The harmony of our inclinations and manner of life, along with some difference in our talents, made our conversation all the more agreeable. I had more talent for the sciences, made more earnest endeavours after thoroughness and accuracy of knowledge than Lapidoth. He, on the other hand, had the advantage of a lively imagination, and consequently more talent for eloquence and poetry than I. If I produced a new thought, my friend knew how to illustrate it, and, as it were, to give it embodiment in a multitude of examples. Our affection for one another went so far, that, whenever it was practicable, we spent day and night in each other's company, and the first thing we did, on returning home from the places where we severally acted as family-tutors, was to visit each other, even before seeing our own families. At last we began to neglect on this account the usual hours of prayer. Lapidoth first undertook to prove, that the Talmudists themselves offered up their prayers, not exclusively in the synagogue, but sometimes in their study-chambers. Afterwards he pointed out also, that the prayers held to be necessary are not all equally so, but that some may be dispensed with altogether: even those, which are recognised as necessary, we curtailed by degrees, till at last they were totally neglected. Once, when we went for a walk on the wall during the hour of prayer, Lapidoth said to me, "Friend, what is going to become of us? We do not pray now at all." "What do you mean by that?" I inquired. "I throw myself," said Lapidoth, "on the mercy of God, who certainly will not punish his children severely for a slight neglect." "God is not merely _merciful_," I replied; "He is also _just_. Consequently this reason cannot help us much." "What do you mean by that?" asked Lapidoth. I had by this time obtained from Maimonides more accurate ideas of God and of our duties towards Him. Accordingly I replied, "Our destination is merely the _attainment of perfection through the knowledge of God and the imitation of His actions_. Prayer is simply the expression of our knowledge of the divine perfections, and, as a result of this knowledge, is intended merely for the common man who cannot of himself attain to this knowledge; and therefore it is adapted to his mode of conception. But as we see into the end of prayer, and can attain to this end directly, we can dispense altogether with prayer as something superfluous." This reasoning appeared to us both to be sound. We resolved therefore, for the purpose of avoiding offence, to go out of the house every morning with our _Taleth_ and _Tephilim_ (Jewish instruments of prayer), not, however, to the synagogue, but to our favourite retreat, the wall, and by this means we fortunately escaped the Jewish Inquisition.