OP THE UNIVERSITY! JUDJ1A CAPTA BY CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. JU, fir NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, OPPOSITE THE CITY HALL. 1845. JUDJ1A CAPTA, CHAPTER I. " AGAIN will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel !" saith the Lord. Evermore bearing in mind this promise, regarding it as a bea- con of hope, yea, of positive certainty, brightening the dark path that we are about to traverse, we may the better bear to fix a stedfast gaze on the desolations of many generations, to recall, in what has been, the painful prelude to what now is ; and to relate how, with the stroke of a cruel one the holy city was smitten, her spiritual privileges ex- tinguished, and her temporal glories buried in the dust. " Beautiful for situation," that which constituted its principal beauty w^as also its main strength. Ju- dea is peculiarly a " hill country ;" and in the neigh- bourhood of the holy city these mountainous eleva- tions are rendered ii conducive to its defence as to have furnished King David with an illustration of the divine guardianship: "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people." What the size and aspect of the city may have been in the days of its highest splendour, 1* 4 JUD.EA CAPTA. when Solomon swayed the sceptre of Israel, not then disunited from Judah, or even what it may have been when Zerubbabel had reared the second temple, and Nehemiah rebuilt the walls, it is not our present intention to inquire. We come before the city of the great king in darker days, intent on de- scribing it as seen by the beleaguering hosts of Rome, advancing to fix the abomination of desola- tion spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in the holy place. At this time, the position of Jerusalem, as regards its natural strength and compact beauty, was, and yet was not, what travellers now behold it. The everlasting hills do indeed maintain their ancient places, but the deep ravines, naturally almost impas- sable by ,a hostile force, are now choked up by the accumulated ruin and neglect of many centuries, di- vesting the site of its otherwise isolated appearance, particularly since Zion has been ploughed like a field ; and the city of David presents, on its magni- ficent external acclivity, little else than a waste of desolate ground. Our ideas concerning the place are in general extremely confused and errroneous : many will speak and write of Zion and Moriah, the city of David and the Temple, as though they had formed an undistinguished mass, and were converti- ble terms. So far is this from being correct, in re- ference to the Jerusalem of the Bible, that we re- quire to obtain a clear, and in many instances a wholly novel, view of its geographical position, be- fore we can comprehend even the proceedings of the Roman invader. We will first speak of its boundaries, as they existed eighteen hundred years ago. Northward of the city JERUSALEM AS IT WAS. 5 rose an undulating ground, termed Scopus, which stretched away also to the westward, rendering the approach in that direction comparatively easy ; it was, indeed, the only accessible point, and all the enemies who have attacked Jerusalem made it their highway. Towards the south-west the ground be- gan to deepen into a valley, whence rose in lofty grandeur the noble hill of Zion. This was called the valley of Gihon, and soon spread into another valley, that of Hinnom, running due west and east, between the southern foot of Zion and an elevation termed the hill of Evil-counsel, from a tradition that there had Solomon been misled by his idolatrous wives into the sin that polluted the latter part of his reign. The valley of Hinnom was met at the south- eastern extremity of the city, by another arid a far more striking pass, the valley of the Kidron, or Je- hosophat; this running along the whole eastern course of the city, yielded a bed to the brook Kid- ron, and separated Mount Moriah from the Mount of Olives. The side of the former was exceedingly steep, precipitous, and altogether an unapprochable defence. No adequate conception can be formed, from its present appearance, of what it was before the fall of those immense ruins that have converted its decent into a slope, and raised its original level ; but it is plain that its whole aspect has been so changed. The Mount of Olives, however, remains unaltered, a sublime and enduring relic, of interest BO thrilling that its very name awakens emotions not less deep in the bosom of the Gentile Christian than in that of the Jew. This beautiful mountain rises like a broad shield over against where the Temple of the LORD once stood ; and the traveller 6 JUDAEA CAPTA. who takes up his post on its swelling side beholds the holy city spread out, in all its length and breadth, at his feet. Of that city itself we have now to speak, and of its remarkable divisions. Supposing ourselves placed on the Mount of Olives at the period referred to, its aspect would have been that of three very distinct hills, separated one from the other by nar- row but deep ravines ; while, towards the north, that is, to the right of the spectator, in front, ex- tended a fourth division, reaching far over the com- paratively level country in that direction. Fust of the holy hills, right opposite the Mount of Olives, and rising so as to terminate in a broad, square platform, was Moriah, on whose summit stood the magnificent Temple, within its threefold courts. To the south, the hill descended till it reacned the spot where the vallies of Hinnom and of the Kidron meet, the eastern side of this hill, which here was called Ophel, running along the whole ridge of the latter, the western terminating in a deep, abrupt declivity, called the valley of the Tyropean. The sides of Moriah, precipitous on the east, were also steep on the west and on the south ; and at the angle of these two points a lofty bridge was requisite to span the Tyropean, and so to form a communica- tion between the Temple and the upper city on Mount Zion. This hill, rising from the valley of Hinmon on the south, and bounded on the east and north by the Tyropean, (which thus wound its way through the heart of Jerusalem,) was at once the highest, the strongest, and the most important of the inhabited places round Moriah ; its outlines were so perfectly THE SACRED HILLS. 7 defined, that it might well be called a city in itself, apart from and independent of all the rest. The third hill, A era, was the site of the ancient Salem, which David took from the Jebusites, lying due west of the Temple, and north of Zion ; its irregular sides sloping towards the Tyropean, and ascending the Mount Moriah, while its northern and western boundaries were formed by Bezetha, the most recent addition to the metropolis. Zion is frequently used to designate the whole city, as being the principal, the most conspicuous part. While the site of the Temple was but a threshing-floor, Zion was covered with magnificent buildings, and at all subsequent periods it was the residence of the princes and chief men. Here David fixed his kingly seat, and here, during his reign, and for some years after Solomon's accession, the Ark of the Lord remained within a tabernacle which David had prepared for it. That Zion, where corn now waves, and a few flocks find pasturage among its beautiful but desolate slopes, presented to the eye one vast pile of architectural grandeur and military strength. At the time whereof we write, such was its character, while that of Acra, venera- ble as it was, and famous as having been the seat of Melchizedek's kingdom, had become principally mercantile ; its numerous intricate and narrow streets being densely inhabited by tradesmen, arti- zans, and all those who ministered to the luxurious dwellers in the palaces of Zion. Bezetha, as it has been observed, was a modern addition to the city, having been walled in by Agrippa, but by no means in so perfect a manner as he had planned to do it. Here the population was less crowded, and 8 JUDJEA CAPTA. in every sense it formed the weakest part of Jeru- salem. Moriah was altogether occupied by the Temple, with its extensive courts and enclosures, excepting Ophel, that slip of it which we have no- ticed as running southward, parallel with Zion, but separated from it by the very abrupt ravine of the Tyropean, the remarkable pass which completely isolated the stately hill of Zion, but of which in its original character as a deep, winding valley in the midst of a populous city, we can form but a very im- perfect conception now. In fact, in all its lower por- tions, the modern Jerusalem is built upon the mass of what was rolled down from its heights in the days of oft-renewed destruction ; and the Tyropean es- pecially became the natural receptacle of these fall- ing fragments. Ophel was principally assigned to the numerous inferior officers and servants of the Temple, who had their dwellings thus within a con- venient distance of the Holy House, and were not separated from it by any intervening barrier. Thus, though imperfectly, we have endeavoured to sketch with some accuracy the scene of events now to be narrated. It is impossible, however, to quit this branch of the subject without remarking to what an extent the privilege granted to believers of making a spiritual application, suited to individual cases, or to that of the church, of what has been aforetime written in reference to Israel, has occa- sionally been perverted, even to a total oblivion of the literal significancy of the words, and to the ex- clusion of those to whom they were primarily ad- dressed. Let us for a moment pause on this. The second chapter of Isaiah's prophecy is one much prized by MISINTERPRETATIONS. 9 the Christian believer. It commences with glorious promises of a state of future blessedness on earth. " And it shall come to pass, in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." This is frequently taken to indicate a state of extraordinary fulness and prosperity enjoyed by the Christian church at large, unconfined to any locality, but spreading abroad over the whole earth. By "the mountain of the Lord's house," the great bulk of our commentators understand that kingdom described by Daniel, which " becomes a great moun- tain, and fills the whole earth," certainly typifying the universal dominion of him who shall be King over all the earth ; but to this particular passage in Isaiah a locality is assigned : the prophet describes it as " The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem" To this some answer, that in prophetic 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 de- scribed, 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. JERUSA- 10 JUD.EA CAPTA. LEM, 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 arid 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 many feet be- fore 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, sur- rounded by groves of trees, which God-fearing kings from time to time cast down, plucked up, and re- moved away ; for they were accursed things, abomi- nations, unlawful to Israel, hateful unto God, who forbade the approach of his people to their unhal- lowed 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 compulso- rily 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 which no Israelite can ap- proach. So far no one can question the remarkably literal fulfilment of a most literal prediction; and then no break intervening in the original Hebrew THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE. 11 the 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 tbe law shall go forth of ZION, and the word of the Lord from JERUSALEM." Here we have, in the plainest ex- hibition that language can afford, the three moun- tains, Zion, ploughed as a field, Acra, reduced to heaps, and Moriah, polluted by a false religion, re- built, restored, re-sanctified, and become once more the resort of voluntary worshippers from every quar- ter of the globe. " Thus saith the Lord, I am re- turned 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 mar- vellous in mine eyes? 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 righteousness."* Let it not, then, be imagined that with the feel- ings of a mere antiquary we call to mind, or would bring to the view of our readers, exact localities, * Zech. viii. 3, 6, 7, 8. 2 12 JUDJ2A CAPTA. their names, and peculiar features. All these things not only have been, but shall be ; Zion, Acra, Mo- riah, 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, Jeru salem, and the Mountain of the Lord's house, shal be familiar to the ears and lips of all men as now they are to the thought of the careful student of Scripture. We have now to notice the walls of the ancient city, in connexion with the imperfect sketch of its na- tural divisions. Of these we shall have occasion here- after to speak more particularly ; and need merely in this place observe that they not only perfectly sur- rounded the whole city, embracing Moriah, Acra, and Bezetha, in one compact line of bulwarks, but also af- forded 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 simicircular 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 SUCH WAS JERUSALEM. 13 feeling that laughed to scorn the besiegers' menace, and proudly reiterated the song for the sons of Korah : " Walk about Zion, and go round about her, Tell ye the towers thereof; Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, That ye may tell it to the generation following." 14 JUD^A CAPTA. CHAPTER II. THERE is no lack of historical notices of what be- fel the holy land and its people in the day of their terrible visitation ; Josephus is within the reach of most readers, while Milman and others have fur- nished an abstract of what he recorded. Two things, however, are noticeable ; The Jewish his- torian evidently wrote not only under Roman pa- tronage, but with a keen eye to his own interest, in producing what should best please his alien masters ; and though a gleam of nationality may here and there struggle through the dense cloud of worldly feel- ings, principles, and pursuits, it is presently extin- guished by the prudential or the egotistical principle, and we are compelled to feel that he painted his picture under the lion's paw, obliged to exaggerate the merits" of brute force, and to lower as much as he could whatsoever related to the other combatant. The historical accuracy of his general details we may admit, the more readily because what they set forth had already been traced in the prophetic Word ; but we find in him little of the sympathy that might be looked for in treating such a subject. That he was a Christian we cannot for a moment believe ; neither his language nor the themes he most delights to dwell on accord with the religion that breathes peace on earth, good will towards men. How far CHARACTER OF JOSEPHUS. 15 towards heathenism he may have carried his com- pliances to propitiate his patron Csesars, we cannot tell. Moses seems to have retained small part in him ; and of that spirit which shone so gloriously in Moses, that ardent devotedness to the cause of his people which renders his character so exquisitely lovely and loveable, Josephus possessed not an atom. On the other hand, our Christian historians have written under two impressions, alike unfavourable and erroneous. The one was, that Jerusalem had been visited with final destruction, her wrecks being left merely as monuments of divine vengeance, not as providing also materials to re-construct, in sur- passing splendour, what was once cast down. The other delusion which, whether consciously or not, rested, and still, to a great extent, rests, on the minds of such historiographers, is that the Jews, as a na- tion, are cast off, at least so far as to render any fu- ture restoration contingent on their embracing the faith of the gospel, one indispensable concomitant of which is held to be their abandoning all distinc- tive marks, and becoming, in fact, less individualized as a people than are the members of any national church, or any congregation of consistent dissenters. These prejudices interpose a formidable barrier be- tween the historian and his subject, occasioning him not only to confuse objects, but so to distribute his lights and shades as to blend the whole picture into one mass of needless perplexities. He dare not quote scripture in continuous portions to any extent : it is so formidably literal on these points as to scat- ter to the winds what men have laboriously essayed to build upon it ; and however excellent, however 2* 16 JUDAEA CAPTA. conscientious, however able a writer may be, we very rarely indeed fall in with one of any note who has had courage to take his pen under a deep practical conviction, that in approaching these subjects he must fully act up to the bold declaration of the apos- tle : " Yea, let God be true, and every man a liar." Human authority is, in every sense of the word, an imposing thing : one man in former times has darkly trodden a doubtful path, while as yet the heaviest gloom of obscurity rested upon it. Others follow in single file, blessed by a much clearer light indeed, but for the most part apparently solicitous to use it, each for the purpose of accurately planting his foot in the print of his predecessor's shoe. The beaten path is good, so far as scripture sanctions it ; but when a discrepancy appears, it is safer to follow the guidance of revelation, leaving every other track until the same guidance brings us into it again. Nothing has happened, either to the holy city or to the people who so long possessed it, as a gift from the Lord, but what was plainly foretold in the Bible. With astonishing minuteness all that has occurred, all that will yet take place, has been set forth by holy men of old, speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The blessings with which the Lord would crown a course of obedience were described in glowing language ; and with terrible fidelity were the curses that should ensue upon a rebellious de- parture from the holy law enumerated. Not only as a menace, but as a prediction, were those visitations described ; for to Him who seeth the end from the beginning, all was naked and manifest that should come to pass. In reading the awful denunciations contained in the twenty-eight chapter of Deuteron- ACCURATE PREDICTIONS. 17 omy, from the fifteenth verse to the end, we are con- strained to feel that it never was or could be a con- tingency hypothetically set forth : it is a terrible re- ality present to the mind of inspiration, not as what perhaps might, but as what assuredly would come to pass ; increasing in the weight of its inflictions proportionably with the foreseen aggravation of Is- rael's progressive sins. A blessing would first be enjoyed, while the people walked with God, submit- ting to his divine ordinances and continuing in the way of his commandments. Then would come a declension, a determined falling away, that must gradually lead them into the settled habit of walk- ing contrary to. God, until the whole world should resound with the exceeding terribleness of his ven- geance upon the holy people ; their punishment being* exactly proportioned to the privileges enjoyed and abused by them, as says the Lord by Amos, " You only have I known of all the families of the earth : therefore I will punish you for all your ini- quities." After this, we find in the thirtieth chapter a pro- phetic description of their final repentance and re- turn to God, followed again by the multiplication of blessings so rich, so varied, so far beyond the stretch of man's narrow mind to embrace in their fullness, that some who never think of explaining away the preceding threats, are tempted to dishonour God by calling in question the literal applicability of those rich promises to the race concerning whom they were spoken, and to surmise that they treat figura- tively of things altogether apart from earth ; saying, as did Ezekiel's unbelieving hearers, " Doth he not speak parables ?" 18 JUD.EA CAPTA. Of events that occurred in preceding years, we do not intend to say much : our starting point is the final invasion of Judsea by the Roman army under Vespasian and his son Titus. The immediate cause of their expedition was the slaughter of the troops that garrisoned Jerusalem : an act into which the Jews were goaded by the really unprovoked wrongs and cruelties inflicted on them by the savage Roman procurator, Gessius Florus. This man, whose cha- racter stands out in bold relief on the page of his- tory, as a dire specimen of what Satan can effect in assimilating the human mind to his own diabolical model, had pursued an undeviating course of treach- ery, cruelty, and murder, against the people com- mitted to his charge. For a long time they acted on a system as peaceably defensive as could be de- vised ; and, to the number of three millions, humbly petitioned the president of Syria to protect them irom his cruelties, but in vain. The first outbreak occurred in Csesarea, the government of which was suddenly transfeTreTt to alien inhabitants, who were raised above the Jews ; and the latter soon found their way of access to the synagogue wantonly and maliciously obstructed by the building of a Greek idolator, against whom they respectfully appealed to Florus, and tendered a handsome gift which was ac- cepted as the price of his official interference. When he, apparently by design, left the place without tak- ing any means to stay the interruption, and the Greeks, emboldened by his evident connivance, at once profaned the sabbath and polluted the syna- gogue, by killing birds at the door, in sacrifice to their demons : the Jews, after a skirmish with the multi- tudes who strove to force them into submission to CRUELTIES OF GESSIUS FLORUS. 19 this abomination, removed their holy books from the place, and renewed their appeal to the Roman ty- rant. He, instead of redressing the wrong, cast the petitioners into prison ; and in the hope of exciting a rebellious movement among their brethren in Je- rusalem, sent a demand for money from the treasury of the Temple, for the service, as he said, of the em- peror Nero. This produced the exasperation on which he had calculated ; in a tumultuous meeting of the Jews, some well-merited epithets were be- stowed on Floras, who, immediately, on hearing of it, marched upon Jerusalem, and returned the loyal and respectful greeting of its inhabitants, whose temporary irritation had passed away, by giving over a considerable part of the city to be sacked by the Roman soldiers. Notwithstanding this barba- rous outrage, the inhabitants still declared them- selves ready to submit to his authority, as the em- peror's representative ; but the infuriated tyrant caused between three and four thousand of the Jews to be scourged and crucified, including not only many of the noblest and best among them, but also several who held the rank of Roman citizens. Immediately after this wanton massacre, on the very nejrt_day, while the chief priests and leading men, with dust on their heads and sackcloth on their limbs, were quelling by their entreaties the agitation of the survivors, the wretched procurator laid ano- ther crafty snare for them. He had sent for two cohorts from Csesarea, which was certainly the most irritating locality so far as the feelings of the Jews were concerned, ordering them to advance on Jeru- salem : and then commanded the people to go out and meet them with a joyous shout of j^fiicome. It 20 JUDAEA CAPTA. required the utmost stretch of the influence pos- sessed by their priests and nobles to bring them to this cruel test ; and while they were persuading the Jews to obey, Florus despatched an order to the co- horts to respond to their greeting with insult ; then, on the least appearance of resentment or dissatisfac- tion on the Jews' part, to put them to the sword. This, of course, was done ; and the next act of their blood-thirsty oppressor brought matters to a crisis. Strengthened by the accession of these troops, he attempted to take possession with them of the Tem- plej and the city at once rose in arms. The Romans were met, fought with, and driven back to their strong-hold, Antonia ; the covered way from which to the Temple was immediately pulled down by the Jews, who stood, to a man, ready to perish in de- fence of the holy house. At this alarming juncture, Florus appealed to the Roman chief, Cestius Gallus, at Csesarea ; and but for the interposition of~Q,ueen Bernice, he would probably have succeeded in bringing on the imme- diate destruction of the city and people. Through her means Cestius was apprised of the true particulars ; and king Agrippa, soon afterwards arriving at Jeru- salem, successfully mediated between the contending parties. His address to the Jews is a most splendid piece, not so much of oratory as of argument, and produced a happy effect. They promised to return to obedience, paid up wnat remained due in the shape of exacted tribute, and even rebuilt the com- munication between Fort Antonia and the Temple. But Agrippa went further than the more fiery spirits among them could brook : he pleaded for an unlim- ited submission to the profane tyrant Florus ; and MEDIATION OP AGRIPPA. 21 for this he was assaulted, and, in fact, expelled from the city. Naturally offended at so unreasonable a return for his good offices, the king abandoned the Jews to their fate, and thenceforth all was discord and desolation to the end. The Jews took by stra- tagem the strong-hold of Masada, slew the Roman garrison : and following the wrong counsel of Elea- zar, aTrash young man, son of the high-priest and governor of the Temple, they passed a resolution that alarmed all the sober-minded among them It had long been the custom to accept gifts from Gen- tiles of rank, on whose behalf they offered sacrifices in the Temple. Eleazar persuaded them to abolish this custom, in spite of the remonstrances of their principal men, who reminded them that the Lord's house was, to a great degree, enriched and adorned by such gifts from foreign princes, which their fore- fathers never refused, nor denied the intercessory service for any who so asked it. Indeed the records of Solomon, at the dedication of the first Temple, plainly imply as much. " Moreover, concerning the stranger which is not of thy people Israel, but is come from a far country for thy great name's sake, and thy mighty hand and thy stretched out arm ; if they come and pray in this house, then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is cal- led by thy name."* The most learned of their priests, men skilled in antiquarian research, came forward to attest the * 2 Chron. vi. 32, 33. 22 JUD^A CAPTA. truth of these assertions, but in vain ; no man would hearken to them : and the unpardonable affront was put upon the Roman emperor of refusing any longer to do sacrifice for him. War was now inevitable ; the leaders saw it, and dreading the consequences, sent two embassies, one to Florus, the other to Agrippa, both of whom they invited to advance, and intimidate the turbulent party ere the aggressive movement should embrace the whole population. Florus, well pleased at the success of his satanic wiles, took no notice, hoping to see such a catastrophe as the pleaders apprehen- ded ; but Agrippa, in whose character at that period shone many noble traits, confirmatory of the favour- able impression that we gather from his interview with Paul, that he "believed the prophets," and therefore truly loved the Jewish people^ immediately despatched three thousand horsemen to the help of those who were labouring to preserve the country. Thus reinforced, the chief men seized on Zion, the upper city ; whence they also endeavoured to gain Moriah and the Temple. Eleazar, in possession of the latter, not only defended it, but daily attempted to retake Zion ; and for a whole week the conflict never flagged, neither party prevailing. But at the end of the week, hostilities, hitherto confined to the flinging of stones and darts, assumed a more fearful aspect ; fire was introduced, and palaces burned to the ground, including, in their destructive progress, the most valued archives, the ancient records, and, as Josephus says, the nerves of the city. The war- like party, misled by Eleazar, thus obtained advan- tages fatal to themselves ; they assaulted Fort An-- tonia, slew the garrison, and greatly damaged the DREADFUL SLAUGHTERS. 23 citadel with fire ; then beseiged the royal pal- ace, where Agrippa's troops had fortified them- selves, with some of the Roman soldiers and many of the chief men, and endeavoured to batter it down. After a while, the besieged capitulated ; the Jews with their allies, were permitted to escape, but the Romans were hunted and slain without mercy, as also was the liigh priest himself. The principal perpetrator of these deeds was not Elea- zar, but Manahem, an ambitious Galilean, who on these successes aspired to kingly state ; and, under pretext of worshipping, endeavoured to seize on the Temple. He was resisted by Eleazar, his adherents routed, and himself slain. Finally, the Roman general, Metilius, who with a handful of soldiers still held a position, offered to surrender, on condition of being allowed to leave the city, unarmed, with his men. The turbulent party among the Jews, now triumphant over all opposers, consented ; and when the soldiers were disarmed, they, according to the history, slew every man of them, saving Metilius himself; who was spared in consideration of his offer to become a proselyte. While this took place in Jerusalem, on the very; same day, the Greeks and other aliens in Ccesarea rose against the Jews there, and, encouraged by Floras", massacred in one hour above twenty thou- sand helpless victims. Slaughter, to the uttermost of their power, on both sides, wherever the hostile nations met, became from this time the order of the day. The Jj^s jand Syrians maintained against each other a war of extermination ; the former being also internally divided, and the flame spread far and wide. At Alexandria, by the Romans, no fewer than _> 24 JUDAEA CAPTA. fifty thousand Jews were put to death without re- gard to age or sex ; and in every place the nation, whether many or few, was found in arms to avenge these acts of butchery. At length Cestius Gallus put his army in motion, and accompanied by Agrippa himself, advanced through the land at the head of a mighty force, de- termined to take Jerusalem and end the war. He took Zabulon, a strong city of Galilee, with other places, among which was Joppa ; and having sub- dued the Jews in those parts, passed unresisted through Antipatris and Lydda ; not indeed from any slackening of the people's zeal against their inva- ders, but because all their males were assembled in the holy city, keeping the feast of Tabernacles ; and finally he pitched his camp within fifty furlongs of Jerusalem. Here a fierce sally from the gates endangered the whole Roman army ; and though ultimately repulsed, the Jews gave the besiegers no rest: breaking out upon them, dashing into their camp, carrying off their cattle, and other spoil; and when Agrippa tried his ancient influence as a mediator, they slew one of his ambassadors, and drove the other back, who scarcely saved himself by flight. This was the act of the turbulent party ; to others it occasioned bitter grief, and led to a division, in the midst of which Cestius took advantage to ap- proach as near as the hill Scopus, where he again encamped, only seven furlongs from the city. Thence he presently advanced, and took Bezetha, and had he followed up his manifest advantage, he might have put an immediate end to the war. In- stead of this, he suddenly, and without any apparent cause, raised the seigej withdrawing his whole army, BATTLES IN THE MOUNTAINS. 25 to whom a great part of the inhabitants were al- ready prepared to open the gates, and retreating to Scopus. The Jews pursued him, falling on the rear, and also on the flank, of the Romans, who, dis- pirited by this strange movement of their general, were soon thrown into confusion. The retreat be- came a rout, the narrow passes and defiles through which they were obliged to march were overhung by the exulting Hebrews, who cast down upon them darts and missiles of every description ; and not only so, but in many instances the Jews, well acquainted with their country, pressed forward, took possession of these passes, and blocked them up mid-way, while another division from behind forced the enemy onward down the steep declivities, and in the lowest depth of those vallies fell upon them, as did their fa- thers of old upon the idolatrous nations of Canaan, making such fearful havoc that the mountain echos of Judea rang to an unwonted sound the cries, and wailings, and bitter lamentations of the iron-clad legions of Rome. These were again responded to by shouts of mingled joy and rage on the part of the Jews. It was a parenthesis in the long dark tale of their calamitous defeats ; it was as though once more it might be said of Israel, " The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is amongst them." So complete was the rout, that Cestius only contrived by stratagem the rescue of his remaining forces, leaving as a prey to the victorious Jews those formidable engines that were designed to batter down the walls of the holy city ; together with an immense booty, and not less than five thousand six * hundred and eighty Roman warriors dead on the field. The Jews, finding it fruitless to pursue 26 JUD2EA CAPTA. farther than Antipatris, returned to Jerusalem, hav- ing suffered scarcely any perceptible loss. When forewarning his disciples of what should come to pass, our Lord used these words : " And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with ar- mies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. T'hen let them which are in Judea flee to the moun- tains, and let them which are in the midst of it de- part out, and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto ; for these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." Seeing how isolated is the position of Jerusalem, how conspicuous, and how completely under the eye of an encompassing army, a signal miracle would have been requisite to the fulfilment of this com- mand, unless such an opening as that unconsciously afforded by the infatuated Celsius had appeared. The Christian Jews in the city amounted to many thousands, even long before this time, often enjoying a fair measure of religious toleration, as it would seem ; for they were all stedfast in the observance of their law, as the evangelist tells us that they had been from the first, when " they, continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with single- ness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people."* It is alike erroneous, though very common, to con- sider these believers as a mere handful, and to re- gard them as separated from their brethren after the flesh. They were exceedingly numerous, and they were strict observers of the Mosaic ritual, having the same testimony that Paul bore to his inoffensive- * Acts ii. 46, 47. CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM. 27 ness, " Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the Temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all." Such being their position, they were free to act as they saw good ; and when they beheld the armies that had compassed Jerusa- lem drawn off, and not only an unobstructed passage opened, but the warlike population of the city pouring out at every gate in hot pursuit of the retreating foe, they knew that the hour was come, that they must not pause, nor lose a moment's time, but hasten away to the more distant mountains. ,Their flight was not in the winter, neither was it on the Sabbath day, but hasty indeed it must have been ; and with what unutterable anguish of spirit must they have looked back on the proud, unbroken bulwarks of Zion, the streets of Jerusalem, already stained with the gore of her children slain in civil warfare, the dazzling splendour of that majestic edifice that crowned the mountain of the house of the LORD ! Too well they knew that the drawn sword of the angel, once sheathed at the intercession of David, when there he stood by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, was again pointing, suspended over the beloved, the guilty city, to smite and to destroy to the uttermost ; for now were the days of vengeance come, when every lawful prophecy must receive its fulfilment ; and, Jews as they were to the inmost core of their devoted hearts, how must the laments of the patriot prophet Jeremiah have resounded from their lips, as weeping they pursued their way. Appalling as had been the scenes of the last few months within those walls, freely as blood had flowed on every side, the hand of many a Hebrew being against his brother, still, how dear, how sacred, were the 3* 28 JUD^A CAPTA. 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 solem- nities," 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 sympa- thize 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 tow- ers 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 A SAD FAREWELL. 29 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 !" JTJDJEA CAPTA. 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 in- offensive, unarmed, and imprisoned Jews were deli- berately 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 Judsea into the most defen- sive state possible, choosing generals for the various provinces, and exhibiting inflexible determination to retain that independence, yea, to recover that su- periority, 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 most reflecting portion, while such as looked for signs from heaven found many confirma- tions of their worst fears. Selfish, rapacious, and tyrannical men began as in circumstances of popular distress such characters are always found to do to gather followers around them, who became har- dened 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 Celsus' strange mismanagement and defeat, reached the seat of em- PREDICTIONS FULFILLED. 31 pire ; 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 fur- nish. 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 power- ful people than those against whom they were sent ; insufficient to over-run a rood of Judaea'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 inheritance, and rejected as repro- bate silver his transgressing people, making good the menace spoken many ages before, in the pros- pect 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 acquies- cence 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 plea- sure 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 indif- 32 JUDAEA CAPTA. ferent thing, or as a pleasing spectacle of divine re- tribution, 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 Mo- ses just quoted, we find assurances that the LORD, though he deliver up his people for their transgres- sions, will yet avenge upon their adversaries the cruelties perpetrated against them, with a marked distinction in favour of such as extend sympathy to his scattered flock. " Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people ; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land and to his people." And again is the promise given to the friends of af- flicted Judah : " Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her ; rejoice for joy with her all ye that mourn for her, that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." True it is that an awful sense of departure from the pure faith of the Holy Scriptures, and from the practice resulting therefrom, marked the epoch of which we treat, while sin abounded on all sides, and in many forms. Still we are fully persuaded that all the darker shades of the picture have been grie- vously blackened over, first by the foreign influence under which Josephus wrote, who supplied the key- note to succeeding historians ; and latterly by the self-excusing bitterness of chroniclers among the earlier Gentile Christians, who had already imbibed, with the milk of Rome's semi-pagan Christianity, her unswerving hatred of the Jews, gradually souring into its present state of papal anti-christianism. We CALUMNIES OF JOSEPHUS. 33 do not credit the half of what is thus handed down as history, in reference to the dreadful scenes too certainly enacted within the holy city ; we will re- tail no more of it than is necessary to the plainly authentic narrative of what was accomplished from without. We see no practical use in heaping con- demnation on a race of our elder brethren long since gathered to the dust, and representing them as something worse than devils in human form. We know that they walked contrary to God, because, unless they had done so, the fearful curses already referred to would not have come upon them, as they did. to the uttermost ; but with the tales of Josephus and his successors of the outrageous crimes com- mitted, the more than maniac, the truly diabolical acts of wanton ferocity perpetrated against them- selves in the midst of the besieged city, we cannot soil our pages, nor harden our own, and our readers' hearts. The Roman army was equipped for this expedition with all that the consummate skill in manslaughter by which the iron empire had established itself upon the earth could suggest. It is described in the pro- phetic Word as a beast, which, unlike the Assyrian lion, the Persian bear,and the Grecian leopard, belong- ed to no known race, but was " dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth ; it devoured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it." Such, to the view of Daniel, was the Roman empire ; such it has proved to be, whether regarded in its ancient and temporal, or in its modern and spiritual aspect, and such, in an especial manner, has it ever been to 34 JUD^A CAPTA. Israel. As a beast to which a man's heart was never given, this power has scattered, and still scat- ters, the " holy people " of Daniel, the Jews ; and it may be interesting to trace the particulars of the array in which the army of this beast went forth against the couchant lion of Judaea, to hunt and to drag him to its imperial den. Nothing could be more admirably conceived than the arrangement of the Roman troops, already from their very infancy inured to every description of mar- tial practice, conducted with the most scrupulous re- gard to exact discipline, silence, order arid despatch. Josephus aptly says that their excejcises might be called unbloody battles, and their battles bloody ex- ercises. War was to them a science, the first of sciences, and the main study of their lives. Men's praises formed their earthly heaven, beyond which they looked not disgrace in the world's sight the only hell they found. When a Roman soldier marched forth on a campaign, he believed himself to be laudably fulfilling the first end of his existence ; and never w r as he so glorious in his own eyes as when reeking with the blood of the slain, and bend- ing under the weight of spoil rent from the peaceful dwellings of an enemy's country, all being his le- gitimate enemies who were not tributary to Rome, lying still and motionless beneath the imperial hoof. His bodily array was excellently adapted for the work that he undertook, the foot soldiers being armed with cuirass and helmet, on their left side a long sword, on their right a dagger. A long buck- ler rested on the arm, sufficient to protect their bodies from hostile darts, and these bucklers they often turned to singular use in assaulting a wall, as ENGINES OF DESTRUCTION. 35 we shall hereafter see ; a keen spear was in their hands, and in a basket each man carried a saw, a pick-axe, an axe, and a stout throng of leather with a hook attached, besides three days' provisions. The cavalry were similarly protected by helm and cuirass, having a long sword on the right side, a shield resting obliquely against the horse's body, a quiver containing darts with heads equally broad as a spear's point, and a long pole in their hand. Thus equipped, the general being at their head, and the last of the trumpet-signals having sounded, a crier, stationed at the general's right hand, thrice put the question, Were they now ready to go forth to war or not ? A universal shout of " We are ready," then burst forth, accompanied with the elevation of their right hands, and under the enthusiastic feeling thus excited they set forward. Arrived at a suitable position for encamping, the order in which they did so was no less striking. When on hostile ground, they not only pitched their tents with the exactness of a well-planned town, but walled the camp around. If the ground presented an irregular surface they levelled it, and having placed the general's tent, much like a temple, in the exact centre, surrounded by those of the inferior commanders, they ranged the other tents in streets, with mathematical precision ; forming four gates, and strengthening the outer wall with towers, be- tween which they placed the engines so terribly effi- cacious in their campaigns. These consisted princi- pally of the battering-ram and the catapult. The former was an enormous beam of wood, ai the end of which was a solid piece of iron, shaped like a ram's head ; and this being slung with considerable 4 ~ art in a suitable framework was pulled back, by the united strengh of many men, as far as it would strain^ and then allowed to swing forward with an impetus that drove the iron head so violently against any op- posing substance as quickly to batter down the stout- est wall by its rapidly-repeated strokes. The catapult was yet more terrible ; resembling an immense cross- bow, it had power to hurl with irresistible violence not only darts, but huge stones, fragments of rock, bars of iron, and every destructive missile that could be collected. A shot from one of these deadly en- gines could level a tower, and literally dash to frag- ments a body of men, scattering them in the air like straws. Such were some of the munitions of war contained in a Roman camp. When we add to this the clock-work regularity with which every order was issued, every action performed, every meal served up, and even the morning and evening salu- tations of officers and men interchanged, it is not possible to conceive a more exquisite picture of per- fect discipline, comfort, and mutual confidence, than that which existed in a Roman camp. It was evi- dently formed on the perfection of all models, that of Israel in the wilderness. When a position was to be abandoned, the men having marched out with all their personal equip- ments and weapons of every kind, the camp was fired, and burnt to the ground ; thus at once ridding the army of a considerable incumbrance, saving much valuable time, and depriving the enemy of such advantages as might result from spoiling, or from converting to his own use what had been erected. The extent of their encampments, and con- sequently the charred ruin that remained, combined ROMAN AMBITION. 