osit the
public money in the temples), and had taken away to his capital the
golden candlesticks, the altar of incense, the table of shew bread, and
the various vessels and censers and crowns which were used in the
service of God,--treasures that amounted to one thousand eight hundred
talents, spared by Alexander. So that there came great mourning upon
Israel throughout the land, both for the desecration of sacred places,
the plunder of the Temple, and the massacre of the people. Jerusalem was
sacked and burned, women and children were carried away as captives, and
a great fortress was erected on an eminence that overlooked the Temple
and city, in which was placed a strong garrison. The plundered
inhabitants fled from Jerusalem, which became the habitation of
strangers, with all its glory gone. "Her sanctuary was laid waste, her
feasts were turned into mourning, her Sabbath into a reproach, and her
honor into contempt." Many even of the Jews became apostate, profaned
the Sabbath, and sacrificed to idols, rather than lose their lives; for
the persecution was the most unrelenting in the annals of martyrdom,
even to the destruction of women and children.

The insulted and decimated Jews now rallied under Mattathias, the
founder of the Asmonean dynasty.

The immediate occasion of the Jewish uprising, which was ultimately to
end in national independence and in the rule of a line of native
princes, was as unpremeditated as the throwing out of the window at the
council chamber at Prague those deputies who supported the Emperor of
Germany in his persecution of the Protestants, which led to the Thirty
Years' War and the establishment of religious liberty in Germany. At
this crisis among the Jews, a hero arose in their midst as marvellous as
Gustavus Adolphus.

In Modin, or Modein, a town near the sea, but the site of which is now
unknown, there lived an old man of a priestly family named Asmon, who
was rich and influential. His name was Mattathias, and he had five
grown-up sons, each distinguished for bravery, piety, and patriotism. He
was so prominent in his little city for fidelity to the faith of his
fathers, as well as for social position, that when an officer of
Antiochus came to Modin to enforce the decrees of his royal master, he
made splendid offers to Mattathias to induce him to favor the crusade
against his countrymen. Mattathias not only contemptuously rejected
these overtures, but he openly proclaimed his resoluti