The Jewish captivity.--Jeremiah and the book of Chronicles.--Incursions of Nebuchadnezzar.--Denunciations of Jeremiah.--Predictions of Jeremiah.--Exasperation of the priests and people.--Defense of Jeremiah.--He is liberated.--Symbolic method of teaching.--The wooden yoke and the iron yoke.--The t.i.tle deeds of Jeremiah"s estate.--The deeds deposited.--Baruch writes Jeremiah"s prophecies.--He reads them to the people.--Baruch summoned before the council.--The roll sent to the king.--The roll destroyed.--Jeremiah attempts to leave the city.--The king sends for Jeremiah.--He is imprisoned.--Jeremiah cast into a dungeon.--The king orders him to be taken up.--Jerusalem besieged by the Babylonians.--Capture of the king.--Captivity of the Jews.--The prophet Daniel.--Cyrus takes possession of Babylon, and allows the Jews to return.--a.s.sembling of the Jews.--The number that returned.--Arrival of the caravan at Jerusalem.--Building the Temple.--Emotions of the old men.--Rejoicings of the young men.
The period of the invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus, and the taking of the city, was during the time while the Jews were in captivity there.
Cyrus was their deliverer. It results from this circ.u.mstance that the name of Cyrus is connected with sacred history more than that of any other great conqueror of ancient times.
It was a common custom in the early ages of the world for powerful sovereigns to take the people of a conquered country captive, and make them slaves. They employed them, to some extent, as personal household servants, but more generally as agricultural laborers, to till the lands.
An account of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon is given briefly in the closing chapters of the second book of Chronicles, though many of the attendant circ.u.mstances are more fully detailed in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived in the time of the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, made repeated incursions into the land of Judea, sometimes carrying away the reigning monarch, sometimes deposing him and appointing another sovereign in his stead, sometimes a.s.sessing a tax or tribute upon the land, and sometimes plundering the city, and carrying away all the gold and silver that he could find. Thus the kings and the people were kept in a continual state of anxiety and terror for many years, exposed incessantly to the inroads of this nation of robbers and plunderers, that had, so unfortunately for them, found their way across their frontiers. King Zedekiah was the last of this oppressed and unhappy line of Jewish kings.
The prophet Jeremiah was accustomed to denounce the sins of the Jewish nation, by which these terrible calamities had been brought upon them, with great courage, and with an eloquence solemn and sublime. He declared that the miseries which the people suffered were the special judgments of Heaven, and he proclaimed repeatedly and openly, and in the most public places of the city, still heavier calamities which he said were impending. The people were troubled and distressed at these prophetic warnings, and some of them were deeply incensed against Jeremiah for uttering them. Finally, on one occasion, he took his stand in one of the public courts of the Temple, and, addressing the concourse of priests and people that were there, he declared that, unless the nation repented of their sins and turned to G.o.d, the whole city should be overwhelmed. Even the Temple itself, the sacred house of G.o.d, should be destroyed, and the very site abandoned.
The priests and the people who heard this denunciation were greatly exasperated. They seized Jeremiah, and brought him before a great judicial a.s.sembly for trial. The judges asked him why he uttered such predictions, declaring that by doing so he acted like an enemy to his country and a traitor, and that he deserved to die. The excitement was very great against him, and the populace could hardly be restrained from open violence. In the midst of this scene Jeremiah was calm and unmoved, and replied to their accusations as follows:
"Every thing which I have said against this city and this house, I have said by the direction of the Lord Jehovah. Instead of resenting it, and being angry with me for delivering my message, it becomes you to look at your sins, and repent of them, and forsake them. It may be that by so doing G.o.d will have mercy upon you, and will avert the calamities which otherwise will most certainly come. As for myself, here I am in your hands. Yon can deal with me just as you think best.
Yon can kill me if you will, but you may be a.s.sured that if you do so, you will bring the guilt and the consequences of shedding innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city. I have said nothing and foretold nothing but by commandment of the Lord."[C]
[Footnote C: Jeremiah, xxvi., 12-15.]
The speech produced, as might have been expected, a great division among the hearers. Some were more angry than ever, and were eager to put the prophet to death. Others defended him, and insisted that he should not die. The latter, for the time, prevailed. Jeremiah was set at liberty, and continued his earnest expostulations with the people on account of their sins, and his terrible annunciations of the impending ruin of the city just as before.
