ABSTRACT
. In a war involving religious convictions, the issue never alters the convictions. The truthfulness of a creed cannot be decided by the clash of arms. Defeat may be interpreted as chastisement, but not as utter condemnation. With its capitol and temple in ruins, with thousands of its defenders cut down, and with its land and cities in the possession of the heathen, Judaism yet confidently believed in the righteousness of its claims and in the truthfulness of its hopes. The chastisement had been severe. It must only make surer fidelity to the law, in order that out of that fidelity might issue at last the Messianic blessing. Once and again since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes that earnest lesson had been drawn from national calamities. It seemed now to have been fairly burned into the mind of the nation.
