handful of Palestine earth sprinkled over their graves.
But Guedalyah the greengrocer was not the man to encourage idle hopes. He explained his scheme lucidly- without highfalutin. They were to rebuild Judaism as the coral insect builds its reefs-not as the prayer went, 'speedily and in our days.'
They had brought themselves up to expect more and were disappointed. Some protested against peddling little measures-like Pinchas they were for high, heroic deeds. Joseph Strelitski, student and cigar commission agent, jumped to his feet and cried passionately in German: 'Everywhere Israel groans and travails-must we indeed wait and wait till our hearts are sick and strike never a decisive blow? It is nigh two thousand years since across the ashes of our Holy Temple we were driven into the Exile, clanking the chains of Pagan conquerors. For nigh two thousand years have we dwelt on alien soils, a mockery and a byword for the nations, hounded out from every worthy employ and persecuted for turning to the unworthy, spat upon and trodden under foot, suffusing the scroll of history with our blood and illuminating it with the lurid glare of the fires to which our martyrs have ascended gladly for the Sanctification of the Name. We who twenty centuries ago were a mighty nation, with a law and a constitution and a religion which have been the key-notes of the civilization of the world, we who sat in judgment by the gates of great cities, clothed in purple and fine linen, are the sport of peoples who were then roaming wild in woods and marshes clothed in the skins of the wolf and the bear. Now in the East there gleams again a star of hope-why shall we not follow it? Never has the chance of the Restoration flamed so high as to-day. Our capitalists rule the markets of Europe, our generals lead armies, our great men sit in the Councils of every State. We are everywhere-a thousand thousand stray rivulets of power that could be blent into a mighty ocean. Palestine is one if we wish-the whole house of Israel has but to speak with a mighty unanimous voice. Poets will sing for us, journalists write for us, diplomatists haggle for us, millionaires pay the price for us. The sultan would restore our land to us to-morrow, did we but essay to get it. There are no obstacles-but ourselves. It is not the heathen that keeps us out of our land-it is the Jews, the rich and prosperous Jews-Jeshurun grown fat and sleepy, dreaming the false dream of assimilation with the people of the pleasant places in which their lines have been cast. Give us back our country; this alone will solve the Jewish question. Our paupers shall become agriculturists, and like Antaeus, the genius of Israel shall gain fresh strength by contact with mother earth. And for England it will help to solve the Indian question-Between European Russia and India there will be planted a people, fierce, terrible, hating Russia for her wild-beast deeds. Into the Exile we took with us, of all our glories, only a spark of the fire by which our Temple, the abode of our great One was engirdled, and this little spark kept us alive while the towers of our enemies crumbled to dust, and this spark leaped into celestial flame and shed light upon the faces of the heroes of our race and inspired them to endure the horrors of the Dance of Death and the tortures of the
'THE WATCH ON THE JORDAN.
I.
'Like the crash of the thunder
Which splitteth asunder
The flame of the cloud,
On our ears ever falling,
A voice is heard calling
From Zion aloud:
'Let your spirits' desires
For the land of your sires
Eternally burn.
From the foe to deliver
Our own holy river,
To Jordan return.'
Where the soft flowing stream
Murmurs low as in dream,
There set we our watch.
Our watchword, 'The sword
Of our land and our Lord'-
By the Jordan then set we our watch.
II.
'Rest in peace, loved land,
For we rest not, but stand,
Off shaken our sloth.
When the boils of war rattle
To shirk not the battle,
We make thee our oath.
As we hope for a Heaven,
Thy chains shall be riven,
Thine ensign unfurled.
And in pride of our race
We will fearlessly face
The might of the world.
When our trumpet is blown,
And our standard is flown,
Then set we our watch.
Our watchword, 'The sword
Of our land and our Lord'-
By Jordan then set we our watch.
III.
'Yea, as long as there he
Birds in air, fish in sea,
And blood in our veins;
And the lions in might.
Leaping down from the height,
Shake, roaring, their manes;
And the dew nightly laves
The forgotten old graves
Where Judah's sires sleep,-
We swear, who are living,
To rest not in striving,
To pause not to weep.
Let the trumpet be blown,
Let the standard be flown,
Now set we our watch.
Our watchword, 'The sword
Of our land and our Lord'-
In Jordan NOW set we our watch.'
He sank upon the rude, wooden bench, exhausted, his eyes glittering, his raven hair dishevelled by the wildness of his gestures. He had said. For the rest of the evening he neither moved nor spake. The calm, good- humored tones of Simon Gradkoski followed like a cold shower.
'We must be sensible,' he said, for he enjoyed the reputation of a shrewd conciliatory man of the world as well as of a pillar of orthodoxy. 'The great people will come to us, but not if we abuse them. We must flatter them up and tell them they are the descendants of the Maccabees. There is much political kudos to be got out of leading
