CHAPTER I.
THE JOURNEY TO DAN.

On the day which followed the feast of Pentecost, Helon stood upon the highest of the three summits of the mount of Olives, and with a heavy heart and weeping eyes watched the train of the pilgrims from Jericho, as they disappeared among the groves and gardens of Bethany, and listened to their songs, in which the voice of Sulamith seemed to warble to him a farewell, full of affection and regret. It had cost him many a struggle, to resolve to undertake this journey to Dan—but Selumiel had determined to put his self-command to this proof, and Helon was forced to comply. There was a certain hardness in Selumiel’s natural disposition, which the influence of an amiable wife had not entirely mollified; he had been compelled in his youth to practise much self-denial and bear many mortifications, and he could not deny himself the pleasure of making even those he loved undergo a similar discipline, persuading himself perhaps that he was improving their tempers, while he was indulging his own. “The path of obedience is arduous and rough,” said Helon with a sigh, as he turned from where the Jordan wound its way through the meadows of Jericho, to the northern hills of Ebal and Gerizim, over which his destined journey lay; “the path of obedience is rough, but it shall be trodden.” He called to mind the first commandment with promise, and he thought that when he had made this sacrifice to the sense of duty, he should be able, without difficulty, to fulfil the rest of the commandments, and become a Chasidean. Ambition came to the aid of virtue, and he returned towards the city, resolved, though not satisfied.

On the following morning he took his departure, in company with the Governor of Samaria, whom Hyrcanus had just appointed, and some Galilean Jews, who preferred returning into their own country by the nearer way. Iddo accompanied his friend as far as to the gate of Ephraim, not without a secret dissatisfaction at the ill-nature of his brother. The travellers were mounted, and attended by such a train as became the rank of the principal person in the party. They entered the King’s valley, and directed their course between Mizpa and Nob towards Geba, which lay not far from Rama, the city where Samuel judged,^[98] called in latter times Arimathea. The road was stony; the conversation of the party turned wholly on worldly topics. This Geba is also called Geba of Benjamin, to distinguish it from another of the same name: it was celebrated for David’s victory over the Philistines.^[99] It lay on a rising ground, six sabbath-days’ journies from Jerusalem, and was one of the cities of the priests.^[100] As they had been late in quitting Jerusalem, they halted here for their rest at noon, and as most of the party were disposed to consult their own ease, they remained till late in the afternoon. The road to Michmash was more steep and rocky than that which they had travelled. Here they had to traverse a defile, between two abrupt and rugged rocks, in the mountains of Ephraim, forming a pass which had been rendered celebrated by the exploits of Jonathan in Saul’s first expedition against the Philistines,^[101] and by the residence of the Maccabee prince Jonathan.^[102] They halted for the night at Bethel, a place of which the name often occurs in the sacred writings. This city was sixteen sabbath-days’ journies from Jerusalem, and Helon called to mind that from the mulberry-trees in its neighbourhood it had been named Luz, when Abraham dwelt there; that Jacob here saw the vision of the ladder on which the angels ascended and descended, and that rising upon the following morning he built an altar to Jehovah, and called the name of the place Bethel.^[103] The ark of the covenant had long stood here; and it was here too, alas, that Jeroboam had set up the worship of the golden calves which he had learnt in Egypt, causing Israel to sin.^[104] The prophets so much abhorred its idolatries that they changed its name into Bethaven, place of unworthiness; and to go to Bethel, came to signify the same thing as to apostatize from Jehovah to idolatry.^[105]

On the following morning, instead of taking the usual road by Lebona and Gophna, they went by Shiloh, where the governor had business. Shiloh was the first town in Samaria, and peculiarly interesting to Helon, from the circumstance that Joshua came thither from Gilgal,^[106] and that the tabernacle had long stood there. It was very pleasantly situated on a hill, whence the mountains both of Judah and Ephraim might be seen. For nearly three hundred years it was the place in which the tribes assembled, till the tabernacle was removed to Nob^[107] and Bethel; afterwards by Saul to Gibeon;^[108] and finally by David to Jerusalem. It was here that in the times of the Judges the maidens were carried off by violence;^[109] here Eli had fallen from his seat, at the news of the capture of the ark by the Philistines.^[110] After the mid-day rest at Shiloh, the governor hastened to his residence at Sichem, which was sixteen sabbath-days’ journies from Shiloh, thirty-six from Bethel, and more than fifty from Jerusalem.

Iddo had strongly recommended Helon to the good offices of the governor, who, to do honour to the recommendation, invited him to take up his abode in his own house, which displayed every luxury of furniture, and a numerous train of servants. The pompous condescension, the free life and licentious conversation of the governor, who was a Jew by birth, but a Samaritan in sensuality and worldly mindedness, were so displeasing to Helon, that he would instantly have departed; but his host would not allow him to go without passing a few days with him. He endeavoured to console himself by exploring every object of interest in the neighbourhood, for which purpose the governor furnished him with attendants and guides.

Sichem lay in a plain, or to speak more accurately, in a valley, which extended to the east and west. On the northernnorthern and southern sides of the long line of the city rose the two mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, separated by so small an interval, that the voice might be heard from the summit of the one to the summit of the other. Thus sheltered from the pernicious winds of the north-west and south-west, it lay stretched out in picturesque beauty, at the feet of the gigantic guards that seemed stationed for its protection. It was half a sabbath-day’s journey in length, but so narrow, that it consisted only of two parallel streets, with an open space between them. The fruitful plain into which the valley expanded was watered by several mountain streams, and diversified by vineyards and olive-yards, plantations of mulberries, and orchards of figs, citrons, and pomegranates. About a sabbath-day’s journey from the city, on the road to Jerusalem, was the well of Jacob, situated in the field or plain which Jacob had purchased from the children of Hamor.^[111] The well is nine feet in diameter, and a hundred deep, with five feet of water. It was cut in the rock, and a flight of steps descended to the water. In the midst of this lovely plain stood the grove of Moreh.^[112]

From every part of the plain Sichem and its hills of Ebal and Gerizim were seen. The city seemed more closely connected with Gerizim which lay on the south, than with Ebal on the north. Gerizim was fruitful, abounding in springs and covered with vines and olives; its principal face being turned to the north, it escaped that parching heat which made Ebal scorched and bare. The latter, on the side adjacent to the city was full of caverns, which served the inhabitants as sepulchres.

The natural beauties of this exquisite scene were combined with a multitude of historical associations. The grove of Moreh had been the first resting-place of Abraham, when he entered the Land of Promise. Jacob had dug the well, purchased the plain, and buried the idols of his wives beneath the terebinth.^[113] The outrage committed by his sons Simeon and Levi had compelled him to retire to Bethel, through fear of the men of Sichem.^[114] Joshua had called the tribes together for the last time to this place,^[115] and had caused a stone to be erected on Ebal, as a memorial of the renewal of the covenant with Jehovah. It was Sichem which proclaimed Abimelech king, after he had murdered his seventy brethren; it had also been the first to revolt from him, in consequence of which it was destroyed and sowed with salt.^[116] At Sichem the schism between Israel and Judah was consummated, and Jeroboam made it the metropolis of the new kingdom.^[117] After the erection of the temple on Gerizim, which Hyrcanus had destroyed, Sichem had been for three hundred years the chief seat of the Samaritan idolatry.

Helon dismissed his guides as soon as they had pointed out to him the particular spots, and every morning wandered alone for several hours over the neighbourhood. Now he lingered beside the well of Jacob, or traversed the field of the patriarch, or rested in the grove of Moreh; now, from the lofty side of Ebal or GerizimGerizim, beheld the whole landscape spread at his feet. His hours flowed on without his being conscious of their lapse, while, in the dreams of thought, he pictured to himself his approaching happiness, not without a secret feeling of pride in his virtuous resolution, in having quitted Sulamith for a time, in compliance with her father’s command. He returned unwillingly towards evening, to take his place among the guests at the luxurious table of the governor, and hear their heartless jests.

Once however, during his rambles, he found the governor’s protection of great importance to him. He had joined some Samaritans who had laid themselves down in the shade of some olives on the sloping side of Gerizim, and were conversing about their temple and their worship, the rites of which were still celebrated amidst its ruins. They reviled Hyrcanus and his sons, and exalted the memory of Sanballat and Manasseh. This was more than Helon could endure. He started up and exclaimed, “Where is your temple? When Moses commanded that on the entrance of the tribes into the promised land, one half should stand on Ebal to curse the ungodly, and the other half on Gerizim to bless the godly, (as was done under Joshua,) he said, ‘When ye go over the Jordan ye shall raise up stones upon mount Ebal, and plaster them with lime, and there build an altar of stones to Jehovah your God.’^[118] And ye, contrary to the express command of God, have built a temple upon Gerizim!”

The Samaritans arose, and in violent anger exclaimed, “Thou art a Jew, one of those who through hatred against us have corrupted the law, have effaced the name of Gerizim and inserted that of Ebal.”

“It is false,” said Helon.

“We alone possess the genuine law,” exclaimed the Samaritans. “And ye have the curse,” replied Helon with equal emotion.

The dialogue was growing so warm, that Helon might probably have suffered some personal violence from them, had not the officers of justice made their appearance, who carried them all before the governor. He speedily decided the matter, dismissed the Samaritans with scorn—giving Helon at the same time many sarcastic admonitions, to controul his zeal and enthusiasm more carefully in future. At the evening’s banquet he had again to endure his raillery; and when he was alone he could not help exclaiming, “Well may Sichem be called in JudÆa Sichar, for it is in truth the place of drunkenness and lies!”

On the following morning he took his departure. The governor politely gave him an escort as far as Samaria; fearing, as he said, that he should expose himself to the same dangers as on mount Gerizim: Helon accepted the offer, but shook off the dust of Sichem from his feet when he had quitted it.

Samaria was in the former territory of the tribe of Manasseh. Omri, the sixth king of Israel, and father of Ahab, built it, and called it after Samer, the possessor of the ground.^[119] Thirza, which had before been the royal residence, having been reduced to ashes, Samaria became the capital of the kingdom of Israel, and remained so till its destruction. At that time it was a league in circumference, was called the head of Ephraim, and contained a magnificent temple of Baal which Jezebel had erected.^[120] It slighted the warnings of Elijah and Elisha, and was destroyed by the Assyrian Salmanasser, after a siege of three years.^[121]

At this time it was a picture of desolation. The lofty hill on which it once stood, with a view towards Joppa, Carmel, and the Mediterranean sea, was covered with heaps of ruins and water-courses diverted from their channels. Its commanding prospect only made it a more conspicuous monument of the valour and the vengeance of the heroes of Judah and of the wickedness of its inhabitants. A second time the prophetic word of Hosea and Micah had received its accomplishment.^[122] Helon looked down at once with exultation and gratitude to God upon the scattered huts in which the children of Samaria were hiding themselves, while the sons of Jerusalem were praising Jehovah in their houses and their palaces.

He dismissed the escort of the governor and pursued his way to Thirza, the limits of this day’s journey. He had purposed to reach Megiddo, but his progress was arrested by a spectacle equally new and interesting; a tribe of wandering shepherds, who were making their annual migration from the plain of Sharon to mount Hermon. They had been detained later than usual, for they commonly remove early in the spring. The flocks and herds led the way, behind them came camels laden with their tents, baggage, and poultry, and the young of the flocks, which as yet were too weak to accompany the march. The women and children followed, mounted on other camels; some of the females were spinning as they rode, others grinding in their hand-mills, others tending their infant children. The boys ran by the side of the camels, playing or fighting. Lances, from eight to ten feet in length, were every where seen above the heads of this tumultuous train; and on all sides were heard the hoarse voices of the men who carried them, some of whom were endeavouring to maintain order, and others surrounded and protected the line of march.

When they reached their ordinary place of encampment, a new scene began; the sheep and goats laid themselves in the grass, the camels knelt down, the poultry flew from their backs. In two hours the dark brown tents were erected. Helon made Sallu assist them, while he himself looked on and enjoyed the animated confusion of the scene. With upright and cross poles a large tent of an oblong form was erected. The coverings were of a thick brown stuff made of goats’ hair, and the door of the tent was nothing but a curtain of this cloth, which could be lifted up or drawn aside. In the middle was the tent of the chief of this nomadic tribe; the rest were pitched around it, to the distance of thirty paces. Every one of the larger tents was divided into three parts by curtains; in the outermost were the young and tender cattle which required shelter, in the next the men, and in the innermost the women. The mattresses, pillows, and coverlets for sleeping were laid in one corner; the weapons were hung on the sides of the tent; carpets were spread upon the floor, a hole dug in the middle for the fire, and the few and simple articles of household furniture, wooden dishes, vessels of copper, a hand-mill, and bottles of leather, easily found their appropriate place.

Helon beheld, with admiration, the rapid erection of this moveable town. The number of the tents was about thirty, that of the men and women above two hundred, and the cattle amounted to some thousands. Always reminded of the past by the present, he thought he saw the Rechabites, or Israel journeying in the wilderness, or the pastoral wanderings of Abraham and Jacob. “How much more agreeable to nature, how much more favourable to virtue,” thought he, “is this life of simplicity and freedom, than the constraint and luxury of the governor’s palace!” He laid himself down beside the well, and thought “what would be wanting to the happiness or to the purity of life, if here, with Sulamith, I could spend my days, far from the cares and the temptations of the busy world!”

The chief of the tribe received him and Sallu hospitably, with their horses and camels, and killed a calf for their entertainment, which the women prepared by roasting in small square pieces. Milk, butter, and cheese formed the rest of their repast. At the first dawn of morning the whole encampment was in motion, to milk the cattle and lead them out to their pasture. Helon often cast his eyes towards the spot where a few scattered cottages marked the place on which the ruins of Thirza stood. Though the city had disappeared, the loveliness of the site still showed why Thirza had been to the Hebrews an emblem for beauty.^[123] Baasha governed Israel from this hill, and Zimri the murderer of his son, after seven days’ enjoyment of the fruits of his crime, consumed himself along with the royal palace.^[124] “These,” said Helon, “are all passed away; the capital and the kingdom are alike become a tradition; yet the tribes of migrating shepherds still pursue the track which their forefathers kept in ages past!”

