Books published by publisher Merkaba Press

“THAT’S WHY,” VICKI EXPLAINED TO HER FAMILY, “the Electra is so challenging. Mary Carter warned us stewardesses, while she was retraining us for the Electra, that this beauty flies so fast there’s hardly time to get all our jobs done.”“You mean it’s a hard assignment, don’t you?” said Ginny. She was fourteen, and Vicki’s younger sister.Their mother, Betty Barr, said, “I’m sure if I had your job on a jet-prop—Or is it a jet? Which is it, Lewis?”Professor Barr looked amused. “You know perfectly well. The all-jet without propellers,” he said, “the Boeing 707, is used more for long hauls—nonstop coast to coast, or across oceans. The Electra 188, with jet engines and propellers, is used mainly for intercity travel. I trust I have the facts correct, Victoria.”He smiled at Vicki who looked so much like him—fair hair, light-blue eyes, the thoughtful Barr gaze—that it was a family joke.“Well, anyhow,” said Vicki’s mother, “if I had to get sixty-eight passengers safely on, off, and fed, in two hours—Whew!”“Fortunately I’m not going to have to do everything all by myself,” Vicki answered. “Jean Cox and I will work the New York-Chicago-San Francisco run together on the Electra.”They were having a leisurely early lunch at home, at The Castle, before Vicki started out for Chicago. It was Thursday, February twelfth, Lincoln’s Birthday, an appropriate day to be in Lincoln’s state, Illinois. The holiday explained why Mr. Barr was not teaching at nearby State University that day. The holiday did not account for Vicki’s presence at home. As a flight stewardess, she often worked on holidays.Vicki popped in and out of The Castle between assignments, whenever she could. That wasn’t often. Perhaps now that Federal Airlines was transferring her to the Electra and one of its transcontinental runs, she might be lucky enough to see her family more often...

In the dim days of very long ago there was a country called Fensalir. It was a low-lying country of rich green meadows and fair cornfields. Beside the slow-flowing streams trees drooped their branches laden with wondrous fruit. Upon the endless meadows countless herds of cattle browsed. It was a rich and peaceful land, but no man knew where it began or where it ended, for round the fair green meadows there hung ever a soft white mist, and any who strayed far were lost in its rolling folds. Weary of the quiet peace, stung by the longing to adventure and to know, some indeed wandered forth, never to return.Over this strange land there rifled a beautiful giantess. Her hair was gold with the gold of the cornfields, her dress was rich and green with the rich green of the meadows. Only she knew the length and breadth of the fair country over which she ruled. Only she knew what lay beyond the rolling mists. All who remained under her rule found lasting peace and gladness. For she was to them a gracious, tender mother. She spread her hands abroad to bless her land with warmth and fruitfulness; she stretched forth her skirts to shelter her people from cold and frost.So long years passed, and to this fair giantess there Tew came a son. This son she called Tew. He was bold and he was wise. To him was given victory in war. To him was given the wisdom of words. So it came to pass that if a man was very brave it was said of him, "He is as brave as Tew"; if a man was very wise it was said of him, "He hath the wisdom of Tew." And at length people made songs about Tew, in which they told of his deeds of valour and his wisdom...

The novel focuses on three main characters, and is written in a third person limited point of view, which subtly shifts among the three characters, the narrator speaking with each character's very different prejudices as each becomes the temporary main focus. These three characters, in order of appearance, are Gerald Winston Bey, an English Egyptologist; an Egyptian, Kāra, and a dragoman named Tadros. Kāra, being white-skinned, is mistaken by Bey for a Copt, though he is no Christian, and he has no respect for Arab Muslims, either. Kāra claims to be a descendent of Ahtka-Rā, High Priest of Ămen, whom he says ruled Rameses II as his puppet, including hiding the latter's death for two years--archaeology says Rameses reigned 67 years, but according to Kāra, he ruled only 65.

The novel focuses on three main characters, and is written in a third person limited point of view, which subtly shifts among the three characters, the narrator speaking with each character's very different prejudices as each becomes the temporary main focus. These three characters, in order of appearance, are Gerald Winston Bey, an English Egyptologist; an Egyptian, Kāra, and a dragoman named Tadros. Kāra, being white-skinned, is mistaken by Bey for a Copt, though he is no Christian, and he has no respect for Arab Muslims, either. Kāra claims to be a descendent of Ahtka-Rā, High Priest of Ămen, whom he says ruled Rameses II as his puppet, including hiding the latter's death for two years--archaeology says Rameses reigned 67 years, but according to Kāra, he ruled only 65.

