
 Abram stood long, alone, lost in reverent contemplation of the 
 events of that strange day. And as he stood, his steward 
 approached. 
 
 "A runner, O Abu-ramu, who brings tidings that the king 
 of Sodom is encamped at the mouth of the valley, and will 
 wait on thee at dawn. Meantime, he begs that thou wilt 
 consider delivering to him but his people, whom thou hast 
 rescued, and keep thyself the goods." 
 
 Abram raised a hand. "Not a thread, not a shoelatchet, 
 will I take, lest he say 'I have made Abram rich,' when great 
 Melchisedec alone has brought me wealth of the Spirit that 
 cannot be measured! Go, O Eliezer, divide the portions to 
 Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, and command the runner to return 
 to the king of Sodom and bid him wait without." 
 
 Eliezer departed. Abram stood for a moment, wrestling 
 with the disturbing worldly thoughts which the messenger of 
 Sodom's king had aroused; then he went to the tent door and 
 raised the skin. A cry escaped him as his eyes fell upon Lot, 
 who stood there bowed in humility arid shame. Abram 
 gathered his nephew in his arms and strained him to his breast. 
 
 "O father, I have deeply sinned against you and your God," 
 fell faltering from the prodigal's lips. 
 
 "It is naught, my son!" cried the rejoicing Abram, "God 
 is supreme ! God is good ! Enter, my beloved son ! O Eliezer I" 
 he called. "Food and raiment!" Then again, to Lot: "But 
 tell me, whence come you and how?" 
 
 34 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Lot entered the tent and sank upon the rugs. "I watched 
 the battle from the hills," he said in a low, penitent voice. "I 
 saw the Elamites swoop down upon you like swift vultures 
 from the clouds. And then . . . then ... I know not what 
 I saw . . . but a throng, numerous as the stars in heaven, that 
 rose against them! And they fled! I stood transfixed. Then 
 shame smote me. I could not go on. Back I crept . . . and 
 saw that wondrous man who came as God to deliver you! O 
 Abu-ramu, your God is great! The false gods of Bel have 
 failed. I follow them no more, but, if you will, shall go with 
 you, even to the end." 
 
 The father of future Israel, keeper of the Word, bowed 
 his head. "Adonai, Jah-Hovah," he murmured. "Thou plural 
 One!" 
 
 The wind had fallen, the clouds had dropped below the 
 horizon, and the stars were shining in undimmed glory vvhen 
 the girl raised her head. "I . . . have seen . . . a . . . 
 vision!" she murmured in a voice of awe. 
 
 "You have heard a prophecy," answered the other with a 
 smile. "A prophecy that deeply concerns you." 
 
 There was a new light in the girl's big eyes as they looked 
 into those of the woman. 
 
 35 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 BOOK 1 
 
 VHOU sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have 
 need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
 and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. . . 
 
 — Revelation. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 THE chime-master sat back and wiped his perspiring face. 
 Just what had happened he could not say, but whenever 
 he pressed the key that operated the great tenor bell an 
 angry, metallic snarl burst from the tower above and rode 
 down the wind with a jangling echo as of crashing tinware. 
 He bent forward and began iagain. He tried to play around 
 that key, but it seemed to possess a fatal fascination for him. 
 In "Our God Our Help in Ages Past" he struck it repeatedly; 
 and each time the uncanny sound set his taut nerves more 
 keenly aquiver, until at length a nervous chill swept over him 
 and his hands froze to the keyboard. Then, with the hymn 
 unfinished, he rose, shivering, and hurried up the stairway to 
 the bell-loft. 
 
 Without, in the raw air, the members of the Crestelridge 
 Anglican Church of St. Jude — the Reverend Wilson Whittier, 
 priest and rector — paused for a moment on alighting from 
 their high-powered cars to throw a questioning glance upward 
 at. the tower. Then they drew their fiirs closer and hurried up 
 the steps.. In the warm vestibule the unctuous ushers met 
 them with smiling reassurance. 
 
 "Something sounds cracked up there . . . Oh, good morn- 
 ing, Mrs. Tellus! Didn't know you were back from Florida. 
 How were the links . . .?" 
 
 "Fair . . . But my doctor wouldn't let me play much. It's 
 my heart, you know." 
 
 " 'Fraid you came back too soon. We're having the most 
 abominable weather. Rain, fogs . . . Everybody's got a cold. 
 I've had pleurisy something awful!" 
 
 "What's wrong with the chimes?" someone put in. "They're 
 just new." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Kerl! So glad to see you. Yes, just installed. 
 But a bell may have been defective . . . Oh, I say, Mr. Dick, 
 is one of the bells cracked?" 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The chime-master emerged through the tower door and 
 closed it carefully behind him. There was a peculiar expres- 
 sion on his face. "Yes," he said, "the Cragg Memorial." 
 
 Throughout the marble foyer silks rustled and delicate 
 odors of costly perfumes rose like incense through the warm 
 air. Sartorially perfect males paused to exchange tempered 
 greetings, to voice a remark on -the market, or; to drop a casual 
 comment on the' rather important fact, that, with Russia now 
 prostrate, and France no longer able to launch a general 
 offensive, the burden must fall upon England. The economic 
 effect . . . 
 
 Some listened; few commented; some turned to the tablets 
 on either side of the central entrance and read anew the names 
 of pew-holders cast in the bronze — read them with a piquaiit 
 satisfaction in seeing themselves thus immortalized among the 
 gentility of Crestelridge. 
 
 Within the auditorium, in the soft-cushioned mahogany 
 pews, ermine and mink lay draped back in perfect good taste 
 from plump shoulders, whilst monogrammed lorgnettes boldly 
 swept neighbor and stranger for identity and caste. The Whit- 
 tier pew, which stood at right angles to the others and just 
 under the pulpit, was as yet unfilled; and there was a glint 
 of amusement in the eyes of those who knew that the morning 
 worship would not begin until Mrs. Whittier had arrived and 
 ushered her two strangely dissimilar daughters up the long 
 aisle and into the family pew. And from long observation the 
 wiseacres knew that this would not occur until the congrega- 
 tion were seated and to the proper degree anticipant. 
 
 About the chancel altar-boys and acolytes glided softly, 
 giving the final touches to the preparations for the compli- 
 cated "High Church" service. And ever as they passed before 
 the ornate altar they paiJsed and bowed in reverent obeisance 
 before the Host. Their activities diverted the assembling 
 audience until a slight commotion in the vestibule, accompanied 
 by a modest raising of voices in chaste greetings, caused the 
 lorgnettes to be focused upon the central doorway, through 
 -which the well-groomed figures of two men, in gray gloves and 
 spats, were entering the auditorium in the perfumed wake of 
 an usher. The older man was short, stout, and bald but for 
 a fringe of thick gray hair that encircled his shining dome 
 like the timber-line below a naked peak. His fleshy face was 
 riant with glad content; but it was a kindly face, and it lighted 
 with animation as he nodded right and left, or stopped for a 
 moment to press an extended hand and exchange a whispered 
 word. -His companion, a young man of about thirty, was. tall 
 and splendidly set up, with unusually broad shoulders and a 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 well-shaped head crowned by abundant brown hair. But his 
 face, though in profile good, was sensuous, and appeared to 
 lack the strength that his body symbolized. And the small, 
 close-set eyes were of the type that too readily narrow and 
 freeze into bits of sharp, glittering steel. 
 
 Mrs. Tellus, resplendent in the sheen of satin and a dis- 
 tractingly seductive hat, leaned close to her husband. "Sen- 
 ator Chaddock's up from Washington, Henry." 
 
 "Business with the Craggs, I suppose," responded her 
 spouse. "Besides, his son's going to' join the church , . ." 
 
 "Harris Chaddock? My word!" 
 
 "Well, why not? It'll help his business. Wealthy clientele. 
 He'll have Roake's practice some day, and . . . But for heaven's 
 sake sit up! You're sprawled all over me!" 
 
 The lorgnettes were now turning from the Chaddocks to 
 the next arrivals of importance. The tall figures of the Craggs, 
 mother and son, moved slowly up the aisle with the superb 
 dignity and fine suppression of power with" which a dread- 
 naught glides to its dock. At the entrance to their pew, which 
 was well toward the front, for Mrs. Cragg's sight was not 
 strong, the son gently removed his mother's arm frona his, 
 stepped ahead of her, faced about, and, with a short bow and 
 a slight extension of his arm, dignifiedly waved her in. She 
 entered with the manner of a sovereign, looking to neithfer side, 
 her face expressionless, her head rigidly erect. The soil 
 glan.ced over at the Whittier pew, then followed; and together 
 they sat down, then knelt carefully upon the prayer-stool for 
 a moment, with their foreheads touching the back of the seat 
 ahead. 
 
 Through all entrances the auditorium was now filling; and 
 more quickly and completely than usual, so it seemed to the 
 wielders of the lorgnettes. Many visitors were noted-^a few 
 richly clad and imposing in appearance and manner; but most 
 of them men, whose looks and bearing announced them from 
 walks of life far below those which the favored communicants 
 of St. Jude's trod. The former had been quickly taken in 
 charge by the sedulous ushers and properly disposed; the latter 
 were critically inspected — those were critical days around 
 March, '17 — and discriminatingly directed into the unrented 
 pews in the rear and at the sides. Among these was a small 
 party of Japanese men, solemn of visage and demeanor, and 
 immaculate of garb. "Heathen," sighed Mrs. Tellus softly, as 
 she lowered her jeweled lorgnette, "coming to the fount for the 
 waters of life." 
 
 Lastly, when the stone corridors and vaulted dome had 
 begun to vibrate with the heaven-born strains of Mozart's 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 MasSj came Mrs. Whittier, purposely a bit late. And as she 
 pushed her t\yo daughters into the pew and took her seat, half 
 facing the congregation, and appeared to realize that, in the 
 buzz of excitement occasioned by the presence of so many 
 strangers that morningi, her arrival had passed almost un- 
 noticed,, Mrs. Tellus -wondered if the excellent lady would not 
 go out and enter again, and with more of a stir. 
 
 "What a hypocrite that Marian Whittier is!" Mrs, Tellus 
 leaned over and whispered to her husband. "To flaunt herself 
 here in her father's church, when everybody knows how she 
 opposes everything he says and does! She's certainly his 
 
 cross 
 
 The first clarion notes of the processional had burst from 
 the great organ, the full orchestra had crashed in with horn 
 and drum, and the corridors were echoing the chant of the 
 surpliced choir, drawing- ever nearer. Some of the congregar 
 tion knelt; but others, despite the impropriety, eagerly craned 
 their necks and raised high their lorgnettes. For, they would 
 have you know, the Reverend Wilson Whittier's religious 
 services were decidedly worth-while spectacles, and one should 
 keep one's eyes open. It was remarked that the Japanese 
 kaned forward too, intent upon catching every detail; but the 
 men from the lower walks of life sat stiffly erect and watched 
 and waited — ^particularly a tall, thin man, poorly dressed, and 
 with a shock of black hair and features that were unmistak-r 
 ably of Hebrew origin. 
 
 Down through the aisles over the rich velvet carpets the 
 long procession now wended its way, enveloped in song. Before 
 it, small surpliced lads marched with swinging incense burners. 
 Cross-bearers followed, and others who bore aloft tapers and 
 standards. Sub-deacons, deacons, and oflBcers of various rank 
 came after, with measured step, each modulating his voice 
 to properly swell the processional chant. Lastly, in robes heavy 
 with gold embroidery, came the priestly rector, the Reverend 
 Wilson Whittier, mediator between a just God and His people 
 assembled to make sacrifice. Acolytes surrounded him, and 
 sub-deacons held his long robes up from the thickly carpeted 
 
 u^'u }"^ ^^^^ ^^ ^°^^ ^ ^™^" ®^^^^i" aspersorium, with 
 which from time to time he dipped holy water from a little 
 silver pail and sprinkled it over the congregation. 
 
 A young girl who had sat with eyes riveted upon the pageant 
 and ears throbbing with the thunderous roll of the organ the 
 blare of horns, and the full diapason of the vested choir, lost 
 control of her mounting emotion and burst into sobs. Some 
 heard her— some fur-clad and content— and turned and nodded 
 their approbation. Some, whose problems rested lightly upon 
 
 6 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them, smiled patronizingly. But there were others who turned 
 not their heads, but held their eyes fixed upon the gorgeous 
 procession. These were the men from life's lower walks. And 
 among them sat the black-haired man with the Hebrew 
 features, who looked hard at the Reverend Wilson Whittier 
 with eyes that voiced a question unanswered by this elaborate 
 show. And then, as the rector moved slowly by, the lips of 
 this Hebrew parted, and a whispered exclamation escaped them. 
 It was not meant to be heard, but the rector appeared to catch 
 it, for he hesitated, and his head turned quickly, and a startled 
 look came into his face. Then he went on; but those who held 
 his robes marked that his step was become unsteady and that 
 his hand shook. 
 
 Yet he knew, did the Reverend Wilson Whittier, that it 
 was not the whispered comment of a disaffected Jew that 
 caused his agitation. To his confessor he would have said that 
 it was a sudden fear that, despite his frenzied efforts not to 
 see it, his world ums shaking, his feet slipping . . . slip- 
 ping. . . 
 
 "Just a little bilious touch, my dear," his wife would explain 
 it. "You eat too many hothouse cantaloup. See Doctor Roake 
 and get fixed up." 
 
 He clutched his wits and dragged them back to their 
 task. But ever and anon during hi« conduct of the long and 
 elaborate ritual his eyes wandered out fearfully over his con- 
 gregation, and his thought strayed into channels long for- 
 bidden. Out there sat the Blacks, the Kerls, the Telluses, and 
 the Craggs. . . No need to tell him what thoughts were float- 
 ing, like gnats in the summer sun, through their unresistant 
 minds! He knew what anticipations of the social gaiety to 
 be loosed by Easter. . . Yet the meaning of that sacred day 
 was almost as obscure to him as to those fur-wrapped women, 
 nestled out there in such warm content. He knew what 
 schemes of barter those masks of piety hid, what profiteering 
 by their brothers' needs. . . Yet — so he had always reasoned — 
 to drive the money-changers from the temple meant closing 
 the doors of salvation upon them, with the consequent loss 
 of their souls. He knew that these, whose names were cast in 
 bronze in the foyer beyond, boasted themselves the Sons of 
 God; yet he was also being forced to know, fight it as desper- 
 ately as he might, that mankind were but animals, of a species 
 the most cruel and wanton that the earth has yet brought 
 forth. He knew that these proud communicants of St. Jude's 
 sat . there before him as the triumph of common sense. In 
 their silks and laces, their jewels and furs, he saw them the 
 concrete refutation of the Christly notion of re-birth. Yet he 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 knew that they sat impotently facing the unknown, without 
 chart or guide, save the empty symbolism which,- like the 
 necromancers of ancient Egypt, he was displaying before them. 
 He knew that, sooner or later, each would struggle to the death 
 with a sense of malevolent power, and go down beaten; yet 
 he knew that now every one of them would instantly rise and 
 argue loudly, angrily, for the reality and permanence of evil 
 were its validity questioned. And so likewise would he, though 
 he preached the omnipotence of God. In his heart of hearts 
 he knew that morning — though he would not have expressed 
 it thus — that they and he were traveling down that long, low 
 passageway in Mizraim's great "altar" through which the star 
 Draconis had sent his angry gleam some fifty centuries agone; 
 nor would they turn and remount the slippery way until one 
 regenerate should throw upon them the mantle of pure charity 
 and love them . . . love them . . . love them . . . yes, as did 
 that girl ... 
 
 That girl! He shivered, and pulled his recalcitrant thought 
 away from her, though he could not stay it. Then, far within 
 the depths of his soul, a door opened, and from the foul black- 
 ness a leering skeleton came rattling out and seized his throat. 
 "You believe in God?" 
 "I . . . think so!" 
 
 "And there is nothing hid that shall not be revealed?" 
 "N-n-o!" 
 
 "Then let me go!" 
 
 And the hideous thing shook him till his head swam and 
 his. memory failed, and he had to be prompted by his amazed 
 assistants — that morning, of all others, when his church held 
 so many strangers within her gates! Consciousness of his 
 environment returned. He mopped his wet brow and hurried 
 the service to its end. Then he turned to the pulpit for the 
 sermon. 
 
 It was his intention to announce briefly that morning his 
 stand in respect to the threefold mission which, according to 
 Holy Writ, the founder of the Christian religion had laid upon 
 the Church. A joint committee had been appointed by various 
 Protestant churches of Crestelridge to investigate the matter, 
 with special reference to the mooted question of Christian 
 healing, a question that— doubtless due to present extraor- 
 dinary world-conditions — was now being pushed never so 
 insistently to the fore. He had been invited to collaborate- 
 he had hesitated, knowing that he could not well refuse, and 
 yet fearful of giving oflfense. Then, after his interview with 
 his assistant the preceding evening; his daughter Marian had 
 come to him m the quiet of his -study— and there had been a 
 
 8 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 most remarkable light in her eyes, he now recalled — and had 
 persuaded him, quite against his own logic, to telephone an 
 announcement to the Sunday newspapers to the effect that he 
 would touch on that topic this morning. His thought hung 
 again as he entered the pulpit stairway. Was this the cause 
 of the greatly increased attendance at that service? 
 
 He mounted the steps and faced his congregation. For a 
 moment he paused uncertainly; then, with a shiver, he plunged 
 into his sermon. "I believe," he began, "in an infinite govern- 
 ing Power, as I am certain you do. I believe that this omnip- 
 otent Being has fashioned the visible body as well as the 
 invisible and immortal soul, both created perfect, and . . ." 
 He checked himself. 'V . . both subject to decay/' he was 
 about to add, when his thought turned again to the girl. 
 Preposterous lack of logic! she would say. 
 
 He hurried on, desperately resolved to forget the girl. "I 
 believe, further, that this beneficent Father created heaven and 
 earth, soul and body, spirit and matter. I believe spirit to 
 be the ultimate of matter, and that in seeing matter we see 
 spirit. I believe God's plan to include the spiritualizing of 
 matter, and, just as we see the flesh of the infant slowly change 
 into that of the adult, so shall the flesh of mortals pass, in 
 God's wonderful plan, into the spiritual substance of angels." 
 
 He believed, he went on to say, as he knew they all did, 
 that mental states in some measure influenced the body. Pos- 
 sibly these mental states could ifi some degree be controlled 
 — 'although this, of course, as yet lacked scientific demonstra- 
 tion. Yet, could we say that healing was a function of such 
 control? For, admitting that the Church had received the 
 Saviour's admonition to heal, did not the innumerable <]lhristian 
 hospitals and Christian physicians now healing in the Master's 
 name witness her obedience to this divine command? Besides, 
 if he were to speak truth, there was much speculation as to 
 whether this third injunction might not be a later interpola- 
 tion, possibly of a third or fourth century copyist: it seemed 
 so inconsistent. "At any rate," he argued, "granting that 
 Jesus healed spiritually, likewise his apostles, it is no longer 
 done, and we rightly question if it is really required. Earth, 
 after all, is but the vestibule of heaven, where all is har- 
 mony. ..." 
 
 Still, he added, he believed in the efficacy of prayer; believed 
 that when science and the medical profession had pronounced 
 a man incurable the sufferer should turn to his God. He 
 knew of many cases where, after all the power of science 
 had failed, God had seen fit to restore an afflicted one to health 
 and strength. But — and this was the point he wished to 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 drive home — too much stress must not be placed on physical 
 healing, for then the world would follow Jesus merely for the 
 loaves and fishes. . . 
 
 He glanced toward his own pew and met the wondering 
 eyes of his daughter Marian. Yes, he believed he approved 
 the motive of the proposed "Union for Christian Healing." 
 He believed the lost element of healing could be restored, 
 although in doing so it might be necessary to depart somewhat 
 from their strictly orthodox beliefs. . . 
 
 He looked down into the expressionless faces of the Craggs. 
 Yes, he approved this proposed union, but provided always 
 that sanity should direct its investigations. He had decided 
 to attend its deliberations, and would report them fully to his 
 congregation. 
 
 Then, with a sigh of relief— and yet with a feeling that he 
 had somehow made a hodge-podge of it all — he stepped out 
 onto firmer ground. The announcements of the coming week's 
 church activities were many and important. New rules had 
 been made regarding use of the swimming pool, and were 
 posted in the foyer of the parish house. Also, the new cinder 
 track was now open. As to meetings of the various social 
 and welfare committees, there were many scheduled for the 
 week. The Domestic Missions Society would meet at the home 
 of Mrs. Cragg on Tuesday at three, and a paper on that vital 
 topic would be read by the hostess herself. "The Lure of 
 Africa" would be discussed by Mrs. Tellus at the meeting of 
 ^u i\p''^?8n Missions League on Wednesday, and Dr. Harris 
 Ghaddock had kindly consented to speak briefly on "The 
 Medical Missionary" at the same time. The Committee on Child 
 Welfare would meet Thursday at four, in the parish house, in 
 which meeting Doctor Roake would discuss the modern treat- 
 ment of children s diseases. There would be meetings of sewing 
 circles, of the Domestic Science Committee, and of the visiting 
 nurses. An important vestry meeting was also scheduled: and 
 the numerous men's and boys' organizations would hold fre- 
 quent business and social sessions throughout the very busy 
 
 The rector's confidence in himself increasingly returned 
 
 teTlnJ'X'n't; w' '"'^'J'^ '!.^"°?^'* *« ^he^e familiar mat 
 ters and when he had concluded with a final announcement 
 of the unusually elaborate service to be held on Easter Sunday 
 he felt quite recovered and ready for the brief ^Tr.^T^^^^ 
 which the presence of so many straJgeJs there seeLdCe'nder 
 
 S?"HLh'''InX'P"''""?" K^' ^"P^««^« sacrificia" act o5 
 the High Anglican service which was now to follow 
 
 In a few words he outlined the form of this ser^ce and 
 
 10 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 advanced reasons for its acceptance, "You do believe," he 
 said in conclusion. Yet from the stolid expressions of those 
 in the rear pews he felt that his words were scarcely convinc- 
 ing. He leaned far over the pulpit and spoke more vehemently. 
 "Yoii Jtnou? you believe! When you see the wine and the 
 wafer changed — here — into the real presence of the Christ, 
 you must believe! And you shall see it . . ." 
 
 , His voice trailed away; his hands clutched the sides of 
 the pulpit; he stood, wide-eyed, lips apart, staring across the 
 cluirch. Someone had risen in the rear of the room and started 
 down the center aisle. 
 
 Every head turned; lorgnettes went up; mouths gaped; 
 some of the congregation half rose in their pews; ushers sprang 
 to their feet and stood hesitant. The tall, thin figure' came 
 swiftly down the long aisle, with shoulders slightly bent and 
 eyes fixed straight ahead. It was the shabbily dressed, black- 
 haired man with the Hebrew features. 
 
 The bewildered rector made as if to speak; but his words 
 froze. He looked ofif at the gaping ushers and nodded feebly. 
 The latter started forward— f-but halted abruptly, for the Jew 
 had gained the Cragg pew and slipped into it, where he com- 
 posed himself and now sat quiet and expectant. 
 
 The congregation sank back and caught its breath. An 
 
 ominous hush fell upon the auditorium. The rector stood for 
 
 • some moments as if stunned ; then, trembling violently, he 
 
 turned, gathered up his surplice, and descended the steps from 
 
 the pulpit and moved haltingly across the chancel to the altar. 
 
 Again it was borne home to the Reverend Wilson Whittier 
 that his world was shaking, his feet slipping. For the first 
 time in his long career he felt that the venerable autocracy 
 of wealth, of caste, of ecclesiastical dogma as impersonated 
 by himself had met a challenge — felt that the long-deferred 
 demand for demonstration was at last upon him, as it was 
 the world over that hour upon all who claimed to speak with 
 authority. Its embodiment sat there in that Jew, asserting 
 his undoubted right to know and to be. In the rector's turbulent 
 thought the complex ritual fused into a ridiculous medley that 
 shaped insistently into 
 
 "Orthodox! orthodox, who believe in John Knox, 
 A heretic blast has been blown in the West. . ." 
 
 He' turned at length, mechanically, to elevate the Host. The 
 sea of faces swam before his eyes. Giddiness swept over him. 
 His arms shook. He glanced helplessly down at his own pew, 
 but saw only the accusing face of that strange girl, Marian, 
 his daughter by adoption, and herself a protest and a prophecy. 
 
 11 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He closed his eyes. Again the grinning skeleton came rattling 
 from its inner chamber and seized him by the throat. 
 
 "You believe in God?" 
 
 "Yes! yes!" 
 
 "And there is nothing hid that shall not be revealed?" 
 
 "God help me! No!" 
 
 "Then loose me and let me GOT 
 
 The salver left his hands and crashed to the floor. The 
 sacred wafer bounded down the steps and rolled out into the 
 aisle. The Jew sprang up and set his foot against it. Then 
 he stooped and took it up. 
 
 Gasps and suppressed exclamations rose from the horrified 
 congregation. The rector stood like an image of stone. The 
 Jew, indifferent to the consternation around him, bent and 
 closely studied the wafer in his palm. He turned it over. He 
 crumpled a portion of it. He raised his head and swept the 
 congregation with an inquiring look. 
 
 Then he stepped forward and handed the wafer up to the 
 rector. An odd expression sat upon his bold features, and the 
 corners of his Hiouth curled slightly. For a moment he stood, 
 staring at the rigid priest. Then he turned and strode down 
 the long aisle and out of the church. 
 
 CHAPTER 2 
 
 IT had been the Reverend Wilson Whittier's wont to change 
 his vestments immediately after the service and hurry out 
 
 to the main entrance to greet his friends and extend the 
 hand of welcome to the day's visitors. But this morning, for 
 the first time in years, he abandoned the practice and, instead, 
 dragged himself into the sacristy and sank wearily into an 
 armchair. Perturbed vestrymen, indignant parishioners, and 
 sympathizing friends, together with the gossips and the merely 
 curious, crowded after him into the room; but of his family, 
 only one came to his side. Mrs. Whittier and daughter Ethel, 
 consuming with chagrin, had slipped unnoticed through the cor- 
 ridor and into the adjoining rectory; Marian had hurried after 
 the rector, and now stood with an arm about the trembling 
 shoulders of the anguished man. 
 
 "Such impertinence!" gasped the scandalized Mrs. Black, 
 wife of the packer. 
 
 "I T^^^t to say," blustered Kerl, of Kerl's Liver Pills fame, 
 that If I can t bring my wife and children to this church 
 without exposing them to . . ." 
 
 12 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Does anybody know the fellow's name?" It was Alden 
 Cragg speaking. 
 
 "I do," answered Mr. Tellus. "He is David Barach, a 
 mechanic, a model-maker." 
 
 "Barach?" Mrs. Cragg echoed, and turning to her son. 
 "Then he is one of our tenants." 
 
 "I know him," corroborated a vestryman. "He's a soapbox 
 orator. . ." 
 
 "A disturber of the peace, a Jewish agitator!" put in an- 
 other. 
 
 "He has been in my office," Mr. Tellus continued. "He is 
 employed by our . company." 
 
 "Employed by . . . ah . . . Primal Motors?" Alden Cragg 
 asked, lifting his brows. 
 
 "Yes. He's a clever fellow, in a way. . ." 
 
 "Clever!" ejaculated Mrs. Cragg. "He's insane! To come 
 to a house of worship, and create a vulgar disturbance!" • . . 
 
 "And yet, what did he do that was wrong?" 
 
 All eyes turned sharply upon Marian Whittier, who had 
 propounded the startling question. Mrs. Cragg with difficulty 
 suppressed a caustic rejoinder. The rector glanced up quickly 
 at the girl, with a hurt look in his drawn face. Senator Chad- 
 dock alone met the challenge. 
 
 "It was not what he did," he suggested, with the ease and 
 self-assurance that come from years of training in legislative 
 halls; "not so much what he actually did, as what his conduct 
 ' portends. He publicly expressed his attitude toward the 
 established order of society. And that attitude constitutes a 
 menace." 
 
 "It constitutes a problem. Senator," Marian amended. "And 
 an unsolved problem is always a menace. But his problem 
 can be solved. He came here seeking." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg drew herself up and threw her son a significant 
 glance. "Did he come here seeking to proclaim his equality 
 by crowding into our pew in that defiant manner?" she 
 demanded, frowning upon the girl. 
 
 "I doubt if he knew he was in your pew. He was 
 absorbed. . ." 
 
 "I cannot but think his conduct was deliberate," murmured 
 the suffering rector. 
 
 "Really, Marian, you are not defending this . . . this Jew?" 
 Alden Cragg exclaimed in a shocked tone. 
 
 "She certainly, appears to be, Alden," came quickly from 
 his mother, in pursuance of her life-long habit of making 
 certain that every word uttered by her son should receive 
 immediate attention. 
 
 13 
 
tHOU ISRAEL 
 
 The girl faced her questioner. "Yes, Alden, I am." 
 
 "Marian!" The rector started up, but sank back with a 
 groan. "Spare me now!" he moaned. 
 
 "That man's life has reached a crisis," the girl went on 
 earnestly. "He came here seeking-— as he had a perfect fight 
 to do. He did not find. It irritated him— and rightly." 
 
 Muffled gasps rose throughout the room. Significant nods 
 were exchanged among the vestry. There was an expressive 
 and definitive toss of Mrs. Cragg's proud head. Mrs. Tellus' 
 seductive hat rocked back and forth, indicative of the final 
 corroboration of a suspicion long nourished. A portentous 
 silence of some moments followed. Then Mr. Tellus again 
 spoke. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said deliberately, and choosing his 
 words with evident care, "that this is a matter for the vestry 
 alone to consider. . ," 
 
 "We won't have a promiscuous lot of strangers butting in 
 here and crowding us out of our pews, Tellus!" Kerl inter- 
 rupted blatantly. 
 
 "Surely not. But there is, I think, somethinig more impor- 
 tant to be considered just now." He paused and glanced quiz- 
 zically at Marian Whittier, then turned again to the others. 
 "The erratic conduct of this Jew is disturbing, I admit; but 
 what is much more disturbing to me is an influence which for 
 some time has seemed to be directed against our rector from 
 quite another source. I suggest that we members of the vestry^ 
 meet informally at once to consider it. The others will please' 
 leave. And let me request you all to be most discreet in what 
 you say about this morning's unpleasant affair." 
 
 "Before we go," Dr. Harris Chaddock put in, pushing his 
 way aggressively forward, "I want to ask Father Whittier 
 for a definite statement about this 'Union for Christian Heal- 
 ing.' I didn't know the church was backing such an idea; 
 and as I am about to join, I'd naturally like to know what I 
 am subscribing to." 
 
 A murmur of interest arose. "He's perfectly right," some- 
 one whispered. "What would Doctor Roake say?" came from 
 another. The rector looked up quickly at Marian, then turned 
 his appealing eyes upon Mr. Tellus. The latter gentleman 
 responded at once. "That is also a matter for the vestry to 
 determine, Harris," he said, addressing young Chaddock. "We 
 will take care of it and advise you fully." With which he 
 waved them all out and stood to close the door behind them. 
 
 The Craggs and the Chaddocks left together. Mrs. Tellus 
 gathered up some friends to drop at their apartments and 
 noisily herded them out. The others dispersed quickly, whis- 
 
 14 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 pering speculatively over the interesting events of the morning 
 as they passed down through the marble corridors. 
 
 "Take the car and drive on, Harris," the senator bade his 
 son at the curb. "I will go with Mrs. Gragg and Alden. They 
 will leave me at my hotel. See you at dinner." He turned 
 and gallantly assisted Mrs. Cragg into her limousine, exchanged 
 a word with the liveried chauffeur, then followed. "Dear, 
 dear!" he sighed,' sinking into the luxurious cushions, "what 
 perplexing days these are, to be sure! Time was when we 
 always knew just what to do. Nowadays we merely flounder; 
 our minds are always confused. What an awful muddle our poor 
 dear rector got into!" 
 
 Mrs. Cragg's impatience snapped its leash. "What brings 
 you up from Washington, Senator?" she demanded. Her 
 usually imperious voice quavered strangely. 
 
 The senator glanced about before replying, as if fearing 
 to be overheard. Then, in a low tone: "Your interests solely. 
 Madam." He turned to the son. "Have you decided to go to 
 Spain, Alden?" he asked. 
 
 The young man started and shivered slightly. His atten- 
 tion had been riveted upon a billboard bearing a huge recruit- 
 ing poster. The burning eyes of Kitchener seemed to scorch 
 him; the long, accusing finger, pointing straight at him, singled 
 him out of a million others; the flaring caption in great red 
 letters: Your King And Your Country Need YOU I fairly 
 shouted at him. 
 
 "Er . . . No, sir . . . Fact is, I'm going to yield to mother's 
 persuasion and take your advice about becoming an American 
 citizen." 
 
 "Have you made application for naturalization?" 
 
 "Not yet, sir. Fact is, I was about to ask you to do it for 
 me, ye know." 
 
 "Egad! it's well you didn't!" the senator exclaimed. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg gasped. "Senator, what do you mean? Quick!" 
 
 Again the senator glanced cautiously around. Then, softly : 
 "I have come up from Washington to tell you — but in the 
 strictest confidence — that the United States will declare war 
 against Germany within ten days." 
 
 "Heavens! What does that mean for Alden?" cried the 
 startled woman. 
 
 "Conscription by the British Government if he remains 
 here. . ." 
 
 "He shall leave for Spain to-morrow ! Oh, Senator, you 
 kept telling me that America would not be drawn in!" 
 
 "I ... I miscalculated , . . unfortunately. But I am sure 
 we can get Alden out of the country. Of course we'll have 
 
 15 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to hurry. The British Office knows we're going into the war, 
 and they're starting to enforce their Conscription Bill.. Egad! 
 it will catch a lot of young Britishers who've come over here 
 to avoid service." 
 
 "But . . . we will have Alden become an American citizen, 
 as you advised!" 
 
 "Too late. The United States will send a million boys . . . 
 two millions . . . Lord knows how many more ! They'd nab 
 Alden among the first, just because he . . . But Spain is still 
 neutral. He should be safe there." 
 
 "Should be ! Senator, you terrify me ! Oh, why don't you 
 men of influence do something? What have I done that I 
 should suffer?" 
 
 "Nothing, surely. Madam! And you shall not!" 
 
 "You don't really think I am in danger, do you. Senator?" 
 Alden gasped. 
 
 "Oh. no, hardly that," the senator assured him. "But it 
 would be wise to keep away from your clubs and out of public 
 view as much as possible until we can get you out of the 
 country." 
 
 Alden removed his tall silk hat and wiped his forehead. 
 Then, abruptly, he dodged back in the seat. A recruiting ser- 
 geant was standing on the corner around which the car whirled. 
 Alden shuddered and drew his seal-lined coat closer. 
 
 "Oh," groaned Mrs. Cragg, "why can't they let us alone! 
 Alden . . . !" She seized her son's arm in a paroxysm of fear. 
 "Alden darling, they can't take you, they can't!" 
 
 "Don't worry. Madam," the senator strove to give comfort. 
 "I will arrange an appointment for Alden in the British em- 
 bassy in Madrid . . . something merely nominal, no real worls 
 . .• . just to serve as an excuse for his going and to protect 
 his name. Won't do, you know, to let our friends think he 
 fled." 
 
 "I don't care what they think!" cried Mrs. Cragg sharply. 
 "It is no disgrace for a man of Alden's character and family 
 to avoid army service! There are plenty of common people 
 to do the fighting! They needn't take my boy!" 
 
 "Certainly, Madam!" the senator hurried to agree. "And 
 they shall not. Now, as I was saying, we will . . ." 
 
 "Listen, Senator, Alden is speaking," Mrs. Cragg inter- 
 rupted, as the young man began an indistinct remark. "What 
 is it, Alden dear?" 
 
 "I was about to say," Alden continued, "that if I should, 
 say, enlist voluntarily . . ." 
 
 "Alden/" burst from his horrified mother. 
 ". ... enlist voluntarily at, say, the British Recruiting 
 
 16 
 
THOU ISRAEL, 
 
 Office here, perhaps the senator's influence would be strong 
 enough to keep me in this country . . . doing something light, 
 ye know, at some bally camp or other." 
 
 "I advise against it, Alden," the senator counseled. "No, 
 Spain is the place for you. And . . . er," his eyes twinkling, 
 "I trust Miss Ethel will not permit you to go alone." 
 
 The young man drew himself up stiffly and turned a cold 
 eye upon the senator. "Miss Whittier and I are not plighted, 
 sir," he said with dignity. 
 
 "Surely! surely! And I beg to apologize for my levity," 
 the senator hastened to make amends. "Dear, dear! what a 
 pity Marian is not more like her charming sister. Strange 
 girl! . .' . But here is my hotel. Shall I see you this after- 
 noon?" 
 
 "We are dining at the rectory to-day," Mrs. Cragg replied. 
 "Could you call there and accompany us home?" 
 
 "With pleasure. 'Until then,' as the Spaniard says. You 
 must begin to adopt Spanish mannerisms, Alden," nodding 
 and smiling at the young man. 
 
 The senator alighted and the car started away, but Alden 
 checked it. "I say. Senator," he said in a jerky undertone, 
 "don't let anybody know I was planning to . . . well, to turn 
 American citizen. I'm jolly well ashamed of it now, really I 
 am!" 
 
 "You would be ashamed to become an American citizen?" 
 
 "Alden is an Englishman," his mother explained stiOly, 
 "with all the traditions of Great Britain back of him. To 
 become an American citizen^ excepting as a measure of safety, 
 would ..." 
 
 "Would be a •come-down,' as you fellows say, eh?" Alden 
 finished. 
 
 "Quite right, quite right," the senator again quickly agreed. 
 But there was an odd glint in his eyes as he said it. "Well, 
 I must not keep you. Thank you so much for bringing me 
 down." 
 
 - As the car drew away from the curb Mrs. Cragg choked 
 back a sob and clasped her son's hand. "Alden . . . they 
 can't have you . . . they, can't!" 
 
 "Don't worry, mother," he said, turning and slipping a 
 comforting arm about her shoulders; "I really didn't mean 
 all that bally rot about enlisting, ye know." 
 
 "I wouldn't worry, dear, only . . . things seem so different 
 now! • . . The whole worjd has changed ! . . . And everything 
 was running so smoothly before! . . . Everybody happy and 
 contented! . . . And now, seel" Her voice rose hysterically. 
 "Oh, why doesn't somebody do something?" 
 
 17 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But, mother, nothing is going to happen to us!" 
 
 "No .- . . I know . . . but . . . Oh, Alden, did you hear 
 what Mrs. Tellus said to me in the vestryroom? The bell that 
 you gave to the church ..." 
 
 "W-well?" The boy's face was now ashen. 
 
 "It cracked ... in the storm . . . last night!" 
 
 CHAPTER 3 
 
 AFTER Mrs. Whittier and Ethel had devoted an hour to 
 discussion of the morning's events in the quiet of the 
 library their perturbation in large measure subsided. It 
 was not surprising, they comfortingly agreed, that, in the 
 world's present disturbed state, sporadic outbursts from the 
 lower classes should occur. They always did; these creatures 
 invariably took advantage of great national crises to assert 
 their own illegitimate presumptions. As for the rector's agi- 
 tation and its unfortunate consequence in the dropping of the 
 Host, that could well be attributed to strain from his multi- 
 tudinous duties, social as well as ecclesiastical. The over- 
 worked man must have a rest — Mrs. Whittier was never so 
 well nor Ethel so happy as when at Palm Beach, that was cer- 
 tain. And the Craggs — no need to worry but that they would 
 know how to turn the brazen affront which that common Jew 
 had publicly offered their rector and themselves! Yes, after 
 all, things remained as they were; the Whittier world still 
 spun in its limited orbit, with no diminution of speed — at 
 least, none that was apparent to these two representatives 
 of a people who had wilfully misread the portents blazoned 
 in every event, great or small, from Serajevo down to that 
 morning's ripple so disturbing to St. Jude's hitherto placid 
 waters. 
 
 "I'm glad it happened— now," Ethel concluded, as she took 
 up a novel from the littered table. "We'll get a trip out of 
 it. And heaven knows we've been in a rut here in Crestel- 
 ridge!" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier sighed. "We do need a change. And I'd 
 begin to plan something definite, if only I knew what Alden 
 Cragg intends to do. Oh, dear! why doesn't he come out and 
 declare himself?" 
 
 "I've decided not to accept him if he does," Ethel answered 
 curtly. I . . . Where's that box of chocolates Harris Chad- 
 dock brought me? Mama, if you've eaten them . '" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier laughed a little shamefacedly.' "I really 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 didn't mean to, dear," she apologized; "but I sat up last night 
 with that book you're so wild about, that Heroes of Filmdom, 
 and before I realized what I was doing ..." 
 
 "You'd gobbled 'em all," Ethel finished. "Humph! If you'd 
 been reading the Missionary Review I suppose you'd have drunk 
 the communion wine to keep from drying up. Next box Harris 
 brings me I'll know what to do with." 
 
 "Really, dear, Harris has no money to waste on choco- 
 lates," Mrs. Whittier gently chided. "He has just bought a 
 car that must have cost a small fortune. If he had Alden 
 Cragg's money ..." 
 
 "Humph! Much good Alden's money does him," Ethel 
 flung back. "He's as tight as the bark on a tree. Always 
 dodging around corners for fear somebody will ask him a 
 favor." 
 
 "He is only thrifty, my dear. The English all are." 
 
 "So are the Germans. I wouldn't care to marry either," 
 Ethel retorted appositely. 
 
 "My dear! Are you really serious? You wouldn't refuse 
 Alden Cragg for Harris Chaddock ! Why, Harris has nothing!" 
 
 Ethel roused up and faced her mother defiantly. "But he 
 has pep and get-up!'-' she contended. "And he knows life as 
 Alden Cragg wouldn't know it in a million years!" 
 
 "But . . ." 
 
 "He isn't afraid to smoke a cigarette; and he isn't so pious 
 that he offers sacrifice every time he hears a motorman swear ! 
 He swears himself . . . and I like it! He has backbone; Alden 
 is a rag ! Let Alden Cragg keep his millions and his piety aud 
 his tremendous British dignity; I prefer Harris Chaddock! 
 Besides, when old Penberry shuffles off I'll have enough to take 
 care of my husband; and then I'll want a live wire like Harris 
 who can show me how to get the inost for my money!" „:^ 
 
 "Ethel! You shock me!" The mother's tone was deeply 
 anxious. "Oh, Ethel dear, don't do anything rash! Simeon 
 Penberry is still alive. . ." 
 
 "For once you're right! He's too much alive! The idea, 
 turning his London house over to the British army for a hos- 
 pital — my house filled with a pack of hoodlums! He should 
 have been under ground years ago! I wish I could put him 
 there! . . . Why don't we do the way Marian does and just 
 thlpk the things we w.ant till they come true? Why, she'd 
 think old Penberry into committing suicide . . ." . 
 
 "Ethel! My country! I hope you never say these things 
 before others. : The Penberry name . . ." 
 
 "Oh, yes, the Penberry name must be handled with gloves, 
 so's npt to endanger your getting into the 'Norman Dames'!, 
 
 19 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But let me tell you, if you are turned down by them it will 
 be Marian's fault, not mine!" 
 
 There was a sound of swinging doors without, and the two 
 rose, just as the rector entered the room. He came slowly 
 forward, with head and shoulders bent as if with the burden 
 of ages. He did not at once see his wife and daughter, and 
 when at length he became aware of their presence it seemed to 
 startle him. 
 
 "Why, Papa, what kept you so long?" Mrs. Whittier felt 
 it her duty to ask. 
 
 "I . . . met with . . . the vestry for a few moments," he 
 replied in a hollow voice. "Where is . , . Marian?" 
 
 "Why, we haven't seen her since church. I hadn't thought 
 of her." 
 
 "That's just it!" his voice rose querulously; "we haven't 
 thought of her enough!" He dropped heavily into a chair and 
 leaned his head against his hand. But his driving thoughts 
 seemed to prod him sharply, and he got to his feet again. 
 "That Jew! Oh, I can still hear him . . .!" 
 
 "Why, Papa!" the two women exclaimed in unison. 
 "When I passed him, in the processional, he whispered . . . 
 it was a hiss . . . 'Chaldean mesmerismV . . ." 
 
 Mother and daughter threw frightened glances at each 
 other. The rector began to pace the room, nervously clasping 
 and unclasping his hands behind his back. "I have been mes- 
 merized!" he went on excitedly. "The vestry knew it. They 
 knew that Marian was responsible for my unorthodox views. 
 They told me plainly that I must shake off the deleterious 
 mfluence . . . And whose influence is it, I ask, but that Galuth 
 woman's who has cast her spell over the girl?" His voice 
 became a shrill quaver. "It is occultism ! The Jew was right, 
 it is Chaldean mesmerism! And Marian must be kept awav 
 from her! Away from her, I say!" 
 
 "Oh!'' Mrs. Whittier exclaimed again. Then, as she watched 
 him stridmg back and forth, her ever practical mind turned 
 to a more vital phase of the case. "Will this have any effect 
 on your demand for an increase of salary, do you think?" she 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 ,!'^.^^7^^^^ °^ salary!" he gave back bitterly. "I shall do 
 well if I keep my church! What with the stirring anew of the 
 o d bickerings over our form of service, and the rivalries for 
 place, and the petty jealousies, to have this occur! It is more 
 than I can endure! 
 
 Thpf/Lw*"-''-^"'^ f *^'\^^T ^'^'^lianged significant glances. 
 Their bright vision of Palm Beach had flickered out in the 
 black cloud of misfortune that had so suddenly enveloped them! 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Send Marian to me directly she comes," the rector 
 concluded in a voice that still shook. Then he turned into 
 his study and slammed the door. 
 
 Ethel wheeled sharply upon her mother. "Well," she 
 demanded, "what do you think now?" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier sank into a chair. "I think it . . . very 
 fortunate," she gasped, "that Alden Cragg ... is coming . . . 
 to dinner!" 
 
 "And that is a diplomatic hint to me to do my duty, t 
 suppose! I am to be the Iamb — or the goat — sacrificed for 
 Marian's sins, and just because you and Papa haven't enough 
 backbone to take a stand with her! I'm utterly disgusted 
 with you both!" 
 
 "But she is our daughter . . ." Mrs. Whittier offered feebly. 
 
 "By adoption, yes. But that doesn't make her my sister." 
 
 "Ethel!" wailed the distraught woman. 
 
 "Don't 'Ethel' me!" cried the angry girl, stamping her foot. 
 "I've tolerated her because you and Papa were scared stiff; 
 but I've reached the limit now ! Why, she's been home scarcely 
 six months, and see what she's done! She's got the men — 
 even Harris Chaddock — hypnotized by her fatal beauty and her 
 glib tongue! She's put Papa in danger of losing his church! 
 She's got the town talking about her crazy notions! She hob- 
 nobs with that notorious Galuth woman! She defends a Jew 
 who publicly insults us! She's fighting Doctor Roake! And 
 yet you cling to her like grim death!" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier began to whimper. "Oh, I must! I must! 
 I can't . . . Oh, Ethel, don't refuse Alden . . . don't . . . 
 don't . . . Oh, my country, my country!" 
 
 "For heaven's sake. Mama, don't blubber! You're having 
 guests to dinner, and you look like a tomato! But let me tell 
 you that you will simply have to get rid of Marian if you want 
 peace in this family , . . Look," pointing toward the windows, 
 "there's the Cragg car! , . . Well, of all things," she muttered 
 through her set teeth, "if they aren't bringing Marian! . . . 
 Alden, poor fool, simply can't let her alone!" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier sprang to her feet in panic and began to 
 dab at her eyes and nose with a tiny lace handkerchief, while 
 Ethel hastily arranged the hair over her own temples and 
 smoothed out her dainty gown. Both struggled for a moment 
 to assume expressions of calm, then hurried out into the hall 
 to meet their guests, for Marian's glad laughter and lively 
 chatter were already sounding in the vestibule. 
 
 "So glad you could come!" Mrs. Whittier gushed, extend- 
 ing a hand to each of the Craggs. 
 
 "They picked me up in the street," Marian announced as 
 
 21 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 she pushed forward, her eyes dancing and her face aglow. 
 ^'Nearly ran over me. I was moping along with my thought 
 a thousand miles away — no, more than that, for I was in 
 France." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg's face went dark. A sneer curled Ethel's lips. 
 Mrs. Whittier hastened to dispose of the girl. "Don't start 
 talking about the war," she said coldly. "Papa has been asking 
 for you. He is in his study. We will excuse you until dinner 
 is served." 
 
 She turned to Mrs. Cragg and led her to a divan. "War 
 and everything else that's disagreeable is strictly forbidden 
 here," she continued in a badly controlled voice. "We've made 
 a rule never to talk unhappiness of any kind, or permit any 
 discordant influence to come into the house." As she spoke 
 she gathered up the scattered parts of the Sunday newspaper 
 and tossed them out of view. 
 
 Alden, who had tarried in the hall to survey his' immaculate 
 attire in a large pier glass, now lounged in, flicking an imag- 
 inary particle of dust from his sleeve. "A jolly good idea, 
 Mrs. Whittier," he agreed nasally. "I too believe in avoiding 
 everything disagreeable. If you're in a place where there's 
 sonie bally thing you don't like, I say, get out." 
 
 "That's just what we are going to do, Alden," Mrs. Whit- 
 tier returned^ grateful to the fellow for affording the opening. 
 "We are going to Palm Beach right after Easter. Don't you 
 think you and your mother could join us?" 
 
 "Thank you," Mrs. Cragg replied coolly, "but Alden's 
 patriotism will not permit him to play any longer. He is 
 giving himself to the service." 
 
 "What?" cried Ethel. "Enlisting? Oh, Alden, you'll look 
 swell in khaki!" 
 
 "Certainly not!" Mrs. Cragg vehemently corrected. "He 
 IS to take a portfolio in the British embassy in Madrid. Senator 
 Chaddock informed us this morning of his appointment. We 
 shall leave this- week." ., 
 
 Marian, who had paused at the study door, wheeled about 
 at these words. Her eyes met Alden's. and for a moment the 
 two stood looking at each other. Then his face flushed, and 
 he turned m embarrassment to Ethel. At that moment the 
 the uesTs^""^^ ^^""^^ ^"'^ hurried past Marian to greet 
 
 ^.J'^fK^-tT^"'* Wilson Whittier seldom dined alone on Sun- 
 frfJ' ^"'t!* ^'' guests were usually those of his wife's choos- 
 ing. However, he had acquiesced heartily in her selection for 
 this particular day, for he had ever set great store bv the 
 Craggs. Between them and himself existed a bond that str^Iched 
 
 22 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 back over many years and found anchorage in a common 
 ancestry in Old England. True, the kinship was distant — he 
 and the father of Alden Cragg had been cousins far removed 
 — but it sufficed, together with their common traditions, to 
 cement the families as closely as a nature so coldly imperious 
 as that of Mrs. Cragg would permit. 
 
 This day, because of their common share in the distressing 
 events of the morning, the rector felt himself more strongly 
 drawn to the Craggs than ever. The clattering of the skeleton 
 still echoed faintly within; the faces about his board momen- 
 tarily dissolved into leering Memphian skulls as he took his 
 seat at dinner, and his eyes, despite him, persisted in straying 
 upward to the opposite wall, as if anticipant of a flaming 
 judgment. His blood chilled . under the thought of the pos- 
 sible consequences of his muddled sermon: loss of his church, 
 of his prestige . . . "It is indeed a fateful Sunday!" he mentally 
 reflected, as he sank into his chair with a tremulous sigh. And 
 then, closing his eyes for the perfunctory blessing, he mused 
 that, regarding his interview with" the vestry in the very 
 worst light possible, the long foreshadowed union between his 
 daughter Ethel and the very rich and aristocratic scion of this 
 proud British family must prove his temporal salvation. . . 
 
 "Papa is expecting to attend theTriennial General Convention 
 of the church next month," Mrs. Whittier began nervously, 
 yet knowing that she was launching the conversation in a safe 
 channel. "He must get away for a while. He hasn't been a 
 bit well lately. Overwork and anxiety. Your cold seems worse 
 this morning, dear," she concluded, regarding the rector with 
 feigned solicitude. 
 
 He threw her a grateful look. "I feel as if I had caught 
 miasma from that dreadful fog last night," he replied, and 
 coughing slightly in corroboration. "I shall be glad to get 
 away. I meant to have announced the convention from my 
 . . . the pulpit this morning," he amplified, laboring visibly to 
 appear at ease. "Some vitally important topics are scheduled 
 for discussion." 
 
 "Dancing and 'movies'?" suggested Ethel, laughing up at 
 Alden. "I'm awfully interested, for I'm going into the 'movies' 
 some day. Harris Chaddock has a 'movie' friend. Fay 
 Meuse. . ." 
 
 "Ethel!" cried Mrs. Whittier aghast. Then, turning to Mrs. 
 Cragg and forcing a smile: "The child is so temperamental, 
 and she feels the limitations of Crestelridge . . ." 
 
 "Er . . . such matters as the revision of the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer," the rector continued, trying to appear uncon- 
 cerned, "and the • . ." 
 
 23 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Are you going to have 'em cut out Lent?" asked the irre- 
 pressible Ethel, cocking her head saucily at her father. "It's 
 all out of fashion now, and Otto Hoeffel says we're at least a 
 thousand years behind the times. . ." 
 
 "Ethel!" The embarrassed rector frowned at her. "Lent 
 is ..." 
 
 "Is a kill-joy!" the girl laughed. "It causes dyspepsia and 
 melancholia. It must have been after Lent that that part of 
 the Prayer Book was written that says: 'O Lord, there is no 
 health in us'," 
 
 "Daughter!" 
 
 "The true meaning of Lent," Marian observed gravely, "is 
 a fast from material thinking. It is the acting of the knowl- 
 edge that matter is unreal." 
 
 "Matter unreal!" cried Ethel in derision. She broke into 
 a laugh and began to pound vigorously upon the table with 
 her fists. "Is matter unreal? Listen! Is it? And I'll bet 
 it's real enough to you when you've got a pain!" 
 
 Even Alden smiled at this sally. And the rector felt his 
 embarrassment decrease. "The convention," the latter con- 
 tinued, more at ease, "will be conducted in accord with a 
 broad program. I think it will manifest an enlarged vision. . ." 
 
 "I hope it will have sufficient vision to strike from the 
 Prayer Book that clause which classifies the Jews with infidels 
 and heretics," said Marian, 
 
 Alden Gragg, turned sharply upon her. "Is there any dif- 
 ference?" he demanded coldly. 
 
 "The Jew is now seeking the Christ," she gently answered. 
 
 "Marian!" Mrs. Whittier was beginning to tremble. The 
 conversation was headed toward breakers. 
 
 "I was about to ask," the rector hurried bravely on, after 
 a frightened glance at Marian,; "if you would attend the con- 
 vention with me, Alden?" 
 
 The young man looked at his mother for reply, "Alden 
 expects to leave for Spain this week,"" Mrs. Cragg said, very 
 concisely. "He has an appointment in the British embassy in 
 Madrid," 
 
 "Indeed!" exclaimed the rector, dropping his fork upon his 
 plate with a loud clatter. Then he shot a deeply questionmg 
 glance at Ethel. "Why ... we can't spare Alden' Er 
 Maidrid, you say? Abominable climate— ih fact, hiehlv dan- 
 gerous, . ." '' 
 
 "I am a bit worried over that myself," Mrs. Cragg returned, 
 looking anxiously at Alden. "I shall consult Doctor Roake in 
 regard to it to-morrow.. Alden is not strong, you know" 
 
 But of course he will not remain there long," the 'rector 
 offered hopefully. "The war must soon end. . " 
 
 24 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "England has her Back up now, Harris says," Ethel pertly 
 observed. 
 
 "Her back is against the wall," said Marian quickly. "She is 
 bleeding from every pore." 
 
 "Well, let her bleed," Ethel replied brazenly, and with a 
 sly look at Mrs. Cragg. 
 
 "She is calling to us," Marian continued earnestly. "Amer- 
 ica's hour has struck. It is the year nineteen-seventeen." 
 
 "What's that got to do with it?" Ethel demanded. 
 
 "Manasseh will now go to the aid of Ephraim. The 'times 
 of the Gentiles' have closed. . ." 
 
 "Manasseh? Ephraim?" echoed Ethel blankly. "Who are 
 they? You're wandering!" 
 
 "America can best serve the world by remaining neutral," 
 the rector interrupted in a voice pitched higher than was his 
 wont, "and continuing to supply the allied armies with food 
 and munitions." 
 
 "Manasseh and Ephraim!" Ethel repeated scornfully. 
 "More of Marian's Jew friends." And she looked up at Alden 
 and giggled. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg hastened to add her confirmation of the rector's 
 pacific sentiment. "You are quite correct, Wilson," she agreed. 
 "America has no right to break her established precedent and 
 mix into foreign quarrels." 
 
 "Let us not talk about the war," Mrs. Whittier pleaded. 
 "Such an utterly stupid thing! It's got everything upset — 
 and what for? We will only have to settle back again as we 
 were ... But, as I said, we don't discuss unpleasant things 
 here." 
 
 "Humph ! The war hasn't upset me much," Ethel averred. 
 "Except that I can't get dress niaterials and such, I've quite 
 enjoyed it. It's like watching a polo match and guessing which 
 side will vdn. Makes a dandy lot of excitement!" 
 
 "It makes a lot of taxes," said Mrs. Cragg grimly, "and my 
 barristers have been hard put to avoid them. Why, Wilson, 
 I've divided my property under a dozen different names, but 
 still half my income goes to the British Government!" 
 
 "But aren't you glad to pay for your freedom?" cried 
 Marian, utterly unable to repress her feelings. 
 
 "Pay!" Alden echoed, and raising his monocle. "I say, let 
 those who caused the bally war pay for it!" 
 
 "But we all caused it!" the girl declared. "We are all to 
 blame! Oh, if people would only see!" 
 
 Mrs. Cragg and her son stared at the girl uncomprehend- 
 ingly. Mrs. Whittier tapped on the table with her fingers and 
 bit her lips. Ethel looked over at her mother and snickered. 
 Then Mrs. Cragg, ignoring Marian, turned to the rector. 
 
 25 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "You -were speaking about the convention . . ." she began 
 coldly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I ... I was about to say," he replied, and so hur- 
 riedly that his words telescoped, "that the convention will prob- 
 ably advise several vital changes — for example, permitting the 
 dipping of the bread in the wine when the sacrament is 
 administered to the dying. Then there is the suggestion 
 to revive the ancient custom of anointing the sick with 
 oil, and the laying on of hands. . . Very important, very 
 important!" 
 
 "Very," Alden agreed with unfeigned sincerity. "But, I say, 
 all this bally agitation about healing. . . You are going to 
 offend Doctor Roake if you support that 'Union for Christian 
 Healing,' ye know." 
 
 Marian's eyes glowed fiercely, and she* turned quickly upon 
 Alden. "You believe, then, that the man who is sorry for his 
 sins can be forgiven, but the one who is sorry for his sickness 
 is beyond the pale of the Church?" 
 
 Alden's monocle dropped from his eye and he sat back and 
 stared hard at her. "I say!" he presently began. 
 
 Marian did not permit him to finish. "Health is no longer 
 'wholeness'," she contended, "and it no longer rests with God, 
 but with legislatures. When Doctor Roake's bill passes, giving 
 him legal authority to control human bodies, do you think man- 
 kind will be healthier?" 
 
 "The Wess bill? . . . But, I say," Alden blurted, "it will 
 pass in spite of you ! Senator Chaddock said so ! And we sup- 
 port it because it is a sane . . ." 
 
 "Alden is quite right," Mrs. Cragg put in, addressing the 
 rector and again ignoring Marian. "These mental healing 
 schemes are only heathen philosophy, and have nothing to do 
 with the Christian religion. You are with us there, Wilson?" 
 
 "Er . . . yes . . . yes," the confused rector stammered. "I 
 fear I did not make myself understood from the pulpit this 
 morning. I feel that I should make a correction next Sunday 
 It IS a matter ... er ... a matter that must be handled 
 judiciously, else discord may be engendered. You recall. Alden, 
 what hard feeling was aroused by the thoughtless action of one 
 of our western clergymen recently, who permitted a noncon- 
 tormist minister to take part in a service of commemoration in 
 the cathedral? I wrote a note of protest to the bishop of that 
 diocese myself. H'm! I do hope the convention will seriously 
 ''°°l'l^^* J^^ ™^"?. ""^ ^^'^'^e theology safe. But, as I was 
 saying, there are other vital matters to come up for considera- 
 tion such as the suggestion of a prayer for blessing a grave. . .' 
 Mrs. Cragg shuddered and glanced quickly at her son. 
 
 26 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ". . . and prayers for the dead. You see, Alden, they are 
 approximating ever more closely our own conception of the 
 Church. H'm! Then there will also be a discussion as to 
 the advisability of dropping the Old Testament readings from 
 the regular church service and the Sunday schools. The question 
 has quite naturally arisen as to whether the Old Testament is 
 to be taken seriously or not, inasmuch as . . . er . , . the chief 
 function of the Church is to teach the gospel of the incarnation, 
 and we are limited to trying to impart this in an hour or less 
 each week. If . . •" 
 
 "The Old Testament," Marian put in pointedly, "shows that 
 men once possessed powers that they do not possess now. No 
 wonder it is being rejected in these days of nothing but matter, 
 for those now lost powers were spiritual. Why don't you seek 
 to recover them?" 
 
 The rector turned in exasperation upon her. "Because," he 
 answered her severely, "we are opposed to experimenting with 
 the laws of life." Then he shifted again toward Mrs. Cragg and 
 resumed: "There will also be, I think, a proposal to shorten 
 the Ten Commandments. . ." 
 
 "No need of that," Ethel interjected with a laugh. "They're 
 too short now to be seen." 
 
 "Don't be facetious over sacred matters, daughter!" her 
 mother admonished. "The Commandments are . . ." 
 
 "Humph! the 'Thou-shalt-nots' of a lot of Hebrew bandits!" 
 the girl finished. 
 
 "Daughter!" the rector expostulated. "Do not speak lightly 
 of the ancient Hebrews ! There were many wonderful charac- 
 ters among them. Abraham's firm faith will ever be an ensample 
 to us." 
 
 "Then their modern descendants can't resemble them 
 much," Ethel persisted. "The Jews are a hateful, piggish lot, 
 and I'm for packing them all off to Palestine and then flooding 
 the country!" 
 
 "The Jews may go back to Palestine," Marian contended, 
 "but hatred will not send them there. 'Judah shall walk to 
 Israel'; but only when called in love." 
 
 "Love !" Ethel snickered again and threw a covert glance at. 
 Alden. "Marian certainly does seem to love the Jews,, doesn't 
 
 "Probably she thinks we Christians are required to love 
 those who would destroy our religion," Alden observed cyn- 
 ically. "That fellow who sneaked into church this morn- 
 ing . . .» 
 
 "He should have been whipped out!" declared Ethel. 
 
 "Oh, the Jews have been well whipped out for not embrac- 
 
 27 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing Christianity," said Marian quickly; "but if what David 
 Barach saw in church this morning was Christianity . . ." 
 
 The rector choked and coughed loudly into his napkin. Mrs. 
 Whittier turned her flaming face upon the girl. "Marian ! We 
 don't care for your radical views now!" What possessed that 
 girl? 
 
 "Er . . . our institutional activities, Alden," the rector 
 resumed feverishly, "are heginning to crowd our church struc- 
 ture. I have already mentioned the matter to some of our 
 wealthiest communicants, and they have assured me of abun- 
 dant funds to meet our requirements. It is a great satisfaction 
 to me at this time of world-disturbance to realize how securely 
 entrenched St. Jude's is financially. No longer must we say: 
 'Silver and gold have I none' ..." 
 
 "But neither can you say: 'Rise up and walk'," added 
 Marian in a low tone. 
 
 "I . . • er . . .!" The rector gripped the arms of his chair. 
 Mrs. Whittier straightened up and glowered at Marian. Was 
 the girl taking advantage of her position to embarrass them 
 further? What in heaven's name had happened — over night, 
 Mrs. Whittier might say^ — that moved her thus openly to defy 
 them and threaten a scandal that must shatter their domestic 
 and social life and drive the rector from his church? 
 
 "How differently American young people develop from the 
 way our English children do," remarked Mrs. Cragg icily, break- 
 ing the embarrassing silence. "With such extreme views, and 
 so aggressive in voicing them." 
 
 Mrs. Whittier wilted into her chair, consuming with shame. 
 Yet she must admit that Mrs. Cragg was right and the rebuke 
 just. 
 
 Marian turned and studied Mrs. Cragg deliberately for a 
 moment. Then, slowly: "We do have radical views, and we 
 are aggressive in voicing them. If we were not, the world woiild 
 perish." She turned and looked at Alden. "Alden is answering 
 his country's call ..." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg gasped and raised her lorgnette upon the girl. 
 Alden paled. 
 
 "... I think it time he knew what really caused the war. 
 I think you all should know, for apparently you haven't the 
 slightest conception of it. It is the same thing that has caused 
 my radical views; it is the thing that drove David Barach into 
 church this morning; it is spiritual starvation!" 
 
 The seemingly interminable dinner, although consisting of 
 but five courses, came to an outwardly decorous end; and Mrs. 
 Whittier, sighing audibly, led her guests into the drawing-room. 
 She came away from the table with but a hazy recollection of 
 
 28 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 what was said after Marian's tilt with Mrs. Cragg; but she knew 
 there had followed long intervals of embarrassing quiet, broken 
 occasionally by Ethel's vapid chatter and brief exchanges of 
 harmless comment between Mrs. Cragg and herself on weather 
 and dress. The rector had maintained a severe silence; and 
 Alden had spoken only when Ethel's inconsequential remarks 
 to him required reply. 
 
 And yet, despite Mrs. Whittier's harassed feelings, the din- 
 ner had been a pronounced success, in that, while closet doors 
 had frequently swung open and sundry skeletons had been dis- 
 closed, yet the doors had been slammed quickly shut again 
 before their dangling, grinning occupants could clatter out. No 
 mention had been made of the vestry meeting, of the senator's 
 startling announcement, of the cracked bell, or of various other 
 items that combined to form problems the like of which these 
 favored ones had never struggled with before, problems that 
 had suddenly risen out of the chaotic thought of a world now 
 dourly punished for the worship of its own false gods. 
 
 As the harmony of her dinner had been so unexpectedly, so 
 rudely disturbed, so was Mrs. Whittier's carefully planned dis- 
 position of her guests afterward quite upset. For they had 
 scarcely risen from table when Senator Chaddock and his son 
 were announced. 
 
 Ethel, with a glad cry, immediately appropriated Harris and 
 dragged him away to a secluded corner. Mrs. Whittier followed 
 her with a despairing look, then turned to the senator. "Such 
 bad form," the latter apologized, his eyes still on Mrs. Cragg; 
 "but I have decided to return to Washington to-night, and then 
 go up to Albany. The Wess bill, in which we are all so deeply 
 interested, demands my attention. Doctor Roake and I have just 
 been in consultation over it. The doctor intends to drop in here 
 shortly, on his return from the hospital." He turned and threw 
 a significant glance at Alden, "By the way, I will take Alden 
 down to Washington with me to-night, if agreeable to you. 
 That appointment, you know. . . Of course our dear Whit- 
 tiers have been informed?" 
 
 Marian had been standing apart from the others, now look- 
 ing at Alden, now at the rector, or Senator Chaddock. Once, 
 twice, she turned to leave the room, then came back and stood 
 hesitant. At length her lips set and she started in Alden's 
 direction, just as the rector left his chair at Alden's side and 
 came toward her. 
 
 "I . , . er . . . come into the study with me for a few 
 moments, Marian," he bade her in a hesitant voice. 
 
 The girl looked steadily into his eyes. "Not now," she 
 objected. "I have an errand in the city. When I return 1 will 
 come to you. Please ask Alden to go with me," 
 
 29 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The rector fell back, his face a blank. The girl smiled, but 
 there was a glow in her big eyes. "I will not be gone long," 
 she assured him; "and I promise to come to you as soon as I 
 return." 
 
 "I shall leave Alden in Madrid and go up to London," Mrs. 
 Cragg's voice was heard rising like a chill wind. "Our miserable 
 Irish tenantry are giving us trouble. He will be safe, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 "Ah, my dear Madam, don't worry." The urbane senator 
 was the embodiment of comfort. 
 
 Marian laid a hand upon the rector's arm. He looked up 
 into the face of the resolute girl before him; then reluctantly 'he 
 left her and went to Alden with her request. 
 
 "Why, I say," that young man protested, as he rose to his 
 feet, "my car isn't working well, ye know." 
 
 "We will take father's," said Marian, coming to him; "and 
 I will drive." 
 
 Alden looked quizzically at the rector. The latter slowly 
 nodded. "Go with her," he bade the youth. But he did so 
 against his judgment, for a great apprehension sat upon his 
 soul. Yet he turned away and joined the others. 
 
 CHAPTER 4 
 
 WHY Marian Whittier should still seek occasion to be 
 thrown with him was to Alden Cragg an enigma; he 
 had shown her so unmistakably that she was tolerated 
 only for her father's sake. Yet why he continued to be attracted 
 to her was just as inexplicable. True, she possessed in super- 
 abundant measure beauty, wit, vivacity; but she was an icono- 
 clast — and dependent. 
 
 "I say," he demanded petulantly, sitting beside her and 
 watchmg, with reluctant admiration, her deft handling of the 
 car, "I say, why did you say that at dinner about answering mv 
 country's call?" 
 
 She did not reply, but held her eyes to the road, for the car 
 
 was now pacmg the wind. Minutes passed. He forgot his 
 
 unanswered question as he watched her manage the wheel. 
 
 My word! he at length exclaimed; "you are an expert driver!" 
 
 She smiled "I am glad of that, Alden, Perhaps I could 
 
 drive a car m France. 
 
 you?'^ ^^""^ clouded. "I say, has that silly notion got hold of 
 
 "So" ^^^ ^^fT'^^^^- "I ™ay go over with you." 
 hhl . . . When I go to Spain?" 
 
 30 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She did not reply; nor did he venture to speak again, but 
 turned and sat staring out through the window. A cemetery 
 went flying by; and the spectral vaults and shafts seemed sud- 
 denly to rise and leer at him with hideous, mocking grimaces. 
 A suggestion of rottenness and foul odors came over him. He 
 shuddered and sank back in the seat, where he sat regarding 
 the girl, wonderingly, as at first, then with a growing sense of 
 uneasiness. A full half hour passed thus. Then the fleeting car 
 shot across the boundary of Greater New York and drew up to 
 the curb in front of a vacant building. 
 
 "Well!" she exclaimed, sitting back, "that was going some, 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 "I'll say so!" he heartily agreed, his spirits now reviving. 
 "But what's your errand here?" glancing out at the dingy struc- 
 ture. 
 
 She turned and looked steadily into his eyes. "Alden," she 
 said, "there is a British recruiting oflSce just around the corner. 
 My errand is there." 
 
 He shot bolt upright and laid a hand on the door of the car.* 
 
 "It is in charge of Lieutenant Derby," she continued, 
 unmindful of his action. "I telephoned him after church this 
 morning ... to learn if he would be here now. I had just 
 talked with him when you picked me up." 
 
 He drew a long, quivering breath and turned to her again. 
 "Eh? . . . You're going into the ambulance service . . . after all?" 
 
 "I may ... I don't know. . . But, first, I want to talk with 
 you." 
 
 "I say, it's bally rot, if you want my opinion. But you Amer- 
 ican girls don't take advice." 
 
 "Alden," she went on, ignoring the innuendo, "in a very 
 short time America will declare war against the Central Pow- 
 ers. . ." 
 
 "How do you know?" he demanded, his brows lifting in 
 surprise. "Did Senator Chaddock tell you?" 
 
 "No. . . But I see now that he has told you. And because 
 of it, you expect to flee with him to-night." 
 
 "See here," he blustered, "you can't talk that way to me! 
 My afifairs are not yours. . ." 
 
 "No, your problems are not mine. But . . . Alden, a child 
 fell into the river at Burnham last summer. It was drowning. 
 The child's salvation was its own problem . . . but it could 
 not swim. It was going down. I plunged into the water and 
 saved it. Did I do wrong?" 
 
 "Eh? Why . . . no." 
 
 "And should I do nothing now to save you?" 
 
 "Save me?" he echoed blankly. "Now, I say, but you are 
 deucedly interested in me . . . what?" 
 
 31 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Alden, I knew, long, ago, that this war would burst upon 
 the world, and I knew when it would come. I knew, long ago, 
 that America would enter it, and this year. I knew that the 
 overthrow of Prussian autocracy must shortly occur; that 
 Jerusalem must soon be liberated; that . , ." 
 
 "My word!" he exclaimed breathlessly, "how did you guess 
 all that?" 
 
 "And I have known what was coming upon you. I have 
 seen the subtle manipulation of your mentality, your blinding 
 mesmerism; and now I see your awful dianger!" 
 
 ||Now, I say . . ." 
 
 "I know that when this war broke out you fled from England 
 to the United States; but you came at another's suggestion. 
 And you knew not really why. I know that here you have been 
 protected, seemingly, though it has been the protection of the 
 hunter's trap. I have long seen the deadly thing that is striking 
 at you. Oh, I know, it is striking at Great Britain through you 
 — ^but it will destroy you in the process ! . . ." ' 
 
 "Marian!" The youth's face was ashen. "You can't talk to 
 me like this!" 
 
 "I know," she went on, unmindful of his agitation, "what 
 unseen influence is making you run from your problems under 
 the mesmeric belief that you are in that way solving them. I 
 know what is making you disloyal, cowardly. . ." 
 
 "Look here!" he burst out; "you're blaming me for not 
 enhstmg! I know. But let me tell you, I'm not a bally slacker ! 
 I have my principles. . ." 
 
 II And Doctor Roake upholds you in them?" 
 
 "Yes,. he does, if you want to know! And, anyway, I don't 
 believe in war. But, as it is, I am helping . . ." 
 
 "Yet you are the one in need." 
 
 "I? What ... I say, / don't need anything but to be let 
 alone! 
 
 "Oh, Alden, your need is so great that you are a beggar'" 
 A beg ... I say, a Cragg a beggar?" 
 
 "A beggar and a slave, Alden, a sZawe/ Your mentality is 
 bound! You are absolutely dominated by . 
 
 An exclamation burst from him. She paused, while he 
 stared at her with open mouth. Then a sibkly smile spread 
 over his palhd face. "I say, Marian . . . you're joking, eh?" 
 
 Jokmg? About what, Alden? About the things society will 
 "If/Tffi^" '*n^^™/ °^ y^""" ^^^^t *o Spain? About what the Brit- 
 * u .1 ^"' °° *° y°" ^"^ youj's when America entei-s the war? 
 About the sneers of your clubmates? About the slurs of the 
 gossipers the gibes of the newspapers? About your ruined 
 future; about the shame, the disgrace, the . . .oh, worse . . .?" 
 
 32 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He gaped at her in dull amaze. 
 
 "Alden, there is only one way left now out of it all : you can 
 be saved only by giving yourself to your country!" 
 
 He found his voice again. "But I ami" he blurted. "I am 
 going to Spain! Can't you see that I'm helping?" 
 
 "Helping the enemy, yes, Alden, by giving him comfort and 
 support. True, you have large possessions in Germany, as well 
 las here, which you are trying to save; but you will lose them 
 all . . . all, Alden, unless you turn. Oh, Alden, I see your 
 awful danger ! I will turn with you ! I will stand at your side 
 and help you face the forces that are driving against you! 
 Alden, hear me, heed me, and turn!" 
 
 "Eh? Now, I say, you mean . . . enlist? Why, you know 
 I'd be rejected! I'm anemic. . . Doctor Roake said I was . . . 
 said they wouldn't take me. I'd be risking my life!" 
 
 "Your life! Alden, you don't know what real life is. It isn't 
 what you have always thought. Oh, Alden, you cannot be so 
 weak as to refuse to venture your human sense of life for Prin- 
 ciple in this hour of world-struggle^a struggle for which you 
 are partly responsible!" 
 
 "But, I say, how can / be responsible? I'm opposed to war. 
 My religion . . ." 
 
 "Your religion, Alden, is a stoning of the Christ!" 
 
 "Marian! Look here, I'll not listen to any more! Turn 
 around; we're going back!" 
 
 She shook her head. "There is no going back., for you, 
 Alden," she said in a low, determined tone. "I have brought 
 you here to enlist." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "That is my errand." 
 
 She bent toward the wheel, but his hand crashed heavily 
 down upon her arm. She looked around at him. His eyes were 
 bulging, his face purple, his mouth quivering. "Turn around!" 
 he commanded in a shaking voice. "We're going back!" 
 
 "Back to what?" she asked again. "To the liberty that you 
 are accepting from the dead hands of your fallen countrymen? 
 Tb the loss of your mentality, your manhood, all, at the hands 
 of those who pretend to be- your friends? No, there is no going 
 back for you, Alden." 
 
 "You're mad!" h^e muttered through his chattering teeth. 
 His shaking hand went out to the door. 
 
 "It is locked," she said, watching his futile attempt to open it. 
 
 "Then open it!" he demanded, his face white and his brow 
 wet. 
 
 "Alden," she pleaded, "listen to me; it is your only way . . ." 
 ' ^"Open it! . . . or I'll smash the glass!" 
 
 33 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Her lips set. "If you do, I will call that policeman yonder 
 and have you arrested," she said firmly. 
 
 "And further, Alden," and her voice sounded to him like 
 the doom of judgment, "if you will not turn with me and save 
 yourself, if you will not go now to that recruiting station and 
 give yourself to your country, then I will forestall what I know 
 others are intending to do to you and will go at once and 
 denounce you!" 
 
 He turned slowly and stared at her with open mouth. 
 *'De . . . nounce!" he echoed in a hoarse whisper. 
 
 "Yes. I shall report what I know to Lieutenant Derby. 
 Your arrest will follow to-day. The British Government will 
 be informed immediately. The newspapers will blazon it forth 
 in 'extras' to-night! ..." 
 
 "You would be driven from town!" he cried. 
 
 "Yes, I know it. I am sacrificing myself. . . Oh, Alden, 
 you little know! . . ." There was a yearning note in her voice, 
 a tenderness, a pathos that spoke volumes. 
 
 Silence fell upon them both. The girl sat waiting, hoping; 
 the stunned youth stared blankly at her. Then at length she 
 looked up at him. "It is the only way, Alden," she repeated 
 gently. "I do this because . . ." 
 
 "You are doing it because you hate me!" he gulped out. 
 "You think I've treated you rotten! . . ." 
 
 She laid a hand on his arm. "I am doing it, Alden, because 
 I love you," she said in a choking voice. "I am giving you my 
 life, for it means ruin to me, either way. But for you it is 
 salvation. Will you go?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 She moved her foot quickly and started the motor. Alden 
 rose from the seat and thrust his elbow through the glass of 
 the door. The car shot forward, and he fell heavily back. The 
 policeman on the opposite corner heard the crash and started 
 after them. While the confused Alden was collecting himself 
 the car had rounded the corner and pulled up to the curb again. 
 He turned to the broken window. His eyes blurred. His 
 thought was a riot. Then his mother's words flashed through 
 his mind: "The bell that you gave to the church ... it 
 cracked in the storm last night!" He started up, a gurgling cry 
 in his throat. . . 
 
 The door opened and the panting policeman thrust his head 
 in. Marian faced him. "The door was locked," she offered in 
 explanation. "This is Alden Cragg, a British subject. He is 
 going to enlist." 
 
 An officer in the British uniform came hurrying out of a 
 
 34 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 doorway. Alden's knees shook when he saw him. "Lieutenant 
 Derby?" he heard the girl's voice at his side. Alden tried 
 vainly to thrust out an arm to stop her. Fear had frozen him. 
 
 "Ah, so this is Alden Cragg!" the officer exclaimed. "We 
 had about given you up, Mr. Cragg. Lucky you came voluntarily 
 to-day!" 
 
 CHAPTER 5 
 
 rwas a smug world that in 1914 stood before the universities 
 of the higher criticism and impatiently demanded entrance. 
 It was a shocked and utterly uncomprehending world that 
 the shots at Serajevo drove into the Antechamber of Mizr aim's 
 great "altar," there to be laid to the plummet. It was a gasping, 
 blood-spitting world that, after two reeling years of slaughter, 
 lifted its battered head from the smoking ruins of civilization — 
 a civilization that had demonstrated to the full the logic of 
 worldly wisdom — and cried out in the agony of a vast disillu- 
 sionment for the foolishness of God to save it from the hellish 
 educational systems of the Pharaohs. 
 
 It was only the penetrating mind of the metaphysician that 
 saw in those early days the tremendous significance of the cata- 
 clysm — saw that the jumbled content of human consciousness 
 was being forced up to Truth for readjustment. The close neigh- 
 borhood of the Craggs and Whittiers, the Telluses, Blacks and 
 Kerls saw it not at all. How could they, these silly birds, with 
 their heads buried in the sand? Of the gale sweeping Europe, 
 only its fringe reached sheltered Crestelridge. Death blew in 
 withering blasts from the land of Franz Mesmer; yet these felt 
 only the equinoctial that rocked the tower of St. Jude's and 
 cracked the Cragg Memorial. Nothing less than a shock violent 
 enough to crack the adamant of their souls would make them 
 lift their heads. Yet the premonitory tremors of that shock 
 had now come, in the enlistment of Alden Cragg. 
 
 Marian Whittier entered the drawing-room and went at 
 once to the rector. The latter was absorbed in conversation 
 with Mrs. Cragg. "We must inject money and vigor into Chris- 
 tianity," he was saying eagerly, "just as the capitalist injects 
 them into industry. I have worked out some interesting inno- 
 vations which I hope to inaugurate at once. We have the plant 
 — the most complete in New England — we have the cash, the 
 energy, and the ideas. St. Jude's is now a factor to be reckoned 
 with, a great socializing industry, throbbing with activity. We 
 are not Episcopal merely, we have progressed : we are English 
 
 35 
 
THOU I SR AEL 
 
 Catholic. Some day we shall become a cathedral — the Cathedral 
 of St. Jude's. . . Ah!" 
 
 "I am ready now, father." 
 
 The rector turned and looked up.: His face fell as he saw 
 Marian standing beside him. "We . . . we will wait, daughter," 
 he said, a bit querulously. 
 
 "Alden is more vitally interested in St. Jude's than ever," 
 Mrs. Cragg observed, ignoring the girl's presence. "When he 
 returns from Spain . . . But . . . Where is he?" 
 
 The question was shot directly at Marian, for Mrs. Cragg had 
 glanced up and read something in the girl's face that damped 
 the pulsing of her heart. '"^ 
 
 "I left him at the recruiting office," Marian answered quietly. 
 "He has enlisted." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg solidified under the shock of the announcement. 
 The rector dropped back in his chair, mouth open and speech- 
 less. TJie conversation of the others fell; and silence descended 
 like a blanket upon the room. 
 
 Then a cry burst from the rector, and he sprang to his feet. 
 The others rose hurriedly and came crowding about. Senator 
 Chaddock took charge of the situation at once. . . 
 
 Facing them, alone, Marian did not seek to shift the burden 
 of responsibility from her own shoulders. If it was moral 
 cowardice, with fear and shame commingled, that had bolstered 
 the self-ensnared Alden before the lieutenant and forced from 
 his trembling lips a vow of fealty to Britain in this, her hour 
 of sore need, the girl gave no hint of it. It was because of her 
 persuasion that he had acted, she frankly admitted. It was 
 her words that had opened his mind to the performance of a 
 duty long deferred. Beyond this, nothing. 
 
 The Whittiers and Harris Chaddock, wide-eyed and gasping, 
 turned to the stricken mother. The senator rushed to the tele- 
 phone and called the recruiting office. He returned' with slow 
 step and bent head. Under his reluctant corroboration Mrs. 
 Cragg's dulled ears burst open, and the awful truth pierced her 
 resisting mentality: A frenzy of terror seized upon her that 
 rendered her pitiable. She rose and threw herself into the 
 arms of Mrs. Whittier in a paroxysm of woe. She declared 
 wildly that she would go to the barracks, to the camp, that 
 night; that she would spend the last penny of the Cragg for- 
 tune, would exert the last ounce of Cragg prestige; to effect 
 Alden's freedom. The proud, formal woman might have with- 
 stood any blast of Fate but this; but Alden, her beloved, her 
 idol, the soul and center of her being ... 
 
 Her mounting emotion turned to exacerbation. She flew at 
 Marian with the fury of a tigress; and only the strong arms of 
 
 36 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Harris Chaddock saved the girl from bodily injury. They could 
 not save hei* from an excoriation that embodied Crestelridge's 
 excommunication and placed the Whittiers in the awful posi- 
 tion of harboring a socialpElriah. ' • 
 
 "But, my dear Madarh," the senator offered excitedly, "the 
 lieutenant informs me that Alden has not been examined . . . 
 the physician -was absent ! Let us call Doctor Roake and have 
 him employ his great influence at once!" 
 
 The unhappy woman wheeled upon him and snatched wildly 
 at the slender hope. "You can save him. Senator? You can 
 save him?" she cried. 
 
 "No doubt of it. Madam," said the senator, himself now 
 measurably recovered from the shock. "I am certain the physi- 
 cian will reject him anyway, Alden is not rugged, as you 
 know. . ." 
 
 The rector hastened how to offer his propitiatory crumb. 
 "He is anemic!" he quavered. 
 
 "Besides," the senator went on, "assume that he is accepted : 
 why, America is going in soon, and she will send so many boys 
 that Alden will not be needed. The British will slow up, you 
 know, when our boys get to going over." 
 
 "But ... he might be sent . . . before!" wailed Mrs. 
 Cragg. 
 
 "Doctor Roake and I will see that he is kept in this country. 
 Madam," the senator assured her. 
 
 "Perhaps so! ... Perhaps . . . But . . . Oh, what can 
 he do without me? Take me to him! Call my car! Take me 
 home! Take me home!" 
 
 "At once. Madam!" the senator acquiesced, beginning to 
 bustle about. "Here, Harris, you take her in our car! I will 
 call Doctor Roake at the hospital and have him at 'Craggmont' 
 when we arrive ! Come ! The boy is not lost ! There, Madam," 
 laying a comforting hand upon the sufferer's shoulder, "we'll 
 get him out yet!" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier, consuming with fear of the consequences of 
 Marian's inexplicable conduct, yet always mindful of personal 
 interests^ however desperate the situation, checked her sym- 
 pathetic tears long enough to offer a practical suggestion. "I 
 shall let you have Ethel; you need her! Ethel dear," turning 
 to the girl, who was deriving an immense enjoyment from the 
 distressful situation, "get ready to go with Mrs. Cragg. There, 
 dear, don't worry," ta,king Mrs. Cragg tenderly by the arm arid 
 supporting her on one side, while Harris Chaddock lent his aid 
 on the other, as the moaning woman began to grope her way to 
 the exit. "It was a shameful thing for Marian to do — but, dear, 
 remember, she's not our child. Think what we have suffered 
 
 37 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 at her hands ! And now this additional trial ! But don't worry. 
 Alden has powerful friends. . . Just think what Doctor Roake 
 means at a time like this! Now wouldn't you like a little wine?" 
 She turned to her husband. "Bring her some sherry, Papa. 
 Hurry!" 
 
 Mrs. Cragg wrenched herself from her supporters and 
 rushed to Marian. "Why . . . why did you do it . . . why 
 . . . why . . . why?" she almost shrieked. 
 
 The girl stood her ground. "I did it because I love him," 
 she answered firmly. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg recoiled as if struck another blow. Gasps of 
 astonishment burst from the others. Ethel laughed aloud. 
 Then Mrs. Cragg, crushed, humiliated, turned, with bowed head, 
 and permitted herself to be led from the room. 
 
 When the confusion incident upon the hurried departure 
 of the guests had subsided, Mrs. Whittier fell into a chair and 
 groaned loudly. "My head! Oh, I am going to faint! My 
 salts ... in that drawer. Papa ! Quick ! Oh, my country, my 
 country, what a day!" 
 
 The harassed rector feverishly procured the salts; and Mrs. 
 Whittier lay back and closed her eyes against her troubled 
 world while he held the_ vial to her quivering nostrils. For 
 a few moments he Watched her anxiously; then, assured that 
 she would not seek consolation in hysteria, he turned to Marian, 
 who had stood apart during the harrowing scene. "Help me 
 take her to her room," he commanded sternly. 
 
 - At this Mrs. Whittier started up violently. "Don't touch 
 me!" she screamed, glaring at Marian. "Oh!" She struggled 
 to her feet. The rector put his arms about her and led her 
 away. "I must get to my room and lie down!" she moaned. 
 "Oh, my country, what a day! what a day!" 
 
 "Go to my study," the rector turned and bade Marian when 
 he reached the door. "Wait there till I return." 
 
 Though the Reverend Wilson Whittier tarried in his wife's 
 chamber until that tormented soul querulously bade him cease 
 his pottering and be gone, it was not because of solicitude for 
 the complaining woman, but, rather, for lack of moral courage 
 to confront the girl who awaited him in his study below. And 
 as he slowly, and with many pauses, descended the stairs, he 
 realized more clearly than ever before how extraordinary and 
 complex was his task. For it had at last been driven home to 
 him that Marian Whittier was now a law unto herself. 
 
 Ah, how mistaken had been his policy toward her! He 
 could see it now, as he glanced back over the years — could see 
 that, had he kept her at his side, he might have uprooted in 
 their incipience those modes of thought which now, alas! he 
 
 38 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 knew were ineradicable. More, he might have forestalled the 
 inevitable. . . 
 
 But how that bony thing did rattle ! Heavens ! it was clat- 
 tering out to grip him again! 
 
 "You believe in God?" 
 
 "I . . . don't . . . know!" 
 
 "But that which is hid shall be revealed?" 
 
 "Yes . . . perhaps . . . God forbid!" 
 
 Whir-r-r! Rat-tle-e-e! And it shook him till he fell 
 against the banisters and gasped for breath!. 
 
 He pulled himself up. He would go to her and tell her the 
 whole miserable story! He would tell her that he loved her, 
 that he admired her above all mankind for her stand, that in 
 his heart of hearts he did yearn toward her, that he knew her 
 outlook upon life to be far better grounded than his. . . 
 
 He had turned to her often during those^ brief home visits 
 which Mrs. Whittier had grudgingly permitted the girl— turned 
 to her because her incisive penetration into that which lies 
 behind the material veil, because her deep scholarship, her 
 unfailing optimism, and her unfeigned love for him, as for all 
 mankind, had afforded him a measure of compensation for lack 
 of these qualities in his wife and Ethel, whose crass materialism 
 had defeated his every effort to break the chains which they 
 had forged upon him. . . 
 
 Needless to point out that he felt that his matrimonial 
 venture — now of five and twenty years duration — with the 
 daughter of Simeon Penberry had not conduced to his spiritual 
 growth. True, he still loved her . . . but the sentimeint had 
 altered greatly since that day when, a promising, ambitious 
 young Yorkshire clergyman, he had so proudly made her his 
 life companion. . . 
 
 It had all been different, no doubt, had he not immediately 
 accepted that alluring call to the United States. For, though 
 his first child still might have died in infancy, and though he 
 and his wife might have adopted a babe, as they did, yet had 
 they remained in England, the adopted child would not have 
 been Marian. And the hideous skeleton would not have taken 
 up its long abode in his gloomy soul. For scarce had the 
 adopted babe been installed in their home when Mrs. Whittier 
 made the alarming discovery that she would again become a 
 mother. And in due season thereafter a daughter was born, 
 whom they christened Ethel. 
 
 Under the distressful circumstances Mrs. Whittier turned 
 her face to the wall and wept aloud. Then she summoned her 
 worried husband to her bedside and, feigning a weakness that 
 presaged death, swore him to complicity in the plan which she 
 
 39 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 had evolved. Her love for the adopted babe was dead; but 
 they were saddled with the child, and must meet the situation 
 with an eye single to their own daughter's future. While it 
 would be impolitic to rid themselves of Marian, still the child 
 must be brought up away from home as much as possible— in 
 boarding schools, seminaries, college. By the time she attained 
 maturity circumstances doubtless would be altered. 
 
 Thus it fell out that the Reverend Wilson Whittier, who 
 sincerely loved the adopted waif, bowed his head and passed 
 under the rod. Thus began that rigid ordering of his life that 
 was to consummate in HohenzoUern autocracy. True, there 
 had been moments when he had attempted to assert himself 
 and depart from the strictly conventional existence which Mrs. 
 Whittier and Ethel permitted him; but these always brought 
 down such fierce domestic storms upon his head that he per- 
 force abandoned them and at length meekly accepted the thorn 
 as a divine castigation. Opposition, he early saw, meant inter- 
 minable discord; domestic rupture would rend his parish; the 
 bitter pill of resignation was forced between his lips, and he 
 swallowed it in weak conciliation and tried to forget. 
 
 He thereafter sought compensation in greater devotion to 
 his church. And amid his labors he did not omit to cast his 
 eyes abroad for wider fields. His thought early went out to 
 wealthy and aristocratic St. Jude's; and he began to cultivate 
 certain of its supporters. An operation soon demanded the 
 services of a specialist for Mrs. Whittier. Doctor Roake was 
 summoned from Crestelridge. And shortly thereafter. Upon the 
 demise of the conservative old rector of St. Jude's, the doctor 
 suggested to his friend. Senator Chaddock, who in turn trans- 
 mitted the suggestion to the vestry, to be passed on to the 
 bishop, that the Reverend Wilson Whittier be summoned to 
 the charge — a summons that rang in Mrs. Whittier's well 
 attuned ears like a call to Olympus. Marian was then in a 
 seminary in Connecticut. 
 
 The Reverend Wilson Whittier came, with the skeleton rat- 
 tling loudly in its inner closet. And for six years he applied 
 himself with such vigor and consecration to his new charge that 
 St. Jude's speedily became known as the most active religiolii's 
 force in the New England states. A new church edifice rose, 
 backed by the Cragg, the Tellus, the Black, and the Kerl mil- 
 lions, a gray stone structure of more than fifty rooms and occu- 
 pying an entire block in Crestelridge's most exclusive boulevard. 
 Its magnificent marble auditorium comfortably seated more 
 than 3,000 in richly upholstered mahogany pews; its great 
 prayer meeting room accommodated another thousand in an 
 environment of rare rugs and exquisite draperies; and its 
 
 40 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 three wonderful pipe organs could pour forth a volume of har- 
 mony that would rock the edifice to its deep foundations. The 
 multitudinous social activities of the church were accommo- 
 dated in dozens of thoroughly appointed work and committee 
 rooms ; in a banquet hall capable of seating upwards of a 
 thousand persons ; and in gymnasia for both sexes, with cinder 
 tracks, swimming pools, and courts for various games and 
 modes of recreation. Yet even this extensive plant was now 
 proving inadequate for the rapidly ' expanding social activities 
 of the church. The rolls, including those of the Sunday school 
 and young people's societies, contained some 4,000 names. Card 
 indexes were employed. Every home in Crestelridge and vicin- 
 ity was listed, and the history of its family registered in more 
 or less complete detail. This, again, at the suggestion of the 
 systematic Doctor Roake, made through Senator Chaddock. And 
 likewise at his suggestion, and now under his personal super- 
 vision, was maintained the thoroughly eflBcient system of visit- 
 ing nurses. "Drives" of every sort befitting an industry of this 
 kind originated in the club and committee rooms of St. Jude's, 
 and were directed over solid mahogany desks and from costly 
 tapestried chairs. An ambitious program was inaugurated for 
 health and sanitation, as conceived by the .eminent Doctor 
 Roake; for citizenship as conceived by the Craggs, the Telluses, 
 the Blacks, and the Kerls; for patriotism as likewise conceived 
 by the same sane sense; for elaborate social functions and 
 church services, the like of which doubtless had never before 
 been attempted in the history of Protestantism. St. Jude's was 
 indeed a factor to be reckoned with. And its rector became the 
 embodiment of no slight power in the community. In a way, he 
 was a small dictator, for he represented the dignity, the age, and 
 the authority of organized religion. True, his appearance was 
 somewhat less canonical than comctnercial, and his power was 
 that which certain others of vast wealth delegated to him, rather 
 than any power of the Spirit, Yet he was quite generally looked 
 up to, respected, and deferred to; and if, in these years of his 
 material success he had become a bit swelled, somewhat pom- 
 pous in manner, and aggressive with all but the members of his 
 own family, it was what his powerful supporters desired, and 
 constituted a necessary part of the show for which they paid 
 over their money. 
 
 Though he had seen but little of his adopted daughter 
 Marian since, at the age of ten, she had been placed in a 
 fashionable eastern boarding school, yet due to her influence 
 more than to any other cause was his growing conviction that 
 something was wrong with his own soul. And he had fought 
 this conviction, fought it as he had fought nothing else in his 
 
 41 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 life of more than fifty years, for in its train he saw consequences 
 that he simply could not face. 
 
 Yet he knew that he had struggled sincerely to take the Word 
 literally; to believe in the utility of his church; to justify its 
 activities, as well as its pageantry. And he had labored faith- 
 fully, not so much to make his congregation look through his 
 eyes as himself to look through theirs. It was they who paid 
 him, and he was therefore under the influence of their wishes. 
 Following the dictation of the masters who held the purse- 
 strings, he furnished them music, flowers, and ceremonies 
 commensurate with their whims. St. Jude's became more and 
 more a strictly social organization, its service a social rite, 
 its rector a social entertainer whose sermons were far more 
 often based on the newspapers than on the Word. . . 
 
 But he loved it all, this bustling material activity, this unique 
 show, with himself as master of ceremonies. He loved his own 
 reputation and that of his congregation as extreme ritualists. 
 He loved his authority, his position among the finer clay of 
 exclusive Crestelridge. And . . . But if only he could conquer 
 the paralyzing fear that at times beset him! And but for his 
 wife and Ethel he felt that he could. 
 
 Of late he had plunged more desperately into the things 
 that his physical senses told him were real. He entered into 
 business schemes with the rich traflBckers of his congregation; 
 he sought and used tips on the market; he at times cleaned up 
 tidy sums, which he shared with his highly gratified wife and 
 daughter. But he likewise gave more largely to charity — that 
 is, until the lynx-eyed Mrs. Whittier discovered his largess and 
 herself took charge of his benefactions: for Ethel was coming 
 on now and would need whatever the reverend man could 
 accumulate of worldly goods. . . 
 
 Then came Marian's return from college, a contingency for 
 which he could never have been quite prepared. But where 
 indeed should she go if not to the home of her parents by 
 adoption? And the abrupt injection of this young woman of 
 twenty-four years and revolutionary ideas into the staid circle 
 of Crestelridge some six months before had caused a ripple 
 that to the rector's terrified thought now seemed assuming 
 the proportions of a tidal wave. . . 
 
 Immersed in discomforting reflections, he hung at the door 
 of his study for some moments, with bowed head. Then he 
 drew a deep sigh and went in. 
 
 42 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 6 
 
 MARIAN turned as the rector entered and met him with 
 a smile. She was standing beside the long study table, 
 and the cold afternoon light that struggled through the 
 thick art glass of the high. Gothic windows was breaking and 
 falling around her in a shower of color. Her tall, slender 
 figure, drawn to its full height, was slightly suggestive of 
 defiance; but the suggestion was neutralized by the warmth 
 of the big brown eyes that she bent upon the rector, and by 
 the wistful expression in her face. Again there surged up 
 within him the impulse to blurt out his conviction that she 
 had conquered, and that it was a victory of Right. Yet he 
 dared not. And he yielded himself to his fear and his sense 
 of injury and humiliation. 
 
 He drew out a chair and sank into it. "Marian!" he 
 moaned, "words fail me. Oh, how could you? How could 
 you?" 
 
 "Because I love him, father," she reiterated. 
 
 "Again you say that!" he exclaimed, rousing up. "How 
 could you bring sorrow upon us all and then further embarrass 
 us by that indelicate public confession of your infatuation for 
 Alden!" 
 
 "Father," she answered gently, "you preach that the infinite 
 God is love. You preach that we are His image and reflection. 
 But the love that is God is infinite consideration. I have tried 
 to reflect that consideration to Alden." 
 
 "But with no consideration for the rest of us!" 
 
 "His need was no greater than yours, I know, but it was 
 more urgent. His danger seemed imminent." 
 
 "Rash impulse!" he cried. "The same thoughtlessness that 
 has been exiling you from your fellow men ! It is the heedless 
 impulsiveness that has driven you into the shoals of liberalism 
 and wrecked your future on the rocks of heresy! It was that 
 zeal without wisdom that has ever made you endeavor to force 
 the demonstration of your transcendental theories; that mes- 
 meric form of evil that so subtly spread its lethal influence , 
 over me, until I yielded to your persuasion to compromise 
 myself before my congregation this morning ! Alas, with what 
 
 sad, sad consequences!" 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was the zeal — though he knew it not — that had driven 
 her, in the enforced loneliness of boarding schools and semi- 
 naries, to turn from the void in her heart which the Whittiers 
 
 43 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 had refused to fill and seek a higher concept of parentage. 
 It was the impulse that had caused her to adopt God. 
 
 It would have wrung the heart of even one so selfishly fear- 
 ful as Mrs. Whittier to have seen the neglected child, in the 
 early formative years of her life, walking alone and with her 
 little arm outstretched in mimic embrasure of the hand of that 
 unseen Presence whom she had appropriated as parent. It 
 must have driven the skeleton from the harassed soul of the 
 rector had he overheard the intimate conversations which the 
 little one carried on, increasingly through the years, with that 
 One behind the veil who was now Father, now Mother, to this 
 friendless waif. Yet the rector fervently thanked that hidden 
 One that the child appeared to be contented in her surround- 
 ings, nor pined for the fatherhood that he dared not give her. 
 
 The result of Marian's early substitution of God for her 
 earthly parents was a spiritual intimacy that became per- 
 manent, increasing with the years. As time passed, there devel- 
 oped within her a desire to really know the invisible Parent 
 whom she had adopted. This desire speedily became longing; 
 and from that it flowered into a passionate life-motif. Thus 
 was propounded in her expanding thought the most vital ques- 
 tion ever voiced: "What is God?" The girl's life thereafter 
 became a consistent search for the answer. And the answer 
 came, yet not in words. . 
 
 It was in those early years of intensive self-communion that 
 an influence entered the child's life that was to shape it to 
 ends beyond human anticipation. A woman, with snowy hair 
 and the rosy face of a young girl, visited the school one bright ' 
 spring day, and, with the preceptor's permission, - distributed 
 apples and small gifts. She appeared particularly interested in 
 Marian, and asked that the child be allowed to drive with her 
 on occasion, or spend a holiday in her home. From that 
 climacteric hour a friendship developed between Marian and 
 Madam Galuth that resulted in such close companionship that 
 when the girl progressed from boarding school to seminary, 
 and from thence to college, the woman likewise changed her 
 residence in order to be with her. The great unseen Parent 
 seemed to be manifesting to Marian in this motherly woman 
 who thus early gathered the lone child to her bosom and filled 
 her life with a radiance- that the Whittiers could not have 
 diffused. 
 
 It was Madam Galuth who neutralized in such large measure 
 the baleful teaching imparted to Marian in school and college 
 in the name of education. It was this woman who shielded 
 the girl against that odious instruction in the fatal laws of fear 
 which parent and teacher, in their mistaken, mesmeric beliefs, 
 
 44 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 deem necessary to impart to the young. Thus life's greatest 
 handicap was strangled at its source, and Marian's instinct- 
 for accomplishment developed without let from that inner 
 enemy whose commandment "Thou Canst Not" makes mankind 
 the shuttlecock of Fate. Marian developed with a conscious- 
 ness of power that, rightly directed, later expanded into spirit- 
 ual audacity. 
 
 It was to Madam Galuth that the girl early went with her 
 great questions. It was Madam Galuth who had ever a recep- 
 tive ear and a ready answer, nor put her off with soporific sops 
 of God's inscrutability. But it was Marian herself who, ponder- 
 ing the sources of her own conduct with a mentality happily 
 free in large measure from the inhifaitings of material beliefSj 
 hit upon the metaphysical law — none more vital to mankind! 
 — that thought externalizes itself. When it dawned upon her 
 that she was never without a thought of some kind, and that 
 her thought shaped her life, the paramount question of exis- 
 tence became : "What am I thinking?" At the point of convic- 
 tion that the basis of all is mental, the girl began to let go the 
 things of matter and deal only with thought. 
 
 Thereafter, and under Madam Galuth's careful direction, 
 Marian sought to maintain a sharp line of demarcation be- 
 tween the "invisible things of Him" and the material "things 
 that are made." Compromise became impossible. Either God 
 must be all to her, or nothing; If nothing, then matter must 
 take His place. She could not divide her interests between 
 God and Mammon. But if she accepted God as all, then must 
 she likewise accept the task of demonstrating the utter nothing- 
 ness of matter. And in the face of the testimony of the physipal 
 senses this was an audacious emprise. 
 
 Yet clearly she saw that all inharmony, all discord, sickr 
 ness, sin, death itself, took origin in matter or materialistic 
 thought. Prove the impotence of this, and the error must 
 vanish. Again Madam Galuth wisely pointed out that the only 
 way error can get at mortals is through their thought. If 
 therefore thought be challenged and properly sifted at the 
 mind's portal, then a life of harmony must ensue. But for this 
 sifting there must be the proper gauge, a principle by which 
 to measure the thought that applies for admittance. That 
 Principle must be Good, And Good is the synonym of Life and 
 Mind and Love. 
 
 Launched thus on a distinctly metapliysical course, the 
 girl's consuming passion for Truth ciarried her far. The cause 
 of humanity's troubles? Of the world's woes? War? Disease? 
 Naught but belief in a power opposed to that Principle. And 
 salvation? The "laying off" of this same fell belief. Experience 
 
 45 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 had shown her — and Madam Galuth repeatedly emphasized 
 the fact — ^that through every hour, every instant, a stream of 
 thought was pouring into her mind, both good and evil; every 
 instant she was rejecting the one sort and clinging to the 
 other; and the one which she accepted as truth became exter- 
 nalized in conscious experience. Thus was all human life com- 
 posed. But if the one sort was real, the other, its diametrical 
 opposite, must be unreal. Fulness of life then, yea, the king- 
 dom of heaven, was but a function of accepting the allness of 
 that Principle which is Good, and the instant and constant rejec- 
 tion of its antithesis, matter and material modes, as baseless, 
 non-creative, and unreal. Conversely, by knowing matter and 
 its concomitants — discord, disease, death — as unreal, she would 
 demonstrate the existence and allness of her Principle, God. 
 This, then, early became the major premise from which the 
 girl, under the woman's guidance, sought to deduce a logical 
 and harmonious life-experience. 
 
 The girl's spiritual development was consistent, as far as 
 lay within Madam Galuth to direct it. Building upon a founda- 
 tion already well laid, the woman sought, not to shield the 
 child from contact with evil, but rather to teach her that, 
 on the premise of the allness of her Principle, Good — or God- 
 evil must of sheer necessity be naught but the externalization 
 of erroneous thought, itself the antithesis of true thought, and 
 therefore without power or real existence, and having but the 
 qualities with which the human mind endows it. She needed 
 not to direct the child to Spirit, for thither Marian had turned 
 naturally and intelligently. The child early began to see mate- 
 rial objects as concepts of thought, and human men and women 
 as material ideas externalized, and not in themselves the sons , 
 and daughters of God. Human life was by her regarded, not 
 as real Life, but as a mere sense of existence, transient and 
 false, whose inevitable end must needs be death. And all this 
 quite apart from the real, which is eternal. The Christ to her 
 became the saving Truth; and she saw that she must leave 
 all for it. If Man was the reflection of Principle — the One per- 
 fect and eternal God — ^then must she appropriate that Principle 
 to the fullest extent and throw her burden of material sense 
 away. Her life activity must be a reflection of the activity 
 of Principle; and that activity must be service in the highest 
 degree. "If," she reasoned, "I am really the image and likeness 
 of God, then I must act as possessing the power to meet every 
 righteous requirement. If I hold to this, it will become exter- 
 nalized. Then shall I overcome evil, even death itself, yes, 
 death." She set her life to correspond to the startling premise 
 that "Now are we the sons of God," in reality, and treated her 
 
 46 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 associates accordingly. Death was not an end, nor the gate- 
 way to eternal bliss. It was an error to be overcome. This 
 sense of existence, called human life, was to be regarded as 
 a preparatory school wherein mortals would learn how to over- 
 come, and prepare to advance farther on the next plane — if 
 we may use the term — if death cannot be mastered here. Neg- 
 lect to appropriate Principle, and by it work out one's salva- 
 tion here, meant continual suffering in the bonds of materiality 
 in another false sense of life until the task should be entered 
 upon joyfully and carried through to completion, resulting in 
 the revelation of Man as spiritual, and matter as the falsity 
 of belief. 
 
 And the sustaining Principle was Love. Therefore she 
 must love her brethren as herself, though they frowned upon 
 her for her "queer notions," for her unwillingness to come under 
 the false laws which they continuously laid upon themselves 
 and would fain throw about her, and rejected her for her 
 avoidance of the trifling aims and the frivolous, gossiping con- 
 versation which made up their little round of life. But this 
 constituted her opportunity. 
 
 But, withal, the active, enthusiastic girl found it far easier 
 to desire Truth than to rid herself of error. The working out 
 from materiality meant strife. To acquire "that Mind," to 
 possess a consciousness of Good only, she soon learned was a 
 task that demanded absolute consecration and infinite patience. 
 The former she possessed in abundance ; the latter came slowly, 
 and through painful experience. Her ebullient zeal led her 
 often into situations difficult and embarrassing. Desiring 
 wholeness above everything else, and eager to sacrifice her 
 material sense of life for it, she concluded that all mankind 
 must share her fine enthusiasm when enlightened. Believing 
 that she had found the mental way of salvation — the spiritual 
 road pointed out by the Master-metaphysician — she flew joy- 
 fully to her fellow men with her gospel of release from the 
 mesmeric dream of life in matter. . . 
 
 Alas, the missiles which they hurled at her from atop the 
 thick walls of dogma and human belief drove her staggering 
 back with broken hopes. 
 
 "But," the white-haired, motherly woman whispered, as 
 she gathered the sorrowing girl in her arms, "they have not 
 broken your power to be spiritual, and by your spirituality 
 to lift and illumine their poor lives." And the girl's thought 
 went out to the despised Nazarene, and she recalled that the 
 value of what he did lay not in teaching, but in act. 
 
 It had often been said of the girl by her wondering class- 
 mates that she was possessed of the "Scotch gift of second- 
 
 47 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sight." Her intuition seemed to them uncanny. Yet to Madam 
 Galuth it was but a developed spiritual insight. And when she 
 successfully met physical ailments and various discords for her- 
 self arid her associates, these regarded her with awe and felt 
 afraid. Yet the girl was but obeying the Scriptural injunc- 
 tion: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee." She had learned, 
 and was demonstrating the knowledge, that "the kingdom of 
 heaven is not in word, but in power"-^not in what one may 
 say, but in DEMONSTRATION. But the thick and passive 
 resistance of the mortal mind against Truth was soon manifest 
 in the rebuke of her teachers, in whose opposition Madam 
 Galuth saw reflected the ecclesiastical and materia medica 
 thought of the hour. 
 
 Thereafter she directed Marian's efforts to the task of gain- 
 ing a deeper understanding of the Principle that is God. The 
 Bible became the girl's daily food; Madam Galuth her ever- 
 present mentor. The tracing of Israel's history became a pas- 
 sion and a guiding chart. "Some day," the woman would say, 
 "you will be sent to the Lost Tribes. Ah, the world little sus- 
 pects where they are! But you shall find them, and to them 
 you shall reveal spiritual Israel." 
 
 In due season Madam Galuth began to guide the girl's 
 adolescent thought into new and strangely interesting chan- 
 nels. Marian was then in college, but with little taste for the 
 worldly lore there imparted to her. Then Madam Galuth 
 sent her to seminars, where she discussed matter with eminent 
 physicists, philosophy with learned doctors, history with the 
 greatest authorities of the day. She led her into the realms of 
 Greek and Latin; she perfected her in the modern languages 
 from her own rare mastery of the tongues. "For I have lived 
 in France, in Germany, Spain, Africa . . . Ah, dearie, I've 
 roved long . . . But not in vain; no, not in vain," 
 
 "But what is it all for?" the girl one day queried. And 
 Madam Galuth turned to Milton and read aloud: "The end, 
 then, of learning is to know God aright." 
 
 In her infrequent letters to the Whittiers — for she was not 
 encouraged to write to them often nor at length — Marian seldom 
 mentioned Madam Galuth. Thus the rector, absorbed in the 
 ever expanding social activities of St. Jude's, remained in igno- 
 rance of the powerful influence shaping the girl?s developing 
 thought. And during the brief and rare visits to her family 
 Marian learned that her views were offensive to them and 
 quite undesired---nay, feared, But as time went on, the rector 
 could not fail to become influenced by her really profound 
 scholarship^ And a sentiment of pride was thereby stimulated 
 within him.! Her mastery of the Greek impressed him greatly, 
 
 48 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and at times he — quite surreptitiously— sought her transla* 
 tions of difficult Bible texts. Marian seized upo^n these occa- 
 sions to render metaphysical translations which widened his 
 eyes as he read. Later, they caused him uneasiness, and he 
 fell to wondering if he had given sufficient thought to the wel- 
 fare of the girl's soul. "I must guide your spiritual develop- 
 ment," he then said to her. "You must join St. Jude's." 
 
 "But we think on different planes," she answered. "I am 
 just as interested in my salvation as you are, but I know that 
 it is to be accomplished only by a change of mentality. See, 
 the word which you translate . 'repentance' really means 'a 
 complete and radical change of thought'. Now will wafers and 
 wine change your mentality? Will money? Or pious theorizing? 
 What will? Knowing the truth and applying it practically as 
 Jesus taught and demonstrated. What did he see when the 
 ten lepers stalked down the road toward him? He saw, not 
 the error, not the disease, not the lie that said God was not 
 infinite and perfect; oh, no! He saw the real Man back of all 
 these material concepts. And that cured them, for it destroyed 
 the lie about God that was being manifested by them." 
 
 And again: "Can a mentality be changed? Yes; not by 
 your ritual, but by true education. The German mentality of 
 to-day was fashioned during forty years of false education. 
 What would have been the result of forty years of Truth 
 imparted to them as Jesus taught and proved it to his dis- 
 ciples?" 
 
 Then her thought often dwelt on Alden Gragg. "What 
 would Jesus see in him?" she would ask herself. And she would 
 answer as Madam Galuth had taught her : ; "Not a cad, not 
 a cowai-d, not the false sense of man that will pass away. No; 
 he would see what I must see and help Alden to bring out; 
 the real Man back of it all. And as the Master solved their 
 problems by loving them, so I must love, love, /ou^e them all!" 
 
 And she strove conscientiously to do so, despite her limited 
 environment when in college or Crestelridge, despite the inertia 
 of organized ecclesiasticisin, the worldliness, the materialism, 
 and the aggressive suggestidns of power and life and intel- 
 ligence inherent in evil, as lived and tatight by the rector, 
 who steadily rejected her views and shdwed her p^lainly that 
 she must not push them too far, for when his thinking got 
 beyond the strictly material he was hopelessly lost. 
 
 But the enthusiasm of a fresh, vigorous young mentality 
 with a grasp of Truth is not readily quenched. After four- 
 teen years apart from the Whittiers, Marian returned to them 
 like a meteor bursting upon a darkened sky. ; She came beau- 
 tiful in personality, riadiant in sweetness of character. She 
 
 49 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 came with a rare mobility and sensitiveness of expression that 
 held her zeal for the most part in check; -yet with a compelling 
 forcefulness which profoundly stirred all with whom she came 
 in contact. She was essentially feminine, winning, yet auda- 
 cious. She was quiet, even reserved, yet conveying always the 
 impress of a potentiality unlimited if loosed. Her life expressed 
 the essential nature of her thought in its totality as gauged 
 by her Principle — and Crestelridge, bloated with matter, 
 
 blinked up at her in protesting amaze. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 "Yes," she Teplied to the rector's bitter lament, "you did 
 compromise yourself this morning. In the presence of David 
 Barach who came yearning after Truth you made your usual 
 obeisance before matter and sent him away empty." 
 
 "It is not of that Jew that I wish to speak," he returned 
 severely, "but of Alden . . ." 
 
 "Alden, like the world, has been mesmerized, and through 
 him evil is striking at the Word, as it is through you." 
 
 "Marian!" 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "can't you see? can't you see? The world 
 is at war. The German nation has struck for supremacy. But 
 can't you see why it has struck, and what is striking through 
 it, and at what? It is only the age-old drive of evil against the 
 Word. Error has been preparing Germany for years to be its 
 tool . . . Why, mesmerism was first brought into notice in 
 Germany; it came through Franz Mesmer to war against 
 Truth ! But Truth is set forth by the Bible ; and so destructive 
 criticism of the Bible naturally originated in Germany. It was 
 mesmerism. And it has spread throughout the world. Now, 
 with the German people fully mesmerized, it has struck through 
 them at England, for she is the keeper of the literal Word. 
 And it has struck to destroy real Christianity." 
 
 He turned a blank look upon her. "Why," he murmured 
 in amazement, "the German people are Christians! They are 
 our kin!" 
 
 "That is what is taught in our schools," she answered him; 
 "but the Germans of to-day are not the same race as the ancient 
 Germans, they are largely of Hunnish or Tartar origin. The 
 people who lived in the country known to Caesar as Germania 
 passed on in large bulk to other countries, chiefly to England, 
 and their former home was then occupied by the Sarmatians, 
 the Huns, and other tribes. And these we now know to have 
 descended from the ancient Assyrians, those fierce Chaldean 
 worshipers of Bel who sought to destroy the true idea of God 
 which Abraham preached forty centuries ago. It is the same 
 to-day as in his time; evil, as yet undestroyed by you who 
 
 50 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 profess to know and do the works of the Christ, still strikes 
 at the Word to kill it." 
 
 A pause followed, in which the rector sat staring dumbly 
 at the girl. Then she resumed: "Alden is an Englishman. 
 He disclaims any responsibility for the outcome of the war; 
 but it is because he is under the spell of Franz Mesmer. This 
 war is not one of governments only, not of nations or peoples, 
 but of principles. Oh, can't you see that it is a war between 
 the revived Roman Empire and the Anglo-Saxon race, and that 
 it is at the Anglo-Saxons that evil, through the Kaiser, has 
 struck? And because the Anglo-Saxons are keepers of the 
 Word which error would destroy? Where then is Alden' s 
 responsibility? Where yours, as a preacher of the Word?" 
 
 Again she waited for his reply, but it did not come. She 
 drew up a chair beside him. "When this war burst upon the 
 world," she went on, "what did it find you doing? Preaching, 
 in your blinding mesmerism, that civilization had been 
 advanced tp such a degree that there never could be another 
 war! You preached that the world would wag on as usual, 
 with now and then an application of 'Christian principles' to 
 steady it ! You cried 'Peace, peace,' when there was no peace ! 
 Your text was: 'We have walked to and fro through the 
 earth, and behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest' — Oh, 
 yes, the earth was at rest, in error; it was at ease, in matter! 
 And you were complaisantly preaching Christianity as the hope 
 •of the race — but you couldn't say what Christianity, was, nor 
 how to apply its principles practically! No," as he made a 
 gesture of protest; "else David Barach would not have left 
 your church this morning with that hopeless look in his face!" 
 
 The rector gasped and made as if to rise. She checked him. 
 "And where -did the war find Alden?" she demanded., "Fleeing 
 from his problem, fleeing to neutral America — from which he 
 now intends to flee to Spain, a country steaming with the vapors 
 of hidden German influences, and therefore just the place to 
 which the mesmerism of evil would send him ! I saw him 
 enmeshed in such a coil ! . . , Oh, I know you will not under- 
 stand me! . . . you will say that I acted impulsively! . . . 
 And I did . . . But the boy was lost! . . . Oh, it had to be!" 
 she cried, springing up. "He had to be loosed from his bonds ! 
 There was no other way! And you . . . you will have to 
 turn. . ." 
 
 "You ask me again to leave my church?" he interposed. 
 
 "All I ask is that you awake from your mesmerism, that 
 you give up your attitude of strict neutrality or weak com- 
 promise toward error, and rouse to your opportunity, to your 
 great destiny. Oh, you know I am right, for when evil, using 
 
 51 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the prepared Germans as its tools, stalked across Belgium with 
 a wake of horror, did you not bury your head still deeper in 
 your churchly affairs? Oh, you continued to conduct your 
 elaborate services; you beat your tom-toms and blew your 
 horns, like the Indians, to scare away the evil spirits; you set 
 up your images and offered material sacraments — and your 
 congregation submitted to it all without a vestige of spirit- 
 uality — ^for neither you nor they knew, in your awful mes- 
 merism, that it was the same idolatry that centuries ago 
 quenched the light of the primitive Christian Church. . ." 
 
 "You are critical, merely critical!" he burst out. "Like 
 those who cannot create or mend, you charge the Church with 
 dereliction whenever anything in our social system breaks 
 under some tremendous strain! You launch a tirade, you 
 become abusive! Your attitude is that of opposition to our 
 principle of religious liberty! You have no regard for the 
 rights of others ..." 
 
 "It is your rights, and Alden's, and the world's, that I am 
 contending for," she declared. "Your rights are invaded by 
 the mesmerism that has blinded you. My criticism of you is 
 Sincere, for into your hands has been placed the keeping of 
 the Word and its demonstration to mankind. You have been 
 unfaithful. You have become a Laodicean. You have sought 
 to deny us the privilege of demonstrating that here and now. 
 we are immortal. You have permitted mesmerism to cause 
 you to strangle Truth in your pulpit, and to so pervert the 
 Word that a starving world has fallen under the spell of BaaL 
 Your pulpit does not appeal to humanity, your religion does not 
 reach the man in the street. Oh, if you and Alden and all 
 who have named the name of Christ had striven to know and 
 demonstrate real Christianity, you would have met this evil 
 of war before it could set the world aflame ! Now you and he, 
 not knowing how to war spiritually, must take the Human steps 
 necessary to preserve your liberty and save the Word. The 
 Anglo-Saxons are not really Christian enough to defend them- 
 selves by spiritual means, they cannot use the divinely pro- 
 vided weapons that Paul enumerated, and so they must meet 
 evil's drive with evil's own weapons. But they must meet it, 
 or be destroyed!" 
 
 She came and bent over him, with an arm about his shoul- 
 ders. "I do not mean to be unjustly critical, nor to offendi" 
 she said gently. "But these are such momentous days; and 
 you and Alden and the world are so deeply asleep." Her eyes 
 filled. "I love ydu," she continued tenderly. "I love Alden. 
 Move all my fellow men. That is what makes me see so 
 clearly your great danger. Oh, I want you to see that the 
 
 52 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 old world is passing away, that the things which you hold most 
 sacred are doomed because they are not based on Principle! 
 I want you to have the courage to forsake them and turn to 
 that which will endure." 
 
 She reached out a hand and laid it on his. "You almost 
 said last night that you would," she whispered. 
 
 He started up. "You came to me last night with the per- 
 nicious teachings of that Galuth woman!" he exclaimed. "That 
 was indeed mesmerism!" 
 
 "I came to you," she answered, "with the command that 
 came to Job, to gird up your loins like a man, for God demands 
 of you to say on what your understanding of Him is based, 
 whether on Spirit or its opposite, matter. This demand is 
 made on all humanity, and never so insistently as to-day. Job 
 was at last convinced that the government of the universe was 
 not in what the physical senses reported it to be, but in a 
 Power beyoad and outside of matter and its manifestations. 
 This Power is Spirit, God, Principle, never evil, never mate- 
 rial. You believe in God; but how can you convince others 
 that there is a God when you fail to prove Him? Jesus was 
 constantly proving Him; but do you? Do the churches? Can 
 you, or they? Oh, the world has set up the worship of science 
 — but it is a false science, and with it mankind is destroying 
 itself! It has made evil its science. And naught but the 
 science of Christianity will overthrow it. But the churches 
 do not make Christianity a science. To them it is still a specu- 
 lation, still guess-work. Oh, God demands better things of 
 you. His law demands progress. Alden has come under that 
 law. You must, either willingly or under compulsion. You 
 cannot remain here asleep under the spell of Franz Mesmer." 
 She paused, then: "Father," she breathed, "come!" 
 
 The rector got to his feet. For a moment he stood looking 
 at the girl; then he clasped his hands behind his back and 
 began to pace the room with quick nervous steps. At length 
 he stopped before her. "Do you realize what you have brought 
 upon yourself by rashly forcing Alden into the army?" he said 
 slowly. 
 
 "Yes," she answered in a low, wistful voice, "I must leave 
 Crestelridge." 
 
 An exclamation burst from his lips. "You cannot! . . ." 
 He glanced down at the papers on his table. His eyes fell upon 
 the title of an address that he was preparing for the Young 
 Men's Club: "Choose Ye This Dag Whom Ye Will Serve." He 
 started; his face flushed; he looked. up at the waiting girl; 
 then he turned and resumed his nervous pacing. Should he 
 yield? Was the sacrifice which she had asked of him com- 
 
 53 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mensurate with her own? He thought of his church, his lordly 
 salary, his high position, his proud friends. . . And as he 
 thought, he heard the ominous rattling of that bony thing 
 closeted within. He shuddered. Then. he came to her, with bowed 
 head. "Marian," he said, "you are very young . . . yet some 
 things that you have said are . . . true. Your rash conduct 
 this day will probably rend my parish . . . but ... it may 
 be that it has opened the door , . ." 
 
 The telephone bell interrupted him. He started violently, 
 then went to the instrument. 
 
 "Oh, Senator Chaddock? Yes, this is the rector . . . You 
 say the physician was taken ill . . . Alden's examination post- 
 poned till to-morrow? Ah! What's that? Doctor Roake assures 
 us that Alden will be kept in this country until the war ends? 
 Surely! surely! Yes, it certainly is an honor to the young 
 man to enlist! I congratulate him! And . . . Eh? . . . Colo- 
 nel Tenn has permitted Alden to go home for the night? 
 Wonderful! Er . . . you say Doctor Roake wishes to see me 
 in his oflSce in the morning? . . . Something in regard to my 
 sermon to-day? H'm! Certainly, I will be there . , . Nothing 
 serious, I hope ... I am sure I can explain . . .No? I'm 
 delighted! Thank you for calling me." 
 
 He hung up the receiver and turned to Marian with an 
 altered countenance. "If the boy is accepted he will be given 
 employment in some camp here!" he exclaimed, his eyes danc- 
 ing. "So far from becoming a scandal, his enlistment redounds 
 to our credit . . . really!'' 
 
 He smiled, he chuckled, he laughed aloud in his immense 
 relief. His eagerness was pathetic. Then his face became 
 serious as he glanced again at Marian. "A happy and unexpected 
 result of your thoughtless conduct, daughter," he said. "May 
 it be a warning to you. And let me again remind you of your 
 immaturity of thought and of the great necessity of ridding 
 yourself of the destructive opinions which you so constantly 
 voice. You have all the audacity and self-assertion of the 
 young college graduate; age will bring you wisdom. Er . . • 
 there is no need of further discussion of the matter." 
 
 Thus closed another phase of the age-old clash between 
 priest and prophet. The girl stood looking at him pityingly 
 for a moment, then turned and in silence left the study. 
 
 Without, the prospect was unspeakably dreary. The wind 
 was still whirling clouds of dead leaves through the deserted 
 streets. And the fury stirred by the Christ was in like manner 
 driving a mesmerized people who still refused to forsake their 
 idols of clay. 
 
 That night, while the cold stars above Mt. Ararat looked 
 
 54 
 
THOU ISRAfiL 
 
 down upon the stark bodies of a thousand fresh victims of the 
 great mesmerism, the self-blindered Craggs sat chatting affably 
 with Doctor Roake and living over again those first ecstatic 
 moments when he had assured them of Alden's undoubted 
 immunity; the deluded rector and his wife huddled close, hug- 
 ging their gnawing secrets; Marian paced the floor of her room, 
 pondering "those things which must shortly come to pass"; 
 Ethel, in the parlor below, laughed carelessly with Harris Chad- 
 dock and Ted Sayor over "movies" and dress, parties and 
 drives, and her growing ability to roll cigarettes and consume 
 them; and David Barach, the apostate Jew, kept lonely vigil 
 at the bedside of his moaning wife. 
 
 CHAPTER 7 
 
 WHEN morning dawned David Barach rose from his chair 
 with a twofold resolve: he would that day see Alden 
 Cragg and Doctor Roake. All barriers had fallen before 
 the urgency of his beloved wife's condition, which old Doctor 
 Benson had declared with shaking head to be beyond his own 
 simple skill. A child was expected — the consummation of 
 months of joyful, trembling anticipation — ^but something had 
 gone wrong. Doctor Benson was too observant of professional 
 etiquette to attribute it to the fanciful notions of the obstetri- 
 cian whom Barach had employed, but he had well grounded 
 suspicions that this young man's ultra-modern methods of 
 assisting Nature had brought the poor woman to such a state 
 that nothing short of a highly complicated major operation 
 could save her. And in this extremity Barach's daring thought 
 had flown to Doctor Roake, world-famed specialist in the treat- 
 ment of women's diseases. 
 
 True, Doctor Roake was an extremely busy man, with a 
 clientele now composed almost exclusively of Crestelridge's 
 redundantly rich; and his fees were enormous. But there was 
 the chance that he might take this case for a clinic if proper 
 influence could be brought to bear upon him, such influence, 
 for example, as that of the Craggs. Of course there was the 
 County Hospital, malodorous and clouded by suspicion of harsh 
 treatment meted out to charity patients; but Barach had not 
 the courage to suggest that place to this delicate, nerve-wracked 
 woman, whom the mere mention of hospitals threw into a 
 frenzy of fear. No, his plan was best: he would offer his 
 Primal Motors stock to the Craggs, thus secure their mediation, 
 and . . . 
 
 55 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Moreover, his holdings in Primal Motors probably depended 
 upon the Graggs, for he had heard it rumored that their money 
 ■was expected to finance a reorganization of the company and 
 give value to its now inactive stock. If he offered his stock 
 to the Craggs he was certain, under the stressful circumstances, 
 that they would purchase it, eVen if at a low figure, and 
 thereby supply him with funds to place in Doctor Roake's 
 hands. 
 
 Primal Motors, be it understood, was a Tellus contraption; 
 with David Barach as a lowly cog. The company had been 
 floated by Henry Tellus and a few club cronies immediately 
 after the opposing armies in Europe had dug themselves in 
 and a war of long duration was assured, the basic idea being 
 that of stock- jobbing on war contracts which Senator Chad- 
 dock was confident he could secure. After the company had 
 idled through a few uneventful months, David Barach appeared 
 in the office of President Tellus one day with the model of a 
 gas motor, and asked for financial aid to exploit it. The 
 practical Tellus rightly appraised the value of the machine at 
 once, and he lost no time securing it. Barach was offered 
 $50,000 in the capital stock of the company for his invention, 
 and given a position in the engineering department of the con- 
 cern; but to show his good faith he was required to invest 
 outright the insignificant sum of $2,500 in the stock of the 
 company — an insignificant sum, indeed, to residents of Cres- 
 telridge, but a fortune to Barach, and not to be raised with- 
 out hypothecating his earthly all. But $50,000 in stock! And 
 an association with Crestelridge's gentility! . . . 
 
 And still Primal Motors continued inert. And debts accu- 
 mulated, much faster than to Barach seemed reasonable. He 
 at length exercised his privilege of examining the company's 
 books ; but discovered nothing amiss, and succeeded only in 
 rendering himself annoying. But shortly thereafter he heard 
 that the enormous Cragig wealth was to be drawn upon to 
 resuscitate the enterprise; and he almost sobbed in relief. At 
 last, he told his wife, he was made! And thus it stood, day 
 after day, without apparent change, while each Saturday night 
 he would draw his sniall stipend in an envelope bearing the 
 excellent admonition Do Not Spend All Your Income, and 
 on his return from the markets would endure torturing hours 
 vvondering how he could meiet the interest on his notes and 
 provide for his delicate wife and the babe that was coming. 
 But always he fell back upon the bemusing assurance that 
 men of the Tellus-Cragg ilk would never permit that stock 
 to become debased. 
 
 Only for the chrysalis state of his thought, David Barach 
 
 56 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 might have sought and found comfort among his own people. 
 But because the narrowing influence of Judaic tradition had 
 spent itself upon his forebears, long residents of liberal Amer- 
 ica, he had come into the world a protest against their system. 
 From.the belittling conviction of his people that they were the 
 "chosen," with the only true God their exclusive possession, 
 he had swung to the position of a creedless seeker for Truth, 
 without chart or rudder, adrift on a sea of fathomless uncer- 
 tainty. His protest grew with the years, until it became an 
 unconscious intolerance that drove him aloof from his race. 
 Their, dogged adherence to a past filled with hatred and per- 
 secution* their present passive submission to the contempt of 
 Christian civilization, as well as their own sensuous thought 
 and densely materialistic aims, irritated him beyond measure, 
 and gradually aliienated him from their communion. On the 
 other hand, he acquired among them the reputation of apostate 
 and radical, whose extreme liberalism was fraught with perils 
 dire. 
 
 Without anchorage or port, the man's liberated thought 
 could not but drift into every vagrant current. He became 
 a familiar object in public reading-rooms and lecture halls, 
 where at length he received the contemptuous patronymic of 
 "Wandering Jew." Yet librarians marveled at his omnivorous 
 and widely discursive reading; and professors gasped over the 
 erudite letters with which he challenged them, and which, 
 though annoying, often gave stimulus to serious thought 
 because of their deep and subtle questionings. Prior to the 
 disturbing incident at Sarajevo he had been fitfully practicing 
 law before the New York bar; but, failing to secure the con- 
 fidence of his own people by reason of his unorthodox asser- 
 tions and because of his greater interest in other subjects than 
 the law, his practice never grew, and he at length definitely 
 abandoned it and gave himself up to his hobby of invention. 
 His studies now were principally in the physical sciences and 
 their practical application. He was a skilled mathematician; 
 his knowledge of chemistry and physics was almost exhaustive ; 
 his imagination was keen; his inventive faculty highly devel- 
 oped. Such a one could experience no difficulty securing 
 employment; his lay rather in holding himself to the positions 
 that necessity obliged him to take. David Barach was an 
 idealist, a dreamer, but not a man of affairs. 
 
 But with the acceptance of his motor by the Tellus organi- 
 zation he believed he saw the door of financial independence 
 swing wide; with the breaking out of the World War his 
 thought glided into metaphysical channels. It was then — 
 though he knew it not— that hfe became the Jew again seeking 
 the Messiah. 
 7 57 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He hesitated as he stood by his wife's bedside that morning 
 and loolced down at her face, so white that there seemed no 
 demarcation between it and the pillow against which it lay. 
 "Fear not, my dove," he whispered bravely, bending over her. 
 "Our stock will provide for us. The Craggs are Christian 
 gentlefolk.!' 
 
 And then regret smote him, for the look in her eyes voiced 
 her protest against his contemplated appeal to the Christians. 
 For Barach's wife, a consistent Jewess, lived in the past, 
 adhered to and reverenced its traditions, without thought of 
 determining their value in the scales of Truth. The apathy 
 of generations of sluggish indifference lay not upon her : she 
 inherited an active hatred for the religion of the Gentiles, an 
 ill-feeling toward the founder of Christianity that was as sacred 
 to her as the ancient Scripture. The old rabbi, whom she had 
 again called to her side the night before, had long and care- 
 fully nurtured this inheritance. With deep solemnity he dwelt 
 often and exhaustively upon the Jewish pronouncement against 
 Christianity. The Nazianzen lacked human fatherhood; he 
 made himself the equal of God; and the cross — it was the 
 hideous symbol of retributive justice! He declaimed strongly 
 against Christianity because its twenty centuries of civiliza- 
 tion had estranged the love of man. The condition of the Jew 
 throughout Europe was not a Jewish, but a Christian question, 
 nor could it obtain if Christianity meant what its adherents 
 so stoutly claimed for it. 
 
 That the Christian religion was a mere faith without works, 
 David Barach did not attempt to refute. But in the name 6f 
 justice he believed that the murderous hatred which the Jews 
 of the first century cherished for the unique man who rebuked 
 their own barren beliefs should not be handed down through 
 succeeding generations. To the rabbi's solemn pronouncements 
 he opposed the fact that Jesus really appeared to fulfil the 
 prophecy of Isaiah. As to his alleged self-deification, it was 
 plainly written that "I can of mine own self do nothing; the 
 Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." As for 
 the cross, the guilty conscience of the Jews who slaughtered 
 the Nazianzen had developed an abhorrence of the symbol of 
 their criminal act that has been transmitted to all posterity. 
 As for the ancient Hebrew traditions, the promises and proph- 
 ecies, had they not failed utterly? Plain it was that the good 
 things of this life were in the hands of the Gentiles. There- 
 fore, there must be a reason, perhaps a demonstrable law. 
 And he would seek it. If the Messiah were yet to come, it 
 certainly appeared as if he would come among the Gentiles. 
 
 "So! Sleep, my dove. I will be absent from the shop to- 
 
 58 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 day, for I will see young Cragg and the good Doctor Roake, 
 and I will return to my dove within an hour. These Christians 
 have hearts. So, my loyal little Jewess, sleep and dream that 
 your babe will be the Messiah! Who knows?" Then, with a final 
 word of instruction to the young girl who was to remain with 
 his wife, he hurried away. He had made no mention of his 
 disappointing visit to St. Jude's the preceding day. A half 
 hour later he stood, breathless, before the massive, richly 
 wrought gate that barred entrance to beautiful "Craggmont." 
 
 The Graggs in America differed no whit from the Craggs 
 in England. In either place their environment accurately mir- 
 rored their souls. A lodge stood just within the great gate, 
 and its surly keeper bristled before Barach like an English 
 mastiff. 
 
 "But it is business, sir," Barach courteously explained. 
 
 "What business can the likes of yon have here?" was the 
 gruff retort. 
 
 "I am bringing Mr. Gragg some certificates of stock . . ." 
 
 "Did he send for you? Does he know you're coming? Got 
 an appointment? No? Then you'll stay outside till you get 
 one — an' that'll be too long f'r you to wait." 
 
 In vain did Barach protest and plead. The obdurate keeper 
 threatened to summon the police. Slowly the Jew turned froni 
 the Gentile's gate with a heart of lead. But of a sudden he 
 halted. Then, under the impulsion of an idea, he broke into 
 a run. A mile from "Craggmont" he found a drug store and 
 a public telephone. He hurried in and seized the directory. 
 A few moments of eager scanning, and he let it fall with a 
 smothered cry. The Craggs were not listed. 
 
 He. left the place and turned aimlessly up the street; but 
 abruptly he wheeled and ran back into the store and to the 
 booth. Could "Information" tell him if Mr. Alden Cragg . . .? 
 
 He was advised that if he would state his business he might 
 be placed in communication with Mr. Cragg's residence. His 
 heart leaped high. A few moments later he was eagerly explain- 
 ing his call to the highly indifferent individual who served 
 Alden Cragg in the capacity of secretary. "And tell him, 
 please, that it is David Barach, a stockholder in Primal Motors," 
 he reiterated. Then he stood back and waited, his blood 
 pounding through his arteries, until the secretary returned 
 and requested him, in a tone a bit more tolerant, to repeat his 
 name. Ah, how swiftly the clouds were now rolling back! 
 The God of his fathers ... 
 
 The secretary's cold voice came through the receiver. "Mr. 
 Cragg wishes me to say that he is not interested." 
 
 Barach fell: back stunned. Then he returned to the instru- 
 
 59 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ment in an abandon of fear. Again and again he strove wildly, 
 but vainly, to get into communication with "Craggmont." His 
 strange conduct attracted the storekeeper, who went to the 
 door and called to a. passing policeman. The latter, a hulking 
 brute, stalked to the booth, jerked open the door, and dragged 
 B^rach violently out. 
 
 "What's th' big idea, Israel?" he demanded, drawing his 
 club. 
 
 "My wife . , .!" Barach gasped. "She's sick!" 
 
 "Well, my Gawd!" the officer commented in a tone of 
 disgust, and shoving Barach toward the door, "ye don't need 
 to be bustin' th' instrement! Git out an' hike f'r a doctor, 
 or I'll ride ye in th' wagon!" Dense fool! How could he know 
 that the Jew was seeking the healing Christ? He stood in the 
 doorway, watching Barach, as the latter, after seeming to 
 grope blindly for a moment, hurried off in the direction of 
 the Cragg mansion. "I think I'll follow that guy," he remarked 
 grimly, with a squint and a nod to the storekeeper. "He was 
 kiddin' me." 
 
 Through Barach's feverish thought there ran an insistent 
 strain : if he could but see Alden Cragg personally the apparent 
 misunderstanding would be speedily corrected. But his former 
 rebuff warned him not to apply again to the lodge-keeper, and 
 he therefore halted panting, on the corner, some distance from 
 the gate. Perhaps the Craggs would drive out . . . 
 
 But he could not wait for that ! He turned and started 
 down the side street. The Cragg property occupied a full city 
 block, and was entirely surrounded by a high and exquisitely 
 fashioned iron fence, costing, Barach well knew, enough to 
 keep him and his in comfort the rest of their lives. Over 
 this were trailed flowering vines in great profusion, and so 
 dense was the massed foliage that in places the fence was 
 quite concealed. 
 
 He stopped and stood staring at the fence. Then he glanced 
 furtively about and across the street. Again he turned, and 
 with quick movements plunged. into a particularly heavy mass 
 pt foliage, where he clung, breathless, peering out through the 
 leaves. Satisfied that he had not been observed, he seized the 
 iron pickets and, keeping himself concealed beneath the vines, 
 worked his way slowly up and across, and dropped to the 
 ground on the opposite side. A few moments later he stood 
 at the massive glass doors of the main entrance, with a finger 
 nervously lifting the ornate lever of the electric call. 
 
 ■ In despite of Doctor Roake's comforting assurance and the 
 clear demonstration of his influence, resulting in Colonel Tenn's 
 permission to Alden to return to his home for the night, Mrs. 
 
 60 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Cragg and her son had slept but little, and the unseasonably 
 early hour of eight discovered them in the breakfast room, 
 pecking fitfully at the iced cantaloup or nibbling without zest 
 the delicate hot biscuit. 
 
 "Hawkes hasn't learned yet when a bath is cool or tepid," 
 Alden was muttering, in a vain endeavor to forget the disgrace 
 of yesterday. "And when I rang for my tub this morning the 
 bally idiot was asleep! I shall give him a character!" 
 
 "English valets always lose their usefulness after a few 
 months in America," Mrs. Cragg remarked listlessly, tasting 
 her egg and then irritably pushing it aside. 
 
 "But the American valet never knows his place," said Alden. 
 "He ... I say, call Jedkins, please; this coffee is gutter- 
 water! What's ailing our servants, do you suppose? Has the 
 war ..." 
 
 His voice trailed off as he caught the rebuke in his mother's 
 eyes. Then he pulled himself up. "I say," he began, and with 
 an assumption of confidence, "I've got it all figured out; I've 
 been worked on . . . influenced, you know." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked his mother, with a show of 
 genuine interest. 
 
 "Well, this country is great for — what do ye call it? — 
 occult stuff, and all that • . . hypnotism, ye know. Now 
 Marian . . ." 
 
 "Don't mention that girl in my presence again!" his mother 
 interrupted sharply. 
 
 "But, mother," the boy persisted, "I've got it all worked 
 out. She's been seeing a lot of that questionable character, 
 that Galuth woman ... By Jove! what's told me about this 
 person should have put me on my guard! ■ She, this Galuth 
 creature, is a — what d- ye call it? — necromancer, or such. An 
 oriental person, or something of the kind. Lived in Egypt. 
 Marian has learned hypnotism of her. And she used it on me 
 yesterday . . . put me to sleep with her suggestions. I didn't 
 know what I was doing. Why, she even threatened to . . ." 
 But the youth forebore to reveal the girl's words, even as he 
 had consistently done when quizzed by Doctor Roake and his 
 mother after his return from the recruiting office. "But, I 
 say," he resumed after a pause, "you can just figure that that 
 Galuth person is at the bottom of the whole bally mess, and 
 that's my theory." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg became deeply thoughtful. It certainly was 
 probable that Marian's inquiring mind should have yielded 
 to this malign influence and become a channel for its trans- 
 mission to the unsuspecting and therefore unprotected Alden. 
 From what sinister motive of the Galuth's, she could not say; 
 
 61 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 but the theory at least might prove useful in the unthinkable 
 event that Alden should be forced into service. On the other 
 hand, assuming his immunity, she had evolved a plan during 
 her -waking hours that night whereby her son, avoiding dis- 
 grace, should immediately acquire a reputation for patriotism, 
 in that he, a Cragg, having seen his country's need, had nobly 
 responded — though, alas! he would be denied the privilege of 
 active service because of his delicate health ... 
 
 At that moment Squires, the young man's secretary, 
 appeared with Barach's message. "I didn't quite get the name, 
 sir," the secretary announced; "sounded like Warruck. But 
 he wished to offer you his stock in Primal Motors, sir." 
 
 "Warruck," Alden pondered; "War ... I say, it wasn't 
 Barach, was it?" 
 
 "I'll go back and inquire more particularly, sir. He's hold- 
 ing the wire." 
 
 The secretary left mother and son exchanging inquiring 
 glances. Mention of Barach's name brought swiftly back to 
 them the affront of yesterday. "That Jew is one of our ten- 
 ants," said Mrs. Cragg grimly, "Have Squires instruct our 
 agent to raise his rent immediately and evict him. I will not 
 rent to that class of people ! The impudent tramp, to sit with 
 us yesterday!" 
 
 "The working classes are bally cocky of late," Alden agreed. 
 
 "And where would they be but for us who employ them?" 
 his mother continued heatedly. "I shall instruct Mr. Tellus 
 to discharge him from the employ of Primal Motors. Now . . ." 
 
 But Squires had returned with further details. "Names is 
 David Barach, sir. He states that it is necessary to raise funds 
 on account of his wife's illness, and he offers his stock in 
 Primal Motors at your own figure, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg stiffened as he spoke. When he concluded, she 
 waved him away. "Tell him. Squires," she said in glacial 
 tones, "that Mr. Cragg is not interested. Think of it!" she 
 exclaimed, when she and Alden were again alone. "The audac- 
 ity of the wretch! Tell Squires to get Mr. Tellus on the wire. 
 That fellow must be discharged to-day!" 
 
 "But, I say," the son ventured, "we're going to put money 
 into that concern, ye know, to reorganize it, and so on. Capital 
 idea to buy this fellow's stock for five cents on the dollar, 
 don't you think?" 
 
 "It will not be necessary to buy any of the stock. We shall 
 acquire the company by assuming its debts," she informed 
 him coldly. 
 
 "But, I say, that leaves Barach's stock worthless, eh?" 
 
 "He deserves the punishment. He deliberately publicly 
 
 62 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 insulted us yesterday." And Alden knew that for an offense to 
 a Cragg there was no atonement. David Barach should be 
 punished, but less for this affront than for the humiliating 
 fact that but for Jewish capital. "Cragg Cut Tobacco" and the 
 immense fortune derived therefrom would have been impos- 
 sible. Alden's father had had no scruples regarding race. He 
 shamelessly borrowed funds where they were to be found. 
 And Alden's friends had not foreborne to press this sensitive 
 point when they learned of its existence. True, Cragg fame 
 became international, the business world wide; the family now 
 had holdings in every European country and the Americas; 
 yet Alden continued to hang his proud head when the badinage 
 of Ted Sayor and that ilk dangled before him the Jewish origin 
 of his vast wealth. . . 
 
 For Alden Cragg's life had been a consistent manifestation 
 of a most intolerant belief, namely, that he had been constituted, 
 of finer clay and divinely set apart from his fellow men. Yet 
 in this he but reflected his mother's dominating thought, for 
 her strong mentality had been his life mentor. His father had 
 not counted as a determining force in the molding of Alden's 
 character; he had died in the boy's sixth year. His life had 
 been steeped in commercialism; and when his tremendous but 
 uncontrolled driving force at last burst the arteries in his 
 throbbing brain, his wife and son found themselves so absorbed 
 in each other that they could not miss him. 
 
 For many years thereafter mother and son had been wont 
 to leave "the intellectual, artistic, and sensitive atmosphere of 
 England, with its constant reminders of a glorious tradition,"* 
 as Mrs. Cragg put it, and descend at frequent intervals into 
 the ruck of New York, with its blatant mobs and its polyglot 
 of undeveloped, unattached ideals, and this they did for reasons 
 of business and Alden's health. Not that the boy was an 
 invalid; but, smothered beneath the fears and ministrations 
 of an adoring mother, and without trials to meet or obstacles 
 to overcome, he had grown up like a delicate plant, and his 
 anemic condition — a condition wholly fanciful — at times gave 
 rise to an irritability and moroseness that found relief only 
 in a radical change of environment. In England they had come 
 into frequent contact with their distant relatives, the Whittiers. 
 A close friendship developed, which was continued after the 
 young rector and his bride removed to America. Thus, even- 
 tually, Mrs. Cragg found it expedient to establish a home in 
 Crestelridge, near the Whittiers, and where Alden could remain 
 under the watchful eye of their good friend. Doctor Roake, 
 and there to pass much of her time — although she and Alden 
 never let it be thought for a moment that they regarded Aiher- 
 
 63 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ica with anything more than tolerance. To them it remained 
 always undignified, unpolished, and crude. Crestelridge society 
 became acceptable only upon imbibing the Cragg ideals, even 
 as Crestelridge architecture became normal only when patterned 
 after stately "Craggmont." 
 
 It is probable that Alden Cragg would have been classified 
 as a throw-back to an older and now vanished England. In 
 descent he boasted himself a Norman, though when Marian 
 once informed him that the Normans were the modern descen- 
 dants of the tribe of Benjamin he angrily res.ented the imputa- 
 tion. "You'll find the name of my ancestor in the Domesday 
 Book," he asserted disdainfully; "Rolf Cragg came over with 
 WiUiam the Conqueror. And I'll have you to know that I'm 
 no bally Jew!" 
 
 Partly because of their proud ancestry, but more especially 
 on account of their great material wealth, the Craggs secured 
 and maintained a position of what they were pleased to regard 
 as "splendid isolation." Of the various gods in the American 
 pantheon, they chose to worship Mammon. The scissors with 
 which they clipped their coupons were kept ever sharp and 
 bright by constant use. Daily Alden and his mother met with 
 their bankers and secretaries, their attorneys and counselors; 
 and hourly, as their riches grew, did their contempt for their 
 fellow men increase. Their money was proof incontrovertible 
 of their superiority. In their riches lay their security, though 
 in their worship of gold they lost all feeling for what is genuine 
 in life. Mrs. Cragg's thought was centered in her son; his 
 •was absorbed in a contemplation of self. His material self- 
 hood became his microcosm. From incessant introspection 
 developed his cruel criticism of others, his constricting selfish- 
 ness, his heartless conduct toward hijs fellow men. While 
 those of the Barach type sweat to augment the Cragg fortune, 
 Alden lounged at his club, drove his luxurious car, or mingled 
 in the social activities of St. Jude's, despising the horny hands 
 that supported him in the leisured class of which he was such 
 a highly developed type. 
 
 But of late the Cragg world had swerved a bit in its orbit, 
 and clouds had lowered menacingly about its far horizon. 
 Yet when the German fury was loosed in the autumn of 1914, 
 what recourse had the terrified mother but to act upon the 
 suggestion of her adviser. Senator Chaddock, so closely in 
 touch with international matters, and close her London home, 
 transfer her affairs there to her army of agents and barristers, 
 and flee with her idolized son to the protecting arms of the 
 United States? Time would surely approve her action; for^ 
 let it be repeated, Alden Cragg was not common clay! 
 
 64 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Thus Mrs. Gragg sat musing in her boudoir after ner scarcely 
 touched breakfast, when one of her maids came flying to her 
 ■with the disquieting report that a man had come hurriedly 
 across the lawn and was now at the front doors. Mrs. Cragg 
 rose quickly and hastened down to the entrance hall, where 
 Alden and the servants stood peering timidly out through the 
 glass, doors. 
 
 "Stand back, Alden!" she cried in a hoarse whisper.. "Do 
 not expose yourself!" 
 
 "See!" whispered a maid; "the lodge- keeper is running up 
 the walk with a policeman!" 
 
 "It's that . . . that Barach fellow!" muttered Alden, his 
 heart thumping madly. "He's insane!" 
 
 Thus they waited until the miserable Jew had been seized 
 by his, pursuers. Then Mrs. Cragg, again motioning Alden 
 back, commanded the butler to open the door^ 
 
 "He was actin' strange in th' drugstore. Ma'am," explained 
 the^ policeman, touching his cap. "I followed him and seen 
 him go over th' fence. He's a Ropshun 'Red' all right ! Where's 
 y'r bomb, son?" addressing Barach. "Easy there, Israel!" as 
 Barach began to struggle in the officer's clutch. 
 
 "Let him' speak," said 'Mrs. Cragg. Then, to Barach: "You 
 are the fellow who made a disturbance in our church yesterday, 
 are you not? 'The one who came down and crowded into our 
 pew with us?" 
 
 "Is he so!" murmured the properly shocked policeman, turn- 
 ing his condemning gaze upon Barach, 
 
 The latter's eyes widened. "Why ... I do not remember 
 . . . doing that!" he gasped. 
 
 "Oh, I recognize you," said Mrs. Cragg, her nostrils dilating 
 and her lips curling. "May I ask why you are persecuting us?" 
 she concluded in a freezing tone. 
 
 "Persecuting I Madam, it is not that! My wife is sick! 
 I thought Mr. Cragg would buy my stock . . ." 
 ' "You were informed over the 'phone that he was not 
 interested." 
 
 "But I hoped he would take it and use his influence with 
 Doctor Roake!" 
 
 "He's plum off!" gasped the officer. 
 
 "If you heed aid, there are charitable societies here," said 
 Mi's. Cragg in tones that distilled ice. 
 
 "An' th' County Horspitel," the policeman, put in. "Aw, 
 y'r dodge won't work, son!" 
 
 "She would die there! And I could not ask for charity!" 
 Barach cried. "Not while I had this stock! If I could talk 
 with Mr. Cragg I could explain!" 
 
 65 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Could you explain why you climbed our fence like a thief?" 
 Mrs. Cragg demanded. 
 
 "The lodge-keeper would not let me through the gate!" 
 
 "He was wild-like. Ma'am!" the keeper exclaimed. "I knew 
 he meant trouble!" 
 
 "That will do," said Mrs. Cragg, in a voice as hard as steel. 
 "Take him away. Officer. Have him examined by a magistrate." 
 With, which she turned and swept into the house. 
 
 "But, Madam!" cried Barach. "Hear me! God of our 
 fathers ! don't you believe me?" 
 
 A tap from the policeman's club turned him about. A sense 
 of the magnitude of his calamity bereft him of his wits. With 
 a despairing cry he struggled to free himself from the officer's 
 grip. The club crashed down upon his head. He dropped 
 senseless and was dragged away, while the wide-eyed inmates 
 of "Craggmont" watched with bated breath from behind the 
 glass doors. 
 
 CHAPTER 8 
 
 DOCTOR ROAKE did not permit Senator Chaddock to 
 return to Washington Sunday night, as intended, for the 
 unexpected enlistment of Alden Cragg had imposed an 
 additional task upon the extremely popular physician and he 
 had need of his henchman. Thus, while David Barach had 
 been waging his unequal struggle that bleak Monday, the doctor 
 and senator were comfortably composed in huge, tapestried 
 armchairs in the doctor's exquisitely appointed private office 
 in close conference. 
 
 "I don't miiid telling you, Roake," the senator complained, 
 "that young Cragg's enlistment is not only a shock but a great 
 disappointnient to me. I . . . er . . . Well, it is bound to 
 raise his prestige, and if he is accepted and kept in this country, 
 why, Ethel Whittier will marry him. At present she favors 
 my son Harris. Egad ! what a weakling Cragg is ! ... Or else 
 Marian has some sort of hold . . . You knov^r, you said she was 
 a real thinker ..." 
 
 "Did you inform her that America was about to enter the 
 war?" the doctor asked, looking searchingly at the senator. 
 
 "No. I swear, I told no one but the Craggs . . . and they 
 assured me they did not divulge the information." 
 
 "A clever girl," the doctor said meditatively. "Wonderful 
 ability; charming personality; remarkable in many respects. 
 But ... with zeal beyond her wisdom, don't you think so, 
 Chaddock?" He threw the senator an odd look as he made this 
 observation. 
 
 66 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Decidedly!" the latter agreed vehemently. "Else she would 
 not oppose you!" 
 
 The doctor laughed softly. "Her opposition is . . . refresh- 
 ing," he said. 
 
 "Of course, with America going into the war, you can now 
 regard Marian as negligible," the senator conceded, after which 
 he sat for some moments in thought. Then: "I have been 
 thinking it over, Roake, and I believe I see now why you wanted 
 this war. It gives the medical profession the grandest oppor- 
 tunity it ever had — an opportunity to so firmly establish itself 
 that nothing short of a revolution can ever break its power. 
 And yet, the medical profession appeared to be immovably 
 established before." 
 
 "Not at all," the doctor returned- quickly, yet kindly. "In 
 fact, Chaddock, until this war broke out there was a real 
 medical crisis in this country, because of what I had long seen 
 developing: we were being Prussianized. German educational 
 ideas were so dominating our institutions that they were turn- 
 ing out hopelessly inefficient graduates. Naturally, people in 
 time would refuse to employ these and would turn to substi- 
 tutes, would lose faith in doctors and try the various mental 
 cures. Now that sort of thing, carried too far, would . . ." 
 
 "I see, I see," the senator interrupted, vigorously nodding 
 his entire comprehension. "H'm! And when America goes 
 in ... I say, Roake, you don't mind my saying this, but you 
 fellows are going to strike for further medical control, eh? 
 In fact, you've already struck : the Wess bill gives the medical 
 profession absolute police power, and you know it." 
 
 The doctor removed his cigar from his mouth and appeared 
 to study it for some moments. Then he looked up at the 
 senator with a half smile. "The Wess bill does appear suscep- 
 tible of a somewhat latitudinous construction," he admitted, in 
 his deep, velvety voice. 
 
 "Egad!" the senator ejaculated, "it gives you medics the 
 right to enter any home^for any purpose — under the guise 
 of medical inspection!" 
 
 The doctor coughed slightly before replying. "But you 
 must remember," he offered, "that our Constitution provides 
 security for the citizen in his home against unreasonable 
 seizures." 
 
 The senator broke into a laugh. "And in such cases the 
 medical profession decides what is unreasonable, eh?" he cried. 
 "I guess after the war the old-fashioned idea that an individual 
 has the right to control his own body will become obsolete." 
 
 The doctor did not reply, and the two sat for some moments 
 silent. Then the senator again took up the conversation. 
 
 67 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Roake," he began hesitatingly, "I . . . -well, the fact is — to 
 change the subject abruptly — I'm in a bad way financially. 
 Swamped with debts. Harris has bled me white ... He hasn't 
 much of a practice yet . . . just bought a new car ... I was 
 .hoping he would marry Ethel Whittier . . " He ceased speak- 
 ing and sat back in gloomy meditation. 
 
 The doctor regarded his companion steadily for a moment. 
 "Well," he observed at length, "when the Wess bill becomes 
 a law we intend to h^ve Harris appointed Health Executive." 
 
 The senator again became animated. "Egad!" he ejaculated, 
 
 "that bill must go through! But it will take barrels of money!" 
 
 •, "I have provided for that," the doctor assured him, then 
 
 regarding him quixotically while he awaited the senator's 
 
 further 1 comment. 
 
 "H'm! , . . And young Cragg, will he continue to contribute 
 now, you think? Egad! that girl turned a trick yesterday." 
 
 The doctor laughed lightly and shrugged his shoulders. But 
 then he became serious and sat reflecting, while the smoke 
 from his cigar rose about him like a gray mist. His thought 
 had reverted to one of his many early tilts with the girl. He 
 had said to her: "You believe in the power of thought. So 
 do I. Mental suggestion is omnipotent." 
 
 "But not the suggestion of evil," she quickly combated. 
 
 "You are mistaken," he replied. "The sort of suggestion 
 that you are pleased to regard as evil is all potent." 
 
 She studied him closely before returning an answer, as was 
 so generally her wont. Then, with a little laugh, she said: 
 "You are a real Philistine; that remark shows it. Oh, didn't 
 you know it? Yes, for your remote ancestors lived in Egypt. 
 They were at one time followers of that wonderful priest-king, 
 Melchisedec." 
 
 He stared at her blankly. "Lived in Egypt!" he muttered. 
 Then he forced a laugh. "Explain," he begged, "for T am not 
 an Oriental, , but an Irishman, Jeremiah Roake." 
 
 "Yes," she returned with animation, "but you came from 
 the south of Ireland. Well, the ancient followers of Melchisedec 
 —whose name in Greek is Philitis — finally abandoned the true 
 religion which he taught and went after strange gods. . These 
 Philistines eventually settled in the south of Ireland, where 
 their descendants are to be found to-day. You are one of 
 them." 
 
 "And have I gone after strange gods? But what is the true 
 religion that you say I have abandoned?" he asked, endeavor- 
 ing to. conceal his surprise. 
 
 "The religion that Good is infinite and omnipotent," she 
 replied. 
 
 68 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Ah ! But it is just that by wiiich I shall test my opposing 
 theory." 
 
 "It is just that," she gave back quickly, "that will destroy 
 your theory." 
 
 And thus, he recalled, had the lists been drawn and that 
 combat launched which had now appeared to reach its climax. 
 It was a combat that has had its types through countless cen- 
 turies in the unbroken struggle of evil to overcome good, even 
 down to the titanic effort of that same pseudo power operating 
 through its German minions and their mesmerized allies to 
 destroy the Word. 
 
 Yet in Marian Whittier's antithetical views Jeremiah Roake 
 felt that he had discovered exactly those combative elements 
 which he required to test his own. By matching these against 
 hers he would try them out, retain those which withstood the 
 test, and issue from the experiment in possession of proven 
 powers — mental, of course — that would give him conquest over 
 his fellow men. 
 
 A telephone call shook the doctor out of his revery. "From 
 the police station. Doctor," his operator informed him. "The 
 lieutenant says a man named David Barach, now being held 
 there, has called for you. Says his wife is critically ill, and 
 asks if you will attend her." 
 
 The doctor turned in surprise to the senator. "Whys" the 
 latter had exclaimed aloud on hearing the doctor repeat the 
 name, "that's the Jew who made the disturbance in church 
 yesterday that I was telling you about! Been arrested, eh? 
 Egad! it was only a question of time." 
 
 "Tell the lieutenant," the doctor instructed his operator, 
 "that I cannot take the case." 
 
 The doctor leaned back in his chair and fell to studying the 
 senator, "The wbrld," he began, after a long pause, and with 
 his thought again busy with Marian \Vhittier, "is emerging 
 from the era of man-power, of animal-power, of steam, elec- 
 tricity, and oil. It is passing rapidly from the use of material 
 forces to the development of the hidden forces of the mind. 
 Marian showed yesterday how potent these may be by persuad- 
 ing Alden to enlist. She believed she was eitiploying the power 
 of what she would call good thought. As a matter of fact, 
 her thinking in this case was potent only because it worked 
 evil, as the world knows evil." He paused again and seemed 
 to muse, scarce noting the senator's presence. "We are all of 
 us," he resumed at length, "constantly played upon, controlled, 
 directed by mental forces. He who learns the laws of mental 
 control and uses them, instead of permitting himself to be 
 used by them, will dominate the world." 
 
 69 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The senator laughed, but, as was of late become his wont 
 whenever the doctor was on this particular subject, a bit 
 nervously. "That has become an obsession with you, Roake," 
 he declared. "Always talking about it, but never demonstrat- 
 ing it. Moreover, you don't appear to realize that in attributing 
 all power to the mind you are refuting your own belief in the 
 efficacy of material remedies." 
 
 "I have no belief in the efBcacy of material remedies," the 
 doctor replied slowly. "Only fools believe such drivel. The 
 power that a drug seems to possess is really in the mind that 
 believes the power to be in the drug. That mind is merely 
 hypnotized by its belief. It is demonstrable that it is the 
 patient's belief that gives power to medicine." 
 
 "Ah," Chaddock returned with a dry chuckle, "then alcohol 
 of itself does not produce intoxication, eh? I've got you there, 
 Roake!" 
 
 The doctor did not reply. Instead, he pressed a button 
 which summoned his small office boy. "A glass of water, 
 Willie," he instructed the lad. The boy complied. Senator 
 Chaddock meanwhile watching the proceedings with ever 
 widening eyes, "Stand there," the doctor bade the boy. Then 
 he bent forward and riveted his eyes to those of the child. 
 "That is strong wine in that glass," he said at length, in a clear 
 steady tone. "Drink it." The little fellow obeyed. For a while 
 the doctor held him spellbound. "Walk over to that door," 
 he then com'manded. The boy staggered away, swaying as if 
 under alcoholic control. Then the doctor recalled the lad and 
 quickly brought him out of the hypnotic state and dismissed 
 him. "Well?" he demanded, turning again to the senator. 
 
 "It is . . . mental manipulation!" the senator gasped. 
 
 "But the boy was intoxicated, wasn't he?" the doctor pur- 
 sued. "Moreover, I can in the same manner produce the 
 effect of any drug whatsoever on the human system, through 
 the action of the mind alone." 
 
 "It . . . it is a . . . terrible power, Roake ! It is criminal ! 
 You shouldn't employ it! Did ... did you learn this in . . 
 in Egypt?" 
 
 The doctor laughed easily. "What you have just witnessed, 
 Chaddock," he said reassuringly, "was merely a crude exhibi- 
 tion of mesmerism. But mental suggestion of the aggressive 
 sort IS a vastly more potent and subtle power, though often 
 
 less immediate in its effects. Everybody uses it though for 
 
 the most part unconsciously; and everybody is used by it But 
 few control it or use it understandingly. The day is past, 
 Chaddock, when one needs use brute force to gain one's ends. 
 1 repeat, had the German leaders seen that, and stuck to their 
 
 70 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mental manipulation, they would soon have dominated the 
 world. Our future wars will be mental wars — that is, mental 
 science will conduct them. The weapons will be increasingly 
 mental. That is foreshadowed in the present war. Poisonous gas 
 is a much more subtle form of matter than a club, for example; 
 it approximates much more closely the mental; a vastly greater 
 amount of thinking is required to compound a poisonous gas 
 than to whittle a club. And the product of mental effort is 
 always mental. What makes our modern shells so terribly 
 destructive? The explosion of gas, you say. And gas, I repeat, 
 is a form of matter so subtle that it is almost mental. And so 
 it will go on, until brute force will be a thing of the past, and 
 victory in war will rest with that side whose thinking is the 
 most aggressive and powerful. Future wars will result in the 
 destruction of entire armies, in the wiping out of whole cities, 
 states — or the blotting out of an entire race. It can be done. 
 And it will . . . But enough of this," he abruptly concluded, 
 turning to his desk. "However," he added, "remember that 
 the man who resorts to brute force nowadays is a fool." 
 
 "But . . . just a moment . . ." The senator seemed slow 
 to recover from the awe which the doctor's experiment had 
 inspired. "Egad!" he exclaimed at length, "I wish you'd men- 
 tally suggest to the examining physician to reject young Cragg! 
 If we could send him to Spain for a few months, while 
 Harris . . ." 
 
 The doctor interrupted with a little laugh. "But," he said, 
 "if Alden should marry Ethel Whittier, the Penberry heiress, 
 and then some one — some one who greatly admires Mrs. Cragg 
 and her great business acumen^should step in and marry the 
 combined Cragg-Penberry fortune, why . . ." 
 
 "Egad! that's so!" murmured the senator. Then he glanced 
 up and found himself looking into the doctor's deep black eyes. 
 It startled him, and he hung there, silent, while the doctor, 
 who had now settled back in his chair, continued to study 
 him fixedly. 
 
 For some moments the senator's face bore a quizzical 
 expression; at times his lips pursed. Then, as the doctor's 
 eyes searched him, a look of fear came into his own, as if born 
 of the realization of an awful and unseen power into whose 
 tentacles he was being slowly, irresistibly drawn. His cheer- 
 fulness vanished. A chill gripped him. He made as if to 
 rise, but the doctor's eyes seemed to push him back into his 
 chair. 
 
 ■ At length he relaxed, the fear dissipated, and he sat staring 
 dully, for his thought had become confused, and he had no 
 desire to speak or to resist. Then he became aware of the 
 
 71 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 doctor's voice. But it sounded hollow, and seemed to come 
 from an infinite distance. True, he reflected, with Alden 
 abroad . . . his mother alone and needing protection i . . it 
 was a vast estate to handle ... 
 
 Yes, the doctor did always have his interests at heart . . . 
 But how dreadfully messy his thought was! Yes, he could 
 see now that it would be advisable not to interfere between 
 Alden and Ethel Whittier. It would be easier to control Alden 
 than his own son Harris. Alden was weaker. But Mrs. Cragg 
 might marry . . . Why had he not given more thought to thalt 
 contingency? It was a menace! . . . But how warm the room 
 had become! It made him dreadfully sleepy. Roake should 
 give more thought to ventilation. And the sky must be cloud' 
 ing . . . 
 
 "Have a cigar, Chaddock!" 
 
 Something snapped. The senator started^ half rose from 
 his chair, seized the proffered cigar^ and sat back, staring. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he heard the doctor say. "Bilious?" 
 
 "I . . . dozed," he murmured apologetically, ^'while you 
 were talking." He glanced about fearfully. 
 
 The doctor consulted his watch, then- rose. "I'll have to 
 let you go now," he said genially. "Father Whittier i is due. 
 But, as we were saying, Mrs. Cragg certainly is carrying a 
 tremendous load . . . and alone." And as he watched the 
 senator depart his eyes gleamed,, and the corners of his mouth 
 slightly curled. 
 
 CHAPTER 9 
 
 AS the Reverend Wilson Whittier was being driven to his 
 appointment — Ethel at the wheel and swathed in sables 
 — he was forced to admit that of the early life of Crestel- 
 ridge's great benefactor. Dr. Jeremiah Roake, he knew but 
 little. Senator Chaddock, who for many years had boasted 
 of his intimacy with the renowned doctor, was wont to relate 
 that when he himself took up resideince in Washington, Roake 
 was established there and had already acquired a considerable 
 reputation for coolly accepting chances that appalled his older 
 and more experienced medical associates. "For," the senator 
 would say, "by a rare combination of professional skill and an 
 inexplicable mental influence which he was able to exert upon 
 his patients, he succeeded where they had abandoned hope." 
 Yet the senator was obliged to admit that when summoned to 
 attend upon Mrs. Chaddock the doctor had utterly failed. "But," 
 he would offer in explanation in later years, "I now believe 
 
 72 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the extraordinary interest which he appeared to manifest in 
 me, whom he tlien met for the first time, caused him — quite 
 unintentionally^ you understand — to neglect my dear wife's 
 case. Egad! he quizzed and studied me for hours at a stretch!" 
 
 As for the senator, the Reverend Wilson Whittier knew that 
 his recofd was an open book^ Years gone; he had served 
 several terms in the upper legislative house of his native 
 western state, where his exceptional powers of oratory and his 
 astuteness in framing laws acceptable to his constituency gave 
 presage of a distinguished career. In due time he secured elec- 
 tion as congressman from his district. Following the death of 
 Mrs. Chaddock, Doctor Roake had almost immediately left 
 Washington, not to return for nearly five years. Then he 
 sought out the senator — a matter of which the latter never 
 ceased to boast — and began an association with him that con- 
 tinued with increasing intimacy as time went oh. His five 
 years of absence from Washington, it later transpired, had been 
 passed in India, Egypt, and Germany. ' 
 
 Again in Washington, the doctor's Work became still more 
 daring, and his reputation and influence proportionately 
 increased. "Wealth and prestige poured upon my friend 
 Roake like a mountain torrent," the senator proudly averred. 
 Also, what the senator appeared not to see, and yet what the 
 doctor seemingly desired far more than these, came increas- 
 ing power over his fellow men. In time he was called to the 
 faculties of various schools; but these alluring invitations he 
 invariably declined, for some unexplained reason — unless, as a 
 sage old army surgeon put it, "He has secrets that he can't 
 impart indiscriminately." 
 
 On the date of the doctor's return to Washington the sen- 
 ator's • career apparently ended. He was never elected to the 
 Senate, although he continued to bear the appellation of 
 "Senator" as a; hold-over from his younger days. Yet he 
 remained always a conspicuous figure about the Capital; and 
 he exercised an influence upon various members of Congress 
 that attracted comment. Washington continued to be his place 
 of residence, and he still conducted a large and expensive 
 establishment there and entertained lavishly, maintaining him- 
 self on terms of easy familiarity with politicians, ambassadors, 
 and the leaders of successive administrations, quite irrespective 
 of party. Of late, however, he had spent much time in Cres- 
 telridge — although this may be explained by the fact that he 
 had become, through the doctor's influence, counsellor to the 
 Craggs. 
 
 It had always remained a mystery to the Reverend Wilson 
 Whittier — and never greater than on this Monday morning — 
 
 73 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 why the doctor had abandoned his extensive practice in Wash- 
 ington and taken up residence in Crestelridge; Yet this was 
 no less explicable than the doctor's strange conduct when Ethel 
 was smitten with that terrible illness years before; for, while 
 his patient hovered under the dark shadow, the doctor had 
 appeared fascinated by Marian, who was spending one of her 
 brief vacations at home, and had seemed much more interested 
 in her and her unorthodox views than in the delicate and 
 complex operation which he was delaying because of her. 
 Marian was beautiful, sparkling, frank, ingenuous, the rector 
 admitted. Doctor Roake was big of frame, physically hand- 
 some, dark, mysterious, brooding. He had attracted the girl, 
 the rector knew. And the delightfully radical girl had capti- 
 vated him — ^yel the rector could not say why, . . 
 
 His thought was still busy with these musings as he entered 
 the doctor's extensive suite and was at once ushered into the 
 private office. 
 
 "Ah, and how are you this morning?" the doctor genially 
 greeted him, coming forward with outstretched hand. 
 
 The rector took the proffered hand nervously. "Not at all 
 well. Doctor," he replied huskily, as he turned and sank into 
 the deep chair which the doctor indicated. "Overwork, I think. 
 And, in addition, I caught cold from the fog of Saturday night," 
 
 "Better have your tonsils removed," the doctor advised. "I'll 
 arrange for the operation. Let's see . . ." 
 
 "Er . . . but. Doctor, do you really think I need it?" the 
 rector interposed in a startled voice. 
 
 "Can't do any harm," the doctor returned easily. "They 
 are useless, you know." 
 
 "But ... I have heard of ... of disagreeable results." 
 
 "Oh, there is a slight fatality. About eleven per cent, I 
 believe. Probably your disposition to rheumatism is due to 
 your tonsils; possibly to your teeth. We'll know when the 
 tonsils are removed." 
 
 "Er . . . yes, I see, I'll advise with you later in regard 
 to it. Doctor. Er . . . Senator Chaddoek informed me," he 
 hurried on, "that you wished to speak of the ... er ... my 
 announcement of yesterday." 
 
 "Just so," the doctor answered, seating himself and going 
 at once to the point. "I am sorry that you should have allowed 
 yourself to offend so many of your congregation by that ser- 
 mon. Several have mentioned the matter to me already 
 
 showing how far-reaching were your words." 
 
 The rector twisted uneasily in his chair. "How unfor- 
 tunate," he exclaimed, "that one should be so misunderstood!" 
 
 "Unfortunate, indeed!" the doctor agreed, as he closely 
 
 74 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 watched the play of emotions in the rector's face. "But it 
 clearly indicates that this is hardly a time to experiment with 
 so illusive a theory as that of spiritual healing. • Don't you 
 think so? The world will not follow along that path, but will 
 continue to adhere to that which can be seen, heard, felt." 
 
 "True," the rector murmured. "But I had no intention of 
 advocating a mere theory. I ... I was desirous only of . , . 
 obeying the commands of Christ." 
 
 "You were deceived by the very illusiveness of what you 
 really had no intention of advocating," said the doctor. ''Now 
 the point that you really wished to establish is, that religion 
 and healing are inextricably bound together . . ." 
 
 "Ah!" the rector could not but exclaim eagerly. 
 
 ". . . indeed, are identical. But for the present, until 
 world-health can be more approximately established, the people 
 will most readily accept the domination of the healing element ; 
 and therefore our systems of religion must continue somewhat 
 longer to be governed by our systems of healing. But that 
 necessarily means continuance of the control of religion by 
 materia medica, inasmuch as the people still almost universally 
 look to materia medica for relief and protection from disease. 
 Few turn in sickness to any form of religion, is it not so?" 
 
 The rector nodded the irrefutability of the doctor's logic 
 and array of facts, and the latter continued, the low sound of 
 his steadily flowing words resembling the murmur of deep 
 waters. "Failure to establish world-health has resulted from 
 a dissipation of energy. Therefore there should be a concentra- 
 tion Upon one system — and that should be the one most gen- 
 erally accepted, namely, materia medica. But, inasmuch as 
 healing is in essence an element of religion, it should be a 
 function of the Church. Yet, until the ministers of the Gospel 
 shall have been properly trained in the curative arts, the 
 responsible doctor must work with them. And this brings 
 me to my final point: there must be brought about a world 
 union of the Christian churches operating in conjunction with 
 arid under the temporary- guidance of the world's physicians. 
 Now," he concluded, sitting back, "had you advanced this- 
 practical idea from your pulpit yesterday it would have met 
 with immediate and general acceptance." , _ 
 
 "True , . , yes . . . and yet. Doctor, drugs fail. . " 
 
 "Who has spoken of drugs?" the doctor asked, smiling. 
 
 The rector looked at him questioningly. "Do I under- 
 stand," he slowly asked, "th-at you admit that the Church's 
 long neglected function of healing should be revived?" 
 
 "Certainly. As it is, you preachers are decidedly not obey- 
 ing the commands of Christ to heal the sick . . . are you? 
 
 75 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But if you could show the people that you were obeying this 
 command, why, the world would flock to you! The Church's 
 long neglected function of healing must be revived — or the 
 churches must close their doors. And we physicians stand 
 waiting to assist you preachers to revive it." 
 
 "But ... not with . . . drugs?" 
 
 "We will teach the people to pass gradually from belief 
 in the power of material remedies to mental power. Does it 
 not amount to this: that we must teach them to yield their 
 control to us who alone are able to help them? At first — ^just 
 as we are already doing — ^we must resort to legal enactments 
 for control, and to prevent healing > by suggestion — ^which 
 Marian so unwisely employs — and to eliminate the confused 
 and misunderstood mental practices of other eager but ignorant 
 enthusiasts. Legal coercion is necessary, at present, since 
 certain of the people are adverse to admitting the benefits of 
 such measures as, for example, the Wess bill, or the move- 
 ment for a Department of Public Health, and thereby obstruct, 
 unwittingly, the progress of world-health. Gradually, as they 
 become educated and, like timid children, drop their fears, 
 we shall guide them without further resort to the law. Pos- 
 sibly then we shall say that we heal by spiritual means — ^but 
 to employ that term now would only result in frightening the 
 people and alienating their support. You see that, of course." 
 
 "True," the rector again admitted. 
 
 "Now I am aware, as the vestry pointed out to you yester- 
 day, that you have been misled by — ^well, let us say plainly, by 
 theories such as those advanced by your daughter Marian." 
 
 "Er . . . but. Doctor! . . ." 
 
 The doctor smiled and held up a restraining hand. "Let 
 the dear child have her theories, I say; but do not permit your 
 superior reasoning powers to become entangled in them. She 
 is bright, clever, with a keen, active mind. She has hit upon 
 several well-recognized facts — for example, that of the mental 
 nature of matter ..." 
 
 "Yes, yes!" the rector interrupted animatedly, yet scarce 
 crediting his sense of hearing. 
 
 "But, pshaw!" the doctor went on, still smiling, "that is 
 a truth discovered when the world was young. Plato, centuries 
 ago, regarded matter as a mental phenomenon, a state of con- 
 sciousness, or mind. In looking at that book, for example, 
 you see nothing outside of yourself; you see but a picture 
 within your mind. And it is demonstrable that the five physical 
 senses do not report to us the existence of anything outside, 
 but only the contents of our own minds. We really see, hear, 
 feel, touch, and smell only our ovra thoughts. Of course you 
 
 76 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 know that. Then why permit this zealous girl — as delighted 
 over her chance encounter with this ancient truth as a child 
 with a new toy — rwhy permit her, I say, to upset your staid 
 judgment and place you in danger of losing your church?" 
 
 "Then you, Doctor . . . you admit that the material world 
 exists only as mental concept?" the rector almost gasped. 
 
 "Certainly," the doctor laughed, as if greatly enjoying the 
 rector's perturbation. "Natural science concedes that matter 
 is merely a phenomenon produced by the human mind, or, 
 let us say, by material energy. All is mind and mind's mental 
 phenomena. Why, that is one of the most clearly demonstrated 
 facts of existence!" 
 
 "But . . . then you don't believe in God?" 
 
 "I believe in a power back of everything. I believe that 
 power to be mental. Call it God, if you wish. Without such 
 a belief, God becomes inscrutable, unknowable. Is your theo- 
 logical belief any nobler or more practical? Surely you know 
 that you can no longer cling to a medieval concept of God 
 that is commensurate with the absurd concept of angels as 
 creatures with human bodies and feathers!" 
 
 "But . . . but where in your theory does God come in?" 
 stammered the rector. 
 
 "Let us say that He created the human mind, or minds, 
 if you wish." 
 
 "And gave them power to choose between good and evil, 
 as the Scripture saith?" the rector put in eagerly, still clinging 
 to the shreds of his ancient faith. "Yes, yes! and if all is 
 within the mind, then the curative arts exist there." 
 
 "Exactly," the doctor corroborated. "Why, all my work 
 is mental. Let the patient believe in the reality of a material 
 universe and the power of material remedies, I say, until he 
 slowly learns better, but do not try to shock him out of his 
 beliefs. Can you make a baby give up its doll by reasoning 
 with it?" 
 
 He leaned toward the rector and regarded him steadily. 
 "That is why I say," he continued seriously, "that you and 
 I must combine our endeavors, though ostensibly proceeding 
 much as we are at present, and still yielding the curative 
 work to the physician until we are able to hand it over to the 
 Church, where, I concede, it properly belongs. I advocate, as 
 I have said, a world union of the churches and physicians. 
 I see no reason . . ." He paused and looked steadily into the 
 dilated eyes of the rector. "I see no reason why we, you and 
 I, should not at once launch such a plan; I, to organize the 
 physicians; and you, to become the spiritual head — ^under my 
 direction only as concerns the healing'work for the present — 
 
 77 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of this vast and potent religious force for the betterment, the 
 uplift, the welfare of all mankind. In such a position I see 
 you in your rightful place. Yes, for you are 'High Church,' 
 and therefore almost Catholic; and you are Protestant at the 
 same time. You stand on the dividing line. Therefore you 
 are eminently fitted to represent both Catholics and Protestants 
 in this plan. The Craggs will be with us, and the Telluses, 
 the Kerls, the Blacks, with their great moral and financial 
 support. And a world is waiting for us . . . Why, this war 
 has prepared the world as nothing else could! Now. is the 
 psychological moment for such a world-embracing religious 
 scheme. And I have sent for you to-day to ask if you see the 
 opportunity and are ready to embrace it." 
 
 He paused again for his words to sink in. Then, apparently 
 satisfied, he went on. "Your opportunity to correct the mis- 
 apprehension due to your yesterday's sermon will come on 
 Easter Sunday. I will prepare a brief statement for you to 
 make, and to which you will adhere should any opposition 
 arise. That statement will suffice for everybody, Marian 
 included. Let her hear it, but do not discuss it with her or 
 seek her views. Remember, we are mature men; she is a 
 child — ^but a dear child, to be tenderly protected and guided 
 and loved . . . but she must be restrained. Now I will stand 
 by you to meet any protest which your sermon of yesterday 
 may raise. In fact, I have already explained it to several; 
 and I have prepared here," taking a typewritten paper from 
 the table, "a statement which I have already sent to, the news- 
 papers in your name and covering the matter. It will appear 
 in this afternoon's issues.'' 
 
 The rector raised his moist eyes to the doctor's. "I am 
 grateful," he murmured. 
 
 "Moreover," the doctor went on, watching the rector's face 
 carefully, "I am lending my influence to nullify Marian's work 
 with young Cragg. You see, you need me now. On the other 
 hand, I need you, to bring the healing work into the Church 
 and through it to reach the people." 
 
 The rector's eyes began to blaze with new life. Relief was 
 written large across his eager face. "I understand what; you 
 mean. Doctor!" he cried. "You wish me to present this matter 
 of church unity, as you shall outline it, to the Triennial Gen- 
 eral Convention! Yes, yes! But, let me tell you," he added, 
 laughing almost hysterically, "that I have long cherished this 
 same idea! Indeed I have!" 
 
 The doctor smiled. "I have no doubt of it," he agreed 
 pleasantly. "But now," turning again to his table and taking 
 up other papers, "I will outline my plan, briefly, and let you 
 go, for I have a luncheon engagement, an important one." 
 
 78 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 10 
 
 PRECISELY at high noon of that Monday Ted Sayor was 
 gently awakened by his valet in his curtained chamber 
 in the International Club, and, after the usual process 
 of yawning, stretching, and eye-rubbing, was solicitously 
 assisted to his carefully slippered feet and started upon his 
 day. 
 
 "What's weather. Boots?" he asked sleepily. "Raw and 
 cloudy still? Bah!" he growled, "I'm sick of this climate . . . 
 nine months winter and three months late in the fall ! Any 
 mail?" 
 
 The valet handed him several letters on a silver server. 
 With few exceptions, the envelopes bore feminine handwriting 
 and exhaled delicate odors. 
 
 "You asked me to remind you, sir, that you are lunching 
 with Doctor Roake to-day at one," the valet very discreetly 
 said. 
 
 "Thanks, Boots." Ted sorted over the numerous letters 
 and began to open those that looked most promising. "Ah, 
 a sweet little scrawl from lovely Madeline Nence. Can I take 
 her for a drive to-morrow afternoon . . . See what I have on 
 to-morrow afternoon. Boots. H'm! Louise Black again!" he 
 murmured over another of the letters. "Getting insistent, eh? 
 It's her mercenary mother. I've never given her any encourage- 
 ment. Mrs. Kerl? Tut, tut! So naughty to write me! And 
 here's one with the Cragg arms." He opened it. "Informal 
 at 'Craggmont,' to meet the eminent economic writer, Emil 
 Spildoski . . . Rot! He's a redflagger. Going to tell us how 
 poor, down-trodden Germany was scandalously attacked by 
 rabid little Belgium at the wicked instigation of naughty France. 
 He'd say England if he weren't speaking in 'Craggmont.' How 
 the deuce can Mrs. Cragg lend herself to this open anti-British 
 pi-opaganda?" 
 
 "You have an engagement at the theater with Miss Allen for 
 to-morrow afternoon, sir," the valet announced, after scanning 
 Ted's social calendar. , 
 
 "Oh! so? See if there's a note about taking her to dinner 
 afterward. Boots." 
 
 "No, sir. You are to take Miss Jackie Tellus to dinner 
 at Leroux's, sir. Table's engaged, sir. You remember . . ." 
 
 "Y-e-a." Ted yawned and stretched himself again. Then 
 he bent over and emitted a little groan. "Come here and rub 
 my back. Boots. There . . . about the middle. Um-m-m I Do 
 
 79 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 you know, Boots," while the flunkey was vigorously complying 
 with his master's request, "there's a new idea now, that all 
 your troubles are due to your backbone? Fact. Doesn't matter 
 what ails you . . . er . . . er , . ," as the rubbing proceeded, 
 "it's all due to your spinal cord getting pinched in the joints 
 of your backbone/' . 
 
 "That so, sir?" 
 
 "Y-e-a. You don't go to the doctor any more and say: 'Doc, 
 my liver's; jazzed up,' or 'My stomach's getting familiar with 
 my front teeth.' Nope. All you say nowadays is: 'Doc, I'm 
 fe£)ling like hell!' and he rolls you over on your face and 
 unhooks the kinks in your spine and you hop up and hand 
 him a hundred-dollar biU and . . . There, that'll do. Boots." 
 
 He straightened up and started toward the bathroom. "Did 
 you forget again to put the violet salts in the bath? And . . . 
 Close that window! I've just been reading Doctor Roake's 
 pamphlet on draughts, and I tell you. Boots, you can't be too 
 careful these days. They're 'haying influenza in Spain, and 
 the doctors are coaxing it over here by scaring us with these 
 pamphlets." 
 
 '!Quite jright, sir," the valet agreed, as he hastened to close 
 the window. 
 
 "You know. Boots," the loquacious Ted rattled on, "it 
 frightens me to think how careless I've always been about the 
 public health! I was reading just last night in that little 
 booklet JRoake sent me . . . There, on that table . . . Bring 
 it here." 
 
 The valet complied, and Ted contiiiued his comments, as 
 he meandered toward his bath, "Issued by the Public Health 
 Service, That's Rqake, Boots," 
 
 "Yes, sir. Quite .right, sir." 
 
 "Tells here how to make your vacations safe. I'm going 
 to let you have a little vacation this summer, Boots — if we 
 have any summer— and you ought to post up! Your sanitary 
 condition. Boots, that's the important item. If you don't 
 do anything more than get your sanitary arrangements fixed 
 up before you start home you'll be doing all right. , Let's see," 
 scanning the booklet^ "you locate your tents where they won't 
 be too hot or too Qold or too draughty or too ». . Y-e-a; then 
 you build a wooden floor, and screen your tent and the cook 
 tent all 'round, and then dig a trench about them both, and . . . 
 You jnust take along, bandages, ^ and drugs, and a medicine 
 cabinet, a hot water bottle or two, an ice pack, a clinical 
 thermometer, remedies for bullet wounds, for poison ivy, for 
 snake bite, for drowning — ^better not go where there's deep 
 water, Boots. Don't go where, there's any water on account 
 
 80 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of the mosquitoes . . . you'll get fever. And don't forget 
 the salves for bruises, and the stuff for chiggers, and the head- 
 ache powders, and the salts, and . . . Boots, if you value your 
 life, don't camp where you can't reach a doctor by telephone!" 
 
 "I believe, sir, if it's all the same to you, sir* I will not take 
 a vacation this summer/' the valet said. 
 
 Ted laughed. "Oh, well, go ahead with your vacation, Boots. 
 That stuff isn't law yet. But I'll tell you what, it will be law if 
 Roake gets his way. And I believe he's going to get it; So 
 better take your vacation early. Boots, while you can enjoy 
 yourself. Here, help me with this blamed shower!" 
 
 The International Club of Crestelridge regarded Ted Sayor 
 as an inheritance. His father had bequeathed him, some ten 
 years prior, along with the quarter of a million which he had 
 left to this, his favorite club. At that time Ted was just twenty, 
 motherless, and already well established in a career of philan- 
 dering. He was now rich, high born according to Crestelridge 
 appraisal, Chesterfieldian in manner, and more than ever 
 devoted to the cause of fascinating the female of the species. 
 But even among his severest critics he was cordially received 
 because of his sunny optimism, his ready wit, and his non- 
 chalant attitude toward everything that the silly old world has 
 been prone to regard as serious. He lived luxuriously at the 
 club, which he in turn regarded as his birthright, and, being 
 happily free of business or other serious interests, divided his 
 time between it and milady's salon. 
 
 Philandering was to Ted a perfectly legitimate vocation. "I 
 am good-looking," he would say to his reflection in his triple 
 mirrors; "I am bright^! can put it all over these brainlesis 
 society fops ! — and everybody likes me. Why shouldn't I devote 
 myself to making people happy?" 
 
 And in this he was not wholly selfish, for he was really pos- 
 sessed of a sincere desire to please, deriving his own pleasure 
 from the "good times" he afforded others, even though the 
 "others" were most frequently of the opposite sex. True, he 
 was often an exasperation to practical mothers, who came to 
 regard him as a mere loiterer in the courts of love: for, though 
 he spent his money royally upon their marriageable daughters; 
 he certainly wasted their precious time. But even these 
 admitted his great worth to society, and his invaluable aid to 
 every Crestelridge hostess in the successful conduct of the elab- 
 orate functions for which that gilded suburb was so deservedly 
 reputed. 
 
 Mentally, Ted was a drifter. Though endowed with a mind 
 keenly analytical, its synthetic powers had remained undevel- 
 oped, for the reason that, being redundantly supplied with this 
 
 81 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 world's goods, there was lacking the necessary stimulus to en- 
 deavor. And yet, though his life was pitiably barren, had his 
 soul been stripped Of its social veneer there would have been 
 disclosed certain convictions that had not been arrived at but 
 by long meditation on an extensive acquaintance with the 
 human mind. The most profound of these convictions was that 
 the affairs of men are governed by chance. Because of this he 
 denied progress. He denied intelligent causation. He styled 
 himself an atheist. 
 
 When the great enigma of life began to oppress Ted, he took 
 his problems to the pastor Of the church to which his father 
 had given hberally. "Ah, but you are too young, Ted, to be 
 worried by these great questions," the kindly old gentleman 
 had said. "Go to our Sunday school, accept what is taught you 
 there, and the conviction will come." 
 
 But it did not, and simply because Ted did not accept what 
 was taught there. Then he was sent to college, only to abandon 
 it, the year his father died, in the belief that the expenditure 
 of mental effort demanded was not worth while. Young as he 
 was, human knowledge appeared to him a senseless accumula- 
 tion whose end was chaos. His problems had narrowed down 
 to one. And that one he took to the Reverend Wilson Whittier. 
 
 "No, Ted," the rector assured him, "God did not create evil. 
 But certain of His created beings — ^angels they were — elected to 
 do evil rather than good. These fallen beings then tempted 
 mankind. Thus evil sprang into existence, although^ as you 
 see, never directly created by God." 
 
 The young man shook his head. He did not see. "That 
 makes the Creator more wicked than the beings He created," he 
 declared. 
 
 "But," urged the rector, "to deny that God could create free 
 moral agents is to deny that He is omnipotent. To admit, that 
 God could create free moral beings, and yet to deny that some 
 of these did elect to do evil rather than good, is to deny Scrip- 
 ture as well as the facts of everyday life." 
 
 "But . . . why?" the youth persisted. 
 
 "Ah, you must not ask. The ways of the Almighty are 
 inscrutable. Yet He uses even evil, even sickness, sin, death 
 itself, for His own good purposes. But from these He has, in 
 His infinite wisdom, provided salvation. By accepting Christ we 
 find that God looks through him at us; for God to have seen 
 him do the Avorks and fulfil the law is even better than for Him 
 to see us do it. The purpose of life is to teach us to do good. 
 But how can we recognize good without first knowing evil? 
 How can we know what is true without first knowing what is 
 false?" 
 
 82 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Do you believe in hell?" 
 
 "Why, the scheme of salvation makes hell a necessity." 
 
 "And that is what you preach?" 
 
 "Yes, Ted." 
 
 "You are 'High Church,' aind you change wafers and wine 
 into the flesh and blood of Jesus, don't you?" 
 
 "That is a very vital part of our service." 
 
 "And so your congregation are cannibals, eh?" 
 
 "Why, Ted!" 
 
 Ted left the reverend gentleman, and as he closed the study 
 door behind him his offended intelligence found expression in 
 a single word: "Rot!" 
 
 Thereupon Ted abandoned his search for the spiritual, and 
 floated out on the wings of material sense. "Why worry about 
 those things?" he asked himself. "It's a good old world. As 
 for Whittier's theology, well, those who find consolation in it 
 are poor-spirited creatures, so why disillusion them? Yes, the 
 average of the world's mentality is below that of a ten-year- 
 old child! Whittier proves it." And yet there remained with 
 him a feeling that the rector had been evasive. "If he'd only 
 say what he really thinks," he mused. "And I believe he would 
 if he thought he could get away with it." And in his heart he 
 despised the rector thereafter. 
 
 In Marian Whittier Ted discovered a critical mind that 
 greatly attracted him. "I believe," he was wont to say, "that 
 she began where the Church left off." But during her infre- 
 quent visits to Crestelridge he saw little of her-f^Mrs. Whittier 
 studiously kept the girl in the background, while forcing her 
 own daughter Ethel aggressively to the fore. "But she's a 
 high-class, high-spirited lass," he would muse. "A high step- 
 per, who will never become a Whittier door-mat. We'll hear 
 from her." And this morning, as he loitered through the per- 
 formance of his complicated toilet, he admitted to himself that 
 Crestelridge had heard from the girl since her return from col- 
 lege, and in quite unmistakable terms. 
 
 "Funny world, eh. Boots?" he commented, as he stood be- 
 fore the pier glass in his dressing room some minutes later 
 and repeatedly adjusted his hat at various angles to secure the 
 best -effect; , 
 
 "Quite right, sir, quite right," the loyal lackey returned. 
 
 "What do the morning papers say about the war?" 
 
 "Terrible fighting, sir." 
 
 "Ah," Ted murmured, surveying his hat from a new angle, 
 "how these Christians do love one another! Boots, I've dis- 
 covered a new religion. It's what the Germans call a 'Prayer 
 Ersatz'— substitute for Christianity. They're great for substi- 
 
 83 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tutes, you know. Well, you go through a lot of bodily and 
 mental uplift movements every morning on rising; then baths, 
 deep breathing, and exercises of several sorts; then you read 
 poetry, sing, and dance, after which you place yourself com- 
 fortably in an easy chair and contemplate truly artistic objects 
 of art for a while — ^you've got to have plenty of time for all 
 this, or else get up early. Then, when you're through with that, 
 you get down to real business : the training of the will by auto- 
 suggestion. When you get your will-power sufficiently devel- 
 oped, you begin to practice control over others, and . . . Hang 
 this hat! Now, what do you think of it in that position, eh?" 
 
 "If I might advise, sir, I would tilt it just the fraction of an 
 inch to the right, sir." 
 
 "H'm! Yes, that is better." Ted removed the hat and re- 
 adjusted it to his head several times, the valet simultaneously 
 moving the mirrors so as to afford him a view on all sides. 
 "Decidedly better. Boots. But this cravat swears at the hat. 
 Get me another." 
 
 "He looked again and sighed, and set 
 His cravat string and sighed again,, 
 And combed his perivdg, sighed 
 A third time, and then took snuff, 
 I guess to show the whiteness of his hand." 
 
 "I purchased a dozen for you yesterday, sir, as your supply 
 was getting low," the valet answered, going to a drawer and 
 extracting a handful of ties of various weaves and colors. 
 
 Ted gave them a cursory glance. The valet continued apol- 
 ogetically: "I was obliged to pay more for these, sir, eight 
 dollars each. I got the last ones for six apiece. But the 
 war . . ." 
 
 "Don't talk costs. Boots," Ted admonished. 
 
 "Yes, sir; quite so, sir. I was about to say, sir, that I placed 
 an order for a half dozen pairs of shoes for. you, sir, yesterday 
 afternoon. They will come a little under fifty dollars a pair, 
 sir . . ." 
 
 "Forget iti Boots!" cried Ted. "I don't care if they were 
 a thousand dollars a pair! Come, get me into this cravat," 
 selecting one and handing it to the valet, who began to adjust it. 
 "Not so tight . . . There, see, you've left a little wrinkle on 
 that side ! Take it off and have it ironed out. You're so care- 
 less . . , And I particularly wanted to wear this one." 
 
 "But, sir," protested the nervous valet, "I am sure I can tie 
 it again so no one would see . . ." 
 
 84 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Did you ever know me to put on a cravat twice without 
 having it pressed?" Ted asked coldly. "I shall not begin now, 
 even if these are war times." 
 
 For Ted Sayor's sartorial code was as rigid as Median law. 
 Every article of his apparel was made to order after carefully 
 wrought designs, always a trifle outri, upon which he would 
 expend days of concentrated thought. He had been known to 
 spend a full week deciding between two almost identical weaves 
 of shirting, and a month hovering between two samples of cloth 
 for a simple pair of trousers. The fabrics for his clothes had 
 always been imported, and from all parts of the world. Even 
 his hats were made to order, after designs and samples of mate- 
 rials had been submitted to him .for approval. He had, after 
 much experimentation, hit upon twenty as the proper number 
 of suits of clothes to have constantly in his wardrobe to meet 
 every ordinary demand; and he was seldom known to wear a 
 suit again after it had been in his possession a month. Shoes 
 were frequently discarded after a week's service. Of shirts, 
 he kept a full fifty always on hand, and he never put one on the 
 second time without having it laundered. After the third laun- 
 dering the shirt was discarded. He never sent collars to the 
 laundry: he wore each collar once, then threw it away. 
 Whither his discarded garments went, he knew not nor cared; 
 that matter was delegated to his faithful valet, with full power 
 to act. 
 
 "Now let's try the hat again, Boots," he said, after another 
 cravat had been painstakingly selected and tied by the patient 
 valet. 
 
 He carefully adjusted the hat and once niore surveyed him- 
 self critically in the mirrors. "Bah!" he finally exclaimed in 
 deep disgust. "Here, take the thing! Don't let me ever see it 
 again!" He jerked off the offending headgear and tossed it to 
 the valet. The hat had cost seventy-five dollars and had never 
 been worn. "Bring me an ecru derby," he commanded, "to 
 match this tie." 
 
 This hat proving satisfactory, Ted removed it from his head 
 and proceeded to spend a full quarter of an hour before the 
 mirrors with it on his arm, trying for the most effective man- 
 ner of carrying it. Then he whistled lightly and began to 
 parade back and forth, scrutinizing his reflection for possible 
 corrections. 
 
 But of a sudden he stopped short, and the whistling died 
 away. He passed a hand over his forehead and stood for a 
 moment in thought. "The owl of melancholia," he said aloud. 
 "I can't shoo it from my soul." He glanced at the valet. 
 "Boots," he said, "did you ever hear of mental manipulation?" 
 
 85 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Why, no, sir; but I can inquire, sir, if you wish." 
 
 "Well, I feel as if somebody were working on me now. Who 
 do you suppose it is?" 
 
 "I ... I can't say, sir. But I will endeavor to ascertain, 
 sit-." 
 
 Ted laughed and pulled himself together. "Don't addle 
 your simple brain over it, Boots," he -said. "Now where am I 
 going to lunch?" 
 
 "If you will recall, sir, I reminded you that you were to 
 lunch with Doctor Roake." 
 
 Ted stood looking at the valet. "Doctor Roake?" he repeated 
 slowly, and in an undertone. "Oh," he said without meaning. 
 Then he turned and went out. 
 
 In the grill below,' Ted found Doctor Roake awaiting him. 
 "Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting. Doc," Ted apologized; 
 "but read your meter and I'll settle the bill. And, anyway, how 
 can you waste your precious time lunching with a loafer like 
 me?" 
 
 "Ah, Ted," the doctor replied cordially, as he took the young 
 man's hand, "I shall spend this hour with you very profitably. 
 But," scanning Ted's face, "what's wrong? You don't look well; 
 and your hand is hot*" 
 
 "That's a good start," said Ted, with a nervous laugh. "A 
 little more of that and you'll have me in bed. I'm only feeling 
 a bit low in my mind." 
 
 "You look bilious," the doctor continued. "You eat too 
 much and are too sedentary. You'll be down with a disordered 
 liver, if you're not careful." 
 
 "Well, you have the virtue of being consistent," Ted re- 
 turned. "You attribute my mental state to a material cause. 
 However, my liver is hitting on all cylinders this morning." 
 
 The doctor laughed good-naturedly and led the way to a 
 table. The orders given, he turned again to his young guest. 
 "Anyway, Ted," he said, "I am going to prescribe for you — 
 gratis. You need a stimulant." 
 
 "Correct," Ted agreed heartily. "I'll take a Scotch high- 
 baU." 
 
 "Scotch, if you prefer," said the doctor, "but the stimulant 
 I mean is mental. Ted, you're going to seed for lack of 
 ambition." 
 
 "Ambition!" The young man assumed an air of mock 
 injury. "Why, man, I am saturated with it! It is a sole and 
 single ambition ... to do nothing." 
 
 "But that is fatal, Ted. Every one of us must have a work. 
 Civilization ..." 
 
 Ted burst out laughing. "Really, Doctor* your conversation 
 
 86 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 is banal! I am not at all interested in civilization, present or 
 future." 
 
 "But think of the great things to be accomplished!" 
 
 "They were done ages ago," Ted retorted. "Plato, Socrates, 
 Aristotle — what have we done since theii- day? All our ethical 
 ideas, false or true, can be found in the ancient books. Think 
 of the fellow who hiuilt the Great Pyramid. Why, he was the 
 grandest astronomer, mathematician, and architect the world 
 has ever known!" 
 
 "But we have progressed since then, Ted. We have learned 
 much." 
 
 "Yes, we have learned, as Heine put it, that God is an arch- 
 joker, and the joke is on man," said Ted, grimly. "No, Doc, 
 the original work of the world was the most glorious, by all 
 odds, and the hardest; and those intellects that worked without 
 any knowledge of our modern tools were the most gigantic this 
 earth has as yet produced." 
 
 "But see what we have developed, Ted. The ..." 
 
 "Why, yes. Doc," Ted return€d languidly, "we have devel- 
 oped new methods of sending our fellow men to hell. Our 
 modern methods of slaughter, and our improved ways of caus- 
 ing misery and suffering and destruction leave little' to be 
 desired, I admit. But can you show me a single successful 
 method of curing disease or any of the inherent defects in 
 mortals? Can you show me how to make people happy, or 
 humane? Do you know how to make a man love his brother? 
 Can you prevent wars? You consider the human mind a won- 
 derfully complex and efficient thing; but so is the centipede. 
 Don't forget that the human mind prepared and launched this 
 present very beneficial and civilizing war." 
 
 "But the war, viewed correctly, is really an opportunity," 
 said the doctor quickly. 
 
 "I'm not courting the illusive goddess," Ted answered, sup- 
 pressing a yawn. 
 
 "A great mistake," sighed the doctor. "You are young, 
 wealthy, capable . . . You ought to be vitally interested in 
 something." 
 
 "And so I am. Doctor: the ladies." 
 
 "H'm! Any particular one? I do not mean to be per- 
 sonal . '. ." 
 
 'Tormerly, no; at present, yes, decidedly. I greatly admire 
 a certain young woman who has the keenness of vision to see 
 the rottenness in us, and the boldness to tell us that it is there." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "I see you know her. You've been under her scalpel, too, 
 eh?" 
 
 ni 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 I'Mariap is; a 'wonderful girl, Ted. , You qa,nnot possibly 
 admire her more than I do. But she is quite inexperienced, 
 her views lack demonstration and are mostly impracticable — 
 at least, at present. Her public opposition to the Wess bill is 
 unwise ..." ; . ; 
 
 "Unwise?" Ted ; exclaimed, his former listlessness now 
 thrown off. He leaned across the table. "Listen here. Doc," 
 he said earnestly, "you and I have always been the best of 
 friends, but we won't be if you force that Wess bill onto us. 
 I know you are wrong about that bill because you are mixing 
 medicine and politics, and the mixture is rank poison." 
 
 The doctor sat in silence for a few moments. Then he looked 
 up at Ted and smiled. : "I am sorry you take that view, Ted," 
 he said gently. "I really believe, the Wess bill has merit." 
 
 "But, Doc," Ted argued, "the thing is your confession of 
 failure ! The! medical profession has failed utterly as a heal- 
 ing agency, and so it enters politics. But you can't make a 
 person healthy by law! Let me tell you, you fellows are repeat- 
 ing history right over. The early Christians are reported to 
 have -possessed i the power to heal. But by the fourth century 
 they had lost it. What did they do then? Why, they turned 
 their Church into a political machine, with the result that Chris- 
 tianity was strangled. Then what? = , Why, this hybrid religio- 
 politieal organization got the world by the throat and nearly 
 choked it to death ! Now it appears about to give place to the 
 medico-political tyrant. And the result? Slavery for the 
 masses — call 'em asses— who meekly stand for it!" 
 
 "But, Ted," the doctor protested, "the poor man in the 
 street . . .'' 
 
 "Bah! the man in the street knows as well as you and J 
 that your methods of treating disease do much damage and 
 little good. He knows that here and there a fellow gets well, 
 but disease finally gets us all. And he laughs at you — until he 
 falls sick. Then he sends out a wild call for the doctor — just 
 as Paddy whoops madly for the priest when he sees the shad- 
 ows falling. ^ It's a funny world, Doc, a funny world!" 
 
 "And yet, Ted, unless legally obliged to do so,' Paddy will 
 not take a bath nor keep his back yard free of garbage," the" 
 doctor countered. • , ,;, i 
 
 "I am with you there, heartily," Ted answered. "But in 
 such statements you merely beg the question, for your Wess 
 bill is strung on a much larger frame than that of mere sani- 
 tation. Doc, it's the sort of legislation that gives you fellows 
 absolute control over the bodies of mortals that I am opposed 
 to. ; It's the bills that give you legal authority to enter our 
 homes and enforce your systems of treatment upon us, at your 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 own prices, that I object to. And Marian Whittier is right, 
 absolutely I" 
 
 The doctor again sat musing for a time. "Do you know, 
 Ted," he said at length, "I must admire your stand. Our 
 systems of religion and medicine do need purging. They must 
 be placed on a more intelligent basis." 
 
 "Humph! they have been rightly called 'organized lunacy'!" 
 Ted ejaculated. "Do you know what Whittier was preaching 
 yesterday from a twentieth-century pulpit? An insult to intel- 
 ligence!" 
 
 "Father Whittier became confused." 
 
 "Got mixed, I understand, listening to Marian. A dose of 
 truth upset his liver. He tried to carry water on both shoulders, 
 according to the report of the vestry. He's afraid of you med- 
 ical fellows." 
 
 The doctor's brows went up slightly. "But we are digress- 
 ing," he said. "We were discussing a stimulus for you." 
 
 Ted laughed again. "No use," he objected. "Unless . . ." 
 He paused and looked sharply at the doctor. "Unless," he 
 resumed, "you get nasty about Marian." 
 
 Again the doctor's brows lifted. "Why, Ted, explain!" 
 
 Ted again leaned across the table and spoke very deliber- 
 ately. "Marian Whittier figures that this Wess bill is only a 
 beginning. Lord knows what the end will be for us, but the 
 next step she thinks will be a Cabinet Department — ^possibly 
 with you as Secretary of Health — giving you doctors absolute 
 control over a hundred million people. This medico-political 
 menace is the only thing I know that could stimulate me — ^but 
 to prevent this hellish thing I'd pledge my entire fortune!" 
 
 The doctor looked at him curiously. "You would actively 
 oppose . . ." he began. 
 
 "I would fight you to the death !" Ted vehemently declared. 
 
 The doctor sat looking down at his plate for some moments. 
 "You are right, Ted," he said, after a long pause. "And if it 
 should threaten to assume the form and proportions that you 
 fear, I would oppose it as vigorously as you. By the way, 
 speaking of your fortune, who is handling your affairs, now 
 that Van Ayle has died?" 
 
 Ted relaxed and again became listless. "Nobody," he said. 
 "And they're getting tangled." 
 
 "The reason I mention it," the doctor continued, "is because 
 Senator Chaddock told me to-day that he was financially 
 cramped. Needs more business. He handles the Cragg affairs, 
 you know, and mine. I thought perhaps you might entrust 
 him with yours." 
 
 Ted suppressed another yawn. "No reason why I shouldn't," 
 
 9 89 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 he said indififerently. "I've no stomach for it myself. Send him 
 around to talk with me. Hello!" he exclaimed, glancing up, 
 "here's Harris." 
 
 "Am I in on this?" cried young Chaddock, coming up and 
 extending a hand to each. 
 
 "You certainly are!" the doctor responded cordially, as he 
 drew out a chair and signaled to a waiter. 
 
 "How's business, Harris?" drawled Ted. 
 
 "Rotten!" exclaimed Harris, as he sat down. "Everybody 
 abominably well!" 
 
 "Oh, you lack system," said Ted. "In the first place, you 
 should boost your fees a hundred per cent. That's great adver- 
 tising. Then, when you land a patient, hang to him till you 
 get an operation out of him. Get yourself attached to rich 
 families who have children, then employ the 'follow-up' system. 
 Keep everlastingly at the mothers and suggest, suggest, sug- 
 gest. Why, you can fasten yourself on a few Crestelridge 
 families in time and live happy ever afterward. Try it." 
 
 Harris' brow clouded under Ted's badinage; but Doctor 
 Roake laughed heartily. "Ted is a bit severe on us doctors," 
 he explained to Harris. "And I don't altogether blame him. 
 But I've told him we are going to reform." 
 
 "It's about time," Ted growled. "For four thousand years 
 you've made us poor gullible mortals swallow everything known 
 to the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms; you've 
 drenched us with electricity and the gaseous elements, you've 
 carved us and sawed us and baked us in mud, and as yet you 
 haven't discovered or compounded one absolutely unfailing 
 remedy for a single disease! You can tell me that my liver 
 is red, and charge me a thousand dollars for the informa- 
 tion ..." 
 
 "Not less than fifteen hundred to-day, Ted," laughed Doctor 
 Roake. "We have raised the fee, because we are recognizing 
 the fact that disease is of mental origin." 
 
 Ted's eyes widened. Harris Chaddock threw the doctor 
 an inquiring look. 
 
 "And the treatment of disease will therefore gradually 
 become less material and more mental," the doctor continued. 
 "But that leads us into .metaphysical paths, where the travel- 
 ing is rough. I suggest, therefore, that we leave the subject 
 there. By the way, Harris," turning to that young man, 
 "please ask your father to call on Ted in regard to handling 
 his financial affairs. You know. Van Ayle had charge of them." 
 
 90 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after her interview with the rector Sunday 
 afternoon, Marian Whittier had sought the seclusion of her 
 
 own room, nor did she leave it until the maid summoned 
 her the following morning. When she entered the breakfast 
 room she found but a single cover laid. "Mrs. Whittier says, 
 Mjss Marian," the maid explained, "that you are to eat alone." 
 
 A flush spread over Marian's face. True, she had generally 
 breakfasted only with the rector, for Mrs. Whittier was invari- 
 ably late, and Ethel never rose until noon. But in this she saw 
 a clearly intended indication of her further ostracism, an 
 intensifying of that isolation into which she had been forced 
 — why, she knew not — when but a babe. Tears sprang to her 
 eyes. She checked them. "Thank you, Marie," she said, turn- 
 ing with a smile to the maid. Then she sat down to her lonely 
 meal. 
 
 Her thought still rose and fell, like a great heaving magma 
 striving to crystallize into definite form. "I love them, love 
 them all," she murmured, while the tears surged up again; 
 "and because I have tried to help them they have driven me 
 away." But even as she voiced the words an accusing sense 
 of her tremendous self-assumed responsibility rose up against 
 her. She had struggled with it the whole night through. 
 
 ' Again she tried to analyze the suggestions of disaster that 
 had poured in upon her so aggressively; again she sought a 
 foundation for that sense of evil hanging over the Craggs, and 
 from which she had- felt impelled to save Alden. And, as 
 always, her thought came back to Doctor Roake. 
 
 But why Doctor Roake? Was he not humanity's great 
 friend, the soul of consideration, unimpeachable, impeccable? 
 It was thus that the world regarded him. Was he not always 
 gentle, courteous, ever calm in demeanor, soft of speech, suave, 
 charming in manner, a type of the true citizen, beloved by 
 everyone, and heartily supported in his vast humanitarian 
 labors by all? Money and influence flowed to him without 
 measure in aid of his utilitarian projects. His charities were 
 innumerable; his benefactions boundless. He supported St. 
 Jude's liberally, though himself not a communicant, and for 
 reasons which he had satisfactorily explained to the rector. 
 He was free of race prejudice or sectarian bias. He was a 
 veritable knight, sans peur et sans reproche, who, despite 
 Marian's arraignment of him whenever they met, treated her 
 always with the utmost deference and tender consideration . . . 
 
 91 
 
THOtr ISRAEL 
 
 Though there was that which Marian had early sensed in 
 his mentality — and which she could not formulate^-that had 
 aroused her, still her open opposition to his activities really 
 dated from the launching of the popular Wess bill. In this 
 apparently beneficent measure she believed she saw hidden the 
 deepest iniquity. But might not the good doctor be sanction- 
 ing the bill through ignorance? And during various of his 
 social and professional calls at the rectory she sought to dis- 
 cuss the measure with him under the stimulus of such a pos- 
 sibility. Discussion led to tilts and friendly clashes of oppos- 
 ing views. The doctor had shown that he hugely enjoyed these 
 contests to which she challenged him; he had shown even more, 
 namely, that he admired her greatly, and with a manifestation 
 of regard that was subtly alluring, and that, surrendered to, 
 would certainly lead to mental domination. 
 
 And so the girl had stood out against the man, despite the 
 frowns of society and the rebukes of the rector. Failing to 
 convince him, she wrote articles for the newspapers in her 
 endeavors to defeat the Wess bill; but these were refused pub- 
 lication. She sought publicity before the aristocratic Crestel- 
 ridge Woman's Club; but in vain. She laid the matter before 
 such old and conservative physicians as Doctor Benson; but 
 the latter feared to express an opinion. Then she- fell back 
 upon her own thought. 
 
 It was when she began to handle the situation impersonally 
 that the light broke. It was then too that the doctor, while still 
 ostensibly admiring the girl's ability and audacity more than 
 ever, had first seemed to sense from that quarter a possible 
 danger. 
 
 "Do you wish me to understand," he once asked her, "that 
 you haven't the welfare of the community at heart?" 
 
 "Decidedly I have!" she replied; "else I would not oppose 
 the granting of police power to you doctors." 
 
 "But can you not see that our aim is a beneficent holding 
 of the people in line while they are being educated aright?" 
 
 "I can see," she gave back, "that the result will be a sub- 
 version of our government." 
 
 "Your view is unique," he said, concealing his surprise. 
 "You interest me." 
 
 "Great wars have been fought," the girl went on, "to loose 
 the fetters of ecclesiasticism masking in the name of Chris- 
 tianity; wars have been fought to break the chains of various 
 kinds of autocracy and secure human liberty. But even while 
 such a struggle is in progress to-day to overthrow the divine 
 rights of kings, political doctors are seducing the people through 
 their legislatures to bind themselves more tightly in an autoc- 
 
 92 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 racy that withers soul and body and buries men's minds 
 deeper than ever in the mud. Our law-making bodies are now 
 taking liberties that even the Kaiser would hesitate to assume. 
 When the despotism of the State becomes daring enough to 
 seize upon all children and mold them to its patterns of 
 thought, liberty will die. With the child the mere creature 
 of the State, it is but a step to a union of Church and State 
 governed by materia medica, and from that to a one-man autoc- 
 racy. Then the hands of progress will have been set back 
 another thousand years. But," she concluded with a sigh, "the 
 human mind seems determined to enslave itself under the 
 animal magnetism of Franz Mesmer and Father Hell." 
 
 "But you would urge the people not to apply to the physi- 
 cians when ill," he argued. "And yet if you wished a house 
 built you would apply to an architect; if you needed a bridge 
 you would entrust your needs to an engineer. Now the physi- 
 cian has spent years in acquiring his training to meet sickr 
 ness. He has spent thousands of dollars to learn how to treat 
 disease." 
 
 "But," she retorted, "the training of the architect and the 
 engineer has been constructive: they study perfect models in 
 order to produce perfection. The training of the physician 
 is largely a training in error, in falsity. They study disease 
 in order to produce its opposite, health — an utter impossibility ! 
 An eternity of such study and training would not enable them 
 to heal disease, nor make the practice of medicine a real 
 science. Were I to be trained forever in the belief that two 
 and two make eight I never would be able to solve problems'." 
 
 "May I ask, then, what condition you believe requisite for 
 perfect health?" 
 
 "The one Jesus gave : 'Go and sin no more'," she answered. 
 "Health, or wholeness, is a function of thought." 
 
 "I admit that human power is a function of thinking," he 
 granted. 
 
 "Of right thinking," she amended. 
 
 "Of thinking," he persisted. "And the most powerful 
 thought is largely that which you would call wrong thinking." 
 
 "And that wrong thinking results in disease," she declared. 
 "Yet with material drugs you still treat the effects of a mental 
 cause. No wonder. the practice of medicine is chaos!" 
 
 In another discussion with the earnest girl — for he pursued 
 her eagerly for her opposing views — the doctor had dwelt on 
 the subject of mental control, and his attitude had aroused 
 her to an appreciation of his great interest in the topic. "You 
 understand," he said in elucidation, "that I, like yourself, deal 
 more and more exclusively with thought-processes. Mesmer 
 
 93 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 discovered, or re-discovered, the fact that one mind can control 
 another. He named his discovery 'animal magnetism.' Now 
 for the benefit of humanity I have been endeavoring to formu- 
 late definite laws for it. . ." 
 
 "And you will fail," she interrupted; "for animal mag- 
 netism, which is but another name for error, cannot be for- 
 mulated. There is no law by which we can make errors in 
 mathematics or music or art. There is no law by which we 
 can commit errors in life." 
 
 "I disagree with you," he countered. "By suggestion we 
 produce quite definite results." 
 
 "But only when suggestion is made and accepted as truth. 
 But for the fact that the . erroneous suggestion always comes 
 in the guise of good, or of truth, it could not be accepted, and 
 would remain powerless. So with your Wess bill. It deceives 
 the people by posing as something good. Known for what it 
 really is, it would be instantly rejected." 
 
