Original - The Preterist Archive

8 NAOMI.
" We fear them not, Claudia," replied the high-spirited young
Jewess, and her bright black eyes flashed as she spoke ;
"we
fear them not. Never shall our holy and beautiful city be
given into the hands of those fierce and cruel idolaters. Forgive
me, dear Claudia, but though they are your countrymen,
and you have been brought up in their impious religion,
I cannot forbear expressing my firm conviction that the God of
our fathers will yet preserve us from these Gentiles, nor suffer
the house where He has placed his name to be again trampled
on and defiled by those who know him not."
"I forgive you, Naomi; indeed, I love to see you when
these proud thoughts fill your breast. You look like our
majestic goddess Minerva, and only want a panoply of mail to
personate her well. My heart is of a different mould to yours ;
and I admire your spirit, though I cannot emulate it. You
should have been born a Eoman, and you would have rivalled
any of our heroines of old."
" Better far to be a daughter of Israel," replied Naomi.
" Better far to be one of God's own people, though now for
our sins we are degraded and in sorrow, than to belong to that
nation who are employed in the hand of Jehovah to chastise
his chosen race ! Soon will He, for whom we wait in eager
expectation, appear in the clouds in glory, and rescue his
children from all those that oppress them. Then shall the
people who worship stocks and stones be driven away before
the brightness of his coming, and his own adopted children be
exalted for ever."
" The colour mounted into the usually pale cheeks of Naomi,
as she thus expressed her own enthusiastic feelings, while her
eyes were fixed on the darkening sky above her, and her hands
upraised, as if even then she awaited the sound of the trumpet,
and the vision of the Messiah coming in the air. The expectation
of his immediate appearance was, at that period, very
widely diffused and strongly felt by the Jews; and it is
supposed that this vain hope had greatly encouraged them in
their revolt, and obstinate resistance against the power of the
Romans. They entertained a firm conviction that their great
Deliverer would shortly be manifested to his people, and that
although for a time their oppressors had been permitted to
triumph over them, yet their destruction as a people would
never take place ; and that in their hour of greatest extremity
their King and Saviour would appear, to re-establish the
throne of his father David, and to raise their nation to a glory
and prosperity surpassing that of Solomon,