gainst him has softened many hearts and opened many
eyes."

"Malicious promptings stirred up hatred against him; but to-day all
hearts are full of compassion, because with your curse you have
killed his youth."

"It is worse than death, Rabbi; for amongst the living he will be
like one dead."

"And is it not written in the statutes of the great Sanhedrim: 'The
tribunal which once in seventy years pronounces a sentence of death
will be called the tribunal of murderers?'"

"In the Sanhedrim, did not childless and stony-hearted men sit?"

"Who soweth wrath, reapeth sorrow!"

Such and similar were the sentences which fell like hail around the
Rabbi, accompanied by threatening looks and indignant gestures.

Todros answered no more. He remained quite motionless and, with his
mouth open and eyebrows raised, presented the picture of a man who
does not understand what is going on around him. Suddenly, the
melamed rushed from the crowd, jumped over the balustrade, and
spreading out his arms as if to shield the beloved master, confronted
the people and shouted in angry tones:

"Woe! woe! to the insolent who does not reverence those who serve
them before the Lord!"

Eliezer replied:

"No wall is to be raised between the Lord and his people. We
appointed men from amongst us to study the Law in order to teach it
to the ignorant. But we did not, tell them: 'We deliver our souls
unto you in bondage'; because every Israelite is free to search for
the Lord in his own heart and to explain His words according to his
intelligence."

Others exclaimed:

"In Israel there are no higher or lower grades. We are all brethren
in the eyes of the Creator; no one has the right to fetter our will
and intellect."

"The false prophets have lost us, because they separated us from
other nations, that we are even as prisoners in the dark, left in
loneliness."

"But a time will come when Israel will shake off his fetters, and the
blind and proud spirits shall fall down from their heights and the
imprisoned souls will regain their liberty."

Isaak Todros raised his hands slowly to his head, as a man who tries
to rouse himself from sleep; then he leaned again on the balustrade,
raised his eyes, and sighed deeply:

"En-Sof!" he said in a dreamy whisper.

It was the kabalistic name of God which whirled across his despairing
mind. But as if in protest against the doctrines which had encumbered
the pure Mosaic faith, a chorus of voices ans