'Upon this principle all was arranged. First, for the name that was to disarm suspicion-what name could do that? Why, what was the suspicion? A suspicion that Christian embers were sleeping under the ashes. True: but why was that suspicious? Why had it ever been suspicious? For two reasons: because the Christian faith was supposed to carry a secret hostility to the Temple and its whole ritual economy; secondly, for an earnest political reason, because it was believed to tend, by mere necessity, to such tumults or revolutions as would furnish the Roman, on tiptoe for this excuse, with a plea for taking away the Jewish name and nation; that is, for taking away their Jewish autonomy (or administration by their own Mosaic code), which they still had, though otherwise in a state of dependency. Well, now, for this sort of suspicion, no name could be so admirably fitted as one drawn from the very ritual service of that very Temple which was supposed to be in danger. That Temple was in danger: the rocks on which it stood were already quaking beneath it. All was accomplished: its doom had gone forth. Shadows of the coming fate were spreading thick before it its defenders had a dim misgiving of the storm that was gathering. But they mistook utterly the quarter from which it was to come. And they closed the great gates against an enemy that entered by the postern. However, they could not apprehend a foe in a soB*

:

ciety that professed a special interest in Israel. The name chosen, therefore, was derived from the very costume of the Jewish High Priest, the pontifical ruler of the Temple. This great officer wore upon his breast a splendid piece of jewelry; twelve precious stones were inserted in the breast-plate, representing the twelve sons of Jacob, or twelve tribes of Israel; and this was called the Essen. Consequently to announce themselves as the Society of the Essen, was to express a peculiar solicitude for the children of Israel. Under this mask nobody could suspect any hostility to Jerusalem or its Temple; nobody, therefore, under the existing misconception of Christian objects and the Christian character, could suspect a Christian society.

"But was not this hypocritical disguise? Not at all. A profession was thus made of paramount regard to Judea and her children. Why not? Christians everywhere turned with love and yearning, and thankfulness the profoundest, to that 'Holy City' (so called by Christ himself), which had kept alive for a thousand years the sole vestiges of pure faith, and which, for a far longer term, mystically represented that people which had known the true God, when all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones.' Christians, or they would have been no Christians, everywhere prayed for her peace. And if the downfall of Jerusalem was connected with the rise of Christianity, that was not through en

mity borne to Jerusalem by Christians (as the Jews falsely imagine); but because it was not suitable for the majesty of God, as the father of truth, to keep up a separation among the nations when the fullness of time in his counsels required that all separation should be at an end. At his bidding the Temple had been raised. At his bidding the Temple must be destroyed. Nothing could have saved it but becoming Christian. The end was accomplished for which it had existed; a great river had been kept pure, that was now to expand into an

ocean.

"But, as to any hypocrisy in the fathers of this indispensable scheme for keeping alive the fire that burned on the altar of Christianity, that was impossible. So far from needing to assume more love for Judaism than they had, we know that their very infirmity was to have, by much, too sectarian and exclusive a regard for those who were represented by the Temple. The Bible, which conceals nothing of any man's errors, does not conceal that. And we know that all the weight of the great intellectual apostle was necessary to overrule the errors in this point of St. Peter. The fervid apostle erred, and St. Paul' withstood him to his face.' But his very error proves the more certainly his sincerity and singleness of heart in setting up a society that should profess in its name the service of Jerusalem and her children as its primary function. The

name Essen and Essenes was sent before to disarm suspicion, and as a pledge of loyal fidelity.

"Next, however, this society was to be a secret society-an Eleusinian society-a Freemason society. For, if it were not, how was it to provide for the culture of Christianity? Now, if the reader pauses a moment to review the condition of Palestine and the neighboring countries at that time, he will begin to see the opening there was for such a society. The condition of the times was agitated and tumultuous beyond anything witnessed among men, except at the Reformation and the French Revolution. The flame on the Pagan altars was growing pale, the oracles over the earth were muttering their alarm, panic terrors were falling upon nations, murmurs were arising, whispers circulating from nobody knew whence-that out of the East, about this time, should arise some great and mysterious deliverer. This whisper had spread to Rome -was current everywhere. It was one of those awful whispers that have no author. Nobody could ever trace it. Nobody could ever guess by what path it had traveled. But observe, in that generation, at Rome and all parts of the Mediterranean to the west of Palestine, the word ' Oriens' had a technical and limited meaning; it was restricted to Syria, of which Palestine formed a section. This use of the word will explain itself to anybody who looks at a map of the Mediterranean as seen from

Italy. But some years after the Epichristian generation, the word began to extend; and very naturally, as the Roman armies began to make permanent conquests nearer to the Euphrates. Under these remarkable circumstances, and agitated beyond measures between the oppression of the Roman armies on the one hand and the consciousness of a peculiar dependence on God on the other, all thoughtful Jews were disturbed in mind. The more conscientious, the more they were agitated. Was it their duty to resist the Romans? God could deliver them, doubtless; but God worked oftentimes by human means. Was it his pleasure that they should resist by arms? Others again replied If you do, then you prepare an excuse for the Romans to extirpate your nation. Many again turned more to religious hopes: these were they who, in scriptural language, 'waited for the consolation of Israel:' that is, they trusted in that Messiah who had been promised, and they yearned for his manifestation. They mourned over Judea; they felt that she had rebelled; but she had been afflicted, and perhaps her transgressions might now be blotted out, and her glory might now be approaching. Of this class was he who took Christ in his arms when an infant in the Temple. Of this class were the two rich men, Joseph and Nicodemus, who united to bury him. But even of this class many different views of the functions

were there who took