If Messala were here, he might say, as others have said, that the exact trace of your lineage stopped when the Assyrian took Jerusalem, and razed the Temple, with all its precious stores; but you might plead the pious action of Zerubbabel, and retort that all verity in Roman genealogy ended when the barbarians from the West took Rome, and camped six months upon her desolated site.
Did the government keep family histories?
If so, what became of them in those dreadful days?
No, no; there is verity in our Books of Generations; and, following them back to the Captivity, back to the foundation of the first Temple, back to the march from Egypt, we have absolute assurance that you are lineally sprung from Hur, the associate of Joshua.

In the matter of descent sanctified by time, is not the honor perfect?
Do you care to pursue further?
if so, take the Torah, and search the Book of Numbers, and of the seventy-two generations after Adam, you can find the very progenitor of your house." There was silence for a time in the chamber on the roof.
"I thank you, O my mother," Judah next said, clasping both her hands in his; "I thank you with all my heart.

I was right in not having the good rector called in; he could not have satisfied me more than you have.

Yet to make a family truly noble, is time alone sufficient ?" "Ah, you forget, you forget; our claim rests not merely upon time; the Lord's preference is our especial glory." "You are speaking of the race, and I, mother, of the family--our family.

In the years since Father Abraham, what have they achieved?
What have they done?
What great things to lift them above the level of their fellows ?" She hesitated, thinking she might all this time have mistaken his object.