CHAPTER VI.
THE EVIL DAYS.
It was not long before the portent which the terrified crowd had watchedfrom the walls of Jerusalem found, or at least began to find, itsfulfilment, for, indeed, many days were to pass before the wretched peoplehad drained the cup of suffering to the dregs.
First there was the actual arrival of the army, the rumour of whoseapproach had struck such terror into Jason. At its head came Antiochus inperson, fresh from his successful campaigns in Egypt and in his trainfollowed the renegade Menelaues with a crowd of unscrupulous and profligateadventurers. There was no attempt at resistance. The gates were thrownopen by the King's adherents in the city. But if the citizens had hoped tosoften the tyrant's heart by their submissive attitude they were miserablydisappointed. For days the streets of the city ran red with blood. Theprominent members of the patriotic party were the first to perish. Thencame all the private enemies of the returning renegades; and then a fargreater multitude who were singled out for destruction by the possessionof anything that excited the cupidity of the conquerors. Lastly, as everhappens at such times, the massacre that is suggested by hatred or greedwas followed by the massacre that is the result of the merest wantonness.But there were victims more unhappy than those who thus perished by thesword of the heathen. The money found on the persons and in the houses ofthe victims did not satisfy the cupidity of their murderers. There werethousands who had indeed nothing of their own to lose, but who were inthemselves a valuable property. These were sent off in droves to be sold,till the slave-markets of the Eastern Mediterranean were glutted with theJewish youth.
Still worse in the eyes of all pious Jews than the massacre or thecaptivity was the profanation of the Temple. The innermost shrine, theHoly of Holies, which the high priest himself was permitted by the Law toenter but once only in the year, was thrown open to the unhallowed gaze ofa debauched heathen. With a horror that passes description the people sawthe renegade Menelaues, bound to be the guardian of the sanctity of theplace, actually drawing aside the veil with his own hand, and conductingthe King into the awful enclosure. They saw the most sacred treasures,gifts of the piety of many generations, treasures to which the revenue ofthe Persian kings, and even of the victorious Alexander himself hadcontributed, become the spoil of the sacrilegious intruders. The goldenaltar of incense and the table of the shew-bread were taken by the King,while the seven-branched candlestick of gold fell, as was commonlybelieved, to the high priest himself. They saw it, and it almostoverturned their faith that no visible sign of the Divine wrath followedan impiety so terrible.
So Antiochus came and went, leaving behind him as his deputy, Philip, thePhrygian, "in manners more barbarous than he who set him there." The timethat followed was one of grievous depression and sadness. Life went on, asit will even amidst the gloomiest circumstances, but all the joy andbrightness were crushed out of it.
Micah's sister, the Hannah whom we have seen talking to him on the wall,gave birth to a son shortly after the departure of Antiochus. No feast washeld on occasion of the rite that made the little one a member of thefamily of Abraham. When the forty days of purification were past, themother was not taken to present her offspring in the Temple. The Temple,the haunt of pagans and apostates, was no place for faithful sons anddaughters of Abraham. A visit to its courts could hardly be the seal ofpurification when it needed purifying so sorely itself.
An occasion that should by right have been still more joyful was allowedto pass with the absence of festivity. A younger sister of Hannah, Ruth byname, had long before been promised to Seraiah, a friend and relative ofher husband. Time after time the marriage had been postponed, under thepressure of evil times; and when at last it was performed, not even thenwithout sore misgivings and anticipations of evil among all the elders ofthe family, the celebration was of the quietest kind. Not a guest beyondthe few friends who attended on the bridegroom was invited; and it was indead silence, not with the usual shouts of merriment and gay procession oftorches, that the bride was taken to her husband's home.
And yet, as we shall see, even for these evils there was a compensatinggood.
