The Maccabaean

Ask me not my name nor my age nor my pedigree. Though the fire of youth is in these eyes, strength in these sinews and rich red blood in these veins, I am as old as Sorrow and the number of my days is without beginning and without end. Grey as the hoary frost should be these my black locks, and my face as grim as this black robe, I am wearing. My name is Son of Israel, and I am descended from the House of the People of Princes. Blessed is the mother that gave me birth and the father whose seed I am, for after an intense sorrow comes great joy, and after a prolonged silence a mighty voice is raised once more. When the nation was young my spirit was brooding on the heights of Sinai, and on Mount Horeb have I learned the art of eloquence. There have I seen the tablets as they first appeared; there have I noticed the majesty of God, not as the vulgar mind conceives it, but as the spirit of the Prophets knows it.

Thence were my people dispersed over all the world, and in their sorrow and degradation they beame petty traders and husbandmen, learning both craft and handicraft. From door to door did they go among the nations, and from every door were they turned away. But in their brief sojourns they imbibed all the good of all the peoples and naught of the bad, so that when it comes to the age of comparisons the Jew once more is the ascending star. This is my inheritance handed down by my fathers through the long ages of exile, and this is the boon from the hand of God. Why then should I weep at thd hardships undergone, and why lament for the pain and suffering? Rather will I weep that ıny people know not the good they received, or advantages gained, so that they

still grope in darkness while light is to be had.

Aye, the school of my learning, if you should ask, is the tent of my fathers, and my knowledge their experience. Need I have gone to the universities and the schools of the day, when the world gave her instruction and nature yielded to me her sciences? At the eaves of the gasthaus have I learned wisdom, and at the door-post have I gained intelligence. I crossed the thresholds of the nations, and ere I recrossed them I possessed all their treasures and hidden virtues. The gates of my enemies could not close upon me, for I left by the breaches in their walls, nor could they take that of which I robbed them, for I carried it deeply enwrapped within my soul. Yet when I reached the haven of my journey, laden with the spoils of foreign lands, my friends mocked and derided my efforts, and said, "Who could not but do the same? Behold," said they, "the Prince of fools, who brought us fire in place of gold, the words of the nations in place of their wealth."

Still will I hold my station as the speaker of Israel, and in the voice of the Prophets urge my brothers to action. For upon the borders of Zion I have sojourned at midnight, and, coming upon the graves of the prophets, I knelt down in supplication. Tears of bitter anguish streamed from my eyes, and amid the silence of the sepulchres naught was heard but my sobbing. Give me your tongues, I cried, O ye Prophets, that I may therewith awaken slumbering Israel. Is not the Dawn at hand, or shall the Night yet for centuries endure? As this I said, the palms began to stir above my head, although there was no wind,