clear a path for the eagles. A day was fixed for the grand assault; but on the evening before, the Romans having 'penetrated as far as the Holy House, a soldier, climbing on the shoulders of another, put a blazing torch to one of the golden windows of the north side. The building was soon a sheet of leaping flames; and Titus, who had always desired to save the Temple, came running from his tent, but the din of war and the crackling flames prevented his voice from being heard.

On over the smoking cloisters trampled the legions, fierce for plunder. The Jews sank in heaps of dead and dying around the altar, which dripped with their blood. More fire was thrown upon the hinges of the gate; and then no human word or hand could save the house, where God himself had loved to dwell. Never did the stars of night look down on a more 'piteous scene. Sky and hill and town and valley were all reddened with one fearful hue. The roar of flames, the shouts of Romans, the shrieks of wounded Zealots, rose wild into the scorching air, and echoed among the mountains all around. But sadder far was the wail of broken hearts which burst from the streets below, when marble wall and roof of gold came crashing down, and the Temple was no more. Then, and only then, did the Jews let go the trust which had all along sustained them, that God would deliver his ancient people, smiting the Romans with some sudden blow. The Upper City then became a last refuge for the 'despairing remnant of the garrison. Simon and John were there; but the arrogant tyrants were broken down to trembling cowards. And when, after eighteen days' work, banks were raised, and the terrible ram began to sound anew on the ramparts, the panicstruck Jews fled like hunted foxes to hide in the caves of the hill. The eagles flew victorious to the summit of the 'citadel, while Jewish blood ran so deep down Zion that burning houses were quenched in the red stream !

The siege lasted 134 days, during which 1,100,000 Jews perished, and 97,000 were taken captive. Some were kept to grace the Roman triumph;5 some were sent to toil in the mines of Egypt; some fought in provincial theatres with 'gladiators and wild beasts; those under seventeen were sold as slaves. John was imprisoned for life; Simon, after being led in triumph, was slain at Rome.

It was a gay holiday, when the emperor and his son, crowned with laurel and clad in purple, passed in triumph through the crowded streets of Rome. Of the many rich spoils adorning the pageant none were gazed on with more curious eyes than

BAS-RELIEF ON THE ARCH OF TITUS (From a Photograph).

the golden table, the candlestick with seven branching lamps, and the holy book of the Law, rescued from the flames of the

Temple. It was the last page of a tragic story. The Jewshomeless ever since, yet always preserving an indestructible 'nationality-were scattered among the cities of Earth, to be the Shylocks of a day that is gone by, and the Rothschilds of our own happier age.

W. F. COLLIER.

pageant, spectacle.

gladiators, sword-fighters. penetrated, made way.

Pere'a, a district on the east of the Jordan, extending from the lake of Gennesaret in the north to the river Arnon in the south.

Rains, catapults, and balistas.These were the chief military engines used by the Romans. The ram was used to destroy the lower part of the wall. It consisted of a large beam, the trunk of a fir or an ash tree, with a mass of bronze or iron, resembling the head of a ram, fastened to one end. At first the ram was borne in men's hands; but in its more perfect form it was swung by chains from a transverse beam, and covered with a wooden roof. The balista was used to shoot stones against the battlements. Sometimes the balista threw its missiles to a distance of a quarter of a mile. The more powerful sorts are | said to have thrown stones weighing three hundredweight. The catapult was used to shoot darts at any of the besieged that showed themselves on the walls. In form, the catapult was long, the balista nearly square.

a

plague, disease'. pon'derous, heavy. ransacked, plun'dered. siege, invest'ment. temporary, for a time. unavail'ing, fruit'less. weigh'ing, in weight. wretch'edness, mis'ery.

To grace the Roman triumph.— Seven hundred of the tallest and handsomest of the captive Jews marched in Titus's triumphal procession, with ropes around their necks.

The golden table, the candlestick, &c.-As a permanent memorial of his victories, a triumphal arch, the most elegant in Rome, was dedicated to Titus, and completed shortly after his death. The sculpture carved on one side of the archway, under the arch, represents that part of the procession in which Roman soldiers carried on high the spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem. There may still be distinctly recognised the golden candlestick which stood in the Temple in the time of Christ. The original candlestick used in the Tabernacle, and afterwards transferred to Solomon's Temple, had been carried off by the Chaldeans in 588 B. C. When the Temple was rebuilt, seventy years later, a new candlestick was made, which corresponded exactly with the original one, as described in Exodus (xxv. 31-40). This candlestick was deposited in Vespasian's Temple of Peace at Rome, where it remained for nearly four hundred years. It was carried off to Carthage by Genseric and his Van'Tower of Antonia, the citadel of Jer- dals, in 455 A.D. Belisa'rius carried it from usalem, stood at the north-western angle Carthage to Constantinople, in 533. From of Mount Moriah. It communicated with Constantinople it was sent back to Jerusathe cloisters of the Temple by secret pas-lem, and placed in a Christian church; but Bages. Herod called it Antonia in honour it disappeared thence, when or by whose of Mark Antony. hands has never been ascertained.

Tower of Hip'picus.-Believed to be the same as the Castle of David, at the north-western corner of Mount Zion. (See p. 196, Note 11.)

QUESTIONS.-Who was sent by Nero to subdue the rebellious Jews? Why did he leave Syria? To whom was the siege of Jerusalem left? How did he dispose his forces around the city? What different factions existed within the city? How were these reduced to two? When did the siege open? At how many points? How did

the Romans drive the Jews from the walls? When was the first wall gained? when the second? Who went to the walls to plead with his countrymen? What led many of the Jews to desert the city? What plan did Titus adopt to hem them in more effectually? Against what tower was the attack then directed? How was it gained? To what extremities did the famine drive the besieged? What brought the siege to a sudden crisis? What became a last refuge for the garrison? In how many days was it reduced? How long did the siege last? How many Jews perished? How many were taken captive? What spoils were displayed in the Roman triumph?

LEBANON.

LEBANON stands in some respects alone and unrivalled among the mountains of the world. A most impressive signal of approach to the Holy Land is the first glimpse, off the shores of Cyprus, of the ancient mountain rising from the eastern waters, its peaks wreathed with everlasting snows, and flushed with shifting hues of rose and purple in the clear evening sky. High up in its aërial solitude, pure and lustrous like a cloud steeped in sunshine, it stands for us as the emblem of that old oriental world which lies in its shadow;-Damascus,1 buried in its depths of ever-blooming verdure; Antioch, where the Oron'tes runs sparkling through its laurel groves to the sea; Baalbec,3 with its gray 'colossal relics-the Stonehenge of the desert; Tyre, discrowned and desolate, by the waters; and away in the south, the hills of Galilee with Jerusalem beyond, and the red peaks of the great and terrible 'wilderness which closes in this land of wonder.

2

From the time when the Jewish leader sighed to see "the good land beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, even Lebanon," through those later days when Hebrew seers and poets looked up to its vineyards and forests, its purple slopes and its 'burnished silver diadem, and drew from them eternal types of truth and beauty, what a boundless wealth of sacred tradition and imagery has been treasured up in the venerable name of Lebanon!

This name, which is now confined to the eastern mountain chain, "Lib'anus" properly so called, is used in a wider sense by the inspired writers, and includes the great parallel range of "Anti-Libanus," which in Hermon, its loftiest summit, attains a height of ten thousand feet. This mountain, towering in its magnificent elevation over the plain, is "the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus."

To the Jewish people, so proud of their national Temple and its associations with the golden age of their history, Lebanon,