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432 "Is faith then the only form of piety?"

"I know, I know," continued Silva hastily. "I am not come to dispute with you. You may attribute it to pride that I still ascribe piety to you. But when you left the synagogue forever you must have seen beside a seat of prayer, where once your father stood, a child, and that child prayed fervently, and that child was yourself. Forget it not. And you may know and keep it in remembrance that a Jew, with sorrow in his heart, sees you set forth on your lonely way. Farewell!"

Spinoza stretched out his hand to de Silva, but the latter only grasped that of the heretic with a mantle-covered hand, and went quickly away.

This new circumstance deeply agitated Spinoza. It was news from a life that he had lost. He could not be forgotten yet.

Soon, however, news of a death roused sincere sorrow in Spinoza's heart. It was the news that his teacher. Van den Ende, was executed in Paris. The always good-natured physician, who prized laughter as the highest good, had in action shown a devotion to his fatherland that no one would have expected from him. In order to prevent Louis XIV. from levying war on the United Provinces by a popular rising at home, he, with the Duc de Rohan and others, had plotted an insurrection in Normandy. He paid for it with a death on the gallows.