to inspire dead words, and dig out and chisel new thoughts and feelings? Do they feel that irresistible need for physical exercise to restore the overstrained nerve power?
Our young friend found plentiful consideration in the decision as to what handicraft he would devote himself to. He now remembered how often he had stood near the diamond mill, and watched the horses in the lower story as they turned the wheel that set in motion the machinery in the mill above. The polishing and cutting of diamonds was the secret of his co-religionists, an attraction for the boy, as well as the knowledge, freely entrusted to him, that diamonds could only be cut and polished with diamond dust. How often, on his way to the Talmud school, or Magister Nigritius, had he stood in self-forgetfulness at the open doors or windows of the workshops while the men inside pursued their trade. The boy's eyes had been fascinated by this handicraft, and a longing for similar work possessed his mind. Now for the first time the knowledge flashed upon him that what we call a free decision is really only the result of past influences, often generating again its own scarcely perceptible results. He paused but little to consider this fleeting thought, for his imagination dwelt on the numerous workshops wherein the powers of man build up and mould the results of nature into new shapes. Only he who reforms and controls
