Sublime are the acclamations of a people freed from a foreign yoke! But here was more. It was the fraternal union of a whole people, in the holiest bond of a common faith, going up to appear before the altar of Jehovah, and to commemorate the wonders of love and mercy which he had manifested towards their forefathers. They seemed a band of brothers. “In Alexandria,” said Helon, “Jew is against Jew, and family against family—but here is one holy people, loving each other as the children of one Israel, joint heirs of one great and blessed name.” Every one had bidden adieu to the occupations and the anxieties of ordinary life. They had come to give thanks and to pray, and no sounds but those of thankfulness and prayer were heard among them. The hostilities and alienations produced by self-love and the collision of interests appeared to have been left at home, and the general joy dispersed every melancholy feeling which an individual might have been disposed to indulge. On these pilgrimages they seemed as free from care as the people of old, when, rescued from Egyptian bondage, they were fed by manna from heaven, on their way to the land that flowed with milk and honey. Jehovah had promised to protect the whole country, so that no enemy should invade its borders, while the people went up, thrice in every year, to appear before him[97]—how much more confidently might each father of a family intrust his own household to his protection! Nothing was more remarkable than that the aged and the weakly were able to bear this journey of thirty-six sabbath-days’ journies, over hill and dale, without complaining of fatigue. It seemed as if the strong had given to the weaker a portion of their own vigour; or rather, as if Jehovah himself had strengthened the feeble knees for this journey. They expressed these sentiments, by singing, immediately after the former, the following psalm: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills From which my help cometh. My help cometh from Jehovah, The Maker of heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber, He that keepeth Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth. Jehovah is thy guardian, Thy shade upon thy right hand: The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night. Jehovah shall preserve thee from all evil, He shall preserve thy soul. Jehovah preserveth thy going out and thy coming in, From this time forth and for evermore.—Ps. cxxi. Footnote 97: Exod. xxxiv. 23.