eated himself, took his pen, and wrote:

"We understand that the Rev. Joseph Strelitski has resigned his position
in the Kensington Synagogue."

Not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm
his soul.

"But you will not do this?" he said, looking up almost incredulously at
the popular minister.

"I will; the position has become impossible. Leon, do you not
understand? I am not what I was when I took it. I have lived, and life
is change. Stagnation is death. Surely you can understand, for you, too,
have changed. Cannot I read between the lines of your leaders?"

"Cannot you read in them?" said Raphael with a wan smile. "I have
modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but I have
disguised none."

"Not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought."

"Perhaps I do not listen to it," said Raphael, half to himself. "But
you--whatever your change--you have not lost faith in primaries?"

"No; not in what I consider such."

"Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so
much good? You are loved, venerated."

Strelitski placed his palms over his ears.

"Don't! don't!" he cried. "Don't you be the _advocatus diaboli_! Do you
think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times? Do you
think I have not tried every kind of opiate? No, no, be silent if you
can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am I not weak enough
already? Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put
that paragraph in the paper. Saturday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday--in six days I shall change a hundred times. Swear
to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended.
Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel
it."

"But--" began Raphael.

Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.

"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "Leon, listen to me," he said, turning
round suddenly. "Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking
me to keep? Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that
is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the
_Shulcan Aruch_ (a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in
English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation
of whited sepulchres." He had no difficulty about utterance now; the
words flowed in a torrent. "How can Judaism--and it alone--escape going
through the fire of modern scepticism,