About noon a small caravan of merchants arrived, which usually followed the shepherds: they pitched their white tents, and spread their wares out around them. The shepherds came and purchased what they wanted, giving in exchange skins, wool, goats’ hair, cheese, and even cattle. Helon purchased some ornaments, which he designed to be a present to his hospitable entertainer. He remained some days among them, delighted beyond measure with their mode of life, and entering with the liveliest interest into all their occupations. He helped the shepherds to water their flocks from the well, played with the children, and related stories in the evening, when they gathered with their camels around the fire.

Only a few days now remained to the time when he was to meet Myron at Dan. After taking a friendly leave, he directed his course to Megiddo, which lies between the fragrant plain of Sharon on the south, and the great plain of Jezreel on the north. Megiddo is celebrated for the battle in which the kings Ahaziah and Josiah were killed fighting against Neco, king of Egypt.^[125] Helon had come hither to see the great route of the Phoenician commerce, which pursued a course parallel to the sea. He passed Tunis Stratonis, a small and now almost abandoned town, but possessed, as he remarked, of an incomparable harbour. Here he was a hundred stadia from Jerusalem. Keeping to the north from Turris Stratonis, he came to Dor, which is also on the sea-coast, and thence by Magdiel to the foot of Carmel.

Carmel joins the plain of Sharon to the south, and the hills of Ephraim to the south-east; and on the north the bay of Acco and the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, through which the Kishon runs, rising in mount Tabor, and falling into the sea at the foot of Carmel, after having divided the lands of Issachar and Zebulon. Helon ascended the mountain; it is of great height, and has a wide and beautiful prospect both by land and sea. It is distinguished, as its name expresses, by its fertility. Its very summit is crowned with pines and oaks; its lower regions abound with olives and laurels. Helon, as he stood on it, thought with sacred awe of the victory which the worship of Jehovah had gained over that of Baal, through the energetic zeal of Elijah of Thisba, and of the slaughter of the priests of Baal, which made Kishon run purple to the sea.^[126] As he descended, he found a multitude of Phoenician fishermen engaged in taking the shell-fish from which their celebrated die is made. There are two species of this fish; one is caught by bait, the other, which is particularly abundant on the shore of Carmel, is gathered from the rocks. The die is contained in a white vein or bladder in the neck; the Phoenicians made from it fourteen shades of purple, of which the most highly prized, the bright red and the violet, were manufactured with inimitable skill at Tyre. A shepherd’s dog which had fed upon the fish, and had thus stained his mouth of a beautiful colour, is said to have furnished the first hint for this lucrative article of commerce.

Helon did not proceed from Carmel to Acco,^[127] a Phoenician city on the river Belus, for he had resolved to enter no heathen place on this journey, devoted to exploring the regions of the promised land. Leaving Carmel to the south, a high hill to the north, which bears the name of the Tyrian Climax, (or stair) and the hills of Galilee on the east, he entered the plain of Zebulon. But he often turned to look on the kingly head of Carmel, and to admire the structure of the hills which form the Tyrian Climax, descending, as by a flight of steps, from their highest elevation to the level of the sea. The city of Tyre lay behind these hills.

Quitting Samaria, and entering Galilee, the plain of Zebulon brought him to Gathhepher, the birthplace of the prophet Jonah; and thence he proceeded through the land of Naphthali to Thisba, where in ancient times the prophet Elijah, and more recently the pious Tobit,^[128] had been born. But neither beautiful scenery nor the gratification of beholding the places where eminent men had lived, could efface from Helon’s mind the painful feeling that every step which he took carried him further from Jericho. His pride in the consciousness of fulfilling a duty became less and less able to support him; he thought that he had carried his obedience a point too far, and was angry with Selumiel, with Elisama,—with himself. He was therefore rejoiced when he saw in the distance Antilibanus, the southern branch of a chain of mountains, of which the other branch lay in Phoenicia. This was consequently the boundary of the promised land. Its name, Lebanon, was derived from the whiteness of its rocks and peaks, especially from the perennial snow^[129] which covered the head of Hermon, its highest summit. The morning sun was shining on its brilliant peak, as Helon crossed the lesser Jordan, and entered Dan, the frontier town of JudÆa on the north. He inquired his way to the caravansera, and had just halted before it with his horses and camels when Myron came out and embraced him.

Helon joyfully returned his salutation. “And you will be ready,” said he, “to-morrow, to set off for Jericho?”

Myron burst into a laugh. “It is true, I see, what the Galilean said, on his return, of the good fortune which has befallen you there. My own good star has brought me to be the witness of your nuptials. Receive my hearty congratulations. How does my venerable Elisama? But our first care must be to give your beasts rest and shelter.”

The Grecian levity of Myron’s manner was a relief to Helon. They entered the court of the caravansera; in the middle of it was a large cistern of water, from which the horses and camels drank; the baggage was deposited in rooms behind the portico, and fodder for the beasts, with a scanty supply for themselves, was to be purchased of the attendant in the caravansera. When these things were done, Myron and Helon seated themselves in a corner of the portico, where they should be most free from interruption, and Helon related to his friend his adventures since they separated. When his narrative was ended, Myron said, “After you left the caravan at Gaza, I had a melancholy life in the midst of my merchants, none of whom had a single thought in common with me. My freedom of speech was perpetually involving me in disputes, out of which I sometimes found it difficult to extricate myself. I remember particularly at Joppa”—

Helon interrupted him to say, that he had heard of the offence which he had given to a citizen of that place, and expressed his regret at Myron’s want of caution.

“There is no malice,” said Myron, “in my pleasantries; and for the rest be assured, that not one Greek in a hundred really feels such veneration for your religion and your people as I do.as I do. When I had seen the singular Tyrian Climax, I had a great curiosity to visit Tyre and Sidon. They were the parents of Carthage, Thebes, Gades in Spain, and many other powerful colonies. Arithmetic, astronomy, geography, navigation, were either invented by them, or at least taught by them to the Greeks. It was Hiram, king of Tyre, as you have told me, who built the eighth wonder of the world, the temple of your king Solomon, at Jerusalem. Even the great invention of alphabetical writing was probably made by them; that of the purple die is not disputed. There is something too in the situation of Tyre, in the midst of the sea, obliged to supply by her own activity and ingenuity what a narrow and rocky country denied, which made me very desirous of seeing by what institutions she had been able to contend so successfully against natural disadvantages. I found manufactures of glass and purple in full activity, docks crowded with ships, and markets full of silk, wool, cotton, ivory, ebony, and cedar, of all the precious and the useful metals, of wine and oil, of horses, dromedaries, and slaves: but the character of the inhabitants pleased me not; their sagacity is cunning; their polish, the want of force and individuality of character; their pride, the ignoble pride of wealth. I did homage in my own mind to the wisdom of your lawgiver, who chose to form a nation of agriculturists, rather than of merchants.

“How exactly,” said Helon, “does your account of the new Tyre agree with that which our prophet gives of the old. Shall I repeat you a part of it?”

“I shall listen to it most willingly,” said Myron. “Since our separation I have wished to hear more of your psalms and prophets, though when we were together I was disposed to complain of excess rather than deficiency.”

“Hear, then,” said Helon, “what Ezekiel spoke:

“A splendid, but not an exaggerated picture,” said Myron, “of the commerce of Tyre. Yet with all its luxury and splendour it was so little to my taste, that I left it and went to Damascus. But how, Helon, shall I describe to thee this eye of the east, this terrestrial Elysium? Imagine a lovely plain, fruitful, well watered, full of trees and meadows, bordered on both sides by hills, but at a considerable distance; by Antilibanus on the one hand, and the Arabian chain on the other. From Antilibanus descends a stream which is called Chrysorrhoas; on entering the plain it divides into three branches, of which the principal flows straight towards Damascus, and separating its amber waters into a multitude of little streams, refreshes every street of the city. Reuniting below the city with the other two branches, they all form a lake of great extent on the eastern verge of the plain. In the red soil of which this plain is composed, every variety of fruit-tree grows in greater perfection than elsewhere. The city itself is one of the oldest in the world. I had passed my time there most happily, and nothing would have drawn me from it so soon but your friendly invitation. I have been waiting here for you since yesterday.”

On the following morning early they left the caravansera, and turning from Hermon’s snowy peak, they passed between the hills of Antilibanus, of which Hermon is only a part, and bending eastward, came first to Paneas. It lies at the foot of a hill, which also belongs to Antilibanus; and the Jordan flows from caverns in the rock. They were wondering at its copiousness, so near its apparent source, when an inhabitant of Paneas approaching, said, “Strangers, this is not the real head of the Jordan. It has already flowed sixteen sabbath-days’ journies under the earth. At that distance, to the east of Paneas, is a little lake, called from its form Phiala, which is constantly receiving the influx of streams, yet, without any visible outlet, never overflows. The reason is, that its waters by a subterraneous channel pass to the hill of Paneas, and break forth there as the Jordan, which from this cause appears of such magnitude at its source.” They asked him how the existence of this subterraneous channel was known, and he told them that things which had been thrown into the lake of Phiala had reappeared in the Jordan.

From Paneas they followed the course of the Jordan to the lake Merom,^[130] called also Samochonitis. Before it reaches this lake it receives the lesser Jordan, which rises near Dan; and the Daphne, whose source is not far from the place where it issues from the rock. The lake Merom is ten sabbath-days’ journies long, and five broad, and full of sedge and oozy water. In summer it is so much dried up, that only the bright line of the Jordan’s current is visible; and lions, tigers, bears, and other wild animals, harbour in the reeds and bushes with which the rest is overgrown; till, when the snow of Lebanon begins to melt, the Jordan overflows, and fills up the whole basin of the lake.^[131] It was now full. Not being able, owing to the inundation, to take the nearest way to the lake of Genezareth, they struck into the desert, thinking thus to reach Bethsaida, which was at the distance of sixteen sabbath-days’ journies.

They had ridden a long time in this desert, under the burning rays of the sun, and at last discovered that they had missed their way. Perceiving some living figures in the distance, which they took for shepherds, they made towards them in the hope of obtaining information. As they came nearer to them the men warned them by gestures to keep at a distance, with hoarse and broken voices, and melancholy looks, uttering the words, Unclean, unclean!^[132] “They are lepers,” said Helon, with a look of horror, and turning his horse’s head fled with precipitation, followed by the others.

The huts in which these unhappy victims of a loathsome disease dwelt were hard by in the desert. As our travellers were hastening from the scene, they met the relations of the lepers, who dwelt in Bethsaida, and who were bringing them the food by which their miserable existence was to be protracted. The lepers set down their vessels and retired out of sight; the others then came, placed provisions in them with the greatest caution, and carefully avoiding to touch them; and then hastened away, as from the region of death. Father and mother, brother and sister, children and wife, all forsake the miserable leper; scarcely will one of those who are clean venture to bid him peace from afar; and when the provision is no longer fetched away, they rejoice that his sufferings are terminated.

These men had been attacked by the elephantiasis, the most virulent of all the kinds of leprosy. It is gradual in its approaches, a scaly scurf overspreading the body; the nervous system loses its sensibility, the touch grows duller and duller, till it is lost altogether. Little pain is felt by the afflicted person, but dejection and despondency take possession of his mind. The breath becomes corrupt, swellings of the size of a nut are formed, and ulcers cover the body. The nails fall from the fingers and the toes; in some cases these parts themselves drop off; the hair turns grey and falls; all the joints become stiff; and yet, while the unhappy person becomes a burthen to himself and loathsome to all around him, he eats and drinks as usual. This terrible disease is not only in the highest degree contagious, but also hereditary, sometimes continuing in a family to the fourth generation. No wonder that it should be regarded as a judgment of God for some enormous crime.

Helon and his companions continued their hasty flight, till they reached the Jordan, which soon conducted them to Bethsaida, which stood at the place where it falls into the lake of Genezareth. Bethsaida is almost wholly inhabited by fishermen, whom they found busily employed with the angle and the net. They called some of them, and were conveyed in one of their boats across the lake to Magdala The lake of Genezareth, called also the lake of Chinnereth,^[133] and the lake of Galilee, is twenty sabbath-days’ journies long, and six broad. Its waters abound with fish, and are so clear that the stones at the bottom can be seen. Aromatic bulrushes and reeds grow along the shores. The form of the lake is nearly oval, and it lies in a deep vale, which on the east and west is closed in by high mountains, on the north and south expands into a plain. As Helon and Myron sailed on its transparent waters, they saw first of all, on its western side, Capernaum, which, as its name implies, was delightfully situated, between the lake and the hills, lower down to the east Chorazin, and a multitude of smaller places. The celebrated region of Decapolis lay on the eastern side, beyond the hills.

Arrived at Magdala, they quitted their boat, and traced the shore as far as where the Jordan issues from the lake, crossed the river, and being joined by the slaves with the horses and camels, took the road to Tabor, which lies at the end of the plain of Jezreel, over against Carmel. Notwithstanding Helon’s impatience, he could not pass so celebrated a mountain without a nearer examination, and Myron willingly came into his plans.

This lofty hill rises out of the middle of the plain, wholly unconnected with any other. Its base is composed of an ash-coloured stone, and as the upper part is covered with trees, it has the appearance of a tall pillar with a verdant capital. The ascent to the summit is nearly five sabbath-days’ journies, and on the top is a plain of about four in circumference. Wild animals and birds abound on it; and Hosea alludes to the fowling which was carried on here to a great extent.^[134] Barak assembled an army of 100,000 men on Tabor from Zebulon and Naphthali, before he engaged with Sisera;^[135] and indeed a fitter position for a camp can scarcely be imagined. Helon and Myron were astonished at the extent of the view. The snowy peak of Hermon and the dark exhalations of the Dead Sea can both be discerned from it. “And there,” exclaimed Helon, transported with delight, “are the towers of Jericho!” The sea of Galilee, the Jordan and the PerÆa, spread themselves on the east; on the west the prospect reached to the Mediterranean and to Carmel; near which the Kishon, which rises in Tabor, falls into the sea; a small branch of it discharges itself into the lake of Galilee. Near Tabor, to the north-west, was Nazareth, situated on the slope of a hill and extending into a little valley, shut in on every side. To the south lay Endor, famed in the history of Saul; and near to each other Shunam,^[136] the scene of Elisha’s miracle, and Jezreel, fifteen sabbath-days’ journies from Samaria, on which was the vineyard of Naboth.^[137] From this place the whole plain derives the name of Jezreel, or Esdraelon. Further in the distance, a dark shade lowered on the hills of Gilboa. Helon called to mind the lamentation of David for Jonathan and Saul, who had been slain in battle here against the Philistines; and he repeated it to Myron, assuring him that he had never heard a more pathetic elegy.

