and minarets of
the Gentiles. The city was full of venerated relics of the Christ his
people had lived--and died--to deny, and over all flew the crescent flag
of the Mussulman.

And so every Friday, heedless of scoffing on-lookers, Mendel Hyams
kissed the stones of the Wailing Place, bedewing their barrenness with
tears; and every year at Passover, until he was gathered to his fathers,
he continued to pray: "Next year--in Jerusalem!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE HEBREW'S FRIDAY NIGHT.

"Ah, the Men-of-the-Earth!" said Pinchas to Reb Shemuel, "ignorant
fanatics, how shall a movement prosper in their hands? They have not the
poetic vision, their ideas are as the mole's; they wish to make
Messiahs out of half-pence. What inspiration for the soul is there in
the sight of snuffy collectors that have the air of _Schnorrers_? with
Karlkammer's red hair for a flag and the sound of Gradkoski's nose
blowing for a trumpet-peal. But I have written an acrostic against
Guedalyah the greengrocer, virulent as serpent's gall. He the Redeemer,
indeed, with his diseased potatoes and his flat ginger-beer! Not thus
did the great prophets and teachers in Israel figure the Return. Let a
great signal-fire be lit in Israel and lo! the beacons will leap up on
every mountain and tongue of flame shall call to tongue. Yea, I, even I,
Melchitsedek Pinchas, will light the fire forthwith."

"Nay, not to-day," said Reb Shemuel, with his humorous twinkle; "it is
the Sabbath."

The Rabbi was returning from synagogue and Pinchas was giving him his
company on the short homeward journey. At their heels trudged Levi and
on the other side of Reb Shemuel walked Eliphaz Chowchoski, a
miserable-looking Pole whom Reb Shemuel was taking home to supper. In
those days Reb Shemuel was not alone in taking to his hearth "the
Sabbath guest"--some forlorn starveling or other--to sit at the table in
like honor with the master. It was an object lesson in equality and
fraternity for the children of many a well-to-do household, nor did it
fail altogether in the homes of the poor. "All Israel are brothers," and
how better honor the Sabbath than by making the lip-babble a reality?

"You will speak to your daughter?" said Pinchas, changing the subject
abruptly. "You will tell her that what I wrote to her is not a millionth
part of what I feel--that she is my sun by day and my moon and stars by
night, that I must marry her at once or die, that I think of nothing in
the