“Thus Israel was not left wholly comfortless: but her sins had been numerous and her punishment was grievous. Driven from their home, cut off from the land of promise, without a temple, or a prince on the throne of David, they were taught the power of Jehovah. He had punished no other people so, for he had loved no other so well. As they sat by the rivers of Babel and wept, when they thought of Zion, they felt that he was their judge, as well as their lawgiver. What did it avail them, that individuals of their nation rose to favour and distinction, Daniel, Esther, and Tobias, when the nation itself lived in misery and degradation? The seventy years of the captivity were tedious, mournful years, and while a child of Abraham remains upon the earth, their features will continue to bear the traces of that melancholy, which these years impressed upon them. Every year we keep the mournful anniversary of the destruction of the temple, though it has been rebuilt, while, according to the words of Jeremiah, ‘we sit solitary and are still.’” Elisama ceased, and a grief, that could find no vent in words, hung heavy about his heart and that of Helon. The last glow of the departing light had fallen on Elisama’s countenance, as he related the destruction of Jerusalem. Night succeeded; by the feeble glooming of the hearth fire, he had described the ruin and misery of Israel; and now all was darkness and silence. The blast of the trumpet, which gave the signal to prepare for the march, at length broke in upon them and they arose. CHAPTER VII. THE HALT AT RAPHIA. The caravan halted in the neighbourhood of the ruins of Raphia; their day’s journies had been short, on account of the quantity of merchandise which they carried. Raphia does not properly belong to Egypt, and was reckoned as a part of Syria; a hundred years before, Antiochus the Great lost here a great battle with the Egyptians. The space which lies between Egypt and Syria had been for ages past the theatre of war between the adjacent countries; a circumstance that, before the captivity, had been the source of frequent calamity to Israel, which could scarcely fail of being involved either in the war or its consequences. This thought occurred to the minds both of Helon and Elisama, as they crossed the field of battle—but they derived some consolation from the thought, that Judea’s conqueror had in his turn been conquered here. Jehovah had indeed visited his people with calamity, but their enemies, the instruments in his hands, had always been punished for their ambition. Antiochus after the battle fled into his own kingdom, and left Palestine again free.