are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we
illustrate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony! Three-in-one and
one-in-three.' He laughed; to Sir Asher his laugh sounded maniacal.
The old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.

Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'Neither confounding the
persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly.

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER

THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER

I

There was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters which washed its
leading Jews their living, but in the breasts of these same marine
storekeepers. For a competitor had appeared in their hive of
industry--an alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at
Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not only with capital and
enterprise--the showy plate-glass front of his shop revealed an
enticing miscellany--but with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not
close on Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morning as usual.

The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the first Friday night,
but by the Sabbath morning the synagogue hummed with it. It set a
clammy horror in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their
prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades, brought a
tremor of insecurity into the very foundations of their universe. For
nearly three generations a congregation had been established in
Sudminster--like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly
country--struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy Day despite
the supplementary burden of Sunday closing, and the God of their
fathers had not left unperformed His part of the contract. For 'the
harvests' of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the former
rain' of their unchanging supplication were mere dried metaphors to a
people divorced from Palestine and the soil for eighteen centuries,
the wine and the oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor
were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on the synagogue was
paid off. And now this Epicurean was come to trouble the snug
security, to break the long chain of Sabbath observance which
stretched from Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers,
especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window on their return
from synagogue on Friday evening, were literally surprised that the
earth had not opened beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah.

'Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was stone