Myron did justice to this pathetic elegy; and they descended Tabor together.

Their journey was now directed to Bethshan or Scythopolis, the place at which the Galilean pilgrims were wont to cross the Jordan, in order to avoid the Samaritans, by keeping on the other side as low down as Bethabara, where they crossed it again. The line from Dor on the Mediterranean to Bethshan formed the boundary between Samaria and Galilee. Galilee contained two hundred larger and smaller towns, some of the latter having as many as 15,000 inhabitants. Agriculture, fishing, and pasturage, the culture of the vine and the olive, all were carried on with success in this country, which is diversified with hills and plains, both of them abounding in water. The inhabitants were characterised by their love of freedom, though both their language and their manners were corrupted by their great intercourse with foreign nations.

They quitted Galilee at Bethshan, and crossing the Jordan pursued their journey along the numerous windings of the stream, which from Bethsaida to the Dead Sea has a course of seventy-two sabbath-days’ journies. Succoth,^[138] where Jacob built huts, near Mahanaim,^[139] a town on the Jabbok, (so named by him from the vision which was granted to him there) Debir^[140] and Bethabara, were hastily passed. At length the Jordan opened into the plain of Jericho; they passed through the city gate and soon reached the hospitable mansion of Selumiel. The gate, with its pious inscriptions,^[141] opened to receive them; Myron was astonished at the splendour of the house; while Helon thought only that this was his happy home.

Helon found no one in the front court, and hastily entered the inner court, followed by Myron. The slave came to tell them, that there was no one in the house.

“Where are they, then?”

“In Helon’s house,” said the slave with a smile; and informed him that Selumiel, Elisama, Iddo, the wife of Selumiel, Sulamith, and Abisuab with his wife, had gone out a few hours before, in order to receive him in the newly-purchased house. They had justly calculated that he would return this evening.

Helon heard this intelligence with joyful surprise, and easily divined the fact, that out of his affection for Sulamith, who wished not to be separated from her parents, Elisama had purchased a house for him in Jericho; and if not in Jerusalem, where could he be better pleased to dwell than in the City of Palms? The splendid mansion was to be a nuptial present to his beloved nephew. It is true that the property must return to its owner in the year of Jubilee, and the contract for it was therefore rather a lease than a purchase; but a considerable price had nevertheless been set upon it, which Elisama’s wealth enabled him easily to pay.

The slave showed them the way to the house which stood near the opposite gate, so that they had to traverse the whole length of the city. A slave had been waiting for some hours before the gate, and upon a signal given by him to those within, all the males of the company were in waiting to bid him welcome.

“See,” said Selumiel, “the rewards of self-denial!”

“Welcome, my brother, and henceforth fellow-citizen of Jericho,” said Abisuab.

Helon, with moistened eyes, threw himself into the arms of Elisama. All stood around, pouring out congratulations and blessings.

“What more do we want,” said Elisama, “but that thy mother from Alexandria were here?”

Helon looked around with inquiring eye. Selumiel took him by the hand, and led him through to the richly furnished inner court. Her mother and sister-in-law came with Sulamith from the Armon. After their greetings had been exchanged, Helon, at the command of Elisama, as now the master of the house, re-conducted them to their apartments. Bewildered with joy, he could scarcely speak. After a short interval they all returned to the house of Selumiel, to the evening meal, and at night Elisama, Helon, and the Greek, returned to the house of Helon, where they thenceforth resided. Myron was in astonishment at all he saw, and began to form a very different idea of Israel from that which he had entertained before.

On the following morning Helon arose early, and traversed the house which was to be the scene of his future happiness and duties. No other feeling in life resembles that with which the youth, on the point of emerging into manhood, wanders in solemn musing through the house in which he is to sustain the duties of husband and father. As he explored its courts, its porticoes, and chambers, by turns, he admired the commodious arrangement and tasteful architecture, and the costly furniture, or blessed the generous Elisama; or raised his thoughts in pious gratitude to Jehovah, and implored the continuance of his mercies. He ascended the roof, and looked westward towards the hills of Judah, and eastward to Nebo and Abarim. Entering the Alijah, he consecrated it as the future scene of his devotions by prayer to Jehovah. As he arose from his knees, turning involuntarily towards Jerusalem, he broke out in the words of the psalm:

As he turned round, Elisama was behind him at the door, and was wiping the tears from his eyes. “May Jehovah bless thee,” said he. “His counsel is wonderful, and he will bring it to pass.”

“God grant me,” said Helon, “that I may keep his law with a perfect mind.”

“May he give thee what thy psalm says,” replied Elisama. “Now that thou art a priest and a husband in the promised land, I doubt no longer. Marriage is a divine ordinance, and the divine blessing rests upon it. This I myself experienced, alas, for too short a time! God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate to be with him.^[142] And the Preacher says, There is one alone, and not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother, yet is there no end of all his labour, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. For whom do I labour (he should ask himself) and bereave my soul of good? This also is vanity and a fruitless travail.”^[143] Elisama sighed and proceeded, “Two are better than one: they have a good reward for their labour: for if they fall the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone! for when he falleth he hath not another to lift him up. Helon, I had once a wife and a child—and I was happy. What have I done that such bliss—? but I will say no more. The children of my brother are my children; thou art my son; and I rejoice in thy happiness as my own. The marriage state is a service of Jehovah, and one of the most effectual means of the fulfilment of his law. By this image he has denoted the relation between himself and the people of his covenant. But let me hear thine own lips describe the blessing that awaits thee. Rehearse to me the conclusion of the book of Proverbs; and bethink thee what is implied in this, that the great master of wisdom could devise no better termination of his precepts, than the praises of a virtuous wife.”wife.”

Helon began:

The preparations for the nuptials were speedily made in both houses. The numerous female companions of Sulamith assembled in Selumiel’s Armon. The bride, who had just completed her fourteenth year, was conducted to a bath, at which, gratification for all the senses was properly provided for her, and for all her young companions. After bathing, she was anointed with the choicest perfumes, and her friends brought their gifts, consisting of clothes and costly articles, most of them made by themselves. Her hair was perfumed and braided, her eyebrows deepened with a powder of brilliant black, and her nails coloured red. Next, the young maidens, her companions, arrayed her in the nuptial robes, of the finest texture and most brilliant colour, which flowed with ample folds to her feet. The girdle was clasped around her waist, the veil hung down from her head, and high above all her other ornaments rose a crown, from which the bride was called the crowned.

The evening was come, and the stars twinkled on the court, where all was prepared for festivity. Now appeared Helon, anointed and crowned in a similar manner, with the sons of the bride-chamber. They were the young priests and Levites of Jericho, who had been invited for this purpose; and Myron was among them. Each of them, to the number of seventy, bore a staff in his hand, on which was fixed a shallow vessel filled with burning oil and pitch. The festal train was admitted into Selumiel’s inner court; the bride and the virgins came forth from the Armon, and the youths and maidens, with aduffes and guitars, sung, in alternate strophes, the praises of the bridegroom and the bride.

Now began the ceremony of conducting the bride to the bridegroom’s house. The seventy youths, with their flambeaux, headed the procession; the bride was surrounded by her bridemaidens. Thus Sulamith left her father’s house: arrived at the threshold, the feelings which she had struggled to suppress, the mingled emotions of hope and fear, of regret and joy, overpowered her, and she burst into a flood of tears. The mother too wept, pressed her beloved daughter to her breast, and blessing her said, “Be thou the mother of a numerous posterity, like Rachel and like Leah!” Selumiel supported his child in his strong paternal arms, and said, “God, I thank thee that I have lived to see my child happy!”

The sounds of joy were heard from the companions. Sulamith was placed in a litter, and her nurse beside her. All the females were closely veiled; Sulamith in a veil of flame-colour. The long train moved through the streets of Jericho. A multitude of persons preceded, carrying the clothes, trinkets, and new furniture of the bride. As each carried only one thing, the procession was very long. Next came the friends of the bridegroom with Helon; then the bride in her litter, accompanied by the virgins. The rest of Helon’s friends, male and female servants, and children, closed the train. All the inhabitants of Jericho hastened from their houses, or looked down from their roofs.

Thus at length they reached the house of Helon. The bride paused at the threshold of the dwelling, in which so much happiness or misery might await her, as if with a timid irresolution. She adorned the door-posts with woollen fillets, and anointed them with oil, and at length the virgins suddenly lifted her over the threshold, the boundary between her past and her future life. The nuptial train entered the courts, and the bride solemnly took possession of the Armon, while the male part of the company remained in the outer apartments, where a splendid feast was served up to them. When all had eaten and were satisfied, males and females assembled in the inner court; the virgins presented the bride, the youths the bridegroom, to Selumiel. In evident agitation, he said, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who didst create Adam and Eve! Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who causest Zion to rejoice in her children! Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who makest the bride and the bridegroom to be glad together!” Then taking the right hand of his daughter, he placed it in the right hand of Helon, and pronounced the benediction: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you, and help you together, and give his blessing richly upon you! Jehovah make the wife that comes into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, who built up the house of Israel!^[144] May thy house be as the house of Malchia, thy fathers’ father, and your sons be priests to minister before Jehovah in his temple!”

Selumiel, while he pronounced this blessing, struggled with an emotion which he was unwilling to betray; and Elisama stood near him, giving freer vent to his feelings. The bride sobbed beneath her veil, and Helon was melted into tears.

Kindred and friends now approached the married pair, and bestowed on them their congratulations. The feast ended with the usual ceremonies.

On the following morning the nuptial festivities began afresh, and lasted for seven days,^[145] each distinguished by some new expression of joy. Numerous presents were brought to the newly married pair by the guests; and others given to them in return. The company exercised their ingenuity in riddles and maschals; or a grave and learned rabbi would discourse on the sanctity and duties of the marriage state, and the honour and happiness of those who might thus be appointed to give birth to the Messiah.

This protracted festival was at times wearisome to Sulamith and Helon, who longed to begin their tranquil, solitary, and domestic life. In the mean time, Helon was delighted to discover every day some new perfection in Sulamith, some new resemblance to the maidens and mothers of Israel in times past. Her domestic virtues assimilated her to Sara; her poetical imagination to Miriam, the sister of Moses; her disinterestedness and self-devotion to the daughter of Jephthah; and her artless piety to Hannah, the mother of Samuel.

It was determined that the young married pair should proceed with Myron, immediately after the marriage, to Alexandria, to fetch Helon’s aged mother from Egypt, in time to attend the feast of Tabernacles. Elisama was to remain in the mean time at Jericho, least, as he observed, he should bring on her the imputation of being a false prophetess. Alas! he little knew what a melancholy accomplishment her prediction was about to receive, and in his own person. The departure was delayed—neither Sulamith nor Helon was impatient for it, and Myron was very willing to remain. Helon found scarcely any thing left him to wish. All his expectations of outward prosperity were fulfilled, and he flattered himself that he was as near the summit of spiritual perfection as of earthly bliss. The deep veneration which Sulamith expressed for his purpose of becoming a Chasidean, regarding him as already being all that he purposed to become, inspired him by degrees with a high opinion of his own righteousness. His present happiness seemed to him a sign of the favour of Jehovah. Accustomed to regard all calamity as a divine judgment for sin, all prosperity as the reward of virtue, he considered his present condition as a mark of the distinguished approbation of God. His conscience seemed to join the league and promote his self-deception; his tenderness for Sulamith, his readiness to make little sacrifices of his wishes to hers, his gratitude and affection towards her parents and his own benefactor Elisama, were magnified by him into a complete obedience to the divine commands, into something more than mere righteousness. As those are apt to do who have experienced hitherto uninterrupted success, he began to think that every thing which he undertook must be successful—that his mountain stood strong and should never be moved. He never, alas, thought of inquiring how much youth and good fortune, the sense of pleasure and pride of heart, had to do in the construction of this showy edifice of self-righteousness.

Myron, during the first days of his residence at Jericho, found himself in circumstances so different from what he had expected, that he held it prudent to keep back as much as possible, and become better acquainted with the scene and its personages, before he trusted himself to act upon it. Hence during the festivities of the nuptials, he had been a quiet and unobtrusive spectator, and had recommended himself to the Jewish youths by the easy flexibility of his manners. He had particularly attached himself to Selumiel, after the tumult of rejoicing had subsided, and those who were left together had leisure to seek out the persons who were most congenial to themselves. If he ever offended Elisama, by some expression savouring of heathenism, which now and then seemed to drop from him involuntarily, Selumiel took his part. He soon discovered Selumiel’s partiality for the Essenes, and completely won his heart by telling him, that the Tomuri of Dodona, the Orphici of Thrace, the Curetes in Crete, were either degenerate branches of these Jewish devotees, or had endeavoured to form a similar association of wisdom and sobriety, but had remained at a much lower point in the scale of perfection. Selumiel took him with him everywhere, even when he went in the evening to the gates of the city, where the men of Jericho assembled to pass the cool hours in conversation. Helon, of whom he stood most in awe, happened to turn the discourse upon the superiority of Israel to the worshippers of idols, and pointed out the absurdity of the worship of the Egyptians and earlier Samaritans, among whom Apis was revered under the form of a bull; Moloch of a mixed figure, partly man, partly calf; Dagon was represented as having the lower part of a fish; Tartac, as an ass; Nibbaz, as a dog. All expected to see Myron provoked by this attack upon his religion; but to their great astonishment he not only assented to all that Helon had said, but entertained the company, the whole evening, with ludicrous tales of the adventures of the Grecian gods. The grave Orientals were delighted with him, because his manners were diametrically the reverse of their own. While they sat immoveable in the position which they had once taken, he on his light and nimble feet turned this way and that, alert to seize every opportunity of mirth; ready to converse with those who were disposed for conversation, or to talk alone when others were silent. Amused with his lively sallies, they encouraged him to proceed from one freedom to another, till he thought that every thing was allowed to him.

