sha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah,' or who waited on him. (2 Kings iii. 11.) Of Joshua it is likewise said, "His servant, Joshua the son of Nun." (Exodus xxxiii. 11.) Nor must man be swayed by the pride of rank, station, or wealth; but his first duty is to improve his mind in that knowledge which pious Sages_by their doctrines and example can best impress. And drink in their words with thirst -This maxim refers to practical benevolence, and teaches us to be ardently attached to the law of God, and as desirous of instruction as he who is plagued with thirst is of beverage. The Prophets often compare the longing for Divine instruction to thirst, as, "Lo, all ye that thirst, go to the water." (Isaiah lv. 1.) "Behold, there are days coming when I shall send hunger on earth; not hunger for bread, or thirst for water, but to hear the word of the Lord." (Amos viii. 14.) Many other similar passages might be adduced. This maxim particularly teaches us, that we are to receive the word of God, in which pious and wise men instruct us, without ratiocination, but in purity of love, and should rejoice in obeying them, although we may not be able to explain to ourselves the motives or causes for particular commands. We are ever to remember, that the law is the word of God, and "God understandeth its way." He who does this is the true lover of wisdom; his heart is faithful to God and to his holy word; and he only is worthy of receiving the glorious crown of the law. But he who limits his obedience to such commands only as his own shallow mind approves, does not love and cherish the law of God, but his own weak and conceited opinions. He will not, in the words of our teacher, "drink in the words of wise men with thirst; " but will accept of such only as are to his own taste. Therefore the Royal Leader of the pious saith, "The path of faith have I chosen; thy statutes are alike to me." (Psalm cxix. 30.) His meaning is: I do not choose, or prefer, some of thy statutes before others, because my reason approves 66 of their motives; but to me all thy words are alike important, because I have faith in thee who hast commanded them. But though it thus is the duty of man, not to make his obedience to the Divine commands dependent on his own ratiocinations, yet, when man has attained to that high degree of love and devotion which inculcates perfect obedience, it then becomes his duty to endeavour clearly to understand the tendency of these commands. Accordingly the Poet-King prays: "Teach me good reasons and knowledge, because I believed in thy commandments." (Psalm cxix. 45.) His meaning is: Teach me duly to understand the good reasons of thy laws, because I already unconditionally believe in them, whether I understand them or not. Thus Solomon likewise teaches us, when he says, Acquire wisdom; acquire understanding." (Prov. iv. 5.) By wisdom Holy Writ mostly intends to express "the laws of God;" he therefore first instructs us, Acquire unconditional faith in, and obedience to, the law; which is the true wisdom: And when thou hast done this, then strive with all thy faculties to acquire a due understanding of its motives. This twofold most eminent quality of unconditional obedience to the word of God as such, and the subsequent endeavour to understand its reasons, was attained by our ancestors, when they stood at Mount Sinai, there in the Divine Presence to receive the law. Their words were: "Whatever the Lord commands us, your wys, we will do and hear." (Exodus. xxiv. 7.) First, we declare our willing obedience, and readiness to do whatever the Lord commands; we will hear, a word which frequently is used in the Sacred Scriptures to express understand: As, for "A nation whose language instance, youn, thou shalt not understand." (Deut. xxvii. 49.) The Israelites at that time were perfect in their faith: They knew that the commands of the Lord, emanating from the Source of all wisdom, must all be alike wise, though their limited faculties might not be able to penetrate the 66 ,נשמע and then motives of some of these commands. Israelite; but when, subsequently, they committed the heinous offence of the golden calf, these crowns were taken from them, as it is written: They stripped off their ornaments from Mount Horeb.' (Exod. xxiii. 6.) These two crowns were obedience and understanding, like the holy angels, who diligently obey the commands of the Most High; which whilst obeying they endeavour to comprehend; as it is written, 'The mighty in power obey his behests, in order to understand the voice of his commands." (Psalm ciii. 20.) (To be continued.) دو as To the Editor of the Hebrew Review. SIR,-I have the pleasure of enclosing to you part of the comment of the great Maimonides on the Treatise pn, which I have translated. I beg to observe that my aim has not been the attainment of any particular style or elegance of diction, but simply to express the opinion of our great luminary, on a most interesting subject, in the language of the present day. Since writing it, I understand that a translation is to be found in a small work on the sp, written by a Mr. Abrahams about sixty or seventy years ago. That, however, I presume, is not much known; so that the opinions of the Rambam could not obtain that general notoriety which they will now have, in your valuable and widely-circulated publication, should you consider the inclosed worthy of insertion. I remain, Yours most obediently, 4, Bury-street, St. Mary Axe, THE PREFACE OF MAIMONIDES .