“Happy, I say to you, happy will be the hour for Israel—for mankind, for creation—when he shall take into his hand the records of his fathers, and, in tears, ask, What is that greater crime than rebellion? than blasphemy? than impurity? than idolatry? which, not seventy years, nor a thousand years, of sorrow have seen forgiven; which has prolonged his wo into the old age of the world—which threatens him with a chain not to be broken but by the thunder-stroke that breaks up the universe!”
“And still,” said I, trembling before the living oracle,—“still is there hope?”
“Look to that mountain,” was the answer, as he pointed to Moriah. Its side, covered with the legions advancing to the assault, shone in the sun like a tide of burning brass. “It is now a sight of splendid evil!” exclaimed he. “But upon that mountain shall yet be enthroned a Sovereign before whom the sun shall hide his head, and at the lifting of whose scepter the heaven and the heaven of heavens shall bow down! To that mountain shall man, and more than man, crowd for wisdom and happiness. From that mountain shall light flow to the ends of the universe, and the government shall be the Everlasting!”
The Roar of Assault
The roar of the assault began, and my awful companion was recalled to the world.
In Front of the Sanctuary
“I must see the end of this battle,” said he, in his old mixture of sarcasm and melancholy; “man’s natural talent for making himself miserable may go far, but he is still the better for a teacher. On the top of that hill there are twenty thousand men panting for each other’s blood like tigers; and yet without me they would leave the grand business undone, after all.”
“But one word more,” I cried, giving my last look to the tower of Antonia, on which the eagles now glittered.
He anticipated me.