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gambling game known as "seven-and-a half," and in the capacity of banker was shuffling and dealing for six or eight Cubans and Spaniards, of all ages, ranks, and conditions, shouting cheerfully to them at intervals, "Now then, Dom Pedro (a solid-looking old Cuban planter in an embroidered skull-cap), "what do you say?" or, "It's up to you, Garibaldi" (a gray-bearded Spaniard with a bald head); are you in?" The young Philadelphian did not understand a word of Spanish, and had learned the game only that evening; but he was shuffling, dealing, and raking in the money with as much coolness and self-possession as if he had gambled in Cuba all his life; and when I approached the table he looked up at me with a smile of boyish recklessness and gayety and said, "Ain't this great? It's more fun than a box of monkeys!" Then, turning to a Cuban General named Vasquez, he shouted, "Where are you at, Damascus ? Did I hear you say Another'?"

The passion of the Cubans and Spaniards for gambling was never more clearly shown than on the Maria Herrera between Baracoa and Havana. As many of them as could find seats around one of the long cabin tables played "seven-and-a-half every night, and more than once they kept it up until the waiters came to sweep out the cabin and set the tables for breakfast the next day.

When I awoke Monday morning, our steamer was lying at anchor in the spacious but shallow bay of Gibara, about three-quarters of a mile from the water front of the town. Gibara had been described to me as a "walled city "-the only walled city in Cuba-and one of my objects in going to Havana by the northern coast was to see what I had pictured to myself as a relic of mediæval times, with high walls, corner towers, moat, drawbridges, and all the architectural features that give interest to the old Spanish castles at Santiago and Cienfuegos. But I was soon disenchanted. When I went ashore at nine o'clock, I found an uninteresting Cuban town of the modern type, surrounded by a brick and cement wall about eight feet in height, covered with broken bottles like the back-yard wall of a city lot where prowling cats are troublesome. There were blockhouses at

When a man has a toothache in Cuba, he goes to the nearest silversmith, buys a small silver tooth corresponding in size. and shape to the one that troubles him, and gives it to the priest to be laid before the saint who is supposed to be most sympathetic and compassionate in toothache cases. If the trouble is a stomach-ache, he buys a silver stomach; and if he has a nose-bleed, he can get a silver nose. Every organ or member of the body that is within the range of the Cuban's anatomical knowledge is imitated in silver; so that no matter where he has a pain, he can get a model of the affected part in silver to lay before his saint with a prayer for relief. What the priests ultimately do with these little silver models of limbs and viscera I don't know; but I presume they melt them up, sell them, and use the proceeds to pay for the beer with which they treat their parishioners at such Sunday dances as the one that I attended in Baracoa on the first day of the new year.

Gibara, which is the seaport for the large inland town of Holguin, is, commercially, a place of some importance; but in all other respects it is absolutely uninteresting and insignificant. We sailed from there Monday night, stopped for two or three hours in the harbor of Nuevitas Tuesday morning, and then steamed two days and a night westward along the comparatively low and uninteresting coast that lies between Nuevitas and Havana. At five o'clock Wednesday afternoon we caught sight of the lighthouse tower of Morro Castle, three-quarters of an hour later we steamed into the crowded harbor, and soon after six we landed at the dock

of the Herrera Company. Elbowing our way through an immense throng of people, we drove to the overcrowded Inglaterra Hotel on the Prado, and were put into a converted storeroom at the back of the house, whose only window opened into a big wire chicken-coop, and whose back

door communicated with the laundry. The clerk declared that it was the last vacant room left in the house; and as we could not get a room of any kind at the Passaje, the Roma, or the Louvre, we accepted in a philosophical and submissive spirit the chicken-coop and the laundry.

T

HE book which bears the name Isaiah was written, not by a single person, but certainly by two, and probably by several, persons. Between the first and the last of these writings there elapsed a period of a hundred and fifty years or more, and great revolutions took place in the history of Judah. During that time Judah ceased to be an independent nation and was carried away captive into Babylon. Part of the prophecies were written many years before the captivity, part of them were written at the close of the captivity, and others were written in the intervening period.

