The following day was the preparation for Pentecost, and was passed in bathing, cutting off the hair, and other purifyings. An hour after the evening-sacrifice Helon went up to the temple and knocked at the door of the old man's cell. "Welcome to Azereth!", he exclaimed, as Helon entered. Azereth, or Day of Assembly, was the name given to the day of Pentecost as well as to the seventh of the Passover, and to the eighth of the Feast of Tabernacles. "Give us thy blessing," said Helon; and as he knelt down the old man stretched out his hands upon his head and blessed him. Helon then asked him to explain the design of the feast which was about to commence. "As," said he," when the first barley sheaf was offered, we prayed to Jehovah for his blessing upon the harvest, so now that both the barley and the wheat are gathered in, we thank him that he has given us the early and the later rain, and dew from heaven, and the appointed weeks of harvest. Thus the Pentecost is a harvest feast; but it is also a commemoration of the giving of the law for it was on this fiftieth day, the sixth after Israel's arrival in the wilderness of Sinai, and the third after the purification of the people, that Moses led them out of the camp to meet Jehovah, and to receive the law amidst the thundering and lightning, and the sound of the trumpet. But pray to God that he would disclose to thee the sublimer meaning which lies hidden under these more obvious purposes. Bethink thee of that approaching time, when all the gifts of Jehovah shall be poured out upon his kingdom on earth, when all prayers shall be granted, and the law shall be universally known and kept in its purest and most spiritual sense. Let this thought guide thy devotions at the feast. And now, if thou art pure, go to the evening sacrifice. Hark! the trumpet announces that the Pentecost is about to begin."

Helon departed, was present at the evening sacrifice, and remained in the temple through the night with all the priests who had assembled at Jerusalem for the festival. On the following day the principal duty fell to the course whose week

was just beginning; but there was so much to be done beyond the common offices, that they needed the aid of the others. The dissensions of the Pharisees and Sadducees were more visible than ever, and ceased not even in the temple and on the holy night.

The gates were opened, and among the rest who filled the courts before the crowing of the cock, Iddo, Selumiel, Abisuab, and Elisama presented their victims to the priests; and Sulamith with the wife of Iddo and her own sister-in-law were in the court of the Women. The ordinary morningsacrifice was first offered, then the special offering of the festival, consisting of seven lambs of the first year, a young bullock and two rams for a burnt-offering, a goat for a sinoffering, and two yearling sheep for a thank-offering. The difference between the offerings on this occasion and at the Passover was, that there were then two bullocks and one ram offered, and now two rams and one bullock.* When the drink-offering was poured out, the priests blew upon their pillars, the Levites sung on the fifteen steps, and the whole congregation sung the great Hallel.

Now came the special offering of the Pentecost. It consisted of two loaves and a tenth of an ephah of fine wheat flour, the first-fruits of the harvest, which a priest had waved before Jehovah towards all the four winds of heaven, in the open space between the altar and the sanctuary. When this offering had been presented to Jehovah, the sacrifices of individuals began. Selumiel, his son, and Elisama, brought their noble victims; thousands followed them, and among the rest, Helon offered his thank-offering, and paid to the Lord the vow which he had formed in the happy hour of his betrothment. Selumiel's son offered for the purification of his wife, as it chanced to be the fortieth day from her delivery, a lamb of the first year as a burnt-offering and a turtle-dove as a sin-offering. She prayed while they were slain, and a priest, bringing the blood of the sin-offering in a

* Lev. xxiii. 18.

dish, sprinkled her with it, and thus she became clean. She had brought her first-born in her arm, and presented him before Jehovah; and her husband redeemed him according to the law by the payment of five shekels.* For thus said Jehovah," Behold I have taken the Levites unto myself among the children of Israel, instead of all the first-born; therefore the Levites shall be mine. For the first-born are mine, since the time when I slew all the first-born in Egypt: then did I set apart all the first-born in Israel, both of man and beast, that they should be mine. I am Jehovah."+

