e that told how his reverent and adoring soul was thrilled with
this vision of the coming glory of redeemed humanity.

He knew the New Testament by heart, as well as the Old. The sayings of
Jesus were often on his lips.

One day, in a musing, half-soliloquizing way, I heard him say:

"It is wonderful, wonderful! a Hebrew peasant from the hills of Galilee,
without learning, noble birth, or power, subverts all the philosophies
of the world, and makes himself the central figure of all history. It is
wonderful!"

He half whispered the words, and his eyes had the introspective look of
a man who is thinking deeply.

He came to see me at our cottage on Post street one morning before
breakfast. In grading a street, a house in which I had lived and had the
ill luck to own, on Pine street, had been undermined, and toppled over
into the street below, falling on the slate-roof and breaking all to
pieces. He came to tell me of it, and to extend his sympathy.

"I thought I would come first, so you might get the bad news from a
friend rather than a stranger. You have lost a house; but it is a small
matter. Your little boy there might have put out his eye with a pair of
scissors, or he might have swallowed a pin and lost his life. There are
many things constantly taking place that are harder to bear than the
loss of a house."

Many other wise words did the Rabbi speak, and before he left I felt
that a house was indeed a small thing to grieve over.

He spoke with charming freedom and candor of all sorts of people.

"Of Christians, the Unitarians have the best heads, and the Methodists
the best hearts. The Roman Catholics hold the masses, because they give
their people plenty of form. The masses will never receive truth in its
simple essence; they must have it in a way that will make it digestible
and assimilable, just as their, stomachs demand bread, and meats, and
fruits, not their extracts or distilled essences, for daily food. As to
Judaism, it is on the eve of great changes. What these changes will be I
know not, except that I am sure the God of our fathers will fulfill his
promise to Israel. This generation will probably see great things."

"Do you mean the literal restoration of the Jews to Palestine?"

He looked at me with an intense gaze, and hastened not to answer. At
last he spoke slowly:

"When the perturbed elements of religious thought crystallize into
clearness and enduring forms, the chosen people will be one