It chanced that a man passed by, loaded with a heavy burthen, and hanging down his head like one conscious of ignominy. He had been detected in frauds a few days before, and as a punishment his beard had been cut off. The finger of scorn was pointed at him by the whole assemblage, and the unfortunate man slunk hastily away. “How strange,” said Myron, “that you should set so much value on a huge tuft of hair upon your chins, that one who has been deprived of it dares not show himself in your presence; and yet you seldom have taste enough to give it an elegant form! Look for example at Elisama, who thinks so much of his beard; what an unsightly encumbrance it is to him.” Encouraged by the laughter which arose from the younger part of the assembly, he approached Elisama, and plucked him by the beard; little aware that to an Oriental, and especially a Jew, such an action was one of the grossest outrages that could be committed—an attack upon the very sanctuary of his personal dignity. Helon sprung to interpose—but it was too late. Elisama arose, with glowing cheeks, and a look in which the expression of the wildest rage grew every moment stronger. His limbs trembled; his features were distorted, his hair stood on end, and his breast heaved with a feverish gasp. “Accursed heathen!” he exclaimed in fury, “accursed heathen!” he repeated, and drawing his sword, aimed a blow at Myron. The offender, awakened to a consciousness of what he had done, saw the weapon about to fall on him and evaded the stroke; a citizen of Jericho, whom the tumult of the assembly had pushed forward, received it, and fell mortally wounded at Elisama’s feet. In silent horror all stood around, and looked by turns on the murderer, the corpse, and the author of the mischief. The whole city hastened to the spot; Myron escaped; and Selumiel, taking the unconscious Elisama by the hand, led him home. Helon, preceding them, burst with a cry of horror into the house, exclaiming, “Woe, woe—homicide—Elisama!” The women hastened from their apartments, and knew not the cause of the confusion. Selumiel entered with Elisama—one in eager haste, the other bewildered, with fixed eye and open mouth. “Bring horses, bring camels, bring any beast of burden,” exclaimed Selumiel. “Thou hast slain him, Elisama, and must flee before the avenger of blood.” “Whither?” asked Helon. “To a city of refuge—to Hebron in Judah—to Bezer in Reuben—to Ramoth Gilead best of all.” At these words Elisama awoke from his trance. Tears flowed from his aged eyes as he exclaimed, “Merciful God, must I in my old age flee as a murderer, and die by the hands of the avenger?” His voice was choked with sobs.

Two rapid dromedaries, ships of the desert, were brought. Helon accompanied the unhappy man. It was already night, and they passed unobserved out of Jericho. Without a salutation, or an adieu, they urged their flight, in dread lest the avenger should be on their traces; Elisama with his hair loose, his turban floating on the wind, and death on his countenance.

It was one of the most terrific customs of the east, that the next of kin of any one who had been slain, even unwittingly, was deemed infamous if he did not avenge him, by putting to death the man who had killed him. Moses, unable to eradicate this custom, had mitigated it by the appointment of six cities of refuge, three on each side of the Jordan, in which the unintentional homicide might be safe from the vengeance of the GÖel.^[146] In these cities, and for a thousand yards around, he could not be touched—if he ventured beyond these limits, before the death of the high-priest, the GÖel might lawfully kill him. The roads and bridges leading to the city of refuge were to be kept in repair, that the fugitive might not be impeded in his flight. The avenger was called GÖel, as being stained and impure, till he had acquitted himself of his obligation. The son of the citizen of Jericho whom Elisama had killed, had been fetched from the field, and had gone forth to avenge his father; but he was too late: Elisama had already reached Ramoth Gilead in safety.

On the following morning a judicial investigation was held. The seven judges took their places in an apartment at the gate, crouching on carpets; beside them sat two Levites; Selumiel, who represented the accused person, stood on the left; the avenger of blood, as the complainant, on the right. Selumiel was clad in mourning and with disordered hair. Behind him were the witnesses whom he had brought with him; and who, before they delivered their testimony, took an oath, and replied Amen, Amen, to the imprecationsimprecations which the judges laid upon them, if they should not speak the truth. They bore witness that Elisama had harboured no malice against the deceased, and had not intended to smite him, but had been provoked by the insult of a young heathen. The judges did not immediatelyimmediately decide, but on the following morning a second sitting was held, at which they pronounced that Elisama, of Alexandria, had committed an involuntary homicide, and that the privilege of the city of refuge was decreed to him. As he had already taken refuge in Ramoth Gilead, a Levite was sent with a letter to the judges and elders of that place, commending him to their protection.

Selumiel, who had remained behind to attend the judicial proceedings, determined to go and see Elisama; and Sulamith could not be dissuaded from accompanying him. Ramoth Gilead lay on the other side of Jordan, in the country called in ancient times Gilead; a country not so fruitful as this side, from its many mountains and sandy deserts, yet rich in pasturage for cattle, and watered by two considerable streams, the Arnon and the Jabbok; the former empties itself into the Dead Sea, and the latter into the Jordan. The hills of Basan, Gilead, and Abarim, extending from Antilibanus, send their branches through this country. It was given on the conquest of Canaan to the tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh,^[147] as their residence. Ramoth, situated on the Jabbok, was the principal city, celebrated in history by the vow of Jephthah,^[148] and the battle between Ahab and Jehoshaphat and the Syrians.^[149]

On their arrival they learnt that Elisama was dangerously ill. The agitation of mind and fatigue, attending on his flight, had overpowered his feeble frame; he had been attacked by a fever, under which he was hourly sinking. A Levite, who was the physician of Ramoth, and possessed great knowledge of the human frame and the virtues of plants, had been summoned. Strengthening baths had been employed, and the precious balm of Gilead applied externally and internally. These were the two chief remedies of the Hebrews.^[150] But here they had lost their power; Elisama fell into a deathlike slumber. When he was delirious, the image of Myron seemed to be constantly before his eyes; and he upbraided him with his ingratitude, and warned his son Helon to beware of him, as it would not be the last of his misdeeds. On the following day his reason returned for some hours, and he spoke calmly and clearly. It was the last revival of the flame of life. He requested Helon to repeat to him the prayer of Moses, the man of God. “Lord, thou hast been our refuge in all generations,” Ps. xc. He heard it with great attention, and the emotions of his heart were visible, at many passages, in his looks and his clasped hands. He lay for a long time with closed eyes, but his lips were in motion, and it was evident he was addressing himself to God, probably in a penitential psalm; for once, when his voice grew stronger, he was heard to say,

His voice again became faint, and it was after some interval that he was heard to say—

And then with a firmer tone—

He turned with an expression of the deepest affection to Helon, and said, “Greet thy mother from me—when the high-priest dies, carry my bones to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and lay them beside thy father’s—wait on the Lord, and thou shalt obtain”—his words became inaudible. Helon held his cold hand, and bathed it with his tears; and all who stood around his bed in mournful silence, thought him already dead. But the dying eye opened once more,—gazed around on them all—then fixed itself on heaven. His head sunk back in Sulamith’s arms. Twice the mouth was distorted in the bitterness of pain—then once again. The body became rigid—respiration ceased.

After a solemn pause, each reading in the countenance of the rest the confirmation of his fears, all uttered at the same moment a piercing shriek of grief. The men rent their upper garments, beat their breasts, threw their turbans on the ground, strewed dust and ashes on their head, put on sackcloth, covered their chins, and went barefoot. Helon was hurried away, least, being a priest, he should contract pollution from the dead body.^[151] The eyes of the corpse were closed, and it was carried into the Alijah by the nearest relatives. As it had been the custom in JudÆa, since the captivity, to bury very soon, the night was passed in making preparations. The body was wrapped in a large sheet, the head bound with a napkin, and then the whole from head to foot swathed with a broad bandage, and each foot, each hand, each finger separately. At midnight came the Levites with their musical instruments: the female mourners began their office by lifting up their voices and lamenting, strewing ashes on their heads and singing a dirge. On the following morning the house was filled with neighbours and friends, expressing their sympathy. Sulamith ran about weeping and wringing her hands above her head. The men sat in another apartment upon the ground and mourned in silence. Sulamith was conducted to the apartment of the women, where she placed herself on a carpet in the middle, and the rest of the females of the family sat round her. The hired mourners formed a wide circle at a little distance. Each of the women held a handkerchief in her hand by two of the corners. The mourners, who knew a variety of funeral songs, began one which expressed the virtues and calamities of the deceased. Sulamith gave them a sign and they ceased; and all the females of the family began to weep along with her. They arose, twisted their handkerchiefs together, and ran shrieking round the room, while Sulamith, sitting motionless in the middle, wrung her hands and tore her beautiful dark hair. When she ceased the mourners resumed their song, till she again gave them a signal, and the relatives renewed their lamentations. This lasted till towards evening, when the inhabitants assembled at the door, and the corpse was carried to the grave. Those who carried the bier proceeded with such hasty steps that they seemed rather to run than walk—an usage which was said to bear this meaning,—that death is the most terrible punishment of sin. Every one who met the procession joined the mourners, and bore part in the cries of the women.

Before the gate of the city, in a garden planted with trees, stood the sepulchre of Elisama’s host, hewn out of the rock; and in this the corpse was deposited; for burning was deemed dishonourable by the Jews, and regarded with abhorrence. The bearers threw aloes, myrrh, and other fragrant substances, upon the body, so as to cover it, and the sepulchre was closed with a stone, which was annually whitened with lime. The friends and relatives having remained standing awhile before the closed sepulchre, bowed themselves thrice to the earth and prayed; then taking up a sod threw it behind them, and said, “Remember, O man, that dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.” The procession returned with a repetition of the funeral lamentations.

On reaching home they washed their hands, and the neighbours brought them the bread of mourning. A beautiful and humane custom in Israel! No victuals were prepared in the house which death had visited, but the neighbours and friends came with delicate viands and invited the mourners to partake of them, to recruit their strength and spirits. This was called the bread of mourning; and the cup, which was handed round, the cup of consolation. The mourning lasted seven days, during which it was held indecorous to wash the garments, to bathe or anoint the body, or to wear the sandals or the turban. Every day Sulamith went with the women of the family to lament, at the tomb of the deceased, his true affection and his calamitous fate. When the days of mourning were ended suitable presents were made to the friendly host, and Helon, Sulamith, and Selumiel returned from the Peraea over the Jordan to Jericho. The bones of Elisama were to repose in the precincts of Ramoth Gilead till the death of the high-priest, when they should be transferred to the valley of Jehoshaphat, to rest there till the joyful morning of the resurrection. He was at length at peace, after a life, to which, like that of the patriarch Jacob, tranquillity had been a stranger. He had died in the city of the daughter of Jephthah, a victim to his indulgence of Helon’s wish to retain the friend of his youth; as she had been the victim of her love to her country. The secret anticipation which had always kept him at a distance from the heathen was now fulfilled; as well as the prophecy of Helon’s mother, when she parted from them in tears at Alexandria, and declared her apprehension that they would not all return. “Oh! that such a righteous man should have died the death of the sinner,” exclaimed Helon, in the bitterness of his grief, as he stood beside the stream of the Jabbok. “Doth Jehovah then punish the righteous as the sinner? O Elisama, Elisama, where shall I find light?”

“He has fulfilled his destiny,” said Selumiel. “Who may escape what fate has ordained for him?”

Let him beware who thinks that he has attained the highest pinnacle of temporal prosperity! The ball is in ceaseless vibration, and the moment in which it reaches its greatest elevation is that in which its descent must necessarily begin.

The death of Elisama had so disturbed the mind of Helon that Selumiel’s wisdom and Sulamith’s affection could only for a moment yield him consolation. Calamity had come like a flash of lightning, and revealed to him the obscure recesses of his own character; but with what a convulsive shock had this illumination entered, and how painful the contemplation of the objects which it disclosed. The fabric of self-righteousness, which for some months he had built up with so much care, was overthrown; the vision which he had cherished was gone; what would he not have given to have been able to arrest its flight?

The perverted state of his feelings showed itself most of all in his fury against Myron. If his conscience ever remonstrated, he persuaded himself that it was not Myron as an individual, but heathenism that he abhorred. All those passages in the psalms and the prophets in which Jehovah is implored to pour out his wrath upon the heathen, and is declared to bring their counsels to nought, became his favourite theme of meditation. By an incredible delusion he applied to his own personal injury the denunciations of Jehovah’s wrath against apostasy from himself. Even the love of Sulamith, who anxiously marked the state of his mind, hardly availed to pacify and soften him.

In the mean time the joyous season of the vintage, and the gathering of the olives and the fruit began. With shouts of joy they climbed the lofty palms, of which the plain of Jericho was full, and gathered the dates, which grew in large bunches of fifteen to twenty pounds in weight. They were afterwards divided according to their different degrees of ripeness; some were eaten fresh, others were pressed to obtain from them the celebrated palm-wine. This was done amidst festive shouts, and the praises of the tree were celebrated, of which every part is applicable to some use of man. From the terebinths, some of which had seen the lapse of centuries and were still vigorous and verdant, they plucked the red and fragrant berries, or climbed the pistachio to bring down its delicious nuts, or stored up the resin which spontaneously exudes from both these trees. The figs and the pomegranates were gathered, the balsam scraped from the weeping tree, or expressed from its seeds. Later in the season the olive trees, some of which yielded a thousand pounds of oil, were stripped of their yet unripe berries, which were gently pressed that the virgin oil might run from them; or crushed in the press that they might furnish oil for the necessary purposes of food and anointing. Even the vintage was beginning here and there.

Sulamith was careful to accompany Helon to all these exhilarating scenes; but it was long before the luxuriance of nature and the happiness of man had any other effect upon him than to make him more painfully conscious of his loss of inward peace; and the more he scrutinized his own performance of the divine commands, the more was he dissatisfied with himself.

