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On the other hand, the Samaritans were not behind-hand in recriminations. They would refuse hospitality to the pilgrim companies going up to the feasts at Jerusalem (Comp. Lk. ix.53), and sometimes even waylay and murder them181. On one occasion certain of them are said to have entered the Temple at Jerusalem, and defiled it by scattering on the pavement human bones182. One special mode of annoyance was frequently practised. The Jews were in the habit of communicating to their numerous brethren in Babylon, the exact day and hour of the rising of the Paschal moon, by means of a system of beacon fires, which telegraphed the welcome news from the Mount of Olives, through Auranitis, to those who sat by the waters of the Babylon. The Samaritans would, therefore, annoy the watchers on the mountain-tops by kindling a rival flame on the wrong day, and thus perplex them, and introduce confusion.

From the earliest period of their national history the Jews had been pre-eminently “the people of the future,” and at the period we have now reached they were filled with the expectation that an extraordinary Being would appear, and prove Himself the Messiah or Deliverer. But though in the Temple of Prophecy183 there had from the beginning ever been heard two Voices mysteriously blended, one jubilant and glad, telling of victory and of triumph, the other subdued and mournful, whispering of shame and suffering, yet to one of these Voices only had attention been really paid.