"Ah, the next chapter," replied Bethany, sadly. "I thought of that at the time. What can it be but the daily repetition of commonplace events? He will simply go on to the end in a routine of study and work. He will preach to whatever audiences he can gather around him. That is all the world will see. The other part of it, the burden of loneliness laid upon him because of Jewish scorn and Christian distrust, the soul-struggles, the spiritual victories, the silent heroism, will be unwritten and unapplauded, because unseen."
"I don't wonder you are interested," said Miss Harriet. "Would you believe it, I don't know the difference between an orthodox and a reform Jew? I think I shall look it up to-morrow in the encyclopedia."
She picked up the little pamphlet, and opened at random.
"Here is a marked paragraph," she said. "'The Jew is everywhere in evidence. He sells vodki in Russia; he matches his cunning against Moslem and Greek in Turkey; he fights for existence and endures martyrdom in the Balkan provinces; he crowds the professions, the arts, the market-place, the bourse, and the army, in France, England, Austria, and Germany. He has invaded every calling in America, and everywhere he is seen; and, what is more to the point, he is felt. He runs through the entire length of history, as a thin but well-defined line, touched by the high lights of great events at almost every point.'"
"Where did we leave off with him, sister?" she asked, turning to Miss Caroline. "Wasn't it at the destruction of the temple, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 A. D.? We shall have to trace that line back a considerable distance, I am thinking, if we would know anything on the subject."
"Let's trace it then," said Miss Caroline, with her usual alacrity.
Several evenings after, when Bethany came home from the office, she found a new book on the table, with Miss Caroline's name on the fly-leaf. It was "The Children of the Ghetto."
"I bought it this afternoon," she explained, a little nervously. "It is one of Zangwill's. The clerk at the bookstore told me he is called the Jewish Dickens, and that it is very interesting. Of course, I am no critic, but it looked interesting, and I thought you might not mind reading it aloud. Several sentences caught my eye that made me think it might be as entertaining as 'Old Curiosity Shop,' or 'Oliver Twist.'"
Bethany rapidly scanned several pages. "I believe it is the very thing to give us an insight into the later day customs and beliefs of the masses."
She read the headings of several of the chapters aloud, and a sentence here and there.