able to take on themselves the office of teachers; for presently we find him, in odd half-hours, studying French and English under a Dr. Aaron Emrich.[33] He very early began to make translations of parts of the Scripture into German, and these attempts indicate that, from the first, his overpowering desire for self-culture sprang from no selfishness. He wanted to open up the closed roads to place and honour, but not to tread them alone, not to leave his burdened brethren on the bye-paths, whilst he sped on rejoicing. He knew truly enough that ‘the light was sweet,’ and that ‘a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.’ But he heeded, too, the other part of the charge: he ‘remembered the days of darkness, which were many.’ He remembered them always, heedfully, pitifully, patiently; and to the weary eyes which would not look up or could not, he ever strove to adjust the beautiful blessed light which he knew, and they, poor souls, doubted, was good. He never thrust it, unshaded, into their gloom: he never carried it off to illumine his own path. Thus, the translations at which Moses Mendelssohn worked were no transcripts from learned treatises which might have found a ready market among the scholars of the day; but unpaid and unpaying work from the liturgy and the Scriptures, done with the object that his people might by degrees share his knowledge of the vernacular, and become gradually and unconsciously familiar with the language of their country through the only medium in which there was any likelihood of their studying it. With that one set purpose always before him, of drawing his people with him into the light, he presently formed the idea of issuing a serial in Hebrew, which, under the title of _The Moral Preacher_, should introduce short essays and transcripts on other than strictly Judaic or religious subjects. One Bock was his coadjutor in this project, and two numbers of the little work were published. The contents do not seem to have been very alarming. To our modern notions of periodical literature, they would probably be a trifle dull; but their mild philosophy and yet milder science proved more than enough to arouse the orthodox fears of the poor souls, who, ‘bound in affliction and iron,’ distrusted even the gentle hand which was so eager to loose the fetters. There was a murmur of doubt, of muttered dislike of ‘strange customs’; perhaps here and there too, a threat concerning the pains and penalties which attached to the introduction of such. At any rate, but two numbers of the poor little reforming periodical appeared; and Moses, not angry at his failure, not more than momentarily discouraged by it, accepted the position and wasted no time nor temper in cavilling at it. He had learnt to labour, he could learn to wait. And thus, in hard yet happy work, passed away the seven years, from fourteen till twenty-one, which are the seed-time of a man’s life. In 1750, when Moses was nearly of age, he