This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
96
SPINOZA.

and cowered down. I had enough to do for my own people, and left Henrico to his own devices.

Our journey was fair in the beginning; the change of scene reawakened Manuela's gayety. But my father fell ill the first evening. He tried, as heretofore, to avert the evil by strong medicines: but it was no use; he grew worse from hour to hour.

"It is strange," he said to me once, as I sat beside his bed: "here I lie, old child that I am, in a great cradle, that will rock the life out of me. Do not throw my body out on to the cold flood. As Joseph once his brethren, so I conjure you, my children, take my bones and bury them in the land whereto the Lord will lead you; I feel that my eyes will never see it more."

I tried to divert him from such thoughts, but he said: "I know my hours are numbered. I have experienced much joy and much sorrow in this world; glory and thanks be to the Lord our God for both! Come, call my children—Manuela too; she also is my child; you will be happy with her. Do not weep," he said to them as they entered. "I sink into the grave in peace, for I know that you will go on unmolested, and may live at peace with your God; but should an oppressor's hand repulse you, despair not, for the law of our God, the Infinite and only One, will one day be gloriously recognized by all nations."

My father talked much longer about the regu-