around him. The crowd was scarcely less than yesterday, and nearly the same ceremonies were repeated. Next followed the offering of the first-fruits, the omer of barley-meal which had been prepared from the sheaves, cut the preceding evening. A priest fetched the meal, in a golden dish, from an apartment in one of the buildings, mixed it in the presence of the people with a log* of the finest oil, and scattered upon it a handful of incense. He brought it to the high-priest, who stood beside the altar, and he waved it towards all the four winds, from east to west and from south to north, and then ascended the altar. On the southern side lay salt, with which he salted the meal and threw a handful of it, with another of incense, upon the flame. Immediately after, a special sacrifice, a lamb with the meat and drink offering that belonged to it, was offered; and the high-priest concluded by giving his benediction. The harvest was now solemnly begun, and Israel might pursue its joyful labors. The spectators dispersed themselves in different directions; and many of the pilgrims, who had neither time nor means to spend the whole week of the festival in Jerusalem, returned home on this day. Only those remained behind, who purposed to offer the burnt-offerings of the appearance before Jehovah, and these were the wealthier part of the worshippers. Elisama, Helon, and Sallu went down into the neighborhood of the porch of Solomon, to purchase a victim for this purpose. A dealer in cattle, from Capernaum in Galilee, furnished them with a calf of extraordinary beauty, which they drove to the gate on the northern side, at which the sacrifices were admitted. Here they were compelled to wait a considerable time, as a large number had been admitted just before their arrival. At length they entered: the animal was examined and killed on the north side of the altar, the offerers having first washed their hands, and laid them upon it. The priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. The sacrificers then took off the skin, took out the fat, and the entrails, and divided the flesh. The whole was given to the priest, along with the meat and drink offering; he salted it and threw it into the fire. A burnt-offering was to be wholly consumed, except the skin, which belonged to the priest. While the priest was sacrificing at the altar, Elisama, Helon, and Sallu were praying that Jehovah would graciously accept their offering ; and when it was ended, they and the rest of those who had been admitted with them, went out at the southern gate. Helon, while he had witnessed the solemn ceremonial and the deep and reverent silence of the spectators, had felt the dignity of the priestly office, and as he prayed, he said with David, One thing I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after ; In the afternoon Iddo conducted him to one of the places of public instruction, called by the Greek name of Synagogue. Such buildings had come into use only since the captivity, but there were already a considerable number of them in Jerusalem. In the days of David and Solomon we find no trace of them. It is true, we find very early mention of the schools of the prophets, from which they may be considered to have taken their rise. In the days of Elisha it was customary to visit the prophets on the day of the new moon and on the sabbath.* In the captivity, the people must have felt the necessity much more of assembling on solemn days, to obtain consolation and hope from the discourses of some man learned in the scriptures. On the fifth day of the sixth month, it happened, we are told in the book of the Prophet, that Ezekiel "was sitting in his house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before him." After the return from the captivity, this custom was kept up, from the experience of its * 2 Kings iv. 23. + Ezek. viii. 1. utility; and these assemblages were held at first in the porticoes of the temple, afterwards in buildings appropriated to the purpose. Sacrifices could be offered only in one place, the temple, but prayer might be offered, and instruction communicated, any where. They went into a synagogue in the Lower City, where an eloquent expounder of the law was accustomed to teach. The arrangement of the building had a good deal of resemblance to that of the temple. A large quadrangular space was surrounded on all sides with covered walks or porticoes, resting upon a double row of columns. In the middle, a circular roof rested upon four pillars, and beneath it, on a raised place, lay the rolls of the law. The people stood upon the open space, which was covered with an awning, and in rainy weather took shelter in the porticoes, one of which was set apart exclusively for the women. Before the rolls of the law stood the reader and expounder, who was also called the apostle or ambassador of the assembly. He read the law and the letters of other congregations; he delivered the prayer, and thus, as it were, was the messenger of the people to God, and the interpreter of their desires. Besides him there was also a ruler of the