They defend their cause in the midst of a hell-fire. Our ancient people that has lived so long, has now experienced the greatest of wars, such as has never been in the world before. We live to-day in the most critical period of the world’s history. It has been our lot to share in the greatest drama which humanity has as yet lived through, not only as spectators, but also as actors. The history of this world war is written in letters of blood on the ancient and holy parchment, on the brow of the Jew. No seismograph has indicated beforehand the coming of this earthquake, of this outburst of the volcano of the nations. But _one thing_ the Zionists have foreseen: the force of national consciousness; the flood of hate, our pitiful situation, which cause every storm to tear away the ground from under our feet. Herzl had written his first pamphlet under the influence of the Dreyfus affair. That cry of twenty years ago thunders now in unison with the cries of mothers, wives, orphans, from underneath the pyres and ruins which in their brutal reality leave the worst imaginings of a _Jeremiah_ far behind. The dead arise from their graves, covered with blood, trampled in the dust, with the fiery name of God, the “_Shaddai_,” on their pale foreheads, and they demand to be heard. They lament, and say: “Vainly we strove to secure a little life――we could not grasp it. Withered with sufferings, with pain and injury, shivering and frozen with cold, we used to hug the earth closely, but it would not give us warmth. We were teachers of the most ancient peoples, but death and insult were the recompense paid us by our pupils. We shone like the stars, but we were treated like silkworms, which have to die, so soon as they have spun the fine web of their threads, so soon as they have drawn forth and sacrificed their life-blood――they have fulfilled their duty, and farewell!