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 assim