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"WHILE THE GYMNASTS PERFORM THEIR TRICKS, FLYING WONDROUSLY BETWEEN THE TRAPEZES, STRETCHING THEIR UNBELIEVABLY

ELASTIC LIMBS WITH DIVINE EASE, THEY CREATE SLIGHT VIBRATIONS OF MUSCLES IN THE BODY OF EVERY ONE IN THE AUDIENCE"

the manager and more satisfaction to the artists' ambitions. Of course the first plays would be mostly comedies or adventure plays, near to the movies genre. They would be gaudy, gorgeous pantomimes.

But by and by the taste of the audience would improve, and we would be able to stage real dramas in the circus. The so-called intellectuals say that it isn't worth while to think about any revival of the circus. They consider it to be an old-fashioned, "lowbrow entertainment, good only for children and very superficial people. But, after

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ited it is always the window of a dog shop.

You mustn't think I am stray away from my theme-it was the shop that helped me to understand t eternal appeal of the circus.

There are so many miraculous-look ing things displayed in the windos cases of the American cities. Yo might have become used to them but for the greenhorns; the automatic sewing machine, for instance, the machine working all by itself in the fancy wi dow that looks quite a miracle. And yet, no matter how the window dec

"OUR POOR BODIES ARE STARVING FOR THE BEAUTY OF MOVEMENTS. OUR MINDS, OFTEN SUB

CONSCIOUSLY, ARE STARVING FOR IT ALSO. WE, THE WEAKLINGS OF THE CITY WITH OUR
UNDEVELOPED FRAMES, SHARE THE JOY OF HAVING PERFECT BODIES, PERFECT MOVEMENTS"

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tors strain their imaginations, they not invent anything as delightful to crowd as a window with a few comn animals playing in it. The brightdisplay of precious stones, the most plicated mechanical toys, the gaudigarment on a wax beauty-all that y attract the crowd for a while, then ple get accustomed to it and pass ifferently by. But the puppies playin the window are an eternally insting show for men, women, and dren, for immigrants and Ameris alike.

t is that greatest of all miracles, the acle of life, which compels people watch the animals. It is the inexstible, always appealing, always rgiving performance of the posing, ping, playing, barking, purring, wling brother animals of ours.

Ve go to the circus for the same son that we gaze at the dog-shop dow. The very smell of the menagexcites us. Dogs, horses, elephants very form of energy in flesh that vens our little earth-this seems e interesting than the display of mechanical energy, the astounding olutions of the most powerful and iplicated motors. We have but little pect for the creations of our hands. e funny bulldog pressing his nose inst the window glass can beat them because he is alive.

This great curiosity which we have for er living beings is one of the reasons y we love the circus. Another reason the great appeal of the circus is the play of physical strength and alertsof the human body, which we admire re, as an ideal almost unattainable ourselves. In spite of all the instions and magazines promoting physiculture, the average man and woman ar away from the ideally developed aan being. We are so unfair to our ies. Half of the day people sit in ces and another half in music halls I theaters. Our poor bodies are rving for the beauty of movements. r minds, often subconsciously, are rving for it also. The subconscious id dreaming physical perfection

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this is what drags us to the circus. And there is a physiological reason for it also.

While the gymnasts perform their tricks, flying wondrously between the trapezes, stretching their unbelievably elastic limbs with divine ease, they create slight vibrations of muscles in the body of every one of the audience. Every movement of the wrestling giant, or flying-trapeze man, or tight-rope dancer, or Wild West horse rider is weakly repeated, reflected, imitated by our bodies. We, the weaklings of the city, with our undeveloped frames, share the joy of having perfect bodies, perfect movements. And it is not selfhypnotism, not "just imagination no, our blood really runs warmer, our hearts beat more rhythmically, even our digestion improves, from watching the circus performance as if we were taking real exercise.

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These two reasons, our eternal wonder before the miracle of life and our unsatiated craving for physical perfection, seem to me the sufficient explanation of the eternal appeal of the circus. The theater, which is so unreal (physically), can never replace the circus. The idea of the circus cannot grow oldfashioned, unless all of us attain phys

IS THAT GREATEST OF ALL MIRACLES, THE MIRACLE OF LIFE, WHICH COMPELS PEOPLE WATCH THE ANIMALS. IT IS THE INEXHAUSTIBLE, ALWAYS APPEALING, ALWAYS JOYWING PERFORMANCE OF THE POSING, JUMPING, PLAYING, BARKING, PURRING, CRAWLING BROTHER ANIMALS OF OURS"

ical perfection. In its present form it is a very imperfect, harmful, almost barbaric entertainment.

