H ERE is a translation:—

“In the name of God, Amen!

“To my son:

“You are a little less than two years old; I, your father, am dying. I shall be dead before your birthday. That will be the 6th Cheshvan. It is now the 2nd Ellul The physician gives me till some time in Tishri to keep possession of my faculties. I am dying before my time. I have something yet to accomplish in this world. has willed that it be accomplished. He has willed that you accomplish it in my stead. I am in my bed as I write this, in the bed from which I shall not rise again. Through the open door of my room I can hear you crowing in your nurse’s arms. Ah, would that you could understand by word of mouth from me now, what I am compelled to write. There is so much that a man can not but forget to put down, when he is writing. Yet will illumine my mind and strengthen my trembling fingers. It will not allow me to forget any thing that is essential. When this is completed, I shall put it into safe hands, that it may be delivered to you at the proper time. I have no fear. I am sure it will reach you. It will reach you sooner or later, though all men conspire to the contrary. has promised it. He will render this writing indelible, this paper indestructible. He will guide this to you, even as He guides the river to the sea, the star to the zenith. Blessed be the name of forever.

“My son, before you read further, cover your head and pray. Pray to for strength. Pray that the will of your father may be done. Pray that you may be directed aright for the fulfillment of this errand of justice with which I charge you.

“You have prayed. I also have laid aside my pen for a moment, and, summoning your nurse to bring you to my bedside, have prayed with my hand upon your head. will be with you as you read. Read on.

“My son, you do not, you will never know your mother. You do not love her; you hear not the sound of her voice; it is forbidden you to gaze into the lustrous depths of her eyes. Ah, my son, you little guess how much you lost when you lost your mother. But you must learn the truth.

“Your mother was younger than I by seven years. I am thirty. Your mother would be three-and-twenty had she lived. She was nineteen when I married her. It was in Savannah, Georgia, going on five years ago. Ah, my Ernest, I can not tell you how beautiful your mother appeared to me when I saw her first. I can not tell you with what great love I loved her. Suppose that you had never seen a stone more precious than a pebble such as may be picked up in our back garden, and that all at once a diamond were shown to you, a diamond of the purest water: would you not distrust your eyes, crying, ‘Ah, so fine, so wonderful! Can it be?—So was it when I saw your mother. I had seen pebbles innumerable, ay, and mock diamonds too. She was the first true diamond I had ever seen. I loved her at the first glance.—How long, after the sun has risen, does it take the waters of the earth to sparkle with the sunlight? So long it took my heart to love, after my eyes for the first time had met your mother’s. But how much I loved her, how every drop of my life was sucked up and absorbed into my love of her, it would be useless for me to try to make you understand.

“And yet, loving her as I did, I hesitated to bespeak her for my wife. Why?

“In my eighteenth year my own father—your grandfather, of holy memory—had died. On his death-bed he called me to him. He said: ‘When you have become a man you will meet many women. To one of them your heart will go out in love. You will desire her for your wife. But I say to you here on my death-bed, beware! Do not marry, though your love be greater than your life.

“‘In the fourth generation back of me our ancestor was betrayed by the wife of his choice. So great was his hatred of her on this account, that he wished his seed, contaminated as it was by having taken root in her womb, to become extinct. Therefore he forbade his son to marry. And to this prohibition he attached a penalty.

“If, in defiance of his wish, his son should take unto himself a woman, then should he too taste the bitterness of infidelity within the household, then should he too be betrayed and dishonored by his wife. And this penalty he made to extend to the seventh and eighth generations. Whosoever of his progeny should enter into the wedded state should enter by the same step into the antechamber of hell.

“‘But his son laughed as he listened; and within two years he was married. But within two years also the laughter froze upon his lips. For behold, the curse of his father had come to pass!

“‘Thus ever since. Each of our ancestors, despite his father’s caution, has taken a wife. He has been betrayed and dishonored by her even as I have been betrayed and dishonored by your mother. He has repeated to his own son the family malediction even as I am now repeating it to you.—Let that malediction then go down into the grave with me. Do not marry, as you wish for peace now and hereafter.’

“It was in this wise that on his death-bed my father had spoken to me. I remembered his words when I found that I had begun to love a woman. It was for this reason that I hesitated to ask your mother to become my wife.

“Ah, but, my son, of what avail is hesitation at such a moment?—when you are gazing into the eyes of the woman you love? With sails set and a strong wind behind it, can the ship hesitate to speed across the sea? Thrust into a bed of live coals, can the wood hesitate to kindle and burn? With the sun beating hot upon the earth above it, can the seed hesitate to sprout and send forth rootlets? How long then could I, with the light of your mother’s face shining upon my pathway, how long could I hesitate to say, ‘I love you. Be my wife’.—We were married.