37 with the plunder of surrounding districts to supply their need, gives singular force to the prophet's de- scription : " A fire devoureth before them ; and be- hind them a flame burneth ; the land is as the gar- den of Eden before them, and behind them a deso- late wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them." " It devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it." Considering the object for which man was made, that he might glorify his righteous Creator, whose tender mercies are over all his works ; who desireth not the death of a sinner, and who never willingly afflicts the children of men, it is indeed an awful contempletion to trace the triumph of Satan through succeeding ages in the most powerful empire that ever arose upon earth, making it the one end of every man's being to hurt and to destroy his fellow- men. Conquest, for its own sake, was the continual pursuit of the Romans. A fierce and cruel ambi- tion, a desire to wade to the chief places in every nation through the blood of its people, a determina- tion to endure no equal in the ferocious art of homi- cide, and a vaunting confidence in their own unap- proachable pre-eminence in that horrid trade, com- bined to form the character of the race, who cer- tainly deserve to hold the highest rank among the destroyers of their kind. We have dwelt on the spectacle of their military armaments not for any gratification to be derived therefrom. God forbid ! but because they and their proceedings were so mi- nutely described in various parts of the prophetic Word as to render it a commentary on holy writ ; more especially when such a host went forth to ex- ecute judgment upon a people whose ancient prero- 38 JUD^A CAPTA. gative it was to root out from the face of the earth nations defiling it by their abominable idolatries. To us it is also interesting, inasmuch as these very Romans, commanded by Vespasian, had been mak- ing havoc of our own forefathers, and drenching Britain in the blood of her children. The ground beneath our feet has echoed to the tramp of these steel-clad armies ; and in our rural walks we fre- quently may trace the well-marked boundary ot some such camp as has been here described ; with its rampart mound, its external fosse, and other re- mains surviving the havoc of eighteen centuries. But never did the hosts of Rome go forth to a work so fearful as that which led them to make Judsea a spoil, and Jerusalem a prey. Josephus, after giving a minute account of what we have briefly sketched, significantly adds, that he did it "not so much with the intention of commending the Romans as of com- forting those that have been conquered by them ; and for the deterring of others from attempting in- novations under their government" We, therefore, make due allowance for exaggeration, where the proposed object was to show how " dreadful and ter- rible, and strong exceedingly," was the Roman beast ; but genuine history fully confirms his state- ment of their military aspect, order of march, and plan of encampment. From Antioch, the capital of Syria, Vespasian led his army to Ptolemais, where Titus joined him with another host ; and they marched at once upon Gali- lee in the following order. The auxiliaries, more lightly armed than the Roman soldiers, with the body of archers, formed the van ; keeping somewhat in advance^ that they might carefully explore the ORDER OF MARCH. 39 country, and give notice of any hostile or other ob- struction ; searching especially where the nature of the ground admitted some possible ambuscade. Next came that portion of the army which was clad in complete armour; then a company formed by drafting ten out of every hundred men, whose busi- ness it was to measure out and adjust the camp ; for which they carried tj^e requisite implements in ad- dition to their arms. Pioneers, prepared to advance and level the ground, or otherwise to remove what- ever might obstruct the march, formed the next di- vision ; after whom came the carriages of the gene- ral and subordinate commanders, guarded by a company of horsemen 5 and then Vespasian himself, with a select escort, immediately followed by his own cavalry, a peculiar corps chosen out of every legion. After these came the mules, heavily laden with those ponderous articles already specified, which, when put together, formed the engines for a siege. Commanders of cohorts, and tribunes, guarded by another picked band, succeeded ; and after them the military ensigns, surrounding " the abomination of desolation," the imperial Eagle, held most sacred by the superstitious pagans, whose vain fables armed it with the thunder of their principal demon- god. The trumpeters held their station close upon these ensigns, immediately preceding the main body of the army, formed in squadrons and battalions six deep ; a single centurion bringing up the rear. A mixed multitude, mercenaries and irregular troops, servants, muleteers, and plundering vagrants ready to fly upon any spoil, completed this fearful array ; and the first place on which they seized was the city of the Gadarenes ; the place where, terrified by the 4* 40 JUDAEA CAPTA. destruction of their swine, the inhabitants had met Jesus, and besought him to depart out of their coasts. Alas ! a far different visitation had now be- fallen them. Vespasian took the place at the first onset, and delivered over to the sword the youths, women, and children, whom he found therein ; the men being nearly all absent, probably being gone up to one of the great feasts at Jerusalem. In like manner were the surrounding villages pillaged, burnt, and covered with slaughtered bodies ; all who were not butchered being carried into slavery. It seemed a prosperous beginning, and promising him an easy conquest of the whole land ; and, elated with his success, he marched forward to capture Jotapata, a fortified town, which he could not safely leave in the rear of his army. CITY OF JOTAPATA. 41 CHAPTER IV. THIS city of Jotapata, which besides its natural strength of position, was well fortified, and garri- soned by a determined body of Jews under Josepkus, proved a formidable obstacle in the invader's path. For no less than forty-seven days did the heroic de- fenders baffle all that Roman might, craft, and vio- lence could bring to bear against them. The ut- most force of their arms, every stratagem, and every conceivable species of barbarity, proved ineffectual to conquer the resolution of those devoted Jews. When first the enemy placed themselves in triple array round the city, with a terrible display of their commanding force, the Jews leaped out over the walls, fell on them, and maintained a desperate battle till night parted them, when they retired within their gates ; but on the following morning they again sal- lied forth, and in like manner for five days repeated the assault on the Roman lines. To estimate aright the courage of its defenders, we must bear in mind that the city stood on an exceedingly high hill, sur- rounded by other mountains that completely en- closed it. On all sides this hill was precipitous, ex- cepting the north, where a gradual slope terminated in a plain ; and some part of the city was built on the descent. Josephus had encompassed the lower ground with a wall for additional security. It was 42 JUDAEA CAPTA. over this rampart that the Jews flung themselves in headlong determination upon the besiegers ; while from the upper heights their wives, children, parents, were spectators of the deadly combat Ves- pasian found it necessary to call a council of war for deliberation, which ended in despatching the men in all directions to fell the timber on the sur- rounding mountains, to collect large stones, and bring together whatever might assist in forming a bank, and storming the city. In the prosecution of this work, the very hillocks were torn down, and brought in heaps of earth to the spot, where power- ful and expert hands moulded them into an embank- ment ; while under cover of hurdles formed of the branches of trees just felled, the engines, the batter- ing ram, catapult, and other formidable implements of assault, were advantageously placed. But the Jews were not idle : they hurled large stones and framents of rock from their intrenchments upon the workmen, breaking the protecting hurdles, and crush- ing the men ; or by well directed showers of darts drove them from their posts. In the face of this opposition, the Romans suc- ceeded in planting a hundred and sixty engines against the hill, and from these they threw up not only stones and ordinary darts, but lances mixed with masses of combustible matter ignited, and sent in showers upon the wall, whence its defenders were presently driven ; but without advantage to the ene- my : for now they made separate sallies, coming un- expectedly in small bands upon detached parts of the outworks, tearing away the hurdles, and slaying the workmen. This compelled Vespasian to inter- mit the assault, in order to strengthen his works and DEFENSIVE STRATAGEM. 43 accomplish a nearer approach to the walls, while the Jews, with equal celerity, improved their de- fences. They stretched the flexible hides of newly slain oxen upon strong stakes, which, yielding mo- mentarily to the blow, allowed the heavy missiles to expend their force, and completely protected the garrison in their new occupation of raising the wall to the height of twenty cubits. Even fire proved harmless against the hides ; they were too moist to ignite, and in the very teeth of the amazed and mor- tified assailants, strong towers were added, with bat- tlements along the whole ridge of wall : this being done, the sallies were renewed with fresh vigour; while Vespasian resolved to remain quiet, acting only on the defensive, until the city should be starved into a surrender. His principal hope was built on the probable failure of water within the walls ; and of this there was present danger ; but the children of Israel, preferring death in battle to the lingering agonies of starvation, by a desperate stratagem de- luded the enemy on this point, they saturated their garments with fresh water, now becoming scarce, and hung them on the battlements to dry. The Ro- mans, amazed to see the precious element running profusely down the walls, concluded that they had some inexhaustible supply, and no longer hoping to famish them, renewed the attack. Some daring in- dividuals also had contrived to lower themselves down a precipice so steep that the besiegers never dreamed of guarding its foot, and, covered with sheepskins, crept warily through the woods, bring- ing home supplies from their brethren in the neigh- bouring vallies. The accidental discovery of this stratagem convinced Vespasian that he must take 44 JUD^A CAPTA. the city, or lose more time before it than he could afford. At this juncture Josephus resolved to get away secretly, and provide for his own safety ; but his design being discovered, the agony of the peo- ple, old men, children, and women with infants in their arms, throwing themselves at his feet with bit- ter cries and lamentations, imploring him to remain, and, as he confesses, leading him to fear that if he did not yield he would be detained by force, prevailed against his selfish project. He armed himself with the general despair, and told them now was the time to begin to fight in earnest, when no hope of deliv- erence remained. " 'Tis a brave thing," said he, " to prefer glory before life, and to set about some such noble undertaking as may be remembered by poster- ity." It is remembered by posterity, but with how different a feeling from that excited by the conduct of Nehemiah, or the many ancient worthies of Israel who wrought mighty deeds by faith in the God of their father Abraham ! Out of his own mouth we are compelled to judge this degenerate Hebrew, who mocked with the pagan cant of fame and glory the ears of his perishing people. After uttering these vain words, he headed a sally of unprecedented dar- ing. Dispersing the enemy from before the walls, they cut their way to the very camp, and tore the covering from many tents before they were repulsed. In all these encounters the heavy armour of the Ro- mans proved an encumbrance to them, enabling the Jews, at will, to regain their walls, and take breath in the bosom of their mountain home. Their most effective assailants were the Arabian archers and Sy- rian slingers, the sons of Ishmael inflicted many a wound on the children of Isaac. Still the balance STORMING OF JOTAPATA. 45 appeared favourable to the besieged, and Vespasian decided on bringing up his last resort, the terrible battering-ram. A number of their ordinary engines were ranged before the most assailable point of the bulwarks ; archers and slingers stood beside them, and under their galling discharge the Jews were driven behind the battlements ; while, cased in a framework of hurdles, and further protected by a thick covering of skins, the ram was planted, and the first fierce blow of its enormous iron head caused that hastily-built wall to totter to its foundation. Terror and dismay siezed on the citizens, but the garrison speedily devised an adequate defence. Filling large sacks with chaff, they slung them thickly over the wall, and the strokes of the ram fell as powerless upon these soft bodies as had the earlier missiles against the fresh hides. The Romans re- moved the ram ; the Jews, with equal celerity, dis- placed their sacks, and fortified with them whatsoever part of the wall was menaced. Then came the iron hooks of the soldiery into requisition ; they fixed them on long poles, and so tore down the sacks, giving full effect to the blows of the deadly engine. Immediately the Jews, forsaking the wall, burst out in three several places, armed with burning torches ; one party setting fire to the banks, another to the hurdles, and the third to the machine itself. Sulphur, bitumen, and pitch, were among the materials abun- dantly used by the assailants, together with vast quantities of dry wood. On these the flames seized, a gulph of fire interposed between the enemy and their most important works, rendering approach im- possible, and in one hour the work of many toilsome days and nights was consumed to ashes. 46 JUDJEA CAPTA. In the midst of this achievement, Eleazer, a Ga- lilean Jew, took so correct an aim from the wall with an immense stone, that he broke off the iron ram's-head from the beam, then descending, caugh it up, and bore it in triumph to the battlements, amid a shower of darts. There, mortally wounded, he stood exultingly in the face of the enraged be- siegers, until, pierced with many shafts, he fell down dead, still grasping his trophy. The fire having spent itself, they proceeded to repair their loss, and again erected the ram against the same point. Here Vespasian was slightly wounded, an event that stimulated his army to renewed efforts. The Jews, meanwhile, though falling dead in heaps, ceased not to assail the ram, and those who worked it, with stones, darts, fire, and every possible instru- ment of offensive warfare. They effected little, and suffered much ; the lights that they bore rendered them, as night closed, clear marks for hostile archery, while darkness, resting on the engines and their guards, baffled the assailants' eye. That was a fearful night! the thundering strokes of the ram, and vollies of immense stones, darts, and human bodies continually hurled against the walls, were re- sponded to by the cries of terrified women and chil- dren, the shrieks of their despair, and the deep groans of the dying, who knew that they fell in vain. These mingled sounds, swelled by the Roman shout of menacing, exulting rage, were caught up by a thousand mountain echoes and reverberated again and again ; affrighting those once peaceful, once happy, once most blessed retreats, where Hebrew shepherds were wont to pasture their flocks, and the maidens of Israel to breathe in sacred dances, the DESPERATE DEFENCE. 47 praises of the Lord. We cannot dwell on the awfully graphic details that follow, we must hasten onward. The breach was made, and the Jewish commander, preparatory to one last, desperate defensive exploit, ordered the women to be shut up in their houses, lest the sight of their despairing terror should unman the garrison ; for when they saw the walls cast down, and the terrible array beyond of armed foes, to whom the very name of mercy was unknown, they uttered an outcry so piercing that it might well melt into more than woman's softness the heart of man. Ay, the hearts of Judah's men ; the Roman beast, the " dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly," had no heart for any plea to move. The ladders were planted, all the trumpets gave out at once their loudest blast, and on came the iron legions in irresistible array, with a shout so overpow- ering that the Jews stopped their ears from hearing it, while they bent their bodies to elude a volley of darts actually intercepting the light of day around them by its density. They then burst out once more, to encounter the steadily-advancing foe, and choked up the pathway with their dead and dying bodies. They fell in vain. On came the legions still, and all was then lost, had not another daring act of des- peration checked their progress. Numbers of the Jews flew to their stores, and filling every iron pot they could find with oil, heated it to a boiling pitch, and poured it on the Romans, flinging the burning ves- sels after it. While this unexpected manoeuvre took effect on the enemy's van, whose sudden retreat, writhing in torture, threw the rest into confusion, the Jews mads the most of the interval to cover the steep with grease ; so that on rallying to the charge, the 5 48 JUDJEA CAPTA. heavily-armed assailants were unable to man tain a footing on the slippery ground, but fell backward on their comrades, and on the engines, and banks, where they were slaughtered to a great amount : insomuch that Vespasian, instead of planting his ensign on the height of Jotopata, was compelled to call in his forces, and secure them within their entrenchments ; nor did he resume the storming of the city, convinced that it would be necessary first to elevate his banks above the level of the walls, and to erect towers of such commanding height that no weapon from below might reach the men stationed on their battlements. This occupied some days, and how long the besieged might have protracted their intrepid defence none can say ; tTJffiCJtoy from within accomplished what the mighty armament of Rome could not, in more than six weeks' struggle, achieve. A deserter from the city betrayed its actual condition, and directed Vespasian to take it by surprise. They entered it in the night, slaughtered the watch in silence, and before day dawned were masters of the place ; unsus- pected by the sleeping inhabitants, who woke but to perish by the hands of the merciless foe. A strange heavy mist overspread the scene, as though that work of blood were too piteous for the face of heav- en to look upon. Confused in a dense cloud, naked, helpless, hopeless, unable to offer any defence, and without taking the life of an assailant, the men of Jotopata offered their necks to the savage soldiers whose weapons glanced on their awakening eyes. Not one was spared ; on that day all were put to death who could be openly seen, and the victors rested to ravage in the spoil. On the following day a strict search was instituted into every cavern and THE CLOSING MASSACRE. 49 possible hiding-place, whence many more were drag- ged forth and butchered. Josephus himself, and one companion were spared. Twelve hundred desolate women and little babes were reserved for captivity, far, far worse than death. Forty thousand Jewish men and youths had shed their blood in the defence, and in the massacre that ended it. The city was demolished, the wall was razed, and the silence of death soon reigned unbroken around. " Oh that mine eyes were waters, and my head a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people !" 60 JUDAEA CAPTA. CHAPTER V. IT is not our purpose to follow the Roman invader step by step in his career of blood, nor to trace the alternate workings of brute courage and dastardly fear in his sanguinary proceedings* We pass over the successive outrages perpetrated at Joppa, and in Tarichsea ; but at the sea-fight on Genesareth, and its results, we must pause for a moment. Tarichsea stood upon its borders, and when Titus, to whose lot it fell to command there, had desolated it to his satisfaction, he found that a great number of the inhabitants had fled to their little ships, and were sailing on the lake, or sea, of Tiberias, in the vain hope of ultimately escaping. On this he despatched a messenger to his father, who immediately joined him, directing the equipment of a number of vessels for the pursuit. Against these vessels, fitted for the purpose and manned by Roman soMiery, the poor fugitives could not possibly offer any effectual resistance ; they, however, did their best, mano3uvring on the water, casting stones at the enemy, which harmlessly re- bounded from their iron mail, and receiving in their own defenceless bodies the Roman darts. When some determined crew dared an enemy's crew to the MARINE MASSACRE. 51 fight, the latter caught up long poles, with which they reached them, thrust them through, or forced them overboard, or, leaping furiously into their frail barks, slew them with the sword. Frequently they ran down upon one of the " little ships," breaking it in the middle by the violence of the shock, and when the drowning crew lifted up their hands in supplication for mercy, they received such mercy as Rome is ever wont to extend, those pleading hands were presently chopped off by the savage soldiers, and the heads that rose above the blood-stained waters were mown like grass by the sweep of the glittering sword. Some, wrecked in their shattered vessels on the shore, leaped to land ; others gained it by swimming, and ere they could recover breath, or stand on the defensive, they were slaughtered by the troops who thronged the margin of the lake. Not one escaped. ^ Six thousand five hundred man-'! gled bodies polluted file water, or sweltered in cor-j ruption on its banks. Capernaum, one of the love- liest and most fertile tracts of country under heaven, was rendered loathsome by the exhalations that poisoned the air, while the piteous spectacle of those ghastly and swollen bodies, outstretched beneath the glaring sun, the miserable wrecks of their poor broken navy, and the ripple of blood, rather than water, upon the verdant shore, gemmed as it was with flowers and shrubs of glorious beauty, even to the point where that crimson ripple paused, wrung exclamations of compassion, it is said, even from 5* 52 JUD^A CAPTA. the Roman manslayers, whose hands had wrought the ruin. Tarichsea was peopled, when Titus advanced upon it, by a mingled, but not united, population, com- posed of its original inhabitants and a body of for- eigners whose presence they deprecated. These latter had offered the resistance that exasperated Titus, while the former showed all willingness to submit to the Roman, and even fell unresistingly in the slaughter, so that a great number of them were spared as having given no offence, and reserved by Titus for the decision of his father. Vespasian, after witnessing the marine massacre, and ascertaining that none survived excepting these captives, as- cended the tribunal, surrounded by his chief officers, to determine their fate. He seemed somewhat in- clined to spare them, but those about him argued, first, that nothing could be unjust or impious that was perpetrated against Jews ; and, secondly, that ex- pediency required their destruction, lest they might hereafter revolt and give him trouble. The deed suggested that of a promiscuous slaughter, in cold blood, of a multitude of innocent, unoffending sup- pliants, whose safety he had already guaranteed ap- peared too infamous for even a Roman general to engage in, while the heart-rending spectacle above described lay outspread before them ; he, therefore, anxious to avoid rousing the whole country against him, used a little dissimulation, leading the victims to believe that their lives were given them for o prey, and directing them to leave the place, but by VESPASIAN'S TREACHERY. 53 no other road than that which led to Tiberias. The poor creatures, rejoicing in their escape, collected their moveable property and departed for Tiberias, which was immediately surrounded by the army who suffered no one to leave it until Vespasian him- self arrived, personally to superintend the execution of his fiendish plan. He commanded the whole body of fugitives to be assembled in the stadium, and there directed the immediate murder of the old men and such as he deemed useless, in the presence ; of their agonized families, to the number of twelve hundred; from the young men he selected six thousand of the strongest, and sent them to Nero, to dig through the isthmus. Thirty thousand four hundred he sold for slaves to whosoever would pur- chase them, making a present to King Agrippa of a large number, his own subjects, with free leave to dispose of them, as he pleased ; but Agrippa, to his shame and everlasting disgrace, sold these also to slavery. It is not possible to leave this heart-rending scene without recalling the time back, a few years pre- viously, when the waters of that lake, Genneserath, roused into a storm that threatened the existence of some little ships proceeding towards the shores of Capernaum, were stilled at once into perfect peace at the command of Jesus ; of him who came not to destroy men, but to save ; of him who went about through all those coasts performing miracles of heal ing, forewarning the impenitent of coming woes, and teaching the things that pertain to the kingdom of 54 JUDAEA CAPTA. God. Far be it from us to charge upon a distant generation the offences of a former race ; further still the feeling that could rejoice over the terrible fulfil- ment of what was spoken even in the hearing of some who lived to fall under the murderous hand of the pagan foe. But spoken it was to the Galileans of that generation, by the lip of Him whom they re- jected, and whose heart yearned towards them in tender compassion, while his voice declared the fear- ful future that awaited them. "And thou, Caper- naum, which art exalted unto heaven, shak be brought down to hell : for if the mighty works which had been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." Then followed the word of invitation, so gentle, so gra- cious, so pleadingly tender ! " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Alas, alas, Capernaum ! thou didst despise that voice of warning, disregard that call, thrust from thee that easy yoke of love and low- liness, and what ensued ? Sodom fell, consumed in a moment by flaming fire ; her children saw the flash, and shrieked, and perished. But her fate was tolerable, was enviable to thine. O that thou hadst listened to him who in turn would have heard and EXTRAORDINARY CONFLICT. 55 saved what time the storm fell upon thee, unhappy Capernaum ! The Roman vulture having gorged himself with blood and spoil, next polluted with his presence the village of Emmaus, having before him an arduous feat in the purposed reduction of Gamala ; a place naturally more impregnable than Jotapata had been. So exceedingly abrupt was its steep acclivity, that the houses, standing very thick and close together, ap- peared to be built one upon another ; rising to the top of the mountain, which, where not quite precipitous, was very strongly defended by a deep oblique ditch, mines, and a wall. An immensely steep point of rock, rising in front of, and above the houses, formed a natural citadel to the town behind it, completing the resemblance of a camel's back, from whence the city takes its name. Here Agrippa had wearied himself by a seven months' siege, without producing the slightest effect on the place ; and the approach of the Romans to his assistance excited no other alarm in the minds of the garrison than such as arose from the diminution of their provisions and water, where supplies would be rendered unattainable. Vespasiap immediately commenced his bank, and brouglit up three battering rams, which soon overthrew the wall, and allowed the soldiers to enter the city, where a dreadful retribution waited some yet reeking from the murder of their recent victims. The vigorous resistance encountered below from the Jews, drove the Romans prematurely and in disorder to the up- per parts of the town, where the narrow, intricate, 56 JUD^A CAPTA. almost perpendicular streets, so completely embar rassed them, hemmed in as they were by men fiercely fighting in defence of their lives and liberties at the very doors of their own homes, that they had no way to turn, and they burst into the houses for refuge. These, unable to bear the sudden weight of such an armed host, gave way ; each dwelling fell on some other below it ; and the scene, unparalleled perhaps in history, presented a frightful mass of broken walls, great beams of timber, stones, heavy furniture, and men imprisoned in their own ponderous armour, fall- ing headlong together in one tremendous crash of utter destruction. Then were the Jewish inhabi- tants to be seen forcing their invaders to leap upon the tottering dwellings that they might give way and bury them, perhaps with their own wives and children, for whom they rightly deemed that such a fate was happiness compared with its alternative ; and what between the mighty crash that ground them into powder, the falls that broke their limbs, or so entangled as to tear them from their bodies, and the dust that killed them by instantaneous suffocation, the Romans suffered more on the mountain steep of Gamala than they had done in all their previous operations. Added to these, numbers were put to death by the inhabitants as they lay stunned or em- barrassed by their fall ; not only darts, but stones, rafters, and all the w r reck of their own homesteads, furnished weapons of destruction to the vengeful garrison : while not a few of the warriors, stung by GAMALA TAKEN. 57 such unwonted defeat, stabbed themselves ere an enemy could touch them. In the midst of this fearful rout, Vespasian found himself high up the city, and in most imminent danger. The language of Josephus in describing his proceeding is most disgraceful to him, a Jew, who had just witnessed the butchery and villainy at Tiberias. He says that the Roman, " calling to mind the actions that he had done from his youth, and rec- ollecting his courage, as if he had been excited by a divine fury" made a stand, and ultimately es- caped. He also records the death of one Ebutius, with the high commendation of having in his time " done very great mischief to the Jews." He re- cords too the speech of condolence made by Ves- pasian to his discomfited troops, in which he tells them, that "while they had killed so many ten thousands of the Jews, they had now paid their small share of the reckoning to Fate." Encouraged by his oration, the diminished host prepared to renew their attempts against the former breaches, which were gallantly defended by the little garrison ; and some time elapsed before the Romans, by a cautious stratagem, and having nearly starved the inhabi- tants, undermined a tower, which, eventually, gave them possession of the city ; yet did they not dare to enter it, until careful observation had assured them that no great power of resistance remained Then Titus, who had been absent on another ex pedition, got stealthily in with a chosen body of horse and foot, and proceeded in the work of slaugh 58 JUDAEA CAPTA. ter : but they were disappointed of more than half their recompense ; for they could only butcher four thousand men. women, and little babes ; the latter of whom they dashed down alive from the citadel, to break their tender limbs, and prolong their dying agonies : five thousand escaped them ; they stood upon the edges of those rocky precipices, men clasping their wives, and these their children ; a fu- rious wind was blowing at the time, which nearly bore them off their feet, and they had no refuge but the tender mercies of Rome. Titus approached: his blood-hounds were panting for their prey they never grasped it. Down, down from that giddy height the hunted children of Israel simultaneously cast themselves, and found a general tomb in the deeper excavations that were sunk in the deep val- ley below. Two women only were left ; they con- cealed themselves till all was over, and then found mercy on the strength of near relationship to a fa- mous general in the army of Agrippa, the royal slave-merchant. Gishala alone remained to be reduced. Here the inhabitants, like those of Tarichsea, were desirous of peace, being chiefly husbandmen unused to con- tention ; but another party existed, aliens and lawless characters under the same John who afterwards per- formed so conspicuous a part at Jerusalem. Titus summoned them to surrender, but John, desirous of escaping, pleaded the sacredness of the sabbath, and asked a truce from all negotiations till the morrow. This Titus granted ; and John used the interval to GISCHALA SURRENDERS. 59 accomplish his escape. He prevailed on a number of the citizens to accompany him, with a multitude of women and children whom he cruelly deserted on the road. These, of course, fell into the hands of those who went in pursuit : six thousand of the helpless creatures were put to death, and half that number brought back, in dreadful captivity to the town. Titus is represented as showing great leni- ency to the inhabitants, who came out to meet him most submissively, casting on John all the blame of the deception practised ; and it does not appear that any extensive massacre was perpetrated. He had a higher prize in immediate prospect : Jerusa- lem was next to be invested, and the army expresed great impatience to march upon the holy city ; but Vespasian, hearing from deserters how great were the divisions, and how bitter the internal contests carried on there, refused to advance, deeming it ex- pedient to allow those breaches to widen, and the mischief to proceed as far as possible, before they furnished the Jews with a motive of union by at- tacking them. There can be no doubt that the wily Roman had emissaries in the city, stirring up strife, and directing many evil works that appeared to be of Jewish origin alone : and Josephus himself, a cap- tive, but in high favour and confidence, would afford many valuable hints for his patron's guidance. How far his patriotism had been subdued, we may gather from the complacency with which he details events that even at this distance of time, must pierce with anguish the heart of every Jew who peruses the 6 DU JUDAEA CAPTA. tale ; how far his feelings had been paganized, we may also discern from the whole tenor of Jiis lan- guage, which is that of a Roman, not an Israelite. The " divine fury" that he ascribes to Vespasian could not, to his view, be as the heaven-born cou- rage of Gideon or David ; but the legitimate inspi- ration of Rome's warlike demon, Mars. Touches do appear of natural feeling, but they are very few, and very far between; a glimmer among the ashes of what he had laboured to extinguish, and where scarcely an expiring spark yet lingered. This ought to be borne in mind, when admitting as unquestionable the accuracy of one who took part in the events that he narrates. Every eye-wit- ness is not a true witness ; neither is the report of a faithless deserter, such as bore tidings to the Roman camp of what occurred within the walls of Jerusa- em, above suspicion. This we know, that they were days of vengeance when all came upon the country and the people, which the prophets had foretold ; and whatsoever is borne out by the word of prophecy that we are bound to believe. Beyond it, we have no sure data on which to build, save in the military operations and public events that were known to all men. Josephus certainly did not write for the Jews ; but for the Romans he certainly did write, and through their favour his work is pre- served as an invaluable record of what but for it would rest on a still more questionable foundation, wholly destitute of the local and national features that establish its general accuracy beyond dispute. THE PROPHETIC BEAST. 61 The prefatory matter has swelled far beyond our purposed limits ; but Jotopata, Tarichese and Gam- ala arrest us by the fearful interest of their melan- choly details ; while the narrative invests with grim and glaring life the prophetic beast, "which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass ; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet " JUD^A CAPTA. CHAPTER VI. THE fortified places of Judsea being reduced, and their gallant defenders slaughtered, or with their helpless families carried into slavery, the Roman army pressed on their general the desirableness of proceeding to Jerusalem; but Vespasian exhorted them to patience, representing that their work was being more effectually done by means of civil dis- sension, commotion, and blood within the city, than it could be by their immediate advance. John, who had escaped from Gischala, was at the head of a lawless party calling themselves zealots, making havoc of the more peaceable, and committing dread- ful acts, not only in Jerusalem, but by occasional excursions to neighbouring places ; while some alien bands who had possession of the citadel of Masada, not far from Jerusalem, took advantage of the ab- sence of the male population at the feast of unleav- ened bread to fall on the sarrounding villages, com- mitting dreadful barbarities, and carrying off the spoil to their fortress ; insomuch that individuals frequently made their appearance in the Roman camp, inviting Vespasian to advance, and, by com- pleting at a blow the work of desolation, put an end MORE MURDERS. 63 to this slow and torturing process. To this he seemed to yield, rather than to the wishes of his army ; and set forward on his sanguinary expedition in the char- acter of a deliverer anxious to extend the protecting wing of the Roman Eagle over the whole nation. Gadara, the chief city of Peraea, surrendered on their approach; the more hostile party having taken to flight, on finding that no opposition would be offered by the principal citizens. Vespasian despatched one of his commanders in pursuit of the fugitives, a body of whom they soon overtook, and completely sur- rounded, forming with their mail-clad ranks an un- broken, impervious wall of iron, against which the darts of the Jews were hurled in vain. These stood at bay, and fought with desperate courage : but es- cape was impossible ; and there like. oh, how like ! " a wild bull in a net," they struggled and fell, one by one, beneath the practised hands of the ene- my, who pierced them at will with their javelins, or trampled them beneath their horses' hoofs. This took place near a village, into which others had pre- viously fought their way through parties of the Ro- man horse, and where they made a brave but inef- fectual defence. The enemy broke in through the slender barriers, where, says Josephus, " the useless multitude were destroyed ;" in other words, the aged, the weak, and the helpless Jewish women and babes had their throats cut; the houses were plundered, the village was burnt ; and then the fugitives, aug- mented by all who had strength to flee, were hunted again on the road to Jericho, into which they hoped 6* 64 JUD.EA CAPTA. to throw themselves, and repulse the Romans. But Placidas, the hostile commander, was too rapid for them : he drove them to the side of Jordan, then swelled by the rains, and overflowing its banks, and here, after an unequal battle, he completed the work ?/ by slaying fifteen thousand with the sword, selecting | twelve hundred for slavery, and compelling the rest to leap into the river, over which their fathers passed dry-shod when the ark of the LORD rested in mid channel. But HE, the God of Abraham, was now wroth with His people ; He had forsaken His inher- itance, and given them over as a prey into the hands of a barbarous foe. We will here cite the words of that unnatural apostate, Josephus, who thus coolly details the nature and consequences of this savage massacre, perpetrated on his own brethren, the peo- ple of Israel, the royal tribe of Judah. " Now this destruction that fell upon the Jews, as it was not inferior to any of the rest in itself, so did it still ap- pear greater than it really was. And this because not only the whole country through which they fled was filled with slaughter, and Jordan could not be passed over by reason of the dead bodies that were in it ; but because the lake Asphaltites was also full of dead bodies that were carried down into it by the river. And now Placidas, after this GOOD SUCCESS that he had had, fell violently upon the smaller cities and villages ; when he took Abila, and Julias, and Bezemoth, and all those that lay as far as the lake Asphaltites, and put such of the deserters (i. e. trai- tors) into them as he thought proper. He then put THE SPOILER'S PROGRESS. 65 his followers on board the ships, and slew such as had fled to the lake." After this, Vespasian himself advanced upon Jer- icho, hoping for a fresh supply of blood and spoil ; but though he laid all waste in the way thither, he was disappointed at the last, for every one had fled, and Jericho was as desolate as though he had already swept it with the Roman besom ; and now he began in earnest to prepare for the great siege. He took Gerasae at a blow, slew all the young men who had not escaped, took captive all the families, gave their houses to be plundered by his troops, then set fire to the place. The whole surrounding country being thus completely laid waste, and every remaining building garrisoned by his soldiers or mercenary allies, the people of Jerusalem had no longer the power of making excursions from the city walls. The party most opposed to the Roman invader carefully watched such as were suspected of an intention to desert ; and of the other classes, none of course ventured to explore a neighbour- hood wholly subdued and overrun by the hostile army. It was not, however, reserved for Vespasian to conclude in person the fearful achievement hitherto so successfully prosecuted. That he longed to add this blood-stained trophy to the wreaths which he had recently won on the shores of our own Eng- land, cannot be doubted. It was the Roman fashion of those days to affect contempt the most supreme for every other people under heaven; and com- 66 JUDJEA CAPTA. mensurate with the gallantry exhibited by an enemy was the eagerness of those barbarous legions to subdue him. Strong confidence in their own in- vincible powers, an assured belief that they could not be conquered, upheld them under all reverses, and nerved them to such efforts as never failed to retrieve a temporary loss ; this urged them onward to finish the protracted campaign, so unexpectedly lengthened out by the desperate intrepidity of a people, who like themselves, but on far, far higher grounds, were incapable of realizing the fact of being subdued by mortal man. To the importunities of his martial followers Vespasian, having so far forced his way, was now fully disposed to accede ; but before the needful preparations could be made, events took a new turn at Rome, the imperial crown itself be- coming the property of this experienced slaugh- terer ; who, of course, found it necessary to proceed with all haste to the seat of universal empire. The act of sovereignty recorded by Josephus is one that we must carefully bear in mind. The Jewish historian had, as we have seen, been cap- tured at Jotapata, after heading the garrison of that town in a defence as gallant, as protracted, and as destructive to the enemy as they had anywhere en countered. This, in the eyes of the barbarous con querors, merited a cruel death, or at least perpetual slavery ; but Vespasian and Titus, won upon, as Jo- sephus tells us, by his inspired prediction of their both attaining to the imperial dignity, spared his life 5 and not only so, for it is evident that, though JOSEPHUS PROMOTED. 