 The sense of uneasiness aroused within him by the girl's 
 uncompromising attitude at length led the doctor to probe her 
 thought along other lines. She had manifested an interest in 
 Alden Cragg that to the doctor was unwarranted by the young 
 man's character and by his treatment of her. "You strangely 
 mingle what you are pleased to call the 'spiritual' with the 
 human, do you not?" he asked her. "Your interest in Aldeii, 
 for example." 
 
 Sudden confusion threatened to overwhelm her, and for 
 the moment she could not reply. The doctor had unexpectedly 
 touched something that she herself had not analyzed. Then 
 her thought cleared, and she sat bolt upright. Alden Gragg 
 belonged to this man! The doctor had stolen him — and, as 
 she afterward realized, as certainly as Kudur-Lagamar had 
 abducted Lot in that ancient Elamite attack upon the Word. 
 
 Again, when the doctor learned of her further efforts to 
 arouse Alden to a sense of duty, he unwittingly laid bare his 
 thought to the girl's penetrating vision. "You would sacrifice 
 Alden," he said. "Of course, I attribute your conduct to none but 
 the purest motive of patriotism; but the sacrifice is so needless. 
 You would regret." 
 
 "You are saying that Germany will win?" she demanded. 
 
 His shoulders went up slightly. "In just what manner she 
 will win," he returned, "I cannot say. Her armies will doubt- 
 less be defeated. Her government will probably be overthrown. 
 I think the Hohenzollerns will be cast out. But, yes, Germany. 
 will win." 
 
 She sat regarding him for a moment. "You are telling 
 me," she said at length, "that error will emerge triumphant, 
 and that you wish it so, are you not?" 
 
 94 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He did not reply, but continued to look at her steadily. 
 The girl's thought became tumultuous. If Germany's ideals 
 should win, it meant for the keeper of the Word . . . But why 
 should this man wish to destroy the keeper of the Word? 
 
 She glanced up and met his eyes. They were fixed upon 
 her like the suckers of an octopus. She shuddered slightly. 
 
 Then she sprang to her feet. "Doctor," she cried, "I believe 
 you wish the British Empire dismembered!" 
 
 An exclamation of astonishment burst from him at this 
 unanticipated accusation. His eyes at once left the girl. And 
 he immediately turned the conversation into other channels. 
 
 It was then that the man and the girl seemed to enter upon 
 that period of silent combat which each appeared to realize 
 must terminate only in the destruction of one or the other. 
 Save for Madam Galuth, of human support the girl knew she 
 had none, while to the doctor's standard she well knew were 
 rallied the Craggs, the Whittiers — ^nay, millions in souls and 
 dollars, with material aids untold. Slowly the girl traced past 
 events back to a common source. Doctor Roake had the freedom 
 of the Cragg mansion, as he had of the Cragg mind. Doctor 
 Roake preached from the- pulpit of St. Jude's, as surely as 
 he guided the thought-processes of the susceptible rector. It 
 was the doctor who, through Senator Chaddock, had urged the- 
 Craggs to seek asylum in America when the war broke out ; 
 it was he who would now send Alden to the protecting shores 
 of neutral Spain. It was the doctor who had introduced Otto 
 Hoefifel into Crestelridge society, and secured for him entree 
 into the Cragg home. . . 
 
 But who was Otto Hoeffel? A young New Yorker, American 
 born — so he averred — ^rich, aristocratic, who had appeared to 
 amass a fortune in the brokerage business in a very few years. 
 He had early been attracted to Marian; she had at once been 
 repelled by him. He had pursued her determinedly, though 
 she sought to avoid him. He declared his love for her. . . 
 "But he doesn't really care for me," she insisted. "There is 
 something else; but I don't know what it is." 
 
 Otto was persistent; he made known his suit to the rector, 
 who at once gave it his support. "He is an unusual man," 
 the latter urged. "A German-American of excellent family and 
 unblemished record. You could not do better, Marian." But 
 Marian stood firm. And then came Otto's final proposal, on 
 the night of the great storm, when he had come to take her 
 to the little informal at "Craggmont," "No, Otto," she had 
 insisted. "I love you as I love all mankind, but I cannot marry 
 you." And when he had demanded her reasons — for he would 
 have her know that her rejection of his proposal reflected upon 
 
 95 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his honored name — she told him plainly that she read dis- 
 simulation in his thought, insincerity, falsity. "You do not 
 want me, Otto," she said. "You are not true." 
 
 And then his. cbntrol broke and his anger flared forth hiss- 
 ing. He declared that he was offering her salvation. He 
 accused her of favoring Alden Cragg, and implied that a sword 
 was hanging over Alden's head that must shortly fall. Dis- 
 cretion fled before his hot anger, and he voiced such threats, 
 such predictions of fulsome vengeance upon the Craggs, the 
 Whittiers and herself, upon the American people, upon Eng- 
 land, as to leave her gaping. Like a flash she saw things 
 revealed that drove her in flight before their awful menace. 
 Recovering from the confusion in which he had left her, she 
 flew to Madam Galuth through the storm. How much of the 
 Abraham story which she heard that night was told in the 
 woman's words, how much was vision, she did not know. But 
 under its stimulus she had snatched Alden Cragg's problem 
 from his own feeble hands and solved it herself. 
 
 Again in her room after her lone breakfast that Monday 
 morning, Marian dropped into a chair and buried her face in 
 her hands. Yes, it had been Alden's problem, his only. Yes, 
 she had fallen back, waiting for him to solve it himself. But 
 he had not ... he could not. And she had turned. 
 
 "Oh, I love them, love them all!" she cried aloud. "They 
 don't know what is using them! They are lost . . . lost! . . . 
 but they refuse to be saved!" 
 
 How often in the years gone had she sought to manifest 
 her love for them; how often had she tried to tell them that 
 love only would draw them all together and solve their prob- 
 lems — ^but Ethel had snickered; Mrs. Whittier had scowled as 
 she bade Marian suppress her radical views; and the rector 
 had sighed his resignation. Alone with her thoughts, the girl 
 yearned toward those who rejected her, realizing that they 
 themselves — though they knew it not — were yearning for sur- 
 cease from the plagues of their false beliefs, yearning for that 
 which is real, yearning toward Truth, though they would seek 
 it only amid the flimsy and fleeting concepts of the mortal 
 mind. They were stoning her, she knew. And yet not at her 
 were their missiles aimed, but at the Word which she sought 
 to reveal. Enraged at hearing from her lips that the man of 
 dust is not the image and likeness of God, and that the pleas- 
 ures of sense, no less than its woes, are unreal, they turned 
 to rend her and cast her out. She knew that the rector had 
 been bidden to regard her as but an ambitious phantast; but 
 she saw, what he did not, that Babylon had put out his eyes 
 and carried him away in chains. To her, his Christianity was 
 
 96 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 a travesty; his aristocratic church, vain of its prestige, a 
 tragedy. In her sight he persecuted those who sought to know 
 and demonstrate the primitive faith; his church in this world- 
 crisis was a negligible force — nay, worse, a harmful negation. 
 His role of master of ceremonies for the favor of the rich, 
 she knew was burlesque; his church, exploiting society, she 
 regarded as the foe of God. In his highly organized Chris- 
 tianity she found no message for the people; his church had 
 no vision of social justice, no faith in the healing Christ. To 
 the drastic need of the hour, the revealing of spiritual Israel, 
 both he and his church were utterly blind ; and their ears were 
 stopped against the great voice now crying: "Cut it down; 
 why cumbereth it the ground?" 
 
 Then she forced back her tears and sought to know the 
 next step. "Still I must know that I do possess all power 
 from God!" she cried. "I must act that knowledge, for if I do 
 not act it, then I show the world that I do not believe. And 
 then my belief will become externalized — as all belief does — 
 and I shall be weak and perish with them!" 
 
 She saw now that she must know that God bad not given 
 her "the spirit of fear," but of "power, and of love, and of 
 a sound mind" — all that Man is mtended to reflect — ^powers 
 that the ancient patriarchs and early Christians had freely 
 demonstrated — powers that were lost through love of matter, 
 and through fear, even such fear as had driven against her, till 
 she fell back, then turned and snatched Alden's problem away 
 from him — ^powers that the present generation do not seek to 
 recover, though their conscious possession is a thing of life 
 and death to themselves and their Christian system. 
 
 Late that afternoon, her struggle over, she rose and prepared 
 to leave the house. "We cannot be leaders, nor can we keep' 
 the vision," she said aloud, "if we permit fear to drive us. I 
 will go and see her; I will tell her. . ." As she donned her 
 wraps her thought was on the white-haired woman who dwelt 
 on the hill across from "Craggmont." 
 
 CHAPTER 12 
 
 WHEN Marian descended the stairs she met thei rector, 
 passing through the hall below. She stopped, with a 
 wistful smile on her face. The rector did not return 
 it, but paused and, with an accusing look in his eyes, said 
 slowly: "Alden has been accepted." 
 
 She started, but did not reply. Thus had her conduct of 
 
 97 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 yesterday brought forth its first fruits. The rector turned and 
 with bowed head walked away. Marian stood hesitant, watch- 
 ing his retreating figure. She would have gone to him, thrown 
 her arms about him; but he passed into his study and closed 
 the door. She choked back a sob and hurried out. 
 
 Doubtless the rector knew whither the girl was bound; but 
 his efforts to con^dnce her hitherto had been unavailing, and 
 he would not renew them. "She is a dangerous person," he 
 had warned her only recently. "She exercises a hypnotic power 
 upon those who come within her sphere of influence." 
 
 "If you mean that Madam Galuth is kind to the poor and 
 needy who flock to her door . . ." Marian had combated. 
 
 "I mean that she is an atheist," the rector hastened to 
 amplify. 
 
 "She does not attend St. Jude's," was the reply; 
 
 "She does not attend any church," he returned irritably. 
 "She practices demonology. She is corrupting you." 
 
 "She is teaching me to be like her." 
 
 "She is teaching you necromancy. She is an Egyptian— 
 her dark skin is proof of that. She admits that she lived there. 
 No doubt she was once a gypsy before she acquired enough 
 money to abandon her roving habits. She has so filled your 
 young mind with hypotheses, speculations, superstitions, here- 
 sies, that your individuality is becoming effaced, your very 
 soul threatened with extinction!" 
 
 Yet the rector would have been forced in candor to admit 
 that he really knew little regarding Madam Galuth, beyond 
 such facts as were current in the community.- He knew that 
 she had known Marian in the girl's school days; had removed 
 to Crestelridge shortly after the girl returned to the.Whittier 
 home six months before; and had since lived a life of strict 
 retirement. No one had ever seen kith nor kin of hers in her 
 home. She made no effort to form friendships; never sought 
 admission to society; and seemed to shun all but Marian and 
 those who sought her for her benefactions — and of these humble 
 folk there were none that the Cragg-Whittier circle recognized. 
 She appeared to possess abundant resources, lived comfortably, 
 and kept a maid. And her banker had declared that her busi- 
 ness judgment was excellent, her investments sound, and her 
 credit Unimpeachable. "If she is peculiar or eccentric," he 
 adumbrated, "she doesn't show these traits in her business 
 dealings with me — ^but of course I don't see her often." 
 
 In appearance the woman was a pleasing picture. Her age 
 might have been sixty, although she had confided to Marian 
 that, as the world reckons time, she would have to confess 
 to nearly twenty years more. But there was little in her face, 
 
 98 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and nothing in her carriage or movements, to indicate so very 
 advanced an age. Her hair was snowy white, abundant, and 
 decidedly wavy. "Dear me!" Marian would exclaim as she lov- 
 ingly caressed it, "you never touch it, do you?" And the woman 
 would reach up and take the girl's hand and answer : "Haven't 
 I told you, dearie, that I touch it with my thought?" And 
 Marian understood, though she knew that the world would not. 
 
 Madam Galuth rose as the door flew open for this late 
 afternoon caller — Marian never knocked — and held out her 
 arms to the girl. "It is good to see you, dearie," she greeted 
 her. 
 
 "It is good to be here," the girl answered; "for this place 
 is not a refuge of lies." Then, abruptly: "Alden has enlisted." 
 
 The woman's eyes lighted. A smile wreathed the corners 
 of her expressive mouth. "I saw the notice in the newspaper," 
 she said. "Have you come to tell me your part in it?" 
 
 The girl shot her a quick glance. "You knew he could not 
 have done it alone?" 
 
 Then, as they sat close, hand in hand, the story came out. 
 The woman listened sympathetically, and when the girl had 
 concluded, she said: "And so, instead of knowingly trusting 
 Principle to save Alden, you impulsively plunged into his 
 affairs, seized his problem, forced a solution, right or wrong, 
 and turned the current of his life without so much as con- 
 sulting him. Am I right?" 
 
 Marian sat quiet and with bowed head. The woman bent 
 tenderly over her, "You tried to force a demonstration," she 
 said. "Why? That impulsive human will, calling itself yours, 
 again overrode your calm judgment and made you send Alden, 
 wholly without preparation, into the hell of war. Why? If 
 he was unable to solve his problem here, is it likely that he 
 will be able to solve it there? I think not, for there he will 
 find conditions that he simply cannot meet." 
 
 "But . . . his danger seemed so real . . . and he didn't 
 see it." 
 
 "Yet if God is to you what you profess Him to be, then He 
 should have been much more real than Alden's danger," the 
 woman reminded her. "What entered into this problem, 
 Marian, that has not entered into- others that you have solved 
 in God's way? You have made demonstrations heretofore, you 
 have solved problems, you have healed disease, and always in 
 the Christ way. But here you departed from it and tried 
 to force the demonstration in your own way. Why?" 
 
 The girl looked up. Her eyes brimmed with tears and her 
 lips quivered. "I was driven . . . driven! It seemed that if 
 I didn't seize his problem and solve it for him I would be 
 
 99 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 abandoning him. The aggressive suggestion kept repeating: 
 'There is no time to lose!' " 
 
 "But time is only a state of human consciousness, and you 
 need not have come under its fimitations." 
 
 "I ... I seemed to yield momentarily to the mesmerism. 
 It seemed as if a huge devilfish were absorbing Alden's indi- 
 viduality." 
 
 "Impossible," was the quick reply, "for his individual being 
 is God's knowledge of him." 
 
 "Yes, I know . . . now," the girl murmured. Then, excit- 
 edly: "Oh, I know now that I snatched him away from one 
 danger, only, perhaps, to plunge him into another, even 
 greater!" 
 
 "But had the problem been Ted Sayor's, or Harris Chad- 
 dock's, or anybody else's, would you have seized it and solved 
 it as you did? Then why Alden's? Marian, did something 
 human enter this case?" 
 
 "Fear mesmerized me. . ." 
 
 "But, dearie, why should you have feared for Alden, when 
 you would not have feared for Ted or Harris?" 
 
 The girl hung her head and remained silent. The woman 
 regarded her tenderly for a few moments, then leaned toward 
 her and laid a hand on hers. "Human love, dearie, is fear," 
 she said softly. "You have never had to meet this before in 
 any of your other problems. It entered this one very subtly, 
 I know. You see something in Alden that no one else sees 
 ... I do not say that it is not there. I do not say that you 
 should not love it. But . . ." 
 
 Marian started up. "He shall not lose his life because of 
 what I did!" she cried. "I shall give him mine! I shall stand 
 between him and death!" 
 
 "Wait, my impulsive little girl!" Madam Galuth laid a 
 restraining hand on her arm. "As I have told you, the drive 
 of error is not against Alden, but . . . you!" 
 
 "Is Doctor Roake ... Oh, there seems to be something 
 more, something deeper, that has not been uncovered yet! 
 It has to do with the Word and Doctor Roake!" 
 
 "Let us not mention the human channels through which 
 evil seems to be driving. There, dearie' think not that I am 
 ignorant of error's wiles. I have watched for a long, long 
 time that person here who has learned the power of liberated 
 thought and who is perverting it now to practice diabolism. 
 I have seen many fall under that cruel influence; but I could 
 not rush in and snatch them away and force them into other 
 situations for which they were just as unprepared. No; I 
 could only work constantly to destroy my own sense of animal- 
 
 100 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ity, so that I might follow in the path mapped out by the 
 Master and thus be enabled to solve the problems of sorrow 
 and sickness and death for these and for all our fellow men, 
 and show them the better way. This is sanctifying myself 
 for them. This is giving my life for them. 'Greater love hath 
 no man than this'." 
 
 "But what can I do for Alden now?" cried the sorrowing 
 girl. 
 
 "You can be obedient, and strive more earnestly to see in 
 everybody what the Master would see: the perfect Man. You 
 can cease giving power to fear, to evil. You can be obedient 
 to the vision of the Christ. For 'by the obedience of one shall 
 many be made righteous.' Remember, dearie, that it was 
 Abraham's obedience to Principle, regardless of human per- 
 sonality, that won him the promise. Even while error was 
 screaming about him he was bidden to look away from human 
 beliefs of life and support in matter. And when he did look 
 away from them he saw his God. Dear little girl," the woman 
 put an arm about Marian's shoulders and drew her close, "how 
 often have I told you that one of the most striking facts of 
 history is that all nations have tried, at one time or another, 
 to crush Israel. They are again trying to crush her to-day. Had 
 Abraham not been obedient, the -Word would not have been 
 entrusted to him ; unless you are obedient, the scientific knowl- 
 edge of Principle that enables you to heal, to instruct, even 
 to raise the dead, will be taken from you. You, like Abraham, 
 have been bidden to go into Canaan to possess it, bidden to go 
 in among the false testimony of the material senses that claim 
 man to be mortal and God less than omnipotent, and destroy 
 it. Abraham went in, into that strange country of life in 
 Spirit which he did not at first know; and there he found the 
 Christ. So will you. And there you will find the real Alden, 
 forever safe. 
 
 "Oh, you are learning, as Abraham did, that the spiritual 
 idea is not welcome in Canaan! Methinks the fires have but 
 been kindled for you. Yet remember that it was in the very 
 midst of the fires that Abraham and the great leaders saw the 
 vision of the saving Christ. It was at Mons and Ypres that 
 the Germans were turned. So you must now go forward, 
 always forward, through the flames and the scorching heat — 
 and you will find, if obedient, that they will not kindle upon 
 you. You are Manasseh, dear child; Alden is Ephraim— both 
 keepers of the Word, and both the targets of error because 
 of it. But you cannot escape your divine calling. You have 
 the letter of the Word, but now you must more increasingly 
 demonstrate its Spirit. . ." 
 
 101 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 When the girl was again in the solitude of her room she 
 bowed her head in deeper consecration to the First Commands 
 ment. She had been measured by the plummet, and had come 
 short; yet Truth had caused the sin to betray itself, and she 
 knew she was now free of it forever. She had passed under the 
 great menacing "leaf," and would now tread the rest of the 
 way through the dark Antechamber of Mizraim's "altar" with 
 the vision undimmed before her. She would hear another call 
 — she was confident of that — and, like her great Hebrew pro- 
 genitor, she would obey. She knew she must stoop again, 
 knew that the low, narrow passage must be painfully endured 
 ere she might enter the King's Chamber beyond ; she knew that 
 in treading it her material sense of self must perish and find 
 therein its tomb. But she knew that nor stone nor dust could 
 hold her when the Christ should summon her forth. 
 
 CHAPTER 13 
 
 BEHIND the mask of eternal well-being which Crestelridge 
 wore lurked deadly fear, the animal fear of the thief in 
 the dark, who at the least alarm strikes wildly in every 
 direction. Fear sat at the wheel of the highly polished Cragg 
 limousine that drew up before the British recruiting station 
 where Alden had given his trembling oath the preceding day; 
 fear dogged the flagging steps of the youth and his mother 
 as they alighted, assisted by the solicitous Senator Chaddock, 
 and hurried into the building; fear, vague, unlimned, gnawed 
 stealthily at the soul of the senator. The deep humiliation 
 which the proud woman was suffering was hidden under her 
 heavy veil. Alden appeared white and shaken. If their mate- 
 rial gods failed now, whither should they turn? 
 
 As the British private closed the door behind them, a police 
 wagon went dashing past. Within, grasping its hard cushions 
 while the vehicle swayed violently to and fro, sat David Barach, 
 torn with fear. An official of the Jewish Benevolent Associa- 
 tion sat beside him. But Barach gave no heed to his com- 
 panion, for his burning thought was fully occupied now with 
 his gripping fears, now with Haeckel's brutal jest at the Chris- 
 tian God as a "gaseous vertebrate." 
 
 A "gaseous vertebrate" indeed.' else had poor Barach not 
 been so foully betrayed. Yet was he now thoroughly disillu- 
 sioned — and humiliated, for his own rejected people it was who 
 had rescued him from the clutches of a perverted justice. What 
 had occurred in his home during his enforced absence he 
 
 102 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 knew not; he could only hope, as he struggled to batter back 
 the host of sinister suggestions that drove every instant upon 
 him. The ofQcial who had been sent to meet his appeal had 
 telephoned a message of assurance to a neighbor to be delivered 
 to his wife — Barach could not afford a telephone in his home 
 ■ — and then, Barach's innocence of criminal intent established, 
 this official had accompanied him to further minister to his 
 needs. 
 
 At the door of the little cottage they were met by Doctor 
 Benson with uplifted hand. Behind the doctor Barach caught 
 sight of the tear-stained face of the little girl whom he had 
 left with his wife that morning. Through the partly opened 
 door he saw the old rabbi, and a neighbor woman moving 
 softly about. A cry escaped him; his heart fluttered; and his 
 knees bent beneath him. 
 
 "She is sleeping," the doctor said in a low voice. "Come 
 into the kitchen." 
 
 Barach's heart gave a great leap; a sob of relief burst from 
 him. "Let me go to her!" he cried. 
 
 "Wait!" The doctor seized his arm and forced him through 
 the room and into the tiny kitchen. "Here," he said quickly, 
 "is some wine that I brought. Sit down. You see, you told 
 her you would be back in an hour. She worried. Her condi- 
 tion rapidly grew worse. She became delirious. And when 
 afternoon came, and you did not return, she was terrified. The 
 little girl ran for the neighbors. When they arrived they found 
 her on the floor. The . . . the baby had come . . . pre- 
 maturely. It . . . did not live." 
 
 "God of our fathers!" cried Barach, struggling to his feet. 
 
 "They summoned me," the doctor hurried on, tears start- 
 ing from his eyes, "but it was too late." 
 
 "But . . . you said she was . . . sleeping!" 
 
 "Yes, so she is. But . . . my poor fellow! she will not 
 
 awake." 
 
 ****** 
 
 What the Craggs had done to David Barach was done 
 through fear. And fear is born of the belief that one's mate- 
 rial gods are failing. 
 
 That night the brilliant illumination in the Cragg mansion 
 typified the frenzied efforts of mother and son to drive back 
 the sable fears engulfing them; but the light that flooded their 
 great rooms was only a weak symbol — though they knew it not 
 — of the spiritual light which the heavy material shutters of 
 their worldly minds had barred out, and they turned from its 
 scant relief to seek comfort in physical presence. Doctor Roake 
 had first been summoned; then the rector. Senator Chaddock 
 
 103 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 came without invitation. Colonel Tenn, of His Majesty's Royal 
 Fusiliers, and now in temporary charge of British recruiting 
 in the east, was rung up twice, thrice, and held in long con- 
 sultations. The colonel, who was a close friend of Doctor 
 Roake, had again shown himself most considerate in permit- 
 ting Alden to return to his home, there to await summons to. 
 the concentration camp; but the colonel had no authority — 
 nor, if truth were known, desire — to oppose the solemn verdict 
 of the examining physician, which was that Great Britain found 
 her reluctant subject, Alden Cragg, physically fit. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg had collapsed, and was all but carried back to 
 her limousine. And now, in her magnificent home, amid 
 every material luxury, she paced the floor and moaned with- 
 out ceasing. Alden sat for the most part speechless, in a sort 
 of dumb amazement at the swiftness with which calamity had 
 overwhelmed him — him, a Cragg! At times, when he recalled 
 what he had so casually read or heard told of the horrors of 
 the great war, a cold sweat would break out over his body. 
 Then he would start from his chair, shaking, only to sink 
 back again cowering before his terrifying vision. 
 
 Mrs. Whittier, in the privacy of her boudoir, sobbed in an 
 excess of personal solicitude. "She didn't send for me! Oh, 
 they will have nothing to do with us now ! I shall not get 
 into the 'Norman Dames'! Ethel will lose Alden! Papa will 
 lose his church! Oh, that miserable, miserable girl! She has 
 brought ruin upon us! My country! my country!" 
 
 But the rector, as he sat in the Cragg drawing-room dumbly 
 witnessing the lugubrious show, found a ray of comfort in 
 the probable effect that Alden's enlistment would have on the 
 sunken Cragg prestige. For, though he had never dared hint 
 it, he knew that the Cragg prestige had suffered woefully by 
 their contemptuous attitude toward their country in this great 
 crisis. Possibly the Cragg exodus to America was justified to 
 their friends at first by the belief that the war must be of short 
 duration. There was England's incomparable navy! France's 
 man-power! And America's exhausfless supplies! But as 
 Allied affairs went steadily from bad to worse, the rector 
 realized that young Cragg was being subjected to increasing 
 pressure — knew that the youth was pointed out in his various 
 clubs as a fugitive — that he was openly approached by British 
 recruiting officers — that he was at length shunned by all but 
 a narrow circle of those whose views more nearly synchronizeid, 
 with his own. He knew that the Craggs had sought to neutralize 
 this in a measure by giving grudgingly to the war fund. They 
 contributed a bit — and quite ostentatiously — to the Red Cross. 
 But then this was itself inhibited by Mrs. Cragg's fury over the 
 
 104 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 heavy taxes imposed by the British Government on her hold- 
 ings thr&ughout the Empire. Also, the cost of living steadily 
 increased, "because," as she put it, "of thei unreasonable pro- 
 longation of the war." And so acutely had Mrs. Cragg felt 
 the financial situation that she had personally confided to the 
 rector that she was buttressing, her wealth by a reorganization 
 of Primal Motors and by sundry other investments suggested 
 by Senator Chaddock. "The British Government is simply 
 taxing us to death!" she had exclaimed. "If Germany wins 
 the war . . ." But there she discreetly paused. Later, to her 
 son alone, she concluded the remark: . "If Germany wins the 
 war we shall be richer than ever, or paupers ! We must provide 
 for either contingency, Alden, by your marrying Ethel Whit- 
 tier. Penberry's money is in American mines and oil, and is 
 safe." Ah, could Mrs. Whittier have heard this, what a scur- 
 ried drying of her tears ! 
 
 Then, too, there was no little comfort for them all in Senator 
 Chaddock's words, given with a great show of confidence after 
 the sympathetic Doctor Roake had left. "Why," he said, 
 "America will provide such an overwhelming surplus of man- 
 power that they'd laugh at the idea of taking Alden!" 
 
 "But, I say . . ." began that suffering youth. 
 
 "Listen, everybody," Mrs. Cragg commanded, turning to 
 her son, "Alden is speaking." 
 
 The senator hid a smile with his hand. But Alden sank 
 back again without concluding his remark, 
 
 "Come, Alden," said the senator, rising and going to the 
 lad, "stroll about with me. It will get your mind off yourself." 
 
 Then together Alden and the senator paced back and forth 
 through the many rooms of the mansion, while the latter 
 chatted continuously and in a light vein to distract the youth. 
 But as the senator talked there was an eager glint in his eyes, 
 and to a close observer it might have been apparent that his 
 sympathy appeared a bit forced. His thought seemed to be not 
 so much occupied with the young man's problems as with the 
 aspect of wonderful "Craggmont" and its superb promise. He 
 lingered thoughtfully at the great windows and studied the 
 broad lawns, with their statues, their fountains, their splendid 
 trees; his eyes followed the sloping terraces, the great gardens 
 where curious formal shapes had been limned out of the 
 natural rock. And as they roved about, he sighed, not unhap- 
 pily. Then he resumed his pacing with Alden, ostensibly 
 listening carefully to the youth's harangue against Fate, but 
 really observing minutely, appraisingly, lovingly, the massive 
 paneled rooms, the vaulted salons overlaid with glbss, the 
 beamed ceilings, the tapestried walls. He stepped gingerly 
 
 10 105 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 upon the costly oriental rugs. At times he rubbed his fingers 
 lightly over the rare porcelains, the heavily carved furniture. 
 His frame seemed to expand in the glow that emanated from 
 the rich stuffs arid the brilliant tints; he hung at the great 
 carved stone fireplace and gazed into the leaping blaze with 
 eyes that snapped and glittered. In Alden's den, to which the 
 young man insisted on taking him for a further confidential 
 talk anent the avoidance of service, the senator beamed like 
 an August sun. The intimacy of the beautiful room entranced 
 him. The tooled leather and tapestried hangings were so sooth- 
 ing; the deep, heavily upholstered chairs and divans were so 
 inviting, so suggestive of material ease, of measureless comfort, 
 of happy indolence. A rich aroma of rare tobaccos hung in 
 the warm air. A fire burned briskly in the smaller but more 
 exquisitely carved marble fireplace. The senator sank into a 
 chair and closed his eyes, while a smile of happy content sat 
 upon his broad and shining face. Yes, Doctor Roake was right, 
 Mrs. Cragg was carrying a tremendous load — and alone. 
 
 To Alden personally, as he sat with the senator long after 
 the shadows had gathered thick, there was a certain allevia- 
 tion of his fear in the astonishing enthusiasm manifested by 
 Ethel Whittier, who had called him by 'phone to express her 
 keen pleasure in his acceptance by the British Governm«nt, 
 and who had terminated the conversation by exclaiming: 
 "And, oh, Alden, you will look so wonderful in a uniform ! 
 Come and take me driving the minute you get it!" 
 
 After all, the youth at length reflected, his enlistment — 
 though the manner in which it was forced upon him brought 
 a blush to his cheeks — ^would forestall conscription, as the 
 senator had pointed out; would raise him in the estimation 
 of his associates; would even drape the hero's mantle about 
 his now drooping shoulders. Perhaps a few weeks of military 
 training might not be so bad for him. And . . . 
 
 But if only those fearful pictures of sodden, dead-filled 
 trenches would cease to haunt him ! What did it portend, that 
 cracked bell? No, he was not going to war! ... He would 
 not go! ... He was a Cragg! . . . The senator would yet 
 procure him that appointment, and he would flee to Spain, 
 even though in British khaki! . . . 
 
 He had quite forgotten the Barach affair. No doubt his 
 terror would have increased to sheer madness could he have 
 seen the crazed Barach that night lying prone across the body 
 of his beloved wife, his earthly all, and heard him promising 
 the poor dead thing over and over all night long a full measure 
 of vengeance against those who had so foully done her to death, 
 the Craggs. 
 
 106 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 14 
 
 REGARDLESS of the perturbation in the souls of the Craggs 
 and the Whittiers, the momentous fact that Alden was 
 now a unit in the British army had to be faced. Then 
 it was that Mrs. Cragg lifted her humiliated head and blessed 
 that friend of suffering humanity. Doctor Roake. Under his 
 skillful direction the enlistment was so announced as to convey 
 no information as to the manner in which it had been procured, 
 but, rather, so as to make a highly favorable impression upon 
 Crestelridge society, and even raise the young man to the 
 status of hero. 
 
 The news of the enlistment spread quickly; and, as must 
 needs occur when one is so prominent as a Cragg' of "Cragg- 
 mont," the press took if up and made much of it. With the 
 passing of the first shock, and the strengthening of her belief 
 that Alden would not be uprooted from America's friendly 
 shores, Mrs. Cragg awakened to the immense social advantage 
 and enhancement of prestige to be gained from such gratuitous 
 advertising, and she forthwith lent her-aid to the eager report- 
 ers with an abandon that left them gaping. Alden's photo- 
 graph appeai:ed in all the papers, showing him first in evening 
 dress and later in the British uniform. Long and carefully 
 edited accounts of the Cragg ancestry were published, and 
 brilliant encomiums on the gallantry of this young scion of 
 the house, who had thus nobly offered himself in defense of 
 his beleaguered cpuntry. 
 
 Yet there were some who smiled; and there were those 
 whose comment was unkind. "The arrant coward!" muttered 
 Ted Sayor. "How on earth did it happen? What surgeon 
 cut the mental umbilical cord that bound him to his silly, 
 doting, money-hardened mother and gave him a chance?" And 
 when his gaze fell upon the newspaper portraits of Alden in 
 his uniform he snorted: "The ass has been metamorphosed 
 back into Lucius! But who provided the alchemy?" 
 
 "But I will say," Mrs. Cragg gave out at the meeting of the 
 Domestic Missions Society, held at her home that Tuesday at 
 three, and speaking confidentially to those constituting the 
 inner circle of her set, "that Alden had delayed it, owing to 
 the press of his affairs. Yes, it was while at dinner Sunday 
 with the rector that he was reminded of it. And he acted at 
 once. But of course he intended to offer himself anyway." 
 And to Mrs. Whittier, who crept trembling to the Cragg man- 
 sion to apologize for the shortcomings of a daughter not her 
 
 107 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 own, she said magnanimously, but in hushed tones: "Don't 
 evef refer to it again. Why, Alden had spoken to Senator 
 Chaddock that very morning about enlisting voluntarily, and 
 I begged him to wait a little." 
 
 "A Penberry would never do such a thing," Mrs. Whittier 
 tearfully offered, her thought not so much concerned with 
 Cragg affairs as with the possibility of her own acceptance 
 into the ultra-exclusive "Norman Dames," membership in which 
 she had long coveted. 
 
 "You need not remind me that she is not your daughter," 
 Mrs. Cragg assured her. "I do not hold you at all accountable 
 for her erratic conduct." 
 
 And to the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls, assembled at the 
 home of Mrs. Tellus on Wednesday, ostensibly to discuss For- 
 eign Missions, but in reality for afternoon tea and explana- 
 tions : "Alden was preparing to accept a portfolio in the British 
 embassy in Spain," Mrs. Cragg elucidated, her proud head still 
 held high; "but his attention was called to England's desperate 
 need, and he became persuaded in his own thought that his 
 services would be more valuable in the army. . ." , 
 
 "Henry says," MrSi Tellus put in, "that it was very clever 
 of Alden to wait and get his affairs into shape and then sud- 
 denly put all his critics to rout by enlisting." 
 
 Mrs. Cragg thawed a bit under this and bestowed upon 
 Mrs. Tellus an approving nod. 
 
 "I hope," said Mrs. Kerl, "that Alden will not go to war 
 until the Wess bill is passed. We need his help. . ." 
 
 "But," Mrs. Cragg protested, "he is not going at all! He 
 will be kept in this country. . ." 
 
 "Doing oflSce work?" Mrs. Nence suggested. 
 
 "Why," said Mrs. Cragg, "there are plenty to do ofBce 
 work, Mrs. Nence, but few whose qualifications of physique 
 and brain are such as to ensure immediate acceptance and 
 advancement to leadership — and leaders are so needed now! 
 Alden will be sent to an officers training camp and educated 
 to become an instructor." 
 
 And thus it went. His enlistment was so unexpected, and 
 yet, how clever of him to wait until the opprobrium of "slacker" 
 was on the lips of his foes and then suddenly confound them 
 thus ! Why, it made him stand out like a veritable giant among 
 the weaklings of Crestelridge ! It put forever to silence the 
 "conscientious objectors," the shame-faced neutrals, and the 
 dewy-eyed pacifists, whose dirty fingers had pointed to him 
 as a moral example. 
 
 The effect on Alden himself was variously beneficial. When 
 assured that his real motive for enlisting would not be divulged, 
 
 108 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and that there was small likelihood of being ordered abroad, 
 the hunted look left his eyes, his shoulders went back, and 
 his tall form seemed to take on inches. There was no denying 
 that in his natty uniform he did look heroic. And it need not 
 occasion surprise that Ethel Whittier immediately shunted her 
 attentions from Harris Chaddock and fell worshiping at 
 Alden's feet. "Doesn't he look wonderful in his uniform?" she 
 repeatedly exclaimed to her well-satisfied mother. "Isn't he 
 handsome? Why, everybody turns and stares at us when I'm 
 driving with him! I'm simply mad about him, aren't you?" 
 And Mrs. Whittier sighed happily as she thought of the rejuve- 
 nation of her gnarled family tree by the grafting upon it of 
 the sturdy Cragg stock. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg was not slow to turn all this to profit, and on 
 the very next leave which she should be able to squeeze from 
 the far too lenient Colonel Tenn, she determined to end specu- 
 lation regarding the Penberry heiress. And that she brought 
 about very shortly, for, if truth were known. Colonel Tenn 
 himself doubted the wisdom of permitting Alden to remain 
 in camp longer than a day or two at a time. Immediately 
 after his acceptance the youth had been taken, in charge of 
 a sergeant and with other newly enlisted recruits, to the depot, 
 where he drew his equipment and assumed the outward appear- 
 ance of a warrior. But the hunted look in his eyes betrayed 
 him, and the sobriquet of "Windy" then and there bestowed 
 upon him was not to be shaken oif. He arrived at training 
 camp, after his medical examination — ^which had been in the 
 highest degree perfunctory — in his big limousine and accom- 
 panied by his mother and Senator Chaddock. He entered the 
 grounds with the disdainful air of a lord. His lips curled and 
 his nose tilted as he surveyed his rough environment and what 
 to him were the dregs and lees of social life with which he 
 was now expected to associate. Fortunately, Colonel Tenn hap- 
 pened to be in camp at the time, and his presence doubtless 
 saved Alden serious embarrassment at the hands, of his future 
 associates. On his first leave Alden had laid his head on his 
 mother's shoulder and wept. Had it been possible, he would 
 have deserted then and there. Knowing how from early child- 
 hood her son had always manifested a feminine shrinking from 
 violence, and how she had often and anxiously said: "If I 
 should be taken from you, Alden dear, what would you do?" 
 the poor woman's distress now was poignant. She thenceforth 
 kept the telepihone busy, consulting Colonel Tenn and advising 
 him regarding the sort of treatment to which her beloved son 
 was accustomed, as well as the kind of environment proper 
 for his comfort and happiness. But for the bigness of his 
 
 109 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 heart and his clear understanding of human nature — ^partic- 
 ularly his knowledge of the Craggs as derived from his close 
 friend. Doctor Roake — the colonel would have set the youth 
 to peeling potatoes! As it was, he sent him home as often as 
 his conscience would permit. 
 
 On his next leave, derived on the pretext of getting his 
 affairs into condition, Alden found Marian Whittier mounting 
 the steps to "Craggmont" as his limousine drove up. She 
 turned and waited when she saw his car approaching. When 
 he alighted and stood, eyes staring and mouth half open, she 
 came toward him with a smile. 
 
 "I am so glad you have come, Alden," she said, extending 
 her hand. "I want to tell you that . . . that I acted . . . 
 hastily." 
 
 He ignored the proffered hand^ and drew himself up stiffly. 
 "Oh," he answered loftily, "that is all past. Probably it has 
 turned out for the best. I had intended getting into the service 
 in some way." 
 
 She let her hand fall. "I know you are greatly ofifended," 
 she said, with downcast eyes. "But I have come to make what 
 amends I can. Alden," looking up eagerly into his expression- 
 less face, "I will give you my life." 
 
 He fell back before this startling speech, with mouth agape. 
 Was she throwing herself at him? Was this in line with her 
 shameless public announcement that she loved him? The 
 audacity of this girl, still to flout a frowning, antagonistic 
 society, with naught of tradition, of wealth, of family prestige 
 to uphold her! But for the Whittiers, she would be nothing: 
 a penniless, friendless creature . . . 
 
 But then his shoulders drooped again, and that overweening 
 sense of superiority which he was wont to feel in the presence 
 of every one but this strange girl oozed away. Somehow, he 
 always felt mean and little before her, yet strongly attracted 
 by an influence subtle and progressive, despite his resistance. 
 And he knew it was not due solely to her physical beauty, but 
 to something finer, indescribably finer, that seemed to emanate 
 from her whole being, that flashed from her deep eyes in a 
 penetrating light that laid bare the hidden recesses of his own 
 soul. And because of it he could not despise her as he knew 
 he should. 
 
 Feeling himself yielding now, and angry because of it, he 
 assumed a freezing hauteur. "We have been expecting, mother 
 and I, that you would make some explanation of your . . . 
 your strange talk, before all those people, about . . . loving 
 me," he said. 
 
 She paused before replying. Then, again smiling up at 
 him: "I love your promise, Alden," she said simply. 
 
 110 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Promise!" he exclaimed aghast. "I say, I hope you are 
 not telling around that I've made you any bally promise! My 
 word!" 
 
 She looked at him wonderingly. "You don't understand, 
 Alden. I want to help you to know . • ." 
 
 "To know what?" he demanded roughly. "The silly stuff 
 that you try to put over? The bally rot that that Galuth 
 woman is teaching you, eh? Want me to get talked about the 
 way you -are? I say!" 
 
 She sighed, and her eyes grew moist. "Alden, I came to 
 tell you that I am very sorry I was so hasty Sunday. I have 
 come to make amends. I can help you. . ." 
 
 "No, you can't. And we'll not discuss that any more," he 
 put in. "Just remember that you are to say nothing about it 
 to anybody, and we'll let it go at that. I'll have to go in now; 
 you're keeping me here in the cold. I'll tell mother you're 
 sorry, and that will end it." 
 
 He turned and hurried up the marble steps, leaving her 
 standing in the bleak wind. A moment more, and the big 
 glass doors had closed behind him. 
 
 Marian stood for a moment, stunned. Then her eyes filled, 
 and she buried her face in her hands. Humiliated, rejected, 
 she turned and slowly moved away. 
 
 A few hours later, Alden and Ethel Whittier, just back from 
 a spin in his wonderful new roadster, sat tete-a-tete over tea 
 and wafers in the Cragg morning room, the girl eagerly expec- 
 tant, the youth endeavoring to analyze his sentiment toward 
 the heiress to the vast material wealth of old Simeon Penberry. 
 His attraction to her— if it might be so named — was quite 
 vicarious, indeed, a Whittier influence. Beyond her financial 
 prospects, Alden himself must have acknowledged that she 
 offered little. She was young, vivacious, and artificially pretty. 
 But, too, she was a soulless worldling, who boasted to Harris 
 Chaddock and Ted Sayoi^^though never to Alden Cragg — that 
 she would squeeze out every drop of pleasure which this life 
 held, and if there were a heaven, would ride through its gates 
 on her father's flowing ecclesiastical robes. "If all that is neces- 
 sary for salvation is a belief that Jesus died for us," she had 
 often reflected — ^particularly when the remnant of her con- 
 science rose in protest against some moral offense-^"why, I'm 
 safe." She had been safely baptized. And death-bed repentance 
 was a providentially ordained institution that met her every 
 spiritual requirement. She was a type of that loose, material 
 thinking, so characteristic of these latter days, that finds its 
 origin in a lack of demonstrable religion and its impartation 
 to the young. 
 
 Ill 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But Mrs. Whittier had long been imbued with the mod- 
 ern theory of self-determination for children. Moreover, her 
 social ambitions left her little time or inclination for the train- 
 ing of her daughter. She had intended sending Ethel to a 
 boarding school; but the young woman had stoutly refused to 
 go. Upon the rector's insistence, Ethel developed "nerves" and 
 a convenient "temperamentality." She vehemently insisted on 
 the expression of her own individuality quite unhampered; and 
 Mrs. Whittier fell back upon the convenient confession of 
 incompetence: "Youth will be served!" and permitted the girl 
 her way. 
 
 "But, Mama," the rector had often remonstrated, "you 
 should give less time to society and more to your child. Is it 
 necessary that you should go, go, go all the time? You owe 
 something to the girl." 
 
 "Now, Papa," she would answer, "you keep your hands off. 
 Ethel must not be hampered in the manifestation of her true 
 self. I have come to the conclusion that the way to bring up 
 children is to let them alone to grow up of themselves." 
 
 The result was Ethel. 
 
 As for Mrs. Whittier's ambitious suggestion of Alden as a 
 life-companion, Ethel had at first hesitated, allured by "Cragg- 
 mont" and the Cragg prestige, then had decided against it. 
 Marriage to her must spell freedom; it must mean cut traces, 
 white lights, cabarets, good times. Even now she had moments 
 when she would barter her soul for a fling down Broadway! 
 What, then, would it mean to be tied to the conventional, ritu- 
 alistic Alden Cragg? Yet it afforded her a piquant satisfaction 
 to know that Alden was seeking her, that he would eventually 
 offer himself, despite the fact that she made no effort to conceal 
 her decided preference for Harris Chaddock. 
 
 But Alden's sudden enlistment, his now soaring prestige, 
 and especially his wonderful appearance in the British uniform I 
 Perhaps Alden sensed the quick change in the girl's sentiment. 
 At least, her now altered attitude, and his mother's insistence, 
 rendered the present hour psychic. 
 
 "I say," he began, "you don't seem to get over your surprise 
 at my turning soldier, you know." 
 
 She smiled up at him sweetly. "Well, I thought you were 
 going to Spain. But I'm glad you enlisted instead." 
 
 He drew himself up proudly. "England's back is against 
 the wall," he replied. 
 
 "Yes, that's what Marian said last Sunday." 
 
 His shoulders suddenly sagged at the reminder, aijd a limp 
 feeling came over him. 'Then he braced himself again. "And 
 you were so unfeeling as to say England might bleed to death," 
 he chided, ignoring the innuendo. 
 
 112 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Oh, but I don't really feel that way," she answered naively. 
 
 He started to reach for her hand. 
 
 "You see," she continued, "I don't want anything to happen 
 to old Simeon Penberry." 
 
 He drew his hand back and sat looking at her sheepishly. 
 But time was fleeting, and his leave was short. How the 
 thought of the rough life at the concentration camp tormented 
 him ! He would not be made to endure it long ! 
 
 "If I should go away," he began again, "would I find you 
 married to Harris Chaddock when I returned?" 
 
 "Oh," she laughed, "that depends on whether old Simeon 
 should die in the meantime." She broke off a piece of wafer 
 and tossed it at him. It struck him fairly on the nose, and she 
 leaned back and laughed merrily. 
 
 "But," he demanded in exasperation, "do you love him?" 
 
 "No," she promptly returned; "I don't love anybody but 
 myself — and you in that uniform." 
 
 "You only love my uniform, then?" 
 
 "N-n-o; I love the way you look in it," she explained. 
 
 He appeared to meditate for a moment. "Do you know," 
 he said, starting up, "I've no doubt I'll be made an officer." 
 
 "Then I'll love you all the more," she chirped. "Oh, I hope 
 you'll be a general! Generals' uniforms are wonderful!" 
 
 "Yes!" he heartily agreed. "And think of the jolly life 
 they lead! Do you know, I think I'll be stationed here for a 
 while, then given a billet of some sort. I may get into the dip- 
 lomatic service. How would you like to live in, say, Paris, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, Alden! You are proposing!" She was not at all sur- 
 prised, and she showed it; but she was itnmensely gratified — 
 and a bit impatient^ 
 
 "Eh? Yes," he blurted, "that's it!" He leaned across the 
 table and boldly took her hand. "I say, we'll . . . we'll . . . 
 will you? . . ." 
 
 "Will you give me 'Craggmont'?" she asked pertly. "And let 
 me live just as I want to?" 
 
 "Oh, I won't take you away from Crestelridge. I'm going 
 to settle right here for a while. Million things I'm interested 
 in: Primal Motors, and . . . why, I've got more interests and 
 more powerful friends here than in England. Look at Senator 
 Chaddock, and Doctor Roake, and Tellus. . ." 
 
 "But I don't care anything about them," she pouted. 
 "They're a silly lot. I want 'Craggmont.' And I don't want to 
 be tied down. I'm too temperamental." 
 
 "You shall not be! And you shall have 'Craggmont'!" He 
 got up and took his chair around beside hers. "And anything 
 else you want: diamonds, pearls, autos ..." He slipped an 
 
 113 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 arm about her shoulders. "I say, Ethel, I'm going to have 
 millions in my own right some day, and they're all yours!" 
 
 It was her hour of material triumph. She smiled up at him. 
 She gave d fleeting thought to Harris Chaddock, then laid her 
 head upon Alden's shoulder and sighed. Mammon groveled at 
 her feet, and she had bent and kissed him. 
 
 An hour passed — an interval singularly devoid of the ecstasy 
 normal to the plighting of troth— and Ethel and Alden rose to 
 bear the glad tidings to Mrs. Cragg. That practical lady, wait- 
 ing fully prepared, duly kissed and welcomed her future daugh- 
 ter, and betokened the imparting of her favor by clasping a 
 costly string of pearls about the girl's neck. Then, as she 
 watched them drive away, she sighed and vdped her eyes. She 
 was not satisfied, not at all ! She had hoped, before the exigen- 
 cies of the hour forced her to seek an alliance with the rector's 
 daughter, that Alden would marry an English peeress. Alas! 
 they had fallen upon prickly times. 
 
 "Alden," said Ethel, lifting her thought from the stunning 
 new car that she would now claim as hers, "I used to think 
 you cared for Marian, only you were ashamed to say so." 
 
 A tremor ran through his frame. "Marian?" he exclaimed. 
 "Oh, really?" It was strange! That same suspicion had 
 haunted him. . . 
 
 "But I never could understand why. She says such awful 
 things. Papa and she are like soda and vinegar : when they 
 get together they boil." 
 
 "But it isn't all Marian's fault," declared Alden defensively; 
 "it's that Galuth. She's been teaching Marian hypnotism." 
 
 "That's what Papa says," Ethel returned, nodding her head. 
 "He says the Galuth cures people with it." 
 
 "Yes, and she's got Marian doing the same thing, and got 
 her name up ! I say, it's a bally disgrace ! We ought to drive 
 her out of town!" 
 
 "She will have to go," said Ethel, her thought on Marian. 
 "I'm just waiting for something to drop." 
 
 At the rectory door they were met by Mrs. Whitfier, who 
 needed no explanation further than Ethel's expressive look and 
 nod to gather the pair to her bosom and shower forth her 
 abundant but dubious blessing. 
 
 "We . . . ah . . . that is, Ethel and I ... we have been 
 talking things over, ye know," Alden very succinctly explained, 
 as they made their way into the library, "and we've de- 
 cided ..." 
 
 "We're going to be married. Mama," Ethel calmly put in. 
 
 "My darlings both!" cried Mrs. Whittier, trembling with 
 joy. "Always meant for each other! Ah, niy splendid soldier 
 son! Stoop down so I can kiss you!" 
 
 ■114 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 As she was in the act of imparting her maternal kiss the 
 door opened from the rector's study and Marian entered. The 
 girl stopped, and stood hesitant. Her eyes were red, and her 
 face was drawn. Alden quickly straightened up, confused and 
 blushing; Ethel seized his arm and faced Marian defiantly; 
 Mrs. Whittier braced herself. 
 
 Then Alden remembered, and a flush of shame swept over 
 him — shame that he never felt excepting in Marian's presence. 
 "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I shouldn't have left you outside 
 . . . but I was in a deuce of a hurry . . . going driving with 
 Ethel." He turned to Mrs. Whittier. "Marian came to apolb- 
 gize, ye know. Right decent of her, I say." 
 
 An audible sigh of relief came from Mrs. Whittier, If 
 Marian had acknowledged her fault and had been forgiven by 
 the Craggs, she must herself conform to the altered circum- 
 stances and relent, ostensibly at least. "Ethel and Alden have 
 just announced their engagement," she said, though coldly. 
 
 "Yes," Alden put in, "we're open to congratulations, ye 
 know." 
 
 Marian stood looking at him without reply. A strained 
 silence followed. Ethel's lip begain to curl. Mrs. Whittier's 
 heart started beating violently. 
 
 "I say," blurted Alden, breaking the embarrassing pause, 
 "aren't you going to congratulate us?" 
 
 "If you really love each other," Marian replied slowly, "then 
 I congratulate you both. So few do nowadays." 
 
 The tense situation was relieved by the prolonged sounding 
 of an automobile horn from without. Ethel dropped Alden's 
 arm and ran to a window. "Oh, it's Harris Chaddock!" she 
 cried eagerly. "Come to take me driving, I'll bet!" She darted 
 to the door and flung it open. 
 
 "Game for a drive?" shouted young Chaddock, leaping from 
 his car and approaching. "Supper at Burnette's Road House, 
 and get you back by eight sharp ! What say?" 
 
 "Of course I'm game!" cried Ethel, dancing up and down 
 for joy. 
 
 "Ethel!" It was Alden's voice. She turned sharply and 
 met the look of stern rebuke in his (ace. "You can't go . . . 
 now!" 
 
 She gave a little gasp, and stood open-mouthed. Then she 
 shrugged her shoulders and tossed her head defiantly. "Humph ! 
 Mr. Puritan! Beginning early, aren't you?" 
 
 "What's the idea?" asked Chaddock, looking inquiringly 
 from one to another of the group. 
 
 Mrs. Whittier caught her breath and hurried into the breach. 
 "Oh, we must tell Harris!" she exclaimed in hysterical haste. 
 
 115 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But he mustn't mention it until it's announced! Ethel and 
 Alden are engaged!" 
 
 Harris fell back and gave a long whistle. A look of conster- 
 nation came into his face, and for a moment he appeared 
 greatly perturbed. Then he recovered himself. "Heartiest con- 
 gratulations!" he cried. "That being the case, I'll take you 
 both. . Seat's wide enough for three." 
 
 "Thanks awfully," said Alden, with repellent coldness, "but 
 I've just time to get back to camp. My leave's up. . ." 
 
 "Then pile in, both of you," Harris urged, "and I'll drop 
 Alden at his camp and ..." 
 
 "Lovely!" Ethel chimed in, clapping her hands over the 
 revived prospect. 
 
 "No ! " Alden insisted. "It wouldn't look right ! " 
 
 A pause followed the remark, broken by Harris. "Seems to 
 me, Cragg," he observed dourly, "that that remark reflects on 
 me as well as on Ethel." 
 
 "Don't! Oh, please!" the now thoroughly frightened Mrs. 
 Whittier begged. "Ethel must decline your invitation, Harris!" 
 
 "I don't decline it! I won't!" cried Ethel, stamping her 
 foot. "What a silly mess you've all made of this ! Of course 
 I'll go, Harris!" 
 
 "Oh, well . . . not this time," said Harris, with a shrug of 
 his shoulders; "since your mother doesn't approve. We'll try 
 it again. . ." 
 
 "I say, Chaddock . . . !" Alden exclaimed, pushing forward. 
 
 "Well, say it, little soldier-boy," Harris returned, bracing 
 himself before the angry Alden. 
 
 For a moment the two stood glaring at each other, Then 
 Alden raised a trembling hand and wiped his brow, muttered 
 something incoherent, and stepped back. 
 
 A sneer came into the other's face. "Humph!" he said in 
 a low tone; "I thought so." 
 
 At that instant Marian pushed in between the two. "Let 
 me go with you, Harris," she said eagerly. "I'd love to. Will 
 you take me?" 
 
 Harris looked down into the wistful face. He grasped her 
 hand. "You're a -good sport, Marian!" he cried. "Come along! 
 I'll give you the time of your life!" 
 
 116 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 15 
 
 WHEN Marian Whittier emerged from the study that aft- 
 ernoon and came so abruptly upon Mrs. Whittier and 
 the newly betrothed pair, she left the rector sitting 
 before the unfinished draft of his Easter sermon deep in dubious 
 reflection. And as he reflected, his apprehension grew. Despite 
 the inoculation by the skillful Doctor Roake of his garbled 
 sermon of the preceding Sunday; despite the happy outcome of 
 the Barach incident — David Barach, the rector had been advised, 
 had been discharged from the employ of Primal Motors — and 
 despite the fact that Marian had just told him of her apology 
 to the Craggs for her rash affront, the rector could not but 
 regard the present interval of calm as ominous. On the table 
 before him lay the morning paper, in which an insignificant 
 item, the passing of David Barach's wife, seemed to stand out in 
 letters of fire. This unimportant event would have been deemed 
 unworthy of mention, but for the fact that in the discovery of 
 the woman's body on the floor, while her husband was under 
 arrest for -trespassing upon the Cragg property, the city editor 
 had seen sufficient sensationalism to render the incident 
 "news." The same paper contained a glowing encomium of 
 Alden Cragg's patriotism. Somehow, in the rector's thought, 
 an ugly significance attached to the linking of these two names. 
 And he shook his head as he pondered. 
 
 The effect of his confused sermon was by this time apparent. 
 On the one hand, his young assistant, the Reverend George 
 Earlj with whom he had spent a tense hour the preceding 
 stormy Saturday night, had heartily congratulated him on his 
 utterance with respect to the "Union for Christian Healing." 
 "Too long have we wrestled with material observations alone," 
 Earl had said. "It is time we looked into the spiritual. When 
 we do that we shall discover that all causation is mental, and 
 likewise all effect. Disease will be acknowledged mental; phy- 
 sicians will cease treating effects and will seek the causes of 
 disease in human thought. Then the veil of matter will grow 
 thinner, until it ultimately disappears, and we shall see our- 
 selves spiritual and eternal." 
 
 But, on the other hand, a fiery young evangelist, who had 
 been conducting a series of spectacular revival meetings in an 
 adjacent town, indited a scathing denouncement of the rector's 
 sermon. "I regard praying for the sick without calling a doctor 
 as wicked as Satan's temptation of our Lord to make bread of 
 the stones!" he declared. The rector showed the hot epistle to 
 
 117 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his assistant. And Earl had replied, with a laugh: "Then we 
 must conclude from this that to trust God alone for healing, 
 except it be as a last resort, is criminal folly. But why, then, 
 trust Him for aught? Let us lead Him to the door, thank Him 
 kindly for past favors, and bow Him politely out!" 
 
 The rector's thought turned to his published statement of 
 explanation as prepared by Doctor Roake. And his face flushed 
 with shame. He reflected on his embarrassing session with the 
 vestry following his unfortunate sermon. And he groaned 
 aloud. They had bidden him, ifl no uncertain terms, continue 
 to offer the "trichina and Senegambia as substitutes for God." 
 Ah, well he knew who spoke through the vestry of St. Jude's! 
 That financial board was but the mouthpiece of the Telluses, 
 the Blacks, and the Kerls, who surrounded themselves with 
 limiting Can'ts and Won'ts, but paid St. Jude's bills. They 
 had a right to demand the "Setebos doctrines of the professors." 
 They had a right to warn him to continue to deal with the 
 things of Caesar, to stick to the familiar materializing of the 
 spiritual dicta of the Christ, and to cease tampering with such 
 dangerous doctrines as those advocated by his daughter Marian. 
 
 And were they not right? For had it not been confirmed to 
 him that in broaching the question of healing by the Church 
 he was tampering with fire? But Doctor Roake had relegated 
 everything to the realm of mind — an^ yet it was the human 
 mind, the same wicked human mind that was felicitating itself 
 on its progress in civilization at the very moment that it burst 
 out into warfare and rapine the most unprecedented and hid- 
 eous that the world has ever witnessed! Still, the doctor had 
 said that mind both caused and cured disease and discord . . . 
 a fountain sending forth sweet water and bitter ... a divided 
 house. . . 
 
 Confusion, confusion, confusion! Was he becoming con- 
 vinced that some day he would be compelled to choose between 
 the undivvded robe of the Christ and its present fragments? 
 If he continued to serve those who persisted in regarding 
 Christianity as: purely ethical, its object Tnerely the making of 
 good men and women — and the term "good" subject to as many 
 interpretations as there are human minds — then must he not 
 continue to regard the healing ability and disposition of God 
 as limited in the extreme, and subject to the sway of evil? 
 And it would follow then that these limits to divine power must 
 render God as unable to keep men from moral evil as from 
 physical disease. . . 
 
 Confusion, confusion, confusion! And yet: "Your preach- 
 ing," Marian had again said to him that afternoon, "shows 
 that you believe thoroughly in another power than God. But 
 
 118 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 / can't afford to doubt that God is all. To do so would be 
 suicide." Then he had retorted in his irritation : "If you doubt 
 my preaching, pray tell me, what is truth?" And she had 
 repeated simply: "That God is all." "I preach that," he 
 declared. "But you do not practice it," she replied. And then 
 she gave him to understand that, though she attended his 
 services because he requested her to for appearance's sake, yet 
 he offered her nothing with which to feed her famished affec- 
 tions. "But," the rector cried, "if God is really all, then matter 
 is nothing. . . Impossible! Or matter is part of God. . . 
 And that is pantheism!" And yet. Doctor Roake had explained 
 matter as a thing of thought. But whose thought? For, 
 admittedly, God's thoughts are not human, else were He mortal 
 and essentially evil! 
 
 Though the storm precipitated by Marian's audacious 
 conduct had passed, leaving him apparently unscathed, still 
 the rector felt that his future security demanded that he destroy 
 the girl's shocking beliefs, and he had felt impelled to inter- 
 view her again that afternoon. But again she had almost dis- 
 armed him by her manifestation of love. What though she 
 did reject the tenets of St. Jude's? he had reflected. Had not 
 Madeline Nence done the same? "Oh, I just simply don't 
 believe, that's all," Madeline had answered when he had urged 
 her to unite with the church. Ted Sayor had practically said 
 the same, and then had added the apposite quotation: "Mere 
 incriedulity, you know. And that is 'the surest sign of a weak 
 head and a corrupt heart'." And yet the rector would not 
 have called either Madeline or Ted corrupt. As for Carol Allen, 
 she had declared frankly, to the rector that she was not ready 
 to give up the world. The demands of the Christ, as she read 
 them in the Gospels, required much more than she could fulfill. 
 He had urged a compromise: St. Jude's requirements were a 
 reasonable recognition of the lure of the flesh-pots. No demands 
 were really made that could not be met by all. And at length 
 he conquered: Madeline and Carol became communicants, 
 although Ted remained stubbornly recalcitrant. But could he 
 not hope to conquer him, and, eventually, Marian? 
 
 But as his interview with Marian proceeded that afternoon 
 the rector became increasingly dubious. Ted might yield; this 
 girl,. never! Nay, his wa's the danger of yielding. . . 
 
 But if he broke from his present mooring and launched out 
 into unsounded depths, was he not in danger of shipwreck? 
 He was not wealthy, and his salary, though large, was his 
 principal support. Ethel's marriage with Alden must greatly 
 relieve the financial strain and tend to secure the future, but 
 that was not yet consummated. He did not then know of 
 
 119 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 their betrothal. . . Then there was his own prestige, his 
 social position and that of his wife and Ethel. To jeopardize all 
 this — ^Mrs. Whittier was about to be received into the "Norman 
 Dames" — to risk it all for what might prove to be but a chimera 
 was utterly unthinkable! No, he must remain as he was; he 
 must continue to coitnpromise, and to cover ... to coyer . . . 
 
 But, heavens above! that horrible bony thing was rattling 
 out upon him. again. . . It had seized him by the throat! 
 
 "You believe in God?" 
 
 "In gods many, yes!" 
 
 'But that which is hidden shall be revealed?" 
 
 "The gods forbid! . . . but I know that it will!" 
 
 "He that" covereth his sins shall not prosper. . . Shall 
 not prosper, do you hear? Then loose me and let me GO!! Ill" 
 
 The worn rector sat back and mopped the damp from his 
 brow. That girl had not returned to Crestelridge to bring peace, 
 but a sword! And she must go! Yes, she must go at 
 once! ... 
 
 But where? Oh, why had she refused Otto Hoeffel? Mar- 
 riage with him would have solved that problem, at least! For 
 Otto, though arrogant and swaggering, had the sole qualifica- 
 tion needful for handling this headstrong girl: the Prussian 
 estimate of woman's place. 
 
 But there was Harris Chaddock. To be sure, Harris had 
 seemed to favor Ethel; and the rector, with admirable fore- 
 sight, had prepared to accommodate himself to their possible 
 union. Harris had been a bit wild, but the rector would steady 
 him. He had invited the young man to become a communicant 
 of St. Jude's; and Harris, seeking always to improve his social 
 position and secure a clientele among the wealthiest citizens 
 of Crestelridge, had decided to accept the invitation. Besides, 
 Doctor Roake had given Harris his favor and had taken him 
 into his office to start him properly upon his medical career. 
 Now, with a pretense of settled religious convictions, and with 
 the acquisition of that respectability which must come from 
 union with such a church. Doctor Harris Chaddock had shown 
 that he felt a smug satisfaction. And certainly it was an 
 unusual start in life. Now his wits could be trusted to accom- 
 plish the rest. On the other hand, the Reverend Wilson Whit- 
 tier was elated. He had saved young Chaddock's soul, and 
 gained a very desirable church member and a possible son- 
 in-law. Harris, to be sure, offered no such immediate advan- 
 tages as Otto; but, being blessed with one such incomparable 
 son as Alden, it were sin to be covetous of more. 
 
 Obviously, the rector concluded, his course was still a 
 median one, as Doctor Roake had so wisely pointed out. For 
 
 120 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the Church to arrogate unto itself, the function of healing until 
 fully prepared -were greatest folly. Until such time, the phy- 
 sicians should, as the doctor had likewise indicated, collaborate 
 with the clergy, and the transference of the healing function 
 should be gradual and normal. Alden having been secured, 
 as the rector was certain he had, the long anticipated hour had 
 struck when he might pull from his side that sharp thorn, 
 embodied in the personality of Marian, without danger of 
 bleeding to death. She should be afforded an opportunity to 
 marry Harris Chaddock; if she refused, then employment should 
 be found for her in another environment than Crestelridge. 
 
 CHAPTER 16 
 
 CRESTELRIDGE! . . . paragon of elaborateness, formality, 
 and pride, symbolized by superb "Craggmont" and mag- 
 nificent St. Jude's. How lovingly the rector's thought was 
 wont to dwell upon the unique suburb. • . That davenport 
 which he had so admired in Mrs. Cragg's salon — the good 
 woman had informed him that its cost was ridiculously low, 
 a paltry $5,000. True, he later reasoned, that proved that the 
 money-thought was a bit prominent in Crestelridge. , . But 
 they were all human yet, and he must strive for tolerance. 
 
 But it was true that the rector did not approve all that 
 entered into Crestelridge social life, as manifested in the elabo- 
 rate functions in wonderful "Craggmont." Crestelridge was 
 exclusive, but virulently so. And in the close neighborhood of 
 the Telluses, the Blacks, the Craggs, and the Kerls he saw, 
 reluctantly, traces of the artificial righteousness of the Phari- 
 sees. Marian had referred to them plainly as "trimmers." 
 "They are the pillars of your church," she told him in scorn, 
 "but they wink at evil, and they crucify Truth." And the 
 assistant rector had hinted a similar arraignment. 
 
 "What," the rector had exclaimed, "my church the tool of 
 malefactors, of schemers?" 
 
 "But," argued young Earl, "do they not appear to you to 
 lack definite convictions regarding right and wrong?" And 
 Marian had later told the rector frankly that they were want- 
 ing in moral fibre, that they were hypocrites and dissimulators, , 
 and that the young men were growing up to be hedgers and 
 dodgers of responsibility, failing to play the real man, and 
 that they were all selfish and covvaj;dly, . . 
 
 "You are merely carping," he answered the, girl. "The 
 Craggis — ^Alden especially — ^what proof have you that you speak 
 truth regarding him?" 
 11 121 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 It was as if the rector had asked a sign. And to the girl 
 came the words of the Master : "The sign of the prophet Jonas." 
 For Jonah had sought to avoid his duty in the handling of 
 evil; he had dodged the responsibility. And because of it, 
 error engulfed him — symbolized by the tannin, the spa monster. 
 When he was willing to become obedient to the law of God, 
 the error spewed him forth, would have none of him, but 
 released him to fulfill his mission divine. This did the girl 
 see in the future for Alden Cragg. . . 
 
 The rector had sat astonished before her as she voiced it. 
 And while he sat thus, she spoke of the Flood — of the wide- 
 spread degeneracy among the ancient peoples, in whom mate- 
 rialism had blotted out all spirituality, until the flood of error 
 flowed over them and destroyed all but those who sought safety 
 in the Ark of Truth, the true knowledge of the One God, Spirit. 
 "It has again come upon the world," she added. "Europe is 
 deluged with the flood of error to-day. Think not that you or 
 Alden shall escape, except you turn from your material think- 
 ing and think spiritually with God." 
 
 No, the rector did not wholly approve Crestelridge society. 
 The scantiness of dress — ^particularly Ethel's. But he had 
 spoken of it. And . . . yes, there was a bit too much freedom 
 of intercourse between the sexes ; their conversation was much 
 too frank at times. He had overheard things that embarrassed 
 him! And the unchaperoned motor parties at night — he cer- 
 tainly had voiced his disapproval regarding these. And he had 
 tried to frown upon the wriggling intimacies of their dancing, 
 their barbaric trotting and limping and hobbling to the yawping 
 of musical chaos. And he had particularly sought to discour- 
 age their gambling, their coarse manners, their tippling, and the 
 indulgent attitude of the young girls toward the paraded Vices 
 of the other sex. He had preached against all this, in a manner. 
 And he was certain to see improvement in time, he knew. 
 "Ethel will outgrow her naughty ways, as her mother says," 
 he comforted himself. "Besides," he admitted — and the admis- 
 sion gave him no small satisfaction — "I am a bit of an old fogy 
 myself, and must not permit an antiquated prudery to act as a 
 brake on the good times of my young people." As for the 
 parents, absorbed in their commercial and social affairs, he 
 must not worry them. It was his business to preach and 
 scatter the seed of righteousness and . . . and . . . wait for 
 the Lord to bestow the harvest. 
 
 Crestelridge! It had become the rector's world. A little 
 world, a mad, mad world, within a larger one of which it was 
 — in who shall say how great a measure? — a type. Never had 
 the rector so deeply sensed the security of his world as on that 
 
 122 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 midsummer afternoon in 1914 when, into its unprecedented 
 luxury of things and thoughts material, the war of the Chris- 
 tian nations was precipitated. Yet Crestelridge, because this 
 very sense of security was so thoroughly buttressed by its 
 redundant materiality, was slow to feel the effects of the tre- 
 mendous thought-upheaval. And so very slow that by the 
 time America plunged into the struggle it had recovered its 
 wonted poise and could accept that momentous event without 
 emotion. Where, in the world without, the human mind, under 
 the powerful stimulus of war, was manifesting itself in a curi- 
 ous assortment of patriotic activities, self-sacrifices, and fever- 
 ish efforts to turn a new leaf and start 'afresh on a better 
 basis, Crestelridge merely smiled sagaciously and murmured: 
 "Business as usual," then proceeded to draw in its greatly 
 increased profits and vastly extend its already magnificent scale 
 of material- living. And this it did quite oblivious of the por- 
 tentous fact that in the sodden trenches of Flanders scions of 
 aristocracy, tradesmen, educators, and iron-fisted laborers were 
 fighting side by side in a struggle that must eventually shatter 
 the pernicious system of caste that gave this suburb its nar- 
 cotizing sense of secure isolation. 
 
 But if its spiritual guide hid his head before the rushing 
 whirlwind and refused to know that two thousand years of 
 ecclesiastical organization had failed to produce a single Chris- 
 tian, so countless theologians in the larger world outside were 
 doing, and to that extent he was their type. If its self- 
 appointed conserver of health was prostituting the holy pro- 
 fession of healing to sordid politics in order to enhance his 
 personal power, so, in the larger world without, countless polit- 
 ical doctors were doing in their blinding mesmerism, and to 
 that extent he was their type. If the immense fortune of the 
 Craggs and the dire poverty of David Barach existed side by 
 side, so, in the great world without, wealth and degrading des- 
 titution", uncontrolled luxury and beggary, ruthless waste and 
 starvation, still battled for supremacy, and were tolerated, per- 
 haps even approved, at least rendered possible, by the Chris- 
 tian nations. If the Chaddocks, the Telluses, and the Craggs, 
 driven by fear, were slaying their fellows that they might 
 prolong by a few years a human and utterly false sense of life, 
 so, in the world without, millions were doing, sacrificing the 
 saving principle of the brotherhood of man in their ignorance 
 of the stupendous fact that man does not live by bread alone, 
 but by thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking. . . 
 
 Such, then, was Crestelridge, after two years of unprece- 
 dented horror brought about by the very things for which she 
 stood. Such was Crestelridge when, on that portentous sixth 
 
 123 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of April, "seven times" from Nebuchadnezzar's dream-vision 
 of the great image, the Congress of the United States of America 
 solemnly declared that Manasseh should go to the aid of Eph- 
 raim in the great warfare with the modern descendants of the 
 worshipers of BeK 
 
 CHAPTER 17 
 
 UPON America's entrance into the great war the New World 
 immediately exploded in patriotic sentiment, with curious 
 manifestations of self-abnegation . and repentance, and a 
 temporary abrogation of the law of caste. Yet withal, it was 
 not to become a whit less material or more spiritual for the 
 experience. The effect upon Crestelridge'was a slight wobbling 
 of its aristocratic circles, for Uncle Sam was known to be no 
 respecter of persons or family trees, and these "first families" 
 had eligible sons. To Mrs. Cragg, it confirmed Alden's immu- 
 nity. Her deep rejoicing that solemn day sprang not from 
 motives of patriotism or love of her fellow men, but from pure 
 egoism. "Think of it!" she cried to Alden, who had been given 
 camp leave for the day-— "on account of his complicated busi- 
 ness affairs," his mother had again explained to Colonel Tenn 
 ^"you will have the glory without any of the danger! The 
 Americans will do all the fighting now, and you will stay here! 
 Ted Sayor and Harris Chaddock and WalUe Black will have 
 to go, instead of you! Oh, what a blessed relief!" And she 
 burst into' tears of joy. 
 
 Then the practical mother dried her eyes and gave thought 
 to a fitting symbolizing of the close of the Lenten season of 
 her sorely-tried soul. This she at length decided should take 
 the form of a social function. . . 
 
 "Let's see," she reflected, "next Sunday is Easter, Very 
 well, we will ask the Whittiers to join with us in an announce- 
 ment party for you and Ethel, to be given here Monday 
 evening," 
 
 "But, mother," the startled Alden objected, "that's rush- 
 ing, things a bit! It . . . it's hardly conventional, ye know," 
 
 "Perfectly conventional," his mother firmly contradicted, "I 
 shall telephone the order for invitations and favors now, a 
 rush ord§r, to be engraved and in the mail to-morrow night, 
 with a bonus of a hundred dollars for doing it. We'll place 
 everything in the hands of caterers, and give them carte 
 blanche. Call Squires and help get things started. Have him 
 get the rector on the 'phone. Oh, isn't it glorious!" And the 
 austere, formal woman almost clapped her hands. 
 
 124 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Moreover, this social function would consolidate Alden's 
 restored prestige. Of course, it would be exclusive in the nar- 
 rowest sense, and yet Mrs. Cragg's expanding heart had warmed 
 to such an extent that she was considering inviting Colonel 
 Tenn, in token of the favors which he had extended to them. 
 But, alas! the colonel's texture was scarcely line enough to 
 gain recognition from the Crestelridge set — and yet, with 
 America in the war, might there not occur the same leveling 
 here that was taking place in England? And would it not be 
 the part of wisdom to anticipate it thus? "What do you think, 
 Alden?" she asked. 
 
 But Alden shook his head. "Colonel Tenn is like the Yan- 
 kees; he's so bally uncouth he'd disgrace us in our drawing- 
 room." 
 
 "But we might stretch a point, just to keep his good favor," 
 she urged. "He stands high in England." 
 
 "We don't want his favor. My word! I hope you don't 
 think there's any danger of my being sent to France now!" 
 
 "Not the slightest." She laughed lightly. "But it is some- 
 times policy to stoop a bit and curry favor with the masses. 
 They are often useful. I had thought of giving a little party for 
 your camp mates. . ." 
 
 "Now, I say, mother!" cried Alden, aghast. "Those rotters? 
 Ask them into my house? My word! Why, it's all I can do to 
 look at 'em in camp ! I'm sure I don't mingle with 'em ! That's 
 why Colonel Tenn is so willing to give me leave; he knows I 
 don't belong there! Invite that scum to 'CraggmOnt'? Why, I'd 
 as soon ask that fellow Barach here!" And the youth carried 
 the day. 
 
 But, though they might not at once and so drastically remove 
 the limitations of caste as Mrs. Cragg had indicated, neverthe- 
 less in their joy over the saving turn of events they did decide 
 magnanimously to forgive Marian's excess of zeal that had 
 rushed Alden into the very position which, under the present 
 circumstances, he would have chosen to occupy. "Call up Ted 
 and Harris and Wallie," Mrs. Cragg suggested, "and tell them 
 to bring Madeline and Louise and some of the other girls over 
 here to-night. I'll telephone for an entertainer, and we'll have 
 a caterer come in, and you young people can dance afterwards 
 . . . And, when you get Ethel, bring Marian, too. Or tell Otto 
 to bring her." 
 
 But Marian begged to decline the invitation. And Mrs. Cragg 
 having learned from the indiscreet rector that Otto Hoeffel was 
 nursing a grievance against Marian, granted the girl's plea on 
 that ground and sighed her own relief over the avoidance of 
 possible embarrassment. 
 
 125 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 To Madam Galuth, however, Marian voiced a reason quite 
 different from the one which the rector had afforded Mrs. 
 Cragg. "I can't live the sort of life they lead," she lamented. 
 "I am not interested in the foolish things they talk about. . . 
 They never speak of real things. Their lives are spent wan- 
 dering among the shadows. Their conversation is all of money 
 and society; their time is wasted in silly chatter and banter- 
 ing, or in the discussion of discord and disease. It is 'My 
 doctor says this,' or 'Mama's doctor won't let her .do that'. . . 
 The doctors are their sole guides, their absolute authority, their 
 gods. They never mention the name of God, although . they 
 talk about His opposite, evil, by the hour. It seems that they 
 can't think of anything but error." 
 
 "An indulgence that is costing them dear," said the woman. 
 "But can't you show them, by example at least, a better way?" 
 
 The girl shook her head. "What if I should remind them 
 that Paul tells us to think about the things that are true, and 
 honest, and just, and pure, and only of good report? They 
 would cast me out!" 
 
 "Yes, I know, people are ashamed to discuss spiritual mat- 
 ters," the woman answered with a sigh. "If you so far forget 
 proprieties as to mention the name of God in your conversa- 
 tion, society will be properly shocked. And yet God is man's 
 very life! Oh, the mesmerism of animal magnetism, that so 
 blinds mankind to Truth !"■ 
 
 "God means nothing to these people," said Marian. "His 
 name is not heard, except in blasphemy, so completely has 
 mortal mind reversed everything real. Oh, isn't it strange that 
 the one thing not taught in our schools is a knowledge of God, 
 Whom to know aright is tife eternal and present health, hap- 
 piness, success, and harmony?" 
 
 "And yet," said the woman, "you cannot abandon these 
 people, dearie. Indeed, you must consecrate yourself the more 
 completely to them." 
 
 "They are dead." 
 
 "Then you must raise them." 
 
 The girl clasped her hands before her. "Oh," she cried, "I 
 long to ! Oh, I must rouse myself out of the belief that they 
 are dead, out of the belief that any must die! For then only 
 shall death be overcome!" 
 
 "Go, child, and destroy the hypnotic belief that death is the 
 master of life. Go, use the name of God freely, that the people 
 may become accustomed to it. So did Jesus, the most suc- 
 cessful man who ever trod the earth. His conversation was 
 continually of God. But it was not mere chatter. It was the 
 voicing of an intimate knowledge of God that could and did 
 overmaster death." 
 
 126 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 To this isolated woman, -whom the inert minds of Crestel- 
 ridge regarded as an aged harridan, the girl was a prophecy 
 whose fulfillment was imminent. "Crestelridge needs you," 
 she said; "the poor, war- weary world needs you. The mills are 
 grinding, and the people are being sifted, sifted. . . But you 
 will remain, purified by the fire. You will not yield again to 
 fear. And the splendid promise : 'The inhabitant shall no more 
 say, I am sick' is awaiting fulfillment through you. Go. And, 
 as you go, know that you sire governed only by God, divine 
 Consideration; and know that you cannot be made to yield 
 obedience to any other power, for other power is there none. 
 Go, knowing that obedience to Principle is the key to salvation, 
 even as Abraham knew it. That it will solve every problem, 
 even to raising the dead. Obedience is the child of Love, and 
 Love neutralizes every fear. Go, for Alden needs you. Yes, he 
 is dead. . . But you can raise him. And you will do it in the 
 way that the Master pointed out at Lazarus' tomb. . ." 
 
 And the girl left the woman's presence more resolute than 
 ever to master the "secret" of the Nazarene carpenter, to whom 
 death was never but a phase of the "one lie" about Truth. 
 Back into the stifling ecclesiastical atmosphere of the rectory 
 she went with renewed consecration. 
 
 It was the opinion of the rector, born of Alden's wild talk 
 immediately after his enlistment, that it was Madam Galuth 
 who was responsible for Marian's aggressive conduct toward 
 the youth. She it was. whose influence had driven Alden into 
 the army, acting through her free channel, the girl. And now, 
 while the world was so vigorously cleaning house, it were well 
 if Crestelridge should rid itself of this element so disturbing 
 to its material ease. Something that Doctor Roake had said — 
 a mere casual remark, no doubt — remained with the rector; 
 and he now sought unto the physician for its amplification. 
 
 "Why," that gentleman explained, in his dreamy voice, "I 
 possibly may have referred to the report that she had done 
 healing — ^in her peculiar manner — without a license. While I 
 wish to have suffering relieved, through whatever means, yet I 
 believe we should conform to the law. The precedent is . . . 
 injurious." 
 
 "She should be arrested!" the rector declared indignantly. 
 "She should be driven from Crestelridge!" 
 
 "A bit harsh," the doctor reflected, examining his cigar 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Not at all! Not at all! I shall see that her case is laid 
 before the proper authorities!" the rector returned excitedly, 
 knowing now that he would have the doctor's powerful 
 support. 
 
 127 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Weil," the doctor said, slowly, "the moral and spiritual 
 welfare of the community is in your hands, and I must not 
 interfere. I feel sorry for her . . , but of course . . ." 
 
 But then the rector's zeal met with a most unanticipated 
 check, for he had scarce outlined the course to be pursued 
 with respect to the woman when, entering the International 
 Club to keep an appointment, he was accosted by Doctor 
 Benson. 
 
 "Look here," cried the genial doctor, with a laugh, "that girl 
 of yours is stealing my patients !. If this keeps up I'll lose my 
 practice!" 
 
 "My girl?" The rector's thought fle^v to Ethel. "Explain." 
 
 "I had a fever patient . . . Didn't Marian tell you? The 
 rogue ! Down in the Hebrew district ... a little girl ... I'd 
 about given her up. Somehow, Marian discovered it. I was 
 dismissed. And ..." 
 
 "Heavens!" cried the rector, aghast; "did Marian -interfere 
 and cause the child's death? I've been expecting this very 
 thing!" 
 
 "Humph!" The doctor shook his head, then broke into a 
 chuckle. "She interfered, yes. And . . . cured the child." 
 
 And thereupon the rector's well-laid plan to persecute the 
 Galuth woman from the town suffered fracas; for he could not 
 denounce her without likewise denouncing Mariaji. . , And 
 he had no taste for further disgrace! 
 
 But he hurried back to Doctor Roake and unbosomed him- 
 self. And thereupon the doctor laughed heartily at the rector's 
 chagrin, and loudly praised Marian's skill and daring. "Better 
 shift the indictment against the woman to the ground of insan- 
 ity," suggested the doctor, still laughing. And the lector left 
 his presence with the germ of another idea. 
 
 . When he was gone, the doctor sat for some moments, deep 
 in thought; sat thus until the door opened and Senator Chad- 
 dock entered, unannounced, as was his privilege. The senator 
 came- forward smiling. 
 
 "I didn't intend coming up here," he said, taking a chair; 
 "in fact, I came rather against my inclinations. I'm always 
 doing things of late that I don't intend to. I . . . Well, we're 
 at war! ... Do you suppose they've shelved the Wess bill?" 
 
 The doctor shook his head, while keeping his eyes steadily 
 on the senator. "They will pass it, probably to-day," he said. 
 
 "How can you be so positive?" 
 
 "Have you done all you could?" the doctor asked. 
 
 "Egad!" the senator exclaimed; "everything!" 
 
 "I have done my work," the doctor said simply. 
 
 The senator sat staring at him. Then: "And you're sure 
 
 128 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Harris will be appointed Health Executive ? Egad ! He'll make 
 good use of the appointment ! He'll break into the boudoir of 
 every pretty girl in Crestelridge the very day his appointment is 
 made! It'll be his duty, you know . . . and his privilege, eh? 
 Ha! ha! But, I say, Roake," becoming again serious, "you've 
 left me in the lurch . . . and after all I've done for you!" 
 
 "Why, my dear fellow! Explain," said the doctor sympa- 
 thetically 
 
 "Well," the senator elucidated, "young Cragg is still here, 
 strutting around like a game rooster, fSted and dined and 
 fawned over ! And he has taken Ethel Whittier right out from 
 under Harris' nose! The cowardly slacker! Ashamed to 
 become an American citizen! Bah! he makes me sick!" 
 
 The doctor seemed to meditate for some time before reply- 
 ing. Then he looked up at the senator. "I see that that fellow 
 Barach lost his wife," he said with apparent irrelevance. 
 
 "Humph!" growled the senator. "Another Jew gone. The 
 world's so much the better off." 
 
 "I suppose," the doctor continued, and closely watching the 
 senator's face, "that Barach lays his wife's death to the Craggs." 
 
 The senator started. "To the . . . Craggs?" he repeated. 
 "I . . . But why are you looking at me that way?" 
 
 The doctor's shoulders went up slightly. "I wonder," he 
 said, "if Barach is planning to have it out with them." 
 
 "Why, the Jew is helpless! What could he do that he 
 could get away with?" 
 
 The doctor laughed lightly. "Well," he suggested, "he 
 might enlist in Cragg's regiment on the chance that Cragg will 
 be sent to France . . ." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 ". . . and if he is, then get him in 'No Man's Land'." 
 
 The senator took the cigar from his mouth and stared hard 
 at the doctor. "Egad!" he exploded, "he could do that!" 
 
 That night David Barach lurked about the great fence at 
 "Craggmont," as was now his wont, and watched Alden enter 
 the big limousine to be driven back to camp, where he would 
 be received in ominous silence, but with winks and nods and 
 significant shrugs of broad shoulders. At the same time Sen- 
 ator Chaddock and his son Harris sat in close conference in the 
 senator's hotel; and in their earnest talk they spoke often the 
 name of the outcast Jew. 
 
 129 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 18 
 
 TO the millionaires of Crestelridge the war had fallen as 
 a gift of the gods, enhanced now by America's entrance. 
 To Ted Sayor, than whom none could be more securely 
 buttressed, it had been a decidedly entertaining spectacle while 
 viewed from the lounging room of the International Club, a 
 curiously interesting spectacle that justified his religious skep- 
 ticism, confirmed his fatalistic views, and fed his cynicism with 
 stimulating pap. But with a more intimate acquaintance now 
 imminent, his face grew serious and his brow clouded. "Boots," 
 he queried, "what are we going to do about it?" 
 
 "If it is all the same to you, sir, I shall enlist," that worthy 
 lackey replied. 
 I "But it's not all the same to me," Ted snapped. 
 
 "Then I shall have to enlist anyway, sir. Sorry, sir, 
 but . . ." 
 
 "Go to thunder!" growled Ted, and thrust the valet out of 
 his presence. Then, after much serious meditation, he 
 bethought himself to pay a luncheon debt, and he recalled his 
 valet. And while he was being carefully molded into the exact 
 attire dictated by fashion, he studied his social calendar, com- 
 menting feelingly to his sympathetic servitor while doing so. 
 "The war's going to put a stop to these parlor-anarchist 
 seances. Boots," he said. "Then where are we going to learn 
 that the world's dead wrong and that the I. W. W.'s and thp 
 Sinn Feiners and the social reformers are the only ones who 
 can put it right?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; quite right, sir." 
 
 "If you ever have to earn your living. Boots, let me tell you 
 what I've learned from these red-flagger guests in the homes 
 of our wealthy dames. You want to do it quietly, never in 
 the open. Keep on working at your job all the time, but 
 just drop a bolt in the gears here, or a hammer in the cogs 
 over there, or gently fix the boilers so's they'll explode acci- 
 dently • . , You see. Boots, in this way you accomplish the 
 maximum destruction without exposing yourself to discovery, 
 and your pay goes right on. Besides, you don't lose your 
 reputation for square dealing. Oh, I've learned some great 
 stuff in these gatherings of the 'broad-minded.' But the old 
 dames have switched over-night, since America went into the 
 fuss. Old lady Bloomen, who financed the 'People's Forum' 
 so's the 'Reds' could dilate on persecuted Germany, has just 
 subscribed a hundred thousand to the Red Cross and the War 
 
 130 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Fund. Can you beat it? And, look here," pointing to a date 
 on his calendar, "that's in honor "of Private Alden Cragg, of 
 His Majesty's Fusiliers. His Majesty's Foozeleers, Boots," dig- 
 ging the valet with his elbow; "do you get that? There's 
 nothing like recognizing the psychological moment for a 
 patriotic roar." 
 
 Seated at the table with Doctor Roake in the club grill, 
 to whom he was paying his luncheon debt, Ted felt his spirits 
 revive. "Do you know. Doc," he said grinning across at the 
 genial doctor, "if I didn't regard you as 'a mere dull physician' 
 I'd ask you to prescribe for me." 
 
 The doctor studied him carefully before replying, "Well," 
 he said at length, "a dunce sometimes hits upon a remedy. 
 What are your symptoms?" 
 
 "Inability to get you out of my thoughts," said Ted bluntly. 
 The doctor's brows went up slightly at this; but Ted hurried 
 on. "My thought of you has been insistent of late, and always 
 associated with money. I believe I'm going to hire you as a 
 substitute for me in this war." 
 
 The doctor laughed. "So that's worrying you, is it? Are 
 you of draft age?" 
 
 "Yes, unfortunately." 
 
 A pause followed. Then the doctor spoke. "Ted, as I have 
 said before, you need a vital interest. You ought to join us in 
 Primal Motors. It's a 'war-baby.' Stock jumped six points 
 to-day on the rumor of a reorganization." 
 
 "Oh, I won't need Primal Motors if I'm going to war," said 
 Ted dolefully. 
 
 "Nonsense! You are not going to war, Ted. You are 
 physically unfit. You are tubercular. Your father had it. . ." 
 
 "Why, man! he died of pneumonia," Ted exclaimed in 
 amazement. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "It was his tubercular condi- 
 tion that rendered him susceptible to pneumonia. I knew of 
 the case. And your mother . . ." 
 
 "I don't know what caused her death," said Ted. "I was 
 a year old." 
 
 The doctor nodded. "She went the same way," he declared 
 decidedly. "Tuberculosis. They used to call it consumption 
 in those good old days. And, Ted," speaking seriously, "you 
 can't take any chances." 
 
 Ted laughed sardonically. "Doc," he said, "I never took 
 a chance in my. life. But here's where I shall not be consulted. 
 The Government . . ." 
 
 "But you will be rejected, Ted. I shall be appointed to 
 the examining board." 
 
 131 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Ted stared at the doctor with wide eyes. "Then my fate 
 rests with you?" he said slowly. 
 
 "Why, Ted, I wouldn't accept a tubercular subject. But 
 this is between us, you understand. Now, listen : you are coin- 
 ing in with us on Primal Motors. Let Chaddock handle it 
 for you . . . There he is now," looking off toward the door- 
 way through which Senator Chaddock and the Reverend Wil- 
 son Whittier were entering. 
 
 Ted rose and signalled to the newcomers, who, on Ted's 
 insistence, joined him and the doctor at table. "Now," laughed 
 Ted, when they were seated, "we have Politics, Medicine, and 
 Religion at the same board. I think this country is going to 
 see strange things from that combination in the next few 
 years." 
 
 "Well, Ted," the doctor answered, "as I have told you, 
 Medicine is open to suggestions for its improvement.", 
 
 "Good," Ted returned promptly. "I suggest that the old 
 Chinese system be adopted, whereby when a medic failed to 
 deliver the goods his head was cut off and placed among the 
 assets of the deceased." 
 
 The senator and the rector looked at Doctor Roake, won- 
 dering whether to laugh. But the doctor accepted Ted's rail- 
 lery in good part and rejoined heartily: "Why, for that matter, 
 Ted, we dpctors lose our heads often enough as it is. And 
 ... But, speaking of Orientals, who are your friends over 
 there?" indicating several Japanese gentlemen of distinguished 
 appearance who came into the grill at that moment in com- 
 pany with various members high in club circles. 
 
 "They look like the Japs who attended St. Jude's last Sun- 
 day," said the senator, staring at them. 
 
 The rector winced; but Ted spoke up briskly: "They are. 
 I've heard them talking. They're staying here at the Club. 
 They are the commission sent over here by the Tokio Govern- 
 ment to report on the influence of Christianity on the American 
 people. Haven't you read their report in this morning's papers? 
 It says that education, commerce, and industry have been 
 developed in America in a remarkable degree, but that there 
 is little evidence that the Christian religion is regarded by 
 most of our people as important." 
 
 "They are hardly able to judge intelligently on such short 
 acquaintance with our Christian system," said the doctor, 
 shooting a quick glance at the red-faced rector. 
 
 "But," Ted argued, "they say they find that the very thing 
 that, because of its pretensions, should have saved the world 
 from this war, namely, the Church, is miserably helpless. I've 
 heard them discuss the Bible here too, and they don't leave 
 
 132 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 much of it! Last night I heard one of them saying that he 
 read in our sacred books — in Genesis, I think it was — about 
 Manasseh, whose descendants were to be a great people; and 
 of his younger brother, Ephraim, who was to be even greater 
 than Manasseh, and whose seed was to be a multitude of 
 nations, and he blandly asked if we believed these two would 
 be represented at the Peace Conference when the war ends — 
 if it ever does. ... But if there isn't Cragg! Oh, Aldy-boy!" 
 he called, rising and signalling to Alden, who had just peered 
 furtively through the half-open door. "Come and join us!" 
 
 The rector sighed his relief, Senator Chaddock tjirew a 
 quizzical look at Doctor Roake; but the doctor smiled genially 
 and nodded cordially toward Alden, who now swaggered across 
 the room, head high and shoulders thrown back, and drew a 
 chair up to the table. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Ted, addressing the others, and waving 
 a hand toward Alden, "we welcome the Army to our circle. 
 Religion, Politics, Medicine, War . . . Ah," shaking his head 
 as he sat down again, "poor old world! Poor old world!" 
 
 "You fail to include yourself, Ted," said the doctor. 
 
 "Add Atheism, then . . . and let the suffering world give 
 up the ghost," Ted murmured. 
 
 "I say," Alden protested, "I object . . . there are Chris- 
 tians and intelligent churchmen here. . ." 
 
 "Ah!" Ted sighed, "then there is a subtle distinction be- 
 tween the two!" 
 
 There was a general laugh at Alden's expense, although 
 the rector's sounded mirthless. "But, tell me," Ted went on 
 ruthlessly, "into which class does your friend Barach fall? I 
 saw by the paper that you had him arrested." 
 
 Alden's face flushed. The senator noticed it, and his head 
 nodded slightly toward Doctor Roake. "Barach," said Alden 
 meanly, "is an anarchist. He has no religion." 
 
 "But he is intelligent," Ted insisted. 
 
 "That's right," the senator put in. "Where would Primal 
 Motors be but for his invention? He is a stockholder, you 
 know," turning to Ted. "Employed by the company." 
 
 "He has been let out," said Alden, and there was an exul- 
 tant note in his voice. "Primal Motors is being reorganized." 
 
 "But he remains a stockholder. . ." 
 
 "He does not," declared Alden with some heat. "Mother 
 and I have bought the company for its debts." 
 
 "Oi! oi! oi!" exclaimed Ted. "A scotched Jew! Remember 
 what Frederick the Great said: 'Meddle not with those people 
 called Jews, for no man ever touched them and prospered'." 
 
 Alden threw him a frightened glance. But Doctor Roake 
 
 133 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 appeared to be strangely interested. "The Jews," he said 
 thoughtfully, "seem to be waking up. There is a marked stir 
 among them." 
 
 "Have you ever looked into their history?" asked Ted. "I 
 haven't myself, but I've heard Marian Whittier talk. . . Do 
 you know anything about this Anglo-Israel idea, and the Jew- 
 ish movement for a return to Palestine, and all that?" 
 
 "The war," said Doctor Roake, "has wrecked the Zionist 
 Organization — or will do so. Jewry was trying to organize, 
 but it has now been completely shattered." 
 
 "Humph! Not according to Marian. The British Govern- 
 ment is going to . . ." 
 
 "To do nothing," the doctor finished quickly. 
 
 "All right," said Ted, shrugging his shoulders. "I refer you 
 to Marian. She predicted this war . . . gave the exact date, 
 1914. Said America would get into it in 1917; and here we are. 
 And so what she said about the British capturing Palestine goes 
 with me. I'm mighty near inclined to believe all she says about 
 Bible prophecy . . . Daniel and the whole clique." 
 
 "Daniel!" exclaimed the rector. "Er . . . what was her 
 reference to Daniel, Ted?" 
 
 There was a long pause, during which Ted sat studying his 
 plate while the others watched him expectantly. Then he looked 
 up. "Gentlemen," he said, in a voice whose solemnity com- 
 ported strangely with his customary levity, "we would know, 
 if we were not swine, with our snouts in the mud." 
 
 At that moment Harris Chaddock entered the grill in search 
 of his father. Alden saw him, and rose quickly, his face white. 
 "I'll have to call my car now, Ted," he said in a jerky voice, 
 and glancing nervously at the approaching Harris. "I . . . I'll 
 see you all again on my next leave." He bowed stiffly and 
 hurried away. 
 
 "Well, Harris?" said the senator, looking up at his son. 
 
 The young man greeted the others and dropped into a chair. 
 "The Wess bill has passed," he announced, his gaze curiously 
 following Alden's retreating figure. 
 
 "Egad!" the senator almost shouted. 
 
 "With the amendments?" the doctor asked eagerly. 
 
 "What amendments?" Ted sharply questioned. 
 
 "The provision that it shall not be controlled or limited by 
 any other provision of the Constitution of this State except 
 the referendum," the doctor answered. "How would you 
 interpret that. Senator?" he queried. 
 
 "I'll tell you how / would interpret it," Ted put in heatedly: 
 "it destroys every constitutional right of the individual, and 
 clears away every constitutional restraint from the legislature 
 
 134 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 so that you fellows can put through any sort of health measure 
 you wish. Once fastened upon the people, they can't remove 
 it, for even the right of initiative is denied them." 
 
 "But the people, Ted," the doctor explained, "are always the 
 court of last resort." 
 
 "They can't be aroused!" Ted declared. "Their perfect 
 indifference is the greatest asset the politicians could have. . ." 
 
 "But there are certain constitutional rights. . ." 
 
 Ted turned to the senator. "Let me ask you, Senator," he 
 demanded, "can the Constitution of the United States be so 
 construed as, for example, to entitle school children to exemp- 
 tion from compulsory medical examination?" ' 
 
 The senator hesitated. Finally he replied: "In spite of 
 the personal inviolability provision of the Constitution, I believe 
 such examination could be made compulsory." 
 
 "And so do I!" Ted agreed vehemently. "And why? Simply 
 because of the hold that materia medica has on the people! 
 They would wreck their Constitution for it, as they do their 
 constitutions!" 
 
 "But surely, Ted, in the interests of public health you must 
 approve such a beneficent measure as compulsory medical exam- 
 ination, both in the home and the school," the rector urged. 
 
 "I do not!" Ted replied loudly, bringing his hand down 
 heavily upon the table. "And to defeat it I'd stake every penny 
 I possess ! I'd stake my very life !" 
 
 Senator Chaddock looked apprehensively toward the doctor. 
 The rector peered over his glasses at Ted and shook his head. 
 Harris Chaddock's lip curled, and he glanced at Doctor Roake. 
 The latter slowly pushed back his plate and drew out a cigar. 
 Very carefully he ignited it, drew upon it until it was burn- 
 ing well, then took it from his mouth and sat back, examining 
 it thoughtfully. "I am sorry," he said at length, and quite 
 deliberately, "that I shall not be able to attend Alden's party 
 to-morrow night. I shall be in Washington." 
 
 The others exchanged inquiring glances. Ted Sayor flushed 
 angrily at the slight. The rector exclaimed in protest : "Why, 
 Doctor, we can't spare you! It is the young people's betrothal 
 announcement !" 
 
 "I regret . . . deeply," said the doctor in a low, sympathetic 
 voice. "But I am called to the Capital in regard to some troop 
 movements. I understand," he added, as he again fell to study- 
 ing his cigar, "that some of the undesirables, German sym- 
 pathizers, are being rounded up. But," he concluded quickly, 
 "I must go now to a clinic." 
 
 As the party dispersed Harris Chaddock took his father's 
 arm. "Did he mean Otto Hoeffel?" he asked in an undertone. 
 
 135 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "By gad! I've suspected him! He wanted to marry Marian 
 before he'd have to leave, eh? The cur!" 
 
 "Eh? Oh, can't say, I'm sure. These are strange times. 
 I'm all confused. But where do you come from now?" 
 
 The son glanced about before replying. "I ran down Barach," 
 he said in a low voice, turning again to his father. "Told him 
 I was associated with Doctor Roake, and was sorry I didn't 
 know about his wife, as I'd have taken her case myself for a 
 clinic. Asked him to give me the details . . ." 
 
 And, as Harris went on to inform his eagerly listening 
 fathef, Barach did give him the details, though to do so tore 
 open afresh his awful wounds. And, as the young man did 
 not add, but as his father rightly guessed, that was exactly the 
 preparation desired. To denounce the heartlessness of those 
 who had done her to death was Harris' next course with the 
 crazed Barach. The final one was the casual recital^sugges- 
 tion, were better — of the manner in which an acquaintance 
 had taken his revenge for an injury by no means so great. 
 Then young Chaddock had sped away in his red car, a demon 
 incarnadine, leaving Barach dizzy with the swift working of 
 the drachme. 
 
 CHAPTER 19 
 
 MONDAY morning dawned clear and mild, and Crestelridge 
 gentility yawned and stretched itself and began prepara- . 
 tions for the elaborate Cragg function to be given that 
 evening. Mrs. Kerl called Ted Sayor by 'phone before he was 
 out of bed. "So sorry, Teddybear," she purred, "but Mr. Kerl 
 got home last night, arid of course I'll have to go to the party 
 with him. But I'll save every dance for you, if you wish. And 
 you do, don't you? Oh, I don't care what people say!". . . 
 
 It was an eleventh-hour decision with Mrs. Cragg, after a 
 perfunctory consultation with Mrs. Whittier, to turn the 
 announcement party into a sort of fete champitre on the park- 
 like lawn beneath the great trees. And so she directed her 
 corps of servants to spread rich rugs over the still sleeping 
 grass, to hang gaudy lanterns among the branches, and set out 
 furniture in appropriate spots. Then she called in mechanics 
 and plumbers and electricians to string wires, place lamps, and 
 arrange to illuminate the fountains in patriotic red, white and 
 blue. Flags of the Allies, with those of America and Great 
 Britain predominating, were tastefully draped about; the great 
 rooms of the mansion were artistically decorated; colored light- 
 ing effects were arranged for the ballroom; an orchestra was 
 
 136 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 engaged for within, and a full band for tlie yard; in addition, 
 a prominent tenor was secured for the occasion, as well as a 
 dramatic reader and a celebrated male quartette. New York 
 florists and caterers were in charge of the arrangements and 
 elaborate refreshments. The Reverend Wilson Whittier had 
 promised to give a short post-Lenten address. Senator Chad- 
 dock would talk — and masterfully, as everyone knew — on mat- 
 ters patriotic. And the entire affair would be a gorgeous cele- 
 bration, signalizing the union of England and America in the 
 righteous cause of freedom — "Particularly Alden's," thought 
 Ted Sayor, as he busily assisted Mrs. Cragg that afternoon 
 and heard her announce this resonant motif. 
 
 But then, toward evening, it rained. And the hundred elab- 
 orately gowned and tailored guests had to be herded through 
 the long canvas tunnel and into the house without so much as 
 a peep at the bedraggled splendor of the soaking lawn. 
 
 "I just know I shall catch my death o' cold!" Mrs. Tellus 
 lamented, as she clung to her disgruntled husband's arm and 
 stumbled up the marble steps. 
 
 "Well," he snapped between his chattering teeth, "your 
 favorite hymn is 'I would not live alway*. . ." 
 
 The enormously rich Mrs. Dodd, having carefully inciner- 
 ated what remained of her long-suffering husband some years 
 before, was escorted to the door by her footman, her maid 
 following with a handbag "of wisely assembled toilet articles 
 and emergency preparations. "Oh, the dear Telluses!" she 
 wheezed, lumbering up to this prickly couple. "My, ain't this 
 a shame! And I got up from nervous prostration just to come 
 here and see the sights! Here, William, take Bubbles," turn- 
 ing to the footman and delivering a tiny Pomeranian pup into 
 his arms. "And don't forget to warm her milk before you put 
 her to bed. I just had to bring her as far as I could," she 
 explained to the Telluses; "the poor little darling worries so 
 when I'm away." 
 
 On through the great glass doors the guests were flowmg 
 in a gilded stream. There were the Blacks, the Kerls, the 
 Chaddocks, all the cream of Crestelridge fair gentility. And 
 there were certain lesser lights, the rector's young assistant, 
 George Earl, for example, and Marian Whittier, who would 
 not be in the receiving line with her more fortunate sister. 
 And Harris Chaddock was there, though Alden now thoroughly 
 hated him, but felt obliged to invite him on the senator s 
 account. "We must be politic, Alden," his mother had advised. 
 "The senator is now handling our financial affairs, you know." 
 
 On they flowed, and into the charge of maids and valets, 
 to be passed by them to the flower-banked grand salon for 
 
 .12 137 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 presentation to the* bejeweled and bedizened Mrs. Cragg and 
 her stalwart uniformed son, and the bedecked and resplendent 
 Mrs. Whittier and radiant Ethel, who waited, stiffly proud and 
 formal, to receive them. "There are no prophets among these 
 great ones," sighed George Earl. "There are none of leader- 
 ship or vision. Reactionaries they are; worshipers of the great 
 god of Glad Well-being; unappreciative of the world-cataclysm; 
 defiant of change; fanatic supporters of orthodoxy; pacifists, 
 doggedly determined to deprive Armageddon of every vestige 
 of moral value, yet knowing not that their own world is dead 
 and that they are facing a new one with which they will have 
 little in common. . ." 
 
 "A half-million in contracts already signed up, Chaddock." 
 Mr. Tellus, having disposed of his wife, was expanding freely, 
 "Your tip about America going into the war was our making." 
 - "It's going to be the biggest baby of the bunch," said Kerl, 
 giving his tie a jerk and adjusting his three-carat stud. "Hello, 
 Black. Where's Roake?" 
 
 "Dunno. I say, Chaddock, how's Roake's suit against Bif- 
 ford coming out?" 
 
 "What's that?" asked Kerl, craning his long neck. "Some- 
 thing juicy about Bifford's wife? Let's have it." 
 
 "Why, no," the senator explained. "Roake sent Bifford a 
 bill for twenty-five thousand for treating his wife, and Bifford 
 wouldn't pay. So Roake sued him." 
 
 "Right," declared Kerl. "Bifford's a tight-wad. Um-m-m. 
 Did the lady get well?" 
 
 "No, she died," said the senator. "But they've settled out 
 of court for fifteen thousand." 
 
 Ted Sayor had sighed with relief over Mrs. Kerl's telephoned 
 message of the morning. Then he had called the rectory to 
 ask Marian if she was expected to be in the receiving line; and, 
 following her negative answer, had asked if he might escort 
 her to the function. "And I want you to give me every dance," 
 he said, with his thought on Mrs. Kerl, "for I've got a lot to 
 say to you." 
 
 The brilliant assemblage floated languidly, rapturously, 
 through the fairyland of wonderful "Craggmont," through the 
 gorgeously decorated salons and parlors and halls, with their 
 silks swishing and crackling like crisp new bank notes and 
 their jewels scintillating opulently in the dazzling light. Mrs. 
 Kerl drifted up to Mrs. Tellus with the gushing announcement 
 of the evening's program as just received from the well-nigh 
 transported Mrs. Whittier. "Who do you suppose is here?" 
 she exclaimed eagerly. "Flumenschein, the new poet! He's 
 going to read some of his own poems! Think of it! Oh, I do 
 
 138 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 hope he'll read that one about the severed toad ! How does it 
 go? We discussed it at the Culture Club last week, don't you 
 remember? Let's see: 
 
 'Warts, visage repellent, o'er field-wort, 
 stems of crops, invaders of muUen, 
 through darkness the destroyers seeking, 
 destroyed with iron, severed, God's image, 
 by image, great lord, boasted hero. . .' 
 
 You remember, don't you? It simply thrilled me! . . . ." 
 
 A blare of brass announced the opening of the ball. Alden 
 Cragg, mesmerized by the romance of his unique position, 
 stimulated beyond his powers of assimilation by the acclaim 
 showered upon him since his enlistment, lauded as a hero, 
 admired for his splendid appearance as a soldier, eulogized 
 for his patriotism, with his head now whirling and his heart 
 leaping, bent and offered his arm to resplendent Ethel Whit- 
 tier, and the twain stepped out upon the waxed floor of the 
 great ballroom. 
 
 Ted Sayor, with Marian Whittier on his aTm, fell into the 
 line of march. "I was intending to come alone," he said to 
 the girl ; "for I thought, if you weren't going to be in the receiv- 
 ing line, Harris Chaddock might bring you. Was mighty glad 
 when I heard he wasn't, for I don't want him to get to paying 
 attention to you." He laughed lightly. Then : "George Eliot 
 says somewhere that every man who isn't a monster or a 
 mathematician or a mad philosopher is the slave of some 
 woman. And I might as well say now as later that if I were 
 not in the first and third categories I'd be yours." 
 
 The girl looked up at him and smiled. "If you were my 
 slave," she said gently, "I'd set you free." 
 
 "I know that remark has a double entendu," he countered. 
 "Oh, I'm a slave, all right! But, do you know? I'm trying to 
 reform. Went to church Sunday to hear your father's sermon. 
 To be sure, I don't think the Lord understood it any better 
 than I, but . . . And, say, I'm getting myself in great condition 
 physically. . ." 
 
 "Are, you going to war?" she asked. 
 
 "Can't. Sorry. I'm tubercular, Roake says. He's on the 
 board. But I'm taking treatment . . . Do you know? I've got 
 a new theory. It's about the bones of the spine pinching the 
 spinal cord and causing all our miseries. I had Boots go all 
 over my spine to-night and adjust the bones before starting 
 over here, so's to avoid trouble. You know, that will eventually 
 become just as necessary as dressing," He laughed again; 
 jbut to the girl it sounded hollow. 
 
 139 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "It will become necessary if the human mind takes it up," 
 she agreed, studying- him closely. 
 
 "Well, I guess that's so. Oh, and I've got another. It's 
 about having all your teeth extracted so's to prevent insanity." 
 
 "Are you worried?" she asked naively. 
 
 He laughed. "Not a bit. I!ve no mind to lose. But, say, 
 to change the subject, Cragg and Ethel make a nifty-looking 
 couple, don't they? Gad! he's a handsome fellow! . . . Ah, 
 there's the dance jazz. Now I'll teach you the new limp I just 
 learned from my dancing master. It's a bit naughty, but 
 adorable. Ethel will love it." And they whirled away across 
 the floor. 
 
 "Jazz, you know," Ted explained, as they jostled about 
 through the crowd, "is a fitting expression of the present Kul- 
 tur era, eh? But Mrs. Kerl insists that it's really scientific 
 music. Can you beat it?" 
 
 "The science that she means is the sort that is now destroy- 
 ing our civilization," Afarian replied. 
 
 "She's . . . making a ... a science ... of love," Ted 
 panted. Then, abruptly, as the dance ended: "Where shall 
 we go?" 
 
 "Anywhere," said Marian, with a wistful little laugh, "where 
 we don't have to listen to vapid, frivolous society gabble or 
 disease talk or discourses on money-making." 
 
 "H'm !" Ted gave back, "communication with the North Pole 
 hasn't been established yet." 
 
 "Oh, I'd be willing to take a far longer and harder journey 
 to get away from it all," she declared. 
 
 "But you can't, you know. Don't you intend to take any 
 part in life?" 
 
 "Why, yes, Ted, a thinking part." 
 
 He laughed again, but with an effort she thought. Then 
 he became serious. "I say, Marian ... I want to talk some 
 things over with you. , , I've been feeling horribly depressed 
 of late. Will you talk to me . . . here . . . to-night?" 
 
 "Of course, Ted, gladly. And now, if you insist on my 
 taking an active part in this show that you call life, take me 
 over there across the room." 
 
 Ted complied and led her to where Harris Chaddock, Wallie 
 Black, Madeline Nence, and others of their particular set were 
 beginning to make the room ring with their laughter and loud 
 talk. "Here's the girl who predicted the war," Ted announced, 
 pushing Marian forward. "What shall we ..." 
 
 "Here, Marian," the grinning Freddy Kerl interrupted, 
 "read my palm and see if I'm going to be drafted." 
 
 "I say, Marian, how long is the war going to last, and which 
 
 140 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 side will win?" demanded Wallie Black.. "I've got some bets 
 up. If you hit it off right I'll split fifty-fifty with you." 
 
 "I'd rather you'd tell us what's become of Otto Hoeffel," 
 Harris Chaddock put in. "Do you remember that we saw him 
 on a- corner staring at us when we went driving the day Alden 
 and Ethel became engaged? Since then he's dropped out of 
 sight completely." ' 
 
 "Oh, Harris isn't asking about himself; he isn't afraid of 
 being drafted," Freddy cynically commented, "his father's got 
 influence." 
 
 "Well, yours has got money." 
 
 "Ted, I'll bet an even thousand you'll go," declared Wallie. 
 
 "I'll take that," Ted returned promptly, 
 
 "I say," Freddy put in, "let's get Alden over here and then 
 start talking about the atrocities, just to see him turn white 
 and make bis getaway. Why, down at the club every time 
 anybody mentions the killing in Europe Cragg runs out of the 
 room. . ." 
 
 To Marian Whittier, who long since had set her face firmly 
 against the materialism regnant in the shriveled souls of Cres- 
 telridge, the muggy, heavily scented air in the Cragg mansion 
 that night was stifling. But she had come wrapped in the 
 thought of consecration to these people, with the sense of her 
 duty to Alden deeply impressed upon her. And so to the vapid 
 remarks of her associates she strove to return answers that 
 were not pedantic, not prudish or critical. She entered into 
 their fun; she read their palms with an abandon that delighted 
 them; she prophesied ridiculous happenings that set them 
 roaring with laughter. Then she suddenly negatived it all by 
 telling them that their future lay within themselves and was 
 entirely a function of the externalization of their thinking. 
 
 "I wish we could get Alden over here," urged Freddy Kerl. 
 "I want Marian to read his palm. But he's so deucedly in love 
 with Ethel he won't leave her for a minute." At which remark 
 Harris Chaddock's eyes narrowed and gleamed. 
 
 A little flurry across the salon announced the arrival of the 
 rector, who, detained by an urgent matter of church polity, had 
 — to his very great annoyance — ^been prevented from standing 
 in the receiving line. "Ah, you worldly revelers!" they heard 
 him exclaim jovially, as he shook a finger at the merry throng; 
 "if Lent had lasted another day you would have . . ." 
 
 "We'd have burst!" a pink-faced doll finished, amid a 
 general laugh. 
 
 In the gilded music room below, the tenor was rendering a 
 passionate solo from an Italian opera. In the great library the 
 orchestra played softly, seductively, strains that caused the eyes 
 
 141 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of the young swains to turn amorously lipon the scantily 
 gowned, fluffy creatures snuggled at their sides. Serving-men 
 sped swiftly, noiselessly, hither and yon. Glasses clinked; 
 happy laughter rose everywhere; glad content warmed every 
 bosom. It was still a good, good world. . . 
 
 "What I wanted to say, Chaddock," Black was saying, glanc- 
 ing furtively al-ound, then drawing the senator still further 
 into the corner, "was that I don't want my boy drawn. Get 
 me? I suppose Kerl has said the same thing to you. But I 
 don't care a damn. Name your figure, but keep my boy out 
 of the army. Understand?" 
 
 The hours sped through "Craggmont's" halls in gladsome 
 revelry. Without, the drizzling rain lay upon the soaked earth 
 in muddy pools, and rose again in thick clouds of reeking mist. 
 To Marian's thought there was something portentous in the 
 sharp contrast. Try as she might, she could not shake off the 
 prescience of that something pending, something fell, imminent, 
 that was descending like a swart cloud, and that, when lifted, 
 would reveal the now gay mansion black and desolate, with its 
 careless inmates driven afar. "Oh, Tfed," she cried, when, after 
 the next dance, that young worldling came to her for the talk 
 she had promised him, "I wish I could tell you what I see, 
 what I have seen. . ." 
 
 "It is just that for which I have come," he said, and in a 
 tone so earnest that the girl looked at him in surprise. "Come 
 out to the conservatory with me. I've got a corner all arranged 
 for us. Look at that!" nodding toward the opposite side of 
 the room; "Ethel is flirting like mad with Harris Chaddock 
 right under Alden's eyes. Alden will have to keep busy with 
 the dear girl. She won't purr unless he keeps everlastingly 
 stroking her the right way. , . Oh, I beg your pardon! I 
 forgot she's your sister, really. And, yet, she isn't, is she? 
 She's a rare fruit, dangling from the topmost branch of the 
 famous Penberry tree, while you . . , H'm! . . ." 
 
 She laughed. "I am a modest weed, grateful for the shade 
 of her family tree." 
 
 A few moments afterward they were ensconced in the 
 secluded retreat which Ted had discovered. "I want to speak 
 to you, Marian," he began, "about . . . well. Doctor Roake, to 
 be candid. I've had several bouts with him of late, and I want 
 to know what you . . . well, how you size him up. I know 
 you have been opposing him . . . because he is a doctor. . ." 
 
 She interrupted him by laying a hand upon his arm. 
 "Understand me, Ted," she said: "with conscientious physi- 
 cians, with those who are honest, like old Doctor Benson, for 
 example, who are glad to progress, and who do not exploit 
 
 142 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 their patients, I am not at war. The honest doctor was never 
 so needed as in the present state of world-thought." ' 
 
 "Well, then you are against the political doctor. And you 
 consider Roake in that class. And • . . Say, Marian, is there 
 anything odd about him?" 
 
 The girl looked away. Ted waited for a moment, then went 
 on. "He seems to influence . . . people in some way," he said 
 hesitatingly. "And yet I can't point to a single thing that he 
 has really done. . . But I ... I don't . . . know. . ." 
 
 She turned quickly. "Ted," she exclaimed, "have you too 
 become enmeshed?" 
 
 His eyes and mouth gaped in astonishment. "Enmeshed!" 
 he muttered. Then, recovering: "No, I'm still running my 
 own affairs, if that's what you mean. But I do confess I need 
 help. And I thought perhaps you could . . ." 
 
 "I can, Ted," she cried eagerly. "But it must be in my 
 way." 
 
 He gave a gesture of impatience. "Oh, yes," he returned 
 peevishly, "I suppose it must be with your odd notions that 
 have set you at variance with the 'regulars' here. But I don't 
 want Bible verses quoted to me. Just start with the premise 
 that I'm an atheist. . ." 
 
 "But that is a false premise," she interrupted; "no man is 
 ever really an atheist. Deep within everybody there is an 
 instinctive acknowledgment of a higher power." 
 
 "But I don't believe in anything," he stoutly asserted. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you do," she returned; "you believe thoroughly 
 in the power of evil. Shall I prove it to you?" 
 
 "I defy you to! But, mind you, I'm not going to talk reli- 
 gion. You'll get to discoursing on God, the unknown quantity 
 that the theological mathematicians have been solving for since 
 time began, and we'll land nowhere. I don't care to hear again 
 that all things are mental, manufactured by a Creator who is 
 Mind. . . I say. He musi be a troubled mind to have permitted 
 this horrible war, eh?" 
 
 ."But what if. He did not permit it, Ted?" she asked, watch- 
 ing him closely. 
 
 "Then," he came back quickly, "some power did permit it 
 that is greater than your God. And I've got you there!" 
 
 "And you have thereby proved that you do believe thor- 
 oughly in the power of evil." She laughed at his wry face; 
 then: "Ted, dear, you are mentally twisted. The war shovvs 
 what happens when the people deny God, as you are doing." 
 
 "Well," he countered, "let us say then that I deny Chris- 
 tianity. All that Bible stuff— why, historically, it's sheer non- 
 sense! Zoroaster, you know, was supposed to be born of a 
 
 143 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 virgin mother. He began his ministry at the age of thirty, he 
 was tempted by demons who offered him the kingdoms of the 
 earth to renounce his faith — ^why, the Bible has copied his 
 history verbatim! Buddha, too, was supposed to be born of a 
 virgin. As for the Christian teaching, it is a horrible medley! 
 Its doctrine came largely from Alexandria; it was organized 
 at Rome; its ritual came in part from Asia Minor; its ethics 
 it got from Judea; its cosmopolitanism . . ." 
 
 "But its real Christianity it got from a Galilean carpenter," 
 she finished. 
 
 "Do you know," he demanded aggressively, "that modern 
 scholarship inclines to the view that there was no historical 
 Jesus?" 
 
 "Well, what if there were no historical Jesus?" she returned. 
 "Take away the human Jesus, if you will: we still have the 
 Christ." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "And Jesus himself bade his followers turn from his human 
 personality to the Christ. OIi, if the world had only done so! 
 If it would only do so to-Hay!" 
 
 "Well, tell me, where did theology get its horrible doctrine 
 of 'free moral agency'?" he demanded. "From this carpenter?" 
 
 "Not at all," she answered promptly, "but from the depraved 
 human mind. Don't forget, Ted, that about the year 312 A. 
 D. paganism swallowed Christianity, and what has generally 
 been taught in that sacred name since then has been . . ." 
 ' "Poison!" he interjected. 
 
 "You see," she went on, "after the time of the primitive 
 followers of Jesus and his disciples there grew up two so-called 
 Christian religions, one a gnosis, or wisdom, and the other a 
 popular religion for the people. The latter was used by the 
 Roman Emperor Constantine to absorb the former. Real 
 Christianity then ceased to exist among mankind. The so-called 
 popular Christian religion became a, powerful human force, 
 whose influence has gradually passed away. . ." 
 
 "Humph ! and left the sort of Christianity that Heine 
 denounced as inculcating such hound-like humility and angelic 
 patience as to make it the surest support of despotism. Heav- 
 ens! how it galled his scholarly withers." 
 
 "True Christianity," she replied, "disappeared, like an 
 underground river. And it is just coming to the surface." 
 
 "By heaven ! then it will soon disappear again, unless it is 
 based on fact. Do you know," he went on, manifesting now 
 a more sincere interest, "the failure of popular religion is due 
 to its being so unscientific? You don't find treatises on 
 mathematics, chemistry, or physics, dealing with such puerile 
 
 144 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 topics as angels. . . Of course," he hastened to add, his 
 eyes twinkling, "there are angels — I am not so far from one 
 now — ^but otherwise I'm wholly on the side of Darwin and 
 his apes." 
 
 "You are wholly on the side of matter," she said; "you are 
 the dupe of your five senses.'* 
 
 "There, you are getting into metaphysics! And metaphys- 
 ical conclusions when pushed too far become chimerical. It 
 asks us to accept as true what every natural science repudiates." 
 
 "Ted," she answered, "you are trying to believe in the reality 
 of both matter and mind, in the incorruptible man and the 
 corruptible mortal at the same time, and you are hopelessly 
 mired. No wonder the problems of life seem to you such 
 enigmas!" 
 
 "Now you are prosing again," he objected. "Let us say 
 that I am merely in a state of suspended belief, eh?" 
 
 "Not a bit suspended, but absolutely buried in matter," she 
 corrected. 
 
 "But I can't give up every human belief, as you seem to be 
 trying to do! It . . . why, it isn't common sense! And,. . . 
 Oh, well, after all, what's the use? I really don't care. Life's 
 short. . , And I am fixed to get through it all right. "So 
 'drink, eat, revel, and then join us,' as the Roman funeral 
 inscription reads." 
 
 "But, Ted, you can't afford to give up to such thoughts! 
 It is sheer suicide! For you arie confronted now with the com- 
 mand to begin the work of overcoming the flesh at every point. 
 To put off doing this is suicide, for the wages of sin is death, 
 and these wages will be paid to you while you are still waiting 
 to reform." 
 
 "But aren't you committing suicide?" he countered. You 
 have crossed swords with everybody here. . . Aren't you a bit 
 like the mule that refused to get off the track when the Lim- 
 ited was approaching?" „ 
 
 "But in this case I know the Limited to be powerless. 
 
 "But would I find it so if I opposed it?" 
 
 "That would rest with you, Ted," she replied. "For thmgs 
 have only the power that we give them." 
 
 "Theory, theory, dear girl." He suppressed a yawn. I 
 guess it's easier to drift with the current," he said, lool^ing off 
 toward the ballroom. "I'm not so dissatisfied with things as 
 
 they are." , , , ,. -,. 
 
 "Then if you are satisfied, Ted, why should we discuss it 
 
 any further?" ,^ . 
 
 "But I am not satisfied!" he blurted, wheeling upon her. 
 "I want ... I want something that I think you have and I 
 haven't. . . And yet I won't let you give it to me!" 
 
 145 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She again laid a hand on his arm. "Ted," she said earnestly, 
 "I know -what your trouble is: the call has come to you to 
 awake." 
 
 "And I don't want to get up!" he added, with a laugh. "I 
 never do." 
 
 "In a way, you are like I^vid'Barach, seeking the Messiah. 
 In more respects you resemble the rich young man who came to 
 Jesus, He could have had the Real if he had been willing to 
 give up the Unreal. Now you find no diflSculty whatever in 
 opposing the repulsive forms of error, but you are still attracted 
 by its pleasing forms. Like him, you don't want to give them 
 up. But this will ruin you, Ted, for you are denying your God." 
 
 "Oh, rubbish! Why, if God is our Father, then why — as 
 the old Egyptian papyrus says — are some of us treated in such 
 a step-fatherly fashion? Humph! ' I've always denied God, and 
 nothing has happened to me. I'm still here, and quite plenti- 
 fully supplied with victuals and drink." 
 
 "But now the command has come to you to choose," she 
 said gently. 
 
 "Well, suppose I do, will it meaii that" I must adopt the 
 views of . . . weil, of the Galuth, for example? And get talked 
 about?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You've adopted them, hook, sinker, line, and all?" 
 
 "My life is shaped by them." 
 
 He looked down at the floor, and sat thus for some time. 
 Then he raised his eyes to hers. "Everybody in our set is 
 laughing at you for curing that Jewish child with suggestion," 
 he said. "I can't afford to be laughed at." 
 
 Again he fell silent, while she sat waiting; and again, after 
 a long pause, he spoke. "Tell me, in a dozen words if you can, 
 your concept of Christianity." 
 
 "Thou shall have no other gods before Me," she replied 
 slowly. 
 
 "You're quoting again from the Bible," he said, smiling. 
 "Do you know that it is a repudiated authority? For at least 
 seven-eighths of it deals with promises to the Jews that have 
 never been fulfilled." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Ted," she answered him quickly. 
 "Those promises were made, not to the Jews, but to Israel." 
 
 "And," he went on, apparently not sensing her reply, "we 
 can prove that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could not 
 possibly have triumphed over caloric laws." 
 
 "And caloric so-called laws," she combated, "have again and 
 again been proved to be human beliefs of law." 
 
 "Look here," he said sharply, "you cured that Jewish child 
 by suggestion . . ," 
 
 146 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "No, Ted, I did not." 
 
 "Oh, well, that's as good a name as any for it. I see no 
 difference between that and taking medicine. Now I take 
 medicine . . ." 
 
 "Yes; and I do, too." 
 
 "Ah, then you admit it!" 
 
 "But you drink yours, while I think mine," she said. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, well . . ." 
 
 "Ted, dear," she continued, laying a hand gently on his, 
 "you think the world has treated you very well. And you are 
 quite satisfied. You love your sense of life — ^but it is an utterly 
 false sense that is betraying you. Its end is death." 
 
 "Perfectly natural," he disputed. "I do love life, but I have 
 no quarrel with death. It is natural, unavoidable, and con- 
 sistent. And it ends all." 
 
 "It does not, Ted. You can derive no comfort from your 
 mesmeric belief, for the human sense of life is a dream-con- 
 sciousness, which passes into the dream of death, only to enter 
 another state of consciousness . . ." 
 
 "Well, that's good. We begin all over again. So why . . ." 
 
 "But, Ted, while you will awake to another state of con- 
 sciousness, that State will prove to be a far unhappier one 
 than your present sense of life unless you improve your oppor- 
 tunity here to acquire 'that Mind which was in Christ Jesus' 
 and so regulate your thinking that the next state will be a 
 better and improved consciousness, from which you can go on 
 to a complete demonstration over death and awake to the vision 
 of eternal, harmonious Life. It is not only that your false 
 thinking will result in unhappiness here, but that it will result 
 in a worse state of consciousness to which you will awake 
 when you are overcome by the error of death. There is your 
 danger." 
 
 "But you talk nothing but theory, Marian. Give me proof. 
 I am doing the best I can in this life . , ." 
 
 "Ted . . ." her voice was low and serious, "you are spiritu- 
 ally starving. You, like your world, are consuming with fam- 
 ine. Aggressive error has made popular belief appear true to 
 you, and, like the world, you are worshiping the popular 
 gods of mortals: sin, sickness, and death. You are materially 
 rich. To war against the evidence of the material senses 
 means a sacrifice, a surrender of self, that you are not willing 
 to make ..." 
 
 "Oh, well . . ." he yawned. "Your theories are interesting, 
 Marian, but," with a little laugh, "not half so comforting as my 
 beliefs about the spinal chord and the teeth." He gave another 
 yawn. "Oh, I should worry," he said, stretching himself. "I'm 
 
 147 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 not to blame for things as they are, and I can't help the future, 
 so . . . But we'll have another talk some time. For the pres- 
 ent we'll just let things jog along as they are, I guess. But 
 say! I certainly feel better for this little dispute with you. 
 Come on, let's get into that fox-trot." 
 
 And thus did Ted Sayor bid his soul continue to bask in 
 the glowing sun of materiality and wait, wait, wait. 
 
 Throughout the evening Alden had avoided Marian, and so 
 deliberately that Mrs. Whittier, ever sedulously pruning her 
 family tree, felt the necessity to mention the matter to Mrs. 
 Cragg. The latter, waking to the disagreeable possibility of 
 her guests sensing the strain between the two and launching 
 an embarrassing speculation with reference to Alden's enlist- 
 ment, drew her son away from his adulating friends and urged 
 upon him the necessity of dancing with Marian. The youth 
 shrugged his shoulders and reluctantly entered upon his task. 
 
 "I say, will you dance with me?" he said, offering himself 
 in some confusion to the girl, whom he found sitting with Ted 
 Sayor. 
 
 "Certainly, Alden," she answered, smiling up at him. "I'd 
 love to have a talk with you." 
 
 And they whirled away, amid the admiring comment of those 
 who saw them, "A beautiful girl," was Senator Chaddock'S 
 remark to Black. "You're right!" was the hearty reply. "And 
 a match for any of us." The senator's eyes narrowed. "We'll 
 see," he muttered under his breath, and turned away, with his 
 thought busy with Doctor Roake. 
 
 "Haven't we anything to talk about, Alden?" Marian asked 
 when, during their short dance, and now that they were seated, 
 he had shown no inclination to break the embarrassing silence 
 that lay between them. 
 
 "Yes," he returned coldly, yet glad of this opportunity, "I 
 have something I want to say, and it's this: that you can't 
 expect people to have much to do with you as long as you 
 insist on getting your name up as you do." 
 
 "Why, Alden, what do you mean?" 
 
 "People are talking about your curing that Jewish child. 
 It's your ways of doing. . . You're not conventional. You're 
 bringing criticism down on Father Whittier. . . And people 
 are saying other things, too." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "They're talking about your being adopted, and all that. 
 They want to know where you came from, and where you got 
 your queer ideas. . . They say you're really that bally 
 Galuth's daughter. Really, Marian, you can't expect to be 
 received in society when people are discussing you that way!" 
 
 148 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "And you feel that I should be shunned by society? But 
 . . . then why was I asked here this evening?" 
 
 "Well, mother . . . why, she couldn't do .anything else, 
 could she?" 
 
 "Oh!" the girl exclaimed, rising. 
 
 "Now, I say!" he cried, detaining her, "don't do anything to 
 make more talk. Take somebody else's advice for once and 
 conduct yourself differently. Remember, I'm marrying Ethel, 
 and I can't afford to have ... I say, why don't you move 
 away from Crestelridge?" 
 
 Ted Sayor appeared on the scene at that moment with Ethel 
 Whittier on his arm. Freddy Kerl and Madeline Nence fol- 
 lowed close in their wake. "I've brought Ethel to you, Aldy- 
 boy," Ted loudly announced. "Caught her flirting again with 
 Harris. You will certainly have to challenge him. I'll second 
 you." 
 
 "Nonsense!" cried Ethel, who, despite her protestations, 
 became noticeably more alive in color and speech when Harris 
 was mentioned. "We've been talking 'movies.' He's, going to 
 introduce me to a friend of his. Fay Meuse, who is a 'star,' and 
 she's promised to take us through her studio next week." 
 
 "You should have been discussing more important matters, 
 my dear," Ted admonished with mock soilemnity, "The war, 
 for example ..." 
 
 "Bah!" Ethel interrupted. "I am- not interested." 
 
 "But aren't you going to do your bit now? Help a little?" 
 
 "No." Her tone was decisive. "Ihad nothing to do with 
 starting it, and I don't intend to help it along." 
 
 "You won't do any war work?" put in Madeline in surprise. 
 "Oh, you'll miss a lot of fun!" 
 
 "Not a stitch, not a dollar, -nothing I" Ethel returned emphat- 
 ically. 
 
 "And her husband a soldier!" sighed Ted. 
 
 "I say," cried Alden nervously, "let the bally war alone! 
 She can't bear to talk about it! She . . . she's . . . tempera- 
 mental ..." 
 
 In the balcony overlooking the dancers Mrs. Whittier was 
 sedulously cultivating Mrs. Cragg, who was dominant in the 
 "Norman Dames." "Flumenschein is so comforting!" she 
 sighed. "Sorry you missed the Culture Club last week. We 
 decided that his poetry inclined rather toward the theosophical. 
 He emphasizes reincarnation . . . and yet, without any real 
 change. Oh, I don't like to think of anything changing! By 
 the way, my dear, I am so interested in your topic for the next 
 meeting of the Club. 'The Newer Psychic Developments' is a 
 subject that is universally appealing just now. Arid I know 
 
 149 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 you have mastered it. Wilson expects to attend. I thought 
 Mrs. Kerl got awfully mixed in her treatment of 'The Neo-Greek 
 Revival' two weeks ago, didn't you? Of course, I wouldn't 
 mention this to anybody but you. . ." 
 
 And then came the announcement of supper. 
 
 The crash of music mingled with laughter and merry talk 
 as Ted, with Marian on his arm, entered the banquet hall below. 
 There was crowding and good-natured jostling and raillery as 
 the guests scrambled for scats at the many tables. At one side 
 of the long room stood the table of honor, in the center of 
 which Alden was located, with Ethel on his right and his happy 
 mother on his left. Beside Mrs. Cragg sat the rector, beaming 
 upon the assemblage with paternal benediction. Marian 
 choked back the lump in her throat and turned eagerly to Ted. 
 "I am so glad you came for me," she said. He laid a hand on 
 hers without replying. 
 
 The music ceased, the buzz of conversation fell, and Alden 
 Cragg rose in his place to announce that Father Whittier 
 would briefly welcome them all and make an announcement 
 that he was certain would not startle them, and that he hoped 
 would please them as much to hear as he knew it did the 
 rector to make. And thereupon the Reverend Wilson Whittier 
 rose in his turn and launched his theme, while Alden sat down 
 and hurriedly reviewed the response with which he was primed. 
 For some moments the rector dwelt upon the cordiality of the 
 Cragg welcome, with indubitable hints at what such welcome 
 meant. He dwelt upon the social largess of the Craggs, upon 
 their, love for beautiful Crestelridge, and their spirit of true 
 Christianity as manifested in their, tender regard for their 
 fellow men. Then he took up his real subject, which was the 
 magnificent patriotism of the Craggs, and the splendid sacrifice 
 which they were making in offering thus the scion of the house 
 to the mother-country in her hour of need. . . 
 
 "Too bad Alden won't have an opportunity to live up to 
 this," murmured Ted. 
 
 The rector drove on. He believed, he said, that America 
 should have remained neutral, but, being drawn in, "let us," 
 he magniloquently urged, "in the words of our President, 'fight 
 for such a universal dominion of right as shall bring peace 
 and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last 
 free'." The rector waxed increasingly eloquent as he proceeded 
 from point to point. He lost himself in his peroration. . , 
 
 "Is he talking about Alden or Nathan Hale?" mused Ted, 
 smothering a grin. Harris Chaddock sank down in his chair 
 with lips curling. "It is my recollection," he whispered to 
 Madeline Nence, "that G. Washington was the father of his 
 country . . . but it may have been Alden." 
 
 150 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And then, amid the plaudits of his auditors, the rector pro- 
 posed a toast in a very light wine to this brave young Briton, 
 descendant of the sturdy Norman conquerors, who, though he 
 might not be summoned to the scene of carnage, nevertheless 
 stood with drawn sword, beneath the banner of St. George, 
 ready . . . ready ... 
 
 There was a slight commotion at the door, and Squires, 
 Alden's secretary, was observed to enter the banquet hall hur- 
 riedly and hasten to his master's side. The rector stopped 
 short in the midst of his most moving encomium. Heads were 
 raised. Eyes darted from the rector to the Craggs. Squires 
 bent and whispered to Alden. " The latter listened for a moment, 
 then gasped aloud. His form became rigid. He struggled to 
 rise. His face went deathly white. His knees smote together, 
 and he fell back again in his chair, in a state of collapse. 
 
 "Alden!" Mrs. Cragg sprang up and bent over him. "What, 
 is it? Oh . . . !" She turned, shaking, to Squires. "What 
 ... is ... it?" she demanded in a hoarse whisper. 
 
 "Word from Colonel Tenn, Madam!" the secretary said 
 haltingly. "Mr. Cragg is ... is ordered to report in camp 
 . . . immediately! His regiment is leaving to-night ... for 
 the war!" 
 
 CHAPTER 20 
 
 WITH Mrs. Cragg's piercing cry ringing in her ears, 
 Marian sprang to her feet. Ted Sayor grasped her arm 
 and tried to speak to her; but she shook herself free of 
 him. Her eyes were wide, and her heart pounding. This \yas 
 her work! She had wrested Alden's problem from him. and 
 hurled him, weak, defenseless, into the hell of war! It was 
 what fear had made her do! ... With a little cry she rushed 
 toward him. 
 
 Mrs. Cragg had flung herself about her son, who still sat 
 stunned and motionless. Some of the guests had sprung up 
 and were hurrying to them. Others sat dazed by the sudden- 
 ness of it all. The rector had grasped his fleeing wits, and 
 now stood trying to raise his voice above the confusion. "My 
 friends!" he cried tremulously, "Great Britain calls across the 
 waves, and our gallant young host responds!" It was an effort 
 as futile as well meant. 
 
 Marian came to the stricken mother's side as she knelt by 
 her son's chair. Mrs. Cragg raised her eyes upon the girl. 
 Frenzy gave strength to the woman's enfeebled limbs, and she 
 rose quickly. "You! . . . you have sent him to his death!" 
 
 151 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 she cried; "to his death! Do you hear? ... to his death I" 
 Her voice rose shrilly, then fell in a long, quivering moan. 
 
 Gasps and exclamations of amazement burst from those 
 guests who heard this further revelation, and there was a hur- 
 ried exchange of glances and nods. Ted Sayor, who had fol- 
 lowed Marian, seized her and pulled her back from the desper- 
 ate woman. Mrs.: Whittier s^nk into a chair, half fainting. 
 Mrs. Tellus and Mrs. Black threw their arms about Mrs. Cragg 
 and persuaded her into the seat that the rector had placed for 
 her. The Chaddocks, with odd looks in their faces, assisted 
 Alden to his feet. 
 
 Alden, his senses slo-vyly returning, now struggled for the 
 calm that he did not feel. "There, mother," he said huskily, 
 and forcing a weak smile, "it , . . may not be so jolly. had, ye 
 know. I say," turning to the guests crowding about, "I'm 
 deuced cut up to, . . . to have . it turn up this way . . . like 
 this, ye know. . ." His voice failed. He stood shaking. Then 
 he permitted Squires to take his arm and lead him, unresisting, 
 away. 
 
 Again the agitated rector strove to rise to the critical occa- 
 sion. "My friends!" he called loudly above the chaos, "it is 
 fitting that Alden's summons should have come at this hour, 
 for it finds him in uniform and prepared ! Let us be like him, 
 for our call, too, may come at an hour when we think not! A 
 cheer, I say! A cheer for our gallant ^oldier, who goes forth 
 to battle for your freedom and mine!" 
 
 The strain snapped- A shout broke from the guests; then 
 a loud and prolonged, cheering. The serving-men and caterers 
 joined in. The band struck up "God Save the King!" Some 
 sang; s.ome shouted; some danced. And amid the uproar Mrs. 
 Gragg was;.led, groping, from the room, followed by the Whit- 
 tiers — Marian excepted — the Ghaddocks and the Telluses. 
 
 In Alden's suite Mrs. Cragg fell upon a divan and wrung 
 her hands. "Oh, it can't be! it can't be!" she moaned. "My 
 bpy!, my boy! Oh, where is Doctor Rpake? Send for him! 
 Wire him! Telephone . . ." 
 
 ■Til call Colonel Tenn," said Senator Chaddock. He took 
 up the.. instrument from the stand. All waited, , tense with, 
 expectaucy. "Then it is true, Colonel?" they heard, the sen- 
 ator say. "Ordered overseas? But ..." 
 
 A hollow groan burst from Mrs. Cragg, and she sank back 
 fainting. Alden threw out an arm against the wall to sup-^ 
 port himself. While, the other -women ministered . to Mrs. 
 Cragg, Mrs, Whittier's practical mind began to function more 
 steadily. This crisis was an opportunity. She turned to her 
 daughter. *'Go tq him, Ethel," she said. 
 
 152 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Ethel, who had followed the proceedings thus far, not with- 
 out a certain enjoyment in their novelty, moved perfunctorily 
 in Alden's direction, wondering what were best to do in the 
 extraordinary circumstances. Alden looked up, and as his eyes 
 fell upon her he gasped. "Ethel! We must be married . . . 
 before I go!" 
 
 The girl stopped shprt, and stood staring at him open- 
 mouthed. TJiis was a denouement that had not occurred to her. 
 
 "We must be married to-night!" Alden continued excitedly. 
 "I say. Father Whittier, you will marry us now?" 
 
 A cry broke from Ethel, and she started back. Her mother 
 came quickly to her side and put an arm about her. "It must 
 be as Alden says, dear," she urged. 
 
 "Alden is right," said the rector in a shaking voice. "Sen- 
 ator," turning to the elder Chaddock, "call up the City Clerk's 
 ofiBce ... or his house. We can procure the license, and I 
 will marry them in his office on the way to camp! Ethel, 
 Mama, all of you, get ready! Alden, how much time will you 
 need to pack?" 
 
 Ethel wrenched herself from her mother's arm and backed 
 away. "No! no! I will not be married to-night!" she pro- 
 tested vehemently. "No!" 
 
 "Ethel!" Alden and Mrs. Whittier exclaimed in unison. 
 Stifled gasps came from the Telluses. The rector seemed rooted 
 to the spot. Harris Chaddock smiled faintly. The girl stood 
 facing them defiantly. 
 
 "But . . . Ethel ! I am going away . . . perhaps for a long 
 time! Why . . . why not now?" Alden gasped, scarce com- 
 prehending her refusal. 
 
 "Ethel, you are betrothed to him ! The circumstances make 
 it not only proper, but your duty, to marry him before he 
 leaves to-night!" the rector cried aghast. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "But . . . you are betrothed. . ." 
 
 "I will wait for him! We will be married when he comes 
 back!" 
 
 "Ethel . . . !" Alden moved toward her. He was desperate. 
 What did all this portend to the proud Cragg name? "It must 
 be now!" 
 
 "No! We will be engaged! I will wait for you! We will 
 be married then!" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier stood dumfounded. What did the girl mean? 
 Refusal to become a soldier's wife! Rejection of a millionaire! 
 Of a Cragg! She seized her daughter's arm. 
 
 Ethel threw her off. "If you touch me," she cried, "I'll 
 scream for help!" 
 
 13 153 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then the rector tried conciliation, for the girl had ever been 
 temperamental. Oh, yes, she loved Alden . . . that was a silly 
 question! But this was too sudden;, it took her all unawares! 
 It was not right to force her into marriage! If Alden loved 
 her he would be glad to wait for her. . . Protests, appeals,- 
 threats failed; she stood out against them, inexorable andJ 
 defiant. Upon their continued insistence she stamped her foot, 
 she sobbed. . . 
 
 Then, as they stood back defeated, she became calm, and 
 even went to Alden and permitted him to take her in his arms. 
 She held her tear-stained face up to him to be kissed. She 
 insisted that she loved him. She knew he would show his 
 love for her by taking her vows of fealty with him. And when 
 he returned, a hero, they would be married ... in St. Jude's 
 ... a real wedding. . . 
 
 Marian had remained with Ted, struggling with her chaotic 
 thought; then she flew to Alden's suite and sought entrance, 
 but the rector closed the door in her face and sternly forbade 
 her to intrude. She returned below and waited, unmindful 
 of Ted's tender solicitude, heedless of the questioning glances 
 directed at -her, of curling lips, the lifted brows, the whisper- 
 ings connecting her name with the evening's distressing events. 
 And when at length the Craggs descended, supported by the 
 Whittiers, Chaddocks and Telluses, she rushed to Alden and 
 seized his hand. 
 
 The youth started, under the shock of her presence, the 
 audacity of her touch, as from the contamination of a pariah. 
 "Alden!" she cried, choking with the fullness of what she 
 would say. For a moment his accusing eyes flashed an irrevo- 
 cable condemnation upon her; then he thrust her violently 
 from him — so violently that, but for Ted, she would have 
 fallen — and passed on. A few moments later she saw the heir 
 of "Craggmont," deaf to the sympathetic farewells and solici- 
 tous good wishes of the throng that pressed him, go out into 
 the night. 
 
 "Take me away, Ted," she pleaded. "Take me . . . home." 
 
 The guests fell back, whispering, nodding, pointing, sneer- 
 ing, to permit the girl to pass through. There were low 
 exclamations, murmurs, suppressed titters. She needed not 
 these to inform her that she stood now alone against an out- 
 raged society, whose doors had closed behind her. 
 
 Yet one there was who understood, in part. "Marian," said 
 Ted, very gently, as they sped toward the rectory in his power- 
 ful car, "I see it all now. And you are done for. But I want 
 you to know that I will stand by you. Count me your 
 friend ... I would ask to be more, if I dared ... if I were 
 
 154 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 worthy ... I'd take you and flout this -whole datnned 
 rabble! . . ." 
 
 "Don't, Ted, please," she begged. "Move you, Ted, as a 
 dear, dear friend, but ... I am no longer my own." 
 
 It was a wild scene that was enacted before the entrance 
 to the concentration camp in the drizzling rain that bleak night, 
 when Mrs. Cragg was torn from her idolized son. Drenched 
 and mud-stained, she was carried in a dead faint back to her 
 limousine and hurried to the rectory, from whence a long- 
 distance call went throbbing to Doctor Roake in Washington, 
 and instructions sped to Squires and Jedkins in "Craggmont" 
 to bring the mocking party to a close and bid the maids pre- 
 pare their mistress' bed. . . 
 
 It was a tense scene that was enacted by Marian, alone in 
 her room in the rectory, through that long, chill night — alone, 
 and craving the light, struggling to pierce the heavy gloom, 
 praying for guidance, for wisdom to do the duty of tlie hour, 
 to solve her problem now so interwoven with that of the youth 
 whom she had sent into the fire. With the first timid sun- 
 beams that kissed the tender buds of the willows bordering 
 fair Crestelridge came the light. And it came as perhaps came 
 the call to Abram, long since, to go out from Ur and its idols 
 of clay and demonstrate the presence of God in a land un- 
 known. . . . , . J 
 
 It was a rending scene that was staged in the rector s study 
 during the flagging hours of that black night while the harassed 
 man, with his ears throbbing under the awful command to 
 "Choose!" struggled vainly against the demands of his des- 
 perate wife and infuriated daughter and subscribed to the 
 sentence of exile which they passed upon Marian. At dawn 
 he raised his head from his arms, whither it had dropped 
 when they left him. Marian had entered. She went to him 
 and put an arm tenderly about his shoulders. Then she bent 
 and kissed him. "Father," she whispered, "I love you. I 
 
 love you all." „. i u 4- 
 
 He sprang to his feet, stifling a cry. His arms went about 
 her and drew her close. "Marian!" he cried in his agony of 
 soul. "Marian!" , ,, , .. j 
 
 She waited; but the words which he would have uttered 
 died on his lips, and others usurped their place. "You must 
 ... go. I will talk with you . . . after breakfast . . . about 
 
 your future." , , . , . , i,- 
 
 She took his face between her hands and again kissed him. 
 
 A moment more and he was again alone— more alone than he 
 
 had ever dreamed it possible to be. . . 
 
 And far out at sea, where the sunbeams danced on the 
 
 155 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 white-tipped waves, another scene was enacted, a pantomime 
 more effective than spoken words. Alden Cragg, sitting on the 
 edge of a rough bunk in the muggy depths of a great troop- 
 ship, turned as a shadow fell across him and glanced up at 
 a man in uniform beside him. Then his face went white, and 
 he stifled a cry. The man was David Barach ! 
 
 
 156 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 A 
 
 BOOK 2 
 
 ND in the fourth watch of the night Jesus 
 went unto them, walking on the sea. 
 
 — Matthew. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 AGAIN the leaden hammjer had fallen; another prophetic 
 hour had struck. In the language of the seers Daniel's 
 ' interpretation of his own and the troubled dream of 
 Nebuchadnezzar had found partial and striking fulfillment — 
 was destined to find it complete — in the joint duration of the 
 material empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The 
 lifetime of the four-fold Image of Gentile monarchy, together 
 .with the period of the four beasts, would constitute the full 
 "times of the Gentiles," the reign of the insane mortal mind, 
 the long day of error before Truth should appear in the con- 
 sciousness of man. 
 
 And verily, as if in strict conformity therewith, while the 
 hammer tolled the flagging hours, did the mighty empires of 
 Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome rise, conquer the world, 
 and sink again into the dust of ages. Into this long, dark era 
 was projected the prophetic measure of "time, times, and a 
 half"; and this great bisection period of the full "seven times", 
 measured on the lunar scale from both the beginning and the 
 close of the Hebrew Captivity, had witnessed the fall of Rome 
 in A. D. 476, and the capture of holy Jerusalem by the caliph 
 Omar in the year of our Lord 637. Thus did the first half of 
 the period of mortal insanity run out, with prophecy unerringly 
 fulfilled. 
 
 But insane though the human mind had shown itself in this 
 first half of the "seven times", its red course of blood and 
 rapine in the second half even more than justified Carlyle's 
 comment on human history as the record of a world gone mad. 
 If the former had fulfilled Scriptural prophecy as to the revela- 
 tion of the Word, so the latter manifested error's fell attempts 
 to destroy it. With the close of the first bisection period came 
 the splitting of imperial Rome into the ten kingdoms symbolized 
 by the ten horns which sprang from the dreadful "fourth 
 beast" of Daniel's dream — kingdoms which divided the heritage 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of old Rome and remained politically independent units, but 
 which still had one mind — though a densely material one — and 
 yielded their power and strength to the "little horn" which 
 grew up in their midst with "eyes like the eyes of a man, and 
 a mouth speaking great things." The crash of imperial Rome 
 had cleared the way for the rise of the Papacy. And simul- 
 taneously with it rose the Mohammedan apostasy, symbolized 
 by the second "little horn" and interpreted in the blighting life 
 of Islam. These two little horns, prophesied to dominate the 
 second half of the "times of the Gentiles," appeared as religio- 
 political dynasties from the ashes of imperial Rome, and 
 waxed strong aijd insolent among the ten other horns, the con- 
 stituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 Still clanged the great hammer; still fell the prophetic 
 hours. The full "seven times" of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity, 
 as measured on the solar scale of the Gentiles, and dating from 
 Daniel's removal to Babylon, closed in the fateful year 1914, 
 with its hideous outburst of Hohenzollern madness that 
 engulfed the world. Measured from the actual date of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's accession to the throne, and the year in which he 
 dreamed of the Image, it terminated in the portentous year 
 1917, when Manasseh trod the waves at Ephraim's anxious call. 
 
 "Strange, strange prophecy!" says a gaping world. "Strange 
 fulfillment!" Yet far from strange is the prediction of evil's 
 end, for error is finite. Nor is it strange tliat, because of her 
 evil thoughts, blindness in part is happened to Israel, and the 
 vision closed till the scales of matter shall drop from her eyes. 
 The spiritually- thinking patriarchs knew that certain results 
 must follow definite causes; and their knowledge of the limited 
 workings of error was such that they might foresee the eras 
 of human history in which they would fail. It was sure 
 prophecy to predict the advent of a Messiah, for Truth must 
 sometime appear in human consciousness and destroy the error 
 that counterfeits the Universe of Mind. And with a decreasing . 
 sense of limitation, due to deeper spiritualization of thought, 
 there came to the patriarchs greater powers of prophetic inter- 
 pretation. The Christ, they foresaw, must of necessity appear 
 among that people possessed of the idea of the One God; and 
 these were the Hebrews. The prophetic interpreters of the 
 sacred writings did not make mysterious plunges into the 
 future, yet they were compelled in a way to foretell the course 
 of unchecked error and set a limit to its spurious reign. To 
 understand Truth was likewise to be able to foresee Truth's 
 inevitable workings. To prophesy that "Israel after the flesh" 
 must give place to "Israel according to the Spirit" was but 
 to say that Truth must eventually be seen triumphant over its 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 spurious opposite, error. God, as Mind, knows the past, the 
 present, and the future, which constitute the eternal NOW, the 
 only acceptable "time." And to that thought which is in rap- 
 port with this divine Mind, these must likewise, in the degree 
 of this rapport, be an open book. 
 
 To Marian Whittier, chronology appeared in an aspect 
 unrecognized by adherents of the popular systems of religion. 
 She knew that the ancient prophets had deeply penetrated the 
 labyrinth of the human mind and recorded what they saw 
 there; but she likewise knew that what they predicted was not 
 inevitable, else were mankind ruled by fatalism. That which 
 the prophets foretold was always inevitable, however, if the 
 human mind continued to cling to its false beliefs, to the lie 
 about God, and to the popular gods of mortals : sin, sickness, 
 and death. This manner of regarding prophecy removes its 
 fatalistic and mysterious aspects, and renders the escape from 
 evil always possible. The prophets could perceive the occur- 
 rence of evil events; they could also see how these could be 
 prevented. Marian realized that those who merely await the 
 fulfillment of predicted happenings are thereby aiding in the 
 fulfillment of those very happenings, whether they be good or 
 evil; while those who realize the truly metaphysical character 
 of prophecy can lift it from dependence upon mere futurity 
 and restore to it its beneficent character, thus enabling it to 
 render inestimable service to men in the working out of their 
 salvation by pointing out the inevitableness consequent upon 
 the quality of men's thoughts. Then those who discern the 
 mental sign may overcome the threatened evil by destroying 
 the false beliefs that would produce it. All good is at hand; 
 prophecy does not postpone its fulfillment, but indicates that 
 the realization of good in human consciousness is a function 
 of righteousness. And righteousness is naught but right-think- 
 ing about God and Man. It is not mankind that awaits the 
 blessings, but the blessings await a righteous mankind. 
 
 But who shall avoid the evil happenings? Verily, Marian 
 knew, those who have the true idea of God and reflect it. To 
 the unregenerate human mind the eras of dire events prophesied 
 by the prophets are bound to come. They but indicate stages 
 of mortal thought — stages which the true seers of God may 
 avoid, even as Enoch, Elisha, and Jesus overcame the world 
 and escaped those things predicted to come upon the false 
 thinker. In view of such predictions Jesus said: "See that 
 ye be not troubled." He knew that even human history would 
 be made to witness to God and glorify Him; and those who read 
 the mortal record may see great systems of iniquity rise and 
 flourish while men give them their unwise support, but fall 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 when Truth dawns upon mortal consciousness. Date after 
 date of human history fulfills prophecy and witnesses to the 
 triumph of Truth — and yet Truth is always triumphant. The 
 prophecy of good or evil is always fulfilled. Heine, seeing the 
 trend of German thought, could unerringly predict the return 
 of the old Scandinavian gods. The reestablishment of Odin 
 in Potsdam was inevitable. 
 
 Thus had reasoned Marian Whittier. And so searchingly 
 had she studied the Scriptures, and in particular the striking 
 prophecies of Daniel and the deep sayings of- the Nazarene and 
 his disciples, that she had indicated, long since and amid the 
 ridicule of her associates, the probable year when the German 
 rulers would stake their fortunes, spiritual and material, on 
 a gamble with error unequalled in the history of man, and 
 attempt to convert the world into an autocracy governed by 
 mesmerism. But she knew that it was the spiritual that alone 
 was real. The literal fulfillment of prophecy was but the 
 counterpart of this in human consciousness, where mortal mind 
 is a law unto itself and predicts and causes the fulfillment of 
 its own predictions. That which God does is done from the 
 beginning; the counterfeit human mind sees these acts of 
 Principle dimly, interprets them in terms of matter, and posits 
 them as eventualizing at intervals in its limiting concept of 
 eternity as measured time. The outward and literal event 
 externalizes always the fermentation taking place in the human 
 mind. Marian knew that the mortal mind had fabricated a 
 colossal image with feet of clay, and she knew that the "stone 
 cut without hands" was the Truth that would break it in pieces 
 and expose its sham. This Truth was the Reality of God, and 
 the nothingness of the material concept. If Daniel's prophecy 
 of the destruction of error had been "sealed" till the "time of 
 the end," and world events were now fast demonstrating the 
 impotence of the presumptuous claims of error, then the end 
 of the mesmerism must be not far off. The breaking up of 
 false beliefs was proceeding apace in the violent thought- 
 upheaval manifesting as the war of the nations. Knowing in 
 part the destiny of Britain as keeper of the literal Word, the 
 girl foresaw the Palestine campaign and the imminence of the 
 hour when the treading down of literal Jerusalem would cease. 
 Spiritual Jerusalem, the "city with foundations," was free; the 
 fact must be manifested in human consciousness. To measure 
 the full "seven times" of Daniel's prophecy from Nebuchadnez- 
 zar's accession and see it fall within the year 1917 was not 
 necessary to a confirmation of her belief that the sacred city 
 would be cleansed in that prophetic year. Yet she viewed 
 with gratitude this corroboration by human chronology, even 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 as she did when, by the lunar scale, she saw the "extended 
 week" of Daniel, measured from the Mohammedan Hegira, fall 
 within this same closing year. She had looked down the cor- 
 ridors of forty centuries; she had seen the unsealing of that 
 witness to God which rose amid the pollutions of idolatrous 
 Egypt; had seen the rise and fall of the four great empires 
 of Daniel's prophecy; had watched the little horns insidiously 
 grow and menace the Word and crumble again; and had said: 
 "These are indeed the last days; error is powerless, and that 
 saving fact is being at last acknowledged by men." 
 
 It was because she had foreseen the result of Alden Cragg's 
 thought-processes that Marian had thrown herself between him 
 and the evil that was driving hard upon him. Because she 
 knew that America must enter the war that year, she saw him 
 an enemy alien, stripped of wealth, position, character, free- 
 dom, life itself, by those who now appeared to afford him sup- 
 port and protection. What she had discerned in the mentali- 
 ties of Otto Hoeffel and Doctor Roake had stricken her with 
 sudden fear and for the moment blinded her to the vision of 
 the "everlasting arms"^ beneath. When the scales of fear 
 dropped from, her eyes and she again faced the enemy, she 
 found herself with new problems whose complexity made the 
 former ones appear simple by comparison. 
 
 In the eyes of all but a certain few of the Crestelridge 
 gentility Alden Gragg had departed for the war a hero. The 
 almost simultaneous disappearance of Marian Whittier, on the 
 other hand, gave grateful occasion to busy tattlers to minutely 
 dissect their distorted concept of her character and find therein 
 elements that caused much lifting of brows and many insinuat- 
 ing nods. Again was the harassed Mrs. Whittier put to her 
 wits' ends to cover the girl's departure with adequate explana- 
 tions. "You see," she nervously proffered, "she had long 
 wanted to go to the city and get into some branch of the service. 
 Now that America has entered the war we could not well for- 
 bid it, could we?" And the rector always vigorously confirmed 
 this thin explanation, though it was noticed that when he spoke 
 of Marian— which was never voluntarily — he appeared to 
 become abstracted, and his voice had a tinge of sadness. 
 
 To Ethel it all meant liberty, with Alden abroad and the 
 rectory free of the Jiampering influence that Marian's presence 
 had always exerted upon her. Marian would not return, Ethel 
 was assured. As for Alden — in her heart of hearts she knew 
 that his fate was a matter of indifference to her. She had all 
 the joy of possessing a soldier lover, and none of the limitations 
 which marriage certainly would have brought. Her own pres- 
 tige had been greatly heightened by betrothal to him. She had 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the now augmented attention of Harris Chaddoek. With the 
 selfish, domineering Alden and the irritating Marian both out 
 of the way, Ethel would leave the management of the rector 
 to her mother, whom she could bend to her every caprice, and 
 would now take the fling that her starved soul had craved for 
 years. The war had filled her cup to brimming. 
 
 As for Harris Chaddoek, Wallie Black, Ted Sayor, young 
 Kerl, and their cronies, their agitation over the selective draft 
 so occupied their thought that the departure of AMen and 
 Marian caused only a passing ripple. Harris soon learned that 
 his immunity was assured; he was become necessary to Doctor 
 Roake. And he swelled immeasurably with the sense of his 
 own importance and his admiration for the great doctor. Wal- 
 lie Black and Freddy Kerl awaited the draft vvith the assurance 
 that, having been placed in easy government positions through 
 the influence of Senator Chaddoek, their safety was secured. 
 And Ted Sayor, after several interviews with Doctor Roake, 
 was made to realize at length that his immunity from army 
 service could be purchased. The cost? His soul. And he 
 pondered for a while amid the luxuries of the International 
 Club, then closed with the bargain. But his face flushed as he 
 clasped the hand of his faithful "Boots" and bade him luck 
 when the latter, straight and natty in his shining uniform, 
 came to say farewell. 
 
 "You're a fool, B6ots, to enlist," he said, striving for the 
 jocularity that had left him. "You might have escaped the draft." 
 
 "As you say, sir, as you say. But my honor, sir, would not 
 permit it," the former lackey answered promptly. "The slacker, 
 sir, is a skunk." And Ted felt, as he heard it, that th6 universe 
 had suddenly tilted and depressed his plane immeasurably 
 below that of his loyal valet. 
 
 With the hum of preparations surrounding it, and the dis- 
 turbance caused within by the events cited, Crestelridge came 
 as near to being set agog as was possible to so staid and but- 
 tressed a community. But still another shock was to come 
 in the enlistment of the rector's assistant, George Earl. "I go," 
 he announced to the Reverend Wilson Whittier, "partly because 
 I regard it a duty, partly to afford my mind surcease. In this 
 uniform I am for the first time in my life an honest man. I 
 had become lost in the maze of theological subtleties and specu- 
 lations in which you still flounder; my faith was wavering; my 
 creeds had crumbled. Oh, no, I shall not go as a chaplain — 
 though I might have done so. God forbid ! I could not preach 
 falsehoods to those brave fellows who are there giving their 
 lives for you and me. I could not pretend to usher the dying 
 into a heaven that I know does not exist. I go as a plain 
 
 8 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 soldier. And if I die for humanity, I know that in death 
 I shall be nobler far than I have ever been in life." 
 
 To Madam Galuth, Marian's departure from Crestelridge 
 was a promise and the beginning of prophetic fulfillment. The 
 girl had come to her the morning after the Cragg ball and had 
 sunk upon the floor beside her. "I know what is best for me 
 to do now," she murmured, smiling up through her tears at the 
 woman. "Kudur-Lagamar has captured Lot. I shall follow him." 
 
 It was as if the girl had become calm in the presence of a 
 mighty call. In humility and patience she had sought through 
 fhat dark night to know the duty of the hour; under a benign 
 Providence that knowledge had to come. 
 
 And yet, should she have done differently? Madam Galuth 
 seemed to read this question in the girl's thought. "I cannot 
 say, dearie, that you should not have done just what you did, 
 even from the first." Then she turned to a table and took up 
 an envelope. "Take this to the woman whose New York address 
 is given here," she said quietly. "She is leaving soon for Eng- 
 land. She is a nurse in the British army, and has been here 
 recuperating. I have already arranged for you to return with 
 her. You are going to London to enter the British • service. 
 These letters will get you through New York, You will procure 
 your passport while making your other preparations there 
 under the direction of this woman. The way is open for you." 
 
 Marian stared at her in amazement. "But how could you 
 have known that I was going?" she gasped. 
 
 "We cannot tell how we know, dearie," was the reply. "But 
 the thought came to me, when I first learned of Alden's enlist- 
 ment, that it would work out this way. And I prepared for it." 
 
 Marian did not return to the rectory, for there was that 
 in her thought after leaving Madam Galuth that forbade it. 
 Had she done so, she would have encountered Doctor Roake 
 and the rector impatiently awaiting her. 
 
 CHAPTER 2 
 
 A MONTH later Marian was in London. Despite the rush 
 of war, the close surveillance, .the penetrating question- 
 ings, the stubborn refusals, the limitations, obstacles, 
 hazards, the gates of two nations had opened, as if by the touch 
 of a hidden hand, the one to emit, the other to receive her. 
 
 To the tense strain which gripped London, to the feverish 
 haste, to the eager glances, the moist eyes, to all the varied and 
 now chronic sights of affliction, privation, sorrow, to the dogged 
 
 9 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 preparation and ceaseless outlay of substance and life, Marian 
 ■was apparently oblivious. She moved with the calm of invin- 
 cible determination, of fixedness in the pursuit of Right, and 
 of assurance of ultimate success. The young English woman 
 with whom she had made the voyage had proved an unerring 
 guide and an agreeable companion, and Marian viewed her 
 forthcoming, separation from her with deep regret. "But our 
 ways divide now," the young woman said, "for Madam Galuth 
 directed me to take you to Penberry Hall and leave you there." 
 
 Penberry Hall! Marian stared incredulously at her com- 
 panion. What, she asked, did this young woman know of 
 Simeon Penberry? Why, nothing — excepting that he was an 
 eccentric character, with a reputation for oddity world-wide, 
 and was heart and soul in this war. His home was now a 
 hospital. And Marian, as she pursued her way that same day 
 out to Penberry Hall, reflected that of the man she herself 
 knew just as little. True, he was Ethel's grandfather, and she 
 his favorite — so Mrs. Whittier had ever been blithe to relate. 
 He was immensely rich, and Ethel was named in his will as 
 sole heir to it all. Simeon Penberry had once visited the Whit- 
 tiers, years gone, and before they came to Crestelridge, Marian 
 knew; but, from what she had gathered, he was a crusty old 
 soul who preferred the Rand above London, and the mining 
 camps of our own far West to the distractions of New York. 
 Marian had never seen him. Madam Galuth had never men- 
 tioned him to her; what the woman's motive in sending her to 
 him now, Marian could not even conjecture. "But," she 
 reflected, "like Abraham, I shall obey." 
 
 The credentials which the nurse presented at the gateway 
 sufficed to procure them admission to the Penberry grounds; 
 but once inside, the young woman halted. "I am instructed 
 to leave you here," she said. "You must go the rest of the way 
 alone. This is Madam Galuth's wish." With which she clasped 
 Marian's hand, and turned back. 
 
 Marian stood for a moment confused; then she set her face 
 resolutely and started up the long, broad walk to the Hall. 
 "It is for me to prove, now," she murmured. "I see it. And 
 I must know!" 
 
 The great park surrounding the Hall was strewn with 
 chairs, cots, and benches; innumerable hammocks were swung 
 among the great trees. Soldiers, wounded, disabled, convales- 
 cent, hundreds of them, glanced up at the girl as she proceeded 
 determinedly up the winding path, then remained staring in 
 admiration and wonder. Presently the Hall itself loomed up 
 before her, a gigantic pile, fairly overwhelming in its sheer 
 immensity. The building was gray with age, set with towers 
 
 10 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 buried in ivy, and provided with wings of odd sizes and shapes 
 projecting here and there that gave the appearance of having 
 been thrown from time to time and with bad aim at the orig- 
 inal structure. Its walls were of a thickness to withstand the 
 assaults of any mediaeval force of marauders; its great rooms 
 echoed \yith their own vastness; its floors continually rose and 
 fell in differing levels; its innumerable apartments constituted 
 a labyrinth where one would lose one's way at the very outset 
 and be forced to peer constantly from the window embrasures 
 to pick up one's course. Before the broad stone steps of the main 
 entrance stood a group of men of distinguished appearance. 
 Among them was a tall, straight figure, with thick white hair, 
 heavy eyebrows, and long moustaches. As Marian approached, 
 this man turned and looked at her. His eyes widened. He 
 stepped out and seemed to be awaiting her. She came straight 
 to him. "I am looking for Mr. Penberry," she said with a 
 smile. 
 
 The man regarded her for some moments in silence. The 
 others turned and stared curiously at the girl. At length the 
 man said slowly: "Why do you wish to see him? Who are 
 you?" 
 
 "I am Miss Whittier, from Crestelridge, New York," she 
 returned eagerly. It occurred to her not to mention the name 
 of Madam Galuth now, but to stand on her own ability to prove. 
 
 "Whittier!" the man exclaimed. "Not Wilson Whit- 
 tier's ..." 
 
 "I am his daughter," she said. 
 
 "Damme! But . . . you don't look it. Still, that was 
 twelve years or more ... I say, you claim to be Wilson Whit- 
 tier's daughter? My granddaughter? What's your name?" 
 
 "Marian." 
 
 He fell back with a snort. "Ha! you impostor! Her name 
 is Ethel! Out! Where's a guard? . . ." He turned to signal, 
 but wheeled again upon the girl as he caught her reply. 
 
 "I am Marian Whittier, Ethel's sister by adoption." 
 
 "Adop . . , !" He stopped short. "Wilson Whittier has 
 no adopted daughter!" he said sharply. He paused again and 
 stared down at her. His face clouded, and his brows were 
 drawn 'sharply together. "I don't know you," he finished coldly. 
 
 Marian's smile left her face; but only for an instant. Then 
 it came back brighter than before. "But, don't you see?" she 
 said eagerly, "I am giving you an opportunity to know me." 
 
 At this one of the other men in the group broke into a laugh. 
 "I say, Penberry," he cried, "you're in luck!" 
 
 "Old fellows like you don't have such opportunities often!" 
 laughed another. "By the Lord, spy or no spy, / wouldn't blow 
 it!" 
 
 11 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Penberry stood, still looking hard at the girl. "How did 
 you get past the sentry at the gate?" he suddenly demanded. 
 
 Marian told him simply; told him also the name of the 
 young nurse who had brought her, and gave the city address 
 where she might be found. "But . . . Damme ! Why are you 
 here?" the puzzled man insisted. 
 
 She laughed lightly. "I have come all the way from Amer- 
 ica to work with you," she said. 
 
 "Work with me! ... Br-r-r!" His mouth remained open, 
 but speech delayed. Then, slowly, while he stared at the girl, 
 his brow cleared. He raised his head and looked off beyond 
 her. What he saw, none but himself knew. His eyes roved 
 back again to hers. "When did Wilson Whittier adopt you?" 
 he asked in a low voice. 
 
 "When I was a babe, more than twenty years ago," she 
 answered. 
 
 He seemed to start, but recovered himself and remained 
 silent. The girl stood, still smiling up into his face. The others 
 watched the two in growing wondfer. 
 
 Then he wheeled upon his companions. "We will consider 
 our interview ended," he said. 
 
 "Not so jolly fast!" objected one of the men, his features 
 working under a suppressed smile. "Don't forget that you 
 asked me to prescribe a tonic. I don't intend to permit you 
 to beat me out of my fee so easily. I shall prescribe this very 
 good-looking young spy for you, and my fee will be fifty 
 pounds, sir." 
 
 Penberry was staring again at Marian. And again there 
 was that far-away look in his gray eyes. He seemed to be 
 striving to coordinate his thoughts, to piece together something 
 . . . something. . . 
 
 "Very well. Doctor," he said, rousing abruptly. "I'll take 
 the tonic. Your fee is very reasonable, very!" 
 
 A few minutes thereafter Marian Whittier sat alone with 
 Simeon Penberry in the small but thoroughly appointed room 
 which he had reserved for himself in his great house. Care- 
 fully and in full detail she answered the searching questions 
 which he shot at her, until the man was almost convinced that 
 she had really lived in Crestelridge, and that her knowledge 
 of its people was exact. . . 
 
 "Now tell me," he demanded, "the name of the woman you 
 say sent you to me." 
 
 Marian knew that she must reply. "Her name is Madam 
 Galuth," she said. 
 
 He shook his head. "I never heard of her. But she must 
 know me." He laughed. "Many do. I've somewhat of a repu- 
 
 12 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tation. ye know. Very good. And now do you still refuse to 
 tell me your father's name?" 
 
 "But I do not know," she insisted. "The Whittiers would 
 never talk about him, excepting to say that my ancestors were 
 all a bad lot. But I am not interested now in my ancestors. 
 They don't need me; but there is some one else who does. And 
 . . . Oh, Mr. Penberry, I am sure I have been sent to you 
 because you are the only one who can help me!" 
 
 "H'm! to find that young Cragg, eh? Yes, I know the family 
 well. Father was a good sort, but the mother and son . . . 
 Br-r-r! they're damnable!" 
 
 She looked up at him with a wistful smile. "I don't think 
 you understand," she said in a low tone. 
 
 "Bah!" he ejaculated, "you're in love with the cad. Deuced 
 romantic, but quite like you irresponsible American girls, to 
 chase a young soldier across the sea. . . But imagine old Pen- 
 berry playing cupid ! Ha ! ha ! But, I say, you are a damnably 
 pretty sort; you might have made a better choice than young 
 Cragg. Humph! I suppose it's his money. . ." He did not 
 conclude the remark, for as he looked into the girl's face he 
 felt a surge of shame. / 
 
 "But I can help you to understand," she went on; "though 
 it may take some ^time. Oh, if you will help me to reach him, 
 I will come back and tell you why I have done this!" 
 
 "Damme!" he suddenly broke out again, "if you are Wilson 
 Whittier's adopted daughter, then why in God's name did he 
 never tell me of you? Br-r-r!" He sprang to his feet and 
 sharply rang a bell. To the orderly who answered the summons 
 he said briskly: "Send a cable to the mayor of Crestelridge, 
 New York." Then he leaned over the young man's shoulder 
 and swiftly dictated a message in a voice so low that Marian 
 did not catch the words. When the orderly had left the room, 
 Penberry came and stood before the girl, his hands jammed 
 into his trousers' pockets and his eyes bent upon her search- 
 ingly. "Supposing I could say where this fellow is," he said 
 sharply, "how do you expect to reach him?" 
 
 *1 . . . I can not say, just now," she answered, looking up 
 at him. "Perhaps I might go as a nurse." 
 
 "Nurse? Bah! And wait for him to be shot, so's to hang 
 over his cot and babble sweet nonsense, eh? Besides, have you 
 had any training as a nurse? No? Not even a practical nurse, 
 eh? No more fitted for the hardships, for the . . . the . . ." 
 He paused. Again shame smote him. Wonder succeeded 
 shame as he looked down with undisguised admiration upon 
 the beautiful face so eagerly, wistfully raised to his. "Now, 
 if you wanted to stay here," he continued, but in gentler tones, 
 
 u 13 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "you could be of some use. There is desperate need of women 
 workers here. . ." 
 
 Marian rose. She shook her head. "This is not my place," 
 she said simply. "Please tell me, is it possible for you to find 
 where a British soldier is serving? Could you learn where 
 Alden Cragg is now?" 
 
 He laughed. "I most certainly could." 
 
 She came close to him. "Will you ... for me?" she said. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 They stood looking at each other for a moment; then her 
 head dropped and she turned to go. But he quickly stepped 
 in front of her. "Not so fast, young woman!" he snapped. 
 "I will have a room prepared for you here. . . But if you are 
 a spy, that's just what you want, eh?" 
 
 CHAPTER 3 
 
 DAYS passed, astonishing days, and Marian Whittier, to her 
 amazement and consternation, remained a prisoner in 
 Penberry Hall. True, she was treated \yith utmost def- 
 erence, particularly after the irascible old master of the Hall 
 received a cablegram from New York that should have quite 
 destroyed his distrust of her story. "So Wilson Whittier has 
 an adopted daughter," he mused. "Damme! the sly dog. But 
 this girl . . . She must be investigated," he pleaded with him- 
 self as an excuse for further detaining her. And he informed 
 her that the Government required her detention— "Merely tech- 
 nical, ye know" — for a few more days. "Why didn't I know 
 about her before?" he exclaimed to himself aloud. "Why didn't 
 I know that she was Wilson Whittier's daughter? I'd have 
 had her with me years ago! Br-r-r!" And, as he paced (back 
 and forth in his room, buffeted by his conflicting sentiments: 
 "Damme! is she duping me? I wonder! But she's, been raised 
 in ignorance of me, that's certain. But why? No ! By heaven ! 
 She knows all about me, and she's here to . . ." But he could 
 get no further. Then his resurgent suspicions would drive 
 him back into her presence to ply her with questions that 
 plumbed her very soul. "Where did Whittier find you?" he 
 would demand again and again. "Where'd you get those brown 
 eyes, that hair?" And he would go away muttering: "Send 
 her to young Cragg? Never! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 With this unexpected delay Marian became restive. She 
 plead for release. But Simeon Penberry would entertain no 
 such thought. She was fascinating him, and he contrived to 
 
 14 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 spend hours in her presence. He guarded her from all other 
 males with the jealousy of a fiery young lover. He drew out 
 her odd views of life, and pondered them long when again alone; 
 he demanded her history over and over; he roared over her 
 conflict with Crestelridge society. And then, when he had left 
 her, he would storm aloud: "Why didn't I know about her 
 before? Who is she? Where did she get those eyes? That 
 hair? Damme!" 
 
 But always his suspicions' would get the whip-hand, and 
 he would stealthily seek to draw from her a hidden and sinister 
 motive. "You played your cards well in coming to me," he 
 insinuated one day when he was in a particularly trying mood. 
 "I am rich. . . Why, Damme ! I can't count my wealth ! Ha ! 
 that makes your brown eyes sparkle, eh? How'd ye like to be 
 my heir? You're my granddaughter, you say, by adoption." 
 And he chuckled craftily. 
 
 She smiled up at him. "Your wealth is nothing to me," 
 she answered. 
 
 "But," he went on cunningly, "I'm old, past eighty; haven't 
 much longer to tarry, eh? And you might, you know . . . you 
 might . . . Oh, I'm not saying so, y'understand . . . but you 
 might get a slice of it some day, eh?" 
 
 She studied him a moment before replying. Then she shook 
 her head. "You are showing me that you haven't learned very 
 much from the war," she said slowly. "I do not want your 
 money. If you should give it all to me I would use it for others. 
 Why, I learned that in Crestelridge. Those rich people there 
 are miserably poor and alone just because of their money — 
 not the money they spend, but the extra money that they do 
 not spend. And that, I know, has been your trouble. You 
 were never happy when you were spending it on yourself, never 
 happy until you gave yourself to this work," indicating with 
 a gesture the great Hall now metamorphosed into a hospital. 
 "And you are not quite happy yet, are you?" She smiled as 
 she saw him start. "I have come to make you happy," she 
 said softly. "Don't you see it?" 
 
 Very shortly Marian saw in the obduracy of Simeon Pen- 
 berry the working of that same subtle mesmerism that would 
 destroy the Word. "But it can not delay me!" she insisted 
 over and over. "It has no power!" Evil could not trap her 
 thus. Yet toward Simeon Penberry she would permit none but 
 the tenderest feelings. "He is only a channel, but he doesn't 
 know it," she reasoned. "And I must help him by loving him. 
 And I do, I do ! And he will reflect it in loving and helping me." 
 
 Still did Penberry return afresh to the fray. "I'm getting 
 old," he began one day, taking a now familiar tack, "past 
 eighty now." 
 
 15 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "That's splendid!" the girl exclaimed; "for you have now 
 reached the age at which Moses hegan his life-work. What 
 a wonderful coincidence, that you and he should begin at the 
 very same age!" 
 
 "My life-work?" he cried, gaping. "Why, young woman, 
 I began that sixty-odd years ago!" 
 
 "Oh," she gave back quickly, "you began, to accumulate 
 money then; but you wouldn't want me to think that your life- 
 work, would you?" And, sooth to say, he- did not — though 
 before she came into his life he had been inordinately proud 
 thus to regard it. 
 
 The working out of her present position had now become 
 to Marian a problem. "It is the mesmerism of inertia that is 
 using him," she reflected. "And I cannot afford to give it 
 power. But neither must I try to force the demonstration of 
 its powerlessness." And as she dwelt upon it, her thought 
 turned to her part in Alden's enlistment, and she shook her 
 head. "If I must remain here for a time, then it can only be 
 by Principle, and for some good. Right is bound to be mani- 
 fested. Aside from that of Principle, there is no other activity." 
 
 And again, when the old man had seemed unusually stub- 
 born: "I refuse to see it. Our life is what we are conscious 
 of," she said to herself resolutely when he had left her. "But 
 consciousness is the activity of thought. Then the quality of 
 my consciousness depends on what I think. And I can surely 
 control that, and so be conscious only of good." For the girl 
 knew that human life, so-called, was but a connected series of 
 states of consciousness, and that these were but the external- 
 ization of her thought-activity. Thought based on Principle 
 only must result in consciousness of naught but harmony; and 
 vice versa. Was it to become conscious of her own and Alden's 
 freedom and safety that she was now striving so hard? Then 
 she must know that the Sons of God are ever free, and know 
 that such right thinking must become externalized in the har- 
 mony she sought to bring forth. 
 
 But by now Simeon Penberry too was thinking, and along 
 lines that were new to him. And while the girl stood squarely 
 with her Principle, and knew that there was "nothing hid that 
 shall not be revealed," Simeon Penberry was actively revolving 
 in his mind the forces that had driven the girl from Crestel- 
 ridge and turned upon her- the frown of society. Particularly 
 did the thought of Doctor Roake's varied activities impress him. 
 In a subsequent talk with Marian he asked, quite irrelevantly 
 — for of late he had enjoyed drawing out her ideas in regard 
 to the conduct of the war, and had been astonished at her 
 views — "What will happen now? At the beginning of this 
 
 16 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 year we couldn't have foreseen the downfall of Russia — but 
 it is fast coming. Things are not going well. Where now 
 can we strike a quick, decisive body blow against the enemy?" 
 
 "In Palestine," she said, and so quickly that it startled him. 
 
 He laughed cynically. "We've made two attempts to blow 
 the Turks out of Gaza," he answered, "but they're too much 
 for us. And Murray is about the best we have." 
 
 "Then," she quietly returned, "the right leader is being 
 prepared now. And he will appear at the right time." 
 
 And after that Simeon Penberry went to the councils of 
 war — for he stood high among Britain's leaders, and his advice 
 was eagerly sought — with the girl's words echoing in his mind. 
 But why, he had asked her, did she counsel a Palestine drive? 
 And quite unintentionally he had asked if it might be because 
 Doctor Roake had so heartily poo-poohed the idea. "And if 
 he is opposed to it," reflected Penberry, "he has a damnably 
 good reason — or the girl has misjudged the man." 
 
 But who was Doctor Roake? What purpose could he be 
 subserving in distant Crestelridge? And why should this girl 
 suspect the doctor of activity in the attempt to dismember the 
 British Empire? Again Penberry plied Marian with his search- 
 ing questions; again cabled messages sped between the Old 
 World and the New. Then he came back to the girl once more. 
 "I have twenty gold mines on the Rand," he said, watching 
 her narrowly. "I'm going to sell *em all. You can spend the 
 money, if you wish." 
 
 "Very well," she answered calmly. "I will fit out an ambu- 
 lance corps and go with it to Palestine." 
 
 His mouth opened, and his eyes bulged. "I say! . . ." he 
 began. Then he regained his composure. "But why Palestine? 
 Always Palestine! France needs ambulance corps; so does 
 Italy. . . I say, does it occur to you that you are going to 
 Palestine for any reason?" 
 
 She. sat for a while with downcast eyes. Then she looked 
 up at him. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I . . . don't 
 know. But ... I think of it so often ... so often." 
 
 "Well, why do you say that Palestine is the place now for 
 a sharp, telling blow at the enemy?" 
 
 "Because the literal 'treading down of the Gentiles' is about 
 to cease," she answered. "The blow that will drive the oppress- 
 or from Jerusalem cannot help falling, for the spiritual fact 
 must be externalized. The soldiers of Ephraim are the arm 
 that will drive him out." 
 
 "Soldiers of Ephraim! I say, the husky British will do 
 the driving. . ." 
 
 "They are Ephraim; they are the ten-tribed kingdom of 
 Israel." 
 
 17 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He drew a chair close to her and sat down. "You are a 
 strange girl," he said, looking searehingly into her face; "you 
 are, in a way, unearthly. What is this nonsense ... or is 
 it wisdom? What is this ten-tribed kingdom you are talking 
 about?" 
 
 "It is the Anglo-Saxons," she answered simply. "You don't 
 know your Bible, for if you did, you would know that the story 
 of the twelve tribes of Israel runs through it from Genesis to 
 Revelation. You would know that the very things going on 
 in the world to-day were predicted by the prophet Daniel — 
 even the dates may be known by those who understand his 
 prophecy. Why, the Bible is the very history of the Anglo- 
 Saxons! They were called Israel at first. Then ten of the 
 tribes were taken captive into Assyria; they became lost. To- 
 day we can trace their wanderings; we can see how, all through 
 history, they were the keepers of the literal Word; they were 
 always leaders in the struggles for human rights and liberty 
 of conscience, and nation after nation tried to destroy them. 
 To-day they stand revealed as Ephraim and Manasseh : Britain 
 and America; to-day they are still fighting the descendants of 
 the ancient Assyrians and Canaanites, to preserve the Word. 
 And they are going into Jerusalem, literally and spiritually, in 
 fulfillment of the 'times of the Gentiles,' spoken of by Jesus 
 as one of the signs of the second coming of the Christ, and 
 they will drive out the son of the bondwoman Hagar." 
 
 "I say!" he exclaimed; "would you make us all Jews?" 
 
 "No," she answered; "but we and the Jews are all Israel- 
 ites, literally as well as spiritually. We are Hebrews, descend- 
 ants of Heber, from whom came Abraham. Our Anglo-Saxon 
 customs, Britain's ancient law of primogeniture that she still 
 clings to, her weights and measures, all came from ancient 
 Israel. Moses gave us the foundations of our Anglo-Saxon law, 
 and it was moral. He told the Israelites that if they turned 
 from the true God to worship false gods they would be pun- 
 ished 'seven times'. The number seven was a favorite with the 
 ancient Hebrews. It meant something complete. So error 
 was to be completely punished. That means destroyed in 
 human consciousness. Moses said that at the end of the 'seven 
 times' a remnant of God's people would return to the Promised 
 Land. Well, after all, it is only the spiritual interpretation of 
 prophecy that is real. And . . ." She became thoughtful 
 again. "But," she continued, "a remnant has returned to the 
 Christianity that Jesus taught." 
 
 "Never mind the spiritual," Penberry put in. "I can see 
 hard material facts better. What is this 'seven times'? I'm 
 deuced interested." 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "A year to the Hebrews was 360 days," the girl explained; 
 "a time was 360 of these years. So 'seven times' would be 
 2,520 years. The prophecy, according to Daniel, dates from 
 the Captivity era, a period of 160 years and including many 
 dates. But reckoned from the year that Nebuchadnezzar 
 ascended the throne — and he is the type of the insane human 
 mind, so his reign is the reign of error and he is the type of 
 the persecutor of the Word — it points to 1917 as the year when 
 the 'treading down of Jerusalem' shalJ cease literally." 
 
 Penberry sat silent for some moments. Then he murmured: 
 "Strange stuff! Strange stuff!" He lapsed into silence again. 
 Then he looked up at the girl. "You mean, then, that this 
 year, 1917, will see the Millennium, the end of all evil, or error, 
 as you term it?" 
 
 She shook her head. "You cannot really put an end to 
 something that does not exist. The end of error will come 
 when men cease to believe in it. It could come to-day. It is 
 an individual experience for each mortal consciousness. But 
 the Hebrews laid down so many laws upon themselves with 
 their favorite number seven! And so in human history many 
 of their prophecies seem to find literal fulfillment in certain 
 dates or periods, as measured by these 'seven times'. And one 
 of these is that literal Jerusalem shall be delivered 'seven times' 
 from the era of the insane Nebuchadnezzar." 
 
 As the days went by the old man's bantering ceased and his 
 interest in the girl's words became more sincere. "You believe 
 that, with Turkey beaten, Bulgaria and Austria must submit, 
 and Germany will have to acknowledge the inevitable? Per- 
 haps so, perhaps so. But . . .Damme! Palestine is a deserf.'" 
 
 "There are the Arabs," she reminded him. "They are seek- 
 ing their freedom too." 
 
 "The die is in the balance: Hussein is the Holy Master of 
 the Moslems. The jehad might be declared over night!" 
 
 "But the Arabs are seeking nationality and self-determina- 
 tion. Britain can give it to them. I have heard Doctor Roake 
 speak of this. He does not expect Britain to carry out the 
 agreement of 1915." 
 
 "He expects the jehad?" 
 
 "He has lived in Egypt. He knows the Arabs. But Hus- 
 sein's son has shown himself the friend of Britain, has he not? 
 Is he not offering you a magnificent opportunity?" 
 
 "But ... we must consider the sentiment of our Latin 
 allies against the preferment of this Anglophile. . ." 
 
 "The future of the world is in the hands of the English- 
 speaking people," she answered him. • . 
 
 And then Simeon Penberry began to approach the girl in 
 
 19 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 an attitude of reverent respect that at times bordered on awe. 
 "She's unearthly!" he would mutter, after listening to her. 
 "She's uncanny! But . . . Damme! she's right about Pales- 
 tine! She's right!" 
 
 Thereafter it was noted that Simeon Penberry became 
 increasingly active about the War OflBce. And soon it was 
 bruited about that an immediate and aggressive resumption of 
 the Palestine campaign had become the old man's obsession. 
 He was talking it the length and breadth of London, from keep 
 to garret of Westminster, and all but bellowing it from the 
 housetops. His eighty years appeared to fall from him like an 
 unused robe, and he became a youth, fired with crusading zeal, 
 a modern Peter the Hermit. "I'll argue this matter," he vehe- 
 mently declared, "until they launch the campaign just to shut 
 me up!" Russia was fast withdrawing as a belligerent; large 
 bodies of Turkish troops were streaming from the Caucasus 
 toward the Holy Land; the redoubtable von Falkenhayn was in 
 Constantinople with plans perfected for the recapture of Bag- 
 dad. "The girl is right!" Penberry stormed, as he stamped 
 about, "and the War Cabinet will have to see it! I'll beat it 
 into 'em with my cane, by heaven ! with my cane. She's right ! 
 it will be the beginning of the end!" 
 
 Then, when his stock of arguments was exhausted, he would 
 return to Marian for more. "Fill me full of 'em!" he would 
 cry. "Give me ammunition ! I've got to blow these pig-headed 
 conservatives clean out of the trenches! They say we'd fail 
 because we couldn't get water into Palestine for our troops! 
 What?" 
 
 "Oh," the girl exclaimed, "the human mind lays down so 
 many laws upon itself ! It decrees that if we see the new moon 
 over our left shoulder ill luck will follow. And ill luck will 
 doubtless follow, just because of that human law of ignorance, 
 unless we possess sufficient understanding to break it or know 
 its nothingness. For as we think, so are we. We sentence 
 ourselves with our thought." 
 
 She paused. Then a light came into her eyes. "There is 
 an ancient prophecy," she said, looking up at him, "that Pales- 
 tine will be delivered from the Turks when the waters of Egypt 
 shall flow into it." 
 
 "Eh? Well?" 
 
 "Well, why not pipe water from the Nile. . ." 
 
 "Damme!" And he stayed not for more, but sped from her 
 presence to Westminster. "She's right!" he muttered with 
 what breath he could spare. "America surely is with us. . . 
 But this Palestine affair is our game, ours alone!" 
 
 Had the master of Penberry Hall paused to analyze the 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ihotives actuating him he must have found them confusingly 
 complex. That Marian's coming to him was not fortuitous, 
 he was now well aware; but of Madam Galuth and her possible 
 motivation he knew nothing. Nor did he manifest any interest 
 in either the woman or her motives, beyond a few casual 
 queries. The cabled reports which he received from Crestel- 
 ridge — all communications of the most confidential nature from 
 the town's chief executive — conveyed the information that 
 Madam Galuth was an eccentric character, who was believed 
 to have traveled much, and who, doubtless after a life of world- 
 liness, had retired to Crestelridge for reasons known only to 
 herself — "possibly to do penance," Penberry had added, with a 
 chuckle. As for the rector, Penberry would himself settle 
 the score with him ! Meantime, he made certain that the Whit- 
 tiers should not learn of Marian's visit to Penberry Hall, and 
 stipulated that the girl should send no communications back 
 to Crestelridge. 
 
 As for the girl, he was not willing to admit that he was 
 yielding to her, but rather to motives aroused by certain dor- 
 mant memories which she had powerfully stimulated. The old 
 bantering spirit continued to return at greater intervals, when 
 he would again assume an attitude of obstinacy that made the 
 girl endless work. "I know Maude, I know Murray," he would 
 say, standing before her with shoulders humped and hands 
 jammed into his trousers' pockets; "Murray led the British 
 up to Gaza, but now AUenby's going to lead them to Jerusalem. 
 Oh, to be sure, I can get you to Palestine. . . But I intend 
 to keep you here." 
 
 Time, space, fear, inertia, all rose before the girl like 
 obstacles insuperable, and above them grinned the defiant face 
 of this eccentric old man. 
 
 "But Right must be manifested!" she insisted. "I must, I 
 shall, go forward ! It is God's command, and I can not be kept 
 from obeying! But I cannot force the demonstration; I cannot 
 let haste use me; I must keep step y^ith God!" She knew that 
 her obedience had already been yielded, and that the external- 
 ization must follow — else were her God a mockery, a hollow 
 delusion. In her spare moments she read to the convalescent 
 soldiers, talked with them, wrote their letters, taught French 
 to those who would return to Flanders; and always she sought 
 to keep her own thought clear, and to act a knowledge of God's 
 immanence that her situation appeared directly to negative. "I 
 must act as possessing all power from Him," she would repeat 
 over and over, "else the fact that Alden and I are free will not 
 be externalized!" 
 
 "You can't go as a nurse," Penberry informed her one day. 
 
 21 . 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Why, the Red Cross, the Military Nursing Reserve, all of 'em, 
 have about 30,000 nurses on their lists, a nurse to a soldier, eh? 
 And there's more red tape to unwind! Forms to fill up; state- 
 ments as to whether there is insanity in your family; what your 
 great-grandmother died of; your pedigree from Adam down. . , 
 You've got to decide to stay here with me." 
 
 "That is selfishness," she answered. "And selfishness is 
 suicide. If I can't go as a nurse, then you can fit out an 
 ambulance corps — the Penberry Ambulance Corps — and send 
 me with it. I can drive a car." 
 
 "Ha! But supposing I hadn't accumulated money, eh? How 
 could I fit out an ambulance corps?" he demanded with a grin. 
 "My life-work, you know." 
 
 "Then I would have to get the money from another source. 
 You are one channel, but only one. If it is right, then I shall 
 get the money somewhere, for Right is the cause, not you nor 
 any other human being." 
 
 Then he came to her on another day with a glint in his 
 eyes that made her spring from her chair. "I've been looking 
 over the British enlistments from America," he said. "Ever 
 hear of a fellow named David Barach, from Crestelridge? He's 
 with our troops down on the Suez Canal. Good soldier; been 
 promoted to sergeant." 
 
 Marian stared at him incredulously. David Barach! He 
 was a Jew, an American! What could have induced him to 
 enlist in the British army? She had known nothing of this ! . . . 
 
 Of a sudden her thought became tumultuous — though why 
 Barach's enlistment should have stirred it so deeply, she could 
 not say. Again fear seemed to swoop down upon her with a 
 roar. "You know where Alden Cragg is!" she cried. "You 
 have known for a long time! Oh!" 
 
 Then she controlled herself. And she went to him and put 
 her hands up to his shoulders. The old man fell back, refus- 
 ing to look into her eyes. "I love you," she said brokenly, "I 
 love you. And I know you love me, no matter what you may 
 seem to do." And she laid her head against his breast and wept 
 softly. Nothing more; but he cursed himself inwardly, he 
 cursed young Cragg, he struggled with himself, he inveighed 
 against Fate. . . 
 
 "But even if I knew I wouldn't let you go to him!" he 
 cried savagely. "Your work is here! You came to enter the 
 British service." 
 
 Then, as she remained quiet, his arms slowly closed around 
 her slender form and his head dropped. He knew he was 
 defeated. "He is ... in Russia," he murmured. And tears 
 rolled down his florid cheeks. 
 
 22 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But he would not yield, and for days after that he avoided 
 the girl, though again and again he strode to the door of her 
 chamber, only to halt at the threshold, and with bowed head 
 turn away. "Is it for herself?" he questioned. "Does she want 
 to save this cad for herself? This rare girl?" But he knew 
 it was not so, for she had told him — had repeated it — that "we 
 are never saved for ourselves alone. God, who is infinite in 
 His activities, never permits us to so limit ourselves. Our 
 labors must benefit all. That which urged me here seemed to 
 be a human life, yet I could not be permitted to save that life 
 alone — oh, no! Nor could the saving of that life be in itself 
 the end. But if by saving it the world shall be benefited, then 
 I shall be permitted to go to him, and he shall be saved." If 
 Penberry would not yield to her, neither would she give way 
 before the error that seemed to be driving upon her through 
 him. 
 
 But now it became apparent that a new train of thought 
 had been started in the old man's mind. "It is the way she 
 used to talk," he muttered, reflecting on the girl's words in 
 regard to Jerusalem. And as he thought, he ground his teeth, 
 and a hard look came into his eyes. 
 
 Again, this softened, and his eyes grew moist. "Always 
 talking about the Bible and God," he murmured. "Just like 
 her . . . just like her! And I ... I threw her away! But, 
 by heaven ! she's come back in this girl, after fifty years, she 
 has! And this time she stays!" 
 
 When his moral courage again permitted him to seek 
 Marian, Penberry found her with a map of Egypt in her lap. 
 He stopped before her, wondering. She looked up at him; and 
 as he stared into her face his eyes widened and his mouth 
 opened. "Have you ever been there?" he asked, alniost in a 
 whisper, and pointing a shaking finger at the map. 
 
 "We have all been there," she replied gently. "We have all 
 been called out of the darkness of Egypt into the light. But 
 evil is trying to force us back into the darkness again. Only 
 the Word can save us. It means freedom. And the Anglo- 
 Saxoiis are guarding the Word. The destinies of the human 
 race are again to-day staked on the same cast with the freedom 
 of the English." 
 
 The old man appeared strangely moved. His eyes remained 
 glued to the map. "Egypt means . . . everything ... to me,"" 
 he said in a quavering voice, and seemingly absorbed. "She 
 came from there." 
 
 The deep catch in his voice caused the girl to look up at 
 him quickly. Then she rose and went to him. His hand went 
 out and rested on her shoulder, and he stood with bowed head. 
 "She was so far beyond me . . . she was like you." 
 
 23 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He was . yielding, slowly, but inevitably yielding. Marian 
 knew it, knew now that her hour was at hand. "We lived in 
 Cairo," he resumed. "She used to sit in the shadow of the 
 Great Pyramid and study and ponder and write. That old 
 tomb fascinated her; I could see nothing to it, and I made her 
 stop babbling about it. I was busy getting concessions from 
 the Government and exploiting the poor natives for gold. Her 
 thought ... I see it now! . . . was like yours. Mine was of 
 the dust." 
 
 He paused. A tremor ran through his great frame, and 
 tears coursed down his cheeks. Marian drew closer to him. 
 His arms crept about her, "Marian," he said brokenly, "I loved 
 her . . . but the world mesmerized me. You are like her as 
 she was then. Stay with me, Marian, stay with me! All that 
 I have shall be yours, all yours!" 
 
 She raised her head. "You are ready to tell me now," she 
 whispered, "where he is and how I can go to him." 
 
 "I cannot let you go!" he cried. "I . . ." He looked down 
 into her eyes. "If I knew that you would come back to me . . ." 
 
 "If it is right, I shall come back to you," she said gently. 
 
 He shook his head. "I threw her away," he murmured 
 haltingly, "but, God help me! I am giving you. And I don't 
 know why ... I don't know why . . . but it is not to that 
 cad, that . . ." Again he hesitated. Then he pulled himself 
 up, as if by a mighty effort. "Alden Cragg," he said, "has been 
 with the British troops in Salonika." 
 
 Marian gave a little cry and fell back. 
 
 "He is now on his way to Palestine," the old man finished. 
 
 CHAPTER 4 
 
 THE great Ghor through which the Jordan flows extends 
 beyond the Dead Sea, like a huge fissure, to the Gulf of 
 Akabah. Walled on the west by the peninsula of Sinai, 
 and on the east by the sterile hills which terminate the Syrian 
 Desert, it forms a trough, in which the torrid heat, narrowly 
 confined and reflected from naked rocks and incandescent 
 sands, becomes overpowering. The acrid dust of centuries lies 
 baking on its worn thoroughfare, until stirred by foot of man or 
 beast, when it rises slowly in massive clouds and hangs in air 
 with the impenetrability of a dense fog. 
 
 On a suffocating October afternoon in the third year of the 
 great war among the Christians this trough lay filled with 
 clouds of alkaline dust, completely obliterating a long, strag- 
 
 24 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 gling line of British soldiers that wound slowly through it 
 toward the north. Above, in the distance, hung German planes, 
 like brooding vultures, striving vainly to pierce the dust below. 
 Here and there dust-covered cars ploughed through the line, 
 laden with officers white with the hot saline powder that envel- 
 oped them so completely that those on the rear Seats frequently 
 could not see the windshields ahead. 
 
 "Hi s'y. Batman, Hi'm thinkin' a month's leave 'n 'ell 'd 
 do me good." 
 
 The man addressed did not reply or move his head. A 
 moment later his shuffling feet slid into a dust-filled crevice 
 in the hidden road and he sank to his knees. A hand fell 
 heavily upon his shoulder and pulled him roughly back. "Keep 
 y'r peepers on th' road. Batman! This ain't Lunnon; hit's th' 
 Owly Land!" 
 
 Alden Cragg, dirty, unshaven, cocooned in dust, got slowly 
 to his feet, straightened up painfully, shifted his heavy equip- 
 ment from the galled spot on his shoulder, and resumed his 
 former labored gait through the burning, suffocating heat. His 
 companion watched him until he had gotten under way, then 
 gave a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders and fell in behind 
 him, singing softly as he struggled along: 
 
 "After la guerre est fin-ee, 
 Hi s'y, w'en la guerre est fin-ee, 
 Hit's back to owld Blighty 
 To wear a real nightie, 
 An' sleep 'n a gen-you-wine lit!" 
 
 It was the unquenchable spirit that had carried on until 
 Akabah had fallen, until the British forces had pushed up the 
 Jordan valley, through stifling heat, drenching rains, dust, fog, 
 cold, short rations, disease, to the strong enemy line stretching 
 from Gaza to ancient Beersheba; it was the undamped spirit 
 that would still push on until the progeny of, Esau should be 
 driven from the land forever sanctified by the carpenter-meta- 
 physician of Nazareth. 
 
 From that drizzling night of awful memory when the stunned 
 youth had been wrenched from his swooning mother, down 
 to this stifling day when, wretched, exhausted, benumbed, hope- 
 less, he found himself plodding northward to join Allenby's 
 troopers, Alden Cragg's life had been one of increasing horror. 
 On the long sea voyage his fears grew hourly. A dreadful 
 prescience of impending calamity appeared in the person of 
 David Barach, who, from the first, hovered around him like a 
 fell wraith. Did Cragg as much as glance up, there stood the 
 Jew, silently staring at him; did he look across the board at 
 
 25 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mess, his eyes met the hollow orbs of the Jew; did he turn 
 a corner of the deck, the despised Jew confronted him. Never 
 a word was exchanged, never a syllable uttered, but always 
 those encircled eyes met his, and with a touch that seared* like 
 hot iron. What did it mean? What did it portend? Was this 
 creature again asserting his pretense " of equality with the 
 Craggs? It must be more. Could it be . . . Heavens, no! The 
 Craggs had merely shown him his place . . . had but properly 
 punished him for his insolence! Yet now Cragg's nerves drew 
 taut; he would spring to his feet at the slightest sound; a 
 touch on the shoulder would convulse him. Sleep and appetite 
 lied. He was at length confined to his bunk. And then it was 
 David Barach who Sat beside him, day and night, motionless, 
 speechless, and always staring, until to the tortured Cragg the 
 Jew's head became a whitened skull, grinning, eyeless, hor- 
 rible. . . 
 
 When the ship docked, Cragg was borne to a hospital. Bar- 
 ach was obliged to proceed with his unit. Then, slowly, freed 
 from the haunting specter, Cragg returned to himself, but 
 remained in such uncertain physical condition that he 'was left 
 behind when his regiment crossed to France to enter upon their 
 preliminary training. 
 
 In this separation from his own unit Cragg hoped he saw 
 a delay suflBcient to save him, and his spirits greatly rose. But 
 the hope met sad fracas. Though exempted from immediate 
 service in arms, an indignity was shortly inflicted upon him 
 only slightly less torturing than the horrible omnipresence of 
 the Jew : he was assigned as personal orderly to Captain Fitley, 
 of the Intelligence Service. He, a Cragg! How his cheeks flushed 
 with hot indignation. He, a slave! He furiously resented the 
 indignity, and he so informed the captain. But Fitley, tall, 
 lean, sad of features, was one of those patient students of 
 human nature who have learned the rare art of regarding a 
 situation or circumstance impersonally. He took Cragg aside 
 and talked to him as he were a son. He showed a tender regard 
 for the youth. He would have made more of a companion of 
 him than a lackey, had Cragg's pride permitted it. But the 
 youth's angry resentment waxed hourly stronger. He refused 
 to see that the great-hearted captain stood between him and 
 worse indignities, unspeakable hardships, possible death; had 
 saved him from the torturing presence of the haunting Jew. . . 
 
 "You are making an awful blunder, my boy," the captain 
 said. "I know of your family. Your father and mine bad 
 business dealings. That's why I've taken you under my vdng. 
 I know what it means to you to give up all you had and get 
 into the ranks. But let me tell you something: most of what 
 
 26 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 we consider to be our worst afflictions are in reality our great- 
 est opportunities. You've been given a chance. Don't blow it." 
 
 But Cragg held the doors of his mind closed; and the shad- 
 ows within grew thereby heavier. He would associate with 
 no one voluntarily. He closed his eyes against the wounded, 
 the convalescent, the disabled whom he could not avoid meet- 
 ing. He kept rigidly aloof from the hospitals, the canteens, 
 the reading-rooms. So great was his sense of shame, of wounded 
 pride, that he refrained from visiting his barristers in London; 
 he avoided his clubs, his friends. In camp and barracks he 
 strove constantly not to hear tales of hardship or adventure, 
 of suffering or death, from soldiers returned from the front. 
 In a great measure his position as orderly to Captain Fitley 
 saved him from much of this; and from much, too, at the 
 hands of the men, who quickly appraised him and spat dis- 
 gustedly whenever his name was mentioned. His one obsessing 
 thought was that the war must end soon, owing to America's 
 entry, and then he would be freed from the galling necessity 
 to yield obedience to insolent officers, many of whom had doubt- 
 less been chauffeurs, tradespeople, men of lowly station, far, 
 far below the Cragg level. . . Ah, then he would be lifted out 
 of an experience which he must ever after regard as an inerad- 
 icable disgrace. 
 
 But not so had it been ordained for Alden Cragg. His tute- 
 lage, long delayed, had now begun. Within a fortnight of his 
 arrival in England he was ordered to prepare the captain's 
 effects for a journey to the Salonika front. 
 
 "But, Captain," he protested aghast, "the war will be over 
 before we've been there a week!" 
 
 The tolerant captain smiled — and had Cragg been less 
 absorbed in himself he might have seen the deep sadness in 
 that smile. "For me, perhaps," the captain answered gently, 
 and then fell silent. He did not say that his orders would send 
 him and his orderly into Trans-Caucasia, from which region 
 the vaguest of reports were issuing, yet where, it was known, 
 the Russian troops were throwing down their arms and hurry- 
 ing north under the deadly mesmerism of the Bolshevist. 
 
 The journey was compassed without special hardship or 
 inconvenience, and even with some interest, and Cragg was 
 about to lift his head once more and gaze with his wonted 
 supercilious air upon the crude clay surrounding him, when 
 the doubly-distilled horrors of Tiflis and Erivan fell upon his 
 soul like a smothering flood. Then did the significance of the 
 captain's words come swiftly home to him. Then did he learn 
 that the captain had been in that scourged region only a few 
 months before, and that the awful experience had riven his 
 soul. 
 
 27 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But," Cragg almost screamed, "I didn't know there were 
 such things! Oh, my God! you shouldn't have brought me 
 here . . . without preparation!" 
 
 But earth had no language in which to have adequately 
 conveyed to him the picture. Nor could aught have prepared 
 a mentality such as Alden Cragg's for the aftermath of the 
 Turkish "Bloody Trek". "Perhaps — if you don't go insane — 
 it will do you good to learn that your personal troubles are not 
 the greatest in the world," the captain said. And then, because 
 duty commanded, he led Cragg out to where Death stalked in 
 its most hideous garb. 
 
 Could King Tirdates, first of earth's monarchs to embrace 
 Christianity, have looked down the corridors of time — oh> could 
 he have seen, ait the close of sixteen centuries of barbarous 
 persecution, the pitiful throngs that swayed as they stood and 
 stretched forth- mummified hands to the horrified Cragg — could 
 he have heard their low whines, their whimpering "0-/ja-/ie/ 
 0-na-ne!" — could he have witnessed their fearful agony of body 
 and soul — he would indeed have hesitated before embracing 
 the Christian religion and imposing it upon his people I Could 
 he have foreseen the hideous blotting out of a million lives at 
 devilish Moslem hands in these latter days of the "seven times," 
 he would have despatched his fleetest messengers to Constan- 
 tine with a warning loud to hold aloof from the blighting faith 
 of the Christians. . . 
 
 "Starving," murmured the captain, tears bursting from his 
 straining eyes. Cragg heard it, as he stood frozen with horror 
 before the ghastly sight. Lamentation hung upon the chill 
 air, low, broken, inarticulate lamentation — aye, for the sins of 
 the Christians, of the Craggs, of the Chaddocks, the Whittiers, 
 laid upon these. 
 
 "But we all caused the war!" Marian had said that Sun- 
 day at the rector's bountiful board. . . 
 
 "0-na-neI 0-na-neI" 
 
 Cragg tore the food from his pack and threw it to the 
 wretches. The captain seized his arm. "For God's sake don't 
 do that!" he cried. But the ravening hordes had fallen upon 
 it. They fought like 'wolves, snarling, clawing, gouging. An 
 emaciated wretch, grinning as he had grinned with the set and 
 uncontrollable leer of death for weeks, thrust a piece of the 
 bread into his mouth, gulped it, fell writhing when it touched 
 his stomach, and died at Cragg's feet. 
 
 Cragg shrieked aloud. It was a hideous nightmare ! It was 
 unreal! He turned to flee; but the captain caught his arm. 
 And then the captain laughed, a hollow, mocking laugh. And 
 after that he laughed constantly. And the more unspeakable 
 
 28 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the horrors, the louder he laughed. But while he laughed his 
 eyes burned, and he talked ever more wildly, and his talk 
 became hectic. Then the stupefied Cragg began to understand 
 what the captain had meant by saying that the war would soon 
 be over for him. . . 
 
 "I can't stand it! I can't! / can't!" Cragg shrieked. But 
 he would; for one whose thought, like his, centers ever upon 
 himself, is in a measure protected from externals. It was 
 those like the captain, who loved their fellow men, that sank 
 with bursting hearts before such indescribable misery. 
 
 "Nine hundred thousand have perished by massacre, starva- 
 tion, and exposure," the British Commander reported with 
 shaking voice. "A quarter of a million girls are imprisoned 
 in Turkish harems, with their faces branded so as to make 
 escape impossible. There are at least sixty thousand orphans 
 held by the Turks. But," and his voice fell," "there are no 
 infants. None have lived through these last four years. The 
 Ittihat Terraki has blotted out a million lives." 
 
 And the Ittihat Terraki — alas, the irony of it! — ^was the 
 Turkish "Committee of Union and Progress". . 
 
 Daily the wild-eyed, grinning, death-stricken throngs milled 
 slowly about before Cragg's bursting eyes, going nowhere, but 
 milling, milling, milling, starving, rotting, shelterless, friend- 
 less. Godless, till death shrieked in their ears and snuffed them 
 out. Whimpering, sobbing, filthy, tatterdemalion, unhuman 
 herds, all victims of the great mesmerism. . . 
 
 Daily the fickle Russian soldiers gave over the land; daily 
 the hate-filled, descendants of the Assyrian drew closer to 
 Batum; daily the fanatical sons of Esau pressed from the south. 
 "It's our move next," the commander said grimly. "God! — 
 to leave these people to the mercies of the Huns and the 
 Turks. . . See that fellow over there?" pointing to a dull- 
 eyed creature huddled in his rotting rags against the building 
 in the sunlight. "I hope he dies before we leave. He came from 
 the slaughter-house of Der-el-Zor. Escaped the Turkish mas- 
 sacre. He's mad. Hears nothing all day long but the shrieks 
 of his people as they went down under the Turkish swords. 
 His own family were soaked in oil and burned alive. He 
 escaped through the Euphrates river — 'Oh, no, he didn't swim it ! 
 God, no! It was jammed with human bodies, and he climbed 
 over them! He had to push the bodies aside to get water to 
 drink! He fled into the desert, and found bodies, bodies, 
 corpses, pyramids of human heads and bodies, everywhere. 
 Christians, you know. This war — ^perhaps you don't know it — 
 has been from the first a war to exterminate Christianity. But 
 there haven't been many that realized it. The Kaiser, you 
 
 15 29 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 know, is the Defender of Islam. He supports the Koran, that 
 horrible jumble of a fanatic's diseased brain that licenses mur- 
 der 'in the name of the merciful and compassionate God, who 
 created man from congealed blood'. Man created from con- 
 gealed blood! Get that? There's a doctrine worthy of the 
 noble War Lord! Do you wonder that cTerything evil has 
 struck through him to wipe out Christianify? As for what 
 Christianity really is . . . God knows! That's another matter. 
 But I know what it isn't. And it isn't what the preachers have 
 been giving us, and I jolly well know that!" 
 
 Terror seized upon Cragg; he became a cowering, shrink- 
 ing, abject figure. True, he had always suffered acutely from 
 fear; but never until now had he realized how terribly afraid 
 of death he was. In its presence his blood froze, his cowering 
 spirit palzied. He had been able to control his thought of it 
 while Crestelridge was acclaiming him a hero; but here, in this 
 ghastly spot, with horror drenching him, his soul quaked. 
 
 He got out his Bible — the one which his doting mother had 
 ordered specially bound for him, resplendent in morocco and 
 gold, with his name embossed large in the yellow metal across 
 its cover. But the complaisancy with which he had been wont 
 to read and expound the Scripture in former days had forsaken 
 him. To the increasing of his terror he found that the Bible 
 had no message for him now. Worse, it mocked him ! It had 
 served him well when idling in the lap of physical comfort in 
 beautiful "Craggmont"; but here, where revolting Death leered 
 at him from its eyeless sockets, picked at him with its ghastly 
 hands, here ... he let fall his Bible and cried aloud, cried 
 madly: "Oh, my God!" 
 
 But would God let him die, him, a Cragg? And where now 
 was his god? Why,, at "Craggmont," of course, in the banks 
 and vaults where lay the Cragg stocks and bonds, their deeds, 
 their gold. , . 
 
 Yet the rector had taught — ah, yes, the rector had taught 
 such soothing, narcotizing views of heaven and hell, such splen- 
 did ideals of socialization, of organization to perpetuate things 
 material. And Cragg had listened and believed that naught but 
 the things of matter counted, that the material constituted the 
 sum and substance of all that was real and worth one's while, 
 that it was the essence of the good things of this world. . . 
 But these supports were now failing him, miserably, treacher- 
 ously! He was floating over a bottomless abyss, floating with 
 seared brain, with frozen soul, floating. . . 
 
 He fell upon his knees and prayed, long and feverishly, to 
 the God he had never known. But his own words mocked him; 
 they echoed in his ears like demoniac laughter. His bursting 
 
 30 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 brain dinned with the refrain: "If I regard iniquity in my heart 
 the Lord will not hear me." Did he regard iniquity in his heart? 
 He justly hated the girl who had hurled him into this hell; he 
 rightfully hated that haunting Jew; he loved the fair, bright 
 world of "Craggmont" and all that it stood for; he loved the 
 Cragg prestige; he loved the pomp and ritual of proud St. 
 Jude's, comprising all that he knew of the worship of God. He 
 had been a faithful communicant, had fostered God's work in 
 St. Jude's — and yet, withal, God had forsaken him! 
 
 He rose, fiercely cursing the God that could not see and pity 
 such human distress as his. He loudly, felly cursed St. Jude's, 
 the rector, Marian; he hurled anathemas at the Christ. . . 
 
 And always beneath his window huddled the ghastly Dan- 
 tean crew of hell-sentenced wretches that fought for the worms 
 and beetles they dug from the dead soil; the joyless, broken, 
 maddened throng that milled and milled the slow hours 
 through, whining; sobbing, moaning; the crazed, unhuman 
 things that sat with glassy stares, waiting, dull-eyed, dry-lipped, 
 for oblivion. The nations had bartered Christ for a mess of 
 pottage, and these were paying. . . 
 
 Then his brain tottered. His senses numbed. And from 
 thenceforth he moved as in an extended dream. And slowly 
 he became aWare that his captain had died, a maniac; that he, 
 Cragg, had helped to bury him, and had laughed shrilly and 
 tried to dance on his grave; that the British had evacuated 
 Traiis-Caucasia; and that from somewhere, from somebody in 
 the world of sweet reality Jar beyond this nightmare of hell, 
 word had come that had thrust him into the ranks and sent 
 him, he knew not whither until his veiled mind began to clear 
 on the burning, dust-choked road from Akabah. 
 
 CHAPTER 5 
 
 IN the oificial report of the Turkish attempt to frustrate the 
 concentration of British troops around Beersheba in October 
 of 1917 there was little, of more than casual interest. Few 
 read it, beyond thdse dull-witted clerks in the War Office, who 
 yawned as they transcribed it upon the records. Yet it was a 
 spirited action against the British outpost line that had been 
 pushed to a ridge of low hills near the Wadi Hanafish, and 
 had it succeeded, might have halted the work of concentration. 
 Two desperate charges left the commanding hill in Turkish 
 hands. Then the gallant action of the Australian Light Horse, 
 reinforced by two brigades of the 53rd Division, caused the Turk 
 
 31 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 eventually to withdraw and to abandon further thought of 
 interference at that point. Bare and monotonous details these, 
 yet fraught with deepest moment to those three whom Crestel- 
 ridge had so oddly contributed to the war of the Christians : the 
 unevangelical Marian, the ritualist Cragg, and Barach the Jew. 
 
 But for the powerful influence of Simeon Penberry, Marian 
 Whittier nor Alden Cragg had had part in this affair. And it 
 was later said that, but for the same powerful influence, the 
 Palestine campaign as a whole might have assumed a less sig- 
 nificant aspect. Penberry, who had earlier ridiculed the idea, 
 had quite unexpectedly become an aggressive supporter of the 
 campaign, and loud in his choice of the man to conduct it. But 
 how largely he reflected the thought of Marian Whittier, not 
 even he himself would have been willing to admit. To the last 
 he yowed that he had yielded, not to the girl, but to his own 
 superior judgment. "Why am I letting you go?" he declared. 
 "I couldn't get you into Trans-Caucasia, but I can to Pales- 
 tine, that's why." But what he did not tell the eager girl was 
 that his investigations had disclosed the fact that Alden Cragg 
 was going mad in Trans-Caucasia. And he had secured the 
 order that had transferred him to the Palestine field. "Why, 
 good Lord!" he cried, as he watched her hurried preparations 
 for departure, "don't you suppose I've been in touch with affairs 
 down there long since? Don't you suppose, young woman, that 
 I've had my agents among the Arabs, the Egyptians, and even 
 among the Turks? Why, I've got a spy in Jerusalem right 
 now, under the very nose of the Hun! Ha! ha! Wisest old 
 hag y* ever clapped eyes on! Uncanny! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 Then, as he sat grumbling over note after note that went 
 to the purchase of equipment for the Penberry Ambulance 
 Corps, he would look up at Marian and demand: "What am / 
 getting out of this? It's all sacrifice for me; but you're going 
 to find your lover — the bally cad!" 
 
