of mercy came from below, to cheer him in his desolation. But from above, from the heaven to which all these prayer-bearing floods of incense and harmony ascended, came down divine consolation and miraculous delivery to this poor, despised prisoner, with a power and a witness that not all the solemn pomp of the passover ceremony could summon in reply to its costly offerings. The feeble band of sorrowing Nazarenes, from their little chamber, were lifting unceasing voices of supplication for their brother, in his desperate prospects, which entered with his solitary prayer into the ears of the God of Hosts, while the ostentatious worship of king Agrippa and his reverend supporters, only brought back shame and woful ruin on their impious supplications for the divine sanction to their bloody plans of persecution. At last the solemn passover-rites of "the last great day of the feast" were ended;—the sacrifice, the incense and the song, rose no more from the sanctuary,—the fires on the altars went out, the hum and the roar of worshiping voices was hushed, and the departing throngs poured through the "ETERNAL" and the "BEAUTIFUL" gates, till at last the courts and porches of the temple were empty through all their vast extent, and hushed in a silence, deep as the ruinous oblivion to which the voice of their God had doomed them shortly to pass; and all was still, save where the footfall of the passing priest echoed along the empty colonnades, as he hurried over the vast pavements into the dormitories of the inner temple; or where the mighty gates thundered awfully as they swung heavily together under the strong hands of the weary Levites, and sent their long reverberations among the walls. Even these closing sounds soon ceased also; the Levite watchmen took their stand on the towers of the temple, and paced their nightly rounds along the flat roofs, guarding with careful eyes their holy shrine, lest the impious should, under cover of night, again profane it, (as the Samaritans had secretly done a few years before.) And on the neighboring castle of Antonia, the Roman garrison, too, had set their nightly watch, and the iron warriors slumbered, each in his turn, till the round of duty should summon him to relieve guard. Within the dungeon keep of the castle, was still safely held the weighty trust that was to be answered for, on peril of life; and all arrangements were made which so great a responsibility seemed to require. The prisoner already somewhat notorious for making unaccountable escapes from guarded dungeons, was secured with a particularity, quite complimentary to his dexterity as a
