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flowed on every side,-the hand of many a Hebrew being against his brother,—still, how dear, how sacred, were the very stones, soon to be thrown down in utter ruin; how unutterably precious that stately house of God where they had walked in unity, and taken sweet counsel together! Accustomed as we are to witness the breaking of all national and domestic ties when a Jew believes and is baptized in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, we can scarcely conceive what must have been the feelings of such a Jew, living in peace and harmony in the midst of all his brethren, uniting in their daily services, holding sacred all that had been of old ordained, keeping holy with their nation from all parts of the world the feasts of the LORD, and regarding their Zion, "the city of their solemnities," as established to be the joy of the whole earth, now leaving it, leaving it for ever, leaving it to defilement, to destruction, to the desolations of many generations, we have no hearts to sympathize with them, not entering, as we ought to do, and as they did, into the very depths of their divine Master's weeping compassion, when he foretold what they now beheld: "The days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench

about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."

Yes, they went forth; and as they went the towers of Zion lessened on their backward gaze, the burnished gold of the LORD's house grew dim, the circuit of the walls became an indistinct outline, and soon, too soon, the swelling hills shut out even that faint vision of the holy city. Then burst forth the wail that would no longer be hushed, and those poor exiles, while humbly rejoicing in the rescuing mercy of the Lord, extended to them and to their little ones, went on their way, lamenting for her who was to be the spoiler's prey. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning!"

CHAPTER III.

WHILE the men of Jerusalem were making havoc of the Roman army on its retreat, a most flagitious, but not unusual, act of cowardly revenge was in contemplation at Damascus, where ten thousand inoffensive, unarmed, and imprisoned Jews were deliberately butchered in cold blood, by the murderous knife, in one hour's time. This, of course, heightened the exasperation of their brethren, who proceeded to put Jerusalem and all Judæa into the most defensive state possible, choosing generals for the various provinces, and exhibiting inflexible determination to retain that independence, yea, to recover that superiority, which was of old the gift of the Most High to the chosen nation. But in the midst of this enterprising display, deep sadness possessed the minds of the more reflecting portion, while such

as looked for signs from heaven found many confirmations of their worst fears. Selfish, rapa

cious, and tyrannical men began—as in circumstances of popular distress such characters are always found to do-to gather followers around them, who became hardened by degrees, until they were proof alike against the pleadings of religious and of natural feeling, seeking their own advantage amid the public wreck. Meanwhile the disastrous tidings of Celsius' strange mismanagement and defeat, reached the seat of empire; and Nero, satisfied that such a people as the Jews had shown themselves to be would not quail before any but extraordinary demonstrations of power, gave the command to Vespasian, as the bravest and the ablest veteran that Rome could furnish. Assisted by his son Titus, this general soon marshalled an army fully equal to the conquest of a much more extensive territory, the capture of a stronger city, and the subversion of a more powerful people than those against whom they were sent; insufficient to over-run a rood of Judæa's soil, to shake a single stone in the walls of Jerusalem, or to injure a hair on the head of a Jewish child, unless the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, had been wroth with his inheri

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tance, and rejected as reprobate silver his transgressing people, making good the menace spoken many ages before, in the prospect of this day of provocation and overwhelming calamity,—" I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction. I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hairs."

Far be it from the writer, far from every reader of these pages, to review with complacent acquiescence the terrible dealings of the Most High with his ancient nation. No, judgment is his strange work; he has not, nor ever could have, any pleasure in the death of the wicked, and ill indeed does it become any one bearing the name of Christian to take up as a matter of amusement, or as an indifferent thing, or as a pleasing spectacle of divine retribution, the tale of that over which, in its prospect, Jesus wept tears of yearning sorrow. Neither is it safe so to do; for in the same sublime song of Moses just quoted,