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THE JEWISH GIRL |
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Poor Sara ! ' said the people ; ' she is overcome with night watching and toil ! ' •>»
They carried her out into the hospital for the sick poor. There she died ; and from thence they carried her to the grave, but not to the churchyard of the Christians, for yonder was no room for the Jewish girl ; outside, by the wall, her grave was dug.
But God's sun, that shines upon the graves of the Christians, throws its beams also upon the grave of the Jewish girl beyond the wall ; and when the psalms are sung in the churchyard of the Christians, they echo likewise over her lonely resting-place ; and she who sleeps beneath is included in the call to the resurrection, in the name of Him who spake to His disciples :
' John baptized you with water, but I will baptize you with the Holy Ghost! ' |
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THE BOTTLE-NECK
In a narrow crooked street, among other abodes of poverty, stood an especially narrow and tall house built of timber, which had given way in every direction. The house was inhabited by poor people, and the deepest poverty was in the garret-lodging in the gable, where, in front of the only window, hung an old bent birdcage, which had not even a proper water-glass, but only a Bottleneck reversed, with a cork stuck in the mouth, and filled with water. An old maid stood by the window : she had hung the cage with green chickweed ; and a little chaffinch hopped from perch to perch, and sang and twittered merrily enough.
* Yes, it's all very well for you to sing,' said the Bottleneck ; that is to say, it did not pronounce the words as we can speak them, for a bottle-neck can't speak ; but that's what he thought to himself in his own mind, as when we people talk quietly to ourselves. * Yes, it's all very well for you to sing, you that have all your limbs uninjured. You ought to feel what it's like to lose one's body, and to have only mouth and neck left, and that with a cork |
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