“You, my son, will never know how happy it is possible for a man to be. A woman such as your mother is born only once in all time. You will never meet with her like. You will never know the supreme joy of having her for your wife. Her breath was sweeter than the fragrance of the sweetest flower. The song of the nightingale was less musical than her simplest word. All the light of heaven was eclipsed by the light that glowed far down in her eyes. Her presence at my side was a foretaste of paradise. Only to take her hand into my own and stroke its warm, satiny skin, was an ecstasy which I can not describe, which I can not remember even at this extreme moment without a quickening of the pulse. For three, yes, for four years after our marriage we were so happy that we cried each morning and each evening at our prayers, ‘Lord, what have we done to merit such happiness?’—I, my son, laughed as I recalled the dying words of my father. ‘The family curse in my case,’ I said, ‘has gone astray. I have no fear.’—Alas! I took too much for granted. I congratulated myself too soon. Our happiness was doomed to be burst like a bubble at a touch. The family curse had perhaps gone astray for a little while: it was bound to find its way back before the end. The will of our ancestor could not be thwarted.

“The first three years of our married life we passed at Savannah, dwelling with the parents of your mother. There you were born—as it seemed, in order to consummate and seal with the seal of our perfect joy. Then, when you were still but three months old, it became necessary that I should return and take up my residence again in New York. We were not sorry to come to New York.

“Nicholas had been my closest friend for many years. Boys together at Breslau, we had crossed the sea together, and had started our new life together here in America. Before our wedding I had described Nicholas to your mother, saying, ‘Him also must you love;’ and to Nicholas I had written, bidding him include my wife in his love of me.—This was why we were not sorry to leave Savannah and come to New York: because Nicholas was here, because we wanted to be near to our best friend.—Nicholas met us as we disembarked from the sailing vessel that had brought us hither. It made my heart warm to greet my old comrade and to present to him my wife and my son.

“I was a true friend to Nicholas. After your mother and you, he was first in my heart. I would have shared with him my last drop of water, my last crumb of bread; and he, I believed, would have done the same by me. My purse was always open for Nicholas to put in his hand and take out what he would, even to the last penny. I thought Nicholas was pure gold. I trusted him as I trusted myself. I said to your mother, ‘No evil can betide you so long as Nicholas is alive. If any thing should happen to me, in him you will have a brother, in him our Ernest will have a second father.’ It gave me a sense of perfect security, made me feel that the strength of my own right arm was doubled, the fact that Nicholas was my friend.

“Good. After my return to New York the intimacy between Nicholas and myself increased. He was constantly at our house. We were always glad to see him. A place was always laid for him at our table; it made our hearts light to have him with us, so bright, so gay, withal so good, so sterling, such a trusty friend was he. I delighted to witness the friendship that rapidly sprang up between your mother and Nicholas. He entertained her, told her stories, made her laugh.—She would often exclaim, ‘Dear, good Nicholas! What should we do without him?’ I replied, ‘That is right. Let him be next to your son and your husband in your affection.’ I do not think it is common for one man to love another as I loved Nicholas.

“But after we had been in New York a little more than two months, your mother’s manner toward Nicholas began to change. She was cold and formal to him; when he would arrive, instead of running up with outstretched hands and crying, ‘Ah, it is you!’ she would courtesy to him and say without smiling, ‘How do you do?’—She laughed no more at his stories, she appeared to avoid him when she could; when she could not, she was silent and morose. I could see no reason for this. I was pained. I said, ‘Bertha, why do you behave so toward our best friend?’ Your mother pretended not to understand. ‘Don’t deny it,’ I insisted. ‘You are as distant, as polite to him, as if he were a mere acquaintance.’ Your mother answered, ‘I am sorry to distress you. I don’t know what you mean. I was not aware that I had been discourteous to your friend.’—’Has Nicholas done any thing?’ I asked.—’No, he has done nothing.’—I blamed your mother severely. I besought her to subdue what I took for her caprice. Yet every day her conduct toward Nicholas grew colder and more formal. Every day I reproved her more and more earnestly. This was the nearest approach to a quarrel that your mother and I had ever had. It grieved me deeply that she should adopt such a manner toward my friend. I was all the more cordial to him in consequence. I hoped that he would not notice the turn affairs had taken.

“Thus till almost a year ago. You lacked but a fortnight of being one year old.

“Business had kept me down town till late. At last I made up my mind that I should not be able to go home at all that night. So I told Nicholas to visit Bertha and let her know. ‘Spend the evening with her,&rsqu............