ARE WE JEWS* 265 



St. Kilda would probably have been scandalised had it 

 pleased Providence to have brought them into the 

 world nineteen centuries or so ago by the language of 

 a certain Jewish Teacher, who asked, ' What man shall 

 there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if 

 it fall into a pit on the Sabbath-day, will he not lay 

 hold of it and lift it out? ' adding, presently, * Where- 

 fore, it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-day.' They 

 would have reasoned that the owner of the sheep ought 

 to trust in Providence, which would provide for the 

 creature's well-being the next day. Even the Phari- 

 sees, who were not nearly so strict as the St. Kildians, 

 argued the matter somewhat in that way : * There are 

 six days in which men ought to work ; in them, there- 

 fore, come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath-day.' 

 These were men of whom the Teacher said that ' each 

 one of them on the Sabbath loosed his ox or his ass 

 from the stall, and led him away to watering ' ; so that 

 they were not utterly devoid of reason. 



But while we thus wonder at St. Kildian idiocy, let 

 us not be altogether confident that we may not become 

 a by-word for similar stupidity ourselves. It seems 

 scarcely credible, but it is the fact, that the weather 

 warnings which have been sent daily from our Meteor- 

 ological Office to the Continent during the winter months 

 have been discontinued for the summer, so far as Sun- 

 days are concerned. The Continental press naturally 

 make fun (somewhat scornful and bitter fun, though) 

 of this regulation. They express a fear lest storms 

 may not prove strictly Sabbatarian, even in summer- 