67 outwardly in bonds, he accompanied them on their march of blood and desolation more on the terms of a friend than of a captive. Vespasian now took ad- vantage of the high good humour into which the army was thrown by his acceptance of the imperial diadem, and of the glowing loyalty that all were ea- ger to manifest to the monarch of their choice. He set Josephus before them, rehearsed his gallant deeds, his sufferings, and above all, his happy pro- phecy, now fulfilled by themselves ; and appealed to them whether it was right that such a man should still wear the fetters of a captive. Of course, the answer accorded with the emperor's wish ; and then Titus, eager to put all possible honour upon this ex- traordinary Jew, suggested that the ceremony of hacking asunder his bonds should be performed, which, according to Roman usage, would remove the stigma of having ever worn them. This also was done ; and Josephus very complacently informs us that he " received the testimony of his integrity for a reward; and was moreover esteemed a, person of credit as to futurities also." He was regarded as a man high in the imperial favour, and secure of rising by means of that effectual helping hand that kings can give their creatures. At this distance of time, with no contemporaneous testimony to throw additional light on what he has thought proper to reveal, we cannot undertake to judge the Jewish historian; but it is impossible to avoid remarking, that had he accompanied Vespa- sian to Rome, his fame would have worn a brighter 68 JUDAEA CAPTA. aspect, his conduct have admitted of a more favour- able interpretation, than either can bear under the circumstances of his continuing with Titus, to aid and abet that heathen and his host in the destruction of the Holy City. When to this we again add the fact of his having penned his history under the eye of this imperial pair, father and son, subject to the keen remarks of those who had destroyed the Lord's vineyard, and laid waste His heritage; when we trace in it, as we cannot fail to do, an identification of feeling and interests with those whose hands, whose march, the very streets of whose haughty city, were still reeking with the warm life blood of Judah, we cannot, we will not take the word of this recreant and apostate Jew for any particulars calcu- lated to blacken the darkness of Jerusalem in that day of her unprecedented anguish. Desolate, in captivity, moving to and fro with fettered hands and bleeding feet, and a scourge, yea, a sword ever sus- pended over their lacerated shoulders, the Jews could not sit down to pen a refutation of what their treacherous brother, clad in soft clothing and feasted at Csesar's table, securely recorded against them. Away, then, with his testimony in all that concerns the enormities committed within the city : there is no warrant in the prophetic scriptures, no evidence in credible history, no analogy in nature itself, for the atrocities that he charges upon his brethren. Rome pagan, no less than Rome papal, needed the forging of a considerable number of lying accusations, to palliate in some degree the horrors of her own dia THE CROWNING SIN. 69 bolical barbarity against the Jewish people. She found a hand, expert and willing in the work of calumny; she made the most of it, and after ages have swallowed with unquestioning gullibility the whole incredible tale. A clearer light is now dawn- ing on the world ; and while the Lord God removes the covering from all nations, and the vail that is cast over all people, He also begins to take away the reproach of His own peculiar people in many particulars where a false reproach has hitherto rested on them ; and soon will all reproach, by His pardon- ing mercy and redeeming love, be removed from them for ever. Yet the Jews of that day were guilty, exceedingly, fearfully guilty ; or such overwhelming destruction could not have fallen on them, nor would the Lord have delivered the dearly-beloved of His soul, bound and naked, into the hands of her ferocious enemies. What was the crowning sin of the nation we very well know : reading by the light of man's instruction the words, the inspired words of their own holy pro- phets, they had overlooked the important fact of a suffering Saviour dying to redeem, and fixed their eyes exclusively on the more distant prospect of that glorious Redeemer coming to reign. To that por- tion of Isaiah's prediction which speaks of him as despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, smitten and afflicted ; bruised for their sins, wounded for their transgressions, scourged that they might be healed ; led as a sheep to the slaughter, numbered with the transgressors, 70 JUD^A CAPTA. entombed, and by his righteousness justifying them ; to this they closed their eyes, and opened them but to behold him coming from Edom, travelling in the greatness of his strength, and in the blood of his and their enemies, and crowned a glorious King. When Daniel forewarned them of a time being set " to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy," at which time, Messiah should be cut off, but not for himself; they refused to ponder the solemn message, and fixed their whole heart on the equally sure word that the same Messiah's kingdom should subse- quently be established in majesty and might on the ruins of the long-continued Gentile usurpations. When Zechariah declared that for thirty pieces of silver the Lord should be bartered among them, and that they should look on Him (the context proving a divine person) whom they had pierced, and mourn for him in the deepest humiliation of contrite sorrow, they threw it aside as a sealed book, laying an eager grasp on the triumphant sequel where Israel, restored and re-established in his own land, with every an- cient privilege confirmed and redoubled, should be- hold the nations of the earth coming yearly to Jeru- salem to keep with them the feast of Tabernacles. In like manner, what God hath joined in the Law the Psalms, and the Prophets, an atoning Sacrifice and a reigning Deliverer, a Prophet whom all must hear and obey on pain of destruction, a PRIEST upon WRATH TO THE UTTERMOST. 71 his throne, they, alas ! misled by blind guides, put asunder, and so filled up the measure of the sins of many generations. Then, wrath came upon them to the uttermost ; the beauty was defaced, the glory departed, and Judah was cast out for a long, long pilgrimage of suffering and sorrow through the wil- derness of cruel nations, whose iniquitous and im- pious pleasure it has been to help forward the afflic- tion ; daring the awful retribution that must follow from that unrevcked assurance given to Israel, " He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye." This has been a long digression, but we would fain place the matter in its true light. For many generations, and in many ways, Israel had pro- voked the LORD ; and the fact of their ultimately bringing on themselves a dispersion so long, and sufferings so bitter, as we know them to have un- dergone during the last eighteen centuries, was dis- tinctly revealed to, and with terrible exactness set forth by Moses, in the books of Leviticus and Deu- teronomy. This event at last took place, under the circumstances now referred to, and the menaced bolt fell. Josephus, evidently a man of most carnal mind and darkened understanding, takes upon him- self to exalt the national grandeur and prowess of the Jews, in order to exalt still higher the glory of those who conquered them : he obtained from the heathen spoilers the loan of the sacred books, the rolls that had been rent from the temple in Jerusa- lem, and from them, as from common records, he compiled a history of former times. Had he been 7 72 JUDAEA CAPTA. worthy of the name of Jew, he would have buried those holy books deep in the earth, and shed his life-blood in vindication of the deed that rescued them from foul profanation : but such he was not ; and we only note the circumstance as a proof of the extinction of all natural feeling in his breast; and as a landmark whereby to steer through his ex- aggerated descriptions of what he certainly did not himself see, nor could he know it but from the re- port of spies, deserters, and other traitors continually coming from the besieged walls. That fearful scenes were enacted there no one can doubt: that the city was divided, rent into factions, and every division wrought up to madness by the secret operation of suborned emissaries from the enemy's camp, or hired agents whose instruc- tions were thence derived, is obvious. In any population the same means would produce similar effects; and assuredly we must admit the awful fact that the Lord, their own Almighty King, " was turned to be their enemy and fought against them,"* that because they had walked contrary to Him, He at length fulfilled the threat, " I will walk contrary to you also in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And I will make your cit- ies waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desola- tion ; and I will not smell the savour of your swee\ odours. And I will bring the land into desolation and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the Isaiah Ixiii. 10. DIVINE THREATENINGS. 73 heathen, and will draw out a sword after you ; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste."* The fulfilment of this fruitful prediction to the very letter, must prepare the mind to receive an impres- sion fully commensurate with the prophetic lament, that " under the whole heaven hath not been done is hath been done upon Jerusalem." So far, we may, each for himself, picture the mournful, the dreadful state of the devoted city, divested of the guardian shield that had so long hung over it The angel of the LORD encamped no more about her palaces, but left them to be the spoiler's prey. The Temple, that spot most holy upon earth's wide surface, in the eyes of a Jew, was no longer owned by Him who had vouchsafed to dwell therein ; and in a furious contest of rival parties, Zacharius, the son of Barachius, a man of peace, and of the consecrated order, was slain be- tween the temple and the altar, a signal that the righteous blood shed from the beginning thitherto was about to come upon that generation.! Jerusa- lem could not have fallen, unless the great majority of her inhabitants had forsaken ana provoked the LORD to the uttermost ; because, for his own name's sake, and for his servant David's sake, did the LORD defend that city from of old. Far be it from us, while rejecting the malicious details of Josephus, to question the extent of prevailing iniquity there ! It would be to question the truth of the Most High, to arraign his justice, and to rebel against his power * L^vit. xxvi. 9. t Matt, xxiii. 35. 74 JUD.EA CAPTA. The language of the Jews, in their synagogues all over the world, on the return of that sorrowful anni- versary, and indeed in all their services, would keenly reprove us; for words cannot express a greater depth of contrite humiliation than they are accustomed to declare, on the subject of national provocation. Terrible in his long-delayed ven- geance, still the God of Israel was just ; and even in the fierceness of his wrath, He remembered mercy. He forgat not the covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; but stayed the rough wind in the day of his east wind, or what soul would have escaped the sanguinary murderers without, and their unprincipled tools within the devoted city? How would Judah have survived and continued, and multiplied, and spread abroad to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, and retained within himself all the elements of a returning greatness and glory, as it is at this day? We proceed to the scene of desolation, ac- companying Titus and his homicidal band : and with them desiring, " Let our eye look upon Zion," but oh ! with what a different sentiment to theirs ! Yes, we must go over the heart-rending details of her cruel wreck ; but sweetly prominent to our eye is still the assured pledge. Again I will build thee, And thou shalr. be built, O Virgin of Israel : Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, And shalt go forth in the dance of them that make merry. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria : DIVINE PROMISES. 75 The planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things. For there shall be a day, That the watchmen upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion, Unto the LORD our God. For thus saith the Lord 5 Sing with gladness for Jacob, And shout among the chief of the nations ; Publish ye, praise ye, and say, Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the coasts of the earth, And with them the blind and the lame, The woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together. A great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, And with supplications will I lead them, 1 will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble ; For I am a father unto Israel, And Ephraim is my first born. Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, And declare it in the isfes afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather his own, And keep him as a shepherd doth his flock, For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, And ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he, Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, And shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, For wheat, and for wine, and for oil, And for the young of the flock and of the herd j And their soul shall be as a watered garden 5 And they shall not sorrow any more at all, Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, Both young men and old together : For I will turn their mourning into joy, And will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And 1 will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, And my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD Jeremiah xxxi. 4. 7* 76 JTJD&A CAPTA. CHAPTER VII. FROM Alexandria, whence Vespasian set forth for Rome, Titus also departed to lay siege to Jerusalem. His route possesses a solemn and melancholy inter- est; he halted at Zoan, where God of old did mar- vellous things for Israel against their first oppres- sors. Having crossed the Nile, he proceeded over the desert; he entered Syria at Raphin. making Gaza his next station. Ascalon, Jamnia, and Joppa, in turn afforded a resting place to the Roman de- stroyer ; and lastly, he came to Cesarea, the chosen rendezvous of all his forces ; the point of concentra- tion, from which the collected torrent was to meet and overflow the deserted vineyard of the Lord of hosts. The order of their march into what Josephus is not ashamed to call " the enemtfs country," was as follows : first went the auxiliary forces, furnished by surrounding kings, among whom Agrippa, their former ally, mediator, and champion, supplied a por- tion ; and with these were a mixed multitude, also calling themselves auxiliaries, drawn to the Roman standard by a greedy hope of sharing the spoil of Zion. The pioneers and artificers of encampments THE MARCH INTO JUDEA. 77 followed, and after them the commander's baggage, with its wonted guard. Then Titus, with his picked supporters ; the pike-men ; the cavalry of the chosen legion ; and next the fatal engines ; the tribunes, leaders of cohorts, and their select bodies. The trumpeters next preceded the ensigns the ravening eagle, the abomination of desolation that should pol- lute the holy place. The main body, in ranks six deep, followed their standards ; then came the ser- vants and the general baggage of the army ; and last the mercenaries, with their appointed guards, who brought up the rear. Through Samaria they pro- ce^ded to Gophna, the desolate wreck of a city al- ready sacked by Vespasian ; and here they lay for the night. The next day's march brought them within thirty furlongs of Jerusalem ; where, in a place called the Valley of Thorns, another tempo- rary encampment was ordered, with the expectation that the next would be a permanent lodgment under the walls which the proud Assyrian menaced in vain. Meantime Titus, assembling six hundred of his cho- sen horsemen, proceeded to reconnoitre the city ; curious to ascertain both the extent and strength of its defences, and the temper of its inhabitants ; whether they were made of like metal with their brethren of Jotapata, Gamala, and the other fortified towns, eager to give battle and nerved to a desper- ate resistance ; or whether they were so exhausted by internal dissensions, or so intimidated by the near approach of his immense army, as to exhibit 78 JUD^A CAPTA. tokens of a speedy submission. His doubts were quickly set at rest. It was on the north-western side of the city, that all assailants, from David to the Roman general, had fixed their camps, that being, indeed, the only ac- cessible point. Titus had approached in that direc- tion, having before him the most modern suburb, Bezetha, which had grown up gradually from the increase of population, and possessed none of the natural defences enjoyed by the other parts of the city : but on this account greater pains had been taken to strengthen the walls, incomplete as had been left the execution of Agrippa's perfect design. There was a strong tower, called Psephinos, flank- ing the westward wall, at an angle, nearly parallel to where now stands the Damascus gate, and due west of it : near to this point. Titus, with his horse- men, had been allowed to advance, on the road lead- ing to the city, without the appearance of an indi- vidual to intercept or oppose him ; but when, encou- raged no doubt by such apparent passiveness, he altered his course, and swerved obliquely towards Psephinos, followed by his band, a sudden and most impetuous sally took place, not from any gate, but through the windows of some neighbouring towers, out of which multitudes of armed Jews suddenly leaped, casting themselves in the path of the horse- men, so that those who had not yet declined from the main road, were intercepted from following those who had ; while Titus, with only a few attendants, was in like manner cut off from the rest ? and placed TITUS ASSAILED. 79 in great peril, the nature of the ground much en- hancing it. Trenches had been dug as a sort of sunk fence, to protect the gardens, which in this quarter extended from the walls to some distance ; those deep trenches ran out obliquely, intermingled with strong hedges, together forming a barrier that forbade his further advance; return to his men seemed impossible, for a dense body of exasperated enemies intervened; and the Romans, unconscious that their commander was thus separated from them, remained in expectation of some order from his lips. Titus, moreover, was not armed as for battle ; so Jo- sephus says, who declares that he had on neither head-piece nor breast-plate ; which, if true, speaks little for his military tact and foresight, considering the nature of his expedition and his avowed uncer- tainty as to the hostile purposes of the besieged. The Romanized historian, of course, gives the greater credit to his patron, for the intrepidity with which he extricated himself from this alarming di- lemma, referring also to the providential care of God over the persons of kings. He represents the gen- eral as cutting his way through his assailants, par- rying, with his sword alone, the darts that were showered on him from every side ; cutting down some, riding over others, and finally escaping with his horsemen, two only of whom were slain in the combat. This encounter encouraged both parties ; the one being elated by having so decidedly put the Roman prince to flight, the other by his having so 80 JTJD^EA CAPTA. well escaped a very imminent danger ; which was of course interpreted as a happy omen. Titus, being further reinforced by a legion from Emmaus, advanced on the following day, with his assembled host, to the hill, or rather the gently swelling plain, called Scopus, seven furlongs only distant from the holy city. Here they proceeded, with the usual grim deliberation, to measure out the ground, to form their squares and streets, and to build rather than to pitch their substantial tents; planting in the midst the ominous ensign of their sanguinary sway. Before them, and clearly seen above the walls that intervened between the nu- merous towns, rose the magnificent Temple, sheathed, as it were, in burnished gold, continually provoking that lust of plunder which formed the main-spring of Roman enterprize. But between them and this splendid prize rose the formidable bulwark of An- tonia, guarding with its massive strength the north- west angle of the outer court, whence the wall that enclosed Acra branched forth, presenting a close array of towers bristling with spears and darts, and alive with countenances on which, among many deep emotions, one universal characteristic was traceable the stern resolve to die, if needful, amid the ruins of their city, but never, never to surrender it into the hands of a pagan foe. On Scopus two legions were encamped ; another was stationed somewhat further in the rear, that they might fortify themselves in greater security, and move at leisure under cover of the near camp. A third body, the THE TENTH LEGION ROUTED. 81 tenth Roman legion, were directed to form their encampment six furlongs from Jerusalem, on the de- scent of the Mount of Olives. And now behold the city indeed hemmed in by her enemies, encompassed with armies. Josephus, whom we are constrained to quote, says that when "the seditious" saw these several Roman camps suddenly pitched around them, "they began to think of an awkward sort of concord," and decided on an immediate sally. With them, to resolve was to do. The Romans were scattered about in small parties, methodically pursuing their famous camp architecture, taking it for granted that no one would attempt so premature an interruption of the goodly work, and persuaded, moreover, that the Jews, be- sides the intimidation that their advance must strike into them, were too completely disunited, too hotly engaged in civil warfare, to plan any offen- sive operation. Suddenly, however, a tremendous gush, a torrent of armed men, was seen sweeping down the declivity from the city wall, and with a. tremendous shout ascending the opposite hill, they threw themselves upon the astonished Romans, who, half armed, and wholly unprepared, sought safety in flight; some retreating at their utmost speed from the spot, others flying to the place where their weap- ons were deposited, but both hotly pursued. Few of the latter lived to gird those weapons on ; and of the former, on ground so new to them, so perfectly familiar to their assailants, great numbers fell be- neath the fiery tread of their pursuers. When the 82 JUDAEA CAPTA. Romans rallied, and formed a front, they were pres- ently thrown into confusion by the irregular onset of the Jews, who, neither knowing nor caring aught about the disciplined regularity of warfare to which the others were accustomed, fell upon them as did Samuel their prophet upon Agag, intent only to hew them in pieces. Encouraged and inflamed by the spectacle of their brethren's success, the Jews con- tinued to pour forth in great numbers, principally at the point where the vallies of the Kidron and of Hin- nom meet at the south-eastern point of the city, the foot of Ophel ; and, after several ineffectual attempts to stem the torrent and to turn the battle, the Romans were put to shameful flight, abandoning their camp, and being themselves in manifest danger of extermi- nation. Tidings had, however, been brought to Ti- tus of the jeopardy in which the tenth legion were placed, and he immediately advanced with sufficient reinforcements, rallied the fugitives, reproached them with cowardice, and made a fierce attack upon the Jews with the fresh troops horsemen, no doubt that he had brought up to the rescue. Having turned their flank, he pursued his advantage, com- pelling them to retreat towards the valley, in which they suffered great loss from the enemy in their ponderous armour crushing down upon them from the steep ; but the remainder having gained once more the opposite asoent, turned upon the pursuers, and under their beloved walls sustained for hours a battle with the Romans, who showered darts and lances upon them from the opposite bank. Titus EXPLOITS OF THE JEWS. 83 seeing that nothing was to be gained, stationed his fresh cohort to watch against any future sally from that point, and ordered the routed legion to a higher part of the mountain, there to pitch and to fortify their camp. But vain were the general's precautions, and equally vain his hope of overawing the children of Israel. No sooner were the soldiers seen, as in full retreat up the mountain, than a Jewish watchman, stationed on the wall, exultingly shook his garment ; and upon that signal out rushed a fresh multitude of the besieged, with such mighty violence, says Jo- sephus, " that one might compare it to the running of the most terrible wild beasts." Such were not the comparisons chosen of old to describe the irre- sistible prowess of Judah, when " kings with their armies did flee" before him ; but Josephus, as a pa- gan, wrote for pagans, so let his language go for what it was worth in the sight of his new masters. He proceeds, " To say the truth, none of those that opposed them could sustain the fury of their attacks ; but, as if they were cast out of an engine, they brake the enemies' ranks to pieces, who were put to flight, and ran away to the mountain." And who were these runaways ? Even the doughtiest warriors, the picked cohort of an invincible Roman army ! Titus had just before selected them from the flower of his host, to rescue the routed legion : and having done this, he had posted them on the edge of the valley to prevent any further egress from the walls However, the Jews broke out, and they " ran away 8 84 JUD^A CAPTA. up the mountain," Titus himself, whose personal courage was unquestionable, with a few of his imme- diate attendants, being left alone halfway up the steep, and finding it no easy matter to resist the importu- nities of his friends, who urged him also to flee. It appears that he nevertheless made a gallant stand, and not only maintained but improved his position. The hand of God was certainly over him ; for he, like Pharaoh of old, was ordained unconsciously to fulfil the decrees of the Most High, and the work allotted to him he must accomplish. The utmost confusion prevailed among the routed legion ; they concluded that Titus also had saved himself by flight, and nothing could be more complete than their disgrace- ful dispersion, when, peeping from the brow of the hill, where the thick olives afforded them some shelter, they descried their general engaged, almost single- handed, in desperate combat with the victorious Jews. This roused them at once ; and loudly proclaiming to their scattered comrades the commander's peril, all rushed down to rescue him, reproaching arid urging one another on, until the force of such a combined onset from many different points of higher ground, overpowered the Jews, turned them, and drove them into the depth of the valley, after a most deter- mined resistance ; for they faced about again, and fought their way, evidently in good order, until they gained once more the bulwarks of their city. Josephus has no word of commendation to bestow upon the courageous Jews ; but the praise that he gives his patron implies no slight testimony to their TITUS RESCUES THE LEGION. 85 prowess and exploits. After stating that Titus, hav- ing made all as safe as he could, sent the legion again to fortify their camp, he thus concludes the chapter : " Insomush, that if I may be allowed nei- ther to add anything out of flattery, nor to diminish anything out of envy, but to speak the plain truth, Caesar did twice deliver that entire legion when it was in jeopardy, and gave them a quiet opportunity of fortifying their camp." Titus has had his eulo- gists, and Josephus his followers, in every age ; but we question whether, during eighteen centuries, one hand has been found to seize the historic pen with a simple purpose of doing impartial justice to the calumniated Jews. The principal camp, as it has been stated, was pitched on Scopus, a fine expansive, slightly-ele- vated ground, northward of the holy city. Titus now resolved to approach still nearer to the walls, and with that view he commenced operations, suffi- ciently disheartening to those within. He first caused every irregularity of ground between the present site of his camp and Bezetha to be levelled, paring down the little eminences, and making all perfectly flat. In this work the whole army was en- gaged, with the exception of a picked and powerful body, whom he stationed to watch against and to oppose any attempted sally. Now were all the little gardens, so carefully cherished by their owners, whos,e inheritance they were, even as was the vineyard of Naboth his own, dug up and utterly destroyed Every landmark was removed, every hedge mown 86 JUDAEA CAPTA. down, every trench filled; and where groves of odoriferous trees had spread a cooling shade, where branches had bent under their loads of ripening fruit, the orange, the vine, the pomegranate, and the fig, where flowers of surpassing beauty had brightened the green sod, and fountains played for the refreshment of each lovely scene, nothing now remained but a naked, uptorn plain, a dreary level trampled into stone by the ceaseless tread of armed men. Even the rocky projections and acclivities that diversified the beauteous landscape were de- molished with iron instruments, and their fragments used to fill the chasms of a rent soil or carried be- yond the boundaries. This piteous work of desola- tion is briefly described by Josephus, without one touch of natural feeling such as one must suppose could not but wring the bosom of the most callous Jew. This took place during the days of unleav- ened bread, when some new dissensions appear to have broken out in the city, and rendered the Tem- ple once more a scene of strife, which ended in the reduction of three contending parties into two : but, howsoever engaged among themselves, the Jews found time to concert a stratagem against the besiegers. A certain number of courageous men suddenly left the city, as though they had been forcibly thrust out by their companions, and stole about the neigh- bourhood, with every appearance of being in great fear, lest they should fall into the hands of the Ro- mans ; and also of distrusting one another. At the JEWISH STRATAGEM. 87 same time those who were supposed to have ejected them, stood forward on the walls, loudly crying for peace, and claiming protection with security for their lives, in which condition they offered to open their gates to the enemy. In farther confirmation of this, they threw stones at such of the seemingly expelled party as were wandering beneath the walls : who in return petitioned to be taken back, and exhibited such extraordinary disorder of feeling, and uncer- tainty of purpose, as completely to deceive the Ro- mans, though Josephus says, that Titus suspected a stratagem ; because when he had, by means of Jo- sephus himself, endeavoured on the preceding day to persuade them to capitulate, he, or rather per- haps his agent, could not even obtain a civil answer. Probably the recollection of Jotapata, combined with its intrepid defender's present state of defection from the cause of Israel, rendered his mission more odious to the Jews than they could endure to contemplate, or even to repel with a semblance of courtesy. Titus, accordingly, commanded the soldiers to stay where they were ; but they, eager for plunder, dis- regarded him, and many of them ran towards the gates, expecting them to be thrown open. The ex- cluded party also hastily retired. Two towers flanked the gate, projecting considerably outwards; and when the credulous Romans had become wedged between these towers, the Jews at once ran out, sur- rounded and attacked them in the rear, while darts and missiles of every kind assailed them from above. Many of the soldiers were slain in this way, and 8* 88 JUDAEA CAPTA. such as escaped were pursued by the Jews to the farthest limit to which they could follow them with- out falling in with the main army. Thus expatiates the worthy Josephus : " After this, these Jews grew insolent upon their good fortune ;" and then he gives a speech of Titus, addressed to the offending troops, which is strangely at variance with his own account of the disunion, mutual hatred, violence, and self- slaughtering infatuation that reigned among his brethren within the holy city. Titus said, " These Jews, which are only conducted by their madness, do everything with care and circumspection: they contrive stratagems, and lay ambushes ; and fortune gives success to their stratagems, because they are obedient, and preserve their good-will and fidelity one to another" He then menaced with death the offenders who had, by acting so unlike the cautious, obedient, and united Jews, brought this loss and dis- grace on the Roman army. However, their com- rades all interceded for them, and they were par- doned ; and the general set himself to prosecute the war. Four days had sufficed to obliterate every trace of cultivation, and to transform the diversified suburb into a monotonous level on the north, north- west, and partly on the western side of the city ; and now he advanced his force closer to the walls, accu- mulating its greatest strength on the north : while on the west he placed his foot soldiers, seven deep, with three ranks of horsemen behind them ; the archers, also, seven in depth, occupying the interme- diate space. So formidable an array precluded the THE SANCTUARY. 89 possibility of further sallies from the Jews in that quarter: and under its cover, the beasts, the lug- gage, and the mercenary, disorganized multitude of followers, were enabled to take up the ground as- signed to them. Titus himself was stationed over against Psephinos ; the second division had its head- quarters near Hippicus ; and the tenth legion had completed their fortifications on the Mount of Olives. Alas for the city of David ! for the holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most High ! The heart of a Gentile fails, and her hand trembles while pursuing the mournful tale. Already we behold the deadly snare drawn close and strong round the victim : Je- rusalem is a besieged city, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Her sons are as a wild bull in a net, foaming in vain within its entangling meshes : her daughters lament for the past, shrink for the present, and see no rescue, no refuge, no escape from the terrible future. Can this be Zion, "beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth ?" Is this the place of which the Eternal said, " Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein ?" Yes, blessed for ever be his holy name ! there He dwelt, and there He will dwell again, in a glory and a majesty that shall lighten the whole earth ; there will He yet beautify his sanctuary, and make the place of his feet glo rious. 90 JUDAEA CAPTA. CHAPTER VIII. IN following the operations of the besieging army, it may be necessary again to advert to the position of the three walls that formed the bulwarks of the Holy City. The first, or old wall, was the strong- est, having been traced oat by David, after whom Solomon and all the kings of Judah successively la- boured to strengthen it. Commencing at the south- western corner of the Temple's outer court, it sepa- rated Zion from Acra by a line nearly straight, crossing the interior from east to west with a slight northward curve, and comprising within this space the strong towers of Mariamne, Pharsalus, and Hip- picus. Thence it swept southward round the whole hill of Zion, around the ridge of the valley of Hin- nom, turned at the corner of Ophel, and terminated at the south-western angle of the Temple walls. This was, to all appearance, so impregnable a bar- rier, that the confidence of the Jews in it was un- bounded. The stones were of enormous size ; some of the lower portion of the tower of Hippicus now remaining, and which there is every reason to be- lieve formed a part of the original fort built by Herod, measure externally from nine to twelve feet THE CITY WALLS. 91 each. The tower itseif is square, seventy feet by fifty-six, and this too is a piece of solid masonry, no vacuity being discoverable as far as these great stones extend; which confirms the assertion of Jo- sephus, that it was solid stonework to the height -jf thirty cubits, over which was a reservoir of water, then two stories of apartments, with battlements anc turrets. Of the other two forts nothing now remains, save the mass of ruins that assist to block up the pass below, and to reduce almost to a level the sur- face of the city, " builded upon her own heap" upon the crumbled wrecks- of her ancient strength and magnificence. The old, or first wall, having terminated at the south-eastern angle of the boundary that enclosed the Temple, the third, or Agrippa's, commenced to the northward of it, thus forming a continuous bar- rier along the steep acclivity that overlooked the valley of the Kedron ; and then enclosing Bezetha as the other encircled Zion, it formed a jutting an- gle at the north-west points of the city at the tower of Psephinos, where Titus had been so roughly as- sailed, whence it took its course back to Hippicus. The second, it will be remembered, was an internal barrier, extending from an ancient gate, the site of which is now unknown, but not far from Hippicus, and terminating at Fort Antonia, the great citadel of Jerusalem. The main strength of the city walls was in their towers, each of which, in addition to their immense solidity below, furnished accommodation to a large 92 JUDAEA CAPTA. defensive body above, supplying them also with water, and being each separately defensible. Of such warlike towers, the old wall had sixty, the sec- ond had forty, and Agrippa's, or the third wall, had ninety. The beauty of these bulwarks was no less remarkable than their size and strength. They were built of white stone, hewn from the rock in blocks of enormous size, and so exactly fitted one upon another as to present the appearance rather of an unbroken mass of marble than that of ordinary architecture. They rose to a great height above the walls, and these again being built, on three sides, upon the edge of a deep precipice, looked still loftier than they really were. The king's palace, and other buildings, Josephus describes in such terms as to stagger the credulity of modern readers : they can unhesitatingly receive, and complacently swallow his most exaggerated statements of impossible enormities committed by the inhabitants against each other ; but when he comes to set forth the grandeur and beauty of Jeru- salem itself, with which both he and those for whom he wrote were intimately acquainted, men become cautious, they examine and reject his testimony. We will not reverse, though we depart from the received plan : we will not perpetuate the latter while dis- carding the former branch of his statements. Enough for us that all the ancient glory of Jerusa- lem shall wax dim and be forgotten before the sur- passing magnificence of her latter day brightness enough that her sons, scattered and peeled, meted MOUNT MORIAH. 93 out, trodden down, oppressed and maligned as even yet they are, shall soon repossess their city, repeople their land ; for shame have double, and for confu- sion rejoice in their glorious portion. We must now, so far as is needful for the correct understanding of the heart-rending sequel, enter upon a description of the Temple. We shall follow Josephus, because, recreant as he was, we think he dared not have falsified on that subject. He could have no motives so to do ; and the familiar acquaint- ance of his Roman contemporaries with the spot must have served in some measure as a check on him. Recent discoveries have verified several of his most suspected statements, as to the size of the stones, the beauty of the masonry, and the exqui- site character of the workmanship employed in va- rious architectural departments. Some excavations, undertaken for a different purpose, have brought to light these things, buried beneath the desolations of many generations ; and the time is not far distant when the labours of Jewish restorers will make man- ifest the extent of that wreck committed by Gentile destroyers. Mount Moriah, " the mountain of the LORD'S house," was originally not only a steep but a very uneven hill, too narrow and too irregular on its sum- mit for the extent of ground subsequently occupied by the Temple and its consecrated boundaries. To the south it descended with an abrupt sweep, run- ning parallel with the southern slope of Zion ; but eastward the rock was precipitous, forming a deep 94 JUD^A CAPTA. ravine, the bed of the river Kedron. Great labour was expended in raising embankments, filling up the narrow valley to the west, and extending into a plain the limited area ; northward, the natural dif- ficulties do not appear to have been great. An ex- traordinary fact has been ascertained within the past few years, namely, that the holiest part of the Temple occupied a small natural elevation on the unhewn rock, which at this moment exists, an ob- ject of mysterious veneration, in the innermost re- cesses of the mosque of Omar. Had a circum- stance like this been stated in any ancient, unin- spired author, and could it now have been cited in the face of such alterations and transformations as the hands of nominal Christianity would have wrought on that consecrated spot, we should have been taught to laugh at the improbable fiction; but until the Caliph Omar made choice of that site for his mosque, the impious rage of a debased sect of nom- inal Christians against everything pertaining to the religion of Moses prevailed to heap the area of the Temple with the filth of their habitations and of the whole city. Thus concealed during the first epoch by the profane indignities of one supersti- tion, (the Greek,) and jealously guarded throughout another by the mistaken piety of an antagonist su- perstition, (the Moslem,) we find the ground, the very ground as it once upbore the house where the presence of the Most High vouchsafed to dwell in visible glory, and subsequently to walk and to teach in the likeness of sinful flesh, that ground in its THE TEMPLE COURTS. 95 original state remains for the seed of Jacob to iden- tify, and to consecrate anew, in a more acceptable form than they were of old, to the LORD of hosts, the Eternal, their King. Of those great buildings that were wrecked by the ruthless spoiler, not leaving one stone upon an- other that was not cast down, we are told that, in the first place, great and strong walls were built up- wards on the sides of the hill, forming at their sum- mits a square platform perfectly level, which was enclosed by adding to the lower walls a range of cloisters, that surrounded the outer court, communi- cating at one angle with Fort Antonia. This court was paved with a variety of stones ; and beyond it, enclosed by a second partition of peculiarly elegant workmanship, but only three cubits in height, sur- mounted by pillars, and ascended to by fourteen steps, was the court of the sanctuary, into which no Gentile might enter. On the eastern side of the second quadrangle was the women's court, where the daughters of Zion assembled to worship ; and here also stood another range of buildings, the natu- ral height of which was not easily discernible from without. Four gates on the north, four on the south, and two on the east side, led to this court ; the west- ern wall was unbroken. Of these gates, nine were overlaid with silver and gold ; but the tenth, which opened eastward, was far more magnificent, being of Corinthian brass, of considerably larger propor- tions than the rest, adorned with double splendour, having the precious metals more profusely spread 9 96 JUDAEA CAPTA. upon them, and with more elaborate ornament. These gateways were of such depth as to resemble towers, admitting of a room on either side within, between the outer and the inner door. Some idea may be formed of the grandeur of these approaches, when it is stated that each door was in height thirty cubits, and its breadth fifteen ; while the pillars that supported the chambers within the gateway were twelve cubits in circumference. The doors of the eastern, or " Beautiful gate," which stood over against the entrance of the Temple itself, were forty cubits high ; but the principal feature of the whole pile of sacred edifices was the snowy white- ness of the polished stones that formed it; their enormous size, and the unbroken surface, presented to the eye by means of such exquisite fitting of one to another as scarcely allowed any junction to be perceptible. Accustomed as they were to worship on that spot, and familiarized with the magnificence that then surmounted them, the disciples could not refrain from exclaiming, " Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here !" The court of the Gentiles, and of the women, and that of the men also, being passed, another ascent led to the level of the Temple itself, the particulars of which we do not attempt to describe, beyond what were visible to the Roman host, whose eyes must almost have failed with gazing on it, while they computed the value of spoils, such as had never before invited their rapacious grasp. The tenth legion, encamped on the Mount of Olives could THE TEMPLE. 