Now, if for penance we substitute Mitzvoth, we find in this passage almost the caricature of the Jewish theory that meets us in the writings of German theologians. These ill-equipped critics of Judaism put it forward seriously that the Jew performs Mitzvoth in order to accumulate merit (Zechuth), and some of them even go so far as to assert that the Jew thinks of his Zechuth as irresistible. But when the matter is put frankly and squarely, as Professor Monier Williams puts it, not even the Germans could have the effrontery to assert that Judaism teaches or tolerates any such doctrine. Whatever man does, he has no merit towards God: that is Jewish teaching. Yet conduct counts, and somehow the good man and the bad man are not in the same case. Judaism may be inconsistent, but it is certainly not base in its teaching as to conduct and retribution. "Be not as servants who minister in the hope of receiving reward"-this is not the highest level of Jewish doctrine, it is the average level. Lately I have been reading a good deal of mystical Jewish literature, and I have been struck by the repeated use made of the famous Rabbinical saying of Antigonos of Socho just cited. One wonders whether, after all, justice is done to the Hindus. One sees how easily Jewish teaching can be distorted into a doctrine of calculated Zechuth. Are the Hindus being misjudged equally? Certainly, in some cases this must be so, for Professor Oman, with his remarkably sympathetic insight, records experiences such as this more than once (p. 147). He is describing one of the Jain ascetics, and remarks: "His personal appearance gave the impression of great suffering, and his attendants all had the same appearance, contrasting very much indeed with the ordinary Sadhus of other sects. And wherefore this austere rejection of the world's goods, wherefore all this self-inflicted misery? Is it to attain a glorious Heaven hereafter, a blessed existence after death? No! It is, as the old monk explained to me, only to escape rebirth--for the Jain believes in the transmigration of souls--and to attain rest." Other ascetics gave similar explanations. Thus (p. 100): "The Christian missionary entered into conversation with the Hermit (a Bairagi from the Upper Provinces), and learned from him that he had adopted a life of abstraction and isolation from the world, neither to expiate any sin, nor to secure any reward. He averred that he had no desires and no hopes, but that, being removed from the agitations of the worldly life, he was full of tranquil joy." VI LOST PURIM JOYS It is scarcely accurate to assert, as is sometimes done, that the most characteristic of the Purim pranks of the past were children of the Ghetto, and came to a natural end when the Ghetto walls fell. In point of fact, most of these joys originated before the era of the Ghetto, and others were introduced for the first time when Ghetto life was about to fade away into history.