Germany, India, or elsewhere. This is a bad habit, and we must do our
utmost in the future to guard against it; for, if we all made an effort
to retain our own ancient customs that are really good and beneficial to
ourselves and others and adopt only the good and healthy customs of our
neighbours, then, indeed, we might feel we had a right to call ourselves
and be recognized by those we live amongst as 'God's Chosen People.'"

FATHER FROST IN JERUSALEM

The next Friday evening Mr Jacob read the following letter.

"My Dear Cousin Mill,--I have not yet written to tell you how we manage
during cold weather. Before we arrived, we were under the impression
that it was always warm in Palestine. Certainly the sun does shine more
in winter here than in England, and while it shines the weather is very
pleasant; but we get very cold weather, too, especially in Jerusalem. We
get very little snow, but a good deal of frost, which no one enjoys. No
doubt you wonder why, because we all enjoyed the cold and frost in
England, and loved the skating and the snowballing.

"The reason is very clear, for here we have no cheery open fireplaces,
which give out so much heat in England; in fact there are not even any
steel or iron ovens, and the result is, the Palestinian houses are
intensely cold in frosty weather. The ceilings are all lofty and in the
shape of a dome, which, with the very thick stone walls is very pleasant
in summer but very cold in the winter. Then there is very little
firewood to be had here, as the Turks try to prevent much
tree-planting, so fire wood is a luxury which very few can afford.
Instead, we have all copper buckets pierced with holes standing on a
tripod and filled with burning charcoal, which is placed in the middle
of the room.

"How we all eagerly cluster round it and watch the red hot charcoal,
hoping that by _looking at it_ the warmth will go into our bodies! Such
a small amount of charcoal as we can afford does not warm a room very
much, so all the windows are closed tightly to prevent any cold air
coming in. This also prevents the fumes of the burning charcoal from
escaping, so naturally the air gets very stuffy, and many suffer from
headaches or fall into a heavy sleep.

"You will wonder why it is many people do not get frozen. Well, the old
proverb holds good here, that 'Necessity is the mother of invention,' so
even in the coldest weather we have a remedy; for we heat also our brass
samo