my time, sir, had considerable
opportunities for studying close at hand the various orders of mammalia
who devote themselves to what they describe as the arts. It may sound
a harsh judgement, but I am convinced that musicians stand on the very
bottom rung of the ladder in the sub-cellar of human intelligence, even
lower than painters and actors."

This seemed such unqualified nonsense to the Rev. Mr. Ware that he
offered no comment whatever upon it. He tried instead to divert his
thoughts to the stormy strains which rolled in through the vibrating
brickwork, and to picture to himself the large, capable figure of Miss
Madden seated in the half-light at the organ-board, swaying to and fro
in a splendid ecstasy of power as she evoked at will this superb and
ordered uproar. But the doctor broke insistently in upon his musings.

"All art, so-called, is decay," he said, raising his voice. "When a race
begins to brood on the beautiful--so-called--it is a sign of rot, of
getting ready to fall from the tree. Take the Jews--those marvellous old
fellows--who were never more than a handful, yet have imposed the rule
of their ideas and their gods upon us for fifteen hundred years. Why?
They were forbidden by their most fundamental law to make sculptures or
pictures. That was at a time when the Egyptians, when the Assyrians, and
other Semites, were running to artistic riot. Every great museum in
the world now has whole floors devoted to statues from the Nile, and
marvellous carvings from the palaces of Sargon and Assurbanipal. You
can get the artistic remains of the Jews during that whole period into
a child's wheelbarrow. They had the sense and strength to penalize art;
they alone survived. They saw the Egyptians go, the Assyrians go, the
Greeks go, the late Romans go, the Moors in Spain go--all the artistic
peoples perish. They remained triumphing over all. Now at last their
long-belated apogee is here; their decline is at hand. I am told that in
this present generation in Europe the Jews are producing a great lot of
young painters and sculptors and actors, just as for a century they have
been producing famous composers and musicians. That means the end of the
Jews!"

"What! have you only got as far as that?" came the welcome interruption
of a cheery voice. Father Forbes had entered the room, and stood looking
down with a whimsical twinkle in his eye from one to the other of his
guests.

"You must have been taken over the groun