The rest of the “remnant” that were met to save Israel looked more commonplace—­a furrier, a slipper-maker, a locksmith, an ex-glazier (Mendel Hyams), a confectioner, a Melammed or Hebrew teacher, a carpenter, a presser, a cigar-maker, a small shop-keeper or two, and last and least, Moses Ansell.  They were of many birthplaces—­Austria, Holland, Poland, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain—­yet felt themselves of no country and of one.  Encircled by the splendors of modern Babylon, their hearts turned to the East, like passion-flowers seeking the sun.  Palestine, Jerusalem, Jordan, the Holy Land were magic syllables to them, the sight of a coin struck in one of Baron Edmund’s colonies filled their eyes with tears; in death they craved no higher boon than a handful of Palestine earth sprinkled over their graves.

But Guedalyah the greengrocer was not the man to encourage idle hopes.  He explained his scheme lucidly—­without highfalutin.  They were to rebuild Judaism as the coral insect builds its reefs—­not as the prayer went, “speedily and in our days.”

They had brought themselves up to expect more and were disappointed.  Some protested against peddling little measures—­like Pinchas they were for high, heroic deeds.  Joseph Strelitski, student and cigar commission agent, jumped to his feet and cried passionately in German:  “Everywhere Israel groans and travails—­must we indeed wait and wait till our hearts are sick and strike never a decisive blow?  It is nigh two thousand years since across the ashes of our Holy Temple we were driven into the Exile, clanking the chains of Pagan conquerors.  For nigh two thousand years have we dwelt on alien soils, a mockery and a byword for the nations, hounded out from every worthy employ and persecuted for turning to the unworthy, spat upon and trodden under foot, suffusing the scroll of history with our blood and illuminating it with the lurid glare of the fires to which our martyrs have ascended gladly for the Sanctification of the Name.  We who twenty centuries ago were a mighty nation, with a law and a constitution and a religion which have been the key-notes of the civilization of the world, we who sat in judgment by the gates of great cities, clothed in purple and fine linen, are the sport of peoples who were then roaming wild in woods and marshes clothed in the skins of the wolf and the bear.  Now in the East there gleams again a star of hope—­why shall we not follow it?  Never has the chance of the Restoration flamed so high as to-day.  Our capitalists rule the markets of Europe, our generals lead armies, our great men sit in the Councils of every State.  We are everywhere—­a thousand thousand stray rivulets of power that could be blent into a mighty ocean.  Palestine is one if we wish—­the whole house of Israel has but to speak with a mighty unanimous voice.  Poets will sing for us, journalists write for us, diplomatists haggle for us, millionaires pay the price for us.  The sultan would restore