savage warfares, and endless genealogies," and there should be, he says, "a decided condensation of the Prophets and a more accurate rendering of the Psalms.' Then his new Bible would have a first part, called perhaps "The Hebrew Foundation," to include all that is best of the Old Testament and remain in the language of the revised version, and that part which he calls "Legend" when retained should be put as Legend, cherished for its literary and historical value, its holiness removed.

The second part, practically the New Testament, he would divide into three parts; the first of them, which he rates as of least value, being the accounts of the miraculous in the life of Christ, including the stories of His birth, miracles, and ascension. It would probably be agreed, he says, that all the demonology and other questionable beliefs common to the day in which the writers of Christ's life lived can be left out. This part, he thinks, might be called "The Accounts of the Miraculous."

The next part would be the rest of the New Testament with the omissions indicated, and perhaps with the four Gospels consolidated, which he would call "The Ministry of Christ", and the third part, in modern English, would be a recapitulation, which he would call "Christian Principles". For this work of revision and reconstruction he thinks there might be a high commission of ten men, including four clergymen and two laymen of the Protestant Churches and four outside the Church to represent the millions of agnostics, and to this number, if the Roman Catholic Church should find itself interested, two more might be added to represent it.

The Bible has been in existence and use a long time and has seen and survived a good deal of progress and could probably survive this particular step of progress, which Mr. Miles suggests, without harm. If a dozen respected men can be induced to make the revision, omissions and changes that he recommends, and the result of their labors is published, there would be no objection that I know of for putting it out in competition with the Bible as we know it now. That it should supersede our present Bible is inconceivable, and that it should appreciably affect its circulation is very unlikely.

The Bible is an altogether extraordinary book. What anyone finds in it depends upon what he knows already. Mr. Miles seems not to have got below its surface. He himself believes a good deal. He believes in immortality, and in the invisible world, and in God, but the Bible as it stands is the record of God's dealing with men, and is largely concerned with the invisible world, and is the book to which people turn who are concerned about that world and their relations with it. In such matters most people prefer the original documents on which accepted beliefs are based, and in the Bible as it is they come pretty near to getting them.

Christianity in nineteen centuries has very likely gone off a good deal from its primitive vigor and faith, but the Bible has not gone off at all. It is just what it was. A church council in very early times declared which of the books of religion were authoritative, and what witnesses could be trusted. It sifted the material for the New Testament and gave us what we have. Mr. Miles seems to think that it did not do much of a job, but the dissent from that opinion will be very lively and comprehensive.

Mr. Miles seems disposed to revise the Bible in a way to make it more acceptable to agnostics. He cannot do that and not make it less acceptable and less useful to believers. The more people know, and the more they believe, about the invisible world and the things with which religion is most concerned, the less disposed they will be to have the Bible disemboweled and pared down to suit people who believe less. As it stands, it is the great touchstone of belief. The world just now is full of spiritism. A good many people think they are in communication with the unseen world, and for many of them the test of what they think they know is whether it squares with what they find in the Bible. If they find spiritism in the Bible, they have more confidence that it is a living force to-day. Mr. Miles thinks that "all demonology and other questionable beliefs common to the day in which the writers of Christ's life lived" might be left out by general agreement. He seems to think that such beliefs are generally understood to be fallacious or unimportant. The dissent from that opinion would be very

vigorous indeed and he would find a strong existing conviction that the only trouble about the beliefs common to the day in which the writers of Christ's life lived is that in a materialistic world they have grown faint, though for many Christians the Bible has preserved them.

There is another thing. Parts of the Bible are pretty old and are derived from writings still older. In them are echoes of prehistoric times which are of great interest and value to students who try to learn what this world and human life were like in days long gone, and where the peoples came from whom we know. Somebody in Toronto, for example, has just published a book to prove that the English and most of the Americans are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and represent Ephraim and Manasseh. The theory is not novel, but the way this inquirer digs up the Bible to prove it is highly entertaining, even though not conclusively convincing, and of course for such investigations as that a sawed off, bored out and expurgated Bible would not do at all.

