With him was a Moorish girl that he had
rescued from the clutch of a Spanish grandee, in whose house she had
been kept a prisoner.

By a happy accident, this beautiful girl of seventeen had escaped from
her tormentors and was huddling, sobbing, in an alley as the young Jew
came hurrying by on his way to the ship that was to bear him to
freedom. It was near day-dawn--there was no time to lose--the young man
only knew that the girl, like himself, was in imminent peril. A small
boat waited near--soon they were safely secreted in the hold of the
ship. Before sundown the tide had carried the ship to sea, and Portugal
was but a dark line on the horizon.

Other refugees were on board the boat; they came from their
hiding-places--and the second day out a refugee rabbi called a meeting
on deck. It was a solemn service of thanksgiving and the songs of Zion
were sung, the first time for some in many months, and only friends and
the great, sobbing, salt sea listened.

The tears of the Moorish girl were now dried--the horror of the future
had gone with the black memories of the past. Other women, not quite so
poor, contributed to her wardrobe, and there and then, after she had
been accepted into the Jewish faith, she and Michael d'Espinoza, aged
twenty-two, were married.

The ship arrived at Amsterdam in safety. In a year, on November
Twenty-fourth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-two, in a little stone house that
still stands on the canal bank, was born Benedict Spinoza.

* * * * *

Benedict Spinoza was brought up in the faith and culture of his people.
Beyond his religious training at the synagogue, there was a Jewish High
School at Amsterdam which he attended. This school might compare very
favorably with our modern schools, in that it included a certain degree
of manual training. Besides this he had received special instruction
from several learned rabbis. In matters of true education, the Jews have
ever been in advance of the Gentile world--they bring their children up
to be useful. The father of Benedict was a maker of lenses for
spectacles, and at this trade the boy was very early set to work. Again
and again in the writings of Spinoza, we find the argument that every
man should have a trade and earn his living with his hands, not by
writing, speaking or philosophizing. If you can earn a living at your
trade, you thus make your mind free.

This early idea of usefulness led to a sympathy with ano