Micah, though he had affected to make light of the foreboding of evilwhich he had heard from his sister, had really been impressed by it--somuch impressed, indeed, that he had left the city for a little countryhouse at the northern end of the Lake of Galilee, that belonged to him. Hehad invited his relatives to accompany him, but they had declined. Theirplace, they said, was at home, among their poorer brethren, where theymight do something to help and strengthen. All that Micah could do was tocommend them to the protection of the Greek party in the city, with whom,in spite of his fast increasing disgust at their proceedings, he had notyet broken.
He had now returned, and he lost no time in finding his way to hissister's house. The ravages made by fire and sword were only too plainlyvisible as he walked along. Houses that he had known from his childhood,in which he had often been a guest, were now but blackened walls; otherswere shapeless ruins. Again and again he saw on fragments of stone andplaster hideous blotches which he knew to be of blood; and as he saw thesethings he cursed aloud the hands which had wrought these horrors, notwithout the bitterest self-reproach that his own hand might have graspedthem in friendship.
It was a great relief to find that his sister's house had been spared anyoutrage. But when he demanded admittance in the usual way, by kicking thedoor, it became evident that there had been a reign of terror, and thatthe inmates of the dwelling were not sure that it was yet over. The doorwas not thrown open in the usual free fashion of Jewish hospitality, buthe became aware by a slight movement of one of the closed lattices that hewas being inspected from above. The inspection was apparentlysatisfactory, for in another minute there was a sound of undrawing boltsand unfastening chains, and the inhospitable door was at last open.Hannah, sadly aged in look her brother thought, met him in the hall, andgreeted him with a silent embrace. After a pause, in which she seemed tobe struggling with her tears, she said--
"Welcome, dear Micah; while you and my husband and my children are left tome I feel that I cannot be unhappy. And perhaps you," she added, with awistful look in his face, "will draw nearer to us now. But come and see mydear ones."
She led the way to a room at the back of the house, looking out into alittle garden shaded by a wide-branching fig-tree. Hannah noiselessly drewaside the curtain that served for a door, and the two stood by commonconsent and watched the scene that met their eyes. Azariah, the father ofthe family, was sitting with his back turned to them, holding on his kneesa copy of the Law. On two stools at his feet sat his daughters, eachholding in one hand a tablet covered with wax, and in the other a _stylus_or sharp-pointed iron pen. He was slowly dictating to them the words,"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord," and the little creatureswere laboriously forming, not without many pauses for thought, thescarcely familiar letters.
"Now read it, my children," said Azariah, when the task was finished; andone after another the sweet, childish voices repeated the well-knownwords. Micah, as he listened, felt himself strangely touched. Presently heheard his sister murmur to herself, "In Thy Law will I meditate day andnight," and glancing at her face saw it illumined with a joy which hecould scarcely have believed those wasted features capable of expressing.
"'Tis well, Miriam; 'tis well, Judith," said Azariah to the little girls,and putting his hands upon their heads, as they stood before him, for theyhad risen to repeat the holy words, he repeated, "The God of Abraham andSarah bless you." And then, for they were mere children after all, and notabove childish rewards, gave each a ripe fig from a basket which stood ona table by his side.
The lesson being over, Hannah advanced, and her brother followed. Azariahturned and greeted the new comer not unkindly, but with a certain reserve,for he could not forget that his visitor was a Menander as well as aMicah, and that he had been the friend of the traitorous Jason, and theyet more t
raitorous Menelaues. The children, after their first feeling ofalarm, for a strange face was seldom seen in that home, and when Miriam,the elder, had recognized her uncle, showed no reserve in their welcome.They clung about his neck, and kissed him. They insisted on his coming tosee their pets--Miriam's turtle-doves, and Judith's dormice, and the littlegazelle fawn which they owned in common. "They have not heard a wordagainst me," thought Micah to himself; and this affectionate loyaltytouched him to the heart. From his sister he might, perhaps, have expectedit, but that the stern Azariah, a narrow-minded bigot, without a kindlythought for any that did not walk in his way, as he had been accustomed tothink of him--that Azariah himself should have dealt with him somercifully, was a surprise as it was also a reproach.
