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It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord,
And to sing praises unto thy name, O most High!
To show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning,
And thy faithfulness every night,

Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery,
Upon the harp with a solemn sound.

For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work,

I will triumph because of the works of thy hands.

O Lord! how great are thy works;

Thy thoughts are very deep!

A brutish man knoweth not this,
Nor doth a fool understand it.

When the wicked spring as the grass,

And when all the workers of iniquity flourish,
It is that they may be destroyed for ever!
But thou, Lord, art most high for evermore.
For lo! thine enemies, O Lord,

For lo! thine enemies shall perish!

All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

But thou exaltest my horn like the unicorn's;

I am anointed with fresh oil;

And mine eye shall see my desire on my enemies,

And mine ear shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me.

The righteous flourisheth like the palm-tree,

He groweth like a cedar in Lebanon.

They that are planted in the house of the Lord

Shall flourish in the courts of our God,

They shall still bring forth in old age,

They shall be full of sap and flourishing,

To show that Jehovah is just,

He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.—Ps. xcii.

Helon remained the whole day in the temple, witnessed the evening-sacrifice, and heard the sound of the trumpet which proclaimed that the sabbath was at an end. The old men retired soon after the morning-sacrifice leaving him to his own reflections, and rejoicing that one was found among the youth of Israel, so full of enthusiasm for the service of Jehovali. Helon, as he wandered about the courts of the temple, was revolving a design, which had long been forming in his bosom, and which had been rapidly matured by the feelings of the last few days.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CLOSE OF THE FEAST O F THE

PASSOVER.

ALTHOUGH the greater part of the people had already returned to their homes, to begin the harvest, and large companies had taken their departure every morning with the music of cymbals and psalms, all the priests and Levites still remained, and a great multitude of the people. Not fewer than one hundred thousand men were still to be seen assembled in the courts of the temple.

One day Helon was present at the evening sacrifice, and was witness of a novel scene. He was standing beside the thirteen chests, which were placed in the court of the Women. Each of these chests was inscribed with the name of the gift which was to be deposited in it. Some were of the capitation tax, others, for the money which remained over and above of the destined sum when the victim had been purchased; others, for voluntary gifts for the benefit of the temple. A Jew of Cyrene came to bring the capitation tax of his countrymen. The law had enacted as follows: "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, when thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, they shall give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there may be no plague among them when thou numberest them : this shall they give, every one that is numbered a half-shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary: a half-shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Every one, from twenty years and upwards, shall give an offering to the Lord; the rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than a half-shekel, that it may be for a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls."* The shekel is a coin which contains twenty gerahs,†

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and has different times been of different values, but since the time of the high-priest Simon, has been equal to a Grecian stater. The coin, as struck by him, has a beautiful stamp; on the one side is seen, in the centre, the budding rod of Aaron, with the legend around it, "The holy Jerusalem:" on the other side is a pot of manna, and the words "Shekel of Israel." Whole and half-shekels were coined. It was such a half-shekel that every Jew of twenty years and upwards was bound to give, as an acknowledgment of his belonging to the people of Jehovah. It might be considered as a capitation tax levied in the last month of the ecclesiastical year. On the first day of this month, Adar, the Sanhedrim sent messengers through the whole country, who demanded the half-shekel, and fifteen days were given for the payment. On the fifteenth day of Adar, the receivers of the half-shekel took their seats beside the chests, in the court of the Women, and all who were twenty years and upwards brought their contribution. If any one neglected to do so, compulsory measures were resorted to, in order to obtain it. To the very poorest persons a further respite of a year was granted, and for this reason a chest for the past year was placed by that which received the contributions of the present. At this time a multitude of the poorer class were seen soliciting alms from the rich, to enable them to discharge their debt. This was the only kind of begging which the law allowed in Israel. Strangers, who came to Jerusalem chiefly at the festivals, were accustomed to take these opportunities of discharging the debt, especially at the Passover, which was some weeks later than the day of the month Adar, on which it became due.

The Cyrenian had brought the sum which was due from his Jewish brethren in Cyrene, and was about to deposit it in the chest. But it was necessary that it should be paid in shekels, and he had only foreign coin. As this was a case of frequent occurrence, the receivers of the shekel were also money-changers, and had their tables beside the chest. For

a certain premium they gave Jewish shekels for the Cyrenian coins. Helon witnessed the proceeding with no small dissatisfaction.

He had the true Mosaic dislike to commerce and trade, of which, in the whole law, no single instance of encouragement is found. Though Canaan lay on the shore of the Mediterranean, and the example of their nearest neighbors, the Phoenicians, encouraged the Israelites to commerce, it was not the will of Jehovah that his people should devote themselves to traffic; agriculture on the contrary, was consecrated by its union with religion, and all the great national festivals were as much agricultural as historical. In this respect Israel resembled the Greeks more than the Orientals, among whom commerce is usually held in high estimation, constitutes an order of nobility, and engages even the prime ministers of the state. The Greek, on the contrary, at least in the earliest and purest times, considered such occupations as a surrender of his dignity, and, inconsistent with the magnanimity of a free man. Helon would fain have seen the same spirit continuing to animate the Israelites, though for a different reason. The constant intercourse with foreigners, necessarily produced compromises and conformity, which diminished their attachment to the law and usages of their forefathers. He disliked the Hellenists of Alexandria, as much as their love of allegories, and deduced indeed from the former their neglect of the law, their indifference to the temple of Moriah, and their endeavor to pacify their conscience by allegorizing those precepts which in their literal acceptation too obviously rebuked their practices. If the children of the captivity, he thought, had not taken up the pursuit of commerce on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, they would have returned in much greater numbers, and so many of them would not have been induced to prefer gain in a foreign land to the recovery of their own. "And had they returned in greater numbers," he exclaimed, "how soon would the Samaritans have been expelled, Galilee purified, and the Philistines been forced to bow their necks! Jerusa

lem would have been inhabited by a totally different race of men, and the days of Solomon might have returned!"

With such feelings, it was natural that he should turn away in disgust from all that seemed to change the proper character of the festival. This mixture of commerce with the religious solemnity was indeed not new; it seemed almost to arise necessarily out of the circumstances of the case. The festivals were not merely occasions of appearing before Jehovah, for pious services, nor merely anniversary assemblages of the people; they were also the great national fairs. One end of the court of the Gentiles served as a market-place; the most extensive dealings carried on in it were in cattle. Vast droves of sheep, goats, and bullocks preceded the pilgrims on their way to the city, to supply the sacrifices which were to be offered there. As the animals so offered must be all clean, it was necessary that this branch of trade should be wholly in the hands of the Jews. The sheep came from the wilderness of Judah; the bullocks from Galilee; Tekoah and Hermon furnished honey, and Gilead its precious balin. Phoenicians also came to the festivals, and brought with them foreign Inerchandise, purple, Egyptian linen, &c.

Elisama was frequently among the merchants, and judged of their wares with the eyes of one experienced in such matters, for he had himself been a merchant. But Helon could never be persuaded to follow his uncle's occupation, and had been accustomed at Alexandria to take refuge in the Bruchion, when exhorted to engage in commerce. "O! that a prophet would appear," he exclaimed one day in the temple, when his zeal was more than ordinarily kindled, “who should overturn the tables of the money-changers, and drive those who buy and sell from the courts of Jehovah !"*

These things, however, were only trivial diminutions of his pleasure, small specks in the bright glory which invested the temple and its services to his imagination. When he went up, morning or evening, and entered by the Beautiful-gate, he

* This was done by the Messiah. Vide John ii. 13-16.

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