scholars who had the opportunity of visiting great libraries and saw how the emendations of the Gaon agreed sometimes with the readings given in the best manuscripts exclaimed very often: “Only by inspiration could he have found out these secrets.” We have no need to go so far; we shall simply say with the Talmud, “The powers of the real sage surpass those of the prophet.” Nay, even had we possessed only his _Gleanings_, which form a kind of _obiter dicta_ on various topics of Jewish literature, the Gaon would have remained a model of clear thinking and real ingenuity for all future generations. However, a real appreciation of the Gaon’s greatness as a scholar would only be possible either by a thorough study of his works, to which I have alluded, or by giving many specimens of them. The short space I am limited to makes such an undertaking impossible. I shall therefore use what remains to me to say a few words on the salutary influence the Gaon had on his countrymen, the Russian Jews. The Russian Jew is still a riddle to us. We know this strange being only from the Reports of the Board of Guardians or from bombastic phrases in public speeches; for he has always been the victim of platform orators, So over violent or over civil, That every man with them is God or Devil. From all, however, that I can gather from the best Jewish writers in Russia, I can only judge that the Russian Jew, when transplanted to a foreign soil, where he is cut off from the past and uncertain of his future, is for the time at least in a position in which his true character cannot be truly estimated. His real life is to be sought in his own country. There, amidst his friends and kinsmen who are all animated by the same ideals, attached to the same traditions, and proud of the same religious and charitable institutions, everything is full of life and meaning to him. Thus, a certain Russian writer addresses his younger colleagues who find so much fault with the bygone world: “Go and see how rich we always were in excellent men. In every town and every village you would find scholars, saints, and philanthropists. Their merits could sustain worlds, and each of them was an ornament of Israel.” And he proceeds to give dozens of names of such excellent men, who are not all indeed known to us, but with whom the Russian Jew connects many noble and pious reminiscences of real greatness and heroic self‐denial, and of whom he is justly proud.