He stopped with them for the rest of the day, and after the evening meal,when the little ones had gone to bed, after making their uncle promisethat he would soon come and see them again, the three had much serioustalk together.
Micah had, of course, the family history to hear, for, stranger as he hadbeen to them for some years past, he knew scarcely anything about it. Helearnt now for the first time that a little boy had been born who, had helived, would have been about two years younger than Judith. The mother hadmuch to say about his beauty and goodness, and his rare promise ofintelligence. Micah was touched all the more because he could not forgivehimself for the alienation which had prevented him from saying a word ofcomfort to his sister in the hour of her bereavement. "It was, indeed, aterrible loss," and he rose from his seat and kissed her. He felt thatthis little proof of his love would be better than many words.
"Nay," she said, with a cheerfulness that almost startled him--"nay; youmust not say that we have lost our dear little Joshua. I know that I havea son still, though he is not here. I confess that it was very hard topart with him. But he is quite safe in Abraham's bosom, safer and betteroff," she added, with a sad smile, "than he would be here; and some day Ishall see him, and show him to you, dear Micah, and we shall be happytogether."
After this the little party had much talk about the state of things in thepresent, and the prospects of the future. Again Micah was astonished tosee the cheerfulness and courage which his sister and her husband kept upin the midst of circumstances which must have been most disheartening.
"Ah!" said Azariah, when the conversation turned upon the desolation ofthe Temple, and the loss of all the ceremonial of worship, the dailysacrifice, and the great festivals of the year--"Ah! there are consolationseven here. Perhaps we thought too much of these things in the old time. Wewere taken up with the outside, with the show and the splendour, thevessels of gold, and the clouds of incense smoke as they curled about thepillars and the roof, and we forgot what they meant. But now that theoutside things are taken from us, we can give our hearts to that which iswithin. We have our gatherings still, though the Temple doors are shut.Every Sabbath-day we meet, and the Law and the Prophets are read in ourears--aye, and there are those who can expound them, and speak words thatcomfort and strengthen us. I, myself, have felt the Spirit move me once ortwice to exhort and cheer the brethren. No, brother! believe me, it is notwholly loss that we cannot assemble any more in our beautiful house. Ourfathers learnt much when they sat mourning by the waters of Babylon, andwe also are learning much in this our second captivity."
This sounded strange to the young man, who, indeed, had dulled hisunderstanding of spiritual things by his follies and excesses. Still hecould not help feeling deeply impressed by the evident earnestness of thespeaker. But he felt that he could say nothing. A trifler and unbelieverlike himself could only remain silent in the presence of thoughts andfeelings so much higher than anything to which he could reach.
After a short pause Azariah went on--"The Lord has not seen fit to renewamong us the spirit of prophecy, and we know not certainly of the thingsthat are coming upon the earth. Yet a man, though he be no prophet, mayread the signs of the times. Believe me, there are days to come more fullof evil and darkness even than those that we have seen. My heart sometimesfails me when I think of this dear woman," and as he spoke he laid hishand upon his wife's shoulder, "and of the little ones whom God has givenus. It will be a hard time for men to battle through--but for women andchildren----." And his voice faltered.
Hannah turned to him with her brave, cheerful smile--"'As thy days, soshall thy strength be.' The great prophet said it, did he not, to all hispeople--to the weak ones as well as to the strong?"
Shortly after Micah took his leave. As he walked through the desertedstreets he thought much of the words which he had heard that night, andstill more of the cheerfulness and courage, ten times more eloquent thanall words, which he had witnessed.
"Is all this a delusion?" he asked himself. "Six months ago, perhaps evensix hours ago, I should have had little doubt in saying so. But now--well,if it is a delusion, it is strangely like a reality. Anyhow its effectsare real enough. Dear Hannah! always the best and kindest of sisters, buta timid creature, whom I used to amuse myself by frightening. But now--sheis as bold as a lioness. Well, I can only hope that the truths which Ihave been learning, if they are truths, will stand me in as good steadwhen the need comes."