חלק TO THE TALMUDIC TREATISE E. N. ALL Israel have a portion in the world to come; as it is written, "And your nation are all righteous, for ever shall they inherit the land: the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified." MANY serious and important principles of faith here claim our consideration. Those versed in the law are divided in their opinions as to the good which is to accrue to us by our observance of the commandments received by us from the Almighty by the hands of Moses, our instructer, (peace be with him!) and the evil which is to be the consequence of our neglect of those precepts. The different turns of men's minds and acquirements have caused a great variety of opinions, which (Isaiah 1x. 21.) again have been productive of such confusion that few are to be found whose ideas are clear, and whose conclusions on the subject are, in some degree, undisturbed by doubts. One class of reasoners consider that the good is the garden of Eden, where worldly pleasures are enjoyed without trouble or labour, in noble edifices of precious stones, on silken couches, in places where rivers of wine, precious oils, and all the choicest productions of nature that can tend to increase the sources of delight, abound; and that the evil is Gehinnom, where the sins of mankind are visited on them by consuming fires and many other species of just retribution, the detail of which would fill volumes. This class ground their opinion on several expressions of our Rabbies of blessed memory, and on passages in the Scriptures, the literal signification of which seems at first sight to corroborate their doctrines. The second class look upon the days of the Messiah (may he speedily redeem us!) as the desired good; and think that in his times all men will enjoy an angelic and an eternal state of existence, continually progressing in happiness; that he will reign under the particular protection of Providence; and that the earth will then bring forth garments ready made, produce bread ready baked, and many other impossible things of the same kind. The evil they consider to be the disqualification, through want of merit, to live in those felicitous times. They bring as authority for what they advance various sayings of the sages, and parts of the Scripture which they apply to their opinions wholly or partially. With the third class the chief good is the re-animation of the dead; which implies, that man shall live after his death, and re-associate with his connections and family, enjoying the pleasures of life, undiminished by the fear of dissolution: And in their view the evil consists in not living after the period of ordinary life. They deduce their opinions from many sayings of the wise men, and from parts of Holy Writ, of which their explanation bears on what they maintain or on part of it, The fourth class hold, that the benefit arising from the perform ance of the commandments is bodily ease and increasing prosperity in this world, such as fruitful lands, ample property, numerous children, corporeal health, peace and security under the protection of a King in Israel, with power over those who seek to oppress us And the evil which will befal us, on our disobeying the law, will be these circumstances reversed in the manner of our present suffer ings in this state of our captivity. They ground their sentiments on passages in the law, and on the denunciations of curses, which they confirm by the historical circumstances narrated in Scripture. The fifth, who are the most numerous class, combine the above opinions, and say that the point of hope is the coming of the Messiah, the re-animation of the dead, the entering into the garden of Eden, and the possession of bodily enjoyments there to all eternity. But there are very few who can define this marvellous point-the world to come, who enter into its principle, who inquire to what it tends, who endeavour to distinguish between the good itself, its aim and object, or that which conduces to it, or who turn their attention to the discrimination of the various preceding notions; but rather, both among the ordinary kinds of people, and those of better understanding, questions are asked; such as, how the dead shall rise, whether naked or clothed, &c., &c; whether the distinctions of rich and poor, strong and weak, shall continue among men in the days of the Messiah; and many other inquiries of the same nature. Now, thou who art reading this book, attend to the tale I am going to relate to thee, by which thou wilt understand my meaning throughout. Figure to thyself a young child, brought to a master to receive instruction, who is exceedingly kind to him, to induce him to learn; but as his extreme youth prevents him from appreciating the advantages of learning, and his tender years protect him from compulsion, the master leads him to study by the promise of things sought for by children of his years, and holds out to him the reward of a few figs, almonds, or a little honey, by which means the child reads and exerts himself, not for the sake of the reading itself, because its advantage are not known to him, but for the purpose of obtaining the reward, which is more valuable in his opinion than the reading, which he looks upon only as a labour, and to be attended to solely for the purpose of acquiring the wished-for end, which, with him, is a little honey, or a few almonds. As he grows up, and his understanding improves, he thinks lightly of those things which he before prized; and turning his mind to other objects, it becomes needful to excite him by the promise of something which, in his estimation at that period of life, seems more valuable; and handsome clothing becomes the promised reward of his reading, which he cultivates only with a view to the possession of the gay attire, without considering as to the importance of the reading in itself. When his ideas expand, he seeks other inducements, which are offered to him in the shape of money; so that the course of reading is still continued, but he regards it solely as the means by which the money, or any other promised and desirable object, is to be obtained. But when his understanding becomes more matured, his former inducements lose their importance, being no longer viewed according to his previous estimate of their value. Ambition is then employed; and he is told to regard