ld not have awakened the
same responsive chord as now:

"Little cruet in the Temple
That didst feed the sacrificial flame,
What a true expressive symbol
Art thou of my race, of Israel's fame!
Thou for days the oil didst furnish
To illume the Temple won from foe--
So for centuries in my people
Spirit of resistance ne'er burnt low.
It was cast from home and country,
Gloom and sorrow were its daily lot;
Yet the torch of faith gleamed steady,
Courage, like thy oil, forsook it not.
Mocks and jeers were all its portion,
Death assailed it in ten thousand forms--
Yet this people never faltered,
Hope, its beacon, led it through all storms.
Poorer than dumb, driven cattle,
It went forth enslaved from its estate,
All its footsore wand'rings lighted
By its consciousness of worth innate.
Luckless fortunes could not bend it;
Unjust laws increased its wondrous faith;
From its heart exhaustless streaming,
Freedom's light shone on its thorny path.
Oil that burnt in olden Temple,
Eight days only didst thou give forth light!
Oil of faith sustained this people
Through the centuries of darkest night!"

We can afford to look forward to the future of Judaism serenely. The
signs of the times seem propitious to him whose eye is clear to read
them, whose heart not too embittered to understand their message aright.

Our rough and tumble time, delighting in negation and destruction,
crushing underfoot the tender blossoms of poetry and faith, living up to
its quasi motto, "What will not die of itself, must be put to death,"
will suddenly come to a stop in its mad career of annihilation. That
will mark the dawn of a new era, the first stirrings of a new
spring-tide for storm-driven Israel. On the ruins will rise the Jewish
home, based on Israel's world-saving conception of family life, which,
having enlightened the nations of the earth, will return to the source
whence it first issued. Built on this foundation, and resting on the
pillars of modern culture, Jewish spirit, and true morality, the Jewish
home will once more invite the nations to exclaim: "How beautiful are
thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O Israel!"

May the soft starlight of woman's high ideals continue to gleam on the
thorny path of the thinker Israel; may they never depart from Israel,
those God-kissed women that draw inspiration