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deeds pronounce him. His very intercourse with the luxurious Romans may have added a manly polish and graceful manner to the stern reserve of a Jewish warrior; and these were not qualities to pass unnoticed in that day. Mariamne supposed him the friend and protector of her grandfather and mother; and if he did seek at that time to win her affections, it was most likely she could bestow them willingly, and without repugnance consider herself as his bride.

They were not, however, then together long enough, for that scarcely conscious preference to become real affection.

Awakened to a closely threatening danger, Herod fled with his family, including Mariamne as his bride, her mother, and brother, to Masada, a strong fortress on the Western shores of the Dead Sea, and near his paternal heritage, Idumæa. The journey was fatiguing, and so dangerous that Herod, in despair, had nearly attempted his own life; but his temporal good fortune did not desert him he reached the fortress in safety, and was speedily reinforced by 800 native troops from Idumæa, under the command of his brother Joseph. This is the first mention history gives of Mariamne. Antigonus, whose connection with the Parthians occasioned this sudden flight, never appeared to remember even the existence of his brother's children; and however the intriguing and ambitious Alexandra might have secretly hated the power of her son-in-law Herod, there was no eluding it, save by making it her own.

Four years elapsed ere Mariamne became the wife of Herod, and during that period her domestic life must have been far from happy. In fact, from her first con

nection with Herod, we may say her sorrows began; for their rapid flight to Masada, pursued so closely by the Parthian allies of Antigonus as repeatedly to meet in deadly fight, and encounter such dangers that Herod's own spirit quailed almost to despair, could have been but an interval of fearful terror, fatigue, and suffering to the young girl only just commencing life. If her affections had indeed been excited by Herod, the length of his absence, the dangers to which he was exposed, all must have weighed depressingly on a mind, too young by many years for such heavy cares.

Alexandra and her children were not the only companions of Herod's hasty flight. He took with him his own mother Cypros, and his sister Salome; and it was at Masada in consequence, that that fearful enmity between the female members of his family commenced, which was to dash his whole domestic life with woe. The extreme youth and purity of Mariamne, permits us the supposition, that at the time, she herself had little to do` with the bickerings and petty provocations continually passing before her. But her position was a painful and a dangerous one; she had not one female friend, who could be the guardian and guide which her youth and beauty so much needed. The character of her mother, as we see it afterwards revealed, was far more likely to infuse its own baleful influences within the young mind and heart, in such perfect innocence looking up to her, than to strengthen and ennoble Mariamne's natural high qualities. Yet, how was her child to discover this? How mistrust, and so turn from her only parent, nay, with the sole exception of her young brother, her only relative upon earth? Alexandra had intellect, policy,

and wisdom, crooked as it was; and the reverence and love uniting the sons and daughters of Israel with their parents, must effectually have prevented Mariamne, at her tender age, from discovering aught which could frighten her from her mother's guardianship. How could she doubt the purity of her mother's love? How divide the true from the false? the judicious from the wary? A judicious parent would have taught and practised moderation and forbearance; would, if she had seen the necessity of uniting the pure high Asmonæan race with the degraded Idumæan, have bent at least to the necessity, and conciliated the family of her daughter's husband herself, and led her child to do so too. But this, to a character such as Alexandra, was impossible; her very subtlety in this instance succumbed to her over-bearing pride. The pure and beautiful spirit, which, guiding the law of Moses, inspired the prophet to promise, in the name of the Lord, a place dearer than sons and daughters to the strangers who turning from idolatry to Him, kept his covenants and sabbaths, had been lost in the dense cloud of sin and misery enveloping Judea. Pride had folded up the Jewish heart, instead of the lucid robe of charity, which the law commanded and infused; and from the insufferable haughtiness of Alexandra, we may trace all the misery which ended not even with the murder of her child.

To any disposition, the pride and haughty insolence of another, occasion a bitterness of feeling, a desire of retaliation, only to be conquered by a consciousness of one's position before God and our own souls, and of the absolute nothing, which such provocations are, in our strivings after eternity. But to feel thus, needs an enlightened,

a lowly, yet a noble mind; and not such was the disposition of either Salome or her mother. Of the latter, however, we read so little, except in conjunction with Salome, that we rather suppose her weak than wicked; too indolent herself to conspire against another; but willing enough to follow where a more energetic spirit would lead; and, in consequence, an equal accessary to evil deeds. To Salome, however, no negative terms need be applied; and the only relief we can discover in the perusal of her history, is that she was no woman of Israel. Even in that awful period of sin, the daughters of Israel had not thus fallen. Alexandra, indeed, was evil enough; but for her a train of fearful circumstances, a succession of misfortunes from treachery and cruelty may be some palliation. In her, some womanly feelings once had existence; in Salome there were none. petty vices and faults of woman were indeed the foundation of all her after-crimes; but in the overspreading poisoning torrent of her thoughts and deeds, we can scarcely believe, that its source lay in those small, and often invisible springs of petty faults dwelling in every woman's breast.

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The extreme beauty of her brother's bride, would by such a disposition have been looked on as an unpardonable crime. Even ordinary attractions must have sunk to nothing, before the sweet innocence and freshness of such loveliness as Mariamne's. Her pure Asmonæan blood, her lineage from a thousand priests, the ordained of God, and reverenced of His people, all was felt as a reproach to the haughty Idumæan, who, exalt herself as she might, could never boast such proud descent; and when to these sources of irritation was added the scorn and

contempt of Mariamne's mother, and the daily provocations thence ensuing, heightened perhaps by the lofty bearing of the object of her hate herself, all recurring through successive weeks, months, and years, whilst they were thrown together in one home, which they dared not quit, because of the dangers awaiting them without, and with no possibility at that period of evincing the hate consuming her, it became concentrated, defined, laid out in varied schemes, waiting but the opportunity to work, which when it came, transformed her from the woman to the fiend.

That she imparted her machinations to her mother at that time is not likely. She was probably contented with infusing such hatred of Alexandra and her daughter, as would secure her a willing agent in Cypros whenever she needed one. Provocations which the weak character of Cypros might have been too indolent even to remember, were recalled and magnified, till the sting of their recollection so rankled, that even time could not remove it, and from them hatred sprung. Weak characters are quite as susceptible of the passions as strong ones; perhaps even more, for the latter can be guided by reason, the former cannot.

Amongst characters like these was the hapless Mariamne thrown without the power of escape, for those three or four years of her young existence, when the influences and impressions should be but virtue's own. At fourteen or fifteen what could she have known of life, except as imparted by her mother, her sole instructress? And in those three years' residence in Masada, what opportunity had she to weaken the maternal influence, by presenting to her notice, such noble and high specimens of her sex, as would cause her awakening mind to doubt and

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