* *

He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning
against the wall. In one hand he holds a prayer-book--he is receiving
the Sabbath into his house. His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers
the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. He knows
that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and
bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her
heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and
the trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weakness makes him
irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain.
He sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death
can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the
prayer-book, his heart makes one request to God and only one: that God
should send kind Death to deliver him from his trouble and misery.

Suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came into the room, in a
long Sabbath cloak, with two long earlocks, and a prayer-book under his
arm.

"A good Sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud, ringing voice.

It seemed as if he and the holy Sabbath had come into the room together!
In one moment the little boy had driven trouble and sadness out of
sight, and shed light and consolation round him.

His "good Sabbath!" reached his parents' hearts, awoke there new life
and new hopes.

"A good Sabbath!" answered the mother. Her eyes rested on the child's
bright face, and her thoughts were no longer melancholy as before, for
she saw in his eyes a whole future of happy possibilities.

"A good Sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man, and he took a deeper,
easier breath. No, he will not die altogether, he will live again after
death in the child. He can die in peace, he leaves a Kaddish behind
him.

YOM KIPPUR

Erev Yom Kippur, Minchah time!

The Eve of the Day of Atonement, at Afternoon Prayer time.

A solemn and sacred hour for every Jew.

Everyone feels as though he were born again.

All the week-day worries, the two-penny-half-penny interests, seem far,
far away; or else they have hidden themselves in some corner. Every Jew
feels a noble pride, an inward peace mingled with fear and awe. He knows
that the yearly Judgment Day is approaching, when God Almighty will hold
the scales in His hand and weigh every man's merits against his
transgressions. The sentence given on that day is on