These unwelcome truths being so painful for the people to hear, other prophets soon began to appear to utter contrary predictions, for the sake, doubtless, of the popularity which they should themselves acquire by their promises of returning peace and prosperity. The name of one of these false prophets was Hananiah. On one occasion, Jeremiah, in order to present and enforce what he had to say more effectually on the minds of the people by means of a visible symbol, made a small wooden yoke, by divine direction, and placed it upon his neck, as a token of the bondage which his predictions were threatening. Hananiah took this yoke from his neck and broke it, saying that, as he had thus broken Jeremiah"s wooden yoke, so G.o.d would break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar from all nations within two years; and then, even those of the Jews who had already been taken captive to Babylon should return again in peace. Jeremiah replied that Hananiah"s predictions were false, and that, though the wooden yoke was broken, G.o.d would make for Nebuchadnezzar a yoke of iron, with which he should bend the Jewish nation in a bondage more cruel than ever. Still, Jeremiah himself predicted that after seventy years from the time when the last great captivity should come, the Jews should all be restored again to their native land.
He expressed this certain restoration of the Jews, on one occasion, by a sort of symbol, by means of which he made a much stronger impression on the minds of the people than could have been done by simple words.
There was a piece of land in the country of Benjamin, one of the provinces of Judea, which belonged to the family of Jeremiah, and it was held in such a way that, by paying a certain sum of money, Jeremiah himself might possess it, the right of redemption being in him. Jeremiah was in prison at this time. His uncle"s son came into the court of the prison, and proposed to him to purchase the land.
Jeremiah did so in the most public and formal manner. The t.i.tle deeds were drawn up and subscribed, witnesses were summoned, the money weighed and paid over, the whole transaction being regularly completed according to the forms and usages then common for the conveyance of landed property. When all was finished, Jeremiah gave the papers into the hands of his scribe, directing him to put them safely away and preserve them with care, for after a certain period the country of Judea would again be restored to the peaceable possession of the Jews, and such t.i.tles to land would possess once more their full and original value.
On one occasion, when Jeremiah"s personal liberty was restricted so that he could not utter publicly, himself, his prophetical warnings, he employed Baruch, his scribe, to write them from his dictation, with a view of reading them to the people from some public and frequented part of the city. The prophecy thus dictated was inscribed upon a roll of parchment. Baruch waited, when he had completed the writing, until a favorable opportunity occurred for reading it, which was on the occasion of a great festival that was held at Jerusalem, and which brought the inhabitants of the land together from all parts of Judea.
On the day of the festival, Baruch took the roll in his hand, and stationed himself at a very public place, at the entrance of one of the great courts of the Temple; there, calling upon the people to hear him, he began to read. A great concourse gathered around him, and all listened to him with profound attention. One of the by-standers, however, went down immediately into the city, to the king"s palace, and reported to the king"s council, who were then a.s.sembled there, that a great concourse was convened in one of the courts of the Temple, and that Baruch was there reading to them a discourse or prophecy which had been written by Jeremiah. The members of the council sent a summons to Baruch to come immediately to them, and to bring his writing with him.
When Baruch arrived, they directed him to read what he had written.
Baruch accordingly read it. They asked him when and how that discourse was written. Baruch replied that he had written it, word by word, from the dictation of Jeremiah. The officers informed him that they should be obliged to report the circ.u.mstances to the king, and they counseled Baruch to go to Jeremiah and recommend to him to conceal himself, lest the king, in his anger, should do him some sudden and violent injury.[D]
[Footnote D: See the account of these transactions in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah.]
The officers then, leaving the roll in one of their own apartments, went to the king, and reported the facts to him. He sent one of his attendants, named Jehudi, to bring the roll. When it came, the king directed Jehudi to read it. Jehudi did so, standing by a fire which had been made in the apartment, for it was bitter cold.
After Jehudi had read a few pages from the roll, finding that it contained a repet.i.tion of the same denunciations and warnings by which the king had often been displeased before, he took a knife and began to cut the parchment into pieces, and to throw it on the fire. Some other persons who were standing by interfered, and earnestly begged the king not to allow the roll to be burned. But the king did not interfere. He permitted Jehudi to destroy the parchment altogether, and then sent officers to take Jeremiah and Baruch, and bring them to him but they were nowhere to be found.