 And the girl would put her arms about him and remind him 
 that the war was teaching them all the greatest lesson that 
 mankind has to learn in earth's preparatory school, that of 
 loving one's fellow men. "Everything else is so trivial now," 
 she would say; "for now we — ^you, and I, and all those who are 
 fighting for Principle — are banded together in the mightiest 
 task ever given to man : that of constructing heaven upon earth. 
 Oh, yes, it is possible; indeed, it is what we are commanded to 
 do! Everything is now laid to the plummet, your interests, 
 mine, the world's. We can no longer live unto ourselves; 
 Alden will learn this lesson. . ." 
 
 Then she would pause, and stand lost in thought. She 
 knew not if Cragg had seen fighting in Trans-Caucasia ; but she 
 
 32 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 knew that he must in Palestine. And she knew that Barach was 
 there. But she knew not why her thought became so disturbed 
 whenever she reflected on Barach's presence near Alden, yet 
 she felt at times that she must scream out over the petty delays 
 that kept her from reaching this Jew and drawing from him 
 his motive. 
 
 "Yet Isaiah tells us that 'he that believeth shall not make 
 haste'. Not if the haste is born of fear, for fear is belief in 
 other powers than the One God. Error counts upon haste as an 
 accomplice in its work. Haste^ born of fear, becomes panic, 
 inefficiency, blundering. No, I must keep step with God." 
 
 As the time drew near for Marian's departure Penberry 
 sought to hide his all too apparent feelings in facetiousness. 
 "You'll have to make your will before you go," he suggested. 
 "They all do." 
 
 Marian laughed. "I haven't a thing to will," she replied. 
 "Not my will, but Thine, be done. There, I've made it." 
 
 Again: "Aren't you taking some tubes of morphia tablets, 
 in case you fall into the hands of the Turks?" Penberry asked. 
 "The nurses all do. They prefer suicide. . ." But Marian 
 scoffed the suggestion back into silence. 
 
 And then the great iron gates to Penberry Hall opened, and 
 Marian, like a released bird, flew out and sped into the far 
 south. Simeon Penberry had held her a prisoner for three long 
 
 months. 
 
 * * • * * • *,* 
 
 In the shadow of the autumn sun cast by the Great Pyramid 
 of Gizeh, on Egypt's northern border, a band of Arabs sat hud- 
 dled against the wind that drove sharply from the south. In 
 their midst stood a woman, dark of skin, black of hair, and with 
 deep-set eyes that glowed like live coals. 
 
 "Shall the jehad be declared? you ask, O Abdul," she was 
 saying in a voice tremulous with passion. "It is but suicide 
 that you advocate ! Again I say you. No ! The green flag shall 
 nof be raised!" 
 
 "Then, O Zuleyka," answered the one addressed, "we are 
 without hope." 
 
 "Hope? Our hope, O Abdul, has become a certainty ! Look 
 you there," extending her arm to the south and west, "where 
 Pharaoh's ruined palace again appears. Think you Truth can 
 remain forever buried within the things of matter? Who is it 
 that now brings to light the throne of hoary Merenptah, of him 
 who knew the Hebrew Moses? Who is it now unearths the 
 home of ancient Akhnaton, that worthy heretic who yielded to 
 the Hebrew faith, forsook his foul worship of bulls and cats 
 and turned to the One God, Whom he described as 'Father and 
 Mother of all that He had made', the 'Lord of Love'? 
 
 33 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Learn you nothing from all this, O Abdul? Know you not 
 that the very elements of the Hebrew faith are found in the 
 religion of this ancient Pharaoh, whose palace the British are 
 recovering yonder from the sands of centuries? And that that 
 faith alone is now our hope? Know you not that when, two 
 years ago, the German Kaiser, boasting Defender of Islam, set 
 forth to destroy the ancient faith, that nation of the Isles, which 
 the One Almighty made the keeper of the Word, did throw its 
 protecting arm about all Egypt and us — and, though girding 
 itself to slay the Assyrian worshiper of Bel, did in the same 
 hour send its peaceful mission here to briiig up from yonder 
 jealous sands the long-forgotten palace of the Pharaohs? O 
 Abdul the Ignorant ! A type are you of the blinded world." 
 
 She drew nearer the man, with extended arm and long fingisr 
 pointing at him. "What is our hope?" she went on eagerly. 
 "This : to recognize that Government to which the Hebrews' God 
 has given the Word. For it, O Abdul, will sweep away, in time 
 and with its perfected faith in the One God, every human form 
 of government, and we and all mankind shall be governed by 
 the One God alone! Has Egypt e'er known freedom? Yet it 
 knows it now, in spite of those like you, tools still of old 
 Assyria, who stand too near the sun to see its fullest glory. 
 Turn you, O Abdul," she went on, pointing upward at the 
 pyramid, "the Hebrews' altar to their God still stands in this 
 mighty pile that laughs at time! The secret of old Khufu'is 
 tomb still mocks the silly wisdom of Sultan, Kaiser, Warrior, 
 Priest ! 
 
 "Listen further, O ye blinded ones!" She turned and drew 
 herself up to her full height before them all. "The hidden 
 powers of darkness loosed this wicked war, and why? To crush 
 out Truth! And these dark powers, by flattery, coaxing, 
 wheedlings, gold, would darken your thought, too, and draw 
 you vdth them to the bottomless pit, down yonder long, steep 
 incline in Mizraim's altar, urged by the evil Dragon star. But 
 ye shall not yield! For — hear ye well! — the final year of the 
 Hegira of the Hebrew Daniel's prophecy ends this very month 
 of October of this very year, and that mighty prophecy is ful- 
 filled, for this month has witnessed the British Allenby's drive 
 launched fresh against the Prussianized Turks! Does it mean 
 naught to you that Scriptural prophecy is fulfilled with such 
 exactness? Mark you well: Jerusalem totters to its fall! 
 
 "But, more: this year of 1917 sees now a new power in the 
 conflict — sees ancient Israel joined bone to bone and reunited! 
 Their God is surely with them! The powers of darkness shall 
 go down! Ishmael shall become a nation, but Esau shall 
 perish! Then cast we not our lot with him !" 
 
 34 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She stood for a moment, looking out beyond the group into 
 the vast desert. At length her eyes wandered back to the 
 pyramid. For some moments they roved over the vast pile, then 
 hung at the ancient entrance that pierces the northward side. 
 
 "An arrow," she said slowly and in a low, awesome tone, 
 "Iposed from yonder downward passage of this ancient pile, 
 arid with the needful power, would drop within the walls of 
 Salem, the Prince Melchisedec's city of Peace, the holy city of 
 Jerusalem. Thither I go on the morrow, swift as the flying 
 arrow. He who sends me there fulfills prophecy. The hour 
 has struck. The Sphinx yields her secret ! The jehad shall not 
 be declared! Esau shall perish with his mess of pottage ! Cast 
 
 we not our lot with him!" 
 
 ******** 
 
 " 'Tain't so much wot she s'ys as th' w'y she looks hat 'un. 
 Bill." The speaker scraped the mud from his trench spade 
 and spat significantly. 
 
 "Right, John," the other returned, straightening up and 
 mopping his wet brow. "But, Hi s'y, w'en she does speak, you 
 feels like you're goin' up hin a lift, wot?" 
 
 "His she a female chaplain. Bill?" someone asked. 
 
 "Blimme ! now she may be so." 
 
 "Y'r wrong. Bill," put in another; "she ain't got their dope. 
 Th' chaplains s'ys : 'B'ys, we're goin' t' talk to ye 'bout religion 
 . . . but we'll 'ave a movie pitcher first'. S'ys Hi: 'T'ell wi' 
 th* movies! Let's 'ear 'bout religion. Stick t' y'r text!' Hi 
 minds th' chap wot Hi last 'eard. 'E was t' talk f'r ten minnits, 
 an' Hi was dam eager t' 'ear. We'd been singin' 'ims an' gettin" 
 jolly well worked hup, an' a lad fr'm th' service 'ad prayed 
 summat grand, an' we s'ys : 'Let th' preacher bring on a bracer 
 now'- An' the preacher get hup an' . . . my Gawd! 'e spends 
 th' whole ten minnits tellin' funny stories . . . an' we sittin' 
 there t' 'ear summat gen-oo-ine 'bout death, an' Gawd, an' 
 'eaven! Some o' th' b'ys walked out on 'im, the' did!" 
 
 "Right! Th' b'ys don't want t' be told t' keep aw'y fr'm th' 
 drink an*" gamblin' an' wimmen; an' the' don't want movies 
 an nursery stories f'm th' chaplains. Blimme! the' wants 
 religion, Hi s'ys. . . An' the' wants hit wi'out th' cam-oo-flage. 
 This gel gi's hit t' us dif'rent; she . . . Blimme! she s'ys as 
 'ow she loves us — us wots clods an' lubbers! ... Hi couldn't 
 get hit fust, but, blarst me ! hit's soakin' hin now : she sees us 
 dif'rent fr'm wot we be, an' that's wot Hi mikes out o' hit! 
 Wot?" 
 
 "I notes she's pop'lar wi' all but th' chaplains. . ." 
 
 "An' w'y. Hi asks? Hi'll s'y hit's because she don't let us 
 die w'en th' chaplains tells us hour time's come, wot? Do ye 
 
 35 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mind young Jimmie Ayler, o' th' Sixtieth, an' 'ow she finds 'im 
 all shot to 'ell, wi' th' dew o' death on 'is fore'ead, an' w'en th' 
 priest asks 'im would 'e be pleased to confess an' throw 'isself 
 on th' marcy o' th' Lord 'e rises hup mad as 'ell an' s'ys 'e ain't 
 so dam yellow as to lead a wicked life an' then beg th' Lord 
 like a bally windy f'r a seat hin Paradise w'en 'e sees 'is hour's 
 come, eh? An' then this gel steps up an' tells 'im- Gawd his 
 'is life, an' sech, an' pulls 'im through, an' now 'e's th' best man 
 hin th' regiment an' worships 'er like a 'oun' dog, wot?" 
 
 " 'As she got some new-fangled religion, do ye think, John?" 
 
 " 'Tain't so much a new-fangled religion, Hi'm thinkin', as 
 hit his th' old one that th' preachers 'as lost sight of," was the 
 slowly enunciated verdict. And many heads around nodded in 
 confirmation of the opinion. 
 
 Though without preparation, as the world would regard it, 
 yet Marian Whittier went into the Palestine war zone equipped 
 in a way that those about her saw not. Ostensibly, she was 
 attached to the Penberry Ambulance Corps, whose active head 
 was the efficient young Doctor HoUom, of London; in reality 
 she came with a freedom of action such as only the vast Pen- 
 berry influence could have procured her. And, though she did 
 not then know it, that influence could have been enlisted only in 
 the way Madam Galuth had obtained it. 
 
 Her entrance into Palestine, after weary days of hardship 
 and delay, was not without accompanying emotions that surged 
 powerfully within her; and yet she entered with a consecra- 
 tion, and a consequent concentration of thought, that in a meas- 
 ure prevented any vivid mental impress from the scenes being 
 enacted around her. To her more spiritual mode of thought, 
 she had entered Canaan, even as had Abraham of old. Like 
 him, she would find her God there, despite the roars of evil. 
 She was on the soil hallowed by those who long before had 
 learned and taught the AUness of the One God, and who had, 
 by that same scientific and demonstrable knowledge, worked 
 out their complete salvation. The descendants of the ancient 
 Assyrian, together with the sons of Esau, held the land; but so, 
 to human sense, did a brood of errors hold human conscious- 
 ness. The expulsion of this brood from the human mentality 
 would externalize the entrance into the promised land of har- 
 mony. "War," she had sought to impress upon Penberry, "is 
 a state of human mind externalized. We are not at war with 
 people, but with the error that uses people. The trouble is not 
 with others, but with ourselves. It is not that somebody else 
 has failed, not that Christianity has failed, but that we have 
 failed utterly to demonstrate Principle, God, and thus destroy 
 the error that seeks to crush the Word." 
 
 36 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Early she became known to the soldiers as "the girl with 
 the queer notions"; yet sick, weary, disgruntled, wounded 
 "Tommies" vied savagely for her ministrations, and vowed 
 heartily that while she read or talked to them they forgot the 
 hell of war. And the girl, as she looked tenderly, lovingly upon 
 these begrimed and sweating creatures who were fighting back 
 the hordes of chaos with material weapons, the only ones they 
 had been taught to wield, would feel a great surge of pity for 
 them, so foully betrayed by their spiritual guides and teachers, 
 by those who, like Wilson Whittier, basely materialized religion 
 and built huge fabrics of flimsy tinsel that consumed in the first 
 hot breath of hate and murder that blew from the land of 
 Franz Mesmer and seared the world. Clearly she had seen 
 this material teaching as but a phase of the mesmerism which, 
 from "the beginning," had constituted that "veil" still untaken 
 away. She had seen suggestion as the chief molder of human 
 opinion, the arch-enemy of civilization. She had seen a whole 
 nation fall its abject prey, avidly absorbing the suggestion put 
 forth by press, by pulpit, by school, until it lost its ability rightly 
 to reason, and became subject to any emotion — until it grew so 
 morally dulled and enslaved that rapine and the impaling of 
 babes upon bayonets would afford occasion for public celebra- 
 tion by parades and orations and tuneful bands in city squares. 
 "Oh," she cried, "when the world is constructed anew, may I 
 help the people to know why and how they have come to believe 
 what they do believe!" For well she knew that the tool of sugges- 
 tion knows not why he does a thing, why he has acquired the 
 beliefs that he clings to so tenaciously, nor why he performs 
 those actions that seem to him most deliberate, but that may 
 destroy him utterly and his world. "It is because he is narco- 
 tized," she would say; "mesmerized; just mentally doped!" 
 
 Possibly it was only the aggressive suggestion of evil that 
 drove Marian's thought to David Barach; possibly it was the 
 angel of protection — she must determine at once. And again 
 she used the Penberry influence, always at hand. "For I am 
 here on David Barach's account just as much as on Alden's," 
 she reasoned. 
 
 Then, in time, she found him. And the Jew's eyes grew 
 big with wonder when they fell upon her; but they quickly 
 narrowed and turned hard and cold. She greeted him cordially. 
 He stared at her, then broke into a cynical laugh. 
 
 "So St. Jude's comes to the Holy Land!" he sneered. "The 
 'church of the cordial welcome' — to millionaires. Is your 
 saintly father here, too? Bah! not he. He's safe in Crestel- 
 ridge, juggling wafers and wine on Sundays, and preaching 
 ihAt there can't be a war, while we fellows are down here in 
 
 37 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 this hell-hole saving his life and the -worthless lives of the other 
 home-guard parasites who've sucked our blood and stolen our 
 goods and murdered our wives! Well, what do you want 
 of me?" 
 
 Marian heard him through pityingly. And when he had 
 concluded, and stood looking defiantly into her face, a great 
 longing possessed her to aid him, and all who have been simi- 
 larly brutalized by human suffering. "I want to help you," she 
 said gently. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and gave a snort of disgust. 
 "Bosh ! The brazen effrontery of you self-constituted agents of 
 the Almighty is sickening! I suppose," he added, watching 
 her narrowly, "you think I wouldn't dare talk to you this way if 
 the war hadn't brought us all to the same level." 
 
 "But there really was no difference in level before," she 
 answered. "Caste is only an unfounded belief in inequality. 
 The only real equality is moral equality. Tell me your story, 
 and let me help you. For your thought is heavily burdened, I 
 can see." 
 
 "Ah! then you come as a missionary? A sort .of mind- 
 reader, I take it. You have read my thought? Pray, what do 
 you find there?" 
 
 She hesitated before replying; then: "Death." 
 
 His mocking smile faded, and the lines of his face drew 
 down. "Death!" he echoed. Then, eagerly, and with a note of 
 fear in his voice: "For whom?" 
 
 She did not immediately answer; but as she stood regarding 
 the man she saw his eyes burn and his facial muscles quiver 
 with the suppression of a question that was smoldering be- 
 neath, and that she knew must burst through. She waited; 
 and soon the question spouted forth. 
 
 "Tell me," said Barach, drawing closer to the girl and speak- 
 ing in a low, tense voice, "what became of that craven; Alden 
 Cragg? I left him in London. Did they ship him back to his 
 mammy? Tell me!" 
 
 Somehow she knew it would be of Alden. . . "I thought 
 I might find him here," she said. 
 
 "Ah! then he is coming?" 
 
 "Why are you so interested?" 
 
 He grinned — ^it was a devilish leer : "I want to see him under 
 fire," he said. 
 
 Her eyes looked deep into his and held them, despite his 
 efforts to shift his gaze. "Did you ever have any dealings with 
 Alden Cragg?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he replied readily. "Sounds odd, doesn't it, 
 that a Cragg should stoop to traflRc with a despised Jew? But 
 
 38 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 . . ." He came still closer and grinned down into her face. 
 "Would you believe it?" he said, "but it had to do with a 
 ■woman." 
 
 Marian started. "A woman!" she exclaimed. 
 
 He nodded. "My wife," watching her keenly for the effect 
 of his words. Then, as she stood, utterly uncomprehending: 
 "Cragg . . . /cz7Zedher!" 
 
 The girl gasped at the words, then fell back before the 
 deadly hatred that burst out after them. Barach's eyes flamed; 
 his frame quivered; his head, with its shaggy mane of black 
 hair, swayed back and forth on his long body like a serpent's; 
 his words came spewing forth as venom. His mentality, sub- 
 merged in a rising tide of hate, lost consciousness of his environ- 
 ment, of the girl's presence, of all but the festering wound 
 that he believed the Craggs had dealt him. A torrent of vindic- 
 tiveness. Of invective, of unleashed fury, poured from him, and 
 left him shriveled into the distorted incarnation of murder. 
 
 So had he raged under the lashing thought of the Craggs 
 since that fell hour when they, as the instruments of black 
 error, had wrested from him the hope of heaven with his 
 earthly all. So had he hugged to his bosom the contorted con- 
 cept of Cain until it had gnawed deep into his soul, until his 
 brain burned incessantly, his hands forever twitched, his tongue 
 hung caked and dry, and disease fastened like a leech upon his 
 frame. Hopelessness held the scepter over his mind; ambition 
 had shrunken into a foul, rotting desire to kill, and that must 
 destroy him in its own fulfillment. 
 
 Yet Marian knew as she stood now before this hideous 
 manifestation of carnal hatred that the man was, through it 
 all, still seeking the Christ; knew that his raging animus was 
 based only upon that "lie" which from the beginning has 
 appeared to mortals to veil the truth. To her, the infinite 
 Principle, God, was an omnipresent Love that left no room for 
 its opposite, hate. She knew that David Barach really had no 
 enemies but that same impotent "lie"; but she likewise knew 
 that to the uninstructed mortal hugging to himself the con- 
 cepts of false thinking the prophet Jeremiah's words would not 
 fail of fulfillment: "/ will bring evil upon this people, even the 
 fruit of their thoughts!" ... 
 
 Barach's fury spent itself, and left him weak; left him with 
 anxious, wistful eyes staring in mute, hopeless, helpless appeal. 
 Left the girl, too, with a full revelation of the devilish animus 
 that was driving him. And before it she stood appalled. 
 
 Then he turned away, with bent head, while she stood strug- 
 gling against the flood of suggestions that had swept over her. 
 Above, against the blue vault, airplanes wheeled and droned. 
 
 39 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The parched earth lay baking beneath the ardent sun. Long, 
 wavering "dust-devils" sprang up from the ground like genii, 
 hovered for a moment, and whirled off drunkenly across the 
 desert. It was all a symbol of the sterile human conscious- 
 ness that knows not God. 
 
 CHAPTER 6 
 
 ODDLY enough — at least to those inexperienced in mental 
 suggestion and its modes — Cragg's waking thought on the 
 Akabah road went not back to the horrors of Trans- 
 Caucasia, but to David Barach, and he recalled with a start 
 that, before leaving England, Captain Fitley had remarked that 
 the unit with which Cragg and Barach had come was sched- 
 uled for training on French soil preliminary to service in Pal- 
 estine. But Cragg was then the captain's orderly; and thereby 
 he escaped this service, escaped the haunting persecution of 
 the spectral Jew, and escaped, in less measure, association with 
 those other mere human creatures who had shared his mess 
 and huddled him about so unbelievably, so incomprehensibly, 
 as if of equal caste with him, a Cragg ! 
 
 But now, in this new. shift on Fate's board, should he find 
 the Jew up there? If so, could he face him again? For he 
 did fear him; and it was a far deeper fear than that which had 
 impelled him to rob the Jew of his wife and his goods; it was 
 a fear that had terrified him into loathing hatred of the fellow; 
 it was a negative emotion, that seemed to become positive, 
 offensive, simulating aggressive moral courage, that might even 
 accomplish the destruction of the offending Jew. It was a 
 reflection of that national selfishness of the Hun which became 
 transmuted into fear and hatred, and fell a victim to its own 
 consuming error. . .. 
 
 He would kill Barach! Was he not going forth to kill? 
 Like these others, he was sent to slay to order; in prudence, 
 he must inflict upon his fellows the death which he himself so 
 greatly feared. But with those whose lives he was bidden to 
 take he had no personal quarrel, against them no real ill-will. 
 The war meant nothing positive to him — gladly would he fly 
 from it and back to the soft embraces of Crestelridge. The 
 tragic blunders of the rulers of this world could not in justice 
 make him suffer and force him to inflict suffering upon those 
 whom the State had named his enemies! . . . 
 
 And he could have avoided it all, but for Marian Whittier. 
 Ah, his hate was vast enough generously to include this treach- 
 
 40 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 erous girl! . . . But he must kill Barach ere the Jew could 
 again resume his persecutions ! . . . How he loathed that girl ! 
 How he loathed the rector and his theological thaumaturgy! 
 He hated Chaddock; he despised Ted Sayor. . . God! if he 
 could but see them all riddled with shell ! He cursed low. . . 
 
 The distant boom of guns smote his ears, and he stopped 
 short. A thrill of terror suddenly pierced his soul. Then his 
 startled imagination shot forward into battle, and he paled be- 
 fore its hideous possibilities. He was a coward ! He knew it now ! 
 
 His companion shoved him rudely forward. "Hi s'y. Bat- 
 man, yen's th' music wot 'ul lull us to sleep to-night. Oh, hit's 
 
 After la guerre est fln-ee, 
 
 Hi s'y, w'en la guerre est fin-ee. 
 
 Shove me a fag. Batman. . . Oh, beg pahdon, m' Lud; Hi 
 f'rgot you're th' pious bloke wot don't smoke. . ." 
 
 Above the dun-colored cloud of dust the sky was a fairy 
 blue; beneath, the intense heat hung inert, with not a breath 
 of wind to shift it. The faces of the soldiers were caked with 
 the yellow dust; their nostrils burned; their throats parched. 
 Cragg reached for his water bottle; he would have broached his 
 remaining -supply at a gulp, but that a hand fell upon his arm, 
 restraining him. "Chuck it, Batman! Y' can't fight on a 
 hempty water bottle!" 
 
 Fight! And then Cragg recalled dully that his rude com- 
 panion had told him, hours since, that these troops from 
 Salonika were among the new draft that was ordered to the 
 line to take over an assigned section of trench. But surely a 
 mistake had been made with regard to him I If he could but 
 reach the commanding officer and explain it all . . . explain 
 that he had been enmeshed, entangled, and that he did not 
 really belong with these veterans ... he was a victim, led out 
 to slaughter. . . 
 
 As the afternoon wore away, Cragg's thought became 
 flighty: now he stood in the magnificent salon of "Craggmont" 
 among his adulating sycophants, a martial hero; now he was 
 listening again in terror to Harris Chaddock' s awful recital of 
 the mental regression of those shocked by the Satanic shells 
 into eras of history long dead; now his thought clung to the 
 awful portent of the cracked bell ; now he was regarding Marian 
 Whittier with tolerant pity, magnanimous in his vast, superior 
 detachment ; now he was hurling stones at her, obsessed by the 
 raging desire to bury her crushed, unrecognizable body deep 
 . . . deep . . . 
 
 Again his companion shook him — that rough, kindly, buU- 
 
 41 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 dog fighter from London's slums, who had early taken the 
 youth under his wing, sheltered him, fought for him, loved hini 
 without reasoning why. Cragg raised his blood-shot eyes. The 
 dreary landscape rose to meet him. Its mood was one of vast 
 sympathy for him, of the pity that his God had withheld. . . 
 
 Night fell as the troops arrived in camp, some hundred 
 yards back of the outer line. Unspeakably weary, galled and 
 footsore, his skin blistered, and his swollen tongue protruding, 
 Alden Cragg crouched close to the ground, numb with fear. 
 From far up ahead came at intervals a dull booming. At lesser 
 intervals flares burst, and a ghostly glow illumined the black 
 sky. Soldiers were moving about with apparent unconcern, 
 growling, bickering, some singing. . . 
 
 "Hi s'y, wot word from Mesopot? Who's 'eard from Town- 
 send?" 
 
 "Hi'm feelin' sort o' sacred, Sandy, bein' 's this his th' Owly 
 Land." 
 
 "Owly Land be blowed! Hi've come from th' Garden o' 
 Eden! An', mate, th' lass Hi left hout there's the very one 
 that taught th' sarpent t' lie. . ." 
 
 Cragg roused to be duly received and billeted. Then fol- 
 lowed an indistinct period of shoving about, after which he 
 found himself on the floor of a damp dugout, huddled with a 
 dozen veterans before a glowing brazier, now shivering, now 
 burning, his drawn face blanching at the muffled roar of distant 
 guns and the sharp cracking of infrequent and badly placed 
 shells. 
 
 "Cheer-o, Batman!" His companion of the march was still 
 with him, and Cragg was almost grateful. "Wot, shiverin' wi' 
 th' cold? ... Or just jolly well scared? Buck up, Hi s'y! 
 W'y, even 'im as starts out a windy sometimes cops a medal!" 
 He turned to the others in the group. "Hi minds a non-com 
 hup bin France," he continued, "wot wa'n't fit to be bin th' 
 line — a fair windy. Hi s'y, a fair, honest windy, wot didn't mind 
 lettin' us see that 'is backbone was mush. But," and his voice 
 fell low, " 'e was bin th' retreat from IVlons. Hi was wi' 'im 
 all th' w'y. An' then comes th' vision — th' vision, y' under- 
 stan'f" turning to Cragg. "Th' Boches ridin' us down; our 
 line so thin a still breeze 'ud 'a blow'd hit aw'y; an' then . ". . 
 then we sees a sort o' mist w'y up bin th' sky, a yellowish 
 mist, risin' afore th' Boches as they come to th' top o' th' 'ill. Hi 
 looks at th' enemy, springin' hup from th' ground, millions 
 o' 'em! an' Hi throws m' gun aw'y an' gives hup, f'r Hi can't 
 fight the whole dam German army, s'ys Hi! An' then comes 
 this funny cloud o' light, an' hit's a tall man wi' yellowish 'air, 
 hin armor, an' ridin' a white 'orse as big as a mounting! An' 
 
 42 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 'e 'olds hup 'is sword an' 'oilers: 'Turn, b'ys, an' at 'em!' An' 
 . . . God save me ! ... Hi turns roun', an', so help me Michael ! 
 th' Boches was flyin' down th' 'ill again as hif hall th' bats o' 'ell 
 was chasin' 'em! An' then Hi know'd th' Kaiser 'ud never see 
 Paris, f r th' powers that be was fightin' f'r us. An' this non- 
 com. Batman," turning again to Cragg, " 'e sees th' vision, and 
 'e's made over, hinstanter! No more coward after that, but a 
 reg'lar lion! Wanted to fight th' whole bally German army 
 single-'anded, 'e did! Didn't care a dam wot 'appened to 'im! 
 Oh, but 'e set us a good example, 'e did ! But . . . 'e got 'imself 
 killed at Wipers." 
 
 The veterans nodded, and their faces were grave. "Y' see. 
 Batman," the speaker continued, laying a hand on Cragg's 
 trembling knee, "hif y'r fightin' f'r th' right y'll always get a 
 vision, an' y'll know then that y' may lose a battle 'ere an' yon, 
 but y'll never lose th' war." 
 
 A long silence followed. Then one of the men spoke. "Was 
 hit, y' think, th' Maid o' Orleans? There's talk hin JFrance o' 
 makin' 'er a saint." 
 
 "Hi s'y," put in one of the others, " 'ow can humans make 
 saints, wot?" 
 
 "Hit's th' Church wot does it, mate." 
 
 "But Hi'm blow'd hif Hi understan' wot's to th' Church that 
 hit can make saints o' dead 'uns, but can't keep un from dyin' !" 
 
 "But we 'as to die, lad, no disputin' that. But after we're 
 dead th' Church can make us saints, an' then we answers 
 prayers, an' all that." 
 
 "Bosh! Hit's gaff y'r givin' us, son! Hit's pulpit cam-oo- 
 flagej" 
 
 "Th' Lord answers prayers. . ." 
 
 " 'E don't ! Ain't millions o' prayers goin' hup to 'im ev'ry 
 minnit? Does 'E answer 'em? Wot? Hi s'y, chuck y'r church 
 ideas, son! Hi've been hin Flanders. Hi've seen wot Hi've 
 seen. The' ain't no God!" 
 
 "Wot s'y. Batman?" They turned upon Cragg. "His the' a 
 God? An' do we wake hup after we're killed, eh?" 
 
 "Hi've 'eard tell," one added, "that we do, an' that all the 
 cussedness wot we're doin' w'en we dies we just keeps on doin', 
 f'r things ain't so much different w'en we wakes hup." 
 
 "Then we ain't hin 'eaven?" 
 
 "Not you, leastw'ys!" laughed one. 
 
 "'Eaven!" Another spat disgustedly. "Who'd aim t' go 
 there, hif hit's like wot th' preachers tells us? An' they don't 
 know no more about hit than me an' you ! The' ain't no God ! 
 This 'ere Jesus wot's supposed to 'ave lived 'ere an' raised th' 
 dead an' such . . . Hi s'y. Batman, they wan't no such citizen, 
 was they? An' the' ain't no God, wot?" 
 
 43 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Cragg raised his head "No," he answered in a jaded voice, 
 scarce above a whisper. 
 
 "Y'r wrong, Batman," said his companion of the march 
 solemnly. "There his a God ; but 'E ain't th' sort th' preachers 
 s'y 'E hisi We may see 'Im some day, an' we may not; but 
 Hi'm playin' th' game fair f'r myself an' me mates, an' w'en 
 th' time comes f'r me to die hit ain't goin' to find me a windy." 
 
 The rumble of the guns had noticeably increased. Cragg's 
 companions began to look at one another significantly. 
 "They're tellin' us," remarked one grimly, "that the're minded 
 t' hinterfere summat wi' th' concentra-shun to-night, eh?" 
 
 "They seen th' b'ys come hup this evenin', an' they knows 
 AUenby's movin'. 'E ain't losin' no more time startin* th' big 
 push, an' they jolly well knows hit." 
 
 Some of the men turned and glanced curiously at Cragg. 
 "Th' lad's not been over the top yet," whispered one. Then he 
 sat back and began to sing : 
 
 "Oh, Hi'm not as brave as lions. 
 
 But Hi'm braver 'n a hin, 
 An' 'im wot fights an' runs aw'y 
 '111 live to fight ag'in!" 
 
 Exhausted by hardship, and numbed by the monotony of 
 his mental sufferings, Cragg had fallen asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER 7 
 
 AT four o'clock in the morning the British post at El 
 Buggar was fired upon by a Turkish cavalry patrol. 
 Shortly thereafter it was evident to the British that an 
 attempt would be made to drive them from their position. A 
 force of several thousand Turkish infantry, augmented by cav- 
 alry and a number of guns, advanced rapidly from the Kau- 
 wukah defenses and, on the line to El Buggar, quickly sur- 
 rounded Hill 630 and completely isolated its garrison. 
 
 With this preliminary victory went up a cry from Moslem 
 ranks: "It is the jehad! The Holy War is come at last! On 
 against the dogs of Christians !" And the British, bracing them- 
 selves behind their bayonets, spat vigorously and muttered: 
 "Come on, ye hypnotized wretches! God alone knows why 
 ye'r fighting for Germany!" These "sons of the Covenant" 
 might not know how the simple, fallow mind of the Turk was 
 enshackled by the subtle suggestion emanating from the cun- 
 
 44 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ning disciples of Mesmer; but, with the vision of that transcen- 
 dental "something" always before them, the vision that had 
 seemed to turn the tide at JJlons and Ypres, that had trans- 
 muted human flesh into steel at Verdun, that had sustained them 
 through the black days of Gallipoli and Kut-el-Amara, these 
 dogged keepers of the Word did know that they could not fail. 
 
 Yet that day was recorded in the memories of the British 
 in Palestine as one of the busiest in their various arguments 
 with the followers of Mohammed. It was a despairing attempt 
 by th6 Turk to frustrate Allenby's attack on Beersheba, and 
 delay until a tiirte more auspicious for themselves his drive 
 toward Jerusalem. The squadron of the City of London Yeo- 
 manry sent to reinforce the beleagured garrison on 630 was 
 driven back by machine gun barrage, while the Turkish troops, 
 outnumbering the British at this point twenty to one, hurled 
 themselves throughout the long day in repeated rushes against 
 the stubborn defense. 
 
 From the beginning of the action Marian had been greatly 
 disturbed. She did not fear death; yet fear assailed her inces- 
 santly, a vague, unformed apprehension, an undefined pre- 
 science, an evil foreboding. She had purposed having another 
 talk with David Barach that day; she did not know that he 
 was resolved not to meet her again; that he had been, unable 
 to shake off the disquieting influence resultant from that inter- 
 view, and that he would not risk another. But both had been 
 feverishly active since then, and in a common purpose, namely, 
 to ascertain when the unit with which Alden Cragg was asso- 
 ciated would arrive. And, though the girl did not suspect it, it 
 was Sergeant Barach who kept issuing calls for the Penberry 
 Ambulance Corps, thus keeping her preoccupied while he pur- 
 sued a search in which he was destined to find a dubious 
 success. 
 
 Through it all Marian battled to maintain her own sense 
 of resistance against that which would argue to her that this 
 experience was actual, and not a fleeting concept of the mortal 
 mind that counterfeits God in falsehood. The increasing roar 
 of the guns, the unwonted activity and apparent confusion 
 back of the line, the serious demeanor of the troops, all appar- 
 ently combined to impress her with its assumed reality. When 
 the spectral procession for which she was bidden to wait came 
 wending its tortuous way toward her, she murmured : "God is 
 their life!" and went forward to meet it. "God is your life!" 
 she repeated, over and over, as she looked down upon those 
 quiet, white-faced fellows who had done their stint. "God is 
 your life!" And she laid her hands tenderly upon their damp 
 foreheads, and bent to catch their whispered words, some of 
 
 16 
 
 45 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 which were the last that would fall from their fluttering lips. 
 
 Thus the day waned. Hill 630 was still held. The enemy 
 was hard pressing its neighbor, 720, with cavalry supported 
 by a heavy volume of shell. Night dropped. . . 
 
 "We're hard pressed. Ma'am!" cried a big fellow, who came 
 limping in between two supporting comrades. "We were 
 waitin' f'r 'em, but, rot 'em! they gave us 'ell!" 
 
 "We've still got the hill!" cried another, "but . . . it's 
 going to be a dark night!" 
 
 "O ye gods!" moaned the poet Ovid, "what darkness as of 
 night there is in mortal minds!" * 
 
 "Oh, the uselessness of it all!" cried Marian. "The futility 
 of wars upon wars, when no efifort is rightly directed to change 
 the human mind, their source, that wishes not to change, but 
 dies in its self-inflicted hell!" 
 
 "Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto 
 thee!" cried the prophet of old. But they stoned him and drove 
 him from their midst. 
 
 "How often would I have gathered thy children together 
 . . . and ye would not I" sighed the gentle Master. And because 
 he exposed the darkness of the mortal mind they nailed him 
 to a tree. 
 
 "Ob. you poor, poor fellows!" the girl murmured, as she 
 bent over them. "When will you learn that you have not to 
 fight and slay, but only to know — know that God is infinite 
 Xtood! For Jesus said that to know Him was of itself life 
 eternal. 
 
 "Oh, my poor, poor brothers!" as she moved from place to 
 place where they lay. "All you want is love. You have starved 
 for it. The world is starving for it. It is not war that kills, 
 but hate. It is all mental, all mental. And the only weapon 
 that will destroy it is the infinite Mind that is God. Oh, if you 
 but knew! 
 
 "The battle is not yours, but God's. He is the infinite Prin- 
 ciple of all that really is. And there is no war in Him; and so 
 war, like all evil, like all error of thought, has no real origin, 
 has no real history, no continuity, no consequence, no real 
 effect. 
 
 " 'How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?' 
 For as you think, so shall you seem to yourselves to be. Why 
 could you not detect the subtle mesmerism that since the begin- 
 ning has struck at Truth, and that to-day is striking through 
 Germany at the Word? Your warfare is not against the mes- 
 merized Kaiser and his blinded hordes, but against those unseen 
 mental forces that claim to usurp the power of God. And your 
 only preventive, your only salvation, is to acquire that Mind 
 
 46 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ■which was in Christ Jesus — nay, which was and is the Christ. 
 But no one has taught you how." 
 
 A voice at her side startled her. "Would you look at this 
 one and see if he's gone west?" 
 
 She turned and recognized a litter-bearer from the Penberry 
 Corps, who stood pointing down at a still form. "From the 
 hundred and eighty-first, sixtieth division . . ." 
 
 Marian gave a cry. "That is Sergeant Barach's . . ." 
 
 "A lot of his brigade's missing, and some of the boys who 
 got in last night from the north." 
 
 She gasped. "Did troops arrive last night from . . . 
 Salonika?" 
 
 "Yes, and were sent in with ..." 
 
 She did not hear the rest; but she knew that Alden Cragg 
 was now there. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Cragg's numbed faculties had not been sufficiently alive to 
 sense all that was occurring; but the increasing roar, the hurry, 
 the rattle, the shouts and commands, all sufficiently impressed 
 his dulled mentality with the seriousness of the business in 
 hand, and he began to formulate plans for his own safety. Men 
 came and went; officers looked in upon him; but it was not 
 until late in the second evening that he was ordered to another 
 position. And, though fear almost paralyzed his limbs, he 
 went with a dull sense of wonder. But his wonder was tran- 
 sient. Fear again became dominant, and he crouched, trem- 
 bling. 
 
 How long he huddled thus, he could not know, for again he 
 was seized and shoved roughly forward. He found himself 
 surrounded by a squad not of his own unit. The din now rose 
 in sharp crescendo; shells burst almost over him; a burning 
 roar filled his ears; he staggered against the parapet and stood, 
 yokel fashion, with mouth agape. He saw men falling 
 around him. Mutilated bodies glided past on stretchers. The 
 hideous sights shook him. He gasped, choked, then started 
 forward. 
 
 Terror now gripped him. He stood, glancing wildly about. 
 Then he threw his gun aside and fled shrieking through the 
 rending roar, fled madly through trench and traverse, falling 
 into muddy holes, sprawling full length over trench grids, 
 scrambling again to his feet, shouting, crying, praying, scream- 
 ing, with great beads of sweat bursting from his pores. Death 
 was pursuing him ! It leered at him at every turn. It snatched 
 at him from every side! Shrapnel whizzed past his bleeding 
 ears. Mud and refuse bespattered him. He started to climb 
 from the trench, but bullets tore through his helmet, and he 
 
 47 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 dropped back. Exhaustion held him where he fell. He drew 
 himself close together and lay on his face in the mud and 
 prayed and cursed and prayed. . . 
 
 A hand fell heavily upon his shoulder. With a shriek of 
 terror he turned his head and looked up. A star shell burst 
 over him. He recognized David Barach! 
 
 "Get up!" he heard the Jew shout. He felt himself pulled 
 to his feet. A glacial sweat dripped from his mud-limned fea- 
 tures. His jaded brain functioned but feebly. Yet he felt a 
 vague sense of relief that the isolated scene which he had been 
 enacting through the crowded trenches was ended. He felt 
 himself again shoved, pulled, dragged. The pungent odors of 
 explosives, of burning drugs, blinded his drowning eyes and 
 tore the lining from his blistering throat. Dully he became 
 aware of a trench filled with soldiers, strangely quiet, waiting 
 oddly. Scaling ladders leaned against the • shot-torn walls. A 
 lieutenant stood near, whistle in hand. The hush of death was 
 upon the scene. 
 
 Then the whistle shrieked, like the shrilling of a loosened 
 demon. Up over the ladders, plunging, scrambling, singing, 
 cursing, went the troops. Cragg fell back in horror. Barach 
 seized him and buffeted the cowering wretch on. "Up!" he 
 shouted. Then, in a flash, the situation burst upon Cragg. . . 
 
 "Up ! Or by the God of Israel I'll kill you where you stand!" 
 
 The sharp prod of a bayonet caused Cragg to plunge for- 
 ward. A blow from a gun-stock fell upon his back. He felt 
 himself lifted, pushed, thrown — and always the bayonet dug 
 him, and the agony of his body vied with the torture of his 
 dying soul. 
 
 Before his bursting eyes stretched the hell of "No Man's 
 Land," weird in its satanic effects. The distance was aflame. 
 Lurid lights flashed; shells screamed; men yelled; rolling 
 crashes billowed over the torn earth; Death swung his long 
 scythe and howled with glee. Into it all, with Barach holding 
 fast his arm, Cragg plunged with a hopeless, despairing cry. 
 
 Yet as he entered the vestibule of death his thought was 
 strangely wrestling with a question that seemed to rise before 
 him in letters of flame: "If a man die shall he live again?" 
 There flashed over him a conviction that he was dying, had 
 already died — ^yet that God would not, could not, let him taste 
 of dieath! He would yet kill that devilish Barach. . . But he 
 had thrown his gun away! Then hatred, deep and venomous, 
 welled up within him, hatred of the wretched girl who had 
 sent him to this hideous end, hatred of Whittier who had 
 drugged him with his lethdl dogma, hatred of the God who 
 had failed him, of the Christ . . , 
 
 48 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Stand there!" 
 
 He was jerked to a violent halt. In the ghostly light the 
 Jew loomed before him like a flaming giant. 
 
 "Gentile dog! Christian! Murderer of women!" 
 ' A vast pity for himself surged up in Cragg's shivering soul. 
 He saw Barach raise his gun. His blood stopped in its course. 
 He threw out his arms and staggered toward the Jew. 
 "Barach!" he cried in his fearful agony; "don't shoot me! . . . 
 Barach! . . . God help me!" 
 
 Paralysis held him. He stood horrified, waiting, waiting, 
 moments, hours, centuries. . . 
 
 Then the gun roared. Cragg's head flew back. A door 
 seemed to open quickly in his brain, and a dazzling white light 
 shot through it. Then it closed, and darkness fell. And with 
 it silence. He felt himself whirling, spinning, falling, fall- 
 ing, . . 
 
 CHAPTER 8 
 
 MARIAN stood, while the rush of battle went madly past. 
 Then she started forward under a driving impulse. Up 
 there, where the heavens shrieked and roared, where 
 screaming shells flashed red and sprayed death and hideous 
 mutilation; up there where flying metal drove unutterable 
 agony into body and soul of those whom the preachers had 
 said were now worms of the dust, now sons of God; there where 
 maddened mortals cursed and raved, yelled, prayed, as they 
 slew in frenzy those with whom they had no personal quarrel, 
 no real animus — there, somewhere, was the man whom she 
 had sent to his death! 
 
 But what should she do? What could she? At a first-aid 
 dugout near the second line she halted. Stretcher-bearers 
 were hurrying forward. Among them she recognized some 
 from the Penberry Corps. Instinctively she followed them. Of 
 human aid there was none : but she had not sought it. "God is 
 his life!" she said aloud in the deafening din. Her thought was 
 still a welter, and fear mocked her. In fancy she could hear 
 Cragg's voice, calling; he was up there, meeting death, defense- 
 less. . . 
 
 "Blimme! ye'd best go no furder! It's 'ell up there!" 
 sounded a warning voice near her. 
 
 She looked up. Before her the trench was jammed with 
 stretchers; behind, reinforcements were straining ahead, curs- 
 ing low, wild-eyed and mad. The tumult and confusion dazed 
 her; despite her struggles to turn back, she was borne along 
 
 49 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 by the momentum of the onward rush. The fire-trench yawned 
 and engulfed the stream in which she was caught. On she was 
 borne, over obstacles, through flying debris, hissing bullets, 
 spraying shell; on past staggering, floundering wounded; on 
 with the struggling, straining, sweating mass. In her mud- 
 caked male attire, and in the semi-darkness, the unearthly yel- 
 lowish light, her sex passed unrecognized. The yelling throng 
 was scaling the ladders. A burly giant, mad with excitement, 
 seized her in his brawny arms and fairly hurled her over the 
 top. She fell on the parapet; but another trooper grasped her 
 arm and dragged her with him into the cursed vale of "No 
 Man's Land". 
 
 Through the girl's rushing, tumbling thought there was 
 running an insistent strain: "A thousand shall fall at thy side 
 . . ." It was with this that she sought to enwrap, not herself, 
 but Alden Cragg, out there, somewhere, with death. Forms, 
 ghastly beneath the bursting star shells, dropped all about her. 
 Shell fragments ripped up the tormented ground and hurled it 
 into her straining eyes. Bullets riddled her clothing. "But if 
 shall not come nigh thee. . ." Still her prayer of assertion 
 was for Alden Cragg. Of a sudden the man who was clutch- 
 ing her hand so fiercely stopped short with a dull grunt, 
 -wavered, then pitched forward on his face, dragging her with 
 him. 
 
 For a moment she lay stunned. Then she extricated herself 
 .J)ainfully .from the death-grip of the corpse and slowly got to 
 her feet. She stood looking hither and- yon confusedly. She 
 knew she must go back. . . She was about to turn and fly 
 toward the British line. . . But she stood, straining her eyes 
 ahead. There, through the smoke and fumes, the flying mud 
 and fragments, two men were stumbling toward her, envel- 
 ioped in the lurid glare that made them appear phosphor- 
 escent. Her hand went to her forehead; giddiness swept over 
 her. . . 
 
 "Lean on me. Batman! Hi s'y, lean on me!" 
 
 Marian sprang forward. "Alden!" she cried. Sobs burst 
 from her burning throat, tears gushed from her eyes. "Alden!" 
 
 A star shell exploded directly over them. Marian stood in 
 a nimbus of light, like an image of the white Christ, her arms 
 outstretched. The shorter of the two men halted. "F'r Gawd's 
 sake, hit's another vision!" he gasped. "We'll drub' em. . . 
 What!" as Marian kept calling Cragg by name, "y'r human! 
 An' ye knows 'im? Then 'elp me lead 'im hin! Hi found 'im 
 raisin' 'imself on 'is helbow; I puts 'im on 'is feet; but Hi sees 
 'e's gone 'n the 'ead! Hi come wi' 'im fr'm Salonika. Hi s'y. 
 Batman, hit's back to Blighty now f'r ye! Got a 'ole 'n'is 
 
 50 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 'ead . . ." He did not finish, but gave a short gasp, jerked his 
 hand up to his breast, tottered, and fell dead at her feet. 
 
 Through the horror of it all the girl turned to Cragg, who 
 stood swaying; but before she could grasp his arm he wheeled 
 abruptly and started back toward the Turkish line. Marian 
 gasped, called his name, and plunged after him. She seized 
 his arm. A shell crater yawned wide before them, and they 
 pitched headlong into it. Consciousness did not desert her. 
 Slowly she got to her feet. Soldiers were peering down at her. 
 To her bewildered thought came the realization that they were 
 Turkish troops. One of them raised his gun and fired point 
 blank at her. "I am still with Thee!" she breathed. And she 
 raised her arms aloft, she knew not why. 
 
 Then she and Cragg were dragged out of the pit and started 
 toward the Turkish trenches, prisoners of war, 
 
 CHAPTER 9 
 
 AS the first beams of the morning sun kissed the snows on 
 Mt. Carmel, and the mists began to lift above the Holy 
 Land, the inhabitants of El Khulil gathered along the 
 dusty road that enters the town from the south to observe the 
 stained and weary throng that was defiling past under the close 
 guard of Turkish cavalrymen. 
 
 "Smite me, Allah!" shrilled an ancient beldame, pointing 
 with a thin and dirty finger, "if that one is' not a woman." 
 
 A young German officer who sat on his horse but a few 
 yards away caught the remark. The sneer of contempt with 
 which he had been regarding the captives abruptly left his face, 
 and he glanced curiously at the speaker, then eagerly in the 
 direction which she indicated. Among the blood-stained, mud- 
 caked prisoners he descried a slight figure, clad in male attire, 
 supporting a tall, stooping soldier, who lurched along with 
 unseeing eyes fixed upon the dust-enshrouded road. For a 
 moment the officer stared hard at the two; then, with a sup- 
 pressed cry, he jerked his horse about and pursued them into 
 the wretched town. 
 
 El Khulil, better known by the name of Hebron, lies twenty 
 Roman miles south of Jerusalem, and the same distance north 
 of Beersheba, picturesquely situated in a narrow valley sur- 
 rounded by rugged hills. In ancient times it bore the name 
 Kirjath-Arba, so called from Arba, the father of Anak and 
 progenitor of the giant Anakim. In age it rivals Damascus, for 
 it was well known before Abraham entered Canaan. In his- 
 
 51 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 toric interest it vies with Jerusalem itself, for here the fathei" 
 of future Israel, keeper of the Word, pastured his flocks, whilst 
 he sought to impart to the idolatrous inhabitants of the land 
 the priceless knowledge of the One God, Spirit, whose very 
 existence resolves error and its concomitants of matter, disease, 
 and war into the "one lie" which from the beginning has mes- 
 merized mankind and held closed the gates of Paradise. 
 
 ' Within the ancient town, in the grateful shade afforded by 
 the massive walls of the Haram, the drooping captives were 
 halted. Most of them dropped to the ground in utter exhaus- 
 tion; some fell asleep at once. The tall soldier with the bent 
 shoulders stood inert, his eyes staring fixedly. His slender 
 companion persuaded him to a sitting posture and sank down 
 beside him. Those near enough might have seen the anguished 
 look bestowed upon the benumbed creature, might have heard 
 the trembling murmur: "This is a place that God pos- 
 sesses. . ." 
 
 "Unexpected pleasure to meet old friends from Crestel- 
 ridge!" The young German ofBcer stood looking down upon 
 the two with a piercing gaze. Marian Whittier glanced up 
 quickly. A cry broke from her. She struggled to her feet. 
 "Otto Hoeffel!" she gasped. "You, here! And a prisoner!" 
 
 "Major Hoeffel, if you will be so kind," the officer corrected. 
 "And not a prisoner." His frame became rigid, and his shoul- 
 . ders went back. "I am an oflScer in the German army." 
 
 The girl recoiled, wide-eyed, open-mouthed. Her thought 
 flew back to her last meeting with this man. A flood of purely 
 human emotions surged swiftly up within her, and on the 
 heaving tide rode hideous shapes. She battled it back, and 
 clutched at the foundation of Truth on which she had been 
 striving so long, so desperately, to stand. 
 
 "I knew you were with the British," the major continued, 
 smiling. "I knew that you had followed Cragg to Palestine; 
 and I had hoped to meet you." He gave a short laugh and 
 shrugged his shoulders. "But this exceeds my most daring 
 anticipations." 
 
 He turned and bent over Cragg. "Look up here, Cragg!" 
 he commanded. But the latter remained motionless and silent, 
 staring straight ahead. The major seized him by the shoulder. 
 "We know how to teach civility here!" he snapped, shaking 
 him roughly, "You are not in 'Craggmont' now!" 
 
 Marian pressed quickly in between the two. "He is 
 wounded," she said, her voice tremulous. 
 
 "Wounded?" An icy smile came into the major's face. He 
 stooped again over Cragg and examined the wound carefully. 
 "Did he get this in action, or . . ." He did not conclude the 
 
 52 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 remark, but straightened up and looked into the girl's drawn 
 face. "He cannot live. . ." 
 
 "But he shall live!" she cried. 
 
 He laughed, and shrugged his expressive shoulders again, 
 "But he is a prisoner of war; and we can not be bothered with 
 wounded prisoners now." 
 
 A chill ran through the girl as she looked up into his grin-i 
 ning features. Giddiness assailed her, and she suppressed with 
 diflQculty an impulse to scream. Again had Israel fallen captive 
 to the Assyrian; it was evil's hour; Truth was reversed; it was 
 the triumph of Bel. 
 
 "We resume march shortly," she heard the major say. "But 
 you shall ride with me." And then he was gone. 
 
 Throughout the exhausting journey from the Turkish lines 
 Marian's mental struggle had been intense. Cragg had moved 
 at her side a dull clod. The jagged wound in his head had 
 bled profusely, but the mud in which he had fallen had caked 
 about it and stanched the flow. He had not spoken nor uttered 
 a sound. But that he moved or halted as she drew him, he 
 might have been asleep. His body appeared to live — but the 
 man was not there I 
 
 Had she permitted herself to accept the evidence of his con- 
 dition, she must have gone mad. Step- by step as they plodded 
 over the rough road did she beat back the suggestions that 
 assailed her like poisoned barbs. The terrible experience of the 
 preceding night had sufficed to unseat a mentality less securely 
 founded thdn hers. But now, in addition, came bitter self- 
 condemnation, came merciless reproach, and paralyzing fear. 
 "But," she had kept repeating the long night through, "Jesus 
 in his hour of testing kept his own thought clear. He would 
 not accept a single human circumstance or situation as real. 
 And so I cannot, must not — else Alden is lost!" 
 
 To herself the girl gave scant consideration: her thought 
 was all of Cragg in his pitiable plight. Of what had occurred 
 between him and Barach she knew nothing; she supposed the 
 wound in his head to have come from an enemy bullet. And, 
 in the welter of confused thought, of fell suggestions, of impries- 
 sions terrible, horrifying, there was a gleam of gratitude that 
 she had been led to Alden, that she was with him now in his 
 hour of awful need. Her struggle now was to hold herself 
 truly sanctified in thought, even as did the great Teacher in 
 that same environment, twenty centuries gone, when he proved 
 the infinite Principle and left to the world his divine ensample, 
 for which it has never found a substitute, though it has sought 
 out many inventions. 
 
 Black bread in pitiably small portions was now being dis- 
 
 53 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tributed to the prisoners, and a meager quantity of lukewarm 
 water. Marian pressed the food upon Cragg; but he could not 
 be induced to touch it. His stupidly staring eyes were not see- 
 ing things of this life; his mental processes had been violently 
 reversed; and the throw-back had launched him upon a mental 
 experience of which she could know nothing. She choked back 
 her sobs and sat clinging to his hand. 
 
 And as she sat, her thought turned upon the strange 
 encounter with Otto Hoeffel. Since that stormy Saturday night 
 in March, when he had offered her his hand and had threatened 
 her vaguely when she refused, she had seen him but once 
 and that when Harris Chaddock had taken her driving on the 
 afternoon that Alden and Ethel had announced their betrothal. 
 She had seen him standing on a down-town corner, and had 
 bowed to him as the car sped past. He had not returned her 
 greeting; and as she glanced back she had caught a dark look 
 that had remained with her for days after. She had long sus- 
 pected him — his anger over her rejection of his proposal had 
 confirmed the suspicion — ^but that he should be revealed as a 
 German officer — that he should be here — and that she should 
 now be his captive-;— Ah, if the universe were composed of mat- 
 ter, as dull-witted mortals so tenaciously believe, such things 
 could never, never happen! But it was all mental, all an 
 experience in human consciousness, a drama of mortal 
 thought. . . The tired girl gave over her speculations. Nothing 
 was strange to her now. 
 
 Within an hour the command was given to get under way 
 again. "He knoweth the way that I take," the girl murmured. 
 And then as if in a dream, she found herself being assisted 
 into a huge, battered car beside Major Hoeffel. Another officer 
 occupied the front seat with the chauffeur. And she went with- 
 out protest, for the major had said: "I have ordered Cragg 
 conveyed in a lorry. We will take him with us into Jerusalem." 
 
 Jerusalem ! Marian looked up at him. ' She seemed to 
 awake. And she trembled a little, but not with fear. He seemed 
 to be someone far different from the Otto Hoeffel of Crestel- 
 ridge. She was yearning' to talk with him. But he was now 
 absorbed in his own reflections. To him, this sacred environ- 
 ment meant nothing. The capture of a handful of British sol- 
 diers was unimportant. It was the significance of the skirmish 
 in which Cragg and the girl had been captured that was occupy- 
 ing his thought. The Turkish attempt to frustrate the con- 
 centration had failed; Beersheba, he now knew, must fall; 
 Jerusalem . . . but it should pass into British hands an empty 
 shell! And to accomplish that end he was taking these strag- 
 gling captives north to make of the ancient city a vast powder 
 
 54 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mine. Yet in the launching of Allenby's drive he could not 
 but see the beginning of the final phase of an unholy war which 
 he himself must admit to have been conceived in sin and deliber- 
 ately conducted in deepest iniquity. . . It had proved to be a 
 wrong method, a bad guess. In the end, which he now believed 
 to be not far Off, he Saw the ruin of the Fatherland, the abase- 
 ment of a haughty people. . . 
 
 He ground his teeth and uttered low an imprecation. 
 Marian heard it and glanced again at him. "The Garden of 
 Eden," he said with hasty irrelevance, and a forced smile, 
 "could not have been located here, could it?" The sun was 
 mounting, and the heat and dust were stifling. 
 
 "The Garden of Eden," she replied, "is always a function 
 of our thinking." 
 
 "And, speaking of thinking, you should have been thinking 
 protective thoughts, should you not? Then, perhaps, you would 
 not have become a prisoner of war. Your strange views, Ma- _ 
 rian" — it was the first time he had used that name here— 
 "always interested me. But at last you have demonstrated that, 
 like every woman, you need someone to think for you. For- 
 tunately for you, that oflBce falls to me." 
 
 She looked up quickly. He caught the apprehensive glance, 
 and laughed. "So you came down here with Penberry's Ambu- 
 lance Corps, in search of Cragg! Himmel! a joke. But it was 
 Ethel's duty to come, not yours . . . unless . . . Ah ! you have 
 replaced her alre'ady in Alden's affections? Then he has shown 
 a wise preference. Ethel is a nobody. You . . . you know 
 what I think of you." 
 
 He paused. Again he laughed, but without merriment. "You 
 are wild to know many things about me, is it not so?" he 
 resumed. "How did I know that you were here? And Cragg? 
 How did I know that Penberry . . . Donnerwetter! I have 
 lived in Penberry Hall. As his guest, he gave me valuable 
 information . . . Oh, yes, before I went to Crestelridge." He 
 looked at her covertly. Then he went on. "I suppose Penberry 
 outfitted the corps in memory of his son who was killed in the 
 Spanish- American War, is it not so? Did . . . did Penberry 
 speak of this son. Max?" 
 
 "I never heard of him," Marian answered, now greatly won- 
 dering. 
 
 "No? Oh, Max Penberry was a good fellow. But he mar- 
 ried against his father's wishes ... an American woman . . . 
 ever hear? No? So Penberry disinherited him. How do I 
 know?" Another laugh. "Oh, I have Penberry's complete biog- 
 raphy. I have Whittier's ... it would surprise you. I have 
 managed to live in fashionable homes in New York, London, 
 
 55 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Paris, everywhere . . . compiling secret biographies of the in- 
 mates. You see, Marian, I am in the Intelligence Service of the 
 German Government. I know your history from the cradle." 
 
 Marian gasped. "Then you . . . you are not ... an Amer- 
 ican?" 
 
 He drew himself up stiffly. "American!" he exclaimed. 
 "Gott sei Dank, no! I am German," 
 
 "And you deceived us. . .!" It was as if the curtain which 
 had hung before her that stormy night when she had sought 
 Madam Galuth in her distress had suddenly lifted. She knew 
 now that she had fallen into the hands of one of the most astute 
 members of that vast and intricate organization that served 
 the German, Staff as eyes and ears. She knew now how Crestel- 
 ridge had slept under the mesmeric spell cast by the artful 
 masters of this man — this man who had sought her hand in 
 wedlock, who now possessed her. . . 
 
 He did not! He could not! The Goliath that had mesmer- 
 ized Israel into believing him invincible should not similarly 
 terrify her! She strove for calm. And for some time they 
 rode in silence, the major again sunk in his thoughts, which, 
 as indicated by the hard lines that came into his face, were 
 far from happy; while the girl, her mentality now roused to 
 violent activity, sought to recall bits of former conversations 
 with him, incidents, experiences, which when pieced together 
 would throw further light upon his present motives and prob- 
 able course with her and Cragg. 
 
 Of a sudden she heard him speak. "It will end . . . soon 
 . . . yes. But," through his set teeth, "let them beware how 
 it ends!" Then he turned to her. "Ted Sayor called you a 
 prophet. , . The war, how will it end?" he abruptly demanded. 
 
 She was perplexed by the sudden turn of his conversation, 
 but she controlled herself and made reply. "The Central 
 Powers will yield to the Entente's ideals," she said. 
 
 For a moment he made as if to combat her words; then he 
 sat back and nodded his head slowly. "You probably are 
 right," he said. "We shall capitulate to what you are pleased 
 to call your ideals. And we shall try to live up to them. But 
 will you?" 
 
 It was the girl's turn to be surprised, and she showed it 
 in her face and words. "I do not understand you," she said. 
 "The war — to those who really know — is only the externaliza- 
 tion of the conflict between right and wrong that is taking place 
 in human consciousness. It can only end as I have said. And 
 another war, worse than this, can be prevented only by a com- 
 plete and radical change of thought. For a;5 men think, so are 
 they and their environment and their conditions." 
 
 56 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He remained silent for some time. Then: "Do you think 
 we Germans plunged the world into this war?" he asked, an 
 odd expression on his face. 
 
 "It was wrong thinking that plunged the world into war," 
 she answered. "Not the wrong thinking of a single nation, 
 but of many peoples, trained for ages in the false mesmeric 
 systems of the Antichrist. Germany is not alone to blame. 
 We are all to blame." 
 
 Again her words seemed to make him reflect. At length 
 he said, very seriously: "I am a student of philosophy and 
 history. I did not approve this war. And now I shudder to 
 think that we shall come out of this struggle only to enter upon 
 a longer period of universal strife. Is it not so? For when 
 we yield, will France have the moral strength to resist her long 
 nurtured idea of revenge? I think not. Will Italy remember 
 history and resist the attempt to restore the ancient empire 
 of Rome around the Mediterranean? Will England give up her 
 dreams of world-empire?— dreams that we Germans have been 
 forced to abandon. Ach, yes, we Germans shall submit to the 
 ideals that our enemies believe they are fighting for now, but 
 that, once the war ends, they will quickly abandon. No, it is 
 not humanly possible that they should retain them." 
 
 "But they could," the girl insisted. 
 
 He gave a short, dry laugh. "Yes? And how?" 
 
 "If they were Christians," she concluded. 
 
 His shoulders went up again. "We Germans are Christians; 
 the French and English are Christians, yes. But who knows 
 what Christianity is? You, perhaps?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered simply. "It is Truth." 
 
 "Truth? And what is that?" He looked away as he spoke* 
 Against the far horizon an undulating line of lofty wall, turret- 
 crowned, glistened white in the dazzling sun. He extended an 
 arm toward it. "Pilate asked that same question over there 
 twenty centuries ago. But it has never been answered." 
 
 "It was answered, by demonstration," she said gently, 
 "before Pilate asked it." 
 
 He looked at her quizzically for a moment, then settled back 
 without replying. Silence lay upon them both as the car, with 
 its grim, war-scarred officers and wide-eyed girl, drew on toward 
 the embattlemented walls of the storied city. 
 
 57 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 10 
 
 THE deeply motived zeal for a holy place, which should be 
 to the mortal mind the visible abode of its concept of 
 God, found externalization to the Hindu consciousness in 
 sacred Benares, to the Mohammedan in holy Mecca, and to the 
 Hebrew in the glorious temple on Mt. Moriah in the ancient 
 Syrian town once known as Uru-salem, the city of safety. What 
 though the sapient Solomon had glimpsed the spiritual fact 
 that "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain 
 Thee"? to the Jewish mind, mired in matter, the great temple 
 and its material environment became the locus supreme where 
 God was to be found and where worship was most acceptable 
 to Him. Yet the hour came swiftly that was prophesied by the 
 Nazarene, when true worshipers should worship Him in spirit 
 and in truth, when the material symbol of His dwelling should 
 be thrown down, and the scourging hosts of Islam should stable 
 their horses on its desecrated site. It was to be shown that, 
 to the true worshiper, there is no holy place : he, like the Master, 
 who can see the abode of Principle in the spiritualized thought 
 of a Roman centurion, or a bereaved maid in a cottage of Beth- 
 any, rears God's temple within and worships Him in the silent 
 depionstration of His allness. 
 
 To Marian, Jerusalem had appeared the home of stifling 
 superstition, rather than of ascertained truth. To her, the 
 desolated ruin was a striking symbol of propiecy. fulfilled. Over 
 its sterile waste,, long parched by the winds of mortal thought. 
 Jay strewn the whitened bones of human concepts. On these 
 the modern Huns, like loathsome vultures, sat pecking for 
 material sustenance that was not there. 
 
 Yet from afar the historic city now breathed forth its age- 
 old subtle influence, . enveloping her, and arousing within 
 her deep sentiments akin to awe. A pervading , stillness lay 
 upon the distant scene, unbroken by the ocean breezes that 
 wanton over Sharon's plain. The city's austere setting, in a 
 mountainous landscape of savage sternness, with mitigating 
 gleams of field and pasture and wooded slope, . impressed her 
 profoundly with the barrenness of the idolatry that still reigned 
 there. About its lofty walls, gleaming in the morning sun, 
 around its crumbling turrets, its tottering towers, its frequent 
 and constricting gates, hovered myriad associations, beautiful, 
 terrible, still mightily potent with awful warning to those who 
 yet tithe mint and cummin but flout God's law. As she drew 
 nearer, the soft whir of pigeons circling around the ancient 
 
 58 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 battlements suggested peace. Her emotions seemed about to 
 overpower her. She caught her breath. . . 
 
 Then she heard the major speak. "It is the G otter ddmme- 
 rungl We are lost !" And as she glanced toward him he turned 
 upon her so swiftly, and with such malignant hatred blazing 
 from his eyes, that she shrank back. "England has hypnotized 
 you!" he cried. "She has hypnotized you, and all her allies! 
 But . . ." He appeared to recover himself. The girl looked 
 at him in wonder; Though she had never known him well, 
 yet the few short months of his active participation in the war 
 had seemed to fuse the elements of his character and recast 
 them in a mass of such indefiniteness as to suggest . . . any- 
 thing. 
 
 Jerusalem, though not in peril, was yet in sore trial. Large 
 bodies of troops had not been stationed there, but it was the 
 headquarters and base of the Prussianized Turkish army. 
 Staffs and depots were there established, and the ancient 
 Hebrew capital lay in the despotic grasp of a military autocracy 
 that wasted scant thought on the dire needs of the despairing 
 populace. War had isolated these from the outer world; their 
 food had been commandeered; prices had soared on swift 
 wings; and starvation had long stalked through the narrow 
 streets, blowing its withering breath upon thousands. For their 
 pleas,, their plaints, the suffering populace were given spectac- 
 ular lessons in f rightfulness, and the majesty of the Assyrian 
 creed of force was externalized in public executions, upon which 
 attendance was rendered compulsory. Without the Jaffa gate 
 the girl's eyes met the hideous gallows, on which was imposed 
 the penalty for expressed approval of AnglO-Israel's policy 
 toward Esau's race. From the outer fringe of Jerusalem the 
 Jaffa road was fairly blocked with jouncing lorries and speed- 
 ing cars. The business of war had assumed immense propor- 
 tions since the attack on the Gaza-Beersheba line; yet in the 
 somber faces of the motley throng that lined the crowded 
 thoroughfare Marian thought she read, despite their evidences 
 of woe, a suppressed faith in those crusaders from the Land 
 of the Covenant who were sturdily pushing their way to the 
 north. The Turks were vigorously preaching the jehad, but 
 their pronouncements echoed hollowly in the ears of these. The 
 prescience of a vast change was reflected in the attitude of all, 
 of whatever race or creed; all seemed to hear the fall of the 
 leaden hammer tolling the prophetic hour. 
 
 The Jaffa gate engulfed the girl and her silent captors, and 
 she found herself within the sacred precincts of the city of 
 David. All about her rose hoary ruins: here, the ancient sites 
 of Phasaelus, Mariamne, and Hippicus, ghostly guardians of 
 
 59 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Herod's spectral palace; there, Mt. Zion, once crowned with 
 glittering marble halls; and still beyond, holy Moriah, where, 
 above sparkling terraces, once rose the glorious temple. The 
 impregnable Tower of Antonia had occupied two-thirds of 
 Moriah's sacred area, a vast and frowning pile, with armories, 
 barracks, and echoing dungeons that penetrated far into the 
 solid roek and harbored every terror that haunts the realms 
 of the darkened human mind. Now, as Marian entered the 
 ancient capital, the war steeds of Islam were treading down 
 the site where once rose the psalms of a nation; now crum- 
 bling Antonia, a derision to modern artillerists, was serving the 
 caprice of Major Otto Hoefifel, of the German Staff, himself 
 far more philosopher than warrior, more poet than statesman, 
 whose haughty soul was slowly sinking in abasement — nay, 
 disintegration — ^beneath the blows of what he, in his unenlight- 
 enment, cynically called an undiscriminating fate. 
 
 At the citadel, occupying the middle portion of the western 
 side of Mt. Zion, the cavalcade halted. A Turkish barracks 
 was located there, and into this the prisoners brought up that 
 morning from Hebron were conducted. Marian's heart beat 
 high; yet the lorry in which Cragg lay so quiet was given no 
 attention. And she wondered. But presently the major returned 
 to her side. "I must explain," he said, "that my headquarters 
 are in the old Tower of Antonia, up ahead. We shall take 
 Cragg there. The basement has sometimes served as a hospital 
 for fever patients. The cool vaults stimulate their recovery. 
 You will remain there for the present . . . with Cragg," He 
 nodded toward a venerable ruin visible at that instant at the 
 far end of the tortuous road. "It fairly breathes romance," he 
 added abstractedly. "Next to philosophy and Wagner, I love 
 old walls and towers." 
 
 The girl sank back and waited. At any rate, she was not 
 to be separated from Alden — at least for the present. "It is 
 a place that God possesses," she repeated mentally. "Though 
 I descend into hell, yet He is there." 
 
 The ill-paved, narrow street swarmed with somber-clad 
 Jews of many nationalities, mingling with bright-robed orientals 
 of varied race and clime. Scowling Turks battered their way 
 through the poverty-stricken crowds; dogs scurried yelping; 
 filth poisoned the morning air, as fraud and fanaticism rendered 
 noxious the religious faiths contesting for supremacy there. 
 Of a sudden it flashed through the girl's tumultuous thought 
 that the road over which they were traveling had familiar 
 aspects. Its arches seemed to speak, its gloomy corridors to 
 echo faint sighs of distant lamentation. In fancy she saw a 
 man, tear-stained and bent, staggering over its broken pave- 
 
 60 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ment with the world's sins on his thought. Here he fell beneath 
 his crushing burden; there the hissing lash seared his quivering 
 flesh; yonder the rabble mocked, mesmerized by the lying 
 claims of evil; and high up there sat the ignorant, cowering 
 vicar of the Roman Kaiser, bartering Truth for the embers of 
 hell. The rubbish of ages, fathoms deep, covers the road which 
 the Nazarene trod on his way to death; so the ecclesiastical 
 rubbish of centuries of material thinking covers the spiritual 
 teaching which this man knew alone would save the deluded 
 world that rejected him. 
 
 The great temple of Solomon anciently stood on the ridge 
 east of the city now known as the Haram-esh-Sherif, the 
 threshing floor of Araunah, consecrated by David's altar. This 
 area on the summit of Mt. Moriah is nearly a mile in circuit 
 and comprises some thirty-five acres. The present Turkish 
 barracks at the northwestern corner of the temple enclosure 
 occupy the site of the Castle or Tower of Antonia, rebuilt by 
 Herod from the former citadel of Baris, and renamed after the 
 Roman Emperor Mark Antony. The castle, which was erected 
 to defend the temple on the north and to guard the sacred 
 irobes of the High Priest, had formerly a tower on each corner. 
 The one at the southeast, rising to a height of more than a 
 hundred feet and overlooking the entire temple area, was used 
 by the Romans to control the excited worshipers at the Pass- 
 over season. From the tower at the southwestern corner ran 
 subterranean passsiges, by which soldiers could be hurried into 
 the cloisters of the temple in times of disturbance. The north- 
 east corner of the area is occupied by the Old Serai, formerly 
 the site of the Roman Prsetorium, and now a Turkish bar- 
 racks. The ground underlying the entire Haram-esh-Sherif is 
 honey-combed with ancient cisterns, hewn in the living rock, 
 and all connected by rock-cut conduits. These cisterns, from 
 forty to sixty feet deep, served the temple as water reservoirs, 
 or as receptacles for the sacrificial blood that flowed in great 
 profusion from above. From the Old Sarai the Via Dolorosa 
 runs to the Holy Sepulchre and the ancient citadel of Mt. Zion. 
 A high bridge doubtless formerly rose above the city and con- 
 nected the sacred mounts of Zion and Moriah, but its frag- 
 ments now mingle with the drift of ages that covers deep the 
 winding streets where once wandered the homeless Man of 
 Sorrows. 
 
 The car stopped before the entrance to the ancient Tower, 
 and the officers quickly descended and assisted Marian to alight. 
 Soldiers gathered about them, and strangely bedizened folk who 
 stared at the arrivals with languid curiosity. Marian stood for 
 a moment, as if overwhelmed by her environment; then she 
 
 17 61 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 turned and hastened up ahead to the lorry from which Cragg 
 was being taken. As she arrived at his side she saw his long, 
 gaunt frame begin to shake, as if awaking to life. His arms 
 waved for a moment uncertainly. Then, with a convulsive 
 effort, he lifted himself to a sitting posture. The girl ran to 
 him. "Alden!" she cried; "Alden, it is Marian Whittier!" 
 
 While she was yet speaking the man struggled to his feet. 
 For a moment he stood swaying, his head moving from side to 
 side«and his eyes roving over the gaping group before him. Of 
 a sudden his gaze rested upon Marian and hung. His eyes 
 began to glow. A sinister look came into his face. Slowly he 
 bent toward the road, his eyes still fastened upon the girl. 
 Then, with a quick movement, he swept up a handful of stones 
 and hurled them full at her. But for the prompt action of 
 the major, who apprehended Cragg's intention and drew her 
 sharply to one side, she would have been struck. The major 
 gave a command, and several of the soldiers threw themselves 
 upon Cragg and forced him, struggling madly, again upon the 
 litter. 
 
 "Delirious," commented the major, as he turned away from 
 Cragg, who now lay quiet, his strength exhausted. "The end is 
 not far off." 
 
 Marian choked back her protest, and silently followed the 
 litter into the building, through the massive portal whose yawn- 
 ing aperture in days long gone was wont to belch forth shame 
 and woe in helmet and cuirass upon the stricken Jew. Down 
 through echoing corridors, past dark rooms of mildewed stone, 
 and at length into a large vaulted chamber, fairly well lighted 
 and airy, and sparsely furnished with a few empty cots and 
 rude tables and stools. A woman approached as they entered. 
 
 "She is the attendant, an Egyptian," the major explained 
 to Marian. "She does not speak English. But I know you 
 «peak French readily, so you will get along. She comes from 
 Port Said. , . Of course you understand that you are a pris- 
 oner," he .added, with a sudden change. "But you are under 
 my protection. Cragg also. I brought him here for your sake. 
 This woman will take care of you both." 
 
 He turned to the attendant and gave a few instructions in 
 the French tongue, then bowed to Marian and took his depar- 
 ture. The girl, as if in a dream, watched him go. When the 
 door closed upon him she caught her breath and moved slowly 
 over to the cot where Cragg lay. The Egyptian followed her. 
 
 "He breathes hard," the latter ventured, speaking in excel- 
 lent French and looking down at the heaving form. "One would 
 say he was having a troubled dream, is it not so?" 
 
 Marian sank to her knees beside Alden. The ancient walls 
 
 62 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 seemed to close about her, leaving only the brown and wrinkled 
 face of the Egyptian peering at her across the body of the man. 
 Then oblivion stole through the brooding silence of the old 
 Tower and tenderly enveloped her. 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 HIS torpid mentality had been dully conscious of sound, 
 indistinct, then like a low roar, which had seemed to come 
 from an indefinite distance through a gray enveloping 
 veil. He had not been thinking, but perceiving sensuously. But 
 now his mentality seemed to stir, slowly, reluctantly, like the 
 first almost imperceptible movement of a complicated mechan- 
 ism under the impulsion of a motive force. The low roar 
 began gradually to assume for him a definiteness. He at length 
 recognized a sound: it was a laugh. Mental functioning had 
 begun. 
 
 At long intervals thereafter he dully recognized other 
 sounds: these were voices. And there were sounds of sobs, of 
 moans, and the clank of fetters. Slowly, like mist, the gray 
 veil dissolved. Then he knew that his eyes were open : he saw 
 figures gliding about in the weird twilight. . . 
 
 He was not aware that he had raised an arm, but a con- 
 sciousness of pain told him that it had fallen. And with the 
 pain came a sharpening of perception. His aching hand closed. 
 Minutes later he recognized that it had closed over an iron 
 chain. The perception startled him. His arm jerked spasmod- 
 ically, and his hand rolled off the chain. His fingers moved, 
 and scraped against stone. And he knew that it was stone, 
 and that it was wet. . . 
 
 Again a great vacuum engulfed him. Then he roused sud- 
 denly, summoned all bis returned strength, and threw it into 
 a convulsive movement that raised his creaking body upon an 
 arm. For an interval he hung thus. Perception of self and 
 environment began to surge in upon him in a flood. In the 
 feeble light he glimpsed his body. He saw that it was naked 
 but for a cloth about the loins. And it was bound in chains. 
 He stared at it with bursting eyes, striving to sense a meaning, 
 to reach a definite understanding. Then he turned his head. 
 He was in a large vaulted room of stone, dimly lighted by 
 grated windows set high against the ceiling. It possessed a 
 ghastly, abnormal look, and a great fear smote him. Desper- 
 ately he strove to recognize his environment, to place himself 
 in it, to link it with a past. Wildly he struggled to recall his 
 
 63 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 identity, to realize who he was. But the name of Alden Cragg 
 did not recur to him. Instead came a terrifying sense of knock- 
 ing upon a door that was closed. . . 
 
 He fixed his bulging eyes upon the figures that crowded the 
 room. A rasping cry burst from him: they were like himself, 
 naked and in chains! But more, there was that about these 
 figures that shook him while he gazed. They seemed spectral 
 things, brought up out of a dead world. Many of them were 
 of huge frame, with massive shoulders and bulging muscles. 
 Many were heavily bearded. There were beetling brows, pierc- 
 ing eyes, swarthy skins; there were black skins, and red, and 
 some pale white. Some of the figures laughed coarsely as they 
 paced back and forth. Some whispered low. Others sat dully 
 on the wet floor with bowed heads. And there were some who 
 wept, and some who moaned, and some who sought to give 
 comfort. The air was heavy and fetid; and thick shadows, 
 rather than light, seemed to stream in at the high, grated slits 
 in the mildewed walls. 
 
 As he sat, leaning upon an elbow and staring dully, two of 
 the figures approached. They were of huge stature, with 
 immense brawn, fair complexions, light hair and blue eyes. 
 
 "By Aphrodite!" cried one, drawing his clenched fist up to 
 his shoulder and rattling the heavy chain that fettered his 
 wrist, "but for the riot at the gate we had not been thrown 
 into this foul pit. But What matters to us a few hours here, 
 when we know that we shall soon exchange the ergastulum for 
 the arena? Ah, may the gods. send me against none but Romans! 
 Jove! I shall crush their skulls like paper." 
 
 "Think not so easily to win thy freedom, O Greek," replied 
 his companion. "The Romans are valiant, else were they not 
 masters of the world. Choose rather barbarians for thy foes in 
 the apena — if choice thou hast— or soft-boned Jews like this 
 dog." He stopped before the gaping creature and kicked him 
 contemptuously. 
 
 The Greek laughed. "The Jew was valiant enough at the 
 gate when he stoned the Nazarene, O son of Brith-Ain. I count 
 him worthy to be thy kin." 
 
 "My kin? A truce, friend! Mock me no further, I pray!" 
 
 "The gods forfend, for I am right, as I shall prove! Hast 
 thou not said thy island home in the north, which Caesar called 
 Britannia, is known as the Land of the Covenant, and that 
 because the prophet Jeremiah did find therein a refuge some 
 five centuries gone? That thither he conveyed the Hebrew Ark 
 and tables of the Law?" 
 
 "I said it," the Briton replied. 
 
 "Do I not speak the Hebrew tongue? And well I know that 
 
 64 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 in that tongue the word for covenant is Brith, while island is 
 expressed by Ain. Hence, thou art a son of Brith- Ain. But, 
 more : since man in the Hebrew tongue is Ish, thou wert bietter 
 called Brith-Ish. And by that name I henceforth shall remember 
 thee. But look, the Jew recovers from his hurt. Tell us, O 
 son of Judah," he went on, bending over the staring, blinking 
 creature, "why thou wert so zealous to stone the teacher, 
 and thus incite a riot for which thou wilt be well flogged?" 
 
 The slave looked up at the speaker stupidly. For a moment 
 his tongue refused to function. Then he spoke thickly and with 
 a great efifort, his voice sounding in his ears like an echo from 
 ages past. "Where — am — I?" 
 
 "Now the gods defend!" cried the Greek. "Hast happily 
 forgot that thou art a slave, a Jewish slave, bought to grace 
 the household of the Roman procurator?" 
 
 The slave fell back, as if struck a heavy blow. The others 
 laughed in his face at his confusion. "When thy wit returns," 
 the Greek pursued mockingly, "thou wilt recognize the ergastu- 
 lum of the Tower of Antonia — for thou art in Jerusalem now, 
 O Jew, and shouldst. feel at home. But say, why so mad to 
 stone the Nazarene?" 
 
 The slave lay with open mouth, silent, his thought awhirl. 
 The Greek waited a moment, then resumed. "But for thee, 
 Jew, we had not been cast into this foul hole. By Aphrodite! 
 but never did I behold a countenance so venomous as thine when 
 thy gaze fell upon the Jewish teacher as he stood by the gate. 
 What hast thou against him? Dost know him? Speak!" 
 
 Again the veil lifted and the creature struggled to collect 
 and formulate his chaotic thought. "I ... I am not clear," 
 he said thickly. "I . . . have lost account . . ." 
 
 . "The stone that struck thee on the head appears to have 
 addled thy wits greatly," laughed the Greek. "Hast forgot that 
 we are still in the seven hundred and eightieth year of Rome?" 
 
 The uncomprehending creature blinked up at him without 
 speaking. The Greek turned and glanced at the other inmates 
 of the room, then back at the slave. "Hast been so fortunate 
 as to forget that the Roman procurator has purchased us? 
 Then be reminded, O Jew, that we that have the brawn will 
 go to the arena, but thou, weakling, wilt be first flogged, then 
 sent to the fields." 
 
 "The Roman procurator!" the slave murmured uncom- 
 prehendingly, his eyes roving. 
 
 "Of a truth, Pontius Pilate, who has but come up from 
 Caesarea to attend the Feast of Tabernacles. By Aphrodite ! but 
 thou wert a fool to attack that Jesus as we entered the gate, 
 for Pilate now will . . ." 
 
 "Attack . . . Jesus!" 
 
 65 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I have said. For when thy gaze did fall upon him thou 
 didst lose thy wits and forthwith begin to hurl stones at him 
 for his strange words. But his supporters heartily returned 
 the missiles. Th'e isoldiers suppressed the riot — ^but thou wert 
 then unconscious, felled by a stone that took thee fair upon the 
 temple. We bore thee into the ergastulum senseless — as by 
 the gods thou still seemest to continue!" 
 
 Throughout this brief recital the slave remained as if 
 stunned. When it was concluded, the portals of his mind seemed 
 to fly open, and terror, vast and horrible, rushed in. A piercing 
 cry burst from his lips. He saw the Greek and the Briton fall 
 back and stare at him in amazement. He saw others, attracted 
 by his cry, come crowding about. 
 
 "The blow from the stone," the Greek explained, nodding 
 sagaciously. 
 
 "Nay," said one, "it is a curse because he stoned the teacher." 
 
 "Of a truth," put in another; "for some say this Jesus is 
 the very Son of God. Hast heard his claims? He would be the 
 Christ. But this Jew did right, according to his religion. Their 
 Messiah comes not a lowly carpenter, but a king." 
 
 The slave roused up. A light seemed to flash through his 
 brain; a gleam penetrated his darkened mind. In its illumina- 
 tion he reached out and seized something tangible. Of a sud- 
 den he cried: "I am a Christian!" 
 
 His auditors heard him without emotion. "Possibly his 
 words would mean that he is seeking the Messiah*" the Greek 
 ventured, somewhat loftily. "For the Hebrew scripture is full 
 of promises of a Christ." 
 
 "By Bacchus!" cried a burly giant, "this man is not a Jew. 
 He worships at the shrine of Fortuna, his mother. He serves 
 the gods of Rome. I know him now.- His poverty brought 
 him to serfdom in Azzah." 
 
 The slave gasped. A single thought had obsessed him, born 
 of the words that smote his throbbing ears. "I am rich!" he 
 cried. "I am rich! Rich!" 
 
 A general laugh followed. "Then purchase thy freedom 
 from slavery," the Greek mocked. "Pilate hath need of thy 
 talents." 
 
 "Pah! A denarius for all thy riches!" cried another, turn- 
 ing away in disgust. "Thou shalt go to the mill for inciting the 
 riot at the gate, and . . ." 
 
 "Curb thy tongue!" the Greek interjected in a hoarse whis- 
 per. "The overseer enters!" 
 
 The slave followed the timid gaze of the others and saw a 
 tall man, heavy of frame and with brutal features, enter the 
 room at that moment, accompanied by two soldiers. The man 
 
 66 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 wore a short tunic, bound at the waist with a cord, and car- 
 ried in his hand a slender roll of parchment. His head was 
 bare, as were his legs and feet, although the latter were encased 
 in sandals. The soldiers were clad in the scales, breastplates 
 and helms of the Augustan period, and carried small shields. 
 The occupants of the room fell back before the trio. Those 
 who had been sitting got to their feet and slouched against the 
 damp walls. The overseer halted midway the room and glanced 
 about imperiously. Then he opened the roll and handed it to the 
 soldiers, at the same time giving them a command, but in a 
 voice so low that the slave's ears did not catch the words. 
 Immediately the soldiers began to group the fettered inmates 
 and march them from the room through the great doors, from 
 beyond which came a faint glint from other helmets and breast- 
 plates. 
 
 Slowly, painfully, with eyes straining and jaw hanging, his 
 brain burning, his thought now vivid, now utterly quenched, 
 the slave struggled to his feet and stood shaking. His head 
 spun, and the room rocked before him. He passed a hand 
 befora his eyes and tried to think back beyond his awakening. 
 But if past there were, it was closed to him now. Beyond the 
 first hazy moments of returning consciousness all was black. 
 He raised his blurred eyes and met those of the overseer bent 
 sternly upon him. 
 
 "Perpol!" the latter exclaimed, "a comely weakling. A fool, 
 but a choice for Procula." 
 
 He came to where the slave stood. For a moment he 
 scanned him closely, then turned to the soldiers. "To the baths 
 and the wardrobe," he commanded. "He is such a one as Pro- 
 cula long has sought. Forbear to flog him. Take him to her." 
 He concluded the command with a low laugh, then turned and 
 left the room. 
 
 A few moments afterward the bewildered slave, naked, be- 
 fouled, and shackled, found himself following the silent soldiers 
 from the fetid prison. Then the shades closed in upon him, 
 and the feeble flame of intelligence was again snuffed out. 
 
 CHAPTER 12 
 
 WHEN Marian awoke, the sun's beams were tumbling 
 through the narrow windows of the big room and driv- 
 ing the; shadows in rout back into the mildewed cor- 
 ridors. She was lying, fully dressed, on a cot, but she had 
 only a faint recollection of having been placed there by the 
 
 67 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Egyptian. For a few moments she lay quiet, coordinating her 
 thought; then a lisping shuffle announced the approach of the 
 woman, and she sprang up. 
 
 "Eh, Men, my little flower! You are a new woman, is it 
 not so?" the wrinkled crone gave her greeting. "The major 
 came again last night, and brought a surgeon to look at him," 
 indicating the motionless Cragg; "but I would not wake you. 
 The surgeon said . . ." 
 
 "You are good to me, and to him," Marian interrupted, as 
 she turned to the cot where Cragg lay; "I wish to thank you." 
 
 "Oh, la, la! And now I shall bring you coffee and bread. 
 The surgeon said ..." 
 
 "Yes, I will eat now. And please let me help you," said 
 Marian. 
 
 "Help? Of course, little one. You will have to work here. 
 There will be other patients soon, now that you British have 
 begun your attack. But do you not wish to know what the 
 surgeon said?" 
 
 "No. Tell me, please, has he slept all this time?" 
 
 "He has not moved, except to raise his arms as if to drive 
 away the flies. At times he muttered; and once I thought he 
 would try to rise, and I was about to call the guard; but after 
 that he fell back and lay as you see him now. Ma cherie, you 
 love him? It is sad, for he is dying." 
 
 A cry broke from the girl. "No! He is not! He cannot! 
 Do not say that again! There, let me go with you for the 
 coffee." 
 
 The Egyptian regarded her in silent astonishment; then, 
 with a gesture of complete disinterestedness, she motioned her 
 to follow and turned away. Marian's thoughts were again in 
 riot, and fear dinned in her soul with its temptation to deny 
 God. The magnitude of her problem seemed overwhelming, 
 and the tempter bade her bow and worship the gods that she 
 was striving so desperately and against such seemingly tre- 
 mendous odds to prove false. 
 
 In the smaller room which apparently served the impro- 
 vised hospital-prison as kitchen the Egyptian motioned the girl 
 to a table and set the simple breakfast before her. "The major 
 will come again this morning," she announced. "Eh, Men, he 
 boasted last night of his luck in capturing the beautiful English 
 girl." 
 
 Marian looked up. "I am not English," she said quietly. 
 "I am American." 
 
 "But," exclaimed the woman, "you were with the British!" 
 
 "Yes," Marian replied, and somewhat wearily, "the Pen- 
 berry Ambulance Corps." 
 
 G8 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 At these wprds the Egyptian started, then bent forward and 
 stared hard at the girl. "Penberry?" she said in a low tone. 
 
 "Simeon Penberry, of London," Marian amplified, but with- 
 out interest. 
 
 • "And the man out there that the major permits you to 
 nurse?" 
 
 "He is Alden Cragg, of London, but he enlisted in the States, 
 in Crestelridge, a suburb of New York." 
 
 The Egyptian came closer and leaned far across the table. 
 Her eyes were wide, and a strange light glowed in them. She 
 made as if to speak; but, as if obeying a more cautious impulse, 
 straightened up and turned away. A moment later she went 
 back into the big room, leaving the girl to finish her breakfast 
 alone. 
 
 Shortly thereafter, as Marian was sitting beside Cragg, fan- 
 ning away the tormenting gnats. Major Hoeffel entered briskly, 
 accompanied by an officer, likewise German and wearing the 
 insignia of army surgeon. The major came at once to her and 
 presented the surgeon with as much ceremony as if the ancient 
 cellar in which they were so strangely assembled were a Berlin 
 salon. The latter, after bowing stiffly, turned to Cragg. 
 
 "It is good to see you," the major greeted Marian. "You do 
 not find these quarters unbearable, I hope. It is not Crestel- 
 ridge, but . . . you shall have better soon." He drew up a 
 stool and sat down. "Odd that we should both be here, isn't 
 it? And that we should both know Penberry," he resumed 
 genially. "Tell me about your stay with him. I need distrac- 
 tion- this morning, and thoughts of Penberry's green lawns 
 and bright gardens are like refreshing breezes — doubly refresh- 
 ing when voiced by you." 
 
 Marian looked up quickly. The Egyptian was standing 
 directly behind the major, with her black eyes staring straight 
 into those of the girl. Marian's heart gave a leap, and a chill 
 swept over her. • Slowly the Egyptian shifted her gaze; then 
 she turned and shuffled softly away. Marian's eyes went to 
 the major. He was closely watching her every move. She 
 clutched at her poise and strove for calm. "I cannot talk of 
 Simeon Penberry," she said in a shaking voice, "when Alden 
 demands my every thought." 
 
 "A merited rebuke, knowing now how you feel toward him," 
 said the major. "Herr Doctor," rising and addressing the sur- 
 geon, "what is your opinion?" 
 
 "It is as I said last night," the latter replied, looking up 
 from Cragg and speaking in fluent English. "Not a cranial 
 fracture, but a glancing blow from a bullet, rupturing a blood 
 vessel in the brain and producing suspended animation. The 
 
 69 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 result will be either death very shortly, or paralysis and 
 impaired mentality. An operation might be beneficial; it might 
 result in death. Nothing else can be done." 
 
 The major looked queerly at Marian, then back at the sur- 
 geon, "I can have him removed to the Kaiserin Hospital for 
 an operation," he said, with a manifestation of reluctant 
 interest. 
 
 The surgeon bowed his approval, Marian, her whole being 
 rising in protest against the cruel verdict, turned upon the 
 major in appeal. 
 
 "He gave his life on the battlefield," she pleaded; "you 
 cannot restore to him what he has given. I came across the 
 seas searching for him; I found him; he is mine now, mine 
 alone! Let me have him. . ." 
 
 Cragg stirred, and they all turned quickly to him. He 
 raised his arms; then his whole body shook violently. The 
 major gazed at the prostrate man in fascination. His eyes 
 widened. "He is alive," he cried, starting back, "but . . . 
 Gott in Himmel, he is not here!" 
 
 At that instant Cragg pulled himself up and sprang to his 
 feet. The surgeon fell back in surprise and consternation, while 
 Cragg, swaying and stumbling, started toward the exit. The 
 major, recovering, called loudly, and two soldiers ran in from 
 the corridors. In a trice Cragg was overpowered and forced 
 back to his cot. "He must be strapped to the bed!" the surgeon 
 exclaimed excitedly. Marian turned to the major. The latter 
 looked into the girl's pleading eyes, and from them down at 
 Cragg. He shook his head. The surgeon glanced quizzically 
 from the major to the girl; then he uttered a grunt of disap- 
 proval, and with a shrug of his shoulders turned away. A few 
 moments later he left the room. The major raised his eyes from 
 Cragg to Marion. There was a look in his face that had never 
 been there in Crestelridge. "I have seen so many die ... so 
 many," he said. "But Alden ... I think it is best that he 
 should go." He stood regarding the girl with such a mean- 
 ingful expression that she shuddered. But before she could 
 audibly combat his words an orderly entered with a message 
 that caused him to take his leave at once. Marian turned 
 wearily and drew up the stool beside the dying man. 
 
 "They would kill you, Alden," she murmured, bending over 
 
 him; "but God is your life." 
 
 ****** 
 
 The key of memory's storehouse was not there, although he 
 ceased not to grope for it. Could he but find it, he might learn 
 through what eons of time he had been fighting the light that 
 was now suffusing him, engulfing him, permeating him, expos- 
 
 70 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing his naked soul and stinging it into pain acute, maddening. 
 If he could but blot out that blinding light, this sharp sense of 
 pain must cease. And, oh, how tired, how inexpressibly tired 
 he was! Distress, pain, insufferable weariness. . . 
 
 A sound came from beyond the glow. Once more he strug- 
 gled, fiercely, desperately, madly, to break through the light 
 and into that locus from whence the sound appeared to come. 
 It was a voice. It was a familiar voice. A thrill shot through 
 him. That voice would link him with the lost something that 
 he was so feverishly seeking. He tried to answer, to call 
 back. . . 
 
 The glow swiftly faded, the veil dropped from before his 
 eyes, and he looked down into the upturned, smiling face of a 
 young girl. 
 
 "You strange fellow!" he heard her exclaim. "You beat 
 the air as if the room were filled with gnats. And I am Miriam, 
 not Marian, as you have been so stubbornly saying. Tell me 
 now," she pursued, coming closer, "did you so love this Marian? 
 An odd name, indeed! Or . . ." She paused and looked up 
 coyly at him. "Perchance you meant me. But, oh, you are a 
 slave! . . . though you are most handsome. Besides, if you 
 really meant me Procula would dismiss me and have you 
 flogged to death . . . though I do believe she loves you for your 
 rare beauty. But, listen . . ." She paused and glanced fur- 
 tively about. Then, assured that she would not be overheard: 
 "If you would save yourself from the ergastulum, or worse, 
 you must cease to proclaim yourself a Christian. What means 
 that term? Is it that you would have it known that you accept 
 the claims of the Nazarene teacher who professes to be the 
 Hebrews' Christ? Yet that cannot be, for you stoned him at 
 the gate but yesterday . . ." 
 
 As she talked his thought cleared, but there came not the 
 slightest recollection of aught that had previously occurred. 
 His life experience had been narrowed to the immediate pres- 
 ent, without past or thought of future. He raised his eyes and 
 slowly surveyed his environment. As he did so his mouth 
 opened, his arms lifted and his whole body proclaimed the 
 wonder that possessed him. He saw himself in a great upper 
 room, sumptuously furnished with rich hangings, rare skins 
 and rugs, gilded divans, crescent-shaped chairs, and richly 
 inlaid tables. Soft pillows and cushions lay upon the couches. 
 Costly vases, of Roman and Grecian design, graced the tables. 
 The many windows, opened wide, let in a flood of sunlight, and 
 through th^em he saw the deep blue of the cloudless sky beyond. 
 Numerous doors led from the room, and he saw himself stand- 
 ing near one that opened upon a balcony surrounding an inner 
 
 71 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 court, a patio, in which palms and flowering plants grew in 
 dense profusion about a marble fountain that tossed its spray 
 high into the sunbeams, through which it fell in a perpetual 
 rainbow of vivid colors. Amid the foliage of the garden glis- 
 tened choice marble statues of Venus, of Jupiter, and the reeling 
 Bacchus. 
 
 He turned, open-mouthed and panting, again to the girl. 
 He had not noticed before how beautiful she was. Her attire 
 was that of the young Roman damsel of the middle class of 
 that period. It impressed him, and so vividly that he glanced 
 down at his own garb. Then he started back in astonishment. 
 There was nothing in his thought against which to measure his 
 environment, or the costume of the girl, or his own; yet some- 
 thing seemed to inform him that he had had experience of 
 environments, attire, people, different, far different, from all 
 this. But when, or where, he might not say. He saw himself 
 clad now in a woolen tunic, embroidered, and tied at the waist 
 with a brightly colored cord, with gilded tassels that fell at 
 one side. His arms and legs were bare, but his feet were shod 
 with sandals that laced about the ankles. The freedom with 
 which he could move his limbs impressed him, although he had 
 no recollection of their having been fettered in chains. He 
 raised his arms again, and passed a hand over his brow. 
 
 "You are still dazed," he heard her say. "But stand you 
 here and recover. I must leave you now, but I will return for 
 you soon. Meantime, remember what I said; for if you are a 
 follower of this Nazarene Jesus you are over bold to proclaim 
 it here in Pilate's house. Nay, it is death! I would help 
 you ..." 
 
 He reached out suddenly and seized her arm. "Help me! 
 . . . help me!" he cried in a voice that rang with agony. "I 
 ... I can . . . remember . . . nothing!" 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, starting back. Then her look of fear 
 gave place to one of great pity, and she drew near to him again. 
 "You do not remember anything that happened yesterday, or 
 before?" she asked in a tone of awe. 
 
 He shook his head sadly. She stood for a moment regard- 
 ing him. Then : "But you remember whence you came to Jeru- 
 salem, and how Procula took you to be trained. . ." 
 
 "No, nothing. I do not even know my name. Oh, tell me 
 who I am and why I am here! . . ." Tears burst suddenly 
 from his eyes, and he bowed his head in his hands and sobbed. 
 "But do you not recall that you were bidden to wait here 
 at the portal for me to come to lead you through the streets? 
 No?" as he continued to shake his head. "Oh!" She paused 
 and stood looking at him in mingled wonder and pity. Then 
 
 72 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 she laid a soft hand on his arm. "Procula will spare me now," 
 she said gently, "and we will go. In the streets you will recover. 
 Come." 
 
 He raised his head. "Where?" he asked brokenly. 
 "Why, through the city," she answered. "You are to be 
 Procula's nomenclator, you know." 
 
 "Procula? Nomenclator?" he echoed. "What are these? 
 And who am I?" 
 
 "Poor fellow! But it cannot last, so come, I will tell you 
 as we go, and perchance it will all return to you as I talk." 
 
 She led him, half blind with his tears, out through the door 
 and down the long balcony to a flight of stone steps, thence 
 down to the lower corridor, and through other doorways and 
 passages until at length they emerged upon the narrow street. 
 He moved as in a dream, now sorrowing, now stirred by wonder, 
 now shrinking in terror, struggling, striving, grasping at every 
 thought that entered his mentality for some clue to it all, some 
 concept that he might recognize, some link that would com- 
 plete the broken chain of memory and unite him again with 
 what had gone before. 
 
 "You remember the name of the house we have just left?" 
 she queried, glancing up at him curiously, yet tenderly. "No? 
 Why, it is Herod's palace; and Pontius Pilate, the Roman 
 procurator, occupies it when in Jerusalem. When memory 
 returns you will know that he is up here for the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles. You see, O my Crassius . . ." 
 
 "Crassius!" he exclaimed, halting. "Is that ... is that 
 my . . . what they call me?" 
 
 "Poor, poor fellow! Yes. Though you are a Jew, yet you 
 bear a Roman name. You know, do you not, that you are a 
 . . . slave?" 
 
 He stared down at her. "Slave!" he repeated in a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 She nodded, and her face wore a look of great sadness. 
 "You were sold to a Roman slaver in Azzah — ^but I do not know 
 when. You were sold because of your poverty and . . ." Her 
 voice fell, and she hesitated. "They said," she resumed in a 
 hushed tone, "that you stole a man's property and slew his 
 sick wife — but I cannot believe that — oh, no!" 
 
 He swayed under her words. She threw out a hand and 
 caught his arm. "Come," she said, "let us get out of this nar- 
 row, stuffy street." 
 
 He turned with her, and together they threaded the con- 
 stricted road, crowding against the buildings at times to permit 
 great lumbering camels to pass, dodging through masses of 
 people here, halting to avoid a litter there, and all the while 
 
 73 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the girl continued her explanation to her stumbling, bewildered, 
 uncomprehending companion. 
 
 "You were bought for Pilate," she went on, "for they said 
 that, though a Jew — and I believe you are not a Jew, although 
 ah Israelite, for the dealer said you were of the tribe of Ben- 
 jamin — they said you worshiped the Roman gods, and in par- 
 ticular Fortuna, the goddess of the good things of earth. But 
 . . ." She glanced up at him quizzically. "If you acknowledge 
 the claims of the Nazarene you must believe that the gods of 
 Rome are false. Do you so believe? Tell me, for I will not 
 betray you." 
 
 He remained silent, staring hard at the road before him as 
 he walked. She waited for a moment, then continued. "It 
 was said by John of the Boanerges, and only the third evening 
 back, that the Roman gods were not real beings, but human 
 qualities, and he called them pride, and will, and love of riches, 
 and lust, and human might. So, O Crassius, if you worship 
 these, then are you doubly a slave indeed!" 
 
 Their progress was interrupted at this juncture by the 
 approach of a body of Roman soldiers, led by a centurion. 
 The officer threw a glance of recognition at the girl which her 
 companion caught. "The soldiers are preparing for riots among 
 the Jews," she explained, as she followed the centurion with 
 her gaze. "This Jesus has stirred them up, and in particular 
 the slaves, for he teaches that the truth will make them 
 free. . ." 
 
 "The truth!" The words broke from him involuntarily. 
 
 "Ah, see how it affects a slave!" she exclaimed. "No won- 
 der Pilate looks for trouble. But, come. And, as I was about 
 to say, Procula, Pilate's wife, had need of a nomenclator, and, 
 of course, none but a handsome one, and so she bade the over- 
 seer find her one, and he chose you." 
 
 "But ... a nomenclator?" 
 
 "Ah, your poor memory! But it will come back, my Cras- 
 sius, I know. A nomenclator, you will soon recall, is a slave 
 who accompanies his master through the streets and gives him 
 the names of such persons as he ought to recognize. Procula 
 has a wretched memory, and must needs depend upon a 
 nomenclator when she goes about the city. And you are given 
 into my charge to train for that office, for I know everyone 
 here. Do you not recall it now?" 
 
 "Nothing," he answered sadly. 
 
 "You remember naught of yesterday?" she resumed, again 
 looking at him wonderingly. "Will you perchance to-morrow 
 recall naught of to-day? But if that continue, then will you 
 perforce live but a day at a time. And yet," she went on, as 
 
 74 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 if in musing, "it is somewhat akin to that which John tells us 
 the Nazarene teaches, for he bids us take no thought for the 
 morrow." 
 
 He turned to her. "Who is this John?" he asked. 
 
 "A disciple of the Nazarene Jesus," she replied. "And . . . 
 But see, there is Kem," she whisperedj indicating with her hand 
 a short, stout man who was approaching. "Mark him well, 
 O Crassius, for Procula must needs recognize him, an Egyptian 
 and a rich physician. Now, as I was saying, John talked with 
 some of the slaves . . ." ' 
 
 He interrupted her with a gesture. "Tell me," he said, "are 
 you a ... a slave, too?" 
 
 She shook her head. "No," she answered. "I am free-born. 
 My father, Jesse, an Israelite of great learning but small means, 
 contracted me to Pilate, but on condition that I serve none but 
 Procula, who had need of one to be her eyes and read to her 
 in Greek and Hebrew, and sing, and dance, to while away her 
 hours of troubled conscience. I am safe under Pilate's pro- 
 tection; my father was doubly wise to secure that. And so I 
 come and go freely and in honor. But . . ." She paused and 
 looked up at him. Then she went on. "I am there for some 
 purpose, I am persuaded, although what it is has not as yet 
 been revealed. Perchance it has to do with . . . Ah, well, 
 who can say? Perchance it has to do with you, O Crassius — 
 for your great need has stirred me deeply. I was drawn to you 
 when first I beheld you, and I would help you. Yet, if you 
 stoned the teacher, and he be the Christ . . . But you say 
 you know not what drove you to that mad deed. You do not 
 remember seeing him at the gate?" 
 
 He shook his head. "I remember nothing," he repeated 
 wearily. 
 
 "He was with you and you saw him not. I think it strange," 
 she said thoughtfully. "I think it naught but necromanicy that 
 blinded you and caused you to hurl stones at him," she pur- 
 sued. "You did not know, for ignorance darkened your mind. 
 And yet, if what he teaches be the truth, he can make you free, 
 for he does astounding things . . . why, they report that in 
 Galilee he even raised the dead. . . But that passes all 
 belief." 
 
 "Does he . . . does he free the . . . slaves?" 
 
 "They say he has set free many who were bound by dis- 
 ease," she answered. "And John says that slavery is of the 
 mind. . . But what he means by that, I cannot say. There 
 is somewhat strange about the teachings of this Nazarene, O 
 Crassius, for he deals not at all with things material — ^indeed, 
 they say that matter disappears under his magic touch, or by 
 
 75 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the same deft touch expands to unheard-of size. They say," 
 her voice fell to a whisper, "that with a few loaves and fishes 
 he fed some thousands. Procula is sore distraught. She 
 quizzes me much. I can only tell her what I haVe heard John 
 say, for I have not as yet beheld this Jesus, although he has 
 been teaching nearly three years." 
 
 "Where may I find him?" His voice was low and tense. 
 
 "That I cannot say, O Crassius. But in our walks about 
 the city we are most like to meet him. What then? Would 
 you pray him to set you free? But think, O my Crassius! 
 For if he loose a slave from bondage then would the act incite 
 a riot. The Roman soldiers would descend upon us, and . . ." 
 
 "I shall beg him to set me free." 
 
 She walked along beside him in silence for a few moments. 
 Then she looked up at him again. "The Roman Seneca has 
 said, O Crassius, that the only liberty is wisdom. But wisdom, 
 my father says, is knowing truth and conforming to it. Now 
 the Nazarene teaches that a knowledge of truth will make men 
 free. Then is not your freedom to be found in understanding 
 and applying the teachings of this Jesus?" 
 
 "I shall beg him to set me free," was the repeated answer. 
 
 She did not speak for some time. Then, of a sudden, she 
 gave a little cry. "Behold, O Crassius, that man . . . there, 
 by the wall. It is John ! And he of the heavy beard and broad 
 shoulders? Ah, that must needs be the one called Peter. Comei 
 O my Crassius, we will ask them to lead us to him who claims 
 to be the Christ!" 
 
 CHAPTER 13 
 
 SPURRED by the girl's words, he bounded forward eagerly, 
 now oblivious of all- but self; but ere he reached the 
 two men a crowd had begun to gather, and he and his 
 fair companion found themselves barred from access to 
 them. 
 
 "Stand we here, O Crassius," he heard the girl say; "if 
 there be a riot, we were well on the outside." 
 
 They halted, and stood watching and listening attentively. 
 A loud murmuring rose from the people as they pressed around 
 the two erstwhile fishermen, but it was not entirely a manifes- 
 tation of disapproval. "Where is he?" was voiced insistently. 
 And with the question came a varied comment. "He is a good 
 man," some said. "Nay," contended others loudly; "but he 
 deceiveth the people!" And yet others: "He calleth himself 
 Christ! Do the rulers know this?" "Yea, we know whence 
 
 76 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 this man is, but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence 
 he is!" 
 
 "But," came in a bold voice, "when Christ cometh will he 
 do more miracles than these which this man hath done?" 
 
 At that moment a pompous figure, clad in a plain white 
 garment overwrapped by gorgeously colored abnets in many 
 folds, approached and began to force a way through the throng. 
 "A priest," whispered Miriam. The people fell quickly back 
 when they recognized the office of the newcomer, who pres- 
 ently halted, and, surveying the assemblage with a haughty 
 mien, loudly demanded: "Why have ye not brought him? I 
 would hear him speak." 
 
 A short interval of silence, followed. Then a man who 
 appeared to have authority answered: "Never man spake like 
 this man!" 
 
 The priest's brow clouded. "What," he exclaimed, "are ye 
 also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees 
 believed on him? How say you, O Nicodemus?" he added, 
 singling out for his question a man standing near the disciple 
 John, and wearing the unmistakable garb of a Pharisee of dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 The one addressed hesitated, and glanced uneasily from the 
 disciples to the priest. Then he forced a cautious answer. 
 "Doth our law judge any man before it hear him and know 
 what he doeth?" he said. 
 
 The priest's lip curled. "But you have heard him," he 
 replied, "though you chose the cover of night. How would you 
 answer the Sanhedrin, were they to demand of you what he 
 taught?" 
 
 All turned to Nicodemus. His face went white, and for a 
 moment there was a look of fear in his eyes. Then he straight- 
 ened up and replied boldly: "I would answer: He taught me 
 that I must be born again." 
 
 A murmur came from the people. A short, mocking laugh 
 broke from the priest. "How then will you explain such deep 
 wisdom?" he sneered. 
 
 Nicodemus stood silent, hesitating. The people pressed 
 nearer in keen expectancy. Then a tall man, with fair locks 
 and blue eyes, who had been standing close to John, came for- 
 ward and confronted the priest. 
 
 "Ah," cried the latter, as his eyes fell upon him, "Gaius, the 
 learned Ephesian! How now, philosopher, would ye interpret 
 this Nazarene's subtle words?" 
 
 "I interpret them," boldly answered he that was called 
 Gaius, "as second to the profoundest wisdom ever uttered by 
 man." 
 
 "Second?" 
 
 77 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Even so," continued Gains; "for the greatest wisdom, which 
 was also uttered by this same man, is that God is Spirit. For, 
 God being of infinite magnitude, if He be Spirit it must logically 
 follow that there is naught else that is real." 
 
 The priest fell back with open mouth. "Naught else that 
 is real!" he exclaimed. "God of our fathers! Did not He cre- 
 ate the heavens and the earth?" 
 
 "Even so," returned Gains calmly. "But, according to this 
 Jesus, the heavens and the earth are not what ye think them. 
 For, if ye will follow logic, even as he does, then ye must admit 
 that, if Spirit be all, there can be naught of reality in things 
 material. Nay, further: if ye will faithfully pursue logic ye 
 must admit that sin and all its fell consequences hath its sole 
 origin in the things we call material. But, these latter being 
 unreal, because of Spirit's allness, it doth most logically follow 
 that evil hath its origin in that which is unreal. Therefore, O 
 Priest, the Nazarene hath shown himself profoundly wise and 
 truly logical in calling evil a lie — hath he not? But, further, 
 a lie is of the mind. It is a thing of men's thought. And so, 
 when this Galilean teacher did inform our Nicodemus that he 
 must be born again, what meant he but that he must acquire 
 a new mind, a new manner of thinking, even as John Baptist 
 cried in the wilderness: 'Metanoia! Ye must have a complete 
 and radical change of thought'?" 
 
 Before the priest could retort voices were h^ard from the 
 outskirts of the multitude. A woman was seen pressing for- 
 ward eagerly and crying: "Where may I find him? Oh, if I 
 could but touch the hem of his robe!" 
 
 "The answer to thine unvoiced words, O Priest," said Gaius 
 boldly, pointing to the woman. 
 
 The priest stood with mouth agape, with eyes flaming and 
 fists clenched. He gasped and made as if to speak; but at that 
 moment the crowd abruptly began to disperse. Miriam and her 
 companion, looking back, saw a troop of Roman soldiers 
 approaching along the narrow thproughfare. The priest threw 
 a disdainful glance at the soldiers, then turned in silence and 
 walked discreetly away. The people scattered quickly. The 
 two disciples started slowly down the road, accompanied by 
 Nicodemus and the Ephesian Gaius. The slave, Crassius, his 
 thought bursting with what he had heard, followed after them, 
 with Miriam holding to his arm. 
 
 "Thou seest, Johanan," they heard Gaius say, as they 
 walked close behind the four, "that the teachings of the Mas- 
 ter, which came to me through thee, have borne fruit. But it 
 was not until, after much . reflection, I had resolved them all 
 into their primal element that I became persuaded. How indeed 
 
 78 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 could he perform such wonders if what we call materiality be 
 real? And in this I but expand the thought of Plato, who like- 
 wise deduced the mighty fact that ideas were the sole real- 
 ity. . ." 
 
 "Yet your philosopher failed to do any wondrous works," the 
 apostle replied. 
 
 "True. And why? Even because he knew not how to make 
 his deductions practical. But, more: he did not work from the 
 basis of the One God, who is Spirit, as does the Master. Ah, 
 there is the difference! Plato believed all things to be mental; 
 but, unlike Jesus, he attributed power to evil. I see! I see! 
 A fountain cannpt send forth both sweet and bitter water. 
 And now I apprehend the Master's thought when he taught 
 you that as a man thinketh so is he. For, look you, Johanan, 
 it has ever been my notion that, in some profoundly wondrous 
 manner, our thinking doth' result in deeds, and circumstances, 
 and things we call environment, and objects that we think com- 
 posed of matter. In other words, all things external to ourselves 
 result from thought. What then? A man is good or bad, mis- 
 erable or happy, sick or well, according to the way he thinks. 
 Am I not right? Say now, what says the Master on this point?" 
 
 The apostle sighed. "That he hath still many things to tell 
 us, but we cannot bear them yet," he answered low. 
 
 "Ah!" the Greek exclaimed in satisfaction. "It is even so! 
 But now," he continued eagerly, "hast heard him say aught of 
 what we are pleased to call our senses? Of sight, of hearing, 
 and of touch? I am most inquisitive to know; for, O Johanan, 
 I have ever held with the wisest of the Greek philosophers that 
 we do not see, nor hear, nor feel things of matter, but only that 
 which forms the content of our minds. And what is that but 
 thought?" 
 
 "Eyes have ye, but ye see not; and ears ye have, but ye hear 
 not, . ." 
 
 "Eureka! It is the wisdom of God! And Godj O Johanan, 
 to the clearest Greek logician is pure Mind. Then what is 
 man?" 
 
 "He teaches that we are the sons of God. And that he is 
 like unto the Father." 
 
 The Greek bowed his head in deep meditation. Then he 
 looked up. "His point is none but this: we are not what we 
 to each other and ourselves do seem, but the real nature of us 
 every one is like unto the Christ. O friend, this Jesus — I say 
 it in the greatest awe — has himself been changing these many 
 years, changing, changing, under the dissolvent of thought 
 divine, until what you privileged disciples now behold in him is 
 the Jesus of Nazareth become Jesus the Christ. So, he teaches. 
 
 79 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 must we every one similarly change. Great God divine! what 
 light hath this man brought into a world benighted. And now, 
 one last point, and I have done. When confronted by those 
 consuming with disease, he saith . . ." 
 
 "He saith: Tear not', or, 'Only believe'," the disciple 
 answered for him. 
 
 The Greek nodded. "So you have told me. And I have 
 studied well these words to probe them for their meaning. 
 What then? We are not things of matter — ^perish forever such 
 baleful notion! We are mentalities, minds, if you will. And 
 our activity is the activity of our thought. The result of this 
 is what men are pleased to call our consciousness. The Master 
 has said: 'Be ye therefore perfect'. What meant he? To me, 
 this : Be ye therefore conscious of naught but good. But, ye ask, 
 can we change our consciousness? Even so, I say, and by 
 changing our thought. The activity of right thought produces 
 the perfect consciousness, the perfection which the Master bids 
 us strive for as for naught else. 'Only believe,' he saith. Only 
 understand, only know. And then he adds those words of 
 deepest wisdom: That to know God is life eternal. Ah, 
 Johanan, the Messiah is come! God Himself is among us, and 
 we know it not!" 
 
 At this juncture Peter turned and beheld Miriam and the 
 slave close upon his heels. He stopped. "Whom seek ye?" he 
 asked in a brusque voice. At his words his companions like- 
 wise halted and turned. Instantly John's eyes lighted and a 
 smile wreathed his mouth. Miriam returned the smile, and 
 would have drawn closer to him, had not the slave Crassius 
 brushed her aside and forced himself before her. 
 
 "Where is this man?" he demanded. "I would have him 
 make me free." 
 
 The four men looked at the slave in astonishment. Then 
 John spoke, and his voice was low and tender. "Why seek ye 
 him? Is it for the kingdom . . .?" 
 
 "No! no! no! I seek my freedom! Only my freedom! 
 Nothing else!" 
 
 "But such as ye shall seek and find not," the apostle 
 answered. 
 
 "He desires but the loaves and fishes," said Gaius. 
 
 "Look ye," cried Peter roughly, "ye are of Pilate's house- 
 hold. The slave bears his mark. Ye are spies. Begone!" 
 
 "Of Pilate's household, yes," said John gently; "but not 
 spies. The child seeks the Christ. . ." 
 
 "But not for myself," Miriam interrupted eagerly, "but for 
 him," taking the slave's hand. Her eyes shone, and her face 
 was aglow. 
 
 80 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The disciple John looked down upon her tenderly. "And 
 ye shall find the Christ," he said in a soft voice. "So likewise 
 shall the slave — but only when he shall seek for him with all 
 his heart. . ." 
 
 "When he shall seek him without thought of self," the 
 Greek murmured. 
 
 The slave's face darkened, and he stooped and took up a 
 stone. The girl seized his arm and tried to draw him away. 
 "Come," she said, "it grows late, and we must hasten back to 
 Herod's palace." 
 
 "I will not!" he muttered sullenly. "I say, I will not! I 
 will find this Jesus, and he shall set me free!" 
 
 Peter turned to John. "What shall we do?" he asked in 
 perplexity. 
 
 "Love him," came the answer gently. 
 
 Peter shrugged his shoulders in manifest annoyance. "O, 
 true. Thou ever sayest that. But what shall we do that is 
 practical, now?" 
 
 "Love him," came again from John. 
 
 Slowly the slave'i^ fingers relaxed, as his eyes looked deep 
 into John's. The stone fell to the ground. His chest heaved, 
 and a sob escaped him. He turned and, with Miriam still 
 clinging to his arm, moved slowly away. 
 
 For some time his environment made no impress upon his 
 thought, which had again become lethargic; and not until he 
 heard Miriam exclaim did his mind awake. 
 
 "He may be in the Temple!" he heard her say in excited 
 tones. "See, the porch of Solomon is thronged!, Oh, come!" 
 
 A sense of his vast need returned upon him, and he bounded 
 forward. A great assemblage of people was before him. Into 
 it he dashed, and was swallowed up. Of Miriam, from whom 
 he had become separated, he had no further thought. The 
 press in which he found himself was tremendous, and com- 
 posed of a heterogeneous mass of humanity. Of a sudden a 
 shout fell upon his ears. 
 
 "How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the 
 Christ, tell us plainly!" 
 
 The babel of voices drowned whatever reply may have been 
 made to this demand. Then a medley of cries and shouts 
 arose. A man, clad as a Pharisee, who stood near him turned 
 to a neighbor and said with a sneer: "Heardest thou the blas- 
 phemer? He said: 'I and my Father are one'!" 
 
 Loud cries then rent the air, and the multitude again surged 
 forward. "For a good work we stone thee not!" he heard them 
 shout; "but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, 
 makest thyself God!" Those about him took up stones and be- 
 
 81 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 gan to hurl them. Crassius, the slave, was seized with a similar 
 desire. With the rest- he shouted and blasphemed, then dashed 
 forward with them to apprehend some one, he knew not whom. 
 
 But then, with the rest, he halted, as if jerked violently 
 back. The tumult abruptly died, and a deep silence fell upon 
 the multitude. Then he heard a voice, saying in awe: "He 
 hath escaped out of our hands !" 
 
 He turned and fled away. As he weaved about among the 
 excited people he was brought to a stop by the words of a man 
 whom he saw engaged in earnest conversation with a small 
 group. "We told him we were of Abraham's seed, and were 
 never in bondage to any man," he heard him say. "But he set 
 forth that the one who sins is in bondage. He said that if we 
 were Abraham's children then would we do the works of Abra- 
 ham. But, I ask, in what works of Abraham are we remiss?" 
 
 "His greatest," answered a man standing near the group, 
 and who had overheard the query. 
 
 "And that, friend?" 
 
 "Simple obedience to the demand of God that we shall have 
 no other gods before Him," was the answer. 
 
 "What gods have we before Him?" 
 
 "Lust, pride, intolerance, hatred of your fellow men, belief 
 in the power of evil, and love of this world and its fleeting 
 things of matter." 
 
 Crassius turned and again saw the Greek Gains. He started 
 toward him; but his feebly functioning thought was diverted 
 by the approach of another group who were busily questioning 
 a young man in their midst. 
 
 "Whether the man be a sinner or no, 1 know not," he heard 
 the young man say; "one thing I know, that, whereas I was 
 blind, now I see." 
 
 "Verily, I know the secret of the healing," the slave heard 
 in a pompous voice. And looking about, he beheld the Egyptian 
 physician, Kem, whom Miriam had pointed out but a short time 
 before. "He anointed thine eyes with a certain clay in which 
 he hath discovered marvelous medicinal virtue. Doubtless his 
 spittle also containeth healing properties. Is it not so, friends?" 
 appealing to the group. 
 
 "Of a certainty!" they cried. "Or else he heals by Beelzebub!" 
 
 "But whither hath he fled now?" asked one. 
 
 "It is reported he hath been seen going in the direction of 
 Bethany." 
 
 "Then let us follow. Perchance we may confound the fellow 
 in further necromancy." They turned as one and moved away 
 rapidly. Crassius stood for a moment, striving desperately to 
 correlate his thought. Then he started up and stumbled after 
 them. 
 
 82 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 14 
 
 HOUR after hour lagged slowly through the ruined Tower 
 of Antonia. Marian sat waiting, not idly, but with inces- 
 sant labor to clarify, to purify, her thought, that its activ- 
 ity might produce a consciousness of good and not of evil. 
 And as she sat thus, the shafts of self-pity, self-condemnation, 
 self-righteousness fell hissing around her. Impatience, fretful- 
 ness, fear, rebellion, all urged their heavy claims upon her; 
 yet she sat waiting, one mental hand clasping the Father's, the 
 other clinging to the pulseless hand of the man, once accounted 
 rich, but now lying so pitiably poor and stricken before her. 
 "It is God who owns these waiting hours," she would often 
 murmur. "It is He who is holding us here. We cannot go on 
 until we have learned our lesson," 
 
 Yet it was not the horrors of war that burned into her 
 quivering soul; it was not the desperate wounding of Cragg; 
 it was not their captivity at the hands of Otto Hoeffel, por- 
 tentous as that now appeared; it was, rather, the stupendous 
 fact, flaming upon her like living fire, that the spiritual demand 
 for demonstration had been made, and that she was now called 
 upon to' prove the worth of that which, from the tutelage of 
 Madam Galuth and through her own study and conviction, she 
 had accepted and boldly voiced as Truth. It was but the age- 
 old demand that, sooner or later, comes upon all mankind. 
 
 Again, much later in the day. Major Hoeffel returned to the 
 waiting girl. She knew he would— knew, indeed, that her test- 
 ing now would come in a manner that her wildest fancy, her 
 weirdest imaginings, could not have outlined in Crestelridge, 
 and through this man. She knew that she must fortify herself 
 for a struggle that loomed before her Goliath-huge; for she had 
 sensed the despair that was closing around his barren life, the 
 despair that makes men slay and maim, and that drives to 
 reckless abandon, to frenzied slaughter of body and soul. She 
 knew that he typified tired humanity, seeking his own material 
 concept of good, yet finding that concept falsely turning to 
 ashes as he grasped it. She knew that he, that Alden, Crestel- 
 ridge, the world, had been led far, far asfray by these mesmeric 
 concepts in the guise of good; knew that they could be no 
 longer satisfied with "enticing words of man's wisdom," but 
 only by convincing demonstration "of the Spirit and of power". 
 She knew now that by the words she had uttered should she be 
 condemned or justified; and Alden with her, for she had driven 
 him before her into the furnace that now engulfed them both. 
 
 83 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She knew as she sat that day at his bedside that the accumu- 
 lated beliefs of ages of mortal thinking were pitted against her 
 — knew that in the impending bitter struggle she was humanly 
 alone, helpless, unless that knowledge of the One God, the God 
 of Abraham, the "Father" of Christ Jesus, were capable of 
 demonstration by her. She had felt all that long day that her 
 own hour of crisis had come — the hour that the patriarchs had 
 met — the hour in which some, like Enoch, Elijah, had proved, in 
 meeting it, that God is in very deed Life, and that He cannot 
 be deprived of His manifestation. It was the hour that the 
 Nazarene had met, when he drew the sharp fangs from the 
 serpent of error and rendered them impotent. It is the hour 
 of judgment that every soul shall face, when every human stay 
 shall have failed, and the modes and potions of matter shall 
 mock at those who have been wont to lean so confidingly upon 
 them. . . 
 
 "So, he still lives !" the major exclaimed, his eyes on Cragg. 
 "But what keeps him alive? For he was never strong." He 
 looked quizzically from Cragg to the girl. "He . . . what is 
 he to you, Marian? Lieb' Gottl he treated you like a servant 
 in Crestelridge. And you a . . ." He checked himself abruptly. 
 Then: "Ah, Liebschen, it is good to have you here! For, see, 
 you are in ray house . . . and yet I would not harm you. This 
 English Schwein kicked you out; but I, Marian, / am German! 
 You will learn that that means something to you." 
 
 She shook her head. "It means nothing to me. Otto," she 
 said, "For 'all nations before Him are as nothing; and they 
 are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity'." 
 
 "Ah, but Gott has shown the German people that they are 
 His chosen!" 
 
 "Israel is the chosen of the Lord," she answered. 
 
 He broke into a laugh. "Well, if the Lord has chosen the 
 Jews, then I don't think much of the choice!" he cried. "Look 
 you: the Germans possess all science, all knowledge, and are 
 destined to dominate the world, for they have shown that they 
 deserve it, that it is their right because of their great progress." 
 
 "Their boasted progress is all material. What spiritual 
 progress have they made?" 
 
 "What spiritual progress have the Jews made?" 
 
 "I am not. speaking of the Jews, but of Israel. And Israel 
 is he who wrestles with error and overcomes it and brings out 
 the spiritual Man." 
 
 "Bah! Gott has shown,. I tell you , . ." 
 
 "Evil has shown that it has found you German people a 
 ready channel," she interposed. "Your ancestors were worship- 
 ers of Bel, the god of error. You are not German, but Assyrian, 
 Otto." 
 
 84 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He stared at her blankly for a moment. Then he smiled, an 
 incredulous, tolerant, patronizing smile. "I love your queer 
 notions, Marian," he said. "They are so refreshing. You shall 
 tell them to Bergheim and Muller. Lieb' Gottl how I shall 
 confound them with your philosophy, is it not so? They are 
 such stubborn animals! But, tell me, my little prophetess, 
 shall we be driven from Jerusalem?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered simply. 
 
 "Lieb' Gott!" he cried with a sudden burst of anger; "but 
 for the deluded Arabs who are flanking the British, Allenby 
 would never reach Jerusalem!" 
 
 "Ishmael is serving us well," she said. How different was 
 this man's mood to-day ! And how foreboding ! 
 
 He looked at her oddly. "Ishmael?" he echoed. 
 
 "The Arabs are descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham," 
 she elaborated. "History is repeating itself. It always does, 
 for the human mind does not really progress, but only moves 
 in a limited circle." 
 
 He had now regained self-control. Again he smiled. "Bah!" 
 he said in a tone of deep disgust, "let Jerusalem fall. It is a 
 leprous hole. Listen: the Imperial German Empire still lives. 
 We shall yet sit where Britain sits. We shall give the world 
 its laws and its religion. We shall dominate it with force. 
 Thor has returned with his mighty hammer. Gott strafe Eng- 
 land! We shall crush her, crush her, and her cowardly spawn, 
 the Americans ! I have in my possession information and plans 
 that will cause the dismemberment of the unholy British 
 Empire. Gott strafe England! There is no master in the realm 
 but the German Kaiser! Ach, he is the master-mind, and I 
 glory in him ! . And you shall, too, Marian, when you have 
 become disillusioned, you shall, too!" 
 
 "No, Otto," she answered; "I shall never glory in mortal 
 men, for that would be ascribing power to the human mind." 
 
 "Power is in the German mind, as expressed by the Kaiser." 
 
 "The mortal who is mesmerized into choosing Attila and 
 the Huns as the model for his army manifests pitiable weak- 
 ness." 
 
 "Dock! that symbolizes the irresistible power of the Kaiser's 
 mind! You dull-wits don't understand!" 
 
 "There is no power in the Kaiser's mind, for it is filled with 
 hatred and a haunting sense of spiritual poverty that is mani- 
 fested in his lust of conquest that is guiding you German people 
 to destruction." 
 
 "Hatred is strength ! And you know it, for you Americans 
 hate England, too; you show it in your annual Fourth of July 
 celebrations that commemorate and perpetuate your hatred of 
 her." 
 
 85 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Our Fourth of July commemorates our release, not from 
 England, but from the tyranny of a Prussian king who ruled 
 over Britain at that time," she said. 
 
 "Bah!" he returned lamely, "England has hypnotized you. 
 As I told you, you need somebody to think for you." 
 
 "It is the German people who are hypnotized, Otto. They 
 are blinded by the mesmerism of human personality. They are 
 like the Israelites, who demanded a king to rule over them 
 because they were too mentally inert and lazy arid mesmerized 
 by error to do their own thinking. So they cried out for a 
 king that would judge them and go out before them and fight 
 their battles for them. . And, in spite of the tyranny and bond- 
 age that Samuel told them would follow such an autocracy; 
 they insisted on giving their allegiance to a mortal king rather 
 than to their God. So the German people have elected to wor- 
 ship mortal mind as expressed by their Kaiser, their General 
 Staff, and their Professors. They have igiven themselves to 
 the Hohenzollerns instead of to God. And they have become 
 so hypnotized by the suggestions of their leaders that they 
 readily consent to this war, consent to what must prove their 
 utter ruin. Oh, Otto, what tremendous lessons this war has 
 for us all ! It is showing us in Germany's downfall how the 
 human mind, steeped in matter, accepts and yields to the error 
 that is eternally opposed to Truth and that is constantly sug- 
 gested to it, until its ruin is accomplished." 
 
 "Donnerwetter! you still croak the ruin of the German 
 nation? Perhaps so. But, I ask, will the ruin of seventy riiil- 
 lion people leave the rest of the world untouched?" 
 
 "It means world-ruin, unless the people will acquire a new 
 mind," she answered. ^ 
 
 "You cannot change the mentality of the world !" 
 
 "But the German mind was quite changed by forty years of 
 intensive propaganda. So, by the right sort of education, the 
 world-mind can be changed, and wars and evil, sickness, death 
 itself, can be abolished. But that can come only when suicidal 
 religions of hate and force give place to real Christianity, and 
 that Christianity is widely demonstrated — not merely preached 
 — in the healing of the sick and the solving of humanity's 
 problems, even to the raising of the dead." ■• 
 
 "But we Germans are a Christian nation," he retorted stub- 
 bornly. "We are just as Christian as England or America. 
 But even the greatest theologians preach force. Luther . . ." 
 
 "Oh, yes, Luther was an advocate of frightfulness," she 
 parried. "He was trained to be a monk, and he believed that 
 there could be no righteousness outside the Church, though 
 his Church — a mere human system-^was; festering with corrup- 
 
 86 ■ 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tion. Your false ideas of the State can be traced back to him. 
 He said that his times were so wonderful that a prince could 
 merit heaven better with bloodshed than another with prayer. 
 Your Kaiser has not advanced beyond this. Nor has the nation 
 that he has educated to believe as he does. The peasants in 
 Luther's day wanted freedom from slavery. They wanted land, 
 to which they were just as much entitled as the great princes. 
 They wanted the right to fish from the streams. They wanted 
 to be paid for their labor. They wanted to be dealt with as 
 men, as human beings. But Luther called them insurgents, 
 and said that they should be knocked down, strangled, stabbed 
 — but not loved or helped. No, Luther was a reformer, and 
 he did a great work, but he was not a real Oiristian. Nor is 
 your nation of Lutherans Christian." 
 
 "You are hard on us, Marian," he said. "But it is because 
 you voice the nasty British opinion of us, is it not? But just 
 the same, you are in our power now — and England shall be. 
 But for. some inexcusable blunders — how in God's name we 
 made them I can't say! — the whole world would be in our 
 power this day." 
 
 "But what then?" she asked. "For you could not hold it 
 there. There never has been any real overcoming by physical 
 force; and this should have taught you that physical force is 
 not power. I am not in your power. Otto, and you can do 
 nothing to me." 
 
 Again he stared at her oddly for a moment; again a smile 
 of incredulity curled his lips. "But what can you do, Lieb- 
 schen?" he said mockingly. 
 
 She shook her head. "I can of mine own self do nothing," 
 she replied; "yet for that very reason you can do nothing to me. 
 That is my protection." 
 
 "Bah ! we mouth words," he retorted rudely. Then he gave 
 a short laugh and broke into a coarse chant of denunciation of 
 his foes, "Gott strafe England!" he exclaimed when he had 
 concluded the song. "Let me hear you say it, Liebschen." 
 
 "But it would mean nothing for me to repeat your words, 
 like a parrot. Otto, for in my heart I say: God love England! 
 And God love Germany, too, for love only can solve the awfiil 
 problems of the nations. The ancient Elamites chanted just 
 such Hymns of Hate when they swooped down upon Abraham ; 
 but they only proved the wisdom of Buddha, who asked: 'If 
 hate responds to hate, where shall hate end?' This world. 
 Otto, is now being seen as the effect of the thoughts of its inhab- 
 itants. If they sow hate, hate shall they reap, and evil shall 
 be supreme. If they sow love, then love shall they reap, and 
 all its sweet concords. I used to tremble in Crestelridge when 
 
 87 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 I saw our people treat your Hymns of Hate so jokingly, for I 
 knew that these were the outward expressions of organized 
 evil that would, if unchecked, destroy the Word in human con- 
 sciousness. I saw that every military 'drive' launched by the 
 Germans was preceded by a deadly gas attack of mental sug- 
 gestions directed to the Allies. Error always works that way, 
 by clouds of aggressive suggestions of evil that so debilitate 
 its victims that they have no spiritual strength left to meet 
 the subsequent attack. It is evil's 'drives' that mankind must 
 learn to check, 'drives' of envy, of hate, of greed, yes, and 
 'drives' of disease. God love England, I say! And Germany, 
 and all peoples! For love alone can solve the awful problems 
 of this war-torn -world. But the one who hates cannot know 
 love." 
 
 "Love! Ach, but I asked you for love, in Crestelridge; and 
 you refused it me." 
 
 "I refused to marry you. Otto," she said gently, "but not to 
 love you. For I do love you, in the right way, with a Ipve that 
 makes me want to help you overcome those false beliefs that 
 are destroying you and the German people." 
 
 "Bah! what sort of love is that for a man, a soldier?" 
 
 "It is the sort of love that caused Jesus to give himself for 
 his fellow men, here in this city. . ." 
 
 "He gave himself for a chimera! When I read about him 
 I feel like a milksop, a namby-pamby — like Cragg here!" 
 
 "He gave up the human sense of life, gave up his carnal 
 soul, his animal instincts, to prove that human existence is not 
 Life at all. This is what I am trying to do . . . for Alden 
 . . . for you. . ." 
 
 "But I prefer good human hate!" he interrupted. 
 
 "I cannot hate you," she answered low. 
 
 "Gott in Himmel! you shall love me, you shall!" he cried, 
 leaning quickly toward her and snatching her hand. "I ask 
 you again to marry me. Listen: I do not command, I ask. I 
 love you, Marian. I brought you here, to my headquarters, to 
 protect you. I will be good to you. Ach, Marian, lam starving 
 for your love ! Tell me !" 
 
 "I love you. Otto," she said, her voice trembling; "but not 
 in your way." 
 
 "Gott! it shall be in my way! . . ." 
 
 She had risen, but she was unable to free her hand from his 
 close grasp. He jerked her violently to him and threw an arm 
 about her, just as the kitchen door opened noisily and the 
 Egyptian stumbled across the threshold, dropping an earthen- 
 ware dish that crashed into pieces upon the stone floor. 
 
 The major released the girl and flashed his angry eyes upon 
 the Egyptian. "Zuleyka . . . you catl" he snarled. 
 
 88 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then his anger came under his control, and he turned again 
 to Marian, who stood, erect but pale, before him. "Forgive 
 me, Marian," he said in a low, shaking voice. "Your beauty, 
 your sweetness ... Ach, it overcame me . , . and I am but 
 human! You will forget? Yes?" He left her and went to the 
 Egyptian, who was clumsily gathering up the fragments of the 
 broken dish. For some moments he spoke rapidly with her, 
 and in tones hardly above a whisper; then he came back to 
 Marian. "She will take good care of you," he said gently. "If 
 you have not what you wish, ask her." With which he again 
 left the room. 
 
 The day closed upon such mental struggle as the. girl had 
 never known — not to overcome that which the world believes 
 true, but merely to stand and hold the portals of her mentality 
 closed against the aggressive hosts of carnal fear and hideous 
 suggestion that stormed them. She felt a prescience of the 
 major's return, and, as night drew about her and the Egyptian 
 began to glide like a wraith, torch in hand, from candle to can- 
 dle, she was not surprised to see him enter the room from the 
 black corridor and advance toward her. 
 
 "I 'pologize," he began thickly. "I , . ." He came, swaying 
 slightly and extending his hand. Marian fell back before him. 
 His foot struck against Cragg's cot, and he scowled down at the 
 still form. "Schwein!" he muttered. 
 
 Then he drew himself up and stood unsteadily. "I have 
 neglected you, mein Frdulein," he stammered, "but exi — exi- 
 gencies o' war . . . But I'm come to take you out of this 
 bat's cave. Give you an evening's pleasure . . . round th' city 
 in my car, eh?" 
 
 Marian choked back a cry. He had been drinking deeply; 
 a hellish mood was upon him; and again through his ill-fitting 
 mask of urbanity she saw the marks of the beast. "I cannot 
 go!" she gasped. 
 
 He caught her meaning, and laughed cynically. "Cragg, 
 eh?" A sneer came into his face. "Bah! be is dead." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 He laughed again, shrugging his shoulders. "It is the same; 
 he is not here; he will not return. Look! what is he to you, eh? 
 You love him? Bah! then why do you not save him with your 
 so interesting philosophy that you were so glib to tell everybody 
 in Crestelridge? Is it that you cannot prove it true? ... or 
 because he kicked you out? Then why should you love him, 
 eh? You are hypnotized!" 
 
 "I owe him my life," she answered tremulously. 
 
 "Eh?" He stood blinking and uncomprehending. "You 
 owe me your life!" he snarled, "I have kept you from a Turk- 
 
 89 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ish harem! You cannot leave Cragg, hein? But you shall 
 leave him to-night, or I will have him shot!" 
 
 She staggered back as if struck a blow. He started toward 
 her menacingly. She suppressed a scream and clasped her 
 hands convulsively over her bosom. The Egyptian glanced in 
 from the kitchen, but stepped quickly back and closed the 
 door. The major seized the girl's arms. He drew her toward 
 him. He glowered down at her. Then a cruel smile came into 
 his face. 
 
 "You would rather he should die in peace than be shot, 
 nicht wahr?" he insinuated. 
 
 Marian turned her head away. The room swam; she 
 choked; her breath came in sobs. She looked down at Cragg. 
 He did not appear to breathe. She looked toward the kitchen; 
 but the door was closed. The few candles in the big' room 
 flickered fitfully in the thick gloom. Night, black, desolate, 
 hopeless, was descending. . . 
 
 She raised her head. "I ... I will go with you. Otto," she 
 whispered hoarsely. 
 
 He crushed her to him. "Ach, little one, the Herr Doctor 
 has given him up, and he shall die where he lies. . . And you 
 shall leave this dirty hole. . . Come ! . . ." 
 
 For hours that night the tir«d, hectored girl rode through 
 tortuous streets of the ancient city, with the stupefied, babbling, 
 maudlin creature swaying at her side — over the Mount of 
 Olives, in the gleaming moonlight that filtered among the 
 ancient trees of Gethsemane and formed into an image of the 
 kneeling Christ — and now the major's arm lay about her neck, 
 and now his head rested upon her shoulder while his drugged 
 senses sleptr-and when the impatient chauffeur saw that his 
 master was insensible he drove back to the Tower and bore him 
 to his bed, while the girl sped to the Egyptian, who stood at 
 the arched portal awaiting her, and was led back into the 
 echoing prison. 
 
 Again at Cragg's side, Marian sank upon the stool and 
 bowed her head. The Egyptian came creeping softly to her. 
 "You are a woman, of an ambulance corps," the girl heard her 
 say. "He should send you back. He has no right to hold you." 
 Marian reached out and took her hand. "Bon Dieu!" the 
 woman exclaimed; "but you have courage, little one! But 
 strengthen yourself, for he has only begun. Poof ! if you were 
 but ugly, like me, he would send you to the American colony. 
 They have a hospital down by ihe Jaffa gate . . . you passed 
 it when you came in. There are ninety Americans . . . but 
 Jamal Pasha says they must be deported, because Falkenhayn 
 conimands it. But you will remain with the major, for he has 
 
 90 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 great influence with Jamal Pasha and with Enver." She 
 paused and glanced furtively around the big room. Then she 
 quickly extracted something from a hidden pocket of her dress 
 and held it out to the girl. "Here, ma cherie," she said softly. 
 
 Marian raised her head and looked up into the woman's face, 
 then down at the object in the brown hand. "What is it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Poison. It gives painless death. You will need it. The 
 major will come again." 
 
 Marian gasped. Then she rose wearily and drew the stool 
 over to the side of Cragg's cot and sank down again, leaving 
 the Egyptian with a curious smile on her wrinkled face and the 
 vial still extended in her hand. 
 
 CHAPTER 15 
 
 AGAIN in the shrouded hours of another night, after a 
 J-X day of ominous quiet, Marian sat beside the stricken man 
 ■*■ •*■ whom she had forced out to grapple with problems far 
 beyond his feeble spiritual strength. He lay quiescent; yet he 
 lived, though sentenced by mortal laws to die. And the girl 
 knew, as she sought to withhold her eyes from the still form, 
 that only as she could rise above the personal sense of things 
 would the demonstration of God as Life be possible to her. 
 And she knew, too, that in this alone lay her own deliverance. 
 
 Toward midnight the major entered, not alone, but accom- 
 panied by an officer wearing the insignia of chaplain. "Please 
 pardon," he said to the girl who quickly rose and stood to 
 receive him, "but the British are keeping us very busy and I 
 had no other time to bring my friend MuUer. Let me present 
 him. He is chaplain." 
 
 The major's companion bowed stiffly, with a perfunctory 
 murmur of conventional courtesies. 
 
 "He has been imploring me to bring him," the major 
 resumed, his eyes snapping, "for I had told him of you and of 
 our life in Crestelridge. And, besides," giving the chaplain a 
 dig with his elbow, "our good preacher has lived many years in 
 New York, and he much admires the American women, is it not 
 so, Muller? But, come, we will go upstairs, to my apartments, 
 and Zuleyka will make the coffee and serve a mouthful. Hini- 
 mell this cellar is no place for you, Marian . . . but you prefer 
 to remain here while Alden lives, no? It will not be long. But, 
 come. And you, Zuleyka . . ," 
 
 The Egyptian, who had sat huddled and invisible in a dark 
 
 . 91 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 corner of the great room, rose and shuffled to Marian's side. 
 T-he girl turned and loolied for a moment into the woman's 
 black eyes; then she glanced down at Cragg. Her breath came 
 quickly. Yet no other way had opened but this, and she would 
 take it.- 
 
 "And he still lives?" she heard the major say. "Lieb' Gottl 
 what holds him here? He should be dead by now!" 
 
 Through an exit at the rear of the room, and along a damp 
 stone corridor and up a long, narrow, winding flight of steps, 
 Marian followed the major and his companion, with the Egyp- 
 tian close behind her. The major's apartments lay slightly above 
 the street level, with windows that gave upon the storied Via 
 Dolorosa. They were sumptuously furnished, especially the 
 brilliantly lighted little inner room that evidently served him 
 as study and sanctum, and to which he led his party. "It was 
 the Pasha's favorite lounging place," he said, sweeping the 
 cosy little room with a gesture. ^"We had to throw him out. 
 They say Pilate's Judgment Hall once occupied this site. It 
 was that^" he explained, addressing himself to Marian, "that 
 set my friend Muller and me to quarreling this evening, and 
 forced me to get you to help me whip him. But be seated." 
 He turned and gave a few instructions to the Egyptian, and 
 when she had departed, he resumed : "By the way, Marian, have 
 no fear for Alden: I instructed the guard to go in and sit by 
 him while you. were away." 
 
 He dropped into the deep cushions of a divan and lighted a 
 cigarette. Marian sank down in a stiff little chair, gilded and 
 ornate. The chaplain seated himself beside the major and sat 
 dully studying the girl. 
 
 "You see," the major continued briskly, "you have predicted 
 the fall of Jerusalem, Marian, and the chaplain probably thinks 
 you are concealing some war secret that we should have. But 
 there is nothing to that, for you made the same prediction to 
 Penberry, of course, and he acted on it and . . . well, whether 
 through his influence or not, the Palestine campaign has been 
 resumed rather contrary to our expectations. The Intelligence 
 Service, Muller, is much more alive than your musty old 
 religious department. And," again addi-essing Marian, "you 
 have called us Assyrians. Also, nothing, for we are called 
 Huns, and are proud of it. But you have said that we are a 
 godless people. Muller will resent that, for I know he believes 
 in the Lord God of the Garden. And I am an admirer of Thor. 
 Now Muller has not said so, but I am certain he longs to save 
 your s6ul; for, while you consider him godless, he regards you 
 as a heretic, is it not so, Muller?" He broke into a laugh. 
 
 Marian's face flushed. How had these men discussed her? 
 
 92 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 They had brought her up here to be mocked! Whatever the 
 chaplain's genuine sentiment, she knew that the major now 
 was making low sport of her. But so had the rabble mocked 
 and scourged the one who had sought to reveal Truth on that 
 same spot twenty centuries before. . . 
 
 "And another thing," the major resumed, bending forward 
 and affecting to speak confidentially, "the chaplain is a coward 
 about death. . . There, MuUer," as the chaplain attempted 
 to voice a protest, "you have asked a thousand times since you 
 came here: If a man die, shall he live again? You're afraid to 
 die; but I'll wager this girl is not, are you, Marian?" 
 
 She raised her head. Her cheeks were pale, but her thought 
 was now calm. This was not her battle, but Alden's; it was his 
 life that she fought for, not her own. "No," she said quietly. 
 
 "But why?" the major pursued. - "Tell MuUer why." 
 
 She braced herself. She had pitched by her standard. There 
 she would remain. "God is Life," she replied in a low voice. 
 "He is infinite and eternal; therefore there can be no death." 
 Though they jested, yet would she speak truth. 
 
 "Good!" the major exclaimed. "Simple and logical, once we 
 admit your premise. But I am an atheist." 
 
 Marian's thought flashed back to her talk with Ted Sayor 
 on the night of the Cragg ball. And her reply was a repetition 
 of the one she had given to the rich young man. "No one is 
 ever really an atheist. Everybody knows that there is a higher 
 power of some sort." 
 
 "Sure! I am conscious of powers greater than myself: 
 force, energy, and so on. But MuUer here is a dull-wit; he 
 must deal only with facts that rise up and hit him in the face, 
 things elementarl, self-evident. Start over, so's he can follow, 
 eh, MuUer?" 
 
 Marian sat for a moment looking down at the soft, rich rug 
 on the floor. Was she bidden to teach these Assyrians, her 
 captors? Did her life — Alden's — perhaps theirs^depend on 
 her? The task loomed insuperable; yet it was hers. "Through 
 fear and trembling" she had been commanded to work out her 
 own salvation ; who knew that she might not thereby also work 
 out that of her oppressors? "He that is perfect in knowledge 
 is with thee," ran through her thought. It was an angel 
 visitant. 
 
 She drew a deep sigh and looked up at the major. "There 
 is for all mankind but one self-evident fact," she said slowly, 
 "and that is consciousness. We are all conscious of exist- 
 ence. . ." 
 
 "Like Descartes: 7 think, therefore I am'," the major put 
 in. "Go on." 
 
 19 9^ 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Even apart from the testimony of the five physical senses," 
 she continued, "every man knows that he is conscious. And 
 he believes himself conscious of living in a material world; yet a 
 little reflection shows that this world exists for him only as a 
 series of changing states of consciousness. He is conscious, or 
 aware, of being subjected with this world to the government 
 of invisible, intangible things which he calls laws. He is con- 
 scious of powers beyond himself. . ." 
 
 "Sure!" the major again interrupted. "And those powers 
 — perhaps there is only one — ^are manifested everywhere, all 
 over the world, and in the moon, and the planets, and the sun, 
 and even millions of miles away in the most distant stars, eh? 
 And the power that is manifested is an intelligent power. It 
 seems to know what to do. We might call it mind, eh? And it 
 seems to have no limits. Omnipresent, eh? We don't see it 
 directly, but we are aware of its existence through its expres- 
 sion. And its expression is both good and bad for us; it may 
 create — ^we don't know — but it certainly does destroy. To-day 
 it seems good and kind; to-morrow it is the devil himself! 
 What say, MuUer?" 
 
 The chaplain shifted his staring eyes from the girl to the 
 major. "Theology teaches that there are two opposing powers," 
 he answered deliberately: "one, God, who is good, and the other, 
 Satan, the evil fallen angel, whom God will eventually over- 
 come." 
 
 The major turned with a grin to Marian. He was hugely 
 enjoying the prospect of a combat of wits. "Here's where 
 you've got him, Marian," he chuckled. "For evil and good are 
 opposites, just like plus and minus. God can't be infinite if He 
 has an opposite; and there can't be two infinite opposites; so 
 good and evil must both be limited. Then what becomes of 
 the theologian's good God, eh?" 
 
 The girl looked at him searchingly for a moment, then made 
 answer. "That which men call good," she said, "is only the 
 human mind's limited concept of good. Even the human mind's 
 highest concept of good is far, very far from the real Good. Yet 
 it is better than its concept of evil. Human beings are conscious 
 of the presence and activity of mind, of thought; and ,in all 
 their conscious experience, which they call life and which is the 
 result of thought, they believe themselves to be conscious both 
 of that which is good and that which is evil. They are con- 
 scious of a universe of direct opposites, such as life and death, 
 health and sickness, harmony and discord, joy and sorrow, good 
 and evil, mind and matter. Everything of which mortals are 
 conscious has its direct opposite, of which they are equally 
 conscious. One destroys the other in perpetual combat. So 
 
 94 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the human consciousness is a house divided against itself. For 
 that reason its endurance is limited. What we are conscious 
 of, we believe to be real and true; but the strain of trying to 
 be conscious of direct opposites, and of trying to believe them 
 both to be true, l)ecomes too much for mortals, and they give 
 up and cease to be conscious of anything. They die," 
 
 "H'm!" the major commented; "then they don't die of 
 diseases and wounds, eh? I ought to have brought Bergheim. 
 He's a doctor." 
 
 "The things that mortals believe to be real are outwardly 
 manifested to them," she answered. "Men ascribe their dis- 
 cords to various things which they believe to exist outside of 
 themselves and which they call evil. But in reality men kill 
 themselves with their thinking. Consciousness is mental ac- 
 tivity, the activity of thought, ft is the result of thinking. What 
 we shall be conscious of, therefore, depends on what we think 
 and believe to be true. The closer we approach to Truth in 
 our thinking, the more harmonious and enduring is the state 
 of our consciousness." 
 
 "But where are the things, the objects, that we are conscious 
 of?" he demanded. 
 
 "They are within us," she replied. "We are conscious of 
 only the things that are within our minds. But the things 
 within our minds can only be mental things — matter, as solid 
 lumps of stuff, cannot enter our minds. How would it get 
 there? Through the eyes? the ears? the sense of touch? No; 
 we are conscious of nothing but the content of our minds, and 
 that is entirely mental." 
 
 "So matter is mental, eh?" 
 
 "Yes, to us it is a mental concept." 
 
 "But what do you mean when you say you are conscious 
 of a thing?" he pursued. "You are conscious of me here; but 
 what does that means to you?" 
 
 "In saying that I am conscious of a thing I mean that my 
 thought is active with regard to it," she answered readily. "I say 
 that I see you, and that I am conscious of you. Yet I am conscious 
 only of my mental concept of you, the mental image which my 
 thought forms within what I call my mentality. I do not see 
 you, but am only aware of a mental image which I call you. 
 The same thoughts of you will always form the same mental 
 image or concept; but changing thoughts of you will form dif- 
 fering concepts. Yet all of them I call you. There are the 
 human beliefs that, as time passes, you will grow old, will 
 become broken, sick. These thoughts coming to me, and being 
 accepted by me as true, will form altered concepts of you in 
 my mentality; and all of these concepts I call you. Yet not 
 
 95 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 one of them is the real you. And so human life is only a series 
 of states of consciousness, or awareness, of mental activities 
 and mental concepts formed of fleeting, changing thoughts that 
 approximate to, or recede very far from, actual unchanging 
 Truth." 
 
 "H'm! And where do these thoughts come from? From 
 God?" 
 
 "No, for only true thoughts can come from the Mind that 
 is God; and these material thoughts that form into material 
 concepts within our mentalities are not true, but counterfeit. 
 They come from what may be called the 'communal mortal 
 mind', which is itself the counterfeit, or suppositional opposite, 
 of the One Mind, God." 
 
 The major turned to the chaplain. "Lieb' Gott, MuUer," 
 he cried, "there is tough food for your gizzard, eh? We are 
 not aware of things, but of mental concepts or images of things; 
 and the way these images shall look to us depends on whether 
 they are based on truth or its opposite, eh? Its opposite we 
 call, in philosophy, error. But the one seems to be just as 
 real as the other, nicht wahr?" turning again to Marian. 
 
 "But the real, according to the philosopher Spencer, is that 
 which does not pass away. All of our human concepts are con- 
 tinually passing away: material objects alter in appearance, 
 and finally decay into dust; matter changes from one element 
 into another, and is now known to actually disappear; men 
 change and die . . ." 
 
 "And yet," he interrupted, "material objects and people, 
 like the leaves and the grass, are always being created anew." 
 
 "In constantly altering forms," she gave answer. "And 
 some of the older forms have disappeared, not to return. As 
 human beliefs change, so the concepts in human consciousness 
 change. A decided change for the worse in material think- 
 ing manifests in great epidemics, in calamities, in devastating 
 wars. It is conceivable that the human race might become 
 quite extinct — even as certain animal species have become 
 extinct — by thought becoming more densely material and so 
 manifesting its increased knowledge of material modes of 
 destruction as to cause it to destroy itself. It is attempting 
 self-destruction to-day. Because the human mind is erroneous, 
 it is bound to be a suicide." 
 
 "But what would remain then?" 
 
 "Truth, which cannot be destroyed." 
 
 "But how did the error come? How did it get a start? 
 Which was first?" 
 
 "Two things opposite to each other cannot both be true. 
 Truth and its opposite, error, cannot both be primal, any more 
 
 96 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 than both can be true. But Truth must of necessity exist. And 
 it must be primal. If error were primal, then there would be 
 no way of proving it false. But a nejgation cannot be primal: 
 there must first be that of which it is the negative. If Truth 
 is primal, then it proves error to be untrue. From the primal 
 Truth necessarily comes all that is true and real. Since Truth 
 is -primal, and therefore cannot express itself in error, error 
 can have no reality, unless Truth is limited and possible of 
 extinction. The error that five and five are twelve is never 
 real. The truth that five and five are ten is primal. The error 
 follows as a negation, and could not have even a claim of 
 existence but for the primal and real existence of Truth. The 
 error is in this case a supposititious opposite. Now multiply 
 this simple case by infinity, and we have the universal situa- 
 tion: Truth, primal and everywhere present; error, the sup- 
 positional opposite, appearing to follow and claiming to be just 
 as true. The troubles of humanity have come from the futile 
 attempt to accept both Truth and error, both good and evil, 
 as real and primal. The result has been chaos and death." 
 
 "Himmell" the major exclaimed, "but that I too have been 
 a student of philosophy, I could not follow you! But I know 
 your Emerson: he says that the only real is the spiritual, eh? 
 And the English Spencer, he put forth the statement that there 
 can be no unreality, or counter-fact, unless there is a reality, 
 a fact, to be contradicted. And he is right. He sai'd that all 
 human knowledge is relative, but that every one of the argu- 
 ments by which the relativity of human knowledge is demon- 
 strated distinctly postulates the existence of something beyond 
 the relative. We cannot conceive of human knowledge, which 
 is demonstrably only a knowledge of appearances, or mental con- 
 cepts, as you have said, without at the same time conceiving 
 a reality of which it is the appearance. Every positive notion, 
 or the concept of a thing by what it is, suggests a negative 
 notion, the concept of a thing by what it is not. But, though 
 these mutually suggest each other, the positive alone is real. 
 This is what Spencer called the 'Theory of Suppositional 
 Opposites'." 
 
 "A theory no longer," said Marian, "but a demonstrated 
 fact." 
 
 "Demonstrated?" the major queried, lifting his brows. 
 
 "Yes. For when we deny the seeming, or that which to 
 human sense appears to be real, it disappears and gives place 
 to that which is more real." 
 
 The major sat reflecting for a moment. Then he tossed his 
 cigarette aside and looked up at the girl. "Do you deny," he 
 asked, "that Cragg is dying down there?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered. 
 
 97 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "So-o-o! Then you are putting this theory into practice, 
 eh?" He became reflective again. Tlien an odd look came into 
 his face. "Liebschen," he said, "is it this thought of yours 
 that is keeping him alive?" 
 
 "God is his Life." 
 
 "Himmell if you were but as loyal to me as you are to this 
 fellow — ach! I should be the happiest man on earth. And. to 
 think that he kicked you out! Dock!" 
 
 "He did not do it. Evil only seemed to use him as a chan- 
 nel, because of his misconception of God." 
 
 "Let us have her idea of God," said the chaplain, rousing 
 up and addressing the major. "It would be interesting." 
 
 "Speak, Liebschen," the major commanded. "You have 
 stirred the old dull-wit here." 
 
 CHAPTER 16 
 
 "OTART again," said the major, as Marian sat hesitant. "You 
 ^^ have said that the only self-evident fact is consciousness. 
 '^ Go on." 
 She raised her head. "Man exists as a consciousness," she 
 said, "although he believes himself to exist in a material body 
 that has life and sensation. But consciousness is mental: 
 therefore man exists as a mental thing. His life is his con- 
 scious experience. He knows nothing outside of himself; he 
 knows only, the contents of his own consciousness; and as this 
 consists only of mental concepts, he can know only these. He 
 never knows real things, but only his mental concepts of things. 
 These mental concepts are built up out of thought. And the 
 thought that forms them comes to him from without. But 
 thought originates in mind. Therefore man depends upon mind 
 for the concepts that are formed within his consciousness. 
 Therefore man is thus literally created by mind. Thus it is 
 that man is a reflection of mind, is mind's image and likeness, 
 mind's manifestation and expression — even though he thinks 
 he lives unto himself. 
 
 "But if Truth is primal, then the real Creator is real Mind, 
 true, harmonious, perfect throughout; And real Man is this 
 Mind's mental image, or idea, likewise perfect. In reality, then, 
 God is Mind. But Truth, the primal, is followed by its supposi- 
 tional opposite, error. And by reversal error seems to come 
 first. Error is also mental. It poses as mind. It appears to 
 give forth its suppositional thought^erroneous, for it is based 
 on error — and the false activity of this erroneous thought gives 
 
 98 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 rise to the false consciousness that constitutes the mortal man, 
 the human being. This is the only sort of man you know, 
 Major. And you don't really know him, for error cannot really 
 be known, any more than you can know that five and five make 
 twelve." 
 
 "H'm!" commented the major. "A rather hard classifica- 
 tion, for you make me an ignoramus, eh? But you are inter- 
 esting. And you recall to me my own philosophy. Let us see, 
 you dig a deep and impassable trench, I take it, on one side 
 of which is Mind, the true and perfect Creator, and on the 
 other side is its suppositional opposite, the 'communal mortal 
 mind', is it not? Nun gut! the 'communal mortal mind' poses 
 as a creator, too, and makes a material universe and a mortal 
 man — all mental, of course. But, not being based on Truth, 
 this mortal creation appears both good and evil, and mortal 
 man the same. This man reflects .and expresses his creator, 
 the 'communal mortal mind', and his consciousness deals only 
 with the mental objects built up out of the erroneous thoughts 
 that come to it from this false parent mind, is it not so? These 
 thoughts come to man by . . ." 
 
 "By suggestion, mental suggestion," she concluded. "And 
 these suggestions become externalized to the individual mortal 
 mind, called man, and result in discord and death — for, as you 
 must know from experience, every thought that comes to us 
 tends to become outumrdly manifested, externalized, in action, 
 environment, or on our bodies." 
 
 "But, our bodies?" 
 
 "They are mental concepts, existing, not outside of our- 
 selves, but within our mentalities. We know them only by 
 being conscious of them. That is, we have mental concepts 
 of material bodies. But these mental concepts are always with- 
 in our mentalities, ourselves. Matter exists to us as a thing 
 of thought. I say that I see you, but I am really mentally see- 
 ing a great many thoughts that combine to make up a mental 
 picture, or concept, of you. And that concept is within myself." 
 
 "Then you should be able to change it by a change of 
 thought, eh?" 
 
 "Yes, I can help you by having the right thought regarding 
 the real you." 
 
 "Lieb' Gott! is that what you are doing for Cragg?" he 
 exclaimed, sitting up. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Silence lay upon them for a brief interval ; then the chaplain 
 spoke. "Where did you get these ideas?" he asked. And there 
 was a note of sincerity in his voice. 
 
 "From the teachings of Jesus," she replied. 
 
 "Doch!" 
 
 99 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 , "Ruhig, Muller!" the major put in bruskly. Then, to 
 Marian : "Explain." 
 
 "Jesus was a consciousness," she said, "a thought-activity, 
 dealing with such pure spiritual thought that he could see that 
 men did not possess material bodies that were alive and sen- 
 tient. He resolved the material body into thought — ^just as he 
 resolved all material objects, everything, into thought — and 
 back of all the supposition that came from the false communal 
 mortal mind, the one lie, he saw Mind's idea of Itself, a com- 
 pound idea, perfect and eternal. And this he knew to be the 
 real Man. . His so-called miracles were proofs that he possessed 
 a demonstrable knowledge of Truth. He demonstrated the fact 
 that God, as Mind, is all, and that the material universe and 
 material man is but the counter-part, the opposite, the supposi- 
 tional error. This was his scheme of salvation. It is ours." 
 
 "Listen, Marian," said. the major, leaning forward and 
 speaking more gently, "what did he say of- death?" 
 
 She looked at him searchingly. She wondered if his thought 
 was still of Alden. But his face remained inscrutable. Then 
 she answered: "Jesus showed by his deeds, by his teaching, 
 and by his manner of living that he knew matter to be a mental 
 concept, formed of false thought, and therefore unreal. He 
 could not have overcome it if it had been real, for real things 
 are eternal. He knew the human body to be a manifestation 
 of the human mind, a mental concept in human consciousness. 
 He knew that human consciousness could not forever hold its 
 false concepts, for they are not founded on Principle, Truth; 
 so he knew that, in passing through the state called death, 
 the human mind would resume its false activity and start to 
 fashion another material manifestation — that it would build 
 another material body and material environment, and probably 
 one no better than the one it had just abandoned. This newer 
 material manifestation is invisible to those who remain alive, 
 for they hold different mental concepts and are in another 
 state of consciousness, but it will be perfectly visible to those 
 who have passed through the change called death." 
 
 "You do not believe in heaven or hell?" the chaplain asked. 
 
 "Tell us, Marian," the major said, and ignoring the Chaplain, 
 "what has become of the soldiers killed in this war." 
 
 "Human existence, on whatever plane of thinking," she 
 answered, "is but a dream-couhterfeit of real life. Those who 
 are supposed to be killed, all those who have laid down their 
 human sense of life in this hideous mental upheaval which we 
 call war, are still engaged in actively living a material life in 
 a different state of consciousness from ours. Yet they are just 
 as much alive as we are — and no more so. They will again 
 
 100 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 die, die, die, until they learn what death is, and overcome it 
 with the knowledge of God as eternal Life. When these soldiers 
 die they leave behind them human beliefs externalized to us, 
 mental concepts within ourselves, and which we called dead 
 bodies. And we bury these mental concepts, in our dense 
 ignorance of God as Life. In this way we believe we remove 
 them from our consciousness — for we do not believe we can 
 restore them, even if Jesus did." 
 
 "And you would say," the chaplain put in, "that all there 
 is to death is the human belief that men die?" 
 
 "Yes," the girl answered. "This belief manifests in a change 
 of consciousness — as do all human beliefs in greater or lesser 
 degree. To believe that there is life and intelligence in matter 
 is to be carnally minded — that is, to be subject to this human 
 mind and its dead beliefs. And that, as Paul said, is death. 
 And it does result in the conscious experience called death. 
 Jesus explained again and again that death is a mesmeric sleep, 
 out of which man would wake. So he does wake, in another 
 state of consciousness. And to what he awakes depends upon 
 what his thought has been here in this state of consciousness. 
 Jesus explained all that by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 
 Men strive and struggle to keep their bodies safe and sound 
 in this world, only to wake, as Jesus pointed out, on another 
 plane of conscious existence and, because of their false thought, 
 their material beliefs and concepts, begin another career of dis- 
 cord, misery, torment, and another death. But if we improve 
 our opportunities here to grasp Truth, then the 'second death' 
 can have no power over us, and we shall go on putting oif 
 the 'old man' until at last the real Man, our true Self, shall 
 stand revealed, perfect and deathless." 
 
 The Egyptian entered at that moment with coffee, cognac, 
 and fresh cigarettes. These she arranged on a small round 
 table, which she placed between Marian and the men, then she 
 withdrew noiselessly. 
 
 "Look you," the chaplain broke out, "where have the dead 
 gone to?" 
 
 "They have gone nowhere," she replied. "They are as much 
 here as they ever were. The material concept, whether of life or 
 death, is always a supposition. You do not see them, because 
 of a difference in states of consciousness. But Jesus knew so 
 thoroughly how to prove the Allness of Mind, God, and the 
 nothingness of the material mental concept, that he could recall 
 back to this suppositional state of consciousness those who had 
 passed out of it. But that was not necessarily a benefit to them, 
 unless they thereafter improved the renewed opportunity which 
 he afforded them to learn that death and matter are unreal 
 
 101 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mental concepts and phenomena, and that they can be — and 
 must be — overcome by destroying the false beliefs of the com- 
 munal mortal mind that produce them. To prolong this pres- 
 ent false sense of existence seems to mankind the one thing 
 worth while; and to do it they rob, slay, and destroy. . . 
 
 "Not only did Jesus learn the Truth that enabled him to 
 raise those dead in false beliefs, but so did Paul," she went 
 on eagerly. "And the early Christians progressed so far that 
 they could do likewise. It was more like waking people out 
 of sleep, for in sleep we are in another state of consciousness. 
 But then the belief of life in matter became so fixed in the human 
 consciousness — and with it the belief that matter dies — that 
 death became an even greater reality, and the power to over- 
 come it was completely lost to mankind. 
 
 "The One Creator is Mind. His Creation is the revealing of 
 Himself in the unfolding of His infinite number of ideas. These 
 ideas are without number and range and variety, but the great- 
 est of them is the idea of Himself. And this is the real Man< 
 fey working out of the false concepts of the communal mortal 
 mind, or the carnal mind, we shall see ourselves and others 
 as we really are. How soon this shall be depends upon how 
 rapidly we progress out of the false into the true. It is all 
 individual; we must, each one of us, do it for ourselves. Jesus 
 taught us how, but did not do it for us. We must learn that 
 no one outside of ourselves dies, but that the mental concepts 
 of others which we hold in our mentalities and which we believe 
 to be men and women outside and beyond ourselves, living 
 their lives independent of ourselves-^if is these mental concepts 
 that die, and nothing else." 
 
 She paused and sat looking down at the floor. The major 
 set down his cup and lighted another cigarette. "Let me grasp 
 your thought," he said reflectively. "We do not see anything 
 but the contents of our mentalities; we do not see anything 
 but the mental concepts that we hold in our so-called minds, 
 eh? These concepts we call men, women, animals, trees, and 
 all the material objects which we believe to be about us. They 
 are not round about us, they are in us, is it not so? We believe 
 in death, and we see these mental concepts die within our 
 mentalities. Nothing dies outside of us. And we bury our 
 dead concepts and then mourn over the passing of those who 
 have not passed away and whom we have never really seen. 
 Is this your belief?" 
 
 "If we did not believe in death," she answered, "but really 
 knew that God is infinite Life; if we did not believe in the 
 reality of matter, but knew that God, as Spirit, is infinite sub- 
 stance; if we really knew ourselves as ideas of the Mind that 
 
 102 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 is God, and that we are therefore contained in that infinite 
 Mind always; if we knew ourselves as compound ideas of Mind, 
 and that we include all of Mind's ideas within ourselves as 
 His reflection — then, Major, none of our concepts would die 
 within us, and we should see death no more, but, rather, an 
 eternal and unbroken manifestation of Life. In this way shall 
 our covenant with death be annulled. Sin brought death into 
 the human consciousness. Sin is the acceptance of error as 
 Truth." 
 
 Again she sat silent; again her thought turned to the man 
 for whom she was striving to prove the words she had been 
 uttering. The chaplain stared at her uncomprehendingly. The 
 major lay back among the pillows, blowing rings of tobacco 
 smoke toward the low ceiling. The stuffy little room seemed 
 to the girl to take on an evanescent, intangible, immaterial 
 nature, as if it were a disincarnate mind. Through it she 
 seemed to see transparent shapes, like men, moving, ghost-like, 
 as they enacted their little dramas of unreality. She saw them 
 meet; she saw them barter, love, struggle, and slay. She saw 
 them pretend to live — and she knew their folly, for they were 
 but unsubstantial concepts, things of false thought. And then 
 she watched them wither and die. And others she saw take 
 up the dead concepts and lay them away with tears and mani- 
 festations of great sorrow — and she smiled in loving pity, for 
 they were all devoid of life, and one no more dead than another. 
 
 "Dock, MuUer." 
 
 Marian roused suddenly. It was as if an alarm had been 
 sounded. The chaplain and the major were both looking at 
 her strangely. And the chaplain's cheeks were pale. A small 
 clock on a desk in a corner of the room struck the hour of two. 
 
 "The chaplain," the major began slowly, "must go. He 
 will marry us first. I have made the preparations." 
 
 Marian sat upright, rigid. The room whirled before her 
 eyes. Through her mental haze, through the fumes of tobacco, 
 the steam from the bubbling percolator, she saw the major's 
 smilie, the cruel, lustful leer of animal magnetism's imbruted 
 tool. 
 
 "I must leave Jerusalem," he resumed in explanation. 
 "Ordered north. I shall take you with me." 
 
 She found her voice; and it came steadily. "I cannot go 
 with you," she said. 
 
 "But to leave you here, Marian," he continued heatedly, 
 "is to abandon you to a Turkish harem." 
 
 "But I will remain." 
 
 "Bah! For Cragg? He is dead!" 
 
 "He is not! He lives!" 
 
 103 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The major laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Accord- 
 ing to your interesting philosophy, yes. But that was for con- 
 versation. We are dealing with practical matters now. Come, 
 Marian, there is no other way. . •" 
 
 She had risen, and stood before him erect and pale, but 
 unfrightened. "I shall not marry you. Otto," she said. 
 
 He looked at her for a moment. His eyes narrowed. 
 "So-o-o!" he muttered. Then he sprang to his feet. "Go 
 home, Muller," he commanded rudely. "She will be ready for 
 the ceremony by morning. You, Zuleyka !" he called loudly. 
 
 The Egyptian shuffled in from the outer room. The major 
 turned again to Marian. "You will reconsider and permit Mul- 
 ler to marry us?" he demanded. The chaplain stood hesitant. 
 
 "I shall not marry you, Otto," she repeated. 
 
 "Show the chaplain out," the major commanded the Egyp- 
 tian. "Then do you watch by the prisoner* Cragg, below." 
 
 Marian's head sank. "I thank Thee, O Father," she mur- 
 mured. Then she looked up. The major stood watching her. 
 And they were alone. 
 
 CHAPTER 17 
 
 BUT that the human mind, so-called, is by its nature forced 
 to believe in something besides itself, it would not so read- 
 ily mistake effect for cause, and look always to matter— 
 demonstrably a mental phenomenon — for happiness. Had Otto 
 Hoeffel, boasting himself superlative, in that he was German, 
 priding himself on the dubious results of his trickery and deceit, 
 his cunningly wielded material power — had this man known 
 that he differed from the beasts only in his reflection of the 
 mortal mind's arrogant claim "to be as gods" — could he have 
 lifted the material veil before his blinded eyes — could he have 
 peered into the black depths of the human nature of which 
 he made his ignorant boast, and seen there the foul serpents 
 of mesmerism that, with their lying suggestions, had robbed 
 him of his heritage as a son of God, he would have fallen in 
 penitent humility at the feet of the girl whom he would crush, 
 yet who now stood there possessed of the only salvation 
 possible to him and to the deluded world which he and the 
 lusting compatriots of Pranz Mesmer had hoped to domi- 
 nate. 
 
 He knew, as he stood looking at her, that she possessed 
 something that he did not — something more than the dead let- 
 ter of metaphysical philosophy, for he had shown that he could 
 recite that as glibly as she. He knew that, though he possessed 
 
 104 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 her, he was already conquered — even as he knew that the 
 iniquitous cause for which his deluded countrymen were dying 
 was already lost. And the thought maddened him; the lust 
 of revenge befouled his judgment; he could have struck the 
 girl dead, but that he preferred torture. . . 
 
 "Well," he taunted, "you are waiting?" His mouth curved 
 with a cruel smile. "You are waiting, eh?" 
 
 She looked into his eyes. It was moments before she spoke. 
 Then : "Yes, I am waiting." She seemed to be looking past him, 
 into unfathomable space. "I have been waiting," she continued 
 abstractedly. "It seems to be the common lot of humanity to 
 be always waiting — ^waiting for something to happen, or to stop 
 happening — waiting for something or somebody to come to the 
 rescue — ^waiting for something, somebody, to change. And yet 
 it is not that I have had to wait, but that I have been learning 
 to wait: — learning that time is not — that I am in eternity now." 
 
 "But what are you waiting for?" he asked bluntly. 
 
 She looked again at him. "I am waiting for . . . God," she 
 slowly answered. 
 
 He stood silently regarding her; then his shoulders went 
 up, and he laughed lightly. "And you expect Him to come?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "He is here," she replied. 
 
 "So-o-o! Nun gut, present me — for I do not see Him," he 
 mocked, looking about. 
 
 "Only the pure in heart---in thought — see Him," was her 
 answer. 
 
 He laughed again. And his laugh was tinctured with shame. 
 "But," he bantered, "our theologians, like MuUer, have made 
 it so specially difficult to be pure that I gave it up. Too much 
 struggle — endless fight with evil — then failure, repentance, 
 struggle again, and again failure and a new start. I got tired, 
 eh?" 
 
 "But you are not bidden to fight sin and impurity as if 
 they were real powers, but to learn that they are the communal 
 mortal mind's lying suggestions of something apart from the 
 One Mind, God, and therefore nothing." 
 
 "Ah, you license evil, eh? Good! I feel less restraint." 
 
 "Evil," she replied, "is evil thought. Its activity produces 
 a consciousness of evil, resulting in discord, suffering, disease, 
 and death. Its indulgence is suicidal. That is its license. Does 
 it appear attractive to you when bared by Truth? Does it still 
 mesmerize you?" 
 , "But, Marian" — his tone was gentler — "I sought the good, 
 I sought you, but you spurned me." 
 
 "You sought only a mortal concept of good; you did not 
 
 105 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 seek to know God first. If you had ... if you had ... Oh, 
 Otto . . ," She sank down again upon her chair. "Oh, if you 
 only knew the unlimited grandeur of the right outlook — if you 
 could but glimpse the real Man, of which your mortal concept 
 of yourself is such a distorted image! Oh, if you could only 
 see that all cause and all effect are mental, not physical! If 
 you could see that it is only as consciousness that evil exists, 
 and that a change of thought will change the consciousness and 
 give Spirit for matter, good for evil, happiness for misery, life 
 for death! I do not ask you to spare me, Otto; but your God 
 calls upon you to spare yourself!" 
 
 He still stood. His smile had gone, but now it returned. 
 He drew nearer to her. Then he halted. "Thor is god," he 
 said, "and he is force." 
 
 "Mind is God," she returned; "and is omnipotent." 
 
 "Thor has put your God to rout in this war," he pursued 
 defiantly. "Thor is definite, virile, masculine. Your God is 
 indefinite theory." 
 
 "Thor has put the human concept of God to rout; but my 
 God is Jehovah," she declared, "the infinite Father-Mother." 
 
 "Mother, eh?" His brows went up and he laughed. "Is then 
 your God a woman? Why not call her Venus?" 
 
 "Hovah means 'Eve', the mother of all living," she answered. 
 "So God combines all real qualities, feminine and masculine. 
 He is Spirit, and He is Love. He is Principle, He is that by 
 which all is that is real, and He is Life." 
 
 "I said your God was theory. You now call it Principle." 
 
 "He is Law. And His are the only laws. He is primal Good, 
 therefore eternal and self-existent. He is infinite Life. He is 
 perfect and harmonious, and therefore Truth. He is omni- 
 beneficent, so He is Love. He is the substance and true nature 
 of all that exists, and He is Soul. He is unlimited, omnipres- 
 ent, and therefore Spirit. He is all intelligence and power, He 
 is Mind. He is and embraces all that is real, for He is infinite 
 Good. As Mind, He is manifested in the countless ideas that 
 express Him. In reality, Otto, you are one of those ideas, and 
 so the true you is a Son of God." 
 
 "Are you trying to mesmerize me with your swift speak- 
 ing?" he ejaculated, stepping back. "You are like a machine 
 gun! But — Dock! such feeble bullets do no good." He came 
 and stood over her. "Well," he finally demanded, as she sat 
 quiescent, "you are not afraid?" 
 
 She looked up at him. "No." 
 
 He bent forward and seized her hand. "Why should you 
 fear?" he asked; "for I love you. And . . . Ach! I would not 
 harm you, if you would say that you would decently marry 
 
 106 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 me! Say it; then I will send for MuUer in the morning . . . 
 and you may go now, eh? Say it, Liebschen! Say it!" 
 
 "It is not right that I should marry you. Otto," she answered. 
 
 "But you give no reasons, Liebschen! Look, you may save 
 me, eh? I will let you teach me all you know about your God, 
 eh? I confess, I was really interested in what you said to 
 MuUer and me. Marry me, and you may reform me." 
 
 "But I will teach you now, Otto. I will gladly give you all 
 my own knowledge. I will work with you and for you, to help 
 yourself, to help others. . ." 
 
 , "Nun gut! Marry me, and you shall do all that! I will be a 
 new man! We will save Alden, and send him home. . ." 
 
 "No, Otto. You are not seeking Truth. It is the lusting 
 human mind that is using you. And it is death." 
 
 "So you still refuse?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He jerked her suddenly to a standing posture and pulled her 
 to him. "Look," he cried, "you are under suspicion of having 
 military secrets from Penberry! For that you can be shot! 
 So can Cragg! But to marry me will save you both!" 
 
 She shook her head. "I have no such secrets," she mur- 
 mured. "They may shoot me. . ." 
 
 "If I leave you here, you will be sent to a Turkish harem!" 
 
 "I am not afraid." 
 
 He glared down into her face. His eyes had drawn to nar- 
 row slits, and his mouth was working convulsively. "But you 
 think I will leave you to be seized, eh?" he snarled. "Nein! 
 but after I am through with you I .will sell you to the Turks ! 
 ... By God, I will ! And Cragg, he shall be thrown to the 
 dogs! You will let Muller marry us now, eh?" 
 
 She gasped in his close embrace. "No . . . no . . . God 
 is my Life . . . my protection . . . evil is not power. . ." 
 
 A call was heard from the outer room. The major dropped 
 the girl and turned quickly, just as the Egyptian rushed in. 
 "The prisoner!" she cried loudly; "he is gone!" 
 
 Marian swayed, started forward, and sank to the floor. The 
 major seized the Egyptian by the arm. "What do you mean?" 
 he demanded. 
 
 "I left his side to prepare coffee . . . see, it is dawn! . . . 
 When I went back he was not there! I called the guard! 
 They have given the alarm!" 
 
 The major thrust her from him, with a volley of oaths, and 
 hurried to the ancient prison below. The woman watched him 
 depart; her features worked curiously, her eyes glowed; then 
 she came to where Marian lay and bent over her. "Ma cherie!" 
 she whispered. "Ma petite!" 
 
 107 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Insensible to environment or the passing of time; his men- 
 tality now functioning vigorously, now for long intervals inert; 
 his consciousness keen for brief periods, and then going utterly 
 blank, like the quenching of a light; the slave's faculties seemed 
 to be at length aroused to a sense-impression of a rough, dusty 
 road, choked with people. These were coming and going, or 
 stood gathered in little groups, all talking excitedly, with much 
 gesturing, rolling of eyes, and laying of hands upon flowing 
 beards. He drew near to one of the groups and paused-to listen. 
 
 "God of our fathers!" he heard a bearded patriarch cry; 
 "what has come among us, that the dead should rise at the 
 command of this ignorant fellow! Say again, O Felix, was not 
 this Lazarus merely dormant? For the dead shall not rise until 
 th,e last day." 
 
 "And so said his sister Martha, who would have deferred 
 her brother's rising until that awful day. But the Nazareiie, as 
 if correcting her, proclaimed himself to be the resurrection and 
 the life; and in proof thereof he proceeded to the tomb. . ." 
 
 "Yes, yes! And there . . . ?" 
 
 "There . . . But my hair rises and my skin grows icy cold 
 when I think on it! There he . . . thanked God that He had 
 heard him I" 
 
 "But thy wits stray, O Felix, for the man had not yet 
 prayed to God!" 
 
 "Nay, O Simon, but I think the man does naught but pray 
 — but in a manner quite unknown to us. It is as if his grati- 
 tude were constant prayer,, for he ever giveth thanks, and that 
 before the appearance of the thing which he desires. It is not 
 so taught in our law . • . and yet ... it bringeth results." 
 
 "He does not conform to our law. He fasts not. . ." 
 
 "And yet, O Simon, it is as if his firm reliance upon his 
 God were a perpetual fast from any other dependence." 
 
 "Out upon you, O Felix! Art thou become a follower of 
 this necromancer?" 
 
 "I know not ! I know not ! And yet . . . yet, when I stood 
 before that sepulcher and heard his mighty voice . . . when 
 I looked with bursting eyes and saw . . . God of our fathers! 
 when I saw the dead man issue from the tomb . . . oh, then 
 every jot and every tittle of the law fled from me, and I fell 
 upon my face and cried: 'This is the very Christ!' " 
 
 "Thou shalt answer to the Sanhedrin for this, and so shall 
 he!" cried the angry Simon. "How sayest thou, O noble Kem?" 
 as his eyes fell upon the physician who had just joined the 
 group. "Was Lazarus dead?" 
 
 The Egyptian laughed loudly and long. "Dead!" he 
 
 108 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 exclaimed in derision. "No more than you or I, my Simon! 
 Canst not discern the clumsy trick? The necromancer had 
 but arranged for a potion to be given his confederate, Laz- 
 arus, to lull him into the appearance of death, that later he 
 might seem to raise him and thus win the support of the 
 masses for his purposed overthrow of the existing authority 
 and the establishment of himself as king. Go, speak to Lazarus, 
 as I have done. Thou'lt find him dumb; he dares not talk, lest 
 he betray the deep conspiracy." 
 
 "Lazarus shall be forthwith apprehended. And this wonder- 
 worker, too." 
 
 "Oh," laughed the physician, "as for this fellow, fear not; 
 I am on my way to lay the matter now before Caiaphas. The 
 Nazarene predicteth his own death, it seems; and in that 
 prophecy he is right. We shall take care that he issue not 
 forth from his tomb. . . Great Ptah!" he muttered, as he 
 started away, "were he to continue his cures and other works, 
 we physicians soon would find ourselves but beggars !" 
 
 Crassius forced his way into the group and confronted the 
 physician. "Where is this man?" he demanded sharply. 
 
 The physician looked at him in astonishment. "What is 
 that to thee, slave?" he answered. Then: "Ah, thou art of 
 Pilate's household! Good! The procurator sends, thee to trace 
 the necromancer? Follow this road, then, to Bethany, and 
 inquire for one Lazarus. Thou'lt find the fellow in his house." 
 
 The slave turned and darted off. On the way he passed an 
 endless stream of people, discussing the mighty event just 
 enacted. In this he was little interested. His feebly operative 
 thought rested only upon himself and his seeming needs. If 
 this man were to be apprehended, perhaps killed, it was. impera- 
 tive to find him now and secure the freedom upon which his 
 whole being centered. 
 
 Entering the village, he again caught sight of the familiar 
 figure of the Greek Gaius, walking slowly- and in company with 
 a man of striking mien and great dignity. The two were dis- 
 cussing earnestly the great themes of the hour, and the slave 
 fell in behind them, hoping to learn from their lips of the 
 whereabouts of the great prophet. 
 
 "It was nine and three-quarter centuries ago that the Hebrew 
 nation, the children of Israel, divided into the ten-tribed House 
 of Israel and the two-tribed one of Judah," the companion of 
 Gaius was explaining in a low, rich voice. "The former 
 returned not from their captivity at the hands of the Assyrian, 
 but fled at length from the land of the Goyim northward into 
 Scythia, where they dwell to this day, a mighty and powerful 
 host, of whom Peter says that they are kept by the power of 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the 
 last time. 
 
 "Now the elders and the chief priests of the Jews, the House 
 of Judah, long have anxiously expected a restoration of the 
 ancient kingdom of David; And upon its throne they hope to 
 place a Jewish king. They fear the House of Israel, for, though 
 Israel was disinherited by the Lord, yet was it provided that 
 they should be restored if they would repent and return to the 
 Covenant. Now as yet Israel has not repented nor been 
 restored to the favor divine, but — ah, the Jews rest uneasy lest 
 this should occur. And so the Jewish elders did craftily 
 approach this prophet Jesus, to learn if perchance he would 
 become their king, whom they thereupon would proclaim^ in 
 the Temple. . ." 
 
 "And what said Jesus?" Gains asked eagerly. 
 
 The other smiled as he made reply : "He gave them the par- 
 able of the vineyard. It enraged the Jews beyond bounds. For 
 it foretold that the 'stone', the attribute of Joseph of the House 
 of Israel, should be accepted. He meant that the rejected 
 nation of Israel, which had gone after other gods, should 
 repent and become the keeper of the Word and the accepted. 
 From this nation should be revealed, the Kingdom of God. For 
 this, the enraged Jews, in bitter disappointment, decreed that 
 Jesus must die." 
 
 "And shall he die, think you?" 
 
 "He himself predicts it." 
 
 "But, though the kingdom is taken away from the Jews, 
 yet it is not at once restored to the House of Israel, O Levi." 
 
 "Nay, Israel must be prepared through many centuries, as 
 Peter saith. The reign of evil is long, for men's thoughts are 
 basely false. The prophet Daniel doth predict it a full 'seven 
 times'. And, that would extend for some nineteen hundred 
 years hence, as I have explained. For the Kingdom is spiritual, 
 and Israel must reveal itself as spiritual Israel, of which House 
 the Christ is the corner. But, O Gaius, what marvel of man is 
 this same Jesus, that, having demonstrated his marvelous spir- 
 itual powers, he could withstand the temptation to place him- 
 self at the head of the mighty forces of hidden Israel, with all 
 Jewry rallied to his call, and fall upon, the power of Rome, 
 which doubtless he could quickly crush! He could then make 
 himself master of the world! . . , But of a world material 
 . . . and thereby would he lose his power of the Spirit, and 
 his mighty mission would utterly fail. Wonderful vision hath 
 he, O Gaius! But for this he goeth to his death. And yet he 
 meeteth death but to slay it, I am persuaded." 
 
 The slave caught but the single impression: the wonder- 
 
 •110 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 worker was in the shadow of death. There was no time to 
 lose. He therefore hurried ahead of the men and placed him- 
 self before them. "Where is the man?" he again put his 
 insistent question. 
 
 Gains turned to his companion. "He seeketh Jesus, O Levi," 
 he said. 
 
 The other bent his fine eyes upon the slave. "Why seek ye 
 him?" he asked. 
 
 "I would h^ve him make me fi-ee." 
 
 "From sin? Infirmity? Disease?" 
 
 "No!" cried Crassius. "From slavery!" 
 
 "The truth shall make you free," came the reply. 
 
 "What truth?" 
 
 "That God is AIL" 
 
 Crassius stamped his foot in rage and stooped again to reach 
 for a stone; but as he bent over he hung for a moment in that 
 posture, then slowly straightened up and stood staring stupidly 
 into the man's face. 
 
 "But, O Levi," Gains added, "you omit the condition with 
 which the Master prefaced this wondrous promise. 'If ye con- 
 tinue in my word', said he, 'ye shall know the truth, and the 
 . truth shall make you free'." 
 
 "Wilt thou hear his word?" said Levi, speaking again to 
 Crassius. 
 
 "No, I want to be made free," cried the slave. 
 
 "Turn back, then," said Levi sadly. "Thou seekest but the 
 loaves and the fishes. Thou'lt not find him here. And until 
 thou forget thyself, thou shalt be beaten with many stripes." 
 
 The slave's rage flared forth like a volcano. Great flames of 
 red appeared to flash before his eyes. His head seemed to him 
 to swell to bursting. Then all became dark, and. deep silence 
 fell upon him. . , 
 
 When he opened his eyes again he saw that he was enter- 
 ing the foul ergastulum of the Tower of Antonia, shackled, and 
 guarded by the Roman soldiers who had been despatched to 
 find him. Before he became fully aware of his environment, 
 he was stripped, chained to a stone pillar, and set upon by two 
 gigantic slaves wielding long bull's-hide whips. 
 
 Again and again the lashes wound hissing around his 
 shrinking body. Again and again long, piercing shrieks burst 
 from his macerated lips. His giant tormentors laughed as the 
 flesh ripped apart and the red blood spurted. 
 
 "But for the excitement which the Nazarene pretender hath 
 wrought, this Jew had not so easily avoided search these many 
 days," panted one, as he paused to rest his arm. 
 
 "Excitement! Gods!" ejaculated the other, likewise pausing 
 
 111 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 in his cruel task. "Timeus reports that the pretender hath 
 entered the city in triumph, and riding — O ye gods! — riding 
 upon an ass I" He broke into a torrent of laughter, in which 
 the other joined heartily. "And this fool," pointing to their 
 victim with his whip, "was seized while following him. Verily, 
 he hath lost his wits, as now he shall lose his life. Come, 
 bear on!" 
 
 Again they fell to plying their whips. The slave's piteous 
 shrieks reverberated in his own ears and echoed back like wail- 
 ing moans from a lost world. He sank, and hung by his wrists. 
 The cruel pain cut him through and through with agony inde- 
 scribable. The great lashes, as they flew toward him and 
 wrapped around his lacerated body seemed to him like mon- 
 strous serpents that coiled and stung him ever and again, 
 driving their huge fangs into his writhing flesh and filling it 
 with boiling venom. He begged; he pled; he offered wealth 
 inexhaustible to his tormentors. They mocked him, jeered 
 him, commended him to the Nazarene, then redoubled their 
 efforts, until his brain seared under the awful torture and the 
 light faded and thought, and with it consciousness, became 
 again inert. 
 
 CHAPTER 18 
 
 "¥ AM sorry he was handled so roughly." It was the major 
 I who spoke, and his voice was very gentle. "But he fought 
 * the soldiers, and they had to defend themselves." 
 
 During the day that had dragged its weary length through 
 the subterranean chambers of the old Tower, Cragg had lain 
 motionless. It appeared, from the Egyptian's story^ that while 
 Marian was in the major's apartment the preceding night, 
 Cragg had suddenly sprung from his bed, as if with a resur- 
 gence of life, and had made his escape down through the corri- 
 dors and past the drowsing guard into the dark street. Before 
 he could be apprehended he had fled the full length of the Via 
 Dolorosa and had reached the city wall. In the struggle that 
 ensued at the Zion gate he had been painfully bruised and 
 beaten; and now he lay spent, broken. . . 
 
 "Sinking," the surgeon said, looking down at the still form. 
 "Not necessary to strap him. Doch! it is a strange case. Very 
 strange." 
 
 Yet he lived; yet Marian, harassed, wearied, held to him, as 
 she sat on the low stool beside his cot, fighting the black shad- 
 ows back. The major stood beside her. His face looked worn 
 and drawn with suffering. He had not seen her, after leaving 
 
 112 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 her -with the Egyptian in his apartment, until he returned at 
 sunrise with the soldiers who were bearing Cragg. Then, at 
 sight of the girl, his face flushed; a look of penitence came 
 into it; his manner became soft, and his words tenderly solic- 
 itous. He did not remain long; and Marian was again left 
 alone with the dying man and the Egyptian. 
 
 But he was not dying! The death-thought should not find 
 acceptance as Truth in her mentality, and there begin a false 
 activity that would become externalized to her in Alden's 
 passing! And as she sat resisting the error that, entering, 
 would set up concepts to prove that God is not Life, she 
 heard a footfall near her. Looking up, she saw the chaplain, 
 Muller. 
 
 "I apologize," he began hastily, after pausing and glancing 
 furtively about. "I felt that I must see you, alone." He noise- 
 lessly drew up another stool and sat down near her. She looked 
 at him wonderingly. For some time he sat staring at Cragg. 
 Then he raised his head and turned to the girl. "I am, to the 
 major, a dull- wit," he said haltingly. "It is because he does 
 not know, he does not know! ... I have been speaking with 
 the Egyptian. I thank God that the major did not harm you! 
 And now . . ." He paused and again glanced cautiously 
 around. "I can help you ... to escape." 
 
 Marian's heart leaped high and she sprang up, with a low 
 cry. Then she glanced down at Cragg. 
 
 But the chaplain shook his head. "Impossible to take him," 
 he said sadly. "He and you — ^you do not know — you are held 
 as political prisoners, rather than mere prisoners of war. He 
 may give useful information, and you also. You can escape 
 if you marry the major. . . Ach! you must not do that, no, 
 no! I can get you away . . . to-night, but not him." 
 
 She had sat down again. "I cannot leave him," she 
 answered. 
 
 "I ... I did not think you would," he said, speaking with 
 feverish rapidity. "I hoped you would not. If you had, it 
 would have overthrown all that you said last night. I have 
 come here . . ." Again he looked about the room. His voice 
 was lower when he resumed. "I am risking perhaps my life, 
 perhaps yours . , . but I ... Ach, I am so weary of life! I 
 am so weary of seeing men die, die, die! And for what? That 
 a few, as you say, mortal minds may be more puffed up . . . 
 that our bloated Kaiser may bloat still more! Ach! I preached 
 for the war, from my pulpit. . . God forgive me! It was 
 blasphemy! But I, too, was mesmerized! And I would give 
 my life to stop it all now! German? Ach! may I never be 
 known again as German. My only remaining hope is that I 
 
 113 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 may, some time, know that, after all, I am a son of God. And 
 you, Fraulein, you started my hope afresh last night. Could 
 you tell me more? talk to me more? The Egyptian is in the 
 streets, gathering provisions from the markets. The major 
 has gone down to Hebron, Beersheba has fallen. The British 
 approach. But what of that! Talk to me ... or I shall go 
 mad thinking of what my countrymen have done . . . what I 
 have preached. . . Ach, Gottl" 
 
 The girl sat looking at the man, her thought tumultuous, 
 her eyes wide with wonder. He seemed to read the questions 
 which she mutely voiced, and hastened to meet them. "I was 
 deceiving you both last night," he said, and his speech came 
 incoherently. "If the major knew, he would kill me! Oh, I 
 trembled for you ... I asked the Egyptian woman when I 
 left if she could not protect you. . . She is odd, but I think 
 trustworthy. What she did, if anything, I do not know. But 
 now that Beersheba has fallen, the major will be desperate! 
 Your danger has increased a thousand fold! Ach, it is the old 
 story repeated: tortures, starvation, cruelties unspeakable! 
 Oh, the black horror of the war ! . . . I have seen it all ! The 
 crushed bodies, the broken spirits! . . . Oh, the little children, 
 eyeless, handless, dismembered! And the nameless babes! 
 . . . Oh, what bitterness, what hatred, behind all that illegiti- 
 macy! . . . Oh, the helpless, pathetic babes! But the moth- 
 ers, forced into such cruel torture of body and soul! Gottl 
 And that is what threatens you! Nothing can save you if you 
 remain here . . . and yet you will not abandon this fellow 
 prisoner, I know. It is a Chrisfly sacrifice that you make ! Oh, 
 help me to make it, too . . . for I cannot live thus, I cannot, I 
 cannot!" 
 
 He broke down and, burying his face in his hands, sobbed 
 aloud. Marian rose quickly and went to him. She knew that 
 the man, in opening the way of escape to her, was laying down 
 his own life. And she thereby knew that he was not far from 
 the Kingdom. She put an arm about his shoulders and bent 
 over him. "God has sent us to each other," she whispered, 
 "because He loves us." 
 
 The man looked up. For a while he struggled to control his 
 emotions. Marian drew her stool close beside him. "You are 
 starving for love," she said. "The German people are starving 
 for it. So is the world. Yet God is Love, infinite Love. . ." 
 
 "How can He be? . . . for He does not pity human distress 
 ... He permits this wicked war, , . Ach, but I would say: 
 there is no God ! Tell me ! ... talk fo me ! . . . convince 
 me! ... or I shall go mad!" 
 
 She took his hand. "Look," she said, nodding her head 
 
 114 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 toward the high, barred window. The sun was low, the sky 
 clear, blue, unfathomable. He followed her gaze. "You are 
 looking into space," she said gently. "Send your thought out 
 there, and it will return and say: 'There is no end!' For the 
 depth of space is infinite. Yet it is everywhere filled with 
 evidences of a creator. Separated by untold millions of miles, 
 there are countless other worlds, countless forms, countless 
 creations, embraced in limitless space, all obeying law, all man- 
 ifesting intelligence, all comprising an infinite universe per- 
 vaded by that which indicates mind. It is an infinite creation, 
 an infinite effect — even if you consider that it is all self- 
 created. 
 
 "But an effect is unthinkable without a cause. And the 
 infinite effect known as the universe implies an infinite cause, 
 does it not? And the continuous existence of the infinite uni- 
 verse indicates a cause that is eternal. The government of the 
 infinite universe indicates an infinitive governing principle, or 
 something by which all is and is maintained. There is, then, 
 a God." 
 
 "Yes, yes . . . true," the chaplain murmured. "But what 
 is He?" 
 
 "But, more," she went on, "the infinite cause of the infinite 
 universe must be omnipotent to maintain a universe that is 
 without limits. And being omnipotent, it must be a sole and 
 only cause, without any opposing element, or force, or being. 
 Once omnipotent, it must always be omnipotent, therefore per- 
 fect and harmonious, for it could never create for itself any 
 element of discord or decay. And there is no other power to 
 implant such elements within it. Therefore the creator remains 
 infinite, omnipotent, perfect, and the only power. There is a 
 God, and He is infinite Power." 
 
 "Power, yes, blind, unthinking power . . ." 
 
 "Listen," she said: "since the creation, throughout its end- 
 less millions of miles of extent, manifests intelligence and law, 
 its infinite creator must comprise that intelligence. But intelli- 
 gence is a function of mind. It requires mind for its habitat. 
 Therefore the creator, comprising an intelligence that is infinite, 
 is infinite mind. There is a God, and He thinks and knows." 
 
 "But He cannot care for His creatures ; He neglects them. Is 
 it not so?" 
 
 "Let us first say what His creatures are," she answered. 
 "For, since mind is the creator, and since it is infinite in extent, 
 its creation must be contained within itself, and must be mental. 
 But the activities of mind are manifested in ideas, in thoughts, 
 in mental ways. And so it must follow that, since the creation 
 is the product of an infinite mind, the universe must be wholly 
 
 115 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mental. And, as part of the universe, we ourselves are mental, 
 and are contained with the mental universe in this infinite 
 creative mind. Is it not so? And the act of creation— far from 
 being the creation Qf a material universe -out of nothingness — 
 is really the eternal unfolding of infinite mind's infinite number 
 and variety of ideas within itself. Creation, then, is the eternal 
 and infinite expression of the infinite creative mind through the 
 revelation, or unfolding, of its ideas^very much as the human 
 mind expresses itself by means of its ideas. 
 
 "But the ideas of infinite mind must range from the infini- 
 tesimal to the infinite, in order fully to express that mind. And 
 the greatest of these ideas must be the idea of the creative 
 mind itself. This idea must of necessity be a compound idea, 
 including all other ideas. A watch, you know, is a compound 
 idea, including the ideas of wheels, springs, bearings, and all 
 that go to make up the whole. Now the greatest idea of infinite 
 mind jaust be exactly like its parent mind, must be its image 
 and likeness, its reflection, its full representation. This greatest 
 idea is what we call man. Look through the window. The 
 things that you think you see all really exist, but you are seeing 
 only your ideas of them; and these ideas are within yourself, 
 for you are a compound idea, a mentality, a consciousness, 
 seeing your mental concepts of things, as I said last night. 
 
 "And so there is a God. And He is the creative Principle 
 of all that is. He is eternal; He is Life. He is the true; He is 
 Truth. He lovingly unfolds His creation and maintains it with 
 infinite consideration; He is infinite Love. He is all the sub- 
 stance there is; He is infinite Soul, the heart and core of all. 
 He is unlimited, therefore omnipresent; He is infinite Spirit. 
 He is all intelligence and power; He is infinite Mind. He is all 
 that is beautiful, desirable, real; He is infinite Good. All, then, 
 is infinite Mind and this Mind's ceaseless and harmonious 
 manifestation. And this is God. 
 
 "And we — ^the real we — are His ideas of Himself, and are 
 mental, spiritual, perfect. We are His 'children'. We are in 
 Him, like the fishes in the boundless sea. We are embraced 
 in Love, and are the objects of His infinite consideration. For 
 I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, 
 thoughts o( peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." 
 Ach! but He does not pity human suffering," moaned the 
 chaplain. 
 
 "He does not see it," the girl replied. "The human suffering 
 is all within the communal mortal mind and its mortal mani- 
 festation. And that is the suppositional opposite of the Mind 
 that is God, and therefore without real existence. Its existence 
 is supposition — as we said last night. And Jesus has given us 
 
 116 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the method of destroying this supposition and seeing ourselves 
 perfect and harmonious. Whatever God sees is very good. It 
 has to be so. It is the real. If He saw evil and suffering, then 
 these would be real and eternal. Then, indeed, would we be 
 without hope. 
 
 "You see," she continued eagerly, "according to Spencer's 
 discovery, the suppositional opposite always seems to follow the 
 reality — why, we do not know. But such seems to be the case, 
 -and we must admit it. Therefore, to all that is real, to Mind and 
 Its infinite manifestation, there seems to be the suppositional 
 opposite, the unreal, the communal mortal mind, without Prin- 
 ciple, without Life, without Love or Truth, yet counterfeiting 
 all these, and counterfeiting the Creation by seeming to create 
 a material universe and material man, reflecting, not Truth, but 
 human intelligence based on error. It is the mortal children of 
 this communal mortal mind that are at war to-day, destroying 
 one another. These mortals reflect the 'mist' that went up from 
 the earth and watered the face of the ground. The communal 
 mortal mind is mystification, mesmerism, supposition, igno- 
 rance, false belief of life and mind and substance in matter. 
 It is error. It is what your compatriot, Franz Mesmer, revealed 
 and named Animal Magnetism. And under this name it will 
 disappear from consciousness forever." 
 
 "But how, then, are we mortals able to recognize and know 
 Truth?" he urged. 
 
 "The communal mortal mind, imitating the real Creation, 
 has slowly developed its material man," she explained. "And 
 this slow unfolding has taken place through long periods of 
 time and through repulsive animal shapes and mentalities, until 
 mortal man has reached his present status. At one stage of 
 his unfoldment he was the Pithecanthropus, an ape-like crea- 
 ture that lived a half million years ago; at another stage he 
 was the Neanderthal man; at another, the Cro-Magnon man; 
 to-day he is the Twentieth century man, with his horrible ani- 
 mal instincts covered with a thin veneer of civilization. But, 
 while the communal mortal mind developed various animal 
 creatures, its man alone has shown the ability to reason rightly, 
 to follow an argument to its logical end. You see, in counter- 
 feiting the real Mind and Its Man this communal mortal mind 
 counterfeited the inclusion of right ideas. There is a spark 
 of spiritual power in the human man. And this is his salva- 
 tion! Because of it, there can be better desires, efforts toward 
 reform, and the working out of one's salvation. Man exists as 
 consciousness; he can become conscious of Good by a change 
 in his thought, and the better thoughts will then form better 
 and better concepts, until he at last reaches the perfect concept 
 
 117 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of Mind and Its infinite manifestation, and tlie concept of error, 
 with discord, disease, the horrors of war, suffering, death itself, 
 will disappear from consciousness." 
 
 "But do you thus account for the presence of wickedness 
 in the world? Do you thus solve the great problem of evil?" 
 The man's eagerness was pathetic. 
 
 "Evil exists only as consciousness. A consciousness of evil 
 is the result of accepting the evil thoughts that by their activity 
 form such consciousness. These evil thoughts come, not from 
 the Mind that is God, but from Its suppositional opposite — for, 
 if you will watch them, you will discover that all such evil 
 thoughts deny the existence and presence of God." 
 
 "But we see evil all about us!" 
 
 "All evil— the child of error, itself the suppositional oppo- 
 site of Truth — is but the testimony of the five physical senses. 
 But these senses, it is now discovered, give us no testimony at 
 all! Seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing, and touching, all reduce 
 to beliefs, or thoughts, of doing these things. We see, hear, 
 smell, taste, and feel only the contents of our consciousness. 
 And that, as you now know, consists of mental concepts, images 
 of thought. Hence, all evil rests on a foundation of falsehood — 
 of lies. And these will always be found to be lies about God 
 and His Creation. Thus, evil is unreal. And on the basis of 
 its unreality only can it be overcome." 
 
 "But . . . Satan?" 
 
 "The communal mortal mind is Satan. And this is reflected 
 in countless mortals, so-called mentalities, or minds. • But this 
 mind is ignorance only, malicious and self-destructive. Its 
 beliefs kill it. It suffers agony because of its false beliefs, and 
 inflicts unspeakable torture on its companion mortal minds, 
 which likewise suffer in belief, for they believe that matter is 
 real substance and possesses life and sensation. Outside the 
 concepts of mortality, evil does not exist at all. Therefore God 
 does not know or see it." 
 
 "But the theological systems of the world have their basis 
 in the belief that sin is real!" he protested. 
 
 "And, believing it to be real, they have never been able to 
 overcome it, have they?" she said. "No, nor ever can on that 
 basis." 
 
 At that moment a noise was heard in the corridor without. 
 The chaplain started and half rose from his chair. "I ... I am 
 exposing you to danger . . . but I know no other way to learn 
 these things . . . and you are lifting a burden from my soul. 
 Butj for your sake, I should go." 
 
 She restrained him by a hand. "I am not afraid for 
 myself. The human sense of existence which I call life is not 
 
 lis 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 my own. It is yours, everybody's, for I am making it witness 
 to God. And so I do not fear death." 
 
 He sank back on his stool. "You are wonderful! Fear 
 ... it is my greatest torture, my worst enemy," he said, again 
 glancing anxiously down toward the corridor. 
 
 "And yet the Bible, which you say you accept as your guide 
 to salvation, is full of admonitions to be not afraid. Isn't there 
 something wrong with your theology? — else you would take 
 Jesus at his word. But you believe thoroughly in the reality and 
 existence of evil; you believe that it has power greater than 
 God; and so you fear it. Evil, with sin, sickness and death, is 
 your god. According to Paul, the belief in both good and evil 
 constitutes sin. And this ends in death. The primitive man's 
 worship was caused by fear. And you still worship as he did." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know. I must recast my views. I can see that 
 there must be a complete restatement of fundamental Chris- 
 tianity. We preachers have gone far astray. Everything shows 
 it, particularly this war. But, tell me, in what point have we 
 been most mistaken?" 
 
 "In making Jesus God," she answered quickly. "The claims 
 of theology that Jesus was God have inhibited the world's efforts 
 to obey his commands and work out its salvation as he did. 
 Jesus was not God, and he was not Christ. The' Christ is the 
 spiritual Man, the image and likeness of God. Jesus denied 
 his mortal selfhood, and thereby, and by knowing the Allness of 
 God, he put off the mortal man — got rid of the human, mortal 
 concept . of man — and revealed the Christ, our real spiritual 
 selfhood. And he told us that we must do likewise, and he 
 taught us how to do it. He said that a change in thinking 
 would change the man. The entire condition of the human, 
 mortal man' can thus be changed, including his body and its 
 functions, his environment, all ill conditions, all liability to 
 chance, to accident, to disaster, poverty, sickness, death. He 
 taught that these things are all mental before they become 
 physical, that they are beliefs of the human mind that become 
 outwardly externalized, and that all a man's conscious experi- 
 ence which he calls life, including his bodily experience, will 
 be according to the nature and quality of his thought. This 
 does not change or affect the real Man; but right thinking so 
 removes, displaces, destroys the unreal man that the real one 
 becomes revealed. This is the teaching of primitive Chris- 
 tianity. You can see for yourself how far orthodox theology 
 has departed from it during the ages." 
 
 The chaplain sat reflecting for some inoments. "If we had 
 thought in this manner," he said at length, "there would have 
 been no war." 
 
 119 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "No," she answered, "And Germany would have had all 
 the good that it so mistakenly sought to gain by slaughtering 
 the neighboring nations." 
 
 "Our leaders are failing, because . . ." 
 
 "Because they were induced by error, the communal mortal 
 mind, to rely wholly on mortal mind physical force, and to 
 throw spirituality, the only real power, to the winds. Fear 
 drove them into this war. Fear drove them into frightfulness. 
 Fear composed their Hymns of Hate. Fear is defeating them. 
 Fear is materiality; it rests on material props, uses material 
 weapons, material force, then fails utterly, for it is itself only 
 a false belief of power apart from the Mind that is God." 
 
 They were startled by the sound of approaching footsteps. 
 It was the Egyptian, shuffling into the room, her arms laden 
 with bundles. The chaplain rose to take his leave. "I thank 
 you," he said, as he took Marian's hand. "I do not go away 
 unconvinced . . . and yet, if there were but some proof that 
 your deductions are correct . . . some proof . . . something 
 practical. . . But it may come. . . I pray God it may. You 
 are wonderful in your great danger, to think of helping me. 
 I will seek every opportunity to talk with you again. Remember, 
 always, that I must appear as the major's dull- wit." And he 
 was gone. 
 
 Marian stood watching him until he entered the corridor. 
 Then her head sank. "I must prove," she murmured; "for 
 his sake, for Alden's, for Otto's, the world's, I must, I must!" 
 
 CHAPTER 19 
 
 A DAY passed, and then another. And the major had not 
 returned. On the third morning after the major's depar- 
 ture for Hebron Marian stood at dawn before one of the 
 high, narrow \yindows of her prison. Silence lay about her; 
 the leaves hung motionless on the trees; the birds still slept. 
 "The sun will rise," the girl murmured; "and just so surely 
 will the Christ come to us ... to Alden and to me . . . 
 across the waters." 
 
 She had been startled at the change that had appeared to 
 come over Alden. He had lain so still; the waving of his arms 
 had become gradually feebler, until now it had ceased. The 
 forced feeding, wTiich the surgeon had insisted upon, had 
 become so difficult that it had been suspended. The surgeon 
 remained taciturn: the prisoner's soul, he knew, was loosen- 
 ing and straining away. The Egyptian shook her head and 
 looked curiously, expectantly, at Marian. 
 
 120 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 In the Egyptian Marian was finding a puzzling combination 
 of reticence and garrulity. But that morning the woman had 
 let fall a cryptic, remark that was startling in its import. 
 "These are the last days," she had said, pausing for a moment 
 at the girl's side before the window. "Our great pillar shows 
 it. It must be that Jeremiah Roake is busy. . . Eh, Men, very 
 busy!" Then she had pattered away and into the kitchen to 
 her work. 
 
 Marian's head whirled. Then she had tried to reason that it 
 was mere coincidence — and coincidence, rather than sequence, 
 is so often the order of mundane affairs where action is but 
 the lawless expression of thought that rests far more on error 
 than on Truth. The woman might have known Doctor Roake. 
 He had studied in Egypt; he was an international character 
 . . . yet such a remark indicated only too clearly that this 
 Egyptian was not of the lowly caste in which apparently she 
 had elected to dwell. But the girl's thought was then too full 
 for speculation on a possible coincidence. . . 
 
 Yet, though her thought was preoccupied, she had become 
 aware of an increasing tension in the vei*y air, as it were. The 
 quiet that enveloped the old Tower when she arrived was now 
 rudely disturbed. There were rumblings and excited calls and 
 exclamations without. That morning several German officers 
 had entered the ancient dungeon of the Tower to make a hasty 
 inspection, and had departed, talking rapidly. Others came. 
 And they stared curiously at Marian, and smiled knowingly, 
 and nodded their heads. Turkish officers appeared with the 
 Germans; and the unfriendly tension between the Turk and his 
 Teutonic betrayer was all too apparent in its augury. A German 
 officer who could speak English addressed the girl. "We have 
 all heard of you," he said. "The major has made us jealous 
 with his praises of your beauty and wit. If he should fortu- 
 nately be killed, you will not lack attention." Then he shrugged 
 his shoulders and went away laughing. Still others came and 
 stared, first at Cragg, then at her, stared insolently and made 
 jesting remarks to one another. She sat quietly under their 
 scrutiny; she answered the questions put to her by those who 
 could speak her language or the French tongue, but she asked 
 none. Yet she knew from the bits of excited conversation which 
 she caught that Beersheba had fallen, some days since — that 
 the German plan to make it a suitable base for cutting the 
 Suez Canal had suffered irreparable fracas — and that up in the 
 darkened land of Franz Mesmer the hand that had so arro- 
 gantly carried the divine rights was visibly trembling. ... 
 
 Then Chaplain MuUer came again, when the evening shad- 
 ows were beginning to lengthen. "We shall not be disturbed 
 
 121 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 at this hour," he said. "But if my presence anndys you, I will 
 go. Perhaps you are tired. . ." Marian seized his hand and 
 bade him remain. 
 
 "You have been disturbed," he said. "But the British — 
 Lieber Gott, how they fight ! And so many of our wounded are 
 being brought up here that we may have to use this old place 
 again as a hospital. Ach, how they are dying , . . dying!" 
 He sank down and sat with bowed head and clenched hands. 
 "I once thought little of death," he went on in a low, shaking 
 voice; "but I lost a brother, down there, in the first attack on 
 Gaza. He died in my arms. We were David and Jonathan. 
 I loved him, as I have never loved another. I thought his death 
 would kill me. I cannot keep away from you, for yours are 
 the only words of comfort I have heard since he died. Ach, 
 Fraulein, let me hear you say that it is as if he had but dropped 
 asleep in one room and awakened in another! It must be, if 
 what you have said is true." 
 
 "And it is," she answered gently, bending forward and laying 
 a hand tenderly on his. "And he may have awakened with a 
 clearer sense of life and a better concept of environment than 
 he seemed to have in this state of consciousness. For much of 
 the false belief that goes to make up the human consciousness 
 of material life must be destroyed by the change when the man 
 finds that he still lives. And then, when he begins to learn, 
 as- he must some time, that God is Life, many more of his 
 false concepts will be dissolved, and he will learn that no phase 
 of error can ever really rob man of life." 
 
 "And I shall see him again, yes, I know I shall." 
 
 "Why, he is here, as much as you and I are here. For, in 
 reality, we are all Sons of God, ideas of infinite Mind. And 
 where can we be but in that omnipresent Mind? Your brother 
 did not go away, any more than if he had lain down at your 
 side to sleep. Life is only what we know of God, who is Life. 
 And, as Jesus said : // a man keep my saying, he shall never see 
 death." 
 
 "Ach, I see now that there is nothing in this human life so 
 important as learning just what Jesus meant by his sayings, 
 and keeping them. But how few are even interested in that! 
 If they were, they might overcome death," 
 
 "Your covenant with death shall be annulled," she said. 
 "And how soon it shall be annulled depends on you. Our 
 thought determines our consciousness : shall we be conscious of 
 Life, or its opposite, death? For we know only what is in our 
 consciousness.. Jesus said that to know God was life eternal. 
 It is all a process of knowing aright. The human or carnal 
 mind is a bundle of beliefs that rest upon appearances only. 
 
 122 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 To human sense we appear to have sensation in nerves and 
 strength in muscles and wisdom in the brain, but these appear- 
 ances are all demonstrably false. Man is not body, nor a 
 mixture of flesh and blood and mind. There is an old historical 
 Bible whose first chapter of Genesis states that 'God created 
 man after His own likeness, in the likeness of Mind shaped He 
 him'. What an improvement is this on the St. James version!" 
 
 "Ach, how little we know!" he sighed. 
 
 "And then, after the primal Truth expressed itself in its 
 image, Man, there went up a mist — the supposition appeared 
 to form a negative counterpart of the One Mind. But it is 
 demonstrably only a supposition." 
 
 "And I personalized it; I called it the devil, and preached 
 that it had horns and hoofs and a barbed tail. . ." 
 
 "It is the negation, ignorance, striking at the Word — and 
 striking now in this war through church and ruler, through 
 men of science, professors, materialists, who blindly accept 
 the testimony of the physical senses as Truth, and slay their 
 brethren for not doing likewise. Church and State have struck 
 through the German Kaiser — and yet, killing men does not kill 
 ideas; the destruction of Britain would not destroy the Word." 
 
 It was late when the chaplain took his leave. "Gott sei 
 Dank," he murmured as he bent over her hand, "that you came 
 here. Ach, that is selfish ! But you have shown me that we are 
 neither Greek nor Gentile, but Sons of the eternal God. And I 
 am very grateful." 
 
 Through the darkness that enveloped the Tower came the 
 constant rumble of traffic and the babel of voices from without. 
 If actual evacuation of the city had not begun, at least exten- 
 sive preparations were being made. At times Marian heard 
 shotits of anger, shrill cries, raucous commands; and with them 
 were mingled at intervals the moans of the wounded who were 
 being transported to a safer place. Marian sat alone beside 
 Cragg: she had not seen the Egyptian since the chaplain 
 came. , . 
 
