Wer nie sein Brot mit Thränen ass, Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend sass, Der kennt Euch nicht, Ihr himmlischen Mächte. I have spoken of a kingdom of priests, but there is one great disadvantage of such a polity. One or two priests in a community may be sustained by the liberality of the congregation. But if a community consisted of only priests, how could it then be maintained? Besides, the old Jewish ideal expected the teacher to be possessed of a divine goodness, imparting his benefits only as an act of grace. Salaries, therefore, either for teaching or preaching, or for giving ritual decisions, were strongly forbidden. The solution of the question put by the Bible, “And if ye shall say, What shall we eat?” is to be found in the law that every father was obliged to teach his son a handicraft, enabling him to obtain a living. I have now to speak of the time when childhood is brought to a conclusion. It is, as I stated above, in the case of a girl at the beginning of the thirteenth year, and in that of a boy at the beginning of the fourteenth year. As a reason for this priority I will reproduce the words of R. Chisda, who said that God has endowed woman with a greater portion of intelligence than man, and therefore she obtains her maturity at an earlier period than man does. A very nice compliment, indeed; but like all compliments it is of no practical consequence whatever. It is not always the wiser who get the best of it in life. Whilst the day on which the girl obtained her majority passed unnoticed either by her or by her family, it was marked in the case of the boy as the day on which he became a Son of the Law,(256) and was signalised by various rites and ceremonies, and by the bestowing on him of beautiful presents. I miss only the wig, which used to form the chief ornament of the boy on this happy day.