appened to their religion, except that
if anyone insulted it, their anger burned up very quickly, and their
hands reached for sticks and stones to throw at the man who dared to
say a word against their faith. But others studied their old books
with still more diligence, and strove so hard to keep all the laws
they found, that almost no time was left to do anything else. Very
much above the common people they felt themselves in their religious
pride, and religious pride is the very worst pride in all the world.
Such were the Pharisees, of whom the New Testament tells so much. But
all over the country, both among the Pharisees and among the other
people, were many patiently waiting and earnestly praying that God
would show himself to his people.

How did they want God to show himself? In some great act of relief for
the nation. During these years Rome ruled over all the lands of
western Asia. Now the rule of Rome was the wisest and best rule that
these lands had ever known. Sometimes a selfish or a cruel officer
appeared, who cared for nothing but the money he could get from the
people, or who turned his soldiers into the streets to kill and
plunder as they pleased, but generally the Romans made good and just
governors. But the Jews were not content. They remembered the time
when kings of their own nation had ruled over them, and they dreamed
{20} dreams of a glorious future when God would free them from all
foreign power, and Jerusalem should rule the world. They were very
sure that this would come sometime. God would not always let a heathen
army keep the castle which overlooked his own temple in Jerusalem.
They read in the prophets of the Old Testament about a Prince and a
Saviour whom God would send some day. This Prince was called the
Messiah, and the hope of his coming was the Messianic hope. Every
generation hoped that he would come in their day. Year by year they
said, "It must be before long. God cannot wait much longer." Some of
them thought that Israel itself was not pure enough, and that this
kept back the Messiah. "If Israel kept the law perfectly for one day,"
so they said, "the Messiah would come." Others thought that they ought
not to sit still and do nothing, but should be brave and strike a blow
for their own liberty. Such men were looking for a leader, but no
leader had yet been found. So all the people, with their various ways
of thinking, were looking and longing and waiting for the Messiah. Is
it an