One morning he was walking with Sulamith and Abisuab through a vineyard and seeking the ripe bunches among the loaded trees. His mind was more cheerful and more composed than it ever had been since the death of Elisama. A slave of Selumiel’s came hastily to him and summoned him to the house, saying, that a messenger from Gaza had arrived with letters that required a speedy answer. He had brought letters from Myron addressed to Selumiel and to Helon.

On the unfortunate evening when the homicide of Elisama had occurred, Myron had hastily taken the road to Gaza, designing as speedily as possible to return to Alexandria. With all his levity he joined a great deal of good-nature, and when he reflected on his conduct, his conscience found much to reproach him. He was compelled to wait at Gaza for an opportunity of conveyance to Egypt, and during his stay the news of what had happened in Jericho, soon followed by that of Elisama’s death, was made public there, and excited a very general feeling against him, both among Jews and heathens. The first effect was to make him wish for a speedy departure—but then again the thought of his conduct towards the friend of his youth smote him to the heart, and he could not go, till he had sought his forgiveness. Thus he allowed several opportunities of making the journey in company to pass by, and yet he could not summon courage to go to Jericho. At length he resolved on the following plan. He came to a place in the neighbourhood of that city, and thence dispatched a messenger to Selumiel, to whom he testified his sincere sorrow for what he had done, and earnestly requested his good offices in reconciling him to Helon. To him also he wrote a letter, which he entreated Selumiel to deliver to him.

Selumiel was much affected on reading the letter; he sent for Helon and gave him that which was destined for him. It was with difficulty that he could be prevailed on to receive it. Myron reminded him of their youthful friendship, and earnestly supplicated for an interview.

“That,” said Selumiel, “would be an act of heroism well worthy of an Israelite.”

“The heathens are threatened with Jehovah’s curse,” said Helon, “and we reap nothing but misery from their friendship. I will not see him.”

“Did not Solomon pray even for the heathens,”^[152] said Selumiel; “and will not the Messiah be the light of the heathens? Thou must not be implacable, if thou wishest to fulfil the law of the fathers. Was not Joseph reconciled to his brethren? did not David show mercy to Saul his enemy? did not Jehovah himself on Sinai command, ‘If thou seest the ox or the ass of thine enemy going astray thou shalt lead him back;’ and is not a heathen of more estimation than an ox or an ass?”

“Forgive Myron,” said Sulamith, fondly laying her head on his bosom, “forgive him, priest of Jehovah! Leave vengeance to him who hath declared that he will repay; and think what joy thou wouldest feel, if through thy means he became a proselyte of the gate.”

Helon’s former spirit revived, and he resolved that he would perform the heroic act to which he was called. The messenger was sent back to Myron, with permission to him to return. He soon made his appearance; for he had wandered near the confines of the city while uncertain of the issue of his embassy. He fell before the feet of his injured friend, clasped his knees, and supplicated forgiveness, with all the force of Grecian eloquence, and the emotion of sincere penitence and sorrow. Their reconciliation was soon accomplished. Sulamith had the delight of seeing her husband restored to the same peace and joy as in the first happy days of their union.

Myron was received again into the house, and, in the freedom of their renewed confidence, Helon informed him how much he was indebted for his return to the good offices of Sulamith. Myron, as the remembrance of the mischief which he had done began to be obliterated from his volatile mind, resumed his gaiety, and with it the hasty thoughtlessness which was his characteristic.

Helon had gone one day to the gate of the city alone; for Myron had never since his return accompanied him thither. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never duly expressed his gratitude to Sulamith, for her mediation in his favour, and he went straightway to the Armon, in the warmth of his feeling, without reflecting on what he was doing.

The citizens of Jericho, who sat in the gate, saw in the mean time that red mist gathering in the north-west, which is the usual prognostic of the approach of the pernicious wind of the east. This wind is felt in all its pestilential fury in the desert, where it sweeps over the surface, often to the height of a foot, destroying every thing which it encounters. It is there called the simoom. In Palestine its effects are not destructive to life, but in the highest degree oppressive and disagreeable. All the citizens of Jericho arose hastily from the gate, and hastened to their homes.

Helon, on his arrival at his home, went immediately to the Armon, to warn Sulamith of the approach of the simoom. At the door he met Myron, whose visit Sulamith had not received, but had warned him instantly to withdraw, if he would not bring ruin on himself and her.

Helon started with surprise and horror when he saw Myron in his Armon, which no foot of male, save his own, had ever trodden before. Wild jealousy and furious anger took possession of his mind, and agitated his whole frame. “Vile heathen,” he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, “is this thy return for my hospitality and friendship? Was it not enough that thou didst murder Elisama?”

Myron’s protestations of his innocence were unheard or unheeded in the whirlwind of Helon’s rage. His cries soon brought together the slaves of the house. Seizing Myron by the arm, he fiercely thrust him towards them, and they, laying hold of him, drove him with blows and curses from the house. Sulamith had hastened from the Armon, and endeavoured to calm her husband; but at the sight of her his fury burst forth more violently than ever, and thrusting her back into the Armon, he ran like one frantic through the streets of Jericho to find Selumiel, to whom he related what had happened. They returned together, Selumiel’s indignation scarcely less fierce than his own. Selumiel on entering went immediately to his daughter, and laying hold of her exclaimed, “Monster! am I then the father of an adulteress? Didst thou learn from thy mother or from me to break thy marriage vow with a godless heathen?” She had been sitting sobbing and in tears, her face hidden in the veil with which she had wrapped her head. At these words, however, uncovering herself and looking up at her father, she said with a firm voice, “I am innocent!”

Helon and Selumiel were yet more provoked by this assurance. “If thou art innocent,” said Selumiel, “thou shalt drink the water of jealousy. I will know that my daughter is pure, or if not, may all that the law has denounced against the adulteress light upon thee!” With these words he went forth to call the elders together, and Helon shut himself up in the Alijah. All the happiness of his life was fled; he wept, he complained, he inveighed against the heathens, against Sulamith, against himself. In the agony of his grief he threw himself on the ground, rent his clothes, and tore his hair. Then again he sat in fixed and moping silence, or opened his lips only to recite passages of Scripture, which describe the harlot and the adulteress. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “the Essenes are right, it is because they know the inconstancy of women that they have excluded them from their society. Unhappy Israel, what shall become of thee, when thy matrons are corrupt and thy wives give themselves up to folly! No wonder that the once holy people is fallen even below the heathens themselves.”

A moment after, reflecting on what he had said aloud, he started with terror as from a frightful dream. “Can that be Sulamith?” he said with a sigh. The image of his wife, in all her gentleness and loveliness, stood before his mind, and softened, he exclaimed, “It is impossible.” Had Sulamith at that moment spoken but a word to him, he would have forgiven her all. He even quitted the Alijah to go to her: but when he looked down on the door of the Armon, and the thought flashed on him that through it the man had passed by whom he had been dishonoured, every returning thought of love and compassion was banished from his mind.

The inferior court, which was held on the spot where the offence was alleged to have been committed, assembled in this instance on the following morning at the gate of the city; Selumiel, appearing as accuser of his own daughter, stood on the right of the judges, and Sulamith on their left. The whole gate was filled with citizens of Jericho, among whom the news of this affair had rapidly spread, and excited universal curiosity.

Sulamith felt, at her first entrance, overpowered by the solemnity of this venerable assemblage, of which she had heard so much, but which she had never seen; that feeling having subsided, she regained her self-possession. Helon stood with a bewildered countenance, not venturing to look at his wife, or he must have read her vindication in her countenance, in which the pride of conscious innocence struggled with the feeling of ignominious exposure, and in her bright eyes now red with weeping, but untroubled by any expression of guilt or fear.

The father related what had happened, and Helon confirmed his statement. The judges turned to Sulamith, and asked her if she acknowledged the truth of what was alleged against her. “I call Jehovah to witness,” she replied with lofty tranquillity of manner, “that I am innocent, and will take the oath of purgation.” “Be it unto thee,” said the elder, “as thou hast desired.” Two assessors were selected to accompany her to the Sanhedrim, before whom alone the oath could be taken, to protect her on the way from the fury of the men, and to lay the whole affair before the supreme council.

They departed from Jericho immediately. The whole city was assembled, men, women, and children. Sulamith’s mother stood among the crowd wringing her hands. Most of the females sympathized with their suffering sister; but the whispers of malice and the taunts of malignant joy were also heard.

Helon followed them at a distance, by the same road by which at Pentecost he had gone up to Jerusalem an affianced bridegroom, full of joy and hope. Then the desert had seemed to be converted into a paradise. How was his condition changed! Elisama was dead, the land of promise had proved a land of chastisement to him; his enthusiasm for the sacerdotal office was dead within him; his wife went before him as an adulteress. With what regret did he look towards the distant Oasis of the Essenes, and long to bury himself in it, without a wife, without the priesthood, a stranger in the land of promise, solitary and single among the people of Israel!

They arrived in the evening at Jerusalem. Iddo was sitting in the gate, but when he saw them, and discovered the purpose for which they were come, he fled with averted head, and hands stretched out as if to repel some threatening evil. They ascended the temple-hill; all who met them were astonished to see her, who at the feast had been the object of universal admiration, brought up as a transgressor. She was confined for the night in a chamber of the temple; and Helon and Selumiel passed it in dejection and gloom in the house of Iddo.

The morning, the fearful morning came! After the usual sacrifice, the Sanhedrim assembled in the hall Gazith. All its seventy-one members were present, the high-priest, the elders, and the Levites sitting in a semicircle. Sulamith was led through the multitude that filled the courts, and placed before the tribunal. The assessors of the court of Jericho then laid the matter before the Sanhedrim, and Selumiel and Helon confirmed their statement. The father and husband were commanded to withdraw, and Sulamith, in her mourning garments, remained standing alone, in the midst of the judges.

They addressed her at first in a friendly tone, and endeavoured to bring her to confession, alleging grounds of excuse from her youth and her husband’s own culpability. “Daughter,” said one of the Sanhedrim, “glorify the great name of God, and do not allow that this sacred name should be washed with water and blotted out.” At other times they assumed an angry tone, blamed her silence, which they interpreted as an evidence of guilt, and bade her beware that she did not by her obstinacy plunge herself into an untimely death. Sulamith adhered to her denial, and, as they often urged her to confession, replied, “I am innocent and falsely accused. Put me to what test ye will, but ask of me no other confession than this, that I am innocent.”

The Sanhedrim, convinced by her noble firmness, ceased to importune her, and decreed that she should drink the water of jealousy, and take the oath of purgation. “Daughter,” said one of them, “if thou art innocent, put thy trust in Jehovah and drink boldly. It is with the bitter water as with poison, which laid upon a wounded part produces death, but has no effect when the flesh is sound.”

She was led from the hall Gazith to the gate of Nicanor, not however by the direct road, but by a long circuit, that she might still have time to reflect and to confess. The crowd formed a lane through which she had to pass, not only exposed to their gaze, but plucked scornfully by the arms, enduring their taunts and blows. Only here and there some one of more generous disposition, struck with her free and noble carriage, exclaimed, “The water of jealousy cannot injure thee; thou mayest drink it without fear.” At length they reached the gate of Nicanor, opposite to the sanctuary, and the priest, who had been appointed for the purpose, began the appalling ceremonies of the oath of purgation. Laying hold of her garments, he rent them from the top of the neck to the breast with expressions of horror, tore the veil from her head, and threw her turban on the ground. He dishevelled her braided hair and let it float upon the wind, and then turning his face from her, said, “Thou hast forsaken the manner of the daughters of Israel who cover their heads, and hast followed the manners of the heathens who go with their heads uncovered.”

The men spat on the ground before her: the women uttered cries of abhorrence, and a deep murmur of Woe! woe! ran from rank to rank among the people, which even the unconcerned spectator could not hear without shuddering. Helon stood with averted head, and stupified with horror. Selumiel wept aloud.

The priest threw all the rest of Sulamith’s ornaments, her necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, to the ground, and girded her rent garments over her bosom with a strip of bark. The more ignominious the outrages to which she was subject, the more striking appeared the contrast of her dignified air and demeanour. The husband was compelled to reach to the priest the offering of jealousy, consisting of a tenth part of an epha of meal, in a basket of osier. The meal was of barley, the meanest grain, neither oil nor incense was mingled with it. Helon could not bear to look, but reached it to the priest with averted head, least his eyes should encounter those of Sulamith.

The priest took an earthen vessel that had never been used, filled it with water from the laver beside the altar of burnt-offering, and carrying it into the holy place put into it some of the dust of the floor. When he returned, he exhorted her once more to reflect what she was about to do, and if she were guilty not to drink, but to confess her sin. The accused replied distinctly and firmly, “I am innocent.” Again the deep murmur of Woe! woe! spread along the shuddering multitude, who thronged the temple courts.

The priest then with an elevated and solemn voice said, “If thou art innocent, and hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another, instead of thy husband, be thou free from the curse of this bitter water, and let it not harm thee. But if thou hast gone aside to another and hast been defiled, then may Jehovah make thee a curse among thy people, and bring on thee all the curses which are written in his law.”^[153]

Sulamith thus adjured, answered firmly, supported by the power of God, Amen, Amen. And the murmur of Woe! woe! rolled deeper and more awfully along the ranks of men and women.

The priest now wrote the curses on a roll. Helon took the barley meal from the basket, placed it in a sacred vessel, and gave it into his wife’s hands. Her look met his and pierced him to the heart, and roused from the stupor in which he had been sunk during the preceding part of the ceremonial, he made his way through the people, and rushed down from the temple-hill. A pause of a few moments ensued, and then the priest, laying his hand under the hand of Sulamith, waved the offering of jealousy in the customary form before Jehovah, then took it from her, carried it to the altar of burnt-offering, and, ascending it, mixed the meal with salt, and burnt it in the fire. He then descended again to the gate of Nicanor, took the roll, and washed the writing with the water in which the dust of the sanctuary had been mixed. The assembled crowd stood in deep and breathless attention. The priest reached to Sulamith the vessel which contained the water of cursing: she took it, lifted her eyes towards the holy of holies, and drank it off. There was a stillness as of death amongst all who stood around, as if they were conscious of the presence of Jehovah, to clear the innocent or punish the guilty.