Mr. Miles's suggestions imply that he thinks that the men of our day know enough to decide what belongs to knowledge and what does not. But they do not. They have merely nibbled at knowledge, and the understanding of spiritual things is hardly more complete than chemistry or physics. What we find in the Bible depends, as said, on what we have learned to understand, and the more understanding advances the more the Bible yields to qualified readers.

However, Mr. Miles's project will take care of itself. It is not dangerous. When one has stated his suggestion, that is really all that is necessary.

EDWARD S. MARTIN.

VOL. CCXV. NO. 794

OF PYRAMIDS AND PYGMIES

BY ROBERT WITHINGTON

In this day and age, when good folks run to legislative halls with nostrums which, if put into the form of bills and passed as laws by equally well-meaning and hard-working Congressmen, will cure all the ills which the twentieth century has fallen heir to, the profession of law-maker has attained a greater importance than it ever had before; and we look with profound respect upon those bodies of legislators who sit, like King Canute, upon the edge of the ocean, and decree that from this day on the tides shall rise no more, or who, like Joshua of old, command the sun to stand still in its course, and vote millions to enforce this law. If we trained professional legislators-men who were to make a career for themselves as politicians (in the original and best sense of the word) and serve the people, legislatively, with the same freedom and permanence as, judicially, the Supreme Court serves -it would be well to prepare them as we train our law-interpreters, so that they would have a clear idea of what is within their province and what is not; but we pull the farmer from his field, the journalist from his printing-press, the lecturer from his Chautauqua circuit, the manufacturer from his office, and set these humble neighbors in lofty places-and behold, they are become as the great ones of the earth, and their heavy words are weighted with meaning, because, forsooth, are they not Congressmen and Senators, and do not the tides cease at their bidding, and does not the sun stand still at their words?

And it has come to pass that our big guns are either men of large calibre, or else great bores. And the latter are in the majority. But our voting machines continue to turn out more big guns, without observing the difference.

Nigh to two hundred years ago, one Edward Young, in his forgotten Night Thoughts, delivered himself as follows;

Can place or lessen us or aggrandize?

Pygmies are pygmies still, though perch'd on Alps,
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

Each man makes his own stature, builds himself.

These verses have a semblance of truth; but the deep thinker-he who penetrates beneath the surface of things-will note at once the fallacy. How many men are listened to because of their position! How many pygmies, perched so to speak on Alps, have with the mountain-the weight of a pyramid! And how many pyramids, hidden away in vales, are lost sight of, because our eyes are strained to distant peaks, where the pygmies strut their hour without fretting, because they know full well that there is little danger of being displaced by a pyramid, which could not climb a mountain if it tried!

Of course, public office is only one of many places which endow men with authority: there are pygmies on boards of directors; as presidents of banks and railroads; in professors' chairs; at teachers' desks; on bishops' thrones; as executives, as superintendents, as foremen. And there are pyramids as well—even in Congress! But we are ready to confuse the stature of a man with his position, until proof is given that the two are distinct.

There be those who derive comfort from the above bit of verse, because, living in vales, they immediately conceive of themselves as pyramids. This is a peculiar form of logic, but widespread. Often the fact that accidents happen is the only proof of regulation in a family-and the well-known, comfortable saying is blithely quoted to support the proof. Many who see in themselves the faults of the great, argue that they themselves are great; and if "pyramids are pyramids in vales"-which is obvious then those in vales are pyramids, and are much neglected, if not entirely overlooked. Some also reason that once on a peak one becomes ipso facto a pyramid, and must be listened to as such.

Among the self-appointed pyramids, on the peak of publicity, is the so-called "parlor Bolshevik," who sometimes speaks from the vantage-ground of "social position," or of literary notoriety. Why "parlor" is prefixed to his title, I know not; he frequents drawing-rooms, where he addresses women's clubs, or holds