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at their head, whose commanding air and impetuous charge, inspired his countrymen with new courage.

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"Come on," cried he, men of Israel. For the Lord and Judea," and, followed by his little band, fell with fury upon the Romans. It was at a moment when it was needful that fortune should show some favor to our people, though to me it was clear that they could not but soon be routed, and that with great slaughter-for Philip, upon whom dependence was placed, more than upon any other, was just then nearly borne down by the advancing Horse. But refusing steadfastly to retreat before those whom he hated, but feared not, and to whom, if so it must be, he was ready to sell his life, he sought, and engaged hand to hand, with the Centurion. Though so unequal in their advantages, Philip made up in some manner, for his position, being on foot, by his stature, and the superior strength of his arm. The fight hung long doubtful; but, alas! as it could not but be, the Centurion prevailed, and by a well-aimed blow, clove his antagonist to the ground. At this moment the Jew horseman came up, and I looked that he should on the instant revenge the death of Philip; but suddenly drawing in his horse, he cried out, in the Hebrew tongue, "Hah, Gentile, Gentile, beware the fate of Abimelech." Had he to whom this was said understood what those words conveyed, he might, by stooping upon his horse, have evaded the messenger of death; but he knew them not; and they were scarcely uttered when a stone from a roof struck him lifeless to the pavement. I raised my eye to the spot whence it came— —it was Anna's form I there saw, bending over to behold the work she had done; but at the same instant, even as I gazed upon

her with both wonder and sorrow, a javelin from the hand of a Roman pierced her through, and she fell back upon the tiles.

There was then, my mother, no longer any Cæsarea for me; and I flung myself from the place where, till then, I had remained, (that I might, in the event of the house being assailed, be at hand for the defence of Anna and her mother,) and mingled, as full of the spirit of revenge as any, in the thickest of the fight. But why should I now say more? that soon happened, which I had been looking for. The news of the affray had been carried to Pilatea legion was on the moment despatched to the Synagogue, and with its overwhelming force soon decided the contest. But I heeded not its presence, I knew it not. Blind with passion and grief, I fought madly, till, as I suppose, I fell senseless, through loss of strength and blood. I awoke in a Roman dungeon. I am in the hands of Pilate. What the event will be I cannot foresee. If I perish, though thou wilt lose an unworthy son, yet is he one who, in whatever else he failed, failed never in his love of thee. I can now say no more.

These lines I am permitted to place in the hands of Zeno, the Greek, trusting that he will despatch them speedily to Rome. Farewell.

V.

BEFORE this reaches you, my mother, you will have neard of my safety; which earlier knowledge you will owe to the friendship of the Greek, who, as he has said, —not as I believe, simply because he had no other employment, has not ceased to devote himself to my interests. It is solely too by reason of the friendship, which so strangely and suddenly he conceived for me, that I now find myself on the way to Beth-Harem, having liberty for bonds, the vault of the heavens above me for that of Pilate's dungeon, life for death. I can never know, indeed, that Pilate would not in some other manner,though Zeno had not interposed,-have obtained a knowledge of the circumstances to which I am beholden for my liberty. Zeno himself declares that it would certainly have been so; for that the governor, seeing how many lives had been already sacrificed, and that he might be called to account for that day's confusion, would have gladly seized upon any pretext to set free his prisoners, which yet it was by no means easy to do and preserve his own dignity and authority. However this may be, I can feel none the less my debt to the Greek, who has shown in these affairs, that however he may affect to have been moved in what he has done, by that restless temper that must be busy somewhere and about somewhat, he nevertheless possesses a heart which is not

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only no stranger to kind affections, but overflows with a wide and generous humanity.

My reflections, when, upon awaking out of the insensibility caused by the blows I had received, I found myself in a Roman prison, all went to convince me that I should there end my days. I had been taken in arms against the reigning power; and, though I had not been long in Cæsarea, could probably easily be proved both to be a Jew, and to have been intimate with Philip and Simon, the leaders in the affray. Add to this the circumstance, that my judge was Pilate, and you too will acknowledge, my mother, that my days must have seemed to me to be numbered. That certainly was my conviction. Yet was it not attended by any self-crimination for the part I had taken, as I doubt not you will suppose it was, or for the cause in which, as it seemed, I had offered myself up. My heart approved what I had done. I had stood up for the injured, the oppressed, and the weak. I had shown myself to be, what I had at length found myself to be, a Jew;-one who was ready not only to entertain an inward persuasion, but to carry it into outward act. Hours were days and months to me in that dark solitude, for the quickness with which truths revealed themselves to me, and struck their roots into my soul, and grew up into strength and maturity. I seemed, in my forlorn and hapless state, to be myself an emblem of my country, bound hand and foot, awaiting the sentence of death at the word of a tyrannic and irresistible power. My mind reviewed with pain my long alienation from the faith and worship of my fathers. My misfortune seemed to me a just judgment upon such mad apostasy, and I thenceforward devoted myself,

should my life be spared, to the welfare of my country, by such acts as should appear to me to be most for her advantage and glory. Thy early instructions, my mother, written upon the soft heart of my youth, had then sunk deep; and now, in my silence and darkness, they revealed themselves and filled the place where I was with light. The history of our people, and of the care of Jehovah for them, of the good men and prophets who had taught and died for them, all passed before me; and although I felt myself still to be ignorant and unbelieving in much more than I knew and believed, I discovered that I knew and believed greatly more than but a little while before I could have supposed, and enough to make me a Jew in very deed. The prayers, also, which at thy side, or else seated on thy knee, I had in my infancy been taught to say, though for many a year they had not passed my lips, now unbidden returned, and again ascended a sacrifice, for thy sake I will believe, not rejected. I put not my trust, my mother in the righteousness of the thoughts and resolves, which perchance the solitary fears of my dungeon, and the human dread of a sudden, and it might be cruel death by the scourge or the cross, and not any love of what is good and right, may have prompted. That were a vain reliance. I dare not say as yet, that Rome and her seductions might not, were they soon to try me, easily uproot the virtue, that like a gourd has grown up in a night. May my newborn strength be spared such as-· sault.

Thus was I, by the strange fortunes that had befallen me, again recreated a Jew. Yet was this, as I well knew, only so much a new hindrance in the way of pardon or

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