 Of a sudden she heard the bawling of song in the corridor. 
 She sprang to her feet. A German officer, huge of bulk, and 
 swaying under the influence of liquor, came hurrying into the 
 room and bor^ down upon her. She tried to avoid him, but he 
 seized her hand and held her with a grip of steel. 
 
 "Efferbody, ffir hisself!" he shouted in broken English. 
 "You're mine, Frdulein! Dock I" He dropped her hand and, 
 whipping out his pistol, wheeled sharply and pointed it at the 
 mouth of the corridor. Marian fell against the wall. Her 
 straining eyes caught sight of the chaplain, hurrying into the 
 room, calling loudly in German to the officer as he came. 
 
 123 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 other oflScers followed. In a moment they were gathered 
 around the girl. The chaplain pushed through them and seized 
 the arm of her burly assailant. The room reverberated with 
 the loud and angry talk. Then the officer, still sputtering 
 volubly, was urged and persuaded by the chaplain until he 
 reluctantly yielded and departed with the others, leaving the 
 chaplain with the girl. 
 
 "I felt that you might be in danger," he panted, wiping his 
 damp brow. "I had to.come back and see. And I came just in 
 good time. I could not have gotten them to go if I had not 
 told them that you were betrothed to Major Hoeffel and that 
 he was coming to-night. They all fear him. He is such a brute. 
 . . Ach, Frdulein, now you must escape, you must go, for I 
 have said that you are the major's wife to be! It will be 
 announced all through the city! Then nothing can save you! 
 Come, we must get you away. . ." 
 
 "I cannot leave him here." She turned to Cragg. 
 
 "But perhaps we can remove him. . . Listen : I will go for 
 help to carry him! I can get you out of the city! I can send 
 trusted friends to you to-morrow . . • perhaps to-night! But 
 you must escape now, or it will be too . . ." 
 
 He turned. Marian had uttered a startled cry. Major 
 Hoeffel stood behind the chaplain, with an expression sinister, 
 malicious, diabolical, upon his sharp features. "So-o-o!" he 
 sneered. "You were about to bring the little girl to me, eh, 
 MuUer? She has decided to marry me, I understand from my 
 friends on the street. You shall have the pleasure of perform- 
 ing the ceremony at once. Come upstairs, both of you." 
 
 Great beads of perspiration poured out upon the chaplain's 
 forehead. His hands shook. He attempted speech, but the 
 words would not come. The major watched him, with a cruel 
 grin. 
 
 Then Muller straightened up. His frame became rigid. His 
 lips set, but his face remained deathly pale. "I refuse to marry 
 you, sir," he said in a low, tense voice. "The lady does not 
 vdsh it." 
 
 The major fell back. His mouth flew open. His eyes 
 popped. "Gott in Himmell" he cried, "you . . . you . . . 
 refuse?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "You . . . you blockhead ! You dull-wit! You crazy hound! 
 Do you know that I overheard you, eh? You were planning the 
 escape of prisoners! It is treason . . . treason! You are an 
 enemy of the Emperor, Muller!" 
 
 He wheeled about and called loudly. Soldiers came running 
 in from the corridor. "Carry this woman upstairs!" he cried. 
 
 124 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Two burly Turks seized Marian and started away with her. 
 "Take Chaplain Muller to headquarters," the major com- 
 manded. "He is under arrest!" 
 
 He turned and glared down at Cragg. "Have a prisoner sent 
 here," he ordered, "to bury this corpse!" 
 
 CHAPTER 20 
 
 THE demonstration, in human consciousness, of the Christ 
 was not inaugurated by the Nazarene teacher, but by those 
 who, long ere the recording of human events, began to per- 
 ceive, however faintly, the reality of Spirit and the consequent 
 deceptiveness of its suppositional opposite, the carnal mind. 
 The early patriarchs of Scripture continued this demonstration, 
 Enoch, Noah, and they \vho had learned that the Creator is not 
 a magnified mortal, with human attributes and anthropomor- 
 phic form. It was continued by Abraham, who forsook the 
 false and degrading gods of Haram and went out to conquer 
 the claims of material selfhood. It was still furthered by Moses, 
 who knew that "the Lord our God is One Lord," Principle, 
 Mind, eternal and omnipresent. It was immeasurably advanced 
 by the man Jesus, who, reflecting the Love that he taught was 
 God, divested his thought of its mortal concepts and realized 
 that death itself would yield to an acquirable knowledge of 
 limitless Life. Its demonstration was still continued by the 
 girl Marian, who had glimpsed the stupendous fact that matter 
 — -the admitted origin and locus of all evil, all fear, sin, disease, 
 discord, death — is formed of the miasmatic mist of human 
 thought, and that it fades into innocuousness under the 
 scientifically focused rays of Truth. Like the Master, 
 whom she strove so earnestly to emulate, her demonstra- 
 tion over death began, not when confronted with its hideous 
 manifestation, but long years before, in the perception, as 
 a mere child, that error could have no real place in an in- 
 finite cosmos governed by its necessarily infinite and eternal 
 creative Principle. 
 
 Had she confused Jesus with God — the pit into which ortho- 
 dox theology so early fell — her efforts to demonstrate the unity 
 of God would have been stifled at the outset. Had she been 
 deceived by the perniciously mesmeric doctrine that the pur- 
 pose of the Master was rather to show men how to die than to 
 live, she would have accorded death a place in the infinite 
 economy and thereby rendered futile all subsequent essays to 
 displace it; Had she regarded human birth as actual, rather 
 
 21 125 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 than the imitative translation in human consciousness of the 
 divine unfoldment of Mind's idea, Man, she must have at once 
 conceded the inviolability of material law and rendered herself 
 and her concepts 6f others subject to it. To break the firm 
 belief in the inevitability of death, it early became necessary 
 for her to shatter the concept of human fatherhood. To this 
 end the manner of the Master's advent into human conscious- 
 ness was as a guiding light through a vale black with mortal 
 ignorance. In this light, as the years went by, she saw the 
 actual fatherhood of God become less mystical, less theoretical, 
 and more and more a fact, urging its own demonstration. And 
 with this came a loosening of the claims of matter, greater 
 freedom from its unprincipled restlessness, and a breaking of 
 the chains of those human passions and relationships which 
 lead deluded mankind into the perpetration of every phase of 
 evil. 
 
 But the slightest perception of Truth contains within itself 
 the demand for its demonstration: the kingdom of heaven — 
 harmony — is not in word, but in power. Often the admonition 
 of Madam Galuth came to her: "It is not what you say that 
 counts, but what you demonstrate!" And her experience had 
 been of demonstrations made while the shells of evil were 
 bursting around her, while deadly fear sought to drug her with 
 its lethal fumes, and the barrage of aggressive mental sugges- 
 tions of power opposed to God blocked her advance. 
 
 A live truth frightens the timid world: though it listen, yet 
 will it flee in relief back to animality, in gratitude back to the 
 comforting lie. Truth stirs its suppositional opposite, error, to 
 its depths. So Otto Hoeffel had been profoundly stirred by this 
 girl, his captive, and his carnal nature, mortally terrified, had 
 sought safety in bestiality. Marian knew this, had long fore- 
 seen it; and as, day by day, she had sat by the dying Cragg, 
 she had striven to realize that the prison, the cross, the tortures 
 devised by the frightened carnal mind, although things appar- 
 ently seen by human vision, nevertheless did not originate in 
 things apparent to the human senses, but were misconceptions 
 of spiritual realities, formed in and by the mortal mind. She 
 strove to take refuge in the "secret place of the Most High," 
 in that absolute Truth which the Master had said would free 
 mankind from its torturing beliefs in the reality and perma- 
 nence of matter. Paul had taught that things were not what 
 they seemed — that the evidence of the physical senses was not 
 to be trusted for either good or evil, since physical phenomena 
 do not in any manner originate in "the things which do appear" 
 to these senses. Evil had presented itself — even as did Goliath 
 — as size and might and terribleness in the Teutonic hosts which 
 
 126 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 had overrun the fields of Europe; yet Christendom had been 
 summoned to meet naught but the mesmerism wielded by the 
 "liar from the beginning". So now, torn from the man she 
 had striven to save — condemned to worse than death — immured 
 in stone and steel — borne by these blinded sons of Esau to the 
 den of the Assyrian to become his toy for a brief day — through 
 it all, Marian strove to know that the only enemy of mankind 
 is the supposition that denies God's omnipotence, and that the 
 death hovering over Alden Cragg was but the denial of the 
 metaphysical fact that Man forever lives as the active reflec- 
 tion of the infinite Consciousness that is God. 
 
 "It is not man who is culpable, but the communal mortal 
 mind that so constantly suggests evil to him and acts through 
 him as a channel to accomplish his destruction and that of his 
 associates" — thus had Marian reasoned again and again in her 
 past experience in meeting the false claims of error. So did 
 she seek to regard Otto Hoeffel, as she stood again alone with 
 him in his apartment and faced his awful anger. . . 
 
 "I am going to break you ! . . . breaA: you!" he raged. "For 
 you there has come an end ! You are England's spawn ! I treat 
 you as a gentleman — you betray my confidence! You seduce 
 the brainless MuUer with your undemonstrable philosophy and 
 send him to his death! Lieb' Gott! do you think to so seduce 
 me? Do I not know that Penberry's influence launched this 
 Palestine campaign? Do I not know that you seduced him? 
 You come here to find Cragg? Bah! you come as Penberry's 
 spy ! You hide behind religion ! You think I have not followed 
 your career, eh? You carry things with a high hand in Crestel- 
 ridge, yes! You dispute with the silly rector of St. Jude's; you 
 proclaim your undemonstrable theories from the street corners ; 
 you oppose Doctor Roake; you persecute Cragg into the army 
 and pursue him to his death! You think I don't know this? 
 You spurn my honest love! . . ." 
 
 He stopped and stood glaring at her. She remained facing 
 him, yet seeing and hearing him not. From the streets came 
 the ruinbling noise of traffic, mingling with cries and shouts 
 and hurried talk. From the ancient keep below there arose 
 confused sounds, as if of tramping feet and subdued voices. A 
 murmur of hushed conversation drew nearer, and, as the major 
 turned, several German officers came hurriedly into the apart- 
 ment, with a terrified-looking Turkish officer in their midst. 
 "Enver !" the latter blurted, his limbs shaking; "he has returned 
 from Hebron! Jerusalem is to be ordered evacuated!" He 
 spoke in French, and his voice shrilled off in a mounting 
 crescendo. 
 
 "It is as he reports!" corroborated one of the German 
 
 127 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 officers, in the same tongue. "And the Turkish troops threaten 
 a massacre of the Germans! Colonel Baum sends for you, 
 Major! It is decided to hold a ball at his headquarters, to 
 occupy the Turkish officers and hold their troops quiet while 
 our preparations for removing the German Military Mission go 
 forward! Bring what ladies you can muster! Our men are 
 out collecting women for the dance ! It is of the highest impor- 
 tance! We must make haste!" 
 
 The major cursed low as he sprang to collect his documents 
 and effects preparatory to leaving. As he moved he shouted 
 various orders, and several of the officers hurried off to execute 
 them. "It is the dance of death!" he muttered. "Lieb' Gott! 
 it is the dance of death! We are lost!" 
 
 "Von Falkenhayn orders all Americans deported," said one 
 of the remaining officers, looking significantly toward Marian, 
 who had stood, silent, pale, and wrestling with her madly whirl- 
 ing thought. 
 
 "She is my wife!" cried the major, catching the innuendo. 
 
 "Is it so?" the officer asked of Marian. 
 
 She turned. The question seemed to rouse her. "No," she 
 answered. 
 
 "Himmel!" the major shouted, exasperated beyond bounds, 
 "she is American, English spawn, and she is my concubine! 
 She goes with me!" 
 
 "Then bring her and come!" 
 
 "DochI give us to drink, Otto!" 
 
 "Wine! wine!" 
 
 "Call the Egyptian!" cried the major. "Schenk' ein! schenk' 
 ein!" 
 
 Confusion and uproar now filled the apartment. The major 
 summoned the Egyptian, his orderly, servants, soldiers, and 
 feverishly threw his most valuable effects into grips and valises. 
 Some of the officers hurried out and quickly returned with 
 bottles of liquor. Shouts were raised; songs burst forth; and 
 there were curses and foul oaths. An officer seized Marian and 
 drew her down beside him on the divan; others rushed to them 
 and began to struggle for possession of her. The major threw 
 himself upon them and hurled them from her, then seized her 
 hand and rushed her to the exit and into the street, where his 
 car awaited. A moment later they were speeding through the 
 black night. . . 
 
 In the streets all was confusion, hurry, but now overlaid 
 with mysterious silence. German engineers were tearing down 
 wires; the loose ends caught in the wheels of the speeding car 
 and* drew volleys of oaths from the workmen. Soldiers, Ger- 
 man and Turkish, glared at one another with feverish, threaten- 
 
 128 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing eyes ... a stone hurled in their midst would have pre- 
 cipitated a massacre. Panic-stricken inhabitants jammed the 
 narrow thoroughfares . . . some were left crushed against 
 walls in lifeless, shapeless masses. Fear dominated the mind 
 and palzied the reason. Machine guns and cannon of small 
 bore were being dragged into the gates and planted upon roofs 
 and among houses. British prisoners were being herded 
 through the streets with burdens of explosives to mine the prin- 
 cipal buildings and leave the sacred city an empty shell. . . 
 
 The house to which Marian and the major were driven lay 
 in the oldest part of the city, down past the site of Herod's 
 palace and close to the first wall. In the early centuries of the 
 Christian era it might have been a Roman palace. Doubtless 
 it had been restored and rebuilt many times, but the original 
 design must have been closely adhered to, and probably much 
 of the rare marble and exquisite mosaic work remained quite 
 as it was in the days of the Caesars. During the ride thither, 
 through the rough, narrow, thronged streets, the girl had been 
 almost oblivious of her surroundings. The major had sat in 
 sodden silence beside her. And when the car stopped and she 
 was lifted down and led through the ancient portal, her thought 
 was very far from that of which her physical senses appeared 
 to be giving such vivid testimony. The meaning of this func- 
 tion which she was thus forced to grace by her presence — this 
 preliminary expression of the abandoned thought that was so 
 soon to become the guiding motive of millions of deluded victims 
 of the shattered dream of Weltmacht — had not impressed her 
 preoccupied mentality. But as she crossed the threshold the 
 crash of a military band startled her, and she stopped, shudder- 
 ing. The major grasped her arm and pushed her forward, 
 through the ancient atrium, past a ruined fountain, and up a 
 winding marble stairway to a great upper room, garishly deco- 
 rated, brilliantly lighted, and thronged with a heterogeneous mob 
 of humanity, seemingly gathered from every corner of the world. 
 A lovv, cynical laugh broke from the major as they entered. 
 "It is the dance of death!" he repeated thickly. His voice was 
 bitter as dregs, and the laugh that followed his words had a 
 hollow, despairing sound. 
 
 Shrills of delight greeted the couple when they appeared 
 in the doorway, and a dozen officers, civilians, and women of 
 all grades — the latter in khaki, cotton, or silk, garishly rouged 
 and bedizened — rushed upon them with delirious cries and a 
 medley of languages. The major attempted to cling to Marian, 
 but a stout, drunken officer tore her from his grasp and whirled 
 off with her across the uneven tiled floor. He did not dance : 
 he plunged like a maddened bull. The tempo of the music 
 
 129 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 rapidly increased. The officer stumbled and fell prone* Another 
 tossed aside his partner and seized Marian before she could 
 catch her breath. Again she was whisked away, colliding at 
 every step with pushing, straining, yelling bourgeois, with Ger- 
 man, Turk, and Austrian of every rank, who were tearing madly 
 about the room with their arms around the wives and daugh- 
 ters of bankers, warriors, tradesmen, gamblers, or the houris 
 and demimondaines, the libertines and backwash of the alleys 
 and scums. There was no joy, no real gaiety manifested in that 
 saturnalia; it was but an orgy of defiance, a manifestation of 
 spiritual hopelessness, the madness of desperation that follows 
 upon dashed ambitions, lost fortunes, wrecked lives, broken 
 nerves, and seared brains. To these insane revellers the Book 
 of the Future was now closed, the Damoclean sword was fall- 
 ing, their mirth was lamentation, their gay music a sob. This 
 wild night alone remained to them : they would eat, they would 
 drink, they would revel, then miserably die, with the last dregs 
 of sensual pleasure souring in their starved souls! 
 
 So rudely had Marian been torn from Cragg in the gloomy 
 prison of Antonia and plunged into this mad riot that there 
 had been little opportunity for ordered thought. It was all 
 but a medley of conflicting sense-impressions. Yet she tried 
 to know — tried to cling to the saving fact — that there, where 
 these revolting physical manifestations appeared to be, right 
 there was the real spiritual idea, perfect, eternal, regardless of 
 and untouched by the fleeting, changing, material concept of it. 
 Through it all she strove to say: "Father, I thank Thee!" — 
 to live her gratitude for the great metaphysical truth that 
 nothing perceived by the five physical senses has a real 
 existence. 
 
 Then she felt herself caught from the arms of a galloping 
 young Austrian lieutenant and borne into an adjoining room. 
 She was again with the major, who had exchanged the orgy 
 of the dance for that of the gaming iable. Everywhere in this 
 smaller room were roulette tables, baccarat, and rouge et noir. 
 And there were other tables, stacked high with food and wine. 
 Corks were popping, glasses clinking, coarse laughter and 
 shrill raillery rising through the thick veil of tobacco smoke. 
 On a dias at the rear of the room two dancing girls were gam- 
 boling about in mock pretense of eluding a pair of scantily clad 
 and befuddled satyrs. 
 
 The major tossed a handful of bills upon the roulette table. 
 The ball spun, clicked to a stop, and the bills were scooped up 
 by the croupier. The major laughed raucously and snapped 
 his fingers. "Bah! to-night — ^who knows? — the world shall 
 end!" He wheeled, still clinging to Marian's arm, and drew 
 her away. "I have you I" he cried; "I am rich!" 
 
 130 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Through the wild pack of humanity he threaded his way 
 with the girl to a small door that led out upon a tessellated 
 corridor, palm-lined and dimly lighted, with divans and settles 
 placed at intervals along the stone wall. Upoii one of these 
 he fell and drew her down beside "him. "It is the Gdtterddm- 
 merung!" he muttered; "it is the dance of death!" motioning 
 back toward the great hall. His eyes were big and his words 
 came feverishly. "But," throwing his arms about her, "you 
 and I, we shall live! we shall live!" 
 
 She started up, but he pulled her back. "Liebschen!" he 
 cried hoarsely, "the world, the old world that you and I knew 
 before this hellish war, it is gone! My nation is sinking with 
 it . . . the German Empire dies! But I shall live! . . . and 
 you with me! We shall go back to . . . America! • . . Ach, 
 Liebschen, if you could prove your so interesting philosophy, 
 you could save . . .!" 
 
 She struggled from his close embrace and got to her feet. 
 He rose and gripped her by the arm's. "Cragg is dead . . . but 
 he could not be saved!" he cried. "Though he had lived, yet 
 he would be shot! . . . Ach, too many of us know how his 
 father screwed the German merchants down and bled them of 
 their money! . . . how the Turkish tobacco growers groaned 
 under his oppression! The sins of the father would be visited 
 on the son! Thank your God that he is already dead! . . . 
 
 "Look, Liebschen, down this corridor is a door; we will 
 escape through it . . . and then, away! away from this hell- 
 hole of horror and treachery and death. . . I love you, Lieb- 
 schen; I cannot lose you to the Turks! Lieb' Gott! but I have 
 had trouble enough to protect you from them already! . . ." 
 
 His words were drowned in a burst of laughter. He released 
 Marian and sprang to his feet. A noisy, chattering group of 
 revellers came rushing out upon the corridor. 
 
 "Bon Dieul" shrilled a coarse-featured, half-naked woman, 
 as she dashed down upon the major and flung her arms about 
 his neck. "You slip away with your little charmer and we 
 starve! She shall taste my knife!" She stood back and stared 
 mockingly at Marian. "Poof! she is not half so pretty as 1!" 
 
 "Who is she. Major?" and "Present us, sly one!" chorused 
 the men as they crowded about. "Gott! what a figure." 
 
 "It is the prisoner he keeps in Antonia! The little Amer- 
 ican. . ." 
 
 "Amerika!" bellowed a bulking German officer, pushing 
 rudely forward. "Gott strafe Amerika! Gott strafe . . ." 
 
 "Hold, Baltzer!" shouted the major, confronting the speaker, 
 his own face white with anger and fear. "This lady .... she 
 is my wife! Tell them that it is so!" he cried, turning to 
 Marian. 
 
 131 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The revellers fell back with exclamations of astonishment. 
 Marian looked beseechingly into the anxious face of the major, 
 then into the grinning, leering ones before her. "No," she said, 
 shaking her head, "it is not so." 
 
 A shout broke from the tabble, and they swarmed forward 
 again. "Ha! they quarrel, the little lovers!" 
 
 "But she is wise not to waste herself on the major, when 
 there are so much better ones! Look at me, pretty one!" 
 
 "America has thjown you over. Major!" bawled a fat, pufif- 
 ing Teuton. "Now the rest of us have a chance ! Take me. . ." 
 He seized Marian's arm. 
 
 "No, she's mine!" Another threw his arms around the girl. 
 
 "No! to the highest bidder!" 
 
 "Bon Dieu! a raffle, a raffle!" the coarse-featured woman 
 cried. 
 
 The suggestion ran through the crowd like an infection. 
 The raging major was pounced upon and held pinioned, while, 
 amid shouts and coarse badinage, Marian was seized and 
 dragged back into the gaming room. There she was received 
 with further demonstrations of glee. The dias was swept clear 
 of its motley dancers, and the girl placed upon it, facing the 
 excited crowd. A big Turkish officer with hideously repulsive 
 features clambered up beside her and, with his heavy paw on 
 her shoulder, announced himself as auctioneer. 
 
 Bids were shouted; soon they were thrown fast and furious. 
 Bedlam. quickly broke over the room. Shouts and gibes filled 
 the air. Crowds poured in from the hall beyond, attracted by 
 the unwonted noise. Marian faced them, white and trembling. 
 And yet there ceased not to run through her thought the 
 refrain: "Thy God whom thou servest continually, He will 
 deliver thee." But she applied its comforting assurance, not 
 to herself, but to the man from whom she had been torn for this 
 mocking spectacle. "He will deliver thee, Alden ... He will 
 deliver . . . He . . ." A deep sigh broke from her dry lips. 
 She was unspeakably weary; the battle had been long. . . 
 
 The shouts increased with the frenzied bidding. The girl 
 was good to look upon, and lustful eyes glittered and bulged. 
 The excitement waxed greater. Quarrels at length broke out; 
 epithets were hurled; blows were exchanged. The packed mass 
 of struggling, drink-crazed, despairing humanity began surging 
 angrily, menacingly back and forth. 
 
 Then pandemonium seized the helm and steered them into 
 mania. They fell to fighting, to striking, gouging, yelling, curs- 
 ing. Up against the dias they crowded; then iipon it. The 
 girl's clothing was all but torn from her. The huge Turk, the 
 girl's auctioneer, beat the mob back with fist and boot. They 
 
 132 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 swarmed hissing upon him. He evaded them, seized Marian 
 in his great arms, and fought a bloody way to a door that stood 
 behind the dias. Through this he thrust the girl. Again he 
 faced the mob. Then, with a final fusillade of blows upon his 
 maddened pursuers, he made a swift, cat-like movement, 
 jammed the door shut against their faces, and threw the antique 
 bolt. His clothing was fairly stripped from his body; his head 
 streamed blood; but an exultant leer sat upon his repulsive 
 features. A moment for breath, and he had the girl under an 
 arm and started down the corridor. . . 
 
 But from behind a large palm a form arose. A bludgeon 
 hissed through the air and fell crashing full upon his head, 
 dropping him like an ox. A dark hand grasped Marian's. The 
 girl gave a cry: she recognized the Egyptian woman. . . 
 
 Then consciousness fled. 
 
 CHAPTER 21 
 
 WHEN her eyes opened Marian found herself looking 
 through a heavy Turkish veil into the black night. She 
 was sitting in an angle of the old wall, huddled close 
 to the Egyptian woman, who held her hand tightly. When she 
 stirred the woman bent over her and spoke rapidly in a whisper. 
 "Quiet, little flower! I have been waiting for you to wake. I 
 could not carry you further. If you are strong now, we must 
 
 go." 
 
 Marian struggled to her feet and stood swaying. The woman 
 stood up beside her and threw an arm about her waist. "Keep 
 the veil on, then you will not be known. They will follow us. 
 It cannot be more than ten minutes since we left them. Come!" 
 
 Marian passed a hand across her brow. Her thought slowly 
 cleared. Then she started away with the woman. But pres- 
 ently she halted. Though unfamiliar with the city, she felt a 
 sense of erring direction. "Where are we going?" she asked 
 in a shaking voice. 
 
 "To a friend. You will be safe there." 
 
 "No! I must go back. . ." 
 
 "You cannot. The major will go there." 
 
 "I must go! Alden ..." 
 
 "He is dead. The major ordered a report made of his 
 death. A prisoner had come to get the body before I left. By 
 this time he is buried." 
 
 Dead! Buried! The fell words smote upon her, and her 
 knees gave way. She seized the Egyptian's arm to keep from 
 
 133 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 failing. An outcry died in her throat'. The black night swept 
 over her in a crushing flood. She seemed to sink through the 
 sable waves, with satanic laughter ringing in her ears. It was 
 the triumphant mockery of the last enemy. . . 
 
 "I can get you out of the city and . . ." the Egyptian was 
 saying in a voice that seemed to come from afar. 
 
 Marian caught herself; the woman's words had saved her 
 from oblivion. "I . . . must . . . go . . . to him!" she gasped. 
 
 "Little flower, it would be worse than death for you!" 
 
 "No! no! Do not hold me!" Marian tore herself from the 
 woman's grasp and darted away into the darkness. 
 
 She had no idea of direction; the pavement was rough and 
 broken; but she clung to the wall, with one hand against it to 
 guide her, and a mental hand stretched out to that unseen 
 Guide whose inerrancy she had essayed to prove to a mocking 
 world. With the slow passing of the first stunning effects of 
 the ill tidings her mentality began to clear. Strangely, it 
 appeared to her to become detached — she seemed to see it like 
 an arena prepared for combat. Dimly she sensed the drawing 
 up of the lists, the defiant challenges, the loud boasts of the 
 combatants— and then the clash, with death hurling itself in 
 venomous fury against Life, and supported by minions and 
 equerries, the supposedly irrefutable testimony of the physical 
 senses, the seemingly, unbreakable weapons of material evi- 
 dence, of untold ages of beliefs accepted without resistance by 
 countless millions whose moldering graves crowd the fair earth. 
 So real, so tangible, did the combat present itself to her mental 
 gaze that she stumbled, sank to her knees, then pulled herself 
 up and stood clinging to the broken wall. . . 
 
 Then a hand was laid upon her arm, and she turned to find 
 the Egyptian again at her side. "Come," the woman whispered 
 hoarsely; "I will take you back." Together they started away 
 and plunged down a sloping alley, where they were swallowed 
 by the devouring gloom. 
 
 A heavy pall lay over the embattled city. In the shrouded 
 streets, where long since had echoed the footsteps of the Man 
 of Sorrows, eerie forms glided like dead memories of the 
 ghostly past. A cold rain drizzled through the murk; mud lay 
 upon the pavements and clung to their feet with hindering 
 embrace. Marian and the Egyptian, hand in hand, crept 
 through the blackness in silence, unmolested, and gained again 
 the ancient Tower. 
 
 As the girl rushed from the corridor into the big room she 
 uttered a cry: Cragg lay there as she had left him. . . 
 
 Then she stopped. lii the sallow light she saw a man kneel- 
 ing beside the cot, his head buried in his hands. A shovel and 
 
 134 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 pick lay on the stone floor near him. Marian's heart ceased 
 to beat; then it leaped and pounded wildly. She plunged for- 
 ward. The kneeling figure moved, slowly rose, and turned, 
 tall, spectral, ghastly, to face her. 
 
 For an instant the two stood staring at each other mutely. 
 Then the man spoke: and his words were borne on sepulchral 
 tones. "It is Alden Cragg! . . . Dead! . . . And, God of my 
 fathers, / . . . killed . . . him!" 
 
 A gasp broke from the girl. Despite the welter of her 
 thought she recognized the man. It was David Barach! 
 
 ' The Egyptian hurried up with a lighted candle, which she 
 thrust into the man's face. "Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "you 
 are a prisoner, sent here to bury the body?" And her question 
 was couched in perfect English, although the fact then made 
 no impress upon the girl. 
 
 Nor did Barach seem to hear her. He had turned again to 
 the cot. Again he sank beside it. "God of my fathers!" he 
 sobbed, "his blood is on my head! His blood! ... his blood! 
 I am a murderer! ... a murderer! , . ." 
 
 To Marian it was as if a steel band were clamped around 
 her head and being drawn tighter, ever tighter, until the awful 
 pressure must soon crush her skull and scatter the raging, 
 swelling tumult of thought that seemed pent within. She stood 
 benumbed, her eyes riveted upon the suffering man who rocked 
 back and forth on his knees by the cot, pouring out the agony 
 of his riven soul. 
 
 "I shot him! I followed him from Crestelridge to kill 
 him ! I thought she would want it ! God of my fathers ! Now 
 she points her finger at me and calls me a murderer, , ." 
 
 Marian dropped down gasping beside him. "You! . . . Then 
 you shot him? . . . Oh, God forgive you! . . ." 
 
 The Egyptian stood regarding the scene in blank astonish- 
 ment. Through the shadows Marian's hand stole out and 
 found Cragg's. The miasmatic mist that went up from the 
 earth, that came drifting down through the mildewed cor- 
 ridors, seemed to envelop her with its subtle poison. The victim 
 of hate lay prostrate before her, unmoved by the agony of the 
 suffering penitent who had lent himself its pliant tool. Barach's 
 low moans voiced the girl's own unfathomable agony. His 
 wails echoed dismally through the empty chambers of her own 
 desolated soul. Dead! And she was hanging from the cross 
 with the abandoned Nazarene, her mission, like his, defeated, 
 ridiculed. . . 
 
 "What doest thou here, Elijah?" 
 
 She turned her head, as if to a voice. Her torn soul sprang 
 to answer the Unseen. "I have been very jealous for the Lord 
 
 135 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy 
 covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with 
 the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, 
 to take it away". . . 
 
 Of a sudden she leaped to her feet with a piercing cry. "He 
 is not dead! He lives! He lives I" 
 
 The Egyptian fell back; the candle slipped from her shak- 
 ing hand and clattered upon the floor. Barach raised his drawn, 
 stained face in dumb hopelessness. Marian seemed surcharged 
 with a mighty, invisible, intangible power. "Go!" she cried; 
 "leave me . . . alone . . . with him!" 
 
 The Egyptian stood open-mouthed for an awe-filled moment. 
 Then, silently, and with a look in her face that indicated a 
 depth of comprehension as yet unvoiced, she took Barach's 
 arm, urged him to his feet, and led him slowly from the room. 
 The heavy door swung softly shut behind them, and the girl 
 was left alone in the dungeon with death. 
 
 Through the deep windows of the old Tower the darkness 
 poured steadily, like the unstemmed flood of error which, from 
 the beginning, has sought to drown the Word. Alone stood 
 the girl who, in meek consecration, had relinquished the world 
 that she might find the Christ, which, finding, she would reflect 
 to a dying humanity. Terror rose up through the night about 
 her in myriad hideous shapes. Death leered exultant at her 
 over the low cot. A fate more loathsome than death was driv- 
 ing upon her from without. Failure of her life-mission assailed 
 her in lurid suggestions that boomed through her mind like 
 the roar of cannon. So, twenty centuries before, had these 
 same enemies assailed the Nazarene as he drooped from the 
 tree, beyond these walls, and grappled with death. 
 
 She turned. Before her lay Alden Cragg, waiting, as mortal 
 mind has lain long years waiting for the troubling of Bethesda's 
 waters. But Truth had again caused sin to betray itself: 
 Marian knew now that it was Barach's 'deadly hatred that had 
 struck Cragg down. And hatred is the suppositional opposite 
 of the Love that is Life. 
 
 She did not hate Barach — nay, thus to personalize the error 
 would but render real it and its effects. To forgive him as 
 but the channel of animal magnetism's lying suggestions — for 
 thus the Master forgave — and to love the real man as the Son 
 of God, would neutralize the error and lift its victim out of the 
 sensuality that is itself death. It was to her all a part of the 
 unreal dream, for in God's universe there could be no murder. 
 Again had the Jew sought to destroy the Word by killing its 
 keeper. The "one lie" that had urged Caiaphas to slay the 
 Christ-truth had again struck to kill him in whom it should 
 appear. Yet only through the Christ is the Jew saved. . . 
 
 136 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Reality seems always to have its shadow in unreality. 
 Because the mental concepts of the mortal mind miss the mark, 
 they die. Yet death is not real, and Man does not die. 
 
 What dies, then? What but the human concept, from the 
 beginning so mistakenly called "man"? And what, then, is 
 human life? What can it be but — as has been aptly said — 
 "the symbolizing of Truth's destruction of human ignorance"? 
 "There is only one good," said Diogenes Laertius, "namely, 
 knowledge; and only one evil, namely, ignorance." And Marian 
 had learned, through fear and trembling, that evil, error, is not 
 real, but a negation, the absence of knowledge, and therefore 
 ignorance itself. To know God is Life eternal. Men die because 
 they do not know enough to live. 
 
 Was it, then, the Nazarene's knowledge of Life as eternal 
 Principle that broke the chains of this mortal belief and 
 demonstrated the indestructibility of the real Man? Small 
 wonder that, knowing this, he could deny the reality of death, 
 even while confronted by its glaring material evidence. And 
 the girl knew as now she walked with Alden Cragg through 
 the shrouded valley that she must demonstrate this same knowl- 
 edge of God as immutable' Life, or witness the externalization 
 there before her of its hideous opposing belief. "If he sleep 
 he shall do well," the knowing world would comment, and 
 triumphantly point to its graves and its tombs. But the tes- 
 timony of physical sense has been proved to be only the beliefs 
 and opinions of the human mind, for even the world's philos- 
 ophers have shown unmistakably that men see, feel, hear, taste, 
 and smell only their own thoughts, and these but in belief. 
 
 But how to make such vital metaphysical knowledge prac- 
 tical? Yet Jesus made it eminently so, and he did it again 
 and again, by denying the testimony of sense, while affirming 
 the allness of his Father, God. For Life and death, he well 
 knew, cannot dwell side by side if both be real, since Truth 
 and error cannot both be true. Good and evil cannot both be 
 real and each primal. Always Truth precedes, and error dogs 
 its steps with its snarling demand for acknowledgment. And 
 those who acknowledge it are by it devoured. 
 
 To God — and often the girl had reasoned thus — no one can 
 die, for the infinite Mind that created all that is real sees always 
 His own reflection, which can never fade while He endures. If 
 man really lives, he can never die. Thus reasoned Paul; and 
 thus for him was death swallowed up in victory. The pass- 
 ing from consciousness of the human concept misnamed man 
 is, for it, death. Yet nothing dies, and death is not proved. 
 And this human concept is seen to be but a mental thing — 
 not Man ! — existing only by consentaneous human consent and 
 
 137 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 belief. Such belief has decreed that it must die; and forth- 
 with, obeying this law, it takes its sorrowful departure — only 
 to witness to the stupendous truth that there is no death! 
 
 Again, as often before, Marian knew that, though it wore 
 the terrifying mask of death, she was dealing with but a mental 
 thing. That erroneous concept could not form in her con- 
 sciousness and manifest there if she could but control the 
 thoughts, the beliefs, the human opinions from which such 
 concepts are fashioned. And if it appeared to be already 
 formed within her consciousness, it might be destroyed by the 
 solvent action of the facts regarding it, for a lie cannot live 
 in the light of Truth. 
 
 The shadows deepened. The noises from the street died 
 away. Silence, tense, ominous, hung over the ruined Tower. 
 Death stalked along its dank corridors and into the murky 
 prison where Marian now sat; it came fresh from the fields 
 below, where, because of mortal hatred of Truth, it had gar- 
 nered a harvest abundant and rich. And fear trailed in its 
 wake, "the terror by night". , 
 
 But fear leans on the staff of belief in personality. It rests 
 always on error, for one (Jannot fear that which is real, since 
 the real is the good. Its support is ever in material systems 
 of thought. Remove this false support and face death with 
 Truth, and the gaunt spectre must perforce slink back to its 
 fens and acknowledge that the thousands who have yielded their 
 sense of life in this carnage of hate have not gone on, but are 
 still where they were. For them, the dream has gone out, 
 vanished; yet nothing has happened to them, nothing really 
 taken place. The mortal mind expresses itself in matter; yet 
 demonstrably matter does neither live nor die. Mortal mind 
 weaves it and fashions its forms on its own looms of thought, 
 animates it, controls it with its erroneous beliefs, and mourns 
 that it cannot sustain it on its foundation of error. The girl 
 knew, as she faced again the Terror, that she herself had died, 
 died, died, many times in the years that were gone; knew that 
 she had passed out of beliefs and their conditions to which 
 she could never return; knew that she had risen above claims 
 of sense that could now touch her no more, even as Paul had 
 died daily to material belief and the testimony of the five 
 senses. She knew that it had all taken place in consciousness; 
 and she knew that her thought determined her consciousness. 
 She knew that man is not born of matter and mind ; knew, too, 
 that the dead cannot be raised until the true meaning of birth 
 is realized, for the belief that man dies is inseparably linked 
 to the belief that he is born. She knew that until the false 
 education regarding youth and age, growth, decay, is annihi- 
 
 138 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 lated by the right education as to the Allness of the Mind that 
 is God, and the incurability of disease and the inevitableness 
 of death be thereby driven back to their origin, the "one lie" 
 about the Creator and His eternal idea, Man, death must endure. 
 But to do this she knew she must plunge into that spiritual 
 realm of reality which the physical senses cannot cognize and 
 of which they give no testimony whatsoever, but an incessant 
 denial. 
 
 And was this possible to her? She knew that of her own 
 self she could do nothing; yet she would watch with the Christ 
 an hour, yea, until the fourth watch, for "the eternal stars 
 shine out as soon as it is dark enough" . , . and the Christ, 
 the Truth about all things, walks the waves of error when 
 they are highest. The hour of demonstration was upon her. 
 The time had come when, humanly alone, she must take all the 
 understanding which she possessed and stand. She knew she 
 must "take no thought what ye shall say," knew that "in that 
 same hour it shall be given you". And, standing on that knowl- 
 edge, the spiritual truths that she had learned, that she had in 
 part demonstrated, came to her as the spiritual weapons need- 
 ful in this hour of combat. 
 
 From the distant corners of the world that black night there 
 streamed incessantly upward the wailing query : "Is it well with 
 the child?" And parent and kin were answering with a sobbing 
 "No." They were not laying their dead upon the prophet's bed, 
 but were still seeking unto the physicians, the professors, the 
 material sources from which can come no remedy for suffering 
 and woe. But Marian had answered in the affirmative. 
 
 The Giver of life cannot be the giver of death; nor can Life 
 be in or of matter and its evanescent forms. Mind is the infinite 
 Creator, and it must have its eternal expression in ideas par- 
 taking of its own eternal nature. And the creative Mind is Life, 
 independent of death and the limitations of matter. The Shu- 
 nammite's faith was Marian's, a faith that had flowered into spir- 
 itual understanding. Though the striking prophecy of Daniel 
 refer to her and her age, though "some of them of understand- 
 ing shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them 
 white, even to the time of the end," yet she thanked her God 
 for the trial and rose thereby to such heights that she could 
 cry with joy: "It is well!" ... 
 
 She had cried aloud, and the responding echo of her voice 
 boomed through the stone chamber and down the vaulted halls 
 beyond. It startled her; she raised her head and sat listening. 
 The still form on the cot now seemed to her a thing detached — 
 it was not Alden Cragg, could not be, never had been! All, 
 herself, her universe, had become impersonal, and she no longer 
 
 139 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 saw with human vision; she was no longer materially envi- 
 roned; she looked not out through the prison windows, but 
 into them from infinity; to her the real Man did not lie there 
 with the dew of death upon his brow, for the sum total of death 
 she saw to be a mental belief, as false as the opposite belief 
 that Man is born into a thing of matter and mind; the testimony 
 that had doomed Alden Cragg to extinction she now knew was 
 cruelly, foully false ! . . . 
 
 She sprang to her feet. She kn^w that she was not alone, 
 for the infinitude of God was crowding upon her. A rushing 
 sense of gratitude swept over her. Her bosom heaved. Her eyes 
 flooded. Her hand went out and hovered over the form on the 
 cot. "Father," she breathed, "I thank Thee that at last I know 
 that there is nothing between Thee and him!" 
 
 She turned and bent quickly over the prostrate man. . . 
 
 He had appeared to himself to lie for some time with eyes 
 open, as if detached from his body. Then he moved an arm ; but 
 a great pain shot through him, and he let it fall. He turned 
 his head slowly. He saw himself in a small stone room, lying 
 on a pallet of straw, and he noted that his body was swathed in 
 cloth. His limbs were free and unshackled. Light streamed 
 in through a narrow grated window. Then the silence was 
 broken by a sound. He turned his head again, and saw Miriam 
 entejing the doorway. 
 
 She came swiftly to him and knelt trembling at his side. 
 "My Crassius," she cried excitedly; "you live!" 
 
 He lay motionless, looking up at her. Though he remem- 
 bered her, yet now she seemed transfigured. Her face was 
 illumined. Her eyes shone with a new light. "I have seen him ! 
 Him!" she whispered in tones of awe, as if answering his 
 unvoiced query. 
 
 She sat back and looked off into space. He watched her, 
 vaguely wondering. "I saw him in the Temple," she mused 
 softly. "He had just opened the eyes of one born blind. Think 
 of it ! Oh, how great he was ! His hair is blond ; it falls about 
 his shoulders, and is parted in the middle. His forehead is so 
 smooth, so serene, without marks or'wrinkles. His skin is fair, 
 and his cheeks pink. His beard is like his hair, and parted 
 the same. . . 
 
 "But it is his gaze, oh, his wondrous gaze, that holds 
 men! His eyes are blue, and big, and deep. Wisdom, frank- 
 ness, truth, shine from them. And they pierce the people 
 through and through. I heard him speak. It was the voice 
 of heaven. . . 
 
 "But, my Crassius, I neglect you! Yet I can scarce think 
 
 140 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of aught but him! . . . Your wounds, O Crassius, they mend, 
 and you will live, I know. Especially do I know it now, since 
 I have seen and heard him. I interceded with Procula for you, 
 for they had left you to die. She bade me nurse you back to 
 life; and so I have, these many days. And soon you will be 
 whole again. Then Procula has promised to make you her 
 sandalio, to have charge of the lady's sandals. You may no 
 longer leave the palace, but I, O my Crassius, will be your eyes 
 and ears and feet, and will bring you news of him whom now 
 I know to be the Christ. But — " and her voice was tinged with 
 anxiety " — even as I entered, it was reported that he had been 
 apprehended, and would be taken before Pilate. But Pilate 
 must needs set him free. . ." 
 
 "Set him free!" the slave echoed. His dormant memory was 
 alive again. "Go," he cried, "and when he is set at liberty, ask 
 him to make me free." 
 
 "Thou wert free now, O Crassius, if only thou couldst know 
 it," she returned gently. "And," she added, "forget thyself. 
 For the master teaches that those who think so constantly of 
 themselves shall be beaten with many stripes." 
 
 For some moments they both remained silent. Then the 
 girl continued. "The Master's doctrine — I have learned, O 
 Crassius, what it is. His wondrous power that enables him to 
 raise the dead, I know now what it is. Love, O Crassius, love ! 
 He loves our Father God more deeply than children love their 
 parents. He loves his fellow men more tenderly, truly, than a 
 strong man loves the maiden of his choice. It is such love as 
 this world ne'er has seen before. And thereby does he teach 
 that God is Love. Those who can love thus will never fear. 
 And when we cease to fear there ceases to be aught of evil for 
 us, I am persuaded. If you but loved as he teaches men to love, 
 O Crassius, your bonds would break. . . But eat and drink 
 now what I have brought. And fear not, for through me Pro- 
 cula has o'erlooked your disobedience." 
 
 She took her departure, and the slave was again alone. As 
 he lay, he strove to piece together the stray bits that memory 
 so grudgingly yielded him. How long he lay thus, he knew not, 
 for time had ceased to be; but at length his mental struggles 
 were again interrupted by Miriam's return. 
 
 She came in hurriedly and fell upon her knees beside his 
 pallet. Her face was white and drawn, and her body shook. 
 "My Crassius!" she cried; "they say — the wildest rumors!— 
 but Procula's agitation confirms it — that the Master was taken 
 before Pilate whilst I was here with you; that he has been 
 condemned, and is even now on the way to Golgotha ! It cannot 
 be! Oh, I would fly to him, but that Pilate has forbid that 
 
 141 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 any of his household should leave the palace this day! But — 
 he has all power, for he is the Christ! They cannot kill him! 
 It were not possible ! If he permits them to fix him to the cross, 
 he will come down and confound them! Oh, Procula is nigh 
 unto death with fear! Pilate paces the rooms like a disem- 
 bodied spirit! It is the end of all things, I know! O my Cras- 
 sius, this will prove if God indeed be Love!" 
 
 Long she talked, now confident, now fearful; yet of it all 
 he comprehended little, except that the one who of all others 
 might set him free was perhaps meeting his own death, leaving 
 him, the slave, in bondage forever. The thought maddened 
 him. He got to his feet, and, but for the girl, would have sought 
 escape. Then, under her gentle words he at length again 
 became calm. "I am working with thee and for thee, O my 
 Crassius," she strove to comfort. "Do thou work, as the Master 
 bids, to deny thyself and to know his Father as he doth know 
 Him." 
 
 She departed when the shadows had begun to gather, and 
 left him pondering her words. He lay calm, and now, strangely, 
 with a great sense of peace upon his thought. And as he lay he 
 seemed to himself to be undergoing a change. . . 
 
 Of a sudden a great wind swept through the prison in a 
 long, wailing moan. The straw was blown from his pallet; the 
 cloths were torn from his body. He sat bolt upright, for the 
 moment forgetful of self. Instantly the day was blotted out. 
 Inky darkness submerged all things. He sat stunned. But 
 terror spurred him, and he got to his knees, stood up, then 
 started away, crying loudly. 
 
 But scarce had he taken a step when a terrific explosion 
 rent the air. The massive walls of his prison rocked with the 
 shock — they parted before his bursting eyes, tottered, and fell 
 crashing around him in a crumbling mass of debris. 
 
 He did not realize that he remained unhurt. Panic seized 
 him, and he broke into a run. In a trice he was in the dark 
 street. There, at length, he discovered himself one of a yelling, 
 scrambling, terrified, maddened throng. 
 
 "It urns the Christ!" he heard on all sides. 
 
 "The very Son of God!" 
 
 "His blood is upon us!" 
 
 "Oh, woe is us! woe! woe!" . . . 
 
 Through the fearful gloom he saw multitudes beating their 
 breasts and crying aloud. He sped from them* terrified. The 
 streets appeared to twist and buckle as he fled; buildings 
 swayed, nodded, and fell with deafening roars. Lightning 
 flashed from the black sky overhead; thunder split and crashed. 
 He saw Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, tumbling madly over one 
 
 142 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 another in their wild flight through the pall of darkness. 
 Priests passed him, holding their robes aloft and crying anath- 
 emas upon those who blocked their way. Spectral things 
 flew past him, wrapped in moldering grave clothes. Demoniac 
 shrieks pierced his bleeding ears. Pandemonium had gripped 
 the city. Chaos held the reins and drove the senseless people 
 headlong to destruction. . . 
 
 Whither he fled, he knew not. He had lost all sense of 
 body; he seemed to himself a disincarnate spirit, driven by the 
 nowling wind. How long he ran from the accursed city, he 
 might not know. Perhaps it was hours ; yet time was no more. 
 That he outdistanced the maddened multitude he knew at 
 length, for silence closed in about him, and he saw himself 
 alone. 
 
 He glanced upward. The heavens were now clear and 
 studded with stars. He looked before him, and saw the shim- 
 mering waters of a sea. He halted on the shore. What, then, 
 was he fleeing? 
 
 A thought smote him like a blow: Miriam, who had sought 
 to save him, was back there! She remained with the Christ! 
 And the Christ was there, in the blackness of human sin, meet- 
 ing humanity's problems alone ! But he, the slave, was seeking 
 safety in flight! Safety for what? For his sense of self. 
 But Miriam and the Christ had no thought of self. . . 
 
 Self! He laughed. Self was the coward! Self was the 
 deserter of the Son of God! Self was the slave to the gods of 
 matter! It was this Self that was his mortal enemy! It was 
 this Self that he would be rid of ! . . . Ah, he would go back, 
 he would fight for the Christ and let this Self be slain for the 
 Master! What mattered now his own freedom, so be it that 
 the Christ whom he had stoned be saved? . . . 
 
 But how did he recall that he had stoned the Christ? Was 
 the link of memory now restored? Was the continuity of asso- 
 ciations reestablished? He remembered . . . God above! he 
 remembered that there were others who were stoning the 
 Christ! And he would save them this fearful torment into 
 which he had fallen! . . . 
 
 He turned; he would go back and fight for the abandoned 
 Christ! He would not beg the Christ to free him, but to send 
 to the mesmerized creatures still dwelling in the place from 
 which he now was conscious he had come, and bid them turn 
 from the path that was leading them straight thither! He 
 must go back to the Christ! 
 
 He again broke into a run — ^but checked himself abruptly: 
 a lion had risen in his path! He recognized it: the beast was 
 his human concept of Self! He hesitated. He was unarmed! 
 . . . Then he clenched his fists and strode toward it. 
 
 143 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The lion vanished, and where it had stood he now saw 
 Roman soldiers descending upon him. Fear again seized him. 
 He had been flogged, he remembered . . . this time it would 
 be unto death ! His blood curdled. He wheeled to flee — caught 
 himself as his thought, turned again to those whom he would 
 beg the abandoned Christ to save. But who were they? And 
 where? 
 
 On came the soldiers. They symbolized death, death in 
 awful torture — ^yet would he not abandon those still indis- 
 tinctly remembered ones who were so blindly hastening thither. 
 He straightened up and moved resolutely toward the soldiers. 
 
 Then he saw Self fall from him as a tattered garment, saw it 
 roll down the hill and into the sea. And as he watched it he 
 knew . . . God above! he knew that that hypnotic belief of Self 
 urns Alden Cragg! 
 
 And he knew then that those whom he would save were the 
 blinded worldlings of Crestelridge, the Whittiers, the Telluses, 
 Blacks, Kerls, Sayor, Roake! Their names rained upon him 
 now! It was for them that he was now seeking the Christ! 
 And as he went toward the soldiers he smiled. . . 
 
 But a great voice rang loudly in his ears, and he halted. 
 "God is your life! God is your life!" A light seemed to glow 
 behind him, whose effulgence embraced him as it were a cloud. 
 He saw the soldiers stop, blench with fear, then throw down 
 their arms and flee back over the hill. He turned. A great 
 white light stood out upon the sea. The wind roared terrify- 
 ingly, and the waves rolled mountain high. The light moved 
 over them and toward him. And as it moved he saw it take 
 shape. A cry burst from him. He sank to his knees and 
 stretched out his arms to it. Jesus, he now knew, was hanging 
 from the cross, but not the Christ! 
 
 On it drew. And before it the winds and waves dropped into 
 calm. He buried his head in his hands. . . 
 
 "Arise! Behold, thou art made whole!" 
 
 "Alden! Arise!" The voice rushed in upon him like a blast 
 through opened doors. "God is, your life!" . . . 
 
 His eyes slowly opened, and he looked up into the face of 
 Marian Whittier. He had come from the tomb, still bound 
 with the cerements of death. 
 
 144 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 22 
 
 THE breath rattled in his throat as he struggled for voice; 
 then it issued, hollow, void. Marian's heart leaped madly. 
 Her body shook. She seized the hand that he stretched 
 forth so feebly and drew him to a sitting posture. Then she 
 sank trembling to the floor beside him, still clinging to his 
 hand. 
 
 "Miriam!" His eyes roved wildly. His voice came from 
 unearthly realms. "Miriam! ... the Christ!" ... 
 
 At that instant came a sound of hurrying feet, and a loud, 
 angry exclamation. Marian sprang up and whirled about. 
 Major Hoeffel came rushing to her. "You, here, with this 
 corpse!" he cried. "Come away! They will be here any 
 moment. . . God in heaven!" His voice shot up in a piercing 
 cry, then dropped back and strangled in his palsied throat. 
 Cragg had risen, his tall form towering slowly upward in the 
 dim, flickering candlelight against a background of black shad- 
 ows like a dead giant rising from his grave. The major froze 
 in his tracks. Cold perspiration burst out over him.. His knees 
 sagged. . . 
 
 The kitchen door flew open, and the Egyptian and Barach, 
 startled by the major's sharp cry, rushed into the room. At 
 sight of Cragg, swaying unsteadily on his feet, Barach shrieked 
 wildly, wheeled, and madly fled. The Egyptian halted, stared 
 for a moment with bulging eyes and working features, then 
 came slowly forward and thrust her shaking candle up into 
 Cragg's ashen face. The silence of death again fell upon them 
 all, and they stood like wax images in the yellow light. 
 
 Then Cragg sank down upon the cot. The act broke the 
 awful strain. From Marian's lips burst a prayer : "My God, I 
 thank Thee!" She turned to Cragg — but stood suddenly still. 
 The man's hair, once raven black, was now white as drifted 
 snow! 
 
 The Egyptian turned and crept softly away, shaking as she 
 went. At the mouth of the corridor she stood for a moment, 
 listening. Reassured, she glided noiselessly from door to win- 
 dow, peering into the still night, listening with head cocked on 
 one side, and at length, with her candle bobbing in the spectral 
 darkness like a marshlight through funereal mists, she disap- 
 peared into the kitchen. 
 
 Cragg raised his sunken eyes. "I . . • have seen . • . the 
 Christ!" Then speech halted. 
 
 The major fell back. Terroi* shook him. Deathly nausea 
 
 145 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 seized him. His knees smote together. His body sagged. Yet 
 the awful sight held him fascinated. ' 
 
 Cragg was rising again. "I see it ... I see it . . . now," 
 he spoke slowly in a low, trembling, awed voice. "He shot 
 me . . . Barach! But the Christ called me back. ., ." 
 
 His eyes turned to Marian, who stood trembling before him. 
 For a moment he stared at her searchingly. Then a great 
 change came into his face. "Marian!" he suddenly cried in a 
 loud voice; "Marian Whittier, what are you doing here?" 
 
 The tension snapped, and the girl burst into tears and buried 
 her face in her hands. "Oh, my God." she sobbed, "I thank 
 Thee! I thank Thee!" 
 
 The Egyptian came from the kitchen, bearing in her hands 
 a bowl of broth. This she pressed upon Cragg. He regarded it 
 mechanically for a moment, then took it and permitted the 
 woman to force him down again upon the cot. "I am hungry," 
 he murmured; "hungry. I have come ... a long way." 
 
 The major, who had seemed to struggle as one struggles to 
 break the spell of a frightful dream, tottered forward and 
 dropped upon the cot beside Cragg. For some moments he sat 
 eagerly watching the returned one eat. Then, as he began to 
 recover poise, he reached out cautiously and touched Cragg's 
 arm. "Tell me," he said at length in a quavering voice, "do you 
 know where you are? Your wound ... do you suffer?" 
 
 Cragg shook his head slowly. "No ... I have been in 
 Jerusalem . . . with . . . him." He looked at the major. 
 The latter's uniform seemed to impress him, and a light came 
 into his eyes. "I am a prisoner. I see now," he said. "Yes, I 
 remember." Again his voice fell, and he sat silent and 
 abstracted for some time. The others waited, scarce breathing. 
 Then, looking up at the girl: "Marian! Marian!" he exclaimed. 
 "Is it a dream? Are you really here?" 
 
 Fear fled the major's thought and took doubt with it. He 
 sprang to his feet and confronted the girl in sudden rage. 
 "You have deceived me!" he shouted. '*This fellow was not 
 sick! You are both spies. . ." 
 
 "OttoHoeffel!" 
 
 It came from Cragg, an exclamation of recognition. The 
 major stopped short. In the girl's eyes as he glared into them 
 he saw that which changed his wrath into confusion. He turned 
 again to Cragg. He looked into the inscrutable face of the 
 Egyptian. "Tell me," he demanded of the latter, and seizing 
 her arm roughly, "what has happened here! What have you 
 been doing?" 
 
 The woman returned his look steadily. "He has come from 
 the dead," she answered low, pointing to Cragg. "God, in that 
 
 146 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 girl, called him back." She held out a hand toward Marian. 
 
 The bewildered, shaken major sank down upon Cragg's cot 
 and dropped his head into his hands. The world, his world as 
 he had conceived it, was slipping, was all but gone, and things 
 utterly foreign to the order of his practical thought were peer- 
 ing forth terrifyingly from behind the lifting veil. 
 
 Presently he looked up at the girl. "The Herr Doctor said 
 he could not live ! . . . He was dead . . .no? Perhaps he did 
 not die; but now at least he is well! . . . But you . . . you . . . 
 Gott in Himmell what did you do? What did you do? I would 
 give the German Empire to know! I would give the world! 
 It was your . . . philosophy?" 
 
 "It was the Christ," she answered brokenly. 
 
 "It was your religion, your Christianity ... no? Is this 
 the proof that I have asked . . . that I said you could not 
 give?" 
 
 He bowed his head again and sat silent. Then he jumped 
 up and confronted Marian. "You are a prisoner!" he cried. 
 "But — you raise the dying— the dead — no? You shall teach 
 me! You shall teach me! God! I will give my life to learn 
 what you know. . . But how did you escape? . . . how did 
 you get back here? Ach! what can I do? You are lost! They 
 will be here, the people. . . You were . . . sold! . . ." 
 
 "This is a place that God possesses!" Marian breathed. 
 
 "I can save her!" It was the Egyptian who spoke. And 
 she spoke in English. 
 
 The major staggered under another blow. "You speak 
 . . . English?" he gasped. "LieV Gott I you are a spy! Was it 
 yon who saved her? . . ." 
 
 The woman smiled. "You will trust me?" she said simply. 
 
 Sounds were now heard in the apartment above. There 
 was conversation, growing rapidly louder. The Egyptian stood 
 listening. Then again to the major: "You will trust me?" 
 
 "Gott! Yes! Save her! . . ." 
 
 "Stay here to meet them!" 
 
 Marian grasped Cragg's arm. The latter got to his feet. 
 The major made as if to seize the girl. The Egyptian saw the 
 movement and, with a quick motion, turned and confronted the 
 major. The latter halted, choked, then smiled faintly, wheeled 
 about, and faced toward the kitchen door. 
 
 The Egyptian beckoned to Marian and started away. The 
 girl followed, drawing Cragg with her. In a moment they had 
 crossed the room and entered the corridor, where they quickly 
 disappeared into the darkness. The major shivered, drew him- 
 self up stiffly, and stood waiting. 
 
 Down the stone stairway, through the narrow hall and into 
 
 147 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the room the ruck of revellers poured with noise and confusion. 
 
 "Here he is, the tender Romeo!" 
 
 "The little American . . . you have found her, Major?" 
 
 "Produce her! She was sold to me!" 
 
 They crowded around him, babbling, chattering. He held 
 up a hand, enjoining silence. "No, the American girl is not 
 here," he said in a low, trembling voice, "But come, let us 
 search elsewhere for her." 
 
 CHAPTER 23 
 
 IN the days of the Caesars the glorious Temple of the God 
 of Abraham — reared, not by Sarah's child, human type of the 
 real, but by the outcast son of Hagar, typical of falsehood 
 and deceit — disputed the crest of holy Moriah with the bulking 
 Tower of Antonia. But what it was compelled by man's pre- 
 ponderance of faith in material force over spiritual to yield 
 above ground, it appeared to regain in large part in subter- 
 ranean workings. Antonia might justly boast its deep-sunk 
 dungeons, foul and Stygian; but the Temple, too, had its mighty 
 cisterns, its rock-hewn chambers, its great tunnels, its sunken 
 conduits that ran scarlet with the blood of sacrificial bird and 
 beast. From an ancient pool, doubtless the Pool of Amygdalon, 
 near which Titus set up his four engines of war to overthrow 
 the Tower, an aqueduct — now choked with the debris of cen- 
 turies — once ran southeast to the wall of the Haram-esh-Sherif. 
 Among the hoary legends which still cling to the Temple's 
 subterranean passageways none is more interesting than the 
 one which distinguishes this now crumbling bore as the tun- 
 nel built by Herod the Great from the Tower of Antonia to 
 the east gate of the temple area to afford him means of escape 
 in time of peril. 
 
 It was toward these subterranean ruins that the Egyptian 
 made her way. A hand clasped Marian's, while the girl clung 
 to Cragg and drew him stumbling after her. With unerring 
 accuracy born of long association, the Egyptian turned from 
 the corridor into a dank stone chamber, thence into crumbling 
 laterals, threading the blackness with feline instinct, and at 
 length plunged precipitously down a winding stairway of broken 
 stone and into a narrovv passageway. Of a sudden she halted 
 and hastily lighted ai candle. "Down there! Through that!" 
 she commanded, pointing to an opening in the wall at the floor- 
 line where a stone, which still lay before the aperture, had been 
 removed. Preceding them, she threw herself upon the floor and 
 wriggled her body through. Cragg and Marian followed. 
 
 148 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 They found themselves in inky darkness in a circular con- 
 duit. "Herod's tunnel," the Egyptian muttered, as she stooped 
 to draw the stone into the opening where they had entered. 
 "This way!" And, plunging into the blackness, and thence 
 making an abrupt turn, she led them through an aperture, over 
 heaps of fallen masonry, and into a massive room, hollowed 
 out of the living rock. The uneven floor was piled high with 
 debris. The walls reeked with slime. "It is one of the old 
 cisterns of the Temple," she whispered, panting with her exer- 
 tions. "There is another beyond; and beyond that is one that 
 opens to the sky. You are safe here, for no one knows of this 
 place. . ." 
 
 She stood for a moment listening. Then she turned to 
 depart. "I will bring you food. . ." 
 
 Marian stretched forth a hand through the semi-darkness 
 and laid it on the woman's arm. "Bring Major Hoeffel," she 
 said. 
 
 The Egyptian stifled an exclamation, and stood for a 
 moment hesitant. Then she set down her candle and crept 
 away and out into Herod's black tunnel. A few moments 
 thereafter she wriggled her lithe body through the narrow 
 opening in the wall, noiselessly replaced the stone, and sped 
 away, leaving Marian and the one whom she had summoned 
 from death's vestibule alone in the silence of centuries that 
 enveloped the great cistern. 
 
 Alone — ^yet crowded upon by hosts invisible. Entombed — 
 yet risen. Shrouded in the black ignorance of the centuries — 
 yet illumined, transfigured by the alchemy of an infinite Pres- 
 ence. Now they sat hand in hand, awe-bound, speaking only in 
 hushed tones; now they rose and walked about over the undu- 
 lating floor of their strange refuge, her arm through his and 
 guiding him, for his sight was loath to return to the empty 
 concepts of this material world. Hour after hour passed, 
 though for them time was no more. Marian, trembling with 
 mingled gratitude, wonder, adoration, labored to untangle the 
 snarled threacis of Cragg's memory and rewind them to bridge 
 the hiatus which hatred — Barach's, his own, the world's — ^had 
 cleft between his past and the present. In her eager effort she 
 seemed detached from all that had occurred; her mental gaze 
 was held away from herself, and she was scarce mindful of 
 the part which she had taken in the vivid drama just enacted. 
 Of but one thing did she appear to be vividly, flamingly con- 
 scious: the very God of Israel, whom the world has so vainly 
 sought in the things of dust, had rent the veil of matter and 
 revealed Himself at her side. 
 . But though for Alden Cragg the fragile link of memory was 
 
 149 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 at length reestablished, it had become deeply patent to Marian 
 that the man who had returned to her was not the one whom 
 she, in her impulsive zeal, had driven into the realm of death. 
 The component elements of Alden Cragg's soul had been widely 
 scattered by the bursting of Barach's venom, and they had not 
 all come together again to form this new-born creature. 
 
 And there were now other elements which she knew had 
 not been there before. In the awful experience which had come 
 upon him when he had been hurled across death's threshold, his 
 soul had been remade; and this great transformation she now 
 saw manifested outwardly in a physical change that made her 
 catch her breath when her glance fell upon him in the waver- 
 ing candlelight. It was not only that his hair was whitened; 
 but his very features seemed to have been remolded, and into 
 softer lines, less earthy, even less distinct, as if the material 
 had faded^ or in part dissolved, and were still dissolving, until 
 it must disappear quite and leave the man visible only to the 
 eyes of spirit. The familiar, repellent air of domination, she 
 saw, was gone. Gone too were the cynicism and the mingled 
 fear and cruelty that had lurked ever in his cold eyes. These 
 eyes, once shifting, narrow, now stood wide, deep, and glowing, 
 as if seeing things in that realm which lies beyond the penetra- 
 tion of the physical senses. He seemed reluctant to speak, but 
 when he did his words came brokenly, and his tones were low 
 and hushed. And the former note of accusation, of critical 
 superiority, of querulous, whining complaint, was no longer 
 discernible in his trembling, awesome speech. 
 
 Moreover, there were other elements of soul that she soon 
 realized would manifest in the man no more. His former dense 
 materiality, his love of riches and caste, pride of race, worship 
 of the fleeting things of this world, contempt of his fellow 
 men — all those "stones" which he had hurled at the Christ — 
 were not visible in the remade soul with which he had come 
 back. He knew now that before this experience he had never 
 known the Christ, and in broken syllables he told her so. He 
 knew now that the ritual of Wilson Whittier was "but sounding 
 brass, that the boasted science of Roake was the baseless 
 assumptions of the Egyptian Kem. He knew now — and the 
 awful knowledge held him spellbound— that death is not death, 
 and that beyond the limited vision, the false concepts, the mere 
 human beliefs and opinions of the man who is not Man there 
 lies a real and attainable universe of spirit that is infinite, with 
 marvels, joys, riches, experiences inexpressible, the briefest 
 glimpse of which instantly blots out the inconsequential things 
 of this human dream so mistakenly called life. He knew that 
 it was to reveal this universe of spirit that the Nazarene had 
 
 150 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 willingly entered "the mist that went up from the earth," had 
 willingly endured the odium, the reproach, the bitter agony 
 which that experience entailed. But he knew now that "flesh 
 and blood" do not enter this realm, that "mortals" do not attain 
 heaven here or hereafter, but that the heaven of harmony is 
 a spiritual consciousness, reached only as the mortal is put off 
 and the immortal Man revealed as the image, the full expres- 
 sion, of Him who is Spirit. He knew now that in the vestibule 
 of death he had but exchanged one mental experience for 
 another, nor was one more real than the other, for both were 
 material, mortal, false. Neither was life; neither was heaven. 
 And yet the experience had been for him a step in progression. 
 How many more there were to be taken, he might not know, for 
 that was a function of the ridding of his mentality of its mate- 
 rial concepts ; but he stretched out a hand through the darkness 
 to the girl who had forced him in this small measure out of a 
 cruelly false concept of himself into a better one, wherein he 
 would now begin, in meek consecration and fathomless grati- 
 tude, the ascent toward heaven, the consciousness of perfec- 
 tion. To his present situation, to his own and Marian's common 
 danger, he gave not a thought. The sense of material environ- 
 ment appeared to sleep. Fear for bodily safety was gone. He 
 had been on another plane of thought, and yet he had had the 
 same material body. And he had returned with it. His faith 
 in the reality and permanence of matter as substance had been 
 thereby profoundly shaken. Fear and the belief in the reality 
 of a material body he was now ready to accept as synonymous ; 
 indeed, looking back, he viewed his material life as fear objec- 
 tified. It was all a mental experience; all was within himself, 
 and he was, he now knew, a consciousness, a mental activity 
 which functioned either harmoniously or in error according as 
 the thought which composed it might be truth or mere illusion. 
 Come whatsoever mental experience now, he could face it with 
 the priceless knowledge that the human lifcrexperience is not 
 life, that death is not death, and that only he lives who — as the 
 Nazarene had said — knows God, reflects Him whom to know 
 aright is Life eternal; and only he is. dead whose thought is 
 buried in matter and the mesmeric worship of its lustful gods. 
 Not that these convictions had been born upon the instant, 
 nor without deep travail. They came to him slowly, in the still 
 hours that lingered in the gloom of the ancient cistern. They 
 followed often upon Marian's interpretations of his sharp expe- 
 rience in the vestibule of death. And with them came often 
 self-reproach, self-condemnation, and even despair. His mental 
 chambers became an arena, a smoking field, wherein Armaged- 
 don was again enacted, where the beliefs of the mortal mind 
 
 151 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 seemed mightily to prevail against Truth. His past rose up 
 against him in vast defiance of his efforts to prove it but a 
 mental experience, based upon the "lie" that would separate 
 him from his Creator. And but for the girl who fought so 
 bravely there at his side he might have been again overwhelmed^ 
 "Walk with me, Marian," he would plead, for his first upward 
 footsteps flagged. "It is all mental, Alden," she would urge, 
 "all mental. Jesus said that the foes of Israel were those of her 
 own household, her carnal beliefs, her material thoughts, based 
 on falsity. They cannot enslave you longer." She saw more 
 clearly now than ever that as the tree falls so does it lie, that 
 as mortals yield to their self-imposed beliefs and leave one 
 phase of their mental experience, so in essence do they begin 
 another after passing through death. It was clearly revealed 
 to her now why the dominating thought of Alden's mother, her 
 selfishness so falsely known as mother-love, had manifested to 
 him in finding himself the chattel of the worldly Procula. And 
 she knew how to account for the other bonds equally heavy. 
 Poverty had been one of the causes of slavery among the ancient 
 Jews : had not Cragg's poverty of soul manifested in his awak- 
 ing in heavy chains? W-hat though the chains had been mere 
 illusion? They had been terribly real to him — even as mortal 
 belief, the testimony of the deceiving physical senses, is cruelly 
 real to the human mind that accepts it as truth. Again and 
 again she recalled the deep-visioned Nazarene's parable of Dives 
 and Lazarus, and the Greek text that explains that Dives after 
 death did not find himself in hell, but in Hades, on the touch- 
 stone which revealed to his horrified gaze the dross for which 
 he had bartered his soul. And, prisoner though to human sense 
 she seemed to be, and Alden with her, surrounded by dangers 
 acute and imminent, menaced by death, and worse, yet her 
 eyes brimmed with tears of gratitude that there had been 
 revealed to her in the darkness the utter impotence of "the 
 termor by night . . . the arrow that flieth by day." 
 
 But had Cragg really died? the matter-minded world would 
 ask. 
 
 Yet certainly he had been mesmerized into a deep sleep, 
 which culminated under hatred's touch in the hell of "No Man's 
 Land." 
 
 But he had awakened. 
 
 Yet did he not wake to better things, but, like Dives, to a 
 state of consciousness far worse, the externalization of his 
 densely material thought grown more material under hatred's 
 befouling touch. 
 
 But was it not all a dream? 
 
 But so had his former life been naught but a dream, for 
 
 152 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 human life is but a dream-state of consciousness; and whether 
 the next state shall be better than the one we now experience 
 depends of necessity upon the quality of our thought. Cragg's 
 thinking had been the false thought of centuries; his subse- 
 quent state of consciousness was perfprce a throw-back, and 
 he entered it stripped and a slave, as could not but occur. 
 
 Yet his experience, and the experience of Dives, of Lazarus, 
 of the daughter of Jairus, of Jesus, must prove that there is no 
 death, but that mankind goes on from one state of conscious- 
 ness to another, with changing beliefs, changing mental con- 
 cepts, either to a better state, or to one vastly worse in suffering 
 and misery. Mankind will go on dreaming, even as here, until 
 Truth inhibits all false thought-activity, and consciousness 
 becomes consciousness of the real and eternal, no longer of their 
 material counterfeits. Then only will man really live; then 
 only will death be overcome. And the overcoming will not be 
 accomplished by means of drugs and potions, by surgery, 
 hygiene, or bodily manipulation, but by real knowing, which is 
 of itself that scientific knowledge of the Allness of God which 
 resiilts in the .activity of right thinking, and therefore of con- 
 sciousness harmonious and eternal. 
 
 "Oh," cried Marian, springing to her feet, her frame trem- 
 bling with her deep emotion, "let no man think he can play 
 fast and loose in this sense of life and escape torment in the 
 next! He will reap what he sows — for he sows his thought — 
 and that determines what his next state of consciousness 
 shall be! 
 
 "In my Father's house are many mansions," she went on, 
 sitting again beside Cragg. "There are many states of con- 
 sciousness, not all the same, but varying according to the prep- 
 aration that we make in this, our present state. But, oh, Alden, 
 Jesus taught that we need not die in order to live; he taught 
 that the real Man never dies, and that the false human man 
 never really lives!" She saw that, though death may seem to 
 manifest itself to all mankind alike, yet there is really a vast 
 difference, for all do not think the same nor hold a like sense 
 of things. She saw that for such as Madam Galuth — doubtless 
 for many other pure thinkers — the change once known and 
 feared as death was now regarded as but the passing to a dif- 
 ferent mental experience in the journey toward Life, and that 
 if our work in this earthly preparatory school is well done there 
 will be progression to a better and increasingly less material 
 sense of existence. And yet these intermediate steps — these 
 various passings through death — are not necessary to him who 
 has learned God aright. They were not necessary to Enoch, 
 they were not necessary to Jesus, who rose above the thinking 
 
 153 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that results in the death-experience. Jesus passed through it 
 as a man may walk unharmed through a mist, for he knew and 
 could prove its nothingness. Death did not open up to him, 
 to Lazarus, to Alden Cragg, a locality called heaven, but empha- 
 sized to them each the immense importance of laboring here 
 and now to work out their salvation, as the only labor really 
 vital and worth while to mankind. What else, indeed, can be 
 of comparable import? 
 
 Late in the day the Egyptian crept noiselessly through the 
 ancient wall and brought the fugitives food and news of the 
 outer world. Cragg, she reported, was believed to have died, 
 and his body to have been buried beyond the walls. Barach 
 had been found by the woman, crouching in a palsy of fear in 
 one of the distant stone chambers. She had returned him to 
 the major, who, still torn with apprehensioUj wonder, and 
 doubt, had enjoined silence upon them both and remanded the 
 Jew to his prison camp. As for the girl, the city was wrestling 
 with her strange story and the mystery of her escape. Suspicion 
 was directed to the major, and the bad feeling between the 
 German and Turkish officers was greatly intensified thereby. 
 The major was in grave danger; he might save himself if he 
 would divulge the hiding place of the girl; yet the Egyptian 
 was positive that he had made no attempt to discover their 
 whereabouts. He appeared abstracted, and deeply apprehen- 
 sive; he looked thin and worn; he said little, and continually 
 he paced about his apartments with bowed head. He had not 
 spoken of his disconcerting discovery that the Egyptian was 
 one of the enemy; this appeared not to concern him, now that 
 all his earthly hopes and carefully wrought plans lay in ruin at 
 his feet. And through it all the woman knew that he was 
 affording them his protection. Yet there were some things of 
 which she was ignorant. . . 
 
 "Bring him to me," the girl implored. 
 
 But the Egyptian drew back in protest. "He is German," 
 she objected. "He cannot be trusted." 
 
 "Then I shall go to him," Marian insisted.* 
 
 "Bring David Barach." It was Cragg who spoke. And in his 
 eyes there was an eager look. The woman stared up at him 
 as at one who had come from the sepulchre. And as she stared, 
 she knew that she would obey. 
 
 154 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 24 
 
 TilAT night came the slight sounds of stone grating upon 
 stone in Herod's tunnel. Marian -and Cragg stood at the 
 aperture in the broken wall and waited eagerly. Through 
 the blackness that all but quenched the feeble light of the soli- 
 tary candle, three figures came creeping toward them. And 
 then David Barach advanced, timidly at first and awe-inspired, 
 then boldly, and fell at the feet of the man whom he had sought 
 to slay, and poured out his bitter remorse and deep repen- 
 tance. 
 
 Cragg bent over the broken penitent and took his hand. 
 "Forgive me, David, my brother," he murmured in the low, 
 soft voice that he had brought from that other realm. 
 
 Barach raised his head. "Brother? This from you, a 
 Cragg, to a miserable Jew?" His head sank again, and his tears 
 flowed afresh. 
 
 The Egyptian stood holding her candle aloft. Her erst- 
 while inscrutable face evidenced a soul touched as never 
 before. Beside her, Major Hoeffel, Obscured by the heavy 
 shadows, stared and listened, with senses never so acute and 
 never so strangely played upon. Marian bent tenderly over 
 Barach and took his hand, "Brothers you are, David," she 
 said gently. "Alden knows this now." 
 
 "I . . . I am a . . . Jew," moaned Barach brokenly. "A 
 murderer. The world is against me. . ." 
 
 "You are Judah, David," the girl answered. "But Alden is 
 Ephraim. Lost Ephraim has been found. He and Judah have 
 at last come together in the brotherhood of man." 
 
 Barach strained his eyes up at her through the gloom. 
 "Ephraim was ... an Israelite," he said, almost in a whisper. 
 
 "The Anglo-Saxons, David," she returned eagerly, "are dis- 
 covered to be Israelites. Both they and the Jews are sons of 
 Abraham. Oh, David! . . . Alden! . . ." She reached through 
 the darkness and seized Cragg's hand. Barach rose. The girl 
 placed Cragg's hand in that of the trembling Jew. "David! 
 Alden ! What hath God wrought ! For spiritual Israel, the Son 
 of God, has been revealed !" 
 
 In the echoing solitude of the great cistern Judah and lost . 
 Ephraim clasped hands. 
 
 "What new wonder is this?" exclaimed the major, pushing 
 forward. "You . . . you . . . Ach, Marian, forgive all my 
 cruelty to you! We did not know you in Crestelridge ! . . . 
 We would not! I ... I am still dazed! I do not understand 
 
 155 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 what you did to restore Alden! . . . But of this I am now 
 convinced: he was not dead!" 
 
 "No," she answered softly, "he was not dead. If he had 
 been, he would not be here now. No one really dies, for, Otto, 
 there is no death." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I . . . I : . ." Speech faltered. Then his pent 
 emotion burst wildly forth. "Lieb' Gottl" he cried, "but it is 
 life or death to me! Tell me! tell me! Alden, where were 
 you? What did you see? How did you come back? I must 
 know, for ... I am facing death now!" 
 
 He fell upon a heap of refuse and buried his head in his 
 hands. Marian sank by him and put an arm about his shoul- * 
 ders. Craggsat down on the other side of the major and laid 
 a hand on his. "I will tell you. Otto," he said. . , 
 
 It is related of Lazarus that after his return from the tomb 
 his lips were sealed — "those of the grave no closer".* So Alden 
 Cragg's, but not until to these wide-eyed, spellbound auditors, 
 gathered about him in the ruined cistern of the glorious Tem- 
 ple that is but a memory, he unfolded the vivid drama that 
 had been played on that other stage of consciousness to which 
 the mortal beliefs of this world had shifted him. 
 
 He told it simply, and with a continuity of recollection that 
 omitted no detail. In the semi-darkness his eyes glowed; 
 through the echoing cistern his voice rose and fell, now with 
 the low, moaning lament of a soul banished from its God, now 
 ringing out with the thunderous accents of prophecy, of solemn 
 warning, yet of wondrous promise. He spoke as they had never 
 heard man speak before; and as they sat open-mouthed and 
 tense before him they were transported back to the scenes 
 from which he had but so recently emerged, and there they 
 saw, as they had never dreamed it possible for mortals to see, 
 the Christ. David Barach's emotion struggled with his over- 
 whelming awe; sobs shook him, and he cast himself at the feet 
 of the returned one and moaned aloud; anon, fear seized him, 
 and he drew away, as from a spectre, a spirit disincarnate that 
 had stood, but an hour gone, before God. The major sat as if 
 turned to stone; at times his chest heaved, and great sighs 
 escaped him. Then his head sank, and he sat bowed in humil- 
 ity until the end. The Egyptian remained huddled in the deep 
 shadows, motionless and silent. . . 
 
 When the tale was told, and silence again enveloped them, 
 the members of that weirdly assembled group knew that their 
 mortal tongues would speak of it nevermore — the white-haired 
 wanderer who had answered the call of the Christ — the weep- 
 ing girl who through it all had sat pouring forth her gratitude 
 — the awe-curdled son of Judah — ^the inscrutable Egyptian — 
 
 156 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and the baffled, shaken, humiliated Assyrian conqueror, himself 
 now overthrown by that which he would have destroyed. 
 
 The major broke the deep silence that held them. His 
 unsteady voice indicated how profoundly he had been shaken. 
 "This event," he began in a hushed tone, "it is infinite in its 
 possibilities, if ... Ac/i, if I could believe! It was only a 
 dream of Alden's ! . . . And yet . . . and yet ... he did not 
 die! Marian, you kept him alive, you held him here! . . . 
 Ach, no, the Herr Doctor pronounced him dead! Lieb' Gottl 
 what you have said to us is all true! ... all true! And it is 
 my only interest now ! The war has ceased to concern me ! My 
 own safety, my life, my ambition, it is nothing now! You, 
 Marian, you saved Alden by your understanding of ... of the 
 Christ! You have answered my question: What is Truth? 
 you have answered it, as you said Jesus answered it here, long 
 since, by demonstration! Lieb' Gott! but all human knowledge 
 is folly beside yours! Yours is all that is worth while! Ach, 
 if our Kaiser could have had this knowledge, he would have 
 been the salvation of the world, instead of its death! . . . 
 
 "Tell me, Marian, must I pass from death to death? What 
 can I do to escape? Lieb' Gott! there is no other knowledge so 
 vital!" 
 
 Marian was startled by the altered note in the man's voice. 
 There was still work for her to do, and for this struggling soul. 
 And in this dark hour of his conflict with Self she went to him. 
 "From the dream of death you will pass into another dream of 
 life," she answered; "and that will end in death and in a passr 
 ing into still another dream of living and dying, unless your 
 consciousness has been awakened by the knowledge that Jesus 
 brought to mankind : the knowledge of the Allness of the eternal 
 Mind that is God, and the nothingness of its suppositional oppo- 
 site, the communal mortal mind and its expression in the mate- 
 rial universe and the things of matter." 
 
 "Then the human mind is matter — and it knows only 
 matter. But how?" 
 
 "It knows only matter, and this only through the so-called 
 testimony of the physical senses; but this testimony, under 
 analysis, reduces to thought. Matter, then, is only the human 
 concepts — all mental — contained in the human consciousness 
 and formed out of material thought. Is it not plain? Mortals 
 deal with appearances only, and not with real things. Human 
 truth is only relative. Matter is the human mind's way of 
 regarding real Substance, which is Mind. The human mind 
 translates Mind's ideas into its own terms and calls them things 
 or objects of matter. Mortal man is the sum total of his 
 thoughts. The inspired writer realized this when he said: 'As 
 
 23 157 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 a man thinketh, so is he.' To change a condition, therefore, 
 whether it be a condition of body or mind or environment, we 
 must change our thought regarding it, for everything is mental. 
 Is it not plain? Jesus said: 'Deny yourself. Deny any reality 
 to the material concept of man and the universe, and aflSrm a 
 right knowledge of God, Mind, as all, and discord and death will 
 be. destroyed in consciousness. For all is within our mental- 
 ities — the evil or the good, the real or the unreal, harmony or 
 discord, according to the thought which we accept as knowl- 
 edge, as Truth." 
 
 "Ach, I know now that all our knowledge is a knowledge of 
 lies only!" 
 
 "The supposed intelligence of the human mind is only igno- 
 rance; it is but a material sense of things. This is what Jesus 
 referred to as the 'one lie'. Jesus denied all the claims of 
 material sense which thinks itself to be something real. He 
 knew that because mortals are steeped in the communal mortal 
 mind, and human intelligence is but the false mental activity 
 of mortal suggestions that really form this mentality, human 
 beings know very little, oh, pitiably little about the real Mind 
 and its idea, Man. And his .mission was to teach us that we 
 can get rid of the false sense of man and see the real and eter- 
 nal Man right where the false one now seems to be. 
 
 "Human mentalities. Otto, are not real minds. They are 
 individual reflections of the communal mortal mind, and they 
 reflect its dense ignorance and its terrible beliefs and false 
 claims of discord, disease, and death. The minds of your 
 Kaiser, and your Professors, and your General Staff, of which 
 you were wont to boast, oh. Otto, can't you see now what they 
 are? And can't you see now what caused this war? Human 
 beings are only falsities. They are misconceptions of their real 
 selves and of the real selves of others, formed in their own 
 mortal minds and in the mortal minds of their fellows. Jesus 
 knew this, and he refused to be deceived by it, as the world 
 to-day is so terribly deceived. And knowing it, he could over- 
 come not only death, but the human sense of life, and rise out of 
 the mortal concept of material body. This was his ascension. 
 And so we, every one of us, must ascend out of the material 
 sense that ends in death. Otto, the preachers have led the 
 world astray by teaching that Jesus was God. We are learning 
 now that Jesus of Nazareth became Jesus the Christ by refus- 
 ing to accept the testimony of the five physical senses as 
 Truth." 
 
 "But the world's greatest philosophers deduced the fact that 
 matter is a mental phenomenon," he interpolated. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "but they stopped there, still embedded 
 
 158. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 in matter. Jesus went further, even to the end, and showed 
 that the cause of the phenomenon called matter is the communal 
 mortal mind, and that this so-called mind is itself material, 
 discordant, and the unreal opposite of the Mind that is God. 
 He called it the father of lies." 
 
 "God of my fathers!" Barach murmured; "who would have 
 believed it!" 
 
 "Nor will the world to-day believe," said the major, "even 
 though Alden comes back from the dead." 
 
 "Many have come back from the dead. Otto," she said, "and 
 yet the world persecutes them. Why? Error cannot cease to 
 persecute Truth until Truth eventually destroys it." 
 
 "Then death will cease, no?" The major was again revert- 
 ing to the topic uppermost in his thought; and again his eager- 
 ness and the strange note in his voice made her wonder. "But 
 even now we do not pass into oblivion when we die, is it not 
 so? We do not go to heaven, nor to the orthodox hell. Death 
 is not a reincarnation. . ." 
 
 "There is no reincarnation. Otto," she returned. "For the 
 human consciousness, instead of being in the material body, 
 includes the body within itself as one of its many material con- 
 cepts. And consciousness can form a newer and better concept 
 of body by becoming itself a better thought-activity. Mortal 
 consciousness now endows the body with a sense of life, but 
 there is really no life in the mental concept that we call body. 
 And if we ntake progress spiritually now, then we will pass 
 into another state of consciousness where we do not believe 
 life to be so inherent in the body, and we will then suffer less 
 and be less limited and constrained. For your life, Otto, is 
 what you are alive to," she went on; "and you are alive to that 
 of which you are conscious. You are conscious of seeing, hear- 
 ing, feeling, smelling, and tasting material things. You are 
 therefore alive only to the so-called testimony of the five senses 
 and to thoughts about such testimony. But the entire realm 
 of God, of Mind, Spirit, reality, exists wholly outside of this 
 false testimony! Think, then, of the grandeur of our outlook! 
 And, now that it is proved that we see, hear, feel, smell, and 
 taste only our own thoughts, we can control consciousness, 
 and therefore our sense of life, and we can overcome death!" 
 
 Silence again fell upon them. .The spluttering candle threw 
 a ghostly illumination that yellowed their faces and heaped 
 great piles of shadow behind them. It was a strange assem- 
 blage, gathered in the tensest hour of human experience, in the 
 weirdest of environments, to hear again the unique theme that, 
 centuries gone, the Nazarene had given to a world already dead 
 in matter in the great Temple that once rose above this place of 
 concealment. 
 
 159 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then David Barach crept to Marian's side. "My . . . my 
 wife . . . the rabbi said she died with ... a smile on her face. 
 What did she see?" 
 
 "I cannot tell you, David," the girl answered the feverishly 
 eager man. "Some pass out smiling; some exclaim with wonder, 
 with joy. Probably their newer state of consciousness had 
 already begun and they may have seen familiar concepts^- 
 nothing as yet real, nor more real than they saw here. And the 
 concepts that they see are always within them, within their 
 mentalities. They see them as they acquire another state of 
 consciousness; we do not see what they are seeing, for we are 
 in the mental state from which they are passing. And there is 
 no communication between these differing states, any more 
 than the waking can communicate with the sleeping." 
 
 "No communication?" he asked- "But the spiritualists 
 believe that they receive messages from the dead." 
 
 "There is little difference, David," she said, "between sleep 
 and death. Each is a material manifestation, and both are 
 supposititious. Yet, were you sleeping now, I could not com- 
 municate with you, for communication is only between those in 
 the same conscious state. It all lies within yourself, David, as 
 I have been trying to show you. In this life you do not see 
 realities: you see only your mental concepts of them. You 
 believe that these mental concepts of people pass from you in 
 death. But instead of realizing that you could acquire the 
 spiritual knowledge that would restore to you the concept of 
 a person who has passed away, you would strive through 
 mechanical methods to communicate with a departed concept. 
 No one has really departed. And the right knowledge would 
 enable you to prove this. Why not, then, seek to acquire this 
 knowledge, and restore the concepts of those the world believes 
 to have died, and acquire better concepts of them, until the lie 
 of death is destroyed? It can be done. And Jesus bade us 
 do it." 
 
 Out of the silence that again came upon them the major's 
 voice presently issued. "The theologians, achi but they missed 
 it all. They have taught resignation to death, but not dominion 
 over it. And the doctors . . ." 
 
 "Unless you resort to material remedies — not to God, 'who 
 healeth all thy diseases' — ^and, when these fail, submit blindly 
 to death, you are considered sacrilegious, or mad," the girl 
 interposed. "Such is the mesmerism of theological teaching 
 since the third century. Blinding mesmerism!" 
 
 "But before that date?" 
 
 "There is no doubt that the very early Christians raised the 
 dead. There is much to show this. But there is also much to 
 
 160 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 show that they soon made the mistake of rejoicing in death, 
 instead of overcoming it. Instead of meeting their persecutions 
 at the hands of error, they sought to escape them in death. 
 Thereby they made death a great reality. And thus in part 
 they lost their power over it." 
 
 "But. if we have not as yet the knowledge that enables us 
 to overcome death?" 
 
 "Then," she said, "we must pass through it — ^but let us do 
 so fearlessly, knowing that it is but a change of consciousness. 
 There is no transition from the flesh to spirit; we but enter 
 another probationary state, as was proved by Lazarus and by 
 others who entered that state and returned. . ." 
 
 "As was proved by . . . by . . . Alden?" said the major. 
 
 "And in that probationary state we have still to work out 
 our salvation. 'It is not in heaven that we are to And God, but 
 in God that we are to find heaven', as has been said. The spir- 
 itual knowledge of God is heaven. The way thereto is the 
 Christ, Truth. Jesus said: 'Be ye therefore perfect', meaning 
 that we should be conscious of good only, of the AUness of God. 
 When he said 'Fear not' — and he always said this the very first 
 thing whenever his disciples appealed to him for help — he as 
 much as said : 'Do not believe in the reality of matter or of any- 
 thing apart from your Father-Mother God'. For he knew that 
 we are a law unto ourselves; that beliefs of all kinds influence 
 us as long as we consider them true. If we believe that we are 
 made of matter, that we are born into it, we manifest that 
 belief in death, for that which has a beginning must also have 
 an end, and that which is not based on Truth, Principle', must 
 manifest discord. Oh, Otto, David, can you not see now how 
 trivial are this life's concerns, and how important it is that we 
 improve every moment here to acquire that Mind which was in 
 Christ Jesus, so that we may overcome death here; or, failing 
 that, enter the next state of consciousness to begin a sense of 
 life that will be happier, holier, better, and that will enable us 
 to overcome death there once and for all time, and then to enter 
 upon that true consciousness of the One Mind and our real 
 individuality as Man? Is the buying and selling of merchandise 
 important to you now? Is social prestige? Is race? Is war? 
 These lead only to the ceaseless round of death in life and a 
 complete missing of the unspeakable grandeur and joy and 
 satisfaction that is ours when we destroy the mesmerism of the 
 communal mortal mind and learn to know God as Jesus did!" 
 
 "God of my fathers !" again murmured Barach. His thought 
 was of the Nazarene, of whom it was said that never man 
 spake as he. 
 
 Marian turned to him. , "You cannot fail to see your wife 
 
 161 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 again, David," she said tenderly, "for she has not gone away 
 from you. But it must be in the way Jesus taught, God first. 
 The right knowledge of Him will give, you right concepts of 
 Truth. You will then have the true concept of your wife and of 
 all of God's children, and those concepts are eternal. They are 
 here now, to be had through righteousness, right-thinking, right 
 knowledge of God. But again I say: God first. All good follows 
 the observance of the First Commandment." 
 
 "But will he not have other concepts of her before he 
 acquires the right one?" asked the major. 
 
 "He may have many," she replied; "or he may acquire the 
 right and eternal one very quickly. It all follows on his acquir- 
 ing the right knowledge of God." 
 
 A pause followed, broken presently by the major. "Do you 
 say," he asked in a low, eager tone, "that the beliefs and 
 opinions which we hold when we die are carried v/ith us, or do 
 they cease at the instant of death?" 
 
 "They endure until they are destroyed by Truth," she 
 answered. 
 
 "Then nothing is accomplished by suicide?" 
 
 "Suicide is a backward step. It can only accomplish the 
 greatest harm." 
 
 "But • . . if one lay down one's life . . . voluntarily?" 
 
 "To so love your fellow man that you will part with your 
 human sense of life if need be to help him , . ." 
 
 "Yes! yes!" 
 
 She sat silent for a moment, again wondering. Then she 
 turnedto him. "What is it. Otto?" she asked quickly. 
 
 He rose. "It is the Gdtterddmmerung," he replied unstead- 
 ily. "Last night I said we were lost, and I would eat and drink 
 and dance, for that was all that was left. To-day . . ." 
 
 "You were blinded by despair over your crumbling world. 
 Otto. In human consciousness the world is crumbling; civiliza- 
 tion totters; the red hordes of anarchy are forming to swoop 
 down upon the preacher, the professor, the rich man, all who 
 once felt themselves so secure in the things of matter. But 
 to-day, despite the horrors of war and pestilence and false 
 belief, you have gained the priceless understanding of God as 
 veritably with you. And you are no longer . . ." 
 
 "I am no longer . . . Assyrian," he said, his head drooping 
 as he spoke. 
 
 He stood for a moment; then, looking up: "You have taught 
 me the greatest of all things, Marian, and you have taught by 
 demonstration. So did . . . Jesus. You had the Word. . . I 
 tried to destroy it. But a light has burst upon me : I see in it 
 the great 'Company of Nations', England and America, Anglo- 
 
 162 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Israel, keepers of the Word; and, without, in the darkness, I 
 see Germany, the Assyrian, linked with the robber bands of 
 Esau, the tools of error, the unreal opposite of the Mind that is 
 God, plotting and weaving lies, but in vain. And in the light 
 of history, of prophecy fulfilled, and by your tremendous proof 
 in raising Alden, whom error would have made me bury for my 
 own advantage, I see error's final doom. In the dismember- 
 ment of the British Empire I thought Germany might triumph 
 . . . but that dismemberment cannot come, though I hold 
 secrets that I believed would bring it about. Ach! what a fool I 
 have been ! What a fool ! For I have broken my wings against 
 God! Mesmerized! Mesmerized! Ach, Marian, you died for 
 me, willingly; you died for Alden! Your love is so great . . . 
 so .great! ... I would have befouled you! I would have 
 destroyed you! Lieb' Gott! instead, you save me from myself! 
 Yet you save me to give myself to you, to Alden, to the Word 
 . . . Marian, I have something of great importance to tell you, 
 for I may not see you again. . . It is about yourself. . ." 
 
 Marian sprang up. The major seized her hands, drew her 
 close, and stood looking down into her upturned face. His 
 throat filled. He released her hands and turned and cast a 
 curious, wondering look at Cragg. 
 
 A slight noise was heard: it might have been a stone fall- 
 ing in some distant part of the ruin. The Egyptian came at 
 once to the major's side. "I think there are soldiers above," 
 she said. 
 
 The major hesitated. "I do not fear death, after what you 
 have proved, Marian. . ." 
 
 Barach had seized Marian's hand. "If the Bible promises 
 with regard to Israel are fulfilled, then what you have said is 
 true!" 
 
 "They are fulfilled, David." 
 
 "Come," the Egyptian whispered. 
 
 The major straightened up, wheeled sharply, and strode 
 rapidly away, followed by Barach and the Egyptian. A moment 
 later the silence of ages again dropped down upon the ancient 
 cistern. 
 
 CHAPTER 25 
 
 AGAIN in the seclusion of his apartments, Major Hoeffel 
 locked the doors and plunged into an examination of his 
 ^ files and portmanteaus. Much of the contents ,of these 
 he hurriedly burned, much he tied into packages and variously 
 labeled. Then he wrote letters, wrote rapidly, feverishly, like 
 
 163 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 one condemned, who crowds his last moments in anticipation 
 of the death summons. He rose, as day dawned, and called the 
 Egyptian. 
 
 She entered noiselessly, drifting in like a mist from the Nile, 
 and sank into a^ corner of the room, where she squatted, wait- 
 ing, the incarnation of mystery, of secrecy, of the unknown. 
 
 He came and stood before her. And as he stood he felt 
 his sheer impotency. Once he would have spat upon her — once, 
 swollen with pride of race, and bursting with the prestige born 
 of intimacy with the mighty War Lord, who had summoned 
 him to the councils of Potsdam, he would have spoken to her 
 only to command — but now, with his world in ruins about him, 
 his head drooped and his cheek flamed with shame. He had 
 scarce exchanged a word with this woman since the preceding 
 night: the wondrous event which had transpired in the dark 
 keep below had held him dumb. Yet he sought her now for 
 council. 
 
 "We can save them, Zuleyka?" he asked, his voice trembling. 
 
 She nodded slowly. "Yes, Major — at a price." 
 
 He started, though well he knew the price. He stood regard- 
 ing her for some moments; then he resumed. "Zuleyka," he 
 said gently, "will you tell me who you are?" 
 
 She looked up at him with her deep black eyes. "I am a 
 daughter of the Pyramid," she replied. 
 
 His eyes widened and he stared at her uncomprehendingly. 
 "Will you tell me who sent you here to spy on me?" he asked, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "Why not?" she answered. "It was Simeon Penberry." 
 
 He smiled. "I should have guessed," he said. "And has 
 Simeon Penberry my plans regarding the Suez Canal? — the 
 dismemberment plans? — all?" 
 
 "Yes, Major." 
 
 "Then the jehad — ^it will not be declared?" 
 
 "No. The little horn is broken." 
 
 He sighed. "You have done your work well, Zuleyka," he 
 said in a tone of utter defeat. "The Kaiser will owe you much 
 for his downfall. Ach, what fools you have made of us wise 
 ones!" 
 
 He paused, and his head sank. Then he roused suddenly. 
 "But . . . why should I not denounce you now?" he cried. 
 "You are a self-confessed spy! You are in my power! Why 
 should / die? . . ." A 
 
 He checked himself. The woman was laughing up in his 
 face. Did it mean, he wondered, that if he raised his voice 
 against her every German in Jerusalem would fall beneath 
 Turkish swords before night? Did it need only such a spark 
 
 164 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to kindle the flame of- slaughter? He had heard Turkish officers 
 openly voice their hatred of their Teuton betrayers. He knew 
 that the people and the military were panic stricken before 
 the growing menace of massacre. Would the red scenes of 
 Sennacherib's departure be enacted there again? His blood 
 chilled at the thought. 
 
 He pulled himself up. "That is in the past," he said resign- 
 edly. "You must live ... for them. You must get word to 
 Simeon Penberry at once that Marian is here, and . . ." 
 
 "I did that long since." 
 
 "Lieb' Gott! And under my very eyes!" He stood study- 
 ing her for some time, then he shook his head and went to his 
 desk. Taking up a packet, he returned to her and held it out. 
 "This, at least, you know nothing about," he said with a pa- 
 thetic smile, "for I have just written it. Doch, when the British 
 come, see that it gets to someone who will place it in Simeon 
 Penberry's hands." 
 
 The woman nodded and took the packet. It was closed with 
 many red seals and bore an impress of the German eagles. On 
 it was inscribed in the major's hand: Concerning the family 
 of the Reverend Wilson Whittier, Crestelridge, N. Y., U. S. A. 
 She studied it for a moment, then concealed it in the ample 
 folds of her gown. 
 
 "I . . . "the major resumed hesitatingly; "I . . . Perhaps 
 the doors are not all closed against me. . . Suppose I take refuge 
 with them in the cistern. Jerusalem will soon fall. . . You 
 could inform the British of our whereabouts, and I would 
 become their prisoner of war. . . What say you, Zuleyka?" 
 
 "You would leave Chaplain Muller to be shot?" she asked. 
 
 He turned from her and began to pace back and forth 
 through the room, his head bent, and his hands tightly clasped 
 behind his back. "No," he murmured repeatedly, "no, there 
 is no other way. It will save Muller ; it will save them. It . . . 
 it must be done . . . yes, it must. . ." 
 
 He came back to the woman. "You will help me, Zu- 
 leyka?. . ." 
 
 "Mon Dieu, Major!" The woman rose quickly; her bent 
 form straightened out until she seemed to tower above him; 
 her eyes shot fire; her face glowed. He fell back and stared 
 at her with mouth agape. "Mon Dieu, Major!" she cried, "did 
 not the girl tell you where your help lies? Did not that same 
 Power lift the prisoner Cragg from the grave? Did it not pro- 
 tect them both, and restore Barach? Is not that Power using 
 me? Let it use you, though it lead you to the firing squad! 
 I would go with a song on my lips if it bade me. . ." 
 
 He had regained control of himself, and he raised a hand 
 
 165 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to restrain her. "I go," he said quietly,- "Ach, these are, as 
 she said, the last days!" 
 
 "They are the last days," the woman repeated. "The aposta- 
 sies are crumbling. Their support, your nation, has failed 
 them." 
 
 "And shall there be no more war when the German Empire 
 falls?" he asked. 
 
 "War? Yes, for the Antichrist dies hard. Armageddon is 
 still to come; but Anglo-Israel will unite to save the Word, and 
 spiritual Israel will, be revealed through them." 
 
 "But . . . how can you say thijs, Zuleyka? How do you 
 know?" 
 
 "How do I know? Hear me. Major: I am a daughter of the 
 Pyramid. Its seals are broken in these last days. Its secrets 
 are now revealed." 
 
 She seized a chair and sat down, beckoning to him to do 
 likewise. In amazement he complied. Then from the woman's 
 lips fell swiftly such a revelation as exceeds the imaginings of 
 earth-bound, mortal man. And when, as another hour was 
 tolled off by his study clock, she rose, he remained as if 
 stunned. The Egyptian had led him into Mizraim's great "altar" 
 and left him in its narrow Antechamber, awed by what he had 
 seen. 
 
 And there through the desolated habitations of his soul 
 great voices rang: Judgment! Judgment! Ah, had he but 
 heeded the call of the Christ: "Come up hither!" he might have 
 found himself, when judgment broke, worthy to escape "these 
 things that shall come" — he might have passed, in symbol, from 
 the upper realms of the Grand Gallery high over the abasing 
 passageways and into the probationary rest above the King's 
 Chamber. Alas ! he had yielded to the mesmerism of the "one 
 lie," and by that had been bowed low and thrust into the Ante- 
 chamber's choking confines, under the great "leaf", where now, 
 stretched to the plummet, he was hearing the prophet's awful 
 words : "Hear, earth, behold I will bring evil upon this peo- 
 ple, even the fruit of their thoughts!" 
 
 And there in the darkness of that fearsome pile, in the 
 strictures of that dread room, he found beside him his Kaiser, 
 his leaders, counsellors, guides, the false prophets of his 
 haughty race — and not these alone, for there, measured against 
 that same relentless plummet, were all, of whatever race or 
 creed, who had stoned the Christ and sought to kill the Word. 
 And the horrors of darkness were descending into their frozen 
 souls. . . 
 
 But — oh, glorious truth ! — there was yet a remnant that had 
 not bent the knee to Baal. This remnant would redeem the 
 
 166 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 day by reason of a spiritual understanding, which, though small 
 to human sense beside the bulking claims of evil, was none the 
 less mighty to save. And he knew now that this remnant had 
 appeared to him and to the unseeing world; but — marvel of 
 God ! — it had appeared as a woman ! Woman — symbol of weak- 
 ness — always the chattel, the servant, the toy of the virile male ! 
 — ^yet it had been revealed that through her message of the Christ 
 alone could the defeated male world of war and lust, of mate- 
 rial ruthlessness, pseudo-science, spear and cannon, explosives, 
 bestial force, be saved — through her alone had come the divine 
 afflatus that shall rout forever the ecclesiastically minded, the 
 proud professors, the money-changers, the worshipers of matter 
 from the Temple of the Most High, the consciousness of man. 
 
 But could he, a German, schooled in the lore of Kant and 
 Hegel, nursed on the Higher Criticism that has made Jesus 
 a myth, could he accept this senseless bouleversement? Wis- 
 dom and learning — so he had been taught — were ever the pos- 
 session of the priests and doctors, of the dominant males! — 
 But "/ will overturn, overturn . . . until he come whose right 
 it is" . . . and "he", the Christ, comes only through that chan- 
 nel unclogged by the detritus of war and lust and material 
 conquest. 
 
 "I can escape! ... I will!" cried the major, and he sprang 
 to his feet. 
 
 But again he saw Alden Cragg rise before him from the 
 couch of death; heard again the words which, in the ancient 
 cistern, had opened his soul as with a scalpel; felt again the 
 transforming alchemy that had proceeded from that girl who 
 had triumphed over death. And he fell back upon his chair. 
 He was laid to the plummet — his life span had been measured 
 to its end and come woefully short — he knew it, and he would 
 pay the deficit and start again . . . somewhere. 
 
 But in what coin could such a vast deficit be paid? 
 
 In love only — such love as Marian's for the man who had 
 spurned her — such love as the Nazarene's — such a conquest 
 of the mortal sense of Self, such an abandonment of the false 
 human sense of life, that it enabled these to lift their fellows 
 out of the binding belief of sensuality which is itself death. 
 Greater love than this there is none. But Otto Hoeffel had 
 known naught but its opposite : the mawkish sentiment, the sex- 
 mesmerism, the mortal jealousy, the selfishness and deadly 
 fear of parental solicitude — and despite a world surcharged 
 with these, he knew, even as Marian had pointed out, that 
 humanity is dying for very lack of love. 
 
 He rose, shaking, but with set lips, and went again to his 
 desk, where he hurriedly wrote an order. Then, summoning 
 
 167 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 an orderly, he despatched him with it to the prison camp where 
 David Barach was held, after which he again called the Egyp- 
 tian for a moment's conference. This concluded, he left the 
 Tower and set his course toward Headquarters. 
 
 In the crowded streets he moved as in a mental haze. 
 Through the panic of the hour he passed wholly unobservant, 
 his thought resolving, now the tremendous experience from 
 which Alden Cragg had emerged, now the fracas of his own 
 clever schemes and the utter ruin of his life. For a moment 
 he lived again his bemusing triumph over Simeon Penberry 
 while a guest in the great Hall — ^but the picture quickly van- 
 ished, leaving him blushing at his self-deceit. He lived once 
 more, but briefly, in his cleverly deceptive position in Crestel- 
 ridge — ^but he flushed hot at the thought of the fool he had 
 been! He reflected again over his scheme for the jehad; over 
 his brilliant dismemberment plans, now in Penberry's posses- 
 sion; and then his thought turned upon Marian, whom he had 
 sought to possess, and failing, would have crushed. He had 
 failed, miserably, because he had gone after false gods. Now 
 he knew that "the Lord, He is thy God!" — not the German 
 Kaiser, not himself, not lust of material wealth and power and 
 possession, but God! He saw clearly now that which had 
 struck through his Kaiser, through himself, through his race, 
 at the Word, and he saw himself its mesmerized agent, its once 
 pliant tool, but now dulled and cast into the furnace for remelt- 
 ing. How empty now his former boastful pride of race! Ger- 
 man? No! For him there was now nor Teuton, British, 
 French, nor Turk, for citizenship was become a function of the 
 knowledge of the fatherhood of God. Ah, why had he not 
 sought this saving knowledge? Alas! it was because he had not 
 loved. He had been mesmerized by Love's illusive counterfeit. 
 He had lived in a fool's paradise, in a world of sensuous impres- 
 sions which he had blindly accepted for truths. Lost in lusting 
 material selfhood, he had lost God. And God, he now knew, 
 was Love. 
 
 But, arrived at Headquarters, fear again rose and Self -over- 
 whelmed him with its frightened shrieks. White and nerve- 
 less, he hurriedly concocted a request for an order which would 
 send him at once to the south, secretly purposing to walk into 
 the British lines and find safety as a prisoner of war. 
 
 "Surely, Major," was the answer given him. "Your idea is 
 good. But, first, what disposition is to be made of Chaplain 
 MuUer?" 
 
 "Release him," the major replied huskily. "He is innocent." 
 
 "Doch!" 
 
 And then entered ofiBcers returning from the Turkish head- 
 
 168 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 quarters, where their efforts to quell the rising Moslem rage 
 had failed. The girl and Cragg — had not Major Hoeffel secured 
 possession of them by alleging that they were political pris- 
 oners, with valuable information? But that information had not 
 been forthcoming. Nay, worse, there had been a leak, a stop- 
 page, a reversal. And where now were these prisoners? It 
 was imperative to conduct the suspected major at once to 
 Turkish headquarters to explain. . . 
 
 In the Hospice of Notre Dame the dark sentiments of de- 
 spair, hatred, and revenge sat in gloomy council. The German 
 delegation was met with ugly looks and significant whispers 
 and nods. The major was politely questioned, but the questions 
 were razor-edged. The girl, he had alleged, had made her 
 escape, after the prisoner Cragg had been buried . . . but might 
 there not be some doubt as to this burial? Yet some light 
 should be thrown upon this point by the prisoner who had been 
 sent to inter the corpse. And forthwith a demand was made 
 for an order that would hale David Barach before this hastily 
 assembled tribunal. 
 
 To the major, torn with the inner conflict, came again the 
 subtle tempter. "Doch, Otto," his fellow-ofBcers urged, "if you 
 know anything, tell it, for the love of God!" 
 
 For the love of God? But it was for just this love, a new 
 love, suddenly discovered, that he stood now between them and 
 the prisoners in the Temple cistern. Without, the British were 
 drawing hourly, irresistibly, nearer; if he could shelter his 
 charges until the sons of Israel should burst through the city 
 gates — though it cost him his life — would that not be at least 
 an approximation to love? 
 
 The buzz and excitement in the council chamber increased. 
 The Germans drew the major aside. "Otto, your silence con- 
 firms their suspicions ! But tell how the prisoners escaped, the 
 direction they took, or, if you know, where they are, and we 
 ai-e all saved! Doch, Otto, that girl means nothing to you! 
 Out with it! Would you sacrifice us?" 
 
 "I am the resurrection and the life. . . Greater love hath 
 no man. . ." The words rang in the major's throbbing ears. 
 "I, the Christ, am Life. And I am Truth. Truth!" 
 
 He turned to his fellow-officers. In feverish whispers he 
 sketched a plan and demanded their consecration to it. As 
 feverishly they gave it. And the agreement restored freedom 
 to Chaplain Muller — and repose at length to the tumult in the 
 major's soul. . . 
 
 A messenger entered. The prisoner Barach, he reported, 
 had been summoned to the Tower on Major Hoeffel' s order, 
 and was nowhere to be found. A cry of anger burst from the 
 
 169 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sons of Esau. . . And the major stepped out before them and 
 raised a hand. 
 
 Silence fell. The major broke it. In a low, tense, yet steady 
 voice he told them that the prisoners had escaped, and that 
 he, not Chaplain MuUer, had aided them. Cragg had not died. 
 He was with the girl. And David Barach had been sent to join 
 them. Whither they had fled, no one should know. And none 
 was culpable but himself. His alone was the crime and the 
 
 punishment. . . 
 
 ****** 
 
 "I am the resurrection a,nd the life. . . Though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live." The chaplain, with ibowed head and 
 streaming eyes, murmured the immortal words and turned 
 away. 
 
 The dawn of a hew day drooped tenderly over the domes and 
 minarets of David's city. An echo of gunshots reverberated 
 through the Judean hills and passed into silence. Then a veil 
 of powder smoke rose slowly, rose and formed into a halo that 
 glittered in the sunlight like a crown of gold. For a moment 
 it hovered above the still form of Major Hoeffel, then dissolved 
 from sight. The lips of the dead man were yet warm with 
 the words which the bullets had checked: "He that loseth his 
 life for my sake shall find it: . ." 
 
 CHAPTER 26 
 
 WITH the news of the Caporetto victory flashing over a 
 startled world, and the sanguine avowal that ther-eby 
 Italy was finally driven from the fray, the report of the 
 fall of Jerusalem would have dropped like a wet blanket upon 
 the reviving spirits of the Entente. It was a contingency to 
 be avoided at whatever cost. Accordingly a decision was hur- 
 riedly taken to defend the Holy City to the utmost. The redoubtr 
 able hosts of von Falkenhayn would presently send the infidel 
 British trespasser scurrying back to the Canal. And for the 
 distilling of this and similar suggestive propaganda the mental 
 generators of the General Staff were set to working over-time. 
 German officers came hurrying down from the north; breath-: 
 less reinforcements arrived; machine gun nests were feverishly 
 planted throughout the city; and six hundred German lorries, 
 laden with stores, rumbled into the seat of David to sustain 
 its defense against Israel. 
 
 The arrival of the lorries was hailed by the trembling Amer- 
 ican colony as a manifestation of God's mercy. The terrifieii 
 
 170 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Turks, desperate under the malicious suggestion from their 
 superiors that no quarter would be given by the British, seized 
 upon these lorries, gave over the satisfying of their blood- 
 thirsty rage, abandoned the hangings and the wholesale devasta- 
 tion into which they would have plunged without this means 
 of escape, and hurried madly from the now accursed place. The 
 city rocked with the roar and rumble of heterogeneous traffic. 
 Lorries, carriages, carts — anything with wheels — horses, don- 
 keys, -oxen, dogs, were rushed into service to transport from 
 the danger zone material treasures and screaming harems. Red 
 Crescent nurses fled from the bedsides of the dying, yet with 
 sufficient presence of mind to go laden with plunder. Wounded 
 poured from the clearing stations into the tumultuous city; 
 women tottered in, bearing stretchers, and were crowded 
 roughly aside by Turkish dames in a medley of equipages, or 
 astride skinny horses, fleeing wildly with the goods which their 
 profiteering lords had extorted or commandeered, through long 
 months of domination, from the suffering, starving populace. 
 
 Of the panic surrounding them, the inmates of the Temple 
 cistern could know nothing except as the incessant rumbling 
 transmitted by the living rock indicated unwonted activity. Nor 
 could David Barach explain why he had been summoned from 
 the prison camp, delivered to the Egyptian, and by her rushed 
 into this tomb with Cragg and Marian. But, though fear chilled 
 him, his every nerve tingled with expectation, for the "last 
 days" were indeed fraught with the miraculous. 
 
 And his eyes brimmed often with tears of gratitude, for 
 in the presence of Cragg and Marian he felt himself in an 
 environment of sanctity. These two had come from the "val- 
 ley of the shadow", where they had seen the Lord. They feared 
 nothing now. To him they had ceased to be human. And yet 
 the fact confused him. 
 
 And so he sat apart from them, staring, listening, wonder- 
 ing, hoping. And only when hour after hour passed, and the 
 rumble from without gradually died away, and an awful silence 
 settled over them, unbroken by the return of the Egyptian, did 
 he essay to speak — and then only to voice an apprehension 
 whose growth he had been unable to check. 
 
 "Our food is low," he said; "and the water is almost gone. 
 The Egyptian should come." 
 
 "This is a place that God possesses, David," the girl 
 answered. "Take what you need. We will not ask more while 
 we still see a supply." 
 
 Again, long afterward, Barach rose with heart beating 
 wildly. There were .low sounds from without. He crept to the 
 wall and hung, listening. There were soldiers beyond. His 
 
 171 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 heart was in his throat. Yet it was unlikely that they would 
 detect the loose stone which the Egyptian had carefully replaced 
 in the opening through which the refugees had entered Herod's 
 tunnel. He bent closer. From their conversation he knew they 
 were seeking the escaped prisoners. He heard the name of 
 the Egyptian on their lips. And then, to his horror, he gathered 
 that both she and the major had disappeared. His blood froze. 
 Gratitude fled before driving fear, which swept from his mind 
 the memory of Marian's demonstration of Immanuel. He was 
 buried alive and left to die of starvation! 
 
 He rushed back to Cragg and the girl with his burden. But 
 he stood rooted to the ground, and with bulging eyes, when the 
 girl met him. For, "We are glad, David, are we not?" she 
 said. "Glad that we know in whom we can trust." 
 
 Then he realized that Alden Cragg had indeed died, for the 
 man in whose presence he now stood with curdling awe would 
 never again be touched by the fear of death. 
 
 But Marian took his hand and talked to him, talked to him 
 of the gratitude that she and Alden Cragg had not ceased to 
 voice. And she revealed to him the wonder that from the same 
 sturdy word-root has sprung both "to think" and "to thank" 
 — that because the Nazarene had lived his gratitude he had 
 been able to thank God at Lazarus' tomb for that which he knew 
 was true, though the physical senses were pelting him with 
 their strident lies to the contrary. 
 
 The voices of the soldiers without died away and all became 
 quiet again. And then the food was consumed, and, later, the 
 water. And Barach sat and waited, ponderingi "He will not 
 forsake us, David," the girl said. "His work is never left 
 undone. But we must know." 
 
 And Barach strove to know, less materially, more spiritually. 
 But he had only seen with his material eyes; his spiritual vision 
 had not been opened by his own demonstration.. Fear grew 
 with the passing hours. By his reckoning he believed that days 
 had come and gone since he had been thrust into this reeking 
 tomb. He grew querulous, fretful, quarrelsome. Hunger 
 gnawed him, thirst began its tortures. 
 
 "But God is able of these stones to make bread," the girl 
 said. "He fed the Israelites manna in the desert. Is His arm 
 shortened now?" 
 
 But Barach laughed. And fear and suffering made his 
 laughter shrill. "God of my fathers!" he cried, "but a curse 
 came upon me from contact with the Craggs!" And he dropped 
 upon the ground and threw the dry dust upon his head. 
 
 Hours dragged through the awful silence. Blackness alter- 
 nated with twilight as day followed night. 
 
 172 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "He fed them with manna, David. He will feed us. . ." 
 
 And then Cragg came through the darkness to her side. 
 "Here is bread," he said. 
 
 Barach sprang at him with a cry. "You have been hiding 
 it from me!" he snarled as he tore the black loaf from Cragg's 
 hand. 
 
 "And here is water," the latter continued gently, holding 
 out the jug which the Egyptian long since had brought to them. 
 "I went to find the outer cistern which the Egyptian said opened 
 to the sky. It is the third one beyond this. I entered it, but 
 drew back lest I be seen from above. "Then at my feet I saw 
 this loaf. There is water there, too, for much rain has fallen, 
 and there are many little pools." 
 
 Once more Barach, now revived, fell at their feet and begged 
 forgiveness. But again, as hunger eventually returned, did his 
 fears arise. "The bread that you found had been thrown 
 away," he urged. 
 
 "But it was fresh, David," the girl protested. "And bread 
 is too precious here to be thrown away." 
 
 "Then it must have been dropped by accident," he insisted. 
 "There will be no more, and we shall starve! Or we shall be 
 found and shot!" 
 
 But again, after many hours and they had slept, Cragg 
 returned from another visit to the outer cistern, b-ringing a 
 fresh loiaf. And within this one they discovered concealed a 
 handful of dates. 
 
 "God of my fathers!" murmured Barach, his eyes streaming. 
 And after that he drew away from Cragg as from a being super- 
 natural. 
 
 "The air is fresher out there by the open cistern," said 
 Cragg. "And there is light. Let us go there." And he led 
 them over the debris and to the opening into the deep, un- 
 covered cistern beyond. 
 
 That day Barach remained thoughtful, nor did he voice his 
 usual fearful doubt, but when night fell he took up his station 
 close to the entrance into the open cistern. And in the depths 
 of night he was startled from his sleep, for an object had fallen 
 close and rebounded upon him. He reached out and grasped 
 it. It was a loaf. "God of my fathers!" he whispered. "That 
 I can ever doubt again!" And the stars shone out from the 
 blue vault of heaven over the open cistern and seemed to flash 
 to him a message of such love as he had not deemed possible 
 of human knowledge. 
 
 And thereafter, night by night, the loaf fell; and now it 
 contained a handful of dates, and now a bit of freshly cooked 
 meat. But whence it came there was naught to show. And 
 
 24 ■ 173 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the winter rains continued, and the little pools were kept 
 full. . . 
 
 And beyond the city the British outposts crept nearer, ever 
 nearer, flanked by the fleeting Arabs, sons of Ishmael, and sus- 
 tained in the withering trek through the deserts of Canaan 
 by water pumped up through Palestine from the Nile, two hun- 
 dred miles away ! — "Palestine shall be delivered from the Turks 
 when the waters of Egypt shall flow into it," Marian had quoted 
 to Penberry from the ancient prophecy, now being literally ful- 
 filled. And in fulfillment of prophecy Ottoman dominion over 
 the cradle of Christianity was being hammered into dust. On 
 they came, these irresistible sons of Brith-Ain, to the foot of 
 Neby Samwil, the Mizpah of Bible times, from whose height 
 Samuel judged Israel for twenty years. Up over this famous 
 hill they went, carrying the Turkish trenches by storm; and 
 to it, though it was become a veritable inferno, they clung with 
 the same dogged tenacity that had made Israel the "battle-axe 
 of the Lord" throughout the centuries. 
 
 Within the city, despite the nerve-wracking bombardment 
 beyond, despite confusion and panic, the emotions of Christian, 
 Jew, and Moslem were being stirred as only in the centuries 
 long gone. The mighty import of the event at hand was cast- 
 ing a spell of awe over friend and foe alike. This was not the 
 work of man: the invincible EL was in the field — ^Jah-Hovah 
 was knocking at the city gates — "I AM THAT I AM!" was bear- 
 ing down upon the desecrators of the sanctuary — prophecy had 
 been fulfilled to the letter, to the day, to the very hour! The 
 apostasies of the "little horns" that had struck through Koran 
 and Kultur at the living God were withering before His fiery 
 breath. The refuge of lies was consuming away. 
 
 "God of my fathers!" moaned Barach, "if the British should 
 fail!" 
 
 "But God can not fail, David," the girl gave answer. "We 
 must know." 
 
 "I never knew Him. . ." 
 
 "But all shall know Him, from the least to the greatest. 
 Oh, David, can you longer doubt?" 
 
 As the days had passed, Alden Cragg had gradually become 
 less abstracted. From that invisible realm into which he had 
 been thrust, and to which he clung long after his recall, he 
 slowly returned to wrestle with, the material consciousness that 
 physical sense ceased not to urge upon him as the true. He 
 spoke oftener; he manifested a growing interest in environment 
 and companionship; and he turned increasingly, pathetically, 
 to the girl, as his earthly mentor, his spiritual guide. "Walk 
 with me, Marian," he would murmur, as they sat side by side 
 in the darkness. "Do not leave me until I am strong." 
 
 174 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And she knew that it was not physical strength that he 
 sought. "But we cannot plan, Alden," she at. length gently 
 answered him; "we cannot outline. God lives, and we are in His 
 hands. Jerusalem must fall; but what we shall do then, we 
 cannot now say." 
 
 "Walk with me, Marian; walk with me. Nothing else 
 matters now. You are my Miriam," laying a hand on hers; 
 "you have suffered all — ^you have conquered all — they could 
 not break you. My strength has not been tested." 
 
 "Fear not, Alden. You have been shown where your 
 strength lies. You cannot lean on me." 
 
 Then at times he would wonder what disposition would be 
 made of him when the city fell, for he was still a British sol- 
 dier. 
 
 "Probably you will be given leave," the girl conjectured. 
 "You can go to London." 
 
 But he shook his head. "I must go back to Crestelridge," 
 he said. "But you vvill go, too." 
 
 She turned to him in wonder. "But is it wise, just now, 
 to go back there and face those conditions that have passed 
 from your life forever?" she asked. 
 
 "It is my duty," he answered. And a deep sigh shook hiin. 
 
 "But your home is really in London, Alden, Your mother 
 willbe glad to return there to live. . ." 
 
 "I must go back ... to Ethel," he replied huskily. 
 
 "Ethel!" The doors which had once closed against the old 
 sensuous life of Crestelridge now flew open- — and she shuddered 
 and grew silent again. 
 
 Then fell that portentous December night, when all heaven 
 looked down at the hosts of Israel, crouching breathless, eager, 
 with impatient zeal, for the final leap. The world paused with 
 bated breath to listen. The War Cabinet in London had issued 
 instructions to hold up all messages from correspondents and 
 military attaches until the announcement of Jerusalem's fall 
 had been made by a Minister of the House of Commons— so 
 vital was the fulfilling of this tremendous prophecy even to the 
 lowliest of mankind ! Within the city, the people prayed aloud 
 for Israel's victory. The noise of the near bombardment had 
 become deafening; rifle shots sounded but a yard away. Ger- 
 man engineers hurried to attach dynamite to lighting plants, 
 tq hospitals and mills ; the Turkish Governor, bowing to a power 
 mightier than Potsdam, gave orders to have it removed. The 
 retreating army passed through the city in solemn, silent pro- 
 cession, as if under a spell; the wounded streamed dumbly 
 after them. . . 
 
 About the British General Headquarters the tall form of 
 
 175 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Simeon Penberry stalked in reckless disregard of personal 
 danger or military orders. The first boat that had weighed 
 anchor after he had received word from the Egyptian Zuleyka 
 of Marian's capture had brought him. And as he now paced 
 to and fro he swore fulsomely at the delay of the British. For 
 somewhere beyond those embattlemented walls was a girl who 
 now meant more to him than life. And Simeon Penberry's sole 
 mission was to find her. 
 
 Then Israel, sprang. And Esau recoiled before the ten- 
 tribed kingdom. Dawn rushed into day. The desperate order 
 went forth to resort to street fighting, to defend the beleagured 
 city to the utmost. 
 
 The fugitives in the ruins beneath the Temple site sat 
 gathered at the entrance to the open cistern, holding their 
 breath. "God of my fathers!" cried Barach, suddenly springing 
 up, "I can stand it np longer!" His quivering nerves, rasped 
 raw by the quick succession of events, from the bitter conflict 
 with the Craggs in Crestelridge, the loss of his beloved wife, 
 his attempted assassination of Alden, his capture, the tremen- 
 dous, incomprehensible event at the hands of Marian, and his 
 incarceration in the cistern to await the throw of Fate, had 
 snapped, and now his brain reeled and his senses became a 
 riot. He plunged through the breach and into the open cistern 
 and scrambled upon a huge pile of debris. Raising his head, 
 he thrust out his arms and yelled wildly. A moment later the 
 alarm had been given; and soon a concourse had gathered about 
 the top of the ruined cistern and were gazing, wide-eyed and 
 gasping, down into its depths at its shrieking inmate. 
 
 Again the British leaped from the captured enemy trenches. 
 The onslaught was irresistible. Down crashed the hammer. 
 Up rose the last despairing groan of the Turk. His hour had 
 struck. The order for street fighting was rescinded, and the 
 last of the Turkish cavalcade sprang to horse and galloped out 
 through the Zion gate to a short cut to the Jericho road. 
 
 Then Hassain Effendi el Husseni, descendant of Mahomet, 
 and hereditary Mayor, took up the white flag and went out 
 to offer to Israel the capitulation of the Holy City. 
 
 176 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 27 
 
 URU-SALEM, seat of M«lchisedec and city of peace, had 
 passed into Israel's hands. The "treading down" of 
 twenty-five centuries was at last hushed. The "spiritual 
 abomination that maketh desolate," externalized in the "abomi- 
 nation of desolation" that raised Omar's Mosque where once 
 Jah-Hovah's Temple stood, was now to end. The incarnation 
 of insane human pride and power, typified by Nebuchadnezzar 
 and prophesied to reappear in type throughout the centuries 
 until the end of the "times of the Gentiles" — the gross type 
 that found its closing manifestation in the intolerable War 
 Lord of Potsdam — -had been overthrown, and by Israel redenta, 
 long lost from human view, but now resurgent, with the spirit- 
 ual destiny of mankind in its grasp. 
 
 When Simeon Penberry came into the city he had been met 
 by a messenger, who had conducted him at once to the Tower 
 of Antonia. There at the portal the Egyptian waited. "I have 
 her!" she greeted him. "Come!" And soon, in the little room 
 above which had served Major Hoeffel as study, the old man 
 opened his arms, and Marian, with a glad cry, rushed into them. 
 
 Explanations were brief. But Major Hoeffel's fate remained 
 concealed. Though Zuleyka knew, yet she permitted the girl 
 to conjecture that he had abandoned the city some days before 
 it fell. With his disappearance the Egyptian had gone into 
 hiding in the house of a kinsman near the temple area. From 
 her place of concealment she had emerged nightly to drop a 
 loaf to the prisoners below, knowing, from what the girl had 
 said and done, that it would be found by them. When she 
 had learned that the Mayor was gone forth with the white flag, 
 she left her hiding place. Then she saw the concourse gathered 
 at the mouth of the open cistern. She heard the calls for ropes 
 to lower, and saw the preparations forward to drag forth the 
 prisoners. She turned and fled to the Tower. It was deserted, 
 but for a few pillagers. In a trice she had dashed into the 
 subterranean passageways, crept through the wall into Herod's 
 tunnel, and thence into the cisterns, and dragged Marian away. 
 Cragg had sprung into the open cistern, into which stones were 
 now being thrown and bullets fired, had seized Barach in his 
 arms, and carried him back, struggling wildly. Up into the 
 Tower the Egyptian rushed them, and into a stone chamber, 
 behind bolted doors, where they remained until the city was 
 surrendered and the British were in possession. 
 
 And now in the seat of Pontius Pilate sat an English knight. 
 
 177 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And now from the streets rose sounds of rejoicing and triumph, 
 of glad relief and deep thanksgiving. Bunting flew from roofs 
 and windows. Women threw flowers and spread palm leaves 
 upon the pavements. The" people wept, they embraced, they 
 clapped their hands and shouted loud their delight in a medley 
 of tongues. The era of happiness and freedom, the theme 
 of twenty-five centuries of prayers and lamentations, was in 
 its natal hour. 
 
 "Etigland and America have saved the world!" cried Simeon 
 Penberry, tears coursing down his cheeks. 
 
 "But must your vision always stop with the material?" 
 Marian asked. "Oh, look beyond ! For from that great people 
 has come the spiritual revelation that will roll up the material 
 heavens as a scroll!" 
 
 They were seated in the little study, and Penberry had 
 bidden the Egyptian remain with them. David Barach had 
 been removed to a hospital, and Gragg had been ordered to 
 report to his unit. Of the attempted assassination of Alden by 
 the Jew, and of his rescue by the girl, Penberry remained in 
 ignorance. For his mentality^-as is the world's — ^was still in 
 its swaddling clothes. 
 
 Yet he knew that Cragg had been wounded, that he had 
 suffered severely. . . "Damme!" he muttered to himself, "that 
 white-haired scoundrel acts as if he had come from another 
 world! I'll get rid of him! He's not fit for furtheir service! 
 I'll recommend that he be invalided home ! Egad ! he's hand- 
 some as an angel. No wonder she's in love with him. . .! 
 
 "Besides," he continued to Marian, "Cragg is needed in Cres- 
 telridge. Things have been happening there, from what I 
 learn. And, my girl," leaning forward and fixing her with his 
 sharp eyes, "I let you come here to find him, but now that he's 
 found, your interest in him ceases. Deuced romantic, and all 
 that, to come down here for your handsome lover — get captured 
 — imprisoned. But, marry him? No!" 
 
 Marian looked at him pityingly. How shallow his under- 
 standing! Moreover, by what right did Simeon Penberry 
 assume to dictate to her? That which had passed between her 
 and Alden Cragg was not of this world, nor subject to its inter- 
 pretation. . . 
 
 And yet, when Penberry spoke of recommending that Alden 
 be invalided home, a great protest sprang up within her. For 
 this new man was not the Alden of old. This new one was a 
 closer approximation, oh, much closer! to the man she had 
 always tried to see back of the impossible human thing that 
 he had manifested in Crestelridge. Already the promise of this 
 newer creature was stupendous in possibilities. And she loved 
 the promise . . . greatly loved it.- 
 
 178 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But, even had the doors of Crestelridge not been closed to 
 her, yet she could not have returned there with him. For her 
 path and Alden's, she now knew, must diverge, else, by very 
 dependence upon her would his spiritual progress be delayed, 
 obstructed. She could not compare her own acquired spiritual 
 understanding with that of the Master, yet now she thought 
 she understood why the risen Jesus had said : "Touch me riot, 
 for I am not yet ascended to my Father. . ." He could not brook 
 that the woman should depend upon human support, and so in 
 deepest love he pointed her away from his material selfhood 
 by reminding her that he himself was not yet wholly ascended 
 out of the material concept. From his human selfhood he 
 pointed her to Principle, God. And Marian knew, that if she 
 would see Alden Cragg work out his salvation, she must point 
 him away from herself to the Christ. 
 
 She knew that in so doing she was sending him back among 
 wolves. She knew that this new creature would not, could 
 not, return to positions outgrown; that he must alter them, or 
 be himself o'erthrown. She knew that Armageddon awaited 
 him there. Humanly, she would have flown back with him, 
 would have clung to his side, to fight for him, steady him, 
 counsel him, guide. But that would result in her progress, 
 not his; that would be selfishness, not love. And she loved 
 Alden Cragg — and because of it she gave him to God. 
 
 But whither should she go? Penniless, homeless, kinless, 
 alone. . . 
 
 "Damme! you're right, my vision does seem always to stop 
 with the material," Penberry gave her belated reply. "But I 
 haven't forgotten the odd stuff you told me in London. Called 
 me an Israelite, eh? I've thought a good lot about that — and 
 I don't believe a bally word of it ! Damme ! if that stuff were 
 true, do you realize what it would mean?" 
 
 "It would mean that the Bible tells the truth," she answered 
 simply. 
 
 "It would mean . • . Br-r-r-r! it would mean that I must 
 become a Christian, whether I will or no!" 
 
 "It means that the verity of God is demonstrated — that the 
 Bible does contain the recipe for the healing of mankind — that 
 prophecy is confirmed. The discovery that literal Israel is 
 identical with the Anglo-Saxons means that a new day has 
 dawned, that we must now awake to the call for si)iritual 
 Israel, when every one must wrestle with error and prove him- 
 self the Son of God and heir to all His glorious promises, 
 or . . ." 
 
 "Means the Millennium, eh? No more war?" 
 
 "There will be war again," the Egyptian said. 
 
 179 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Eh?" Penberry turned hrs sharp eyes upon her. "You 
 croaking daw!" 
 
 "There will be another and greater war than this," the 
 woman went on. "Great Britain should know it and prepare. 
 For again the salvation of the world will depend on her and 
 America." 
 
 "Damme! How do you know?" Penberry demanded 
 fiercely. 
 
 "The stone Bible declares it, the Pyramid." 
 
 "The Pyramid! Damme! always the Pyramid! Stone 
 Bible! And yet . . . and yet - . . that was what she said." 
 He rose and began to pace the floor. "My thinking is turned 
 topsy-turvey by you two!" he cried. "There isn't a thing as 
 it used to be! . . ." 
 
 "No," Marian put in, "for these are the last days." 
 
 He came to where she sat and stood over her. "If they are," 
 he said, "I want to know it. I have ceased to scoff since the 
 world has been turned upside-down. I have never believed the 
 Bible — although, as you say, my nation happens to be its pre-: 
 server and keeper. To me, Cheops' old Pyramid is only a 
 tomb. But ... if what you say is true . . . and one of your 
 prophecies has come true, for you were right about Palestine 
 . . . And your faith that you'd find your lover. . ." He stopped 
 short and looked queerly at her. "Damme! if I had faith like 
 that to find her!" 
 
 "She is not lost to you," the girl said. "Nothing real is ever 
 lost." 
 
 "But . . . she must be . . . dead," he murmured, sinking 
 down in a chair. 
 
 "She lives." 
 
 He roused up. "How do you know?" he demanded eagerly. 
 "I say, how do you know?" He sank back, and his head 
 drooped. "No," he said, "it can't be. I left her . . . here, in 
 this city. I deserted her here. I went to Africa; she • .• ." 
 
 "She went to the east." 
 
 Again it was the Egyptian who spoke. Penberry sat up and 
 turned on her avidly. "Good God! what do you mean?" 
 
 "She went east," the Egyptian continued. "I know. For 
 I went with her. She said the ten tribes had gone that same 
 way." 
 
 Penberry sprang to his feet and seized the woman's arm. 
 "Where did you go?" he cried. "Where did you leave her?" 
 
 "I left her in Russia. I had to come back here. I never 
 heard from her again. But my kinsmen there may know." 
 
 "I'll trace her! I'll trace her! But," his voice fell, "that 
 was fifty years ago. Why should I think I could get track of 
 her now? Fool that I am!" 
 
 180 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But Simeon Penberry had been moved, and profoundly. 
 From the day that Marian Whittier came to him in London 
 his life-current had seemed to swerve and his thoiight to change. 
 "She said my life-work was not yet begun — and I am eighty!" 
 he would mutter. "Damme! what could she have meant?" 
 
 And now, with the peans of victory rising about him, why 
 was he bidden by this Egyptian prophet to face with his 
 country a future war that would exceed in violence the present 
 one that by the death-agonies of nations was now being drawn 
 to an end? . . . 
 
 He must know! Britain had scoffed before 1914 at the idea 
 of another war — and had been bowed in unspeakable agony 
 for her unbelief. Not again should she be so deceived, if he 
 could prevent it ! He was not a fool : he would meet prophecy 
 with an open mind. And he knew at least that Marian Whit- 
 tier was sincere. She had given proof that her words were 
 not to be disregarded. 
 
 Nor were the Egyptian's — though she came of a race that 
 mingled superstition lightly with truth. But he had abundantly 
 proved her. His agents in Cairo had recommended this woman 
 for important service long before the outbreak of the war. He 
 had employed her, tested her loyalty, and knew when he sent 
 her to Jerusalem to secure employment in the German Intel- 
 ligence Service that she would render a good account. But he 
 could not have imagined in his moments of wildest fancy that 
 her service would take the tack it had now assumed. 
 
 And then, for the sake of his beloved country and for his 
 own peace of mind, he formulated a deep resolve. He would 
 give ear to the lore of Khufu's tomb, and render it proper 
 estimate. Then — equally for Britain and himself — he would 
 sift the girl's mentality of its strange Anglo-Israel views. If 
 they appeared to him truth, he had at last, after long years 
 of searching, found an outlet for his millions and for the life- 
 energy that was still vouchsafed to him. Meantime, he would 
 trace her, if perchance a forgiving Providence might grant to 
 him the privilege, after a life of penance, of throwing himself 
 at her feet — perhaps, alas! only upon her grave — and making 
 what feeble restitution he might. The girl had said that she 
 lived. Could the girl know? Yet the girl had prophesied 
 other things, and not vainly. But at least life were a better 
 premise from which to set out than death. 
 
 And so he betook himself to the British Command. His 
 mission successful there, he exchanged long cabled messages 
 with the Home Oflfice in London. Then he rushed into the 
 presence of the girl. "Cragg is invalided home!'' he announced 
 excitedly. "To leave at once! I go east . . . investigation for 
 
 181 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the British Government of Anglo-Israel idea! I have secured 
 a commission for you to assist me because of your knowledge 
 of the subject! Zuleyka will go as your maid! Will you 
 accept? Yes?" He stopped and stood eagerly expectant. 
 
 Marian turned from him and looked through the window 
 into the narrow street. It was the road the Nazarene had trod 
 beneath his cross. Then slowly she faced the eager old man. 
 "I will go with you," she said simply. "But we must take 
 David Barach with us." And Simeon Penberry burst into tears 
 for sheer joy over the quick flowering of his schemes. 
 
 That day Marian visited David Barach. He was in the 
 hands of the doctors, and she had no moral right to interfere. 
 Yet he became quiet as she sat at his bedside and held his hand. 
 And rationality returned. Again his eyes filled, and he begged 
 forgiveness for his show of weakness, for his consuming fears. 
 "We never fear real things, David," she gently assured him, 
 "but only our false concepts and beliefs. We fear only fear. 
 The real is the spiritual; and that is God, Mind and its mani- 
 festation. And surely we cannot fear an infinite God who is 
 Love! And there is nothing else, for the testimony of the 
 physical senses is utterly false." 
 
 He pressed her hand. "You said Alden and I were brothers," 
 he murmured. "If that is true ... if that is true, then the 
 Bible promises have been fulfilled. But I ... I can not grasp 
 it!" 
 
 "David," she answered him, "what I said to you about God 
 I proved, did I not? Now I go for further proofs. I go for your 
 sake, and for the world's.. And you shall go with me. You shall 
 know that the Bible promises have been fulfilled. Meantime, 
 David, pray . . . pray . . . pray." 
 
 "But how can I pray? What shall I say?" 
 
 She bent over him. "Say nothing, David, for true prayer 
 is not lip-service. To know God and to love Him and your 
 fellow men, that is real prayer. Nothing else is required of 
 you. Know God, David, know! And rise, David, for your light 
 has come!" 
 
 That night the girl and Cragg walked about the . sacred 
 precincts of the Holy City. The broad moon rose slowly over 
 the Judean hills, but Gethsemane lay dark in the heavy shad- 
 ows. He was to leave for Jaffa in the morning, and they would 
 not see each other again. 
 
 "Marian — my Miriam — ^why are you forsaking me?" On 
 yon grinning mound of Golgotha, long since, a not unsimilar 
 cry had risen. 
 
 "Jesus said : 'I go unto the Father'," she answered. "When 
 the human 'V goes to the Father, when self is subordinated to 
 Principle, then our problems will be found solved." 
 
 162 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Walk with me, Marian, walk with me yet a little while!" 
 he pled in the agony of separation. 
 
 "But, Alden, I cannot return to Crestelridge." 
 
 "Then I will go where you go!" 
 
 "You must not, Alden. You must go back to Ethel. Oh, 
 Alden, she will need you!" 
 
 "How can I go back to Crestelridge?" 
 
 "And yet, Alden, you are grateful that you can, are you 
 not?" 
 
 "Marian . . ." His voice came huskily and broken. "I am 
 entering a new life. The old one is gone . . . forever. It is 
 not that I fear . . . no, I fear nothing, not even a second death. 
 Fear died with the man I once seemed to be. But . . . when 
 fear died, love was born. For I never knew what it was to 
 love anyone but myself. . . I cannot recall ever feeling the 
 slightest consideration for another, excepting that, for some 
 reason, you attracted me, however hard I fought against you. 
 Now I love . . . everyone . . . Marian, everyone ... I would 
 again enter the chamber of death to help Ethel. . . But to 
 marry her now, to live with her, when between her world and 
 mine there is an impassable gulf. . ." 
 
 "You may help her, Alden," she answered. 
 
 "She does not wish to be helped. She is satisfied as she 
 is. Jesus found many such; and he was forced to leave them. 
 But I ... I must live 'with . . . her ! Marian, if I could stay 
 with you!" 
 
 He stopped and turned to her. "Marian," he cried, seizing 
 her hands, "come with me, come! Let us go . . . anywhere, 
 but not back to Crestelridge ! Come to me ! Walk with me ! 
 I . . ." 
 
 He dropped her hands and turned away. "What am I say- 
 ing!" he murmured. "It is not I that speaks, but the 
 tempter. Forgive me, Marian. It is my duty to go back , . . 
 to her." He paused. Then, excitedly: "But she may not be 
 there; or she may have forgotten me. I heard from her once or 
 twice, before I left England? and at times she sent messages 
 in mother's letters. But I wrote her often, until I was sent 
 . . . into the . . . horrors of Trans-Caucasia. I have hot writ- 
 ten home since then." 
 
 "Alden," she spoke low and gently, "the real Ethel is a child 
 of God. That is the only Ethel that you must see. I had to 
 see the real you, even when it seemed so deeply buried beneath 
 the false. But that helped to bring the real you nearer, 
 did it not? I loved you, when all others were using you for 
 their own selfish ends, even your poor mesmerized mother. I 
 loved you, Alden, and ... my love brought you the Christ. 
 So must you love Ethel." 
 
 183 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Thy will, my God!" he murmured, his eyes brimming. 
 Then he took her hand. "Your love was not returned then, 
 Marian," he said;' "but now . - . now ... oh, Miriam, my 
 Miriam!" 
 
 Still holding her hand he turned and led her away through 
 the moonlight. The songs of rejoicing over the delivered city 
 were hushed. At the door where Penberry had secured lodg- 
 ing for her they halted. Gently he took her hands and bent 
 over them. "I have come back from the dead," he murmured. 
 "What was refused Dives has been granted me. I cannot now 
 abandon the lost ones of Crestelridge. I must go to them with 
 my message, my warning. Whether they will hear me rests 
 with God." 
 
 "Your message, Alden, must be a demonstration of Israel. 
 It must be the proof that God is All. Your warning must be 
 the truth that matter is the misinterpretation of Spirit, an unreal 
 concept of mortal thought." 
 
 "Yet they will not care to hear." 
 
 "Mesmerism will make them turn from you with scoffing, 
 for they are dead, buried in matter. And yet Jesus said : 'The 
 hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice 
 of the Son of God'. And, Alden, they that hear shall live!" 
 
 "Yes, for it was the voice of the Christ that I heard when 
 you spoke. And through you it called me back. Oh, Marian, 
 can I ever voice my gratitude, my boundless love!" 
 
 "Love God." 
 
 "I do, I do! And the beautiful channel that He chose for 
 His message of life to me, you, Marian, my Miriam, you! I 
 see, now, that you cannot walk with me. But . . . Marian, 
 my thought will go out to you! Oh, Marian, I shall call . . . 
 I shall call to you . . . through the darkness of Crestelridge 
 ... I shall call!" 
 
 "And God will answer you, Alden." 
 
 "Through you? Again through you?" 
 
 She hesitated. His pathetic eagerness wrung her heart. Her 
 eyes filled, and her voice broke. "Please God He may answer 
 -through me, Alden!". . . 
 
 For a moment they stood silent. Then he released her hands 
 and turned back into the night. She raised her arms and 
 extended them toward him as if in silent benediction, while 
 the moonbeams fell plashing about her in a silver shower. 
 
 Then a cloud drifted across the face of the moon. And 
 when it had passed, the beams dropped into a street deserted, 
 echoing, lone. 
 
 184 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 BOOK 3 
 
 JESUS saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the 
 flesh was I seen of them; and I found all men drunken, 
 and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth 
 over the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts 
 and see not. . . 
 
 — New Sayings of Jesus. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 TO the world of April, 1917, aghast at the incredible expres- 
 sions of evil boiling up in the wake of war, the admin- 
 istrations of theoretical Christianity were yielding small 
 comfort. The pulpit's assurance that all was still well fell as 
 mockery upon aching ears. The divine promise of the Christ: 
 "I will not leave you comfortless," dropped with pathetic 
 impotence from the lips of the Lord's vicars whose faith in the 
 victory of good this side of the grave was withering in the winds 
 of carnage blowing hot from Mesmer's land. "Christianity," 
 wailed the world, "has failed!" In the acid test of demonstra- 
 tion, the beliefs and opinions of the preachers had gone down 
 into the dust. 
 
 For the world had sought ease in matter as the comfort 
 promised by the Christ. In its many inventions, it had but 
 sought to evade the effort to know God aright. Gassed by the 
 lethal beliefs of life in matter, of intelligence in the gray pulp 
 of brain, it had stopped its ears to the call of Principle, and 
 had rushed eagerly after animal magnetism's delusive gods. 
 By 1914 the Christianity of the Nazarene had been rendered 
 thoroughly innocuous by the schoolmen, through long years of 
 the "higher criticism". The sterile debates of theologians like 
 Wilson Whittier, and their puerile squabbles over the fripperies 
 of orders, ritual, and vestments, had frittered away the life- 
 giving teachings of the Master, and rendered the human mind 
 richly fallow for the noxious growths of every system of per- 
 petuating secret evil in the guise of good. By April, 1917, the 
 deluded world was madly following the serpent's aggressive 
 suggestion to overcome error with other error more subtle, more 
 scientifically and exactly distilled. 
 
 And yet, all was well — but only within the radius of right, 
 thinking. God still healed — though the doctor continued to 
 take the fee. Had Crestelridge heeded the spiritual call: 
 "Awake, thou that sleepest!" its hurt had been cured. But it 
 
 3 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 gave back the answer: "Give us mesmerism — oblivion — but 
 spare us the effort of thinking!" For true thinking reveals 
 matter and its pleasures as but ephemeral concepts of mortal 
 thought. And Crestelridge elected to sleep on unto death. 
 
 The sudden wresting of Alden Cragg from the shelter of 
 his mother's arms that bleak April night had produced a shock 
 from which Mrs. Cragg was slow to recuperate. And full 
 recovery was long delayed because of the poison' distilled with- 
 in her soul by acrid thought of the avoidance of military serv- 
 ice by Alden's cronies, Ted Sayor, Wallie Black, and the grin- 
 ning Freddy KerL It was further impeded by the ceaseless 
 worry which began its ravages with Alden's departure. From 
 thenceforth, under its torments, she followed him with direst 
 forebodings. A thousand times she saw his troopship sink 
 under torpedo attack; a thousand times she saw him ill, suffer- 
 ing, neglected, insufficiently fed, clothed, or bedded. A thou- 
 sand barbed fears assailed her that her boy's finer clay might 
 escape due recognition. Daily she saw him in battle, saw him 
 wounded, or — hideous vision ! — dead in a forgotten grave. And 
 these dreadful mental conjurings all but drove her mad. 
 
 But as those first days of agony passed, and word at last 
 came from Alden- in England — voiced in peevish letters that 
 brimmed with complaint — the acid in her soul crystallized into 
 a malignant hatred of the Government -that had stolen her son. 
 And this hatred she sought occasion to voice, loudly, indis- 
 criminately, and with a foolish lack of wisdom. 
 
 Yet to her diatribes against the tyranny of Britain there was 
 found none in Crestelridge to offer check. Senator Chaddock 
 should have done so, for he heard them oftenest, having well- 
 nigh taken up his abode in "Craggmont" because of his absorp- 
 tion in the affairs of the great Cragg estate. And Doctor Roake 
 might have admonished the reckless woman, for he spent hours 
 with her, listening attentively to her plaints. But, instead, 
 these often nodded their approbation, often murmured^ — ^when 
 there was none else to hear — their full agreement. And more, 
 they would at intervals — particularly when she appeared most 
 violent — mildly recall to her thought other acts of polity where- 
 in Britain had been reprehensible; and this generally threw 
 the suffering woman into paroxysms of rage that left her 
 exhausted and ill. Then the doctor would soothe her with his 
 calm, steady gaze and soft words, and leave her with her men- 
 tality dulled and inert. 
 
 Daily she wrote to her idolized son. And daily she com- 
 mitted the grave indiscretion of voicing to him in these volu- 
 minous letters her bitter thoughts. Yet even this was not done 
 unadvisedly, for Doctor Roake had said, finding her one day 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 poring over one of her most fulsome invectives: "It will do 
 you good, my dear Mrs. Cragg, to unburden yourself in this 
 manner to Alden." And from that hour he was wont frequently 
 to suggest little items to incorporate in her letters to her son 
 — apparently harmless bits of gossip concerning Britain and 
 America, or anent the Cragg interests, financial and other, 
 throughout the world and, in particular, in the German 
 Empire. . . ■ , 
 
 "As to subscribing to Liberty loans," he once replied to Her 
 cynical remarks on this topic, "are you not already greatly bur- 
 dened by British taxation?" 
 
 "I am avoiding much of it, thanks to my barristers and to 
 Senator Chaddock," she answered grimly. "But why should I 
 purchase Liberty bonds to prolong the war? Have I not given 
 my son? The more money they have, the longer they will 
 fight!" 
 
 "Your offering. Madam, has been enormous," he said, bow- 
 ing low. "An additional monetary sacrifice should not be 
 required of you. And it is not." 
 
 The violent eruption of patriotic sentiment which burst 
 forth, almost over night, upon America's entrance into the war, 
 should have produced upon Mrs. Cragg a beneficent effect sim- 
 ilar to that which Ted Sayor believed he observed in those few 
 of Crestelridge's feminine gentility who gave themselves, at 
 least in part, to war work. "They are healthier now because 
 they have something to do. Give 'em nothing to do again, and 
 they will begin once more to explore their anatomies for trouble, 
 and before they are through they will find in them every disease 
 known to Jahr. Let the war go on, I say, till they have to 
 hand their Pomeranian pups to their maids for last week's 
 wages, and dismiss their specialists, and roll up their sleeves. 
 When the women get down to work, there'll be an end to 
 medical aggression.'* But the call to patriotism left Mrs. Cragg 
 cold. Nor as time went on and the country lost itself completely 
 in its new ardor, did those of hei; immediate set respond other 
 than perfunctorily. The Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls gathered 
 in cold-blooded consultation regarding the merits of Liberty 
 bonds as an investment, and shook their heads. There were 
 wider avenues open: Primal Motors, for example. And what 
 with the secret purchase and hoarding of foodstuffs and apparel, 
 and the subsequent profits to be garnered from wise speculation 
 therein, and the prospective profiteering on their brothers' 
 needs,, the purchase of Liberty bonds in other than sufficient 
 amounts to ward off harmful criticism was ill-advised. 
 
 "Liberty bonds!" exclaimed Ethel Whittier, with a curl of 
 her lip; "all this fuss over them makes me sick! Can't go to 
 
 25 • 5 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 a theater without having to listen to the dribble of Four-minute 
 Men! Can't step foot from the house without being assailed 
 by mushy solicitors! Why, they even chase right into the 
 rectory after us ! It's an outrage ! I wouldn't give 'em a penny! 
 Harris says Liberty bonds are an awfully poor investment. . ." 
 And Ethel's vaporings to Mrs. Cragg on the subject were duly 
 incorporated by the latter in letters to Alden that were read 
 by darkly scowling censors, who made fulsome annotations 
 therefrom. 
 
 From Alden's appointment as orderly to Captain Fitley was 
 born the lively hope that he might be stationed in England 
 until the close of the war, and Mrs. Cragg clutched it with 
 feverish eagerness. Feeding hourly upon it, she began to 
 recover strength, and to give promise of resuming her wonted 
 social activities. But, alas! scarce had she risen from her bed 
 when she was summoned to combat the baleful rumors which 
 had meantime spread concerning her son's enforced enlistment. 
 The story of that fateful farewell party at "Craggmont" had 
 gone subtly forth, gathering accretions as it traveled, until it 
 had become the possession of every household in Crestelridge. 
 
 Vain now were Mrs. Cragg's wild efforts to quash it. Vain 
 too those of the Whittiers, of Senator Chaddock, and Doctor 
 Roake. Even Harris Chaddock had covertly and cruelly re- 
 minded Ethel of the disgrace, until that proud young worldling 
 hid herself at last for very shame. The untrammeled gayety 
 which she had planned to enjoy as Alden's betrothed had 
 shriveled with the frost within a fortnight of his departure. 
 
 "I shall break off my engagement to Alden!" she wailed, 
 as she threw herself upon the davenport in the library of the 
 rectory. "He's a coward and a ninny! He was putty in 
 Marian's hands! Oh, everybody is laughing at me! I shall 
 write him and break off the engagement to-day!" 
 
 "You will do nothing of the kind!" cried Mrs. Whittier in 
 alarm. "The boy was simply overwrought, and Marian took 
 advantage of his mental condUion!" 
 
 "Oh, I always knew he had no backbone!" Ethel sobbed. 
 "He hasn't the fighting-spirit of a snail! He's a coward, a 
 measly coward! I won't be the wife of such a milk-sop! I 
 won't! I wonjt!" 
 
 "You will! Ethel, you must! He will have millions!" 
 
 Ethel sprang up and stamped her foot. "I won't have him ! 
 I won't! I shall have millions myself when Old Penberry dies!" 
 
 "Oh, Ethel ... we are not sure!" Mrs. Whittier burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "Not . . . sure?" Ethel gasped. "Ain't I his grandchild, 
 named in his will? Say ... I" 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Yes, yes!" cried her mother; "but . . . Oh, Ethel, suppose 
 there should be another heir!" 
 
 "Another heir! Look here, do you know of another?" 
 
 "No! no! no! But ... we are investigating . . . And we 
 must take no chances ! No one plays cards to lose ! You must 
 hold Alden . . . until we know!" 
 
 And so Ethel Whittier, unhappily impressed by her mother's 
 fears, remained ostensibly faithful to Alden, while her contempt 
 for him grew daily stronger. She wrote no more to him, 
 although, under maternal compulsion, she continued her now 
 perfunctory visits to the lonely inmate of "Craggmont", who 
 had come to look to her for the few gleams of light that now 
 streaked her desolate life. 
 
 But if Ethel had turned against Alden, so also did she shut 
 the door against Harris Chaddock, who had so deeply offended 
 her. And the more insistent his entreaties to be reinstated 
 in her favor, the more obdurate she became. "I'm going to 
 punish him!" she contended, when her father mildly remon- 
 strated. Yet in her heart she knew that, if Harris would but 
 break down the barriers which she had erected, he would find 
 her unresistant. And Harris, chagrined at the unexpected turn 
 of events — for he had reckoned that the belittling of Alden in 
 the girl's eyes would redound to his own strength, and he saw 
 now that he had gone too far — swore softly and renewed his 
 determination to wrest the Penberry heiress, at any cost, from 
 the absent Cragg. And to that end he .ceased not to cultivate 
 the rector nor stinted his preparations to unite with St. Jude's 
 at the next Confirmation. 
 
 But the cultivation of the rector had become a more difficult 
 task. For some days after that direful party in "Craggmont" 
 the reverend gentleman had kept within doors, passing most 
 of his time in the seclusion of his- study. Fear to face public 
 opinion held him long a prisoner. Marian's conduct had 
 plunged him into deep disgrace; yet when he reviewed his own 
 part in the events which had culminated in the distressing 
 climax of that black night, his face flushed hot with shame. 
 
 But there were elements in it that now, in his moments of 
 reflection, confused him and gave rise to grave apprehensions. 
 He must acknowledge a part in the miserable affair, and a most 
 ignominious one, played by himself. True, it had been played 
 because of his maddening desire fop relief from the girl's irri- 
 tating presence ; and he must admit that the menacing problem 
 which she presented in herself had been solved by her departure 
 from Crestelridge. But the manner of her departure had left 
 an additional sting, and, worse, a great fear, for — and here 
 was the danger! — it had aroused the keen displeasure of the 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 one man whose favor the rector was most desirous of retaining, 
 Dr. Jeremiah Roake. 
 
 The doctor had been slow to credit the report of the girl's 
 departure, had been loath to believe that Marian had left with- 
 out announcing her intention to the household. And it was 
 not until the rector received a brief note from her, written in 
 New York City, that the doctor realized that she did not intend 
 to return. Together with the frightened rector, he hurried into 
 the city to the address which she had given; but she was not 
 there. Then, a few days later, the rector received another note 
 from her, stating that she was embarking for England that day 
 — but this the rector's now thoroughly alarmed wife forbade 
 him to show to Doctor Roake. A consuming fear had entered 
 Mrs. Whittier's soul, and she transmitted it at once to the 
 susceptible rector. It was not fear for the girl's safety, nor for 
 aught that might proceed from her voluntary conduct. It was 
 a stunning, paralyzing fear that, in that unaccountable manner 
 of what the rector might call the girl's "involuntary conduct", 
 she might now meet — ^of all persons! — ^Simeon Penberry. It 
 was this hideous fear that held them staring at each other in 
 speechless apprehension, that dissolved Mrs. Whittier in bitter 
 tears, and that drove the smiles from their faces for many a 
 day. 
 
 But the manifestation of Doctor Roake's displeasure was 
 momentary; and soon the rector breathed easier, even if not 
 yet normally. And as days passed, then weeks, and no further 
 word was had from Marian, other than a brief announcement 
 of her arrival in England, the rector gradually resumed his 
 wonted activities — and yet with a lessened enthusiasm, a dimin- 
 ished interest, and a growing disposition to postpone the con- 
 summation of his tasks until he might ask a searching Why? 
 Daily he found himself dwelling with Marian in thought; 
 nightly, poring over tomes of reference and commentary, he 
 might have been seen, alone in his study, struggling with the 
 radical views, the stern admonitions, the warnings which she 
 had left him. "The solution of a mathematical problem comes 
 instantly when one knows the truth regarding it." The words 
 were Marian's, and now they revolved incessantly in his thought. 
 And Marian had said that the truth which would solve life's 
 complex problems was the alltiess of God and the nothingness 
 of matter. "But," cried the troubled rector over and over, 
 "matter is terribly real!" Had, not Ethel demonstrated that by 
 pounding upon the table at dinner that fatieful Sunday? "Matter 
 is created by God ! If I should shape my life by the chimerical 
 belief in its unreality I must renounce all science, all knowl- 
 edge, and must deny my God! I can't accept it! If I should 
 
 8 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ... If I should . . ." He shuddered. The prospect terrified 
 him. 
 
 And yet was he not, in a manner, meeting Marian's* demands, 
 for was he not taking steps to revive the Church's long neglected 
 function of healing by cooperating with Doctor Roake in the 
 latter's remarkable plan? Marian had spoken truth, in part. 
 The suffering world was losing faith in religious systems that 
 divorced the healing of the sick from the practice of Chris- 
 tianity. But to meet the world's great need Doctor Roake had 
 now come . forward with a most common-sense scheme, one 
 infinitely saner, less chimerical, than Marian's. 
 
 And in dreaming over it the rector would plan the great 
 missionary revival to follow the consummation of peace, wh^n 
 hosts of inspired young men should push irresistibly through 
 stricken Europe with the call of the Gospel. And he would 
 sigh for a leader, some inspiriting religious genius, who, with 
 preaching, with books, tracts, and Pentecostal fervor, could 
 arrest the human mind and transmute it with the forceful 
 alchemy of Christianity. But always through these dreams he 
 saw Marian, and heard her ringing challenge: "If your mis- 
 sionaries will heal the sick and raise, the dead by spiritual 
 means, your vision will be realized, but not until they do." 
 And he would remember how she had insisted that disease was 
 mental in origin. "Why," she had even exclaimed, "I believe 
 much of the world's sickness is directly due to its variant relig- 
 ious beliefs ! And some day you will acknowledge this." But 
 now he shivered at the sacrilege. 
 
 Yes, Doctor Roake's plan, the rector believed, met every 
 requirement for emerging readily and without jar from the 
 material into the spiritual. . . Yes, as he continued to study it, 
 and came more and more under its subtle spell, he considered 
 it nothing less than inspired. It certainly was the long-sought 
 solution. 
 
 And it was a tacit recognition of the supremacy of the 
 Church — in particular his Church. And his was the conven- 
 tional and oflScially recognized religion of Britain, elaborated 
 to conform to Christ's own words. He belonged to the historic 
 "High Church party". He stood — as he delighted to quote from 
 encyclopedic authority — "above the prevailing low level of 
 churchmanship and put forward higher and more philocatholic 
 views in matters of church authority, belief, and worship". 
 "We are English Catholic, with distinctive principles," was his 
 boast. St. Jude's was the oldest parish in the diocese, and 
 rock-ribbed. It had become the most active social center in 
 New England. If it invested the established order with a 
 sanctity not its own. Doctor Roake's plan was certain to correct 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that defect. If, as Marian had complained, its rector was 
 pandering to the worldly tastes of a wealthy and ultra-con- 
 servative flock, it must be remembered that there were in his 
 congregation some of moderate means, whom the rector 
 regarded highly, and whom he visited at stated intervals in 
 their modest homes, and to whom he delegated much of the 
 monotonous and routine church work for whose maintenance 
 the Telluses and Blacks and Kerls contributed so generously. 
 And if, as Marian had further accused, out of St. Jude's had 
 departed "all sense of reality or personal claim", that remark 
 was to be regarded as the heckling of an iconoclast. By its 
 works now, under the inspired Roake plan, would it provoke 
 criticism of a nobler sort. 
 
 Thus did the greatest opportunity of the rector's career, 
 afforded by the girl Marian, pass unheeded over his head. Thus 
 did the bemused rector shout "Kamerad!" to his besetting 
 problems, abandon the struggle, and settle down a captive to an 
 illusive compromise. In like manner had the grandest oppor- 
 tunity in the history of religion, afforded by the great war, 
 passed unnoticed over the churches of Christendom. Mesmer 
 remained triumphant over St. Jude's as over the Church of 
 God. "The maximum of respectability with the minimum of 
 thought" still governed in her councils. Following the leader- 
 ship of its vestry-governefl rector, St. Jude's shifted its burden 
 to God; attributed to Him the causation of sin, sickness, sorrow, 
 temptation, death; then proceeded to plunge still deeper into 
 worldly excesses, with the comforting assurance that belief in 
 the doctrine that Jesus died for the world was passport sufficient 
 to celestial bliss. 
 
 As part of the readjustment to normal of himself and his 
 distraught household after the wretched experiences of the past 
 few weeks, the rector yielded to the insistence of his wife and 
 daughter, and early in June sent them to a fashionable Atlantic 
 resort for the summer, planning himself to join them for an 
 occasional week-end. Mrs. Cragg would have fled her troubles 
 with them, but for the opposing council of Doctor Roake. 
 "Craggmont", he assured her, afforded the exact asylum which 
 she needed for seclusion and rest, and there, under his watch- 
 ful eye, she would most rapidly build up her energies so dis- 
 sipated by these past weeks of nerve-wracking experience. "I 
 want you where I can see you every day," he said gently, as 
 he softly stroked her hand. "You are now my most particular 
 charge. But," and he laughed, his deep, rich voice resounding 
 musically, "I am making Senator Chaddock really jealous. I 
 can't persuade him that my interest in you is quite profes- 
 sional." 
 
 10 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 2 
 
 WITH the writing of the Wess bill upon the statute books, 
 the activities of Dr. Jeremiah Roake became noticeably 
 greater. Upon these the community looked with 
 approval, when they looked at all. The social spirit of service 
 animating the great physician was surely their strong defense. 
 And while the bleeding sons of the masses beat back the hordes 
 of autocracy in Flanders to render the autocracy of Crestelridge 
 secure, while the intellectual atmosphere of a sorely chastened 
 world seethed with the advanced ideas of reforms to be when 
 — please God! — the Hun should be turned, Doctor Roake 
 patiently, urbanely — who would not say beneficently? — crystal- 
 lized the audacious plans which had been simmering long in 
 the crucible of his mind. 
 
 With his stirring campaign of education in matters of public 
 sanitation, there could be no disagreement. The community 
 needed cleaning up — mentally, to be sure, which would of neces- 
 sity become externalized in outward form; but if the cart must 
 needs precede the horse, well and good, so be it that the cart 
 go forward. In the call to the physicians of the surrounding 
 community to assemble to hear and discuss the eminent doctor's 
 plans of organization, there could be found no fault. The 
 announcement of his unique scheme of cooperation with the 
 churches was received with thunderous applause — and the Rev- 
 erend Wilson Whittier, who sat on the platform, swelled with 
 the pride born of his association with this remarkable plan. 
 World-health first, then world-spiritualization : a sound mind 
 in a sound body, and the latter to be discarded for Spirit — 
 when the pains of matter dropped the curtain of death on its 
 joys. The scheme was approved and sealed without demurrer 
 by mortal mind. 
 
 It was not in the public announcements of Jeremiah Roake 
 that Doctpr Benson first scented a possible danger, but rather 
 in the apparently casual remarks which the former dropped 
 here and there, the insinuations, the innuendoes, the softly- 
 voiced suggestions. But it was not until Dr. Harris Chaddock had 
 been appointed Health Executive, as the first fruits of the Wess 
 law, that Doctor Benson openly voiced his opposition to certain 
 of the activities of Doctor Roake. 
 
 "Why, Harris Chaddock is a mere boy!" he muttered, as he 
 paced the floor of his shabby office. "And he's a roue! He 
 entered the medical profession deliberately — on his own con- 
 fession — ^because women make such fetishes of doctors! 
 
 11 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Because they adore, worship, and fear them! He's a lustful 
 gutter- whelp ! But he's a clever politician, like his father — 
 and for that I distrust Roake!" 
 
 Then his thought went back to Marian Whittier. And he 
 shook his head. "I'm an old fogy, I admit," he growled. "My 
 one ambition has been to help my fellow man. And I've given 
 myself, under tremendous burdens, day and night, jrain or shine, 
 sick or vvell. My only concern has been my obligations to the 
 sick and my opportunities for service. And to that end I've 
 kept myself a doctor — I've not degenerated into a politician!" 
 
 By dint of careful inquiry Doctor Benson discovered that 
 his views were shared by others, and when Doctor Roake's 
 proposal for a "Public Weal Committee" came before the phy- 
 sicians already organized under the plan, Benson made. bold 
 to call Doctors Lann and Sale to discuss it. "It is a state-wide 
 measure," he pointed out. "Is it preliminary , to a national 
 measure?" 
 
 "Impossible to say," was Doctor Lann's opinion. "Roake's 
 injection of the religious issue into the medical question has 
 colored the whole thing. Whether this is a disguise — I trust 
 I may speak freely here?" looking carefully about. 
 
 "Don't hesitate, Lann," Doctor Sale assured him. "My own 
 suspicions have been aroused too. Like yourself and Benson, 
 I am solely a doctor, not a politician. This 'Public Weal Com- 
 mittee' of Roake's certainly will infringe on the people's liberty. 
 Of course, the question now raised is: Is such infringement 
 justified? For my part, I say no." 
 
 "The dangers are enormous," Benson declared decisively. 
 "The end is paternalism — the American people shackled. As 
 I see it, it means an autocracy controlling every human activity. 
 The drift toward bureaucratic government in this country is 
 already so strong that, unless it is checked, we shall soon be 
 where Germany was before the war: a nation whose thinking 
 is doled out to it by the Government." 
 
 "For that alone," said Sale, "our Government would require 
 at least an additional three hundred millions in money. Now, 
 will the people stand for it? Or will it result in revolt?" 
 
 "But Roake has the churches back of him," Doctor Lann 
 pointed out. "By the way, he is spending an enormous amount 
 of money! Where does he get ii?" 
 
 Benson shook his head dubiously. "I don't know," he said. 
 "But this I can say : it was the Cragg money that put the Wess 
 bill through. And it was Whittier who influenced the Craggs 
 to give it." 
 
 "But he will need millions more. Will the Craggs supply 
 it? And, say, where is young Cragg now?" 
 
 12 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Nothing has been heard from him in weeks. They say his 
 motlier is- distracted. But we are digressing. What is to be 
 our attitude toward the Roake measures?" 
 
 The others sat silent for some time. Then Doctor Lann 
 spoke. "What will be the attitude of the national, state, county, 
 and local medical associations? Will they submit to him?" 
 
 "Of course he has considered all that," said Benson. "They 
 will yield to his domination, you may be sure." 
 
 "In that case, what can we do?" Lann asked hopelessly. 
 "To oppose a genius like Roake, who has unlimited funds back 
 of him, and who is blindly supported by the churches and by 
 the great unthinking majority of the people, would be folly. 
 We'd risk our professional standing, and even our means of 
 support, I think." 
 
 "But only St. Jude's is supporting him thus far." 
 
 Lann smiled. "True. But it is tolerably certain that the 
 other churches will fall into line. I would stake my small 
 savings on it." 
 
 "It's a crime!" exclaimed Benson, rising and starting to 
 pace back and forth. "His proposed medical trust is the great- 
 est menace hanging over the American people to-day! It's a 
 fraud, a delusion, a thieving scheme, with the people holding 
 the bag, as they always do! World-health? Wliy, my friends, 
 do\I need to remind you that in the great struggle with disease 
 we doctors are losing ground every day? We have had terrible 
 battles, with some notable victories: smallpox, yellow-fever, 
 and typhoid have all but surrendered to us — at least, they've 
 declared an armistice — but only after destroying billions of 
 human lives. And we must acknowledge that even they have 
 been conquered, not by medication, but by prevention that has 
 resulted from cleaner thinking. But what then? New diseases 
 and plagues crop out where these have succumbed. And the 
 old line of torturing, death-dealing ailments remain unchecked, 
 or are actually gaining on us. I am not an advocate of any 
 particular school of medicine. I care not how suffering is 
 alleviated, so be it that the patient is relieved. If Marian Whit- 
 tier can cure without medicine or manipulation, I rejoice. But, 
 my friends, Roake's plan, if successful, will ruthlessly crush 
 out every form of treatment but his own! It will absolutely 
 dominate the hundred million people of this country ! His Wess 
 bill was slipped over on us while we were asleep ! It has already 
 opened the doors of every home in the State to him and his 
 agents, the health officials, the executives, the community 
 nurses, and the various 'cappers' that he will now appoint. 
 Where, in God's' name, will it end?" 
 
 Again they sat in moody silence, broken at length by Doctor 
 
 13 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Lann. "But to fight Roake with the feeble weapons we now 
 possess appears to me sheer suicide," he protested. "He can 
 destroy us, and he knows it, else he would not have launched 
 his scheme. Unless we can undermine him in some way, we 
 would best follow at his chariot, I say!" 
 
 "God forbid!" cried Benson. "What say you. Sale?" 
 
 Doctor Sale shook his head dubiously. "I counsel caution, 
 extreme caution," he answered. "Oh, I agree with your views 
 of the menace in -his plan, but ... I have a wife and three 
 babies to support, you know. To fight him with his own 
 weapons is out of the question; and other weapons have we 
 none." ... v. 
 
 Meantime, in the momentary exaltation of propinquity to 
 the great physician, the Reverend Wilson Whittier felt a 
 renewal of courage, and he forthwith grasped his ecclesiastical 
 scythe and strode out to the fields white for harvest. With 
 Harris Chaddock soon safely garnered as a communicant of 
 St. Jude's, the rector again went after the cynical soul of Ted 
 Sayor. The vacuum of Ted's objectless existence should be 
 filled — Doctor Roake had suggested to the rector that the young 
 man's caustic remarks anent medication and religion were born 
 of spiritual desuetude. The youth was a victim of reversal. 
 His spirit and his goods rightfully should be devoted to the 
 very causes which now suffered his ridicule. 
 
 "Come, Ted," said the rector, cornering the young man in 
 the lounging room of the International Club and putting an arm 
 affectionately about his shoulders, "it is time you became a 
 Christian, is it not?" 
 
 "What's a Christian?" Ted demanded -bluntly. "The war, 
 you know, has upset our views." 
 
 "Why," the rector hastened to elucidate, "a Christian is a 
 follower of the Christ." 
 
 "Are you one?" 
 
 "Er . . . Why, Ted! Certainly I am! What a question!" 
 
 "It is a silly one, isn't it?" Ted returned quixotically. 
 
 "Ted, the Church needs you," the rector urged. 
 
 "Oh, no," said Ted, rising. "It needs Christianity. But, 
 I'll tell you what: I'm a clubman and something of a joiner. 
 And if you will come out honestly for just what you are, and 
 will state plainly that St. Jude's is a social organization, a club, 
 and nothing more, I'll join it. But I'm not a hypocrite, and 
 I refuse to pretend to be a member of a Christian church that 
 knows nothing about Christianity. Do you agree?" 
 
 "Ted!" cried the rector, aghast. "Certainly not!" 
 
 "Then please excuse me," said Ted. "And," starting away, 
 "I must leave you now, for I have a dinner engagement and 
 
 14 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 theater afterward." And he took his departure, leaving the 
 rector staring after him with mouth agape. 
 
 The chagrined rector voiced his plaint to Doctor Roake — 
 and the latter laughed, softly, as was his wont, and, in his 
 wonderfully soothing voice, counseled patience and an ampler 
 consideration for the foibles of youth. "Suppose I send our 
 new Health Executive to quarantine Ted so that he can't elude 
 us; then you can work on him, and we will not raise the quar- 
 antine until he consents to join St. Jude's." 
 
 The rector glanced at the doctor with a start. "But," he 
 questioned seriously, "has Harris Chaddock such ample power?" 
 
 "Certainly," replied the doctor easily, "if he suspected con- 
 tagion. Would you like to see a demonstration?" 
 
 "Could . . . could he enter . . . my house . . . against my 
 wishes?" the rector asked reflectively. 
 
 "To be sure, ^under the Wess law. So see that you all 
 remain healthy. Consult your physician regularly and you 
 will have no trouble. What do you hear from Mrs. Whittier 
 and Ethel? Do they keep well? Ethel needed the change and 
 rest. She is delicate — inclined to anaemia. And she is very 
 temperamental, resulting in 'nerves'. She must take a regular 
 course of treatment this fall." 
 
 Then, changing the subject quite abruptly: "Oh, by the 
 way, do you, by any chance, hear from Simeon Penberry these 
 days?" 
 
 The rector changed color. "We have heard nothing from 
 him since the . . . the war began," he replied unsteadily. And 
 then, to his horror, he heard again the clattering of that bony 
 thing that, long hidden, now burst again from its cell and rattled 
 out to seize him by the throat. . . 
 
 "You believe in God?" 
 
 "Heavens, yes! ... I am trying to!" 
 
 "And that which is hid . . .?" 
 
 "Spare me! spare me!" 
 
 "Then loose me and let me GO!" 
 
 The rector sank perspiring into a chair. Doctor Roake 
 hurried to him and felt his pulse. 
 
 "It is . . . nothing," murmured the rector, struggling to 
 his feet. 
 
 "But it zs something!" the doctor insisted. "Come in here," 
 taking his arm and persuading him toward an adjacent door, 
 "and let me examine you." 
 
 And thus, while the rector made no revelation of his mental 
 content, the doctor's keen penetration disclosed a thread which, 
 when followed, he was certain would lead to the irascible old 
 master of Penberry Hall. And he determined to pursue it. 
 
 15 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Your condition is not serious," was his verdict, the exami- 
 nation concluded. "Yet it is important, in that it may soon 
 lead to invalidism. We must discover w}iat bacterial proteins 
 you are sensitive to, and then vaccinate against them." With 
 which professional pronouncement he dismissed the rector and 
 sat down to compose a cable message to his agents in London, 
 who would transmit it to Major Otto Hoefifel, of the German 
 Imperial Staff, engaged at that moment in keeping Penberry 
 Hall under careful surveillance, that he might note the 
 departure of its strangely detained guest, one Marian Whit- 
 tier. . . 
 
 With such simple moves on the chessboard of Fate was 
 Crestelridge concerned that summer of 1917^-preliminary 
 moves all, maneuvers for position. And then came fall, and 
 the harvest. 
 
 For more than two months Mrs. Cragg had heard nothing 
 from Alden, and fear had succeeded worry, and terror replaced 
 fear. And then to the menace of the loss of her beloved son 
 was added that of federal displeasure, nay, chastisement, for it 
 now developed that Washington would fain regard Mrs. Cragg 
 as an enemy alien. 
 
 Perhaps her danger was exaggerated by her sedulous coun- 
 sellor, Senator Chaddock. Perhaps, but for a mentality weak- 
 ened by excessive worry, disappointment, chagrin, and con- 
 sequent ill health, she would have met the alleged menace with 
 her old-time defiance and vigor. Perhaps ... 
 
 But even Doctor Roake now shook his head gravely, and 
 reflected long and deeply before replying to her anguished 
 questions and pleas. The Craggs had been intimate with 
 Otto Hoeffel; and Otto's status was now fully revealed. True, 
 Doctor Roake had introduced him into "Craggmont" — How ter- 
 ribly he had been deceived in the young man! But many of 
 those apparently harmless enthusiasts who had been wont to 
 assemble in "Craggmont" before April, '17, were now known 
 to be serving the enemy and laughing in mockery of the gullible 
 hostess of "Craggmont". It was undeniable that much had 
 been said in the Cragg salons anent the tyranny of Britain and 
 the virtues of Germany; but the Craggs had meant only to be 
 "fair", "broad-minded", and "j-ust". . . 
 
 But, oh, if the Craggs had not so bitterly denounced the 
 "War Fund" drives; if they had but supported the Red Cross, 
 and those other various national movements of patriotic altru- 
 ism! And if Mrs. Cragg had but bought generously of Liberty 
 bonds! And if only the Craggs had not held such extensive 
 possessions in Germany, Austria, and even in the tobacco fields' 
 of Turkey — oh, if they had not exhibited such extreme fear 
 of losing these! 
 
 16 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But — glad hope ! — there was the Cragg sacrifice of Alden to 
 his country's need! 
 
 Alas! the story of the youth's enforced enlistment was 
 already the possession of federal agents in Washington; and 
 they knew that the story was unmitigated by his service in 
 Trans-Caucasia. 
 
 With the first breath of federal displeasure — though who 
 provoked it, none could say — Crestelridge society fell away from 
 Mrs. Cragg as from a pariah. "If it's true, it's shocking!" 
 exclaimed the horrified Mrs. Tellus. "And it must be true, for 
 Henry says that he can look back now and see that . . ." 
 
 "Indeed, yes!" heartily agreed the scandalized Mrs. Kerl. 
 "And they say . . •" 
 
 "But have you heard the latest?" put in Mrs. Black, drawing 
 her chair closer and dropping an excess of the war-time allow- 
 ance of sugar into her tea. "Mrs. Whittier has put her foot 
 down on Ethel's marrying Alden now." 
 
 "Oh, I knew that!" Mrs. Tellus asserted, a bit loftily. "And 
 I could tell you something else that would make you sit up. 
 Henry says — but don't breathe a word of this! — Henry says 
 that Mrs. Cragg's husband borrowed money to establish his 
 businessi borrowed from a Jew, and — this is what I want you 
 particularly to get— he never paid it back!" 
 
 Ostracized; terrified; threatened with loss of fortune; loss 
 of her son; possible imprisonment; with the black, piercing 
 eyes of Doctor Roake now gazing always into hers and holding 
 her, fascinated, inert; and with Senator Chaddock hovering ever 
 before her, lavishing his solicitous attentions upon her, now 
 pointing out this danger, now that, now suggesting this course, 
 now another, the poor woman's mentality bade fair to give 
 way under the enormous strain. 
 
 "Had you only married again, and married, say, an Amer- 
 ican," sighed Doctor Roake, "you could have transferred your 
 estate to your husband — that is, placed it in his name — and 
 saved it. But now . . ." 
 
 The distracted woman burst into tears. "Doctor," she 
 sobbed, "am I to lose everything? Oh, what have I done? . . . 
 what have I done to deserve this?" 
 
 "Nothing, my dear Madam," he returned sadly; "it is what 
 we would term an 'act of God'." 
 
 "There is no God!" she cried bitterly. "There is only evil 
 in the world!" And she fain would have declared that its 
 embodiment stalked abroad in the person of Marian Whittier,. 
 whose curse lay upon the fair Cragg hame. 
 
 But, though Mrs. Whittier and Ethel, with curled lips and 
 noses atilt, would not suffer the contamination of Mrs. Cragg's 
 
 ■ 17 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 presence now, the rector was not to be swerved from his duty. 
 Mother and daughter had returned to Crestelridge early in 
 September, and had immediately discovered that, in view of the 
 recent disclosure regarding Mrs. Cragg's disloyalty, the ground 
 for Ethel's chagrin over her engagement to Alden had been 
 quite removed. Ethel — so society sagaciously agreed — had been 
 an innocent victim. "The dear girl!" sighed Mrs. Tellus. "Now 
 she will marry Harris Chaddock — a much more suitable 
 match!" And the feminine Black and Kerl contingent con- 
 curred heartily in the belief. But the rector gave unwilling 
 ear to the busy gossipers. The Cragg scandal reflected upon 
 St. Jude's, and unless the Cragg prestige were saved — and, 
 incidentally, the Cragg fortune — ^his church must suffer. There- 
 fore he believed it devolved upon him to render effective a 
 casual remark which Doctor Roake had dropped in his pres- 
 ence. "If Mrs. Cragg were married^and to an American of 
 standing — say, to Senator Chaddock, a gentleman of unques- 
 tioned loyalty and acknowledged influence in Washington!" . . . 
 And, to render this course even more probable as the solution 
 of the lady's distracting problem, the senator had admitted, 
 in the presence of the rector and Doctor Roake, that he had 
 long greatly admired Mrs. Cragg, that he had paid her marked 
 attention some years before, and would have offered himself, 
 but that he had discovered and gallantly respected her desire 
 to remain in widowhood and bestow her affection undivided 
 upon her idolized son. . . 
 
 A suggestion, nothing more, from their common benefactor. 
 Doctor Roake. And the good doctor was ever dropping sugges- 
 tions, like living seed, upon the fallow soil of mortal mind, 
 where they sprang up and flowered, some fifty, some a hun- 
 dred, some a thousand fold. 
 
 Late in September, while Alden Cragg sat dully on the troop' 
 ship bound for Port Said and lived over in his dreams the . 
 horrors of Tiflis and Erevan, Mrs. Cragg, pale and emaciated 
 with months of acute suffering, was married to Senator Chad- 
 dock in the library of "Craggmont", with the Reverend Wilson 
 Whittier ofBciating. 
 
 CHAPTER 3 
 
 LOOKING back to April of that year, and even beyond, the 
 monitors of Crestelridge society recalled now the progres- 
 sive development O'f Senator Chaddock's devotion to Mrs. 
 Cragg. And while few had interpreted it as other than a rarely 
 beautiful loyalty from a faithful steward, still there were those 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 who had even then nodded their heads sagaciously — ^partic- 
 ularly after Alden's departure — and predicted the very event 
 which had now occurred. Harris Chaddock,, noting his father's 
 increasing absorption in Mrs. Cragg, had remarked to him 
 jocularly that marriage might be a good thing for him, might 
 rejuvenate him; but afterward he commented more seriously 
 to Doctor Roake: "D^d's powers seem to be declining, I've 
 noticed it for some months back. His mind isn't as active as 
 it used tobe. He imagines he's in love with Mrs. Cragg." But 
 few there were who believed that the proud Englishwoman, 
 whose gods had been money, tradition, and social prestige, 
 would contract another matrimonial alliance, especially with 
 one lacking in this world's goods and, above all, an American! 
 
 "But Mrs. Cragg wasn't herself any longer," explained Mrs. 
 Tellus after the bewildering event. "She's a mental wreck and 
 unaccountable. Dear, dear! what a leveler this war is! Who 
 would have believed it!" Certainly not the Telluses, Blacks, 
 and Kerls, whose dull vision saw naught but effects, nor would 
 acknowledge a mental cause, had they discerned it. 
 
 To the rector the marriage justified itself in its immediate 
 results. The menace of federal prosecution disappeared. Expla- 
 nations of Mrs. Cragg's former conduct and attitude now 
 revealed her a much misunderstood woman. The American 
 flag now floated over "Craggmont"; large drafts on the Cragg 
 wealth were received by the treasurers of the various war 
 funds ;. the Cragg mansion became the locus of a varied assort- 
 ment of war workers; and the former Mrs. Cragg appeared 
 again at the services in St. Jude's, now gallantly conducted to 
 the Cragg pew by the beaming senator, whose conduct might 
 have been regarded as a bit childish, but for the mitigating 
 circumstance of his recently acquired status as benedict. 
 
 Deep in her own tired, confused, and troubled mind the 
 former Mrs. Cragg believed that what she had done was done 
 solely for Alden; and when, as a larger measure of protection, 
 she yielded to the persuasion to transfer her estate to other 
 hands, she consoled herself that it was a mother's sacrifice 
 that she was so readily making. Her overtaxed mentality had 
 been too inert fully to comprehend the legal phraseology 
 employed in the transfer, but she believed, in a confused way, 
 that the result of those seemingly endless conferences with her 
 husband, with Doctor Roake, and the rector was the placing 
 of the vast Cragg estate safely in trust until the war should 
 end and her son be returned to her yearning arms. 
 
 With the Cragg problems at last in trustworthy hands, the 
 rector again sighed his relief and sought forgetfulness in con- 
 centrating on his extensive plans for socialization in connection 
 
 19 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 with the prominent role assigned to St. Jude's in Doctor Roake's 
 ■world-embracing plan. He resumed his work a bit shaken by 
 recent events, to be sure, and yet with the stimulus drawn from 
 observation of a horizon at last free of menacing clouds. 
 
 The Whittier prestige likewise revived. The rocking of the 
 insecure pedestal on which Mrs. Cragg had stood actually had 
 redounded to the strengthening of the \yhittier foundation, and 
 Mrs. Whittier and Ethel returned to Crestelridge from their 
 summer outing to a social situation that lent itself readily to 
 their manipulation. Admission to membership in the "Nor- 
 man Dames" was secured by them both without opposition, 
 and Mrs. Whittier, closely pursuing every advantage, drove hard 
 to a position in the community that was destined to ultimate 
 in Social dictatorship, "lyord!" Ethel exclaimed over her 
 chocolates and novels, "but the war has given Mama a boost. 
 If it keeps on there'll be no living with her." 
 
 Herculean had been the rector's efforts to clear the Cragg 
 name and to save and augment the Whittier position, social and 
 ecclesiastical, and greatly had they succeeded. But his endeav- 
 ors to persuade his captious daughter to lower the social bars 
 to Harris Chaddock had proved vain. "He insulted me," Ethel 
 petulantly insisted. "And I will not permit him to enter the 
 house." Well did the autocratic young woman sense her aug- 
 mented power, and tyrannically did she intend to wield it over 
 Crestelridge society. 
 
 But Harris Chaddock, employing an ancient ruse, was soon 
 manifesting an apparent disinterestedness that scandalized the 
 rector anew and brought dismay and chagrin to Ethel. "For 
 heaven's sake, Mama," the daughter cried, when she could no 
 longer control herself, "Harris Chaddock is driving around with 
 that notorious Fay Meuse! She's a screen vampire! Oh, now 
 I shall never, never speak to him again !" And she was momen- 
 tarily glad that she had not written to Alden and broken their 
 engagement. 
 
 "Now, daughter," Mrs. Whittier admonished, "don't do any- 
 thing foolish. You must hold Harris in reserve, now that his 
 father has married the Cragg fortune. Every move in these 
 ticklish times must be made With the thought of 'safety first'. . 
 My country!" she sighed, "how things have changed." 
 
 But not so readily could the rector dispose of Harris' con- 
 duct with the unmentionable Fay Meuse. Harris .Chaddock was 
 now a communicant of St. Jude's. Could the rector permit 
 the young man's conduct to become a public refutation of the 
 power of his preaching? Was religion's hold to be thought 
 so slight? Not so! And the good man laid the jnatter before 
 Harris' mentor. Doctor Roake, for advice. 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And the latter laughed and dismissed the case with a light 
 word. But then, after reflection, he decided to call Harris upon 
 the tapis. 
 
 And guarded though Harris was in his replies, the clever 
 doctor probed the hurt to the bottom. "Ethel is Penberry's 
 heir," he said, at the close of the conversation, "and it galls 
 you to know that she is going to marry young Cragg." 
 
 "She doesn't care for him," Harris protested. "And every- 
 body knows it." 
 
 "Well," the doctor returned, with a glint in his eyes, "the 
 Germansi to-day are endeavoring to establish the mediaeval 
 theory of 'the will to power'. If the State has the brute force 
 to do a thing, they say, no moral force must be permitted to 
 restrain it. They hark back to those old romantic days when 
 a rejected lover would storm his lady's tower and carry her 
 off by force. And, they claim, she always loved him for it. So 
 they would tell you that women to-day still admire a bold dis- 
 play of physical strength." 
 
 "But storming a lady's tower these days is a very different 
 matter," objected the youth. 
 
 "Yes,'' sighed the doctor, turning to his desk to resume 
 work, "for we have fallen upon times of strictly legal pro- 
 cedure." 
 
 And Harris Chaddock left the doctor's presence irritated 
 because of having been called to account for what was quite 
 his own affair, and yet, despite his resentment, resolving in 
 his mind the doctor's quixotic allusion to the present unro- 
 mantic era of "legal procedure", . . 
 
 As the young man revolved the doctor's suggestion — for 
 suggestion it was — there came to him a sudden illumination of 
 thought. Not, of course, that the doctor had meant just that. 
 No, it was his own clever interpretation of the term "legal 
 procedure". He could compel Ethel Whittier to admit him to 
 her presence if he chose. And — the haughty little minx! — he 
 was of a mind to do so. Her unfair discrimination against 
 him was making of him a public jest! It had all but rendered 
 his clubs intolerable! 
 
 Then a darker question spurred him. Why should he 
 supinely permit the Penberry heiress to marry Alden Cragg? 
 But could he prevent it? For she would not admit him to her 
 presence; she hdd sent him a note telling him that, because of 
 his flaunting of Fay Meuse in her face, she never cared to see 
 him again. He was dismissed. . . 
 
 But he need not beg her to admit him! He was the Health 
 Executive; and by invoking the police power of the Wess law 
 he could enter any house in Crestelridge! And the Wess law 
 conferred upon him even greater power. . . 
 
 26 21 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He spent days darkly ruminating. The little brother of 
 Madeline Nence, he was notified, had developed diphtheria. He 
 quarantined the house and sought Madeline for information. 
 It transpired that Madeline had been with Ethel Whittier much 
 of late. Ah, Ethel might be proved a "carrier" ! Humph ! . He 
 believed now he could prevent her marriage to Alden Cragg! . . . 
 
 Thus the days passed. And each day brought a change^ for 
 human concepts are but transient, and the mortal mind, though 
 it moves in a circle, must be always amove. No further word 
 had come to his mother from Alden Cragg for weeks, and the 
 poor woman consumed with fear. Senator Chaddock had 
 learned that the youth had been transferred to the Palestine 
 field, but all further effort to get in touch with him thereafter 
 had signally failed. 
 
 At length came the report of Alden's disappearance in the 
 action at Beersheba — but the senator mercifully withheld the 
 dire news from the distracted mother. Worry and carking 
 fear were fast sapping her energies. Her brain was tottering. 
 Yet in her sufferings she still sought, not unto her God, but 
 unto her rector. "Oh, Wilson," she wailed, as she paced 
 unsteadily the floor of her boudoir, "why am I so afflicted? 
 If there is a God, why did He permit this terrible war? Oh, 
 Wilson, why?" 
 
 But the rector shrank from the challenge. Like the church 
 of which he made his boast, he had found himself messageless 
 in this crisis. Yet he knew, as he sat with bowed head before 
 this type of world-suffering, what Marian would have said. 
 He knew why this war without rival in brutality and blood- 
 shed had burst forth among those nations that were professing 
 to worship the same God and to walk in the faith of a common 
 Saviour. He knew that "Thy wag and thy doings have pro- 
 cured these things unto thee — " but he would have lost caste 
 had he said it. 
 
 Then graver physical disorders began to manifest, and the 
 stricken woman was again borne to her bed. And to her awful 
 fears for Alden were now added her own great horror of death. 
 "Don't let me die. Doctor !" she begged as she tossed in her 
 pain. "Can't you do something? Can't somebody do some- 
 thing?" And, to the spiritual guide who had left her comfort- 
 less: "Pray, Wilson, pray! Beg God to spare me, and Alden! 
 Oh, is there a God? Is there another life?" Oh, had Wilson 
 Whittier's years of preaching wrought only to such spiritual 
 desolation? She had been a faithful communicant — She was a 
 Christian, in the eyes of a world ignorant of the Christ — Her 
 passport to heaven was duly visded — ^Yet the approach of death 
 drove her mad with fear. The heaven of the theologian's fertile 
 
 22 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 imagination had suddenly evaporated, and in its place was a 
 horrible blank,. 
 
 The council of physicians at length summoned by Doctor 
 Roake looked grave and solemnly shook their heads. And Ted 
 Sayor, whom Harris Chaddock kept informed of the case, gave 
 vent to his feelings in the privacy of his rooms in cynical 
 strains. "Oh," he observed, "they can draw her teeth and cut 
 out her tonsils, but they won't find the cause of it all, not they! 
 And they can hold forth learnedly on the major brain and the 
 thoracic and lumbar plexuses till they're blue in the face, but 
 she'll die just the same. Lord, if Marian were here! . . . But 
 they'd throw her into the street, for she'd tell 'em that a man 
 is the sum total of his thoughts! . . . And, by heaven! that's 
 just what Mrs. Cragg is to-day." 
 
 But, oddly enough, comfort came to the suffering woman, 
 after many days, from a source most unexpected. Ethel Whit- 
 tier, wild-eyed and pale, trembling as with palsy, crept furtively 
 to the bedside and threw her arms around the patient's neck. 
 "Alden must come back!" she whispered hoarsely, excitedly. 
 "He must I We both need him! And . . . Marian said that 
 our real needs are always met!" 
 
 It was bewildering, yet stimulating, as the totally unexpected 
 so frequently proves, and the patient wondered, but rallied 
 under it. And day after day Ethel crept in and sat there, talk- 
 ing of Alden, planning his return, planning her marriage, her 
 future home, until the patient began to appropriate the girl's 
 disconnected ramblings and feed upon them as truth. It was 
 the most perplexing, confusing, of all that had transpired, this 
 strange conduct of this now wide-eyed, serious girl, who, from 
 an attitude of hot rebellion against her betrothed, now voiced 
 constantly the deepest yearnings for his return and the most 
 stubborn refusal to believe that he would not. 
 
 To the rector it was a change of heart that was inexplicable 
 but wonderful. He must regard it as an answer to his prayers, 
 and he devoutly thanked God for it. But Ted Sayor shook his 
 head. "Has Ethel got religion?" he muttered. "I'm beginning 
 to doubt the evidence of niy senses! Marian used to say that 
 the five senses report only lies, and now I know it! Oh, it's 
 a mad, mad world — ^but it's moving fast these days!" 
 
 Then, one day, frost touched the gardens of fair "Cragg- 
 mont" with its death-laden fingers, and over the wires throb- 
 bing in the chill wind came simultaneously to the rectory and 
 to "Craggmont" the news that Alden Cragg was dead. Major 
 Otto Hoeffel, of the German Staff, had reported from Jerusalem 
 to the British Command that Private Cragg had died, a captive 
 of war, from wounds received in the battle of Beersheba. 
 
 23 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The rector staggered under the blow. Mrs. Whittier watched 
 the Cragg millions ooze through her fingers, then fainted. Ethel 
 uttered a piercing cry and dropped upon a sofa, where she sat 
 staring straight ahead, dull-eyed and motionless. 
 
 In "Craggmont" a servant received the message and took 
 it, with great indiscretion, to her mistress. The latter, believ- 
 ing that at last had come news from her long-silent son, tore 
 it feverishly open. . . 
 
 The day nurse, entering at that moment, rushed to snatch 
 the message from -the patient's hands ere she might read it. 
 But when she reached the bedside the mother of Alden Cragg 
 was dead. 
 
 CHAPTER 4 
 
 AGAIN the cleansing winds blew, an icy blast. Again the 
 dun clouds dropped down a covering of white. And some 
 ^ of Crestelridge's multitude of sins lay buried beneath the 
 soft mantle in a new-made grave — the Chaddock mausoleum 
 was as yet only in plan. 
 
 Again the chimes of St. Jude's rang out upon the midnight 
 air. And their peal mingled with the shots and shouts, song 
 and psalmody, that gave noisy sepulture to the dead year and 
 raucous welcome to the new. But amid the rejoicing and rev- 
 elry, in cabaret, dive, church, or mansion, none knew — nor had 
 cared — that the year just tolled by the leaden hammer had 
 witnessed the literal fulfillment of Scriptural prophecy voiced 
 with inerrant accuracy twenty-five centuries before. A new 
 era was born in the infant year: soon its spirit would be voiced' 
 in the cynical retort: "Uplifted? La, la! I prefer to be 
 amused." 
 
 The fourth year of the most momentous upheaval in history 
 was already well advanced. Human skill was still feverishly 
 designing new enginery of slaughter; natural science was yet 
 desperately draining its resources for more comprehensive 
 modes of death. Darwinism stood at the zenith: in the myste- 
 rious essence and forces of matter lay present and future man — 
 his past an ape. Matter, insentient and paradoxically endowed 
 with mind, was humanity's undisputed god, a veritable trinity 
 of money, human intellect, and the fleeting, corruptible body 
 of flesh. 
 
 And the mesmerized worshipers of the world's false god 
 dropped, dropped, dropped, like sere leaves in the blast, con- 
 sumed with disease or dissolved in the gases of their own 
 scientific concocting. Yet would they not learn that the false 
 
 24 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sense of a mind in matter is the sole cause of humanity's woes; 
 that the sufferings of the flesh are traceable to mental causes; 
 and that the breaking up of the false beliefs constituting 
 humanity's sham god had brought upon the terrified world its 
 Armageddon. . 
 
 With the beginning of 1918 Russia was admittedly definitely 
 out of the war, and Germany, for the first time, was free to 
 concentrate on the western front. The red hordes of anarchy 
 were streaming out of the north, symbols of the pernicious 
 doctrine of free-will, wherein man can choose aught but Prin- 
 ciple. France stood back panting, useless for purposes of gen- 
 eral offense; the burden of initiative lay now full on Britain. 
 Teuton plans for a crushing blow were at last perfected. Amer- 
 ica was plunging to the fore to stem it. And the world out- 
 side — and Crestelridge — crouched, with bated breath, and 
 waited, watched, and waited. The weapons of their warfare 
 were carnal — none more so than the carnal fear which fell 
 like a shadow from the American Brobdingnan across the 
 morale of the Hun. In that shadow the German spirit disinte- 
 grated. 
 
 In the shadow of fear .the spirit of Crestelridge likewise 
 moldered. The decay had found early externalization in 
 "Craggmont", whose once proud mistress, betrayed by her 
 worldly gods, had been mesmerized by fear unto death. It 
 found externalization in the rectory, where the Reverend Wil- 
 son Whittier, driven by vague, indefinite fear — fear that eluded 
 outline, yet was as tangible as earth — grew daily thinner, increas- 
 ingly nervous, and more mentally confused. Yet his salary 
 had been increased by a mollified vestry to an ainple figure; 
 St. Jude's was fairly bursting with its numerous humming 
 activities; the Whittiers dressed and entertained now as never 
 before; the rector's worldly-wise consort conducted her puppet 
 show with never such elan and piped never so shrilly for a 
 society that madly danced; and Mrs. Whittier's family tree 
 still proudly reared its lofty frond high above the humbler 
 shrubs of the parish. . . 
 
 But in vain did the rector seek relief in these distractions, 
 and in the prescriptions of the sympathetic Doctor Roake. "I 
 must go away!" he desperately insisted; "I must go away!" 
 And yet he somehow knew that he would not, that he could 
 not, for a power held him now that he might not break. 
 
 In Ethel Whittier the externalization was most pronounced. 
 Her former gayety was now strangely gone; gone too was her 
 fdrmer flippant defiance of conventionality and publife opinion. 
 Her mood had suddenly become one of constant, abrupt, and 
 sharp changes: now she sat sullen, hateful, silent; now her 
 
 25 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 anger burst forth violently, indiscriminately; now it assumed 
 particularity in the upbraiding of her parents for their shallow 
 views of life, for the puerile character of the rector's preach- 
 ing, for the mother's frivolous aims. Again, she would sit with 
 eyes wandering furtively, or would weep and cringe and creep 
 into her mother's arms and lie sobbing and trembling. Doctor 
 Roake she would not see, but — to the increased perplexity of 
 her parents — she called Dr. Harris Chaddock, called him again 
 and often, and held him, clung to him. . . 
 
 "It is because of Alden's death," the rector tried to assure 
 himself and his anxious wife. "The blow has affected her 
 terribly." And Mrs. Whittier, wiping her eyes, agreed. "My 
 country!" she would often exclaim, "how things have changed 
 . . . How things have changed!" And her thought would turn 
 to Harris Chaddock. 
 
 And yet Dr. Harris Chaddock came now only professionally 
 — ^just as for some weeks he had been professionally visiting 
 homes in' that neighborhood to detect "carriers" and to check 
 progress of the diphtheritic contagion that still prevailed. And 
 he too appeared ill at ease and apprehensive. "I know he 
 wants to marry Ethel," Mrs. Whittier would frequently insist 
 to the distraught rector, "but something seems to have come 
 between them. Do you suppose it's that awful Fay Meuse?" 
 
 "But Harris promised me he would not see that dreadful 
 woman again," the rector answered. "As for Ethel, it wouldn't 
 look well for her to marry Harris so soon," he quite properly 
 objected. "Why, poor Alden has been dead only a few weeks! 
 Besides, only a short time ago Ethel would not permit Harris 
 to see her. Can she want to marry him now? It ... it is 
 dreadfully perplexing!" 
 
 "Yes, I am sure she wants him," Mrs. Whittier persisted. 
 "And, Papa, the match would be most desirable. Harris is 
 likely to have money now, you know. The senator seems to 
 be failing. Can't you speak to Harris and learn his intentions? 
 It would at least relieve this killing strain." 
 
 Nor was the externalization of fear confined to the rectory. 
 Ted Sayor had been wondering, often, and with no abatement 
 of his apprehension; whether, after all, his immunity from army 
 service was worth its cost. It had been no easy matter to 
 convince the authorities that he was tubercular, although 
 Doctor Roake had rendered yeoman aid. The strain had told 
 on Ted, and he had been obliged to yield to the doctor's insist- 
 ence on diet and tonics — and to an injection or two of an 
 energizing serum with which the doctor had been long expeti- 
 menting. Now, as the weeks went by, Ted began to view with 
 genuine alarm the steady decline of his former robustness. Yet 
 
 26 
 
THOU I SRAEL 
 
 for safety's sake — heavens! how the federal prison loomed in 
 imagination — he must continue to seek unto the doctor, to have 
 cultures taken, examinations made, treatment prescribed. It 
 was all against his principles. He hated it! Loathed it! 
 Shame scorched him. But fear held him. And daily he saw 
 himself become more inextricably entangled. "I'll dish the 
 whole damned mess!" he vowed. But he realized, after more 
 sober thought — realized it with a dulling sense of horror — that 
 the thing was now impossible. He had entered the broad gate, 
 entered it willingly, gladly, and it had closed behind him. 
 
 The darksome fear that lay athwart Senator Chaddock's 
 life was less definite. The rapidity with which events of the 
 most startling nature had followed one upon another In the past 
 few months seemed to have left him mentally dazed. True, 
 his ambitions had been met in a degree that exceeded his weird- 
 est fancy — but he was still far from happy. He had coveted 
 "Craggmont" and all that it symbolized; and the manner in 
 which it had come to him was, after all, not of his own mak- 
 ing. His marriage to Mrs. Cragg had been, if he might so 
 express it, altruistic. He had saved her and the Cragg estate 
 thereby. And he sincerely lamented her death — or, perhaps 
 better, the unfortunate manner of her taking off. But the 
 thought haunted him that he had still an obligation to meet, 
 and that the meeting of it entailed a burden that would surely 
 prove too heavy for his shoulders. But, worse — he could not 
 explain it — he was aware of a change within himself — a change 
 that had stolen upon him subtly, like a thief — and Harris had 
 been so cruel as to inform him that he was becoming senile! 
 God! that was a fear! ... 
 
 The first snows of the new year were drifting softly about 
 "Craggmont" when the senator, who sat asleep in his easy chair 
 before the open fire late one afternoon, was aroused by his 
 secretary. "Beg pardon," the latter said nervously, "but there 
 is a call on the 'phone ... for Mrs. Cragg. . ." 
 
 The senator started up from his chair. "From . . . Mrs. 
 . . . CraggI" he gasped. 
 
 "For Mrs. Cragg, sir," the secretary corrected. "I ... I 
 thought perhaps you had better reply, sir. He is holding the 
 wire." 
 
 "He!" The senator's knees shook as he rose and, assisted 
 by the secretary, crept slowly over to the cabinet telephone 
 on the library table. 
 
 "This is Senator Chaddock," he said nervously through the 
 instrument. "Mrs. Cragg? No, she is not here. Who's speaks 
 ing? No, I say, Mrs. Cragg is not here. Where is she? Why 
 . . . why . . . she's dead!" 
 
 27 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He dropped the receiver, crouched fearfully over the table, 
 and turned his white face up to the gaping secretary. A strange 
 sound had burst from the instrument, and died away in a 
 hollow rattle. The senator fell back and motioned to the tele- 
 phone. "Quick!'' he commanded hoarsely, "Ask him who he 
 is!" 
 
 The secretary sprang to the instrument. But the one who 
 had called was gone. The secretary hurriedly demanded of 
 "Central" whence the call had come, and was informed that 
 it was froni a public telephone, probably one located in the 
 depot. 
 
 "The depot!" The senator clutched a chair to keep from 
 falling. His face was deathly white, his limbs shook. The 
 secretary hastened to his support. "Call up Doctor. Roake!" 
 the senator gasped. "Tell him I'm coming down to his ofBce 
 immediately! I . . . Ring for Jedkins! Get me into my 
 clothes! Call my car!" 
 
 Something had smitten him with deadly fear. Perhaps it 
 was a presentiment, a foreboding; but as he was whirled away 
 in his limousine a few minutes later his mind, now unwontedly 
 stimulated, reverted for just an instant to that bleak Sunday 
 morning when the Cragg bell cracked. And his heart all but 
 stopped. 
 
 Through the down-town streets the white snow whirled and 
 drifted. But it was no whiter than the hair of a tall soldier, 
 clad in the British uniform, who came, like a spectre, through 
 it. His head was bent, and his step was at times unsteady. 
 And a group of curious boys followed him, pointing, whisper- 
 ing, speculating. 
 
 Before the great building that housed Doctor Roake's mag- 
 nificent offices Senator Chaddock's car drew up and the lackey 
 sprang to open the door. At the same moment Doctor Roake 
 himself, fur-clad and natty, came out of the building and 
 approached the car. 
 
 "Get in here!" cried the senator hoarsely. The startled 
 doctor complied. Then, as the door closed upon the two, the 
 senator seized the doctor's arm. "I had a call," he began in 
 a shaking tone. But his voice fell abruptly, and his hand closed 
 over the doctor's arm like a vise. "Good God!" he whispered, 
 staring through the glass, "who is that?" 
 
 The white-haired soldier, followed by the wondering street 
 urchins, loomed through the storm. His shoulders were 
 stooped, and his eyes held to the pavement. The senator shrank 
 back, with mouth agape and trembling finger poised in air, 
 The doctor gazed at the approaching figure with slowly widen- 
 ing eyes. Then he uttered an exclamation and sprang out. 
 
 28 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The soldier came abreast of the car and halted, as he saw 
 the doctor blocking his way. The latter stood for a moment 
 uncertainly; then, with a slight animal crouch, he crept closer, 
 his eyes fixed and glowing. Of a sudden he straightened up, 
 "Who are you?" he demanded, and his voice was like a feral 
 snarl. 
 
 The soldier's reply came low and hollow. "I am Alden 
 Cragg." 
 
 The doctor recoiled. Then — rare event !^his wits seemed 
 to leave him. "You . . . you . . . are . . . dead!" he gasped. 
 
 The other regarded him with his great, luminous orbs. "I 
 was," he answered slowly, and in a voice that struck chill to 
 the doctor's bones, "but I have come back." 
 
 CHAPTER 5 
 
 yi LDEN CRAGG, not only alive, but actually again in their 
 J-\ midst ! The discovery, heralded by telephone, messenger, 
 and evening "extras", shook Grestelridge with such force 
 as to drive it for the moment from its contemplation of Self. 
 It was as if the passing storm had dropped him! And there 
 were those who sat and fhought long on the portentous event 
 — and some caught their breath as they thought. 
 
 He had strangely refused to go up to Doctor Roake's office 
 with the doctor and Senafor Chaddock — so these two afterward 
 reported. He had appeared stunned, they said. And small 
 wonder! for he had returned in complete ignorance of happen- 
 ings in Grestelridge since midsummer, and had just been 
 apprised of events that must have pierced his soul. . . 
 
 He had endeavored to cable his mother from Port Said— ^ 
 so the doctor's report amplified — ^but had been prevented by 
 the priority of war needs. Again, at Southampton, he had 
 tried" to get word to her of his journey homeward; but of his 
 message, left in strange hands — who knew? So many occur- 
 rences, from the merely irritating to the fatal, had now to be 
 laid at Fate's door. He fiad comforted himself — so he had 
 brokenly told them — with the assurance from his superiors 
 that the report of his return from German captivity would be 
 regularly made in due season by the War Office. He had 
 supposed it had reached Grestelridge long since. But Britain 
 was just now concentrating on more vital matters, and the 
 report had been delayed. 
 
 On landing in New York he had hurried through the 
 required formalities, and hastened to catch the already depart- 
 
 29 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing train for Crestelridge. Then, home at last, he had called 
 "Craggmont" to announce the glad tidings. . . 
 
 "I presume he wandered from the telephone in a dazed con- 
 dition after the senator's incautious statement," the doctor con- 
 tinued, when reporting the startling news late that afternoon 
 to the shaking rector over the wire. "But he said he stopped 
 in at the ofBce of the Courier, where he made himself known 
 to the editor and learned everything. Said he didn't know he 
 had been reported dead. Terrible, isn't it? That is, assuming 
 that he is really Alden ,Cragg. His appearance is shocking — 
 looks like a ghost — and his hair is snow white ! Senator Chad- 
 dock is greatly affected. Insists that he is an impostor and not 
 Alden. You know, there are so many cases of double identity. 
 What makes it more suspicious is that he wouldn't talk much. 
 Said absolutely nothing about his experience abroad. And he 
 insisted on going straight to the rectory ... is on his way up 
 there now in the senator's car. So we will leave you to judge of 
 his identity. . . Oh, yes, he has his papers, and his passport. . . 
 But those things are easily obtainable under circumstances such 
 as are involved in this case. However, we will leave him to 
 you. Call me back as soon as you can." 
 
 Thus had Alden Cragg returned. No bands had greeted 
 him; no triumphal arch had spanned his way; no clamoring 
 mob or lauding citizenry had formed his eager escort. He had 
 returned unheralded, unwelcomed, a lowly private, without 
 honors, without record. 
 
 He came alone, back to his shattered world — a now hideous 
 world — from whose life and sympathy he was completely iso- 
 lated. And as he entered it again he viewed it with an awful 
 sense of remoteness across the huge gap which his climacteric 
 experience, like a great earthquake, had rent between him and 
 it — ^viewed it as perhaps Abraham had viewed the Canaan which 
 he was sent to possess — ^viewed it with the full knowledge that 
 he could not be reabsorbed by it, yet that here lay his unfinished 
 problems, here awaited his Peniel. 
 
 He had come knowing that, as the world would see it, he was 
 beginning life over again, starting from a fresh and untried 
 point. He knew that now he must find and demonstrate his 
 rightful place, and that in the search he must battle with the 
 full power of circumstances. Yet he could not have outlined 
 in advance the fell nature of those circumstances, could not 
 have formulated in anticipation the tangled problems which 
 he had returned to face, alone. During those weary weeks 
 of the homeward voyage he had clung only to his new-found 
 God, in Whom he knew he must now seek his rightful status. 
 Beyond his sense of his immanent God all was chaos. 
 
 30 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He had returned to Crestelridge with his affections for his 
 mother, for Ethel, for the world, enriched by his- awful but 
 priceless experience; he had been met at the outset by another 
 blast of evil whose mesmerism for the moment overwhelmed 
 him. Still in a state of bewilderment, he had struck out on 
 the one visible path of duty, the one that led to Ethel. 
 
 He had not been informed in his brief, strained conversa- 
 tion that afternoon with Doctor Roake and Senator Chaddock in 
 the latter's car that Ethel was wildly praying for 'his return. 
 He could not remember that they had given him anything 
 beyond. a few meager facts regarding his mother's astounding 
 marriage and pitiable death. And the shock of it had left 
 his thought in a confused welter of sorrow, condemnation, and 
 stinging pain. When he entered the rectory he was in a state 
 of benumbed calm. 
 
 The rector greeted him oddly, timidly, with undisguised 
 embarrassment and a strange lack of cordiality. Greeted him 
 with the gawking wonder that held his bulging eyes to the 
 man's white hair, to his white features that seemed so 
 diaphanous, to the lines so indistinct. Mrs. Whittier, though 
 profuse in her welcome and voluble in expressions of wonder 
 and surprise, was unable to hide her state of extreme nervous 
 tension. But Ethel, seeming not to notice Alden's altered 
 appearance, flew to him and threw herself into his arms, while 
 her emotion, now fully loosed, burst into hysteria. Alden 
 stood, stunned afresh, yet thinking vaguely of his separation 
 from this girl a few months before. Then his benumbed spirit 
 instinctively rose to meet a further onslaught of evil presaged 
 by her wild and unaccountable conduct. 
 
 "It has been terrible!" groaned Mrs. Whittier, raising her 
 eyes to Alden during her ministrations to the distraught girl, 
 whom she had at length persuaded from his arms to the 
 davenport. "If you had jiot come back she would have died!" 
 
 Alden, clutching at his own wits, went mechanically to 
 the davenport where Ethel was huddled and sat down beside 
 her. She threw herself upon him again and clung, sobbing, 
 choking, now laughing shrilly, now scolding, now babbling 
 incoherently. Then, as her emotion slowly spent itself, she 
 lay against him, holding his hand and whimpering plaintively. 
 
 The unhappy rector heaved a long, .gasping sigh and fell 
 into a chair, where he sat regarding the girl with frowning con- 
 centration. "Thank God you have come back!" he murmured 
 at length, turning to Alden. Yet even as he expressed his 
 gratitude he voiced the tormenting suspicion implanted so 
 early by Doctor Roake. "But you return so . . . changed! Your 
 hair . , . how could it have turned so white in these few 
 
 31 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 months? Perhaps I should not recall to you memories which 
 may cause pain . . . but you are not the Alden Cragg who left 
 us. . ." He paused and sat again staring hard at Alden. 
 
 The latter looked up at the rector. "No," he said, speaking 
 low. 
 
 The rector's brows lifted, but he waited. Then, as Alden 
 gave no sign of continuing: "You are so changed," he 
 reiterated; "but you also find many distressing changes here. 
 The . . . 'the whole world seems to have changed. Your 
 dear mother . . . she has entered the . . . heavenly rest. . " 
 He stopped short and hung, gazing in fascination into Alden's 
 eyes. He was held by the strange look in them, a light, a 
 gleam that was uncanny, spectral. And he shivered. 
 
 "But" — Mrs. Whittier hurried to fill the embarrassing 
 hiatus — "Alden comes back to us looking more mature . . . 
 and yet not really older, but more . . . experienced." 
 
 "He must have seen much service," the rector suggested, 
 finding relief in the thought. 
 
 "None," said Alden. 
 
 The rector and his wife both started in amazement. Even 
 Ethel glanced up at him in surprise. 
 
 "But you were taken prisoner! And reported dead!" the 
 rector cried. And then he suddenly recalled other portions of 
 Doctor Roake's telephoned report. "Er . . . Doctor Roake said," 
 he went on, "that you told him you had come back from ... 
 from . . ." 
 
 "From the dead," Mrs. Whittier finished eagerly, leaning 
 forward, with her eyes fastened upon him. 
 
 Alden's gaze drifted beyond them, as if into unfathomable 
 space. "I was thought to have died," he murmured absently. 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Whitter, "tell us about it!" 
 
 "Many would have died, but for the wonderful skill shown 
 by the surgeons in this war," the relieved rector observed, 
 now sure of his subject. "You were wounded in battle, we 
 learned. It must have been serious, judging from the sur- 
 geon's report." 
 
 "The surgeon pronounced me dead. The order for burial 
 had been issued," was the unaffected reply. 
 
 "What!" The rector was almost on his feet. Mrs. Whittier 
 sat open-mouthed. Ethel paled and drew timidly away. "But 
 . . . what saved you?" the rector gasped. 
 
 Alden remained for a moment silent. Then he answered: 
 "The Christ." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Mrs. Whittier and Ethel in unison. And Ethel's 
 lip began to curl. 
 
 "Ah!" sighed the rector, settling back in Jiis chair again 
 
 32 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 in manifest relief. "They prayed for you. The chaplains 
 rendered good service. Yes, I have known of other instances 
 ■where, when medical science failed, prayer moved God to 
 save the patient. I am indeed glad you had the experience; 
 it will do St. Jude's good to hear about it. I . . . yes, I think 
 I will arrange for you to address our congregation ... an 
 excellent idea!" 
 
 "I am glad you will let me speak to St. Jude's," said Alden, 
 scarce above a whisper. And there was that same far-away 
 look in his eyes. "I have come back to them." 
 
 "You have come back to me, haven't you, Aldy-boy?" Ethel 
 had crept closer and was nervously squeezing his hand. The 
 hunted look had returned to her eyes. 
 
 He shivered slightly as her words fell upon his ears, and 
 he swallowed hard. He turned to her and looked down into 
 her feverish eyes, looked long and wonderingly ... so long 
 that she could not sustain his gaze, and averted her head. "Yes," 
 gently, "I have come back to . . . you." 
 
 "And we will be married, soon?" she played with his fingers 
 and laughed fitfully while she talked. 
 
 "I think you nearly lost her to Harris Chaddock," laughed 
 Mrs. Whittier, with an awkward attempt at jocosity. 
 
