The multitude then poured out of the gates of the palace, like a foaming and chafing river which hath overflowed its banks, and with terrible cries, which we heard even in our house, took the direction towards the Pretorium.
It was with difficulty that Æmilius could protect the Prophet in safety up the hill and to the entrance of the Pretorium, which he entered with his prisoner just as the sun gilded the loftiest pinnacles of the Temple.
In another letter, dear father, I will continue the account of his trial, the remembrance of which, while I now write of it, almost rekindles again all my love, faith, devotion and confidence in him, for who but a man God-sustained could have borne so meekly all this pain, insult, ignominy and shame?
Adina.
[LETTER XXXII.]
My Dear Father:
This is the evening of the Great Day of the Feast, and the second day since the ignominious execution of him whom we all believed to have been the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Yet he still lies dead in the tomb! Alas, that one so good and noble and wise should have been a deceiver! Henceforth I have no faith in goodness. I have wept till I can weep no more.
It is now the close of the High Day of the Feast. The slanting rays of the setting sun linger yet upon the gilded lances that terminate the lesser pinnacles of the holy house of the Lord. The smoke of incense curls lazily up from the sky from its unseen altar, and the deep voices of the choir of Levites, increased by those of the tens of thousands of Judah, who crowd all the courts of the Temple, fall upon my ears like muffled thunder. I never heard anything so solemn. Above the Temple has hung, since the crucifixion yesterday, the cloud of the smoke of the sacrifices, and it immovably depends over all the city like a pall. The sun does not penetrate it, though its light falls upon the earth outside of the city, but all Jerusalem remains in shadow. This cloud is a fearful sight, and all men have been watching it and talking of it and wondering. It seems to be in the form of black, gigantic wings, spreading a league broad over Jerusalem.