The same tendency characterized the activity of another apostle of Besht, Jacob Joseph Cohen, who paid for his devotion to Hasidism by having to endure the persecutions of his rabbinical colleagues. Having lost the post of rabbi in Shargorod, Cohen, with the aid of Besht, accepted the position of preacher in Niemirov, and, after the death of his master, acted as preacher in Polonnoye. Everywhere he was zealously engaged in propagating the Hasidic doctrine by means of the spoken and written word. Jacob Joseph Cohen was the first to attempt a literary exposition of the fundamental principles of Hasidism. In 1780 he published a collection of sermons, under the title _Toldoth Ya`kob Yoseph_,[200] reproducing numerous sayings which he had heard from the lips of Besht. While exalting the importance of the Tzaddiks, who were solicitous about the salvation of the common people, Jacob Joseph bitterly assails the arrogant Talmudists, or "pseudo-scholars," whose whole religion is limited to book-learning, and whose attitude towards the masses is one of contempt. Jacob Joseph's book laid the foundation of Hasidic literature, which differs both in content and form not only from rabbinical but also from the earlier Cabalistic literature. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Hasidism spread with incredible rapidity among the Jewish masses of Poland and partly even of Lithuania. Numerous communities saw the rise of Hasidic congregations and the establishment of separate houses of prayer, in which services, characterized by boundless ecstasy, violent shouts, and gestures, were held in accordance with Besht's prescriptions. The Hasidim adopted the Cabalistic prayer-book of Ari, which differed from the accepted liturgy by numerous textual alterations and transpositions. They neglected the traditional time limit for morning prayers, changed the ritual of slaughtering animals, and some of them were in the habit of dressing themselves in white on the Sabbath. They were fond of whiling away their time in noisy assemblies, and frequently indulged in merry drinking bouts, to foster, in accordance with Besht's precept, "a cheerful disposition."