the desperate measures of the sub-committee were successful. the other marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and simeon samuels soon departed in search of a more pious seaport.
but, alas! hom?opathy was only half-vindicated. for the remedy proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. the epidemic spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the congregation. some had it in a mild [169]form—only one shutter open, or a back door not closed—but in many it came out over the whole shop-window.
the one bright spot in the story of the sudminster sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed parnass is solomon barzinsky, esq., j.p., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the sabbath to empty benches, the sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by simeon samuels: of listening reverentially every saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in supplying the wants of christendom.