primal representative of bodily life, and a "new man," the type, herald, and kindler of the supernal life. They show, too, creation and resurrection as forming a cycle, and even evince a tendency to shift the simple cycle from each individual to whom it belongs to a composite cyclical idea. The conception which they contain of a double Adam or of man in polar opposite attitudes, we shall illustrate from Talmudic lore.

The orthodox Rabbinical views, as given in the Talmud, being fairly attributable in part to the new lights let in upon the Hebrews through their intercourse with the Median sages, will complete for us the not inharmonious chain of the myths of the ancestry of man, both Aryan and Semitic.

Mr. Taylor, the editor of the excellent edition of the Pirqe Aboth, refers to the double idea of Adam or man, constituting "the doctrine that there is a correspondence in all respects between the upper world and the lower: 'Whatever exists above, exists also below.' Thus there is an archetypal and celestial Adam analogous to the lower Adam, and made literally in the image of God. There is also a familia above corresponding to the human familia below, with respect to which it is said: May it be Thy pleasure, O Lord our God, to make peace in the family above and in the family below :' (Berakoth, 16b, 17a.) The condition or action of either of these communities must have its analogue in the other. He who occupies himself in Thorah for its own sake makes peace in the family above and in the family below. . . Rab said, It is as if he built a palace above and below. . . . Moreover he protects the whole world, &c., and brings the redemption nigh.' (Sanhedr. 99b.)”

Again, "a conception which pervades the Midrash literature is that there is an upper' and a 'lower' Adam : a celestial man, made strictly in the image of God, and a terrestrial man corresponding in detail to his archetype, of which he is the material adumbration. This two-fold conception makes it difficult at times to estimate the precise value of the brief enigmatical sayings of the Rabbis on the Creation and the Fall. The matter is further complicated by their tendency to ignore the distinction between the potential and the actual; between the embryo and its development; between the 'idea' and its temporal manifestation.

"There are two aspects of the statement that man was made in the çelem, or image, of God, according as we regard the resemblance to God as predicated of the actual man or of his archetype; and, as a consequence of this, there are also two ways of regarding the Fall, viz. (1), as a loss of the Divine image in which man was actually created, and (2) as a falling away of the terrestrial Adam from his archetype. In the 'Book of the Generations of Adam,' the Divine likeness is described as not wholly lost but perpetuated: 'God created man in the LIKENESS of God. . Adam begat a son in his own LIKENESS, after his image' (Gen. v. 1, 3); on which Ramban remarks: It is known that all that are born of living beings are in the likeness and image of their parents; but because Adam was exalted in his likeness and his image, for it is said of him that 'In the likeness of God made He him,' it says expressly here that his offspring likewise were in that exalted likeness, but it does not say this of Cain and Abel, not wishing to dilate upon them, &c.'

This agrees with the Targum of Jonathan, which introduces the remark that before this Eve bare Cain, who was not like him (Adam),' &c." This idea of an earthward development will remind us of the Zoroastrian beliefs, and especially of the conception of Kaiômart as the being responsive to the mind of the Divinity, while Maschia and Maschiana typify human beings who are not on the prophetic heights of humanity, but are of its animal plane; and we may be reminded of the beautiful counterblast to unhealthy asceticism which we have quoted, that man the spiritual must, as things are, succeed rather than precede man the unspiritual. Man the spiritual, we may say, is built up or strengthened from man the corporeal; large and healthy root (postulating due openness to the Divine sunlight) makes large and wholesome flower.

The superficially opposite views which we have instanced can all be reconciled in the paradox that the Fall of man is his Rise; the earthward pilgrimage well pursued is the way of heavenly strength.

