CHAPTER I.

THE SACERDOTAL OFFICE.

The feast of the Passover was ended. The multitude had returned to their homes, or resumed their occupations in the city. The ashes on the altar of burnt-offering, whose gradual accumulation, during the week of the Passover, had raised them at last into a lofty pyramid, had been cleared away. The days of unleavened bread were past; the people had returned to their ordinary food, and all the glory of the festival seemed to have disappeared from the city.

Helon stood on the roof, on the following morning, contemplating the rising sun. His eyes turned towards the temple, and he remembered, with a feeling of disappointment and regret, that on this as on the preceding day, only a single customary sacrifice would be presented there. He looked down upon the streets—the exhilarating commotion of the festival had vanished, and all was solitary and still, save where a Tyrian merchant was seen hastening through the gate with his empty sacks, or a Galilean dealer in cattle, driving before him the remnant of his herd, for which he had been unable to find a purchaser. No pilgrim from Hebron or Libna, no stranger of the Diaspora was to be seen.

A deep melancholy took possession of Helon’s mind, and this day seemed likely to pass even more gloomily than the preceding. The dejection of mind which for several years past had been his habitual companion, had suddenly vanished during the paschal week. The enthusiasm which began at Beersheba, when he knelt down to greet the land of his fathers, had gone on constantly increasing; and he had felt within himself a resolution, which it seemed as if nothing could daunt, to keep the law of Jehovah. But now, though still in the Holy Land and in the city of God, his spirits sunk at every moment; his feelings had been too highly excited, and this depression was the natural consequence. He could not descend to the ordinary occupations of life in Jerusalem, in which, as the city of Jehovah, it seemed to him that a perpetual festival ought to prevail.

In the preceding days only the psalms, with their tone of cheerful and exulting piety, or the joyous prophecies of Isaiah, had been in his heart and on his lips; now the plaintive strains of Jeremiah, his former favourites, recurred to his mind, and he began to feel how removed he still was from that inward peace for which he longed, and which he thought that he had found in the first days of the festival. When he looked down upon the streets, whose compatative emptiness seemed to him absolute desolation, the beginning of the Lamentations came to his mind,

How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow!

And he could scarcely forbear adding from the same prophet,[1]

My soul is removed from peace, And I said my confidence is perished And my hope in Jehovah.

Footnote 1:

Lam. iii. 18.

With such feelings he wandered up and down on the roof, in the cool air of morning. Suddenly the smoke of the morning-sacrifice arose on mount Moriah, and the sound of a solitary trumpet was heard from the hill of the Lord. All Helon’s feelings returned with the associations of this sight and sound. “There is then,” he exclaimed, “one occupation in Jerusalem, which is a perpetual festival. It is theirs who dwell in the house of the Lord and minister at his altar. Why do I delay my resolution?”

At this moment the door of the Alijah opened, and the venerable Elisama issued from it. He had been performing there his morning devotions. Helon went up to him, wished him peace, and with kindling looks thus addressed him; “My uncle, often hast thou told me that Israel is Israel only in the Holy Land, yet even here I cannot remain, unless I become a priest.”

“Restless youth,” said Elisama smiling; “is it not enough for thee that thou art in the city of Jehovah?”

“But,” replied Helon, “even in the city of Jehovah, the priests alone keep a perpetual festival; and I fain would keep it with them.”

Elisama looked at him in joyful surprise. It had been his own wish that Helon, whose dislike of commerce he perceived, should become a priest, but wishing that it should be his spontaneous choice, he had forborne to suggest it to him; and he had not hoped for so speedy and so decisive a declaration. Scarcely able to repress his joy, he replied, “In a son of Levi the wish is natural; but what has suggested it?”

Helon related to him what he had felt on the second day of the Passover, when offering the burnt-offering; how the desire of entering into the sacerdotal order had ripened into resolution, and how ever since that time the words of the prophet,[2] “the priest is an angel of the Lord,” had been perpetually before his mind, till at length his painful feelings on seeing the deserted city, and the joy which had revived in him on hearing the trumpet from Moriah, had convinced him that he could be happy only by entering into the priesthood.

Footnote 2:

Mal. ii. 7.

Elisama embraced him, and both remained for a time weeping. At length Elisama, breaking silence, said, “We will go to-morrow to the high-priest; he knows our family and me. In truth,” he continued, “Jehovah has blessed our house with much wealth in a foreign land, and thou, alas, art its only heir. It is right that thou shouldest revive the priesthood in our family, in which it has slept for four hundred years. This is the curse which rests on Israel in foreign lands. The privilege to be anointed to Jehovah by birth, and to have the right of ministering before him, is despised, and a Levite becomes but like another man. This I have often thought; the pursuits of commerce have indeed prevented my acting on this conviction, but all my wealth has been an inadequate consolation to me.”

