A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various
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town of Brampton, and soon the firm of Lake & Clark became widely known and highly trusted. In 1882 Mr. Lake retired from the firm, and four years later Mr. Clark gave up business, when the firm of Lake & Clark ceased to be longer known as dealers in real estate. During all these years Mr. Lake was very intimately associated with church work, and the Sherbourne Street Methodist Church owes not a little of its success to his labours and generous contributions. In 1881 he was induced by his numerous friends to permit himself to be put in nomination as alderman for St. Thomas ward, and having surrendered his standing as a minister, he consented, and was elected a member of the city council. One year in the council seems to have satisfied Mr. Lake, for although next year he was strongly urged by his St. Thomas ward constituency to again act as their representative, he refused to concede to this request, and retired from municipal politics. Politically Mr. Lake has always been a Reformer, but he is not a person who would support a party without a good and sufficient reason. He has been a member of the Toronto Stock Exchange, and of the Toronto Board of Trade, for many years, and is president of the American Watch Case Company; secretary of the Ontario Folding Steel Gate Company; director of the North American Life Assurance Company, and chairman of the agency committee. He is also treasurer of the Union Relief Fund, and of the Church and Parsonage Aid Fund of the Methodist church; has been treasurer from the beginning of the Sherbourne Street Methodist Church, and was organizer and superintendent of its Sunday school for the first eleven years. Mr. Lake was lately elected chairman of the committee on plans for the new Victoria College buildings to be erected in the Queen’s Park, Toronto, for the Methodist Church, at a cost of about $200,000. We may add that Mr. Lake has done a good deal to improve Toronto during the past fifteen years, having built residences worth about $200,000, in the most improved style of architecture, and his own residence—286 Sherbourne street—is a model of completeness and convenience. In June, 1859, he was married to Emily Jane, youngest daughter of S. V. R. Douglas, of Burford, Brant county, and granddaughter of the Rev. Thomas Whitehead, a gentleman who occupied a prominent position in the Methodist church from 1790 to 1840.
De Sola, Abraham, LL.D.—The late Dr. de Sola was one of the most distinguished scholars who ever graced an American-Jewish pulpit. His reputation as an Orientalist, theologian and linguist, was not confined to his own people; the profundity and extraordinary intellectual acumen which characterized his numerous writings and researches having won for him wide renown among the savants both of this continent and of Europe. He was descended from a very ancient and celebrated Jewish family, his ancestors having, in their migration from Judea, gradually moved across Northern Africa, until, crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, we find them settled in Spain as early as the close of the sixth century. Here the de Solas became very distinguished in the higher walks of life. They assisted the Saracens, when the mighty sons of the desert overran the Iberian Peninsula, and in return were received in high favour at the court of the Caliphs. The Gothic princes also treated them with distinction; and in Navarre, where a branch of the family settled, Don Bartolomé de Sola attained to such influence as to be ennobled and created a minister of state, and at one time exercised the functions of Viceroy. Another de Sola won renown by his prowess in battle, when fighting under the Infante of Aragon, in the fourteenth century. For several centuries they continued to flourish in Spain, the family being famed for the large number of illustrious men it produced, eminent as authors, rabbis, physicians, and courtiers. In 1492, in consequence of their adherence to Judaism, they suffered the fate of all Spanish Jews, being condemned to exile by the edict of the bigoted Ferdinand and Isabella. They fled to Holland, where they soon again rose to distinction in the world of letters. One member of the family, however, lingered behind in Portugal, eluding the vigilance of his persecutors by professing to become a New Christian (as Jewish converts to Christianity were styled), while he secretly continued to follow Judaism. During several generations some of his descendants continued to reside in Lisbon, where they possessed much wealth, remaining ever true to their ancestral faith, and all resorting to the same hazardous expedient to escape the notice of the Inquisition. But the fact that they often sent their children to Holland, that they might be the better able to follow Judaism, at length aroused the suspicions of the Holy Office; and towards the close of the seventeenth