synagogue, or superintendent of the school, who maintained order, several elders of the congregation who assisted him in his functions, a gatherer of alms, and a servant. Any one who chose, not excepting strangers, might stand up and teach. The synagogue was already full when Helon and his friends entered it, and after the usual salutation, the service began by praising God. The reader then going up to the rolls, which lay under the circular roof, read a passage from the law, which he at the same time interpreted to the people. After a second ascription of praise, he read a passage from the prophet Jeremiah, and translated it into the common dialect of the country. The celebrated teacher of the law, whom we have mentioned, then rose up, and proposed to deliver a dis course. Myron had objected to his friend Helon, that the people of Israel were destitute of skill in all the fine arts; and in respect to eloquence, resembled their lawgiver, who was "slow of speech and of a slow tongue.”* To the former part of the imputation Helon had already replied; to the latter he might have answered, that although his nation never possessed an Isocrates or a Demosthenes, no people ever had orators, whose eloquence was more vigorous, animated, or spirit-stirring than the prophets in Israel. What artificial rhetorician, of the schools or the Agora, ever graved his words so deep in the hearts of his hearers as they did? They spoke the word of Jehovah, by the command and inspiration of Jehovah; the Greeks, the words of human wisdom, at the suggestion of vanity, or to promote the purposes of ambition. How different is the effect of a discourse, in which a divine power dwells, from those which have been composed with the strictest adherence to the rules of art! Such might have been Helon's answer to his friend; for such was his own experience, in listening to the orator in the synagogue. His language was simple and unartificial, but for this very reason the energy of the prophet's words, which he expounded, was the more strongly felt. First of all he went through the passage which had been read, and explained the contents of the prayer, which, sublime in itself, was still more so from the circumstances in which it was spoken. He painted the forlorn condition of the people when the land fell into the hands of the Chaldeans, and the prophecy which was involved in the purchase of the field of Anathoth. When he came to speak of the signs and wonders which Jehovah had shown in Egypt, and of his having brought out his people with an out-stretched arm, he pointed out to the audience, that this great deliverance was to be regarded as an everlasting pledge of his redeeming mercy. For a thousand years past it had served this purpose, and every Passover revived and strengthened the impression. He painted to them the condition of Israel in Goshen, their inhuman op * Exod. iv. 10. pressions, the evening of the first Passover, their wanderings in the wilderness, their rebellions against God, and the firmness of their lawgiver. Thence he passed rapidly to the glorious days of the first temple, and described the magnificence of Solomon and the prosperity of Israel, while the eyes of all his audience glistened with sympathetic delight. Next he spoke of the captivity in Babylon, of the silent tears of the people as they sat by the streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, and of the evening of the Passover, when the fourteenth day of Nisan came and no paschal lamb could be eaten, but only the unleavened bread. No one drew his breath while he delineated the picture of this misery. "Unhappy, forsaken people!" he exclaimed; "ye had sinned and Jehovah visiteth the iniquities of the fathers upon their children. O thou almighty and jealous God, thine eyes are open on all the ways of the children of men!" He paused for a moment, as if overpowered by the contemplation of the might and justice of Jehovah. Every bosom was agitated. "Wo, wo to ine and to my children!" exclaimed at once a woman, so carried away by the words of the speaker, that she forgot herself and the presence of the multitude. "Wo to us all," resumed he, "if we forsake Jehovah, the living fountain, and hew out to ourselves broken fountains which hold no water." In conclusion he praised the restoration of the worship of God, and the happy times in which they lived; and earnestly exhorted them to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread and of the appearance before Jehovah, with becoming gratitude, and faithfully to observe the law, in the land flowing with milk and honey into which he had brought them. When the discourse was ended, praise was again ascribed to God, and the prayer called Kri-schma repeated. This was a feast-day; but independently of this, it was the duty of every adult Jew, on the second and the fifth day of the week, as well as on the sabbath, to pray with the Tallith on his head, and the Tephillim on his brow and on his hand. The benediction was given, to which the assembly replied Amen! and at the close of all, alms were collected for the poor. |