The council being almost unanimous on the subject of Simon, Javan next informed them of the discovery he had made of the adoption of the Nazarene religion by the members of his own hitherto unsullied family. The recital was listened to with great interest by the assembly, who were all exceedingly zealous for the honour of the law of Moses and the traditions of the elders,--but most lamentably negligent of God's eternal law of mercy and justice. They triumphed in the proof they had now obtained that Javan's suspicions had been correct; and more maliciously still did they exult in the near prospect of seizing on the objects of their hatred, and wreaking on them all that cruelty and bigotry could suggest. Javan did not wish that his uncle and his family should be put to death. He desired that by rigorous imprisonment and other sufferings they should be induced to retract their opinions; and he obtained a promise from his colleagues, that every effort should be used to bring them back to the true faith before any extreme measures should be resorted to. He also stipulated that his sister should not be captured. He had not yet stifled every feeling of affection for her; nor could he contemplate the idea of his mother's anguish, if Naomi was to be torn from her, without some sympathy. He trusted that when she saw the evils to which her relatives were exposed by their religion, she would be affrighted for her new opinions, and gladly return to the faith for which she had once been so zealous. He knew not the soul of his heroic sister, or the power of true Christian faith to make a weaker spirit than hers meet shame, and death, and agony unmoved!