the persecutors of the saints, feeling strong in their numbers and influence, set the law at open defiance, and continued to condemn and execute the Christians. Among those conspicuous for this revengeful and illegal course, was a man of much influence among the corrupt and degraded majority, whose name was Jacob.
The cry of these infamies reached the chief judge, but when he expostulated the offenders treated his requirements with contempt, and broke out in open rebellion, associating themselves together by the same unholy oaths and covenants that had beforetime done so much towards destroying the nation. In these traitorous movements Jacob made himself conspicuous.
The leaders in these conspiracies determined to overthrow the republic and establish a monarchy. To this end the chief judge was assassinated and Jacob proclaimed king.
The result was not as successful as the royalists anticipated. The majority of the people would not be ruled by a king. They preferred rather to break up into numerous tribes, each with its own chieftain and internal regulations; but all these tribes of the people united in their objections to the proclamation of a monarchy.
Jacob, who had with him the majority of the most vile and corrupt of the nation, those who had been most officious and relentless in persecuting the servants of God, did not despair. He imagined that in course of time he would be so greatly strengthened by dissatisfied members of the tribes that he would eventually be able to conquer them and establish his supremacy. For the present he determined to remove, with those who recognized his authority, to the northernmost part of the land, there consolidate his power and found his kingdom. So ably did he carry his intentions into effect that the tribes Were unable to arrest his movements.
