glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, TEKEL,5 UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing; MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting; PERES, thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." This interpretation, one would think, should have enhanced the king's trouble; but some way or other, they found means to dispel his fears, and make him easy; probably upon the persuasion that the calamity was not denounced as present or immediate, and that time might furnish them with expedients to avert it. This however is certain, that for fear of disturbing the general joy of the present festival, they put off the discussion of serious matters to another time, and sat down again to their mirth and liquor, and continued their revellings to a very late hour. Cyrus, in the mean time, well informed of the confusion that was generally occasioned by this festival, both in the palace and the city, had posted a part of his troops on that side where the river entered into the city, and another part on that side where it went out, and had commanded them to enter the city that very night, by marching along the channel of the river, as soon as ever they found it fordable. Having given all necessary orders, and exhorted his officers to follow him, by representing to them that he marched under the conduct of the gods, in the evening he made them open the great receptacles, or ditches, on both sides of the town, above and below, that the water of the river might run into them. By this means the Euphrates was quickly emptied, and its channel became dry. Then the two fore-mentioned bodies of troops, according to their orders, went into the channel, the one commanded by Gobryas, and the other by Gadates, and advanced towards each other without meeting with any obstacle. The invisible Guide, who had promised to open all the gates to Cyrus, made the general negligence and disorder of that riotous night subservient to his design, by leaving open the gates of brass, which were made to shut up the descents from the quays to the river, and which alone, if they had not been left open, were sufficient to have defeated the whole enterprise. Thus did these two bodies of troops penetrate into the very heart of the city without any opposition, and meeting together at the royal palace, according 4 These three words signify number, weight, division. 5 Or Peres. to their agreement, surprised the guards, and cut them to pieces. Some of the company that were within the palace opening the doors, to know what noise it was they heard without, the soldiers rushed in, and quickly made themselves masters of it. And meeting the king, who came up to them sword in hand, at the head of those that were in the way to succour him, they killed him, and put all those that attended him to the sword. The first thing the conquerors did afterwards, was to thank the gods for having at last punished that impious king. These words are Xenophon's, and are very remarkable, as they so perfectly agree with what the scriptures have recorded of the impious Belshazzar. The taking of Babylon put an end to the Babylonian empire, after a duration of two hundred and ten years from the beginning of Nabonassar's reign, who was the founder thereof. Thus was the power of that proud city abolished, just fifty years after she had destroyed the city of Jerusalem and her temple. And herein were accomplished these predictions which the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, had denounced against her. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE ROMANS. (Chiefly from Josephus" "Wars of the Jews.") Siege, n. (Fr. siege, L. sedeo), the or fortification thrown around a besieged place. Ver'i-fy, v. (L. verus), to prove to be true; to confirm the truth of a prediction. In-flict', v. (L. in, flictum, see fligo), literally, to strike hence, to lay on or send on as punish ment. In-voke', v. (L. in, voco), to call upon in prayer; to implore. AT the feast of the Passover, A.D. 70, when the city was, as usual at that time, crowded with people from all quarters, Titus appeared before the walls, with an army of 60,000 men. It is a remarkable fact, that no foreign nation had ever attacked the Jews during any of their solemn festivals, and the event now happened, in direct accordance with the divine will, in order that God's judgment upon them might be the more terrible and striking. The triple walls of Jerusalem enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within an oval figure of three miles, and on a part of Acra, levelled by human industry, and which was distinguished by the name of Moriah, stood the temple, in itself an exceedingly strong fortress. Titus commenced the siege by investing the city with a wall of circumvallation strengthened with towers, which his army, animated with extraordinary zeal, accomplished in the incredibly short space of three days; thus verifying our Lord's words "For the day 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 within thee one stone upon another." The multitude of inhabitants and strangers present at the Passover, hemmed in within the walls, soon began to suffer the most grievous pangs of hunger; the details given by Josephus are very horrible. No table was set, no regular meal eaten in Jerusalem. The rich sold all they had for one measure of corn, and secreted themselves to eat it, unground and unbaked. The poor crept forth at night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather the grass and weeds on the slopes below the walls. Loathsome things were devoured, things especially abhorred by the Jews. They ate their girdles and their shoes, and even gnawed the leather from their shields. All ties of natural affection were torn asunder, and in the extremity of hunger, the fearful prophecy of Moses was fulfilled;" The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure 