Solomon Jacob Abramowitsch[81] was born in 1835, in the town of Kopyl, in the Government of Minsk. He received his Jewish instruction in a _Cheeder_, and later in a _Jeschiwe_, a kind of Jewish academy. He consequently, up to his seventeenth year, had had no other instruction except in religious lore. His knowledge of Hebrew was so thorough that, at the age of seventeen, he was able to compose verses in that language. He lost his father early, and his mother married a second time. When he was eighteen years old, there arrived in his native town a certain Awremel the Lame, who had been leading a vagabond's life over the southern part of Russia. He told so many wonderful stories about Volhynia, where, according to his words, there flowed milk and honey, that many of the inhabitants of Kopyl were thinking of emigrating to the south. Awremel also persuaded Abramowitsch's aunt to go with him in search of her absent husband. That she did, taking her nephew along with her. It soon turned out, however, that Awremel was exploiting them as objects of charity, by collecting alms over the breadth and length of the country. For several months he kept zigzagging in his wagon from town to town, wherever he expected to find charitable Jews, until at last they arrived a certain distance beyond Kremenets. Here they passed a carriage from which proceeded a voice calling Abramowitsch by his given name. They stopped, and Abramowitsch was astonished to discover his friend of his childhood, who had, in the meantime, become a chorister in Kremenets. The latter invited his youthful friend to go back to town with him, promising to take care of him. This the young wanderer was only too glad to do, for he wished to be rid of Awremel, who had been tantalizing him with his almsbegging. The Precentor, who was in the carriage with the chorister, paid off the driver, and Abramowitsch started with them back to town, where a new period began in his life. His thorough acquaintance with the Talmud and the Hebrew language soon gained him many friends, and he was able to make a living by teaching the children of the wealthier inhabitants. One of his friends advised him to make the acquaintance of the poet Gottlober, who, at that time, was teaching in one of the local Jewish schools. The old man who was giving him that counsel added: "Go to see him some evening when no one will notice you, and make his acquaintance. He is an apostate who shaves his beard, and he does not enjoy the confidence of our community. Nor do we permit young men to cultivate an acquaintance with him; but you are a learned man, and you will know how to meet the statements of that heretic. He is a fine Hebrew scholar, and it might do you good to meet him. Remember the words of Rabbi Meier: 'Eat the wholesome fruit, and cast away the rind.' I'll tell the beadle to show you the way to the apostate."