of the swarming deck, loved to pose as a man of common sense, free from superstition. "The only reason men go to Palestine," he maintained, "is because they think, as the psalm says, the land forgives sin. And they believe, too, that those bodies which are not burned in Palestine, when the Messiah's last trump sounds, will have to roll under lands and seas to get to Jerusalem. So they go to die there, so as to escape the underground route. Besides, Maimonides says the Messianic period will only last forty years. So perhaps they are afraid all the fun will be over and the Leviathan eaten up before they arrive." "Fools there are always in the world," replied the Russian, "and their piety cannot give them brains. These literal folk are the sort who imagine that the Temple expanded miraculously, because the Talmud says howsoever great a multitude flocked to worship therein, there was always room for them. Do you not see what a fine metaphor that is! Even so the Third Temple will be of the Spirit, not of Fire, as these literal materialists translate the prophecy. As the prophet Joel says, 'I will pour out my Spirit. Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions,' And this Spirit is working to-day. But through our own souls. No Messiah will ever come from a split heaven. If a Christian does anything wrong, it is the individual; if a Jew, it is the nation. Why? Because we have no country, and hence are set apart in all countries. But a country we must and shall have. The fact that we still dream of our land shows that it is to be ours again. Without a country we are dead. Without us the land is dead. It has been waiting for us. Why has no other nation possessed it and cultivated it?" "Why? Why do the ducks go barefoot?" The German quoted the Yiddish proverb with a sneer. "The land waits for us," replied the young Russian fervidly, "so that we may complete our mission. Jerusalem--whose very name means the heritage of double Peace--must be the watch-tower of Peace on earth. The nations shall be taught to compete neither with steel weapons nor with gold, but with truth and purity. Every man shall be taught that he exists for another man, else were men as the beasts. And thus at last 'the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.'" "If they would only remain covering the sea!" said the German irreverently, as the spray of a wave swept over his mattress. "Those who have lost this faith are no longer Jews," curtly replied the Russian. "Without this hope the preservation of the Jewish race is a superstition. Let the Jews be swallowed up in the nations--and me in the sea. If I thought that Israel's hope was a lie I should jump overboard." The German shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly. "You and the Egyptian woman are a pair."