With such feelings, it was natural that he should turn away in disgust from all that seemed to change the proper character of the festival. This mixture of commerce with the religious solemnity was indeed not new: it seemed almost to arise necessarily out of the circumstances of the case. The festivals were not merely occasions of appearing before Jehovah, for pious services, nor merely anniversary assemblages of the people; they were also the great national fairs. One end of the court of the Gentiles served as a market-place; the most extensive dealings carried on in it were in cattle. Vast droves of sheep, goats, and bullocks preceded the pilgrims on their way to the city, to supply the sacrifices which were to be offered there. As the animals so offered must all be clean, it was necessary that this branch of trade should be wholly in the hands of Jews. The sheep came from the wilderness of Judah; the bullocks from Galilee; Tekoah and Hermon furnished honey, and Gilead its precious balm. Phœnicians also came to the festival, and brought with them foreign merchandise, purple, Egyptian linen, &c. Elisama was frequently among the merchants, and judged of their wares with the eyes of one experienced in such matters, for he had himself been a merchant. But Helon could never be persuaded to follow his uncle’s occupation, and had been accustomed at Alexandria to take refuge in the Bruchion, when exhorted to engage in commerce. “O! that a prophet would appear,” he exclaimed one day in the temple, when his zeal was more than ordinarily kindled, “who should overturn the tables of the money-changers, and drive those who buy and sell from the courts of Jehovah!” These things however were only trivial diminutions of his pleasure, small specks in the bright glory which invested the temple and its services to his imagination. When he went up, morning or evening, and entered by the Beautiful-gate, he hastened as speedily as possible from the objects the sight of which displeased him, to reach a scene more congenial to his feelings, to ascend the flight of steps which conducted to the altar of burnt-offering, to wander in the spacious porticoes, to follow with the eye the majestic steps of the high-priest, or listen to the psalms of the Levites. He had not words to describe the delight in which he thus passed his hours away. He inwardly resolved to become as it was then called, a Chasidean, i. e. a perfectly righteous man. He thanked Jehovah that he had so happily escaped from the meshes of the Greek philosophy, and had so pure and ardent a love for the law of his fathers. He prayed to the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, to be enabled to fulfil the law in all its rigour, and he was conscious of a warmth of attachment to it, and an energy of purpose, which left him no doubt of succeeding.