Sulamith stood in the midst of the people, firm, and with her looks fixed on the holy of holies; all eyes were directed towards her, and watched what would be the effect of the draught. But when they saw that she was unharmed by it, and that God had justified her from the accusations of her enemies, they burst into a cry of joy, and Hallelujah resounded from the temple to the city. Selumiel rushed to his daughter, and folded her in his paternal arms. With shouts of triumph and exclamations, “Blessed be Jehovah, she is innocent!” they accompanied her into the inner court of the temple, where the priest formally pronounced her acquittal. Thronging around her, all offered her their congratulations. Her hair was braided anew, her turban, her veil, her jewels were restored to her, and the dark garments of mourning exchanged for festal attire. Sulamith descended from the temple with modest and downcast looks. Iddo, who had heard the shouts of joy and had rightly interpreted them, opened his gates and received her. The people who had accompanied her remained long assembled on the open place before the Water-gate.

But where is Helon? When he had fled from the temple, overpowered by the look of Sulamith, he wandered about, shunned as one frantic by all who observed him, and unconscious whither he was going, till his feet carried him to the grave of his father in the valley of Jehoshaphat, where, exhausted by fatigue and strong excitement, he fell before the sepulchre and remained long insensible. Longer might he have remained, but that he was roused from his stupor by voices which cried, He is here, he is here! He opened his eyes and saw Iddo, who had come out with several others to seek him. Iddo embraced him, repeating to him, She lives, she is guiltless! while Helon, like one awakening from a dream, scarcely understood the meaning or the reference of the words. When fully restored to the consciousness of what had passed, joy, remorse, and shame rushed in such a torrent upon his mind, that he would have fallen again to the earth if they had not supported him. In this state they led him home.

Sulamith was waiting for her husband at the door, surrounded by her friends. As he entered she threw herself at his feet, and implored his forgiveness for the uneasiness which she had caused him. He raised her up, and then throwing himself on his face before her, implored her forgiveness with a look which penetrated her soul. To ask pardon in words was beyond his power. The friends conducted them to the inner court. Sulamith placed herself beside Helon, and endeavoured to tranquillize him, but he sat with eyes fixed upon the ground. He could scarcely even rejoice in the acquittal of his wife, so bitter was the remembrance that it was by him she had been unjustly accused. For the first time in his life he despised himself. It was in vain that Iddo advised him to efface the remembrance of what was past, and enjoy the present good; there was too much of Sadducean levity in this exhortation to pass instantaneously from sorrow to joy, to suit a mind so deeply agitated as Helon’s. Equally unavailing was the advice of Selumiel, to regard it all as the result of inevitable destiny, and to resign himself to it as the will of Jehovah. To reach the sublimity of this Essene philosophy required a more buoyant spirit than his, who was so oppressed by the sense of his own unworthy conduct.

Thus the day passed on. At evening the feast of the commencement of the civil year was announced by the sound of trumpets. It was the new moon of the seventh month, or Tisri, and was called the feast of Trumpets, because from morning to evening trumpets of rams’ horns were blown in the temple, according to the command of Moses.^[154] “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets.” Helon resolved to pass this day and the succeeding eight days of penitence, before the great day of Atonement, which fell on the tenth of the month Tisri, with the old man in the temple. While he remained with Sulamith, he was so painfully reminded of the injury which he had done her, that he could have no hope of consolation or tranquillity.

As soon as the gates were opened he went up to the temple, and as he crossed the court of the Gentiles, the old man was coming from his chamber. He went up to him and bade him welcome. “I purpose,” said Helon, “to spend the next ten days in the courts of Jehovah and to present a sin-offering.” “Come then to my chamber,” said the old man, “and remain there.” He returned thither, and Helon followed him. “Elisama,” said Helon, “is dead at Ramoth Gilead, whither he had fled from the avenger of blood.”

“I know it,” replied the old man.

“I have accused my wife unjustly, and made her unhappy.” “I was present yesterday, and saw how nobly she vindicated her innocence by the water of jealousy,” the old man replied.

“Alas, I am no Chasidean,” said Helon mournfully, “and never shall be one!” “It is true,” said the old man; “but you should be more than a Chasidean.”

“All on earth is vanity and deception—happiness, hope, and love—all is deception,” exclaimed the youth. “And the greatest deception of all is that which as yet thou dost not suspect,” rejoined the old man. “Remain here till thou art purified. I go to the sacrifice, for this day shall no work be done, but offerings be offered to the Lord.”^[155]

Helon remained in the old man’s chamber. As every festival was first consecrated generally by the customary sacrifice, afterwards specially by its own, the morning-sacrifice was first presented. Next came the sacrifice of the new moon, two young bullocks, a ram, seven lambs of the first year as a burnt-offering, with their appropriate meat and drink offering, and a young goat as a sin-offering. Last of all the special offering of the seventh new moon was sacrificed, a young bullock, a ram, and seven lambs of the first year, with meal and wine, and a goat as a sin-offering.^[156] The law was afterwards read and explained in the synagogue.

Helon heard in his cell the blowing of the trumpets and the song of the people; and in his solitude repeated after them the eighty-first psalm which they were singing:

After the evening-sacrifice the old man questioned him respecting the state of his mind. Helon laid open his whole heart to him with filial simplicity and unreservedness, and as he spoke he could have fancied that Elisama, returned to life, was sitting before him. “Once only in my life,” said he, “have I been happy, when I quitted Egypt and entered the promised land, and kept the Passover in the temple of Jehovah. I was then happy in sanguine anticipation. But I soon discovered imperfections where I had thought every thing faultless; I found the truth, the melancholy truth of the account which thou hadst given me of the priests. I thought to find a sanctuary of pure happiness and virtue in my own house. Jehovah bestowed on me a virtuous wife, but I proved myself unworthy of her. Elisama died under the imputation of homicide, and we all were guilty of injustice towards the excellent Sulamith. Thou art right; Israel is a disobedient, sinful people. I condemn others freely, because I include myself in the same condemnation. Jehovah has given us his law, and the only fruit of it is that we are more criminal than the heathen who live without a law. O that I had lived in Solomon’s or David’s days! In our present condition it cannot be fulfilled. What God has enabled thee to do is a miracle, as all the people regard it.”

The old man heard him calmly as he uttered all this and much more, and then in a grave and serious tone began. “Thou talkest like a young man, hastily and ignorantly, and in all that thou hast said scarcely any thing is true, except the sinfulness of Israel. We are disobedient, as thou hast described us, thou and I, and the whole people; in the days of Solomon and David it was no better; and hadst thou lived in those times thou wouldst have been as far as thou art now from the fulfilment of the law. The law was given us to convince us of our sins, not to serve as the basis on which our pride might build its towering edifice. When it has convinced us of our sin, it awakens also our longing for help and consolation. It is the lot, or rather the privilege, of Israel, that it alone has the consciousness of sins, and the hope of a certain atonement for them. If both are united in thee, if thou mournest truly for thy sins, and truly desirest reconciliation, do what thou hast purposed and offer thy sin-offering: afterwards we will discourse further.”

Helon purchased a goat for a sin-offering; this was the victim which a ruler and a priest was to present; the high-priest, on the other hand, a bullock; and a common Israelite, a sheep.^[157] He carried it through the gate on the northern side of the altar of burnt-offering; standing behind it he laid his hands on the head of the animal between the horns, and said, confessing his sins, “O Jehovah, I have transgressed against thee! forgive my transgression and my sin which I have committed.” Then he slew the goat: a priest received the blood in a basin and carried it to the altar of burnt-offering, dipped his finger in it, and touched the four horns of the altar, letting a few drops trickle down each of them. He then ascended it, and poured the remainder of the blood down the pipe. Helon took off the skin of the victim and taking the internal fat gave it to the priest, who waved it with the liver and the kidnies between the altar and the temple, salted it, and burnt it on the altar. The rest of the flesh belonged to the officiating priest. Helon had offered this sacrifice, in expectation that his conscience would be tranquillized by it; but he did not experience the result which he had promised himself. He found himself as full of sorrow and fear after the offering as before. He complained to the old man, that he had desired to walk in the way of the Lord, and had offered a sacrifice in pursuance of it, but found no blessing follow it.

“Has not David said,” replied the old man, “even he who so delighted in the service of the sanctuary,”

“I would,” said Helon, “that my whole heart belonged to Jehovah, then should I have peace and joy. But how may I attain this state?”

“Tell me,” said the old man, “when, as priest, would you declare the leper cleansed from his leprosy?”

“When no spot of leprosy remains in him from head to foot,” said Helon, “but all is sound, as far as the priest can see.” “So judge then of the sinfulness of your whole state, from a single sin. Read the penitential psalms, and tell me what you find in them most applicable to your own condition.” Helon obeyed his injunctions, but for several days the old man came and went without noticing him. One evening, however, when he returned from the sacrifice, and was about to withdraw again, Helon earnestly entreated him to stay. “I have found,” said he, “the words which too truly describe my own condition,

“What a new light has opened upon me from these words! in what a condition do I now appear to myself! How did I deceive myself when I supposed that, a learner as I was, I had already attained the rank of a Chasidean! What miserable self-deception was I practising, when I professed to renounce those things to which my heart so strongly clung! What contemptible pride, to imagine that I could reach the summit of perfection by ascending, step by step, from the fulfilment of one commandment to that of another! And when one frail support of my self-conceit gave way, how eagerly did I catch at another, to prop myself up. I must confess with Cain ‘My sin is too great to be forgiven,’ and I tremble at the words of the children of Korah, ‘No man can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him.’^[158] I am under the curse pronounced from Sinai, 'Cursed be he that fulfils not all the words of this law to do them.'” “Praised be Jehovah,” said the old man, “that thou hast at length discerned one part of the eternal truth; the other will not be withheld from thee in due season. Israel is a people mourning for sin, but also hoping for forgiveness. If our sins separate between God and us, we have the more need of a mediator. The Messiah comes who shall also remove our sins.^[159] Say not therefore ‘My sins are too great to be forgiven.’ Thou knowest that the mercy of Jehovah is like his nature, infinite. Pray then for faith, and even now thy offering on his altar shall reconcile thee, by virtue of the future sacrifice of the Messiah. Thou hast partaken of the sin of thy people, partake also with them in the atonement which is to be made on the morrow.”

On the following day Helon was early in the temple. The high-priest had been already seven days there, preparing himself for the great solemnity of atonement on the tenth day of Tisri, and along with him his substitute, who was to fill his place, if any accidental impurity should disqualify the high-priest. The solemnity began in the evening. It was the greatest fast in the year, lasting twenty-four hours, from evening to evening. The people assembled in the temple as soon as it was light. The high-priest had watched all night and had bathed himself in the morning. He was on this occasion the representative of the whole people before Jehovah, and performed those services at the altar which were usually the office of the priests. He offered the morning-sacrifice and the meat-offering for himself as high-priest. Having again bathed himself, he put on his under robe of byssus, his drawers, his upper garments, and his girdle and turban. Once more he washed his hands and feet, and then offered a bullock for a sin-offering for himself and his house, and a goat for the sins of the people, at the door of the sanctuary.

He laid his hand behind on the head of the bullock, and said, “O Jehovah, I have sinned against thee, both I and my house! Forgive my sins wherewith I have sinned against thee, I and my house, as it is written, 'On this day is your atonement made, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before Jehovah.'”^[160] Thrice he uttered the name of Jehovah in this confession, and thrice all the priests, the Levites, and the whole people, fell on their faces and said, “Praised be the holy name of his kingdom for ever and ever!”

From the bullock he went to the two goats on the north side of the altar, and placing himself between them, shook a box in which were two small tablets, one inscribed “For Jehovah,” the other “For Azazel.” He drew a lot for each, and placed it on the head of the goat for which he had drawn. When he drew that which was for Jehovah, he said aloud “For Jehovah;” and all the priests, the Levites, and the people, fell upon their faces to the earth. The goat Azazel was then taken to the gate of Nicanor. The high-priest returned to the bullock, made a new confession over it for the sins of himself and his house, and the sons of Aaron, then slew it, and another priest received the blood in a basin. The high-priest took coals from the altar of burnt-offering, and laying incense upon it, went through the holy into the most holy place, to burn incense before Jehovah. He returned into the court, keeping his face towards the holy of holies, and then taking the blood, carried it as he had done the incense, and dipping his finger in it, sprinkled it once in the air, and seven times on the ground towards the place where in the former temple the ark of the covenant had stood.

When he returned into the court the goat for Jehovah was brought to him. He slew it, carried the blood into the holy of holies for the sins of himself, his house, and the sons of Aaron, as well as of the whole people, and sprinkled it as before. Retiring from the most holy into the holy place, he sprinkled the veil which was between them seven times; first with the blood of the bullock, and then with that of the goat. Then mingling their blood, he dipped his finger in it and let a few drops trickle down the horns of the altar of incense. He cleared the altar from ashes, and sprinkled the place seven times with blood. The remainder of the blood he poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering. The high-priest went next to the goat Azazel, laid his hands upon his head, and confessed over him the sins of the people, as he had before confessed those of himself and his house. As often as the name of Jehovah recurred, the people fell on their faces and said, “Praised be the holy name of his kingdom for ever and ever!” The goat was then carried by an Israelite into the wilderness of Zuk, twelve thousand paces from Jerusalem, and full of rocks: from the summit of one of these he hurled the goat down that he might bear the sins of the people into the desert.

The high-priest then took the skin and inward parts of the goat which was for Jehovah, with the rest of the body, and sent it to be burnt outside the city. The men who performed this office, as well as he who carried the scape-goat to the wilderness, were unclean the rest of the day.

