THE DESTROYERS OF JERUSALEM

DESTROYED.

THE Commencement of this chapter refers to the sacking of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, and all the excesses enumerated by the prophet were awfully realised when that renowned capital was taken by the gallant son of Vespasian, about thirtytwo years after the crucifixion of our blessed Lord. Upwards of a million of souls are said to have perished within the walls during the progress of that memorable siege. So great was the number of Jews crucified before Jerusalem by the cruel besiegers, that there was not found wood enough in the neighbourhood for crosses to execute their work of torture and of death. Pestilence shook from her wings that mortal taint which swept thousands to their graves, and, mingled with the joyous shouts of triumph from without and the din of ferocious despair from within, were heard the cries of "lamen. tation and mourning and woe." Famine also raged with so mighty an ascendancy, that mothers crept to the deserted houses of the dead, whither they bore their unsuspecting progeny, and having with their own lips drained the sluices of life, appeased the cravings of their rabid hunger upon the tender but emaciated flesh. Amid these horrors, rapine and lust were rife among the living, as if the awful mortality by which they were surrounded offered neither a lesson nor a warning. Ruffians stalked through the streets among the gaunt spectres crawling forth to die as far as possible from the power of the pestilence, only to be murdered by those ruthless bands which coveted their gold. Finally, the city was rased, so that there "was not one stone upon another which was not thrown down." Zechariah, after having briefly detailed some of the horrors which should be witnessed at the destruction of the Jewish capital, foretels what shall befal the posterity of those who compassed its ruin. "Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south."