70 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914. 
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL OBJECTS. 
Religious sentiment expresses itself in creed and cult, and it is 
the latter which most readily lends itself to museum exhibition. The 
collection in the National Museum attempts to illustrate and explain 
by means of objects the rites and practices of seven of the historic 
religions. It is mainly installed in the south gallery of the west 
hall, which is entirely occupied, though some of the most striking 
features, and especially the Buddhist collection of Mr. S. S. Howland, 
are displayed in the adjoining rotunda of the building. The furnish- 
ing of the gallery consists of a practically continuous wall case, 8 
feet 2 inches high, with projecting or wing cases, 7 feet high, at 
intervals corresponding with the wall piers, thus producing a bay 
or alcove arrangement, and as the wing cases, with one exception, are 
diaphragmed each of the bays has three distinctive fronts. The 
amount of space thus supplied is, unfortunately, altogether inade- 
quate for the collection, resulting in an overcrowded arrangement, 
and preventing the installation of much important material which 
remains in storage. 
The first two alcoves or compartments are occupied by the collec- 
tion of modern Jewish ceremonial objects which, consisting to a 
great extent of a loan from Hadji Ephraim Benguiat and his son 
Mordecai, is unrivaled in completeness and in artistic and historical 
value. It comprises furnishings and appointments of the synagogue 
and objects used in public worships, such as curtains of the Holy Ark, 
Torah scrolls in richly embroidered mantles with silver bells, breast- 
plates, and pointers, Megilloth in revolving cases of wood and silver 
of rare workmanship, manuscripts of prayer books, lamps and 
candlesticks of brass and silver, lavers and alms boxes, phylacteries 
and prayer shawls, etc. Of the numerous appurtenances to the 
Holy Ark, which constitutes the architectural as well as the ideal 
center of the synagogue, may be singled out a curtain of red velvet 
with a border of green velvet, measuring 9 feet 5 inches by 6 feet 3 
inches, embroidered in silver and gold with a large burning lamp 
(symbolizing the light that emanates from the Torah, or the Law of 
God, which is kept in the Holy Ark), surrounded by flowers and 
passages from the Scriptures; and another curtain of yellow silk, 
made in Italy in 1736 and measuring 6 feet 3 inches by 5 feet 2 
inches, which is exquisitely hand-embroidered in silver, gold, and 
silk, with flowers and the tablets of the Decalogue borne upon clouds 
(the symbol of the Divine presence). A top piece of the Holy Ark, 
of red velvet, made in England in 1749 and measuring 2 feet 8 inches 
by 8 feet 1 inch, is adorned in heavy silver appliqué work with the 
principal parts of the Tabernacle and Temple, viz, the golden front- 
let of the high priest, the table of shewbread, the laver, the Ark of 
