Hebrew Heroes, A Tale Founded on Jewish History

meward journey. He had not re-entered Jerusalem during the night; almost as soon as he, with the assistance of Joab and Isaac, two of his comp

night had been spent by him in severe toil, and none in sleep. His soul, filled with a lofty purpose, so mastered the infirmities of the flesh, that the Asmonean seemed to himself

intense love which glows in the bosom of every Hebrew deserving the name, a love in which piety mingles with patriotism, glorious memories with still more glorious hopes. From the Asmonean's lips burst the words in which the Psalmist has embalmed that love for all generations,--Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the great Ki

ger of the Covenant whom ye delight in (Mal. iii. 8). Then the Hebrew's gaze wandered beyond to a fair hill, clothed with verdure, and his faith grasped the promise of God: Then shall the Lord go forth ... and His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives (Zech. xiv. 3, 4). Hope and joy w

is enemies shall be made His footstool! That I might see the whole world worshipping in the presence of the Seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's head!" (Gen. iii. 15). The Hebrew grasped his javelin more firmly, and his dark eye dilated with

ng under the shadow of a hill, but he knew well where it lay, and where she abode to whom he had bidden on that night a long, perhaps a last, farewell. The Asmonean stretched out his hand, an

ones. The almond-tree and the peach were in flower, and fragrant sighed the breeze over blossoms of lemon and citron. The winter had this year been mild, and some figs left from the last season still clung to the boughs yet bare of foliage. The vine on the terraced hills was bursting into

ad, and here the weary man slaked his thirst, and sat down for awhile to rest beneath the shade of some date-palms. The Asmonean took from the s

ged her weary steps to the fountain by which the traveller was seated. She placed her boy on the ground, drank of the water her

e portions, and with the courteous salutation of "Peace b

ath not tasted food since sunset." And, seated on the turf not far from Judas, the widow an

Asmonean, regarding with compassion

aid his father's head in the grave last month, and I shall lay Terah's head beside

is good; the child ma

lem is defiled, the land is in bondage, Israel is given a prey to the heathen! The faithful are few in the land, and persecution will sweep these few

away, her fruit scattered, the boar out of the wood may waste it, and the wild beast of the field devour, but yet Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with frui

hope--" falte

Joshua; over this valley of Ajalon hung the moon arrested in her course in the day when the Amorites fled before Israel. He who raised up

e his journey; he could give his weary limbs but little time fo

," said the widow, also rising, "and

vented her. "I can relieve you of that burden,"

he clatter of hoofs and the jingle of steel. The child, whom the Asmonean was carrying, turned to gaze, and exclaimed in fear as h

he hoofs of their horses. In the centre of the line was a gorgeous arabah, or covered cart with curtains, to which the troop of soldiers appeared to form an escort. There was an opening in the roof of this arabah, evidently for the convenience of accommodating wit

and exclaimed, "Yonder ride Apelles and his men of war to Modin, to do the bidding of the tyrant; and they bear the accursed thing

t," said Ju

ifice," cried the woman; "there will

way," observed the Asmonean, "a

dwelling. Judas set down his living burden, and the mother

as; "a long journey is yet before

weary countenance of the speaker. "Why, the horsemen will scarcely r

he tightened his girdle around him, and with a grave,

other than Judas, the son of Mattathias; there is not a second Hebrew such as he. Ah, my Terah

righten the Syria

vine and fig-tree, no man making him afraid, he never wearied describing to his grand-children that form which had made the earliest impression which his memory had retained. He would speak with

rustled amidst the tamarisks, and shook the leafy crests of the evergreen palms; it bore to the ear of the almost exhausted traveller the wild howl of the jackals, rising higher and higher in pitch, like the wail of a human being in distress. W

relaxed, he slept the deep sweet sleep of the weary, after a journey which could have been accomplished