If we were asked to name the most interesting country in the world, I suppose that most people would say Palestine—not because there is anything so very wonderful in the land itself, but because of all the great things that have happened there, and above all because of its having been the home of our Lord. But after Palestine, I think that Egypt would come next. For one thing, it is linked very closely to Palestine by all those beautiful stories of the Old Testament, which tell us of Joseph, the slave-boy who became Viceroy of Egypt; of Moses, the Hebrew child who became a Prince of Pharaoh's household; and of the wonderful exodus of the Children of Israel.But besides that, it is a land which has a most strange and wonderful story of its own. No other country has so long a history of great Kings, and wise men, and brave soldiers; and in no other country can you see anything to compare with the great buildings, some of them most beautiful, all of them most wonderful, of which Egypt has so many. We have some old and interesting buildings in this country, and people go far to see cathedrals and castles that are perhaps five or six hundred years old, or even more; but in Egypt, buildings of that age are looked upon as almost new, and nobody pays very much attention to them. For the great temples and tombs of Egypt were, many of them, hundreds of years old before the story of our Bible, properly speaking, begins.The Pyramids, for instance, those huge piles that are still the wonder of the world, were far older than any building now standing in Europe, before Joseph was sold to be a slave in Potiphar's house. Hundreds upon hundreds of years before anyone had ever heard of the Greeks and the Romans, there were great Kings reigning in Egypt, sending out their armies to conquer Syria and the Soudan, and their ships to explore the unknown southern seas, and wise men were writing books which we can still read. When Britain was a wild, unknown island, inhabited only by savages as fierce and untaught as the South Sea Islanders, Egypt was a great and highly civilized country, full of great cities, with noble palaces and temples, and its people were wise and learned.So in this little book I want to tell you something about this wonderful and interesting old country, and about the kind of life that people lived in it in those days of long ago, before most other lands had begun to waken up, or to have any history at all. First of all, let us try to get an idea of the land itself. It is a very remarkable thing that so many of the countries which have played a great part in the history of the world have been small countries. Our own Britain is not very big, though it has had a great story. Palestine, which has done more than any other country to make the world what it is to-day, was called "the least of all lands." Greece, whose influence comes, perhaps, next after that of Palestine, is only a little hilly corner of Southern Europe. And Egypt, too, is comparatively a small land...

A glance at the map of North America will show us that Mexico bears among the Latin republics a peculiar relation to the United States, being the only one of them that comes into physical contact with the great republic of the north. This geographical relation makes for a corresponding community of interest, and gives a vital importance to the political relations between the two countries. While they are separated for a considerable part of the border by the flowing waters of the Rio Grande, the remaining boundary is but a mathematical expression. A dweller on the border can readily stand with a foot on the soil of either country, while bullets fired in Mexican streets have found their quarry in the streets of American towns across the dividing line. This happened more than once during the Madero revolution in Mexico, a fact not tending to foster sentiments of amity.In fact, while so near physically, the natives of the two countries are far apart mentally. They differ in modes of thought, social conditions, racial character, habits and aspirations so greatly that any warm feeling of friendship between them is very unlikely to arise. On the contrary, a lack of sympathy exists, which has deepened into hostility on the part of the Mexicans. On the side of the people of the United States it is less an active hostility than a disposition to regard the Mexicans as an inferior people, if not to despise them as a race of lower kind and class. There may be no just warrant for this lack of accordance in either case, but it nevertheless exists, and the latent sentiment of dislike between the two countries has more than once broken into open hostility, as in the cases of the Texan insurrection and the Mexican war. On the other hand, when France invaded Mexico in disregard of the "Monroe Doctrine," the United States Government came vigorously to its aid, and gave Napoleon III plainly to understand that he must either withdraw his troops in haste or have them try conclusions with the veterans of the Civil War.The feeling of dislike between the Americans and Mexicans, however, has not stood in the way of a peaceful invasion of the soil of each country by the inhabitants of the other. This on the part of the Mexicans has been mainly confined to the border states, but has been more general on the part of Americans, who have been drawn in large numbers into Mexican territory by the alluring promise of wealth in mining and other enterprises. It is this fact that has forced the government of the United States to take a decided stand whenever insurrections have taken place on Mexican soil.The unfriendly feeling of the patriotic Mexican towards the United States as a nation, and its people as representatives of that nation, finds warrant in two facts. One of these is the open contempt for natives of Mexico shown by low-class people of the border states, who come frequently into contact with Mexican citizens, and do not hesitate to speak of them freely by the uncomplimentary epithet of "greasers." The Mexicans retort with the title of "gringos," which is said to have had the following origin. In 1846, during the Mexican war, some Mexicans heard American sailors singing a favorite song of that period, "Green Grow the Rushes O" In seeking to mock them, the hearers changed "green grow" into "gringo," and this has since remained a Mexican term of contempt for the hated Yankees. The use of epithets like these is not calculated to cultivate feelings of amity between the two neighboring peoples, even when used mainly by those of prejudiced mind and low estate...

