LO'WENTHAL, ISIDOR, 1827-64; b. Posen, Prussian Poland, of Jewish parents; acquired the Hebrew language at an early age, exhibiting au extraordinary aptitude for philological studies. At 17 years of age, without having been to college, he had more than mastered the studies embraced in the college curriculum. He then accepted a mercantile clerkship, intending apparently to devote himself to a business life. He was a radical in politics and member of a liberal club, and a poem which he published in a newspaper having excited the attention of the governineut, he was constrained to flee to America. Reaching New York in the autumn of 1846, he was shortly afterward reduced to the necessity of becoming a street peddler in order to earn his bread. In these circum stances he found a friend in the Rev. S 31. Gayley, of Wilmington, Del., by whose means he gained a position as teacher of Gertnan and French in Lafayette college, Easton, Penn.
While thus engaged he joined the senior class in the college and graduated in 1848. After this he became teacher of languages in the collegiate school at 3It. Holly, N. J. In 1851 he became a Christian, and in 1852 entered the theological seminary at Pnnceton, where he took high rank in philology, and wrote several important articles for the Biblical Repertory. In 1855 he became a tutor in the college at Princeton, but in 1856 be accepted from the Presbyterian board of foreign missions an appointment as missionary to the Afghans of India. On his arrival in that country he set himself to the task of learning Persian, Cashmiri, Hindustanee, Arabic, and the Afghan languages, and trans lated into the latter the whole of the New Testament. He had nearly completed a dictionary of that language when lie was accidentally killed at Peshawar, a death which was an incalculable loss to missions in the East Indies.