his acquirements as the means of becoming a ruler or a judge, or of obtaining respect and honour among mankind; and the aim is, with him, the consideration and regard which he is to enjoy from those around him, and not the learning which is the medium of those advantages. Now this simile at least goes to show, that many persons consider wisdom in a far different and inferior light than its real and intrinsic worth, making the cultivation of knowledge and science but the road to honour and to other advantages. And this foolish notion concerning truth and knowledge is what the Rabbies have called, "wisdom perverted from its proper end;" such as performing the Commandments with exactitude, and studying the Law with assiduity, not for the sake of that which the observance of that Law and those Commandments themselves confer, but for some secondary object. They have expatiated on this topic, and said, "Thou shalt not use the law as a crown with which to aggrandize thyself, or as a spade with which to dig." And they have hinted at what I have noticed to you, that it is not the end of wisdom to receive from mankind honour, or pecuniary profit; and that, far from making the law of God the means even of obtaining a livelihood, the only end in acquiring wisdom should be to know it for its own sake; and thus that there should be no other object before our eyes, in the acquisition of truth, than to know what truth is, and that the TORAH is truth; the end of knowing which, is the performance of our duties. (To be continued.) DEATH OF R. DAVID FRIEDLANDER. Ir is our painful duty to announce to our readers the death of the venerable and celebrated R. David Friedlander, at Berlin. He was born at Konigsberg, in Prussia, in the year 1750, and became the pupil and confidential friend of the great Mendelsohn. Like him, the welfare and improvement of his brethren was a constant object of his cares. He was author of several Hebrew and German works of distinguished merit: His nw nban, or German translation of the Hebrew Liturgy, have long and deservedly enjoyed the highest approbation. As a man of considerable wealth and influence, his patronage and active support were freely yielded to those of his brethren whose necessities, or talents, entitled them to the notice of this great and good man; to whose exertions the Prussian Jews are chiefly indebted for those rights of citizenship which at present they enjoy. This last survivor of the splendid galaxy of talent and virtue, formed by, and contemporary with, Mendelsohn and Wessely, died at the advanced age of eightyfive years, and in the full possession of his faculties, at Berlin, in the beginning of last month. LONDON -Printed by James Nichols, 46, Hoxton-Square. I. ON THE CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS IN THE COUNTENANCE AND BEARING OF NATIONS, ARISING FROM MORAL CAUSES. (Continued from page 244.) The fatal FROM the death of Joshua until the appointment of Saul as King over the Israelites is computed a period of about four hundred years. disobedience of the command, not to desist from the war until the seven nations were entirely rooted out from the land, occasioned that period to be marked with intervals of disaster and sufferings to the people, as was announced would be the case. (Judges ii. 1-4.) Yet of the four hundred years, about three hundred were passed in peace and happiness, as the fruits of the observance of their laws; and if we wish to represent to ourselves the characteristic traits which distinguished the countenance and bearing of the nation generally during that period, we have only to turn to those laws, to the incidents related in their history, and to the manners and customs that prevailed among them, to be satisfied, that they must have been such as became a people whom the Deity had vouchsafed to call his own, and for whose conduct he had laid down such rules as might render them worthy of that high dignity. That they were an intellectual people and of exalted sentiments, can scarcely be doubted if we look to the effects which only the knowledge of their origin, the wonders that had been performed on their behalf, and in their very sight, as well as the tone and stile in which those events and their law were handed down to them in their sacred writings might reasonably be expected to produce on their minds, and consequently on their appearance and deportment. The very existence among them, from the earliest period of their his tory, of such a book as Job, argues them to have been of a highly cultivated understanding in the truest sense; and that they understood and relished it, is sufficiently clear from its having been preserved by them among their canonical books to this day. It would be quite absurd, therefore, to ascribe to them the character of a nation of pious but simple husbandmen, at the period of their history to which we are immediately alluding. That Moses himself possessed considerable scientific knowledge, is manifest from the signs of it displayed in the books attributed to him. That he did not expatiate more fully upon them in those books, evinces his sound judgment, correct taste, and perfect sense of the more important duty he had it in command to perform, and which he steadily kept in view, by confining himself principally to that most difficult, exalted, and important of sciences, the teaching of man a knowledge of himself, and the way in which he should walk. And we observe the same course strictly adhered to by all those pious and wise men that followed him; for though many, like Solomon, were probably skilled in the sciences, none are ever found, seduced by vanity, obtruding what knowledge they possessed on such subjects into their writings, devoted to far higher purposes. The acquaintance of Moses with natural history appears not to have been small, from the concise and accurate manner in which he classed the animals, &c., when delivering the |