and holy zeal rekindled what of mine had begun to grow cold; so that even after a brief communion with him I also was impatient that our affairs should be brought to a speedy issue.

Herod having constrained us, we have passed many days within his palace and city; but they have been days of busy care in the thing which chiefly concerns us. Messengers have arrived, and letters from those in the confidence of the Tetrarch, and have been despatched in return, whose object is in great part to infuse everywhere that leaven which shall work in the hearts of those where it hath been deposited, and from them still spread till it shall raise all to one pitch of devotion to God, and the birth and growth of his kingdom.

In the leisure that has here fallen to my share, I have traversed the shores of the Dead Sea in the immediate neighbourhood of Machærus, and surveyed on all sides the wonderful position of this impregnable fortress. Nature herself has made it almost perfect in its security, and art has more than added what was left incomplete. Nature too has supplied what, in a region so abounding in rock and sand, she generally denies, copious fountains of water springing up among the deep fissures. And as if designing it for the abode of those whom she greatly favoured, there wells up not only water, cold and pure as the springs of Lebanon, but that which is both hot and medicinal also. Boiling springs shoot up in many places, and pour over the rocks into basins below, sometimes natural and sometimes wrought by art, their healing waters; to which there resort constantly, not only from Machærus, but from Herodium and the country round about, multitudes of the diseased to try their virtues. Everywhere among these deep and rocky chasms are there signs of heat, in the waters which thus rise to the surface as if driven upward by subterranean forces, and in the smoke which oozes everywhere from out the soil

ascending, we may believe, from the flaming caverns where the ancient cities of idolatry lie engulfed, whose inhabitants, while some are drowned in floods of water, others are buried in lakes of eternal fire, ever burning, yet ever unconsumed.

Many being now at Machærus from all parts of Judea, who are secretly joined with Herod in his plans, he has given a banquet, to which those were invited only, to whom he has declared himself more fully. This feast was had, not in the banqueting-room of which I have already spoken, but in one in a less public part of the palace, within the fortress, separated by other buildings and lofty walls from the sight and hearing of all save those who are specially permitted to approach.

This room is vast, and of those dark Egyptian forms, which, notwithstanding their beauty, do also carry with them a sort of terror, with which they fail not to impress the mind of the beholder. So is it seen in the Temple of Isis, not far from the Forum of Augustus, both in its outward, but especially in the gloomy shapes of its interior decorations. Here the dark hue of the stone of which the columns were wrought could scarce be changed to a cheerful brightness, though the glare of innumerable lamps was cast upon them. The flames of the lamps themselves, the only source of what was bright, poured forth from the hissing jaws of fiery serpents, or else in wreaths played around the sad face of the melancholy Sphinx. From the table indeed, while the eye rested upon it, there shot up a splendour which could hardly be borne from the polished surface of innumerable vessels of silver and gold, from pitchers of glass charged to the brim with wines of every hue, which gave back the light again in dazzling brilliance as from crystal itself, and from the robes of the guests, gorgeous in their colour and forms, woven of gold or silver thread, and thickset with all the jewellery of the Orient. Herod himself seemed hardly to belong to the same race

with those around him, so transformed did he seem by reason of the imperial magnificence of the shining tissues in which he was arrayed, and the glittering crown that adorned his head. Not less, too, did he seem to differ from others by the greatness of his bearing, which was more than that of a man or a king, and by which those who were present confessed themselves awed, or oppressed. There was no rude clamour or noisy mirth, as is customary when men assemble to enjoy the hour. The luxuries came and went untasted, or were eaten sparingly. They who conversed spoke in tones scarce audible, not in those of grief, but of deepest earnestness. We were as a company of persons too grave from the greatness of the thoughts that were in each heart, to be seduced to any wantonness by the enticements of the inviting board. For each who sat at its side was a Jew who came there burdened with the care of his country's deliverance, and knowing that now the final pledge was to be given and received of loyal devotion to her cause, and to him to whom as chief they had consented to entrust its conduct. The signs of deep thought and anxious musing were on the dark faces of my countrymen whom but for the mockery, as it seemed, of their brilliant garments, and the surrounding glare, one might have taken for a secret assembly of assassins. The music, too, that poured in upon us its harmonies, seemed in its wailing notes or sepulchral tones to be a strange contradiction to the purpose for which we were gathered together, and as if prophesying against us. It was not easy to shake one's spirit free from the power which accidents were thus disposed to exercise over it. Doubts and apprehensions arose out of mere shadows, at which it was easier to force a smile, than to dismiss them from the mind.

