and side-shows and
overgrown with moss and lichen--a heterogeneous blend of historical
strata of all periods, in which gems of poetry and pathos and spiritual
fervor glittered and pitiful records of ancient persecution lay
petrified. And the method of praying these things was equally complex
and uncouth, equally the bond-slave of tradition; here a rising and
there a bow, now three steps backwards and now a beating of the breast,
this bit for the congregation and that for the minister, variants of a
page, a word, a syllable, even a vowel, ready for every possible
contingency. Their religious consciousness was largely a musical
box--the thrill of the ram's horn, the cadenza of psalmic phrase, the
jubilance of a festival "Amen" and the sobriety of a work-a-day "Amen,"
the Passover melodies and the Pentecost, the minor keys of Atonement and
the hilarious rhapsodies of Rejoicing, the plain chant of the Law and
the more ornate intonation of the Prophets--all this was known and
loved and was far more important than the meaning of it all or its
relation to their real lives; for page upon page was gabbled off at
rates that could not be excelled by automata. But if they did not always
know what they were saying they always meant it. If the service had been
more intelligible it would have been less emotional and edifying. There
was not a sentiment, however incomprehensible, for which they were not
ready to die or to damn.

"All Israel are brethren," and indeed there was a strange antique
clannishness about these "Sons of the Covenant" which in the modern
world, where the ends of the ages meet, is Socialism. They prayed for
one another while alive, visited one another's bedsides when sick,
buried one another when dead. No mercenary hands poured the yolks of
eggs over their dead faces and arrayed their corpses in their
praying-shawls. No hired masses were said for the sick or the troubled,
for the psalm-singing services of the "Sons of the Covenant" were always
available for petitioning the Heavens, even though their brother had
been arrested for buying stolen goods, and the service might be an
invitation to Providence to compound a felony. Little charities of their
own they had, too--a Sabbath Meal Society, and a Marriage Portion
Society to buy the sticks for poor couples--and when a pauper countryman
arrived from Poland, one of them boarded him and another lodged him and
a third taught him a trade. Strange exotics in a land of pro