Hebrew Heroes: A Tale Founded on Jewish History

Hadassah had believed years previously that she had suffered to the extreme limits of human endurance--that there were no deeper depths of misery to which she could descend; but...

The sun was setting gloriously over the hills which encompass Jerusalem, pouring its streams of golden light on the valleys clothed with the vine, pomegranate, and olive, sparkl...

The scene which he had witnessed had left the mind of Lycidas in an excited and feverish state. The cooling breeze which whispered amongst the leaves of the olives, and the soli...

Before the sun had risen above the horizon on that day, Judas, son of Mattathias, of the noble family of the Asmoneans, started on his long homeward journey. He had not re-enter...

So profound was the slumber of the weary girl that she heard not the sound of opening the door, nor a step on the marble floor, and lay unconscious of the yearning, anxious, mou...

One evening, towards the hour of sunset, Zarah sat alone at her wheel awaiting the return of Anna from the city, she was startled by the sound of a hand rapping hastily upon the...

It was with a strange sense of happiness mingling with fear that Zarah followed her father out of the apartment which had been her place of confinement. The blessing of Abner la...

We will now glance at the encampment of the Hebrew warriors, upon a wild expanse of undulating ground, in view of the towers of Bethsura, a strong fortress rebuilt by the Edomit...

When Zarah, under the escort of Abishai, left her home to attend the celebration of the holy feast, Hadassah sent her soul with her, though failing health chained back the aged...

When Abishai re-entered the dwelling of Hadassah, he found her drawing forth, from a secret receptacle in the wall, a long roll of parchment, covered with writing in Hebrew char...

At sunrise on the following morning two women were seated on the ground, in the back part of a small flat-roofed house, situated in a very secluded spot amongst the hills, not a...

Night had just spread her veil of darkness over earth, and Simon, prudently reserving his strength for the expected fatigues of the coming day, had wrapped himself in his mantle...

In the unsettled state of the Holy Land, where its brave sons had to maintain a kind of guerrilla warfare against the powerful enemy who held its strongholds and ruled in its ca...

For the first time in the course of her life, Zarah dreaded a meeting with Hadassah. Though the season was now so far advanced that the heat of the sun was great, the maiden lin...

Lycidas, in the meantime, was chafing in wild impatience under the trial of Zarah's almost perpetual absence. He could no longer watch her, no longer listen to her, except when...

The arrival of Apelles, the emissary of Antiochus Epiphanes, had thrown the town of Modin into a state of great excitement. A proclamation was made in the morning of the followi...

Lycidas dared not at first break to Zarah the mournful truth that one blow had bereft her of both her protectors, that she was now indeed an orphan, and alone in the world. Zara...

Fierce had been the rage and disappointment of Antiochus Epiphanes on hearing of the result of the night attack on his forces at Emmaus, and the subsequent retreat of Giorgias w...

Her brief but momentous interview with Maccabeus had left a very painful impression upon the mind of Zarah. It had disclosed, to her distress as well as surprise, the depth of t...

The enforced hastiness of Zarah's departure rendered it perhaps less painful than it would otherwise have been. Zarah had little time to indulge in tender regrets on leaving a s...

The captive was not taken back to prison-chamber which she had occupied during the preceding night, but to an apartment in the palace--one belonging to the suite appropriated to...

When Zarah, trembling and pale, after her interview with Lycidas, fled to the apartment of Hadassah, she left her water-jar behind her at the spring. The sight of her grandmothe...

There are joys as well as sorrows into which the stranger cannot enter, and which baffle the attempt of the pen to describe; such was that of Lycidas and Zarah when they first m...

As he quitted that place of burial, which he had little expected to leave alive, Lycidas felt like one under an enchanter's spell. Joy at almost unhoped-for escape from a violen...

Very different was the celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes from what it had been in the palmy times when the children of Israel were...

We will now return to the quiet dwelling-place of Hadassah, where Lycidas day by day was becoming more hopelessly entangled in the silken meshes which kept him a willing captive...

Wild was the life led by Mattathias and his followers in the mountains--a life of danger and hardship; danger met manfully, hardship endured cheerfully. Amongst wild rocks, heap...

I shall pass lightly over the events of several succeeding months. The summer passed away, with its intense heat and its fierce simooms. Then came heavier dews by night, and tem...

While the scenes lately described had been occurring in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, Maccabeus, in the mountains, had been preparing for the deadliest shock of war. Like wave...

Tossed backwards and forwards on a wild sea of doubt--a vessel without ballast, compass, or rudder--was the mind of the miserable Pollux. The courtier paced for hours up and dow...

The maiden kept her silent promise; faithfully she obeyed the hest of Hadassah. Seldom as possible did she enter the room which communicated with the hiding-place of Lycidas, an...

"A spy! a traitor! cut him down--hew him to pieces!" such were the cries, not loud but terrible, that, as thunder on flash, followed that exclamation from Zarah. Cold steel glea...

The command was instantly obeyed, and, like the painful glare of noonday to one brought suddenly out of darkness, the terrible splendour of the scene before her flashed upon Zar...

"Hold! stand! who are ye, and whither go ye?" was the stern challenge, the sound of which startled Zarah out of a pleasant dream. The motion of the litter suddenly ceased, a str...

In no place were the tidings of the rising at Modin received with greater exultation than in the lonely dwelling of Hadassah. The Hebrew widow could hardly refrain from taking d...

Is there a more glorious, a more soul-stirring sight than that of a brave nation bursting from foreign bondage, casting from her the chains that bound and the sackcloth that cov...

From her long swoon Zarah awoke with a sensation of indescribable horror. The cold drops stood on her brow, and there was a painful tightness at her heart. The poor girl could n...

Loud was the burst of joyous music from citherns, harps, and cymbals--Mount Zion rang with songs of gladness--when in the early morning the worshippers of the Lord of Hosts appe...

Lycidas was a native of the very land of eloquence; he had been, as it were, cradled amidst "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." He had studied the philippics of Demost...

queens nursing-mothers to His people (Isa. xlix. 23)? Ay, a time is coming--may it speedily come!--when the _idols He shall utterly abolish_ (Isa. ii. 18), when the Lord's house...