The King now grew angry indeed, and ordered that the lad be slain. But the mother, throwing her arms around the boy, begged the King to kill her instead of her son. “No”, answered the King mockingly, “I cannot do so because your own laws forbid it; for is it not said, “Whether it be an ox or a sheep, thou shalt not kill it and its young in one day”. As the boy was being led away, Hannah cried out, “I have surpassed Abraham. He built one altar on which to sacrifice one son, whereas I have built seven altars on which I have sacrificed seven sons”. One by one Hannah had seen her sons cruelly murdered; and, no longer able to endure her misery, she jumped down from a roof and was killed. Eleazar and Hannah and her seven sons were only a few of the constantly increasing number of martyrs, who preferred to sacrifice their lives than to disobey the laws of their fathers. Never before had the Jews been treated with such great cruelty, but never before did they endure their misery with greater courage. It was in vain that Antiochus ordered the Jews to worship heathen idols; it was in vain that he commanded them to adopt the religion of the Greeks. In many towns the royal officers found no one to meet them, for the inhabitants had escaped to the mountains, where they could privately observe their laws. The resistance which the Jews offered only made the King more angry, and caused him to increase his cruelties. Houses were plundered; synagogues were destroyed; and thousands of Jews were put to death, victims of the wrath of the King. MATTATHIAS AND HIS FIVE SONS. And thus, when the Jews were on the verge of being wiped out as a nation forever, there arose in their midst a family of heroes, who were destined to free their people from their cruel oppressors, and again establish their independence. In Modin, a small town in Judea, there lived an old man by the name of Mattathias. He was the head of the priestly family of Hasmoneans named after Hasmoneus, his great grand-father. Mattathias was the father of five grown-up sons, Jochanan, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan. He saw how the holy city was delivered into the hands of strangers, how the temple was robbed of its treasures and profaned by the Syrians, how men, women, and children were being killed for observing the Jewish laws, and he mourned for Israel. He was accustomed to say to his sons that it were far better to sacrifice their lives for their religion than to submit to such cruel treatment at the hands of the Syrians.