truths.

Eliezer did not begin at once to read. He turned the leaves, looking
for a paragraph appropriate to the circumstances. In the meanwhile,
the girl who had until now remained seated on the bank of the pond,
rose from among the forget-me-nots and white briar and advanced
slowly toward the group of young people. Even from afar her great
eyes could be seen looking into Meir's face. The white goat followed
her. Both disappeared in the grove and then Golda emerged and stood
behind Meir. She came so quietly that no one noticed her. She threw
her arms about the trunk of a birch tree and leaning her head against
the softly swaying branch, she caressed the bent head of Meir with
her looks. She seemed not to see the other people.

At that moment Eliezer exclaimed in his pure, crystalline voice:

"Israel, listen!"

With these words many psalms and sacred writings of the Hebrews
commence. For the young people surrounding Meir this reading of the
old master was a psalm of respect and deep spiritual prayer.

Eliezer began to read in a chanting voice:

"My disciples I You ask me what force attracts the celestial beings
of the Heavens, which we call stars, and why some of them rise so
high they are lost in mist, and others float more heavily toward the
sky, and remain far behind their sisters?"

"I will disclose to you the mystery which you seek to solve."

"The force attracting the celestial bodies is the Perfection dwelling
on the heights, and called God in the human tongue. The stars, seized
with love and longing for this Perfection, rise continually in order
to approach nearer and take something of wisdom and perfection from
the Wise and Perfect."

"My disciples, from those celestial beings, which long for the
Perfection, come all changes of the moon. They cause different forms
and images. . . ."

Eliezer stopped reading, and raised his turquoise-like eyes from the
book, and they shone with joy.

But the others thought a long while, trying to find an answer to
their doubts in that passage of the master.

Meir answered thoughtfully:

"There are men who, like the celestial beings of which the sage
talks, raise their souls toward the Perfection. They know that there
is perfection, and they try to take from it Wisdom and Goodness for
themselves. But there are also people who, like those stars which
float more heavily upward, do not long for the perfection, and do not
rise through such longing. Such people keep t