The washing of the hands preceded prayer, because nothing impure was to appear before the purest of Beings. Helon next covered his head with his mantle, a sort of tallith. This mantle had at the four corners fringes, which were called zizis, consisting of eight double twisted threads of wool, whose azure colour had a reference to the heavens, with five tassels for the five books of the law. The use of these fringes had been commanded by God himself to the children of Israel, “That they might look upon them and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and seek not after their own heart and their own eyes.”[20] He next bound the phylacteries, called tephillim, on his forehead and his left arm, in such a way, that the strings of the first hung upon his breast, and the latter were wound seven times round the fore-arm, then across the fore-finger and the thumb, and finally three times round the middle finger. These phylacteries were little cases, containing strips of parchment, on which the following sentences of the law were written. Deut. v. 11, 13-21. Exod. xiii. 11-16. Deut. vi. 4-9. and Exod. xiii. 1-10. of which the Lord had commanded “They shall be for a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes.”[21] In the phylactery for the forehead there were four strips, in that for the left arm only one. Footnote 20: Num. xv. 38. Footnote 21: Deut. vi. 8. He now placed himself with his face towards Jerusalem and prayed the _Kri-schma_, a prayer which consisted of these three passages from the books of Moses; Deut. vi. 4-9. in which it is commanded to love and honour God alone; Deut. xi. 13-21. where the promises are given for the fulfilling of the law; and Numb. xv. 37-41. where it is required that the commandments be diligently kept. He concluded all with a prayer to God, as being, in every act of religious worship, the beginning and the end, the centre to which every thing tends. Having performed his devotions, he descended with a cheerful heart from the roof, and laid himself beside Elisama in the portico. At the first cock-crowing he arose; for strengthened and animated by hope he had little need of sleep. He went first to the alija, and having repeated the ceremonies of the preceding evening, and again concluded with an act of praise to God, he roused the slaves and bade them lead the laden camels to the gate. His mother came, with eyes red with weeping, from the apartment of the women. The sun was rising at that moment, and Elisama approaching her, tried to console her with the words of the eighty-fourth Psalm, The Lord God is a sun and shield, The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee! “Yes,” she exclaimed, Turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me, For I am desolate and afflicted.