That which the Jews had lost through the abasement of thousand years of slavery, Mendelssohn now recovered for them in a short space of time. Almost all, with the exception of a few Portuguese and Italian Jews, had lost pure speech, the first medium of intellectual intercourse, and a childish jargon had been substituted, which, a true companion of their misfortunes, appeared unwilling to forsake them. Mendelssohn felt disgust at the utter neglect of language. He saw that the Jewish corrupt speech contributed not a little to the "immorality of the average man," and he hoped for good results from the attention beginning to be paid to pure language. It was one of the consequences of the debasement of language, that the German and Polish Jews had lost all sense of form, taste for artistic beauty, and æsthetic feeling. Oppression from without and their onerous duties, which had reduced them to veritable slaves, had banished from their midst these, together with many other, ennobling influences. Mendelssohn recovered these lost treasures for his brethren. He acquired so remarkable a sense for the beautiful, that he was afterwards recognized by the Germans as a judge in questions of taste. The perverse course of study pursued by the Jews since the fourteenth century had blunted their minds to simplicity. They had grown so accustomed to all that was artificial, distorted, super-cunningly wrought, and to subtleties, that the simple, unadorned truth became worthless, if not childish and ridiculous, in their eyes. Their train of thought was mostly perverted, uncultivated, and defiant of logical discipline. He who in a short time was to restore their youthful strength, so schooled himself that twisted methods and thoughts became repugnant to him. With his refined appreciation for the simple, the beautiful, and the true, he acquired a profound understanding of biblical literature, whose essence is simplicity and truth. Through the close layers of musty rubbish, with which commentaries and super-commentaries had encumbered it, he penetrated to the innermost core, and was able to cleanse the beautiful picture from dust, and to understand and render comprehensible the ancient Revelation as if it were a new one. Though not gifted with the ability of expressing his thoughts poetically or rhythmically, he had a delicate perception of the poetic beauties of every literature, especially of those in the holy language. And what formed the crowning-point of these attainments was, that his moral views were characterized by extreme delicacy; he was painfully conscientious and truthful, as if there flowed through his veins the blood of a long series of noble ancestors, who had chosen for their life's task all that is honorable and worthy. Almost childlike modesty adorned him, modesty quite remote however from self-despising subservience. He combined in himself so many innate and hardly acquired qualities, that he formed a striking contrast to the caricatures which