As soon as Lessing and Mendelssohn became acquainted, they learned to respect and love each other. The latter admired in his Christian friend his ability and unconstraint, his courage and perfect culture, his overflowing spirit, and the vigor which enabled him to bear a new world upon his broad shoulders; and Lessing admired in Mendelssohn nobility of thought, a yearning for truth, and firmness of character based upon a moral nature. They were both so imbued with lofty nobility of mind that the one prized in the other whatever perfection he could not attain to equally with his friend. Lessing suspected in his Jewish friend "a second Spinoza, who would do honor to his nation." Mendelssohn was completely enchanted by Lessing's friendship. A friendly look from him, he confessed, had such power over his mind that it banished all grief. They exerted perceptible influence upon each other. Lessing, at that time a mere "Schöngeist," as it was termed, aroused in Mendelssohn an interest for noble forms, æsthetic culture, poetry, and art; the latter in return stimulated Lessing to philosophical thought. Thus they reciprocally gave and received, the true relationship in a worthy friendship. The bond of amity became so strong, and united the two friends so sincerely, that it lasted beyond the grave. The stimulus that Mendelssohn received from his friend was extraordinarily fruitful both for him and for the Jews. It maybe said without exaggeration that Lessing's influence was greater in ennobling the Jewish race than in elevating the German people, due to the fact that the Jews were more eager for study and more susceptible to culture. All that Mendelssohn gained by intercourse with his friend benefited Judaism. Through his friend, who by reason of a genial, sympathetic nature exerted great attraction upon talented men, Mendelssohn was introduced into his circle, learned the forms of society, and threw off the awkwardness which was the stamp of the Ghetto. He now devoted himself zealously to the acquisition of an attractive German style--a difficult task, as the German language was strange to him, and the German vocabulary in use among Jews was antiquated and misleading. Nor had he any pattern to follow; for, before Lessing enriched German style with his genius, it was unwieldy, rugged, and ungraceful. But Mendelssohn overcame all difficulties. He withdrew, as he expressed it, "a portion of his love from the worthy matron (philosophy), to bestow it upon a wanton maiden (the so-called _belles-lettres_.)" Before a year's intimacy with Lessing elapsed, he was able to compose in excellent form his "Philosophical Conversations" (the beginning of 1755), in which he, the Jew, blamed the Germans, because, misapprehending the depth of their own genius, they bore the yoke of French taste: "Will, then, the Germans never recognize their own worth? Will they always exchange their gold for the tinsel of