 Ethel gave a little gasp and shrank back. Mrs. Whittier 
 went blithely on. "Harris has been appointed Health Executive. 
 He has been inspecting everybody in our neighborhood. . ." 
 
 "We all had to submit to it," the rector added, smiling 
 dubiously. "The Wess law compels it, you know." 
 
 Alden knew, but he remained silent. He had given the 
 Wess bill his ardent support, had fought for it, had bitterly 
 condemned its detractors. . . 
 
 "Ethel quarreled with Harris," Mrs. Whittier babbled along. 
 "Wouldn't let him see her. But," she giggled, "he got around 
 it by law, the Wess law, you know. He had to exainine her on 
 .account of being suspected a 'carrier' of diphtheria. . ." 
 
 "Alden!" Ethel started up excitedly. "When shall we 
 be married?" 
 
 He hesitated a second, and a shade passed over his eyes. 
 "Whenever . . . you . . . wish," he answered low. 
 
 "Now! Now! To-day! Right away!" she burst out, spring- 
 ing to her feet. 
 
 "Ethel !" cried her parents, aghast at the prospect of another 
 outbreak. 
 
 Alden looked at the girl in heightened wonder. "Very well," 
 he said quietly. 
 
 "Ethel! Child! You . . . you are overwrought!" exclaimed 
 the rector. "Remember, Alden," he continued excitedly, "how 
 
 33 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 she has suffered from your absence and the shocking report 
 of your . . . your death. Her nervous system has been almost 
 shattered! Ethel, you must wait . . ." 
 
 "I will be married now I" the girl cried wildly. "Now! . . ." 
 
 "Yes, darling, yes!" Mrs. Whittier had hurried to her side 
 and taken her in her arms. "Yes, yes ! . It will be right away ! 
 In a few days, say, a week ... a week, darling. Just long 
 enough not to shock society! Alden is willing . . . aren't you, 
 Alden? And so is Papa! Yes, yes! A week, no more! She 
 is so afraid of losing you again, Alden!" 
 
 Ethel sank down again beside Alden, but he appeared not 
 to notice her. The rector turned his troubled eyes from the 
 girl to Alden. The latter seemed to be miles away. The tense 
 situation was become unbearable. The rector must have 
 relief. "I . , . er . . . you have asked nothing about your . . . 
 your dear mother's last hours," he began uneasily. 
 
 Alden slowly turned to him. "She was in your charge," 
 he said.- 
 
 "True, yes, yes!" the rector hastily agreed. "And I sought 
 to do my full duty. Er . . . we will drive out to the ... to 
 her . . . grave. . ." 
 
 "I do not care to go." 
 
 "What? you would not visit your mother's grave?" 
 
 "There is no one there," was the quiet answer. 
 
 The perplexed rector did not press the point. Nor did he 
 believe that he had fully comprehended. But of one thing he 
 was now quite convinced: this man might have been Alden 
 Cragg, but he had suffered a change that rendered him some- 
 body quite different. 
 
 "Have you any plans for the future, Alden?" asked Mrs. 
 Whittier in a strained voice. 
 
 "I am still a British soldier. I am under orders,'' he replied. 
 
 "But you can marry! You can marry!" Ethel broke out 
 afresh. 
 
 "I can marry,^ yes," he assured her. 
 
 "Er ... by the way," the rector continued, "do you expect to 
 live in . . . er . . . 'Craggmont' ?" 
 
 Alden threw him a look of- surprise. "Why do you ask?" 
 he said. 
 
 "Why . . . er . . . Senator Chaddock lives there now. Did 
 he speak to you about it? No? You see, the . . . that is, on 
 account of your dear mother's embarrassing position — for which 
 she was entirely blameless — the Cragg estate was . . . well, 
 placed in trust, so to speak . . . handled by the senator. . . 
 Oh, everything perfectly regular, of course!" 
 
 Alden did not reply, and an embarrassing pause followed. 
 
 34 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then the rector coughed several times, shifted the position of his 
 legs, and finally resumed. "Your dear mother died intestate, 
 and so of course the senator comes in for his share of the estate 
 ... as her husband, you know. • . But I can't explain. . . I 
 really don't understand it all myself. . . However, it is all per- 
 fectly regular. . ." 
 
 "But," Mrs. Whittier put in, "doesn't Alden inherit the 
 estate? You told me he did." 
 
 "Certainly," the rector hastened to reassure her. "The estate 
 is in trust, I believe ... or something like that . . . being held 
 until Alden's return . . . but the report came that Alden had 
 died. . ." 
 
 Mrs. Whittier glanced a bit wildly at Ethel and made as if 
 to speak further. But she held herself, although the lines 
 about her mouth had drawn down, and the cordiality had 
 suddenly gone from her manner. 
 
 "But," continued the rector, although shifting to another 
 topic, "there are a thousand questions I want to fisk you, Alden, 
 about your war experience. Er . . . first, did you happen to 
 meet . . . er . . . anybody you knew?" 
 
 Alden sat for some moments in deep study. Then he raised 
 his head. "I met David Barach," he said in a low tone. 
 
 "Who? That . . . that Jew?" gasped the rector, his thought 
 flying back to the awful Sunday when the Jew paid a visit to 
 St. Jude's. 
 
 "Ugh!" cried Mrs. Whittier, shuddering. 
 
 Ethel, for the first time during the unnatural conversation, 
 now voiced a thought that did not pertain to herself. "Why 
 didn't you shoot him?" she demanded. "You know you always 
 hated Jews." 
 
 Alden did not answer. And the sigh that escaped him was 
 inaudible. 
 
 There was another long pause. Then Ethel roused suddenly, 
 with a manifestation of her former audacious and tantalizing 
 spirit. "Papa is dying to ask if you met Marian anywhere," 
 she snickered, "only he doesn't dare." 
 
 "Ethel!" her shocked parents again exclaimed in unison. 
 And Mrs. Whittier hastened to add in explanation : "We have 
 heard nothing from Marian since she arrived in London last 
 May, and naturally we are anxious." 
 
 "And they are afraid to ask the Galuth," Ethel pursued 
 mercilessly. 
 
 "I . . , " The rector coughed again. Mrs. Whittier's flaming 
 eyes were bent upon her daughter, but fear restrained her 
 tongue. "We trust that she is living," the rector concluded 
 feebly. 
 
 35 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I hope she's dead," said Ethel flatly, 
 
 Alden turned quickly upon the girl. "She is alive!" he 
 cried. 
 
 The rector and his wife were again violently startled. Ethel 
 sat up quickly. "How do you know?" she demanded, her 
 eyes snapping. 
 
 Alden turned from her. His head drooped, and he sat 
 gazing at the floor. Then: "I no longer believe in death," he 
 murmured. 
 
 The strained conversation was at that point interrupted by 
 a call from the telephone. The rector answered it, and returned 
 shortly with the information that Senator Chaddock was about 
 to dine, and requested Alden's presence. He had sent his car 
 back for him; He also desired the rector to impress upon the 
 youth that "Craggmont" was still his home. . . 
 
 Mrs. Whittier could not repress the cry of relief that burst 
 from her. Ethel's lips again curled slightly, and a hard look 
 came into her eyes, but she rose with Alden and put her 
 odorous lips up to be kissed. "Come to me in the morning," 
 she purred. She seemed quite her old self now. "We have 
 lots to plan, you and I. And be sure to wear your uniform." 
 
 "We shall not rest until we hear all about your war 
 experience, Alden," the rector added nervously, taking the 
 latter's hand but avoiding his big eyes. . . 
 
 And when Alden had gone, the Whittier family sank into 
 their chairs and sat staring at one another as if they had been 
 entertaining a ghost. 
 
 CHAPTER 6 
 
 BUT that he had been overwhelmed by the mesmerism of 
 the moment, his faculties in a measure benumbed by 
 the report of occurrences during his absence from Crestel- 
 ridge, Alden Cragg might have read in the words and manner 
 of the rector's family an augury. As it was, his waking thought 
 recurred often, during his ride to "Craggmont," to Ethel's 
 feverish eagerness, her outbreak of wild hysteria, her constantly 
 shifting moods. Her sustained preference for him over Harris 
 Chaddock held his wonder. He had returned hoping . . . 
 
 But it was an unrighteous hope, and now abandoned. He 
 had come back to Crestelridge to carry forward into living 
 those ideals which had been born with him in his new birth. 
 Because of his own transmuting experience, he saw these 
 people now as, under divine Principle, they must some day 
 
 36 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 reveal their true selves, rather than as they had once seemed. 
 His task was to hold fast to the exchange of human concepts 
 for the true consciousness, and to show them how to do 
 likewise. His sense of responsibility was therefore tremendous. 
 He regarded himself as a Dives privilegfed to return. That 
 he had come with a message divine had been demonstrated 
 at the outset by evil's efforts to repel him. Its shots, with an 
 aim that was deadly true, had struck him squarely as he 
 entered Crestelridge. It was a repetition of error's age-old 
 attempt to destroy Truth by killing its bearer. Yet he was 
 on his feet and going forward. 
 
 But for his own rebirth in the fires of war, the cruel blows 
 dealt him as he entered Crestelridge would have felled him. 
 But that the veil had been raised, he had held Marian Whittier 
 responsible for his mother's death. Now he could no longer 
 be deceived into attributing effects to personal causes. It was 
 that "wickedness in high places" which had struck his mother 
 down. He knew it now under the name of mortal mind, that 
 subtle serpent of old that strikes unseen and turns the 
 responsibility for its diabolism upon frail images of flesh called 
 men. He saw its workings in the thin features and trembling 
 limbs of the rector, in the fear-motived efforts of Mrs. Whittier 
 to cover error, in Ethel's unbridled conduct. He read its fell 
 action in the furtive manner and ill-disguised hatred of Harris 
 , Chaddock, whom he had met for a mutually embarrassing 
 moment as the latter was setting out from "Craggmont" for 
 his club. He stood astonished at its visible effects upon the 
 senator who, at table that evening, sat disintegrating before 
 his very eyes. 
 
 But in Doctor Roake there was no visible indication of 
 change. He appeared the same embodiment of masterful person- 
 ality that Alden had known and so greatly admired in the days 
 now gone. His manner toward host and guest was engagingly 
 suave, even delicate; his words were urbane, sympathetic; and 
 his voice still held the rich, musical quality that had ever given 
 it such wondrous charm. And yet, in the moment of encounter- 
 ing Alden that afternoon, he had flashed — Alden could not say. 
 what. But it had deeply impressed him. 
 
 Again within the portals of beautiful "Craggmont", a flood 
 of emotions rose upon the returned youth. ~ But they were 
 human, and he battled them back. His mother was not there — 
 and yet, to those who had eyes, she had not left. Nor was she 
 in that lone, snow-covered grave that the rector would have 
 had him visit with his tears and forlorn theological hopes. His 
 business now was Life, not death. 
 
 His appraisal of "Craggmont" was perfunctory. He had 
 
 27 37 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 loved it once as the visible expression of his ideal of ease in 
 matter. Now he realized the fearful menace in such an 
 ideal, and in the worship of its manifestation. He asked 
 permission to greet Jedkins and the other servants who had 
 remained ; and he spoke kindly to them, while they gazed at 
 his white hair and translucent features in gaping awe. . . ' 
 
 "Egad! it's a dream!" exclaimed the senator, when they 
 were seated in the great dining hall. And he glanced nervously 
 at the doctor, on Alden's right, for approval. 
 
 Alden's eyes swept the rich room, with its deep panels of 
 rare woods, its massive beams, its costly carvings and 
 tapestries, all mellow in the subdued light. He studied the 
 glittering white napery of choicest linen, the heavy silver, the 
 orchid centerpiece. He showed embarrassment when he tasted 
 the delicate food. His thought tore its leash and flew back to 
 Tiflis and Erevan, and he saw again the death-smitten crew 
 milling, milling — heard again the moaning "0-na-ne" — saw the 
 groveling, starving wretches betrayed by their brothers — and 
 he buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. 
 
 It was a passing emotion, though it startled the senator into 
 a promiscuous ordering of brandy and aromatic salts, and 
 caused the doctor to lift his brows in amazed wonder. And 
 yet the youth's emotion was quite natural, the doctor reflected, 
 the circumstances duly considered. 
 
 "It is hard, my boy," he said in his gentlest tones. "Your 
 mother was your life, we know. But there is still much to 
 live for. And you are now among good friends who share 
 your loss and will help you to bear it. Come, we must live 
 in the present. Let me tell you of my experiences in Washing- 
 ton since we entered the war." And the doctor launched into 
 a lively and voluble narrative that covered Alden's embarrass- 
 ment and set the perturbed senator again at ease. 
 
 "Now we want you to understand," the doctor remarked 
 kindly in concluding his narration, "that we respect your 
 reticence in regard to discussing the war. I don't wonder 
 that returned soldiers want to forget as quickly as possible 
 the horrible butchery and the suffering — Oh, vvhat about 
 Marian Whittier? She seems to have disappeared completely. 
 Did you by any chance run across her?" 
 
 The question was thrust at Alden with brutal directness. 
 And he could not avoid the answer. "Yes," he said frankly, 
 "in Palestine." 
 
 Neither the doctor nor the senator appeared surprised at 
 this reply, and Alden wondered. 
 
 The doctor now leaned perceptibly nearer. "Do you know 
 where she is?" he asked. 
 
 38 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alden shook his head. "I left her in Jerusalem. She was 
 with ... an ambulance corps." 
 
 The doctor studied the youth for a further moment. He 
 had another question — nay, two, although he knew that the 
 one referring to Otto Hoeffel could not be voiced yet. "What 
 became of that fellow Barach, I wonder? He enlisted in your 
 unit, did he not?" 
 
 Alden threw him a quizzical glance that divined nothing. 
 "Yes," he replied, "he was taken prisoner, but was released 
 when Jerusalem fell. I left him with the British in Palestine." 
 
 Again the doctor fell to studying Alden, his sharp eyes 
 searching, searching. They bored into the white skin, they fol- 
 lowed the almost invisible facial lines, they peered eagerly 
 through the white hair. Then, where the hair above the temple 
 had been slightly disarranged, they lighted upon the long, jag- 
 ged scar. And there they clung, boring, piercing, digging. . . 
 
 "It's a damned outrage, this rationing by the Government!" 
 the senator abruptly began to growl. "A pound of sugar to 
 a person. . . Egad! Why, that's what started this war — 
 shortage of food in the world!" 
 
 The war caused by shortage of food! Alden looked up at 
 the senator. , "You mean . . . material food?" he queried. 
 
 "Egad ! what other kind is there?" the senator laughed. And 
 yet Alden remembered that Sunday in the rectory when Marian 
 had attributed the war to spiritual starvation. 
 
 "The development of the population- in the United' States 
 so depleted the food supply as to make the European war 
 inevitable," the doctor explained. "Germany was really forced 
 to fight, because of the rising food costs. Great Britain was 
 throttling her economically." 
 
 "But," the senator resumed with a titter, "I've got twenty 
 barrels of sugar in the cellar, and barrels and barrels of flour, 
 and bacon! Egad! / won't starve . . . nor go dry. . . I've got 
 enough liquor stowed away to outlast a dozen wars ! Wartime 
 prohibition! Egad! I've fooled Wilson, I have!" 
 
 ^ Alden looked at the man, and as he looked a great surge of 
 pity rose within him. Then, suddenly remembering: "I wish 
 to thank you, Senator, for the message which you sent me by 
 the rector," he said. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, of course you'll make 'Craggmont' your home!" 
 the senator exclaimed heartily. "Have your old rooms. Harris 
 isn't here much. . . Down at his club ... or with that damned 
 Fay Meuse, . . That isn't her real name. . . He's always with 
 her. . . She telephones to him, here. . . Going to marry her, I 
 guess . . . I'll kick him out!" His words trailed off indistinctly, 
 and he settled back heavily. 
 
 39 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Your luggage down at the depot?" queried the doctor. 
 "The senator will send for it to-night. . ." 
 
 "This minute," the senator put in, rousing up. And he 
 turned and gave the order to Jedkins. 
 
 "Thank you," said Alden. "And in the morning I must go 
 to the bank. The British Government doesn't pay its privates 
 highly, you know." 
 
 "Quite right," the doctor returned. "The senator has been 
 speaking to me about it, and he will arrange a bank deposit 
 for you, in the nature of an allowance. It will appear rather 
 small, I fear, compared with what you have been accustomed 
 to spend. The senator wants you to know that, while there 
 can be no possible reflection on your own or your mother's loy- 
 alty, still it seemed wise to place the estate in trust, and with 
 the senator in charge. You will agree with me when you 
 learn the detailed reasons. But owing to the war, there has 
 been a considerable — though temporary — depreciation in the 
 returns from the Cragg investments. Your mother bought 
 Primal Motors . . ." 
 
 "For its debts, I remember," said Alden. "I wish to adjust 
 that matter now, and take care of the stockholders who lost." 
 His thought was on David Barach. , , 
 
 "Surely, surely," the doctor agreed. "But, after you left, 
 your mother invested a great deal of money in the rehabilita- 
 tion of Primal Motors, and the new company has since proved 
 a constant drain on the estate. Not but what everything will 
 come out all right in the end," he added reassuringly, "but for 
 the present you will have to practice rather strict economy, 
 I am sorry to say." 
 
 It was all a jumble to Alden, whose knowledge of business 
 had hitherto scarcely extended beyond that involved in the 
 drawing of a check; and as he reflected upon it now his cheeks 
 burned and he drew a sigh. 
 
 "Some of the new investments^' the doctor resumed, watch- 
 ing Alden narrowly, "have turned out badly, and there's no 
 denying that the British Government is to blame. It's the 
 same old story : England greedily grasping for trade even before 
 the war is over. World-domination through her army and navy. 
 Look at her hold on Batum and Baku. She is positively 
 insatiable! She's turned the trick on oil, and as a consequence 
 the Cragg estate is considerably poorer." 
 
 While the doctor had been speaking the senator had sat 
 looking curiously from one to the other. At times he nodded his 
 head, and his lips .moved in confirmation of the doctor's words. 
 At times his eyes roved wildly, with an odd gleam in them. 
 At length he settled down in his chair and dropped his head. 
 
 40 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "It is a sad commentary on the cordial relations supposed 
 to arise from the Anglo-Israel idea," the doctor commented, 
 "I don't suppose you heard anything about that craze over 
 there. If you did, let me know. It is a curious psychological 
 phenomenon, developed out of the war. And it's a very decep- 
 tive one. Great Britain is simply hoodwinking the American 
 people with this preposterous theory, and for reasons which 
 will be divulged when it suits her purposes. But, I declare, 
 I beg your pardon! I forgot for the moment that you are 
 a British subject. But ..." 
 
 Thus the conversation ran on, with the talking done almost 
 exclusively by the doctor. And as topic chased topic, seeds 
 were dropped here and there that would flower in due season, 
 and with what manner of fruit — who knew? Yet in the end 
 it was evident that the doctor was not satisfied. "What are 
 your plans?" he at length asked, and quite abruptly. "For 
 you will not be called back into the service, I am sure." 
 
 Alden hesitated. "I have no plans that are definite," he 
 answered slowly. "I wish to ... to look about for a few days." 
 
 "You must not remain idle, you know," the doctor suggested. 
 "I can use you, if you wish. I don!t forget your assistance in 
 getting the Wess bill passed. Now we have others . . ." 
 
 "I could not support them if they resemble the Wess bill," 
 said Alden quickly. "My support of that measure was ... a 
 mistake." 
 
 Ah! something had happened over there. The doctor had 
 been certain of it. "But they are beneficent measures," he 
 protested mildly, "dealing withpublic affairs. And surely you 
 will .admit that public affairs need attention." 
 
 Yes, Alden admitted it. And he admitted that "he who shall 
 introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive 
 Christianity will change the face of the world." But only with 
 the principles of primitive Christianity. It was the pagan 
 alloy, developed in the -religio-political systems of the day, that 
 had muddied public affairs so terribly and harried the world 
 into a suicidal war. Alden knew it now — ^but he did not 
 say so. 
 
 Again the doctor shifted the conversation, as skillfully as if 
 conducting a laboratory clinic. And again he sped along from 
 subject to subject, now serious, now merry, always watching, 
 always with his big black eyes clinging to Alden's. 
 
 Then he spoke sharply to the senator rand the latter roused; 
 and took part in the dinner and in the less serious portions of 
 the conversation. But Alden did not fail to note that always 
 the senator referred his statements to the doctor, and always 
 he appeared relieved when the latter manifested his approba- 
 tion. 
 
 41 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The dinner concluded, the doctor again found occasion for 
 genuine wonder. "What! you have sworn off?" he exclaimed 
 when Alden refused the rare liquor. "And you drank no wine 
 at dinner." 
 
 "I have not used liquor since I . . , since the war," the young 
 man explained. 
 
 The hesitation had not escaped the keenly observant doctor, 
 and again he mentally reflected that something had happened 
 over there, something not yet revealed, but which without doubt 
 would account for that whitened hair and that deep abstrac- 
 tion. Yes, he had done right in insisting to the senator that 
 "Craggmont" was the proper abode for Alden, whatever the 
 sacrifice to the Chaddocks. For there he could be watched, 
 probed, studied. . . 
 
 "Come to my office in the morning," he volunteered, after 
 again gazing long at the scarred temple. "I want to examine that 
 wound. It was badly handled. Was there any contusion? Do 
 you have headaches? You probably will. Yes, you are certain 
 to." 
 
 And then, very deftly, Alden was permitted to retire to 
 his own suite, for the day had been a trying one. But in 
 the familiar precincts of his former chambers he sat long and 
 wondered if he had asked to be permitted to retire. And in 
 the library below the doctor and the senator smoked many 
 cigars and discussed affairs of public and mutual interest. 
 
 CHAPTER 7 
 
 WHEN Alden awoke, the tardy sun lay still below the hori- 
 zon; He awoke with a start, with a feeling of oppression, 
 as if his throat were in the clutch of human hands. 
 Then, sensing his familiar environment, he rose. 
 
 He did not ring for a valet: the thought of it was repellent. 
 The thought of any human support — excepting as Marian's 
 might be so regarded — was become distasteful. He prepared 
 his own bath, and dressed unaided. He had never done so 
 before in "Craggmont". Nor did he put on his uniform. There 
 was a feeling that he had not earned the right to wear it. In 
 the wardrobes and presses he discovered his former clothes 
 just as he had left them. He selected a modest suit of gray 
 tone and laid his uniform carefully away. 
 
 As he made his preparations for the day, the doctor's widely 
 discursive conversation of the preceding night kept recurring 
 to him, and because of its insistence he sought to analyze it. 
 
 42 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He was dealing, not with Doctor Roake, but with the thought 
 that had flowed through him as a channel — nay, rather, with 
 the thought which the doctor appeared to reflect. But his 
 endeavors to interpret it brought only mental confusion, though 
 it left a conviction of further material desolation. 
 
 Yet he did not fear. In the fires that had swept him into 
 the vestibule of death his former torturing sense of fear had 
 consumed. In the faint glimpse vouchsafed him of the unreal- 
 ity of human concepts, he felt strength; in his untried knowl- 
 edge of the world as one of sensuous impressions mistakenly 
 accepted for facts, he found confidence. But he paused often 
 while dressing to muse on the hour of judgment, of testing, 
 that he well knew must come. Yet that the Christ would 
 follow in its wake, he doubted not. 
 
 He breakfasted alone. The senator was asleep; Harris had 
 spent the night away. Jedkins served him, silently, but with 
 many questioning glances and awed stares. And now and 
 then the door of the serving room creaked slightly as the 
 other servants peered curiously in at the white-haired figure. 
 
 It was early, an unwonted hour for a Cragg to be stirring. 
 And as Alden went from the breakfast room into the empty 
 library a great sense of loneliness smote him. It drove him 
 from his chair before the fire, and he passed into the living 
 room, thence across the wide hall to the great salon. Their 
 vast emptiness had never touched him before. Tears rushed 
 to his eyes. These great halls, echoing with vacuity, typified 
 the barrenness of the life he had once led — typified the empti- 
 ness of the judgment which he had once pronounced on the 
 only one who had ever really known him, really loved him, 
 and would have saved him.^ And in his human loneliness 
 his famished affections called to her, called aloud: "Marian! 
 My Miriam! I want you! I want you!" 
 
 He turned and, with bowed head, wandered slowly back to 
 the library to his chair before the fire. A heavy oppression 
 seemed to brood upon the air. The low, sweet notes of the 
 chimes from the great clock in the hall broke upon the stillness. 
 He listened. Their soft, sad melody floated through the roorns 
 and died away like old memories. His head dropped into his 
 hands, and he shook with sobs. But even the Master had wept- 
 at the tomb of dead hopes. . . 
 
 A servant appeared and startled him. "Beg pardon, sir, 
 but there's a woman in the hall. She asked for the young man 
 of the house. I ... I presume she means you, sir. The lodge- 
 keeper brought her up. She insisted on coming in, sir, although 
 it is just eight o'clock. . ." . 
 
 Aiden looked up. "She probably wishes to see Dr. Harris 
 
 43 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Chaddock," he said. "He spent the night out, I presume at his 
 club. You may tell her." 
 
 "I did, sir." The servant hesitated. "I ... I think, sir, you 
 had better speak to her, if convenient." 
 
 The servant's manner impressed him and he rose. "Very 
 well," he said quietly. "You may retire." 
 
 As he entered the hall a young woman got up quickly from 
 a settle and came toward him. But she stopped short after a 
 few steps and uttered an exclamation. "You . . . you are not 
 the one!" she stammered confusedly. "I want to see Harry 
 Chaddock!" ~ 
 
 "He is not here," said A'lden. 
 
 "Not here?" she flared out. "He is! You lie! They lied 
 to me over the 'phone! Go back and tell him Fay Meuse is 
 here . . . and if he won't come to her, she'll go to him! Get 
 that?" 
 
 Alden drew back a pace before the outburst. "But," he 
 repeated, "he is not here. I have told you the truth. He spent 
 last night away. I don't know where." 
 
 She glared up at him fiercely. Her broad picture-hat was 
 askew and her bleached hair was loosening. "Don't know 
 where, eh?" she derided. "He's not at his club — or else they 
 lied to me too ! Humph ! Let me telephone to the rectory, I'll 
 soon find him!" 
 
 Alden stood rigid. She came closer, stooping a bit as she 
 came. "Are you his secretary?" she demanded. 
 
 "No," he answered, "I am ... a friend." 
 
 She burst into a mocking laugh. "A friend, eh? So con- 
 venient for him to have his friends meet me early in the morn- 
 ing, 'cause I might have gotten up cross. Humph! Stand 
 aside, do you hear? I'm going to call up the rectory! Go, tell 
 him I've taken your word for it that he spent the night 
 out! . . ." 
 
 He thrust out his long arms and seized her shoulders. She 
 stood open-mouthed in his grasp. "Explain what you mean," 
 he demanded in a low tone. 
 
 Her astonishment gave way before her swiftly returning 
 anger and she spat venomously up into his face. "He's probably 
 there for early mass . . . damn you!" she gulped. 
 
 His arms dropped, and she fell away from him and stood 
 cringing, angry and panting. She was not a handsome creature, 
 yet through the enamel on her face there were visible traces 
 of former comeliness. She was richly dressed, heavily be- 
 jeweled, and robed in furs. Alden noted not these details. 
 He was suddenly thrust back into that strange hour spent in 
 the rectory yesterday; he was revolving Ethel's wild conduct, 
 her unaccountable moods. . . 
 
 44 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Suddenly he raised his head. "Come into the library," he. 
 said, "and telephone to the rectory." 
 
 She shrank back, gaping. Then shev tossed her head and 
 laughed. "Oh, well, if he ain't here I'll just wait till he comes," 
 she flung back defiantly. "I'll live here some day, anyway, so 
 might as well get acquainted with the place now. Is the old 
 man home? Tell him to come down and meet me." She 
 moved unsteadily backward to the settle, where she sank down 
 and sat with bowed head and hands pressed to her temples. 
 
 After some moments she looked up at Alden, standing 
 where she had left him, tense and silent. "You said you 
 were a friend of his." Her tone was milder. "Have you any 
 influence with him? What's your name?" 
 
 "I am Alden Cragg," he answered her. 
 
 She started up. "My God ! . . . he's dead ! You . . ." She 
 sat down again. Her eyes were big and staring. She had not 
 learned of his strange return. "I never saw him," she mur- 
 mured, "but I read all about that party he gave the last night 
 he was here. . . You may be . . . You look like a ghost ! . . ." 
 
 For some moments they steadily held each other's gaze. 
 Each seemed to be searching the other's thought. "I moved 
 here just before Cragg went to war," she suddenly resumed. 
 "They said he was to marry Ethel Whittier." 
 
 "I am to marry her." 
 
 She sprang up. "Oh, my God! Then that settles every- 
 thing! How soon will you marry her?" She came forward 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Within a few days. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "God! You'd better hurry. . . I'm going now," she cried 
 wildly. "I feel all right now. And, for God's sake, Mr. Cragg, 
 don't tell Harry I was here! I am sorry. . ." 
 
 She sped to the door and tore it open. For a moment she 
 paused to glance back at the tall, motionless figure. Alden 
 slowly moved toward the door. She darted out, and he closed 
 it after her. Then he went back to the library and dropped 
 into the chair before the fire. 
 
 Again the hall clock chimed the passing hour, and yet again. 
 Its tremulous minor pierced his new-born soul; in it he heard 
 afresh the stricken world's hopeless plaint. God, what suffer- 
 ing they draw upon themselves through wilful ignorance of 
 Thee ! Yet this painted creature of the scums was no less Man 
 — nor more — than the deluded youth whom, in her wild fear of 
 loss of Good, she had come that morning seeking. Though 
 society raise its golden lorgnettes upon her in self-righteous 
 horror, yet was she their type, tipping the scales of justice no 
 less — nor more — than they. And Alden Cragg, though once he 
 
 45 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ■would have cast from him in utter loathing the garments which 
 this pariah might have brushed in passing, now caught his 
 breath in sorrow, now felt his bosom heave in yearning pity: 
 it was to such as she that he had been returned. 
 
 He regretted now that he had let her go in her great need. 
 But her wild allusions to the rectory had turned his startled 
 thought to Ethel, whose need, he knew, was full as great. And 
 he rose, chiding himself for his delay. 
 
 Though the morning was now well advanced, "Craggmont" 
 still lay wrapped in brooding silence. Without, the world was 
 white with snow, glistening in the misty sun. He turned to 
 summon Jedkins for his car; but he paused. Then he weiit 
 to the coat room. He would walk to the rectory — though he 
 had never done it before. 
 
 Away from the dreary emptiness of "Craggmont" and out 
 in the crisp winter air, he faced his duty with rising confidence 
 in his small knowledge of Principle as sufficient for the hour. 
 No need was there to cast about for means to solve his problems, 
 for the key was in these simple words: "That ye love one 
 ainother. . ." 
 
 In the distance he descried the tower of St. Jude's;-and 
 his thought reverted to the cracked bell. He would replace it, 
 if they wished. Its portent had been fulfilled. He did not 
 know that already it had been replaced, and that thereby^ was 
 symbolized his own replacement in their midst. As he drew 
 near the church he saw women entering the parish house. St. 
 Jude's multitudinous social activities now made early demands. 
 These were richly clad in furs, and were handed from their 
 snug limousines by liveried lackeys who symbolized the deep 
 content that warmed the world they served. He heard the 
 careless laughter and gay chatter of these women as they 
 exchanged greetings and hurried out of the bracing cold — -and 
 his thought went back again to Tiflis and to Erevan. . . 
 
 "It's Alden Cragg!" one exclaimed, catching sight of the 
 figure of hodden-gray. 
 
 "Oh!" cried another, her breath coming quicker as she 
 paused to gaze in awed wonder. 
 
 "He's walking! . . ." 
 
 "I don't suppose he has a cent now; the estate had to be put 
 in trust, you know — enemy aliens, and such." 
 
 "Probably that's why he was sent home." 
 
 "Heavens! girls, see that white hair. He looks like a 
 ghost! . . ." 
 
 "Shall we speak to him?" 
 
 "They say he isn't Alden Cragg at all, but an impostor! 
 Come on, don't take any chances!" And they drew their robes 
 closer and scurried into the parish house. 
 
 46 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alden turned in at the rectory. He had not heard the com- 
 ment of these women, but his thought had been busy with 
 them. "If I love them I cannot fail to help them," he had 
 said aloud. And he repeated it as he stood before the rectory 
 door. 
 
 Mrs. Whittier fluttered into the library to greet him. "Ethel 
 will be down in a minute. The poor dear doesn't usually get up 
 until noon. Papa is in the parish house, and I'm due there 
 now myself. Several committees mieet this morning. My 
 country, but we're busy these days! Won't you be glad to 
 get back into the church work! Well, I'll leave you with 
 Ethel. Cooing doves, you know," laughing and shaking a finger 
 at him. "I don't wonder she's wild about you : you were good- 
 looking before, but now you're positively stunning ! The girls 
 will go wild over you! My country, but I'm glad you are 
 back!" she rambled on,' fussing with her gloves. "Ethel was 
 headed toward nervous prostration. We thought first it might 
 be Harris Chaddock. She got miffed at him and wouldn't let 
 him see her. He felt terribly— they've always been such friends, 
 you know. But," and she laughed, "the contagion around here 
 helped him out. When he came to the rectory as Health Exec- 
 utive, why, she simply had to let him see her. He had to look 
 us all over. . . Said the new Wess law required it. And I 
 really believe it's a good thing, don't you? I feel safer with it. 
 We've all been so lax about the public health. Well, I hear 
 her coming, so I'll leave you. Of course you'll stay for lunch." 
 And she fluttered out. 
 
 Ethel hung at the doorway for a moment, looking hard at 
 Alden. She was clad in a loose morning gown, and her eyes 
 were heavy with sleep. She raised her hand and covered a 
 yawn, then came toward him, with dragging steps. 
 
 He stood with his gaze riveted upon her, his thought 
 strangely disquiet. Her eyes had the same fevered, unhopeful, 
 waiting look that he had seen there the preceding day. They 
 were jaded eyes, deep-ringed. And her face was colorless. She 
 had faded; her girlhood seemed to have fled, her freshness 
 staled. 
 
 "Where's your uniform?" she demanded fretfully. "Have 
 you got some silly notion about wearing it? I want you to 
 wear it all the time. . . Why don't you kiss me? . . ." She 
 shuddered and swayed; he caught her in his arms. "I . . . 
 I'm so sick," she whimpered. 
 
 He half led, half carried her to the davenport and sat down 
 beside her. His heart ached with pity. "Ethel!" He spoke 
 in a low voice and gently. "Ethel, what is it? Don't you see? 
 I have come back to . . . you." 
 
 47 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She shivered slightly and seemed to shrink 'from him. But 
 she remained silent, though the muscles of her face twitched 
 and her lips trembled. 
 
 "Ethel," he resumed tenderly, "I know, I know. . ." 
 
 She started up with a gasp. Her eyes flashed wildly upon 
 him. "What do you know?" she cried hoarsely. "Did he . . ." 
 She clapped her hands over her mouth and fell back, her eyes 
 fastened on him wide with terror. 
 
 He laid a restraining hand upon hers, while he sat looking 
 searchingly into her pallid face. Again he was revolving her 
 wild conduct of yesterday; again he was analyzing the meaning- 
 ful words of Fay Meuse, and Mi's. Whittier's rambling talk 
 before Ethel appeared^ A heavy sensation sat at his heart. 
 What was it? What, in the name of Truth, was it? 
 
 "Don't look at me that way!" she cried out. "You're accus- 
 ing me! I haven't done anything! I haven't!" 
 
 She was on the verge of hysteria. He saw it, and he quickly 
 put an arm about her. "I only want to help you," he tried 
 to soothe her. 
 
 "We are going to be married . . . We are, aren't we? I 
 want to set the day now." 
 
 He strove vainly to read a meaning in her rapid, imploring 
 words. "Yes," he answered; "but," hesitatingly, "we had better 
 wait . . ." 
 
 "No!" It was almost a scream. 
 
 "A few weeks . . . until you are better. . ." 
 
 "No! No! No!" Her voice rose shrilly. "You said yester- 
 day whenever I wish! I sha'n't wait!" 
 
 "But, if I insist — for your sake?" he urged. 
 
 She Ijroke into a wail and threw herself face down among 
 the pillows. "Oh, you don't intend to marry me! You never 
 did! I hate you! I hate you!" She shook off the hand that 
 he laid upon her shoulder and started up. "I'm going to kill 
 myself!" she cried passionately. "I am going to kill my- 
 self!" 
 
 He threw an arm about her and held her. He drew her 
 back, sobbing hysterically. "Ethel," he endeavored to calm her, 
 "it shall be as you wish ! Just as you wish ! I have come back 
 to ... to you! We will be married to-day, to-morrow, any 
 day you say!" 
 
 Tenderly he spoke to her, while he labored to still his own 
 clamorous thought. His compassionate words, voiced low, 
 gradually calmed the tempest in her darkened soul and hushed 
 her wild outcries. The girl was not herself, yet he must know 
 that the daemon that seemed to possess her was not power, nor 
 could wreck her sense of life — nor his. And then, as he talked, 
 
 48 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and she became reassured, she found solace and forgetfulness 
 in his planning for their marriage. And he encouraged her, 
 until her own speech became coherent and her thought more 
 normal. 
 
 "We do not have problems" ... so Marian had told him 
 in the gloom of the Temple cistern; "only those have them 
 who do not understand" To the all-knowing Mind that is 
 God there can be no problems ; and that which He does not 
 know cannot really exist. To the all-seeing "I" there is nothing 
 covered, nothing hid. . . 
 
 He talked of Ted Sayor, of the Blacks, the Telluses, the 
 Kerls, of the things in which he knew her interest lay. He 
 spoke of "Craggmont", and she roused to remind him of his 
 promise to give it to her. And always as he talked, he watched 
 her spirits rise and drop, watched the fever in her eyes ebb 
 and flow, listened wonderingly to her laugh that now mounted, 
 high-pitched, hysterical, now fell to a nervous, sobbing whim- 
 per. 
 
 Then he permitted her to name the day for their marriage, 
 and she eagerly set it just a week ahead. "You might have to 
 go back to war," she offered, averting her eyes from his troubled 
 gaze. "You will have to go back soon, won't you?" She looked 
 up at him queerly; 
 
 "I may be recalled," he said. 
 
 "Why . . . you will have to go!" Her tone was insistent. 
 "You are still a soldier. . . And the British are getting whipped, 
 Harris says. . ." She stopped, with a little catch in her breath. 
 Alden looked down quickly and. caught her frightened, side- 
 long glance. 
 
 But why should her own reference to Harris Chaddock 
 frighten her? Or did she fear that he, Alden, might be offended 
 by mention of the other?. But if she cared for Harris, then 
 surely she need not marry Alden out of sheer duty! Yet one 
 who meets an irksome duty, he reflected heavily, does not do 
 so with such urgency as had been driving her. . . 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" she abruptly demanded, sitting 
 up and staring hard at him. "You were thinking bad things 
 of me! I know!" 
 
 Her sudden vehemence startled him. He gave her a baffled 
 look; yet he tried to answer her gently. "I was thinking of 
 you . . . yes, and of Harris." 
 
 She smothered a cry and fell away from him. He went on 
 absently, as if unmindful of her conduct. "I feel that I should 
 tell you, Ethel, that after we became engaged last spring I 
 knew that you -preferred him, and I was glad then that I had 
 beaten him. But now . . ." 
 
 49 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Now you want to get rid of me!" she broke in excitedly. 
 "I know! . . ." 
 
 "No, Ethel, not that. But I still feel that deep in your heart 
 you want him. And if that is so, why should you not . . ." 
 
 "I can't!" she cried out wildly, discretion and caution now 
 shattered in the outbreak of her passion, "I can't! ... He 
 can't ! . . . He . . ." She covered her face with her hands and 
 sat gasping. 
 
 A rush of human sensations swept over him; yet in his 
 intense travail of mind he knew he was standing immovable 
 with Principle — knew that evil must expose itself — knew that 
 error was always a suicide. . . 
 
 A question was urging hard upon him, and he gave it voice. 
 "Won't she permit him to marry you?" 
 
 "Fay Meuse! Then you know! — ^you know!" The girl 
 sprang up and faced him. Hatred and terror filled the chambers 
 of her soul with mad riot. Her eyes flashed fury. Her features 
 were livid. Her slender body shook with released passion. 
 "She said she would kill him! . . . A:iZZ him! . . . if he married 
 me! . . . And he doesn't dare, he doesn't dare! . . ." 
 
 All the pent emotion, the torturing fear, the gnawing horror 
 of hellish weeks of covered error now burst their bonds, and the 
 maddened girl rushed to the brink of insanity and hung tot- 
 tering over the dark abyss. Alden rose quickly beside her and 
 seized her in his arms. "I'll kill myself! I'll kill myself!" 
 she raved, struggling in his grasp. "Now you won't marry me 
 either ! You won't ! You knew ! ... He told you ! , . . I hate 
 you! . . . hate you! . . . Oh^myGod! . . ." The furious storm 
 quenched the light of consciousness, her voice trailed away, 
 and she sank limp in his arms. 
 
 A great illumination had burst full upon him, but its light 
 was foul darkness. He stood mute, stunned, staring down at 
 the senseless, broken thing in his arms. His thought was a 
 whirling, spinning chaos. He swayed, caught himself, and 
 froze with the mesmeric horror of it all. 
 
 Again, with glazed eyes boring into emptiness, he saw him- 
 self a shackled slave in Antonia's tower, and felt the scorpion 
 sting of the deadly lash. Again he sensed the horror of night 
 that fell when Death shrieked over Golgotha. Again he stood 
 with glassy stare fixed upon the leaguer of shadows that low- 
 ered over the future. . . 
 
 And yet again, as he stood with that dead thing hanging 
 in his fierce grasp, he heard the voice — that voice! "That ye 
 love one another . . . one another. . ." The light glowed again 
 behind him! The Christ was coming, treading the waves of 
 error! ... 
 
 50 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 His head dropped. His eyes blurred. He sank to his knees. 
 His burden fell to the floor. He bent over it and burst into sobs. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Well for the world that the Code divine makes null the laws 
 of men! Ethel Whittier opened her eyes and looked up into 
 those of Alden Cragg. She lay on the davenport, where he 
 had placed her, and he was sitting by her side. She started 
 to rise, but he restrained her. And there was something in 
 his manner now, and in his appearance, that she had not seen 
 before, something that held her awed. 
 
 How long she had lain thus, she could not surmise; but as 
 consciousness returned and she felt herself slowly emerging 
 from vacuity, she was in some manner impressed with the 
 thought that he had sat by her long, struggling with a mon- 
 strous thing that had risen to devour them both, and that he 
 had conquered the awful menace and driven it back into the 
 shadows. 
 
 "Lie there and rest," he said, very gently. "Try to compose 
 yourself — and forget. I will help you." 
 
 She lay gazing up in wonder at him through her dull, cav- 
 ernous eyes. Then her fears returned upon her. "I ... I want 
 to sit up," she whimpered feebly. He took her hand and 
 tenderly helped her to a sitting posture. She huddled among 
 the pillows, weak, exhausted, and stared at him fearfully. He 
 sat with head bent and eyes fixed upon the floor. A terrible 
 calm seemed to possess him. The suspense tortured her and 
 she cried out. "You are going to kill me! I know! You are 
 going to kill Harris! . . ." 
 
 He looked up. "No," he said. 
 
 "But you are not going to marry me! Oh, I'll kill my- 
 self! ..." 
 
 "Stop!" He turned upon her and seized her hand. She 
 shrank back cowering. "Put those evil thoughts away from 
 you ! They are deadly ! I shall . • . marry you, Ethel, on the 
 day you named." 
 
 She gasped. "You ... don't . . . love me ! You are going 
 to marry me to . . . kill me!" 
 
 "I love you, Ethel," he answered in a voice of infinite pathos, 
 "as the Master loved the sinful woman. I am marrying you 
 to save you, and to give the protection of my name to . . . 
 your child." 
 
 He rose unsteadily. "Please give my excuses to your 
 parents. I ... I have a . . . full day. I will come again 
 . . . to-morrow." And he left her. 
 
 51 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 8 
 
 IT had been a moot question among the society mentors of 
 Cresteiridge just how far they should go in accepting Alden 
 Cragg after his return, and their hesitation found full justi- 
 fication in the current report — from an untraceable source — ■ 
 that the man was an impostor. But with the public announce- 
 ment of the day set for his marriage to lEthel Whittier, all 
 reservations were abandoned, and a clamor went up amonjg 
 the rivals for his favor. Mrs. Whittier had joyfully telephoned 
 the tidings to a score of her friends, including the newspapers, 
 within an hour after returhing home and learnitlg that the 
 day had been named, coupling it with the statement that Alden 
 might be ordered back to the front any minute. "And Ethel," 
 she informed her friends that afternoon over tea, "is a changed 
 girl! The dear child nearly mourned herself. to death while 
 he was away!" 
 
 "And yet," reflected Ted Sayor, to whom this statement by 
 the rector's wife was later transmitted by the grinning young 
 Kerl, "her mourning for Alden dates from about September. 
 Before that she mourned if you mentioned him!" 
 
 Although everything was "decidedly informal, out of respect 
 to the dead", it was a busy week that society had planned, and 
 Ethel's mourning became now genuine, at least, for her frail 
 health necessitated declining all invitations. "But, Alden, you 
 will have to accept!" Mrs. Whittier urged. "The people want 
 a look at you — and I want to show you off! Come, you shall 
 escort me instead of Ethel. My country, but I'm proud of my 
 handsome son!" 
 
 And Alden, who had remained in strict seclusion since his 
 arrival in Cresteiridge, avoiding the clubs and his former 
 haunts, keeping himself out of the public eye and away from 
 even such close cronies as Ted Sayor, Wallie Black, and Freddy 
 Kerl, went with the ecstatic Mrs. Whittier to an informal eve- 
 ning at the Tellus mansion. And he went in an abstraction, a 
 remoteness of thought, that, with his white hair and pallid 
 features, his low voice, the distant look in his big eyes, caused 
 gasps of wonder and awed speculation, in which the story of 
 his enforced enlistment at the hands of Marian Whittier was 
 completely submerged. But of course Mrs. Whittier and Ethel 
 were social powers now, and Madam On-dit must be dis- 
 creet. . . 
 
 Stares and muffled exclamations followed the spectral figure 
 as it moved among the carefully selected guests at the Tellus 
 
 52 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "informal". "Something happened over there," Doctor Roake 
 was convinced. "And" — though he did not voice this audibly 
 •^"it had to do with Marian Whittier." And the rector, staring 
 from a distance at the man who, despite his appearance, his 
 name, was not Alden Cragg, mentally reiflected: "Something 
 happened!" But Harris Chaddock lighted cigarette after 
 cigarette, with his eyes glued to Alden, and fretted his brow into 
 a puzzled network. 
 
 "Welcome back from the grave, Aldy-boy!" was Ted Sayor's 
 greeting, accompanied by a hearty slap on the back. "How'd 
 you leave heaven? Didn't meet up with Boots, did you? Tell 
 us, when's the row over there going to end?" 
 
 Alden held Ted's hand long and looked deep into the laugh- 
 ing eyes. "There will be no end, Ted," he said slowly, "until 
 men change their thinking." 
 
 "Hopeless," Ted returned, with a sidelong glance at the 
 rector. "But, privately, the reason I asked was because of the 
 war-time prohibition act. But, anyway," he laughed, "I'ni 
 getting the best of Wilson on that: I've taken to oatmeal, 
 sugar, and cream. The combination produces alcohol in the 
 stomach, Roake says. So I'm a walking distillery these days, 
 and the Government can't touch me. Oh, modern science is 
 marvelous, Aldy-boy, marvelous! Only," and he made a wry 
 face, "I don't know when the alcohol is in my stomach, and 
 so, of course, I don't feel its effects in the brain. Horribly dis- 
 appointing!" 
 
 Alden shivered slightly as he listened to Ted's vapid chatter, 
 and his thought turned to Flanders. Was that terrible sacrifice 
 over there being made to the end that this — -this — rmight be 
 perpetuated? 
 
 He bent his eyes again upon Ted. "What are you doing 
 these days?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, killing time," was the nonchalant answer. "And that 
 too is hopeless, for it's always Time that gets us in the end." 
 
 ?'You were drafted?" 
 
 Ted started. For a moment he seemed confused. ,Then, 
 forcing a laugh: "Wasn't accepted. I'm tubercular — and I 
 guess that's more than theory. My health has been wretched. 
 I'd go away . . . Arizona, or some place . . . but I've got to 
 stay here and watch things. Besides, I'm practicing real econ- 
 omy these days. I've had to measure my bank account. Sen- 
 ator Chaddock has been handling my affairs, and he made a lot 
 of investments that haven't panned out yet. But I . . . I'm 
 sure they will. I'm banking heavily on Primal Motors. . ." 
 
 Madeline Nence came running up hand in hand with Freddy 
 Kerl. "My!" exclaimed the girl, planting herself and staring 
 
 28 53 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 up at Cragg, "but you . . . you're wonderfult Isn't Ethel the 
 lucky girl!" 
 
 Alden turned his head quickly, but met the grinning eyes of 
 young Kerl. "Some little hero, boy!" observed the latter under 
 his breath. "You must a got scared white! Did you get that 
 ■white hair running?" 
 
 "Oh, potting Fritzies is scary business," Ted explained, giv- 
 ing Freddy a nudge. 
 
 "And they said you were dead!" chimed Madeline. "Oh, 
 tell us all about it!" 
 
 "Yeah, Aldy-boy," Ted urged, "come across with the ghost 
 story. You owe me a five-spot, too, that I paid to a medium. . ." 
 
 "That's right!" laughed Madeline; "Ted took us all to a 
 spirit meeting, and he told the medium to put in a call for 
 you — that was after we heard you were dead!" 
 
 "When we got your spirit on the wire," Ted enlarged, "it 
 sneezed a few times and said something banal about being 
 happy in heaven, and then quit us cold. I remarked to the 
 medium that the spirits were all deficient in originality and 
 handed her five dollars and went out. You owe me that five 
 for not dying." 
 
 "I say," young Kerl put in, still widely grinning, "don't 
 suppose you ran across' Otto Hoeffel over there. . ." 
 
 "Didn't he put it over us here, though!" exclaimed Madeline 
 disgustedly. "I hope he got shot for it!" 
 
 "But you haven't told us about your dying," Ted urged, 
 winking an eye at Madeline. "Which way did you go, up or 
 down? But of course you went to heaven, being a member 
 of St. Jude's in good standing." 
 
 "Did you see the Lord?" young Kerl queried with -a chuckle. 
 
 "And how'd you get back?" Ted persisted. "It's a good 
 thing to know, for I'm thinking we're going to get tired of 
 heaven. Give us a tip, old man, is it like what the rector 
 describes?" 
 
 They were barbed shafts, loosed from the the bow of igno- ' 
 ranee, that these thoughtless ones were launching. And though 
 they broke harmless against him, yet he knew that the very 
 act of loosing them was retroactive. For one may say "Raca", 
 and suffer only the penalty for the expletive prescribed by the 
 Sanhedrin Council; but these were holding the concept of him 
 as a fool, recking naught of their own loss of spirituality by 
 so doing, heedless of their own denial of God thereby, in that 
 they were regarding His representation, not as the reflection of 
 Principle, but of evil. 
 
 Yet did he dare here, now, throw Truth's pearls to the 
 swinish elements of the human mind? "But if I love them, I 
 
 54 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 cannot fail to help them," he thought. "And I do! I do!" 
 And in the wake of this there surged a flood-tide of zeal — ■ 
 zeal that swept before it the restraints of wisdom that the 
 Master so wisely imposed. 
 
 "No, Ted." Alden spoke so seriously that the eyes of his 
 auditors abruptly widened. "Heaven is a state of Mind." 
 
 "Hurrah for heaven!" exclaimed young Kerl.' "How do you 
 get there? Have to be shot?" 
 
 "You reach it by acquiring that Mind which was in Christ 
 Jesus," Alden answered. 
 
 "I do declare!" the youth ejaculated, though somewhat 
 taken back. 
 
 "And you don't have to die first?" Madeline asked. "Really, 
 I've been thinking a lot about death, and I want to know." 
 
 "There is no death, Madeline, but the belief that man dies. 
 That belief is the result of sin. And sin is the belief that there 
 is anything but God and His manifestation." 
 
 "But what about Gehenna, where their worm dieth not, and 
 the fire is not quenched?" Ted bantered, suppressing a smile. 
 "Were you there too?" 
 
 "Yes," was the quiet answer; "it is the valley of Hinnom, 
 beyond the walls of Jerusalem, where the bodies of criminals 
 used to be exposed after death to the worms and were con- 
 sumed by fire. The prophet Isaiah used this symbolically to 
 point out that those who opposed God would come in time to 
 Hinnom, punishment and death." 
 
 "Yeah," Ted countered in mock seriousness; "but it is used 
 in the New Testament dififerently." 
 
 "Jesus used it, after he had taught that death is a sleep 
 produced by false belief, to show that punishment is not eternal, 
 but lasts only as long as the sin lasts. He taught that men 
 would wake out of the mesmeric sleep of death, in another state 
 of consciousness, and that, if they had been wicked here they 
 would continue their careers of wickedness and misery and 
 suffering there. He taught that hell is the mental state due 
 to one's own evil conduct." 
 
 He paused and stood looking at them earnestly. "Oh," he 
 went on, now forgetful of environment and self, "this is what 
 I want you to know : that death here is followed by death there, 
 unless we turn upon the false beliefs of mortal mind and destroy 
 them, and so make the second death, and all the torment of 
 suffering and dying, powerless. It can be done; it must! Oh, 
 the frivolous things that occupy your thought now are but 
 mesmerism, holding you to certain suffering and death ! Wake, 
 I beg of you, wake ! I have come back to rouse you out of your 
 mesmeric sleep of death in matter!" 
 
 55 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 His voice had risen, and others, attracted by its sound, came 
 gathering curiously about him. "What's the fool saying?" 
 muttered Harris Chaddock, "Careful!" said Ted in mock 
 admonition. "Don't call him a fool: you're in danger of hell 
 fire!" 
 
 "Well, -well!" blustered the rector, coming up, arm in arm 
 ■with Doctor Roake. "Is Alden giving you some of his thrill- 
 ing war experiences?" 
 
 "No," laughed Ted; "he's giving us hell!" 
 
 "Tut, tut! But I don't wonder, for the distressing sights 
 he has witnessed have naturally made him serious. He's going 
 to tell us something about them. I've arranged to have him 
 address the congregation of St. Jude's." 
 
 "Oh!" "Ah!" "Great!" came the expressions of a varied 
 sentiment. 
 
 "May I be there!" murmured Ted, his eyes widening. 
 
 Alden's head dropped, and he stood gazing at the floor. 
 His zeal had gone forth without wisdom; the pearls lay 
 trampled. He thought of Marian, of her futile efforts to rouse 
 him, and of his bitter punishment for rejecting her. Must 
 these, over whom he now yearned, suffer as had he? 
 
 Doctor Roake took his arm and led him aside. "You haven't 
 been to see me yet," he gently rebuked him. "I want to exam- 
 ine your wound. . ." 
 
 "It is unnecessary," Alden interrupted. 
 
 "Don't say that," the doctor urged seriously. "You are 
 manifesting its effects in ways that you don't recognize. Don't 
 be foolish, Alden. We don't want you to develop brain trouble. 
 Come to see me to-morrow, sure." 
 , "No, Doctor, I do not wish to have your thought on it." 
 
 The doctor threw him a look of astonishment. That 
 sounded like Marian! Something had happened, with which 
 that girl was much concerned. Fortunately he had ways of 
 finding out. But all in good time. . . 
 
 The Tejlus informal was but one of several that diverted 
 the jaded minds of Crestelridge that week and helped to while 
 away the tedious interval that the world was devoting to the 
 silly business of war. "Heavens!" they declared, as they sipped 
 their chocolate and nibbled their denatured wafers, "war- 
 bread! Sugar rations! It's disgusting! Even if we have the 
 money, they won't let us buy what we want! And they call 
 this a free country!" 
 
 "You're quite right! But, to change the subject, what do 
 you think of young Cragg's preaching to us the other night? 
 Still, they say that the horrible things the soldiers see over 
 there make them religious." 
 
 56 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Harris Chaddock says he's mentally unbalanced, due to 
 his wound." 
 
 "I wouldn't be surprised. And yet Ethel Whittier insists 
 on marrying him! And to think that she might have had 
 Harris! My Lord! But he's handsome — no denying that. 
 But ... I don't . . . know." 
 
 Then, while a disturbed society gawked and gossiped, while 
 it whispered and predicted and laid down laws, Ethel Whit- 
 tier became Mrs. Alden Cragg, with the minimum of service, 
 sentiment, or show. 
 
 Owing to the girl's continued ill health, the ceremony, which 
 neither she nor Alden would consent to delay, was performed 
 in the rectory library, and in the presence of only the relatives, 
 the Chaddocks, Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls. And, of course, 
 Doctor Roake. Mrs. Whittier had lamented long and loudly 
 the denial of her dearest wish, a church wedding, with all its 
 attendant ostentation. "Oh, my country!" she wailed, even 
 while decking herself for the cergmony, "why did the child's 
 health fail just now, of all times! But," gulping down her 
 grief, "we'll celebrate her anniversaries in Penberry Hall some 
 day, that we will!" 
 
 From the night of the Tellus informal Alden had appeared 
 more reticent, abstracted, absorbed. He had kept to his apart- 
 ments in "Craggmont", when the demands of Mrs. Whittier 
 had not required his presence at the rectory or an "evening", 
 and the light had glowed from his windows many a night till 
 the morning sun rose to dispute it. He had seen little of the 
 Chaddocks — Harris had now taken permanent lodgings at his 
 club-;— and his meals were usually served him alone. The sen- 
 ator had bidden him bring his bride to "Craggmont", but had 
 lifted his shaggy brows in surprise when Alden had requested 
 that a separate suite be prepared for her. "Egad!" he ejacu- 
 lated, "doesn't the fool intend to ... to room with her?" But 
 he gave orders, nevertheless, that the suite vacated by Harris 
 be forthwith prepared for Mrs. Alden Cragg. 
 
 Daily that week Alden had walked to the rectory to see 
 Ethel. Once he encountered Harris Chaddock there. For 
 Ethel had angrily refused to permit any other physician to 
 attend her, and her helpless parents had bowed to her will.' 
 But she had improved perceptibly since that black hour when 
 error had dragged her into the shadows as Truth forced it 
 to expose itself. Yet of that hour and its dark revelation, 
 neither had since spoken. Alden's attitude toward the girl 
 was one of unvaried tenderness. He talked of the light, of the 
 summer of life and its flowers, with no allusion to its winters 
 and frozen hopes. And she huddled before him, now regarding 
 
 57 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 him curiously, now frowning, sullen, querulous and tearful, 
 now cynical, flippant, sarcastic, and drawing a dubious pleasure 
 from her ridicule of all that she knew Jie loved. 
 
 But he had fought his battle and won. In the long, night 
 hours of that black winter week he had faced the shafts of 
 malicious suggestion, gathered them to his bosom, and crushed 
 them against the breastplate of his highest concept of Prin- 
 ciple. But for the sacrifice which he was making, he knew 
 that Ethel would destroy herself, body and soul. He knew 
 that the craven spirit of Harris Chaddock cringed in terror 
 before the threats of Fay Meuse, and that Ethel's mesmeric 
 infatuation for her cowardly betrayer was such that she would 
 herself seek death rather than endanger his life by insisting 
 that he make her his wife. It was a hideous past, a revolting 
 present, a menacing future that involved him, but it was of 
 his own making. Yet he was paying the debts, not of his 
 present self, but of the creature he had once thought himself 
 to be. . . 
 
 In those still, dark hours of wrestling his thought had been 
 much with Marian, despite his struggles to keep it from her. 
 He had left her to come back and face this! Would he have 
 come, had he known? Yes — for Marian would have sent him. 
 She had called him, saved him — he was hers! Ah, yes; but 
 she vvas the Christ's. And the Christ came not to the right- 
 eous, but to such as Ethel. So Marian had sent him back to 
 this lost sheep of the House of Israel. 
 
 Then he should not lament, should not so greatly sorrow. 
 True; but, though he had been recalled, his recall was to the 
 human sense of life. It was Marian — not he himself — ^who had 
 demonstrated the impotence of error to hold him. He was 
 still human, with such demonstration as hers yet to make. 
 lie had progressed, immeasurably, because of her work, but 
 man he remained, not Man as yet. And when in his responses 
 to the rector his dry lips shaped the words : "I will," not even 
 the Master would have rebuked the plea that still lingered : 
 "Let this cup pass from me . . . let it pass, O my God . . . 
 let it pass. . ." 
 
 CHAPTER 9 
 
 THE records of ecclesiastical autocracy fill the darkest pages 
 of human writ. In the guise of the Christ, Satan con- 
 quered a world. The Dark Ages of theological tyranny 
 fused slowly into those of civil autocracy. Error had but 
 changed its form. The insanity of Nebuchadnezzar filled Church 
 
 58 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and State; pious thaumaturgy changed wafers and wine into 
 human flesh and blood, while sins were remitted to the clink 
 of coin and eternal salvation was bargained for cash; then the 
 lingering incarnation of medisevalism, the German War-Lord, 
 Defender of Islam, strutted the boards with clanking sword 
 amid the timid plaudits of a mesmerized world, and sank into 
 the flames of his own conjuring. Yet error died not: it but laid 
 down its mask for one more seductive, and in the guise of 
 scientific paternalism still continues its wanton destruction of 
 the sons of men. 
 
 Ted Sayor laughed often and hollowly these days at the 
 fears that he could not shake off. And often, as he drew the 
 blankets over him at night, he wondered if the Dark Ages of 
 medical tyranny into which he had unwittingly- drifted^-into 
 which the world seemed now to be drifting — would not prove 
 blacker than those of Canossa and Whitfield. The spiritual 
 plea of the crafty mediseval churchman who went forth to save 
 souls at the cost of human liberty appeared to him no more 
 specious than that of the political doctor, who, with the same 
 goal, was inducing soporiferousness now by the waving of his 
 banner inscribed with a plea for the preservation of public 
 health. 
 
 And often as he lay shivering with the chill of fear, Ted 
 would speculate on the mystery of life and causation. "Why," 
 he would reflect aloud, "the chemists tell us that the human 
 body is composed of 85 per cent water and 15 per cent ordinary 
 salts! How in heaven's name can it think and act and enjoy 
 and suffer? It can't! These things are done for it! Yet the 
 doctors treat it as if matter possessed life and intelligence, and 
 as if drugs could think and act independently! For thousands 
 of years they have tinkered with the body and its diseases, both 
 effects, without ever discovering the cause ! They can't tell us 
 why the body becomes diseased! And why should it? Why, 
 in God's name . . . But there is no God, for no omnipotent 
 creator would stoop to make a thing so frail, so absolutely 
 imperfect, so miserably weak and poor as the human body and 
 its animating genius, the human mind!" 
 
 And then he would wonder if, after all, Marian Whittier 
 had not grasped something vital, something that might have 
 wrought his own salvation, but that he had spurned. And 
 he wondered now why he had spurned it. And yet he would 
 spurn it again, were she to urge it upon him afresh, he knew. 
 But . . . why? 
 
 And how had he so suddenly become enmeshed? It was 
 as if he had. walked into a trap with his eyes wide! The very 
 thing that he had defied and ridiculed had now seized him, 
 
 59 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 silenced him. It had ... he shuddered to think what worse 
 thing it had done to him! 
 
 He must do something! It was a resolution that was now 
 formed nightly anew. In the smoldering flres of retrospection 
 — for there was as yet no blaze-^he had begun to feel vagrant 
 doubts of a life of complete pleasure. It was possible that his 
 sense of values had been — or become — awry. He should leave 
 Crestelridge : his health had become a warning and a demand. 
 He would so advise Doctor Roake, then consult with Senator 
 Chaddock. . . 
 
 Alas! he was still paying the usorious price of immunity 
 from army service, and he dared not leave the doctor's side. 
 Moreover, his affairs were strangely in a state of confusion. . . 
 Odd that he had not known it until the senator began to delve 
 into them! Of course it was the war. . . Securities had so 
 depreciated. . . He must wait. . . 
 
 But a curse upon a war that could effect such a complete 
 bouleversement of the human mind! There must be rare ele- 
 ments involved in it of which he could not have dreamed. Had 
 it not touched the proud Craggs with a withering blight? And 
 he laughed as he thought of Alden at the Tellus informal. "He 
 preached to us, the fool ! Came with a long face and a mouth 
 full of Bible verses!" But he reflected that it was not the mere 
 fact of the preaching that had nettled him so deeply, but, 
 rather, its very unorthodox note. It was like Marian's, a 
 challenge to the human mind to a step in the dark. And 
 because of its deadly fear of an untried step, the human mind 
 has sent thousands to torture and oblivion. For a like chal- 
 lenge it crucified Jesus. 
 
 Still there was nothing to do but wait. And Ted was wait- 
 ing, stupefied by the belief that he must wait, yet with never 
 so great a need to rouse, to awake, to throw off the tentacles 
 of the deadly mesmeric thing that had clamped upon him. 
 
 But while some, like Ted, sat waiting, others had long been 
 busily minting the violent world-disturbance into coin of vary- 
 ing worth. The activities of Doctor Roake had by now increased 
 in geometrical progression of a rarely high ratio. The launch- 
 ing of his benevolent religio-medical plan had first astounded 
 the professional world, aroused some jealous opposition, then 
 evoked a general and vigorous cooperation, largely for its very 
 audacity. The doctor's portrait had been no stranger to news- 
 paper columns, but now it appeared large on front pages, and 
 with encomiums and explanations profuse and detailed. He 
 had long been extolled for his professional skill; he had now, 
 at a bound, become the medical Moses who would lead his 
 people into possession of the coveted domination. "A Hundred 
 
 60 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Million People Awaiting Him!" was the blaring headline of a 
 metropolitan sheet; and the sentiment was echoed from the 
 western Sierras. "A Practical Plan of World-salvation!" cried 
 exultant others. "A Sound Body Housing a Sound Mind" and 
 "Medicine's Helping Hand to Religion" suddenly became house- 
 hold phrases. For thus did organized medicine, aware of its 
 own human strength and weakness, magnanimously essay to 
 lift struggling Christianity to- its feet, assuming temporary 
 leadership while yielding to the latter's spiritualizing alchemy 
 that must in due season bring in the millennium. 
 
 The effect of his carefully prepared announcement upon the 
 people was in the highest sense gratifying to the doctor, par- 
 ticularly as observed in the Philistine Ted Sayor. The latter 
 experienced a rare sense of exhilaration as he absorbed the 
 plan. He eagerly compared it with theology as typified by the 
 Reverend Wilson Whittier; he measured it with the radical 
 concept of Christianity as exemplified by Marian Whittier; and 
 he sighed — it was a gasping sigh of relief. "Perhaps, after all, 
 that's it," he murmured, poring over the plan. "Marian is too 
 spiritual; Whittier, too material. This scheme opens the inter- 
 mediate. It's rational. It's .... it's sane." And Ted, like the 
 world, yielded to the hypnosis, with a smile of content, and 
 continued to wait. 
 
 It became almost immediately necessary for the doctor to 
 expand his offices, and eventually to occupy an entire floor of 
 the building housing him. His large practice was soon and of 
 necessity delegated to assistants. He had ceased to be the 
 physician, and had become the .master-director of a worlds 
 movement. From his fertile mind, now flowering full, came 
 plan after plan as auxiliaries to the main theme. The organiza- 
 tion of the physicians went on apace. Opposition from leaders 
 of the national medical associations was, of course, to be 
 expected, and they continued to hold but;, but the state and local 
 associations yielded almost immediately to the unique scheme, 
 particularly when it was explained to them that they were but 
 exchanging a minimum of prestige for a maximum of power. 
 Under the plan community nurses and visiting nurses of various 
 types were to be grouped and sent into the waiting field; the 
 health offices were to be speedily reformed and their functions 
 extended; candidates - for legislative offices were to be sum- 
 moned before the medical inquisition before election — not 
 stated so baldly as this, of course, yet indubitably hinted — and 
 health bills, numerous and of wide latitude, were proposed, 
 and discussed, with a view to urging them upon the legislative 
 bodies of state and nation. . . 
 
 Only a master mind, planning long and carefully through 
 
 61 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 many years, could have proposed such a daring scheme and 
 launched it with such eclat. Only a scheme so perfect in its 
 ministrations to the public weal could have found such ready 
 and general acceptance. 
 
 Yet the rector, oddly enough, viewed the initial success of 
 the unique Roake plan . with a singular lack of enthusiasm. 
 "And I don't know why I feel so little emotion," he mused, 
 "for it is precisely what I have long desired. I don't know. . . 
 Nothing seems just right these days. . . Alden's return. . . 
 Ethel's marriage. . . And Doctor Roake: I find myself won- 
 dering if he is wholly trustworthy — as regards efHciency, of 
 course, for the ethical import of his plan cannot b*e questioned, 
 I am sure. . ." 
 
 Perhaps he viewed with disquiet the numerous priests and 
 preachers who now visited the doctor for adjustment, not of 
 bones or disarranged organs, but of their conflicting theological 
 tenets in this vast humanitarian plan. Perhaps he was a bit 
 impatient that his own role was as yet but dimly outlined. The 
 doctor had said that he, Wilson Whittier, should lead the 
 theologians. But, though he now spent much time shifting 
 from one foot to the other in the doctor's humming establish- 
 ment, still there had appeared as yet no definite place for him, 
 no cjertain duties, no real authority. "But it will come, of 
 course," he consoled himself. "The material business must 
 precede the spiritual, and I ... I must . . . wait." 
 
 Daily Senator Chaddock came to the establishment to labor 
 under the doctor's watchful eyes, and often he would expos- 
 tulate: "I shouldn't be here, I really shouldn't, Roake! I've 
 work to do elsewhere; but I ... I can't seem to keep away, 
 I can't! Egad! I can't!" 
 
 "Why, I couldn't get along without you, Chaddock!" the 
 doctor would cordially respond. And he would wave the senator 
 to his accustomed easy chair and place before him the rare 
 cigars, and then talk in his low, melodious voice that invariably 
 set the senator's head 'to nodding and eventually left him con- 
 tentedly somnolent. 
 
 It had occurred to the senator of late — though he would not 
 incur the humiliation of voicing it — that with his invaluable 
 aid in securing the passage of the Wess bill his services to the 
 doctor had been concluded, for since his marriage to Mrs. 
 Cragg no further legislative business had been delegated to 
 him. Nor was this due to any diminution of such business, 
 as it had rather increased in volume. And he wondered if 
 perhaps it was because of his growing tendency to become 
 confused, his inability to concentrate as of yore. He did wander 
 frightfully, he knew. It worried him. And he fell asleep on 
 
 62 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 any occasion. This alarmed him greatly, particularly as the 
 doctor had shaken his head gravely over it and had felt the 
 necessity to arrange for a definite course of treatment, to which 
 the senator submitted daily. Yet he knew that he still aided 
 the doctor, for he was continually placing his signature to 
 documents of various sorts. . . But he would not divulge the 
 fact that he was not always acquainted with the nature of the 
 papers he was signing, lest even this slight clerical work be 
 denied him. And what mattered it, he argued, as long as he 
 so implicitly trusted the doctor? And trust him he did — 
 nay, admired him, loved him, with a depth of affection that 
 had at length stimulated a hound-like desire to be always with 
 him, to follow at his heels, to bask — or sleep — ^in his comfort- 
 ing, protecting presence, under the soothing effluence from 
 those deep, black eyes. 
 
 But neither Senator, Chaddock nor the rector need have felt 
 slighted in that Doctor Roake did not see fit to take them into 
 his most intimate councils, for these he shared with none. 
 Only here and there did the astute physician drop vagrant hints 
 of the secret working of his thought; and these, far from being 
 casual or fortuitous, apparently were dropped in the manner 
 of experimentation, for their observable effect upon the human 
 mind. To Doctors Lann and Sale, who could not refuse to 
 enter the organization, he made the suggestion most appro- 
 priate to their disturbed thought. "My plan of organizing the 
 physicians," he succinctly explained to them, "is in the nature 
 of unionization, which is quite as necessary for our material 
 welfare as for that of the day laborer. While the war appears 
 to be exercising a leveling process, nevertheless well-defined 
 classes are arising, of which the medical profession constitutes 
 a most prominent group. These- classes will not ignore money 
 and its relative value. Therefore we cannot." And Sale and. 
 Lann, who had families to support, felt the force of the doctor's 
 pronouncement, though much to the recalcitrant Doctor Ben- 
 son's disgust. 
 
 To the less impecunious and more aggressively independent 
 physicians he stressed the fact that the medical profession as 
 yet had no part in the councils of our Government, although 
 public health was of vastly greater consideration than possible 
 invasion by the Hun. "Disease is more deadly than mere 
 dis-ease," he reminded them. "It is the germ that really renders 
 the German, or anyone else, dangerous. In recognition of the 
 brotherhood of man we must act where Congress and the 
 President lack the vision to do so. It means political power 
 for you — not, of course, that you desire it, but that you can 
 not shirk it if it devolves upon you who are eminently fitted 
 
 63 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to assume it and who will exercise it solely for the public 
 weal." 
 
 To the priests and preachers he emphasized the ease with 
 which "drives" for funds would in future be conducted. "It 
 is the physician who now becomes the missionary," he pointed 
 out. "Do not forget that formerly the priest and the doctor 
 were one. It is the medical missionary who will evangelize 
 the world. And the vast sums necessary for this work will 
 be raised quite easily by our organization." And Kerl, who 
 heard the address, jocosely added: "The Bible in one hand 
 and a box of my Liver Pills in the other, gentlemen, for no 
 savage can be pious with a system full of bile." 
 
 The rector, as he listened, applauded — ^but perfunctorily. 
 He was now profoundly disturbed; yet he could not say that 
 it was because of the densely materialistic foundation upon 
 which he knew an equally material structure was to be raised. 
 "The doctor ignores our spiritual needs — ^but of course the 
 material must always precede. The spiritual will grow out 
 of that. The doctor's statements are necessarily very mate- 
 rialistic. And yet ... I find myself even more impressed by 
 the manner in which he makes his statements than by the 
 statements themselves. Whatever he says comes as positive 
 assertion. He sticks his statements into our minds and then 
 drives them home as if they were so many nails! He . . . 
 he seems to thoroughly understand the receptivity of the human 
 mind." 
 
 But why cavil at method, so that results be obtained? Thus 
 reasoned not a few of the doctors themselves. And the senti- 
 ment would have found wide approbation among the laity, had 
 the latter given the matter more than a passing thought. But, 
 "We shall all live to be a thousand years old now!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Tellus — ^which was not a Jittle inconsistent, in view of 
 her asserted belief in the delights of an orthodox heaven to 
 which she longed to escape from the woes of the flesh. 
 
 "But — all joking aside — " Mrs. Whittier gravely asserted, 
 "I do believe that the doctors, under this organization and 
 unhampered as they will be now, will make us live to be more 
 than a hundred, don't you?" Yet even this was not an unal- 
 loyed desideratum, she reflected, for if they should prolong 
 Simeon Penberry's years! . . . 
 
 "This will put an end to the mentaLscience fads," Mrs. 
 Kerl ventured; "Christian healing, and all that stuff." 
 
 "If the Lord hadn't intended us to use medicine, why did 
 He give it to us?" was Mrs. Black's definitive manner of settling 
 the moot question of spiritual healing. 
 
 "Of course," agreed Mrs. Nence. "And yet, I often wonder 
 why He lets us get sick. . ." 
 
 64 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "To try us, naturally," Mrs. Kerl asserted conclusively; "and 
 to punish us." 
 
 "But," Mrs. Nence persisted, "if He intended that we should 
 get sick He shouldn't have given us medicine, or if He intended 
 that -we should get well He should have given us medicine that 
 would cure. Or . . . Oh, I don't know. Anyway, there's 
 something wrong somewhere, I believe. What do you say, 
 Mrs. Whittier?" 
 
 "My country!" exclaimed the rector's wife in a vehement 
 protest of helplessness, "don't ask me such questions as that!" 
 
 "We shouldn't think about such things," Mrs. Kerl admon- 
 ished. "We'll be a lot happier if we don't. We can't find out 
 anything about them anyway." 
 
 "Leave those things to the doctors and preachers," sagely 
 advised Mrs. Black. "Oh, by the way, Mrs, Whittier, what did 
 Alden give Ethel for a wedding gift?" 
 
 " 'Craggmont'," Mrs. Whittier answered promptly. And she 
 sat back to enjoy the envious sighs of her auditors. 
 
 CHAPTER 10 
 
 THERE had been no wedding journey for Ethel and Alden: 
 Dr. Harris. Chaddock had pronounced quite decidedly 
 against it. "But you can go on your honeymoon in the 
 spring, darlings," Mrs. Whittier chirped. "I'll go with you to 
 Atlantic City for the summer. My country! if this silly war 
 would only end we'd all go to Europe to see the ruins." 
 
 Alden had been deeply grateful that because of Ethel's 
 health the sardonic celebration of his clouded nuptials could 
 not be extended beyond the elaborate wedding breakfast at the 
 rectory, the reassembling of the few guests at "Craggmont" in 
 the afternoon for entertainment by professional vaudeville 
 talent, and the sumptuous dinner at seven, arranged by the sen- 
 ator and financed by the Cragg estate. And when the guests 
 had at length departed, laughing, joking, and some slightly 
 befuddled by the rare wines which the elder Cragg had brought, 
 many years before, from the Old World, Alden silently led 
 his bride to her suite and handed her to her maid. And the 
 latter wondered greatly as she hatched him walk away with 
 bent shoulders and bowed head. And her wonder grew when 
 she looked into the scornful face of the new wife. 
 
 It was Ethel herself who had insisted on living apart from 
 him, though beneath a common roof. And, though this was 
 what Alden would have chosen, yet he knew that not by exclud- 
 es 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing her from his life could he save her. And the envisioned drift 
 into a life of hypocrisy was abhorrent to one who, like himself, 
 had returned to witness to Truth. Yet it was the intermediate 
 that he must now seek, that he must strive to know would open 
 to him because of the singleness of his desire for the right, for 
 the demonstration here of Principle, Love. His conduct toward 
 Ethel must not be a constant reminder of her sin, else thereby 
 would he assert error's reality and power and fasten it the more 
 irremovably upon her. His attitude could not be that of 
 Pharisaical superiority, for, alas! he too had once stoned the 
 Christ. He loved this girl as he now loved the beggar at his 
 gates. His God had brought him back to care for her who 
 had thrust herself outside of Principle; he alone of all mortals 
 could serve as the channel of Principle to the meeting of her 
 desperate need. And he loved her because he first loved his God. 
 
 But he had not thought to meet such tangled problems as 
 confronted him now. And even thus early the tempter of 
 aggressive suggestion oft bade him flee it all. But he knew 
 now through bitter tutelage that men's problems are not solved 
 by flight, but by knowing that Man has no problems in the 
 realm of Principle. And into that realm he would walk and 
 lead this girl. This was his work. And he closed his mind's 
 portals against thoughts of Marian and bent to his task. 
 
 With marvelous rapidity Ethel now rebounded and regained 
 health and* her spirit of yore. Her hysteria ceased, and the 
 hunted look left her features, the fright left her eyes. She took 
 on Weight, and the color returned to her cheeks. "My country!" 
 her delighted mother ejaculated, "if I thought it would have the 
 same effect on me I'd get rid of Papa and marry again!" 
 
 With the quick return of health came the return of Ethel's 
 aggressive devotion to self. From the shelter of Alden's name 
 she looked out upon the world and saw that it was still good. 
 To obliterate the nightmare of the past weeks she now plunged 
 deep into social pleasures, and within a month after her 
 marriage she had made "Craggmont" the locus of such social 
 riot as caused even the Whigs of Crestelridge to gasp. "Egad !•" 
 quoth the senator, "she's wonderful ! Why didn't Harris marry 
 her when he had the chance? But he may yet ... he may yet!" 
 and, as was of late become his wont, his voice dwindled away 
 in a confused mumble, while his thought turned upon the 
 restriction of Alden's pecuniary allowance. And Harris, his 
 son, taking new courage under Cragg's protection, neglected 
 his club to sit with Ethel before the library fire, promote her 
 social adventures, or take her driving when night rendered 
 unlikely their detection by Fay Meuse. 
 
 In Ethel's social activities Alden could take small part; the 
 
 66 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 rejection of his message at the Tellus informal had driven him 
 back into himself, and generally while the great rooms below 
 rang with the boisterous mirth of Ethel's satellites — and 
 none so loud or so devoted as Harris — Alden sat alone in 
 his ajjartment above, pondering the climacteric experience that 
 had been his in Palestine, and striving to clear his thought of 
 the cumbering materialism with which physical sense would 
 burden it high. He knew that he was the object of ever 
 bolder witticisms from these who mocked Truth; he knew 
 that to voice to them his experience with death .would result 
 in the cry: "He hath a devil!" He knew that Harris Chad- 
 dock . . . 
 
 Ah, it was in his enforced association with this man that 
 Alden now found his severest trial. Yet through the code of 
 man that cries death to the betrayer Alden drew the negatory 
 line. Not by death is man saved — had he not abundantly 
 proved it? — but by Life. And this one was already dead, dead, 
 dead. . . And Alden would raise him, even as he would Ethel. 
 
 But it was the living lie^ the purposeful covering of evil, the 
 mockery of his great sacrifice that rendered Alden's present 
 sense of existence so well nigh intokrable. He had given this 
 girl his life: she had trampled it into the dust and turned to 
 rend him. In her certain security she now boldly flaunted 
 Harris Chaddock before him; and the latter, well aware of his 
 immunity, lifted his eyebrows cynically, shrugged his shoulders, 
 and coolly blew his cigarette smoke up into Alden's face. 
 
 "But if I love them I cannot fail to help them," was the 
 insistent animus of this nascent disciple of the Christ. And it 
 was no meek and timid turning of the other chgek that he 
 purposed, but a righteous resolve not to meet error with its 
 own fragile material weapons, but with that which the truly 
 wise have demonstrated can alone destroy it. Truth. 
 
 Yet in his pure zeal did he rather turn his mental gaze from 
 evil in the mistaken belief that recognition of it, even as such, 
 might thereby render it too real to his consciousness for his 
 as yet untried spiritual strength to conquer. And because of his 
 turning from it, because of his failure at once boldly to face 
 it as error and down it with Truth, did he unwittingly permit 
 it to wax the more noxious. 
 
 It early became aggressive in Ethel's demand that Alden 
 fulfill the promise made at their betrothal and deed "Cragg- 
 mont" to her. He had been stimulated thereby to request of 
 the senator more detailed information regarding the Cragg 
 estate, but had come away from his investigation more deeply 
 perplexed. He had then endeavored to convince Ethel that the 
 time was not propitious. He cited the still-remembered charges 
 
 67 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 against the Cragg loyalty, the ill-judged investments, the 
 restricted returns from depressed stocks. "Bah!" she derided, 
 "the estate is all right. Harris said so!" "And the girl's incau- 
 tious remark left him more deeply troubled, disquiet. 
 
 It was after Alden had appealed to the incoherent senator 
 that Doctor Roake sent for him, "on matters of business". Alden 
 went, wondering. And as he entered the humming estab- 
 lishment where hundreds of clerks and assistants of all grades 
 were now feverishly driving the ponderous religio-medical 
 machine in the name of the public weal, he halted, as if struck 
 by an alien blast, and stood regarding the odd scene in wide- 
 eyed amaze. And his thought went back to days long gone, 
 when the Nazarene healed by knowing God. . . 
 
 "How are you spending your time?" the doctor queried, 
 when Alden had been conducted into the luxurious sanctum, 
 into which none might enter but on missions of the highest 
 importance. 
 
 Alden smiled wanly. "I have been trying to- get acquainted 
 with my affairs," he replied. "They seem quite confused.' I 
 I am on my way to consult Cress and Hail." 
 
 The doctor started slightly; but the emotion quickly passed. 
 "They are excellent lawyers," he replied, nodding. "But," he 
 went on, "from what little I have gathered regarding the Cragg 
 estate I don't believe anything can be done at present." 
 
 "But at least I feel that I should look into my affairs," 
 Alden mildly protested. 
 
 "Oh, of course, of course. And yet, I am sure you would not 
 understand them. You know, Alden, your mother brought you 
 up in the good old English notion that the sons of the rich are 
 above sordid business matters. So your knowledge of busi- 
 ness to-day is nil." 
 
 Alden sighed. "True," he agreed ; "and that is why I intend 
 to engage these lawyers to go into my affairs for me." 
 
 The doctor studied him for some moments. Then: "Have 
 you funds with which to pay these lawyers?" he asked. 
 
 Alden threw him a glance of surprise. "Why, no," he 
 returned hesitatingly; "they will be paid out of the estate." 
 
 The doctor smiled tolerantly and shook his head. "The 
 estate is tied up," he said. "You could not touch it — nor could 
 your lawyers — without an order from the Courts. And, because 
 of the Enemy Alien Act, the Courts would keep their hands off." 
 
 "But," Alden urged, "I am living off the estate now!" 
 
 Again the doctor slowly shook his head. "No," he answered, 
 "you are really living off Senator Chaddock's bounty." 
 
 "Senator . • . Chaddock's . . . bounty!" gasped Alden, 
 springing to his feet. "And . , . who owns , . . 'Craggmont'?" 
 
 68 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "That is yet to be determined," was the doctor's calmly 
 judicial reply. "But it does not belong to you. And I think you 
 should know that your monetary allowance is being charged 
 against whatever portion of the estate the Courts may see fit 
 eventually to return to yoii. I tell you this because Ethel is 
 pretty extravagant these days, and, though the senator has given 
 you permission to draw carte blanche, he would tell you, if he 
 had the heart, that it can't continue much longer." 
 
 Alden fell into his chair open-mouthed. "I ... I must leave 
 'Craggmont' at once!" he cried. 
 
 The doctor's shoulders went up slightly. "You can't ask 
 Ethel to leave 'Craggmont' now! What would people say?" 
 
 "But . . . what else can I do?" 
 
 "I sent for you to-day to answer that very question," the 
 doctor replied in sympathetic tones. "Of course I know that 
 some day Ethel will have a fortune, Penberry's money; but 
 for the present, Alden, to be perfectly candid with you, I 
 think you should seek employment." 
 
 Then, very carefully, so as to avoid shock, the doctor out- 
 lined to Alden the events which had led to the involving of 
 the Cragg estate, touching tactfully on the indiscretions which 
 had resulted in federal disapproval, and the enforced steps — 
 his mother's marriage and the placing of the estate in trust-;- 
 which had been deemed necessary for safety. Yet the recital 
 was so composed and worded that the impression made upon 
 Alden was that of utter and irretrievable financial ruin. 
 
 For long, empty moments after the doctor had concluded 
 Alden sat staring dully. Then he found reluctant speech. "Has 
 it gone so far as that?" he whispered hoarsely. "You mean to 
 say that I have nothing?" 
 
 The doctor sighed. "I am sorry, Alden. . ." 
 
 "Penniless?" 
 
 "Let us not say that, Alden. Listen : I can use you. I will 
 give you a position with me. Everything can be nicely arranged. 
 And you can continue to live in 'Craggmont'." 
 
 "But ... on another's bounty? Impossible!" 
 
 "Be reasonable, Alden!" the doctor expostulated. "Let 
 your affairs alone until the war ends; don't stir up society by 
 staging a dramatic departure from 'Craggmont'; come to me; 
 let me induct you into the work here, then start you through 
 the country to help organize the ministers under our plan. J 
 will continue your present allowance as your salary. I will 
 even increase it, and you and Ethel shall remain in 'Craggmont.' 
 What say?" 
 
 Alden struggled to his feet and stood staring into space with 
 unseeing eyes. The doctor watched him fixedly. "You see," 
 
 29 69 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the latter resumed at length, "you will find it impossible to 
 secure employmeijt elsewhere, for you are utterly unfitted for 
 any work. You couldn't support Ethel." 
 
 AMen turned slowly to him. "Yet you would employ me," 
 he uttered in a tense, unnatural voice. "Why?" 
 
 "Because of my regard for you, Alden. . . And because my 
 work here affords Christian people like yourself an outlet to 
 express their love for humanity. You worked with me before, 
 to secure the passage of the Wess bill. . ." 
 
 "And now you would have me help you secure the passage 
 of others equally wicked? And you would give me my living 
 for . . . for my life!" He drew nearer the doctor, with, eyes 
 glowing like coals. "Yes, I gave the Wess bill my support; and 
 I rejoiced with you when it became a law. . . But I was mes- 
 merized! I was askep, like the world, asleep! And that bill, 
 with my help, became a law of death ... of death! . . . to . . . 
 to . . ." He stopped. His lips were sealed beyond that. He 
 stood rigid; then tears started from his eyes, and he dropped 
 his head into his hands. 
 
 The doctor rose quickly and gently took Alden's arm. 
 "There, my boy," he said tenderly, "you are a bit shaken by all 
 you've been, through. Go back now and think it oyer. Then 
 come again to me. Remember, Alden, I am your friend, even 
 as I was your mother's. . ." 
 
 Thus did evil loose another shaft from its bow with inerrant 
 aim. Alden staggered from the impact. He reeled dizzily away 
 from the doctor under the cumulative shocks of his mother's 
 death, the dark revelation of Ethel's condition, his clouded 
 marriage, and now his financial ruin. It had all come upon him 
 so swiftly, so continuously, as to keep him constantly benumbed. 
 Error had singled him out for destruction. . . 
 
 Yet, if so, then for a reason. He had returned from the 
 vale of death with a message of Life; and error had shown 
 that it would have none of it— had not even permitted him to 
 broach it, beyond his unsuccessful endeavor at the Tellus infor- 
 mal. Ethel had stopped her ears and angrily fled his presence 
 when, on the day after their weddings he had tried to speak 
 seriously with her. And thereafter she had shunned him, had 
 barred him from her presence. Her combined breakfasts and 
 luncheons were served in her suite and without his annoying 
 presence. Often she lunched late with friends at a city hotel 
 or sweet-shop. Her dinners were taken in "Craggmont", per- 
 force with Alden and the senator, but always with one or more 
 guests of her choosing. And her evenings were consumed in 
 the social gayety for which she was now become famous. 
 Days often passed without a word to Alden. And when, at 
 
 70 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the end of the first month lof their married life, he sought to 
 expostulate with her over her wild extravagances, she insolently 
 informed him that if he did not care to meet her bills there 
 were others who would^ She dared him to thrust her away, 
 knowing well that he would not, although she could not know 
 why. He endured it, for her sake, for Harris', for the sake of 
 the unborn child, and walked in obedience to the admonition: 
 "Occupy till I come." 
 
 From his benumbing interview with Doctor Roake Alden 
 moved away as in a dream. Out again in the crisp winter air, he 
 wandered for hours, aimless miles, pondering, revolving, yet 
 always seeking. And always Doctor Roake seemed to stand 
 between him and that which he so eagerly sought. 
 
 He roused at length to a recognition of the International 
 Club, as he was passing the building,, and he felt an impulsion 
 to seek Ted Sayori. He entered, and found Ted ensconced in 
 a cosy corner of the luxurious lounging room, deep in a popular 
 magazine. "My cough keeps me in," was Tpd's greeting. And 
 it was given with an embarrassment that he could not explain. 
 "I've hardly seen you, Aldy-boy," he continued. "I've been up 
 to 'Craggmont' several evenings with the crowd, but you were 
 never in evidence. Old married man now, eh? Heaven's sake, 
 don't stare at me that way!". . . And he went off into a fit of 
 coughing^ 
 
 "Ted," said Alden, when the latter had recovered, "would 
 you . . . would you let me . . . help you?" 
 
 Ted sank back and threw him a curious glance. "Help me? 
 Why? I'm all right — excepting for this barnacle of a cough. 
 Just as soon as spring opens, and I can leave my affairs, I'm 
 going to Arizona and lose it. I'm all right." 
 
 Alden started slightly, "Your affairs! Is there anything 
 wrong with them, Ted?" 
 
 Ted laughed. "All I know is what Senator Chaddock says. 
 He's handling them now. He's put me on a strict financial 
 diet. Doc Roake said if I wanted to work he'd take me on. 
 Good joke, eh? But he has a wonderful scheme, hasn't he? 
 He's going to absolutely dominate the hundred million people 
 of this country. He's a clever boy! He's reaching them 
 through the only possible channels : religion and medicine. The 
 fear of death and hell will make 'em knuckle under, eh?" 
 
 "But they needn't fear these things if they only knew!" 
 
 "Well, theoretically, that may be so; but practically . . ." 
 His voice fell. "I wasn't afraid until this cough got me and 
 Roake said I was tubercular." 
 
 "Why did he say that, Ted?" 
 
 Ted flushed slightly and dropped his head. "Oh," he 
 
 71 
 
THOU. ISRAEL 
 
 answered with forced levity, "he has Uiy family pedigree. Hered- 
 ity, you know. But," brightening, "I'll be all right when I 
 get out on the Santa Fe trail." 
 
 "You can be all right here, Ted. Will you let me help you?" 
 
 "Oh, nonsense, Aldy-boy!" Ted roused up and waved a 
 deprecating hand. "What would you try on me? Religion? 
 You tried that over at Tellus'. Funny how you fellows come 
 back from the trenches simply steeped in rieligion. It's a psycho- 
 logical phenomenon. Curious! By the way, old man, where's 
 Marian Whittier?" 
 
 "I don't know, Ted." Alden's voice seemed to come from 
 afar. 
 
 Ted looked off through the high window. "There's a wonder- 
 ful girl!" he said reflectively. Suddenly he turned to Alden 
 and spoke quickly. "If she had stayed here and married me, 
 I'd be a new man now! But she left me — and the devil got me!" 
 
 Alden's eyes widened. "You . . , you wanted to . . . marry 
 her, Ted?" 
 
 Ted looked at him steadily for a moment. Then: "Let us 
 not talk about it," he said quietly. "That was a dream that 
 has vanished. But, tell me, what are you up to these days?" 
 
 "Helping my fellow men, Ted. But . . . they won't be 
 helped, excepting in the way of their own choosing." 
 
 "But what makes you think you can do anything for them? 
 You didn't use to be so altruistic, so democratic. Guess war's 
 a leveler, all right." 
 
 "Because . . . because ... I sinned, as they are sinning 
 ... I fell into evil's power," said Alden slowly, answering 
 Ted's question. "I paid for my sin, as they must. , . But, Ted, 
 I have been permitted to come back to warn them, to help 
 them. . ." 
 
 "Permitted to come back from where?" 
 
 "From the vestibule of death. Oh, Ted, believe me! . . • 
 believe me!" he pleaded, "I have been sent back to you! . . ." 
 
 Ted started up and looked about anxiously. He turned 
 and stared fearfully at Alden, and drew back from him. 
 "You . . . you're wandering!" he muttered. "Get onto some 
 other subject; you can't afford to talk about the war! ... It 
 affects you too strongly! Here!" he called, signalling to a page. 
 "Bring us something cool .. . . Ginger ale, Alden?" 
 
 Alden left T«d Sayor with Marian's words urging upon 
 him : "Your message must be a demonstration of Israel." But, 
 if they would only listen! Yet was he being shown that they 
 would not. And .in his sorrow for them he ceased to feel the 
 hurt of hi^ own deep wounds. 
 
 He bent his lagging footsteps toward the rectory. He no 
 
 72 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 longer rode, he walked. And that curious fact was eliciting 
 comment. But, again: "It's the war. He got so accustomed 
 to marching over there," Mrs. Tellus had remarked. "No 
 doubt it's nice to be able to walk, but, personally . . ." And 
 Mrs. Kerl had observed, with a lifting of the shoulders : "Well, 
 r don't think it looks well. I suppose he's come back with a lot 
 of silly notions about democracy, and everybody being on the 
 same level. It ... it cheapens us!". . . 
 
 The rector was in the parish house, in the full sweep of 
 St. Jude's buzzing activities. "Well!" he declared, "seeing you, 
 Alden, reminds me that I haven't as yet arranged for you to 
 address our congregation. Must do so at once! How about 
 Sunday evening, after vespers? Yes, an excellent time. And, 
 Alden," drawing him aside, "I want to advise you somewhat 
 regarding your talk. You know," glancing about furtively, 
 "we have a wide variety of tastes and opinions here. I find 
 that I must shape the preaching of the Word so as . . . er . . . 
 to conform as closely as possible to their ... ah ... so as not 
 to give offense, you understand. Particularly in this somewhat 
 critical hour of world-history. So just speak of your experi- 
 ences. . . Don't dwell on anything . . . er . . . unpleasant, you 
 know. Omit all reference to the . . . ef . . . the so-called 
 atrocities. They don't want to hear about the war, you under- 
 stand. . . We all want to forget it as quickly as possible, then 
 we'll have less trouble returning to our normal pre-war basis, 
 you see. Just give them something light and interesting, and 
 as amusing and diverting as possible. Play up the capture of 
 Jerusalem and your part in it, but don't refer to the Anglo- 
 Israel fallacy, and don't speak of the Jewish colonization 
 scheme. Some of our people are like yourself, a bit prejudiced 
 against the Jews. And, Alden, be sure to wear your uniform. 
 We are disappointed that you don't wear it at all." 
 
 Alden shivered slightly as he listened. No need to tell him 
 now that the preaching of the Word in this fashionable church 
 had become to Wilson Whittier a business, no longer a mission. 
 Croesus sat here enthroned before the money-changers whose 
 names were cast in bronze in the foyer. 
 
 "I'm so glad you dropped in. Have seen so little of you since 
 your marriage," the rector danced along. "Ethel is looking so 
 well now. She's talking of going to Florida next week. I 
 don't see why you should desert us so soon, but I presume you 
 lovers want to get off by yourselves. She is quite insistent about 
 going. And when the child insists, you know, that ends it." 
 He paused and laughed lightly. 
 
 Alden had not learned from Ethel of her purposed trip, but 
 he did not so inform the rector. Instead, he looked deep into 
 
 73 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the rector's eyes and voiced a query that had been aroused by 
 the latter's solicitude for the sensitive feelings of his congrega- 
 tion. "The Anglo-Israel idea is distasteful to you, I see," he 
 said slowly. "I wonder why. What do you really know about 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh," answered the rector, "only what I have heard others 
 say. Doctor Roake, for instance. . ." 
 
 "Doctor Roake? But the Anglo-Israel idea tends to unity 
 between the United States and Great Britain. It tends to unity 
 throughout the world. I wonder ... I wonder . . ." He did 
 not voice his wonder, but it had just occurred to him that the 
 domination of the world by other than Anglo-Saxon ideals was 
 largely a function of the dismemberment of the British Em- 
 pire. . . 
 
 "But certainly, Alden, you do not distrust Doctor Roake! 
 Think what he has done for your mother and you ! Think what 
 he is doing for the world now ! By the way, did you notice in the 
 Courier this morning the doctor's warning announcement of a 
 case of sleeping sickness? Dear, dear! I trust that awful 
 disease is not going to become epidemic here. But Doctor 
 Roake surely can cope with it. . ." 
 
 His voice dropped abruptly before the demand that thun^ 
 dered from Alden's lips: "Where is your GOD?" 
 
 The words fell upon the rector's ears like the crash of a 
 bursting shell, and he involuntarily shrank back, half crouching. 
 "Why, Alden! . . . what a start you gave me! Why, surely 
 we would not ignore the Lord in meeting an epidemic!" He 
 looked up curiously, wonderingly, timidly into the pale face 
 before him. "How strangely you speak and act!" he murmured, 
 drawing away. "Has Doctor Roake examined your wound yet?" 
 
 "No, and shall not!" 
 
 "Don't be obstinate, Alden," the rector pleaded, glancing 
 about nervously. "Remember that I have a right to be con- 
 cerned, for I have entrusted my little girl to you. And Doctor 
 Roake thinks your wound may have . . . well, affected your 
 brain." 
 
 Alden straightened up quickly, as if galvanized by a shock 
 from the battery of error. A dark vista opened before his 
 mental gaze. 
 
 "Ah!" he heard the rector say in a relieved voice. "There 
 are the visitors I was expecting. They have come, Alden, to 
 inspect the latest of our utilitarian features. You can see that 
 St. Jude's institutional activities are becoming felt the country 
 over." And the rector hurried away, leaving Alden standing 
 submerged in his turbulent thought. 
 
 74 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 THE extraordinary change which had come upon Alden 
 Cragg, as manifested in the way he had met the reverses 
 which- had befallen him, remained a baffling mystery to 
 Doctor Roake, and he spent long hours puzzling over it. He knew 
 that Alden had been with Marian Whittier in Palestine; but he 
 was certain that the rector and his family were as yet in ignor- 
 ance of this. And he had advised Senator Chaddock, who had 
 heard Alden speak of it at dinner that first evening of the youth's 
 return, not to divulge it, lest the discovery of that somethigig 
 which had happened over there be prevented. He knew too that 
 Alden had been with David Barach in captivity; but beyond this, 
 nothing. Perhaps he might have learned more, but for the 
 inexplicable hesitation which he had felt in regard to question- 
 ing Alden since the latter's return. He would have been still 
 further puzzled had he known that the rector and his family, 
 and all who had spoken with Alden since that event, had felt 
 this same unaccountable reluctance. 
 
 He was puzzled, too, by Senator Chaddock's reports con- 
 cerning the domestic life of Alden and Ethel. "As far as I 
 can make out," the senator had said, "they have nothing to do 
 with each other. Don't even live together. But they were in 
 hurry enough to marry! Egad!" 
 
 A thousand surmises flooded the doctor's thought. Some 
 of them were disquieting. Then, to Harris Chaddock, he 
 remarked one day : "Alden says the Wess law has become a law 
 of death to , . . to . . ." He paused and watched for the 
 effect. 
 
 And the effect was illuminating. So much so, indeed, that 
 the doctor took occasion shortly thereafter to seek confirma- 
 tion of certain suspicions then aroused. "The predetermination 
 of sex," he observed quite professionally to Harris, "can be 
 controlled, I believe, by mental suggestion. If the parents — or 
 the family physician— will begin to employ mental suggestion 
 several months before the child is born, I am positive its sex, 
 stature, and even its character, can be controlled and deter- 
 mined. Parents don't need to wonder if their children will be 
 geniuses : they can make them such by pre-natal suggestion. I 
 shall demonstrate this at my earliest opportunity." 
 
 Harris, as had been anticipated, manifested a lively interest. 
 "But" he objected, "the practice of mental suggestion is dan- 
 gerous, is it not? It would be dangerous to an expectant 
 mother?" 
 
 75 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Unless employed by those experienced," the doctor 
 returned. "I have used it extensively in my practice. And," 
 he observed, gazing thoughtfully at his cigar, "with remarkable 
 results. But now I should like very much to experiment with 
 an unborn child. Of course the parents would necessarily 
 have to cooperSle with me. Therefore they would needs be 
 close friends and confidants of mine. At present I do not know 
 of any case . . ." He glanced up quickly at Harris. "If you 
 learn of one, please report to me, in the interest of medical 
 science." 
 
 The doctor's suspicions were further strengthened that same 
 day by conversation with the rector. "So Ethel goes to 
 Florida next Week, to be gone until May or June," he repeated, 
 voicing the information just vouchsafed by the rector. "And 
 Alden remains here? But he is wise. I want him near me. 
 He is experiencing the usual difiBculty in becoming reabsorbed 
 by normal life." 
 
 "You . . . you think he is • . . normal, don't you?" the 
 rector advanced hesitatingly. "I wonder if I ought to permit 
 him to address us Sunday evening." 
 
 "Certainly," the doctor assured him. "It will be a test of his 
 normalcy. Of course you understand that no soldier returning 
 from the horrors of war can be quite normal, as measured by 
 his former life. But he will return to the normal state unless 
 disease, shock, or wounds prevent. In Alden's case we have 
 still to determine what effect the bullet wound in his head has 
 produced. Strictly speaking, he is not fully normal. Does he 
 talk with you of his experiences over there as yet?" 
 
 The rector shook his head. "He talks to nobody. He is 
 singularly reticent, moody, self-absorbed. We know absolutely 
 nothing of his war experiences. But he has indicated that he 
 will speak of them Sunday evening ... if you still think I 
 should permit him to address us." 
 
 "By all means!" the doctor said heartily. "He is still our 
 Alden. We love him. And for that reason we understand and 
 respect his difiBculty in becoming readjusted to the normal. But 
 if he should indicate . . . Ah, well, we shall take care of him. 
 By all means let him speak. I shall be there . . ." 
 
 And with Doctor Roake's full approbation, and after fulsome 
 advertisement, Alden Cragg stood in the auditorium of the 
 parish house the following Sunday night and faced the curious, 
 eager, expectant throng that filled it. 
 
 Yet he faced them not without preparation, albeit a prepara- 
 tion that they could not understand. Following his brief inter- 
 views with Doctor Roake, Ted Sayor, arid the rector, he had 
 sought the seclusion of his apartment in "Craggmont", nor had 
 
 76 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 appeared again until Sunday morning, when, as he had for 
 appearance's sake made his wont, he accompanied Ethel and 
 the senator to St. Jude's and sat in the rector's pew. In these 
 days of solitude he had wrestled with the dark suggestion that 
 rose in the guise of circumstance, as "acts of God," suggestions 
 that would have jnesmerized him into dominant moods of self- 
 pity, sorrow, revenge, and strove for that spiritual attitude 
 which, would bring the blessing of healing to these of his fellows 
 who had, in their dense ignorance, yielded themselves such 
 ready channels for evil. "If I love them I cannot fail to help 
 them," he kept repeating. And he knew that he could accom- 
 plish nothing for them nor for himself if aught of rebellion 
 or hatred remained in his thought. 
 
 Yet it was not lightly accomplished; there had been long 
 hours of bewilderment, of anxious groping. The temptation 
 to personalize the cause of the afflictions which had come 
 upon him was insistent. And to personalize meant to hate. It 
 was not easy to hold to the metaphysical truth that right trans- 
 formation of a circumstance is inhibited by condemnation. It 
 seemed so particularly easy now to resort to the world's method 
 of meeting error with brute force, of making evil real, and 
 despising, hating, fighting it. Yet it is not by keeping the world's 
 faults before our gaze that we correct them, for thus are they 
 rendered permanent; but these faults, judged by a mentality 
 purified by knowledge of the allness of Principle, lose their 
 assumed character of stubborn realities and appear what they 
 truly are, fictive, destructible concepts of the carnal mind. It 
 was become Alden's task to look, not at these, but through them 
 to the true ideas beyond. It was that which had saved him. 
 It was that which could save these people. . . 
 
 But what should he say to them? Should he yield to the 
 direction of fear as voiced by the rector? Would it be wise 
 again to broach his rejected message? And if he spoke what 
 was in his heart, would not these deluded worshipers of matter 
 and the flesh cast him from their midst? 
 
 Peace came, after he had thrown himself upon the promise 
 that "it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall 
 speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
 Father which speaketh in you. . ." 
 
 "He comes to us as our soldier-hero," the rector announced 
 as he presented Alden to the expectant multitude. "He comes 
 like a returned Crusader. . ." 
 
 Alden rose and stood before them, tall, white, commanding. 
 Yet it was not the Alden Cragg with whose appearance and 
 character they were so familiar. "He looks like one of the old 
 prophets," whispered Mrs. Tellus. "But why doesn't he wear 
 his uniform?" 
 
 77 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "He comes bearing the wound that he suffered for our 
 sakes . , ." continued the rector. 
 
 "No," cried Alden, and at the sound of his voice the audience 
 sat bolt upright; "it is a wound that hatred dealt me because 
 I had failed to love!" 
 
 The startled rector paled, and his mouth hung open. Then 
 he sought to cover the interruption and its portent with a 
 tolerant smile. "It is the wonderful modesty of the hero," he 
 went on shakily, "who returns still under the spell of the Holy 
 City. It is of that city and his gallant part in its recapture 
 that he will speak to-night. . ." With but few words more he 
 terminated the introduction and yielded the floor. "Be careful, 
 Alden," he whispered in an aside as he returned to his chair, 
 "be very careful." 
 
 Alden stood for some moments silent, looking out over the 
 heads of the hushed audience with unseeing eyes. In thought 
 he was again in Jerusalem. Again he was treading a stony 
 way. . . 
 
 "It is the Via Dolorosa," he said aloud and slowly. "And 
 here in this house," extending a hand, "they tell us lived Dives. 
 Before this doorway lay Lazarus, the beggar." 
 
 The audience turned one to another quizzically. "Is he out 
 of his head?" queried Mrs. Kerl, raising her lorgnette. 
 
 "To Dives came the pleasures of matter. . ." Alden's voice 
 penetrated to the farthest corner of the great hall; "to Lazarus, 
 its pains. Yet neither knew that matter was but a mental 
 concept, formed of thought; and neither knew that he must 
 some time reap the harvest of his own thinking in regard to life. 
 And each, obeying the false- laws of matter, died." He stood 
 for a moment in pause. And before he resumed he drew a 
 deep sigh. 
 
 "Then each awoke. Does man awake from the sleep of 
 death? Aye, that he does, as I have proved! And each found 
 himself still alive, but on a mental plane differing from that 
 which he had left. Each had but awakened to a new state of 
 consciousness. And the rich man now was bitterly conscious 
 of suffering; yet Lazarus was conscious of ease and comfort. 
 But why? 
 
 "The rich man's life had been one of devotion to the thought 
 of matter and its pleasures as real. To him, matter had become 
 the only substance. His consciousness — his thought-activity — 
 now had reaped the result of such false thought, for the 
 accumulation of material thinking had at last 'helled' him about, 
 and in its limitations, its falsities, he saw vast emptiness. 
 Believing in the pleasures of matter, he had been forced to 
 believe likewise in its pains, for one is as real as the other. This 
 
 78 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ignorance had produced a state of mental distress called hell. 
 
 "But Lazarus, while on the former mental plane, had been 
 compelled by the pains of matter to look beyond it for ease. 
 His suffering had been just as real to him as pleasure had 
 been to Dives, yet because of it he had turned from matter, and 
 was no longer to be deceived into believing that happiness could 
 be derived from it. . 
 
 "And so Jesus showed that Lazarus was in Abraham's 
 bosom, that he had arrived at the same mental state that Abra- 
 ham had reached when he renounced the material idols of Ur 
 and went to dwell in a better consciousness of Truth to work out 
 his salvation from the hell of belief that matter is real. Abraham 
 had caught a glimpse of the Christ. So, in looking beyond 
 matter for real substance, had Lazarus. 
 
 "Dives cared not now what his former lot had been; he was 
 concerned only that those who remained on that other plane 
 should be warned, that they might break the mesmerism that 
 made them blind materialists and become right-thinkers. 
 
 "So have I come to you, to cry 'Metanoial' " His voice rang 
 out like a trumpet. "Get you a complete and radical change 
 of thought, that your human consciousness may yield to 
 spiritual consciousness, which is the only heaven!^ Get you 
 that Mind which was in Christ Jesus — or sooner or later, 
 on this mental plane or another, you will of a surety exchange 
 your present illusive pleasures of matter for its sharper pains!" 
 
 "Alden!" The rector's troubled whisper pierced the silence. 
 
 The audience sat staring in blank amazement. Alden looked 
 out upon them, and a wistful smile came into his face. His 
 gaze fell upon Ethel, open-mouthed, angry-eyed, and his head 
 bent slightly toward her. Beside her sat her astonished mother, 
 vaguely sensing a premonition of humiliation to her social 
 prestige. With them was Harris Chaddock, lolling with an 
 elbow on the top of the seat and a sneer lifting the corners of 
 his expressive mouth. About them were grouped the Telluses, 
 the Blacks, the Kerls. . . 
 
 His eyes wandered slowly about the room. Then they hung. 
 In the rear of the hall sat a woman with snow-white hair. He 
 recognized her. It was the Galuth! His lips parted, and he 
 stood staring at her across the multitude. 
 
 And as he stood, the people recovered, and turned to 
 exchange with one another meaningful looks and nods, and to 
 throw significant, unvoiced queries toward Mrs. Whittier, and 
 glances of sympathy at the red-faced rector sitting in confusion 
 on the rostrum behind Alden. 
 
 Then the audience caught its breath, for Alden was again 
 speaking. And now his voice had dropped low, and his tones 
 
 79 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 were laden with awful solemnity. "A bullet, hurled by hatred, 
 drove me into the vestibule of death. .- ." 
 
 The audience moved, as if one. Doctor Roake was seen to 
 lean far forward. 
 
 "I awoke, on another plane of thought j yet I was still in 
 the flesh, and my thinking was even more densely material. 
 I loved. I hated. And, oh, how I suffered! For I . . . was . . . 
 in . . . hell!" 
 
 Gasps were heard throughout the hall. A child began to 
 whimper. The rector started to rise, but sat back again, for 
 Alden had resumed. 
 
 "I was there because I had denied the infinite Principle — 
 God. Because of such denial. I had thrust myself out into the 
 chaos of unprincipled mortal concepts. The violence of the 
 discord in which I found myself was in the ratio of my former 
 denial. The road back to a consciousness of good was then even 
 longer, more choked with obstacles, with suffering, than it 
 had been in my former state of consciousness that I had called 
 life. There could be no escape until my thinking should, 
 through unspeakable toil and agony, lose its materiality, and 
 better thought should take its place and by its activity produce 
 a conscioi^s state of greater harmony. 
 
 "Yet was I but in the vestibule of death, scarce past its 
 threshold. And to me there came, through the love of another, 
 the Christ. I heard the call. I awoke to this state of conscious- 
 ness . . . yet not the same, for the former man was dead, his 
 consciousness replaced by one more spiritual." 
 
 He paused, but only for an instant. Thrusting out his arms 
 to the staring people he cried: "Oh, you may hear this call, 
 here, this night, if you will !" 
 
 The rector's hand came down heavily upon the arm of his 
 chair. Alden turned to him and smiled. 
 
 Then he again faced the people. "You wish me to speak of 
 Jerusalem," he said, "of what I saw. . . Ah, yes, I saw the 
 lepers, beyond the gates. I saw the spot where the Master 
 stood and demonstrated the presence of God to the rotting 
 lepers. He did not bind these men with health laws; he 
 did not inject poisonous pus into their bodies to vaccinate 
 against the disease. He did not pasteurize, sterilize, disinfect, 
 and inoculate their environment and associates. He did not 
 quarantine. He did not cut and mutilate, nor lay laws of death 
 upon these afflicted ones who appealed to him for aid. Nor did 
 he, when conscious of his great powers, set up a medical 
 tyranny nor an unholy alliance with the existing form of 
 religion to fetter men's thought and dominate them mind and 
 body. . . 
 
 80 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Yes, I walked the streets where Luke walked with Paul. 
 And I thought then of Luke, the beloved, conscientious physi- 
 cian, a good physician, yearning to benefit his fellow men, and 
 how he came to learn of the Nazarene's teachingSj thinking to 
 combine them with his own practice of medicine, but cast from 
 him at once and forever his former unscientific material prac- 
 tices for the scientific Christianity taught and demonstrated by 
 the Master." 
 
 A murmur rose from the audience. The rector sprang to 
 his feet and rushed to Alden's side, but halted, for a loud voice 
 was heard Trom the center of the hall. "Let him go on!" It 
 was Ted Sayor, standing with eyes flashing and hands gripped 
 to the seat in front of him. 
 
 Excited exclamations, some loud, some muffled, came from 
 all parts of the hall. Many rose. Glances, wild, eager, appre- 
 hensive, amazed, shot swiftly from the audience to the rostrum, 
 to Ted Sayor, and back again. The rector stepped back and 
 stood hesitant, white and trembling. 
 
 "The world that I left was sick." Alden was again speaking. 
 
 The people fell into their seats. Alden went on. "It was 
 sick unto death. The world that I have returned to is dying. 
 Yet you who listen to me know, even as I, that there is but 
 one thing wrong with it. But you dare not confess it. It is 
 ignorance of God! 
 
 "Yet you do not even try to know God, for you are mes- 
 merized by the belief that after death you shall be suddenly 
 ushered into His presence. Time enough to know Him then! 
 Alas! you have made but a material concept of Him, and you 
 worship it in puerile lip-service ! You are mesmerized by error 
 into putting all things into the future, though God is ever-pres- 
 ent. You miss perfection, harmony, happiness, wholeness, 
 because error has relegated them to the same illusive future. . . 
 
 "Hear me, I beg of you! For I come to you in Truth! I 
 was a member of St. Jude's; I held the same high estimate of 
 material methods that you hold now; my religion was but your 
 conventional, man-made organization of material hopes and 
 aspirations ; my theology was cloaked with .morality, ethics, and 
 social service. It is these that now justify the closing of your 
 church as unessential in this hour of need. . ." 
 
 The rector started forward, but paused, then turned back 
 and fell into his chair. 
 
 "Oh, that you might know that the prime necessity of this 
 life is to acquire the true idea of heaven!" cried Alden. "Nine- 
 teen hundred years of theology have left us with a world sick 
 unto death, with churches that minister largely to private prop- 
 aganda and to leaders in business, politics, medicine. Yet 
 
 61 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 there cometh now Truth, the latchet of whose shoe your 
 theology is not worthy to loose. Hear me, I beg! For I come 
 to you in Love! 
 
 "For pure Christianity is again among men. By it shall be 
 healed the world's ills. The call has come for the sacrifice of 
 material things that precedes the spiritual knowledge that alone 
 constitutes heaven. Evil, sickness, sin, death must be mastered 
 by us sooner or later. While we delay, we suffer. And the 
 suffering grows. When, then, shall we begin? 
 
 "The call has gone forth for real thinkers, for it is the right 
 thinking of those who reflect the Mind that is God that alone 
 can save you and cure your sore ills. Right thinking alone 
 can detect the subtle mesmerism that here in your midst has 
 yoked religion with medicine for the domination of a sleeping 
 world. Right thinking will cause those bills to be torn from 
 Congress, the passage of which would make you helpless in the 
 grip of the political doctor. . . 
 
 "Here, in this parish house, but a few days ago I heard a 
 discussion of remedies for the world's ills. I was deeply moved 
 — not by what was said, but by what was deliberately avoided : 
 mention of God as the sole cure. 
 
 "What kept you from speaking of Him who is your very Life? 
 Why did you hold up every conceivable material remedy, every 
 invention of mortal man, and exhaust these in your discussion 
 until very logic demanded that you speak of God, and then 
 fall mute without voicing His name?" 
 
 Silence as of the tomb lay upon the scene. Out of it Alden's 
 voice burst forth : "It was because God has never become real 
 to you! It was because matter is your only god! . . ." 
 
 "I protest!" Mr. Tellus was on his feet. "Father Whittier, 
 I protest!" Others sprang up exclaiming. 
 
 Alden's voice soared high above the rising din. "Hear me, 
 for I bring you primitive Christianity ! Hear me, for I have seen 
 the Christ!" 
 
 "He's mad!". . . 
 
 "Put him out! I didn't come here to be insulted!". . . 
 
 "Call a doctor! .A woman has fainted!". . . 
 
 The rector now had leaped up and seized Alden by the arm. 
 Alden shook him off, and the rector fell up against the wall 
 and slipped to the floor. 
 
 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you. . ." 
 
 Amid the welter, the hurried shuffling, the cries, exclama- 
 tions, silence suddenly fell, and the people crouched cowering 
 before the ominous words that now thundered forth freighted 
 with righteous wrath from this white-haired, spectral figure. . . 
 
 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, 
 
 82 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curs- 
 ing: therefore CHOOSE! . . ." 
 
 A momentary pause, a tense hush, then someone cried 
 out: "The fellow is cursingf us!" At that, pandemonium broke 
 forth. Doctor Roake, Tellus, Kerl and others rushed to the 
 rostrum. Some stopped to minister to the fallen rector; Doctor 
 Roake and Harris Chaddock seized Alden and hurried him 
 away. Mrs. Whittier had collapsed. Ethel sat rigid and glar- 
 ing. 
 
 Mr. Tellus hastened to the front of the rostrum and held 
 up a hand. "My friends!" he called loudly. The confusion 
 and clamor abated somewhat, and he proceeded with trembling 
 voice. "As chairman of the vestry I wish to disavow any 
 responsibility for what you have heard this evening. It is 
 evident that our friend has returned from the war in a sad 
 state of religious confusion. I am sure our good rector was 
 unaware of what the young man intended to say. However, we 
 assure you that the vestry will thoroughly sift the matter and 
 take all remedial steps necessary. You will please now dis- 
 perse quietly, bearing with you our deep regrets for the wholly 
 unanticipated address to which you have been subjected." 
 
 CHAPTER 12 
 
 AT noon Alden rose from his bed where he had thrown 
 himself the night before fully dressed. He had shaken 
 himself free of those who had sought to lay hands on 
 him, and had passed from the parish house out into the dark- 
 ness alone. Alone, and absorbed, he had walked to "Cragg- 
 mont". Nor had the consuming zeal of his Father's house 
 abated until he had sat far into the morning hours in the 
 isolation of his apartment. Then, exhausted, he had dropped 
 into a heavy sleep. • 
 
 As he rose, Jedkins entered with a letter. Alden read it, 
 and again. Then he took it to Ethel's apartment. 
 
 The maid admitted him. Ethel, half dressed, reclined on a 
 divan, smoking a cigarette and sipping her coffee. She turned 
 languidly as he entered, bade the maid be gone, and demanded 
 sourly: "What do you want?" 
 
 "We must leave 'Craggmont'," he said gravely. 
 
 "Humph ! I should think j'ou'd leave town, after last night," 
 she retorted. "Well, why do you come here?" 
 
 "To tell you that we must leave 'Craggmont'," he repeated. 
 
 "We?" She laughed derisively. "You're crazy!" Then 
 
 83 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 her face drew into an ugly scowl and her tone became menac- 
 ing. "Where is the deed to this place that you promised me? 
 People as pious as you publicly profess to be are always liars." 
 
 '*I would keep my promise if I could," he answered, speak- 
 ing low. "But 'Craggmont' is no longer mine. I have just 
 received this letter from Cress and Hail. It confirms what I 
 have said. The estate is involved; the Courts will not interfere. 
 Nothing can be done at present, the lawyers say. They say too 
 that Senator Chaddock wishes to rid himself at once of the 
 burden of supporting us. They enclose a check, a small one, 
 which they say is due me. But I cannot expect more. So I 
 must . . . seek employment . . . to-day." 
 
 For a moment Ethel lay speechless. Then she sprang up, 
 her anger hissing forth reptilian. "You . . . you did this ! You 
 . . . with your crazy religious notions ! You deliberately insulted 
 Papa and the Church and Crestelridge last night, and now they 
 have kicked you out ! Oh, you miserable fool ! I hate you ! . . . 
 hate you! I'll divorce you, you spineless milk-sop! . . . you 
 . . . you . . . Get out of here! Get out!" 
 
 "You will have to leave with me," he proceeded quietly, "if 
 you wish to prevent the malicious gossip that would ruin 
 your name." 
 
 She recoiled. "Oh," she gasped, "you hold that over me! 
 You threaten to tell the world- f/iaf.', . . . They won't believe 
 you! You're insane!" 
 
 "I shall not need to tell the world," he said inexorably. 
 "You are about to reveal it yourself." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "And for that reason you plan to go to Florida into hiding 
 until spring." 
 
 "Oh," she panted, "then this is your revenge? You married 
 me for this? You will try to keep me from going to Florida? 
 Oh, you brute! You snake! . . ." 
 
 "I have told you that I married you to protect you and your 
 child," he answered steadily. "That protection is still yours. 
 You are utterly ruined if you do not continue to avail yourself 
 of it. Ethel, let me help you! ... I am sorry I cannot keep 
 you in 'Craggmont', but I shall try to secure a position at once 
 and support you. . . Oh, Ethel, if you would but hear me, 
 work with me! . . ." 
 
 "Support me!" She burst into a delirious laugh. "You? 
 Why, you couldn't support a canary! You'll starve, you poor 
 fool! But don't kid yourself that I shall starve with you!" 
 
 "And what do you purpose doing?" 
 
 "I shall divorce you ... for non-support!" 
 
 "You cannot, on that ground, for all that 1 have and earn 
 
 84 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 shall be yours. And because of public opinion, and to save 
 your father's name, to save your future, you must remain 
 my wife until after . . . until spring." 
 
 She sank upon the divan and sat staring at him with 
 glassy eyes. He stood looking at her appealingly for some 
 moments; then, with a sigh, he turned and went to the door, 
 where he halted and faced her again. "I am leaving 'Cragg- 
 mont' now," he continued. "I have this check, enough for 
 your fare to Florida and to keep you there a few weeks. Shall 
 I arrange for your transportation to-day?" 
 
 She struggled with herself for a moment. "Yes!" she 
 whispered hoarsely. "I'll go . . . to-night!". . . 
 
 From the tone of the letter which he had received that 
 morning it was patent to Alden that Senator Chaddock did 
 not wish a further interview with him. In a sense he had 
 been paid off and dismissed. Other things were equally 
 obvious; but it had not seemed necessary to voice these to 
 Ethel, for he had again laid himself upon the altar, ahd she 
 had eagerly accepted his sacrifice. 
 
 He walked to the city^ and secured transportation for her 
 on the train leaving New York at midnight. This done, he 
 telephoned to "Craggmont" and arranged with Jedkins to pack 
 his few effects and hold them to await his further advice. 
 Thereupon he went to the rectory to deliver the tickets and 
 money to Ethel, for he would return to "Craggmont" no 
 more. 
 
 As he went, a sense of failure assailed him. He had not 
 prevailed against the innate tendency of the human mind to 
 combat Truth. They were crying for help, these who had 
 rejected him; yet fear held them clinging tenaciously to the 
 false, believing as they did that the testimony of the physical 
 senses must be true. They cried out for Good; yet did they 
 in their mesmerism resist it, except it should come in a guise 
 of their own outlining, in a manner, a time, a material manifes- 
 tation to be dictated by the carnal mind. Salvation lies in think- 
 ing — and they agreed with him, but insisted that the thinking be 
 material. Because he had pointed out that such thinking leads 
 but to death, they had shouted: "Crucify him!" 
 
 But, had he relinquished the struggle, would peace have 
 come? He knew that it would not, for there is no peace out- 
 side the demonstration of Principle. Yet had he found none 
 to demonstrate Principle in this world of mortal mind to 
 which he had returned, this seething sea of animal magnetism, 
 autohypnosis, and aggressive mental suggestion, where every 
 mortal was but a mental manipulator, legislating his neighbor 
 to suffering and death with the mortal laws of matter. 
 
 30 ^^ 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Yet I love them," he murmured. "The God who is Love 
 has sent me to them. And He knows why." 
 
 At a window of the rectory he saw Ethel and her mother, 
 but when he entered they had disappeared. He asked for 
 them. The maid returned with their excuses. Neither was 
 well. They would see him at the train that night. And the 
 maid was obliged to repeat the message before he quite com- 
 prehended. 
 
 He then asked for the rector. Again the maid returned 
 with excuses. The rector was particularly busy — ^would be 
 closely occupied all day. Would Alden please call the follow- 
 ing morning at ten? 
 
 Alden left the tickets and all but a few dollars of his 
 remaining money with the maid and departed dumfounded. 
 In the street he stood, uncertain whither to go. A cold wind 
 swept around the corner of the great ecclesiastical pile and 
 urged him on. Dead leaves rattled over the snow that lay 
 yellow in the jaundiced light of the low winter sun. . . 
 
 He started away as a thought smote him : the demonstra- 
 tion of employment was now upon him! He moved on with 
 quickening footsteps. 
 
 But what could he do? for as yet his hand had not been 
 employed in his own support. Of business he knew nothing, 
 as the world reckons knowledge. In the estimate of his fellows 
 he had never really earned the price of a loaf! 
 
 He found himself in the business district with these reflec- 
 tions urging hard upon him. Abstractedly he turned into a 
 large office building. It was a hive of activity; people hurried 
 to and fro through its marble corridors bent on their pur-^ 
 suits of material gain. He watched them, unnoticed. Then 
 he entered an elevator, and aimlessly left it at the third floor. 
 He opened the first door that he came to and asked for employ- 
 ment. He was not fully awake to his own conduct. The 
 manager lifted his brows in surprise at the white-haired figure 
 and replied that he had nothing to offer. The experiment 
 was repeated in another office, and still another. "But who 
 are you?" asked one. And when he gave his name he was 
 met with a laugh and the query: "Haven't you read the 
 morning papers yet?" For a lurid account of his address 
 in the parish house the preceding evening had in some manner 
 slipped into the yawning maw of the metropolitan press. 
 
 He exhausted the possibilities of the building and sought 
 another. Few asked his name, and those who did invariably 
 manifested great surprise, and some winked at others and 
 tapped their foreheads significantly. One responded with a 
 guffaw: "Alden Cragg, eh? My God, man! you ought to be 
 on exhibition in a museum." 
 
 86 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Night fell, and the offices closed. He went io the Inter- 
 national Club and inquired for Ted Sayor, but was informed 
 that the young man was dining out. But he would wait in the 
 lounging room. . . Better still, he would spend the night 
 at the club, of which he had been an honored member. ■ He 
 turned to the elevator to ascend, but stopped short, stood 
 staring for a moment, then wheeled abruptly and hastened 
 out into the darkened street. He had caught sight of his 
 name, posted. . . 
 
 He procured his supper at an unfamiliar restaurant, and 
 chose an obscure corner. He had been strangely unable to 
 think since his visit to the rectory, his thought seemed so 
 tired, so crowded; and now he sat over his meal in a state 
 of mental vacuity — sat so long that the proprietor bade an 
 officer watch him. 
 
 When he left the restaurant he wandered without direc- 
 tion. He could not return to "Craggmont" — and the messages 
 from the rector and his family had amounted to requests to 
 absent himself from them. He could not now seek Ted Sayor 
 again. And the Telluses, Blacks, Kerls, they had all been out- 
 raged by his talk in the parish house, he knew. . . 
 
 He dropped into a public reading-room and remained till 
 it closed. Then he roamed the echoing streets until time to 
 go into the metropolis to the depot from which Ethel would 
 depart. In his isolation, the thought of seeing even her brought 
 a sense of cheer. 
 
 But there, though he paced the waiting-rooms until mid- 
 night, and then watched the "Florida Special" depart, he saw 
 no sign of Ethel or her family. Yet he was certain that he 
 could not have missed them. He inquired futilely among the 
 red-capped porters. Then he went hesitatingly to a telephone 
 booth and called the rectory, in Crestelridge. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he was informed by the rector himself, who was 
 working late on his Sunday sermon, "yes, they left, Ethel and 
 her mother. They . . . er . . . had their reservations changed 
 this afternoon to the ten o'clock train." 
 
 Alden hung up the receiver and turned away with unsteady 
 step. An hour later, back nn Crestelridge, he sank upon a 
 bed in a little room in one of the cheaper hotels and dropped 
 his head into his hands. Since his visit to the rectory that 
 afternoon he had let himself be driven, driven, driven. . . 
 
 "And yet I know that I have passed from death unto life," 
 he murmured, "because I love them." 
 
 87 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 13 
 
 WITH the beginning of another day rose the full tide of 
 the serpent's accusations against Alden. Impover- 
 ished ! — he who had never known a want unmet. Penni- 
 less and wandering! — he who had dozed in satiety 'neath For- 
 tune's smiles in incomparable "Craggmont". Incredible! But 
 the pitiable lightness of his purse was the testimony of sense 
 that condemned him. 
 
 As he proceeded in his search for employment his mentality 
 became an arena, staging a roaring conflict between a trust in 
 his understanding of the Omnipotence which had raised him 
 and the mounting distrust of human endeavor. Compete with 
 the cunning of human thinking — he? Suggestion's dispiriting 
 voice soared high in mockery. "What you are capable of doing 
 for the world is not worth your living!" And when he looked 
 in the direction of limited human capacity he knew it was so. 
 
 Yet when he viewed the case through the lens of Truth he 
 could see that knowing God was man's only true employment, 
 even as the wise Nazarene had taught. Demonstration of the 
 activity of infinite Principle was individual employment for all 
 mankind. In its demonstration all bodily needs would be met. 
 And striving to retain his mental grasp of this spiritual weapon 
 through the noise and smoke of suggestion's attacks, he tramped 
 the streets throughout the day. 
 
 He did not go to the rectory at ten. He felt that his problem 
 lay not there. His thought was now known to the rector : there 
 was no call for debate on it. A, demonstration of supply now 
 constituted his temporary employment; and arguments with 
 the rector could but impede it. 
 
 The day passed; another succeeded it; still others followed 
 dully in their wake. They were drab and , humanly empty. 
 There was need of men to fill various positions, he learned, but 
 always something seemed to come between them and him. Yet 
 he remembered Marian's oft-repeated prayer : "Father, I thank 
 Thee that there is nothing betwean Thee, and me"^It was but 
 error's shadow that lay between him and his place. . . 
 
 Some laughed at his answers to their questions, at the reve- 
 lation of his ignorance of the accepted and age-honored human 
 concept of business. Some were bluff, discourteous, rude. 
 Others were kindly, but shook their heads. "You're too old," 
 some said, as they glanced at his white hair. Yet he was not 
 thirty. And still others, to whom the Cragg name had been 
 synonymous with the tyranny of wealth and social prestige, 
 
 88 
 
THOU. ISRAEL 
 
 shrugged their shoulders and manifested pleasure in showing 
 him the door. And withal, it soon became noised abroad that 
 young Cragg, penniless — "a little off up here", pointing to the 
 head' — was, in familiar parlance, "hunting a job". And the 
 business world wondered, but smiled over the joke. 
 
 The rumor of course reached the ears of Doctor Roake — 
 Harris Chaddock had seen Alden going .in and out of office 
 buildings in search of work, and had grimly remarked that he 
 should be captured and fumigated because of such promiscuous 
 contact with humanity. The doctor packed his comment into 
 a single expression: "Remarkable receptivity!" But as he 
 voiced it he smiled. 
 
 The rumor reached the ears of the dlite of St. Jude's, and 
 was thence borne to the rector, who became so perturbed that 
 he sought Doctor Roake. 
 
 "It would reflect upon you and yours, as you say," the 
 doctor thoughtfully replied, when the rector had voiced his 
 fears, "but for the fact that Alden has shown himself mentally 
 unbalanced. I can only suggest that we bring him before a 
 lunacy commission for investigation. He probably should be 
 sent to a sanitarium. There is now no doubt that he is mildly 
 insane. But I suggest that he be allowed further opportunity 
 to thoroughly manifest his mental condition." 
 
 "It is terrible!" cried the rector, wringing his hands. "He 
 has not returned to 'Craggmont' since Ethel departed. I . . . 
 I have been daily, hourly, expecting that he would come to me. 
 I had no idea his mental condition was so bad until he gave 
 that unfortunate talk. I must And him at once and have him 
 brought to the rectory for care!" 
 
 "Let me 'find him," the doctor offered sympathetically. "Let 
 us handle this case with the least publicity. . ." 
 
 And the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls murmured sagely: "I 
 told you so," and felt now abundantly able to account for all 
 the vagaries, discrepancies, and irregularities of Alden's conduct 
 since his return from the war. 
 
 On the day that the rector had taken his burden to Doctor 
 Roake, Alden found himself without funds. The sight of his 
 empty purse produced within him the sensation of a shock. 
 Through his stunned thought there seemed to echo a cruel 
 taunt: In a universe supposedly governed by divine goodness 
 there was a demand for which had been found no supply. 
 Evil's sharpest tool, discouragement, was cutting at his faith's 
 foundations. 
 
 Yet the Christ had proved the;, reverse of the mortal lie to 
 be always true. And therefore it must be the demand itself 
 that is created by the supply. If Alden was now called upon 
 
 89 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to give to the world sufficient work of a quality to deserve in 
 return a needful supply of shelter, clothing, food, then it must 
 needs be that he already possessed the good he sought, else 
 were there nothing to create the demand. "True demand and 
 true supply must balance. 
 
 Food and clothing are primarily mental concepts — so he 
 had already learned. And mental concepts are the product 
 of thinking. Penury is of the thought ere it becomes external- 
 ized in the empty purse. And penury of thought results from 
 the failure to subordinate the material to the spiritual and 
 render power unto that only which proceeds from Principle, 
 God. 
 
 That morning, while reasoning thus — and while the rector 
 and Doctor Roake were earnestly discussing his case — Alden 
 halted abruptly before a garage where an employe was wash- 
 ing a car. The sight roused him, and as he stood he heard 
 in thought Elisha's pregnant question: "What hast thou in 
 the house?" Under its spur he turned and entered. "I can 
 wash cars," he said eagerly. And because there was a shortage 
 of help he was forthwith set to work. At that moment the 
 Cragg prestige touched its nadir. 
 
 Preliminary to handling the case, Doctor Roake located 
 Alden, after some days, through the aid of a detective agency. 
 Then Harris Chaddock drove to the garage, with MadeUne 
 Nence, the grinning Freddy Kerl, Louise Black, and others in 
 his big red car, and stopped for oil. And Alden, in soiled jump- 
 ers, grease-streaked and begrimed, hi.s white hair daubed and 
 his face black and sweaty, filled the tank and the grease cups, 
 and was met with blank stares when he touched his dirty cap 
 and sought to address them. From the proprietor of the garage 
 Harris learned that Alden had deported himself normally and 
 that his work was good. And Harris, after reflecting for some 
 moments, departed, having first obtained from the proprietor 
 the address of Alden's cheap boarding house. 
 
 That night an investigation was made — under the protecting 
 Wess law — for there was a case of diphtheria in that neighbor- 
 hood, and Harris remembered that Alden had had the disease 
 many years ago, and therefore might now be a "carrier". Alden 
 was summoned forth, subjected to a rigid examination, cultures 
 were taken from his throat, and he was ordered to remain in 
 his room, while a quarantine placard was affixed to the door 
 of the house without. 
 
 The enforced confinement of a fortnight wrought the loss 
 of Alden's position at the garage and his ejection from the 
 boarding house under a burden of debt. He would have been 
 remanded to the County Hospital under arrest, but for the fact 
 
 90 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that Harris had found it impossible to trace the diphtheria 
 case to him. Few words had passed between Alden and Harris. 
 The latter had appeared quite consistently in the capacity of 
 legally appointed conservator of the public health, and Alden 
 bowed in penitence before the iniquitous law whorfe passage 
 he had once eagerly labored to obtain. 
 
 Again in the streets — ^but now with a quickened sense of 
 danger — Alden wandered back to the garage where he had been 
 employed. But the proprietor feared to admit him, lest the 
 place be quarantined. . : "And the quarantine works hell with 
 business, ye know," he said. "But," he went on, "you ought 
 to get a job out doors. You can drive a car, ye know. . . By 
 the way, here's the address of a woman who wants a chauffeur. 
 She sent it here to-day." And he thrust a card into Alden's 
 hand and bade him luck. 
 
 Alden slipped the card into a pocket and turned away. He 
 was now an outcast, he who had seen the Christ! He moved 
 as in a dream. Then, as he slowly came to himself, he resolved 
 to avoid the office buildings and try for employment among 
 the garages. And he spent the day searching, yet without 
 success. His pockets and purse were again empty, and he 
 passed the restaurants without looking in. But late in the 
 afternoon fatigue overcame him, and he sought a bench in the 
 public square for a moment's rest. He did not know where 
 he should spend the approaching night. 
 
 As he sat there he tried to remind himself that he was in 
 truth a ^on of God, tried to know that "1 will never leave thee 
 nor forsake thee", tried to realize that Marian's demonstration 
 had not been vain, that no word of truth is ever lost. But 
 the venomous suggestion stung him incessantly that the deep 
 spirituality with which he had returned to this sense of life 
 at Marian's call had been dulled, and his thought, despite his 
 incessant efforts, was become of very necessity too material 
 to accomplish a demonstration of substance. 
 
 Yet he realized that substance was not something to get, 
 but a spiritual possession to know that he already had. Money, 
 he must know, was not substance, but merely its symbol. And 
 spiritual understanding could produce that symbol whenever 
 necessity arose. This had the Nazarene proved when he 
 demonstrated the tribute money in — of all places! — a fish's 
 mouth. 
 
 Yet the Master knew that that was not the place to look 
 for substance, for Mind is substance, infinite and ever at hand. 
 And but for the inherent tendency of the mortal mind to com- 
 bat all knowledge of Truth, it would be demonstrated instantly 
 to meet every right demand. Could humanity detect and 
 
 91 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 destroy the carnal error that makes matter substance, could it 
 accept the facts of Spirit in exchange for the false testimony 
 of physical sense, it would cease looking for supply in the fish's 
 mouth— in banks and bonds, in gold and lands — and find it 
 in Mind, '-whose thoughts, reflected by mankind, will become 
 externalized in the supplying of every real need. 
 
 Man's business is not to do, but to be. And real business 
 activity is the reflection of God. A knowledge of God as Prin- 
 ciple removes concern about daily supplies. To the extent that 
 one is able to manifest the Christ in his daily affairs is he 
 really successful. "To as many as received him, to them gave 
 he power to become the sons of God. . ." To those who receive 
 the spiritual idea there is no lack of any good. The Master's 
 statements were not mere promises: they were declarations of 
 divine law. And divine law is unaffected by human conditions, 
 and absolutely sure. But to understand man as a son of God 
 one must lose the material sense of life. 
 
 Alden knew this, for Marian had pointed it out in those 
 long talks in the Temple cistern. He knew it as he sat there, 
 his head clasped in his hands, while the serpent hissed forth 
 its sickening lie. But his long struggle had brought a sense 
 of utter weariness, his thought seemed to lag, his spirits to 
 droop. He had not believed that he would be cast forth so 
 quickly upon his own untried thought. He had supposed that 
 Marian would remain to walk with him, to guide him through 
 the deep waters by her clearer vision. But she had sent him 
 from her. . . 
 
 He glanced up. A big red car was threading its way through 
 the traffic. It was driven by Harris Chaddock. And beside him 
 sat a policeman. Alden shrank back. Were they searching 
 for him, these zealous protectors of the public health? Well he 
 knew that Harris Chaddock's persecutions were but just begun. 
 
 The car passed, and Alden's head again dropped into 'his 
 hands. The night was lowering . . . yet she bad promised 
 to hear his call through the darkness. His throat filled, a sob 
 shook him, and he murmured aloud: "Marian! . . . Marian! 
 ... I want you! ..." 
 
 His thought leaped, as under a lash, to the card which the 
 garage owner had given him. He had forgotten it. He raised 
 up, drew it forth, and studied it. There was no name, but the 
 address appeared vaguely familiar. He rose abruptly, as if 
 drawn by an invisible hand, and started away. 
 
 His course took him out of the business district, and almost 
 before he had sensed his environment he was approaching 
 "Craggmont". He stopped, drew out the card and studied it 
 again. But he could not place it. .Then he went on, on past 
 
 92 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Craggmont", stately and beautiful, scene of his vast delusion 
 — on and up the opposite hill. . , 
 
 And then he stopped at a gate and stood looking from the 
 card to the number on the house beyond. They -were identical, 
 but . . . there must be some mistake, for . . . the Galuth lived 
 there! 
 
 He turned and looked back. Could he face her? This lone 
 woman whom he had reviled, persecuted, denounced? Could 
 he ask her for employment? This creature whom he had 
 adjudged a witch, a harridan, a worker of necromancy, and, 
 from his vast superiority, had so utterly despised? Would he 
 become her . . . chauffeur? 
 
 His head saiik and his shoulders bent. And as he hung 
 there the tears dropped from his cheeks. 
 
 Then he opened the gate and entered, penitent, humble, and 
 stood at the door. It opened at once, and he looked down into 
 the smiling face of the woman. 
 
 "I have been waiting for you, Alden," she said gently. "Come 
 in." 
 
 He stared, fascinated. It was the most wonderful face he 
 had ever seen. And the little room into which he so slowly 
 entered seemed to envelope him like great, motherly arms. 
 He paused, caught his breath, and sank into a chair, as a storm- 
 beaten vessel drops anchor in a sheltering haven. 
 
 The woman drew up a teacart, on which were sandwiches, 
 cakes and steaming chocolate. "It was Marian who sent, for 
 you," she said, seating herself beside him and raising her aston- 
 ishing face to his. 
 
 He sprang up. "Marian!" he cried. "Is she here?" 
 
 The woman reached out and took his hand. "She sent for 
 you through me," she said, drawing him gently back to his 
 chair. She did not say that she had received a letter from 
 Marian the day Alden arrived in Crestelridge, and that the girl 
 had written: "His footsteps may falter. Call him to you. 
 Guide him. And love him, love him." 
 
 CHAPTER 14 
 
 AGAIN was the treacherous peace enveloping St. Jude's 
 l\ endangered, for the rector had observed Alden Cragg driv- 
 "*■ ^ ing a car in which sat the Galuth. And the sight had so 
 dumfounded the good man that he had stood rooted to the 
 spot as the vehicle passed. When he recovered, he hurried to 
 Doctor Roake. 
 
 93 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "He was located, yes," the doctor admitted. "Didn't Harris 
 inform you? But he escaped us. And now yeu sa^ he was 
 with Madam Galuth? Incredible! But," he reflected, leaning 
 back in his chair and studying his cigar, "this is rather for- 
 tunate. I will learn what his association with her means. If 
 he is in her employ, I suggest that we leave him there, tem- 
 porarily. It will . . . H'm! ... it will fit into our plan, I 
 think." And the disturbed rector permitted himself to be 
 influenced, but departed with his thought sorely troubled. 
 
 The close neighborhood of the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls 
 fed avidly on the suggestions which the rare discovery stimu- 
 lated. "That settles it!" Mrs. Black proclaimed definitively. 
 "He certainly is abnormal! His wild talk in the parish house 
 should have convinced us!" 
 
 "But," sighed Mrs. Kerl, "what lofty words he used that 
 night! Did you notice his English? So pure and strong! He 
 never talked that way before he went to war. I never heard 
 anyone speak so nobly. And Alden was never accounted 
 learned, yet . . ." 
 
 "Is it true," Mrs. Black put in, "that he has been reduced 
 to working for a living?" 
 
 "Why, as I get it from Henry," Mrs. Tellus elaborated, "the 
 estate is tied up, with Senator Chaddock as . . . well, as sort 
 of custodian, you might say. They'll have to wait till the war 
 ends to straighten it all out. Meantime, Henry says. Doctor 
 Roake offered Alden a wonderful position — ^in fact, he suspected 
 Alden's condition and was really offering to take care of him. 
 But don't tell I said this, will you?" 
 
 "And Alden refused it?" exclaimed Mrs. Black. "But, of 
 course, he didn't realize what he was doing, any more than he 
 did when he gave that awful talk in St. Jude's. . . Andyou 
 say he went to work in a garage!" Her tones sank almost 
 to a whisper as she voiced the awful fact. 
 
 "Yes," chimed in Mrs. Kerl. "And Freddy and some of the 
 others saw him — ^just happened to stop there with Harris Chad- 
 dock — and he was a perfect sight!" 
 
 "But how do you suppose he happens to be with the 
 Galuth?" queried Mrs. Black in a voice a bit awe-toned. 
 
 "The Galuth, of all people!" echoed Mrs. Kerl. "But I 
 suppose she saw his condition and hypnotized him in some 
 way. Probably she figures on getting her mercenary clutches 
 on the estate when it is released, don't you think?" 
 
 "Well," observed Mrs. Black, nodding emphasis to her 
 words, "they say she finished Marian Whittier, and now she's 
 doing the same with poor demented Alden. I presume it's her 
 revenge for the way people have treated her. But why doesn't 
 the rector interfere and save him from her?" 
 
 94 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "He would," Mrs. Tellus succinctly explained, "only Henry 
 says Doctor Roake advised him to wait and let the law deal 
 with her. You know, she poses as a sort of healer, cures with 
 hypnotism and suggestion. . . I don't know. Anyway, she 
 breaks the law doing it, and they are just waiting for someone 
 to die under her "treatment, and then they'll get her. That's 
 what Henry said. But don't for the world tell this ! I promised 
 him I wouldn't breathe it." 
 
 "Poor Ethel!" sighed Mrs. Black. "But she is well out of 
 it. She probably saw what was coming and hadn't the strength 
 to go through it." 
 
 "But why," queried Mrs. Kerl, "did the girl marry him in 
 the first place? They say she just couldn't wait. . ." 
 
 "Nonsense!" Mrs. Tellus interrupted. "I am in a position 
 to know that Alden was the one who hurried the wedding. 
 Mrs. Whittier practically said so. It's my opinion that he knew 
 he would get nothing from the Cragg estate for a long while, 
 perhaps never, and so he rushed her into marriage' with him 
 to be sure of the Penberry millions and have a roof to get under 
 in the meantime. That was before he got so bad mentally. 
 Now, Henry says, . . . But don't breathe a word of this, will 
 you? . . . that Senator Chaddock went into Court a few days 
 ago and got an order preventing the return of the estate to 
 Alden until his . . . his . . . What do you call it? ... his 
 normalcy can be determined." 
 
 "Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Kerl, making a mental note to 
 report it at once to Mrs. Nence. 
 
 "Isn't it strange!" murmured Mrs. Black. "Dear, dear, the 
 war has changed everything and everybody!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Mrs. Tellus returned easily. "The war 
 has afforded us a lot of diversion. It's been a pretty good thing 
 for most of us too, now hasn't it? Certainly, as Henry says, 
 the Tellus family isn't complaining." And her satisfaction was 
 emphasized by her light laugh. 
 
 Again, and often, was Alden seen driving the car in which 
 sat the Galuth, and soon Doctor Roake's investigation disclosed 
 the fact that he was really in her employ. This item of rare 
 interest was thoroughly disseminated by Harris Chaddock, and 
 shortly the metropolitan press featured the story in a hectic 
 Sunday supplement romance dealing with the fall of a rich 
 young prig and his subsequent rescue and employment by a 
 woman whom he had previously sorely persecuted, from which 
 maudlin tale the usual threadbare moral was drawn, dripping 
 with cloying orthodoxy. 
 
 To Ted Sayor the odd reversal of Alden's circumstances ap- 
 peared at first highly diverting. "And in my prosperity I said, 
 I shall never be moved," he murmured cynically. .•. 
 
 95 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But then his own thought clouded, and his reflections became 
 unwontedly serious. The security of his own position had 
 caused him wakeful nights these past weeks; there had come 
 to him often fearful, insidious suggestions of disintegration, 
 physical, financial, moral, and under the subtle working of a 
 powerful animus, deeply hidden but at least suspected— and, 
 worse, one that he was beginning to believe inescapable! 
 
 From derision, his sentiment toward Alden changed to pity. 
 And then a horrifying sense of fear seized upon him arid he 
 lapsed into moods of hopelessness, alternating with mournful 
 longing for a return of his own thoughtless days of security 
 and peace. He would have gone to Alden then, but that he 
 did not dare, for the realization had come to him that he was 
 now bound to a master who held in his grip the issues of life 
 and death. Dread apprehension and the nostalgic longing for 
 that which was gone alone remained to him through these days 
 of empty waiting. "Oh," he would cry, "will this war never 
 end?" But, when ended, what then? 
 
 To the rector, Alden's sad condition and sharp reverses, 
 together with Doctor Roake's peculiar manner of handling the 
 situation, brought added confusion. Moreover, his fear and 
 pity were now mingled with a deepening sense of personal 
 chagrin, born of Doctor Roake's apparent neglect of St. Jude's 
 place in the great religio-medical plan. The Triennial General 
 Convention was held, long since, yet the doctor had not 
 referred to the rector's proposal to lay before that august body 
 the wonderful scheme. Yet the doctor was now inordinately 
 busy, sending broadcast tons of propaganda literature; bringing 
 the matter before Women's Clubs throughout the country, and 
 through them thoroughly organizing the women; arranging for 
 Chautauqua speakers, for physical culture clubs, "baby shows'-'j 
 every possible device to enlist the enthusiastic support of the 
 mothers; organizing the preachers, penetrating the theological 
 seminaries, the gymnasia — and yet all quite without the rector's 
 aid or advice. A startling query suggested to the rector: Was 
 the doctor through with him — even as he appeared to be with 
 Senator Chaddock, who likewise had rendered, him yeoman 
 service? 
 
 But in the senator's case ill health might be assigned as the 
 cause, for the senator certainly was failing, and rapidly. "He 
 appears to be going to. pieces," the rector wonderingly reflected 
 again and again. And the symptoms of doddering senility had 
 become so apparent of late that the rector had felt impelled to 
 mention them to others. "He doesn't talk coherently, and he 
 has acquired a distressing habit of mumbling as he walks," 
 he observed to Harris. But the latter, while he admitted the 
 
 96 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 facts, gave evidence of slight interest, so completely engrossed 
 was he in his own affairs. And the rector now hesitated to 
 take the matter to Doctor Roake. 
 
 Now all this insistently suggested to the harassed rector its 
 complicity with Alden's case, remote as that might appear, and 
 caused him again and again to review the events of the past 
 year, from the youth's oddly effected enlistment down through 
 the startling circumstances of Mrs. Cragg's illness, her marriage 
 to the senator, the entanglement of the Cragg estate. Senator 
 Chaddock's disintegration, Ethel's inexplicable conduct and 
 uncanny marriage, and Alden's ghostly return from war and 
 his lapse into his now pitiable mental state. And as he 
 reflected, his heart would often stand still for very fear of the 
 dark suggestions that rose through the welter of his thought: 
 could any of this be attributed to Marian's influence — or, more 
 likely, the Galuth's? He knew — for Doctor Roake had referred 
 to it casually in his presence — that there were organizations 
 in large cities throughout the country where hypnotism was 
 studied and practiced, and where professional hypnotists were 
 trained. The doctor had once spoken of the possibilities arising 
 from the unifying of these organizations — many of them secret 
 — and the directing of their mental work toward certain specific 
 ends, for example, the religio-medical plan, if the rector 
 approved. Was it probable that the Galuth was such a trained 
 mental manipulator, that she had corrupted Marian and. alien- 
 ated her from him and his family, and that she had now 
 seized upon Alden, and that even the unsuspecting senator and 
 the light-hearted Ted Sayor had fallen under her silently exer- 
 cised and far-reaching influence? There had been a serpent 
 in the Garden of Eden. . . 
 
 The rector was glad that Mrs. Whittier and Ethel were away. 
 He was glad he did not hear from Marian, that he knew not 
 where she was, and that she would probably never return to 
 Crestelridge. And he was deeply glad of his chui'ch, into the 
 activities of which he could plunge, as now, and escape^at 
 least temporarily-^the pelting of these dark suggestions that 
 made such a jumble of his thought. St. Jude's was a haven, 
 ever broadening, inclusive, secure. 
 
 Yet even there, riding safely upon its calm waters, his 
 thought would stray out to the troubled sea beyond, where 
 Alden tossed; and often he would resolve to go to him — and 
 as often a dark shadow would come between him and the 
 youth, and he would cower before it. "Ah, whM a puzzling, 
 saddening, terrible thing is human life!" he would murmur. 
 "Will we ever really know what it is?" 
 
 But that human life is a series of states of false conscious- 
 
 97 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ness, apparently beginning with birth, seemingly ending in 
 deaths yet only to begin again on another plane, had been 
 demonstrated to Alden Cragg. That he had been called back 
 to it for a divine purpose, to labor for his endangered fellow 
 men, was likewise patent to him. But that he could not awaken 
 them from their mesmerism merely by the spoken word had 
 not been fully impressed upon him until he had been cast out 
 of St. Jude's, his message rejected, and had been thrust into 
 the streets penniless, with the mortal law of insanity laid upon 
 him. Then did Marian's oft-repeated words become the nucleus 
 of his new life-motif: "the demonstration of Israel." 
 
 Madam Galuth had asked him no questions, this remarkable 
 woman, but had offered him employment, at a reasonable wage, 
 and the free use of the little apartment over her garage. He 
 had accepted both gratefully; and though he demurred when 
 she pressed upon him an advance of a month's wages, he had 
 yielded and taken it. From it he reimbursed his former land- 
 lady for her loss sustained through his enforced quarantine, 
 and sent the balance to the rector, with the request that he 
 forward it at once to Ethel. This done, he consecrated himself 
 to his duties and his demonstration. 
 
 He knew that he was keenly watched through those first 
 days, knew that this woman of the snow-white hair and spar- 
 kling eyes was ever mindful of him. But though he felt her 
 thought, yet he felt it as a stimulus, a beneficent influence con- 
 ducive to calm activity. And he was grateful. He lived apart 
 from her, but always subject to her call. He prepared his own 
 meals in his tiny apartment, and alone had the care of his 
 household menage. But at times she visited him, often she 
 surprised him, climbing the stairs to his little home with aston- 
 ishing agility and dropping in on him without warning. Fre- 
 quently she discovered him in moments of embarrassing 
 struggle with cookery, of which he had not had the slightest 
 knowledge heretofore. Then she would seize the skillets and 
 pans from before him, and in a trice would whip together con- 
 coctions that subsequently astonished him with their palatable- 
 ness. And often she would sit with him at his table, and laugh 
 with and at him, now bantering gently, now encouraging him 
 to wider endeavor in the work in hand, always lifting his thought 
 to higher, brighter levels, yet never questioning, never alluding 
 to the past, never mentioning other mutual acquaintances than 
 Marian — and with only an infrequent and casual reference to 
 her — and neffer voicing aught of her own history or her life- 
 activities. The self-recrimination that her profound considera- 
 tion roused in Alden's soul caused him hours of effort to eject: 
 the ignorant tool of evil that in days past had opposed her in 
 
 ^ 98 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his name was not the man who now breathed forth hourly 
 his deep gratitude that he had been dra\yn into the radius of 
 her beneficent thought. 
 
 A month passed — so swiftly, so calmly, that he started in 
 . surprise when she again handed him his wages in advance. 
 He had driven for her daily in the warm spring sunlight. Often 
 on these drives he had seen former associates, and always he 
 had bowed, although they seldom acknowledged his salute, but 
 generally turned and watched him with a derisive smile. Often 
 he had taken his charge to humble homes, in the outskirts of 
 the city. Frequently he had driven with her into the dark 
 places of Greater New York, where the sun seldom shone; yet 
 he knew by signs infallible that she took the sunlight with her, 
 and left it in manifestations that brought a lump into his 
 throat and tears to his eyes. . . 
 
 He knew, as he now humbly served her, that she was 
 demonstrating the Christ, silently, and in the turmoil of a world 
 at war. He knew that amid the revilings and persecution -to 
 which he and his associates had in days past subjected her, 
 she had been steadily demonstrating the Christ. And the 
 thought of his former unrighteous judgment of her made him 
 hang his head. . . 
 
 And yet he knew that a present acknowledgment of the 
 reality of past evil would but give permanence to that of which 
 he must rid his mentality if he would demonstrate Israel. To 
 turn back to examine the footprints of error is but to deepen 
 them. To know in Truth that evil is untrue, never really 
 causative, is to obliterate it and all its asserted effects. He could 
 not continue to bear the scars of past unreality if he would 
 demonstrate the eternal, harmonious NOW. 
 
 And so, while the month had been one of quiet activity in 
 this ark of safety, it had not been that false, destructive sense 
 of rest which mortals crave, when idle, uncoordinated, unas- 
 sorted thoughts are permitted to float in and out of mind's 
 unguarded portals like droning gnats in the hazy sunlight of a 
 summer noon, but, rather, that vigorous, constructive thinking 
 in the direction of universal good that is a reflection of the 
 intelligence of the eternal creative Mind. It was the sort of 
 thinking that must eventually prove that error has no power 
 of action; that the ignorant thinking of selfish mortals is impo- 
 tent to hinder the consummation of a divine purpose such as 
 was seeking externalization through him. He had been cast out 
 of St. Jude's ; but even Jesus had gone as a prophet to his native 
 Nazareth and been driven forth. And yet the Master demon- 
 strated the Christ even to those who stoned him. And Alden 
 could do no less than emulate the divine example. 
 
 99 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 In his present employment Alden felt no sense of chagrin, 
 but rather an unbounded thankfulness. As chauffeur for this 
 woman he was no less about his "Father's business" than were 
 those who conducted the affairs of the nation, for business, the 
 world must learn, is real only as it becomes metaphysical. Prin- 
 ciple, he knew, places man in his proper sphere of usefulness: 
 in the demonstration of Israel there is no lack of place or 
 employment, and the employer is always God. Thought of 
 material results entered not into his activity: it was for him 
 to know that when work is done in accordance with Principle 
 the laborer receives just compensation. True, he was practicing 
 rigid economy; yet he did so in the knowledge that true economy 
 is economy — the righteous management — of thought. The 
 activity of his thinking included no gratification of personal 
 ambition, no desire for competitive supremacy in trade, no 
 avaricious conquest of others in business, in political, or social 
 affairs. He was awake to the workings of the enemy of Truth — 
 the lie of personal sense, that "man-killer" from the beginning — 
 and he would strive to awaken his fellow men from their apathy 
 and insensibility to the danger that threatened them from their 
 own carnal thinking. To this end he had taken the course 
 nearest the right as revealed to him by Principle. Ruled by 
 right thinking, he knew that outward conditions would change 
 harmoniously to conform to his thought. 
 
 ■ Sheltered from his persecutors, and with the needs of the 
 moment met, Alden found opportunity to analyze the succession 
 of events which had seemingly conduced to his present situa- 
 tion. And always his mental work led to the further uncovering 
 of an ever deeper malicious animus, and always manifested 
 through a single personality. The profound depths of the evil 
 at length lay revealed to his delving thought. . . 
 
 And he shrank back from it appalled! For there in the 
 carnal slime he saw that which had driven him into the hell of 
 war into which it had first plunged a sleeping, world. He saw 
 in the mortal muck the animus of Barach's deadly deed. He 
 saw in the rottenness of human thinking the lusting evil that 
 had slain his mother, robbed him of his earthly all, ruined 
 Ethel, befouled his name, and now would condemn his mentality 
 to gibbering idiocy. He saw the mentalities of a hundred million 
 people — nay, of a world! — lying fallow to this carnal animus 
 that manipulated them through their educated beliefs and fears. 
 He saw it all. Saw, too, that it was more than the enslavement 
 of the human mind that was aimed at, more than the disintegra- 
 tion of empires and the overthrow of civilization: it was — even 
 as Marian had pointed out to unseeing eyes — the destruction of 
 the Word! 
 
 100 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Under the urgency of the revelation Alden sought Madam 
 Galuth. And as he stood before her he felt that she had been 
 expecting just this. "I must leave you," he said. And she 
 evinced no surprise, but answered gently: "Yes, when it is 
 right." 
 
 "I have a work to do," he urged. 
 
 "You are a splendid chauffeur, Alden," she returned quietly, 
 and with apparent irrelevance. "Faithful in little, you have 
 overcome much. Your demonstration will increase." 
 
 "That is it," he said eagerly, "I must demonstrate Israel." 
 
 She waved him to a chair and sat down before him. As he 
 looked into her calm face he felt that she was the impersonation 
 of youth and love — yet not youth as the world knows it, but, 
 rather, youthful maturity, as if she stood immovable at man- 
 hood's noon; and not human love, but that marvelous miracle- 
 working essence which is the reflection of the divine 
 Consideration whom Jesus knew ay the "Father". 
 
 "And do you know what it means to demonstrate Israel?" 
 she asked earnestly. "It is to prove that you are not material; 
 it is to prove that you are the spiritual son, the image, reflection, 
 manifestation of the infinite EL who is Principle, Truth, Life, 
 Mind, Love, Spirit, Soul — the infinite Wholeness expressed by 
 the complete numeral seven in these synonymous terms. It is 
 to prove the allness of God, and the nothingness of God's coun- 
 terpart, error, as expressed to mortals in the material creation 
 and the evils, diseases, horrors that proceed from matter and 
 its false laws. 
 
 "They rejected you in St. Jude's that night," she continued 
 after a pause, "because error was roused by your message. It 
 is always so: error is so readily provoked, so resentful when 
 disturbed, so desirous of being let alone. It hates the light, 
 because it is supersensitive and suspicious. It hates comparison 
 with Truth, for it looks upon goodness as mferely negative, as 
 weakness, while evil it regards as strength. It shrinks from 
 Truth, for Truth alone can destroy it." 
 
 She paused again and smiled up at him. Then she resumed. 
 "I did not know you before you went to the war. But I do 
 know that you are not the man you seemed to be then. The 
 present manifestation is vastly better, is it not? It is this sort 
 of manifestation that the present hour must develop. The world 
 needs prophets, as never before ; it needs men of vast courage — 
 men of Abraham's type — to restore and keep alive the ideals 
 of the Christ; it needs men of deep insight and strong leader- 
 ship. It needs gou." 
 
 "That is why I have come to you. . ." 
 
 "That is why you must remain with me. Were you to 
 
 31 101 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sally forth against that massed evil now, you would be over- 
 whelmed." 
 
 "But Doctor Roake is destroying them, body and soul!" 
 
 She held up a hand. "The sin is the only sinner," she said 
 quietly. "And we will deal with it impersonally. Did not 
 Marian teach you this?" 
 
 He started and made as if to voice the question that as yet 
 he had not been able to ask. But she restrained him. "Marian 
 is now in Persia," she continued. Again he started, again 
 checked an exclamation. "Her mission there is for the Word, 
 as is yours here. . . But your hour is not yet come," she 
 hurried to add. "Crestelridge will have no more of you than it 
 would of her. The mills are yet grinding. Judgment is being 
 laid to the line. Meantime, you have been acquiring that 
 knowledge of the nature of error and its workings which is 
 essential in order that you may meet it with your understanding 
 of Truth. But have you reached Paul's status, where he rejoiced 
 in the opportunities afforded by affliction? 
 
 "For when your call comes you will find the lions of 
 entrenched evil roaring in your pathway. Autocracy will not 
 die on the battlefields of Europe. Oh, no! For autocracy is 
 innate in the human mind. The fate of kingly autocracy may 
 be decided in Flanders, but I think the future of religious 
 autocracy will be decided right here. And here will be deter- 
 mined the fate of that unholy union of religion and medicine, 
 that tower of Babel, which our politicians are now so busily 
 setting up. The world war is a conflict between spiritual and 
 material forces. It typifies Armageddon. England, as Ephraim, 
 has called in her distress to Manasseh, for her idols of matter 
 are broken and falling. America, as Manasseh, is responding. 
 But the graven images of Manasseh must likewise fall, ere the 
 defective material vision of Israel shall be cured. Then shall 
 she see herself the spiritual heir of the infinite Father, and 
 war shall be no more. To Marian has been granted the recogni- 
 tion of spiritual Israel. To you, Alden . . ." 
 
 She hesitated, and sat for a moment looking at him. "I have 
 heard the rumor, Alden," she resumed in a low tone, "that you 
 have returned from the dead. I think you have, and that to you 
 has been granted the recognition of the nothingness of death. 
 The world is being pushed up to such recognition. Each suc- 
 ceeding war grows more horrible, more terribly destructive, 
 more lingering in its disintegrating after-effects. In the next 
 war whole communities, armies, entire cities, will be wiped out, 
 as mortals develop their false material science which is proving 
 their destruction. And so mankind must meet death and over- 
 come it, not yield to it in supine resignation as the theologians 
 
 102 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 do, nor seek futilely to ward it off with material elixirs and 
 serums, as do the physicians, but must meet it in the realm of 
 thought, whence it has its origin and wherein it >vorks. And 
 nothing but the true science which Jesus taught and demon- 
 strated will destroy it." 
 
 "And it is this true science of Christianity that I must 
 reveal to these lost people!" 
 
 "Abide with me yet a little while, Alden," she counseled. 
 "You need these days of preparation, while we are waiting for 
 word from Marian." 
 
 "Word . . from . . . Marian!" he exclaimed, his eyes 
 again big with wonder. 
 
 "Yes, for you are now working with her to demonstrate 
 Israel." 
 
 CHAPTER 15 
 
 IT was not by design that Alden Cragg was permitted to remain 
 undisturbed during those first weeks of his inexplicable asso- 
 ciation with Madam Galuth. Dr. Jeremiah Roake, long inter- 
 nationally known and admired for his professional audacity, 
 and now garnering fresh laurels by reason of his unique 
 humanitarian plan of effecting world-salvation through world- 
 health, had manifested a strange reluctance in regard to dealing 
 with this woman. It was to the wondering rector as if the 
 doctor actually feared her possession of something intangible, 
 invisible, the potency of which he dared not put to the test of 
 demonstration. The doctor had been slow to credit the rector's 
 report that Alden was with this woman, for, of all contingencies, 
 this had not occurred to him as a possibility. And because of 
 it, an impasse was now created. 
 
 For while, strangely enough, the rector could not induce the 
 doctor to act against the woman, nevertheless the rector himself 
 Strenuously combatted the doctor's proposal to hale Alden 
 before a lunacy commission. "On what grounds would you base 
 the charge of insanity?" he anxiously urged. And when the 
 doctor explained that the young man's aberration took the form 
 of religious mania, the rector threw up his hands in protesting 
 horror. Were Alden to be tried on such a count, what exposures 
 might not result! And what dangers might not accrue to the 
 foundations on which St. Jude's was reared! It was not to be 
 considered ! 
 
 On the other hand, Mrs. Whittier was daily urging the 
 rector from her Florida retreat to procure a declaration of 
 Alden's incompetency and a transfer of the Cragg estate to his 
 
 103 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ■wife. But no favor was accorded this proposal by either the 
 rector or the doctor, though for reasons that neither could make 
 public. As . to a divorce, Mrs. Whittier wrote her distraught 
 husband that Ethel had frequently hinted it, but that, until the 
 Penberry and Cragg prospects should be definitely determined, 
 this was unthinkable. And in the judgment of his wife the 
 rector fully concurred. 
 
 "But . . . Oh, the chagrin of having my son-in-law a . . . 
 a mere chauffeur!" the rector groaned, echoing his wife's sore 
 lamentation. "That Galuth woman has hypnotized him ! Oh, if 
 Doctor Roake would but use his power to have her expelled 
 from Crestelridge ! But he ... he really appears to fear her ! 
 It is incomprehensible!" 
 
 Thus was a fresh worry developed in the rector's troubled 
 soul, and one that, paradoxically, bound him still more closely 
 to the man whom he had begun to distrust and was now begin- 
 ning to fear. Doctor Roake. Alas! what a welter had life become 
 in these few short months. And what, of the future? The 
 prospect terrified him, and caused him to spend long hours on 
 his knees in fervent prayer. 
 
 Then he contrived to discover Alden alone in the car while 
 waiting on a down-town corner for Madam Galuth. "If you 
 must be a chauffeur, Alden," he protested, "come and be mine. 
 I will employ you and give you a home. Let us end this absurdity 
 and stop the gossips' tongues!" 
 
 But Alden refused, . though kindly. And the rector, in his 
 anger born of black fear, denounced the woman and vehemently 
 voiced his resolve to drive her from the city. . . 
 
 . The incident afforded an impulsion to seek Doctor Roake 
 again. And, contrary to his punctilious observance of etiquette, 
 the anxious rector brushed aside the page and hurried straight 
 to the doctor's sanctum and threw wide the door. 
 
 But on the threshold he halted and stood with bulging eyes. 
 For there before him sat the doctor and Senator Chaddock, the 
 latter settled into his chair like a swollen toad, with head hang- 
 ing, eyes closed, and mentality dormant under an invisible 
 influence that appeared to emanate from the doctor's black eyes 
 that were fixed piercingly upon him. 
 
 For a moment the rector hung before the startling scene; 
 then the doctor turned his head and threw upon the gaping 
 clergyman such a look as the reverend man had never beheld 
 in a human countenance. He fell back before it; but it passed 
 quickly, and the doctor rose and, with a gesture enjoining 
 silence, motioned him to enter and be seated. 
 
 "Our friend dropped asleep while I was talking to him," the 
 doctor elucidated, regarding the rector fixedly. "It is a habit 
 
 104 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that appears to be growing upon him, malting it very annoying 
 to me -when we have business to transact." 
 
 The rector's eyes wandered from the doctor to the dozing 
 man and bacli again. The doctor followed the rector's gaze, and 
 his face darkened. The atmosphere seemed suddenly stifling, 
 and the rector paled and turned away. The doctor approached 
 and took his arm. "It's your old trouble," he suggested in a 
 low, serious tone. "I advised you to have treatment for it some 
 weeks ago, but you delayed. Come to my diagnosis room; I 
 want to examine you." 
 
 The rector drew back.. "No, Doctor," he protested; "it is 
 passing. . . I do not wish an examination." 
 
 "But I insist," , said the doctor firmly. "If you refuse to 
 submit to it here, "you will force me to invoke the Wess law 
 and have you examined in your home. For I consider your 
 condition serious. . ." And the rector submitted. 
 
 But had the unwitting rector anticipated the result of his visit 
 to Doctor Roake he would have carried his problems to Prin- 
 ciple, rather than to human personality, which is the veil of the 
 flesh. And thereby his soul would have avoided an additional 
 burden of sorrow. "I must explain," the doctor adumbrated 
 during the examination, "that wars usually develop serious 
 epidemics. I do not expect this war to prove an exception, but, 
 rather, because of its enormity, to give rise to an epidemic of 
 appalling proportions. And the epidemic will break out where 
 least suspected. Therefore you must indulge my eagerness to 
 detect it and meet it in its incipience. I am constrained to 
 believe that Senator Chaddock is developing something akin to 
 the 'sleeping sickness' ; and I . .. .'\ He paused to note the 
 effect. Then : "Ah, your face twitches, your eyelids droop ! You 
 feel an inclination to drowsiness, an increasing tendency, a deep 
 lassitude amounting to faintness, with nausea, giddiness, and 
 extreme weakness! You have periods of depression, melan- 
 cholia, unformed fear, do you not? Just so! It would be wise 
 to send you to a hospital for a few weeks. . ." 
 
 "Doctor!" gasped the frightened rector, shrinking back, 
 "don't, I beg of you!" 
 
 "Well, we'll see. We'll watch the case carefully. Report 
 to me to-morrow. I shall insist on seeing you daily now. Take 
 care of yourself. And, above all, don't worry." And then he 
 turned the conversation upon other topics less distressing, and 
 ultimately dismissed the cowering rector without so much as 
 a word from him regarding his errand, but with a fund of 
 additional information derived from him confirmatory of the 
 deductions which the doctor had already made in regard to 
 Ethel as based on Harris Chaddock's conduct and words. 
 
 105 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Yes," the doctor repeated aloud to himself when alone, "a 
 great epidemic will emerge from this war. And it will be 
 mental in origin. It will confirm my premise that what the 
 world calls evil thought is more powerful than that which it 
 calls good, for it will carry the anaesthesia of death. But who 
 shall say that death is evil? For good and evil are but relative 
 terms, and death is ultimately a benefaction. . ." 
 
 To the doctor, sitting in the plenitude of material success 
 amid the vast activities which he now controlled, the dominating 
 factor in human affairs, whether for good or evil, was demon- 
 strably suggestion, arid he could have cited indubitable proof 
 thereof. "He is a fool who resorts to physical force," he was 
 wont to reflect often, when the lust for pow?r was driving him 
 most fiercely. "Thought is omnipotent. And he who controls 
 it determines life itself." 
 
 In this connection he reflected, after the rector's call, dn his 
 mental activities directed of late toward Ethel — a frequent 
 reflection, and one that always stirred his risibles. It was 
 fortunate, indeed, he mused, that the situation had been so fully 
 revealed to him by the unwitting Harris, for that Ethel should 
 have a child, an heir, was a contingency that did not fit into 
 the doctor's plans. And the doctor's knowledge of the delicate 
 situation, with its varied concomitants* placed in his grasp an 
 additional power that amounted to domination over those con- 
 cerned in it. "Harris has committed suicide;" he laughed. 
 "The Wess law has proved unexpectedly latitudinous in his 
 case, at least." And again he laughed as he studied the tip of 
 his cigar. "But," and he became serious, "I wonder if Alden 
 knew of her condition. I wonder." And then, as his thought 
 turned about Alden, it touched upon Marian, and upon that 
 still unexplained "something" which he was certain had hap- 
 pened to Alden "over there." 
 
 And there were other happenings "over there" that the 
 doctor would have given much to discover. He had wondered 
 often since Alden's return if that mysterious occurrence in 
 which the youth had been concerned had also involved Otto 
 Hoeffel, whose silence had become so inexplicable. True, the 
 spring drive of the Germans in France had gone forward with 
 such terrific loss of life that Otto might have been summoned 
 away from the now hopeless campaign in Palestine. But that 
 did not explain his continued silence; and the dark suspicion 
 developed in the doctor's thought that Otto had been false, had 
 tricked him, and that, though he held all the cards in his own 
 hand, still he lacked the one essential to the game — and that 
 one was Marian Whittier. . . 
 
 Thus the weeks passed, and spring flowered into summer. 
 
 106 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then Crestelridge society succumbed to the pagan influence of 
 the season and fluttered away to mountains and seashore, where 
 golf and bathing, motoring and feasting, were invoked to divert 
 thought from the annoying world-cataclysm and shield its 
 gaze from the horrors enacted on the other side. Few remarked 
 the fact that Alden Cragg would not accompany them this year 
 as of yore, and those who did laughed lightly, and some 
 shrugged their shoiilders or lifted their brows, and some passed 
 a banal joke. Doctor Roake of course must remain behind to 
 guard society's portals against the ever-threatened invasion of 
 disease. Harris Chaddock had previously gone for a week-end to 
 the resort where Ethel was staying, and would have repeated it, 
 but for the interference of Fay Meuse, to whom, during Ethel's 
 absence, he had been devoted — to such an extent, indeed, that 
 even the most calloused of society's mentors had felt it incum- 
 bent upon them to proffer him cautionary advice. . . "But of 
 course," the superfluously rich Mrs. Dodd extenuated, "he's 
 only trying to forget .his pique over Ethel's not marrying him." 
 And this tolerant view became quite generally adopted. 
 
 The rector sighed audibly when he had concluded his 
 detailed instructions to his assistant and shifted St. Jude's 
 affairs to the younger man's shoulders for the summer. St. 
 Jude's must remain open during the heated term, though its 
 tired rector would be away on a greatly needed vacation; for, 
 with the departure of the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls, figures 
 unfamiliar to these would emerge from the stifling lanes and 
 byways and creep, panting and curious, into St. Jude's cool, 
 dark nave. And while on hot Sunday mornings the former 
 would lounge over velvety golf links, or droop about wide, 
 shaded verandas, with " icy liquids and heaps of diverting 
 periodicals at hand, these less favored ones — though still sons 
 of God, the rector would have to admit — would sit in the pews 
 of the mighty, wide-eyed before the spiritual thaumaturgy, dull- 
 eared before the droning ritual, wondering what it was all about, 
 yet grateful for the respite from the persecuting sun that this 
 curious medley o£ pagan worship afforded them. The sermons 
 of the new assistant rector, Ellory Sten, would be indefinite — 
 these creatures were glad, for they would not have to think; 
 but they would be brief — and that worked a hardship, for the 
 sun was relentless. . . 
 
 But the rector's plans for an extended vacation did not 
 become externalized, despite his feverish prayers, for, even as 
 he was packing his golf sticks, came a message from Mrs. 
 Whittier, summoning him to Florida : Ethel was seriously ill. 
 
 The rector dropped his unpacked impedimenta and sank 
 groaning under the new afiliction. Then he rose and wildly 
 
 107 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 telephoned to Doctor Roake. The doctor, he learned, had 
 received a similar message, but, being unable to, leave imme- 
 diately, had directed Harris Chaddock to precede him. 
 
 A third telegram went to Alden Cragg, in care of Madam 
 Galuth — but it was sent by Ethel's doctor, and against her own 
 and her mother's protests. "GOi Alden," Madam Galuth said, 
 as she pressed a sum of money into his hands. "It is you whom 
 she needs now." 
 
 And shortly thereafter, while Doctor Roake was communicat- 
 ing hourly by wire with Ethel's physician, the "Florida Special" 
 tore through the misty night, bearing father, husband, and 
 lover to this moaning victim of the vast delusion that life and 
 intelligence dwell in matter. 
 
 CHAPTER 16 
 
 THE rector had picked up Harris on his way to the "local" 
 that would take them into the metropolis and had stopped 
 for a brief consultation with Doctor Roake, who had come 
 down to his office for that purpose, "You must follow soon. 
 Doctor!" the distressed father had urged. "You must not let 
 her die!" And the doctor, while giving consoling assurances, 
 had lifted his shoulders in contempt of the man who could 
 preach so eloq.uently of a God of infinite goodness in Whom 
 he had no confidence himself. 
 
 "They did not state what her illness is," the rector recalled 
 quaveringly to Harris, while rushing to the train, "whether 
 functional or organic. . . The dear child looked so well when 
 she left us. . . Brooding over her unfortunate marriage, no 
 doubt. . . Chagrin and . . . Oh, it is terrible!" 
 
 As he stumbled up the steps and into the Pullman in the New 
 York depot he prayed incessantly. He had never failed in con- 
 solation for others — but death had never come home to him 
 before, and the afflictions of his fellow men now seemed so small 
 as compared with his own. The piercing thought stabbed him 
 that God does not pity human afflictions: Marian, he now 
 recalled, had said that eyes too pure to behold evil could not 
 look upon mortal suffering as real. And this awful thought 
 smote him — nay, it cleft an infinite gulf between him and his 
 Maker and left him helpless, abandoned, terrified, in the chill 
 of a limitless void. 
 
 "But why, oh, why did they not inform us of the nature of 
 her illness?" he kept repeating. 
 
 He sank into a vacant seat while waiting for the porter to 
 
 108 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 make up his berth — how those narrow beds did resemble coffins ! 
 With the heavy curtains before them they became tombs, black, 
 stifling! He shuddered and tore open the collar at his throat. 
 He called to the porter and had a window raised. But the sallow 
 lights that flickered past the rushing train were spectral things 
 portending death. . . 
 
 What if he should find his daughter dead ! Could he go to 
 her side with the Master's exact and scientific knowledge of God 
 and say: "TMitha cumi"? He knew he could not. And he 
 knew — though he would not have confessed it — that it was for 
 very lack of spiritual growth. Such growth had long since been ' 
 stunted by disobedience to his Principle, God. 
 
 But all had sinned equally! , . . No, for, if history speak 
 truth, the early Christians had raised the deadJ Why not, 
 indeed, if they demonstrated the Christ? But the death-destroy- 
 ing teachings of the unique Master had been quickly swallowed 
 up in a midnight of wrong thinking; then the Dark Ages of 
 matter and its horrors settled upon the minds of men. And in 
 the midst of his present suffering the rector wondered if that 
 black event were now being re-enacted, if Christianity were 
 being again engulfed in a maw of worldly politics, even the 
 political machinations of the Roake utilitarian plan. , . 
 
 Harris Chaddock came to his side. "I've been through the 
 train," he said in a low tone. "Alden Cragg's in a day coach up 
 ahead. . ." 
 
 Throughout that night, amid the roar and confusion of 
 matter's shifting symbols, Alden sat alone. Thus had sat the 
 girl at his bedside in Antonia's Tower, nor would yield a moiety 
 to evil's claims. In the luxurious Pullman behind him the 
 incarnations of mortal mind's denial of God were rushing in the 
 garments of theology and medicine to cope with a power that 
 they deemed irresistible. But Alden knew it not, for he had not 
 seen Harris when the latter had entered the day coach. And 
 while these fitfully slept, he watched. 
 
 Three months had passed since Ethel had left him. In that 
 time he had received no word from her. Yf t each month he had 
 sent her his wages; each month he had renewed his offer to 
 make her a home when she should return, and to protect her, 
 shield her, and help her to rise from the dust. These months 
 had brought him trials demanding proofs, not the least of which 
 was this union with Ethel, wherein she had employed his great 
 sacrifice as a shield behind which to continue, uninterrupted, 
 her worldly existence. He had hoped that, under its beneficent 
 protection, she would turn and toil upward on the ladder of 
 gratitude. That hope had been sorely buffeted, yet it stood. 
 And it grew now with his belief that this dark hour of her bitter 
 
 109 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 experience would witness the reversal of her chartless course. 
 For she was attempting the futile task of steering her bark from 
 a compass point outside of Principle, unaware that such a point 
 did not, could not, exist. 
 
 These months had brought him deep lessons from Madam 
 Galuth, and he marveled now at the world's misunderstanding 
 of this remarkable woman. Yet he knew that until he had jetti- 
 soned his former beliefs he had held her in the same unreason- 
 ing contempt, demanding a sign and scoffing at- the only one 
 proffered him, that of the prophet Jonah. Then had he sunk 
 into the sea of error; then was he swallowed by the hideous 
 tannin. But the monstei' had disgorged him at the command 
 of the Christ — ^yet only when he had become obedient to his 
 Principle, Gad. 
 
 He had emerged shorn close of materiality; and because of 
 his spiritual rebirth — in a degree from a conception immaculate 
 — he was now enabled to do works far above those of his fel- 
 lows. Thus, in a greater degree, his Master. And these works 
 had appeared in demonstrations of increasing magnitude during 
 these months with Madam Galuth, until the day came when she 
 could go to him, her wonderful face glowing with the inner light, 
 and say: "Your God is real to you, Alden, and you will stand!" 
 
 Morning discovered him still watching. Then the train 
 arrived at its destination, and he descended. Down the platform 
 he descried the rector and Harris Chaddock, waiting. "Did they 
 send for you?" the rector addressed him, manifesting sore agita- 
 iion. And, as Alden nodded an affirmative: "Is it so bad as 
 that? God forbid! But have you any further news?" 
 
 "Only that which is good," Alden replied quietly. 
 
 The rector appeared measurably reassured. "Why did you 
 not come to us last evening?" he chided querulously. "But we 
 shall speak of that later. I have sent a porter ahead to secure 
 a cab." 
 
 Alden did not ask why they, having thus revealed their 
 knowledge of his presence on the train, had not sought him. 
 The rector cast an occasional quizzical sidelong look at him as 
 they hurried on; Harris had ignored him quite. 
 
 "Doctor Rowley has the case," the rector resumed brokenly, 
 after they were seated in the cab. "I know nothing about 
 him. . . You have said you didn't, Harris? ... I trust he is 
 skillful. . . Pray God, Doctor Roake may not be delayed!" . . . 
 
 Mrs. Whittier met them at the door of the luxurious apart- 
 ment, met them in piteous confusion, embarrassment, and 
 copious tears. "Oh, Wilson," she sobbed, throwing herself 
 into her husband's shaking arms, "it is all over with us!" 
 
 "Have courage, dear, have courage," the rector uttered with 
 
 110 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 quivering lips. "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed 
 be . . , .What is it that has come upon her so suddenly?" 
 
 Mrs. Whittier did not reply, but, without having acknowl- 
 edged the presence of either Alden or Harris, turned and led 
 the way into the living room. A gentleman of professional 
 appearance was at that moment stepping softly from a doorway. 
 A nurse carefully closed the door behind him. "I am Doctor 
 Rowley," he announced, coming forward. "You are the father 
 and husband, I presume. . And . . ." He stopped abruptly and 
 stood, with the unfinished sentence on his parted lips, staring at 
 Alden. 
 
 "This . . . this is Doctor Harris Chaddock," stammered the 
 rector, presenting Harris. "He is our physician. . ." 
 
 "Take me to her," said Harris, without acknowledging the 
 introduction. 
 
 Doctor Rowley stepped back and regarded Harris with sur- 
 prise. "I ... I would suggest that you . . . wait," he objected. 
 "She should not be disturbed just now." 
 
 "Then she is living!" exclaimed the rector hysterically. 
 "Tell us. Doctor, what is her malady?" 
 
 "Wilson!" broke from Mrs. Whittier in a voice of terror. 
 And she turned upon the startled rector. 
 
 Doctor Rowley looked from one to another blankly. "Why, 
 surely you know that she . . ." 
 
 "Doctor!" Mrs. Whittier almost shrieked it, and staggered 
 toward him. 
 
 Harris Chaddock, his face now ghastly white, seized the 
 doctor's arm. "Let me have a word with you!" he cried excit- 
 edly, trying to draw the doctor away. "I have been brought 
 down to take this case! I represent Doctor Roake! I have 
 been her physician in Crestelridge ! Father Whittier wishes 
 me to have charge now! Let us go to her. . ." 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 Harris wheeled sharply at the sound and halted. His mouth 
 opened, and an ugly look leaped into his ashen face. The eyes 
 of the others flashed upon Alden. "Doctor Rowley," said Alden, 
 his voice coming clear and steady, "I am the patient's hus- 
 band. Has the child been born yet?" 
 
 "Child!" The rector gasped out the word, tottered a few 
 steps, and fell heavily into a chair. Mrs. Whittier shivered, 
 as under a galvanic shock, and became rigid. Harris leaped 
 at Alden, hands clenched and mouth working, but stopped, 
 crouching before him like a hyena at bay. Doctor Rowley 
 stood dumfounded. 
 
 Then, with a quivering groan, Mrs. Whittier dropped faint- 
 ing to the floor. Alden brushed Harris aside and sprang to 
 
 111 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the fallen woman. With Doctor Rowley's assistance she was 
 lifted to a sofa and restored. A maid was hurriedly summoned, 
 and the exhausted woman, worn with the burden of her dread 
 secret, emaciated by its long and incessant gnawing, was borne 
 to her room, followed by the crushed and weeping rector. 
 
 Harris Chaddock remained behind. Recovering from his 
 confusion, he glanced about furtively. Taking advantage of 
 the others' absence, he crept to the door of the sick chamber. 
 For some moments he stood hesitant. Then he muttered an 
 oath, shrugged his shoulders, and Mid his hand upon the 
 knob. 
 
 But as he did so he felt himself seized and pulled sharply 
 back to the center of the room, where he spun dizzily for a 
 moment and slipped to his knees. Springing up, panting with 
 rage, he faced Alden. 
 
 As they stood before each other, Alden towering white and 
 glowing over the surprised and baffled Harris, Doctor Rowley 
 returned. Alden turned to him. "Doctor," he said, "I have 
 taken charge here, as is my right. I request that you remain 
 on the case. Doctor Chaddock will have nothing to do with 
 it. I ask again, has the child been born?" 
 
 The doctor looked questioningly from Alden to Harris. 
 "Yes," he replied hesitatingly, his eyes riveted upon Alden, 
 "it was born this morning — dead." 
 
 A gasp burst from Harris: it was the gasp of the coolie 
 when the burden is lifted from his back. His rigidity left him, 
 and he appeared to shrink together. He turned away, shaken 
 and perspiring, and dropped into, a chair. 
 
 "And the mother?" Alden asked steadily. 
 
 The doctor's head sank. "The little mother," he said in a 
 low tone, "is following her babe." 
 
 Harris gripped the arms of his chair and struggled to his 
 feet. "I'm going in there!" he cried hoarsely. 
 
 Alden sprang in front of him and barred the way. "That 
 in which you were solely concerned, the babe, is dead,"' he 
 said in a low, cold voice, so low that only Harris heard. "You 
 have no further interest in that room. If your shame will 
 permit you to remain here, then remember that you are in 
 this apartment on suffrance. If you open the door of my 
 wife's room I will put you into the street." 
 
 Harris gave back, gaping. Had his senses deceived him? 
 This was not Alden Cragg, this tall, vvhite creature that seemed 
 to repel him with a force unnatural ! ' This was not the "little 
 soldier-boy" who had so meekly accepted his shameful insults 
 a year ago! This was a spectral thing; it was inhuman, 
 resembling nothing so much as a disinterred corpse! . . . 
 
 112 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He shuddered and glanced back toward the exit. Then he 
 broke into a quavering laugh and turned to the doctor. "He 
 . . . he's off ... up here!" he said unevenly, forcing the reluc- 
 tant speech from his lips and placing a trembling finger on his 
 forehead. "They've declared him insane in Crestelridge!" 
 
 Doctor Rowley glanced sharply at Alden, then back again 
 at Harris. "Your conduct, gentlemen, is puzzling," he said 
 slowly. "But I cannot become involved in your personal 
 affairs. Mrs. Cragg's condition is very grave. I miist not leave 
 the case until assured that it passes into proper hands. The 
 patient is not able to render responsible judgment now; there- 
 fore I must look to Mr. Cragg for instruction." 
 
 "But he's insane, I tell you!" cried Harris, purpling with 
 anger. 
 
 "I will have to judge as to that," the doctor replied calmly, 
 "And now, Mr. Cragg," addressing Alden, "if you will request 
 Doctor Chaddock to leave us for a few minutes, I would like 
 to talk with you." 
 
 For a moment Harris glared wildly, uncomprehendingly, at 
 the two. For a moment he met the unnatural look in Alden's 
 eyes. But he could not sustain the steady gaze. His averted 
 face flushed with chagrin, it paled with fear. He wheeled again 
 upon Alden, desperately; but his spirits seemed suddenly to 
 wither, and he turned and moved slowly to a window. Halting, 
 he glanced back over his shoulder at Alden. A resurgence of 
 rage tore him, and hot tears of mortification filled his eyes. 
 "I'll be back . . . later!" he blurted in a choking voice. "I'll 
 have a word with you then, Cragg!" And he left the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 CHAPTER 17 
 
 THE assizes of God hold session perpetual, for God is Prin- 
 ciple, time is the Counterpart of the eternal Present, and 
 place is Spirit infinite. True Man, God's image, lives not 
 in dust, but includes within him the spiritual idea of Universe, 
 proceeding from the infinite Mind that ever embraces it and 
 him.. Man thinks not, but reflects the thoughts of Mind. The 
 activity of these evolves the spiritual consciousness which is 
 his Life. 'Gainst this, the assaults of death are vain. 
 
 In the unsubstantial realm of error the communal mortal 
 mind holds shadowy sway. Yet it is but the suppositional oppo- 
 site of the infinite Real. The clattering activities of its pseudo- 
 thoughts produce a false consciousness — laughably absurd! — 
 of a spinning globe and a man of flesh clinging upon it. Fanci- 
 
 113 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ful concept! A filmy bubble that vanishes, when pricked by 
 the dart of death, into its native nothingness. 
 
 Well for the world that the Man of Sorrows, in his ascen- 
 sion out of matter, proved its' unreality! Well that through 
 the clouded ages some few have touched the spiritual robe and 
 turned from creed to magnify the Christ! — else Ethel Whittier 
 had sunk, beneath the accumulation of her false thinking, into 
 a stratum of consciousness more terrifying than the one she 
 now so wildly clutched and held, with loosening grasp, as life. 
 
 In her conscious moments, before Alden had been sum- 
 moned, death had filled her empty soul with concentrated 
 terror. "I can't die! I can't! I can't!" she had shrieked, when 
 the chill shadow crept upon her. "Doctor . . . don't let 
 me die! . . . Mother, wire Doctor Roake! . . . Do something! 
 . . . Do something! , . . Hold me! . . . Hold me! ... I'm 
 going! . . . going! . . ." 
 
 Then, when delirium spread chaos through her burning 
 thought-processes, she dwelt continually in that baleful hour 
 when Harris Chaddock struck down the barriers with the 
 authority invested in him by the Wess law and thrust himself 
 into her presence through the "strictly legal procedure" so car- 
 nally suggested by the astute Doctor Roake. And her near-crazed 
 mother had sat in dumb horror, watching the daughter die, 
 yet not daring to summon the rector or Doctor Roake, lest the 
 girl's foul secret become the scandal-monger's tid-bit, and the 
 proud Whittier name be trailed through the gutters of Crestel- 
 ridge. Mrs. Whittier had not been apprised of Ethel's condi- 
 tion until after their arrival in Florida. She had rejoiced on 
 learning it, not knowing then how close was the consumma- 
 tion. But suspicion soon took root. A sick spell shortly there- 
 after threw the girl into slight delirium. In its wake came 
 the revelation, a fulsome revelation that prostrated the horri- 
 fied mother with a month's sharp illness, knowledge of which 
 she and Ethel fearfully hid from the rector for depth of shame. 
 
 Then, when Mrs. Whittier had wearily risen from her bed 
 of suffering, weak and shaken, she had frenziedly conspired 
 with the cowering girl to cover the error deep, hoping wildly, 
 praying frantically, contriving feverishly, on the forlorn hazard 
 that fortuitous circumstances might arise to save them all. . . 
 
 But the case developed peculiar pathological aspects, and 
 Doctor Rowley, himself wholly unsuspecting, became at length 
 quite baffled. He suggested a council; but, to his surprise, was 
 strenuously opposed by mother and daughter. Later, against 
 equally stubborn opposition, he urgently advised sending for 
 their family physician. Finally, in desperation,, as he saw the 
 girl slipping into the shadows, he demanded, with the threat 
 
 114 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of invoking police power, that her husband be summoned forth- 
 with. . . 
 
 Alden stood, with Doctor Rowley, at the bedside of the girl, 
 who now lay quiet under the opiate's mesmeric spell in the 
 darkened room. "Thy sins be forgiven thee," he breathed. For 
 he knew that to condemn this mistaught child was of itself 
 deepest sin. The human sense of vision, calling itself his, was 
 not beholding the work of God, for to view matter with the 
 physical senses is but to see their deceptive testimony objecti- 
 fied. In her misguided pursuit of the evil which had allured 
 her in the guise of good, this girl had pitiably missed the mark. 
 And "the uttermost farthing" she was now paying — death. 
 
 In an adjoining chamber, beside the couch on which lay 
 his moaning wife, the rector knelt in anguished lamentation. 
 "Woe unto me," he sobbed aloud; "for theise be the days of 
 vengeance! Woe unto them that are with child, woe unto 
 them that give suck in these, the last days ! Ah, if the goodman 
 of the house had known in what hour the thief would come ! 
 Ah, had I not run to and fro on the earth, neglecting my child ! 
 Woe, woe unto me, for these be indeed the last days!". . . 
 
 "Mr. Cragg," said Doctor Rowley gravely, "what I wish to 
 say to you is that, had I not had this case from the date of 
 your wife's arrival here, I should be suspicious. I have pursued 
 the most modern scientific methods of treatment. My repiita- 
 tion and past achievements are open to investigation. I have 
 earnestly striven to heal her — ^but I have failed. I tried to call 
 in counsel, but . . ." 
 
 "You have conscientiously done all that you could. Doctor," 
 said Alden, "and I am grateful to you. May I ask what you 
 suspect?" 
 
 The doctor delayed reply. "It is an ugly charge — and I 
 make none that is specific," he at length answered. "But I 
 suspect — malpractice. Yet just how or of what sort, I am at 
 a loss to say." 
 
 "Your suspicion is justified," Alden returned without hesi- 
 tation. "There has been manipulation; but it has not been 
 physical." 
 
 "Not physical? What then?" 
 
 "Wholly mental." 
 
 The doctor threw him a questioning glance. "You are . . . 
 sure?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you knew?" 
 
 "Yes," was the quiet answer. Then, after a long silence, 
 in which the doctor stood studying the white-haired, brief- 
 spoken man beside him, Alden asked: "Have you done all 
 that you can?" 
 
 115 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I ... I am reluctant to tell you, Mr. Cragg, but ... I 
 fear we can do nothing now but keep her under opiates . . . 
 till she passes out." 
 
 "Then may we leave her with God?" 
 
 It was an odd question — an absurd one, in these days of 
 denial of God — and the doctor started and again looked sharply 
 at the speaker. And as he looked, he felt a return, an intensi- 
 fying, of that peculiar impress which Alden had produced upon 
 him when first they met that morning. Harris Chaddock's 
 accusation surged up in his memory; but the doctor dismissed 
 it before the rapidly deepening conviction that he was standing 
 now in the presence of a man of experiences rare, vivid, and 
 broadening, whose outlook upon life was from a focal point 
 far advanced beyond that of the myopic masses. The appear- 
 ance of the man was — the doctor found but one word to describe 
 it — unearthly. The impression which he made was of powers 
 strongly psychic. And the doctor felt strangely awed before 
 him, strangely moved in the mental aura that seemed to sur- 
 round him. 
 
 He drew out his watch. ' "Mrs. Cragg will remain under the 
 opiate for some time. I have another call to make. I can 
 return in an hour ... Or do you wish me to retire from the 
 case?" He knew not just why he put the question. He won- 
 dered if it had to do with Harris Chaddock. 
 
 Alden's hand went out and rested on the doctor's shoulder. 
 "Come back," he said gently. "I want you." And the doctor 
 bowed and went away, with a great, awed wonder sitting at 
 the portals of his mind. 
 
 And throughout the call that he made the wonder remained 
 there, challenging every entering thought. What manner of 
 man was this, who, either through callousness or religious 
 fanaticism, had abandoned his dying wife to the unknown God? 
 But the doctor, broad-minded and great of heart, a sympathetic 
 servitor of his fellow sufferers, and himself a humble searcher 
 after Truth, laughed at the absurd and intolerant suggestion. 
 
 And then he became grave before the thought of Ethel and 
 the awful recurrent mystery of life and death. He was not an 
 adherent of the prevalent theories of medication. He strove 
 only to set the delicate mechanism of the human body aright 
 and remove the obstacles which he believed to be hindering 
 Nature's healing work. "We doctors never heal," he was wont 
 to insist. "Nature does it all." But to push his inquiries 
 beyond the purely physical into the unexplored realm of meta- 
 physics, to discover why Nature should require the aid of frail 
 man, was a venture from which he shrank through want of 
 confidence in his own powers. In his studies he had pursued 
 
 116 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 evolution back to protoplasm, and had advanced pathology 
 to the germ — but there he had halted. That the germ was the 
 cause of disease, or that disease bred the germ, he felt to be 
 still moot. And he hesitated not to voice this honest 
 opinion. . . 
 
 Throughout his call he felt the fascination of the white- 
 haired man who had impressed him so vividly, felt it as an 
 urgency that would draw him, despite all else, again to Alden 
 Cragg, and with mental probe and scalpel. And well within 
 the hour he had so disposed of his duties as to enable him to 
 return to the apartment whence emanated this impelling force. 
 
 He found the household quiet. His patient slept. Her con- 
 dition, if unaltered, at least appeared to be no worse. He 
 looked inquiringly at Cragg. "There have been no unfavorable 
 indications?" he asked. And the quiet answer came: "None." 
 
 He returned to the living room and seated himself. There 
 was no need of remaining, yet he was loath to go. "I rejoice 
 that our patient holds her own," he said. "The case has been 
 a peculiar one. I could discover no reason why the child should 
 have died. Nor could my assistant. Doctor Means. The par- 
 turition was normal. I can find no pathological cause of Mrs. 
 Cragg's present grave condition. I have failed — ^but why?" 
 
 "You have looked for cause in effect," said Alden sinlplyi 
 taking a chair near the doctor. 
 
 The doctor looked at him interrogatingly; "You intimated 
 this morning that you considered her condition the result of 
 malpractice," he pursued, "and that mental. Your statement 
 smacks of witchcraft." And he smiled. 
 
 "It is witchcraft," said Alden gravely. "Mental sorcery." , 
 
 "I can almost believe you," the doctor returned, again 
 serious. "For there is no apparent reason why she should die. 
 But," he continued reflectively, "it has always been my con- 
 tention that there is no reason why the human body should 
 ever die, provided that useless material T)e eliminated. Perhaps 
 in her case I have not discovered the useless material that 
 requires elimination." 
 
 "Does not the human mind's firm belief in death and its 
 necessity constitute the 'useless material' that must be elim- 
 inated?" Alden asked. 
 
 "Then you would doctor the mind?" 
 
 "I would not doctor the body, for the body is not a cause, 
 but an effect. Its diseases are likewise but effects. And have 
 not you physicians yourselves demonstrated that treating effects 
 has long since proved useless?" 
 
 "You think we do not get at the origin of disease?" 
 
 "You do not get at its real origin, for the human mind is 
 
 32 117 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 demonstrably the sole cause of all discord. You physicians 
 probe in the body — the effect — for the cause of the disease, 
 which is always in the mind. It is the sick human mind that 
 manifests a sick body. And destruction of the false beliefs 
 constituting this so-called mind alone will destroy disease. Your 
 potions and surgery have not done it and cannot." 
 
 "And you regard this terrible thing that we call 'body' as 
 a mere effect?" 
 
 "I regard it somewhat as a prominent physical scientist has 
 said: 'a flowing and constantly changing episode in material 
 history, having no more identity than has a river, no identity 
 whatever in its material constitution, but only in its form — 
 identity only in the personal expression or manifestation which 
 is achieved through the agency of fresh and constantly differing 
 sequences of material particles'." 
 
 "But what forms it, and out of what?" 
 
 "The human mind forms it, and out of matter. But matter 
 is demonstrably a thing of thought — -of human thought, which 
 is the suppositional opposite of the real and energizing thought 
 of Mind." 
 
 "And that means?" the doctor urged, as Alden paused. 
 
 "It is this constantly changing thing of counterfeit thought, 
 known as the human body, that the physicians are forever 
 doctoring and cutting. And in vain, for it is itself merely 
 an effect. Our chemists have analyzed it and discovered that 
 it is mostly water and a few inorganic salts. Yet the physicians 
 treat it as if it were man himself. They regard it as sentient, 
 as containing life and intelligence. They ignore the mental 
 side entirely in treating its diseases; they are oblivious of the 
 stupendous fact that the starting point of matter is never mate- 
 rial, but mental, and that mortal mind and body are one." 
 
 The doctor regarded Alden for a moment, then leaned 
 toward him, with a hand on his knee. "You said this morning 
 that you needed me. I am wondering if it is not I who needs 
 you. For I have long been doubting the usefulness of my daily 
 toil. Sometimes I consider it utterly profitless." 
 
 "Profitless and useless," Alden replied, "if it consists — as 
 it so universally does with doctors — in giving operation to the 
 false laws believed to be perceived through the physical senses. 
 Daily, in their professional round, the doctors move in an 
 atmosphere of dense material thought, constantly centering 
 their thinking and that of their patients upon the human body, 
 looking always for discordant conditions, regarding disease the 
 rule and health the exception, and passing verdicts of disease 
 and inharmony upon their fellow beings that wreak disaster 
 and death among mankind." 
 
 118 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "A hard arraignment, Mr. Cragg," said the doctor, smiling; 
 "yet I do not refute it." 
 
 "The doctors measure man by material sense," Alden con- 
 tinued. "Yet this is but the matter-man, the dying counterfeit 
 of the Man who is Mind's eternal image. They try to keep 
 it alive, but they can't, for it cannot hold Life nor reflect it. 
 It has been said that the entire world is engaged in the cease- 
 less occupation of measuring and estimating man with the 
 'yardstick of physicality'. Are you not even now appraising 
 me by the whiteness of my hair, the lines in my face, the 
 appearance of my body, calling all this 'man', and then Setting 
 in motion mortal laws of limitation based thereon that would 
 bring forth results of like kind if I did not protect myself 
 against them by knowing Truth? Mankind are mental manipu- 
 lators, murderers of their fellow men through ignorance of the 
 fact that the sum total of what is real is Mind and its infinite 
 Idea." 
 
 "This then is what you mean by mental malpractice, is it? 
 And you regard it as a dangerous force." 
 
 "No. The danger from it lies in the lending of one's thought 
 to it. Of itself, ignorant and malicious thought has no power 
 to strike or attack; but its fearful menace lies in the receptivity 
 to it of those who do not do their own thinking, or do not 
 measure their thinking by Principle. Do not misunderstand 
 me: the mental manipulator is an assassin, though often he 
 comes in the guise and intent of good. His aim is dominion 
 over mankind, and he acquires this through the foulest means, 
 leading to death. He is at enmity with Principle. He is a 
 mortal mind — and that is but ignorance of Truth. But, I 
 repeat, he is dangerous only to, those who receive him and 
 permit him to do their thinking. Those who become a law 
 unto themselves and shape their thinking to accord with Prin- 
 ciple are protected from his suppositional opposition against 
 right mental activity. For our own safety and progress, there- 
 fore, we must each one become his own physician." 
 
 "And — may I ask?— you believe Mrs. Cragg to have been 
 receptive to malicious mental suggestion?" 
 
 "It may be put that way," Alden replied. 
 
 "And the cure of the patient lies in annulling its power? 
 And you know that no physician is able to detect that power 
 and destroy it? Are yau able to? Tell me, Mr. Cragg— for 
 there is that about you which moves me strongly — are you a 
 healer?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 The doctor's face expressed perplexity. "You do not repre- 
 sent any of the various healing cults, mental, spiritual, Chris- 
 tian?" he pursued. 
 
 119 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "If I did, would you oppose me?" 
 
 "No. As a physician it is my business to destroy disease 
 if I can. If I cannot, then my love for my fellow men is such 
 that I welcome any who can do so." 
 
 "Then you have not joined those of your profession who 
 have prostituted the holy work of combating disease to the 
 carnal ambition to secure legal control of the people's bodies?" 
 
 "You refer to the political doctors? You are opposing their 
 methods, I take it." 
 
 "If diseases were being destroyed by these political doctors," 
 said Alden, "there could be no opposition to their methods; 
 and, of course, in that case there would be no need of legislation 
 to give them exclusive powers over humanity. But the world 
 is to-day no nearer being healed of its diseases by materia 
 medica than it was a thousand years ago. After centuries of 
 experimentation, new diseases are still following every inven- 
 tion of new remedies. The sure-cure of to-day is the laughing- 
 stock of to-morrow. A hundred years ago you physicians bled 
 the poor body; to-day you vaccinate it, serumize it, and muti- 
 late it with operations; to-morrow it will be something 
 different. 'The art of medicine,* Voltaire said, 'consists in amus- 
 ing the patient while nature cures the disease.' And yet the 
 poor, ignorant, misguided people have been mesmerized into 
 assisting to legalize these absurdities. . ." 
 
 "And make autocrats of us learned medical quacks," the 
 doctor finished with a smile. 
 
 "The human mind and body are one. Securing legal control 
 of the people's bodies means likewise controlling their minds, 
 their thinking, their conduct. From this may come religious, 
 political, and medical control of speech, education, expression, 
 and a domination such as may set civilization back beyond 
 the Dark Ages. All evil is possible to the carnal mind. Wit- 
 ness the present war, that was considered an impossibility." 
 
 A pause followed, during which the doctor appeared to 
 reflect deeply. At length he looked up. "Is Doctor Roake 
 acquainted with your views?" he asked. "And if so, does he 
 oppose them?" 
 
 "His opposition against such' views as mine is very active, 
 and is sustained by great numbers and unlimited wealth." 
 
 "But of course you will not openly, publicly, oppose 
 him?" 
 
 "I shall do what I am guided to do," Alden answered. 
 
 The doctor regarded him wonderingly. Then, with a trace 
 of hesitation: "Did Doctor Chaddock return?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 He waited expectantly. But Alden vouchsafed no additional 
 
 120 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 information regarding his personal encounter with Harris. 
 Then: "And do you expect Doctor Roake? He was in com- 
 munication with me regarding the case. . ." 
 
 "I have wired him that his services will not be required," 
 was Alden's reply. 
 
 The doctor's eyes widened. "I think," he observed, "that 
 you have already entered the lists with the great doctor. Your 
 courage is inspiring; and yet I tremble for the outcome. I am 
 free to state that I do not favor his plan; but to stand against 
 it may mean ruin. I do not, can not, commercialize healing, 
 Mr. Cragg, nor have I the desire to see it rendered a privileged 
 monopoly. If you command the power to restore your afflicted 
 wife — and I confess that I do not — then gladly do I place her 
 case in your charge, and greatly will I rejoice if you save her." 
 He paused and looked searchingly into Alden's big eyes. Then : 
 "You would not condemn all doctors?" 
 
 "By no means," Alden quickly answered. "In its present 
 state of thought, at its present stage of spiritual progress, the 
 world has need of doctors. The honest, sincere doctor — and 
 there are thousands of them — has his place, particularly now. 
 He can do untold good for humanity. It is such doctors that 
 I am seeking. . ." 
 
 "I would be honored if you might count me one," said 
 Doctor Rowley earnestly. He hesitated. Then, speaking 
 quickly: "I would be privileged if 1 might assist you in the 
 work that I now see you have undertaken." 
 
 Alden's hand went out and rested on the doctor's. "You 
 are not far from the kingdom," he murmured. "A work' has 
 been given me, yet of myself I can do nothing. But I know that 
 the work will be finished, even as I know that my wife will 
 live, for I know the powerlessness of the lying suggestion to 
 which the world and she have appeared so receptive. You can 
 render great service. . ." 
 
 "Command me." 
 
 "Then release my wife and let her go." 
 
 "What? Release . . .!" The doctor sat back in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "Release her in your thought. Remove the sentence of 
 death which you have mentally passed upon her. That is why 
 I told you I needed you; that is why I have held you here." 
 
 The doctor sat staring at Alden in blank amaze. Then, 
 slowly, comprehension came to him. "I understand," he said 
 as he rose. "I understand, at least in part, what you have 
 been saying to me, and why you have said it. I ... I am 
 greatly moved. I feel that I want to know you better, Mr. 
 Cragg. I feel that I shall know you better, and that I shall 
 
 121 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 vyondrously profit by it. And now let me speak with the nurse 
 before going." 
 
 "And go to the patient's parents and reassure them," Alden 
 advised. "Perhaps you can help them." 
 
 A few moments afterward the doctor had rejoined Alden. 
 "Our patient still sleeps," he announced, with a grateful sigh. 
 "The father and mother appear more composed — at least, they 
 do not need me. I will come again this evening — unless you 
 should wish to see me earlier." He held out his hand. "I shall 
 study over what you have said to me," he continued earnestly. 
 "And the sentence of death, as far as in me lies, shall be 
 annulled." With which he took his departure. 
 
 CHAPTER 18 
 
 IN those frivolous, dangerous days before he had crossed the 
 threshold of death, the gross selfishness and ingratitude of 
 
 Alden Cragg were become bywords even among those who 
 saw only through the thick lens of matter. Now, sitting at 
 Ethel's bedside, her hand clasped tenderly in his, the profound 
 gratitude of the man new-born found voice in the prayer that 
 trembled constantly on his lips: "Father, I thank Thee," 
 
 It was a prayer of thankfulness, not for an increase in mate- 
 rial store, but rather that he had been stripped of that which 
 he had so erroneously believed he possessed — shorn of his 
 bursting barns, his groaning presses, the hampering material 
 impedimenta of "Craggmont" and all that it had symbolized — 
 and that their removal had revealed a reality behind them 
 unknown, unimagined, and reflecting such radiant harmony as 
 to cast into obscurity all that he had before so mistakenly 
 deemed good. 
 
 He was immeasurably grateful that Principle — ^which he saw 
 now as Love divine, infinite Consideration — had forced him to 
 the sacrifice of material things that must needs precede spiritual 
 understanding, and had compelled him to yield to that which 
 alone could make for his spiritual growths He could see in 
 his enforced marriage to Ethel more than the effort of personal 
 sense to destroy his mission : he had found in it an opportunity 
 to demonstrate Love. He was, to human sense, cut off quite 
 from his friends of yore, isolated, ostracized; yet the experience 
 had taught him to abandon the personal sense of friendship, 
 and love more deeply the Sons of God. Each step of his prog- 
 ress had been with bleeding feet, each step had been a further 
 surrender of constricting personal sense, based upon the false 
 
 122 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 evidence of phjysical sight, hearing, touch, and an acceptance 
 of a more, spiritual sense of the all-embracing Father-Mother- 
 hood of creative Love. . . 
 
 Not that the tempter had not trailed him with seductive 
 offerings: even here it had whispered the noxious suggestion 
 that in the death of Ethel would be found his blessed release. 
 Alden had turned upon it with such excess of moral fervor 
 as to drive it headlong in rout. Ethel's need was indeed an 
 opportunity, not to magnify personal sense, but to prove Life. 
 Then the tempter returned with a burden of evidence of the 
 existence of discord. Alden refused to accommodate himself 
 to it. Despite all that might be believed about man, he clung 
 steadfastly to the fact of what Man in reality is. This was 
 the buoy that held his head above the waves. By this he 
 denied himself, as the Master gave command. By this he 
 learned the high meaning of gratitude. For gratitude is an 
 understanding of the omnipotence of God. 
 
 Through the illumination of spiritual understanding by his 
 experience in Palestine and by these months of intensive train- 
 ing at the hands of Madam Galuth, the fundamental facts of 
 being had come to him, and now he sought to demonstrate, 
 as the Master had demonstrated, that the leprous, the palsied, 
 the dying who crossed his path were, even as he himself had 
 once appeared to be, elements of the "one lie" about Truth. 
 A knowledge of this, he knew, must destroy discord and reveal 
 harmony. He had found that God filled heaven and earth. This 
 demonstrated the startling change that had appeared to come 
 over him. From the thrall of erroneous sense, he had become 
 the reflection of the knowledge that Good is forever available, 
 since God, as Principle, is everywhere present. From his first 
 unscientific efforts to avoid evil by ignoring it, he had learned 
 the necessity of facing it boldly in the knowledge that it had 
 neither real presence nor power. Success had come accord- 
 ingly. The desert of mortal sense could not fail under this 
 transforming knowledge to blossom as the rose. 
 
 As he sat engrossed in this thought, the rector appeared 
 at the door. Alden rose at once and softly bade him return 
 to the living-room, whither he followed. 
 
 "Harris, . .?" The rector's voice quavered away in a 
 whisper. T 
 
 Alden bade him be assured that Harris would not return. 
 Of this, his knowledge of human thought-processes convinced 
 him. 
 
 The rector sank heavily into a chair and rested his head 
 upon a hand. "God forgive him!" he murmured. 
 
 "Is it not rather for us to forgive them both by knowing 
 
 123 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the powerlessness of that which seemed to use them?" said 
 Alden gently. 
 
 The rector raised his bloodshot eyes. "Forgive him?" he 
 demanded excitedly. "He has ruined my life! The disgrace 
 -will kill me!" 
 
 "Say, rather," Alden returned, "that it is your own way 
 of thinking that has resulted in your present circumstances." 
 
 The rector's haggard face twitched. "You . . . you accuse 
 me?" he cried. "But . . , you are right. I was blind to it 
 all." 
 
 "No, I accuse only the false thought that has appeared to 
 use you. I would help you destroy it and release you." 
 
 For a moment the rector sat regarding Alden. Then his 
 hand fell heavily upon the arm of his chair. "Enough," he 
 said vehemently; "I presume you get that from Madam Galuth. 
 I have heard similar things from . . . from Marian. I have 
 sought you to learn, if I may, what you intend doing now." 
 
 Alden looked at him searchingly. "Is it your wish that I 
 should go?" he asked. 
 
 "That," the rector returned unsteadily, "is too much for 
 me to expect. We are in your hands. Our abasement is com- 
 plete." 
 
 Alden's brows drew down in perplexity. "I do not under- 
 stand you," he said. 
 
 "Why, you married Ethel with full knowledge of her awful 
 condition and its cause. What motive could you have had 
 but . . . but to acquire the power over us which that has given 
 you? . . ." He stopped short and uttered a gasp, for Alden 
 had risen suddenly to his full, towering height. 
 
 "Power over you? Thank God it has given me the power 
 that can save you from yourself! Yes, I am in charge here 
 now! And the power which I have over you I shall use to the 
 full!" 
 
 "Pray God then that my daughter may die!" 
 
 "She shall live, despite the evil that voices itself through 
 you!" 
 
 The rector got to his feet. "Why does Doctor Roake not 
 come?" he cried, looking about helplessly. "I shall telephone 
 him. . ." 
 
 Alden stepped quickly forward and seized his shoulders. 
 Squaring him sharply around, he looked down piercingly into 
 the bulging eyes of the trembling man. "I forbid you to touch 
 the telephone, or to give orders for its use. Otherwise, I shall 
 cut its wires." 
 
 "God help us!" gasped the quivering rector. "You are 
 insane I" 
 
 124 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alden smiled and reached down and took the rector's hand. 
 "The insanity of Nebuchadnezzar is not upon me," he said 
 more gently, "but upon those who have brought about the cir- 
 cumstances with which we are coping. This is a place that 
 God possesses. Put off the shoes of material belief from your 
 understanding, for you are in the presence of Spirit." 
 
 He loosed his grasp, and the rector fell back gaping. Alden 
 stood, still smiling. "You may summon Doctor Rowley," he 
 said, "if it will quiet your fear." 
 
 "Doctor Rowley!" exclaimed the rector, stimulated afresh. 
 "No! He is under your influence! I do not wish him on the 
 case! God above! may the child die quickly, if death is her 
 only escape from your mad conduct! ..." 
 
 It was as if the rector's thought had been externalized, for 
 at that moment the nurse came hastily from the sickroom. 
 "Mrs. Cragg is sinking!" she announced. "Come quickly! 
 Shall I call Doctor Rowley?" 
 
 "Yes, call him," said Alden, with a glance at the rector. Then 
 he hurried to Ethel's bedside. . . 
 
 Alden knew as he sat again by the wan, emaciated girl 
 that the world must at last face the climacteric dream of death 
 and overcame it — He had known it even before Madam Galuth 
 had so forcibly impressed it upon his thought. And he knew 
 that it could be met and mastered only ; thrdugh awaking to 
 a recognition of Life. Such recognition alone could render 
 null the diabolism of mortal mind that had deadened the soul 
 of Ethel Whittier. 
 
 "God forgive me for wishing her death!" wailed the fear- 
 torn rector on his knees by the bed. "Oh, God, look down 
 in mercy upon us! Spare her! Remove the afflictions which 
 have fallen so heavily upon Us ! For Jesns' sake ! For Jesus' 
 sake! . . ." 
 
 "Shall I use the needle?" Alden heard the nurse ask. 
 
 He shook his head. Matter could not remove the error 
 which the human mind alone had created. The nurse, obedient 
 to the instructions left by Doctor Rowley, stepped back. The 
 moaning prayer of the rector floated through the darkened 
 room. Alden reached down and touched his shoulder. "Go," 
 he said gently, "and wait outside to meet Doctor Rowley." 
 
