the melodious chanting of the _Hazan_, in which the congregation joined harmoniously from time to time, and I listened with great interest to the learned and pious discourses of the venerable rabbi. But there was no thought in my mind at this time of allying myself to Israel; and as for the Allatinis and the other Hebrews, they never even dreamed of such a thing. “When Raphael had attained to the age of five, Dr. Allatini declared that it was now time to teach him the Hebrew language, and to begin to initiate him into the knowledge of the Bible and the rabbinical writings. But now a new and unexpected difficulty arose. Raphael insisted stoutly that I must take the lessons, too, and declared that he would learn nothing unless I was his fellow-scholar. This was a little too much for his good parents. They tried to make him comprehend that it was absurd to make a Gentile study the Hebrew language and religious literature; and to me, too, the thing appeared exceedingly dubious; but he would have nothing of their arguments and, with the unreasoning obstinacy of childhood, insisted that I must participate in the instruction. ‘Dimitri does everything with me,’ he said, ‘and he must learn with me, too. If Dimitri will not learn, Raphael will not learn either.’ There was no help for it. His youthful mind was fixed in the idea that I must be his companion in study as in all other things; and his parents, seeing that it was impossible to change his view, yielded, half in amusement and half in vexation, to his wish. Thus I became a student of the Holy Law; and I bless God for the hour when He separated me from those that are in error and brought me near to Him, by enabling me to become acquainted with His Torah and to recognize the wisdom and holiness of His teachings. A teacher was engaged, the ablest Hebrew scholar of the town, and he began to instruct what he declared was the strangest pair of pupils he had ever had, the Greek Gentile youth of eighteen and the Hebrew lad of five. Both of us learned zealously.