They found their niece unshaken in her faith, and fully resolved to hold fast to the religion which she had so boldly professed, in spite of all the sorrow which that profession had brought upon her. It is true that the influence of her kind and affectionate mother had preserved her from any severe manifestations of her father's wrath; but all the domestic comfort and happiness which she had so long enjoyed was gone. Zadok no longer regarded her with affection and pride, and no longer delighted in conversing with her, and instructing her in all the learning for which he was himself so celebrated. As much as possible he avoided seeing her, and when they met, his countenance expressed such deep grief and such repressed anger, that Naomi shrunk from his presence, and in her own apartment shed many bitter tears of sorrow, but not of weakness or indecision. The severest trial she had to undergo was when at stated periods she was summoned to attend her father and rabbi Joazer, to whom the secret of her apostasy had been confided, and in whose learned arguments her parents placed their only hope of her restoration to the true faith. Rabbi Joazer spared neither time nor pains to accomplish this desired object; but all his tedious harangues, and all his copious appeals to the rabbinical writings and the traditions of the elders, only served to show to Naomi more plainly the folly and absurdity of exalting these human inventions above the word of God, and made her feel more devotedly attached to the faith she had adopted, and which she knew to be verified by Scripture, and founded on divine revelation. With humility, and yet with firmness, she replied to the assertions of the rabbi; and quoted the words of the prophets to prove that Jesus was indeed the Christ. Joazer would not listen to her; he only overwhelmed and silenced her, by long and rapid quotations from the cumbrous volumes on which he rested his creed; and at length dismissed her with anger and impatience to her chamber again.