A great Voice.  The man sometimes leaned over the Roll of the Law, sometimes he stood upright, always his great Voice went up and down and rolled along the roof and echoed along the benches of the women’s gallery.  Now the Voice sounded a note of rejoicing; now, but less often, a note of sadness; now it was a sharp and sudden cry of triumph.  Then the people shouted with him—­it was as if they clashed sword on shield and yelled for victory; now it was a note of defiance, as when men go forth to fight an enemy; now it sank to a murmur, as of one who consoles and soothes and promises things to come; now it was a note of rapture, as if the Promised Land was already recovered.

Was all that in the Voice?  Did the congregation, all sitting wrapped in their white robes, feel these emotions as the Voice thundered and rolled?  I know not.  Such was the effect produced upon one who heard this Voice for the first time.  At first it seemed loud, even barbaric; there was lacking something which the listener and stranger had learned to associate with worship.  What was it?  Reverence?  But she presently found reverence In plenty, only of a kind that differed from that of Christian worship.  Then the listener made another discovery.  In this ancient service she missed the note of humiliation.  There was no Litany at a Faldstool.  There was no kneeling in abasement; there was no appearance of penitence, sorrow, or the confession of sins.  The Voice was as the Voice of a Captain exhorting his soldiers to fight.  The service was warlike, the service of a people whose trust in their God is so great that they do not need to call perpetually upon Him for the help and forgiveness of which they are assured.  Yes, yes—­she thought—­this is the service of a race of warriors; they are fighting men:  the Lord is their God; He is leading them to battle:  as for little sins, and backslidings, and penitences, they belong to the Day of Atonement—­which comes once a year.  For all the other days in the year, battle and victory occupy all the mind.  The service of a great fighting people; a service full of joy, full of faith, full of assurance, full of hope and confidence—­such assurance as few Christians can understand, and of faith to which few Christians can attain.  Perhaps Francesca was wrong; but these were her first impressions, and these are mostly true.

In the body of the synagogue men came late.  Under one gallery was a school of boys, in the charge of a graybeard, who, book in hand, followed the service with one eye, while he admonished perpetually the boys to keep still and to listen.  The boys grew restless; it was tedious to them—­the Voice which expressed so much to the stranger who knew no Hebrew at all was tedious to the children; they were allowed to get up and run into the court outside and then to come back again; nobody heeded their going in and out.  One little boy of three, wrapped, like the rest, in a white Talleth, ran up and down the side aisle without being heeded—­even by the splendid Beadle with the gold-laced hat, which looked so truly wonderful above the Oriental Talleth.  The boys in the choir got up and went in and out just as they pleased.  Nobody minded.  The congregation, mostly well-to-do men with silk hats, sat in their places, book in hand, and paid no attention.