dom granted me on condition of not disturbing the established religion; and then, again, the instruction I bestowed on youth would hinder my own advance in philosophy. I have only succeeded in procuring for myself a tranquil life by the renunciation of all kinds of public teaching." He felt that his duty was to think. He thought, in fact, for humanity, whose ideas he forestalled by more than two centuries.
The same instinctive sagacity was carried by him into all the relations of life: he felt that public opinion never permits a man to be daring in two directions at once. Being a freethinker, he looked upon himself as bound to live like a saint. But I am wrong in saying this. Was not this pure and gentle life rather the direct expression of his peaceful and lovable consciousness? At that period the atheist was pictured as a villain armed with daggers. Spinoza was throughout his whole lifetime humble, meek, pious. His enemies were ingenuous enough to object to this: they would have liked him to live comformably to the conventional type, and, after the career of a demon incarnate, to die in despair. Spinoza smiled at this singular pretension, and refused to oblige his enemies by changing his way of life. He had warm friends; he showed himself courageous at need; he protested against popular indignation wherever he thought it unjust. Many disappointments failed to shake his fidelity to the republican party; the liberality of his opinions was never at the mercy of events. What, perhaps, does him more honor still, he possessed the esteem and sincere affection of the simple beings among whom he lived. Nothing is equal in value to the esteem of the lowly; their judgment is almost always that of God. To the worthy Van der Spycks he was evidently the very ideal of a perfect lodger. "No one ever gave less trouble," was their testimony given some years after his death to Colerus. "While in the house he inconvenienced nobody; he spent the best part of his time quietly in his own room. If he chanced to tire himself by too protracted meditation, he would come down-stairs and speak to the family about any subject of common talk, even about trifles." In fact, there could never have been a more affable inmate. He would often hold conversations with his hostess, especially at the time of her confinements, as well as with the rest of the household when any sorrow or sickness befell them. He would tell the children to go to divine service, and, when they returned from the sermon, ask them how much they remembered of it. He almost always strongly seconded what the preacher had said. One of the persons he most esteemed was the pastor Cordes, an excellent man and good expounder of the Scriptures; sometimes, indeed, he went to hear him, and he advised his host never to miss the preaching of so able a man. One day his hostess asked him if he thought she could be saved in the religion she professed. "Your religion is a good one," he replied; "you should not seek any other, nor doubt that yours will procure salvation if, in