97 look down into its beauteous recesses, when the morning sun-beam rested on those stately pillars, and threw into the richest relief the massive foliage of vine-leaves, grapes, pomegranates, and other ex- quisite tracery that hung upon the snowy structure in masses of solid gold. Opening, as it did, to the east, and closed from view only in the holiest place, which the high-priest alone, once in the year, might enter, while a costly veil, profusely embroidered in blue, scarlet, and purple, hung before the entrance of the sanctuary, revealing, when withdrawn, the al- tar of incense, the golden table of shew-bread, and the seven-branched candlestick ; all but the most distant and mysterious recess, (the spot where for- merly rested the visible glory of the Eternal,) was frequently laid open, like a dream of imaginary mag- nificence, to the astonished view of those who hov ered on the opposite heights : the altar of burnt offering standing in the open air, surrounded by the priests, while all Israel worshipped beyond the light and elegant frame-work that encompassed it, com- pleted the sublime spectacle. That holy spot was then, indeed, polluted by the presence of men of strife and blood, contending for the possession, with other views and far less sacred purposes than a pious Israelite could have enter- tained: but its external aspect had undergone no change, neither was its sanctity diminished in the eyes of many thousands who daily pressed to offer the prayers of agonized apprehension in its beloved courts. It stood ; and around it rallied those whose 98 JUD^A CAPTA. heart's blood was ready to flow in defence of every stone that formed that majestic pile. It stood, even where the voice of Omnipotence came from heaven unto Abraham, when with outstretched arm he poised the knife above his only son, with that im- mutable promise and oath by which the blessing of all nations through Abraham's seed is still secure : on that spot where David's supplication had prevail- ed to avert a former judgment from Jerusalem, and sheath the sword of a destroying angel, commis- sioned to visit for the monarch's sin : on that spot where, in Solomon's day, the effulgence of God's presence had so filled the former house, as to render it untenable by feeble man : on that spot where a greater than Solomon had recently made the glory of the second Temple surpass the glory of the for- mer house ; where David's Son and David's Lord bore as an accusation the title that shall yet be his glory throughout the universe 5 where Abraham's seed, the true and only sacrifice for sin, had verified at once the type of Isaac's doom, and sealed the promised blessing to the utmost ends of the earth. HE never despised, or spoke lightly even of the ma- terial structure that crowned the holy mount ; many instances may be cited of a directly opposite tenden- cy ; as in the expression, " Whoso shall swear by the Temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwell- eth therein" " Make not my Father's house an house of merchandize ;" and others. In like manner we find the apostles, to the latest period of their pro- ceedings in Jerusalem, observing the ordinances of 99 the LORD'S house ; and Paul energetically clearing himself, not only "before the Roman governors in Ju- dea, but before the Jews in Rome, of any infraction of that rule : " I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers" he says to the latter ; and to the former, he reiterates the fact that he, as a Jew, was found by the Jews "purified in the Temple" in fulfilment of a strictly Jewish vow, not disputing or opposing anything connected with their worship. We should do well sometimes to call to mind the dealings and expressions of the first be- lievers, the inspired apostles of our Lord, together with his own example, in reference to that which was emphatically ordained to be " a house of prayer for all nations ;" instead of using means to deaden our sympathies, and to encourage ourselves in con- temptuous thoughts of that "mountain of the LORD'S house," to which, as to an appointed cen- tre, all nations shall yet flow. The fort Antonia was no part of the original de sign the sacred antiquities of the spot. Herod built it on a point of rock at the northern verge of Moriah, where a deep trench was also carried along its base, separating it from Bezetha. To render this steep more inaccessible, the rock was artificially smoothed, from its foundation upwards, by the ad- dition of polished stone laid on its surface, so that any one attempting to scale it would find no possi billity of fixing his foot there. There rose a wall abruptly from this hopeless ascent, and within it the tower; a most formidable building, containing in 9* 100 JUD.EA CAPTA. itself every requisite for the purpose to which it was appropriated by its founder. Josephus aptly says that whereas the Temple was a fortress that guarded the city, so was the tower of Antonia a guard to the Temple. It had four turrets at its four corners, the south-eastern one being considerably higher than the rest, and entirely commanding the whole area of the Temple. A Roman legion had always been sta- tioned here, and from this high turret they were ac- customed to watch the proceedings of the Jews, when assembled at their stated festivities ; patrolling also around the cloisters, into which they had opened communications from the lower part of the tower. On a former occasion, the Jews had delivered them- selves from this degrading intrusion, by destroying the range of buildings that abutted on the tower, and so depriving the soldiers of a covered way ; but they were compelled to restore them. Subsequently the enemy was altogether expelled ; and Antonia became the prize of the strongest party among those whose contentions so fatally distracted and weak- ened the city. The two leaders, Simon and John, the latter of whom had possession of the Temple, and the former of Zion, or the upper city, continued to oppose each other ; and Josephus represents it as an act of great kindness on the part of the Romans, to subdue the animosity by destroying both parties. He says, " The sedition destroyed the city, and the Romans destroyed the sedition ; which was a much harder thing to do than to destroy the walls." Nev- ertheless, the walls gave them some trouble; and ATTACK ON BEZETHA. 101 had not the LORD been wroth with his people, the virgin daughter of Zion might have shaken her head at those iron legions, and laughed to scorn their bat- tering rams, as serenely as she derided the spears of the Assyrian. Titus, having completed his preparations, now pro- ceeded closely to examine the wall, in order to select any weak point ; and this, unhappily, he was enabled to do. In that part of Bezetha which was most thinly inhabited, the builders of Agrippa's wall left the work in an imperfect state at its junction with the old wall, which here was also lower and more assailable. To this quarter the general ordered up his engines, and received a further stimulus to his zeal from the mischief that befell his friend Nicanor. Josephus, it appears on his own evidence, was prowl- ing about under the walls, seeking to persuade his countrymen into a surrender, as " a person known to them." Known he had been as an illustrious Jew, and as an intrepid warrior ; but he was also now known to them as a traitor, an apostate, and a de- ceitful tool of the enemy, worthy of no oth<3r reply from them than was conveyed in the shower of darts with which they greeted his insidious approach. By one of these weapons Nicanor was wounded in the shoulder, and Titus, despairing of treachery within, resolved to press most vigorously the assault from without. He gave his soldiers leave to fire the suburbs, as an earnest, perhaps, of the desolation that they might hope to carry to the utmost ; he also di rected them to raise banks of timber against the city, 102 JUDAEA CAPTA. placing his archers in the midst of the workmen, and drawing out in their front a number of the engines, from which stones, javelins, and other missiles were continually cast, to deter the besieged from attempt- ing a sally, and to drive from the walls those who were prepared to obstruct their operations. And now every remaining tree available for their purpose was cut down ; not only the gardens and fragrant groves, but the stately growth of many an age, fell beneath the alien axe " the fir tree, and the pine tree, and the box together ;" not, alas ! to beautify the place of the Lord's sanctuary, but to aid in the work of its destruction. It was a bitter spectacle for the inhabitants of Jerusalem to behold their beautiful land laid waste, and the trees under which their fathers' fathers had reposed, trees that had seen the bright days of Judah, when no alien vexed her borders, dragged heavily along the dis- figured plain to form a huge embankment against them. They were not idle. They had not ceased to hope, and hoping to be strong and of good cour- age in contesting every stone of their sacred walls. They assembled towards the point of attack, bring- ing up such engines as they had, being spoils taken from Cestius, and from the lately-expelled garrison of Roman soldiers. Josephus speaks contemptu- ously of their unskilfulness in the use of these ma- chines, having had little practice or instruction in the art ; but he admits that they frequently ran out, in defiance of the Roman batteries, and finally attacked the men at the banks, who, covering themselves with THE. WALLS ASSAULTED. 103 hurdles, as at Jotapata, and, defended by their en- gines and archers, suffered but little obstruction. Josephus speaks with satisfaction of the havoc made by some extraordinary catapults belonging to the tenth legion, which threw masses of rock, the weight of a talent, to a great distance, and with such terri- hle force as to overthrow whole ranks of men. The Jews for a time baffled these ; not only the noise of the engine, but the shining whiteness of those stones of Zion, gave notice of their approach : the watch- men stationed on their towers uttered a warning cry, those around prostrated themselves behind their battlements, and the instrument of death passed harmless over them. The Romans perceiving this, blackened the stones, thus rendering them less visi- ble, and by this means destroyed many at one blow. Nevertheless, their operations were incessantly inter- rupted by the Jews, who harassed them day and night, and scarcely permitted them to complete tho banks. The work was at length completed, the interven- ing ground measured, and the dreadful engines ad- vanced to the very walls 5 and from three different quarters at the same moment, with a thundering noise, the attack was made. A great cry was heard within the city, whether of terror or defiance, or both, the narrator does not state, but he admits that they suspended their quarrels, and united in defence of their bulwarks. Seizing lighted torches, they ran round the walls, hurling them at the engines, shoot- ing, at the same time, their darts at those who 104 JUDAEA CAPTA. worked them. A battering-ram of the fifteenth legion actually moved the corner of a tower, and inspired hopes that a breach would be effected ; but no further damage was done by it, and a furious sally of the Jews, who leaped down upon the hurdles that covered the machines, tore them in pieces, and attacked the men belonging to them. Titus found great difficulty in repelling these assaults, though he made the most of his horsemen and archers, and ultimately beat back the gallant defenders, who brought fire to the very framework of the engines, and fought as did their fathers of old. But alas ! " their Rock had sold them and the LORD had shut them up." JEWISH STRATAGEM. CHAPTER IX. AFTER the impression just noticed had been made an the upper part of a tower, the Jews suddenly suspended their efforts. They discontinued the sal- lies, and withdrew within their fortifications, lead- ing the assailants to conclude that they were either so wearied out by continued exertion, or so intimi- dated by the formidable aspect of the besieging army, and the shaking of one of Z ion's bulwarks, as to have yielded to despondency, and forborne the hopeless fight. The Romans hereupon encouraged themselves, and hastened the completion of their plan, each camp being the scene of eager bustle and preparation for renewed assaults, while every man found somewhat to occupy him in the military works. Quietly and unsuspected, the defenders collected their force, and availing themselves of a small pri- vate gateway at the tower of Hippicus, they passed out, each man being provided with fire, and came so suddenly up to the very banks that the enemy were fortifying, that the Roman warriors were con- strained to cry out to their dispersed comrades for help. These advanced from all parts of the camp to the rescue, hastily forming in their usual excel- 106 JUDAEA CAPTA. lent order ; but neither numbers nor discipline avail- ed them against the valour of the Jews. Josephus is obliged to confess this, however unwillingly, and that for a long time new succours only came up to be routed, while one party struggled to fire the works and destroy the engines, the other to preserve them. " The Jews," says this recreant, " were now too hard for the Romans by the furious assaults they made, like madmen." On a former occasion Jose- phus had done the same, and probably he would have thought it hard to stigmatize the heroes of Jotapata as furious wild beasts and madmen, when contending for their homes, their wives, their chil- dren, their own good land, and their own lives ; pro- bably if to these had been added the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and Mount Zion, the holy city itself, he would have used such an argument to fire the courage of his comrades into tenfold ardour. But Josephus was now the sordid craven tool of the pagan foe, the hireling sycophant, so sold to work iniquity against his own people, that he could assist to batter down those sacred bulwarks ; and even after beholding the utter, the unprecedented, the heart-withering destruction that came upon the chil- dren of Israel at the hands of savage barbarians, he could coolly sit down and cull degrading epithets wherewith to cast a stain upon the memory of his butchered brethren. Yet this too is overruled for good : out of his own mouth we judge the traitor, and measure by the standard of his irrepressible ma- DESPERATE STRUGGLE. 107 lignity the extent of his calumnious charges against them. To return to the " madmen :" they succeeded in setting fire to the works, and for some time the Ro- man machinery was in imminent danger of being reduced to ashes. A select band from Alexandria, concerning whom the historian hints that theii martial prowess had not previously been very con- spicuous, succeeded, however, in staying the impet- uous progress of the Jews, while many on both sides fell around the fatal engines. At length Titus, predestined to destroy as did the heathen kings of old whenever the Lord was provoked to sell his peo- ple into the hand of their enemies advanced at the head of his irresistible horsemen, and, according to Josephus, slew with his own hand twelve of " the enemy" that is to say, of the foremost Jews, who were offering themselves willingly for the defence of their sacred citadel. When the rest saw their lead- ers fall by a single arm, and that the arm of him who had brought the abomination of desolation to the verge of their holy place, they seem to have been struck with a panic, a consciousness that they were delivered to the destroyer, and under this influ- ence they retreated into the city. One man alone was taken alive, and he, by the orders of the merci- less Titus, was crucified before the walls, " to see," says Josephus. " whether the rest would be affrighted, and abate of their obstinacy" We quote this lan- guage to justify the loathing disgust with which we cannot but contemplate his character, and to exhibit 10 108 JUDAEA CAPTA. his true feeling towards, or rather against, his af- flicted nation. It does not appear that any intimida- tion was effected by this act of cowardly ferocity, but on the following night an extraordinary panic seized the Roman host, in which, though their scribe records it not, they probably did some execution one upon another. Titus had commanded the erection of three towers, each fifty cubits high, for the double pur- pose of overlooking the defences and of driving from the walls all who should advance to man them. At midnight, while the Jews within were in consider- able agitation at the death of John, the general of the Idumeans, who had been shot by an Arabian after the battle, when standing in seeming security, conversing on the wall, and whose loss filled Jerusa- lem with lamentation ; and while the Romans qui- etly reposed in their camps, one of these towers sud- denly fell down, with a terrible crash, leading the army to suppose that the Jews were upon them again. Great confusion ensued among the legions ; each man suspected his neighbour to be a foe ; on all sides the watchword was demanded, and tumult reigned throughout the host, for, seeing no enemy among them, treachery was generally surmised. It was not without great difficulty, and probably blood- shed, that Titus succeeded in explaining the inci- dent and allaying the storm. To these fatal towers the Romans owed their con- quest ; they rendered resistance una vailing. Covered with plates of iron, they defied the agency of fire, MELANCHOLY PROSPECTS. 109 hitherto so effective against the Roman works ; their altitude secured the archers and slingers from all weapons levelled at them from the walls, while en- abling them to take a sure and deadly aim at those below. Besides, the Romans had made them suffi- ciently strong to bear the lighter engines, and thus they directed whole vollies against the garrison, who were compelled to retire, leaving the enormous rams to deal unobstructedly their fearful blows against the rampart walls. What heart can conceive the terrors of this season, as experienced by those who were surrounded, see- ing no way of escape ! We speak not of Jewish men so much as of the poor, weak, tender women and little ones, and of the very aged, some of whom had heard the thrilling sounds of compassionate warning, when, melted into sorrow, they followed the steps of the holy Sufferer, who bore his cross along the proud and stately streets of the city, and bewailed the cruel death to which He was ignorantly doomed. " Daughters of Jerusalem," He said, " weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the moun- tains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us." Surely such must have been the language, secret, if not ut- tered, of the terrified females, as they stole a glance at the tremendous array of those camps, swarming with a horde of fierce, brutal, sanguinary, licentious 110 JUD/EA CAPTA. devil-worshippers, who never knew what pity meant, and who were lured to the enterprise by nothing but the prospect of fully satiating all their vilest and most ferocious passions. Surely such must have been the mother's moan, as she looked on her beau- teous children, and pictured to herself the horrors of a life-long slavery, with all its hideous concomitants, including the torturing deaths reserved for multi- tudes in the gladiatorial and other murderous spec- tacles of Rome. Imagination faints beneath the ef- fort to realize for one moment what those endured who were now pent in by the tottering walls and towers of Jerusalem. On the fifteenth day of the siege was the imper- fect wall of Agrippa surmounted, and Bezetha taken. The Jews had retired within the more pow- erful bulwarks of their second wall, having the north- ern division of the city, which was indeed but a modern suburb to ancient Jerusalem, for their occu- pation. Josephus attributes their abandonment of it to laziness and ill-concerted counsels ; though he had just before proved the impossibility of their with- standing the method of assault adopted by the enemy, who had in him an accurate informant on every point ; an experienced soldier, perfectly able to direct their operations against the city of his God ; and as consummate a traitor as ever stabbed the bosom which had given him suck. He, of course, would have preferred that the Jews had remained to be slaughtered in the indefensible streets of Bezetha $ instead of which, he found himself with his employ FORMER TIMES. Ill ers, established on a spot most memorable for the destruction of their ancient predecessors they oc- cupied now the ground where Rabshakeh had pitched his camp, shortly before the divine vengeance which followed them thence overtook the host of the Assyrian, and slew in one night by invisible means a hundred and eighty-five thousand men. Dearly as were all their national deliverances cherished by the Jews, no doubt many thought on this, and looked for a similar miracle to rescue Jerusalem ; they would call to mind the words spoken of old, in reference to the Assyrian invader, " He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake." The progress of the Roman arms had not yet extended beyond the point of the Assyrian's ad- vance, and it is very probable that in suddenly re- tiring to their ancient limits the garrison had in view this fact. Their true unbroken wall still encom- passed the city of Melchizedek, (the ancient Jebus,) the city of David, and Mount Moriah : in scripture language, Jerusalem, Zion. and the Mountain of the Lord's house ; and it is remarkable that such are the limits named in the promises of future exaltation to the holy city. Confined within a narrower compass, suffering much more from the strictness of the siege, and having a nearer, a much more formidable view of the enemy, still the daughter of Zion sat as a 10* 112 JTJD.EA CAPTA. queen within the uninvaded circuit of her original domain ; and the utmost demolition effected by the Romans in the northern quarter of the city was but the renewal of what Cestius had previously done. From this period, every advantage obtained by f he besiegers was indeed against Jerusalem. The camp being thus far advanced, and all the battering engines brought up, the attack was, of course, upon the wall that stretched from the tower of Antonia to that of Hippicus, sweeping round Acra, and enclosing the busiest, the most crowded part of the whole city. Here were the shops and markets ; here the artizans resided, and business of all kinds was transacted. The streets were narrow, steep, and intricate, rising towards the Temple by causeways and flights of steps, arid descending again into the Tyropean pass, which it must always be borne in mind was then a deep ravine, an exceed- ingly narrow and abrupt valley, intersecting the three mounts, Moriah, Zion, and Acra. To judge of ancient Jerusalem by the position of its surface in our day, is merely to mislead ourselves ; for the very outlines are in many places lost j and the inte- rior details present an appearance wholly unlike its former aspect. " Built upon its own heap," parts of the city now stands on foundations overtopping the summit of lofty buildings that once occupied the same site, as regards mere measurement from given points 5 and when we talk of hills arid passes, we re- fer to places where at this moment perhaps a level plain extends beneath the incredulous eye. Many CHANGES OF ASPECT. 113 who visit the spot with minds correctly impressed from scripture with the real aspect of the city of David, and its surrounding localities, are perplexed, disappointed, and almost tempted to doubt the accu- racy of the inspired description ; while, in like man- ner, the inquirer into such historical records as this of Josephus is led to account many things fabulous, because his modern plan of Jerusalem tends to con- tradict them. No other place under heaven has known such marvellous changes ; no other country has undergone so strange a succession of desolating and transforming vicissitudes ; but in despite of all, we may recall every event of her memorable his- tory in connexion with the very spot on which it oc- curred ; and sweet to those who love her will be the task, when the days of her mourning are ended ! While Titus marshalled his bands for a fresh at- tack, having also opened, by his recent advance, a much nearer communication with the camp on Mount Olivet, the Jews also disposed their force to the best advantage. John of Gischala occupied the tower of Antonia, and the northern range of clois- ters : while Simon, his rival, manned the wall, where it stretched in a crescent form, bending back to an old gate, near the tower of Hippicus, for its course was like a bent bow, almost semicircular, bulging out to the north-west; and then meeting the old wall, in its course westward from the temple. Di- vided into several bodies, the Jews planted them- selves on this line of wall, and most gallantly de- fended it, throwing darts at the enemy. They also 114 JTJD^A CAPTA. made frequent sallies, from which they were speed- ily driven back, by the vast superiority of the Roman army, in weapons, discipline, and generalship ; but on the walls they proved too much for their adver- saries, and often repulsed them. The battle raged from day to day, without any other perceptible ad- vantage than that which the besiegers gained from the increasing misery and privations of the besieged. Josephus says, that the combat was persevered in with equal obstinacy on both sides ; commencing with the morning's light, and " night itself had much ado to part them." A sleepless watch, with- out and within, with eager impatience for the mor- row, occupied the hours of darkness ; the Romans hoping by some mighty effort to overcome their gal- lant opposers, and to grasp the prey : the Jews still looking for deliverance from Him who had of old put their enemies to shameful flight, and who had, " as birds flying," protected his Jerusalem. Neither Dut off their armour during the night, but lay ready to start up at earliest dawn ; the great ambition among the Jews being to secure the post of greatest danger. This Josephus admits ; at the same time telling us it was done to gratify their commander. A motive worthy to be imputed to them by one who only lived to please Titus ; and whose debased soul could now conceive of no higher incentive than the patronizing smile of a master; even though that master was an idolatrous heathen, steeped to the lips in the blood of Israel. Immediately after this contemptible endeavour to VALOUR OF THE JEWS. 115 derogate from the patriotic valour of his own nation, and proving that the hope of gaining the favour of Ti- tus really was the principal stimulus of the Romans, he admits that death itself seemed a small matter to any Jew, if he could but kill one of the enemy. In other words, they fought for their home ; for the city of their fathers and the Temple of their God ; and happy did he account himself who diminished, even by one individual, the host arrayed against them, though in the act he yielded his own life. If anything had been wanting to prove how factitious were the vaunt- ed honour and magnanimity of these Roman heroes, behold the fact of their permitting, yea, employing a treacherous deserter thus to slander the dead, whose courageous self-devotion in the cause of their own country would have moved any honourable foe to respect their memories and applaud their valour. But we are constantly reminded of the prophetic character of the fourth Beast : it not only devoured and broke in pieces ; it " stamped the residue with the feet of it." Titus having brought one of his battering-rams to bear on a central tower in the northern part of the second wail, a device was practised, showing at once the cool self-possession of those whom the historian calls madmen, and the fertility of their minds in discov- ering hindrances to stay the enemy's progress. Pent in as they were, suffering all the horrors of famine, and without hope of succour from man, these con- trivances prove the perseverance of their expecta- 116 JUDvEA CAPTA. tion that the God of Israel would yet show himself mindful of his suffering people, and rebuke the de- stroyer for their sakes. It is plain, they could not persuade themselves that Jerusalem, so long the throne of God's promise, and the Temple where He once delighted to dwell, would really become the prey of those exterminating enemies: they hoped that, after sorely afflicting them, perhaps He would yet repent and return, and bestow a blessing ; and thus hoping, they deemed every hour's delay of im- portance to be purchased at any price. A Jew, named Castor, taking with him ten more, formed an ambush in the tower now assailed by the ram ; all the rest having withdrawn from the aim of the Roman marksmen. They lay still until the tower began to shake, then showed themselves, and Castor, crying for mercy, implored that Titus would receive their submission and ensure their safety in the usual way, by giving his right hand. The general, whose great object was to gain as much as he could by treachery on the other side, so sparing the lives of his own troops, lent a willing ear, commanded the ram to be stopped, and encouraged Castor to proceed with his overtures. The Jew (having privately sent word to Simon that he would amuse the enemy for some time, to allow him more space for consultation upon the defence,) protested his readiness to descend from the tower, and deliver himself and his companions up on condition of the afore-mentioned pledge. Ti- tus assented, expressing his desire to extend the se- A NLW STRATAGEM. 117 curity to the whole city, if all its inhabitants could be brought to the same mind. While these compliments were passing, five of the ten men burst out into vehement protestations that they would sooner die than agree to the proposed submission ; the others pretended to reason with them, and a long altercation ensued, during which the Romans stood idly by, hoping to gain more by this defection, than by the strokes of their battering- ram. The pretended debate grew apparently to a quarrel : Castor was exhorting the objectors to yield, and they in return brandishing their swords, arid, finally, appearing to stab themselves, and to fall down slain, to the great admiration of Titus and his men ; removed as they were to a distance, from which they could not clearly ascertain what passed. A dart was, however, shot at Castor, and stuck in his face : he drew it forth, and appealed to Titus against the unfairness of the proceeding, on which the archer was reprimanded. It may readily be sup- posed that all this occupied some precious time. Jo- sephus, standing by his patron, was desired to go to Castor, with the right hand of security, hut he pru- dently declined : suspecting the sincerity of his brethren's treason, he also withheld others who would have gone. Castor, however, continued to call for some one to come and receive his money, which tempted another renegade, less cautious than Jose- phus, to hasten towards hi'm. He was saluted by the hurling of a heavy stone from Castor's hand, which missed him, but wounded another person. *1 JUDAEA CAPTA. Titus now saw the real object of the parley, and, as Josephus remarks, " perceived that mercy in war is a pernicious thing ; because such cunning tricks have less exercise under greater severity." He ac- cordingly ordered the battering to be resumed more vigorously than before ; but as soon as the tower be- gan to tremble, Castor and his companions set it on fire, leaping into the flames, to the great admiration of the Romans, by whom suicide was held in the highest esteem ; but Josephus says they only leaped into a hidden vault, through which they escaped. How he ascertained the fact must remain doubtful ; but the stratagem itself, with all the falsifying partic- ulars that he was sure to interweave in his narra- tive, in deterioration of the Jewish character, goes far to prove that real treachery was exceedingly rare among the besieged, though most eagerly sought after by the assailants. Before we recount the further progress of the ene- my, it is needful to remind the reader that within the city were two classes : one comprising the help- less, weak, unarmed civilians, many of whom no doubt were led, in this extremity, to recognise the hand of the Lord, and to humble themselves under it ; while others, seeing the utter hopelessness of re- sistance, saw no possible way of escape from indis- criminate slaughter, save in an immediate and un- conditional surrender: and with these were doubt- less many who, in the extremity of fear and suffering, would have bartered their right both in the holy place and in the chosen nation, for deliverance from CHARACTER OF THE SEDITION. 119 present misery. The other class, called by Josephus the seditious, because they rebelled against the sov- ereign will of Rome, consisted of the fighting men those who were resolved to perish amid the ruins of their city, rather than connive at the advance of a hostile footstep within its sacred boundaries. We have already seen by what cruel aggressions the Jews were originally goaded into hostile measures, at first purely defensive, but amounting at length to the forcible expulsion of a powerful people, who had long held them tributary. They had fully recog- nised the Roman government, had long seen their cities garrisoned by Roman troops, and relinquished all claim to independent legislation or self-govern- ment. " It is not lawful for us to put any man to death :" " We have no king but Caesar." These were voluntary declarations of a state in which the sceptre had departed from Judah, and the Lawgiver from between his feet ; and, strictly speak- ing, they were guilty of insurrection against regu- larly instituted authorities. In former years, God had vouchsafed to send them prophets and deliverers, commissioned to break the yoke from off their necks, which their iniquities had provoked Him to lay on them : now, there had been no voice of prophecy to direct, no anointed champion to lead, a movement of the kind. Had it been otherwise, the Roman power would have broken arid crumbled beneath them, and its fragments scattered like the chaff of the summer thrashing floor. As it was, those who struggled for freedom bore the brand of sedition ; and so, with some 11 120 JUDAEA CAPTA. colour of reason, though every feeling of the heart in_ voluntarily rises against it, the wily Josephus charac- terizes all who withstood the re-occupation of Jerusa- lem by the alien power of Rome. Let it, however be also borne in mind, that matters had gone too far to admit the faintest hope of mercy oi> the part of their tyrants, if again ascendant ; and in contending for their city, the Jews were contending for their lives, as opposed to the most cruel deaths that fiends in human form could invent ; and for their libertiesj as opposed to tortured and fettered slavery in a foreign land, where men, like beasts of prey, revelled in blood. No marvel, then, if, as Josephus asserts, the garrison threatened, and even inflicted, capital punishment on such as proposed to surrender the city. Expecting, as some did, a divine interposition, and resolved, as others were, to resist to their last gasp the torrent of desolation that menaced Jerusa- lem, there was no alternative. The Romans greatly dreaded these warlike Jews, while affecting to despise them ; and having so val- uable a specimen of a purchased traitor in Josephus himself, Titus hoped, by a fair show of leniency to the more timid portion of the inhabitants, to unite them on his behalf against the garrison. Beyond the second wall lay Acra, inhabited by the most peaceable classes; its narrow streets, running ob- liquely from the wall, were peopled by braziers, dealers and workers in wool, and such like ; the cloth market also being there, and shops of every kind. If Titus could but obtain quiet possession of PLAN TO CARRY ACRA. 121 this commercial quarter, he might safely calculate on reducing the remainder with little sacrifice of time, trouble, or life ; for here too were the few provisions that remained in store, and from hence he might carry on his operations against the Temple in front, and the upper city on his right hand. The breach, therefore, made in the second wall, was most impor- tant ; he did not stay to widen it, for he hoped by fair words, and restraining his soldiers from any violence, to ensure a welcome, or at least to meet no resistance while taking up a new position on this advanced ground ; but he had more to learn. 122 JUD^A CAPTA. CHAPTER X. ALTHOUGH Titus had, according to Josephus, just before perceived that " mercy in war is a pernicious thing," it is surprising with what dove-like intentions this Roman eagle entered through the breach into the lower city, as set forth in the next paragraph of his history. His purpose was to do the Jews a kind- ness, not to afflict them more than was needful ; to make them ashamed of their obstinacy, by the mag- nanimity of his forbearance. He forbade his soldiers to kill the tradespeople, or to fire their houses ; nay, he gave " the seditious" leave to fight, without in- volving their fellow-townsmen in the consequences of their timerity. All this must have sounded very generous in the ears of the braziers and weavers ; but they were Jews the spot was Jerusalem the invader was a worshipper of stocks and stones, and his right-hand man, his chief adviser, was a degraded apostate from the cause of Israel Having once more proclaimed the word Death to the Jew who should speak of surrender those whom Titus had so courteously permitted to fight, proceeded to do so, and never ceased until they had driven him with all THE LOWER CITY. 123 his routed host back through the breach at which they entered. In the first place, a body of the Jews made a sud- den sally from the upper gates, falling on the enemy outside the walls, with such effect, that the guards posted by Titus on the towers and battlements, leaped down in a panic and fled to their camps, shouting with a great cry of alarm and distress, on account of their general and comrades within, to whom they could afford no succour. The cry was echoed by the latter, who found themselves en- compassed on all sides, driven through narrow streets and cross lanes wholly new to them, while to their pursuers every turning was familiar. En- tangled in the narrowest passes, hunted down the steep descents, or pursued up their acclivities by far more practised feet ; assailed from the houses, and not knowing how to regain the spot where they had entered, the Roman force, consisting of a thousand choice warriors, might all have fallen, had not Titus gained the breach, the narrow dimensions of which he too late regretted, and by a careful disposition of his archers, in some measure covered the retreat How many escaped we are not informed ; but the loss must have been great, and the rout complete for the time. The bitter reviling with which Jose- phus mingles his forced admission of the bravery of his own people, leads to a supposition that he coun- selled this abortive attempt. Howsoever that may be, the fact is acknowledged, that when the Romans in full force returned to the breach, the Jews made 11* 124 JUD^A CAPTA. a wall of their own bodies in place of the stones that had been thrown down ; and in this way, for three entire days, bade defiance to the utmost efforts of the Roman army. What a spectacle was this ! " A people terrible from their beginning hitherto," once so invincible that not only the armies of opposing nations, but the very elements themselves were made to flee before them. The sea fled, and Jordan was driven back, that a way might be made for the ransomed to pass over. It was not their power nor the might of their arm that wrought deliverances of old, but it was the presence of the Eternal their God, who scattered their every enemy, and caused every obstacle to melt away as they advanced. Long they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit ; long they made Him to serve with their sins, wearied Him with their iniqui- ties, slew the messengers of His mercy, and finally refused even that Messenger of the Covenant whose coming they longed for, who came suddenly into the Temple, and brought salvation unto Zion, and was despised, rejected, and slain. The glory departed from Israel ; the power of the Most Highest upheld them no longer. Yet so accustomed were they to miraculous interpositions, so utterly unable to con- vince themselves of the awful truth that Jerusalem must now sit down in the dust, so unable to conceive how a host of idolatrous barbarians should have li- cense given to pollute the city of the Great King, that they dared even to the verge of a miraculous mani- festation of mortal energy, and piled themselves, the DEFEAT OF THE JEWS. 125 living and the dead, in an impenetrable mass of fleshly bulwarks before their beloved Zion ! Hate- ful to God must be the feeling, and hateful to man it ought to be, that hardens itself against the peo- ple whom the LORD so heavily smote ; that dwells on this tale as a mere matter of exciting amusement, or historical information, and does not lament and grieve over the branches of the LORD'S fair vine- yard, thus mangled and torn, and trodden down in the mire by men more cruel than ravenous beasts of prey. Even Josephus, whose book is a glaring monument of his own perfidious infamy and false- hood, says, " they made a wall of their own bodies over against that part of the wall which was cast down ;" the breach whereby the Romans had once entered, and through which they were driven out. But on the fourth day the darts and spears, the cat- apult and battering-rams prevailed ; and the rem- nant of Israelites retreated, leaving the entrance free. It was not to themselves, but to God with them, and God in them, that their fathers owed and attributed their marvellous victories. " Some trust in chariots, and some in horses," said the conquering David, "but we will remember the name of the LORD our God." Nor was it a mere remembrance of that name, or its repetition that helped them, but a realizing of the Divine Presence in all its majesty and might. They were alike accustomed to attempt by deeds of daring the most marvellous achieve- ments, and to " stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD." 126 JUDAEA CAPTA. Joshua by the sound of rams' horns, Gideon with his pitchers and lamps, Samson with the jaw-bone of an ass, David with a pebble from the brook, con- quered as surely, as fully, as did the numerous hosts who went forth to war with sword and spear. In every combat the victory was the LORD'S ; and no pious Israelite ever dreamed of arrogating to himself the glory of his conquests. We have no inspired record of the last dreadful siege, but in the book of Jeremiah are abundant proofs of the state of defec- tion into which Judah must have fallen, as regarded the spiritual worship of the Most High, before He could have wholly given up His sanctuary to be so polluted, his people to be so destroyed. The service books now in use by the Jews all over the world were so to a great extent previous to the present dispersion ; and many of their lamentations were originally composed during the Babylonian captiv- ity. That, however, was as nothing compared with the Roman, and the LORD must have been far more grievously displeased with His people at the latter than at the former period. Yet they had carefully abstained from their ancient provocations ; they had kept themselves free from idolatry, and in every par- ticular had shown themselves zealous of the law. How, then, had they drawn upon themselves this terrible visitation ? Isaiah prophetically declares it in his twenty-ninth chapter, which contains both the purposed wrath and the purposed mercy, in very distinct and striking sequence. He there says, " Wherefore, the Lord says, Inasmuch as this peo- AGRA TAKEN. 127 pie draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men : therefore, behold I will proceed to do a marvellous work and a wonder : for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understand- ing of their prudent men shall be hid." By the divine commandment every Israelite ought himself to be instructed and to teach his children, out of the law, as given by Moses, and out of the inspired wri- tings of the prophets ; but, gradually, they had ex- changed this practice for a blind submission to one particular class of men, who undertook to guide them, and to whose guidance they surrendered themselves. These were their wise men whose wisdom perished ; their prudent men whose under- standing was hid ; and these in the day of their calamity profited them nothing ; less than nothing, for, by putting their own interpretations between the scriptures and those for whom the scriptures were written, they blinded them to the clear fulfilment of predictions therein contained, and so brought upon them the last and deepest of all their afflictions. The fear of God the whole sum and substance of religion was taught by the precepts of men : those mere human precepts became to them instead of that opening of the eyes by the Lord himself which David prayed for ; and thus was darkness permitted to fall upon the LORD'S dear heritage ; and thus were they led to trust to the arm of flesh to them- selves and their leaders and in bitter anguish of 128 JUD^A CAPTA. soul they withdrew from the fatal breach, leaving the whole extent of Acra, in addition to Bezetha, in the hand of the enemy. Titus provided against another expulsion by completely demolishing the sacred wall; then strengthened as best he might the threatened quarters, and permitted his forces to rest, while he took a leisurely survey, and matured his plans for the next attack. He had learned some caution by what was past ; and also entertained a hope that the loss of the sacred wall, and increasing scantiness of their supplies, would induce the gar- rison to listen to his proposals, and by admitting the army to become unresisting victims. To further this design, he contrived a most intimidating spec- tacle, calculated at once to inflate the pride of his vain-glorious followers, and to dishearten the pent- up Israelites. The usual day for paying the troops having ar- rived, the whole camp was put in motion. Each commander had orders to draw up his own men in battle-array, fully armed, their polished cuirasses displayed, their weapons glittering in the sunshine ; . the horses in their proudest trappings, each led by a man in splendid mail, and, in short, the grandest possible parade of that magnificent and formidable host. Thus equipped, they marched slowly past, each receiving in turn his subsistence money : and so numerous were the legions that four days were occupied in paying them. The north wall of the Temple, the forts, and all the upper part of the re- maining wall were covered with Jews contemplating ROMAN PLANS. 129 the scene ; and very marvellous it appeared to Jose- phus that not one among them gave any indication of turning traitor. Neither the power nor the wealth, neither the savage menaces nor oily persuasions of the Roman, might overcome the constancy of those who garrisoned Jerusalem. This their unworthy calumniator attributes to their consciousness of hav- ing committed such crimes and cruelties against the more peaceable citizens as could never be forgiven by the Romans, whose meek and merciful nature must, of course, have revolted at any instance of barbarity. He also attributes their obstinacy in part to the decree of a certain heathen power called Fate, whose will, he says, it was that the innocent should suffer with the guilty. Such is the language of one who is reputed to have been a Christian when he wrote this narrative ! The Roman general was fully aware, alike of the advantages gained and the difficulties that still beset his path. During the four days' rest so artfully im- proved to the furtherance of his object, he had matured his plans. The point where he was sure to meet with the most desperate resistance was, of course, the holy mount, the Temple, while Zion appeared an easier prey. To keep possession of it, however, would be difficult so long as the second citadel was in the hands of those who believed that its possession was a pledge of their ultimate triumph over every foe. Accordingly he resolved to recom- mence the attack at two several points, assailing fort Antonia, as a key to the Temple, and at the same 130 JUDAEA CAPTA. time endeavouring to carry the upper city at a point called John's monument. He was vigorously and effectually resisted at both, John defending the tower, and Simon, with the Idumeans, the city wall. It appears that they had, by continual practice, be- come expert in the use of those engines their awk- wardness at which Josephus had formerly ridiculed ; and having forty catapults of their own for hurling stones, three hundred for shooting forth darts, all ranged advantageously on the wall and towers, they presented a more formidable front than Titus wished to encounter. He proceeded with his banks; but still hoping to come in peaceably, and obtain the place by flatteries, he deputed Josephus to harangue them in their own language, thinking the sooner to persuade them by means of one who knew how to strike the master-chord of Jewish hearts. Four folio pages are filled with that oration, as reported by its author, from which we shall extract a few speci- mens. He first went round to select a place where the darts from their hands could not reach him, while his words, more sharp than swords, albeit smoother than oil, might take full effect on them ; and having so ensconced himself, he hegan by exalt- ing the liberalism of Rome in matters of faith, es- pecially their reverence for the Jewish rites, their in- vincible prowess in arms, and that claim on the con- tinued submission of the Jews which a long course of dominion. over them established. He set forth the universal sway of the Romans in these blasphemous terms : " Evident it is that Fortune is on all hands HARANGUE OP JOSEPHUS. 131 gone over to them, and that GOD, when he had gone round the nations with this dominion, is now settled in Italy." To the knowledge of this assumed fact he attributed the submission of their fathers to the Roman arm ; laying it down, also, as a law of God, universally recognized, that the weaker must always submit quietly to those who are stronger in war. Had this principle been acted upon by Israel of old, had they feared or faltered when led to assail nations greater and mightier than themselves, in possession of that very land of Canaan, had Judah shrunk from following his warrior kings when they went forth to battle against multitudes that could not be numbered, the very memory of their name had long before perished from the earth. Well might the Jews scoff, as he tells us they did, at his heathenish nonsense. However, he went on, repre- senting the sure destruction that awaited them from famine, even if their remaining walls withstood the Roman power awhile, expatiating on the advanta- ges of an immediate surrender, and full reliance on the clemency of Titus, until the jeers, the reproaches, and the darts that were flung against him convinced him how hopeless was that line of argument. He then ceased to talk as a pagan, and assailed them on the ground of their own nationality, the history of the past, and the present melancholy contrast. The Most High God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, whom he had just before profanely represented as having set up his dominion in Italy, among the obscene demon-gods of the Pantheon, he 12 132 JUD.EA CAPTA. now thought fit to exalt, as the only shield and strength of Israel in days past. " I even tremble myself," said he, " in declaring the works of God be- fore your ears, that are so unworthy to hear them." He proceeded to remind them how Abraham, their father, when the king of Egypt seized " Queen Sarah," instead of marshalling his great army to re- take her by force, only spread out his hands towards the Temple of Jerusalem, (not quite nine hundred years before it was founded,) on which the queen was sent back in safety, and the Egyptian monarch fled, adoring the holy place which they were now defiling by bloodshed. After this monstrous fable, he recounted their deliverances from Egypt, from the Assyrians, and from Babylon, and reminded them of the judgments at various times brought upon Israel by their transgressions ; drawing the inference that self-defence was not lawful to the Jews when as- sailed from without, seeing that their calamities and their deliverances had always come from God him- self. Whether Josephus really thought as he spoke we cannot determine ; but if he did the conviction must have forced itself upon his mind subsequently to his own memorable defence of Jotapata. Then followed some reproaches against those whom he was ad- dressing for their impiety and wickedness, with sar- castic remarks on their worthiness to be delivered, as was Hezekiah of old a parallel drawn between their ancient Assyrian enemies and the Romans, very much to the advantage of the latter bold assertions HISTORY- PERVERTED. 133 that former generations had been delivered only be- cause of their righteousness, which proved the speak- er's utter ignorance of the scriptures ; for there is not a declaration more frequently repeated, from Moses to the last prophet, than that not for their sakes, not fbr their righteousness, but for his holy Name's sake, that it should not be polluted among the heathen, in whose sight He had brought them out, did the LORD continue to interpose and to save his people ; and that in like manner, and for the same cause, He will yet finally gather, restore, exalt, and save them. Josephus, if he rightly reports himself, went on re- proving and reproaching his brethren at great length ; " hard-hearted wretches," " insensible crea- tures, and more stupid than stones," are among his persuasive epithets. He finishes by denying that the necessary involving of his own family, his mother, wife, and children, who were, it seems, in the city, in their common ruin, had led him to address them ; he gives permission to the Jews to kill them, and himself also, if they doubt his disinterestedness ; at the same time carefully shielding himself from the darts that were cast at him by his exasperated hear- ers. He spoke with a loud voice, but to no purpose ; neither to fraud nor force would they yield their city. There were, notwithstanding, many individual de- sertions ; many, hoping to escape the last miseries of the crisis which they foresaw, swallowed their gold, as the only practicable plan of concealment, 134 JUDAEA CAPTA. and flea to the Romans. Josephus says that Titus allowed " a great many of them" to go where they pleased about the country, from which we must infer that there were some, and probably the bulk of the number, who experienced his tender mercies in pres- ent death, or more cruel slavery. Even the privi- lege of wandering through the land was only that of falling into the power of those barbarous legions who now wholly occupied it. We cannot doubt that some, brought back to God by the fearful calamities that they had endured, were so delivered, and found refuge under the covert of His wings whose faithful- ness and truth are a shield and buckler to all that trust in Him. As to the barbarities perpetrated by the armed garrison on the defenders and citizens, which Josephus gives in more full and horrifying de- tail after they had rejected with contempt and indig- nation his specious interference, we say nothing. The testimony is altogether that of a bitter, a morti- fied, a conscience-stricken enemy, to whom their per- severing constancy must have been a keen reproach ; but of the sufferings endured by all in that straitly- besieged city there can be no question; the most heart-rending details cannot have exaggerated the reality. The only incredible thing is one which, nevertheless, we are compelled to believe, that one of their own nation, of their own kindred, one who had been a champion of their cause, and had also suffered in like manner in defending a far less sacred post, should have witnessed it all, have taken par INCREDIBLE RECITALS. 135 with their merciless butchers, and at last nave sat down coolly to record the tale in a spirit o the deep- est injustice towards them, and of the most fawning sycophancy towards their blood-stained destroyers. 12* 136 CHAPTER XL THE horrors that befell the besieged might be de- tailed in other language, but in none so touching as that of inspiration, and to that we will principally confine ourselves. The words of the prophet Jere- miah are not historical only, they are clearly pro- phetic, and as such the Jews apply them to the more recent desolation of their city, the destruction of a Temple that was to lie waste for many generations. But still farther back, even before the children of Israel had seen the promised land, we find a terri- ble description of what was in the far distant future, the immediate precursor of a dispersion and a des- olation of a long, long continuance. It is very aw- ful to read ; alas ! how awful to know that to the strict- est letter of the uttermost denunciation it has been actually fulfilled ! In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy is the following description of what, nearly fifteen hun- dred years afterwards, was inflicted on the children of Israel under the proud standard of the Roman eagle : " The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not under- AWFUL PREDICTIONS. 137 stand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young : and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed ; which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or the flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land which the LORD thy God hath given thee." This perfectly describes the devastating march of the Roman enemy, who last came from Britain, the farthest end of the then known world. As they passed along the country of Judoea, their consump- tion of its produce, their conquest of its fenced cities one after another, the pitiless barbarity with which they slaughtered the aged, and doomed the young to sufferings more cruel, because more protracted than immediate death, together with the crafty policy that systematically left a wilderness behind them by carefully destroying all the fruit trees, and burning to its roots the produce of the ground. Then follows their final conquest over the last attempt at self-defence in Jerusalem. " And thou shalt eat the fruits of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall dis- tress thee : so that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brethren, and toward the wife of his bosom, and 138 JUDAEA CAPTA. toward the remnant of his children which he shall have ; so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat : because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the strait- ness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in all thy gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not endure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one that cometh out from be- tween her feet, and toward her children which she Bhall bear : for she shall eat them for want of all things, secretly, in the siege and straitness, where- with thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates." Better in the LORD'S own solemn words to describe what He had foreshown, than to dwell on the appal- ling details of their exact fulfilment, by one who looked on the smitten flock with the eye of an enemy. We need no evidence to assure us that every particular prediction was accomplished; for what word of the Most High ever fell or can fall to the ground ? That it was a literal and not a figu- rative description, we have abundant proof; and, blessed be the holy name of the Eternal ! we surely know that literal and not figurative are the glorious promises yet to be fulfilled to the same Israel ! Jeremiah thus grievingly laments over the vision of past and future calamities blended in one : " The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine PROPHETIC LAMENTATION. 139 gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter ! " Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast ; they give suck to their young ones : " The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostrich in the wilderness. " The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst : " The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. " They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets ; " They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. ' For the punishment of the iniquity of the daugh- ter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, " That was overthrown in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. " Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, " They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire : " Their visage is blacker than a coal ; they are not known in the streets : " Their skin cleaveth to their bones : it is withered it is become like a stick. " They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger " For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. . 40 JUDAEA CAPTA. " The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children : " They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people> " The LORD hath accomplished his fury ; He hath poured out his fierce anger, " And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath de- voured the foundations thereof. " The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed, " That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem." Such is the strain of an inspired Jew, sensible of the sin of his people, and justifying the LORD for all the terrible things that He had done upon them ; we cannot place beside it the language of an apostate Jew, whose heart was steeled by pride, covetousness. and ambition, to look upon the agonizing spectacle, and insult the victims. Suffice it, then, to say, that to this extremity were the inhabitants of Jerusalem reduced when Titus proceeded, with his extensive embankment, to encircle the remaining wall. And now we have to record an instance of such hideous cruelty and wrong as never, perhaps, stained the pages of any history. Multitudes of the poorest, the most peaceable, the most helpless class within the city, being reduced to absolute starvation, were driven to the desperate venture of stealing out of the gates to gather a little of the herbage, and such re- fuse as they could find beyond the walls, with which to feed their famishing parents or children. They FIENDISH BARBARITY. 141 had no intention to desert, preferring to cast in their lot to the last with their nation, and to abide by the stones of Zion ; but they were frequently dis- covered and seized by the savage soldiery, against whom they would have defended themselves and es- caped back to the city, but they were too weak for the struggle. " So," says Josephus, " they were first whipped, then tortured with all sorts of tortures be- fore they died, and then crucified before the wall of the city." He adds, that Titus greatly pitied them ; but they caught five hundred or more every day, and because he neither thought it prudent to let them go, nor could afford a sufficient guard to keep them safe, he sanctioned it all. It would naturally be asked, Why, then, not slay them at once, with a speedy death? Josephus answers, "that he hoped the Jews might, perhaps, yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment." He adds, concerning his new allies, patrons, friends, and companions, the Romans, that out of their wrath and hatred against the Jews, they invented new ways of nailing them up, by way of jest, when the multitude was so great that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses for bodies. All this was superintended by Titus ; a wretch whom it is the fashion for historians to exalt as a very model of all magnanimous virtues ; the emperor who, when he had done no good deed since morning, is said to have wept over a lost day ! He could look upon a spectacle like this, the utmost ex~ tremity of unutterable torture inflicted on fathers 142 JUD^A CAPTA. who came forth to glean a handful of grass or weeds to stay the cries of their famishing children sons who so adventured their lives to prolong for a day the existence of an aged mother and, no doubt, women and children also ; for when did Rome, pa- gan or papal, spare age or sex ? Least of all, when did she show mercy to a Jew ? Her blood-stained hands had crucified the King ; and now on the same spot, she crucified the subjects who, alas ! had re- jected his gentle rule, who would have delivered them from her, and from every foe. Not that the individuals, who suffered these enormities, could, to any extent, have been accessary to the deed ; for that generation must have well nigh passed away ; and out of them an immense multitude had been brought to believe in Him. Crucifixion was a Ro- man death ; Rome was the executioner ; and in the day of the Lord's vengeance against the Daughter of Babylon, that scene of horror will not be for- gotten. The impression produced on those within the city was what any rational mind must have foreseen. The walls were thronged with the multitudes who came, and who brought their less resolute fellows, to witness what would be the fate of such as should fall into the hands of enemies who knew not what mercy meant. That spectacle nerved them to endure the utmost extremities of suffering, famine, pestilence, and the sword, rather than yield themselves and their little ones into the hands of the Roman. Some, in- deed, there still were, who deluded themselves with EFFECT ON THE JEWS. 143 the idle hope of finding pity among those iron le- gions ; and, in the agonies of hunger, they placed themselves within their grasp ; preferring, if so it must be, the tortures of an hour, to the wasting death of days. Titus, however, devised a new species of punishment for these ; he ordered their hands to be cut off, and so rendering them incapable of any fur- ther defensive operations, sent them back to the com- manders, Simon and John, with this exhortation, That they would now at length leave off their mad- ness, and not force him to destroy the city ; promis- ing, that by so doing, they should enjoy the advan- tage of saving their own lives, and preserving their fine city, and that Temple which was peculiarly theirs. What confirmation the bleeding stumps of their mangled brethren might add to this idle mes- sage, it is hard to say. Titus certainly never dreamed of mercy to the Jews ; but of course he wished to capture the city in all its proud beauty ; and to enshrine some of his demon-gods within the magnificent courts of the LORD'S house. What heart but must rejoice that the impious pagan was baffled, though, thereby, not one stone was left upon another of all that gorgeous and hallowed pile ! With all the impatience of a hungry vulture wheeling round its destined prey, this Titus now made the circuit of the city, examining his banks, and hastening the willing labourers. At every point he was assailed with tones of defiance from the walls. The Israelites told him that they did well in preferring death to slavery; and would to the last 13 144 JUDAEA CAPTA. persevere in resisting his bands-, doing them all the mischief in their power. For their own city, they said, they had no concern, since he told them that they, the nation, were themselves to be destroyed : and that God had, in the world itselfj a nobler tem- ple than that on Mount Moriah. To this they added, that, nevertheless, the Temple would be preserved by Him who inhabited it, who was still their help ; and their confidence in whom enabled them to laugh at all his threatenings. So far their words were made good, that into no enemy's hand was that sa- cred Temple given : no power of man did, or could, or can, prevail to make Israel cease from being a nation before God ; and the happy issue out of all affliction which they fondly hoped, in their own per- sons, to experience, is reserved for their children's children, after many generations. As individuals, alas ! the LORD had forsaken them : as a nation, He never, never will. The Roman embankment was completed after seventeen days' incessant labour, consisting of four great lines, the principal of which was against the tower Antonia ; and here the engines were about to be brought, with the certainty of speedily accom- plishing, by them, the downfall of the bulwarks, shel- tered as they would be by the banks. Meanwhile the Jews had prosecuted, from within, a plan of which the assailants little dreamed. John directed a mine to be carried out from the vicinity of the tower to the distance at which the enemy were pre- paring to erect their heavy works j and this he ceiled ROME BAFFLED AGAIN. 145 with "beams of timber, to afford it a temporary sta- bility, while he filled the interior with combustibles of every kind. The Romans, exulting in the com- pletion of their preparations, stood ready for the as- sault, when suddenly a subterranean fire seized on the treacherous foundations of their vaunted handy- work ; the ground clave asunder, and in that yawn- ing chasm their banks disappeared, amid a cloud of smoke, and ashes, and whirling dust that for a time smothered the flame ; but this, fed by the timber that with so much toil they had collected to pile against the royal city, speedily burst forth, in one broad, bright, intense sheet of glowing fire so strange, so inexplicable in its origin, that the superstitious legions recoiled in dismay, and Rome's proud war- riors stood aghast before the terrific apparition. Even when the stratagem became evident, no at- tempt was made on their part to extinguish the flames, for they had nothing to rescue. The trunks of Judea's stately trees, dragged by their sacrilegi- ous hands to act against the parent mountain, were already ascending in sparkles of triumphant fire, or hurling their ignited fragments into the enemy's camp. Their banks were fallen ; many of their mur- derous machines shared the same fate ; and they could but scowl upon the Jews, and curse them by their gods, and whet to the keenest edge their venge- ful purposes against the prey thus again for a while delivered out of their teeth. In another quarter, however, the enemy had suc- ceeded in commencing their assault, causing the an- 146 JUDAEA CAPTA. cient wall to tremble beneath their strokes : here no mine had been prepared, nor was any defensive operation practicable, so far as the assailants could calculate, but again were their calculations set at naught by the impetuous daring of the Jews. Three individuals, Tephtheus, a Galilean, Megassarus, and Chagiras, seeing the impression made by the battering- rams, seized torches, and sallying from the wall, ran directly up to the Roman host, " not," says Josephus, " as if they were enemies, but friends : without fear or delay." Rushing violently through the midst of the soldiers, who seemed to have been rendered powerless by astonishment, and perhaps somewhat unnerved by the recent catastrophe of the mine, they reached the engines, and set them in a blaze. By this time the enemy had so far recovered from their strange panic as to assail the gallant triumvi- rate with sword, spear, and dart ; but in vain ; no- thing moved, nothing daunted them : they held fast by the machines, and ignited them in various places, until such a flame went up, as brought the Romans in great force from their camp to quench it ; while the Jews, with equal alacrity, hastened to the help of their brethren. A desperate conflict ensued, car- ried on in the very fire ; for the light hurdles that covered the engines were in a blaze, together with the wood-work of the machines; and the very iron became heated to an intensity that rendered it dan- gerous to touch ; yet on this heated metal the heroic Jews mantamed their grasp, while, nearly suffocated with dust and smoke, and no doubt unpleasantly a EXPLOITS OF THE JEWS. 147 fected by the scorching heat communicated to their iron mail, the Romans bent all their strength to drag away the frames of their machines from the confla- gration. The battering-rams were the principal ob- jects of this extraordinary contest : they had caused the towers of Zion's wall to shake, and this fact ren- dered them by far the most important prize, alike to those who sought to save, and to those who laboured to destroy. The conflict waxed fiercer: success inspired the Jews with an ardour that nothing might withstand; and the Romans, confounded by the nature of the attack, blinded with the sparkling flames, which now almost surrounded them, as one engine after another was caught by the devouring element, at length re- treated towards their camp. This was the signal for renewed efforts on the part of the defenders of the holy city ; they rushed down in greater numbers from the walls, and never pausing in their career until they reached the verge of the camp, fought hand to hand with the guards who were there posted in advance. Josephus, who had no word of pity for the famishing sufferers, his own brethren tortured to death by those same ferocious soldiers at the rate of five hundred a day, pathetically notices the hard case of the murderers, who, by Rome's martial law, were compelled, on peril of a military execution, to hold their posts ; and who, therefore, had to sustain the onset of those fiery Jews, not daring to run away. It cannot be doubted that many of them fell under the impetuous assault ; and sympathy for them drew 13* 148 JUDAEA CAPTA. out reinforcements from the panic-stricken host, whom the Jews also engaged, laughing to scorn alike the cuirass, the shield, and the spear, that vainly sought to withstand the power of their arms, who were comparatively naked. O Israel, who was like unto thee, when of old the LORD thy God was with thee, and the shout of a King was amongst thee ! Forsaken as thou wert, in that day of venge- ful calamity, there were still gleams and flashes of a fire that once burned brightly and gloriously, suf- ficient to prove what thine arm could have wrought, if that blessing had then been upon thee which caused thine enemies, that rose up against thee, to be smitten before thy face. " They shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways." Titus, the evil angel of Judah, commissioned to destroy, now arrived on the field of battle, and found his host hard beset in defending their own walls, in- stead of pursuing the destruction of those which they came to overthrow. He, as usual, reproached them, rousing to the utmost the diabolical spirit of pride and vain-glory, that formed the main-spring of Roman action ; at the same time, with his fresh squadron of selected warriors, he turned the flank of the Israelites, and attacked them in their rear. They instantly faced round, and threw themselves upon these new assailants ; continuing the fight with un- abated courage. Josephus acknowledges that, sur- rounded as now they were, "the Jews did not flinch." It is amazing to contemplate the scene j a JEWISH HEROISM. 149 handful of half-famished men, whose days had been passed in weariness, their nights in watching ; who had beheld their isolated city, the only one of all Judea's stately bulwarks yet standing, encompassed by an enemy that had subdued the world, and al- ready having her threefold barrier reduced to a sin- gle line of fortifications such a band as this, volun- tarily forsaking their protecting wall, and giving bat- tle to the whole host of the enemy, with Titus at their head ! How comes it that, while each calum- nious tale recorded by the hireling of the foe, cal- culated to excite horror against the defenders of Jerusalem, is so preserved and circulated that every child has it by rote ; we scarcely hear of what, in any other name, would be the theme of universal admiration and respect the unbounded self-devo- tion of these dauntless Jews ? Among the myriad pilgrims, who throng the holy city, how comes it that we hear from none of any search after the spot where John's mine swallowed up the Roman banks, or where the three bold brethren fired the battering- rams, and routed the Roman host, and carried, the battle into the Roman camp 1 But it is vain to ask: the mouth of the LORD had spoken a sentence of long-continued odium and contempt to rest upon his ancient people ; and what He had so spoken He hath so fulfilled. But another word remains to re- ceive its full accomplishment; and in despite of every effort that man may make to perpetuate it, the rebuke of his people will He now take away from off the face of all the earth. 150 JTJD.EA CAPTA. The battle raged long and sternly after Titus had assumed the command : smoke, and fire, and dust so confused the eyes, while a discord of loud, fierce tones bewildered the hearing of the combatants, that all order was lost : and it is plain, from the cautious account of Josephus, that the Romans did considerable execution upon each other in that con- fused melee. The banks were demolished, the en- gines damaged to a great extent ; and the Jews, having succeeded to the utmost of their most san- guine desires, withdrew within their walls, buoyed up, no doubt, with hopes that, alas for Zion ! were not to be realized. A council of war was called, the result of which was in accordance with the suggestion of Titus, and displays, in a striking point of view, at once the mul- titude, the strength, the resources, and the ardour of those who fought aga:nst Jerusalem. It was de- termined to encompass the whole city with a wall, carried round at a short distance from that which defended her ; and thus to preclude the possibility of escape from within, or of supplies from without Josephus describes the soldiers B.S being seized with a certain " divine " fury ; and for a specimen of that which in the historian's mind was regarded as di- vine, we will give his own description of this pecu- liar inspiration. " Each soldier was ambitious to please his decurion; each decurion his centurion; each centurion his tribune ; and the ambition of the tribune was to please their superior commanders, while Caesar himself took notice of, and rewarded AFFLICTED AND DESOLATE. 151 the like contention in those commanders." Titus, the invader of his country, the murderer of his kin- dred, was, indeed, the god of Josephus : Judaism in- dignantly disclaims the heartless apostate ; and if, after all that has been culled, and all that is yet to cull, from his book, Christianity chooses to adopt him, we can only enter our most strenuous protest against it, as one of the foulest blots that can be cast upon our most holy faith. Under the " divine " inspiration, claimed for them by their eulogist, the Romans actually accomplished in three days what might well have been the work of months, and built their fatal wall. It commenced at the camp of Titus, now pitched in front of the tower Antonia, and crossing the valley of the Ke- dron, ran southward along the Mount of Olives ; thence recrossed the valley at Siloam ; bent round Zion, and returned again to the general's camp. Garrisoned at convenient distances, and patrolled by alternate watches throughout the night, while by day it commanded an unbroken view of every stone in Jerusalem's last fortification, this enclosure quenched the only surviving hope in the breasts of the unhappy Jews, save as many among them still looked for the stretching forth of that Almighty arm which had so often crushed the pride of Israel's foes, and caused their most formidable power to melt away in a moment. The scene that ensued, when no foot could pass the beleaguered wall of their city,, when no morsel could be cropped, even of the rank grass and herbage that sprung up beneath its 152 JUD/GA CAPTA. shadow, nourished by the human decomposition evermore going on, where death> in every possible shape, stalked abroad the terrible reality of literal fulfilment; where the language of prophecy would seem most highly figurative all this we will pass over in silence. Let those, in whose bosoms exists a portion of the spirit of Edom, of Babylon, of thrice- accursed Rome, pause on the terrible spectacle, the outpouring of God's wrath upon a people scourged beyond all others, because beyond all others they were beloved and favoured. We will not prowl the streets, nor pry into the dwellings of thy agonized children, O Jerusalem, when thou drankest at the hand of the Lord the dregs of the cup of his fury ; rather will we take our seat beneath some lonely olive, on that overhanging mountain, and weep where Jesus wept : for the day is come ; thine ene mies have cast a trench about thee, and now they compass thee round and keep thee in on every side ; and presently they will lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee ; yea, they sshall not leave in thee one stone upon another, be- cause thou knewest not the day of thy visitation ! THE ENCOMPASSING WALL. 153 CHAPTER XII. OF those who perished in the famine, Josephus records that every one of them " died with their eyes fixed upon the Temple." Their black and shrunken bodies were necessarily cast out, no room being left to bury them, and there they lay piled up in the valleys of Jehoshaphat and of Hinnom. A story is then told of the merciless Titus, that must not be passed over : he had overruled the opinions of others in the council of war, who recommended a sudden storming of the city by the whole host, and carried his own project of this encompassing wall, on the express grounds that by so shutting in the inhabitants they should destroy them by famine ; BO avoiding the hazard to themselves of a military assault, and hastening the inevitable fall of the de- populated city. This is recorded by Josephus, in the preceding page to that in which he tells how Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, see- ing them choked up with dead bodies, and thick streams of putrefaction rolling over the ground, ut- tered a groan : and spreading out his hands to hea- ven, called GOD to witness that this was not his doing. Unhappy wretch ! had he reluctantly ful 154 JUD^A CAPTA.. filled his dire commission, had he even mingled with its terrible offices a touch of pity, employing the un- bounded influence that he exercised over his army to restrain, in some measure, the savage wantonness of their barbarity, some credit might be given to this burst of feeling, as the genuine expression of regret at what he could not wholly prevent : but we have seen him as he was, even when decked out by his fulsome flatterer, whose utmost art could not wholly conceal the hideous features of his sanguinary char- acter ; and if this exclamation really escaped his lips, if the obtestation was addressed, not to one of the Roman demons, but to the God of Israel, surely it was wrung forth by some terrible, though but mo- mentary vision of the future, when He, whose holy presence once made that mount so glorious, shall call to a fearful account those of every age, and of every form of worship, who have found their own pleasure in helping forward the affliction of Israel. In the judgment of that day. many a mighty prince, and potentate, and pontiff, shall stand side by side with Titus, to receive a doom, aggravated in proportion to the light enjoyed by each ; and this we must concede, that the blind and barbarous pa- gan may advance a mitigating plea untenable by many others. When he came up against them, they were still a mighty and a warlike people, en- closed by towers and battlements, and dwelling in fortresses by nature almost impregnable. He as- sailed not, nor opposed them, as a poor weak, scat- tered remnant, spread abroad over the whole earth, A SOLEMN CONTRAST. 155 not one spot of which they could call their own : he pursued them not with that Bible in his hand, or with the knowledge of it in his mind, which declares the love of God unto them from of old, and his future purposes of everlasting mercy on them. He slaugh- tered them not with the faith of Christ on his lips ; nor coveted their Holy City that he might make it the seat of foul idolatry in the name of Him to whom all idolatry is an abomination. To the stern Roman murderer must belong the judgment without mercy denounced on him who hath showed no mercy. But what shall be said to the herd of kings, and emper- ors, and popes, who in hypocritical wickedness, or sinful ignorance, have trodden down the remnant of God's suffering people in the name of Him whose law can only be fulfilled by love ; and who has taught us, before all others, to love and to serve the Jew? . But to return. Notwithstanding the tender com- miseration of their general, we are told that the Romans were very joyful ; and that having great abundance of provision from Syria, and from the neighbouring provinces, they would bring and spread it out near the wall, in the sight of the starv- ing, dying Jews, by such a horrible refinement of cruelty to aggravate their sufferings. But it pro- duced no visible effect : the thought of yielding never seems to have entered their minds ; and Ti- tus, impatient at the protracted defence, set his fol- lowers to work in reconstructing embankments over against the tower of Antonia, the key to the whole 14 156 JUD.EA CAPTA. city. This was not easily done, for the trees around Jerusalem had already fallen under the Roman axe, and yielded fuel to the conflagrations of the daring Jews. However, they managed to collect a suffi- cient number by desolating the country at a wider range ; and thus, in barbarous ignorance, while ful- filling the doom long before denounced on the LORD'S heritage, they also inflicted that of sterility on the land, which still lieth desolate in the enjoyment of her long, long sabbaths. A plot was laid by an inferior commander named Judas, to deliver the tower into the enemy's hands : they, however, could not believe that in reality a Jew was so disposed, and fearing a stratagem, neg- lected to avail themselves of the offer, until the spectacle of the execution of the intended betrayers by Simon, who had discovered the conspiracy, and who threw the dead bodies down among them, too late convinced the Romans of what they had lost. Meantime Josephus, taking his turn as a patrol round the city, was wounded in the head by a stone cast at him from the walls ; and the joy and exultation that ensued on the supposition of his death for he had been rescued and borne away senseless by some of his pagan allies, just as the Jews thought to seize on him prove in what abhorrence his treason was held. This incident also, no doubt, sharpened the edge of his hostility against his brethren, for he ex- patiates largely on the alleged crimes of their leaders, and of the whole body of the " seditious" as he terms all who preferred death to the surrender ot MORE ENORMITIES. 157 their city. We pass this over, to relate one more instance of what they had to expect who deser ted 3 and threw themselves upon the honour, humanity, or good faith of the Romans. Some unhappy deserters, having made up their minds to so desperate a venture, and knowing that gold was the surest key to Roman favour, swallowed as much as they could of the precious, but now in Jerusalem useless metal, which they hoped to turn to good account among the enemy. The sequel may be readily anticipated : a discovery of the con- trivance in one instance led to the immediate ripping open of all who had come for protection ; and Jose- phus says, that in one night two thousand of these poor creatures were thus horribly butchered. They were chiefly Syrians ; and had escaped by jumping down from the wall, with great stones in their hands, as though about to make an attack on the enemy ; to whom they ran for protection when beyond the reach of the Jewish darts. Great numbers died at once, through the ravenous hunger that led them to de- vour whatever was placed before them ; their fam- ished state rendering such repletion presently fatal ; they were less to be commiserated than the survivors, reserved to a most dreadful death, under the hands of the noble Romans, whom our Christian youth are instructed to regard as rare models of all that is grand and glorious in man ! Josephus, it is true, fastens the chief guilt of this enormity on the Ara- bians and Syrians ; but he admits that the Roman soldiers were implicated also ; and Titus was obli- 158 JUD.EA CAPTA. ged to menace with death such as should be found guilty of it : not so much for the barbarity of the thing, as because it showed that their allies were enriching themselves at their own pleasure ; but hia prohibition was of little avail; the practice con- tinued, and became the means of checking the de- sertion. John, it appears, who had possession of the Tem- ple, now committed what Josephus describes as a horrible sacrilege : he took some of the sacred stores of wine and oil, and distributed them among the perishing people. Whether this was or was not a justifiable proceeding is not for us to determine : un- der an emergency not approaching within a degree of comparison with this, David took and distributed to his followers the bread which it was only lawful for the priests to eat. He did so with the full con- sent of the presiding priest, and no censure is re- corded. John also is stated to have melted down for his own use some of the golden vessels presented by Gentile princes to the Temple : what benefit he expected to derive from it, when no sum could pur- chase a mouthful of food, it is hard to say ; but the pious indignation of Josephus is so kindled by it, that he says, if the Romans had made any longer delay in coming against these villains, the city would have been swallowed up by an earthquake, or else been overflowed with water, or destroyed by such thun- der as Sodom perished by. He also relates that the deaths by starvation among the poor became so numerous, that they were no longer able to throw EVIL OVERRULED. 159 them over the wall, but laid them on heaps in large houses, and shut them up. He says, after enumerating some dreadful effects of famine, " When the Romans barely heard all this, they commiserated their case ; while the seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, but suffered the same distress to come upon them- selves." As to the extent of Roman commiseration, we leave that for the reader to determine ; the sim- ple fact, as regarded the Jews, was, that they prefer- red death by hunger to the horrible tortures inflicted by these Romans on all whom they took captive : tortures proportioned to the courage and constancy of an enemy which, had they possessed one atom of the virtues imputed to them, would have commanded their respect. Added to this preference was a fond hope that the LORD would yet interpose, even in their uttermost extremity, on behalf of the city and the people so long called by his name. We now approach the last sad scenes of this dire- ful tragedy, and must strive to repress the bitter indignation that will rise while following the cool description given by this apostate Jew of events that it is scarcely possible to contemplate even in the faintest outline that can be sketched. We must bear in mind that but for the almost miraculous harden- ing of this man's heart against his own brethren, and the utter alienation of his spirit from the land of his fathers, in defence of which he had once fought gallantly, and the prostration of his every feeling of independence under the heel of a Pagan whose favour he gained by the most grovelling syc- 14* 160 JUDAEA CAPTA. ophancy, but for this, Josephus would have died in the battle, a champion for Israel, and we should pos- sess no record whatever of what is now being brought with singular force to all men's minds. A Roman historian would have related it just as any other war, siege, conquest, and desolation carried on by the great and terrible Beast is recorded ; and we could not have associated with the tale those touching minutiae that identify it wholly with the city of our God ; the race of Abraham ; and the awful predic- tions that were then so marvellously fulfilled. Pestilence, as a necessary consequence, followed upon the havoc made by famine. From the dead bodies without the walls, not only the numbers cast over them from the city, but the thousands of victims murdered by the cowardly Romans, an effluvia must have arisen sufficient to engender disease through- out the whole region : but when to this we add the ghastly piles of dead enclosed in Z ion's desolate palaces, together with those who lay unburied and trampled down in every street of the city, now, alas ! too truly and in too many ways, " the rebellious city ? the bloody city," we may conceive the effects, in that warm climate, as being horrible indeed. What must that knowledge of the Roman barbarity have been that could render death by hunger in a hideous charnel-house preferable to any chance of life from a successful foe ! Titus now hastened the completion of his em- bankment, heretofore frustrated by the enterprising determination of the besieged ; now securely per- THE LAND LYING DESOLATE. 