could save the Jews from his sermon.

On the Thursday a plague broke out in the Ghetto; on the Friday a
tenth of the population was dead. Another overflow of the Tiber had
co-operated with the malarious effluvia of those congested alleys,
those strictly limited houses swarming with multiplying broods. On the
Saturday the gates of the Ghetto were officially closed. The plague
was shut in. For three months the outcasts of humanity were pent in
their pestiferous prison day and night to live or die as they chose.
When at length the Ghetto was opened and disinfected, it was the dead,
not the living, that were crowded.

VII

Joseph the Dreamer was half stunned by this second blow to his dreams.
An earthly anxiety he would not avow to himself consumed him during
the progress of the plague, which in spite of all efforts escaped from
the Ghetto as if to punish those who had produced the conditions of
its existence. But his anxiety was not for himself--it was for his
mother and father, it was for the noble Miriam. When he was not in
fearless attendance upon plague-stricken Christians he walked near the
city of the dead, whence no news could come. When at last he learned
that his dear ones were alive, another blow fell. The Bull was still
to be enforced, but the Pope's ear was tenderer to the survivors. He
respected their hatred of Fra Giuseppe, their protest that they would
more willingly hear any other preacher. The duty was to be undertaken
by his brother Dominicans in turn. Giuseppe alone was forbidden to
preach. In vain he sought to approach his Holiness; he was denied
access. Thus began that strange institution, the Predica Coattiva, the
forced sermon.

Every Sabbath after their own synagogue sermon, a third of the
population of the Ghetto, including all children above the age of
twelve, had to repair in turn to receive the Antidote at the Church of
San Benedetto Alla Regola, specially set apart for them, where a friar
gave a true interpretation of the Old Testament portion read by their
own cantor. His Holiness, ever more considerate than his inferiors,
had enjoined the preachers to avoid the names of Jesus and the Holy
Virgin, so offensive to Jewish ears, or to pronounce them in low
tones; but the spirit of these recommendations was forgotten by the
occupants of the pulpit with a congregation at their mercy to bully
and denounce with all the savage resources of rhetoric. Many Jews
lagged reluctant on the road churc