The prophet, on one occasion, was reduced to extreme distress by the persecutions which his faithfulness, and the incessant urgency of his warnings and expostulations had brought upon him. It was at a time when the Chaldean armies had been driven away from Jerusalem for a short period by the Egyptians, as one vulture drives away another from its prey. Jeremiah determined to avail himself of the opportunity to go to the province of Benjamin, to visit his friends and family there.
He was intercepted, however, at one of the gates, on his way, and accused of a design to make his escape from the city, and go over to the Chaldeans. The prophet earnestly denied this charge. They paid no regard to his declarations, but sent him back to Jerusalem, to the officers of the king"s government, who confined him in a house which they used as a prison.
After he had remained in this place of confinement for several days, the king sent and took him from it, and brought him to the palace. The king inquired whether he had any prophecy to utter from the Lord.
Jeremiah replied that the word of the Lord was, that the Chaldeans should certainly return again, and that Zedekiah himself should fall into their hands, and be carried captive to Babylon. While he thus persisted so strenuously in the declarations which he had made so often before, he demanded of the king that he should not be sent back again to the house of imprisonment from which he had been rescued. The king said he would not send him back, and he accordingly directed, instead, that he should be taken to the court of the public prison, where his confinement would be less rigorous, and there he was to be supplied daily with food, so long, as the king expressed it, as there should be any food remaining in the city.
But Jeremiah"s enemies were not at rest. They came again, after a time, to the king, and represented to him that the prophet, by his gloomy and terrible predictions, discouraged and depressed the hearts of the people, and weakened their hands; that he ought, accordingly, to be regarded as a public enemy; and they begged the king to proceed decidedly against him. The king replied that he would give him into their hands, and they might do with him what they pleased.
There was a dungeon in the prison, the only access to which was from above. Prisoners were let down into it with ropes, and left there to die of hunger. The bottom of it was wet and miry, and the prophet, when let down into its gloomy depths, sank into the deep mire. Here he would soon have died of hunger and misery; but the king, feeling some misgivings in regard to what he had done, lest it might really be a true prophet of G.o.d that he had thus delivered into the hands of his enemies, inquired what the people had done with their prisoner; and when he learned that he had been thus, as it were, buried alive, he immediately sent officers with orders to take him out of the dungeon.
The officers went to the dungeon. They opened the mouth of it. They had brought ropes with them, to be used for drawing the unhappy prisoner up, and cloths, also, which he was to fold together and place under his arms, where the ropes were to pa.s.s. These ropes and cloths they let down into the dungeon, and called upon Jeremiah to place them properly around his body. Thus they drew him safely up out of the dismal den.
These cruel persecutions of the faithful prophet were all unavailing either to silence his voice or to avert the calamities which his warnings portended. At the appointed time, the judgments which had been so long predicted came in all their terrible reality. The Babylonians invaded the land in great force, and encamped about the city. The siege continued for two years. At the end of that time the famine became insupportable. Zedekiah, the king, determined to make a sortie, with as strong a force as he could command, secretly, at night, in hopes to escape with his own life, and intending to leave the city to its fate. He succeeded in pa.s.sing out through the city gates with his band of followers, and in actually pa.s.sing the Babylonian lines; but he had not gone far before his escape was discovered. He was pursued and taken. The city was then stormed, and, as usual in such cases, it was given up to plunder and destruction.
Vast numbers of the inhabitants were killed; many more were taken captive; the princ.i.p.al buildings, both public and private, were burned; the walls were broken down, and all the public treasures of the Jews, the gold and silver vessels of the Temple, and a vast quant.i.ty of private plunder, were carried away to Babylon by the conquerors. All this was seventy years before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RAISING JEREMIAH FROM THE DUNGEON.]
Of course, during the time of this captivity, a very considerable portion of the inhabitants of Judea remained in their native land. The deportation of a whole people to a foreign land is impossible. A vast number, however, of the inhabitants of the country were carried away, and they remained, for two generations, in a miserable bondage. Some of them were employed as agricultural laborers in the rural districts of Babylon; others remained in the city, and were engaged in servile labors there. The prophet Daniel lived in the palaces of the king. He was summoned, as the reader will recollect, to Belshazzar"s feast, on the night when Cyrus forced his way into the city, to interpret the mysterious writing on the wall, by which the fall of the Babylonian monarchy was announced in so terrible a manner.
