inspiration from on high that had given him the name of Uriel--"fire
of God"? So, when his private thunders had procured him a summons
before the outraged Rabbinic court, he was in no wise to be awed by
the _Chacham_ and his Rabbis in their solemn robes.

"Pharisees!" he cried, and, despite his lost Christianity, all the
scorn of his early training clung to the word.

"Epicurean!" they retorted, with contempt more withering still.

"Nay, Epicurus have I never read, and what I know of his doctrine by
hearsay revolteth me. I am for God and Reason, and a pure Judaism."

"Even so talked Elisha Ben Abuya in Palestine of old," put in the
second Rabbi more mildly. "He with his Greek culture, who stalked from
Sinai to Olympus, and ended in Atheism."

"I know not of Elisha, but I marvel not that your teaching drove him
to Atheism."

"Said I not 'twas Atheism, not Judaism, thou talkedst? And an Atheist
in our ranks we may not harbor: our community is young in Amsterdam.
'Tis yet on sufferance, and these Dutchmen are easily moved to riot.
We have won our ground with labor. Traitor! wouldst thou cut the
dykes?"

"Traitor thou!" retorted Uriel. "Traitor to God and His holy Law."

"Hold thy peace!" thundered the _Chacham_, "or the ban shall be laid
upon thee."

"Hold my peace!" answered Uriel scornfully. "Nay, I expatriated myself
for freedom; I shall not hold my peace for the sake of the ban."

Nor did he. At home and abroad he exhausted himself in invective, in
exhortation.

"Be silent, Uriel," begged his aged mother, dreading a breach of the
happiness her soul had found at last in its old spiritual swathings.
"This Judaism thou deridest is the true, the pure Judaism, as I was
taught it in my girlhood. Let me go to my grave in peace."

"Be silent, Uriel," besought his brother Joseph. "If thou dost not
give over, old Manasseh and his cronies will bar me out from those
lucrative speculations in the Indies, wherein also I am investing thy
money for thee. They have already half a hundred privateers, and the
States-General wink at anything that will cripple Spain, so if we can
seize its silver fleet, or capture Portuguese possessions in South
America, we shall reap revenge on our enemies and big dividends. And
he hath a comely daughter, hath Manasseh, and methinks her eye is not
unkindly towards me. Give over, I beg of thee! This religion liketh me
much--no confession, no damnation, and 'tis the faith of our fathers."

"