The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

Two young girls are sent away to live with their uncle, which sets off a chain of events resulting in an Indian attack on the town.

A nostalgic look at film clips from the Silent era.

France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.

The Parson and his friend Pete, a worthless inebriate of the village, in a drunken sleep by the roadside. His cure has been tried often, but in vain. The Parson's friend suggests a novel scheme, that of taking him to his home, waking him there and make him believe he is in paradise; then feeding him wine until he is asleep again, placing him back in the same place in the road. The scheme worked to perfection and it looks as if the village saloon will get no more of Pete's money for drink.

Bessie, the new school teacher, arrives at the little western village, and on her way to the school she meets a gang of cowboys who bestow boxes of candy and other little offerings. Not long after the girl is seized with a jumping toothache. Each boy suggests a cure, but without success. Tom, however, now appears and offers a cure. He leaves her a note stating if she will submit to his treatment he will guarantee to cure her toothache. She is in such agony that she is inclined to submit to anything, and so, though not knowing what the cure may be, consents. After great preliminaries Tom administers a resounding kiss upon her cheek..

Susie secretly loves her neighbor, William Jenkins, but neither, it seems, can confess their feelings for each other.

On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.

The brothers choose between love and gold. The three brothers sought the gold regions. The fourth chose to be a stay-at-home. He sought just love, and love was his reward: in the happiness of two old parents and the heart of a sweet girl. But those in the gold regions, each for himself, seeking just gold, found their ill rewards in the sordid earth of the Bad Lands.

A tramp overhears a rancher's plans to go to town for the ranch's payroll. He tries to enlist another loafer (the Knight) to help with a robbery. Instead, the Knight helps thwart the robbery.

During the American Revolution, a young soldier carrying a crucial message to General Washington is spotted and pursued by a group of enemy soldiers. He takes refuge with a civilian family, but is soon detected. The family and their neighbors must then make plans to see that the important message gets through after all.

In this story set at a seaside fishing village and inspired by a Charles Kingsley poem, a young couple's happy life is turned about by an accident. The husband, although saved from drowning, loses his memory. A child is on the way, and soon a daughter is born to his wife. We watch the passage of time, as his daughter matures and his wife ages. The daughter becomes a lovely young woman, herself ready for marriage. One day on the beach, the familiarity of the sea and the surroundings triggers a return of her father's memory, and we are reminded that although people age and change, the sea and the ways of the fisherfolk remain eternal.

Poor Hiram didn't anticipate the trouble laid out for him when he and his wife went for a stroll in the park.

Club pianist Ted Mason writes a love song for Beth Barton. A rival named Goldie steals the song for her husband, Steve, to publish. Beth faces unfair blame from her friends and teacher because of the popular song. Ted proves he wrote it by creating an even better song, exposing the theft, and winning Beth back.

Mary is the youngest of three sisters and of an impressionable nature. She and her sister Florence are living at home with their widowed mother, while Adele travels on the road with a theatrical company. Adele returns from the road at the end of her season, and is not home long before she realizes that her place is with her mother and sisters. She finds that they neglect their poor old mother, running off to dancing parties every night and associating with the wrong type of people. Adele, who is older and more experienced, decides to stay and watch over them.

Griffith adapts the story of the Apocryphal Book of Judith to the screen. During the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes, a widow named Judith forms a plan to stop the war as her people suffer in starvation, nearly ready to surrender.

An Indian village is forced to leave its land by white settlers, and must make a long and weary journey to find a new home. The settlers make one young Indian woman stay behind. This woman is thus separated from her sweetheart, whose elderly father needs his help on the journey ahead

A German-American father, loyal to his new U.S. home, finds himself on opposite sides with his son in the wartime conflict between Germany and America. The son becomes involved with German agents plotting against U.S., and the father must decide between his son and his adopted homeland.

Two lovers elope and expect to be pursued by her father. But the clever father has tricked them into running off, and celebrates their wedding when they return home.