Tarry thou till I come; or, Salathiel, the wandering Jew.

The sounds of the footsteps increased. Overwhelmed as I was by the trial that my mind had just undergone, I sat nearly unconscious of external things till I was roused by a stro...

Even the most conscientious Jew may, without hesitation, recognize that in view of the immense effect and success of his life, Jesus has become a figure of the highest order in...

While we traversed the grounds, the heaving of the branches under the wind, which rose in strong gusts from time to time, and the rush of the rivulets from the hillsides, which...

I awoke with a sensation of pain in every limb. A female voice was singing a faint song near me. But the past was like a dream. I involuntarily looked down for the gulf on which...

To me, the prison and the palace were the same. No believer in fate, and a strong believer in the doctrine that in the infinite majority of cases the unlucky have to thank only...

With the original mixture of Ionian and northern blood in his veins, the character of the Roman was at once tasteful and barbarian. Like the Asiatic, delighting in luxury, like...

There was a thrilling influence in the words of Eleazar that left me without reply, and for a while I stood absorbed. When I raised my eyes again, I saw him following the melanc...

I had escaped, but the delay was ruinous. The sun sank when I reached the brow of the mountain, and Masada lay many a weary mile forward. I cast off the tribune’s horse, thus gi...

When the first tumult of our spirits was passed, I had leisure to see what changes the interval had made in faces so loved. Miriam’s betrayed the hours of distress and pain that...

My new quarters were within the walls of one of those huge country mansions which the pride of our ancestors had built to be the plague of their posterity; for those the enemy c...

We received the friends of our intended son with the accustomed hospitality, but to me the tumult of many voices, and even the sight of a crowd, however happy, still excited the...

It was night, and the greater portion of the city lay between me and home. To traverse it was still a matter of danger. Furious festivity had succeeded to furious conflict; the...

But the delusion was short-lived; my voice broke the spell, and perhaps the consciousness of their idle alarm increased their rage. “Spies!” was then the outcry, and this dreade...

I was not to escape! As I reached the gate a loud sound of trampling feet and many voices drove me back. By that curious texture of the feelings which prefers suffering to suspe...

While my mind was wandering away in thoughts of the madness of ambition in so brief a being as man, I heard a loud clamor of voices in the chambers below. The rustic guards had...

The violence of the beggar’s anguish, and the strong probabilities of his story, engrossed me so much that I at first regretted the extraordinary flight which put it out of my p...

The seventeenth day of the month Tamuz, ever memorable in the sufferings of Israel, was the last of the Daily Sacrifice. Sorrow and fear were on the city, and the silence of the...

The day passed anxiously, for every sound of the huge fortress was heard in the thicket. The creaking of machines, brought up to the walls against future assault; the rattling o...

Let me hasten through some years.[11] The sunshine of life was gone; in all my desire to conform to the habits of my new career, I found myself incapable of contentment. But the...

No tidings sooner make themselves known than those of the heart. We found our daughters waiting anxiously at the entrance of the cave, which had been fitted up for our temporary...

As the old man spoke, sounds arose not unsuited to his tale. But my faith in the legend did not amount to so sudden a realization, and I looked toward the banquet. There, from w...

Resistance was at an end, and we had now only to prevent the conflagration from snatching the prize out of our hands. The flames rose fiercely, and another hour might see the fa...

At length the past returned to my mind. Dim recollections, shadows that alternately advanced and eluded me, sketches of forms and events, like pictures unfinished by the pencil,...

The result of our deliberation was that Israel should be summoned to make a last grand effort; that Jerusalem should be left with a strong garrison, as the center of the armies;...

The chamber whose costly equipment first told us of the opulence of its masters was set apart for the chief rovers, who were soon seated at a large table in its center, covered...

The remainder of this memorable day lingered on with a tardiness beyond description. The criminal who counts the watches of the night before his execution has but a faint image...

celestial azure; I heard no harmonies of spirits on the midnight winds; I followed no longer the sun, rushing on his golden chariot-wheels to lands unstained by human step, or p...

What I might have suffered in the agony of a bereaved husband and father was spared me. My visitation was of another kind; dreadful, yet perhaps not so preeminently wretched, no...

Indecision in the beginning of war is worse than war. I decided that whatever were the consequences, the sword must be unsheathed without delay. With Eleazar and Constantius, I...

During this period the city presented the turbulent aspect that must result from the concourse of vast warlike multitudes, known only by hereditary bickerings. The clansman of J...

In that dungeon I lay for two years![37] How I lived, or how I bore existence, I can now have no conception. I was not mad, nor altogether insensible to things about me, nor eve...

My preparations were quickly made. I divested myself of my robes, led out my favorite barb, flung a haik over my shoulders, and by the help of my Arab turban might have passed f...

A troop of cavalry were at the tent door. We set off through the storm, and a few miles from the camp reached a large building peopled with a crowd of high functionaries attache...

