He took from his bosom a large sculptured gem fastened to a chain of pearls. Miriam put forth her trembling hand for it, read with a starting eye her own name and mine, and exclaiming, “My son! my son!” tottered forward and fell fainting into his arms.
Salathiel’s Farewell
I flew to them both, and never did a wo-worn heart beat with keener joy than when I, too, clasped my son, my long-lost, my first-born. Yet the cloud gathered instantly. Had he not come to take the earliest embrace of his parents in the crisis of their fate—the promise of an unbroken lineage, found only in the day when my country was in the jaws of destruction—the father awaking to those loveliest and happiest ties of nature only when the ax of the traitor or the sword of the enemy was uplifted to cut them asunder forever—the prince, the patriot, the warrior, summoned to the first exercise of his noble rights and duties—when in the next hour a heap of dust might be all that was left of his family and his people!
I clung to my son with a fondness thirsting to repay its long arrear. His desertion in the hands of strangers; the early hardships; the loss of a mother’s love and a father’s protection; the insults and privations that the struggler through the world must bear; the desperate hazards of his life; even the errors into which necessity and circumstance had driven him, rose up in judgment against me; I reproached myself even for the accident, perhaps the irresistible accident, that gave my infant to the roaring waters. But the tears and exclamations of the people round us recalled us. I might then have walked from the hall without any man’s daring to lay a hand upon me, for the public feeling, touched by the discovery of my son, was loud for my instant liberation. But I was not to be satisfied with this imperfect justice, and I demanded that the tribunal should proceed.
“Shed Not the Innocent Blood”
The presence of my family was felt too strong for the fears of my persecutor, and he demanded that they should retire. An impression, like the warning of a superior spirit, instantly told me that the parting was forever! The same impression was evidently on their minds, for their parting was like an eternal farewell. The whole group at once gathered round me. Constantius and Salome knelt before me for final forgiveness. My son and his betrothed bowed their heads to ask my blessing. Miriam and Esther came last, and silently hung upon my neck, dissolved in tears of matchless anguish and love. I lifted my eyes and heart to Heaven, and tho oppressed with the terrible conviction of my own fate, put forth my hands and blessed them in the name of the God of Israel. I saw them pass away. My firmness could bear no more; I wept aloud. But with my sorrow there was given a hope—a light across the gloom of my soul. When I saw their stately forms solemnly move along through the fierce and guilty multitude, and the distant portal shut upon them, I thought of the sons and daughters of the great patriarch passing within the door of the ark from the midst of a condemned world.
The night wore on; the people, exhausted by the length of a trial, protracted for the purpose, had left the hall nearly empty; and Onias, now secure of a tribunal that dreaded nothing but the public eye, urged the decision. The judges were his creatures through corruption or fear; his followers alone remained. Sure to be crushed, the fluctuations of hope were gone; and I listened to the powerful and high-wrought harangue of my enemy without a feeling but of admiration for his extraordinary powers, or of pity for their perverter. While he stood, drinking in with ears and eyes the wonder and homage of the audience, I myself called for sentence.
“Scorning,” said I, “to reason with understandings that will not comprehend, and consciences that can not feel, I appeal from the man of blood to the God of mercies; from the worse than man of blood, from the corrupter of justice, to Him who shall judge the judge; to Him who shall yet pass sentence on all in the sight of earth and heaven.”
The chief of the tribunal rose; my condemnation was upon a lip quivering and pale; he had already in his hand the border of the robe which he was to rend, in sign that the accused was rent from Israel.
A confusion at the portal checked him, and the words resounded: “Shed not the innocent blood!” The voice was as a voice from the sepulcher, melancholy, but searching to the very heart. The guard gave way, and a man, covered from head to foot with a sepulchral garment, rushed up the immense hall. At the foot of the tribunal he flung off the garment, and disclosed a face and form that well might have ranked him among the dwellers of the grave.