The author himself, by the way, subsequently managed to obtain comfort. A few years after the publication of the "Wailing," still finding himself "removed from the hearts of his compatriots," he discovered the magic key to these obstreperous hearts. He embraced Christianity, and, transformed into Lev Alexandrovich Nyevakhovich, began to write moralizing Russian plays, which pleased the unsophisticated taste of the Russian public of the day. Nyevakhovich thus carried his "Berlinerdom" to that dramatic _dénouement_ which was in fashion in Berlin itself, where an epidemic of baptism was raging. His example was followed by his patron Abraham Peretz, who had been ruined in the War of 1812 by military contracts. The descendants of both converts occupied important posts in the Russian civil service. One of the Peretz family was a member of the Council of State during the reign of Alexander II. A faint reflection of the Western literature of enlightenment is visible during this period on the somber horizon of Russia. Mendel Lewin, of Satanov[267] (1741-1819), who had been privileged to behold in the flesh the Father of Enlightenment in Berlin, scattered new seeds in his native country. He translated into Hebrew the popular manual of medicine by Tissot, the moral philosophy of Franklin, and the books of travel by Campe. He also made an attempt to render the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes into the vernacular Yiddish. The last undertaking drew upon Lewin the wrath of another "enlightened" writer, Tobias Feder of Piotrkov and Berdychev (died 1817), who attacked him savagely for "profaning" Holy Writ by turning it into the "language of the street." Feder himself published studies in Hebrew grammar and Biblical exegesis, moralizing treatises, harmless satires, and poetical odes. These publications cannot be said to mark an epoch in the realm of literature, but they undoubtedly symbolize a new departure in cultural life. The secular book, of which the mere appearance was apt to arouse a murmur of discontent among the alarmed Orthodox, takes its place side by side with the religious literature of Rabbinism and Hasidism. These literary attempts were the harbingers of the subsequent secularization of Hebrew literature. FOOTNOTES: [255] See pp. 337, 339, 349. [256] One of these Tzaddiks, Rabbi Solomon (Shelomo) of Karlin, lost his life, according to Hasidic tradition, during the riots of the Russo-Polish confederate troops in the district of Minsk. [257] [The title of the work is _Likkute Amarim_, "Collected Discourses." It is called _Tanyo_ from the first word.] [258] Among the incriminated ideas was that of the presence of the Deity in all existing things and in all, even sinful, thoughts, and the concomitant mystical theory of "raising the sparks to the source," _i. e._ extracting good from evil, righteousness from sinfulness, and pure passion from impure impulses. [259] See pp. 339, 349. [260] [In the Government of Vilna.]