so interwoven with devotional life and worship. It would be fatally easy to mar its unexampled beauty of phrase and spirit. At the same time, it must be remembered that it does stand in need of adaptation to present conditions. The thirty years since the last revision have witnessed radical changes in theological ideas. The old order of religious thought has changed and yielded place to a new and larger vision. Christian conceptions have been liberalized, and sooner or later the new thought must find adequate expression in our liturgies. In the main, this has been the purpose of this revision.

It must be recognized that the PrayerBook, as it now stands, is more or less saturated with distinctively Hebrew and mediæval phrases and outworn theological ideas which not only mean nothing in these modern days, but are also wellnigh repellent to enlightened people. The opening sentence of the Office of Baptism has long been a rock of offense to parents who bring innocent little children to be baptized and also to the officiating ministers. To have to read, "Forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin," echoes a discarded dogma and is an insult to the sanctity of marriage-so much so that many of the clergy have long refused to read it. The revision omits the phrase entirely. For the old and now meaningless prayer:

O merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in him,

this substitute is offered:

O merciful God, grant that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so this child may walk in newness of life.

In the same service such sentences as "being delivered from thy wrath and eternal death," and "may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin" are omitted, and omitted not merely because the phraseology is antiquated, but also because the doctrine therein has been discarded.

The same thing is equally true of the exaggerated expressions of penitence which, especially in the Litany and Penitential Office, were put into the mouths of worshipers. The recurring refrain, "miserable sinners," in the opening sentences of the Litany is omitted, as is also the phrase in the Penitential Office. "who are vile earth and miserable sinners." In the Collect for Good Friday the prayer, "Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics," which very properly has been deeply resented by the Jewish people, is happily changed to read, "Have mercy upon all who know Thee not as Thou art revealed in the Gospel of thy Son."

The suggested changes in the Marriage Service have been widely heralded in the daily press, especially the recommendation to omit the word "obey" now required from women. The purpose is

to make the marriage vow identical for both the husband and the wife. Another change is the omission of the sentence "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," and in the final prayer Isaac and Rebecca are no longer to be held up as shining examples of fidelity in the married state.

As befits its hallowed associations, the report handles the Burial Office with commendable reserve and makes as few changes as possible, but it does succeed in imparting a more hopeful tone to the whole service. In the opening sentences the comforting and beautiful words of Our Lord, "Let not your heart be troubled," are added. In the familiar passage from the Book of Job the very doubtful words, "and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God," are omitted so that the whole passage will read, "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger." One can only regret that the word "vindicator" was not substituted for "redeemer." In the committal of the body to the grave the words, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother," are eliminated and the sentence will now read, "Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the ground.".

Two important changes are recommended in the service of Holy Communion. One concerns the title which now reads, "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion." The new suggested title reads,

THE DIVINE LITURGY,
being

The Order For

The Lord's Supper, or Holy Eucharist, commonly called

THE HOLY COMMUNION Opposition to this change has developed so strongly that it is not likely to be adopted. The other change is the proposed permission to omit the stated reasons for the observance of the Ten Commandments when they are read at Holy Communion. It is proposed to print them in this fashion: First the commandment itself; then, in an inset, the reason for observance. For example:

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

The officiating minister may read the whole as of yore, or he may omit the inset. However forceful the reasons for obedience here set forth may have been in the Mosaic dispensation, they carry no appeal to the thoughtful modern mind, and the Commandments gain in strength and dignity by their omission. The report abounds with admirable suggestions for the enrichment of the

Prayer-Book. One such is the provision of a simple but beautiful Office for the Burial of a Child. It has already been widely used and is universally approved. Its keynote is, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." The Commission has also taken a bold, but not overbold, step in providing prayers for the departed. Protestants revolted from such prayers at the Reformation, because they had grown so material and so many abuses followed in their train. But during the Great War, with its attendant losses of fine young lives, such prayers were largely used by the clergy and bereaved parents to their great comfort. They were not found in the Prayer-Book, and recourse was had to other books of devotion. Two or three such prayers are now proposed for insertion in the Burial Office. One may be quoted:

Remember thy servant, O Lord, according to the favor which thou bearest unto thy people, and grant that, increasing in knowledge of thee, he may go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in thy heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Other suggested new prayers are for A State Legislature; for The Increase of the Ministry; The Church; Schools and Colleges; Social Justice and for Every Man in His Work. To the Family Prayers Newman's "Support us, O Lord, all the day long of this troublous life" is added as well as a tender prayer for the absent members of the household. admirably these prayers have been chosen and how applicable they are to our modern social and National life may be judged by this prayer For Our Country:

How

Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to thy law we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In times of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As befits so important a task, the revision is proceeding very slowly. Nine years have been already given to it, and, at the earliest, it cannot be completed until 1928, though some portions will be available at the close of this Convention. But, when finally complete, the new Prayer-Book will be in the best sense a treasury of devotion.

