86* THE MICROSCOPE AtfD ITS LESSONS. 



performed upon a young Jew whom his daughter loved, 

 chiefly on account of his beauty. The son inherited not 

 only his father's indomitable courage, but his " waspish- 

 ness," and, during the memorable siege of Jerusalem, 

 A.D. 70, the father, discovering his daughter to be really 

 in love with one of his enemies, sent for him, and gave 

 his daughter a present not as a token of his approval of 

 the match, but of his views of what all beauty consisted 

 in, and it was the young Jew's skin ! 



Forgive me for here repeating a reference to the 

 prophecy of what should follow the disobedience of the 

 Hebrews, as made by Moses before the people entered 

 Canaan : " The Lord shall bring a nation against thee 

 from far, fro m i the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle 

 flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; 

 a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard 

 the person of the old, nor show favour to the young " 

 (Deut. xxviii. 49, 50). And then think how literally this 

 was fulfilled in this story of Titus, one of many which is 

 bitterly remembered by every religious Jew in the syna- 

 gogue, even to this day that is, about 3400 years after 

 the prophecy was made, and 1800 after it was literally 

 fulfilled when the " black fast," commemorative of their 

 beloved city's ruin, is celebrated. 



Look at the hornet's sting, what a sharp two-edged 

 sword it is ! With this sword it will cut open the body 

 of the honey-bee when it gets into the hive in search of 

 honey, and, if the bees do not take to flight, suck all the 

 sweets out of their bodies. And with such a sword did 

 the Kornan soldiers cut open the bodies of the Jews in the 

 sacking of the city, when Titus dug his famous trench 

 around it, as the carcase lay exposed to the figurative 

 "eagles," who surrounded the coveted land of Canaan. 

 For what purpose, do you ask, were these sharp swords 



