eligion (more than nominal it never had been),
changed his name to that of Pollux, abandoned all his former friends
and pursuits, and attached himself entirely to the Syrian court, then
usually residing at Antioch.

Abner, or, as we have called him, Pollux, dared not face his mother
after he had turned his back upon all which she had taught him to
revere. The apostate never went near Bethsura again; he kept far away
from the place where he had passed his innocent childhood, the place
where slept the relics of his young Jewish wife. Abner wrote to
Hadassah to inform her of what he termed the change in his opinions;
told her that he had given up an antiquated faith, commended his little
daughter to her care, and asked her to forget that she herself had ever
given birth to a son.

Hadassah, after receiving this epistle, lay for weeks at the point of
death, and fears were at first entertained for her reason. She arose
at last from her sick-bed a changed, almost broken-hearted woman. As
soon as it was possible for her to travel, the widow left Bethsura for
ever. She could not endure the sight of aught to remind her of happier
days; she could not bear to meet any one who might speak to her of her
son. Hadassah's first object was to seek out Abner, and, with all the
persuasions which a mother could use, to try to draw him back from a
course which must end in eternal destruction. But Abner was not to be
found in Jerusalem, nor in any part of the country around it. He had
carefully concealed from his mother his new name--the Hebrew was lost
in the Syrian--Abner was dead indeed to his family and to his
country--and to Hadassah the courtier Pollux was utterly a stranger.

It was long, very long, before Hadassah gave up her search for Abner,
and she never gave up either her love or her hope for her son.
Affection with her was like the vein in the marble, a part of itself,
which nought can wash out or remove. There was scarcely a waking hour
in which the mother did not pray for her wanderer; he was often present
to her mind in dreams. And the character of Hadassah was elevated and
purified by the grief which she silently endured. The dross of
ambition and pride was burned away in the furnace of affliction; the
impetuous high-spirited woman refined into the saint. Exquisitely
beautiful is the remark made by a gifted writer:[2] "Everything of
moment which befalls us in this life, which occasions us some great
sorrow for