able to follow either the good or evil inclination. His evil deeds will place him beneath the level of animals, whilst his noble aspirations will enable him to obtain a higher position than angels.” Care is therefore taken to make the child forget all it has seen and heard in these upper regions. Before it enters the world an angel strikes it on the upper lip, and all his knowledge and wisdom disappear at once. The pit in the upper lip is a result of this stroke, which is also the cause why children cry when they are born. As to the origin of these legends, the main features of which are already to be found in the Talmud, I must refer the reader to the researches of Löw and others.(238) Here we have only to watch the effect which these legends had upon the minds of Jewish parents. The newly born child was in consequence looked upon by them as a higher being, which, but a few seconds before, had been conversing with angels and saints, and had now condescended into our profane world to make two ordinary mortals happy. The treatment which the child experienced from its parents, as well as from the whole of the community, was therefore a combination of love and veneration. One may go even further and say that the belief in these legends determines greatly the destination of the child. What other destination could a being of such a glorious past have than to be what an old German Jewish poem expressed in the following lines:— Geboren soll es wehren Zu Gottes Ehren. “The child should be born to the honour of God.” The mission of the child is to glorify the name of God on earth. And the whole bringing up of the child in the old Jewish communities was more or less calculated to this end. The words of the Bible, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,” were taken literally. Every man felt it his duty to bring up his children, or at least one member of his family, for this calling. How they carried out this programme we shall see later on.