cally,
uttering wild exclamations; the spirit seized upon little children,
and they waved their arms and shouted frantically.

"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"

The long exile of Israel was over--the bitter centuries of the badge
and the byword, slaughter and spoliation; no longer, O God! to cringe
in false humility, the scoff of the street-boy, the mockery of
mankind, penned in Ghettos, branded with the wheel or the cap--but
restored to divine favor as every Prophet had predicted, and uplifted
to the sovereignty of the peoples.

"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"

They poured into the narrow streets, laughing, chattering, leaping,
dancing, weeping hysterically, begging for forgiveness of their
iniquities. They fell at Sabbatai feet, women spread rich carpets for
him to tread (though he humbly skirted them), and decked their windows
and balconies with costly hangings and cushions. Some, conscious of
sin that might shut them out from the Kingdom, made for the harbor and
plunged into the icy waters; some dug themselves graves in the damp
soil and buried themselves up to their necks till they were numb and
fainting; others dropped melted wax upon their naked bodies. But the
most common way of mortification was to prick their backs and sides
with thorns and then give themselves thirty-nine lashes. Many fasted
for days upon days and kept Cabalistic watches by night, intoning
_Tikkunim_ (prayers).

And, blent with these penances, festival after festival, riotous,
delirious, whenever Sabbatai Zevi, with his vast train of followers,
and waving a fan, showed himself in the street on his way to a
ceremony or to give Cabalistic interpretations of Scripture in the
synagogue. The shop-keepers of the Jewish bazaar closed their doors,
and followed in the frenzied procession, singing "The right hand of
the Lord is exalted, the right hand bringeth victory," jostling,
fighting, in their anxiety to be touched with the fan and inherit the
Kingdom of Heaven. And over these vast romping crowds, drunk with
faith, Melisselda queened it with her voluptuous smiles and the joyous
abandon of her dancing, and men and women, boys and girls, embraced
and kissed in hysterical frenzy. The yoke of the Law was over, the
ancient chastity forgotten. In the Cabalistic communities of
Thessalonica, where the pious began at once to do penance, some dying
of a seven-days' fast, and others from rolling themselves naked in the
snow, parents hastened to marry young childre