I

TH

HE Outlook considers itself fortunate in being able to present to its readers the reminiscences of Oscar Straus, which begin in this issue. It congratulates itself, not because Mr. Straus is distinguished as a statesman and Government official, although he has this distinction; not because the autobiography is full of entertaining anecdotes of Presidents with whom Mr. Straus has been intimately associated, although the autobiography has this delightful quality; not because Mr. Straus's story of his life throws some light on solutions of perplexing political and social questions confronting the country, although the autobiography is very illumi nating in this respect; but because this Jewish Ambassador from a Christian Democracy to a Mohammedan Absolutism is an outstanding manifestation that the great human process going on in this continental Republic of ours is the formation, not only of a new kind of national life, but of a new kind of racial life.

Mr. Straus was born in Germany, and came to this country when he was about four years old. But he is as completely an American in culture, in temperament, and in point of view as if his ancestors were Puritans

T has been permitted me to do useful

work and to have interesting experiences. Happy opportunities have been afforded me for public service. Of these I write.

Perhaps in chronicling the experiences of a life which at many points touched vital affairs and the most interesting personalities I may be able to add something to the record of men, movements, and events during those decades still absorbing to us because they are SO

near.

The story is one of service at home and abroad, of personal relations with four American Presidents, with diplomats, labor leaders, foreign rulers, leaders of finance and industry, and some plain unticketed citizens who were the salt of the earth and certainly not the least of those whom it was a privilege and a pleasure to know.

In these reminiscences few things will afford me greater pleasure than the references to my family-to my father Lazarus, my mother Sarah, my brothers Nathan and Isidor, the last my late lamented guide, philosopher, and friend, who was lost with his wife on the illfated Titanic. They were noble in death as in life.

The greatest pleasures first, then-my family.

The Palatinate of Bavaria was the home of many generations of my maternal and paternal ancestors. By industry and thrift they had become landowners and dealers in grain. Commerce was their livelihood, but learning and culture their life. Though none of them had attended universities, they were all deeply and widely informed in Hebrew and German literature.

Here, in the little town of Otterberg,

my father was born in 1809. It was two years after the Great Sanhedrin in Paris, in which his grandfather had played a prominent part. His grandfather was Jacob Ben Lazarus-Jacob, the son of Lazarus. (Until 1808, when the Palatinate under Napoleon became the French Department of Mont Tennérre, Jews in that section had not used family names.)

The Great Sanhedrin, a convocation famous in modern Jewish annals and in French history, was created by Napoleon's decree of May 30, 1806. From the Department of Mont Tennérre my greatgrandfather went as a deputy to this parliamentary assembly which was to justify Judaism and Jewry to a world and a France which oppressed and restricted them. The reactionaries had been making the Jews the scapegoats in their campaign against the advancing spirit of liberalism. Thus the cause of the Jews was linked with the cause of liberty itself.

Napoleon himself was at first prejudiced against the Jews, regarding them as usurers and extortioners. He soon realized, however, that the characteristics which affronted him could not be imputed to Judaism, but were que rather to the Jews' restricted rights, civil and industrial, and to their general unhappy condition. It was made manifest to him that in Bordeaux, Marseilles, and in the Italian cities of France, as well as in Holland, some of the most useful and patriotic citizens were Jews.

A FOREFATHER IN DIPLOMATIC RÔLE IN NAPOLEON'S COUNCILS

With his genius for capturing the imagination, with his unfailing sense for the historical attitude, Napoleon issued

his famous decree summoning the Assembly of Notables of the Jewish Nation to meet in Paris the following July to formulate their grievances and confer with Napoleon's commissioners relative to improving their status. It was called the Sanhedrin, after the famous parliamentary bodies of ancient Israel.

So one hundred and eleven delegates assembled from all parts of the great Napoleonic Empire, speaking French, German, and Italian, and formed the Sanhedrin. Among the deputies was Michael Berr, afterwards the first French Jew to practice at the bar; Abraham Furtado, son of Marrano or CryptoJewish parents from Portugal, a member of the family from which the wife of the first Benjamin d'Israeli was descended, and one of the ancestors of Sir John Simon; Avigdor of Nice, Israel Ottolenghi, an ancestor of the late War Minister of Italy; Saul Cremieux, Olry, Hayem Worms.

Many of the delegates were themselves well known; others achieved a posthumous glamour in the deeds of descendants who have since won distinction in French history and in the annals of Jewry. They assembled with a full consciousness of their responsibility. The purpose was to win for French Jews the removal of occupational restrictions and civic discrimination. It was a monumental task.

My great-grandfather evidently played an important part in the diplomacy which this unprecedented council involved, for he represented the Department of Mont Tennérre and was a mem ber of the sub-committee of fifteen delegated to meet the commissioners appointed by Napoleon; he was a member of another committee to which the