that we shall be able to say, not as a pious and distant wish, but as a near and confident hope: “‘לשנה הבאה בירושלם.‏’ ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’” The Chief Rabbi said it was indeed a rare privilege to take part in that wonderful meeting called together to express the heartfelt thanks of British Jewry for the striking sympathy of His Majesty’s Government with Jewish aspirations. The epoch-making Declaration on Palestine was an assurance given by the mightiest of empires that the new order which the Allies are now creating at such sacrifice of life and treasure shall be rooted in righteousness, and broad-based on the liberty of, and reverence for, _every_ oppressed nationality. It was a solemn pledge that the oldest of national tragedies shall be ended in the coming readjustment of the nations which shall console mankind for the slaughter and waste and torment of this terrible world-war. In the face of an event of such infinite importance to the Jewish people, ordinary words of appreciation or the usual phrases of gratitude were hopelessly weak and inadequate. For the interpretation of their true feelings to-day they must turn to Scripture. Twenty-five hundred years ago Cyrus issued his edict of liberation to the Jewish exiles in Babylon; and an eye-witness of that glorious day had left them in the 126th Psalm a record of how their fathers received the announcement of their deliverance:―― “When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, We were like unto them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing; Then said they among the nations: ‘The Lord hath done great things with these.’ The Lord hath done great things with us; We are rejoiced.” Theirs was a similar feeling of joy and wonder. With them likewise it was the astonishment of the nations, the reassuring approbation of statesmen and rulers that caused them to exclaim: “We will see it done, and done consummately, the thing so many have thought could never be done!” The spirit of the Declaration was that of absolute justice, whether to Jews out of Palestine, or to non-Jews in Palestine. They especially welcomed in it the reference to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. That was but a translation of the basic principles of the Mosaic legislation. But it was the substance of the Declaration――the promise of a National Home for the Jewish people――that filled their souls with gladness. For only on its own soil could the Jewish people live its own life, and make, as in the past it had made, its characteristic and specific contributions to the spiritual treasure of humanity.