hwards. A posse of police with whips
drove them into the holy fold. This novel church procession of men,
women, and children grew to be one of the spectacles of Rome. A new
pleasure had been invented for the mob. These compulsory services
involved no small expense. By a refinement of humor the Jews had to
pay for their own conversion. Evasion of the sermon was impossible; a
register placed at the door of the church kept account of the
absentees, whom fine and imprisonment chastised. To keep this register
a neophyte was needed, one who knew each individual personally and
could expose substitutes. What better man than the new brother? In
vain Giuseppe protested. The Prior would not hearken. And so in lieu
of offering the sublime spectacle of an unpaid apostleship, the
powerless instigator of the mischief, bent over his desk, certified
the identity of the listless arrivals by sidelong peeps, conscious
that he was adding the pain of contact with an excommunicated Jew to
the sufferings of his brethren, for whose Sabbath his writing-pen was
shamelessly expressing his contempt. Many a Sabbath he saw his father,
a tragic, white-haired wreck, touched up with a playful whip to urge
him faster towards the church door. It was Joseph whom that whip stung
most. When the official who was charged to see that the congregants
paid attention, and especially that they did not evade the sermon by
slumber, stirred up Rachel with an iron rod, her unhappy son broke
into a cold sweat. When, every third Sabbath, Miriam passed before his
desk with steadfast eyes of scorn, he was in an ague, a fever of hot
and cold. His only consolation was to see rows of devout faces
listening for the first time in their life to the gospel. At least he
had achieved something. Even Shloumi the Droll had grown regenerate;
he listened to the preachers with sober reverence.

Joseph the Dreamer did not know that, adopting the whimsical device
hit on by Shloumi, all these devout Jews had wadding stuffed deep into
their ears.

But, meanwhile, in other pulpits, Fra Giuseppe was gaining great fame.
Christians came from far and near to hear him. He went about among the
people and they grew to love him. He preached at executions, his black
mantle and white scapulary were welcomed in loathsome dungeons, he
absolved the dying, he exorcised demons. But there was one sinner he
could not absolve, neither by hair-shirt nor flagellation, and that
was himself. And there was one d