avoided the house more than he himself did. He spent most of his time at a schoolmate’s and was rarely seen in the house. Since the oldest brother had become a Christian he had avoided the house still more. In this avoidance of the house the doctor saw a personal insult to himself. “The child avoids me,” he said to himself. This made him feel still worse and he would think: “Why does he avoid me?” And once when he was told that Solomon had not come home for two nights (those were the first nights after the arrival of the apostate), the doctor sought the boy out at his friend’s and spoke to him: “Why don’t you come home? Why do you run from the house?” “I run from the house? It is you, father, who runs from the house,” the boy answered boldly. In the answer the doctor heard the whole inner truth--that he was lonely and avoided the house which he had built up; in this answer he heard the whole poverty, the whole forlornness of the situation in which he found himself, and he ceased to trouble his son with further questions. The doctor began to take great interest in what was going on among the Jews. He read Russo-Jewish newspapers, thought much of Jewish interests, and found that a new Jewish life was beginning in Palestine, that Jews were emigrating there, and becoming farmers; that there was hope of a Jewish state being founded, where Judaism could develop freely and frankly to a strong and rich fruition. Palestine awoke in the doctor the memories of his childhood years, of his father, the storekeeper in a little town. He began to remember the Jewish holidays that his mother had always kept;--the Jewish Sabbath, when she lit candles; the congregation in which he had prayed; the Jewish Passover, when all in the house was so clean, and the family gathered at the Seder. It seemed to him that all this was closely related to Palestine; that it came from Palestine. And there, in the new Palestine this all would show itself stronger and freer, and the greater Judaism would begin to develop. His eyes were suddenly opened and he beheld in Palestine the great Jewish hope, so great, so holy, that repaid Jews for their suffering, that gave Jews the courage and the strength to bear all pain and insult for its sake. Palestine gave compensation for all. He remembered, as in a dream, the Bible and the pictures in the Bible, and his father. The pious storekeeper’s life suddenly grew more interesting to him. He saw a certain relationship between his father, the poor, forlorn Jew in his little home town, and the heroes of the Bible. It was Palestine that bound them together. His father, the storekeeper, came from the same land that knew Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He loved the same life they loved, and had the same duties and customs they had. But here, in exile, where he was oppressed he could not live like the patriarchs, the tillers of the soil, the shepherds. Here he had but the Sabbath and the Passover that the Patriarchs had;