But it might not be so. You have the largest circus in the world-why not make it the greatest? You have so many means for it. Just imagine, all these actors, animals, lights, and instruments being united in a harmonious picture, in some great play, giving joy to our souls as well as to our senses.

The circus was the temple of great art in olden times. The Roman Coliseum was really great; try to make a Coliseum out of your circus.

It is possible. The great popular drama of simple lines, the historical drama, such as "Quo Vadis" on the screen, might be highly impressive in the circus. The mass scenes, the revolutionary battles, the religious processions-how much more real they would seem in your great circus than on the humble stage of the theater! Napoleon at the Pyramids, the War of Independence, the Fall of the Winter Palace-all that might create an immense performance. And the poor elephants, which are now compelled to dance stupidly, would find a decent place in it, too. They may imitate, for example, a picturesque caravan in the desert instead of dancing one-step against their nature.

I have seen dramas of Sophocles and Euripides staged in the circus of Russia, and they were successes, although the Greek masterpieces are so far from the modern Russian soul. I am sure that a great up-to-date drama with mass scenes staged in the circus would be very successful in America.

Of course it must be a drama or tragedy with a wide social interest in it, not merely a "tale of two hearts." It must deal not with two lovers only, but with some great problem concerning the whole of humanity. Then the large stage of the circus will become the Great Stage.

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From W. E. Burton, Montclair, N.J.

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THE BURNING OF THE WORLD SUNDAY SCHOOL CONVENTION HALL IN TOKYO Hundreds of delegates from all over the world were temporarily deprived of a meeting-place through the burning of the great auditorium in Tokyo which had been prepared for their use. This unusual photograph shows the first stages of the fire

THE MIAJIMI TORII AT LOW
TIDE

This well-known torii, the water
gateway of a Shinto temple, is on
Miajima Island, situated in the Inland
Sea of Japan

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HE BOOK TABLE: DEVOTED TO BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS

THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCHES

wo recently published books, one by an Anglican Bishop, the other by Oxford professor, present a Churchn's point of view; both are written an irenic spirit and with an evidently cere desire to promote organic church on; neither author is willing to sacriany sincere conviction for the sake of rch unity, and neither of them takes ount of what both would probably term extreme Protestant point of view, ch is the point of view of the writer of article.

Bishop Palmer's view of the Church

be briefly summarized thus: Jesus ist organized a Church, gave to the Ive Apostles a commission, and endowed n with certain definite powers, one of ch was to transmit these powers to r successors in office. It is true that Church selects those successors; but only bishop, who takes by appointment the e of the Apostle, possesses the spiritual rers of the Apostles or can confer those 'ers on the ones whom the Church, oses. Bishop Palmer says: "The Church ot and cannot be democratic in essence,

it has for its head a king whose position

bsolute and unconditional-Jesus Christ. To him and him alone the bishops, his istant shepherds, are responsible." us, according to Bishop Palmer, the hops are not responsible to the Church ich has elected them. They, not the irch, have received by divine appointat a commission "to represent the paraant Personality."

Dr. Headlam's larger volume furnishes e opportunity for and gives evidence of ore scholarly treatment. He is Regius fessor of Divinity in the University of ford, and has, it may be presumed, more ure and better facilities for study than busy missionary bishop. He traces the trine of the Church from the Four Gos3 down to the Lambeth Conference. He s that Christ "created the Church as a ble society. He instituted ministry and raments. He gave authority for legisla

and discipline." "But he gave no ections as to the form or organization the new community, and the actual orization which was ultimately developed 3 different from anything which he perally established." Episcopacy "was the ation of the Church. . . . It had its oriin the Apostolic Church; it represents ontinuous development from Apostolic es; but we cannot claim that it has postolic authority." Dr. Headlam defends historic episcopacy and the Nicene ed as a basis for organic Church union, on the ground that they have the direct hority of Jesus Christ, as he thinks the o sacraments have, but because their Lue has been recognized by an elming majority in the Christian Church m a very early age.

over

We do not know of any recent book from

The Great Church Awakes Ideas and Studies cerning Unity and Reunion. By Edwin James Imer, D.D., Bishop of Bombay. Longmans, een & Co., New York.

The Doctrine of the Church and Christian Reon. Being the Bampton Lectures for the year 0. By the Rev. Arthur C. Headlam, D.D. ngmans, Green & Co., New York.

which the interested layman can better get
a statement of what is popularly known as
the High Church view in its extreme form
than Bishop Palmer's, nor any book from
which he can get a better view of the
grounds on which the historic episcopate
is defended by moderate Churchmen than
Dr. Headlam's book. But neither of them
will give the reader any idea of the view
held by the Puritan churches, though more
consistently by the Pilgrims and the
Quakers, and to-day by an increasing num-
ber of scholars in the great Protestant
denominations. This may be defined,
though inadequately, in a sentence: That
Jesus Christ organized no Church, ritual,
or creed, and commanded no sacraments;
that he was a life-giver, not a lawgiver,
and left his disciples, guided by his
recorded words and inspired by his per-
petual presence, to formulate their own
creeds, frame their own rituals, develop
their own working and worshiping organi-

zations as their developing life, varying temperaments, and changing circumstances might suggest to them.