161 fected under shelter of the newly-built wall. To procure timber for the work was a difficult matter requiring excursions far into the surrounding dis- tricts ; for all that lay near had already been de- nuded of its groves. The narrator thus describes the prospect, and in so doing accounts for the pres- ent appearance of that land, so unlike the scene presented to the mind's eye of him who has only known the Jerusalem and Judsea of the Bible : for that land will not, cannot, shall not yield her fruit- fulness, nor resume the verdant robes of her pristine beauty for any but the seed of Jacob. While they are outcast and despised, she lies barren, desolate, and bare. While they mourn, she will not smile ; neither will she exchange her wilderness garment for that of the garden of Eden, until from the high- est heaven the promised word shall go forth : " But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel ; for they are at hand to come. For behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown : and I will multiply upon you all the house of Israel, even all of it ; and the cities shall be inhabited and the wastes shall be builded : and I will multiply upon you man and beast ; and they shall increase and bring forth fruit : and I will Bettle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings : and ye shall know that 1 am the LORD." O GOD of Israel the covenant-keeping God ! Redeemer of Jacob ! has- ten the fulfilment of this blessed word, that we, even 162 JUDAEA CAPTA. we, now and in our own day, may behold thy re- turn to Zion with mercy ! Thus writes the eye-witness of Judaea's over- throw : " Truly the very view of the country was a melancholy thing ; for those places which were be- fore adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become a desolate country every way ; and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea, and the most beauti- ful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change, for the war had laid all the signs of beauty quite waste. Nor if any one that had known the place before had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again ; but though he were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it notwithstanding." How illustrative is this remarkably simple and art- less description of the word that God spake by Jere- miah : "All that pass by clap their hands at thee ; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" The completion of the banks occasioned not less uneasiness to the Romans than to the Jews ; for while the latter saw a formidable step gained to- wards the reduction of their city, the former were in perpetual dread of some new exploit by which their work might again be destroyed ; and such destruc- tion would now be an irreparable loss, since they had exhausted every remaining resource in the erection THE ENEMY DISCOURAGED. 163 of these last banks. Moreover, " they found," says Josephus, " the fighting men of the Jews to be not at all mollified among such their sore afflictions, while they had themselves perpetually less and less hopes of success ; and their banks were forced to yield to the stratagems of the enemy ; their engines to the firmness of their wall ; and their closest fights to the boldness of their attacks. And, what was the greatest discouragement of all, they found the Jews' courageous souls to be superior to the multitude of the miseries they were under by their sedition, their famine, and the war itself." But the decree had gone forth, and Jerusalem must fall. The first indication of approaching suc- cess to the enemy seems to have been an apparent falling off in the ardour and unanimity of the sally ; for when John led his forces out with torches to as- sail these banks, they advanced in detached parties ; Josephus says, " After a slow manner, timorously , and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish courage." The probability is, that they were so exhausted by famine, by incessant fatigue, interminable watching, and the dreadful forms in which death had hourly cut down their dearest connections around them, that the physical strength was wanting to manifest that unsubdued courage. However, their compara- tive languor infused new resolution into the despond- ing Romans : they armed themselves in their most complete mail, and by forming a compact body, an unbroken line, before the banks, they covered them effectually ; at the same time bringing their gigantic 164 JUD^A CAPTA. slinging machinery to bear upon the Jews, while yet under the walls of the city, sweeping them down with darts and stones, and great fragments of rock, until, disheartened by the strength of the living pha- lanx before them, and the loss of so many comrades, the Jews retreated without accomplishing anything. This fired the Romans to new efforts ; they brought up their engines, and assailed the tower of Antoma, not only by their means, but by working away to undermine its foundations with their iron implements ; covering themselves, as best they could } with their shields, from the darts and other missiles cast down upon them by the defenders. Four mas- sive stones were in this way removed from the base of the tower, when night put a temporary end to the conflict ; but before dawn both parties were startled by an unexpected event ; for, just where John had before carried out his mine to destroy the first banks, the wall, weakened perhaps by that proceeding, and now much shaken by the battering-rams, fell to the ground. A joyful surprise to the enemy! They hastened to make good an entrance at the breach, and great was their disappointment on finding their way barred by a second wall, which the Jews had secretly built in case of such an event. To scale this new wall was pronounced an easy exploit, yet not one of Rome's warriors durst take the lead in it. Titus therefore considered it a fitting juncture for one of his orations, and assembling the flower of his army he addressed them at great length, urging all the wonted heathen arguments, and RETROSPECTIONS. 165 making many admissions of the courage, constancy, and perseverance exhibited by the Jews, whom he, of course, represented as being infinitely beneath them. He ended his speech in these words : " As for that person who first mounts the wall, I should blush for shame if I did not make him to be envied of others by those rewards I would bestow upon him. If such an one escape with his life, he shall have tne command of others that are now but his equals, although it be true also that the greatest re- wards will accrue to such as die in the attempt." But all the eloquence of their popular leader, his promises of reward, his laboured incitement of their every ferocious passion, availed not, not one Ro- man hero was found valiant enough to lead so peril- ous an enterprise. A Syrian, contemptibly mean in aspect, weak in body, and despised as one deficient in courage, stepped forth, and volunteered to head the storming party. Often in the old time had the famous generals and mighty kings of Syria advanced against Israel, and fled away discomfited by the far mightier warriors whom the LORD girded to the bat- tle. The very name recalls many a stirring scene in sacred history, and among them that magnificent though momentary vision of things unseen by the veiled eye of mortality, when, terrified by the proud array of the Syrian army, Elisha j s servant almost forgot the impregnable shield spread over his in- spired master, and was permitted to look upon the heavenly host that filled the surrounding heights with horses and chariots of fire. Alas ! that shield 166 JUDAEA CAPTA. was now withdrawn from the LORD'S mountain, and the meanest of a degenerate Syrian race might ven- ture to attack the holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most High ! The incident, merely noticed by Josephus as a remarkable instance of unexpected boldness in a person generally despised, is one of deep, sad interest, when viewed as tending to con- trast the past with the present, the days of Jerusa- lem's glorious dominion with those of her chastise- ment and consuming plagues. Strange to say, only eleven men of all the Roman host could muster sufficient resolution to follow this Sabinus, who, after a desperate struggle, succeeded in mounting the wall at their head. The Jews, not supposing but that the Roman army were all pour- ing in upon them, fled ; but returning immediately, they slew the daring Syrian, dashed three of his companions to pieces in a moment, and so wounded the remaining eight that they were with difficulty dragged back by their comrades below, and carried to the camp. Two days afterwards, twelve foot-soldiers of the vanguard, two horsemen, a standard-bearer, and a trumpeter, secretly approached, under cover of night, or in the morning twilight, and clambering over the ruins of the fallen wall, reached the tower of Antonia, surprised the first guard, whom they slew in their sleep, and having gained the wall, sounded their trumpet. Fatal note ! The Jews, roused from their short repose, started and fled, for they believed that the whole host was FOR THE TEMPLE! 167 upon them. These, electrified by the well-known signal, sprang to their arms, and ere the besieged had time to rally or to reflect, the host was indeed upon them. Titus first, and after him his selected band, ascended the tower, whence they beheld the sacred courts of God's Temple spread beneath, and the peo- ple of Israel fleeing to its sanctuary. They pursued, and once more the lion heart of Judah was roused. Should the blood-stained enemy pollute the hallowed spot ? No : as one man they turned, and never had the battle raged between them as that day it raged,' the Romans pressing onward over the holy mount, the Jews, as a living rock, hurling back each wave of war as it swelled and rolled upon them. There was no dart thrown, no stone flung, no engine brought to bear on either side in that tremendous struggle ; sword in hand they fought, mixed in one mass of mutual slaughter. From the camp rein- forcements perpetually came up through the now un- guarded tower ; from the city of David new cham- pions, roused even from the bed of death, and stagger- ing under the weight of their own weapons, rushed on and on, and flung themselves into the fight, for the prize of that terrible contest was THE TEMPLE. Judah prevailed ; Rome could not sustain the bat- tle, unaided by her own infernal machinery of cata- pult, and ram, and crossbow. The enemy retreated, driven step by step from the sacred ground, and Titus was glad to fortify himself where, on yester-eve, he little expected so soon to gain a footing, in the tower ofAntonia. The battle had lasted from the ninth 15 168 JUD^A CAPTA. hour of the night to the seventh hour of the day, and both parties had put forth the utmost of their strength, their energy, and courage. The reverse sustained by the Jews was indeed terrible, and an omen of speedy defeat, for Antonia was the very key-stone of their arch; but the Temple had been assailed the Temple was saved ; and in the gladness of their hearts for that rescue they almost overlooked the greatness of their losses. While thus they exulted, a new assailant appeared in the person of a centurion, a man of great bodily prowess and extraordinary daring, who seems to have been desirous of wiping off from his own name the blot of that pusilanimity which could not but attach to those who had shrank from assailing the slender wall recently erected by John. This Julian, seeing the Romans flying in disorder from their pur- suers, leaped out from the tower, into which they were pressing for shelter, and by the vigour of his unexpected onset turned the Jews back. Clad in full panoply, and possessed, as it would appear, with the fury of a maniac, he rushed into the crowd of mingled soldiers and citizens, and committed much slaughter, until, having reached the corner of the inner court of the Temple, his career was abruptly stopped. We have here a specimen of the theology of Jo- sephus which must not be passed over. As a Jew, he might well have thought that the God whom his fathers worshipped had once more interposed on be- half of that hallowed spot ; but in true pagan style, JULIAN THE CENTURION. 169 he says of the Roman pursuer, " However, he was himself pursued by Fate, which it was not possible that he, who was but a mortal man, should escape." The inner court of the Temple, which he had now gained, was curiously paved with polished marble, and on this his feet, cased as they were in shoes studded thickly with iron nails, soon slipped. He fell on his back; and was immediately surrounded by the Jews, who, after a long and terrible struggle, succeeded in despatching him. From the tower the Romans be- held this unequal contest, but none among them ven- tured to their champion's aid. The few stragglers lingering outside were presently attacked and driven in by the Jews, who thus remained masters of the sacred precincts to their utmost boundary. 170 JUD^A CAPTA. CHAPTER XIII. ON the seventeenth day of Tamuz the daily sacri- fice ceased. Men were wanting to offer it ; so fear- fully had the sacred order been thinned by the rav- ages of famine, pestilence, and the sword. It was a day of mourning and bitter lamentation in Jerusa- lem, a day of gloominess and thick darkness to those who had until then refused to believe that the God of Israel would indeed give over hig heritage to the spoiler. In the midst of the wreck, or just three years and a half from the commencement of the war by Vespasian, did the prince that came to de- stroy the city and the sanctuary " cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," exactly as the angel who spake to Daniel had predicted ;* and yet, alas ! Israel did not perceive, would not consider, that in this there was a testimony given to the fact that Messiah had already been cut off. Who shall tell the anguish of mind with which the Jews beheld their altar destitute, its divinely-appointed ordinance rendered impracticable, its multitudes of ministering priests diminished to a feeble few, who, with gar- ments rent, and dust upon their heads, bewailed a * Dan. ix. 25, 27. A PARLEY. 171 calamity the possible occurrence of which had seemed to them an idle dream. We do not drink sufficiently deep of the spirit of Judaism, such as it appears in the Holy Scriptures, to realize, even as we ought to do, the bitterness of this cup of wrath and woe. Edom-like, we have accustomed ourselves to stand on the other side, " in the day that the strangers carried away his forces, and foreigners en- tered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem." Yes, we take up the history, and look upon our brother's affliction in the day of his calamity with the cold observance of those who have no concern in his sorrows, instead of so making his cause our own that we should be constrained to cry mightily unto the Lord, yea, to give him no rest until He turn away his fierce anger, and pardon his heritage, and gather his people, and once more establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the whole earth. The daily sacrifice ceased, and Titus, prompted no doubt by his crafty ally, who knew full well into what consternation the fearful event would throw the Jews, deputed him, Josephus, to demand a par- ley, and to make the most of the crisis for subduing the stubborn spirits who extorted so heavy a price of time, and labour, and blood, from their cruel in- vaders for every advantage gained. The orator be- gan with a mock ; he implored the people, using at the same time the sacred language, " to spare their city, to prevent the fire that was about to seize upon the Temple, and to offer the usual sacrifices to God therein." Deep sadness of heart kept the afflicted 15* 172 JUD/EA CAPTA. Jews silent for awhile; but they presently broke into keen reproaches against him for his base deser- tion of his country, and the daring impiety of his present course in coming up against the Temple of the LORD as an enemy. To this Josephus replied in a strain of railing accusation and bitter taunts that it is almost marvellous that he should have left on record. He also adduced, as a scriptural example, something which is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures ; and after protesting his truth as a Jew, acknowledges himself deserving of all the reproaches that had been cast upon him, because he was then acting in opposition to Fate by striving to save those whom God had condemned. He proceeded to show that prophecy was about to be fulfilled in their utter destruction; and certainly, however hard he might have studied for language the best suited at once to exasperate and to harden them, he could not have succeeded better in producing an ha- rangue to that effect. He wept and groaned, and sobbed, so that, as he tells us, the Romans could not but wonder at and pity him, while the Jewish garri- son were stirred up to greater indignation, and strove to lay hold on him. Some few, however, de- serted on the strength of his persuasions, and these, he says, were kindly received by Titus, and sent away to a small city called Gophna,,with many prom- ises of future favour. Their entire disappearance, meanwhile, naturally gave rise to a belief within the city that they had been murdered like their pred- ecessors ; and this conviction deterred others from PREPARATIONS FOR STORMING. 173 following their example, until they were recalled and paraded round the walls under the escort of Jo- sephus, to add their persuasions to his that the city might be quietly surrendered to the enemy. The consequence of this address from several of their own high priests and nobles was strange, if Jose- phus reports it truly ; for, according to him, the peo- ple who were just before mourning bitterly the ces- sation of their daily sacrifice, suddenly attacked the Temple itself with darts, stones, javelins, and what- ever their engines could hurl against it. A great slaughter is described as taking place at the same time within the holy courts, and that of Jews, by Jewish hands. The story is inexplicable, unless some plot was even then ripening among one party to deliver up the Temple to the Romans. Titus was exceedingly enraged at the proceeding, which ren- ders this conjecture more probable ; and he addressed a vehement remonstrance to the assailing party, headed by John ; but this producing no effect, he re- solved on storming, that very night, the holy place which he professed himself so anxious to save. The near view that his present position commanded of its costly magnificence no doubt rendered him dou- bly solicitous to secure so precious a spoil before its beauty could be marred, or its value lessened, by the hands of those whose stern resolve it was that he should never grasp it. Seated on the highest turret of the tower of An- tonia, the Roman prince looked on while the very flower of his host, chosen men arrayed under chosen 174 JUD^A CAPTA. leaders, to the number of several thousands, as many as the narrow space would permit to act with freedom, stole, under cover of the night, to surprise in their sleep the guards of the Temple. They found them wakeful, watchful, and prepared to spring upon them sword in hand. A most desperate battle ensued, which lasted from the ninth hour of the night to the fifth hour of the day ; the Romans being loudly cheered on by their comrades and their general, on the summit of the tower, while the Jews fought with undiminished courage and determina- tion. No advantage was gained; blood was shed like water, and the courts of the Temple again wore the appearance of a slaughter-house ; but not a foot of its precincts was ceded to the foe. They retired to the tower : and the Jews set their guard as be- fore, in grim, and ghastly, and resolute array. Fam- ine had wasted their flesh, and wrinkled their skins, and blackened their countenances : sorrow had deep- ened every furrow, and despair was striving to un- man the heart that never shrunk from peril ; but the tread that involuntarily pressed the mangled corpse of a parent, a son, or a bosom friend, was firm and unfaltering still. The city of David and the mount- ain of the LORD'S house, were yet under their keep- ing ; and what Hebrew heart could flinch from guarding such a trust '? Titus, meanwhile, had kept his army employed in demolishing the foundations of fort Antonia, so as to form a broad and easy passage from the camp with- out to the court of the Gentiles 3 the outermost en- NEW EMBANKMENTS. 175 closure of the Temple. Here, opposite the northern and western fronts, and at the angle, and over against the cloisters, they raised embankments, with great toil and difficulty ; for the distance from which they had to fetch wood was fatiguing, and the oppo- sition of the Jews incessant. No stratagem, no feat of daring, was left untried to obstruct these works, and to harass where they could not slay the arti- ficers. Sallies, bolder than before, were constantly planned ; and the horses of the Romans seized while their masters were fetching wood, or foraging for provender. They also, to interrupt the communica- tion, set fire to the north-west cloister, where it ex- tended to the tower, and gradually destroyed much of this portion of the sacred edifices, as a means of better protecting, by such isolation, the Temple it- self. No day passed without skirmishing, few with- out hard fighting ; and this at least may be said, that Jerusalem, forsaken of her God, and garrisoned by a band of dying men, proved a harder conquest to the Roman than ever he had essayed to grasp. So wonderful are the natural defences of that glo- rious city such as she was while her own tribes possessed her as their inheritance ; so great was the strength of her ancient ramparts, the wall that Israel's monarchs first raised, and the pious Nehe- miah repaired, and round which the LORD had spread the shield of his omnipotence, until now that the time was come to lay her in the dust, that the baffled enemy had long ere then yielded to despair, and withdrawn from the hopeless enterprise, if the 176 JUD.EA CAPTA. mysterious influence had not prevailed, which told him that he must yet succeed. Among the stratagems practised by the Jews to drive the soldiers from their work upon the banks, was the following. The western cloister of the court of the Gentiles was over-against one of these new embankments, and here the Jews brought bitu- men and pitch, and various dry combustible mate- rials, with which they filled the space between the beams and roof. Having done this, they feigned a eudden retreat, as though suffering under great fatigue, and thus induced the Romans to mount the cloisters and pursue them. When a large number had ascended by ladders, so that the buildings were nearly filled and covered with them, the Jews set fire to the train : and by this manoeuvre they slew the greater part of them ; for such as escaped the flames, by leaping down within, fell into their hands, while those who cast themselves in the other direction, were killed by the depth of the fall. Many perished by fire, and some by their own swords. Josephus, in true Roman style, especially commends the sui- cides ; and laments, with his wonted adherence to the alien cause, over all who fell in fighting against Jerusalem. It was at this period that the event took place which marks the calamities as of the LORD'S es- pecial inflicting, since the prediction was thereby fulfilled that Moses had recorded. Josephus takes no notice of this prophecy, while relating its awful accomplishment, but he names the woman, Mary, PROPHECY FULFILLED. 177 the daughter of Eleazar, as being " eminent for her family and her wealth ;" thus identifying " the ten- der and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness." The sad tale is well known : she killed and roasted her babe, ate a portion, and concealed the remainder. Not one jot or one tittle failed of all the LORD had fore- shown. Josephus puts a speech into her mouth, evidently his own invention, in which she throws the guilt of her deed more upon her own suffering nation than upon the Romans, and garnishes the fearful tale with his accustomed licence ; but the sim- ple fact is enough. The month of Ab was now come : on the tenth day of that month had Jerusalem formerly fallen be- fore the arms of the Babylonian king ; and this day was always observed as one of fasting, of humilia- tion, and bitter mourning among the Jews. From the second to the eighth day, a continued but inef- fectual assault had been made upon the walls of the inner court, by means of the usual engines : on the eighth, a new bank was completed, and Titus order- ed up the battering-ram, but even this proved too weak for the purpose. The stones that composed the wall were of such an enormous size, and the strength of those gigantic bulwarks so prodigious, that the only process to which they yielded was the tedious, and almost impracticable one, of removing them piecemeal by manual labour. In this way the soldiers succeeded in taking down the external foun- 178 JUD^A CAPTA. dations of the northern gate ; but they found them- selves foiled by the solidity of the inner portion, which upheld it as firmly as before. Thus baffled, and despairing of success by any other means than storming the place sword in hand, the Romans brought ladders, and fixed them against the clois- ters, to which they began to mount Thus far they had proceeded without molestation from the Jews ; but no sooner did the Roman helms appear above the level of that sacred enclosure than an onset was made from within, which hurled them back, and slew or cast them headlong, encumbered as they were with their heavy mail, and before they had time to advance their shields. A long ladder, on which these assailants clustered like bees, was often seized by the Jews at its summit, and flung violently down, crushing the soldiers in its fall. The very ensigns, the proud eagle standards of Rome, were so endan- gered, that those who bare could scarcely preserve them from being captured ; and the engines, which with so much labour they had brought to bear upon the walls, were actually taken by the people of Is- rael. It was a signal defeat, and a marvellous one. The Romans now brought fire, and applied it to the gates that were within their reach. The silver that covered them was heated until it ignited the wood ; and by this means a body of flame suddenly burst forth, catching on either side the cloisters, from which the enemy had been repulsed. There was a natural reluctance to destroy what would, in its un- injured state, be a most costly prize ; and this led THE OUTER COURT TAKEN. 179 the Romans to reserve, as a last resource, the appli- cation of the destructive element. Dismay seized on the unhappy Jews, when they beheld their holy edifices blazing around them, and no effectual effort was made to stay the progress of the conflagration, which prevailed during that and the following day : the strength of the building being such, that they could only be destroyed by the very tardy progress of fire continually renewed and rekindled. The court of the Gentiles was to be finally con- tested, in the midst of these smoking ruins. On the northern and the western sides it was defenceless, the Romans being now able to pour in upon it, over the broken charred fragments of its lofty and beaute- ous fabrics. Titus issued orders to quench the re- maining fire, while he summoned his six principal commanders to a consultation, touching the destruc- tion or preservation of the Temple. Their voices were for the former, but his wish of course prevailed over their opinions : and he resolved to spare the magnificent trophy, as a proud monument of pagan triumph, and to be the desecrated fane of some de- mon-god. Strict orders were, therefore, given to save the Temple unhurt; and for the work before them a careful selection was made of the bravest and the best warriors from the whole host ; and to these was committed the task of making their way over the still smouldering ruins, to quench them wholly, and to take possession of the court of the Gentiles. This was done : so weary and dispirited were the Jews, that they offered no resistance while 16 180 JUD^A CAPTA. the Romans set their guard, in formidable force, within the long-contested wall ; but on the follow- ing morning they rallied again, and in a desperate onset slew many of the foe ; they would have driven them from that hard-won ground, had not Titus, who overlooked every thing from his lofty post, sent rein- forcements sufficient to repulse the Jews, who were compelled to retreat; and, finally, to fortify them- selves in the second court the court of Israel. So closed the day. "I saw the LORD standing upon the altar: and He said, Smite the lintel of the door that the posts may shake : and cut them in the head, all of them : and I will slay the last of them with the sword : he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered."* Terrible is the LORD in his judgments, righteous ia his dealings towards the children of men. Our heaKs will bleed, and our eyes will overflow, when contem- plating the dire visitation of wrath on his people, his own peculiar treasure, Judah his inheritance, ar^d the Mount Zion which he loved ; but we must nut forget that He who doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men, who calls judgment h!s strange work, and delights in mercy that HE it wi& who compassed Jerusalem with armies, and pourc d out upon her the fierceness of that indignation whit h never burns without a cause. Turning to the touching services appointed for that day, and observed by aJi Israel in every part of the world, in weeping, at 1 * Amos ix. 1. SAD COMMEMORATION. 181 mourning, and lamentation ; in fasting, and in dust and ashes, in darkness arid in prostration, no less of body than of soul, we find a memorial that speaks volumes, as to the spirit in which the children of Is- rael in our day review those scenes. Too little do Gentiles know, too little do they care, about these things : but the time is come when they who desire to rejoice and joy with Jerusalem, must learn to mourn for her more feelingly than now they do. At nightfall, on the eve of this sad day, the con- gregations of Israel throughout the world assemble in their synagogues : every light is extinguished, save the faint glimmer that is needful to enable the officiating minister to read the appointed scripture while, seated on the ground, in the deep gloom of such visible darkness, the assembly listen with what emotions it is not for us to say to the opening por- tion, the 137th Psalm. " By the rivers of Babylon there we sat, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." After some ascriptions of praise, and dwell- ing on the promises of future mercy, they proceed in the following strain : " This night have I for generations appointed for mourning and lamentation: I therefore will weep and sit down dejected, and will not smell the fra- grant spices. I am grieved bitterly, because mine iniquities have caused mine afflictions to prevail over me, when the holy city was burnt, by the Crea- tor of the light of the fire Behold, there is none to comfort us, for the fierce enemy is inex- orable : and from the time of the ninth of Ab we 182 JUD^A CAPTA. have been as orphans who are fatherless. From the day that they lifted up their voice, our ancestors on this night committed trespass : I have therefore appointed it for to weep, mourn, and lament. Our fathers have sinned, and are not, and how shall we bear their iniquity ? O thou, who dwellest in heaven, are the children to be put to death for the fathers ? Rise up with thy mercy, O our God, and compas- sionate us ; O turn our mourning into joy, for with our whole heart do we hope in thy salvation, O Lord ! O comfort the mourners of Jerusalem, who wait for thy redemption and salvation : turn the captivity of the children of Israel, and let the Re- deemer come to Zion !" The whole congregation repeat, " Turn the cap- tivity of the children of Israel, and let the Redeemer come to Zion !" After this, the Lamentations of Jeremiah are read throughout; some more affecting prayers put up, and the closing strain runs thus, the response of the people at every sentence being, " For the glory of the renowned city of Zion I will weep day and night." " For the sake of my Temple, and the glory of the renowned city of Zion, will I weep day and night. The enemy hath made my glorious house desolate ; he hath driven me into the hands of Na- bioth and Shamah ; for which I will continually weep with a doleful voice. I will continually weep for the repeated destruction of the delectable land, and the city of Jerusalem, and for her people which are gone into captivity. O mourn thou Law, for thy LAMENTATIONS. 1 83 glory is profaned : tny crown is fallen since the day that thy house was made desolate ; take up a lamen- tation for Aholibah and Aholah." This is but a prose translation of the most lofty Hebrew poetry. It is not possible to select from the exquisitely pathetic service of the day itself any- thing like an adequate specimen of the whole : but a few short passages may be given illustrative at once of the depth of their sorrow, and their readi- ness to justify the severe dealings of -he LORD. " The beautiful climate, the joy of the whole earth, the city wherein the chosen people dwelt, is become w^aste and desolate, a proverb, and a bye- word : all her people sigh, for they find no mercy. Her mighty men are confounded, because of the destructive sword ; Jachin and Boaz are plucked up from the threshing-floor of Arauna : strangers have trodden and roared in the place where the Divine Shechinah rested. " The Divine Shechinah crieth aloud, because of their wickedness, saying, Children, turn ; cease to do evil ; for the bed is too short for one to stretch him- self out at length. When the proud ones placed an idol in my habitation, the Divine glory departed from the inner Temple, and said, I will go, and return to my own dwelling, until they acknowledge their tres- pass and seek my presence." All is in the same style : the portions of prophetic scripture are read which most clearly set forth what should come, and what then did come, upon Judah and Jerusalem, so giving glory to God for the fulfil- 16* 184 JUDAEA CAPTA. ment of his own word. How many among our read- ers, who owe their spiritual all to Israel, have turned aside from the paths of pleasure or of business, to keep this sorrowful anniversary with their brethren ? and to respond with a fervent amen to their prayer, " Turn the captivity of the children of Israel, and let the Redeemer come to Zion !" Titus retired for the night into the tower of An- tonia, purposing at early dawn to lead his whole army to the storming of the Temple, and to surround the holy house with his camp. Surely it was a sleepless vigil that the royal vulture kept, glaring down, through the dim light afforded by casual fires, upon his splendid prey. We have already described the tower of Antonia as guarding the north-west an- gle of the Temple's enclosure, and here he might command a prospect, wonderful in all its details ; unequalled, not even resembled, by any place upon earth. Towards the north and the west of his watch- tower, all was in the spoiler's hand : his camp occu- pied the ruins of Bezetha and Acra, while its outer- most borders stretched far into the regions beyond On the eastern side rose the Mount of Olives abruptly from the deep valley of the Kedron, studded with his tents, which gave a hostile aspect to what had ever smiled in verdant beauty, and waved its dark bright olive boughs in peaceful homage towards the holy city. Due south, at his very feet, lay the courts of the Lord's house, the outermost of which, a defiled heap of ruins, was occupied by his guards. Beyond it, and concealed by the majestic fabric, the hill BRUTALITY OF TITUS. 185 Ophel descended to the valley of Hinnom ; and broadly swelling to the south-west, crowned with palaces, and towers, and stately dwellings, now the abode of misery and privation unspeakable, rose Zion, the proud site of the city of David, as yet un- trod by hostile step ; and confident of ultimate de- liverance, while the Temple of the LORD remained untouched. What were the thoughts of Titus, as he looked around? Did no compunction touch him for the cruelties that he had already perpetrated, nor one merciful impulse plead within his bosom for pity on the famishing thousands, the extremity of whose wretchedness was well known to him ? Was he, the proud and daring warrior, insensible to the claim on his martial sympathies established by the heroic defend- ers, for such, however great their transgressions, they unquestionably were, who had set, even to Romans, an example of courage, fortitude, and patriotism, that might shame their own most vaunted records ? Of all this we know nothing : but this we do know, that a more remorseless slaughterer than Titus proved himself to be towards the Jewish nation never dis- graced the human form. His desire to spare the goodly house of the LORD arose avowedly from ava- ricious motives : coveting, as he did, so gorgeous a trophy, and so inexhaustible a spoil. The wealth of that house was prodigious. Gold, silver, and fine brass ; the costliest of wood, and the rarest of pre- cious stones ; all were there in profusion as un- bounded, as was the exquisite workmanship that 186 JUDAEA CAPTA. shaped them into lovely forms unrivalled throughout the world. In other matters Josephus may and does exagger- ate ; but here he scarcely can do so : for the Temple of the LORD at Jerusalem was enriched, not only with all that its own worshippers could, in the pride alike of their hearts and of their wealth, lavish upon it, but kings of every nation had thither sent their costly gifts ; and inasmuch as it fell short of the glory of Solomon's, by so much it surpassed every other edifice, in the grandeur of its architecture, and the magnitude of its treasures. To-morrow, and the Roman would march over the slain bodies of its children, to seize and to appropriate the prize, that glowed and glistened even through the darkness of that hour whensoever but the glance of a torch fell on its surface of snow-white marble interspersed with burnished gold. The very spikes, that warned the passing bird from resting where no pollution might come, were of that precious metal. Oh ! how unlike was the imperial spoiler, the dark destroyer of God's forsaken heritage, watching to seize his prey, to the angel, the bright though terrible angel, who once, on that very spot, stretched a drawn sword over the threshing-floor of Araunah, towards the menaced city of Jerusalem ! There was a time when God himself vouchsafed to chastise his rebei~ lious Israel : but now, direst of all calamities ! He had delivered them into the hands of men. There is an appearance of confusion in the narra- tive of Josephus, just at this point : it would seem as THE TEMPLE FIRED. 187 though some Jewish feeling, not utterly annihilated, had overpowered him at the moment, when he re- called the scene where he had been, if not an actor, an acquiescent spectator ; when the Temple of the LORD, whither the tribes of Israel had been wont, for so many ages, to go up with songs of joy and rever- ential praise, was stormed and destroyed by the sav- age hands of idolatrous barbarians. We gather, however, from his somewhat confused and hurried notice of the first movements on that fatal day, that the Jews, encouraged by seeing Titus retire into the tower, had only rested for a little space ; during which the fire had crept along, bursting out anew in the inner court, and then, before morning dawned, they made another attack on the Romans who occu- pied the court of the Gentiles, and whose orders were to extinguish every remaining spark of the recent conflagration. Regardless of the danger that threat- ened the holy house by this near approximation of the fire, the Jews broke forth, and, after a short con- flict, were repulsed by the guard ; who, pressing close upon their retreating steps, entered with them the confines where Gentile foot was forbidden to tread, and fulfilled, not the will of their leader, but the mighty purpose of the God of heaven. A soldier, " hurried on by a certain divine fury," snatched a blazing fragment from the surrounding ruin ; and being raised on the shoulders of a comrade, he thrust it through the golden frame-work of a rich window, opening from the northern range of those chambers that encircled the Temple. A few moments, and 188 JUDAEA CAPTA. the flames burst forth that told the fearful tale ; the house itself, the holy and beautiful house was burn- ing the chosen place of the habitation of the Most High was wreathed in clouds not as those which of old bespoke the visible presence of Israel's Almighty shield, but clouds of smoke, and sparkles of fire that proclaimed the arrival of the dreaded end. A terrible outcry burst from the agonized Jews ; they darted away from the battle, and surrounded the sacred building, utterly reckless of their own lives, and united in one sole purpose that of staying the flames. Meanwhile a messenger hastened to apprize Titus of this unexpected event, and immediately he was on his way to the spot, followed by his officers, and they by the whole army, who, in one tremendous rush, bore down all opposition, trampled on the Jews and on each other, and many fell, yelling with agony, into the burning mass of the ruined cloisters, there to perish unheeded : altogether was presented a spectacle of such demoniac fury, madness, and vio- lence, that it surely seemed as though all hell were called together to rejoice and revel over the awful scene. In vain did Titus command, in vain did he threaten and implore ; in vain was each imaginable method tried by the agitated leaders to reduce into something like subordination the maddened multi- tude so wisely trained to order and obedience. Each legion was like a legion of evil spirits, intent only on perpetrating every possible outrage against that which, uninjured, would have enriched them al^ THE HOLY MOUNT. 189 while its destruction was a general loss. Each who could gain access to the sanctuary was eager to lend his aid in feeding the flame that now wrapped it round. The altar was there, and piled on heaps on every side of it lay the slaughtered Jews. They could offer no other resistance than their bleeding bodies to the polluting approach of those heathen spoilers ; and so they walled it round, and fell in a great heap of slaughter about it, and formed a pile upon its top, and rolled in their gore upon the hal- lowed pavement, and covered, literally covered to a great depth, the whole surface of the mount of the LORD'S house. Not alone the armed men who were marshalled in its defence, but the poor famished citizens rushed into the press, and offered their de- fenceless throats to the Roman knife, and died with arms outstretched towards the burning Temple of the LORD. Zion awoke in all her streets, and in all her sorrowful houses, and looked forth in terror. Alas ! alas ! the LORD who in the fire of his majesty descended on Sinai, and spake to their fathers, and gave them a covenant of peace the LORD who had oft, in the fire of his glory, shone upon Moriah, and with the beauty of his Shechinah brightness caused the sunbeam to fade and disappear the LORD had now kindled upon the holy hill the fire of his wither- ing wrath ; and as the dark red flames shot up to- wards heaven, and the thick black smoke streamed heavily along the twilight sky, and the roar and rush of the crackling mass of fire at times prevailed even above the roar and rush of infuriated armies. 190 JUDJ2A CAPTA. and the cries of dying men, Zion looked forth from her battlements, and knew that the crown had fallen from her head, and that her GOD had forsaken her. Terrible, most terrible, was the scene ! The high elevation on which that holy house was planted ren- dered it visible from every quarter, and imagination may toil in vain to grasp the horrors of that hour. Many in the city who were already so far gone in their last agonies of death by famine and pestilence as to have been long time speechless, unclosed their ghastly lips to utter an expiring outcry of lamenta- tion and woe for the house of the LORD. The whole slope of Zion was overhung with faces, gazing, some in the stupefaction of horror, others distorted with anguish and rage, on the soul-harrowing pros- pect. Was that the Temple towards whose gleam- ing beauty they were wont at early dawn to turn and pray? Was that the consecrated spot within whose guarded precincts even the pagan rulers of a tributary race presumed not to set a foot, but hum- bly sent their costly gifts to be laid by Jewish hands wheresoever they saw meet to place them ? Fiercely and more fiercely still raged the spread- ing sea of fire, as the very innermost recess, the holy of holies, now yielded to the burning flame. There were strange deeds done in the midst of the fire. Some of the priests mounted the roof, and tearing thence the golden spikes, the bases of which were of lead, they shot them as arrows at the sacri- legious foe. Two of the chief men among them. Meirus and Joseph, completed their work by casting THE SPREADING FLAMES. 191 themselves into the burning mass, deeming it a priv- ilege to die by the fire that consumed the holy place. Titus and his fellows had forced their way to the inner sanctuary ere yet the destruction reached it, and caught a hasty view of the magnif- icence that never should be theirs to lord it over. During the interval, much spoil, however, was se- cured ; among the rest, the golden candlestick, the table of shew-bread, and many costly vessels of gold, were seized, together with the sacred rolls, the oracles of God, to adorn the barbarous triumph of the imperial homicides ; but from all the pol- lution that it had undergone the house was purged by fire, and in that fire it was swallowed up. The very hill was heated to such a pitch as to scorch the bodies of the dying who covered the surface, trodden down by the enemy in masses ; the iron- bound shoes of the Romans, with their sharp nails, at once crushing and piercing the writhing heap over which they ran to new slaughters. In the remaining cloister of the outer court, six thousand people, chiefly women and children, had enclosed themselves, as a place of refuge. This building was at once set oil fire by the savage sol- diery, who suffered not one of that large number to escape with life. The slaughter of that day cannot be told, even such as was confined to the Mount Moriah alone ; and when all was completed, when none remained on whom to glut their ferocity, nor any ruin that they could farther deface by fire, when the remnant of the garrison had retreated, 17 192 JUD^A CAPTA. with Simon and John their leaders, over the "bridge that crossed the Tyropeon from the south-western corner of the Temple wall to Zion, when the echoes of the mountains had ceased to reverberate with Judah's terrible cries of anguish, and despair, and death, and the burning heat of the paved courts had been somewhat slaked by the blood that first flowed, then curdled and coagulated, blending in one hideous mass of gore the mangled bodies that formed its covering, then the abomination of deso- lation was literally set up in the holy place. The soldiers brought their ensigns choice objects of their impious worship ! and planted them where Solomon had spread forth his hands towards the Holy One of Israel, whose presence then filled the house with a glory before which none could stand. Yes, in the sight of Zion, beneath the gaze of her agonized citizens, was this foul dishonour consummated. The Roman eagles were set over against the eastern gate, and incense was burned, and adoration paid to the senseless idols ; and again the mountain echoes awoke to send back the thundering shouts and ac- clamations of that heathen host, intoxicated with blood, and overburdened with spoil. Josephus was there. No greater condemnation can be written against him, and we add no comment on the words. There was one wall of the holy house still inac- cessible to the enemy, and on it a company of the priests remained for five days, pining with famine, and probably unmolested by the soldiers 3 that their A PARLEY. 193 sufferings might be prolonged. At the end of this time they came down and besought mercy of Titus, only asking that their lives might be spared. The tyrant mockingly replied that their time of pardon was over, that the very holy house on whose account only they could justly hope to be preserved, was de- stroyed, and that it was agreeable to their priestly office to perish with the house to which they be- longed. He then ordered them to be murdered. From this speech we are tempted to surmise that, had he succeeded in preserving the Temple, he would have compelled the Jewish priesthood to con- tinue their service before the demons with whose filthy images he intended to pollute it. How mer- ciful, then, in the midst of judgment, was the Holy One of Israel, who here, even here, in this terrible visitation of seemingly unmeasured wrath, so wrought for his great Name's sake that he would not give over his ancient sanctuary, or his ancient people, to such blasphemous abominations ! It now remained for a parley to be held between the Jewish commanders and the Roman conqueror. The bridge just before mentioned was the scene of their conference, and the former asking mercy; the latter giving them a specimen of his oratorical abili- ties. He began by vaunting the prowess of the Ro- mans, intermingling his boasts with much abusive crimination of those whom he addressed ; and end- ing a string of mean reproaches by demanding that they should lay down their arms, and surrender themselves to his mercy. To this they answered, 194 JUDJ2A CAPTA. that they were bound by an oath never to do so ; but if he would permit them, with their wives and little ones, to go forth through his encompassing wall, they would repair to the desert, and leave the city to him. This proposal he scornfully rejected, and ordered the soldiers to burn and plunder the city. Acra alone was in their hands as yet, and here they destroyed the repository of the archives, the council-house, and whatever remained to under- go a more perfect wreck ; but they gained not much plunder, the Jews having carried their more valua- ble effects into the upper city. Instead of being in- timidated by the spectacle of the burning town, the people put on cheerful countenances, saying that their miseries were now about to be terminated by death. Josephus tried again and again so to work on their fears, or so to excite their hopes, as to in- duce them to surrender unconditionally ; but he was, as formerly, met with taunts and well-deserved re- proaches. He revenges himself by a fresh burst of accusations against his countrymen, whom he inva- riably represents as the veriest monsters of tyran- nous cruelty against their partners in affliction ; and as an apologetic preface, no doubt, to the enormities of his heathen allies, still to be detailed, he repre- sents the destruction of the remaining Jews as an interposition to save them from wanton cannibal- ism ! Fain would we pass lightly over these harrowing particulars of the closing scene. Ten days elapsed from the destruction of the Temple ere Titus could DISHEARTENING SPECTACLE. 195 proceed to raise banks against the city of David ; and then eighteen days' labour was required so far to complete them as to allow of planting their en- gines. They were opposed to the last in these oper- ations, but more faintly and by a diminished num- ber ; for what heart could endure, or what hand be strong in the day when God was manifestly dealing with his offending people, and fulfilling upon them the denunciations with which they were familiar, though, while the holy mount was uninjured, they could not believe that on them was the weight of the arrow to fall? Hitherto, one look towards the LORD'S house (" our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers worshipped") was sufficient to inspire every bosom with fresh ardour ; for even where the spirit of national devotion was not, the power of national pride, and confidence in their peculiar privileges, and the obstinate habit of reiterating the boast denoun- ced by the prophet, " The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us,"* all prevailed to inspire them with reso- lution that nothing could quell. But now, what saw they, when, habitually and involuntarily, they turned to the site of their glorious Temple ? A mass of black and shapeless ruin, from the midst of which arose the accursed fumes of incense, probably the very incense stored for the service of the sanctuary, now burning before the idol abomination, the stand- ard that was reared aloft to mock the desolation wrought by its worshippers. No, the Jewish heart could not endure, the Jewish hand could not be * Amos ix. 10. 196 JUDAEA CAPTA. strong, in so dark a day of rebuke and blasphemy. Accordingly the survivors, who had laughed to scorn all that Rome could do, now enclosed themselves, some in the citadel, others in the subterranean vaults and caverns, the entrances to which are now closed up, and hills of ruins heaped where the deepest gul- ly of the interior pass then cleft the city in twain, between Zion and Ophel. A few only persevered in manning the walls, and obstructing the work of the enemy : these, elated by their recent triumphs, wrought cheerfully and energetically, as men who have but one more feeble obstacle to surmount. It was upon the weaker part of the wall, which crested the Tyropean valley, that an impression was at length made. Titus had gained possession of Ophel when he took the Temple, and consequently was within that part of the ancient wall which ex- tended southward to the valley of Hinnom, and then stretched eastward as far as Siloam. Some of the slighter towers in this partition wall gave way be- ibre his engines ; and had the garrison retired to their impregnable strong-holds, Hippicus, Mariamne. Phasaelus, and the other similar towers, they might still have bade defiance to the utmost power of the foe, and have held out while famine spared them ; but a panic seized them all, and on the raising of a false alarm that the western wall of Zion had fallen, they burst from the city, and madly endeavoured to force a passage through the Roman wall below Si- loam. Failing in this, they yielded to utter despair, and fled to subterranean passages and caverns, per- ZION TAKEN. 197 haps to be again laid open to the eyes of their de- scendants, when they who come of them shall repair to Zion, to rebuild, to restore, to clothe in tenfold beauty what Gentiles have long trampled down, but never have been permitted to raise up. That bless- ing is reserved for Judah alone. Thus, and not by the failure of its ancient defences, was Zion taken. The hills yet stood about Jerusa- lem, the towers and bulwarks of Zion still frowned defiance on the hostile band, and her palaces rose proudly from the swelling ground, " beautiful for situation " as when the pious David laid their strong foundations in the rocky soil. But alas ! the Lord no longer stood around his people ; the Highest had forsaken them, the Saviour of Israel had been as a wayfaring man that tarrieth but for a night and de- parteth. Scarcely could the Roman host believe that Judah's arm had at length fallen powerless, and that the prey round which they had for months in fierce impatience vainly prowled, was theirs, and lay de- fenceless at their mercy Roman mercy ! Josephus says that the soldiers went in numbers through the lanes of the city, slaying without mercy whomsoever they found. They broke into the stately palaces, and noble mansions, and were driven thence by the loathsome discovery of their being treasure-houses of the dead ; their spacious apartments were filled with corrupting bodies, for whom no offices of devout care due from the living to the departed had been per- formed; for whose withering remains no place of burial, no hands to bury them, could be found. 198 JUD.EA CAPTA. Neither this nor any other spectacle of human woe could move the iron hearts of those evil and cruel men ; they butchered all who came within their grasp, set fire to the houses, and in the lower grounds actually saw those fires quenched by the streams of human blood that flowed down upon them. The ways of Zion mourned, for her sons and her daughters, the old man and the suckling fell in one mass of indiscriminate carnage. Titus, the clement Titus, as history loves to call him, cordially sanctioned this diabolical cruelty, amusing himself the while by inspecting the impreg- nable towers which he confessed he never could have overthrown by means of men or of machinery ; acknowledging that to the last despairing sally of the self-devoted Jews he owed his conquest. When the soldiers were entirely fatigued with slaughter, and desired rest, the hapless remnant of Zion were subjected to the further anguish of being conducted to the courts of the Temple, paved as it was with death, and fearfully desecrated by idol worship. Here a ruffian, named Fronto, was deputed to decide the doom of all. The old men were butch- ered, together with all such as, by mutual or other accusation, could be pointed out as having contrib- uted to the defence. A number of the goodliest young men were reserved for the tyrant's triumph in Rome. Of those above seventeen years old, he sent one numerous portion to the Egyptian mines, to suffer more, far more than ever did their fathers in the land of their first oppression ; many others were sent into the provinces, " as a present to them," says GREAT SUFFERING. 199 the shameless apostate Josephus, " that they might be destroyed upon their theatres, by the sword, and by wild beasts ; but those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. Now, during the days when Fronto was distinguishing these men, there perished, for want of food, eleven thousand : some of which did not taste any food through the hatred their guards bore to them ; and others would not take in any when it was given them." The heartless relator does not add that these last were but obeying one of the strictest precepts of their di- vine law, in rejecting the unclean, polluted offal that the blood-stained hands of their heathen murderers tendered ; offered, probably, before their faces to the idols that stood in the holy place. He then tells us that the extraordinary number of those shut up in the siege was owing to the circum- stance of the army closing upon them during the days of unleavened bread, when all the males were assembled there. This produced famine, pestilence, and all the dreadful aggravations of suffering that we have been compelled to contemplate ; as it also mournfully marks the withdrawal from them of the mercy which had decreed and promised that while they remained true to their covenant with the Eter- nal, no man should desire their land, or take advan- tage of their absence during the solemn assemblies in Jerusalem. Under any other circumstances, the statement would be incredible that sets forth the greatness of the multitude who perished in and after this fearful siege ; but this explains and confirms it. 200 JUD.EA CAPTA. Simon and John concealed themselves until hun- ger compelled them to sue for mercy : the latter was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, which, under such gaolers, could not be of very long continuance ; and Simon was reserved to drag his chains after the triumphal car of the haughty Roman, and then to be tortured to death in the streets of the imperial city, while the conqueror paused in his march until the base and cowardly deed was done. Having left none in Jerusalem to slaughter, nor more plunder to seize, Titus commanded the ruins of the Temple to be entirely demolished, with those of the city, leav- ing only the towers of Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Mariamne, with a portion of the western wall, stand- ing. He then celebrated a great sacrifice to his de- mons, feasted, flattered, decorated, and otherwise re- warded his followers in proportion to the sanguinary fame that they had won and departed. THE CLEMENT TITUS. 201 CHAPTER XIV. SHALL we follow the imperial savage on his home- ward way, with the sad remnant of Zion's captive children ? He repaired to the place whence he set forth, Csesarea, and the birthday of his brother Domitian shortly after occurring, he celebrated it, after what Josephus calls a splendid manner, by in- flicting, in his honour, a portion of the cruelties re- served for the helpless and inoffensive Jews ; for, be it ever borne in mind, they had already put to death all whom they could accuse of having in any way resisted their arms, and those who remained alive were the men and matrons, the youths and vir- gins of Israel, captured in the city of David, where, according to Josephus himselfj they were compelled to remain by the party whom he calls seditious ; and who all, except John and Simon, had been slaugh- tered. Of these most pitiable victims, the clement Titus took more than two thousand five hundred, and on this day caused them to be slain by fighting with wild beasts, or with each other, or being burnt alive, or in some other horrible way : for Josephus remarks, "Yet did all this seem to the Romans, when they were thus destroyed, ten thousand several ways, to 202 JUDAEA CAPTA. be a punishment beneath their deserts." Upon his father's birthday, shortly after, at Berytus, another and a greater multitude of the captives were, by the same merciful Titus, in like manner tortured to death. At Antioch most cruel and terrible enormi- ties were committed against the peaceable Jewish inhabitants, on charges that were afterwards proved to be false. Among these outrages, the forcible abo- lition of their sabbath was resorted to ; and such as would not sacrifice to idols, which included nearly the whole body, were on one occasion put to death. This was done by a Greek tyrant, by means of Ro- man soldiers, whom Titus sent to him for the pur- pose. The progress of the prince through Syria was marked by numerous halts at all the chief cities, where he constantly regaled the inhabitants with the spectacle of tortured, mangled Jews. After reject- ing, in his royal caprice, the application of the peo- ple of Antioch against the Hebrews still remaining among them, he proceeded ; and in his circuitous march again, passed by Jerusalem, where once more the army made a brief but diligent search among the gory ruins for any treasure that might remain ; and some they dug up. Titus came to Rome. It is altogether sickening to read the description, as penned by this unworthy, this contemptible sycophant, Josephus, of his ovation there. The arch of Titus stands a frowning monu- ment of what has been, a stern attestor of what, in the course of divine retribution, is yet to come. Hoisted on high, in a gorgeous car of triumph, the BARBARIAN TRIUMPH. 203 proud destroyers, father and son, received the hom- age of a people, concerning whom it may truly be said that they and their rulers were worthy of each other. There was a splendid show, including all that art or arms could bring together, with many images of the demons worshipped by Rome ; and pictures of sacked towns, and burning palaces, and smiling landscapes turned into utter desolation ; and every calamity that had befallen the land and the people of Israel during this dreadful war. But this was not all a pictorial illusion ; for on the summit of each representative group was placed the highest in command among the surviving captives, reserved to torture and to death, as the recompense of his cour- ageous patriotism. But how was the rear of these sad trophies brought up ? The spoils of every other land and, city sank into nothingness before the grandeur and the worth of what came last. The golden candle- stick with its seven bright lamps, that had shed their lustre on the walls of thy glorious Temple, O Jeru- salem ! the golden table, reserved for the shew- bread, that also dwelt within that hallowed sanctu- ary ; and, greatest of all of worth more precious than the whole material globe, the Law, the living word of the Most High God, wrapped in its richest coverings, and borne as a trophy, the worth of which could only be estimated by the anguish of those who saw it rent from its sacred repository. The cap- tives of Judah were there, but the conscience-stricken Josephus says nothing of them, save that among 18 204 JUD^A CAPTA. them, Simon was led, with a rope about his head, violently drawn and deliberately tortured as he went along ; till, arriving at the forum, his miseries were terminated by a bloody death ; on the official intima- tion of which to the imperial rulers, the sacrifices of thankfulness commenced, (" the things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice unto devils, not unto God,") prayers were offered to those who had ears and heard not ; the populace were feasted ; and the memory of their disastrous work of desolation was decreed to be perpetuated in a coin, of which many specimens remain to this day, sadly attesting the reality and the prolonged continuance of Judaea's desolate captivity. We hasten to turn from this scene of proud pomp, and sanguinany cruelty, and debasing idolatry ; from the seven-hilled city, ruling over the kings of the earth; from Rome, the unchanged and unchangea- ble enemy of God and his people ; Rome, the daugh- ter of Babylon, that is to be destroyed, even as she, in all her changes of government and religion, has been the universal destroyer : we leave her to bide her time, assured that the judgment of God over- hangs her infamous fanes, and temples of impeni- tent idolatry, to seek once more the blighted hills and deserted plains of Judaea. Is this Jerusalem ? Alas, " How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! " How is she become as a widow, she that was great among nations !" SCENES OF DESOLATION. 205 Shall we take our seat upon the springing grass that scantily begins to sprout, where the fire of the departing legion, burning their now useless camp, ran up the slope of the mount, destroyed the verdant blade, and scorched the olive branches that had not been spared in the general wreck, but for the luxuri- ous shade that they afforded to weary and baffled, and irritated soldiers? They are gone, and, too richly fertilized by the life-blood of many a victim, slaughtered here in the first fiery conflict, and subse- quently in the wanton malice of revenge, the soil has begun to put forth its vegetation ; yet timidly, tardily, and as though fearing that the iron hand of hostile men would again suddenly crush it. The loneliness of the spot is fearful, for it is not the loneliness of some retired and solitary hill, where the busy hum of population has never intruded, where the mountain kid has browsed, and the light gazelle has bounded, and the wild coney burrowed, and the birds have made their nests undisturbed, and sung among the branches : no, it is the loneliness of death, the harsh reign of stern and vengeful desolation. Of all that rendered Zion the joy of the whole earth, of all that marked Jerusalem as the city of the Great King, of all that ravished the eyes of the ascending tribes, when in festal pomp they came up to keep holiday in the courts of the LORD'S house, what now remains ? Far off, at the opposite western extremity of the city, a portion of the wall is seen ; it had been left standing as a shelter to the legion who, for a space, were commanded to encamp without it ; keep- 206 JUDAEA CAPTA. ing guard, as though the very ghost of slaughtered Israel might rise and re-occupy the beloved city. At one point rises a massive tower, that ol Hippicus and nearer to the eye another, and another yet, three melancholy watchers looking down upon their dead. This, and this only, remains of the tumultu- ous city of Israel's solemnities. All beside is one confused, undistinguished ruin ; but such a ruin ! the very stones of Zion, disjointed, broken, and hurled on heaps, are statelier than the palaces of other lands. Immense in size, of alabaster whiteness, pol- ished, and gleaming beneath the burning ray, they are so beautiful that the eye is not satisfied with gazing, nor the heart weary of asking who did, who could accomplish such an overthrow? Nigh unto the foot of this mountain, the graceful Olivet, rises a platform, the symmetrical proportions of which can- not wholly be concealed, though fragments of mighty dimensions, where black charcoal intermingles with the dazzling white of their pure marble, and fitful gleams betray that a strip of burnished gold has here and there escaped the plunderer's eye, and as now perchance washed by the kindly rain-drops from the coating gore that long disguised it, form a heap more strange and wild than in other quarters : and down, down into what must erewhile have been a valley of considerable depth, and where a streamlet evidently wandered, have been hurled such wrecks as would rebuild a city of palaces, rising almost to a level with the lofty site of what once was the Temple of the* God of the whole earth. WRECKS OF SPLENDOUR. 207 And while we gaze the loneliness is broken, for from beneath the temporary caverns formed by shat- tered columns and prostrate arches, peers forth the beast of prey, darting from one dark recess to another, with the short rude growl that speaks of unwelcome disturbance, perchance from a stronger or fiercer than himself. Alas ! beneath those mighty wrecks of architecture there still remain the lingering relics of human flesh and bone, to tempt the jackal, and the wolf, and the lion from Jordan's swell, to prowl amid the desolations that man, more savage, has prepared for them to dwell in ; and there they have found shelter, and there in a royal and a hallowed den they have already brought forth their young. The vul- ture, long accustomed to follow the march of the Roman caterer, is even yet wheeling round, above these few, scathed olives, with a screaming inquiry whether more prey is at hand ; and the cormorant, the bittern, and the owl, cry out from the windows of those desolate towers, that they alone dwell there. The city is utterly broken, her ancient landmarks are destroyed. Builders may come to repair the ruin, and credulous superstition may lay her finger on conjectured sites, and say, " Here will I build me a church, and there will I raise a monument, and over such a spot shall an inscription be graven ;" but all is idle, all is folly and vanity. Zion, Jerusa- lem, Moriah, these shall stand, distinct and utterly incapable of obliteration by all that man can do. The valley of Jehoshaphat shall sink, the Mount of Olives shall rise, and the waters of Siloam shall go 18* 208 JUD.EA CAPTA. softly through the lapse of ages during which the land must enjoy her Sabbaths, and Jerusalem be trodden under foot by Gentile usurpation ; but be- yond these grand, these everlasting outlines, man must be content to grope his way by dubious guess- work, and to form devices that shall end in nothing. Jerusalem must become the spoil of many nations ; she may pass from the clutch of a heathen Roman emperor into that of a nominally Christian Greek : she may be seized by the bold Saracen, then rent from him by Rome, the wolf of old, now mantled in sheepskin, and masked under another name, but not one whit less bloodily wolfish than of yore ; then re-conquered by the wild sons of Ishrnael ; then snatched for a little space by Egypt, and relinquished again. She may be trodden down of other masters yet, and the banners of all nations may wave on her diminished walls, but the city of God she shall never be again, till her warfare is accomplished, her in- iquity pardoned, and the Redeemer, her own Mes- siah, comes to reign over the restored tribes of her inheritance ; for, " Thus saith the LORD God : " Remove the diadem, and take off the crown ; " This shall not be the same : " Exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. " I will overturn, overturn, overturn it ; " And it. shall be no more, until He come whose right it is ; And I will give it HIM."* * Ezek. xxi. 26, 27. SCRIPTURAL HOPE. 209 The overturning has not ceased ; nay, it is in full operation now, and the horns that have scattered Judah are pushing in all directions in this our day. They that have robbed him, they that have perse- cuted him, they that have made themselves drunk with his blood, and kept him a homeless wanderer on the world's surface, while they fought for the prize of his desolate land and ruined cities, these, as nations, live and are mighty still. The hour of their judgment is not come ; the carpenters who are to fray the horns have not been revealed ; the dry bones of Israel, though greatly stirred, and in some degree united, with growing sinews and deepening flesh, have not yet received life to stand on their feet and to go forward. Till this takes place, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, and the set time for the Lord to favour Zion be fully come, vain are man's conjectures, and vain will be his plans. Can he fertilize the barren soil, and turn the dry land into springs of water ? If so, let him proceed, and there set the hungry, and build them cities to dwell in. But he cannot ; it is the prerogative of the Omnipo- tent arm that hath smitten and scattered to bind up and re-assemble the flock of his ancient pasture, the lost sheep of the house of Israel ! They know this, and they put no confidence in man's devices for their weal ; they wait for a signal from above, for which we also profess to wait, even the manifestation of Messiah, their King. Thus they pray : " O comfort the mourners of Jerusalem, who wait for thy redemption and salvation ; turn the 210 JITD^A CAPTA. captivity of the children of Israel, and let the Re- deemer come to Zion !" Not a threat recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, from the fourteenth verse to the fortieth, but has been, and still is, literally ful- filled upon the people and on the land of Israel. Who shall dare to pause at this point, and not pro- ceed as the LORD proceeds, in the same breath, on the same subject, and with the same literal sig- nificancy? "If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me, and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then ac- cept of the punishment of their iniquity ; then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them ; and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity, because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remem- ber the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought NATIONAL BLESSINGS. 211 forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that 1 might be their God. I am the LORD." Again, in the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, from the fifteenth verse to the end, the afflictions that should overtake the people when once they had provoked the LORD to pour upon them the full cup of wrath, are detailed in language that makes the heart of man quail while he listens to it ; every particular even of the final siege, and of the terrible gloom of the captives, offered for sale to their enemies in such numbers that buyers could not be found, which was the case when the Romans pre- vailed over them. In the thirtieth chapter, from the first to the tenth verse, the promise of final blessing is given. Who shall reverse it? Who shall say that Israel, sinning nationally, punished nationally, scattered nationally, and by an amazing miracle nationally preserved, shall not as a nation receive the fulfilment of what is here set forth ? " And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul ; that then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and will have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the LORD thy God 212 JUDAEA CAPTA. hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out into the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee : and the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou ehalt possess it ; and he will do thee good, and mul- tiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul ; that thou mayest live. And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hated thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good; for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his com- mandments and his statutes, which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul." There is no dubiousness here. In both instances, the wrath that was threatened perfectly describes, with historical exactness, not only what the annals of Gentile lands declare to have been done upon Judah and Jerusalem at and after the last siege of the city by Titus, but also what in our own day we VISIBLE FULFILMENT. 213 see to be in most parts of the world the actual con- dition of the people; while the desolatian of the land, and the ruined aspect of the city, Zion ploughed like a field, Jerusalem become heaps, and the mountain of the LORD'S house as a high place of the forest. are testified by eye-witnesses, and have been beheld by not a few of ourselves. In both instances this wrath is described as being followed by repentance and a turning to the LORD on the part of the whole house of Judah and of Israel combined: the pardoning mercy of their God, and a full resti- tution to all the privileges that of old were theirs, including the covenanted grant of the fruitful land, which remains barren arid waste, as an appointed sign that Israel is not yet forgiven and " at hand to come." Strange indeed is the ingenuity that can, and far too daring is the boldness that will, attempt to explain away what God hath not only spoken but still confirms by great signs and wonders before us, by the truly miraculous preservation of the Jewis 1 people, sifted among all nations, yet never mingled with any ; retaining the seal of the covenant ; keep- ing unchanged their sabbath days; and observing their peculiar ordinances even now in many places, and sometimes every where, at the hazard of their lives. Not to dwell on the no less miraculous fact, that a land the richest in the whole world has never been brought into cultivation by any of the various lords who, through eighteen centuries, have succes- sively been permitted to rule over it. It has been often remarked that infidelity is the highest stretch 214 JUDAEA CAPTA. of credulity, and in reference to this subject we musr needs acknowledge that so it appears. The man who in the face of all this evidence asserts that the Jewish people are not to be nationally restored, im- plies that what God hath spoken He will not so per- form; and he who admits that daring negation i credulous enough to believe anything. MOURNFUL CONTRASTS. 215 CHAPTER XV. THERE is not a more touching passage in the Jew- ish service-books, which amount to several volumes, than one of the mournful chants appointed for the ninth day of Ab. It will probably be new to the greater part of our readers ; for our ignorance of what passes in the synagogues, and among the Jews generally, is profound. Were it otherwise, we might perhaps attain to a more scriptural understanding of their position in reference to other things ; but we pass on to give the poetical antithesis, which loses much, very much, by its transmutation into another tongue from the majestic Hebrew of the original. " Joy as fire burnt within me, when I reflected on my going forth from Egypt ; " But now I am awakened to lamentation, when 1 remember my going forth from Jerusalem. " Then Moses sang the song which shall never be forgotten, when I came forth from Egypt. " But Jeremiah lamented with sorrow, lamenta- tion, and woe, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " My house was prepared, and the cloud abode thereon, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But the wrath of God rested on me as a cloud when I went forth from Jerusalem. 19 216 JUDAEA CAPTA. " The waves of the sea roared, and stood up as a wall, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But the waters overflowed my head, and over- whelmed me, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Corn descended from heaven, and the rock issued forth water, when I came forth from Egypt ; " Bat I was satiated with wormwood and gall, and bitter waters, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " 1 arose early and continued until even, around Mount Horeb, when I came forth from Egypt; "But I was called to mourn by the waters of Babylon when I went forth from Jerusalem. " The glory of the Lord was visible as a consum- ing fire before me when I came forth from Egypt ; " But I was doomed to slaughter by the sharpened sword when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Sacrifice, meat-offering, and the anointing oil, were prepared, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But the peculiar people were taken and led as sheep to the slaughter, when I went forth from Jeru- salem. " Sabbaths and festivals were instituted, signs and wonders performed, when I came forth from Egypt : " But fasting, mourning, and vexatious pursuit, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " How goodly were the tents, and the four stand- ards, when I came forth from Egypt ! "But it was the tents of Ishmaelites, and the camps of the uncircumcised, when I went forth from Jerusalem. "The jubilee and year of release for the land MOURNFUL CONTRASTS. 217 to rest were instituted when I came forth from Egypt; " But I was sold for ages, and cut off with severity, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " The mercy-seat, ark, and the stones of memorial, were prepared, when I came forth from Egypf ; " But sling-stones, and destructive weapons, when 1 went forth from Jerusalem. " There were Levites, priests, and seventy elders, when 1 came forth from Egypt ; " But taskmasters, oppressors, sellers, and buyers, when 1 went forth from Jerusalem. " Moses fed me, and Aaron led me, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But Nebuchadnezzar and the Emperor Hadrian oppressed me when I went forth from Jerusalem. " When we prepared for battle the Lord was there, when I came forth from Egypt. " But He was removed far from us, and was not near us, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " The secret place within the veil, and the order of shew-bread, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But wrath poured on me, covered me as a thicket, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Burnt-offerings, peace-offerings, and sacrifices by fire for a sweet savour, when I came forth from Egypt; " But the precious children of Zion were thrust through with the sword, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Bonnets of honour were appointed to be worn for respect when I came forth from Egypt ; 218 JUDAEA CAPTA. " But it was hissing, shouting, shame and vexation that I experienced when I went forth from Jerusalem. " The plate of gold, with dominion and power, were conferred on me, when I came forth from Egypt; " But there was none to help, and the crown was down, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Sanctification, the spirit of prophecy, and the tremendous Divine presence, was I blessed with when I came forth from Egypt ; "But filthy and polluted with the unclean spirit was I, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " I had song, salvation, and the sounding trumpets, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But the cries of the children, and the groans of the wounded, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " The table, candlestick, whole burnt-offerings and incense, when I came forth from Egypt ; " But idols, abominations, and graven images, when I went forth from Jerusalem. " Thanksgiving offerings, the testimony, and the order of Temple service, when I came forth from Egypt; " But the want of the Talmud, and the discontin- uance of the daily sacrifice, when I went forth from Jerusalem. "The LORD God of Hosts showed us wonders, when I came forth from Egypt ; " And He will cause his Divine presence, and his service, to return to the midst of Jerusalem." How dearly do the children of Israel cleave to the THE SECOND TEMPLE. 219 promise of future restoration ! It was uppermost in the thoughts of their brethren, who, forewarned of the desolations that should come on the city, and the Temple, and the land, still made it the subject of the very last inquiry that they were permitted to address to their Divine Master upon earth : " LORD, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ?" The answer was in the spirit of the pro- phetic word, " though it tarry, wait for it ;" for Jesus replied, " It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which my Father hath put in his own power." Yet, in despite even of this testimony, we often hear the Jew condemned as a carnal speculatist, because he confidently looks forward to the same event, not knowing the time or the season, but perfectly certain that they are decreed and settled, and will arrive at the end of the appointed days. The desolation, the utter destruction of the Tem- ple, is a most striking incident indeed when we look back to the time of Ezra, and glance along the term of its duration. Ezra says, " And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the proph- esying of Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah, the son of Iddo." HaggaPs language is exceedingly beautiful, calculated above measure to stimulate and encourage his enterprising brethren : " Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, " And build the house ; and I will take pleasure in it. " And I will be glorified, saith the LORD." 19* 220 jtm^EA CAPTA. And again, in the same magnificent strain, he pre- dicts the result : " Who is left among you " That saw this house " In her first glory ? " And how do ye see it now ? " Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as no- thing ? " Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD ; c And be strong, O Joshua, the son of Josedech the high priest ; " And be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work : u For I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts : " According to the word that I covenanted with you " When ye came out of Egypt, " So my spirit remaineth among you : " Fear ye not. " For thus saith the LORD of hosts ; "Yet once, it is a little while, " And I will shake the heavens, and the earth, " And the sea, and the dry land ; " And I will shake all nations, " And the desire of all nations shall come : " And I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts. " The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,. " Saith the LORD of hosts : " The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, THE GLORY OF THE HOUSE. 221 " Saith the LORD of hosts: " And in this place will I give peace, " Saith the LORD of hosts." The heart trembles in reading such words, and faints to think that it was upon this same sacred house, which the LORD deigned so to encourage his servants to build, the fire of desolation was kindled 1 > and the abominable pollution of the grossest heathen idolatry was perpetrated amidst its ruins ; and that now, after the ploughshare had torn up its founda- tions, a Moslem mosque occupies the hallowed site. Did, then, the word of the LORD fail? We know that there was no visible manifestation of the Divine presence as in the former house, the chief glory of which was in the Shechinah, the bright cloud that rested on the mercy-seat, and at times had filled the whole building. Neither was there the ark of the covenant, nor the tables of the Law, nor Aaron's budded rod, nor the pot of manna, the angel's food with which he fed his people in the wilderness. How, then, was the glory of that house made to surpass the glory of the former? How did the LORD in an especial manner give peace, where war, the fiercest, bloodiest, most dreadfully destructive war that ever raged among men, sent rivers of blood over the ruins of that goodly house ? There is not, there cannot be any answer to this, save in repeat- ing that One greater than the Temple, greater than Solomon who builded the first and most glorious Temple, was there. That the Desire of all nations, the Prince of peace, came with the offer of peace, 222 JUD^A CAPTA. and would have gathered Jerusalem's children into a secure hiding-place from every enemy, even when the Roman had already established his iron rule upon her sacred hills. From the eighth day of his infancy, when Simeon and Anna welcomed him, " the glory of his people Israel," unto that holy habi- tation, even to the eve of his cruel betrayal and more cruel death, that Temple was the loved resort of Israel's acknowledged Messiah ; and by his pres- ence it was glorified beyond all former glory, and in its courts he taught his doctrine, and bestowed the gift of peace. His Name is made hateful to the Jews through the abominable idolatries, the mur- ders, the profanations of holy places and holy things, and the iniquitous persecutions that have been heaped upon themselves, under the false assumption of that name by evil men ; and the bringing in of equally evil systems under the same false pre- tence ; so that the plainest meaning of their own prophetic books is set aside rather than they will ac- knowledge that they point to what is presented be- fore their eyes as Christianity. Do we condemn them for thus turning away from a portion of the Divine revelation? Let us also fear, lest many among ourselves be found involved in the same charge ; for, assuredly, there is nothing more clearly, more forcibly, more unequivocally set forth in scrip- ture than is the eternal, immutable promise of the Most High to bring back the nation of Israel, to cause them, as such, again to inherit the places now long desolate, and to fulfil to the letter, no less than MISCHIEVOUS ERRORS. 