. In disposition and feeling I am the same, but I have had an
opportunity for mental improvement of which most of my brethren have
been deprived. Give them the privilege of attending your universities,
open to them the avenues of knowledge and you will create for Russia an
intellectual element which will eventually place her in the front ranks
of the nations."

The general shrugged his shoulders and smiled. The idea seemed
preposterous.

"You have certainly an exalted opinion of your co-religionists," he
said.

"I have, your excellency, and it is borne out by history. Your
excellency has doubtless read of the intellectual supremacy of Spain
when the Jews were in the ascendant."

His excellency had not read of it. In fighting but not in reading lay
his strength and, not wishing to display his ignorance, he wisely
changed the subject.

As might have been expected, violent objections were raised by the
gentiles to the enlarged privileges granted the Jews. The priests were
particularly virulent in their denunciation of the new liberties
conferred, in which they saw but the beginning of the gradual
emancipation of the Hebrews. Attacks were made against them from press
and from pulpit, and all of these Mendel answered calmly and
convincingly. His logic finally silenced the ravings of the unlettered
and fanatical Jew-haters and the privileges once accorded were not
repealed.

Had Mendel's zeal ended here he would have avoided much subsequent
difficulty, but he was well aware that the Jews had not attained to the
ideal he had formed, that much ignorance, fanaticism and superstition
still prevailed. He desired to imitate the example of his great
prototype, Moses Mendelssohn, and spread the light of learning
throughout the Jewish world. He did not lose sight of the vastness of
the undertaking, of the dangers he was incurring, or of the animosity he
was inviting, for the Jews of Russia still regarded all learning not
found in the folios of the Talmud as sacrilegious and unholy. To
overcome this antagonism to secular knowledge now became Mendel's
self-imposed task.

Consulting no one but his friend the Governor, and armed with a letter
of introduction from this powerful ally, Mendel set out for St.
Petersburg, to visit the Czar in person. It was an unheard-of experiment
on the part of a Jew, but Mendel felt the inspiration of right and
undertook his new mission fearlessly. What nothing else could accomplish
was done by t