Eagerness, earnestness, all the strength and resolution of his strong and resolute nature surged into his soul.
It was his hour.

It should find him prepared.
He turned out of the gate and crowding along by the stone wall to pass in the opposite direction from the flood of pilgrims pouring through Emmaus, he searched for the synagogue of the little town.
He came upon it, a solid square building of stone with an Egyptic facade and an architrave carved with a great stone flower set in an olive wreath.

Without was the proseuchae, paved with boulders now worn smooth by the summer sittings of the congregation who gathered around the reader's stone.

The Maccabee stopped at the gate and unlacing his pagan sandals set them outside the threshold.
Once over the stone sill with the imminent gloom covering him, he felt the old sanctity envelop him with a reproach in its forgotten familiarity.

Old incense, old litanies, old rites rushed back to him with the smell of the stagnant fragrance.