contrasts "with the turbulence and ferocity of their Syrian brethren. But Hadrian resolved to suppress this troublesome and turbulent Judaism altogether. He forbade circumcision, the reading of the Law, the observance of the Sabbaths ; and he resolved to convert Jerusalem into a Boman colony. And then, because the Jews could no longer endure their indignities, and because before the dawn they ever looked for the darkest hour, the most cruel wrong, there arose Barcochebas, the "Son of the Star," and led away their hearts, in the belief that he was indeed the Messiah. This, the last, was the wildest and the most bloodthirsty of all the Jewish revolts. • The Messiah, the rumour ran forth among all Jews in all lands, had come at last, and the prophecy of Balaam was fulfilled. The mission of the pretender was recognised by no less a person than Akiba, the greatest of living doctors, perhaps the greatest of all Jewish doctors. He, when he saw Barcochebas, exclaimed loudly, " Behold the Messiah !" " Akiba," replied Babbi Johannan Ben Torta, whose faith was perhaps as strong, but whose imagination was not so active as his learned brother's, " the grass will be growing through your jaw3 before the Messiah comes." But Akiba's authority prevailed. Babbi Akiba, according to the story of the Babbis, traced his descent from Sisera, through a Jewish mother. He was originally a poor shepherd boy, employed to tend the sheep belonging to a rich Jew named Calva Sheva. He fell in love with his master's daughter, and was refused her hand on the ground of his poverty and lowness of condition. He married her secretly, went away and studied the Law. In course of time he came back to his master, followed, we are told, like Abelard, by twelve thousand disciples : he was a second time refused as a son-in-law. He went away again, but returned once more, this time with twenty-four thousand disciples, upon which Calva Sheva gave him his daughter and took him into.