hts of the
prophet, the guardian of Israel. Zweig has steered his course skilfully
between the dangers of archaism and anachronism. We rediscover our
preoccupations of the moment in this epic of the fall of Jerusalem; but
we find them as the faithful of recent centuries found day by day in
their Bible the light which lightened their road in hours of
difficulty--sub specie aeternitatis.

"Jeremiah is our prophet," Stefan Zweig said to me. "He has spoken for
us, for our Europe. The other prophets came at their due time. Moses
spoke and acted. Jesus died and acted. Jeremiah spoke in vain. His
people failed to understand him. The times were not ripe. He could only
prophesy, and bewail the approaching doom. He could do nothing to
prevent what was to happen. Ours is a like fate."

But there are defeats more fruitful than victories; there are griefs
more illuminating than joys. Zweig's poem shows this magnificently. At
the end of the drama, Israel has been crushed. The Jews, leaving their
ruined city, going into exile, pass towards the future filled with an
inward radiance never known to them before, strong by reason of the
sacrifices which have revealed to them their mission.

* * * * *

SCENE ONE

THE PROPHET'S AWAKENING.

A night in early spring. All is quiet. Jeremiah, awakened with a start
by a vision of Jerusalem in flames, goes up to the terrace which
overlooks his dwelling and the town. He is "poisoned" by dreams,
obsessed by the oncoming storm, although peace still broods over the
scene. He does not understand the fierce energy which surges up in him;
but he knows that it comes from God and he awaits his orders, uneasy and
under the spell of hallucination. His mother calls to him, and at first
he imagines her voice to be the voice of God. To the terrified woman he
foretells the ruin of Jerusalem. She implores him to be silent; his
words seem to her sacrilegious and arouse her anger; to close his mouth,
she tells him he will have her curse if he makes his sinister dreams
known to others. But Jeremiah is no longer his own man. He follows the
unseen Master.

SCENE TWO

THE WARNING.

In the great square of Jerusalem, in front of the temple and the king's
palace, the people acclaim the Egyptian envoys who have brought with
them a daughter of the Pharaoh to wed King Zedekiah, and who are to
cement an alliance against the Chaldeans. Abimelech the general, Pashur
the high priest