Alone in a city whose language he could not speak, stoned by those for whom he had sacrificed all, spurned even by his nearest and dearest, Uriel was driven to the publication of a book which cost him imprisonment and a fine; for the Rabbis denounced it to the Dutch authorities as hostile not only to Judaism, but also to Christianity. This widened the breach between him and his brethren. Thus fifteen years of misery and loneliness dragged on, till, unable to bear his awful isolation any longer, this poor outcast from a people of outcasts tried to regain the favour of the Synagogue and the society of his fellow-men by feigned repentance. ♦1633♦ There ended the second part of the trilogy. The third began when Uriel’s simulated conversion was seen through. The discovery led to new persecution and insults innumerable. He was again ostracized by his relatives, robbed of his betrothed, and excommunicated by the Synagogue. Seven years of suffering elapsed, and the victim at last, worn out by a fight to which his sensitive nature was unequal, prematurely aged and longing for rest, once more offered to sign a recantation. Pardon was granted, but not without terrible penalties and fresh humiliation. The penitent was made to read aloud his confession of sin; he was subjected to a public castigation--thirty-nine lashes--and was obliged to lie prone across the threshold of the synagogue for all the congregation to walk over and trample upon him. This disgrace drove Uriel to despair, attempt at murder, and suicide. These things happened in 1640. In the ensuing year John Evelyn, whom we have seen at Venice, paid a visit to the community--probably to the very synagogue--that had witnessed poor Uriel’s sufferings, and he enters his impressions in his Diary as follows: “_August 19._ Next day I returned to Amsterdam, where I went to a synagogue of the Jews, being Saturday; the ceremonies, ornaments, lamps, law, and scrolls afforded matter for my wonder and enquiry. The women were secluded from the men, being seated above in galleries, and having their heads muffled with linnen after a fantastical and somewhat extraordinary fashion. “They have a separate burying-ground, full of sepulchres with Hebrew inscriptions, some of them very stately. In one, looking through a narrow crevice, I perceived divers bookes lye about a corpse, for it seems when any learned Rabbi dies, they bury some of his books with him. With the help of a stick I raked out some of the leaves, written in Hebrew characters, but much impaired.”