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ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT A Chief Rabbi of Palestine. On a day in last July, as I was walking up one of the streets of Jerusalem, and as I neared a Jewish synagogue and Company House, suddenly a ’woman began screaming in one of the rooms of the house and calling for help, as I interpreted her words, and there were also sounds of beating. I supposed the woman was the unfortunate wife of some drunken Jew, and was being beaten by her in toxicated husband, for such things do happen even in Jerusalem “the holy.” Men and women began running to the place. When I was opposite the room whence the sounds proceeded, I looked in through an open window, and saw a noisy company gathered around a bed. The strange demonstra tions witnessed, with a strong smell of carbolic acid instead of whiskey convinced me that it was a case of sickness and death rather than of drunkenness. So it proved, for Jacob Saul Elyashar, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, had just breathed his last. When the sad news began to spread the lamentations w*ere by no means confined to the immediate relatives and friends, for the rabbi seemed to be much honored and respected. He was about ninety years old. Contrary to the usual custom which is to bury on the same day (sometimes late at night) on which the death occurs, and as soon after the death as possible, his body was not buried until the next day (Sunday). The funeral was the most largely attended of any which have been here for years. Os course there were loud wailings ana other wild demonstrations, but the strangest part of the per formance happened when the gate of the cemetery was reached. This was near what is called “Absa lom’s Pillar” or tomb (2 Sam. 18:18), the cemetery being on the slopes of the “Mbunt of Offense” <1 Kings 11:7). east of the city. At the gate the body was removed from the open bier in which it was being borne (the Jews here use : o coffins), placed upon the ground, cords fastened to it, and literally dragged up the hill to the tomb. This great indignity shown the body was in accordance with the positively expressed and written will of the deceased, only it may be that it was his inten tion that the body be dragged all the way from his home. It was a punishment which he claimed was deserved by some great sin or sins he had commit ted and which had not been atoned for. This remarkable requirement is not without its precedent among former high Jewish officials in Jerusalem. The most interesting case of the kind on record is The Story of Kolonimos, Who lived about two hundred years ago, and was Chief Rabbi of the poverty-stricken and much persecuted community of Jews then living in Jeru salem. One morning the body of a murdered Mo hammedan boy was found in the Jewish quarter. Immediately the crime was laid to the Jews, and the Mohammedan population became much excited, threatening to kill all the Jews unless they would forthwith bring out the murderer of the boy The rabbi was engaged in his devotions at the Jews’ Wailing Place, when the alarming news reached him. Almost immediately he was seized by the enraged Mohammedans, and violently hurried away to the government house, and arraigned before the Pasha or governor. The pasha, after some investigation, pointing to the body of the murdered boy which had been brought into court, said, as the body had been found in the Jewish quarter, it was evident the boy had been murdered by a Jew, and informed the rabbi that, unless he and his people produced the murderer, then vengeance would be wreaked upon the Jews. The situation was indeed critical for the Jews. It is said that the rabbi called for writing materials, and hurriedly wrote something on a piece of paper, and, •while solemnly repeating some mysterious in cantations, applied the paper to the lips and fore head of the corpse. The boy came to life, sprang to his feet, seized a Moslem who was standing near by, exclaimed: “This is the man who murdered The Golden Age for November 29, 1906. By P. L. STANTON. me!” and instantly fell back dead. The accused man pleaded guilty to the charge which had been made. Thus the Jews were, miraculously, as they claimed, delivered from their great danger. Alas for the rabbi! it was the Sabbath day, and he had committed the grievous sin of profaning the day by writing a little on a paper'and repeating some incantations, and, though he diligently prac ticed penance on account of it during the remainder of his life, the time was tco short for him to atone for the sin, so he left in his last will the instruction that, when he was dead, his body should not be hon ored with regular burial, but should be conveyed to the western brink of the Kidron Valley, rolled down into the valley, and stones heaped upon it at the point where it might stop. Then, afterward, every time a Jew passed that way he was to throw a stone upon the heap in derision such as is prac ticed by the Jews as to “Absalom’s Pillar” or tomb, a short distance above the grave. As the peo ple regarded him as a great and holy man, they did not at first fully carry out his instructions, but ventured to put a tomb-slab over his grave, but the next morning the slab was found to be broken in pieces. So it was, in regular succession, with other stones