“You must visit Egypt, Greece and Italy,” said he, “the typical centres of the world, and converse with the master-spirits in art, science and philosophy. I have made arrangements to keep you amply supplied with money at Alexandria, Athens and Rome, and with letters to agreeable and influential people. “This will consume three years of your life; and if you are wise and prudent, they will be pleasantly and profitably spent. When you return I will surrender your father’s estate into your hands, and make a handsome settlement upon your sisters from my own means. I am growing old and shall need but little for the rest of my pilgrimage.” “Then,” he continued to my surprise and sorrow, “then I shall go back to the great East—nearer to the sun—to die.” “Go back to the East?” I exclaimed with trepidation. “Why so? Your old age requires the presence of loving friends and relatives. What can we—made your children by your kindness—what can we do without you?” “Ah! my child, the grass soon grows in the footprints of man. We are easily forgotten. I shall be loved like one dead. I am weary of this Judean air; of this corrupt and discordant society; of these Roman trumpets and banners. I want peace and repose. I long to see once more the sacred fire burning upon the altars. After twenty years of life in Persia, one cannot be satisfied with the Mosaic sacrifices and the olive groves of Bethany.” Knowing my uncle’s firmness of resolution, and how long he had restrained his natural restlessness for our benefit, I hung my head in mournful silence. “Well, well!” said he in a cheerful voice, “we have time enough to talk about the whole matter. Get ready now for the scenes which fill the heart of a thinking man with supreme delight.” This plan of perfecting my education by travel, by coming in contact with idolatrous people and studying heathen philosophies, excited the fears of my good sisters, so contrary was it to the custom of the Jews. They regarded it, indeed, as almost a crime. My uncle, however, was grandly cosmopolitan in all his sentiments, and he had imbued my own mind with his enlightened charity. Ethopus accompanied me as my body-servant. We had taught the dumb African to read and write after he was released from the bondage of Magistus and Simon. He acquired these accomplishments in a moderate degree with great celerity, so that our anticipations of rapid mental progress were sadly disappointed by the result. When he reached the intellectual development of a white child at twelve years, his onward march was arrested. No study, no assiduity could advance him a step farther. He was organically a child. His thoughts, his feelings, his opinions, his manners were all child-like; and so they remained.