wear them, and, what is more, take a real pleasure in wearing them.  I asked some of them why they wore them so openly, and they answered:  ’Because when we look at them we always remember that our chief duty in life is to try to obey God’s commands, and if we had them tucked away out of sight we should forget to be obedient.’  ‘Besides,’ they said, ‘we are commanded in the Torah to do so openly.’  Then I told them if we wore them so openly in Europe we should perhaps be laughed at by some people and made fun of.  They said:  ’Why should doing so make us be laughed at by other nations?  Do we laugh at the symbols and charms that many of them wear?  Every nation,’ they said, ’has its tokens and symbols, and we Jews have ours, and we should rejoice in wearing ours when they are to help us to feel that God is near us when we think and act rightly.’  All this made me think very seriously, and in a way I had never thought before.  I began to realize that they were more in the right than we Jews are in England.

“So now I have decided to wear my tsitsith, too, on the outside, as the Jerusalem boys do.  The boys never play except on the quiet, just now and then, for their parents think that their only duty in life is to study and do as many Mitzvoth as they can.  Really, the boys are as full of fun and pranks as we English boys, and they just love a bit of play and larking when they can get it.

“I must now end this letter, but I have a lot more to tell you, and I will keep my promise and write you by degrees of all I see.  Meanwhile, I send you the greeting of Zion and Sabbath.  Rachael wanted to put a letter into my envelope to your sister, but she says she has not finished it yet, although she has already written ten pages.  So I will wait no longer, in case I miss the post, as it goes only once a week from here, and sometimes only once a month.”

Thus ended the first letter, and Benjamin’s brothers and sisters were so pleased with it that they were delighted that one of the bundle of letters should be read aloud after the Sabbath meal on every Friday evening.

Benjamin was quite happy now, for, although he had done a thing which was not right, now that he had repented good would come out of it, for there was a chance of their now having pleasanter and more instructive Sabbath evenings than they had ever had before.  Besides, he now made up his mind always to wear his tsitsith.

THE WELCOME

On the following Friday, after the Sabbath evening meal, the boys asked their father to read them another letter from his cousin in Jerusalem.  He was pleased at their eagerness, and, while Upstairs getting the letter, some of the boys’ friends came in and settled comfortably down, for all were eager to hear the letter read.

Mr Jacob said:  “This time I will read a letter from your Cousin Dora to my sister which will certainly interest you, my dear,” turning to his daughter, “but at the same time, I think it will interest you all.”