of their self-invoked curse : "His blood be upon "Al us and on our children". The external calamity of war was truly the least, and Josephus says: though the Romans should leave off the siege, and not fall upon the city with the sword in their hands, yet was there an insuperable war that beset them within, and was augmented every hour; they could not wage war with famine".1 "The famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as modesty; for, what was otherwise deserving of reverence, was in this case despised; insomuch, that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating, out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear to them were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives".* "The famine devoured the people by whole houses and families, the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children, also, and young men, wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead wheresoever their misery seized them. As for burying them, Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Bk. v, ch. ix. 2 Ibid. ch. 10. 1 those that were sick themselves were not able to do it, and those that were well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves; for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentation made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the famine confounded all natural passions: for those who were just going to die, looked upon those that had gone to their rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence, also, and a kind of deadly night had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries were themselves".' The beauty of Jerusalem was indeed quenched. Josephus says: "Truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were before 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 Judea and the most beautiful 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 signs of beauty waste; nor if any one that had known the place before, had 1 Josephus, Bk. v, chap. 12. 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".1 At length the temple, the pride of all Jewish hearts, was burnt, and a short time after Titus's army took the city, and entered it with joyful acclamations for their victory; but even the conquerors were sobered and saddened, when they beheld the deplorable condition to which the besieged were reduced: "When they came to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper room full of dead corpses,that is, of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching anything". Of those that the famine had spared (and eleven hundred thousand had fallen victims to it), ninety-seven thousand were carried captive-the most promising of their youth,—to the mines of Egypt".3 "Oh that My people would have hearkened unto Me; for if Israel had walked in my ways, I should soon have put down their enemies, and turned My Hand against their adversaries". (Ps. lxxxi, 14, 15.) 1 Josephus, Bk. vi, chap. 1. 2 Ibid. chap. 8. 3 Hosea viii, 13, "He will visit their sins, and they shall return into Egypt"; and Hosea ix, 3, "They shall not dwell in the Lord's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt". "As heavenly blue breaks on a troubled deep, From the calm grave where Paul and Peter sleep, From Rome to Corinth. O'er the rising din It swelled, as from their purer seats above, And, like a solemn undersound therein, Paul's moving tone. It was thy watchful love, Clement, whose name is in the Book of Life, The while thy Church, true to heaven's sacred mould, 'Mid persecution, poverty, and strife, Glorious within, and wrought of purest gold, Began, 'mid hanging mists, her greatness to unfold." THE CATHEDRAL. |