Creation, according to the Talmud, is not to be regarded as complete in Adam, or, as we should say, in the protoplastic state : Everything that was created in the six days of Bereschith needs 'making (ie., preparation or concoction). The mustard, for example, needs sweetening; lupines need sweetening; wheat needs to be ground; even man needs amendment: (Bereschith Rabbah XI.) According to this view," says Mr. Taylor, "the 'image' and 'likeness' is that to which man approximates." So we logically come to this as the outcome of the old philosophic myths when brought together. Resurrection and creation are complemental; the spirit leaves its primary state, but by a

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fall which should inspire no hyperascetic horror; and it returns with a fresh armful, so to speak, of life and experience, to a state nigher than before to the Divine likeness

of its origin. To infringe the laws of the lower Adam is to be a starveling in life, and miss the way that leads up to the true upstanding. "The first Adam extended from the earth to the firmament, for it is said that he was created upon or above the earth' (Chagiga 12a) : Twice didst thou form me (writes the commentator, as cited by Mr. Taylor) at first high, then low." But the regeneration is the old spiritual generation more fully realised.

"The sonship of Israel," says Mr. Taylor, "implies their possession of the Divine likeness in a higher degree than Adam, or man in general..

The

primal man, the embryo of the race, is created an adumbration of Elohim; Israel is singled out for the distinction of sonship to IHVH." We who are of Aryan origin may not claim to any special distinction over Gentile humanity, but prefer to rank according as we are found. The less intensely Judaic of the Rabbis, moreover, would appear to have preferred the general to the special ground. "R. Obadiah of Sforno dilates upon man's faculty of acquiring a perfection with which he was not specifically created. He remarks

that In imagine' implies the twofold possibility, first, of rising to perfection by means of wisdom through which the love and fear of God are acquired, and, secondly, of lapsing into chaos and perishing, according to the words of the Psalmist (xlix. 21), 'If he will not understand, he will be like the beasts that perish. ['Man that is in honour (his heavenly birthright and spiritual state) and under

standeth not, is like the beasts that perish']; for if man had been wholly spiritual he might have been called actually Elohim, a word which is applied not only to God but to intellectual and incorporeal beings, as angels, and also to judges, in respect of the mind... which properly belongs to them; but since he is in part material he is described, not as Elohim, but in lower terms, as in the image of Elohim."

These Hebrew subtleties may prove tedious, but we must not forget that the sages had to work out their thoughts in a narrow and constraining epoch. We who have the privilege of expanding our lungs in a freer air may treat Aryan and Semite as brothers, and make harmonious philosophy of our own from the best we can find of philosophic suggestiveness, whether of lore or of life.

The gathered fragments of this paper, if scarcely enough to afford

a feast, will at least help to show that a true reconciliation of the world's faiths is possible; and afford evidence that, as we speak now words of the Aryan language, and, owing to the Aryans something of physical heredity, are historically their relations as well as linked with them in the common brotherhood of humanity, so also we may be at least cousins with them in religious ideas. There is, verily, no

Divine enforcement, nor even have we aught of spontaneous intuition, that in religion any the more than in science or art, there should be the least withdrawal from Catholicity. Stages of development and differences of character may surely be fraternally allowed for in the religious endeavours of humanity, without too severe a strain being put upon the charity that thinks no evil and is not puffed up, but rejoices with the truth.

THE stranger of culture noticing the combination of the word Music with the word Hall among the public advertisements of an accurate-minded race would naturally form the æsthetic conception of a noble building devoted to the most. tender of the arts. And an unsophisticated mind might find some difficulty in realising the facts of the grandest civilisation in the world as they are.

A dazzling blaze of gas; the sharp clink of pewter pots and glasses; an incessant babel of voices, male and female, talking, shouting, and laughing, blended with the loud din of a stringed and brazen band; an army of hot, perspiring waiters, napkin on arm, and laden with bottles and glasses, perpetually running to and fro between a liquor bar and an audience of impatient tipplers; an insignificant-looking creature standing in the centre of a large stage and lustily stretching his lungs in the somewhat vain endeavour to make himself audible above the general clamour;-such is the appearance presented by the interior of a Music hall at the moment of entering.

