said, shaking his head.

"What of it?"

"Know you not that everywhere the Rabbis fight desperately against the
new Order, that they curse and excommunicate its members."

"Wherefore?"

"I do not know. These things are too high for me. Unless it be that
this Rabbi Baer has cut out of the liturgy the _Piutim_ (Penitential
Poems), and likewise prays after the fashion of the Portuguese Jews."

"Nay," I said, laughing. "If you were not such a man-of-the-earth, you
would know that to cut out one line of one prayer is enough to set all
the Rabbis excommunicating."

"Ay," said he; "but I know also that in some towns where the Chassidim
are in the ascendant, they depose their Rabbis and appoint a minion of
Baer instead."

"Ha! so that is what the young man is after," said I.

"I didn't say so," said the Pedlar nervously. "I merely tell
you--though I should not have said anything--what the young man told
me to beguile the way."

"And to gain you over," I put in.

"Nay," laughed Eliphaz; "I feel no desire for Perfection, which is the
catchword of these gentry."

Thus put upon the alert, I was easily able to detect a secret meeting
of Chassidim (consisting of that minimum of ten which the sect, in
this following the orthodox practice, considers sufficient nucleus for
a new community), and to note the members of the conventicle as they
went in and out again.

With some of these I spake privily, but though I allayed their qualms
and assured them I was no spy but an anxious inquirer after Truth,
desiring nothing more vehemently than Perfection, yet either they
would not impart to me the true secrets of the Order, or they lacked
intelligence to make clear to me its special doctrine. Nevertheless,
of the personality of the Founder they were willing to speak, and I
shall here set down the story of his life as I learnt it at the first
from these simple enthusiasts. It may be that, as I write, my pen
unwittingly adds episodes or colors that sank into my mind afterwards,
but to the best of my power I will set down here the story as it was
told me, and as it passed current then--nay, what say I?--as it passes
current now in the Chassidic communities.

III

Rabbi Eliezer, the Baal Shem's father, lived in Moldavia, and in his
youth he was captured by the Tartars, but his wife escaped. He was
taken to a far country where no Jew lived, and was sold to a Prince.
He soon found favor with his master by dint of faithful service,