Devout joy was at first the prevailing keynote of the assembly; but, after the preliminary prayers, a strange uneasiness fell upon them when it was discovered that the prescribed parashoth or lesson for the day--and there could be no omitting it!--was that section of the Pentateuch containing the solemn and thrilling words addressed to the nation by the great Hebrew lawgiver on the eve of his death. As the chazan began his reading the sunlight without became clouded, and a gloom pervaded the edifice, a gloom that seemed to deepen with each successive moment. It was, of course, customary to receive the reading of the Law in reverential silence, but a silence so tense as the present had never been known in this synagogue. With bated breath and with eyes fastened on the chazan’s face they listened to the voice of the divine lawgiver sounding down to them through the corridors of time. “The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand. A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young.... And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst.... And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.... In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” At this point the assembly, hitherto as motionless and as silent as the dead, impulsively started to their feet, with fear stamped upon their faces. It was not, however, the words of the Law, awful though they were, that had moved the worshipers, but a tumult coming from the streets in the vicinity of the synagogue. During the previous few moments the air had resounded with the running of feet intermingled with the sound of voices. Those voices, confused at first, had now become clearly audible. Rolling upward to the skies in accents of surprise and fear there pealed again and again the startling cry: “THE ROMANS! THE ROMANS!” The sight of the Roman vanguard, glittering upon the northern heights of Scopus, though it might put fear into the hearts of the common people, served only to evoke the scorn of the Zealots. Their astonishing victory over Cestius, and the fact that for three years no attempt had been made to recover the city, had given them an exaggerated notion of their own prowess. The Zealots of Galilee might yield; those of Jerusalem were invincible! “They are the same sheep,” scoffed Simon, “but with a new shepherd.”