social implications of primitive Christianity have reached the masses of men and women, the tremendous social dynamic of Christianity is one of the relatively unused assets of society, and Christianity is being dragged from pillar to post in defense of every social theory from the rankest reaction to the rankest radicalism.

The other day, Professor Ernest F. Scott of the Union Theological Seminary was arguing the contention that the social message of the New Testament must be examined in the social context of its age. He said:

Not a little of the popular exposition of the social teaching of the New Testament is misleading and mischevious, and tends to identify Christianity with movements to which it is utterly repugnant. The Sermon on the Mount is mixed up with the claptrap of democracy; directions that Paul wrote to Corinth two thousand years since are construed as if they were municipal bylaws for New York. This juggling with Bible texts and phrases in the interest of some passing political fashion is no new thing. Popes and Puritans, Kings and Kaisers have all done it, and we cannot grudge the latter-day proletarian his turn.

There is no doubt that Christianity is used in one instance as a sort of spiritual cocaine by reactionary interests to deaden the aspirations of the masses, while in the next instance mass-leaders attempt to bring Christianity to the defense of their particular social revolution.

It would be a fine act of social leadership for some one to write a popular and readable biography of the founder of Christianity that would dramatize effectively the reality of his religion that was and is both a spiritual pas

sion and a social program. This will be the next great biography. Who will write it?

A JEANNE D'ARC OF THE LABORATORY WITHIN a few days, Mme. Marie Curie will sail from France to the United States. Here she will receive degrees from several universities, other recognition from scientific societies, and as the climax of her reception a gram of radium will be given to her by an American committee. This gram will be only a minute particle, but will represent a cost of one hundred thousand dollars, and in her hands it may mean the conquest of cancer. It seems strange that the woman who discovered radium must depend upon such a gift for a supply with which to carry on her experiments. But when Mme. Curie discovered radium she made no attempt to patent the element. Others have made vast fortunes as a result of her discovery, but she must to-day live upon her modest salary as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, and does not have means with which to buy even one gram of radium with which to further her experimentation. It is said that France possesses less than a gram of radium, all of which is being used in hospital work.

While here Mme. Curie will make a study of the amplifications that American scientists have made of her method. Her coming should mean to us more than the coming of kings and queens. She is a singularly noble and romantic figure in the world of science. She is a refreshing sight and an effective rebuke in the midst of our material-mindedness.

CCCC

CCCCCCC

"A gallant gentleman and a first-rate soldier was Prince Andrew of Greece, killed this spring while fighting the Turks at EskiShehr," declares Capt. Paxton Hibben, author of "Constantine I and the Greek People." "I campaigned with him in Macedonia and later saw a great deal of him during the mobilization of the Greek forces there in 1915 and 1916. He was the typical cavalryman, a trained soldier and a born leader of men, who did not know what fear was.

"In Saloniki Prince Andrew and his nephew, Crown Prince George, Duke of Sparta, lived in a little summer cottage on the shore of the Gulf of Saloniki, at the edge of the town and near the cavalry barracks. The front half of the house was given up to the Red Cross activities of the Princess Alice of Battenberg, Andrew's wife. In the back room, facing the water and Mount Olympus, snow-capped in the distance, we used to meet at sundown to have tea-Andrew, George, John McCutcheon the cartoonist of the Chicago Tribune, and I.

"Andrew's whole education was English. He spoke English like an Englishman and his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was an English princess, cousin of the Queen of Spain."

Captain Hibben, as is clearly shown in his book on the Greek king, which interprets his motives and depicts his actions during the Great War, is a devoted admirer of the Greek royal family; not, as he carefully explains, from a tenderness toward kings, but because he believes these rulers to be devoted and intelligent friends of their people.

The

"Andrew of Greece was essentially democratic," he says, "not as one generally calls a prince 'democratic,' meaning that he sometimes shakes hands with commoners. Greek royal family are really honest-togoodness democrats, rare enough in any country or walk in life, and Andrew was a man who loved people as people. When Andrew's brother, Constantine, was called back to Greece by a ninety-eight per cent vote of the Greek people, I cabled Andrew in Greek: 'Hurrah for King Constantine!'

His reply was characteristic. He cabled back: 'Hurrah for the Greek people!'"

A NOVEL BEST-SELLER, IF NOT A NOVEL

Dr. Edwin E. Slosson must have some difficulty, if this sort of thing goes on, in determining whether what he has written is really a novel or a book on chemistry, as he intended. His publishers have just sent to press the seventy-eighth thousand of his "Creative Chemistry," with no indication of slackening demand.

"LYING BILL" vs. O'BRIEN

As Frederick O'Brien's new book, "Mystic Isles of the South Seas," appears (in which he tells of immortal days spent on Tahiti) he, hapless man, is barred from that lovely isle. Unless he would pay fr. 10,000 with legal trimmings in a considerable additional sum to salve the wounded sensibilities and damaged fame of one Captain Joseph Winchester, schooner skipper of the Dangerous Islands and the Marquesas group.

The strong-flavored yarn which conveys Mr. O'Brien's impressions of a person called "Lying Bill Pincher," in the second chapter of "White Shadows in the South Seas," was too much for Captain Winchester's equanimity. In his complaint he alleges, despite the fact that the surname of the Captain in "White Shadows" was Pincher, and not Winchester, that nevertheless he was there presented so clearly that those who had read "White Shadows" and who knew him laughed in his face.

At which of the allegations? What was it made the Captain's ego sting? There are numerous-say-peccadillos touched with a sure dissective hand, but it is possible to guess that the story of a ship lost while Lying Bill tied up to a reef for a game of cards with another skipper is the one that could get beneath a sea-tanned skin and seem worthy of note to a circle of hard-bitten skippers, traders and far-flung, foot-loose whites of reciprocally uncritical morals.

At any rate, whatever the cause, Captain Winchester's amour propre required that he