BETWEEN the 20th of August, 1809, when Robert Craufurd’s Light Brigade withdrew from the Bridge of Almaraz, to follow the rest of the British army across the mountains to the neighbourhood of Badajoz, and February 27, 1810, when part of that same brigade was engaged in the first skirmish of Barba del Puerco, not a shot was fired by any of Wellington’s troops. This gap of over six months in his active operations may appear extraordinary, and it was bitterly criticized at the time. Between August and March there was hard fighting both in the south of Spain and along the north-eastern frontier of Portugal; but the British army, despite many invitations, took no part in it. Wellington adhered to his resolve never to commit himself again to a campaign in company with the Spaniards, unless he should be placed in a position in which he could be independent of the freaks of their government and the perversity of their generals. Two months’ experience of the impracticability of Cuesta, of the deliberate disobedience of Venegas, of the fruitless promises of the commissary-general Lozano de Torres, of the insane demands and advice sent in by the Central Junta, had convinced him that he dare not risk his army in a second venture such as that which had led him to Talavera. If he were made commander-in-chief by the Spanish Government, and granted a free hand in the direction of the Spanish armies, matters would look different. But there was at present no chance whatever that he would receive such a mark of confidence. Only a small minority of the leading men at Seville could endure with patience the idea of a British commander-in-chief. Wellington himself had long dismissed the project—which Frère had broached in the spring—as impracticable...

MARGARET OF ANJOU was a heroine; not a heroine of romance and fiction, but of stern and terrible reality. Her life was a series of military exploits, attended with dangers, privations, sufferings, and wonderful vicissitudes of fortune, scarcely to be paralleled in the whole history of mankind.She was born and lived in a period during which there prevailed in the western part of Europe two great and dreadful quarrels, which lasted for more than a hundred years, and which kept France and England, and all the countries contiguous to them, in a state of continual commotion during all that time.The first of these quarrels grew out of a dispute which arose among the various branches of the royal family of England in respect to the succession to the crown. The two principal branches of the family were the descendants respectively of the Dukes of York and Lancaster, and the wars which they waged against each other are called in history the wars of the houses of York and Lancaster. These wars continued for several successive generations, and Margaret of Anjou was the queen of one of the most prominent representatives of the Lancaster line. Thus she became most intimately involved in the quarrel...

Boys and girls—and grown folks also—often turn first to the last chapter of a book, before reading it, to see how it "ends." At times this is a good idea; for when we know the end of a story, we can often better understand it as it is told. This then is what we will do in this book. We will first see what the "end" of the story of the Middle Ages is; then, as we read, we shall better understand how that end was brought about. When Columbus in the year 1492 returned from his voyage of discovery, a keen rivalry began among the Old World nations for the possession of the New World. Expedition followed expedition; Spaniards, Portuguese, French, English, and later the Dutch and Swedes,—all began to strive with one another for the wealth and dominion of the new-found lands; and American history—our own history—begins.

