A History of Our People, for Jewish Boys and Girls.
By " K. M." (Vallentine.)—The writer passes very rapidly over the earlier part of the five centuries between the return from the Captivity and the Christian era. The wars of the Maccabees especially are given in a too bare outline. The spccession of the Herod family is told at more length. The subject of "Jesus of Nazareth" is treated with tact and good-taste, though in a way which, of course, seems to us quite inadequate to account for existing facts. Josephus receives somewhat harsh treatment. Would "K. M." have praised him if he and his companion had killed each other in the cave ? Where, in Moses or the Prophets, is such suicide enjoined ? The writer does not seem to be aware of the very good grounds for sup- posing that Titus deliberately destroyed the Temple. That is the account of Sulpicius Severns, borrowed, there is strong reason for believing, from a now lost portion of the "History" of Tacitus Josephus, in that case, must have falsified his narrative to flatter his
Flavian patrons, an act which " K. M." will have no difficulty in believing of him.
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