Saul Isaac finds his chief pleasure in attendance at synagogue, and it is a question open to debate which affords him the most pleasure, the sermons of the _Maggid_ or the gossip and anecdotes in which the congregation indulges in the intervals of services.
As for Sarah, she is so thoroughly Judaized, so punctual and exact in the fulfilment of her religious duties, so particular in maintaining the _Kosher_ character of her household and such a fluent speaker of the Russo-Jewish jargon, that one would never suspect in her anything but a genuine Russian Jewess, native and to the manner born. Their children have grown up to be handsome and talented young men and women, good Jews and good Americans.
Saul Isaac and Sarah are happy and contented. No tinge of regret for their former state ever enters their hearts. But often as they worship in the synagogue there comes spontaneously to their lips the words of Solomon: “Blessed be the Lord God, who hath given rest to His people Israel.”
Moses Levinsky awoke with a start upon his humble couch in the little hall bedroom in the sixth story of the immense and crowded tenement-house in Eldridge Street, New York City, in which he dwelt. He very much feared that he had overslept himself and would be late at the early morning service of the Congregation Sons of Peace. The light which shown through the narrow window of his room was much brighter than the pale illumination which usually greeted his early waking eyes and seemed to show that the day was further advanced. A glance at the cheap silver watch which lay upon his trousers on the chair next to his bed showed him that his apprehensions were only too well founded.
The Congregation Sons of Peace invariably began its devotions at 6 A.M. Moses Levinsky was in the habit of rising at half-past five; his toilet and the walk to the little meeting-room in the next block required twenty-five minutes, and he was regularly in his place five minutes before the voice of the _Chazan_ or precentor, chanting in classic Hebrew, “Exalted be the living God and praised,” betokened that the service of adoration and supplication, with which modern Israel supplies the place of the ancient sacrificial worship, had begun. But to-day the watch which usually indicated about a quarter past five when he first glanced at it in the early mornings, stood at half-past six. The congregation had already been engaged in prayer for a full half-hour, and he could hardly hope to be with them before the services, which usually lasted somewhat less than an hour, were concluded. Watches and clocks are obstinate creatures. They persist in their opinions, which can be plainly read in their faces. They care not at all how disagreeable or unpleasant their statements may be to those who consult them, and they can neither be reasoned with nor stared out of countenance. And so Moses Levinsky’s watch did not recede at all for all the hard stares which that rather confused individual directed at it; but, on the contrary, advanced a minute or so, while he, who had now risen upon his side and rested upon his left arm, gazed at it with puzzled and rueful countenance.