ll a subject for faith; and
seldom had faith had to breast a fiercer storm of persecution than that
which was sweeping over God's ancient people at the time when my story
opens, about 167 years before the Christian era. The Roman had not yet
trodden the soil of Palestine as a conqueror; but a yoke yet more
intolerable than his lay on the necks of the sons of Abraham.
Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, one of the most merciless tyrants
that ever existed, bore rule in the city of David. He had deluged the
streets of Jerusalem with blood, he had plundered and polluted the
Temple, offered the unclean beast upon God's holy altar, and set up the
image of Jupiter Olympus in the place dedicated to the worship of the
Lord of Sabaoth. It was a time of rebuke and blasphemy, of fiery
persecution against the one pure faith; and if some shrank back from
the trial, other Hebrews showed that the spirit of Shadrach and his
brethren still lived amongst the people of Judaea.

On the evening which I am describing, a young man was wandering among
the clumps of hoary olive-trees which shaded a valley on the eastern
side of Jerusalem. The red sunbeams pierced here and there between the
grey branching stems and through the foliage, and shone full on the
figure of Lycidas the Athenian. No one could have mistaken him for a
Hebrew, even had the young man worn the garb of a Jew instead of that
of a Grecian. The exquisitely-formed features of the stranger were
those which have been made familiar to us by the masterpieces of
antiquity treasured in our museums. Lycidas might well have served as
model to Phidias for a statue of Endymion. His form was of faultless
proportions, remarkable rather for symmetry and grace than for
strength; and his face might have been deemed too feminine in its
beauty, but for the stamp of intellect on it. That young brow had
already worn the leafy crown in the Olympic contest for poetic honours;
Lycidas had read his verses aloud in the arena to the critical ears of
the Athenians, his fellow-citizens, and thousands from other parts of
Greece, and had heard their plaudits ringing through the air at the
close. That had been a proud moment for the youthful Athenian, but his
ambition had not been satisfied by this his first great success.
Lycidas was his own severest critic, and regarded himself as being
rather at the starting-point than as at the goal. He had resolved on
writing a poem, the fame of which should em