 A little fluttering gasp stirred the bloodless lips of the 
 patient. The witchcraft of mortal mind gave ground in its 
 grapple with Truth. Alden saw it, and knew why. Re-born, 
 free of the dragging accompaniment of fear of death, he, of 
 all others, was equipped to trace the effect back to its mental 
 cause and face the Goliath of error unshaken. He, by reason 
 of his stupendous experience in Antonia's Tower, could now 
 
 125 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 accept Truth at once and without argument. Because of this, 
 he knew that the false claim of discord now urging upon his 
 consciousness had naught to sustain it and must fall. . . 
 
 Ethel rallied; her eyes opened, and her feeble gaze rested 
 upon Alden. Then her lips moved. He bent to catch the 
 words. "Go away," she whispered. And a slight scowl 
 wrinkled her brow. 
 
 He sat back, and a look of sadness came into his eager face. 
 She closed her eyes and dropped into sleep. Silence lay upon 
 the room. It was not broken until Doctor Rowley arrived. 
 
 "She is . . .?" 
 
 "It is the rector who needs you. Doctor," said Alden softly. 
 And the doctor glanced at Ethel and back to Alden, and" bowed 
 his comprehension. 
 
 Then days passed. And slowly, yet steadily, Alden Cragg 
 toiled up from the valley of death, bearing Ethel in his arms. 
 Faithfully Doctor Rowley walked at his side, yet not so much 
 to give as to receive from this man of power who had so 
 mightily drawn and held him. "I am beginning to see what you 
 mean when you say that to cling to materia medica is to break 
 the First Commandment," he one day said to Alden, after the 
 latter had explained his refusal to permit him to. return to 
 the use of the opiate when Ethel manifested a slight reversal. 
 "I agree with you that drugs are effective in the exact ratio 
 of the po.wer attributed to them by the human mind. This 
 mind endows tobacco, for example, with certain soothing, 
 although ultimately destructive, effects. It is plain mesmerism. 
 Upon opium it confers the power to reduce the user to insen- 
 sibility. The real narcotic in either case is neither the tobacco 
 nor the drug, but certain beliefs in the human mind. And the 
 mind ignorantly attributes these" mesmeric effects to powers 
 supposed to be inherent in the drug. The inebriate drugs him- 
 self, not with the alcohol, but with mental pictures, the beliefs, 
 the mesmeric effects, conjured up in his own consciousness. 
 It is mental morphia that we have to deal with." 
 
 "It is the human mind's narcotic beliefs that numb man's 
 spiritual perception and drug his consciousness into sleep and 
 death," Alden returned. "The man governed by lust of revenge, 
 for example, is as completely in a state of coma as the one 
 put to sleep by laudanum." 
 
 "And the narcotics of the pharmacopoeia are really the 
 externalizatiohs of the human mind's beliefs in mental mor- 
 phia." 
 
 "Yes. Lust, selfishness, idleness, are mental drugs with 
 which the human mind narcotizes itself. As you say, certain 
 well-defined instances of the effects of this mental narcotizing 
 
 126 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 on the human mind are externalized in the narcotics of the 
 pharmacopoeia. Upon these distinctive types the world has 
 placed moral and legal bans, yet it neglects utterly the real 
 narcotics, the mental narcotics enumerated by Paul as the 
 works of the flesh, such as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, 
 lasciviousness, idolatry, hatred, wrath, murders, drunkenness, 
 witchcraft, which in their physical manifestations drug men's 
 minds unto death." 
 
 The doctor nodded. "I have never been a religious person," 
 he said. "But I might have been one, had the preachers ex- 
 plained these things as you have. But I couldn't accept the 
 preachers' views; their traditional theology held no meaning 
 for me; it did not meet my needs; so I fell away from the 
 Church. But I think I understand how what you call 'animal 
 magnetism' has deadened the human mind and secured control 
 of it through mental narcotizing and carried it straight to hell. 
 And I know you will not consider it unprofessional of me to 
 say that I consider Doctor Roake's plan of medical control a 
 gigantic narcotic to put the world to sleep and accomplish this 
 same thing wholesale." 
 
 During these days of Ethel's return to health Alden had 
 often sat at her bedside and striven to gain her confidence^ 
 had labored to convince her that he did not condemn, that he 
 would forget the error, that he would take her to his heart 
 and make a home for her, and shield her, protect her, help her 
 upward. But always she repelled him, always she turned a 
 deaf ear to his loving advances. "Go away," she continually 
 repeated. "I don't want you here." And at last he turned 
 from her, but with his thought on the nine lepers who took 
 the divine gift and spurned the giver. 
 
 Throughout these anxious days the rector and his wife 
 studiously avoided Alden. Like Ethel, smothered in suffering 
 and disgrace, they waited uneasily for the hour of his departure, 
 yet dreaded his return to Crestelridge. For there was that 
 about him now that they had never observed before, a some- 
 thing that immeasurably disturbed them, that unendurably 
 irritated by the very fact of its reality, that fearfully menaced 
 them by its demonstrated power. He had not told them that 
 they were the children of evil — quite the contrary, he had 
 sought to reveal to them the true Man. Yet in their self-accu- 
 sation did they attribute the condemnation to him. And thus 
 doing, they continued to make real to themselves those frailties 
 which hung from their garments and hampered their progress 
 upward. 
 
 Then, after Ethel had left her bed and taken her first steps, 
 Alden announced to Doctor Rowley his intention of departing. 
 
 127 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The doctor's face grew serious. "I presume you are acting 
 wisely," lie said, with a touch of sadness. "Your patient — I 
 do not say 'mine' — will soon be normal. And I can see that 
 your situation here is, for some reason, not wholly pleasant. 
 But ... I would like to keep you with me ... I should have 
 fewer failures then, and would not be so desirous of quitting 
 the practice of medicine." 
 
 Alden put an arm about the doctor's shoulders. "A good 
 doctor ,is a good man," he said gently. "The world has great 
 need of them now. I may send for you. ' Will you come?" 
 
 The doctor seized his hand. "Yes," he answered in a thick- 
 ening voice. 
 
 "For I think," Alden finished, "that you too have been 
 called." 
 
 When the rector learned that Alden was departing, fear 
 returned and smote him sore. "We are in your hands," he 
 repeated with trembling lips. "Yours and Doctor Roake's, for 
 he too knows our awful secret. Thank God that Doctor Row- 
 ley's skill availed to save Ethel; and yet it will have been 
 expended in vain if ... if you ..." 
 
 "I am Ethel's husband," said Alden quietly. "I shall protect 
 her, as in the past. Harris Chaddock will not dare betray him- 
 self. Doctor Roake will use you — ^but he has long done that. 
 Doubtless if you continue to serve him he will divulge nothing." 
 
 The rector's face flushed red. "Oh," he groaned, "you mock 
 me! The world mocks me! I cannot return to Crestelridge ! 
 I cannot! The disgrace is killing me!" 
 
 "You can return," said Alden. "Nay, it is your duty, for 
 you have a work to do there. To postpone it means added 
 suffering. I do not mock you. I would help you out of your 
 terrible situation. Will you return with me, to work with me, 
 with Marian, and with your God?" 
 
 The rector lifted his wide eyes. Again he seemed to hear 
 Alden's voice as it rang out to the congregation of St. Jude's: 
 "Choose ye!" Again Doctor Roake's powerful personality rose 
 up before him. He knew why Doctor Roake had not come to 
 attend upon Ethel; and he could imagine what payment Alden 
 must make for the affront. He could have admired the courage 
 requisite for such a stand, had he not doubted Alden's judg- 
 ment, even his sanity. No, he dared not trust himself with 
 such a co-laborer. Besides . . . "Will you abandon Madam 
 Galuth and return to St. Jude's?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Alden, will you make me lose my church? Will you 
 deliberately bring further affliction upon us?" 
 
 "I have brought you the Christ." 
 
 128 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The rector fell back. "You have brought a sword!" he 
 cried sharply. Then he turned away with heavy forebodings. 
 
 Mrs. Whittier, from the couch on which she lay nursing 
 her remnant of strength, summoned Alden. "You will not make 
 us suffer any more, will you, Alden?" she pleaded, looking up 
 at him through her tears. "We can go back to Crestelridge if 
 we can trust you. But if they learn about . . . this ... it 
 will kill me ! It wasn't Ethel's fault . . . you know that, don't 
 you? But we can't refuse to have anything to do with Harris 
 Chaddock, for he ... he could just ruin us with the terrible 
 scandal! Oh, we are in an awful plight! But, Alden, you will 
 stand by us? You know, Ethel will have money some day, 
 Penberry's. If you help us to hush this thing up, everything 
 will be all right, and you will be rich." 
 
 Not a word of gratitude for sacrifices made; only the age- 
 old plea of Self. . . 
 
 "Alden, you didn't marry her for revenge, did you?" she 
 whimpered. "Oh, tell me that you didn't! For we didn't do 
 anything to you. And you will do nothing now? Promise! 
 Promise ! It is so terribly suspicious, your marrying her when 
 you knew . . .!" 
 
 "She is my wife. I will protect her," Alden repeated. 
 
 "You don't want your own name up, do you?" the distracted 
 woman went on. "It was up, you know, for your mother . . ." 
 
 "Stop! I have told you that I will protect Ethel. I would 
 do more, if you would let me." 
 
 "Oh, that is all we ask! Nothing but that! Nothing! And 
 it is so little!" 
 
 Little enough, indeed! It was the least that he longed to 
 do for them. But in their great mesmerism it was all that 
 they would permit. 
 
 And after he had gone north Mrs. Whittier voiced her re- 
 vived hopes to the rector. "We will see what he does. I will 
 keep corresponding with Mrs. Tellus, Mrs. Black, and Mrs. 
 Kerl. If nothing develops within a month, we can begin to 
 think of going back. Doctor Roake will stand by us, I know, 
 for he needs you. Oh, if we were only sure about Alden!" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Whether he will ever get the Cragg estate back again. For 
 if we were sure that he wouldn't, then the thing to do would 
 be to get Ethel separated from him and married to Harris. . ." 
 
 "No, no! The Church forbids divorce!" 
 
 "Nonsense! Our needs take precedence over the Church! 
 If we were sure about Alden. . . And if Ethel only had the 
 grounds. . ." 
 
 "God forbid!" cried the miserable rector. Then he buried 
 
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THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his head in his hands and burst into tears. "Oh, the disgrace, 
 the disgrace! It is killing me! I shall lose my church! I 
 shall die! Oh, let death come quickly, for I no longer care 
 to live!" 
 
 CHAPTER 19 
 
 THE train that brought Alden back to New York had been 
 long delayed by the derailing of a heavy freight preceding 
 it, and the afternoon was well advanced when at length 
 he arrived in Crestelridge. Yet he had been scarce aware of 
 the delay. For him the mortal concept of time was fast dis- 
 solving before the transmuting fact of the eternal Now. The 
 human mind's self-limitation by the material measurements of 
 clocks and calendars had been broken by his re-birth. The 
 human measurements of mortality no longer frightened him 
 with their cruel suggestions of approaching senility and death; 
 his employment of the calendar, as of other material modes, 
 was but the choosing among human concepts of those which 
 stood nearest Principle, knowing that release from their domi- 
 nation would come as he advanced out of the mortal concept 
 of finite existence. 
 
 As he journeyed he had rejoiced — not that the "spirits" 
 had been shown subject to him, but because his name was 
 "written in heaven": his character was an increasing reflec- 
 tion of the Christ. His glorying was not in any sense in human 
 power of his own, but in the demonstrated knowledge, of divine 
 power resulting from a purer consciousness of the allness of 
 Mind, God. Such consciousness is itself heaven. In it alone 
 is liberty. 
 
 By the human calendar it was July the fourth. Yet the 
 festive appearance of the towns through which he passed would 
 have unmistakenly betokened the day. On every hand was 
 lively celebration — the more noisy because ignorant — of Amer- 
 ica's emancipation from British tyranny. And ever and anon, 
 as Alden studied the manifestations of delight, his thought 
 grew big with question. Why, in view of the marvelous expe- 
 riences to be won in throwing off the yoke of materialism and 
 the gaining of spiritual liberty, should mankind continue to 
 hold so doggedly to that which is demonstrably false? Why 
 should Wilson Whittier, facing certain destruction, cling so 
 tenaciously to the hand that he must know was leading him 
 into the pit? Why, but that the world has been educated for 
 centuries in the destructive tenet that the so-called testimony 
 of the physical senses constitutes irian's very existence? It 
 
 130 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 was the firm belief in matter as substance ; it was the pernicious 
 belief that the human body — demonstrably a fluid, passing, 
 inconstant thing of mortal thought — is the very man created 
 by an omniscient God; it was the mesmeric acceptance in the 
 twentieth century of Dante's and Milton's densely materialistic 
 theological concepts — concepts utterly rotten and foully poi- 
 sonous, but clothed in angelic vestments— that had deluded the 
 rector and darkened his thought, as they have the world's, 
 and were hounding him through increasing sorrow and pain 
 into oblivion. For between the rector and his God stood matter. 
 
 As Alden passed through the depot in Crestelridge his atten- 
 tion was arrested by a poster announcing the program of the 
 day. Uncle Sam was shrewdly availing himself of the patriotic 
 fervor stimulated by the nation's anniversary to press home 
 his own needs, and a mass meeting was at that moment in 
 progress in an up-town theater for the purpose of stimulating 
 the inert and reluctant to larger sacrifices in the stupendous 
 task of crushing the false ideal of Prussian autocracy with 
 material weapons. Among the speakers the name of Dr. Jere- 
 miah Roake caught his eye, and he halted. "Even Judas sat 
 with the Twelve," he murmured, staring at it. "And material 
 Eden was not proof against the lying serpent." Then he 
 boarded a street car that would convey him to the Glass theater. 
 
 He entered unobtrusively and slipped behind some men 
 standing in the rear of the crowded auditorium. Doctor Roake, 
 the last speaker on the program, was just concluding his 
 address. The eyes of the audience were riveted upon him, and 
 he seemed to hold them spellbound. Again and again,, after 
 a sweeping flight of oratory in which he startlingly voiced 
 innuendoes regarding the grievous iniquities practised by the 
 Mother country upon the American Colonies, he would abruptly 
 pause and appear to loosen his hold on their mentalities. Then, 
 as he stood back, with a smile hovering about his mouth and 
 his black eyes glittering, a burst of applause would shake the 
 building and the roars of the people would fill the place with 
 deafening din. 
 
 Alden listened attentively. But soon his eyes began to rove 
 over the audience in amazement. How little these people under- 
 stood what was using them! How easily they were being 
 swayed by falsehoods maliciously destructive! And none 
 moved to check the scattering of the pernicious seeds that were 
 dropping so fast upon the fallow mentalities of these unthink- 
 ing clods! ... 
 
 His eyes began to glow, and he moved forward. Clinging 
 to the wall, he squeezed slowly along the length of the room 
 and igained the door that led to the stage. Through this he 
 
 131 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 passed quietly, almost unnoticed, mounted the steps, and stood, 
 among scores of others, in the wings, which, as well as the 
 back of the stage, were filled with the doctor's interested 
 auditors. 
 
 Then, followed by round after round of applause, the doctor 
 concluded his address and returned to his seat. The chairman 
 of the afternoon, nodding, smiling, and clapping vigorously, 
 stepped forward to conclude the program. And Alden emerged 
 swiftly from the wings, passed ahead of him, and strode to the 
 edge of the stage and faced the people. 
 
 The swiftness of his action, and his startling appearance, 
 like a gray apparition that had risen through the floor or 
 dropped from above, caused the audience first to gasp, then 
 to settle back with mouths agape. Doctor Roake half rose. 
 The chairman fell back and stood rigid with astonishment. 
 
 A moment of strained silence, and Alden raised his hand. 
 "A hundred and forty-three years ago your forefathers acquired 
 national independence," he began in a voice that, Chough low, 
 reached the farthest limits of the auditorium. "In that same 
 year a German doctor, Franz Mesmer, brought mesmerism to 
 the notice of the world. Can you see the significance of these 
 two events?" 
 
 He paused. The audience sat tense. "That which your fore- 
 fathers fought against was just what this German doctor had 
 brought into prominence," he went on. "A mental influence 
 which had become incarnate in the conduct of England's king, 
 himself a Prussian. Your Revolutionary War was fought 
 against a condition of thought which threatened then to make 
 of Britain an autocracy governed by mesmerism. That war, 
 which your forefathers waged against a king imported from 
 Germany, saved, not only America, but Britain herself. 
 
 "Manasseh and Ephraim fought then against each other, 
 under the spell of this Prussian mesmerism. To-day they are 
 fighting side by side to break this same spell and save the world 
 from consuming in hatred bred of ignorance." 
 
 He stopped and stood for a moment in thought. Did not 
 Marian, typifying Manasseh, revolt against the mesmerism that 
 had been using him, as Ephraim, and by that revolt, and the 
 trial which it brought, save both herself and him from its 
 deadly influence? He and Marian, once opponents, were leagued 
 now against the common enemy of mankind. The parallel 
 struck him forcibly. 
 
 ^\nd the parallel went further. He raised his head and 
 looked out over the. waiting people. "The mental assassin has 
 appeared in your midst," he cried, "striving to drive a wedge 
 between Britain and America. He knows that tottering civ- 
 
 132 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ilization cannot survive a rift between tliese two great English- 
 speaking peoples; he knows that the future of the world 
 depends upon unity between them." 
 
 He paused again. Doctor Roake left his seat and went 
 svviftly to the still dazed chairman. "Who is this mental assas- 
 sin?" Alden resumed. "It is Dan, the renegade of Israel; it is 
 Dan, the serpent of old; it is the mesmerism typified by this 
 false Israelite that seeks to split Anglo-Israel to-day in hatred 
 as it did of yore. For Britain is Ephraim and America is Manas- 
 seh, as of old. Your George Washington was a valiant knight 
 of Anglo-Israel. In checking the mesmerism of the Prussian 
 king of England of that day he opened the way for the British 
 settlements to become independent commonwealths of the Brit- 
 ish Empire, bound to the Mother country only by bonds of love. 
 Were he here to-day he would denounce, in terms that I cannot 
 command, the hellish propaganda that seeks now to break 
 those bonds, to dismember Britain, to separate her from 
 America, overthrow civilization, and loose the forces of chaos 
 and night that will blot out the Word. 
 
 "Oh, hear me, my brothers! It is England that is to-day 
 your ally; it is mesmerism that is still your deadly enemy. 
 England and America are brothers — did you not know it? They 
 are sons of Jacob, who, overcoming the mesmerism of error, 
 became Israel. Oh, listen not to the lying, poisonous propa- 
 ganda that would set these brothers of old against each other 
 in order that the Word may be destroyed in the Armageddon 
 which is yet to come ! For your real emancipation has not been 
 won. It will not come with the overthrow of the Prussian. It 
 is spiritual freedom only that will end war and establish peace 
 — spiritual freedom from the autocracies of religion, medicine, 
 commercialism, and material man-made beliefs of every sort. 
 The greatest struggle which you must face is the struggle to 
 throw off the yoke of political religion and medicine and win 
 wholeness, which is the real health. In winning it, you win 
 heaven. But you cannot win it with hatred; you cannot win 
 it by hurling material force against the false ideals of the mental 
 manipulator, for only a right ideal will overcome a wrong one; 
 you cannot win with material weapons, but only with the spir- 
 itual weapon of the knowledge of God!" . . . 
 
 He had spoken rapidly, but by now the chairman, with 
 whom Doctor Roake had been whispering, had recovered from 
 his astonishment and was at his side. Voices began to rise 
 froin various parts of the auditorium and stage. 
 
 "Who is he?" and "What's he driving at?" some cried. And 
 many of the auditors got to their feet. 
 
 "He's Alden Cragg," came the answer from one who recog- 
 
 9s 133 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 nized the white-haired man. "He's a Britisher, back from the 
 war. . ." 
 
 "Trying to break up the meeting!" 
 
 "He has nerve to come here to recruit for England!" 
 
 "Listen, gentlemen!" It was Doctor Roake. He had stepped 
 forward and was holding up a hand. "I know him well. He 
 did gallant work in Palestine. But he is suffering from shell- 
 shock and his mind is affected. . ." 
 
 "Put him in an asylum!" someone yelled. 
 
 "We licked England once and we can do it again!" 
 
 "I will take him with me in my car," said Doctor Roake, 
 addressing the chairman and at the same time linking his arm 
 through Alden's. "Let us pass, gentlemen, if you please." 
 
 "Hold on!" It was Doctor Benson who called. He clam- 
 bered, panting, upon the stage and came to Alden. "This 
 fellow isn't as crazy as you think!" 
 
 Doctor Roake pushed himself forward aggressively. "I have 
 been his physician, I know the case. . ." 
 
 "Look here," the chairman put in nervously, "we don't want 
 to start anything here!" 
 
 Doctor Benson ignbred them both and addressed Alden. 
 "I'm mighty interested in what you said. Every true American 
 citizen ought to be. ' Tell us what you think vvould be the result 
 of a split between the United States and England." 
 
 Alden released his arm from Doctor Roake's and looked out 
 over the people. A dense mass thronged him, eager, expectant. 
 "Go ahead!" they urged. "Speak up!" He turned and looked 
 steadily into Doctor Benson's face. Then, apparently satisfied 
 as to the latter's sincerity, he replied clearly : "The result would 
 be the dismemberment of the British Empire." 
 
 "That's got to come," someone loudly asserted, "if we are 
 ever to have peace." 
 
 "It will not bring peace, but chaos," Alden answered. 
 
 "England is in league with Japan now!" shouted another. 
 
 Alden turned in his direction. "Those who hope to set 
 England and America against each other through mutual ha- 
 tred," he said, "do so in the belief that then Japan will dominate 
 the Pacific ocean and be able to seize Australia. Ireland, they 
 hope, will so exhaust England that India will find it easy to 
 secede. Canada, they believe, will follow. The British Empire 
 will then break up. The people's thought of war between 
 America and Japan will be externalized; and, though America 
 will win, it will be a Phyrric victory, leaving Japan really the 
 victor and such a power that the Mohammedan world will feel 
 safe in rising to aid her in stamping out Christianity, for Japan 
 has investigated our interpretation of Christianity and found 
 
 134 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 it wanting. Revolutions will then take place in many countries. 
 The American government will be subverted by the iorces now 
 working to that end. And the whole world will eventually sink 
 into chaos and night." 
 
 He had spoken calmly, in a voice of deep solemnity and with 
 scarcely a rising inflection. When he concluded, his auditors 
 stood staring at him dumfounded. 
 
 "But — good heavens!" cried Doctor Benson, "you don't 
 believe there are any insane enough to imagine that they could 
 possibly benefit from such a catastrophe, do you?" 
 
 "There are those who are mesmerized into believing that 
 they would," Alden replied. "And, because of their assumed 
 authority, they are mesmerizing others into the same suicidal 
 belief." 
 
 "Who would benefit?" called a voice. 
 
 Alden turned toward the speaker. "Possibly organized 
 religion would materially benefit, if it could restore the igno- 
 rance of the Middle Ages ; certainly organized medicine, playing 
 upon the people's fear of pain and death." 
 
 "He's an atheist!" somebody whispered. 
 
 "He's a British subject, and he's prejudiced,'' declared 
 another. 
 
 "I am a British subject," Alden answered, "but I do not 
 apologize for Britain's conduct during Revolutionary days, nor 
 for her conduct since then, for none has wholly emerged from 
 the mesmeric spell. But I do know that the influences now 
 loosed to stir up hatred between her and the American people 
 are satanic, and that unless the English-speaking people dwell 
 together in harmony civilization is doomed and Christianity 
 will disappear from off the face of the earth." 
 
 Doctor Roake had seized the chairman by the arm. "Get him 
 out of here!" he demanded in an undertone. "He's insane!" 
 
 Alden heard the doctor's remark and wheeled upon him. 
 "That," he said calmly, "is a lie." 
 
 "Enough of this!" cried the frightened chairman. "Hear! 
 Hear!" rose from others. A tremor swept over the crowd. 
 Doctor Roake fell back; his lips parted; his eyes stuck out; his 
 color went from black to angry red, then slowly settled into an 
 ashen hue. A forced smile at length wreathed his mouth. 
 "You . • . you are not yourself!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "You are quite mistaken," Alden returned. "I am myself. 
 But I am not the man you suppose me to be. . ," 
 
 A cry escaped the doctor. "You are an impostor ! I said so 
 from the first!" 
 
 "Gentlemen!" put in the perturbed chairman. "The pro- 
 gram is finished! Let us disperse!" 
 
 135 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I am not an impostor, nor am I insane," Alden continued, 
 looking steadily at Doctor Roake. "It is you, rather, who are 
 mesmerized into madness." 
 
 "Send for the police!" cried a voice in the rear. 
 
 "You are making grave accusations," Doctor Roake gave 
 back in a shaking voice. "You shall answer for them. Why, 
 gentlemen," turning to the people, "what possible motive could 
 / have for . . ." 
 
 "The motive of domination of your fellow men," Alden inter- 
 rupted him. "The world may crash in ruin, but you know that 
 men's fears will remain. With civilization in ashes, black 
 ignorance will again hide Truth. Then the mesmerizer will 
 play upon human fears with medical superstition, with religious 
 falsehoods, and will bind mankind with mental chains, enslave 
 them with such legislation as the political doctors are now 
 securing — it will be very easy with America prostrate and the 
 British Empire dismembered. . ." 
 
 "The fellow is crazy!" cried Doctor Roake, purple and per- 
 spiring. "Get him away! He is dangerous ! . . ." 
 
 The crowd pressed forward. Alden turned and faced them, 
 faced them calmly, with his tall form towering erect, challeng- 
 ing, menacing in its manifestation of the power of righteous- 
 ness. The people halted and stood hesitant. The Stern look in 
 his eyes softened, a smile came into his face. It seemed to 
 dawn upon the people that he loved them. Then he turned. 
 They gave way before him. And, unmolested, he descended 
 from the stage, passed down through the auditorium, and left 
 the theater. 
 
 CHAPTER 20 
 
 THERE were many elements in Madam Galuth's conviction 
 that Alden Cragg would now have to meet Doctor Roake, 
 that he was the only one who could meet him, and that he 
 would have to meet him humanly alone. And yet she was 
 certain that Alden had so succeeded in impersonalizing the issue 
 that in his thought of the doctor he had clearly separated the 
 man from that which he reflected and which appeared to use 
 him. Alden's contest was not with Doctor Roake, but with the 
 age-old opponent of life and liberty, animal magnetism. 
 
 Alden had himself voiced this to her after his return from 
 Florida and in connection with his simple recital of his work 
 for Ethel and his refutation of the evil which had been voiced 
 through Doctor Roake in the Glass theater. And Madam Galuth 
 had reflected gravely upon it, but would not rebuke him for his 
 
 136 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 zeal, for well she knew that the hour had sounded that called 
 the contestants to the arena. "The poet Keats," she reminded 
 herself, "never beheld a forest tree without beholding the dryad. 
 So Alden now does not behold human beings without discerning 
 that which appears to animate them. And back of all the 
 falsity he sees the perfect Man through the material veil." She 
 knew that mental manipulation had driven Ethel into the dark 
 valley, and that none but Alden had detected it. He had been 
 the "remnant" that had not bowed the knee to Baal; and 
 thereby was Ethel saved. He had again been the "remnant" in 
 the theater. What he had accomplished there she might not 
 say, but she could know that because of him error had been 
 stirred to the depth of its false foundations. "They are afraid 
 of you now," she told him. "They will crush you if they can. 
 But your eyes are open to behold the chariots of fire on the 
 mountain-side. You know that the Syrian hosts are deprived 
 of wisdom by their own conduct and are without the guidance 
 of Principle. Go, therefore,. Israel, for, as of old, thou- art the 
 battle-axe of the Lord!" 
 
 The press had made no mention of the incident in the the- 
 ater. But the press had been visited by agents of the Roake 
 religio-medical organization and by them convinced of the insig- 
 nificance of the affair and the impropriety of reference to it. 
 
 Likewise had Doctor Benson been visited. And the doctor 
 had been moved by the carefully worded suggestion that ruin 
 stared him in the face. He had not yet become affiliated with 
 the Roake plan. It was urged upon him that his support was 
 needed — although he smiled at the thought — and an application 
 blank was laid before him with a finger on the instruction: 
 "Sign here". He did not sign. He asked time for further 
 consideration. And it was granted. 
 
 While still groping through the valley of indecision he called 
 on Doctors Sale and Lann. But he learned that they had already 
 entered the organization. "I stood out as long as I could," 
 Doctor Sale explained. "But I happened to lose a case, a little 
 girl . . ." 
 
 "Well," Benson interrupted with a smile, "doctors are never 
 blamed for losing patients. That's where they have the advan- 
 tage over other healers." 
 
 "Very true," Sale continued. "And I don't think anybody 
 could have saved this child. But for some reason the news- 
 papers printed the whole thing, gave my name as the unsuc- 
 cessful physician — good Lord ! it must have lost me thousands 
 of dollars' worth of business. And all the time I was running 
 advertisements in those same papers, and paying for them, 
 mind you! Well, then Roake's agents called on me and said 
 
 137 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that my advertising would get me nowhere, but that in their 
 closed-shop organization my name would be sent with com- 
 mendatory references to newspapers and periodicals all over the 
 country gratis, and I would not be subjected to any more such 
 harmful write-ups. You see, they send bulletins to the papers 
 with references to the patronage the various doctors in the 
 organization are receiving from wealthy and influential people, 
 and all that. If I lance a boil for the rich Mrs. Dodd my name 
 will go everywhere, with the statement that I performed a skill- 
 ful operation — it costs me nothing and brings me business. 
 Moreover, I'm protected, for if the scalpel slips and Mrs. Dodd 
 bleeds to death the legal department of the organization takes 
 my case, free of charge, and gets me out of the scrape, and all 
 publicity is suppressed. I get all this for annual dues of only 
 fifty dollars. Besides, I can get myself called out of churches 
 or theaters any time I wish, and that makes the people sit up 
 and exclaim: 'My, what a practice Doctor Sale has! He must 
 be very successful!' And I can have myself interviewed, and 
 my learned pronouncements on serums and health hints and 
 dietetics will be published free in the newspapers, and my busi- 
 ness booms accordingly." 
 
 "Wonderful!" exclaimed Doctor Benson with a sardonic 
 smile. "German propaganda is piffle compared to this ! And — 
 may I ask? — you believe this is contributing to the improve- 
 ment of public morals and health?" 
 
 "No. It is contributing only to our bank accounts." 
 
 "And you are not ashamed to say so?" 
 
 "Don't say that, Benson ! I am ashamed of it, God knows ! 
 All this medical propaganda, this poisonous drugging and mad 
 carving, this criminal scaring of people into the clutches of the 
 leech! . . . But what can I do? What are you going to do?" 
 
 "God knows ! I am asking myself that same question. The 
 honest doctor is having a hard time of it in these days of ram- 
 pant commercialism." 
 
 "Honesty is an obsolete virtue, Benson. Deceit, hypocrisy, 
 lying — they're in the air, they're characteristic of the age, 
 they've plunged the world into war, they're destroying civil- 
 ization!" 
 
 "That reminds me: were you in the Glass theater on the 
 Fourth? No? Didn't hear the speech-making there? Oh, no; 
 guess it didn't amount to much — although Roake spoke." 
 
 "So? Any reference to England?" 
 
 Doctor Benson started. "A little, but quite veiled. Why?" 
 
 "Well, in the literature that he's sending broadcast I have 
 been surprised to read about the menace of the British Empire. 
 I really didn't know much about it before, how England has 
 
 138 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 destroyed every nation that's stood in her way. I've got some 
 of the dope somewhere. Here," taking some circulars from a 
 drawer, "take 'em along with you. I really am surprised at 
 Roake's daring, for England is our ally now. But he evidently 
 has the courage of his convictions. Besides, he's a world power 
 himself. And . . . But, I say, Benson, you'd better join his 
 organization — though it grinds me to give you the advice." 
 
 Doctor Lann was but slightly communicative. "Yes," he 
 admitted, "I am aware of the dangers of centralized power. 
 But we are all in it now. Look at our Government, conducting 
 the war like an absolute dictator, running railroads, controlling 
 food ! It's in the air, I guess." 
 
 "But," Doctor Benson persisted, "Roake is a skilled surgeon. 
 Why isn't he contented with his ability to serve the public? 
 Why must he prostitute his profession to politics?" 
 
 "He is striking for power, as everybody is, from the Kaiser 
 up. He is no longer a physician, he is ... I don't know what. 
 I don't know what I am, either. But I'm making money — 
 By the way, did you see my little essay on 'The Normal Life- 
 Cycle' that was published in Roake's magazine? Here," hand- 
 ing him a pamphlet from a considerable pile on the desk, "take 
 one along. It goes all over the world. Wonderful advertising, 
 and doesn't cost me a cent." 
 
 Doctor Benson went back to his office and threw himself 
 into his chair in despair. "No wonder the world is at war!" he 
 groaned. "God help us!" 
 
 Then he drew out the application for membership in the 
 Roake organization and fell to studying it. At length his hand 
 reached for a pen. "I'm a coward," he muttered. He took 
 up the pen and dipped it, but hesitated, and slowly laid it down 
 again. "I won't do it!" he said sharply. "I won't!" He tossed 
 the application upon the table and started to rise. But hfe 
 halted, with his eyes fixed upon the paper. Again he settled 
 down in his chair and took it up. Again his hand went out 
 and seized the pen. Then, as if shaking off some invisible 
 influence, he threw both paper and pen upon the table, sprang 
 from his chair, and began to pace the room. "I won't be 
 coerced! I won't! I won't! He can't make me!" he uttered 
 repeatedly, striding back and forth in great agitation, and clasp- 
 ing and unclasping his hands behind his back. But again he 
 returned to his chair and dropped into it with a groan. "But 
 what can I do? I can't fight him alone!" 
 
 His head dropped upon his arms, and he remained thus for 
 some time. At length he roused up and drew the application 
 savagely to him. "I'm a coward, a damned coward!" he mut- 
 tered between his teeth. And he seized the pen and hurriedly 
 affixed his signature to the paper. 
 
 139 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The door opened and he looked up. Ted Sayor was entering. 
 He rose quickly and advanced, scrutinizing the young man to 
 make certain that it really was Ted. The latter came stealthily 
 into the room, glancing carefully back, and closed the door 
 noiselessly behind him. Doctor Benson held out a hand. "It's 
 an age since I've laid eyes on you," he said, "What brings you 
 here?" 
 
 Ted grasped the doctor's hand and sank into a chair, where 
 he sat breathing hard. His cheeks were ashen, but for a spot 
 that glowed like a live coal in each. His shoulders drooped, and 
 his clothes hung loosely on his frame. But the old smile of 
 insouciance still fluttered about his mouth, and his attire was 
 as meticulously perfect as ever. "Organ recital,", he replied 
 huskily. "And I don't like the program. Thought you might 
 suggest some changes." 
 
 "You haven't come to consult me professionally?" the doc- 
 tor queried in amazement. "Why, I thought you found us 
 medics useful only as butts for your jokes." 
 
 "I've had my inning," Ted answered, smiling wanly. "It's 
 yours now. My own fault entirely: I caressed sin; now I'm 
 embracing .... death." 
 
 "Not so bad as that, I hope!" 
 
 "I've said it. Doc. But I thought I'd like to have you look 
 me over to see if there's any hope — although I know there isn't. 
 But I want to hear somebody say so. I'm tired of being strung 
 along. I want to hear the verdict from somebody who's sincere. 
 And you'll have to hurry. Doc. And, remember, it's all between 
 you and me : nobody else is to know that I've been to see you. 
 And I don't know as I can screw up courage to come again. . . 
 Takes strength to climb your stairs, you know. . ." A fit of 
 coughing seized him, and he bent forward, wracked with the 
 paroxysm. 
 
 The doctor stood studying him, his head nodding slowly. 
 Then, as Ted recovered: "I don't believe I am the one. You'd 
 better consult a specialist." 
 
 Ted sat back with a tired sigh. "I don't want a specialist," 
 he said, smiling feebly. "I want an old-time family physician; 
 I want an old grandmother sort of doctor, one of the hand- 
 holding, back-patting, comfort-giving, loving kind, that don't 
 sit with five fingers on the cash-register and two on your pulse." 
 
 A lump came into the doctor's throat, but he forced a laugh 
 as he sat down. "There are no more good old family doctors," 
 he said gently. "They have been swallowed up in the specialist 
 mania. Oh, I know the kind you mean, like my dear old prae- 
 ceptor. Best and kindest-hearted man in the world. He knew 
 everything there was to know about anatomy, physiology, path- 
 
 140 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ology, and nothing whatever about curing his patients. His 
 hobby was what he called the 'shotgun remedy', a -mixture of 
 some fifty different ingredients which he gave to his patients in 
 the hope that at least one of them woijld prove efficacious. He 
 literally filled our town cemetery with his drugging and slash- 
 ing. Everybody knew it, and they made all manner of fun of 
 him; but just the moment anybody got sick the old sawbones 
 was sent for posthaste, and was as credulously believed and 
 obeyed as a South Sea idol." 
 
 Ted seemed to revive as he listened. "You've got the dope. 
 Doc," he returned, with something of his old spirit of banter. 
 "And people in those days were just as healthy as we are now 
 with our enormous crop of specialists, who are mostly experts 
 in price and name only. Besides, a fellow could afford to be 
 sick then and still have enough money left after paying the 
 family doctor to go to an occasional circus. For the doctor 
 wasn't living in the biggest house on the main street then. 
 But it's only the rich who can afford to be ailing in these days 
 of intensive specializing, 'cause first comes the diagnostician, 
 then mama's nerves must be treated by a neurologist, papa's 
 throat by a laryngblogist, sister's appendix by an abdominal 
 surgeon, auntie's lungs by a pulmonary expert, the kiddo must 
 have a pediatrist, half the family need an oculist, the old folks 
 require an orthopedist, and everybody must have a dentist — ■ 
 then there's the army of expert assistants to operate the X-ray 
 apparatus, the microscopes, the sterilizers, to take cultures, 
 grow the bacteria, and to handle the instruments and mechan- 
 ical devices and clear the way for the hygienic specialist, the 
 chemist to analyze the water and scrub the air, and the bacteri- 
 ologist to scout for any threatened invasion of naughty germs^^ 
 and meantime someone will need an obstetrician, and a trained 
 nurse or two, and several practical nurses, and bandage winders, 
 and — -well, then we'll probably be gathered in by the undertaker 
 who is waiting just outside the door. The rest will be left to 
 God Almighty." He stopped to take breath, for the effort had 
 been exhausting. 
 
 The doctor laughed. "There isn't much left to God Almighty 
 these days," he said. "They were toting a bone of St. Anne in 
 a procession over here at St. Michael's Roman Ghurch last Sun- 
 day. A gorgeously robed priest carried a hungry-looking bit of 
 bone — Lord knows whose it was originally! — he was toting it 
 on a dish of gold, while hundreds of fanatics swarmed around 
 him, singing and calling upon St. Anne to solve their problems 
 for them. It's difficult to see just where God Almighty comes 
 in these days." Then, after a pause, in which he sat looking 
 closely at Ted, his face became grave. "Have you been receiving 
 special treatment?" he abruptly asked. 
 
 141 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Ted hesitated. "Roake has been tinkering about me a bit," 
 he reluctantly admitted. 
 
 The doctor's eyes grew large. "Then I must not interfere," 
 he returned quickly. "U.nless you have dismissed him, I could 
 not ..." 
 
 "Nobody ever dismisses Roake," Ted put in huskily. "When 
 he is called he brings his trunk and comes to stay. When he 
 -leaves he takes a deed to the house. I can't find out anything 
 from him about myself. . . But I know I'm in a bad way. . . 
 I know what I've got. . . I know what I need: it's help of the 
 right sort, the honest sort. That's why I'm here. But I don't 
 want it known. Yes, I've been receiving treatment, very special 
 treatment; and since you are not a member of the great Roake 
 organization . . ." 
 
 "How did you learn that?" the doctor interrupted. 
 
 "I've heard them talking about you. They don't understand 
 why you are not in, but they're expecting you. But you're not 
 going to join, eh? Oh, it's a great scheme, this thing that 
 Roake and Whittier worked up and the Craggs financed! It's 
 a bottomless grab-bag, and those doctors and preachers are in 
 to their waist-lines. But I knew you wouldn't join. . . And 
 that's why I came to see you. . . That's why I don't mind 
 saying that Roake is shooting serums into my arms, and swab- 
 bing my throat with funny stuff, and ... So I want you to 
 give me the sentence: it'll come better from you than from 
 him." 
 
 "But," said the doctor, "why don't you go to Arizona? Get 
 away from this abominable climate." 
 
 Ted laughed hollowly. "Didn't I tell you that I caressed 
 sin and am embracing death? I can't break away — at least, until 
 the war ends and my financial ... I say, you're not going to 
 join the Roake organization, are you?" 
 
 The doctor's reply was irrelevant. "You say Roake uses 
 serums in your case? But medicine will not reach it; there is 
 no serum known that will. . . You say he . . ." He paused 
 and sat back, looking at Ted questioningly. 
 
 Then, after long reflection, the doctor put another query. 
 "Has nothing been said with regard to isolating you? Harris 
 Chaddock, the Health Executive ..." 
 
 "Oh, Roake turned me over to him at first," Ted replied. 
 "And Harris sent me right to a young dentist who had just 
 opened up here. Infection of the gums, he said. I'd never had 
 any trouble with my teeth. But the dentist tinkered away, 
 treating my gums, until one day, in Roake's office, I was sitting 
 at Chaddock's desk and happened to see a note from this dentist 
 in which he refunded to Harris half the fees he had charged 
 
 142 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 me to date. I knew then that I was the goat, and I quit the 
 dentist prontol It had cost me then something over three 
 thousand dollars, of which Harris got half. But I couldn't 
 squeal ... I ... I say, why am I telling you this? To get it 
 off my weak chest, I suppose. Part of your treatment, eh?" 
 
 The doctor leaned closer to Ted. "Do you think that Harris 
 makes a practice of sending patients to such dentists?" 
 
 Ted smiled. "He's sent many a patient with perfectly 
 healthy teeth to unethical dentists who have charged thousands 
 of dollars for treatment that wasn't required and for extracting 
 absolutely sound teeth, and have split the fees with Harris. 
 It's an old game. Doc. I knew you were innocent; that's why 
 I came to you. I knew you didn't conduct clinics where patients 
 were given preliminary treatment free and then steered to 
 other doctors in the clique who would bleed them and split the 
 fees with you." 
 
 "And you know that this is done?" 
 
 "Don't ask me. Ask some of the members of the Roake 
 organization. Ask some of the general practitioners in that 
 wonderful organization how many times they have sent patients 
 to surgeons for useless and needless operations, for which they 
 got half the fees. Harris Chaddock insisted that I should sub- 
 mit to an operation, and tried to send me to . . . Oh, well, it 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 "Is Harris exercising his privilege under the Wess law of 
 visiting homes in search of contagion?" 
 
 "With Fay Meuse as his chauffeur, yes. It's an edifying 
 spectacle." 
 
 "But the Wess law is really unconstitutional. No less an 
 authority than Senator Chaddock once said so." 
 
 "Senator Chaddock!" A tremor seemed to pass through 
 Ted's body. "The senator . . . Yes, and there's something 
 strange there. . . But I can't say anything. . . He's handling 
 my affairs. . . But I never see him now unless Roake is pres- 
 ent. . . He's Roake's lap-dog." 
 
 Another violent coughing spell came upon' Ted. The doctor 
 rose and hurried to minister to him. At its conclusion Ted 
 lay back in his chair weak and shaking. "I'm talking too 
 much," he whispered hoarsely. "Forget all I've said. Doc. I 
 guess my sickness has turned my head a bit. Don't . . . don't 
 give me . . . away, will you? I was so full of this ... I 
 simply had to spill it out. . • And I knew of nobody to tell it 
 to but you. And . . . you're not going to join them, are you?" 
 
 The doctor's eyes roved to the application which he had 
 just signed. He stared at it for a moment, then he reached out 
 covertly,, drew it to him, and crushed it in his fist. "No," he 
 
 143 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 said grimly, as he tossed the crumpled paper into the waste 
 basket. "Now tell me, how do you happen to know these 
 things?" 
 
 "Oh, Roake keeps me in his offices a good deal, and hun- 
 dreds of doctors and dentists-:— mostly fledgelings — and others 
 come in every day. The place is crowded. I can't help hearing 
 a lot of their talk. Some of them keep very quiet . . . look 
 ashamed; some of them are honest, but scared. But some are 
 brazen and boast of their practices. Some of them drink a 
 lot . . . they get around the war-time prohibition act by pre- 
 scribing liquor for fake patients." . 
 
 "But how can Roake keep you in his offices a good deal?" 
 Ted shivered and drew his coat closer, although the day 
 was warm. The doctor sat expectant. Then, as Ted did not 
 reply, the doctor leaned toward him and laid a hand upon his 
 knee. "Has he any hold?" he asked. 
 
 Ted gasped and shrank away, his eyes wide and staring. A 
 great fear seemed, to possess him, and he trembled violently. 
 "Good God, Doc, don't say that I told you anything! . . ." 
 
 "Not a word, be assured. You need not tell me anything 
 further." 
 
 "Doc . . . forget all I've said ! Only tell me, is there any 
 hope ... for me to •• . outlast the war?" 
 
 The doctor's eyes grew moist. "I can't say, my boy." 
 "Can anybody, Doc? Can anybody help me?" 
 The doctor shook his head. "Your malady," he said sadly, 
 "is not physical, it is of the soul. I can do nothing for you. 
 Materia medica is helpless." 
 
 "Is there nobody who can help me? . . . nobody?" 
 The pleading look in Ted's deep-sunk eyes and cavernous 
 face brought a lump again into the doctor's throat. It was the 
 despair of the shadowless inmates of the Dantean hell. He 
 rose and went to a window. The plaintive wail of "Where Is 
 My Wandering Boy To-night?" rose from a Salvation Army 
 corps in the street below. A dull-eyed, listless group of corner- 
 loafers stood ga\*king at the singers. The metallic twang of 
 the guitar, the tinkling rattle of the tambourine, the musicless 
 thud of the big drum jarred upon the doctor's taut nerves. 
 After twenty centuries of Christianity must the healing message 
 of "Peace on earth . . ." be delivered with such material 
 accompaniments and with no demonstration of "signs follow- 
 ing"? What hope was there in such hand-to-mouth methods? 
 It was right, indeed, that they should be concerned for the alle- 
 viation of the slum-monger's distresses ; but what did they do — 
 what could they do — to blot such distresses from human con- 
 sciousness? Must the helpless and hopeless still be scared into 
 
 144 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 beliefs in a material heaven and a literal hell, and be given a 
 pittance of creature comforts for the transmuting bread of life? 
 There was something wrong, ah, dreadfully wrong in the human 
 interpretation of the Christ-message! Else would that youth 
 sitting there with the sentence of death on his feverish 
 brow . . . 
 
 The doctor turned. "I know of but one person on earth 
 who can help you," he said in a trembling voice. "Marian 
 Whittier." 
 
 A cry burst from Ted. "She tried to help me . . . but it 
 was with religion !" 
 
 "And you rejected her? Then," said the doctor, averting 
 his head to hide his brimming eyes, "there is nothing to do but 
 await the end." 
 
 CHAPTER 21 
 
 IT was a momentous cast of the die that Doctor Benson had 
 made, and this fact was borne home to him when, on the 
 day following his talk with Ted Sayor, he sat facing Alden 
 Cragg across his old, worn table, and heard statements that left 
 him gaping. He had sent for Alden in the hope of discovering 
 Marian's whereabouts, and this in Ted Sayor's behalf. But he 
 did not deny that he had likewise a personal motive, for, facing 
 the probable consequences of his refusal to'join the Roake 
 organization, he had sore need of every available support. 
 
 "I was impressed by your talk in the Glass theater," he said. 
 "The devil himself seems to be at work stirring up hatred that, 
 after this present war, -will plunge the United States into war 
 with England unless checked. I believe you put your finger 
 squarely upon it. I believe the good Lord sent you to the the- 
 ater that afternoon. I am with you. But what can we do? Is 
 there anybody we can go after?" 
 
 "I am not persecuting any man," Alden replied quickly. "I 
 could not work that way. Destroying human beings does not 
 destroy evil. But evil can be made to destroy itself." 
 
 "Ah, so that's your method of procedure, eh? But how can 
 the evil be made to commit suicide?" 
 
 Alden shook his head. "I cannot say," he replied. 
 
 "But if you knew positively that some certain person was 
 the cause of a diabolical movement, such as fomenting war 
 between us and England, ^ou would advocate arresting him, 
 wouldn't you?" 
 
 "To imprison the man would not stop the movement. That 
 which causes the movement is impersonal." 
 
 145 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "True," the doctor admitted with some exasperation; "but 
 you can't arrest ideas. . ." 
 
 "Yes, you can. And you can destroy them, if they are false. 
 They can be brought to trial and made to suffer capital pun- 
 ishment." 
 
 Doctor Benson looked at Alden queerly. "H'm!" he said, 
 after a considerable pause. "That's a new one." 
 
 "No, it is not," Alden replied. "It goes back at least as far 
 as the time of Jesus. Indeed, one of the greatest mistakes man- 
 kind have made is that of trying to separate between the sin 
 and the sinner. The sin itself is the sinner. And it is the sin 
 that must be dealt with." 
 
 "H'm!" said the doctor again. "Well, it's true that hang- 
 ing criminals doesn't destroy crime." 
 
 "And the criminal is not the sinner. The real criminal is 
 the aggressive suggestion that comes to him in the guise of 
 good and whispers that some benefit is to be gained by com- 
 mitting the crime." 
 
 "True, speaking metaphysically. But, practically . . ." 
 
 "The world is at last slowly learning that the metaphysical 
 is the only really practical," Alden declared. "The Bible is a 
 closed book and Christianity but dead ceremony unless meta- 
 physically interpreted and employed." 
 
 "Then, for example, if we do not approve of — ^well, let us 
 say, the Roake plan, the idea would not be to knock Roake 
 on the head, but to devise some scheme of overthrowing the 
 * plan, eh? Or, better, antidote it, as it were. That's why you 
 were so courageous in the Glass theater, eh? But I think you 
 were foolhardy, for that little talk is going to cost you dear. 
 And yet, there is no one else who would have dared take the 
 stand you took." 
 
 Alden looked up at the doctor. "Yes, there is," he said. 
 "Marian Whittier." 
 
 "That's right!" the doctor ejaculated. "And now I want to 
 find her. Where is she?" 
 
 "In Persia," Alden answered in a low tone. 
 
 "Persia! Well, what is she doing there?" 
 
 "Tracing the route of the lost ten tribes of Israel." 
 
 "Tracing the . . ." The doctor's eyes bulged and he sat 
 back staring at Alden. Then a look of suspicion crept into his 
 face. He had heard the rumor that Alden Cragg was mentally 
 unsound. . . 
 
 "It is Truth alone that will destr&y false ideas," Alden went 
 on. "The tracing of the English back to Israel will strengthen 
 the bond between England and the United States, and the . . ." 
 
 A look of comprehension came into the doctor's face and 
 
 146 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 he sat up quickly. "By heaven!" he cried, "it may be that 
 therein lies the solution of the whole trouble. And that girl 
 saw this long ago and has done the only thing possible to meet 
 it! A clever girl! A wonderful girl! A . . . But what are 
 you going to do now?" 
 
 "I am working with her," said Alden quietly. 
 
 "By heaven!" again exclaimed the doctor. "I understand 
 now! But look out! While you're waiting for evil to commit 
 suicide; these fellows will have you in an asylum, or worse! 
 The movement that you are opposing is far more widespread 
 than you probably think, and it is thoroughly entrenched! 
 Your opposition may cost you your freedom! . . ." 
 
 "I am not afraid," said Alden quietly. 
 
 "And if they don't railroad you into a madhouse they'll 
 drop you." 
 
 "I do not fear death." 
 
 "You don't, eh? Why?" 
 
 "I have met it," was the calm reply. 
 
 The doctor sat bolt upright. "You . . . you have met 
 it!" 
 
 But the arrival of a patient at that moment interrupted the 
 conversation, and Alden, reminding the doctor that he was a 
 chauffeur and that his time was not his own, took his leave. 
 
 Hours afterward the doctor sat musing over the odd inter- 
 view. "He was reported dead, in Palestine," he reflected. "He 
 is very much alive now, that's certain! And yet he's not the 
 same; he's completely changed, doesn't even look the same. 
 He used to be an unbearable cad, a measly coward, a . . . 
 Now he's all tenderness, humility, but. Lord! there's strength 
 underneath it! Is it because he lost his money and had to 
 become a chauffeur? No; something happened over there. . . 
 And I'd give ten years, of my life to know what it was." 
 
 And Doctor Roake would have made, and gladly, a similar 
 bargain. Failing the opportunity, however, he concentrated his 
 thought upon the psychological aspects of the strange case and 
 their bearing upon his own activities. Alden had suddenly 
 developed unwonted force of character: whither might it not 
 lead? The development had taken place since his association 
 with Madam Galuth: what might that portend? But the doctor 
 had long desired a deeper acquaintance with this woman's 
 character: and was not Alden now furnishing it? The doctor 
 could afford to wait patiently. He was certain that Alden's 
 audacious accusations made in the Glass theater had been suc- 
 cessfully antidoted — a man in the doctor's public position was 
 always subject to attacks from the fanatical. And the people 
 believed that Alden's war experience and the vicissitudes which 
 
 147 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 he had been summoned to bear in these' past few months had 
 disturbed the delicate balance of his mind. 
 
 From Harris Chaddock the doctor had secured an outline 
 of Alden's audacious conduct in Florida. The doctor had com- 
 municated with the rector since Alden's return to Crestelridge, 
 and he had written a congratulatory letter to Doctor Rowley, 
 in which he rejoiced in the latter's highly successful conduct 
 of Ethel's case — "a notable triumph for medicine," he wrote — 
 and expressed the desire to know him better. He had said 
 little to Harris, and the latter was kept in an endless quandary 
 as to just how much the doctor knew regarding himself and 
 Ethel. 
 
 And yet Harris was fain to believe that the doctor was 
 highly sympathetic toward them both, for he let fall a remark 
 one day that was more than an indication thereof. "Poor girl," 
 the doctor had observed, after passing some further comment 
 on Ethel's recovery, "she is more sinned against than sinning." 
 And then, while Harris' ears hung wide, the doctor casually 
 referred to certain rumors regarding Alden's association with 
 Marian Whittier in Palestine — rumors which dropped into Har- 
 ris' hungry soul like manna. "And you recall Alden's remarks 
 in St. Jude's parish house, when he said: 'To me there came, 
 through the love of another, the Christ'," the doctor concluded. 
 "Through the love of another. . . H'm!" 
 
 The doctor had not mentioned the affront which Aldenhad 
 offered in wiring him from Florida that his services were not 
 required for Ethel. Indeed, but for a slight heightening of the 
 color in his cheeks at the time, one would have said that the 
 message had not touched him. Nor, beyond the impatience — 
 rather than anger — ^which the doctor had manifested in the 
 Glass theater, had there been any outward indication that he 
 had been stirred by that incident. But it was a matter of com- 
 ment among those closely associated with him that of late he 
 had seemed more absorbed, more reticent, possibly a trifle less 
 genial; and some had remarked that the tremendous load which 
 he was carrying wastoo great for anyone less than superhuman. 
 
 To Harris Chaddock, the doctor's acceptance of Alden 
 Cragg's affronts appeared inexplicable. "The Whittiers and 
 Rowley were mush in Cragg's hands," he mentally commented; 
 "and is it possible that he has Roake hypnotized too? The 
 whelp! Why did I let him throw me out? But he was acting 
 like a mad bull; he flabbergasted me with his sudden change 
 of front. But I'll play with him now for a while! And he 
 wired Roake not to come — ^Lord above ! Lucky for him he had 
 a good doctor in Rowley — I'll say that much, even if Rowley 
 did turn me down. God! • . . it's been a damned nasty mess, 
 
 148 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and I hope I've heard the last of it!- Ethel would divorce him 
 if she had half a case. , . And by the gods I believe she has 
 now!" . . . And so impressed did he become through reflec- 
 tion on the doctor's remarks in regard to Alden and Marian in 
 Palestine that shortly thereafter he slipped away and boarded 
 a train for Florida, with the doctor's fertile suggestion packed 
 securely away in the back of his seething mind. . . 
 
 Although it was midsummer, and Crestelridge fain would 
 have dozed as was its invariable wont, despite the crash of war 
 without, nevertheless there were certain events forward that 
 kept it quite awake. . And not the least significant of these was 
 the Primal Motors episode— as spectacular as it was fruitful. 
 It was to be expected, of course, that in the moment of greatest 
 quiet the watchful speculators in this always attractive stock 
 would be alert to any advantage; and apparently an advantage 
 was now. discerned, for, almost coincident with the announce- 
 ment by the press of Ethel's grave illness, a flurry in Primal 
 Motors had been observed on 'Change. And upon the reopen- 
 ing of the Stock Exchange after the National holiday, it was 
 noted that such old warriors as Henry Tellus, and Black, and 
 Kerl, and others of their cronies, were back from their seaside 
 resorts and in harness. For the flurry was fast developing into 
 a decided movement. 
 
 There were many attracted to this movement, like moths to 
 a candle, but of them all probably Ted Sayor was the only one 
 who could not afterward remember just how it had beeri 
 brought to his attention. He believed that Doctor Roake had 
 remarked in his presence that there would doubtless be con- 
 siderable speculating in the stock, and that there was a rare 
 opportunity now for one "on the inside" to clean up a fortune. 
 "On the inside" meant the favor of such as Senator Chaddock, 
 who was purchasing additional stock in the corporation to 
 recoup the Cragg fortune. "When the estate returns to Alden," 
 Ted thought he overheard Doctor Roake say, "it will be vastly 
 greater than now." 
 
 Ted's necessities were wholly spiritual, yet he saw them only 
 as physical and financial: and in both of these he confessed 
 himself woefully "short". Therefore, when Doctor Roake cas- 
 ually inquired of him if he was dabbling in Primal Motors, he 
 determined, as he informed the brokers whom Senator Chad- 
 dock sent to him on his request, to "take a flyer". Whereupon, 
 the senator advised him to proceed cautiously, and to purchase 
 but a few thousand shares to sell on the rising market which 
 now seemed assured. 
 
 It was the one bright spot that had appeared in Ted's dun 
 sky for many a day when his brokers announced to him that 
 
 34 149 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 they had purchased 5,000 shares of the stock in the Primal 
 Motors Corporation on his account at 110 and on the verbal 
 assurance that it would be delivered to him at a slightly higher 
 figure in case it continued to rise, and that they had immedi- 
 ately sold it at a price that would net him a handsome profit. 
 "It means a recoup," sighed Ted. "It means Arizona and health. 
 It means life, when I can break away from i . . him!" 
 
 But of a sudden Primal Motors advanced sharply, quite 
 beyond expectations. Ted's brokers hurried to demand the 
 stock for him to deliver: he could break just even then. But 
 to the consternation of the brokers they discovered that the oral 
 assurances which had been given them could not be fulfilled, 
 for not a share of the stock was to be had. 
 
 Ted laughed. "Well, I won't have' to deliver what I can't 
 get," he said, as he watched the ticker in the International Club 
 with something akin to amusement. "But," his brokers quickly 
 informed him, "the purchaser of the stock which you sold 
 demands immediate delivery! We're caught! . . . squeezed! 
 A clique has cornered the market and won't release a share!" 
 
 "Who bought from me?" Ted asked. And the name of a 
 powerful and wholly unscrupulous trader was given him. . . 
 
 Again the stock advanced; and then, a few days later, and 
 quite without warning, it abruptly soared, soared pyrotech- 
 nically and with such momentum that it rested not until it 
 touched 300. Ted's brokers were frantic : their own reputation 
 was at stake. 
 
 The stock leaped to 400. Ted's loss was appalling. He 
 laughed again, and wondered vaguely if the residue of his estate 
 would total so much. 
 
 "We will demand an embargo on trading in the securities 
 of Primal Motors!" the brokers cried, for 'Change was going 
 wild. And they did. But, despite the embargo which the board 
 of governors placed on trading in the securities, despite the 
 frenzy, despite the swelling and dwindling of fortunes over 
 night, trading went briskly on "over the counter", and the stock 
 went to 800. 
 
 At this point the directors of the Primal Motors Corpora- 
 tion calmly, announced the July stock dividend of a share to 
 each share held. The price jumped to 1,000. And settlement 
 was finally made on that basis. The press ran great headlines, 
 and hourly "extras" were published. Society hurried back 
 from the summer resorts agog. 
 
 "How much stock did you say Henry holds?" Mrs. Kerl 
 excitedly asked of Mrs. Tellus. 
 
 "Heavens, I don't know!" was that exulting lady's reply. 
 "But I do know that we've made millions, simply millions!" 
 
 150 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But did you hear that the Cragg estate had been caught?" 
 
 "Yes!" Her voice fell to an awed whisper. "Senator Chad- 
 dock was trying to build it up, you know, and he bought heavily 
 and sold short. Couldn't get a share of the stock. Showed 
 frightfully poor judgment. It finishes poor insane Alden. But 
 there are others holding the bag, Henry says," 
 
 "Who?" Mrs. Kerl asked anxiously. 
 
 "They say Ted Sayor is," Mrs. Tellus replied. "Caught for 
 an awful amount — I don't know how much, but Henry says 
 Ted's ruined. Think of it, the Sayor and Cragg fortunes 
 simply wiped out!" 
 
 Mrs. Kerl caught her breath. "Oh!" she gasped. 
 
 "Of course," Mrs. Tellus went on, "I don't care anything 
 about Alden, but I'm sorry for poor Ted. He's a good fellow, 
 and he's sick and can't go to work. I can't imagine what will 
 become of him now." 
 
 "Well," put in Mrs. Black, "we have the war to thank for 
 this. Government contracts made Primal Motors possible." 
 
 "Humph!" Mrs. Tellus returned, with a shrug of her shoul- 
 ders. "Henry says it wasn't the war or the Government, but a 
 poor Jew, David Barach. He invented the motor and took it to 
 Henry. You remember him, don't you? Made a disturbance 
 in St. Jude's last year. He's in the war now." 
 
 "Well, anyway," gurgled Mrs. Nence, "it's all been just 
 wonderful! And wasn't it exciting? ... I ordered two new 
 cars to-day!". . . 
 
 As the Primal Motors coup passed into history, Crestelridge 
 society recovered its breath and prepared to settle back into 
 its well-oiled grooves. But almost immediately it received a 
 succession of sharp shocks in a series of startling events that 
 rudely dispelled its dream of lethargy and left it gaping. The 
 first of these was the report that Ethel was securing a divorce 
 from Alden Cragg. . . "And — can you believe it? — on the 
 ground of unfaithfulness I" declared the questionably rich Mrs. 
 Dodd. "And the co-respondent — of all persons ! — Marian Whit- 
 tier! Won't this be rich?" 
 
 "Lovely!" agreed Mrs. Nence, trembling with delight. "I 
 do hope I can go to the trial every day!" 
 
 "But," Mrs. Tellus informed them, "Henry says that the 
 plea will be incompatibility. Alden will not contest the suit 
 if brought on that charge." 
 
 "Oh, how disappointing!" sighed Mrs. Nence, quite crest- 
 fallen. 
 
 "Humph!" grunted Mrs. Dodd, "he does that to protect 
 Marian's name. I always knew she would bear watching. He 
 has no case; why, they lived together in Jerusalem!" 
 
 151 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Heavens, you don't mean it!". . . 
 
 And with mucli whispering and significant shakes of the 
 head they set about arranging for detailed news service, for, 
 to their added disappointment^ the suit was to be brought in 
 Florida and Ethel would not return to Crestelridge until it was 
 settled. 
 
 On the heels of this came the information that Alden Gragg 
 had deeded the Gragg pew back to St. Jude's. "And a good 
 thing he did!" was Mrs. Kerl's vehement comment, "for I for 
 one would have resigned my membership if he hadn't!" 
 
 "But how can the rector be reconciled to Ethel's divorce?" 
 queried someone. "Marriage is a sacred sacrament, you know. 
 The Ghurch doesn't recognize divorce." 
 
 "Oh," laughed another, "the rector is being forced to become 
 modern. Why, the divorce laws are the prop of civilization! 
 If I thought I had to stay tied to my bear of a husband all 
 my life I'd commit suicide — or murder!" 
 
 "You are right. Divorce is not a question to be settled by 
 the moral code," stoutly asserted Mrs. Kerl. "A woman's a 
 fool not to leave her husband or her children if another man 
 comes along and offers her a better position in life, greater 
 wealth, more culture, and an easier time." 
 
 "Then husband and children don't make it either right or 
 wrong?" 
 
 "Gertainly not ! We must acquire the broader outlook. We 
 must rise above petty values. Ethel's conduct is magnificent!" 
 
 With the shock occasioned by the divorce suit now absorbed, 
 came another, albeit a mild one and, as society soon agreed, 
 a negligible one, had they not become so delicately sensitive 
 to them. This~ was the purchase of "Graggmont" by Doctor 
 Roake. 
 
 "But somebody had to buy it!" Mrs. Tellus asserted in 
 defense of the doctor's action. "When the Gragg estate van- 
 ished in Primal Motors, 'Graggmont' naturally was thrown 
 upon the market. Why shouldn't the doctor buy it?" 
 
 "Surely, my dear," agreed Mrs. Kerl. "But — ^well, it makes 
 one suspicious of the doctor." 
 
 "Well, if the old senator hadn't been an imbecile he'd never 
 have been caught as he was. He used to be too sharp for sUch 
 traps. Henry says Harris has taken his father to the Inter- 
 national Glub with him. Ted Sayor is in a cheap hotel; had 
 to leave the International Glub; he hasn't a cent!". . . 
 
 And meantime, on the gas-drenched, blood-soaked, rotting 
 fields of France great lines of sweating, straining creatures 
 swayed to and fro, with grimy bands in deadly grip on one 
 another's throats in a cursed struggle to crush out life. That 
 
 152 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mesmeric system by which the beast-like human has through 
 long centuries been subdued, restrained, "refined", until it could 
 stage the vanity fair of Crestelridge and call it "civilization", 
 had collapsed, and the primitive beast now stood forth in all 
 his starkness. The human sense of civilization in balance 
 against the human sense of the primitive had revealed one equal 
 to the other. 
 
 Alden Cragg saw in the varied activities of those about 
 him, those driven by the lust of commercial, social, political 
 power, naught but the swift disintegration of the human con- 
 cept of mind, even as the collapse of civilization in Europe 
 was revealing in itself the logical consequence of the ages of 
 dense materialism on which the flimsy structure had been 
 reared. Primitive man had been born in matter, he had sowed 
 in matter, had exalted it, worshiped and feared it, had sought 
 to give it life and intelligence, and had reaped death. 
 
 Amid the ruin that lay around him, Alden stood unmoved. 
 True civilization, he well knew, had not crumbled. That which 
 had so cruelly failed was the age-old attempt to refine the 
 human belief in minds many, in ignorance of the stupendous 
 fact that these are but counterfeits of the One Mind, God. The 
 financial ruin of Ted Sayor, the mental ruin of Senator Chad- 
 dock, the moral ruin of Ethel, the subtle loosing of death-laden 
 missiles against Marian Whittier, against himself, he knew 
 followed logically, inevitably, upon eating the fruit of the tree 
 of the knowledge of good and evil, the human knowledge that 
 makes matter and its loathsome train of evils as real as Spirit 
 and that causes defiance of Principle. The struggle of. the 
 hordes in France to preserve intact a civilization founded upon 
 such knowledge has been foredoomed from time immemorial. 
 
 In his great love for those who had been so basely betrayed, 
 Alden again sought Ted Sayor, Upon information obtained at 
 the International Club he found him in a dingy upper room 
 of the same cheap little hotel where he himself had taken 
 lodging after leaving "Craggmont". 
 
 Ted answered his knock and greeted him with a pathetic 
 assumption of his old-time nonchalance. "I took refuge here 
 to catch my breath and rest my feet," he smilingly explained, 
 and speaking in the husky tones that had now become habitual 
 to him. "I've been run through a sieve, so you see me a bit 
 strained," casting his eyes around the dingy room. "However, 
 we are now brothers in affliction." 
 
 "Brothers in opportunity," Alden answered, pressing Ted's 
 thin hand tenderly. "We've both been stripped of material 
 hindrances, so we are better able to run a good race." 
 
 Ted smiled as he dropped into a chair. "Do I look like an 
 athlete?" 
 
 153 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I am not judging you according to the evidence of the 
 physical senses, Ted. The fact of what you really are renders 
 that evidence nul." 
 
 "I really am a penniless invalid, beaten in my last throw 
 for life." 
 
 "I cannot accept your judgment of yourself," Alden pro- 
 tested earnestly. "Oh, Ted, look up! The way of escape is 
 open!" 
 
 Again Ted smiled wanly. "Can I escape from . . . myself?" 
 
 "Not from your real self, but certainly from the false con- 
 cept of self that you are holding and manifesting." 
 
 Ted shook his head. "I'm not strong enough to-day to 
 argue philosophy with you," he said; "and if you talk religion 
 you'll have to go. I couldn't stand it." 
 
 "But won't you let me help you? Won't you take my hand 
 and walk with me?" 
 
 "Lord, Aldy-boy! you mean all right, but what could you 
 do?" 
 
 "Of myself, nothing, but . . ." 
 
 "There you go again ! Now don't, I beg of you ! You got 
 that evangelistic stuff in the war, but you must remember 
 that I haven't been exposed to it." His voice dropped to a fever- 
 ish whisper. "I wasn't accepted, you know. You understand, 
 don't you, that they rejected me because I was tubercular? 
 I ... I want people to get that right. The meanest man 
 produced by the war is the 'conscientious objector', you know. 
 He's a ... a slacker ... a skunk! . . . Roake. . ." He 
 started at his own utterance of the name, and threw a furtive 
 glance at Alden. Then, pulling himself together with an eflfort 
 and forcing a smile: "Forget the war, Aldyrboy. I'm not 
 interested. . . I say, it certainly was artistic, the way I was 
 trimmed in Primal Motors. I haven't recovered from the shock 
 ... I wasn't prepared for it as you were. It . . . it's unbeliev- 
 able, the way our. stars have fallen! I find it hard to ... to 
 adjust myself to my altered circumstances." 
 
 He glanced about the room and shivered. Where once he 
 had lounged among rare rugs, rich hangings, luxurious fur- 
 niture, with eager servants to meet his every whim, with wealth 
 apparently inexhaustible in the banks to maintain him in gilded 
 ease, now a single inner room, shabby and unclean, housed 
 him. A worn and faded carpet covered the creaking floor. 
 Torn, dirty curtains drooped in sickly fashion before unclean 
 windows that gave upon a noisome, ill-smelling court. The 
 rich viands of the International Club had been exchanged for 
 the scant and badly cooked menu served by slatternly waiters 
 in the hot, fly-infested dining room below. . . 
 
 154 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Sometimes," Ted murmured, "I wake up with a start and 
 call for Boots . . . dear old Boots . . . It's all a dream now 
 . , ..but those were gay, careless days. . . I always think I'm 
 going to wake and find myself strumming on the piano in 
 'Craggmont', or driving my car , . . That last car, Aldy-boy 
 . ; .it was a marvel! "The chassis alone cost twenty thousand 
 ... I had the body specially built. . ." 
 
 "Ted, awake I" 
 : Ted raised his head. "Why, Aldy-bqy, you're cruel!" he 
 protested. "Let me dream. It's all that's left now." 
 
 "Your dream is suicidal, Ted ! It is death ! Wake ! Break 
 the bonds of your slavery!" 
 
 Ted pulled himself up and stared hard at Alden. "What 
 . . . what are you driving at?" he whispered hoarsely. "You 
 are becoming personal." 
 
 "it is because of my love for you, Ted! I would release 
 you from your. slavery!" 
 
 Ted gasped. "Slavery!" he cried huskily. "God . . . that's 
 it! But you can't help me! No one is to blame but myself! 
 . . . And I'm doomed! Doomed!" 
 
 "You are not, Ted, unless you doom yourself! Come," 
 Alden urged, getting to his feet and extending his hands, "let 
 me lead you to freedom! Come! Come!" 
 
 For a moment a light glowed in Ted's straining eyes; the 
 color came again into his face; he sat up, seized the arms of 
 his chair and half rose. . . 
 
 Then his head fell forward and he sank back. "No," he 
 muttered, "no, I can't! Yes, it's slavery! It's the penalty I'm 
 paying. . . You escaped, but I was caught! The old senator 
 and I ... we were caught! . . ." 
 
 "The senator?" 
 
 "You haven't seen him lately? He's a wreck . . . God! a 
 maudlin wreck ! But he doesn't know why . . . And / do ! He 
 didn't put through the Primal Motors deal ... oh, no, not he ! 
 He didn't even handle my part in it, oh, no ! He couldn't, for 
 he falls asleep if you look at him! He can't concentrate . . . 
 can't complete a sentence that he starts! He follows Roake 
 around like a dog! . . . Sits on the doctor's doorstep waiting 
 for him. He mumbles as he walks, mumbles! I tell you he 
 mumbles! . . ." 
 
 "Ted!" cried Alden, bending forward and seizing Ted's 
 hand, "what do you mean?" 
 
 For a few moments Ted lay back with eyes closed. Then 
 he roused up and smiled feebly. "I ... I got a bit . . . ex- 
 cited, didn't I? But . . . forget it. It was good of you to come 
 to see me . . . poor fallen me. Let's talk about old times. 
 
 155 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 It's months since I've seen the old crowd. I shall not. see them 
 again . . . now." His voice sank low. "I wonder if they ever 
 miss me . . . Louise, Madeline ... I'd like one more dinner 
 at Leroux's. . ." 
 
 "Come, we'll go there now." 
 
 Ted shook his head. "I'm economizing . . . temporarily. 
 
 And I know you are, too. So I couldn't go as your guest. Please 
 
 . . ." He put a hand to his chest. "That bottle there, and the 
 
 spoon," indicating these articles on an adjacent table. "Roake 
 
 will ask me if I've taken it regularly. . ." 
 
 "He is treating you? Oh, Ted, break away! Break away! 
 Come with me! . . ." 
 
 "Impossible . . . now. Don't . . . please!" 
 
 "And you will not let me help you? Ted . . ." 
 
 "No, no, there is nothing you can do . . . unless you can 
 bring my money back." 
 
 "I can give you more than money. . ." 
 
 Ted held up a hand and smiled feebly.- "Don't, Aldy-boy. 
 You can't evangelize me. There, get that. sanctimonious look 
 off your face." 
 
 A look of sadness and great compassion came into Alden's 
 features as he stood yearning over Ted. Then he sighed and 
 moved away. But he turned and thrust a hand into a pocket. 
 "I want to help you until you get on your feet," he said gently. 
 "You said you were penniless. . ." 
 
 Ted drew himself up sharply. "No Sayor has ever begged!" 
 he asserted with dignity. "The fellows at the club would have 
 helped me, if I had wished it." 
 
 "But this will be a loan. . ." 
 
 "No, I will not take a penny!" 
 
 "But, Ted, obstinacy, stubbornness, and pride are the great 
 walls that shut out good." 
 
 Ted forced another weak smile. "Don't worry about me, 
 Aldy-boy . . . I . . . I'll wait a bit . . . then I'll get work of 
 some kind. Arid don't say anything to anybody about seeing 
 me to-day. , . I don't want the old crowd to ... to know 
 I'm . . . here." 
 
 A sound of loud voices came filtering through the thin par- 
 tition from an adjoining room. Ted glanced quickly in that 
 direction and shivered. "Medical inspectors," he muttered, 
 shrinking into his chair and meeting Alden's look of inquiry. 
 
 A woman's voice rose shrilly. "Are we mothers to have 
 no say as to our children? Are they to be vaccinated and 
 inoculated and operated upon whenever you so decide? Then 
 what are we parents for?" 
 
 "You are to bring the children into the world, and feed and 
 
 156 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 clothe them; but when it comes to their medical care, we doctors 
 will dictate that." 
 
 Alden started. He recognized the voice: it was Harris Chad- 
 dock's. He turned and caught Ted's eyes bent fearfully on 
 him. 
 
 "They've been hanging around here watching that child," 
 Ted whispered. "Some malicious person reported that it was 
 a diphtheria 'carrier'. The child hasn't been sick, but . . . It's 
 the Spanish Inquisition all over!" 
 
 "Here now, we'll have no nonsense ! . . ." Harris Chaddock's 
 voice boomed through the light wall. It was followed by the 
 banging of a door, by sounds of a struggle, and a woman's 
 agonized cry. "Doctor! For God's sake don't take my baby! 
 . . . Not to the pesthouse! . . . Not to the County Hos- 
 pital ! . • ." , A child's screams rent the air. 
 
 Alden sprang to the door and threw it open. In the hallway 
 a burly police officer was tearing a girl of some eight years 
 from the clutches of her frantic mother, while Harris Chaddock 
 was brutally attempting to pull the mother away and force, 
 her back into her room. 
 
 With the appearance of Alden, the actors in the tragedy 
 in the hallway seemed to become transmuted into inanimate 
 images. Then, slowly, the policeman relaxed. Quickly the 
 child slipped from his grasp and ran to her mother. And 
 Harris, recovering from his astonishment, pushed forward and 
 confronted Alden. 
 
 "So-b-o! It's the little soldier-boy! Maybe we've got the 
 wrong 'carrier', eh? We had you up once before. I think we'll 
 look you over again. . ." He turned to the officer. "Bring 
 him along, too," he commanded. 
 
 The policeman reached again for the child; but the mother, 
 who had been drawing the child slowly back, quickly thrust 
 her into the room and, springing after her, slammed and locked 
 the door in the officer's face. He turned and ran to the window 
 at the end of the hall. "She's carrying the kid down the fire- 
 escape!" he cried. And he rushed down the hallway to the 
 stairs to intercept her. 
 
 "Damn you!" cried Harris, wheeling menacingly upon 
 Alden. "You'll pay for this! Interfering with the law. . ." 
 
 "Come in here, Harris," said Alden in a low, calm voice. 
 "This is Ted Sayor's room. I want to talk with you." And 
 he smiled as he spoke. 
 
 Harris' eyes grew suddenly big. For a moment fear domi- 
 nated him. The things he intended to say remained unsaid; 
 the deeds he would have performed failed. And he stood star- 
 ing into Alden's calm face. 
 
 157 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then Alden turned and entered Ted's room. Perspiration 
 broke out over Harris. His anger had fled before his sudden 
 fear, and now his fear had vanished and given place to a great, 
 compelling curiosity. He was drawn; he could not resist; and 
 he followed Alden. 
 
 "I ... I had forgotten that you ._ . . were in this place," 
 he said, as his eyes fell upon Ted. And he appeared embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 "Ted is going to give us his room for a few minutes," Alden 
 continued. "There is a bench down at the end of the corridor, 
 Ted. Will you wait there for me? Thank you," as Ted, mar- 
 veling greatly, slowly rose to comply. Then Alden closed the 
 door behind him and faced Harris. 
 
 CHAPTER 22 
 
 IT has been said that mortals would be better if they knew 
 how. And surely I>octor Roake, typifying liberated mortal 
 mind, would not have placed such high value on the dross 
 of life had he not in ignorance yielded his mentality to the 
 clamoring brood of false suggestions that swarmed upon him in 
 the guise of personal good. Rarely gifted and endowed above 
 his fellow men, he might have found true satisfaction in the 
 service of mankind, rather than in that of self. Had he known 
 that he would discover his own greatest good only in the good 
 of others, he surely would have conserved the interest of public 
 health by conceding freedom of action to those who disagreed 
 with his changeful theories and his doubtful methods. 
 
 But through the various departments of health, in which 
 he was becoming a dominant factor, he was steadily prosti- 
 tuting his high calling to the lowest animal lusts. By fear, 
 and the riveting of public attention upon discord, he had 
 become a dangerous means of disseminating sickness rather 
 than a promoter of real wholeness. His widespread propaganda 
 was an education of the masses in the horrors of disease, rather 
 than in the harmonies of health. And his methods, now be- 
 coming ever more daring, more flagrantly abusive of human 
 rights, were taking the form of a ruthless coercion which, 
 pursued to its logical conclusion, must eventuate in the com- 
 plete subversion of popular government unless the mesmeric 
 spell which he was casting over the people should be broken. 
 
 The most recent manifestation of his rapidly increasing 
 tyranny was the issuance of mandatory cards to parents, requir- 
 ing, under penalty, that they submit their children to the med- 
 
 158 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ical attention of the local board of health. It was a measure 
 that had met with dissent by members of the board itself; 
 yet these, though they feared the effects of the drastic measure, 
 stood in greater fear of incurring the doctor's disapproval, and 
 they therefore silently concurred in the assumption of auto- 
 cratic control which he insisted that the board should thence- 
 forth increasingly manifest. 
 
 It was true that the functions now so dogmatically exercised 
 by Doctor Roake through this supine board far exceeded those 
 outlined by the state legislature; but the doctor smilingly 
 explained that he was but anticipating the passage of certain 
 benevolent legislation that would place the stamp of legality 
 upon his medical procedure. He did not, however, adumbrate 
 the fact that this procedure infringed every moral right of 
 man. And thus it was that the board of health in Crestelridge 
 became actually legislative — a precedent which Doctor Roake 
 expected to see adopted universally. 
 
 The appointment of Dr. Harris Chaddock as the health exec- 
 utive under the new Wess law had aroused the adverse criti- 
 cism of many, including physicians, many of whom felt — as 
 Doctor Benson did not hesitate to proclaim — that "a good hack 
 driver was spoiled when Harris was made a doctor." Yet in 
 the face of this disagreement Doctor Roake calmly arrogated 
 to himself complete control over the welfare of the community 
 and launched his remarkable religio-medical plan. This was 
 quickly followed by the enlisting of the masses in his various 
 health institutes; by the thorough organization of the women 
 in a frenzy of health-seeking for the home; by health councils 
 in all important centers; by a flamboyant proposal of a world- 
 health council to be held in Washington; and, not the least, 
 by securing the ministers through his skillful deleting of the 
 menacing "Union for Christian Healing". The doctors were not 
 slow to see that the autocracy which they had hitherto been 
 enjoying must soon be yielded to the more widespread autoc- 
 racy of the Roake plan, if they themselves would survive; 
 while the laity, beguiled by the promised stirring of Bethesda's 
 waters, scampered down pellmell to be the first to lave in the 
 healing flood. 
 
 In fealty to Doctor Roake, Harris Chaddock had shown him- 
 self as remarkable as his father. His zeal had been such that 
 he fain would have overridden all opposition to the doctor's 
 medical legislation with bayonets. Nor could it be said that in 
 the literal fulfillment of his duties as health executive he had 
 been remiss. In the execution of such mandates as the haling 
 of recalcitrant objectors to a summary justice, he was posi- 
 tively fanatical. If the mother of the child whom he was deter- 
 
 159 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mined to isolate as a "carrier" interposed resistance, she was 
 in his sight as criminal as the highwayman. 
 
 Yet withal, his abuse of his authority and privilege was 
 notoriqjis. He»was human, with every tendency a downward 
 one toward sheer animality. Arbitrary power wrought his 
 speedy ruin. In battening on the necessities of his fellow men 
 he became a conscienceless cannibal. In his lust for money* 
 his soul rotted. He had that very day hurried a patient off to 
 a confederate for an operation, his diagnosis of appendicitis 
 being based solely on abdominal pains following dietetic indis- 
 cretion. That the patient died under the needless operation 
 by a bungling novice was not a matter of conscience to him: 
 his first query thereafter concerned only his fee. 
 
 His determination to possess Ethel Whittier had not balked 
 at employment of the foulest means; yet it was based on no 
 consideration for the girl, who so blindly believed she loved 
 him, but on an obsessing regard for her financial prospects as 
 Penberry's heiress. His lusting sentiments, which he ignorantly 
 sought to dignify as love, inclined him rather toward such as 
 Fay Meuse; and upon this outcast woman he brazenly lavished 
 the most marked attentions. It was not strange, therefore, 
 that within the cramped soul of Fay Meuse there should have 
 developed a sense of proprietorship over Harris Chaddock, and 
 that it should have led to complications which, now that Ethel 
 was securing her freedom from Alden, were proving embar- 
 rassing. 
 
 And yet Doctor Roake had rather encouraged Harris in his 
 conduct toward this woman, even as the great doctor had 
 winked at his unethical practices. This had stimulated Harris 
 to even greater dfefiance of moral restraint. It had greatly 
 swelled his estimate oi self. It had increased his blatant self- 
 adulation. For the younger man, now fully mesmerized, was 
 wholly deficient in the subtlety of his powerful superior, else 
 he might have discerned the goal through the winding maze 
 that the doctor was threading, with him as a guidepost, one 
 ©f many. He might have seen himself a mere factor in the 
 doctor's intricate proof of the odd premise announced to Sen- 
 ator Chaddock on that windy night when the Cragg memorial 
 bell had cracked: that "evil thought is demonstrably more 
 powerful than good" — a premise on which the life-activities of 
 Doctor Roake had been frankly based. 
 
 As Alden faced him* his back to the door. Karris' heart 
 leaped into his throat. That uncanny "something" about that 
 tall, gray figure, that "something", fear-inspiring, menacingly 
 prophetic of judgment, was again manifesting. He wondered 
 vaguely through his sudden fear if Doctor Roake had felt that 
 
 160 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 subtle influence, and if it was that which had caused the doctor 
 to refuse Harris' plea that Alden be brought to trial for sanity. 
 This creature that had come back from the flames of war had 
 again assumed the appearance of a thing intangible, disem- 
 bodied. And to Harris, as he now stood staring with bulging 
 eyes, came chilling thoughts of death. 
 
 "Harris," the sepulchral tones seemed to drift slowly down 
 through endless corridors of unrecorded time, "Harris, why 
 will you die?" 
 
 Harris felt his blood turn to ice. Did this unearthly creature 
 intend to murder him? — as by the human code Alden Cragg 
 had full right ! He struggled to move, to flee, as one struggles 
 in a nightmare; yet he stood rooted to the spot. 
 
 "I know your thoughts ; they will manifest in death. I know 
 your ways; they are leading but to death. And I know that 
 the end is upon you." 
 
 Perspiration poured over Harris; his face went white; 
 weakness smote him, and he clutched at a chair. 
 
 "I am not ignorant of your doings — I say your doings, for 
 you would not understand me if I spoke impersonally of the 
 evil that uses you. I know that you sent David Barach to slay 
 me in 'No Man's Land'; I know that you betrayed our friend- 
 ship and brought Ethel to death's threshold; I know that her 
 babe — and yours — was slain by the mental assassin; I know 
 that you have been a ready tool to work death's deeds, and 
 that, your usefulness past, you will soon be melted in the fur- 
 nace of death; I know that you have sought to besmirch Marian 
 Whittier's fair name, and that upon your foul charges Ethel 
 seeks release from me— 'Ethel, who has just been brought up 
 out of the valley of death whither the mental assassin drove 
 her, whither you are being driven, though you know it not; 
 I know that gladly would you declare me insane, though you 
 know not that the mesmerism of evil has stolen your own 
 mind, your own soul, your sense of the right and the true. . ." 
 
 Harris stood with knees bent and mouth agape, steadying 
 himself by the chair. He would have cried out if he had pos- 
 sessed the strength. Alden appeared to him to be transfigured : 
 he saw him standing like a towering patriarch, in robes of 
 white, while from his mouth rolled words that carried doom. 
 
 "On Egypt's border . . ." Again that awful voice rolled 
 over the cringing Harris. ". . . stands an altar to the God 
 whom you deny. The human mind has reversed its meaning, 
 as the human mind reverses all Truth, and has made of it a 
 tomb. Down the long inclined way into that altar you are 
 traveling, driven by the evil dragon star. Before you yawns 
 the bottomless pit. . ." 
 
 161 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Good God!" Harris, with a wrench, broke the spell. "Do 
 you intend to kill me?" 
 
 "No. You are killing yourself. I would have you turn, ere 
 too late. Turn, Harris, turnt For death's hand is even now 
 upon your shoulder ! 
 
 "Yet you may escape. For above you is the tortuous way 
 that leads to the Christ-resurrection from material beliefs and 
 their endless woes. You cannot go forward but into the pit. 
 Turn, therefore, and start upward! In the name of the One 
 God, I call upon you to turn! The upward way is long for you; 
 but unless you turn and begin the toilsome journey now, death 
 shall soon engulf you, and the hell of the knowledge of the 
 nothingness of your worldly aims and ways will torment you 
 with unbearable anguish!" 
 
 He paused. Then a look of great tenderness spread over 
 his face. He advanced a step and held out his hands. "Harris, 
 I have seen . . . death. I would save you from the suffering 
 that I drew upon myself. I have sought to save Ethel, to protect 
 her, and you. I do not live for myself but for such as you and 
 Ethel. Oh, Harris, let me give you what I have found, for I 
 have found Life! You are entering death. . ." 
 
 "You . . . you threaten me?" burst from Harris. Anger 
 now mingled with his fear and lent him its false stimulus. 
 
 "Death threatens you." 
 
 "I knew you were up to deviltry! Now you've confessed it! 
 You've lied to me; now you threaten me!" 
 
 "Harris . . ." The tones were now low and pleading. "I 
 do not condemn you. It was the suggestion of evil that caused 
 you to commit such crimes against me, against Ethel, against 
 yourself. We are not enemies, for in the mental realm into 
 which I would lead you these do not exist. Harris, take my 
 hand; turn, and come with me. Break the mesmeric bonds 
 that now hold you." 
 
 A sneer came into Harris' face. His confidence had re- 
 turned. "Why don't you drop your sentimental nonsense and 
 get to the point and ask me to give Ethel back to you? You 
 want old Penberry's money now, eh? since you've been skinned! 
 You sly, lying dog! Do you think Ethel would live with 
 a cowardly cur like you? Do you think you can keep her from 
 me with your little threats?" 
 
 "I shall not keep her from you, Harris. But your ways 
 and your thoughts shall." 
 
 Harris' anger flamed into sudden rage, fanned by his mount- 
 ing fear. And fear blew wide the portals of his mind to 
 thoughts of murder. "You lie!" he cried, advancing threaten- 
 ingly. "All that you have said about me is a mess of lies! 
 
 162 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 David Barach . . . the dirty Jew! If he tried to get you, it 
 was because you killed his wife! Oh, I know a lot about you! 
 I know a lot about you and Marian Whit . • ." 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 Harris halted, with the word on his lips. Then he broke 
 into a low laugh. "Gets you, eh? Strikes home, eh? Oh, yes, 
 Ethel divorces you because of incompatibility, but the people 
 have had a different story from me!" 
 
 With a sudden rush he threw himself full upon Alden. . . 
 
 Then that long, white figure seemed to open and envelop 
 him. His hot breath gurgled in his tightening throat and 
 stopped. The room appeared to swim, to grow black, and 
 he saw himself in a long, low passageway, struggling upward 
 through the darkness toward a star that mocked him. And he 
 was slipping . . . slipping ... 
 
 Slowly his eyes opened, and breath returned to him in a 
 great, rending sob. He was lying on the floor, and Alden Cragg 
 —yet not Alden, but the incarnation of righteous judgment — 
 stood flaming above him. Paralyzing fear gripped his heart. 
 "God's sake, Cragg . . . don't kill me! I didn't mean . . ." 
 
 "You call on the God whom you have scorned and mocked! 
 So evil always does when facing death!" 
 
 "Cragg . . . Alden . . . don't do it ... it was all a lie 
 ... I lied ... I did it on account of . . . Ethel . . . you 
 can't blame me . . . she loves me . . ."for her sake . . . 
 Alden. . ." His words clogged in his throat, and he lay whim- 
 pering before the awful moral quality of the force that had 
 felled him. 
 
 Then Alden's countenance altered, and a look of compas- 
 sion came into it. Tears filled his eyes. He bent and grasped 
 Harris' waving hand. "I am sorry, Harris," he said brokenly. 
 He lifted the fallen man to his feet. "Evil is never crushed 
 by brute force. Oh, Harris, could you but know what came 
 through her to me when death had borne me off in triumph! 
 Yet it is only what I long to give you. Harris . . ." He again 
 held out his arms toward the shrinking man. "Harris, hear me ! 
 Forsake your ways thaj; are bringing destruction upon you! 
 Turn! turn! I am here to help you !^ The hour is sounding! 
 Turn and do good, or death awaits you in the path that you are 
 treading!" 
 
 "He's . . .insane! , . . crazy!" Harris muttered. For 
 Alden's strength could be that of a madman only. Harris stood 
 casting fearful glances about the room. There was nothing 
 that he could use as a weapon. . . 
 
 Then Alden went to the door and opened it. "You need 
 not fear, Harris," he said gently, as he stood back and held 
 the door wide. 
 
 163 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Harris started. He moved forward, keeping his eyes fas- 
 tened upon Alden, he slunk by" him, then darted through the 
 door and hurried shivering (Jown the hall. 
 
 Alden's head dropped upon his breast. And he stood thus 
 until roused by Ted Sayor. "The policeman came back, but 
 I told him Harris had gone," Ted related with a smile. "I 
 lied. . ." 
 
 "Yes, Ted," Alden murmured wearily; "but human existence 
 is all a lie about Truth. Oh, that you would see it! That 
 Harris would! That the world . . ." 
 
 He checked himself and put an arm about Ted's shoulders. 
 "!• leave you with God, Ted," he said softly. "IVIay we both 
 know that we are always with Him." Then he turned away. 
 
 CHAPTER 23 
 
 "TTvEMARKABLE receptivity!" was Doctor Roake's inaudible 
 ly comment, as he reflected on the manifested effects of 
 ■'■^ suggestion on the mentalities of those concerned in that 
 summer's interesting series of events. "It is clearly demon- 
 strated that the mind most susceptible to suggestion is the one 
 most completely absorbed in self. In this respect, Alden Cragg 
 appears to have manifested a reversal. But that, I insist, is 
 due to something that happened to him in Europe. He came 
 under the influence of Marian Whittier. But how? — for he 
 strongly resisted her here. And the nature of that influence? 
 Remarkable! And, from the standpoint of science, absorbingly 
 interesting. But I shall know ... I shall know. . . If she 
 would return here ... If I could bring her back. And she 
 would come, I believe, for Alden — ^but for nobody else. But 
 . . . how?" 
 
 With regard to Marian Whittier the doctor could learn but 
 bafflingly little. The Penberry Ambulance Corps was still active 
 in Palestine, but he was certain from indefinite reports that 
 Marian was not with it. As for Simeon Penberry, London 
 agents informed the doctor that the old gentleman was not 
 at Penberry Hall. But that was as far as their advice went. 
 But all this was not as mystifying as Otto Hoeffel's continued 
 silence. And the doctor shook his head often in deepest per- 
 plexity. 
 
 With respect to Ethel too the doctor felt that there was still 
 much to be revealed, particularly in regard to her illness in 
 Florida. Harris had been widely loquacious concerning Alden's 
 conduct there, but singularly reticent as to details that the 
 
 164 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 doctor was eager to learn — details that would now be his, but 
 for Alden. And the sting of his rejection by the latter was 
 deeply poignant. 
 
 Nor did the. rector reveal anything of an illuminating nature 
 in his letters of reply to the questioning ones of the doctor. 
 And professional etiquette prevented the doctor from too closely 
 questioning Doctor Rowley. But something unusual had 
 occurred in Florida, the doctor was convinced. And. he knew 
 he was not wrong in attributing it to Alden, and through him 
 to the influence of Marian Whittier. 
 
 In Harris Chaddock the doctor had hitherto possessed a 
 ready channel for the dissemination of his own influence in 
 whatever center, and he was gratified that this channel was 
 still open. The quick return of the bread which he had cast 
 upon the water was most assuring: the casual dropping of the 
 hint that Alden had been associated with Marian Whittier in 
 Palestine had been followed immediately by Ethel's suit for 
 divorce. Alden was being isolated. "One is not so difficult 
 to deal with when abandoned and penniless," the doctor -had 
 reflected. 
 
 That Harris had again encountered Alden, in Ted Sayor's 
 room, the doctor was not aware. But he divined that Harris had 
 met with some sorely disquieting experience, for the young 
 man had again departed, and very hurriedly, for Florida. And 
 there had been that in his countenance and demeanor that 
 indicated intense fear, as well as consuming hatred and fixed 
 determination. Before his departure Harris had again pressed 
 the doctor to consent to a trial of Alden's sanity, and had shown 
 himself stubborn and unwontedly insistent, even a bit defiant, 
 when the doctor had again refused. Though the doctor could 
 not say it, nevertheless he felt that the time was not propitious 
 for such a move — if it ever should be. His pla^is were deep, 
 as well as complicated; and should Harris become acquainted 
 with them — ah, that was a contingency that must be forestalled, 
 and quickly! Harris, like his father, had served his usefulness 
 and was now become a worn, and therefore unreliable, cog in 
 the huge machine. 
 
 Harris' departure for Florida was noticed by the local news- 
 papers. Further, his destination was mentioned — and it hap- 
 pened to be the seaside resort where Ethel and her mother 
 were staying. In addition, and curiously associated with this 
 item, was a short notice to the effect that Ethel was recuperat- 
 ing satisfactorily from her recent sharp illness at this delight- 
 ful resort. And, quite consistently, these interesting news 
 items had been openly sent to the press from the offices of 
 Doctor Roake. 
 
 35 
 
 165 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 They did not catch the eye of Fay Meuse, but interested 
 friends eagerly brought them to her attention. She had known 
 of Harris' two previous visits to Florida — but that was before 
 Ethel's suit had been filed. And Fay had permitted herself 
 then to be cajoled by Harris into acceptance of his ready assur- 
 ances. But now fear, jealousy, and hot anger rose up within 
 her. A nervous chill followed, and for several days she was 
 confined to her room. Then her strength returned and drove 
 her madly to the offices of Doctor Roake. 
 
 In any other circumstances the woman would have been 
 refused an audience with the busy doctor. As it was, he really 
 appeared to be expecting her. And her wrath abated a degree 
 because, of her surprise at her cordial reception. 
 
 And her surprise waxed great, not so much because of 
 •what the doctor said, as of what remained unsaid, but inferable. 
 Yet when she left his presence and was escorted by an attentive 
 messenger to the exit, she was minded to return and tell the 
 doctor that she could recall nothing that he had uttered. 
 
 But when she arrived at her apartment she was conscious 
 of an impression; yet, withal, so subtle, so unformed, that she 
 could not isolate it nor say in just what manner she was being 
 affected by it. She did know, however, that her grievance 
 against Harris Chaddock was growing apace; she felt momen- 
 tarily more grossly outraged, more deeply injured. . . Yes, she 
 recalled now that the doctor had very clearly distinguished 
 between her world and that of Harris Chaddock, and had left 
 the impression that she had been but the temporary occupant 
 of a place in Harris' life that must some day — perhaps soon — 
 be filled by the proper tenant. It maddened her! 
 
 And her anger was increased by the supineness of Alden 
 Cragg. "The whole mess is Cragg's fault!" she stormed, pacing 
 back and forth through her rooms. "If he had known how 
 to take care of a woman she'd have stayed with him ! I warned 
 him! Why doesn't he fight her divorce suit? He has all the 
 grounds! I'd like to get hold of him. . ." And suiting her 
 conduct to her wish, she sat down and wrote Alden a note, in 
 care of Madam Galuth, requesting that he call on her imme- 
 diately on a matter of important business. 
 
 Alden sat long over the note. He divined at once the busi- 
 ness on which she would see him, and he shook his head. Yet 
 as he pondered, the words of the great apostle floated through 
 his thought : "That ye love one another." Love ! Ted Sayor 
 was dying for want of it — though it had called him and would 
 have cast forth the devils that were wreaking his ruin, had 
 he been willing to hear. Ethel and Harris were traveling to 
 destruction for want of a proper sense of the divine word. And 
 
 166 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 this woman, loud in her finery, glittering with jewels, brazen 
 in her manifestation of coarsest materialism, with her poor, 
 fleeting concept of body painted, bleached, dyed, and bedecked 
 for the allurement of those who ignorantly confound sex-mes- 
 merism with love, this woman was starving for it — ^yet she 
 sought only her human concept of love, and would be helped 
 only in the way of her own choosing. 
 
 Alden knew now — it was his own bitter experience, and it 
 is the world's — that the spoken word avails little. Mankind 
 has been preached to for ages, yet sin remains rampant, and 
 death still stalks abroad in all its revolting starkness. True, 
 Jesus preached. But, as Marian had once said to the rector: 
 "Always after he had uttered the Word he came down among 
 the people — oh, not to shake hands with them and bid them 
 welcome to his lip-service, but to make practical his preaching 
 in solving the problems of his auditors, by healing their infirmi- 
 ties and raising their dead." 
 
 Yet Alden had made demonstrations before these people 
 that should have rent the veil that blinded their eyes. Ethel 
 surely knew that no earthly arms had brought her up from 
 the dark valley. Ted Sayor knew that Alden had been reborn, 
 and that the miracle had been wrought by that which Marian 
 Whittier had once offered him, and which he had rejected for 
 the lees that clung to the bottom of his drained cup. Harris 
 Chaddock now knew that something had actuated Alden that 
 could not be traced to a human source, a dominating quality, 
 an almost superhuman manifestation of power and courage; 
 yet he feared it, lest it separate between him and the dross he 
 was so madly striving to obtain in Ethel. Their sole need— 
 and the need of this woman, grasping so feverishly for such 
 tawdry treasure — ^was to recognize the Christ in the way and 
 ask for the healing touch. "Whosoever will. . ." Ah, but 
 there must be a consuming desire for wholeness ere that heal- 
 ing touch can be bestowed. And it must supplant the desire 
 for the fleshpots. 
 
 But every human circumstance is divine opportunity. Alden 
 knew it. And he knew that to shake his head over this woman 
 and outline the probable reception which she would accord him 
 was sheer unfaith. And so he rose and took up the cup of 
 cold water and went to her. 
 
 It was a luxurious apartment that Fay Meuse occupied, in 
 a building that bore a questionable reputation. Yet because 
 its tenants were, without exception, associated with the pro- 
 duction of motion pictures, they and their mode of life were 
 tolerated, even encouraged. "We must make allowances for 
 these temperamental artists," Mrs. Dodd had urged — for she 
 
 167 
 
THOU I SRAEL 
 
 owned the building. And Mr, Tellus was bound to admit that 
 they spent their money freely and were "good pay". "We can't 
 afford to be narrow," he counseled. "It isn't Christian." 
 
 The air was heavy and there were lingering traces of tobacco 
 smoke in the darkened apartment. The rich furnishings were 
 in wild disorder. "They piled in here from the studio at two 
 this morning and insisted on dancing," the woman explained, 
 as she kicked the corner of a beautiful oriental rug into place. 
 She tossed aside the cushions on a rarely tapestried davenport 
 and sank upon it. "Bring me that smoking-stand," she said, 
 motioning toward the article; "and come and sit by me." 
 
 Alden complied and seated himself beside her. She lighted 
 a cigarette and inhaled deeply several times, then turned to 
 him. "Your wife is taking Harris Chaddock away from me," 
 she said. "I want you to stop it. Why, certainly Harry 
 expected to marry me," as Alden bent a quizzical look upon 
 her. "I'm getting my trousseau ready now. Oh, I ain't squeam- 
 ish. I know Harry'^ been pretty gay — ^but I'm no saint myself. 
 Besides, I'm marrying for a home. I've had the love business; 
 now I'm arranging for three squares a day and steam-heat. 
 And I don't intend your wife or any other hussy shall upset 
 my little plans. So it's up to you to get busy." 
 
 Alden looked into the woman's jaded eyes, and a great com- 
 passion surged up within him. "I would like to help you," he 
 said in a low, gentle voice. "But I do not think it can be in 
 the way you wish." 
 
 Her brows drew sharply together. "Why, my God, man! 
 all I ask of you is to fight your wife's divorce suit!" she cried. 
 "You haven't lifted a finger!" 
 
 "Harris and Ethel are groping in the dark. I have tried 
 to help them, but they are not ready . . . yet." 
 
 "But you ain't going to let 'em make a monkey of you, 
 are you?" 
 
 "I shall not oppose their marriage." 
 
 "But . . . listen: don't you see you've got everything on 
 your side? She ain't got a leg to stand on!" 
 
 "I see no reason for trying to prevent her from separating 
 from me," he answered. 
 
 "Well, you sure are crazy!" 
 
 "No. I have merely come to my senses — as you will have 
 to." 
 
 "Oh," with a curl of the lip, "got over loving your wife, eh? 
 Course, that's different. Got another? I've heard Harris 
 say ..." 
 
 "I love my wife deeply." 
 
 She sat back and stared at him, puzzled. Then she leaned 
 forward. "And you let another man steal her?" 
 
 168 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "That is their problem — now." 
 
 "Eh? Their problem?" She burst into a mocking laugh. 
 "Oh, my God!" she cried. "A fellow does you all kinds of dirt, 
 then takes your wife away right under your eyes, with all 
 Penberry's money, and you sit by and suck your thumb and 
 say it's their problem! My God! Why . , . why, if I was a 
 man, and a fellow did to me what Harris has done to you, I'd 
 fill him so full of lead they'd have to get a derrick to lift him ! 
 Their problem ! Oh, I didn't care until she started her divorce 
 suit. Then I knew she was after Harry — and he, the poor fool, 
 has fallen for Penberry's coin! , . ." 
 
 "Then you do not love Harris?" 
 
 "Love him !". She threw back her head and laughed. "Why, 
 you poor fool, it's because I love him that I want to get him 
 away from your wife!" 
 
 He looked into her painted face and shook his head. "You 
 do not know what love is," he murmured. 
 
 "Well," she retorted, "in this case it's board and lodging. 
 Let me tell you, my mirror ain't no liar, and I know that some 
 day they'll be saying at the studio that little Eva's a has-been, 
 and then it's me for the dump. That's what's staring me in 
 the face and making me love Harry so passionately. You talk 
 about their problem, but I tell you this is my problem!" 
 
 "Your problem," he said gently, "is yourself." 
 
 "Oh," she gave back, bristling, "I suppose I'm the one to 
 blame! The fault's all mine! Your wife's a saint, and Harris 
 . . . My God! has every cell in your brain gone dry? Don't 
 you know yet what they've done to you? Their problem! . . . 
 It really ii? yours! But you can't solve it, or won't, and you 
 won't help me to, so ..." , 
 
 She sprang up and went quickly to a rare old spinnet desk. 
 From a drawer she extracted a glittering pistol and returned 
 with it to the davenport. "This will solve it for 'em, I guess!" 
 
 He glanced at the pistol, then away. "You are mistaken," 
 he said. "That is the way the world tries to solve its problems. 
 That is why it fails. And you will fail if you try it that way." 
 
 "And you want me to try your way, eh? I'm to sit down 
 and say: 'Tut, tut!' and let 'em make a cuckoo of me, as 
 they have of you, eh? Humph! I see now why a real man 
 like Harry Chaddock can use you for a doormat! God! when 
 I see you I really love him! I made a mistake sending for 
 you — I might as well have asked that little poppinjay evangelist 
 in the tent on the back lot to help me! He's a dishrag, too! 
 Always blubbering about loving Jesus ! I can hear him nights 
 praying ! God ! — he sickens me ! But I think he'd do you good ! 
 You'd better go over and hear him!" 
 
 169 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I have heard him." 
 
 "Humph! I thought so! He's converted you to Chris- 
 tianity!" . 
 
 "He does not know what Christianity is." 
 
 She turned and stared at him incredulously, *'Well, I . . . 
 want . . . to . . . know!" she murmured. Then the look of 
 contempt returned to her face, and her shoulders went up. 
 "You'd better be going now," she said, rising and dropping the 
 pistol into a pocket of her dress. "I'm sorry I sent for you. 
 But I thought you might help me." 
 
 He rose and stood before her. "Nothing that I might say 
 would help you," he answered. "And I cannot do what you 
 ask." 
 
 "No; your spine's mush! You're a coward! You're afraid 
 of Harris Chaddock!" 
 
 "What you are trying to get is not what you really need, 
 but I could not convince you of it. I am sorry for you. . ." 
 
 "Oh," she broke in with infinite scorn, "you needn't slobber 
 any sentiment on me! You've said it was their problem; you 
 said they were groping in the dark. Well, I'll solve the problem 
 for them." She drew nearer and glowered into his face. "You 
 said you loved your wife. You lied. For if you loved her 
 you'd save her. Harris Chaddock isn't going to marry her — 
 oh, no! I'll attend to that! . . ." 
 
 His arms went out and he gripped her by the shoulders. 
 At the same instant a sound came from the vestibule, as of 
 a door opening. Alden heard the woman gasp. He loosed 
 his grasp and turned. In the doorway stood Harris Chaddock. 
 
 "Well, well!" Harris stepped into the room. "It's the little 
 soldier-boy again! I can't lose him!" 
 
 "Harry!" The woman started toward him with outstretched 
 arms. "I'm so glad you've come ! Put this fellow out ! He . . ." 
 
 Harris turned upon her with withering scorn. "Don't try 
 to put that over on me!" he cried. "He didn't come here with- 
 out an invitation ! I know him too well for that ! And I know 
 why he's here!" 
 
 "Harry!" 
 
 He laughed in her face. "Omit the theatricals, my dear," 
 he mocked. "I understand fully. And, as I'm de trop, I'll be 
 going." 
 
 The woman gave a cry and threw herself upon him. "Harry, 
 don't leave me! For God's sake, don't go! Let me tell you. . ." 
 
 He threw her from him and stepped back. "You've got 
 this preacher; I found you in his arms; you don't want 
 me! ..." 
 
 "You don't mean that, Harris," said Alden coldly. "If you 
 
 170 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 are able to voice the truth, do so now. You are glad to find 
 . me here, for you have been with Ethel in Florida. You have 
 come here now to break with this woman." 
 
 Harris laughed coarsely. "I am glad to find you here, 
 Cragg," he answered with a sneer. "Ethel's case needed a 
 little strengthening. This will do the business. For once I 
 am grateful to you." 
 
 "Harry I" The woman was becoming hysterical. "You 
 don't mean it! Don't say that! For God's sake, don't go! 
 . . . don't. . .!" 
 
 He had turned again and was at the door. There he halted 
 and faced about. "I'll be honest with you. Fay," he said meanly, 
 "since I've found you in Craigg's arms. I came here to call it 
 off. I was beginning to get tired of you . . . and it couldn't 
 last anyway. Besides, since I see that you love this dog, I'll 
 tell you that you're getting old and fat." He laughed again, 
 a low, taunting laugh. "You wheeze now, and your face is 
 beginning to look like a cornfield. But for your sake I'm glad 
 you've gothold of this tow-headed preacher. He's a little 
 empty in the attic, but otherwise sound. To be sure, he's got 
 another one in Jerusalem. . ." 
 
 At that instant the now crazed woman whipped the pistol 
 from her pocket. Harris dashed to one side and fell up against 
 the wall. Alden saw the woman's movement and divined her 
 intent, but he was too far from her to seize her arm. The 
 pistol came up. Alden sprang forward, covered the cowering 
 Harris with his own body, and stood facing the desperate 
 woman. 
 
 "Get away from him!" she shrilled. "Get away . . . Damn 
 you! Get away, or I'll drop you too! . . ." 
 
 Behind Alden huddled the shrinking form of Harris Chad- 
 dock. Before him swayed the outraged woman, blind with 
 passion. Her face was livid; the veins stood out from her 
 forehead; her throat was swollen until she choked as her heav- 
 ing breast forced the hot breath through it. 
 
 "Stand aside!" she screamed. 
 
 Still Alden stood, facing the pistol to protect the man who 
 would have slain him with his own hate. . . 
 
 Then she fired, point-blank. The bullet went wide. Again 
 the pistol spat forth its missile of death. Again, and still 
 again, in quick succession. A spot of red appeared on Alden's 
 left arm. The sulphurous fumes filled the apartment. In the 
 haze of smoke their forms disappeared. . . 
 
 And then, while the woman lay, face down, on the daven- 
 port, sobbing wildly, Alden went to the door and opened it. 
 Harris crept after him, gasping and choking, and rushed out. 
 
 171 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alden followed, staggering slightly. And while some of the 
 tenants, attracted by the muffled reports, peered curiously from 
 their windows, or peeped out into the corridors, Alden Cragg 
 moved slowly down the street, while the man for whom he had 
 offered his own human sense of life sprang wildly into his car 
 and dashed madly away. 
 
 CHAPTER 24 
 
 THAT the world has from time immemorial stood in awe 
 of the doctor and the priest has resulted from mortal 
 fear of death and the imagined terrors of the hereafter, 
 as well as from the ignorant belief that these specially educated 
 classes^ — though instructed in the densest materialism, which 
 is of itself death — were in possession of faculties for peering 
 into the unknown and ordinarily inscrutable and interpreting 
 what they pretended to see there to the untutored and gaping 
 populace. In proportion to the vulgar belief in the superiority 
 of the physician and preacher have these been enabled to create 
 an autocracy in human thought that has quenched spirituality. 
 And thereby has death been kept regnant. Small wonder that, 
 coming in the guise of greatest good, the mortal systems of 
 materia medico and scholastic theology should have obtained 
 from awed and terrorized parents what they must needs obtain 
 to perpetuate themselves: control of the children. With 
 this, and working through parenthood, particularly organized 
 motherhood, did Doctor Roake seek to complete his towering 
 system. 
 
 The result was quickly apparent. Public schools were ceas- 
 ing to be public as they passed under the domination of the 
 Roake plan. As the doctor dictated, so did the school doors 
 open, so did they close, so did the .children submit their naked 
 little bodies to tapping and sounding, to scrutiny and probing, 
 to culture-taking, seriimizing, and vaccination, to isolation and 
 quarantine, and— far worse- — did they yield their receptive 
 mentalities to the injection of the devastating germs of fear. 
 The spectacle-maker could not but rub his, palms together in 
 joyful prospect of his harvest, when hosts of goggle-eyed little 
 ones should stream from his office and begin their wary peer- 
 ing about the streets. The antitoxin-maker must glow with 
 pleasing anticipation. Nor could the undertaker remain un- 
 moved by the outlook. 
 
 Doctor Benson — and he was not alone in his horrified pro- 
 test — gasped as he saw the octopus tentacles of the Roake plan 
 
 172 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 gliding through churches and schools into homes and nurs- 
 eries. . . 
 
 "Why, statistics show," he cried, "that the healthiest age 
 of childhood is the school age! It is during those years that 
 they are most immune to disease — if left alone! But now to 
 direct their thoughts to the constant contemplation of their 
 bodies, to fill their minds with ideas of disease, to scare them 
 : — and their parents through them — into sending for these very 
 political doctors — these medical interlopers — on the slightest 
 provocation, I say, by heaven! it's crime of the most flagrant 
 sort! Commercialism is back of it, nothing else! What in 
 God's name is to become of us?" 
 
 So distressed was Doctor Benson that he insisted on visit- 
 ing certain of the public schools during a time of medical 
 inspection. And so outraged did he become in behalf of the 
 children that he rushed to the office of Doctor Sale and burst 
 into an uproar of protestation. "Why, my God, man, I saw 
 that despoiler of homes, Harris Chaddock, use a tongue depres- 
 sor in the mouth of a healthy child that he had just taken 
 from the mouth of one having syphilitic sore throat! He 
 didn't stop to wash it ! He didn't even wipe it on a rag ! When 
 I protested, he asked me what authority I had! Where in 
 heaven's name is the personal inviolability provision of our 
 Constitution?" 
 
 Doctor Sale smiled. "If it isn't there, then Roake has 
 removed it," he replied. 
 
 "And are we decent doctors going to stand for it?" Doctor 
 Benson demanded. "If ignorant, mesmerized fathers and 
 mothers relinquish the physical care of their children to such 
 vultures as Roake and his political gang, are we going to stand 
 aside and permit these helpless little ones to be serumized and 
 vaccinated, antitoxined, inoculated, stripped and disinfected 
 and pasteurized and gloated over by lusting buzzards like 
 Harris Chaddock? I say, are we going to let the babes be 
 carved, mutilated, emasculated, blinded, deafened, operated on 
 for imaginary defects, their tonsils torn out, their noses ripped 
 open, parts of their brains cut away to cure so-called hereditary 
 evils? . . . evils that I vow are mental in origin!" 
 
 Sale shrugged his shoulders. "What can we do?" he 
 asked listlessly. "The Wess law prepared the way for any 
 sort of medical legislation Roake wanted to have enacted. Now 
 he has his school inspection law, his act to safeguard the sol- 
 diers, and a dozen others, all of which he can enforce, for he 
 can call upon the police and, if necessary, the state militia. 
 He can enter any home in the state; can force any one, male 
 or female, to submit to examination; and can demand, under 
 
 173 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 penalty of the penitentiary, that they take his medicines and 
 submit to his serumizing, vaccinating, carving and what-not. 
 What are you going to do about it? After all, the people have 
 brought this upon themselves. They've been asleep!" 
 
 "But — there are thousands of decent doctors opposed to 
 him!" 
 
 "Oh, doubtless. But he's got them estopped. You see, he's 
 a canny rascal: he took advantage of the awful stress under 
 which the world has been laboring during this war." 
 
 "By heaven ! he is canny," Benson agreed vehemently. "And 
 he's hypocritical, for everything is done with the appearance 
 of being for the good of the people. Oh, 1 know ! He impresses 
 mothers with his desire to cooperate with them to secure the 
 welfare of their children, and they — well, they greedily gobble, 
 up everything he tells them and sell him their very souls! Now 
 he's got the nurses organized and scared stiff. I am told that 
 if a nurse criticizes anything a doctor of this organization does, 
 why, she's kicked out. And, the worst of it is, she finds it 
 impossible to secure employment again as a public nurse. The 
 term 'nurse' is rapidly becoming a synonym of 'slave'. For unless 
 a nurse will submit to the absolute dictation of a political 
 doctor and protect him in his acts, she might as well give up. 
 As for the poor children, the hungry gang of political doctors 
 has been loosed among them, headed by Harris Chaddock. The 
 present generation is bad enough, but the coming one, molded 
 like putty hy these medical politicians . . . well, I'll leave it 
 to your imagination! But let me tell you. Sale, the time is 
 coming when, unless we prostrate ourselves before the political 
 doctors, we'll face the prison! And this in the boasted 'land 
 of the free'!" 
 
 Sale again shrugged his shoulders. Doctor Benson waited 
 in silence for a moment, then he drew a document from a 
 pocket. "Do you know what gives Roake his power?" he 
 demajided. "This revision of the medical practice act which 
 he has secured: 'Failure to provide necessary medical treat- 
 ment for a child shall, in case the child dies, be regarded as 
 manslaughter or murder'. Do you get that? Who determines 
 what the necessary medical treatment shall be? Roake!" 
 
 Thus, through the specious plea of child-protection, child- 
 study and culture, was every parent's door opened to the ser- 
 pent. Yet the wise Nazarene, teacher preeminent, had recog- 
 nized in these little ones themselves the teachers of the race. 
 For in them is the Christ-idea to be seen. Little wonder, then, 
 that the "one lie" seeks to dominate them! To mislead them 
 with the illusions of sense-testimony, and to pervert the 
 inherent purity of their thought with the lethal dross of mate- 
 rial . education ! 
 
 174 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 In direct antithesis to the ceaseless activities of the Galilean 
 teacher Harris Chaddock continued to pursue his daily round 
 in the guise of public benefactor. And in his wake lay naught 
 but human wreckage. Opposition only stirred him to madder 
 efforts. Yet whenever his thought reverted to the wild scene 
 enacted in the apartment of Fay Meuse, a cold sweat would 
 pour out over him and fearful anticipations would cause his 
 heart to flutter. If Alden had escaped death from the flying 
 bullets — ^and he knew that he had, for he had seen him again 
 in Madam Galuth's car — his escape was of itself a miracle. 
 And Harris' impression of the supernaturalness of this new 
 Alden Cragg was profoundly deepened. He owed his life to 
 Alden's heroism, he knew. And yet the knowledge sickened 
 him. 
 
 He realized that he had played the fool; but knowledge of 
 that fact did not lessen his apprehension of the grave danger 
 that now menaced him in the person of Fay Meuse. As he 
 thought on this he quaked. 
 
 But he could not demand her arrest for attempted murder, 
 for he dared^ not risk the publicity that this, or an order bind- 
 ing her over to keep the peace, would afford. And yet while 
 she lived and had her freedom she constituted a Damoclean 
 sword that might fall momentarily, that would fall certainly 
 if he married Ethel. 
 
 Constantly dwelling on his peril, while his bitter hatred of 
 Alden Cragg hourly more deeply corroded his shriveled soul, 
 Harris became nervous, irritable, shrinking. He skulked when 
 afoot; and when he drove he did so only in a closed car. His 
 appearance and demeanor attracted the attention of Doctor 
 Roake — and the latter quickly divined the cause, but did not 
 offer a palliative. At length came word from Ethel anent the 
 progress of her divorce suit that made Harris desperate, and 
 he forthwith determined upon protective measures that the 
 enactment of certain of Doctor Roake's medical bills had sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Thus it was that shortly thereafter the apartment of Fay 
 Meuse was forcibly entered by deputies of Harris, accompanied 
 by police ofBcers, and the startled, shrinking woman questioned 
 regarding her work at the studio, her associates, the conduct of 
 her life, and other matters of a personal nature. Certain 
 charges were made — America was at war, and the "Act to 
 Safeguard soldiers" must be rigidly enforced. This woman's 
 conduct was admittedly irregular, and the -law, a Roake exten- 
 sion of the *'Rooming-house act", demanded that she appear 
 at the office of the health executive for examination. The 
 other tenants of the building were served with a like summons. 
 
 175 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And they one and all submitted, with what grace they could 
 command. 
 
 On her return home from the ofifice of the health executive, 
 Fay Meuse disposed herself to reflect. She had been further 
 questioned there, and, as a matter of public protection, had 
 submitted to the extraction of a small quantity of blood from 
 her arm for examination. Then she had been dismissed, with 
 an order to reappear the following day to learn if treatment 
 were necessary. 
 
 As she reflected, her fears rose. A dread apprehension 
 came upon her. It assumed the proportions of a premonition. 
 She knew she was helpless, that the law could enforce her 
 appearance at the health executive's oflSce the next day . . . 
 and the health executive was Harris Chaddock! And while 
 the other tenants of the building laughed and bantered one 
 another over the incident, she sat with her thoughts weighing 
 upon her with crushing force. None knew, but the three con- 
 cerned, of her mad attempt on Harris' life. She shuddered as 
 she thought of it. She had disposed pictures and hangings 
 over the shattered wall where the bullets had tor,n great holes 
 in the plastering. She had lied, smilingly, to those questioning 
 ones who had heard the pistol reports, and those who had seen 
 the two men hurry away. And she cursed herself now 
 that she had failed in her purpose. . . Yet she thanked God 
 that Cragg had been spared. 
 
 And when she thought of Alden Cragg a feeling of awe came 
 upon her. With it came wonder and a great admiration for 
 the man whom she had so mistakenly called a coward. He 
 had come on her summons to help her; but she had insanely 
 tried to kill him! What had caused it? And why now in her 
 misery did she turn again to him? 
 
 She rose and called him by telephone. She dared not com- 
 mit herself, but asked only that he come again to see her. He 
 refused, and the sadness in his voice smote her so that she 
 burst into tears as she listened. She begged that he would 
 meet her in the street ; and she turned from the telephone hys- 
 terical when he told her that he would. . . 
 
 Then, when she saw him, she pled for forgiveness for her 
 mad deed, vainly trying to stifle her sobs, for the streets were 
 thronged. She begged to know if he had been touched; she 
 wept over the slight flesh wound in his arm; she told him of her 
 summons to the office of Harris Chaddock that day, and of the 
 demand that she return to-morrow. . . His face was very grave 
 as he listened, and when she concluded he said only: "Take 
 Doctor Benson with you to-morrow. I will see him meantime 
 and prepare him." 
 
 176 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He did not know, nor did she, that Harris Chaddock had 
 passed them as they stood talking, else might he have con- 
 nected the incident with the raid that was made late that night 
 upon his own little apartment over Madam Galuth's garage, a 
 raid made with a flourish of revolvers, with abusive language 
 and unwarranted violence. 
 
 "I have no disease," was Alden's ineffectual protest. 
 
 "You'll have one before I get through with you," Harris 
 muttered low in reply, "and die a rotting death!" 
 
 Again, it was under the sanction of the law, the Roake 
 extension of the "Rooming-house act", that the raid was made. 
 And it was for "the safeguarding of the American soldiers." 
 For he, Alden Cragg, was informed that he had but recently 
 returned from Jerusalem, a foul pest-hole. And it was known 
 that he had associated with certain of the motion picture ten- 
 ants of the apartment building owned by Mrs. Dodd. He must 
 submit, therefore, to a blood test, for he was become a "suspect". 
 
 He refused, on his constitutional rights, and was given the 
 alternative of commitment to jail. He unhesitatingly chose 
 the latter. And dawn found him in a cell. 
 
 That same morning Fay Meuse responded to her summons 
 to the office of the district health executive. I^octor Benson, 
 grim and determined, accompanied her. She was handed a 
 report on the test of the blood taken from her arm the day 
 before. The word "positive" struck her like a blow from a 
 club. "It's a lie!" she cried. "Where's Harris Chaddock? Tell 
 him I want to see him!" 
 
 But she was informed that the chief was not visible. Also 
 that the prescribed treatment must begin immediately — the 
 law required it. 
 
 Her loud protest brought Doctor Benson to her side. He 
 had been waiting in the outer reception room. "I am this 
 woman's physician," he asserted stoutly. "I demand to know 
 what you are about to inject into her veins!" He was but fol- 
 lowing the instructions of Alden Cragg. "I demand for her a 
 sample of the fluid in that needle ! How do we know that it is 
 not deleterious?" 
 
 The young doctor in charge doubtless would have com- 
 plied with the drastic request, but for the interference of Har- 
 ris Chaddock himself. The latter hurried into the room, seized 
 the needle from his assistant's hand, and dashed it in pieces 
 to the floor. 
 
 Doctor Benson stepped back. His eyes flashed. "My patient 
 refuses to submit to the injection of anything into her blood!" 
 he declared. "We will appeal to the protection of the Consti- 
 tution of the United States!" 
 
 177 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Harris' face was white. His hands shook. It was as if he 
 had but narrowly escaped a great . peril. He held himself 
 shielded by the body of the young assistant. "She'll be locked 
 up until she does f" he answered in fluttering tones. "The law's 
 going to be obeyed!" ... 
 
 Later that afternoon Doctor Benson paced back and forth 
 in his shabby little office with shoulders bent and muscles 
 twitching convulsively. He had not committed his thoughts 
 to Fay Meuse — he had not dared! He had openly defied the 
 health authorities; he had boldly sent the woman back to her 
 apartment and bidden her escape from the city at once. He 
 knew that thereby he had ruined himself. And he had just 
 learned by telephoning to Madam Galuth that Alden Cragg had 
 been taken away during the night by the health authorities 
 operating in the name of the public i weal. 
 
 CHAPTER 25 
 
 rE despotic invasion of personal liberty that had resulted 
 in the incarceration of Alden Cragg held Doctor Benson 
 for some hours dumfounded. Had this occurred elsewhere, 
 in the European centers of darkened minds, he had not been 
 greatly moved, but here, in the land of Washington, of Lincoln, 
 it was incredible! And there was more in it than the robbing 
 of a man of his freedom : there was the sinister announcement 
 that the strength of the Roake religio-medical organization was 
 now such that it could risk in confidence a supreme test of its 
 powers. 
 
 Where now was Alden's confident statement that evil could 
 be made to destroy itself? "He said," the doctor murmured, 
 as he sat deep in his study of the case, "that evil could be made 
 to commit suicide. Humph ! Said he was not persecuting any 
 man. . . And this is what he gets for turning the other 
 cheekj" 
 
 What the good doctor did not know was that the evil that 
 had befallen Alden Cragg had not been unanticipated, either 
 by Alden or Madam Galuth. For Alden had awaited the blow, 
 and he had suffered imprisonment voluntarily. He knew that 
 he was literally ofl'ering himself a living sacrifice. He smiled 
 as he reflected that this had become his wont. 
 
 "If Roake puts this thing over," Doctor Benson mused 
 gloomily, "he's got us! It will mean the domination of every 
 man, woman, and child in this country, a hundred million 
 people!" Then his thought turned upon the technical aspects 
 
 178 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 of the case. "This rot about 'carriers'. . . Why, every medical 
 man knows that 'carriers' are produced by the physicians 
 themselves by giving immunizing doses of antitoxin and other 
 serums. The doctors say that twenty-five per cent of the people 
 are diphtheria 'carriers'. Humph! That would mean that more 
 than twenty-seven million people in this country could be 
 arrested and jailed for distributing diphtheria! Lord, if it were 
 true that 'carriers' are dangerous, the whole country would be 
 depopulated by diphtheria alone! Rot, damnable rot! Calcu- 
 lated to scare old wives ! God help us ! . . . As for the charge 
 against Fay Meuse, the identical one could be brought against 
 Harris Chaddock. But he's protected. Humph! A mere acid 
 condition of the woman's blood could give a 'positive' test, and 
 she might be as innocent as a babe. . . But she's out of it 
 now. The question now is: What are they going to do to 
 Cragg? And what will happen to me?" 
 
 And, later that day, standing before Madam Galuth in her 
 little parlor: "I'm done for. Madam. . ." 
 
 "Oh, no, you are not," she gently contradicted. "I think 
 your work is just beginning. That is why I telephoned you to 
 come here to-day. But now we must act quickly. Go with 
 your lawyer to the County Court and secure Alden's release on 
 a writ of habeas corpus." 
 
 "It will only be temporary. . ." 
 
 "Probably so. The case will doubtless go further. But this 
 is the first step." 
 
 Of the far-reaching events now forward, not a handful in 
 Crestelridge knew. Following the Primal Motors coup, society 
 had sped panting back to its wonted resorts, and not until the 
 press sent forth the interesting information that the Reverend 
 Wilson Whittier and family were returning home with their 
 daughter Ethel, now quite recovered from her recent alarming 
 illness, and to whom the Courts had but just granted separation 
 from Alden Cragg, did the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls evince 
 more than a passing interest in Crestelridge happenings. 
 
 "That shows where the rector stahds in matters- of church 
 doctrine," Mrs. Kerl commented cynically. "The Church* effects 
 an indissoluble bond, you know." 
 
 "Oh, no," laughed Mrs. Black, "it merely shows that Mama 
 Whittier's deft hand is still directing their family destinies. I 
 understand that Ethel resumes her maiden name. Will be 
 known as Miss Ethel Whittier. She's lucky. Alden has become 
 a disgrace. Lost his self-respect, everything, his name included. 
 Is in the hands of the Galuth. . ." ^ , 
 
 The rector had returned to Crestelridge on the first day of 
 August. He was eager to get back— yet sorely afraid. He 
 
 179 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 wanted to be there before his aristocratic parishioners should 
 return from- their summer's play. He wanted to plunge again 
 into his institutional work and forget. He was tired, very tired. 
 His soul dripped bitter gall. He knew himself now but the 
 plaything of Fate. He felt more keenly than ever now the ris- 
 ing barrier between himself and his family. And he had not the 
 strength nor the courage to break it down. He crept into 
 Crestelridge with furtive look and drooping shoulders, as if 
 fearful that from a doorway, an alley, someone would sud- 
 denly shout abroad his dreadful disgrace. 
 
 His wife and daughter came with their customary sang- 
 froid. Ethel fairly bloomed as she threw herself into Harris 
 Chaddock's arms at the station with a cry of joy. Mrs. Whit- 
 tier held her head high and at times tossed it as if in defiance 
 of an imaginary opponent. 
 
 "The Courier announced that you would arrive to-day," 
 Harris remarked. "I didn't intend it should, but Doctor Roake 
 revels in publicity, you know, and when you wired him the date 
 of your arrival he sent the news right to the papers." 
 
 "I'm glad of it," chirped Ethel, squeezing his hand. "I want 
 to be in the public's eye. A little notoriety makes one inter- 
 esting." 
 
 The. rector threw her a pained look, though he made no 
 comment. But arrived at the rectory, he drew Harris into the 
 study. "Alden?" he asked, almost eagerly. 
 
 Harris laughed. "In jail. That is, he was." 
 
 "Jail!" the rector gasped. 
 
 "Associating with street-walkers," Harris explained. And 
 he cited the grounds on which Alden had been incarcerated, 
 adding: "He was released on a writ of habeas corpus. His 
 trial comes up before the Superior Court next week." 
 
 The rector paled. His trial! What might not come out in 
 that! Alas! he had come back to Crestelridge only to suffer 
 additional misery at the hands of Alden Cragg! . . . 
 
 He must see Alden at once! Alden must come to the rec- 
 tory! — No,- he would meet him in the rector's oflQce in the 
 parish 'house ! And to think that in order to reach the mes- 
 merized youth he must communicate with the Galuth! . . . 
 
 "Well," Harris observed, throwing himself into a chair and 
 lighting a cigar, "what do you think of the way your scheme 
 has developed?" 
 
 The rector turned in surprise. "My scheme?" 
 
 "The Roake organization. You and the doctor built better 
 than you knew, don't you think so now? It's becoming nation- 
 wide; it's going to be international. It's beginning to try its 
 wings in earnest. Remember old Doc Benson? We're having 
 
 180 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his medical license revoked. Too much interference with our 
 ofiSce. We've got the bread-and-butter clinch on him. And 
 on any others who try to stop us. Do you know what's coming? 
 The organization is going to adopt a name, iirst. Probably 
 we'll call it the United States Religio-Medical Alliance to start 
 with. Later, when it becomes broader in its scope, we'll call 
 it the International. . . But first on the program we intend to 
 bring about the creating of a National Department of Health, 
 with the head of the organization a member of the President's 
 Cabinet — that means Roake to start with; possibly Yours Truly 
 later, eh? And let me tell you, that Cabinet member is the 
 one who will always become President. See? We've got that 
 office cinched. Oh, it will take a little time, a few years per- 
 haps. But it's coming fast. I feel — and I know Roake does — 
 that to-day we have reached a commanding position, a position 
 from which we can absolutely dictate. Let me tell you what 
 we did at Mrs. Dodd's apartment house. . ." 
 
 The rector stood aghast at the coolness, the easy confidence, 
 of the speaker, this man who had brought the black clouds 
 of disgrace lowering over their heads, who had sent Ethel to 
 the brink of the grave and left an ineffaceable stain upon her 
 soul, who now was calmly planning an early marriage with 
 Ethel, yet who, the rector knew, would on the slightest provo- 
 cation abandon her as heartlessly as he would send Alden 
 Cragg to imprisonment, to death, for the gratification of his 
 own lusts. 
 
 Yet he must remember that Harris Chaddock was a com- 
 municant, in excellent standing, of St. Jude's, and that he had 
 the unqualified support of such powerful members as the Tel- 
 luses. Blacks, and Kerls. , . He turned away without replying 
 and passed into the parish house to instruct his assistant to 
 summon Alden Cragg at once. 
 
 The hot summer sun was still high when Alden betook 
 himself that afternoon to the parish house on the rector's sum- 
 mons. He had declined Madam Galuth's proffer of her car, 
 preferring to walk. And as he went he constantly proclaimed 
 his immunity from personal control. His stay in the jail had 
 been of short duration. And it had afforded him an oppor- 
 tunity. He looked forward in confidence to his trial. "It is the 
 trial of my faith," he reflected. "And that, as Peter said, is 
 more precious than of gold that perisheth." 
 
 As he approached St. Jude's he saw Harris Chaddock's 
 limousine draw up and Ethel and Harris descend and enter 
 the parish house. He paused in the shade of a tree until they 
 disappeared. He knew they had not seen him. And he vaguely 
 wondered why, instead of entering the rectory, they had chosen 
 to go into the parish house. 
 
 36 181 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The great doors of St. Jude's stood open, and he entered. 
 A grateful coolness welcomed him from the twilight within. 
 The auditorium was without occupant. He passed noiselessly 
 down the center aisle and dropped into what had formerly 
 been the Cragg pew. There he bent his head and silently 
 thanked God for the rich blessing of knowledge of Him that 
 had come to him through Marian Whittier. 
 
 He was early for his appointment, a full half hour. But he 
 was glad now. Like a benediction a sense of drowsiness stole 
 over him, and he sat long, with bowed head and eyes closed. . . 
 
 He awoke with a start and sprang up. Apprehensive lest 
 he had kept the rector waiting, he moved rapidly down the aisle 
 toward the door leading into the parish house. At the enclosed 
 stairway to the organ loft he almost collided with- Harris Chad- 
 dock and Ethel. 
 
 "You! Again!" exclaimed Harris, flaming with anger. 
 "Good God! are you always dogging me? Have you been spy- 
 ing on us?" He seized Alden's collar, jerked him forward, 
 and raised an arm to deal a blow. 
 
 At the same instant came a blinding flash, almost in Alden's 
 eyes, a loud report, a wild scream from Ethel, and the thud 
 of Harris' body as it crashed upon the floor. 
 
 Alden stood bewildered. Scream after scream came from 
 Ethel. He turned and stood staring dumbly at the body on the 
 floon Then he bent over it. 
 
 Harris lay motionless, blood streaming from a gaping tear in 
 his chest. Ethel lay across him, hysterical. On the floor beside 
 Harris lay a pistol. Alden's heart stopped: he had seen that 
 weapon but a few days before in the hands of Fay Meuse! 
 
 Through the wide-flung doors of the parish house people 
 came running, attracted by Ethel's piercing screams. The rec- 
 tor was brought. Mrs. . Whittier and the servants rushed in. 
 Ellory Sten flew to the telephone and wildly called the police. 
 Harris was lifted and laid upon a cushioned bench. Doctor 
 Roake was madly summoned. . . 
 
 Slowly, very slowly, consciousness returned, for a fleeting 
 moment, and Harris opened his eyes. His fading gaze fell upon 
 Alden. Hatred glowed in his glazing orbs. His mouth moved! 
 "He ... did ... it .. . Cragg," he whispered. "He told 
 ... me ... I should never . . . marry . . . Ethel. . ." The 
 breath fluttered from his bloodless lips. His muscles twitched. 
 He gasped. Then death's icy fingers closed about his quivering 
 heart. 
 
 182 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 BOOK 4 
 
 OUR eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us 
 in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is 
 ripened. Then we behold them, and the time when we 
 saw them not is like a dream. 
 
 — Emerson. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 ALDEN CRAGG had returned to his own; but they had set 
 him at nought and marked him for slaughter. Yet it was 
 ' no light matter that he had demanded of his kinsmen, 
 for he had required what had been required of Israel through- 
 out the ages, that they abandon the gods which they had made 
 for themselves while wandering through -the wilderness of 
 human belief. 
 
 It was but a repetition of the old, old story. The Nazarene 
 had, long since, come to his own, with amazing proofs of the 
 awful fact that they were worshiping the forces of destruction; 
 yet they slew him as a malefactor. 
 
 So the ancient prophets had repeatedly come to the people 
 of Israel, with thunderous rebukes of the evil that had mes- 
 merized them; yet Israel baited the prophets and flouted them 
 forth with raucous mockery. 
 
 It is but human fiistory. But human history — amazing 
 fact ! — is the story of Israel. 
 
 Over the sodden fields of France that summer of 1918 the 
 German nation drove madly on its nightmare journey to 
 destruction. A hundred years prior to the advent of the Naza- 
 rene prophet "lost" Israel had accepted the "good old German 
 god" in the person of the magic-working Odin. It was evil's 
 subtle master-stroke, and dire was the penalty which Israel 
 paid. Yet twenty centuries later, when Britain and America 
 stood braced against the Berserk onslaughts of the Kaiser's 
 minions, it was still Israel that fought back the mesmerized 
 followers of the "good old (German god" — it was Israel redivivus, 
 awakened by the clanging fall of the leaden hammer. 
 
 From March until May the wearied British had been beaten 
 steadily back. Ephraim's morale wavered. The German saw 
 it, and wheeled exulting upon the panting French. A world 
 looked on and gasped. . . 
 
 Then Manasseh rushed upon the gory field and swept 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 through Belleau Wood. And Manasseh's huge shadow struck 
 chill terror to the amazed Assyrian. 
 
 Yet the enemy sprang back from the recoil, and July saw 
 the launching of the fifth German offensive. It was met by 
 Chateau-Thierry. It was crushed on August 8th, the black day 
 of the (ierman army in the Great War. It was the amazing 
 showing of the Amierican troops that enabled the Allies to take a 
 successful offensive before Amiens. It was the tardy waking of 
 the allied nations to the inevitableness of victory; it was their 
 refusal to be further deceived by the propaganda of defeat to 
 which they had listened with bated breath for four terror- 
 haunted years. It was German fear of America's troops that 
 shattered German morale: it was the enemy's belief that he 
 was beaten that paralyzed his arm and led, in the seven weeks 
 following August 8th, to a series of defeats unparalleled in the 
 history of German warfare. The ancient prophecy that Israel 
 should never suffer defeat by Gentile nation still stood. 
 
 Again the leaden hammer crashed down. Constantinople 
 passed into Israel's hands. To this great fortified city, some 
 sixteen centuries earlier, the military center of the Roman 
 Empire had been hurriedly shifted to meet the peril from the 
 House of Joseph, that portion of Israel then known as "the 
 People of Guta," the Goths. Its fall now completed another 
 vast cycle of human history, a cycle begun six centuries before 
 Christ, when Josiah, King of Judah, lost both life and kingdom 
 on the fateful plain of Armageddon. 
 
 The very circumstance of delivering the oracles of, God to 
 Israel was tantamount to a prophecy that from the beginnings 
 of history this people, thus "chosen", must, even against their 
 will, enact a mighty r61e. It was prophesied that the warfare 
 of error to destroy the Word would extend over millenniums 
 of human history; yet it was also foretold that the supreme 
 command on either side should not change hands. It was 
 prophesied that in these last days Israel and the Assyrian should 
 again come face to face over the age-old issues. The leader 
 assigned to Israel was that militant archangel on whose feast 
 the last stunning blow of the Great War of 1914-18 was struck. 
 And the adversary was declared to be the "Prince of this 
 World". 
 
 Yet not all who served beneath the banners of the adver- 
 sary were of the Gentiles. Some there were, Israel's kin, who 
 recognized their status as slaves of the Assyrian and refused 
 to fight against their own. A regiment of German soldiers 
 from Saxony raised a flag oiF truce above their trenches opposite 
 the British and signalled: "We are brothers. We shall not fight 
 you." And when they were removed by the Kaiser's order, 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 they warned the British that it was a Prussian regiment that 
 was being sent to take their place. Sons of Isaac were these, 
 who had refused to join the revolt of Korah. 
 
 With the Argonne-Meuse offensive the last chapter of this 
 cycle of the Great Combat was recorded. On the night of Sep- 
 tember 11th the American units chosen to destroy the St. Mihiel 
 salient moved silently into their front-line trenches. It was a 
 brooding night, with ominous, low-hung clouds. The ground 
 was an ooze. TBe trenches were sumps. At midnight the 
 awesome quiet burst into an inferno. At five in the morning 
 the troops were ordered over. 
 
 In the dim light of No Man's Land a mud-covered private 
 accosted another. "Beg pardon, sir, but could you be from 
 Crestelridge?" It was as if they were meeting on a city street. 
 
 "Yes! Who are you?" 
 
 "I was valet to Mr. Ted Sayor, sir. . ." 
 
 "What! You are Boots?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. And you are the assistant rector of St. Jude's." 
 
 George Earl seized the former valet's hand. Bullets were 
 flying thick. "We'd best lie down," he counseled. 
 
 "But I'm not so scared, sir, when I keep moving," came the 
 answer. 
 
 The barrage lifted and the troops rolled forward. The 
 enemy first line was passed. The scattered resistance from the 
 second line was quickly damped. The top of the hill was gained 
 and the descent of the opposite side begun. 
 
 "I'd have thought, sir, that you would come as a chaplain," 
 commented the ex-valet, drawing closer to the former clergy- 
 man. "If you had, sir, I'd a liked to ask you some questions. 
 I . . . I'm a bit afraid to die, sir." 
 
 The other caught his breath. "I couldn't preach falsehoods 
 to the boys about to die. I couldn't deceive them with specu- 
 lations about things of which I know no more than they. I 
 could only come as one of them. I want to face the future as 
 bravely as they, with a mind unencumbered by theological 
 subtleties and crumbling creeds. It is nobler . . . man- 
 lier. . ." He choked with the fullness of his soul. 
 
 "Strange, sir, what it's all about," continued his companion. 
 "I do not want to kill anybody. I really don't understand. 
 I . . . Who'd a thought it, sir!" 
 
 Yet George Earl had thought it, had seen it coming, and 
 had shuddered for the result. "It is because of men's wicked- 
 ness," he answered. 
 
 "But, sir, will the war make us better?" 
 
 "God knows!" 
 
 "Strange, sir, but I thought these Germans were Christians!" 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Christians! Heaven help us, there are no Christians on 
 the earth ! If men knew what Christianity was do you suppose 
 we would be slaughtering our fellows here to-day?" 
 
 The slope was gradual and at the bottom lay a dense wood. 
 In the edge of the wood the enemy had planted his machine 
 guns. The tall trees were thick with nests of snipers. The 
 oncoming troops threw themselves flat. When for a moment 
 the bullets ceased whistling, they sprang up, plunged forward, 
 and fell prone again. This drew the enemy s fire upon them, 
 but enabled other sections to rise in the interim and move 
 ahead. Thus was the wood won, slowly, under exquisite tor- 
 ture. The hillside presented a grewsome sight. The dead lay 
 thick. The wounded rolled in agony; some tried to crawl 
 away; others strove to hobble on mangled limbs. Stretcher- 
 bearers sped back and forth, and first-aid men scorned death 
 to bestow their ministrations. The caste of wealth, of intellect, 
 of race, consumed in the flames. Patrician and pleb met in a 
 common brotherhood. . . 
 
 "God, what a world, if men in street and mart. 
 Felt that same kinship of the human heart, 
 Which makes them, in the face of fire and flood, 
 Rise to the meaning of True Brotherhood. . ." 
 
 George Earl murmured these lines, then started forward 
 again. But a sharp cry escaped him. He halted, clasped his 
 hands to his bosom and stood wavering. Then, as the arms 
 of his companion closed around him, he sank limp. And the 
 line moved on. . , 
 
 Over the young clergyman's grave that night the former 
 valet hung, wondering. A smile had rested on the bloodless 
 lips of the dead man when they placed his body in the muddy 
 ground. "What does he see?" Boots kept wondering. "What 
 does he see?" Absorbed in their talk, he and Earl had walked 
 into a machine gun nest; and Boots had exhibited such cour- 
 age in the rescue of his companion's body that his conduct had 
 been widely lauded. But it was not of this that the valet thought 
 as he remembered that dead face with its quixotic smile. The 
 question that he kept repeating, though couched in other words, 
 was the query of the ages: "If a man die shall he live again?" 
 
 And while the hosts of Israel's adversary were falling back 
 with the grip of fear at their hearts; while the simple-minded 
 -valet was pondering his rending question; and while Alden 
 Cragg in his darkened cell was wrestling in .the same combat 
 that transformed Jacob into Israel; a tall, elderly man, with 
 eyes snapping beneath whitened brows, sat confronting a slen- 
 der girl of rare beauty on a housetop in the squalid town of 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Khanikan, on the Diala, in modern Persia. At the girl's feet 
 sat a Jew, clad in the British uniform. On the low parapet 
 that rose above the cornice reclined an Egyptian woman. The 
 oddly assembled quartette had come from Port Said by way 
 of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. And a British gunboat 
 had brought them. 
 
 "The most important investigation of our time, I admit, 
 provided we get results," the old man was saying vigorously; 
 "but what have we discovered so far that is of real Value? 
 Br-r-r-r ! Months of hardship and danger. . . And as for any 
 Jt)roofs that the Bible promises have been fulfilled . . . Why, 
 look you, we are really proving that the Bible is a hodge-podge 
 of wild romancings ! It is true, we British are the preservers 
 of the Bible. But what good does it do to preserve a book that 
 we don't understand?" 
 
 The girl reached up and took his hand. "We have learned 
 much of real value these past months," she replied gently, "oh, 
 so much! Oh, yes, I know you found Mesopotamia a grim, 
 hard land. But it was not always so. The blight of Esau has 
 destroyed its former beauty and richness. It is the blight of 
 ignorance of God. The howling of the jackals at twilight sym- 
 bolizes the sterility, of Islam. The -mound that buries ancient 
 Ur is not a handsome thing; yet standing there I saw the whole 
 history of Israel unroll before me. The very atmosjphere 
 seemed surcharged with it. 
 
 "You know," she resumed after a pause, "a modern novelist- 
 historian has said that 'half the duration of human civilization 
 and the keys to all its chief institutions are to be found before 
 Sargon the First'. And he ruled over Mesopotamia at least 
 3,000 years before the Christian Era. I think this novelist- 
 historian saw the significance of the present war in a way that 
 has totally escaped most people." 
 
 Again she paused and sat for a while musing. The others 
 bent to listen. It had long since become their wont. Presently 
 she resumed. "The Mesopotamian valley has been called the 
 cradle of mankind. But this is only because the earliest rec- 
 ords of what we call civilization are found there. The lower 
 portion of the valley was anciently known as Chaldea. There 
 were settlements there as far back as 7,000 years before Christ. 
 This lower part of the country was then called Kengi, the 'land 
 of canals and reeds'. Nippur was the religious center of the 
 country. And other cities that flourished then were Erech, 
 Lagash, Larsam, and Ur. 
 
 "The first inhabitants of Chaldea that we have been able to 
 trace were the Shumiro-Accads, already a mixed race, you see. 
 They were called the Accadians. I have told you much about 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the kings of Shumir and Accad. What concerns us is that they 
 believed in spirits, and believed that sorcerers, wicked men, 
 linew how to compel the powers of evil to do their bidding and 
 inflict sickness, disaster, and death by a look — the 'evil eye' — 
 by drinks of herbs, and other means. Thus aggressive mental 
 suggestion can be traced back some 9,000 years. Its modes are 
 much more subtle to-day." ~ And she fell silent as her thought 
 went back to Crestelridge. 
 
 "The ancient Accadian language was considered more holy 
 than other tongues," she went on. "They did have a peculiar 
 speech and much so-called learning. But tHeir learning, like 
 ours to-day, was not real science, and it did not save them. 
 At a very early date they were conqueried by a much less cul- 
 tivated people speaking the Semitic language. The union of 
 the two peoples made the historic Chaldeans. 
 
 "As early as 3,800 B. C. Chaldea comprised many powerful 
 cities or states, and each state was striving for leadership. The 
 question: Who shall be greatest? agitated them nearly 6,000 
 years ago as much as it has agitated our modern nations. And, 
 like ours, they attempted to answer it by war. We have learned 
 many things about them, but we seem to have learned nothing 
 from them. The world is- still mesmerized by the error that 
 ideas can be destroyed by slaying people." 
 
 The Jew looked up at the girl. "Maeterlinck tells us, I believe, 
 that man once knew more than he knows now. Have our inves- 
 tigations shown that?" 
 
 "Bah!" burst from the elderly man, "we've visited the ruins 
 of ancient Babylon; we've seen thousands of their books, clay 
 tablets that go back nearly to 3,000 B. C. And what are they? 
 The merest trash, infused with magic, beliefs in charms and 
 amulets, fortune-telling by the stars!" 
 
 "But is the world so far advanced beyond them to-day?" 
 the girl asked. "There were spiritually minded men in those 
 remote days. Enoch worked out his salvation through his right 
 knowledge of the One God. Noah, seeing the wickedness of 
 mankind at its height, saved the world by his hope of the 
 IMessiah. Abram, in the midst of fearful idolatry, caught a 
 glimpse of the Christ from afar. It has been said that 'Chris- 
 tianity, with its doctrine of original sin, is but an imperfect 
 echo of older and wiser religions'. Real Christianity as envi- 
 sioned by these men had no doctrine of original sin." 
 
 "Humph!" growled the elderly man; "that s'tuff about orig- 
 mal sin was concocted by the busy 'Fathers' at Alexandria and 
 Rome and Athens. I admit that. But, just the same, they 
 based it on the Bible." 
 
 "The Bible," the girl continued, "sets forth a great Cosmic 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Drama. It portrays the Creation — that is, the revealing of the 
 spiritual universe as the manifestation of the Mind that is 
 God, and its attempted destruction by Mind's suppositional 
 opposite, error, or evil. All down the ages of human history 
 you can trace this attempt to destroy the Word by destroying 
 the people to whom it was entrusted." 
 
 "The Jews?" asked Barach. 
 
 "No, but Israel," she answered. "It is said that 'the Bible 
 was written by a race, of a race, and for a race'; but only in 
 these last days have we begun to realize that that race was the 
 entire Hebrew nation, not the Jews alone, but all Israel. In 
 the Bible, Israel recorded its search for God. In it they recorded 
 the glimpses of Truth that came to them at times. And because 
 of this, error, the suppositional opposite of Truth, has always 
 sought to destroy the Bible and its preservers. The greatest 
 miracle of the ages is the preservation of the literal Word and 
 Israel, its keeper. Nation after nation struck at all Israel. The 
 Hebrew nation was split into two antagonistic houses. The 
 House of Judah was scattered; the House of Israel was sifted 
 among the nations of the earth. The literal Word became 
 buried in a dead language ; its spiritual interpretation was ridi- 
 culed from the earth; its moral was smothered in the dead 
 letter; it has been driven from our schools; it was all but 
 effaced by the 'Higher Criticism'; and to-day the descendants 
 of the ancient Assyrians are madly striving to crush Israel, 
 its preserver. Yet to-day the great presses of Oxford and' Cam- 
 bridge are clanging as never before, sending the Bible to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. Is it not wonderful? Is it not 
 awful? And can you not see that it is all mental, all a repeti- 
 tion of the age-long warfare between the forces of good and 
 evil? 
 
 " 'In the beginning', the Bible says, 'God created the heaven 
 and the earth'. That is, 'At the beginning', or 'To begin with' 
 — not the beginning of Creation, but a beginning from which 
 we can start. God's Creation has always existed as His infinite 
 reflection. As Mind, God evolves and reveals His numberless 
 ideas that express Him. And God revealed Man, His greatest 
 idea, the compound idea that includes all other ideas and com- 
 pletely manifests the infinite creative Mind. All was good, 
 perfect, harmonious, eternal then. And so it remains to-day. 
 For what could change it, if God is omnipotent? 
 
 "Then appeared the 'mist'. And, as I have told you, by 
 this is meant the strange fact that reality seems always to have 
 its shadow in unreality^ its direct opposite. And this unreality 
 seems to claim reality and truth for itself. In that respect it 
 counterfeits the real. It is the communal mortal mind, as I 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 said, that stands as the opposite and negative of the Mind that 
 is God. But it is suppositional and without basis of fact. Jesus 
 called it a liar from the beginning. But it seems to have its 
 laws of evolution, and appears to create a material universe 
 and animals and men. All nature, as we seem to know it, is 
 but the manifestation of this false mind that is without Prin- 
 ciple, or God. 
 
 "From the beginning this false mind has sinned, has missed 
 the mark, for always it has been error. And so its manifesta- 
 tion has always been discordant, fleeting, dying. Its greatest 
 idea, mortal man, dies because of this inherent sin. The Bible 
 mentions this communal mortal mind as Adam. And Adam 
 is its man, like unto itself. 
 
 "Now, as the Mind that is God unfolded its perfect ideas, 
 so the false mind seemed to develop its man, slowly and through 
 countless revolting animal forms and mentalities. And, little 
 by little, the curtain began to rise on what we call human his- 
 tory. But the idea of a power not itself began to filter through 
 the mist of mortal mind. Human beings began to feel its influ- 
 ence. And at length there were many who began to think 
 better. And their better thinking manifested outwardly in 
 better living and doing, for man is the result of his thought. 
 Enoch thought so closely to God that he overcame the sugges- 
 tions of the communal mortal mind and rose above death, the 
 penalty mortals pay for being outside of Principle in suppo- 
 sition. 
 
 "But error was striking hard. The mesmerism of evil swept 
 away human civilization in Noah's day, just as it is trying to do 
 to-day through the Germans and the Turks, and just as it will 
 do unless we, like Noah, take refuge in the Ark of Truth. After 
 that trying experience came great men who perceived that only 
 the spiritual is real. And one of the greatest of these was the 
 one who has become my favorite Old Testament character, 
 Abraham. 
 
 "Abraham is the type of obedience, without which we shall 
 not see God — ^without which we shall never see Life. He was 
 obedient to his vision of the One God; and because of this he 
 went into a strange country, that which he did not at first 
 know, namely, life in Spirit, 'Adonai, Jehovah', he prayed. 
 Adonai is the plural number of the Hebrew noun, and by using 
 it Abraham showed that he recognized God as all-inclusive. 
 To regard God as masculine only is to limit Him. In Genesis 
 we read that God refers to Himself as WE. 'Let US make Man 
 in OUR image and likeness.' And in the image of Mind did 
 God make him. God was called Jah-Hovah. The word Hovah 
 is the name of Eve, 'the mother of all living'. So God became 
 
 10 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 known, even in Abraham's day, as 'Father-Mother'. Much 
 later, when men's thinking was deeply material, the term 
 Jehovah was merely the name of the tribal god of the Hebrews. 
 
 "Oh, there were wonderful men in those early days when 
 error was striving so desperately to kill the Word! What a 
 grand character was Melchisedec! Perhaps he was Shem, the 
 father of the Semitic races. At any rate it is all but certain 
 that he was the great Philitis, who subdued Egypt without 
 bloodshed or strife. How did he do it? Through his wonderful 
 recognition of the AUness of Mind. And it is all but certain 
 that during his day in Egypt that great monument, Mizr aim's 
 'altar', supposed to be Cheops' tomb, was erected. Did he build 
 it? Who knows? But if he did, then it must have a tremendous 
 significance that has remained veiled to the densely material 
 minds of mortals these forty centuries. We do know, however, 
 that the mysterious 'shepherd kings', of whom Philitis was 
 one, overthrew idolatry in Egypt, and that during this time the 
 Great Pyramid was undoubtedly built. 
 
 "In those days there came dream-revelations from the Mind 
 that is God to those who were mentally ready for them. Later, 
 the prophet Joel declared that these would be more prevalent 
 when Truth should be more fully understood. When certain 
 limitations seemed to hold men like Abraham or Jacob — when 
 such as these right-thinkers struggled for guidance — then 
 came 'angels', right intuitions, mental voicings of Truth, that 
 saved them. Some of these 'angels' appeared to come in the 
 form of visions. As such they have come all through the ages. 
 They always show that materiality has no power to injure or 
 defeat the spiritual idea. Can we say that such a vision did 
 not come to the defenders of the right at Mons and Ypres? 
 
 "Because of Abram's fidelity to the glimpse of Truth that 
 came to him, that God, Spirit, is One and All, he was made 
 heir to the Word. Thus was he 'chosen'. Then error turned 
 its flood upon him. But he endured, and was rewarded by 
 receiving the promise: for through him the whole material 
 concept, the lie, with all its concomitants of discord, disease, 
 and death, shall be abolished, and spiritual Man be revealed." 
 
 She turned to the elderly man. "What have we learned 
 that is real?" she said. "We have visited Mugheir, the site of 
 ancient Ur. We have learned that Ur comprised not only the 
 city, but the region round about, and that 2,800 years before 
 the Christian Era it was exercising hegemony over all south- 
 ern Babylonia. That year, 2,800 B. C, is probably the date of 
 the event which gave rise to the story of the Flood. Ur was 
 the seat of a great civilization. Its people had made remark- 
 able strides in building, in sculpture, metal-working, gem- 
 
 11 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 engraving, weaving, writing, literature, law, government, mathe- 
 matics, and astronomy. It was closely related to Arabia,, and 
 had a large commerce with India. It was rich, powerful. What 
 did it lack? A saving knowledge of God. 
 
 "We have seen the stone door-socket • found in the Ur 
 region, and read on it that 'Gemil-Sin, the mighty king, king 
 of Ur, king of the four quarters of the earth, has built for 
 Marduk his favorite temple'. Have we not heard echoes of 
 such mortal boasting in our own day? Marduk, or Merodach, 
 became patron saint of Babylonia and ultimately usurped 
 the title of Bel, the lord, and became almost sole god of the 
 country. And the result? The mighty Babylonian empire 
 perished miserably in a ballroom! 
 
 "About 2,000 B. C. the city of Ur was the capital of a pow- 
 erful monarch, Urukh, or Lig-Bagas. He founded the great 
 temple dedicated to the moon-god Hurki. The atmosphere of Ur 
 was now fetid with idolatry. There was dense materialism, and 
 perpetual warfare with surrounding countries to secure trade 
 and material gain. Ur was a great maritime center, being then 
 on the Persian Gulf. It was a great religious center and the seat 
 of a powerful priesthood. "Royalty developed anciently from 
 the priesthood, you know, and was at first a form of priestly 
 rule. The first great historical character that we have traced 
 is the Semite Sharrukin, king of Agade, or Accad. He is Sargon 
 the First. He reigned about 3,800 B. C, and was the Charle- 
 magne of his lime. He had chariots of bronze. He did for 
 science, literature, and organization what Charlemagne did for 
 these in western Europe in the ninth century. But he wor- 
 shiped the popular goddess Ishtar. 
 
 "The religion of Ur about the year 2,000 B. C. was polythe- 
 istic and had developed from the worship of the celestial 
 bodies— the sun, moon, stars. These gods were II — the Hebrew 
 EL — Ana, Belus, Hea Sansi — the sun — and Nebo and Ishtar. 
 The city was reared on a foundation of dense materialism and 
 religious superstition. But it possessed a citizen, Abram by 
 name, who left it to avoid its error and to search for a 'city 
 with foundations'. 
 
 "Abram appeared during the period of Elamite supremacy. 
 He traced his lineage to Heber, or Eber, from whom came the 
 Hebrew people. He went out seeking the spiritual understand- 
 ing of God, whieh is likened unto a city, the conscious abode 
 of spiritual sense. This 'city' is the 'New Jerusalem' that John 
 saw on Patmos." 
 
 "Are you going to spiritualize everything?" demanded Pen- 
 berry at this juncture. 
 
 "Without the spiritual interpretatidn, the Bible is mere 
 
 12 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Babel," the girl replied. . "It is likewise utter confusion and 
 contradiction without the knowledge that 'Israel' means the 
 ten tribes constituting the House of Israel that became 'lost'." 
 
 "And you insist that they are ..." 
 
 "I insist that they are to-day fighting the Germans in 
 France. It will be revealed to you. . ." 
 
 "Egad ! if it's true, then I am forced to become a Christian. 
 And so is Barach." 
 
 "In the same way that you are forced to believe that two 
 and two are four, and not five," she returned, smiling up at 
 him. 
 
 Evening had come stealthily on as they talked. The sun 
 had dropped, a bulging, crimson mass, behind the hills that 
 shut out the Assyrian desert. Beyond them in heaps of dust 
 lay fallen Babylon, prophetic symbol of error's doom. 
 
 The girl rose. "We must postpone our talk about Israel," 
 she said. "I am writing to Madam Galuth to-night." 
 
 And when she had left, it seemed to Simeon Penberry that 
 night had abruptly closed about him. 
 
 CHAPTER 2 
 
 FOR many months Simeon Penberry had known that, far 
 from being the leader of this unique expedition, he was 
 only a humble follower. In Marian Whittier there burned 
 a fire that awed him, as it did the other members of the little 
 party. It was to him as if a mighty spirit were hovering over 
 the girl, animating, instructing, guiding her, warning him to 
 watch, wait, and serve, but not to interfere. And he obeyed 
 and placed his vast fortune at her disposal and fell back to 
 follow whither she might lead. But he followed on the tip-toe 
 of keen expectancy. To him, as to the others, the prescience 
 of a tremendous revelation seemed always to move before 
 them. 
 
 It seemed strange to Simeon Penberry that the girl made 
 never a reference to Alden Cragg, and he early began to doubt 
 the accuracy of his judgment of her. As they traveled and 
 delved, the limitations with which he had surrounded his con- 
 cept of the girl fell away, and he began to see her character 
 in proportions that first amazed, then awed him. And shame 
 crept upon him for his treatment of her in Penberry Hall, and 
 humility quenched his natural brusquerie, bridled his spirit of 
 domination, and quickly rendered him her willing servitor. 
 
 With Alden Cragg's departure Penberry had expected that 
 
 13 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Marian would wish to leave Jerusalem at once. Not so, how- 
 ever. For days she continued there, searching, prying, ques- 
 tioning, musing. She became a familiar figure in its streets, 
 its marts, its synagogues, and soon rabbi, priest, and doctor 
 began to welcome her visits and the deep questions and 
 incisive dialogue that they always entailed. Then, apparently 
 satisfied, she one day announced to the impatient Penberry 
 that she was ready to go down into Egypt. 
 
 But again disappointment awaited him. He could endure 
 the silence with which she surrounded herself as she lingered, 
 day after day, in the great museums and libraries; he had 
 expected that she would seek acquaintance with the, learned, 
 and would spend weeks in discussion with them; but he felt 
 that he had a right to expect that, after days at the Great 
 Pyramid, she would confide to him her thought regarding 
 Cheops' tomb. "But you are not ready," she answered him, 
 when he at length demanded the results of her investigations. 
 "I ... I don't know that I am . . . myself," she added, hesi- 
 tatingly. Then, seeing the look of dismay in his face, she went 
 to him and put her arms about his neck. "Wait," she said. 
 "For I am waiting with you." 
 
 Then came the Mesopotamian expedition. North of them 
 the British were sweeping the Turkish remnant from the fabled 
 Garden of Eden. Under the protection of Israel, Marian dwelt 
 for days in ancient Ur, in Babylon, and by the great river. She 
 appeared to Penberry at times like a disembodied spirit; she 
 moved as if in a trance; she said little, and when she did speak 
 it was — oddly enough! — generally with the Egyptian Zuleyka. 
 ■ Yet at times she called upon the wondering David Barach for 
 knowledge of matters Jewish. . . 
 
 But now, in the Persian town of Khanikan, which was once 
 Ecbatana, the great fortress and capital city of the ancient 
 Medes, the girl's thoughts at last found voice. And Simeon 
 Penberry, as he listened, heard things that transformed his 
 soul. 
 
 "Peter says, in his First Epistle," the girl abruptly began as 
 they were assembling one day in the little room which they 
 had made their study, "that no prophecy of Scripture 'is of any 
 private interpretation'. The word 'private' means 'separate' or 
 'alone'. No prophecy can be given a material interpretation 
 alone. The prophecies, or 'promises', recorded in the Bible 
 were truths that came to those men of old whose mentalities 
 were suflBciently dematerialized to receive them — just as the 
 sunlight will pour into a room if we remove the material bar- 
 riers. It was prophesied — as a promise — that King David's 
 throne should endure forever. Does this refer to a material 
 
 14 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 kingdom? But 'David' means 'beloved' — nay, better still, it is 
 often translated 'Divine Love.' And we may be sure that the 
 throne, of Divine Love, God Himself, will endure. And so a 
 double significance attaches to Jesus' custom of referring to 
 himself as a Son of David. 
 
 "The spiritual is always first : it is the primitive. The mate- 
 rial is the communal mortal mind's counterfeit of it. So mortal 
 mind has counterfeited even the Bible promises. Indeed, it has 
 to! And the spicitual fact that the Kingdom of David, Divine 
 Love, shall endure is counterfeited materially. To-day a king 
 still sits on David's ancient throne. Do you doubt it? But it 
 shall be proved to you. Now if this is proved, then, in discov- 
 ering the human counterfeit, the counter-fable, we know that 
 the real spiritual fact exists, and we are proving that the Bible 
 promises and prophecies are true. For always back of the 
 material counterfeit is the Truth. 
 
 "Abraham sacrificed everything material for Truth, even his 
 beloved son Isaac. No wonder he realized that he was blessed ! 
 No wonder he knew that in him, in such understanding of 
 Spirit, all nations would be blessed! He had made mighty 
 demonstrations of his understanding of God» not the least of 
 which was the demonstration of Isaac. And with proof after 
 proof of spiritual Omnipotence before him, he knew that he 
 should be the father of many nations. And he altered his name 
 from Abram to Abraham — and Sarai's to Sarah — in announce- 
 ment of the fact. He had much to overcome, and he made mis- 
 takes through fear and zeal, he alternately caught and lost his 
 vision, yet he endured and became a blessing to all mankind. 
 For he discerned the Christ. 
 
 "It was to those who accepted the truth regarding the One 
 God that the prophecies were fulfilled. Ishmael, whose modern 
 descendants are the Arabs, and Esau, whose modern progeny 
 are the Turks, had not this truth. But Isaac accepted it. And 
 of Isaac's sons, it was Jacob who was receptive to it. . Oh, it 
 cost Jacob a struggle ! But he wrestled with error and overcame 
 it. And because of this overcoming he became Israel. . ." 
 
 She paused, and her thought seemed to stray afar. "There 
 are some to-day," she said, speaking low, "who are being trans- 
 formed from Jacob to Israel." 
 
 Again she fell silent. Then, brightening: "The name 
 'Israel' in the Hebrew language is a compound of 'Yisso', mean- 
 ing 'prevailing with', 'striving with', and '£/', the name of God. 
 So to be a true Israelite does not depend upon material or 
 human ancestry. It is not a question of race, but of demon- 
 strable knowledge of the One God. 
 
 "Jacob's son Joseph rose to the rulership of Egypt. You 
 
 37 15 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 may read about it in the Bible, in Josephus, and elsewhere. 
 And Jacob's descendants became a great host in that country. 
 But they did not retain the true concept of God, and error in 
 the person of a hostile Pharaoh eventually enslaved them. But 
 Moses taught them how to get rid. of their false concept of 
 God. And this resulted in their freedom from the darkness 
 of Egyptian bondage. Then Moses gave them the Decalogue 
 by which to work out their salvation. And this has become 
 the basis of the Anglo-Saxon law of to-day. 
 
 "The descendants of Jacob were formed into the nation of 
 Israel when Moses led' them out of Egypt. They were then a 
 vast army of fugitive slaves seeking a new home. They typified 
 mankind seeking God. 
 
 "Then came the wandering in the wilderness. And it is at 
 this point that you raise the question of the historical accuracy 
 of the Bible. But you must remember always that the ancient 
 Hebrews used the Old Testament for the purpose of conveying 
 moral lessons and imparting spiritual instruction. In the 
 exodus they portrayed the wandering of mankind through the 
 wilderness of false beliefs of the communal mortal mind. 
 Whether they w,ere actually forty years in the wilderness 
 between Egypt and Palestine, we do not know, any more than 
 we know that Jesus spent forty of our days in the desert, for 
 numbers had a peculiar significance to the Hebrews. What 
 we are concerned with is that in each case the story portrays 
 the individual struggle out of the flesh, out of the carnal mind, 
 into spiritual perception^out of death into the true under- 
 standing of Life. 
 
 "Moses became their leader because he separated Spirit 
 from matter. . He so understood Principle that he put to dis- 
 may the materialistic magicians and priests of Pharaoh's court. 
 His conduct roused mortal mind to fury, and it pursued him. 
 At the Red Sea he had to prove again the mastery of Mind over 
 carnal belief of life and power in matter. And every step of the 
 way was a demonstration. His people chafed under the disci- 
 pline necessary to work out their salvation — oh, I know what 
 that means! They much preferred ease in matter. And even in 
 Canaan they refused to be obedient to Principle, but mingled 
 with the idolators and yielded themselves to evil. They were 
 disappointed in the 'promised land', for they saw it only mate- 
 rially, whereas the real promised land toward which Moses 
 was leading them was a consciousness of Principle, and in 
 order to enable them to acquire such consciousness it was nec- 
 essary to take them away from the deadly materiality typified 
 by the fleshpots of carnally-minded Egypt. Moses' task was 
 superhuman; great as he was, he failed to withstand their 
 
 16 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 fretfulness and nagging, and struck the rock in his own name. 
 The intrusion of 'self into his work kept him from fully dem- 
 onstrating the AUness of God, and he did not overcome death, 
 did not enter the promised land of complete spiritual con- 
 sciousness." She hesitated, and her thought went back to 
 Crestelridge and to her fear for Alden. "When anything human 
 enters a demonstration of Principle," she said slowly, "the 
 demonstration will fail. 
 
 "But," she went on eagerly, "to continue our story. The 
 Hebrew nation had become a loose confederation of tribes — 
 twelve of them, bearing the names of Jacob's twelve sons. 
 For 400 years they were governed by judges; then the people, 
 now densely materialistic in thought and conduct, demanded a 
 kingdom like those of the Gentiles. They wanted to be spared 
 the trouble of thinking, and so they clamored to be permitted 
 to put their necks under the yoke of mortal man. They wanted 
 to be governed by something else than Principle. It was the 
 work of animal magnetism. They were simply hypnotized. 
 So Saul was made their king. So to-dajr mankind have sought 
 unto their preachers and doctors and professors and Kaisers, 
 rather than be subject to their God, who is their very Life, but 
 who requires righteousness, which is right-thinking." 
 
 "It was in the selection of Saul as king that Moses' political 
 system was definitely abandoned," offered David Barach. "His 
 system was really never used. I wish it had been, for it might 
 have afforded a solution of problems in government that still 
 baffle the world. In his scheme a constitutional form of gov- 
 ernment was indicated; by it no autocrat ever could have 
 secured control. The priesthood was possessed by the tribe of 
 Levi; the tribe of Joseph possessed the birthright; and the 
 scepter was held by the tribe of Judah. But the people were 
 not ready for a form of government so advanced. They needed 
 a strongly centralized form. And Saul was chosen to give it to 
 them." 
 
 Marian nodded and resumed. "But Saul had no capacity for 
 governing. He became a selfish autocrat. David at length 
 headed a revolt and established himself as an independent ruler 
 at Hebron. Later, Saul was deposed, and David ruled over all 
 Israel. You may read his. romantic story in the first Book of 
 Samuel. David was followed by his great son, Solomon, under 
 whom Israel experienced its Golden Age. When Solomon 
 passed away his son Rehoboam became king. 
 
 "Then came the great schism, the event that has caused so 
 much confusion in our understanding of the Bible. Ten of 
 the tribes revolted against Rehoboam's tyranny and chose Jero- 
 boam to be their king. This was in 975 B. C. From this time 
 
 17 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 on there were two Hebrew kingdoms : the House of Israel, com- 
 prising the ten rebellious tribes under Jeroboam, with their 
 capital at Samaria; and the House of Judah, comprisikg the 
 two tribes of Judah and Benjamin under King Rehoboam, and 
 having their capital at Jerusalem. 
 
 "The House of Judah then attempted to restore the former 
 House of David, the Kingdom of Hebron, for they had remained 
 faithful to David. But the birthright was in possession of 
 the Tribe of Joseph. And it was a tremendous political weapon 
 in those days. And Joseph had joined the rebellious tribes that 
 formed the House of Israel. So the House of David was 
 wrecked. 
 
 "The House of Israel, on the other hand, believed that when 
 Rehoboam died the dynasty of David would be restored to 
 them; but the reunion of all the tribes was never brought 
 about. Judah remained outside. The people of the House of 
 Judah gradually became known as Jews. And down through 
 the ages they have cherished the hope that they would eventu- 
 ally be placed in possession of the throne of all Israel. It was 
 this restoration of the ancient House of David that was so 
 eagerly looked for when Jesus appeared. The Jewish leaders 
 delicately approached Jesus on the matter. But he told them 
 the parable of the stone which the builders rejected. That 
 stone was literally Joseph; the Jews had forfeited their hope 
 of ever ruling the Kingdom of Israel. They were spiritually 
 incapable. The answer enraged the Jews, and they denounced 
 Jesus and plotted his death. 
 
 "For well they knew that the House of Israel was in exist- 
 ence, though regarded now as a race of idolatrous barbarians. 
 
 "In the great revolt of 975 B. C. it was the support of the 
 tribes of Joseph — Ephraim and Manasseh — that had turned the 
 scale against the House of David and given the Kingdom of 
 Israel to Jeroboam. The two divisions into which the Hebrew 
 nation had split — the House of Judah and the House of Israel — ■ 
 remained bitterly hostile to each other. That of Judah sought 
 to maintain the orthodox Hebrew religion; but Jeroboam, King 
 of the House of Israel, would have none of it. He therefore 
 instituted the worship of the golden calf, and led his people 
 into a degenerated form of worship that was worse than heath- 
 enism. Thus did Jeroboam make Israel to sin. 
 
 "The two rival kingdoms fought and plotted each other's 
 destruction for more than two hundred years. The House of 
 Israel again and again sought by war to force a union upon 
 the House of Judah, or to absorb it by diplomacy or intrigue. 
 Neither House could forego its jealousies; their religious differ- 
 ences could not be reconciled; and the question of which 
 
 18 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 dynasty should possess the Kingdom was impossible of settle- 
 ment. The House of Israel sought foreign alliances. This 
 brought in atten and idolatrous practices. The religion of 
 Siiiai faded from their minds. Baal became all but supreme. 
 Nationall degeneracy and incessant warfare brought the inev- 
 itable result. 
 
 "Like buzzards the Babylonians, Assyrians, and surround- 
 ing Gentile nations gathered to watch the fray and feast on 
 the carcasses. Judah invited the Assyrians to attack Israel. 
 And both Houses ultimately fell a prey to this common enemy, 
 but Israel first. In the ninth year of Hosea, about 721 B. C, 
 Jeroboam's capital city, Samaria, was captured and the House 
 of Israel went into bondage to the Assyrians, never to return. 
 The nation was completely ruined, blotted out." 
 
 David" Barach gave vent to an exclamation. "That's just it! 
 The ten tribes disappeared, were absorbed, and were never 
 heard of again ! So the Bible promises . . ." 
 
 "You are mistaken, David," the girl returned gently. "In the 
 year 709 B. C, twelve years after they were brought in chains 
 from Samaria, the people of the House of Israel were working 
 as slaves, building the city of Ecbatana, the ancient Median city 
 on whose site we are now standing." 
 
 CHAPTER 3 
 
 «|~x O you agree with me thus far, David?" Marian asked some 
 I 1 days later, after Barach had pored over her story and 
 ^■'^ checked her references and citations. And Barach an- 
 swered her that he did. 
 
 "And do you see how it is that not all Israelites are Jews, 
 but all Jews are Israelites?" 
 
 "I see how Barach is a Jew," put in Simeon Penberry; "but 
 I don't admit yet that I am an Israelite." 
 
 "David Barach is descended from the House of Judah," 
 she answered; "you are come from the House of Israel. And 
 Abraham is your common father. The name 'Jew' is a cor- 
 ruption of the name 'Judah'," she went on. "It first occurs 
 in the Bible in the second Book of Kings. This was some 
 twelve centuries after Abram left Ur. The great error of calling 
 all the descendants of Abraham 'Jews' has caused at least 
 seven-eighths of the Bible to be woefully misunderstood, and 
 has made the Old Testament practically a closed book. Abra- 
 ham, descended from Heber, or Eber, was a Hebrew. His 
 descendants are all Hebrews. The Jews are Hebrews. But 
 
 19 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 — mark this ! — the Hebrews are by no means all Jews. When 
 you have mastered this distinction, then you have seized the 
 key that opens Old Testament history and rwiders it not 
 only intelligible, but makes it, next to the New Testament, the 
 most fascinatingly interesting book in the world. This dis- 
 tinction once admitted, all the Bible prophecies and promises 
 fall into their respective places in order, and we stand aston- 
 ished as we see how they have been fulfilled to the respective 
 Houses of Judah and Israel, how they are being fulfilled to-day, 
 and how they are certain to be fulfilled in the future. 
 
 "For what are some of the Bible prophecies concerning the 
 Jews, the House of Judah? They are to be a scattered people, 
 dispersed, yet always known; to be without a nationality; spe- 
 cially persecuted; to retain a special type of features; to retain 
 their Mosaic service until returned to their own land; to reject 
 the Christ that was to come through them; to be known as a 
 by-word and a reproach; to be without niight; to be strangers 
 in all lands; never to be a nation, or have a king, until their 
 union with the House of Israel and their acceptance of the 
 Christ; and . . ." 
 
 "And to be profiteers and pawnbrokers!" interjected Pen- 
 berry. 
 
 Marian and Barach laughed. "To have money, yes," the 
 girl replied; "but not to be owners of landed property until 
 toward the latter days. And now, David," turning to Barach, 
 "have these prophecies been fulfilled, or are they being ful- 
 filled to-day?" 
 
 "Absolutely," he said. 
 
 "There are many other prophecies concerning the Jews. 
 You can find them scattered all through the Old Testament," 
 she continued. "But now to the ten-tribed House of Israel. 
 It is prophesied that they should become lost; they should be 
 divorced from the Mosaic law; they should not only lose their 
 name, but their language as well; they are to become a head 
 nation, to be a company of nations; to be great colonizers and 
 to possess the isles of the sea; they are to wander many years 
 and at length find an island home in the West; other peoples 
 are to die out before them; they are to have a perpetual mon- 
 archy and to possess David's throne; they are to be mighty 
 in war on land and sea; they are to be money-lenders; and 
 they are to possess Palestine and to invite the House of Judah 
 — the Jews — to return — but first they were to be driven out 
 from their own land and sown among the nations. And then, 
 after being lost to view, they were to be found, and to become 
 the sons of God, and be used for the conversion of the 
 world. . ." 
 
 20 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Some of these predictions admirably fit the British," Pen- 
 berry remarked. "But proceed. What became of the House 
 of Israel?" 
 
 "Isaiah, that great prophet-statesman, foresaw the terrible 
 consequences of Israel's moral degeneracy, and begged them to 
 return to the understanding of the One God. But they were 
 too deeply mesmerized by materiality. Then he foretold their 
 destruction. The first chapter of Hosea sounds their doom^ 
 Evil thought is almays externalized in evil consequences. Sama- 
 ria fell before the Assyrians in 721 B. C. By the year 676 B. 
 C. the prophecies had been fulfilled to the letter: the House of 
 Israel had been entirely removed from Palestine, and alien 
 colonists were sent by the conquering Assyrians to settle iii 
 Samaria. 
 
 "Shalmaneser had the account of his overthrow of Samaria 
 recorded on stones which we have read. Do you recall it? 
 7 am Shalmaneser . . . being king I have no equal among the 
 kings. . . I besieged and occupied the town of Samaria; 1 
 brought into captivity 27,280 persons; I took them to Assy- 
 ria. . .'" 
 
 "Sounds strangely modern," Penberry murmured. "An 
 echo from Potsdam." 
 
 "The House of Israel was transferred bodily into Assyria 
 and Media," Marian continued. "It was a black hour for them. 
 Yet, strangely, the prophets continued to foretell the glorious 
 future of desolated Israel. They declared that Israel would 
 wander toward the east and north; would be sifted through 
 all nations; would run to and fro seeking the Word of the 
 Lord; would be reduced by wars and famine; but would even- 
 tually be planted in their own land and give the law to the 
 world. These prophets knew that error had limitations. 
 
 "The captive people of the House of Israel were taken, some 
 to Nineveh, others into Media, to Halah and Habor by the river 
 Gozan. Gozan probably is the river Uzen, which flows into the 
 Caspian Sea near Resht. We have just been "through this 
 region. In ancient times, before the captivity of Israel, this 
 particular country to which the exiles were taken was known 
 as Gutium, the land of Guta. It was the Goyim, of which Tidal 
 was king, long before. This is the Tidal of the fourteenth 
 chapter of Genesis, who, with Kudur-Lagamar, waged war 
 against Lot and was punished by Abraham. The great war of 
 to-day is but a continuation of that ancient attempt against 
 the Word. 
 
 "Thus the House of Israel went into captivity. But Israel 
 did not remain in bondage. The mighty Assyrian empire pres- 
 ently began to wane. The Medes and Babylonians were wax- 
 
 21 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing strong. Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt saw it all, and hurried 
 up to embrace what he considered an opportunity to master 
 the world. He demanded permission of Josiah, king of the 
 House of Judah, to pass through the territory of Judah; *and 
 the prophet Jeremiah supported the demand. But Josiah fool- 
 ishly resisted, against counsel, and was slain in the battle of 
 Megiddo, and the Kingdom of Judah ruined. Four years later 
 Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of the Babylonian and Median 
 armies, met the Egyptians in the famous battle of Carchemish, 
 in 608 B. C, and utterly routed them. Then Nineveh and the 
 Assyrian empire fell, and Nebuchadnezzar turned to battle with 
 the invading Scythians, who had come down, under their two 
 chiefs, Gog and Magog, from the Russian steppes. Defeating 
 them, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention westward to the 
 tottering House of Judah. 
 
 "The battle of Carchemish was one of the decisive battles of 
 the world. It was the captive House of Israel's grand oppor- 
 tunity. Jeremiah had been in correspondence with them, and 
 he now vigorously spurred them to action. Israel sprang up, 
 hurled aside the weak garrison left to protect the land of Guta, 
 and escaped. They were advised by Tobit, a leader in the 
 Israelitish community and a man of importance in Assyrian 
 affairs, that it would not be practicable to attempt to return 
 to Palestine, for Nebuchadnezzar was invading it and Jerusalem 
 'was. certain to fall. The western passes were all barred by 
 hostile armies. The strong nations of the Parthians and the 
 Persians lay to the east. There was but one way for Israel 
 to go: north, through the narrow gap by which the invading 
 Scythians had come. 
 
 "Esdras — this is the way the Greeks wrote the name of 
 Ezra — gives an account of this flight. You may read it in the 
 thirteenth chapter of Esdras, in the Apocrypha. It says that 
 they went into a region called Arsareth. The tribes probably 
 followed the bed of the Euphrates during the dry season and 
 entered what is now Armeniai Arsareth is also written Arza- 
 reth, Arzar, and Ararath. This last name is the equivalent 
 of Ararat, the name by which Armenia used to be known. And 
 will you believe me," turning to Penberry, "when I tell you 
 that the AngIo-$axon Chronicle, to vvhich you so proudly trace 
 your lineage, states that the first inhabitants of Britain were 
 the Britons who came from Armenia?" 
 
 He made as if to speak, but checked himself. She waited 
 a moment for his unvoiced protest, then continued: "And so, 
 from this very region where we are now, the House of Israel 
 fled north and through the Caucasus into modern Russia, 
 through the very mountain pass that to this day is called the 
 
 22 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 'Gates of Israel'. The lost ten tribes had now entered upon 
 their great destiny." 
 
 "And I presume that already they were called English, eh?" 
 laughed the incredulous Penberry, unable to contain himself 
 longer. 
 
 The girl turned her serious eyes upon him. "They were," 
 she said quietly. "In those ancient days it was the custom 
 of foreigners to name a people from their form of worship. 
 After King Jeroboam of the House of Israel had repudiated 
 the Mosaic form of worship and set up the golden calves, the 
 people of Israel were often known as 'calf men'. In their own 
 language engel means 'calf, and ish means 'man'. So they 
 
 were known as the Engelish." 
 
 ****** 
 
 To Simeon Penberry the Bible, always an unknown, neg- 
 lected compilation of heated oriental imaginations, slowly began 
 to take on a new character. He had been hitherto a consistent 
 type of the human mind that sees nought in the Scriptures but 
 the literal, and sweeps that aside with the definitive comment: 
 "Historically inaccurate." Now, with the Bible before him, 
 with those portions having direct reference to the House of 
 Israel underlined in red ink, those dealing with the House of 
 Judah alone underscored in green, and all references to the 
 Gentile nations in black, he sat astonished at the profound story 
 revealed in the history of the twelve tribes. Where before, 
 when no distinction had been made between these Houses of 
 Judah and Israel, the books were found at variance with one 
 another; where Isaiah appeared to declare Hosea false, and 
 Jeremiah seemed to impugn them both; where Zechariah flatly 
 contradicted Zephaniah, and Joel and Amos could not possibly 
 be reconciled; now, under Marian's guidance, perfect harmony 
 was established and the story of Israel unfolded to him like 
 a fascinating romance. Thereafter his search for the where- 
 abouts of Israel to-day became a passion. 
 
 "They escaped north into the 'wilderness' described in the 
 book of Hosea," Marian explained in answer to his now per- 
 sistent questioning, taking up the story of the House of Israel 
 after the battle of Carchemish in 608 B. C. "They could not, 
 they dared not, go back; they must face the barren plains of 
 southern Russia, stripped of all that mortals deem essential 
 to happiness. Truly, they were a people under punishment; 
 they were despised even by the barbarians who dwelt in those 
 sterile regions. 
 
 "Those barbarians were the Scythians. I told you that 
 bands of them had gone down to invade weakened Assyria. 
 Nebuchadnezzar drove them back . . ." 
 
 23 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But does history cite them?" 
 
 "Herodotus gives an account of these returning Scythians 
 meeting at the entrance of their own country with an army 
 of escaped slaves. These slaves were the fleeing House of 
 Israel. A battle was fought with them, but it was not decisive. 
 Then diplomacy was resorted to. A compromise was effected 
 and the House of Israel agreed to reduce its strength by divid- 
 ing. The tribe of Joseph, comprising the two tribes of Joseph's 
 sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, went toward the west and settled 
 along the stream that is now the Danube river. There they 
 eventually became known as the Getae. The tribe of Dan 
 separated from the rest and became known as the Thyssagetae. 
 And the remaining seven tribes, the bulk of the House of 
 Israel, went to the east, around the Caspian Sea, and located 
 in eastern Scythia. They were the mass of Israel, and they 
 became known in time as the Massagetae. These names are 
 not used in the Bible records, for the prophets naturally con- 
 tinued to refer to the Getae as 'Joseph', or 'Ephraim', and to 
 the seven tribes forming the Massagetae as 'Israel'. Joseph 
 and Israel, now separated, remained distinct nations for many 
 centuries. 
 
 "While they were still in captivity Jeremiah had prophesied 
 that Israel would yet occupy a 'pleasant land'. So the Mas- 
 sagetae called this eastern country which they now went to 
 'Casiapha'. The word is Chaldean and means 'pleasant' or 
 'desirable'. It is now written Caspian, and the Caspian Sea 
 to-day bears the name. In the eighth chapter of Ezra we find 
 a reference to Iddo, the chief at Casiapha. Ezra had sent to 
 this man of the Massagetae to re-establish the Temple service. 
 This land east of the Caspian Sea where Israel settled after 
 their flight from the Land of Guta is the 'Land of Israel' that 
 Ezekiel refers to. 
 
 "Israel — the Massagetae — were now again close to Media; 
 they found their new home materially pleasant; they rejected 
 the missionary prophets sent to them, and adhered to their 
 ancient idols. It was political expediency too for them to wor- 
 ship the gods of the Medes. And Ezekiel saw it, when he was 
 sent to try to persuade them back to an understanding of the 
 One God. He made a powerful appeal : you may read it in the 
 twentieth chapter of the book of Ezekiel. But he failed. Israel 
 decided, for political and other reasons, to remain heathen. 
 
 "But their national name, 'Israel', was too closely identified 
 with the God of their Hebrew ancestors, EL, whom they had 
 deliberately rejected. They decided to abandon it. They call 
 themselves now 'the people of Guta'. They become the 'Guta- 
 thiuda'. This word 'thiuda' is a Gothic word, meaning 'a 
 people'. 
 
 24 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Thus was prophecy again fulfilled. Israel — even to her 
 name — was swallowed up among the Gentiles, sunk in the 
 depths of barbarism. 
 
 "And now for half a century the House of Israel, as the 
 Massagetae, remain in their 'pleasant land' east of the Caspian 
 Sea. But Jeremiah had prophesied that the Houses of Israel 
 and Judah should meet. And so they did when, out of the 
 north, Israel eventually swept down to the destruction of her 
 old enemy, Babylon. 
 
 "After the battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar had laid 
 siege to Jerusalem, capital city of the House of Judah. Judah 
 was brought under tribute to the Babylonian. It was the begin- 
 ning of the fall. At length, in the year 587 B. C, Nebuchadnez- 
 zar overthrew Zedekiah, last king of Judah, and destroyed 
 Jerusalem and its famous Temple. The House of Judah was 
 taken into captivity and never was a kingdom again. 
 
 "Nearly fifty years later came another great event: Cyrus, 
 king of the Medes and Persians, captured Babylon. And Israel, 
 the Massagetae, came down out of the north and fought in the 
 army of Cyrus as the 'battle-axe of the Lord' against Babylon. 
 Their kinsmen, the House of Judah, were inside the walls of 
 Babylon, as slaves. And the leader of enslaved Judah was 
 Daniel, who, long before, had prophesied that Babylon, as the 
 head of gold of the great image, should be destroyed by the 
 Kingdom of Stone. Here again prophecy was literally fulfilled. 
 And Israel, from being a despised barbarian nation, became 
 conqueror of what had been the mightiest kingdom of the 
 world. You have already read the record on the 'cylinder of 
 Cyrus', where it states that 'On the sixteenth day Gobryas, 
 Governor of Guta, and the army of Cyrus came to Babylon', 
 and how 'the rebels of Guta' closed the gates. It was these 
 'rebels of Guta' who were the captive House of Judah, and who, 
 under Daniel's leadership, assisted in the overthrow of the city. 
 
 "And now did there seem a grand opportunity for a recon- 
 ciliation between the Houses of Israel and Judah and a reunion. 
 But their religious differences held them apart. The 'Guta- 
 thiuda', or 'people of Guta', were devoted to Merodach, the 
 patron god of Cyrus. And Merodach. was the antithesis of the 
 god of Judah. You can read all about this great question in 
 the Book of Isaiah. 
 
 "Both Daniel and Zechariah warned and threatened Israel, 
 but could not induce this mesmerized people to abandon Mero- 
 dach for the One God. Daniel assembled the apostate people, 
 and in the presence of Cyrus himself and all the chiefs and 
 dignitaries read from the scrolls of the Hebrew writings the 
 prophecies of the very events that had just been happening. 
 
 25 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Israel may have been impressed, but her people were now con- 
 querors and freemen, and they did not intend to abase them- 
 selves to the God of enslaved Judah. Moreover, the flattery and 
 patronage of the great Cyrus, who hailed Israel as brothers in 
 the worship of Merodach, was tremendously effective. Cyrus 
 had no desire to see a great Hebrew nation erected through a 
 union now of the Houses of Israel and Judah. And Israel 
 knew it and acted accordingly. And therefore the One God 
 was again rejected in favor of the mythical Merodach and Israel 
 remained, deliberately, heathen and went back to their pleasant 
 land east of the Caspian Sea. 
 
 "One result of Israel's great showing in the overthrow of 
 Babylon was the stimulating of a desire within Cyrus to make 
 himself king over these Massagetae and take unto himself the 
 rights prophetically reserved for the House of David. Herod- 
 otus tells us of the warning Croesus gave Cyrus at this time, 
 but Cyrus was not to be dissuaded. Isaiah, chapters twenty- 
 one and twenty-two, tells about this campaign of CyrUs against 
 Israel. Zechariah had warned and warned Israel, telling them 
 that disaster would befall them for their treachery toward the 
 One God. And so the Elamites — the Persians — again attacked 
 Israel. A third of the army of the Massagetae were slain; but 
 Cyrus paid for it with his own life, and the Kingdom of Stone 
 proceeded further in consuming the great image of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's dream by destroying its breast and arms, the Kingdom 
 of Silver- In the Book of Isaiah we find Cyrus named as 'the 
 shepherd'. In Jeremiah the 'shepherd' is to lead the attackers 
 against Babylon. In Jeremiah again we find that Israel is the 
 rod which is to break in pieces the 'shepherd'. Again prophecy 
 is fulfilled to the letter." 
 
 "The Old Testament," interrupted David Barach, "often 
 refers to Israel as the 'people called by My Name'." 
 
 "Yes," Marian agreed. "The name of God in the Gothic 
 language is 'Guth'. So the 'Guta-thiuda', or 'people of Guta', 
 are really the people of God, called by His name." 
 
 "But," Penberry put in, a bit anxiously, "do you think it 
 may be a coincidence?" 
 
 Marian shook her head. "God's name has come down 
 through all history in the various names by which Israel has 
 been known. In the Hebrew language the name of God is 
 'EL'. So we have 'Yisso-El', or 'Israel'. In the Getic language 
 we find that the name of God is 'An', So it appears. in the name 
 of the 'Angles'. In the Norse language God's name is 'As'. So 
 we have it in the 'Asar'. We shall find that Israel and the 
 Goths and the Angles and the Asar are one people, literally 
 called by God's name. 
 
 26 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "If you will study the Book of Esdras, in the Apocrypha, 
 you will find that Darius, who succeeded Cyrus as king of the 
 Persians, also wanted to become king of Israel. Probably he 
 knew that as ruler of united Persia and Israel he could make 
 himself master of the world. He even proposed to marry the 
 daughter of the Queen of the Massagetae. His offer was proudly 
 rejected; but Israel saw that by thus offending the powerful 
 Persian king she had exposed herself to the greatest danger. 
 She therefore fled before him from her pleasant land east of 
 the Caspian Sea and sought a new home. 
 
 "The .Massagetae fled westward toward what is now known 
 as the Black Sea. There they founded the city of Tomi, doubt- 
 less named after their Queen Tomyris. This city was well 
 known afterward, and Ovid was sent there as an exile. It is 
 probable that the. Massagetae were trying to reach the Getae — 
 Israel in peril was desperately trying to join Ephraim and 
 Manasseh, the two tribes of Joseph that were located in what 
 was anciently known as Dacia, north of Greece and along the 
 Danube river. Herodotus tells us that Darius resorted to strat- 
 egy and hurried his armies northwest, through the country 
 surrounding modern Constantinople and up through ancient 
 Thrace and into the land of. the Getae, who were not powerful 
 enough to resist the advahce of the great Persian army. This 
 prevented Israel from joining Joseph. The date of this event 
 is about six years after the date of the Book of Zechariah. 
 
 "But Darius found himself in no position to give battle, so 
 he withdrew his army and lamely announced that conquest 
 beyond the Danube was not to be desired. So Israel, still reject- 
 ing the One God, but nevertheless bearing His name, was left 
 to work out her destiny in her new home in and around what 
 is now known as the Crimea, in southern Russia. She had 
 occupied strategic positions from which she might have domi- 
 nated the world, but she had repulsed the prophet Ezra who 
 sought to convert her people to the true understanding. They 
 were running to and fro, seeking God, yet still clinging to their 
 idols. Night seemed to settle upon them. They fell under the 
 influence of witchcraft and magic. And their mental darkness 
 was complete when they at length accepted as their leader the 
 crafty, subtle-minded Odin, who brought them under the mes- 
 merism of the 'good old German god'. 
 
 "Thus human history repeats itself. Odin was not of the 
 House of Israel, he was a Jotun. His native country was Jotun- 
 heim, the country of the Teutones. The Gutones, who dwelt 
 on the river Vistula, were known in the third century B. C. 
 They and the Teutones and the Jotuns were one and the same 
 people. The Teutones were doubtless the Cimmerians, whom 
 
 27 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Israel had pushed 'with horns' across the river Dneiper. 
 Zechariah makes an astonishing prophecy regarding an 'idol 
 shepherd'. He says: 'the sword shall be upon his arm, and 
 upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his 
 right eye utterly destroyed'. Accounts state that Odin had 
 lost an eye and that he had a withered arm. . ." 
 
 "Egad!" exclaimed Penberry. "We have a modern Odin 
 up in Potsdam who has led Israel sadly astray! And he has 
 a withered arm!" . 
 
 Marian smiled. "The mesmerized House of Israel con-; 
 sidered Odin a very wise person," she said. '.'But, meantime, 
 the barbarians known as the Teutones were fighting the legions 
 of Rome and were being defeated. So Odin persuaded the 
 House of Israel to follow him through the land of the Teu- 
 tones to a place called Gardariki, which is modern Prussia. 
 From there he led them across the Elbe river and north as far 
 as the Baltic Sea. All along the route they planted colonies — 
 probably families or associated clans merely dropped off and 
 remained to settle in a favorable spot. But prophecy was being 
 fulfilled at every step. Israel was pushing the alien peoples 
 aside 'with horns'. And Odin was Israel's god-man. 
 
 "We have now traced the House of Israel down to the first 
 century of the Christian Era. We find them then settled as 
 colonies among German tribes. They were known as the 
 'Angles', although each colony had its own particular name, 
 those colonizing the Jotun region were known as Jotuns or 
 Jutes; others were known as Saxons. The colony in Scandinavia 
 called their new home 'Gautar-land', or 'Guta-land'. The colo- 
 nists were settled thickest in modern Holstein. And thus they 
 dwelt for more than four centuries, much of the time bitterly 
 hostile to their Teutonic neighbors, always retaining their own 
 customs, language, and laws to a very marked extent. The 
 basis of their language was the ancient Median. They played 
 chess, a game which they brought from Persia and introduced 
 into Europe. They clung to the Chaldean beliefs in magic and 
 sorcery. They developed a gloomy poem about a hero named 
 Beov^oilf, who was 'a man of the Geatas' — the Getae. And in 
 their mythology we find twelve god-men who represent the 
 twelve tribes of ancient Israel. The Angles seem to have held 
 themselves aloof as a very superior people, and they seem to 
 have taken comparatively little from their neighbors or their 
 surrounding environment. 
 
 "And always Israel was pushing "with horns'. Fortunately, 
 the Roman Empire was so weakened that the peoples pushed 
 by expanding Israel could break through toward Rome. When 
 the pushing became too strong, the great 'migration of the 
 
 28 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 nations' took place. Jeremiah had said that Israel was to 'flee 
 from the land of the Chaldees and be as the he-goat among 
 the flocks'. Israel led and pushed; the surrounding nations 
 moved from before them; the world was astir. Then the Angles, 
 the seven-tribed House of Israel, moved over into Britain, 'the 
 isles of the sea', and found their home. There they set up a 
 Heptarchy, composed of seven kingdoms. . ." 
 
 "Egad!" ejaculated Penberry, slapping his sides. 
 
 "The migrations of the nations on the continent of Europe 
 ceased," Marian concluded, "and English history had begun." 
 
 CHAPTER 4 
 
 "TJ UT you forget," cried Penberry, "that English history can 
 r^ hardly be said to begin before the Norman Conquest, in 
 ^-^ 1066! The English are not English without the Norman 
 infusion!" 
 
 "True," Marian agreed. "And so let us go back to the 
 Getae, the tribe of Joseph, composed of the two tribes of Eph- 
 raim and Manasseh, whom we left dwelling on the Danube in 
 the country that roughly corresponds to modern Roumania. 
 Hosea has much to say about them. So has Isaiah in the 28th 
 and 65th chapters of that wonderful book. And Herodotus 
 wrote about them, as well as about the Massagetae and the 
 Scythians, among whom these exiles went to dwell in the bar- 
 ren steppes of southern Russia. The Greeks came in frequent 
 contact with the Getae, who lived just north of Greece. They 
 were said to be a melancholy people, who lamented the birth 
 of a child, but rejoiced over the death of a man. They were 
 often selfish, cruel, and immoral. And they seemed subject 
 to peculiar religious revivals. It has been said that it was by 
 these Getae, rather than by the Jews, that the story of the 
 birth of a Saviour was spread through the world when Jesus 
 was born. Jesus later showed that- he knew of their existence, 
 and he sent missionaries to them. Where they first settled, 
 the Getae dwelt for some seven centuries. They recorded little 
 or nothing of their own history — at least, nothing has come 
 down to us directly from them. And but for what their enemies 
 and neighbors said about them we should be in darkness 
 regarding their story. 
 
 "One thing is certain, however, these people appeared to 
 have no sympathy with the religious mythology of the Greeks. 
 They had rejected the One God, the sarae as their kinsmen, 
 the Massagetae, but they did not accept the pagan gods. They 
 
 29 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 seemed to have remembered that the God they once acknowl- 
 edged was Spirit. And through the centuries they ceased not 
 to look for a Messiah. 
 
 "They do not appear to have been aggressively warlike, 
 although terrible when on the defensive. Like the Massagetae, 
 they seemed to consider themselves much superior to their 
 neighbors and to hold themselves aloof from them. Philip of 
 Macedon, and his son, Alexander the Great, attacked them, but 
 wisely concluded that their conquest was not desirable. The 
 bowmen of Joseph were a bit too formidable, as their descen- 
 dants, the Norman bowmen, later proved to be. They became 
 known as the 'invincible Getae'. Later, Julius Caesar planned 
 a great campaign against them, but death intervened — ^perhaps 
 saving his reputation. Something more than a century after- 
 ward Rome again came into contact with Joseph, the Getae. 
 But they were then known as the Goths. 
 
 "Behind the Getae at this time lay their brethren, the Mas- 
 sagetae. Their united strength must have been very formid- 
 able. And it offered tremendous possibilities. It was these 
 possibilities that aggressive suggestion seems to have presented 
 to Jesus, in the recorded third temptation. Satan is shown 
 offering him all the kingdoms of the world for a price. The 
 temptation was a most subtle one. Jesus was conscious of his 
 spiritual power. The 'lost ten tribes' lay not far off, a mighty 
 host, invincible, and seeking a leader. Why should he not 
 place himself at the head of the united Angles and Goths, 
 restore the Hebrew nation, the House of David, and sweep over 
 Rome to the conquest of the world? It was easy of accomplish- 
 ment ! 
 
 "Yet right here did Jesus show himself the greatest of human 
 beings. Had he done this, his acquired power would have been 
 temporal, his spirituality would have faded, and Christianity 
 would never have been given to the world. He knew it; and 
 in the face of it he made his tremendous sacrifice of mate- 
 riality. He said: 'Get thee behind me!' and evil's most dia- 
 bolical suggestion that ever came to the mind of man failed. 
 But Jesus went to the cross for it. 
 
 "The apostle Peter seems to have addressed at least one 
 letter to strangers who were of the tribe of Joseph, and Paul 
 appears to have tried to go to them, although turned back. The 
 existence of the 'lost ten tribes' seems to have been known 
 by the more learned Jews at this time. There are many refer- 
 ences to them throughout the New Testament. But these bar- 
 barian Angles and Getae were not yet ready for the Word, lest 
 they rise in excess of zeal and do that which Jesus had pre- 
 vented when he wrestled with and prevailed over his insidious 
 
 30 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 temptation. Josephus knew of the existence of these tribes 
 'beyond the Euphrates', as he put it. But Josephus was obliged 
 to exercise the greatest caution in referring to them, for Rome 
 was then master of the world, and the Goths were Rome's 
 mortal enemies. In the year 86 A. D. they seriously threatened 
 the Empire. They were beaten back, with great difficulty, and 
 Domitian very ostentatiously called himself 'Conqueror of the 
 Getae'. Yet he had to hire slaves for his triumphal procession 
 in Rome, so few captives had he taken. Then Trajan conducted 
 campaigns against the Getae and seriously defeated them and 
 pushed them back into the wilderness. Dacia, where the Getae 
 had dwelt, became a Roman province and was re-settled by 
 Roman colonists — from whom the modern Roumanians are 
 said to have descended. It was announced that the Getae were 
 exterminated at this time. 
 
 "But a nation is not so easily obliterated, even with modern 
 weapons of warfare. We have studied Trajan's column, which 
 still stands in Rome, and have seen the many figures of the 
 Getae depicted there. They are exactly similar to those of the 
 Goths shown on the 'Storied Column' of Constantinople. Yet 
 Trajan's campaigns greatly depleted the Getae and kept them 
 quiet for a century. But the Getae were preparing their mighty 
 revenge. 
 
 "And, while they prepared, the ferment of Christianity 
 began to work among them. Jesus himself had sent them mis- 
 sionaries, who were bidden to go to 'the lost sheep of the House 
 of Israel'. You may read about this in the tenth chapter of 
 Matthew's Gospel. Peter and James wrote letters to these 
 people. Peter is said to have been the apostle to these very 
 tribes. The Word was come among them. Time went on. 
 The barbarians remained quiet. Then a startling discovery 
 was made : these Goths had received the Word, but their form 
 of Christianity was nought but heresy, for it challenged the 
 supremacy of the Roman pontiff, it refuted the elaborate 
 doctrine of the Trinity! 
 
 "What had happened? This: the Gothic bishop Ulfilas had 
 translated the Bible into the Gothic language, and the Goths 
 had adopted the Arian heresy which regarded Jesus as a human 
 being. -They clearly distinguished between Jesus and the 
 Christ; they did not regard him as God, but as a god-man. In 
 other words, to them he was Christ-Jesus. 
 
 "Thus, while the Emperor Constantine was serving error 
 by amalgamating Church and State, and thus striking at the 
 Word by emasculating Christianity and rendering it mere form 
 and ritual, a lip-service without power; while the Church at 
 Rome, greedily grasping at temporal power, was setting up the 
 
 38 31 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 worship of Jesus as God; and while, because of this, the ability 
 to heal the sick and raise the dead was rapidly becoming lost, 
 these Goths of the House of Joseph were preserving the true 
 concept of Christ-Jesus — a concept which, after many centuries, 
 was to reappear among the descendants of Ephraim and Ma- 
 nasseh for the salvation of the world. 
 
 "And now the Goths were growing in numbers and strength, 
 despite their incessant wars with Rome. And the Roman 
 Empire, falsely Christian and quite outside of Principle, was 
 decaying rapidly. While the church Fathers were frittering 
 away their shallow souls over theological subtleties, the Goths 
 steadily rejected the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Church 
 of Rome and prepared to bid for the mastery of the world. 
 
 "To meet this, the Roman military center was removed from 
 Rome to Constantinople. But Joseph, the Kingdom of Stone, 
 had given the Kingdom of Iron, the legs of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 dream-image, its death blow, even as it had overrun, long 
 since, the Kingdom of Brass and burned the pagan Temple of 
 Diana of Ephesus. To be sure, the Papacy considered the 
 Goths heretics and enemies; and the House of Joseph did not 
 always show itself pure and noble, particularly when it fell 
 afoul of the Huns and yielded to their mesmerism of brute 
 force and frightfulness. But Joseph had something vital that 
 Rome lacked. And that vital thing was so tremendous that it 
 was destined eventually to conquer the material world. It was 
 Abraham's concept of the One God and the Christ. 
 
 "Rome recalled her legions from Britain — and the House of 
 Israel, the Massagetae, moved over into the place thus vacated. 
 The Huns came pouring into the south. Behind them came 
 Joseph. Had the Huns been annihilated at Chalons, Joseph 
 would then and there have become master of the world. With 
 Attila's grip loosened by this decisive battle, Joseph fell upon 
 the tottering Roman Empire, and in August of the year 476 . 
 A. D. brought it to an end. A few years later Theodoric the 
 Goth was master of Italy. 
 
 "But the Roman Empire was riot Joseph's destiny, and 
 Theodoric's great kingdom was speedily ended by its adver- 
 saries, who seemed united in the one idea of crushing these 
 stubborn enemies of the worldly Roman Church. In the year 
 553 the Goths quitted Italy. Their afflictions could well be 
 attributed to the persistency with which they clung to their 
 religion, which the Papacy condemned as damnable heresy. 
 Yet would they not regard Jesus as other than a God-inspired 
 man. 
 
 "Leaving Italy, Joseph went in the only direction they could 
 go, north. For two centuries darkness appeared to settle over 
 
 32 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them. We hear of the Goths from time to time in old ballads, 
 and they are mentioned as serving as mercenaries in the many 
 ■wars of this period. Perhaps there was good reason for their 
 silence, for had these people revealed their identity the Church 
 ■would have blazoned them forth for their heresy. Their per- 
 secutions would have begun afresh. Yet they receive mention 
 in the earliest Norman chronicle, in A. D. 813, which states 
 that: 'The Northmen, issuing from the island Scanzia, which 
 is called Norway, where dwelt Goths and Huns and Dacians, 
 attacked the Flanders coast'. The Goths had, centuries before, 
 settled in Dacia, as you know, where the Greeks knew them 
 as Dacians. These Normans, who begin to be prominent in 
 the early ninth century, were the ancient Getae, the House of 
 Joseph, the Goths, who, known as the Ostrogoths, had been 
 forced out of Italy in the year 553. 
 
 "The Norman was not a Dane, either in appearance, cus- 
 toms, or manners. He was beardless, short of stature, dark 
 of skin, cultured, and civilized. The Dane, or Viking, was large 
 of frame, blond, with long moustaches, utterly uncultured and 
 uncivilized. And he was no match for the Norman, who early 
 ended the Viking piracies. 
 
 "To maintain themselves, the Normans at length submitted 
 to baptism into the Church of Rome — yet they caused the 
 Church endless trouble thereafter, for the old Arian heresy 
 remained. 
 
 "Then came the fateful year 1066, when the Normans 
 descended upon English soil and, by conquest, began their rule 
 over their kinsmen, the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, a rule that 
 was to end in an amalgamation that at length gave birth to 
 the English race. After many centuries, great vicissitudes, long 
 wanderings, Joseph — the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh — 
 were united to the seven other tribes. . ." 
 
 "But what had become of Dan?" queried David Barach. 
 "You have accounted for only nine of the ten lost tribes." 
 
 "It was the tribe of Dan that left the serpent's trail," 
 answered the girl. "This tribe seemed to have a propensity 
 for changing the names of the places they occupied. We meet 
 it early in the 18th chapter of Judges. They left the name of 
 Dan everywhere. Before the capti'vity they occupied a small 
 tract of land in the south of Palestine, near the coast; but Dan 
 was not satisfied, and pushed out and acquired territory in the 
 north, near Lebanon. Here they changed the name of the 
 chief city, Laish, to Dan. 
 
 "When the Assyrians took the House of Israel captive they 
 did not disturb those people of the tribes of Dan and Simeon 
 who were dwelling on the southern coast of Palestine, but did 
 
 33 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 take with them those portions of these two tribes that dwelt 
 in the interior, in the north and east, 
 
 "Now these people of the tribe of Dan that went into cap- 
 tivity and later escaped with the House of Israel north into 
 Russia continued their old habit of leaving their name every- 
 where. Perhaps they were following Jeremiah's instruction to 
 'Set thee up waymarks'. At any rate, all through central and 
 northern Europe we find Dan's name. It is in Dan-ube, Dan-au, 
 Dan-tzig, the Dan, the Don, the Dan-ieper — the ancient Hebrews 
 omitted the vowels in writing, so we have Dnieper — ^in U-Don, 
 in Eri-don, and in Danes, and Dan-emerke, which is *Dan's last 
 resting place', or 'Dan's mark*. We find it in the Dan-ric Alps, 
 and in Ireland in Dan's-Lough and Dan-gan castle. Why, the 
 ancient inhabitants of Ireland were called Dan-onians. . ." 
 
 "Ireland!" exclaimed Penberry in amazement. 
 
 "We will come back to that later," said the girl, smiling. 
 "Do you recall that I told you of a discovery made by a peasant 
 in Denmark some 250 years ago? While plowing he turned up 
 a golden trumpet. The authorities who examined it identified 
 it as one of the seven golden trumpets used in the Temple at 
 Jerusalem in the altar service. It is now in the National 
 Museum in Copenhagen. It is ornamented with a lily and a 
 Pomegranate. The lily, as I have told you, is the national flower 
 of Egypt, while the pomegranate is that of Palestine. This 
 trumpet was one of Dan's waymarks. 
 
 "Now when this portion of the tribes of Dan and Simeon 
 went into captivity, those portions that dwelt on the southern 
 seacoast of Palestine seem to have taken to sea in flight. They 
 had long been a seafaring people. But now whither did they 
 go? Well, as the first people of Ireland mentioned by history 
 are called 'Tuatha de Danaans', meaning 'The tribe of Dan', 
 I think we may look for them there. In the Hebrew language 
 the word 'Dan' means 'a judge'. The prophet Daniel was a 
 'Judge of God'. In the Irish language 'Dunn' means the same. 
 In Scotland there is a river Don and also a Doon, and in Eng- 
 land there is a Don. In fact, we may unearth Dan's name all 
 over the British isles. Wherever this tribe, or possibly the 
 whole House of Israel, came to rest in their flight, the name 
 Dan seems to have been left-^perhaps suggestive of the river 
 Jor-dan, that river of rest in distant Palestine, from whose 
 banks they had been so rudely torn; 
 
 "I have said that the coastal portions of the tribe of Simeon 
 fled by sea with a portion of the tribe of Dan. British history 
 records that the earliest settlers in southern England and Wales 
 were called 'Simonii', and that they came by way of the sea 
 in the year 720 B. C. 'Simonii' is the plural form of the noun 
 
 34 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 'Simeon'. These people were pushed back into Wales by the 
 Angles who entered England in the fifth century. 
 
 "It has been recorded that Dan sailed the sea as far back 
 as 900 B. C. Colonists from this tribe doubtless settled in Ire- 
 land long before the captivity, thus preceding Israel to the 
 Isles of the Sea. And from these colonists came, in time, a 
 prince of the 'Tuatha de Danaans'. His name in the Milesian 
 records of Ireland is given as 'Herremon'. 
 
 "And now we have followed the wanderings of the 'Lost Ten 
 Tribes', the House of Israel, and discovered them re-united in 
 the British isles. Truly were they called out of Egypt for a 
 great destiny. And we find them to-day, as they were centuries 
 ago, beating back the Assyrian in defense of the Word — a Word 
 that they themselves do not understand as yet, but which, 
 nevertheless, they are still preserving as if, by instinct, they 
 knew that some day its meaning would be revealed to them." 
 
 "Wait!" interrupted David Barach. "My own people, the 
 Jews, have they no destiny?" 
 
 Marian turned and laid a hand upon his. "Judah shall walk 
 to Israel," she said. "The great Hebrew nation shall be re- 
 united. The twelve tribes shall come together, for they are 
 brethren, all sons of Abraham. 
 
 "Let us go back. After the great schism in 975 B. C, when 
 the House of Israel separated from the House of Judah, the 
 scepter remained with. the House of Judah, although the House 
 of Israel had the birthright. The scepter remained with Judah 
 until Nebuchadnezzar overthrew the kingdom, destroyed Jeru- 
 salem, and took the last king of Judah, King Zedekiah, into 
 captivity with his people in the year 587 B. C. 
 
 "Jeremiah had been imprisoned by King Zedekiah, but the 
 king sent for him — as the human mind in its extremity turns 
 to God as a last resort — and asked: 'Is there any word from 
 the Lord?' For Nebuchadnezzar was at Jerusalem's gates. 
 Jeremiah told the Jewish king how he might be saved; but 
 Zedekiah, self-willed and stubborn, would not be obedient to 
 spiritual demands. He feared ridicule. He feared loss of 
 caste. He said to Jeremiah: 'Let no man know,' and sent 
 him away. He dared not trust God, And so Nebuchadnezzar 
 overcame him, carried him away into a still more material 
 sense of existence, and put out his eyes, thus plunging him 
 still further into the blackness of the materiality which he had 
 refused to abandon. You may read about it in the 37th chapter 
 of the Book of Jeremiah. But what did the captain of the 
 guard say to Jeremiah? 'Behold, all the land is before thee.' 
 The one who was obedient to Spirit was permitted to escape. 
 
 "By slaying all of Zedekiah's sons Nebuchadnezzar believed 
 
 35 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that he had obliterated the royal Judaic line. But he was 
 mistaken. If you will read the Book of Jeremiah you will note 
 that there it is stated that to this prophet was given the mis- 
 sion to tear down and rebuild that royal line. Jeremiah was 
 such a remarkable man that so great a man as the prophet 
 Daniel even studied his prophecies. Jeremiah fled with King 
 Zedekiah's daughters when Jerusalem fell, fled into Egypt and 
 dwelt there in Taphanhes. One of these daughters was known 
 by the Hebrew name 'Tea Tephi'. The Egyptian city of Tap- 
 hanhes was called after her. You will remember that when 
 we were in Egypt the Arabs took us to the site of 'The Palace 
 of the Jew's Daughter'. This is the location of ancient Tap- 
 hanhes, or Dahpnae, as it was also called. This daughter of 
 Zedekiah was given Pharaoh's protection. She was known as 
 'The King's Daughter', and 'Daughter of Pharaoh'. It was this 
 daughter who was carried in one of the ships of Dan to the 
 distant isles of the sea. In or about the. year 580 B. C. she 
 arrived in Ireland, accompanied by her aged guardian who 
 was called by the Hebrew name 'OUam Folia', which means 
 'revealer', or 'prophet'. With them came the prophet's scribe, 
 who is given the name 'Brug', or 'Bruch', in the Irish chronicles. 
 Now Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe in Judea. 
 
 "The Irish chronicles also state that in the year 580 B. C. 
 there was a King Heremon reigning there, and that he wore 
 a crown of twelve stars. To this Heremon — who is none other 
 than the prince of the 'Tuatha de Danaans', of whom I have 
 spoken — Tea Tephi, daughter of King Zedekiah of the fallen 
 House of Judah, was married. Heremon's capital city was 
 Cathair Crofln, in what is now Ulster, After this marriage he 
 changed the name to Tara, which is a Hebrew word and means 
 'law', or 'law of the two tablets'. From this union have come 
 the kings and queens of Ireland, Scotland, and England down 
 to the present day. The reigning king of England and head 
 of the British Empire is a descendant of the kings of the House 
 of Judah, and his throne is a perpetuation of the throne of 
 David, It is to endure 'until Shiloh come'. But 'Shiloh' means 
 •peace', or 'rest'. So the scepter shall remain with the House 
 of Judah until mankind become governed by Principle, God 
 alone, when wars and their causes shall be no more and the 
 peoples shall be united in that common brotherhood which 
 alone can bring peace," 
 
 Again she pressed Barach's hand. "David," she said gently, 
 "it was from your people that Jesus came. He came from the 
 people who retain the scepter. He came to you; but you would 
 have none of him, for your people, like the world to-day, wanted 
 matter, not Spirit. But the tribe of Benjamin had been 'lent' 
 
 36 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to Judah to receive the Christ. This tribe went into Babylonish 
 captivity with the House of Judah in 587 B, C, and returned 
 70 years later under Ezra and Nehemiah. After their return 
 they settled north of Jerusalem and in Galilee. Among them 
 Jesus lived and preached, and from them he called most of his 
 disciples and sent them forth to spread the 'good news' through 
 the world. He told the Jews that the kingdom should be taken 
 away from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits 
 thereof. These were to know the mysteries of the kingdom, 
 but the Jews were not. Heavy punishment came upon the Jews 
 for rejecting the Christ — typifying the punishment that comes 
 upon mankind for rejecting Truth. But the tribe of Benjamin 
 was spared. When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, 
 in A. D. 70, the tribe of Benjamin escaped, as Josephus tells 
 us. But Benjamin could not find safety in the Roman Empire. 
 They could only flee north and join their brethren. They 
 appeared again in history with the Normans. 
 
