RUBINSTEIN'S "GEISTLICHE OPER" I have a strong belief in the essential excellence of Biblical subjects for the purposes of the lyric drama--at least from an historical point of view.

I can see no reason against but many reasons in favor of a return to the stage of the patriarchal and heroic figures of the people who are a more potent power in the world to-day, despite their dispersal and loss of national unity, than they were in the days of their political grandeur and glory.

Throughout the greater part of his creative career Anton Rubinstein was the champion of a similar idea.

Of the twenty works which he wrote for the theatre, including ballets, six were on Biblical subjects, and to promote a propaganda which began with the composition of "Der Thurmbau zu Babel," in 1870, he not only entered the literary field, but made personal appeal for practical assistance in both the Old World and the New.

His, however, was a religious point of view, not the historical or political.