“Then,” said he, “you have relieved my spirit of a load; you are now my more than brother.” He clasped me in his arms. “Yes, Salathiel, I know that your high heart must have scorned the prejudices of the Scribe and the Pharisee; you must have seen through and loathed the smiling hypocrisy, the rancorous bigotry, and the furious thirst of blood that are hourly sinking us below the lowest of the heathen. Hating the tyranny of the Roman, as I live this hour, I would rather see the city of David inhabited by none but the idolater, or delivered over to the curse of Babylon and made the couch of the lion and the serpent, than see its courts filled with those impious traitors to the spirit of the law, those cruel extortioners under the mask of self-denial, those malignant revelers in human torture under the name of insulted religion, whose joy is crime, and every hour of whose being but wearies the long-suffering of God and precipitates the ruin of my country.” He drew from his bosom and unrolled in the moonlight a small copy of the Scriptures. “My brother,” said he, “have you read the holy prophecies of him by whose grave we stand?” My only answer was a smile; they were the chief study of the priesthood. “True,” said he; “no doubt, you have read the words of the prophet. But wisdom is known of her children, and of them alone. Read here.” I read the famous Haphtorah:[9] “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is the despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows!” [Sidenote: The Future Deliverer of Judah] He stopped me, laying his hand on my arm; I felt his strong nerves tremble like an infant’s. “Of whom hath the prophet spoken?” uttered he in a voice of intense anxiety. “Of whom? Of the Deliverer that is to restore Judah; Him that is to come,” was my answer. “Him that _is to come_—still _to come_?” he exclaimed. “God of heaven, must the veil be forever on the face of Thy Israel? When shall our darkness be light, and the chain of our spirit be broken!” The glow and power of his countenance sank; he took the roll with a sigh, and replaced it in his robe; then with his hands clasped across his bosom, and his head bowed, he led our silent way up the side of the valley. CHAPTER VI _Salathiel and His People_ [Sidenote: The Position of the Jew]