s in the height of its dignity, not controlled by either
generals or demagogues. The Senate received with favor the Jewish
ambassadors, and promised their protection. Had Judas known what that
protection meant, he would have been the last man to seek it.

Nor did the treaty of alliance with Rome save Judaea from the continued
hostilities of Syria. Demetrius sent Bacchides with another army, which
encamped against Jerusalem, where Judas had only eight hundred men to
resist an army of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse. We infer
that his forces had dwindled away by perpetual contests. His heart of
hope was now well-nigh broken, but his lion courage remained. Against
the solicitation of his companions in war he resolved to fight;
gallantly and stubbornly contested the field from morning to night, and
at last, hemmed in between two wings of the Syrian foe, fell in
the battle.

The heroic career of Judas Maccabaeus was ended. He had done marvellous
things. He had for six years resisted and often defeated overwhelming
forces; he had fought more battles than David; he had kept the enemy at
bay while his prostrate country arose from the dust; he had put to
flight and slain tens of thousands of the heathen; he had recovered and
fortified Jerusalem, and restored the Temple worship; he had trained his
people to be warlike and heroic. At last he was slain only when his
followers were scattered by successive calamities. He bore the brunt of
six years' successful war against the most powerful monarchy in Asia,
bent on the extermination of his countrymen. And amid all his labors he
had kept the Law, being revered for his virtues as much as for his
heroism. Not a single crime sullied his glorious name. And when he fell
at last, exhausted, the nation lamented him as David mourned for
Jonathan, saying, "How is the valiant fallen!" A greater hero than he
never adorned an age of heroism. Judas was not only a mighty captain,
but a wise statesman,--so revered, that, according to Josephus, in his
closing years he was made high-priest also, thus uniting in his person
both spiritual and temporal authority. It was a very small country that
he ruled, but it is in small countries that genius is often most fully
developed, either for war or for peace. We know but little of his
private life. He had no time for what the world calls pleasures; his
life was rough, full of dangers and embarrassments. His only aim seems
to have been to shake of