On looking round after the first general impression we see that the hall is long, wide, and lofty. Running round the greater part of it is a spacious gallery, on a level with which, and immediately overlooking the stage, are several private boxes. The upper portion of the auditorium is occupied by long, velvet-covered, high-backed

seats, called upon the programme fauteuils; the remainder of the hall being crowded with small marbletopped tables, surrounded by cane chairs, and provided with sugarbowls and match boxes. Down the whole length of the room great gaudy mirrors reflect the diverse physiognomies of a curiously miscellaneous audience. The brightly polished "bar" glitters with manycoloured bottles, cut-glass decanters, pewters, mugs, and flagons, from the tiny liqueur glass to the substantial quart pot. Behind the

bar showy-looking damsels, whose natural charms the constant application of pearl powders, rouge, and blue pencil has pretty effectually destroyed, are busily engaged in ministering to the thirst of the audience. In the place usually appropriated to them, just below the stage, sit the members of the orchestra, and behind them, generally on a revolving seat, and with a tube of communication between himself and the prompter, sits the president or chairman. His business is to announce the performers by name in their order of appear

ance.

Meanwhile, the hall is filling rapidly. Let us take a hurried survey of those already present, who are enjoying their ease, pipe or cigar in mouth, liquor glass before them, and we shall see who are the main supporters of this establishment.

The earliest arrivals are chiefly of a humble order-small tradesmen and shopkeepers, who come

here, perhaps two or three times a week, often bringing their wives and daughters with them, and who spend the evening chatting politics with their friends, and reading the newspaper; country folk, up to town for a holiday, who take the music hall in their allotted round of sights, and seem to enjoy themselves considerably in a dazed, bewildered sort of way. These latter hold the waiter in great awe, addressing him as "Sir," and taking any casual information he may choose to offer on the names and merits of the performers, with respectful gratitude. Linen drapers' assistants of the order meek and quiet, who, with their sweethearts, come very early-before the doors are opened so as to enjoy as much as possible of each other's society, for they must be home and in their respective beds before the performance is over. They take one glass of small beer between them, which lasts, in little alternate sips, throughout the evening. There is a goodly sprinkling of mechanics; of skilled and unskilled labourers; a miscellaneous lot of soldiers, sailors, grooms, jockeys, theatrical

supers "out of work, and the oddlooking rakings of the streets and public-houses who crowd the back of the gallery for the sake of a few hours' warmth and light.

Now let us take this humbler portion of the audience en masse, and ask, in a general way, what they are doing here? Wherein

lies the attraction of the music hall for the great body of our lower classes?

The reason seems to consist mainly in that love of partaking in any showy or exciting spectacle, simply as a spectacle, which is so distinctive a characteristic of the lower British orders. The people are blest with a remarkable faculty for gaping; they like to get together in a crowd, and stare at

something. It is impossible to walk for half an hour through a crowded thoroughfare of London and fail to be struck, possibly halfa-dozen times, with this popular propensity. Anything resembling a show collects a crowd in a moment. A man in a fit or a fallen cab-horse is sufficient excuse for the immediate assembling of a little mob, which congregates with no other purpose than to get a front place and gaze open-mouthed. No one is in any hurry to assist the policeman; but there is considerable excitement in standing around with your hands in your pockets, and treading on your neighbour's toes. The same crowd which follows, in a spirit of morbid speculation, the hearse in a funeral procession, pursues with equal excitement a wedding coach and a prison van.

A street artist, kneeling on a scrap of matting, with his little bag of coloured chalks, tracing figures of birds and fishes on the pavement; a juggler balancing knives and balls; a mountebank wriggling himself out of a knotted rope; a party of negro minstrels, or a Savoyard with a dancing bear; a German band, or the soloist on a coffee-pot-for each and all someone has invariably a spare moment. There is nothing in the shape of a spectacle, from a procession of royalty to an organ-man with a monkey, which does not successfully appeal to the gaping element in the British constitution.

We need probe the physiology of lower humanity no deeper than this to appreciate the popularity of the music hall with the masses. A large proportion of the audience are attracted here solely by love of lazily contemplating the performance, whilst drinking and smoking, and gossiping with their friends. The music hall is nothing if not a show; the people are nothing if