Читать книгу Stories of the Wars of the Jews. From the Babylonish captivity, to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus онлайн

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The proclamation of the king sounded through the land like a trumpet-call, to gather together the exiles of Judea, and large numbers hastened to Babylon to make preparations for their journey. It was a second Exodus, a second release from foreign bondage, to seek the land of promise. But it was not by the whole of the children of the captivity that the opportunity of returning to Judea was embraced with patriotic zeal. Ruined dwellings and wasted plains, a city without temple and without walls, offered few attractions to such as regarded the country of strangers as a home. Many shrank from the hardships of the journey, and the dangers which they must expect to encounter; many who had formed ties in Babylonia, felt bound by them to that land. The Jewish exiles were an emblem of those who, in all ages of the world, hear the call of conscience and religion. While some turn their faces towards a heavenly Zion, willing to leave all, and suffer all here, so that they may but find an inheritance above, the greatest number prefer present comforts to future blessings; their hearts cling to the pleasures of the world; they are too fearful, too busy, too rich, or too gay, to cast in their lot with the people of God.