One year after Cyrus had conquered Babylon, he issued an edict authorizing the Jews to return to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city and the Temple. This event had been long before predicted by the prophets, as the result which G.o.d had determined upon for purposes of his own. We should not naturally have expected that such a conqueror as Cyrus would feel any real and honest interest in promoting the designs of G.o.d; but still, in the proclamation which he issued authorizing the Jews to return, he acknowledged the supreme divinity of Jehovah, and says that he was charged by him with the work of rebuilding his Temple, and restoring his worship at its ancient seat on Mount Zion. It has, however, been supposed by some scholars, who have examined attentively all the circ.u.mstances connected with these transactions, that so far as Cyrus was influenced by political considerations in ordering the return of the Jews, his design was to re-establish that nation as a barrier between his dominions and those of the Egyptians. The Egyptians and the Chaldeans had long been deadly enemies, and now that Cyrus had become master of the Chaldean realms, he would, of course, in a.s.suming their territories and their power, be obliged to defend himself against their foes.
Whatever may have been the motives of Cyrus, he decided to allow the Hebrew captives to return, and he issued a proclamation to that effect. As seventy years had elapsed since the captivity commenced, about two generations had pa.s.sed away, and there could have been very few then living who had ever seen the land of their fathers. The Jews were, however, all eager to return. They collected in a vast a.s.sembly, with all the treasures which they were allowed to take, and the stores of provisions and baggage, and with horses, and mules, and other beasts of burden to transport them. When a.s.sembled for the march, it was found that the number, of which a very exact census was taken, was forty-nine thousand six hundred and ninety-seven.
They had also with them seven or eight hundred horses, about two hundred and fifty mules, and about five hundred camels. The chief part, however, of their baggage and stores was borne by a.s.ses, of which there were nearly seven thousand in the train. The march of this peaceful mult.i.tude of families--men, women, and children together--burdened as they went, not with arms and ammunition for conquest and destruction, but with tools and implements for honest industry, and stores of provisions and utensils for the peaceful purposes of social life, as it was, in its bearings and results, one of the grandest events of history, so it must have presented, in its progress, one of the most extraordinary spectacles that the world has ever seen.
The grand caravan pursued its long and toilsome march from Babylon to Jerusalem without molestation. All arrived safely, and the people immediately commenced the work of repairing the walls of the city and rebuilding the Temple. When, at length, the foundations of the Temple were laid, a great celebration was held to commemorate the event. This celebration exhibited a remarkable scene of mingled rejoicing and mourning. The younger part of the population, who had never seen Jerusalem in its former grandeur, felt only exhilaration and joy at their re-establishment in the city of their fathers. The work of raising the edifice, whose foundations they had laid, was to them simply a new enterprise, and they looked forward to the work of carrying it on with pride and pleasure. The old men, however, who remembered the former Temple, were filled with mournful recollections of days of prosperity and peace in their childhood and of the magnificence of the former Temple, which they could now never hope to see realized again. It was customary in those days, to express sorrow and grief by exclamations and outcries, as gladness and joy are expressed audibly now. Accordingly, on this occasion, the cries of grief and of bitter regret at the thought of losses which could now never be retrieved, were mingled with the shouts of rejoicing and triumph raised by the ardent and young, who knew nothing of the past, but looked forward with hope and happiness to the future.
The Jews encountered various hinderances, and met with much opposition in their attempts to reconstruct their ancient city, and to re-establish the Mosaic ritual there. We must, however, now return to the history of Cyrus, referring the reader for a narrative of the circ.u.mstances connected with the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the very minute account given in the sacred books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
CHAPTER X.
THE STORY OF PANTHEA.
Xenophon"s romantic tales.--Panthea a Susian captive.--Valuable spoil.--Its division.--Share of Cyrus.--Panthea given to Cyrus.--Araspes.--Abradates.--Account of Panthea"s capture.--Her great loveliness.--Attempts at consolation.--Panthea"s renewed grief.--Cyrus declines to see Panthea.--His reasons.--Araspes"s self-confidence.--Panthea"s patience and gentleness.--Araspes"s kindness to Panthea.--His emotions master him.--Araspes in love.--Progress of the army.--Araspes confesses his love.--Panthea offended.--Panthea appeals to Cyrus.--Cyrus reproves Araspes.--Cyrus"s generosity.--Araspes"s continued distress.--Plan of Cyrus.--Araspes pretends to desert.--Panthea proposes to send for her husband.--Cyrus consents.--Joyful meeting of Panthea and her husband.--The armed chariots.--Abradates"s eight-horse chariot.--Panthea"s presents for her husband.--Imposing spectacle.--Panthea"s preparations.--Panthea offers her presents.--Abradates"s pleasure.--Abradates departs for the field.--The farewell.--The order of battle.--Appearance of Abradates.--The charge.--Terrible havoc made by the chariots.--The great victory.--The council of war.--Abradates slain.--Panthea"s grief.--Cyrus"s kindness to Panthea.--She is inconsolable.--Panthea kills herself on the dead body of her husband.
