eguards against storm and stress. The outside
world presented a hostile front to the Jew of the middle ages. Every
step beyond Ghetto precincts was beset with peril. So his home became
his world, his sanctuary, in whose intimate seclusion the blossom of
pure family love unfolded. While spiritual darkness brooded over the
nations, the great Messianic God-idea took refuge from the icy chill of
the middle ages in his humble rooms, where it was cherished against the
coming of a glorious future.

"Every Jew has the making of a Messiah in him," says a clever modern
author,[25] "and every Jewess of a _mater dolorosa_," of which the first
part is only an epigram, the second, a truth, an historic fact.
Mediaeval Judaism knew many "sorrowful mothers," whose heroism passes
our latter-day conception. Greece and Rome tell tales upon tales of
womanly bravery under suffering and pain--Jewish history buries in
silence the names of its thousands of woman and maiden martyrs, joyously
giving up life in the vindication of their faith. Perhaps, had one woman
been too weak to resist, too cowardly to court and embrace death, her
name might have been preserved. Such, too, fail to appear in the Jewish
annals, which contain but few women's names of any kind. Inspired
devotion of strength and life to Judaism was as natural with a Jewess as
quiet, unostentatious activity in her home. No need, therefore, to make
mention of act or name.

Jewish woman, then, has neither found, nor sought, and does not need, a
Frauenlob, historian or poet, to proclaim her praise in the gates, to
touch the strings of his lyre in her honor. Her life, in its simplicity
and gentleness, its patience and exalted devotion, is itself a Song of
Songs, more beautiful than poet ever composed, a hymn more joyous than
any ever sung, on the prophetess's sublime and touching text, _Em
beyisrael_, "a mother in Israel."

As Miriam and Deborah are representative of womanhood during Israel's
national life, so later times, the Talmudic periods, produced women with
great and admirable qualities. Prominent among them was Beruriah, the
gentle wife of Rabbi Meir, the Beruriah whose heart is laid bare in the
following touching story from the Talmud:[26]

One Sabbath her husband had been in the academy all day teaching the
crowds that eagerly flocked to his lectures. During his absence from
home, his two sons, distinguished for beauty and learning, died suddenly
of a malignant disease. Ber