reverence.

soul truly reflected. In none, either of the philosophers of Greece, or the moralists of Rome, do I find so much of human life justly depicted, of the human heart so clearly revealed. Nor, which is much more, do they ever speak in that tone of sincerity, which marks the prophets of Judea; and it is this virtue in a writer of morals above all others, that deserves our affection and The Jew writes of life and man, as if it were a matter not of art, but of life and death; the Greek and the Roman, as if to treat a subject as becomes a rhetorician. The Jew writes to help and save him who may read ; the Roman or the Greek, to display his genius in a perfect treatise. The Jew therefore we love and obey as a divinity; the Roman or the Greek we honor as an artist who has completed a beautiful work. For the last we have admiration; for the first sighings, and tears, and an altered life.

Farewell, my mother, and the blessings of all the Prophets be upon thee.

XII.

As Onias had desired, that I should without delay set forth on my journey to Macharus, I should have departed on the morning of the first day of the week, but that some other cares detained me, and, especially, the necessity I felt to be upon me to keep my promise to the poor Leper, whom I was to visit at his own home. Wherefore, instead of immediately making for Machærus, I turned first towards BethHarem to seek out the dwelling of the beggar. From his account of its place, it was easily found near to the inn bearing the sign of the High Priest painted upon its front. Just beyond it, stood a shapeless mass of extensive ruins, whose broken roofs and crumbling walls kept out neither the heats of summer nor the rains and cold of winter this was pointed out to me as the abode of the wretched outcast.

The rooms immediately upon the street I found unoccupied, but as I penetrated farther into the gloomy recesses, and then paused to consider which way I should turn, it was the

sixth hour, I was arrested by the voice of one as if in prayer. I stood still, and heard with distinctness the voice of a girl, as it seemed to me, rehearsing, as if from memory, a Psalm of David, where he deplores and confesses his sins, and cries out from the great deeps of his distress, for pity and pardon. The voice having ceased, the tones of another, which I at once remembered as those of the leper, fell on my ear; "Now, my child, that thou hast repeated those words of the good king and prophet, let me hear thy voice in prayer also; " with which request the daughter complying, I heard the same low and sorrowful voice lifted up in prayer to God. Yet, though the voice was as of one who was burdened, the themes on which it dwelt, were such as to inspire cheerfulness and gratitude, rather than sorrow or repining. Many blessings were enumerated that had been bestowed upon them who were ready to perish, by the good providence of God, and by the hands of those who had been moved to take pity on them. When the worship was over, I moved from where I had stood, and advancing toward the door of the inner room, passed it, and stood before them.

It was a pitiful, yet pleasing spectacle that presented itself. The beggar was seated in a corner of the room, upon a pile of clean straw

or rushes, leaning against the wall, with face upturned as if to catch the light that streamed in from a single window, or crevice in the wall, while at his side, also crouched upon the straw, sat her whose voice I had heard, and who had already taken in her hands withes, which, with nimble fingers, she was weaving into baskets. Some jars and coarse pottery, with a few rude seats, were the only objects in the room. The daughter looked up at my approach, but without surprise, as if accustomed to the intrusion of visitors through the open doors and fissures. The voice of the old man, as his ear caught my footstep, was first heard, "Who comes here, my child?"

"A stranger," she replied.

"Not wholly a stranger," I answered. "It was I, who yesterday, doubting the truth of your word, promised to see where you dwelt."

"It is not much," replied the old man, "to say you are welcome to such a place as this; but I am glad to hear your voice again. It was far better to hear your voice yesterday, than the clatter of the brass which the Pharisee showered upon me, which but for you I could never have found. My child had left me for a space, and I alone could not have gathered it up; besides, that others would have snatched it from me. It was the same man who a little

after caused me to be driven away by the servants of the synagogue, with reproaches and blows, as a Sabbath breaker. But if I broke the Sabbath by begging, he broke it as well by giving."

"He could not resist the fine occasion," I answered, "of making a show of his benevolence."

"That was it, I am sure," answered the daughter, "though I would not say so of any whom we did not well know. But that Pharisee is known to be very rich, and yet exacting towards all who are dependent on him, casting into prison such as owe him but a few pence. Surely the heart of such a one is not right." "And then," said the father, "afterwards showing his zeal for the Sabbath day by setting the servants of the synagogue to drive me away. I knew well that it was held unlawful by many to give on the Sabbath; but I thought within myself, there would be out of the great crowds I heard would be gathered together, some who would think, that, to give an alms would be as acceptable an offering, as to stand within and pray."

"Surely it must be so," said the daughter, "the Sabbath is kept, and God is worshipped by