The next day Micah returned, in obedience to orders, and two or three days afterwards all the party that had been left in the mountains followed him to Jerusalem. It was a happy day, but saddened, for the children at least, by one loss. The jackal, Jael, followed the party awhile, but when they reached the plain, stood still and watched them disappear, making mournful cries the while. Even the prospect of seeing their old home could not quite reconcile the children to the loss of this strange playmate, who had yet grown so dear to them. And so the rugged mountains which had afforded a refuge to the faithful remnant were left again to silence and solitude. But the memory of what the confessors and martyrs had endured in the evil days was never to perish. Generation after generation remembered with sympathy and reverence what men, aye, and weak women and children had borne for conscience’ sake—cold and hunger and nakedness, and that anguish of soul which is harder to be endured than all bodily pain. Two centuries later, an inspired Hebrew, writing to Hebrews, commemorated the noble endurance of this faithful band in his famous roll of the triumphs of faith: “They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy; they wandered in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”(15) CHAPTER XIX. IN JERUSALEM. Among those who watched the approach of Judas and his host to Jerusalem were two men, one in extreme old age, the other numbering, it would seem, about fifty years. They wore the priestly garments, old indeed and threadbare, but still clean and showing many signs of careful repair. Theirs was a strange history. For two years they had been in hiding in the city. When Apollonius had filled the streets of Jerusalem with blood, the murderers had sought with especial care for all priests and Levites. To them at least no mercy was to be shown. These two men—Shemaiah was the name of the elder of the two, and Joel that of the younger—had narrowly escaped death from the soldiers of Apollonius. They had taken refuge—so close was the pursuit—in a garden, the gate of which happened to be open, and had hidden themselves in the bushes till nightfall. Where they were, who or of what race was the owner of the house, whether they were likely to meet with more mercy from his hands than they could expect from the soldiers, they knew not. But that hiding-place was their only chance, and in their desperate strait they snatched at it. While they were debating in whispers whether they should throw themselves on the compassion of this unknown person, they saw—for it was a moonlight night—the figure of a woman walking down a path which passed close by their hiding-place. They could see from her features, which the brilliant moonlight of the East lighted up, that she was a countrywoman of their own, and they resolved to