smell of it soon brought the voracious soldiers to her house; they threatened her with the most excruciating tortures, if she did not discover her provisions to them. Being compelled in this manner, she set before them the mangled remains of her son. At this horrid spectacle, the soldiers, inhuman as they were, stood aghast, struck with horror, and at length rushed. from the house. The report of this transaction having spread through the city, the horror and consternation of the Jews was universal: they now for the first time began to think themselves forsaken of God. Titus, on hearing this account, was filled with surprise and indignation. "Soon," said he, "shall the sun never more dart his beams on a city where mothers feed on their children; and where fathers, no less guilty, choose to drive them to such extremities, rather than lay down their arms."

Titus now pushed the siege with still greater vigour, and endeavoured to obtain possession of the temple, the preservation of which was strongly desired by him. A Roman soldier, urged on, as he said, by a divine impulse, seized a firebrand, and getting on his comrades' shoulders, threw it into a window of the temple, and immediately set this noble edifice, the pride and glory of the Jewish nation, in flames. Titus immediately gave orders to extinguish the fire; he threatened, he entreated his soldiers, and used every exertion to stop the progress of the fire, but all in vain. The exasperated soldiery, bent on destroying the city and all it contained, either did not hear or did not regard him.

"These were the days of vengeance, that all things which were written might be fulfilled." These were the days in which all the calamities predicted by Moses, Joel, Daniel, and other prophets, as well as those predicted by our Saviour, met in one common centre, and were fulfilled in the most terrible manner on that generation. It is remarkable that the temple was burnt by the Romans in the same month, and the same day of the month, on which it had been burned by the Babylonians.

Josephus computes the number of those who perished in the siege at eleven hundred thousand, besides those who were slain in other places. When Titus was viewing the fortifications, after the taking of the city, he could not help ascribing his success to God. "We have fought," said he, "with God on our side; and it is God who pulled the Jews out of these strongholds; for what could machines or the hands of men avail against such towers as these?" Our Lord says,

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They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."

The Jews were miserably tormented, and distributed over the Roman provinces; and continue to be distressed and dispersed over all the nations of the world to this present day. Jerusalem also continues to be "trodden down by the Gentiles." Since its destruction by Titus it never has been in the possession of the Jews. It was first in subjection to the Romans, afterwards to the Saracens, then to the, Franks, next to the Mamelukes, and now to the Turks.

"Thus has the prophecy of Christ been most literally and terribly fulfilled, on a people who are still preserved as continued monuments of the truth of our Lord's prediction, and of the truth of the Christian religion."

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7. FAITH AND PRACTICE OF CHRISTIANS IN THE

FIRST CENTURY:

THE following account of the first Christians is taken from Dr. Mosheim's celebrated Church History :"The apostles and their disciples took all possible care that in the earliest times of the church, the Holy Scriptures might be in the hands of all Christians, that they might be read and explained in the assemblies of the faithful, and thus contribute, both in private and in public, to excite and nourish, in the minds of Christians,

THE CITY AND TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM, Were taken and destroyed by Titus the son of Vespasian, the Roman Emperar, in the

year 70.

MARTYRDOM OF ST. IGNATUS.

Ignatus bishop of Antioch. by the order of Trajan, was sent to Rome and being thrown to the wild beasts suffered martyrdom. about the year 108.

a fervent zeal for the truth, and a firm attachment to the ways of piety and virtue. Those who performed the office of interpreters studied above all things plainness and perspicuity. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that, even in this century, several Christians adopted that absurd and corrupt custom, used among the Jews, of darkening the plain words of the Holy Scriptures by, insipid and forced allegories, and of drawing them violently from their proper and natural signification, in order to extort from them certain mysteries and hidden significations. For a proof of this, we need go no further than the Epistle of Barnabas, which is still extant.

"The method of teaching the sacred doctrines of religion was, at this time, most simple, far removed from all the subtle rules of philosophy, and all the precepts of human art. This appears abundantly, not only in the writings of the apostles, but also in all those of the second century which have survived the ruins of time. Neither did the apostles or their disciples ever think of collecting into a regular system the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, or of demonstrating them in a scientific and geometrical order. The beautiful and candid simplicity of these early ages rendered such philosophical niceties unnecessary; and the great study of those who embraced the gospel, was rather to express its divine influence in their dispositions and actions, than to examine its doctrines with an excessive curiosity, or to explain them by the rules of human wisdom.

"There is indeed extant a brief summary of the principal doctrines of Christianity in that form, which bears the name of the Apostles' Creed, and which, from the fourth century downwards, was almost generally considered as a production of the apostles. There is much more reason and judgment in the opinion of those who think that this creed was not all composed at once, but, from small beginnings was imperceptibly augmented in proportion to the growth of heresy, and according to the exigences and circumstances of the