this period it is probable that the two great religious factions of the Jews, the Sadducees and Pharisees, became fully developed. The Pharisees were the

popular body, and the high priests were of that profession, until John Hyrcanus, a son of Simon, went over to the Sadducees, and by so doing lost his popularity, and involved himself in many troubles and tumults until the end of his reign, which lasted 31 years. After a tedious siege he took, and entirely destroyed, Samaria (a place which had long been the resort of all the disaffected and disappointed Jews of Jerusalem), but was himself besieged by Antiochus the Pious, King of Syria, to which country the Jews again became tributary. On the death of Antiochus, however, they regained their liberty, and made a league with the Romans.

Two sons of this John Hyrcanus next reigned jointly for one year, one of them killing the other.

Another son, Alexander Janneus, began his reign in the year 106, and died in 79. He, too, sided with the Sadducees, and spent a good part of his life in fighting with his Pharisaic brethren, many of whom he slew, on various occasions, with great barbarity. He also took Gaza, and many other cities to the north and east of Palestine-then lapsed into drunkenness, and died, recommending his wife, Alexandra, to court the favour of the Pharisees, as the only way to obtain handsome burial for himself, and retain the power for his sons. Then the Pharisees, coming to power, executed severe retribution upon their late oppressors. Alexandra reigned nine years. Her two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobolus, were contending for the throne, when Pompey, the Roman general, being at Damascus with an army, was petitioned by both for help; and it was in the way of settling this dispute that, being opposed by Aristobolus, he besieged and took Jerusalem, con

ferring it and the rest of Judea upon neither of the disputants, but upon Rome. And in a little time, says Josephus, the Romans exacted from us about 10,000 talents.

Pompey, although he inspected the riches of the Temple, refrained from robbing it; but a few years later Crassus, on an expedition against the Parthians, pillaged it of 2,000 talents in money, and all the vessels of gold, worth 8,000 talents more.

In the year B.c. 47, Cæsar having defeated Pompey at Pharsalia, and, being made dictator, appointed Herod Antipater (an Idumean who had greatly ingratiated himself with both the Romans and the Jews), as Procurator of Judea. But seven years afterwards, the Parthians made themselves masters of Jerusalem, and put Antigonus, a son of Aristobolus, the last of the Maccabean princes, upon the throne. Herod, a son of Herod Antipater, fled to Rome, and there, through his own personal friendship, and that of his father, with Cæsar, he obtained from the Senate a grant of the kingdom of Judea, with an army of 60,000 men to enforce his claims. But the Jews, who were greatly attached to their Maccabean kings, made a desperate resistance, so that it was only after six months' siege that the city was taken. Herod, for the sake of his own future credit and safety, did what he could to restrain the Roman soldiers, but many excesses were committed, and a vast number of the people were slain. And when Herod was established on the throne, he proceeded to many acts of cruelty and oppression, degrading the priesthood by putting into it his own tools. Yet, to obtain popularity, he greatly enlarged and beautified the Temple, making it, in some respects, more magnificent than Solomon's; but erecting at the same time, in neighbouring cities, temples for the worship of heathen idols. In the thirty-sixth year of his reign,

Augustus Cæsar being Emperor at Rome, Jesus Christ was born.

I find the following interesting event, relating to the Jews in Egypt. In the year 149 (the twelfth of Jonathan Maccabeus) one Onias, who had aspired to the high priesthood, fled to Egypt, and being a man of great ability, he so ingratiated himself with King Ptolemy Philometer, and his Queen Cleopatra, that he and another Jew (by his favour) had the chief control of the government during the latter part of this king's reign.

He obtained leave to build a temple at Heliopolis (the "On" of Scripture, where Potiphera, Joseph's father-in-law, lived), upon the exact plan of the temple at Jerusalem. Here he himself and his posterity were high priests. The Jews were reconciled to all this by the use he made of a prophecy in Isaiah, which reads: "Five cities in the land of Egypt shall speak the language of Canaan. In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof unto the Lord.'

Priests and Levites were ordained, and the daily service was performed, precisely as at Jerusalem, for 224 years when, after the destruction of Jerusalem, and its temple, this also was demolished by the Roman Emperor Vespasian.

In the foregoing sketch we have necessarily confined ourselves to leading facts of history. Such of our readers as desire a fuller acquaintance with the subject we would refer to the books before named, viz., Prideaux's Connexion, Milman's History, Josephus, &c., and especially to the promised volumes of Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church. Probably, at a future time, we may ourselves enlarge upon some of the features of Jewish life and character which underlay its history.

FRANCIS FRITH.

JOHN PRIESTMAN.

FORTY-THREE years ago the town of Bradford was little more than a populous village. Green fields, wooded parks, and blooming gardens, extended to the very heart of the town, where now verdure and bloom have alike given way to the dust, the din, the turmoil, and the smoke of a busy manufacturing community. The Queen's Mills having, by ancient charter, a monopoly of the grinding of corn and the crushing of malt for the township, were necessarily an establishment of considerable importance, the proprietors of which, for the time being, could not fail, in such a community, to be marked men. So that in 1824, when John Priestman, at the age of nineteen, joined his brother-in-law in carrying on the business of corn millers and maltsters there, he was placed in a position in which publicity was "thrust upon him," and his life was henceforth open to the scrutiny of all men. The people among whom his lot was cast have the reputation of being keen, and shrewd almost to a fault. It is not, therefore, matter of surprise that any inconsistencies of public men, who make profession of religion, are closely marked, and form one bulwark of a great mass of open scepticism, the existence of which it were culpable to ignore. For forty-two years, John Priestman, though knowing and confessing his frailty and shortcomings, maintained, even in the midst of critics like these "a religious life, and conversation consistent with his Christian profession" that, so far from encouraging scepticism, caused men to glorify the grace of God, by which alone that consistency was maintained. Be it our purpose, then,

in this brief sketch, not to magnify the man, but simply to put on record some salient points in the life and character of one, with whom a deep living religious principle was so cherished and so grew that, becoming the mainspring of action, it harmonized and ruled a life that exerted a wide, though unostentatious, influence for good on the thousands among whom he dwelt.

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As a young man, it was necessary for him to be diligent in business; for, having but small means, he had to make his own way in the world, and in pursuance of his calling he was to be found at six o'clock in the morning, habited in the proverbial dusty garb" of a miller, and taking his part in the operations of the Queen's Mills. Yet, while thus deeply engaged in business, he was never forgetful of those objects of religion, philanthropy, and politics, with which he ultimately became conspicuously identified. The instances are numerous of successful men of business, who, from the outset of their mercantile career, were also devoted workers on behalf of their fellow men. Sufficiently numerous, one would think, to have long since exploded the doctrine that financial success is only to be achieved by an all-absorbing attention to business pursuits, and leaving philanthropy until, the full tide of prosperity having set in, there is leisure for its cultivation. To take a mere worldly view of the matter, those who uphold this doctrine forget how truly refreshing it often is to the toil-worn brain to have its energies turned into another than its routine channel. They forget how often the heart, weary with its own difficulties and disappointments, draws fresh strength from endeavours to alleviate the sufferings, or to improve the condition, of others. John Priestman made no such mistake; but through life, from first to last, was an active labourer for the good of his fellows.