‘I am fully conscious of your profound judgment, steadfast love of truth, literary independence, enthusiasm for philosophy in general, and esteem for Bonnet’s works in particular. The amiable discretion with which, notwithstanding your contrariety to the Christian religion, you delivered your opinion on it, is still fresh in my memory. And so indelible and important is the impression which your truly philosophical respect for the moral character of its Founder made on me, in one of the happiest moments of my existence, that I venture to beseech you--nay, before the God of Truth, your and my Creator and Father, I beseech and conjure you--to read this work, I will not say with philosophical impartiality, which I am confident will be the case, but for the purpose of publicly refuting it, in case you should find the main arguments, in support of the facts of Christianity, untenable; or should you find them conclusive, with the determination of doing what policy, love of truth, and probity demand--what Socrates would doubtless have done had he read the work and found it unanswerable. ‘May God still cause much truth and virtue to be disseminated by your means, and make you experience the happiness my whole heart wishes you. JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER. ‘ZURICH, _25th of August 1769_.’ It was a most unpleasant position for Mendelssohn. Plain speaking was not so much the fashion then as now, and defence might more easily be read as defiance. At that time the position of the Jews in all the European States was most precarious, and outspoken utterances might not only alienate the timid followers whom Mendelssohn hoped to enlighten, but probably offend the powerful outsiders whom he was beginning to influence. No man has any possible right to demand of another a public confession of faith; the conversation to which Lavater alluded as some justification for his request had been a private one, and the reference to it, moreover, was not altogether accurate. And Mendelssohn hated controversy, and held a very earnest conviction that no good cause, certainly no religious one, is ever much forwarded by it. Should he be silent, refuse to reply, and let judgment go by default? Comfort and expediency both pleaded in favour of this course, but truth was mightier and prevailed. Like unto the three who would not be ‘careful’ of their answer even under the ordeal of fire, he soon decided to testify plainly and without undue thought of consequences. Mendelssohn was not the sort to serve God with special reservations as to Rimmon. Definitely he answered his too zealous questioner in a document which is so entirely full of dignity and of reason that it is difficult to make quotations from it.[39] ‘Certain inquiries,’ he writes, ‘we finish once for all in our lives.’ ... ‘And I herewith declare in the presence of the God of