of a heathen enlightenment bring perilous customs into the Holy Land, even to the very steps of the temple. The soul? We have a doctrine of the soul, too! But to mortify the flesh would lay an axe at the root of our national energies! Be fruitful and multiply! These mealy-mouthed strangers, how many children have they engendered? The view that revelation is something which concerns only the innermost recesses of the soul, the injunction that we should despise the world of the senses-does not such teaching make light of Israel's glorious past, endanger Israel's glorious future? In these troublous times, when we are under the Roman yoke, it behooves us to defend with our very lives the spirit of our fathers, the doctrine and the law which even Rome cannot take from us! Have we ever hesitated to risk our lives in this cause? Pompey was only able to conquer the Holy City because the besieged were too pious to defend themselves on the Sabbath day. In those times the Jews were a united people, among whom the spirit of the Maccabees was still living. Thanks to Herod, that spirit is no more! The two elders, crouching in the corner of the common room, talk of Herod the Great, who was still alive when they were boys. King Herod had been an Idumean, a man of sin, little better than an unbeliever. He had betrayed the Holy Land to Cicero, the consul, and brought Pompey and Crassus to besiege Jerusalem. Herod, son of a slave, had poisoned his father and his brother, that, by an outpouring of treasure, he could buy the kingly title from the Roman adventurers-and in the end he lost this title. What had his reign profited Israel? True enough, he had regained a great extent of territory, as far as the Anti-Lebanon, as far as the confines of Syria and Arabia, almost renewing the realm of David. But, far from renewing the faith of David, he had shown all the vices of Absalom, had sent gift upon gift to Rome, gratifying the heathen with temples, theatres, and baths; subsidizing Roman gladiatorial shows even in far Phoenicia; actually celebrating such shows on the confines of the Holy City itself; thus, barbarian that he was, wooing the favour of the pagan world and earning the contempt of his own people! No one would forget that, at the cost of millions of drachmas, he had rebuilt the temple, had gilded the pinnacles, had paved the courts with marble, had set up folding gates made of Corinthian brass, had had the curtain of the Holy of Holies woven of byssus yarn. None the less, he could not gild his crimes, or weave a web that would hide them from the sight of men. He might send three hundred beasts for the sacrifice, but the blood of the five and forty Pharisees, members of the Supreme Council, whom he had put to death, still cried against him from the ground. Slave and flatterer of Rome, he had affixed the golden eagles of Rome above the great gate, and though they had soon been removed they had left a mark which neither the rust nor the rains of half a century could efface. Because he had builded a temple and because he had many wives, he plumed himself on being the second Solomon; because Cleopatra had sent him four hun dred retainers, and because he kept Druses and Teutons as body-guard, he looked upon himself as a second Cæsar. Because he had eunuchs and soothsayers, minions and spies; because he played the orator; because he gave his children Latin names; because he was married ten times over and begat eleven children-he believed himself to be the father of his country! Was it to be wondered at that, when Herod died, the whole country had flamed up in revolution; that here, there, and everywhere soldiers had crowned themselves kings and fought with one another, till at length those who loved peace had sent to Rome, joining with the Jewish emigrants there in beseeching the emperor that he would restore order, would drive out these false kings? An appeal to the heathen ruler against Jewish upstarts! Augustus must have smiled inwardly, even though for the sake of appearances he kept a straight face, when in the temple of Apollo he acceded to the petition of eight thousand of the children of Israel, and granted as a boon the very thing he would fain have done on his own initiative. Divide and rule had ever been the motto of Rome. The emperor split Palestine into five parts, giving one of these petty portions to each of Herod's sons, who assumed the proud name of tetrarch-except for Judea, which became a Roman province, so that the governor, in his fortress overlooking the temple, held the heart of the land in his grip. These two elderly Pharisees could not free their minds from thoughts of the evil plight of their country, though it was one which time might have made familiar. over. To look before and after is natural at the time of PassFor we are still the chosen people! Since the days of Mattathias, for two hundred years and more, the onyx stone has ceased to shine in the high priest's breastplate, the onyx that aforetime denoted God's presence when sacrifices were offered up. Whence shall deliverance come? In this city of Jerusalem everything is curbed, watched, menaced. The standard of revolt must be raised elsewhere, in the north! Galilee! There lies our hope! There, in the land tainted with heathenism, the zealots are waiting and working. Once before, in Galilee, there were ardent youths determined to break the yoke of slavery. Had not the mere proclamation that the people were to be numbered been enough to stir up Judas the Galilean to revolt? "A numbering of the people is wickedness!" he exclaimed, and assembled a troop of enthusiasts. The revolt was against Rome, but also against the Romanizing Jews, against Herod most of all, against wealth and worldly power. No Jew should acknowledge a master! are a free people; God is the chief of our State; the law of Moses is our constitution. Our God helps those only who help themselves! "We are daggermen; we are sicarii!" With such cries, having armed themselves from the secret arsenals in Galilee, they rushed forth to encounter the legions of Varus. We The failure of that revolt served only to increase the flame of passion, which has glowed ever since in the sons of the slain. They are waiting; they are waiting; making ready in secret to meet force with force. They |