and had one son by a previous wife. He was a man of noble exterior as well as of great mental powers. His love was returned with love. But Rachel refused to give him her hand unless he abandoned his shepherd's staff and became a scholar. Though forty years of age, he accepted the conditions imposed by his beloved, and forthwith enrolled himself as the pupil of the most distinguished Jewish teachers of that day. For twelve years he devoted himself to intense study, though at first he learned slowly and with difficulty. He began his studies some fifteen years previous to the destruction of the Temple by Titus. Though his fellow-students were men of the highest abilities, Akiba excelled them all. He carefully learned the traditions of the fathers, and acquired the skill to discover proofs for these, or allusions to them, in passages of the Sacred Scriptures. When on one occasion he pressed his opponent R. Eliezer ben Hyrkanus hard in argument, R. Joshua, the learned blacksmith, said to Eliezer, "See, these are the people which you despise " (Jer. Pesach. vi. 4).

In due course Akiba was married; but Rachel's father, Kalba Shebna, opposed the marriage, and it took place privately. Kalba Shebna drove the pair from his house, and disinherited his daughter. The married pair were accordingly reduced to great straits. Their first child was born upon a heap of straw, and Rachel was compelled to cut off her hair and sell it in order to provide the means of subsistence. R. Akiba consoled her on the occasion with the promise, "When I become rich I will buy for thee a golden Jerusalem." He was obliged to separate himself for several years from her society while carrying on his studies at Jerusalem. When he returned to Bene-Berak, southeast of Joppa, after having completed his studies, in order to found a college of his own, a multitude went out to meet the then distinguished rabbi. Rachel, clad in a miserable attire, went also forth to meet him, and when she saw him sprang forward and clasped his knees. His disciples, not knowing who she was, attempted to thrust her away. But R. Akiba exclaimed, "Let her alone, make room for her; all that I am, and that you are, we have to thank her for " (Nedarim, 50). Her father, proud of the fame of his son-in-law, now bestowed upon her a rich dowry, and left R. Akiba his entire possessions. R. Akiba was not unmindful of the promise he had made in the days of poverty, and bestowed upon his wife a

magnificent robe upon which was embroidered in gold a picture of Jerusalem.*

According to the story, the wife of the Jewish patriarch became envious on account of the splendor of the robe which R. Akiba bestowed upon his wife, and complained that no such present had been bestowed upon her. The patriarch Gamaliel II. reprimanded her for her jealousy, remarking that a wife only deserved such a distinction who had deprived herself of her tresses for the sake of her husband. Possessed of a wife of such sterling quali ties, it is no wonder that one of the sayings attributed to R. Akiba should be: That man is rich who possesses a wife with excellent virtues" (Shabbath, 25). R. Akiba's school in Bene-Berak soon became famous, and many of the distinguished rabbis of a later period were among his pupils. His scholars were wont to compare R. Akiba to a husbandman who goes out to a field to seek for grain. If he finds wheat he gathers that, if barley he takes it also. If he sees spelt he adds it to his stock, or if beans or lentiles he reaps them also. But when he returns, he arranges all in order according to their respective sorts. His rules for teaching were, "A portion daily, a portion daily." Repeat often the sentence which you wish to impress on the minds of your scholars." "Teach out of a book which is correct, for a blunder once fixed in the memory cannot easily be eradicated."

66

It is unnecessary here to enter into any details as to his learning. This subject is ably treated in the work of Bacher, who gives numerous instances of his inge nuity. His subtlety enabled him to discover many Biblical arguments in favor of the traditions of the fathers. Those interpretations often cannot bear the light of modern criticism, although similar principles of exegesis have been only too common with popular preachers of all churches, who sometimes take little trouble to ascertain the real meaning of the texts they venture to expound. R. Akiba was said to be able to give a reason for every little stroke and point in the sacred writings.

