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THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

of this, a soldier, rising on the shoulders of his comrade, threw a firebrand in at a golden window, communicating with the rooms built immediately around the holy house. When the flames burst forth, Titus rushed to the spot; but amid the crash of arms, the shouts of the soldiery, and the roar of the conflagration, his commands and threats were unheard. He now entered the central and most holy apartments of the temple, and found the edifice far more magnificent than he had anticipated; but at that very juncture, when he was making a last effort to secure the quenching of the flames, a soldier secretly applied fire to the interior door of the hallowed apartment, when the bursting conflagration compelled the reluctant general to retire; his attendants bearing the golden table and candlestick as trophies of triumph.

The remaining facts must be very briefly told. The soldiers wearied themselves with the work of slaughter; and the city, as well as the temple, was destroyed-three towers only being left, as monuments of the Roman conquest. Upwards of a million Jews were slain in the course of the war; and Jerusalem was, literally, laid even with the ground. What manner of stones soever they were of which the temple was constructed, not one was left upon another. The Jewish Talmudist tells us that the very foundations were torn up with the ploughshare; so exactly were Micah's words fulfilled. "They shall fall," saith the Lord, "by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations." "The Lord," said Moses, "shall bring you into Egypt again with ships; and there shall ye be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you." The facts were in exact correspondence with these predictions. Nearly a million of captives were taken; many were slain in the games celebrated in honour of Vespasian and Titus; many were sent to the public works in Egypt; the slave-markets of the provinces were glutted; and fourteen thousand perished with hunger— part of them rejecting food in sullen despondency, and part left to famish through the forgetfulness or design of their keepers.

These prophecies are still in course of fulfilment. Jerusalem is still trodden down by the Gentiles; and the mosque of the false prophet occupies the reputed site of the temple. Still are the people wanderers, found in every land, and everywhere a by-word. Their case is without parallel: as a mighty river, having its sources in ages far remote, we might expect to see

POETRY.

up to

this people long retaining their distinctness, and that, after seventeen centuries, is a miracle. The lapse of ages, the operation of climate, the varieties of government, the fierceness of persecution, the acquisition of wealth, the increasing amenity of liberal opinions all leave the Jew unaltered. The same everywhere in aspect and character, he is everywhere the butt of scorn. The poet joins the buffoon in holding him ribald contempt; and the very school-boy-he knows not why, hoots him as he goes. He is a monument attesting the inspiration of prophetic Scripture; though himself an unbeliever, his very unbelief separates him as a witness to the truth which he rejects; and the attestation is at once intelligible to the weakest intellect, and irrefutable by the strongest. If one should rise from the dead, he could not furnish evidence more unquestionable.-Ely's Winter Lectures.

Poetry.

JERUSALEM.

AND throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,

But with dust on her forehead and chains on her feet;
For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.

But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of humanity clothed in the brightness of God?
Were my spirit but turn'd from the outward and dim,
It could gaze even now on the presence of Him!

Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,
In love and in meckness, he moved among men;

And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea,
In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me!

And what if my feet may not tread where he stood,
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood,
Nor my eyes see the cross which he bowed him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer:-

Yet, Loved of the Father, thy Spirit is near

To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent, here;
And the voice of thy love is the same, even now,

As at Bethany's tomb, or on Oliver's brow.

Oh, the outward hath gone! but in glory and power,
The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its undying flame

On the heart's secret altar is burning the same!

J. G. Whittier.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

SHORT MEMORIES.-A good deacon, returning from worship one sabbath afternoon, was accosted by a man, "Sir, did you see a boy on the road driving a cart, with a bag of wool in it ?" "I think I did," said the deacon, musingly, "a boy with a short memory, wasn't he?" The man looked confused, and said, "Why do you think he has a short memory, sir ?" The deacon seemed to enjoy the confusion, and even determined to increase it. "I think so;

and I think moreover he must belong to a family who have short memories." "What in the world makes you say that?" said the man, more and more perplexed. "Why, simply this, said the old gentleman, assuming, all of a sudden, a very grave and solemn manner, "because God Almighty proclaimed from Mount Sinai, in a most awful manner amongst other things, 'Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy;' and the boy has forgotten all about it. His memory must be very short indeed,—very.”

PRAYERS AND PRAYING.-Mr. Talbot, says the writer of his life was remarkable for an eminent gift in prayer, and was so much valued in this respect as to be frequently sent for by persons in the upper ranks of life. When Archbishop Secker was laid on his couch with a broken thigh, and sensible of his approaching end, Mr. Talbot, who had lived in great intimacy with him, visited him at Lambeth. Before they parted, "You will pray with me, Talbot," said the dying prelate. Mr. Talbot rose and went to look for a Prayer Book: "That is not what I want now," said the Archbishop. Kneel down by me, and pray for me in the way I know you are used to do:" with which command Mr. Talbot readily complied, and prayed earnestly from his heart for his dying friend, whom he saw no more.

AN EMINENT SHIP BUILDER, being invited to hear Mr. Whitefield preach, at first made several objections, but at last, was prevailed on by his friend. When he returned home, his friend inquired, "What do you think of Mr. W.?” "Think," says he, "I never heard such a man in my life. I tell you, sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon, but were it to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield I could not lay a single plank."

AN ANTINOMIAN MINISTER who was very liberal in his reflections on Mr. Wesley and his followers, being once in company with Mr. Whitefield, expressed his doubts to him concerning Mr. Wesley's salvation, and said, "Sir, do you think when we get to heaven we shall see Mr. Wesley ?" "No, sir," replied Mr. Whitefield, "I fear not, for he will be so near the Throne, and we shall be at such a distance, we shall hardly get a sight of him."

THE FIRESIDE.

THE BELL WITHOUT ITS CLAPPER.-Bishop Latimer, in one of his sermons, relates a curious circumstance which happened in his day. He says, a man who boasted himself to be somebody, but alas, he was one of them that love the praise of men more than the praise of God, being on a journey and coming to a small village, was highly offended at the bells not announcing his arrival. The officers of the place informed his honour that the bell had lost its clapper; which rather appeased his wrath. But Latimer observed that the pulpit at this place had been without a clapper a long time without any complaint being made about it, which reminds us of that saying of our Saviour, to the Scribes and Pharisees in his time: "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."

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JOHN NEWTON was in the habit of receiving his religious friends at an early breakfast; when many used to be gratified by his pious and instructive conversation, and esteemed it a privilege to unite with him in family devotions. On one of these happy occasions, a young minister from the country was introduced who had expressed a great desire to see him. Ah!" said Mr. Newton, "I was a wild beast once, on the coast of Africa, and the Lord tamed me; and there are many people now who have a curiosity to see me!"

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A QUEER SERMON.-An old preacher once took for his text "Adam, where art thou?" and divided his subject into three parts. 1st. All men are somewhere: 2nd. Some men are where they ought not to be: 3rd. And unless they take care, they will soon find themselves where they would rather not be.

The Fireside.

HELP YOURSELF.

BEG, borrow, seek office, fish for place, trust in patronage, wait for old men to die, worship fortune; who does not one or other of these? Who does not expect to rise by the help of others? Help yourself, and God will help you.-Nine-tenths of the world will live and die infidels of this truth. So destitute are most people of the knowledge or belief of this truth, that give them the slightest indications that they may rely on you, `eat you, clothe themselves out of you, and they will do it without mercy. They will drop their tools and their labour and do it. Take people as they rise, and put them together in a bee-hive community, and half of them will turn drones and live upon the rest, because they have not been educated to rely upon themselves, but just the reverse. No wonder that the swarm should be eaten up by these drones, or exhaust itself in an effort to turn them out. Yet men are naturally self-reliant. The moment a baby can go alone, it goes itself, and imitates all kinds of work,

THE FIRESIDE.

proud to be doing something. But this disposition encouraged, but discouraged. The rich are ashamed to have their children do anything menial, as if menial and mean were the same word. The poor cannot be bothered to teach work to babies, and when their babies get to be old enough, they overload them with it untaught.-Hence the child comes to maturity educated to sloth, bad health, and reliance on others; or to hate the burden that crushes him, and longs to be relieved entirely from it. Self-reliance is destroyed every way-in work, thought, and opinion. Whole classes, we say races, of men are taught to feed upon others, without returning any fair equivalent. They even think themselves generous to leave a little which they don't eat. Now is this true or not?

DOMESTIC HABITS OF OUR ANCESTORS.

ERASMUS, who visited England in the early part of the sixteenth century, gives a curious description of an English interior of the better class. The furniture was rough; the walls unplastered, but sometimes wainscotted or hung with tapestry; and the floors covered with rushes, which were not changed for months. The dogs and cats had free access to the eating-rooms, and fragments of meat and bones were thrown to them, which they devoured among the rushes, leaving what they could not eat to rot there, with the draining of beer-vessels and all manner of unmentionable abominations. There was nothing like refinement or elegance in the luxury of the higher ranks; the indulgences which their wealth permitted consisted in rough and wasteful profusion. Salt beef and strong ale constituted the principal part of Queen Elizabeth's breakfast, and similar refreshments were served to her in bed for supper. At a series of entertainments given in York by the nobility in 1660, where each exhausted his invention to outdo the others, it was universally admitted that Lord Goring won the palm for the magnificence of his fancy. The description of this supper will give us a good idea of what was then thought magnificent: it consisted of four huge brawny pigs, piping hot, bitted and harnessed with ropes of sausages to a huge pudding in a bag, which served for a chariot.

Such were some of the doings of our ancestors, only about 200 years ago. We venture to think that none of our readers would wish to return to such rough customs. Why one of our skilled mechanics, who is a sober man, with a thrifty and tidy wife, may surround himself, in these days, with more comforts than nobles had then. So let us have no grumbling and longing for the good old times-"the golden days of good queen Bess," as some ignorantly talk; for golden they were not, and as for the "good queen,' why she was no better than she should have been, but a good deal Victoria is worth a thousand of her.

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