illustrious race, who, in times of national sorrow, nobly relinquished their own individual ease, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season!"

The little flourishing town of Joppa, the principal sea-port in Palestine, had been burnt to the ground by Cestius, and its inhabitants put to the

sword. Since then it had been partially rebuilt by refugees from the desolated country around, who had engaged in a sort of indiscriminate piracy in the neighbouring seas, and made this their resort. So annoying had the depredations of these buccaneers grown, that marine commerce began sensibly to suffer; and one of the first expeditions of Vespasian

after his arrival at Cæsarea, was to dislodge and destroy the nest of pirates at Joppa.

This little ancient place was built on the slope of a steep, rocky hill, rising from the shore, the projections of which enclose a shallow harbour, exposed to the north. A narrow ledge of rocks forms a sort of channel, in which small vessels can ride at anchor, but not without danger, which becomes imminent when the wind blows heavily from the northward; hence a gale from this quarter is much dreaded, and is known as 66 the black north wind." On the approach of the Roman troops the inhabitants fled to their galleys, and moored beyond the reach of the arrows, hoping to put to sea in the morning; but with the day came on a terrible storm, with a heavy sea. Cooped up in the narrow channel, with no searoom, with an iron-bound shore behind them, the poor creatures looked out upon the blackening northsky to sea-ward, and felt the straining of the cables, which alone kept them from destruction, as the howling gusts swept more fiercely by, and the crested billows dashed more and more furiously upon the rocks. No hope of safety lay in slipping their moorings, and running before the wind upon the shore, for the beach and rocks were covered with the ferocious soldiers, who could ill brook being disappointed of their prey. At length, as the tempest increased, one by one the strong ropes yielded to the strain, and the ships, driving before the gale, and striking one against another, were all dashed in fragments among the ragged and bristling rocks that lined the shore. The unfortunate mariners all met a

violent death; many were drowned; many more were beaten and torn to pieces by the force with which the boiling surf whirled them among the sharppointed rocks; and the few that reached the shore alive were instantly slain by the merciless Romans. A fearful and horrible sight was presented along that dismal shore; four thousand human bodies, mangled and bleeding, were tossing in its waves, and the surf that rolled heavily up and curled over in long cataracts, was red with the blood of the dead. Such a scene, it might be thought, would have melted a heart of stone; but the name of pity was unknown to the Roman soldiers; and, savage that the work of destruction had been so largely taken out of their hands, they fell upon the helpless women and children that remained in the town, and utterly destroyed them all. The ill-fated city was then, a second time, levelled with the ground.

After a few days spent at Cæsarea by the sea, Vespasian accepted an invitation to visit Agrippa, at Cæsarea Philippi. Here the king entertained his illustrious guest for twenty days; after which the latter thought it well to subdue some manifestations of hostility in some of the cities of Galilee, which were in the government of Agrippa. But first he sent a peaceful embassy to them, to exhort them to submission, and to show them the futility of resistance ;—while his army encamped at a few miles' distance. On the arrival of the fifty horsemen, with the decurion at their head, before the walls of Tiberias, the whole body alighted to tesrify that their errand was pacific; but a fierce band of what Jose

phus calls "robbers," but what they would themselves have designated "patriots," under the conduct of one Jesus, the son of Shaphat, suddenly rushed out upon the deputation, put it to flight, and led some of the horses back in triumph to the city.

The majority of the inhabitants were disposed to submit to the Roman yoke; the rather as their own king, Agrippa, had openly espoused the Roman cause: but the fiercer and more impetuous spirits had hitherto so cowed the more peaceable, that the latter had found no opportunity of following their inclinations. Alarmed, however, by the daring act of the "patriot" leader, the chief of the rulers and elders of the city went to Vespasian's camp, and

intreated him not to visit upon the peaceable the madness of a few turbulent men, from whom they earnestly desired to be delivered. By such intercessions, accompanied by the good offices of Agrippa, the general was softened, and engaged to send another deputation to receive the fealty of the good people of Tiberias. Before this was accomplished, the insurgent leader and his party judged it prudent to provide for their own safety by retiring to the neighbouring city of Taricheæ.

But a fearful doom awaited the unhappy city, which the insurgent chief had chosen as his refuge. It was more turbulent than Tiberias, and its haughty spirit of resistance was now increased by the accession of many of that party, who were thronging from all parts into it, relying on its strength and its maritime situation. Taricheæ, like Tiberias, had been fortified by Josephus, during his administration of the affairs of Galilee; but the latter had been, in this respect, more highly favoured than the former. Both were situated on the shores of the beautiful Lake of Gennesaret or Sea of Tiberias, mentioned in the Gospels-Tiberias being on the western shore, Taricheæ near the southern extremity, close to the spot where the River Jordan emerges from the lake.

The beautiful expanse of water, whose ripples kissed the white walls of three-and-twenty other cities, that lay on its smiling banks, is known by many names. In the Holy Scriptures, it is called the Sea of Cinnereth and Cinneroth, the Lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Tiberias, and the Sea of