These ceremonies made a deep impression upon Helon. He followed the high-priest into the court of the Women, where he read the following portion of the law. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, On the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation unto you and ye shall afflict yourselves and offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah. And ye shall do no work on that day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before Jehovah your God. For whosoever shall not afflict himself on that day shall be cut off from among his people; and whosoever doeth any work on that day him will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be unto you a statute for ever, in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month, from even unto even shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”^[161] The high-priest bathed himself, laid aside his garments of byssus, and put on his pontifical array, his meil, his ephod, his breastplate, and his turban with the name of Jehovah. In these garments he approached the altar and offered a ram as a burnt-offering for himself, and another for the people; with seven lambs of the first year, and the fat of the sin-offering for himself and the people. The people remained fasting in the temple; the hearing the law was the principal occupation between the sacrifices. The fast continued from evening to evening.

When evening came the high-priest offered, before the usual sacrifice, a bullock for a burnt-offering and a goat for a sin-offering. After the evening-sacrifice he bathed himself, washed his hands and feet, changed his pontifical robes for his garments of byssus, went again into the holy of holies and brought out the censer. This was the fourth time that he entered it on this day, the only day in the year when he appeared before the ark of the covenant. Having bathed again and put on his pontifical array, he burnt incense in the holy place and lighted the lamps, concluding by giving his benediction to the people, who prostrated themselves while they received it. Helon had felt during the solemnities of this day the weight removed from his mind which had so long pressed upon it. He prayed in the words of the Psalmist:

His peace and joy increasing, as he poured out his soul in prayer before the Lord, he continued;

At evening he returned to the cell of the old man. A calm peace had overspread his mind, to which he had long been a stranger. He no longer prided himself in his imaginary self-righteousness, but he felt the satisfactory assurance that his “transgression was forgiven, that his iniquity was pardoned;” and in the midst of his gratitude to Jehovah, he did not forget the filial effusion of thankfulness towards the venerable man, whose counsels had taught him how to seek rest to his soul.

The Feast of Trumpets, on the first day of the month Tisri, had been the beginning of a series of solemnities crowned by the Feast of Tabernacles, which began on the fifteenth and lasted till the twenty-second day. While some of the people of Israel were gathering in the latest gifts of the earth, and others preparing for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem; while some, who were compelled to remain at home, were beginning to dress their green bowers, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to collect branches from the adjacent country, to decorate their tabernacles in the vallies around the city; Helon returned to his friends in the house of Iddo. He said nothing of what had passed, but they all perceived immediately that he was become a new man. He embraced Sulamith with a pure affection, and a humbled consciousness of his past injustice; his manner towards all around was full of mild benevolence. There was none of the outward warmth and vehemence of manner which he had exhibited before, yet his mind was full of activity and joy. The calm composure of his whole demeanour was that of a man to whom the mysteries of life are solved, and who feels that omnipotent love defends and guides him through time and eternity. His thoughts and desires seemed all directed towards an invisible, eternal, future good; and yet never had his heart been more open to all the joys of nature, or more susceptible to the tenderest feelings of human affection. Sulamith had never loved him so much, nor ever been so beloved by him. The true happiness of her married life now began; all that had passed was in the strictest sense forgotten. She bloomed again, in more than her former beauty, like the rose of Jericho, when the morning sun drinks from its fragrant leaves the heavy dew which had weighed them down.

On the thirteenth day of the month Tisri, the companies of pilgrims began to arrive from every side. The native of Lebanon, the inhabitant of Beersheba, of PerÆa, and Galilee, those that dwell on the seashore, and the stranger from Syria, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Lybia, after their toilsome journies, greeted the temple and city of their God. From the roof of Iddo’s house, Helon and Sulamith looked down on the festal throng.

The sight which they witnessed on the following day, the day of the preparation for the festival, was peculiar to the precincts of Jerusalem. The courts of the temple, all the roofs of the houses, the mount of Olives, as far as its highest pinnacle, the valley of the Kedron, and the whole environs of the city were covered with a sudden verdure. The gardens and fields had already assumed the yellow hue of autumn, but the palms, the firs, the myrtles, and the pomegranates had been compelled to yield their more durable foliage for this occasion. The whole neighbourhood was parched by the heat of the sun, and the vineyards had been already stripped, but at once spring and summer appeared to return with all their variety of colours. The busy hands of men and women were every where in full activity, the children waited on the builders, and, as if by magic, Jerusalem seemed all at once filled and encircled by an encampment of green bowers, a lively and refreshing contrast to the mournful barrenness of the hills which were in the distance of the picture.

By the evening all was ready. The citrons and apples of Paradise glowed amidst the dark green of the bowers, their walls were hung with tapestry and their floors covered with carpets, and the large lamp burnt in the middle. When the evening star appeared in heaven above the western sea, every family, after the customary ablutions, left its dwelling to occupy its tabernacle. Iddo had resigned his house to strangers, and had erected himself a tabernacle in a vineyard on the mount of Olives, to which he and the family of Selumiel repaired, and placed themselves around the richly furnished table. He prayed, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, thou king of the earth, who hast sanctified us by thy precepts and commanded us to dwell in tabernacles.” He then emptied the cup, the rest followed his example; and the same thing was done almost at the same instant in the surrounding tabernacles. The thousands of lamps in the bowers on the mount of Olives, in the vale of Kedron, and on the roofs of the houses in the city, seemed like stars of the earth, answering to those by which the heavens were already overspread. A gentle wind just stirred the leaves of the bowers, and the sounds of festivity and mutual congratulation echoed on every side, amidst songs and the music of cymbals and aduffes. Well may they rejoice whose sins are removed: if the people afflicted themselves before the atonement was made, it was natural that after it they should indulge in the mirth of the Feast of Tabernacles.

Towards midnight the lamps were gradually extinguished, and all was silent in the tabernacles. The women, the children, and the weakly persons returned to their houses, and the men laid themselves down to rest on the floor. But scarcely had the first beams of morning reddened the summits of the Arabian hills, when they all left their bowers to fill the courts of the temple. The usual ceremonies of extinguishing the lamps, killing the lamb, burning incense in the holy place, and offering the morning-sacrifice, were first gone through. The eight priests then ranged themselves on the sloping ascent of the altar, each with that part of the sacrificial instruments which was intrusted to his care, the last being he who bore the golden vessel with the wine of the drink-offering. At once all the instruments of music struck up together, the Water-gate was opened, and through its lofty folding-doors a priest entered with a golden ewer full of water which he had drawn from the spring of Siloah, whose softly flowing stream runs at the south-eastern foot of mount Moriah. All was silent, except the sound of the silver trumpets. The people made a wide opening for the priest, who approached the altar of burnt-offering and was met by him who bore the vessel of wine. As soon as they saw each other they both exclaimed, “With joy we draw water from the wells of salvation;”^[162] and the people around repeated, “With joy we draw water from the wells of salvation.” The priest who had descended from the altar then took from the other the ewer of water, and mingled it with the wine. The Hallel was sung in the mean time by the Levites, the people who filled the courts holding a citron in the one hand and a bundle of palm, willow, and citron branches in the other.

This was the solemnity of which it was commonly said in Israel, “He who has not seen the joy of the drawing of water has seen no joy.” Helon regarded it as not only an expression of thankfulness for the early and the latter rain, to which the fruits of the earth now gathered in had owed their abundance, but as a memorial of the water which gushed forth in the wilderness at the stroke of Moses’ rod; besides that still higher meaning which it remained for the Messiah fully to disclose.

The special offering of this day,^[163] consisting of thirteen bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs of the first year, with their meat-offering and drink-offering, and a goat for a sin-offering. On this day priests of all the courses were on duty, and at least four hundred and sixty-four. A multitude of Levites, skilful in their art were disposed on the fifteen steps, and the great Hallel was sung by them and the assembled myriads of the people. When they came to the Hosanna in the 118th Psalm, the people and priests moved around the altar, imitating the journey of Israel through the wilderness, holding, as before, a citron in one hand and a bundle of palm and myrtle branches in the other, repeating, “O Lord help, O Lord grant success.” As they passed the high-priest, they showered the fragrant leaves and fruit upon him, heaping the choice gifts of the earth upon the person of highest sanctity among the people. To the worshippers in general this solemnity combined a grateful acknowledgment of the gift of the fruits of the earth, with a memorial of the most important event in the history of God’s chosen people. But Helon looked forward to a time when all the promises of Jehovah should be fulfilled, and when to the shouts of Hosanna should be added, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!”

When the circuit of the altar was completed, and the high-priest from the summit of the fifteen steps had given his benediction to the people, one part of them presented their own thank-offerings, another repaired to the porticoes, to hear the law read and expounded.^[164] In the sabbatical year the whole law was read at the Feast of Tabernacles.^[165]

Immediately after the evening-sacrifice, when the water of Siloah had been again mingled with the wine of the drink-offering, the multitude crowded to the court of the Women, which was illuminated by lamps of unusual size, disposed on four candelabra, fifty cubits in height. The Levites with their instruments stood on the fifteen steps, which led from the court of the Women to the court of Israel, and from the galleries over the porticoes the women were spectators of what passed below. The members of the Sanhedrim, the elders and chief men of the people took torches in their hands, sung psalms, and performed sacred dances, in honour of Jehovah; the youths displayed feats of corporeal strength and dexterity; and the festal assemblage did not disperse till a late hour of the night.

The feast lasted eight days: in the first seven the ceremonies of the commencement were repeated, but with this difference, the number of bullocks for the burnt-offering was diminished by one every day,^[166] and in the six following days civil occupations might be pursued, which were forbidden on the first. The traffic, which took place at all the great festivals, was especially active at this time. The curious productions of Egypt, the imports and manufactures of Tyre, the spices of the east, the balsam of Gilead, and the corn and cattle of Galilee, were bartered or sold; and every one purchased what was necessary against the approaching season of winter. Helon, however, had no pleasure in seeing what he considered as a profanation of the house of God, and withdrew from the sight of it to pass his days in the tabernacle of Iddo, on the mount of Olives. On the third day he presented his thank-offering, which was truly to him what its name implied, an offering of peace. While Sulamith was engaged in preparing the meal from that part of the victim which belonged to the offerer, Helon availed himself of the permission which the priests enjoyed on festival days, to go into the holy place and see its magnificence.

Standing at the altar of burnt-offering, which was itself raised forty-two steps above the court of the Gentiles, a space of twenty-two cubits intervened between the spectator and thethe temple building. The altar, therefore, was not within but in front of the temple, the blood of atonement which was to reconcile man to God being thus shed between them. Twelve steps ascend from the level of the base of the altar to the temple; and where the pillars Jachin and Boaz stood in the temple of Solomon,^[167] the portico began. The building consisted of three parts, the portico, the holy place, and the holy of holies. The portico was a hundred cubits high, a hundred long, and twenty broad: the entrance, which was seventy cubits, and twenty-five broad, stood open without folding-doors. Within, the portico was ninety cubits in height, fifty in length, and twenty in breadth, from east to west. Every part of it was gilded. Opposite to the entrance was the curtain which closed the passage into the holy place, fifty-five cubits in height and sixteen in breadth, exhibiting the colours of the four elements, white, dark blue, crimson, and purple. A large vine, with golden clusters, of the size of a man, was represented over the entrance. The holy place had not the same proportions as in Solomon’s; it was twenty cubits in breadth, sixty in height, and forty in length. In it stood the golden candlestick, the golden altar of incense, and the golden table of shew-bread. The holy of holies, before the entrance to which a second curtain hung, was a cube of twenty cubits. In this temple it was empty; but in that of Solomon it had contained the ark of the covenant with the tables of the law, above which was the cover or mercy-seat, and over that the two cherubims, between which the glory of Jehovah dwelt. There were chambers of three stories high on the sides, and over the holy and most holy place, entered by doors in the portico, which served as repositories for the treasures and other valuables. The whole of this part of the building was ceiled with plates of gold, and the flat roof furnished with gilded iron spikes, to prevent the birds from settling upon it.

Helon contemplated with sacred awe the dwelling place of God. In company with the other priests he ascended, in mental prayer and with deep humility, the twelve steps; and was led through the apartments which are around and over the holy and most holy place, and then descended again into the portico. The curtain before the holy place was withdrawn. Helon in his ministrations in the court of the priests had often seen thus far, and with veneration contemplated the abode of the glory of Jehovah; but now his trembling foot entered its hitherto unknown precincts. The golden lampstand was on the southern side, whose seven lamps were kindled every evening; towards the north, the table of shew-bread, on which the loaves of the presence were placed every week; and in the middle the altar of incense, of acacia wood, a cubit in length and breadth, and two cubits in height, on which, morning and evening, a priest burnt incense, while the lamb was offered. Only the foot of a priest might enter the holy place; into the holy of holies none but the high-priest’s, and that only once in the year, on the day of atonement. What gave a higher interest to the indescribable feelings which occupied Helon’s mind, as he stood before the veil of the holiest place, was the company of the old man of the temple, who had dissuaded him from entering on the festival of Pentecost, promising to be his guide at the Feast of Tabernacles. He had prepared himself and Helon by a long and fervent prayer. The old man manifested an unusual degree of emotion. On ordinary occasions, the frame of his mind seemed equally removed from grief and joy, from emotion and apathy, but now he was visibly agitated, and his venerable form seemed to acquire a supernatural dignity from the feeling with which he laboured. In passing through the sacred building profound silence was always observed; but when they returned from it he still remained silent; and Helon, much as he wished to ask him questions respecting the import of all he saw, durst not speak to him while he saw him in this mood. The old man led him to Solomon’s porch, where he had received him on the first evening, and pointed with his hand to the courts of the temple which were within their view. After a long silence, during which he was strongly agitated, he said, “Kneel down, my son! I will give thee my blessing. I promised thy father and thy uncle to do for thee what I have done: I am hastening to where they already are; may we meet there again! Jehovah has guided thee by my means; be thine own spirit henceforth thy guide; for thou wilt see me no more on earth.” Helon, astonished and overpowered, sunk upon the ground and received the old man’s blessing; and while he lay weeping on the earth, he had disappeared. Helon went to his cell; it was open, but there was no man within. He hastened to Selumiel, who told him that the old man often disappeared for a long time together, and that his words were always true.

