"Years passed. The incidents of those days had long been forgotten. I was drawn into the great and mighty currents of life. I enjoyed it to the full. After the completion of my examinations for the assessorship, my friends at Bonn advised me to enter the service of the Government. There was nothing to prevent me, and the position offered me was quite to my liking, and satisfied the ambitions then mastering me. With the death of Francis Siebert a great void had come into my life; he had died of typhoid fever on a journey of investigation. In the stormy come and go of life, in the restless haste of existence, such things happen daily; and although painfully shocked by his death, I continued my way. It came at a time in my life when I was battling with a great inner struggle that made me wholly self-centered. I prefer not to speak of this to you, at least not to-day. But one thing I may tell you, the experience did not make me unworthy of you. Conflict and suffering do not degrade a man, and whatever fails to overcome us, makes us all the stronger. But I became more and more lonely, and I fell into the habit of thinking that it was my lot in life to be lonely. I tried to be content alone. It seemed the easier for me since my career was a happy one and gave me contentment; and so did the kind of life it brought with it. I resigned myself to remaining a bachelor. So much of the married life of my friends as had come under my observation did not make me regret that I had renounced it. My calling, my books, my journeys, gave me sufficient satisfaction. I avoided social gatherings as far as my position allowed me to. In this way, time passed in work and recreation, and the even tenor of my days brought me comfort and satisfaction. There were many hours in which this exclusiveness seemed very pleasant to me; and the longing for intimate fellowship with others grew ever weaker. "Then, a few weeks ago, I happened upon the notice of Rabbi Friedlaender's ninetieth birthday. The rest you know. What you do not know, is that on my desk, where I had found the journal containing the notice, I seemed suddenly to see the portrait of the Vatican before me; and an unaccountable association of ideas made me see myself standing before it, not as I was in Rome, but as a small boy before the old man, whom I thought I had found anew in the portrait--in the presence of the devout, kindly man, as he sat poring over his book in his humble room. And then I heard the words of the blessing again--I felt them in my heart, the heart of an experienced, mature man,--and all in the language of my childhood, the language of the childhood of my race. And suddenly the world vanished from before me, the modern world that claimed me, and the old arose in the clear light of holy recollections. Father, mother, the whole family came back to life within me! Then I sought your family, sought you! And how I found all of you--how I found you--