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; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and strictness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee within thy gates." Nor was famine the only scourge; pestilence followed in its train; and dire faction raged within the city, agreeing only in resisting the enemy without, and then turning with unabated fury against each other; and, to complete their misery, those who tried to escape from the city the Roman soldiers put to cruel deaths, crucifying the fugitives, till there was no room for the crosses, and till crosses were wanting for the bodies. All the defences of the city were successively taken by the Romans, although every step was desperately contested by the besieged, who, for fifteen weeks prevented their enemies from reaching the temple. Titus gave strict orders to save that beautiful building, and, when the cloisters were on fire, picked men were ordered to go in and quench the flames,—but a greater than the Roman general had decreed otherwise. Let us follow Josephus the Jewish historian in his graphic account of the last scene in this fearful tragedy. "One of the soldiers, without any orders, and actuated by a divine impulse, snatched something out of the materials on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the north side of the holy house. As the flames went upwards the Jews made a great clamour, and ran together to prevent it, and spared their lives no longer, since the holy house was perishing for whose sake they had kept such a guard. And one came running to Titus and told him, as he was resting in his tent, after the last battle; immediately he rose in great haste, and ran to the holy house to put a stop to the fire. Then he called to the soldiers and signalled to them with his hand, bidding them quench the fire; but they could not hear what he said on account of the noise, neither did they attend to the signals he made. For neither persuasion nor threatening could restrain the violence of the soldiers; they pretended not to understand their general's orders, and those behind encouraged those in front to set it on fire. And now when Titus was no longer able to restrain the fury of the soldiers, and the fire increased more and more, he went into the holy place of the temple with his officers, and saw it, with what was in it; he saw that its beauty had not been over-rated, and was the more desirous of saving it. And as the flames had not yet reached the inner sanctuary, he returned in haste, and endeavoured again to persuade the soldiers to extinguish the fire, and ordered a centurion and one of the spearsmen with him to beat the soldiers that were refractory with their staves, and to restrain them; but all was of no avail, for the fury of the soldiers surpassed their regard for Titus, and dread of displeasing him. Besides, when he left the sanctuary, a soldier entered, who with a fire-brand lit the hinges of the gate in the dark, so that the flames immediately burst forth. Thus was the holy house burnt down without Titus's approbation. While the house was on fire everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those who were caught were slain. The flames were carried a long way, and because the hill was high, and the temple buildings extended very far, one would have thought the whole city was on fire. Nor could there be a more terrible noise, for there was at once the shouting of the Roman legions, as they marched together, and the sad groans of the Jews surrounded by fire and sword. The multitude also in the city joined in the lamentation of those on the temple mound; many of those that were worn away by the famine, almost expiring, when they saw the holy house on fire, exerted their utmost strength, and broke forth in wails and moans, till the hills round the city echoed the cries of lamentation." The upper part of the city, into which the besieged had retreated, soon after fell into the hands of the Romans, and this completed the conquest of Jerusalem. It is remarkable that the temple was destroyed on the 10th of August, the same day of the year on which the first temple, built by Solomon, was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, B.C. 587. The number that perished during the four months of the siege is computed by Josephus at 1,100,000; and 97,000 were made prisoners and sold for slaves, till the markets were so glutted with them "that no man would buy them.' Titus made presents of a great number to the provinces, to be destroyed by wild beasts in the amphitheatres, and the rest were sent to work in the mines of Egypt. Thus did Israel cease to be a nation, and become outcast and desolate; and thus was inflicted the doom which was impiously invoked, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem cried out, "His blood be on us and on our children." 1. When did Titus appear before the walls of Jerusalem ? 2. How did it happen that the city was so crowded with people? 3. Repeat the words of Christ, predicting this, and show how exactly they were fulfilled. 4. What awful prophecy of Moses was confirmed in the siege? 5. What efforts did Titus make to save the temple? 6. Why was it impossible for him to do so? 7. What number perished in the siege, and what was done with the prisoners? 8. Why did such terrible judgments fall upon this great city? JULIAN'S ATTEMPT TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE. From "Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." JULIAN, surnamed the Apostate, from his having abandoned the Christian religion, in which he was educated, was the last and most highly-gifted of the house of Constantine. He was saluted emperor, 360;-abjured Christianity, 361; attempted to rebuild the Temple, 362;-was slain in battle with the Persians, 363, at the age of thirty-one, after a reign of three years. THE vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore |