“How is the valiant man fallen that delivered Israel. In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion’s whelp roaring for his prey. For he pursued the wicked, and sought them out, and burnt up those that vexed his people. Wherefore the wicked shrunk for fear of him, and all the workers of iniquity were troubled, because salvation prospered in his hand. He grieved also many kings, and made Jacob glad with his acts, and his memorial is blessed for ever.” And now once more the little company of those whom we have known by name are gathered in Seraiah’s house. The orphaned girls are there, Miriam and Judith, passionately grieving for their father, but yet exulting as passionately that he was at the side of Judas to the last, and that his hope had been at least so far fulfilled that he and the captain whom he loved had been saved from drawing sword among the legions of Rome. Little Daniel, too, is there, his childish heart sorely troubled with the darkness of a dispensation which he cannot understand; and Ruth, comforting herself and the children with the thought that he whom they had lost had rejoined his own Hannah, and half reproaching herself for her selfish joy in having her Seraiah still spared to her. Huldah and Eglah, who had been among the mourners at Modin, are there also, and the aged priest Shemaiah. “O father,” cried one of the women, “tell us why these things are so. Why does God so disappoint us of our hopes? We trusted that it had been he who should have delivered Israel, and now he is dead!” “We must wait,” said the old man, “for God’s good time, for He seeth not as we see. Did not David think that Solomon, his son, should be the promised king of Israel; and, behold, he turned aside to worship idols, and laid such burdens on the people that his kingdom was broken in twain? And now we, too, have built our hopes upon a man, and they have failed. Surely of Judas it might have been said, ‘He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper; he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and dear shall their blood be in his sight.’ “We looked,” said Seraiah, “for the time when all kings should fall down before him, all nations should do him service. He seemed like the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that should smite all the kingdoms of evil, and we waited for the reign of Messiah the Prince.” “And will Messiah come?” cried little Daniel, who had been eagerly listening to these words, not understanding all, indeed, but catching their general purport. “Surely, my son,” said the old man; “but there are many things to be suffered first.” He was silent for a time, sitting with eyes that seemed to take no heed of the present, but to be gazing into a far futurity. At last he spoke.