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