eighteen "benedictions" in the daily prayers). Alas, that Israel knows not the fulfilment

of these hopes already granted and expressed in the thanksgiving of the father of the

Baptist: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His

people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant

David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world

began" (Luke 1:68-70).

Such blessings, and much more, were not only objects of hope, but realities alike to the

Rabbinist and the unlettered Jew. They determined him willingly to bend the neck under

a yoke of ordinances otherwise unbearable; submit to claims and treatment against

which his nature would otherwise have rebelled, endure scorn and persecutions which

would have broken any other nationality and crushed any other religion. To the far

exiles of the Dispersion, this was the one fold, with its promise of good shepherding, of

green pastures, and quiet waters. Judaea was, so to speak, their Campo Santo, with the

Temple in the midst of it, as the symbol and prophecy of Israel's resurrection. To stand,

if it were but once, within its sacred courts, to mingle with its worshippers, to bring

offerings, to see the white-robed throng of ministering priests, to hear the chant of

Levites, to watch the smoke of sacrifices uprising to heaven--to be there, to take part in

it was the delicious dream of life, a very heaven upon earth, the earnest of fulfilling

prophecy. No wonder, that on the great feasts the population of Jerusalem and of its

neighbourhood, so far as reckoned within its sacred girdle, swelled to millions, among

whom were "devout men, out of every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5), or that treasure

poured in from all parts of the inhabited world. And this increasingly, as sign after sign

seemed to indicate that "the End" was nearing. Surely the sands of the times of the

Gentiles must have nearly run out. The promised Messiah might at any moment appear

and "restore the kingdom to Israel." From the statements of Josephus we know that the

prophecies of Daniel were specially resorted to, and a mass of the most interesting,

though tangled, apocalyptic literature, dating from that period, shows what had been the

popular interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy. The oldest Jewish paraphrases of

Scripture, or Targumim, breathe the same spirit. Even the great heathen historians note

this general expectancy of an impending Jewish world -empire, and trace to it the origin

of the rebellions against Rome. Not even the allegorising Jewish philosophers of

Alexandria remained uninfluenced by the universal hope. Outside Palestine all eyes were

directed towards Judaea, and each pilgrim band on its return, or wayfaring brother on

his journey, might bring tidings of startling events. Within the land t he feverish anxiety

of those who watched the scene not unfrequently rose to delirium and frenzy. Only thus

can we account for the appearance of so many false Messiahs and for the crowds

which, despite repeated disappointments, were ready to cherish the most unlikely

anticipations. It was thus that a Theudas could persuade "a great part of the people" to

follow him to the brink of Jordan, in the hope of seeing its waters once more

miraculously divide, as before Moses, and an Egyptian impostor induce them to go out

to the Mount of Olives in the expectation of seeing the walls of Jerusalem fall down at

his command (Josephus, Ant. xx, 167-172). Nay, such was the infatuation of fanaticism,

that while the Roman soldiers were actually preparing to set the Temple on fire, a false

prophet could assemble 6,000 men, women, and children, in its courts and porches to

await then and there a miraculous deliverance from heaven (Josephus, Jewish War, vi,

287). Nor did even the fall of Jerusalem quench these expectations, till a massacre, more

terrible in some respects than that at the fall of Jerusalem, extinguished in blood the last

public Messianic rising against Rome under Bar Cochab.

For, however misdirected--so far as related to the person of the Christ and the nature of

His kingdom--not to the fact or time of His coming, nor yet to the character of Rome --

such thoughts could not be uprooted otherwise than with the history and religion of

Israel. The New Testament process upon them, as well as the Old; Christians and Jews

alike cherished them. In the language of St. Paul, this was "the hope of the promise made

of God unto our fathers: unto which our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and

night, hope to come" (Acts 26:6,7). It was this which sent the thrill of expectancy

through the whole nation, and drew crowds to Jordan, when an obscure anchorite, who