twice represented her in the act of offering the forbidden fruit to Adam. Adam, having finished eating his half of the apple, makes haste to tell on Eve, whereupon God chides them very sorrowfully and they kneel down, Eve meekly, Adam abjectly, to receive their sentence of punishment. After they have risen, God presents them with garments. Eve, rather pleased than otherwise with her new clothes, is dressed first and stands waiting for Adam who has great difficulty in drawing on his shirt and finally has to be assisted by Deity. When they are ready to leave Paradise, they are not expelled by a furious angel with a fiery sword, as in later pictures, but are led to the gate

by God Himself, who, laying His hand gently on their shoulders as if in benediction, sends them forth.

Even in this solemn moment Eve seems curious and talkative, straining her eyes to see how the world looks outside the gates and vainly trying to reassure Adam, who looks dubious as to the future and sullen about the past. In the last scene, however, Adam comes out well. His punishment has been turned to the divine account and he is joyfully subduing the earth, while Eve sits close by with her work sewing for the baby: They have

(See figure is risen.)

"made it up" with each other, and by the perfect peace and joy of the scene we know they have made it up likewise with God.

Beyond in the atrium, we caught glimpses of other Old-Testament scenes. One mosaic we noticed which depicted in most realistic fashion Noah pushing and one of his sons pulling a reluctant lion into the Ark-but just at this point a little urchin, dispatched from the restaurant, came rushing up to tell us our "piddochi" was getting cold, so we left Adam and Eve to their hoeing and sewing

and went to eat our lunch which we felt we, too, had earned that day by the sweat of our brows.

We then devoted an hour to the Academy, where Carpaccio, perhaps the best after-dinner story-teller of the Renaissance, held us spellbound with his quaintly charming series of pictures, illustrating the life and vicissitudes of St. Ursula and her ten thousand Virgin companions.

I squandered very little time buying lace and glass in Venice this second trip, for it had finally dawned on me that while I could get Venetian glass and lace

in many American cities, never again in any other place than Venice could I have such an opportunity to see Tintoret, and in him Venetian painting at its high-water mark, with what was realest in religion and deepest in poetry and loveliest in art all combined. One of his paintings in the Scuola de San Rocco, adjoining his Parish Church, is to me as deeply moving a picture as I have ever seen. Who that has looked on it can ever forget that white-stoled Figure standing before Pilate with bound hands and the look of a conqueror: Yet for all the Godlike calm of His face, there is a feeling of infinite human weariness about the figure, strange mingling of a man crushed and a God triumphant-a God who could only conquer by suffering and a man who dared to suffer like a God. Opposite sits Pilate in his royal robes of state surrounded by all the pomp and splendor of imperial Rome. No hint of shrinking, you might say, in that figure, and yet, as you look beneath the glittering surface, pierce through the body to the naked soul of Him, the man seems literally to dwindle before your eyes, until by some subtle swift play of inner vision the masks drop from the figures and the scene is changed -Pilate is the condemned one and Christ stands forth the judge.

There is a great pity in Christ's eye as He looks upon Pilate washing his hands. Can the man really believe that water will wash away the stain? What pitiful superstitions are people bound by, what meaningless rites suffice, how shallow a man with such a creed! Ah, standing there with the weight of the world's sin crushing Him, He knows that saying, "I wash my hands of this," will not do away with the least atom of responsibility. About to pour out His blood in token of regeneration to teach the world the law of sacrifice, He knows that easy-going formulas are not enough, that water does not suffice, that without shedding of blood is no remission. One may not turn on the faucet of this or that church, or trust that some man-made creed or

priestly rite will save him. No, one's life must be devoted to

a divine purpose, one's material interests must be subordinated to spiritual ends.

