ty. As occasion may demand, an older woman comes forward and snuffs
a candle with her fingers and replaces it with a fresh one. The women
even carry the candles through the church when the ritual so requires
it. They do not appear to have any self-consciousness, but perform
their part gladly and naturally. This may arise from the fact that
they have been accustomed in Austria to taking part in religious dramas
such as The Nativity, which drama they once staged at Edmonton. I did
not see it, but Sister Josephat at the Ruthenian Monastery gave me a
picture of the _dramatis personae_ taken during a rehearsal.

"See! See! Madame Lady. See! See!" said Sister Josephat. "Et ees
ver' fonny. _De tree wise men are womens_, womens I tell you. Yes!
the black one too! She is Alma Knapf."

This drama was vastly appreciated, especially by the younger fry of the
community, who enjoyed seeing the devil carry a Jew off the scene with
a pitchfork and cast him into hell with certitude and great vigour.
The older folk considered this treatment unduly drastic and an
unwarranted loss of useful material. Here in the North, we do not
believe in killing Jews--no, nor even bank-managers--where we are not
infrequently pared to the quick to provide money for real-estate
payments or to margin up against the bad news the ticker-tape has
spelled out. Yes! it would be highly unreasonable to allow the
Ruthenian folk to kill off the Jews and bankers and it would make us
uncommonly sorry.

... I like to watch these farmer-women carry the tall, white candles
under the dome. It seems like a vision picture or some sense memory
that has filtered down to me through the ages, but what the memory is I
cannot say. Indeed, once I read of a strange country where men used to
run races with lighted candles, and the victor was he whose flame was
found burning at the goal.

I think the memory which troubles me must be of Jacob's rods which he
made into "white strakes." He performed his rite under the _libneh_,
or white poplar-tree, even as we perform them under the white poplars
of Alberta.

And while the women march, they chant a weird harmony, the men's voices
coming in at intervals like pedal points. There is no organ, or any
tyrannous baton, but only, "They sang one to another," as the Jews did
at the building of their temple.

I am strangely, inexpressibly moved by this tone-sweetness. Sometimes
it is massive, triumphal, and inspiring as