LONG, long years ago, Troy, one of the great cities in Asia Minor, was taken by the Greeks. Many mighty Trojans had defended their city well, and among them all none had fought more bravely than the prince Æneas. But when Æneas saw that the Greeks had set fire to the city, he fled, carrying, it is said, his father on his shoulders, and grasping by the hand his son Ascanius. Moreover, so precious to him was the sacred image of the goddess Pallas, that he saved it from the burning city. The gods, pleased with his reverence, helped him in his flight by building a ship. So when Æneas reached the sea he at once embarked in it, with his followers and their wives, and sailed away to seek for a new land in which to build a new city. As the Trojans sailed they saw a bright star shining above them. Day and night the star was always to be seen, showing the seafarers the direction in which to steer. At length the Trojans reached the western shore of Italy, and here, at a town called Latium, they disembarked. The women were weary of the sea, and no sooner had they landed than they began to wonder how they could persuade their husbands to journey no farther, but to settle in the pleasant country which they had reached. Among these women was a lady of noble birth, who was wise as she was good. Roma, for that was the lady's name, proposed that they should burn the ship in which they had sailed. Then it would be impossible for their husbands to go any farther in search of a new home. The other women agreed to Roma's daring plan, and with mingled hope and fear the ship was set on fire. When the men saw the flames devouring the vessel they were troubled, but when they found out how it had been set on fire, they were angry. Yet, as anger could not give them back their ship, and as Italy was a pleasant land, the men did as the women wished. They settled near a hill called Mount Palatine, and there they built a city...

Long, long ago the land which we now call France was called Gaul.Gaul was much larger than France is to-day, although north, south, and west France has the same boundaries now as Gaul had in the far-off days of which I am going to tell you.What these boundaries are, many a geography lesson will have shown. But, lest you have forgotten, take a map of Europe, and you will see that on the north France has to protect her the English Channel, on the south she is guarded by the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, while on her west roll the waters of the Atlantic. These mountains and waters were also the bulwarks of ancient Gaul.It was on the east that Gaul stretched far beyond the boundaries of France, reaching to the Alps and to the swift-flowing river Rhine.And it is of Gaul, as it was in those far-off days many centuries B.C., that I wish first to tell you.The large tract of land called Gaul was then little more than a dreary waste of moor and marsh, with great forests, larger and gloomier than any you have ever seen.Through these forests and marshlands terrible beasts prowled—wolves, bears, wild oxen. Herds of swine, too, fierce as any wolves, roamed through the marshes. These had been tamed enough to answer to their keepers horn...

Everybody knows that the history of nations is but the history of the individual 'writ large'; and this is perhaps most clearly seen in that period of awakening and growth that we know as the eleventh century.The stormy years of the youth of Europe were nearly at an end; those years of struggle and warfare, when the limits of countries and the rights of nations were yet unsettled, and men were so busy fighting one another for the things of the material world that those which belong to the world of the intellect and the soul were well-nigh forgotten.But when this time of stress was over, Europe, like a youth emerging into studious, thoughtful manhood, began to take heed of these higher matters and to realize the superior claims of things spiritual. And so it came about that this eleventh century was to see a great struggle between Church and State, representing, in those days, the forces of religion, morality, learning, often of civilization itself, arrayed against the claims of absolutism and brute force.Two pairs of striking figures represent to us this struggle of spiritual rights against secular demands. In Europe we find the fiery Hildebrand, as Pope Gregory VII, opposing with all his might the claims of the Emperor Henry IV; in England the two conflicting elements are Anselm, gentlest of archbishops, and the stubborn-faced, angry-eyed Red King, William II.Nominally, the question upon which the struggle turned in either case was that of 'Investiture,' or the right of granting to the recipient of a bishopric or abbey the spiritual rights symbolized by the ring and staff.Actually, these 'spiritual rights' were themselves only the symbol of a far more important matter, summed up in this question:Was the government of the kingdoms of Christendom to pass entirely under the control of lay princes, who at any time might be heathen in heart if not in name? Or was it to be shared to any important extent by that great organization, standing in those days for learning of all kinds, for morality, for discipline, which, since the days of Charlemagne, had been known as the Holy Roman Empire?Now, to understand the importance of the answer to this question we must try to realize the condition of Europe in those days.The 'Dark Ages,' during which to a great extent brute force held sway, were almost over when the eleventh century opened. A long struggle against the powers of paganism had been fought, and, thanks to the influence of the Church, even where, as in Normandy and England, the heathen conquerors had overspread the land, the faith of civilized Europe had asserted itself again and again, and the conquering Northman had become a convert to Christianity...