me to life.
Alas, earthly life has passed, and I must
Sleep again on the bosom of Mother Nature.
Witness this stone. I fought with God's
Foes, not with a Sword, but with the Word;
I fought for Truth and Justice among the Nations
And _Zerubbabel_ and _Efes Dammim_ testify thereto.

Contemporaneous with Isaac Baer Levinsohn, and hardly less distinguished
and influential, was Mordecai Aaron Guenzburg (ReMAG, Salanti, Kovno,
December 3, 1795--Vilna, November 5, 1846). His family had been
prominent in many walks of life since the fourteenth century, and,
whether in the land of the Saxons or of the Slavs, represented the cream
of the Jewries in which they lived. His father was a Maskil of great
repute, who had written several treatises, in Hebrew, on algebra,
geometry, optics, and kindred subjects. He sought to supplement his son
Mordecai Aaron's heder education with a knowledge of secular sciences.
But at that time and in that place not many were the books, outside the
Talmud, accessible to a lad eager for learning, the only ones available
being such as the _Josippon_, _Zemah David_, and _Sheerit Yisrael_ on
Jewish History, the _Sefer ha-Berit_, and a Hebrew translation of
Mendelssohn's _Phaedon_ on general philosophy. But the precocious and
clear-minded youth did not need much to stimulate his love for history
and his inclination to philosophy, and his intellectual development
continued in spite of the untoward circumstances in which he happened to
be placed.

Though he was "given" in marriage at a very early age, the proverbial
"millstone" weighed but lightly upon the neck of young Guenzburg. He
never discontinued the habit of secluding himself in his study for
hours, sometimes for days, at a time, and there writing down his
thoughts in painstaking penmanship. These productions, with all their
crudity, promised, according to a keen critic, the flowers which would
one day "ripen into delicious fruit, not only pleasant to the sight but
also delicious to the taste." In fact, even his religious views
underwent but slight modification in later and maturer years. Ceremonial
laws, or minhagim, were to him a social compact among the members of a
sect. He who transgresses them is, _eo ipso_, excluded from the sect, as
he who disregards the social code, though not immoral, is ostracized
from society. This led him to the logical conclusion that every Jew must
comply with the customs of his people, though his opinion a