prayer of his did not become a diamond there, dazzling the eye, but
a softly glistening pearl.

And how, you ask, did he come to be called the Sinner? On this wise: You
must know that everyone, even those who were hardest on him after the
affair, acknowledged that he was a great lover of Israel, and I will add
that his sin and, Heaven defend us, his coming to such a fall, all
proceeded from his being such a lover of Israel, such a patriot.

And it was just the simple Jew, the very common folk, that he loved.

He used to say: A Jew who is a driver, for instance, and busy all the
week with his horses and cart, and soaked in materialism for six days at
a stretch, so that he only just manages to get in his prayers--when he
comes home on Sabbath and sits down to table, and the bed is made, and
the candles burning, and his wife and children are round him, and they
sing hymns together, well, the driver dozing off over his prayer-book
and forgetting to say grace, I tell you, said Reb Avrohom, the Divine
Presence rests on his house and rejoices and says, "Happy am I that I
chose me out this people," for such a Jew keeps Sabbath, rests himself,
and his horse rests, keeps Sabbath likewise, stands in the stable, and
is also conscious that it is the holy Sabbath, and when the driver rises
from his sleep, he leads the animal out to pasture, waters it, and they
all go for a walk with it in the meadow.

And this walk of theirs is more acceptable to God, blessed is He, than
repeating "Bless the Lord, O my soul." It may be this was because he
himself was of humble origin; he had lived till he was thirteen with his
father, a farmer, in an out-of-the-way village, and ignorant even of his
letters. True, his father had taken a youth into the house to teach him
Hebrew, but Reb Avrohom as a boy was very wild, wouldn't mind his book,
and ran all day after the oxen and horses.

He used to lie out in the meadow, hidden in the long grasses, near him
the horses with their heads down pulling at the grass, and the view
stretched far, far away, into the endless distance, and above him spread
the wide sky, through which the clouds made their way, and the green,
juicy earth seemed to look up at it and say: "Look, sky, and see how
cheerfully I try to obey God's behest, to make the world green with
grass!" And the sky made answer: "See, earth, how I try to fulfil God's
command, by spreading myself far and wide!" and the few trees scattered
over the fi