In the preceding chapters of this work, we have followed mainly the authority of Herodotus, except, indeed, in the account of the visit of Cyrus to his grandfather in his childhood, which is taken from Xenophon. We shall, in this chapter, relate the story of Panthea, which is also one of Xenophon"s tales. We give it as a specimen of the romantic narratives in which Xenophon"s history abounds, and on account of the many ill.u.s.trations of an ancient manners and customs which it contains, leaving it for each reader to decide for himself what weight he will attach to its claims to be regarded as veritable history. We relate the story here in our own language, but as to the facts, we follow faithfully the course of Xenophon"s narration.
Panthea was a Susian captive. She was taken, together with a great many other captives and much plunder, after one of the great battles which Cyrus fought with the a.s.syrians. Her husband was an a.s.syrian general, though he himself was not captured at this time with his wife. The spoil which came into possession of the army on the occasion of the battle in which Panthea was taken was of great value. There were beautiful and costly suits of arms, rich tents made of splendid materials and highly ornamented, large sums of money, vessels of silver and gold, and slaves--some prized for their beauty, and others for certain accomplishments which were highly valued in those days.
Cyrus appointed a sort of commission to divide this spoil. He pursued always a very generous policy on all these occasions, showing no desire to secure such treasures to himself, but distributing them with profuse liberality among his officers and soldiers.
The commissioners whom he appointed in this case divided the spoil among the various generals of the army, and among the different bodies of soldiery, with great impartiality. Among the prizes a.s.signed to Cyrus were two singing women of great fame, and this Susian lady.
Cyrus thanked the distributors for the share of booty which they had thus a.s.signed to him, but said that if any of his friends wished for either of these captives, they could have them. An officer asked for one of the singers. Cyrus gave her to him immediately, saying, "I consider myself more obliged to you for asking her, than you are to me for giving her to you." As for the Susian lady, Cyrus had not yet seen her, but he called one of his most intimate and confidential friends to him, and requested him to take her under his charge.
The name of this officer was Araspes. He was a Mede, and he had been Cyrus"s particular friend and playmate when he was a boy, visiting his grandfather in Media. The reader will perhaps recollect that he is mentioned toward the close of our account of that visit, as the special favorite to whom Cyrus presented his robe or mantle when he took leave of his friends in returning to his native land.
Araspes, when he received this charge, asked Cyrus whether he had himself seen the lady. Cyrus replied that he had not. Araspes then proceeded to give an account of her. The name of her husband was Abradates, and he was the king of Susa, as they termed him. The reason why he was not taken prisoner at the same time with his wife was, that when the battle was fought and the a.s.syrian camp captured, he was absent, having gone away on an emba.s.sage to another nation. This circ.u.mstance shows that Abradates, though called a king, could hardly have been a sovereign and independent prince, but rather a governor or viceroy--those words expressing to our minds more truly the station of such a sort of king as could be sent on an emba.s.sy.
Araspes went on to say that, at the time of their making the capture, he, with some others, went into Panthea"s tent, where they found her and her attendant ladies sitting on the ground, with veils over their faces, patiently awaiting their doom. Notwithstanding the concealment produced by the att.i.tudes and dress of these ladies, there was something about the air and figure of Panthea which showed at once that she was the queen. The leader of Araspes"s party asked them all to rise. They did so, and then the superiority of Panthea was still more apparent than before. There was an extraordinary grace and beauty in her att.i.tude and in all her motions. She stood in a dejected posture, and her countenance was sad, though inexpressibly lovely. She endeavored to appear calm and composed, though the tears had evidently been falling from her eyes.