The feast, I need not say, was therefore brief. That, the design of which was to give pleasure alone, was the only thing that gave discomfort or pain. For when the attending servants of the banquet were withdrawn, and

the sound of the music was hushed, and each one gave utterance to the real feelings that were within, then indeed a change came over the countenances of those who sat there. Alone, and each was gloomy and despondent; but when we were one, by each sharing the sentiments of the other, all were alike cheerful and confiding. Many, obtaining the ear of the whole assembly, did not fail to increase the ardour of those who listened by the reasons which they urged for the enterprise at the present moment, and against an increased delay. And what chance of failure would there be, they urged, with a chief whose providence had supplied, while others had slept, arms and harness for every Israelite who would use them, and by his league with the aspiring Sejanus, had secured the aid of Rome herself in the work of her own destruction!

But the passions of all were inflamed to the highest pitch, as Herod himself, when he had listened in silence to what had been said by others, arose and defended the cause in which he had engaged, showed from the Scriptures the fitness of the time for the deliverance for which all were looking, related the steps which by him alone and without concert had been taken, and laid open before all an exact enumeration of the stores of every kind of armament he had heaped together in cities and fortresses which he named, described the numbers of those principal Jews in every part of Palestine who were already bound to him, and the measures to be adopted for securing the aid of the Israelites of Rome and those dwelling in the other cities of Asia and Europe. What Jew was there, he asked, whether of Judea, Galilee, or Peræa, or even Samaria, who, however Providence might have cast his lot, would not add of his substance to the treasury of the Lord; would not clamour to be permitted to put forth his strength to rescue Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, from the pollution of the Gentile. Many times had Jerusalem suffered from the oppressor, many times had Israel been beneath the feet of the conqueror, but never had her captivity been such as

now. For now there are those even who are pleased with their slavery, who cherish this union, though of dependence, with the mistress of the earth; who are losing the character of the Jew in that of the Roman; who, like our ancestors of old, are joining themselves to idols. Who knows not that our very taxes are gathered by Jewish hands to be paid into the Gentile's treasury? In Babylon we mixed not with the blood of the conqueror, nor joined his rites, nor followed his customs, nor ever gloried in our shame. In Egypt we remained a people distinct and peculiar, and as we entered it so we departed from it, the likeness of the twelve Patriarchs seen in all the thousands of their descendants. Now we are falling each day more and more into the mass of all-engulfing Rome; where, like so many other nations, we, too, shall be swallowed up and lost. What captivity was ever to be compared with this? And what though it was to his own ancestors — to whom so much as Herod the Great-that this apostacy was to be traced for its beginning? What though he himself had joined hand in hand with the great iniquity, what though the sect among the people that bore his name was a Roman party, these were but the more urgent reasons for immediate action that before it was too late, and the spirit of the nation utterly dead, their remaining strength might be put forth for its salvation. The time was now come, he was assured as from God himself, the hour was now arrived, he knew it by the spirit of prophecy, that the hopes of this great people were to be fulfilled. The weeks of Daniel the prophet were numbered; the sceptre had departed from Israel — Rome wields it—and the lawgiver from between his feet, and the day when Shiloh should appear had dawned. It is the event that shall seal the prophecy, the deed done that shall show the prophet. Our care is to redeem Israel. That being done, our sight will be clear to know her King in her Redeemer, and greet him as rightful head of a kingdom, who hath saved it; a kingdom of which there shall be no end, whose boundaries shall be those of the whole world.