Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/103

Rh wanted, and then put the shemeer upon the pencil mark. As it crawled along, the stone split asunder, not merely taking the required form, but assuming the beautiful polish which made the Temple the wonder of the world.

Half-way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is a little domed building known as the tomb of Rachel, regarded as a sacred place by Jews, Moslems, and Christians alike. Here we heard a story of the child Joseph. When sold to the Midianites he escaped from their caravan and wandered, footsore and hungry, to Bethlehem, which, by the way, is some four days march from Dothan, and hence to the grave of his mother Rachel, where, throwing himself on the ground, he wept aloud, and sang to a heart-breaking melody in Yiddish:

Thereupon the voice of his beloved mother, Rachel, was heard from the grave, comforting him, and bidding him be of good cheer, for that his future should be great and glorious. How from hence he proceeded to Egypt to fulfil his destiny does not appear.

The Samaritans have precisely the same stories as to the curative virtues of the Passover lamb as may be found in many Christian Churches as to those of the consecrated elements. In the P.E.F., 1902, in an article descriptive of the celebration of the Feast in 1898, the author relates that a woman in the congregation became very ill, and that a cry was raised to remove her to a tent outside, lest the camp should be defiled by a dead body. Only Moslems might touch her, as of course a Samaritan so doing would become unclean. Later, some of her friends, seeing that she was not to die immediately, brought her a piece of the liver of a Passover lamb. Although she had been delirious she became better, and was still alive when the writer left