Greek and Jew

To-day, by a chance coincidence, both Jew and Christian are engaged in celebrating a great festival. There was a time in the remote past when their festive observance linked them even in spirit. It is not generally known that in ita early years the Church devoted a special day, known as the ‘ Birthday of the Maccabees,’ to the memory of the hero whose deeds we Jews gratefully recall on the Feast of Chanucah. That day fell in the summer, and commemorated more particularly the martyrdom of the Jewish mother and her seven sons, of which you will read an account in the Second Book of the Maccabees. Christendom once saw that the religious stedfastness which the deathless conflict evoked two thousand years ago was no less worthy of Christian than of Jewish homage—that, as a type of the conquest of the heathen world by pure religion, it is as much the property of the Gentile as of the Jew. ‘ The story 162of the Maccabees,’ says a distinguished Christian divine and scholar, ¹ ‘ was in truth much more thought of by the ancient Church than it is by us, and we might well be led by this to “ consider our ways and be wise.” ’ It would be strange if one day, as the result of a clearer perception on the part of Christendom of its debt to Judas Maccabeus and his gallant comrades, the Christian should join the Jew in celebrating the Feast of Dedication.