In THE BOY PROPHET (Berm, 6s.) M. Edmond Fleg creates
a sensitive boy, who, with simplicity and great intensity tells the story of ins bewildered spirit. When he was five years old, a passing priest first said that he looked like " the infant Jesus," then, on hearing that he was a little Jew, added, " What a pity t' The child's parents, rich and cultured people, are of a sceptical kind. It is his little playmate Mariette who suffers misery concerning his salvation, especially after her first communion. She gives him the Gospel of St. Matthew ; and the beauty of the Christ, the blood-guilt of the Jews, the mystery of the Host, work such a strange fever in his childish mind that at one point he begins to dream ominously of the river and the peace of the drowned. A school friend at the same time incongruously perplexes him further by offering him the initiation of the Scouts. Another, a Palestinian, teaches him the difference between Jew and Israelite. Ilininination promises to cczne when, in an unavailing effort to find the secret peace of the synagogue, he meets a wise sad Rabbi who lends him the Old Testament, where he seems to discover the God of the Jews and the true mission of tortured Israel Mariette has gone into a convent to pray for him. He will be a prophet to hasten the advent of the true Messiah of peace. But he realizes he must wait till he is older. This intimate autobiography of a spiritually gifted child is brief, sincere,. and of penetrating pathos
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