We have not in modern literature any exact parallel to such a collection, but we have some illustrations which will make clear, perhaps, its nature. It is not uncommon, for example, for a volume of short stories or essays to be published, bearing the title of one of the stories or essays. Thus we have " American Ideals," by Theodore Roosevelt, the book bearing the title of the first essay in the series. We have, again, collections from various authors brought together under the name of one who has not contributed to them. Thus we have "The Victorian Poets," though, so far as I know, Queen Victoria never wrote a poem; and we have "Collections of the Elizabethan Age," although Elizabeth herself was not an author. In some such way as this writings which partook of the spirit of the great author who wrote first in the series-Isaiah-were brought together in one common roll and made to bear the title of that first contributor. Of other contributors we know nothing except concerning one of them, and not much concerning him. He is designated as

the son of Amoz; was a native of Judea ; resided at Jerusalem; was married and had two sons; lived a considerable part of his life at court, and was a counselor of the king. The times in which he lived were stormy times. A map of the world as it existed at that time would present Judah occupying the southern portion of Palestine, with Jerusalem its chief city, and the center of the history with which we have to do; directly to the north, Israel, which had formerly been a part of the same kingdom, but was now separated from it; and north of Israel the still larger kingdom of Syria; west of Israel the commercial kingdom of Phoenicia; and in the east the great conglomerate, ill-organized kingdom of Assyria; then to the south the small and ill-organized people of Philistia; and farther south and west, Egypt. Judah and Israel occupied territory midway between Assyria and Egypt; so that whenever Assyria and Egypt came in conflict, their armies almost necessarily traversed the lands of Judah and Israel.

Thus

In the time with which we have to deal there were three great campaigns against Judah. The first was the campaign by Syria and Israel, in which Ahaz, the king of Judah, in order to overcome his assailants, invited the co-operation, and pledged himself to become the servant, of the empire of Assyria. Isaiah protested against any such alliance as this between Judah and Assyria. He saw that there could be but one result: that Assyria would swallow Judah up; and as Assyria was a pagan nation, in that absorption of Judah the religion of Judah would be overthrown. His protests were in vain; and the immediate result of the

alliance would have indicated to a politician—that is, to one who measured events by their immediate result-that Ahaz was right and Isaiah was wrong. Assyria accepted the invitation, entered the land of Syria, swept over it, cleaned it, as Isaiah says, as with a razor, then swept over the land of Israel, and denuded it also of its inhabitants. This was the first campaign; and for something like twenty-five or thirty years thereafter, Judah, resting secure as the vassal of Assyria, had peace.

Then Ahaz died, and Hezekiah came to the throne. He began to institute moral and religious reforms in the kingdom of Judah. The people grew restive under the yoke of Assyrian vassalage, and began to consider plans for throwing that yoke off. But now Isaiah, who had before advised against entering into any alliance with Assyria, advised strenuously against any rebellion. He seemed to change his ground; he really maintained the same ground. He was opposed to any connection between Judah and the other great surrounding nations; but, when once the connection had been made, he saw that it would be impossible to break it without provoking just what he dreaded-foreign war. But his protests were again overruled, and Judah, joining with some of the smaller provinces and with Egypt, raised the standard of revolt. The great Assyrian hosts marched through Syria, through Israel, and into the land of Judah, on their way to Egypt. They appeared before Jerusalem. Hezekiah, frightened, proposed terms of peace, abandoned his rebellion, and purchased peace at a great price. He emptied the State treasury of its funds, stripped the gold from off the pillars of the Temple, and gave all that he had and all that he could gather together to the Assyrian monarch to secure redemption. The Emperor passed on; but he either left a division of his army, or a division of the army At all events, in the presently returned. next scene in this historic drama, Rabshakeh appeared before Jerusalem with a great host. He was a genius in negotiation, skillful as a diplomatist. Approaching Jerusalem-and in those times there were no guns, so that an enemy might march close up to the walls and be heard by those upon the ramparts-thus appear

ing before Jerusalem, he demanded the surrender of the city. Envoys from the city went out to see what terms could be made, and Rabshakeh addressed them in the Hebrew tongue, in tones so stentorian that they could be heard by the people who had gathered on the roofs of the houses and on the broad walls of the city. The messengers who had gone from Hezekiah besought him not to do so. We understand your language, they said; talk to us in your own tongue. No, he replied, I mean that the people of the city shall hear In this address, which it is needless here to repeat in detail, he offered to the people the rewards of allegiance: Come, he said, re-establish your relations with Assyria, and you shall sit, every man, under his own vine and fig-tree, and be at peace. My great master will take care of you.

me.

