be the name of the glory of His kingdom for ever and ever," after the Shema15 (i. e., "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God," Deut. vi. 4) had been recited aloud. But, says Rabbi Abahu,16 "it was enacted that the words should be repeated in a loud voice, on account of the carping of the Minim. But at Nehardea (in Babylon), where there are no Minim, they repeat them to this day in a subdued voice" (Talmud Pesachim 56a).

Great care was taken that the prayers contained not the least sign of a Christian phraseology. Thus we read: "A person who, in his prayer says 'the good shall bless thee,' lo, this is a Christian manner (the way of Minuth); but if one says, 'thy mercies extend even to the birds' nests,' 'let thy name be remembered for good,' 'we praise, we praise,' he shall be silenced (Mishna Megilla IV, 9; Berachoth V, 3)."

The Mishna is the oldest stratum of the Talmud, and our passage is one of the few in the Mishna which refer directly to minuth or Christianity. The meaning is obscure, but it is possible that the reference is here to some ancient Christian liturgical forms. May not the words "thy mercies extend even to the birds' nests" have had reference to Matt. x. 29? Whatever the reason, the reader was silenced.

Even the dress of the person who acted as reader of the synagogue was made a test. Thus we read in Mishna Megilla IV, 8: "If a person should say, I will not go before the Ark in colored garments, he shall not do so in white ones. If he refuses to minister with sandals on his feet, he shall not do so even barefoot." To this Mishnaic injunction the Gemara remarks, that the reason for this is because such a one might belong to the Christians. Rashi,

15

16

The watchword of the divine Unity.

As he was a great opponent of the Minim, there must have been some reason for the enactment.

in his commentary on that passage remarks that the Christians used to pay attention to such things.

Because the Christians used to pray towards the east, doubts were expressed as to the feasibility of having the face turned eastward during prayer, and in order to protest most emphatically against the increasing heresy (i. e., Christianity), it was recommended to turn the face westward during prayer, and the Talmud Baba Bathra 250 states of Rav Shesheth, who was totally blind, that he ordered his servant to place him in any other but the eastward direction when he wished to pray, because the Minim turned in that direction. The commentator on this passage, Rashi, refers it to "the disciples of Jesus."

From all this it is evident that the growth of the Christian Church must have been very rapid, otherwise the synagogue would not have required these measures, intended to check the advancement of the Gospel.

BERNHARD PICK.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION.

"What matters it if searching mind sublime
Would doom the lights of Heaven to die;
If hosts of stars were swept from sky

As golden harvests by the scythe of time?

Thy righteous thoughts and what thy love conceived,
Thy beauteous dreams are not by time impaired;
They grow a harvest from that scythe-man spared
And treasures in celestial stores received.
Go forth, Humanity, on journey blessed,
Rejoice, eternal life dwells in thy breast.”

V. Rydberg.

(From the Swedish by J. E. Fries.)

Its author,

Death and Resurrection is the title of a remarkable book just published by The Open Court Publishing Company. Gustaf Björklund, who died in the year 1903, was a philosopher with a marked influence on modern thought in his native country, Sweden. As an ardent worker in the international peace movement he is known also far outside that country. He never occupied a professor's chair nor any official position whatsoever, but devoted his entire time to quiet studies and the compilation of a series of thoughtful volumes. Young, liberal Sweden has drawn heavily upon the funds of undogmatic wisdom that this unassuming thinker accumulated in his several books. It is our confident hope that this, his last work, will prove equally valuable to an interested public on this continent.

The most noteworthy characteristic of Björklund's method of treating his subject is the great thoroughness with which he investigates the arguments of his opponents. After reading the present volume we cannot for a moment doubt the statement in the author's preface that his studying of the physical and chemical foundations of modern materialism alone required his exclusive attention

for several years. It may be well to remember this at a first reading of the book-if read once, it will surely be read over again— because the critical student will meet many statements which he by no means is ready to accept without previous proofs. We must not suspect the clear, logical intellect of Björklund to have overlooked this, and if we only keep our point in mind we shall invariably find sooner or later the desired demonstration. The reason for this strange arrangement is to be found in the dramatic construction of the book. Björklund gradually works up to a climax and is not inclined to give away his thunder too early.

In giving a résumé of Death and Resurrection it may be advisible, therefore, to turn the barrel upside down, so to speak, first pointing out the aim of Björklund and subsequently endeavoring to follow the line of argument by which the author proves his thesis.

Björklund is an idealist, yea, a spiritualist. And yet he gives such convincing proofs of the impossibility of any thing that may be classified under the heading "spirit-communications," that Sir Oliver Lodge and Prof. J. H. Hyslop must turn from him in scorn. On the other hand he differentiates between the material and spiritual world so distinctly that any one who. like Dr. Paul Carus, makes the, in the writer's opinion, futile attempt to reconcile the two, finds in him an equally decided opponent. The publishing of the present volume, therefore, reflects great credit on the part of Dr. Carus and is a new monument among many to his openmindedness and unflinching desire to bring every possible argument against his philosophy under discussion.

A large part of Death and Resurrrection is naturally devoted to the demonstration of the contrast between life or life-force on one hand, and physical energy in all its forms on the other. Here Björklund and Dr. Carus differ radically. True, even the latter is obliged to concede that life-force is a very unique form of energy. In his article "Life and the Soul" (Monist, April, 1908) he says, that the process of life is a phenomenon sui generis, more complicated than any purely physical or chemical process; "Vitality or the function of life is a kind of energy of its own. In this sense we may retain the old idea of vitalism in a modernized form and classify life by itself"; and again: "We would say then that the function of life is a manifestation of energy which forms a category of its own. It is as different from physical processes as chemical combinations are different from purely mechanical movements-or even more so." But to take the full step and acknowledge that life has no roots what

ever in the material world he will not, he cannot, because a spiritual world does not fit into his philosophical system. It is necessary to the theory of Dr. Carus and to that of pure materialists alike, that the formation of a Homunculus be possible in theory if not in practice.

With no other resources than the material world to fall back upon, how then did life grow out of matter and physical energy? We face again the time-worn question of generatio aequivoca. If spontaneous generation could be proved without the shadow of a doubt to be impossible, then, surely, we must look beyond the boundaries of the visible world for the origin and substance of life. This is what Björklund does in the volume under consideration.

But first let us see what the materialist, and Dr. Carus with him, has to say on this subject. In this respect the two reason exactly alike. In the article referred to above, Dr. Carus says: "Living bodies consist of the very same materials of which the rest of the world is composed. Chemistry has resolved matter into some seventy elements, and the elements of organic chemistry are absolutely the same as those of inorganic chemistry. Some of the most unstable and lightest elements play the most important part in the function of life, for we may say that oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon are the most essential factors in building up living organisms."...."They [the naturalists] have succeeded in producing organic matter, the first substance thus secured being urea, but they have not succeeded in building up an organism, and there is scarcely any hope for success in producing the smallest living bacterium. This repeated failure has caused mystics to claim emphatically that life is a mystery that never can be solved, but in fact it only proves that the original life-forms are too small to come as yet under our notice. If we only consider that the smallest fungi are about as complicated in comparison to atoms, as the tree is in comparison to a cell, we will understand that we need better microscopes than are now at our disposal before we can discover the most primitive form of life.

"Theoretically considered it should not be impossible to reproduce life. The tendency of certain elements to organize into lifeplasm is in itself no more mysterious than chemical affinities or the formation of crystals.

"There is no consistency in the methods of those who see nothing extraordinary in purely physical processes but are overawed when contemplating the basic fact of all biological phenomena, the