Festivity and cheerful conversation now reigned among the whole assemblage. Whether it be that a people, which had suffered so much calamity and oppression, naturally enjoys the more keenly a temporary interval of pleasure, or that every approach to God is to the pure mind a source of joy and peace, certain it is, that no nation has ever more carefully studied to remove all trace of sorrow from religious services than the Jews. If the service of the law was a heavy burthen, the service of God was freedom and happiness. All the regulations enjoin this, all the customs of Israel proceed from this principle, that the marks of mourning should be carefully removed from their worship. To praise, to give thanks and sing, to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, to be glad on the day which he had made, to rejoice in him, are all expressions by which their religious services are described. The same principle was kept in view in the purifications which preceded the Passover. He who had touched a dead body was held to be unclean, and excluded from the feast. It was a sin for the high-priest to make himself unclean, even by the body of his nearest relative: for he was to exhibit the divine life in all its purity before the people. How earnestly do Ezra and Nehemiah exhort the people to lay aside their mourning, when the law was read at the feast of tabernacles, and the curse on its violation made known! “This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not nor weep; neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet; for this day is holy unto the Lord.”[115] Footnote 115: Neh. viii. 9. The company in Iddo’s house were not unmindful of these precepts, and the time passed on rapidly in animated discourse. The servants were not excluded from their share; the innocent playfulness of the children was not repressed, and the gaiety of the females lent wings to the conversation. Iddo was the most animated of all, and Helon thought he had never seen an old man so full of vivacity. “See, thou mother in Israel,” said he to his wife, “the Lord has blessed us and permitted us to keep one Passover more, before we are gathered to our fathers. Let us thank him for his mercy, by the cheerfulness with which we celebrate it. Who knows but this may be our last? seldom does a year elapse, but some one dies of those who kept the Passover together at the beginning of it, and our turn, though long delayed, must come at last. We were blithe in our youthful days, half a century since, what prevents our being so still? Thou hast seen thy children and children’s children. Join with me in her praise, my friends.—The Lord has given her store of children and of guests; and she has received them both as the gift of God, and tended them faithfully!”