From cajoling he turned to threats: What trust have you? what hope of succor? he asked. Do you trust your God? Why, your very king has stripped the ornaments from your God's temple and given them to us. "Hath any of the gods of the nations," he cried, "delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?" Isaian, who up to this time had counseled against contending with Assyria, now counseled against submission to Assyria. The king sought counsel of the prophet-statesman; and this was his counsel :

Therefore thus says Jahveh concerning the king of Assyria:

He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow into it,
Nor come before it with a shield,

Nor cast up a mound against it.

I will guard th city that I may rescue it, For my own sake and for my Servant David's sake. I

Hezekiah trusted the prophet; what is more remarkable, the city trusted the prophet. It was in a strange condition of almost hysterical despair. Some were weeping, others had given themselves to eating and drinking, saying, "For to-mor

The translations in this paper are taken from Cheyne's translations in the Polychrome Bible.

row we shall die." With his heart of courage, the prophet put heart of courage into the people. The city was not surrendered; and presently-according to one account the very night the negotiations were broken off-a pestilence fell upon the surrounding army. In the morning 185,000 of the Assyrians lay dead or dying on the ground. The camp was abandoned; Jerusalem was saved.

This, very briefly told, is the history of Isaiah as a statesman. His whole statecraft is summed up in one chapter-the thirtieth :

Now go in, write it down, and on a scroll inscribe it,

That it may serve in days to come as a testimony for ever.

For it is a rebellious people, lying sons, Sons who will not hear the direction of Jahveh; Who say to the seers: See not! and to the prophets: Prophesy not to us true things! Speak to us smooth things, prophesy delusions!

Turn from the way, go aside from the path, Trouble us no more with Israel's Holy One! Thus, therefore, says Israel's Holy One: Because ye reject this word, and trust in wile and policy, and rely thereon, therefore this guilty act shall be to you like a bulge caused by a breach in a lofty wall ready to fall at an instant, and to which breaking comes suddenly, full suddenly. Yea, it breaks, as one dashes an earthen pitcher to pieces, shattering it ruthlessly, so that, among its shattered pieces, not a sherd is found wherewith to take up fire from the hearth, or to draw water from the cistern. For thus had the Lord Jahveh, Israel's Holy One, said: By turning and remaining quiet ye would have been delivered,

In quietness and pious trust ye would have found your true strength; But ye refused, and said:

"No, but on horses will we fly." Therefore shall ye flee!

"And on that which runs swift will we ride." Therefore shall your pursuers be swift! Ye shall flee at a war-cry of five, till your remnant is become

Like a pole on the top of a mountain, and like a signal on a hill.

This passage makes clear Isaiah's statesmanlike position. In this time of wars and rumors of wars, when Judah was as a kernel of corn between two great millstones, Assyria and Egypt, Isaiah's advice was, Keep yourself safe by avoiding all alliances; your hope is in quietness. His course was refused on the one side, and an alliance made with Assyria. It was refused on the other side, and an alliance was made with Egypt. And although Isaiah probably did not live to see the

fulfillment of his warnings, they were fulfilled. Shortly after his death the whole Jewish people were carried away from their land into captivity.

If Isaiah had been simply a statesman, he would probably have left no permanent influence on the world's history; but he was a prophet as well as a statesman. A prophet is one who sees great principles and knows how to make other men see them. A statesman is one who understands great events and knows how to guide a nation through the mazes and perplexities of his time. Now and again, in human history, a man is found who is both prophet and statesman. Such combinations are rare. William Lloyd Garrison was a prophet, who stirred the heart of this Nation against slavery; but his counsels respecting the course of the Nation were counsels of folly, and if the Nation had attempted to follow his leadership the Nation would itself have been broken into fragments, and slavery would not have been abolished. Stanton was a statesman, guiding with great wisdom the military affairs of this Nation in time of great perplexity; but he was no prophet, and, so far as I know, no letter or speech or line of his ever stirred the heart of this Nation deeply or affected its inward life. Abraham Lincoln was both statesman and prophet. By his Cooper Union address, by his first Inaugural, by his second Inaugural, by his Gettysburg speech, by many addresses and utterances of lesser note, he stirred the heart of this Nation as perhaps no other man in public life stirred it; and at the same time, with a firm hand and a clear eye he steered the Nation through a difficult and tortuous passage. Isaiah, in this respect like Abraham Lincoln, was both statesman and prophet, with clear vision of great principles and wise practical judgment of national affairs.

