passion of his soul, always hushed the excited overstrung audience. Thus the sombre, dun-colored February afternoon faded into twilight and then into the darker gloom of night and still the Conference waited for the discussion of the one subject on which all interest had gradually concentred. The executive had meanwhile lost its hold over the delegates. The young Zionists led by the dauntless de Haas had given no unmistakeable indication of their views and sympathies and it was quite evident in what direction the Conference was leaning. It was in the last hour that Gaster secured his triumph. Gathering his forces under his immediate wing for a final assault he sent up speaker after speaker to demonstrate in favor of the Vienna resolution. The speakers were each restricted to five minutes and the speeches resembled the short sharp rattle of small artillery discharges. The end came with an overwhelming victory for union with
Dr. Herzl's organization. The Chovevi Zionists were routed, overthrown, vanquished, never to rise again, and England had joined the party of the Jewish State.
the Jewish State.It was Gaster's triumph; a purely personalachievement. It is not possible to doubt, butthat for him the Chovevi Zion would have remained in possession of the field and the nationalmovement robbed of a valuable auxiliary.
Gaster's ability and devotion to the cause have made him a leading personage in the highest Zionistic Councils; and he has on many an occasion distinguished himself by his powerful oratory. I know how he can move the masses by the power of his sustained eloquence, — but I have never known him to excel in the consummate art of his intellectual powers which he exhibited in their full distinction on that memorable Sunday.
J. FRIEDLANDER.
The Men of the Great Assembly
WHILE Jewish history as a whole forms a well connected chain, beginning with the remotest antiquity and continuing to the present day, there are still some periods, and the most important ones, that have not yet been thoroughly investigated because the material handed down to us is scanty and insufficient. One of these periods is that immediately following the return of the Babylonian exiles.
The change that occurred then in the religiousdevelopment of Israel — and the religious development of Israel can by no means be separatedfrom its national development — must have beentremendous. That in the course of only seventyyears a nation should be so transformed, sochanged in its life and in its ambitions, andchanged for all time, seems nothing less than amiracle. Idolatry, against which our greatestprophets fought so zealously, so strenuously,and with so little success, entirely and foreverdisappears during this period. The most stubborn and insubordinate of nations, a nation thatclosed its ears to the warnings of prophet andpriest, and upon whom the oratory of the mostgifted had had no influence, suddenly becomesattentive to the words of the prophets and builds atemple, listens to the admonitions of Ezra and Nehemiah, and forsakes deep-rooted affections, partswith most valuable possessions and binds itself to
a stringent code of laws of which it theretofore knew very little. It is indeed a miracle that the Jewish conception of morality, equity and reli- egion, did not perish from the face of the earth.
Soon after the return from Babylon, Zerubbabel, the scion of the house of David, disappears, and Joshua, the highpriest, becomes the head of the state. Judea now forms a theocracy and continues thus for about two hundred years. The pernicious results of the union of the spiritual and temporal power in one person were made patent in the early days of this young commonwealth, when the highpriest Johanan killed his brother Joshua because the latter succeeded in ingratiating himself with Bagoses, a general of Artaxerxes II. That such a despotic hierarchy to which Judea was now tending, did not blast the cherished hopes of centuries, was due chiefly to the religious zeal, patriotism and forethought of Ezra and Nehemiah. Not that they were in the least conscious of the immense results of their work — there was no conscious intention on their part to oppose the power of priesthood; but their endeavors in an entirely different direction proved a wholesome antidote. Favoring, as they did, a theocracy, it was the aim of these two great leaders to organize the new nation of Jews on the basis of the Bible. For that they strove, and to their endeavors is due