Of all the labors of human wealth and power devoted to worship, the Temple within whose courts I then stood was the most mighty. In the years of my unhappy wanderings, far from...

The first rage of the persecution was at an end;[30] the popular thirst for blood was satiated. The natural admiration that follows fortitude and innocence, and the natural hatr...

While the people were in a state of the wildest triumph, the joy of their leaders was tempered by many formidable reflections. The power of the enemy was still unshaken; the sur...

Before the sun was up my peasants were on the march again. From the annual journeys of the tribes to the great city, no country was ever known so well to its whole population, a...

Our trireme flew before the wind. By daybreak the coast was only a pale line along the waters; but Carmel still towered proudly eminent, and with its top alternately clouded and...

We stretched out far to sea, for the double purpose of falling by surprise upon the Roman squadron and of avoiding the shoals. The wind lulled at intervals so much that we had r...

The country through which we passed, after leaving the boundaries of Samaria—where, with all its peace, no Jew could tread but as in the land of strangers—was new to me. My life...

Jubal guided us down the declivities among ramparts and trenches, and after long windings, where every step reminded me of havoc, brought us to a little hamlet in the recesses o...

“Tarry thou till I come.”[1] The words shot through me—I felt them like an arrow in my heart—my brain whirled—my eyes grew dim. The troops, the priests, the populace, the world,...

Our flight lay toward Masada. The stars were brilliant guides, and the coolness of the Arabian night, which forms so singular a contrast to the overpowering ardors of the day, r...

The movement of the Roman mission through the plain was marked by loud shouts. As it approached the gates, our little council descended from the temple porch to meet it, where o...

The first decided blow of the war was given. I had incurred the full wrath of Rome; the trench between me and forgiveness was impassable, and I felt a stern delight in the convi...

In pain and terror I drew my unfortunate kinsman from the gaze of the troops, and entreated him to tell me by what melancholy chance his feelings had been thus disturbed. He loo...

The cavern thus opened to us[39] seemed to be the magazine of some place of trade. It was crowded with chests and bales, heaped together in disorder. What dangerous owners we mi...

I plunged into the valley, and found it filled with fugitives, incapable from terror of giving me any account of the conflict. Women and children, hastily thrown on the mules an...

War was now inevitable. Attempts had been made by our rulers to propitiate the Roman emperor, but their answer was the march of a legion to Jerusalem. The seizure of some of the...

I was in one of those fits of abstraction, revolving the misery in which my beloved daughter might be, if indeed she were in existence, when the door of my chamber opened softly...

We continued ascending through the defiles of the mountain range of Carmel. The gorges of the hills gave us alternate glimpses of Lower Galilee, and of the great sea which lay b...

When I recovered my senses, all was so much changed round me that I could scarcely be persuaded that either the past or the present was not a dream. I had no consciousness of an...

The squadron drew up at the entrance of the procurator’s tent, and with a crowd of alarmed peasants captured in the course of the day, I was delivered over to be questioned by t...

We soon reached the hill country, and our road passed through what were once the allotments of Issachar, Zebulun, and Asher, but by the Roman division was now Upper Galilee. My...

While, with my head bent on my knees, I hung in the misery of self-abhorrence, I heard the name of Constantius sorrowfully pronounced beside me. The state in which he must be le...

I was spared the ungraciousness of urging the young soldier’s departure, for when I met him on the next morning his first topic was escape. He had been since daybreak examining...

Never was man more indifferent to the result than the solitary voyager of the burning trireme. What had life for me? I gazed round me. The element of fire reigned supreme. The s...

The evening came at last; the burning calm was followed by a breeze breathing of life, and on the sky sailed, as if it were wafted by that gentle breeze, the evening star. The l...

Nothing could be more unrestrained than the public rejoicing. The bold myriads that soon poured in, hour by hour, many of them long acquainted with Roman battle and distinguishe...

At the close of a weary day we reached our final station, upon the hill of Scopas, seven furlongs from Jerusalem. Bitter memory was busy with me there. From the spot on which I...

In the deepest dejection that could overwhelm the human mind, I returned to the city, where one melancholy care still bound me to existence. I hastened to my comfortless shelter...

Terror had exhausted me; and throwing myself on the ground, under the shade of the palm-trees that crowned the summit of the hill, I fell into an almost instant slumber. But it...

The Roman embassy had hitherto remained in stern composure. The visitations of nature they were accustomed to sustain; the perturbations of a Jewish mob were beneath the notice...

My first object was to ascertain the fate of my family. From Constantius I could learn nothing, for the severity of his wound had reduced him to such a state that he recognized...

I determined to give the enemy no respite, and ordered the ravines to be attacked by fresh troops. While they were advancing, I galloped in search of Jubal over the ground of th...

But no man can be a philosopher against nature. With my strength the desire for exertion returned. My most voluptuous rest became irksome. Memory would not be restrained; the fl...