“Indeed, I have heard some of our people say that they would rather go to the Arabs for treatment than enter the Missionary Hospital!  Therefore those who cannot nurse the sick ones at home take them to the Bikkur-Holim, which a doctor visits once every few days.  A mother, wife, or father goes with the patients to give them the necessary food and medicine, for in the Bikkur-Cholem there are no trained nurses.  The relatives also keep the patients clean and tidy; but little cooking is done there, as the food is generally brought cooked from the patients’ homes.

“I once went to visit the Bikkur-Cholem.  One patient I saw had a jug of cold water brought to her, and, though her own lips were very parched, she would not take even one sip, but had the water given to those near her, who, in a very high state of fever, were clamouring for water.  Other patients I saw were cheerfully and willingly sharing their food with those who had none.  Until I had visited that Bikkur-Cholem I had never realized what real charity meant.  For these sufferers, in their love and thoughtfulness and genuine self-sacrifice towards fellow-sufferers less fortunate than themselves, were obeying in spirit as well as in the letter the time-honoured commandment given us ’to love one’s neighbour as oneself.’

“The arrangements in the Bikkur-Cholem are most insanitary; disinfectants are unheard of; and I greatly pitied the poor unfortunates that have to go there.”

Mr. Jacob was too overcome by his feelings to continue—­so for a few minutes there was a deep silence.  Then one of the listeners said:  “One is thankful to remember that this letter was written fifty years ago, and conditions must have improved since our writer first went to Palestine.”

“Yes, thank God!” replied kind-hearted Mr Jacob; and then he continued reading the letter.

“Most of the patients die; but a few get cured and leave.  If they do, it is certainly more through faith in God’s love and mercy than through the remedies they receive while there.

“Now, I want to tell you of a voluntary service which respectable, well-to-do men and women, and even scholars, do, for the poor who die.  These kind folk are called ‘the Chevra Kadisha.’  No doubt because of the heat, there is a strict law that no one who dies in Palestine is allowed to remain unburied long; and it is believed here that the dead continue to suffer until they are entombed.  So the custom is to bury within twelve hours every one who dies.  The Chevra Kadisha look upon such a deed as a Mitzvoth.  If a poor woman dies, one of these kind women at once goes to wash the corpse and lay it out ready to be put on the bier—­then when all the relatives and friends of the deceased have given vent to their sorrow by weeping, some men and some scholars belonging to the Chevra Kadisha voluntarily carry the bier on their shoulders to the place of burial (which I think is the Mount of Olives), while others dig the grave and a scholar or two read the Prayers over the Dead.