And now, so heralded, and in truth so advertised, for what a bill-posting agency would do for similar worthies in this generation a certain Nathan Benjamin of Jerusalem seems to have done in clumsier fashion for Sabbathai, their hero was among them. Nathan, it is to be feared, was less of a convert than a colleague of our prophet, but to tear-dimmed eyes which saw visions, to starved hearts which by reason of sorrow judged in hunger and in weakness, prophet and partner both loomed heroic. It is curious, when one thinks of it, that the same race which had been critical over a Moses should have been credulous over a Sabbathai Zevi. Is it a possible explanation that the art of making bricks without straw, however difficult of acquirement, being at any rate of the nature of healthy, outdoor employment, was less depressing in its results on character than the cumulative effect of centuries of Ghetto-bounded toil? Something, too, may be allowed for the fact that the Promised Land lay then in prospect and now in retrospect. Altogether, perhaps, it may be urged in this instance that the idol does not quite give an accurate measure of the worshipper. A Deliverer was at their doors, a Deliverer from worse than Egyptian bondage; that was all that this poor deluded people could stop to think, and out they rushed in ludicrous, reverent welcome of a light that was not dawn. With a fine appreciation of effect, Sabbathai gently put aside the rich embroidered cloths that were spread beneath his feet; and this subtle indication of humility, and of a desire to tread the dusty paths with his brethren, gained him many a wavering adherent. For there were waverers. Even amidst all the enthusiasm, there was now and then an awkward question asked, for these shabby traders of Smyrna were all of them more or less learned in the Law and the Prophets, and though their tired hearts could accept this blustering, unideal presentment of the Prince of Peace, yet their minds and memories made occasional protest concerning dates and circumstances. And presently one Samuel Pennia, a man of some local reputation, took heart of grace, and preached and proclaimed with a hundred most obvious arguments that Sabbathai had no smallest claim to the titles he was arrogantly assuming. Law and logic too were on Pennia’s side; and yet, strange and incomprehensible as it seems to sober retrospect, he failed to convince even himself. After discussions innumerable and of the stormiest sort, Pennia began to doubt and to hesitate, and finally he and all his family became strenuous and, there is no reason to doubt, honest supporters of Sabbathai. Still the tumults which had been provoked, though they could not rouse the multitude to a doubt of their Deliverer, did awake in them a desire that he should deign to demonstrate his power to unbelievers, and a cry, comic or pathetic as we take it, broke forth for a miracle--a simultaneous prayer for something, anything, supernatural. It was