placed over the grave, until the people de cided to carry out his injunctions. Thus there be- THE GRAVE OF KOLONIMOS. came a great heap of stones on the grave. After many years the custom changed, and it became com mon for Jews, when starting on long journeys, to carry some of ti e stones with them so as to insure their safe and happy return. At this time it seeing to be the custom of devout Jews to bring a stone for the grave to take the place of the one which they carry away, and the heap reamins about the same in size. A few days ago, while myself and some friends were standing near the grave, a devout Jewish wo man came along, prostrated herself upon the heap of stones, lovingly kissed them, deposited the stone she had brought, and carried another away. We were disapointed that our cameras were not ready in time to get a picture. Presently a Moslem wo man came along, and we made an effort to hire her to sit upon the heap to have her picture made, but her price was exorbitant. A little later anoth er Jew woman came, and the accompanying engrav ing will give some idea of what one of the cameras secured. The prostrate, ghost-like figure, was not posing, for a picture, but seemed totally oblivious of our presence. Though, of course, the story of Kolonimos is not true in all of its details, there are certainly good reasons for accepting some important parts of it. The unreasonable requirement made by the enrag ed Moslems and the pasha is quite in keeping with much more recent history in this land. Even at this day, owing to the superstitious feelings in many of the natives here, such a rabbi might succeed in detecting a criminal in a crow r d of people. No less a personage than Ibrahim Pasha did something of the kind at Jaffa. He did it while he was having the shop-dcor of a goldsmith wiped for allowing a thief to rob the shop. Kolonimos might have se lected the guilty man by closely watching the crowd while practicing his mysterious art. He might have been able to go to the extreme of suddenly lifting the corpse to an upright position, and speaking for him. How the Stolen Medal Was Found. A story given me a few days ago will give some insight into the character of some superstitions which still cling to the people of this land. The one who tells the story holds an important position in connection with one of the high officials of Je rusalem and is noted for his truthfulness. He was then a boy and the one who was used as the medium by the shaik, and fully believes the whole story, but does not understand the art used. His grown brother had a fine gold medal which mysteriously disappeared. It was believed that the demonsi known as the Jinn or Jan had something to do in the matter. The owner of the medal called to his aid a shaik (an Arab chief) who was famed for his skill in the mysterious arts. Instructing the boy that he was to closely watch the liquid and tell what he saw, the shaik poured some kind of spir its into a plate, and began to stir it, all the time repeating some mysterious formula. Presently the boy began to see strange figures moving around in the liquid. These he believed to be the jinn. By and by they brought in a woman, who was carrying a large jar of olives, but packed in the center of the olives was the lost medal. He gave a descrip tion of the woman, and it exactly fitted t > a woman living some distance away. The company repaired to the house of the woman, found the jar of olives, and the owner of the lost medal on breaking open the jar found the medal just as it had been seen by the boy. Jerusalem, Palestine, October, 1906. My Love For Thee. My love for thee doth take me unaware When most with lesser things my brain is wrought, As in some nimble interchange of thought The silence enters and the talkers stare; Suddenly I am still and thou art there, A viewless visitant and unbesought, And all my being opens like a prayer. Thou art the lifted chalice in my soul And I a dim church at the thought of thee; And all my thinking trembles into naught Brief though the moment be, the mass is said, The benediction like an aureole Is on my spirit, and shuddering through me A rapture like the rapture of the dead. —Richard Hovey. An Essay on Habit. The school visitor in a New England town, an elderly man, offered a prize for the best composi tion on “How to Overcome Habit,” to be written in five minutes. When the compositions 'were read the following, handed in by a lad of ten years, was declared the prize-winner: “Habit is hard to overcome. If you take off the first letter it doesn’t change a bit. Take off another letter and still you have a bit left. Take off an other letter, and the whole of it remains. If you take off another, it is not all used up; all of which goes to show that if you want to get rid of a habit you must throw it off altogether.”—Ex. The currency system of the United States, like the spelling of English words, has long been regard ed by a great many persons as unnecessarily cum bersome. It has not been easy, however, to convince the treasury department of its own defects but it is hoped that some of the most objectionable feat ures will be finally changed. The chief one of these is - that the present issue of currency does not pro vide for the expansion and contraction of the circu lation medium to meet the demands of emergencies. 7