language Judah means the believing people of Christ, and Jerusalem the whole church, as a church; an organized body of men, having its offices, its ministers, and so forth. But let us turn to the prophecy of Micah (third chapter, last five verses.) There, the peculiar transgressions of Israel, for which a visitation was pending, are described, ending with these remarkable words: "Therefore shall ZION for your sake be plowed as a field, and JERUSALEM shall become heaps, and the MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE as the high places of the forest."

ZION, the city of David, is now in great measure, as we have seen, a ploughed surface, on which corn is grown, and a few flocks find pasturage. JERUSALEM, the ancient city of the Jebusites, that Salem of which Melchizedek was king, now called Acra, once the most densely populated of the whole area, has been made heaps of ruined buildings, insomuch that the existing town at this day stands on the confused "heaps" of what formerly was. The rubbish has in some places well nigh filled up and levelled what has been a deep valley; and a builder seeking a solid foundation must work through complete strata of these accumulations to a depth of

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE.

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many feet before he can reach it. THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE, Moriah, where the Temple of the Lord stood, is become as the high places of the forest. Baal, and the other idols that proved so often a snare to Israel, had their altars always on high places, surrounded by groves of trees, which God-fearing kings from time to time cast down, plucked up, and removed away; for they were accursed things, abominations, unlawful to Israel, hateful unto God, who forbade the approach of his people to their unhallowed confines.

What now is the state of Mount Moriah? It is crowned by a mosque, which, being the temple of a most false religion, is as a high place of the forest to the Jew, who is not only forbidden by his law to set foot within the boundary, but is likewise compulsorily excluded by the Moslem usurper and defiler of that holy site. It is not a high place of the forest, for no idol is there, no altar, no grove, it is as a high place of the forest, for it is an abomination making desolate, and that to which no Israelite can approach. So far no one can question the remarkably literal fulfilment of a most literal prediction; and then

-no break intervening in the original Hebrewthe Word proceeds: "BUT in the last days it shall come to pass that THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of ZION, and the word of the Lord from JERUSALEM." Here we have, in the plainest exhibition that language can afford, the three mountains,-Zion, ploughed as a field, Acra, reduced to heaps, and Moriah, polluted by a false religion, rebuilt, restored, re-sanctified, and become once more the resort of voluntary worshippers from every quarter of the globe. "Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto ZION, and will dwell in the midst of JERUSALEM; and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth, and THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD OF HOSTS, the holy mountain. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvellous in mine eyes?

SCENES TO COME.

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saith the Lord of Hosts. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: Behold I will save many people from the east country, and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteous

ness.

Let it not, then, be imagined that with the feelings of a mere antiquary we call to mind, or would bring to the view of our readers, exact localities, their names, and peculiar features. All these things not only have been, but shall be; Zion, Acra, Moriah, shall yet stand forth upon the world's map, not only in their indelible outline, but in all the rich beauty of such finishing and such tinting as the hand of God alone can restore to them. Zion, Jerusalem, and the Mountain of the Lord's house, shall be familiar to the ears and lips of all men as now they are to the thought of the careful student of Scrip

ture.

We have now to notice the walls of the ancient city, in connexion with this imperfect sketch of its natural divisions. Of these we shall have

* Zech. viii. 3, 6, 7, 8.

occasion hereafter to speak more particularly, and need merely in this place observe that they not only perfectly surrounded the whole city, embracing Moriah, Acra, and Bezetha, in one compact line of bulwarks, but also afforded a separate defence to each: for after the first and most ancient of them had completely encircled Zion, sending out an additional line to encompass Ophel and join the massive walls of the Temple, a second, thrown out in a semicircular form, defended Acra, its extreme points resting on the first; and a third wall, added by Agrippa, took in the suburban district of Bezetha, from the northern angle of the Temple to the majestic tower of Hippicus, which stood where the ancient citadel of David had guarded his Zion at the north-western extremity of its sweep. Of these walls the strength was prodigious. Built of huge stones, the fragments of which cause the men of our times to stand amazed; studded with mighty towers, each in itself a fortress, and manned by the lion tribe of Judah, well may we enter into the feeling that laughed to scorn the besiegers' menace, and proudly reiterated the song for the sons of Korah :