He used to say of sin that "in the beginning it is as weak as the thread of a spider, but in the end as strong as the towing-rope of a ship " (Midrash Bereshith, § xxii., on Gen. iv. 6). This saying of his was founded on Isaiah v. 18. On one occasion he taught for a time his stu

See Graetz's Geschichte der Juden, iv. 59 ff. ↑ Aboth Rabbi Nathan, § 18.

and eighty thousand Jews perished by the sword.

R. Akiba travelled far and wide previous to the breaking out of that insurrection to prepare the Jews for the struggle. He visited even Rome on that business. As his companions heard in the distance the noise of the great city, they were startled, and thought of the days of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The rabbi consoled them with the remark," If the wicked now prosper so much, how will it be by and by with the righteous?" "Everything that happens to you is for your good," was his constant expression, a say ing similar to that of the apostle in Rom. viii. 28, which has often been a consolation to the martyrs of the Church. "When evil befalls the heathen," said Akiba, "they curse their gods; but we praise our God both in prosperity and adversity, and cry, Praise be to the Judge of Truth!"

66

At Rome he met with a young, unmarried nobleman who had heard of his wisdom, but who noticed with astonishment that the rabbi was on foot and barefooted. "Art thou a Jewish rabbi?" asked the Roman. "I am," replied R. Akiba. "Then listen," said he, "to three words: a king rides upon horseback, a freeman on an ass, and a common person goes on foot with shoes; but he that hath neither the one nor the other, for him is the grave to be preferred." "Thou hast spoken three words," rejoined the rabbi; "now hear also three from me. The ornament of the face is the beard, the joy of the heart is the wife, and the dowry of the Eternal is children; woe to the man who has not these three! Moreover, I will answer thee from our Scripture: 'I have seen slaves upon horses, and princes like slaves walking upon the ground'"(Eccles. x. 6. See "Midrash Koheleth," on that passage).

R. Akiba threw his whole heart and soul into the Jewish insurrection. He proclaimed the great Jewish commander, Bar Kokab, to be the promised Messiah. Referring to the name of that commander, which signified "son of a star," R. Akiba exclaimed, "Behold the star that is come out of Jacob; the days of redemption are at hand!" 66 Akiba," said the peace-loving R. Joshua, the grass will spring up from thy jaw-bone ere the Son of David will

come."

The Romans put R. Akiba to death with the utmost torture. While they were combing off his flesh with iron combs the time of prayer arrived. The Jewish rabbi began to recite the Jewish formula, " Hear,

O Israel," with a loud voice, to the amazement of all present. "Art thou a sorcerer?" asked the Roman general who presided over the execution. "I am no sorcerer," was the calm reply of R. Akiba; "but I rejoice to fulfil that which has ever been regarded by me as the highest ideal: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and with all thy substance' - that is, even if he should take away thy life." As he was dwelling on the word "the Lord thy God is ONE," and prolonging the last syllable of the Hebrew word, his spirit winged its flight to that place where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest" (Job iii. 17).

Our subject is not exhausted, nor have we given more than a few illustrations of what may be gathered from even an imperfect study of rabbinical literature.

CHARLES H. H. WRIGHT.

From The New Review. ENGLISHWOMEN IN INDIA. ANY one who is asked to write a description of civilized men or women in any given country will, likely enough, be reminded of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's remark, that she had never met but two sorts of people in the world — men and women.

What is the type of the Anglo-Indian lady? This is a problem that has been set me frequently, and when I have tried to answer I have felt daunted by the multiplicity of types that have sprung to my memory, and by the fear of appearing to judge or criticise where I have only been asked to describe, and, where I am chiefly concerned, to defend.

An Anglo-Indian woman is only a temporarily transplanted Englishwoman, and only in so far as she is subject to special conditions does she differ from the women of her own race and class anywhere else. These conditions are, exile, enervating, and often deadly climate; a society which is in most places very small, never very large, and which is three-fourths military and one-fourth official; which contains a large preponderance of men over women, no old people, and no young ones between the ages of six and sixteen; which is recruited from the upper of our upper middleclasses at home, in which almost all enjoy a competence sufficient to meet the expenses of their position, but affording no margin for freedom of action, or the pur

suit of a wide choice of interests; a life of interruptions and publicity, of few domestic responsibilities, much solitude for the women, and peculiarly heavy responsibilities for the men.

