its paltry and vexatious details, must be given up, or exchanged for one whose operations should be so vast and sweeping in its desolating vengeance, as to overawe and appal, rather than awaken zeal in the objects of the punishment, or sympathy in the beholders. The latter alternative, however, was too hopeless, under the steady, benignant sway of Petronius, to be calculated upon, until a change should take place which should give the country a ruler of less independent and scrupulous character, and more disposed to sacrifice his own moral sense to the attainment of favor with the most important subjects of his government. Until that desirable end should be attained, in the course of the frequent changes of the imperial succession, it seemed best to let matters take their own course; and they accordingly dropped all active proceedings, leaving the new sect to progress as it might, with the impulse gained from the re-action consequent on this late unfortunate excitement against it. But they still kept a watchful eye on their proceedings, though with hands for a while powerless; and treasured up accumulating vengeance through tedious years, for the day when the progress of political changes should bring the secular power beneath their influence, and make it subservient to their purpose of dreadful retribution. That day had now fully come.
PETER'S THREATENED MARTYRDOM.
The long expected favorite and friend of the Jewish people, having been thus hailed sovereign by their grateful voices, and having strengthened his throne and influence by his opening acts of liberality and devotion to the national faith, now entered upon a reign which presented only the portents of a course most auspicious to his own fame and his people's good. Uniting in his person the claims of the Herodian and Asmonaean lines,—with the blood of the heroic Maccabees in his veins,—crowned by the imperial lord of the civilized world, whose boundless power was pledged in his support, by the obligations of an intimate personal friendship, and of a sincere gratitude for the attainment of the throne of the Caesars through his prompt and steady exertions,—received with universal joy and hope by all the dwellers of the consolidated kingdoms of his dominion, which had been long thriving under the mild and equitable administration of a prudent governor,—there seemed nothing wanting to complete the happy auspices of a glorious reign, under which the ancient honors of Israel should be more than retrieved from the decline of ages.
