The day was dawning when he came within sight of the camp of Nicanor. Though not regularly fortified, it was a place of considerable strength, which an army far more numerous and better equipped than that which Judas had under his command might hesitate to attack. The cavalry had bivouacked outside; the infantry were within the lines, but might be seen passing out of the gates. So formidable a task did it seem to attack a fortified camp, held by a vastly superior force, that even Judas’s band of heroes hesitated for a moment. He felt it at once, and at once addressed himself to check it. He called a halt, and bidding the ranks close in to as small a space as possible, he addressed them, sending his mighty voice in the still air of the morning with so commanding a power that it reached the very extremity of the crowd. In a few stirring words he reminded them of the deliverances which God had wrought in old time for His people. He spoke of the three hundred of Gideon, how they had discomfited the host of the Midianites, of the angel that had smitten with an unseen sword the legions of the haughty Sennacherib. He told them of the day when Macedonian and Jew had stood side by side against the Gallic invaders of Asia, and of how the Jew had stood firm while the Greek had fled before the fury of the barbarian onset. Finally he reminded them of the victories which they themselves had so lately won against overwhelming odds. When he had finished his harangue, he divided the host between himself and his brothers, John, Simon and Jonathan. Eleazar was to recite the Holy Book, and to give his name as the watchword of the day. These arrangements made, he gave a signal to the trumpeters. They blew a piercing blast. Then, with a shout, “The Help of God! The Help of God!”(12) the patriots charged. It might have seemed to an onlooker the strategy of despair, but it was successful, as it had been many a time in history before, as it has been many a time since. The Greeks stared at them, as they advanced, with astonishment. Were these men madmen, or were they fired by some Divine fury? In either case they would be dangerous antagonists. As the patriots drew nearer, without a sign of hesitation or holding back, the terror which had been creeping over the minds of the Greeks became insupportable. They broke and fled, and did not even, so complete was their demoralization, attempt to hold their camp. Though pursuit was shortened by the approach of the Sabbath, which Judas would not suffer to be infringed upon even to complete his victory, more than three thousand fell, and as the Greek line had not waited to receive the onset of the patriots, all of them perished in the flight.