The companies of travellers arranged themselves for their departure. Selumiel and his family, with Myron and Iddo, took the road by Bethany to Jericho. As they passed through the hollow between the southernmost and the middle summit of the mount of Olives, Helon thought of the tears which he had shed on that spot at Pentecost, when he exclaimed, “The path of obedience is difficult.” Now returning a happy husband, with the peace of God in his heart, he was inclined to say, “Easy is the path of obedience to him who walks in it with faith.” They halted at noon at the Oasis, beneath the palms, and arrived late in the evening at Jericho. On the following day the Galileans crossed the Jordan on their return home. Helon, Sulamith, and Myron began to make preparations for their departure to Alexandria, from which they were to fetch the mother of Helon. When they were about to begin their journey symptoms of the plague showed themselves at Jericho. This is the most terrific of all diseases, as rapid in its operation as the leprosy is slow, and producing an equally miserable death. Those who are seized with it are suddenly attacked by pains in the head and loins; the speech becomes inarticulate, and not unfrequently is lost altogether, as well as the sense of hearing. The eyes become dull and heavy; lethargy succeeds, the strength is prostrated, fever, delirium, and melancholy seize the sufferer, and he commonly dies on the third day, unless a plague-boil preserves him for a miserable existence. If the disease spreads, all intercourse is at an end. The streets, the fountains, and the houses are heaped with dead; infected persons are abandoned by their nearest relatives; and despair and licentiousness walk hand in hand. The people call the plague the arrows of God. As the plague commonly rages most destructively on its first breaking out, Selumiel considered this circumstance as a divine warning to withdraw from Jericho with his whole family, and go into Egypt. Preparations were speedily made, friends and household were commended to Jehovah, and the city of palms abandoned as if a curse were upon it. They hastened by Bethel, Gibeon, and Lydda, to Joppa, where Helon’s host was requested to procure for them, as speedily as possible, an opportunity of sailing to Alexandria in a Phœnician ship. Helon looked from the heights of Joppa to the hills of Judah, and blessed the beloved land which had been to him not only a land of promise but a land of fulfilment. The image of his pious mother, all whose expectations he was about to accomplish and surpass, her joy at seeing him again, and the prospect of returning to the land of her fathers and visiting the grave of her husband, her blessing bestowed on him and Sulamith—all these things occupied his mind with delightful anticipations.