 "But, David, punishment is eternal only if sin is eternal. 
 The former will endure as long as the latter, and will cease 
 with it. The story of the Hebrew people is the story of human 
 civilization. Down the centuries has come the command to 
 have but the One God, Spirit. And all the affliction that has 
 befallen mankind is penalty for disobeying this command. Back 
 of all material history is the spiritual, the unfoldment of the 
 Ideas that constitute the spiritual Creation of divine Mind, God. 
 The communal mortal mind, the suppositional opposite of 
 Mind, counterfeits the real Creation, counterparts it. While 
 we accept this counterfeit as the real and worship the god of 
 matter we shall suffer and die, for matter, is Baal, is Merodach, 
 is evil, error, and can produce only its kind. The beliefs that 
 matter has intelligence and life, that it constitutes Man, and 
 that God who is Spirit created it, and that mere faith in Christ 
 will cause us to rise from it after death into spiritual existence 
 — these are the mesmeric beliefs that have wrecked nations 
 and blinded the world to Truth. The world is in chaos to-day, 
 but its problems will not be solved until it recognizes the Christ 
 and demonstrates Truth by destroying disease, disaster, dis- 
 cord, and death, by destroying the thoughts that produce them. 
 Error has kept the world blind by confusing Jew and Israelite 
 and muddling Scripture; it dealt its most treacherous blow 
 when it set forth the claim that Jesus was God. But our eyes 
 are being opened now. These are indeed the 'last days'; the 
 Christ is come; the Bible is proved the Word to mankind; and 
 those who refuse to work out their salvation now and continue 
 to follow after false shepherds are without excuse and must 
 not complain when wars, famine, and pestilence engulf them." 
 
 37 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Again the girl fell silent before her wondering auditors. But 
 these had learned to respect her silence. David Barach, with 
 the vivid remembrance before him of the awesome occurrence 
 in the Tower of Antonia, when, from the couch where lay Alden 
 Cragg there arose a new creature, had moved on this expedi- 
 tion like one in a dream. It was to him as if a veil had been 
 rent, and he stood dumb before the revelation. The Egyptian 
 Zuleyka, inscrutable, mysterious, seemed like a memory of 
 ancient Pharaohs. And seldom did her deep black eyes leave 
 the girl. Penberry, dense materialist and fiery patriot, spent 
 his days clutching after old cpncepts and opinions that he had 
 fornlerly believed as fixed as the Great Pyramid, but that now 
 he saw, to his amazement and ofttimes stupefaction, blown 
 from their foundations by the winds of God. "Damme!" he 
 would exclaim — but only to himself when alone — "it isn't true ! 
 It . . . it's revolutionary . . . upsetting . . . Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 And yet it seemed to him that the God of Abraham had 
 somehow drawn closer; that Enoch, Ezra, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah, had been taken out of their setting of mysticism and had 
 been made real to him. "Egad!" he ejaculated, "they're men, 
 after all! Damme! they're human, human!" And he found 
 himself often after that with a Bible in his lap, poring over 
 the wanderings of the children of Israel with as much zest as 
 he had followed the British in Flanders, as set forth by the 
 London Times. "She'll make Jesus human yet, she will!" he 
 would exclaim. "And when she does, Egad! then I want to 
 know him." He was in ignorance of the stupendous event in 
 Antonia's Tower, for Marian knew that his mentality was yet 
 in swaddling clothes. 
 
 "We are going north," Marian announced to him one day, 
 shortly after outlining the story of Israel. "We are going for 
 further proofs and to study the traces which the Israelites left 
 in the Crimea and elsewhere. Then we are going to the Danube; 
 after that, again north." 
 
 "But," Penberry cried, "the war! We'll never get through! 
 We must wait!" 
 
 "We shall start now," the girl said confidently, "and we 
 shall get through. Fear thou not, for / AM is with thee; be 
 not dismayed, for / AM is thy God; / AM will strengthen thee; 
 yea, / AM will help thee; yea, / AM will uphold thee with the 
 right hand of understanding." 
 
 And with their disappearance into the north the curtain 
 again dropped upon the little band. 
 
 36 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 5 
 
 THROUGH the terrible week that followed the murder in 
 St. Jude's, the week that witnessed the sensational coro- 
 ner's inquest which bound Alden Cragg over to the Grand 
 Jury, and that closed with Harris Chaddock's impressive fu- 
 neral, the rector moved as in a gray haze. Ethel lay throughout 
 it in a stupor, her sensibilities dulled by the opiates which 
 Doctor Roake constantly administered. Mrs. Whittier cowered 
 in the seclusion of her chamber under the menace of a devastat- 
 ing fear. 
 
 Senator Chaddock, his mentality now but a remnant, was 
 scarce capable of appreciating his son's death, and he con- 
 tinued stumbling and mumbling after the doctor, as had long 
 since become his wont, or remained hovering, dull and inert, 
 about doorstep or curb awaiting him. There were still occa- 
 sional intervals, though increasingly rare, when he would 
 abruptly awaken, with all his faculties as keenly alert as of 
 yore; but these intervals were of brief duration. For the most 
 part he remained sunken in vacuous stupidity, muttering inco- 
 herently and staring with unseeing eyes into emptiness. His 
 feline adherence to the doctor was become pathetic; yet there 
 were times when he would cease his mumbling and would fall 
 strangely silent and stare at the doctor with knitted brows and 
 a look of such intensity that the latter would grow nervous 
 and apprehensive of the odd functioning within that disinte- 
 grated soul. The senator, long since incapacitated, and 
 impoverished by the Primal Motors coup, became the doctor's 
 charge on Harris' death; and society observed that the doctor 
 appeared unwilling to delegate his care to others — r"which 
 shows," they said, "how the kind-hearted doctor cherishes the 
 bond of affection that has held these two together for so many 
 years." 
 
 The coroner's inquest was as brief as it was startling. 
 Alden's testimony was short and unimpressive, unconvincing. 
 He could not state positively that he had seen the pistol before, 
 nor would he say where he had seen it, if at all. . . It was 
 but natural that Fay Meuse should be called; but friends of 
 the woman swore that she had been absent from the city for 
 several days, that she had departed prior to the murder, leaving 
 her apartment in charge of friends. And these same witnesses 
 testified to seeing both Alden Cragg and Harris Chaddock in 
 the Dodd apartment building — ^testified to hearing muffled shots 
 and seeing these men hasten away. It was reasonable to sup- 
 
 39 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 pose that they had quarreled over the Meuse woman. . . Or 
 that Alden had gone there to find Harris Chaddock and remon- 
 strate with him because of his attentions to Ethel. These 
 women had heard Fay Meuse speak of this. And Alden admit- 
 ted his presence in Fay Meuse's apartment, and his encounter 
 with Harris there, but was silent as to details. 
 
 Thus the scandal unfolded its slimy length, and the Whit- 
 tier, Cragg, and Chaddock names were trodden ever more 
 deeply into the mire. The inqUest was thronged by an eager 
 society that fed avidly on the salacious tidbits. Additional 
 interest was furnished when the rector fainted on the stand 
 under the awful strain. The interest increased when Madam 
 Galuth was called. Her testimony as to Alden's character was 
 simple and direct, but it was swallowed up in the character 
 that society preferred and determined that he should have. 
 Ethel's deposition was the last to be submitted — ^it had to be 
 taken at lier bedside, after much delay, for reference to the 
 tragedy threw her into a nervous paroxysm that left her in 
 a state of collapse. With Doctor Roake anxiously watching 
 her pulse, she testified that Alden Cragg had been spying upon 
 herself and Harris; had been waiting for them in the auditorium 
 of the church; had accosted them at the stairway of the organ 
 loft, behind which he had been hiding; and had shot Harris 
 dead without warning. . . 
 
 The murder and its attendant scandal rent St. Jude's as a 
 thunderbolt splits an oak. The church rocked with the awful 
 shock that ripped off its veneer of piety and exposed the decay 
 within. The rector fell crushed, but struggled to his feet to 
 throw himself against the tottering ecclesiastical structure that 
 swayed above him. Factions formed among the communicants 
 and battened on the crude sensation. There were those, like 
 the Telluses, who stanchly supported the rector against the 
 accusation that neglect of his daughter had culminated, after 
 a long series of hidden scandals, in this foul deed. Others 
 there were, like the Blacks and Kerls, who held the rector 
 directly responsible and clamored for his dismissal. Old bicker- 
 ings sprang up anew and flowered into public recriminations; 
 suppressed jealousies were vigorously fanned into open hos- 
 tilities. The Blacks and the Kerls at length indignantly resigned 
 their pews, withdrew their financial support, and took a large 
 following with them, though the harried rector prostrated 
 himself in their way. Despite the turmoil, the congregation 
 increased; but only while the prospect of further sensation 
 remained bright. When this faded, the attendance sharply fell 
 off, and the despairing rector found himself conducting his 
 tawdry show before a mere handful, and these with their minds 
 
 40 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 still busy with speculations on the tragic event that had stained 
 proud St. Jude's with human blood. 
 
 And then, in due season, the Grand Jury assembled and 
 solemnly returned an indictment against Alden Cragg for the 
 wanton murder of Harris Chaddock. 
 
 "But- Alden is surely insane," the rector tried to console 
 himself; "he will be sent to an asylum, nothing more!" 
 
 But, though the rector felt that his relationship with Alden 
 had long since been definitely severed; that Alden had alienated 
 himself, on his return from the war, by his mad conduct and 
 his unaccountable alliances ; and though he felt that Alden was, 
 beyond doubt, guilty of the shocking death of Harris Chaddock, 
 yet he was convinced that he must continue his labors with 
 him and assist him in the preparation of his defense. He 
 staggered under the return of the indictment, yet he mustered 
 his remnant of strength and visited Alden in his cell. 
 
 Alden's conduct in the face of bis danger was inexplicable. 
 "No," he said firmly, in answer to the rector's urging that he 
 confess the crime, "I did not do it." And again he related the 
 details of his conduct from the moment he had entered the 
 church, in response to the rector's summons, to the death of 
 Harris. 
 
 "But you will offer the defense of mental aberration," the 
 rector insisted. 
 
 "You mean that I should plead insanity? No. In spite of the 
 attempts of those who should have been my friends here — ^your- 
 self included — ^to make me out insane, my mind is not affected. 
 How could I plead insanity, when I acknowledge that there is 
 but the One Mind, God, and that I reflect it? I could not perjure 
 myself and deny my Principle to escape those who are hound- 
 ing me." 
 
 "But," cried the shaking rector, "it means death!" 
 
 "I am not afraid to meet death," was Alden's quiet answer. 
 "Leave me, and do not oome here again with your fears and 
 mortal suggestions. Go, rather, and ponder your own danger, 
 for it is far greater than mine." And the rector left him, sor- 
 rowing, yet deeply perplexed. 
 
 Then fell another blow: Doctor Roake, in an interview with 
 representatives of the press, gave it as his opinion that Alden 
 Cragg, though possibly still suffering somewhat from shell- 
 shock, and though exhibiting the same strange intolerance 
 toward the established systems of religion that so many of the 
 returned soldiers were manifesting, nevertheless was sane and 
 quite accountable for the murder of Harris Chaddock. 
 
 The rector stood aghast before the fearful potentialities in 
 the doctor's verdict. Why, Alden's present conduct, bis refusal 
 
 41 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to set up a plea of insanity, was proof irrefutable of a diseased 
 brain! He threw aside his scruples and rushed to Doctor 
 Benson. " 
 
 Again his hopes met fracas. "Greatly as I wish to see Alden 
 Cragg cleared, yet I am constrained to say that I believe him 
 absolutely sane," was the doctor's grave pronouncement; "saner, 
 indeed, than most of us. I cannot believe that he did the deed; 
 yet if he did, he had full provocation." 
 
 "But if he did not do it, who did?" the rector pleaded. 
 
 Benson shook his head. "I cannot say. . . Would to God 
 I could!" He himself had sent Fay Meuse from the city, days 
 before the murder, to escape the persecutions of Harris Chad- 
 dock. It could not have been she. And he so informed the 
 rector. 
 
 There was no recourse but Doctor Roake. And back to him 
 the rector feverishly hurried. "Doctor Benson had sent Fay 
 Meuse out of the city," he explained, and quickly gave the 
 details of Benson's conversation. Doctor Roake heard him with 
 marked interest, and when the rector had concluded he said: 
 "Alden has been under a strange influence, both in Europe and 
 here since his return. . ." 
 
 "The Galuth!" 
 
 "She will be called to the stand in his trial. She may be 
 forced to give testimony that will aid us," the doctor assured 
 him. "Meantime, be patient. Your most serious concern now 
 is Ethel." 
 
 For Ethel had risen from her stupor, the ghost of her former 
 self, aged and faded, and bearing the stamp of perpetual 
 invalidism. Her sorrow was poignant, her mourning and 
 lamentation pitiable. She would have taken her own life those 
 first days, but for Doctor Roake, who remained almost con- 
 stantly at her side through those dark hours. "He is inter- 
 ested in her," Mrs. Whittier at length observed. And she herself 
 forthwith greatly revived — there was a toughness of fiber in 
 Mrs. Whittier's soul that was marvelously resistant. "He's 
 interested in her," she reported to the rector. 
 
 It was startling, but observation confirmed it. Ethel was 
 but a gray shadow, unlovely, mirthless, silent, yet, even when 
 she no longer required his constant ministration, the doctor 
 was passing his scant leisure with her. . . "He is only seeking 
 to divert her thought from herself," the rector tried to believe. 
 But Mrs. Whittier shook her head sagaciously and affirmed the 
 verdict of woman's instinct. 
 
 Then the rector's anger rose hot. Suspicion mingled with 
 his fear and urged hard upon him. Thoughts of violence pos-" 
 sessed him — he felt as he imagined Alden Cragg must have felt 
 
 42 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 when he shot- down his persecutor. . . "He's keeping her 
 alive," Mrs. Whittier declared to her protesting husband; "she'd 
 be dead, but for him." And he groaned: "Better so!" Yet he 
 sank back helpless, even while he felt the chains tighten. But 
 he bitterly cursed the Penberry millions. . . 
 
 Then the assiduous doctor began to spend hours with the 
 crushed rector, laboring to arouse him to renewed activity. 
 "The shooting was a terrible thing," he admitted, "but it has 
 shaken you out of a rut." And Mrs. Whittier, when she heard, 
 revived still further and threw back her shoulders defiantly. 
 "Let them go, the Blacks and the Kerls," she stoutly declared. 
 "St. Jude's is better off without them. Papa will build the 
 church bigger than ever now. Doctor Roake says so." 
 
 "Look here," the doctor urged upon the wearied rector, 
 "after the murder your pews were filled. What did it? Sen- 
 sationalism. It is sensationalism in varying degrees of Strength 
 that keeps human interest alive. Your pepple have had a taste 
 of it; now they demand it. Very well, give it to them. When 
 you again fill your pews you can fill their minds." 
 
 The rector shrank from him, yet felt his own impotence. 
 He could not a'fford now, at his age, to lose his church. There 
 was a grain of truth in the chaff of the doctor's words. "It is 
 a sensational age, the world is full of it. Make yourself the 
 sensational preacher of the day," the doctor insisted. "Why, 
 the shooting is an asset; it is advertising of the best sort; you 
 can build endless morals on it. . ." 
 
 And in a sense the doctor was right : if it was not a wholly 
 sensational age, it was yet a mad one. The tremendous issue 
 in France still hung trembling in the balance; the august Sen- 
 ate of the United States had befoie it a mad resolution to impose 
 upon the American people the Angelus of the Roman Church; 
 the nation's Chief had set apart a day for special prayer — to 
 whom? to what? Would he also set apart a day for the youth 
 in school to pray the principle of algebra to solve their prob- 
 lems? Would he appoint a day in which to ask God to be good? 
 "We've duly warned the Lord that we're going to talk to him 
 straight from the shoulder on that day," Ted Sayor had com- 
 mented. And meantime, fear, distrust, and the love of the 
 calves of Jeroboam stalked through the land and laughed at 
 the noonday sirens that shrieked the announcement that the 
 ear of the Lord was made ready to listen to his people. Igno- 
 rance of the Christ-message was rampant. Perversion of Truth 
 had reached its ultimate. 
 
 The desperate rector yielded. He secured the dismissal of 
 his staid assistant, EUory Sten, and supplanted him with a 
 young and vigorous collaborator imbued with American hustle 
 
 43 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and Yankee methods of getting results. St. Jude's was to 
 become known for its "stunts". Its services, its committee 
 meetings, its institutional activities, all should become enliv- 
 ened by methods that would advertise the church from coast 
 to coast. "Abolish the long face!" the new assistant cried. 
 "Inject the laugh into religion! Laugh and shout with Jesus! 
 Come to our church; watch us twist the devil's tail and hear 
 him roar!" The motion picture was -pressed into service; 
 arrangements were made for lecturers on popular subjects; and 
 the assistant set about composing sermons for the rector on 
 bizarre topics that must attract widespread interest. It was 
 a renaissance ; the Phoenix would indeed rise from the ashes 
 of Harris Chaddock. 
 
 But in vain the worn rector tried to assure himself that he 
 was justified in such a mad course. In the eyes of those 
 upturned to him from St. Jude's pews he read a spiritual crav- 
 ing for wholeness that he knew would not be satisfied with 
 ecclesiastical "stunts". In them he read the warning to Bel- 
 shazzar. He was being weighed and found wanting. He was a 
 traitor to God and the Christ, and they knew it. He was lead- 
 ing these lost ones in the worship of the golden calf. And in 
 the midst of it all his anguished soul turned to Marian, and 
 from it rose a great, longing cry. . , 
 
 And then came the trial of Alden Cragg for the killing of 
 Harris Chaddock. 
 
 It had been expected by the Public Prosecutor that, as the 
 murder had occurred so close to the convening of the fall term 
 of court, the trial would be set over to the winter or spring 
 term in order to allow the defendant ample time to prepare his 
 defense. And Madam Galuth had brought this to Alden's con- 
 sideration; but he had shaken his head and announced his 
 readiness to go to trial at once. "If it is a trial of my faith," 
 he said, "let it come" now, for that stands firm." 
 
 "I am persuaded, Alden," she answered him, "that nothing 
 can separate you from your God. Yet it is spiritual under- 
 standing, not mere faith in God, that alone will render harm- 
 less the diabolism that is directed against you. Have you that 
 greater understanding as yet? Or shall we take the time that is 
 offered us and prepare ourselves further?" Her thought dwelt 
 on the zeal that Marian had long before permitted to use her 
 to force Alden into the war. And she counseled wisdom. "The 
 ways of error are subtle," she said; "it constantly assumes new 
 forms, new methods, in its opposition to the Word. The forces 
 against you are humanly powerful and deeply hidden. Their 
 springs may be traced back through many years." 
 
 "And is it your thought that we should wait?" he asked. 
 
 44 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 She answered in the affirmative. But again he shook his 
 head. "I will meet them now," he said. "I am not afraid." 
 
 As the date of the trial drew near, interest in it increased. 
 In a way the members of the Roake organization felt it their 
 duty to push the case against Alden. The tragic death of 
 Doctor Harris Chaddock had been heralded throughout the 
 country and tremendous sympathy had been aroused for the 
 victim. The funeral had been delayed to permit the attendance 
 of as many members as possible, and these had walked, bare 
 of head, behind the hearse, a great, solemn concourse that pro- 
 foundly impressed the community and those in the country at 
 large who eagerly scanned the lurid illustrations of the event 
 that appeared in all newspapers and in the various weekly news 
 serials on the screen. "It's propaganda!" Doctor Benson 
 declared. And Ted Sayor, as he watched, fascinated, the long 
 funeral train drag slowly beneath the windows of Doctor 
 Roake's offices, felt a great sinking at his heart. "Alden's 
 done for!" he muttered. "His religion didn't save him. It 
 couldn't. He came to me with a sanctimonious face and a 
 mouthful of Bible verses, then went out and killed Harris 
 Chaddock. . . He's a hypocrite! A murderer! He deceived 
 me, just as everybody else has! . . . But he should be awarded 
 a medal for killing Chaddock!" . . . 
 
 For weeks the rector, with horrified gaze, had watched the 
 day drawing nearer. The awful thought kept recurring to him 
 that Doctor Roake had refrained heretofore from haling Alden 
 before a lunacy commission just for this! Had Alden been 
 duly declared insane, he could not have become involved in 
 this dreadful tragedy. The thought tore through his terrified 
 soul that Doctor Roake wanted Alden's death! But why? He 
 knew not; but this he did know: Doctor Roake ruled, or he 
 ruined. And he had not ruled Alden Cragg since his return 
 from the war. 
 
 The perspiration stood out upon the rector's forehead. He 
 himself had been ruled — and ruined! And now Ethel. . . He 
 gasped at. thought of the doctor's attentions to her. Blackness 
 came before him, and he fled wildly from the revolting product 
 of his own mental looms. 
 
 But whithersoever he fled he brought up against Doctor 
 Roake. He was now at work in the Roake offices and under the 
 doctor's constant direction. He had at last been established 
 there with a definite number of hours a week devoted to the 
 matter of enlisting and holding the sympathy of the ministers 
 throughout the country in the Roake plan. He was definitely 
 made the head of the ecclesiastical department — if he might 
 so denominate it — as Roake was chief of the medical. 
 
 45 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And daily he met the disintegrating senator; daily, often 
 hourly, he heard the bent, decrepit figure come shuffling down 
 the corridors — mumbling, always mumbling; often he found 
 him asleep at the doctor's elbow; often he saw him on the curb 
 before the doctor's residence, waiting, as a dog would wait, for 
 his master's appearance. And the sight always struck sickening 
 terror to the rector's tortured soul. 
 
 Often, too, he met Ted Sayor. And as often he marveled 
 anew at the young man's shockingly altered appearance. Ted 
 was duly employed by Doctor Roake now; yet how it had been 
 brought about, knowing, as the rector did, Ted's- former radical 
 opposition to the doctor's methods and views, was an enigma 
 that was as terrifying as it was inexplicable. But why not? 
 For the Primal Motor coup had stripped Ted bare . . . and 
 the doctor was, even on Ted's admission, very kind to him. 
 
 Withal, the rector's days were become a nightmare; his 
 nights, a hell. And often now as he tossed in sleeplessness 
 came the horrible suggestion that he take his own life — for 
 flee he could not, escape by other route was there none. 
 
 And yet, as he analyzed his thought, of what was he afraid? 
 Doctor Roake was an acknowledged type of the perfect gentle- 
 man; suave, urbane, courtly, soft-spoken, gentle of manner, he 
 was kindness itself, consideration personified. He was an 
 exemplary citizen. He stood at the head of his profession. He 
 was famed for his interest in the public weal. And his now 
 famous plan was the epitome of practical public benefaction. 
 Not a word of reproach could justly be uttered against his con- 
 duct of life, a life sacrificed, as all knew, to the welfare of his 
 fellow men. . . 
 
 The driven rector betook himself again to Doctor Benson—^ 
 Benson was not a member of the Roake organization, he had 
 learned. "For God's sake. Doctor," he cried, throwing himself 
 into a chair before the startled man, "what can we do?" 
 
 The doctor stared at the rector in amazement. "What do 
 you mean?" he asked. "To save young Cragg? But can we 
 prove that he did not kill Harris Chaddock?" 
 
 "No, no, no ! But . . . have you any influence? Come and 
 talk with . . ." 
 
 The doctor's eyes opened wider, and his brows went up. 
 "With Doctor Roake?" he asked. "But what has Roake to do 
 with the case? Besides, I have no influence with him. I am 
 not in his organization. I am no longer even a physician." 
 
 "What?" gasped the rector. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "My license has been revoked 
 for unethical conduct. I told Fay Meuse to leave the city to 
 escape medical persecution, and that's what it cost me. Better 
 not have anything to do with me." And he laughed grimly. 
 
 46 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 It was with such varied preliminaries that the trial of Alden 
 Cragg was ushered in. 
 
 It was regularly conducted, but the young lawyer into whose 
 charge Alden Jiad placed his case obviously worked at a great 
 disadvantage. His client would say but little on the stand, 
 would afford no indication of insanity, and constantly left 
 openings through which the prosecution could not but drive 
 home damaging points. The testimony of Madam Galuth, to 
 the immense disappointment of the rector, afforded no sup- 
 port. His own was unwittingly condemnatory, but the poor 
 man was scarce aware of what he was saying. It was clearly 
 established that Alden and Harris had violenfly quacreled over 
 Ethel; it came out through Ted Say or that Alden had attacked 
 Harris in the little hotel where Ted roomed; it was revealed 
 that Alden had threatened Harris in Florida — both the rector 
 and Ethel afforded this testimony; and then Alden himself 
 admitted that he had told Harris that Ethel would never become 
 his wife. "So what can you do, gentlemen?" the prosecutor 
 demanded, as he summed up the case before the jury.' And 
 they answered him by a prqmpt verdict of "Guilty", and fixed 
 the punishment at death. 
 
 Alden heard it scarce comprehending. He had been cer- 
 tain of his ability to meet this shaft of evil and turn it. And 
 he wondered dully as he was led away if the Nazarene on the 
 cross had been certain that he could meet death, and, doubting, 
 had cried out in sudden fear lest his power to do so should fail. 
 
 CHAPTER 6 
 
 A LIFE had been illegally taken; restitution could be made — 
 so the jury had avowed — only by legally taking another. 
 ' If one thrust his neighbor into a new state of conscious- 
 ness, he must himself be thrust after him, however unprepared. 
 To sweep the dirt out of sight under the table is to get rid of 
 it. Or, commercially, if you desire the life of your enemy it 
 may be purchased by your own. Thus is crime easily handled. 
 The Church in Tetzel's day turned it into a prosperous trade: 
 for the killing of a layman by a layman the penalty was 5 gr., 
 the equivalent of less than a week's keep of a man and his 
 horse. In the subsequent centuries the elements of human 
 nature have remained remarkably constant. 
 
 It is true that Alden Cragg had been convicted on very cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. The judge recognized this when he set 
 the day for the hearing of arguments for a new trial. And this 
 
 39 47 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 aroused fresh hope within the rector and Doctor Benson and 
 the scant handful who sympathized with Alden and disapproved 
 the harsh verdict. 
 
 But these hopes were doomed. The defense, could produce 
 no additional evidence of Alden's innocence, nor did it succeed 
 in establishing its contention of errors in the conduct of the 
 trial. Upon the evidence submitted in what was generally 
 acknowledged to have been an impartial trial, it had been almost 
 conclusively established that Harris had fallen by Alden's hand. 
 The jury was justified in straining a point in its finding; and 
 the judge set aside the motion and, with brimming eyes, named 
 a day in February when Alden should pay eye for eye and tooth 
 for tooth^-^nay, rather, when he should pay the penalty for 
 humanity's many centuries of stubborn refusal to obey the 
 God of Israel and prove the nothingness of death by demon- 
 strating Life eternal. 
 
 Strange perversion, that mankind should rather prefer to 
 traffic in pelts and tallow than undertake the infinitely more 
 profitable task of demonstrating Israel! Yet were there some 
 who were lifting their heads throygh the thick materiality of 
 the twentieth century. Doctor Rowley was one who was strain- 
 ing above the mire of matter. He had been awaiting the sum- 
 mons which Alden had promised him. But he was appalled 
 now at the circumstances under which it had come. 
 
 "It is not possible that one who did what Alden Cragg did 
 here in my presence should have committed this crime!" he 
 kept repeating. And he voiced the sentiment to Alden when, 
 arrived in Crestelridge, he again saw the condemned man, now 
 behind bars of steel in the thick-walled keep. 
 
 And Alden smiled. "You were convinced by what you saw," 
 he said. "I tried to convince'my fellow men here by preaching 
 to them. They would not permit me to do any works. Perhaps 
 it is meant that I shall convince them only by meeting death in 
 the chair. If so, I am glad." 
 
 Doctor Rowley stared at him dumfounded. Surely that was 
 not the expression of a sound mind ! And if not, then the man 
 had been unjustly condemned. "What can I do for you?" he 
 asked, though he had already secretly determined to. leave no 
 stone unturned in his efforts to save Alden. 
 
 "For me, nothing," Alden replied; "but for humanity, much. 
 Go, see Madam Galuth. She will tell you what to do." And 
 Doctor Rowley went away sorely perplexed. 
 
 But Alden's conduct in Florida had been eminently sane, 
 he reflected. He felt that if he should explain it to Doctor 
 Roake, that prominent and powerful influence might be elicited 
 toward the re-opening of the case. 
 
 48 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And, quite beyond his expectations, he found Doctor Roake 
 immensely interested and charmihgly gracious. And the sym- 
 pathetic atmosphere which the doctor threw about him proved 
 so seductive that he was unconsciously constrained to go much 
 farther into details than he had intended. 
 '' For Doctor Roake had Idng^ wished to know just what it was 
 that Alden did in Florida, and he rejoiced now over this fortu- 
 itous opportunity to learn it. He leaned far forward to catch 
 every word ; he exerted his every mental force to hold his 
 informant; and when Doctor Rowley left he sat back in his 
 easy chair and smiled and nodded his head as he watched the 
 blue smoke from his cigar drift upward. "Remarkable!" he at 
 length exclaimed aloud. "The boy makes nothing of death and 
 is willing to risk the test ! It will confirm my theories, or utterly 
 refute them! It will be the greatest contribution of the age 
 to science!" Then, after a long pause: "He got it all from 
 Marian. That much, at least, happened over there. I'll know 
 the rest some day. And I'll learn it from her own lips, here, 
 for Alden's predicament will bring her back — if she's still 
 alive." And as he lay back and lost himself in his meditations 
 there drifted to his ears the mumble, mumble, mumble of the 
 disintegrated soul that came shufQing down the hallway and 
 halted at his door. 
 
 The passing of the sentence of death upon Alden Cragg 
 cast a spell of awe over Crestelridge. The alert assistant rector 
 of St. Jude's seized upon it to compose a startlingly sensational 
 sermon for the following Siinday; but the rector cast it into 
 the waste basket and dropped his head upon his desk and 
 sobbed in his awful wretchedness. Ethel and her mother drew 
 together and huddled in shadowy corners in fearful anticipa- 
 tion. Society for once fell silent and contemplative. The winds 
 of desolation were blowing strong over Crestelridge, and the 
 people shivered and drew their tinseled rags closer. . . 
 
 Doctor Rowley, awakened by his meeting with Madam 
 Galuth, bowed his head in humiliation and sorrow. And to 
 Doctor Benson, to whom she afterward sent him, he opened his 
 heart. "I was mesmerized when I sat before Roake!" he 
 exclaimed. "Else why 6n earth should I have told him what 
 Alden did in Florida?" 
 
 And Doctor Benson grunted his deep disgust. "If there was 
 any hope before, it is gone how,'' he growled. "Don't you see 
 that if Alden lives he will be the greatest menace to Roake's 
 plan that there possibly could be? If Roake is to endure, and 
 all he stands for, then Alden must go. And others must fol- 
 low — as some have preceded. Oh, I'm not in a position to give 
 testimony," as Doctor Rowley looked up startled; "I only sur- 
 
 49 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mise. If Marian Whittier were here . . . But she isn't, and 
 there's no use speculating. Alden will go to his death. . ." 
 
 "He made a strange statement about being glad to meet 
 death, to make the test. . ." 
 
 "Bah! Jesus Christ may have done it — ^but I doubt even 
 that. Great psychologists, when about to die, have promised 
 their friends they- would communicate with them after death. 
 What did it ever amount to?- Bah! We've all got to die; and 
 when we're dead we're dead, and that's all there is to itL 
 Alden's doomed! But so are we all, even Roake — and there's 
 some comfort in that." 
 
 Slowly, irresistibly, the darkness was gathering. On the 
 battlefields of Europe shells and human voices shrieked in a 
 unison of despair; sobs and groans rose and mingled with the 
 drizzling rain that dripped from the dun, unpitying clouds; 
 cries, wild and hideous, went up to the unknown God to cure 
 and to curse; and human lives were blown hither and yon like 
 chaff in the wind. Men's thoughts were being established — 
 the promise was indeed kept! — but their thoughts were those 
 only that externalize death. 
 
 "Roake's 'health-council' is going to materialize, I guess," 
 glumly remarked Doctor Benson one day, looking up as Doctor 
 Rowley entered the office. "Seen the papers?" He tossed the 
 Courier across the table. "Instead -of having it held in Wash- 
 ington he's going to hold it here. He calls it a convention. It's 
 primarily for the members of the organization to get together 
 and discuss ways and means, but all doctors and clergymen 
 are invited to some of the sessions. I'm barred from the regu- 
 lar sessions, no longer being a licensed physician; but you 
 can go." 
 
 "I expect to attend," said Doctor Rowley, seating himself and 
 scanning the news item. 
 
 "The organization is going to adopt a permanent name," 
 Benson continued. "Then they are going to take steps to absorb 
 all the big medical associations in the country, national, state, 
 and county. Whether they can gulp them all down remains to 
 be seen. But I think they will. Allopathic, homeopathic, chiro- 
 practic, eclectic, osteopathic — they'll all become Roakopathic, 
 Then look out ! They'll have every congressman and legislator 
 on the tapis before tfiemj and they'll pass laws that will make 
 Russia seem like the Garden of Eden ! It will be the complete 
 triumph of political medicine and religion — damned, unholy 
 wedlock! This convention is nothing but a show of strength 
 to those who are holding out against the Roake plan and oppos- 
 ing it, like myself. Whittier is heading the clergymen—God 
 forgive him! But this is only preliminary. The real aim of 
 
 50 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the Roake plan is the creating of a National Department of 
 Health, with a Cabinet ofiBcer. . • I say, Rowley, when that's 
 done we will walk a narrower plank than the one we're walking 
 now, eh?" 
 
 He leaned over his table and extracted a letter from a 
 drawer. "Look at this," he said, holding it out. "I wrote a 
 pamphlet on the therapeutic influence of the mind in the treat- 
 ment of disease. I advertised it in certain eastern magazines. 
 That is, the advertisements appeared once, and once only. After 
 that I received such letters as this from the magazine publishers, 
 stating that they refused to accept further advertising of the 
 pamphlet on account of the serious objections of the many 
 thousands of regular physicians who advertised with them. 
 Humph! 
 
 "Then what?" he went on excitedly. "They got my license! 
 Who? Roake! And did he stop there? Not much! Every 
 few days a visiting nurse enters my home. . . Can I keep her 
 out? No! The law is back of her. What is she there for? 
 She says she is sent to look for contagion. Bosh ! She is spying 
 for Roake, and don't you forget it! . . . He's got the women 
 all over the country hypnotized into working for his plan. He'll 
 have a swarm of them here at his damnable convention. . ." 
 
 "The holding of this convention should be prevented'," 
 declared Doctor Rowley. "It will scatter the seeds of sickness 
 and death all over the country." 
 
 "Prevented?" guffawed Benson. "Agreed! But no earthly 
 power will prevent it ! God alone can stop it ! I . . . By the 
 way, in your talks with young Cragg in Florida did he ever 
 speak of error killing itself?" 
 
 "By overreaching, yes." 
 
 "Well, the suicide of error is all that will stop the holding 
 of this convention," was Benson's conclusion. 
 
 For a moment Doctor Rowley sat in thought. Then he 
 looked up. "That reminds me of what Madam Galuth said this 
 morning. A great fear has entered men's hearts^why, it was 
 fear that caused the war! And that fear is externalized in 
 many ways." He leaned toward Benson. -"Has it occurred to 
 you that Roake is hurrying this convention because of fear?" 
 
 "Fear of what?" Benson demanded. 
 
 "The so-called Spanish influenza." 
 
 "The influ . . ." 
 
 "Yes; it is becoming epidemic, and the doctors can't meet 
 it," was the reply. 
 
 51 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 7 
 
 OUT of the east it came, riding the winds. So came the 
 Huns, the "Scourge of God"; so came the Moslem Anti- 
 christ. Before it rolled the gaseous barrage of deadly fear 
 that killed ere the scourge itself arrived. 
 
 It had raised its Medusan head in Spain, in May. , A month 
 later it scaled the chalk cliffs of Britain. By August it was in 
 Boston, with tentacles in distant India, Iceland, and the South 
 Sea Isles. From mid-September to Christ's. natal day its with- 
 ering breath had shriveled the lives of 350,000 people in the 
 United States alone. Ere it slunk back into its fens 6,000,000 
 human corpses comprised its toll. 
 
 The doctors labeled it "Spanish influenza". The name was 
 felicitous. Spain had remained neutral when the Assyrian 
 threw himself Tjpon Israel and error launched its twentieth-, 
 century "drive" against the Word. Spain was the one child 
 that throughout the ages had remained loyal to the Roman 
 Church; yet Spain now held the grinning mask of hypocrisy 
 before her face and extended the right hand of fellowship to the 
 Hbhenzollerns. The Spanish "influence" was in essence Prus- 
 sian. 
 
 It was the Prussian scientific "iufliienep",. that throttled a 
 religiously mesmerized Spain. It was in the land of Franz 
 Mesmer that most of the modern theories of disease and their, 
 material treatment had found origin and come to fullest flower. 
 It was in Germany that uniformity of medical treatment was 
 enforced to the greatest extent, and propaganda for compulsory 
 health insurance most highly elaborated. It was the chemical 
 compounds developed in German laboratories that were always 
 first to find favor in a world credulous of the belief of life in 
 matter. In this latest "drive" of Mesmer's "influence" Ger- 
 many furnished the virus; Spain, the ready channel; the world, 
 the receptive victim. 
 
 Carefully had the soil, , of human thought been prepared. 
 The collapse of Russia had created a terpsichorean Void that 
 could be most readily filled by the Spanish dance; the decadence 
 of Austria had left the boards bare of Viennese salacity, and 
 the Spanish opera was most available to supply the,; lack; 
 "German fried" and "Hassenpfeffey" were patriotically swept 
 from the trencher, and piquant Spanish dishes tjbien. pease^ to 
 be novelties. The press was ready : popular interest in the clos- 
 ing scenes of the great war was waning, yet the people's 
 demand for sensation was unabated. The cantonments of the 
 
 52 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 American army were full. Materia medica was dominant. 
 The Church was impotent; God was unreal. Killing was author- 
 ized by religious and civil authoi;ity. Death accepted the obei- 
 sance of the human mind and stretched forth its black scepter. 
 
 It was the mysteriousness of the contagion that struck 
 terror into the minds of the populace. Isolation was no bar- 
 rier: the plague's leering face appeared simultaneously above 
 the lush grass of wave-washed tropic isles and the frozen 
 fjords of Scandinavia. Ships far out at sea, having had no con- 
 tact with land or other vessels for months, developed the dis- 
 ease. "It's due to the dust of human bodies blown to atoms 
 by the monster shells!" cried men of science. And at their 
 words nausea seized upon the people and sickened their souls. 
 Confusing and contradictory theories sprang up, yet would the 
 human mind not give over its obsession that the disease was 
 diffused by material "germs". ^'It was sent by God!" moaned 
 the orthodox. "A visitation for our sins!" And they sought 
 to discover the specific peccancies which had thus drawn down 
 the divine wrath. 
 
 But if a punishment from God, why 17,000 deaths in the 
 American army that was assembling to defend the Word? 
 Why the closed doors of the houses of God? Why should the 
 country districts, rather than the great cities of vice, be most 
 sorely smitten? And why, in particular, mothers with unborn 
 babes? 
 
 By rapid-fire budding the fear-germ multiplied. The con- 
 tagion quickly became pandemic. Though still called "Influ- 
 enza", it was seen to differ widely from former epidemics of 
 so-called "Grippe". Its virulence more nearly resembled that 
 of the "Black Death". Its diffusibility was extreme. In a few 
 weeks the extinction of the human race was threatened. Error 
 indeed appeared to have entered upon self-destruction. 
 
 Crestelridge, whose favored ones had not ceased heretofore 
 to grope through the rubbish heaps of matter for increase of 
 worldly goods and stimulus to material sensation, now looked 
 out upon the harvest of death and went suddenly mad with 
 fear. The foolhardy steps of the Telluses, Blacks, and Kerls, 
 which to-day led them into a reckless sense of material plenty 
 and to-morrow would plunge their souls into the pit of penury, 
 were abruptly halted. Then they went scurrying to the doc- 
 tors' doors, pelted by mental suggestions with the stings of 
 scorpions. These terrified ones had no idea of bringing their 
 thoughts into captivity to Christ. Oh, yes, they had listened 
 to the perfunctory reading of that Scrintural passage many 
 times. But the rector had not shown that he knew what it 
 meant, and they could not be expected to exceed him in sacred 
 
 53 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 wisdom. And they left the doctors' offices with bags on their 
 noses ! 
 
 Among the men of science .divisions soon arose. The "influ- 
 enza germ" was declared by some to be so tiny as to be undis- 
 cernible under the most powerful glass; others proceeded to 
 describe it with minute particularity. The sincere investigators 
 stared at one anbther blankly. "In the face of the most appall- 
 ing crisis the world has ever known, we physicians are help- 
 less!" cried Doctor Rowley. Such pronouncements but fanned 
 the flames of panic. The morale of the community sank under 
 them, nor was raised by the infliction of masks and the barring 
 of church doors. "God forgive me if I ever again prate of the 
 wonderful achievements of medicine!" groaned Doctor Sale in 
 despair, as he stood at the bedside of death. And the sentiment 
 was echoed by honest physicians from ocean to ocean. 
 
 "What now will Roake do?" muttered Doctor Benson 
 through his set teeth. 
 
 "What is Whittier doing?" asked Doctor Rowley. "What 
 now is his unscientific Christianity worth?" 
 
 "Kerl is making capital of the epidemic," announced Doctor 
 Lann. "He has put out a sure-cure for Spanish influenza, 
 called 'Kerlite'. He'll make a million." 
 
 But even as he spoke, the great Kerl mansion was torn open 
 by Death, who stalked to the chamber where lay the worldly 
 medicine-maker's only son and placed his mark on the lad's 
 damp brow. "God's sake, man!" cried the frenzied millionaire, 
 "can't you save him?" And Doctor Roake grit his teeth and 
 turned away. The dire prophecy of "Woe upon those that 
 laugh!" had fallen upon the grinning Freddy Kerl, whose 
 chase after the baubles of vanity and folly had thus miserably 
 ended. 
 
 The hissing swish of Death's scythe was heard on every 
 hand. The hallucinations of the frivolous elite of Crestelridge 
 consumed apace. Madeline Nence was cut down before the 
 unbelieving eyes of her doting parents and in the presence of 
 Doctor Roake. Wallie Black, once aggressively boastful of his 
 physical strength, hovered, day after day, in pitiable weakness 
 and mental terror, and then gave up. "They're dying like 
 flies!" cried Doctor Benson, aghast. 
 
 In the midst of the flurry and confusion in the offices of 
 Doctor Roake Ted Sayor sat and laughed. "It's a game!" he 
 exclaimed under his breath. "It's a game of 'Germ, germ, who's 
 got the germ?' Oh, it's a wise little bug, this influenza germ! 
 It can't be seen with the finest microscope, and it can't be 
 weighed or measured. It lives in churches and theaters, but 
 avoids the restaurants. It rides around in street cars and 
 
 54 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 taxis, but not in steam cars nor on the doctor's clothes. You'll 
 find it in barber shops, but never in dental parlors, and never, 
 no never on the streets! It goes through glazed jars and the 
 densest cement filters, yet it is so huge that it can't get through 
 the big meshes of a gauze nose-mask! Some germ! Chase it, 
 Roake, chase it! You'll catch it if you put salt on its tail ! . . ." 
 
 In this season of taut nerves, of soul-agitation, suspicion, 
 and paralyzing fear, the public was in no mood to be impressed 
 by Doctor Roake's convention, and none realized it more keenly 
 than the doctor himself. From his offices the announcement 
 went forth postponing the proposed assembly. Then Doctor 
 Roake turned swiftly and, through the local Board of Health, 
 seized Crestelridge by the throat. There were other ways to 
 demonstrate his power! The wavering sentiment in regard to 
 closing the churches was quickly crystallized, and their doors 
 were forthwith definitely sealed. If the people did not believe 
 in the efficacy of prayer when in health, they certainly could 
 not when ill. Besides, the Christian ministers had heretofore 
 shown that they conceded far more power to drugs than to 
 God. "But should not the stores be closed as well?" one asked. 
 Foolish question! The stores were necessary to the general 
 welfare — the churches had proved themselves non-essentials. 
 It was but the fulfillment of the prophecy that as ye sow ye 
 shall reap. They had sown a sterile seed. 
 
 The "destruction that wasteth at noonday" went swiftly -on. 
 The newspapers published the long death-lists on their front 
 pages and spread the terror broadcast by making it a daily 
 feature. Panic-stricken people in the first stages of the malady 
 refused to go to bed, lest they should not rise again. These 
 people who had been observing the nation's special day for 
 prayer now saw their shallow faith evaporate, and sank quiv- 
 ering before the Frankenstein of their own fears. The quaran- 
 tine and the mask were fully demonstrated and proved absurdly 
 unavailing. In remote districts of the country where no cases 
 had yet appeared rigid quarantines were established. "We'll 
 watch those places," Doctor Benson told Rowley. Presently the 
 epidemic broke out in them, dropped, seemingly, from the 
 clouds. Immediately mask ordinances were strictly enforced. 
 Later those districts were reporting a larger proportional num- 
 ber of cases and deaths than any other portions of the country. 
 "You see?" said Benson. "The nose-bag is an insult to God — 
 yet the ministers wear 'em and support the doctors in their 
 demand that they shall be inflicted upon us wholesale! Do 
 you wonder the world's at war?" 
 
 At the beginning of the outbreak the Reverend Wilson Whit- 
 tier raised his eyes from the intensive contemplation of his own 
 
 55 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sorrows and threw himself into the service of his fellows. As 
 he worked, he prayed. But his fervent prayers were met with 
 alarming increases in the wastage of human life. He prayed 
 for the recovery of Freddy Kerl, even though the Kerls no longer 
 recognized St. Jude's nor its rector, and he shed bitter tears 
 when the young man's life flickered out. The quick death of 
 Madeline Nence greatly shocked him — she died even while he 
 was on his knees at her bedside ! And as he stood by her bier 
 in the conduct of the last rites his voice broke and he leaned 
 over the casket and sobbed aloud. When Wallie Black died he 
 would have gone to the stricken home, but that he knew that 
 they held him guilty of negligence of his own daughter and in 
 that respect responsible for the death of Harris Chaddock. 
 One by one his parishioners fell ill. Funerals became daily 
 demands. "Alas! why should Crestelridge be so sorely smit- 
 ten?" he cried aloud. "My God, why hast Thou thus afflicted 
 us?" 
 
 The closing of his church had in the early days of the pan- 
 demic appeared to him expedient. Likewise the closing of the 
 schools and places of amusement. The masks were advisable 
 . . . "Anything that promises help in this awful crisis!" he 
 declared. The mild forms of quarantine seemed to him judi- 
 cious measures, and he lent them his hearty cooperation. 
 When the injection of serums was advocated, he acquiesced. 
 The doctors knew best. They were men of science; he was 
 but a humble preacher of the Word. . . 
 
 But the doctors went freely from house to house; likewise 
 the health officials. Were they incapable of disseminating the 
 influenza germ? The health officer who posted the quarantine 
 placard upon the Nence mansion had gone from thence to 
 mingle with a huge concourse at a ball game. Was he less 
 likely to spread the contagion than the girl's family? The 
 rector wondered. He could not know that the human mind 
 was again involved in the age-old error of mistaking effect for 
 cause, so deeply was he himself mesmerized. He of course did 
 not believe that ills were caused by demons entering the 
 body, and that such demons were to be exorcised by incanta- 
 tions and magic, but he did believe thoroughly in the germ 
 theory, and held that the microbes of disease were to be removed 
 by medication. Where God entered the problem he knew not. 
 
 But in the face of the utter failure of such skilled physicians 
 as Doctor Roake the rector's thinking became confused. Again 
 and again his thought turned to Marian, and again and again 
 he would seclude himself in his study and strive to recall the 
 things she had said to him touching these very points. And 
 thus, while his days were spent hurrying in dread anticipation 
 
 56 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to the bedsides of the dying, or reading amid bitter tears the 
 burial service over victims of the great epidemic of hypnotic 
 fear, he found some measure of consolation in keeping Marian 
 in mind, as if the mere thought of her were a sustaining power 
 in those black hours of human desolation. 
 
 CHAPTER 8 
 
 DOCTOR ROWLEY did not immediately return to Florida, 
 as he had expected. When Madam Galuth voiced to him 
 the thought that had come to her, namely, that he should 
 remain to take over the practice which Doctor Benson had been 
 obliged to relinquish by reason of losing his license, he acted 
 upon it at once. "There is more behind Madam Galuth's idea 
 than she has <told," he explained to Doctor Benson. "I am sure 
 it has to do with Alden Cragg and Doctor Roake. At any rate, 
 I shall instruct my assistant in Florida to handle my practice 
 there until such time as I can return. Meantime, I am at 
 Madam Galuth's service." 
 
 "A remarkable woman!" Benson observed. "I think she is 
 marshaling her cohorts.. But will she herself lead them? I 
 rather think not. . . No, I think not. . . Rowley," turning 
 and laying a hand on the other's arm, "in spite of the horrible 
 condition that the world is in, I would rather be alive to-day 
 than -at any other time in history." 
 
 Horrible, indeed, from the human standpoint, was the 
 world's condition. For it was a world afraid. The worship 
 of Jeroboam's calves, the burning of joss sticks, the human 
 offerings to Moloch, the sacrifices beneath Juggernaut's wheels, 
 even the gulping of the chemist's potions, and the wearing of 
 red flannel over the bowels had one and all mocked men's 
 credulity, and left the sense of a malevolent power, mightier 
 than God and with which mortals are doomed forever to strug- 
 gle, more terrible than ever. 
 
 The rapid development of the pandemic of Spanish influ- 
 enza was like the work of the thief in the night. Ere the 
 goodman was aware, his house was despoiled. Few saw it as 
 propaganda; few realized how completely a sensation-loving 
 press, ignorantly serving a sensation-loving populace, had lent 
 itself to the most sxibtle artifices of horrification and spread 
 death broadcast by scattering the prolific seeds of hypnotic fear. 
 In this fell work it cooperated unwittingly with ignorant health 
 oflBcials and frightened doctors, whose terrifying rules of quar- 
 antine, whose absurd masks, whose placards, solemn warnings, 
 
 57 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and awesome medical talks gave seeming life and power to a 
 senseless myth and caused millions to slay themselves with 
 their own false thinking. The awful havoc wrought among 
 the American soldiers was error's freshly camouflaged drive 
 against the Word; the great destruction throughout the world, 
 intended to paralyze thought, was a warning mightier than the 
 thundered prophecies of the Hebrew seers. . . "If this viru- 
 lence is prolonged, or if it should be maintained in future visi- 
 tations," exclaimed Doctor Benson, "what in God's name will 
 happen to the human race?" 
 
 To advise the stricken people not to get excited, to "keep 
 cool", and to "call a physician on the first appearance of symp- 
 toms", was like springing up in a crowded auditorium and 
 yelling "Fire!" and following it with the admonition: "Be not 
 afraid." To instill, through press and placard, the virus of fear 
 into human thought and then seek to allay it with a specious 
 word of calm was nothing less than serving errer through its 
 most subtle mode. 
 
 "In the first place," Doctor Benson observed to his co-laborer 
 Rowley, "the disease starts as a cold. Then fear seizes the 
 victim, and naturally a fever develops. This increases the fear 
 and diminishes bodily resistance. The patient is then ready for 
 pneumonia. Oh, I grant you, the pneumonia differs in many 
 respects from that with which we have been so familiar. But 
 I say this difference is due to nothing but the horrible fear. 
 Then come the experiments of the doctor — and these and the 
 fear finish the work. We're ready then for the undertaker." 
 
 "And the undertaker," Doctor Rowley remarked grimly, "is 
 reaping a harvest. He has boosted his rates, I notice. That 
 fellow across the way told me that he expected to clear not less 
 than $25,000 from this epidemic. Cheerful, eh?" 
 
 "It's cannibalism!" cried Benson. 
 
 But likewise had the doctors advanced their fees. Doctor 
 Roake had suggested the adoption of a new schedule, under 
 which a call was rated from $15 upward. Night calls might be 
 anything above $25. A general increase of 150 per cent was sug- 
 gested for all medical work and widely adopted. With 
 the cost of living increasing by leaps and bounds, and the cost 
 of dying now become almost prohibitive, terrified mortals were 
 caught between Scylla and Charybdis and sank into a state of 
 hopelessness. 
 
 "It's an outrage!" declared Benson. "But the whole system 
 of medical practice is a relic of barbarism! It belongs to the 
 ape-age! And the raising of fees now is sheer cannibalism! 
 Thank God there are some doctors who realize it!" 
 
 "There are some of us," Doctor Rowley said, "who have 
 
 58 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 acquired sufficient knowledge to know how little we really do 
 know. I have often questioned whether anyone was ever really 
 cured by a doctor. I am beginning to believe that the only 
 influence a doctor can exert is a mental one. If he is cheerful 
 and creates an atmosphere of optimism, and meantime keeps 
 out of the way and permits Nature to do the work, the patient 
 will generally recover. I have done my share of killing; now 
 I stand aside and let my patients alone. Or at best, I merely 
 entertain them while they are getting well. I have no influ- 
 enza patients to-day : I have many who are in bed with ordi- 
 nary colds, and many more who are in bed with the fear that 
 they are going to have a cold and subsequent influenza. In 
 this experimental stage of the physician's efforts I see a won- 
 derful opportunity for the clergy; they ought to have something 
 to fall back on; we doctors haven't. Therapeutics is not an 
 art, but a confusion, and while we doctors are tossing on the 
 sea of perplexity I should think the ministers of the Gospel 
 would see that true Christianity is really a science. . ." 
 
 "Bosh!" grunted Benson, nor followed up this — to him — 
 all-sufficient reply. 
 
 Ceaselessly the wheel turned : the great and the small 
 dropped alike into the hopper of death. "Keep cool and con- 
 fident," the ubiquitous placards admonished. Aye, if you know 
 what that means. Keep your thought cleansed of materialism, 
 and be confident in the omnipotence and consideration of the 
 One Mind. For that is both scriptural and scientific. Plagues 
 must needs come till this is learned. While Pharaoh is still 
 dominant in the Egypt of materialism, while mankind yet long 
 for the fleshpots of unlicensed indulgence of the material 
 senses, while they are mesmerized into unwillingness to know 
 God aright and apply that knowledge in the demonstration of 
 Israel, plague after plague must come as self-imposed agony for 
 straining after ease in matter and the gratification of material 
 lusts. There have been pandemics throughout history; that they 
 have not been more prevalent in modern times has been attrib- 
 uted to sanitation and improved systems of hygiene. Yet in the 
 most materially sanitary and hygienic of all eras, the twentieth 
 century, has occurred a virulent scourge whose devastation, has 
 been nigh incredible. For effective sanitation, be it known, is 
 of the thought, and true hygiene is the putting off of the mate- 
 rial concept. Real medication is the application of Principle to 
 men's problems — ^yet, alas! these things are not taught in our 
 schools, and our curricula are still stuffed with a false lore 
 that would hold Life deeply embedded in dead matter. While 
 this obtains, recurrent plagues must needs sweep the earth. 
 
 When the agitation was at its height in Crestelridge — 
 
 59 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ■where doubtless the madness of fear raged as nowhere else — 
 Ted Sayor, recovering from a wracking fit of coughing that 
 had stained his handkerchief crimson, rose unsteadily from his 
 chair and, with frequent furtive glances behind him, stole slowly 
 out of the Roake offices and softly closed the door, never again 
 to return. "I'm done for anyway!" he muttered as he crept 
 down the hallway. "I had hoped the 'flu' would take me — ^but 
 it won't, just because I'ni not afraid of it! I'm done for, but 
 I'm through with Roake! He got me — but I'm. through! Let 
 him set the authorities after me! I'll not die in prison now!" 
 His excited thought found voice in low exclamations until he 
 reached the elevator. "I'm a slacker . . . yes, I'm a slacker. 
 Boots said it: I'm a skunk! And Roake got me for it . . . 
 got my life ! But I'll fool the vulture : he'll not get my body to 
 peck at on the dissection table!" And the red spots in his 
 cheeks glowed under the stimulus of his mild delirium as he 
 mingled with the crowd in the street. 
 
 In his study in the rectory the Reverend Wilson Whittier 
 paced back and forth in an effort to maintain control of him- 
 self. The terrific strain of the past weeks was telling: he felt 
 himself going to pieces. His tottering church had not reacted 
 to the stimulating "stunts" of his new assistant; his parishion- 
 ers were steadily falling before the invisible "influence" that had 
 come among them with a medical label; human power had 
 been tested to the utmost, and had broken; medicine, rankly 
 material and impotent, dominated a religion equally material- 
 istic and more impotent. . . The rector knew it — knew, too, 
 that it was blazoned to the hopeless public from the signboard 
 nailed to St. Jude's doors: Closed on account of the epidemic. 
 
 The cold November rains were falling. Could they but 
 drown the memory of these past weeks of hell, he might wish 
 that they would descend in a flood. He had just returned 
 from the death-bed of a young girl. She had been a favorite in 
 his church; she had stood loyally by him during St. Jude's 
 testing time; and he loved her as a daughter. He had often 
 wished that Ethel might have manifested such innocence, such 
 purity, such devotion to the things of God. Surely such a one 
 must be under the divine protection, . • 
 
 Yet had she withered like a frail flower in a wintry ^blast. 
 He had rushed to her bedside with the comforts of religion, 
 had thrown himself on his knees and poured out his soul in 
 pleadings with the Almighty. She had feebly stretched out 
 her arms to him in her helpless appeal. Had he no message 
 from the Lord, in times like these? He had tried, as he saw her 
 sinking, to recall the thoughts that Marian had so often voiced, 
 but that had fallen upon dull ears. God above! he would have 
 given his life if . . . if . . . 
 
 60 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then he had thought of Madam Galuth. Did he dare go to 
 her? Did he dare ask her what it was that Marian had said? 
 Did he dare lay down his age-honored orthodoxy at this out- 
 cast woman's feet and beg that with her heresy she would 
 come and try to save this child? It would cost him his church; 
 it would bring upon him the anger of Doctor Roake. . . "Can 
 you suggest anything?" the weeping mother of the dying girl 
 had asked brokenly. "The doctors have given her up. . ." 
 
 Again his thought had flown to Madam Galuth. Why always 
 to her? Why? Why? Was it the temptation of Satan? Might 
 not disease be a divine minister? . . , Was not this pure 
 child entering now a better world, eternal life? Was it not 
 better to die in the holy faith than live by such mesmeric sug- 
 gestion as the Galuth undoubtedly exerted? And Doctor 
 Roake . . . 
 
 He shook his head in answer to the frenzied mother's plead- 
 ing cry. That night the young life went out. 
 
 And now he regarded himself as a murderer. . . Not that 
 Madam Galuth's ministrations had been certain to save the 
 girl; but he had deliberately refused to employ every human 
 means to defeat death. . . He was a wanton murderer! The 
 piteous cries of the stricken mother would forever ring in his 
 ears! . . . He should never cease to hear them! ... In the 
 dead face of the child which he could never forget he had read 
 his own condemnation! 
 
 He threw himself upon his desk in an agony of tears and 
 sobbed long and violently in his deep misery. When the 
 paroxysm passed, he rose unsteadily and prepared himself 
 for the street. His face was ashen; his teeth were set; there was 
 a wild look in his eyes. An hour later he sat before Doctor 
 Roake in the latter's private sanctum. 
 
 "I have spoken to you before," he said hoarsely, "about 
 Madam Galuth. Has she the legal right to . . . to . . . 
 attempt to heal the sick?" 
 
 The doctor regarded the rector oddly. "Do you know that 
 she is practicing the healing arts?" he asked. There was only 
 the faintest indication of a smile about his mouth. 
 
 "I have been informed," the rector replied, "that she has 
 handled cases of the influenza." 
 
 "With success ?" the doctor queried interestedly. 
 
 "I ... I have not heard that she has . . . lost any cases," 
 the rector answered hesitatingly. "But she disregards the rules 
 of quarantine, I am positive. Under the Wess law she is there- 
 fore . . . liable, is she not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then why don't they arrest her?" the rector cried excitedly. 
 
 61 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Well, in this crisis . . ." the doctor began, then paused to 
 observe the rector. "We doctors have been reluctant to strictly 
 enforce drastic . . ." 
 
 "The law must be enforced!" the rectqr declared loudly. He 
 trembled as he spoke, and his muscles twitched. He had gone 
 mad . . . madi 
 
 "I would suggest, then," said the doctor, "that the com- 
 plaint would better come from you. Of course," he hastened to 
 add, "we physicians will support you. As you say, the law 
 must be enforced." 
 
 "And ... the penalty?" 
 
 "A fine and imprisonment. But I dare say in her case the 
 warning would be sufficient. By the way, changing the subject, 
 I've lost Ted Sayor. Gone, bag and baggage. Left his hotel. 
 No address." He smiled and flicked the ashes from his cigar. 
 "Poor fellow," he said, "he ^on't last long now. I'd have taken 
 care of him while he lived, out of friendship for his father. 
 But I've done my duty by the boy, and I have no time to hunt 
 for him." 
 
 Shortly thereafter complaint was lodged against Madam 
 Galuth as a violator of the beneficent Wess law. Her arrest 
 followed. An injunction restraining her from the practice of 
 the curative arts was secured pending her hearing, which, 
 owing to the stressful conditions then prevalent, was set some 
 weeks ahead. 
 
 "Has she lost any cases?" demanded Benson, bristling like 
 an angered mastiff. 
 
 "I think not," said Rowley, "but a case was taken from her, 
 a child. Its parents were afraid to let her handle it further. 
 Shortly afterward they turned the case over to a doctor. 
 Roake heard of it and asked to be called on the case. The 
 child died. Now charges of manslaughter are made, both 
 against her and the parents of the child, the inference being, 
 of course, that if the doctor had had the case in time the child 
 would have lived." 
 
 "Well, by G . . . Look here, Rowley, could Roake have 
 saved that child if he had had the case from the beginning?" 
 
 Doctor Rowley shrugged his shoulders. "Then she is also 
 charged with infraction of the quarantine rules," he went on. 
 "The influenza, you know, is considered contagious." 
 
 "It isn't contagious!" Benson loudly contradicted. "But 
 how are we going to pound that fact into the puddin' headed 
 public? By the way, what's the death-list for to-day?" He 
 seized the Courier and scanned it, then sat back with an excla- 
 mation. "Lord, they're dying by thousands ! I wish I had my 
 insurance money back; I'm afraid my company will blow up. 
 
 62 
 
THOU I SRAEL 
 
 Why, the beneficiary fund of one fraternal insurance organ- 
 ization that I know of has already fallen from $12,000,000 to 
 a paltry $700,000. Where's it going to end?" He paused. 
 Then: "By the way, do you understand now why Madam Galuth 
 could not lead her cohorts? She must have foreseen just what 
 has happened, her arrest. The sick were, of course, her first 
 consideration. She worked for them until Roake stopped 
 her. . ." 
 
 "It was Whittier who made the complaint." 
 
 "Humph! He can't heal. . . What's that about not being 
 able to enter in, and hiding the key so's nobody else can get in 
 either? How's that for the motive of a spiritual guide, eh? 
 Lord, but this poor old world needs a leader ! Oh, for a Moses !" 
 He paused for a moment, as if held by a new thought. "I say, 
 Rowley," he resumed, "things certainly are edging toward peace 
 in Europe. . . No, not real peace, but a cessation of their 
 insane slaughter. The Hindenburg line is breaking fast. The 
 Germans are hollering 'Kamerad'. I look for hostilities to end 
 any day now. And then . . ." He fell to musing. Presently 
 he looked up. "Rowley," he said, "did you ever hear of Marian 
 Whittier? No? Humph!" 
 
 CHAPTER 9 
 
 IN the guise of an armistice Israel's adversary turned from 
 mechanics to subtler modes. The Ahab of Potsdam and his 
 priest-professors had proved exceptional channels for par- 
 alyzing the modern concept of Christianity through their appli- 
 cation of the doctrine that where a state has the brute force 
 to do a thing no moral force must be permitted to interpose. 
 For is not this the theologian's tenet that man is a "free moral 
 agent"? and could it not be relied upon to externalize in its 
 natural consequence, total depravity? The spiritual fact that 
 man is free to do naught but right could never have occurred 
 to this mesmerized modern Ahab, who, when his dark mission 
 was ended, fell afoul of the very fear he had inspired and took 
 to his heels. 
 
 As always, error's virus had corroded and ruined the very 
 channels through which it had belched forth upon a gassed 
 world. The fear with which Germany would have slain her 
 adversary now sapped the foundations of her own morale; the 
 pandemic of hypnotic fear that attempted destruction of the 
 American army through sudden death had reacted, and the 
 back-wash of the contagion swept over the centers of its origin. 
 
 40 63 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The September drive of the British against the Hindenburg line 
 appeared absurdly successful. Odin had definitely failed. 
 Ludendorf threw up his hands in despair. Attila's progeny 
 tossed away their impotent material weapons, and Bulgaria 
 collapsed. A super-Sedan loomed terrifyingly. Staring at it, 
 dumfounded, the German nerve snapped, and the haughty 
 House of HohenzoUern went crashing into the dust. On Novem- 
 ber 9th Germany was a republic; on the 11th an awesome hush 
 fell upon the battlefields, and the frightful holocaust that had 
 blotted out 10,000,000 human lives, that had submerged a world 
 in unspeakable woe and entailed a monetary wastage of more 
 than $200,000,000,000 was brought to a temporary close. The 
 rough work was done. For error's subtler schemes new channels 
 were required. 
 
 "But for Christianity, the Germans would have won!" 
 gasped the unthinking rector of St, Jude'sin hysteric relief. 
 Alas! in a saner moment he learned that, had Christianity not 
 long since been driven from the earth, the war never would 
 have been begun. 
 
 The Assyrian drew back, battered, bleeding, confounded, 
 but with his spirit of mad hate unquenclied. Israel, dazed and 
 staggering, felt no stimulus to exultation and penned no 
 psalms. It was as if she realized that her truce with the Chal- 
 dean had closed but another phase of a struggle that must 
 endure until Israel herself should acknowledge the One God 
 and exchange her muniments of matter for the really potent 
 armament of Spirit. She had agreed to a suspension of the 
 mad exertions of material force; but she knew that the war 
 had merely assumed a more subtle but no less destructive and 
 despicable form, a war in the sacred name of peace. 
 
 The smoke of battle rose on the sighing winds and revealed 
 the world a graveyard. "It is the Gdtterddmmerung !" cried the 
 despairing Assyrian, not knowing the fell mesmerism that had 
 used him. "The spirit of man in shadow!" echoed exhausted 
 Israel, sick with the sight of the appalling ruin. 
 
 Nations lay dead; death grinned from cold hearthstones and 
 fallen altars; Christianity was dead; the Angelus was dead; 
 fields and forests dead; whole villages dead; faiths dead; hopes 
 dead; aspirations- dead; the torn hillsides nauseating with 
 human dead. Famine, disease, degradation, spiritual disintegra- 
 tion, all rode hard in the van of death. Russia was sinking in 
 the mire of anarchy, with night dropping its sable shade upon 
 her; Austria writhed in the agonies of spiritual, intellectual, and 
 economic death; Poland and Serbia glistened white with the 
 bleaching bones of their myriad dead; France, waking from a 
 momentary intoxication of joy, mourned a million dead, and a 
 
 64 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 dwindling population dying in the hour of illusive victory; Italy, 
 stricken by her human losses, tottered under her death-laden 
 debts, while her starving workmen seized her factories in a 
 frenzy of despair, only to discover no raw materials and no 
 funds with which to purchase that they might stave off death; 
 England — victorious, if you will — bowed in unutterable grief 
 at the tomb of her dead manhood, knowing in her desolated 
 heart that she must arise to a renewal of the ancient struggle 
 even more frightful and terrifying; America, plague-ravaged, 
 danced in a mad delirium of worship of Jeroboam's calves. . . 
 
 The "war to end war" had niiocked its victims: eighteen 
 months after the penning of the armistice sixteen wars were 
 raging and twenty million human beings stood at the point 
 of starvation; more than half the children of Austria had per- 
 ished miserably, and death had claimed every babe in Serbia 
 and Poland up to the age of three. The era of "Business As 
 Usual" had died; the "Don't Care Age" had been given birth. 
 A century before Christ the House of Israel had fallen under 
 the influence of Odin, of the "good old German god", and 
 embraced a religion founded upon sorcery, witchcraft, and 
 magic; twenty centuries later Israel poured out its blood to 
 save the world from the same "Kultur"; but because she had 
 not yet learned to know the God of her fathers she wavered in 
 spiritual uncertainty, then plunged headlong into a demoniac 
 rigadoon. 
 
 The sense of hopelessness which had driven Otto Hoeffel 
 to the dance of death in Jerusalem had now seized the reins of 
 the human mind. Between the memory of a hideous past and 
 the menace of an uncertain future the pent spirit of man went 
 mad. To live in the mental vacuity of mere toil, to achieve 
 nothing but an escape from starvation, to bring children into 
 the world only that they too shall work the treadmill of mere 
 hopeless existence and breed other economic clods, to doggedly 
 pursue this ghastly round till death mercifully intervene — 
 this was the mental stage at which millions had arrived; it 
 was this maddened state of mind that error had so subtly 
 produced in its war upon the Word. Physical force was not 
 half «o potent a weapon. 
 
 An epidemic of frenzied pleasure-seeking swept over the 
 hectic earth. Waves of wild spending, of plunging into un- 
 healthy amusements, of riotous display, of crude eccentricities, 
 followed in its wake. An era of commercial cannibalism 
 entered : man devoured man through godless extortions ; the 
 food and rent profiteers, like disgusting vampires, drooled with 
 the blood of their fellows; a suffering world became cynical 
 of suffering; crime rolled over society in obliterating waves; 
 
 65 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the insane desire for tlie speedy acquisition of gold and the 
 crazed fascination of consuming it on human lusts was but 
 the repetition of Israel's ancient sin. 
 
 "But what are we coming to?" cried the rector of St. Jude's, 
 aghast. 
 
 "Pretty soft, eh?" a bricklayer observed to his companion, 
 as they reclined on the wall which they were leisurely, uninter- 
 estedly, erecting. "Fourteen dollars a day for this, and loaf 
 half the time. Pretty soft, eh?" 
 
 "But we should be gittin' fifteen an' shorter hours," growled 
 the still discontented other in reply. It was a potent demonstra- 
 tion — though the twain saw it not — that the spirit of man shall 
 not know content till it seek its rejected God. 
 
 The pursuit of questionable wealth and its prodigal waste 
 passed rapidly into a veritable contagion. Its fruitage was a 
 maddening discontent, a wild unrest, a spirit of brutish egoism, 
 and mortals became like the serpents in Carlyle's basket, each 
 fighting, hissing, squirming to rear its head above the rest. 
 The hope that the demand for higher wages and fewer hours 
 might be based on a genuine desire to employ the additional 
 leisure for self-betterment was mocked by the laborers them- 
 selves. Material lust only, debasing and self-destructive, 
 inspired the demand. Error kills in the guise of good. Cen- 
 turies of sitting on the egg of materiality has failed to hatch 
 spiritual content. 
 
 Wages soared in pyrotechnic flights, and prices chased them. 
 Former values went to the scrap heap with obsolete ideas of 
 morality and conscience. The notion that a man owed any- 
 thing to society met raucous ridicule. Men acted upon the 
 belief that conditions would last while they lived, that death 
 dropped a final curtain, and "the future be damned!" The 
 role of Dives was assumed by countless thousands — that his 
 experience in another state of consciousness was likewise dupli- 
 cated is a permissible assumption on the demonstrated fact 
 that life, as we know it, is what we are alive to, is our conscious- 
 ness of life, and consciousness is mental activity and a direct 
 function of what we think. 
 
 The subtlety of error's modes might elicit admiration but 
 for their very hideousness. To shatter a civilization reared 
 on commercialism is to the average man an appalling calamity, 
 for his heart dwells in his purse; yet the quenching of ideas 
 by the cloud of black ignorance which drew after the war 
 remains a calamity far less reparable. It was inevitable that 
 the "Don't Care Age" should merge into "The Latter Age of 
 Ignorance" if Israel continued to reject her God. The boasted 
 intellectuality of the cultured world was dissipated by the war, 
 
 66 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 its intellectuals drafted, slain, or scattered, dismayed, dispirited, 
 disillusioned. The publishing of newly revealed ideas became 
 prohibitive; authorship languished under the blighting hand 
 of exorbitant costs. There was slight stimulus to be drawn 
 from the lessened world-morale, though here and there Dan- 
 tean word-pictures of the hellish rending of human flesh in 
 battle held the sensation-mongering mortal mirid fascinated by 
 their very gruesomeness. Interest in real literature perished 
 in the frenzied getting and spending; cultural ideas died nascent 
 while the mind reveled in the contemplation of high-powered 
 cars. Faddists sprang up, like mirobolant mushrooms, from 
 the rotten soil of human thought to embrace the opportunity 
 offered by a diseased world-mind. A street-sweeper could insult 
 intelligence in meaningless lines, and win acclaim as an author 
 of "free" verse. And if he intoned his vocable mess to the twang 
 of a catgut he might hold unthinking multitudes in bemused 
 delirium. In the economic press artists of sincerity dropped 
 their tools in despair and turned to coarse labor for sheer 
 animal existence. Apparatus, chemicals, the essentials of their 
 craft, were either unobtainable or now far beyond their slender 
 means. Besides, the New Rich were unsympathetic to all but 
 the faddist — the hod-carrier of yesterday could not be expected 
 to appreciate a Rembrandt to-day. The intensive thought which 
 for five wild years the world had directed to the contemplation 
 of the power of brawn had become externalized: labor was 
 regnant, wielding an autocracy that must elicit the envy of 
 a HohenzoUern. The glorious privilege of work for work's sake 
 vanished. The typesetter might well scorn the income of the 
 author whose book he set. 
 
 In wasted Europe starving professors strove to carry for- 
 ward the torch of learning, though they now lectured to 
 beggared students in halls that tottered for lack of funds to 
 support them. Libraries closed. Centers once famous for their 
 intellectual culture became extinct. A pall drew over the minds 
 of their thinkers. A ban of hatred lay upon the exchange of 
 ideas, upon intellectual communication between European 
 nations. Under it culture died, vision narrowed, spiritual con- 
 cepts flickered out, and materiality waxed grosser and more 
 noxious. Bowed beneath mountainous war-debts, with its eco- 
 nomic life shattered, its earning power well-nigh destroyed, still 
 consuming with hatred bred of animal fear, a prey to racial 
 prejudices, betrayed by its spiritual guides and mocked by 
 Baal, the broken world struggled through the gathering 
 shadows, its consciousness of life a chaos. 
 
 "But we must make haste to get back to the normal, to 
 our pre-war status!" the worried rector of St. Jude's urged. 
 
 67 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But what is the normal? For was it not these very pre- 
 war conditions that caused the war? 
 
 Human history is but the mortal counterfeit of divine 
 unfoldment. It repeats itself in vicious circles, for the mortal 
 mind is without basis of Principle, and revolves in a limited 
 orb. By 1914 the world was in an orgy of material production. 
 It could not close the doors of its stuffed warehouses, and it 
 smiled and proceeded to pull them down to build greater. The 
 world was spiritually asleep in the deep sleep of materiality 
 that had overwhelmed the allegorical Adam. Its vaunted civili- 
 zation, based on unmoral systems which had been pursued 
 to their limits, was ready for the scrap heap — and to the scrap 
 heap it went. Materiality is the antithesis of spirituality, i and 
 in 1914 the matter-intoxicated world was spiritually, morally 
 bankrupt. 
 
 For matter, even from the standpoint of the physicists, is 
 wholly metaphysical, a thing of thought. It is the externaliza- 
 tion of the mortal thoughts and beliefs held in the human 
 mentality as truths. It is a mental concept, founded on the 
 suppositional opposite of true Substance. Therefore it is a 
 delusive falsity, error coming to mankind in the guise of good. 
 It is unsatisfying, unsustaining, disintegrating, contaminating, 
 demoralizing. He who gives it intelligence yields it his own; 
 he who pursues it pursues death. And the world had pursued 
 it madly. 
 
 It was a "Don't Care Age" that followed the armistice. It 
 was "The Latter Age of Ignorance". And it was likewise the 
 age of "The New Paganism", After 1900 years of Christianity 
 the world was still worshiping gods as illusive as the mythical 
 denizens of Olympus. And the scepter of Zeus had passed to 
 Self. It was a period of frenzied self-determination, self-expres- 
 sion — not "Thy will", but mine; not "to reflect Thee", but to 
 express a wholly human and mortal concept, an illusive, vision- 
 ary, fragile thing called Self. Thus did animal magnetism per- 
 petuate the destructive delusion of minds many and continue 
 to bar out from the peace councils of homes and nations the 
 saving knowledge of the One Mind that is Israel's true God. 
 The slogan of "The New Paganism" was an echo of Cain's guilty 
 question. Its doctrine, pushed to the ultimate, has made man- 
 kind a murderer. 
 
 Never had the world been so steeped in hatred as when, in 
 1918, Israel declared a truce with her adversary; never had 
 men hated their fellow men so widely, so deeply, so venomously. 
 And they hated because they feared. And they feared lest they 
 might not express to the full their false sense of Self. Such 
 was the delusion by which error continued to blind them and 
 strike at the Word. 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Alas! the people are less eager to hear our message than 
 ever before," wailed the distressed preachers. And the mob's 
 answer came brutally: "Stop preaching theological theories 
 and get down to the practical." 
 
 "Men who were good before the war have returned so 
 changed!" cried others. "We cannot reach them! They have 
 gone wrong! They do not attend church now!" And the retort 
 was heard: "But why attend church to hear a mutilated 
 Christianity preached?" 
 
 In the year that followed the signing of the armistice a 
 prominent theological training school registered but three 
 applicants! And in contrast, never was so large a proportion 
 of humanity swayed by strange vagaries of thought, never 
 were so many driven into the sloughs of doubt as the result 
 of the world's bitter experience of organized religion. 
 
 And in the midst of the world-chaos incident upon a shat- 
 tered concept of Christianity, the Church of Rome put forth 
 a renewal of the papal claim to temporal power! . . . 
 
 Upon the spirit of man the shadow lay dark. But the 
 spirit of mortal man is his soul — and that is his human sense 
 of a cosmos of matter, a universe of his own fabrication out 
 of his own dark thought. Nor did the war cast the shadow 
 — nay, it was the falling of the shadow itself that caused the 
 war. Spiritual starvation ultimated in spiritual death: there 
 was no nutriment in the dried husks of theology. The ancient 
 dogma lacked the essential vitamines. 
 
 In its spiritual chiaroscuro the morally blunted world again 
 rejected Israel's God for the politicians. And the politicians 
 have ever been error's great allies. Through the Emperor Con- 
 stantine in the fourth century the politicians quenched prim- 
 itive Christianity; through the politicians of Potsdam in the 
 twentieth was the soul of Germany ruined; by the politicians 
 is the art of healing now betrayed in a world sick unto death; 
 through the -politicians was a false peace concluded between 
 Israel and the Assyrian that must eventually flower into a 
 harvest of future discord. 
 
 For peace was not made over the Sermon on the Mount, 
 but over the sword. Error sat at the council-table and dictated 
 a peace of force. Error leered through the sinister smiles of 
 the seasoned diplomatists at Versailles and blew its withering 
 breath upon the "Fourteen Points". The plea of the Christ was 
 denied that the nations' shameful lusts might be satiated and 
 revenge and greed return their verdict. In the Salle de I'Hor- 
 loge Cain's bloody slogan drowned mercy's tender cry. Error's 
 completest triumph of the Great War was the Versailles truce 
 that gave breath to the panting belligerents ere the next dia- 
 
 69 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 bolical phase of the drive against the Word be launched. As 
 in the distant days of Ezekiel and Ezra, Israel lost a world- 
 opportunity by again rejecting the One God. 
 
 CHAPTER 10 
 
 FROM the capitals of the world the philosophers looked out 
 over the human waste and sighed: "Better. for mankind 
 that it perish!" But from Marian Whittier's lips rose the 
 prophetic query of the Hebrew seer: "Why will ye die?" 
 
 It was in January, two months after the signing of the 
 armistice, that the little band of Israel's followers arrived in 
 London. They came with a hush upon their thought, and with 
 a great awe in their souls. To Simeon Penberry it was as if 
 he had at length emerged from utter darkness into the light 
 of day. "How in God's name we got through, I can't yet under- 
 stand!" he often muttered in those first days of his return to 
 Penberry Hall. "If the 'lost ten tribes' went through what 
 we did in reaching England, no wonder it took them centuries! 
 Br-r-r-r! But we've got it! Egad! we've got it! We are 
 Israel! . . . And the Bible is our history! . . . God in heaven, 
 who'd have believed it!". . . 
 
 And even as he spoke he seemed to hear the roar of the 
 huge presses of Oxford and Cambridge, ceaselessly sending forth 
 the story of Israel to a world dying for want of knowledge of 
 Israel's God. 
 
 "And the girl says spiritual Israel will come through literal 
 Israel," he murmured again and again. "Egad! if I might 
 prophesy I'd say spiritual Israel will be revealed by a woman!" 
 
 And then his thought would again fall, for he had not found 
 "her". The passing of half a century had long since obliterated 
 the footsteps of the one who had gone that way, being exiled, 
 and whom he now so eagerly sought, yet without hope. But 
 Marian had insisted that she still lived. "You will find her," 
 she persisted. "No one can be lost in the Universe of Mind. 
 When you have done your part, and when it is right, you will 
 find her." But the old man would shake his head. *'And yet," 
 he comforted himself, "I have found her, in you." 
 
 From Palestine to Egypt, thence across into the ancient 
 "Land of Guta", had Penberry been led by the eager girl — and 
 he had journeyed with bulging eyes and mouth agape. Up 
 through the "Gates of Israel" and into the ancient home of the 
 royal Scythians they went; thence westward, through the Cri- 
 mea, and again north, following the serpent's trail of Dan. 
 
 70 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Everywhere did Marian reveal to her marveling companions 
 the "waymarks" which Israel had set up in that memorable 
 journey of centuries ago. "Why," cried Penberry, "they posi- 
 tively fly up and strike us in the face ! -Why haven't we known 
 about this before? We've been blind! . . . blind!" 
 
 And as they journeyed Marian unfolded to her companions 
 Israel's fascinating story, and together they re-wrote the miss- 
 ing pages of human history. "When it is complete," she 
 repeatedly reminded them, "you will see that it proves the 
 existence and character of the One God; it proves that the 
 Bible sets forth truth when spiritually interpreted; it shows 
 that the prophecies have been fulfilled and the promises kept; 
 and it places upon us each a responsibility of the greatest and 
 most glorious nature, namely, to work out our individual salva- 
 tion and demonstrate spiritual Israel' by overcoming error, 
 even as Jacob struggled and overcame it at Peniel." 
 
 Obstacles oj)posed them at every step — a journey which 
 would have been difficult in pre-war days was now, even after 
 the armistice, fraught with hardship extreme and constant 
 danger. Zuleyka's great influence with the Arabs and the 
 nomad Asiatic tribes procured them safety through the Cau- 
 casian pass into Russia. The protection and prestige of the 
 British Government were frequently invoked. But again and 
 again Penberry would have turned back but for Marian. And 
 then he came to learn that the girl was not relying on the 
 protection of human governments, and that her faith in her 
 mission included the certainty of being able to accomplish it. 
 Thereafter he ceased to interpose additional obstacles in the 
 nature of his own fears and disbeliefs. David Barach, who had 
 witnessed the never to be forgotten event in the Tower of 
 Antonia, lent himself to the girl as to a superior officer, but 
 with a faith now irrefragable. And hourly he thanked the God 
 of his fathers that he had been thus privileged to learn of her. 
 Zuleyka continued to demonstrate her great ability in the han- 
 dling of the varied eastern peoples with whom they came in 
 contact, and in her wide knowledge of their tongues. She had 
 been over this same route before, with one whom Simeon Pen- 
 berry never mentioned without brimming eyes; she had lived 
 in these southern lands and was recognized in many of the 
 towns through which they passed. The wisdom of God was 
 indeed manifest to Simeon Penberry in the assembling of this 
 little band bent on so great, so vital a mission to mankind. 
 "Remarkable women, both of them!" he had frequent occasion 
 to exclaim. "The reason why Marian is so fitted to make this 
 investigation is that she is untrammeled by theology. She is 
 .like her. Zuleyka is a weird creature, uncanny in her wisdom 
 
 71 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 . . . but careless on occasion. Egad! I wonder what was in 
 the package that she lost ... I wonder . . . and from the 
 German major. Egad! I'd give a kingdom to know." For the 
 Egyptian had long since confided to him that, shortly before 
 Jerusalem fell. Otto Hoefifel had entrusted her with a packet, 
 closed with many red seals, bearing an impress of the German 
 eagles, and inscribed: Concerning the family of the Reverend 
 Wilson Whittier, Crestelridge, N. Y., U. S. A. She. had thrust 
 the packet into her dress. In the agitation of the hour she 
 had forgotten it. Nor did thought of it recur to her until they 
 were about to depart from Jerusalem. Then search for it 
 proved unavailing. "Concerning the Whittier family," Pen- 
 berry would often muse after Zuleyka had confessed the loss. 
 "Why on earth should a German officer try to send me a packet 
 regarding the Whittiers? Egad! I'd give a ransom to know." 
 And he set down the loss of the packet as the only demerit 
 against the Egyptian who had served him faithfully through 
 many years. 
 
 In their weeks of hazardous journeying and intensive re- 
 search Marian had been quite cut off from the world that she 
 had known, but on arriving in London she at once despatched 
 a letter to Madam Galuth, announcing the successful termina- 
 tion of the unique exploit. She had had no word from Crestel- 
 ridge since leaving Jerusalem, a year before. Often in the 
 interval her thought had turned to Alden Cragg, yet as often 
 she recalled it and directed it into other channels. That she 
 would herself return to Crestelridge seemed unlikely. The 
 rectory doors had been closed against her. "You'll stay with 
 me," Penberry had settled the question of her future. "We'll 
 first make our report to the British Government ... I say, 
 Marian, when Parliament gets it there will be a stir! Egad! 
 They'll decide on a different course in regard to America, eh? 
 When they learn that Ephraim and Manasseh are brothers and 
 that the future of the world depends on Brother John and 
 Brother Jonathan sticking together ! Egad ! I say, we can see 
 why your friend Roake wants the British Empire dismembered, 
 eh? The canny rascal ! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 What Marian and Penberry laid before the British Govern- 
 ment in a secret document as the full result of their investiga- 
 tion was the story of the People of Israel. That it entered not 
 into the councils of Versailles was not due to any lack of 
 authenticity in the story itself, but that Ephraim, more mate- 
 rialistic than Manasseh, still feared to trust Israel's God. 
 
 Scarcely had the report been submitted when a cable mes- 
 sage was delivered to Marian. It was from Madam Galuth. 
 Alden needs you, it read. Nothing more. 
 
 72 
 
THOU- ISRAEL 
 
 Instantly the girl was transported back to that memorable 
 night in Jerusalem when she had parted from Alden. "I shall 
 call to you," he had said, "through the darkness of Crestel- 
 ridge . . ." 
 
 The darkness of Crestelridge ! None knew better than she 
 how great that darkness. And she knew that Alden would 
 not have called to her had not that blackness engulfed him. 
 A horde of fell suggestions rained down upon her. She knew 
 nothing of Alden's work- in that intervening year, but she had 
 known when she sent him from her that he would seek to 
 demonstrate Israel in the very temples of Bel — and that, she 
 knew, was a work that had cost the Nazarene his human life. 
 
 She flew with the message to Simeon Penberry. "What," 
 he cried, "that fellow? I'd forgotten him. Egad! he can't 
 have you. It's a trick! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 "He needs me; I must go at once!" she urged. 
 
 "What's happened? I'll search the files of the New York 
 papers for news of Crestelridge. . ." 
 
 "We can't wait for that! . . . And nothing ever happens! 
 . . . Principle governs ! ..." 
 
 "Humph!" He shrugged his shoulders. "You love the 
 fellow. You . . . I . . ." He stopped, stared at the girl, gulped 
 down something in his throat, then burst out: "Damme! you 
 shall go. I haven't followed Israel's trail these months with- 
 out learning something! Go to him, my girl! Old Penberry's 
 millions are back of you ! If you need me, cable, and I'll fol- 
 low you when Parliament will let me! And," his voice fell, 
 "when I lay these hands on Wilson Whittier . . . Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 "I shall take David Barach with me," Marian said. 
 
 "But, I say, why Barach?" exclaimed the puzzled man. "I 
 want him here!" 
 
 The girl shook her head. "I do not know . . . but I feel 
 that I shall need him. . . It is very dark in Crestelridge. . ." 
 
 Two days later the girl and Barach — whose term of enlist- 
 ment in the British army had expired some weeks before — 
 
 were on the Atlantic, westward bound. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Looking into Crestelridge that fall and winter of 1918-19 
 the world would have seen — itself. Plague-ridden, and with a 
 death rate out of all proportion to its population, Crestelridge 
 danced in an orgy of terror, its jazz a sob. Ted Sayor, huddled 
 in a dirty chair in a dark corner of a cheap cabaret, where he 
 had secured employment as night piano player, shivered fear- 
 fully in his threadbare clothes that bagged about his wasted 
 form and voiced the world's deep plaint. "What in God's 
 name has come upon us? Four years ago I was Ted Sayor, 
 
 73 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 clubman, rich, well,' happy; to-day I am a nameless beggar, 
 dying miserably like an outcast dog! What happened? And 
 why? What had I done? What had we all done? Cragg a 
 murderer, waiting to die! Harris dead! Madeline dead! 
 Freddy Kerl dead! Wallie Black dead! Old Chaddock an 
 idiot ! St. Jude's on the reef ! Marian Whittier gone, swallowed 
 up! Everybody crazy, dying! . . . What in God's name has 
 happened? And why, why, WHY?" 
 
 Crestelridge could not answer, but ceased not to dance like 
 a galvanized corpse. External restraints had gone to the winds : 
 it was not liberty that had been saved by the stupendous sacri- 
 fice in France, but license! The decadence of morality which 
 followed in the wake of the war became almost an organized 
 attack upon virtue; the shame of war was quickly exchanged 
 for a post-war depression of soul that took repulsive form in 
 sloth, in aggressive . egoism, in cynical insensibility to human 
 misery* in vindictiveness and the serf-like submissiveness 
 which such as Doctor Roake most desired. Crestelridge society 
 — mirroring the world — seized upon the cessation of hos- 
 tilities in Europe as a pretext for the wildest eccentricities: 
 it became recklessly vulgar in dress and conduct; it threw 
 sanctity of the home to the dogs; it formed into clubs to lap 
 up the pseudo-art of Post Impressionism; it gushed in forums 
 over the vulgarities of "novels of passion" and the wooden 
 banalities of "free" verse; it dawdled over the "realists", the 
 anarchists, and the horrorists of the "new" literature; it bab- 
 bled learnedly of "subversive philosophy", while twenty mil- 
 lion of its brethren starved in Europe and the clouds of fresh 
 wars and new plagues were everywhere gathering; it found its 
 children infected with the virus of "self-determination", found 
 itself unable to cope with them, and blandly announced that 
 the modern way to bring up the young is to refrain from inter- 
 fering with them until grown! Communism and anarchy of 
 conscience reigned — a policy of reversal, wherein society delib- 
 erately chose to pay vastly more for the driving of its limou- 
 sines than for the driving of sound ideas into the mentalities 
 of its children. 
 
 To a certain few in Crestelridge — among them the rector — 
 that fall and winter of 1918-19 were but a prolonged nightmare. 
 Life to the rector seemed to have become an endless round of 
 funerals. He saw naught but. death everywhere. His taut 
 nerves quivered incessantly: the jangling of the telephone bell 
 would throw him into a fit of trembling, for it had come to 
 mean a call to the bier of death. 
 
 Meanwhile, his duties in the office of Doctor Roake had 
 grown in volume and complexity. He would have abandoned 
 
 74 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them, long since, if he had dared — but the doctor's long, white 
 fingers, so dextrous in delicate surgical operations, seemed to 
 the rector to have closed at last about the Whittier throat, 
 for upon the heels of the armistice had come the exultant 
 announcement by Mrs. Whittier of the engagement of her 
 daughter Ethel to Doctor Roake! 
 
 Society went wild over the news, and Mrs. Whittier, with 
 a sob of relief, now saw herself, after long years of patient 
 climbing, with many slips and reversals, definitely confirmed 
 as social leader in a community nowhere surpassed for its 
 material wealth, its traditions, prestige, and ultra conservatism. 
 And the rarest jewel in her diadem was her immediate eleva- 
 tion to the coveted presidency of the "Norman Dames". 
 
 It had become evident to the rector that Doctor Roake had 
 seen into the future with a vision that was prophetically pene- 
 trating, and that he had prepared himself to profit by what 
 was certain to come. Far from destroying autocracy, the war 
 had appeared actually to invigorate it. Governments every- 
 where governed more rigorously than before, and peoples were 
 submitting with greater humility. Excessive taxation might 
 arouse them; but Doctor Roake's subtle plan gave without 
 exacting a visible return. Probably never in pre-war days 
 had greater despotism obtained than in 1918-19, and never had 
 there obtained a more serf-like spirit in man. The doctor had 
 apparently reckoned on this far in advance; the hour was 
 swiftly approaching when, the rector knew, he would capitalize 
 it. His proposal , that the State grant subsidies to the physi- 
 cians of rural districts would, if accepted, nationalize the 
 Roake plan, and with it the Roake practice of medicine. And 
 it would hugely swell the membership of the organization and 
 increase its power incalculably. Doctor Roake seemed always 
 to move at the precise moment to effect the success of his 
 strategy: in the food shortage of that winter he secured the 
 passage of a measure rendering it necessary to obtain a doctor's 
 permit before certain necessities could be purchased by a civil- 
 ian. When national prohibition should obtain — as he knew 
 that it would — he intended that the physician's prescription 
 should replace the open bar. 
 
 Nor had the doctor reckoned falsely in regard to the 
 churches, his potent allies in securing the womanhood of the 
 country — and,' eventually, of the world. The Church had 
 shown itself the most submissive of the submissive: not one 
 of the ecclesiastical authorities of Christendom had raised his 
 voice in unmistakable pronouncement against the multitudinous 
 iniquities of the war and the post-war that followed the armis- 
 tice ! It was incredible — and yet it was a condition not lightly 
 
 75 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to be overlooked by one with the material ambitions of Doctor 
 Roake. 
 
 Whether the pandemic had hurt him or not, he could not 
 say. It was not of human agency, and he feared its effect in 
 forcing upon the terrorized public an appreciation of a power 
 greater than his own. He had cursed the fate that had loosed 
 this thing at the precise moment of his triumph and made 
 necessary the postponement of his convention. Now that the 
 plague had apparently reached its peak and was decreasing, 
 he was again issuing the call for a great health-council to 
 assemble in convention in Crestelridge on the first day of 
 February under the auspices of his religio-medical organization, 
 generally known as the Roake plan. 
 
 Yet he did so with a vague fear at his heart. He had the 
 unaccountable feeling that, had he been able to hold the con- 
 vention on the date originally planned, all would have been 
 well, but that now the results were bound to be, to say the 
 least, uncertain. And yet, for the sake of his prestige, he knew 
 that the convention must be held. 
 
 Fortunately, he had some months previously predicted an 
 epidemic to follow the great war. The ample fulfillment of 
 his prediction in a measure sustained his prestige and neutral- 
 ized his impotence in coping with it. He had frequently made 
 the assertion that epidemics were wholly mental, and that he 
 alone could at will create one, and at will cause it to disappear. 
 He had more than once deliberately frightened patients to 
 death in the early days of his practice, merely that he might 
 study the effects of excessive fear on the human system. And 
 he had once caused a mild panic, an epidemic of fear, in the 
 Ghetto of New York City, by mere suggestion to the ignorant 
 parent of a healthy child. The child died; others followed; 
 and another item of great "scientific" interest was entered 
 among the doctor's private memoranda. 
 
 And he proceeded further to reestablish his shaken prestige 
 by advancing the theory that the pandemic of Spanish influenza 
 possibly might have been occasioned by the passing of the 
 earth through a locus of noxious gases in interstellar space. 
 The episode was then distinctly an "act of God". And then 
 he gravely predicted a return of the disease the following year, 
 and urged adoption of the defensive measures which he had 
 prepared in accord with the Roake plan. 
 
 The prediction roused Doctor Benson to the point of fury. 
 "Kill him!" he shouted, pacing his little office. "I'll head a 
 mob to hang him and every other doctor who predicts the 
 return of the 'flu'! That prediction is murder, plain murder 
 — and some day, by heaven! there'll be laws that will convict 
 a doctor for saying such things!" 
 
 76 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Meantime, the hearing of Madam Galuth had been duly held. 
 The white-haired woman freely admitted that she had healed 
 the sick by drugless practices, that she had handled cases of 
 the influenza without calling in the aid of a legalized doctot 
 of medicine. It was an infraction of the Wess law — ^yet life 
 was far more precious than the observance of a man-made 
 code. The ancient Hebrews had sacrificed life for the law, 
 hut not so had the Master taught^and she was merely striv- 
 ing to obey to the full the injunctions of the Nazarene. . . 
 
 She was fined, reprimanded, and discharged with an admo- 
 nition and a threat. If she were permitted to break the law at 
 will, would not others derive encouragement from her example 
 and do likewise? A second offense would cost her dear. These 
 were no times for experimentation! . . . 
 
 The dance went wildly on. The pandemic raged unchecked; 
 destruction lay about them; the morrow menaced them; but 
 the mad seeking for the pleasures of sense abated not. And 
 the church doors remained closed. Mrs. Whittier led in society's 
 abandonment to the frenzied chase. She flaunted gay feathers 
 and scintillating jewels, she dazzled with gowns of sumptuous 
 satins and velvets in a kaleidoscopic confusion of flawing colors. 
 The New Rich who had sprung up like toadstools on the rotted 
 stumps of the Blacks and Kerls — for these now sat in ashes, 
 mourning their dead — ^vied viciously with one another in an 
 unprecedented display of wealth gotten through cannibalistic 
 profiteering on their brother's needs. There was dancing at 
 noon-time, at tea-time, at dinner, and night. The cafes over- 
 flowed, the hotels were choked. Motor parties dashed yelling 
 and singing into Greater New York at all hours, with conspicu^ 
 ously underclad women lolling in the arms of roaring males 
 whose pockets bulged with bills. If the restaurants charged 
 less than five dollars for a sandwich and a cup of tea they lost 
 patronage. The hod-carriers, garbage men, street-sweepers had 
 money and demanded the privilege of demonstrating it. The 
 jewelers doubled their prices; they trebled them; they increased 
 them a thousand per cent in some instances, and were still 
 swamped with frantic buyers. Grimy laborers caught the 
 unhealthy infection: factory workers bought silk shirts on 
 Saturday nights at $18 apiece, cut the sleeves to elbow length 
 and used them to work in during the week, and on the succeed- 
 ing Saturday night bought others to replace them. It was the 
 dominion of darkness that had drawn over the human soul. 
 
 77 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 IN the wild chase many, unable to keep their feet, went down 
 and were trampled to death. For weeks after fleeing from 
 Doctor Roake Ted Sayor clung fitfully to his sense of life, 
 knowing that he was fighting a losing battle. The wages which 
 he earned playing the piano at night in the cheap cabaret 
 scarce kept the vital spark aglow. The proprietor suspected 
 that Ted was in hiding and capitalized his suspicion. , Ted slept 
 in a box in the damp cellar, shivering in a tattered blanket 
 stiff with grime. 
 
 Often now as the wretched fellow sat at the piano, utterly 
 oblivious of the throng whirling about him to the notes that 
 danced from beneath his numb fingers, his thought would stray 
 back to the shadow-world that he seemed once to have known, 
 but that now lay wrapped in distant mists. And he would 
 wonder if he had really known those people, or if it had been 
 only, a dream. But he knew that he had known them, that he 
 had once lived their careless life of ease in matter, that vapid 
 existence. in a fool's paradise of the physical senses. And he 
 knew that he had been warned to improve life's preparatory 
 school — and the warning voice was Marian Whittier's. But he 
 had yawned and stretched himself in his material luxury and 
 murmured: "I should worry!" The evil which she predicted 
 could not possibly come in his day. And why should he care 
 what happened to future generations? Was he his brother's 
 keeper? He knew, too, that a hand had been stretched to him 
 to lift him from Dives* seat — and that hand had likewise been 
 Marian Whittier's. 
 
 But he had meant to talk with her again. He had offered 
 himself to her on that wild night ride from Cragg's party. He 
 had been glad afterward that she refused him. To have mar- 
 ried her would have meant loss of caste . . . and then, when 
 he learned that she was gone, a sense of terrible desolation 
 swept over him, as of one abandoned on a lone isle in a bound- 
 less sea. And he would sometimes burst into tears at thought 
 of it and bow his head on the keyboard and sob. . . 
 
 Ted Sayor had floated out on the wings of sense, and they 
 had dropped him into the ditch. Because, in those old gorgeous 
 days of material ease, he had accepted the testimony of sense 
 at its asserted value, he must now accept as equally real the 
 thorns that lined the ditch into which he had fallen. Time 
 was when the ablution of his rotund body was a matter of 
 meticulous consideration; now he gazed often in horror at his 
 
 78 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 shrunken, pain-wracked frame and, in his keen realization of 
 loss of Marian, cried aloud: "Alas! who shall rescue me from 
 the obsession of the body, from this living death?" Time was 
 when, from behind the bulwarks of his social prestige and 
 material wealth, he could with momentary impunity aim his 
 biting sarcasms at the foolish world and mock the exploded 
 fallacies which form the basis of the insecure knowledge of the 
 science of to-day; yet he now realized that his own thought 
 had been not a whit less material than that at which he had 
 sent his shafts — that his own mesmerism had been as surely 
 the Adam-sleep of materiality as had been that of the world 
 which he had so fulsomely ridiculed. Time was when the 
 mere adjustment of his hat upon his head, or the gloves to 
 his hands, had demanded hours of serious debate with his 
 patient valet; now the dirty bowl in the cabaret lavatory 
 mocked his pitiable efforts at respectability. But he dared not 
 go to the public baths for fear of detection. He dared not even 
 leave the building in which the cabaret was housed. The mere 
 thought of detection by his former friends and of their ridicule 
 kept his false sense of pride vigorous; and the dreadful fear 
 of what might befall him at the hands of Doctor Roake held 
 him trembling with apprehension in the noisome hold in 
 which, like a hunted rat, he had taken refuge. 
 
 Through the fall months his life was one of harrowing 
 ravages of soul and body. Around him the plague of influenza 
 stalked, but he knew it would avoid him. He was a useless 
 clod, an incumbrance upon society, but he was paying a debt, 
 and he knew that the last farthing was still to be exacted. 
 Yet the end was drawing nearer, ever nearer. He gazed at its 
 approach horror-stricken, yearning, yet terrorized. "Oh, God," 
 he often moaned, "that I had gone like a man to serve my 
 country . , . that I had died under the flag! Now I am a 
 traitor, a skulking slacker, a dirty coward, despised, branded, 
 dying! 'My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are 
 spent without hope'." Had he retained his health, he believed 
 he should have eventually given himself to his country; but, 
 alas! he had listened in an evil moment to the tempter; the 
 bargain had been struck; and now his terrified soul was await- 
 ing, Faust-like, the coming of Mephistopheles. With the cessa- 
 tion of hostilities and the return of the victory-crowned army 
 he knew that his final payment would not be long delayed. 
 
 Darkly his thought dwelt in those black hours on Doctor 
 Roake. "How could I?" he wailed, often and aloud; "how 
 could I have fallen into the hands of the very forces I was not 
 afraid of, the very things I opposed? What happened to me? 
 What did Roake do? He suggested tuberculosis to me . . . he 
 
 79 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 suggested! , . . He's a necromancer; a magician; a devil! . . . 
 and he got me ! . . . God, he got me ! But I needn't have done 
 it! Oh, God, no! Nobody needs to sin!" And at night he 
 would start up in terror, a scream on his dry lips, and his 
 wasted body shaliing, start up from hideous nightmares that 
 wrecked his tortured soul, from terrifying dreams that he was 
 Dives and that he was falling into a black pit, always fran- 
 tically striving to grasp Marian Whittier's outstretched hand, 
 but always falling . . . falling. ;. . 
 
 One night as he sat bowed' over the sticky keyboard he 
 heard a voice that he seemed to recognize. He turned his head 
 involuntarily. At the same instant a soldier in the uniform 
 of the United States army rose from a nearby table and came 
 toward him. Ted gave a cry and got to his feet. "Boots!" 
 
 "Yes, sir, as you say, sir!" ; exclaimed the erstwhile valet, 
 bowing awkwardly and utterly unable to hide his astonish- 
 ment at thus discovering his former master. "I thought it 
 could not be you, sir, but I couldn't seem to look at anybody 
 else in the room, sir." 
 
 "Boots!" Ted clutched the other's arm frantically. "For 
 God's sake, don't! How . . . how came you here?" 
 
 "Why, sir, I just dropped in with some of the boys, I 
 arrived here yesterday. My regiment was among the first sent 
 home. I've inquired all over town for you, sir. I heard that 
 you were with Doctor Roake . . ," 
 
 "Boots!" 
 
 "I went there, and they told me that you had left . . ." 
 
 "Yes, yes! What else did they say?" 
 
 The great-hearted valet hesitated. "Why, sir, they said 
 that you had been unfortunate in money matters, sir." He 
 thrust out a hand and caught Ted, who swayed unsteadily as 
 if to fall. "You . . . you appear ill, sir! Let me help you 
 to a chair . . . here, at this table!" He threw an arm about 
 the emaciated form and bore it: easily to the chair. 
 
 For a moment he stood over the gasping invalid. Then he 
 sat down beside him. "You ... you are receiving treatment, 
 of course, sir?" 
 
 Ted raised up. A pallid smile came into his wan, white 
 face. "Oh, yes, the very best," he whispered. He turned and 
 for a moment anxiously scanned the inmates of the room. 
 Then: "You did not know I^was • . . in this place? No? And 
 you think they don't know it at Roake's offices? I ... I'd 
 rather they wouldn't. I ... I have been a bit unfortunate, 
 but I shall pick up again. Boots, I shall pick right up. This 
 is . . . temporary, you know. ; And you must never say that 
 you found me here. Promise, Boots." 
 
 80 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Yes, sir, as you say, sir|" the other returned, regarding 
 Ted incredulously. "But, sir,; I . . ." He paused uncertainly. 
 "I would like," he resumed,* "to ... to help you, sir, if I 
 can. . ." ] 
 
 Ted held up a hand. "You forget your position. Boots," 
 he said with dignity. "This financial embarrassment is, as I 
 told you, merely temporary. JAnd you must go now, Boots. I 
 mustn't be seen talking with yeu. I . . ." He choked back the 
 lump in his throat. "You afie looking wonderfully well and 
 strong," he murmured wistfully. "I . . , You know that I 
 couldn't go, don't you. Boots ?> It was my health. . , Boots," 
 the voice was low and eager, t "did you . . . see anybody you 
 knew ... in France?" '■ 
 
 "Mr. Earl, sir. Assistant fector of St. Jude's." 
 
 "Yes! And? . . ." ] 
 
 "He died in my arms, sirJ" 
 
 "God, that it had been I!" | 
 
 "Yes, sir, as you say, sii)" the amazed valet murmured 
 automatically. 
 
 Ted leaned closer. "Boots . . ." He hesitated. But the 
 question had to come. "Bootsj, did you see . . . Marian Whit- 
 tier? Do you know where she is now?" 
 
 The other shook his headi "She was in Palestine, but I 
 understand she disappeared. tNever heard of again, sir." 
 
 Ted's head sank. A shiver ran through his frail body. He 
 sat like a criminal with the w^rds of doom ringing in his ears. 
 
 "Mr. Sayor, sir, this — if I ^ay be permitted to say it — this 
 is an unpleasant place for you to be in, sir, and you in such 
 bad health. Might I ask, sir, if you are comfortable lodged?" 
 
 Ted raised his head. Comfortably lodged! The box and 
 the tattered blanket in the cellar below! He laughed aloud. 
 "As solicitous as ever for my ^ivell-being. Boots. The way you 
 used to tuck me into bed! . |. . But rest easy: I am very 
 comfortable." Again he shuddered. 
 
 "But, sir," in a tone of deep anxiety, "if I might suggest it, 
 you don't seem quite able tofwork, you know, sir. I would 
 suggest a rest. I have excelleijt lodgings in a very good room- 
 ing house, and . . . well, sir,: I would like you to share them 
 with me and let me look after you until you are in better 
 health, sir." ; 
 
 The old sense of caste flaijaed up within Ted and he rose 
 indignantly. How dared this > valet-soldier make such a sug- 
 gestion to him, a Sagorl The impudent fellow was taking 
 advantage of the inevitable l^eling which the war had pro- 
 duced! He, share his former valet's lodgings? It was pre- 
 posterous! And his face flushed hot. 
 
 ei 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "No offense, sir," Boots hastened to add. "It was diflKcult 
 for me to make the suggestion, sir, but you seem in need. . ," 
 
 Ted's anger passed. He laid a hand gently on the other's 
 shoulder. "Dear old Boots!" he murmured. Then his eyes 
 filled, and he turned away. 
 
 The stuffy room was filled with a motley crowd of pleasure 
 seekers. Ted stared at them for a moment through his blurred 
 eyes. They seemed to mock him with their very chase for the 
 vanities of which he had been so ruthlessly stripped. And as 
 he looked a great fear seized him, fear born of his' discovery 
 by his faithful valet. He shiveried. His teeth chattered. Then, 
 in panic, he darted into the crowd that swarmed over the floor. 
 ****** 
 
 Human history is but a repetition: the present is what has 
 been. It is prophetic : that which has been mirrors that which 
 is to come. History emphasizes, but does not reform. "The 
 world is very evil, the times are waxing late," wailed the 
 philosophers of seven centuries ago. In the winter following 
 Israel's truce with her adversary the same wail reechoed de- 
 spairingly around the earth. It found voice in literature, the 
 drama, art; it found fitting expression in the vanity fair of 
 materialistic Crestelridge. 
 
 On the first day of January, Ethel Whittier became the wife 
 of Dr. Jeremiah Roake. Her divorced husband, Alden Cragg, 
 lay under sentence to die thirty days later. It was a situation 
 that gave pause even to Mrs. Tellus' lightly pivoted tongue. 
 
 Doctor Roake had traveled far along the road of demonstra- 
 tion. From the hour when Marian Whittier had first com- 
 bated his premise of the supremacy of evil, down to that 
 stormy March night when Senator Chaddock had marveled 
 at the probable results of a life conformed to such a thesis, 
 the doctor had devoted himself to an intensive preparation. 
 Since then, to the present hour, the truth of his premise had 
 been established to his own satisfaction by a cloud of wit- 
 nesses. Of the mental nature of the universe Doctor Roake 
 had not the slightest doubt; matter he knew to be a phenom- 
 enon of the human mind — of energy, force, if you prefer 
 —and he was firmly convinced of the reality oif that mind and 
 of its awful power. "For good and evil are but relative terms," 
 he would insist over and over. "What is food for one is 
 another's poison. It is the pdwer of the human mind, or will, 
 that is the vital thing. It is the ability to control one's thought 
 and the thought of others that establishes my theory." But 
 as he glanced back at the way strewn with victims he invcil.UR-r 
 tarily shuddered. "Yet," he reflected, "it is of incalculable 
 interest to science." 
 
 82 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The Whittier-Roake wedding was ostentatious in the 
 extreme, though the rector fain would have had it otherwise. 
 And the rector read the service, though he would have given 
 his life to have avoided it. St. Jude's doors were still closed 
 "On account of the epidemic," yet^strange anomaly! — the 
 rectory and parish house overflowed with the concourse 
 assembled to witness the exchange of vows between these two 
 so oddly mated. 
 
 "Who would have ever dreamed of such a thing!" Mrs. 
 Tellus went about exclaiming to herself and others. And yet 
 she talked discreetly, for Mrs. Whittier, as president of the 
 "Norman Dames", was a social power to be reckoned with. 
 
 "Ethel Whittier ! Humph !" Doctor Benson muttered under 
 his breath as he scanned the extravagant newspaper reports. 
 "Her soul died with Harris Chaddock. This wedding is a cash 
 transaction, with Penberry's millions the sum involved. H'm! 
 The people are not taxed to support the Roake plan, for Roake 
 finances his scheme elsewhere. Canny, by heaven ! , . . Which 
 leads me to suspect that the Cragg and Saypr fortunes might 
 be accounted for in the same manner." 
 
 As before, Ethel's health would not permit of a wedding 
 journey, and she was conveyed immediately after the ceremony 
 to "Craggmont", her gift from the doctor. This coveted prop- 
 erty, for which she had married Alden Cragg, and for which, 
 on his inability to deliver it, she had given herself to Doctor 
 Roake, had at last dropped into her lap. 
 
 On the day following the wedding Doctor Roake called at 
 the rectory on his way to his offices. There were matters, 
 delayed by the wedding, that he must bring to the rector's 
 attention at once. As he stepped from his car the postman 
 was just turning in at the rectory. Doctor Roake, as was 
 always his wont with employes of whatever class, greeted him 
 cordially. "I'll take the rector's mail in and save you that 
 many steps," he offered. And the flattered postman gladly 
 complied. 
 
 Among the letters there was a large envelope, heavy, and 
 bearing foreign postage. It caught the doctor's attention and 
 held it. An end was torn, and the doctor glanced within. The 
 envelope contained a packet, with many red seals. 
 
 A feeling of apprehension came over the doctor. He studied 
 the envelope as he walked slowly toward the rectory. He 
 paused at the door and stood weighing it and pondering its 
 possible content, with his wonder and apprehension growing 
 with each instant. Strange, he mused, that as he gazed at that 
 torn envelope with its mysterious, red-sealed packet, his 
 thought should turn to Marian Whittier ! . . . 
 
 83 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He glanced about furtively. Then he slipped the big envel- 
 ope into a pocket of his ulster, jiist as the maid answered his 
 ring. "Please tell the rector," h& said kindly, though his voice 
 shook slightly, "that I am late this morning and cannot stop." 
 And he handed her the rest of tl^e mail. 
 
 Again in his flying car, the dbctor cautiously drew out the 
 big envelope and ripped it openjwith trembling fingers. The 
 red-sealed packet within bore the German eagles and the 
 inscription: Concerning the family of the Reverend Wilson 
 Whittier, Crestelridge, N. Y., [7. 4- A. He feverishly broke the 
 seals. The enclosed document \ias closely written in a hand 
 that he recognized. "Otto HoefSel!" he gasped. "A copy of 
 his report on the Whittier family, made for the Intelligence 
 Department of the German armj^!" He bent over the docu- 
 ment, devouring it with avid eyed. "Good God!" he exclaimed 
 at intervals. . . : 
 
 Then, as he concluded the reading : "Marian Whittier ! . . . 
 She! . . , She!" He jammed thfe document into a pocket and 
 sat back to think.. His eyes wer4 wide, and his facial muscles 
 twitched. At times he would st^rt forward, his lips moving; 
 then would fall back with bro^^s drawn into an ominous 
 scowl. i 
 
 And all that day he read anS re-read the document and 
 pondered the various theories that rose out of his heaving 
 thought in regard to its advent m Crestelridge. "How did it 
 happen to be sent to Whittier, aftd from Palestine?" he asked 
 himself over and over. And th|n: "Otto Hoeffel! The low 
 scoundrel tried to double-cross me ! A murrain on him !" And 
 often he would spring from his Qliair whispering hoarsely: "I 
 must iind her — if she is living! |^nd old Penberry too! Why 
 couldn't this have come before? I God, what a mess! What a 
 mess!" i 
 
 * * * i * • * 
 
 From the low cabaret Ted Say(Jr fled on the night that Boots 
 discovered him, fled into the cold knd darkness. The humiliat- 
 ing thought that the faithful Boofs would insist on caring for 
 him, that he might be forced to IWe dependent upon his former 
 valet, made his cheeks burn. TJhe consuming fear that his 
 whereabouts might now become Known to Doctor Roake com- 
 bined with his shame to drive hinl forth to seek deeper hiding. 
 Into the most impoverished district of Greater New York he 
 went with his scanty hoardings. fOur sun has gone down; we 
 must now freeze," he murmured.! The effort to remain alive 
 was become Sisyphean. '. 
 
 "Ye've got th' bugs, ain't ye?" demanded the evil-faced 
 landlady of the wretched tenement into which he crept, and 
 
 84 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 scanning him closely. "Th' rent'll be a dollar a month more 
 f r that, an' y'r clothes when y'i-e done wit 'em, wich ain't goin' 
 to be long, so take good care of :'em." 
 
 In the cramped and grimy attic room, dimly lighted by a 
 single dormer window with cracked and unwashed panes, Ted 
 counted his slender resources,: counted them over and over to 
 see if perchance they might sustain him until . . . until . . . 
 yes, that was it : until Marian Whittier should return. 
 
 But did he know that she would come? Ah, no. But his 
 hours now were fretted with illusions. And among them was 
 the obsession that she would come back, that she would find 
 him, and that again she would stretch forth her hand to him. 
 He would not refuse it again. Oh, no ! For now he knew that 
 none but she could save. . . ; 
 
 It became a death-struggler with his twin mistresses. Dis- 
 ease and Poverty. He could no;longer work. He could no longer 
 climb the five flights of stairs to his attic room. He had become 
 a prisoner. His landlady brought him his scanty, unwholesome 
 meals, and gloated oVer the coins which he paid her in return. 
 "Y'r pile's gittin' low," she would comment gleefully. "I'll be 
 settin' ye in th' street one o' these days." And the words so 
 terrified him that at length he resolved to eat but one scant 
 meal a day. 
 
 "She will come," he kept xepeating. Even in his broken 
 sleep, through his chattering 'teeth he would murmur: "She 
 will come. She will come." 
 
 In his fearful loneliness he now spent hours dwelling on his 
 past association with Marian, and trying vainly to recall what 
 she had said to him. "She said it was Christianity, but that it 
 was scientific," he would musew "And I know it wasn't Wilson 
 Whittier's theological hodge-podge; and it had nothing to do 
 with the toting around of dead saints' bones. . ." Alas! he 
 had not been quite ready to hear her, not yet willing to forsake 
 the pleasures of sense, and now he could not recall her words. 
 He had wanted the false knowledge of the pleasurable senses, 
 not the demonstrable knowledge of God. "And human knowl- 
 edge is mere accumulation, accumulation in the worst sense 
 of the term, of beliefs, opinions, -and speculations that lead 
 only to the ditch," he at last confessed. "Oh, those conse- 
 quential pedants, those pompous theologians like Wilson Whit- 
 tier, who have reached the boundaries of human wisdom! 
 Won't they be surprised when they wake up after death and 
 find that they are not in heaven! And yet, back of fill the 
 falsities which they teach, back of it all is the real. Ah, it was 
 that that Marian tried to show me ! And I would have none of 
 it, but preferre^d instead the material symbols. And now these 
 have decayed and left me crying: 'Vanity, vanity, vanity!' " 
 
 '85 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 More and more, as the heavy shadows gathered, his thought 
 became obsessed by the very things at which he had formerly 
 scoffed. Often he would recall the words of a former states- 
 man and molder of thought: 'To be just with all men, to be 
 merciful to those to whom mercy should, be shown, to realize 
 that there are some things that must always remain a mys- 
 tery to us, and when the time comes for us to enter the great 
 blackness, to go smiling and unafraid. This is my religion, my 
 faith. . ." Ah, but such a religion afforded scant comfort in 
 such dark hours as Ted's. Such a religion did not draw men 
 to the healing, sustaining Father. Such a religion was scarce 
 more than fatalism; it was not the Master'si Yet none can say 
 that the Master did not know God. 
 
 It was the Nazarene's religion that Ted now believed 
 Marian to have discerned, and that she had sought to impart to 
 him. But he had been mesmerized. He had awaited the "con- 
 venient season". And it had not come, for — the subtlety of 
 error! — it never comes! 
 
 With the mounting of living costs Ted's landlady raised 
 her charges. It terrified him. If Marian should not come before 
 his money was exhausted! ... He must economize more 
 closely! ... He would not eat every day! 
 
 The measuring of his scanty hoard was the externalization 
 of his cruelly limited thought: it is always the poor thought 
 that constitutes poverty. And, as always, the more closely he 
 hoarded, the more swiftly did it dwindle away. For true man 
 is the ej^pression of the limitless God. The Master taught it. 
 And the world might to-day know it and banish forever its 
 poverty and lack if it would turn from its systems of 
 religion based, alas ! on utter falsity, on tenets which make quite 
 impossible the practical application of the Master's healing 
 precepts. 
 
 As the days dragged by Ted at length became so weak that 
 he kept to his wretched bed but for a short time each day, when 
 he would painfully rise and crawl to the window to lie in the 
 sunlight that filtered through the grime of the panes for a few 
 fleeting minutes. Delirium now came often upon him. And 
 always in his dreams he saw Marian Whittier standing with 
 outstretched arms. And always he tried to go to her .for 
 healing. . . 
 
 Then the last of his money went: the constant measuring 
 of his scanty hoard had increasingly limited his sense of sup- 
 ply until it at length vanished. He stared in terror into his land- 
 lady's ugly face when he offered her the last of his coins. He 
 heard her mutter something incoherent about notifying the 
 police and having him taken to the County Hospital or to the 
 
 86 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alms House. And her words seemed at first to palsy, then to 
 galvanize him. 
 
 That night he crept from his cold bed. He had heard 
 Marian Whittier call to him in his dreams, and he was obeying. 
 With unspeakable effort he dressed himself in his frayed gar- 
 ments. Slowly he crept down the rickety stairways, stopping 
 often in the bitter cold to rest, and slunk through the foul halls. 
 His hands were without feeling when he pushed open the outer 
 door and gained the quiet street. 
 
 It was midnight and intensely cold. Yet he seemed not to 
 feel it. There was an elation of soul, as if he were embarking 
 upon a wished-for journey. And he was glad as he moved 
 away from the hideous tenement. 
 
 Contact with the cold outside seemed to bring a realization 
 that he had heard Marian's voice only in a dream, and he 
 paused. Bitter disappointment brought tears to his eyes. Then 
 fear gripped -him. . . But he could not climb those long 
 flights of stairs again ! And if he waited below he must freeze ! 
 
 He went on, though without destination. He knew that his 
 feeble strength would not carry him far, and then . . . "But 
 I have no quarrel with death," he murmured. And he smiled. 
 
 The awful cold penetrated to his very soul. His bones 
 ached. His blood seemed to freeze. He wondered what had 
 become of his hands. And as he wandered he stumbled. And 
 delirium again came upon him. 
 
 He roused at length to find himself clear in thought. He 
 was sitting on a pile of ashes in a vacant lot strewn with refuse. 
 His hands seemed to be buried in the ashes, which he imagined 
 to be still warm. He glanced up at the cold stars that appeared 
 to stare down in wonder at the ragged form huddled there amid 
 the refuse of a spent life. He smiled back at them. . . And 
 then it dawned upon him that he was dying . . . there , . . 
 on an ash heap! 
 
 He strove to rise. But he could not move. He became ter- 
 ribly frightened. Then he relaxed. "I have no quarrel with 
 death," he murmured. And he laughed feebly. 
 
 The sound of his voice startled him. It was so unnatural. 
 "I'm dying!" he gasped. And then he seemed to muse won- 
 deringly. "There will be no funeral, no singing of doleful 
 tunes, ho weeping, no hypocritical eulogy, ho false testimony. 
 They are part of the false, rotten, dangerous life that I am 
 leaving. I'm glad to leave them . . . glad. . . But if I could 
 I'd leave a message for the people of Crestelridge : 'Here lies one 
 who missed the mark. And, oh, fools that yoii are! you are 
 missing it, too!' " 
 
 He looked up again at the stars. "Oh, my God," he cried 
 
 87 
 
THOU- ISRAEL 
 
 hoarsely, "you gave me a chance . . . but I blew it! I'm not 
 blaming you . . . nor Marian. If; I live again after de'ath it will 
 probably be a far worse sense pf life than this, for I have 
 profited nothing . . . nothing! . . . But I'll face it like a man ! 
 . . . I'm leaving my cowardice behind. . ." 
 
 He was no longer cold, but deliciously warm. He had not 
 been so warm in weeks. But his thought was drifting . , . 
 drifting. He seemed to see a batttlefield. He saw his former 
 valet. And Boots was burying the mangled form of a traitor 
 just executed. And the traitor was himself. A remnant of 
 his old-time spirit of levity seemed to return upon him, and he 
 found himself scribbling a doggetel epitaph for the rude cross 
 over the grave : " 
 
 Ted Sayor funked it; ifow he's gone west; 
 Nobody grieves that he lies at rest; 
 And whence he came and whither he goes, 
 Nobody cares and nobody knows. . . 
 
 And then he roused again outi of his dreaming. The frozen 
 stars still glittered above him. ^'I'U wait . , . here," he mur- 
 mured, as his thought again wandered, "till Marian comes. 
 What was it she said ... at Gragg's party? ... the Bible 
 promises are kept ... as ye reap ... as ye reap. . . But I've 
 done one decent thing in life, Marian. . . I've loved a good 
 woman . . . you. . . Maybe that is the remnant ... the 
 remnant . . . that will . . . save. . ." 
 
 * * * k . * * * * 
 
 J, 
 
 In the frosty light of the early morning a teamster saw the 
 body lying .on a mound of frozen fashes. It too was frozen stiff. 
 But there was a smile on the cavernous face, and the arms were 
 outstretched. Perhaps, in his dreams beyond the threshold of 
 death, Ted saw a great ship breasting the wintry waves far out 
 at sea and coming toward him, Jhat ship in whose passenger 
 list was the name of Marian Whittier. 
 
 CHAPTER 12 
 
 THERE were those — idealists, they believed themselves— 
 who had become bemused with the hope that in the hush 
 of the "Big Berthas" woul| be heard the peace notes of 
 the dove, ushering in a new heaven of ease in matter on a 
 chastened earth, an era of "Busiiiess As Usual", an approximate 
 return to the materialism which constituted their concept of 
 normalcy. I 
 
 m 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 But a sore disappointmeiit awaited them as they turned their 
 gaze from the terrors and ^gonies of the battlefields. In their 
 material blindness they h^d misinterpreted the signs of the 
 times. They did not realiz^ that only a single phase of Arma- 
 geddon had closed; that thfe warfare between good and evil is 
 as continuous as the human concept of the material universe; 
 and that, material weapoiis having failed, error had merely 
 dropped them for the subtler forces of aggressive mental sug- 
 gestion, while the lion still ijared his teeth to the lamb. 
 
 The frightened world h^d roared never so lustily in patri- 
 otic fervor to exorcise the (jemons, for it had been upheaved as 
 never before — upheaved tilljits frozen crusts of dogma had bent 
 and cracked. Its heaven hpd been shaken, its sea, and its dry 
 land. Nations had been sliaken and beaten and burned in a 
 chemicalization never so fu^ous. The muddy stream of human 
 thinking had been stirred to its oozy bed. Yet when the ham- 
 mer again fell and the smoke of conflict cleared away, it was not 
 the dove of peace but thejfiends of error that flew over the 
 earth, and that in a very ri(|t of evil. 
 
 All that was best in huiAan nature had been brought to the 
 surface by the fearful upheaival; but likewise all that was worst. 
 And when hostilities ceased, it was utterly impossible that 
 these variant elements shoilld lie down together to the cooing 
 of the dove. For the dove s that exact, scientific and demon- 
 strable knowledge of God v hich the world by Jesus' time had 
 lost, which in the Eniperoi Constantine's day was exchanged 
 to the politicians for a me! s of theological pottage and again 
 lost; and which to-day, riping once more to the surface of 
 human consciousness throi gh the thick strata of materiality, 
 is again being bargained foi , under animal magnetism's subtle 
 dictation, for the pottage cf "Who shall be greatest?" in the 
 unreal realm of mortal min i. 
 
 In the midst of the pos -war stir Marian Whittier left the 
 Old World and returned to the New. In the midst of the tre- 
 mendous overturning and chemicalization being wrought by 
 the leaven of Truth, she ti rned from the misery, the desola- 
 tion, the material ruin and moral filth of Europe to face their 
 mordant contrast as externa lized in the vulgar material display, 
 the sobbing gayety, the anin al greed and insane profiteering, the 
 mortally ignorant struggle 1 or power and prestige in darkened 
 Crestelridge. In Crestelrid ;e, as in the world without, class 
 still clashed violently with ;lass; sex with sex; impurity with 
 purity; appetite with tempeance; lust with knowledge; matter 
 with mind. Politics, religio i, medicine, science, all rose in the 
 great upheaval and burst inl o furious ebullition. Disease raged; 
 the Spanish influenza moc^ked faith and medicine; religion 
 
 89 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 languished behind closed church doors ; while folly pirouetted to 
 the hurdy-gurdy of mental illusion. The siren whistle that sum- 
 moned the people at midday to prayer had symbolized the 
 shortening of the Lord's arm and the complete loss of spiritual 
 power. Fear sat brooding upon the mind of man, and hatched 
 therein a thousand devils. Marian faced it, and her manner 
 of facing it was a prophecy. 
 
 She knew nothing of events in Crestelridge since her depar- 
 ture, months before, although Simeon Penberry had hinted 
 vaguely at strange "happenings" there. And in Madam Gal- 
 uth's brief cabled message she had found no hint of Alden's 
 need — but she was certain that it was humanly great. And 
 she was just as certain that the demand for her work was so 
 great, so imperative, that every human-inhibition must be pre- 
 viously searched out and removed. She had worked it all out 
 on her homeward journey: she would not have the thought of 
 Crestelridge directed to her, for thoughts, she had long since 
 learned, were indeed "things", and Crestelridge thought was 
 material obstruction. In view of the vast task which she was 
 certain awaited her, she must avoid arousing it and drawing it 
 upon her. "You must remain for the present in New York 
 City," she told Barach shortly before their boat docked. "I will 
 send you instructions there, and you must run no risk of being 
 recognized." Then, once more on, her native soil, she entered 
 Crestelridge in the depths of nighty closely veiled, and went at 
 once and unrecognized to the home of Madam Galuth. 
 
 Out over the desert of human thought, with its bleaching 
 bones of dead hopes, Marian looked as, the tender greetings 
 over, she listened to Madam Galuth. And she looked undis- 
 mayed. "I bring you good news," she murniured, even while 
 the desperate situation as mortal mind believed it to exist was 
 being outlined before her — even while that which had in human 
 consciousness occurred during her absence to the Craggs, the 
 Whittiers, Ted Sayor, the Chaddocks was being revealed. "I 
 bring you good news," she repeated: "the news that God is 
 Good." 
 
 "I tell you these things* Marian," the white-haired woman 
 said tenderly, "not that they are real, but that they constitute 
 the false claim which error has set up here in human con- 
 sciousness as the god which it would force us to worship." 
 
 "We will not bow down before it," declared the girl. "Evil 
 is not power. It does not possess Alden. The Roake ideas 
 shall not destroy him." 
 
 "The demand upon us," the woman continued, "is the same 
 that is upon the world to-day. The hour for real thinkers has 
 struck. Nothing short of right thinking can save the world. 
 Nothing else can help Alden." 
 
 90 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But Alden surely has learned to think right!" the girl 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," was the answer; "and yet he appears to complicate 
 his own problem. He does not ask to be saved from meeting 
 the test. He is facing death unafraid. He appears to possess 
 a strange confidence, a consciousness of mastery over death. 
 Perha:ps he can overcome it. I am not hindering him by hold- 
 ing f ear-thoughts over him. But — and you . can tell me — has 
 he taken all the intermediate steps which lead up to such a stu- 
 pendous demonstration? The Master, you know, overcame 
 death for others before he overcame it for himself. And he 
 bade us do his great works — but he also bade us be wise. Is 
 Alden manifesting wisdom now, or an unwise zeal?" 
 
 "And yet he cannot escape the test, can he?" 
 
 "But he has not really tried. For I am sure he knows who 
 it was that error used as a tool to slay Harris." 
 
 Marian sprang up. "But there is nothing hid that shall not 
 be revealed!" she cried. 
 
 "But if revealed, then that one who committed the deed 
 will have to meet death. In either case, death must be met." 
 
 "Oh!" And Marian sank down again. "Then he is shield- 
 ing someone?" 
 
 "It appears so. And he has said to me — ^though to no one 
 else — that he is far better prepared 1;o meet it than the one who 
 shot. Harris. . . Ah, Marian dear, that seems to be our prob- 
 lem ! Alden, great soul that he is ! goes forth willingly, gladly, 
 to meet death for one whom he believes wholly unprepared to 
 grapple with it, or to die." 
 
 She gave the girl pause for reflection; then "she bent toward 
 her. "Marian," she said, "I think Alden went into the shadow 
 of death in Palestine, did he not?" 
 
 The girl looked up at her quickly, searchingly. "Yes," she 
 answered low. 
 
 "And he was called back?" the woman pursued. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I believe Alden must first overcome death for others before 
 he can meet it for himself. . . Or did he meet it for himself 
 in Palestine?" 
 
 "He was not prepared then, and I . . ." Marian checked 
 her words and sat back. 
 
 The woman nodded understandingly. "That is why I sent 
 for you," she said gently. 
 
 Again Marian seemed to stand at the Red Sea, with Egyp- 
 tian darkness closing about her. Again, as always, did the mes- 
 merism of self-pity loose its lethal fumes upon her. Had she, 
 like the children of Israel, believed in the reality of evil, like 
 
 91 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them she would have found her forward path blocked by the 
 externalization of this false belief. Yet she listened to the voice 
 that came through the Hebrew lawgiver: "Fear ye not, stand 
 still, and see the salvation of the Lord. . ." And she battled 
 back the hosts of aggressive mental suggestion and faced the 
 dark waters, knowing that they must part. The revealing of 
 error's awful work during her absence from Crestelridge, cul- 
 minating in Alden's plight, had, despite her struggles, seemed 
 at first to benumb her mental activity with the shock of false 
 belief. Yet it was only because of its shocking claim to be 
 true, when she knew it was demonstrably Truth's antithesis. 
 And at that period of human history error was seemingly 
 accomplishing much by its subtle shocks, in sudden deaths and 
 the paralyzing of human activity. 
 
 But it should not, could not, shock her into inertia. She had 
 traveled far enough on the road of spiritual progress to know 
 that the only barriers mankind have to deal with are their own 
 stubborn beliefs of barriers and obstacles. She roused and 
 turned to the woman. "It is an opportunity," she said — 
 though as she spoke her ears seemed to din with error's awful 
 mockery: "Alden's death is but a few days off; nothing can 
 save him now!" 
 
 But the great fact was that Alden was already saved, though 
 the testimony of sense deny it quite! And that was cause for 
 exceeding joy. "Oh," she cried, springing up, "we must rejoice 
 that we know I Go, tell Alden to rejoice! What though the 
 world seem drowning in evil and woe? It is only the human 
 consciousness of chaos. And it is only the materialist who 
 fears. It is only human concepts that have been overwhelmed. 
 The world-situation to-day is utterly unreal, for it is without 
 Principle. Therefore it is not an occasion for dismay, but for 
 great rejoicing. Error is submerging itself. The great upheaval 
 is cause for boundless gratitude to the true Christian, for it 
 proves, not that God is absent, as the materialists cry, but that 
 He is so closely present that He is causing the enslaving beliefs 
 of mankind to destroy themselves. Oh, we must rejoice, for 
 there is nothing in the whole universe to cause a moment's 
 dismay! Error falsely claims a world destroyed by war, civ- 
 ilization destroyed, Christianity dead, crime rampant, death 
 supreme — but we, you and I, know better ! It is for us to reverse 
 all this false testimony, reverse it and see its vanity, its noth- 
 ingness. We can meet the unprincipled situation by knowing 
 the absolute truth about it. Time is not a factor in proving 
 God. . ." 
 
 Day dawned as they stood together facing error. "We will 
 not listen to the aggressive mental suggestions of evil/' the girl 
 
 92 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 declared again and again. "By not giving them ear, they die." 
 And then : "The first step has been revealed to us," she said. 
 "I want to meet Doctor Rowley, whom you have mentioned. 
 I want him and Doctor Benson to come here at once. But no 
 one else in Crestelridge must know that I have come back. I 
 must not have the people's thought on me. I will keep to the 
 house. . ." 
 
 "And Alden?" 
 
 "He must not know that I have returned. He is standing 
 alone with his God. There must be no human personality for 
 him to lean on. He and I are both prisoners now, prisoners of 
 the Lord. We were prisoners together in Palestine. The 
 human sense of circumstances and the diabolism directed 
 against Alden have seemed to overwhelm him. But so they did 
 Peter, and he too was thrust into jail. But an angel came to 
 Peter — ^it was an idea of spiritual power, a thought divine. 
 And by it he worked out his freedom. So to Alden and to me 
 will come angels that will deliver us." 
 
 CHAPTER 13 
 
 BEHIND drawn blinds Marian Whittier met with Doctors 
 Benson and Rowley in close conference the following 
 morning. She was in the full sweep of her mental activ- 
 ity now, and Madam Galuth, as she watched her and heard her 
 words, paused often in amazement at the girl's great spiritual 
 growth. Marian was the epitome of the gospel of work, her days 
 spent in the temple, her nights on Olivet, 
 
 "I thank God that we do see what to do and that we are 
 doing it," she had declared that morning. It had been a sleep- 
 less night for them both, yet the girl had entered upon the new 
 day with a renewal of courage that was prophetic. "The com- 
 mand is to be strong and of good courage," she said, "for there 
 isn't a thing material to be afraid of." Her courage in the 
 midst of tribulation was the spiritual strength born of self- 
 conquest. 
 
 For, despite the onrush of the dark hour when Alden Cragg 
 must satisfy the crude human sense of justice for the slaying 
 of Harris Chaddock, Marian was not stampeded. There would 
 be no snatching away of his problem now. Nor would there 
 be any paralysis of activity through fear. "It is by refusing to 
 think fear-thoughts, and by standing on the fact of God's allness, 
 that we shall win," she declared. "Standing there now, we 
 have already won. And we must remember that we are deal- 
 
 93 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ing with God alone, not with mortals, not with human person- 
 ality. It is a trial of our understanding; but do not forget that 
 it is also a trial of the error that has operated through those 
 who would destroy Alden. And I know what the verdict 
 will be." 
 
 The demand for severance from the mutations of time and 
 sense was imperative. To yield to either meant disaster. 
 Equally imperative was the necessity of an immediate and 
 uncompromising realization of the availability of God as the 
 sole Cause. Marian, in the light of past experience, had deter- 
 mined that NOW was the time for the operation of Principle 
 in the dispelling of the errors in which Alden had seemingly 
 become entangled. "For Alden certainly is loosed in heaven — 
 reality," she argued. "Therefore he is loosed on earth, where 
 heaven is counterfeited and error is but the suppositional oppo- 
 site of spiritual power." 
 
 "I am without a maid now," Madam Galuth had explained, 
 when Marian discovered her preparing breakfast. "It is a for- 
 tunate misfortune, for there will be no tale-bearer to divulge 
 your presence here. When the medical authorities persecuted 
 me, my maid took fright and fled." 
 
 "But I shall be your maid," Marian declared. "I am used 
 to persecution." 
 
 "Dear child," the woman murmured, "Satan has driven you 
 into the wilderness with me." 
 
 Marian smiled. "I too am an exile," she said. And then she 
 suddenly fell silent and stood looking searchingly at the woman. 
 "Why," she resumed at length, and speaking in a voice tinged 
 with wonder, "that is your name, isn't it? For the word 'gal- 
 uth' in the Hebrew tongue means 'exile'. I wonder that I never 
 thought of it before." And again she paused and regarded the 
 woman strangely. 
 
 Madam Galuth started slightly under the girl's words, but 
 quickly recovered and forced a little laugh. "Exiles we are, 
 dearie," she said gently. "And Hebrews, children of Abraham, 
 demonstrating Israel, the spiritual Man." 
 
 She said no more. And Marian's thought was soon diverted 
 by the arrival of Doctors Bensoii and Rowley in response to the 
 woman's early summons. 
 
 Doctor Benson welcomed her in amazement, and with a 
 great, gasping sigh. Doctor Rowley . looked long, earnestly, 
 eagerly into her face as he listened to her broach the reasons 
 for their summons. She spent few words. And when she had 
 stated her problem in a preliminary way they both bowed and 
 stood to await instructions. 
 
 "And now," she said abruptly, "do you believe that what 
 we wish to accomplish is possible?" 
 
 94 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I do not," Doctor Benson vehemently declared. 
 
 "Then I shall have to dismiss you," said the girl. "I can 
 have only those associated with me whose work will not be 
 negatived by their own doubt." 
 
 "But you ask me to believe the impossible!" he protested. 
 
 "No, I am asking you to stop believing the impossible. Oh, 
 I kno^, you and all mankind are like the White Queen who 
 declared to Alice that she sometimes believed as many as six 
 impossible things before breakfast. It is these impossible beliefs 
 that I am asking you to get rid of." 
 
 "Don't dismiss me," he pleaded, seizing her hand. "I . . . 
 why, I consider this the only real opportunity I've ever had! 
 But we can't storm the jail . . . and the time is so short. . . 
 Cragg's death is ..." 
 
 "Stop!" she commanded sharply. "But for the mortal 
 belief in material obstacles and time, there would be no death." 
 
 "No death, eh?" He would have argued the point. 
 
 She sat down and bade them draw up chairs. "We are 
 banding together now to meet the false claim of death," she 
 went on quietly. "Death appears to command the situation 
 here. It claims Alden Cragg. And you have yielded dominion 
 to it. Now the truth about the situation is all that can possibly 
 have dominion over it. But we cannot correct this situation until 
 we have referred it to the Principle of all that is real. That 
 Principle is Mind, God." 
 
 "But, my dear girl," Benson interrupted petulantly, "this is 
 no time for theorizing! Every minute counts now! I respect 
 your deep religious bent, but we can't afford to waste time dis- 
 cussing thfe nature of God. . ." 
 
 "Listen," she said : "if a man named Smith had given you 
 all you possess; if he fed, clothed, sheltered you; if he sus- 
 tained you; if he was your very life; and if without him you 
 would instantly cease to be, would not the name of Smith be on 
 your tongue constantly? Would you not refer everything to 
 Smith? Would you not take yOur every problem to him? 
 Indeed, would you even think without measuring your every 
 thought by his? Well . . ." 
 
 "Miss Whittier is right," Doctor Rowley put in. "I have 
 talked with Alden Cragg. I know something of this way of 
 thinking. The world has never been able to solve its problems 
 on the basis of the reality of evil." 
 
 "Evil is negation," said Marian. "It is vague, illusive, not 
 subject to the law of God, for there is nothing in it to respond 
 to law. Now we are called on to analyze a situation here in 
 Crestelridge. And the situation appears to be a mixture of both 
 good and evil, with evil greatly predominating. It is a prob- 
 
 95 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 lem. How can we solve it? By applying Truth to it. Evil will 
 then be forced to the surface and will pass off. The good will 
 remain. And the problem will be found solved. But, first, we 
 must get the problem correctly stated. All that is hidden shall 
 be brought to light, for the one Mind will reveal it. Now, Doctor 
 Rowley, as preliminary, tell us about your talks with Alden. 
 After that, Doctor Benson will tell of his experience with . . ." 
 
 "Roake, eh?" Benson put in. 
 
 "No," Marian corrected, "but Fay Meuse." 
 
 "Eh? You suspect her? But it has been proved that she 
 was out of town at the time of the shooting." 
 
 "I did not say that she committed the crime. Doctor. But 
 the thought comes to me that I should see her. And, working 
 under divine law, I respect every thought that comes, for these 
 thoughts are 'angels'. I think Fay Meuse will return to Crestel- 
 ridge— if she has not already done so. I want you to locate her 
 at once, to-day. . ." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "I shall have to call you the White Queen, for you have 
 already voiced two impossible things that you believe. Better 
 get rid of the other four now, for I am going to assign you 
 another task, that of discovering what became of Ted Sayor." 
 
 "Why, I can't . . ." 
 
 "Good! Now you have only three impossible beliefs left!" 
 Marian exclaimed. And Doctor Benson sat back in confusion. 
 
 Then Marian turned again to Doctor Rowley. "Tell us any- 
 thing you can," she urged. 
 
 "I certainly will give you whatever assistance I can toward 
 helping Mr. Cragg. . ." ' 
 
 She interrupted him. "But let us again try to understand 
 why we have come together to-day. I want you to see that it 
 is to meet and begin the destruction of -those human beliefs 
 which have seemingly entangled not only Alden Cragg but thou- 
 sands of others. Alden had apparently been caught by the 
 religio-medical forces that have their center here in Crestel- 
 ridge. It is those false thought-forces that we are to challenge 
 and bring to trial. Their overthrow will manifest in his release. 
 For it is they that would slay Alden Cragg. It was they that 
 slew Harris Chaddock." 
 
 "Good heavens!" cried Doctor Benson, half rising from his 
 chair, "I don't know that I follow you, but you seem to be aim- 
 ing at the Roake plan!" 
 
 "I think that is what Madam Galuth called it," she answered. 
 "But I understand it is to be given a new name." 
 
 "Yes, in his health-council," Doctor Rowley replied, puz- 
 zled, but greatly marveling. 
 
 96 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Health-council! Humph!" snorted Doctor Benson. "It's a 
 political convention, nothing else!" 
 
 "And when does that convention meet?" she asked. 
 
 "In two weeks . . . here, in Crestelridge," Benson offered 
 eagerly. "But why?" 
 
 "It is fortunate, for it gives us the opportunity to carry the 
 warfare into the enemy's territory," she said, smiling. 
 
 "But . , . why, it's impossible!" cried Benson, aghast. "It 
 can't be done!" 
 
 "Four," Marian counted. "My White Queen has but two 
 impossibilities left. And I am sure we will soon be rid of those. 
 And now, hear me: you doctors are to be sent to the conven- 
 tion like knights to the lists. You may take with you all others 
 whom you can persuade. You are to meet Doctor Roake . . ." 
 
 "Good Lord, young woman!" Benson again exploded. "Do 
 you realize what you are saying? Why . . . why, my God! it's 
 utterly impossible ..." 
 
 "Five," Marian smilingly checked off. 
 
 Doctor Benson sat down heavily in his chair, puffing hard. 
 "Do you mean to say," he sputtered, "that you will calmly let 
 Alden Cragg go to his death while you throw pebbles at Roake's 
 convention? Excuse me for saying it, but Crestelridge has 
 always considered you erratic." 
 
 . "And yet, viewed in the light of Truth* it is poor, erroneous 
 Crestelridge that is erratically off the right course," she gently 
 answered him. "And as for throwing pebbles at the convention, 
 if they are the 'five smooth stones' which David chose from the 
 river of Truth, and if they are hurled with the sling of faith at 
 the Goliath of belief of life and intelligence in matter, the mes- 
 merism wielded by the 'one lie' will be destroyed and the giant 
 will come clattering to the ground." 
 
 "I think I understand you, at least in part," said Doctor 
 Rowley thoughtfully. "I have no doubt my talks with Alden 
 Cragg were a preparation for this. You believe that it was the 
 ideas embodied in the Roake plan that really caused, or cul- 
 minated in. Doctor Harris Chaddock's death — is that it? And 
 it is those ideas that you would meet." 
 
 "That I would meet and expose," she said. "To expose them 
 is to give them their death-blow. It is the general idea behind 
 the Roake plan that is the real criminal, and not the human 
 being who, as its tool, shot Harris." 
 
 "You would publicly fight Roake?" Doctor Benson de- 
 manded. "Then I'll be excused!" 
 
 "No," Marian corrected, "I would not fight against human 
 personality. I have no quarrel with Doctor Roake. But his 
 organization is founded upon human ideas that are false and 
 
 91 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 murderous. It is those ideas that I would have- arrested, 
 brought to trial, and condemned." 
 
 "A unique conception, certainly," declared Doctor Rowley. 
 "And yet there appears to be no other way of accomplishing 
 anything." 
 
 "But . . . why, it's the same thing that Cragg proposed," 
 sputtered Benson. "He said the evil could be made to commit 
 suicide. But . . . Good Lord! how can such a thing be done? 
 And it can't be done before he goes to his death!" 
 
 "That is the sixth impossibility that you have believed. 
 Doctor," Marian answered. "Now that you have gotten rid of 
 them all, you should be ready for your work. Our warfare is 
 like Paul's, against wickedness in high places. The more pow- 
 erful and malignant the evil seems, the closer it is to its destruc- 
 tion. And either God has called us to the work of destroying 
 this evil here, or He has not. If He has, then He will sustain 
 us in the work and will give us the victory. If you think He 
 has not, then you must decline to become associated with me 
 in it. But your decision must be immediate." 
 
 Doctor Rowley sprang to his feet and extended his hand. 
 Doctor Benson sat staring blankly at her for a moment, then 
 slowly rose and took her outstretched hand. She turned her 
 head for a moment to hide her tears. Then she bade them be 
 seated again for the hours of earnest conversation that were to 
 follow. 
 
 CHAPTER 14 
 
 "O PIRITUAL dynamite!" was Doctor Benson's concise sum- 
 ^^ mation of Marian Whittier's character as manifested now 
 in her diverse hidden activities. "But to ask us to meet 
 Roake, in his own convention! . . . Rowley, it's a political 
 convention, this health-council of Roake's! It's nothing on 
 earth but a gathering of political doctors to nationalize medi- 
 cine, and along the Roake lines ! What ih heaven's name can 
 a girl like Marian Whittier do toward upsetting it? What can 
 we do, you and I? And what good is all this going to do 
 young Cragg, who sits there with the shaddw of death creeping 
 closer? And how on earth can I find Ted Sayor and Fay 
 Meuse? . . ." 
 
 The door of his office opened as he spoke and a young man, 
 clad in the uniform of an American soldier, entered hesitatingly. 
 Doctor Benson rose to receive him, surprise written large in 
 his face. 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, but you are Doctor Benson? Thank you, 
 
 98 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 sir. I came to inquire for Mr. Ted Sayor, sir, I was his valet, 
 before I went to war. . ." 
 
 Doctor Benson exclaimed. "Lord above ! . . . What's your 
 name?" 
 
 "He called me Boots, sir. If you will please tell him that 
 Boots is trying to locate him, and no offense meant, sir, it would 
 be a favor." 
 
 "But we're looking for him, too!" gasped Benson. "How did 
 you happen to come here?" 
 
 "Doctor Roake sent me." 
 
 Doctor Rowley sprang to his feet. Benson fell back in 
 speechless amazement. 
 
 "After Mr. Ted left the cabaret where he was playing the 
 piano I tried to locate him. He had told me he had been work- 
 ing for Doctor Roake, so I went there. The doctor, sir, was 
 much interested in hearing about my meeting with Mr. Ted in 
 the cabaret, and he said as how he had learned that Mr. Ted 
 had been in consultation with you. . ." 
 
 Another exclamation escaped Benson at this. "He's had his 
 spies watching me, the canny rascal! This is his method of 
 telling us that he's onto our game! . . . But, sit down here. 
 Boots. . . Egad! the Lord probably sent you. Everything's 
 from the Lord these days! Now what's this about Ted Sayor's 
 playing the piano in a cabaret?" 
 
 With the idea single of service to his beloved master. Boots 
 told his story simply and directly. And when he finished, the 
 tears were dropping from Benson's bronzed cheeks. "Boots," 
 said the great-hearted doctor, and his words came brokenly, 
 "we must find him. God grant that it isn't too late! But the 
 work cut out for you is, I believe, much greater than you 
 imagine. You . . . you've been sent to us. I believe that girl 
 up on the hill . . . But never mind that. Now we haven't a 
 minute to lose! And it's got to be done quietly, Boots, and in 
 the dark. There is a woman I want you to find for us — it may 
 mean the saving of a life. You're working for Ted Sayor while 
 you try to locate her. Understand? Every dive, every brothel, 
 every cabaret, theater, rooming house in the city must be 
 searched. Boots, and you've got to do it.. But lives, many of 
 them I now believe, are at stake. . ." 
 
 That night Boots crept through the cover of darkness to 
 Madam Galuth's home and gave his allegiance to the little 
 band working under the direction of Marian Whittier. Then he 
 set forth on his quest. 
 
 "There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed," Marian 
 repeated to the others after he had left. "Doctor Roake may 
 have sent Boots to you. Doctor Benson, as a warning, or merely 
 
 99 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 as a morbid joke. But remember that error when bloated with 
 its sense of triumph always overreaches. And in this case I 
 think it has already done so." 
 
 There were now such activities forward as to keep the girl 
 and her associates borrowing heavily from the night. Marian 
 never left the house, but frequent communications went from 
 her to David Barach, and by him were cabled to Simeon Pen- 
 berry, who thereupon set his numerous agents and barristers 
 to work, and swore roundly as he did so that a day of reckon- 
 ing was at hand for those who had sought to outwit him. The 
 Penberry wealth was drawn upon without stint by Marian; 
 Barach was instructed to engage the cleverest of counsel and 
 to spare no expense. Marian was in turn bidden by Penberry 
 to remember that the product of the greatest mines on the Rand 
 was at her disposal. The David who went out to meet Goliath 
 was indeed possessed of potentialities invisible to the boasting 
 enemy. 
 
 It is possible — nay, probable — that Doctor Roake sensed the 
 loosing of forces opposed to his own, though he could not know 
 whence they emanated. Certain it was that, with the conven- 
 tion but two weeks off, he felt a vague uneasiness, a mental 
 disturbance not assignable to any definitely perceived cause. 
 Boots had not returned to him, and appeared to have been 
 engulfed in the sea of humanity comprising Greater New York 
 and its environs. But the doctor had not bidden him return. 
 He was sorry now that he had not. And yet he could not say 
 vvhy he should be. 
 
 The uneasiness increased, despite the fact that the prepara- 
 tions for the convention were going forward satisfactorily, and 
 the interest manifested was even greater than had been antici- 
 pated. He wondered if Alden Cragg's inactivity was less real 
 than apparent. Yet what could Alden do? But to satisfy him- 
 self he visited the condemned man agaifi, as he had frequently 
 done before, ostensibly to offer his services in whatever capacity 
 possible, to console, and to animate with courage. 
 
 But again, as always before, he had to meet a sense of dis- 
 appointment in not finding Alden cowering before the approach 
 of death. What the astute doctor could not know was that 
 Alden had agreed with his adversary quickly, whiles in the way 
 with him. The occasion which, to the doctor's manner of think- 
 ing, should have been fraught with terror, actually appeared 
 to be accepted by Alden as one of rejoicing. But Alden had 
 agreed with the spiritual fact. And that fact was the present 
 Reality, unperceived by human sense which attributes power 
 to evil. 
 
 "Alden," the doctor said very kindly, "as I have repeatedly 
 
 100 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 told you, I was surprised that you did not set up a plea of 
 insanity. Not that it could have been established on your 
 conduct since your return from the war, but, rather, on what 
 occurred to you over there — shall we say, in Palestine? But 
 it is not too late now. Something did occur to you over there 
 that you have been reluctant to mention. Why? But even now, 
 as a last resort, we may avail ourselves of it if you will 
 but tell me what it was. Let me put it this way: the experience 
 which you had over there was sharp enough to whiten your 
 hair. It therefore must have produced a shock sufficient to 
 disturb your mentality. You returned greatly changed. With 
 the facts in my possession, I could go to the governor, secure 
 a stay of execution, and get the case reviewed by the Supreme 
 Court, with the undoubted result that you would escape the 
 chair and be sent to an asylum. Tell me, Alden, for your dead 
 mother's sake, if not for your own — for the sake of our dear 
 rector, who is eating his heart out over the terrible tragedy — 
 tell me what happened to you over there." 
 
 Alden steadily returned the doctor's searching look. "You 
 are not concerned with my experience over there," he said, 
 "but merely in the warning that came from it. And you know 
 what that warning is, for you heard me speak to the people 
 of St. Jude's." 
 
 "But on what do you base that warning?" the doctor per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Death," was the low reply. 
 
 "Death!" The doctor started. "But whose? Marian Whit- 
 tier's? Is that why she has dropped out of sight? Tell me, 
 Alden, where she died and under what circumstances. Listen," 
 his manner was unwontedly eager, "if you will give me proofs of 
 her death . . ." 
 
 "She is not dead." 
 
 "No? Then where is she?" 
 
 "I do not know. I left her in Jerusalem. She went from 
 there into Persia. I have learned nothing further." 
 
 "Persia! Why there? And with whom?" 
 
 "I do not think it wise to tell you." 
 
 A shade crossed the doctor's face. Marian in Persia! And 
 on what mission? His manner became conciliatory. "But 
 why, Alden?" he pleaded. "I have been your life-long friend." 
 
 Alden shook his head. "You have been evil's friend, not 
 mine." 
 
 "Alden ! You amaze me ! Surely you do not mean to imply 
 that my marriage with Ethel . . ." 
 
 "Oh, no. I had no claim to Ethel. I did not oppose her 
 divorce. I would not have opposed her marriage with you." 
 
 101 
 
THOU I S R A E L 
 
 The doctor controlled himself with an effort. "You imply 
 that I have been in error. If so, I earnestly wish to correct 
 it. I have talked often with Marian Whittier. I have learned 
 much from her that is helpful. If you have anything from her 
 now, why withhold it from me?" 
 
 Alden regarded the doctor long and steadily. Then he drew 
 a deep sigh. "I cannot help you," he said sadly, "until you 
 honestly desire help. Hypocrisy has so enchained you that 
 nothing but a tremendous experience can set you free. When 
 you cease to deceive others, you may see how terribly error 
 has deceived you." 
 
 "Deceive others! . . . Alden, under the circumstances I 
 must overlook your harsh judgment. While I may need help, 
 as all mortals do, still you are in desperate need, for you are 
 facing certain death." 
 
 "And what is death that you should fear it so?" Alden 
 asked. 
 
 "I . . . why, it is for you that I fear. . . Alden, you surely 
 don't hold yourself above death!" 
 
 "But we are bidden to do so, and to render it nothing." 
 
 The doctor stared at him. "And you . . . you are stand- 
 ing on that?" 
 
 "Yes. We who call ourselves Christians must begin to obey 
 the Master sometime and keep his sayings. Why not begin 
 now?" 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "You are deceiving yourself," 
 he said. "Fear of death has rendered your faculties numb. 
 My large experience enables me to detect it. Your status now 
 is the same as that of tubercular patients, who, confronted with 
 certain death, become so paralyzed with fear that they manifest 
 an utterly false courage." 
 
 "I do not fear," Alden replied calmly. "I die daily. But you 
 are greatly fearing now. And you do not know what it is 
 that you fear." 
 
 "Ah, and what then do you believe I fear?" 
 
 "Death. And well you may fear it, for it is upon you." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" the doctor demanded sharply. 
 
 "Go," said Alden, "and ponder it. Until you have learned 
 its meaning, do not come here again." 
 
 The doctor's face went white. "But if I go, your fate is 
 sealled!" he exclaimed hotly. "I have come offering you life, 
 but you are choosing death! A horrible death! And it is 
 but two weeks off!" 
 
 "And I have offered you heaven, but you have chosen hell. 
 And it is upon you now." 
 
 The doctor held to his poise and forced a smile. His manner 
 
 102 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 appeared to soften, and he spoke low and gently. "This is 
 no talk for gentlemen," he deprecated, "and for old friends. 
 It is no talk for such a solemn hour as this. The tenseness 
 of the situation has affected us both. Come, Alden, once more: 
 will you tell me of your climacteric experience in Europe? Will 
 you tell me what part Marian played in it? And then will you 
 aid me in making that experience a new plea for your life?" 
 He drew nearer. "Alden," he urged, "it can be done. Without 
 any question whatever you can be proved insane, and so escape 
 the chair." 
 
 "There is but one Mind, God," came the answer. "I reflect 
 it. I am therefore not insane. My deliverance is not a function 
 of lies, but of Truth. Your interest is not in me, but in Marian 
 Whittier, for to her has come Truth that shall sweep away 
 the refuge of lies. And for that reason you fear." 
 
 Yet would Doctor Roaike not yield his determination to move 
 heaven and earth to locate Marian Whittier. And for that 
 reason, despite the stern judgment meted out by Alden Cragg, 
 he maintained his poise, nor did his manner lose one jot of 
 its wonted urbanity, nor his voice a shade of its deep solicitude. 
 In his heart he believed Alden mildly insane, else would the 
 youth not rejoice so unreasonably in the approach of death, 
 nor would he manifest such unwarranted conviction of his 
 ability to meet it. That he had utterly misinterpreted Alden's 
 conduct had not occtirred to him. And while he knew that 
 Alden would go to the chair — 'while he grimly determined that 
 he should — yet the conviction grew hourly upon him that all 
 was not well; that forces had been loosed upon him, through 
 Alden, through Marian Whittier, possibly through the Galuth; 
 that in some manner they had to do with Otto Hoeffel, with 
 Simeon Penberry, with . . . But he must find Marian! And 
 as he turned to the task he wondered if Ted Sayor, with the 
 fangs of death fastened in his wasted frame, would re- 
 appear! . . . 
 
 CHAPTER 15 
 
 BECAUSE of the proximity of the great religio-medical con- 
 vention called by Doctor Roake, Crestelridge was now on 
 the tip-toe of expectancy. But its eagerness was mingled 
 with apprehension. Society's nerves had been held so long 
 taut that any loosening of the tension must certainly cause 
 it to fly to pieces. It was even thus early peering anxiously 
 beyond the convention and the execution of Alden Cragg for 
 promise of fresh sensation to maintain the unhealthful stimulus 
 of its diseased ganglia. 
 
 103 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Henry says that Doctor Roake has put Crestelridge on the 
 map," Mrs. Tellus declared, "and that the convention will make 
 this the religious and medical center of the world. Think of 
 it! It will mean a lot to Henry's business." 
 
 The Culture Club was in session at the rectory, Mrs. Whit- 
 tier presiding. And as this excellent lady smiled her acknowl- 
 edgment of Mrs. Tellus' observation she mentally thanked her 
 stars that Doctor Roake had seen fit to take Ethel to wife. 
 For thereby had the Whittier prestige been saved, from dire 
 catastrophe, and Mrs. Whittier and Ethel furnished , with a 
 masculine support of the highest order that rendered depen- 
 dence upon the fragile rector no longer necessary. 
 
 And yet not alone thereby had the Whittier prestige been 
 saved, for acknowledgment must be made to an indubitable 
 influence arising from the altered complexion of Crestelridge 
 society, an influence which operated greatly in Mrs. Whittier's 
 favor. The visitation of Spanish influenza had left society's 
 ranks depleted. The Kerls, the Blacks, the Nences, and scores 
 of others in mourning were now deriving solace, not from a 
 return to their former social gayety, but from ouija boards 
 and the prophetic cards, and from seeking unto spiritualistic 
 mediums who peeped and muttered and delivered to them, in 
 shrouded rooms and in exchange for much good gold, weird 
 messages from their beloved dead. Thus had those who had 
 withdrawn from St. Jude's because of the shocking scandal 
 surrounding Harris Chaddock's murder likewise been forced,out 
 of society for a period suflBcient to enable Mrs. Whittier to 
 gather up the reins which had been jerked from her hands 
 and seat herself again securely. "They simply got what they 
 deserved for trying to dish St. Jude's," was the lady's logical 
 conclusion. "And I'm glad to be rid of them." Those remain- 
 ing were more tractable. 
 
 Nor can another contributing factor be ignored, namely, 
 the great influx into Crestelridge's social ranks of those newly 
 made rich by the time's unexampled opportunities. The Lah- 
 ertys, the McBeans, and the other ambitious constituents of 
 the new crop of millionaires now knocking at society's doors, 
 were only too ready to acknowledge Mrs. Whittier's leadership, 
 as they were to become communicants of St. Jude's, provided 
 they be recognized and accorded the privileges of the financially 
 great. Add now to this the splendid functions being given at 
 "Craggmont" by Doctor Roake and Mrs. Whittier, acting for 
 the doctor's invalided wife, and the continued social leader- 
 ship of Mrs. Whittier can be readily understood. 
 
 "I have asked Mrs. Laherty to attend with me the sessions 
 of the convention that are to be open to women," Mrs. Whit- 
 
 104 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tier remarked to Mrs. Tellus. "Don't you think the Lahertys 
 and McBeans are charming? We had them over to 'Cragg- 
 mont' to dinner last evening. They are immensely wealthy. 
 And they know how to spend their money. I drove to Chris- 
 tier's with Mrs. Laherty yesterday morning for some shopping, 
 and, upon my >vord, she wouldn't look at a thing priced under 
 $500 ! But, the dear thing ! — I was so amused — ^when she came 
 to buy furniture for her new home she got the periods absurdly 
 mixed up. Her face was a blank when the salesperson asked 
 her whether she wanted Louis XIII or XIV. I suggested Louis 
 Quinze, and she said she didn't want anything to remind her 
 of canned goods, for those days, she hoped, were past. Wasn't 
 that lovely? She wouldn't look at a suite of furniture under 
 $5,000, and every bit of it had to be gilded. And she just 
 insisted on filling her house with a regular conglomeration of 
 stuff, but all terribly expensive. She told me she got her ideas 
 of house decoration from moving picture 'sets' that she's seen 
 on the screen. Isn't she ingenuous? I shall propose her name 
 this afternoon for membership in the Culture Club. What do 
 you say?" 
 
 Yet there was no gainsaying that the Lahertys and Mc- 
 Beans were as competent to discuss the topics before the Cul- 
 ture Club as the Whittiers and Telluses, and particularly the 
 subject set for review on this afternoon, which was the appro- 
 priate one of "Self-determination." Doctor Roake had addressed 
 the Club at its preceding session on the ponderous subject of 
 "Psychoanalysis", and had propounded the startling theory that 
 the primary impulse of human nature toward the world is 
 not one of love, but of hate. The doctor had handled his 
 abstruse theme in the manner of a surgical operation on the 
 human soul. "We begin life with hatred, rather than, with 
 love," he had said. "It is an observation confirmed by inten- 
 sive study of the human mind." 
 
 "But why not?" the metaphysician will ask. "For, since 
 the human man is the direct opposite of the Man divine, why 
 is it not logical that his pseudo existence should begin with 
 the direct opposite of divine Love as its animus, namely, hate?" 
 
 But this deeper aspect of the subject had not occurred to 
 Mrs. Whittier. It was rather that the doctor's statement con- 
 flicted with her own theory as exemplified in Ethel's bringing 
 up. "We must allow children to be themselves," she insisted. 
 "Then they will grow up as they should." But she did not 
 amplify her premise by adding that she had had no other 
 recourse with Ethel; that sensuality was the order of this new 
 day, and that because of it few parents had the willingness 
 to sacrifice even a moiety of their own pleasure for the moral 
 
 105 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 training of their offspring. "But children are sent to Sunday 
 school to be trained," Mrs. Whittier had argued. "Ethel always 
 went. And she has always been permitted the greatest degree 
 of self-expression." Which certainly was true in respect to 
 the girl's human self. For true expression is naught but 
 reflection of the Mind divine — but at that Mrs. Whittier would 
 have smiled sententiously. 
 
 "As an example of the result of interference with self- 
 determination, we might cite unfortunate Alden Cragg," she 
 went on. For Mrs. Whittier was determined to seize every 
 occasion to prove to the world that Alden Cragg was no more 
 to her now than any other unfortunate mortal, that his coming 
 into her family had been a mistake — now happily corrected — 
 and that he had long since passed out of her life forever, leav- 
 ing her and her family no worse for the experience. His trial 
 and condemnation had shocked her numb. The realization that 
 he must meet death as a felon had filled her with a horror 
 that would have kept her cowering behind drawn curtains, but 
 for the prodding fear that such a course would constitute an 
 acknowledgment of disgrace that would be fatal to her social 
 prestige. "We have just made our place in society!" she wailed 
 to Ethel. "And, until this horrible thing happened, it was 
 secure!" She sought advice from Doctor Roake. And then, 
 despite the protests of the stricken rector, she determined upon 
 her present calloused conduct. "We've got to brazen it out," 
 she told Ethel. "If we don't, we're lost!" As the dread event 
 drew nearer she became morbidly obsessed with the thought 
 of Alden's execution. And she knew that her society friends 
 had become similarly affected, but that they were refraining 
 from mentioning the subject out of delicate respect to her. 
 This made her desperate, even heartless, in her constant refer- 
 ence to it. 
 
 "And yet," Mrs. Tellus observed, eagerly grasping the 
 opportunity which Mrs. Whittier now offered her to discuss 
 Alden, "when his mother's, constant interference was removed, 
 he changed completely." 
 
 Mrs. Whittier nodded, a bit hysterically. "He developed 
 traits that had long been dormant." She liked the phrase. It 
 had come from Doctor Roake. "You see," she continued, 
 "when he went to the war he began, for the first time in his 
 life, to express his real self. But at his age he simply didn't 
 know how, and he went all to pieces and permitted his vicious 
 traits to get the upper hand. There was much good in him, 
 of course; but the evil predominated — So Doctor Roake explains 
 it." 
 
 "Which of course made him dangerous to the social order," 
 Mrs. Tellus deduced. 
 
 106 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Decidedly so, as you see. He should have been declared 
 insane long before Ethel made her unfortunate marriage with 
 him. Dear girl! she was so deceived. But she has risen above 
 it— v(^e all have. But Doctor Roake says he believes he is 
 perfectly sane. But he can't be, or he wouldn't do as he . . ." 
 She leaned toward Mrs. Tellus and whispered excitedly. "Doctor 
 Roake says he believes Alden is really glad to go to the . . . 
 to the . . . electric chair!" And she shuddered as she voiced 
 the words. 
 
 "You don't mean it!" 
 
 "Yes. And that he looks upon it as a test of his religious 
 .theories, and expects to . . . But, my country! . . . it's too 
 awful!" 
 
 "You mean that he expects to . . . live through it?" 
 
 "Yes, to actually overcome death . . . there ... in the 
 chair!" 
 
 "Horrible!" gasped Mrs. Tellus, tingling with delight over 
 the unique prospect. "Why, he's mad! They ought not to 
 permit it! It's . . . it's simply murder! It will be a shocking 
 spectacle! Can't Doctor Roake stop it?" 
 
 "Nobody can stop it. The governor has refused to inter- 
 fere. It is terrible! . . . But, after all, it may, as Doctor 
 Roake says, contribute something of value to medical science. 
 And ... it is awfully interesting, considered in that light, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 And Mrs. Tellus slowly nodded her agreement, amazed, 
 awed, but knowing well that she would not have it otherwise 
 for worlds. 
 
 The formal announcement of the early convening of the 
 Roake organization in a sort of general health-council had set 
 Crestelridge agog. It was a point of culmination of the Roake 
 activities which had gradually brought about a frenzy of health- 
 seeking along religio-medical lines. The subject was now on 
 everyone's lips; it and Alden Cragg's approaching fate had 
 become. almost the sole themes at sessions of the Culture Club, 
 the Norman Dames, in pulpits, and society functions. In par- 
 ticular did the injection of the religious element into the great 
 plan arouse widespread interest and comment. "It's all right 
 if they jest don't let th' preachers git too strong f'r 'em," 
 observed McBean, newly elected to the International Club, and 
 lounging now in its smoking room in an awkward attempt 
 to appear at ease. "F'r th' preachers '11 mess everything if 
 you give 'em enough rope. They'll make th' girls lower their 
 skirts an' quit paintin' their legs an' wearin' hosettes. I'm 
 thinkin' they've already got in their reform work on th' maga- 
 zines. Look at this one; first time I ever seen it without a 
 
 107 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 pitcher of a girl on th' cover showin' her legs. Look at it! 
 Jest a pitcher of a farm! Who in 'ell wants to see a farm on 
 a magazine cover, eh?" 
 
 Error's most valued agents for the dissemination ctf its 
 propaganda are always its own victims. The people of Crestel- 
 ridge seized upon the program of the convention and. sent it 
 broadcast, with urgent invitations to their friends to visit the 
 city and be their guests at that time. The heavy subject of 
 "Self-determination" languished before the Culture Club that 
 afternoon, while its members dwelt on the social advantages 
 to accrue in the wake of the coming health-congress, and waited 
 expectantly for an opportunity to discuss Alden Cragg. "Every-. 
 body'U be here!" exclaimed Mrs. Whittier, in further reference 
 to the convention. "Ministers, doctors, professors, and prom- 
 inent scientists from all over the country. There will be 
 'Mother days' and 'Father days' and 'Baby days' and . . . and 
 . . . Oh, and Doctor Roake wants the Culture Club to hold 
 one or two sessions in the auditorium during the convention. 
 And he says we ought to discuss something appropriate. You 
 know, we must show that we are strictly up to date." 
 
 "I suppose," volunteered one, "that we ought to discuss the 
 negro problem, or the Japanese question." 
 
 "But we are a culture club!" was objected. "We must talk 
 about something literary. Books or poetry . . ." 
 
 "The eighteenth or nineteenth century novels . . . what 
 say?" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" rose a tender lament, "I haven't read one of 
 them. What are they? And who wrote them?" 
 
 "I don't really know. But . . ." 
 
 "We'd make a bigger hit with free verse, don't you think?" 
 Mrs. Tellus offered. "Have one of the modern poets come and 
 recite and accompany himself with a mandolute or some- 
 thing. . . What a stunning hat that is, Emma! I just can't 
 keep my eyes off it! Where on earth did you get it?" 
 
 "What's the convention program? That might help us to 
 decide." 
 
 "Well, in general," Mrs. Whittier explainedj "first, the wel- 
 come and the committee meetings, to get organized; then Doctor 
 Roake really opens the convention with a clinic in the Munici- 
 pal College of Medicine, in the city. He is going to demon- 
 strate his new theory about tuberculosis. He's been making 
 tests and studying the subject during the past few months and 
 he's developed something new in the way of treatment. It's 
 going to be the biggest surprise of the century." 
 
 "My!" in chorus. 
 
 "The women are debarred from the clinic, of course. He 
 
 108 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 has to talk over a dead body, you know. Ugh! Well, then 
 among the doctors there will be an open forum on the subject 
 of 'Doctors' and one on the subject of 'Healing'. Among the 
 ministers there will be open forums on 'Fundamental Chris- 
 tianity', 'Theology', and 'The Bible'. Then there will be joint 
 sessions, open to the public, for the discussion of 'Philosophy', 
 including the subjects of 'Matter', 'Time', and so forth. Also 
 open meetings to consider the 'Human Mind', and, finally, a 
 forum on 'Hypnotism'. Wonderful selection of topics, isn't it? 
 Sort of metaphysical. Doctor Roake made it himself. He has 
 a bent toward the influence of the mind on the body, you know. 
 Isn't it interesting?" 
 
 "Wonderful!" her auditors agreed unanimously. 
 
 "Now the idea of having the Culture Club hold sessions in 
 the auditorium during the convention is to show the outsiders 
 that we are intellectual here in Crestelridge . . ." 
 
 "Then I insist that we discuss free verse and the modern 
 realist novels." 
 
 "I think we ought to throw in a little something about sub- 
 versive philosophy. . ." 
 
 "What's that?" demanded Mrs. Tellus, her eyes still devour- 
 ing Emma Newmonger's clamorous headgear. 
 
 "Why, we'll have to look it up. But it's very modern." 
 
 "But, in view of having so many ministers here, don't you 
 think we ought to, in a manner, talk about the Bible, too?" 
 someone timidly suggested. 
 
 "But what can we say about it? I've never even read it." 
 
 "Oh, let the preachers handle that," Mrs. Tellus settled the 
 moot point. "It's their business, you know. Let's decide on 
 free verse and adjourn. I want to try my new car." 
 
 Ill the offices of Doctor Roake a buzzing swarm carried 
 forward the complicated preparations for the great event. An 
 unbroken stream of humanity came and went throughout the 
 day and far into the night. Among them at any hour might 
 be seen the pathetic figure of Senator Chaddock, bent and 
 broken, mumbling, always mumbling as he aimlessly paced 
 through the halls, in and out of doors, or hovered about the 
 sanctum of Doctor Roake and awaited his coming, that he 
 might follow doggedly, and always mumbling,. in his footsteps. 
 "Why doesn't the doctor send the poor old fool to an asylum?" 
 was a frequent query. And often it was answered with : "Out 
 of the greatness of his heart he is caring for the old senator 
 as if he were his brother." And sometimes there would be 
 heard such comment as: "It is a singular and beautiful 
 example of devotion on the doctor's part. He certainly is a 
 good man." 
 
 109 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And comment was frequently drawn from the callers at 
 the Roake offices by the haggard appearance of the man direct- 
 ing the activities of the ministers in the organization, the 
 Reverend Wilson Whittier. Visiting clergymen remarked on 
 his apparent indifference, his lassitude, and the wistful, far- 
 away look in his eyes. "He appears to have the sorrows of 
 the world on his shoulders," was said. "Perhaps it is because 
 of the high position which he is now occupying," said others. 
 "His responsibility must be tremendous." 
 
 Which was true, for it was responsibility that was crush- 
 ing him. But it was his responsibility to his God. And over 
 it the wretched man was going mad. 
 
 It seemed impossible to him that things could have taken 
 such a turn^and yet he knew not really what was wrong; nor 
 yet wherein lay the cause of his soul-sickness. He knew only 
 that it was sick, and sick unto death. . . - 
 
 Death ! That was it ! And sin brought it ! For "if a man 
 keep my saying," said |;he sinless Master, "he shall never see 
 death". . . 
 
 He was dying ! He had known it long ! God ! if he but 
 dared, he would himself hasten the end. . . For death was his 
 much-belated guest. Could he but lie down and close his eyes, 
 never again to open them, he would account himself blessed. 
 He envied Alden Cragg — it was only the revolting mode of 
 Alden's death that he shrank from. He minded not now the 
 ineffaceable disgrace. 
 
 The swift approach of the day of execution horrified him. 
 He could not hold his thought from it. And thought of it 
 froze him. He had prayed that it would not take place in 
 Crestelridge, that Alden. would be removed to the city or to the 
 state prison for the last horrible scene — for if it were done 
 there, and if he were obliged to witness it, he knew he should 
 become a raving, screamingj hell-torn maniac ! . . . 
 
 The thought possessed him that Alden might request his 
 presence in that last revolting hour, and because of his fear of 
 it he had ceased his visits to the cqndemned man. It was 
 cow;ardlyj and . . . But there was a crumb of comfort in the 
 fact that during his last visit to the youth he had begged for- 
 giveness for whatever sorrow he might have caused him or his 
 poor mother, had begged forgiveness for remissness, and for 
 — Oh, he knew not what! but for unoutlined sins which he had 
 perhaps unwittingly committed against the youth, against the 
 mother, against the Cragg name. There was nothing definite — 
 yet he did know thait, in some manner, he was deeply peccable. 
 "Alden, I may have done you a wrong," he had moaned; "but, 
 if so, it was through ignorance ! I trusted Doctor Roake. . . Of 
 
 110 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 course I don't mean to imply that he has done anything wrong, 
 you understand. You will not quote me to that effect, will 
 you? I consider the doctor . . . honorable . . . just . . . yes, 
 yes, he must be a good man, yes! But we may ... we both 
 may have done you an injury through ignorance ... I don't 
 know ... I don't know. . . 
 
 "Alden, I am convinced that you did not kill Harris delib- 
 erately. Doubtless you had the pistol. . . You quarreled, but 
 he probably provoked it. . . The result was accidental. . . But 
 your refusal to tell has left the State no other recourse than . . . 
 Oh, if you would but confess your part in this terrible tragedy!" 
 
 The rector had heard the shocking rumor — had heard it 
 first from Doctor Roake — that Alden welcomed death, welcomed 
 it as a test! And the ghastly prospect gripped the horrified 
 man and forced him to voice it to Alden. 
 
 "No," Alden told him, "I do not welcome it. But I do not 
 shrink from it. If I must meet death, I shall do so knowing 
 that there is no death." 
 
 "Alden! Your talk indicates an unsoundness of thought! 
 Death is an awful reality!" 
 
 "Can death be real if God is infinite Life?" was the reply. 
 "Do you not preach the infinitude of God? But you constantly 
 show that God is wholly unreal to you. Yet to me He is Life 
 itself." 
 
 "But ... do you imagine . . . Alden, you have no such 
 wild notion as that you can , . . can overcome death?" 
 
 "Of myself I can do nothing. But the infinite Principle, 
 God, acting through me, can do all things, even to the over- 
 coming of death. Why, then, should I quail? Is not the 
 greatest need of the present hour the gaining of the knowledge 
 that death may be overcome here and now — that it must be 
 overcome, not with drugs and surgery, and not merely post- 
 poned, but overcome, as Jesus overcame it, with the exact and 
 scientific knowledge of God? What is there that men are inter- 
 ested in to-day that is half so important as this knowledge? 
 I came back from death, and I preached to my fellow men here 
 in Crestelridge the importance of such knowledge. But in their 
 mesmerism they cast me out, But if I can convince them by 
 meeting death in the chair ..." 
 
 "Alden!" gasped the near-crazed rector, as he fell away 
 from him, "you are mad!" 
 
 "Mad to trust God? But are you not rather mad to preach 
 a trust in Him that you do not manifest?" 
 
 "But to all men it is appointed once to die!" But the quo- 
 tation was meaningless to the rector now. 
 
 "To mortal man it is appointed by error to die^ not once, 
 
 43 111 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 but many times, until the error shall itself be slain that falsely 
 claims a power opposed to God who is infinite Life. While 
 mankind sin, they shall die. And sin is not conduct, but 
 false thought entertained — the erroneous belief that there is 
 life and substance and power in aught but God, It is the 
 death-dealing belief that life and intelligence inhere in 
 matter. . ." 
 
 Matter! It was the rector's bete noir of old! 
 
 "And matter," he heard Alden saying further, "is the only 
 evidence before the mortal mind. Yet Jesus knew and proved 
 it to be but a phenomenon of thought." 
 
 He felt Alden's arm steal about his shoulders as he sat with 
 head bowed in his hands. "When I came across the ocean," 
 he heard him say tenderly, "our ship sailed always toward the 
 distant horizon, where sea appeared to meet sky. But we 
 never reached it. We never crossed it. For the horizon is 
 not a reality, but an illusion. To those on the shore we seemed 
 to pass over it; yet we on the boat knew that we did not. So 
 it is with death. For as the horizon marks the limits of human 
 vision, so death is but the limitation of right thinking in man- 
 kind. It has no real existence. Perhaps I am now called to 
 prove it." 
 
 The rector's thought swirled and seethed as he crept away 
 from Alden's cell. One idea crystallized out and chilled the 
 rest: Alden made nothing of death! — death, the most awful 
 fact in life! 
 
 But the youth was mad, crazed with fear, calloused with 
 horror, insane, else were his talk less irrational. . . But he 
 would soon know . . . the hour of testing was at hand. . . 
 Ah, the rector's own hour of testing was upon him, and he 
 knew he was sinking! 
 
 His straining, blood-shot eyes seemed to envision things 
 unreal as he slunk through the streets toward the rectory. He 
 seemed possessed to see before him now the glittering little 
 pistol which, during an epidemic of burglary there some years 
 before, he had purchased to still his wife's fears. And as he 
 gazed at it in space his ears rang with a hellish suggestion. 
 His world had slipped .... it had gone ... he was himself 
 dead . . . dead! Why pretend to live, when he knew he was 
 but a lifeless lump, mere mud in the joints of the Roake edi- 
 fice? Why stand to meet the frightful test of the Roake con- 
 vention that was roaring down upon him like a devastating 
 tornado? He could not meet it! It was not humanly possible 
 to one now so helled about as he, so enmeshed, so inextricably 
 entangled. . . It was not required of him: God — if there be 
 God — could hot in reason ask of frail mortals the impossible! 
 
 112 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 . . . and he had not wherewith to lean upon for support. . . 
 
 No, she would not return. . . Yet he had been minded often 
 of late to go to the Galuth and demand to know if Marian were 
 alive. And that might open the way. . . 
 
 What, ask the despised Galuth for help? It was Satan's 
 last trick! No! Death first! 
 
 CHAPTER 16 
 
 AS he entered the rectory he encountered Mrs. Whittier in 
 the vestibule, garishly attired for an "afternoon" and 
 ^dwaiting her car. "The McBeans have just telephoned," 
 she announced, "asking us to dinner to-night, seven sharp. I 
 accepted for you. There'll be some vaudeville and danc- 
 ing. . ." 
 
 "I cannot go," he said in a shaking voice. 
 
 "Well, you shall go!" she returned decisively. "My country! 
 You refused the Laherty's invitation yesterday. Are you try- 
 ing to put me in bad with society? As if we hadn't had enough 
 to meet! Run along now and take your bath. I'll meet you 
 at the McBeans'. And," raising her lorgnette upon him, "for 
 heaven's sake try to perk up a little! My country! You go 
 'round like an animated graveyard." 
 
 Nausea had seized upon him at this voicing of the woman's 
 shallow sentiment, and he hurried out of her sickening pres- 
 ence. The McBeans! The Lahertys! They were leering, jeer- 
 ing, empty death-heads, all of them! And in his study the 
 rector fell into his chair and hid his eyes with his hands to 
 shut them out. 
 
 But was he better than they? Or farther advanced toward 
 the Kingdom of Heaven? Pin-headed worldlings they were — 
 but what did he know that outvalued their folly? Fool that 
 he was! the moth that fluttered about his study lamp knew 
 full as much of the essence of light as he; knew as much of 
 the forces of Nature — doubtless more! Yet had he prated oft 
 and learnedly of the vis inertiae, of cohesion, attraction, gravi- 
 tation — and could demonstrate no more than the beetle that 
 stormed his panes ! He had lectured sagely on music, on love, 
 on race, and sex — and had poured forth his mental rubbish 
 to fools as wise as he, who had swelled him to bursting with 
 their silly flattery! Osmosis, electrolysis, chemical affinity, 
 force: he could debate with any professor, and get as far — 
 which was nowhere ! In his lifetime of study he had devoured 
 learned tomes, authoritative text-books that became obsolete 
 
 113 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 even as he read, treatises that gave him the lie as he concluded 
 one and opened another. Yet he had. lectured on these learned 
 speculations, and by them had again and again interpreted the 
 universe to his unthinking audiences in terms of matter and 
 force — only to be driven at last to the knowledge of both as 
 illusions ! That he might not lose caste, he had carried water 
 on both shoulders — fool that he now realized himself to be! — 
 for he who teaches that power dwells in forces of matter denies 
 the very existence of God! He had sought to "popularize" 
 science and religion, seeing not, in his dense blindness, the 
 absurdity of attributing to a spiritual cause a material universe 
 and its equally material phenomena; the destructive folly of 
 clinging to God as Spirit and to earth as matter, with a no less 
 solidly material heaven swinging somewhere above it! ' 
 
 He knew as he looked back now that not until Marian had 
 challenged his shallow views had he questioned the legitimacy 
 of orthodox Christianity. Sin, to him, had been ever a solid 
 though lamentable fact. Evil was dreadfully real, and stub- 
 bornly opposed to God — nay, appearing generally to get the 
 better of Him! Sickness, sorrow, and other forms of discord 
 that render human life a drama of tears, he had sought to 
 regard as modes of discipline imposed by God — and yet a God 
 offended in dim Adamic days and bearing through the centuries 
 an interminable grudge ! The impossibility of wholly avoiding 
 sin here had been fully demonstrated — he could only teach 
 that, by earnest supplication to God and the saints, living and 
 dead, and by attendance upon the prescriptions of organized 
 religion, the worst sins might indeed be escaped. Likewise, 
 by constant and sedulous attention to health, witTi the guidance 
 of learned physicians, mi^t many diseases be avoided — ^yet 
 disease or senility or accident would inevitably prevail. . . 
 "Why," he had often preached, "they are not at all inconsistent 
 with holiness! We Christians expect them as trials of our 
 faith!" 
 
 It was Marian who had planted the hardy seeds of doubt in 
 his mind — Marian, who had flouted society because God came 
 first; Marian, who had incurred a. world's frown by forsaking 
 popularity to acquire a demonstrable knowledge of Principle. 
 It was she who had bidden him choose between Spirit and 
 matter, for both he could not have and live. And it was because 
 of her that he had plunged so desperately and deeply into the 
 materialism which he had chosen to denominate "St. Jude's 
 institutional activities". 
 
 It was because of Marian that, after her departure from 
 Crestelridge, he had gone to his parishioners, seeking refutation 
 from them of her harsh charges. "What does the word 'Chris- 
 
 114 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tian' mean to you?" he had asked dozens. And they had 
 answered variously — yet so as to leave him gaping. "Its mean- 
 ing is . . . er . . . ethical," Henry Tellus had offered. "Apply^ 
 ing it to acts, or to intentions, we would call that 'Christian' 
 which is . . . er . . . well-meaning, or kindly intentioned, you 
 know." As for a "Christian" man, some said he must be the 
 opposite of an atheist — and stopped there. Others insisted 
 that a "Christian" must be an adherent to some definite reli- 
 gious creed.- To some, the word "Christian" implied tolerance; 
 to others, its antithesis. "The Christian Church is founded 
 upon Christ, you know," was frequently offered. But attempted 
 adumbration of this always led to chaos. Mrs. Dodd declared 
 that her big Collie was as good a Christian as herself, because of 
 his affection for children. Some averred that without baptism 
 nobody could be a Christian. One asserted that a Christian was 
 one who had "got religion". "To be a consistent Christian," a 
 young society woman put forth with significant emphasis, 
 "you've got to give up everything pleasant, and think of nothing 
 but sin and death and- the blood of Jesus, and just sacrifice 
 yourself to a long line of very uninteresting occupations." It 
 reminded the rector of Ted Sayor's comment of long ago : "To 
 those who really try to practice it, Christianity is a kill-joy, 
 synonymous .with dyspepsia and depression. But you Chris- 
 tians, you of St. Jude's, are the most hypocritical people on 
 earth! You proscribe dancing and cards in Lent, but you 
 don't abate your money-grabbing and Mammon-worship one 
 jot! You stand up and sing: 'Oh, how I love Jesus', with 
 your thought on raising the rent of your tenements, or boost- 
 ing foodstuffs till your brothers starve!". . . 
 
 And there were some to whom the rector's question caused 
 marked embarrassment. By these he was indubitably shown 
 that Christianity was the property of the preachers — it was 
 well for the layman to practice it in a quiet manner, provided 
 he did not become obtrusive, fanatical, or permit it to color 
 his conversation or becloud his common-sense. They felt weak 
 and ashamed when obliged to refer to it publicly. Religion 
 tended to render a virile man effeminate. . . 
 
 Some looked down their noses and felt ill at ease when 
 the rector put his question. These would have swelled with 
 importance and loudly boasted themselves Democrats or Repub- 
 licans, but Christians! . . . they colored, fidgeted, side-stepped, 
 or gave the rector offended stares. 
 
 Yet Marian, the rector knew, had been mastered by her 
 religion. Whatever it was — and he regarded it as utterly 
 unevangelical — it was the biggest thing in her life. And she 
 had talked of God as if He lived next door! The strictly or- 
 
 115 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 thodox had regarded her as Satan's first lieutenant — witli Satan 
 embodied in the Galuth — yet nobody accused her of weakness, 
 and few there were who considered her visionary, a crank, or 
 a bore. By some, as by Ted Sayor, there had been a tacit 
 admission that she possessed something that they did not— 
 but its very mystery constituted its devilishness, for to the 
 human mind the unknown is always peopled with imps. 
 
 In mitigation of the depression resultant from the divergent 
 replies to his question, the rector had eagerly taken up the 
 problem of church union, then rapidly coming to the fore 
 among the aftermath of the war. A united Christianity — ^what- 
 ever the latter might mean — ^became his dream. The Roake 
 plan had promised it, and with St. Jude's as head. But the 
 promises were disappointingly slow of fulfillment ... But to 
 unite Christendom in "one flock under one Shepherd'.'! An 
 ambitious financial "drive", and the "Interchurch World Move^ 
 ment" was assured! 
 
 It took weeks of his time, and exhausted his energy. Then 
 upon his eager ears fell dissentient voices. "Rome declines to 
 consider any other plan except reunion under the Pope, for 
 the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church, and all 
 others are schismatic and anathema." 
 
 But he had expected that. It was really the Protestant 
 churches upon which he had rested his faith. . . 
 
 Came then other dissentient voices : "The Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church, having the Apostolic succession and Holy Orders, 
 cannot play second fiddle to any mere sect." And yet another: 
 "The Pedobaptists cannot agree to it, because they insist on 
 infant baptism." And: "The Baptists cannot, because, hold- 
 ing a position with regard to the initiatory rite of the gospel, 
 acknowledged by the scholarship of the world to be absolutely 
 correct, they cannot compromise it." And the innumerable 
 Protestant divisions rattled forth the tenets of Luther, Calvin, 
 Knox, and the host of religious reformers, and declared them- 
 selves unable to surrender a jot of their "spiritual independ- 
 ence." 
 
 The great "drive" failed, and the movement dashed to pieces 
 on the rocks of human belief, leaving a staggering indebtedness 
 upon the churches of six million doUairs. Yet the significance 
 of the failure lay not in the financial aspect, but rather in the 
 demonstrated fact that the Christian Church had revealed itself 
 not sufficiently Christian to demonstrate the Christ. 
 
 Forced back upon himself, the disillusioned rector had been 
 brought again face to face with Marian's charges. Though 
 he had not the understanding to see things as they really were, 
 yet a conviction of the Church's desperate condition was deep- 
 
 116 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ening hourly. The Church was in the last ditch, and upon it 
 had descended the flood of human dilemma. 
 
 But — at least as regarded St. Jude's — he knew himself to 
 be responsible. In its lurid advertising, its county-fair stunts, 
 and its mountebank shows he had degraded its pulpit! As 
 he watched, shame-smitten, his new assistant's vaudeville offer- 
 ings in the name of the Gospel his soul burned under the ques- 
 tion: "Who would even guess that these performances had 
 anything to do with the Christ-message?" And once, in right- 
 eous anger, he had rushed to the bulletin board at the church 
 entrance and ripped from it the offensive announcement: "You'll 
 all come to church some day^-in a hearse. But why wait till 
 you can't hear our vested choir?" And then he had stood, 
 shaking with fear. For it was Doctor Roake who had sug- 
 gested these "stunts". 
 
 Looking back now, the harried rector believed he could date 
 his suffering from Marian's return to Crestelridge, some six 
 months prior to Alden's enforced enlistment. She had stirred 
 him profoundly then, and ere his disturbed thought could settle 
 he had become involved in circumstances that appeared now, 
 in retrospect, to have been shaped at that same time and by 
 influences opposing hers. The Roake plan had developed then 
 — and thereupon had followed such a procession of evils as he 
 had never thought to witness. These evils had culminated in 
 Alden's condemnation. What further horrors were approach- 
 ing, he dared not guess. 
 
 But he knew that he could not meet them, for his own 
 powers of endurance were now exhausted. He had abandoned 
 his plan to attend the Triennial General Convention of the 
 Church when it fell, months since, for the reason that he feared 
 to express his unsettled state of mind. He dared not face the 
 Roake convention now, lest the anger of an outraged God strike 
 him dead before the hungering people for his hypocrisy. He 
 was an admitted moral coward — but he had long since gone 
 mad with fear. Death, rampant and inexorable, possessed his 
 soul as it possessed the world. "Ah, God," he moaned, "what 
 a fruitless pilgrimage is life ! A haphazard wandering through 
 the mists of error, without purpose, without certainty, and at 
 last without hope!" ,._, 
 
 He had intended, after Marian's departure, and with the 
 promise of a brighter day to dawn upon the launching of the 
 Roake plan, to investigate certain of her ideas as enunciated 
 in her talks with him. Chief of these was that of the nature 
 of matter. But he recalled how Ted Sayor's biting sallies had 
 once driven him to investigate the Higher Criticism, so-called, 
 and how his surreptitious readings had all but convinced him 
 
 117 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that Jesus had not risen from the dead, and that the whole 
 Christian system was but the development of a pious fraud. 
 And so frightened had he become at the drift which his mind 
 was taking that he had hurriedly burned the books and resolved 
 never again to undertake a similar investigation. 
 
 But soon the very fact that he was dodging the issue appar- 
 ently caused his obsession by itj and the nature of matter 
 became to him a haunting specter. He bought text-books and 
 treatises on the physical sciences; he frequented the libraries; 
 he purchased a microscope, and searched and delved. He made 
 frequent trips to New York City to consult with professors and 
 men of learning. He spent days and nights under the obsession 
 — and yet always so as to avoid arousing suspicion, always so 
 as to prevent questioning by the argus-eyed Doctor Roake. 
 
 What, under different circumstances, might have proved a 
 pleasant and profitable occupation, became to the rector an 
 agonized search for the unattainable, amid surroundings of 
 the greatest danger. And always his enslavement to Doctor 
 Roake grew heavier; always the convention loomed larger and 
 more terrifying; always the tragedy enacted in proud St. Jude's 
 ate deeper and deeper into his soul; and steadily the awful day 
 of Alden's execution drew nearer. Steadily too his own hope 
 faded and his faith withered — and always his wife and Ethel 
 became more estranged from him, always his isolation became 
 more dreadfully ' pronounced. They were ashamed of him, 
 these two ! He knew it — had long known it. They would drive 
 him from them, when Roake had finished with him, as they 
 had driven Marian. . . 
 
 He had seen it coming. He knew that, with their errors 
 — especially Ethel's dreadful sin — securely covered, their scant 
 remnant of sympathy had been alienated from him. But his 
 life of utter submission had left him without the moral strength 
 to stand alone. But he could not flee^and he could not remain 
 to witness evil's final triumph. If he refused to attend the 
 Roake convention now, refused to enact his hypocritical role, 
 it meant his destruction, loss of his church, his prestige, his 
 very existence! . . . 
 
 Oh, he was mad! He knew he was mad! Knew he was 
 a moral coward ! . . . But he was not a physical one : he would 
 go ... he would escape the hideous convention ... he would 
 sever his mocking family ties . . . they wished it, he wished 
 it. And he laughed. But St. Jude's should not be further 
 disgraced by his going. And he laughed again, shrilly. Could 
 St. Jude's, already befouled beyond retrieve, be further stained? 
 Then, as the darkness gathered, he looked back over the course 
 along which he had steered his church; he looked at the works 
 
 118 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 that his hand had wrought; he looked at the labor that he had 
 labored — none so zealously! — to do; and in the agony of a pass- 
 ing soul he cried: "Vanity! vanity!" ... 
 
 Night had fallen while he struggle^, but he had not noticed 
 it. Shrouded in spiritual darkness, he had not seen the day die. 
 The ticking of the clock on his desk had attracted him. It had 
 become diabolical. "Ten days, ten. days, ten days!" it repeated 
 over and over. Ten days ere the Roake convention should 
 open! Ten days ere Alden Cragg should grapple with death! 
 Ten days of distilled hell for him! . . . 
 
 He, face that convention? He? Face it as Roake's minion? 
 Face it and stultify his soul? . . . He, live through the day 
 when Alden Cragg would wrestle vainly with death? . . . that 
 horrible combat to which he, with his master, Roake, had sent 
 the lad? . . . 
 
 He rose and paced the floor. He thrust his thin hands 
 through his hair and tore it madly. He sobbed aloud. He 
 wailed in unfathomable agony. His crazed brain seemed to 
 crack. He tottered back to his table and threw himself across 
 it in black despair. . . 
 
 Through the distance came, faintly borne on the frozen air, 
 the whistling of a locomotive. He heard it, and with a cry he 
 sprang to his feet. Horror was upon him. His collar was torn 
 open at the throat. His face was ashen. And clammy sweat 
 stood out over his quivering frame. That whistle was death's 
 summons! I'/iaf was the way! The on/y way! And he rushed 
 from the house and out into the night. 
 
 None marked him, for the night was dark and the snow fell 
 thickly. The seven o'clock express from the city would be 
 due. . . He would meet it, on the outskirts, beyond the hill 
 where stood "Craggmont". . . He would meet it . . . for that 
 was the way! . . . 
 
 It was midnight when he came to himself. And then, faint 
 and chill, he realized that he was standing at the foot of a hill 
 that he recognized. "It is finished," he murmured thickly. And 
 he began the steep ascent. 
 
 Painfully, wearily, he toiled upward. Now he held to a 
 friendly tree to rest; now he stood panting, yearning toward 
 the summit of the road. "It is finished," he repeated. It was the 
 Nazarene's cry of victory on the cross, which the mortal world 
 has falsely interpreted as the wail of defeat. "It is finished — 
 God's work is done!" The Master had triumphed at the very 
 moment when mortals believed him overwhelmed. 
 
 The crest gained, the exhausted rector paused a moment at 
 a gate; then he opened it and stumbled on, up the short walk 
 to the door. "It is finished," he murmured again as he feebly 
 knocked. 
 
 ■119 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The door opened. Madam Galuth gave a startled little cry 
 when she recognized the disheveled man. And she seized his 
 arm and drew him in. 
 
 A form came flying toward him out of the darkness. 
 "Father!" 
 
 The rector's head jerked upward. That voice! — it was from 
 another world. His straining gaze fell upon Marian. He gasped, 
 swayed, and fell in a pathetic heap at her feet. 
 
 CHAPTER 17 
 
 WHAT occurred that wintry night in the home of Madant 
 Galuth remained forever dim in outline to the rector. 
 Nor could he ever recall but the barest details of the 
 tremendous struggle through which, as by a hand invisible, he 
 had been led to Marian Whittier. He had recognized her ere the 
 darkness closed over him. And, believing her dead, the thought 
 had flashed upon him that he himself had passed through death 
 unto life. And he wondered vaguely, even as he fell at her 
 feet, that he had not felt the night express crash over him. 
 
 When the light again drove the clouds back from his racked 
 mentality, he was lying upon a sofa in the Galuth's little parlor, 
 and the girl sat at his side holding his hand. His first impres- 
 sion was of returning from death's open door. It was an 
 impression that never afterward left him, but became insepar- 
 ably associated with another equally strong, namely, that she 
 had called him back. 
 
 For, as he came emerging through the shadows, he thought 
 he heard the girl's voice, insistent, assertive; now he recalled 
 her oft-repeated declaration: "God is your Life!" And a sweet, 
 unfamiliar sense of peace stole over him, for he knew Marian 
 ever spoke truth. 
 
 Then he sat up, at her bidding. And as he did so, he seemed 
 to feel lighter, as if a great burden had fallen away. In pathetic 
 eagerness he would have babbled a thousand questions, born of 
 his mental tumult, his confusion, and the strange denouement of 
 his rending experience. But she checked them. In a few words 
 she explained her presence there; explained the presence of 
 Doctors Benson and Rowley, whose voices he heard from the 
 adjacent room; and then impressed upon him that his own light 
 had come, that the doors had closed behind him, and that he 
 was now under the divine command which they were obeying, 
 to come out and be separate. And then, for Alden's sake, for 
 his own safety and that of the great work which she and these 
 
 120 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 faithful others were advancing, she urged upon him the neces- 
 sity of returning at once to the rectory. He had the strength 
 and the courage, she knew, to return, and to guard the secret 
 of her presence in Crestelridge from those who would seize 
 upon it to wreak the destruction of them all. He was instructed 
 by. her to go to the office of Doctor Rowley on the morrow. 
 There it would be revealed to him what he should do. 
 
 What he should do! Her words stirred his soul's depths. 
 "Marian," he cried in an agony of yearning, "in God's name tell 
 me what I shall do to be saved!" 
 
 And the girl had answered that he must sell that he had and 
 give to the poor — he must rid himself of his material concepts 
 and give pure Christianity to a spiritually starving world — he 
 must lay down his life, his human sense of soul in matter — he 
 must lay down his orthodox sense of a material earth and a 
 gold-paved, pearl-gated heaven of matter — he must abandon his 
 deadly sense of valUe in possessions material, in caste, in place, 
 and worldly power — ^he must turn from the "one lie" of mortal 
 mind to his unknown God — and he must go forward, though the 
 very gates of hell close behind him. . . 
 
 And while she spoke he sank upon his knees before her and 
 vowed brokenly that from that hour he would seek only unto 
 her God. He was blind, blind as Paul, upon whom the Light 
 had burst. But she bade him know that his spiritual sight 
 should be opened. 
 
 Then Doctor Rowley took his arm and led him gently 
 through the snow, the cold, and the darkness of the early morn- 
 ing hour, back to the rectory. 
 
 Fortunately now, the growing estrangement between the 
 rector and his "wife rendered it unnecessary that he should 
 explain to her his absence from the McBean dinner the preced- 
 ing night, as well as his very late return home. Had she ven- 
 tured an honest opinion, she would have said that he had 
 spent the night at the bedside of a suffering parishioner, for 
 the Spanish iniluenza, though abating, still prevailed. But she 
 would not humiliate herself that morning by questioning him. 
 She breakfasted in her boudoir and nursed her vengeance until, 
 toward noon, she received a telephone call from Mrs. McBeari. 
 "The rector has just 'phoned me," the latter blithely announced, 
 "that circumstances which he seemed unable to control pre- 
 vented his taking dinner with us last evening. He was so 
 sweet! I think, Mrs. Whit tier, that our dear rector is over- 
 worked, don't you? His voice shook so when he talked with 
 me. . ." 
 
 Whereupon Mrs. Whittier drew a deep sigh. That episode 
 had been taken care of! She would keep a more vigilant eye 
 
 1?1 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 upon her spouse in future and relieve a none too certain Prpvi- 
 dence. 
 
 . The rector's presence as usual in his customary place in the 
 Roake oifices the following morning prevented suspicion from 
 that quarter. And Doctor Roake was too occupied to note any 
 change in the rector's demeanor. In the course of the morning 
 Doctor Rowley called, as was his wont. And had Doctor Roake 
 not been so very busy he would have invited Rowley to lunch 
 with him. As it was, he turned him over to the rector.' 
 
 But there was no lunch that day for these two. Instead, 
 they covertly made their way to Doctor Rowley's office, where, 
 shortly, Doctor Benson joined them. 
 
 And then it was revealed to the rector by Doctor Rowley 
 that Marian designed to send him into the Roake convention, 
 among the theologians, the churchmen, the doctors assembled 
 there in the majesty of learning and authority, to bid them 
 know God. 
 
 The rector paled as he listened. Surely he had not the 
 strength for such a mission ! But the girl had sent word that it 
 would be told him what he should say. And in preparation for 
 the great task he was to come to Doctor Rowley's office each 
 night thereafter, where would be transmitted to him the teach- 
 ing which every day Marian would prepare for him. Doctor 
 Rowley would impart this, having first received it from her. 
 "And I have come a long way," the doctor said; "though it was 
 Alden Cragg himself who laid the foundation for me in Florida." 
 
 The rector gasped as he listened to the revelation, and his 
 head hung in deep abasement. "Surely the Lord was in this 
 place, and I knew it not!" he groaned. "The infinite Good does 
 indeed encompass mankind,- but we blinded mortals see naught 
 but evil!" At length he bade Doctor Rowley let him go^he 
 could hear no more. "Oh, my God!" he cried, while hot tears 
 of sorrow burned their way down his cheeks, "I see it now! 
 What I have missed — ^what I have thrown away! I see what 
 mesmerism did to me and through me as a channel! But 
 vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, 7 will repay! And He has 
 repaid to the last farthing ! . . ." 
 
 Doctor Rowley turned to Benson after the shaken rector had 
 gone. "Well," he said, "what do you think now?" 
 
 "Think!" cried Benson. "I guess I don't think! My think- 
 ing is done for me by that girl !" 
 
 "Will Alden Cragg go to the chair?" 
 
 "Yes; and he'll die there, too!" 
 
 "Then your thinking is not done for you by that girl." 
 
 "But what in heaven's name has all this got to do with 
 Cragg?" Benson demanded. "The rector can't save, him ! And 
 
 122 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ■we haven't found Fay Meuse! And we're not certain that she 
 shot Harris anyway!" 
 
 "But, on the theory that a murderer frequently returns to 
 the scene of the crime, her return to Crestelridge would 
 strengthen the probability. . ." 
 
 "What then? Have we any case?" 
 
 "I can't say that we have. But Marian seems to have a 
 plan." 
 
 Doctor Benson shook his head. "There are nine days left 
 before Cragg goes to the chair. What can she do in that time?" 
 
 "I cannot say. But what has she done so far, and in less 
 time? A great deal, you must admit." 
 
 "Why, a lot has happened. . ," 
 
 "Happened? My friend, nothing ever happens! Why did 
 the rector, supposedly Roake's chief of staff, come to Madam 
 Galuth's last night? What changed him so completely? I am 
 overwhelmed when I think of it, for on any human theory it 
 is utterly unaccountable. Why is it that Marian can look out 
 upon the deplorable condition of the world to-day and declare 
 that it is a condition for rejoicing? It is because she knows 
 that God is infinite Good, and that therefore the seeming evil 
 condition of the world is but an utterly false concept. She 
 knows that Principle governs in the world's affairs, even where 
 all hell appears to mortal sight to be let loose. And upon that 
 knowledge she correctly estimates the forces of evil at zero, 
 with the victory for the right inevitable. Evil, to her, is an 
 essentially conquerable thing, because she knows it to be but a 
 mental negation of infinite Good. You think her mad to declare 
 in the face of a world in ruins that all is well; but I say to you 
 that in so doing- she is expressing her infinite good sense — 
 which is her sense of infinite goodness." 
 
 "Humph! We shall see." 
 
 "We shall see — rthose of us who have eyes. And now I must 
 give you a message from her that I had almost omitted. You 
 are to enlist the cooperation of Doctors Lann and Sale at once. 
 She has evidently been working on what she has heard you say 
 about them." 
 
 "Enlist . . . Lann and Sale! Why, they're members of 
 Roake's organization! Impossible!" 
 
 "Well, I am but repeating her instructions. And, if I were 
 you, I would obey her." 
 
 And Doctor Benson, strenuously working against himself by 
 the insistent declaration that the thing was impossible, went 
 that afternoon to interview Doctors Lann and Sale. 
 
 And that same afternoon, following further instructions, he 
 and Doctor Rowley began a systematic search of morgue rec- 
 ords, in their endeavor to learn Ted Sayor's fate. 
 
 123 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And, finally, that evening the rector worked late in the 
 Roake ofiRces, worked feverishly, with eyes aglow, then tele- 
 phoned the advice to the rectory that he would be in consulta- 
 tion with Doctor Rowley before returning home. Some hours 
 later, together with Rowley, he encircled brilliantly lighted 
 "Craggmont" and entered the Galuth home unseen. Before the 
 fireplace they found Marian, talking earnestly to Madam Galuth, 
 Doctor Benson, Boots, and — the rector halted with an exclama- 
 tion on his lips — Fay Meuse! 
 
 CHAPTER 18 
 
 MIRACLES, in the popular sense of an abrogation of natural 
 law, do not occur. A law that can be broken was never 
 law. And natural law has been repeatedly demonstrated 
 to be only "an average of chances". 
 
 It was but logical for Marian to conclude, from Doctor Ben- 
 son's recital of his experience with the woman, from the testi- 
 mony given at Alden's trial by her friends, and from the reports 
 of Boots, whom the girl had instructed to "shadow" the Dodd 
 apartment building, that Fay Meuse would return to Crestel- 
 ridge. The woman and her friends had been associated with 
 motion pictures, Marian learned, and she forthwith sent Boots to 
 scrape acquaintance with these friends, if possible. This the 
 fellow did, most cleverly, by securing employment in the studio 
 to which he watched them drive. The world would say here that 
 chance favored him. Be that as it may, he offered himself at 
 a moment when an elaborate scene of English life was about 
 to be depicted and a real English lackey was in demand to 
 replace the very incompetent American who had bungled the 
 part. Boots lacked even a trace of histrionic art. But he could 
 be natural under all circumstances, and this he demonstrated 
 to the satisfaction -of the exacting director. 
 
 With such an introduction, it was simplicity itself for the 
 droll fellow, recently returned from vivid experiences in France, 
 to ingratiate himself with the actress friends of Fay Meuse, and 
 adroitly learn that she was again in the city, although no longer 
 "doing pictures". To report her to the Health Executive — 
 Doctor Benson securing the assistance of Doctor Lann in this — 
 was the next step, accompanying the report with a reminder 
 of her illegal avoidance of medical inspection under the Wess 
 law during unfortunate Harris Chaddock's administration. 
 Then, when Doctor Lann advised Benson that another raid was 
 about to be made on Fay Meuse's apartment, it was Boots who, 
 
 124 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 in the role of a real hero, flew to her friends and, with their aid, 
 rescued the endangered woman. 
 
 Again it was Boots who solved the question of asylum for 
 the persecuted creature by suggesting Doctor Benson, who had 
 warned him of the proposed raid. And she seized the sugges- 
 tion avidly, for the good doctor had befriended her before — 
 had perhaps saved her life — and she knew him to be unalterably 
 opposed to medical tyranny of the Roake sort. . . 
 
 Doctor Benson received her with paternal kindness and at 
 once offered her refuge in the only place where he was certain 
 she would remain unmolested, the home of the shunned and 
 despised Galuth. 
 
 She started and half rose from her chair at the unantici- 
 pated suggestion. He appeared not to notice her conduct, but 
 proceeded to explain that she could be of real service — and 
 with adequate pay — to him and others in the great work of 
 opposing this very medical aggression under which she had so 
 suffered. He knew, did the wise old doctor — though he closely 
 concealed the knowledge — that she could not safely refuse his 
 offer. And as he sat awaiting her decision, he knew that she 
 knew it too. 
 
 She entered the Galuth home that day nerve-wracked and 
 trembling, hlenching at every sound. She had lost weight, the 
 doctor observed; she had aged, and there was a hunted look in 
 her- face. But as she stood in the hallway, gasping at first, 
 then boldly defiant. Madam Galuth came to her and took her 
 at once to her bosom. "We need you, dear," the motherly, 
 white-haired woman said. "And you are seeking shelter from 
 the storm. Let this house be your home." 
 
 Fay Meuse burst into tears and dropped upon the sofa. As 
 she did so, Marian came to her and took the sobbing creature 
 in her arms. 
 
 Then, as she grew calm, under the girl's comforting words, 
 Marian briefly outlined to her the work that she could do. The 
 woman became interested, even eager. She concurred in the 
 requirements. She accepted the terms. And she offered sug- 
 gestions on her part: she would assist with the housework. 
 She could operate the typewriter, not expertly, but passably 
 well. Marian seized upon the idea. Together they would, first, 
 transcribe her notes on Anglo-Israel — "It will give us practice," 
 she said — and then would follow the real work. 
 
 The deep secrecy surrounding the activity in the Galuth 
 home appeared to appeal strongly to the woman. Gradually 
 she yielded her confidence to Marian. And when the latter at 
 length said: "This is such a little house. I want you to room 
 with me," the woman shed tears of gratitude as she eagerly 
 acquiesced. 
 
 125 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 To Doctor Bensoti, the conduct of Fay Meuse became now 
 an absorbing study of a human soul on trial. "If she endures," 
 he declared to Doctor Rowley, "she is innocent. But Alden's 
 execution is only a week off. Time is the vital factor now." 
 
 "But what has she to endure," Rowley asked, "but the deep- 
 est, most wonderful love that ever surrounded a fallen mortal?" 
 
 "That's just it!" exclaimed Benson. "Can she stand it? 
 By heaven! if Marian loved me that way I . . , I . . . I'd . , ." 
 
 "But so she loves Alden Cragg. So, I believe, she loves us. 
 But, Benson, it is a new sort of love, a kind that the world does 
 not know. And, if I am not mistaken, it is the most powerful 
 thing in the universe/" 
 
 "But she's losing time, Rowley, she's losing time!" cried 
 Benson; falling back upon his ever-present doubts. "Why, she 
 hasn't done a thing about Roake's convention as yet! And she 
 refuses to let us do the one thing that might free Cragg, and 
 that is to confront Fay Meuse with the pistol that killed Harris 
 Chaddock!" 
 
 Doctor Rowley smiled tolerantly. "You are very like cer- 
 tain of my patients," he said, "who believe that unless the doc- 
 tor is pouring something down their throats he is not doing 
 anything for them. Why, Benson, it is the very simplicity of 
 her work that confuses you. And that, like the silnplicity of 
 her character, comes from her profound thought. She came 
 here without visible weapons of any sort to confront circum- 
 stances that no other human being would dare meet. Do you 
 think it is easy for her to keep away from Alden Cragg? Then 
 you are less wise than I thought, you. Don't you think that, 
 humanly, she longs to give him the comfort that a knowledge of 
 her presence here and her work for him would give? Remem- 
 ber, she is still human — or she would not be visible to our 
 materialistic vision. And, believe me, she has an incessant 
 struggle to meet the suggestions of human belief ! Do you think 
 you and I are fighting? God above! that girl's hourly battle 
 puts our puny efforts to everlasting shame!" 
 
 "Go on!" cried Benson. "Go on! I want you to talk that 
 way to me ! Call me a blithering fool, a blundering blockhead ! 
 I'll work better for it! I've done nothing but get in her way! 
 I'm in her way now ! But, by heaven ! . . ." 
 
 "You don't understand her, because her work is impersonal; 
 you don't feel that you are accomplishing anything unless you 
 are handling persons. Can't you see that she is not fighting 
 Roake? She is meeting, not human personalities, but conditions 
 of thought. She is reversing, reversing, constantly reversing 
 the false claims of mortal mind. The rector comes to her 
 praying for death. She shows him that he is not tired of life, 
 
 126 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 but of his false consciousness that he has so mistakenly called 
 life. And then she shows him how to get rid of that unsatis- 
 fying consciousness and acquire a better one. He thought he 
 could get rid of it by suicide. He knows better now. We go to 
 her with our laments regarding the present discordant, inhar- 
 monious state of society, and she shows us that it is not society 
 that needs renovating, but our own concepts. We see our 
 thoughts, Benson. Stick to that! Then change your thinking, 
 and society and the world will change to correspond. The world 
 thought war until it nearly killed itself; the world-conscious- 
 ness became one of chaos, revealing with mathematical pre- 
 cision just what the world had been thinking about. Can't you 
 see it? And then can't you glimpse what she means by insisting 
 that the bedraggled, bruised old world is now facing a most 
 glorious opportunity? I can't tell you just how the rector was 
 brought to her. I don't know just how Boots was led to us, 
 nor why Fay Meuse is with the girl now. But this I do know: 
 it is God's way. And His ways are deep, mysterious, but 
 perfect." 
 
 "But Boake will strike. . ." 
 
 "Evil will ■strike through Roake. . • Not knowing that 
 Marian is here, he will probably strike at Madam Galuth. I pre- 
 sume she will be imprisoned again. But she has wisely provided 
 for that by installing Marian as leader in this work." 
 
 "Then Roake will strike at her!" 
 
 "Oh, doubtless. And if I would permit myself to become 
 apprehensive it would be for that reason. But, Benson, I am 
 learning that Principle governs. And I am trusting to that 
 government." 
 
 The days went swiftly by, and Doctor Benson strove heroic- 
 ally to hold himself. "Six days to Cragg's execution!" he 
 counted grimly. Then he checked himself and tried to divert 
 his thought. 
 
 The results of his preliminary talks with Doctors Lann and 
 Sale had been doubtful, except that Doctor Lann had, for old 
 friendship's sake, and to lend his aid toward clearing Alden, 
 joined in the conspiracy to bring Fay Meuse under the influ- 
 ence of Marian Whittier. "I'll do all I can, Benson," he had 
 said. "And I will guard your secret. But when you ask me to 
 join you in openly opposing Doctor Roake you are asking the 
 impossible. Of course, if you can bring me proofs of your 
 charges against him . . . But as it is, Benson, I'd only be 
 committing suicide." 
 
 Proofs! The witnesses were indeed a cloud! . . . But, 
 alas ! they were mute. 
 
 "Five days!" Benson set his teeth as he went about his 
 
 44 127 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 work. He knew that Rowley was having a mightier struggle 
 than his words or conduct would indicate. He knew that the 
 rector was literally kept alive by Marian. And Marian . . . 
 "How in God's name can she stand it?" was his constant query. 
 
 Nightly the rector stole to the office of Doctor Rowley — 
 and often from there to Madam Galuth's. He appeared to live 
 now in a mental daze. The hours when he was away from 
 Marian seemed interminable and void. 
 