These are the conditions which are peculiar to India, but many characteristics of both the life and the people are common to all English provincial lives and people. Anglo-Indian society is provincial with officialism superadded, and has much in common with that of the English country town, especially the garrison town, whilst the hill-stations have a considerable dash of the watering-place about them. It is my object to show that some of the less attractive peculiarities of the Englishwoman in India have nothing peculiarly Indian about them. And whilst I must own that in India a woman is more tempted to drift into idleness, inertia, local-mindedness, uncultured, gossipy lines of thought and speech, into pleasure-seeking and flirtation (I use the word advisedly as distinct from serious love-making), than she ever need be at home, yet the life has produced, and is producing, women of whom we have every reason to be proud, and whose qualities many women in England may do well to imitate.

Let us begin with the "Burra Memsahib." There is no adequate translation of this name; "the great lady " has too aristocratic and feudal a sound about it; "the great official lady" would be nearer the mark. She is the wife of a member-incouncil, a commissioner, a judge, or a collector. There is something lovable, and yet awful, about her. She grasps an ornate card-case as her social oriflamme, the table of precedence is her Magna Charta, she is supremely virtuous, she leads and judges the society in which she moves, her conversation is strictly local, practical, and personal. She has weathered many dangers and hardships. She is a Conservative, and in theory her sympathies are anti-native, but if you inquired of her servants and others of her Aryan brethren, you would hear how in more than name she is "the protector of the poor." There is a touch of the patriarchal about her household. In camp she shows a genius for "bundobust;"* in "the station" her dinner-parties are wearisome, but her hospitality unfailing. Her doors are ever open, her help ever ready for the sick, the bereaved, or simply the stranger. Her faults are pomposity and huffiness; her virtues hospitality, charity (not always

• Arrangement.

in the widest sense), indeed, all Christian virtues, except, perhaps, humility. There is nothing specially Indian about her, except her long Indian experience, her pluck and hospitality. She is the nearest approach we ever get in India to the venerable in age, but she is not fifty, and soon her husband will retire on his hard-earned pension, and take her away to a semidetached villa at Bath or Cheltenham, and India will lose in her a restraint and a tradition.

Then there is the gay and giddy lady, the "cheery woman, who rests not day or night organizing picnics, promoting dances and theatricals, who mourns the inertia of her fellows if entertainments flag even for a week, who frequents hillstations, but is not necessarily a grasswidow. Her talk is much interlarded with Anglo-Indian expressions, such as "tiffin," "chit," "pukka," "gup." Her chil dren, if she has any, are at home. Before they went she most likely was a different woman much as Indian mothers always are, anxious, watchful, and worn, but they had to go, and she had to stay, and her pleasure-loving nature, without occupation or responsibility, finds its own consolation. There is no particular harm in the cheery woman; she is what is called "a useful sort of person to have in a station, because she gets things up, you know," and there is some truth in the phrase in a country where all amusements are amateur, and must be self-constructed. There is always a lady of this type on a P. and O. steamer ; she has a fancy dress in the hold, and therefore insists on a fancy ball; she generally knows one part in "Sweethearts" or "Ici on Parle Français," but as Mr. Kipling would say, "that is another story," and must be written some day under the head of "P. and O. passengers, a distinct race." What is there peculiarly Indian about this woman? I maintain nothing but her circumstances. Frivolity and pleasure-seeking are foibles of English as well as Indian growth. Indeed, the ordinary "plains" station offers a starvation diet for such a nature, but in a hill-station, or any large centre in "the season," there is an atmosphere of holiday-making, especially among those who have escaped there on a few weeks' leave, and the cheery woman finds many playmates and amusements for every day of the week.

Then there are the flirts, and will any one tell me they are the product of any particular country? They exist in India, no doubt, in a larger proportion than in England, but there is less demand for fe