They returned together after the meal to Iddo’s tabernacle on the mount of Olives. When they had seated themselves, the figure of a stranger appeared among them, whom they did not at first recognise. It was Myron. In the first moment of their surprise they seemed doubtful how to act; Iddo was inclined to thrust him out by force; when Myron, whose pale face and shrunk figure had prevented their knowing him at first, exclaimed, “Let Helon decide!” He turned to him and said; “On the day when my foolish thoughtlessness a second time gave a wound to the happiness of your life, I fled into the wilderness of Judah. A priest found me wandering, brought me back to Jerusalem, and received me hospitably. He told me what had befallen you; and I testified to him my deep remorse and penitence. He seized the opportunity to persuade me to abandon the fables and follies of the religion in which I had been brought up, and to turn to the worship of the one true God. This evening an aged and venerable man entered the house of my host, and bade me seek thee out, and tell thee, in his name, that thou shouldest receive me not only into thy friendship, but into thy faith. Behold me ready to become a proselyte!”

“This,” said Helon, “must be the old man of the temple; his word shall be obeyed.” He embraced the friend of his youth, and begged him to forgive his groundless suspicions. “O,” said he, “had Elisama but lived to see this day! He had always hope that thou wouldest be one of us. Did I not too always predict, that if thou shouldest see Israel in all its glory in the Land of Promise, thou wouldest desire to become a partaker in their hopes?” “The God who made heaven and earth hath done this,” said Myron; “he has severely punished my folly, and in the midst of my chastisement made me to know your law and your hopes. I now understand why in every land I have found prophecies which pointed to JudÆa for their accomplishment.”

“Praised be Jehovah,” exclaimed Iddo, “who increaseth his people Israel, and hath spoken by his prophet the word of which this day we behold the accomplishment, 'Arise, shine for thy light is come and the glory of Jehovah riseth upon thee. For behold darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness thy people: but Jehovah shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentiles shall come to thy light.'”^[168]

Myron, in his usual hasty and decided manner, pressed his speedy reception as a proselyte, and his friends were desirous that this festival should be made still more solemn by his conversion. In later times accessions from among the heathens to the Jewish religion had become very common, and they were regarded as a pledge of the approach of the time when the promises of God should be fulfilled, which, as they understood them, implied the dominion of Israel over the whole earth.

Iddo and the priest with whom Myron had lodged endeavoured to prevail on him, by submitting to circumcision, and baptism to become one of the family of Abraham and an heir of its promises, after which, on the offering of three turtle-doves, he would become a proselyte of righteousness, and be permitted to bring his sacrifice, like a native Jew, into the court of the priests. Myron was more inclined to become only a proselyte of the gate; and Helon took his part, and asked what more was necessary, since he could thus enjoy the benefits of the law, could partake in all the civil privileges of Israel, and dwell in their gates? “Would there not too,” he asked, “be danger that he should be seduced by the Hellenists to join the worship at Leontopolis, if he returned to Egypt in every respect a Jew?”

On the following morning they conducted Myron before the tribunal which sat in the gate of Nicanor. In the presence of three witnesses, Helon, Selumiel, and the priest his host, he solemnly abjured idolatry, professed his belief in all the truths which are revealed in the law, and promised obedience to the seven Noachic precepts, as they were called; namely, to abstain from idolatry, to worship only the true God, to avoid incest, not to commit theft, or robbery, or murder, to maintain judgment and justice, and to abstain from blood and all that contained blood, consequently from things strangled. He then presented his offering, but he was not allowed to come any further than to the enclosure between the court of the Gentiles and the court of Israel. From this time he bore the name of a devout man, one that feared God, a stranger or proselyte of the gate.

As Helon and Myron spent the last day but one of the feast in Iddo’s tabernacle on the mount of Olives, Helon read to him the description which Nehemiah gives of the first celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles after the captivity:^[169]

“And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand the words of the law. And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month. And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the Watergate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths; for since the day of Joshua, the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days: and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly according unto the manner.”

“It is not to be denied,” said Myron, when it was finished, “that the Dionysian festivals of the Greeks have considerable resemblance to the Feast of Tabernacles; the mixt offering of water and wine reminds me of the gift of Bacchus; the bundle of palm, myrtle, and willow branches, of the Thyrsus; the Hosanna, of the Evoe; the procession round the altar, of the Dionysian train; the dance in the court of the Women, of the dances of the Grecian youths. The torch too is in both cases found in the hands of the votary. But the resemblance of the Dionysia of the Greeks to the Feast of the Tabernacles is that of a distorted image to the faithful picture.”

“You might have gone further,” said Helon, “and have added that such is the relation generally of heathenism to Judaism. The heathens have mingled poetry and fable with the tradition which they received from the family of Noah; they have disfigured by human inventions the divine truths which they learnt from the Jews. How indeed could it be otherwise, since Jehovah found it necessary to preserve this knowledge pure in Israel, by renewing and impressing more deeply the communication of it by means of the law?”

“I understand now,” said Myron, “what you alluded to before, and I see the history of antiquity in an entirely new light. The Greeks differ from the Egyptians only in this, that they have given their distorted images a more graceful form.”

“Bless Jehovah,” said Helon, “that thou hast returned at last to the true source; and pray to him that all the heathens may come to draw from it. The advent of the Messiah, who shall accomplish this, cannot be far distant. He shall be the light of the Gentiles and the consolation of Israel. The sceptre is already departed from Judah^[170] and is in the hand of Levi; and the seventy weeks of Daniel are hastening to their close.”

“And tell me,” said Myron, “my former friend, but now my brother in faith, shall my heathen brethren in those days become proselytes of the gate, or proselytes of righteousness? To me it seems, if I may venture to confide to you my opinion on such a subject, that this distinction points to an important difference in the laws of Jehovah themselves. I have bound myself by an oath to obey those precepts of universal morality, which are contained equally in the Noachic and Mosaic law; and I have professed my belief in all the truths which your lawgiver taught; but I have not bound myself to all the rites and ceremonies which your nation practises. How then, if the former were what is truly valuable, what all nations alike need; and in the days of which you speak shall alike know; and if the latter were only important for their tendency to preserve the others?”

“It may be so,” said Helon, musing. “The old man in the temple has taught me, that the sacrifices are but a visible prophecy, commanded to the people from their want of a more spiritual faith. But I will neither deny nor affirm any thing in this matter. The Messiah comes who will remove all our doubts. Meanwhile let us rejoice in the belief, that in the manner which Jehovah in his counsels has decreed, 'the law shall go forth from Zion and his word from Jerusalem; and he shall teach the Gentiles his ways and they shall walk in his paths.'”^[171] The friends embraced each other, and descending from the mount of Olives Helon went up to the altar in the temple.

The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles was the most joyous of all. The drawing of the water, the Hosanna, the nightly illumination and dance had been repeated every day; the seventh day was called the great Hosanna and the day of Willows. The altar of burnt-offering was decked with branches of willow, all bent inwards, as an emblem that earthly glory must bow before the majesty of God. Instead of once, the people went seven times around the altar with their branches and their citrons. The last meal was taken in the tabernacles, whose green decorations had already begun to fade; but to the freshness which had charmed the eye when the feast began, succeeded the mind’s remembrance of seven happy days which had been passed in them. The father of the family pronounced the blessing over the last cup of wine which they were to drink here, and when it was emptied gave his benediction to the company, who left the tabernacle with that melancholy with which we quit a spot where we have enjoyed much happiness. The women and children, and even Myron and Helon, carried away a citron, a pomegranate, a branch, or a leaf, as a memorial of the festival. In the evening the illumination and the dance as before described were repeated. This part of the festivities, as well as the drawing of the water, ceased on the eighth day, which was added as a special sabbath to the full week of the feast. On this day no circuit was made around the altar, and the offering consisted only of one bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of a year old, as a burnt-offering, with their usual meat and drink offerings, and a goat for a sin-offering. Besides Azareth, Day of Convocation, it was called the Day of Rejoicing in the Law, because every year on this day the reading of the law and the prophets ended, and began afresh on the following sabbath. Thus what every one had begun in his own synagogue at home, he completed here in the midst of the assembled people. This took place on the twenty-second day of the month, in which, up to this point, there had been only four common days.

The tabernacles were broken up, and only the scattered leaves, flowers, and fillets testified that they had been. The pilgrims were preparing for their departure, and exchanging their farewell salutations. Many took leave of Jerusalem never to behold it again. The autumn wind blew chill, and where a solitary tabernacle still remained as a monument of the festival, its green was changed to an autumnal yellow. The circle of the Jewish feasts was closed, the half year of harvest was at an end, and the dark and rainy season of winter was fast approaching, when no pilgrim’s song was heard on the roads to Jerusalem; a winter which to many would prove the winter of death.

The companies of travellers arranged themselves for their departure. Selumiel and his family, with Myron and Iddo, took the road by Bethany to Jericho. As they passed through the hollow between the southernmost and the middle summit of the mount of Olives, Helon thought of the tears which he had shed on that spot at Pentecost, when he exclaimed, “The path of obedience is difficult.” Now returning a happy husband, with the peace of God in his heart, he was inclined to say, “Easy is the path of obedience to him who walks in it with faith.” They halted at noon at the Oasis, beneath the palms, and arrived late in the evening at Jericho. On the following day the Galileans crossed the Jordan on their return home.

Helon, Sulamith, and Myron began to make preparations for their departure to Alexandria, from which they were to fetch the mother of Helon. When they were about to begin their journey symptoms of the plague showed themselves at Jericho. This is the most terrific of all diseases, as rapid in its operation as the leprosy is slow, and producing an equally miserable death. Those who are seized with it are suddenly attacked by pains in the head and loins; the speech becomes inarticulate, and not unfrequently is lost altogether, as well as the sense of hearing. The eyes become dull and heavy; lethargy succeeds, the strength is prostrated, fever, delirium, and melancholy seize the sufferer, and he commonly dies on the third day, unless a plague-boil preserves him for a miserable existence. If the disease spreads, all intercourse is at an end. The streets, the fountains, and the houses are heaped with dead; infected persons are abandoned by their nearest relatives; and despair and licentiousness walk hand in hand. The people call the plague the arrows of God.

As the plague commonly rages most destructively on its first breaking out, Selumiel considered this circumstance as a divine warning to withdraw from Jericho with his whole family, and go into Egypt. Preparations were speedily made, friends and household were commended to Jehovah, and the city of palms abandoned as if a curse were upon it. They hastened by Bethel, Gibeon, and Lydda, to Joppa, where Helon’s host was requested to procure for them, as speedily as possible, an opportunity of sailing to Alexandria in a Phoenician ship.

Helon looked from the heights of Joppa to the hills of Judah, and blessed the beloved land which had been to him not only a land of promise but a land of fulfilment. The image of his pious mother, all whose expectations he was about to accomplish and surpass, her joy at seeing him again, and the prospect of returning to the land of her fathers and visiting the grave of her husband, her blessing bestowed on him and Sulamith—all these things occupied his mind with delightful anticipations.

His host seemed uneasy. Helon supposed he might apprehend that they had brought infection with them, and might communicate it, and he hastened to set him at ease on this point. His host shook his head in answer to Helon’s assurances, and looked sorrowfully at him. At length he said, “It is not to myself but thee that my grief relates. Collect all thy firmness; in vain dost thou go to Alexandria to bring back thy mother. She is dead! The tidings of the death of Elisama and the rumour of thy wife’s unfaithfulness reached her together, and her heart broke with its double weight of sorrow.”

Sulamith uttered a piercing shriek, and Myron wept in grief and shame. Helon felt what an affectionate child feels when bereaved of a mother, but he knew that the hand of Jehovah guided him; that the Lord woundeth, but also healeth; that his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts. “Comfort me, O Jehovah,” he exclaimed, his eyes raised to heaven, “comfort me as one is comforted by his mother!” Then seating himself in a corner he gave vent to those tears which soften the anguish of the heart to a tender sorrow.

It was determined, notwithstanding this intelligence, that they should continue their voyage to Alexandria, where Helon’s presence was necessary. Selumiel with his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson, Helon, Sulamith, Sallu, and Myron, embarked on board a Phoenician vessel. They ran swiftly along the coast, and Jamnia, Ashdod, Ascalon, Gaza, and Raphia were soon left behind. The mind of Helon was as clear and calm as the mirror in which the sea reflected the bright blue heavens. His grief for the death of his mother had only increased his trust in the Divine compassion, which had bestowed on him that perfect peace of mind, which neither in death nor life sees any thing to fear. One morning they were watching the broad red dawn announcing the approach of day. All were in an unusual frame of mind. Helon, full of tranquil joy, was relating to his friends, as they sat around him on the deck, the course of Divine Providence with respect to him in the year that was just completed, and how it had conducted him to that true peace which he had sought in vain before: “I could call upon the whole world,

“And through all the vicissitudes of my life, in calamity and in death, these words shall be my comfort, which the last of the prophets spoke, when the oracle of prophecy was about to be closed in silence:

While he thus spoke, delightful anticipations of futurity seemed to take possession of his soul. All who sat around him were silent; for the power of his faith seemed to communicate itself, by an indescribable operation, to their minds. All at once, confused voices exclaimed throughout the ship, A storm, a storm! The heavens grew black with clouds, the tempest rose, and the waves beat on every side of the ship. They endeavoured to avoid the shore, which was rocky and produced breakers which threatened every moment to overwhelm the vessel. The Phoenician mariners called on their gods, the children of Israel prayed to Jehovah. Helon stood in the midst of threatening waves and terrified men, tranquil and full of confidence. At once the ship received a violent shock, and sprung a leak. Their efforts were in vain. Sulamith flew to Helon’s arms, and each repeated to the other passages from the Psalms. All hope of safety was at an end, and sounds of terror and lamentation were heard on every side. Suddenly, the ship struck violently upon a rock and went to pieces. The crew sunk, and no one could bid another farewell. Helon supported himself for a short time upon a plank, and looking round saw Sulamith and her father sink. Alone, and scarcely conscious, he struggled for a few moments with the stormy waves. One of tremendous height came rolling onward; Helon exclaimed amidst the uproar of the elements,

and was buried in the waters.

After an hour the storm had ceased. And the storms of this world, too, had ceased for those who had found death in the waves, and life in the bosom of their God.