We feel instantly on looking at this picture, that the sadness in Christ's face is not for Himself. The small moment of personal agony, of shrinking in Gethsemane is over. He is thinking of the ignorant mob outside shouting "Crucify Him," yes, Him, their King; of the fleeing disciples who had been so long time with Him and yet had never known Him; of Peter who is denying Him as the cock crows; of Judas who has betrayed Him; of Pilate who in order to re

main the friend of Cæsar at last condemns the Christ. He seems to be speaking now to Pilate-Pilate the puppet, who dreams he is the judge-"Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." Ah, the judgment scene is not here, not now. A few hours ago, alone in the garden, the real judgment had been passed. When He refused to call for the legion of angels to deliver Him, and stretched out His hand only to the one who brought the cupHe Himself gave Pilate the power with which to judge Him now. "No man takes my life from Me," the words come ringing down the centuries and Tintoret has caught their echo-"No man takes my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay

it down and I have power to take it again."

Christ before Pilate! Pilate before Christ! Either phrase might serve as the title for this picture, and yet neither is entirely adequate, for in the final analysis both figures seem to stand so terribly alone each weighing not the other's, but his own soul in the balance-type of that inevitable, inexorable judgment which every man must pass on his own life. We cry out to God for mercy, and He hands us the scales. By the choice we have made of light or darkness, of our highest or our lowest, we pronounce upon ourselves that judgment which alone is final.

Looking back on those days in the sea city, it seems to me that, if only one have

the mind to, one may "go to church" to as good purpose in voluptuous Venice as in Puritan New England: may hear, if one have ears to hear, a still, small voice speaking from her pictured lips and find some deathless truths of religion wrought into her lifeless marbles.

Before I left Venice this second time, though I had by no means covered all the ground I had hoped to, I had at least caught a glimpse of something of which Baedaker makes no mention-something that cannot be seen or appreciated mechanically, and that is the spirit of the dying city, of which the splendor of her past and the magic of her present are but

the more the more or less inadequate material expressions.

To the discerning traveler there is a more delightful experience than a first visit to Venice, and that is a second, and a still more delightful experience, and that is a third. Indeed, it was easy for me to understand, after having seen the enthusiasm of the art teacher, the charm there might be in taking a possible thirty-third degree. Such is the spell of the place that before you have seen Venice she lures you in your dreams, and once seen she haunts you ever after.

JULIA SCOTT VROOMAN.
Cotuit, Massachusetts.

ENTAL suggestion has at last crept upon the stage, and two of last season's successes, as well as two of this season's, are plays whose powerful and underlying theme has been to show the workings of the mind for good or for evil.

The first of this class of drama to be produced was "The Witching Hour,” a crudely-handled play from the pen of Augustus Thomas. It was a structure. built upon hypnotism, pure and simple, the power of a strong man's mind over the minds of his weaker brothers.

Next in line came that enormously masterful drama or one might better call it a dramatic allegory—“The Servant in the House," by Charles Rann Kennedy; and more recently Jerome K. Jerome's "The Passing of the Third Floor Back." In these two plays the Christ spirit furnishes the theme for thought, overcoming

*The quotations from the play used in this article are from Mr. Oliver Herford's translation, by special permission of Mr. H. W. Savage.

evil by banishing selfishness and hypocrisy.

The present theatrical season opened with a production of "The Devil," a play by the Hungarian, Franz Molnar, whose irony and cynicism suggest Bernard Shaw, and whose brilliant epigrams carry one to the pages of Oscar Wilde, though the former might be said to be the master of clever epigrams and scathing sarcasm.

"The Devil" is the antithesis of "The Servant in the House," and Satan walks among his victims in evening dress and silk hat, possessing the suave manners of an elegant man of the world. But he represents the Power of Evil in the minds of a man and a woman who are being drawn together in illicit love. During the meetings of this man and woman, the Devil ever lurks as their shadow, working subtly, maliciously, surely. From the moment that he rises suddenly from behind the pulpit-like chair in the artist's studio, to face the woman who has come there to sit for her portrait, the thought is