The Puritan churches might perhaps accept the episcopacy as a convenient form of organization and an advantageous method of co-operation and the Nicene Creed as an unauthoritative emotional expression of reverence. But they could not unite with other Christians on the basis offered by Bishop Palmer without sacrificing their sacred convictions. This would be to ask the spiritual successors of Pastor Robinson to unite in the same organization with the spiritual successors of Archbishop Laud. The latter believe the Church of Christ to be an absolute monarchy, with rulers who owe no accountability for their rule to the constituency which elected them. The former hold that the Church of Christ is not only the most democratic of organizations, but the mother and should be the inspirer and example of political, educational, and industrial democracy.

LYMAN ABBOTT.

THE CONTEMPLATIVE DAYS

anglers, but they are by no means "the saddest of the year." Though rods and lines are laid away waiting for the going out of the ice in the spring, the fly fisherman knows that winter plays an important part in his fishing calendar. Winter, as Sir Edward Grey so delightfully explains in his volume on "Fly Fishing" (the American edition of which was reviewed last April in The Outlook), is a time when anticipative imagination peoples all favorite streams with flashing monsters always and inevitably to be conquered by the angler's consummate skill. Winter, too, is a time when the angler finds opportunity not only to review his own experience and survey his own hopes, but also to share in the experiences and hope of others through the magic medium of books.

HE contemplative days are come for

Certainly contemplative anglers can find

no recent book better adapted for this purpose than Mr. H. T. Sheringham's "Trout Fishing Memories and Morals."1 Mr. Sheringham is the editor of the "London Field" and is one of the best-known fly-fishermen and angling writers in the British Isles. His volume is a record of a lifetime's experience along the streams of England and Scotland, and is as delightfully written as any work on angling which we have recently seen. We do not know whether good writers naturally turn to angling or whether angling naturally produces good writers, but there are few of the foremost anglers who do not handle the story of their art with eminent literary distinction. Mr. Sheringham is no exception to this rule.

American anglers will find themselves Trout Fishing Memories and Morals. By H. T. Sheringham. Houghton Mifflin Company, Bos

ton.

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Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Co.

DROXFORD, THE HAUNT OF THAT "BIG ONE"

An illustration from Mr. Sheringham's delightful "Trout Fishing Memories and Morals"

very much at home in the atmosphere of this work, even though it deals with unfamiliar waters and with the wiles of Salmo trutta instead of Salvelinus fontinalis. The cult of the dry fly, it is true, is less followed here than in England, and some of the words and customs of English angling have a foreign air. But these variations involve only slight differences in that language of angling common to all those who follow the rise, whether from the banks of the Itchen or the banks of the Willowemoc. One thing, indeed, we can learn from English anglers besides the delicacies of chalk-stream strategy, and that is the obvious fact that in most English streams the weight limit is very much larger than the legal limits in American waters. Weight limits of a pound or over seem to be common in English waters, and doubtless this has much to do with the fact that streams which have been fished for centuries still give up their annual tribute to the feathered fly, while American streams with but a few decades of angling history behind them have been given over to coarse fish and few. In most English streams the catch is strictly limited to a few brace at most. It would almost appear that English trout go into the creel as did the animals into the ark, two by two, for Mr. Sheringham, in common with other English anglers, never seems happy unless he can number his victories in terms of "braces."

If you have a little or large angler in your home, we can imagine no better Christmas gift to drop into his or her fishing boot than a copy of Mr. Sheringham's "Trout Fishing Memories and Morals."

THE NEW BOOKS

FICTION

Homespun and Gold. By Alice Brown. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Alice Brown ranks with Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins as a writer of short stories of New England character. Lately her excellent novels have been more to the front in the public's attention than her short stories. This is a collection of her best work in her earlier field, including stories published during the last ten or twelve years. They are humorous, human, and true.

Noon-Mark (The). By Mary S. Watts. The Macmillan Company, New York.

The novel reader may always depend on Mrs. Watts for sincere and faithful rendering of chosen phases of American life. The contrast here between two girl cousins one an insincere, selfish schemer, the other sensible, downright, and independent-is well done. In construction and the centralizaing of interest in one large situation the novel is less successful than some of its predecessors.

