Severe as was the discipline, it met with a cheerful submission from the men, so commanding was the influence exercised by their leaders. Conspicuous among them were, of course, the sons of Mattathias. All were favourites, but Judas and Simon took the lead. The strength, the skill, and the daring of the first were such that he was absolutely idolized by his troops. There was no task, however perilous, which they would not attempt under his guidance, for there was nothing which he did not seem capable of achieving. His physical strength was enormous; and his fertility of resource unfailing. He had always some new device for outwitting the enemy; and when the crisis of an undertaking arrived, if an attacking party were to be helped up some almost inaccessible height, a gate to be broken open by main force, or a pass to be held against overwhelming odds, Judas was always ready and always, it seemed, successful. Scarcely less honoured, though in a different way, was the prudence and kindliness of Simon. If Judas never failed in an attempt it was, in part at least, because Simon’s advice was so uniformly sagacious, because he could measure so exactly the means at their command. And when the fighting was over, no one could be more unwearying in his attentions to the wounded. The voice which rang so loud and clear through the din of battle was now soft and caressing, and the touch of his hand was as gentle and tender as if it had been a woman’s. Such leaders could do anything with their troops, even when they had to task their obedience by the infliction of punishment. Even such men as the ex-robber Benjamin felt what may be called the infection of discipline. He had accompanied one of the expeditions, in which a select force of patriots, after marching forty miles within twenty-four hours, surprised a squadron of Greek cavalry in one of the towns of Galilee. A short but sharp conflict took place in the square of the town, and Benjamin had borne himself with conspicuous courage. The struggle over, the soldiers had received entertainment, not in every case very willingly given, from the inhabitants of the town. Benjamin happened to be quartered upon a particularly churlish host, and resenting the coarse and scanty fare, so unsuited to the wealth apparent in all the fittings of the house, had revenged himself by abstracting a rich cloak belonging to his miserly entertainer. The article was stowed away on his own person, but the keen eye of one of the Chasidim officers espied it; the thief was denounced when the force had reached the encampment, and brought before the council, which was held under the presidency of Judas. The culprit pleaded in vain the shabby treatment which he had received. It was not for him, he was told, to take the law into his own hands. When he urged that the man was a traitor to his country he was asked whether he had himself taken the cloak from patriotic motives. “Did you purpose,” said Judas, going to the point