223 in its spiritual signification, the covenant ratified to Abraham concerning the gift of the land of Canaan to his descendants for ever. Spiritualize as we may, in reference to the Old Testament prophecies, we cannot, as Christians, evade the force of the apostle's exposition of them in the eleventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. On the Continent, the im- pression prevails that it is an integral part of Chris- tianity to hate and to persecute the Jew ; here } where all odious and cruel prejudice against them is rapidly dying away, they find that the great test of religious zeal on their behalf appears to be the ear- nest desire to rob them of their nationality, and to blend them in an undistinguished mass with the Gentiles around them ; while at the same time that we press on them the saving truth of their Messiah having once appeared as a victim, to put away s'm by the offering of himself, we dispute another sacred and inseparable truth held firmly, in strong faith and enduring hope, by them, that the Messiah shall yet again come, in visible glory, as a King over all the earth, and more especially as the King of Israel, to reign. The old divines among us were fond of the saying, " No cross, no crown ;" our creed, as heldup to the Jews, appears to consist in the assertion, " A cross, but no crown." Blessed be the LORD God of Israel ! the number of those who remain under this impression is daily diminishing, and the clear, strong, piercing light of revelation is shining more and more through break- ing clouds, soon to roll away, and leave its lustre 224 JUD^A CAPTA. unimpeded. There was, we freely admit ; a need for the spreading of this vail over the nations ; for with- out it, how should the scriptures have been fulfilled, that decreed to Judah a lot of universal sorrow, and shame, and obloquy ? How could the people of the LORD have become " an astonishment, a proverb, and a by- word among all nations ;" how could it have been that among the nations they should find no ease, neither the sole of their foot have had any rest ; but a trembling of heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind, and none assurance of life, from generation to generation, had not the predicted de- lusion fallen upon the Gentile world to say, " The two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath even cast them off?" But for this, Christians in every age would have combined their efforts to bring about the work of restoration before the set time was even approaching; and the outcast of Israel, the dispersed of Judah, would have been regarded as exiled kings, whose diadem had been taken away for a short season, to be restored in tenfold splen- dour. The LORD hath overruled all things to the furtherance of his own sovereign purposes, hitherto of wrath ; now of returning mercy : and surely it ill becomes us, when He would withdraw the cover- ing from our eyes, to grasp it with perverse tenacity, and in act, if not in word, to declare that we will not see. We have looked upon Jerusalem as it was. when the Roman host advanced to compass it round ; and upon Jerusalem, as it also was when the work of DAWNING MERCIES. 225 desolation had been completed, and the destroying army withdrawn from its lonely ruins. Jerusalem as it is presents an object of most surpassing, thrilling interest, through the astonishing change that in the course of a few years is observable, first in the minds and intents of those who visit the holy city, and secondly in the result of their investigations. The Christian religion, in its purity, seems to have prevailed there just while the church of the circum- cision, a small band of those who had escaped to Pella, found a refuge among the ruins of Zion, and clung to the mouldering stones of their beloved city and Temple. They were, however, disturbed in their desolate retreat by the Roman tyrants, who, fearful lest one of David's royal house might yet es- cape to claim the kingdom, invaded even this harm- less band, and murdered their chief pastor. From the period of Hadrian's Roman town, raised upon her holy hills, even to this day, has Jerusalem been a cage of unclean birds : never more so than when those who called themselves Christians held sway over her. Superstition, the most grovelling that can be imagined, and the most fearfully opposed to the word of God, with one hand heaped defilement on the mountain of the LORD'S house, and with the other groped for miraculous crosses, found or feigned legends It at enabled her to fix on this and that spot as distinguished by some event in gospel history, and reared an idol fane upon each fabulous site. The ncoler Turk made choice of the mountain which God had delighted to hallow, and ignorant man 226 JUD^A CAPTA. to profane ; and there he built his mosque, and fenced again the ancient platform of the Temple courts, and, divinely, though unconsciously in- structed, he guards it to this day, alike from friend and foe. Now, instead of digging for impossible mementoes of events that left no merely material trace behind them, to mar their deep spiritual significancy, our Christian tourists approach Jerusalem intent on the discovery of national antiquities, and to connect the present era with her past majesty and power. To this momentous revolution in the public mind we are indebted for the formation of a link that we hes- itate not to say were essentially necessary to a right view of the LORD'S work ; for by it we are gradually establishing the identity of sites which, as they are set forth with the most perfect topographical exacti- tude in prophetic Scripture, we must necessarily keep in view, while looking for its fulfilment Let any simple-minded believer in the inspired character of the sacred writings read the following declaration, with a full regard to its closing words, and he cannoi but enter into our meaning, nor, we should think, fail to arrive at the same conclusion. " Thus saith the LORD, " Which giveth the suri for a light by day, " And the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, " Which divideth the sea where the waves thereof roar; " The LORD of hosts is his name ! SACRED PROMISES. 227 " If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, " Then the seed of Israel also shall cease "From being a nation before me for ever. " Thus saith the LORD ; " If heaven above can be measured, " And the foundations of the vjarth searched be- neath, c; I also will cast off all the seed of Israel, " For all that they have done, saith the LORD. " Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, " That the city shall be built to the LORD, " From the tower of flannaneel unto the gate of the corner, " And the measuring line shall yet go forth " Over against it upon the hill Gareb, " And shall compass about to Goath, " And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, " And all the fields unto the brook of Kedron, " Unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, " Shall be holy unto the LORD ; " It shall not be plucked up^ " Nor be thrown down any more FOR EVER."* The whole of this, and the preceding chapter of Jeremiah, if read consecutively, and without a break, bears upon the subject with a force, that if not irre- sistibly convincing, must be met with a power of re- pulsion that we should tremble to possess. That * Jeremiah xxxi. 3540. 20 228 JUD^A CAPTA. the prediction is yet unfulfilled, one glance at the two concluding lines must prove ; and immediately preceding the above passage is the promise of a new covenant, in virtue of which the Law shall be writ- ten in the hearts of the house of Israel. It was of old addressed to their ears, with the covenant, " Do this, and live ;" but that law, so pure in its nature, and so strict in its requirements, they could not ful- fil : they failed in their part of the covenant, and so brake it. But better things are in reserve for Israel. the LORD will write that holy law not on tables of stone, but in their inward parts ; and they shall ren- der the willing service of loving, obedient sons, where as bondsmen, ruled by fear, they were not able to bear the yoke of observances, into the deep spiritual tendency of which their hearts could not enter. The passage is so important, and has withal, by some un- discriminating believers, been so grievously per- verted from its true meaning by a confounding of " the law" with " the covenant," that we cannot do better than cite it here. "Behold the days come, saith the LORD, " That I will make a new covenant " With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah ; " Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, " In the day that I took them by the hand " To bring them forth out of the land of Egypt , " Which my covenant they brake, WHAT SHALL BE. 229 " Although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD : " But this shall he the COVENANT " That 1 will make with the house of Israel ; " After those days, saith the LORD, ;: I will put my LAW into their inward parts, " And write it in their hearts ; " And I will be their God, " And they shall be my people. " And they shall teach no more " Every man his neighbour, arid every man his brother, " Saying, Know the LORD : u For they all shall know me, " From the least of them unto the greastest of them, saith the LORD : " For I will forgive their iniquity, " And I will remember their sin no more."* And then, without a break, follows the gracious and glorious declaration before quoted. What a solemn interest does all this attach to the recent discoveries of learned and godly men, who have made it their business and delight to explore the ancient boundaries, and to set up again the long forgotten landmarks of the holy city ! The tower of Hippicus is now identified; and springing from a piece of ancient masonry, single stones of which reach to the enormous length of twenty-four feet, has been found the commencement of an arch, that evidently formed part of the bridge from the Temple * Jeremiah xxxi. 31. 230 JUDAEA CAPTA. to the city of David. Nay, the very mosque itself nas been subjected to the eager gaze of enterprising Englishmen, arid discoveries made that justify the belief in the existence of foundations, over which, indeed, the plough has passed, though above, not one stone was left upon another. Who could prevail to dig up the subterranean relics of that stupendous architecture ? The press teems with discoveries, adding perpetually to the store of local information already possessed ; and we cannot choose but look upon Jerusalem not merely as the dwindled skeleton of what once was, but as the swelling germ, half rising from its earthy bed in promise of what is to be. Once more, from the Mount of Olives, we will in imagination look down, and contemplate the existing scene : and truly we may still apply the lamenting apostrophe, " How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people !" for an immense track of ground lies before us, destitute of a single building, not even a hovel or a shed appearing, where stately streets and crowded marts once attested the populousness of the mighty Jerusalem. The present walls enclose a mere fraction of it : they pass over the brow of Zion, leaving to the plough and to the browsing flock the greater proportion of the ground where David's city stood. Ophel, the long, narrow descent, reaching from the Temple wall to the valley of Hinnom, bounded on the west by the Tyropean, and on the east by the valley of Kedron, and appropriated to the multitude who served the Temple, bears not a dwelling on its desolate slope : nor can the eye dis- JERUSALEM AS IT IS. 231 tinguish the point whence rose the wall that girt it in. For a precipitous descent into the valley be- neath, we now behold a swelling mass of ground, the accumulation of many centuries, where no doubt lies hidden a deep substratum of giant ruins, block- ing up the entrance to subterranean caves. The site of fort Antonia is occupied by the house of the Turk- ish governor, arid a slender minaret marks the mem- orable area, forming, as in olden time, the north-west corner of the enclosure where stands the alien occu- pant of a spot that long was, and ere long again shall be. most holy unto the LORD. We look with something like toleration, if with complacency we cannot look, on Ishmael's strong grasp of Isaac's sacred mountain ; for though he there worships a god whom his fathers knew not, he has purged the place of idols; and we must needs rejoice that the impious mummeries enacted in other parts of the city, are sternly held aloof from contaminating the threshing-floor of Araunah. An irregular line of unequal fortification, excUi- ding the greater part of Bezetha, and other tracks that lay within the ancient city, runs straggling out and in, embracing the melancholy mass of broken buildings that loiter where the hands of different generations have placed them, bearing no resem- blance to what was, and probably destined to con- tribute but little portion to what is about to be. Un- til within a few short years, animal life was at a low ebb in Jerusalem ; intellectual life at a lower, and spiritual life there was none ; this was Zion, whom 20* 232 JUD^A CAPTA. no man sought after ; but now from every part of the world the Gentiles congregate, they scarcely know for what, in her gloomy streets; and, "like doves to their windows," her own exiled race flock unto her, their hopes rekindling under an influence that never yet moved the seed of Jacob in vain. While Gentiles of all climes and creeds plan, each after the model that his own imagination approves* as best, the LORD God of Israel still keeps silence ; and they who know his name, feel that their voca- tion is to watch, to pray, to wait. The whole Bible is one manual of prayer for such as look for the ap- pearing of Israel's Messiah in power and great glory, to conquer and to reign. He went into a far coun- try, far beyond the ken of mortal eye, to receive for himself a kingdom, arid to return. Long has he been gone, and long and sore have been the afflictions of those whom He alone can comfort. Zion has been desolate and a widow, her children moving to and fro, crushed under a dispensation of unequalled wrath. Those of every other kindred, and people, and nation, and tongue, to whom he hath graciously extended the covenant of peace, and admitted to a spiritual participation in the blood-bought blessings of his grace, have likewise formed a small and a scattered remnant, through much tribulation enter- ing the kingdom of heaven. While he is absent, all the foundations of the earth are out of course, vanity is written on its possessions, and pollution on its joys. W r e wait, we watch, we wrestle in strong supplica- tion for the signs that shall herald his approach, tell COMING MERCIES. 233 ing us in language not to be misunderstood, the Lord is at hand. Very imperfectly have we followed through the sa< stages of its mournful fall, the city, concerning which the LORD once said that He had chosen it, yea, de- sired it for his habitation. We have seen how Judsea was laid waste, Jerusalem made a heap, and the children of the covenant slaughtered, or carried away into the cruellest captivity, the most wide and prolonged dispersion ever known among men. Shall we then say, in the language of unbelieving doubt " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? Hath He cast off for ever ?" No, we know that the fulness of the cup of troubling of which Jerusalem hath drank the dregs, and wrung them out, is a sure earnest of the abundance of that cup of blessing re- served for her when the days of her mourning are ended. The city shall be builded again, and the desolate wastes inhabited, and the people shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. " Sing, O daughter of Zion ; " Shout, O Israel : " Be glad and rejoice with all the heart, " O daughter of Jerusalem. " The LORD hath taken away thy judgment, " He hath cast out thine enemy ; " The King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee ; " Thou shalt not see evil any more. " In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; 234 JUDAEA CAPTA. " And to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. " The LORD thy God, in the midst of thee, is mighty ; " He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy ; " He will rest in his love ; He will joy over thee with singing. " I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, " Who are of thee, "To whom the reproach of it was a burden. " Behold, at that time, I will undo all that afflict thee : " And I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out, " And I will get them praise and fame " In every land where they have been put to shame. " At that time will I bring you again, " Even in the time that I gather you: " For I will make you a name and a praise " Among all the people of the earth, " When I turn back your captivity before your eyes, " SAITH THE LORD."* * Zeph. iii. H M. W. DODD, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, OPPOSITE THE CITY HALL, HAS PUBLISHED WITH MANY OTHER WORKS NOT ENUMERATED, THE FOLLOWING BY CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH; JUDAH'S LION. Her last and most successful work, third stereotyped eQ pages, and is handsomely printed and bound in cloth." Auburn Journal. " One of the happiest productions of the author. The narrative is well sustained, and the personages and character are true to nature." Commercial Advertiser. COMBINATION. "This is a tale, founded on facts, from the gifted pen of Charlotte Eliz- abeth. It is well written, and contains the very best of advice. It lays down with great force the mighty truth, that without Religion there can be no virtue ; and that without the fear and love of God, man will inevitably be dashed on the rocks of irredeemable ruin. Religion is the Sheet Anchor, the only protection to hold by in the hour of violent temptation ; but if that be lost, all is over. Such little works as these are eminently calculated to produce a vast amount of good ; and there- fore let the heads of families place them upon their table for the benefit of their children. " In no better way could an evening be spent than by having it read aloud, that a warning may be taken from the fblly of others, and that the course which has led them to ignominy and disgrace may be most carefully avoided." Boston American Traveller. THE DAISY THE YEW TREE, Chapters on Flowers. Three most delightful little volumes, made up in part from her very popular Flower Garden Tales for those who prefer them in smaller volumes. (7) Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. JUD/EA CAPTA. 'Judaea Capta,' the last offering from the pen of this gifted and pop- ular writer, will be esteemed as one of her best works. It is a graphic narrative of the invasion of Judea by the Roman legions under Vespa- sian and Titus, presenting affecting views of the desolation of her towns and cities, by the ravages of iron-hearted, bloodthirsty soldiers, and of the terrible catastrophe witnessed in the destruction of Jerusalem The narrative is interspersed with the writer's views of the literal ful filment of prophecy concerning the Jews, as illustrated in their extra- ordinary history, and with remarks contemplating their returning pros- perity. Her occasional strictures on the history of the apostate Josephus, who evidently wrote to please his imperial masters, appear to have been well merited. The work is issued in an attractive and handsome volume." Christian Observer. "If the present should prove to be Charlotte Elizabeth's last work, she could not desire to take her departure from the field of literature with a better grace ; and we doubt not that it will be considered, if not the best, yet among the best of her productions. It is full of scripture truth, illustrated by the charm of a most powerful eloquence ; and no one, we should suppose, could read it without feeling a fresh interest in behalf of the Jewish nation, and a deeper impression of the truth and greatness, and ultimate triumph of Christianity." Albany Daily Advertiser. " This volume contains a description of some of the most terrific scenes of which this earth has been the theatre. Rut instead of con templating them merely as a part of the world's history, it takes into view their connection with the great scheme of Providence, and shows how the faithful and retributive hand of God is at work amidst the fiercest tempest of human passion. The work contains no small por- tion of history, a very considerable degree of theology, and as much beautiful imagery and stirring eloquence as we often find within the same limits. Those who have the other works from the same pen, will purchase this almost of course : and they need have no fear that it will disappoint any expectation which its predecessors may have awakened." Albany Religious Spectator. Also just published *THE CHURCH VISIBLE IN ALL AGES." A work, making attraction to the youthful as well as the more mature mind, a deeply interesting and important subject. All the foregoing are printed on clear, white paper, and bound to match, making an attractive and beautiful set of books. They are sold in sets or separately, varying from 25 to 50 cents per volume. When purchased for Sabbath Schools, a liberal deduction is made from the above prices* (8) A NEW UNIFORM EDITION OF THE WORKS OF CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. H. B. STOWE, AND A BEAU- TIFUL PORTRAIT ON STEEI^, OF THE AUTHORESS. This Edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's works, for the three great requisits of Legibility, Economy and Elegance, chal- lenges a comparison with any work in the market. The two volumes already published contain Ten hundred and twenty-five large octavo pages, and 22 separate productions, which are sold for 4 Dollars ; in clear open type, beautiful paper, and the handsomest of binding in English cloth. In half cloth they are sold at 3 Dollars. Other volumes, unifonr. with the two already published, will be added as soon as suni<- cient materials are obtained of which to compose them Several of those contained in the volumes now out are in Poetry, none of which have before been published hero. Extracts from Reviews. " One of the largest, and handsomest octavos of the season, at once a creditable specimen of the handywork of the pub- lisher, and an evidence of the popularity of the writer the paper and print are all that the admirers of the Text could reasonably desire. We learn by the Personal Recollections, which Mrs. Stowe justly places at the head of her writings, that the writer, now Mrs. Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, (the wife of a British Officer,) is the daughter of a late eminent clergyman of the Establishment, whose family claims high descent ; thatshe is the survivor of two children, and that she has enjoyed all the advantages of early culture and refined intercourse. These sketches of her life and residences, her family, friends, and associations, run through a period of some forty years, as we infer from some early incidents of her chequered for- tunes, (for names and dates are scrupulously avoided,) and are wrought with " the picturesque effect of romance." Her fair American endorser, just quoted, thinks "no piece of autobiography in the language can compare with them in (2) richness of feeling and description, and the power of exciting interest." Newark Daily Advertiser. We have here the writings of one of the most gifted fe- males of the age, published in a form which cannot fail to be enduringly attractive and popular. They are noble octavo vol- nmesjwith excellent paper, clear and beautiful type, and in firm and handsome binding. The publisher, as well as the authors of such works as these, are to be reckoned among the benefactors of their country and the world. Daily American Citizen. Charlotte Elizabeth's works have become so universally known, and are so highly and deservedly appreciated in this country, that it has become almost superfluous to praise them. We doubt exceedingly whether there has been any female writer since Mrs. Hannah Moore, whose works are likely to be so extensively and so profitably read as hers. She thinks deeply and accurately, is a great analyzist of the human heart, and withal clothes her thoughts in most appro- priate and eloquent language. The present edition, unlike any of its predecessors in this country, is in octavo form, and makes a fine, substantial book, which, both in respect to the outer and the inner, will be an ornament to any library. Albany Argus. These productions constitute a bright relief to the bad and corrupting literature in which our age is so prolific, full of practical instruction, illustrative of the beauty of protestant Christianity, and not the less abounding in entertaining de- scription and narrative. Journal of Commerce. She writes as she feels her pen portrays her true senti- ments and the tone which pervades her writings, is one of reverence for purity in morality and religion. Boston Mer- cantile Journal. In justice to the publisher and to the public we add that this edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's works will form a valu- able acquisition to the Christian and Family Library. Christian Observer. Mr. Dodd has this time borne off the palm, without a ques- tion, and all who admire Charlotte Elizabeth, (and they are thousands) will be eager to manifest their grateful regard for such an instance of enterprise and taste, by purchasing, asr soon as possible, the volumes in whose issue these qualities so distinctly appear. The introduction, by Mrs. Stowe, is short, but beautiful and appropriate. Christian Reflector. Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. IN ADDTION TO THE FOREGOING IS ALSO PUBLISHED, MEMOIRS OF REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, Missionary to Polynesia. By Rev. Ebenezer Prout, of Hal- stead. 1 vol. 12mo. "Mr. Dodd has published a fine edition of Prout's Memoirs of Rev. John Williams, Missionary to Polynesia. The lives of few men afford more ample material for an instructive and interesting biography than that of Williams. His ardent, energetic, and successful labori as a Missionary of the Cross, are almost without parallel. His self-denying and eminently prosperous efforts in Polynesia have been extensively before the public in the ' Missionary Enterprises^ and the friends of missions every where hold him in affectionate and melancholy re- membrance as the '-Martyr of Erromanga.' The author of the Me- moir now published, has, without drawing largely upon the facts with which the Christian public are already familiar, produced a volume of intense interest. The work is not merely the eulogy, but the his- tory of the active and efficient life of a man whose works constantly epoke his praise, even to the hour of his tragic death. We take plea- sure in commending the excellent mechanical execution of the vol ume." MEMOIR OF THE LIFE, LABORS, AND EXTENSIVE USEFULNESS OF THE REV. CHRISTMAS EVANS, A Distinguished Minister of the Baptist Denomination in Wales. Extracted from the Welsh Memoir by David Phil- fips. 1 vol. 12mo. With portraits. One or two specimens of the preaching of this celebrated Welsh divine have been extensively read in this country, and have been suffi cient to mark the author as a man of extraordinary genius. We are glad to know more of him. The memoir before us gives a succint account of his life and labors, and presents the portraiture of a man of great talents, eminent piety, and most amiable character. There are also several specimens of his writings which are exceedingly in- teresting, and an account of the oiigin, nature, and influence of San- demanianism, of which Evans was well nigh a victim, more complete and satisfactory than any thing we have ever seen, except Andrew Fuller's work on the subject. The memoir is a valuable addition to our stock of religious reading. It is well printed, ana adorned with a portrait of Evans, the features of which are Welsh enough." N. Y. Evangelist* THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION THE CLAIMS OF THE TIMES. By Andrew Reed, D. D., with a Recommendatory Introduc- tion by Gardiner Spring, D. D. 1 vol. I2mo. Dr. Spring says, " At the request of the publishers I have paid some attention to the work of Dr. Reed, with the view of expressing my humble judgment of its merits. The reverend author is favorably known to the churches of this country, and this work will detract nothing from hia reputation. Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. With portions of it I have been exceedingly interested, as throwing together very important thoughts upon the most important topics of religious instruction, well arranged and favorably expressed. The work evidently cost the author time, effort, and prayer ; and it is well worth the labor and solicitude it cost. Whoever reads it will be abun- dantly compensated, and if he reads it with the spirit with which it was written, cannot fail to become a more enlightened and useful Christian. The object and aim of the writer is not a selfish one, but it is to do good. He takes a wide range, and yet having read the work the attentive reader will find that the substance of it is easily remem- bered. If our churches and pur ministers would possess themselves of its principles and imbibe its spirit, they would have less cause to lament the decay of vital godliness, either in their own hearts, their families, or their congregations. "The publisher deserves commendation and encouragement for the attractive form in which he presents this volume to the public, and I take great pleasure in recommending it to all who purchase books for the sake of reading them." PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES; OR THE DOMESTIC MINISTER'S ASSISTANT. By William Jay, author of Sermons, Discourses, &c., &c. From the last London Edition. With an Appendix, con- taining a number of select and original Prayers for partic- ular occasions. 1 vol. 12mo. " This volume has been long looked upon as one of the best collec- tions of devotional exercises for the domestic circle, that has been published, and by a large class of Christians we doubt not that it in considered invaluable. The present edition will be still more desirable to American Christians, who will not fail to thank the publisher for the fine form in which he has presented it." Courier if New York Enquirer. A GOLDEN TREASURY FOR ~ ^"ilHREN OF GOD. Consisting of Select Texts of the Bible, with Practical Obser- vations, in Prose and Verse, for every day in the year. By C. H. V. Bogatzky. A new edition, carefully revised and corrected. 1 vol. I6mo. "This is a reprint of a work written by a Polish Clergyman more than a century ago. We have seldom met with a work more admir- ably suited to the religious wants of families than the work before us. There is a lesson for every day in the year ; a portion of Scripture ia taken and such reflections are given as the text suggests. Those fam- ilies who are in the laudable habit of calling their household together in the morning cannot do better than procure this work. The por- tion assigned for each morning lesson is short, but full of the true spirit of Christianity, and could not faij to have a salutary influence upon the thoughts and actions of the day. It is got up in the style of alegance for which the publisher, M. W. Dodd, is so well known." Books Published and for Sale "by M. W. Dodd. THE BOOK THAT WILL SUIT YOU; Or a Word for Every One. By Rev. James Smith, Author of " Believer's Daily Remembrancer," &c. " An elegant little hand book of some 300 pages 16mo., and by an En glish author. Its contents are a rare selection of topics, treated briefly o suit the circumstances of those who have fifteen or twenty minutes jo spend in reading, which it would be wicked to throw away, and yet Jiscouraging to commence a heavier volume. ' The Successful Mo- iner,' 'The Child's Guide,' 'The Husband's example, 1 'The Wife'i Rule,' these are some of the topics taken promiscuously from the book ; and they show the author's mind to be travelling in the right di- rection, viz. : towards the theory of life's daily practice. We hope that the time is near when Christian parlors will be emptied of 'The Book of Fashion,' ' Somebody's Lady's Book,' etc., etc., made up of love stories mawkishly told, and other drivelling nonsense ; and their places supplied with works like the ' Book that will Suit you' no less pleasing, and far more useful." GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS, In a faithful account of the Life and death of John Bunyan, pp. 176. " We are pleased to see a very handsome edition of this admirable treatise. It is just published, and will be eagerly sought after by all who anmire the spirit and genius of this remarkable man whose ' Pil- grims Progress' stands nearly if not quite at the head of religious lite- rature." KIND WORDS FOR THE KITCHEN; Or Illustrations of Humble Life. By Mrs. Copley. "This admirable little volume is the production of Mrs. Esther Copley, (late Mrs. Hewlett,) whose popularity as an authoress has long been established upon both sides of the Atlantic. The welfare of that interesting and important part of society who discharge the domestic duties of life has long engaged the attention of this distinguished and accomplished lady. " We have read the ' Kind Words for the Kitchen,' with a firm con- viction tint it is the best work we have ever seen in so small a com- pass for its designed purpose ; it suggests all that a sense of duty would lead the head of a well regulated household to advise, and having loaned the book to ladies distinguished for their judgment and skill as heads of well-governed families, they have urged its publication with a few omissions of matter deemed inappropriate to our country. " We believe almost every Christian lady will be glad to place such a manual of sound instruction in the hands of her domestics, and that which is kindly bestowed will generally be gratefully received. With an assurance that the general diffusion of this book would accomplish a most valuable service in binding together more closely the interests of the employer and the employed, and softening down the asperities which so frequently grow out of the ill performed duties of the house- hold sphere, we should rejoice to know that this little volume was placed by the side of the Bible in every kitchen of our country.' Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. SERMONS, NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED, ON VARIOUS PRACTICAL SUBJECTS. By the late Edward Dorr Griffin, D. D. " Dr. Griffin may be regarded as having been a prince among tho princes of the American pulpit. He left a large number of sermons Carefully revised and ready for publication, part of which were pub- lished shortly after his death, but the greater portion of which consti- tute the present volume. They are doubtless among the ablest dis- courses of the present day, and are alike fitted to disturb the delusions of guilt, to quicken and strengthen, and comfort the Christian, and to serve as a model to the theological student, who would construct his discourses, in a way to render them at once the most impressive, and the most edifying." A MEMOIR OF THE REV. LEQH RICHMOND, A.M. Rector of Turvey, Bedfordshire. By Rev. T. S. Grimshaw, A. M,, Rector of Burton-Latimer, &c. Seventh American from the last London Edition, with a handsome Portrait on Steel. *' We have here a beautiful reprint of one of the best books of its Class, to be found in our language. Such beauty and symmetry of cha- racter, such manly intelligence and child -like simplicity, such official dignity and condescending meekness, such warmth of zeal united with a perception of fitness which always discerns the right thing to be done, and an almost faultless prudence in doing it, are seldom found combined in the same person. It is a book for a minister, and a book for parishioners ; a book for the lovers of nature, and a book for the friends of God and of his species. Never perhaps were the spirits and duties of a Christian Pastor more happily exemplified. Never did warmer or purer domestic affections throb in a human bosom, or exer- cise themselves more unceasingly and successfully for the comfort, the present well-being and final salvation of sons and daughters. From no heart probably, did ever good will flow out to men, in a fuller, warmer current. In a word, be was the author of the 'Dairyman's Daughter,' and the ' Young Cottager.' " The engraved likeness of Mr. Richmond alone is worth the cost of the work : as illustrative of the uncommon benignity that adorned and endeared the man to his friends and the world." UNCLE BARNABY? Or Recollections of his Character and Opinions, pp. 316. " The religion of this book is good the morality excellent, and the mode of exhibiting their important lessons can hardly be surpassed in anything calculated to make them attractive to the young, or successful in correcting anything bad in their habits or morals. There are some twenty chapters on as many common sayings and maxims, occurrences and incidents in this respect bearing a resemblance to ' the Prompter, a somewhat oracular book forty or fifty years ago. It is an excellent book to keep in a family, and may be alike beneficial to parents and children." Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. PSYCHOLOGY; Or a View of the Human Soul ; including Anthropology. Adapted for the use of Colleges and Schools. By Rev. F. A, Rauch, D. P., late President of Marshall College, Pa. Second edition, revised and improved. 1 vol. 8vo. "We have devoted more time to the examination of this work than jve can usually devote to the books submitted to our consideration for A passing notice, and in our opinion it is a work of great value. "His first great object in these lectures is to teach man to know himself. The second, is to give the science of man a direct bearing upon other sciences, and especially upon religion and theology. The execution of the work renders it admirably adapted to popular use, and it should be studied by all. The clergyman should study it. The lawyer would derive great advantage from it. The physician cannot be master of his profession without it." N. Y. Com. Adv. A RESIDENCE OF EIGHT YEARS IN PERSIA, Among the Nestorian Christians. With Notices of the Mu- harnmedans. By Rev. Justin Perkins. With Maps and twenty-seven beautiful colored plates. 1 vol. 8vo. "The attention of the Christian public has been called of late years with great interest to the Nestorians of Persia, and the recent visit to this country by Rev. Justin Perkins and Bishop Mar Yohanan, has awakened still greater anxiety to know more of this people, 'the venerable remnant of a once great and influential Christian Church. 1 The theory of Dr. Grant, that this people are the lost tribes of Israel, has attracted considerable attention, though since the examination of that theory by Dr. Robinson, we do not think it has very generally been embraced. These are obvious reasons to account for the anxiety with which the work of Mr. Perkins has been looked for since his in- tention to prepare a work on Persia was announced, and we are quite confident that the public expectation will be more than answered by the graphic interest, the valuable information, and unique embellish- ments of the volume just issued. . . . Mr. Perkins has made a valuable contribution to the literature and science of our country, as well as to missionary annals. This handsome volume should adorn the library of every literary institution, and of every man of intelligence, and we trust it will thus be widely circulated."^. Y. Observer HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMIS- SIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. Compiled chiefly from the Published and Unpublished Docu- ments of the Board. By Joseph Tracy. Second edition, carefully revised and enlarged. 1 vol. 8vo. " Mr. Tracy has performed his work well, and it is one that should be found in the library of every intelligent citizen. It is interesting in matter and subjects, and invaluable for a reference. The volume is handsomely printed, and illustrated with numerous plates, some of were drawn and engraved and printed by natives at Missionary (5) Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. tations. The whole comprises a neat octavo volume of 450 pages. The research, and clear and concise style of the work, entitle it to g^eat commendation." Boston Traveler. PUNISHMENT BY DEATH; ITS AUTHORITY AND EXPEDIENCY. By George B. Cheever. Second edition, with an Introduction by Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. "Aluminous and forcible exhibition of the Scriptural authority as well as the grounds of expediency on which the advocates of the ex- isting laws rest their defence. We commend the book to the perusal of those whose minds are unsettled on this subject, believing that the author has gone thoroughly into the investigation of the argu- ments of those opposed to Capital Punishments, and has faithfully at- tempted to demonstrate both the inexpediency of the change, and its direct contravention of the teachings of Divine Truth." New York Observer. TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS; OR FAITH REWARDED. By the Author of " Emma, or the Lost Found," " The Adopt- ed Child," &c. 1 vol. I8mo. " This interesting little narrative combines entertainment with in- struction of the choicest kind. It depicts, on the one hand, the meek- ness and humility with which the faithful follower of the Redeemer, reposing unwavering confidence in his abiding love and mercy, en- dures the chastening dispensations of an All-wise Provi lence ; and, on the other, the thankfulness and gratitude with which he receives un- expected benefits and mercies. It is an excellent book for the young, and from its perusal they cannot fail to derive both pleasure and profit. 1 ' N. y. Journal of Commerce. MEMOIR OF MRS. ANNA MARIA MORRISON, Of the North India Mission. By Rev. E. J. Richards. 1 voL 18mo. " Mrs. Morrison was the wife of one of the Presbyterian Mission- aries in Hindostan, who was removed from the Church militant prior to their arrival at their appointed station. It is an instructive deline- ation of a superior and exemplary Christian female, just fitted to edify young women, by displaying the excellency of the Christian religion, and should be placed in the Sunday School Library for the special benefit of the female department. Christian Intelligencer A MOTHER'S TRIBUTE TO A BELOVED DAUGHTER, Or Memoir of Malvina Forman Smith. 1 vol. I8mo. " The portrait of this much loved girl is drawn in a series of letter! from different members of the family, which are generally well writ- ten, and develop traits of intelligence, of affection, and of goodness, "worthy of imitation by those of her sex who shall have the good ff>9* tuie to peruse her brief hiitory." Bofton Traveler. Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. THINKS i TO MYSELF; A Serio-Ludicro-Tragico-Comico Tale. Written by Thinks I To Myself Who 1 1 vol. I2mo. ELIZABETH THORNTON, Or the Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, &c. 1 vol. 18mo. " This is the sketch of a young female possessing no common ex- cellence of character ; although called away from her labors of Chris- tian love when she scarcely numbered a score of years, she was truly ripe for heaven. She lived and acted while life was hers for the great end of being ; and no one of her sex could read this development of an exalted character without the desire to imitate such an example. It is just such a book we can most heartily recommend for the Family and Sunday School Library." N. Y. Com. Advertiser. JANE BRUSH, AND HER COW. " It is a beautiful story, and none the less so we dare say, for the dovetailing of the translator's charming imagination into the text for ehe tells us that she has added to the original though it is so very in- geniously done that it is quite impossible for us at least to discover the spots in the wainscot.' The little volume furnishes one of the few Instances in which a work professing to be written for children, has been successful. It is not written down to their feelings and compre- hensions but exactly upon a level with them. Its language, and the inci- dents of the tale are precisely what they should be to make an im- pression and do good. There is no baby talk about it, and yet, every thing is so said as to adapt itself at once to the capacity of the young mind at the earliest stage of its understanding. No better child's book has ever been written, and we, at any rate, have found it very delight- ful reading/r children of some age." Courier # Enquirer MORAL TALES FOR CHILDREN. By Uncle Arthur. Illustrated by seven engravings. 1 vol. 32mo. " Uncle Arthur, the avowed narrator of these stories, must be a new relation of Peter Parley and Robert Merry, he has so happy a faculty of arresting the attention and winning the regard of the young. Hia stories are simple and natural ; having a direct religious tendency, and cannot fail to exert a salutary influence upon the juvenile mind." --Boston Merc. Journal. THE TRAVELER, Or Wonders of Nature and Art. 2 vols. 18mo. MEMOIR OF MRS. ELIZABETH B. DWIGHT; Including an account of the Plague in 1837. By Rev. H. G. O. Dwight, Missionary to Constantinople. With a Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Judith 8. Grant, Missionary to Persia. Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. THE CHILD'S BOOK OF DEVOTION. By Rev. John A. Murray. LOFTY AND LOWLY WAY. By Mrs. Sherwood. THE DROOPING LILY. By Mrs. Sherwood. THE STORY OF GRACE, The Little Sufferer who died in New York, April 15, 1837. Sold for the benefit of her family. M. W. Dodd is agent for the sale of THE MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS, Which are always on hand hi quantities,with a large supply of ether works sultabl* for Sabbath School Libraries. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. . f-,fcr^f-l ( pfc 1AM m c inco JMW * 5 I9o9 ciuMar'59lJx FlfteC'D LD MAH 3o 1959 NOV 6 1978 - REC.CIR.OCT Z5 '78 General Library Ya fn K U YA 03363 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY