Jerusalem;

ITS HISTORY FROM THE TIME OF CHRIST,

AND ITS PRESENT CONDITION.

To exhibit clearly the internal condition of Jerusalem, before and after the Roman host moved against it, would occupy more room than we could possibly afford to the whole subject. We must however here make it distinctly understood that the principal horrors of this war were produced rather by the more violent parties of the Jews, than by the Romans. Most of the staid and sober-minded men, from the beginning, had strongly condemned the war, and saw that the ruin of the country could not fail to be the result. But the troubled years which had passed, acting upon the old political principles to which we have often had occasion to advert, had united the young, the rash, and the unprincipled into a war party, whose numbers and powers could not be opposed. The demoralizing effects of constant war, and an entirely disordered state of society, with the associations formed with the powerful predatory bands which ravaged the country, soon produced a body of men whose depravity, cruelty, avarice, and pride, has perhaps not been paralleled in the history of the world. Whatever can be imagined most brutal, hateful, and unnatural, that they were. Yet all this they covered under the profession of zeal for the glory of God. If that zeal had been pure, there had been something that sounded noble in their graver talk; for they alleged that nothing but the dishonor done to God by the submission of his people to the heathen, could have induced them to take up their arms, which they vowed never to lay down, until they had delivered Israel from the yoke of foreign dominion, or had perished in the attempt. Thence they got the name of "Zealots," by which they are known in the history of the These men collected into bands, and wandered about the country, plundering and murdering their countrymen with so much barbarity that they preferred to perish by the sword of the Romans than to fall into the hands of the Jews. Being joined by, or connecting themselves with, other robbers who had hitherto made no profession of a principle, they became the scourge of the land, which trembled at their name. Their sect diffused itself everywhere, and existed in every city and town; so that, as our Saviour had foretold, a man's greatest enemies were often those of his own household. Wherever they were the strongest, the peaceable people sustained unutterable sufferings from them. It was death to be even suspected of a disposition to submit to the Romans; and those in a family who were spared, dared not exhibit any sign of sorrow for their friends who lay slaughtered around

war.

NO. III.]

them. The mass of these ruffians ultimately resorted to Jerusalem, where they carried on their murders and depredations in the face of day. The people were at first overawed by their violent measures; but at last, stimulated by Ananus and other chief priests, they took arms against them. Many severe battles were fought in the city, with various success, until the Zealots, by the assistance of the Idumæans, whom they had called to their aid, were enabled to carry all before them. Ananus and the other chief priests were slain; great numbers of the people were massacred, and the principal citizens were thrown into prison by day, and murdered by night, unless they agreed to join the party of the Zealots. The bodies of the slain lay corrupting in the streets, for all were afraid to bury them, lest that act should render them suspected of treason. From that time the Zealots and robbers were the masters of the city, and did whatsoever they would.

After this general statement, we can only further mention that when the Roman army appeared before Jerusalem, three factions-besides the people, who were then reduced to a nearly passive condition-were waging bitter conflicts against each other within the city. The first party was the earliest party of Zealots, whose measures we have mentioned in the preceding paragraph; they had at their head the noted John of Gischala, a brave and sagacious, but unprincipled man, who had acquired a sort of reputation by his vigorous opposition in Galilee to Josephus, on the one hand, and to the Romans on the other. Having been defeated by the latter, he fled to Jerusalem, and soon placed himself at the head of the Zealots, and became, consequently, the master of the city. At this time he was shut up, with six thousand men, in the outer part of the Temple, into which he had been driven, and in which he was kept confined by the second party, at whose head was Simon of Gerasa, a young man still more daring but less subtle than John. This person, having put himself at the head of the assassins and robbers, who had taken and retained possession of the strong fortress of Massada, increased his party to a real army, by the promise of freedom to the slaves, and proportionable rewards to the free men who would This had the desired effect, and many come over to him. Jews of distinction, as well as those of inferior rank, were glad to seek protection with him from the violence and cruelties of other parties. With an army of 20,000 men, afterwards swelled to 40,000, he conquered Idumæa, which he laid waste with fire and sword; and, having given this evidence of his power, marched to Jerusalem, in the hope of obtaining the chief direction of the rebellion. After a time he was admitted by the people, who hoped that he would relieve

[Price Twopence.

them from the tyranny of John, which they could no longer bear. This was a fatal measure, for although Simon fought against John, and blocked him up in the Temple, the people found that they had only increased the number of their oppressors. Simon thus had possession of the city, as distinguished from the Temple, with a force of ten thousand Zealots and five thousand Idumæans: he was better supplied with arms and provisions than the other parties, but was far more disadvantageously posted for defence. The third party, the smallest and of latest origin, was that of Eleazar, the son of Simon, who has already been mentioned. This person,

moved by jealousy of the power which John had acquired, but professing to be displeased at his cruel measures, won over to his interests some of the most powerful men and a part of the Zealots, and withdrew with them into the inner Temple, comprehending chiefly the court of the priests, in which the services of religion were usually performed. This party amounted to no more than 2400 men. His situation was by far the strongest, as the part of the Temple which he occupied stood on higher ground than that in which John was stationed. The latter was thus hemmed in between two powerful adversaries, having Simon in the city, below him, and Eleazar in the Temple, above; and had to carry on a twofold war against both. Against the latter he could not bring his engines to bear with much effect; yet many priests were slain at the very altar. Eleazar himself remained on the defensive, chiefly subsisting on the stores of the temple and on the sacrifices and offerings brought to the altar by the people who were still admitted to the services of the Temple, although the avenues were very carefully guarded to exclude dangerous persons. Simon's party easily obtained sufficient provisions from the town; but John was obliged to maintain himself by plundering the people, which rendered necessary frequent sallies, in which he had to fight with Simon. He set the streets on fire as far as he could penetrate; and Simon, in his turn, after repelling the attacks of John, burnt the houses which stood in his way. Thus all the streets in the neighborhood of the Temple were laid waste, and provisions were consumed which might have served the inhabitants for several years, averting the horrors of that famine which formed so frightful a circumstance of the ensuing siege.

Such were the factions by which the miserable city was rent when the Romans appeared before its walls. And while the implacable hate with which they regarded one another kept up a constant war within the city-with all the miseries which an internal war never fails to produce the people were the common prey of all. While they were ruined

on the one hand by the excursion of John, Simon ruled them with a rod of iron on the other. All the avenues of escape from this "den of robbers" were now closed: and none dared to complain of his condition, however miserable; for the men who seemed to manifest the slightest marks of discontent, were denounced as friends to the Romans, and, being put to death, their bodies were thrown out into the streets, which were filled with their unburied carcases and those of the men slain in the wolfish conflict of the factions. This condition of Jerusalem was, however, but the beginning of sorrows-but the first outpourings of that vial of Divine indignation, the last dregs of which the devoted city was destined to receive.

(To be continued.)

God is in History.

D'aubigne.

BUT what superior lustre does the truth-that God is in history-acquire under the Christian dispensation? What is Jesus Christ-but God's purpose in the world's history? It was the discovery of Jesus Christ which admitted the greatest of modern historians to the just comprehension of his subject." The gospel," says he, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world, it is life,-it is immortality. Since I have known the Saviour, every thing is clear;with him, there is nothing I cannot solve."

Thus speaks the distinguished historian; and, in truth, is it not the keystone of the arch,-is it not the mysterious bond which holds together the things of earth, and connects them with those of heaven,-that God has appeared in our nature? What! God has been born into this world, and we are asked to think and write, as if He were not every where working out its own will in its history? Jesus Christ is the true God of human history; the very lowliness of his appearance may be regarded as one proof of it. If man designs a shade or a shelter upon earth, we look to see preparations, materials, scaffolding, and workmen. But God, when he will give shade or shelter, takes the small seed which the new-born infant might clasp in its feeble hand, and deposits it in the bosom of the earth, and from that seed, imperceptible in its beginning, he produces the majestic tree, under whose spreading boughs the families of men may find shelter. To achieve great results by imperceptible means, is the law of divine dealing.

It is this law which has received its noblest illustration in Jesus Christ. The religion which has now taken possession of the gates of all nations, which at this hour reigns, or hovers over all the tribes of the earth, from east to west, and which even a sceptical philosophy is compelled to acknowledge as the spiritual and social law of this world;-that religion, than which there is nothing nobler under the vault of heaven,nay, in the very universe of creation;-what was its commencement?...A child born in the meanest town of the most despised country of the earth;- -a child whose mother had not even what falls to the lot of the most indigent and wretched women of our cities,-a room to bring forth ;-a child born in an ox's crib......O God! I acknowledge thee there, and I adore thee.

Sabbaths.

BARTON.

TYPES of eternal rest-fair buds of bliss,

In heavenly flowers unfolding week by week; The next world's gladness imaged forth in this;

Days of whose worth the Christian's heart can speak!

Eternity in time-the steps by which

We climb to future ages-lamps that light
Man through his darker days, and thought enrich,
Yielding redemption for the week's dull flight.

Wakeners of prayer in man-his resting bowers,
As on he journeys in the narrow way,
Where, Eden-like, Jehovah's walking hours
Are waited for, as in the cool of day.

Days fix'd by God for intercourse with dust,
To raise our thoughts and purify our powers;

Periods appointed to renew our trust,

A gleam of glory after six days' showers!

A milky-way mark'd out through skies else drear,
By radiant suns that warm as well as shine;

A clue, which he who follows knows no fear,

Though briars and thorns around his pathway twine.

Foretastes of heaven on earth; pledges of joy, Surpassing fancy's flights, and fiction's story;

The preludes of a feast that cannot cloy,

And the bright outcourts of immortal glory!

To Contentment.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles!
Farewell, ye honor'd rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo-gold, pure clay-
Honor, the darling but of one short day-
Beauty, the eye's idol, but a damask'd skin-
State, but a golden prison, to live in,

And torture free-born minds-embroider'd trains,
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins-
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own.

Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.

I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill-

I would be high, but see the proudest oak

Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke-
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mind-
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free-
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud,
Like the bright sun, oft sitting in a cloud-
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass,-
Rich, hated-wise, suspected-scorn'd, if poor-
Great, fear'd-fair, tempted-high, still envied more ;
I have wish'd all; but now I wish for neither,
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair,-poor I'll be rather.
Would the world now adopt me for her heir-
Would beauty's queen entitle me the fair-
Fame speak me fortune's minion-could I " vie
Angels" with India-with a speaking eye
Command bear heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb,
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs-be called "great master,"
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster-
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives,-
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure!

Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves!

These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves.
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A prayer-book, now, shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears;
Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect a holy melancholy:

And if Contentment be a stranger, then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.

On Jerusalem.

QUARLES.

TURN where I list, new cause of woe presents
My poor distracted soul with new laments;
Where shall I turn? shall I implore my friends?
Ah, summer-friendship, with the summer ends;
'In vain to them my groans, in vain my tears,
For harvest friends can find no winter-ears.
Or shall I call my sacred priests for aid?
Alas! my pined priests are all betray'd

To death, and famine; in the streets they cried

For bread, and whilst they sought for bread, they died.
Vengeance could never strike so hard a blow,
As when she sends an unlamented woe.

2

Years, heavy laden with their months, retire;
Months, gone their dates of number'd days, expire;
The days full houred, to their period tend;
And hours, chaced with light-foot minutes, end;
Yet my undated evils, will no time diminish,

Tho' years and months, tho' days and hours finish;
Fears flock around me, as invited guests
Before the portals at proclaimed feasts;

Where heaven hath breathed, that man, that state must fall;

Heaven wants no thunderbolts to strike withal:

I am the subject of that angry breath,

My sons are slain, and I am mark'd for death.

Wounded, and wasted by the' eternal hand Of heaven, I grovel on the ground; my land Is turn'd a Golgotha; before mine eyes, Unsepulcher'd, my murther'd people lie :

My dead lie rudely scattered on the stones;
My causies all are paved with dead men's bones;
The fierce destroyer doth alike forbear
The maiden's trembling, and the matron's tear;
The' imperial sword spares neither fool nor wise,
The old man's pleading, nor the infant's cries,
Vengeance is deaf and blind, and she respects
Not young, nor old, nor wise, nor fool, nor sex.

Moon Light.

CAROLINE FRY.

ACROSS a trackless sea

I saw the vessel glide-
The pale moon's tranquil beam
Was playing on the tide.

But the way she came was dark,
Ere she reached the partial gleam,
And dark her way again,
When past the silvery stream.

And is it then so brief
Thy pleasure's golden day?
While all thy path beside

Is a dark and dreary way!

Not so. Though dark and drear

May seem thy course to me,
As if it loved thy path,
The bright beam follows thee.

And thou art gliding on,
Unmindful of thy gloom;
It is all fair to thee,
For thou art going home.
And be my path like thine
In this world's midnight way,
Where nought but love divine
Can light it into day :

Though seen in shadows oft,
And veiled with many a tear,
My path will still be bright,
If love and peace be there.

Though doomed through many a night

Of anxious care to roam,

It all is fair to me,

For I am going home.