 And always there hung over him, and over them all, the 
 fearful menace of discovery. Mrs. Whittier had increased her 
 vigilance; but the rector, to inhibit suspicion, sought now occa- 
 sion to attend social functions with her. He forced himself to 
 spend more time at "Craggmont" — though the hours there were 
 exquisite torture. He tried to show himself more sedulous in 
 his work in the Roake offices. It was deception, he knew. But 
 it was the lesser of two evils. He was as yet unprepared to 
 take the stand that he knew he must take all t,oo soon. And 
 even if he were ready, the hour was not yet come. 
 
 His interest in Fay Meuse was almost morbid. The love that 
 Marian showered upon her was to him a marvel. ■ Doctor Ben- 
 son had declared to him that he believed the woman to be a 
 traitoress, that she would eventually expose them all to Doctor 
 Roake. And as the rector studied her he was inclined to the 
 same belief. She had at first manifested a variety of emotions, 
 at times almost hysterical, again ominously calm. Of late she 
 had become quiet, meditative. And the coarseness which she 
 had at first manifested at frequent intervals had now disap- 
 peared quite. Marian had apparently given the woman her 
 complete confidence; had insisted on her presence at their dis- 
 cussions of methods of opposition to the Roake convention; and 
 had made her talks on matters religious to Doctor Rowley and 
 the rector with Fay Meuse always at hand — ostensibly to take 
 notes to be subsequently transcribed on the typewriter, but 
 really, the rector knew, for a far different end. 
 
 "Four dags more!" counted Doctor Benson. And he closed 
 and locked his office door that he might storm unmolested and 
 unheard. 
 
 Delegates to the convention were now arriving. The news- 
 papers were devoting increasingly more space to every detail 
 of the interesting and important event. The rector scarce closed 
 his eyes at night. He had not visited Alden again : Marian could 
 not trust him now to do so. But she had sent Madam Galuth 
 to the jail often. And Madam Galuth reported that Doctor 
 Roake had not ceased his visits to Alden, nor his importunities 
 to the end of causing the youth to reveal his vital experience in 
 Palestine which, the doctor knew, in some manner involved 
 
 128 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Marian and might lead to a revelation of her present where- 
 abouts. To the last, the doctor held out the certainty of free- 
 dom if Alden would but accept his counsel; to the last Alden 
 returned him an uncompromising negative. 
 
 And the baleful rumor of Alden's readiness to meet death 
 as a test of his religious convictions now overshadowed all else. 
 Members of the Roake organization came to attend the con- 
 vention with that on their -lips. The clamor for tickets of 
 admission to the execution was portentous in its grewsome sig- 
 nificance. Doctor Roake made the announcement that he would 
 himself attend the execution and lecture on the scientific 
 aspects of the case to the assembled convention. Thereupon 
 the press overflowed with sensational speculations. Gamblers 
 seized the occasion to place bets on the outcome. Society gasped 
 in mingled horror and morbid anticipation. . . 
 
 Doctor Rowley carefully watched the effect of all this upon 
 Fay Meuse. But, beyond, the fact that she appeared to have 
 yielded herself to Marian's great love, he saw nothing to indi- 
 cate her complicity in the assassination of Harris Chaddock. 
 "But she is tremendously interested in what Marian says," he 
 voiced to Doctor Benson. "She hangs on the girl's every word. 
 She appears to have found something that she has been search- 
 ing for all her life: a satisfying religious conviction. Perhaps 
 it will end there. If so, Marian will have at least done a good 
 work." 
 
 "It will end there," Benson gloomily replied. "And what 
 has been done toward meeting Roake's convention?" He 
 sprang up and began to pace the floor. "It's a one-man affair, 
 this damnable convention ! That man is Roake ! If we could 
 get him out of the way the convention would collapse! Row- 
 ley, I'll kill him! I'll sacrifice myself and go to the electric 
 chair; I'll ruin this convention by shooting him!" 
 
 "And thereby render him a martyr-hero?" said Rowley. 
 "Get hold of yourself, Benson! It's up to us to- play the man! 
 Think of that girl!" 
 
 The day closed amid the seething ebullition of mortal mind. 
 Doctor Benson returned to his office from Madam Galuth's at 
 three in the morning and sat in his chair until dawn. At eight 
 Doctor Rowley entered. Benson met him with a feral snarl. 
 "Any developments?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Benson's voice rose shrilly. "Three days more! And then, 
 between sunrise and the hour , . ." 
 
 "Benson!" 
 
 "Rowley, if God lets Alden Cragg go to his death 1 11 tramp 
 this earth preaching against Him, by heaven, I will!" 
 
 "Benson! Hold yourself!" 
 
 129 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 That night, after a harrying day, they crept again to Madam 
 Galuth's. The rector' admitted them. And consternation — ^nay, 
 despair — was stamped on his features. "Madam Galuth and 
 Marian are upstairs," he said haltingly. "Before they come 
 down we have a ... a very important matter ... to discuss. 
 That woman , , , Fay Meuse . . . has gone!" 
 
 CHAPTER 19 
 
 DOCTOR BENSON was the first to recover speech. "She has 
 gone to Roake!" he gasped. "It's all over now!" 
 "But she would fall into the clutches of the Health 
 Executive!" the rector cried, grasping at the faint ray of hope, 
 
 "Bah!" Benson combated. "For what she can now give 
 Roake he will absolve her and make her rich! She's fixed 
 . . . and so are we!" 
 
 "I fear you are right," admitted the rector in a fallen voice. 
 "It is apparent that she was in Doctor Roake's employ all the 
 time. We have stumbled into our own trap. Madam Galuth 
 tells me that Doctor Roake has proposed a plan to Alden 
 whereby he may escape death. . ." 
 
 "Would to heaven he had accepted it!" groaned Benson. 
 "Now it's too late!" 
 
 "Perhaps not! Perhaps not! Let us go to him at once!" 
 
 But Doctor Rowley raised a detaining hand. "I think you 
 are mistaken," he said slowly. "To me, the woman's flight is 
 an admission of her guilt. I believe she was glad at first of 
 the refuge here. But the truth which she constantly heard in 
 Marian's talks to us stirred her to her soul's depths. The atmos- 
 phere of love that surrounds this place was stifling the error 
 that has been her daemon. It rose in fury and drove her forth, 
 for she was not able to resist it." 
 
 "A pretty theory. . . God grant that it may be more!" said 
 Benson ruefully. "But it leaves Cragg doomed!" 
 
 "Let us go at once to the governor!" urged the rector., "If 
 we lay all the facts before him . . ." 
 
 "Such facts as we could place before him would appear to 
 him ridiculous!" Benson objected. "No, it is better to admit 
 our defeat and take our medicine. Roake has us foul! To 
 fight him now ..." 
 
 Marian came into the room while the doctor was speaking. 
 He turned upon her, stared at her expectantly for a moment, 
 then blurted: "Well, what are we going to do now?" 
 
 "We are going to work," she tjuietly returned. 
 
 "But Roake . . ." 
 
 130 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 " 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against prin- 
 cipalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness 
 of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places'," she 
 answered him. 
 
 It was while Marian had been talking to the rector that 
 night, armoring him for the lists, that Fay Meuse had abruptly 
 risen and gone upstairs to the room which she and Marian 
 occupied. A few minutes later they heard her descend. Then 
 the rear door opened and closed sharply. Marian sprang up 
 and hurried to the door. But the woman had been swallowed 
 by the night. 
 
 Against the counsel of despair urged by Doctor Benson, and 
 against the fear-born, paralyzing suggestions of the rector, 
 Marian now stood firm. The false god of reaction, of relapse, 
 had mesmerized these with the human law of the "pendulum 
 swing". Yet it was because they held so firmly to the mortal 
 belief that there is evil to slip back into — a belief which must 
 prevail where there has been a presupposition of reality in evil 
 conditions. But a mirage is no more real when viewed men- 
 tally than physically, though few there be who know it. And, 
 like the desert guide, it was Marian's task to see through the 
 mirage of evil. 
 
 "Only three days more!" muttered Doctor Benson, as he 
 groped his way through the black night toward his office. 
 
 And with the dawn he sprang from his chair crying : "Two ! 
 Two!" 
 
 Well for Alden, perhaps, that of the battle being waged by 
 Marian he knew nothing. Of her presence there, of Fay Meuse's 
 return to Crestelridge, of all that, had occurred to the rector, 
 and of events in the home of Madam Galuth he was in com- 
 plete ignorance. His thought had been left undisturbed by 
 these. And as the hour .crept stealthily nearer when he must 
 meet, not his God, as the judge who sentenced him had said, 
 but the false god of this world, he felt himself more and ever 
 more completely armored. He had entertained no thought of 
 meeting death as a reality and spectacularly wrestling with it 
 to draw its fangs. That figment, he knew, was newspaper sen- 
 sationalism, provoked by the rumor which he could trace 
 directly to Doctor Roake. He would meet the world's tenacious 
 belief in the reality and terrors of death With the spiritual 
 preparation vouchsafed him. But the issue lay with his God. 
 
 And it had been a long preparation, and a thorough one, that 
 these months of confinement had afforded him : in them he had 
 worked out much. On the basis of his transmuting experience 
 in Antonia's Tower, supplemented by Marian's teaching, and 
 bulwarked by his further demonstrations under Madam Galuth's 
 
 131 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 wise guidance since his return to Crestelridge, he had become 
 still further transformed until he knew that not only had he 
 regained the deep spirituality with which he had emerged from 
 the vestibule of death in Palestine, but had acquired yet more. 
 Vain now was the taunt of error: "Where is thy God?" And to 
 the demand: "Adam, where art thou?" he had the spiritual 
 answer: "He is not." ■ 
 
 In those long, quiet hours his thought turned often to 
 Marian, and often human speculations in regard to her would 
 clamor for entertainment. But Madam Galuth, though fre- 
 quently referring to some utterance which the girl had voiced, 
 some demonstration over error made, gave no hint of her where- 
 abouts ; and Alden held to his belief that . she must still be 
 uncovering the footsteps of literal Israel, even as he was tracing 
 spiritual Israel's journey from sense to soul. And he crashed 
 back the human emotions that surged up against him and faced 
 steadily the light. . . 
 
 And he was glad. For Doctor Roake had come again to him 
 with the serpent's suggestion. And now the mask was dropped. 
 "It amounts to this," the doctor had said: "it is vital that I 
 should learn where Marian Whittier is. Indeed, it is vital to us 
 both. If you will give me that information, or procure it for 
 me, I can save you from the chair in the manner already out- 
 lined. And I will go further, and secure your release from the 
 asylum within a reasonable time. I will also restore 'Cragg- 
 mont' to you, and will help you to recover your- lost wealth." 
 
 Alden lifted his head above the lethal gas. "I can do nothing 
 for you," he said. 
 
 "But, Alden, why do you deliberately choose death? For, 
 whatever your theories regarding death may be, I know that 
 day after to-morrow you will die ! Is it that you really did kill 
 Harris, and now accept this punishnjent in atonement? Tell 
 me. 
 
 "I am not responsible for Harris Chaddock's death," Alden 
 replied. 
 
 "Then who is?" 
 
 Alden looked the man steadily in the eyes as he answered: 
 
 "You." 
 
 ******** 
 
 "One!" Doctor Benson shot the word savagely at Doctor 
 Rowley, as they sat in the latter's office. "This is Alden Cragg's 
 last day on earth ! To-morrow, at sunrise ..." 
 
 The rector entered. His face was haggard, and his limbs 
 shook. "I am on my way to Doctor Roake's offices," he said 
 brokenly. "I am too ill to work . . . but Marian insists that 
 I go as usual to . . . my desk. I stopped in to learn if . . . 
 if . . ." 
 
 132 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "We have heard nothing," said Doctor Rowley. "Boots is 
 scouring the city again. He will report to-night, at latest." 
 
 "I . ... you ... we will go to Madam Galuth's to-night 
 ... as usual?" 
 
 "Marian has not advised us to the contrary, has she?" 
 
 "N-no. But I do not know that I can . . . can endure . . ." 
 
 "Marian will stand. And she expects the same of us." 
 
 It was the longest day of the year — and it was the shortest. 
 Time's measure was eternity — and it was zero. Doctor Rowley 
 found his employment in watching closely Doctor Benson, lest 
 the latter precipitate the doom that hung over them all. "We 
 gave our word to Marian," he grimly reminded Benson over and 
 over throughout the day. "We promised that we would follow 
 her and obey." 
 
 "I'm going to Roake ! I'm . . ." 
 
 "You are not!" 
 
 "I'm going to the governor!" 
 
 "Not without her permission!" 
 
 "But — my God! we've abandoned Cragg! What's the girl 
 thinking of?" 
 
 "Of her God!" 
 
 Throughout the day the girl and the white-haired woman 
 stood facing the Red Sea. And the black waves hissed angrily 
 at them, nor parted. "Do you wish to go to him, dearie?" the 
 woman asked. And Marian answered: "I am with him; I have 
 never left his side." 
 
 But she sent Madam Galuth again to his cell. And when 
 the woman returned she asked: "Is he standing?" And when 
 the answer was given : "He stands," the girl cried aloud : "Thank 
 God! Thank God!" 
 
 It was the fullness of gratitude. And gratitude is the meas- 
 ure of one's consciousness of God. It was not gratitude for 
 sense-impressions, themselves false indicators of a false good, 
 but rather an expression of understanding that in the real realm 
 of Mind all is well. It was the acknowledgment that her 
 name and Alden's were "written in heaven''. 
 
 In the afternoon Marian brought her Bible to Madam Galuth 
 and read aloud the story of the stilling of the storm. "We are 
 glad that we have faith, are we not?" she said. "Glad that we 
 can say: 'Peace, be still'. And, oh, so glad that we know that 
 the Master did not still the storm. For he knew that there was 
 no storm. . ." 
 
 The evening shadows began to gather. Marian went to her 
 room to be alone with her God. The same arms upon which she 
 rested she knew were beneath Alden. To the world, they were 
 both driven into the wilderness of Judah. Yet was it good for 
 
 133 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them to be there; for the wilderness, though the symbol of 
 darkness and desolation, yet is the indispensable "vestibule" 
 wherein material sense fades, and the sense spiritual discerns 
 the things of God. 
 
 She was glad that she had stood, that she was still stand- 
 ing; glad that she had not again tried to snatch Alden's prob- 
 lem away from God, but had stood aside, watching with Him, 
 waiting with Him, knowing with Him. Thus, in larger measure, 
 had the Master done, who had taken his stand for Principle, 
 and who knew that all that could even seem to try to reverse 
 the supremacy of God was the false claim of the communal 
 mortal mind calling itself evil. And this was but mesmeric 
 suggestion, coming as thought, and claiming a power omnipo- 
 tent. The Master met it boldly, denied its blatant claims, and 
 destroyed it with the two-edged assertions of Truth. Like him, 
 Marian and Alden had in this crisis rendered their service to 
 God alone. 
 
 Night fell. Crestelridge gleamed with light and buzzed with 
 its human activities. "Craggmont" was ablaze. Doctor Roake 
 was receiving the delegates to the health convention. In a 
 luxuriously tapestried easy chair reclined Ethel, his invalided 
 wife, wan, nervous, yet exquisitely gowned in the costliest of 
 fabrics and agleam with jewels. Mrs. Whittier, her nerves 
 taut to the breaking point, was assisting. The rector was 
 expected soon — he had given his wife his word that he would 
 come, though she might not know what it cost him. 
 
 The long rows of mansions of the Crestelridge rich were 
 likewise brilliantly illuminated, for all held guests of the great 
 convention. And everywhere might be heard the hushed dis- 
 cussion of the awful event set for the morrow. It had been 
 decided that Alden should be removed to the state prison for 
 the execution of his sentence, yet through some delay he was 
 not to be taken away until midnight. 
 
 Darkness lay upon the little house of the Galuth opposite 
 gleaming "Craggmont". Doctor Roake had glanced out in that 
 direction once or twice during the evening, wonderingly. He 
 could not have said why he had done so. Yet he was uneasy, 
 abstracted, and increasingly nervous. He wished the morrow 
 were over. He wished it were not necessary to discuss the 
 thing with these people. And when Mrs. McBean came gushing 
 to him with a noisy description of the huge orchid bouquet 
 which she had sent that day to Alden's cell — for all the society 
 women were doing it, and therefore it was au fait — he could 
 have struck her. 
 
 On his way to "Craggmont" the rector skirted the hill and 
 crept into the GalUth house. He found Rowley and Benson 
 
 134 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 there. Madam Galuth was with them, but Marian was in her 
 room above. 
 
 "Boots has just been here," Doctor Rowley informed the 
 rector in a low tone. "He has not found her. Nor do her 
 friends seem to know where she is. But Boots will continue to 
 search till the last moment. I have sent him to my office for 
 a while to receive any telephone calls. I dare not trust my 
 girl. Roake might call me, you know." 
 
 "But are you not expected at 'Craggmont' ?" 
 
 "Yes. But r am delaying going as long as possible." 
 
 "But . . . Marian?" 
 
 "Hush!" It was Doctor Benson who spoke. "She is com- 
 ing." 
 
 Marian's step was heard on the stairs: She came through 
 the darkness and sat down in their midst. No one spoke, and 
 the silence lay heavy upon them until the girl herself at last 
 broke it. 
 
 "I want you to know," she said gently, and in a voice that 
 seemed no longer human, "what it means to follow the Master's 
 command: 'Abide in me'. For it is not a command; it is a 
 divine privilege. 
 
 "It is to reach through the darkness of human belief and 
 grasp Him who is closer to us than breathing, nearer than hand 
 and foot. It is to know that the experiences before which men 
 cower and fear are but occasions for deepest rejoicing and 
 greater love. It is to stand, unwavering, undoubting, knowing 
 ourselves as our great Father-Mother knows us in his con- 
 sciousness of infinite good. It is to know that we are Love's 
 children, encompassed in His ever-presence 'as the mountains 
 are round about Jerusalem', 
 
 "It is to know that human circumstances are unreal mental 
 situations in a false consciousness — that they have no power 
 to harm — that they can be changed by acquiring 'that Mind' 
 through right thinking, as the Master taught and proved by his 
 deeds. It is to hold no anxious thought for the morrow. . ." 
 
 A sob broke from the rector. He stifled it. The girl paused, 
 but again went on. 
 
 "It is to have no dark foreboding as to our loved ones; it 
 IS to fear no danger for them ; it is to cast out from our thought 
 the aggressive suggestions of fear by reflection of the infinite 
 Love that 'giveth us the oil of joy for mourning; the garment 
 of praise for the spirit of heaviness'. It is to know that in the 
 realm of Love wherein we forever dwell there is no loss, no 
 separation, no loneliness. It is to know that in the fullness of 
 Life there is no death. 
 
 "The arrow that flieth by day has been loosed; the terror 
 
 135 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 by night has stalked through the land of mortal mind; the 
 grave has yawned beneath our feet. Yet to abide in Him is to 
 know that these things are but shadow-shapes of mortal 
 thought. ' To abide in Him is to see them fade from sight. 
 
 "It is His pleasure to give us the Kingdom. But His work 
 is done. Then the Kingdom has long since been ours. We 
 possess it consciously when we abide in Him. On his cross 
 the Master cried : 'It is finished.' The carnal world heard not in 
 that great cry the glorious tidings that Man was immortal and 
 death destroyed. For the carnal world sees and hears but the 
 reverse of Truth. But we know, for we abide in Him. And 
 now, on our cross, with the vials of human wrath poured out 
 upon us, with the shadows closing in, here in the gloom of mor- 
 tal suggestions of failure and defeat we can say in triumph to 
 every aggressive and malicious claim of evil: 'It is finished.' 
 God's work is done. And in the doing, evil was not included. 
 
 "Oh, death, where is thy sting? It was sin brought death. 
 And sin is erroneous belief, not based on Principle, Yet we 
 hold not these false beliefs. And death flees us. Death is the 
 final deduction from the premise of life in matter. And matter 
 is but mortality expressed. 
 
 "To abide in Him is to work — not to rest in mesmeric sloth 
 in the fatal ease in matter, not to wait for Him to work for us. 
 God's work is done. We, as His true reflection, must reflect 
 His work in the constant activity of good. That activity is 
 mental. It is of the thought. 
 
 "To abide in Him is to stand, facing evil's shafts with the 
 shield of Truth. It is to know that these shafts are things of 
 thought. And of thought that is but shadow and without sub- 
 stance. It is to stand with the courage of Daniel. The courage 
 of the lions was animal fear: his was the true courage of the 
 Lion of the tribe of Judah. He had no battle with the lions. 
 He had conquered them even before he faced them. His battle 
 had been with himself. The false sense of self conquered, no 
 beast could do him harm. 
 
 "To abide in Him is self-conquest. To the human self 
 Alden awaits death. Yet I know that, like Daniel, he met death 
 ere the prison closed upon him. When to human sense he 
 enters the death-chamber to-morrow he can say in the Master's 
 confidence: 'It is finished.' And we must echo his cry of victory. 
 
 "Oh, thank God we have won ! For the victory is always His. 
 Thank God for the arms of Love that encircle us! For the 
 divine consideration that broods over us and over Alden this 
 night! Thank God that before the tomb of Lazarus we know 
 that Man is deathless ! Thank God that it is still light, though 
 error has emptied its last vial of night ! Thank God that 'it is 
 finished', and that to error's end we abide in Him!" 
 
 136 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The sobs of the rector echoed through the little dwelling as 
 he sat in the shadows with his head buried in his hands and 
 his body shaking. Doctor Benson had risen and gone to the 
 window, where he stood staring out across the swale at glit- 
 tering "Craggmont", with the tears dropping freely from his 
 cheeks. Doctor Rowley remained motionless and with bowed 
 head. Madam Galuth rose and went to Marian and threw an 
 arm about her. The girl turned and moved through the dark- 
 ness to the stairs. Then the rector's sobs died away, and silence 
 again fell like a heavy pall. . . 
 
 Of a sudden the clatter of the telephone bell shattered the 
 dreadful stillness, as it were the shivering of a window pane. 
 Doctor Rowley gave a cry and sprang to the instrument. Ben- 
 son wheeled and grasped a chair. The rector rose unsteadily. 
 And the two women stood, as if rooted to the stairs. 
 
 "Madam Galuth's. Yes. Oh, Boots! Doctor Benson? Yes 
 . . . yes ! The woman ! . . . Fay Meuse ! . . . calling for Doc- 
 tor Benson? ..." 
 
 Doctor Benson was at Rowley's side in a leap and had torn 
 the receiver from the other's hand. "Boots! ... In God's 
 name, what is it? . . . You said you would send me? God 
 bless you, lad! I'm coming! I'm coming! . . ," 
 
 He dropped the receiver and sprang for his wraps. "Come, 
 Rowley!" he called, as he started for the door. 
 
 "But . . . what is it?" cried the bewildered rector, swaying 
 through the darkness with outstretched arms. 
 
 "I don't know! I don't know!" Benson almost shouted, as 
 he rushed from the house. "Come, Rowley ! Run!" 
 
 The weight of seventy years lay upon' the bent shoulders of 
 Doctor Benson, but they fell from him fast as he tore down the 
 hill, followed by the younger and more athletic Doctor Rowley. 
 A block away they caught a street car. Ten minutes later they 
 were in a cab and speeding to the address which Boots had 
 given them. . . 
 
 It was an apartment building, on the outskirts of Greater 
 New York. They were admitted by a tear-stained woman who 
 led them at once to the little chamber where Fay Meuse, 
 stricken by the Spanish influenza, lay dying. 
 
 She smiled up at them and tried to extend a hand, but found 
 the slight exertion too great. The doctors bent low to catch her 
 words. 
 
 "It isn't . . . too late . . r is it?" she whispered. "I was 
 sick . . . when I ran . , . away. . . But I was afraid she 
 . . . Marian . . . would cure me . . . and I didn't want to 
 . . . live." 
 
 She fell back, exhausted by the effort. Doctor Benson drew 
 
 137 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Rowley aside and hurriedly whispered instructions to notify the 
 police, for the woman, he knew, was going to make a confes- 
 sion, and they must have witnesses. Rowley went to the 'phone, 
 and Benson administered stimulants to the woman and bade her 
 rest for a while. 
 
 A few minutes afterward, with the sheriff and the police 
 chief at her bedside, and with the doctors sustaining her 
 through the fearful effort. Fay Meuse confessed to the premedi- 
 tated murder of Harris Chaddock and completely exonerated 
 Alden Cragg. 
 
 Then, as she lay back, a smile illumined her thin face and 
 her eyes glowed. "I didn't know . . . what love was , . . until 
 I went to . . . her. I woiild have let Cragg . . • die. But now 
 ... I am "glad . . . to die . . . for him. . ." 
 
 And the dark veil fell. 
 
 CHAPTER 20 
 
 THE newspapers boomed it forth in shrieking midnight 
 "extras". The telegraph, the cable, the radio flashed it 
 across the world. For the world had been stirred to eager 
 expectancy, and now it must be informed that Alden Cragg-ftad 
 met death and overcome it, but in a manner disappointing to 
 the morbid. Yet not Alden Cragg, but Love, had conquered. 
 But the world had still to learn that omnipotent God is 
 Love. . . 
 
 The news, trembling from the lips of Doctor Rowley, was 
 received over the thro'bbing wire by Madam Galuth. And she 
 turned and threw her arms about the waiting girl at her side 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 A dozen telephone messages conveyed the news to "Cragg- 
 mont". Doctor Roake paled under it and stood as if stunned. 
 Mrs. Whittier went into hysterics. And Ethel's face clouded 
 and her lips curled. Then Doctor Roake, recovering himself, 
 gave orders for congratulatory messages to be telephoned to the 
 jafl to Alden, and himself prepared to visit the youth and per- 
 sonally voice his joy in the outcome. 
 
 From the death-bed of Fay Meuse Rowley and Benson 
 rushed to the jail. In their wake came scurrying reporters, 
 midnight revelers, and curious society folk from Crestelridge's 
 mansions. In a trice the fickle mob had reversed itself, and 
 from preparations to gather at Alden's death-struggles like 
 loathsome vultures, now had come to laud him as a hero. 
 
 They found him calm, scarce moved by the glad tidings 
 that had been broken to him. They found him standing, erect, 
 
 138 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 his hands clasped behind his back. And to Benson and Rowley, 
 with the girl's words impressed upon their thought, he appeared 
 like a Daniel, unmindful of the lions that snarled about him. 
 . . . And when he had received them all and thanked them, he 
 requested of the sheriff that only Rowley and Benson be per- 
 mitted to remain. He knew that he must pass the remainder 
 of the night in jail, for there were legal processes to be observed 
 ere he could be formally released. . . 
 
 Then, when the tardy winter sun looked out sleepily over 
 the counterpane of snow, he left his narrow cell, stepped free 
 of the limitations which carnal thought had thrown about him, 
 and, with Rowley and Benson, was driven swiftly to the home of 
 Madam Galuth. He had not been told that Marian was there. 
 
 There were no curious loiterers about the gate when he 
 arrived. None knew, not even Doctor Roake, at what hour he 
 would be released, nor whither he would go. Madam Galuth 
 stood on the little porch with arms outstretched to him. . . 
 
 In the vocabulary of the author of the marvelous Fourth 
 Gospel were two Greek words that have been mistakenly ren- 
 dered by the English "love". One, as a distinguished critic has 
 pointed out, has a "religious-ethical" significance; the other 
 expresses love in the more human sense. Thus the great Gos- 
 pel of John strives to give to the world the true understanding 
 of Love. 
 
 How truly Marian Whittier and Alden Cragg understood this 
 distinction must be gathered from their deeds, for what man 
 is he does. Abraham loved Isaac, his son, yet stood ready to 
 sacrifice his human sense of kinship to the true concept of the 
 Father-Motherhood of God. So Marian had done. So Alden. 
 With the sacrifice made — for true action is mental — Abraham 
 joyfully realized that he could not be separated from God's idea 
 and its expression. Again, a like sacrifice made, was this great 
 truth made manifest to Marian and Alden. 
 
 When he entered the house his eyes fell upon the girl. He 
 halted, and stepped back. She smiled and raised her arms. 
 "Oh, thou Israel!" came softly from her trembling lips. 
 
 Tears rushed to his straining eyes, and with a glad cry he 
 sprang forward and clasped the unresisting girl in his 
 
 arms. . . 
 
 ******** 
 
 The rector, dazed by it all, yet faithfully obedient to Marian's 
 instruction, bent over his desk in the Roake offices and held sus- 
 picion at bay. Doctor Rowley, shaking with excitement, called 
 perfunctorily on Doctor Roake and endured stoically an hour's 
 grilling conversation in the latter's sanctum without revealing 
 aught of significance, though he emerged wet with perspira- 
 
 139 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tion. Doctor Roake had talked early with Alden by telephone, 
 and had expressed an earnest desire that the young man come 
 to his office for a larger talk and a better understanding. The 
 morning papers were stuffed with lurid accounts of the great 
 denouement that crowded the convention news into obscure cor- 
 ners. Yet none was the wiser regarding Marian Whittier's pres- 
 ence in their midst. "For," she had counseled her little band, 
 "our work is but just begun." 
 
 But when Benson, Rowley, and the rector demanded to know 
 the next step, she shook her head. "It will be revealed," she 
 said simply. Then, to Madam Galuth alone: "David Barach 
 reports that Judge Calwin is still unconvinced. But I have a 
 feeling that something will convince him, though I cannot say 
 what it will be. But I know that we cannot be blocked at this 
 point." 
 
 Late that morning Doctor Rowley received a summons to 
 come to Benson's office at once. When he entered the latter's 
 dingy little retreat he found his friend pacing the floor like a 
 caged beast. "They've found him!" Benson cried. Then, 
 snatching up his hat and coat, he seized Rowley's arm and 
 dragged him away. "They've found him! Ted Sayor! They 
 telephoned me from the morgue! Identification complete! He 
 was found . . . frozen! Rushed to the morgue! Body not 
 claimed. . ." 
 
 "Yes! Yes!" 
 
 "It was sent to the Municipal College of "Medicine! . . . 
 God, Rowley! it's in the ..." 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "In . . . the . . . vat!" ... 
 
 An hour later they sat again in Benson's office. Doctors 
 Lann and Sale sat with them. And a deep hush lay upon them 
 all. 
 
 Then Doctor Lann raised his head and spoke. "I ... I 
 am all but convinced by what you have told me," he said slowly. 
 "If it is true ... if it is .. . then I will join you in fighting 
 him to the death!" 
 
 "And I am with you!" put in Doctor Sale. "But . . . 
 proofs?" 
 
 "But I have outlined a way in which we may get our proof," 
 said Benson. "Ah, gentlemen, I knew Ted Sayor. Out of love 
 for the poor fellow, so foully done. to death, I would gladly 
 rescue his body and give it a decent burial. But Ted, though 
 cynical of human hobbies, loved his fellow men. If he were 
 here now I know he would say : 'Take my poor body. Do with 
 it what you will, so be it that you use it against this incarna- 
 tion of Satan that has been loosed in our midst'." 
 
 140 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But can it be done?" Sale questioned dubiously. 
 
 They looked at Lann. The latter sat for some time deep in 
 thought. Then: "Yes, I believe it can. As you know, I am on 
 the staff of the Municipal College of Medicine. Moreover, my 
 son is a student there and a leader among the fellows. But . . ." 
 
 "You see," Benson hurried to interject, noting Lann's hesita- 
 tion, "Roake's lecture to-night is not only to be a dramatic 
 opening of the convention, but is to focus all eyes upon himself 
 and make him the center of interest. This convention is a one- 
 man affair, I insist. No matter how wonderfully a band may 
 play, your eyes are bound to follow the clever drum major's 
 stunts, eh? Now if . . ." 
 
 "But — assuming that it can be done — unless he is in a suit- 
 able mental state to be affected . . ." Doctor Lann began. 
 
 "Oh, as for that," Doctor Rowley offered, "I would say that 
 he is. He has appeared extremely nervous of late. I would say 
 that he has become apprehensive, fearful." 
 
 "You are right," Doctor Sale corroborated. "I have seen him 
 start and turn pale at slight noises. And he seems to have 
 grown irritable. I have wondered if his fine polish was begin- 
 ning to wear thin." 
 
 "He's afraid, that's what's the matter with him!" Benson 
 stoutly asserted. "The rector has told me things that prove it. 
 Why, he has manifested fear of driveling old Senator Chad- 
 dock. . ." 
 
 "Eh? Is that so? H'm!" 
 
 "But what about Marian?" Rowley asked anxiously. "Would 
 she approve?" 
 
 "We'll take this over Marian's head," said Benson grimly. 
 "Besides, it may be the result of her work. We can't tell. 
 You know, she instructed me to enlist Lann and Sale. She must 
 have had some reason, eh?" 
 
 "Well," said Lann, consulting his watch and snapping the 
 case, "if it's to be done we've no time to lose. Are we all 
 agreed? Failure means . . ." 
 
 "I've cut that word out of my vocabulary since yesterday!" 
 declared Doctor Benson. "Come, gentlemen! It is for human- 
 ity .. . and for poor Ted Sayor! Are you ready?" 
 
 The others rose with him. Quietly they gave their assent; 
 then, with a brief word anent methods of immediate action, they 
 
 dispersed. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The formal opening of the great health-council, the assem- 
 bling of the members of the unique religio-medical organiza- 
 tion widely known as the "Roake plan", was scheduled to take 
 place that evening, although for several days now the various 
 
 141 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 committees had been meeting, and plans and methods had been 
 under vigorous discussion. These committee meetings were 
 completely dominated by. Doctor Roake. And the daring pro- 
 posals made by this aggressive and competent leader brought 
 from the delegates gasps and exclamations of amazement, of 
 admiration, and sometimes of apprehension. Members of the 
 State Legislature, invited to attend the discussion of health 
 measures to be submitted to that body, sat at times open- 
 mouthed, and yet admiring. The trend of the doctor's aston- 
 ishing, activities was toward the nationalization of the whole 
 practice of medicine, though along unique lines of his own 
 devising. The measure to grant state subsidies to physicians 
 in rural districts was vigorously pushed in committee and« 
 before members of the Legislature. Industrial medicine was 
 advanced along lines that placed the financial support of large 
 bodies of doctors upon corporations and industries which were 
 obliged by law to employ them. The plans unfolded by Doctor 
 Roake were grandiose: they amounted in effect to the estab- 
 lishment of a dominant medical inquisition over every individ- 
 ual in the country. And they found acceptance for discussion in 
 committee largely because Doctor Roake had so skillfully inter- 
 woven them with the solution of the problem of housing short- 
 age, of the readjustment of returned soldiers, and other 
 pressing problems. In furtherance of this, his plan called for 
 a division of the country into medical regions, with physicians 
 as appointive officers — in effect, governors — thereof. In con- 
 junction therewith, ministers and priests would of course work 
 in close collaboration, under a single superior, likewise appoint- 
 ive. The organization of all the doctors of the country, under 
 himself as chief, was the preliminary step. And that now 
 appeared to hinge upon the willingness of the national medical 
 associations to join the Roake forces as a whole. 
 
 Throughout the discussions in committee the doctor was 
 ubiquitous, always eager to hear any opposing voice, yet ever 
 ready with .counter-proposals to meet it. "His daring," Doctor 
 Rowley remarked to Lann and Sale, "is as astonishing as his 
 activity. And his name everywhere passes current for power. 
 In one sense, he is wonderful; in another, terrible!" 
 
 And, further, Rowley had observed that Doctor Roake's dar- 
 ing appeared to have become augmented since Marian's return. 
 "But certainly he cannot know that she is here," he said, in 
 discussing it with Madam Galuth. And the woman had 
 answered: "Look from him to the thought that is using him. 
 That has been stirred by her very presence here, even though 
 Doctor Roake knows not where she is. The carnal mind's awful 
 daring in the presence of danger to itself is suicidal." 
 
 142 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 The rector found himself desperately driven; but he worked 
 now with a zeal that he had never known before. His activi- 
 ties might have been criticized by Doctor Roake, had the latter 
 had time to observe them. As it was, their perfunctoriness 
 went unchallenged. 
 
 Mrs. Whittier and her social satellites labored with a less- 
 ened zest, due to disappointment over Alden's fate. "But I just 
 knew that woman did it," she remarked, "for Alden was incapa- 
 ble of such a crime, else Ethel would never have married him. 
 I brought this point up, you remember, in the Psychology Cir- 
 cle." And then her thought turned to important matters in 
 hand. "Doctor Roake has set his foot down on free verse," she 
 informed the members of the Culture Club. "He wants us to 
 discuss the wrongs of Ireland. So you girls will have to hurry 
 and prepare." 
 
 "But why the wrongs of Ireland? We're not interested." 
 
 "But he is. And that's enough." 
 
 Together with the committee meetings of the doctors and 
 ministers there were preliminary meetings of the psycholo- 
 gists, of whom there were several of eminence present, and 
 strange gatherings of those specially interested in hypnosis. 
 To the latter Doctor Roake appeared to give marked attention. 
 And it was noted that among those discussing this subject 
 there were dark-skinned, turbaned orientals and men of 
 decidedly foreign features and manners and speech. 
 
 Over the telephone Doctor Roake specially and in person 
 invited Alden Cragg to attend the open forum sessions of the 
 convention and to take what part in the discussions he might 
 choose. And Alden turned to Marian and pressed her hand sig- 
 nificantly. He had not needed the doctor's or her urging to 
 enter the lists. . . 
 
 Again "Craggmont" blazed like a beacon above the illumi- 
 nated town. The hotels overflowed. Gay motor parties dashed 
 everywhere. Theaters and cabarets announced standing-room 
 only. Music, laughter, and babble filled the air. Though the 
 night was clear and cold, the streets were thronged. Those able 
 to squeeze into the Glass theater did so early. And there, at 
 eight o'clock sharp, in a speech admirable for its conciseness, 
 and actually soporific in its urbanity. Doctor Roake cordially 
 welcomed the delegates and guests to the great convention 
 assembled for the public weal and extended them, by the cour- 
 tesy of the mayor, the keys to the city. 
 
 In the quiet of the Galuth home Marian and Alden sat, 
 awaiting their call. "We are ready, aren't we, Alden dear?" 
 she said. "Oh, how wonderful are God's ways! Who could 
 have outlined it all?" 
 
 45 143 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "And you tell me that you have cabled Simeon Penberry to 
 come? But why?" 
 
 "I have been spending his money," she answered. "I shall 
 spend much more. I think he should know why. And then 
 . . . then . . ." She paused and sat with a far-away look in 
 her eyes. "I feel that he has a work here too. Oh, isn't it won- 
 derful that I was led to_him!" 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "as wonderful as that I should have been 
 led to Madam Galuth." 
 
 She looked up at him quickly. "Do you know that her 
 name means 'exile'? Oh, there is something back of that, I 
 know! ..." 
 
 In the dark and fearsome precincts of the Municipal Col- 
 lege of Medicine Doctors Lann, Sale, and Rowley worked 
 swiftly, silently, and with bated breath. It was a gruesome 
 task that they were about, a daring deed, yet done in deepest 
 respect for the one who silently worked with them, though 
 days since he had yielded his life to the same awful mesmer- 
 ism that now held this convention in its iron grip. . . 
 
 And then the doctors and scientists, men of authority and 
 deep material lore, gathered dignifiedly in the large lecture hall 
 of the MunicipS^ College of Medicine for the clinic to be held 
 by Doctor Roake and to hear the eminent doctor's latest pro- 
 nouncement on the "white plague". 
 
 "Among three physicians, two atheists," whispered Doctor 
 Rowley, slipping down beside Doctor Benson. "How many 
 atheists here, do you think?" He was trembling with excite- 
 ment — whistling, figuratively, to still his fear. 
 
 "All atheists," Benson answered in a shaking voice. "Lots 
 of church members, but not one who knows God." 
 
 "And every one a rank materialist," said Rowley, "firmly 
 holding to the fatally false belief that life and intelligence 
 dwell in matter, and that matter is real and actual. A wisdom 
 that is foolishness to God." 
 
 An outburst of cheering, prolonged for several minutes, 
 greeted the appearance of Doctor Roake. He came forward, 
 smiling and bowing, then stood with arms extended to the mul- 
 titude as if he would embrace them all, and waited for the 
 applause to cease. Then the room gradually became silent, and 
 he began. 
 
 "The origin of germ disease," he said slowly and impres- 
 sively in his deep, rich voice, "is lost in the immensity of time. 
 Yet it had a definite beginning, for there is indubitable proof 
 that disease did not exist in the earliest periods of the earth's 
 history. Furthermore, it is now established that, quoting from 
 the latest authority, 'disease has only been active during the 
 last one-quarter of the earth's history'." 
 
 144 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 He paused, while a murmur of wonder rose throughout the 
 hall. Then he smiled upon them again and resumed. "Our 
 study of fossils shows that, while germs existed in the remotest 
 periods, yet they were harmless . . ." 
 
 Doctor Rowley grasped Benson's arm. "Good heavens," he 
 whispered, "can't he see the metaphysical significance of that 
 fact? Why should they be harmful now?" 
 
 "... and so we cannot state with scientific accuracy that 
 disease originated with bacterial organisms. But we do almost 
 certainly know that the earliest animal creatures were free 
 from disease, and that infection of injuries to their bodies did 
 not occur. Evidences of infected wounds are not found until 
 after the Carboniferous Era. The earth had by that time lived 
 three-quarters of its present age." 
 
 "Which means," Rowley murmured, "that error is now 
 hastening to its doom." 
 
 "The earliest evidence of disease," the doctor continued, "is 
 the action of parasites on shells. This resulted in the first 
 tumors. When the races of animals began to grow weaker, 
 disease began to make headway." 
 
 Again he paused. And again Rowley turned to whisper to 
 Benson. "Marian would tell us that the communal mortal 
 mind was finding itself unable to sustain its material creation 
 not based on Principle. So it weakened, and dissolution through 
 disease set in." 
 
 Again Doctor Roake took up the thread of his discourse. 
 "From the evidences of pathology discovered on the fossil bones 
 of primitive man we deduce that human beings acquired their 
 diseases — at least some of them — from the animals. For 
 example: men of the Stone Age, judging from their fossil 
 remains, were afflicted with the same diseases as the cave- 
 bear, then coexistent. 
 
 "But at a very early period immunity was established, and 
 we are all but certain that great groups of animal creatures 
 like the dinosaurs were not subject to disease, and that, barring 
 accident and ravages from other animals, they lived to a great 
 age, undisturbed, and certainly unmolested by twentieth- 
 century germs." 
 
 A burst of applause interrupted him. Under its cover Doctor 
 Rowley turned to Benson. "Did you get the significance of 
 that?" he asked. "It is tantamount to an admission that the 
 ancient patriarchs, like Methuselah, did live to vast ages. Did 
 you get it?" 
 
 Doctor Roake advanced a step and held up a hand. "Gentle- 
 men," he cried, "that was a golden era of animal content. It 
 was a diseaseless, germless era. Why disease should have 
 
 145 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 appeared only in the last quarter of the earth's present geologic 
 age is unanswerable ..." 
 
 "He's mistaken," whispered Rowley. "For Marian has 
 answered it." 
 
 ". . . and why medicine should have been forced to struggle 
 so long, so vainly, to return mankind to that germless age is 
 likewise unaccountable. And yet we have taken one or two 
 steps on the long road that leads back. It may be my privilege 
 to-night to indicate another. But the steps, you will observe, 
 are preventive. The germ must be exterminated before it 
 begins its ravages. With typhus, diphtheria, and smallpox 
 practically under our control, let us now investigate, and from 
 the standpoint of its habitat, the organism responsible for the 
 devastating scourge of tuberculosis." 
 
 While he had been speaking a table had been quietly rolled 
 in, on which lay a white-sheeted figure, a human cadaver which 
 the doctor would use in illustrating the anatomical aspects 
 of his new theory. It was in charge of Doctor Lann's son and 
 several students and interns. Doctor Benson gasped as he saw 
 it and turned white. Rowley clutched his arm. His own face 
 was ashen, and beads of perspiration stood out upon his fore- 
 head. 
 
 "Gentlemen," Doctor ROake pursued, stepping aside to per- 
 mit the cadaver to be rolled forward, then taking a position 
 beside it, "what is contagion? Actual transference of patho- 
 logical germs, you will say. But you who are psychologists, 
 and you who have gone deeply into the study of the subcon- 
 scious mind, may return a different answer. Fear . . ." 
 
 Doctor Lann's son suddenly drew the white sheet back from 
 the face and chest of the cadaver. 
 
 "Fear," Doctor Roake emphasized in a rising voice, "is the 
 deadliest germ that attacks mankind." 
 
 He turned slightly to command his entire audience. "Gentle- 
 men . . ." 
 
 His voice dropped. His gaze had fallen upon the dead face 
 upturned to him. He stood transfixed, his eyes held by the 
 awfol thing. 
 
 A tremor ran through his frame. He pulled himself up 
 and, as by a fearful effort, jerked up his head and looked out 
 again over his waiting audience. "Gen . . ." 
 
 Again his head turned and his eyes crept back to that 
 ghastly face. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, his body inclined 
 toward it. Slowly, vvhile the great hall held its breath, he 
 turned about and bent over the thing, with his eyes protruding 
 and staring into the waxen face. 
 
 Doctor Benson got to his feet, babbling incoherently. Row- 
 
 146 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ley tried to pull him back. An age seemed to pass. Some of 
 the audience started to rise. . . 
 
 Then they froze with horror. For, with a harsh, rasping 
 noise issuing from his gaping mouth. Doctor Roake had crum- 
 pled up on the flobr. 
 
 CHAPTER 21 
 
 IN the confusion incident upon the doctor's collapse, Doctor 
 Lann hurried forward to take command of the situation. 
 Doctor Roake, failing to recover consciousness, was rushed 
 to the college hospital. Rowley and Benson, the latter wild 
 with excitement, at once issued orders, on the authority which 
 they had previously obtained, for securing the remains of Ted 
 Sayor ana conveying them to an undertaker for subsequent 
 burial. "He's done his part, has poor Ted!" Benson muttered 
 repeatedly. "He's taken his revenge ! Roake's done for ! Lord 
 in heaven, how it worked!" 
 
 Crestelridge stood aghast at the report that Doctor Roake 
 had 'collapsed during his opening lecture. It blenched when 
 it learned that he had fallen beneath the table on which lay 
 the body of Ted Sayor. "Ted Sayor!" society gasped. "What 
 a horrible end! What a shocking coincidence, that the doctor 
 should be overcome at sight of his lost friend's body there!" 
 
 And then Crestelridge started at its own dark question: 
 "But what had previously happened to Ted Sayor? How came 
 his body there?" 
 
 "That question shall be answered," Doctor Rowley said to 
 those who, he was certain, would spread his words widely. 
 
 "It shall be answered!" Crestelridge echoed. "But when?" 
 
 And Doctor Lann said then : "When Doctor Roake recovers 
 sufficiently to explain." 
 
 Doctor Roake! Explain! Crestelridge almost burst with 
 its surfeit of emotions. Throughout the night wild rumors, 
 conflicting reports, and weird speculations ran riot. Doctor 
 Proast, president of the faculty of the Municipal College of 
 Medicine, was driven to launch an investigation, on the sus- 
 picion that malicious trickery had been employed by enemies 
 of Doctor Roake. Convention delegates and guests ran hither 
 and yon like disturbed ants. "What will become of the con- 
 vention?" was heard on all sides, "for without Doctor Roake's 
 guidance it will be like a ship without compass!" 
 
 Then came the bulletin that Doctor Roake had recovered 
 consciousness — that he had been removed to "Craggmont" — 
 that he had lapsed into delirium — that he was gravely ill! 
 
 147 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Benson and Rowley, leaving the faithful Boots watching in 
 sorrow beside the body of his master in the undertaker's room, 
 sped to Madam Galuth's with the news. "We've got him!" 
 Benson shouted. "It confirms everything!" But his voice fell 
 when he caught Marian's reproving look. "Of course," he rue- 
 fully admitted, "I don't mean to deal in personalities. It isn't 
 Roake, but . . . Oh, hang it all! I say, we've got him!" 
 
 Marian patiently heard his lurid account of the event. Then, 
 without comment, she went to her room. A half hour later she 
 descended and called David Barach by 'phone. "See Judge 
 Calwin at once," she bade the man. When she concluded her 
 instructions, she turned to hear the rector's further report. For 
 the latter had just come from "Craggmont". "In a lucid 
 interval," the rector said, struggling for calm, "he requested 
 that the convention proceed according to schedule, and under 
 the direction of Doctor Proast ! But Doctor Proast is so shaken 
 that he has asked Doctor Lann to substitute for him!" 
 
 Again telephoned messages sped between Marian and David 
 Barach. Then the girl summoned her knights and bade them 
 equip for the lists. "Judge Calwin is on his way here .with 
 David Barach," she informed them. "He will spend the night 
 with us, hearing our arguments. If he is then convinced, he 
 will go into the convention to-morrow." 
 
 "He will be convinced," Madam Galuth answered her. And 
 to the others : "I know him well. He has handled much busi- 
 ness for me. I have talked with him often and long on the 
 subjects in which we are so vitally interested. He is already 
 convinced, and he is corning to tell us so." 
 
 "And the Prosecuting Attorney?" the rector queried. 
 
 "He is a Jew, and a close friend of David Barach. David 
 has won him." 
 
 Doctor Benson was sputtering with excitement. "I don't 
 deal with personalities, y' understand, but I want to say . .„ 
 this girl . . . Marian . . .she . „ . not she, but . . . I . . . 
 y' understand. . ." 
 
 "We do understand. Doctor," said Marian, taking his hand. 
 "And it is wonderful, isn't it?" What the girl's thought regard- 
 ing Ted Sayor was she did not say. But later, when alone with 
 Madam Galuth, she whispered : "The despised things, and the 
 things considered of no account, God uses to overthrow the 
 mighty. Dear Ted was used, even though not as we would 
 have outlined. He is in God's hands." 
 
 In the solemn hush of "Craggmont" that night the great 
 doctor lay tossing in delirium, with his skilled confreres bend-: 
 ihg anxiously over him. In Madam Galuth's little cottage 
 Marian Whittier sat before Judge Calwin, of international fame, 
 
 148 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 and pled humanity's cause. "I think I understand you," he 
 said at length. "For example, a man commits a crime, and 
 the State hangs him. The ends of justice have not been met, 
 for the real criminal remains still unpunished, since the real 
 criminal is the idea — or set of ideas — that used the man and 
 caused him to commit the crime. These ideas, in a sense, 
 really constitute the man. But they are not reached by hanging 
 him. To prevent similar crime, the criminal ideas themselves 
 must be exposed and destroyed. Similarly, you would remove 
 all thought of personality from this convention, and would deal 
 directly with the ideas underlying it. I see. I see. H'm! 
 
 "Of course," he went on, after a pause, "dealing for the 
 moment with personality, if we 'suspected Doctor Roake of 
 crimes committed, not directly, but through others by mental 
 suggestion, voiced or unvoiced, we could probably not attach 
 any crime to him. For the uttering of words or sentiments 
 alone he could not be held a criminal, however much he 
 might in fact be one. It is only where we could show that his 
 utterances incited to crime that he could be indicted with the 
 principal as accessory before the fact. And yet, in truth, he 
 would be the real principal, not the one who, by his suggestion, 
 committed the criminal act. For example : the words which Dr. 
 Harris Chaddock spoke to David Barach caused the latter to 
 follow Alden Cragg to Europe to kill him. But who was the 
 real criminal? On the other hand, who suggested the thing 
 to Harris Chaddock? His fath^er, the senator, according to 
 what Harris told Barach. But Harris referred to Doctor Roake 
 as the propounder of the ideai to his father. Therefore, for the 
 crime which David Barach sought to perpetrate against Alden 
 Cragg, Doctor Roake was directly responsible. He was the 
 real criminal. But, under our laws, we could not reach him." 
 
 "But in reality. Judge," the girl answered, "Doctor Roake 
 is not the criminal. Animal magnetism committed all the 
 crimes, using him as a channel. To destroy the channel would 
 not prevent further crime. Crime will never be eradicated by 
 hangings, but only by that exposure and real education which 
 destroys the criminal ideas. To arrest the members of this 
 convention would accomplish nothing. But to expose the false 
 ideas underlying it to the withering rays of Truth will save 
 the members themselves and the thousands of potential victims 
 who would be afifected by the tyranny and domination which 
 the Roake organization, through its convention, proposes to 
 exert. This convention is the tool of malicious animal mag- 
 netism. Now if we can reverse it, and bring about, in the 
 convention itself, an enlightened exposure and discussion of 
 the deadly workings of this illusive thing; if we can influence 
 
 149 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the attending members of the Legislature to deal with it with- 
 out restraint; if we can bring about the recognition of its nature 
 and effects by judiciar bodies, we shall have saved countless 
 thousands — whereas hanging every member of the organization 
 would not accomplish a thing!" 
 
 "But they will refuse to discuss it," the judge objected. 
 
 "Humanity has been strangely backward about discussing 
 this thing that has done them such incalculable harm. But 
 that is the nature of its effects. It hypnotizes its victims and 
 causes this very reluctance, then makes, them its channels for 
 crime. Yet Truth is omnipotent against it. We, reflecting 
 Truth, will discuss it fearlessly before the convention." 
 
 When day dawned Doctor Roake lay asleep under the freely 
 administered narcotics, while on the marble steps without hud- 
 dled Senator Chaddock, mumbling as he awaited his master's 
 delayed coming. With the break of day Judge Calwin an- 
 nounced that he had formed his opinion. And later, while 
 Marian was in the little kitchen assisting Madam Galuth to 
 prepare breakfast, he said to the men who sat gathered about 
 him: "In her presence I am wax; yet I know that she has 
 molded me aright. She has demanded that I do the most 
 audacious thing of my long career-— it may dash my prestige 
 and drive me from the bench. Yet I have imbibed a portion of 
 her own wonderful courage. Gentlemen, because I am con- 
 vinced that she is right, I would go to the lions!" 
 
 "By the Lord, so would I!'.' burst from Benson. . . 
 
 In a fever of excitement, and played upon by forces which 
 they could neither recognize nor trace, the delegates swarmed 
 into the Glass theater at nine that morning in response to their 
 temporary chairman's call. In a trembling voice Doctor Proast 
 called them to order, then referred to the sudden illness of 
 Doctor Roake, "due," he said, "to over- work in behalf of suf- 
 fering humanity", and announced that, compliant with the 
 wishes of their beloved leader, the convention would proceed 
 with its program, under the guidance of Doctor Lann. Fol- 
 lowed then the brief ceremony of inducting Doctor Lann, after 
 which the latter called upon the Reverend Wilson Whittier to 
 open the session with an invocation to Almighty God. 
 
 On one side of the great theater and its balconies and gal- 
 leries were gathered the clergymen ; on the other the physiciansi 
 The rector sat for a moment with closed eyes. Then, pale, 
 but with firm step, he walked to the front of the stage and 
 stood before the multitude. 
 
 "Our Father which art in heaven . . ." 
 
 Some raised their heads: that voice was not the rector's! 
 
 "Father-Mother, divine Spirit, infinite Consideration, hal- 
 
 150 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 lowed shall be Thy name by those who, as yet, see not, because 
 of the mesmerism of the carnal mind, that this is a place that 
 Thou alone possessest. 
 
 "Thy Kingdom is come, for Thy work is finished, and Thou 
 didst pronounce it good. Then error's false claims of substance 
 in matter vanish as suppositions of unprincipled thought." 
 
 More heads came up. What ailed the rector, whose public 
 prayers were ever grandiloquent perorations of sound advice 
 and excellent counsel to the Almighty? 
 
 "Thou sole Cause and Creator, omniactive. Thy will is done 
 throughout Thy infinite Creation. What is loosed in heaven 
 is loosed, by that very fact, on its suppositional opposite, earth, 
 and we are free of the bonds of belief of life and intelligence 
 in matter. 
 
 "Thy work is done, and because thereof the bread of under- 
 standing is broken to feed our yearning for Truth. 
 
 "Because Thou art Love, suppositional hatred rises with 
 infinite seeming claims to oppose Thee. Yet, reflecting Thee 
 in love, we have no enemies. That which we would forgive, 
 and for which ask forgiveness, does not in fact exist. 
 
 "Into temptation nor Thou, nor aught else, canst lead us. 
 Error's mesmerism is but the lie that we need not believe. Thy 
 deliverance is ever at hand, for error's seeming assaults are 
 but opportunities to prove Thee All. To spiritually under- 
 stand Thee is deliverance from every effect of ignorant belief 
 in the power and presence of evil. 
 
 "For Thou art All and omnipresent. Thy Creation is spirit- 
 ual and all-inclusive. Thou art omnipotent and deathless Life. 
 Therefore the suppositional communal mortal mind's false 
 claims of substance, life, and sensation in matter hold nor 
 place nor power. Healing is alone of Thee, nor can proceed 
 from senseless drugs or the brews of mortal mind. Health is 
 wholeness, and is alone of Thee. Death is the lie «bout Life, 
 and is destroyed by Truth. Salvation is alone of Thee, nor is 
 from a literal hell to an equally material heaven. For heaven 
 is Mind. And always and ever we dwell, in reality, therein, 
 in Thy consideration." 
 
 Stares followed him as he turned and went back to his 
 chair. The clergymen looked from him to one another in 
 questioning perplexity. Was that a prayer — that? That 
 unorthodox, unevangelical jumble? He had told the Lord 
 nothing! He had not asked the Almighty to cure and restore 
 their leader, nor to bless them and prosper the convention ! He 
 had simply made assertions. . . 
 
 A slight commotion at the entrance drew their attention. 
 An usher was seen bearing a card to the chairman. Doctor 
 
 151 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Lann took it, and at once gave the usher instructions. There- 
 upon several strangers were admitted to the hall and conducted 
 to the stage. 
 
 "It's Judge Calwin!" someone exclaimed under his breath. 
 
 "What right has he here?" demanded others. "He's the 
 sharpest man on the bench; he means trouble!" 
 
 "That fellow with him is David Barach! He's back from 
 the war!" 
 
 And there were some who noted that neither Doctor Lann 
 nor the rector appeared surprised at the intrusion. 
 
 Judge Calwin advanced at once to the front of the stage 
 and raised a hand to quiet the stir. "Gentlemen," he said, 
 "there has appeared in my court one who, coming in the name 
 of the people, has uttered grave charges against that institu- 
 tion popularly known as the Roake organization, and has 
 demanded that this convention be enjoined from further activ- 
 ity in promulgation of the business of that organization until 
 those charges shall have been duly investigated." 
 
 Some of the delegates got to their feet. Doctor Lann rapped 
 loudly for order, and motioned to the judge to proceed. 
 
 "I had thought, on hearing the charges," the judge con- 
 tinued, "to summon your Executive Committee into court to 
 show cause why this convention should not be enjoined. Yet 
 that were of itself unjust, since every delegate is equally 
 affected by them. Manifestly, I could not hale the entire con- 
 vention into court. Therefore, rather than issue the injunc- 
 tion upon the charges adduced, it appeared to me more con- 
 siderate of you to come before you in person — to transfer, as 
 it were, my court to this hall, on the ground that where the 
 judge is there is the court." 
 
 "It's a trick!" called a loud voice. 
 
 "What are you putting over on us?" 
 
 The judge stood until the cries had subsided, then pro- 
 ceeded without perturbation. "I have been sufficiently con- 
 siderate of your feelings to come to you for your cooperation 
 in meeting these very serious charges. If, however, this is 
 distasteful to you, then I shall return and issue the injunction 
 without further deliberation, naming a future date, convenient 
 to me, for the hearing. I leave this to your choice." 
 
 The house sat back speechless with amaze. They were 
 trapped. Doctor Lann came forward. "Gentlemen," he called, 
 "act wisely! Your reputation is at stake! You cannot brook 
 delay! I call upon the members of the Executive Committee 
 to accept, by a standing vote, the ludge's considerate proposal 
 that the convention be turned over to him for a brief period 
 for the purpose of establishing here his court to coiisider the 
 charges on which an injunction has been demanded!" 
 
 152 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Every member of the Executive Committee rose to his feet. 
 Doctor Lann turned to the judge, bowed, and waved a hand 
 indicative of the convention's entire compliance. 
 
 So swiftly had the coup been effected that the delegates sat 
 open-mouthed. Then they stiffened for resistance. But the 
 judge was again speaking. 
 
 "I realize that I am departing from precedent," he declared. 
 "But I shall still further deviate from hoary custom in this 
 hearing. For I am not come to try you, either as individuals 
 or as an assembly of persons: / am come to arrest and try 
 the ideas upon which the so-called Roake organization is based!" 
 
 "It is unheard of!" came from someone. 
 
 The judge's gavel crashed down upon the desk before him. 
 "I shall not remind you again that, by consent of your Exec- 
 utive Committee, the Court is sitting," he declared significantly. 
 "It IS unheard of," he went on calmly. "Yet the time has 
 come for courageous action as yet unheard of because no one 
 has ever dared take such a stand for the right. To those of 
 you who may demand that an injunction be secured to dissolve 
 this court, I now grant you permission to leave this hall for 
 that purpose. To those who would appeal to the city or state 
 authorities, to the governor, to the militia, I tell you now to go. 
 Yet shall I continue to hold my court, for, I repeat, I am not 
 trying persons, but ideas. Despite all efforts of the enemies 
 of Truth, the ideas underlying the Roake plan shall be tried! 
 For the people have the indisputable right to know what those 
 ideas are and what their intent and effect upon them." 
 
 Doctor Lann sprang to his feet. "Your Honor," he cried, 
 "every honest doctor and every self-respecting clergyman in 
 this hall will remain! The others, if others there be, will 
 leave! And we shall be well rid of those who go!" 
 
 The judge stood waiting. Every man remained seated, 
 though gaping. The judge smiled and proceeded. 
 
 "David Barach, in support of your charge that the ideas 
 underlying the Roake plan are subversive of popular govern- 
 ment, you may address the Court." 
 
 CHAPTER 22 
 
 DAVID BARACH strode out before the people. With his 
 keen eyes he swept them, then he bowed to the judge. 
 "Your Honor," he said — and his voice filled the great 
 room — "I come back to these people from the battlefields of 
 Europe, where I fought for their freedom, to find them bowing 
 
 153 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 their necks to an autocracy no less gigantic, no less inimical, 
 than the one which I aided in destroying. An autocracy that, 
 because of its deceptive religio-medical character, will, if not 
 overthrown, dominate the spiritual nature as well as the phys- 
 ical body of every individual of this great nationi Oh, you 
 doctors, you ministers of the Word," turning to the audience, 
 "while two millions of your youth were offering their lives for 
 you overseas, you have been feeding this octopus for their 
 enslavement when they should return! 
 
 "Your leader chose well his time — an hour when war-born 
 despotism was at its height, when men's overwrought mental- 
 ities were most receptive to error, when spiritual ignorance 
 was deepest. What though you boasted your colleges and your 
 great learning : the average of the world's mentality is, by your 
 own statistics, shown to be but that of a ten-year-old child! 
 Such mentalities, he well knew, become ready slaves. He can- 
 nily chose the hour when the people at home were required 
 to surrender most to the demands Of war. Then he boldly 
 invaded your homes, closed your churches, and laid you under 
 such enslaving restrictions as the iniquitous Wess law ! Already, 
 to my certain knowledge, lives have been sacrificed to that 
 accursed law, lives' despoiled, lives ruined. Yet here in con- 
 vention assembled you are about to demand that a hundred 
 million people shall come under it! He and you are victims 
 of the mesmerism that drove the blinded Kaiser to his ruin! 
 
 "How, the people ask, was this diabolical system devised? 
 For years he has been working . . . Yet, not he, but the ideas 
 on which the Roake plan are based, and which, years gone, 
 laid hold upon him. And he fell before their allurement, nor 
 would shake them off. These informed him that, beginning 
 with the child and playing upon its own and its parents' fears, 
 thus poisoning the fountain at its source; through school in- 
 spection and tutelage, then through press and text-books; 
 through the insurance companies; through the physicians who 
 should talk disease and serums and sanitariums and compul- 
 sory methods of immunizing; through health boards of his own 
 creating that controlled physicians; through the great machine 
 which he at last constructed; through drives upon legislatures 
 and congresses — thus did his campaign go forward for domi- 
 nation of the American people, for ultimate domination of the 
 world-consciousness! 
 
 "Did materia medico acquire the power he sought for it? 
 Five million American soldiers and sailors were forced— with- 
 out respect to their sentiments — to submit their bodies to vac- 
 cines and serums ! A medical power so vast that Great Britain 
 gasped at thought of it. For England did not dare inject this 
 
 154 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 stufif into the bodies of her men. The English doctors tried 
 it, but jealousy for Magna Charta rose like a lion and put them 
 to rout ! The Englishman, unlike the American, prizes the 
 liberty for which he has bled. 
 
 "Such great victories won, he saw to it that compulsory 
 examination was followed by enforced medication. The school 
 nurse now dogs the child into the home to see that the doctor's 
 orders are obeyed, disobedience to which entails fines and im- 
 prisonment. And who are these doctors who thus indiscrim- 
 inately order operations or serumizing? Medical politicians. And 
 politicians are not as a rule experienced or efficient, not always 
 honest — not always! Their thought is not immune to the fat 
 salaries, to the preferment, to the power and prestige which an 
 ignorant people accord them. I do not arraign the honest phy- 
 sician; but the medical politician, skilled or unskilled, is the 
 Bolshevist loosed in our land! In times of epidemic, such as 
 we have just witnessed, he invokes police power; he wilfully 
 or ignorantly sends hundreds to the grave by fright ; he cannot 
 heal, but he closes the churches even while he predicts the 
 return of the ravager, and lays the foundations of new laws to 
 increase his power. No person or thing — not even God him- 
 self-— is forced so assiduously and insistently upon the public 
 to-day as the physician! Though states may by law permit 
 healing by mental or spiritual means, yet the physician demands 
 that he be at the birth or death of every individual, and insists 
 that a death without his ubiquitous presence shall be deemed 
 manslaughter! His persecution of the school child is now 
 such as to raise the question as to whether the child or the 
 school shall be regarded as public! 
 
 "Your Honor, the Constitution of these United States 
 provides for the security of the citizen in his home against 
 unreasonable seizures. Yet not the Supreme Court, but the 
 doctor, interprets that clause. Thus is the government no 
 longer by the people for the people, but by medical legislation 
 for the political doctor! It is upon such fallacious interpreta- 
 tion that the Roake plan rests. 
 
 "There are physicians here present who will admit that, but 
 for the people's educated faith in drugs, serums, and vaccines, 
 these remedies must ever fail. Such material education is in 
 the highest sense anti-Christian, for it teaches the people 
 dependence on matter, thus turning them away from their God, 
 although such material dependence leads inevitably to the con- 
 tinuance of disease and ultimate death. Such dependence is 
 rankly atheistic. Yet these ministers here are subscribing to 
 it! In God's name, what are they thinking of? 
 
 "Medical autocracy, as now exemplified in the activities of 
 
 155 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 the Roake plan, began stealthily, years ago, and in the specious 
 guise of benevolence. It showed its head first in the demand 
 for appropriations of state funds to send indigent persons who 
 had been bitten by 'mad dogs' to Pasteur institutes. The way 
 opened, state funds were then demanded for the purchase of 
 vaccines and serums for the poor. Then vaccination was foisted 
 upon the people — and physician and druggist waxed fat. Soon 
 other disease were 'discovered' amenable to serums. And the 
 people's faith in them worked cures. The propaganda was 
 widely spread by the patent-medicine man, and the terrors 
 he inspired made fat our graveyards! The propaganda is still 
 spread, though in changed form. The newspapers have their 
 'health-columns' and their advices from 'health-bureaus'. And 
 the mesmerized people yield themselves to this self-asserted 
 'authority' and bind themselves with the doctor's unbreakable 
 chains. Legislatures are coerced by the Roake organization 
 to take liberties that a king would not dare assume. The state 
 is being forced by tl^e ideas underlying the Roake plan to 
 become a gigantic parent. It is being rendered despotic, that 
 it may eventually seize upon all children and make them its 
 charge. The poor have lost control over the destinies of them- 
 selves and their families; the rich yield it voluntarily, and join 
 in actively persecuting the poor and harassing them itito hos- 
 pitals and asylums under the domination of the political doctor. 
 In fine, there never was an hour when the people were so 
 assiduously exploited from the merely physical standpoint as 
 to-day — a standpoint that renders God a nonentity. And yet, 
 oh, you ministers, you subscribe to it ! You are aiding and 
 abetting a medical inquisition that judges even God! 
 
 "But the doctors cure, you protest. Alas! your mesmerism 
 is complete. Let me quote. Your Honor, from an authority 
 which I will furnish on request. 'Medicine, so-called, regular 
 and scientific, lamentably failed in the army, where it has been 
 and is in absolute control. It not only failed to prevent disease 
 — witness the more than 3,000,000 admissions to the sick 
 report^ — ^but the practices it is directly responsible for, the 
 alleged prophylactic inoculations, must logically be credited 
 with a large part of such diseases, with some part of the more 
 than 50,000 deaths from disease, the 129,000 men, physical 
 wrecks many of them, discharged from the army because of 
 disease contracted in the service. So the individual's inde- 
 pendence, in the event that he yields to the blandishments of 
 the medical lobby, is bartered for more disease, more deaths 
 from disease and an increase in the amount of human wreck- 
 age, mental and physical, with which society is compelled to 
 cope at this time. On that score alone he would be compelled 
 
 156 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to reject all overtures from the autocratic clique that claims 
 to speak for American medicine, and will demand that rights 
 taken from him shall be restored in order that he may once 
 again stand forth as a free man in full possession of his own 
 person, in sickness, and in health.' 
 
 "Your Honor, practically the entire medical profession of 
 the United States became the medical department of the army 
 and navy during the world-war. Never has materia medica had 
 such an opportunity. Never has a greater failure been recorded. 
 Yet the Roake organization embodies all the ideas of materia 
 medica as accepted and practiced to-day. Upon the records 
 just cited it stands condemned. Yet with these ideas it 
 demands the domination of mankind! 
 
 "Prior to the formulating of our Constitution there was 
 never a government that worked really well. That Constitu- 
 tion is now regarded as the first step in true government that 
 the world has ever known. Its animus is liberty. Yet I declare 
 to you that the autocracy of the Roake plan would render 
 the Constitution null and void, and set up a political tyranny 
 that would make of the American people a nation of invalided, 
 dispirited, godless slaves! 
 
 "The Roake plan lives on disease ! Yet it demands the so- 
 called guardianship of this nation's health! It demands that 
 the State adjudge parents murderers! Yet the ideas under- 
 lying it are of themselves assassins of the most subtle type! 
 Your Honor, the life of the nation is here at stake! I charge 
 that the ideas basing the Roake plan, and in promulgation of 
 which this convention is called, are subversive of popular gov- 
 ernment, as provided by the Constitution of the United States ! 
 I charge that their intent and result is the enslavement of the 
 human mind, and the establishment of an absolute religio- 
 political autocracy over the lives of the people! I charge tha[t 
 these ideas are not only basely anti-Christian, despite the fact 
 that a hundred clergymen sitting here have subscribed to them, 
 but that they lead, and in provable cases have already led, to 
 malicious mental control, to theft, and to murder!" 
 
 Men from all over the hall were on their feet. The judge 
 rapped with his gavel and bade them be seated. "Your Honor," 
 called Doctor Proast, coming forward, "Doctor Roake's char- 
 acter has been attacked, and he is ill and unable to defend 
 himself!" 
 
 "I have not attacked his character. Your Honor," answered 
 Rarach. "I have but called attention to some of the ideas upon 
 which this organization has been built. My sympathy goes 
 out to Doctor Roake, himself a victim, for those evil ideas 
 have worked through him to rob, to steal, and to kill!" 
 
 157 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "In the name of this convention, I demand an explanation!" 
 Doctor Proast cried. "It is a conspiracy! Doctor Roake was 
 tricked last night! To-day, in his enforced absence, he is 
 assailed I From the Reverend Wilson Whittier-'s opening 
 prayer there has been trickery! . . ." 
 
 The rector rose and came forward. "Your Honor," he said, 
 speaking with suppressed emotion, "that I may not appear 
 in the hypocrite's role, permit me to speak to these people." 
 
 The judge called for order — an unnecessary call, for the 
 people, at sight of the rector about to address them, sank back 
 in their seats with eyes riveted upon him. 
 
 CHAPTER 23 
 
 "y'^H, my friends!" cried the rector. It was a wail. It was 
 
 II a rending appeal. "It is finished!" He held out his arms 
 
 ^"'^ to them. "I yield my membership in this religio-med- 
 
 ical organization. A people's health is a function of its idea 
 
 of God. But God is unknown to the Roake plan." 
 
 Dead silence lay upon the assemblage. They might have 
 been painted images, all. 
 
 "I purposed to assemble with you here in the sacred name 
 of Iiealing. I knew not then — I refused to know — that naught 
 but the recognition of God as All confers the only healing 
 power. Belief in the reality of matter and the power of evil 
 — though I knew it not — renders true healing impossible. The 
 Christ is the true healer. The Roake plan, holding that evil 
 is power, holding that matter is valid and livings— that living, 
 it suffers, and that in senseless drugs it cures — and holding that 
 death destroys life, is anti-Christ!" 
 
 Again he paused. His great audience sat as if cast in a 
 single mold, stunned by that which they were hearing. He 
 looked upward, as if for strength. His face was pale. His 
 forehead was wet. Then he drew a deep sigh and went on. 
 
 "Oh, thank God that His chastening has broken the mes- 
 meric spell! Because of it, traditional theology has -^ now no 
 further meaning for me. Time was when I held that the con-: 
 ferring of my theological degree dropped likewise the mantle 
 of Elijah about my shoulders. Alas! I have learned that it 
 was not Elijah's mantle, but the smothering garment of mate- 
 rial belief that fell upon me. Only in these last days has it 
 been lifted from my head. Looking out from under it, I see 
 . . . God. 
 
 "How could I have missed the paramount test of Scriptural 
 
 158 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 interpretation, which is the ability scientifically to heal the 
 sick ! Even the layman who turns the sacred pages inquires 
 how it is possible that we preachers should lose sight of the 
 Bible passages relating to bodily healing without also losing 
 faith in all else that the Master taught, for so closely knit are 
 they that to abandon belief in one necessitates yielding faith 
 in the other. . . 
 
 , "Ah, friends, my faith was not in God, Spirit; but in His 
 suppositional opposite, matter! And so, as the theologians for 
 centuries have done, I read my Bible without any proof that I 
 had grasped the healing message of the Christ. Nay, rather 
 did I read into it the false claims of materia medica, and the 
 arrogant assumptions of the political doctor! 
 
 "For years I preached from my pulpit my own limited, 
 unintelligent, utterly undemonstrable human opinions of the 
 Word, and filled the hiatus of my spiritual ignorance with a 
 pagan ritualism, meaningless and tawdry. With no sense of 
 the unreality of mortal existence; M'ith no appreciation of the 
 sole reality of Spirit, Mind, and its infinite spiritual manifesta- 
 tion; and utterly without wisdom to extract from the Bible its 
 transcendent meaning, I complaisantly gave the Word literally, 
 without separation of the wheat from the taxes. The result 
 has been chaos to my flock and to me. 
 
 "Ah, I knew not that matter contradicts Spirit — and I dearly 
 loved the pleasant things of matter! I did not know— I would 
 not know — that to yield one's belief to its claims is to break 
 the First Commandment. For matter and the flesh are one. It 
 does jiot inherit heaven, harmony, as I have so bitterly learned. 
 
 "My mesmeric determination to hold Spirit in the grasp 
 of matter allied me with the Roake plan. The devil of personal 
 sense quoted Scripture to Jesus, likewise to me. But / yielded. 
 Thenceforth error preached from my pulpit. The Son of man 
 was not lifted above the belief of intelligent matter when I 
 spoke. No demarcation was drawn between Mind and matter 
 when I preached. No distinction was made between the real 
 and unreal. 
 
 "It was because God was unreal to me, and matter and 
 mortal mind the only realities. Though in theory I regarded 
 Him omnipotent, yet in practice I followed the world and 
 rendered homage to the belief of the tremendous power of evil. 
 I regarded sickness as far more powerful than health, and 
 death than life. 
 
 "My attitude in shunning the Master's command to heal the 
 sick as he did is the attitude of the great body of the clergy 
 to-day. It was a shameful admission that I was too densely 
 material in thought, too poor in spirit, to heal. I followed with 
 
 46 159 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 my fellow clergymen in the footsteps of the Christians of the 
 fourth century and, yielding to the blandishments of the poli- 
 ticians, bartered the Christ for a mess of material pottage called 
 'natural science'. Organized religion does not recognize the 
 commission given by the founder of Christianity to heal the 
 sick by spiritual means, but relegates that great privilege and 
 test of spiritual understanding to a solidly materialistic medical 
 profession, whose members are more or less atheistic! 
 
 "Oh, my brothers, our attitude of opposition to every effort 
 of others to restore primitive Christianity and^ the scientifically 
 Christian method of healing as practiced and taught by Jesus 
 is cowardly, traitorous, criminal! Because of it we are repu- 
 diated by the people and are forced to yield homage to such 
 as the Roake plan! Shame on us! Shame! Shame! 
 
 "Alas! because of my dense materialism was I chosen to 
 lead you ministers of the Word in this iniquitous organization. 
 Fear drove me! But in these last days courage has been given 
 me. Looking back now in horror along the road which the 
 Roake plan has traveled, I cry to God to forgive my part in it 
 by destroying the evil that used me! Mesmerism, witchcraft, 
 and diabolism are the elements comprising this plan! Sugges- 
 tion, aggressively mental or subtly voiced, is its mode! And 
 you and I and the world are its victims ! 
 
 "To the world I charge that the Roake plan is based solely 
 on the deadly- beliefs of life, substance, and intelligence in 
 matter ! That it accords all power to evil ! That it denies God ! 
 That its animus is the 'Prince of this wOrld', animal magnetism ! 
 Its effects: degradation, sloth, slavery of body and mind, and 
 death! And you and I have been summoned here to waft its 
 lethal gas abroad over an unsuspecting and defenseless world! 
 In God's name I denounce it and renounce it. In His name 
 I release myself from its material strictures to acquire a knowl- 
 edge of Life! In His name I sever the material ties which 
 bound me to it. and to the organized theology which led me into 
 it! I yield now the rectorship of St. Jude's, knowing that 
 because of this public confession that church, with its treas- 
 ured traditions, will cast me out ! But I break now with organ- 
 ized religion! I break with stupefying tradition! Like Abra- 
 ham, I set out this day from idolatrous Ur to find God! And 
 yet I step forth from. the deadening human limitations of the- 
 ology and materialism in the first sense of freedom that has 
 ever been mine !" 
 
 Exclamations burst from all parts of the hall as the rector 
 turned and walked steadily back to his chair. Judge Calwin 
 rapped loudly and long for order. In the confusion some 
 escaped the hall and rushed to telephones to report the revolu- 
 
 160 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 tionary proceedings to "Craggmont" and to the press. The 
 convention, they declared, had been seized and reversed, and 
 by the enemies of Doctor Roake ! St. Jude's had been publicly 
 insulted ! 
 
 In the Uproar a clergyman of prominence arose and called 
 to the judge. "Your Honor, we clergymen demand a hearing!" 
 
 The people, recognizing the eminent gentleman, became 
 quiet and expectant. The judge at once accorded him recog- 
 nition. 
 
 "Words fail me to express my astonishment at the Reverend 
 Wilson Whittier's sudden reversal of his position! His public 
 repudiation of the movement of which he was a trusted leader, 
 and his incomprehensible attack upon his brother clergymen, 
 give rise to suspicion of treachery, or suggestions of a sudden 
 loss of mental balance! But, passing that, I ask if you like- 
 wise hold that we should regard God's material creation as 
 evil, and that we must on that undemonstrable assumption, 
 denounce the Roake plan as iniquitous?" 
 
 "Before announcing my opinion," the judge replied, "I shall 
 ask for the views of a material scientist and physician on the 
 question. Doctor Rowley, it is charged that the Roake organ- 
 ization is based wholly on materialistic ideas, and that, because 
 evil and matter are in essence one, the Roake plan is essentially 
 evil. Kindly give the Court your testimony on the nature of 
 matter." 
 
 Doctor Rowley's thought flew back to his hours with Marian 
 and Alden, and he inaudibly voiced a prayer for wisdom. Then, 
 as he stood before the convention, he remembered that the 
 pebble which felled Goliath struck the giant on the head, the 
 supposed seat of the belief of life and intelligence in matter. 
 
 CHAPTER 24 
 
 "XT OUR HONOR," Doctor Rowley began, "were I to tell the 
 j reverend gentleman that he does not see me, even though, 
 as he supposes, he is looking directly at me, he might 
 vigorously protest. And yet I speak truth. He sees not me, but a 
 mental concept of me, wholly within himself. He sees not me, 
 but is humanly conscious of an image of thought within his own 
 mentality and which he declares to be man, created by God 
 in His likeness. And this quite regardless of the fact that that 
 image which he is beholding is fleeting, unstable, constantly 
 changing, now manifesting health, now disease, and always dis- 
 integrating, always waxing old and senile, until it at last 
 
 161 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 disappears quite. Yet what changes? What disappears? I 
 repeat, his mental concept, which he has called me. 
 
 "That mental concept is known to him as a fusion of mind 
 and matter. Of the real essence of either he has not the slight- 
 est knowledge. He knows them only by their effects, their phe- 
 nomena. He does not realize that this mental concept which be 
 calls me passes out of his consciousness because it is unreal 
 and has no basis of Principle on which to exist and endure. 
 He is not aware that it is in no sense Man. 
 
 "A text-book of Physics widely used in our colleges treats 
 the subject of matter thus: 'Matter makes itself known to us 
 by the testimony of the senses. We see it, hear it, smell it, 
 taste it, touch it. But observe, that, after all, this is indirect 
 testimony. We see, hear, taste, smell, touch, in our conscious- 
 ness only. We cannot assert therefore that matter exists apart 
 from this consciousness. Science has nothing to say about the 
 ultimate nature of matter. Science studies matter simply as a 
 fact of human experience. We are not concerned in physics 
 with what things really are, but solely with their properties 
 and behavior: Physics neither offers nor seeks an explanation 
 of the universe. It leaves all such problems to metaphysics.' 
 
 "Thus natural science admits that we see, hear, taste, smell, 
 and touch matter only in consciousness. But in order to get into 
 consciousness, which is a mental realm, matter must of itself 
 be mental. 
 
 "That the universe is infinite is generally admitted. Like- 
 wise that it was 'created', or revealed. It is being quite gener- 
 ally admitted that the intelligence capable of revealing an 
 infinite universe must itself be infinite mind. An infinite mind 
 is absolutely comprehensive. On that basis, we and all with 
 which we have to do must be mental. Therefore, human expe- 
 rience must be wholly on a mental plane. 
 
 "Then, since natural science studies matter simply as a fact 
 of human experience, and human experience is wholly mental, 
 matter is a mental thing, 
 
 ''Matter, then, is admittedly a phenomenon of human con- 
 sciousness. But as cessation of thinking results in lapse of 
 consciousness, consciousness must be regarded as a function 
 of the activity of thought. Therefore matter becomes a thing 
 of thought! 
 
 "But is it possible for men to think matter into existence? 
 No, for men do not think. Therefore, man is not a creator. 
 Thought alone does the thinking, by the active presentation of 
 itself. By this activity it constructs a recognition, or conscious- 
 ness, of thought-images in varying degrees of activity, which 
 it calls the material universe and man. The quality of this 
 
 162 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 consciousness, whether harmonious or discordant, real or 
 unreal, depends upon the source of the thought composing it. 
 A well man is a humanly conscious sense of harmony. A sick 
 man is a consciousness of discord. Both conditions are wholly 
 mental. Both are the result of thought's active presentation 
 of itself and its ability to simulate Truth. 
 
 "Were I to ask the reverend gentleman what evidence he has 
 of the existence of matter, he would doubtless cite the testimony 
 of his five physical senses. But investigators on a physical 
 basis are now contending that there are many more than the 
 five so-called senses. There are the senses of heat, of motion, 
 of cold. There is the sense of time. 
 
 "Moreover, investigators now inform us that the physical 
 senses are by no means so differentiated from one another as 
 has been supposed. They are found to be so closely related 
 one to another that they actually merge into a single unified 
 sense, that of perception. And perception is wholly mental. 
 It is human limitation alone that has restricted mankind to 
 dependence on the so-called five physical senses for knowl- 
 edge. Even on the strictly material. basis, it is discovered that 
 under certain conditions any part of the human skin may 
 become sensitive to light in the same manner as the retina of 
 the eye. Why, then, should man not see from every portion 
 of the body? In case of loss of the eyes, why should he not — 
 on the above basis — see from any part of his skin? Why, 
 indeed, is he limited to the body at all for perception? It is 
 reported that the potentialities of more highly specialized 
 senses have been discovered in the functions of the ordinary 
 nerve-terminals in the skin. Even on the wholly physical basis 
 it is seen that the limitations imposed upon mankind are 
 removable. Human knowledge is in a state of flux, seeking 
 Truth. For true perception is the unlimited understanding of 
 Truth. 
 
 "Physical science informs us that about 85 per cent of the 
 testimony regarding the existence of matter is afforded by the 
 sense of sight. Human sight depends upon light. Light — of the 
 real nature of which nothing is known — passes by reflection 
 from the observed object through the lenses and humors of the 
 physical eye and forms an inverted image upon the retina. Or 
 in some unexplained manner, and as a result of the presence 
 of light, ether waves of varying lengths are sent out from or 
 reflected by material objects, and produce the same result. 
 Since the ether is postulated as penetrating all material sub- 
 stance, transverse vibrations are supposedly set up in it by 
 some of the revolving electrons thought to constitute the units 
 of matter, and these form waves of different lengths which, 
 
 163 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 by impact upon the retina^ give rise to the sensations of color. 
 In any case, sight is regarded as conditioned by matter— 
 although matter is now generally considered electrical in com- 
 position. Then the optic nerve, through excitation, is sup- 
 posed to transmit the received impressions to the brain, 
 regarded as the seat of consciousness. Thereupon the human 
 mind, from this information — which is in no sense true data, 
 but mere assumption — supposedly derives its impression of the 
 existence and qualities of the object under observation. By 
 such a peculiar, even ridiculous, process it is supposed to 
 acquire its knowledge of an outside world. 
 
 "Your Honor, I may safely say that you would never admit 
 such evidence in your court. Were I to inform you that a man 
 is ill, and demand that he be compelled to endure my medical 
 treatment, basing my evidence on testimony regarding him 
 which I admit to have been sent by ah intangible thing called 
 light, through a fleshly contrivance called an eye, and thence 
 transmitted along a fleshly thread of minute diameter and 
 called a nerve, and finally confessing that not the image thrown 
 upon the retina was transferred to the brain, but merely a 
 vibration of this slender thread of flesh, and that my deduc- 
 tion was made from this unintelligible vibration which did not 
 reach the mind at all, unless the mind was lurking around in 
 the brain waiting for the thread of flesh to vibrate — I repeat, 
 were I to rest my case on such unfounded testimony you 
 would rightly throw the case out of court ! Yet on no truer evi- 
 dence does the Roake plan condemn mortal man to' the tyranny 
 of medical politicians, quite oblivious of the fact that man is 
 a consciousness, and that his consciousness of inharmony is 
 due to his own acceptance of false thought, and may be cured 
 by exchanging that false thought for' the true. 
 
 "What, then, is the fact? This: the testimony supposed to 
 be derived through the physical senses, and from which we 
 think we get our idea of a world outside of ourselves, can con- 
 sist of nothing more than a lot of disconnected vibrations; and 
 anything that the mind may infer from these vibrations is 
 inferred without any outside authority whatsoever. Man, as a 
 consciousness, embraces his universe in himself as a compound 
 mental thing cognized. Man, as mind, is forced to admit that 
 he knows and can know nothing but the contents of his own 
 consciousness. Every object exists for him as a mental image 
 contained within himself as an individual consciousness. He 
 therefore contains within himself his so-called fleshly body, 
 with its eyes and its ears and its additional organs of sense. 
 These organs do not constitute his sight and his hearing, but, 
 on the contrary, the spiritual ideas of sight and hearing are 
 
 164 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 reflected or made manifest upon his body in these organs. 
 They are effects, never causes. Yet because he ignorantly attrib- 
 utes causation to them, he suffers the loss, in belief, of sight or 
 hearing when these appear to him to be deranged or destroyed. 
 Man sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels in thought only. He 
 sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels only his thoughts. He 
 acquires his knowledge, not because of the physical senses, but 
 in spite of them. Yet, in his vast ignorance of Truth, does he 
 believe that he gains a knowledge of a real universe of matter 
 outside and about himself through the medium of the frail 
 fleshly organs of sense. And this destructive ignorance the 
 Roake plan proposes, with the support of the ministers and 
 their material interpretation of the Bible, to perpetuate! 
 
 "Your Honor, this consciousness, called man, is also called 
 mind. Because it is formed of material thought, it is a mate- 
 rial mind. Matter is its subjective condition. This mind is an 
 inconstant thing, for natural scientists are now declaring that 
 not a, single material property of matter, once considered eter- 
 nal, can be said to be really constant. These investigators now 
 admit that matter can no longer be regarded indestructible, no 
 longer impenetrable. Weight, form, and color are entirely 
 relative. Sensible things — that is, things perceived by the five 
 physical senses — are now known to be only qualities, and not 
 the things themselves. There is no heat in fire. It is a mental 
 quality in the mind perceiving it. All sensible qualities are 
 affairs of the perceiving mind, as has long since been pointed 
 out. A chair, a house, a human body, is but a mental image 
 or picture to which the mind gives the quality of permanence 
 and place, and yet which is constantly disintegrating and pass- 
 ing. In every case, the thing immediately perceived is the 
 thought. Mind cannot perceive matter as such. Men of so- 
 called science no longer stubbornly regard matter as substance. 
 They know that it can be broken up into electrical charges, 
 resolved into that elastic medium called ether, that it can actu- 
 ally be refined into immateriality, into force, energy, vibration, 
 and brought so close to the borderland of mind that no effort 
 is now required to thrust it over into its true habitat, the realm 
 of thought. When man believes he sees, feels, hears, smells, or 
 touches matter, he is not concerned with real substance, but 
 with human thought, 
 
 "Thus has the sincere investigator pursued elusive matter 
 from the molecule down through the atom, through the electron, 
 through energy and motion, through properties and qualities 
 or modes of motion of the suppositional ether, until, stripped 
 of every material quality, matter becomes an inference, a thing 
 of speculative thought, a supposition, without inherent reality. 
 
 165 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "The human mind thinks it looks out upon Nature, yet it 
 sees but itself reflected. It witnesses the results of its own 
 unprincipled mental processes and sets about laying down 
 laws that will meet the average of chances. It regains from 
 Nature only that which it has put into it. It is its own law 
 unto itself. It sees nothing round about it, but only its own 
 images of thought postulated in a mental concept which it has 
 been pleased to call space and revealed in another concept which 
 it calls time. The beauty of a sunset is within ourselves. The 
 pain from a bruised finger is not in the finger, scientists will 
 tell you, but several feet from the finger, in the brain. Yet it is 
 not in the brain, for matter is not intelligent nor sensitive. The 
 pain is in the human mind. And where, I ask, is that? The 
 pain is itself a human belief, based on the premise that there 
 are life, substance, sensation, and other qualities in matter. 
 
 "These concepts are now being rapidly destroyed. And 
 every material quality and law is under sentence of condemna- 
 tion. For this mind, called material man, is being revealed as 
 the negation of Truth, and void of that which it denies. 
 
 "True progress, as Hegel put it, consists in the removal of 
 the illusions which the huihan mind has created. Its great 
 illusion is its belief in the reality of matter. This illusion 
 demands that the Creator of all that is real shall have created 
 that which is discordant, diseased^shall have instituted suffer- 
 ing, calamity, accident, poverty, death. True substance must 
 contain only the elements of harmony. Yet all evil, all sick- 
 ness, temptation, sin, sorrow, and death can be directly traced 
 to the belief that matter is substance and real — nay, that into 
 it has been breathed the breath of life, and that in it intelli- 
 gence dwells! Matter is carnal thought's mental and aggres- 
 sive suggestion of that which Mind is not. It is evil's' concoc- 
 tion. It is mesmerism. Accepted as real, and believed to be 
 testified of by the physical senses, it leads to all the misery 
 and suffering which has ever appeared to befall mankind. On 
 this basis, matter and evil are synonymous. Both are carnal 
 thought, denying the allness of God as Good, denying the 
 metaphysical basis of life. And on the basis of its materiality 
 the Roake plan stands condemned!" 
 
 He pBused. In the interval the clergyman who had called 
 forth Doctor Rowley's address again sprang to his feet. "Your 
 Honor," he cried, "We protest the arraignment of us ministers 
 of the Gospel as associated with a movement essentially evil, 
 especially when that arraignment is based on metaphysical 
 subtleties which, since the beginning of time, have not been 
 proved workable!" 
 
 "Your Honor," Doctor Rowley countered, "the human mind 
 
 166 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to-day is being awakened to the astonishing fact that the evi- 
 dence of an outer world of matter which it believes it derives 
 from the physical senses is not fixed, is not constant, but can 
 be changed in response to a permanently changed thought 
 regarding it, and often changed very rapidly. The metaphys- 
 ical law appears to be, first, a permanently altered thought, 
 and, second, a changed material object. I contend that if this 
 holds true in a single instance, it will hold true for the entire 
 objective world. I contend that Jesus of Nazareth recognized 
 this metaphysical law and made it work in the performance 
 of his so-called miracles. I contend that his system of salvation 
 is founded upon it. And in support of these contentions, I ask 
 that you summon before us one who, in this day of rampant 
 materialism, has made metaphysics work, Marian Whittier!" 
 
 CHAPTER 25 
 
 DOCTOR ROWLEY'S demand produced an immediate stir. 
 For Marian Whittier's name and story were not unknown 
 to these delegates. They had heard Doctor Roake mention 
 her, and frequently, as being in some manner associated with 
 the marked change which had come over Alden Cragg and which 
 had resulted in his amazing willingness to meet death as a test 
 of the life-views which he had undoubtedly obtained from her. 
 A Crestelridge physician, who had been active in soliciting polit- 
 ical preferment under the Roake plan, rose and called to the 
 judge in protest. "Our suspicion of trickery has been 
 increased!" he vehemently declared. "It can be shown that 
 this girl has been in the past a disturber of society! We 
 believed that she had gone to the war, but it now appears that 
 she has been in hiding here to foster this scheme of interference 
 with . . ." 
 
 Other protests arose. "Who is she?" was demanded. And 
 "On what authority could she speak?" "Why should we listen 
 to her?" 
 
 "You should listen to her," the rector cried, getting to his 
 feet, "that you may be spared the long years of hell which I 
 endured for refusing to hear her !" 
 
 "Summon Miss Marian Whittier!" commanded the judge, 
 pounding with his gavel for order. 
 
 "Your Honor," — David Barach was again speaking — "while 
 we await the appearance of Miss Whittier X desire to bring to 
 your attention certain other ideas on which the Roake plan 
 rests, and \vhich I declare to be inimical to the welfare of the 
 people. 
 
 167 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "I contend that medical science, so-called, even where hon- 
 estly employed, fails to meet the woes of humanity. Under- 
 stand me, I honor the honest doctor, and would in no way 
 interfere with his conscientious efforts to alleviate suffering. 
 It is only when the people are menaced by a scheme such as 
 the Roake plan, and by it forced, through legislation, to submit 
 to medical treatment* whether they wish it or not, and forced 
 likewise to endure all the other iniquities of the pernicious 
 scheme, that I rise in vigorous protest. 
 
 "The religio-medical aspect of the Roake plan is not new. 
 It is a reversal of the subordination of medicine to religion, as 
 was effected in ancient India and Egypt, where the priests 
 became the physicians. Prior to that period the practitioners 
 of the medical profession — ^which had its origin in idolatrous 
 ages — were pagan priests, who invoked the aid of the gods in 
 their healing work. Apollo was designated as 'the god of med- 
 icine'. Strangely enough he was also regarded as the god of 
 pestilence, the sender of disease ! Healing was exclusively con- 
 fined to the temples, where the elaborate ceremonies employed 
 to propitiate the gods acted vividly upon the imaginations of 
 the sick and stimulated changes of thought which resulted in 
 cures. In the fifth century B. C, Hippocrates protested against 
 the use of magic and charms and set forth the theory of the 
 vis medicatrix naturae, an invisible restorative essence or prin- 
 ciple. He also involved the Pythagorean theory of numbers in 
 his work and laid down the law of 'critical days', days when, in 
 the progress of disease, crises might be expected. These days 
 he fixed by numerical rules, sometimes on even numbers, some- 
 times on odd. Thus from the whim of a Greek philosopher is 
 derived the present mortal mind law of crises in disease. 
 
 "Your Honor, from the day of Hippocrates down to the pres- 
 ent, materia medica has considered man as a physical being 
 only, and has treated the human organism only from that basis. 
 The Roake plan consistently reverses the law of cause and 
 effect and demands that it be permitted to enforce treatment 
 of the effect only, totally ignoring the mental cause ! Yet man 
 IS mental. And true Man is the reflection of the Mind that is 
 God. 
 
 "I need not expose the grossly unscientific character of the 
 medical practice of to-day. Yet. I would be tolerant of this, as 
 of all ignorance, but for the efforts of aggressive medical poli- 
 ticians to force this unscientific practice upon mankind. The 
 politicians of the medical fraternity' demand laws forbidding 
 the practipe of new methods of healing. But in the year 1842 
 the medical fraternity, inspecting the first bathtub constructed, 
 pronounced it dangerous to health, and predicted numerous 
 
 168 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 zymotic diseases to result from its use ! Three years later the 
 city of Boston made bathing unlawful unless done on medical 
 advice. Last winter here in Crestelridge coal could not be pur- 
 chased except on a doctor's permit. And but a few months ago 
 you went about with gauze bags on your noses to keep out the 
 germ of Spanish influenza, a disease that is demonstrably not 
 caused by germs. How far, on such a record, can even the hon- 
 est medical practitioner be trusted? How much less, then, the 
 medical politician! 
 
 "The Roake plan rests flatly upon the so-called 'germ the- 
 ory'. Notwithstanding that it has been demonstrated again 
 and again that germs may be a product of disease; but that they 
 are decidedly not its cause, the medical politicians stand 
 squarely on their statement that the germ theory is as firmly 
 established as the law of gravity. So it is, for the law of grav- 
 ity was broken by Jesus of Nazareth nineteen centuries before 
 Newton announced his discovery of it! Again to-day, in the 
 Einstein theory, the law of gravitation has received another 
 blow. Our navy physicians have themselves proved that Span- 
 ish influenza was not propagated by a germ. One hundred 
 sailors voluntarily submitted to inoculations of so-called influ- 
 enza germs into their bodies, they ate the germs, they drank 
 them, they inhaled them — and not one developed the disease, 
 nor even a symptom of it ! Not one developed even a cold, or a 
 fever! A Toronto physician conducted more than a hundred 
 experiments with various sorts of so-called disease germs, 
 among them nineteen with germs of pneumonia, in the attempt 
 to produce the various diseases in human beings. In no case 
 was he successful ! On the records of such experiments, and on 
 thousands of other instances, I contend that there never was 
 life or power in bacteria or other morbid conception. Bacteria 
 never caused disease. Nor did any serum ever render a human 
 being immune from any disease! Nor did it ever heal one. I 
 contend that it is utterly impossible to define the morpholog- 
 ical or physiological characteristics of ahy species of bacteria. 
 
 "In ancient times the people wore amulets to protect them 
 from disease. To-day they wear vaccination scars. Does one 
 afford more protection than the other? Is the latter more scien- 
 tific than the former? Whence came the wonderful discovery 
 of vaccination? From the old legend that one who had had the 
 cowpox would never catch the smallpox. From that a certain 
 Jenner, who had purchased his medical diploma for fifteen 
 pounds sterling, and who had been curing hydrophobia by 
 ducking the victims three times in running water, tried the 
 experiment of inoculating a person with cowpox and then with 
 smallpox, and perceiving that the person did not develop the 
 
 169 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 latter disease, proceeded to announce the 'discovery' of a spe- 
 cific against the dread malady of smallpox. The human mind 
 caught it up eagerly, and a belief became to it a law, just as 
 e£Qcacious as the ancient amulet. Yet in a recent report our 
 War Department admitted that, despite frequent vaccination, 
 our soldiers developed numerous cases of smallpox, with many 
 deaths. And the frightful results that have followed vaccina- 
 tion itself are on records opeh to all who are unprejudiced 
 enough to read. But vaccination persists under law secured by 
 the medical politician. Ah, but universal compulsory vaccina- 
 tion in this country would mean an additional income to the 
 doctors of a hundred million dollarsl Primitive man drank 
 the blood of his brave enemy to imbibe his courage. To-day we 
 inoculate with foul diseases' in order to strengthen ourselves 
 against disease. Have we progressed beyond the savage? God 
 above! that the pus of a diseased animal should be employed 
 in this twentieth century to cure mankind! So far have a 
 people departed from their God ! 
 
 "Your Honor, the Roake plan is at present self-supporting. 
 As to how it secured its funds, I shall speak later. Let me 
 say that in future it will demand from state and nation vast 
 sums of money. Now were the medical profession successful 
 in coping with disease, I would raise no protest. But let me 
 state that of the fifty million people who die annually, one-half 
 die prematurely because materia medica fails to cure them! 
 From thirty to seventy per cent of the medical diagnoses are 
 incorrect: yet the people of these United States pay to their 
 doctors in fees nearly $200,000,000 a year i The wholesale and 
 retail druggists do an annual business of more than that same 
 amount! There are $900,000,000 invested in patent medicines 
 in the United States ! There are more than 200,000 doctors in 
 this country. Yet nearly two million of our people die each 
 year. To maintain our medical profession we must spend at 
 least $800,000,000 annually. Our funerals cost us not less than 
 $150,000,000 a year! Because of materia medica's failure, more 
 than thirty-five million people in these United States are 
 depending now on some form of drugless healing. But the 
 medical politician is pursuing them hard ! It is said that 'the 
 average mortality from disease in this country would not be 
 over se^ven per cent without any medical treatment'. Yet the 
 people are under constant subjection to the medical politician's 
 persistent drive to bring the health regulation under the power 
 of a tyrannical regime and fasten upon the public an expen- 
 sive and humiliating system of espionage ! The tonsil-hunter is 
 abroad, pursuing our little ones; the indigent graduate must 
 compete with the medical politician who is searching his 
 
 170 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Bradstreet for ratings upon which to base the advisability of 
 surgical operations! Is it not time, I ask you, that our legis- 
 lators looked with favor upon some other method of dealing 
 with disease? Is it not time that our clergymen began to pon- 
 der the Master's admonition to heal the sick, instead of bit- 
 terly fighting those who are pondering it and who are endeavor- 
 ing to learn and employ his truly scientific method? 
 
 "Your Honor . . ." He paused, for the messenger who had 
 been sent to summon Marian Whittier had returned and was 
 reporting in a whisper to the judge. A strange look came into 
 the latter's face as he listened. Then he raised his head and 
 nodded to Barach. "Proceed," he said. And, while Barach 
 still stood hesitant, the judge crossed to the rector and bent 
 over him. "Marian is at 'Craggmont' with Doctor Roake!" he 
 
 said quickly. "He sent for her a few minutes ago!" 
 
 ****** ** 
 
 Toward morning Doctor Rbake emerged from his delirium, 
 weak, but with mentality clear. The frightful dreams in which, 
 hour after hour, he had fought to the death with a ghastly 
 specter that resembled Ted Sayor had been dispelled. But 
 they had left him with a great fear. And over that fear, its 
 causes and its potentialities, he now set himself to ponder, 
 despite his physicians' entreaties to yield himself to the sleep 
 which they would induce. 
 
 With his knowledge of mental processes he could clearly as- 
 cribe his uneasiness of the past few days, his unwonted nervous- 
 ness and his undefined but growing apprehension, to the pres- 
 ence of mental forces opposing his own. But whence did they 
 emanate, if not from Alden Cragg and the Galuth? Yet cer- 
 tainly these two had been incapable of carrying into effect 
 the diabolical trick of the preceding night, even had they 
 devised such a thing in thought! Nor had chance effected it; 
 for the doctor's knowledge of mental law always eliminated the 
 merely fortuitous from his calculations. Who was it who had 
 known Ted Sayor's fate? Who had traced the body and so 
 cunningly placed it before him in — of all places! — that clinic? 
 And how, in God's name, could they have carried out such a 
 daring plan without detection? It indicated cooperation, and 
 of persons in authority and power! And what did it portend 
 to him? Was it an end in itself, or but a boding beginning? 
 The latter, he was certain. And he was convinced that its aim 
 was single — death! Death to his schemes and to himself! 
 
 And well he knew that he could not live with a diminished 
 prestige. To be toppled from the lofty pinnacle upon which he 
 had so painstakingly clambered through long, patient years 
 meant to him extinction. . . 
 
 171 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Dwelling upon the baleful prospect, his thought ever dark- 
 ened. Yet his fear bred not despair, but the animal daring of 
 desperation. The conflict was become a test of his own deveU 
 oped powers, pitted against forces invisible. Could he face his 
 enemies in the open, he were confident of success. But if he 
 must strike in the dark, then woe to them upon whom his 
 undiscriminating blows should fall! The success of which he 
 had dreamed for years was within his grasp; death should not 
 snatch it from him ! . . . 
 
 Although Mrs. Whittier and the rector had been sum- 
 moned by Ethel when Doctor Roake had been brought home. the 
 preceding night, the attending physicians had refused them per- 
 mission to see him. Mrs. Whittier remained with her daugh- 
 ter through the night, while the rector returned home to pre- 
 pare for his dramatic part in the convention which would 
 assemble the following day. 
 
 "He will come through all right, Ethel darling," Mrs. Whit- 
 tier comforted, "and then he will turn on his sneaking enemies 
 and put them to rout! But, my country!" she repeatedly 
 exclaimed under her breath, "how came Ted Sayor . . . there?" 
 
 At nine o'clock Doctor Roake, apparently greatly recovered, 
 was apprised of the convening of the delegates in compliance 
 with his request, and he experienced a great sense of relief. 
 He was still in command ! It was a tonic ! And he summoned 
 his valet and, to the dismay of the physicians* insisted on rising 
 and dressing. Supported by his anxious doctors, his secretary, 
 and the valet, and flanked by the sedulous Mrs. Whittier, he 
 went into his study, where a ' carefully prescribed breakfast 
 was served him. Then, of a sudden, he dismissed them all 
 and locked his door against them. 
 
 For a mental suggestion had come to him, at first seemingly 
 ridiculous, though insistent, and now positively obsessing: 
 Marian Whittier had returned! 
 
 How did he know? But no one can explain how he knows 
 a thing: thoughts present themselves. And this thought had 
 presented to Doctor Roake, as it were a lightning flash from a 
 cloudless sky. 
 
 But if she had returned — and now he knew that she had! 
 — ^was it not in response to his mental demand that she should? 
 Fear fled, and he sat for a moment spellbound by the sense of 
 his own triumph. Then he unlocked a drawer of his desk and 
 took therefrom the red-sealed document which he had so for- 
 tunately — yet not fortuitously, ah, no !-^prevented from falling 
 into the hands of the rector. His eyes closely scanned for the 
 thousandth time the title: Concerning the family of the Rev- 
 erend Wilson Whittier, Crestelridge, N. Y., U. S. A. 
 
 172 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 As he studied it he smiled. Had he not won every point thus 
 far? And won through his constantly demonstrated knowledge 
 of the laws of the human mind? Did he not, years gone, dis- 
 cover that mortals leave their decisions to the physical senses 
 and are thereby led to believe evil more powerful than good? 
 Did not even the preachers do this?, Was it not on this discov- 
 ery that he had set out to master a world? And, as time 
 passed and proofs multiplied, he had gradually come to believe 
 it himself. "Mind rules," was his deduction. "And human 
 thought has simply reversed itself, for that which mortals call 
 evil is demonstrably more powerful than that which they call 
 good." Material science? He scofifed at the puerile knowledge ! 
 Drugs? Poof! Power was in mind, through suggestion! And 
 he had mastered it, mastered the secret and its application! 
 He had brought Marian Whittier back! 
 
 He rose and walked about. He was not ill! The human 
 mind's will to be well was omnipotent against disease. He had 
 not been .overthrown by that scurvy trick of last night! He 
 could turn even that to his own advantage by the report that 
 the sight of an old friend in such horrible circumstances had 
 unnerved him. Marian Whittier was in Crestelridge ! She was 
 at, not the rectory, but the Galuth's ! He knew it ! And he knew 
 more: having brought her across the seas, he could bring her 
 to himself! 
 
 "But there are some who consider Marian Whittier danger- 
 ous." It was the senator who had voiced this on that wild 
 March night three years before. And the doctor had confi- 
 dently returned : "Yes . . . unless herself controlled." 
 
 With every instant his strength returned and his mind func- 
 tioned like a mighty motor. He paced the floor with an elastic 
 spring, with nerve and muscle quivering for action. He 
 laughed aloud. It was his supreme hour! Marian Whittier 
 was controlled! 
 
 His secretary knocked insistently upon the door. There 
 was .bad news from the convention. The doctor sprang to the 
 clattering telephone. Came then the wild reports of the seizure 
 of the convention by the avowed enemies of the Roake plan — 
 of David Barach's return and his damning charges — of the rec- 
 tor's treacherous defection — of Judge Calwin's incredible con- 
 duct — 
 
 The doctor stood stunned. His victory was being reversed ! 
 The ground was being cut away from beneath him! He must 
 go before the convention at once! But if Marian should be 
 there already! ... He frantically clutched the telephone and, 
 scarce aware of his conduct, called the Galuth home. A response 
 came immediately. He stifled a cry of relief, of exultation, of 
 triumph, for he recognized the voice of Marian Whittier ! . . . 
 
 173 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 From the telephone he sprang to the speaking-tube and 
 gave his chauffeur a brief command. Then he tore open the 
 study door and bade his waiting secretary bring Senator Chad- 
 dock. Alone with the latter a few moments later, he brought 
 the last reserve of his mental forces to bear. "Death!" he sug- 
 gested to the wretched creature who came at once under his 
 absolute control. "Death, you beast! You gorilla, death! 
 DeathI" And the docile subject, no longer human, responded 
 to his master's every command. . . 
 
 CHAPTER 26 
 
 MARIAN had sent her warriors into the arena with a prepa- 
 ration quite unique. The duties wMch she had assigned 
 to each had been proportionate to the training. David 
 Barach's preparation had been extraordinary and of long dura- 
 tion. His, therefore, was the major task. Doctor Rowley had 
 been partially prepared by his association with Alden in Florida 
 during Ethel's desperate illness, and since Marian's return had 
 been under her constant tutelage. His task was second in 
 importance, To the rector, whose preparation had been less, 
 except that imparted by his long suffering, she had assigned a 
 work of momentous proportions, though of far shorter duration. 
 And Alden, whose awesome experience in Palestine had lifted 
 him spiritually far higher than these, she held for further con- 
 sultation and for that mental work which was a task vastly 
 greater than any to be performed by them. 
 
 And then she sent him, in Madam Galuth's car, knowing 
 that he went clad in the armor of right thinking. 
 
 "We are not anxious," she said to Madam Galuth, as they 
 sat waiting. "The battle is not ours, but God's. We shall . 
 stand aside and see Him victorious." 
 
 "God has wonderfully used you, Marian," the woman an- 
 swered. 
 
 "But of them to whom much is given much is required," 
 the girl replied. "I can of myself do nothing. Oh, if people 
 would only realize that, and see themselves merely as chan- 
 nels! Good or evil, right thought or the wrong, is constantly 
 using us, and through us using others for weal or for woe!" 
 
 "Through you God is sweeping away the refuge of lies. I 
 am sure that it was through your work that the one seemingly 
 insuperable obstacle was removed." 
 
 "Doctor Roake? And yet God will not abandon him. For 
 it is he who most needs help. Ol^, he must see how error has 
 used him! He must be made free!; Perhaps I . . ." 
 
 174 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Madam Galuth shook her head doubtfully. "I think such as 
 he will not be convinced except by passing through the experi- 
 ence of death." 
 
 Marian flew to answer the telephone's call, for Alden had 
 said that he would, if possible, report to her on the probability 
 of her being summoned to the convention. But the voice that 
 now issued from the instrument was not Alden's. And it 
 greatly startled her,- so that her hand shook and the receiver 
 almost fell. It was a familiar voice, low, rich, but now inex- 
 pressibly sad. It was the voice of hopeless, despairing resigna- 
 tion. It was the voice of the lost. Yet it bore no note of con- 
 demnation, none of reproach. It was a rending appeal from 
 a stricken soul forever abandoned by its God. . . 
 
 Marian turned to the equally startled woman at her side. 
 "Doctor Roake is calling for me!" she cried. "He has asked 
 me to come to him!" 
 
 "Marian! . . . How did he learn that you were here?" 
 
 "I don't know ! It may have "been told in the convention ! 
 He said he knew that Alden had been saved in Palestine . . . 
 through me ! He has sent his car ! Oh, I cannot refuse his call ! 
 It may be God's way of reaching him!" And she hurried to don 
 her cloak and hat. 
 
 "But I cannot let you go! It is a trap!" 
 
 "God is my protection!" 
 
 "It is error's way of doing you harm through him!" 
 
 "Are you giving error power?" 
 
 "No; but neither would I defy it! Error has been stirred 
 to its depths by your work; it will dare anything now, for it 
 has been driven to the brink!" 
 
 "Error's awful daring destroys it! Evil is always a suicide! 
 But I cannot believe that Doctor Roake is deceiving me ! He 
 was crushed by his awful experience of last night! Whenever 
 I have thought of him since then I have felt so sad ! Oh, I am 
 so sorry for him! I want so to help him! He needs help now; 
 he knows it, and he is calling for me! I must go to him! I 
 must!" 
 
 Even as she spoke the doctor's magnificent limousine drove 
 up and the liveried chauffeur sprang to the door. The girl 
 threw her arms about the woman's neck, kissed her, and was 
 
 gone. 
 
 * * * ^ *,* * * 
 
 Immediately following his purchase of "Craggmont" Doctor 
 Roake had inaugurated certain changes in the property to suit 
 his whims. To the south, and at a distance of some fifty yards 
 from the house, he constructed a laboratory, and equipped it 
 to the minutest detail for any kind of research work. A court 
 
 47 175 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 was laid out between the residence arid the new laboratory, in 
 which a botanical garden was to be established in the spring, 
 and numerous ponds for the culture of the various sorts of 
 aquatic creatures that the doctor might wish to investigate. Upon 
 this court and the laboratory and the great gardens beyond, 
 the south windows of the doctor's suite gave, affording a charm- 
 ing vista. The laboratory, now just completed, was one story 
 in height, of beautiful Tudor design in keeping with the resi- 
 dence, and luxuriously appointed within. It was entered from 
 the street on the southwest side, and there was also a covered 
 passageway from the residence, forming part of the wonderful 
 stone wall on that side, which served the doctor during inclem- 
 ent weather. The entrance from the street opened immedi- 
 ately into an exquisite marble corridor which ran thte length 
 of the building. At the end of this corridor nearest the resi- 
 dence was the doctor's private office, into which the. passage- 
 way directly led. To this laboratory the doctor intended now 
 to summon his various "subjects" for study, psychological, 
 physiological, anatomical, pathological. There he expected to 
 hold his most important consultations. There he would do his 
 deepest thinking. A maid was to be in attendance in the beau- 
 tiful waiting room, and experts and specialists in many lines, 
 together with chemists, mechanics, students, were to be con- 
 stantly employed in the various departments: 
 
 From the moment in which the suggestion had come to him 
 that Marian Whittier was in Crestelridge the doctor's thought 
 had flashed with electrical swiftness. From the moment that 
 the reports had come concerning the seizure of the convention 
 his mental processes had been dominated by a single desire. 
 It was an obsession, diabolical, deadly. It was the devilish 
 suggestion that the wrecking of the convention was due to 
 Marian Whittier; that it was in some manner the result of 
 her work in Palestine, in Persia, and elsewhere; that it had 
 been made possible by her association with persons of author- 
 ity whom she had gathered about her, probably whom she had 
 met and influenced — as he knew only she could influence — 
 while in foreign lands; that she and these had learned or con- 
 jectured things which had given them the courage to under- 
 take the audacious emprise on which they were now embarked. 
 But he knew that the soul and animating spirit of it all was 
 Marian herself, and that his own salvation and that of the con- 
 vention could be effected in but one way. And it must be done 
 quickly ! 
 
 It was not a suggestion that could shock him. Suggestions 
 of a like base nature had come throughout the years, and he 
 had permitted them to use him too often to be at all affected 
 
 176 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 now by this. It was merely the immediate necessity and man- 
 ner of acting upon it that caused him concern. 
 
 Swiftly the hellish suggestions chased one another. The 
 doctor had never raised his own hand against an enemy: his 
 work was always done through others as channels. He sug- 
 gested; they did the work — and were themselves destroyed in 
 the doing. His thought had turned to Senator Chaddock, now 
 devoid of a mentality of his own and always an ever-ready 
 receptacle for the mind of the doctor. The laboratory was 
 empty of human occupant this day, owing to the convention. 
 It was all possible. It was childishly simple — if the girl could 
 be induced to come. 
 
 And then — Oh, ye omnipotent gods of mortal mind! — she 
 was there! she was coming! 
 
 He hurried into the apartments where the physicians and 
 his anxious family awaited. They gasped when they saw him. 
 His step was firm. His face was strangely eager. His manner 
 unwontedly animated. "The will to be well!" murmured the 
 physicians. "The will to do! He has mastered it! He is won- 
 derful! He will win against his enemies!" 
 
 In a word he bade the doctors behold him recovered. He 
 bade them hurry to secure legal support and fly to the aid of 
 the convention, to rally his cohorts and bid them know that he, 
 their invincible leader, was coming. He gave instructions and 
 employment to his secretary. He bade Mrs. Whittier — herself 
 amazed, astonished, overwhelmed with admiration of his mar- 
 velous powers — get the almost hysterical Ethel to bed and 
 attend upon her Until he should return. He would prepare for 
 the battle in the convention — and prepare alone. In his mag- 
 netic presence, at his dynamic words, they flew to their various 
 assignments. And he left with a final command that the 
 servants be instructed to prepare a dinner in the great banquet 
 hall that night. 
 
 It was daring! He knew it was daring, the most terribly 
 daring attempt of his long and increasingly daring career! 
 But there was no recourse ! It had to be done, or he was lost ! 
 And its very daring stimulated him ! Because of it he lost sight 
 of the danger and waxed increasingly enthusiastic ! 
 
 And — ah, that was its justification! — it had a scientific 
 aspect! For why had Alden Cragg been so willing to meet 
 death? Was it not because he had learned of that girl that 
 death need not be feared, that it might be overcome? Had not 
 Cragg publicly stated that he had come back from the dead? 
 And he knew, did the wise doctor, that Alden's knowledge of 
 things metaphysical had been imparted to him by her! 
 
 Then she should meet the test that had, at the last moment. 
 
 177 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 been denied Alden! The doctor's disappointment in that 
 respect should be retrieved! And it was in the interest of sci- 
 ence! He would learn her secret that she had employed in 
 Alden's behalf in Palestine! He would use it for his own ends! 
 He would be the world's greatest scientist ! The world's greatest 
 power ! 
 
 If she failed to meet the test, it was no murder, for again, it 
 was in the interest of science! If she lived through it ... if 
 she lived ... 
 
 From his windows he saw his car round the corner of the 
 laboratory. She was there ! Sin's awful daring had culminated ! 
 He seized the waiting imbecile who sat mumbling in a corner 
 and dragged him to the elevator. Fear, eagerness, enthusiasm, 
 madness, all lent wings to his feet. He reached his room in the 
 laboratory just as the chauffeur opened the street door and 
 pointed Marian down the long corridor. 
 
 ****** ** 
 
 When Judge Calwin bent over the rector and whispered 
 that Marian had gone to "Craggmont" the latter sprang from 
 his chair with a gasp. But the judge restrained him. David 
 Barach had stood for a moment hesitant, then had hurried over 
 just in time to catch the judge's words. 
 
 "Don't stop, in heaven's name!" the judge turned and 
 frantically whispered to Barach. "Go back and continue talk- 
 ing, or we are lost!" 
 
 "I'm going to 'Craggmont'!" Barach returned excitedly. 
 
 "You can't!" catching him by the arm. "Don't you see that 
 we are in a trap? If we lose control of the convention now, all 
 is over with us! Go back, man, go back!" 
 
 The rector sank down in his chair with a groan. Already 
 the delegates were jising. There was muttering and talking. 
 Barach saw it and sprang out before them. He seemed sud- 
 denly to have burst into flame. "Down!" he shouted. "Back to 
 your seats, you poor, misguided rabble ! Stay till you hear what 
 this thing is that has used you through your hell-guided leader ! 
 Some day you will learn of the liberated mortal mind! Then 
 you will know that Jeremiah Roake is such a mind, liberated 
 from the hampering beliefs of old theology, liberated from the 
 restrictions of belief of pow,er in drugs, but, uninstructed by 
 Truth, become the tool of his own belief in the power of evil! 
 A mental diabolist is he! A mental manipulator! A mental 
 assassin, who, seeking to dominate mankind, has trampled 
 upon the divine Principle! Back into your seats, I say!" his 
 eyes shooting fire as he flashed them at some who were reluc- 
 tant to obey. "Back till I tell you what this liberated mortal 
 mind has already done and what it is doing through and to you I 
 
 178 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Long years ago did Jeremiah Roake become interested in men- 
 tal phenomena, and devote himself to psychology, not knowing 
 that, far from being the science of Soul, it was but the material- 
 istic study of the mortal mind that is opposed to God ! This led 
 him into the development of the mortal mind's powers of 
 hypnosis; and to further it he went to Egypt and to India and 
 Germany, the land of Mesmer! He concluded that mind was 
 omnipotent! He learned that he could control others! Then 
 came the temptation to master the world. He believed he could 
 do it through the fears and credulity of the people* for the aver- 
 age mentality of the people is that of a child ! Mental sugges- 
 tion would accomplish it! He did not discriminate between 
 good and evil: those were but relative terms! Yet, because of 
 the constitution of the human mind, he believed that sugges- 
 tions of what the world calls evil were more potent in theit 
 effects upon mankind, because of ready human acceptance of 
 them, than suggestions of good ! You fear evil ; the world does ; 
 and because of that very fear are you most receptive to it! 
 His plan of world^mastery was not like the German Kaiser's: 
 Jeremiah Roake did not make the mistake of resorting to mate- 
 rial force! He could most easily effect it through the fetishes 
 of medicine and religion ! He studied to become a doctor ! He 
 picked his theologian! He chose Crestelridge because, adjacent 
 to New York City, it was a secluded center in the world's 
 heart! Great fortunes were awaiting him here! To secure 
 them he had to kill a human mentality! He did it, and Senator 
 Chaddock is an imbecile to-day as the result!" 
 
 At this there was an uproar from the people. They rose 
 and began to move. Judge Calwin pounded with his gavel and 
 shouted to them to be seated. Doctor Proast ran to the front 
 of the stage and held up his hands. "In God's name, friends, 
 let us hear this man!" he loudly cried. 
 
 "Back!" shouted Barach. "Back, I tell you! For the same 
 evil suggestions that have used him would now close your ears 
 to the truth! Hear me through," as they began to quiet down 
 again. "Then take what course you choose! Doctor Harris 
 Chaddock was restrained by political patronage! When his 
 work was done he was removed! And the instrument that 
 removed him was likewise destroyed! Roake used Harris 
 Chaddock to suggest the devil's errand to me! That Alden 
 Cragg might be removed from the pathway of Jeremiah Roake 
 to the Cragg fortune, I was sent to the battlefields of Europe 
 to kill him ! And, not knowing what was using me, I obeyed ! 
 But — God's name! — the lad was saved, and saved by the only 
 obstacle that remained in Roake's path, Marian Whittier ! I 
 shot the boy at Roake's bidding, but the Christ raised him at 
 this girl's! . . ." 
 
 179 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "The Christ?" cried an excited preacher. "That man is a 
 Jewl" 
 
 "God above! He shot young Cragg?" gasped another. 
 
 "He's mad!" 
 
 "Wait, gentlemen, wait!" It was Doctor Proast again coun- 
 seling them. 
 
 "Is it not enough?" cried Barach. "Then go back and ask 
 why, years ago. Senator Chaddock's wife was permitted to die, 
 though Doctor Roake was in attendance. Roake needed just 
 such a man as the senator — and he got him! Roake let my 
 own wife die! I was then avaUable for any use that he might 
 have for me ! Roake sent Alden Cragg to war to be killed, then 
 killed the boy's mother — ^Roake? No, I tell you again, it was 
 aggressive mental suggestion, using Roake and driving him 
 upon his own lusts for power and place, that committed these 
 foul crimes! Roake, through Senator Chaddock, filched the 
 Cragg and Sayor estates ! He slew Ted Sayor, and deliberately, 
 because the boy's keen satires on materia medica were danger- 
 ous to the Roake plan! Will you have more? Will you know 
 why he has been active in endeavoring to bring about the dis- 
 memberment of the British Empire? To set Great Britain and 
 America at each other's throats? Will you know how he has 
 attempted to secure the wealth of the richest man in England? 
 This evil mind, this assassin, this mental manipulator, acting 
 aggressively through Doctor Jeremiah Roake, is yonr leader ! 
 The Roake plan is the concoction of this murderous liberated 
 mortal mind ! It has hypnotized you ! Dominated you ! And it 
 will ruin you and your cause ! Its pathway is strewn with the 
 dead! And at this moment, even while I speak, it has lured 
 its sole remaining obstacle into its clutches and is attempting its 
 destruction! Marian Whittier , . ." 
 
 "She's the rector's daughter! And he played us false!" 
 shouted someone. 
 
 The rector rose, white and shaking, and tottered forward. 
 "In God's name, gentlemen," he cried, "let me confess that she 
 is not my daughter ! She is the daughter of Max Penberry, only 
 son of Simeon Penberry, of London!" 
 
 David Barach turned and stared open-mouthed at the rec- 
 tor. The house fell quiet. Then all turned and looked in the 
 direction of the door. For a tall, white-haired man was forcing 
 his way in, followed by police officers. 
 
 "Damme!" he shouted, elbowing his opposers aside. 
 "What's that about Simeon Penberry? What's that you're say- 
 ing about that girl? What's that? What's that?" 
 
 The olficers with him forced the way and hurried to the 
 stage. Doctor Proast and Judge Calwin came forward to receive 
 
 180 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 them. "We are agents of the British Government," announced 
 their leader. "We have papers for the arrest and requisition of 
 Jeremiah Roake. He is a British subject, an Irishman, charged 
 with treasonable offenses." 
 
 The house again burst into an uproar. Above the din the 
 judge scarce made himself heard. The people scrambled over 
 seats and upon the stage and surrounded the newcomers. The 
 tall, white-haired man had stalked to the rector and was bend- 
 ing over him, clutching him by the shoulders. "Damme!" he 
 shouted. "What's that you were saying? Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 "Gentlemen!" cried Doctor Proast. "Let us adjourn! Let 
 us adjourn!" 
 
 "Go," called the judge, "and send your Executive Commit- 
 tee to me!" The denouement had been far greater than he had 
 anticipated, and he was exhausted. 
 
 Barach had not waited, but had dashed from the hall and 
 into the street. There he had requisitioned a cab and bidden 
 its driver speed to "Craggmont". 
 
 The rector, gasping and choking, struggled against his 
 glowering oppressor. "Simeon Penberry!" he cried. "You! 
 . . , But we must go to 'Craggmont'! . . . Marian is there 
 . . . with him! . . . Oh, where is Alden . . . Alden Cragg?" 
 
 "He was at the door," someone replied excitedly, "when 
 Barach reported that the girl had gone to Doctor Roake's! 
 Then he ran out and jumped into his car and drove away!" 
 
 CHAPTER 27 
 
 WHEN the chauffeur opened the door of the car Marian 
 sat hesitant. "But this . • . this is not . . . 'Cragg- 
 mont'!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "It is Doctor Roake's laboratory," the chauffeur answered. 
 "I was ordered to bring you here." 
 
 "But," she spoke incredulously, "is he not in ... in the 
 house? He was reported . . . ill." 
 
 "I can't say. Miss. I haven't seen him. All I know is that 
 he was dead sick last night, but better this morning. Then 
 he talked with me through the speaking-tube and told me to 
 fetch you here. It may be because the house is full of people, 
 doctors and nurses and' such." 
 
 For a moment it seemed to the girl impossible to move. 
 Her thought became confused. The chauffeur stood regarding 
 her curiously. Then, slowly, she descended from the car and 
 mechanically followed him up the steps and into the building. 
 
 181 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 On the threshold she paused. Something seemed to strike her, 
 something invisible, yet tangible. And it left a sense of weak- 
 ness. 
 
 "The last one down that way," she heard thie chauffeur say, 
 as he pointed down the corridor. Then the door closed behind 
 her, and she knew that she was alone. 
 
 Yet not alone, for she knew as she stood there, seemingly 
 dazed, that he was awaiting her in that room at the end of the 
 corridor. 
 
 With this thought a strange sensation came over her. It 
 was as if in that room far down the corridor, as in the foul 
 recesses of a hidden cave, a monster devil-fish lay concealed, 
 waiting for her to come within the radius of its deadly arms. 
 It was as if she stood in a reeking swamp, where, in the black 
 shadows, lurked a giant anaconda, its glittering eyes fastened 
 upon her, and the subtle mesmerism of its hideous, unseen 
 presence drawing her nearer, ever nearer. . . 
 
 She shivered, and involuntarily drew her cloak closer. The 
 corridor was cold. And how quiet it was! The dead silence 
 smote her. The narrow corridor appeared to close in around 
 her like a tomb. A feeling of sadness swept over her. Yet 
 through it she seemed to remember that in his lonely tomb 
 the Master solved the problem of being. 
 
 She threw off the depressing influence and started down 
 the corridor. But with a few steps she again halted. Why was 
 she there? And to what was she going? This was not her 
 place! She turned. . . 
 
 But Man is the true idea of Mind. She knew that. And 
 knew that because of it Man must be always in his right place. 
 Yet consciousness of this saving fact comes only as the false 
 belief in a material self apart from Mind is made to yield to 
 the spiritual understanding that "I and the Father are one". 
 The right place is not material locality, but opportunity to 
 receive and reflect the incessant unfoldment of good. 
 
 She moved forward again. The long corridor seemed to 
 stretch out before her interminably. Through it the claim of 
 animal magnetism to control and govern by deadening the 
 human mind came slinking. Out from the refuge of lies it 
 crept to envelop her. Its baleful arguments of catastrophe 
 came whispering low and mournfully. The long corridor sym- 
 bolized man's pilgrimage, the haphazard, purposeless, uncertain, 
 futile journey through the narrow vale of human experience 
 to extinction. And as she moved slowly through it her sadness 
 deepened. 
 
 A great pity rose within her. Deception had lured her 
 there, as it lured mankind through life, only to mock human 
 
 182 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 hopes. She had come in the belief that she would be taken 
 to the house, that she would find him there eagerly awaiting 
 her in his great need, that he would be gladly receptiy^. . . 
 
 She had been cruelly betrayed. She knew he had learned of 
 her return, that he knew of her part in the opposition against 
 him. She knew now, even as well as she knew he did, that 
 she must be removed from his path, that it was now her 
 extinction or his. And through love betrayed she had been 
 lured to that place, lured down that corridor to . . . 
 
 Yet she need not go on! The door was but a few steps 
 back! Again she stopped. 
 
 As she stood, the words of Madam Galuth came to her: 
 "We must be wise in responding to those who ask for aid." 
 
 She had lacked wisdom. She knew it now — too late. The 
 admission which but for the mesmeric suspension of her nor- 
 mal mental operations had not found voice, raised high the 
 gates of thought to a drowning flood of self-condemnation. She 
 had not obeyed. The first sin was disobedience. And that 
 brought death. 
 
 But she had been tricked. She had come on a mission of 
 purest love, but human treachery had called her. And her 
 sense of resentment was great. In its wake came utter sad- 
 ness. Her spirits sank to fathomless depths. The light failed 
 and darkness fell. 
 
 What mattered it now whether she returned or went on? 
 It would always be the same. She had fought, she had stood, 
 she had beaten back the enemy again and again; yet always 
 it confronted her, dropping one guise for another, but always 
 the same enemy, fresh, vigorous, aggressive, confident. The 
 conflict was endless. . . 
 
 How dark it was ! And the silence so horrible in its portent ! 
 Yet confusedly she remembered that David, in the loneliness, 
 doubt, and darkness, sang even in the wilderness. What of 
 height, or depth, or human sense of joy or woe? The infinite 
 Principle wks everywhere present and available. And knowing 
 it, the shepherd boy had triumphed ere he cast the stone at 
 the Philistine giant. 
 
 Her thought lifted measurably. She turned and went on. 
 The way seemed easier, her burden lighter. 
 
 But through the darkness, the cold, and the silence came 
 the insistent query: "To what are you going?" 
 
 To man? But true Man is not measiired by material sense. 
 Such measurement reveals naught but the Adam concept, the 
 material sense of creation derived from the communal mortal 
 mind, the suppositional opposite of the Mind divine. Man is 
 not as he appears to the material senses to be; and Adam 
 
 183 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 is but error, in which all die who accept it as real. Because 
 of this, because the Christ is generic Man, Isaiah could fore- 
 tell the day when one "shall not judge after the sight of his 
 eyes." If David were right, to what could she go but to Principle? 
 
 She moved forward, comforted, yet with a sense of some- 
 thing wrong. And dwelling on that sense, her thought seemed 
 again to cloud. Questions, human, oppressive, appeared to 
 crowd upon her. What was it that had come over her so 
 suddenly, so swiftly, as she entered this building? What was 
 it that she was battling with now? What awaited her in that 
 room down the corridor? 
 
 Again the pendulum swung back. Her confidence died. 
 Her heart grew chill. Yet she knew that the door was back 
 there. She could still go. 
 
 But that were defeat. And yet she was already defeated, 
 broken. And the incarnation of the jeering, mocking enemy 
 awaited down there to complete his triumph. , . 
 
 And what, after all, had the enemy asked of her? Only 
 that she acknowledge its claims — claims that were visible, 
 tangible, just — claims that were so easily acknowledged by 
 others who laughed and sang and were prosperous and glad. 
 Their lives were not an endless struggle. They, were not out- 
 casts, shunned, despised, mocked. They had not foolishly 
 exchanged the good things of life for the shadows. 
 
 "Power," she had told the major in Antonia's Tower, "is 
 Truth." And he had exultihgly answered: "But you are in 
 my power, and I am human!" Yet she had broken from his 
 grasp and met death! 
 
 Could she meet it now? She had met it for Alden. Yet 
 he was admittedly but in the vestibule. Could she have met 
 it had he lain in the tomb? Could she meet it for herself? Ah, 
 the steps that the Master had patiently taken! The daughter 
 of Jairus was but where Alden had been; the widow's son 
 was being borne to the tomb; Lazarus had been four days dead. 
 The raising of each was a step in progression as the Master's 
 understanding grew. Then — but not until he knew — did he 
 meet the enemy for himself. . . 
 
 Could she? For she was going to death! 
 
 A sense of hopelessness rolled over her like a smothering 
 wave. The door was back there . . . but she knew she would 
 not return to it. Knew she could- not. For she was in the 
 tomb. She was lost. She stopped, with the tears falling from 
 her cheeks. 
 
 But she was impelled to move on, and she started forward. 
 Oh, how tired she was, how dreadfully tired! If she could 
 sleep and forget while the blow fell. But she must go on. 
 
 184 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 And, oh, how she pitied herself! She had been so deceived. 
 She had lost that which she had not even possessed. But so 
 had the world's great reformers all been deceived — and the 
 world has always been wiser than they. So had the Nazarene 
 been lured to the cross. "My power, my power, why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" It was the epitaph of all who had resisted the 
 enemy's claims. It would be hers. She was in mortal agony 
 under her cross, but she must go on. She staggered ahead, 
 stumbled, burst into sobs, and stood, drooping. "Oh, my Godl" 
 
 The cry broke from her involuntarily. It crashed upon her 
 senses like a burst of thunder, and went roaring down through 
 the echoing- corridor. Under it the spell shattered — and she 
 awoke. 
 
 Awoke, with a start, with a cry, to sense the lethal flood 
 of suggestions rolling over her; awoke to the damping, suf- 
 focating, deadening influence that was upon her; awoke to 
 know that presence in that room beyond for what it was — 
 not power, not presence, but the impotent tool of animal mag- 
 netism; awoke to detect the animus back of the mythical 
 thing, to see its sham pretense, and to crush the black fear 
 with which it would have paralyzed her. Instantly she knew, 
 as she braced herself, that of herself she could do nothing, 
 and that that very knowledge likewise rendered powerless the 
 evil that had been so subtly directed against her. Instantly 
 she knew God alone to be Cause; and that no power, no intel- 
 ligence, no law, could exist opposed to Him. Instantly she 
 looked through the claims of evil and knew that malpractice 
 as a power did not exist. 
 
 "My God," she cried aloud, "we know Thee !" 
 
 For she knew now that to ask the name of the evil that had 
 come over her, to demand what it was that she was battling 
 with, had made real the mesmerism and brought her under 
 its spell. She knew now that facing it as an enemy had insured 
 her own defeat, for Man has no enemies. She knew now that 
 instant obedience had been demanded of her when she found 
 herself dismayed before the laboratory, but that the human 
 sense of deception — though God be All — had kept her from 
 yielding it. The surrender to suggestions of defeat, of self-pity, 
 of weariness in pursuit of the right, had brought her to the 
 pit. And she had been awakened on the brink to find the 
 guardian angels there, the intuitions that guide away from 
 matter and its illusions into Truth. 
 
 In speechless gratitude she stood and drew on again the 
 armor which had been torn from her. Again she recognized 
 in this crucial experience the ever-presence of the divine Love 
 that would deliver her — though she might not outline the 
 
 185 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 manner — ^and cause her constructive thinking to bless all man- 
 kind. She rejoiced now that she was there; rejoiced that to 
 her had been given the power through understanding to see 
 things as they are; rejoiced that in an experience before which 
 the world would cower she could find an occasion for joy. 
 The Christ was with her, as the Christ had been promised to 
 the world even to the end of every human belief that opposes 
 the supremacy of God. It was Love that had guided her through 
 the storms of human dilemma; that had cast out the obtrud- 
 ing concepts of frightened human sense; that had rendered 
 simple the solution of tangled human problems. It was Love 
 that had caused her to see the impersonal nature of evil 
 and to echo the Master's: "Father, forgive them, for they 
 know not ..." It was Love that had taught her that God 
 could not know evil, and that naught can exist that He cannot 
 know. It was Love that had delivered her from human 
 hatred by teaching her to reflect Love. It was Love that had 
 shown her what Man is as the true expression of Mind. It 
 was Love that had rendered relapse impossible by dispelling 
 the illusion and revealing no evil condition to which to return. 
 It was Love that had shown her the cruel mistake of belief 
 in a suJ)posed dual nature of the human and the divine, of 
 Spirit and its opposite, error. It was Love that had antidoted 
 her sense of suffering and cast out fear through the under- 
 standing of God as AIL It was Love that had taught her to 
 obey the divine command to heal the sick, though the world 
 cast itself in her way to oppose. It was Love that had started 
 her in the way the Master had trod, who overcame matter in 
 his "ascension" and acquired that consciousness of perfect 
 harmony which is the sitting at the right hand of God. It was 
 Love that had exposed the nothingness of the human knowledge 
 that sees power in the forces of matter, the phenomena of the 
 carnal mind. It was Love that had shown her the emptiness 
 of the concept of death and had liberated Alden Cragg. It was 
 Love that had given her the courage now to say to the mortal 
 terrors that howled around her: "It is finished! Peace, be 
 still!" It was Love that was leading her down that corridor. 
 
 With a paean of praise in her soul, with naught but bound- 
 less love for the man who had brought her there, she hurried 
 on and turned in at the open door. 
 
 As she did so Alden Cragg came rushing into the room from 
 the passageway that connected the laboratory with the house. 
 Close behind him followed the doctor's secretary, his valet, and 
 physicians who had just arrived from the convention. Alden 
 sprang to the girl and turned her back into the corridor. 
 
 "Marian! Come away!" 
 
 186 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Alden! You . . . here! But I must go to him ! He needs 
 me!" 
 
 "No! He got you here through deceit ! Do not go to him!" 
 But, as the girl persisted : "Then, if you insist, I shall go with 
 you!" 
 
 He turned back with her. But before they reached the 
 door of the doctor's room the secretary emerged. His face 
 was pale and his limbs shook. "Take her out that way!" he 
 gasped, pointing up the corridor to the street entrance. 
 
 For Jeremiah Roake sat at his desk in that room — dead. 
 
 CHAPTER 28 
 
 FROM the Glass theater the delegates poured in confusion 
 when the judge, at Doctor Proast's request, had bidden 
 them go. The members of the Executive Committee 
 gathered in a dazed group and were conducted by Doctor Lann 
 to his office, to be joined by Judge Calwin for a further con- 
 ference. The British agents, on learning that Doctor Roake 
 was not there, started at once for "Craggmont", accompanied 
 by federal officers and local police. Simeon Penberry dragged 
 the rector down to a car, and bade the amazed chauffeur for- 
 get traffic regulations on the way to "Craggmont". 
 
 Arrived at the mansion, they were met by Mrs. Whittier — 
 herself supported by a corps of frightened servants — who had 
 just been apprised of the distressing occurrences in the con- 
 vention and of the arrival of Simeon Penberry. "Father!" she 
 cried in an effusive enactment of her hastily studied role, 
 "welcome, welcome! But why didn't you cable that you were 
 coming?" And she rushed to embrace him. 
 ^ But he held her off. "Damme! when you're bringing gov- 
 ernment agents to capture the blackest rogue on earth you 
 don't advertise it, do you?" he shouted. "Where's Roake? 
 Where's Marian? Here, you officers," to the police, "turn 
 over the whole bally place!" 
 
 "Mr. Cragg and the doctor's secretary are searching for 
 him, sir!" ventured a frightened butler. 
 
 "Damme!" cried Penberry, wheeling again upon Mrs. Whit- 
 tier, "but you played me a jolly trick! But I've cards up my 
 sleeve that will trump it!" 
 
 David Barach appeared just then, followed by the doctor's 
 secretary. "We have found him," he said quietly. "He has 
 been arrested ..." 
 
 Mrs. Whittier screamed and tottered to a maid. 
 
 ". . . by death," Barach concluded. 
 
 187 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Mrs. Whitlier fainted. The rector fell back gasping. Simeon 
 P.enberry stood for a moment stunned, but quickly recovered 
 and demanded explanations. 
 
 They were brief. Alden had appeared at "Craggmont" and 
 insisted on seeing the doctor, on the threat of invoking police 
 power. The secretary had gone in search of him. Aldett did 
 not wait, but, entirely familiar with the house, had followed. 
 They found the doctor al length, sitting at his desk in his room 
 . in the laboratory, jUst as Marian was entering. Alden had not 
 noticed that the doctor was dead, but had hurried past him to 
 the girl. David Barach had meantime entered from the street 
 and was on his way down the corridor when the gruesome 
 discovery was made. 
 
 "In an adjoining room we found Senator Chaddock," Barach 
 continued. "The police have taken charge of him. But he 
 had nothing to do with it, for the doctors said Roake went with 
 apoplexy." 
 
 "And Marian?" 
 
 "Alden did not permit her to go into the room where Roake's 
 body was, but took her back through the corridor and away 
 in his car. I doubt' if she knows that Roake is dead. Alden 
 probably took her to Madam Galuth's." 
 
 "And that blackguardly Roake had sent for her, eh? 
 /Meaning mischief!" 
 
 "Yes. And she had the courage to go. But when she 
 went to face him, why, he wasn't there!" 
 
 "Damme!" 
 
 An odd look came into Barach's face. "It was a proof of 
 what she so often told us on our travels: when you go to face 
 evil understandingly you will find that it is not there." 
 
 The police quickly took charge of the premises. The coroner 
 was notified, as were the newspapers and the Executive Com- 
 mittee in the oflice of Doctor Lann. Mrs. Whittier was carried 
 upstairs; and the rector and physicians went to break the news 
 to Ethel and minister to her. 
 
 After a further consultation with the police, Simepn Pen- 
 berry, who had held to Barach, announced that there was 
 nothing further for him to do there and that he wanted to be 
 taken to Marian. "Come on," he commanded, "take me to that 
 girl! My granddaughter! The reaZ Penberry heiress ! Damme! 
 But I might have known it . . . she was so like » . . But, oh, 
 those Whittiers! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 At the door of the Galuth home Marian and Alden met them. 
 The girl flew into her grandfather's arms with a cry of joy. 
 The report of the rector's revelation of her identity had reached 
 her, for Doctor Rowley had telephoned the tidings to Madam 
 
 188 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Galuth. And Doctor Benson had incoherently reported it to 
 her from the city. .The amazed girl had sat long, musing on it. 
 Then, before her astonished vision, she saw the broken links 
 of a long chain united. 
 
 The old man struggled desperately against his emotion as 
 he clasped her in his arms, but found his struggle vain. At 
 last he broke down completely. "But I'm not really crying!" 
 he declared brokenly. "I'm not crying, y' understand ! I'm 
 no bally woman!" But as he crushed the girl to his breast his 
 tears flowed fast. 
 
 "But . . . but Where's that wonderful creature . . . Madam 
 Galuth?" he asked at length. "I've a debt to square wiih her 
 for . . . for caring for you ... all these years,; my little girl, 
 and for sending you to me. Damme ! I believe she knew this 
 all the time!" 
 
 "She is upstairs," Marian told him. "She will come down 
 . . . soon. But, first, we have much to talk about, haven't we, 
 you and I?" And then, sitting together on the little sofa hand 
 in hand, they talked long of the manner of their meeting in 
 London, of the Penberry Ambulance Corps, of the capture of 
 Jerusalem, of their deliverance, and of their wonderful journey 
 in the footsteps of the lost tribes of Israel. 
 
 It had been wonderful, indeed! And how marvelous was 
 Truth, how insiignificant the material fiction! "We traced 
 'em!" he cried enthusiastically. "We found 'em, you and I! 
 And ... it was the same route that she took! But," his voice 
 dropping, "we didn't find her." 
 
 And then, as he sat with bowed head, he added sadly: "She 
 was an American woman, high-born, lofty in character, pure 
 of soul. She was interested in the things that . . . that you 
 have interested me in, little girl, the only things that count. 
 But I scoflFed at them then. Fool that I was ! I was so worldly 
 wise — she, so truly wise! How she loved her Bible! How she 
 loved that old Pyramid! . . . Lord, my ignorance, my dense 
 ignorance ! I couldn't stand her spirituality. I ... I deserted 
 her . . . while we were in Jerusalem. I went down to the 
 Rand, then to America. In the mining camps of the west I 
 ... I became enamored of a . . . a . . . dance-hall woman. 
 She had a child, a daughter . . . God knovvs who the child's 
 father was! I married the woman — though I had a wife liv- 
 ing — and went back to the Rand. The woman died that same 
 year. I brought her child up as my own, gave her every 
 advantage, though I never adopted her. That child became, 
 in time, Wilson Whittier's wife." 
 
 "Ethel's mother?" exclaimed Marian. 
 
 He nodded. Then: "I kept her secret, for I was myself 
 
 189 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 so sin-stained. Oh, yes, Mrs. Whittier and her husband knew 
 that she was not my daughter. But they .have never known y 
 that . . . that her mother and father were . . . never married. 
 They do not know it now. And, had she behaved . . . had she 
 been honest with me ... I would have . . . I would now . . ." 
 
 "And you will anyway," Marian Interrupted gently, reach- 
 ing up and stroking the bronzed old face. "We are not judges, 
 you know. Remember, we are really Israel." 
 
 "Yes, yes! And we found 'em, didn't we? We found 'em! 
 But I didn't find . . . her!" 
 
 "But that was because your journey was not yet finished," 
 she said. 
 
 He raised his startled eyes to hers. 
 
 "Lost Israel was found," she continued, "but not only in 
 England, for part of Israel is in America . . . here I" 
 
 "Marian!" He seemed to divine something of tremendous 
 import, and he was shaking with suppressed excitement. 
 
 "The word 'galuth'," she went on, "means 'exile'. . ." 
 
 "Madam Galuth!" he exclaimed, gripping her hands. 
 
 ". . . Israel went into exile. But not to remain. For Israel 
 had the Word. From the exile we received it. From this exile 
 here I received it. . ." 
 
 He was on his feet and staring down at her. "Madam 
 Galuth! She?" 
 
 The white-haired woman came softly down stairs and 
 entered the room. Penberry fell back, devouring her with 
 famished eyes. She came toward him with a smile. He 
 clutched feebly at the air. "Marian!" he gasped. "It is Ma- 
 rian ! Your hair ... it is white . . . but your face ... it is 
 the woman's I loved. . . Oh, God! It is Marian I" 
 
 The woman stood before him. "Yes," she said gently, "I 
 am Marian. And this," taking the girl's hand, "is our Marian, 
 the daughter of our boy. Max." 
 
 "Marian! Marian! . . . God forgive . . . forgive. . ." 
 
 Simeon Penberry's arms went slowly out and around the 
 woman's slender figure. He drew her tenderly toward him. His 
 •trembling lips touched her white hair. Then he bowed his 
 head over her and sobbed aloud. . .. 
 
 It was a busy day at Madam Galuth's little cottage. It was 
 a very busy day at the newspaper offices. It was an extraor- 
 dinarily busy day for the Crestelridge gentility, who rushed 
 hither and yon in their high-povvei:ed cars, gaping, babbling, 
 retrieving, scheming. Mrs. Tellus telephoned her husband to 
 come right home and prepare to go with her at once to "Cragg- 
 mont" — "Although," she excitedly informed him, "I don't know 
 but what we had better go to Madam Galuth's first to see 
 
 190 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Marian! Have you read the accounts of it in the 'extras'? She's 
 a Penberry!". . . 
 
 Almost hourly throughout the day the "extras" poured hot 
 from the clanging presses. Simeon Penberry, in his consum- 
 ing joy, could not be restrained from summoning eager report- 
 ers, to whom he excitedly gave the details of the discovery of 
 his long-lost wife in Madam Galuth. "Think of it!" cried Mrs. 
 Tellus, hurrying from the thrilled McBeans to the fluttering 
 Flahertys, thence to the gaping Nences, the dumfounded 
 Kerls, the astonished Blacks, "the Galuth is his wife! And 
 Marian is their granddaughter! Oh! oh! oh! Who will get 
 the Penberry money now?" And society, though it had treated 
 these women like the refuse in Gehenna, now rose en masse 
 to acclaim them. 
 
 The breaking up of the health convention was accorded 
 proportionably scant space in the newspapers, crowded as they 
 were with the vivid reports of the sudden death of the world's 
 great benefactor. Dr. Jeremiah Roake, with fulsome eulogies 
 of the man's unique character and work, and with dramatic 
 accounts — copiously illustrated — of the revelation of the iden- 
 tities of the Galuth and Marian Whittier. There were shorter 
 announcements of the rector's yielding of his rectorship, for 
 that had not been established as yet, and the hastily summoned 
 vestry of St. Jude's was to meet again that afternoon. . . 
 
 "By the Lord, I knew that girl was somebody!" cried Doctor 
 Benson. And none rushed in and out of the Galuth home as 
 often and as aimlessly as he. 
 
 It was a busy day for Marian; it was a busier one for Simeon 
 Penberry, who leaped from cloud to cloud, nor knew where the 
 earth was to be found. Nothing would do but that he must 
 needs summon David Barach at once to draw up a new will, 
 in which the old man bequeathed the Penberry millions, with- 
 out reservation but for his wife's legal share, to Marian. "And 
 I know how she will spend it!" he loudly declared. "And it 
 won't be to make a place in silly society, nor to gain admis- 
 sion to the 'Norman Dames'! 'Norman Dames', indeed! 
 Damme! Br-r-r-r!" 
 
 And, that accomplished, he imperiously summoned Alden 
 and Barach again before him. He was the embodiment of 
 dynamic energy, and the little house shook as he strode. "What 
 are you fellows going to do now, eh?" he demanded, standing 
 before them with his long legs spread and his hands jammed 
 into his trousers' pockets. "Oh, I know what: you're going to 
 work with me! Damme! but we've got a work to do! This 
 Anglo-Israel idea. . ." 
 
 But Alden smiled and put an arm affectionately about the 
 
 48 191 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 excited old man's shoulders. "Our work is cut out for us," 
 he said gently, "but we are taking orders from Marian. And 
 I would remind you that you are, too." 
 
 Froin the ofBce of Doctor Lann came a unique request, 
 issued by the Executive Committee. Would Marian Whittier 
 receive them? They had been in session with Judge Calwin. 
 It had seemed wise, after further deliberation, to announce a 
 postponement of the convention — the death of their leader 
 afforded plausible ground. They were interested — intensely so 
 — in her views as faintly voiced by David Barach and Doctor 
 Rowley in the convention. Would she talk to them? 
 
 And she gladly told them she would, and set that evening, 
 at the Galuth home, for the meeting. "And bring all who would 
 care to come," she added. "Bring the doctors, the preachers, 
 the legislators . . ." 
 
 "We'll take out the sides of the house if the place is too 
 small!" shouted Penberry, who overheard the girl's words. 
 
 "And I must send for Zuleyka," he added, when she had 
 issued her invitation and turned from the 'phone. For the 
 Egyptian, who had beggfed to come to America with Penberry, 
 "just to see that girl again," had been left at a hotel in the city 
 to await instructions. 
 
 And there was another who telephoned to the girl that 
 eventful day. Chaplain MuUer had been in New York for some 
 time. On the close, of the war he could not bear to return 
 to Germany, and had come to America to make a new home 
 among friends here. He had read in the papers of the stirring 
 events. Could he see her? And she delightedly bade him come. 
 
 Came then a telephoned report that brought Simeon Pen- 
 berry down to the earth with a thud. It was from the local 
 chief of police. Mrs. Whittier had demanded an investigation 
 of the death of Doctor Roake. The girl, Marian, had Ijeen with 
 him at the last, alone. . . 
 
 Penberry uttered an oath that shook the house, and, sum- 
 moning Alden, bade him drive him posthaste to "Craggmont". 
 There he stalked into the cowering Mrs. Whittier's presence 
 and glowered down at her like a thunder cloud. "So!" he 
 snarled; "So! You would make me play the trump card, 
 eh? By the Lord, if you don't this minute call the chief and 
 retract every damnable word that you've uttered against that 
 girl, I'll go before Crestelridge society, I'll go before the 'Norman 
 Dames', and I'll go to the newspapers, and tell 'em Who you 
 are! You are the illegitimate daughter of a dance-hall artiste, 
 picked up in a western mining camp! That's the reason you 
 never knew your father! And now, by the Lord, if you and 
 Ethel don't pack up, as soon as Roake's under ground, and 
 leave Crestelridge forever, I'll . . ." 
 
 192 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 "I sinned, and because of it I gave you a cliance ! I brought 
 you up as my daughter — gave you everything that money would 
 buy — hid the dirty secret of your parentage — married you 
 honorably to Wilson Whittier! But you played me false . . ." 
 
 "Father! Oh, I'm fainting! Oh!" 
 
 "As for that conscienceless creature, Ethel, she had a chance, 
 by the Lord! Alden Cragg sacrificed himself to save her name 
 and that of her child fathered by that whelp, Harris Chaddock!" 
 
 "Father! Oh, don't! Oh, my country! I'll do anything 
 you say ! Anything ! Oh ! " 
 
 " 'Norman Dames' ! Br-r-r-r ! You are no more descended 
 from the Normans than the African negroes! I . . . I . . . 
 Now listen," he continued more calmly, "you can't stay here 
 any longer. 'Craggmont' never did belong to Roake. Marian 
 set Barach to work in New York to unravel the affairs of the 
 Cragg estate. The whole estate rightfully belongs to Barach, 
 for it was the Jew's people who lent the elder Cragg the money 
 years ago to build up his fortune, and he never paid it back. 
 Alden now insists on making proper restitution, and Barach 
 will come in for all that is left of the Cragg estate, if he wants 
 
 "But I'll agree to settle an allowance on you and Ethel suf- 
 ficient to keep you comfortably the rest of your lives. But you 
 must leave Crestelridge and go to some secluded place and live 
 quietly the rest of your days. And if you ever voice a word 
 of criticism of Marian, by the Lord, your allowance will be 
 cut off and you'll end your days in poverty and disgrace! 
 Roake's money is all involved in the Roake organization, and 
 when his bills are paid I doubt if he'll have more than enough 
 
 to bury him. So . • ." » , , ~ ,. j 
 
 Before Penberry left "Craggmont" a federal officer requested 
 him to step into the doctor's study. There he was shown a 
 document which they had discovered among the doctor s papers, 
 the document in the red-sealed envelope that bore the inscrip- 
 tien: Concerning the family of the Reverend Wilson Whittier, 
 Crestelridge, N. Y., U. S. A. 
 
 The old man seized it and devoured it avidly. By the 
 Lord!" he shouted, "this is the very packet that Otto Hoeffel 
 gave Zuleyka in the Tower of Antonia, and which she lost! 
 
 "It confirms the report that Miss Whittier is your grand- 
 daughter if it is authentic," the officer ventured. 
 
 ■Authentic!" Penberry exclaimed. "Otto Hoefifel was the 
 cleverest man in the German Intelligence Department Why> 
 he actually visited me. my guest! And got ^formation that 
 Tas invaluable! He found some record regarding Marian, and 
 
 193 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 he was going to use it! But something happened to hijn down 
 there in Jerusalem! Damme! Somebody evidently found the 
 packet after the Egyptian lost it, and, seeing Wilson Whittier's 
 name on it, sent it to him. And Roake intercepted it. By the 
 L . . ." 
 
 On his return to the little cottage Penberry found the rector, 
 sitting with Marian and Madam Galuth. Wilson Whittier had 
 come to confess his part in the awful secret that had gnawed 
 his breast these many years. But before he spoke Marian took 
 his hand and bade him know that the Love which had restored 
 them had forgiven his fault by destroying it. 
 
 "The details are few," the rector related in a choking voice, 
 "but the iniquity was vast. Mrs. Whittier and I wanted chil- 
 dren. One came to us, but it died in infancy. It seemed then, 
 through the long years, that we should remain childless. We 
 decided to adopt one. I went to a clergyman in Boston whose 
 life was devoted to finding homes for abandoned babes. Some- 
 times he had the history of the child, often he did not. I found 
 there an infant, a girl that greatly attracted me. And the 
 clergyman had its story, in part. For it was the daughter of 
 your disinherited son, Max, by an American wife/' 
 
 "Yes," murmured Penberry, "I was proud. Max had always 
 been wayward. And when he went to America and married 
 I closed my doors against him. I have been punished!" 
 
 "His wife must have been an angel," the rector continued; 
 "but the clergyman had no record of her, except that she died 
 when her babe was a year old. Max was a wanderer, and he 
 could not be burdened with the child. But he gave it his 
 mother's name, Marian, and left an honorable, if brief, history 
 with it when he delivered it to the clergyman for adoption." 
 
 "But did you find no trace of Max afterward?" Penberry 
 eagerly asked. 
 
 "Yes," the refctor replied sadly, "the government records 
 show that he died gloriously in the battle at San Juan hill, in 
 the Spanish-American war." 
 
 Penberry drew a deep sigh. "Max was more American than 
 English," he said. "His mother," glancing toward Madam Ga- 
 luth, "was an American." 
 
 "We took the babe," the rector resumed. "We took it . . ." 
 His voice dropped low. "We took it because it was the only 
 child in the Penberry line. We thought — Oh, the shame of 
 it! — we thought that some day we might tell you of the adop- 
 tion, and that you might become reconciled to the child and 
 make her your heir. 
 
 "Alas! such wicked plans God turns awry. For soon a 
 child was born to us, Ethel. And then my wife sorely regret- 
 
 194 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ted that we had adopted Marian. She would have Ethel named 
 in your will. I was weak. I yielded to her. We hid Marian 
 in boarding schools and seminaries, and advanced Ethel, keep- 
 ing her always before your attention, and influencing you to 
 make her your heir. How we carried the terrible secret all 
 these years is to me incomprehensible. But it cost me my 
 manhood. It cost me my life — until in her I found true Life. 
 
 "Ethel never knew who Marian really was. She does not 
 know now. Poor child, her sorrows have been many and poign- 
 ant ! We told no one that Mrs. Whittier was not your daughter, 
 but the daughter of your second wife. For she was socially 
 ambitious, and if society had known . . ." 
 
 Marian exclaimed aloud. "Oh," she cried, "see what it 
 means to cover error! Error can't be ignored, it can't be left 
 undisturbed, nor can one flee from it ! It must be faced boldly, 
 exposed, and destroyed by Truth!" 
 
 "Mrs. Whittier claimed descent from you," the rector went 
 on, turning to Simeon Penberry. "It was wrong, and the lie 
 brought its reward. We were going to claim your fortune 
 through Ethel, while we knew that Marian was your rightful 
 heiress. See what it brought! Our sins, like the wind, have 
 taken us away I We have lost all — and yet in its place Marian 
 has given me the only thing of real value in life, the right 
 concept of God." 
 
 Marian went quickly to the sorrowing rector and stole an 
 arm about his neck. He seized her hand gratefully and raised 
 it to his quivering lips. 
 
 Silence lay upon them all. Penberry sat back, head sunk 
 upon his chest, deep in thought. He understood now how 
 Otto Hoefifel had learned that Marian was his granddaughter. 
 Otto knew that the Boston clergyman made a business of plac- 
 ing babes in adoption. It was Otto's business to know such 
 things, and to report the information to his imperial master 
 in Berlin. And Otto wanted to marry Marian. "Oh, yes," the_ 
 old man mused, "he wanted the Penberry money! So did' 
 Roake. But Otto played Roake false. Then something hap- 
 pened to Otto; he had a change of heart in Jerusalem; and 
 before the city fell he wrote this confession and gave it to Zu- 
 leyka to hold for me. H'm ! The ways of Providence are . . . 
 But what became of Otto? I wonder. . ." 
 
 Then Penberry broke the silence. "Wilson," he said slowly 
 and not unkindly, "we have both sinned. And because of it 
 we have suffered the pangs of hell. But we have repented and 
 made restitution. Your wife has as greatly sinned; yet she 
 is still unrepentant. You wanted to do right, but were weak. 
 She did not want the right, and was strong in this world's 
 
 195 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 ways. But we must not constitute ourselves her judges. We 
 shall do right by her arid by Ethel, And now, what are your 
 plans?" 
 
 The rector smiled sadly. "I have just come from the rec- 
 tory," he said. "The vestry summoned me. I was dismissed 
 from St. Jude's and told to remove from the rectory at the 
 earliest moment." 
 
 "Good !" Penberry exclaimed. "You're out of prison ! You're 
 ready for real work now, eh? I . . . But of course Marian's 
 giving orders, you know." 
 
 "Oh," cried the girl, turning to the rector, "there is so much 
 work for you ! And for us all ! There is a place aAvaiting you 
 in the big plan, not the Roake plan, but God's plan. Awaiting 
 ypu, and Alden, and David, and . . ." 
 
 "And old Penberry's millions back of it all!" ejaculated the 
 excited old man. 
 
 Then Marian and Madam Galuth — now Madam Penberry — 
 stole away upstairs to be alone with each other and their 
 thoughts. 
 
 What impression the passing of Doctor Roake had made 
 upon Marian was not apparent. She had not been informed 
 of it until some time after arriving at the Galuth cottage. And 
 then, whatever her comment, it had been spoken only to Alden, 
 who had told her of the doctor's death. 
 
 And HOW, as the woman again voiced her measureless grati- 
 tude for the girl's deliverance, and again referred to the pass- 
 ing of Jeremiah Roake, Marian fell silent. But, after some 
 moments, she looked up. "Woe unto him that striveth with 
 his Maker," she said slowly. Nothing more. And Madam Pen- 
 berry knew that the subject probably never would be discussed 
 further by them. 
 
 Long they sat, deep in thieir thoughts. And when the silence 
 was broken, it was the woman who spoke. "Chaplain Muller 
 is coming to-night because pf the help you gave him in Jeru- 
 salem." She paused and awaited the girl's reply. None came. 
 Then she drew nearer and put an arm about Marian's waist. 
 "Dearie," she said softly, "I know — ^in part — I know. And I 
 , know that, because of it, to you and to Alden has been given 
 a knowledge of the nothingness of death. Having gotten the 
 spiritual fact, you stood. Through all the diabolism directed 
 against you, you stood, knowing that not one word of Truth 
 is ever lost. Or, as Luke's statement is often translated: 'No 
 word from God shall be void of power.' You and Alden became 
 persuaded that nothing could separate you from Principle. 
 Alden at length cariie to be regarded here as either supernat- 
 ural or insane— thus does the ignorant carnal mind judge those 
 
 196 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 to whom the Light has come. But it was only because he 
 knew God and did not fear." 
 
 Marian smiled up at her. "He was a Daniel," she said. 
 "Dan means 'judge', and 'El' is God; so Daniel was God's 
 judge, before whom evil was condemned to its native nothing- 
 ness." 
 
 "Dearie," said the woman, "you have been made a righteous 
 judge too. And God used you to judge Simeon Penberry and 
 Wilson Whittier. , ." 
 
 "You knew who Simeon Penberry was," the girl interposed. 
 "You knew it, and you purposely sent me to him." 
 
 The woman gave a happy little laugh. "I was sure it would 
 work out that way," she said. "And when Lady Chorris came 
 to me . . ." 
 
 "Lady Chorris?" the girl queried. 
 
 "Why, yes. She was the nurse who took you to Simeon 
 Penberry. It was because of her great influence that so much 
 was accomplished." 
 
 Marian sat looking at her wonderingly. Then, taking her 
 hand : "Oh, you have followed me and watched over me all my 
 life!" Her eyes filled with tears. "Your good thoughts were 
 always my guardian angels! But — how did you know when 
 I was adopted as a babe?" 
 
 "My boy Max came to me," the woman answered. "After 
 his wife had passed on. Wilson Whittier does not know thisi 
 It was — as the world would say — ^mere chance that Max dis- 
 covered me on the street one day. He told me about his child. 
 I begged him to bring you and come to live with me. But I 
 never saw him again. Then I suspected that he might have 
 given you for adoption. So I made a search. I learned that a 
 child bearing your name had been adopted by the Whittiers. 
 And I followed you. I ... I had something to give you . . . 
 something that I knew they had not. It was the Word." 
 
 The girl turned and threw her arms about the woman's 
 neck. And thus they sat until, at length, Marian raised her 
 head. "God opens the way, always, when we work and pray 
 with the right motives — doesn't He?" 
 
 "He directs our paths always," was the reply, "when we 
 seek Him with right-thinking and then, having grasped the 
 spiritual fact, patiently, lovingly, knowingly stand." 
 
 197 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 CHAPTER 29 
 
 " >^^ RAGGMONT". dark and shrouded in mist, stood that night 
 I like a huge funeral urn, draped with a pall. 
 ^"^ On the opposite hill the Galuth cottage glowed brightly. 
 Up the steep ascent Doctors Rowley and Benson were toiling. 
 " 'The eternal womanhood leads us on', as Goethe sang," puffed 
 Rowley. 
 
 "Hold on there!" cried Benson, stopping and leaning against 
 a tree to rest. "That fellow was a German!" 
 
 "Great heavens, man!" Rowley exclaimed, "I hope you are 
 not going through life hating the Germans ! Have you learned 
 nothing from Marian?" 
 
 "Well . . . yes," the other, admitted reluctantly. "But, you 
 understand, I don't believe all . . ." 
 
 "Rubbish! You are merely incredulous; while she has 
 proved her words. And mere incredulity, I would remind you, 
 is 'the surest sign of a weak head and a corrupt heart'. Don't 
 let any erroneous suggestions now corrupt you." 
 
 "But I can't help believing that a lot of these things just 
 happened. They were mere chance. Fortuitous. . ." 
 
 Rowley took Benson's arm. "Look here," he said, "error 
 is getting in its work to cloud your thought. There is but one 
 Cause, the, infinite creative Mind. But mortals attribute cause 
 to almost anything else. The mortal mind sees what it believes 
 and believes what it sees. The result is nothing but a constantly 
 passing panorama of error, which it calls life. The mortal 
 mind's system of theorizing without Principle gives rise to the 
 belief that man is helpless in the grip of circumstances, and 
 that events merely happen. But that is error's method of work- 
 ing. It keeps our mental gaze focused on effects instead of the 
 mental causes. Wake up, Benson! There is no necessity or 
 power of evil. Circumstances are of human invention." 
 
 "But supposing Roake hadn't happened to die just when he 
 did?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, Marian was not after Roake. She was 
 after the ideas that used him. And she had those foul. His 
 downfall was certain. But he was crushed by his own accu- 
 mulation of evil. And how far-reaching that evil was! There 
 wasn't an avenue of human existence that it did not penetrate! 
 It was even causing a split between Great Britain and the 
 United States. We were steadily drifting toward war. It 
 would have been suicide for Britain and us! But because of 
 the data which she, through Penberry, laid before Parliament 
 
 198 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 after tracing the lost tribes of Israel, the differences which 
 Roake and his gang had stirred up between England and Amer- 
 ica were quietly settled, and Roake was about to be appre- 
 hended." 
 
 ''By heaven!" 
 
 "I am not an apologist for all of England's acts, now or in 
 times past," Rowley went on. "But I do know that unless 
 these two great English-speaking peoples unite in harmony 
 and peace civilization is doomed. Error has tried desperately 
 to separate them, in order to destroy the Word." 
 
 "You're right! The preachers failed . . ." 
 
 "Now Marian," Rowley went on, "has been condemned as 
 a carping critic of orthodox religion ; but let me tell you that 
 it is her idealism that has stirred up this criticism. She sees 
 perfection and the possibility of attaining it, and I don't blame 
 her for being impatient with those who, like Whittier and 
 Roake, either ignorantly or maliciously keep blocking our halt- 
 ing progress toward it. I admit, the only worth-while sort of 
 criticism is that which is constructive. But Marian's is in 
 the highest sense constructive: she tears away the false, but 
 gives the real in substitution for it. The materialistic preach- 
 ers and the political doctors . . ." 
 
 'Tou're right, Rowley! By heaven, I've said so all the 
 time!" 
 
 "And while the preachers and doctors block progress, the 
 aggressive features of animal magnetism come to the fore and 
 plunge us into wars and calamities, enslave us as Roake was 
 seeking to do, and set civilization back another thousand years, 
 I say, God send us more such 'carping' critics as Marian!" 
 
 "You're right! By heaven. . ." 
 
 Within the little cottage Simeon Penberry sat with Chaplain 
 MuUer, who had come early, while Marian and Madam Pen- 
 berry were still upstairs. David Barach had gone to bring 
 Zuleyka. Alden was on his way to Doctor Lann's office to 
 return with the Executive Committee and all who had accepted 
 Marian's invitation. 
 
 "So-o-o!" Penberry ejaculated, after he had drawn from 
 Chaplain MuUer the story of Otto Hoeffel's fate. "He went 
 to the firing squad! Went voluntarily! And for . . . her!" 
 
 He fell silent as the chaplain nodded. But presently he. 
 spoke again. "MuUer," he said very low, "don't tell her. Don't 
 . . . not yet. I will do it ... at the right time. Damme ! He 
 gave his life for her. . ." 
 
 "Ach, yes, Mr. Penberry. But do not forget that she gave 
 him a knowledge of Life eternal. The debt is still his." And 
 Penberry nodded. He knew it was so. 
 
 199 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Then Alden, Zuleyka, Barach, and the delegates came. And 
 with them Rowley and Benson and Boots. Simeon Penberry 
 effusively welcomed them all. He would have embraced them 
 each. He was everywhere. He monopolized the conversation. 
 And none would have guessed from observation of the eager, 
 almost childishly animated old man that he was one of 
 Britain's greatest figures. 
 
 Then Marian came — down the stairs lightly, swiftly, her 
 face aglow, her whole being radiant with the inner light. She 
 came smiling; and she squeezed Alden's hand as she passed 
 him in the hall, and threw a kiss to Zuleyka, whom she saw 
 with Simeon Penberry in the rear of the room. And as she 
 faced the waiting people she opened her arms and cried : "Oh, 
 I love you, love you all!" 
 
 They rose in a body. They rose as one, in instant response 
 to a love that had met such tests and conquered. They would 
 have prostrated themselves at her feet, had she asked such 
 obeisance. 
 
 "Oh, I bring you good news!" she cried. "The news that 
 God is good, that He is available, that He has not left Himself 
 without a witness among you, that He has not been without wit- 
 nesses in all ages to the metaphysical basis of life! 
 
 "I come to you from Egypt, with fresh witnesses. There 
 in the excavations in the ancient Fayum I saw hundreds of 
 documents unearthed that had been written when Jesus of 
 Nazareth was teaching in Galilee. And they were written in 
 the common Greek spoken everywhere throughout the Roman 
 Empire at that time. This was the dialect of the middle 
 classes. It is the exact language of the New Testament. And 
 these documents now show that the four Gospels were written 
 in a dialect and style that no literary man of that time would 
 have used, but that the common people spoke and wrote and 
 loved. 
 
 "And they show that, possibly excepting the second letter 
 of Peter, the entire New Testament was written within the 
 first century of the Christian era. And, more, they show that 
 the text of no other ancient book is now so certain as it. The 
 charge that the New Testament was originated or changed by 
 the emperor Constantine has been completely refuted. Like- 
 wise the charge that it has been tampered with throughout 
 the ages. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers, there is now nothing more firmly estab- 
 lished than that Jesus of Nazareth said what is attributed to 
 him in the New Testament and did what is told of him there! 
 He healed the sick, he raised the dead, and he at last over- 
 came the world, the entire material concept. He did not sit 
 
 200 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 back and wait to die to go to heaven; he worked out his salva- 
 tion. And he commanded us to do the same — for there is no 
 other way — and to teach others how to do it. Well, why, oh, 
 why don't you do it? 
 
 "Oh, you doctors, it has been established that Luke was 
 once a doctor, but that he dropped his uncertain material 
 methods of healing for the sure and scientific metaphysical 
 method employed by Jesus. His Gospel contains many medical 
 and technical terms. It has been thought by some that his 
 prolog is in imitation of the beginning of the great work on 
 materia medica by Dioscorides, and that a copy of this must 
 have been in Luke's library. But Luke was an honest physi- 
 cian, seeking Truth. And because of it he learned true heal- 
 ing. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers who oppose the spiritualizing of the 
 Bible, learn this: that the earliest records are 'mystical', like 
 the Gospel of John. Know this: that primitive Christianity 
 was given in a metaphysical form. Nothing can be more 
 firmly established than that the symbolical language used in 
 the New Testament was for the purpose of conveying stupen- 
 dous metaphysical facts. For the only facts are metaphysical, 
 did you but know it. Nothing is more firmly established than 
 that to human sense the physical, the material, comes first, 
 then the metaphysical, though it is the only reality. We have 
 the literal story of Jesus in the first three Gospels; but the truth 
 regarding the Christ is revealed in the Gospel of John. The 
 philosophy of the New Testament as expressed in this Gospel 
 is the unreality of matter. Can you not accept then the all 
 but established report that John worked out his salvation and 
 rose out of the material concept, even as did his Master? 
 
 "Oh, why do not these great facts convince you? Why do 
 you so stubbornly fight on the side of matter, even while it 
 mesmerizes you to deprive you and your people of life? All 
 must some day accept Truth; yet you fight it because it would 
 destroy the material beliefs with which you are content, it 
 would destroy the material conditions which you think prevail. 
 In the language of the soldier, the human mind has fought from 
 trench to trench for something material that would connect it 
 with God — and in vain, for between Spirit and matter there is 
 no bond. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers, the newly discovered records show that 
 Jesus said, 'I am the vine of truth'. But Jesus taught an omnip- 
 otent First Cause, and proved that the carnal mind was the 
 'lie' about it. A lie is always a suppositional opposite. Thought, 
 by its activity, becomes externalized as consciousness. And so 
 you cannot avoid demonstrating what you know. If your 
 
 201 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 knowledge is material, you bring out a material sense of exist- 
 ence, discordant and doomed to extinction in death. Jesus 
 demonstrated his knowledge of the One Cause. And he over- 
 came the material concept and death. So he bade us 'be ye 
 perfect'. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers, what did Jesus mean when he bade 
 men deny themselves? What, but that they must deny reality 
 to the entire material concept of life? For the supposed outer 
 world, as you have been told, is within mankind themselves. 
 For men are mentalities, things of thought. And matter is 
 wholly mental, and is posited within these mentalities. 
 
 "In the British Museum is an ancient Latin manuscript, 
 supposedly a portion of the records of the early African Church. 
 In this is recorded a conversation between Jesus and the 
 apostle John, in which the latter asks if there is a real mate- 
 rial creation, a material earth, and a material man. And the 
 Master answers with an emphatic no. Oh, very significant 
 is this, that the Master-metaphysician should have talked thus 
 metaphysically with the author of the most metaphysical of 
 the gospels! Where else, indeed, could John get his meta^ 
 physical ideas? 
 
 "Oh, if you did not fear to 'over-spiritualize' the Bible you 
 might read how Jesus taught that Spirit created — revealed — 
 all; and how the suppositional opposite must needs seem to 
 rise to counterfeit God's work by the suppositional revelation 
 of a material universe and a man of matter, both mental, both 
 seeming to be real, yet both figments of false thought. The 
 first chapter of Genesis, with a few verses of the second, tell 
 of the spiritual creation, or revelation; the second chapter tells 
 of the suppositional opposite, where, in the mist of illusion, 
 material man was formed of matter, itself a mental thing. 
 
 "But you, believing firmly in matter, and declaring that 
 God created it, ignore the spiritual record and deal only in and 
 with the mortal mind that counterfeits the Mind that is God. 
 You know not that, to mortal, material sense, wherever Spirit 
 is, there must seem to be matter; wherever Good is, there 
 must seem to be evil; wherever Truth is, there must seem to 
 be error. And that this accounts for the seeming omnipresence 
 of the material concept. Oh, you mesmerized by the serpent! 
 Like the Israelites of old, you have gone after very strange 
 gods. Not golden calves, nor the humanly endowed gods of 
 Olympus, but the 'strong reasons' which you put forth to prove 
 the reality of matter and the presence and power of evil! It 
 is these 'strong reasons' and their hypnotic influence that Jesus 
 bade you put off. But you go on dealing with the human man, 
 which is but the human mind expressed. And the human mind 
 
 202 
 
THOU I SRAEL 
 
 is the expression of mortal mind, so-called. As expressed in 
 the human race, the human mind is mortal mind putting forth 
 the claim to 'be as gods', to know both good and evil, and to 
 rise, through evolution, from imperfection into perfection. But 
 all sin, evil, sickness, catastrophe, suffering, and death are 
 externalized in this human expression of mortal mind. For 
 it is naught but mortal mind itself, and ertor. For mortal 
 mind is ignorance of Truth. 
 
 "But has the human mind the power to redeem itself? The 
 human . mind can abandon its false beliefs. When a false 
 belief is no longer entertained, it disappears, for it has no 
 sustaining Principle. To 'take up the cross', as Jesus bade 
 us, is to take up the task of abandoning the material beliefs 
 of the carnal mind. Laying them down, we see the reality, 
 based on Principle, behind the fleshly veil. 
 
 "Mortal existence is like a dream, illusory. The Mind that 
 is God sees it not, for Mind can know no illusion, no evil. 
 Those engulfed in the human dream are disinclined to get rid 
 of the false beliefs that constitute the mesmeric illusion. So 
 they suffer and die. But they may, if they will, lay down the 
 finite concepts, false beliefs, in which they seemingly dwell 
 and of which they are made. This is to work out one's salva- 
 tion and acquire heaven. And Jesus did it. And was too wise, 
 too loving, to bid us do likewise if he had not known that, 
 depending on Principle, we could. 
 
 "The human mind is enveloped in the 'mist' of erroneous 
 belief. All that it sees of the Divine is its own objectified 
 physical sense. For the human mind is but a sense of matter. 
 Unless one believes thoroughly that matter lives, he cannot 
 believe in human birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death. 
 If God, Mind, is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, there 
 can be no other power that causes pain and unhappiness. And 
 to believe that there can be is to sentence yourself to suffer 
 and sorrow and die. Such belief breaks the First Command- 
 ment and is sin. 
 
 "The human mind is a product of false education. The 
 mentality of the new-born babe is all but a blank. It has been 
 formed of the parents' thought; and it comes into conscious 
 existence with but a few instincts, derived from them. Its 
 ignorance is pitiable; its weakness lamentable. And its future 
 is 'deplorable, for what it will become depends upon the edu- 
 cated beliefs fed to it as truth. It is taught that life is mate- 
 rial; that pain and suffering are real; that drugs heal; that 
 disasters happen. It is not taught that its thoughts and beliefs 
 and all that it accepts as reality will become externalized, 
 either in its body or its environment. And so it goes haphazard 
 
 203 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 through this sense of existence to oblivion, without knowing 
 that Jesus bade mankind deny themselves by refusing to accept 
 the material education that leads to death. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers, what a responsibility is yours! You 
 discover that you are not wearing Elijah's mantle, for you have 
 not demonstrated the ability to do so. You still disobey your 
 great Captain's commands. The dragon Tiamat fell before 
 Merodach, god. of light, in the legends of the east. So the 
 dragon of a suppositional opposite to Spirit and the spiritual 
 Creation must fall before the Light that Jesus revealed. But 
 can you see that Light? Not through your material vetl. But, 
 oh, why will you hug to yourselves this awful illusion called 
 matter, knowing that the origin of every ill, every sin, every 
 sorrow, and death itself is in it? You are bewitched! 
 
 "But you would improve the human mind, you say. But 
 to improve really means to 'disprove'. And the only way to 
 improve the human mind is to disprove it. Through disprov- 
 ing is thought liberated. The liberated human concept becomes 
 the Jesus-concept, the working consciousness, working in the 
 intermediate and effecting a re-formation. This rebukes, dis- 
 proves, denies, wipes out the false claims of corporeal power. 
 Human belief — which is of the humus, dust — cannot help you; 
 but divine thoughts, angels, passing from the Mind that is 
 God to man, will transform by disproving and destroying the 
 material beliefs and false sense-impressions from error's sug- 
 gestions that make up the mortal man. Do you believe it? 
 Or will you go on insisting that the human mind is real, and 
 encouraging the very lusts of the flesh that are destroying you? 
 You are not Christians merely because you believe the Bible 
 true ; you are not ministers of the Word until you demonstrate 
 Truth. Until you make such demonstration, your claims lie 
 buried in dead tradition. 
 
 "You came here to the great health-council seeking health, 
 you preachers; but you sought it in matter, for you have 
 yielded your birthright to the physicians. Yet physical health, 
 however robust, eventually fails. And so there is no 
 health in the body, for bodily health is a mortal belief of 
 health. Physical strength fails, for it is but a belief of life 
 and power in material muscles and cannot be sustained. Mor- 
 tal life is death. And no heaven awaits. Dying here, you will 
 awake in another environment, in another mental sphere. And 
 what you awake to depends on your beliefs, your thoughts, 
 your mental concepts, on what you hold to be real and true. 
 Why, do you suppose, the Bible says so little about a future 
 life? Because there is none! Jesus dealt with endless Life; 
 he demonstrated it, and bade us do likewise. And until we 
 
 204 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 do we shall die, die, die ! Paul said that Jesus brought immor- 
 tality to light — showing that immortality is the fact, and death 
 the illusion. Heaven is the present harmonious reality, to be 
 attained by abandoning the material beliefs of the 'one lie'. 
 From dream of life to dream of life must mortals pass, until 
 they a,re willing to take up the cross of denying themselves. 
 Then they will have begun real healing. 
 
 "Oh, you preachers, you doctors, the material world is sick 
 unto death. And there is but one real authority on the healing 
 art, the Bible. The Indian medicine-man's chant contained the 
 thought that this is a perfect world and man cannot be sick. 
 He seemed to see dimly the reality beyond the mist. Materia 
 medica knows as little of true healing as it knows of God, for 
 real healing is the destruction in consciousness of all that 
 appears to oppose Principle. Therefore it is wholly mental, 
 spiritual. It is a laying down of false beliefs and concepts that- 
 the real may appear. And it is always, in some degree, the 
 destruction of the human mind. Absolute healing would be its 
 complete destruction. But what causes disease? Germs? No. 
 A mind made inharmonious by discordant concepts, ideas, and 
 beliefs is reflected in a body diseased. Yet a diseased mortal 
 is but a lie about Mind, a denial of God. And the removal 
 of the lie removes its discordant effects. But it is all mental! 
 
 "Yet, though human belief alone causes disease, the sick — 
 with the habit of running to the doctor bred in their bones — 
 turn not to Mind, but to matter and material modes for relief. 
 Pain is a state of consciousness. Likewise is a cold, a fever, 
 a bruise. In the thirty-sixth chapter of the Book of Job you 
 will find stated the cause and the cure of afllictions. But for 
 real healing, it is necessary not to believe in the presence and 
 power of evil. But, on this basis, oh, you preachers,- do you 
 heal? Is not evil to you a tremendous reality? Though you 
 preach an omnipotent God, do you not believe sickness mightier 
 than health, and death than life? And do you not preach that 
 God permits this? Oh, ye of little understanding! How long? 
 Can you not know that only the eternal is the real? And if 
 evil is real, can it ever be overcome? 
 
 "Oh, you would admit that healing, is sometimes accom- 
 plished by 'mental suggestion', and by prayer to a reluctant God. 
 But mental suggestion is but manipulation by the human mind. 
 It is hypnotism. And suggestion, as has been vividly demon- 
 strated in these past days, takes from the sufferer his individ- 
 uality and leaves him more susceptible to evil suggestions than 
 before. And true prayer is not the petition to God to be good, 
 but is the understanding affirmation of the allness of Spirit 
 and the nothingness of its suppositional opposite, the carnal 
 
 205 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 mind, animal magnetism. For this prayer without ceasing we 
 need not special days nor the siren's shriek to summon us to 
 the task. The Christ-healing cures morally and physically. 
 But mere affirmations will not destroy errOr. The sole potency 
 of the affirmation is its truthfulness; and in the knowledge of 
 God possessed by the healer lies the issue of demonstration. For 
 he who does not live Truth, as Jesus lived the fact that he 
 and the Father were one, cannot heal. . But do you live Truth, 
 oh, you doctors? Or do you deny God daily by giving life 
 and intelligence to matter? 
 
 "Matter! Why, your own philosophers tell you that matter 
 is an 'abstraction or manifestation of force or energy' — that 
 'all the qualities of matter are what the mind makes them, 
 and have no existence as such apart from the mind'— that 
 'apart from consciousness, there are no such things as color, 
 form, position, or hardness, and there is no such thing as 
 matter'. But it is not matter as lumps of solid stuff that we 
 must rid ourselves of, but the material sense of things, which 
 falsely informs us that there is matter in lumps, that it is 
 solid, real, that we touch it, handle it, walk on it, eat it, and 
 that it has life and sensation, that it suffers and dies. This 
 material sense is the serpent that must be destroyed. And 
 material sense is only the supposition that Spirit is absent. 
 For matter is the way the human or mortal mind regards, real 
 Substance — it is the inverted way the mortal mind conceives 
 of Spirit, of reality. It is a vagary of mortal belief. 
 
 "And on this false basis the mortal mind builds. But, 
 building without the support of Principle, its house of life tot- 
 ters, decays, and soon falls into ruin. And so the average span 
 of human life is what -it is to-day, thirty-three short years! 
 And the mortal mind boasts of the knowledge of matter which 
 it gets from the five physical senses, although — oh, the irony 
 of it! — the average intdligence of man is less than that of a 
 child of ten years. Yet on this false testimony from the phys- 
 ical senses it continues to build; and the higher it builds the 
 greater the chaos and the more certain its doom. Can you 
 not read it in history? For human history is the counterfeit 
 of divine unfoldment, and, without basis of Principle, it lapses, 
 halts, goes seemingly forward, totters, runs haphazard, then 
 falls. The materialistic basis of civilization led to the war 
 just closed, in error's frenzied effort to destroy Truth. And 
 it is leading to still others. For there is no peace in mortal 
 mind. Its sense of ease in material conditions is mesmerism 
 amid direst perils. Mankind are the dupes of material sense. 
 What men call seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting, are 
 merely the human mind's limited interpretation of the infinite 
 
 206 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Idea. That Idea is ever-present, though quite unseen by mate- 
 rial man. 
 
 "But, you say, the philosophers deduced the fact of matter's 
 unreality. True. But they did not carry their deductions into 
 practice, but lived just as materially as before. They reduced 
 matter to a phenomenon dependent upon mind, or energy, but 
 did not proceed and reduce that mind itself to its native un- 
 reality as a counterfeit of the Mind that is God. Yet Jesus did 
 just this! And on the basis of matter as physical energy, and 
 the latter the lie of mind as opposed ta Mind, he performed his 
 so-called miracles and at last overcame the world of matter 
 and its discords. If you really know the truth, as he did, that 
 matter is a state of mind, you too can walk on the water, heal 
 the sick, and raise the dead. Oh, you preachers and doctors, 
 would you but knpw that there is nothing with which the 
 mortal mind so deceives mankind as the belief that matter is 
 substance and real! 
 
 "And the philosophers of to-day are fast disproving the false 
 claims of matter. The recently discovered theory of relativity 
 reveals the material universe in a new light. All motion is 
 found to be but relative — there is nothing at rest in the uni- 
 verse. It is shown that space is not of three dimensions only, 
 but of many, and that time and space are distinct properties 
 of matter and could not exist without it. It is shown that 
 every movement in the universe takes place in a space of many 
 dimensions, but that each mentality sees it taking place in 
 a space limited to the number of dimensions which that 
 mentality can comprehend. The space of three dimensions 
 as comprehended by mankind is a distortion of the space 
 cognized by a mentality that can comprehend four dimensions. 
 And the greater the number of dimensions a mentality can 
 comprehend, the greater the degree of freedom experienced 
 by that mentality. A serpent is limited in its thought to two 
 dimensions, and so crawls upon the ground; but an eagle 
 comprehends three dimensions and has therefore greater free- 
 dom. As our ignorance is replaced by Truth our vision 
 broadens and we begin to live in many dimensions and so 
 enjoy greater freedom. Freedom is, therefore, a function of 
 the broadening of our mental grasp. Matter and materiality 
 are, as has been said, 'merely a present point of view of our 
 limited mentality. With unfolding thought, then, matter 
 would lose its seeming quality of substantiality and time and 
 space as now conceived would go with it'. 
 
 "Yet wherever matter seems to be, there is God, there is 
 Substance. Finding ourselves seemingly in a world of matter, 
 it is our task to rid ourselves of the material sense, not to love 
 
 49 
 
 207 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 it and cling to it as all that is real. If, back of the sense- 
 impression of the beauties of earth, of the lofty peaks, the 
 green valleys, the forests, the brooks, -we see Mind and its Idea, 
 we shall turn from the imperfect and fleeting symbol, until 
 at last we shall see it no more, but shall be conscious of reality 
 only, the new heaven and the new earth. That consciousness 
 will be lasting, and far more beautiful, more wonderful, more 
 satisfying, than the material one we believe we possess now. 
 And it may be attained, as Jesus taught, through right-think- 
 ing, and on that basis t^ly healing the sick." 
 
 CHAPTER 30 
 
 SHE paused and stood looking at them. Then a smile came 
 into her face. "I know what some of you are saying," she 
 resumed. "That the last twelve verses of Mark's Gospel 
 were not written by Mark, but are a later addition, perhaps 
 as late as the third century. But it will not do, for, as a Bible 
 scholar has pointed put, if that were true it would only prove 
 that as late as the third century Christians regarded the heal- 
 ing of the sick and the raising of the dead as a test of their 
 understanding of Christianity. 
 
 "But then, when the Roman world swallowed Christianity 
 at the bidding of its master, Constantine, complete materiali- 
 zation followed. The Word was buried. And there was 
 developed the material concept of Christianity which you 
 preachers would foist upon the world to-day. Is it strange 
 that the Japanese are not attracted to your undemonstrable 
 religious beliefs? That Russia's soviet government has pro- 
 claimed that there is no life after death; that there is only 
 the material existence, ending in oblivion; and that the Chris- 
 tian religion must be destroyed as inimical to human welfare 
 on earth? Can you understand now why there is a persistent 
 anti-Christian drift throughout the world to-day? Why the 
 real Armageddon is still to come? And why the churches can- 
 not unite? What have they to unite on, but mortal belief and 
 changeable human opinion? What do your church drives 
 accomplish? Christians are not made with money! Cash will 
 not reform the world! Why is the Church facing to-day the 
 greatest crisis in its history? Why is it losing influence? 
 Because you preachers will not obey your Captain's commands. 
 Because you preach such materialistic doctrines as would 
 astound Jesus were he to listen. 'Thy way and thy doings 
 have procured these things unto thee I' The evidence before the 
 
 208 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 physical senses vanishes before the spiritual fact; but you 
 refuse to accept the fact I Your thoughts are of a material 
 universe and man, to be exchanged in death for the spiritual. 
 'Hear, earth, behold I will bring evil upon these people, even 
 the fruit of their thoughts!' Jesus was a human being, a man; 
 the Christ is God's manifestation of Himself. The Christ was 
 manifested through Jesus, who was the purest of earth's chan- 
 nels. But Jesus was not God. And his Church — the only real 
 Church— is not a function of sects nor a social aggregation, 
 but is made up of those who have gained a knowledge of Prin- 
 ciple and its spiritual idea, the Christ, and who are bringing 
 forth this knowledge in demonstration, as Jesus did, by destroy- 
 ing sin, sickness, sorrow, all evil, and death. Is your church 
 doing this? Then is it not the foe of Christianity? And 
 because you have repudiated the Christ-healing, the suffering 
 world is driven to the materialistic doctors! 
 
 "And the doctors delve into psychology and anatomy to 
 learn what man is, and from this basis to employ material 
 means to treat the effect and cure him of his ills induced by 
 his thought! Health is wholeness; and disease is not its cor- 
 relative. Health is never absent if God is ever-present. The 
 study of error and its operations has not enabled you to over- 
 come error, as you well know. But the study of God enabled 
 Jesus to demonstrate Life. But to know God aright gives also 
 the right knowledge of error as His suppositional opposite, and 
 therefore enables us to destroy the illusion. 
 
 "And having the healing Christ-knowledge, each will stand 
 upon his own feet, each will become his own physician. And 
 hospitals, with their horrors, and sanitariums, and medical 
 organizations, and health boards, and factory-made medicines, 
 and inert pills will all cease to be. Diseases will then no longer 
 multiply, and the inhabitant shall no more say: 'I am sick'. 
 
 "Oh, my friends all, the Kingdom of Heaven is established, 
 and you may enter if you will! Some day you must. The 
 sense in which Jesus and his hearers understood the Kingdom 
 was lost when Christianity passed from the Jewish people to 
 the Grseco-Roman world. He insisted that the reign of har- 
 mony was an ever-present reality, that health was always pres- 
 ent. Had this not been so, he could not have performed his 
 great works. And if you doubt that he did those works, then 
 the abundant evidence that has in these last days come to light 
 must dispel your doubt. Jesus characterized sin and sickness 
 as one when he said: 'Thy sins be forgiven thee.' For sin, 
 as he taught, is a missing of the mark. And sin obtains only 
 in the carnal mind. 
 
 "Oh, how can you believe that you are obeying your Captain 
 
 209 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 when you believe in minds many? Believing thus, it is^ utterly 
 impossible for you to love your neighbor as yourself. You 
 cannot love error. But the truth that there is but one Mind 
 denies the reality of matter and sets man free. 
 
 "Oh, you doctors, who proclaim that the human body is a 
 poison factory! What makes it so? False, poisonous, human 
 thought, naught else! And pills and lotions will not change 
 it. Salvation is not through- such propaganda as the druggists 
 are sending forth to you doctors, advising that you add color- 
 ing and inert ingredients to simple, white remedies, since then 
 the patient will regard the remedy as of greater importance! 
 Deception! Falsity! Can you heal on that basis? What do 
 the druggists say further? That you doctors should vary your 
 prescriptions, thus educating the patient to believe that you 
 are 'up' in materia medica and giving the case your individual 
 attention! They advise you not to tell the patient how a 
 medicine will act, lest it act differently. Thus uncertain, experi- 
 mental, and deceptive is your whole practice! 
 
 "Oh, if you would know that true healing is done only in 
 love! For thus Jesus healed. But Love works not through 
 mesmerism, witchcraft, and malpractice. It is animal mag- 
 netism that claims the power of God. And you are yielding 
 to it. Animal magnetism chose this health organization and its 
 leader to be its channels — and in the wake of its choice there is 
 death, death, death! Mental suggestion warped the German 
 thought; it has warped yours. The deliberately projected prop- 
 aganda of animal magnetism, through mesmerism, has swept 
 over the world to make null the Word. It voices itself learn- 
 edly through you in discourses on 'psycho-analysis*, the 'Freu- 
 dian wish', in that study of the erroneous human mind known 
 as psychology, and in the development of criminal organizations 
 throughout the ireorld for the study and practice of hypnotism 
 to control human thought and activity — all in order that the 
 Word may be destroyed in the impossible advancement of evil ! 
 
 "Oh, hear me ! For I bring you good news ! The primitive 
 Christianity which, in the fourth century, sank from sight 
 under the wave of materialism, covered by animal magnetism, 
 has again appeared among you! By it the sick are healed, 
 the dead are raised ! I have brought it to you ! I have taught 
 it, practiced it, proved it! The Christ has come again! 
 
 "And again the suppositional forces of evil are arrayed 
 against it, and ofttimes using even those who need it most, 
 and those who are professing it. It is again threatened with 
 obscurity by ecclesiasticism and the imperialism of the Caesars. 
 Aggressive mental suggestion is the world's greatest menace 
 to-day, and few there be who recognize it and employ the 
 
 210 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Christ-knowledge to destroy it. Salvation is not by nations 
 or groups. Error, evil, will be destroyed when it ceases to be 
 entertained as truth in human consciousness. That work is 
 individual. And if primitive Christianity, once again restored, 
 is permitted to be driven again into centuries of hiding, such 
 frightful times will come upon earth as have not yet been 
 known. And the betrayers of the Christ will suffer most. 
 
 "Because Christianity is again among you, suggestion of 
 evil is rampant. By it mankind are consciously or uncon- 
 sciously influenced to believe or to do or to feel evil, without 
 knowing how or why they have been thus influenced, or why 
 they have changed their thoughts, their feelings, or their 
 actions. Would you have proofs? Then follow the history 
 of your own organization and the conduct of your leader ! 
 
 "Oh, you doctors, you preachers, there is salvation! Salva- 
 tion is freedom from the grasp of matter. And it is won 
 through the renewing of your mind. It is won through obe- 
 dience — and obedience, as Abraham showed, is alert dependence 
 on Principle. 
 
 "Oh, you specialists! Jesus was a specialist — ^in Truth. 
 And he saw not malignant germs everywhere, and death in 
 every conceivable situation. He knew that nothing but Mind 
 exists; he knew the therapeutic value of right thinking; he 
 wrestled with the devil of human consciousness, in what you 
 preachers call his temptations — ^he was tempted, as was your 
 leader, to conquer the world. And he did conquer it, by 
 destroying his material concept of it. 
 
 "But, you say, he put his fingers in the deaf man's ears, 
 and spat, and touched the patient's tongue, as recorded by 
 Mark. And did he not thus use material modes? 
 
 "Alas! how ignorant is the world of the meaning of his 
 acts. Spitting was to the Jews a sign of repudiation. Thus 
 did Jesus symbolize his repudiation of the false claim of deaf- 
 ness. He closed the man's ears with his fingers, symbolizing 
 the necessity of closing one's hearing to the voice of error 
 claiming to dominate man. He looked away from earth toward 
 the heavens, showing how completely he relied on God and 
 how absolutely he rejected all material means of healing. 
 
 "Oh, you who pretend to read the Bible understandingly, 
 do you know that Jesus did no work of healing until he had 
 fasted to materialism in the wilderness of human beliefs? That 
 gave him his diploma! But he did not go out then to pollute 
 the blood of his patients with poisons, or mutilate the body 
 with surgical operations, for he knew that these things did 
 not make whole. He did not depend on the human mind to 
 inform him what is good and what bad. Oh, he knew that the 
 
 211 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 human mind loves nothing better than to give such advice, 
 though it lead but to the pit! He did not go into society and 
 ■waste his days and his nights 'visiting' about the most trivial 
 things of the mortal mind. He did not converse on the unwhole- 
 some things of existence; he did not talk disease, accidents, 
 catastrophe, nor blazon these to the world as 'news'. He did 
 not chatter with his friends on the banal frivolities, the vapor- 
 ings and froth of human thinking. He knew that these but 
 bind the chains of materiality more firmly upon mankind — 
 and he was in the business of loosing these chains. 
 
 "But he talked of God — the mention of Whose name in 
 polite conversation in these last days would be an unpardon- 
 able intrusion. 
 
 "And he brought salvation to a world starving for love. 
 Oh, will you learn of it and bestow it upon a dying world? 
 Or will you continue to yield yourselves to the hypnotic in- 
 fluence that floods human consciousness with materiality and 
 quenches all knowledge of God? Under evil's banner you are 
 lost. Imperialism in religion and medicine will fall. Material 
 philosophy leads but to the mire. Medical tyranny through 
 legislation will bring anarchy. Disarmament leads not to 
 peace, if the human mind remain unchanged. Aligned with 
 matter, you but fight against God. And your leader has fallen 
 in that unequal contest." 
 
 Again she paused. Then, suddenly opening her arms wide 
 to them, she cried: "Oh, I love you, love you all! But my 
 love is of the Christ ! It will heal and bless and restore ! Oh, 
 I cry unto you, as did the Baptist: 'Metanoia!' Get you. a 
 complete and radical change of thought! You are a chosen 
 generation only as you actively express Principle ! Come, then ! 
 Choose ye this day God ! The world needs you — oh, how it 
 needs the honest doctor, the earnest, loving, patient doctor who 
 does not exploit his fellows, but who, recognizing the world's 
 present state of thought, and knowing that a material manifes- 
 tation may fill some temporary requirement in the human 
 struggle to put off the false and fleeting sense of things for 
 the knowledge of the spiritual real, is open in thought to the 
 true Christ-method of healing, and is walking toward the Light, 
 determined that, like Luke, he will not resist Truth for money, 
 prestige, or human power, but will lay aside his uncertain 
 material modes for the Science employed by the beloved Naza- 
 rene." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Dawn was already streaking the eastern sky when the dele- 
 gates and guests left the little cottage. For hours they had sat 
 listening to the girl; and when, after telling them the absorbing 
 
 212 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 story of Lost Israel and her journey in their footsteps, she 
 bade them go, they met her with a protest. 
 
 Again the Executive Committee met with Doctor Proast. 
 And again the necessity of adjournihg the convention sine die 
 was advanced — and this time recognized. The national medical 
 associations served notice that they had decided against amal- 
 gamation with the Roake organization — "And without them 
 we are helpless," Doctor Proast admitted. The ministers like- 
 wise sent word that they would withdraw, not having thor- 
 oughly understood the animus of the organization. The subject 
 of healing was too vast, too vital, they said, to be lightly 
 bandied, and they intended to give it further and more serious 
 consideration. 
 
 A Jewish rabbi sought out David Barach. "You have done 
 a good work," he said, shaking with emotion. "In ancient days 
 the Hebrews taught the power of Spirit and healed by it. But 
 now we have sickness and trouble because we have strayed 
 from the sacred truths. It is my intention hereafter to devote 
 every Friday evening service to teaching and practicing spiritual 
 healing. I shall abandon the lifeless form and ceremonial, 
 and shall study to return my people to the spiritual life of 
 our fathers and to that spiritual knowledge — now lost to us — 
 that removes every condition bringing sickness and discord 
 into men's lives." 
 
 And the legislators who had come to hear the proposed bills 
 for medical legislation advised that the bills be not submitted. 
 One of them, on leaving the cottage, had commented under his 
 breath: "These political doctors are getting too fresh!" Row- 
 ley knew that the remark covered a deeper sentiment unvoiced. 
 And hie took advantage of it to propose that a bill be introduced 
 to dissolve the iniquitous Wess law. "A law," he explained, 
 "that permits the Health Executive to seize at his pleasure the 
 entire population of this town, if he deem them 'carriers' of 
 disease, and compel them to submit, not only to examination 
 and medication, but to imprisonment and isolation, without the 
 observance of even such steps as the police are required to 
 take in making arrests and imprisonments of criminals — such 
 a law is a retrogression to barbarism!'' And his sentiment 
 found hearty acceptance among the legislators. "The girl did 
 not tell you," Rowley went on, "that she discovered in the 
 Tower of London the records of a case at law during the reign 
 of Henry the Seventh, in the fifteenth century, in which the 
 court was asked to enjoin a party against using the subtle 
 craft of enchantment, witchcraft and sorcery. In other words, 
 the court was asked to take jurisdiction of mental crimes. 
 Roake was a British subject. He had committed crimes in the 
 
 213 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 British Empire through suggestion, just as he did here. I 
 have no doubt that English law would have taken cognizance 
 of their mental nature, as in the fifteenth century. The time 
 is at hand, gentlemen, when courts must cease to restrict the 
 power of human law to matter, while the real criminal, mortal 
 mind, escapes to repeat the crimes." 
 
 "That must come," said one of the more enlightened mem- 
 bers of the legislature. "But for the present let me say that 
 we have had quite enough of this persistent drive to place the 
 health regulation under the power of the political doctor and 
 to adopt at his bidding outrageous restrictions of the people's 
 liberties, such as tend to undermine our constitutional form of 
 government." And Rowley knew as they left that the Roake 
 plan had tottered to its fall. 
 
 When they were gone, Marian went to the rector and took 
 his hand. "Be of good comfort," she said, looking lovingly 
 into his moist eyes. "Your light has come. Rejoice, for your 
 work is at hand. The great need of the world to-day is for 
 right mental activity. The world will be saved only by thinkers 
 who reflect the Christ-Mind. The stupendous task of teaching 
 the people to think for themselves and to think aright has 
 scarcely begun. No greater blessing could be bestowed upon 
 us than that of teaching mankind to think as did the Master. 
 The one thing not taught in our colleges, our schools, our 
 homes, is a knowledge of God — ^yet to know Him aright is Life 
 eternal. That work will now become yours, as it is Alden's, 
 David's, mine." 
 
 He forced a smile. "I . . . I . . . may lean on you . . . 
 yet a little while?" he asked tremulously. "Oh, Marian, I have 
 so much to do!" 
 
 "But I will not desert you," she said, pressing his hand. , 
 
 He became silent. Then he smiled up at her. "I ... I 
 shall ask you and Alden to assist me, if you will, to remove 
 from the rectory. And I ... I have a task to perform. . .-" 
 He paused and looked his embarrassment. "Two barrels of 
 sermons . . . and boxes and boxes of them!" he exclaimed. "I 
 wish to burn them before I leave the rectory!" 
 
 "What!" she laughed back at him. "Not those powerful 
 sermons in support of the material evolution of life? Especially 
 that one on 'The Fall of Man'?" 
 
 He nodded. "Yes," he said sadly, " 'The Fall of Man* has 
 fallen prone." 
 
 "And that marvelous sermon in which you proved beyond 
 all controversy that the bread and wine were transmuted by 
 you into actual flesh and blood?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 214 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "But surely not that one in which you routed all who sought 
 healing by spiritual means?" 
 
 He flushed. Then she threw her arms around him and kissed 
 him. "Forgive me," she begged. "I just had to tease you. 
 But I love you so! And Alden and I will come and help you 
 with your little auto da fd to-morrow. Then you will come 
 back to work with us." 
 
 Then Doctor Benson came to her to report that Senator 
 Chaddock was comfortably installed in the doctor's own apart- 
 ments, and that Boots would look after him. "And," he added, 
 "the old senator looks brighter. He actually seems to have 
 been, in a manner, released by Roake's passing." 
 
 "He can be restored," said the girl. "He shall be. Satan 
 can not hold him bound. He is now my charge. Doctor — yours 
 and mine." 
 
 Chaplain Muller had asked to be permitted to remain for 
 a final word with Marian. He now came to her with his burn- 
 ing query. "I am German," he said. "Am I therefore con- 
 demned?" 
 
 She took his hand. "Jesus did not condemn sinful persons, 
 but the false thought that they permitted to use them," she 
 said. "Those who become real Christians remain neither Jew 
 nor Gentile; they are then Sons of God; they are Israel." 
 
 "But the German race?" 
 
 "Humanly speaking," she answered, "the Germans are a 
 people known anciently as the High Iranians. They dwelt in 
 the land later known as Assyria, and were themselves called 
 Assyrians. They were a Shemitic race. Their capital city was 
 Jermania, and was located not far from Nineveh. When the 
 ten captive tribes escaped out of Media, the country of the 
 Low Iranians, and fled north, these High Iranians followed 
 them, and later occupied the lands that the tribes of Israel 
 vacated when they passed on to the British Isles and the north- 
 ern countries. William the Second, the Kaiser, is descended 
 from the House of David through the eldest daughter of Queen 
 Victoria, but not through a male descendant. His father was 
 a HohenzoUern, whose father before him had merged the Ger- 
 man peoples into a Prussian autocracy, along the densely mate- 
 rialistic lines of the old Assyrian autocracy that opposed the 
 Word. Not all in the German domain are of the old High 
 Iranian race. This is especially true of the Saxons, Isaac's 
 sons. But these were in bad company, and were forced to fight 
 against their own brethren. 
 
 "Literal Israel anciently became the custodian of the Word, 
 and through her the great spiritual truths that will construct 
 the new heaven and the new earth have come. The spiritual 
 
 215 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 revelation always comes to the receptive thought. Thus it 
 came to those who were receptive before Abraham's day and 
 who, because of it, became great. The great truths passed to 
 Abraham, for he was obedient to the things of God. Then 
 to his descendants. Long centuries later the people became 
 disobedient to the warnings of the prophets, even as they are 
 to-day, and yielded themselves to the tempting claims of mate- 
 riality. Mighty spiritual deeds were done — called 'wonders' — 
 yet despite them, the people were unable to stand for Truth. 
 And so they lacked real strength and were easily carried into 
 exile. The ten tribes of Israel were scattered throughout the 
 earth; the two tribes, the Jews, have since had no nation, no 
 country. These have continued to cling to their traditional 
 form of worship and to reject the spiritual message of Jesus. 
 The ten tribes, however, accepted his teachings — at least liter- 
 ally — and have spread them everywhere. 
 
 "But the literal teachings without the Spirit, without the 
 'works' following in proof thereof, have brought mankind to 
 another impasse, as in the centuries gone. Just when mortal 
 man thinks his world secure and his civilization complete, his 
 house falls about his head. Again it is proved to him that 
 human government is found sadly wanting. But not until 'the 
 government shall be upon his shoulders', not until Principle 
 governs in the consciousness of all men shall discord cease. 
 There are some who discern this to-day, some who see that 
 autocracy and the reign of false thinking are weakening and 
 Hearing their end, and that they are for that reason striving 
 desperately to continue their hold on suffering humanity. There 
 are some who see that the fulness of time has come. And, in 
 fulfillment of prophecy, they see the world passing under the 
 beneficent guidance of Anglo-Israel, until such an hour as it 
 shall pass to Him whose right it is. To the world the times 
 are strangely 'out of joint'. But false beliefs are breaking 
 up; the 'Stone Kingdom' which is to become a great mountain 
 and fill the earth is at hand. Truth is overturning, overturn- 
 ing, and the lies are being threshed out and burned. 
 
 "But always there is a remnant. Though the princes and 
 politicians in Constantine's day stifled Christianity by embrac- 
 ing it to further their own worldly ends, yet the 'royal line' 
 had been established from the 'prince of the scarlet thread'. 
 Lost Israel was the protector of this line. Ephraim slowly 
 developed the political birthright; and Manasseh, the 'branch' 
 that ran over the wall, came to this western hemisphere to 
 develop the spiritual. And here primitive Christianity has 
 again been revealed. And the revelation of it has begun the 
 destruction of all that cannot measure up to Principle. 
 
 216 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 "Oh, Israel is he who -wrestles with error and, overcoming 
 it, -is born again! And, though he were German or Turk, when 
 the human concept becomes dissolved the Son of God, Mind's 
 perfect reflection, stands forth as the real Man. Israel from 
 the beginning bid for mastery of the world : it was the human 
 expression of the real mastery of the Sons of God. But it is 
 only spiritual Israel that can really dominate, for then the 
 domination is of Godl The reality of time, of human history, 
 and all the educated beliefs, associations, and attachments of 
 mortal men are but part and parcel of the reflection of the 
 communal mortal mind. Yet the development of the wonderful 
 discovery of literal Israel's identity with the Anglo-Saxons is 
 a great step in human progress. It is far closer to Principle 
 than the deadly concept of racial enmity, and is therefore good. 
 But, as Browning wrote, 'Progress is the law of life; man is 
 not Man as yet'. The war against Israel will be continued by 
 the Assyrian, error, until Israel learns that God and evil can- 
 not both ex'ist. Spiritual Israel, the real Man, must be revealed 
 to mankind by the literal. . ." 
 
 "It has been revealed in these last days," said Alden, com- 
 ing to them at that moment, ""and by a woman." 
 
 Then, quite irrelevantly, as he smiled down at the girl: 
 "Your vvonderful grandfather has reverted to his hobby, and 
 has his maps spread out over the dining-room table, while 
 Zuleyka is explaining the Pyramid to him for the thousandth 
 time." 
 
 The chaplain threw Marian a questioning glance. She rose. 
 "Come," she said, "let us hear her." 
 
 Gathered about the table, the little company listened to the 
 Egj^tian. As the low cadences of her voice fell upon their 
 ears they seemed to pass under the spell of the Pharaohs. 
 Before them stood Mizraim's great "altar", type of the spiritual 
 Pyramid whose corner-stone is discovered to be the Christ. 
 Into this great record of human history they delved, only to 
 find themselves driven down the long entrance passageway 
 toward the bottomless pit, pursued by evil, the Dragon star. 
 
 But anon Spirit spake to them, and they turned. The 
 upward passage out of bondage, and which for 3,000 human 
 years had been blocked by a huge portcullis of stone, stood 
 open before them. Moses had smitten the rock, and led Israel 
 out of bondage to the Pharaohs. Up, up they painfully toiled, 
 along the Pyramid inches that indicate centuries of human 
 history, up through the 1542 inch-years of the Jewish dispensa- 
 tion, their backs bent under the heavy law. Then, with a glad 
 cry, they stood upright in the glorious gallery seven times 
 higher. They had entered the Christian dispensation. The 
 Christ had been revealed! 
 
 217 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Along the sides of the Grand Gallery the graves stood open 
 and empty, for death had been robbed of its spoils. Thirty- 
 three inch-years onward, through the human record of him 
 who o'ercame the dragon — thence across the great convulsion 
 that marked error's mightiest attempt to destroy the Word- 
 on and upward and on, to the high step. . . 
 
 "It is 1813 inch-years from the birth of Jesus to this step," 
 the Egyptian said. "The step is 36 inches high. Then the 
 walking is no longer upward, but horizontal, easy, and light. 
 Man stands upright now. Why? 
 
 "Go forward, and 61 inch-years from the top of the great 
 step the Grand Gallery comes to an abrupt end. The Chris- 
 tian dispensation suddenly ends. Yet the wall leans in 4 
 inches here. The time has been foreshortened. The length 
 of this gallery along the floor is 1882 inch-years. But the 
 horizontal and easy walking begins 61 inch-years before. Does 
 that indicate the year 1821? If so, what occurred then?" 
 
 Penberry looked up and around at his companions. Madam 
 Penberry replied, though cryptically : "To humah sense, might 
 it not be that someone whose life was to shape mankind's 
 destiny was born in that prophetic year?" 
 
 But she did not elucidate. And Zuleyka soon resumed. 
 The Christian dispensation, according to the measurement of 
 the Grand Gallery floor and the great step, ended after 1910 
 inch-years. What occurred of vast importance in the year 
 1910? Did that one of whom Madam Penberry has just spoken 
 pass from human sight then? 
 
 "And then the passageway drops, and we must once more 
 stoop. And our progress now is slow and painful, and our 
 backs are again bent. Why? But, see, this end wall of the 
 Grand Gallery leans 4 inches inward. Does it indicate two 
 dates of mighty import in human history, the years 1910 and 
 1914? For after 1914 we are bent under the crushing burden 
 of the great war upon the Word. 
 
 "Then, from the choking passageway we emerge into the 
 Antechamber. And there now we are being measured, meas- 
 ured, plumbed, and lined. Where do you stand? Where does 
 mankind? For, hear me, these are the last days. And in them 
 the Christ has again appeared on earth, and the seals are 
 broken. But error fights against it, and through priest and 
 king it struck to slay the Christ in the great war just closed. 
 Oh, how we have been humbled! But think you peace has 
 come? Let not that mesmerism deceive you again! The 
 King's Chamber is indeed beyond — ^but it shall not be reached 
 until men know their God and acquire the spiritual qualities 
 which it outlines. The preparations for war go forward cease- 
 
 218 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 lessly, though the world believe that it has returned to. the 
 normal, for mankind will not yet give up their idols of matter 
 and receive the spiritual Christ. And so they cannot destroy 
 the dragon, 
 
 "Oh, that the world would hear the Pyramid's message! 
 Oh, that it might know the significance of the Queen's Chamber 
 — where no mortal queen was ever sepulchered, but which 
 breathes in words of stone the 'wholeness' message of one who, 
 following in the foosteps of the Master, reveals again the heal- 
 ing Christ to a dying world. The message is revolutionary — it 
 overthrows the imperialism of Church and Medicine and State 
 —it destroys the material concept and angers those who wor- 
 ship matter — ^but it opens the gates of heaven." 
 
 She turned suddenly to Marian. "But you have heard the 
 message and have obeyed. You are the remnant. You shall 
 escape the perils, -you shall teach and save!" 
 
 Chaplain Muller, wide-eyed and marveling, looked at Ma- 
 rian. "Do you ... do you believe her?" he asked in an awed 
 whisper. "Do you believe those dates are intentionally given 
 in the Pyramid? Do you believe it is more than a tomb?" 
 
 Marian glanced toward Madam Penberry who sat at her 
 side. Chaplain Muller followed the girl's glance. But the 
 white-haired woman only smiled. 
 
 Then Marian quoted softly : " 'In that day there is an altar 
 to" Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt; even a pillar 
 at the border thereof to Jehovah, and it shall be for a sign 
 and witness to Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt.' In 
 this day of dense materialism, in the Egyptian darkness of the 
 human mind, the Christ-Truth witnesses to the AUness of 
 Spirit, God." 
 
 The Egyptian resumed. But Alden, leaving the others lis- 
 tening again fascinated, drew Marian with him, and together 
 they stole away and out upon the little porch in the frosty air 
 to greet the morning sun. "I cannot hear any more," he said. 
 "My thought is bursting with the great Father-Mother's revela- 
 tion. I seem to be with John on Patmos. I seem to hear his 
 revelation telling of 'a woman clothed with the sun', of her 
 who should complete the fulfillment of prophecy." 
 
 "The Father-Motherhood of God was taught centuries ago," 
 Marian replied. "In ancient Egypt the novitiate in the mysteries 
 passed between two obelisks that guarded the temple of On. 
 One of these ancient monuments stands to-day in London, the 
 other in New York. In the early mysteries of the Shepherd 
 Kings this dual truth of the Father-Motherhood of God was 
 taught by the companion blocks of stone on either side of the 
 entrance passage to the Great Pyramid. For the Pyramid, 
 
 219 
 
THOU ISRAEL 
 
 Alden, appears to be but an ancient temple, built by that mys- 
 terious personage who entered Egypt in the days of Khufu 
 and subdued it without material weapons. The same great 
 person doubtless founded Jerusalem, for the city is so closely 
 associated with the mysteries and structure of ^;he Pyramid. 
 Was it Melchisedec? Perhaps, to human sense. And Melchis- 
 edec was a type of the Christ." 
 
 "And the seals are being broken in these last days," said 
 Alden, "It is woman who has broken them and given to the 
 world a higher concept of the Christ, who has revealed again the 
 Father-Motherhood of God. Woman has waited long, but she 
 has conquered. And now she is indeed 'clothed with the sun', 
 for she is chosen to represent Truth." 
 
 "And Truth," said Marian, "as Esdras wrote near the 'wil- 
 low-fringed rivers of Babylon' twenty-three centuries ago, 
 endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth for- 
 evermore." 
 
 He stood looking down at her. "What strange significance 
 lies in the placing of the twin obelisks, one in England, the 
 other in America. Thus Manasseh supplements Ephfaim." 
 
 He bent over her and took her hand. "Marian," he said, 
 "I am Ephraim, you are Manasseh. We supplement each other. 
 Though in spiritual harmony human marriage, like all con- 
 cepts of sense, finds no place, yet 'man is not Man as yet'. 
 In the great task upon which you and I have entered shall we 
 not work as one? I shall go forward toward the Light until 
 I reach the Kingdom. But ... oh, my Miriam, shall I go . . ." 
 
 "Not alone, Alden dear, not alone." She smiled up at him. 
 "For," she whispered, "I shall go with you." 
 
 He drew her close. Again she spoke, and again he bent 
 low to hear her words. 
 
 "Oh, thou Israel! 'Ye are a chosen generation, a royal 
 priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should 
 show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of 
 darkness into his marvelous light'." 
 
 220 
 
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