BIOGRAPHY

Life of George Washington. By Henry Cabot Lodge. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 2 vols.

This new edition of Senator Lodge's excellent Life of Washington has a peculiar pertinence at this time when America is undergoing a re-examination of its fundamental political principles. Not only for its faithful and illuminating portraiture of Washington, but also for its discriminating study of the difference between the Federalism of Hamilton and the Democracy of Jefferson does this work deserve a reading.

The problems of foreign influence and of domestic government with which the fathers of our Republic were concerned have a practical and immediate application to the problems confronting us to-day. It may be added that a study of this work (written twenty years ago) will convince the reader that Senator Lodge's distrust of the League of Nations was not based upon a desire to derive party advantage from the defeat of President Wilson but upon philosophical principles to which he has given lifelong adherence.

New England Romance (A). The Story of Ephraim and Mary Jane Peabody (1807-1892). Told by Their Sons. With Illustrations. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

The story of the simple natural lives of a Massachusetts clergyman and his wife, beautiful in the simplicity and the naturalness of their unselfish devotion, and told with a simple and natural beauty of language fitting for such a theme. Incidentally it gives a graphic picture of Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary days.

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM

American Ideals. By Theodore Roosevelt. Introduction by Hermann Hagedorn. Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Stories from the Winning of the West, 1769-1807. By Theodore Roosevelt. Introduction by Lawrence F. Abbott. Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

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This most excellent edition of two of the most important works from Theodore Roosevelt's pen would make a most admirable addition to any school or private library. The "Stories from the Winning of the West contains an introduction from the pen of Mr. Lawrence F. Abbott, President of The Outlook Company. "American Ideals" contains a most noteworthy introduction by Hermann Hagedorn, of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. We do not know where a better interpretation of Mr. Roosevelt's character within similar limits of space can be found than in Mr. Hagedorn's Introduction. Both volumes are admirably printed and fully illustrated.

On the Art of Reading. By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, M.A. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

This book is the work of a scholar and a

stylist, and as such will appeal to people who already know something of the fine art of reading. As might be expected from an author who is an editor and a novelist as well as a professor of English literature, original points of view, apt quotations, and genial play with the subject characterize

the volume.

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assuredly take its place alongside vol of such permanent value as Viscount dane's, General von Falkenhayn's Count Czernin's. Indeed, in none of is there sharper, more illuminative more cynical observation both of me events. The author's aim in the war, defines it, was to accept President Wilso offer of mediation; but the German Go ernment did not wish to accept it. Inste it wanted "to declare unrestricted U-b "It is impressive to note the Amb sador's warnings in 1916 against conte plated German action as certain to d the United States into the war. The a thor apparently sympathized with Wilson's aim to bring about " peace w out victory," and says, "If he had ceeded in doing this, all of us, friend foe alike, would now be living in a be world than the present one in wh judgment we cordially and fervently diffe Again, we read that Mr. Wilson wo only "have needed to nod in order to duce his whole country to fight after t Lusitania incident." Yet, having act "made such prominent use of the mot 'He kept us out of war' in the campaig of the succeeding year for re-election, "unthinkable," according to this Ger critic, that the President should have tended all this time ultimately to entert war. When Count von Bernstorff reached home, he vividly experienced what he cer tainly must have surmised before, namely. that he was not popular with the military chiefs there. That he was not entire popular with the Emperor himself is frankly indicated in this book.

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Darkwater. By W. E. B. Du Bois, Har Brace & Howe, New York.

Dr. Du Bois, as is well known, is editor of "The Crisis" and one of the most urgent propagandists of race equali in the United States. "Darkwater "is record of his convictions. It contains picture of the relationship between wh and colored citizens of the United State which is both moving and disquieting. Th Outlook recognizes the unhappy back ground from which Dr. Du Bois's utter ances have sprung; it knows the under lying tragedy of the struggle which b paints. Nevertheless it is convinced tha the final solution of the problem of ra relationship in America will not be found. must not be found, through the means which Dr. Du Bois advocates. Dr. Du Bo is too close to the struggle to see clear the problems involved. His work is a cres tion of passion rather than intelligence. is, on the whole, a volume which will co vince only those already convinced of the justice and soundness of his position. Voice of the Negro (The). By Rober

Kerlin. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. A valuable volume for the study of Negro question in America is this cole tion of extracts from the colored p made by Professor Robert T. Kerlin.d the Virginia Military Institute. Few there are who realize the influence of the Ne press or have appreciation of its chars at the present time. This volume will g to those who desire to study this ques a first-hand knowledge of the view the position of Negro editors. The vol is doubtless intended to serve more & book of reference than as a work of lite ture. Typographically the book is attractive.

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