| 478 Romans trembled for their own works and engines. On a sudden, the wind shifted to the south, the flames burned inwards, and the whole fell down, a heap of smouldering [smoldering] ashes. The Romans withdrew to their camp, to prepare for the attack on the next morning, and stationed strong and vigilant outposts to prevent the flight of the garrison. But Eleazer was not a man either himself to attempt flight or to permit others to follow so dastardly a course. He assembled his followers in the palace, and reminded them that the time was now come when they must vindicate to the utmost their lofty principles. God had evidently abandoned his people; the fall of Jerusalem, the ruin of the temple, too sadly proved this. The sudden change of the wind, on the day before, distinctly announced that they too were deserted by his protecting providence. Still it was better to fall into the hands of God, than of the Roman; and he proposed that they should set the city on fire, and perish together with their wives unviolated, their chieren [children] yet free from captivity, on that noble funeral pile.
His men gazed on each other with wonder. Some were kindled at once with his enthusiasm; others thought of their wives and children, and tears were seen stealing slowly down their hardy cheeks.-Eleazer saw that they were wavering, and broke out in a higher and more splendid train. He spake of the immortality, the divinity of the soul; its joyful escape from its imprisonment in its mortal tenement. He appealed to the example of the Indians, who bear life as a burthen [burden], and cheerfully throw it off. Perhaps with still grater [greater] effect he dwelt on the treatment of the conquered by the Romans, the abuse of women, the slavery of children, the murderous scenes in the amphitheatres [amphitheaters]. "Let us die," he ended, "unenslaved; let us depart from life in freedom with our wives and children.-This our law demands, this our wives and children entreat; God himself has driven us to this stern necessity; this the Romans dread above all things, lest we should disappoint them of their victory. Let us deny them the joy and triumph of seeing us subdued, and rather strike them with awe at our death, and with enforced admiration of our indomitable valour [valor]."
He was interrupted by the unanimous woice [voice] of the multitude, vying with each other in eagerness to begin on the instant the work of self-devotion. On their intoxicated spirits no softer feelings had now the slightest effect. They embraced their wives, they kissed their children even with tears, and, at the moment, as though they had been the passive instruments of another's will, they stabbed them to the heart. Not a man declined the murderous office. But they thought that they should wrong the dead if they survived them many minutes. They hastily drew together their most valuable effects, and heaping them up, set fire to these sumptuous funeral piles. Then, ten men having been chosen by lot as the general executioners, the rest, one after another, still clasping the lifeless bodies of their wives and children, held up their necks to the blow. The ten then cast lots, nine fell by each other's hands, the last man, after he had carefully searched whether there was any more work for him to do, seized a lighted brand, set fire to the palace, and then with resolute and unflinching hand, drove the sword to his own heart.
One old woman, another female who was a relative of Eleazer and distinguished for her learning, and five children, who had crept into an underground cavern, were all that escaped; 960 perished. The next morning the Romans advanced to the wall in close array and with the greatest caution. They fixed the scaling ladders, mounted the wall, and rushed in. Not a human being appeared, all was solitude and silence, and the vestiges of fire all around, filled them with astonishment. They gave a shout as they were wont when they drove the battering ram, as if to startle the people from their hiding places. The two women and the five children came creeping forth. The Romans would not believe their story, till having partially extinguished the fire, they made their way into the palace, and, not without admiration, beheld this unexampled spectacle of self-devotion.
Elders Brigham Young, H. C. Kimball, John Taylor, G. A. Smith and R. Hadlock, have arrived at home in safety, after an ardious [arduous] and interesting mission to Great Britain. The remainder of the Twelve are expedited soon.
The accounts which they bring of the progress of truth are highly satisfactory.
(page 478) |