century David de Sola was suddenly pounced upon and incarcerated in the cells of the Inquisition-House. He bore the most frightful tortures heroically, and, as no confession could be forced from his lips, nor aught proved against him, he was released; but his shattered frame never recovered from the terrible agonies he had suffered. Years afterwards the suspicions of the Inquisition were again aroused, and two members of the family were seized, tortured, and having been found guilty of secret adherence to Judaism, suffered death at an Auto-da-Fé. Aaron de Sola (son of the above-mentioned David) was then the head of the Lisbon branch of the family, and, alarmed at the frightful fate of his two relatives, took refuge with his wife and children on an English man-of-war, which then lay at the mouth of the Tagus, only just in time to escape the officers of the Holy Office, who were in pursuit of him. Landed safely in London, by the friendly English captain, Aaron de Sola had no sooner put foot upon free soil, than he openly proclaimed his adherence to the faith which he and his fathers had so long followed in secret. This was in 1749. He proceeded shortly after with his family to Amsterdam, where he took up his abode. His eldest son, David, was the ancestor of the Abraham de Sola who forms the subject of this sketch; while his youngest son, Benjamin, became one of the most eminent practitioners in Holland, and was Court Physician to William V., and the author of numerous medical works. Another son of Aaron de Sola settled in Curaçao, and was the progenitor of that General Juan de Sola who won such high military distinction fighting under Bolivar and Paez in the revolt of the South American Colonies from Spain. In 1690 another member of the family, Isaac de Sola, became famed in London as a preacher and author. Some volumes of his writings are still to be seen among the rare collections of European libraries. Abraham de Sola was born on the 18th September, 1825. His father, David Aaron de Sola, was a very prominent rabbi, celebrated for his theological writings, and had removed from Amsterdam to London, England, early in the present century, where the subject of this sketch was born. His mother was of the illustrious Meldola family, who had furnished leading rabbis to the Jews of Europe for twelve consecutive generations. From childhood Abraham de Sola betrayed a strong inclination for study, and having received a thorough training in those branches which form the usual curriculum of higher education, he turned his attention to theological and linguistic studies, and early laid the foundation of that deep acquaintance with oriental languages and literature which afterwards won him such renown. In 1846 he was offered the position of minister of the Congregation of Portuguese Jews of Montreal, and, having accepted this call, arrived in Canada early in 1847. Here began the great work of his life. Shortly after his advent to Montreal his eloquent sermons in the Synagogue attracted the attention of the Mercantile Library Association, and upon invitation he delivered before this body a series of lectures upon the history of the Jews of England. The interest evoked by these efforts led to his delivering a further course of lectures upon Jewish history before this association the following year, and also before the Mechanics’ Institute. In 1848 he published his “Notes on the Jews of Persia, under Mohammed Shah.” This was followed by “A History of the Jews of Persia,” and within the same year he published his “Lectures on Scripture Zoology” which was succeeded by his “Lectures on the Mosaic Cosmogony.” Shortly afterwards he gave to the world “The Cosmography of Peritsol,” a work which at once attracted great attention and brought its author prominently to the front. It received such favourable notice from leading reviews as to be republished in part by the Occident and other magazines, and translations in various languages were brought out by publishers in foreign countries. As late as 1881 we find it attracting the attention of the learned Chevalier Pesaro, of Italy, in the columns of an Italian review. His next important work “A Commentary on Samuel Hannagid’s Introduction to the Talmud,” displayed a deep and broad acquaintance with rabbinical literature, and was received with marked approbation by the literati of this continent and Europe. His literary labours had now made him a prominent figure among the learned bodies of Montreal, and in 1853 he was appointed Professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature at McGill University, Montreal, a position which he continued to fill with marked ability during the rest of his life, and for which his deep knowledge of Semitic tongues particularly adapted him. He was also a co-labourer of Sir William Dawson in the Natural History Society, as well as at McGill, and did much towards vitalizing and extending the usefulness of that body. In 1853, in conjunction with the