When all these were ended, and the blessing given to the people in the name of Jehovah, Iddo, with the assistance of his own slaves and of Sallu, presented his own thank-offering. The wife of Abisuab, Sulamith, and the wife of Iddo, partook of the feast which the sacrifice furnished in one of the apartments in the temple, and in addition to them some priests and Levites who had been bidden. Helon, once more in the temple, in sight of the crowds of worshippers who poured in streams along its courts, within hearing of the solemn sound of the temple music, surrounded by all the circumstances which made this consecrated spot a little world within itself; and seated by his Sulamith, forgot his native country Egypt, his longings for his mother and his home, and nothing occupied his thoughts, but the wish to live in the Holy Land as a priest of Jehovah, and to endeavor to fulfill the law, with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength. The Feast of Pentecost lasted only one day.

Numb. xviii. 15.

+ Numb. iii. 12.

On the day which followed the feast of Pentecost, Helon stood upon the highest of the three summits of the mount of Olives, and with a heavy heart and weeping eyes watched the train of the pilgrims from Jericho, as they disappeared among the groves and gardens of Bethany, and listened to their songs, in which the voice of Sulamith seemed to warble to him a farewell, full of affection and regret. It had cost him many a struggle, to resolve to undertake this journey to Dan - but Selumiel had determined to put his self-command to this proof, and Helon was forced to comply. There was a certain hardness in Selumiel's natural disposition, which the influence of an amiable wife had not entirely mollified; he had been compelled in his youth to practise much selfdenial and bear many mortifications, and he could not deny himself the pleasure of making even those he loved undergo a similar discipline, persuading himself perhaps that he was improving their tempers, while he was indulging his own. "The path of obedience is arduous and rough," said Helon with a sigh, as he turned from where the Jordan wound its way through the meadows of Jericho, to the northern hills of Ebal and Gerizim, over which his destined journey lay; "the path of obedience is rough, but it shall be trodden." He called to mind the first commandinent with promise, and he thought that when he had made this sacrifice to the sense of duty, he should be able, without difficulty, to fulfil the rest of the commandments, and become a Chasidean. Ambition came to the aid of virtue, and he returned towards the city, resolved, though not satisfied.

On the following morning he took his departure, in company with the Governor of Samaria, whom Hyrcanus had

As

just appointed, and some Galilean Jews, who preferred returning into their own country by the nearer way. Iddo accompanied his friend as far as the gate of Ephraim. The travellers were mounted, and attended by such a train as became the rank of the principal person in the party. They. entered the King's valley, and directed their course between Mizpa and Nob towards Geba, which lay not far from Rama, the city where Samuel judged,* called in latter times Arimathea. The road was stony; the conversation of the party turned wholly on worldly topics. This Geba is also called Geba of Benjamin, to distinguish it from another of the same name: it was celebrated for David's victory over the Philistines. It lay on a rising ground, six sabbath-day's journeys from Jerusalem, and was one of the cities of the priests. they had been late in quitting Jerusalem, they halted here for their rest at noon, and as most of the party were disposed to consult their own ease, they remained till late in the afternoon. The road to Mishmash was more steep and rocky than that which they had travelled. Here they had to traverse a defile, between two abrupt and rugged rocks, in the mountains of Ephraim, forming a pass which had been rendered celebrated by the exploits of Jonathan in Saul's first expedition against the Philistines, and by the residence of the Maccabee prince Jonathan. They halted for the night at Bethel, a place of which the name often occurs in the sacred writings. This city was sixteen sabbath-day's journeys from Jerusalem, and Helon called to mind that from the mulberry-trees in its neighborhood it had been named Luz, when Abraham dwelt there; that Jacob here saw the vision of the ladder on which the angels ascended and descended, and that rising upon the following morning he built an altar to Jehovah, and called the name of the place Bethel. The ark of the covenant had long stood here; and it was here too, alas, that Jeroboam had set up the worship of the golden calves which he had learnt in Egypt, causing Israel to sin.** The prophets so

* 1 Sam. vii. 17. +2 Sam. v. 25.

1 Chron. vi. 60. (1 Sam. xiv. 4. || 1 Mac. ix. 73. Gen. xxviii. 19. ** 1 Kings xii. 29.