Europe and Germany; and I have met with many converted Jews there, who, with tears in their eyes, complained of heart-burnings and pangs of conscience; and they look upon themselves as eternally lost.  Those tears will show a heavy balance against Czar Nicholas, when, bereft of his earthly power, he stands before the eternal tribunal.

The other charge—­he says again after refuting several accusations of the kind stated above—­the other charge, that the Jews are averse to secular studies, rests upon an equally erroneous foundation.  For even in Germany Jewish parents have at length found out that it is absolute folly to let their sons devote themselves to the study of science, since they never can hope for obtaining the least office; and since many a one, after the best years of his youth are passed, tired of waiting, and fearful of not having in his old age any means of support, finds in the baptismal font the last anchor of his shattered hopes.  How much more must this consideration have weight in Russia?  Nicholas, instead of encouraging the Jews to study, ordered, on the contrary, that all such of them as held offices and insignia of distinction under Alexander should either resign or become apostates.  I know myself several collegiate councillors and men attached to the court, who went to the synagogue on the Day of Atonement with the insignia of the order of St. Anna around their neck, and prayed there with devotion and fervor, who still were forced into apostasy.  Such instances are not calculated to encourage Jewish parents to let their children study; and it is but too true that many whose inclination led them to study were carried thereby into the bosom of the Christian Church.[12]

After almost half a decade of indefatigable labor, Lilienthal finally came to understand the Russian State policy, “to assign a plausible reason for every act done by the Government, in order to stand justified in the estimation of Europe, whilst they, by throwing dust in the eyes of the public, conceal their true purpose.”  The laws which seemed favorable to the Jews, and apparently aimed at promoting culture among them, went hand in hand with laws of the most rigorous character.  It is true that the Jews were not the only unfortunates whom the fanatic autocrat wished to Russify, that is, compel to see the pure light of Greek Orthodoxy.  But they, of course, suffered the most.  The slightest laws were enforced by the chinovniks (officials) with the knout and the leaden lash.  When the Judeo-Polish gaberdine, the long side-curls (peot), and the wig or turban (knup) fell into disfavor with the Government, the miserable offender caught by an officer seldom saved himself with the mere sacrifice of knup, coat, peot, and beard.  And when the time arrived for the execution of the more important laws, such as the Exportation Act of April 20, 1843, no fiendish ingenuity could surpass the cruelty of the Cossacks.  This ukase more than any other, it is claimed, embittered Lilienthal against Russia, and caused him to flee to where he could say as one awakening from a nightmare:  “The horrible hatred against the Jews in Russia is nothing more to me than a hazy remembrance.  My soul is no longer oppressed by frightful pictures of tyranny and persecution."[13] He was in the land of the free!