i_, she saw it was occupied
by officers with gold sashes. Somebody whispered that he with the
medalled breast was a Christian Knight and Commander of the Bath--'a
great honour for the synagogue!' What! were Christians coming to
Jewish services, even as she had gone to Christian? Why, here was
actually a white cross on an officer's sleeve.

And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning his Hebrew chant on
the steps of the Ark, lit the great many-branched _Chanukah_
candlestick. Truly, the world was changing under her eyes.

And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark in his turn, she saw that
he wore a strange scarlet and white gown (military, too, she imagined
in her ignorance), and--oh, even rarer sight!--he was followed by a
helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the ornate Scrolls of
the Law.

And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a sweetness through her
blood. An organ! An organ in the Synagogue! Ah! here indeed was
Anglicization.

It was thin and reedy even to _her_ ears, compared with that divine
resonance in St. Paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from
the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the
service--she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium--yet it
brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears
in the glittering uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon's eyes met his
mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed between them.

There was a sermon--the text taken with dual appropriateness from the
Book of Maccabees. Fully one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the
preacher, had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the Queen's
dominions. Their beloved country had no more devoted citizens than
the children of Israel who had settled under her flag. They had been
gratified, but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names of
more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and country. Many more had
gone unrecorded, so that they had proportionally contributed more
soldiers--from Colonel to bugler-boy--than their mere numbers would
warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were the Englishman and the
Jew whose Scriptures he had imbibed, that it was no accident that the
Anglophobes of Europe were also Anti-Semites.

And then the congregation rose, while the preacher behind the folds of
the Union Jack read out the names of the Jews who had died for England
in the far-off veldt. Every head was bent as the nam