It is impossible, within the limits of such a paper as this, to do more than give in some extracts from his writings a hint of their character. He has told us of his call to his mission. If we may compare ancient with modern experiences-and I know no better way to interpret an ancient experience than by a modern one-the vision which Tissot, the artist, saw in the cathedral of Paris may serve as a modern illustration, and throw light on the vision

which Isaiah saw in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Says Tissot :

I was then painting a series of fifteen pictures to be called "La Femme à Paris," representing the pursuits of the society woman of the gay capital. At that time it was fashionable to sing in the choir of some great church, and I wished to make a study for my picture, "The Choir Singer." For this purpose I went to the Church of St. Sulpice during mass, more to catch the atmosphere for my picture than to worship. But I found myself joining in the devotions, and as the host was elevated and I bowed my head and closed my eyes, I saw a strange and thrilling picture. It seemed to me that I was looking at the ruins of a modern castle. The windows were broken, the cornices and drains lay shattered on the ground; cannon-balls and broken bowls added to the débris. And then a peasant and his wife picked their way over the littered ground; wearily he threw down the bundle that contained their all, and the woman seated herself on a fallen pillar, burying her face in her hands. Her husband, too, sat down, but, in pity for her sorrow, strove to sit upright, to play the man even in misfortune. And then there came a strange figure gliding toward these human ruins over the broken remnants of the castle. Its feet and hands were pierced and bleeding, its head was wreathed with thorns, while from its shoulders fell an oriental cloak inscribed with the scenes, the Fall of Man," the "Kiss of Judas." And this figure, needing no name, seated itself by the man and leaned its head upon his shoulder, seeming to say, more by the outstretched hands than in words: "See, I have been more miserable than you; I am the solution of all your problems; without me civilization is a ruin." The vision pursued me even after I had left the church. It stood between me and my canvas. I tried to brush it away, but it returned insistently. Finally I was attacked by fever, and when I was well again I painted my vision.

This vision Tissot interpreted as a call to him to leave the women of society in Paris and to set himself to paint the Christ, the Redeemer of the world. moned by this vision, he devoted himself to his work.

Sum

In the eighth century before Christ a young man entered the temple at Jerusalem; not to paint a picture-probably to worship. He must have had a vivid imagination, a warm heart, a spiritual fervor. As he sat in the temple a strange vision filled his eyes. He saw the Lord of glory sitting enthroned, the seraphims surrounding him. He heard their song, "Holy, holy, holy, the earth is filled with thy glory!" The temple seemed to tremble and to be full of smoke. The

train of Jehovah filled it; some such train as Browning saw in vision and reported in his Christmas Eve." "Alas!" he cried, "I am of unclean lips, and I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." And then it seemed to him that one of the seraphim took a coal from the altar and flew across the altar and touched his lips with a live coal, and from the enthroned Jehovah he heard a voice, "Whom shall I send to this people?" and he replied, "Here am I; send me." But with what message? And this was the message that he heard:

And He said: Go, and say to this people: Hear on, but understand not! See on, but perceive not:

Make fat this people's heart, make dull their ears, and besmear their eyes,

Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and their heart understand, and their health be restored.

And I said: How long, O Lord? And He said: Until cities be waste without inhabitants, and houses without men, and the land be left a desolation,

And Jahveh have sent the men far away, and in the heart of the land the deserted regions be wide.

And should there be still a tenth in it, this must, in turn, be consumed,

Like the terebinth and the oak, whereof a stock after felling remains. The stock thereof is holy seed.'

Hard life was

This was his message. his; with his heart of hope-for we shall see he had a heart of hope-with a patriotism for his country deep, true, and tender, with a clear vision of the policy which would have saved it from ruin, he must go and speak to a dull, leaden-headed, apathetic people, endeavoring in vain to rouse their conscience, to stir their sensibilities, to awaken their life. I do not know whether he could have given that message had there not been with it another message, which he gained we know not how or when, and yet which went along with this message of denunciation—his word of hope. He lived in times of war, saw the garments rolled in blood and the smoke of burning towns, heard the cries of fleeing women and children, realized all the horrors of battle, famine, pestilence, and wholesale death; and yet, with prophetic vision, he foresaw the time when war would end and peace would come, and, so foreseeing, declared that the forces

1 Isaiah vi., 9-13.