The soldiers pitied her in her distress, and the leader of the party attempted to console her, as Araspes said, by telling her that she had nothing to fear; that they were aware that her husband was a most worthy and excellent man; and although, by this capture, she was lost to him, she would have no cause to regret the event, for she would be reserved for a new husband not at all inferior to her former one either in person, in understanding, in rank, or in power.
These well-meant attempts at consolation did not appear to have the good effect desired. They only awakened Panthea"s grief and suffering anew. The tears began to fall again faster than before. Her grief soon became more and more uncontrollable. She sobbed and cried aloud, and began to wring her hands and tear her mantle--the customary Oriental expression of inconsolable sorrow and despair. Araspes said that in these gesticulations her neck, and hands, and a part of her face appeared, and that she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever beheld. He wished Cyrus to see her.
Cyrus said, "No; he would not see her by any means." Araspes asked him why. He said that there would be danger that he should forget his duty to the army, and lose his interest in the great military enterprise in which he was engaged, if he should allow himself to become captivated by the charms of such a lady, as he very probably would be if he were now to visit her. Araspes said in reply that Cyrus might at least see her; as to becoming captivated with her, and devoting himself to her to such a degree as to neglect his other duties, he could certainly control himself in respect to that danger. Cyrus said that it was not certain that he could so control himself; and then there followed a long discussion between Cyrus and Araspes, in which Araspes maintained that every man had the command of his own heart and affections, and that, with proper determination and energy, he could direct the channels in which they should run, and confine them within such limits and bounds as he pleased. Cyrus, on the other hand, maintained that human pa.s.sions were stronger than the human will; that no one could rely on the strength of his resolutions to control the impulses of the heart once strongly excited, and that a man"s only safety was in controlling the circ.u.mstances which tended to excite them. This was specially true, he said, in respect to the pa.s.sion of love. The experience of mankind, he said, had shown that no strength of moral principle, no firmness of purpose, no fixedness of resolution, no degree of suffering, no fear of shame, was sufficient to control, in the hearts of men, the impetuosity of the pa.s.sion of love, when it was once fairly awakened. In a word, Araspes advocated, on the subject of love, a sort of new school philosophy, while that of Cyrus leaned very seriously toward the old.
In conclusion, Cyrus jocosely counseled Araspes to beware lest he should prove that love was stronger than the will by becoming himself enamored of the beautiful Susian queen. Araspes said that Cyrus need not fear; there was no danger. He must be a miserable wretch indeed, he said, who could not summon within him sufficient resolution and energy to control his own pa.s.sions and desires. As for himself, he was sure that he was safe.
As usual with those who are self-confident and boastful, Araspes failed when the time of trial came. He took charge of the royal captive whom Cyrus committed to him with a very firm resolution to be faithful to his trust. He pitied the unhappy queen"s misfortunes, and admired the heroic patience and gentleness of spirit with which she bore them. The beauty of her countenance, and her thousand personal charms, which were all heightened by the expression of sadness and sorrow which they bore, touched his heart. It gave him pleasure to grant her every indulgence consistent with her condition of captivity, and to do every thing in his power to promote her welfare. She was very grateful for these favors, and the few brief words and looks of kindness with which she returned them repaid him for his efforts to please her a thousand-fold. He saw her, too, in her tent, in the presence of her maidens, at all times; and as she looked upon him as only her custodian and guard, and as, too, her mind was wholly occupied by the thoughts of her absent husband and her hopeless grief, her actions were entirely free and unconstrained in his presence. This made her only the more attractive; every att.i.tude and movement seemed to possess, in Araspes"s mind, an inexpressible charm. In a word, the result was what Cyrus had predicted. Araspes became wholly absorbed in the interest which was awakened in him by the charms of the beautiful captive. He made many resolutions, but they were of no avail. While he was away from her, he felt strong in his determination to yield to these feelings no more; but as soon as he came into her presence, all these resolutions melted wholly away, and he yielded his heart entirely to the control of emotions which, however vincible they might appear at a distance, were found, when the time of trial came, to possess a certain mysterious and magic power, which made it most delightful for the heart to yield before them in the contest, and utterly impossible to stand firm and resist. In a word, when seen at a distance, love appeared to him an enemy which he was ready to brave, and was sure that he could overcome; but when near, it transformed itself into the guise of a friend, and he accordingly threw down the arms with which he had intended to combat it, and gave himself up to it in a delirium of pleasure.