“My second father,” exclaimed Helon, “my heart overflows with joy to hear that you think so; and with gratitude, that you permit me to revive the priesthood in our family.”

“Yes, Helon,” said Elisama, “I feel, too, that the priest is an angel of the Lord of Hosts. In the hour in which thou didst resolve to make a journey to the Holy Land, I framed in my heart the blessing which my lips now pronounce upon thee. But let us go to the grave of thy father, that thou mayest receive his blessing.”

Without entering the house, they descended the staircase which led directly from the roof into the outer court, and so into the street. Passing along the Broad-street they came immediately from the Higher City into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and its cedars, and proceeded beneath their solemn shade, till they reached the well-known sepulchre of the Egyptian pilgrim.

Both stood before it awhile in silence, and seemed to expect that some voice should still issue from it, or that the spirit of the beloved father and brother should come forth.

“O! hadst thou lived to see this hour,” at length exclaimed Elisama, “how had thy paternal heart rejoiced!”

Helon wept, whether in joy or sorrow he himself scarcely knew—but such tears are of a higher kind. He threw himself upon the grave, and long remained there praying and weeping. Elisama too gave free vent to his tears. “Arise,” he said, at length, to Helon, “and let us repeat together the 90th psalm. Thy father will answer thee in this song of Moses, and bless thee in the words of the man of God.”

Helon arose, and they both said together,

Lord, thou hast been our refuge From generation to generation. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst fashioned the earth and the world, From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God! Thou turnest man to destruction, And sayest, Return ye children of men: For a thousand years are in thy sight As yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. Thou sweepest them away; they sleep. In the morning they are as grass that groweth up, In the morning it is green and flourishing, In the evening it is cut down and withereth. For we are consumed by thine anger, And by thy wrath we are troubled. Thou settest our iniquities before thee, Our secret deeds in the light of thy countenance. Our days are wasted by thy anger, Our years are spent as a breath. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, Yet is their strength labour and sorrow; For it is soon cut off and we flee away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger Which is terrible that thou mayest be feared? So teach us to number our days, That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return to us, O Jehovah—how long? Be again gracious to thy servants. O! satisfy us speedily with thy mercy, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, And the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants And thy glory unto their children. May the favour of the Lord our God be upon us And prosper thou the work of our hands; Yea, the work of our hands may thy goodness prosper!

“Be that the blessing of thy father upon thee,” said Elisama when they had finished. “Does not this psalm seem to have been composed to suit our circumstances; beginning with lamentation on account of death, and confession of sin; yet even in the midst of these, calling on Jehovah, on him who has been our refuge from generation to generation? Yes, Helon, such has he been to the whole series of our ancestors even to him who, with the prophet Jeremiah, was compelled to flee into Egypt; and on this we found our prayer, Return to us O Jehovah! The Lord has heard thee, happy youth! Thou shalt behold the works of Jehovah! And from the sepulchre of thy father, from beneath these primeval cedars, his spirit blesses thee and says, The favour of the Lord thy God be upon thee. May he prosper all the work of thy hands, yea the work of thy hands may his goodness prosper. And now let us go. We will return home by Zion and by the spring of Siloah.”

At the south-east corner of Jerusalem, near the termination of the Kedron, lies the valley of Hinnom, where once sacrifices were offered to Moloch on Tophet. They bent their course around the Water-gate and went through this valley which lies on the southern side, along the aqueduct of Siloah, which had been erected by Solomon. They came first to the lower pool, then to the remains of a noble garden, and at last, opposite to the south-west side of the city to the upper pool, near which was the highly-prized fountain of Siloah, which Manasseh, on his return, had connected with the city by means of a well. Isaiah describes the waters of Siloah as “flowing softly.”[3]

Footnote 3:

Isaiah viii. 6.

This is the holy spot where the wisest king of Israel was anointed. David, then grey with years, said, “Set Solomon my son on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon (so this fountain was then called) and let Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, anoint him there king over Israel. So Zadok and Nathan, and Benaiah and the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down thither, and Zadok took a horn of oil out of the sanctuary and anointed Solomon, and they blew the trumpet, and all the people came up after him piping and rejoicing, so that the earth was rent with their sound.”[4]

Footnote 4:

1 Kings i. 33.

“It was not without reason,” said Elisama, “that I brought thee hither to-day. As the king is the anointed of a people, so is the priest of a family. For thy own sake I led thee to the valley of Jehoshaphat; it shall serve as an omen to myself that I have brought thee hither.”

