CHAPTER IX.
THE dawning of a Syrian day was stealing over Jerusalem; dark clouds hung in thick, woolly masses across the sky. The corn, still green by daylight, stood colourless and grey, awaiting the glorious revivifying ardour of the sun. Only a pale golden haze over the hills beyond approaching like the feet of swift messengers of glad tidings, or of angels who have been present in the night gave promise of day; as yet, it was but a watch-signal of the coming morning. The air was still cool, the birds had not yet begun to twitter in their nests; there was a hush, as though nature were listening to the farewell of night, or, awe-struck, to the commands of God, ere this day dawned that was teeming with such import to individuals, to nations, to the whole world, though it knew it not. It was as if the word of God were being uttered behind the dark veil of those massive clouds: "Arise, shine, for thy Light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."
But as yet all was darkness still, and the city of Jerusalem slept, wrapt in that stagnation of soul and body, that apathy in which it had been enveloped for so many years; that folding of the hands to sleep, that paralysis of the brain, that had shut out from the world (as the blindness of the eye shutteth
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