ing, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," failed of accomplishment? My brethren, from that day to this, the city of Jerusalem has been under the mastery of various nationsRomans-Turks-Christians; but not of the seed of Israel. If the Jew has lived there at all, it has been by sufferance-though it is the only place upon earth where he counts himself not a foreigner; the only spot on the globe where he can offer the worship required by his law;* the abode to which his religion and his patriotism conspire to bind his affections with a tie known to the children of no other country. The site where its sacred temple once reared its head, one hundred and thirty years after Christ, was occupied by a sanctuary in honour of Jupiter, and profaned by Pagan sacrifices.† A few years later, in cruel derision of the national feeling, a hog, sculptured in marble, was

* See Deuteronomy xii. 10-14. Compared with 1 Kings xiv. 21.

† Authorities quoted by Bishop Newton on the Prophecies, Dissertation xx, part 3.

set upon one of the city gates*-and by order of a Gentile, all Jews, on pain of death, were forbidden to enter inside of the town. In the early part of the fourth century, the seed of Israel attempted to rebuild the temple: Gentiles, trampling down Jerusalem, not only prèvented, but punished the patriotic endeavour.‡ Nay-most remarkable of all-some years later, Julian, the Apostate,§ with view to mortify the Christians and prove Jesus a deceiver, encouraged the Jews to proceed in the building, contributed largely to the expenses, and appointed an officer of his own to superintend and expedite the work. He that sitteth in the Heaven laughed him to scorn! The Lord had him in derision! For, lo!-the Pagan historian relates it, not less unequivocally than the Christianfire (perhaps from subterranean caverns, in which the air, long confined, had become in

* Authorities quoted by Bishop Newton on the Prophecies, Dissertation xx, part 3.

§ See an impartial view of this matter, in Waddington's Church History, p. 108.

flammable) burst forth-killed the labourersput to the undertaking a total and calamitous stop.

What shall I say more? Shall I remind you of the time of the Crusades, when Jerusalem was the battle ground of Turk and ChristianGentiles, who joined only in hating and persecuting the descendant of its ancient inhabitants? Shall I recall to your thoughts how, four or five years ago, our own countryman, Stephens, found the Jews confined to a miserable corner of the city-poor, squalid, degraded, scarcely daring to show their faces among the Gentile residents, their masters? No. You need no more to show how fully your Saviour's prediction has been fulfilled. You behold the seal set to the veracity of Christ. You mark that for ages, Judea's sun has been darkened-her country under curseher people's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which were coming on the land. You challenge the Infidel to explain how Jesus of Nazareth (if less or other than he claimed to be) could foresee this series

of disasters, this protracted curse upon the

country.

Believer! your faith stands upon a rock. Well may you put up with the troubles of this earthly scene-well be content, for conscience sake, to take suffering, derision, detriment to worldly interest-well live a pilgrim and a sojourner, expecting a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens-since He who made the promise or prophecy to come again and take you to himself, has given you, in earnest of his truth, not only his spotless character, and his well attested resurrection, but this unambiguous, distinct, and completely verified prediction of the fortunes of the Holy Land.

The Saviour having striven to unhinge the minds of his hearers from the notion on which their thoughts were turning-the notion that the end of the world must be as near as the end of the temple, at last names CIRCUMSTANCES

OF HIS SECOND COMING.

"Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the Heavens: and then shall all the

tribes of the earth mourn."

"Then'-what

does the word mean? At that moment'-? Undoubtedly it does not. For Christ had not been speaking of a moment, but of a protracted period, the period of darkened sun and eclipsed moon-of curse and disaster to Judea.

Neither is it certain Christ meant, "In that period"-unless at least you suppose that the times appointed to the Gentiles, the times in which Jerusalem is to be trodden down of the Gentiles, are to last until his reappearing.

The meaning, no doubt, is "not before." "You understand not-you expect my return prematurely-many things are first to happen. Your national sun is to be long darkened. Thennot before-shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the Heavens. The tribes of the earth shall mourn. They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven, with power and great glory. He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the one end of Heaven to the other.'

Imagine the tremendous scene! The Heavens