They were both silent. Passing by the Fuller’s Field,[5] as it was called from ancient times, and bending round the western side of the city, by the ruins of the aqueduct of Hezekiah, they entered the valley of Siloah. Between the gate of the Fountain and the gate of the Valley they saw the tower of Zion, formerly called the tower of the Jebusites,[6] and now the city of David, rising in the midst of the Higher City which had been built around it. The Higher and Lower City were separated by a valley, which was called the Tyropœon (valley of the cheese-makers.) They entered by the gate of the Valley and thus reached again the house of Iddo, in the Higher City, and in the Broad-street.

Footnote 5:

2 Kings xviii. 17. Isaiah vii. 3.

Footnote 6:

Judges i. 21.

How did Iddo sympathize in the joy with which Elisama announced to him the determination of Helon! He was standing in the outer court, and had just taken leave of some acquaintance, when they entered. Leading them with exclamations of joy to the inner court, he called his wife from the apartment of the women, made the slaves place cushions around the fountain, and repeatedly exclaimed, “What a happiness for a family! The priest is indeed an angel of Jehovah of Hosts.”

The day was spent in domestic festivity, but Helon could not be present at the evening sacrifice, because he had made himself unclean by contact with a grave.[7] It seemed somewhat strange to him, that he should have been defiled by a visit to his father’s tomb, and be unfit to appear in the temple of Jehovah, because he had shed there tears not of earthly sorrow but of heavenly hope. But he consoled himself with the thought that the priest was more secure even in this respect.

Footnote 7:

Numb. xix. 16.

In the afternoon, as he could not go up to the temple, he strayed, accompanied by his host, through the Higher City, the Lower City, and came at last into the New City. The artisans were at their labours, in shops open to the street, and presented a picture of animated activity. They passed the ruins of the palaces of David, in the Upper City, and Solomon in the Lower City, and saw the tower of Baris, where Helon was to appear on the following day, before the high-priest, and at length turned in the New City around the hill Bezetha, by the Gate of the Corner which lay in the north-east side of the city. The sepulchres of the kings,[8] a splendid work, hewn out of the rock, was near. Helon and Iddo proceeded, and winding round the west side of the city came into the vale of Gihon. “Yonder,” said Iddo, “is Golgotha,” as they came to an open space.

Footnote 8:

2 Chron. xxi. 20.

A dim remembrance of the connection of this place with some past event of his life came into Helon’s mind, and he at length recollected his dream. “I have had,” said he to his host, “an extraordinary dream, which I have been unable to shake off and which ended with Golgotha.” When he had related it to him, Iddo replied, “Remember the words of Elihu,

In a dream, in visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, In slumberings upon their bed God giveth instruction unto men.—Job xxxiii. 15.

A part of the dream is on the point of being fulfilled, in your receiving the sacerdotal unction, and we will hope that the rest portends only good. What Golgotha should mean I do not understand.”

Helon purified himself in the evening, by the prescribed ablutions, from the uncleanness which he had contracted by the contact of the grave. Still he was not permitted to enter the temple for seven days to come; for so long the uncleanness lasted which was produced by touching a sepulchre. But the prohibition applied only to the temple.

The following day was a sabbath. Elisama took the presents which he had destined for the high-priest, and Helon and he went together to the castle of Baris. It was a stately edifice erected by Hyrcanus. It stood at the north-east corner of the temple, on a steep rock fifty cubits high, and formed a quadrangle, in the midst of which a splendid palace stood. Besides a court, it was surrounded with a wall, on the four corners of which were towers, that on the south-east side being the highest, for the purpose of commanding the temple from it.

The high-priest received the stranger, sitting in the inner court, by the fountain, and bade them welcome. Elisama had been known to him before, and Hyrcanus rejoiced to see him after an interval of many years. With lofty panegyrics of his government, and the heroic deeds of himself and his progenitors, Elisama laid his Egyptian presents at his feet, consisting of valuable or curious productions of nature and art from that country, and then made application for Helon’s admission into the priesthood. The high-priest lent a favourable ear to the request, but observed, that as the triumphal entry of his sons was to take place on the approaching new moon, he could not before that time admit Helon to the temple service, and he recommended it to Elisama to employ the interval in examining the genealogical table of the young candidate. Having promised them all necessary aid in carrying their purpose into effect, he dismissed them.

The first step had now been taken. Helon left the castle, full of exultation, and congratulating Israel that such a hero as Hyrcanus sat upon its throne. On their return home Elisama announced to Iddo his intention of making a journey with Helon to Joppa, where the keeper of the genealogical register of their family dwelt. “Since you are now to be an inhabitant of the Promised Land,” said he to Helon, “it is right that you should become acquainted with it and with your kinsmen who dwell in it. We shall return in time to witness the triumphal entry.” Helon requested that they might take Anathoth in their way, a place which he felt an indescribable longing to see, as being the native town of his prophet Jeremiah. Elisama agreed, and as soon as the sabbath was ended preparations for the journey were hastily made.