I had among my friends a very learned and pious man, who stood in great esteem among all the Jews of the town. To him I revealed my purpose, and took him into counsel on the subject. I laid before him my miserable circumstances, pointed out to him, that, as my inclinations had been once directed to the knowledge of God and His works, I was no longer fit for any ordinary occupation; and I represented to him especially, that I was now obliged to support myself by my scholarship alone, as an instructor in the Bible and the Talmud, which, according to the judgment of some rabbis, was not altogether allowable. I explained to him, that on this account I wished to study medicine as a profane art, by which means I might be of service, not only to myself, but to the whole of the Jews in this neighbourhood, as there was no regular physician here, and those, who gave themselves out for such, were the most ignorant shavers, who packed men out of the world by their cures. These reasons produced an extraordinary effect on so devout a man. He went to a merchant of his acquaintance, represented to him the importance of my undertaking, and persuaded him to take me with him to Königsberg on his own vessel. The merchant could refuse nothing to so godly a man, and therefore gave his consent. Accordingly I set out with this Jewish merchant for Königsberg in Prussia. When I arrived there, I went to the Jewish medical doctor of the place, opened to him my proposal to study medicine, and begged him for advice and support. As his professional occupations prevented him from conveniently speaking with me on the subject, and as he could not understand me well at any rate, he referred me to some students who lodged in his house. As soon as I showed myself to these young gentlemen, and opened to them my proposal, they burst into loud laughter. And certainly for this they were not to be blamed. Imagine a man from Polish Lithuania of about five and twenty years, with a tolerably stiff beard, in tattered dirty clothes, whose language is a mixture of Hebrew, Jewish German, Polish and Russian, with their several grammatical inaccuracies, who gives out that he understands the German language, and that he has attained some knowledge of the sciences. What were the young gentlemen to think?