"and ten years since I set foot in
Brody."

I jumped down. "'Tis I must walk, not you," I said.

"Nay," said he good-humoredly. "I perceive neither of us can walk.
Those sacks must play Jonah. Out with them."

"No," I said.

"Yes," he insisted, laughing. "Did I not say Satan was determined to
spoil my Passover? The third time I shall have better luck perhaps."

I protested against thus causing him so much loss, and offered to go
and find the Baal Shem alone, but he rolled out the flour-bags,
laughing, leaving one for the woman to lie against.

"But your wife will be expecting them," I remarked, as the cart
proceeded with both of us in our seats.

"She will be expecting me, too," he said, smiling ruefully. "However,
she has faith in God. Never yet have we lacked food. Surely He who
feedeth the ravens--" He broke off with a sudden thought, leapt down,
and ran back.

"What is it?" I said.

I saw him draw out his knife again and slit open the sacks. "The birds
shall keep Passover," he called out merrily.

The woman was still sobbing as he climbed to his place, but he
comforted her with his genial and heterodox philosophy.

"'Tis a device of Satan," he said, "to drive us to despondency, so as
to choke out the God-spark in us. Your sin is great, but your Father
in Heaven awaits you, and will rejoice as a King rejoices over a
princess redeemed from captivity. Every soul is a whole Bible in
itself. Yours contains Sarah and Ruth as well as Jezebel and Michal.
Hitherto you have developed the Jezebel in you; strive now to develop
the Sarah." With such bold consolations he soothed her, till the
monotonous movement of the cart sent her into a blessed sleep. Then he
took out a pipe and, begging permission of me, lighted it. As the
smoke curled up his face became ecstatic.

"I think," he observed musingly, "that God is more pleased with this
incense of mine than with all the prayers of all the Rabbis."

This shocked even me, fascinated though I was. Never had I met such a
man in all Israel. I shook my head in half-serious reproof. "You are a
sinner," I said.

"Nay, is not smoking pleasurable? To enjoy aright aught in God's
creation is to praise God. Even so, is not to pray the greatest of all
pleasures?"

"To pray?" I repeated wonderingly. "Nay, methinks it is a heavy burden
to get through our volumes of prayer."

"A burden!" cried the old man. "A burden to enter into relation with
God, to be reabsorbed into the