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heir souls very low. . . ." Now they understood. Joy beamed from all faces. What a small crumb of knowledge it took to make joyful these poor, and at the same time rich, souls! Meir seized the book from his friend's hands, and read from another leaf: "The angels themselves are not all equal. They are classed one above the other, like the steps of a ladder, and the highest among them is the Spirit producing thought and knowledge. This Spirit animates Reason, and Hagada calls it Prince of the World--Sar-ha-Olam!" "The highest angel is the Spirit producing thought and knowledge, and Hagada calls it the Prince of the world," repeated the choir of young voices. Their doubts were scattered. Learning had reawakened respect in their minds, and longing in their hearts, and passed before them in the form of the Angel of Angels, flying over the world arrayed in princely purple, with a shining veil wrought by his thought. Reverie sat on their foreheads and in their eyes. The reverie of a quiet evening covered the meadow blooming around them. Before them purple clouds hung above the forest, hiding behind them the shield of the sun. Behind them the green grove, sunk in dusky shadows, was slumbering motionlessly. Over the meadow and fields floated Eliezer's silvery voice: "I saw the spirit of my people when I slumbered," Jehovah's pale cantor began to sing. And it was not known whence came that song. Who composed it? No one could tell. One verse was given by Eliezer to his friend after a state of ecstatic unconsciousness which visited him often; the second was composed by Aryel, Calman's son, while playing on his violin in the grove. Some of them had their birth in Meir's breast, and others were whispered by the childish lips of Haim, Abraham's son. Thus are composed all folk songs. Their origin is in longing hearts, oppressed thoughts, and instinctive flights toward a better life. Thus was born in Szybow the song which the cantor now began: "Once, while I slumbered, I fancied I saw My people's spirit before me; And I felt a strange spell stealing o'er me, As I gazed on the world in awe." Here the other voices joined that of the cantor, and a powerful chorus resounded through the fields and meadow: "Did he come toward me in royal array, In purple and gold like the dawn of day. Ah, no I on his brow there was no golden crown; His naked knees trembled, hi gray head bowed down." Here the choir of singing voice
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